realm722 Posted August 24, 2021 Author Share Posted August 24, 2021 Why I Will Never Play Genshin Impact This post was inspired by this YouTube video by NeverKnowsBest. It is excellent. This is a very strange post. I've made mentions in the past to series and games I'll never play due to my interests or there being oh so many hours in a day. But I've never made a post specifically mentioning why I wouldn't play one specific game. That should tell you how special Genshin Impact is. For those who don't know, Genshin Impact is an action role-playing gacha game. It made over 1 billion dollars in less than 6 months. That was back in March of this year. It set many records on its' ascent in the gaming landscape and I've noticed has only seen further growth since the addition of a PS5 trophy checklist for the game in April 2021, which separated it from its' PS4 trophy list that did not feature a platinum. The PS5 one does. It just crossed the 10,000 owners mark recently which for a free game, is a bit surprising. Naturally, with some time that number will continue to increase, but will it end up hitting the marks of say 100k owners by the end of 2021? I highly doubt it. Perhaps the anime aesthetic and gacha aspects make it less appealing for a casual to jump in than say, Rocket League when it went free to play. But now that I've given it enough background I need to come out and give me reasons why Genshin Impact terrifies me, and will I will never personally play it. 1) I would probably love Genshin Impact. Huh? But you said you...? Yea, yea I know. Hear me out. Genshin Impact has drawn many similarities to being like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Waifu. That sounds delightful to me. I have a Nintendo Switch and BotW. I've never played it. I'll get around to it someday. But being able to play a version of that... WITH TROPHIES? Oh heck yeah that sounds like a fun time. The aesthetics and colorfulness of the game are utterly jaw-dropping. Check out these landscapes. I'd love to dawdle about smashing enemies with the element system and my crew of 4, finding chests, and just hanging out man. This is all to say that I could very easily see myself starting Genshin Impact, and due to the sheer amount of things, there are to do to start the game, absolutely devouring it and quickly sinking in 40-50 hours very quickly. One of the points NKB makes that can make the game so appealing is to due to the nature of gacha, it's a bit like a long-play version of a rogue-like. You will need to adjust your playstyle to the characters you get. You will have a unique experience because of those characters you roll. As someone who loves rogue-likes, that is super appealing. So then, why is that a bad thing? Well.... 2) Genshin Impact is NOT pay-to-win. The reason why it's not pay-to-win is very simple. Genshin Impact is single-player with no multiplayer aspect. It's not like FIFA where you can spend your moms' credit card and after $8000 have a full-99 OVR team that gives you an advantage in head-to-head play online. Why do people spend money on anime girls in a single-player game? Cuz waifus. People love characters, man. Humans have enjoyed characters since the time we could tell stories. So when you give one an intriguing backstory and a quirky personality, all of a sudden people are gonna be pulling out their wallets to try and land their new 5* favorite. All of this is fine. While I've heard that the Spiral Abyss IS in fact a bit pay-to-win (and is also required for a trophy so that's actually a potential platinum breaker), Genshin Impact does NOT require that you spend money on it. But with limited ways to earn money in-game after enough hours played - you're eventually going to hit a ceiling. This is even with the generous pity system that forces the game to give you a 5* after oh-so-many rolls without pulling a big one. 3) Genshin Impact is 1000% one of those games that will keep adding trophies till the end of time. Right now in the 2nd DLC they've added for PS5 it is currently unobtainable since that content is not in the game yet. This is very clearly going to be a "forever" game, and by that, I mean a game with a life-cycle of intended content updates for 3-4+ years minimum. I cannot think of anything worse. I know there are players that love MOBAs or games that go on forever. World of Warcraft, League of Legends, Overwatch, etc... games that you can make your ONE game and pour thousands of hours into. One of the best lines in NKB's video is he's heard from those players that they cannot stand "grinding" in a single-player game since it feels like a waste of time since they'll eventually be done with it, compared to one that goes on infinitely. That sounds like the sort of attitude I want to have with a partner in a romantic relationship (not have flings, only have serious relationships) as opposed to video games. I've heard that once you complete mostly everything in-game, you mostly only log on to complete your dailies. I don't want to have to go log on to progress. I should control when I play the game, not the game control me and my playing habits. I understand some of the attraction to making it part of your routine in your daily life but it is something that does not appeal to me in the slightest. Yea... I think this was a productive post. My reasons likely differ greatly from a lot of the reasons people won't play this game. Some common reasons I've heard given is that people don't want to support a game by a Chinese developer due to the actions of the Chinese government. Not really a factor for me personally. I've heard some people say they hate gambling and the toxic elements that can apply to whales and people spending thousands of dollars on one video game. Not a factor for me either. I have NEVER spent money in-game on any video game. I've never bought FIFA points for Ultimate Team, and I've been playing FIFA since... 2011? I can control myself, and while those who can't should avoid this game, it doesn't influence me to not play it. I've also people who hate anime / anime tropes avoid it like the plague. I don't love anime, but I can stomach it for a good time. Ultimately, I'm avoiding it since I'd probably enjoy this game, and while it's not pay-to-win, I don't want to invest the 100+ hours in a game that it will take to get the plat only for it to be endlessly updated on my trophy checklist. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MD_91 Posted August 24, 2021 Share Posted August 24, 2021 I always like reading your posts about random topics like this, makes your checklist unique not being focused on just game reviews. 54 minutes ago, realm722 said: I should control when I play the game, not the game control me and my playing habits. I understand some of the attraction to making it part of your routine in your daily life but it is something that does not appeal to me in the slightest. I've played a lot of ultimate team over the last 5 years and this was a big problem for me especially from fifa 17 through 19, I never bought fifa points as I feel they are awful value for money but I put a ton of time into grinding the game every year to build my team up (which arguably isn't any better if you have the mindset of time = money), FOMO is a big thing in games with daily content and you can easily end up addicted by wanting to keep up with everyone else. I started to feel burned out the last 2 years and I quit fut 20 in March last year, fut 21 in January this year and have no interest in fut 22. Honestly these games aren't as pay to win as people think, unless you are playing at the pro level against other pros you can get near enough the same amount of wins using a cheap team of overpowered players as you would using the best team in the game which makes all the time and money people put into it every year even more pointless and I'm glad I've finally broken out of the habit. I don't know much about Genshin but anything with a strong focus on gacha/lootbox/microtransactions turns me off knowing the addiction they can cause, sure there are a lot of people who can control themselves and treat logging onto the same game every single day as part of a fun little routine but there's far too many people that can't control themselves and it's something that needs a lot more regulation. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AihaLoveleaf Posted August 24, 2021 Share Posted August 24, 2021 Great write-up on Genshin Impact. I more or less agree with the entire post you've made. Number 3 is the exact reason I am also avoiding Genshin Impact. I'm almost certain I would enjoy the game, an Action-RPG full of waifus is 100% right up my alley. I know as soon as I pop my first trophy, though, I'm locked in for possibly years to come. I know some people that love the constant addition of DLC trophies, because they really love the game, and I think that's great, but for me the thought of having to come back to a game I already "finished" several times over to maintain my 100% sounds like a nightmare. That is 100% a me problem, and not a problem with the game itself, but it is what it is. I've already heard time estimates for this game in the 300-400 hour range, and I feel like by the time it's all said and done, Genshin is going to be the "weeb" version of ESO, where you're looking upwards of 1000 hours for a finished 100% list. As nice as the game might be, I'd really rather focus my time on getting as much variety as I can in my trophy list. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post realm722 Posted August 31, 2021 Author Popular Post Share Posted August 31, 2021 (edited) Game: Islanders Analysis: I bought Islanders at full price for $5.99 on August 27th, 2021. It was released on August 26th, 2021. I platinumed it on August 30th, 2021! So I'm super excited to share my experience with this hidden gem. I NEVER buy games at full price. 99% of the games that aren't sports games on my catalog were bought on sale. Off the top of my head, only Kingdom Hearts 3 breaks this rule. Otherwise, I've been extremely strict on my purchasing habits of not forking up more than $20+ on new releases. So imagine how unique this must be for me, to play a brand new game, with extremely little trophy info on it, and just wing it while playing it. Why did I buy it? Literally just because I was browsing through new games on the "Games" section of PSNProfiles and the game icon image caught my eye. That's LITERALLY IT. I liked the name. I dug the pretty colors. I waited a day and saw somebody got the plat and the game wasn't glitched and once I saw that it was a ridiculously low $6 upon release I figured screw it and bought it. I did not watch any YT videos or read any reviews. It's a pretty huge gamble since the game could have been fodder trash for all I know, but what a pleasant surprise it is to say that it is actually a phenomenally sophisticated minimalist strategy city builder! You immediately dive into the game and start playing. There are no long tutorials. There is no dialogue. You just notice you have little buildings you can construct and a high score in the bottom lefthand corner of your screen. When you place buildings, you will receive points depending on what it is next to. If you build a bunch of fields and then a windmill, your windmill will build for a lot more points since it gains supplementary points from the fields. If you build a city center, it will give immediate bonuses to houses and mansions constructed around it. While balancing this, you need to ensure that you do not build buildings next to each other that give off negative points. This would for example be, a mason right next to another mason OR a tavern next to a shaman. Once you build up enough points, you gain eligibility to move to the next island which typically has a bit more space, though the islands you get are random. This is the entire game. I LOVED it. So simple, super cute, but it's just a nice game to kick back and play. The only "stressful" part is always ensuring you gain enough points to gain more buildings as if you don't reach the necessary high score, it's game over and you must start back from Island #1. That sounds cruel, but it really isn't given how quickly you can fly through the islands once you get familiar with the game mechanics. Heck, you can make it to the 3rd of 4 islands within 7 minutes as that is quite literally a trophy you need to achieve in order to gain the platinum. The vast majority of the trophies will be earned by just playing the game naturally. Constructing 1,000 buildings, scoring 3,000 points in one match, and exploring 30 islands are just a few examples. There are some unique ones, such as losing -100 points over the cumulative effort of a match. You can get away with chipping off 20 or 30 of these on the 1st and 2nd island once you've unlocked the next one, and then get a big deduction with a market or gold mine on the 3rd or 4th. It's not difficult. Reaching a score of 800 on the 1st island may seem difficult, but check out this guy's soothing voice and how he earns 10,000 points on the minuscule opening island to teach you the ropes. I discovered the video AFTER platinuming the game and still watched it just to enjoying watching his expertise that much. The hardest and last trophy I needed to earn was "Perfectly Placed" as it required you to earn +75 points on a single building placement. This is actually a bit tricky and won't be earned by placing buildings willy nilly. I personally got it by discovering on a previous run how many points you can earn for placing a temple on a plateau, next to a city center and statue. I kept this in the back of my mind and on a future island cycle on the 3rd island I made an attempt for it. By constructing that exact layout, along with a tower and a bunch of mansions/houses surrounding my plateau just off the sore, I earned a +91 to achieve the platinum. It took me 4 hours and 12 minutes to earn the 27.03% rarity platinum. Do I recommend Islanders? YES, 1000%. This game actually isn't brand new. It was developed by game studio GrizzlyGames and released by publisher CoatSink Software (same guys who published Shu which I talked about earlier this year!) Islanders was released on Steam in April 2019 and has received rave reviews. It is overwhelmingly positive with nearly 13k reviews. That's more than The Banner Saga and CrossCode! The platinum is extremely straightforward and doesn't even really need a guide written as the game is intuitive enough on its' own. I bought it so early that for the NA version, it only has 38 owners and I ended up being the 12th platinum achiever and 2nd fastest of all on the leaderboards. I imagine this will quickly change given the games' simplicity as it catches on with wider audiences. I loved it for its simple yet very unique strategy mechanics of trying to maximize points inch by inch as you create a puzzle with all your buildings smushed together on these wonderfully designed islands. I think anybody, regardless of their taste, can enjoy this game. Be sure to post your high score in case you do get the game, my best was 5,281 which was good for Top 50! Ultimately I expect the plat rarity to settle in between 30-40% since the game is so easy to pick up but this was a resounding success for me as someone who took a complete shot in the dark on an indie and hit it out of the park. Can't do much better than that. Until next time! Panda Score: 7.5 / 10 Panda Difficulty: 2.3 / 10 Edited August 31, 2021 by realm722 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YaManSmevz Posted August 31, 2021 Share Posted August 31, 2021 12 hours ago, realm722 said: Game: Islanders You have this incredible knack for stumbling upon excellent under-the-radar games. When I bought Cities last year, it was because of an inexplicable SNES Sim City itch that popped up out of nowhere.. Cities of course was so overwhelmingly sophisticated that, like trying to flirt with somebody staggeringly out of my league, I quickly decided to cut my losses and step away. I'm giving it another go, but this looks INSANELY up my alley and might end up coming first. Methinks Islanders will get in line behind Afterparty? Thanks, man! And as always, great review! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
