Graphic_violins8 Collectathon of Stuff

[graphic_violins8]

So I've tried this a couple times, and I think the place I'm failing at is setting weird goals.  So forget goals!  I am starting a physical game collection so I'll be talking about that, but that's it!  I will be posting my backlog below, but it's gonna take some time.  Other than that, hope you enjoy!  

Side Note:  I won't be doing write ups for anything I've already finished before this.

 

2024 Goal For Trophy Completion - 40% Complete

42% - 50% - New Goal

 

2024 Platinum/100% Wishlist -

Trials Fusion - 100%
Forspoken - Platinum

 

2024 Goal for Games Completed (No Achievement Concerns) -

Legend of Zelda: Minish Cap
Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

 

Completed PS3 Games

Frogger Returns

 

Completed PS4 Games

Wukong

Volume

Hue, Final Fantasy and Thomas Was Alone
Effie

 

Completed PS5 Games 

The OutBound Ghost

Gris

Viewfinder and Call of the Sea

Pumpkin Jack and Kao the Kangaroo

Killzone Liberation/Oceanhorn 2

Dead Island 2/Interaction Isn't Explicit/Tales of Kenzera: Zau

Completed Non-Playstation Games

Super Mario RPG - Switch

Captain Toads Treasure Tracker - Switch

 

Collected Physical Games -

Unlimited Saga - PS2 - Unstarted

Tales of Legendia - PS2 - Started but On Hold

Edited April 29 by graphic_violins8

[graphic_violins8]

Platinum #8 - The Outbound Ghost

PS5

Genre: RPG

Time to Platinum: 16 hours EST

Score: D+

 

I was never a Paper Mario kid, preferring the likes of Final Fantasy (and also not knowing they existed).  I've gone back and dabbled in the original on the Switch but this is the closest  I've come to finishing one.  And boy f*cking howdy what a mess.

 

First off, the character animations are super cute and chibi.  I really like the minimalistic animation too and the wide variety of character and enemy models (at least in relation to the games size).  Unfortunately, the environments look incredibly cheap, and there's a tremendous lack of variety.  The inside of buildings are usually boring shades of brown, whether they have walls of dirt or wood.  Caves are bland, with a lack of defining features throughout.  Most areas are just grass though, and I think that sums it up.  Just grass.

 

Next is the combat, which is fine.  It's a standard turn based affair with sliders that require timing to buff up your attacks.  Different abilities generally have the sliders behave differently, and too be honest, some of the slider movements are kind of bullshit.  Jutting around like a madman, it can really hard, and ultimately not worth it to try to mess with certain moves because the slider sucks.  But in general, the combat is fine.  You can apply modifiers to change it should it get too tedious, and you can change the difficulty as well.  My only complaint with any of that is that the drop in challenge from Normal to Easy is too severe.  Once I dropped to Easy there was no challenge at all.  Something of a fight would have been nice.  But I won't hold it against the game too much.  After all, SMTIV does the same thing.

 

Onto the story and music.  So this is where everything sort of tanks. The music is fine, but in a point I'll get to shortly, it's very repetitive.  The story, however, is kind of interesting at first.  There's a mystery a foot, and a nefarious figure.  However, it loses me in the fourth chapter, where you bounce around between different memories, and therefore timelines, in a way I can only describe as chaotic.

 

Finally, the performance, and this is where my chief complaints come in.  See, the game doesn't run very well.  On a number of occasions I would talk to an NPC and get stuck on them, having to fast travel to escape the bug.  This matters to the music because the load time in and out of battles is fairly long.  Just starring at a black screen.  The music for exiting the battle is very short, maybe a second or two.  So what happens is it plays, then you just stare at a black screen, then it plays again, and then maybe it finishes loading (though on a few occasions it played a third time).  It's like the game is trying to play itself off at an award ceremony.

 

Still, I think there's a cult classic in here somewhere.  I still managed to enjoy my time a little bit here and there.  A crash knocked me back like 30 minutes to a previous save, but I managed.  I think if you like Paper Mario this would suffice, given it's short length.

