Time for another KYC - 20th edition

[Kevvik]

Game #3: Wytchwood 

 

Initial/Final Impressions

 

Wytchwood is a puzzle/crafting game with very light combat elements. You play a witch (with a kettle on your head) who wakes up in her hut only to find that you don’t really have any memory and something has eaten the pages out of your recipe book.  You find a talking black goat who eventually leads you to a sleeping maiden and apparently you made a pact with him to awaken her, provided that you provide him with 12 evil souls which were party to put her to sleep. He starts by giving you 4 souls to go after which essentially start you through the opening area of the game.

 

Your job is to obtain ingredients by harvesting them and combining them to rebuild your recipe book. You get tools from different characters, an axe for chopping wood, shears for cutting grass/plants, a trowel for digging clay, a net for catching (certain) insects.  These are immortal tools as compared to single-use tools which you can build once you find out the recipe. These recipes are found by analyzing certain foes. For example, you analyze a mosquito and find out how to build a smoke pellet which disables it so that you can kill it with your ax. This nets you new ingredients which can be used towards other objectives.  The gameplay is simple but often you will need ingredients from different areas in order to build tools you need now. This leads you to harvesting everything you can straight up and then running a pyramid scheme to get specific things you might need. Build A to obtain item B that you need to build tool C to obtain item D, etc. it can be tedious at times but if you spend time farming, you can cover yourself for a bit until you have something really new. Every now and then, you might already have the ingredients provided you have harvested as much as possible as you come across it.

 

From a combat perspective, you don’t fight so much as deal with things that aren’t friendly to you.  Mosquitos will attack you (you can take two hits before you have to heal because a third will knock you out) as do other creatures. You don’t really attack them though you can disable it so you can harvest what you need. Sometimes you don’t kill it but confuse/disable it to make it drop what you need. I haven’t died yet as the items for healing potions are quite easily found and you rarely get cornered.

 

The stories behind the souls are simple but can be quite amusing. Your objectives are readily visible on the map and in your journal but sometimes it takes a bit to find ingredients that you need. The recipe will give you an idea of which area to look in for it but not specifically where so you may have to search. For example, cryptospider silk is in “the graveyard” but to find it you have to go to the graveyard area, then into the crypt sub area and then find out how to defeat the spider that drops it. This may have you backtrack in order to have the right ingredients to build the tool you need to defeat it. Again, harvest everything you can to make this less time consuming.

 

I’m enjoying the game so far. I haven’t been chasing my tail too much and the game runs smoothly. The graphics are pretty and not too complex and they serve their purpose well. I’ve gotten through the first 4 souls and have been given four more. Each trophy other than an initial one are related to the souls you are collecting so it’s pretty straightforward that way.  I don’t expect it’s going to take too long to finish this, maybe about 15 hrs?  It took me a little under 5 hours to deal with the first 4 but I’m also playing blind and I expect a guide would streamline this but it’s not so involving that I expect you would need one.  I expect I’ll finish it shortly after I settle down with it again.

 

Time played: 6.5 hrs

Trophies earned: 6/15, 24% for D rank

Score thus far: 7/10

Completion rate: 87.22% (-0.32% for the event)

 

Next up: Game #4: Disco Elysium

 

My completion should take a really big hit in the next few days. My wife has got me starting Hogwarts Legacy (she’s been playing on PS5 since launch) because our secondary PS4 is downstairs so she wants to keep playing on my profile while I’m on the PS5 playing Disco Elysium so I’ll end up playing alongside so I can slowly recover my completion rate. I was going to get around to it eventually, so I’ll play a bit tonight and then bit n piece it once I move back down here. Neither one is really a quick plat so my CR will take a bigger hit than usual. If I play it enough, maybe I’ll throw a review here but I’m not planning to settle into it really until this event is over.

[Psy-Tychist]

1 hour ago, Kevvik said:

Next up: Game #4: Disco Elysium

 

My completion should take a really big hit in the next few days. My wife has got me starting Hogwarts Legacy (she’s been playing on PS5 since launch) because our secondary PS4 is downstairs so she wants to keep playing on my profile while I’m on the PS5 playing Disco Elysium so I’ll end up playing alongside so I can slowly recover my completion rate. I was going to get around to it eventually, so I’ll play a bit tonight and then bit n piece it once I move back down here. Neither one is really a quick plat so my CR will take a bigger hit than usual. If I play it enough, maybe I’ll throw a review here but I’m not planning to settle into it really until this event is over.

 

I will say this about Disco Elysium, when playing the game and doing skill checks, don't worry when they fail. There is so much fun and wacky dialogue in this game, just try doing what you think would be funniest and you'll be surprised by the outcome.

I really hope you enjoy it.

 

As a side note, my TV is currently busted so I have no idea when I will get to my next games. When I do, I'll post them if I can.

Edited May 16, 2023 by Psy-Tychist

[voodoo_eyes]

Game #6 - Castlevania Lords of Shadow 2 - Preview

 

 

Developer: Mercury Steam

Publisher: Konami

Genre: Hack & Slash

 

I've played a bit of the first game and I did not like it. The combat was stiff and visually it looked on par with the first ever released God of War. I hope the second one improves on all those aspects.

The only other Castlevania game I played was Mirror of Shadows, which I actually enjoyed.

 

We'll see how this one turns outm but I'm not optimistic.

[MarkusT1992]

Game #3: Tunic

 

 

Tunic is best described as a mix between The Legend of Zelda and a soulslike.

The game starts with your character (the fox you can see on the game image) awaken on a beach. You have no clue what's happening or what you are supposed to do so you start wandering around the world. There is only one way you can go with some dead ends to explore where you can't do much yet. In a little cave on the way you find your first weapon in the game, a deku stick. After a short while you get to a big golden door which you enter. In there you meet a fox godess/spirit and get tossed out again and the door closes itselfe. Still not knowing what to do you walk around a bit more to find a forest area to enter. Shortly before the forest you have to go through a cave in which you find a manual page On that page it states Start of the adventure or something similar. Since most of the page is writen in some foreign language consisting of weird signs you cant read much but a few words. Most things in the world are written in this language so you can't read them. The only way to find out what things do is to either use them or find a manual page with that info.

