Phyrexian Librarian's Card Catalog of Platinums

[rjkclarke]

56 minutes ago, PhyrxianLibrarin said:

@rjkclarke Oh don't get me wrong, I mostly mean that as a compliment, I'm describing myself as well. KRZ is a big win for the games-as-storytelling crowd, as it's the kind of story that really wouldn't work as a movie or show or book.

 

It was very funny. I often describe myself as being like that in any sort of tongue in cheek way I can find, it genuinely did make me laugh. I'll have to look at playing it though.

 

Especially after you said this "it's the kind of story that really wouldn't work as a movie or show or book" that sounds awesome, because very rarely do video games actually bother to take advantage of the things that, well,  they can do, but other art forms can't. So that really does sound like an interesting time, I'm sure I saw it on sale at the moment, so I might have to throw some pennies its way.

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #122 - Stranded Deep

 

Subnautica drew me into the survival genre, and this game is already kicking me out.

 

The concept is sound; crash on a deserted island, find resources & food & water, build a raft and explore islands, and find a way to escape. But the implementation is a hot mess. Super buggy physics, bizarre character models, all kinds of collision problems, and there's nearly no point to any of the crafting, which is the entire draw of a game like this. Apparently the game has gotten a lot of quality of life improvements on PC, like the ability to craft storage containers, which I think is absolutely mandatory in a game like this. In its current state on PS4/5, it's only barely on the right side of playable.

 

Verdict: Skip it until the console version is updated

Edited August 16, 2021 by PhyrxianLibrarin

[Deadly_Ha_Ha]

That's funny, I'm playing Rogue Galaxy right now. It's the only Level-5 PS2 title I haven't done and in my opinion they were unbeatable on the PS2. It's a shame I'll realistically never get to do WKC or WKC2 but I wasn't trophy hunting back then and honestly I didn't even know those games existed. 

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Latest 100% - The Swindle

 

This game is fun as hell! A roguelike where you rob people's houses in Steampunk Victorian London, using steam clouds and EMPs and hacking, to eventually break into Scotland Yard and steal a Big Brother-esque macguffin. The controls are a bit janky, but the game somehow both plays fast and rewards patience. Right up my alley! The only downside is the By George! trophy, which has a < 0.1% chance of popping on any given run. It only took me 2248 restarts.

 

Verdict: Recommended

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #123 - Dragon Age: Inquisition

 

I can't believe I'm saying this, but replaying this actually makes me less excited for Dragon Age 4. I'd forgotten so much about this game. Thedas is bland and generic fantasy, 80% of the game content is skippable side missions and fetch quests, the scavenging/crafting is both needlessly complex and irrelevant, the party AI is terrible, the game dramatically reveals Dragon Age characters that I neither recognize nor care about, and the decisions you make change nothing. Which of these two characters do you leave behind? It literally doesn't matter! It only changes a single line in the post-game dialogue, and the survivor disappears after the mission anyways.

 

It just goes on and on. There is a massive amount of content here, and it's all utterly forgettable.

 

Verdict: For fans of Dragon Age 1 and 2 only

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #124 - Buying a PS5 Astro's Playroom

 

It's a tech demo for the new DualSense controller, there's not much else to talk about. So let's talk about the real challenge; buying a PS5.

 

I did end up buying one from Craigslist; not from a professional scalper, thankfully, but someone who managed to get both consoles and decided they didn't need both an XSX and PS5. Consoles are still nearly impossible to get in the US, with online retailers selling out literally seconds after listing new stock. Sony claims they've sold over 10 million of the damned things, and I have to wonder... to who? Of those 10 million consoles, how many are actually being played? And how many are sitting in a scalper's room waiting for someone to re-buy them at $300-$400 above retail? Is that why the PS5 exclusives are selling so poorly (all 6 of them)? And is that why Sony keeps going back and bringing them to PS4 after all? Is Sony in danger of violating some contracts regarding exclusivity and expected sales numbers?

 

The improved performance of PS4 games is nothing to sneeze at, but at this point that's the more compelling selling point of the console. That's not worth $500, and it's certainly not worth the $900 I've seen on Craigslist.

 

Verdict: Recommended, but wait until 2022

Edited August 16, 2021 by PhyrxianLibrarin

[DrBloodmoney]

2 hours ago, PhyrxianLibrarin said:

It's a tech demo for the new DualSense controller, there's not much else to talk about.

 

?

 

Man, I loved Astro's Playroom - the idea that something that could have just been a tech demo was so loving crafted into something so much more was astonishing to me!