 

 

 

Recommend-ish

 

 

[graphic_violins8]

Got my 2023 Wrap Ups from Playstation and Nintendo.  I was surprised by how low my Nintendo numbers.  

 

Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom - 69 Hours

 

I was hoping to see something else higher up than Final Fantasy 7, but I can live with it!

[graphic_violins8]

Time for another update, covering my last platinum of 2023 and my first platinum of 2024!

 

Difficulty: 2/10

Time: 2 hours 28 minutes
Genre: Platformer

Score: B-

 

So in the interest of full transparency, Wukong isn't GREAT.  Instead, it's serviceable while also being buggy.  No, it's not Bethesda buggy, but it's just buggy enough to be annoying.

 

So in the game, you play Wukong, I believe, who, while flying home from something, lost all of his treasure (through what can only be described as a real "where's my wallet and keys, oh between the car seats" kind of moment).  So he sets off to get all his stuff back, and in the process, hit a bunch of enemies in the face and jump around like his name is now Everlast.  It all works, ya know?  Graphically it's pretty boring, but it works.  Gameplay works, ultimately, but isn't anything special.  The reason I rated it as high as I did is because it's so short.  Beating the main game takes a little over an hour, with only 8 levels, and clean up takes less.  The aforementioned bugs are mostly funny, like how you can get certain rock enemies to kill themselves if you stand under them, since they fire rocks at you but because they can't handle elevation very well, they just hit themselves.  One particularly annoying bug occurred when I was trying to get through a level and and fell into a pit, but didn't die.  I just walked around at the bottom of the pit, and since you can't restart at the last checkpoint, I had to restart the entire level.  Given the fact that checkpoint placement isn't great to begin with, this was frustrating to say the least.  At the end of the day, I think it works enough, and if it had been a bit more polished, I think it would be a better game over all.

 

Difficulty: 2/10

Time: Over 5 months cause I stopped playing for awhile; if you sit down and just play through, a few hours

Genre: Platformer

Score: B+

 

So a little something about myself.  I have a real love/hate relationship with puzzle platformers.  I like the really intuitive ones like Inside, but I think a lot of them are really up their own ass and pompous.  Well, despite it's visual look, I think Gris falls more into the former category, where I feel smart figuring something out, not exhausted.

 

The story, which is purposefully vague it seems, definitely comes off very hoity toity (not sure how to spell that) but I think it has it's own charms.  It deals with a lot of the same themes that another game, rIme, deals with, but manages to do them much, much better.  Graphically, I'm kind of torn.  It's a beautiful art style from a technical perspective (all hand drawn) but this style, when I've seen it in the past, has never really appealed to me.  Gameplay, it's what you'd likely expect.  Figure out how to progress and do that.  It's honestly on the easier side of the puzzle platforming realm, but it's still a very enjoyable ride nonetheless.  And, with a decent checkpoint system, cleaning up trophies is pretty simple.  I will say, I enjoyed this game a lot more on the Switch when I played it there back in 2019.  I somewhat chalk that up to it being my first experience with it, but also, this just doesn't feel like a game that needs trophies.  Sometimes I think collectibles and trophies ruin an experience, and here is an example of one of those times.

 

 

In other news, I'm doing something kind of exciting with my PS2 games.  So it turns out, all the PS2 I got for the holidays are the black sheep of their respective series.  I love Mana, Final Fantasy 7 and Arc the Lad, so to see that Dawn of Mana, Dirge of Cerberus (which I loved when I played it back in 06) and Edge of Darkness, respectively, are the least liked of those games, I was very enticed.  I'll be reviewing more than just games with trophies in them here so I'm very excited to explore those.

[graphic_violins8]

Been a bit since I updated, so want to get better about that.  But here it is now!



Difficulty: 2/10

Time: 1 Day 15 Hours
Genre: Platformer

Score: C+

 

I really enjoy this game but damn does it get old quickly.  The central mechanic is that you unlock the ability to change the world into different colors.  By doing this, platforms and hazards disappear if you change the world to the same color as them.