In the forest you eventually find a sword, beat up a boss and reach a bell you have to hit to activate. Back in the main area of the world you now can reach more places thanks to your new sword. Now you are able to cut grass which was blocking most areas. After exploring some more you head to another new area where you eventually find a second bell to activate but only after defeating another boss, this time a stone guardian type. Whereas the first 'boss' only was a larger version of the normal enemies, this one was a unique boss with a healthbar.

After activating both bells you can enter the big golden door again. Now you are in another place than the first time around. The first time it seems you were in a spirit world and now you are in the real world. In there is an altar and you have to place three things there.

So far I found the second stone boss which I havn't defeated yet.

 

Remeber me saying it's a mix bewtween Zelda and a soulslike? The Zelda part comes from how you progress through the game. The areas you get to are kind of like the dungeons in the Zelda series. The difference is that the items you need aren't necessarly found in there. But you still need an item to make progress in those areas. It's basically go throught an area, defeat the boss, get the reward, repeat. The soulslike element is respawning enemies after resting at a fox shrine, having a set amount of flasks to heal and loosing some experience after dying which can be gotten back by returning to the place you died.

You collect a varity of stuff in this game and everything seems to be usable but you don't know what it does. I found different types of explosives, a coin with a fox on it, some plants and much more.

What makes this game special is that you can find the mentioned manual pages. Only with those pages you learn more about the game. The whole manual is like the once they used to sell with game back in the PS2 times. It explains every thing the game has to offer but only in that foreign language with some normal words inbetween. Maybe you learn to read that language later in the game to understand everything, maybe not. It seems that you can use everything the game has to offer the moment you take controll of the fox but since you don't know about those features you don't think about them. I'll put an example in a spoiler so you don't have to read it if you still want to experience that game.

Spoiler

For example you can upgrade your stats at the fox shrines you can rest at. Normally when you are infront of a shrine there's a prompt to press . That's why you might not try ro open your inventory infront of a shrine, which is the way to upgrade your stats by offering specific items and an amount of experience.

 

 

Overall I really enjoyed my time with this game even when it wasn't that long. I can recommend that game if you like Zelda or soulslike games, althought this one is more on the lighthearted side of the soulslike.

 

Time played: Around 3h

Trophies: 13/37 (16%)

Rating:

 

 

Next is from the shortest game name in my list to the longest: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Campaign Remastered

[voodoo_eyes]

Game #5 - Castlevania Lords of Shadow 2 - Final Impressions

 

 

Time played: 3h

Trophies earned: 6/57

 

 

Pressed for time again, so it's early wrap up time once more.

 

I've gotten halfway through chapter 2 got stuck at a boss, due to what I believe is a glitch. Essentially there's a part where you need to climb up it's arms, which worked the first time, but the second time there are no spots to climb anymore so yeah.

 

Regarding the rest visually it's pretty solid and vastly better than the first game. Same goes for the combat, albeit that it still seems stiff and slow compared to God of War, which is clearly an inspiration for the LoS series. It also feels like this game tries to be a 3D metroidvania, offering alternate paths that are blocked off until you get specific keys or abilities. While interesting in concept, it does not work (at least for me), as it gets confusing without a complete overview map. A minimap alone for that kind of scenario doesn't really work out.

 

The platforming feels weird and again very cumbersome. You can transform into rats in specific areas, unlock abilities and can purchase attacks with experience points. So fairly generic stuff overall. This game also has a vast amount of cutscenes and loading transissions.

 

 

Overall didn't really get into it - 6/10

[Taruta13]

 

Final Review #7: Kingdom Hearts III

 

Amount of time played: About 3 hours over 3 days

Trophy completion: 8% (7 bronzes)

 

As I sit here, Diet Dr. Pepper slowly cauterizing my tongue, I totally regret...

 

Not doing this game sooner.

 

For those unaware, this latest iteration in the Kingdom Hearts story, which is the final arc of the Dark Seeker sage involving Sora's arch-enemy Xehanort unleashing his master plan to unlock Kingdom Hearts and conquer the universe(which obviously ends in Sora winning, spoilers ), was delayed for 13 years. One year for every member of Organization XIII.

 

Yes, it was announced in 2006, and the series was in development hell for a long painful 13 years. Even Pokemon doesn't delay that long. Then again, if they did, then Scarlet and Violet...

 

Okay, I will not rag on the Pokemon franchise jumping the shark even though my closest friend was stating that the newest Legend of Zelda title could teach Paldea a thing or two about visuals. But let's get out of Nintendoland and back to this review.

 

Anyways, Square-Enix delayed this game for 13 years, mainly due to how they couldn't get the strength to top what is still the best game to speedrun at a GDQ event, Kingdom Hearts II. (Final Mix, which even got a randomizer community... and sadly I cannot play that KH2 randomizer because my computer is too tiny to hold the actual game. )

 

They eventually scrapped their first draft of KH3 off their homebrew engine and signed up for Unreal Engine 4, and it shows. This game is FREAKING SEXY and the music is amazing. And the first world you visit?

 

Hercule's world, and it actually has inhabitants and is big!

 

Yep, after dealing with Hades yet again and finally getting to meet Zeus, we go on a gummi ship trip to Twilight Town... but this is no rail shooter like in KH2. Nope, it's actually a giant open space area filled with Heartless space pirates. And I won't even begin to talk about lucky emblems, Remi from Ratatouille having his own bistro where you can do Cooking Mama minigames, or all of the new battle tech, or this review will consume the entire page of forum posts.

