Popular Post realm722 Posted August 8, 2023 Author Popular Post Share Posted August 8, 2023 Game: Planet Coaster (City Builder, Resource Management, Sandbox) Analysis: I did not buy Planet Coaster. Rather, I acquired it for free when it became available for all PS Plus+ subscribers during the month of February 2022. Why Planet Coaster? I'll be honest and confess that I don't have any memories or history of playing the original RollerCoaster Tycoon series developed by Chris Swayer during the late 90s and early 2000s. Yet their impact has been so far-reaching and impactful against the gaming landscape for those who enjoyed that franchise that I DID play an awful spinoff franchise as a child and utterly loved and adored it. Does anybody here remember the old PC games, Zoo Tycoon & Zoo Tycoon 2? Well before Minecraft and Faster than Light, those games were crack cocaine for me as a child. I loved them. They're the first PC games that I honestly remember truly adoring. I remember being a kid, trying to fill up an entire zoo with every animal type, having a preference for certain steel cages, and at the end of my saves, deleting all of the fences so all of the animals could go wild marauding all of the guests. It's a game and franchise that I still hold near and dear to my heart despite not having touched it in well over 5 years. Here's hoping that one day, the folks over at Frontier, decide to bring Planet Zoo over to consoles. In that little article snippet, I wrote about Planet Coaster getting a transfer finally over to consoles after it iniially released 5 years prior. I still have a slight hope it'll happen. In the meantime, I had an itch to play a construction/management game given I haven't really had a proper top-down experience since... Civ 6? An Outstanding Tutorial - I have to give a huge shoutout to the developers for making such a nice and snappy tutorial to introduce myself to many of the mechanics of the franchise. At first glance, it can be remarkably intimidating all of the many factors you'll need to juggle in order to keep a park up and running in tip-top condition. Yet the tutorial walks you through all of the fundamental aspects in an easy-to-understand and humorous manner. Seriously, all of the voice actors hit it out of the park on this one. There's the main guy who's very cheerful and happy. A woman who focuses strictly on finances. An engineer who loves rollercoaster design. A young woman who fills the role of a would-be guest. The dynamics play well and really what I learned is the following. 1) Never stay stagnant. If you stay too long in a park letting the clock run without development, your park stagnates, happiness starts to decline, and you go from turning thousands of dollars of profit each month into the red. 2) Check on guest happiness & staff happiness frequently. Figure out what is preventing them from having the best time. For guests, this is typically litter (since those lousy ass janitors ain't doing their damn job, getting robbed by thieves, lack of rides, not enough concession stands, etc..) while for staff typically training them and bumping their pay will make them content. 3) Keep locations compact because you want your rides and facilities where guests are. Don't go stretching parks super wide and sparsed out. Build hubs together. Never build a food/drink shop super isolated. Build it CLOSE to the super-packed rides. That's where business will boom. Even after over 30 hours of play-time, I'll still admit I wasn't a magician or perfect park creator. More often than I'd liked to admit, all of a sudden seemingly thriving parks would start to crumble and I'd keep checking my finances like "what the hell is going". I can happily say the game never got so easy that I got to simply go into autopilot mode. The Hilarity of Building a Coaster - One of the tutorial missions early on will not even be park-focused but coaster-focused. Hell, coaster is in the name, while prebuilt rides were frequently my bread and butter, the game absolutely welcomes you getting creative and building to your heart's content. There's just one problem. I COULD NEVER BUILD A RIDEABLE COASTER. I'm sorry. Maybe I'm an idiot, maybe I don't understand banking, or the limitations of how fast you should go into a turn, or the amount of inversions one should have before snapping off the necks of my patrons, but holy crap I spent well over 2 HOURS hearing that damn engineer after every test ride I made say "that's a CHU CHU CHOWDER or a HURL MOBILE" suggesting the amount of vomit that would be spewed if actual patrons rode my rollercoaster. I'll admit, it was freaking hilarious. The 1st-person perspective cam in the game letting you physically ride your own creation is spectacular for making me legit belly over with laughter at the idea of somebody actually riding my neck-breaking-paced thrill death contraption. I never built a coaster after that. Why? Well, the game kinda does something great and not by letting you download coasters from the Frontier Workspace. Essentially, you can download coasters with specific dimensions or features that are required for the career mission star and attain it by simply placing it down and test-riding it whenever you have the amount of money sufficient to actually build it. It's far more efficient at least than building your own coaster and given my frustration of not being able to make coasters ridable, it was the path of least resistance I opted for. Grinding Career Mode (Part 1) - There are 72 mission stars to collect in the complete career mode. Given there are 3 per mission (bronze, silver, & gold) you're looking at 24 parks you'll need to complete. Early on, you'll be flying through these. As the first few missions are tutorials and super easy objectives to gradually ease you into the process of managing and maintaining parks, I honestly thought I was going to fly through the entire process. Naturally, you'll hit some progression stoppers. The first time a park asked me to build a coaster with specific requirements for excitement and maximums for nausea, I failed miserably for far longer than I'd like to admit. Then I discovered the Frontier Workspace and never looked back. Still, even with this loophole, it's not always going to be easy sailing. Some missions have very specific requirements that can be frustrating. One example is "sustain X monthly profit for 2-3 months from ONLY shops" OR "catch 15 pickpockets". I distinctly remember that when I reached the missions named "Oak Island" & "Downtown" I found the difficulty go up dramatically given it wasn't as simple as overall maintenance of a park but rather these specific departments that were exasperating because I hadn't paid too much attention to them. The sustaining X profit over a period of time is particularly exasperating because things could be going hunky dory for a certain stretch, your biggest coaster breaks down, and now your money falls into an actual Wile E. Coyote freefall and all that progress is undone as you're now several thousands of dollars in the negative. My recommendation? Make frequent saves when you hit certain X-month milestones. If you don't hit it due to unforeseen circumstances, tweak things to see if you can just scrape by and get the objective to pop. Grinding Career Mode (Part 2) - Sometimes my save scumming would get extra creative. I remember this quite distinctly on "Festive Funlands". Basically, my park was dying and I had no hope whatsoever of salvaging it in its current condition with my loan debt and the relatively little money I was actually getting as a profit. So what I'd do? I paused the game, deleted the entire park, built it all back up again, and whaddya know, I actually managed to achieve the 1.6k guests needed and paid off all my loans. I did this HARD in-game reset of a park by deleting everything and rebuilding it all back up MULTIPLE times and was surprised to see how well it worked. Some of the latter park missions are labeled as "Hard" even if that's not really the case. Park Value / Scenery rating is easy to gain over time with natural expansion. Building a coaster with X requirements is super easy once you find an easy download off the Frontier Workspace and can just copy it in at the end for the final star. Anything with "reach X monthly profit" is obnoxious since you need everything to work together perfectly for a stretch of 30 or 31 days. Stagnation is death, so always keep doing something. Starship Hanger took me like 3-4 hours of constant play and was one of the final stupid missions. I did a HARD in-game reset on that and made all my coasters brand new to get the 15k profit in one month as without it, despite 7 awesome coasters, 2-3 would inevitably break down if they were old and my chances of winning would be screwed. I'm happy to say I accomplished most of the game my way and never resorted to direct YouTube tutorials. I love how fun and cheery the game is. There is a trophy for blowing up 300 guests with an off-tracked coaster. Do you know what they do when hit? CHEER AND CELEBRATE, what a buncha legends My Personal Favorite Tropes - As any great auteur, it's normal to have certain formulas or methods that you're drawn to and consistently go back to the well on during creation. I had several during my type of making many parks in Planet Coaster. 