 

Most of the trophies come naturally, with the exception of the collectable trophy, which requires some back tracking.  The collectables add nothing to the game other than something you need to mindlessly hunt for.  Given their place in levels it's also easy, even with a guide, to have to complete almost an entire level again when back tracking for one collectable.  This is made worse by having to repeat some of the puzzles, which are really a mixed bag in terms of quality.

 

However, I love the look over the game.  The cut out effect is genius and works really well with the central mechanic (which I also happen to like a lot.  I wish the puzzles were better overall, especially towards the end, and the collectables at least added to the story, or weren't there at all.  Hell, they aren't even hard to get once you find them, which makes it even more confusing.

 

Difficulty: 3/10

Time: 1 Day 8 Hours

Genre: RPG

Score: A-

 

Oh my god I loved this game.  I won't lie, I followed a guide through most of it just so I didn't waste time, but man it's fun.  So basically, at the catalyst for the entire Final Fantasy franchise, the story and combat are very basic.  I actually didn't care for the combat at first, specifically the MP system.  Instead of getting MP, as you do in the later games, you get tiers of magic, and a certain number of uses for each tier.  It could be disastrous, making it so you can't use imperative magic if you used another spell earlier from the same tier.  But things like ethers and tents either refill those usages to their max or at least refill all the tiers at once, making it easy to recover your magic.

 

The story is very basic but it's fun how it's ultimately told.  The one thing I didn't like was the final boss.  Now look, I get that the final boss should be the hardest, but honestly he wasn't.  He was, however, a bullet sponge if ever there was one.  To put it in perspective, the boss before him as a reasonable amount of health, given how the other bosses and enemies in the game escalate.  However, he easily had 10 times that bosses HP, so it felt like the only way he could get harder was to give him a ton of health and hope no one noticed.

 

Otherwise, I loved this and can't recommend it enough.  The world building is great, the towns are diverse and exciting, it's just such a beautifully realized experience.

 

Difficulty: 2/10

Time: 1 Day 50 Minutes

Genre: Puzzle

Score: B+

 

Great concept, mostly good execution.  So the deal here is you take photos and "apply" them to the environment to make the pictured scene appear in the environment around you.  I really liked the gameplay loop and the graphics are gorgeous.  It definitely has an indie feel to it but that never hampers it.  Also, the trophy list is really smart, though it can feel very condensed.  By that I mean a lot of trophies took place in the same locations.  It's not a huge issue or anything, just throwing it out there.

 

The story is, like in a lot of first person puzzle games, kind of underwhelming, but it's not really why you're there, huh?  No, this game features a great gameplay loop that doesn't always hold up to it's main ideas.  It's never bad, mind you, just weak in some spots.  It's also a great length and never felt like it overstayed it's welcome.

 

Difficulty: 1/10

Time: 4 Hours, 36 Minutes

Genre: Platformer
Score: A

 

Back in the early days of the indie movement, games had to feel unique to get any coverage.  Alongside the likes of Castle Crashers, Bit.Trip Runner and Braid, there was thomas was alone.  A simple puzzle platformer with interesting mechanics and a great story (with equally good narration), thomas was alone was a stand out.  It unfortunately has a similar problem to Hue, but nowhere near as bad.

 

The story of several rectangles, of various sizes and shapes, is actually beautiful told by the narrator, and you begin to truly believe these minimalistic shapes are real beings with thoughts and ideas.  The platforming is really good too, and the puzzles are super smooth.  I was never stuck longer than a few minutes and it always made me feel smart to complete them.  The issues, while minor, are still there.  One, collectables return to be both pointless, but fortunately few.  There are only 2 per chapter, with 20 in the whole game.  Still, they do nothing and offer nothing, which is frustrating to a point.

 

The other issue is much less annoying.  The last two chapters of the game function as sort of an epilogue about other folks inside the same world.  It's basically a tacked on DLC with some extra mechanics.  I found these levels kind of weak and honestly just wanted more of Thomas' story.  Just something to keep an eye on when playing.

