Kill Your Completion 18

[voodoo_eyes]

KYC 18 (Starts 1st of March 2022 and ends 31st of March 2022)

 

 

It's that time of the year again.

 

 

The Premise
Participants will each choose a list of at least 5, and up to 10 0% games (or any number in.between) from their backlog and post them here so everyone can follow along. These games don't have to be pre loaded on your profile, as long as you own them already and haven't earned a trophy they count. Participants will start a new game from that list every few days for the next month. They WILL then post their thoughts on each game, and write a short review on the final day for each game. This can take any shape or form each person desires.

 

 

The starting time is whenever the 1st of March begins for you.

 

 

The Deeds

Spoiler

Requirements to Join
Psnprofiles member for 1 month (or premium member)
Backlog of at least 5 un-started games
Desire to be part of something fun. 
A complete and utter dis-regard for your completion rate (for the next month)

How to Join
Say you want in
Post your list of the games YOU ALREADY OWN that you haven't started.
Post your completion percent for S&G.

Game Selection Suggestions
These are just suggestions, this will have no bearing on you being added to the event. These are just things that I think make for a more interesting selection of games overall.
- Variety is The Spice...: Try to avoid having more than 1 or 2 of the same type of game on there.
- Try Something New or Different - A list filled with AAA games/remasters that you've already played, from only two different series, is boring.
- Don't choose all games that all have average completion times under 10 hours: You're not fooling anybody. Sneaky participant is not sneaky.

 

TL;DR

Spoiler

• final day of sign ups will be the 1st of March (2022)
• the event begins whenever the 1st of March begins in your timezone
• pick 5 - 10 games that are at 0% and play them during the respective amount of days (examples: 5 games/6days each ; 10 games/3 days each - this means consecutive days...).
• Games have to be a 0%, no exceptions.
• don't pick only short and easy games
• post your list of games
• do yourself a favour and install/preload your games on the system. Less time wasted for patches to download, etc
• each game should be played for at least 3 hours total, throughout the X number of days allocated to them (equal number of days for each game)
• You can't switch a game out once you've already started it.
• write a review/impression/thoughts on the game you played, before moving on to the next one (final review is mandatory, regular updates are optional)
• If you don't want to miss the start of the event, follow the thread

 

Participants

Spoiler

 

ArcticCress

Spoiler

Atelier Ryza: Ever Darkness & the Secret Hideout

Children of Zodiarcs

Hades

Onechanbara Z2: Chaos

Raging Loop

 

Gretchen27

Spoiler

{PS4} Judgement (Mar 1st-5th)

{PSV} Siralim (Mar 6th-10th)

{PS4} Shin Megumi Tensei III Nocturne (Mar 11th-15th)

{PSV} Root Double - Before Crime After Days (Mar 16th-20th)

{PS4} 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim (Mar 21st-25th)

{PSV} The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II (Mar 26th-31st)

 

voodoo_eyes

Spoiler

• Necromunda Hired Gun
• Final Fantasy X-2
• Silent Hill 2
• Narcos: Rise of the Cartels
• Earthlock; Festival of Magic
• Warriors: Legends of Troy

 

Vulpine9Tails

Spoiler

1. Beyond a Steel Sky 

2. Balan Wonderworld

3. Gran Turismo 7

4. Cyberpunk 2077

5. The Sinking City

 

 

 

PS: I've made a poll to see how often people would like this event take place throughout a year. I've only given two options here, which I find to be the most viable.

 

Vote

Edited March 2, 2022 by voodoo_eyes

[voodoo_eyes]

I've already decided on my list, so here it is:

 

• Necromunda Hired Gun
• Final Fantasy X-2
• Silent Hill 2
• Narcos: Rise of the Cartels
• Neverwinter Nights
• Warriors: Legends of Troy

Edited February 25, 2022 by voodoo_eyes

[Arctic Cress]

I am here again.

 

Only five games as usual, and all of them being PS4 titles.

