Backlog by the Month Challenge 2023 (Sign-Ups Open!)

Hurricane_Tanya · July 1, 2023

All I managed to finish this month were episodes 1-4 of the Strongbad games. I’ve never watched or seen anything Homestar Runner related before, but I still felt a lot of nostalgia playing the games. It reminded me of using the internet as a kid to find crappy flash cartoons, I usually stuck to weebl’s stuff. Other than the nostalgia though, the characters are weird, but I found the game premise to be charming. A lot of the plots revolve around the characters playing around, so they’ll make monsters out of cardboard, but take the fight really seriously. Made me think of the South Park games, which does the same thing with a better budget and gameplay loop.

I did put a lot of time into Catherine: Full Body, but I definitely need to make it a priority if I’m going to get good enough to get all golds in the story levels, or good enough to even attempt Babel runs

StraightVege · July 1, 2023

14 hours ago, HollowCalamity said:

Axiom Verge [June 17th] – A great indie metroidvania! Had a lot of fun piecing together the map and uncovering the story. Loved the general art direction with the weird biomechanical aesthetic. Gameplay is simple and not too challenging, but still engaging. You play as a scientist mysteriously transported to a strange world after an experiment goes wrong, and things only get weirder from there. I've heard incredible things about this title for years but only now got a chance to play it. I do recommend it if you like games focused around exploration, or enjoy the visual look.

Sounds really cool. Haven't played this one just yet, but I'm eager to try the "free" sequel as one of my July games. Apparently, knowledge of the original isn't necessary to enjoy it, so we'll see. Metroidvanias are my favorite sub-genre of action game by far.

I return with another wall of text to talk about Stray, having completed it in basically one sitting recently. Forgive me, but I enjoy summarizing my experience with games too much, so I gotta get it out of my system!

My attitude towards this hit game has really vacillated since I first became aware of it so long ago. Initially, I was under the impression that it would turn out to be a sort of tongue-in-cheek cat simulator, with gameplay and tone similar to one of my all-time favorite niche titles, Tokyo Jungle. When I noticed the final product had more in common with bland puzzle-platformers, I basically lost interest, until its upcoming departure from PlayStation Plus in July finally convinced me to give it a whirl while I had the opportunity. Although it may not have ended up exactly how I expected, the nature of navigating Stray's post-human, cyberpunk setting as a lost cat creates a uniquely strange vibe that I found kind of captivating. The atmosphere is truly immaculate.

Seemingly taking place long after humanity's extinction (or damn near it), an unfortunate jumping accident results in your orange tabby self being separated from your feline family, causing you to tumble deep into a futuristic subterranean city, populated by charming robots who forever mimic the behavior of their deceased human creators. Once, this slum reminiscent of Blade Runner was where the wealthy people in Midtown above carelessly discarded their endless refuse onto its poor denizens, who lacked the means to live among the upper class.

Eventually, the world's garbage grew into such a massive problem that an unethical waste management corporation attempted to use bioengineered bacteria to consume the trash, which later evolved into the game's main enemy, the Zurks. They're basically potato-sized, insect-like creatures that swiftly swarm over everything edible in sight to devour it, including our furry protagonist. Almost cute, if they weren't trying to kill you. Assumedly, the city had to be locked down tight to contain the plague, but as for why humanity retreated to these walled cities in the first place, that's not clear to me.

Tragically, nothing but a society of sentient machines still remains, hiding from the Zurks in perpetuity. To reunite with their worried feline compadres and free the robots from this sad state of affairs, the cat needs to somehow reopen the city's blast doors for escape, simultaneously letting in sunlight to exterminate the ravenous scourge of giant bacteria (they don't fare well in the light, as you might imagine). That's an awfully big ask for a wayward kitty who likely just wants to take a nap, but thankfully, they aren't alone in this overwhelming quest, as they soon encounter a personable flying drone called B-12, who proceeds to accompany them for the remainder.

A smart little fella who speaks in robotic gibberish like a Banjo-Kazooie character, B-12 can interact with the environment in ways the cat obviously cannot, and they're capable of communicating with the multitude of other robots taking residence here. During their travels together through the slums and beyond, memory collectibles can be found, helping B-12 recall facts about the past, and the truth of their own identity. The story's class consciousness and existentialist elements are right up my alley, so it had no trouble holding my attention. Stray is never boring, which is more than I can say for countless games out there, particularly in the AAA domain. If I never play another Ass Creed clone, it'll be too soon.

In order to take the game seriously, however, I basically had no choice but to create my own headcanon about the cat being a super-intelligent outlier—the Isaac Newton of felines, if you will. I mean, I've met some absurdly smart cats (and animals in general) over the years, don't get me wrong, but this is quite a stretch! Please forgive my juvenile sense of humor, but I also found it rather amusing that they didn't model an anus onto the cat, presumably because they didn't want the player staring at a cat's butt for five hours straight. How unrealistic! I, for one, have always held the position that all cats should be provided with little pairs of shorts, like the monkeys in Ape Escape, so they don't have to live such immodest lives. Alright, I have spoken enough on the matter of cat butts.

The majority of your playtime in Walled City 99 is spent traversing various urban districts, using a point-to-point button prompt for jumping. Most visible objects can be effortlessly leapt to, simply by aiming the camera at them and pressing X. Usually, I dislike risk-free platforming that holds your hand, but this system works pretty well, feeling accurate to how a cat would maneuver around such environs. Occasionally, you'll jump to something you didn't intend to, but this didn't occur frequently enough to irritate me. You almost begin to look at the world in the manner a cat would: every last AC unit, pipe, girder, and window ledge becomes a possible foothold, and it has a nice flow. The level design and lighting cleverly lead you towards objectives, too, something I always love to see. There's no map feature available, yet I never really felt lost.

Between the constant platforming, physics puzzles, and adventure-gamey item fetching to assist the machine citizenry, you'll often need to elude hordes of Zurks in chase sequences that are legitimately exhilarating. You'll serpentine frantically, as the starving little animals try to latch onto you by the dozens, and as cliché as this is to say, Stray really makes you feel like ~~Batman~~ a cat! Later on, B-12 even gets equipped with a weaponized flashlight to defeat the Zurks, which I barely used, since evasion is already effective enough. This is short-lived, fortunately, and you soon encounter a new enemy type, necessitating stealth to survive. While these sneaking sections admittedly aren't anything to write home about, at least the game knows when to switch things up for freshness' sake.

Considering the open ending and popularity of Stray, an eventual sequel wouldn't surprise anybody, and seeing as it won me over after all, I'd definitely be up for another. A very interesting game indeed! While it didn't blow my mind or anything, I can nevertheless see why it was so successful, and I'm ultimately glad I played it. Happy to have gotten this game finished before it leaves the PS+ catalog next month, and the platinum can be achieved in a single play session, since it's fairly short (just under 9 hours for me; did two playthroughs). Don't let this one slip by.

Think I'll go for Omno next!

-Completed-

1. Dreaming Sarah - January 9th (+1.0)

2. Streets of Rage 4: Mr X. Nightmare - January 10th (+0.5)

3. Afterparty - January 13th (+0.5)

4. Mortal Shell: The Virtuous Cycle - January 21st (+0.5)

5. Gunlord X - January 25th (+0.5)

6. GreedFall - February 6th (+1.0)

7. Duke Nukem 3D: 20th Anniversary World Tour - February 8th (+0.5)

8. Shu - February 23rd (+0.5)

9. Psychonauts 2 - March 4th (+1.0)

10. Habroxia 2 - March 8th (+0.5)

11. Two Crude - March 10th (+0.5)

12. The Outer Worlds - April 2nd (+1.0)

13. Skautfold: Shrouded in Sanity - April 4th (+0.5)

14. Valley - April 6th (+0.5)

15. Jydge - April 25th (+0.5)

16. Superhot - May 1st (+1.0)

17. Superhot: Mind Control Delete - May 5th (+0.5)

18. AER: Memories of Old - May 5th (+0.5)

19. Little Nightmares - May 7th (+0.5)

20. Little Nightmares II - May 9th (+0.5)

21. Amnesia: Rebirth - May 14th (+0.5)

22. Ghost of a Tale - May 18th (+0.5)

23. The Persistence - May 27th (+0.5)

24. PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale: Fearless - June 1st (+1.0)

25. Mafia: Definitive Edition - June 2nd (+0.5)

26. The First Tree - June 5th (+0.5)

27. Trek to Yomi - June 11th (+0.5)

28. The Forgotten City - June 17th (+0.5)

29. Chicken Police - June 18th (+0.5)

30. The Gardens Between - June 27th (+0.5)

31. Tacoma - June 27th (+0.5)

32. Stray - June 29th - (+0.5)

Points: 19.0

Backlog:

1. Axiom Verge 2

2. Castlevania Requiem: Symphony of the Night & Rondo of Blood

3. Dead Cells

4. Death's Door

5. Ender Lillies: Quietus of the Knights

6. Ghosts 'n Goblins: Resurrection

7. I Am Dead

8. Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning

9. Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom

10. Moonscars

11. Omno

12. Resident Evil 3

13. Resident Evil 7

14. Rising Hell

15. Rogue Legacy 2

16. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

17. Tails of Iron

18. The Last Guardian

19. Xeodrifter

Edited July 1, 2023 by StraightVege

BlazzingWind · July 2, 2023

I am trying to think through the idea of point modifiers for the next incarnation of the event as I agree with StraightVege that any rules should be firmly set before using them during said event. I value everyone's feedback!