 

Difficulty: 2/10

Time: 9 Hours 9 Minutes

Genre: Exploration/Point and Click/Puzzle

Score: C-

 

Wow I didn't like this game.  So basically, you are a woman with an illness (who will not shut the hell up about said illness, which has so name.  So she will walk around going "since my illness" and "oh my, my illness", which gets tiresome by the end.  I sympathize, but there's a point where someone bringing up their illness vaguely like that gets tedious....also I apparently don't know how to use parenthesis) who is seeking her husband.  He left a year before to find a cure for her illness and hasn't contacted her in some time.  He's on this island.  Let the madness ensue, right?

 

Nope.  Get ready to walk around, solve a puzzle every so often, and listen to her yammer on about a story I never really cared about.  I used a guide to minimize replay, and yes, I used it to solve several puzzles.  But the ones I didn't use it on didn't change my mind.  I didn't like the puzzles.  I have a pet peeve about having to pull a book out in game and memorize info and then close it to use that info and rinse and repeat.  I wonder why I bother with gaming as a hobby, since it's everywhere (Uncharted?!).  This game really basks in it.

 

Also, the game is kind of ugly, honestly.  I like the 2d art but a lot of the 3d environments just looked bland and boring to me.  I don't think the game is terrible but it's very much not my bag.  Power to those who love it though.

 

And finally, despite not having trophies, I did finish it this month...

Difficulty: 3/10

Time to complete: About 15 Hours

Genre: RPG

Score: B+

System: Switch

 

This was absolutely fantastic but it was definitely flawed.  Join Mario and his new (and old) friends as they try to save the Mushroom Kingdom with the power of turn based shenanigans. So the story here is actually really interesting, and explores it's characters really well despite the short run time.  Bowsers arc is particularly fun, but everyone has a really good story to tell.  And the towns and dungeons are mostly fantastic, with only one or two hold outs I can think of.  The problem here is the graphics and the combat.

 

One, the game is pretty unimpressive, graphi9cally speaking.  Given how great Super Mario Wonder or even an early Switch title like Odyssey look, this is just kind of...blah, I guess.  I understand Cattle Call made it so they may have used a different engine, but still.  It could've been cleaner.

 

The combat I feel kind of conflicted on.  On one hand, the reactionary combat (where you have to hit A at the right time to increase damage or defense for that turn) is really interesting.  I see it in games periodically but I would argue it should be used more.  However, on the other hand, the shared mp pool is obnoxious until later in the game when it's bigger.  Also, it felt like sometimes an enemy would have a ludicrous amount of hp, and then fighting the same enemy again seconds later in a new fight, they'd have next to none.  Maybe I'm just misremembering.

[graphic_violins8]

My continued pursuit for the Crash Bandicoot 4 platinum has gotten one step closer to completion with King of Bling!

 

So I started on this journey back last year actually but I never intended on getting the platinum at the time.  Just play through the game and enjoy it (it's my favorite Crash).  However, at the start of the year I decided to go after it in earnest.  And I must say, it doesn't disappoint.  However, I find that most of the difficulty starts to melt away the more times you plow through each level, getting another gem or flashback tape.  The problem is, I often find myself having to run through levels for single gems (explaining my play time on the PS5 counter hovering around 120 hours).  Currently, these are my stats.

 

Overall Percentage: 96%

Standard Levels Complete: 38
Inverted Levels Complete: 38

Colored Gems: 4

Clear Gems: 228
Inverted Clear Gems: 188
N Sanely Perfect Relic: 17
Sapphire Relics: 23

Gold Relics: 21
Platinum Relics: 0 SAD FACE

Flashback Tapes Collected: 21

Flashback Tapes Completed: 13

 

Hardest Gem:  So since I did some gems as their own runs, this is kind of hard to answer.  Gems like Cortex Castle's 3 Death Run are actually really fun and force you to get creative.  You really learn to manipulate Crash's movement, especially his long slides and how to use his inversion power to it's maximum potential.  Gems like 3 Death Runs in The Crate Escape, however, are obnoxious, but only because that level is really obnoxious to begin with.  However, I'm going to give this to No Dillo Dallying's Box gem.  There's a segment where you ride on top of a river boat and you have to be quick, nimble and precise to get every box.  I still have to restart the check point repeatedly trying to get all the boxes in this segment.

