Phyrexian Librarian's Card Catalog of Platinums

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #135 - Journey to the Savage Planet

 

I can't believe more people haven't played this game! Run around a neon hellscape of an alien planet, explore and analyze (and then murder) the local wildlife, and get off this rock as soon as you can. It's Metroid meets Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy meets No Man's Sky meets Idiocracy. It's not a mechanically deep and complex game, but hey, not everything has to be Dark Souls.

 

Verdict: Recommended

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #136 - Until Dawn

 

Eight "teenagers" show up to a cabin in the woods, a year after their friends' disappearance, and exactly what you expect to happen totally happens. For a six year old game it still looks incredible, the voice acting and character work are top-notch. And I think this kind of focused plot is better for an interactive storytelling game, rather than Quantic Dream's attempts and failures at large grandiose epics. On the other hand, the game really pushes the "butterfly effect" motif, sometimes to its own detriment. A decision in Chapter 2 could influence a plot point in Chapter 9, and there's no way to know until you play though it multiple times. And when you do that, the lack of real choice starts to become super apparent.

 

Verdict: For storytelling fans only, play it with a group for maximum spookiness!

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #137 - Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order

 

If you put Star Wars, Dark Souls, Batman Arkham Asylum, Uncharted, and an anthill in a blender, you'd get this game; a space fantasy adventure with puzzles, combat, climbing, and collectibles, that sounds delicious... if not for all the bugs.

 

This game is a ludicrously janky mess; odd collision and physics problems, broken animations and cutscenes, sound randomly cutting out, the list goes on. The game is a surface level imitation of better versions of itself. Worse puzzles than Batman or Tomb Raider, worse combat than DS, worse storytelling than Knights of the Old Republic, worse collectibles than anything (over 250 collectibles, and only 40 have any impact on gameplay)...

 

... and yet, despite all that, I still had a lot of fun playing it! It's a testament to how powerful Star Wars is as a franchise that it is still incredibly satisfying to shred enemies with a lightsaber.

 

Verdict: Recommended, but get it on sale

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #138 - Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

 

Deus Ex is a 20 year old beloved gaming franchise; this is my first experience with it, and I'll be honest, I kind of get it. There's a ludicrous amount of worldbuilding and lore and dialogue, lots of traversal options for either a pure stealth or pure action playthrough, and it plays like a grab bag of elements from Hitman, Dishonored, Fallout, and Cyberpunk I guess. Sneaking around combat is so much easier than the gunplay, I'm not sure why anyone would do anything different.

 

On the other hand, this game also includes every terrible 2016 practice that Square Enix did to Rise of the Tomb Raider. Cut content re-bundled as DLC, a huge amount of meaningless side content and mechanics, an utterly nonsensical main story, numerous game-crashing bugs, and a tacked on "single player" challenge mode that is one of the worst examples of pay-to-win microtransaction hell I've ever seen. Breach mode is the most extreme version of "what if we made the player pay real money for better items" there is, to the point of literally charging for ammunition. I suppose that fits within the world of a cyberpunk dystopia, but likely not in the way Square Enix intended.

 

Verdict: For Deus Ex superfans only

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #139 - Watch Dogs: Legion

 

Watch Dogs has the problem of trying to tell very serious stories in a very silly world. The plots are all about corruption and abuse of power in an ever-increasing digital world, and how much we give up in exchange for convenience and/or security. But the gameplay is all about screwing around with drones and gizmos, and at best your "friendly hacktivist collective" kills dozens or hundreds of people over a game. Ludonarrative dissonance strikes again! So what happens when you add a new gimmick; everyone in London has randomly-assigned skills and traits, and you can recruit any of them to your team?

 

Turns out, you end up with a ragtag bunch of forgettable and disposable people you don't care about. The generated nature of your team means that they all share the same batch of nearly identical and recycled voice lines, mannerisms, and attitudes. Instead of everyone being unique, everyone is actually exactly the same. The handful of actually unique DLC characters (Aiden, Wrench, Mina, and Darcy) become the stars and because they're also the most useful operators by a wide margin, the entire "recruit anyone" mechanic is rendered pointless. And without that gimmick, the game is just another bland cookie-cutter Ubisoft open world. Better than WD1, but far worse than WD2, and not worth getting into if you played neither of those.