realm722 Posted September 1, 2021 Author Share Posted September 1, 2021 Game: Deployment Analysis: I bought Deployment for $0.74 back at the start of August 2021. I am happy to report that for under $1, this game is well worth your money! In a continued feeble effort to try and diversify my gaming catalog and actually play games that don't have a platinum, Deployment fulfilled my monthly quota of completing one game that is a mere 100%. My qualifiers for this are that since it's a 100%, I typically don't want the games to be too challenging (not much rarer than <10%) as well as only taking a handful of hours at maximum to complete. This has led to a number of duds this year (Act it Out!, Beyond Eyes, Armikrog) but Deployment thankfully breaks the mold and is actually a fun, quick, twitchy robotic shooter game. It is exactly what I'm looking for in these 100%'s. Quirky genres that I probably wouldn't wanna check out for a full game (say... Laser League) but good to spend an afternoon with. The game is incredibly straightforward. You pick whatever robot type you want (there are 5 options, my favorite with Rocketeer) and you must go around playing the opposing offline bots (there IS a multiplayer mode but I did not even bother trying to find a match as given the 250 owners this game has on PSNProfiles, let's be honest, we both know the end result would be). You go around capturing different systems, shooting down the opposing 3 robots and their mini-helpers, you'll die a lot, and given the match is only 3 minutes long you try and rack up as high a score as possible before the time runs out. Good high-paced fun that does not wear out its' welcome in the slightest. Would I recommend it? YES. Hell, even at the "full price" of $0.99 the game is worth it. If you're doing this for just the trophies, it's relatively simple. Do the tutorial and die once, then back out to the main menu and add the upgrades found in this TrueAchievements post. You'll go from being unable to survive more than 1-2 robots to breezing through and get that trophy down. Then play a bunch of offline bot matchups with the different classes getting 10 kills each match. I did these all on my first go. Get a few of the miscellaneous ones (only get one boost, get 15 boosts, capture all systems) before finally having the last trophy. "Don't need any of that to win" which requires you to finish in 1st place with the highest score WITHOUT capturing any systems. This trophy took me just under an hour to complete, but most of the reason is because of bad strategy. Pick a robot you enjoy. Some like the Pyro since it has healing capabilities for some of its' upgrades, others recommended the sniper, but I felt like I did the best-balanced damage with the Rocketeer so play with different ones if you're struggling greatly with one of them. The key is this - DO NOT ENGAGE FULL HEALTH ENEMY BOTS. Let them fight each other, and then jump in and snipe into the room to steal the kill. No matter your skill, you're going to get whittled down by the opposing 3 bots if you're constantly trying to take down each of them every time they appear. By running around, picking up boosts whenever available, and being judicious with when you decide to go all-out and attack, you'll get this trophy in no time. Here was my winning match where I absolutely dominated after getting blasted and losing 60ish to 90+ a number of matches beforehand. It took me just 1 hour and 31 minutes to earn the 35.86% rarity 100% completion. Pand Score: 6.2 / 10 Panda Difficulty: 2.2 / 10 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post realm722 Posted September 3, 2021 Author Popular Post Share Posted September 3, 2021 (edited) Game: Stikbold! Analysis: I bought Stikbold! as part of the Instant Indie Collection Volume #3 for $4.99 in early August 2021. I have zero interest in playing the other two games that form part of the package (10 Second Ninja X and Action Henk), but the game itself was on sale for $5 as well at this time so yanno... may as well get it as part of a bundle. I am happy to report we have another pleasant indie game here! Created by Swedish studio "Game Swing", Stikbold is the dictionary definition of what I look for in fun and unique games to platinum. It's essentially dodgeball, and as Björn and Jerome, you need to win the championship after faltering the year prior. But rather than merely taking place in a gym, you'll travel to the beach, an oil rig, and even hell and back before having your shot at the cup. That's at least the gist of the story that I got from the short cutscenes between each level. It does its' job of gently crafting a narrative behind the gameplay and it works well enough for me. But the gameplay is where the fun is at! You can dodge, throw, pass, and shove in a surprisingly complex game for such few controls. The game is intended to be enjoyed with a friend since there is a co-op mode (no online play), but can still be enjoyed single-player albeit your CPU companion will be useless and mostly serve as a mere second life in-between the times you need to revive him. I loved it! I played on casual difficulty for my initial play-through in order to make collecting all the daisies (3 specific challenges in each level) as easy as possible and the game still provided a fair amount of challenge at times. The game is excellent at creating high-intensity moments out of thin air as you'll be trying to take down the opponent on 2 v 3, you take down one of their guys, you lose one of your own, yet 1 v. 2 you pull off a miracle thanks to some distractions and harassments that can happen as part of the natural game environment. I personally found A Shady Fellowship, Blind Redemption, and Something's Cooking to be the most enjoyable levels as they were the most challenging. Would I recommend it? YES! 100%. If you enjoy mildly challenging unique games that have fun gameplay, play Stikbold!. The trophy guide on here says it's a 5/10 difficulty but I found 4/10 to be more accurate when reviewing it through my rating system. While you do have to collect all of the daisies, on casual difficulty you're looking at maybe a handful at most that give you some trouble. "Lord of Darkness" has one where you have to take down the devil while all his skellies are up, but the strategy of walking very close up and quickly rebounding the ball to hit him again I found to be effective. "Stinger" shots involve throwing the ball at max power and curving your shot after launching it. It was a bit clunky for me and I could never aim it properly during my campaign runs, but it can quickly be cleaned up in Quick Matches against the lowest CPU AI. Finally, you must play through the entire game on All-Star difficulty. Was it challenging? A bit. But I did the first two levels with a co-op partner, it took us 1 full hour to beat the 2nd level, they left, and then I beat the remaining 9 levels in 3 hours on my own with my companion doing nothing, not even the bare minimum of the CPU AI. So it's very doable. The key to matches when you're out-matched is to quickly whittle at least one of the opposing team's members. From there, whenever you get the ball, hold it, let the opponent get close to you, and launch it when they're very much in range as they almost NEVER are able to dodge it that close. Quickly hunt down the rebound and take them out while they're stunned with stars in their eyes. Some levels (Whale Sign, Something's Cooking) are boss fights and present some different elements but the strategy is still to dodge whenever you see anybody winding up to annihilate you and try to do everything in your power to keep the ball in your hands if your objective isn't taking down the enemy. This was a delightful title and ranks up there with Desert Child as my completely surprising enjoyable indie game that while not a world-burner, I will frequently recommend to people. It took me 1 week and 20 hours to earn the 10.21% rarity platinum, see y'all again soon! Panda Score: 6.9 / 10 Panda Difficulty: 4.0 / 10 Edited January 18, 2023 by realm722 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arcesius Posted September 3, 2021 Share Posted September 3, 2021 Hmm, I think I remember seeing the guys at PlaystationAccess playing this game back when I still sporadically watched their content ? Definitely looks like a game that could be a lot of fun as a party game for an evening with friends! Nice write-up, as always 6 hours ago, realm722 said: Analysis: I bought Stikbold! as part of the Instant Indie Collection Volume #3 for $4.99 in early August 2021. I have zero interest in playing the other two games that form part of the package (10 Second Ninja X and Action Henk), but the game itself was on sale for $5 as well at this time so yanno... may as well get it as part of a bundle. Ooooh, why not? They are both really fun! Especially Action Henk... That is also one of those games where, despite the limited gameplay options, it still has pretty deep mechanics that need to be learned. 10SNX is a fun and pretty short game as well. Nothing spectacular, but a pretty nice concept and great execution! What is it that makes you not wanna play either of them? I had a good time with both 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
realm722 Posted September 3, 2021 Author Share Posted September 3, 2021 8 hours ago, Arcesius said: Ooooh, why not? They are both really fun! Especially Action Henk... That is also one of those games where, despite the limited gameplay options, it still has pretty deep mechanics that need to be learned. 10SNX is a fun and pretty short game as well. Nothing spectacular, but a pretty nice concept and great execution! What is it that makes you not wanna play either of them? I had a good time with both Honestly the biggest drawback for me is the sheer amount of time needed to pour into a 100% without the payoff in a platinum. I'm not one of those people who refuses to play a game without a plat, and I've played tricky lengthier 100% games (Sonic Mania, FEZ, Risk of Rain, Tiny Brains) but it's such a daunting task with those low percentages. I'll admit I went back and read your reviews of both games and I'd prolly try out 10SNX since it appears it can be done in a matter of days since the hardest part is getting the proper strategies done rather than execution. If I have ever have a dry spell where the games in my catalog are running low, and nothing on sale interests me - I'll prolly eventually cave and check them out. Thank you for your input though, your comment took them from "probably never" to "definitely not now but maybe some time in the distant future". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
realm722 Posted September 3, 2021 Author Share Posted September 3, 2021 Game: Songbird Symphony Analysis: I bought Songbird Symphony for $6.80 in late August 2021. This is the rare game where I will add a SPOILER warning. You've been warned. Songbird Symphony is a rhythm game created by Singaporean game developer, Joysteak Studios. It follows the journey of Birb, a lost bird in search of a place where he truly belongs as he doesn't know who his real parents are and in the meantime has been fostered by his uncle. It explores the journey of him seeking out the Wise Owl and exploring different landscapes of the world, becoming familiar with the different birds that learn there, and with their help learn different musical notes that will unlock the MacGuffin needed for Birb and the Owl to find his parents! Does that sound like an intriguing pitch to you? It sure did to me, and my goodness this game is beautiful. There are disco penguins. An exclusive club/bar you can get into. Listen to the spectacular Owl Opera. But before I hype up this game to those who are discovering it for the first time, I would say comfortably this is a children's game. That does NOT mean I think adults can't enjoy it. I enjoyed my time with it. The greatest types of entertainment for children are those that kids can enjoy at face value while still offering some level of depth and meaning to adults watching it along with them. But looking at it from this lens is extremely important to explain some of the points I'm going to make in the next paragraph. Let's talk about a few things that left me wanting more from the game. 1) The rhythm beats are unbelievably hard to actually complete correctly. What? But you just said this is a kids' game? Yes, it's a kids game in the sense that no matter how god-awful you can make each song sound with your goofing up, all the opposing birds will be like "holy cuckoo you're such an amazing singer your rhythm is unstoppable!" even if you don't land a single note correctly. This is a common issue I've run into with rhythm games. In PaRappa the Rapper Remastered, the beats and when you need to click don't match up with the symbols. In Patapon, it was EXTREMELY difficult for me and it required me to use headphones in order to actually beat it. The only rhythm game that has gotten everything down perfectly is Sayonara Wild Hearts. It's disappointing since the rare times you can sync up with the melody creates some brilliant orchestral moments. But rather than sound as clean as a run like this, you often have that miserable HONK sound distract you from the setpiece. I will add that if the game had a trophy that demanded A or even S-ranks - I may have discovered it’s actually fairer than I realized on my 1st playthrough. But