 

This go around, most of the worlds Sora visits are from movies created by Disney's subsidiary, PIXAR Entertainment. If you enjoyed watching Tangled, the Toy Story movies and Big Hero 6, well, you can bet you'll revisit them here. There is even a visit to the world of the Frozen franchise. And yes, we do get to experience Elsa doing her epic musical number, ripped from the movie. So get ready to Let It Go. (If you hate that song, do not worry - you have the option to skip the cutscene.)

 

Needless to say, this game is beautiful. I've gotten the platinum in this game and the only things frustrating me are a couple of minigames I'll have to deal with, but that's water under the bridge. I will be willing to put this up for RPG Mania and get it done again...

 

The DLC...meh, this was my only stickler because it revisits Data Org from KH2 which I am not a fan of. But then again, people were whining about how frekking easy the supposed Superboss for this game so they got their wish. It's optional so I'll let them have it.

 

Since this post is super-long... let's make it even longer!

 

Game #8: Rogue Galaxy

 

Developer: LEVEL-5

Publisher: Sony Entertainment

Genre: Action RPG

 

Touted as Dark Cloud 3 way back when it was announced, it decided not to be a grandchild to the cult classic and struck off on its own, leeching off the popular Star Wars franchise by being a space opera and having the main character be a blonde hero living on a desert planet being ruled by a tyrannical conglomerate, then meeting a gentleman robot who is looking for a legendary hunter and getting mistaken for said hunter after said hunter gives the boy his sword and ups and vanishes after monsters attack the city.

 

I have enjoyed this game but never platinumed it because there is one annoying trophy requiring you to win master rank of a defense-tower tournament using insects you catch. Think of it as Bugsnax but instead of feeding said insects to goofy-looking walruses, you battle other bug catches a la Pokemon. I'm going to need to fight the hardest boss in the game, twice, to get two of the ultimate bug to stand a chance. But we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

 

Battles are sort of like Chrono Trigger with random encounter rates, where monsters suddenly appear and you have to whack them around a bit. The coolest this is that, like Final Fantasy XII, there are hunts which involve clearing a certain number of enemies. Also, one of your companions is a jungle Amazon woman and you crash land on her planet after you leave your home. How cool is that?

 

Anyways, I can't wait to dip into this title.

Edited May 18, 2023 by Taruta13

[PerryToxteth]

KYC 20

Game No. 3

Playing Time: 1 hour

Trophies Earned: 0/35

 

Thoughts: As any KYC veteran knows, I am an aficionado of historical games. I have a background in the subject, plan pilgrimages to historic sites (just did Verdun last fall) and am in a Non-Fiction Book Club. So any game with historic and military themes is in my wheelhouse. 
  This game caught my attention when it was released and it finally went on sale just last month. It involves the story of the Polish Resistance based in Warsaw, which tried to oust theThird Reich in 1944, as Soviet forces pressed in from the East. Upwards of 200,000 Poles lost their life during the two-month ordeal, and much of Warsaw was destroyed in the process. Tragically, the Soviet Army watched the chaos occur just a few miles outside the town. They could’ve offered support to tip the scales in the Poles’ favor, but chose not to as top Soviet politicos felt that the destruction of the Polish Home Army would ease their burden on turning the country into a Soviet satellite after the war. The volume of mass murder atrocities on the Eastern Front is mind-numbing. Read Bloodlands by Timothy Snyder if you’d like more information. 
Anyways, after an hour of play during the tutorial, I realized this game is not my type of game. Not even close.  I have played RPG’s in the past, with The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age on PS2 being my all-time favorite. But Warsaw’s RPG mechanics were just bland as can be. There’s basically two screens. One is an overhead shot of a city street map, and you move a icon around with an arrow pointing toward your objective. As you move, things pop up on the map like barricades, loot chests and enemy patrols. If you get too close to the enemy, a fight ensues.

  This is the other game screen. On one side of the screen is your cast of characters. I had regular partisans, but I think you can unlock specialists like a sniper as you advance the game. On the other side of the screen is your foe. It’s turn-based combat, so you select on character, choose what action they should do, (move, first, fists, etc.), and then the action will proceed. If you cause damage, anime-like cartoons briefly appears showing the hit points the opponent lost. Then it’s your opponents move. This, in my opinion, is extremely boring combat - with overly complicated actions, underwhelming graphics and menu interface, and a rather lengthy time frame for each fight, And in playing the tutorial, there is LOTS of combat. 
  It is rare that a game turns me off within the first hour, and I felt done with this one just a half hour in. It is extremely basic, repetitive play and with the platinum rarity in the singles digits, a very long slog. I played it just once for an hour, and thought I might come back to it. But the thought of firing the game back up in the ensuing days was revolting, So, for just the second time in KYC history, I abandoned a game, 

  I will never come back to this. The gameplay is just not for me. 
Grade: 

Next Up: Strategic Minds:Blitzkrieg

[Kevvik]

Game #4: Disco Elysium: The Final Cut

 

Initial impressions

 

Disco Elysium is a story-driven isometric RPG where you play a detective who wakes up with amnesia after a 3 day drug and alcohol bender to find yourself in a trashed hostel room with a new partner waiting downstairs. You literally don’t remember anything which makes for a lot of interesting conversations while you investigate a week-old lynching in the district of Martinaise in the city of Revochal, which hasn’t really recovered from revolutions decades earlier. Your partner acts as the voice of professionalism here while you can interact with NPCs and objects as you navigate the city.
 

Unlike iso-RPGs like Baldur’s Gate or Divinity, there is no combat (per se). Lots (seriously, lots) of conversations and the success of actions (verbal or physical) are based on skill checks. You have 4 primary abilities (physique, intellect, psyche and motorics), each of which have 6 skills attached to them. Some skill checks are done passively but others are done by choice via the dialogue trees. You get shown the % chance of success before you try and you will see the results of a dice roll to show your success (though 2 always fails, 12 always succeeds). Succeeding may provide you with additional info or open up new options while failure may result in fewer options going forward or damaging either your health or your morale (you have 3 points of each). A similar dialogue Tree is used when interacting with certain environmental objects as well.  Your skills can be influenced by using earned skill points to level up the skills or to open “thoughts” in your Thought Cabinet which have positive or negative effects on your skills or other factors such as giving additional money/xp.  The clothing you wear (by equipping each piece) can also influence some skills. You may also open up some events by failing skill checks.