With it almost the 4th, work has ramped up again. I will try to post an update tonight/tomorrow but it might not be until the 5th that I can make time for the post.

I hope everyone is looking forward to the holiday and happy start to July!

Darling Baphomet · July 2, 2023

On 6/26/2023 at 2:41 AM, StraightVege said:

Uh-oh; I was kinda interested in it until reading this. And you're not exaggerating, as I've indeed heard those infuriating words numerous times over the years, particularly regarding the limitations social anxiety imposed on my life. Eventually, I took to replying with an imperfect, yet effective analogy—"you may as well be telling a paralyzed man to just stand up out of his wheelchair. If it were really that simple, I'd have done it long ago." Disappointing that the game swings and misses in such an unfortunate manner.

Didn't Jesus do something of the sort? Maybe there wasn't enough spit involved. But yeah, it's all in all very disheartening. It strikes me as one of those games supposedly about mental illness which actually end up being about other people's feelings about mental illness, resulting in rather dehumanizing interpretations where people must be fixed. Ghost Giant wasn't anywhere near as bad, but I had some similar distaste about that game given that it essentially was about this kid dealing with his mother being neglectful because of depression - but at least there's a legitimate child neglect angle in that game and how debilitating mental health issues don't mix well with being responsible for other people is definitely something worth exploring (but perhaps with more discernment.) Shady Part of Me, on the other hand, discarded any association with real world issues to distill its story down to pure bullshit.

Glad you enjoyed the Forgotten City - it's been in my backlog for ages and I might actually finally get to trying it soon - apparently I downloaded it off PS+ Extra at some point, so I have no reason not to (besides my absolutely fucking massive collection of games). I'd heard some criticisms that the story of the game had some rather milquetoast politics - something like needing to wait for the inevitable march of progress or a similarly moderate concept - so it's reassuring that you apparently had no such similar qualms.

Anyway, big update! Finished Super Daryl Deluxe and Two Point Campus. Super Daryl Deluxe was a very interesting rpg / beat em up / metroidvania with a bizarre atmosphere and eccentric setting. I haven't watched Napoleon Dynamite myself (I remember very brief snippets from when I was very young), but apparently the game takes after it a bit, which I can believe given the main character's ridiculous getup and slack jawed expression when he's idle and not beating the shit out of bats to collect their poop. The game has a rather sadistic sense of humor, and the world is legitimately bizarre - and yet it manages to be a bit subtle and mundane about it. It's not in your face random (for the most part); you start off by doing some dirty work for two aspiring textbook peddlers (I'm going to assume this is the equivalent of dealing drugs at this school), immediately venturing into an off limits part of the campus where reality fades into bizzarity and you're platforming between floating islands. This is not explained whatsoever, and as such I was left wondering if my character was simply delusional or daydreaming, as the game does start with a daydreaming sequence. The combat is good, being skill based and having several dozen skills to choose from, from rubber ducky arrows to hurling poison daggers at enemies to firing a massive laser cannon. Each skill can be upgraded and most have at least one upgrade tier that significantly changes how they function and even the animation, with some late game skills having your character play out the animation in a bizarre getup, e.g. a thunder god looking thing for the lightning skill. It's fun and beating the shit out of various enemies is satisfying, even when you're just grinding out exp or money.

Remember when I said it had a sadistic sense of humor? Yeah. Those two dollar store crooks at one point send you on a side quest to give flowers to a person with a severe allergy to them (for the second time in the game), and there's a trophy for killing him by making sure to remove his inhaler when you do this quest. Afterwards, there are gifts and a picture of him piled in front of his locker in memorial of him. You also unavoidably kill a sad old gardener's pet rat because it's in your path and you cannot jump yet (I initially attempted to reload to see if I could avoid this), and then the icing on the cake is that you get a side quest to bury that pet rat for her. Then through the course of the game it is possible to kill two more of her pets to receive identical quests to bury them. It is very edgy. Between that and some other questionable jokes I had assumed that the games' creators might lean right, although the journal (which describes the events in the game in a humorous, often in denial fashion) openly mocks a certain political party so I will assume it's more like a South-Park-If-It-Were-Actually-Centrist situation. Either way the game does manage to be genuinely interesting (I was actually engaged with the lore, believe it or not) and funny even if it does occasionally venture into the distasteful or overdo it. It's a weird game overall, and one that I won't forget anytime soon.

Next up is Two Point Campus! This game is very similar to Two Point Hospital, but also very different. (How descriptive.) The biggest difference is that it takes place on... well, a campus. Whereas Two Point Hospital functioned as essentially an assembly line where you were constantly trying to balance making sure that you were dealing with every stage of treatment and diagnosis as efficiently as possible while also making sure not to overexpand so as to flood your hospital with new patients, Two Point Campus is slow and gradual. Not only will you not get flooded with new students in the way you would with patients in TP Hospital, but you can't, even if you want to. Expansion in the game generally takes place in a one year cycle. Every year, new students arrive based on your courses and how much you've upgraded them, and based on the influx of students you'll have to hire new employees and build a certain number of classrooms. Then you start the year, and if you've got nothing you want to build on the side... well, hit that mf fast forward button and go do something else. Personally, I've elected to play Pokemon Sword - I'm quite enjoying it, dexit aside. Students will request specific items around the campus for assignments and personal goals, be they things like hot dog stands or new items in classrooms, throughout the year, which does keep you somewhat engaged, however you can safely ignore these and address them in bulk every few months, and personal goals can be ignored altogether unless you need to keep your students' happiness up. Still, this does tie into two major improvements in Two Point Campus - for one thing, decorative items actually have a purpose! Certain posters help students finish assignments, and since your students actually live on campus, you want to make sure they're eating, showering, gaming, and shitting good. In Two Point Hospital, you really just wanted to shuffle patients through your hospital as fast as possible - I actually stopped putting down seating altogether because it slowed down the rates at which patients would go to appointments - but in Two Point Campus, classes are not always running, and if you fail to take care of your students' needs, well... you'll actually have to deal with the fallout, given that those students will be with you for at least two years (the length of the shortest classes.)

With that said, while I may make Two Point Campus sound easy, it's important to note that Two Point Hospital was also easily trivialized as well. The trick to Two Point Hospital was simply to raise all your treatment prices (and I also elected to raise the price of the more expensive diagnoses), which would lower your patients' happiness, and thus your reputation, causing patient intake to slow down to a trickle while you get paid double for every treatment and can expand at your leisure. Two Point Campus is not as easily exploited, although I did get to the point about midgame where my campuses were running essentially flawlessly - I finished the game with only three student drop outs of the fifty I needed for a trophy - and did not present all that much challenge. I don't know if I'd say Campus is an objective upgrade to two Point Hospital - it certainly has a litany of improvements, for instance the fact that you are no longer limited by bizarre hospital shapes as you can simply build your own buildings from the ground up, in any shape you want (read: massive rectangles that take up every inch of space) - and it's more of a true simulation game, whereas Two Point Hospital reminded me more of games like Big Pharma in terms of how gameplay flowed... but it's also a lot slower, too, and as such does get a bit boring at times.

Also, as an aside, Two Point Campus is a good example of why I scoff at people constantly demanding "true next gen" titles. While Two Point Campus was initially impressive with its high resolution visuals, it immediately became a lot less impressive as I realized that in essentially every level, once you get past the first year or two your game will constantly be running with horrific frame drops which only get worse as you expand further. Two Point Hospital may have very clearly been a PS4 game, with its quaint 1080p blurriness, but on my PS5 it actually ran smooth save for the largest hospitals, whereas I would say I spent probably at least 2/3 of this game with stuttering. It's a simulation game, so it's not exactly debilitating, but it's still extremely annoying and I would gladly have taken a massive visual downgrade over playing at this horrendously unstable framerate. You can argue that this is just this particular game being unoptimized, but that's kind of the problem - most games outside of low budget indies aren't all that well optimized, and so you either end up with inconsistent framerates or massive drops in resolution to make games run on current gen hardware. Even Playstation exclusives suffer from this, e.g. HFW's performance mode initially looking arguably worse than HZD played on PS5. (It did later get patched to look a lot better, although it also abuses sharpening, which is a modern trend in gaming I very much dislike.) Personally, I'd just like to play games that run good, next gen rat physics be damned.

Besides that, made significant progress in Cozy Grove and Far Cry 6. Got my first few bears ascended (finished all their story quests) and am working on some late game badges. Also finished playing the campaign in FC6 with my co-op buddy and as such I can start trophy hunting proper. FC6 is going to take at least three weeks as I need to complete three insurgency campaigns, and the first one seems to be glitched for me, so we're off to a fantastic start.

Anyway, time to make some new additions! I bought Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion on sale, having not looked at the trophy list, and unfortunately it's... a very high rarity, and it'd be a bit hypocritical after having suggested that games well below its rarity be disqualified, so I guess I'll play that on my own time. Doesn't seem like it'll take long, anyway. In lieu of that I will add Bug Fables (GameFly shipped me this game instead of the Pokemon game I wanted so I figure I'll wrap this up quick and send it back), and as I need something mellow to play while I play the Pokemon game I *do* own I believe I will add... Evil Genius 2: World Domination to my list.