1) To increase scenery, ALWAYS use natural park bushes 4. I NEVER deviated from this. Seriously, go to scenery, flip up once to go to the end of the list, and you should find this orange circular bunch of flowers that cost $198. I plopped these down once. I found they consistently raised the park rating by 6-8 points, sometimes as much as 11 when placed adequately between the queue lines and the rides themselves. I'll admit after discovering these, I never used a scenery item ever again as there seems to be no penalty in the rating for using the same scenery item multiple times. 2) When a ride, breaks, hire a mechanic right at the entrance of the broken ride and then FIRE his ass when he's done. Why? Quite simply, a broken ride is the fastest way to go from profit to in the red VERY quickly. Sometimes your own hired mechanic is halfway across the map and it'll take him a week of in-game time to actually fix the ride. By hiring and firing once the job is done, you save on both lost profit during the ride's out-of-commission phase as well as on monthly salary for only having a mechanic when needed. 3) Guests don't deserve free bathrooms. Seriously. Charge their asses either 50 cents or $1 to use the restroom. I don't care if this makes me a greedy capitalist monster. These profit goals aren't gonna pop by themselves. I'd also rather wait for an influx of complaints of guests being thirsty/hungry than preemptively building shops/hiring vendors only for nobody to use those facilities. 4) I had a preference for prebuilt rides over coasters. Largely because of cost, and also, just much more compact and efficient. Undeniably, coasters are more fun though. 5) Don't forget once your park is of a certain status to charge for entry. An Amazing Podcast/Movie Game - After the tutorial, I noticed that the company and faces of the cast that were so prominent took much more of a backdrop and only appeared when I reached a certain objective or milestone after initially starting a new mission. This meant that I could put the game on work, dedicate my attention to management and resource allocation, and in the background put on a podcast or movie. Do you wanna know what movies I watched? Terms of Endearment, The Majestic, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, The Breakfast Club, & multiple documentaries from Studio 54 to The Redeem Team! I also managed to enjoy the movies a fair amount since there were multiple times when playing when I could just let the game keep running while finishing off the necessary money to pay a loan or reach a monthly profit goal. Holy crap, that John Hughes was a good director man! I love me some Jack Nicholson. I know this is an odd inclusion in this review but as somebody who has always valued this sorta thing, I appreciate Planet Coaster for offering the experience. My Trophy Guide Recommendations - Honestly, the road to the platinum here is remarkably straightforward. The best thing you can do for yourself is dive in immediately on the Career Mode and start working your way through the tutorial and requisite missions. Once you notice yourself starting to struggle with a certain level or task given, please refer to Steam's Career Mode Walkthrough. It's genuinely chock full of details and little nuggets that I had no idea about even 10's of hours into the game. Whatever obstacles you come across should soon be conquered with its aid. Whatever coaster trophies you don't earn naturally, you can easily search on the workshop for "easy trophies" coaster and unlock that entire bunch in an unlimited money sandbox map. There are a few miscellaneous ones with maximum salt on fires and go-kart racing that are more novel than actually difficult as well. It's honestly a little bit crazy the amount of customization the game offers you (at least from the perspective of a novice to the genre) and I wonder how many more layers there are that I didn't even really touch throughout my time with the game. My final trophies related to the "Challenge Mode" which after an abundance of experience with the game, took me less than 1 hour to accomplish the 10 challenges in one park necessary. For an ultra-rare platinum, this is one of the kinder games out there. I ultimately earned the 4.33% rarity platinum in 3 weeks and 2 days. Not too shabby given I went on vacation during that timespan! Would I recommend Planet Coaster? Maybe. It honestly depends entirely on if these sorts of city builder/management games have been your jam in the past. If you're wanting to experience the genre for the very first time, I honestly think it's a pretty good entry point since there are a lot of available tools out there and an easy loophole for the most complex part of the game which would be the rollercoaster creation. If you're somebody who's always drawn to action combat and has very little patience for juggling resources or finding a way to optimize a park in critical condition, you're probably not gonna have too much fun with the game despite it's overall cheerful and happy atmosphere. I'm glad to say I've played it. If you told me Planet Zoo was coming to PS5 tomorrow, I'd add it to my Wishlist and absolutely pick it up since these games are always going to have a soft spot in my heart. Maybe by 2024 we can get there... Panda Score: 7.78 / 10 Panda Difficulty: 4.81 / 10 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Copanele Posted August 8, 2023 Share Posted August 8, 2023 6 minutes ago, realm722 said: To Play Baldur's Gate 3 OR Not To Play Baldur's Gate 3? I actually can answer to that question with another question Do you love gambling? Are you ready to throw your choice into the hands of the almighty dice? Are you ready to roll a nat 20 just to kick a squirrel? If yes, then yeah play the game, reviews/comments be damned! I know for sure I need to (re)play the first BG games - they kicked my ass when I was a kid, hope I'm old enough for a well deserved payback 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cassylvania Posted August 9, 2023 Share Posted August 9, 2023 4 hours ago, realm722 said: You know a game has hit a special stratosphere when I'm bloody writing about it despite not having played it. The last time I did this was with Genshin Impact. Oh no. That was nearly two years ago and because of that post, I single-handedly drained @Cassylvania of several hundreds of dollars hours of their life. I feel like these posts are the equivalent of that movie where people have the time on their arms about how much time they have left alive and every time I make a post like this, Justin Timberlake breaks into Cassy's home and drains a few hundred more off the clock. To be fair, I was probably going to play Baldur's Gate 3 anyway. It looks so good. (And unlike Genshin, I actually heard about it prior to your post.) 7 hours ago, realm722 said: Would I recommend Planet Coaster? Maybe. It honestly depends entirely on if these sorts of city builder/management games have been your jam in the past. If you're wanting to experience the genre for the very first time, I honestly think it's a pretty good entry point since there are a lot of available tools out there and an easy loophole for the most complex part of the game which would be the rollercoaster creation. If you're somebody who's always drawn to action combat and has very little patience for juggling resources or finding a way to optimize a park in critical condition, you're probably not gonna have too much fun with the game despite it's overall cheerful and happy atmosphere. I'm glad to say I've played it. If you told me Planet Zoo was coming to PS5 tomorrow, I'd add it to my Wishlist and absolutely pick it up since these games are always going to have a soft spot in my heart. Maybe by 2024 we can get there... I've been waiting for a modern console zoo game for a very, very long time. I just don't see it happening. The closest thing you're going to find is Megaquarium, which was fine... BUT you do have the Two Point series. (My turn to absolutely decimate your social life.) Two Point Hospital shares a lot of the charm and challenge of Planet Coaster, or you could take the plunge into Two Point Campus before me. If I knew for sure it wasn't going to drop twenty DLC packs on me in a year's time, I would've already started it. Glad you mostly liked the game. I couldn't figure out the roller coasters either. Your strategy of completely wiping out the park to revitalize it is interesting. I don't think I ever tried that, which is pretty crazy considering that I'm somebody who likes to start fresh whenever something isn't working or I think I have a better solution. I guess, in my eyes, just starting over was the same thing. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pelagia14 Posted August 9, 2023 Share Posted August 9, 2023 9 hours ago, realm722 said: The Final Verdict - To Be Decided. if I had to lean anywhere, I'd lean towards no. I still have time to be swayed in the opposite direction. The game is projected to come to PlayStation 5 on September 6th. (Baldur's Gate) Oh! Thanks for including the projected PS5 release date! My MMO buddies who convinced me into playing Diablo IV with them are thinking about checking out Baldur's Gate 3 at some point... meaning there is a decent chance they'll suck me into this game as well. Now I'll probably wait and see what the trophy list is before I decide on Steam or PS5, since they probably wouldn't get the game for a couple of weeks anyways. (And I was surprised at how Diablo IV's trophy list is noticeably less difficult than III's was, which made me slightly regret getting it on PC without bothering to investigate first.) 9 hours ago, realm722 said: An Outstanding Tutorial - I have to give a huge shoutout to the developers for making such a nice and snappy tutorial to introduce myself to many of the mechanics of the franchise. At first glance, it can be remarkably intimidating all of the many factors you'll need to juggle in order to keep a park up and running in tip-top condition. Yet the tutorial walks you through all of the fundamental aspects in an easy-to-understand and humorous manner. Seriously, all of the voice actors hit it out of the park on this one. There's the main guy who's very cheerful and happy. A woman who focuses strictly on finances. An engineer who loves rollercoaster design. A young woman who fills the role of a would-be guest. The dynamics play well and really what I learned is the following. (Planet Coaster) It's always really awesome when a developer takes the time to thoughtfully design a good tutorial. Great voice acting sounds like the cherry on top, here! (And not something I would have expected for this game, either!) 9 hours ago, realm722 said: I love how fun and cheery the game is. There is a trophy for blowing up 300 guests with an off-tracked coaster. Do you know what they do when hit? CHEER AND CELEBRATE, what a buncha legends That is amazing, thank you for linking that clip! 9 hours ago, Copanele said: I actually can answer to that question with another question Do you love gambling? Are you ready to throw your choice into the hands of the almighty dice? Are you ready to roll a nat 20 just to kick a squirrel? If yes, then yeah play the game, reviews/comments be damned! I know for sure I need to (re)play the first BG games - they kicked my ass when I was a kid, hope I'm old enough for a well deserved payback @Copanele, that video legitimately cracked me up, goddamn. Seems like the developers understood that oftentimes TTRPGs are the most fun when ridiculously crazy shit happens. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post realm722 Posted August 11, 2023 Author Popular Post Share Posted August 11, 2023 The 5 Games I've Played That You Should Drop Everything And Play If YOU Haven't Explanation: I've had the privilege of playing a lot of games over the last few years. The first delight of experiencing an awesome video game is the joy and wonder you get to bask in when you're first playing it. Yet, I argue, almost just as good, is the pleasure one feels when having recommended a video game that they greatly enjoyed to somebody else and they TOO have a wonderful experience. I've been the beneficiary of many such recommendations and figured it was time to stamp my time card and do some service of my own apart from the individual game reviews. With over 300 games officially played on PSNProfiles account, it's time that I recommend the 5 games that you 100% should play if you somehow HAVEN'T played them already. THIS IS NOT A "MY TOP 5 GAMES I'VE EVER PLAYED" POST. That'd be too easy, and a bit dull to write about. Just check out the 1st post of this thread if you wanna know that. Instead, I thought long and hard about some brilliant games I've enjoyed that 1) Haven't gotten the love and attention that they deserve by most audiences, 2) Isn't THAT long to complete as taking a blind recommendation from some guy on the internet will understandably make you hesitant from committing for 100+ hours (sorry DQ11) and 3) Offers something distinct from most games and has stuck with me to the point I think back about that game often when pondering back on my profile history. Capiche? Let's do this. 1) Pyre (My Review / 8-Hour Playthrough / 20-Hour Platinum) Explanation: When I eventually decide to start my "Replay Review" series about going back through games I've already platinumed and writing about them in poetic fashion, I promise you with 100% certainty that Pyre will be the first game I replay in that catalog. Good lord. I love this game so much. I know I've rated Hades as higher than it since then but man... if you catch me on the right day and ask me what's my favorite Supergiant game, on a good number of days I'm probably picking Pyre. Here's the pitch. Do you love characters? Do you love the idea of rallying a team of a cast and crew that you've come to know and love in a series of 3-on-3 matchups against other teams with personalities that you'll get familiar with? Does the idea of a game where you LOSE and the story continues to progress interest you? Then check out Pyre. I promise you, you won't regret it. I loved this game so much when I started playing it that I IGNORED the trophy guide with missable trophies in favor of a candid, blind experience. It's so short relatively, I highly recommend you do the same. The game has a brilliant mix of both exciting gameplay that I enjoy commentating as I'm playing like a sporting event as well as story and character-based interactions that kept me enthralled throughout. Not to mention the art in the game literally served as my PS4 wallpaper for 4 years. If you've enjoyed Hades and haven't tried any of Supergiant Games' work, do yourself favor and go back through their catalog. It's so damn worth it. 2) The Banner Saga (My Review / 12-Hour Playthrough / 26-Hour Platinum) Explanation: Have you ever wondered what it'd be like to PLAY a video game that's kinda like a prestige television HBO series? I don't think it's too asinine a statement to say that The Banner Saga Trilogy (yes, there are 2 more games you get to enjoy after this one) which follow a similar narrative thread that can be adjusted and altered depending on the decisions you make on this journey. A character that dies in Game #1 can still be with you in Game #3 and have huge consequences. This wasn't the developers cobbling together some nonsense random rift raft and then needing to go back and make justifications for it. I think back so incredibly fondly about this series and hope Stoic Studio eventually... one day maybe... make a return to it. Seriously, if you told me a 4th game wasn't coming out, I'd be making it a Day 1 purchase. The gameplay is tactical turn-based. I know, I know, a handful of you automatically skipped on down to the next suggestion. But seriously, if there was ever a game to branch out from your comfort zone and see if you can enjoy a radically different combat system from what you're used to, I think TBS is an amazing entry point. Not enough people have written about this game recently. I know Cassy & Briste have. They're the ones who prompted me to try it in the first place. I never regretted it since and absolutely love reading back through my reviews to reexperience the games all over again. The setpieces are stellar. Give it a chance! 3) Shadow Tactics (My Review / 25-Hour Playthrough / 50-Hour Platinum) Explanation: Sometimes I legitimately ask myself, "was Shadow Tactics the best game I've ever played?" and I pause for a few moments.. and even though the answer is ultimately NO, I discovered a brand new love for a genre I didn't even know I had. Again, this game was first experienced because Cassy gave it their GOTY Award for 2021. I ultimately scored it an 8.9 and think I underrated it in hindsight. Essentially, you have to go through a series of elaborate, huge, expanding levels and try to accomplish an objective or two. Typically this will be assassinating a target, but not always. The feudal Japan setting is one of the most incredible to experience and the cast of characters has a wide range of personalities that makes for such an endlessly fun experience. This is by far the longest-to-platinum recommendation of the bunch and yet by the end I remember wishing there was sitll more content to do. The badges challenges are so fun as you'll have just spent 1 1/2 - 2 hours bashing your head against a level dying hundreds of times trying to force your solution and then you'll see a mission objective and be like: "WHAAAAAAT? HOW IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE?" and laugh your ass off at some of the possibilities if you can't figure it out for yourself and search it up on YouTube. Basically, think the elaborate levels you've seen from the recent Hitman games with the charm of Japanese history and the gameplay of the old real-time Desperados games. Oh yea, if you want some more crack, play Desperados III by the same player. I know I did after beating STBotS. 