 

Worst Inverted Effect:  Sn@xx world, hands down.  While Eggipus makes it hard to see things, Sn@xx being underwater not only changes how Crash and co move, but it's just disorienting.

 

Best alternative character: Dingodile is so much fun to play as.  His ability to hover and the sheer number of crates in his levels make his levels feel like madness, and I'm here for it.  Specifically the level Home Cookin, which is among my favorite levels in the game.

 

Best level:  hook, Line and Sinker.  It just flows really nicely.  It's not too difficult honestly but the way it moves is really nice.  I'm not the biggest fan of Tawna but I think this does a great job of introducing her.

 

Favorite unlocked skin:  So I have 3 or 4 left, I can't remember, but presently it's Crash and Coco's Floater skin.  Their just inflatable body parts and they look so lifeless and terrifying (especially Coco).
 

[graphic_violins8]

Time for another update, and 2 games done for the week!

 

First down, another platinum!

 

Title: Volume

Time To Complete: About 10 hours

Genre: Stealth
Score: A

 

Mike Bithell's games have always appealed to me.  Thomas Was Alone is delightful, and Volume is even better.  I'm very very VERY bad at stealth games.  I managed to beat Thief on PS3, and that's about it.  Styx (both the first and second), Aragami, hell even games where it isn't the focus like Ghost of Tsushima.  I like exploding out and taking people down.  Volume makes it a lot easier to get into the stealth, because it makes every level bite sized and the space between checkpoints is very VERY forgiving.  There are also an assortment of "power-ups" that I really enjoyed, though using a couple of them is very finicky.  You have to use the right thumb stick to aim some of the power-ups, and the sensitivity is frustrating and makes it hard to aim.  But that's really my only gameplay complaint.

 

The trophy list is kind of annoying though, specifically because it features some grinding that doesn't feel completely justified.  Specifically, getting 100 disguise changes should have been closer to 30 like many of the other grinds.  Still, it's not the worst thing in the world.

 

 

 

Title: Captain Toads Treasure Tracker

Time to Complete: Around 10 Hours

Genre: Puzzle

Score: C+

 

I can remember getting in trouble when I was like 2, and laying in bed and watching my parents play Super Mario on the NES in the living room.  I was so mad.  Flash forward 33 years and I've played a ton of the Mario games, with my favorites being New Super Mario Bros for the Wii for 2D and Super Mario 3D World for the Wii U/Switch.  In World, there are a handful of levels where you play as Toad, and have to walk around a map and pick up 5 stars.  The map is set up like a diorama, and what you'll have to do is move the camera to be able to find all the little cozies things are tucked away in.  This idea got expanded and fleshed out into Captain Toad Treasure Tracker.

 

The game itself is just more of the same and I loved it.  The level design is very creative, and I never got so stuck I felt like a solution was impossible.  My problem came down to the gate keeping of the collectibles.  Specifically, most levels have 3 gems you CAN locate (heavy emphasis on the CAN) and pick up.  And you'd better, because eventually the levels cut you off from progressing unless you have a certain amount.  It's just a tacky thing to do, in my opinion.  If I'm going to bear down and finish the levels, just let me progress.

 

 

 

Finally, an update on Crash Bandicoot 4.  And holy hell I'm getting the fatigue.

 

Overall Percentage: 100%

Standard Levels Complete: 38
Inverted Levels Complete: 38

Colored Gems: 4

Clear Gems: 228
Inverted Clear Gems: 228
N Sanely Perfect Relic: 22
Sapphire Relics: 38

Gold Relics: 31
Platinum Relics: 4

Flashback Tapes Collected: 21

Flashback Tapes Completed: 13 (Up to 17 completed but no platinum flashback relics on those)

 

So I'm at 150 hours exactly, and I can see the finish line.  Do you remember that scene in nightmare on Elm Street where Nancy tries to run up the stairs, and can't.  that's how I'm feeling now.