 

I've had my PS5 for a couple months now, but I don't think I've had a better time with it than when my missus and me were playing through that, trying to identify all the little scenes the astrobots were acting out, (or her making fun of me for having owned all the stupid old Playstation peripherals that were collectables in the game ?)

[DrunkenEngineer]

Yeah, I thought Astro’s Playroom had a lot more care and love poured into it then I would expect for a tech demo.  It was legit fun!

 

I was able to snag a PS5 on launch night and mostly play PS4 games on it (like everyone else).  The feature I appreciate the most is how video captures are now created on trophy unlocks.

[DrBloodmoney]

1 minute ago, DrunkenEngineer said:

I was able to snag a PS5 on launch night and mostly play PS4 games on it (like everyone else).  The feature I appreciate the most is how video captures are now created on trophy unlocks.

 

I appreciated that feature too.... until I realised I saw how much harddrive space gets taken up by them  ?

 

[DrunkenEngineer]

1 hour ago, DrBloodmoney said:

 

I appreciated that feature too.... until I realised I saw how much harddrive space gets taken up by them  

 

 

For sure, but with SSD expansion about to be officially supported that should help.

 

I also delete games as soon as I 100% them so hard drive space hasn’t become an issue…yet…

Edited August 10, 2021 by DrunkenEngineer

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Oh I didn't mean to suggest Astro's Playroom was low-effort, it was very cute and clearly had a lot of care and love poured into it, and hunting down all the different easter eggs was great. Hearing all those PS startup sounds was surprisingly nostalgic, it was a fun trip down memory lane and to see the history of PS that I'd forgotten (PS3 came out in 2006?! And what the hell is a Buzz controller?) But the game part itself is just a super basic platformer.

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #125 - Talkin' 'bout Bugsnax

 

What?

 

I just... I... what?

 

This game is weird as hell. An island of muppet-like creatures, united in their desire to... eat the local fauna? And you have to rebuild their community after their leader vanishes. And you do so by catching animals, feeding them to the muppets, and turning their body parts into those animals. Where can I get whatever drug these designers were on?

 

Gameplay wise, it's basically Pokemon Snap. The voice acting is great, the characters are all fully realized, and there's a fun message of "maybe there's no difference between friendship, and tolerating someone you don't like because it's better than being alone." But what a truly bizarre shell to put that message inside.

 

Verdict: Recommended

Edited August 16, 2021 by PhyrxianLibrarin

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #126 - Maquette

 

When The Witness came out, people accused it of having a single puzzle gimmick and no plot. I think that's unfair; if The Witness actually had a single gimmick and no plot, you'd get something like Maquette.

 

It's a beautiful game with a great soundtrack, and the puzzle gimmick is in theory a very good one. But the plot is cliched, the voice acting is cringy, and the game does almost nothing with the impressive recursive tech they've built. By the time they really start to experiment with the potential of their gimmick... the game ends. It's a wonderful concept, implemented incredibly poorly.

 

Verdict: Skip it

Edited August 15, 2021 by PhyrxianLibrarin

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #127 - Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout

 

Heheheh... hahahahah.... AHAHAHAHAH

 

This game drove me completely insane. The music and sound is cloying, the graphics are a neon nightmare, the gameplay is surface level Takeshi's Castle battle royale stuff. The "physics" are awful, it turns out that netcode can't handle 60 different physics objects colliding without freaking out a bit. PC players are using speed and grab hacks to ruin the experience. It's all micro-transaction driven.

 

But the real problem is that it has, by a wide margin, one of the worst and most toxic trophy hunting communities I've ever had the displeasure of working with. A small handful of extremely helpful people running boosting sessions, and then dozens of absolutely garbage players who can barely operate a controller. They expect to be fully carried to a platinum, try to hijack the session and overrule people with literally thousands of hours in this game, and then peace out as soon as they get Infallible. You see these Discord servers advertising themselves every weekend? That's all it is, advertising.

 

Verdict: Avoid at all costs

Edited August 16, 2021 by PhyrxianLibrarin

[DrunkenEngineer]

I heard this game was a nightmare, glad my suspicions were correct. 

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #128 - Salt and Sanctuary

 

This is a perfect example of a game that tried to capture the look and feel and mechanics of Dark Souls, but failed to understand why Dark Souls is still so beloved while all the rest of the copycats are just "Souls-like." It was inevitable that someone would try to smash together Dark Souls and Metroidvania, but I think this misses the mark in a lot of important ways.