with zero incentive to do that, I’ll never know. 2) Everything outside of these rhythm battles is average at best gameplay-wise. There are some "puzzles" across the different lands you'll be exploring but they're super simple rhythm inputs. Obviously, I wouldn't expect there to be combat in a game like this, but the collectibles involving the musical notes/feathers were just aight as an additional thing given how linear the game already is. This is where I'm going to pivot and make a surprising statement. I really enjoyed the story in Songbird Symphony. I know, right? ME of all people enjoying a story? I covered this a few weeks ago. Most stories in video games are trashcan tier. If it's a smaller game with good gameplay, I'll largely completely ignore it and just take it as flavoring that facilitates the thing I actually enjoy. The gameplay. But Songbird Symphony breaks the mold of being the game I honestly enjoy more for its' story than the rhythm mechanics. It is extremely easy to pitch. A lost, young, hopeful bird wants to discover who his parents are. He trusts in an elderly figure to guide him in order to attain what he seeks. He has a companion in Egbert (that egg in the bottom right-hand corner) who he protects from bullies while exploring Gallus Palace (a kingdom run by chickens). Throughout his travels, he makes new friends such as the gigantic Cassowary, Cassie (a sweet gigantic girl bird who's sad cuz other birds won't stop laughing at her). Along the way, he experiences excitement, companionship, disappointment, betrayal, salvation, and redemption. Like, legit man - I loved all the story beats and I did NOT see the twist of the game coming. (Only click that link if you wanna be spoiled) Would I recommend it? MAYBE. It's such a shame that the actual rhythm mechanics aren't finely tuned enough that this could have reached a high 7.0 tier for me. The input icons just move way too fast once you get beyond the first few challenges, and when you start doing well - the game floods your screen with so many different moving objects only those who practice over and over again will be able to achieve an A or S-rank. I kinda wish the game had asked for a minimum B-rank just to force me to play a few of the challenges over again. But even with that caveat, the actual songs themselves are super memorable. With the bonus of the story being fundamentally solid in my eyes (it's not perfect, some of the characters give reasons for their actions that are iffy at best but at least the game TRIES to explain why they acted the way they did), I think anyone looking for a leisure experience through an adorable protagonist's eyes is gonna have a good time with this one. On a final note, the trophies are extremely simple. Only two are missable and it's relating to collectibles in the final area you arrive at before the game says you've reached the point of no return. Use this for aid. I earned Songbird Symphony's 44.22% rarity platinum in 3 days and 2 hours. It is going to be quite a while before my next game review after banging 3 out in 3 straight days since I'm gonna venture for a plat in the <2% range. Hope to see y'all on the other side. Panda Score: 6.65 / 10 Panda Difficulty: 1.7 / 10 (the actual game is tough to earn high ranks, but the trophies demand 0 excellence in that regard) 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post realm722 Posted September 17, 2021 Author Popular Post Share Posted September 17, 2021 The Elusive, Mythical PS5 Continues To Evade Me | My Will Is Breaking September 16th, 2021 - Acquiring a PS5 continues to be incredibly difficult. Despite all my efforts, all I have reaped is futility. That is honestly pretty incredible given it was released back in November 2020. We're approaching a year of the console being available out in the wild and due to a worldwide pandemic and a global chip shortage that may last until 2023, it's not likely these things are going to be popping up everywhere like weeds amongst concrete. Essentially, this post is a manifestation of my frustrations in being able to acquire the latest and greatest hardware by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Like, how could I have expected this? When the PS4 released in November 2013, I was able to scoop it up in March 2014 and never looked back. I still have and play on my Day 1 PS4. I have played it for quite literally thousands of hours over the last 7 years. I have not upgraded to a PS4 Slim or Pro. I buy one console per generation, and it will carry me to the next one when we're approaching the end of the 2020s. So you can imagine my frustration with the situation. Although I included in the title that my will is breaking. I will continue in my feeble attempts. At some point, the bots will cease their scourge. On eBay, consoles are typically selling for somewhere in the $750 - $900 range for one with a disc drive. The price is slowly dwindling down, but even then I imagine it'll be difficult once scalpers stop since the general demand for the console is extremely high. My time is almost running out at actually having a chance since the holiday season that is around the corner will surely lead to only more desperate parents trying to make sure little Timmy has his Fortnite Gaming System. (I don't dislike Fortnite, but c'mon man, I'm tryna play Bugsnax for Free and I can't yet without that next-gen). Still, I'm soothing myself with some rationalizations that are honestly, quite reasonable about why it's not so bad I don't have one yet. #1. I don't play supremely high-fidelity games that require enormous graphics. I play indies, man. I'm not going to even notice the minuscule graphical improvement in my indie games compared to some AAA-gamer who's playing Deathloop, God of War: Ragnarok, and Gran Tourismo 7. I want to upgrade, but the improvements won't be noticed right away. #2. As of right now, PS5 still lacks any exclusives I want to play. The console is not even 1-year old. This isn't surprising. Hell, the first game that I may want to genuinely play on next-gen that may have some benefit is Horizon Zero Dawn: Forbidden West. But I don't play games full-price. If we're looking at a Q1 release window, maybe I'd actually get the game on sale for $20 come October - November 2022? That's still a whole year away. Other games like Demon's Souls while impressive, aren't for me. and while both those reasons are well and good, I still really want one. Just so loading times are faster. Just so I can say I have one. In my library I've managed to claim many free games including Overcooked: All You Can Eat, A Plague Tale: Innocence, Operation Tango, Maquette, and Bugsnax. But yea. Not a very long post from me this go-around but I just wanted to post my frustrations. Maybe it'll be funny to look back and read this in hindsight once I finally have one. Hopefully in early 2022. Mid-2022 at the latest. It'd take a miracle for me to get one before the end of 2021 since I refuse to pay that damn scalper fee. Bonus Note - I am playing Ash of Gods; Redemption and I'm fairly certain the word count on this next review is going to be utterly mammoth. I don't go out of my way to write long reviews. But if the game deserves it, I'm going to write about it. It's an absurdly underplayed game so hopefully, my review encourages some to try it out. I still have a number of ultra rare's left to earn so while I may end up despising the game by the end, the early returns are very good. Aside from that, the Dolphins are 1-0 which is good even if I think we're 90% likely due for a loss against Buffalo since Josh Allen always carves us up. Talk to y'all soon! 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Briste Posted September 19, 2021 Share Posted September 19, 2021 On 9/16/2021 at 10:28 PM, realm722 said: Bonus Note - I am playing Ash of Gods; Redemption and I'm fairly certain the word count on this next review is going to be utterly mammoth. I don't go out of my way to write long reviews. But if the game deserves it, I'm going to write about it. It's an absurdly underplayed game so hopefully, my review encourages some to try it out. I still have a number of ultra rare's left to earn so while I may end up despising the game by the end, the early returns are very good. Aside from that, the Dolphins are 1-0 which is good even if I think we're 90% likely due for a loss against Buffalo since Josh Allen always carves us up. Talk to y'all soon! I'm happy to hear that you are enjoying this game and look forward to your review! I also enjoyed it quite a bit. I think it can be done in as little as three playthroughs provided you have a couple of well placed saves. Did it take you long to get used to the controls? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
realm722 Posted September 19, 2021 Author Share Posted September 19, 2021 4 hours ago, Briste said: I'm happy to hear that you are enjoying this game and look forward to your review! I also enjoyed it quite a bit. I think it can be done in as little as three playthroughs provided you have a couple of well placed saves. Did it take you long to get used to the controls? Hah yea I'm gonna need to do a full 4. ? I have the very intimidating "Heartless" trophy left which I have to start a completely fresh one to do and I'm gonna be cackling like a psychopath while doing it after generally liking all these characters now having to act like a complete monster. After that, all I have left is the 3 trophies for Iron Mode, which will also require a completely separate playthrough. I'll end up needing to do 4 since I wanted to do a blind one for my initial and I looked at 0 trophies. Given how much I've enjoyed the game, I'm okay with that. I'm really hoping to observe the game one last time on the Iron Mode run just so it's very fresh when I write my review. As for the controls, I HATED them at the start. They were insanely frustrating and it affected my decision-making to the point where I went out of my way to avoid fights just because I hated the battle system. Slowly, like... halfway thru my 1st playthrough, things clicked. The game got noticeably better for me and I'm gonna touch on that in the review. The game is unpolished as they come while still being functional. But if you dig these sorts of games like you and I do, you're willing to stomach a lot to bask in these environments and characters. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post realm722 Posted September 23, 2021 Author Popular Post Share Posted September 23, 2021 Game: Ash of Gods: Redemption Analysis: I bought Ash of Gods: Redemption for $5.99 back in mid-April 2021. This is in all likelihood, the most obscure game I have ever done a mammoth critique of. At the time that I write this (Sep. 22, 2021) I am only the 12th person to have platinumed the game and am one of only 613 game owners. Given the fact the game has been available on PS4 since January 2020, it's not the newest of releases. Thus, after my extensive play sessions, I have decided to devote myself to this game and aspire to FF7R-tier analysis. I believe this game is worthy of that praise. I also feel like there is a lot wrong with it. I DO NOT recommend it for the vast majority of players. I'm not trying to be contradictory, merely honest. Let's look at how we got here. How on earth did I hear of this game? @Briste deserves to share the full burden of unleashing this game upon me. I have never heard of it anywhere but by reading his trophy cabinet. Not on YouTube, Reddit, Twitter, or any other mainstream network. Granted, I'm not exactly scoping out the tactical RPG market like a hound but I adore the Banner Saga Trilogy. It is one of my favorite trilogies ever, and its only competition is the Batman: Arkham franchise. His extensive review got my eye. He recommended it to me personally in this thread. and on his own thread, I confirmed my purchase several months later. The entire basis for this recommendation was that I had snorted and consumed The Banner Saga games like they were going out of style. I wrote over 8.5k words across all three entries. That probably makes me a freak. But why am I bringing all of this up? How on earth are the TBS games relevant? Personally, I'd argue they are inextricably connected for better or for worse - and I'd like to elaborate a bit on that point and vent a general frustration with gamers and some of the nonsense I've read about AoG. "Ash of Gods is a crappy ripoff of the Banner Saga" "These devs should make their own game" "Lazy game developers rehashing the same ideas" I don't know how else to say it, but any person who spouts these claims about games that take inspiration from one another is quite frankly, a moron. I can't think of a nicer way to put it. Let's break down these arguments one by one. 1) First of all, the claim that the game is a "ripoff" of the Banner Saga. Really? What is a ripoff exactly? Merriam-Webster describes it as "a usually cheap exploitative imitation". These are generally seen when something goes wildly popular and inspires swindlers in an industry to quickly throw together some hodgepodge mess hoping to make a quick buck on unsuspecting consumers. Think like how all these influencers have tried to make their own CryptoCurrency to sell off to their fans after seeing the hype surrounding bit and dogecoin. Why is this argument ridiculous? For one, it's not like TBS was Fortnite or Minecraft. It's decently well-known in communities that follow indie games. But I'd wager to guess if you wanted to make a quick buck, imitating an intricate, elaborate, turn-based tactical RPG isn't the best way to go about it. 2) "These devs should make their own game". The game developer behind AoG is a small team based out of Russia. They're called AurumDust. This is a crew of 12 people that worked passionately to create something of their own and I do not know how you could play this game and not recognize that. There are serious polish issues (I'll have a whole section dedicated to that later), but I cannot begin to imagine the many sleepless nights they had crunching to put this entire game together and make it functional. It's pathetic they need to have a FAQ asking if the game is related to TBS. 3), Finally "lazy game developers". The next time a gamer calls a developer lazy, you should legally be allowed to kick that person in the testicles. I'm sorry. It's such a neckbeard over-privileged attitude. I struggle to think of many jobs that attract less lazy people than game development. It'd be like saying "wow check out these cowardly firefighters". Really? Cowardly? You don't think they would have gotten into another line of work if that was the case? Indie game development is entirely fueled by a deep passion for their creations and the industry and if players knew even a fraction of what it took to create even the simplest things in a "basic" game, I