Dcubed Posted December 15 Posted December 15 (edited) Poor Toys For Bob. They got a proper raw deal from Activision… Thank God they managed to save themselves and buy back their independence from Microsoft earlier this year! Really looking forward to whatever they work on next If only Vicarious Visions could do the same… Edited December 15 by Dcubed
Hero-of-Time Posted December 16 Posted December 16 The game finally dropped to a far more reasonable price of £36 and so I picked it up at Argos on Friday. Loved it. The game went back to the roots of what Lego games used to be, which is a fun, linear experience. I've spoke on here a few times about how bloated the Lego games have become since going all open world but this one went back to basics and it was a far better experience, IMO. The game is essentially a retelling of the first Horizon game, except they add a lot of Lego humour to it and give the characters a little more personality. You can tell the developers had fun with this side of things and it was great that Sony allowed them to play around with the IP. The game is an example of how my opinion doesn't really match with a lot of the gaming industry. The game was marked down in reviews for being too linear and easy but sometimes that's exactly what I want in a game, especially when most of them these days seem to be going with an open world setting. 2 2
Hero-of-Time Posted December 17 Posted December 17 A game that is a very mixed bag. The world of Star Wars is very well represented here. The planets, characters, music and overall look of the game certainly do the franchise justice. That's pretty much where my praise ends. The gameplay is very much a cookie cutter, Ubisoft game. They seem to have taken a lot of inspiration from their Assassin's Creed IP and slapped on a Star Wars skin. The stealth missions being a big comparison. Even when the game doesn't require you to sneak about, it still punishes you a lot of the time for being in open combat. A lot of the side missions start off being a little fun but soon become a grind and very repeatative, with the same kind of thing being repeated on each of the 4 planets. Despite the numerous patches the game has had since release, I still had a fair few glitches. I had one where my speeder bike got stuck in the ground and wouldn't move, a couple of hard crashes that lost some of my misson progress and this gem right here happened on more than one occasion... Yeah, I would have loved to have got a move on except I couldn't! In terms of SW games, this year I've played through this, Clone Wars, Battlefront Collection and Dark Forces Remastered and this was easily the worst of the bunch. 1
Julius Posted December 17 Author Posted December 17 @Hero-of-Time so I CTRL+F'd 'Nix' and 'Sabacc' and you give me nothing?! Glad you got to it though, and fully agree with your thoughts, though I'd definitely go with the option of backing those words with near-murderous intent and venom 1
Hero-of-Time Posted December 17 Posted December 17 Yeah, Nix was cute enough but Sabaac I wasn't a fan of. It didn't help that I was playing it completely wrong for the first half of the game. I was baffled as to why my opponents were getting extra chips or placing limitations on me. I then realised I could do the same to them with the abilities that you unlock. Once I figured that out, as well as unlocking the cheat to draw 2 cards, it was a piece of cake. 1
Julius Posted December 17 Author Posted December 17 Just now, Hero-of-Time said: Nix was cute enough 2 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said: Sabaac I wasn't a fan of. 3 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said: It didn't help that I was playing it completely wrong for the first half of the game. Maybe it's in part down to how I approached the game (crit path and the odd side thing here and there) but I absolutely loved Sabacc, and would love to see it expanded into its own game. Hell, it'd probably make a solid mobile game. A more than welcome distraction than the disasterclass that was the rest of the game, for me, so maybe that's why I latched onto it so much? It's always funny when games get one over on the player which is in no way by design but purely because it's communicated something poorly or ineffectively, and once you start using the thing you were supposed to be using all along? Piece of cake, of course 1
Jonnas Posted December 19 Posted December 19 And a little bit more! A Jonnas Arcade Update Thought I was in it for fighting games alone? Think again. Sengoku 3 So, one day, someone left the machine idle, with this game selected. The machine has an issue where you can't really... leave or change a game after it's selected. Between playing this or nothing at all, I went with "Let's try this thing I've never seen". Indeed, I played for nearly 30 minutes, without ever learning what the title of the game was (I eventually did some sleuthing at home to discover it was called Sengoku 3). This is a beat'em up where every playable character is a bladed warrior of some kind, and the enemies are all medieval Sengoku-era zombies. The game actually takes place in modern day, and you can play the first three stages (China, Japan, and Italy) in any order. Game looks gorgeous. Beautiful sprites, fluid animations, satisfying sound effects... It's comparable to Garou: Mark of the Wolves, it's so smooth. Bankruptcy-era SNK firing on all cylinders. What really brings it all together, is that there's a genuine variety to your moveset. Tired of "A to punch, B to kick, A+B to do a special move"? This game provides you with command inputs, dash attacks, desperation moves... and of course, each character handles very differently. Played it for a while and time just flew by. My only complaint is that regular enemies were too easy to handle, with a notable difficulty spike for bosses. Maybe I just need to learn my moveset better. I had to stop eventually, but I would love to explore this hidden gem on my own time. For now, 4 stars, and wishlisted the Switch version. Sengoku With a positive impression in mind, I decided to check out the first entry in this series I never heard of... Oh boy! This