 

Atelier Ryza: Ever Darkness & the Secret Hideout

Children of Zodiarcs

Hades

Onechanbara Z2: Chaos

Raging Loop

[Gretchen27]

Go ahead, put me down. I like tanking my completion with a month of new games, at least once a year.

My list:

 

{PS4} Judgement (Mar 1st-5th)

{PSV} Siralim (Mar 6th-10th)

{PS4} Shin Megumi Tensei III Nocturne (Mar 11th-15th)

{PSV} Root Double - Before Crime After Days (Mar 16th-20th)

{PS4} 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim (Mar 21st-25th)

{PSV} The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II (Mar 26th-31st)

 

PS4 & Vita titles only this round because after the last two KYCs, I found out I'm terrible about finishing PS3 games. All of the above are high expectation games for me for one reason or another, but I'll get into that during initial impressions. I'll post starting stats on the 1st.

 

[voodoo_eyes]

Ended up making a couple changes to my list, switching out Metal Gear Solid 3 and Neverwinter Nights for Warriors Legends of Troy.and Earthlock Festival of Magic.

Edited February 26, 2022 by voodoo_eyes

[voodoo_eyes]

Game #1 - Necromunda Hired Gun (PS4) - Preview

 

Developer:Streum On Studio

Publisher: Focus Home Interactive

Genre: FPS

Price: 39,99 € (includes both PS4 & PS5 version)

 

 

It's been a while since I've played a FPS, and I can't even remember which one the last one was. I have been played several games published by Focus Hume though and most of them are decent, but not great. That's exactly what I'm expecting from this game.

[Vulpine9Tails]

Ooo I would like to join!

My games:

 

1. Beyond a Steel Sky 

2. Balan Wonderworld

3. Gran Turismo 7

4. Cyberpunk 2077

5. The Sinking City

 

Thank goodness GT7 is out this month because otherwise I wouldn't have five games that I haven't played million times before. I have a big backlog but it's all stuff I want to redo again for this profile and I think that would take away from the spirit of this event. It will be an interesting month that's for sure. Also playing Elden Ring with my bf and a friend so I got some tight gaming to do. 

 

[Gretchen27]

Starting Stats 

Completion Percent: 85.09%

Games Played: 205

Completed Games: 149

Unearned Trophies: 1,135 

Alright, up first is:

Game #1: Judgement

Preview

From the wacky geniuses who created the Yakuza games, Judgement follows - & let me preface this with a, take everything I write in my previews with a grain of salt. I don't know much before I play them. Back to it, Judgement follows a fallen lawyer turned private eye as he investigates crime. 

 

I'd like to think this is inverted Yakuza, just not always above board when it comes to upholding the law. There wouldn't be any good fights otherwise. Out of my list, this is at the top of my high expectations. I'm not looking for anything specific here, I want something out of the box. 

 

Previous KYC Games:

KYC 9 - one game left to finish. 

Spoiler

{PS4} Megadimension Neptunia VII 

{PS4} The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 27/79 (31% complete)

{PS3} The Sims 3: Pets 

{PSV} Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate 

{PSV} Collar X Malice

 

KYC 12 - chipping away here & there. 

Spoiler

{PS4} Monster Hunter World Iceborne 37/50 (61% complete)

{PS4} Borderlands 3 12/81 (8% complete)

{PSV} Drive Girls 

{PS4} The Evil Within 2 35/52 (58% complete)

{PSV} Bad Apple Wars 

{PS4} Marvel’s Spider-Man 51/74 (62% complete)

{PSV} Exist Achieve: The Other Side of the Sky 36/45 (83% complete)

{PS3} Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch 2/34 (2% complete)

 

KYC 15 - I did embarrassingly bad progress wise. 

Spoiler

{PSV} Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc 8/38 (11% complete)

{PS4} Dark Rose Valkyrie 16/53 (25% complete)

{PSV} Muv-Luv 1/16 (1% complete)

{PS3} Final Fantasy X-III 2/36 (2% complete)

{PSV} Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time 5/50 (7% complete)

 

[Arctic Cress]

Pretty low turnout, huh. Still should be fine; here's my starting statistics compared with KYC 17's start:

 

Games played: 527 (+41)
Games completed: 330 (+23)

Unearned trophies: 4,066 (+375)

Completion percentage: 75.07% (+0.04%)

 

The TrueTrophies challenge really did a number on my statistics, but I still managed a small increase in completion percentage in the end.