Backlog Games:

Spoiler

IN PROGRESS

Shadow Point - 13%
Lucky's Tale - 12%
Along Together - 34%
After The Fall - 45%
The Sims 4 - 17%
Fracked - 27%
Far Cry 6 - 23%
World War Z: Aftermath - 20%
OhShape - 27%
Resident Evil 2 - 29%
Bravo Team - 20%
Cozy Grove - 72%
Seum - 15%
Sackboy's Big Adventure - 17%
Trackmania - 10%

FINISHED

(January) Moss - 100%

(January) Serious Sam 4 - 100%

(January) Serious Sam Collection - 100%

(February) Manifold Garden - 100%

(February) Spongebob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom - 100%

(February) Stray - 100%

(February) BoxVR - 100%

(February) Cat Quest - 100%

(March) Cat Quest 2 - 100%

(March) GRID - 71%

(March) Prodeus - 100%

(March) Mundaun - 100%

(March) Creed: Rise to Glory - 100%

(March) Evil Dead: The Game - 100%

(March) Mythic Ocean - 100%

(April) Chromagun VR - 100%

(April) Grid Legends - 57%

(April) Rainbow Billy: The Curse of the Leviathan - 100%

(April) Paradise Killer - 100%

(April) Ghost of Tsushima - 64%

(April) Foreclosed - 100%

(April) Q.U.B.E. 2 - 100%

(April) Star Renegades - 100%

(May) Fashion Police Squad - 100%

(May) Megaquarium - 100%

(May) Psychonauts 2 - 100%

(May) Pyre - 100%

(May) Nightmare Reaper - 100%

(June) Hero Land - 100%

(June) Two Point Hospital - 81%

(June) Shady Part Of Me - 100%

(June) Warhammer 40000: Boltgun - 100%

(June) Super Daryl Deluxe - 100%

(July) Two Point Campus - 95%

January: Moss + Serious Sam 4 + Serious Sam Collection = 2

February: Manifold Garden + Spongebob Squarepants + Stray + BoxVR + Cat Quest = 3

March: Cat Quest 2 + GRID + Prodeus + Mundaun + Creed: Rise to Glory + Evil Dead: The Game + Mythic Ocean = 4

April: Chromagun VR + Grid Legends + Rainbow Billy: Curse of the Leviathan + Paradise Killer + Ghost of Tsushima + Foreclosed + QUBE 2 + Star Renegades = 4.5

May: Fashion Police Squad + Megaquarium + Psychonauts 2 + Pyre + Nightmare Reaper = 3

June: Hero Land + Two Point Hospital + Shady Part Of Me + Warhammer 40000: Boltgun + Super Daryl Deluxe = 3

July: Two Point Campus = 1

POINTS: 20.5

NOT STARTED

Curse of the Dead Gods - 21%
Pixel Ripped 1995 - 10%
Forgotton Anne - 8%
Groundhog Day: like father like son - 0%
Holy Potatoes! A Weapon Shop?! - 0%
KeyWe - 0%
Iris.Fall - 0%
Time Carnage - 0%
Neon City Riders - 0%
Paper Beast - 3%
Silence - 0%
Spiritfarer - 0%
Subnautica - 13%
Table of Tales: The Crooked Crown - 0%
The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners - 11%
The Town of Light - 0%
XING: The Land Beyond - 0%
Felix The Reaper - 4%
Falcon Age - 28%
Wanderer - 0%
The Walking Dead Onslaught - 0%
BPM: Bullets Per Minute - 0%
Sniper Elite VR - 1%
Return of the Obra Dinn - 0%
Fortnite - 57%
Mass Effect Andromeda - 78%
Wolfenstein: The New Order - 60%
Tiny Metal - 46%
Killing Floor: Incursion - 34%
Wolfenstein: Cyberpilot - 43%
Overcooked! All You Can Eat - 32%
Train Station Simulator - 0%
Road 96 - 0%
Bug Fables - 0%
Evil Genius 2: World Domination - 27%

Edited July 2, 2023 by Darling Baphomet

be_minor · July 2, 2023

Belated June update to say I finished TLoU Part 1 and spent most of the month playing Diablo IV. I’ve never played a Diablo game before, so I don’t know how this iteration measures up to the rest, but I’m utterly enthralled by the grind. I made a couple of characters I switch between (werebear and necro) and a few I’ve discarded before making any significant progress. I likely won’t 100% this game any time soon but plan to before the end of the year. Not adding anything new and planning to revamp the list in August.

Spoiler

Completed

(JAN) Cult of the Lamb
(JAN) Bugsnax
(JAN) Pinball Heroes
(FEB) Saints Row: The Third
(MAR) Hogwarts Legacy
(MAR) Bunny Raiders
(MAR) Dysmantle
(MAR) Ape Escape
(MAR) Biomutant
(APR) The Artful Escape
(APR) Omno
(MAY) Horizon Forbidden West [DLC]
(MAY) Yet Another Zombie Defense HD
(MAY) Back 4 Blood
(MAY) Life Is Strange: True Colors
(MAY) Deliver Us The Moon
(JUN) The Last of Us Part 1

Backlog

Afterparty
Chernobylite
Child of Light
Control: Ultimate Edition
Cthulhu Saves Christmas
Cyberpunk 2077
Dark Souls Remastered
Deathloop
Diablo IV - 52%
Dishonored 2 - 18%
Dragon Age: Inquisition
Dragon Age Origins - 73% (DLC)
Elden Ring
Final Fantasy VII - 2%
God of War Ragnarok
Gravity Rush Remastered - 4%
Hades
Holy Potatoes! A Weapon Shop?!
I Am Dead
inFamous - 24%
Last Stop
LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham
Life Is Strange 2
Mass Effect: Andromeda - 87%
My Big Sister
Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom - 61%
Nobody Saves The World
Party Hard
Sakuna: Of Rice And Ruin
Spirit of the North: Enhanced Edition
Spiritfarer
Spongebob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom - Rehydrated
The Order: 1886
The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct
TOEM

Points: 11.5

StraightVege · July 3, 2023

On 7/2/2023 at 0:47 PM, BlazzingWind said:

I am trying to think through the idea of point modifiers for the next incarnation of the event as I agree with StraightVege that any rules should be firmly set before using them during said event. I value everyone's feedback!

Sounds good to me, man! Glad to hear you're planning on continuing the event next year.

On 7/2/2023 at 2:35 PM, Darling Baphomet said:

Didn't Jesus do something of the sort? Maybe there wasn't enough spit involved. But yeah, it's all in all very disheartening. It strikes me as one of those games supposedly about mental illness which actually end up being about other people's feelings about mental illness, resulting in rather dehumanizing interpretations where people must be fixed. Ghost Giant wasn't anywhere near as bad, but I had some similar distaste about that game given that it essentially was about this kid dealing with his mother being neglectful because of depression - but at least there's a legitimate child neglect angle in that game and how debilitating mental health issues don't mix well with being responsible for other people is definitely something worth exploring (but perhaps with more discernment.) Shady Part of Me, on the other hand, discarded any association with real world issues to distill its story down to pure bullshit.

Glad you enjoyed the Forgotten City - it's been in my backlog for ages and I might actually finally get to trying it soon - apparently I downloaded it off PS+ Extra at some point, so I have no reason not to (besides my absolutely fucking massive collection of games). I'd heard some criticisms that the story of the game had some rather milquetoast politics - something like needing to wait for the inevitable march of progress or a similarly moderate concept - so it's reassuring that you apparently had no such similar qualms.

? Well, based on this scathing paragraph and your previous review, I'm quite glad I didn't bother now. You saved me five bucks, and more importantly, time, which I can spend playing something worthwhile.

Regarding The Forgotten City, that's certainly possible—after all, I'm not exactly Noah Caldwell-Gervais when it comes to deep analysis of video games. Not really equipped for that, I'm afraid. Actually, I suspect that I overlook or misinterpret stuff a fair bit, but I still love writing about my experiences with games so darn much, it makes me sick. Eager to hear your thoughts on it, provided that you decide to go through with playing it, of course.

As planned, I finished Omno today. Surprisingly good and very touching, but I'll hold off on talking about it until after I beat Axiom Verge 2 sometime soon. Might as well cover them both in a single post. I'll return tomorrow to read any recent posts in detail, when my reputation has recharged. For now, here's my little completed games update:

-Completed-

1. Dreaming Sarah - January 9th (+1.0)

2. Streets of Rage 4: Mr X. Nightmare - January 10th (+0.5)

3. Afterparty - January 13th (+0.5)

4. Mortal Shell: The Virtuous Cycle - January 21st (+0.5)

5. Gunlord X - January 25th (+0.5)

6. GreedFall - February 6th (+1.0)

7. Duke Nukem 3D: 20th Anniversary World Tour - February 8th (+0.5)

8. Shu - February 23rd (+0.5)

9. Psychonauts 2 - March 4th (+1.0)

10. Habroxia 2 - March 8th (+0.5)

11. Two Crude - March 10th (+0.5)

12. The Outer Worlds - April 2nd (+1.0)

13. Skautfold: Shrouded in Sanity - April 4th (+0.5)

14. Valley - April 6th (+0.5)

15. Jydge - April 25th (+0.5)

16. Superhot - May 1st (+1.0)

17. Superhot: Mind Control Delete - May 5th (+0.5)

18. AER: Memories of Old - May 5th (+0.5)

19. Little Nightmares - May 7th (+0.5)

20. Little Nightmares II - May 9th (+0.5)

21. Amnesia: Rebirth - May 14th (+0.5)

22. Ghost of a Tale - May 18th (+0.5)

23. The Persistence - May 27th (+0.5)

24. PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale: Fearless - June 1st (+1.0)

25. Mafia: Definitive Edition - June 2nd (+0.5)

26. The First Tree - June 5th (+0.5)

27. Trek to Yomi - June 11th (+0.5)

28. The Forgotten City - June 17th (+0.5)

29. Chicken Police - June 18th (+0.5)

30. The Gardens Between - June 27th (+0.5)

31. Tacoma - June 27th (+0.5)

32. Stray - June 29th (+0.5)

33. Omno - July 2nd (+1.0)

34. Axiom Verge 2 - July 3rd (+0.5)

Points: 20.5

Edited July 4, 2023 by StraightVege
July 3rd update: completed Axiom Verge 2.