one feels so different... One of the main characters is the most generic '90s action hero you can think of, and the other's a flamboyant cowboy. They mainly fight with their fists at first, but they can pick up blades at some point... somehow. Didn't understand how or why that happened. I didn't really understand anything that was happening here. Regular levels are made of some apocalyptic city, but sometimes we're transported to the heavens where we're supposed to battle a horde of enemies (the same enemies from the city), and when we're done, they kick us back to the hellish city. It wasn't a bonus level, it was just... how the stage is supposed to go. Repeatedly, we go to heaven several times like this in one level. Didn't understand why. One cool feature is that under some circumstances (I think it was low health? Didn't really understand), you can transform into another form. There's a Samurai, a Ninja, and a Dog. That last one is some silly fun, its jumping attack is a Sonic-esque spin. This should be noted: these transformations are not a thing in Sengoku 3 (neither is the heaven thing, btw). Honestly, this jut felt like a drug trip. I had no idea what was going on, none of the mechanics feel consistent, the game throws multiple ideas at you all at once, and I never felt really in control of anything. 1 star, didn't understand. I still wanted to check out the second entry... maybe it'll connect closer to Sengoku 3? Sengoku 2 Nope. Still weird. I mean, it's better than the first one, in that I actually understand better what's going on. The heaven thing still happens, but at least now I have a blade at all times, and understand when and how I pick up items. The transformation thing is also clearer: you can transform into any of the other forms, but you have limited time for each over the course of one life/credit. Overall, more functional, but still not quite up to what I wanted. 2 stars So, what's the deal? Why is Sengoku 3 so different from what came before? After some research, I learned that the first two were made by an SNK in their 90s prime, trying to compete with Capcom beat'em-ups. The third one was made by another team (during the bankruptcy era), one that actually knows how to make a great beat'em up. It's a mystery as to why they decided to call their title "Sengoku 3" (it's not like it's a household name or anything), but that's the gist of it. And then I turned left and played: Alien vs. Predator I had heard of this game multiple times before. It's a true classic that Capcom won't rerelease due to copyright issues, and it's a shame, because it's sooo good... Well, this Pandora's Box had it, so I'll check it out. And holy cow, they weren't kidding, this game's awesome! Four distinct playable characters (including two Predators), varied movesets (including projectiles), varied enemy types, widly fast-paced movement, lots of guns to pick up, dozens (feeling like hundreds) of enemies on-screen, gorgeous sprites with fluid movement, and it's just... incredibly fun! Like, the essence of a genre (two genres, if you include run&gun games) distilled into its most enjoyable form. I didn't complete it (30 minutes really isn't much time), but I loved every second of it. You can now count me in among the people who are disappointed that this game isn't more available. It's a shame, because it's so good. I know recency bias is a thing, and my time with it was short, but I would be ready to give this one 5 stars --------------- Good note to end on. This is probably my final Arcade update, I've had my fill with that Pandora's Box. There are several motives behind this. As you may have guessed, the 30 minute time limit really hurts my ability to explore and enjoy these games. Furthermore, I have to hope the machine is free to get even that. There's also the faulty buttons/stick, those also hurt my general enjoyment. Looking at the remaining titles I was interested in, there was stuff like Marvel vs Capcom, Punisher, Metal Slug... Titles I briefly played here, but can get on other platforms for a better experience. What muddies the waters even further is that some of these titles are just romhacks with cheats or something (there's a title called "Metal Slug 6+" which... is clearly not official!), so even less reason to depend on Pandora for them. I originally wanted to make a Sengoku update, then do one with Capcom beat'em ups, featuring Final Fight 2 & 3 as well. What do you know, those two weren't available here So, Alien vs. Predator was the one final title to close off this featurette, and maybe that was for the better. 2 1
Glen-i Posted December 20 Posted December 20 Bayonetta 2 is another character focused action hack and slash game developed by PlatinumGames, as well as a concept pitch for StarFox Zero (Yes, really). It was originally released for the WiiU in 2014 and then ported to the Switch in 2018. I played the Switch version. Somewhat controversially, despite being an IP that Sega owns, it's only been released on Nintendo consoles. This is because Nintendo funded it's development. Without Nintendo, there wouldn't be a Bayonetta 2 (Or 3, for that matter). It's also the best Christmas game! It's Christmas Eve! Bayonetta is going last-minute Christmas shopping! But then, oh no! Shenanigans! Angels attack! Devastation for the city! Average Tuesday for Bayonetta. However, a typical demon summon goes wrong and it gets out of control. This gets Bayo's best friend Jeanne's a big ouchie in the form of her soul getting knocked out of her body. Umbran Witches get dragged to Hell when they die, but there's still time. Bayonetta travels to the very wet town of Noatun, as the Gates to Hell are rumoured to be there. She has less then a day to save Jeanne, or she'll miss Christmas! Bayonetta 2, apparently For all intents and purposes, this game plays similarly to the first game. Just a whole bunch of refinements. The big new mechanic is "Umbran Climax". Playing well enough will get you enough magic to use it, and it drastically increases the range and power of her attacks. It's lots of fun, but it does make most other uses of magic a bit redundant. Add to that other great changes, like Witch Time