willythom88's Givin' Up and Gettin' On

At about 12 hours in, I think I do thoroughly enjoy Ghost. While I've never really been a big fan of Sucker Punch, I love the mechanics at play here.

Completed: Act One

Trophies: 7 out of 77

Hours: 11 hours and some change

My biggest plus with this game is the stealth. I normally don't care for stealth, but here, it's so damn fluid I love it. I also love, after a few hours hating it, the navigation system. Unlike most games of it's type, there's no cursor or compass to follow. Instead, you swipe up on the touch pad, and the wind blows in the direction you need to head. It's a neat idea, and while it can be a little frustrating to actually utilize at first, it ends up being a lot of fun to use.

My biggest drawback, aside from the typical open world glitchiness, is the way the game feels very samey. A lot of times, it feels like I could be playing literally any other third person open world title, and it wouldn't feel all that different. That's not say it doesn't innovate in it's own way, but it never feels like it's truly it's own game. It reminds me a lot of Horizon Zero Dawn, a game I thoroughly loved. While I like the story and definitely feel for the characters, it does have the feel that I've been here before, even though I haven't.

willythom88 · December 9, 2021

Looking Back On It

The Spousal War of the Evening

I would never normally brag about this kind of game, but my experience with it was actually really fun.

Me and my wife (at the time, gf) decided to race this platinum. I had the Vita, she had the PS4. We sat in the living room, chain smoking (not a habit I've maintained but one I do miss) and went to town. I don't remember much about it, but I do remember she had one hell of an edge.

Because you can use the touch pad, it's actually a little faster to tap the jar than it is on the Vita. I got am ild edge over her because we had to go get her mom from work, and I ran inside after the car ride to get a minute or two edge. She still kicked my ass by about 5 minutes. My hand kept cramping up as I recall, and she had a much easier time swapping between them.

I picked up My Name is Mayo 2 recently and I'm a bit bummed it's not on the Vita also. We're going to make a fake account and see who's time is faster overall. I will say that while this is normally a trophy whore title, we were able to find a way to make it fun for us, at least.

willythom88 · December 12, 2021

Week Two - Progress Report

Completed This Week

Story - Act 2

Tales - 23 of 70

Hours - 29

I'm still thoroughly enjoying this, but I am having some gripes here and there. Mostly about bloating. I've started working on the side content, mostly the collectibles, and they are really overloaded. Finding shrines and hot springs is kind of annoying, and leveling after hitting level 5 is a bit too tedious for what the game is. I'll hopefully have my platinum review next week, and hopefully this won't still be an issue by that point. As for side quests, I think maybe 10 less would be wonderful, but that could just be because I'm only about a third done with them.

I am loving the story and the combat (especially the stance system) though I'll get into all of that during my final review. Hopefully shouldn't be too far out. As for something to look forward too, I will be participating in the Ultra Rare Cleanup 2022, and I'll either be starting with Dark Cloud 2 or Tales of Zestiria, so they should be coming up shortly.

willythom88 · December 19, 2021

Ghost of Tsushima
PS4
Trophies – 52/77 (Platinum)
Genre – Action Adventure
Game Difficulty – 3/10
Trophy Difficulty – 2/10
Final Time to Platinum – 55 hours and 8 minutes

Ghost of Tsushima is, if nothing else, a front runner to Horizon Zero Dawn for my favorite open world game of all time. It doesn’t quite overthrow it, as it has a lot of the trappings that ruin open world games. However, given how much I didn’t care for it at first, I’m surprised to say Ghost of Tsushima is arguably my game of the year. I'm rarely sad to see a game go after platinumming it. After all, I've just spent an extended period of time with it. What else is there to do? This one is leaving me itching for more.

Story - 7

Spoiler

The story of Ghost of Tsushima follows Jin, a man who comes from a long lineage of samurai, who is caught up in an invasion by the Mongols.

Main Story - 8

Spoiler

The main story is brilliantly paced. I loved watching Jin interact with the many allies he meets, but even more so, I loved the moment’s where Jin reflects on who he is as a person. Jin is a quiet man for the most part, so his emotions are typically dedicated to deep thought. He doesn’t speak to himself, usually, and even when he does, it’s mostly during investigations. He is easily one of the most likable characters in recent gaming, and the wide breadth of his emotions, and how he uses them to shape his experiences, works wonderfully.

And that ending....ehhhh, fantastic?

Side Quests - 6

Spoiler

The side quests, or Tales of Tsushima, are almost as good. Unfortunately, they are just a tad too padded for their own good. Specifically, several characters have their own line of quests, and this tend to drag just a bit. Considering how week two of them are as plot lines (and they are two of the longer ones), this does feel like a disappointment.

The other side quests are serviceable, and while the stories are fairly interesting, the pacing is ruined by a lack of diverse gameplay (though that’s a story for another section).

Aesthetics - 7

Spoiler

Graphics - 8

Spoiler

It can’t be said enough how damn beautiful the island of Tsushima looks in this game. I never grab screenshots because I think it’s kind of pointless a lot of the time, but I grabbed several in this title. My favorite is these white cliffs with a waterfall. Like, it’s fucking gorgeous.

