Popular Post realm722 Posted November 26, 2021 Author Popular Post Share Posted November 26, 2021 I Don't Want Objective or "Unbiased" Reviews of Games DISCLAIMER: This article wasn't written to call out any specific individual. I feel like we've all done this if we've reviewed a video game at length one time or another. I've been sitting on this idea for a while but wanted to finally express it, and here is my best attempt at coherently conveying my message. Reviewing video games is, in the words of the Great Stugotz, a dangerous game. It is a surprisingly hard thing to do well. Believe me, I've read the comments at the bottom of an IGN Review on YouTube. If you speak too glowingly of a game that is currently receiving scorn from the public, you can become a piñata for angry gamers at large. (See: Last of Us Two critic score vs. user score) On the other hand, if you're too critical of a game and don't give it the typical 8, 9, or 10/10 rating that seemingly every major publication gets - you'll get lampooned like a helpless baby seal for daring to give Days Gone a 6.5 / 10. Two million viewers and 50,000 dislikes later - I don't blame any public video game critic/reviewer for walking ever so trepidatiously the fine line of having to balance their own personal preferences and "objective" analysis of what a game has to offer. Hence, this article isn't going to be talking about video game reviewers/critics at major gaming publications. But rather, the average Video Game YouTube Reviewer OR you lovely bunch here who post your own reviews on your trophy cabinets. Let's dive in. Subject #1 - Can you even be "objective" or "unbiased" when reviewing a video game? On a surface level, yea - of course. You can list the features on the back of the box, name the controls, the general premise of the story and characters, and at least tell the reader what the game is about. But that's all surface level. I can tell you that Gone Girl is about a dude's wife who's gone missing and everybody is convinced he had something to do with it. While the premise may intrigue some to watch the movie right away without needing to hear anything else, most people will want to know whether the execution of that premise is any good before committing any time to it. That's where subjectivity comes into play. A person's taste in games and media in general. There are levels to this. Someone who does it for a living, or an avid hobbyist, will likely notice trends or things a medium does well and can discern with a large enough sample size in their catalog to decipher whether they personally enjoy something or not. I have an excellent example of this. In the game Forgotton Anne, I find the platforming very crappy. Anne feels like a pregnant cow with her limited movement while in the wingsuit. The game does not have good "game feel." Would someone who is playing that as their 1st video game ever be able to make that observation? Maybe, maybe not. The point is - whoever is making the review/critique, you NEED to know their taste in games if you want to actually start taking it seriously for recommendations. This brings me to our second subject. Subject #2 - You, the reader, should get to know the tastes and preferences of people you listen to for reviews. That suggestion may sound absurd at first. How the hell are you supposed to know the games a completely random stranger on the internet likes? I'll cover more of that in the 3rd subject, but I can personally say I've done this with several individuals who I trust to recommend me good games. Let's start out big-time. Dunkey the YouTuber. While known for his comedy, he actually does do serious game reviews - and guess what? I've learned a lot from my own preferences by watching his stuff. In a nutshell, I'd say he has 1) A low tolerance for turn-based combat, 2) Loves Nintendo games and that means I should grade on a curve when he covers them, 3) Has a low tolerance for anime nonsense. Hence, when he says that he didn't like the Final Fantasy 7 Remake - I'm not surprised. I LOVE that game. But I get why he doesn't. Hence, his review was valuable to me even if his individual ratings don't help me find more games I want to enjoy. Let's do another. Joseph Anderson. I've found in my extensive time watching his reviews, he very much loves harder games and is a stickler for clear narratives without vague or virtually non-existent plots. I enjoy some hard games, but when he said he thought games such as Celeste and Hollow Knight were "adequately difficult", I knew he and I were operating on a different playing field. Hollow Knight and Celeste are prime examples of games that were too difficult for me, and thus, led to me rating them lower than most would (still a high 7) compared to it being a Game of the Year contender which they both were for many. Yet again, I found value in his appreciation for those games since I now know what his barometer is for difficulty. Finally, let's get local. The wonderful @Cassylvania has made me spend a lot of money. Why? Cuz our gaming interests are in sync. We're weirdoes playing niche indie farming titles on PS5-giga-software. I know that if they think a game speaks to that Harvest Moon era, I'm buying it. They also save me from the disaster of dropping $30 on a Doraemon game because it has cute graphics. I'm looking forward to that Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town review when you get around to it Cassy. I've developed this trust with them since I've read hundreds of their posts - and while we may not see eye-to-eye on every game, I typically know that I'm getting a quality product if they give it their seal of approval. Subject #3 - You, the reviewer, have a responsibility to make it clear to readers what games you love. This is a very selfish request by me. Nobody has to do anything I say. I'm not your mom. But dammit man, it sure would be nice if public reviewers made an easy convenient list to glance at that would let me easily see what games they like and don't like. I do it - it's on the OP of this thread. You can literally see every game I have completed on PS4 ordered by tier. Whether you align with my tastes or not should become easily understood once you compare how you rank games in your own hierarchy. If you disliked The Banner Saga, 1) Never speak to me again please and 2) You should probably also avoid Ash of Gods given how much I enjoyed that game for being similar to TBS in many aspects. If you're a gigantic fan of puzzle games, you'll likely quickly realize I don't really have a great tolerance for them. The Swapper, The Bridge, In Between, Hue, FEZ, and Gorogoa all rank in the 6's for me. Yet someone who feels similar to puzzle games as I should do should really take note of how special I must think The Witness is if I'm willing to rank it in the 7's. The idea is this - make your gaming history likes/dislikes well-known and that will make it much easier for consumers of your work to determine whether they should trust your word. I would love it if a YouTuber like SkillUp had a mammoth ranking of all the games they've played so I could see whether my tastes line up with him or not. Unfortunately, it's a lot of work - and I get why so many don't even bother. Subject #4 - Conclusion and Reconciliation The title of this article was very provocative. But in all seriousness, I just feel like myself and too many others constantly feel the need to compensate for how we feel about a game out of fear of offending others. We love video games. That's why we're on this forum. and we wouldn't wanna poop all over a game that is someone else's favorite. But in doing that, I also feel like we hold back from gushing about a game that we love in order to offer a sterile "I'm going to take my bias out when writing" this perspective. If you love the Yakuza games, I WANT to read you gush about why. Maybe you can get me to buy in too. It's why I've decided going forward to make the first few paragraphs of every review I write to be my own opinion, as subjective as can be. But at the end of a review, I'm now including a "Would I recommend X game?" section. The purpose of this is to try and help the reader understand if they would like to play the game. I'll typically ask questions that I feel would be the most important factor in one's enjoyment. Such as asking if you've played or enjoyed similar games, as well as whether you enjoy a focal mechanic / narrative element. I obviously can't promise even with these qualifiers if they'll accurately allow someone to assess whether they'll enjoy a game or not but it's the best I can offer for now. I hope this made sense to those who read it and if not... sorry I guess? 10 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post DrBloodmoney Posted November 26, 2021 Popular Post Share Posted November 26, 2021 (edited) My two cents - Quote Subject #1 - Can you even be "objective" or "unbiased" when reviewing a video game? On a surface level, yea - of course. You can list the features on the back of the box, name the controls, the general premise of the story and characters, and at least tell the reader what the game is about. But that's all surface level. I can tell you that Gone Girl is about a dude's wife who's gone missing and everybody is convinced he had something to do with it. While the premise may intrigue some to watch the movie right away without needing to hear anything else, most people will want to know whether the execution of that premise is any good before committing any time to it. That's where subjectivity comes into play. A person's taste in games and media in general. There are levels to this. Someone who does it for a living, or an avid hobbyist, will likely notice trends or things a medium does well and can discern with a large enough sample size in their catalog to decipher whether they personally enjoy something or not. I have an excellent example of this. In the game Forgotton Anne, I find the platforming very crappy. Anne feels like a pregnant cow with her limited movement while in the wingsuit. The game does not have good "game feel." Would someone who is playing that as their 1st video game ever be able to make that observation? Maybe, maybe not. The point is - whoever is making the review/critique, you NEED to know their taste in games if you want to actually start taking it seriously for recommendations. This brings me to our second subject. This might be true, but when it comes to the reviews you are aiming at here - i.e. the ones written by this site's users, on their own checklists, I have to ask - is anyone actually making any claim to "objectivity"? I mean, even if they were, I would think 'objectivity' would only really become a factor if there were genuine factual inaccuracies in a review - if they said a game was co-op only when it was a single-player game, or that it came out last year when it actually released in 2010. Aside from that, there is, surely, an inherent understanding that all taste-based media reviews are based on the reviewer's personal experience. Personally, I think, since subjectivity is 'baked in' when reviewing taste-based media anyway, actually, the reviewer should be doing the opposite - they should strive to make the review as objective as possible, given that the subjective aspects of the review are unavoidable, and will shine through regardless. The difference between, say, a 'take-down' piece, (where a reviewer hates something about a game, and so spends all their time taking about that aspect, to the exclusion of everything else,) or a 'puff piece', (where they loved some aspect, and so gloss over all the other things, in order to big-up the game,) and an actual review is not degrees of subjectivity or objectivity - it's just between it being a good piece of writing or not. A good review is not one where the reviewer remains stoically objective, it is one where they are able to be clinical with the facts, but subjective with the emotions and the reaction, while identifying the nuances of why one leads to the other. Personally, if I love a game, I know that love will shine through anyways, but I try to ensure I at least mention any negative stuff, as otherwise, it just comes off as bad writing. If I dislike a game intensely, I try to at least highlight some stuff it did well (if there is any,) - otherwise I don't feel like I am doing what the point of a review is - highlighting all pertinent aspects, then packaging them in digestible format in which my own opinions - and their basis - will come through. That's not me actually achieving objectivity - but it is me aiming for objectivity, in order to do due diligence within a format that is inherently subjective by nature. Quote Subject #2 - You, the reader, should get to know the tastes and preferences of people you listen to for reviews. That suggestion may sound absurd at first. How the hell are you supposed to know the games a completely random stranger on the internet likes? I'll cover more of that in the 3rd subject, but I can personally say I've done this with several individuals who I trust to recommend me good games. Let's start out big-time. Dunkey the YouTuber. While known for his comedy, he actually does do serious game reviews - and guess what? I've learned a lot from my own preferences by watching his stuff. In a nutshell, I'd say he has 1) A low tolerance for turn-based combat, 2) Loves Nintendo games and that means I should grade on a curve when he covers them, 3) Has a low tolerance for anime nonsense. Hence, when he says that he didn't like the Final Fantasy 7 Remake - I'm not surprised. I LOVE that game. But I get why he doesn't. Hence, his review was valuable to me even if his individual ratings don't help me find more games I want to enjoy. Let's do another. Joseph Anderson. I've found in my extensive time watching his reviews, he very much loves harder games and is a stickler for clear narratives without vague or virtually non-existent plots. I enjoy some hard games, but when he said he thought games such as Celeste and Hollow Knight were "adequately difficult", I knew he and I were operating on a different playing field. Hollow Knight and Celeste are prime examples of games that were too difficult for me, and thus, led to me rating them lower than most would (still a high 7) compared to it being a Game of the Year contender which they both were for many. Yet again, I found value in his appreciation for those games since I now know what his barometer is for difficulty. Finally, let's get local. The wonderful @Cassylvania has made me spend a lot of money. Why? Cuz our gaming interests are in sync. We're weirdoes playing niche indie farming titles on PS5-giga-software. I know that if they think a game speaks to that Harvest Moon era, I'm buying it. They also save me from the disaster of dropping $30 on a Doraemon game because it has cute graphics. I'm looking forward to that Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town review when you get around to it Cassy. I've developed this trust with them since I've read hundreds of their posts - and while we may not see eye-to-eye on every game, I typically know that I'm getting a quality product if they give it their seal of approval. Yes, 100%. It is important to know what games the person reviewing likes, and what biases they are bringing to the table - but it is also contingent upon the reviewer to let them know specifics they should keep in mind when reading. I will often add a note before a review if something important needs to be kept in mind - for example, when I reviewed Tales of Arise, I felt it was important anyone reading it knew that it was my first and only Tales game. That is important background info, as it means I am unable to use any comparative tools to consider where it sits in the landscape of a franchise, only where it sits in the ladscape of my gaming in general - but I don't feel the need to do that in every case. I just don't think it is always applicable. Quote Subject #3 - You, the reviewer, have a responsibility to make it clear to readers what games you love. This is a very selfish request by me. Nobody has to do anything I say. I'm not your mom. But dammit man, it sure would be nice if public reviewers made an easy convenient list to glance at that would let me easily see what games they like and don't like. I do it - it's on the OP of this thread. You can literally see every game I have completed on PS4 ordered by tier. Whether you align with my tastes or not should become easily understood once you compare how you rank games in your own hierarchy. If you disliked The Banner Saga, 1) Never speak to me again please and 2) You should probably