 

Will probably start my first game when it's not close to midnight, so later this week.

[MidnightDragon]

Not gonna join, but will cheer on those who are doing this.  

[voodoo_eyes]

14 hours ago, Vulpine9Tails said:

Ooo I would like to join!

My games:

 

1. Beyond a Steel Sky 

2. Balan Wonderworld

3. Gran Turismo 7

4. Cyberpunk 2077

5. The Sinking City

 

Thank goodness GT7 is out this month because otherwise I wouldn't have five games that I haven't played million times before. I have a big backlog but it's all stuff I want to redo again for this profile and I think that would take away from the spirit of this event. It will be an interesting month that's for sure. Also playing Elden Ring with my bf and a friend so I got some tight gaming to do. 

 

 

Added to the list of participats. Hope you have a good time with the event.

[voodoo_eyes]

Game #1 - Necromunda Hired Gun - Final Impressions

 

 

Time played: a bit over 3h

Trophies eraned: 7/49

 

I wanted to get more hours into this, but had a long week . I only ended up playing through the frist two missions, one of which took me 1h30. I also atempted a side mission, but got completely destroyed.

 

Visually the game is a bit bland and textures are just alright. Everything is in a reddish, dark brown or orange tone and gets old really quick. There is some general polish lacking as well, considering half of the executions kind of ook like they have clipping issues.

 

The gameplay is that of an old school FPS mixed with some modern movement implementation. SO your always run button is basically on, but you get a double jump as well as a grappling hooj and wall-running. There is a very clunky skill system which you can have several off, but need to select with a weapon wheel sort of thing to then select one and be able to activate it. Activation is tied to the R3 button and it's one of hte worst button placements ever. 90% of FPS have R3 tied to melee, but not here. Instead I've used my medkits by mistake a dozen times by pressing it.

Melee (or execution) is tied to which also is reload. Can you guess what happenes a lot in this game? Exactly, it's wanting to go in for the execution rushing the enmy and suddenly you're in his face reloading while eating a bunch of lead. Seriously, this game has one of the worst button layouts for an FPS ever.

 

I think there are 12 main missions and a bunch of side mission that seem a bit shallow. They take place in the same levels you played and have objectives like destroy 12 crates.

 

What this game does differently to other FPS, is that there's actual loot. Armor, weapons, trinkets and those are a neat addition. Some you can use immediately, while others you have listed at the end of the mission. Then you have to seelct what you want to keep (inv space is limited) and sell the rest off. The money is then used for upgrading weapons or you character, or even you doggo. There is a pettable dog in this game, the can be made into robodog. Said dog will help you in combat at the press of a button.

After you return from a mission you end up in a hub where you can do all of those upgrades speak with some NPCs and buy/sell weapon to prepare for the next mission.

 

Rating: 6/10 - Could've been so much better, starting with the button layout. Not worth full price imo, but maybe on a decent sale for 20 or less as it gives you both PS4 and PS5 version.

[voodoo_eyes]

Game #2 - Final Fantasy X-2 - Preview

 

 

Developer: Square

Publisher: Square Enix

Genre: RPG

 

 

I only played a handful of Final Fantasy games, most of them were the more recent ones. Some I enjoyed some I didn't ans some were just alright. Curious to see under which this one falls. I'm going to be playing this on PS3 and hopefully will be able to get more hours into this ones than the previous game.

[Vulpine9Tails]

Didn't get as much done for my game 1 as I would have liked:

 

Beyond a Steel Sky

I would probably like this one more had I played the prequel, but since it came out in 1994 and had never heard of it back then due to being a one year old baby at the time, that never happened. It's a bit of a slow start and unfortunately I dropped it just as the story started showing an inkling of intrigue because of how slow it is and I've been too engrossed in Elden Ring. Hope to do better with my second game which I am making Gran Turismo 7 since it came in the mail quicker than I thought it would. I started the beat bop time trial thing that it lets you play while it installs and I am pumped to actually get going on it. 