The character models, however, are not. While most of the main characters look fantastic in cutscenes, the problem really lies in their models the rest of the time. Jin, specifically, has this dumfounded gaze whenever you watch the end scene for specific missions (more on that shortly). However, the stagnant glare is something every character seems to have outside of cutscenes. It’s not the worst thing in the world, but it is a little disappointing.

Audio - 8

Spoiler

I love the soundtrack here, but the award really goes to the ambient noises. The wind. The sound of your horse riding up on you. Leaves rustling and water falling. Seriously, the noise in this game is beautiful. If only people wouldn’t yell the exact same thing every time you run past them, or you could skip dialogue if you have to replay a mission. The little things, ya know.

User Interface - 7

Spoiler

It’s not that the UI is bad here. It’s just kind of half finished. I love the navigation system (I won’t spoil it here, but it’s amazing). However, it’s kind of clunky to use, given how much you must rely on opening your menu to see the map. A mini-map may have been distracted, but I wish they had found some alternative.

The other problem is the fact that everything has to be ingested, at least on the first playthrough (I don’t know if you can skip on later playthroughs). This means no skipping cutscenes or otherwise tedious animations. This isn’t a huge deal when the cutscenes are generally very short. However, each mission ends with a short (relative to a movie) display of Jin and his horse, standing still, embracing their victory. You can’t skip these, and while they aren’t long, it’s just awkward watching them stand there for 15-20 seconds, doing little animations. They look like puppets and it’s weird.

The menu is mostly okay, but I gotta say, I adore the skill tree. Normally I dislike skill trees that feel needlessly thrown into games, but I really like the way this one is broken down into its own sub-menus. I do still find it kind of needless, given how some moves, like rolling, feel like they should be standard.

Gameplay - 8

Spoiler

Combat - 10

Spoiler

The combat is another star of the show here, and my god, is it good.

The hack and slash incorporates multiple stances, and something of a slower God of War style aggressiveness. Triangle does strong attacks that break through defenses, while square does weaker, faster attacks. You won't be able to break an enemies defense with the weaker attacks, but once you break it, or stagger it, it's very important to lay in quickly with those weaker attacks to drain the enemies health fast.

The stances impact not only your abilities, but they focus on certain enemy types and allow for quicker staggering. For instance, the enemy I hated the most (aside archers) were enemies with long spears that were difficult to stagger. However, once I unlocked Water Stance, I was able to switch to it and stagger the spear enemies much easier.

Additionally, you can approach situations (and often are required too approach situations) with a stealth approach. I love the stealth here, as it reminds me of a more fleshed out Batman Arkham style. It just feels a lot better, giving you more of a heads up when an enemies about to spot you, through a more concise visual gauge of when an enemies has. It fills up slowly when an enemy has started noticing you, then when they start engaging you, then finally when you are out of options and need to fight back. Additionally, if there is a hostage, you are given a queue when someone is going to kill said hostage, and their position. This sounds complicated, but in actuality, it makes the process of stealth a lot easier to deal with, and it gives you much more of a window to correct your mistakes (at least on easy)

Exploration - 7

Spoiler

Sometimes, video games get a real boner for getting things bigger, even if it makes tracking things down a lot worse. Tsushima unfortunately leans a bit too heavily into this. While it does mean you get to see some really interesting vistas, after awhile, you just want to get where you're going. While this game isn't horrible about it, it still manages to make going places a chore from time to time. Given how often you are riding somewhere and looking for something in a small segment of land on the map (this isn't Final Fantasy 15 bad, but still) the vast expansiveness can work against the game.

Additionally, another issue comes with the map. It comes with a "handy" feature, where you can set the navigation to certain collectibles, and it will give you a general idea of where to look. The line on your map is fairly vague though, and this results in it feeling like you're just running into the abyss, aimlessly heading towards nothingness.

Fortunately, these gripes don't result in too much hate, and the act of moving between the various locales and finding items, and even some secrets, is a treat. Often open world games feel like they are bigger than they need to be, but Tsushima feels like just the right size.

Collectibles - 8

Spoiler

Most of the collectibles are smart enough to incorporate some kind of "activity" with them. For instance, chopping bamboo is actually a dexterity mini-game that challenges your ability to move around the controller. Inari Shrines have you chase down an email in a sort of maze like pattern to find the shrine. Other's have you enjoy peaceful moments of story. Several others though don't offer nearly as much interest though, like the lighthouses or the hidden altars. The Shinari Shrines have some clever platforming, but often over stay their welcome a smidge. Still, they definitely shine as the best collectible or side activity, even when the rewards, charms, are pretty underwhelming a lot of the time.

Trophies - 8

Spoiler

The trophies here cleverly disguise themselves. A lot of them have you completing story story beats or even completing entire sets of collectibles. Several of them have you dig into the collectibles, but not finish them, but they are disguised as other tasks. I like the clever way they have you do some of the collectibles without mentioning that is what you're doing, but in general, the trophies are merely fine. The biggest drag is doing certain quest lines, which actually fit into other trophies, and while I wish these were a bit better graded, overall, I think the whole list works.