Hurricane_Tanya · July 3, 2023

8 hours ago, Darling Baphomet said:

Anyway, time to make some new additions! I bought Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion on sale, having not looked at the trophy list, and unfortunately it's... a very high rarity, and it'd be a bit hypocritical after having suggested that games well below its rarity be disqualified

I don’t think that high rarity games should be disqualified, there are a lot of legitimate and fun games that wouldn’t count for the event if that happened. Looking at my profile, I can see Unpacking has a percentage of 85% for example. I am a fan of setting a completion time limit like other events though, the 50th fastest achiever for Turnip Boy is over 4 hours and the fastest is over an hour. It would count for most other events, it’s also definitely not shovelware, I even died a few times going for the last couple trophies.

I hope you still enjoy the game, whether you decide to add it to your list or not

HollowCalamity · July 3, 2023

26 minutes ago, Hurricane_Tanya said:

I don’t think that high rarity games should be disqualified, there are a lot of legitimate and fun games that wouldn’t count for the event if that happened. Looking at my profile, I can see Unpacking has a percentage of 85% for example. I am a fan of setting a completion time limit like other events though, the 50th fastest achiever for Turnip Boy is over 4 hours and the fastest is over an hour. It would count for most other events, it’s also definitely not shovelware, I even died a few times going for the last couple trophies.

I hope you still enjoy the game, whether you decide to add it to your list or not

To me, completion time makes way more sense as a metric since a lot of platinum rarities are already skewed on this site. Look at stacks like Persona 5 Royal, or Spider-Man – both of which are approaching 50% completion, yet nobody would say they don't "count." I think using completion time is a great way to weight games for future iterations of the event. Just my opinion, though.

Darling Baphomet · July 3, 2023

1 hour ago, Hurricane_Tanya said:

I don’t think that high rarity games should be disqualified, there are a lot of legitimate and fun games that wouldn’t count for the event if that happened. Looking at my profile, I can see Unpacking has a percentage of 85% for example. I am a fan of setting a completion time limit like other events though, the 50th fastest achiever for Turnip Boy is over 4 hours and the fastest is over an hour. It would count for most other events, it’s also definitely not shovelware, I even died a few times going for the last couple trophies.

I hope you still enjoy the game, whether you decide to add it to your list or not

The problem with a completion time limit is that there are plenty of games where that is a completely useless metric, e.g. indie games with under 50 owners on the site. And on the other hand, if a game has too many owners, all you'll get is the speedrun times in the top 50. Also worth noting that the 50th fastest time for the NA version is 3 hours and 3 minutes, which is... not particularly daunting.

While some legitimate games will inevitably get swept away if you do exclusions based on rarities, I think it's necessary as ultimately otherwise any tryhard can dominate the competition by playing <4 hour games, regardless of how legitimate they are. We've been lucky with there only being good faith players thus far (as far as I can tell), but it would be very easy to someone to dominate the competition by abusing easy platinums, even if they are actual several hour long games and not just shovelware. Maybe a good compromise would be only allowing a certain ratio of games deemed too high rarity to 'normal' games to prevent spam? Though they should probably still have their points reduced too.

47 minutes ago, HollowCalamity said:

To me, completion time makes way more sense as a metric since a lot of platinum rarities are already skewed on this site. Look at stacks like Persona 5 Royal, or Spider-Man – both of which are approaching 50% completion, yet nobody would say they don't "count." I think using completion time is a great way to weight games for future iterations of the event. Just my opinion, though.

Rarity's definitely not an incredibly precise metric, hence why I don't think games should be precisely adjusted for rarity the way some more competitive events have done, but it is the best one. IMO the best way to go is to disadvantage both ultra rare spamming and easy plat spamming to encourage people to just play games normally. But at a certain point you do want to disqualify games altogether because even if you set 80+% games to something miniscule like 0.05 points, if you're playing 1 hour long games you could still reasonably earn 10+ points a month just doing that, which is quite ridiculous.

Also 50% is well within the "reasonably difficult" range. I would only disqualify games above 75-80%, personally, as I've found most of those games are only a few hours long at most and those are just too easy to abuse in a competitive setting. Or set a minimum ratio for more reasonable rarity games to super high rarity games.

BlazzingWind · July 5, 2023

On 7/2/2023 at 4:35 PM, Darling Baphomet said:

Anyway, time to make some new additions! I bought Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion on sale, having not looked at the trophy list, and unfortunately it's... a very high rarity, and it'd be a bit hypocritical after having suggested that games well below its rarity be disqualified, so I guess I'll play that on my own time. Doesn't seem like it'll take long, anyway. In lieu of that I will add Bug Fables (GameFly shipped me this game instead of the Pokemon game I wanted so I figure I'll wrap this up quick and send it back), and as I need something mellow to play while I play the Pokemon game I *do* own I believe I will add... Evil Genius 2: World Domination to my list.

I do not believe that rarity should be an indicator of 'what should and shouldn't' be part of this event. It could be used to determine if a game is worth more than another one, however, for this current event we are just talking games in general. So if you want to include Turnip Boy, then that is okay, by all means go ahead.

The problem with deciding what can and can't be in this event revolves around the elusive nature of what makes a backlog a backlog. People will collect easy/quick games for a multitude of reasons and disqualifying those games based on how fast they can be completed doesn't sit well with me. But at the same time, if a game can be completed in less than 5 hours, I don't believe that the game is really a backlog game either. The other problem falls on the fact, that even if these games ARE in the backlog, the point system as it is right now overly awards finishing these quick games. It is a situation that, thankfully has not really shown up, but that I should have taken into consideration with the point values we are using.

I think in the future, there needs to be a limit on how many sub <5 hour completions can be in the event, as well as a rebalanced point system that doesn't leave those that choose to play long games in the dust in term of points. But for now, I just hope everyone is enjoying themselves as we move into the meat of Summer. And please remember, while discussing possible rules for future versions of the event, nothing has been changed as of now. It does not matter the rarity of said game, please just have fun.

With that said: The Leaderboards have been updated as of 06/30/2023

@KillerUni12 18.00 points ---> 20.50 points

@Darling Baphomet 17.50 points ---> 19.50 points

@StraightVege 16.50 points ---> 19.00 points

@Crancian 15.00 points ---> @Hurricane_Tanya 16.00 points

As we enter the heat of July, we have Killer holding a small lead on Darling, but that can easily change with just a small jump on eithers part. StraightVege is creeping ever closer to overtaking Darling and has created a comfortable gap between 3rd and 4th place on the leaderboard! Hurricane has managed to leapfrog Crancian, but the lead is a slim one!

It is great to see that the individual points have started to break the 20 point mark! That is almost 13 games completed for everyone and only half-way through the event

As a reminder: August is the last month to be able to change your list. So please start thinking on if you would like to change anything about your individual backlogs as they are listed on the first page. With it being in August, you will need a minimum of 5 games to close out the event. More to come later!

Edited July 5, 2023 by BlazzingWind

BlazzingWind · July 5, 2023

And I think I have put this off for long enough - Review Time:

Final Fantasy IV - This is my 3rd? most played Final Fantasy, and I absolutely enjoy it. However, the story does tend to weaken considerably in the final act of the game. With a story rife with betrayal, redemption, and moon people; what's not to love? While not the longest game, getting everything done will take up plenty of your time, as will the RNG luck needed to get the summon items/pink tail. Overall, FF4 hits all the notes that I enjoy about the series but doesn't really offer anything new.

Final Fantasy V - It...is hard to think of a proper review for this game. When I first tried playing it, I gave up after the first act as the difficulty ramps up sharply and it stopped being fun. This time around, perseverance paid off and I was able to add this to the completed pile. This Final Fantasy takes a different approach where the crystals that govern the health of the world begin to shatter. The four characters; a wanderer, an amnesiac old man, a princess, a manly girl pirate (yes that is an accurate description) set out to try to stop them shattering. Along the way, the player finds that the amnesiac (and the wanderer's father + two others) arrived to this world on a meteorite 30 some years ago making them aliens...but not quite. The world was split in two in order to seal an all consuming force known as The Void in an area between the two halves of the world. The main villian, Exdeath - who apparently is a tree made sentient by being inhabited by evil souls, wants to converge the worlds to gain access to The Void and destroy everything. There is a lot to unpack on a story that is mostly just splatstick humor and gags, but there is nothing wrong with that. It is an easy-going narrative after a grim story of 4 and it is followed by an even darker story for 6.

While the characters and the humor can get grating at times, the game is a pretty solid redefining of the job system first introduced in 3 but that is pretty much the only change that was given to this game. Otherwise it follows the tried and true method of the first 4 games, although with a way wackier storyline.