 

[Arctic Cress]

Game #1 - Atelier Ryza: Ever Darkness & the Secret Hideout

Time played: 5 hours

Trophies: 7/49 (10% - E)

 

My profile has a ton of Atelier games, but I stalled out a while ago back on Atelier Firis. I initially posted a glowing review of what I did play back in KYC 5, but eventually I found the game boring to continue and eventually abandoned it. Then Tecmo Koei and Gust decided to remove the English dub from the series, so I lost my interest in buying any of the rest of the games, since I was already used to the English voices in the games I played. Ryza was the first game that starred a whole new bunch of characters, so it was the perfect place to re-enter the series after skipping three other titles.

 

Atelier Ryza stars the titular character Ryza, a daughter of a farmer who hates working on her family's business, and along with her friends Teo and Lent, plans to go on an adventure and find a new purpose. She meets an alchemist on the mainland and finds that she has an innate talent for alchemy, and plans to use that as her new purpose. So far, I've made it through the first chapter of the game and built a new atelier on the mainland in the second chapter.

 

Like most Atelier games, the gameplay is divided into combat and alchemy systems. The combat system seems like a downgrade from other games - you only control one character in battle at a time, while the AI uses the other characters, and you only have a choice between two 'strategies' that your other characters follow. It's definitely different from other games in the series, and is the reason it took me a while to beat the boss of the first chapter - though that might be because I'm also playing on Hard mode as well. I eventually just made a Bomb and threw it five times in battle to take out most of the enemy's health, since they were weak to fire. Would have been nice to also be able to control Teo there since he also had fire-based skills to make it even easier.

 

However, I really like the new alchemy system. You start with only a few alchemy recipes, and there are the usual books that give you certain other recipes. However, a large amount of items can only be crafted after using enough items in an alchemy recipe. All alchemy recipes are done by filling out a grid - and the different nodes fill in as you use items and increase traits, quality, and other effects. Most recipes also have a node that creates a whole new item, and unlocking that node while synthesizing makes the new item and adds the recipe to the alchemy list. Some recipes even have multiple recipe nodes to unlock, such as the Explosive Uni making a Craft recipe and Ice Caltrops recipe. It's definitely one of the more interesting alchemy systems, much more interesting than what they used in the Arland and Mysterious series. So far, my alchemy level of 18 has not been nearly enough to unlock... a lot of items, but the game is nice enough to track all unmade recipe nodes on the alchemy list and show if you have the necessary alchemy level or not.

 

I'm slightly interested in continuing the game, which is a good thing - I hope that it doesn't suffer the same fate as what happened with my playthrough of Atelier Firis. It remains to be seen, but so far I'll probably get back to this at a later date.

 

Starting completion: 75.07%

Current completion: 74.90%

Difference: -0.17%

 

Didn't do that much in this game so the completion % stays low, and Light Fairytale Episode 1 also took it down a bit (but that won't last too long as it's really short). I think I'll either try Onechanbara or Hades next, I'll see which one I feel like playing later in the week.

[voodoo_eyes]

Game #2 - Final Fantasy X-2 - Final Impressions

 

 

Time played: 3h

Trophies earned: 0/35

 

 

Well no trophies earned in this one, which honestly I'm glad about as I did not enjoy this one.

 

Cutscenes look rpretty good, voice acting is decent enough, the writing I did not like though. Lip sync was also bad, but already expected as much for a PS2 game. In-game the visiuals are passable, again to be expected.

 

My first disappointed came along when I saw that there was a pokemon type thing. Catching or fighting little buggers, etc. that's something I0ve never enjoyed, which is why I also dislike pokemon games as a whole.

 

I've spent some time trying to change the dresssphere thingy. Because I wanted to change "classes" for the characters, but the game didn't let me. I was able to select skill from another class, but I could not find a way to actually set that class as default. Eventually I just got fed up with the whole thing and left things as they were.