Final Score - 7/10

My chief complaints really fall under the way the world feels too ambitious, when the best moments are the smallest ones. Overall, I'd put this in my top 10 favorite PS4 games, easily!

willythom88 · December 19, 2021

I tried Ya'll, But I Just Can't

This month I also set aside some time for Freedom Wars, a game I've started a couple times now, but could never really get into. Welp, now, I can say for certain, it's not gonna happen!

The Attempt

I tried my damndest this time. With the server's shutting down, I knew I needed to put up or shut up. I did a few things, actually.

The game is about a prisoners, serving a one million year sentence in jail. In order to reduce your sentence, you go out and kill large monsters, who are imprisoned citizens, and you save those citizens. The whole game is quest driven, and when you aren't out in the middle of the fray, you can (provided you are given the proper permissions) go out and hang out with other prisoners.

You can also play online, where I felt drastically out of my league lol.

You get penalized (resulting in more years tasked on, for just about everything. Running too much. Talking to other prisoners. Fortunately, you can unlock permissions to stop receiving penalties for doing these things, and the penalties are always much less than the gains you get for completing missions.

The Incentive

Servers shut down on Xmas Eve.

The Abandon

I don't like quest driven games. However, I figured I might be able to overcome that for the sake of this titles cool combat mechanics. Unfortunately, even with that in mind, I couldn't get into the combat mechanics at all. You're team mates couldn't lasso me in either. So unfortunately after about 3 hours, I'm letting this one die on the third attempt.

DrBloodmoney · December 20, 2021

14 hours ago, willythom88 said:

I tried Ya'll, But I Just Can't

This month I also set aside some time for Freedom Wars, a game I've started a couple times now, but could never really get into. Welp, now, I can say for certain, it's not gonna happen!

The Attempt

I tried my damndest this time. With the server's shutting down, I knew I needed to put up or shut up. I did a few things, actually.

[SNIP]

So unfortunately after about 3 hours, I'm letting this one die on the third attempt.

I feel you man - I wanted to like Freedom Wars, but I found it a hell of a slog to play through - and that was without the impending server shutdown to add a ticking clock to the proceedings!

It's a game with a lot of interesting ideas, but man, it really isn't a game that likes its players, or respects their time!

Edited December 20, 2021 by DrBloodmoney

willythom88 · December 20, 2021

4 hours ago, DrBloodmoney said:

I feel you man - I wanted to like Freedom Wars, but I found it a hell of a slog to play through - and that was without the impending server shutdown to add a ticking clock to the proceedings!

It's a game with a lot of interesting ideas, but man, it really isn't a game that likes its players, or respects their time!

Absolutely. My biggest gripe came pretty early, think it was the first mission of the second chapter. I kept failing (due to the really slow running), and I ended up sitting through a ton of unskippable cutscenes a few times. It's definitely niche, and power to the folks who love it.

willythom88 · December 23, 2021

Let the hell begin...

I'm participating in Ultra Rare Cleanup 2022 and I decided to start working on one of these early to prevent any wasted time. On my list, it would appear that Darkest Dungeon is in the top three hardest, so I decided to start with it. And boy howdy. I'm only about 3 hours in, and I'm already feeling why this game has such a low percentage of completionists.

The Early Hours

So for those of you who don't know, Darkest Dungeon is a procedurally generated dungeon crawler with turn based combat. You take 4 pre-selected heroes into the dungeon to complete certain objectives. These objectives include things like killing certain enemies, exploring certain amounts of rooms, or completing all the battles in a dungeon. This should be easy enough, except the game has a unique stress mechanic. This mechanic does things like causing your heroes to attack each other, refuse help, or even cause the other party members to become stressed.

Hitting a certain level of stress will cause party members to become afflicted with specific ailments. Every so often they will get a positive affliction, but usually it's bad. Once they hit the peak of their stress, they can suffer a heart attack at random and die.

The objective is to take these terrible situations, and overcome them. You'll die. A lot. So far, I've had 2-3 full party wipes, and once those folks are dead, they are gone forever. It's still a bit upsetting when I lose someone, but the general consensus is that you shouldn't get attached to your heroes, so I'm trying to make sure I don't. I do like the Death's Door feature, where you hit 0 HP, but don't die automatically. Instead, a random hit can take you out later.

My biggest tip is to look into guides and tips before hand, and to read the damn tutorials! I've been figuring things out cause I have a bad habit of clicking X through tutorials, and because of that, I didn't realize until this morning how to equip trinkets. I feel a fool, to put it mildly. I also learned this morning how to upgrade buildings in the main town area, another thing I'm sure a tutorial taught me.

No update this Sunday. I'll be driving back from Florida, and the only stops I get are at rest stops, so I won't be able to type this up by then. I'll post again a week from Sunday.

willythom88 · January 10, 2022

Late update time!

Thanks to the UR 2022 event, I'm currently working on a few things. But today we'll discuss Bleed!

Bleed is a side scrolling arcade shooter platformer. I find it funny, because there are SOOOOOO many Top Ten hardest trophies lists, and games like this NEVER get featured. While I can't speak to it being harder than Wolfenstein II or Epic Dumpster Bear, it is really, really fucking hard.