think their minds would be blown. The one exception to this rule is a gigantic conglomerate like... EA for example. Those teams legit have billions of dollars and choose to do less with it. But it's not the employee developer's fault. I just wanted to get that off my chest. There will be more mention of TBS down the line and some similarities that can be drawn but let's move on to the pitch. Should YOU play this game? This is the spoiler-free recommendation section. So here's my best pitch to you if you want to quickly know whether or not you should. Have you played the Banner Saga? If not, no. If yes, did you love it? Because if you loved it, I think there's a lot here you could enjoy. Otherwise, I cannot in good conscience recommend this game to people with zero familiarity to this genre of games. I consider TBS to be an excellent entry barrier. But you cannot pass go until you complete that first. The game is phenomenal at delivering a fascinating world with so many new terms (Umbra, Amboniations, Eikon, Reapers, strixes, Gells, Pallians, Qimra, etc...) that if you're anything like me you will be devouring every nook and cranny to try and make sense of the story. There was a particular cast I fell in LOVE with that got me hooked on the game. The other one grew with me in time. I am flabbergasted by the number of impactful decisions you can make that can wildly influence your playthrough. People complain about story games like The Walking Dead series lacking many truly "impactful" decisions when in reality the game can only change oh so much given the limits of game development. I can safely say Ash of Gods can change WILDLY based on some key decisions you make both in the early and mid-game. If that sounds appealing to you, check this bad boy out. It is a doozy and will require 3+ playthroughs in order to earn all trophies. I personally required 4+reloading some saves. But you do get a juicy ultra-rare platinum at the end of it. But enough vague nonsense. Let's get into the thick of things. SPOILERS FROM HERE ONWARDS Lo Pheng is best boy. You're a serene warrior of peace who can either single-handedly destroy entire legions of fighters or do it with the aid of your harem of women. Your redhead wife isn't even in this pic. Thorn Brenin - Thorn is one of the three perspectives you will be controlling throughout the main campaign. I'd argue his journey is the one that has the most pivotal moments where you will have to make wise, sound decisions in order to survive. In his company is his daughter, Gleda. A skilled swordsman who you have trained by your own hand. You're on the run as the Reaping has begun, a time period where Reapers appear and kill humans. You're a former Captain and now must journey to survive with the crew that remains from your small town in search of some hope for survival, finding a cure for your daughter, as well as locating your son who is in the army and has been assigned many moons away from you. Will you save him or not? Will you get yourself killed or pardoned as you have a stowaway prince amongst your ranks? Do you tempt fate by mocking Reapers or pull off an incredible run where you save everybody? All of this is up to you. I'll be 100% honest, on my 1st play-through, it took me quite some time to warm up to Thorn. I thought his crew was incredibly generic through the first few chapters. But with the additions of Andra and Foshta (who you can gain as companions if you find yourself in prison, and then escape) I really started to enjoy his crew. Sopp is an absolute tank and was essential in both my first and fourth playthrough with his quick-strike ability boosting his attack. I relied heavily on archers Flitt and Brett as well on my 1st run, though on later ones they rode the pine. Krieger is immense and carried me on my 4th run through Hardcore Mode as I failed to save him on my initial one (oh yea, there are events where you can 100% unknowingly kill your companions) and even though he's a hardass he makes for a perfect companion w/ Thorn as veterans just trying to make it through with their relatively younger crew. Some others like Ramlin, Vai, and Helm never really made a huge impression on me but mileage could vary depending on your playstyle. Thorn himself can either be evil or good depending on how you play him. I personally found him a bit abrasive since I kept comparing him to Rook (or at least what I remembered of him from TBS) but slowly it made sense given the more dark and grim reality of this world that he would be an asshole at times. How the game unfolds is entirely in your hands and largely dependent on how you personally managed Thorn's crew for the majority of the journey. Hopper Rouley - Hopper despite his appearance is not human. He is an Umbra. A species capable of living on for hundreds of years, and this is quickly unveiled by the opening cinematic where Hopper absolutely obliterates enemy forces. But, by fate or by luck, rather than perishing along with his companions in the Battle at Drowsy Deep, he survived and found himself alive 700 years later when another Reaping would occur. I quite like Hopper. You never have to worry about his combat sections given how OP he is as an Umbra. All his gameplay sections are where you play solo as him and slowly whittle down the enemy by being able to recoup energy and health off them once you acquire enough skill points to gain those abilities. Hopper's main objective in the game is to, surprisingly, hunt down Thorn Brenin. The reason for this is he's heard of how Thorn and Gleda Brenin managed to stand up face-to-face with a Reaper.... and live. Not typical for humans. So you'll be traversing through many of the same roads that the previous crew will. Along the way, you'll have these most curious tips and magical inscriptions that you'll uncover as you try to piece together little by little a riddle you've been given. Why is it important that you solve this riddle? Well, for one, you inherit a deadly black curse at the beginning of the game that you will have to decide whether or not you resist the curse thus making the effects of the Reaping that much more deadly or let the curse into your heart which will make you weaker while making the game itself easier for your fellow companions. Cool! The second, and somehow, more important reason to solve the riddle is the fate of all of Terminium is on the line if you don't. Seriously. SOLVE THE DAMN RIDDLE OR EVERYONE DIES. Shockingly enough, I managed to find enough tips and passages to safely achieve a good ending in my 1st playthrough. Talk about an upset! I'm not very good at mystery puzzles and such but making enough wise decisions with my travels paid off in the end for me. I enjoyed Hopper. Despite being Umbra, he cares for humans and doesn't wish for them to be destroyed, unlike some others in his species. cough Coronzon cough. He can also be buddy-buddy with Ake, a traveling giant who's supposedly good in battle though you'll never see him utilized once in that role for whatever reason. Oh, and he has an ex-lover Amma who is really cold to him. Neat! Lo Pheng - and here ladies and gentlemen, we have the best damn character in the entire game! Lo Pheng is what made me fall in love with this game. OR better said, him and his crew. While Thorn and Hopper had some similar elements to Root/Alette and the Valka(Eyvind, Juno) from TBS, Lo Pheng is completely unique. Just LOOK at how badass his design is. Comparing him to Bolverk would be an insult. Here you have an Eikon, a member of the Shadow Clan, who has been tasked to escort the Pelko Sotouri. You are incredibly serene, passive, and despite your immense skill are not a showboat or chatterbox. I absolutely could not stop cracking up at how often the game would preface his statements with perspectives such as "(detached)" OR "(not showing much interest)". He is loyal to his clan and that's it. OR.... is it? At the very start of the game, you will have an EXTREMELY important decision to make. You are based at Wodan and must decide whether or not to kill a red-haired woman named Reet who knows too much. Do you kill her? OR are you no executioner? If the case is the latter, you will have a drastically different playthrough than the former. I choose the latter, and boy am I glad I did. You save this woman, end up discovering she's a Qimra, and despite the fact she's been cursed by the Reaper (who was running the execution show disguised in human form), must journey with her along with her Wench Warriors to survival. You heard me right, it's a crew of all women. I don't know why, but I honestly think that's what made me not like Thorn's bunch originally when Gleda was the only girl. Here, you have Shannet, Swarty, Bolla, Kendi, and of course, Reet. I love these women. I would put my life on the line for them. Quite often, I did. They aren't perfect. They aren't going to be fawning over you 24/7. But depending on how you manage their different personalities you can grow your affinity for them. Along this journey, Reet will succumb to the curse placed by the Reaper. You must make an essential decision. Do you save her sharing your stone or let her die? Sharing your stone would be a betrayal of your clan and get you ostracized from the only people you've ever known. Warriors sacrificed themselves to give you the power you have today. Would you give that up for a woman? Well, I sure did! and boy am I glad cuz that is instant no-escaping death for you down the line if you don't lmao. Orkan literally sends you to slaughter and says: "shoulda saved Reet ya dingus". There is so much to enjoy on this path and boy am I glad I experienced it the correct way on my initial playthrough. Otherwise, the ending would have left me devastated. I managed to make him merciful which proved to be a huge challenge for others who had played the games dozens of times. One of the biggest reasons why I think is I always choose "Reminisce". Always Reminisce. Reapers are freaking scary man. I was pooping my pants whenever I had to face them in dialogue sequences or battle sections given how overwhelmingly powerful they are. Too bad they got dorky names lmao How is the gameplay in Ash of Gods? I'm not going to mention the controls for now since those frustrations will be vented in the "polishing" section. Rather, I'd like to look at the core gameplay elements. If you played TBS, a lot of it will be familiar. But I would argue there are some subtle hugely impactful changes that will mean the strategies from that game will not carry over to this one. For example, on my 1st playthrough, I always trotted out 6 characters because in my head - more is always better. In all reality, what you want is 2-3 characters that are very powerful who can quickly whittle down the numbers of the opposing units. I learned this on my 2nd playthrough. 90% of the battles in this game can be won as just Thorn, just Lo Pheng, and of course just Hopper. It requires skill and patience with positioning away from enemy units so they can't hit you during their turn, but it can be done. Another unique change is that your turn order is NOT set in stone. Let's say, for example, on your opening turn you went - Thorn, Gleda, Sopp, & Brett. In the following turn, you could do Sopp, Gleda, Brett, & Thorn. Essentially allowing for back-to-back turns if you time things properly. Another element is the fact that attack damage has zero relation to actual health. In TBS, you would be incentivized to keep as many weak units on the field as long as possible as they would do little to no damage and take away turns from more powerful enemies if you were to eliminate them too quickly. In AoG, powerful enemies stay powerful even at 1 health unless you were to debuff their attack with a card or skill(namely Andra/Foshta). I quite liked this change. Finally, there are cards you can use. Honestly, they didn't add a whole bunch to the game for me but for solo runs they can be huge for letting you pass turns during key moments of battle. Such as for Lo Pheng when you buff him to 42 defense and just want the enemy to attack you and get a free counterattack hit in. I enjoyed the gameplay. I love this grid turn-based combat. It's not for everyone, but it IS for me. How is the story/branching decision-making in AoG? Impeccable. At least in my opinion. There are so many key moments throughout the game that you may not even realize their severity. On your very first decision as Thorn, you will decide the fate of Krieger whether you realize it or not. I foolishly went to Rask's shop and couldn't save my old pal. I got arrested in Ursus after going to Unda's house, not even considering going to Teek's Inn, and quite nearly got myself executed in the 3rd Chapter. If that happens, and you don't intervene as Hopper, your run as Thorn is OVER. Another huge moment that shocked me is you have a limited amount of days to save your son. If you don't arrive with the appropriate amount of urgency, he WILL die. If you do rush quickly, you CAN save him. That blew my mind given so often in games it feels like those sorts of moments are set in stone no matter what you do and you only realize it after the fact. Depending on your morale, you will either be helpful in the endgame at Opacum, or likely end up killing your companions (Lo Pheng, Hopper, possibly even both lmao). As Lo Pheng, if you kill Reet, you stay with Frisia and your run through the game is WAY shorter. I did this on my 3rd playthrough Story Mode run and thought it was mental the game proceeded the way it did. If you don't share your sacred strix, you're screwed when it comes time to teleport. If you didn't make Lo Pheng merciful enough, he KILLS Reet at the end of the game. I NEVER got this ending and I will NEVER look it up since I absolutely cannot imagine best boy doing that. If you die as both Thorn and Lo Pheng, the game still proceeds with Hopper at the end if he kept up his end of the bargain by finding all the riddles. If he doesn't find all the riddles, an evil god possesses Gleda, Phillia, or Reet depending on who you choose at the end. That's hilarious in my opinion. If I had to make a criticism, it'd be that I wish when you "choose' whose perspective you played as, towards the end, the other side wasn't left so useless. Yea they're there, and likely many people WON'T be able to bring both to the end due to the difficulty, but I managed it on my 1st run, choose Thorn (since it felt like that's where more story would be), and felt like Lo Pheng's crew got a bit shafted. I've read more complaints about how the player "should know more" regarding the consequences of their actions. You can get the King killed if you don't ask a question to an Umbra at an opportune time. But isn't that the case of all things in life? Does everything need to be spelled out so blatantly that we can't wonder how we act make have consequences even if they're unforeseen? I'm probably just being defensive. How Hopper looks right here is how you may feel when you realize all the intricate details you must know in order to obtain the platinum. It's okay, with my help (and Steam's), we'll get you there. TROPHIES - Let's talk trophies! This is a trophy-hunting website. In order to help the next fool audacious enough to try and platinum this game, I figured I'd offer some tips on how to make the game at least a bit easier to understand. I'll break this down in the 4 playthroughs it took me to beat the game. Here are some helpful aids. One. Two. & Three. 