 

The core here though is dialogue. Disco Elysium’s closest relative is probably Planescape: Torment where your actions influence your alignment. This world is full of sociological and cultural history (seriously, tons of characters will unexpectedly take about Race theory, Communism and many other topics which actually influence how others see you, though it’s not always obvious) in which you can earn points which bear fruit down the line, opening up extra options in dialogue trees (things like communism, liberalism, morality sit next to scores like Good Cop Bad Cop, Honour, Boring Cop and others). Often dialogue choices will seem obvious as to which they will affect while others won’t. You will be exposed to volumes of dialogue in this game so if that isn’t your thing, this game may not be for you.  This actually leads into one criticism I have of the game. I found one NPC with so many options in the dialogue Tree that I could affect multiple of these factors just be repeating dialogue sequences with slight differences. I think it would have been better if you were stuck with your choice because I haven’t seen any time where these side scores go down. I farmed out multiple points in Communism, Liberalism, Morality, even a point in Fascism just by going through conversations over again just changing one choice, all without leaving the conversation. I’m not really sure how this may have affected things.

There is a lot of dialogue in this game. Of course, you can choose options of ending it quickly but you won’t necessarily find the info you are looking for or need to progress.  Some of it can be painful but I spent an entertaining 10-15 minutes going through dialogue with a designer of custom dice for RPGs.  You also have numerous conversations essentially with yourself or facets of your personality. These can occur when investigating/analyzing objects or they may occur in the middle of conversations with NPCs. It doesn’t always have your best interests at heart either. I’ve had my inner voice tell me that I could get money from someone and then go spend it on drugs and alcohol, persistently at times so that it feels like you are arguing with yourself. This is a very interesting addition, giving your inner voice a fluctuating personality.

 

I also have to say that I’ve taken to a bit of quicksave scumming. I quicksave before conversations so that I can restart them if I fail a skill check sometimes. I don’t go after ones that are almost impossible (say single digit %) but if the chances are like 40%+ I’ll give things a few retries, especially if my dialogue Tree seems to have shrunken.

 

I’ve only gone a little into Day 2 (not sure how many there are) and most of the trophies I’ve gotten relate to those side scores which I was able to farm in a few places.  I’m pretty sure I have a long way to go. The dialogue can get overwhelming at times so I did some side progress in Wytchwood just to lighten things up. Still enjoying Disco Elysium a lot.

 

Time played: 10 hrs

Trophies earned: 10/46, 17% for A rank

Score so far: 8.5/10

 

Edited May 19, 2023 by Kevvik

[Vulpine9Tails]

Game #3 Ghost of a Tale

 

Time Played: Approx 3 hours (lots of restarts due to guards seeing me and autosave is rather unforgiving)

Trophies: 2/21 = 3%

 

(Doing this a bit early as I am about done with the game for now)

 

First off, this game looks amazing. The graphics are beautiful. The character models are superb.

You play as an adorable mouse in a land overrun with evil rats that have imprisoned you and you're trying to escape and find your little mouse wife. The beginning of the game has you trying to escape a prison and you have to sneak past the patrolling rat guards. There is no combat; you have to be stealthy or you're done. You can throw bottles at rats heads and knock them out but a few times I found that no matter where I was standing and had the target lined up properly, the bottle would just bounce off them and they would turn around and see me. I lost quite a bit of time sneaking my way around and then failing the bottle knockout only to be caught by the guard. Eventually you can get a guard disguise which apparently makes the rest of the game pretty easy but all I got so far was the helmet. Sadly I am having to restart the game due to missing some collectibles and not really knowing what I am doing. But since I probably wouldn't be continuing the game anytime soon, there is a strong chance that I would be restarting the game anyways because guaranteed I would forget how to play; it's got some weird controls. L2 is run and R2 is sneak. Triangle is the "use" button for your items. You also have to know what you are looking for collectible-wise as there is a trophy for simply opening all shuttered windows but as you go around they don't exactly jump out at you as something you can even interact with. It's an odd game but it's also endearing, as the mouse character is really cute. If you let him stand around for a moment, he will start scratching his little mouse booty. I haven't really figured out why these rats are here or why they're so evil but I did not make it very far in. The game gives me A Plague Tale vibes so if anyone is into those games I would recommend it.

 

Some of the trophies sound difficult but even just the little bit I've played, I don't think they would actually be that bad. You can't be seen by an enemy, which is fine because you can't really escape them once they find you anyways so just restart from your last autosave. The unfortunate thing is that there is only an autosave after talking with NPCs or if you sleep on a bed. You can only manual save in a hiding place. That's kind of annoying but with a bit of patience you can get around any guard without too much trouble. Eating is also pretty easy to avoid; maybe I missed it but I don't think there was even a tutorial for it. I'm not even sure what it does because as far as I can tell you only have a stamina bar that refills quickly and if you're going for trophies you aren't getting hit and losing health anyways. The collectible trophies are what scares me as none of the collectibles really show as being interactable until you're quite close to them, and I was following a guide and still missed something due to forgetting to go back to it after having to reload. Overall though, I don't think this game will be as hard as I thought it would be, and it would be a game I would be happy to finish in the future.

Edited May 19, 2023 by Vulpine9Tails

[voodoo_eyes]

Game #7 - Mass Effect Andromeda - Preview

 

 

Developer: Bioware

Publisher: Electronic Arts

Genre: Action-RPG

Price: 19,99

 

 

While this game got butchered by critics on release partly due to terrible facial animations, I remain hopeful that a lot of bugs and the likes have by now been fixed.

It's a series I really enjoyed, having played all 3 prior entries. I'm also a Bioware fan, even though that team kind of fell apart over the years.