working on everything (Although it doesn't last as long in this game to compensate), and no awful QTE's, just button mashing ones that get you extra points. This makes it easily my favourite Bayonetta game. It also helps that the Nintendo bonuses are even more ridiculous in this game. The Switch version has added amiibo support, which means I didn't have to beat the game on Hard difficulty to get one of the best unlockables in all of gaming history! That Chain Chomp cracks me up! Helps that it's really good as well. Also, Arwing pistols! The game is a lot more vibrant compared to the first game, it just pops beautifully. That Nintendo influence, I'm guessing. The game still looks great today! Bayonetta 2, apparently So yeah, people bemoaning the lower skill ceiling be damned, Bayonetta 2 is a riot! And it has a decent multiplayer mode too! Sea of Stars Chained Echoes Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore Princess Peach Will Star As The Main Character In A Brand New Game Star Ocean: The Second Story R Hi-Fi Rush Sonic Superstars Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising Theatrhythm Final Bar Line: Premium Digital Deluxe Edition (100%) 1000xRESIST Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door (Switch) (100%) Miitopia (100 flipping per ceeeeent!) Metroid Zero Mission (100%, Under 2 hours, Normal) Chico and the Magic Orchards DX Super Metroid Redux Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster Densetsu No Stafy Densetsu No Stafy 2 Densetsu No Stafy 3 Final Fantasy II Pixel Remaster Final Fantasy III Pixel Remaster Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Red Rescue Team Final Fantasy IV Pixel Remaster Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow Gravity Circuit Final Fantasy V Pixel Remaster The Plucky Squire Lorelei and the Laser Eyes Banjo-Tooie (100%) Taiko no Tatsujin: Rhythmic Adventure Pack Shantae and the Seven Sirens Shiren the Wanderer: The Mystery Dungeon of Serpentcoil Island Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling Bayonetta Spyro the Dragon (Reignited Version - 120%) Bayonetta 2 1 3
Hero-of-Time Posted Monday at 11:34 PM Posted Monday at 11:34 PM Finished a few games over the past several days. With the sequels dropping on Premium, I decided to play the first game again and in doing so nab another platinum. I played through it earlier in the year but figured I would cross it off my double platinum list. I played through the original game last year and it was a decent, chilled out experience. This dropped on PS+ and I gave it a whirl. It was pretty cool seeing a lot of the characters make a return to the coffee shop for a brew. I also can't believe they kept the trophy/achievement from the first game where you have to leave a latte sitting for an hour. Another Cotton game was on sale which meant I had to pick it up. There are two more available for me to buy but one of them has a broken trophy list which doesn't seem like it's ever getting fixed and so I won't be touching it. This verson of the game gives you multiple characters to control. You pick your team of fairies and witches and when one of them is defeated the other takes its place. You can also swap them on the fly, providing you have enough power ups to do so. You can use this to great effect when a shot is heading your way. By switching out at the right time your characters become invincible. They also play slightly differently, with each of them using a different style of firing projectiles. It was another fun and breezy adventure. This was a doozy and ended up really surprising me. I picked it up during the TGS sale on PSN and have been waiting for the right time to play it. Having plenty of time off over Christmas meant that time was now. There are so many systems to get to grips within the game that it can be very overwhelming to begin with. Levelling up is done by doing jobs and earning gold but you can only do jobs if you have enough stamina. To regain your stamina you need to use facilities, such as having a beer in the tavern or a soak in the hot springs. These things cost money though and so a delicate balance of doing jobs, relaxing and earning money needs to be struck. You can earn quests to tackle by talking to villagers. These play out very similar to Miitopia. Your team automatically walks through the level and then you take control when an enemy is encountered. From there it's a typical JRPG set up with a little twist in the battle system. Standard attacks are pretty much useless and you are really required to use your special moves. This is where the CCC system comes into play - CHANGE, CHAIN, CHANCE. You can change the status of the enemy by say using a fire attack, you can then cause a chain to happen by using a water attack. Finally, a chance is created once you get a chain higher than one. At any point you can end this chain but if you keep switching between attacks and getting the chain to 10, you will be doing some stupid damage. Another thing that features in the quest is a stamina system. You can load up with food before you set out but certain foods will spoil very quickly if they are in an area that they aren't meant to be in. For example, taking things meant for frozen maps to a volcano area ain't a good idea. The stamina needs to be managed well otherwise you will fail the quest. The game features a job system. Now, usually I don't care for these but I didn't mind how it was set up here. Each of your team members has a set job (2 sub jobs can be unlocked later) and there's only the main character who can switch between different ones. This makes it very manageable to create some very useful team compositions. Anyone who enjoys job systems in JRPGs will get a kick out of it. The platinum took some doing, with me needing to put 50 hours into the game to obtain it. The last couple of quests to get the real ending aren't for the faint hearted. I pretty much had to max out my perfect team and even then it was pretty difficult. It was hard to come be information, given that not many people seem to have played the game. There is very little out there in terms of best teams/characters to use. There were only a handful of Reddit posts that ended up being pretty helpful. I really enjoyed the game, far more than I thought I would. I will say though that there is a lot of grinding in it. Money is the key to levelling up and by doing various things and managing your time and jobs well, you will end up earning a lot of cash pretty fast. However, it still takes a lot of grinding, even when you do get to grips with every system the game throws at you. Luckily for me, I love repeatative actions in games that allow me to see my stats keep going up. It's very much a game made for me. 3 2