 

Time Trial Relics:  I actually really like these, but I imagine that might wane.  I have one level where I'm 00.00.50 away from the platinum run.  Oh the anger lol.  But I love these.

 

Perfect Relics:  These are kind of....I'm over it lol.  I HATE crates at this point, so having to hunt them down one more time is kind of lame.  However, I am excited for that feeling when it's completed for each of the remaining levels.  Fuck Toxic Tunnels though.

 

Flashback Tapes:  I hate hate hate HATE HATE HATE these.  Genuinely, in my bones, I hate these.  I have 8 left to get platinum relics on and I can see these being my biggest hurdle.

[graphic_violins8]

So this last weekend I went and got three platinums (two in new games, one in an old one) and apparently I was in a mood cause all three ended up being 3D Platformers.  So here's three quick reviews and a break down of worst to best.

 

 

BEST

Title: Effie

Time to Complete: like 5 hours or so, had to restart the run but it was fairly early

Genre: Platformer/Brawler

Score: B

 

 

I fucking hate missables.  And not just because they could require a second playthrough.  Because I would need to stay glued to a guide.  Fortunately, the missables here are pretty generous, and I didn't have to guide hover too much.  I did miss something in the first proper non-Tutorial dungeon, but restarting only took about half an hour to get back to it.

So Effie is the story of Galand, a knight of some type who is tasked with saving the world from an evil sorceress or such who has evil plans and worse jokes (He's old!  HAHAHAHAHAHA).  I really liked the gameplay here as the openness of the world (not open world mind you) meant getting to explore at my own pace between moderated levels.  The moderated levels themselves are actually pretty interesting, though the level design leaves something to be desired.  Mostly the fact that levels all look very similar, making it easy to get turned around sometimes.

The main suffering point here is the boss fights which are, for lack of a better word, dumb.  All 5 fights are against the same bad guy (I cannot remember her name) and the first two are identical.  The last fight is OK, and the one before it is kind of imaginative but ultimately bland.  The third one is the best but its also pretty short.  Overall, not a fan of the bosses.  The trophy are also kind of lame, but not nearly as bad.  There are missables, but the only ones that really matter are for finding relics in each dungeon, as dungeons close off after you complete them.  Overall, given the short play time, the GROGEOUS red fields you explore between dungeons, and the satifying, if not limited, combat, and I'd say this is a solid way to kill a couple hours.

 

Second Place

Title: Kao The Kangaroo

Time to Complete: About 12 hours

Genre: Platformer/Brawler

Score: C+

 

So here's the thing.  This would have been the best.  It's not a particularly pretty game but the cartoony aesthetic is nice.  The controls are great, the level design is really good, if not a bit underwhelming in some spots.  The boss fights are great (definitely the best of the three).  And the trophy list is pretty straightforward without being too easy.  Hell, the collectibles here weren't even that bad.  I was able to find most of them on my own.  There's just two things holding the game back.

 

One, the game tracks some collectibles and not others.  Sepcifically, it doesn't track heart pieces.  The pieces function like they do in Zelda, where collecting 4 gives you another heart.  The numbers across levels are pretty random, but never crazy high or low.  The issue is the game tracks every other type of collectible (K-A-O pieces, diamonds, scrolls) even if there's no trophy for them.  And yet, nothing for the hearts, which does make clean up kind of annoying, though not particularly long.

 

The bigger issue is that the trophies aren't super reliable.  Two trophies, Fatality and Master Key, glitches on me and wouldn't unlock.  One is for killing 5 enemies at once with a finishing move and the other is for collecting all the runes.  Oh, how the latter laughed in my face.  The former I tried repeatedly in two spots, but ultimately, after I started a new game, I went back to one of those spots, and was able to unlock it.  More annoyingly, I had to replay almost the entire game for Master Key, but fortunately it unlocked (after a nerve wracking delay I might add).

 

 

And finally, the worst!!!