4) The Forgotten City (My Review / 6-Hour Playthrough / 10-Hour Platinum) Explanation: Games like The Forgotten City don't come around very often. Normally, when you have a tight-knit adventure game experience like this, somewhere along the lines, something is going to come crumbling about at the foundation. I think of a game like Twelve Minutes which had huge voice-acting names such as Daisy Ridley and Willem Dafoe and had this unique fascinating setting of the top-down perspective and when the game finally released, it was lambasted for being repetitive and frustrating as well as having an elephant crap story. yet, due to its uniqueness, some people still enjoyed it. The Forgotten City is so remarkably polished that it doesn't stumble across any of these pitfalls. Are the facial animations perfect? Of course not. This is still an indie developer at the end of the day. But do you want to talk about getting wrapped up in an enthralling mystery, interrograting folks, trying to use your brain actively and think up possible solutions or methods and ACTUALLY having a pay-off for them? This game just hones in on so many elements I WISH other games would even lightly dabble in. If this isn't a good enough recommendation, my SISTER decided to check out the game after I kept saying she'd enjoy it. (She's a... VERY casual gamer). She played it for the first 30 minutes. She was kinda eh on it. I told her to keep pushing. She got to the... lemme not spoil it here. Anyways, there's a bit, that's very good, that had her completely engaged, and from that point onward, she binged the game HARD over the next week for several long hour play sessions until achieving her 1ST EVER platinum trophy. Don't you want to play that bit? It's 6-hours? What do you honestly have to lose? One night's sleep? 5) The Messenger (My Review / 12-Hour Playthrough / 30-Hour Platinum) Explanation: I thought long and hard about what sort of game I wanted to be represented here for my final entry. I thought about what the 4 games prior to this lacked. I realized that I needed a proper, no-nonsense, GREAT gameplay game. Pyre is decent, but it's all the elements around it and the fun I have adding to the game that make it so replayable. TBS is fun for strategy, but moment-to-moment it obviously doesn't stack up. Shadow Tactics CAN be super engaging but from a more methodical point of view. TFC is largely talking to people and exploring. How about some raw, unfiltered, throwback retro, good ol' 2D platformer metroidvania? It has been a very long time since I've played The Messenger. Yet I still think about that game. In part because an awesome person on here enjoyed the game so much they GIFTED it to me for free. Do you know how awesome a game has to be for somebody to enjoy it so much they gifted it to some dude on an online forum just because they wanted them to enjoy it? It's got great mechanics, fun boss fights, brilliant humor (some of the best of any games in my entire catalog) and is tricky enough to where I died several hundred times and still found myself blasting the soundtrack in my off time despite hearing it to death while going for the platinum. I also give it an extra boost of a recommendation given the developers latest game, Sea of Stars, is set to debut on the PlayStation 5 at the end of the month. If you've already played all 5 of the games mentioned here, play Slay the Spire. If you've played that, Paradise Killer. If you've played that, Ash of Gods. I know you haven't played that! 9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pelagia14 Posted August 11, 2023 Share Posted August 11, 2023 (edited) 16 hours ago, realm722 said: The 5 Games I've Played That You Should Drop Everything And Play If YOU Haven't 1) Pyre (My Review / 8-Hour Playthrough / 20-Hour Platinum) 2) The Banner Saga (My Review / 12-Hour Playthrough / 26-Hour Platinum) 3) Shadow Tactics (My Review / 25-Hour Playthrough / 50-Hour Platinum) 4) The Forgotten City (My Review / 6-Hour Playthrough / 10-Hour Platinum) 5) The Messenger (My Review / 12-Hour Playthrough / 30-Hour Platinum) If you've already played all 5 of the games mentioned here, play Slay the Spire. If you've played that, Paradise Killer. If you've played that, Ash of Gods. I know you haven't played that! I've already been incredibly hyped to play most of these games, and then you remind me about why I need to get around to them! ? I was super tempted to play Pyre a few weeks ago as an entry for Gaming with the Animals: The Squeakquel, but figured I should finish my current Supergiant Games video game first. I'm trying to make Hades my 100th platinum - I'm only a couple away! Hopefully I can get the last few tricky trophies, haha, because everything I read about Pyre is just legendary. It's honestly embarrassing that I haven't played through The Banner Saga Trilogy yet, considering that I helped the Kickstarter for Banner Saga 3 in 2018... ? Oddly enough, I think part of the reason for my delay has been knowing how much of my time it will consume. Because mentally it's not "Oh, let me play this 30-ish hour platinum", my brain views all three games as a single extended game with ~100h to play. Though, now that I think about it, it would probably be best to avoid my natural inclination to play the games all back-to-back, instead letting each one sit and breathe for a bit in my mind while I play other games before returning back to it. I'll just have to work on my patience during those breaks! Honestly, I've also been incredibly eager to get my hands of Ash of Gods (I was so bummed to hear that it was being removed from PS+ Catalog this past June ?). When it was on Catalog, I was holding off because your review heavily emphasized that one should play TBS first. I'm pretty sure I'm going to fall in love with it like you and Briste, but considering TBS has been in my backlog for a few years I figured I should follow your recommendation. You recently sold me on Shadow Tactics. I'm not really supposed to be buying games right now because I don't currently have income, but I couldn't help myself last week when I saw the $40 game is currently on sale for $3.99 USD with the Summer Sale that ends in several days. I seem to have somehow forgotten that The Forgotten City is currently part of the PS Catalog, so I no longer have the excuse that I can't buy it right now! Paradise Killer was slated to probably be my next "short game" when I need a break from a Community Event or longer game, and this is going to be on the short list for after it. The Messenger is the only game in your post that I'm not immediately familiar with, and also the only review of your post that I haven't read. Your sales pitch has certainly caught my eye, so I'll have to remember to check out your review! (What will probably happen is that the note I've made will get lost among all my other "Remember [Thing]"/"Checkout [This]" notes, until I re-discover them all like an archaeologist in a few months when I finally process that I have a pile of 20-40 notes I should probably do something about. ?) Finally, after you suggested Slay the Spire to me after I wrote about Inscryption, I'm also excited for when I get around to that game. TL:DR; Whether I had first heard of the above games through you or someone else, your tastes and opinions in gaming line up with mine so often that you amplify my excitement for the games I've not played even more than before! ----- 16 hours ago, realm722 said: Yet, I argue, almost just as good, is the pleasure one feels when having recommended a video game that they greatly enjoyed to somebody else and they TOO have a wonderful experience. I've been the beneficiary of many such recommendations and figured it was time to stamp my time card and do some service of my own apart from the individual game reviews. "And do some service of my own apart from the individual game reviews" - As if that wasn't already an incredible service to the community at large?! ? I can relate though to the feeling of joy when one specifically recommends that someone play a game, and then later they return and rant about how incredible and awesome the game was. A lot of games in my backlog have been ranked higher for me mentally because of you and others here on PSNP extolling their praises. Unfortunately, I don't think I'm alone in saying that I can't play 20-30 games simultaneously! And while everyone's personal ranking systems in their threads here help to gauge how much they enjoyed a game, it doesn't necessarily mean that it is a good game to recommend in general. (For example, Death Stranding was a 9/10 for me, but I would not recommend it to most people because those who will enjoy what it offers is smaller than some other games.) Thus, it's fantastic to have a list of games that you not only highly enjoyed playing, but also think are great games for almost anyone to play! 16 hours ago, realm722 said: Instead, I thought long and hard about some brilliant games I've enjoyed that 1) Haven't gotten the love and attention that they deserve by most