So far I have completed the game on Easy, Normal and Hard. Very Hard lives up to it's name so far, as I've been stuck on the final boss of the fourth chapter all morning. The game functions as a pretty typical side scrolling shooter, except it also features bullet time. You have to get a good grasp on using your bullet time to dodge projectiles, as they can be somewhat random on several bosses (including the one I'm currently stuck on.

Bosses are all about pattern recognition and quick response times. I have noticed that they change quite a bit between the difficulties. For instance, one boss takes place on a conveyor belt between two spiked walls. Depending on difficulty, the walls actually get closer to you, given you more to manage while also shooting the boss.

Overall, I'm thoroughly loving this game so far, though I am concerned about Arcade mode, which is the next difficulty I have to attack. It's a one life mode, and given you have to beat it on every difficulty, my ability to take down Very Hard, or hell, normal, with one life bar, feels very far away.

willythom88 · January 16, 2022

Another Bleed update!

Minor Spoilers For Enemy Names

And now the hard part is in full swing.

I managed to finish up all the S ranks, and I'm glad that nonsense is over. Unfortunately, I'm down to the last four trophies, and these are all the worst

First of all, I managed to clear Arcade on Easy. I found the patterns between Very Hard and Easy just different enough I wasn't able to segway from Very Hard Story and Easy Arcade, so I decided to just learn each level inside and out and I got through it. Took about 6 tries, thanks to some minor mistakes. Each attempt was only about 20 minutes, so not too bad.

The S Ranks we're way harder, mostly the Laser Bots in Level 5 and the Bubble Core in Level 6. These I mostly got from sheer tenacity. The Laser Bots can burn in hell frankly, but the Bubble Core was just my last by virtue of forgetting about him.

I'm gonna work on Normal Arcade and mostly try to get to Level 4 without getting hurt. It puts me a little over half way through the game and gives me the ability to take the last few levels, which don't afford you the same luxuries as the early ones ( they all feature much more crowded corridors, or even instant death segments, LEVEL6!) slower.

Edited January 16, 2022 by willythom88

willythom88 · January 18, 2022

A Brief Aside!

Expand

Expand is a puzzle game that has you moving a small pink block through mazes. You have to avoid touching red blocks, or letting the black boxes smash you. I'm not selling it particularly well, but it's a decent game none the less.

Pros
The puzzle design here is pretty good.
The open ended structure allows you to tackle any of the games 4 "worlds" however you want (though I'd recommend starting at the top and going counter clockwise)
The minimalist art is great for conveying the sense of isolation in the world
The controls, which feel a bit heavy, allow the game to frequently leave the player feeling like everything is by the skin of their teeth
The disorienting nature of the gameplay doesn't feel overwhelming
The game is fairly short

Cons

The disorienting nature of the game though can make you feel a bit sick (my wife has bad eyes already, and this didn't help)
While it's cool to see how many different things can be done with the games "mechanic" there really isn't a central mechanic to speak of
Additionally, many of the "worlds" run their course waaaaaay before they actually end
The music is often so soft, it feels absent all together

Recommend - Yes

willythom88 · January 20, 2022

Another Brief Aside!

Monsterbag!

In the interest of not burning out entirely, I've been trying to spend my mornings during the week not playing Bleed. This little Vita title should have been there to provide with me a nice experience with less stress. While it was much less stressful, it's definitely not nice.

Pros:

Love the general concept. You play a book bag, who is also a monster, and is trying to get to his owner in a bunch of wacky situations
I also really like the art style. It reminds me a lot of Frobisher Says or a mid-200's Cartoon network show. Like Fosters Home for Imaginary friend.
It's short. Whole thing took me like 2 hours once I buckled down on it. Four years since I originally didn't.

Cons:
Gah, the gameplay is dull. Basically you move between multiple people and monsters without being seen by timing your movement when they aren't looking.
You have to move to certain things so you can pick them up and use them, like a point and click adventure. It's just very cumbersome.
The trophies are also kind of bad, mostly requiring you to do something without being seen
The laser technician trophy in particular is very annoying. None of the trophies are hard. Just obnoxious.

I'm going to be getting back to Bleed this weekend. The wife is going to her moms for her birthday so I'm going to spend the day practicing the Arcade runs. I'll probably have one more Brief Aside for Seasons After Fall before I get anywhere with that, but I'm definitely getting back to it. I might start putting my attempts on here, instead of giving a proper update. Videos are much more in vogue than the written word.

Edited January 23, 2022 by willythom88

willythom88 · January 23, 2022

A Brief Aside:

Seasons After Fall

Time to Plat: <10 hours
Genre: Puzzle Platformer
Difficulty to Plat: 2/10
Recommend: Yes!

I thoroughly enjoyed this game, aside f4rom a couple of instances where the puzzles weren't particularly well designed. I normally don't much care for puzzle platformers, given how many I played back in 2018 and how burnt out I got on them. However, I might very well be interested in going back to them after this.

Pros:
Gorgeous art style, looks hand drawn but polished enough to pass for computer rendered
Unique gameplay mechanic involving changing seasons to adjust the platforms you can jump on and interact with (I'm not explaining it well but it's pretty neat)
Perfect length for a game like this
Great voice acting

Cons:
Puzzle gets tedious, with the second portion of the game being the worst for this
The story is a tad pretentious and up it's own ass (or maybe I'm just dumb, idk)

willythom88 · January 23, 2022

Let's BLEED Some More!