Hero-of-Time Posted Tuesday at 10:12 PM Posted Tuesday at 10:12 PM This time last year I sat and played Streets of Rage 4, so it's fitting that I've once again sat and played another scrolling beat em up during the festive season. Sadly, Asterix is nowhere near the quality of that game. I was a big fan of Asterix as a kid. I have fond memories of playing the classic Konami arcade game while on holiday at Blackpool, as well as renting the Asterix books from my local library. I was hoping this game would match the quality of the Konami game but it wasn't even close. The game is a looker, for sure, but the gameplay is really lacking. For one, a lot of the stages go on for far too long. These types of games are best when the levels are short, snappy and varied. The later stages really start taking liberties with how long they are and how many enemies they throw at you on screen. This can be brutal on the hardest difficulty (needed to play through it on this setting for platium) because you can only take a couple of hits and then you are done. No lives and no continues, which means back to the start of the very long level you go. You can switch to the second character to give yourself a second life pool but it's difficult to do when you get swamped by enemies. A lot of the scenery gets repeated in the game, as do some of the bosses. There's a pirate boss named Red Beard which constantly pops up, as does the Roman Centurion. This is baffling because the books have such a rich enemy roster to choose from and yet they felt the need to repeat the same ones over and over again. It's not a bad game, just very boring. If the levels had been shorter, the areas more varied and the bosses changed up a bit then it would have been a far better game. Despite all of this, I still wouldn't mind giving the sequel a whirl to see if any improvements have been made. Playing the game did get me all nostalgic for the franchise and I went searching for the 80s animated movies. My two favourites were Asterix in Britain and Asterix and the Big fight. I found the latter on YouTube (proper UK dub instead of the US one) and I was sat watching it while I was doing my grinding on Various Daylife. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KQ5uTeuVuiE 3 1
Hero-of-Time Posted Wednesday at 08:25 PM Posted Wednesday at 08:25 PM Played a couple of games today that reminded me of Christmas. Played through Jak again even though I just played through it the other week and so I wont harp on about it again. It was originally released December 2001 and it reminds of Christmas due to me playing it around that time. I finished off the DKL trilogy. DKC3 reminds me of Christmas 1996. Like Jak, it was released in December. I never got it (no way we could afford new SNES game prices) but my best mate did. We spent all the Christmas holidays playing the game. Seeing as I have played DKC3 too many times to count, this was the next best thing. It's a decent version of the game, although it is pretty stripped down when compared to the original. There's no Banana Birds to find and no overworld to walk around. On the plus side, Ellie is no longer scared of rodents and can fire unlimited amounts of water out of here trunk. Sweet. If you find all the bonus barrels and coins you will unlock some time trials. These are 13 stages from the game in which you have to beat certain times. It was a neat addition and is needed to get 103% completion. So that's the trilogy done. It's a shame there are no more DK games that have been added to NSO recently. Would have been great to play DK64 over the Christmas break. Yeah, I'm still bitter. 5
Dcubed Posted Thursday at 01:43 PM Posted Thursday at 01:43 PM (edited) On 10/8/2024 at 6:44 PM, Dcubed said: Emio: The Smiling Man, Great Ace Attorney 1, 1000x Resist and Great Ace Attorney 2 as I finish them over the next few months!?!? Oh you've gotta be kidding me!!! Well here we are! Tis the season for narrative driven point n' clicks apparently, because I played all four of these games as promised (spoilers I suppose!) Emio: The Smiling Man Emio: The Smiling Man is the first brand new game in the Famicom Detective Club series since 1997's BS Famicom Detective Club: Lost Memories in the Snow (released exclusively for the BS Satellaview system, still remaining without any form of re-release or localisation... would be nice to fix that now Nintendo...). Over the past decade or so, Yoshio Sakamoto has consigned himself to a dark room where he decided to work on a couple of Metroid titles alongside MercurySteam. Metroid Dread was kind of really seriously fucking good, and even managed to sell north of 3 million copies, so Nintendo decided to go crazy and entertain the request of a bunch of insane fanboys at MAGES who wanted to remake the first two Famicom Detective Club games, giving them the budget and support needed to make lavish remakes with full voice acting and even full English localisations. Amazingly enough, these games managed not to bomb, because everything sells like gangbusters on the Switch, so fast forward about three years and... Hello, it's me again, in my little dark room. I can afford a couple of candles now. Emio is a ridiculous creative risk from a company that has been unfortunately quite risk averse throughout the Switch generation. Not only did Nintendo have the balls to have one of their key lead creatives work on a brand new HD point n' click adventure game for three years, they also made it their key summer title as well. And if that's not enough, they even let this madman create the first ever internally-developed Nintendo