audiences, 2) Isn't THAT long to complete as taking a blind recommendation from some guy on the internet will understandably make you hesitant from committing for 100+ hours (sorry DQ11) and 3) Offers something distinct from most games and has stuck with me to the point I think back about that game often when pondering back on my profile history. Capiche? Let's do this. The three criteria that you chose here were absolutely perfect, by the way. Though I'll admit I'm curious what your Top 5 LONG Game Recommendations would be! Or rather, the "4 Games after DQ11" ?. I've never seriously considered playing any Dragon Quest game before, but having just read the first 3 spoiler-free paragraphs of your review - and the amount of passion that you have for the game - I'm now thinking that I should very seriously consider playing it once my backlog is a little slimmer. So I'd love to know if there is another one or two longer games out there that I'm potentially really missing out on, if you are willing! ETA: Goddammit, I just had to check out of curiosity if DQXI was on the PS+ Catalog, since I seemed to recall a few of the franchise's games being on there. And of course it is, and who knows how long it'll be there before Sony removes it.... asdflkj;dfjsd; Edited August 11, 2023 by pelagia14 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cassylvania Posted August 12, 2023 Share Posted August 12, 2023 (edited) I'd like to point out that not only is Shadow Tactics my GOTY for 2021, but it would've beat out Cult of the Lamb for GOTY in 2022 too. (Not sure I'd put it ahead of Persona 5 Royal in 2020 or current front-runner Rain World in 2023, though.) Pyre and the entire Banner Saga trilogy were great. Very memorable, even years later. I have mixed feelings about The Messenger. I understand why you and most people like it. There are just some very similar games that I prefer. The Forgotten City...well, I haven't gotten to it yet. I probably would've if it wasn't on my wheel. Now, I just have to hope it comes up. Still, I'm glad I at least played four of the five recommendations! Edited August 12, 2023 by Cassylvania 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
realm722 Posted August 12, 2023 Author Share Posted August 12, 2023 6 hours ago, pelagia14 said: It's honestly embarrassing that I haven't played through The Banner Saga Trilogy yet, considering that I helped the Kickstarter for Banner Saga 3 in 2018... ? Oddly enough, I think part of the reason for my delay has been knowing how much of my time it will consume. Because mentally it's not "Oh, let me play this 30-ish hour platinum", my brain views all three games as a single extended game with ~100h to play. Though, now that I think about it, it would probably be best to avoid my natural inclination to play the games all back-to-back, instead letting each one sit and breathe for a bit in my mind while I play other games before returning back to it. I'll just have to work on my patience during those breaks! I STRONGLY recommend you do this. It's the same path I took when I decided to play the 3 games. I did it this way and never found myself getting tired of the combat specifically because I broke the games up with a wide variety of other titles. Honestly, I took a total flyer on the 1st one as it was super cheap on sale and a UR and I figured "what the heck how bad could it be" and was blown away by how much I loved it. 1st was played in Oct. 2020, then I finished the 2nd in Dec. 2020, and finally the 3rd in late February 2021. The fact you PAID for it on kickstarter is amazing! I wish I could get in on the ground floor of a game or series that I think I'll love. 6 hours ago, pelagia14 said: Honestly, I've also been incredibly eager to get my hands of Ash of Gods (I was so bummed to hear that it was being removed from PS+ Catalog this past June ). When it was on Catalog, I was holding off because your review heavily emphasized that one should play TBS first. I'm pretty sure I'm going to fall in love with it like you and Briste, but considering TBS has been in my backlog for a few years I figured I should follow your recommendation. Hahaha, I just threw Ash of Gods on the end there because I know there's only 26 people on here who have the platinum(which hey, has over doubled as I was the 11th). If you love TBS and want more of that, there's a lot to love in Ash of Gods albeit with a lot less polish and a good deal greater edginess. I still think back fondly about it and reread my review before a flight not too long ago and was shocked by how much I had forgotten. I'd love to hear somebody else review the game in-depth since it really has gotten such little coverage. 6 hours ago, pelagia14 said: "And do some service of my own apart from the individual game reviews" - As if that wasn't already an incredible service to the community at large?! Hahah, thank you for the kind words. I started this thread solely as a place to put my thoughts on video games. I don't write for anybody to enjoy it and that's nice because I can just type what I feel without hesitating or second-guessing myself. That being said, the thread has grown enough where I do feel like there's a cool tight-knit group here that stops by regularly enough that if they wanna go in-depth and read the whole post of every review, that's awesome. But I imagine most people fall into the game of wanting to know real fast: "yo is this game good or not OR is it worth my time or nah OR I'm gonna play this game, how was this dude's experience". At the very least, I at least once a week before bed go through literally every trophy cabinet on this forum and do that. If it's a game I'm probably gonna play, I don't read it outside of a few eye-catching lines at the start or the end. If it's a game I'm on the fence about, I'll read a bit, and if I'm convinced, I'll stop and add it to a wishlist. If they say something that puts me off hardcore like "this is gonna take 7 playthroughs and the game's glitchy and it's a bore" then I'll read the whole thing and say: "thank you for the sacrifice homie" lmao. This is a really long-winded way to say, that post is mostly for the people who enter the thread, skim through it to see what's new, and if they just want game recommendations and that's it, those are the 5 best and unique offerings I've sampled that I think the widest variety of players would enjoy. 6 hours ago, pelagia14 said: And while everyone's personal ranking systems in their threads here help to gauge how much they enjoyed a game, it doesn't necessarily mean that it is a good game to recommend in general. (For example, Death Stranding was a 9/10 for me, but I would not recommend it to most people because those who will enjoy what it offers is smaller than some other games.) Thus, it's fantastic to have a list of games that you not only highly enjoyed playing, but also think are great games for almost anyone to play! 100%. I rated Planet Coaster in the high 7's and labeled it a "maybe" since some people don't just rock with management games. If you do, that's a pretty good one. Yet Ruiner, which scored lower (high 6's) I think is a great snappy, gameplay-focused title and I gave it a conservative yes to all players. Hell, Ash of Gods I rated in the 9's and I sure as hell would NOT recommend that to people. Like I said, it's the sorta game you'd rock with if TBS was your JAM and you just want another hit. 6 hours ago, pelagia14 said: The three criteria that you chose here were absolutely perfect, by the way. Though I'll admit I'm curious what your Top 5 LONG Game Recommendations would be! Or rather, the "4 Games after DQ11" . I've never seriously considered playing any Dragon Quest game before, but having just read the first 3 spoiler-free paragraphs of your review - and the amount of passion that you have for the game - I'm now thinking that I should very seriously consider playing it once my backlog is a little slimmer. So I'd love to know if there is another one or two longer games out there that I'm potentially really missing out on, if you are willing! ETA: Goddammit, I just had to check out of curiosity if DQXI was on the PS+ Catalog, since I seemed to recall a few of the franchise's games being on there. And of course it is, and who knows how long it'll be there before Sony removes it.... asdflkj;dfjsd; This is pretty easy. 1) Final Fantasy VII Remake (74 hours to platinum) 2) Dragon Quest 11 (88 hours to platinum) 3) Persona 5 (73 hours to platinum but I used a guide for day-to-day since I had seen 2 FULL playthroughs, if you go in blind... I mean... minimum 2 playthrus, 120+ hours) 4) Horizon Forbidden West (66 hours to platinum) 5) Batman: Arkham Knight (94 hours to platinum) These are all some of my favorite games of All-Time. I know I rated Hades higher, but I think FF7R is probably the greatest game I've played when you factor in how much of a turning point it marked not only in my gaming interests, but this thread itself. That was truly the first MAMMOTH review I did (8k+ words). I didn't do that just cuz. I did that because my love for the game was so