 

Verdict: Not Recommended

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #140 - Spider-Man: Miles Morales

 

Alright, let's get it out of the way right now: this was originally meant to be DLC for Insomniac's main Spider-Man game, so it was never a "full game." It's still a blast to web-swing around Manhattan, take out hordes of faceless goons, and Miles's new electricity and invisibility powers are really fun to mess around with. It really shows what the PS5 can do performance wise, I'm never going back to 30 fps again. And I really like the new Tinkerer design!

 

But the story itself is pretty thin, even by comic book standards. It's a retread of the original superior game with the same problems of way too many collectibles and lack of focus, and it really suffers from Miles's lack of a good rogue's gallery. The gameplay carries the story, not the other way around. It's a tech demo that should have been maybe $20-$30 as a standalone DLC package. At $50, you can get a lot more value for your gaming dollar.

 

Sorry Miles, you deserved better than this.

 

Verdict: Recommended, but get it on sale

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #141 - Dark Souls Remastered

 

So this is the one that started it all. I've basically played these in reverse order, and I'll go ahead and say it; I think this is the worst of the three. Granted, it's a nearly 10 year old game at this point, but the quality of life improvements they added in DS2 and 3 (better lighting, better inventory, better magic system, etc) didn't make those games easier. They just made them less in-your-face-hostile to the player, and controversial opinion alert, I think that's a good thing.

 

Pros: The interconnected level design, a more coherent story, the bosses that either had a fun gimmick or required you to get good (Ornstein & Smough, Gwyn, Sif, Priscilla). Magic is still broken, although miracles did not impress me that much. The level design makes fighting at range not really an option like it was in the later games with sorceries & pyromancy.

 

Cons: Character movement is sluggish, lighting system is legit broken (the entire screen darkens/lightens depending on what's in the center of the camera), terrible checkpoints, the bosses with terrible gimmicks (Bed of Chaos, Capra Demon, Fat Demon, Fat Demon Again, Fat Demon On Fire), and like 50% of the game takes place in skinny hallways and bridges that render the "deep combat system" entirely meaningless.

 

Dark Souls is like jazz; it's outsider art, made to be intentionally hard to get into, and rewarding people for going deeper. And just like jazz, the fans are completely obnoxious and unbearable, fully convinced of their superiority for liking a thing that you don't. They love nothing more than to rub in your face how it's completely flawless and the greatest thing ever, and if you don't "get it" you're clearly a philistine who should go back to mainstream media. Like so many things, it's not the band I hate, it's their fans.

 

Now that Bloodborne, Sekiro, and Elden Ring exist, I don't think there's a good reason to go back to the older titles other than for historical curiosity.

 

Verdict: For Soulsborne superfans only

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #142 - The Outer Worlds

 

Calling it "Fallout in Space" is probably unfair and sells it short, but it's nearly impossible to talk about this game without comparing it to the obvious inspiration behind it. I mean it literally starts with the exact same plot point as Fallout 4! But don't let that put you off.

 

If you've ever played a Bethesda game, you know the drill. Run around the solar system, meeting companions and solving problems and killing the wildlife, play it with guns or stealth or dialog, and uncover the shocking truth behind why this new and exciting corporate-owned colony seems so run down. The writing is absolutely top-notch across the board, the vision of private companies owning entire space colonies is barely even satire at this point. Rather than creating a massive open-world, keeping the game shorter and tighter helps the story and side quests feel a lot more focused. There's constant variety in the enemies and environments, and the landscapes of the various worlds you visit are absolutely gorgeous. It turns out that when you remove all the padding from Fallout, you're left with a pretty incredible experience.

 

Verdict: Recommended

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #143 - Lost in Random

 

I feel like it's rare nowadays to see a game developer try something truly unique. Huge props to Zoink Games for some bizarre design choices that they saw through to the end.

 

The really unique part is the combat system. Build a deck of cards, shoot enemies to gain energy, use energy to draw cards, and eventually roll a dice to figure out how many cards you can play. It's a fascinating spin on timed-dodge-style combat, forcing you to adapt on the fly to whatever you happen to have access to. On the other hand, with any basic knowledge of deckbuilding games and a decent ability to dodge or aim, and every fight becomes trivially easy.