 

This is one of those game that is going to be somewhat of a time sink, and I hope that I still have the patience to push this one through until the end (at least at some point).

 

 

PS - Did another swap X-Com Enemy Within got replaced by Forpsoken ?.

Edited May 20, 2023 by voodoo_eyes

[Taruta13]

20 hours ago, PerryToxteth said:

So, for just the second time in KYC history, I abandoned a game, 

  I will never come back to this. The gameplay is just not for me. 

Thankfully you didn't earn any trophies so you can delete the profile off your account.

[purgta]

Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy

 

Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy is a third person platformer/ Adventure game by Naughty Dog.

 

There is an overarching plot but the main aim of the game seems to be to gather collectables. The game originally came out for PS2 and while it shows, I still think it looks great. The game is incredibly colourful. Jak is fairly bland as a character but Daxter is great. He is a large part of the humour behind the game. He walks the line between being funny or annoying but I think he stands on the correct side of it. The other characters you meet are also a lot of fun to interact with and have a lot of personality. The npcs can give you side quests which are usually to give them a certain amount of a certain type of collectable.

 

The camera control can be a bit wonky but I give it some leeway as it is a remaster of a ps2 game rather than a remake. It can also be a bit difficult to judge the distance of a jump if you do it at an angle. Jak and Daxter do a little dance whenever you gather the main collectable currency, power cells, which is always fun to watch. The areas are fun to explore and full of charm. I can see why  people have a lot of fondness for the series.

 

I am not really a platformer person but I enjoyed what I played of it. it reminded me a lot of playing crash bandicoot as a kid which probably is not a surprise as naughty dog developed both series. I am not sure if I will continue with it but I don't regret my time playing it. I can see platformer fans really enjoying it.

 

Up next is Jisei

[Hemiak]

Solo Game 3: Alien: Isolation

Time: Five hours

Trophies: 19/51

 

This game has been sitting on my account for a long time. Like, I bought it for ps3, then got a ps4, and they eventually gave us that version with plus so I’m doing that one. 
 

STORY STUFF

You play as Amanda Ripley, the daughter of Sigourney Weavers character from the films. Instead of being found after the events of the first movie she disappeared into space and was never heard from again. As Amanda you’ve been searching for answers your whole life, and become an engineer / mechanic on a space station out near the edges of the frontier. 
 

The game starts when someone from the company shows and says they may have finally found info about your mom. After a little hesitation you agree to join him and a small team on a milk run to go grab the flight recorder of the Nostromo, which was the ship from the original movie. 
 

When you arrive the station you’re approaching shows obvious signs of damage. A communication comes through and it’s garbled, but pretty obviously a warning to stay away. Your crew either decide to go on anyway or can’t figure out the message; neither of which is super reassuring. Because of the damage your group of three have to space walk over. Obviously something happens and the other two members get separated, and Amanda barely makes it to an air lock. 
 

Once she’s inside there is clearly signs of trouble. The whole place is on lockdown and almost every door has a lock or one kind or another. These range from magnetic jacks, to needed passcodes, hack tools, or torches of various types. You make your way through the start, until you meet Axel. He initially puts a gun to your head and explains that there is something loose on the ship that’s killing people, and instead of banding together the humans have fractured into small groups tending for themselves and killing everyone else who comes near. 
 

You go for a while, pick up some new toys, and then Axel gets killed by something you don’t quite see. You go on alone, avoid some humans, have your first run in where you see an Android lose it and kill a human, then have to avoid androids from then on. Eventually you find out the others from your ship survived but one is badly injured. You make your way there, then move on to medical to find supplies and maybe a dr to help her. 
 

You run into a guy who says he’s a dr; but won’t come out from behind some safety glass. He tells you you’ll need a passcode and key card to use the elevator to go get medical supplies, and then the two of you can go help your mate. You get the code; and then have your first run in with the alien. After avoiding it you find the key, make your way back, and of course Doc gets eaten. 
 

You avoid the alien and more androids and eventually return to your friends, but there are two station security members with them. They all agree that you all need to move to a safer location, but the trams aren’t running, and apparently you’re the only one who can fix it. You run out, avoid more death, turn on the power and activate the trams again, then the others all take one and you say no you say you’ll catch the next one. I went a bit longer but nothing else major happened story wise. I think I’m in chapter 8/18. 

 

So what is it? It’s a first person survival horror game. Not survival horror like RE, where you just manage resources and kill everything. I’m playing on hard and it takes like 6 revolver shots to kill an Android, and I’ve found less than twenty rounds total.  You also find various components, and can use those to build medpacks, smoke bombs, flash bombs, noise makers, and a few other things. Also, If the alien spots you it’s essentially game over. It’s way faster than you, isn’t afraid of anything but fire, and one shots you, period. It’s either hit it with a Molotov instantly or you’re not living. The thing is super annoying on this difficulty too. It’ll keep patrolling an area and it’s damned hard to keep track of. 
 

There’s a great map that tracks locked doors, save points, terminals, even items and blueprints you may have forgotten to pick up. So far I have a wrench thing that can be used as a weapon and to remove those jacks I mentioned earlier. I have a hack tool that can be used to access doors or certain terminals. I just now picked up a level one gas torch. For weapons I have the wrench, revolver, stun baton, and various bombs which can be used to damage, disorient, or distract enemies. Every time I leave an area with locked doors unopened it makes me twitch, but I’ll apparently be forced, or at least allowed, to return to most later as there are tools you just don’t have access to yet. 
 

So far I had a pretty good time, other than some of the BS RNG of the patrolling alien. Like I’m walking down a fully lit hallway with no cover and suddenly it just drops out of a vent twenty feet in front of me staring straight at me. Nothing I can do, but I reload and go back through the area, and not even a peep on the motion tracker. I get that it’s supposed to make it feel scarier because you never feel safe, but instead it just feels annoying to be forced to reset for better alien RNG at times. I did have fun, but there were certainly things I didn’t care for. 
 