I did switch the ATB combat to wait, although again this automatically kept switching to active when I was in combat so that's annother thing that annoyed me.

What put the final nail in the coffin for me, was the random encounters that would happen every 3 seconds. That's like the most annoying thing, wanting to progress through the map, and constantly being interrupted wtih combat.

 

So yeah, game is not for me, personally can't even see the appeal at all, but then agaoin barely got a few hours in.

 

It's a generous 5/10 for me, and have no interest in returning to it.

[voodoo_eyes]

Game #3 - Silent Hill 2 - Preview

Developer: Hijinx Studios

Publisher: Konami

Genre: Survival Horror

 

 

I think everyone knwos by now, that this HD Collection has it's flaws, especially when it comes to performance. I played the 3rd game and enjoyed it, but I also found a workaround for the constant crashing issue fairly early at the time. The controls were a bit of a pain still, even though I think they included an option to disable tank controls.

 

I expect pretty much the same from the second game now, so I'm cautiously optimistic.

 

[Vulpine9Tails]

Game #2 - Gran Turismo 7

 

Simply put, this game is beautiful. Though some interesting gameplay choices were made; the way there's some kind of "story" with the menus and the beat time trials to name a couple. Little disappointed that I can't run Spotify in the background while I race as that's what I normally end up doing to avoid the slightly-more-appealing-than-elevator-music soundtrack that typically gets included in racing games. Unfortunately GT7 has a rather lackluster soundtrack imo other than the mode that includes actual music and so far the only time I played that was when I was waiting for the game to install. I'm definitely not in any rush to finish this one so I'm happy that it at least has a lot of good racing content and feels like a classic GT game. 

[Vulpine9Tails]

I think I'm actually going to drop out of this event. I'm having a really hard time irl right now and I don't have the time or energy to play games the way I want and I'd rather not just ghost the event so I'm letting people know this is where I'm at. Thanks for setting up the event and I hope everyone enjoys their games. 

[voodoo_eyes]

18 hours ago, Vulpine9Tails said:

I think I'm actually going to drop out of this event. I'm having a really hard time irl right now and I don't have the time or energy to play games the way I want and I'd rather not just ghost the event so I'm letting people know this is where I'm at. Thanks for setting up the event and I hope everyone enjoys their games. 

 

Alright, thanks for the heads up. I hope things get better!

 

 

Game #3 - Silent HIll 2 . Final Impressions

 

Time played: between 3-4h

Trophies earned: 1/28

 

 

Managed to get one trophy at the final stretch. I've beaten the 2nd boss and wrapped up the (first?) visit to the hospital.

 

Visually the game is passable, and a lot of it is just covered in fog. Too much fog in my opinion. Items are somewhat tricky to find on the ground, especially bullets and health drinks as they don't stand out that well.

 

The controls are far better than I remember, and the sound design is solid. The camera is still an occasional battle though.

 

As for the gameplay, the 2D controls help a lot. The combat is decent enough, as it kind of auto targets, whichis helpful. There's a lot of entering and exiting rooms, to scavange for items and avoid and kill the monsters. There was an escort section for a short while, but it was easy enough to keep away from enemies during that. You can actually dodge most enemies to be fair, but there is a good amount of ammo should you need it. Melee weapons are also a thing, but so far I've only found 2, one of which you get through story progression.

 

So far I'm enjoying the game, even though I don't particularly care for the story, as it's just weird. Still, it's a 7/10 for me currently.

Edited March 16, 2022 by voodoo_eyes

[voodoo_eyes]

Game #4 - Earthlock Festival of Magic - Preview

 

 

Developer:Snowcastle Games

Publisher: SOEDESCO

Genre: RPG

Price: 24,99 €

 

 

This is the original version of the game, that got fairly poor reviews. They released an updated version of it sometime later, which is supposed to be better.

 

It still looked decent enough from what I saw, which to be fair wasn't very much. It was just now though, that I realised that Soedesco published this, and I don't remember a game of theirs that I'd recommend ?.

 

Well, if that isn't a good starting point.