 

The aesthetic and world building is clearly inspired by Tim Burton and Little Nightmares. The story and voice acting is fine, there are a few odd graphical and performance glitches, and the plot starts to drag on near the end. I think they could have shaved a few hours off an already short game, but you can't really have a game about rolling dice without six different levels.

 

Verdict: Recommended

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #146 - Disco Elysium

 

What would happen if you tried to recreate Planescape Torment, but instead of using a Dungeons & Dragons sourcebook, you used the Communist Manifesto and The Wealth of Nations? You'd probably get a game like this.

 

A beautiful and sad and incredibly dense tale of a police detective who drank himself into amnesia while investigating a murder, and finds the chance to reinvent himself. Do you sympathize with the plight of the working man? Do you want to restore the nation's former glory? Do you just want to get paid? Do you embrace this new dying world you find yourself in, or run from it? Oh and also, who committed the murder? You'll have twenty four different aspects of your personality constantly chatting with you (and each other) about the nature of this new reality. Every character is unique and memorable and beautifully voice acted, the music is haunting, and the traditional painting aesthetic wraps it all into an otherworldly, magical-realism experience.

 

It's worth calling out that despite all the critical acclaim, Disco Elysium is basically a visual novel. Nearly all the "gameplay" is in the form of exploring dialogue trees, and a little bit of running around picking up clothes and money to help boost your stats and pass/fail skill checks to open up even more dialogue trees. Platinuming it in two playthroughs requires a lot of careful save manipulation and save-scumming, so if you have the time, do a blind playthrough first to get an idea of what the game is trying to do.

 

If that all sounds like something you'd be into, get ready for a lot of reading. And I mean a LOT of reading.

 

Verdict: Recommended

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #147 - Subnautica: Below Zero

 

Hey, you know what a game about underwater exploration doesn't need? Forced land exploration!

 

The core loop of Subnautica is still excellent; hunt for resources, craft them into food and water and tools, use those tools to hunt further and deeper, build an underwater base that lets you go even further, and repeat until you figure out how to get off the planet. The big change here is the scope; this was another DLC that was spun into its own release, which means the area to explore is much smaller. The reduced size of the ocean, combined with the forced land exploration, means the game offers you a ton of mechanics, and almost no reason to engage with any of them. In the original Subnautica, you had to explore everywhere to find the tools you needed to continue to survive; in Below Zero, the few tools you get at the beginning can last you nearly the entire game.

 

The Seatruck is a cool concept, but inferior to the Cyclops in every way. The Snowfox is a nightmare to control, to the point where walking on foot is a better option. The Prawn Suit is useful but completely skippable unless you get into base building. Managing your temperature is trivially easy. Upgrade blueprints are both much harder to find, and also much less necessary to your survival.

 

It's still a fun time and way to explore, but if you really want to see this formula at its best, play the original instead.

 

Verdict: Recommended

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #148 - Dying Light

 

I'm on record as not being a huge FPS fan, and I have no recollection of why I own this. But now that the developers have ended support for it after nearly seven years, I figure it's time to clear it off the backlog.

 

I kind of get it; it is admittedly very fun to leap from rooftop to rooftop, carving your way through hordes of zombies with makeshift weaponry. But the game still carries a lot of the hallmarks of the late PS3/early PS4 era. Super generic plot and thinly written characters, a large amount of content with very little variety of content, multiple missions where you get all your equipment revoked, too much "make number bigger" style inventory management, and most egregiously, the final boss is a quick time event. The game starts really strong, but becomes super dull as you run around doing all the side quests and collectibles.

 

Verdict: Just OK, for FPS zombie fans only

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #149 - Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

 

Because it's a FromSoft title, this gets put in the same category as Dark Souls and Bloodborne. But that's not fair at all; this game is in a category all on its own.

 

- An absolutely gorgeous rendering of Sengoku-era Japan.

- Convenient checkpoints so you don't have to slog through 10 minutes of enemies to get back to the boss that killed you.

- A plot that is actually told through meaningful dialogue with the characters, instead of creepy laughing guys and item descriptions.

- Instead of paranoid stamina management, the focus is on stealth, patience, and aggressive combat. No more dodge rolling, get in there and parry them right in the face.

- Instead of stats that creep up glacially slow, you invest in skills that immediately have an impact on your gameplay. Mikiri Counter, you are a delight.