Rating:8/10 

 

Next up for solo games will be Hyper Light Drifter, which should be frustrating for different reasons. I’ll post my Sherlock review after dinner. 

[Kevvik]

Game #4: Disco Elysium: The Final Cut

 

Day 5 Impressions

 

Couldn't really bring myself to call this final impressions because this is going to take me a while as I’m only a little bit into Day 3. I’m having a lot of fun with this but the sheer volume of dialogue leads me to taking a few breaks here and there.  Apparently I seem to have a reputation as a super hard nose detective if I’m reading it right even if I was pretty much a blank slate by the time the game starts as there was concern when I arrived in town from a few people. Still don’t have an idea what drove me to this but my dreams between days were pretty messed up.

 

The internal dialogue is still a hoot to read. At one point, three facets of my personality were having an internal struggle on who was going to influence me and me being me, I didn’t listen to any of them. I just found the cryptozoologist I was looking for, for a side quest I think as it’s not readily apparent if it links to the main storyline but things can change quickly sometimes.  I find this game really entertaining so I’ll fiddle with it a bit at a time.

 

Time played: 19 hrs

Trophies earned: 18/46, 28% for A rank

Score so far: 8.5/10

Completion rate: 86.92% (-0.62% for the event)

 

Kept fiddling with Wytchwood on breaks from Disco and I’m into the last set of souls now so I recovered a bit of completion. Also had Hogwarts add to my list so that was a good chunk out of my CR as well.

 

Next up: Game #5: Sakura Wars

 

Expecting an RPG/harem cross with this but we’ll see how things play out.

[Hemiak]

Wife Game 3: Sherlock Holmes Chaoter 1

Time: About two hours 

Trophies: 1/39

 

Whelp, again my wife was pretty busy with other stuff and I didn’t spend as much time as I should’ve with a game. I did earn a trophy, so the ol’ completion did suffer.  
 

Anyway, the story “so far” is pretty basic. Sherlock and his friend John are on Holiday to Córdona to visit Sherlock’s moms grave. They have to take a long boat ride and Holmes doesn’t do well with that. John seems to banter and poke fun at Holmes pretty often. You reach your hotel and they decide ti get some dinner.

 

You find a cane at the table and John tasks you with finding the owner. After that you go to see a Medium who was advertising in the Hotel. When you get there a man is being held back from attacking the medium, who already has a black eye. Apparently during the seance the man’s wife saw something which startled her, screamed, and the table got jostled. When the lights came in a huge diamond was missing. So then you take it upon yourself to figure out what happened to it. And that’s about where I ended. 
 

If you’ve played any of the others it’s pretty similar. You have a journal that keeps track of info, people, objectives, etc. You can enter a mode that makes clues stand out, and examine items to deduce info about a situation. Eventually you try to form connections between pieces of info you know to extrapolate more data. You can observe people the same way, and talk to them to get more info. Finally you come to a conclusion and conclude the case. Apparently this one has combat, which none of the others have, but I didn’t get to that part. 
 

Honestly it’s fine. I don’t love these games but my wife does so I play them with her. It seems like more of the same, although Sherlock is dressed like he’s in some weird steampunk version of Victorian era, complete with leather gloves and rolled up sleeves, a man-purse on his hip,

and a dress outfit, minus the jacket. 
 

Rating: 6/10 (so far)

 

No idea what I’ll start next. Maybe Shadow of the Tomb Raider. Hyper Light Drifter is pretty good so far. 

[Taruta13]

So I finally hit the end of my current session, so let's get to it.

 

Game #8 Final Review: Rogue Galaxy

 

This is the only trophy I earned, which was for disarming a trap. Thankfully I earned a trophy or else this game would be a bust. LEVEL-5 has a habit of back-loading all the goods, so you don't get many trophies in the beginning. That happened with Ni No Kuni(only get two early story progression trophies and then nada until you get the ability to capture monsters six bosses into the game ) and it's true here.

 

That aside, this game was supposed to be called Dark Cloud 3, because the company wanted to continue that series. However, when the writers decided to copy Star Wars with a space opera, they scrapped the plans to make this a Dark Cloud 2 sequel and just made it stand-alone, which is a good idea because this game is completely different from the Dark Cloud series. There is no georama and no single character which you swap characters with, it's Dragon Quest VIII in sci-fi.

 

I just completed most of the story of Chapter 1 - yes, this game is split into 13 chapters - which involves protecting Jaster's home town from a giant dragnfly-gecko abomination. I kid you not, this game is weird. There are invisible random encounters but there is minimal battle screen transition, all NPCs vanish and the monsters arrive and you fight in the streets. I ran into turtles which have shields over their heads. You need to destroy those shields to do any damage to them, your attacks bounce off otherwise. To destroy the shields, you need to charge your sword ala Link from Link to the Past and hit them with spin slash to shatter those shields.

 

Get used to enemies requiring BS conditions to do any damage to them. In Chapter 3 onward you run into enemies that have bubble barriers protecting them. You need to shoot them with a crappy gun to shatter those barriers. Unfortunately, these barrier enemies start showing up in droves late in the game, so I can never have Jaster use a normal gun as he has to keep that barrier-shattering gun on 24/7 to shatter barriers. It's super annoying.

 

Oh, and some enemies starting from the jungle planet require you to emulate Mario and hop on their heads to open them up so you can hurt them, they are plants that hide their weak spot in their leaves.

 

Still, this is not a frustrating game. The reason I didn't leave Salgin and start the story proper is because I was farming for points. You get points for defeating a certain number of enemies, like you need to kill 30 Sand Tortoises(those damn turtles I mentioned) to get X000 points. You also fight boss monsters called quarries that give a TON of points. The prologue has you killing that dragonfly monster and it's worth 20,000 points, which will bring you to Rank 96 from Rank 100. Yep, you're on a leaderboard and killing hunt marks(the mob farms) and quarries(big point bosses) gets you points to rise in the ranks. When you hit certain milestones(Rank 90, Rank 80, etc.) you are gifted items as a reward. You can drop in rank - after you finish a story chapter, all of the hunters get points and the tally is calculated. Desert Claw, the hunter you meet in this prologue(and the guy who gives you one of the seven legendary swords), is #1 in the rank and never drops, so you have to get EVERY HUNT to bypass him and be #1. There's a trophy for that.