gushing and I had never experienced anything like that... I couldn't help but bury myself writing and ranking what I loved about the game. I had NEVER played a Final Fantasy. Now it's sequel is one of my most anticipated games ever. DQ11 is magical in the sense (and I'm really not kidding, watch that Tim Rogers review) that you can either binge it or even better, play it an for an hour every night before bed and it's so lovely and stuffed with soul and hands down the most GENEROUS video game I've ever played that it scored that high despite the fact that even with all the frills, I'm not really that into turn-based combat. Everything surrounding it? Nothing else quite like it. Persona 5 is the first JRPG I ever fell in love with via YouTube videos. Another game like this that I've experienced two full playthroughs and yet not played (due to the unfortunate circumstance of only having 24 hours in a day and 7 days in a week) is Yakuza 0. I can say with complete confidence it'd easily be a 9.5, Top 5 game on that list. I'm not even hesitant to say that considering how much I've honed my taste. You've already played HFW so no need for me to sell you on it. I really enjoyed writing that review. Especially since I felt like the only one who went deep on it with Elden Ring out. and finally, Arkham Knight? In terms of games I just wish had more stuff to enjoy the combat... Arkham: Knight may be #1. That Batman trilogy man... it's Top 2 up there with TBS. I could talk about any of those 5 games at length. I'm glad for 3/5 of them I did them justice with sprawling reviews. P5 was REALLY long (for the time, all my reviews back then were sub-500 words and that one was 1.2k which was essentially double) but in hindsight deserved so much more. Same for Arkham: Knight. But, as they say, c'est la vie. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post realm722 Posted August 13, 2023 Author Popular Post Share Posted August 13, 2023 Game: Titan Souls (Boss Rush / Action (Simple)) Analysis: I bought Titan Souls when it was on sale for $1.49 in late July 2023. Back-to-back ultra rare platinums putting me at 5 earned in 2023, not too shabby! Why Titan Souls? Around 2 months ago, I made this post in the PlayStation Network forum about ultra-rare platinums that took sub-25 hours to complete. I did this because I still want to push myself as a player every now and then in terms of difficulty, without needing to commit to a 50+ hour endeavor of difficulty. While I may branch out to those waters every now and thin, I've kinda hit a point in my gaming catalog where the only games I want to play for that long are games I'm almost positive are going to score in the 8.0-range or higher. Anything else, and I'm afraid it's not gonna be worth the tradeoff. Yet as I still seek a challenge, the mini-hell sessions that are these sorts of games will do. Honestly, after scouring many of the replies, a lot of the games failed to impress me. They were either on PS3 or had some snag or were games I had absolutely zero interest in (like Rugby League OR OddWorld). Still, Titan Souls undoubtedly was mentioned a few times and it looked interesting enough to me and for so cheap I decided to take a flyer on it... here are my findings! 1-Hit Kill vs. 1-Hit Health Pool - The unique "gimmick" of Titans Souls is unlike other Boss Rush games (Furi or Jotun being the main other two I've played), this isn't a long drawn-out epic fight where you're fighting and scraping to survive with every last weapon at your disposal. The controls in this game are insanely simple. You have one roll (with X) that you can also hold down to sprint and one arrow that you can fire (with square or the triggers). You can retrieve that arrow just like Thor's hammer by holding down square/triggers to return it to your holster. That's it. That's the moveset. Well... how are they gonna keep that compelling over the course of many fights? Quite simply, making the fights as short as possible by making all bosses die in one hit. Wow! That's amazing! But... YOU also die in one hit. and these bosses aren't messing around. Many of them have super fast projectiles or straight-up rush to try and kill you. You're going to die a lot. Hopefully, you learn the "trick" to each fight before you start wanting to rip your hair out as the game forces you into the 50th consecutive walk of shame walk back to the boss fight as this game doesn't have instant restarts like Celeste. You go take your 10-15 seconds it takes to start the fight again and think about what you've done, mister. Is This A Boss Fight Game or a Puzzle Game? - That may sound like a really strange question. But the more I dwelled on it, the more I realized how fair of a question it is. In all honesty, in most fights, the creators didn't even really... intend for you to be in an arena for even a minute against each boss. I mean, maybe they did. While you're in there panicking trying to figure out how to kill the big ugly thing. But once you figured out the "trick"? Fights end so quickly that the animation sequence at the end of each fight honestly ends up taking longer than the fight itself. What do I mean by this? There is an utterly incredible guide on the game by a fellow on YouTube known as LociGuides. It is baffling how the video doesn't even have 200 views. It came out nearly 2 years ago and it's quite frankly the best breakdown on the game of any written guide or tutorial video I've seen. The thing is, he breaks down to the most precise detail how each boss's pattern can be forced into killing it as quickly as possible. Granted, you're not exactly expected to know how to do this on your first playthrough. It's supposed to be a struggle and some head-bashing at first, but once you figure out a boss one time? The "fighting" stops and in your subsequent runs (you're going to be doing a lot of them) it becomes much more about forcing a specific sequence to occur so you can trigger the victory button (simply firing your arrow at the weak point). The EZ PZ Boss Fights Thoughts - As this is a boss fight game, I feel like I should run through all 18 bosses in the game offering my quick thoughts. 1) Sludgeheart is the first boss for most folks. He just jumps around. Divide the slime until the heart is exposed. Easy even on hard, just keep strafing and only firing when you have a clean shot and you're never really at any imminent threat of death. 2) Brainfreeze, tricky perhaps at first to learn how to break but once you know the pattern of how to bait him into stepping on a platform, becomes a cakewalk even on Hard mode. 3) Eyecube, the easiest fight in the entire game. Fire your arrow to start the fight, call it back at you as his eye is exposed, devs knew this trick and put it as a trophy. 4) Gol-lath, the posterchild of the game and hilariously enough the most easily exploitable(the devs know this). Fire your arrow from a distance to start the fight and as there's no transition screen, simply exit the boss room before the door closes, call your arrow towards you to get it to the center of the screen, walk all the way around to the back (the fists can't reach you at this point) and simply time the recall properly to kill him. 5) Vinethesis, if you hug the outer circular wall, the extended spikes can't hurt you. Just strafe until he opens up for you to attack. The poison gas never killed me since it's so slow. 6) Gol-Hevel, another boss you can kill super easily by strategically recalling an arrow after fired. 7) Avarice, the treasure chest fight. Just gotta dodge and weave until he does two hops and blast an arrow down his throat. 8) Rol-Qayin, the 2nd easiest fight in the game. The devs know this trick. Fire an arrow as he's rolling at you just before he kills you and he dies every time. He is the only boss in the game I NEVER died to I nailed the timing every single time. 9) Yeti, very quick to kill on normal mode. Just strafe to the right, dodge down, and fire at his exposed booty when he lands. The Hard Boss Fights Thoughts - 10) Obello is easy on Normal Mode (you just recall an arrow and kill him like the Rolling Cube) but on Hard bro kicked my ass so hard I moved on to another boss. 11) Knight Elhanan, even on normal this dude whooped my ass for way harder than I'd like to admit. Sure you have pillars for protection but on the 2nd hit they come crumbling down. It's so obnoxious how you get stunned if you hit the electrified arrow as the window you have to actually get back up, collect the arrow, aim, and fire to actually kill him is stupidly small. 12) Mol-Qayin, there are some precise maneuvers on this fight that can make this easy but I died to him A LOT more than I'd like to admit. If I didn't get the bomb to drop on his head, killing him the "normal way" was a hassle. 