[Arctic Cress]

Game #2 - Children of Zodiarcs

Time played: 3 hours

Trophies: 10/41 (16% - C)

 

Children of Zodiarcs is an indie strategy RPG made by the company Cardboard Utopia, based in Montreal, Canada. As far as their website says, this is the only game they've created so far. I bought a physical copy of this game on Limited Run Games a while back because it looked interesting enough to play through. So far, after seven story missions and a few skirmishes, that initial look seems to be true.

 

The story of Children of Zodiarcs revolves around a number of orphans who work as a group of thieves, stealing from the nobility and rich men of the city they live in. Through the story I've played through so far, they successfully stole a relic from a noble, ran through the sewers to lose the city guard, and have killed some other bandits and cult members that are also in this city. It seems like a standard plot of characters that are criminals, but doing it for a greater good in the end. I haven't seen that much of the story to really be convinced on it, but there's also small character events in between each mission to help flesh out the characters. There's only been four of them so far, and one was only temporary, so there hasn't been much to explain just yet.

 

The battle system is your standard strategy RPG grid with a slight twist. Each character on the grid, whether it be an ally or an enemy, has a deck of cards that represent attacks and other skills that they can use. As they level up, more cards are unlocked, revealing other attacks they can perform. For example, Nahmi, the main character, uses daggers, and has two melee attacks, a ranged attack, a heal, and a status effect for herself. That's five different cards, and you can choose how many (up to a certain limit for each card) to place in a deck to draw from for the upcoming battle. If that wasn't enough, a degree of randomness is also added with the addition of dice to roll when attacking. The cards have a base damage done by calculating the statistics of each character, but dice is rolled when performing any action, which can bestow other buffs to your characters... or even debuffs, in the case of cursed dice, which can be cast by enemies. These buffs (or the opposite with debuffs) include extra damage, small heals, or even up to being allowed to take another action during that character's turn. There's also a Star result on dice, which gives different buffs due to the card that is being played (for example, one of Nahmi's melee attacks does 10 more damage if you roll a star on one of the dice). It's a pretty interesting battle system, and it always in nice when you can just get out that last damage roll to reduce an enemy's HP to 0. You can reroll two of the dice per turn if you don't like the results you get, so it's easy to get a good result most of the time. Dice can also be customized to add different results when rolling, as you can take one die and copy any of the results on that one onto another die. So you want three chances to get an extra action? No problem!

 

I decided to start my play through on Normal mode to make it easier to try and get the trophy where no character dies throughout the entire game. My mage died twice on the last battle (so I had to reset both times, cleared it on the 3rd try), so it's still proving to be a difficult challenge. The trophy guide recommending playing on hard with no deaths and I looked at that and said 'nope'. I'll run this play through the end and just do it that way instead, as I feel it's much more enjoyable this way!

 

Starting completion: 75.07%

Current completion: 74.91%

Difference: -0.16%

Atelier Ryza: Ever Darkness & the Secret Hideout: 7/49 (10% - E)

 

Completion went slightly up because I did in fact finish Light Fairytale: Episode 1, and finished Act 2 in Trails of Cold Steel II which led to twelve trophies pretty quickly. Nothing else otherwise.

 

That basically eliminates both of the RPGs from the list. I'll probably start Raging Loop next, as I don't have time to concentrate on doing much else at the moment.

[voodoo_eyes]

Game #4 - Earthlock: Festival of Magic - Final Impressions

 

Time played: 3h

Trophies earned: 3/26

 

 

Well this turned out to be worse than I expected. Nothing about the game is broken or anything or unplayable. There are however a lot of poor design choices that were made.

 

This is an andie RPG, that has an isometric view when traversing the overworld and goes to a traditional Turn-based RPG view when in combat. One of the issues is that the camera doesn't really move with the character, so there are times in the overworld, where you can't see where you're going or what's up ahead. That's an issue, because there are enemies on the world map and if you run into them they get the first hit.

 

I've gotten to the point where I got a party of 3 (you start alone), and battles have not been too hard so far. The combat drags out excessively though. Each attack needs a confirmation, then the animations take way too long. Having to skip a turn when switching stances (which you need to do, if you want to use a healing spell, or buff, or defensive or even ranged attacks.