Final Fantasy VI - Where to actually start with this game...? I do not like this game at all, and I have trouble pinpointing exactly why. I know that this game is supposed to be the 'best' of the classic games, but I just can't see it. The game is the first in the series to take 'agility' as an actual component in battle, thus making your atb gauge fill up incredibly slowly. So slowly that your characters in the 5 previous games act much quicker. On top of this, there are so many characters that it becomes hard to care about any one individual. I understand that the ensemble cast is the strongest feature of this game, but it just fell completely flat for me. When you have 14 characters, with no real time devoted to flesh them out, or give compelling backstories, there isn't any depth to the 3rd act of them being forced to separate and 'find' their reason to keep fighting. On top of this the level up system is the worst of the series.

When you level up, your characters can get a modest boost to health and mp. Without magicite (summon materia) equipped, those are the only two stats that will raise. So the obvious answer is to not really level until your get magicite that allows for nice bonuses to the important stat for each character. But you don't get said magicite until late into the 3rd act of the game. This means, to not have completely weak characters at end game, you need to run a relatively low level game. Which wouldn't be a problem if enemies actually followed a pattern. There were a number of times that I was killed due an enemy/boss acting twice in a turn instead of the standard once they had done every other time. It is maddening and I cannot recommend doing an actual low-level game (my completionist nature made it required) as the trophies associated don't actually require perfect stats.

But anyways, it was a pleasure to be able to relieve/newly experience Final Fantasy 1-6 on the PS4 and look forward to someday completing every entry on my profile.

KillerUni12 · July 5, 2023

Adding Draw Slasher (vita) to my list

Psy-Tychist · July 5, 2023

This is now the state of plat with the games I have finished and am currently playing:

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: All Star Battle - 25%
Creaks - 18%
Captain Cat - 48%
Super Exploding Zoo - 25%
Remothered: Tormented Fathers - 9%
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice - 9%
Underland: The Climb - 10% ---> 18%
Sokocat Combo - 27%
Far Cry 3: Classic Edition - 31%
Donut County - 0%
Cubic Lines - 63% ---> 100%
Chess Knights: Shinobi - 4% ---> 15%
Another World - 0%
Black & White Bushido - 0%
Breeder Homegrown - 0%
Elea - 0%
Darkestville Castle - 0%
Flying Soldiers - 0%
Knight's Retreat - 13%
Laws of Machine - 0%
Lydia - 0%
Milanoir - 0%
Mystic Fate - 0%
Old Man's Journey - 0%
Pantsu Hunter - 0%
Reflection of Mine - 0%
What Remains of Edith Finch - 0%
Waking Violet - 0%
Virginia - 0%
The Last Wind Monk - 0%
Suicide Guy - 43%
The Shapeshifting Detective - 0%
Weakwood Throne - 0%
Stilsand - 0%
The Long Reach - 0%
Sagebrush - 0%
Saomi - 22% ---> 57%
Foreclosed - 14%
LEGO Ninjago Movie - 19%
Batman: Arkham VR - 0%
The Fall Part 2: Unbound - 21%
Mousecraft - 20%
Bleak Dystopia - 67% ---> 100%

Another couple done, not adding anymore yet until I get it below 35 games.

Games completed:

The Dark Prophecy - 1pt

Cross the Moon - 0.5pt

Autumn's Journey - 0.5pt

Foxyland 2 - 0.5pt

Fivies - 0.5pt

Blind Men - 0.5pt

Arrog - 0.5pt

Cybxus Heart - 0.5pt

Castle of No Return - 0.5pt

Castle Pals - 0.5pt

Alienzix - 0.5pt

Black Death: A Tragic Dirge - 0.5pt

Hakosan - 0.5pt

Marsi's Adventure - 0.5pt

Strawberry Vinegar - 0.5pt

Aborigenus - 0.5pt

Night Detective: Decrepit Manor - 0.5pt

Knightin+ - 0.5pt

Repentless 2 - 0.5pt

Vera Blanc: Full Moon - 0.5pt

Vera Blanc: Ghost in the Castle - 0.5pt

Demon Hunter: Chronicles from the Beyond - 0.5pt

Himno - 0.5pt

Football Game - 0.5pt

Thunder Paw - 0.5pt

War Dog: Red's Return - 0.5pt

Bleak Dystopia - 0.5pt

Cubic Lines - 0.5pt

Total Points: 14.5pt

This is the final scoring for June and now onto July. This month will be slower due to school and birthdays.

freddie1989 · July 6, 2023

No completion for me for June, there was me thinking I was making progress in this challenge to go and realise that I have been playing something I forgot to add to my list for the 2nd time!

Started up Guardians of the Galaxy last night so hopefully a completion this month time permitting.

April

Lego DC Super Villains

Stray

May

Mafia

Life is Strange: True Colours

Zombie Army Trilogy 0%

Call of Duty Ghosts 47%

Dishonored 2 0%

Metro 2033 Redux 1%

Doom 1%

Battlefield Hardline 24%

Dying Light 3%

Spiderman Miles Morales 0%

Nioh 0%

Guardians of the Galaxy 0%

Sniper Elite 3 3%

Assassins Creed Valhalla 0%

StraightVege · July 6, 2023

Whew, I've finally collected my thoughts regarding Omno and Axiom Verge 2, so here we go:

Ignore the magical distortion effect; the game does NOT look like this!

You know, while they're usually a perfectly fine way to pass some time, I've come not to expect terribly engaging gameplay from the now innumerable "it's an experience" adventure games inspired by the likes of Journey. Typically, they'll just have you exploring, gawking at pretty stuff, and hitting the obligatory emotional narrative moments, all while some somber music plays. The unassumingly titled Omno, however, surprised me by leaning more toward being a proper 3D puzzle-platformer, featuring a handful of reasonably tricky conundrums, solid jumping segments to negotiate throughout, a variety of collectibles to find, and four fun unlockable abilities. More importantly, it turned out to be a thoroughly charming, heartfelt, and unexpectedly touching game, created with obvious passion by a lone developer, Studio Inkyfox. And, yes, it has the moving soundtrack, too. Now that's three hours well spent!

In the beautiful world of Omno, you're apparently the sole remaining Staff Bearer, belonging to an endearing race of little magic-wielding pilgrims whose heads resemble a featureless onion, and accompanied by a cute, flying raccoon-like animal who guides them forward. The rest of your people appear to have long since disappeared through a gate of blinding light, presumably into another realm, which is said to offer a better life. As your culture and upbringing demand, your only purpose now is likewise to seek this alluring light by making a lengthy pilgrimage to the incandescent gate, forever leaving this existence behind. During your travels, you encounter truly wondrous wildlife, navigate ten breathtakingly gorgeous landscapes, read lore tablets left behind by an increasingly skeptical pilgrim before you, and forge a strong bond with your furry companion.

Upon nearing the end of this incredible expedition, you, much like the silent protagonist and the previous traveler who documented their thoughts, have likely gained a deep appreciation for this fantastical land. So, you begin to wonder: "do I really wish to irrevocably abandon such an amazing place and my good friend, simply because of tradition? Why do I need to?" The game seems to be saying that we ought to appreciate the wonderful world around us far more, and cherish the loved ones we currently have, rather than neglecting them to endlessly strive for something "better," regardless of what society expects from us.

It could also be interpreted that we should fully enjoy the one life we know we have, instead of focusing on gaining entry into supposed religious afterlives, because we don't know what's on the other side of that glowing gate (well, I'm 99% sure it's eternal oblivion, but that's tangential). The grass isn't always greener on the other side, so perhaps we should stop and smell the roses more often. In summary, I found the whole experience quite affecting, building to a gratifying conclusion that did exactly what it needed to. It's impressive and rare when a wordless story manages to be powerful enough to elicit tearful eyes from one as cynical as I. Well done, Inkyfox, whoever you are.

Regarding your gameplay objectives, each distinctive area tasks you with locating at least three collectible orb items to reveal the path onward, and in some cases, a final puzzle must be solved prior to leaving. To accomplish this goal, you'll frequently employ jumping, dashing, gliding, surfing on your magical staff, and teleporting immense distances in tandem, to traverse the environment and manipulate puzzle elements. Furthermore, the Staff Bearer can infuse themselves with light fragments collected from surrounding flora and fauna, enabling them to temporarily run at increased speed and allowing them to power up obelisks, which release more orbs. It comes in handy for sure, but the speed boost is entirely too brief, and I feel like the energy mechanic should've been utilized for more than merely a singular ability. It all controls smooth as margarine for the most part, although the gliding will fight with you at times, and I noticed a minor polish issue, in that barely tilting the left analog upwards results in the player character awkwardly sliding forward sans any stepping animation. Kinda amusing.

In addition to the aforementioned orbs and diary tablets, the numerous majestic animals you meet, both immense and minuscule, also serve as a sort of collectible. Upon observing these splendid beings in proximity, they're added to your bestiary, along with a brief description of their origins and behaviors. Charting the quirky wildlife is easily among the game's best aspects, but how I wish they had implemented more direct interactions with these creatures to really bring the gameplay up a notch. To my recollection, only two of them do significantly more than plod around: a plant-like one that will fling you up to out-of-reach ledges, and another resembling a penguin, who will happily slide alongside you when you surf. More of this stuff would've been very welcome indeed! Such a missed opportunity to make the game particularly special.