1st Playthrough (Blind) - I recommend playing the game blind on Classic Mode. I feel like you would enjoy this game far less if you had a little tracker with you trying to incorporate as many trophies as possible on your initial run. The controls for gameplay will frustrate you greatly as you struggle to figure out where to select and who to select and why can't I find my damn cursor I just want to move my guy here but the game keeps focusing on the enem- wait. We're not at the polishing section yet. Scratch that. Basically, take my advice, bud. PLAY THIS GAME BLIND. YOU ONLY GET TO EXPERIENCE IT THE FIRST TIME ONCE. Yea it'll cost you maybe an extra 5-6 hours on a fresh playthrough but what's that in comparison to the shock and awe you'll have when you play the game the first time? I personally didn't earn many trophies my first time through. I did many of the basic ones, met Vai the Monk, kept Thorn alive, solved the riddle that's at the heart of the game, and kept the King, Hode, Flitt, and Fisk alive all on my 1st playthrough. From there I did a number of reloading from 1-2 chapters back which typically involved picking a different side such as Lo Pheng or Blance, getting some of the battle/card trophies if possible, and even managed to get all of the Theophany endings (which you'll get w/ high morale but Hopper is a goofball mcgundy and doesn't solve the riddle). They're not hard at all, and depending on how your blind run goes it really won't be that tricky to pick up many of these even though they appear to be ultra-rare. 2nd Playthrough (Broken Threads Run aka Kill Every Character You Can) - Hah you read that correctly. This playthrough will have you cackling like a psychopath. Why can't this run be compatible with Heartless? Because in Heartless you need to kill/be such a jerk that some members like Reet and Vai won't even be members in your party to begin with. Thus they never "count' as dying. You basically need to do a "good" run all the way up until towards the end and then botch things so miserably you take everyone out. This can be done with Thorn by taking the 45 days necessary to get to Opacum, and then "fleeing" from the Frisian army. I am so thankful I "fought" on my 1st playthrough since I would have been pissed at the "Game Over' for this crew if my run ended there. As for Lo Pheng, you're gonna need to kill Reet AFTER you get Khama (an Ense added to your team) and then be taken out by Orkan. That's typically the best way to get this trophy and I don't believe there is another one otherwise. I personally did this run again on Classic Mode since I had such big struggles early on in my 1st playthrough I actually lost battles early. This negated some trophies for me. So I managed to beat the game without losing a single time and without using a card. Please do note, if you feel like you've "lost" a battle, you can just reload from the menu and go back to your pre-selection battle screen. It does NOT count as a game over. Along the way, I also buffed Krieger up to +40 attack thanks to the Ursus fight. This trophy is a bit tricky but I ran with a Krieger, Ramlin, Foshta, Andra crew where Foshta/Andra debuff the enemy's attack, and Ramlin focuses entirely on buffing Krieger's attack. I also saved Mact Brenin (Thorn's son, which I couldn't do in my 1st since I took too long), and side-lined Gleda for the whole game. This is weird that this one popped since honestly after an event where I promised her she'd be in the next fight, the game put her in automatically, yet the trophy still popped at the end. I'm not complaining. I got all the trophies for cards/battles which were easy enough, got Gleda to suicide due to low morale and Thorn being evil, and finally I can confirm that the "x character is alive" trophies still pop even IF you get the Theophany endings. Cool! 3rd Playthrough (Heartless, Play Like An Absolute Monster) - Yes, you are going to need one playthrough intended for this one trophy. Though you can also combine it with the "rob or kill every merchant you come across" gold trophy which I did in my 2nd one. What does this playthrough entail? Be the biggest jerk as Thorn, Lo Pheng, AND Hopper. Here's my recommendation - do this trophy on Story Mode. You will FLY through the game. All your characters are OP as all hell with like 20 strength and hundreds of health points. You literally cannot die unless you try to. Battles will take no more than 1-2 minutes and due to Lo Pheng killing Reet one half of the game will be remarkably shorter. This guide on Steam helped me greatly with this trophy. I made sure I completed every one of the steps and the trophy popped without a hitch. Be warned though, playing on Story Mode this run for this one trophy made the final playthrough extra difficult initially since you have to readjust to playing the game "strategically" again but this time on the absolute hardest difficulty. 4th Playthrough (Iron Man, Beat the game w/ Thorn AND Lo Pheng Alive in Hardcore Mode) - Use this guide. I don't know where I would be without it. While the game can be made slightly easier if you choose to sacrifice yourself to the curse as Hopper every time, you will still have great challenges in this mode even after so much experience with the game. I personally ended up losing Andra/Foshta (on purpose), Ramlin, and Vai (not on purpose) due to the simple lack of strixes given out in this mode. I was fortunate I did not lose Flitt as he is ESSENTIAL to this achievement if you use the guide I listed. The basic strategy is, you can play as evil Thorn as much as you'd like due to an event that you can get at the end of the game that gives you +50 morale if you gathered all the appropriate scrolls necessary scattered throughout the different lands. This requires perfection thus I recommend using a guide. By doing this, and making Lo Pheng at least somewhat merciful (reminiscing every time, being compassionate, and getting morale at 30%+) you can choose to play as Lo Pheng at the end and beat the game. The fights will be very challenging initially but it is KEY you DO NOT suffer injuries. There is no time for healing in this mode as there simply are not enough strixes. So don't ever get hurt as Thorn and Lo Pheng unless you know a healing menhir is nearby(which are only available at specific points in the game). If you've done everything as you should, the platinum should pop. I personally earned the 1.96% rarity platinum in 2 weeks and 2 days, placing me as the 5th fastest achiever yet on PSNProfiles. I'm proud of that accomplishment. Ash of Gods biggest issue will forever be the lack of polish and while it didn't prevent me from enjoying the game, it will certainly present several barriers to those less passionate for games of this ilk Yea so AoG has a gigantic issue with polish. This is understandable in a massive game for a studio of this size. But it still needs to be talked about it. Let's go through it. 1) The abnomination this game calls a control scheme. Yea there's no excusing this. For the first 10-15 battles or so you will be incredibly frustrated with the controls this game utilizes for combat. I am not even going to attempt to describe it. You're going to have to figure it out on your own touching the d-pad, flicking both analog sticks, just trying to see what works. Briste warned me the game had clunky awkward controls at the beginning but it legitamately affected my playing style where I would go out of the way to avoid combat sequences early since I simply did not want to have to deal with the menu system they used. The good news? It gets better. About the midway point of the game I finally got the grasp of knowing where to click. From then on, it becomes a habit and it's not too bad minus the times it takes a minute to find your cursor to tell your character where you want him to move. It is a harsh downgrade compared to the TBS system in terms of functionality but if you wanna enjoy a game of this type, I think you can power through it. 2) The studio blew their entire cinematic budget on the opening cutscene. I say this slightly in jest but seriously. I saw the opening cutscene with Hopper slicing dudes up and thought "holy crap TBS had some cinematic moments too but nothing quite like this, this is spectacular!" Then the game never had another moment like that till the very end with a character you never play as and it is the default ending cutscene no matter the finale you got. When there were huge moments (Thorn's execution, losing Mact, having Lo Pheng die to the hands of a Reaper) there was no cutscene, and if there was one, it was this straight one-note scene that didn't have much animation. Of course asking a studio of this size to have these gorgeous cinematics for every plausible outcome, especially when very often many players won't even see them is a completely ludicrous ask but I had to mention it. 3) Why is it such a pain in the ass to pause the game and go back to the main menu? Why can I only pause the game at a map sequence OR in battle? Why can't I pause it during a story roadmap sequence OR when I'm at a town? It's such a needlessly forgotten detail that makes reloading horrendous. 4) Sometimes when you click X, it'll register that input twice, occasionally skipping dialogue sequences you didn't want skipped and adding extra skill points in a category you only wanted to add one point to. This happened to me A LOT on my 1st playthrough. No matter how delicately I touched the "X" button, this would happen. I finally figured out the appropriate tone to prevent it in the skill points section but dialogue is always a dice roll. Prolly happened to me... 10-15 times throughout all playthroughs. Just annoying. 5) The narrator isn't good and you'll often notice his words don't allign with the written text. I didn't like the narrator. He didn't fit the voice I had in mind for the narrative. This compares piss poorly to TBS where the accents were a beautiful highlight of the game despite how infrequent they were. Also, the written text changes are proof of unable to justify the cost to have the voice actor re-do his lines. 6) Some of the dialogue sequences just kinda make you say "uh.... what?" It's not disastrous. I don't think the dialogue is bad. I've seen one review describe it as "awful" and I think that person must have a stick up their butt. The vast majority of the main campaign dialogue sequences are solid if a bit overly ridiculous with some of the terminology, but I think that can be said for a lot of fantasy media. Really the things that made me say "uh... what?' mostly happened with Lo Pheng's crew. All these ladies would be talking about sleeping with him. "I've never done it with an Eikon". Just kinda... outta thin air? I'd get it if my dialogue went in that direction but it felt spontaneous at times. Also, Lo Pheng sometimes uses an exclamation point when in my head cannon he NEVER would use one. This may be an issue with the English translation since this was a Russian studio. IN CONCLUSION I have been stuck in the Ash of Gods vortex for 2 weeks+ now. Rare is it when I can truly say that about a game. Some other ones that fall into this category of completely absorbing my life are FF7R, Hollow Knight, Persona 5, and Dead Cells. I have loved it. This game is NOT perfect. I just listed many reasons for why it could be polished that much further and made into a sophisticated diamond. But asking that of a 12-man indie studio would be cruel. I think AoG is absolutely magnificent for someone who has experienced and adored the TBS trilogy and is looking for something more. You may look at it with a judgemental eye like I did at the beginning (the father/daughter connection is there with Thorn/Gleda and Rook/Alette, dredges = abominations, stowaway prince who needs to be protected in Ho/Ludin, the combat system, the way the characters talk to one another in dialogue scenes) but there is so much soul to this game that anyone calling it a "ripoff" or a copy is exposing their ignorance to anyone who has taken the time of day to bask in this game's universe. Despite all of it's faults, this is one of my favorite games I have had the privlledge of playing in 2021 and honestly cracks my top games of All-Time on PS4. Thank you to @Briste for letting me soak in it's glory. Panda Score: 9.0 / 10 Panda Difficulty: 5.2 / 10 P.S. - I'm so glad I got this typed up as soon as I did. It is so tough trying to mentally juggle all the different details in this game and make it sound even mildly coherent to the 1-2 people who bother to read a 5k+ word review on a game 12 people have platinumed. ? I didn't even dive much into Friga, the Ashen Wasteland, some more details on characters like Rask or Dume or Treeg but I'll leave that for somebody else to cover. What is next? Well, I am going to try and pull off a LeBron James-eque comeback block on @Cassylvania and review Spiritfarer before they do. I have had it in mind as my 150th platinum milestone for the longest time now. But it'll be a tall task given they're already at 50%. IRL the PS5 search continues and the Dolphins broke my heart and Tua in the same week. At least they're consistent. Until next time! Spoiler Are you on crack? I just typed up 6,000+ words in 3 hours and 15 minutes and you clicked on the spoiler at the bottom? Did you expect some Rule 34 about this game here? Get some help. Here are some raw notes I made on the game as I played it live since I knew it would be a marathon experience. Read it if you're a weirdo. I am writing this on Sept. 6th, 2021 as my 1st day playing Ash of Gods. Let me be 100% honest, I am TERRIFIED of this game. I have heard nothing about it from anyone, am only trusting 1000% in @Br1ste to lead me to a good time following the Banner Saga series. The rarity %’s on this game are crazy, and my fear is even though I’m giving myself a month to platinum it - I may completely fail, hate the game, and on top of it all end up not being good enough to earn the platinum. The game only has 11 platinum achievers at the time of writing this despite the fact it released in January 2021. This could be a masterpiece or a disaster, we shall see. Another note - rather than follow a guide, I didn’t use one for BS1, BS2, or BS3 as I wanted to enjoy the story naturally since they are HUGE in terms of enjoyment of the game. Given how rare the trophies are and how random events can be, I am going to be doing an INITIAL BLIND PLAYTHROUGH acknowledging I’ll likely unlock few trophies this way, but hopefully the game comes through on an enjoyment scale for it to be justified. Enough blabbering, let’s play! Our 1st play through will be on Classic Mode! BIGTIME BANNER SAGA VIBES FROM THAT INTRO SCENE! 