- Most importantly for the adult gamers... because there are no invasions, you can finally actually pause the game!

 

The skill grind was a bit tedious, but literally everything else is such a huge improvement over the Soulsborne formula, I don't know how I'll ever go back.

 

Verdict: Highly Recommended

[DrunkenEngineer]

21 hours ago, PhyrxianLibrarin said:

The skill grind was a bit tedious, but literally everything else is such a huge improvement over the Soulsborne formula, I don't know how I'll ever go back.

 

Check out Elden Ring if you haven't already.  It's got all the good stuff from Sekiro and Dark Souls blended together to make it very accessible.  I still think Sekiro is the chef's kiss of the whole studio, and at some point I'll add it to my PlayStation profile as it's just that good I will be happy to 100% it again.

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #150 - Invisible Inc.

 

A brutally hard and extremely addicting stealth-based roguelike that flew under the radar for years. Considering the difficulty and time investment, it's not surprising that most trophy hunters decided this wasn't worth it, but they're missing out. With nothing more than two agents, a handful of resources, and your wits, sneak your way through an endless parade of procedural levels with a huge variety of enemies, traps, and mission objectives, and rob your enemies blind before they even realize you were there.

 

The gameplay is slow and methodical, and figuring out how to sneak through a seemingly impossible map will make you feel like the world's biggest genius. The console version still has some performance issues that need it to be restarted every 3-4 missions. And the item balancing is all out of whack; lots of items are useless (especially on Endless runs) while a small selection are wildly overpowered. If you have the choice, play it on PC where all this stuff has been fixed via mods. But whatever it takes, play it. More people need to know about this diamond in the rough.

 

Verdict: Highly Recommended

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #151 - Immortals: Fenyx Rising

 

It's weird to call anything Ubisoft makes a "sleeper hit", but considering their other titles, this definitely came in under the radar. Sure, it's a blatant Greek mythology inspired rip off of Breath of the Wild, but there are way worse games to rip off. It's bright and colorful, filled with dozens or hundreds of mini-puzzles all over the map, and the game has the good sense to not take itself or its source material too seriously.

 

Verdict: Recommended

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #152 - Mass Effect

 

Way back in the day, I managed to play through Mass Effect 2 and 3, and loved them, but somehow I missed the fact that the original did come out on PS3 after all. Making up for lost time now, I don't think I missed very much. It's kind of a miracle and a testament to how strong BioWare's writing is, that this franchise got over the extremely janky gameplay of the first part.

 

Pros: The story still holds up, there's a huge amount of world to explore, and the voice acting is top-notch. This is the real strength of the Mass Effect franchise, an actual unique and original IP with an entire galaxy of lore to back it up and make it feel real. If this came out now, it would be greenlit for a TV show instantly.

 

Cons: The character models  and facial animations do not hold up super well, even in the remaster. The AI is unhelpful at best and actively harmful at worst. The combat is standard cover shooting with the same six or so maps dropped onto dozens of mostly empty worlds, that you have to drive the Mako to access. And the Mako is famously one of the worst vehicles in any video game ever, way worse than the Batmobile, handling like a shopping cart with a bad wheel over incredibly uneven terrain. If you dive into the side content, which is easily 2/3rds of the game, you realize it's just the exact same mission on the exact same map, copied and pasted over and over and over again. The inventory system may be one of the worst I've ever seen, awarding you hundreds of useless upgrades that are nearly impossible to clean out. After nearly 50 hours and 100% game completion, by the end I could still barely manage to equip my squad properly.

 

In 2007, I can see how this game would be revolutionary. But we've had 15 years of developers raising the bar in narrative storytelling and morality systems and voice acting, even from BioWare itself in the sequels. I don't think there's a great reason to go back to this one other than for historical curiosity.

 

Verdict: Skip it unless you're a completionist

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #154 - Mass Effect 2

 

Two years after the events of Mass Effect 1, Shepard returns to discover that the varying species of the galaxy have decided to ignore and bury the looming threat of the Reaper invasion. Desperate for allies and facing a series of vanishing human colonies, it's time to put together another rag-tag team of aliens and take the fight directly to the source.

 

This is the highlight of the series, and quite possibly still one of the best games of the PS3 era. It's absurd just how much of an upgrade this was to Mass Effect 1.