Title: Pumpkin Jack

Score: C-

Genre: Platformer/Brawler

Time to Complete: About 15 hours, across 6 months-ish

 

So to be fair, I started this game last year and finished it this year (duh!).  But, that's only because I hated it.  A lot.  It's not a pretty game.  The puzzles are boring.  The enemy design is at least a stand out.  But damn, I didn't really like much else, and the collectibles can eat it.  The problem comes down to clean up.  Given how big the levels are, and how utterly pointless the collectibles are (yes you buy outfit with them, but still, is that a good enough reason to chase these dumb things down), it would have helped tremendously to have a better chapter select.  Perhaps one that lets you get more granular then just a whole chapter.  

 

 

So what have I learned?  I hate collectibles, and I love the color red.  Nothing new.

[Super_Mep]

@graphic_violins8

I almost played pumpkin jack but I picked a different game for my P game. And based on your review of it I'm glad I did. Sorry you had to suffer it. Hopefully you at least got it on sale. 😅

[graphic_violins8]

Been awhile, but all that sh*t seems to disappear when I'm with you!

 

 

Killzone Liberation

Score: B+

Genre: Tactical Shooter, I guess

Time to complete: 12 hours or so

 

 

I actually really liked this.  I'm planning on going through a lot of the PSP/PS One games on PS Plus, and this was a good start.  The story is whatever (I barely paid attention to be honest) but I really liked the gameplay.  Also, on Normal, it's kind of hard.  Won't lie, dropped it to easy, and still had a good time.

 

Basically you move through these set pieces (almost like unintentional diaramas) shooting enemies and completing objectives.  It's nothing revolutionary, but it's done really well.  The challenges are also pretty solid, with my favorites being the very vanilla Target Practice and the super fun and tactical Spider Catching.  The latter is especially cool, as it really gets you thinking.  I think graphically, for a PSP game, it's actually nice looking, and the only reason IU don't rate it higher is some of the challenges (Target Practice Run and the one where you find collectibles) are often obnoxious and some of the levels suffer from confusing and disorienting level design.  Nothing crazy off putting, just stuff to be aware of.

 

 

A special shoutout to a game called FIST.  I've been getting into more and more Metroidvania's since completing Carrion, and this one is really damn good.  However, there's one trophy that made me decide it wasn't worth it (at least right now).  I am DOGSH*T at combo challenges, and even with this games challenges being very easy compared to like Street Fighter, I still couldn't do it.  Or should I say, my heartbeat and memory were too much and too little respectively to pull it off.  I'll go back eventually, but it's a really good game, so I wanted to highlight it here.

 

Oceanhorn 2

Score: D+

Genre: Zeldaclone

Time to Complete: 25 hours

 

Oh sweet god I had a hard time with this one.  Here's the list of cool stuff.  Ready?  Town layouts, combat.

 

There we go.  Now the bad stuff.  Once again, I didn't really pay attention to the story, but the voice acting felt dead as a door knob.  The collectibles are POINTLESS.  You do unlock stuff with them, but the special stuff is lame as hell (seriously, collect all the stupid daggers and see what you get).  The bosses and enemies are serviceable but nothing particularly exciting, and a couple of the bosses are just bullet sponges with no really interesting mechanics.  Also, the enemy variations are really nothing to write home about.

 

There are two forms of transportation, the airship and the boat, and both are, at their fastest, painfully slow.  Also, not being able to land in an open field and having to run a bunch after landing on the games helipad equivalents is more annoying than I can express in words.

 

But nothing comes close to how god awful the map is.  Pulling up the map, repeatedly, and trying to navigate it's incredibly vague set up is obnoxious in a way I could never tolerate again.  It makes collecting any bloodstones (which are either not on the map at all or are faintly present as red dots, I couldn't figure it out) so frustrating.  And every area looks just similar enough it's really easy to get turned around for a half hour only to find out that what you're looking for is on another level of the area because there's no depth to the map.  Is it old school?  Sure.  But so are tank controls and we don't want those back either.

 

Frogger Returns

Score: D-

Genre: It's Frogger...