also avoid Ash of Gods given how much I enjoyed that game for being similar to TBS in many aspects. If you're a gigantic fan of puzzle games, you'll likely quickly realize I don't really have a great tolerance for them. The Swapper, The Bridge, In Between, Hue, FEZ, and Gorogoa all rank in the 6's for me. Yet someone who feels similar to puzzle games as I should do should really take note of how special I must think The Witness is if I'm willing to rank it in the 7's. The idea is this - make your gaming history likes/dislikes well-known and that will make it much easier for consumers of your work to determine whether they should trust your word. I would love it if a YouTuber like SkillUp had a mammoth ranking of all the games they've played so I could see whether my tastes line up with him or not. Unfortunately, it's a lot of work - and I get why so many don't even bother. This, again I agree with, for the most part - but not the bolded part exactly. "Trust" isn't the right word, I don't think. If you, as a reviewer, are doing what you outlined in point 2, then there shouldn't be a question of whether someone can "trust your word" - it's just a matter of agreeing or not, and of what parts of a review you can anticipate. If a reader needs to know EVERYTHING about your tastes in order to understand whether to "Trust" you, then I would argue that the review itself is lacking. Your tastes will become apparent over time and across reviews, of course, but if the actual 'review' is so devoid of factual information about the game, or (more importantly) sound basis for the opinion, that the reader needs to rely on outside sources and background knowledge to work out if they would like the game, then I would argue the review itself is lacking. I'm 100% certain I have reviewed some games as great that others hated, or something as shit that others have liked, but (aside from once, when some random wandered into the checklist forums after getting lost on his way to 4-chan) I don't generally get hateful or vindictive comments back about those instances, or even significantly spiteful or negative counter-point. Just heathy fun debate. I think the reason is, I highlight the basis for my opinions in the review themselves. I like to think that if someone reads them, they may very well go, "well, he clearly didn't like it, because of this stuff, but that is stuff I like, or can deal with" , and that's great! If that happens, I think the review was a success. They shouldn't ever be going "Well, he hated it, but the writing is so subjective that I can't even work out whether I would based on that review." If that is the case, then I think, I failed. Quote Subject #4 - Conclusion and Reconciliation The title of this article was very provocative. But in all seriousness, I just feel like myself and too many others constantly feel the need to compensate for how we feel about a game out of fear of offending others. We love video games. That's why we're on this forum. and we wouldn't wanna poop all over a game that is someone else's favorite. But in doing that, I also feel like we hold back from gushing about a game that we love in order to offer a sterile "I'm going to take my bias out when writing" this perspective. If you love the Yakuza games, I WANT to read you gush about why. Maybe you can get me to buy in too. It's why I've decided going forward to make the first few paragraphs of every review I write to be my own opinion, as subjective as can be. But at the end of a review, I'm now including a "Would I recommend X game?" section. The purpose of this is to try and help the reader understand if they would like to play the game. I'll typically ask questions that I feel would be the most important factor in one's enjoyment. Such as asking if you've played or enjoyed similar games, as well as whether you enjoy a focal mechanic / narrative element. I obviously can't promise even with these qualifiers if they'll accurately allow someone to assess whether they'll enjoy a game or not but it's the best I can offer for now. I hope this made sense to those who read it and if not... sorry I guess? Made sense to me - and was an interesting read... ...though I did do exactly what you asked... ...and if I'm understanding you correctly, I'm supposed to take your advice, and decide that I now don't "trust" you, just because you ranked Dear Esther as a bad game, or Dr.Strangelove as a bad movie?... well... ...sorry, but I'm still prolly gonna read your reviews anyways ? Edited November 26, 2021 by DrBloodmoney 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Briste Posted November 28, 2021 Share Posted November 28, 2021 (edited) Good read as per usual! Quick question....you gave Infinity War and Endgame the same rating, yet you have Infinity War as a 'watch again' and Endgame as a 'zero interest'....just curious why? I've seen both about 15 times and absolutely love them and actually slightly prefer Endgame. I know that the end of Endgame was either too over the top or too pander-y for some people, but I absolutely ate it up. I am also a movie buff and own over 600 movies myself. I haven't done what you have yet as far as a rating system, but I've recently decided that I'm going to watch every movie I own, in order that I bought them, from beginning to end. The first movies I bought were the original Bond movies and my goodness are they trash lol Entertaining trash, but trash. Austin Powers makes a lot more sense now too. I had bought them on sale forever ago and just never watched them. I'll have to dissect your list a bit further, but that first part jumped out at me since it was at the top. /edit ok just had another look quickly and some of your zero interest to rewatch I need a follow up to lol The Big Lebowski is one of those movies that gets better with each viewing since you pick up all the subtleties you missed the first time. I actually didn't really like that movie the first time I saw it but it is now one of my favorites. I also feel like I've answered my first question by looking at your other Superhero movies....the majority of them seem to fall under the zero interest category so I'm going to guess that just may not be a genre you enjoy a lot. The Nolan Batman's are some of my favorite movies as well but are a zero interest entry for you. LA Confidential is in my top 5 favorites of all time so I agree with your rating there....so much to unravel here Edited November 28, 2021 by Briste 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
realm722 Posted November 30, 2021 Author Share Posted November 30, 2021 On 11/26/2021 at 10:22 AM, DrBloodmoney said: 12 hours ago, DrBloodmoney said: My two cents - First of all, lemme say - thanks for the extensive reply. ? I was worried the post would end with me talking to a wall but you gave me plenty to chew on. On 11/26/2021 at 10:22 AM, DrBloodmoney said: This might be true, but when it comes to the reviews you are aiming at here - i.e. the ones written by this site's users, on their own checklists, I have to ask - is anyone actually making any claim to "objectivity"? Personally, I think, since subjectivity is 'baked in' when reviewing taste-based media anyway, actually, the reviewer should be doing the opposite - they should strive to make the review as objective as possible, given that the subjective aspects of the review are unavoidable, and will shine through regardless. Personally, if I love a game, I know that love will shine through anyways, but I try to ensure I at least mention any negative stuff, as otherwise, it just comes off as bad writing. If I dislike a game intensely, I try to at least highlight some stuff it did well (if there is any,) - otherwise I don't feel like I am doing what the point of a review is - highlighting all pertinent aspects, then packaging them in digestible format in which my own opinions - and their basis - will come through. That's not me actually achieving objectivity - but it is me aiming for objectivity, in order to do due diligence within a format that is inherently subjective by nature. I think I overexaggerated that point. While I referred to users with trophy checklists on here, a decent amount of what I had in mind also came from a lot of what I read on YouTube videos beneath lengthy video game critiques/analysis (I know, I know - MY FAULT for trying to discern the sincerity of YouTube comments). I feel like we're in agreement on your second point. When I say "gush to me about your favorite game", I hope that most people don't fall into the habit of "if you love something beyond the ability to criticize it - you don't love it more, you love it sadder." A game that pops into my head for this is Persona 5. I freaking love that game, for a whole lot more reasons than the game itself (the way I discovered, that I've seen two different people play through it for 100+ hours), yet I think my "negativity" of the review would probably be left to "yea if you can't stomach anime nonsense/dialogue at times you may find your enjoyment quickly dissipate". I'd really want to convey that as someone who can stomach that stuff, I adored the game. Focus far more on the way I genuinely felt, yea? The same applies vice versa. On 11/26/2021 at 10:22 AM, DrBloodmoney said: I will often add a note before a review if something important needs to be kept in mind - for example, when I reviewed Tales of Arise, I felt it was important anyone reading it knew that it was my first and only Tales game. That is important background info, as it means I am unable to use any comparative tools to consider where it sits in the landscape of a franchise, only where it sits in the ladscape of my gaming in general - but I don't feel the need to do that in every case. I just don't think it is always applicable. Yup! I do the same thing. Especially if it's a beloved series with multiple games. I quite genuinely didn't care for "inFamous First Light" and kinda thought it was weird why it was a Playstation franchise that I frequently saw praised. Then I played "inFamous Second Son" and was more like oh hey yea I get it now. On 11/26/2021 at 10:22 AM, DrBloodmoney said: This, again I agree with, for the most part - but not the bolded part exactly. "Trust" isn't the right word, I don't think. If you, as a reviewer, are doing what you outlined in point 2, then there shouldn't be a question of whether someone can "trust your word" - it's just a matter of agreeing or not, and of what parts of a review you can anticipate. If a reader needs to know EVERYTHING about your tastes in order to understand whether to "Trust" you, then I would argue that the review itself is lacking. Your tastes will become apparent over time and across reviews, of course, but if the actual 'review' is so devoid of factual information about the game, or (more importantly) sound basis for the opinion, that the reader needs to rely on outside sources and background knowledge to work out if they would like the game, then I would argue the review itself is lacking. I'm 100% certain I have reviewed some games as great that others hated, or something as shit that others have liked, but (aside from once, when some random wandered into the checklist forums after getting lost on his way to 4-chan) I don't generally get hateful or vindictive comments back about those instances, or even significantly spiteful or negative counter-point. Just heathy fun debate. I think the reason is, I highlight the basis for my opinions in the review themselves. I like to think that if someone reads them, they may very well go, "well, he clearly didn't like it, because of this stuff, but that is stuff I like, or can deal with" , and that's great! If that happens, I think the review was a success. They shouldn't ever be going "Well, he hated it, but the writing is so subjective that I can't even work out whether I would based on that review." If that is the case, then I think, I failed. Honestly, 100% agree with you. "Trust" isn't the right word. I just spent the last 5 minutes trying to think of a replacement and just made the statement unbelievably wordy in the end lmao. But you're very correct. If I can't just read a review and see where someone's coming from and have to rely on a rolodex of context regarding their gaming history, they did a bad job. Perhaps a better way to put it would be.... it'd be extremely convenient to be able to look at a glance at someone's entire gaming interest. Not out of mere judgment just to say "WOW this guy dislikes a game I like? He's trash." But rather I think it'd be incredibly useful for finding "hidden" games that we bypass all the time since there are only oh so many games being talked about at any one time. I think it would also make for a very fun debate you mentioned - I've thankfully never had anyone come in here and wanna fight me on any takes ?. I hope that made some sense. We're both in agreement that a review should be able to stand on its own without any context. But as a nerd, damn I'd sure love some!!! On 11/26/2021 at 10:22 AM, DrBloodmoney said: ...and if I'm understanding you correctly, I'm supposed to take your advice, and decide that I now don't "trust" you, just because you ranked Dear Esther as a bad game, or Dr.Strangelove as a bad movie?... well... ...sorry, but I'm still prolly gonna read your reviews anyways Heheheh... I really did not like Dear Esther. That's probably the meanest review I've done in all my years here. I'd honestly like to read your review on it if you had a convenient hyperlink to it :P. As for Dr. Strangelove - this was the literal review that I wrote for myself, "Uh.... I think I just didn't get it. Watched while playing Brig levels on Infinity Runner but even watching the first 30 minutes late last night a lot of it just missed the mark with me. I think I'll listen to an analysis later of why this movie is good since... I just didn't get it I guess." (still need to watch that analysis lmao) Thank you again On 11/27/2021 at 8:50 PM, Briste said: Good read as per usual! Quick question....you gave Infinity War and Endgame the same rating, yet you have Infinity War as a 'watch again' and Endgame as a 'zero interest'....just curious why? I've seen both about 15 times and absolutely love them and actually slightly prefer Endgame. I know that the end of Endgame was either too over the top or too pander-y for some people, but I absolutely ate it up. I am also a movie buff and own over 600 movies myself. I haven't done what you have yet as far as a rating system, but I've recently decided that I'm going to watch every movie I own, in order that I bought them, from beginning to end. The first movies I bought were the original Bond movies and my goodness are they trash lol Entertaining trash, but trash. Austin Powers makes a lot more sense now too. I had bought them on sale forever ago and just never watched them. I'll have to dissect your list a bit further, but that first part jumped out at me since it was at the top. /edit ok just had another look quickly and some of your zero interest to rewatch I need a follow up to lol The Big Lebowski is one of those movies that gets better with each viewing since you pick up all the subtleties you missed the first time. I actually didn't really like that movie the first time I saw it but it is now one of my favorites. I also feel like I've answered my first question by looking at your other Superhero movies....the majority of them seem to fall under the zero interest category so I'm going to guess that just may not be a genre you enjoy a lot. The Nolan Batman's are some of my favorite movies as well but are a zero interest entry for you. LA Confidential is in my top 5 favorites of all time so I agree with your rating there....so much to unravel here Ultimately, I gave Infinity War that rating since I literally DID rewatch it lol. I saw it once in theaters with some friends and months later I saw it again on Netflix as a bit of a background movie while playing a game. I personally find it slightly more rewatchable than Endgame due to the fact there's less downtime(I understand why of course, Endgame served as the finishing of an arc for so many times they needed to wind many things down. But it doesn't give me the same urge to revisit as each sequence in IW with each stone being collected) and I think Thanos is such a star he's simply more present in the former than the latter. I need to watch some Bond movies!!! I'll be honest and say I haven't seen a single one. For the longest time, I disliked Daniel Craig even though I hadn't seen a movie with him in it. Then I finally actually watched one (Knives Out) and said wow this guy is pretty great! I think I'll enjoy some of the older ones first and that'll likely increase my enjoyment of Austin Powers (which sadly has been removed from Netflix as the streaming wars rage on) I enjoyed The Big Lebowski! A high 7's is very high praise from a stickler like me lol. I should clarify that being a "rewatchable" or not isn't really an indictment against the movie. Sometimes I have an itch for it, sometimes I don't. A lot of the movies in 2021 haven't reached that status for me due to how recently I've seen them. It has to be a movie I LOVE to want to see it again right away. I actually enjoy Superhero movies more than most "casual movie critics" I think. I enjoyed all the latest Stars Wars for what they were lol. I absolutely love the Nolan Batman films. Batman is my favorite superhero(as seen by my Batman: Arkham game reviews). I've still gotta finish the Trilogy! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrBloodmoney Posted November 30, 2021 Share Posted November 30, 2021 2 hours ago, realm722 said: I feel like we're in agreement on your second point. When I say "gush to me about your favorite game", I hope that most people don't fall into the habit of "if you love something beyond the ability to criticize it - you don't love it more, you love it sadder." A game that pops into my head for this is Persona 5. I freaking love that game, for a whole lot more reasons than the game itself (the way I discovered, that I've seen two different people play through it for 100+ hours), yet I think my "negativity" of the review would probably be left to "yea if you can't stomach anime nonsense/dialogue at times you may find your enjoyment quickly dissipate". I'd really want to convey that as someone who can stomach that stuff, I adored the game. Focus far more on the way I genuinely felt, yea? The same applies vice versa. I like that - and I know what you mean. It's particularly pointed when the negative stuff, I think, is technical, rather than taste-based too. For example, I loved Persona 5 too (as all good people should ?), but I'd say all the negatives with that one are, as you say, purely taste-based. If you don't like the anime-leanings or the characters, then you aren't gonna love it, but that's not really something that is a result of some problem with the game - just the audience it caters to. On the other hand, Invisible Inc (which is a game I love so much it's currently in my No.2 spot!) I think is amazing, and everyone should at least try... but it has a memory leak issue. Play it (on console) for more than a couple of hours, and it starts to drop frames, and run slowly and look choppy, and only gets worse as time goes on. That is a real problem - and in something like an FPS, it would be game breaking - however, because of the nature of Invisible Inc, in that each mission is at max an hour long and the loading times are so short that you can literally close and re-open the app in 20 seconds, and doing so after every couple of missions completely alleviates the problem, I didn't use it as a detrimental factor... ....but there is no world in which that issue should be omitted in a review. It has to be mentioned - it's something I think can be easily avoided in the game without hassle, but people should be forewarned A. that it happens, and B. of how to avoid it. 2 hours ago, realm722 said: Honestly, 100% agree with you. "Trust" isn't the right word. I just spent the last 5 minutes trying to think of a replacement and just made the statement unbelievably wordy in the end lmao. But you're very correct. If I can't just read a review and see where someone's coming from and have to rely on a rolodex of context regarding their gaming history, they did a bad job. Perhaps a better way to put it would be.... it'd be extremely convenient to be able to look at a glance at someone's entire gaming interest. Not out of mere judgment just to say "WOW this guy dislikes a game I like? He's trash." But rather I think it'd be incredibly useful for finding "hidden" games that we bypass all the time since there are only oh so many games being talked about at any one time. I think it would also make for a very fun debate you mentioned - I've thankfully never had anyone come in here and wanna fight me on any takes . I hope that made some sense. We're both in agreement that a review should be able to stand on its own without any context. But as a nerd, damn I'd sure love some!!! That's true - I think for the most part, that does come over time though. I reckon people on here know pretty quickly that, for example, I come "pre-primed" to like puzzle games - that's not to say that I won't hate a bad one (and might actually rank a mediocre one harshly, as I have played enough of them and have enough love for the genre to identify the reasons why it isn't measuring up)... but I'm not just going to say "Well, it's a puzzle game - use a guide, it will be done quick. Boring." Same for rjkclarke with adventure games, or Copanele with souls-likes, or Baker with jpgs or Yuber with fighting games or Destructor with racing games... but yeah, that comes over time - there isn't an easy "cheat sheet" of tastes! 2 hours ago, realm722 said: Heheheh... I really did not like Dear Esther. That's probably the meanest review I've done in all my years here. I'd honestly like to read your review on it if you had a convenient hyperlink to it :P. As for Dr. Strangelove - this was the literal review that I wrote for myself, "Uh.... I think I just didn't get it. Watched while playing Brig levels on Infinity Runner but even watching the first 30 minutes late last night a lot of it just missed the mark with me. I think I'll listen to an analysis later of why this movie is good since... I just didn't get it I guess." (still need to watch that analysis lmao) Haha, well, I did do Dear Esther (current No.72 out of 255, so probably equates to a 4-star(ish) game for me,) but it was ranked early on, in this batch: https://forum.psnprofiles.com/topic/107145-drbloodmoneys-super-scientific-ranking-of-games/?do=findComment&comment=2322383 ...when I hadn't gone full-force into long reviews yet, so it's just a short paragraph! For me, the setting and writing were so poetic that it really hit me - and that voice over is such a joy to listen to... there may be al little bias in there, given that I'm Scottish... having been to those Hebridean islands, I know that game really captures the weather-beaten isolation of those places in a way few games ever have! 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
realm722 Posted December 4, 2021 Author Share Posted December 4, 2021 Game: Chambara Analysis: I bought Chambara for $3.49 in mid-November 2021. What a simple but fun concept! Chambara is a game that can only be played if you own multiple controllers. It's intended to be a co-op stealth-death match game. You'll have the option to select an arena from the nine offered in the main menu, along with two distinct colors that will be utilized to separate you from the opposing player. The trick is that these same colors will mimic the colors on the map. So if you do black and white, the entire map will be black and white. One character will be 100% black. The other 100% white. The fun and trickiness of the game comes from trying to assassinate the other player before they can assassinate you. You have a dash maneuver, the ability to wall jump, be capable of turning off your screen by "closing your eyes" blinding you and your opponent from seeing precisely where you are as well as a turn maneuver that spins you around 180 degrees. It's not the most in-depth or overly complex system but it works wonderfully to make the game easy to understand right away and once you get a handle of the snappy controls you'll have a grasp of things within 5-10 minutes of playing. Would I recommend Chambara? Maybe. I managed to earn the 29.40% rarity 100% completion in a mere 55 minutes. The reason for this is - with two controllers you can blaze through all the necessary requirements for each achievement. The other controller will be AFK and you'll be mowing them down map across map and it's why this is such an easy game to complete. That being said - could someone have fun with this for the $3.50 price point as a genuine game to play with someone else? I definitely think so. It may be a mere one-off, but it's a better concept than I've seen compared to other local multiplayer games. Given how it was released back in 2016, I was hoping that the developers, "team ok LLC" would have made something notable since then but that appears not to be the case. Here's their steam. Plus their YouTube channel. They seem like a solid group of blokes but given how nicely made this game was I was hoping they had created something else by now. Maybe something in the future someday! But that's all for me to say on this game. The next one will be a doozy. I thought I had enough "sleeper" hits for 2021 but this next one swept me off my feet in a ridiculous way. (Hint: It's a roguelite ladies and gentlemen) Panda Score: 6.0 / 10 Panda Difficulty: 1.7 / 10 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rjkclarke Posted December 4, 2021 Share Posted December 4, 2021 (edited) On 26/11/2021 at 2:00 PM, realm722 said: I Don't Want Objective or "Unbiased" Reviews of Games Okay - sorry this one is a bit late - so feel free to ignore this if you want to..... I wanted to reply at the time, but I had a million things going on,and I was barely even maintaining my own thread..... ...... But anyway, I'll throw my thoughts in on this one. First off that was a hell of a good read...... I guess that's a given really when it comes to you. On 26/11/2021 at 2:00 PM, realm722 said: Subject #1 - Can you even be "objective" or "unbiased" when reviewing a video game? That's definitely tough for sure - and I'm about to do the absolute hack journalist thing and pull a quote from the conclusion, and try and actually give it some relevance and context here. On 26/11/2021 at 2:00 PM, realm722 said: "I'm going to take my bias out when writing" this perspective. If you love the Yakuza games, I WANT to read you gush about why. I'm fairly sure that when I reviewed Yakuza 0 myself - I actually might have done both of those things.... I very much gushed about how much I loved it, but I'm fairly sure I did the other thing too .... I know more than once I've written " in the pursuit of objectivity" or something of that nature - but what I really mean by that is that going into a review I absolutely won't be blind to a games flaws if it has any particularly glaring ones. I don't feel like you should only talk about the things that you like - that isn't a true representation of your experience with the game. Or equally get too caught up in how much I might like it despite something fundamentally not being good. I can think of quite a few games I'm eventually going to end up reviewing that fall under that category. If you ever read my Venetica review months back, you'd probably get what I mean by that. Where I very much loved that game, loved almost everything about it - but you'd have to possess literally no critical skills to not be able to see that, that particular title is incredibly rough around the edges. I think if you want a very cookie cutter review - which you obviously don't (and I don't either if I'm honest) - then you probably can remain unbiased a bit easier. We don't have those constraints in our trophy cabinets or checklists, we kind of have that freedom to make them sound as much like they are coming from us as possible - a truer representation of our experiences if you will. But I think I'm definitely guilty of the trying to stay objective a few times - all the time I was writing my Agents of Mayhem (wish that would stop repeating like a bad smell,) review, I just wanted to say how joyless the experience was - I got that part across - but I found that game genuinely infuriating by how bland it was, but I also didn't ignore the fact that some aspects of it were decent. So I've fallen into that trap myself unfortunately. But I do feel that if I love a game - then when I review it people will absolutely know about it, you yourself do this incredibly well too - it'll be pretty unavoidable, nor would I try to, but I think I'd also feel obligated to mention what isn't good about it, but still didn't detract from the experience. So I guess I spring that trap upon myself yet again. Problems......, Problems ? On 26/11/2021 at 2:00 PM, realm722 said: Subject #3 - You, the reviewer, have a responsibility to make it clear to readers what games you love. I do get where you're coming from on this one - at least to a point. Look - this is going to sound brutal, but how many outside of ourselves actually look at our first posts as much as we do? I update mine a lot, literally after every new review, but I doubt anyone else looks at it very often.... It's actually really easy to navigate and find reviews now if they wanted to, but how many people are going to go out of their way to go there. Granted, they have more reason to look at yours - because you've actually got a tiered system where you rank your games in order of preference. That's great, but I also feel like someone would only have to read a page or two of your thread to see you have an incredibly eclectic taste in games - you don't play just one kind of genre and leave it at that. You can see that from your opening post too - there are a bunch of different genres scattered all over the upper echelons there. Unfortunately - I just noticed Doc already said what I was about to elaborate on myself- so I'll just quote that. On 30/11/2021 at 8:32 AM, DrBloodmoney said: That's true - I think for the most part, that does come over time though. I reckon people on here know pretty quickly that, for example, I come "pre-primed" to like puzzle games - that's not to say that I won't hate a bad one (and might actually rank a mediocre one harshly, as I have played enough of them and have enough love for the genre to identify the reasons why it isn't measuring up)... but I'm not just going to say "Well, it's a puzzle game - use a guide, it will be done quick. Boring." Same for rjkclarke with adventure games, or Copanele with souls-likes, or Baker with jpgs or Yuber with fighting games or Destructor with racing games... but yeah, that comes over time - there isn't an easy "cheat sheet" of tastes! Exactly this - liking a genre or a game series doesn't mean you'll favour it more or less..... I guess there isn't a catch-all here - it'll require a bit of homework from people either way. On 26/11/2021 at 2:00 PM, realm722 said: Subject #2 - You, the reader, should get to know the tastes and preferences of people you listen to for reviews. Doesn't this element of it just come hand-in-hand with actually reading the reviews or pieces from those people though? I think that's what you're saying anyway. Me for example. I really like unpicking the minutiae of characters,story elements, cinematography, sound, thematic elements that kind of thing (I probably subconsciously want to be reviewing films ?,) without delving too much into spoilers - but I couldn't write that in my opening post, and that be true for every single thing I write - I don't always play games with story elements. You'd only really find that out by reading through a couple of my posts. Doc's review of Lost at Sea recently is a good example of knowing someone's taste and preferences, and that being something that can also save you from making a bad purchase - and reacting accordingly. I knew from reading that review that I'd almost certainly despise that game, in almost the same way he did, possibly even more. But that comes from reading his posts for a long time, knowing. Just like with the comparison you made with Cassy - I knew I usually like the type of game Lost at Sea is masquerading as - now I know to avoid it. Like Doc alluded to, knowing those kinds of things come with time. On 26/11/2021 at 2:00 PM, realm722 said: Subject #4 - Conclusion and Reconciliation That was a fascinating read - and it definitely brings up some interesting points and questions..... I already do the would I recommend it thing myself, but sometimes I really struggle with that, because you and I both play some pretty out there games. So finding a comparison point is usually pretty difficult - so it sometimes boils down to the fact you can only really recommend this under a few very strict conditions.... So in a way we're still putting further constraints on ourselves by doing that too. On 30/11/2021 at 8:32 AM, DrBloodmoney said: Haha, well, I did do Dear Esther (current No.72 out of 255, so probably equates to a 4-star(ish) game for