game to earn a PEGI 18 rating (and not for even for gambling references! Oh no. This 18 rating is very much actually deserved). I have had my grievances with Nintendo this generation, but I have nothing but the maddest respect for the majestic testicles on display here. During the game's announcement video, Sakamoto went out of his way to say that the ending in particular would likely end up being "divisive" amongst players. An interesting statement that is perhaps less bold than you might expect at first glance, but this little statement ends up being perhaps the most telling of how this game was written and produced. Without wanting to spoil anything? I can confidently state that every single aspect of this game is written in service of said ending. Yoshio Sakamoto and Kaori Miyachi clearly wrote the ending first and then worked their way backwards, with the majority of the game arguably feeling a bit like "filler" in comparison to the massive unending bombshell that is said ending. That's not to say that the rest of the game isn't thoroughly enjoyable, because it is. Filled with memorable characters and some interesting mysteries along the way, this game takes a much more grounded approach than something like Ace Attorney. You're also a massive creep Speaking of grounded, this game sticks surprisingly close to the original two NES games in terms of gameplay and structure; complete with the same style of investigation where you have to select dialogue options multiple times to "find the flags" needed to progress the story. Despite the passage of more than 30 years inbetween the games, it feels like a natural progression onward. This also includes the setting, which places itself squarely in the mid 90s with CRTs and bulky shoe mobile phones. Outside of the outstanding visuals, this game feels like it could've been released in 1995; whether or not that's a good thing is really down to your own personal preference and taste, but I quite dig it myself. I also dig the focus on urban legends as the motif for the game's story. While the original game was focused on lost memories, and the second game based on a ghost story, Emio focuses on the idea of an urban legend come to life. The motif is well woven into the game's overarching story and ends up feeling pretty believable. Is it real? Or only in your head? I totally get why some people may be upset with how much of a red herring the game's story might feel though compared to its ending, because the storytelling here is very lop-sided. But even without the ending, I still found myself enjoying my time playing boy detective. Felt like I was playing the natural SNES sequel to the original FDC games. But, you know... all good things must come to an end, and... Ho ly Shit! Wow! WHAT an ending! It doesn't just stick the landing, it pulls up the fucking earth along with it! I wish spoiler tags were working properly here so that I could discuss the ending more, but it's probably the most insane thing that Nintendo has ever allowed to be produced. I can't believe that they okayed this, let alone made it! I guess the bad part here is that the ending does end up overshadowing most of the rest of the game, because it really is just that out there. And also handled with a surprising maturity that you wouldn't expect. I thoroughly enjoyed Emio and it's an easy recommendation if you enjoyed the previous FDC games, but you do need to have a certain tolerance for intentionally-obtuse "retro style" adventure game mechanics. The lop-sidedness of the storytelling does leave me feeling a bit trepedicious in how to rate the adventure overall, but it does end up having quite the impact as a result. Sakamoto wasn't kidding when he said the ending would be divisive. Oh, and Nintendo have one last thing to say to all of you... ACAB, as officially sanctioned by Nintendo The Great Ace Attorney: Adventures I have a confession to make. I actually played this game back in 2021 when it got its first ever English localisation. I ended up giving up part-way through finishing it though, as I ended up being busy at the time and I was getting increasingly frustrated with this game and its many issues. But I steeled myself and threw myself back into the courtroom for another go... The Great Ace Attorney Adventures is the first of a duology of games first released on the 3DS as a pair of Japan-only releases in the Ace Attorney series. It wasn't until the two games were packaged together as The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles and released on all platforms in 2021 that we finally got these games in English. These games presented a unique challenge to Capcom's localisation team, as unlike the rest of the series, these titles were actually period pieces; set in a nebulous late 1800s era Victorian Britain/Meiji Era Japan, which dealt with Pheonix Wright's ancestor Ryunosuke Naruhodo (which, rather cleverly, matches up with Phoenix Wright's name in the Japanese version of those games). There was never going to be a way to Wright their way into Japanifornica this time around, as it specifically deals with the tenuous and strained Japan-Britain relationship established in the late 1800s on the background of the British industrial revolution. Oh, and it also happens to star Sherlock Holmes and several real-life people, such as Natsume Sōseki, good luck! Probably a hamburger The original games also came out at a somewhat unfortunate time, towards the end of the 3DS' life as the market for 3rd party games had more or less dried up; and when the Switch was just around the corner. Given the circumstances, it's not surprising in retrospect that Capcom turned down the chance to localise the original 3DS release. The series was already on thin ice in the west, being relegated to digital-only releases and already having spin-off titles skipping localisation (Oh hey! I'm looking at you Ace Attorney Investigations 2: Prosecutor's Gambit, who also just got its first English localisation this year!). But this decision would go on to have future ramifications, which we'll get to later. So what makes this different from the other games in the Ace Attorney series? Why, quite a lot