 

All in all, this game is really really interesting and while there are post-game grinds that disturb me, I think I will revisit this game later this year. I have put it off long enough.

 

Verdict: Definitely try this gem out. While having to recharge your stamina limits your combat flow, I feel like it's a fun grind.

Final Rating: 10 Mishs out of 10.

 

As I said, this game is made by Level-5, who also created my penultimate entry on the KYC List...

 

Game #9: Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom

 

(No more of the Amazing Review blurbs as we're nearing the end, only two more titles to go before the end, and yes, that means that last game is going to be played for more than three days. I blame two games getting a platinum early.)

 

I'm right now playing Ni No Kuni Remastered, the PS4 version of Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch. It's a fun little game and a few speed-runners found tech for it. That game will get its review on the RPG Mania thread as I am intending to bum rush it to get the platinum before June hits as does my Freaky Final Fantasy Summer.

 

This titular sequel has a few references to the first game, but has its own story. You start the game playing as the President of the United States of America going to a peace conference to unite the world...

 

And then North Korea decides to nuke the city it was held at. You are far enough away that you aren't vaporized, but you are hit with a shockwave and tons of radiation...

 

And then you find yourself in some kid's room. You are de-aged to 25 years old, and the kid has a sword at your throat and says he'll kill you for invading his castle as he is Evan, Prince of the city of Ding Dong Dell. (Yep, the first city in the original game is here, so you know this is in the same world.)

 

Not more than ten minutes later, the royal guards try to kill the prince and you shoot one of them dead.

 

That's the first ten minutes of this game, and trust me, it gets darker from there. The premise is that you have to help Evan, who is now a deposed ex-prince, build a new kingdom and unite the kingdoms of Ni No Kuni(only Ding Dong Dell remains - all of the other communities are completely new as this is set over a hundred years after the original game) to stop some mad warlock who is corrupting the rulers to steal their kingmakers - giant f'king dragons that are the souls of the respective kingdoms.

 

While the first game rips off of Pokemon with the familiar system, this game rips another more obscure Nintendo property...

 

 

PIKMIN.

 

Yep, you get these odd little fairies that you command in battle. As such, this game's combat is action-based, like Kingdom Hearts.

 

It's going to be weird playing both Ni No Kuni titles for the next three days, but I can handle it.

[voodoo_eyes]

Game #7 - Mass Effect Andromeda - Final Impressions

 

 

Time played: about 20h

Trophies earned: 10/56

 

 

First game in this event Ive put a lot of time into. It still feels like I've barely started. I think I reached level 14, unlocked all party members and have 3 planets to do stuff on.

 

Visually it's solid, none of the weird distorted facial expressions popped up, there are however a few graphical glitches. It also has the occasional lag spikes (playing all PS4 games on PS5 btw). SOund and music are solid as expected from this series.

 

Now the gameplays is pretty similar to the previous 3 games. Third person shooting, with a lot of dialogues and quests. Some of the side quests have two different choices that seem to sort of have replaced the karma system from previous games. Romancing party members is also still a thing. Characters are alright. I found the ones in the previous games more likeable.

 

What used to be a minor part in the previous games was driving around with the sand buggy on planets, which now is essentially the majority of the game. Each planet (that you can land on) is a massive sandbox. Unfortunately it's half packed with interesting and fu things to do and then some really tedious stuff, which ended up draggin down my enjoyment of the game.

 

There is also gear of course, that has now a major focus on crafting, which again is not something I like all that much. There is still the found gear, but that's relatively scarce so far.

 

Overall I'm enjoying it though, but it could've been so much better. 7/10

[Psy-Tychist]

Game 3: The Midnight Sanctuary

Death never solved anything.

Current Percentage: 70.53% +0.03%

Trophies Earned: 11/11 - 100%

Time Played: Roughly 5 hours.

Poisonous Mushrooms offered: 14

 

The Midnight Sanctuary is a completely story driven game with no missable trophies. The company CAVYHOUSE has made one other game in The Sealed Ampoule which uses the same Art Style but seemingly this has a gameplay loop. You 'play' as Hamomoru Tachibana, a pastor who is brought to the village of Daiusu with the hopes of modernising and bringing visitors and tourists to the quiet village. There is a lot of talk about the fact that the village is Christian and that is somewhat of an oddity. After looking it up, Christian villages were not deemed trustworthy in Japan and were very few and far between. This factor seems to be much more evident early in the story, but peters out quite quickly and isn't mentioned again until the end. As you progress, you go around various places in the village, such as the Well, the Back Street and the Library and talk to the locals. In the process Hamomoru comes to the conclusion that the 'Saint' that they worship here would be a great draw for tourists and bring trade through the village. I won't spoil the story because it is genuinely a little creepy and has a fun little mystery to it, but revelations keep coming after Day 3 until the final Day that she stays in the village.

 

It is a very unusual game to look at, the sprites are very PS1/2 era ideas and overly shiny. The backgrounds are bare and very basic in what they are and show and remind me of some of the Yarzoe games I played from the old Playstation magazine demos. All of the main characters are voice acted (in Japanese) as well as most of the spare cast (all named Villager X with the X being any letter within the alphabet), which is a nice touch but a little odd that they couldn't think of naming most of the village. The most striking part of the game is what the villagers look like. The sprite is the same for every one, but they are black. What stands out the most is that the robes they wear are the static image above and when they move, the image doesn't move but the villagers have different parts of the image depending on where they are on the screen. It is very disorientating to start with, but you just accept this style choice as meaningful by the Developer for some reason. 