• There's a filter over the screen that darkens the edges and corners. It make the game feel spooooky, but it also significantly reduces your ability to see what's happening.
• Vague unease and an implication of a complex world is not a substitute for actual worldbuilding. Lots of other spooky games do this.
• The easy bosses are way too easy (roll behind, hit, repeat), and the hard bosses are way too hard (constant precise platforming, tiny hitboxes, and one-hit kills).
• The ability to fill each "bonfire" with custom NPCs and power-ups that only apply to that region is actually pretty original!

But let's talk about the big problem... there's no map. Yeah, I hear you saying "Dark Souls doesn't have a map either." But Dark Souls doesn't need a map because the world is laid out along intuitive paths, and areas are visually unique and distinct, and bonfires are carefully positioned to act as checkpoints. After 2-3 run throughs you learn the right way to go. In Salt and Sanctuary, the world is huge and bland, every room is a grey and brown and green mess, and dying could set you back to the beginning of an entire region. The game both encourages you, and punishes you, for exploring.

 

Verdict: For DS/Metroidvania superfans only

 

On vacation, no gaming until after Labor Day

[YaManSmevz]

1 hour ago, PhyrxianLibrarin said:

On vacation, no gaming until after Labor Day

 

That's what's up, good for you✊

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Back from vacation!

 

Platinum #129 - The Book of Unwritten Tales 2

 

Sigh, no wonder point & click adventure games died off. Sierra and LucasArts made the only good ones, and every other company put out garbage like this. It's a very pretty game, but the voice acting is inconsistent, the pacing is awful, and the character models are all truly hideous. Maybe this would be better if I'd played Unwritten Tales 1, but somehow I doubt it.

 

Verdict: Skip it

 

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #130 - Hitman 3

 

And with that, the Hitman trilogy comes to a close. I don't remember why I even bought the first one, I went in expecting a serious stealth game, and I was delighted to discover this game is one of my all-time favorites. Every mission I'm running around with a huge grin on my face, finding easter eggs and wearing silly costumes and dropping chandeliers on billionaires.

 

The thing about Hitman is that it's a poor action game, and an average stealth game, and for most people that's where it ends. But this latest trilogy isn't an action game nor a stealth game. It's a puzzle game, and an absolutely genius one at that. It's a game that rewards patience, and trial and error, and setting up an insane Rube Goldberg murder machine and waiting for just the right time to trigger the hilarious chaos. If you're into that, you can't go wrong here.

 

Gameplay wise, to be honest, it's identical to Hitman 1 and 2. The AI is still pretty janky at times (it sort of has to be in order to let you pull off some of the challenges), and I don't think all of these latest maps are my favorites compared to some of the ones in Hitman 2. Berlin is absolutely the best map of the game, and sadly the last level (no spoilers) is the worst. But overall, everything about the game still holds up.

 

Verdict: Highly recommended

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #131 - Gravity Rush 2

 

I actually started writing this review early because I have so much to say. Let's get the positive out of the way: the world is beautiful, the writing is excellent, Kat is a genuine delight as a protagonist, and the gravity-based movement is extremely fun. It's on par with the web-swinging in the latest Spider-Man.

 

With that out of the way, let's get to everything else: This game is an absolute trash fire, and a huge middle finger to fans of Gravity Rush 1. It's the equivalent of a Spider-Man game where 75% of the game is Mary Jane missions. Where do we even begin...

• The most anime-nonsensical-bullshit story you'll ever see.
• Waaaaay too much dialogue.
• A camera that ranges from unhelpful to literally nausea-inducing, look up Mission 12 if you want to see people reporting this game gave them actual motion sickness.
• Too many areas with tight corridors and precision platforming, in a game that has no ability to handle them.
• Bizarrely long load times, even on the "enhanced" PS5 hardware.
• Multiple forced instant-fail stealth missions, in a game with zero stealth mechanics.
• Multiple missions requiring you to very slowly follow NPCs with terrible pathfinding.
• Multiple missions that are simply "Beat all the enemies. Then do it again. Then do it again."
• An entire mining subsystem that is entirely irrelevant and skippable other than the trophies.
• Two alternate combat styles, both of which make Kat significantly harder to control and/or fight with. After 19 missions the game is still giving tutorials for them, so they knew that no one would use them unless forced to. And the game forces you to constantly.
• A third power that only fires when "unspecified" conditions are met. What the hell does that mean?! It literally never triggered for me throughout the entire game.
• Collectible hunt-a-thons, some of which you can't even start until you've nearly beaten the game. In the most egregious example, one collectible you can't look for until after Mission 20 was destroyed in Mission 10, so you have to replay the story mission to get it!