There are also some puzzles and a gardening & crafting mechanic that feel unnecessary, but actually are essential, because you need them to get skills and bullets... which leads again to sucking more of the fun out of the combat.

 

Visually the game looks decent enough, and it has no voice acting.  Where it matters though, which is the combat it's just not good.

Compared to other indie RPGs it's lacking or overcomplicating on every front. All the time I played this I was thinking of rather playing Batle Chasers Nightwar instead.

 

5/10

[voodoo_eyes]

Game #5 - Narcos: Rise of the Cartels - Preview

 

Developer: Kuju

Publisher: Curve Games

Genre: Tactics

Price: 29,99 €

 

I've only watched a couple of episodes of the TV show this is based on, so I couldn't say if it's actually tied to it at all. I do generally like tactics games like X-Com ect., and that's what this is supposed to be as far as I'm aware.

 

This publisher actually tends to release solid indie games (Beholder, Serial Cleaner), so I'm cautiously optimisitc on this game.

Edited March 21, 2022 by voodoo_eyes

[Arctic Cress]

Game #3 - Raging Loop

Time played: 4.5 hours

Trophies: 9/31 (20% - E)

 

Raging Loop is a visual novel made by Dwango Company (their first localized game) and Kemco (who you may know as the publisher of hundreds of mediocre JRPGs on various platforms). It's also localized and published by PQube, and I've played plenty of their games in past KYCs after purchasing a whole bunch of their games in recent years after reading their initial release of Steins;Gate.

 

The main character of Raging Loop is Haruaki Fusaishi, who ends up getting lost in a mountain range at the beginning of the game and stumbles into the village of Yasumizu. The village eventually gets shrouded in mist and the villagers perform the Feast of the Yomi-Purge, which is basically a game of Werewolf/Mafia, if you've ever played that before. There's two or three werewolves that have taken the identity of one of the villagers in the town, and the human villagers must find out which ones have been taken and kill the werewolves before they can overwhelm the remaining villagers. The villagers can kill one person each day period, and the werewolves must kill one person at night. The villagers also have a number of powerful roles in the game, such as the snake, which scans a villager at night to see if they are a werewolf. The game uses a time loop function, and during the first loop Haruaki does not participate in the feast and instead helps out one of the villagers he befriends during that loop. The second loop has him in the game as a full participant. I haven't played Mafia in years but I remember all the rules from when I did play, and this seems like a straight adaptation of the game wrapped in a Japanese mythology background. From what I've read, they aren't the best players at this game, but it can be attributed to the people actually killing each other and knowing each other over the years they lived in the village.

 

So far, the game is on a pretty linear path - I've seen many choices that would possibly lead to other paths, but they're locked with keys. These keys are obtained when you reach a certain ending in the game, and I've received five of them so far - the path I'm currently on required you to choose all three options when talking with a cop, and then going back before meeting him to unlock a different path with the keys received from the three options. However, pretty much all of the choices I've made so far are between "bad end" and "correct choice" so it's not exactly as interactive as I thought it would be when the game was explaining the key system. I still go through all of the bad endings as you get a humorous message from a sheep chastising you for reaching the bad end, but providing a hint on what you screwed up on.

 

Regardless, I've enjoyed what I read of the game so far thanks to the story and characters, as well as how it intertwines Mafia into its setting, so I'll continue to read portions of it on THL breaks and will probably finish it after the current season of THL ends.

 

Starting completion: 75.07%

Current completion: 74.89%

Difference: -0.18%

Atelier Ryza: Ever Darkness & the Secret Hideout: 7/49 (10% - E)

Children of Zodiarcs: 10/41 (16% - C)

 

Despite finally getting the Fall Guys platinum and finishing up Light Fairytale: Episode 2, Raging Loop still took a chunk out of my completion percentage, sending it further down.

 

I've already put the Hades disc in my PS5, so that's probably where I'm headed for the next game to play, and Onechanbara will be the 5th game.