 

You do no movement what so ever, you only choose to go to different places and hear what dialogue is relevant to the time and day. In the corner of the screen is a Note which is quite interesting as it shows the differing values and goals that the main characters and villagers are in tune with at that moment. At the advent of most days, there is a poem or lyric that has relevance to the twists that occur during that day. One day, the note was just full of hearts for some reason, I took a screenshot because it was just weird in my opinion.  Along with these notes and lyrics, a song started randomly about halfway through the game which looked like an edgy music video from the early 2000's with lyrics in-keeping with the twist you found just found out 

Spoiler

which is that the girl who the Saint myth is based on, was used by the village by resorting to cannibalism

 

Midnight Sanctuary is a Visual Novel in the non-traditional sense but tells a story which is quite compelling to read and tackles a lot of mature themes within the narrative. The game also doesn't shy away from the macabre and the ending is sincerely sad. If this was written as a graphic novel, the story would be a great read. As a video game however, the style choices don't sit well with me and the lack of any real gameplay choices make it quite a boring playthrough. I would recommend this as a stand alone story but as a game it falls quite short of enjoyment.

 

Next Game: Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight

[voodoo_eyes]

Game #8 - Beyond a Steel Sky - Preview

 

 

Developer: Revolution Software

Publisher: Microids

Genre: Adventure

Price: 39,99 (PS4 version only - Physical PS4 version includes both versions)

 

This game is brought to us, by the makers of the Broken Sword series. Apparently Beyond a Steel Sky is a sequel to Beneath a Steel Sky (which I've never played). I had never heard of that game to be fair, even though I've played a lot of point-and-click games in my time. I'm not entirely sure, whether this one also falls into that category, or if it's more of an exploration adventure game.

Edited May 22, 2023 by voodoo_eyes

[Chirithy84]

Chirithy84's Fuga: Melodies of Steel Trophies • PSNProfiles.com

 

Little Review

Game 4

----

Finally, Fuga Melodies of Steel is 100% complete. Including all trophies.
----
And now for the main story. Peace still reigns, then the atmosphere of a second world war ensues, complete with a mad dictator. He pursues an ancient prophecy of powerful weapons of war from this legend./ And in his madness he is the first to attack villages, abduct adults; as well as children. Later it doesn't even stop there; He sacrificed his own people for his madness. // In the course of this game and this story, exactly eight brave children stand in his way. Exactly these children; who discovered one of the most powerful weapons of the past. Exactly these; who then protected her all along. Exactly these; the kids all the time...
-----
For the rest; plays the game; if you like. You will have fun!

----

I've played through Fuga Melodies of Steel three times; to get everything.

----

And the hidden video when restarting this game surprised me a bit; but I already knew; what is to come. Then, on May 11th, my wish was granted.

----

Spoiler

Fuga: Melodies of Steel 2 - Official Trailer #Fuga2 #FugaMelodiesofSteel2 - YouTube

 

Edited May 22, 2023 by Chirithy84

[Chirithy84]

So I think now; that I will exchange game number 5 "A Space for the Unbound" for "Fuga 2". Fuga 2 has also never been played by me. So without trophies. And the only thing that's good, I can use the previous save with all take over surviving twelve children.

[slicknick3822]

Game #4 - Life is Strange: Before the Storm - Final Review

 

Time played: ~3h

Trophies Earned: 11/35 (30%)

 

Unfortunately I got sick before my trip to Atlanta so I wasn't able to play this, now I've come back and found out I have a double ear infection ?. So I've done my minimum 3 hours. The first episode didn't really grab me like the first Life Is Strange but the ending at least has me intrigued to see where it goes next especially since we know what happens to Rachel. I will say the performance is much better than the first one. That one had a lot of performance issues for me and kept my grade down on it. I'll keep my rating at 7 for now, but that can change. Nothing too bad or good either way so far for the first episode, it's all about where the story goes.

 

Rating: 7/10

Current %: 74.12% (-14.58%) 

 

Game Preview

May 21st-25th

Ghost of Tsushima

 

Developer: Sucker Punch Productions

Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment

Genre: Action RPG

 

Another Sony first party game that I've heard nothing but good things about. I followed this game when it first came out so I've seen a lot of it and it looks like a game that's right up my alley and I'm very excited to get my hands on it. This will probably be one I come back to immediately after. 

 

[PerryToxteth]

17 hours ago, slicknick3822 said:

Game #4 - Life is Strange: Before the Storm - Final Review

 

I played this one as well for a KYC. It was hard for me to stomach the idea of playing a game with the main focus being Chloe - one of the most repugnant characters in recent memory. But this one is actually much deeper than the first one with Max, and you can see how Chloe evolves into a prickly cactus. But, the writers of the original Twin Peaks should sue the game developers because LIS’ Rachel, is the same character as Laura Palmer. 
 It’s definitely worth sticking around to play until the end. 

[Taruta13]

19 hours ago, slicknick3822 said:

Unfortunately I got sick before my trip to Atlanta so I wasn't able to play this, now I've come back and found out I have a double ear infection . So I've done my minimum 3 hours.

Sorry to hear that, that must suck. I hope you get better soon.

 

Going to submit my review for my current game tomorrow morning and final preview for the list. Since I accidentally platinumed two games, I had three days left over so the entire week will be nothing but that one game, so I will try to get through the first playthrough as much as possible. On one hand, the non-combat stuff is mostly fluffy point-and-click so I will pretty much not take too long there. On the other hand, the grinding combat is going to drain a lot of time.

[slicknick3822]

3 hours ago, PerryToxteth said:

Chloe - one of the most repugnant characters in recent memory.

Interesting, I never felt that way about Chloe. We learn during the first one, she basically lost everyone she loved and that she became a rebellious teenager but I never thought she was so awful. LiS Spoilers:

Spoiler

I still killed her at the end of LiS, because I think that would be canon, not sacrificing a city for a high school relationship.

 

2 hours ago, Taruta13 said:

Sorry to hear that, that must suck. I hope you get better soon.

Thank you! I hope so too!