me,) but it was ranked early on, in this batch: https://forum.psnprofiles.com/topic/107145-drbloodmoneys-super-scientific-ranking-of-games/?do=findComment&comment=2322383 ...when I hadn't gone full-force into long reviews yet, so it's just a short paragraph! Okay so I know that you don't like Dear Esther - but that should kind of prove right some of your own points in your article.... I know you don't like it, but if I see any Walking Simulators or games of that nature make their way further up, then I know that's probably a game worth at least thinking about if it hadn't been on your radar.... This might seem like shameless self promotion (it isn't,) I know you said you'd be interested to read Doc's thoughts on Dear Esther...... If you wanted to read mine too you can find them here. https://forum.psnprofiles.com/topic/107095-rjkclarkes-carnival-of-diamonds-and-rust/?do=findComment&comment=2329647 Although - I'm kind of in a similar boat to Doc with this one. So if anything @DrBloodmoney, it isn't the fact you're Scottish that made that game resonate with you (I mean it could be,) but I very much loved that experience too. If I wrote that review now - it'd probably be much longer myself..... I'd probably spend at least one thousand words just gushing about Jessica Curry and how amazing she is as a composer - and that I'd practically give a limb to be her personal sound goblin...... Snuffling along I'm imagining a limp "YEEEEESSSS MISTRESSS, I CAN GO AND MAKE THE SOUND EFFECTS, CAN I PLAY WITH THE SYNTHESISER?" Well that took a weird turn..... I'll get around to looking at your Movie Spreadsheet properly soon too, I did give it a quick glance, but I wanted to look at it properly. But......... On 30/11/2021 at 5:19 AM, realm722 said: As for Dr. Strangelove - this was the literal review that I wrote for myself, "Uh.... I think I just didn't get it. Watched while playing Brig levels on Infinity Runner For all the good aspects of Dr, Strangelove as a story - and there are plenty, it's incredibly well written satire, and some of it, is still relevant to this day. it's also a fascinating visual spectacle. You would have missed out on some amazing visuals, and creative direction from Kubrick by having the film on in the background whilst you play it. So even if you didn't like it by the end of it, if you had time, I'd recommend just switching your phone off and giving that film your full focus. How do you manage to watch films and play games at the same time by the way? I've never managed that, I always end up never focusing on one thing enough, that's why music or podcasts are my go to, because they only rely on the fact you need to listen. Anyway - sorry for the long as anything post, I guess you should have expected that from me anyway ..... I'm definitely going still be following along and reading your awesome stuff, even if you do end up half watching Seven Samurai or something on your phone whilst playing Farming Simulator 22 ? Edited December 4, 2021 by rjkclarke 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post realm722 Posted December 7, 2021 Author Popular Post Share Posted December 7, 2021 (edited) Game: Going Under Analysis: I bought Going Under for $6.99 in mid-November 2021. I can't believe it... I have a brand new favorite roguelike of All-Time. Why Going Under? To be perfectly honest... I don't remember what exactly made this game jump out to me. I think I may have been using a website I discovered from @Cassylvania called "50 Games Like" and was searching for games like Dead Cells. Going Under popped as the #9 recommendation. I saw that it had a relatively decent platinum rate that wouldn't take too long and said screw it, whenever I see it go on sale - I'll pick it up blind and hope I have a good time with it. Little did I know I would be scooping up a Top 5 game of PS4/5 era. (Spoilers ahead) You play as Jackie. A spry 22-year old intern straight out of college looking to get started in the workforce. You've been hired by Fizzle Beverges, a start-up company that has all the promising hopes and dreams that all companies have when they first start out. Before the weight of finances, the difficulty of running a business, and cynism consume every last bit of aspiration that was left when the project initially began. You thought you would be working in marketing. Instead, you'll be killing monsters in dungeons! Your Project Manager Marv is kind of a bald jerk. Ray is the CEO and Founder and not necessarily a bad guy but most definitely a trust-fund baby who looks up to Elon Musk and does so unironically. Kara is the Lead Engineer and she's a generally negative individual, constantly doom preaching about how you're always being spied on and the world is going to sh!t. She has an adorable dachshund. Fern is the flavor scientist and initially started the business as equal partners with Ray before leading him take head ownership. I feel bad for Fern. Tappi is an accountant and is adorable in her naivety but has been slowly worn down by the toll that this sort of workforce of constantly being ignored and taken for granted can have on people. No one appreciates her. Finally, you have Swomp. The barista and quite easily the best character in the game. He's hilarious in the way he always calls Jackie "beb", speaks in all lower case broken grammar, and while not the brightest bulb around is always there to give his two cents even if it's never asked for. Did you notice something unique about this game? About everything I've just covered? Think for a sec.... Going Under is the very FIRST roguelike that made me CARE about its story and characters Do you know how insane that is? I LOVE this genre. Dead Cells was my gateway drug. Since then I've basked in the glory of Slay the Spire, Enter the Gungeon, Risk of Rain 1 and 2, Wizard of Legend, and Children of Morta. Incredibly - NONE of those games have stories or characters I very much care for. Children of Morta was probably the closest but even then, Going Under blows it out of the water. I say this with all sincerity, I adore these characters. They are flawed, imperfect, and find themselves in a bad situation - and while I'm not going to pretend that this game is offering us Undertale-tier wonderfully weaved narratives what I will say is I NEVER skipped the dialogue while playing. I always wanted to know a little bit more backstory of each character. The jokes were genuinely funny. The game is not trying to be subtle with how it pokes fun and satirizes start-ups in today's era. It's not trying to be. It will make fun of the ridiculous "funplace" environments that have a slide in the middle of the working space. They'll mock being slaved to death and have a corporation tell you "hey, we care about your mental health, take care of yourself, just not too much, or else you'll be replaced by somebody else!". It lambasts the typical "workplace harassment" issue by having the 2nd-floor boss be literally named "HOVER HANDS". It mocks cryptocurrency. I loved every moment of it. I didn't do a good enough job of writing down every moment that made me crack up simply because I did not expect a roguelike to ever offer me such an experience. Even in games I rated a 9/10 (Dead Cells, Slay the Spire, Enter the Gungeon) - their flavoring of a story pales deeply in comparison to what Going Under brings to the table and it deserves all the praise and more for setting the standard of how to make the story a wonderful aspect of your game even if isn't the core element that makes it special. Let's Talk About The Base Game and Combat - Every roguelike will live and die based on how fun the gameplay loop is. Thankfully, Going Under's unique hack-n-slash / beat 'em up / slight Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild mix is an utter masterpiece. The gameplay is so damn CHUNKY in a good way. You can't jump, but you can dodge roll, so it's basically cartoon Dark Souls. You'll run through dungeons with nothing on you. There are 3 levels, randomly generated, and then a 4th level where the final boss is. Before you play, you have the ability to turn on all the "Assists". I cranked them all on along with the 5 additional hearts. Why? They have zero effect on the trophies. Some may look down on me for that decision. It ended up being the perfect one in my mind due to how the DLC utterly transformed my time with the game. So with all these assist enabled, I managed to play through the main story in 8-10 hours or so. The game can be completed in a much faster fashion but I went out of my way to work on the "Mentorships" with each of your co-workers which are essentially unique tasks they'll ask you to complete on runs across the different dungeons. There 3 in total are "Joblin", "Winklydink", and "Styxcoin". Joblin focuses on workers being killed with overtime and grinded down to the bone. Winklydink is a flirtatious, almost dirty setting with exotic monsters always tryna get a piece of you. Styxcoin is a bunch of skeletons tryna make their coin take-off. In each of these dungeons, you'll have random weapons you'll be able to pick up as well as skills that will aid you in attempting to win the run. The catch? Your weapons have durability and WILL break. Some skills are also vastly superior to others. and some enemies are ruthlessly difficult compared to others. Let's break all those down so I can have this game permanently implanted in my brain. Time for a rundown! My Favorite Skills in Going Under: Buzzkill - Gives you a high crit chance when enemies are at 100% health. A huge help to get a big jump on enemies out the gate. Deep Pockets - You go from only being able to carry 3 weapons at any one time to 15. It's mental. Tip: Stack 3-4 tablet pens for the boss in Joblin. Downsized - Turns Jackie into a baby and super tiny which makes it very hard to hit her. I personally loved the visual effect of the skill. Free Hand - One of the BEST skills in the game. Transforms two-handed, heavy weapons into having attack speed of one-handed ones. MUST HAVE. Go-Getter - Just an all-around solid skill that lets you move and attack more quickly. Open-Minded - I personally never "focused" on enemies while playing, so why not increase you crit chance when not doing so? Self-Starter - Do double damage at the start of each room. I loved it since combined with Buzzkill you can one/two-shot most rooms with decent weapons. She Don't Miss - This will be hugely helpful for one of the DLC trophies that requires you to kill all enemies in the game with a honing blank card. Thick Skin - One of the BEST skills in the game. Makes you immune to projectiles which is AMAZING in Joblin AND Winklydink especially. Vindicative - Regain health lost to an enemy if you kill them quickly enough after they hit you. Outstanding skill on harder difficulties. My Favorite Weapons in Going Under: (Joblin) Bone Club - Only does 4 damage but is super quick and lets you dodge quickly out of damage with how quick it hits. (Joblin) Jobseeker - Oustanding vs bosses since you throw it once and it hones in to constantly do damage on the enemy. (Joblin) Tablet Pen - With Deep Pockets, you can stunlock the boss to death without him ever launching one attack. (Winklydink) Low Hanging Fruit - It's an eggplant. It's a one-handed weapon. It does 9 damage. GOAT bang-for-buck. (Winkldyink) Hockey Stick - Almost as good as double hockey stick, easier to find, and still does a solid 7 damage. (Winklydink) Double Hockey Sticks - My FAVORITE weapon in the game combined with "Free Hand". Does 11 damage. (Winkldyink) The Old Flame - PHENOMENAL weapon. Can be found hidden in shops if you touch the walls. (Styxcoin) Chisel Hammer - Similar to the bone club, it's one of the faster weapons in the hardest dungeon in the game. (Styxcoin) Diamond Pickaxe - Does 9 damage, combined with "Free Hand" can be an absolute monster. (Styxcoin) Sledgehammer - Again, combined with "Free Hand" and you're looking at an auto-win gg my friend. My Favorite Enemies in Going Under: (Joblin) Promoter - This jerk hits HARD if you don't dodge his T-shirt cannon. He can't hurt you with the "Thick Skin" skill. (Joblin) The Caffiend - He can be difficult if you have crappy weapons. He also spawns a # of minion helpers in the 2nd half of the fight. (Winklydink) Wimp - I always thought it was hilarious how they would hit you with a body pillow of Winkubus. (Winklydink) Dinkubus - One of the hardest enemies in the game given their wind-up. Super important to learn their timings. (Winklydink) Mask Off Hover Hands - Easiest boss in the game by far for me. Hit his hands, knock 'em down, and destoy him. (Styxcoin) Josh Patella - Not hard at all. Gives off armor to co-enemies with his clapping. Brilliant concept. (Styxcoin) Chump Chains - One of the hardest enemies to hit without taking damage due to their overall quickness. (Styxcoin) Hustlebones - Hardest boss in the game, even harder than the DLC boss. USE THE FRIGGING MINECARTS MAN. Now that I'm done including my selfish lists, what else is there to say? I was a fan of the story and characters, basked in the glorious combat that just had a marvelous overall "game feel", overthrew our corporate overlords in Avie the Talking Google Translate AI. What else was left? I honestly started to feel sad. I had only played for 8-10 hours, most runs last 10-15 minutes, and had blazed through the game far too quickly. After completing all of the "Mentorships" all I needed was to earn enough credits to unlock all the skills. My biggest criticism of the game by far was the fact the game never genuinely challenged me. It was going to go down as an 8.8 or 8.9 out of 10 similar to Risk of Rain 2 in the sense that I loved the game, but it never pushed me enough to learn any of its mechanics to perfection due to the ease of the platinum. Oh... what's this? Oh my god... it's free DLC!!!! DLC fixed every criticism I could have laid in this review against Going Under Is this an All-Time first on PSNProfiles? DLC saves the day. Instead of complaining about the fact I have to play the game for longer in order to maintain 100% completion... it did EVERYTHING I ever could have possibly asked for. The name of the DLC is "Going Under: Working From Home". The first time you'll notice it when playing is after defeating a zone after the company has "gone under", you'll find an Imposter shadow version of Jackie you need to hunt down and take out. After doing this, this Imposter will now appear in the Mirror at your quaint apartment. The challenge? Beat all 3 zones, 2 levels per + each boss, and finally a Final Boss showdown against two forms of the Imposter. DAMN IF IT ISN'T AWESOME! 10 of my 20-hour play-time was dedicated to this and it honestly felt weird going back to the main game after doing so. Going Under only gets better when it's a challenging endurance test. The assists will help you - but not nearly as much as in the base game. This is because you aren't given the extra base hearts to make yourself able to tank a lot of damage. It took a small adjustment, but soon I was sweeping through the 10 levels in no time at all. The thing is though - the DLC has a catch. After beating the Imposter for the 1st time, you will now have to work "Overtime" on a 1-7 scale. Each Overtime adds an additional challenge. This could make other enemies from different zones spawn. Make you start a dungeon with a curse. OR worst of all (at least IMO) were the 5th and 6th overtimes which meant you'd take damage whenever accepting a skill (forcing you to be more judicious with the skills you took on) and the 6th overtime which made you take double damage on the final level of a floor. Specifically, that 6th overtime took me a number of runs in order to get right (I think I had 6 failed attempts). But after finally getting over that hurdle (in large part thanks to Thick Skin + Free Hand), I earned the Self-Actualized trophy. Here was Overtime 7 Victory Evaluation. Getting 8 wins out of 17 runs is pretty damn solid in my opinion. The 30-40 minute play-time on a full-run was also super satisfying and fit perfectly into the roguelike timetable, even better than the base games super quick 10-15 minute runs in my opinion. Would I recommend Going Under? Absolutely. 