While various elements could certainly stand to be developed further, Omno is nonetheless a visually stunning, emotionally stirring, and memorable title with above-average gameplay for the genre. There's no killing or fighting to speak of here; it's a thought-provoking voyage, with some decent brain-teasers and platforming along the way. I suspect its heartwarming message will stick with me for quite some time to come, too. This one gets the curmudgeonly middle-aged man stamp of approval.

"Not to alarm you, but your new body is too dense to float. However, you no longer need to breathe, which should help."

As a consequence of having not yet played the first entry in talented Thomas Happ's peculiar Metroidvania series, and shamelessly rushing through this sequel in under six hours (using Optinoob's fantastic walkthrough), I'm unfortunately not equipped to discuss it with the depth it rightly deserves, but I'll make an earnest effort based on what little I've experienced thus far.

Taking place in 2053, Axiom Verge 2 opens with billionaire protagonist Indra Chaudhari disembarking from her private helicopter at the abandoned Jones research station in Antarctica, where she intends to search for the origin of a strange message implying that she can reunite with her missing daughter there. What soon follows is incomprehensible, as Indra is suddenly pulled into an alternate reality, dies in water, and is somehow resurrected upon an unknown altar, after a malignant nanite entity calling themselves Amashilama bonds irrevocably with Indra's body.

Well, that escalated quickly! What the story is driving at seems adequately fascinating to make doing a proper, casual playthrough in the future worthwhile. Themes based around identity and consciousness almost always result in something interesting, albeit nanotechnology being treated like magic in media has become trite. Plus, we love to see the absurdly rich megacorporation CEOs struggle, don't we, folks?

Setting the game apart from its countless contemporaries in this crowded sub-genre is how its two world maps exist in parallel: the Overworld and an alternate dimension known as the Breach, which must often be accessed via portals to make progress. It's frequently necessary to traverse a section of the Breach to arrive at otherwise inaccessible areas in the Overworld, or vice versa, and sometimes the portals must first be drawn from a hidden location using a special device before entering. A legitimately cool concept, one I'm positive it took Thomas many hours of grueling work to implement, and the contrasting realms are distinctively designed. That said, it also makes Axiom Verge 2 something of a tedious navigational nightmare when it pertains to obtaining the seemingly endless collectibles and increasing your map percentage. Even with assistance from a guide, I would never want to achieve 100% in this game again. Excessive is the word I'd use for it.

The game's repertoire of abilities and gadgetry are also among the more eclectic I've seen in a Metroidvania. Indra's human form—or perhaps "humanoid" is a more apt description, considering how many times she's been destroyed and recombined—has her own set of unlockable skills and devices, some inherent to her movement like wall climbing, and others mapped to separate buttons for effortless access, such as the boomerang. Likewise, her extremely useful spider drone form, which she primarily morphs into for exploring hostile Breach environments, has its own assortment of tricks, such as a grappling hook used to slingshot itself higher, which can be temperamental about doing what it's supposed to. Each form's stats and abilities are upgradable separately by spending skill points, so the game features light RPG elements as well. Hacking is the important one to improve, allowing Indra to manipulate and dominate the game's wide variety of robotic foes. Not only useful, but required for a trophy.

Admittedly, I tweaked the provided difficulty sliders as suggested in the guide, making the enemies harmless (besides their incredibly irritating knockback), so I can't evaluate the combat properly. However, after experimenting a smidgen without them enabled, Thomas' choice to focus on melee fighting doesn't seem to comport well with his enemy design. Indra strikes with axe type weapons, while the drone utilizes a sort of whip blade, but avoiding damage up close appears to be tricky, provided you can even get within arm's length to begin when tackling airborne threats. Had I played this on the default settings, I would probably tend to rely on ranged attacks with the boomerang. Take this with a large grain of salt, of course, since I haven't engaged with it thoroughly enough to speak with authority. Additionally, I found the lack of complex platforming slightly odd, too; I generally prefer at least a smattering of lethal pits in my 2D action games.

Finally, I'm obligated to mention the commendable soundtrack, composed of electronic music backed with hypnotizing vocalizations by Mayssa Karaa, imparting a hint of Middle Eastern flair. Well worth a listen, whether you play the game or not. Was it my favorite Metroidvania? Not by any means, but still good enough to make my lengthy list of games to replay properly someday. Surely I'll get around to it eventually, right?

Perhaps this is ill-advised, but I've got even more games to add:

Alan Wake Remastered

A Tale of Paper

Deliver Us the Moon

Endling: Extinction is Forever

PlayStation Plus and PSN sales have been conspiring to keep my backlog forever bloated, but I suppose I should be happy that there's so much I want to play recently. I'll almost certainly have to do major editing in August, though.

-Completed-

1. Dreaming Sarah - January 9th (+1.0)

2. Streets of Rage 4: Mr X. Nightmare - January 10th (+0.5)

3. Afterparty - January 13th (+0.5)

4. Mortal Shell: The Virtuous Cycle - January 21st (+0.5)

5. Gunlord X - January 25th (+0.5)

6. GreedFall - February 6th (+1.0)

7. Duke Nukem 3D: 20th Anniversary World Tour - February 8th (+0.5)

8. Shu - February 23rd (+0.5)

9. Psychonauts 2 - March 4th (+1.0)

10. Habroxia 2 - March 8th (+0.5)

11. Two Crude - March 10th (+0.5)

12. The Outer Worlds - April 2nd (+1.0)

13. Skautfold: Shrouded in Sanity - April 4th (+0.5)

14. Valley - April 6th (+0.5)

15. Jydge - April 25th (+0.5)

16. Superhot - May 1st (+1.0)

17. Superhot: Mind Control Delete - May 5th (+0.5)

18. AER: Memories of Old - May 5th (+0.5)

19. Little Nightmares - May 7th (+0.5)

20. Little Nightmares II - May 9th (+0.5)

21. Amnesia: Rebirth - May 14th (+0.5)

22. Ghost of a Tale - May 18th (+0.5)

23. The Persistence - May 27th (+0.5)

24. PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale: Fearless - June 1st (+1.0)

25. Mafia: Definitive Edition - June 2nd (+0.5)

26. The First Tree - June 5th (+0.5)

27. Trek to Yomi - June 11th (+0.5)

28. The Forgotten City - June 17th (+0.5)

29. Chicken Police - June 18th (+0.5)

30. The Gardens Between - June 27th (+0.5)

31. Tacoma - June 27th (+0.5)

32. Stray - June 29th (+0.5)

33. Omno - July 2nd (+1.0)

34. Axiom Verge 2 - July 3rd (+0.5)

Points: 20.5

Backlog:

1. Alan Wake Remastered

2. A Tale of Paper

3. Castlevania Requiem: Symphony of the Night & Rondo of Blood

4. Dead Cells

5. Death's Door

6. Deliver Us the Moon

7. Ender Lillies: Quietus of the Knights

8. Endling: Extinction is Forever

9. Ghosts 'n Goblins: Resurrection

10. I Am Dead

11. Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning

12. Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom

13. Moonscars

14. Resident Evil 3

15. Resident Evil 7

16. Rising Hell

17. Rogue Legacy 2

18. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

19. Tails of Iron

20. The Last Guardian

21. Xeodrifter

Psy-Tychist · July 6, 2023

5 hours ago, StraightVege said:

Whew, I've finally collected my thoughts regarding Omno and Axiom Verge 2, so here we go:

I do love reading your reviews, they are telling in showing a personal overview of your experience in an eloquent and enjoyable way. I look forward to the ones to come in the future.

5 hours ago, StraightVege said:

Backlog:

1. Alan Wake Remastered

2. A Tale of Paper

3. Castlevania Requiem: Symphony of the Night & Rondo of Blood

4. Dead Cells

5. Death's Door

6. Deliver Us the Moon

7. Ender Lillies: Quietus of the Knights

8. Endling: Extinction is Forever

9. Ghosts 'n Goblins: Resurrection

10. I Am Dead

11. Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning

12. Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom

13. Moonscars

14. Resident Evil 3

15. Resident Evil 7

16. Rising Hell

17. Rogue Legacy 2

18. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

19. Tails of Iron

20. The Last Guardian

21. Xeodrifter

You also have a varied and impressive list for your backlog, including games I wish I owned as well as games I have enjoyed.

Deliver Us the Moon is a fun narrative experience that you should play how you like because cleanup is very easy.

Tails of Iron is a cute yet brutal hack and slash in the vein of Salt and Sanctuary. The parallels with Dark Souls are understandable but the game is much simpler but I couldn't put it down when I played it.

Ender Lillies is a game I wish I owned, it looks so pretty in a gothic sense, so when you get around to it, I hope it is as enjoyable as it looks.

HollowCalamity · July 6, 2023

7 hours ago, StraightVege said:

As a consequence of having not yet played the first entry in talented Thomas Happ's peculiar Metroidvania series, and shamelessly rushing through this sequel in under six hours (using Optinoob's fantastic walkthrough), I'm unfortunately not equipped to discuss it with the depth it rightly deserves, but I'll make an earnest effort based on what little I've experienced thus far.

I always love reading how detailed your write-ups are! Based on your thoughts on the sequel, I definitely recommend checking out the first Axiom Verge. It sounds like the second one expanded on different elements than I would've preferred, making for a less-focused experience. Axiom Verge's ranged combat was decently satisfying, and while the map was large, it wasn't overwhelming. There's also a stronger emphasis on platforming, and the OST/art direction is very high-quality. If you ever get a chance, I do suggest checking it out!