• No more vehicle sections.
• Mining is both less obnoxious and directly relevant to the gameplay.
• No more inventory, there are only a handful of guns and almost no armor, and the focus is on upgrades that apply to all weapons.
• Wide variety of enemies and maps to explore.
• Fewer filler missions, most of the actual gameplay is now directly tied into the story.
• The voice acting is great across the board. Mark Meer is fine as Broshep, but Jennifer Hale's work is next-level in this game, and reason alone to play as Femshep.
• AI is improved, you need to think strategically and manage the squad and avoid flanking attacks. Your squad still has a tendency to run out of cover and get themselves killed, sadly.

I think this is the game that really established Mass Effect as a franchise. Just walking around any of the multiple hub worlds, you catch conversations that make the whole place seem real. A turian trying (and failing) to convince his quarian friend to date him after a break-up, two asaris arguing about prejudice, a dad and daughter buying gifts for his wife, the ethics of making money from the attacks on humans, illegitimate children, a guy who's been trying to get a refund on a product since Mass Effect 1, it's all so good. Much like Star Trek, Mass Effect isn't a single story; it's a place, where any number of stories can be told. This is BioWare at the top of its game.

 

Verdict: Highly recommended

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #155 - Mass Effect 3

 

Months after the events of Mass Effect 2, it's finally time; the Reapers have arrived. The Alliance recovers the plans for an ancient superweapon, but they'll never finish building it in time without help. It's time for Shepard to unite the races of the galaxy against their shared enemy, and break the cycle once and for all... or is it?

 

Ten years later, what can be said about Mass Effect 3? Functionally, it's nearly the same squad-based cover shooter as Mass Effect 2. No more vehicles, and a slightly different weapon upgrade system, but all the same biotic and tech powers are still there. The addition of biotic explosions makes the combat incredibly trivial, and you can see the beginnings of stapled-on multiplayer modes in games of this era. With fewer side quests and little to no planet scanning or exploration, the game feels a lot more linear than previous ones.

 

But who cares about that; you want to know about the story. And more specifically, the ending. Mass Effect 3's production problems are pretty well known at this point, and you can see it as the game starts strong, and then completely falls apart in the third act as the story needed to be wrapped up somehow. There was never going to be a way to write an ending that was both plausible within the game world, and "video-gamey" enough to satisfy the fans.

 

I actually don't mind the final decision and lack of final boss; ever since Mass Effect 1, you've been learning that you can't beat the Reapers in a fair fight. The MacGuffin at the end gives you different options on how to break the cycle, and your preparation until that point determines the consequences. Depending on how you've played the game, some of those options likely make more sense than others (even the Refusal ending, putting all your hope in the next cycle). It's awkwardly presented, but not as completely out of left field as you might think, especially if you've played the Leviathan DLC.

 

Is it a bad ending? Yes, it still is, especially after the incredible high points of the Mass Effect 2 ending. Does it retroactively make the entire game/series not worth playing? Definitely not, it's the swan song to an amazing franchise and still one of the highlights of the PS3 era.

 

Verdict: Recommended

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #156 - GreedFall

 

I get it, creating a new IP is hard, and Spiders is a relatively small studio. They tried to cram a lot of different ideas into this game, and sadly, the negatives of that decision outweigh the positives. This game is somehow less than the sum of its parts.

 

The voice acting is wonderful, with a fun variety of well thought out and well written characters. The belle epoque aesthetic makes the world feel both familiar and foreign. The worldbuilding they've done is fantastic, with three different factions competing to colonize the same island, each with its own motivations and relationships and issues.

 

But the rest of the game is all over the place. The maps are incredibly difficult to navigate, and with no minimap you have to constantly be opening the menu to ensure you didn't take a wrong turn, of which there are many. The game has like five different story threads and links them together using the thinnest possible excuses, and that only serves to make the story issues even more obvious. The combat is frankly awful, with inconsistent dodges and parries and traps and throwables and guns and potions that make every fight both chaotic and boring. Not to mention the natives have maybe the worst "accent" I've ever heard in a video game.

 

If you're a superfan of Dragon Age-style action RPGs, you'll probably get some enjoyment out of this. But frankly, if that's you, you'd be better served by just playing Dragon Age again.