Time to Complete: 90 minutes

 

As close to shovelware without being it as possible, Frogger returns is ugly as hell.  As someone who likes unique and unconventional graphics, this game looks busted af.  Also, the hit detection is pretty much designed to screw you every chance it gets.  HOWEVER, I kind of liked the chemical plant level, or whatever it was.  The swamp level can jump off a cliff and get hit by a bus though.  Easy trophies, but nothing you'll be proud of...

 

 

[graphic_violins8]

Dead Island

Score: A

Genre: FPS/Brawler

Time to Complete: 45 Hours

 

So technically I'm not completely done with this game, as I still have the DLC trophies to burn through.  However, I LOVED this.  Even towards the end where I was just going through the motions of completing side quests, the game was still as immersive and exciting as it was 10 hours in.

 

Graphically it's gorgeous, and while the character models faces are a tad lifeless, it was never distracting.  Quest setup was very predictable, and after 20 hours, you had seen every enemy type imaginable.  The later bosses are just regular enemies with more health.  But the smart way they handle it is by making the arenas smaller or using more interesting enemy variations in the mobs that join the boss.  While some enemies, like the Screamer and Mutator are obnoxious, it is gratifying to eventually become so strong and good with the mechanics that they become trivial in the final hours.

 

The combat could, in fairness, be a little better.  Gunplay is fine but melee is a bit wonky.  Mostly because it's hard to keep the reticule in place, so you end up looking like a drunk flailing a pool cue around.  The crafting system is fantastic.  It's simple, which allows you to just pop in, trade mods on a weapon, and pop back out.  And the trophy list is, while fairly rudimentary, good at making you explore the game properly.  There are two that are kind of dumb though.  One for hitting a zombie with a melee weapon thrown from over 35m and then one for kicking 4 enemies with a drop kick at once.  The second isn't actually it's own trophy, it's part of a challenge list you have to complete for another trophy.  Still, the set up to get it done was pretty obnoxious.  The former is just a pain because I believe the game only factors in horizontal distance, not vertical.  So standing over an enemy and throwing down at them from a good distance doesn't seem to be sufficient.

 

Interaction Isn't Explicit

Score: B

Genre: Walking Sim/Shooter

Time to Complete: About 40 minutes

 

This is a weird experimental game that investigates and explains the nature of interactivity in gaming.  It's actually pretty interesting as it really breaks down the psychology of interaction in gaming and in general when it comes to art forms.  It's also really cool to look at, featuring a grainy sort of black and white texture.  Unfortunately, there's also shooting and that's no where near as good.  It plays similarly to a Uncharted game,  but the controls aren't nearly as tight.  Additionally, the enemies and yourself blend into the environment due to shared textures, and this makes surviving the combat really annoying. Trophy wise it's a cakewalk, with the hardest trophy being for getting 7 headshots in a row.  There's a really easy spot under water where enemies respawn that makes this a joke though.

 

Tales of Kenzera: Zau

Score: C+

Genre: Brawler: Metroidvania

Time to Complete: 12 Hours

 

Man I want to like this game.  I like the combat.  It feels heavy enough that every move has weight to it, but light enough that it feels natural.  The environments are solid, and the collectibles are super well handled.  Both in their ease of locating and the fact that finding them actually benefits you.  But the character models and the platforming are awful.

 

The character models look lifeless and dead inside, and while the corresponding portraits are really nice, you spend a lot of time with the amateurish models in cut scenes (which can't be skipped btw, which is frustrating).   The platforming just feels sloppy and unresponsive.  There are some control issues in general (often when I went to the map and then exited, my character wouldn't respond for a few seconds to the joystick) but when you are trying to rapidly move through the environment, they really stand out.  There are two chase sequences in the game where this is most evident, along with some platforming challenges later on.  Yes, they should be hard.  But often, it felt like the difficulty was the games fault, not my own.

 

The trophy list is great, though.  Do 100%, and then some other stuff that can be knocked out pretty early on.  Overall, I'd say check this out, but set your expectations.  The story is interesting enough and the use of African folklore is pretty interesting as well.  I just wish it had been a bit more polished then it ultimately is.