actually. Outside of its wildly different setting and its completely "original" cast of characters, this game is a period piece; which means that the writers can't rely on the usual trappings that the series loves to lean on. That means no fingerprinting, no blood sampling, no ballistic markings, and no updated autopsy reports. This is the late 1800s, there are no mobile phones and modern technology is nowhere to be found. All you have to rely on are your wits and your deduction skills... with a little help from Herlock Sholmes... On second thoughts? Maybe he's not as helpful as I first thought... The investigation sections introduce a new mechanic called the Dance of Deduction. Essentially, Sholmes manages to solve the mystery for you! All by himself! Hooray! Except... I totally would! ... he's not the most competent Great Detective who ever lived, and loves getting everything totally wrong. So it's up to you to set him straight and give him a gentle nudge in the right direction. These sections are really fun and it's always amusing to see what nonsense is going to spew from his mind-palace. Also new to the courtroom is the ability to question multiple witnesses and defendents at the same time, with statements often causing neighbouring witnesses to give away vital clues. This is a great idea in theory, but in practice? It's telegraphed rather obviously and pursuing them is always the correct decision. As such, this mechanic doesn't end up adding much to the overall gameplay, as it just ends up elongating the usual witness statement process. Ironically, if they were to ever bring back this mechanic? It'd be a fantastic fit for Apollo Justice and his crazy eye-of-sauron powers! If they had it so that you had to spot little twitches and tell-tale signs in the neighbouring witnesses? It'd be a much more interesting mechanic than it is here. The other major new mechanic is a big one though. In fact, it's the one big thing that basically every single Ace Attorney fan has been asking for since the very beginning of the series. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, THE JURY!!! They sure look like a trustworthy bunch Styled like a Victorian-era Jury, you are given 6 jurors who are responsible for rending the verdict of Guilty or Not Guilty. However, this is an Ace Attorney game, and if you know anything about the Ace Attorney series, you'll know that the entire planet Earth is filled with incompetent morons. What could possibly go wrong with letting 6 "randomly" chosen citizens decide the fate of your client!? This is the best new mechanic this game introduces, as it tasks you to pit the jurors against each other to expose how utterly stupid their line of thinking is. It's great, and a natural extension of the find-the-contradiction gameplay that the series is known for. See! I told you! That's a lot of new mechanics, and lot of new stuff thrown at the player! Unfortunately, this brings us to The Great Ace Attorney Adventures' biggest problem... It never feels confident enough to take the training wheels from the player. The cases themselves are all fairly simplistic and don't really tax the player to think outside the box much. The entire game just feels like one big glorified tutorial for a better game, and that's a real big shame. The new mechanics are great, but they're just never really allowed to stretch their legs, and end up feeling underutilised as a result. Another major issue I have is that the dialogue is very long-winded, and the pacing can feel glacial as a result. The localisation itself is utterly superb and a joy to read, but the overall pacing of the story is super slow, far from the snappy and speedy pacing of the original Ace Attorney Trilogy (or indeed, Ace Attorney Investigations 2: Prosecutor's Gambit); and you'll often find yourself internally shouting at the game to get on with it already! It took me around 35 odd hours to complete this game, and that was really way too long; it could've easily have been done in half the time if the game was better paced, as the story isn't nearly complex or interesting enough to sustain that kind of running time. Finally, one other major issue I have (and fair warning here, we're moving into some slight spoiler territory here), the game ends up undermining its own period setting here with Sholmes' inventioney ways... ... ... ... ... Damn, I wish spoiler tags were working properly... ... ... ... Ok, coast should be clear now. Later on in the latter cases, Sholmes and his partner Iris introduce a couple of magic inventions that essentially mimic the blood sampling and fingerprinting mechanics seen in the mainline series. This really rubs me the wrong way, as it goes against the entire point of making a period piece to begin with. Why bother getting away from the modern setting if you're going to re-introduce modern technology elements anyway!? I was quite enjoying the holiday away from the series' usual trappings, but then the writers end up relying on them again anyway. Very disappointing... though that being said, the way that the court deemed much of it to be inadmissable was pretty clever. Also, another thing that did end upsetting me was something that was always going to be unavoidable... You see, this game just so happens to be one of the very few 3rd party 3DS games that actually genuinely took advantage of the stereoscopic 3D capabilities of the system for gameplay purposes, and of course, that was never going to be replicable with newer systems. You'll know exactly what I'm talking about as soon as you see that part of the game, and the developers clearly did the best they could with the circumstance they were lumped with, but it's still a huge shame that it had to happen, as much of the impact is indeed lost as a result... Just turn the 3D slider back up Susato, please. Slight spoilers have now ended While I do have my issues with this game, it's hard to be too mad at it. You're still getting a proper Ace Attorney experience with a wonderfully kooky cast of characters, wonderful presentation and a ridiculous over-the-top story. While I would ultimately say that its my least favourite game in the series, it's still an Ace