 

Verdict: Not Recommended

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #157 - Elden Ring

 

A game that's arguably been in the making since 2009, when Demon's Souls was first released. It's all been leading up to this, a massive open world of dungeons and caves and castles and fire. An epic tale of (you guessed it!) an abandoned land and the demigods fighting for control over it, and one little guy who dares to take the power they need to fix the land and become lord of the realm. Or something like that; despite GRRM doing the story, it's still a Dark Souls game.

 

This is the culmination of FromSoft taking all the best parts from their previous six games, smashing them together into a single package, and taking the limiters off of forcing players to play in a specific way. It's truly non-linear in a way almost no games are. You can run around and explore and go hilariously far without even encountering a boss, and the game puts almost no limit on where you can explore as long as you can figure out how to get there. Every main area of the map is beautifully rendered and visually unique, it's the best looking game they've ever put out by far. It's Breath of the Wild but with that classic DS aesthetic.

 

Stealth, backstabs, parries, powerstances, sorceries, incantations, poise, critical attacks; every mechanic that worked has been imported from previous games, and every mechanic that didn't work has been dropped. There are almost no "gimmick" bosses, everything is tough but fair, the new mechanics (Ashes of War & Summon Ashes) are fantastic and produce an unmatched variety of combat options.

 

Also, Torrent is awesome, and every video game horse should be able to double jump.

 

Somehow, it's not my favorite FromSoft game (I put it 3rd behind Bloodborne/Sekiro), but it's easily Game of the Year 2022.

 

Verdict: Highly Recommended

Edited September 19, 2022 by PhyrxianLibrarin

[NZBigC]

On 8/30/2022 at 5:42 AM, PhyrxianLibrarin said:

Platinum #156 - GreedFall

 

Verdict: Not Recommended

I think I am halfway through this (haven't played for quite some time now) but I don't really wanna go back to it. I did use some glitch in the game to get infinite resources or something like that, so I think I'll eventually get back to it and get the plat. 

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #158 - Stray

 

A fun light game about a cat in a world full of robots, perfect for a break between heavier or longer games.

 

Verdict: Meow

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #159 - Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy

 

Another big weird swing of a game that just barely misses the mark. The Guardians have always been an oddball but strangely captivating team, both in the comics and movies, and this game doesn't do them the justice they deserved.

 

The graphics and character models are gorgeous and well animated, and most of the voice acting is top-notch. The story is exactly what you expect from a retro-future space romp; Star-Lord accidentally releases a terrible evil, and stumbles around the galaxy trying to undo the damage, while convincing his barely tolerant teammates not to abandon the job entirely . If you've seen the movies, you get it. When the writing is good, it's very good, and has some genuinely funny and touching moments. The music is an actual soundtrack! This game couldn't have been cheap with the amount of music they had to license.

 

The rest of the game is all over the place. It's mostly linear paths through various neon space environments, with a small amount of searching for collectibles, simple puzzles with your teammate's abilities, and chaotic combat with so many explosions it's really hard to see what's happening. You have to manage your special shots and teammate's abilities carefully to not get overwhelmed, which wouldn't be as much of an issue if every fight wasn't also extremely long, with floods of enemies and little ability to manage crowds or see what's around you. Walk, puzzle, walk, fight, walk, repeat for the entire 20-ish hour game. There are still some pretty egregious visual/audio/controller/gameplay bugs, to the point of entire characters disappearing. And the game really starts to drag on in the last few chapters, with the quality of both the writing and the gameplay dropping off a cliff. I wonder if the entire last chapter was a last-minute addition.

 

It's a bad sign when, in a game defined by its witty dialog, I wished I could tell my teammates to please stop constantly bantering for like five seconds. With a little bit more refinement, this could have been great. As is, it's yet another game in the pile of Square Enix's cash grabs and unreasonable expectations.

 

Verdict: For Marvel superfans only

[James_Tonto]

You're on fire this year, 22 platinums already and you didn't pick a bunch of games that could be completed in days either, you picked quite a few games that would require a lot of dedication and time to complete. I'd recommend finishing Arkham City next or if you haven't started it yet, then Arkham Knight for October. Though getting a 100% on Arkham Knight will not be easy ^^;.

Edited October 7, 2022 by James_Tonto