Not much for this update, but I did get a bit further.

- All S Ranks have been completed
- Easy Arcade is done!

I took a break from Bleed and thank god I did. I am doing a lot better at Normal Arcade, generally taking very little damage between Levels 1 and 4. Level 4 is a f-ckin' nightmare for minimizing damage due to the game beating you over the head with projectiles. I have gotten better at not taking damage from Bunny Rockette, the final boss of Level 4.

Level 5 is a bit better as it doesn't batter you with projectiles, but the enemies tend to populate fairly crowded areas. The mid-level boss, of which there are two, are both fairly difficult. The second hits more than the first, but the first is more unpredictable. I have a harder time learning it's move set and it's tells. The final boss is very manageable though, so I can't complain too much there. It has one move, involving turning green, that's a bit unpredictable, but as long as I don't stop moving, it's very easy to handle.

Level 6 is where everything goes to sh-t. The level starts with a segment where you can die instantly, but I've gotten all but perfect at running through it without taking damage. Follow that up with a fairly tight corridor with regenerating blocks and enemies who fire off projectiles, and it gets a bit hectic. The mid-level boss is a wild card, for sure. It shoots out bubbles that you need to destroy quickly. If you don't, they become lasers, and after you do enough damage, the bubbles appear a lot more densely. Even better than that, they pop and fire at you much faster. Factor in the boss speeding up and bouncing around kind of freely, and I usually get hit once or twice.

After that, you enter a corridor with giant bubbles you need to dodge, and I take damage here once or twice. The entire level shifts periodically (the moments seem to be scripted, thank god), causing the bubbles to fall towards you most of the time. It's not too bad, and it ends with one of the games easiest boss fights (for the difficulty).

I made it into the last level, and was on my last sliver of health. Unfortunately, before the final boss, there's a sort of boss rush, and I got my ass handed to me in that, courtesy of an absolute smorgasbord of lasers bearing down on me.

I moved to my bigger TV and it makes it a lot easier to micromanage projectiles. Still, I think a couple more attempts and I should be good to get through the game. Also, thanks to a neat built in timer, I can attest that each run is only about 30 minutes. So i don't feel like I'm losing a ton of time.

Gonna work on it in the mornings this week. I'm also finishing up my first Trophyless game of 2022, Klonoa: Door to Phantomile and I'm gonna plop a review for that on here in the next few days. It's a pretty short PS One game overall, and I'm on the last segment of the game, so I should be done in the next day or two. Whenever I have time.

willythom88 · February 1, 2022

Just a small update.

Not a proper update, just something to keep engaged.

So over the past week I started to try some stuff to see what I wanted to play next.

Borderlands The Presequel: To be honest I'm really not crazy about these games from a gameplay perspective, and I don't think this one is going to sway me. Stuck on the first boss and not super interested in keeping going. The story is interesting, but the gameplay isn't there for me.

Toki: This game is a weird side scrolling shooter that's clearly hand drawn. I like it in short bursts but it's pretty unfair in it's diffculty to be honest which is a huge turn off.

Unbox: Newbies Adventure: This one almost won for up to bat. A sort of Super Mario Galaxy style platformer, in that you enter a world, you do various missions in that world to collect stars ( or in this case, stamps) so you can tackle a boss. I'll likely go to this one at a later date, but the second world was just annoying enough that I ended up getting bored after a few hours.

The winner...buy buh buh buh buh Buuuuuuyyyyyyuuuuhhhh: Yakuza 0!

Fuck this game is fun. The combat. The mini games...mostly. The story is a bit long winded but it'll do. I spent a solid hour yesterday just playing the UFO Catcher and pool. Mahjong is fine. The only mini game I really don't like so far is disco, and even that should be an easy fix. I'm definitely looking forward to sinking some serious time into it.

I'll be waiting a bit to devote myself to it, until Horizon Forbidden West is finished, but yeah, definitely loved this.

Edited February 7, 2022 by willythom88

willythom88 · February 6, 2022

A Brief Aside-

Sea of Solitude

Difficulty - 3/10

Platinum Difficulty - 2/10

Length - 5 hours

Genre - Adventure/Light Horror

Recommend - Yes

Pros:

Great Story

Solid Platforming

Unique Graphics

Just Shy of Perfect Length

Cons:

Poor Voice Acting

Puzzles aren't particularly well developed

Collectibles are well hidden but very generic and copious

I would definitely recommend giving this one a try. The main game isn't particularly long, and the clean up is about half of that if you keep your eyes peeled throughout the story. The game does feature things like light combat (nothing to write home about), a good story (with bad acting), platforming (fairly solid) and decent level design (set in a beautiful world). Honestly, I would recommend overlooking the bad things and indulging, as it's overall a pretty good story.

And now, since it insists on merging my posts, time to address my 2022 goals and say it's time to go all in on it

First Series Up - Mana!

Next week I'll begin posting updates for Trials of Mana!

The plan ris to tackle one gamer from each of my series from the Planned Playlist. So far I'm about 17 hours into Trials but most of that was from last year. I'm close to the end of my first playthrough, but regardless where I end up by next week I'll make sure to provide an update!