Attorney game at the end of the day. However, this isn't the end of the story, because this is only one half of The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles after all. I may have to re-consider some of my feelings surrounding this game later on, but it was indeed a seperate release originally on 3DS, so this is how I felt when I first came to the end of my Adventures. I mean, it's impossible to be angry at this really 1000xResist 1000XResist is the debut game by a Canadian development group called Sunset Visitor, a group of people who previously cut their teeth in experimental art-house theatre. Most of the game's developers mainly hail from Hong Kong originally, and their diasporic experience forms the heart of this game's narrative. Without wanting to delve too deeply into the game's story (damn you lack of spoiler tags!!!), this is a narrative-driven 3rd person adventure game with some very light puzzle solving elements. The majority of the gameplay involves walking and talking, so if you're after a rollicking white knuckle action title? You best look elsewhere. However, if you're after a story-driven experience that takes unique advantage of the medium of video games to produce a narrative unlike anything else you've ever felt before? Then this is the game for you. Heh... heard that in a game once... Despite being obstenably a sci-fi story, 1000XResist is a story about the human experience of diasphora, told with a mixture of sci-fi and real-life allegory. But what is truly special about this game isn't necessarily its plot or linear story beats, but rather the manner in which the story is told. The developers' experience in art-house theatre eminates through every facet of the game's visual makeup, with light and shadow forming the basis of every scene, presented in much the same manner as stageshow theatre. This also ties into one of the game's main mechanics, as you page through chunks of time when diving into certain characters' subconcious memories... Stylish AND economical! Despite being a title from a small indie team, you wouldn't know it while playing the game; as it ends up feeling far larger in scope than the sum of its parts. Again, the team's experience in art-house theatre pays dividends here, as they make expert use of select assets and lighting to create a game of large scope on a very modest budget. It's hard to believe that this is their first game, but Sunset Visitor already manages to show up developers multiple times their size; at no point do you ever feel like their vision is compromised due to budgetary constraints, or that the game is any less in scope than what they intended. It's remarkable that they built this game on such a small budget! Speaking of performance, the voice acting and motion capture on display is nothing short of sensational. Again, showing up AAA developers hundreds of times the size of Sunset Visitor, the character performances are utterly stellar. But that's what happens when you get literal theatre actors to perform for your game I suppose. I could give you some context... but you know, spoilers and all that So that's about all I can really say here. 1000xResist is a game that you'll probably enjoy more the less you know going into it, so I probably shouldn't really divulge anything more. In short? It's brilliant, why? That would spoil it, you'll just have to trust me. You should buy it. It comes with free booze! The Great Ace Attorney 2: Resolve This is the second of the Great Ace Attorney duology, originally released in 2017 as a Japan-only release for the Nintendo 3DS. Sequels are nothing new to the Ace Attorney series, but as it turns out, this is not your usual Ace Attorney sequel. No, as it turns out, this isn't really a sequel at all; but rather it's the second part of one large game. Yes, Capcom pulled a Golden Sun here, as this game continues directly where the first part left off. This game fully expects you to have played and completed Adventures before jumping into this one, doing something that no other Ace Attorney game has ever done before. It makes direct reference to specific cases from the first game, and continues directly on from where they left off. If you were the poor sod who lived in Japan in 2017, didn't play Adventures in 2015 and for some strange reason decided to start with this one? Well, you were SOL buddy! Oh, so it was you who skipped Adventures then The first case then acts as your typical tutorial, but this recap is refreshingly brief, as it quickly starts to tax the player with more confounding testimony than was seen throughout most of Adventures already. From there, the story quickly goes off the rails and straight into space, as the kiddie gloves are well and truly off. In many ways, Resolve is a game full of cases that would normally be considered Final Case material; as the writers finally take the training wheels off and throw huge amounts of complexity the player's way. NOW all of a sudden, the decision to package the two games together makes total sense, and both games as a whole hugely benefit from being combined into one big game; The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles. Sonic 3 & Knuckles I can only imagine how cheated I would've felt if I had bought Adventures seperately back in 2015, because it feels so incomplete on its own... but now that the two games come packaged together as one big title? It all makes much more sense now. That being said though, it ends up making the game as a whole feel very lop-sided towards the end, and you realise how much of a massive slog the first part is. The whole package took me around 75 hours to complete and that's kind of ridiculous for an Ace Attorney title; I could complete the entire original trilogy, Apollo Justice and perhaps even Ace Attorney Investigations and still have some change left over in that amount of time. Still, the second half absolutely delivers the payoff that the first half leaves you longing for. It does inherit many of the same issues I have with Adventures (in fact, the issue of magic technology actually gets even worse here if you can believe it!), but the scenarios are so convoluted and ridiculous