StraightVege · July 7, 2023

3 hours ago, Psy-Tychist said:

I do love reading your reviews, they are telling in showing a personal overview of your experience in an eloquent and enjoyable way. I look forward to the ones to come in the future.

1 hour ago, HollowCalamity said:

I always love reading how detailed your write-ups are!

You're both too kind! ? It always makes my day when people find them worth reading, or they even help someone arrive at a decision about whether or not to try a particular title. I'm just some guy who's played entirely too many video games over the years, and always had a decent grasp of the English language, but lacked an outlet to properly express my thoughts about them, until I happened across this site. I've also read a vast number of reviews, going back to early gaming magazines, so I seem to have learned a few things via osmosis.

I will make an earnest effort to persist in the endeavor, since I do find it substantially more fulfilling than simply beating games all by my lonesome and having nobody to share my experiences with. However, I may have to step away from writing them eventually (hopefully not any time soon), due to a number of health issues making mental tasks exceedingly taxing for me. Every lengthy post makes me want to take a nap, haha. Honestly, I'd probably be capable of finishing the entirety of my backlog if I simply ceased yapping about games for a while to focus on playing, but for the time being, I appear to be compelled to write. It's my curse! ?

4 hours ago, Psy-Tychist said:

Tails of Iron is a cute yet brutal hack and slash in the vein of Salt and Sanctuary. The parallels with Dark Souls are understandable but the game is much simpler but I couldn't put it down when I played it.

Ender Lillies is a game I wish I owned, it looks so pretty in a gothic sense, so when you get around to it, I hope it is as enjoyable as it looks.

Oh, I'd have likely played Tails by now, but hearing about the torturous "Bloody Whiskers" difficulty they added recently has put me off. Once I begin a game, I tend to tackle the DLC trophies before shelving it, so that's a bit intimidating. Still undecided if I'll make an attempt or remove it in August. I've done harder games already, so I could be overestimating how troublesome it would be.

Yeah, as a longtime Metroidvania/2D action game addict, Ender Lillies certainly looks to be my cup of tea. Besides the evocative art style, what caught my interest is the unique attack system. From what I understand, the protagonist cannot defend herself directly, instead relying on guardian spirits she collects to do the dirty work for her. It sounded refreshing, versus merely whacking stuff with a melee weapon as per usual. I intend to play it someday soon.

2 hours ago, HollowCalamity said:

Based on your thoughts on the sequel, I definitely recommend checking out the first Axiom Verge. It sounds like the second one expanded on different elements than I would've preferred, making for a less-focused experience. Axiom Verge's ranged combat was decently satisfying, and while the map was large, it wasn't overwhelming. There's also a stronger emphasis on platforming, and the OST/art direction is very high-quality. If you ever get a chance, I do suggest checking it out!

I've indeed heard similar comments from dedicated fans about the sequel being disappointing in various ways. The original sounds superior for sure (hooray for platforming), and I think I've just been avoiding it, because it's supposedly a reasonably challenging platinum. Nowadays, I need to be in a certain mood before taking on anything tough, and I haven't felt up to snuff lately. Having shredded hand and wrist tendons probably doesn't help, requiring me to pace myself more than I'd like. During last year's event, Streets of Rage 4 and Hades put me in so much pain, I was half considering having surgery. Getting old stinks.

Anyhow, think I'm targeting Endling and Deliver Us the Moon next. Talk to you all again soon, hopefully!

Psy-Tychist · July 7, 2023

5 hours ago, StraightVege said:

Oh, I'd have likely played Tails by now, but hearing about the torturous "Bloody Whiskers" difficulty they added recently has put me off. Once I begin a game, I tend to tackle the DLC trophies before shelving it, so that's a bit intimidating. Still undecided if I'll make an attempt or remove it in August. I've done harder games already, so I could be overestimating how troublesome it would be.

Well, the Bloody Whisker mode is difficult, I think that only one trophy linked to it is a little annoying because it forces you to make slow progress on the hardest difficulty and then do all optional battles too which is a pain. I personally did it on normal and that is challenging but perfectly doable. I'm going back to Bloody Whisker mode and going to blast through with a glass cannon build, lightweight armour with the strongest weapon.

StraightVege · July 7, 2023

7 hours ago, Psy-Tychist said:

I'm going back to Bloody Whisker mode and going to blast through with a glass cannon build, lightweight armour with the strongest weapon.

That would seem to be the optimal strategy, right? I mean, if enemies really kill you in only 1-2 hits, then trying to boost your defense stat is pointless, and it's smarter to opt for the increased mobility of light gear. Reminds me of the many times I played Soulsborne games with a "nude" character, haha.

Can't lie, talking about this is making me want to give it a shot.

Psy-Tychist · July 7, 2023

59 minutes ago, StraightVege said:

That would seem to be the optimal strategy, right? I mean, if enemies really kill you in only 1-2 hits, then trying to boost your defense stat is pointless, and it's smarter to opt for the increased mobility of light gear. Reminds me of the many times I played Soulsborne games with a "nude" character, haha.

Can't lie, talking about this is making me want to give it a shot.

Well, I'm fighting the first actual boss and one hit makes my health go to a slither and thats with the armour I can use right now.

The regular enemies you can tank some hits from but it is noticeable how much health you lose from one misstep.

Once I have the pattern down, he'll go down without hitting me.

I will say, on normal the game is not overly long. I have just over 9hrs and that has all bosses defeated and all armour and weapons collected, so it's not too long.

Hurricane_Tanya · July 7, 2023

I keep adding games and not finishing enough, but Catherine: Full Body is really hard. My head hurts sometimes trying to figure out the right path to take and try to get all the money to get gold in each level. Hopefully, I’ll be getting it done this month though because my eldest starts her summer holidays. It’ll be great for finishing games like Chicory, Tchia and Moving Out, but I don’t think Catherine is too appropriate for a 6 year old to watch.

Anyway enough excuses. I’m adding some games to my list.

- Endling: Extinction is Forever

- The Warriors

- The Order 1886

Darling Baphomet · July 12, 2023

Been a bit since my last update. Finished Holy Potatoes! A Weapon Shop?! - cute little indie game that's essentially like Game Dev Tycoon except for forging weapons. You have your small workshop full of potatoes with different skillsets, and as you level them up they can make better weapons. It's satisfying in a similar way that Game Dev Tycoon is, although it's shorter, simpler, and overall I'd say that crafting generic weapons isn't quite as interesting as getting fake reviews for absurdly named games. Good game overall, though. Will check out the other ones soon.

Also finished Evil Genius 2, and... hoo boy, what a fucking mess. I loved this game at first - the graphics are fantastic, looking crisper and performing better than Two Point Campus, and expanding your lair through your mountain is satisfying. The problem is... while the building is fantastic, the rest of the game seems to try to devalue it at every turn. The two big stinkers are the combat and how you make progress through your campaign. The combat is terrible. Enemy agents, even on medium, are extremely tough once you get to the middle of the game and they will slaughter dozens of your minions before dying, making it essentially a question of throwing meat waves at your enemies. The henchmen (basically super agents you can control) are also wildly unbalanced, with most of them being completely useless, and a few being ridiculously broken. You can create traps to defend your lair from enemies, but not only are most traps absurdly weak, but everyone but the lowest skill agents can walk into your traps' line of fire and disable them without issue, leading to having to watch groups of agents just stroll through your trap corridors disabling all of your traps. The only way to bypass this is a specific trap layout where you distract agents with floor traps which they go to disable, then blow them into a magnet on the other side and past wall traps. It is... bad. To add to this, not only do dead bodies block your traps from firing, but there is no way to stop your minions from attacking enemy agents, and once they start slaughtering your minions your muscle minions will start running to engage them, which can quickly render all of your traps completely useless. By the time you're nearing the endgame, you can get some traps which consistently engage agents, luckily, but for the rest of the game you're just kind of fucked. All in all it's extremely frustrating to engage with, and I ended up just taking advantage of a glitch where new waves of agents wouldn't spawn if I captured enemy agents but then disabled my prison cells so they had nowhere to go and thus didn't count as being dealt with. I tried throughout to build functional trap corridors and casinos and whatnot to make the combat fun, but it just fundamentally isn't. It's a frustrating, broken mess. It's a shame, because the diverse selection of traps combined with the base building could have been quite fun, but ultimately most serious fights just end up being a question of spamming minions, which does nothing to capitalize on the base building nature of the game.

The quest progression isn't quite as bad as the combat, but most quests essentially consist of two things: sending specialized minions to locations on the world map, which have no interactivity whatsoever and essentially just amount to "progress quest" buttons gated by the time it takes to train new minions - and combat, which is... not great. Quests do occasionally require you to perform research as well, but all in all they feel like they don't take advantage of the base building at all, and in fact ignore it - you essentially just need to be able to keep agents from slaughtering your genius (which isn't hard, as you can recruit entire hordes of new minions all at once to replace the ones you've lost) and build the biggest training room possible to be able to endlessly pump out specialized minions. It all just feels very tacked on. The base building is great, but the game doesn't seem to know how to take advantage of it at all. By the time I got the platinum I was very much happy to be done with this game, and I will not be touching it again.

With those two games done, I will add Life is Strange: True Colors and Agent A to my list.