700 years ago me and the other “Curros” self-sacrificed to stop “The Reaping” but it appears as though that reaper dude is back since we’re feeling uneasy. Uh oh. Okay so the gameplay tutorial on these bandits, instead of “armor” it’s “energy”. BUT WOW the gameplay looks super similar at least from a first glance. Cool! I loved the gameplay in Banner Saga. Amma is our former girlfriend? And our name is Blance. Cool. Our guy just got accused of being a coward and hiding, not finishing the job. Let’s see if this continues with other characters. Wait we killed Amma with that knife? Bruh? Thorn and Gleda… father/daughter duo shopping for a gift for mom. I’m gonna go with jewelry? Women like jewelry. Gleda has a necklace on. Our wife is sick. Hope my ol’ buddy isn’t pulling a fast one on me with this strix. 100,000 gold coins? WE’LL TAKE IT! If we lie, he’ll lose faith in the kindness of men. This dude Rask is the anti-typical business man. He’s our old pal. We’ll pay him back. NOOOOO FRIENDLY OLD BALD DUDE IS DEAD CUZ OF REAPER “Dorpkhal the Reaper” is such a dorky name hahaha We just lost 8 of 20 strixes ALREADY and we just stepped outta the shop. Welp I accidentally had Gleda knocked out due to hitting her with Thorn’s AOE attack. Still learning the mechanics though. I did earn 3 trophies tho! Welp our wife died. Lowered loyalty with Brett? Why? Alright this is the crew we’re rolling with - Thorn, Gleda, Flitt, Krieger, Fisk, and Sopp! Alright that battle went decent. Only Gleda fell. Though now she has 2 skulls. That’s really not good. Opted for Stone Bridge, didn’t find Rask, and it was a bit of a dud. Later on went to village and found Ramlin who has a baller grandma. Entering Chapter 2, game is decent, I’m VERY frustrated with the mechanics for attacking because it feels like the game isn’t listening to what I’m trying to tell it to do, got a lil better towards the end of the bridge fight vs the abomination. Switching perspectives over to Lo Pheng… we appear to be the bodyguard of Pelko Soturi. I’ll play the quiet, serious, threatening type. Reet red-haired prisoner girl tried to warn us… OH MY GOODNESS FIRST ACTUALLY BRUTAL DECISION. TO KILL REET OR NOT TO KILL HER? She’s done nothing to deserve it. Ugh… I really freaking don’t want to man. Screw it, it’s my 1st play-through, and while it may be out of Lo Pheng’s character IM NOT KILLING HER! WOW that Lo Pheng battle vs the Reaper was tough. I won’t lie. I had to look up a YT video for a strategy. Then it made sense how it was fairly easy. My stupid brain couldn’t wrap my head around the importance of always having energy. On to Chapter 3. I don’t think the narrator's voice fits the setting. Hot take. Just did the Hopper Rouley bell fight… “Collect the 7 wisdoms and be saved” Huh? Should I have not gone to the bell? Welp our hand is blackened and our stats are lowered. That sucks. “The Temple serves only Berkana…” feels like it might piss off Coronozan but screw it he messed up my hand, might as well side with Treeg “Burnt-out coals, ruins, or a place where there’s now water” hmmm…. I didn’t touch the menhir as hopper cuz duh, that seems like a great way to increase curse by 10% Sopp/Hode are causing problems in our ranks. Hode is Treeg’s son. Whoop them. Wow these dividing strixes is hard man… Alright after digging myself in a hole running our of strixes and dying in battle, healed twice by eating and walking underneath the menhir archway. We back! Chila the Seeres says Krieger will betray us, look for Unda in Urusu “The Source must be preserved” aight lady Welp Krieger is dead. Ugh Fisk just cost us 1k gold cuz he MURDERED someone YOOOOOOO LO PHENG AND A HAREM? LETS FREAKING GO Shannet is bait Damn Kendi is a freak… slept with her masters wife bruh I officially am enjoying the game. Thorn’s crew is kinda wack, but this all women squad with a detached Lo Pheng is my jam at the moment Okay that fight against the Reaper to save the Pallion was tough. Had 3 crew members fall but I’ll take it. Regardless, I don’t like how in random convos I’ll have my loyalty decrease. I am a ninja bro who is supposed to be zen, I’m chatting these women up, and they dislike it. This is by far the best crew thus far, and I hope the other two step it up(Thorn/Blance) I resisted the curse… twice. Uh oh. So Maria by the well is a trap. Good to know for the future. Ake hooked up with a mother and then a daughter. Nice. “Look before your feet” advice from hag after saving villager from Enses I exchanged horses… don’t know if I should have asked him to horseshoe the horse “The wise will take to heart what the foolish won’t hear. There are holes and holes; one bites, the other brags and moralizes. Talk to those eager to talk. Sometimes, the tongue knows more than the head.” Vegen remembers what Chiia told him Unda isn’t real, Phillia just made up rumors that she was her daughter Bruh… we just got arrested by Sheck and Brann… we KEPT HODE ALIVE MAN COME ON DAMN! Already onto Chapter #5. What a cliff-hanger for Thorn, in prison and talking with Andra (ex-bodyguard of Brann and she hates him) Time for Hopper and Thorn to meet face-to-face. Wow talk about a tough decision… Hopper Rouley is willing to help us within reason. What do we accept? Our fate out of the dungeon, Gleda, or his son? I mean - Thorn is a good man so not himself. We haven’t seen his son. So it’s Gleda. The only realistic answer is saving Gleda. I decided to use the spell without searching out Coronozon cuz he screwed me over last time. I’ll be very upset if Thorn dies. Dayum… Andrea has a twin, Foshtta. So yea - may not be the most cavalier or manly thing to do but I am leaving with the two ladies. “I won’t leave without my men” is an option but to be honest, I kinda don’t care much at all for Thorn’s crew outside of the archer boys. So yea - we bailing! Sweet! I got the trophy for “Thorn’s Alive” so at least I didn’t kill him early in my 1st play through. Andra has a thing for Thorn, while Foshta doesn’t like him lol Alright so I guess we have no choice but to talk “Helm” with us to the Wasteland. Doesn’t appear we were given a choice not to take him, I would have if given the choice, butt hem not giving the choice suggests he may backstab us in the future We’ll see how trustworthy Skoor is…. Went right and left and saw Liki and Krieger’s ghosts… I am really liking this Andra, Foshta, Thorn, Sopp, Flitt, Brett crew WE FOUND GLEDA AND RASK! WOOHOO! Alright I have 223 strixes, 60% average morale, Day #29 entering Friga with everyone 100% healthy! Woo! Something I HATE about the game is sometimes I click X once and it registers it twice and skips a dialogue line or adds extra skill points to a category when I only wanted to spend it once WOOOOOOOOOW it has been A LONG time since we returned to Lo Pheng’s crew. Last time we were there we killed a reaper. Been ages. I decided to give Reet my sacrificial stone as Lo Pheng… I would have been super mad if she died. Who knows what the ramifications of this will be End of Chapter #5 at the triple menhir, I love all the convos with all the different members, Khama is an Ense and joining our clan Wow in Chapter #6 I have to sacrifice one of Sheck or Ake to save Prince Ho’s life. I’ve gotta be honest, why on earth would I save Sheck? Ake is the giant who’s been traveling with me. I can’t betray him. Sheck is just some guy I’ve met who’s high up in the king’s court. KILL SHECK! NOOOOO TANTE THE NURSE SACRIFICES HERSELF, MVP WOMAN End of play session for today. Game has got me hooked officially. Very curious to see how all these paths cross in the end. “CHIRLAN” means Rask of Berkana for Hopper discover in Witch White Tower It appears we made the very smart decision to intervene at Friga, won the battle and found Prince Hederlig who’s a cool dude and willing to get his hands dirty and fight. Hope he pays us back a favor in the future Bruh…. FREAKING CANNIBALS. KILLED OUR SON MACHT. THEN KILLED DROOKET. DAMMIT. Have to get to Opacum now. We’re mad. Let’s go. Oh switch perspective back to Lo Pheng. Cool. Alright now I know where the game is converging… we went through the menhir with Lo Pheng and found Amma. To Opacum will be the FINALE Amma tells us our life without Reet is worth nothing. I believe that. On to Chapter #7… we calling it here folks. Played way too much lol Alright it has been 2 days since I played. Super pumped to get back into the midsts of things Decided to follow Dorian and heal the scoundrel Captain Having the +2 attack upon each kill on Hopper is OP as heck Lol tricked the captain in the end for that hint of a word “Lon” So Gebona did not form part of the 5 kingdom alliance because of the Temple? Coronzon? Drooket was Umbra? He got killed by cannibals? Rask and Blance felt it Hode tried to deliver a pardon for Thorn to Prince Hederlig? WOW! Who is the old hag? Amma? “Reach what’s etched into the stone by the water” thanks Baztitch! NAKOMA? Who is that? Lol sorry my bad it’s just so many characters “I will never serve you, Araakh!” Is my decision OH SNAP HES A REAPER AND HE JUST STABBED RASK Okay that was freaking INTENSE. This reaper dude just pulled up on us while we were sleeping. Rask is dead. He killed him. And he wants us to write down everything that happens in Opacum? My goodness. Adna…. Oh no… Adna is the “Umbra overseer and the killer of their offspring”. WHAT? “But you will not keep misfortune away” We’ve gotta thank Drooket for spreading Umbra seed? Dawg? Is he the Antonio Cromartie of Umbra’s? Okay those Bernard questions were tricky but I pulled them out. The good advice he gives is “Read what’s written on the rock in Opacum.” Right now we’re fighting with Ake over human and non-human behavior We arrive in Opacum and finally meet Stakhet Vichti Hopper and Ake arrive at Opacum. Now switching perspectives to Thorn Hey on the road back to Friga we find Hode! WOOOOOW WE JUST CAME WITHIN INCHES OF DORPKHAAL AGAIN, can’t believe that didn’t nearly kill us Mabok the Cannibal was just super chill. Drooket sorcery! “I won’t accept anything from a stranger!” Yea man I’m just not freaking trusting anything that’s a Reaper. Sorry bro. Do some rebranding if you want me to trust you. Chapter #8 and we return to Lo Pheng. Woo buddy. Yoooooo we saved Hederlig as Lo Pheng. Sick! Okay game, I get it. Switched perspectives back to Hopper and it keeps saying “all fates will be decided here” Phila finds Hopper in Opacum “Because you carry misfortune within you” is what it says. Okay so the full line is: “Take into yourself that which you can take (I presume this means the reaping curse / blackened hand and being able to resist or not resist along the way), for there is no one else to take it. And if you do not burn out, carry it. And with every step, your burden shall become greater, for you carry it for many, and their number increases still. You will save yourself by saving others, but you will not keep misfortune away, because you carry misfortune within you.” Find the last words in the very end… or else on the dearest one. Hopper and Amma meet again… oh boy… Amma says they’re doing a triple sacrifice. Us, Rask, and Drooket. My morale is at 100% with Thorn’s crew. I’m AMAZING at this. Haven’t used a guide or nothin’, just made the right gut calls I guess. I’m kinda annoyed for this final stretch I don’t have Andrea or Foshta. What happened to them? We arrive in Opacum as Thorn on Day #51. Nice! After initially struggling with the battle system early on, I’ve found a very comfortable formula with Thorn being a beast thrashing, Sopp absorbing as a tank, Gleda/Helm as bonus helpers, and Brett/Flitt sniping from afar Wow first trophy popped in forever “In a rush - Get to Opacum on time” WOW THOSE FRISIAN FORCES ARE NUTS This is going to be one hell of a finale. I can’t wait. Philia tells Thorn - “Someone among those called to this fortress is to be sacrificed.” King Treeg is whatever. Why does he still have beef with Thorn? Chapter #9! Is this the last chapter? Pot-bellied Frisian representative is Pelko Sotouri… former Master of Lo Pheng OH SNAP HOPPER JUST KILLED PELKO LETS GO MAN NOOOO A BOLT HITS STAKHEK VICHTI IN THE CHEST WOOOOOOOOW…. “Evenets unfold rapidly. You need to choose the character through whose eyes you want to see the rest of the story.” I cannot believe that. I have to CHOOSE? Between Lo Pheng and Thorn? How the hell am I supposed to do that? On one hand I’m super invested in Lo Pheng and Reet, and the other, in Thorn and Gleda. This is an IMPOSSIBLE choice. Ugh, I legit just sat here for 10 minutes trying to decide. My inclination was Lo Pheng just cuz I liked his crew a bit more sooner but Thorn has to be the guy I go down with and see the story through with given all the implications of Gleda’s importance. THORN IT IS! Wow Thorn and Lo Pheng talking. That’s super cool. (Detached) is always Lo Pheng’s default tone lol YESSSSSSS GLEDA KILLS BRANN ABOUT FRIGGING TIME DUDE WAS THE WORST WAIT IS FREAKING ANDREA AND FOSHTA BRANN’S BODYGUARDS THIS WHOLE TIME OH MY GOD I JUST REALIZED IT DURING THIS FIGHT That was a very difficult fight but only lost one guy in Helm in all of it Hopper is on the brink right now OH NOOOOO AMMA CLUTCHES HER HEAD SHES GOING SICKO MODE WE KILLED AMMA THE REAPER We got a trophy! “The Baptism of the Triune - Solve the riddle of Childao’s Message”. Who the hell is Childao? Hopper examine the arm and it says “God of mine - the fire, wind, water, and salt of the earth. Accept my flesh, my spirit, and my love.” Oh no…. Gleda is the reapers desired vessel. Now we have to fight the reaper Nakoma, or Atraakh OH WOOHOO WE HAVE LO PHENG’S GROUP WITH US NOW LESSGO! Crew I’m rolling with: Thorn, Lo Pheng, Dume, Sopp, Reet, & Brett MABOK WITH THE CLUTCH KNIFE KILL ON ATRAKAAH! Dorpkhaal and Anna are like: “lol Atrakaah was a dummy” “Save and protect us.” OH SNAP IS CHILDAO TELLING HOPPER TO SAVE US ALL? “The scribe known as Hopper Rouley, who was also an Umbra and Curro named Blance, suffered the curse of an unknown witch and completed the journey laid out for him. Reading the spell, he realized that all of the Reapring’s power, all the magic that devoured human lives and dragged him into the abyss, all of it was served one single - to confine an almighty god to human body.” Oh Chila was real? So the end of Terminium has only been delayed… hmm.. this tells me I may not have gotten the best ending? The narrator and the written text do