Additionally, this month I'm planning to provide updates for Horizon Forbidden West and It Takes Two!

Edited February 6, 2022 by willythom88

willythom88 · February 10, 2022

First Playthrough Is Down!

Time to Complete: 28 hours

Difficulty: 3/10

Trophies: 22/44 (50%)

First story playthrough is done. Be forewarned, there will be minor structural spoilers coming up, so be careful. However, these spoilers are also in the trophy guide here on PNP, so nothing too dramatic.

I really like this game, but it's also very faulted. So basically you pick a hero out of 6 possible choices, and then companions out of the remaining 5 choices. You can go back and learn about their pasts and such over the course of the opening chapter, but I can't help but feel like their past is glossed over considerably compared to if I had made them the main hero. Additionally, the final boss and penultimate dungeon change depending on your choice of main hero, with their being three options all together. I personally choose Duran (pictured above in the trophy thumbnail), with Charlotte and Reisz as my back up characters.

I liked Duran, though I would file him under the cliché JRPG hero. Reisz is also pretty unremarkable, though I did feel slightly more for her back story than Duran's. The most unique character is charlotte, who is looking for someone whom she cares for deeply. It's all lost on me though, as her insistence on baby talk (her monopoly on the letter 'w' is strong and almost complete" made me hate her every time she opened her mouth.

From a gameplay perspective though, it was the total opposite. Charlotte, being the healer, was very useful, but once I figured out I could open magic menus and just swap to her, without going over to her character, I never did. See, you can freely move between which character you're controlling, OR, you can open the magic and item menus, then just tell another character to do something. This doesn't seem to work for power moves (or if it did I didn't find it) so I did occasionally have to swap characters. This is because Duran is a beast and I rarely found I needed to use someone else. When I did, it was almost always Reisz, since Charlottes moves, aside one power move, kind of suck.

Also, even when I wanted to use her moves, I had to swap her in. This because if you let the AI control the characters exclusively, you're going to have a bad time. The AI isn't the worst, but they are kind of dumb. They love to run head first into attacks to try to perform their own, and it gets them hit, or killed, ALOT. It's really one ofm y chief complaints during my first playthrough. That, and the boss fights. The boss fights are mostly well designed, but the bosses themselves are often just bullet sponges, loaded up with a ton of HP and it drains remarkably slow. This gets better later on when you get overpowered a bit, but for a while the only thing hard about the bosses is keeping your attention while you spend 20 minutes fighting one.

I really enjoyed the world here, but I wish there had been a bit more side content. I'm in the end game now which has a whole new story line to follow, but I'm not expecting a bunch of side quests or mini-games to just start popping up. The main side content so far has been Lil Cactus collectibles, which offer great, mostly overpowered rewards, Still, they are a bit generic, and nothing to write home about. The same can be said about the towns themselves, which like, look. I get it, this is a game from the 90's. But for fuck sake, they remade it. Couldn't they add anything to it. A fucking collectible card came or something? Whatever.

The point is, the story is okay, the side content is mediocre but largely inoffensive, the world itself is very nice, if not a bit quaint, and the combat is the best part of the whole thing. I'm aiming to finish most of the other trophies on this playthrough, at least the ones that aren't character specific. So I'm going to complete the post game story, as well as the little bit of grinding, then I'll probably spend the next two playthroughs breezing through on easy or beginner. mostly to expedite the whole process. You do have to finish it with different characters to get all the boss trophies, but I'm not expecting a ton of extra time. Maybe another 25 hours. Then I can focus exclusively on Adventure. I've played a bit of that and I'm not looking forward to it, given I don't really have anything positive to say yet. Here's hoping a blind playthrough will prove me wrong.

Current Score

The Best Mana! By Default...

willythom88 · February 12, 2022

Second Playthrough Update

So this morning I woke up, and knocked out the only difficulty related trophy. It's actually no where near as hard as I was expecting, and now I'm on my second playthrough on Hard. This playthrough I'm going through with Kevin, Hawkeye and Angela. I won't lie, I skipped a lot of Kevin's back story, and pretty much skipped all of Hawkeyes. I didn't really care about either, but I did like Angela's. It wasn't too much more compelling than Charlottes or Durans, but it managed to give you a bit of shock and awe the others don't have.

One major complaint I have with Angela though is her character model. Now I'm not gonna shit on anyone who's into fan service, but it seems weird given the graphical style of the game.

It's like if Barbie wore daisy dukes and a crop top with a huge V cut. Like what you like, it just seems weird to me. I get it in more "realistic" looking games (though then I would argue it still feels kind of lazy), but it's just odd here. I don't know. Just me.

I like Hawkeye's character model probably the best of all 6 characters, with Duran's probably being the most boring. I do like Kevin's combat style, though I can't help but notice....Charlotte...Reisz....Hawkeye...Duran.....Kevin....Angela. Charlotte is pretty common too but at least it feels fantasy-esque. Unlike KEVIN!