Gravity Rush 1 was a fun, tight, experimental platformer, and an absolute joy to play for about 15 hours, the exact amount of time it takes for the movement to wear out its welcome. The sequel triples the runtime of the game by adding meaningless filler and blatant time wasting. This is a game about changing gravity and hurling debris and enemies and flying around like a maniac. You know what I never want to do? Lose all my powers and walk slowly along the ground, and this game does it over and over again. This went from "not as good as the original" to "actually bad" to "personally insulting" the more I played.

 

Verdict: Avoid at all costs

[realm722]

16 hours ago, PhyrxianLibrarin said:

Gravity Rush 1 was a fun, tight, experimental platformer, and an absolute joy to play for about 15 hours, the exact amount of time it takes for the movement to wear out its welcome. The sequel triples the runtime of the game by adding meaningless filler and blatant time wasting. This is a game about changing gravity and hurling debris and enemies and flying around like a maniac. You know what I never want to do? Lose all my powers and walk slowly along the ground, and this game does it over and over again. This went from "not as good as the original" to "actually bad" to "personally insulting" the more I played.

 

Verdict: Avoid at all costs

 

I'm gonna disagree with you a good amount here. My memory of the game is a tad bit foggy since I completed the game way back in December 2018. I'm actually in agreement with you on a decent number of aspects. My general opinion of Gravity Rush 2 was "damn, I enjoyed being in Kat's world again, and seeing how much more ambitious the developers tried to get with the sequel, but it didn't improve enough on the original from a mission perspective". The stealth missions without any stealth mechanics are continuously hammered on by people I've seen critique the game. 

 

But I didn't find the game bad. I actually appreciated how much grander they tried to expand upon the story. I LOVE the scene with Kat singing. I think the final verdict being "avoid at all costs" is a bit too harsh. Obviously, the first thing someone getting into the series should do is play the original. If they thought it was just aight, for sure skip the 2nd one. But if that person LOVES the original(I personally rank it in my Top 15 of 180+ PS4 games), I absolutely think there's stuff they can enjoy in GR2. If not much else then just enjoying hanging out with a familiar cast of characters again. 

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

6 hours ago, realm722 said:

Disagreement

 

I'll fully admit that, for the first chapter, the game was just as charming as I'd hoped. I enjoyed the new characters, the writing, the new world of Lhasa-whatever, and the new Lunar style that swapped flying for jumping. Tolerance for the story mostly depends on your tolerance for anime nonsense, and mine is very low.

 

The game took a huge turn towards the negative around Mission 12. If you do the side missions as you get them, you end up doing two near-universally hated missions in a row, and then the unquestionable worst story mission in the game. You get locked into an ability set that is incredibly hard to control, and forced through a maze of restrictive corridors that the camera system simply cannot deal with. It's a technical mess and brutally frustrating and not fun at all, and that's when I realized I was only 1/3rd of the way through. After that, all I could see was the flaws and lazy design and tedium, and the game never recovered for me.

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #132 - Maneater

 

What fun! The game establishes right from the get-go not to take it too seriously, and that's the right call. It's basically Untitled Shark Game, swim and eat and grow and eat more and grow more, and take revenge on those pesky humans who have the gall to swim in your waters. How dare they?!

 

Verdict: Recommended

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #133 - Blasphemous

 

"Here's our idea: it's a combination of Dark Souls and Metroidvania."

"Yawn, it's been done over and over again, what's the hook?"

"Everyone is Catholic and the final boss is The Pope."

"... Go on."

 

This game is a head trip. Full of Spanish Catholic imagery and allegory, it's hard as nails and totally unforgiving. But there aren't enough bosses for it to be a proper Souls game, and there isn't enough exploration for it to be a proper Metroidvania. A lot of potential here, but sadly it's yet another example of style over substance.

 

Verdict: For Metroidvania fans only

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

Platinum #134 - Life is Strange

 

Ahhh, the old David Cage problem. How do you present a story that focuses on player choice and the cause & effect of different decisions you make... while still making sure it ends up in the place you want it to for plot purposes? Sadly, Dontnod landed on the same answer Quantic Dream did; make the choices basically irrelevant to the greater story, and undermine the entire point of the game.

 

There's no real gameplay to speak of, and the story/graphics/acting are all wildly inconsistent. The characters are a lot more fleshed out and likable, despite being pretty egregious stereotypes. The scenes drag on with really stilted dialogue way too often. In true David Cage fashion, there's even a shower scene for no reason! But this is the kind of game that reviewers love to brag about liking, so of course it's had like 5 sequels that are likely equally navel-gazy and emo. If you're into this kind of story, I dunno, just watch Riverdale or something.

 

Verdict: For storytelling game fans only