that you can't help but suspend your disbelief and let it take you on its crazy-ass ride, as it leads you to satisfying conclusion after satisfying conclusion. Infinite Climax So I can't really rate the two games seperately in the end, since they're really just two parts of one big game that were originally sold seperately. While I do feel that the pacing feels very off (starting off very slow, but eventually coalessing into something frenzied), this is a ride well worth taking. Just be prepared to make a serious time commitment. I also need to give a special shoutout to the team responsible for the port-job from 3DS to Switch/modern platforms. They really did go all out with the presentation aspect, up-resing all of the 2D artwork and developing an all new UI that feels totally natural. It's the best that the series has ever looked (and I include the newer re-releases in that), really grade-A stuff. What's also amazing are the massive repository of supplementary materials that you can access from the gallery. It basically includes an entire art-book's worth of reference material and concept art, complete with liner notes from the original artists! They even include a full soundtrack, complete with unused music and liner notes! This is really sensational stuff that I really wish other re-releases would follow suit with! I love this stuff! Capcom really went above and beyond with bringing this game to western audiences, and it deserves the highest level of praise I can give. Long may Ace Attorney continue And with that? Hide contents Gokujo Parodius – Pursuing the Past Glory/Fantastic Journey Sonic Superstars Virtua Cop 3 Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore Shantae: Half Genie Hero Perfect Dark Balatro Donkey Kong Country 2 Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth Haunted Castle: Revisited Yoshi's Story Ace Attorney Investigations 2: Prosecutor's Gambit Emio: The Smiling Man Great Ace Attorney 1 1000x Resist Great Ace Attorney 2 Edited Thursday at 01:54 PM by Dcubed 2 1
Hero-of-Time Posted Friday at 09:40 PM Posted Friday at 09:40 PM (edited) This is a game I've been wanting to play for a while and one that is on my 2024 pledge list. I've tried a couple of times to get into this, only putting around half an hour into the game each time I've attempted to play it, but this week was the week I finally sat down and played through it properly. It's a very frustrating game. The control scheme goes against every other game that you've played, well apart from Team Ico's other stuff, and I'm not sure why they keep doing this. I was half tempted to change things to how I like them by using the PS5s ability to customise your controls but I decided to persevere. Another point of frustration is the AI of Trico. Yeah, it can sometimes be very clever but other times it will simply not do what you want it to do. There were a few times where I had to reload the checkpoint in order for the right action to kick in. This also occurred in two big puzzle points. One involved using a box on the water and having Trico drop his tail for me to climb. This never happened. Another was when using a cart to catapult the main character up to the ceiling. Trico would constantly faff around with the cart, moving it out of position, causing me to reset the whole thing. Despite these frustrations, I did end up enjoying the game a great deal. Perseverance was the key and once I got the hang of the controls and how Trico moves and responds to calls, things went more smoothly. The game is still a looker after all these years. This picture I took sums up how amazing and magical the games visuals are. I also love the animations in the game. The way the main character moves and gestures is adorable. I especially love his little run down the stairs. Here's a quick video of me wearing the gear from Ico and doing the funny run. The platinum was very hard work and I can see why it has such a low percentage (0.3% completion rate). There's a trophy for listening to all of the secret hints. There are over 90 of these and getting them to trigger can be a hit or miss affair. You have to collect all 48 barrels but this is a little misleading because you need 96 in order to unlock the trophy for spray painting Trico. This means a few playthroughs are needed. There's another for finishing the game under 5 hours. Finally, another two toughies were to finish the game without dying and to finish the game whilst removing any spears as quick as possible when Trico is hit. All crazy stuff. I decided to do a standard run through the game first. I then went for the no death and under 5 hours trophies, before finally doing a third run that had me collect the remaining barrels I needed to unlock the paint gun. It took many years to get around to playing it but it's finally done. I think I still enjoyed SotC more but that doesn't really take anything away from this game. What a wonderfully unique experience it was. Edited Friday at 09:41 PM by Hero-of-Time 1 1
Hero-of-Time Posted 15 hours ago Posted 15 hours ago With The Last Guardian done, I was looking for something a little more relaxing. There was a thread on Era about games that are like DKC and this one popped up in the conversation. I remember Aneres11 enjoying when he played it are a while ago and seeing as it was on sale for £1.59, I figured I would give it a punt. It was okay. It's very much a rip off of DKC Returns. The boss designs, look of the levels, world map and rolling move have been completely nicked from DKCR. Its so blatant. The first couple of worlds are stupidly easy but then things ramp up in the third. Turns out the third world was the final one. I was kinda baffled by this. It feels like the game is missing a whole middle section. It's as if the developers completely ran out of time and quickly cobbled together something. This definitely seems to be the case when you consider free DLC was added that gave players a whole new world to play through. 1
drahkon Posted 15 hours ago Posted 15 hours ago (edited) Wow. I should've gone here before posting in the PS5 thread Edited 15 hours ago by drahkon 1
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