100% yes. Hell, buy it at full price. Even while grading on a curve for the fact that I love me some roguelikes, the developers over at AggroCrab poured their heart and soul into this and have sky-rocketed up my rankings into being an indie developer that will have a Day 1 purchase out of me regardless of whatever their next endeavor is. My recommendation for hunting trophies would be to take a brief glance at this guide that I used given there isn't a lot of info out there on the game, as well as start hunting the "business" cards for taking down enemies with blank cards as soon as they're available. I ignored this for the longest time simply because I didn't know what the "@" symbol on each floor they appeared was actually for. They're to earn this collectible. It's not so bad, and it only took me a few hours of clean-up but you may as well do yourself a favor and take care of it as you play. It took me 2 weeks and 3 hours to earn the 25.83% rarity platinum (2.74% rarity 100%). 20th fastest achiever on PSNProfiles. Even after having reflected upon this review, I'm kinda mad at myself for not including more of the small things that I loved. The owners at each store vendor will talk to you and give you small details on the previous startup and why they failed. One will flirt with you. I cannot get the Winklydink boss' theme music out of my head. This game drips greatness all over the place and I hope this review will do a small part in encouraging those looking for looked over gems to give a shot and have a blast with it as much as I did. Until next time! Panda Score: 9.4 / 10 Panda Difficulty: 5.3 / 10 Edited October 23, 2022 by realm722 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grotz99 Posted December 9, 2021 Share Posted December 9, 2021 (edited) On 11/26/2021 at 6:00 AM, realm722 said: I Don't Want Objective or "Unbiased" Reviews of Games I finally got around to catching up on your thread and I know this post was over a month ago, but I it had me thinking of how to tackle what I was doing for "reviews". When I go into a thread and see what game someone wrote about next, there's 2 things that come to mind: Is it a game I've played before and is it something they liked as much as I did or not, or is it something new that might interest me? The third thing is if it is something that I know I'm going to play in the future, but I usually skip those for the time being as I absolutely despise spoilers. The trick is how to write them in a way that intrigues people who likes those type of games by giving them a synapse of what the game is about, as well as including your own critique about what you personally liked/disliked and why so people that have played it can compare thoughts about them. If and when I get back into writing up some thoughts on games again, here is how I imagine my posts will go: The Pitch (Short back of box intro into what the game is about) Gameplay (What the gameplay is like which will include dislikes and likes.) My Biased Thoughts (Beware Possible Spoilers) (This is the area where I have trouble. I would like to include anything I liked or disliked about the game, which might include spoilers for some. I usually will try to keep anything story related vague so that people that have played the game would know what I'm referring to while others are oblivious like an inside joke. Thought about just putting this section in a spoiler area, but it's really most of the meat of the post will be and give people the idea of what I like in gaming, there isn't much I dislike as I have games from almost all genres.) Platinum Fun Factor (This is a new section I would be adding describing the road to the platinum and if it was worth it. Was there any trophies that took a boring and horrendous amount of time that would sour the experience of the game for someone. I've seen too many games that went from this is great to omg when will this end, I should have wrote my review after just beating the game...) The Good The Bad The Ugly (Going to keep these, for people that want to know, the difference between bad and ugly is if it is a game design flaw(bad) or something mechanically broken in the game(ugly). Ugly can range from terrible controls to glitches to something that strait up pissed me off because the game wouldn't let me do something right.) Recommended? (Another new section that I would like to incorporate from your feedback about what other games I've played that this relates to, in case others have played the same games and looking for something similar) Sorry for building this in your thread @realm722 but I was intrigued by your post and other's feedback and if you want I can just pack this up and take it back to mine to get some feedback. I almost feel like all of this talk about what to put in threads should be it's own thread to help others build out their threads and discuss what works and doesn't work. On 11/26/2021 at 6:00 AM, realm722 said: Subject #2 - You, the reader, should get to know the tastes and preferences of people you listen to for reviews. This I will admit I sucked at with mine and I should put in some kind of system for the first post to include this. Like I said before, I usually only write about games I hate or love now a days, but still track anything I completed in my first post. Not sure how to edit and add a quote, but you should watch the Bond films. I started with Goldeneye around the time the N64 game came out and it will always have a close place to my heart. Then I worked backwards binging random ones around Thanksgiving when they would have marathons on TV with my dad. I did try to introduce my wife to them starting from the beginning with Dr. No and that was a mistake, I forgot how slow it was. The new ones are a lot more fast paced and packed with with action. My personal favorite is probably You Only Live Twice, shortly following that might be The Man With the Golden Gun and Goldfinger for the oldies. There is no order to them, (except the Daniel Craig movies), but I wouldn't want you to get discouraged by watching any of the unpopular ones first. Edited December 9, 2021 by Grotz99 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
realm722 Posted December 10, 2021 Author Share Posted December 10, 2021 23 hours ago, Grotz99 said: Sorry for building this in your thread @realm722 but I was intrigued by your post and other's feedback and if you want I can just pack this up and take it back to mine to get some feedback. I almost feel like all of this talk about what to put in threads should be it's own thread to help others build out their threads and discuss what works and doesn't work. Not sure how to edit and add a quote, but you should watch the Bond films. I started with Goldeneye around the time the N64 game came out and it will always have a close place to my heart. Then I worked backwards binging random ones around Thanksgiving when they would have marathons on TV with my dad. I did try to introduce my wife to them starting from the beginning with Dr. No and that was a mistake, I forgot how slow it was. The new ones are a lot more fast paced and packed with with action. My personal favorite is probably You Only Live Twice, shortly following that might be The Man With the Golden Gun and Goldfinger for the oldies. There is no order to them, (except the Daniel Craig movies), but I wouldn't want you to get discouraged by watching any of the unpopular ones first. No, thank you man! I honestly think you in a few sentences summed up perfectly what I essentially do on every review thread here. 1) If it's a game I played, I'm very curious if they had a very similar experience or radically different one than I did. 2) If it's a game I haven't played, should I play it based on what they think? I imagine most people have this same mentality. Of course, if it's a game I know I'm going to play and likely love I won't read it (which is why @Copanele's review of Hades is something I'm finally gonna read when I play and platinum it for my 175th plat milestone). There is an odd 3rd scenario with games such as Rain World where I'm never going to play due to how much they intimidate me but wanna know how someone else experienced them. The Bond movies will be something I'm looking forward to! Currently, I'm engaging in an Arnold Schwarzenegger binge. It was a movie blind spot I had that I hadn't seen a single movie of his up until over a month ago. Since then I've enjoyed Total Recall, the first two Terminator's, Pumping Iron... damn he's charming! I'm not exactly coming down from the mountain with the tablets with that take but I finally understand he became the #1 movie star and ended up the Governor of California lol. On 12/4/2021 at 10:24 AM, rjkclarke said: Look - this is going to sound brutal, but how many outside of ourselves actually look at our first posts as much as we do? I update mine a lot, literally after every new review, but I doubt anyone else looks at it very often.... It's actually really easy to navigate and find reviews now if they wanted to, but how many people are going to go out of their way to go there. Granted, they have more reason to look at yours - because you've actually got a tiered system where you rank your games in order of preference. That's great, but I also feel like someone would only have to read a page or two of your thread to see you have an incredibly eclectic taste in games - you don't play just one kind of genre and leave it at that. Hehehe no offense taken! I 100% understand that my request for an incredibly detailed and frequently updated OP is something most people wouldn't use. But I would dammit! It's something I really respect that Dr. has put into with his rankings and you've done it yourself! They're something I've used when I'm playing more of an under-the-radar game, and before diving into, I'll check what so-and-so wrote about it to quickly see their thoughts and if they have anything I should watch out for (such as, do this collectible as you play VS. leaving it as clean-up for the end and such) On 12/4/2021 at 10:24 AM, rjkclarke said: Okay so I know that you don't like Dear Esther - but that should kind of prove right some of your own points in your article.... I know you don't like it, but if I see any Walking Simulators or games of that nature make their way further up, then I know that's probably a game worth at least thinking about if it hadn't been on your radar.... This might seem like shameless self promotion (it isn't,) I know you said you'd be interested to read Doc's thoughts on Dear Esther...... If you wanted to read mine too you can find them here. https://forum.psnprofiles.com/topic/107095-rjkclarkes-carnival-of-diamonds-and-rust/?do=findComment&comment=2329647 Thanks for linking your review! I read it, and I get where you're coming from - I just... I went and read back my review of the game to remember how I felt and I was probably too mean in that review lmao. It did manage to reawaken how I felt about the game though. There was just nothing there for me personally. I think it ultimately comes down to the fact I don't think the game actually had a whole lot to say. It used vagueness and emptiness to create an atmosphere but there's nothing deeper beyond that. I thought the Director's Commentary was unintentionally hilarious since it seems so unneeded for a game of such small scope. I know you said "if you don't like you can just turn it off and not get the trophy" but I personally play games and judge my experience with the game factoring in my experience with getting the trophies. I think for most other people who just play games in general, your point works. But this is PSNProfiles. I also feel like my general taste for art is reflected here. Can a person who generally digs Jackson Pollack paintings find great joy in Dear Esther? I think so. I don't really care for them. They're neat to look at for a moment. But if you were to ask me to choose between any Pollack painting or any landscape painting (in my subjective, biased, personal opinion) I'm taking the latter every time. On 12/4/2021 at 10:24 AM, rjkclarke said: How do you manage to watch films and play games at the same time by the way? I've never managed that, I always end up never focusing on one thing enough, that's why music or podcasts are my go to, because they only rely on the fact you need to listen. Anyway - sorry for the long as anything post, I guess you should have expected that from me anyway ..... I'm definitely going still be following along and reading your awesome stuff, even if you do end up half watching Seven Samurai or something on your phone whilst playing Farming Simulator 22 Hah - it's pretty simple. I sit in an office chair in the middle of the room, have the TV in front of me, and have a desk to my right that I always have my laptop on and will put on YouTube videos, Podcasts, or Movies depending on the game. This is incredibly dependent on the game. If it's something that requires 100% attention or is a narrative-focused game - I honestly won't watch anything and my laptop will be closed. But if it's a roguelike, racing/sports game OR something repetitive (think... the FF7 Remake Combat Simulation fights), I'll flip something on so that I can listen and occasionally glance over. Typically, I won't put anything that requires too much visual attention. So no action movies or the like. On rare occasions, I'll be "watching" movies that capture my attention so much I'll pause them and dedicate my full attention to them on my own right before bed. This happened with the romantic drama 5 to 7 on the list. I started watching it while collectible gathering in Mirror's Edge Catalyst and said "damn this is GOOD" and watched the final hour at a later time. Thank you for your lovely replies as always! ? 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grotz99 Posted December 10, 2021 Share Posted December 10, 2021 16 minutes ago, realm722 said: The Bond movies will be something I'm looking forward to! Currently, I'm engaging in an Arnold Schwarzenegger binge. It was a movie blind spot I had that I hadn't seen a single movie of his up until over a month ago. Since then I've enjoyed Total Recall, the first two Terminator's, Pumping Iron... damn he's charming! I'm not exactly coming down from the mountain with the tablets with that take but I finally understand he became the #1 movie star and ended up the Governor of California lol. He was the first person I voted for as I turned 18 when he ran lol. You know you have to watch his Christmas movie, Jingle All the Way. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrettyBoy Posted December 10, 2021 Share Posted December 10, 2021 I got some canny hard platinums in my trophy cabinet. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post realm722 Posted December 11, 2021 Author Popular Post Share Posted December 11, 2021 Do You Suffer From Post-Great Game Depression? So guys... I've discovered a gaming phenomenon that I can't help but feel the need to express. I'm suffering from some major PGG at the moment. OR at least that's the abbreviation I've decided to give this feeling as I've been experiencing it over the last week. Curiously enough, this isn't the first time I've felt it either. I feel like we all go through ups and downs of a desire to game as a hobby. Sometimes our selections just haven't been hitting. Business with other life priorities can cause recreation to take a backseat. OR perhaps you could be experiencing this unique sensation that I've felt a handful of times over the last 2 1/2 years of going hard while trophy hunting. "Post-Great Game Depression" is how I've coined it. Side Effects: - Lack of desire to play any video games - A longing for the game you have just finished - While playing new games, you will find a lack of enjoyment and be overly critical - A desire to replay games you're already familiar with - If prolonged, a serious questioning of whether or not gaming is still right for you These have been my symptoms ever since I finished Going Under. I didn't realize it in the moment but that was an incredibly special game to include in my last batch of games for 2021. So much so, it has caused me to struggle to the finish with the two remaining games I'd like to finish this year. Those being The Adventure Pals and Shantae and the Pirate's Curse. Those are fundamentally solid games. I've played enough of both of them to comfortably say that. Yet... despite the fact I had a solid 4 days off entirely away from games, I found myself not enjoying myself. It wasn't that either game had a serious shortcoming(tho I am gonna rip Shantae's checkpoint system a new one when the time comes), but rather a longing for wanting to go back to the comfort I had enjoyed while basking in the DLC mode of Going Under. Delightful, chunky combat and a sense of randomness and being able to go over and over again on these 30-minute runs had me disinterested in these different, yet respectable experiences. I then thought a bit deeper... this wasn't the first time I had gone through this. So I flipped through my history. The first real-time I think I had experienced this was after platinuming Dead Cells back in June 2019. I distinctly remember oddly disliking Child of Light. A supposedly whimsical RPG starring a girl named Aurora. I remember having seen the game get praise both on here and by critics. I disliked it. It currently sits as the 8th Worst Game of All-Time on my full rankings. I thought the art style looked cheap and despised the constant rhyming. But I do remember distinctly thinking "man, I wish I could be playing Dead Cells right now." This carried over into Dragon Sinker (which I rated a 6/10 but didn't really care for much), before finally being cured by the time I got back around to Tropico 5 and Guacamelee. I started to think deeper. Could I have been disappointed by Forgotten Anne due to the fact Batman: Arkham Knight was the game I had platinumed a few days prior? OR what about me despising Sea of Solitude less than a week after conquering Persona 5? I experienced milder symptoms after Slay the Spire as I didn't hate Sundered, but.... oh my goodness... Chasm was the first game I played immediately after Enter the Gungeon? How deep does the rabbit hole go? What is the cure for PGG? Honestly for me? Just keep playing. While I may end up not loving the game that comes immediately after an All-Timer (due to the nature of playing All-Timers being relatively rare), I know I'll get back on the saddle eventually and start enjoying games again. It happened with The Adventure Pals. I enjoyed the clean-up phase and the final 3 worlds or so. In past cases, I jumped from The Final Fantasy 7 Remake to Minit to Enter the Gungeon which mitigated the hangover. I find that if I play in shorter bursts (maybe even as little as 30 minutes to 1 hour a day) and just let myself slowly get acclimated with a new game, I'll be able to get over these effects far more quickly. For extreme cases, I'd say find the game that you've been anticipating for a while and see if it can break your cold streak. I think this is a pretty real sentiment after playing a game you love and would be curious if any of y'all have gone through something similar. Until next time! 9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Copanele Posted December 11, 2021 Popular Post Share Posted December 11, 2021 1 hour ago, realm722 said: Do You Suffer From Post-Great Game Depression? So guys... I've discovered a gaming phenomenon that I can't help but feel the need to express. I'm suffering from some major PGG at the moment. OR at least that's the abbreviation I've decided to give this feeling as I've been experiencing it over the last week. Curiously enough, this isn't the first time I've felt it either. I feel like we all go through ups and downs of a desire to game as a hobby. Sometimes our selections just haven't been hitting. Business with other life priorities can cause recreation to take a backseat. OR perhaps you could be experiencing this unique sensation that I've felt a handful of times over the last 2 1/2 years of going hard while trophy hunting. "Post-Great Game Depression" is how I've coined it. Side Effects: - Lack of desire to play any video games - A longing for the game you have just finished - While playing new games, you will find a lack of enjoyment and be overly critical - A desire to replay games you're already familiar with - If prolonged, a serious questioning of whether or not gaming is still right for you Wow can't believe how hard this hits. I experienced the exact same symptoms after finishing a fantastic game. The next game is most definitely NOT gonna be as awesome as the previous one. This happened after finishing games like Dark Souls, Hades, Yakuza 0 (I just wasn't the same after this game) . I fumbled alot before finally finding something that I could enjoy. If there could be one image regarding me and games I absolutely LOVED: 1 hour ago, realm722 said: What is the cure for PGG? From my side, at least 1 day of not playing anything serious. Maybe grind some levels in a shitty game that I've been prolonging forever (Looking at you Catherine). Maybe playing some random online matches in a random game. Writing reviews, status updates, go outside for Christ's sake let the mourning period go, let the dust settle in and afterwards the next game will be assimilated easier. I however experienced another slight issue, it's PRE GREAT GAME depression. When the anticipation for a game is so great I don't feel like starting another game until I play that one. Examples from my side were: DMC5 God of War 2018 Guilty Gear Strive Elden Ring (I know I will love it) Shadow Man (remaster, I keep refreshing the damn main page to see the trophy list on PSNP as well) I...have no idea how to deal with THIS instance 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
realm722 Posted December 13, 2021 Author Share Posted December 13, 2021 Game: The Adventure Pals Analysis: I bought The Adventure Pals for $3.74 back in mid-June 2021, and despite the fact I was suffering from some PGGD while playing, this is a decent game! It's not exactly revolutionary or all that memorable, but if you want an easy straight forward platinum in under 10 hours - I think you can have some fun with this. I decided to finally get around to playing it since it had been 6 months since purchasing it. The game essentially consists of small hub worlds (5 in total) with levels scattered about that consist of 5 internal levels that you need to beat in order to complete it. These typically take between 9-12 minutes if you're trying to get 100% completion gathering all the cupcakes and stickers (which are "hidden" on each level are necessary for two trophies). It's well-made! You play as a kid whose name I don't remember (Wilton? Winston? Walter?) and are given the task of trying to find your father who's been kidnapped while also taking down the Evil Mr. B. This is a kid's game. But that doesn't serve as an excuse when I must admit that the overwhelming majority of the humor in this game fell flat for me. I didn't care about any of the characters, felt a lot of it was quite generic or had been done before, and it reached the point where I just started skipping much of the dialogue from the 4th world onwards. This could again by the PGGD that made me sour on it (especially since I loved the banter in Going Under) OR the humor simply isn't aimed at me. Would I recommend The Adventure Pals? Eh. Sure, I guess. It's a very tepid "yes" of a shrug from me. The positives of the game are that the combat is solid and it's an easy game to fly through. There's only one missable trophy that this guide over at PlaystationTrophies so helpfully pointed out for me. There are a few guides on YouTube that help show you how to collect 100% of the collectibles, but to be honest, once you get familiar with the general routine of a level, it becomes incredibly easy to sniff out the cupcake on each level. Plus, the game has an incredibly user-friendly feature that allows you to play a single level from each area once you beat it which allows you to blaze through the clean-up phase. I should mention that the overall difficulty isn't too challenging given the game's generous death system (just restart from the beginning of the level and try again). I died less than 15 times during my full playthrough. Ultimately, it's a fairly empty-calorie game that I enjoyed towards the end due to its simplicity and despite being well-made (cute characters, sound combat, straightforward trophies) will struggle to remain in my memory once a few months pass by. I'll classify it as the "Typoman of 2021" in my gaming repertoire for the year. Panda Score: 6.5 / 10 Panda Difficulty: 2.3 / 10 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
realm722 Posted December 17, 2021 Author Share Posted December 17, 2021 (edited) Game: Shantae and the Pirate's Curse Analysis: I bought my 1st ever Shantae game for $9.99 back in mid-June 2021 and damn if it isn't a good selection to cap off my gaming catalog of 2021. The Shantae series has fascinated me ever since I first discovered it. (of course, yet another Cassylvania discovery and I'm not going to @ them since I think that'd make me liable for harassment given the number of times I've done so recently). It's a franchise that I've heard nothing but good things about - and didn't know much regarding aside from their eye-catching purple-haired protagonist and that it had some Metroidvania elements. What are my thoughts? I liked it! I'm a little surprised to discover its garnered such a dedicated niche fanbase over the years (the original Shantae was released in 2002, the sequel in 2010, this third installment in 2014, and two games have been released since with one as recently in 2019). The reason for this surprise is that I don't think this game, in particular, was anything special. There's a lot to critique here. We'll get to that in a later paragraph. My guess for why this series is so beloved is this - it has a very charming art aesthetic and all the women have gigantic boobs. You could classify them as honkers. A real set of badonkers. That's cool. I like that the game is honest with itself and plays into it (there's a sequence where you get mistaken for a princess in a temple and quite literally dress up a Princess Leia from Star Wars, and the game directly references this). Since we're already here, let's talk about the dialogue. I uhh... didn't find a lot of the game's humor to be funny. There's a squid that jokes about being a filler boss. Not super common but occasional fourth-wall breaks. I don't know if this is some residual PGGD affecting my humor in games. I should clarify that I didn't hate the dialogue. I thought the characters could be charming, some situations would get a chuckle out of ridiculous they are, and the game never lost sight of the generally wholesome vibes that are at the heart of its design. I felt that the combat was adequate even if there's not a whole lot of depth. For 90% of the damage you'll be doing throughout the game you'll be whipping enemies with Shantae's hair and that's about it. Her pistol gun upgrade is essentially useless if you don't want to get bullied by monsters and does so little damage you'll only occasionally bust it out to do damage to long-range enemies. You also can't fire it while crouched without automatically standing back up again. That's one huge thread of an issue I found in so many of the game's systems. Why are there completely useless moves you can spend 400 munny on in the store? There's a backdash maneuver that I never touched. A "kick" animation that I tested out a few times after purchasing it but could never get to work 100% of the time when I wanted. "Recover" is the only one I used consistently. Also, "Metroidvania" is doing a serious gymnastics routine for this game to be classified as such. The maps for each island are incredibly tiny in all reality. I was surprised by this when I went through the game for clean-up on the cacklebats and squids I had missed. This isn't a bad thing, but it's not really a "Metroidvania" in my mind if you have to return to one specific point (your boat) to always leave and there's no way the maps are ever connected. Thank goodness for pirate flairs. I also would be remiss if I didn't talk about the miserable checkpoint system. I recognize that things aren't that bad due to the general frequency of save points, but due to the 2-heart challenge of beating the game without any health upgrades to earn a trophy - WOW did this game remind me a horrifying amount of Chasm. Did you die? Congrats, you lose all your progress since your last save. Doesn't matter if you beat a boss and forgot to save when returning to Risky OR found any collectibles. Do it again. There were some sections on my blind playthrough that infuriated me. I had to look up a guide to figure out how to get past the guards when you're stuck in Princess Leia's outfit. If you get seen - it doesn't matter how far you're into the level, you get reset back to your dungeon. Now would be as good a time as any to talk about the game's trophies. They're solid! There are quite a few missables if you don't glance at the list beforehand, with the majority of them relating to trying to defeat each boss while taking zero damage. With the "super pike ball" and "super monster milk", many of these fights became 1-2 minute endurance tests at best. I managed to defeat "True Pirate Master" on my very first attempt and found "Dagron" to be the hardest one to complete without getting hit but it still only took me 20 minutes of attempts to get it. A subtly incredibly annoying trophy is "Zombie Survival Guide" which requires you to platform past 16 screens worth of enemies and avoid getting hit a single time. That took me far more attempts than I'd like to admit. The two hardest trophies in the game are "Squid Savior" (Complete the game without any Health upgrades and all Heart Squids collected) and "Speed Runner" (Saved Scuttle Town as fast as possible!) I recommend completing the 1st one on your blind playthrough. It makes the speedrun a breeze with some upgrades and forces you to be more careful while attacking enemies. Speed Runner is only tricky due to the tight 2-hour window, and I found that I couldn't collect 100% of the items needed for the 100% speed run. Thanks to the helpful PSNProfiles guide, I managed to get the trophy at 1:51:23, 25/32 squids, and 13/20 cacklebats. I then wrapped things up on the 100% run at 2:32:47, 32/32 squids, and 20/20 cacklebats. I earned the 13.12% rarity platinum in 3 weeks and 6 days. I'll add that my experience with Shantae was greatly improved once I know the layouts of each map, the objectives to clear each obstacle, and the upgrades (especially the dash and cannon) unlocked from the very beginning. It's crazy how limiting Shantae's moveset is without the ability to dash across a bunch of screens OR double/triple jump). Oh - and since I added it in my notes, I HATED the dialogue box color/font that they decided to use. That's some real junior crew graphic design. Who decided to settle on that? Would I recommend Shantae and the Pirate's Curse? Maybe. I recognize that the tone of this review has been overwhelmingly negative. But I will genuinely look back on this game in a positive light. Shantae's an overall fun gal and since this is the 3rd entry in her series, I'm bit curious to see where her story leads in the following games. Even if it'll probably be quite a bit of time before I decide to continue with the franchise. Overall, I appreciated how short and sweet the game was in the grand scheme of things and I can enjoy some fan service. The combat was serviceable. The art was nice. The bosses were mediocre and often one-note. The music was groovy as hell! Two incredibly sharp difficulty spikes I found were the first time you enter Mud Bog (my goodness those purple enemies hurt like HELL) and when you reach the tower at the end of the game. The platforming difficulty sky-rockets compared to anything else seen in the game. Cheekily enough, there's an easy peasy skip you can use to avoid all of those sections(I didn't use it on my blind). Overall, I'm incredibly curious how dedicated Shantae fans feel about this game in comparison to the rest of the series and hope I don't get stoned by any of her loyal supporters for the review. I'm glad to say I've finally played an entry in the series and ultimately it's a delightful way to close the books on my gaming resumé of 2021. Panda Score: 7.1 / 10 Panda Difficulty: 3.9 / 10 Edited January 18, 2023 by realm722 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grotz99 Posted December 17, 2021 Share Posted December 17, 2021 On 12/11/2021 at 0:31 AM, Copanele said: I however experienced another slight issue, it's PRE GREAT GAME depression. When the anticipation for a game is so great I don't feel like starting another game until I play that one. Examples from my side were: DMC5 God of War 2018 Guilty Gear Strive Elden Ring (I know I will love it) Shadow Man (remaster, I keep refreshing the damn main page to see the trophy list on PSNP as well) I...have no idea how to deal with THIS instance With my backlog, this is what I get. When I was trying to finish getting the platinum in games before moving onto new ones, if there was a grind or it just got boring to finish, I would get antsy waiting to hop onto the next new game. My current games played ATM is a testament to what happens when I waited too long. OK, one was to coop with a friend recently, but the other 4 I don't really have an excuse to playing all at once and 2 are big story games. I wouldn't call it depression, but just an itch that is asking to be scratched. Yakuza does a perfect job at not letting that happen. As much as I love the series, when I finish one game, I can't just hop into the next with how dense the games are, but I will always be thinking of the series and time out starting the next one. When I do that though, the game before needs to be pretty good for me to get through it so I can start the next Yakuza game. Worked out pretty well this last time as I was playing RE Village, but unfortunately I wanted to wrap up The Banner Saga and ended up playing the 3rd one before wanting to play Yakuza 4. The Banner 3 isn't a bad game, I actually thought it did a great job wrapping up the series, but I did not have the motivation to do multiple play throughs at the time for all the trophies, I needed to go to Kamurocho for some unfinished business... 