So far I'm enjoying the second playthrough. I'm considering doing the final playthrough on No Future which is like the games Extreme or Insanity or whatever mode you wanna call it. Fighting the boss this morning on Hard was very gratifying, and honestly, I'm glad I fought her on that difficulty. I think fighting on Normal would've brought the experience down a bit. I'm not a difficulty snob, but it was definitely the best way to fight her.

Edited February 12, 2022 by willythom88

willythom88 · February 18, 2022

Playthrough Two, Done!

Playthrough time - 15 Hours

Overall Time - 45 Hours

Trophies - 37/44 (90%)

So I've finished the second playthrough, completing it with Kevin, Hawkeye and Angela as my party. This means I've knocked out the trophy for all characters played through as well.

This was definitely less interesting than the first playthrough. So you get an ability at the beginning that triples your EXP. So even though I was playing on Hard the entire playthrough, it ended up being much easier than the first run, on Normal. I ended up being at level 93 by the time I finished the final boss, who per the guide here, is the hardest possible final boss. He was definitely not difficult given my level by the time I reached him.

Another thing I noticed is that the final dungeon on the Kevin/Charlotte path (they share final dungeons and bosses) was no where near as good as the other one. While the other dungeon during my Duran/Charlotte/Reisz run was well paced and didn't over stay it's welcome, the dungeon on this run was a colostomy bag of bad or reject ideas. Sometimes a path would end with a boss, sometimes it would be a piss easy fight, you never knew. I skipped a lot of the cutscenes so to be honest, I'm not really sure how the story paces at the end. But frankly, I really didn't care.

Kevin was likable enough that I didn't mind his presence, and Angela has a really interesting back story. I was in a hurry to wrap it up so I skipped the cutscene showing how her story ended, but I'm intending on having her in my party next time, so I'll get to see. I think Hawkeye is up there with Charlotte for characters I didn't much care for.

My plan is to go through a portion of the end game stuff with these characters to get their Master trophies and the one for getting someone to max out their abilities (it'll be Kevin). The one thing I can't stand is the drops to level someone's class. Kevin didn't get his until right before the boss, and he had over 140 points to spend. It's because you have to use the games somewhat disappointing plant growing system. Basically, plant a bunch of seeds, and it will give you an item for every seed you planted. It's kind of a chore to be honest, and it leads to my biggest complaint with this game, after 45 hours and two full playthroughs.

If it's going to take so damn long to load between screens, why does everything require the game to load?! Going to plant stuff, walking between areas, hell, even switching classes. The switching classes screen is especially annoying, because the game will let you load it all the way up, before it tells you you can't even do the damn class switch. It's obnoxious.

However, despite all of this, I think another 15 hour playthrough is very doable to knock out the last little bit. Oh, but unfortunately...Horizon just dropped. So once that's over, I'll wrap this up! See ya for an update on Horizon Forbidden West and then the Trials of Mana Finale!

willythom88 · February 24, 2022

Well the time has arrived....

Trials of Mana has been platted!

Minor spoilers for enemy names ahead!

Time to Plat - Roughly 55 Hours

Hardest Trophy - Cactus Companion

Hardest Boss - Lightgazer

Best Characters - Duran and Angela

Final Times - First one is playthrough one, second is playthrough two added to playthrough one on new game+, and then playthrough three added to playthrough one

Playthrough 3

Time - Just under 7 hours

Trophies - 2, including the plat

Difficulties played on: Expert for a third, Hard for half, Beginner for the last chapter

So the final playthrough was boring AF. One of the games main problems is that nothing aside from the beginning and the end is much different between the various characters. So as this is the final post for Trials, let's cover the whole damn thing!

Story - 4/5

If you've played an RPG, and definitely if you've played a JRPG, there's not much here that will surprise you. Some of the origin stories are better than others....cough Angela...cough cough Kevin....but overall the natural course of things is interesting enough to keep your attention.

Sound - 4/5

The only reason I didn't rate this higher is the absolutely obnoxious sound effects, specifically when you're low on health. The good news is the ambient music and soundtrack are pretty good. The voice acting is bad, but I turned down the volume pretty early, so no biggie. I prefer to read anyways : ).

Graphics - 4/5

Aside from the occasional dead texture (the trees when entering the world map spring to mind) the game is very pretty. I also love the boss design, though the enemy design is very repetitive. The final boss on the Reisz/Hawkeye route is super cool looking, so mad props there.

Combat - 3/5

So here's the thing. The combat is very repetitive. Given the three playthroughs you need for the platinum, it doesn't hold up the whole time. It's not a major issue, for sure, but it is kind of annoying. However, for a first JRPG, this combat is absolutely perfect.

Length and Structure - 3/5

It's the thought that counts, I guess. The different story paths depending on your choice of main, second and third characters is a nice touch, but as I mentioned before, it doesn't hold up aside from the beginning and the end. In the middle you run into the same characters, in the same order, and it gets old pretty quick. Even if you don't selectr Hawkeye, for instance, you will still hit his main story beats by running into him across the game from time to time. It gets old by the end of the third playthrough, but I like the thought behind it.

Dungeon Design - 2/5

Every dungeon is either a castle or a cave. They all look very similar. Aside some exceptions, this is the way it goes, and it's annoyingly bland.