not line up lol The ending cutscene shows Chilla finding a black ball in the desert and she herself going from old to young… WHAT? Hopper lives and is way stronger Ake became a reader Thorn lives, and now Gleda protects him. Lo Pheng returned to the Shadow clan. He kinda got boned on the ending since I picked Thorn. “Parsimonious:, “Save the Prince”, “The luck of drunkards”, “The luck of wise guys”, “Save the King”, were all the trophies I earned upon reaching the credits. None of them are very rare. WOW! WHAT A GAME MAN! I’m kinda left conflicted on that ending since it feels like I didn’t do enough, but I completed the objective Hopper was given. What a game man. I want to go for the trophies now and see what happens if I just play like a complete butthead lol I FINALLY READ THE TROPHIES! WOW these are going to be fun and hilarious to get. I am stunned you can save Krieger/Mact’s lives. There’s also trophies for killing everybody and just in general being awful. Hahaha, this is gonna be fun to get. CLEAN-UP TROPHIES FROM 1ST PLAY-THROUGH: Here is all of the trophies I managed to earn by jumping in at different saves from everything I had done on my 1st play-through “My name is Pheng” - Choose Pheng’s side in the finale “Death to the javelin thrower” - Kill a javelin-hurling Ense with a single blow “Archers rules” - Win a battle using only long-range archer attacks “My foe is my friend” - Kill two enemies with an Ease. “Madman” - Win a battle using only Thorn “Stupid death” - Get killed by Frisians before you reach the siege of Opacum “Defeater of death” - Kill a reaper with a card “Theophany (Reet)” - Reet becomes a divine avatar “My name is Blance” - Choose Blance’s side in the finale “Theophany (Philia)” - Philia becomes a divine avatar “Theophany (Gleda)” - Gleda becomes a divine avatar “Smiling Brann” - Lose a fight with Brann’s people and get executed in Ursus “True to the clan” - Pheng doesn’t share his stones with Reet “Wrong choice” - Pheng doesn’t reach opacum WOW that’s a lot of trophies. Not too bad clean-up given how quickly you can fly through it. I was cackling to myself seeing how crucial it was to get all the riddles with Hopper. I could have so easily botched this. Instead, I got a good amount of these cleaned up and none were all that tricky! 2ND NEW PLAY-THROUGH, LET’S KILL EVERYBODY Trophies I’m targeting: “Hero” - Finish the game without losing a single battle” “Tactical genius” - Finish the game without losing a single battle or using any cards” “Marauder” - Kill or rob all the merchants “Altruist” - Always sacrifice yourself to keep the Reaping away “Broken threads” - Kill every character you can. My logic behind this run is due to the needs to ignore characters in “Heartless”, it is not compatible with “Broken threads”. Thus, may as well go for the Hopper trophy. I’m curious if I’ll be ineligible for the first two but we shall see. Anyways, let’s do this play through! I managed to get the “The most dangerous man” trophy by replaying the Ursus breaking out of prison fight a bunch with Krieger, Ramlin, Andra, and Foshta. I let Andra/Foshta be bait and takedown the enemy’s attack power while buffing Krieger with his furious strike + Ramlin’s give 2 strength ability. Cool! We killed Foshta. ‘Bout damn time. Now time to kill Andrea. Andra is dead. Woohooo!!! We saved Mact! Cool! Got Reet killed with 3 skulls prior to Triple Menehir, killed her 1st fight on the way to Roaming Menehir Lo Pheng, Bolla, Kendi, Swarty, Shannet, Dume, Ruor, Khama, y Alus Aaaaand Orkan killed all of us. Sweet! Now time to kill Thorn’s crew Lol that is so messed up I saved Mact only to have Adna kill him at the Water Menehir Thorn’s crew is dead! Woohoo! WOW that Amma Reaper fight was hard as just Hopper with 79% curse. Took me like 6-7 restarts WOOOOW! I GOT A TON OF TROPHIES! All the ones I set out for originally as well as the Gleda sideline one. Sweet! “Fortune” - Play “The Sacrifice” card with two live characters and still win “Armageddon” - Kill six adversaries with one card “The hardest choice” - Gleda chooses suicide “A friend in need” - Save Krieger’s life “Makt makes it” - Save Mact’s life Woohoo! Reloading from mid-way thru the 2nd play through let me get a number of these card trophies as well as the Gleda suicide ending one. I also can confirm that even with a Theophany “bad ending” you can still get the “save X’s life” trophy if you keep them alive. Awesome! 3RD FRESH PLAYTHROUGH, LET’S BE HEARTLESS I now need to play like an absolute monster as all 3 of Thorn, Lo Pheng, and Hopper. It is the rarest trophy on the list at 1.81% rarity. Let’s try and go for it, shall we? Alright the 1st chapter with Thorn was tricky. I’m trying to get Fisk killed early in every fight, no Auto-Battle since Story mode is too easy, had to rest a day to avoid Vai since he dies if you get there on Day 5 or later. This is my 1st play through where I’m not gonna save Reet as Lo Pheng “I shall kill her.”, “Pierce her heart.” OOF THAT FELT BAD I felt legitimately awful killing Helm when I did… poor guy :/ Killed Hode after Ursus, cool! It is insane how easy the game is on Story Mode. Legit a cakewalk where you have to try and die to enemies. Ayyyy we got Heartless! That was easy! Honestly, it is mental how different Lo Pheng’s route plays out if you never deviate from Frisia. Game was super quick to fly through, taking me 3 and a half hours or so just for this trophy. I just followed the Steam guide to a tee and was a jerk to everybody and got the trophy. Time for the final play through! 4TH PLAYTHROUGH, IRON MAN HARDCORE MODE Let’s see if my skills have been fine-tuned enough to earn the plat now! With hindsight, damn AurumDust blew their whole cinematic budget on this opening cutscene lol Hopper/Amma are Umbra, and he “cares about the fate of Terminum” Okay WOW… that 2nd fight getting out of Albius was brutally difficult for me. Going from mindless Story Mode to THIS may have been a bad idea lol I am annoyed by how you have to be on specific tabs (the map, battle) to return to the Main Menu. Let me do that whenever, game Phew… Watchtower fight was tough, but Thorn/Krieger/Sopp are MVPs OH MY GOODNESS THAT DYNFORD BRIDGE FIGHT WAS SOOO HARD. Finally beat it with Thorn, Krieger, Brett, and Flitt Replaying Lo Pheng’s opening chapter it’s cool how you can see Bolla, Kendi, Swarty, and of course Reet amongst the prisoners pre-execution Okay I get a 100% avoid injury bonus item via a market. Putting it on Thorn, letting him do damage and then having Krieger/Sopp clean up FINALLY got past that Frisian fight in the tunnel, just put Lo Pheng out there with 42 defense and had all 5 women pluck off the 3 enemies on the left hand side Alright that reaper fight saving Ruor was very hard but did it with a full squad only sacrificing Kendi and Swarty with a full squad Got out of Ursus, those 3 fights involved me sacrificing Andra/Foshta 3 times in a row, they’re traitors anyway We killed Andra on purpose. Muahahaha Muahahah and now we killed Foshta. RIP We’ve made it all the way to the end… lost Vai/Ramlin along the way. BUT WE’RE AT THE FINAL REAPER FIGHT! Here is my crew: Lo Pheng, Thorn Brenin, Gleda Brenin, Sopp, Reet, and Swarty! It’s over. I earned the plat. 1.79% rarity. Wow man… what a game. 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Briste Posted September 24, 2021 Share Posted September 24, 2021 (edited) 18 hours ago, realm722 said: I have been stuck in the Ash of Gods vortex for 2 weeks+ now. Rare is it when I can truly say that about a game. Some other ones that fall into this category of completely absorbing my life are FF7R, Hollow Knight, Persona 5, and Dead Cells. I have loved it. This game is NOT perfect. I just listed many reasons for why it could be polished that much further and made into a sophisticated diamond. But asking that of a 12-man indie studio would be cruel. I think AoG is absolutely magnificent for someone who has experienced and adored the TBS trilogy and is looking for something more. You may look at it with a judgemental eye like I did at the beginning (the father/daughter connection is there with Thorn/Gleda and Rook/Alette, dredges = abominations, stowaway prince who needs to be protected in Ho/Ludin, the combat system, the way the characters talk to one another in dialogue scenes) but there is so much soul to this game that anyone calling it a "ripoff" or a copy is exposing their ignorance to anyone who has taken the time of day to bask in this game's universe. Despite all of it's faults, this is one of my favorite games I have had the privlledge of playing in 2021 and honestly cracks my top games of All-Time on PS4. Thank you to @Briste for letting me soak in it's glory. I'm so glad to hear that you enjoyed your experience with the game. I got sucked into that same Vortex, and once I worked through the same control issues you did, it was such a great experience. My first run through was blind too and I did not make good choices lol I killed Reet because I was going to play Lo Pheng like the emotionless killing machine he was....I was very surprised on my second run when I saw how much more of the story there was by keeping her alive. I didn't use a guide, but I did check out the trophies ahead of time and was going to try for the evil run first without using Gleda and just being ruthless. I ended up not saving Makt and tried to flee when approaching the castle lol It was like the worst possible choices the whole way through. It was a cool experience, but I needed 4+ playthroughs as well. While I like having the UR plat, I wouldn't mind losing it if more people decided to give this game a legitimate chance. Your review was excellently fair and I echo virtually all of your points. Well done! Edited September 24, 2021 by Briste 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post realm722 Posted October 1, 2021 Author Popular Post Share Posted October 1, 2021 (edited) I Officially Own A Playstation 5 I know, I know. I can't believe it either. Exactly 2 weeks to the day that I made this post whining about the fact I had not been able to get my grubby hands on one, I was able to purchase, install, and finally play on this glorious new hardware. Let me say, it is MAGNIFICENT. But before diving into my thoughts, let's do a background on how it got here. Why did it take me until September 30th, 2021 to finally play on a PS5? Well for one, damn these things were tough to get. I'll concede, I did not even try to get one during the first few months of its release window. I didn't want to deal with the frustration of competing with bots online and just in general hot demand for the latest and greatest new thing. I was fine waiting until March 2014 for the PS4 when it had released in Nov. 2013 and I was plenty fine waiting until summertime to buy a PS5. But things were different this time around. Whether it be a global pandemic, a chip shortage that continues to go on at the moment, or hell just an increase in interest surrounding gaming across the world, I was not going to simply waltz my way into owning one. Knowing this, I made an adjustment. I decided to try and actively hunt one down. That meant installing Twitter on my phone. and I hate Twitter. But drastic times call for desperate measures. I followed Matt Swider who has garnered the reputation of being THE GUY you wanna follow if you want to know whenever a PS5/Xbox is gonna drop, and I enabled notifications on my phone. This was all on September 22nd of this month. I was mostly trying to scout out whether the Best Buy's near me would be selling the consoles in person. They were. People were camping out. and call me a fraud of a Sony fanboy but waiting out 8+ hours overnight? Nah man, I want the console, but not that badly. I'll wait for something more opportune. and boy did that opportunity arrive that very next day. At 6:11 PM on September 23rd, 2021 - Matt Swider tweeted this out. A direct link to a Sony Direct queue online. I am not joking when I said I must have opened that link within nanoseconds that it popped up on my phone. Despite this, the "waiting time" for the queue said 1 hour+. That's alright. I took care of a few other chores I needed to attend to, and to my surprise, the waiting time dropped drastically down to 36 minutes, to 27, to 9, and slowly whittled away before I was finally IN. In a frenzy, I selected the PS5 multiple times to purchase, clicked on the cart, and it just kept saying "error no items in cart". After a few flustering minutes, I finally got through. I put in all my billing information and boom... it was done. I'd have to wait 2-3 business days, and after the weekend, it finally got here on Wednesday, September 29th with the installation process taking the full evening as I had to reorganize a few things just to fit the mammoth machine. So what are my thoughts on the PS5 now that it's finally here? It's pretty frigging dope man! I have been using my Day 1 PS4 for several thousands of hours and honestly didn't understand many of the complaints that had been levied against it. Yea the menus weren't the fastest, but it did its job. I never felt the need to upgrade to a PS4 Slim or PS4 Pro as I just didn't see the value in upgrading. I thought those designs were moreso for aficionados or people who hadn't bought a console yet and just wanted the latest one. Well after dabbling in the PS5 menus, good LORD is this thing fast. I love how the store and news feed is actually baked into the main home screen. This is a far cry from the PS4 store which you always held your breathe slightly thinking your console had crashed when launching the store. I dig the gigantic icons for the games in the "Game Library" section. I went through all the settings options which feels like a thing you largely do when you first get a brand new console and then never look at again for the remainder of its lifespan. It was still fun though! I'm very happy to finally own one. This puppy is going to carry me for the majority of the 2020's. At least I hope it does. It better be at least as good as the PS4 was to me. I'm already seeing immediate returns by how fast the loading times are in Spiritfarer. A game which has A LOT of loading when getting off your boat to get to different islands. OR maybe that's just the placebo effect taking its stranglehold on me. Another bonus by getting the PS5 now is my gaming backlog expanded a sizable amount. I have all the PS5 PS+ games I claimed over the last several months available to play, and that's not even including the games in the PS+ Collection such as inFamous Second Son I'd like to finally get around to. Things are good, and I hope the PS5 lives up to all the praise and promise it has received during it's initial launch year. My advice to anyone still hunting would be to just follow Swider on Twitter and turn on notifications. Stay frosty, and you'll