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post realm722 Posted December 21, 2021 Author Popular Post Share Posted December 21, 2021 RealM722's Games Played in 2021 Year-In-Review It's that time of year again folks... the end of it! I'm happy to say that I was able to complete my goal of completing a minimum of 4 games per month and even had a 10-month streak of achieving an ultra-rare platinum all the way from February through November. My final total of games completed is 57 - which surpasses my 2020 total of 56 so hey we're even improving I'd say! Below I am going to list every game I played along with its rating before getting to the award portion of the review. In case this is your first post, 9.00 games are special to me and I think they're outstanding. 8.00's are great games that I would highly recommend across the board. 7.00's are good games that may have one or two things holding them back from properly being elevated for me. 6.00's are the largest mixed bag typically comprised of games that have a couple of things I like about them while also having many things to critique. The vast majority of them are quite short in length and the higher rated ones are games I'd typically consider hidden gems. Anything from 5.00 and below include games that I actively disliked or was bored to tears with while playing. If you'd like easy access to hop to a specific review regarding any game, simply tap on the title of the game and the hyperlink will send you straight there. (Side note: The RealM722 Game Awards of 2021 were deadlined between Dec. 13th 2020 - Dec. 15th 2021. Any games played/completed for the remainder of Dec. 2021 will be eligible for the 2022 Awards) Games Played in 2021 Ranked: #1. Final Fantasy VII Remake (9.60 rating) #2. Going Under (9.40 rating) #3. Spiritfarer (9.30 rating) #4. Furi (9.10 rating) #5. Enter the Gungeon (9.10 rating) #6. Ash of Gods: Redemption (9.00 rating) #7. Banner Saga 3 (8.70 rating) #8. Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch Remastered (8.50 rating) #9. Superhot (8.20 rating) #10. Jotun (8.10 rating) #11. MLB The Show 20 (8.00 rating) #12. Axiom Verge (8.00 rating) #13. CrossCode (7.90 rating) #14. Bully (7.80 rating) #15. Haven (7.60 rating) #16. Ara Fell: Enhanced Edition (7.60 rating) #17. Snake Pass (7.60 rating) #18. Islanders (7.50 rating) #19. Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit Remastered (7.50 rating) #20. PGA Tour 2k21 (7.40 rating) #21. Moonlighter (7.20 rating) #22. Shantae and the Pirate's Curse (7.10 rating) #23. Shu (7.10 rating) #24. Desert Child (6.95 rating) #25. Stikbold! (6.90 rating) #26. Manual Samuel (6.85 rating) #27. Kingdom: New Lands (6.85 rating) #28. Wandersong (6.80 rating) #29. REZ Infinite (6.80 rating) #30. Kamiko (6.70 rating) #31. Songbird Symphony (6.65 rating) #32. Harvest Moon: Save the Homeland (6.65 rating) #33. No Thing (6.60 rating) #34. Infinity Runner (6.60 rating) #35. Octodad: Dadliest Catch (6.60 rating) #36. Flatland Vol. #1 (6.60 rating) #37. Crossing Souls (6.60 rating) #38. inFamous Second Son (6.50 rating) #39. The Adventure Pals (6.50 rating) #40. Touhou Double Focus (6.40 rating) #41. Patapon Remastered (6.40 rating) #42. Minit (6.30 rating) #43. The First Tree (6.30 rating) #44. Hue (6.25 rating) #45. Deployment (6.20 rating) #46. Gorogoa (6.15 rating) #47. In Between (6.10 rating) #48. Chambara (6.00 rating) #49. Shape of the World (6.00 rating) #50. Act It Out! A Game of Charades (6.00 rating) #51. Madden NFL 21 (5.80 rating) #52. Chasm (5.80 rating) #53. Beyond Eyes (5.80 rating) #54. One Eyed Kutkh (5.70 rating) #55. Armikrog (5.20 rating) #56. Goat Simulator (5.00 rating) #57. The Last Guardian (3.70 rating) 2020 Year-In-Review List 2019 Year-In-Review List WOW! Look at all those games! Something curious to note is to compare this ranking to past years in terms of the top 3 levels of ratings (There are 6 9.00's, 6 8.00's, and 11 7.00's). There appears to be an inefficiency in the "great games" department. Hell, there were the same amount of truly special games as great ones! Compared to 2020 (5 9.00's, 7 8.00's, and a whooping 17 7.00's). Were the games this year on average simply worse than 2020? Apparently not. My Google Sheets Spreadsheet tells us the average score for a game in 2021 was 7.01, whole in 2020 it was a 7.04 A negligible difference at best. How about we take a look at 2019? (2 9.00's, 6 8.00's, and 14 7.00's). I also played far fewer games in 2019 at 42 in total. What does all of this mean? I played more truly special games than ever this campaign - but ended up with fewer games I found to be great or good. I guess I would take that tradeoff? It's something I'm going to try and balance in 2022 I guess. Try and avoid more "6.00-tier" games that I don't think have the potential to be special. What the hell - this is probably an incoherent word salad to you. Let's get on with the damn awards shall we! This year we'll have 3 brand new categories compared to last year since we like to take inspiration from The Game Awards in trying to make our show as bloated as possible. Without further ado, here they are! Easiest Game Hardest Game Grind of the Year --- --- Explanation: Let's start things off easy shall we. I actually found this opening category pretty difficult to find many nominees since outside of the 100%'s (which are ineligible for this specific category), I didn't really play any super easy peasy games. The games I disliked were frequently some of the most difficult. I guess Madden NFL 21 and Songbird Symphony could qualify, but none could ultimately take the cake from Shape of the World. An easy, colorful, calming experience that has a "Slowrun" achievement for taking as long as possible to complete the game. It's a cupcake but I thought the colors were pretty! In a far more competitive category, I ultimately settled on Jotun as our champion for hardest game. Some others up there would include Enter the Gungeon, Furi, and The Last Guardian (more like an overall difficulty for being a thorn in my side for 5+ years), but while those games had their ups and downs with challenges, Jotun gradually increased in difficulty the further along I went. Beating Valhalla Mode with zero god powers is RUTHLESS. Whether it be the lightning boss or the final showdown with Odin where you can be caught helplessly beyond your depth, that platinum had me sweat the most of any other from this year. But there is an absolutely lovely guide on PSNProfiles to help you conquer it, so give it a stab if you're up for a challenge. Finally for "Grind of the Year" there were truly only two legitamate contenders. Enter the Gungeon and Ash of Gods. While Gungeon took me 75 hours to complete in comparison to Ash of Gods' 59 hours, I gave the nod to AoG given the fact it isn't a roguelite naturally built to be run over and over and over again. That Ironman Mode was one hell of a final challenge. Still - I love that game (and I will fully accept that it is distinctly made for me and my tastes compared to any of you likely reading this) Biggest Surprise Bust of the Year "I Just Don't Get It" --- --- Explanation: There are a number of games that pleasantly surprised me in 2021. PGA Tour 2k21 was a shockingly fun blast for a gift of a game for PS+ Users. Shu is a completely under-the-radar platformer that offered a properly fun challenge. Islanders would have almost 100% won this category if I had done these Awards at the end of November as it is a wonderfully minimalistic city builder with an incredibly fun trophy list. But there is no real contest here. Going Under is the King when it comes to obliterating my expectations. I took a complete flyer on the game and it blew my mind in every core game design aspect from the lovable characters and dialogue to the enthralling dungeoning experience and finally the cherry on top with the Work from Home DLC that resolved every possible criticism I could have levied against the game. Do yourself a favor and PLAY IT. Sadly, with the surprising expectations, we also have to discuss our biggest disappointments. It's with a heavy heart that I must "award" Haven with this honor. Man... that freaking game. Let's just be simple about it. I had played, platinumed, and fallen in love with Furi. I expected great things from The Game Bakers' and their second release. Instead, I got some partial aspects that I adored while ultimately being let down by the piss poor gameplay loop and the settling for a played-out turn-based combat system. I'll end it here since we'll talk more about Haven later. Finally, for a game I simply "didn't get", it has to be Gorogoa. I don't care much for puzzle games. They typically rank in the lower 6.00 range for me and Gorogoa is no exception. I can appreciate some of the game design decisions and the art is delightful, but I saw the game receive rave reviews of 8 and 9 out of 10's and yea... that simply doesn't apply in my case. Most Innovative Bang for Buck Lost Potential --- --- Explanation: Our first debut category comes in the form of "Most Innovative". Since I don't want to merely give recognition to the top of the list 9.00's and 8.00's, I thought this category would be an excellent chance to offer some spotlight to some more quirky games. I also thought it would be funny if I made this category and didn't give the award to Superhot. I went back and forth between many from the catalog this year. Patapon is a ruthlessly difficult rhythm game from the past that got remastered. But the reason it cultivated such a niche dedicated following is due to how peculiar and unusual it is from the rest of the rhythm game genre. REZ Infinite was a grindy but remarkably fun(at least for the first 6 hours) musical on-rail shooter. Snake Pass and Manual Samuel each experimented with using the entire controller to control each aspect of a character's movement. All of these are games I'd recommend in some form or another depending on your tastes. In a selfish way, I almost put No Thing on here due to the fact that game has stuck with me months after I've played it. But ultimately, there can only be one winner. You should play Desert Child. The game is just weird and bizarre in all the right places. The soundtrack is a BANGER, and it's all about completing weird tasks on Mars to make bank. You don't even have to be "good" at the racing portions to earn the platinum. I don't think I ever earned above a D+ rating. The following debut category is "Bang for Buck". Essentially, what game did I buy for remarkably cheap that achieved a 7.00 rating or better? Games obtained for free (FF7 Remake, Gungeon, PGA Tour) are ineligible. The surprising winner was Shu! For only $3, I got this surprisingly challenging yet fun platformer where you play as a baby Owl and with the help of your companions conquer the many levels and worlds the game has to offer. It's underrated and you should play it! Finally, for "Lost Potential" - we have a game that I felt could have been so much more. Surprise - it's Haven again! I think the only other games that could have competed were Chasm (I just expected more) and Deployment (bigger scope and the gameplay loop coulda been a blast). But Haven has to win it since it's the only other game that I dedicated an entire section to AFTER my review of the game of what the game SHOULD have been. GIVE ME THAT GAME. Best Trophy Icon Worst Trophy Icon Best Trophy List --- --- Explanation: I am a psychopath and thus very much focus on whether or not a game has good or bad trophy icons before deciding to make it a milestone. I will purposefully go out of my way to line up a pretty-looking platinum image for my milestones on my main trophy profile. There were many wonderful options to choose from (Haven, Spiritfarer, FF7 Remake) - but I honestly adore what Shantae did with their platinum icon. One of my favorite things developers can do is make one of their main characters the plat (see: Iver nearly winning this category last year if I hadn't used it for Best World) WayForward went above and beyond not only featuring Shantae but also Risky, Rottytops, and Sky. It's a gorgeous icon and should be milestone-worthy for those who love the series. As for the worst trophy icon - how fitting! It's the Trashcan Statue of The Last Guardian. What a ridiculously uninspired list of icons. They just slightly change the shade of the statue from bronze, silver, and gold depending on the trophy type. It also would hands down take the "Worst Trophy List" category if I ever bother to decide to do one in the future. Finally, we have best trophy list! This one was surprisingly difficult for me given there wasn't any single game that stood out as a clear victor for this category like Sayonara Wild Hearts did for 2020. Perhaps it's recency bias taking a hold on me, but those Going Under DLC trophies were a blast! 30 minutes of chunky, random gameplay in your face 7x over with ranking difficulty. I loved every moment of it and I'll stop talking about the game here as I've spoken about it ad nausea at this point. Best Man Best Woman Best Animal --- --- Explanation: I thought long and hard about who truly was the best male character of any I played in 2021. Some names popped into my mind. Jimmy Hopkins from Bully was a compelling character that even if he was a bit of a d-bag at times (and I made him endlessly assault and terrorize an entire town) was a decent kid at the end of the day. Oliver from Ni No Kuni while a bit of a sissy in the eyes of Drippy loved his mom and his friends. The Bard from Wandersong finishes in the Top 5 without question for me. Ultimately, the award came down to two contenders. Cloud Strife from the Final Fantasy 7 Remake and Lo Pheng from Ash of Gods: Redemption. What can I say? I'm a sucker for the gruff mercenary type. I settled in Cloud as the victor. Seeing him go from being initially standoffish with Barret and the rest of the crew to slowly form a loving bond with the gang by the end of the game has me enthralled to see where his relationship with them goes in the next installment. Best Woman was an incredibly competitive category this year! I played as many leading ladies in 2021 from Jackie in Going Under, Lita in Ara Fell, Leah in CrossCode, Stella in Spiritfarer, Thora in Jotun, Yu in Haven, Shantae in well... Shantae. All of them have wonderful qualities. But when I think of the best girl from 2021 - who else but Aerith? That sequence of Chapter #8 and #9 of the FF7 Remake was probably my favorite stretch of gaming in the entire year, and it was almost entirely lifted up thanks to the dynamic of these two. She high-fives you. She gives you a thumbs up. SHE ASKS FOR YOUR PERMISSION TO KILL. What more do you need in a woman? Finally, for Best Animal - I'm not entirely sure if I'm breaking the rules here but Drippy sure as hell ain't a person even though he can speak. He's a fairy. So we'll give the award to him. He's a ball-buster and his Welsh accent still sticks with me nearly a year after having played the game. I don't even know who the other nominess would be? The Snake from Snake Pass? Birb from Songbird Symphony? Trico from The Last Guard- hahahaha never in a million years get the hella OUTTA HERE! Best World Best Dialogue Best Art Style --- --- Explanation: My criteria for "Best World' is quite simple. What world do I simply utterly love to hang out in? inFamous had a nice representation of Seattle but lacked many memorable landmarks for it to ever be a serious contender. Ni No Kuni and the Final Fantasy 7 Remake each have lovely distinct environments that I spent over 50+ hours in and could have spent many more if the game required me to. Ultimately, I settled on a winner that I didn't get to spend enough time in. That being the world of CrossCode. If you haven't heard of it, and yet you love classic RPGs, I cannot give a strong enough recommendation. In my review, I went in-depth