Backlog Games:

Spoiler

IN PROGRESS

Shadow Point - 13%
Lucky's Tale - 12%
Along Together - 34%
After The Fall - 45%
The Sims 4 - 17%
Fracked - 27%
Far Cry 6 - 23%
World War Z: Aftermath - 20%
OhShape - 27%
Resident Evil 2 - 29%
Bravo Team - 20%
Cozy Grove - 72%
Seum - 15%
Sackboy's Big Adventure - 17%
Trackmania - 10%

FINISHED

(January) Moss - 100%

(January) Serious Sam 4 - 100%

(January) Serious Sam Collection - 100%

(February) Manifold Garden - 100%

(February) Spongebob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom - 100%

(February) Stray - 100%

(February) BoxVR - 100%

(February) Cat Quest - 100%

(March) Cat Quest 2 - 100%

(March) GRID - 71%

(March) Prodeus - 100%

(March) Mundaun - 100%

(March) Creed: Rise to Glory - 100%

(March) Evil Dead: The Game - 100%

(March) Mythic Ocean - 100%

(April) Chromagun VR - 100%

(April) Grid Legends - 57%

(April) Rainbow Billy: The Curse of the Leviathan - 100%

(April) Paradise Killer - 100%

(April) Ghost of Tsushima - 64%

(April) Foreclosed - 100%

(April) Q.U.B.E. 2 - 100%

(April) Star Renegades - 100%

(May) Fashion Police Squad - 100%

(May) Megaquarium - 100%

(May) Psychonauts 2 - 100%

(May) Pyre - 100%

(May) Nightmare Reaper - 100%

(June) Hero Land - 100%

(June) Two Point Hospital - 81%

(June) Shady Part Of Me - 100%

(June) Warhammer 40000: Boltgun - 100%

(June) Super Daryl Deluxe - 100%

(July) Two Point Campus - 95%

(July) Holy Potatoes! A Weapon Shop!? - 85%

(July) Evil Genius 2 - 100%

January: Moss + Serious Sam 4 + Serious Sam Collection = 2

February: Manifold Garden + Spongebob Squarepants + Stray + BoxVR + Cat Quest = 3

March: Cat Quest 2 + GRID + Prodeus + Mundaun + Creed: Rise to Glory + Evil Dead: The Game + Mythic Ocean = 4

April: Chromagun VR + Grid Legends + Rainbow Billy: Curse of the Leviathan + Paradise Killer + Ghost of Tsushima + Foreclosed + QUBE 2 + Star Renegades = 4.5

May: Fashion Police Squad + Megaquarium + Psychonauts 2 + Pyre + Nightmare Reaper = 3

June: Hero Land + Two Point Hospital + Shady Part Of Me + Warhammer 40000: Boltgun + Super Daryl Deluxe = 3

July: Two Point Campus + Holy Potatoes! A Weapon Shop?! + Evil Genius 2 = 2

POINTS: 21.5

NOT STARTED

Curse of the Dead Gods - 21%
Pixel Ripped 1995 - 10%
Forgotton Anne - 8%
Groundhog Day: like father like son - 0%
KeyWe - 0%
Iris.Fall - 0%
Time Carnage - 0%
Neon City Riders - 0%
Paper Beast - 3%
Silence - 0%
Spiritfarer - 0%
Subnautica - 13%
Table of Tales: The Crooked Crown - 0%
The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners - 11%
The Town of Light - 0%
XING: The Land Beyond - 0%
Felix The Reaper - 4%
Falcon Age - 28%
Wanderer - 0%
The Walking Dead Onslaught - 0%
BPM: Bullets Per Minute - 0%
Sniper Elite VR - 1%
Return of the Obra Dinn - 0%
Fortnite - 57%
Mass Effect Andromeda - 78%
Wolfenstein: The New Order - 60%
Tiny Metal - 46%
Killing Floor: Incursion - 34%
Wolfenstein: Cyberpilot - 43%
Overcooked! All You Can Eat - 32%
Train Station Simulator - 0%
Road 96 - 0%
Bug Fables - 0%
Agent A - 0%
Life is Strange: True Colors - 0%

BlazzingWind · July 14, 2023

Managed to get two games that have been sitting in my backlog for a bit; completed.

Anthem: My co-op buddies talked me into joining them in this game and it went as expected. The world looks nice and there is a neat TPS buried underneath everything else, but the game suffers from how utterly empty it is. I have heard that there were big plans for the game, and that those fell through and the game is pretty much abandoned; and it definitely feels that way. But for the short amount of time my buddies stuck around, it was fun just chatting and completing the missions. But when you are going through by yourself, the slog is a bit mind-numbing. Each mission takes roughly 30 minutes on average and there is a fair bit of RNG when it comes to collectibles and the weapon/gear you need dropping to complete the related trophies/challenges. Personally, unless you enjoy flying (literally) solo through empty set pieces - I would avoid unless you have at least two other friends that are willing to tag along and make the journey more bearable.

Stray (PS5): I had a blast playing through the game on the PS4...though I struggle to call this a game in the traditional sense. StraightVege already did a fantastic review of the game and I don't want to over-state what has already been covered. I will say that I didn't expect to like the experience as much as I did and that 'Can't Cat-ch Me' was a nuisance to achieve (twice!). Definitely a fun game and doesn't overstay it's welcome; although the ending sequence in the 2nd to last chapter feels like it wasn't tested enough for what it asks you to do. That is where a number of my deaths happened on every playthrough.

And thanks to the wonderful reviews that have been done here; I am adding Tacoma, The Pedestrian, The Gardens Between, and The Forgotten City to my list.

StraightVege · July 14, 2023

Very glad you think so! ? Similar to the infamous race in Mafia, I personally found "Can't Cat-ch Me" to be rather overexaggerated in difficulty, although it's certainly Stray's trickiest task by far. Sometimes those Zurks precisely home in on you with their leaps, regardless of how well-timed your zigzagging is, it seems. Thankfully, the chase segment in question is brief enough to prevent restarts from becoming overly frustrating.

And, if you're referring to the bit which has you running after Clementine's truck as drones pursue, I also got blasted several times there. Surprisingly little room for hesitation in that section, right? Great choices, by the way! Loved The Forgotten City and The Gardens Between, so I hope you do as well.

July has been a troublesome month for me thus far, to say the least, bringing my momentum to a halt. However, with encouragement from @Psy-Tychist, I not only managed to platinum Tails of Iron, but I'm currently nearing the end on Bloody Whiskers difficulty. Decided to approach it with two playthroughs—the first being on normal, for the purposes of learning enemy movesets and dealing with the tougher optional bosses—which turned out to be quite wise, since jumping into the hardest setting without experience would've been painful indeed. Foes act so quickly on Bloody Whiskers, and when you're not wearing armor providing resistance to the particular enemy type you're fighting, getting hit really hurts!

Keeping your equipment burden low is also the smart play, as he suggested. While Ratnor's hammer is still useful, its sluggish strikes are nowhere near as effective against the faster bosses in this mode. Typically, you're only afforded the opportunity to land a couple of hits, before the boss delivers yet another attack or relocates. On the bright side, their patterns are fairly predictable, so it's simply a matter of reacting appropriately, for the most part. Easier said than done, of course! As usual, I'll offer my detailed thoughts about it after 100% is finally achieved. For now, I'll just post my updated completion list:

-Completed-

1. Dreaming Sarah - January 9th (+1.0)

2. Streets of Rage 4: Mr X. Nightmare - January 10th (+0.5)

3. Afterparty - January 13th (+0.5)

4. Mortal Shell: The Virtuous Cycle - January 21st (+0.5)

5. Gunlord X - January 25th (+0.5)

6. GreedFall - February 6th (+1.0)

7. Duke Nukem 3D: 20th Anniversary World Tour - February 8th (+0.5)

8. Shu - February 23rd (+0.5)

9. Psychonauts 2 - March 4th (+1.0)

10. Habroxia 2 - March 8th (+0.5)

11. Two Crude - March 10th (+0.5)

12. The Outer Worlds - April 2nd (+1.0)

13. Skautfold: Shrouded in Sanity - April 4th (+0.5)

14. Valley - April 6th (+0.5)

15. Jydge - April 25th (+0.5)

16. Superhot - May 1st (+1.0)

17. Superhot: Mind Control Delete - May 5th (+0.5)

18. AER: Memories of Old - May 5th (+0.5)

19. Little Nightmares - May 7th (+0.5)

20. Little Nightmares II - May 9th (+0.5)

21. Amnesia: Rebirth - May 14th (+0.5)

22. Ghost of a Tale - May 18th (+0.5)

23. The Persistence - May 27th (+0.5)

24. PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale: Fearless - June 1st (+1.0)

25. Mafia: Definitive Edition - June 2nd (+0.5)

26. The First Tree - June 5th (+0.5)

27. Trek to Yomi - June 11th (+0.5)

28. The Forgotten City - June 17th (+0.5)

29. Chicken Police - June 18th (+0.5)

30. The Gardens Between - June 27th (+0.5)

31. Tacoma - June 27th (+0.5)

32. Stray - June 29th (+0.5)

33. Omno - July 2nd (+1.0)

34. Axiom Verge 2 - July 3rd (+0.5)

35. Tails of Iron - July 8th (+0.5)

Points: 21.0

35 games in 7 months ain't half bad for a slowpoke, I think! Now that a guide is available for Rogue Legacy 2, I expect I'll try tackling that relatively soon. Will likely need to edit my backlog substantially in August, though, to keep things reasonable.

Edited July 14, 2023 by StraightVege

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