Difficulty - 2/5

Normal is easy after awhile. Hard is easy after a bit. Expert is much, much, much harder than hard. Given that even on Beginner, bosses have a ludicrous amount of health, the difficulty changes only seem to impact spawn locations (on easier difficulties they seem to be missing from certain spots) and how much damage they do to you (though they definitely have less health on Easy than normal, it's almost not worth mentioning). This game just doesn't feel balanced, or hard in the right ways. Once you hit the end of chapter 4, maybe, grind a little, get to level 50, and I'd recommend switching it to Hard for awhile.

Trophies - 2/5

Here's the thing. The trophies aren't bad, so much as they are annoying. You'll be doing a little bit of everything, but most things have an easily manipulated way to approach them. Hardest enemy in the game? Switch to Beginner. Can't find 200 treasure chests? Get the treasure chest tracker by finding a certain amount of the cactuses hiding in environments. However, finding those cactuses is a pain in the ass unless you follow a guide from the beginning. And by pain in the ass, btw, I mean more annoying then it probably should be. You even get a tracker that will tell you how many are in each area on the world map, but not how many are in any of the subareas you can travel to from the world map directly. So when I say it's a pain in the ass, understand I'm being hyperbolic.

Also, three playthroughs to get all three story related trophies is a bit of overkill. Fortunately, my last playthrough was under 7 hours, so I'm not gonna bitch too much. Still though, feels a bit more cumbersome than the rest of the game requires. So if I had to summarize trophies, either make the rest of them ab it more involved, or reduce the number of playthroughs. None of this do one more playthrough for one more piss easy boss fight.

Final Score:

3/5

Ok, I'll be going onto Adventures of Mana sometime after I move next week. It's only one playthrough, so hopefully I don't miss anything and can breeze through it. I'll also be starting Star Ocean: The Last Hope (PS3), but given the length of that, I'll keep chugging away at the Mana's to clear them out asap. I'm also considering once Adventures is over tackling a short PC JRPG. I'll leave the screenshot below, but once it's done I'll actually review it.

willythom88 · March 8, 2022

And we're back....

Been slowly gaming over the past week or so since I moved. Still have some little things here and there, but by fucking golly, the move is done! I've got some goals for March, which I'll lat out for ya now.

1. Complete Adventures and Secrets of Mana

2. Earn my first Star Ocean The Last Hope trophy for the PS3 International version since 2011

3. Lose 5 pounds (this won't effect you and I'll never mention it again, but it's fun to share goals!)

With that being said...

I've made some progress on this one!

Minor spoilers!

So, Adventures of Mana is a remake of the first of the Mana titles from way back when, Final Fantasy Adventures. Along with Final Fantasy Legends, it is one of the earliest spin off series to spawn from Final Fantasy (with SaGa spinning off of Legends). This particularly remake was originally made for phones I believe, and brought to the Vita, and FFS it shows. I honestly can't stand a lot of the layout of the controls.

You play as Sumo, who wants to be a Gemma Knight. He discovers treachery and then discovers a fair maiden he must protect. It's cliche, and while I will give it that the original is an old game, so far the remake is doing nothing to give it any bite at all. The grid style movement system is a bit bland, and you have two item slots you can assign things to at anytime. One of them is exclusively for your weapons, of which there are several varieties, and one is for everything else. Yep, magic and items share a spot, and it makes swapping in items and magic a chore of |Iron Boots in the Water Temple" levels. If you focus on using magic a lot, you'll be swapping in Heal, which removes status ailments, quite a bit.

The magic is good, for them ost part, and ranges from very useful, to "I've never bothered with that" (looking at you silence). The items are a bit cryptic though, and unless you've played a Mana or Final Fantasy before, you might be a bit lost since the in game descriptions don't exist. Even then, some are too cryptic, even if you have played other games. Like the monkey with it's mouth taped shut. I assume that silences an enemy? Or lifts silence from me? I have no idea.

The combat is pretty good though, and you occasionally get a neat companion, like a dwarf who allows you to shop in dungeons or the aforementioned maiden who will do a Regen style heal on you.

I'm just past the point I stopped laying back in 2020 so I'm in uncharted territory right now. I'll slap another update up once it's done!

willythom88 · March 11, 2022

It's Time for Grinding!

Bah duh duh DAH, duh DAH duh DAH

Ok, so I've entered the grinding stage of Adventures of Mana and I gotta say, not a fan. Here's the thing. I know what you're thinking.

If you don't like grinding, why play a JRPG?!

And that's fair. But it's all relative, ya know. Damn, I beat the final boss, grinded the rest of the items, and now I'm sitting on a screen, fighting the same enemies over and over again. It's kind of a pain in the ass, given how simple the rest of the game is.

I did thoroughly enjoy the final boss, though. Much more than any of them in Trials. It was pretty short, but it did give me some issues at first. Not as much as the games biggest SOB, whom you fight kind of late. The problem with it isn't that it's hard, so much as the arena is surrounded by an electrical fence. It makes it really easy to get you're ass handed to you for a simple mess up.

Anyhow, back to grinding. Should be done with the plat by Sunday, or Monday at the latest.

kingofbattle8174 · March 12, 2022

Gotta love five hours of fighting elephants.

willythom88's Givin' Up and Gettin' On

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