and how overlooked it ended up going and by putting it in the awards here hopefully I can get someone else to bask in its glorious pixel art and surprisingly lengthy arcs. In "Best Dialogue", we see precisely why Haven ended up "winning" two negative awards earlier in the increasingly expansive abomination that is this post. I loved everything about Yu/Kay's relationship. Even if the game came up short in other departments, I would love to see other indies take inspiration from what Haven attempted with these two and see more intimate romantic relationships portrayed in video games. Some other contenders would be Going Under(genuinely funny), Ash of Gods(for keeping my attention in full most of the time), and Ara Fell(classic 8bit RPG goodness). Under "Best Art Style", I'm not necessarily looking for the biggest and baddest graphics but rather one that made the most of the budget they were given. The Banner Saga Series stands out greatly in my mind for constantly having visually compelling scenery, and Banner Saga 3 is no different. Ni No Kuni, CrossCode, and Wandersong all deserve a brief nomination as well. But the winner has to be Spiritfarer. While some will have their qualms with the gameplay(and lord knows I had plenty of my own), Spiritfarer went a long way for me in simply being beautifully crafted. I can forgive a lot of sins if you're gorgeous to look at. Best Soundtrack Best Gameplay Best Story --- --- Explanation: "Best Soundtrack" is quite easily the most competitive category on this entire list. Shantae is one HELL of a contender to have stolen this award at the very end of the year but I'm going to resist my recency bias and give it a silver medal. Spiritfarer had some lovely tunes including the unforgettable "What Will You Leave Behind". Songbird Symphony had some lovely catchy tunes for children. Desert Child earns my bronze medal for being groovy as all hell. I'm quite partial to "Girlfriend Material". Ultimately I settled for something a bit more off the wall - Axiom Verge's soundtrack. It doesn't quite have some of the more upbeat tunes I find myself listening to months after I've beaten a game, yet tracks like "Trace Rising" and the iconic "Inexorable" (I still remember the odd feeling I felt when I first traversed to that area of the game), it's worthy of the award and the game, in general, is a delight. I'd like to get around to playing the sequel sooner rather than later. From a difficult category to an easy category, the moment I started making these awards I already knew who the winner for "Best Gameplay" was. While FF7R, Going Under, and Enter the Gungeon all provided me hours of entertainment - Furi is on a tier of its own. If you want pure, undistilled video game gameplay greatness it cannot get a higher seal of approval from me. The game does not waste time with a story or other elements and wears its gameplay on its sleeve with the number of subtle nuances it offers. Don't be put off by the intimidating platinum rate. Furi is remarkably fair and generous for the challenge it offers and was my first true favorite for Game of the Year in 2021 until some other games later in the year bumped it out of the Top 3. Finally, I am an awful person to go to if you genuinely want a stellar "Best Story" option. I've written lengthy posts talking about how stories in games typically aren't that good, and I view them as flavoring at best. With that being said, it would be a crime if I gave this award to any game other than Banner Saga 3. It is the culmination of a trilogy that captivated my attention when I first played the original back in Oct. 2020. To see the ending of a journey for so many characters I loved and adored, and to see how nicely the narrative was buoyed by legitimately compelling drama created by the writers - there's no other game from 2021 that could seriously compete. It's a bit of a cop-out since I'm partially given the game the award for 3 games worthy of writing but dammit, for the Banner Saga Series it's worth it! Best Game of 2021 Explanation: Was there ever any doubt? The Final Fantasy 7 Remake fell at my feet thanks to Square Enix and Sony partnering up and offering it for free to PS+ Users. I didn't play it when it initially became available, merely just claiming it. Yet for whatever reason - I felt compelled to play it and HOPED it would be a 7/10 experience. Instead what I got for my 1st ever Final Fantasy was what I'd argue to be the greatest video game I've ever played on Playstation hardware. Hell, it may just be my favorite game of All-Time. I had never taken much of an interest in the Final Fantasy franchise until FF7R, and now you can consider me hooked. I'll be there waiting for FF16 to release and my most anticipated game in the long-term has to be Final Fantasy 7.... 2. I genuinely can't wait. I just want them to build off everything they did here. Take what you did with the glorious combat system and build on top of it. Keep letting these characters shine. Refine some of the junior crew prestige setpieces (like Cloud's roof climbing and Tifa's jungle gym for toddlers in Shinra Tower) and make those segments actually good, and I think the sequel can win GOTY whenever it releases in 2023 (hopefully). I say this as someone who never played the original. The majority of the flashbacks scenes involving Cloud wincing and holding his skull completely evaded me without the original game's context. I still loved it all anyway. I mean hell, if the game I wrote 8,000+ words about back in May didn't win my Game of the Year Award I'm pretty sure you could all deservedly call a mental ward on me and justify my containment. I will be with this series in whatever direction they decide to go next and I have complete faith they'll lead me to an unforgettable experience. Before ending things here - I wanted to give a personal shoutout to every single person who bothered to post a comment on this dumb thread of mine this past year. @Copanele, @Grotz99, @kingofbattle8174, @Gotakibono, @Cassylvania, @AJ_Radio, @TheDblTap, @DrBloodmoney, @Briste, @Together_Comic, @MD_91, @YaManSmevz, @rjkclarke, @madbuk, @Arcesius, @Destructor-8, @ObsiEez, @dieselmanchild, @AihaLoveleaf, @det_gittes, @esstee11, @PlutoRico Whether y'all just made a one-off comment for browsing a specific game and had helped me thanks to a useful guide or tip OR were a frequent follower in this weird corner of the internet where we all care about trophies and making dedicated personal checklists about them, I sincerely appreciate all y'all lovely folk for your kindness and charity. This is one of the few bastions of online interaction I have left where I still feel like I get to partially know a bit more about the anonymous user on the other side. I hope everyone is doing splendid and can enjoy a peaceful end to the year before 2022 rolls around. I'm currently enjoying my yearly JRPG to end the year and am off to a wonderful start and can't wait for it to be my first review come the new year. Until then! 17 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJ_Radio Posted December 21, 2021 Share Posted December 21, 2021 Really appreciate the shoutout. It definitely goes to show you've put in a lot of work into your trophy checklists thread. Much better than what I can say for mine. 5 hours ago, realm722 said: #4. Furi (9.10 rating) Furi is definitely a gem. Challenging without being unfair. Just the right music to keep you motivated. Your mistakes will help you improve and get better. It stands out because it only features bosses, not regular enemies like most games. Playing on Furi, and later Furier difficulty was notable enough to keep me hooked. 5 hours ago, realm722 said: #11. MLB The Show 20 (8.00 rating) This is a pretty easy trophy list, but I'm not sure what they were trying to accomplish with Diamond Dynasty. Having all those stubs reminds me of Fantasy Football, when I used to play that. MLB the Show 18 had one of the best trophy lists in my opinion. Almost all trophies were player based/skill based, with technically one online trophy for downloading an item from the vault. I loved developing my RTTS (Road to the Show) character. Lots of trading cards and getting better cards, yet somehow they made the trophy list not rely on actual online multiplayer. 5 hours ago, realm722 said: #14. Bully (7.80 rating) It's stuff like this that made me lose a lot of respect for Rockstar. Not because of the game itself, but the fact that they have shoved this under the rug for so long. I'm sorry, but the fact that this is 15 years old with Rockstar seemingly not giving a damn about their older IPs just boils my blood. Bully was definitely a novelty for its time. Pulling pranks on older kids, having pranks backfire on the local gangs, giving wedgies to random kids, it was all in good fun. Honestly I wouldn't even begin to think how a sequel would fare with today's audience. We have become, shall we say..... soft? The juvenile humor in this game was great, and I feel we need more of this in these trying times. Still, it was hard for me to ignore the age of the game, the fact that this was indeed from a different era. Doing a remake of Bully and Manhunt like 2K Games did with Mafia would definitely get double thumbs up from me. 5 hours ago, realm722 said: #52. Chasm (5.80 rating) Ouch. Pretty low rating to be giving this considering they desperately tried to make this look like a 16-bit JRPG.I thought it was okay. I used the same seeds for all my playthroughs, because I didn't want things to be randomized. Chasm was severely lacking in the sound department. 5 hours ago, realm722 said: #57. The Last Guardian (3.70 rating) This game gets bashed to hell from so many people. Even from a non trophy hunter's standpoint, The Last Guardian has gotten a lot of mixed reviews. But as a trophy hunter, every other player criticizes the awful trophy list. Quite the contrast from Shadow of the Colossus. It's a shame that SCE Japan Studio is no more, since I felt that they at least tried to be a little different. Knack is a game I'm still looking forward to playing, although come to think of it, a number of Japan Studios games have medicore to awful trophy lists. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PlutoRico Posted December 21, 2021 Share Posted December 21, 2021 Thanks for the shoutout man, your checklist is one of a kind. Turning it into some kind of gaming newspaper sprinkled with numerous articles brings in a breath of fresh air, always fun to read them between two gaming reviews. Looking forward to seeing your topics for the upcoming year ? 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Copanele Posted December 21, 2021 Share Posted December 21, 2021 I did expect the year end awards on your trophy checklist and boy was I not disappointed again, great writing, thoroughly enjoyable from start to end! Many thanks for the shoutout as well always a pleasure to check this remote and peaceful corner where it's only about games and nothing else! Also VERY glad that "The Last Guardian" is the very last game on the list. That's only the perfect place for that type of game! 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Together_Comic Posted December 21, 2021 Share Posted December 21, 2021 4 minutes ago, Copanele said: I did expect the year end awards on your trophy checklist and boy was I not disappointed again, great writing, thoroughly enjoyable from start to end! Many thanks for the shoutout as well always a pleasure to check this remote and peaceful corner where it's only about games and nothing else! Also VERY glad that "The Last Guardian" is the very last game on the list. That's only the perfect place for that type of game! I feel like I'm about to "It can't be that bad, can it?" my way into playing this game... ? Appreciate the shout out Realm. I really enjoy the high quality of your write ups. Its always an entertaining read when you finish a game. . 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arcesius Posted December 21, 2021 Share Posted December 21, 2021 Nice reading, as always! I am one of those people that read pretty much everything you write, but rarely find the time to really engage (most of the time I am so late to the party that the conversation has already moved on ?). That being said, I really enjoy how you structure your posts, and the same holds for your review of 2021 That's quite a few games, and all of high quality, too! Happy to re-read the nice words you have for Furi (and Jotun... those are nice words you have for Jotun, right? ?), and it's always great to see how a single game can resonate with someone on such a level as FF7R did with you In any case, I'm looking forward to reading more from you next year, and maybe I'll be able to interact a bit more as well... 4 minutes ago, Together_Comic said: I feel like I'm about to "It can't be that bad, can it?" my way into playing this game... Appreciate the shout out Realm. I really enjoy the high quality of your write ups. Its always an entertaining read when you finish a game. . The game itself is not that bad, but the shit controls can get on your nerves given that you need to play through the game multiple times. It has also one of the worst trophy lists I've experienced, with combat-related trophies in a game that shouldn't have any combat at all, and the worst - without exaggeration - collectibles I have encountered in any videogame. Hints that will only trigger if you play the game like a brainless 5 year old. 90+ of them. Fuck those hints and whoever decided to include them as a trophy. Now, have fun with the game ? 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YaManSmevz Posted December 21, 2021 Share Posted December 21, 2021 4 hours ago, Arcesius said: Nice reading, as always! I am one of those people that read pretty much everything you write, but rarely find the time to really engage (most of the time I am so late to the party that the conversation has already moved on ). That being said, I really enjoy how you structure your posts, and the same holds for your review of 2021 That's quite a few games, and all of high quality, too! THIS. Excellent work, man! As usual, your systematic approach pays off dividends? I am yet again given more homework, and I love it. Jotun, Islanders, and Spiritfarer are already on the shortlist thanks to your fine reviews, but I guess I'll have to dive into Going Under and The Show '20 as well (I was content with just playing '19 for the rest of my PS4 havin life until your words on that game reminded me that I'm not twelve years old and happy to be limited to Ken Griffey Jr. anymore). Your love affair with FF7RM will never not be entertaining as hell to read about! I love the effect that game has had on you and I'm quite happy to get to see you gush over it one more again! While I'm here... My wife also binged on Jane the Virgin not long ago... which means I also binged on it. At first I thought it was cheesy and silly, but then I remembered that telenovelas are supposed to be like that (fond memories, man.. those things seriously got me through puberty?) and before long I was enjoying it right alongside her. Even still when one of us are sweatin somethin the other's like "inhala... exhala..." You've definitely got me re-thinking my checklist OP. I have everything arranged by date, but it's true, I do like it when people have ratings handy. We all want a nice looking place to hang our thoughts, after all! I might have to see if I can figure out a way to combine all the above with minimal clutter, or revamp altogether. I've largely resisted edits, but lately I've been asking myself why... He's a changed man, folks. Anyway, what was I saying? Oh yeah, great post! Great job too on meeting trophy goals consistently, something I could really try to be better with myself. A ten month UR streak is mad impressive, as is completing 57 games - I don't think I even played that many! Looking forward to reading about what you get into next year. Props all day, my dude! 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ObsiEez Posted December 22, 2021 Share Posted December 22, 2021 Thanks for the mention man & I'm really glad to see you did enjoy Moonlighter a lot as well. I really do like your list & I think that is honestly a really cool idea that I might have to nab for myself as I think it'd be a pretty cool idea to look back at all the games I've platinumed this year & see which ones I ended up enjoying the most. Don't worry though, if I do go through with it, you'll know right away as I'll be giving you credit for the idea . 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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