eventually get one as these things continue to fall more and more into the hands of the diehards who want them. Until next time! Edited October 1, 2021 by realm722 9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arcesius Posted October 1, 2021 Share Posted October 1, 2021 6 hours ago, realm722 said: So what are my thoughts on the PS5 now that it's finally here? It's pretty frigging dope man! I have been using my Day 1 PS4 for several thousands of hours and honestly didn't understand many of the complaints that had been levied against it. Yea the menus weren't the fastest, but it did its job. I never felt the need to upgrade to a PS4 Slim or PS4 Pro as I just didn't see the value in upgrading. I thought those designs were moreso for aficionados or people who hadn't bought a console yet and just wanted the latest one. Well after dabbling in the PS5 menus, good LORD is this thing fast. I love how the store and news feed is actually baked into the main home screen. This is a far cry from the PS4 store which you always held your breathe slightly thinking your console had crashed when launching the store. I dig the gigantic icons for the games in the "Game Library" section. I went through all the settings options which feels like a thing you largely do when you first get a brand new console and then never look at again for the remainder of its lifespan. It was still fun though! Congrats on finally getting one! I feel very similarly... I never upgraded my OG PS4, never felt like I needed to since my only issue with it was how loud it could get when playing something like Nioh, for some reason. Now with the PS5... man, it's just the superior experience! Even if no PS5 games were coming out, it'd still be worth the purchase. Some people are complaining about details such as Themes not being available, horizontal trophy lists (which are now vertical again) and other minor things that I honestly couldn't care less about. The console is amazing and delivers everything it promised, and that for the ridiculous low retail price it goes for... Incredible Oh, and I just adore that Dual Sense.. Daaaamn is it a good controller! Enjoy! Looking forward to reading about your experience with your first proper PS5 game ? 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
det_gittes Posted October 1, 2021 Share Posted October 1, 2021 Who would have thought that sharing stories of how people ::bought:: their current generation consoles might make for an interesting read - but somehow it does, strange times indeed And I also find it amusing that the process of getting a PS5 is essentially similar in different parts of the world - when I decided to start looking around for one in August, I also started following a website which lists current deals on gaming-related products, and when a batch of slightly revised consoles hit the stores in early September, I was quick enough to secure one for myself. But... 56 minutes ago, Arcesius said: and that for the ridiculous low retail price it goes for... I can't quite agree with that statement. I also don't want to say that the price is steep, but given that it's the same everwhere, it obviously feels higher (or lower) depending where you live. Additionally, in Poland, you are forced to buy the consoles bundled with additional controllers, fully-priced games etc. (next to impossible to buy just the console itself), so on average you have to shell out at least 700$, while the average gross salary is currently 1500$/month. Still much cheaper than buying a gaming computer or even a flagship smartphone, but definitely an expense to be reckoned with But I fully agree, the jump from PS4 (in my case Pro, but still) to PS5 is huge And - fingers crossed - I have yet to actually hear it ? My wife no longer complaining about the noise of the console alone fully justifies the purchase! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arcesius Posted October 1, 2021 Share Posted October 1, 2021 (edited) 7 minutes ago, det_gittes said: I can't quite agree with that statement. I also don't want to say that the price is steep, but given that it's the same everwhere, it obviously feels higher (or lower) depending where you live. Additionally, in Poland, you are forced to buy the consoles bundled with additional controllers, fully-priced games etc. (next to impossible to buy just the console itself), so on average you have to shell out at least 700$, while the average gross salary is currently 1500$/month. Still much cheaper than buying a gaming computer or even a flagship smartphone, but definitely an expense to be reckoned with Fair enough! You are absolutely right. I was indeed comparing what you get when you purchase a PS5, to what you would need to spend to get a quality gaming computer, for example. But I'm also talking from the perspective of someone living in Switzerland, which obviously differs significantly in terms of minimum wages / average salaries! Doesn't change my statment, but it makes it very subjective, thanks for pointing it out! Edited October 1, 2021 by Arcesius 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post realm722 Posted October 2, 2021 Author Popular Post Share Posted October 2, 2021 (edited) Game: In Between Analysis: I bought In Between for $2.39 back at the very end of August 2021. Despite having less than 50 owners on here, it's not bad! So why did I buy In Between? Honestly, this is a simple explanation for me. I really dug how unique the game looked and the 100% seemed fairly easy despite the minuscule amount of players the game had. With my quota to complete at least one 100% each month, it was a no-brainer. So what's the gameplay loop? It's a puzzle platformer. Shocking from an indie, I know. Here's where I'll be honest. I don't really like puzzle games. My enjoyment from games does not come from that "EUREKA! I got it!" moment. That is at the core of the puzzle game experience. The only ones that have truly stood out for me were The Witness and The Unfinished Swan. I say all this as a qualifier that while I didn't find this game to be very special, I liked what it did. The art style captivated me for the brief story sequences (the story focuses on death, and the various stages one will go through in life. Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance). The levels are LITERALLY named after these emotions. I liked it. Stories in games like these typically don't do much for me and I largely see them as mere flavoring to the gameplay elements but this one did it better in keeping me engaged than say, The Bridge in my mind. The narration was also well-done. The gameplay itself is straight out of The Swapper. Seriously. You can shift gravity around and be walking on the ceiling as the main character. You have to avoid deadly spikes that serve as the main thing you'll be dying to, along with creeping darkness in Denial and angry balls of rage in Anger. The game can easily be completed in 3-4 hours. Less if you're a gamer god. I died A LOT. While the puzzle solution may be relatively quickly understood, the actual movement and timing necessary to execute such maneuvers will have you dying a fair amount. I earned the 100 deaths trophy on "Denial" and still had a whole 3 other stages to go. I think the were 2-3 puzzles in the entire game that I felt were proper BS, with some lacking a proper checkmark and forcing you to re-do the whole thing if you botched something at the end, but in general, the game was quite merciful and if you just want the difficulty to come through executing the platforming, here's a full walkthrough on YouTube. Would I recommend it? MAYBE. Did you enjoy The Swapper & The Bridge? Then you'll probably enjoy this. I personally liked this game a bit more than those two due to a narrative that better kept me intrigued. This game also has the lovely bonus that it doesn't have any collectibles. OR rather it does, in the "mind images", but essentially all of those are encountered while naturally playing the game that you'd have to go out of your way to miss one. That means by simply playing the game to completion you'll snag the easy 100%. If you don't really enjoy puzzle games much and didn't care for The Swapper or The Bridge, there's nothing for you here. This is one of the many 2D side-scrolling Unity puzzle games with manipulating gravity mechanics. The game was released back in August 2015 and that makes it 2 years older than the previous two entries I mentioned. It's no surprise it failed to captivate much of an audience given people were kinda out on puzzle games then, let alone by the mid-2010s. The developer, Gentlymad Studios, hasn't made a game since then that I find to be noteworthy or at least widely discussed, but given the quality found here perhaps they have some other underappreciated fundamentally sound games. I ended up earning the 22.92% rarity 100% in 4 hours and 29 minutes, making me the 3rd fastest achiever on PSNProfiles! But that's all from me. I won't be posting again for a while given I want my 150th plat to be Spiritfarer and good lord that game is MAMMOTH. Talk to y'all then! Panda Score: 6.1 / 10 Panda Difficulty: 3.0 / 10 Edited October 2, 2021 by realm722 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJ_Radio Posted October 2, 2021 Share Posted October 2, 2021 I honestly don't feel I'm missing out by not getting a PS5 this year, or late last year. Real life comes first, and I'm currently in a situation where I can't buy much of anything, let alone a new console. The rule I set myself ever since the early Xbox 360 days is wait a couple years after the console release date. I bought my PS4 right after Batman Arkham Knight came out and I couldn't of been happier picking it up when I did. This time around.... I don't see the jump as that significant. All throughout my childhood, my teenage years and leading up to when I hit my mid 20s, I was always fascinated by what modern consoles could do. The jump from PS3 to PS4 was noticeable, as was the jump from PS2 to PS3 before that. Since the mid life cycle of the PS4, I have been increasingly indifferent to the direction AAA gaming has been going and it's indulgence on putting graphics over gameplay. I read somewhere that a developer who worked on Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart admitted that there will be more changes to quality of life improvements, rather than innovating the gaming world like it was in the past. When I get the time and money, which likely won't be until next year at the earliest, then I will gladly play Ratchet & Clank on the PS5. But right now, that simply isn't an option for me. Personally, I don't like the PS5 interface. I think it could be better. The PS4 interface I felt was a huge step forward over the PS3 interface, which is slow and cumbersome. The PS5 interface doesn't look right to me. Some people on this website like it, I don't particularly do. I check my local Best Buy and Walmart every few weeks and ask the employees there if there are any PS5 shipments. Most of the time, they are completely sold out, and when they are available, somebody is already buying it the minute I walk into the gaming section of the stores. I cannot be asked to pay $700 - 800 for the PS5, because that's the price tag I have to pay if I want it right now. It's sold out everywhere where it is listed at $499. With real life getting in the way, looking after a nephew and niece, taking care of my older family, and my declining interest in gaming as a whole, I don't feel as bummed out by not having a PS5 as some of you guys are. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
realm722 Posted October 5, 2021 Author Share Posted October 5, 2021 On 10/1/2021 at 2:51 AM, Arcesius said: Oh, and I just adore that Dual Sense.. Daaaamn is it a good controller! On 10/1/2021 at 4:08 AM, det_gittes said: -snip- Thank you both! I will add that the controller took me a few hours to get used to but I absolutely love it now. I guess after having used the PS4 for 7 straight years it took me a little bit to adjust to the feel of the new one but I'm very glad Sony did not cheap out on its quality. Definitely feels nice and sturdy and I am very much looking forward to the first game that I play that takes advantage of some of the unique features on the triggers particularly. On 10/2/2021 at 0:59 AM, AJ_Radio said: With real life getting in the way, looking after a nephew and niece, taking care of my older family, and my declining interest in gaming as a whole, I don't feel as bummed out by not having a PS5 as some of you guys are. Sorry to hear that AJ. I mean, it's entirely normal. Just looking at your profile you've been trophy hunting consistently since November 2014 and have completed over 400 games on your account. I imagine we all have a ceiling limit. I hope things go well for you IRL and if that passion hits you again in the future you'll be reinvigorated with the same zeal to enjoy gaming again. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrBloodmoney Posted October 5, 2021 Share Posted October 5, 2021 On 02/10/2021 at 5:02 AM, realm722 said: Game: In Between A puzzle game in the vein of The Swapper you say.... sold! That's a good write up man - gave me everything I need to know, and as a puzzle game kinda guy, I'm never not looking for an indie puzzle platformer! ? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJ_Radio Posted October 7, 2021 Share Posted October 7, 2021 On 10/4/2021 at 6:05 PM, realm722 said: Sorry to hear that AJ. I mean, it's entirely normal. Just looking at your profile you've been trophy hunting consistently since November 2014 and have completed over 400 games on your account. I imagine we all have a ceiling limit. I hope things go well for you IRL and if that passion hits you again in the future you'll be reinvigorated with the same zeal to enjoy gaming again. August 2015 to be exact, but I fully understand. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
realm722 Posted October 8, 2021 Author Share Posted October 8, 2021 On 10/5/2021 at 2:35 AM, DrBloodmoney said: That's a good write up man - gave me everything I need to know, and as a puzzle game kinda guy, I'm never not looking for an indie puzzle platformer! Hah thank you! I think giving "if you enjoy this, you'll probably enjoy this" recommendations is always a good idea since it can help give people a feel for what to expect. Sometimes it can be woefully offbase (I had someone once recommend me Sundered because it was "like" Dead Cells. As someone who loves Dead Cells, that person is WRONG) I'll also be a jerk and say pls nobody reply to this thread for a moment. I am dropping my 150th plat review and I want it to be the 1st post on Page #15 (good lord I can't believe we're at 350+ replies now) 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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