13) Gol-Qayin, THE HARDEST FIGHT IN THE GAME FOR ME I HATE THIS DUDE. I never found any of the reliable "tricks" to work so I actually had to fight him "fairly" which is the only boss that I really had to fight in that fashion. His stupid extending spikes are so annoying. His disco-spinning ass sucks. If he destroyed me on Normal, I don't even want to know what the Hard version of the fight looks like. 14) Onyxia, honestly one of the more difficult fights for you to actually die on. Just keep moving and avoid getting electrified in the water and you'll have all the time in the world to kill him. My aim was just trash and I missed the end of his tail an embarrassing number of times. 15) Stratus, one of the more engaging boss fights as there's two stages but his attacks aren't so obnoxiously fast like others that there's actually a song-and-dance between you and him. 16) Gol-Set, the penultimate boss fight mandatory for every run. His fists come down so fast and so hard. Keep dodging, you've got a TIGHT window for the kill after both pressure pads are pushed so don't miss your shot. 17) The Soul, a boss fight against yourself, obnoxiously fast to the point where you don't even have time to react, you simply have to know what he's going to do and move preemptively. Annoying and fighting him feels like a slot machine where I just hope when it's finally my turn I hit 3 7's. 18) Truth, a 3-phase boss fight, the first two phases are dumb easy and it's just annoying how many times I goofed up on the 3rd and final stage. A List Of Things I Didn't Like - There's a lot about this game that... didn't sit right with me. 1) The required walks back after each fight. Why? Was there a story reason for this? Was it to pad the game? Because it feels lame as hell when you die before you can even react and as the game is inherently trial-and-error based over skill, this is a baffling decision. I guess they justified it believing new players would try a fight over and over, sometimes give up, and go and try their luck with another boss. 2) I hate the distance between boss zones. This game has no story. I don't mind that. That's wonderful for me. What I do mind is why are the bosses so spaced out that on my 1st playthrough I got lost and annoyed? Just looked up a guide from there onward to find the boss "zones" and the odd tricks you need to do for one of them to appear. Would have been much better if you're not gonna have a story to have all these doors next to each other and kept things much simpler. 3) "Iron Mode" is stupid. The fact the game asks you to beat it by never dying is stupid. I used the Cloud save loophole to have infinite retries. You know what would have beenw ay better, devs? Make it so you can't die more than... 15 times. OR even 10 times. At least that's somewhat doable. I could have played the fun strategy game of debating "do I like having 8 attempts left after the first 4 opening fights or do I wanna keep pushing 'til I'm flawless to have more room for error later in the run? But noooooo. Couldn't do that. The idea of forcing people to master the trick of each fight knowing the variability and flimsiness of the design is ridiculous. ESPECIALLY on those last two boss fights where the attacks come so quick it's essentially a guaranteed death if you don't kill on your first cycle. My Platinum Experience - You only really need 4 sources for this. The Trophy Guide path. (I followed every step to a tee). The Unique Trophy Guide for each Boss. The Strategies for Every Boss for Quickest Kills on Iron Mode. The Iron Titan Run Guide Video. With those 4, you should honestly be set. You can view my stats here. My first run took me close to 4 hours killing all of the bosses, getting all the unique trophies, and dying 202 times. My second run was focused on the "No Roll" which is honestly just such a crappy mode to include your game. Oh wow way to make everything a slog and make movement agonizing. Took me an hour. 58 deaths isn't too bad. Then I went for the Speedrun. Quite frankly, the least stressful speedrun I've ever attempted. You don't have to fight every boss and the timer stops after the penultimate fight. You will clear this easily fighting the easiest bosses and knowing the path for each. Then I went for killing all bosses on Iron Mode on normal. That... took a bit. But honestly went by quicker than expected. Hands down the most annoying fights were the Lava Skull and then the two final fights. Finally, Iron Mode + Hard Mode which took some fussing about as things do get harder but with enough persistence on the cloud save, nothing should stop you. I earned the 1.97% rarity platinum in 3 days and 7 hours. Would I recommend Titan Souls? Probably not. I think this definitely falls more into the camp of a game I'd enjoy than most other players, and I still had a lot of gripes with it. I don't mind the repetition of needing to do a task over and over again until I get it just right. Even if I have to dashboard, close game, upload/download Cloud save, download from Cloud, open up the game, and try, try, try again. Other players? That's not a fun time. You're going to be doing that a lot in Titan Souls. It's not nearly as hard as the rarity suggests simply because there is a "fixed" strategy for essentially every boss fight it's just about having the persistence to go out and actually do it, which understandably, of the 90k+ game owners, less than 2,000 have bothered going for it. Yet despite my negativity, I do admire some of the ambition in the game. I like the concept of boss rush games in general and this was a very unique take on the genre. I love how the devs knew of broken strategies and not only allowed them, they leaned INTO them by making many of them trophies in the game. I guess that means I have to play their 2nd game, Death's Door (now available for all PS+ Users for the month of August 2023) and see how much they've grown between dev cycles! Panda Score: 6.65 / 10 Panda Difficulty: 6.12 / 10 (more so because of persistence than actual skill difficulty, would be an easy 9+ with no Cloud save loophole due to finickiness) 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post realm722 Posted August 20, 2023 Author Popular Post Share Posted August 20, 2023 Game: Yaga (Limited World / Action (Complex)) Analysis: I bought Yaga when it was on sale for $6.24 back in late December 2022 and bought the Roots of Evil DLC for $2.49 in mid-February 2023. Why Yaga? After having conquered most of South America, the next most realistic target for me to complete games-wise outside of NA would undoubtedly be Europe. My map (which is now outdated) shows that the aspect of Europe I most glaringly needed to work on featured many Eastern European nations, most specifically that of Southeast Europe. It can sometimes be hard to find games made by developers for modern consoles from that region of the world, and yet, after much investigation, I discovered that this very game, Yaga, was created by Breadcrumbs Interactive. An indie Romanian developer! Yes, we'd be taking a stroll through @Copanele's neck of the woods. I thought this discovery was pretty awesome given 1) The list of games "developed" in Romania from Wikipedia wasn't the most promising and 2) Guys... it feels like no one has written about this game. Less than 80 people have the platinum. Less than 600 game owners. Sure, you'll find a YouTube playthrough or two but this ain't no indie darling that captivated the masses. I now bare the responsibility of trying to relate this convoluted amalgamation in an understandable fashion. Heavy is the head that wears the crown. Here are a few thousand words on a game you've never heard of and probably will never play! A Completely Befuddling Beginning - While this review may be coming out towards the mid-portion of August, I initially booted up the game for the first time back in mid-July alongside Planet Coaster. The latter ended up garnering most of my attention. The reason for this is because Yaga is... so oddly... developed? Presented? Designed? This game isn't very straightforward and it intimidated me early on. For one, there's no actual main menu screen. You're immediately thrust into the story. You're a blacksmith. The game has a tutorial that teaches you the basics. The combat is fairly straightforward at the very least. You progress through various zones and mobs will pop up in them for you to fight. You have a hammer which should be your main source of damage either through melee or through ranged attacks throwing it with ▲ and waiting for it to come back to you. The hammer throw FEELS very good in this game. Especially after you get some enhancements on it. I played on Normal and while I died a few times by not playing too aggressively, the game isn't that difficult. But what you'll curiously find is... there's just a LOT going on here. There's a crafting system with resources for your anvil along with talismans and enhancements, you can make some distinct responses as Ivan the Blacksmith during dialogue or decisions, and there's this whole Likho luck system? What the hell is this stuff? Lemme explain. Explaining Personality System + Luck + Tools - The most important of these 3 is the personality system. These have HUGE implications on trophy throughout your entire playthrough. You can respond in 4 ways. 1) Aggressively (red), 2) Righteously (gold), 3) Greedily (green), 4) Foolishly (blue). This is a... wild system for an indie game to include so it has such far-ranging consequences. Basically, the game keeps track of how many times you select a response with one of these specific types (you can check it at all times, click the touchpad, R1, and you can scroll through all your items and these factors). The different branching endings are HEAVILY factored by your most dominant personality in the end. You'll need to achieve all the endings for all of the trophies. More on that later. Basically, I would say have fun with this system. The game has many charming interactions found by playing with this system. You may be tempted to always be "righteous" as that seems like the only always "good" option but that's not necessarily the case. Sometimes being overly righteous can also be a huge mistake. Be aggressive to characters annoying you. Be greedy if you want money (seriously, it's an amazing way to accumulate wealth early on) and the foolish dialogue options are hands down the funniest in the entire game. It is a ton of fun to play as a remarkably stupid character in an otherwise straight-faced world. What about the other two systems labeled here? DON'T WORRY ABOUT LUCK OR BAD LUCK. The game tries to make it seem like this big huge system but... I'll be honest, I never really learned it, frequently paid 25 kopeks every time I was back in town to remove it when it was damn near full, and other than that, never learned any more of the complexities about it. Finally, don't worry about crafting tools. In fact, don't do it all as there's a trophy for that. Just craft hammers with upgrades if you want. You can upgrade the anvil if you want to make more powerful hammers but it's really not all that necessary on even Normal mode. You find enough hammers scouring chests in the normal levels that I rarely bothered with it on latter playthroughs. Finding My Footing - Coming back around a month later, I restarted a totally fresh game (I had only dabbled for like 20min) and finally learned how to actually exit the main town hub (where you'll find a bunch of side quests and return to frequently). Here's the thing that kept tripping me up - the game includes ALL of the "Roots of Evil" DLC if you download it from the start and this made it REALLY confusing with all these extra characters and extra quests that were way too freaking tough and kicking my ass. Don't deal with the Woodsman or the corruption until the end of the game. Seriously, you don't want that smoke. Once I knew how to follow the base game path, the game is honestly super short in the grand scheme of things. You have to go get sweat from a scarf of a man from the village and you select this when leaving (if you have to return to the town, the quest will say that, and despite seeming like you're leaving, it'll bring you straight back to the town. If that is very hard to understand it's because it IS and I was perplexed by it myself). You go and collect the sweat. You go to back to Grandma Yaga. She tells you where to go find Baba Yaga. You go find her. She tells you where to find Golden Apple. (Where the Tzar wants). You go get Golden Apple. You are given the first VERY important choice of whether to give the real golden apple or a fake gilded one to the Tzar. This is the first major decision with branching missable trophies. This is why you'll have to do multiple playthroughs. Once you return and give him one, you gotta go do two more small quests, get the location of the Fountain of Youth from Yaga (also requested by the Tzar), decide whether or not to give real youth water or muddy water (a 2nd MAJOR decision), and finally, the Tzar is gonna ask for a wife. You gotta go find Maria Morvena. You find her, she gives you 3 quests, you do those 3, you return, she asks for 3 cauldrons, you go make those 3 cauldrons, she asks for you to deal with Koschei, you decide what to do with Koschei, she finally agrees, go tell the Tzar, go to the wedding, kill the final Boss, and then it's final branch ending time! The End of My 1st Playthroughs - Everything I detailed in the paragraphs above sounds like it should take quite some time... but it really doesn't. You can fly through the game and reach the ending sequences within 2 1/2 hours in all honesty, even less. You just have to get fortunate with the various maps and barrel towards the objective you have in mind. For my 1st playthrough, as recommended by the trophy guide curator @MightyKingPupu, I decided to become the most foolish Blacksmith in all the land and be the Tzar's most loyal dog. Giving this obviously awful man everything he desired much to Baba Yaga's dismay. It was pretty damn funny. While I didn't get ALL of the trophies (missed on a handful of missables as hot damn there are SO many) as well as some annoying ones like Bad Faith and Heated Heart, I did get Foolish & Blacksmith endings. Unfortunately, despite following a guide, I had some horrendous hiccups along the way and the game was not very kind about impeding my progress, let's talk a bit about that. This game is stuffed to the brim with Slavic folklore. I was not familiar with many of the stories depicted, that will add some additional charm to those actually familiar with them My (Failed) Attempt At Roots of Evil DLC Cuz Save Corruption - Due to the branching manner of the games story and trophies, you are heavily incentivized to make some timely Cloud (or USB) backup saves in order to reload them after completing a specific trophy in order to avoid needing to complete 6 full playthroughs. No biggie! Sadly, this had a fatal flaw for me. As I had my save prior to telling Maria of what I ultimately did with Koschei (either setting him free or locking him away forever), I decided to try for some of the Roots of Evil DLC as I had some awesome gear at the end of my playthrough. The Trinket Kid trophies were easy. Just pay for the trinkets, complete the quests, and equip them. Now I wanted to try those Woodsman zones that had kicked my ass when I first started. Before doing so (as I didn't know when branching trophies in the DLC would take place), I quit out while in the transition zone (seen here) to backup my save to the Cloud. I reentered to continue... uhh... the game isn't loading. The progress bar isn't moving AT ALL. That's not good. I quit out. I tried reuploading and downloading several times. Unfortunately, I had just uploaded the corrupted save to the Cloud. GODDAMIT, THIS IS FROST ALL OVER AGAIN. While this sucked, it honesty wasn't the WORST thing as I needed to do a 2nd playthrough anyway so I'd just do the DLC at the end of that run. But I was undeniably peeved. I tested it again and yes, if you quit out while in that transition zone, your game will not load upon reentry. Only ever quit out and backup up your save from the main hub village or while out in one of the level zones for a quest. Otherwise, you risk corruption. Trying for the Missables in My 2nd Playthrough - While annoyed at needing to delete all of my saved data from my 1st playthrough, I was relieved to see the trophies weren't tied to any in-game system so I could just start fresh and focused on now being anti-Tzar and sneakily giving him fake powerful items. I got a lot of the trophies I had missed on my 1st somewhat blind run such as Perfectly Balanced and the opposite quest completion achievements for Maria's quests. There was just one small problem. On this playthrough, I sealed away Koschei forever. The guide said to make a backup after that. Unfortunately, one ending needs him to be free? Regardless, NEITHER of these options would pop for me. It didn't matter if I had a greedy, aggressive, or righteous personality. Maybe it's because I had 7+ foolish points for the Perfectly Balanced trophy? Maybe I forgot and gave the fountain of youth water or golden apple to Baba Yaga? I know for a FACT I gave all the fake items to the Tzar. Anyways, it was REALLY annoying because the "Rule Together" option would be there but it'd be greyed out so I couldn't select it. Surely I did something wrong so I'm not gonna blame the trophy guide creator. Obnoxiously, this guaranteed I needed to do a 3rd playthrough of the game. But before then, let's try for that Roots of Evil DLC again. Roots of Evil DLC (and lots and lots of bugs) - There is shockingly little information about this DLC on the internet. I felt like I was far out in the ocean completely on my own wading into unknown waters. Most of the trophies have less than 20 achievers. Whenever I'd see something familiar in the trophy description pop up in the game (the Riddler, the Loan Shark, the Stuhacs, the Kuma Lisa Fox), etc.. I'd make a backup save beforehand and explore it. It's honestly not all that difficult. I discovered via this forum, thanks to @Smaxoy, a guide for the DLC trophies in Russian on Steam. Google Translate performs a VERY rough translation but I was able to understand it well enough. Unfortunately, the game decided to continue giving me a bad time. While in the first missions trying to find the Woodsman and Oakvale, the game during combat sequences vs a very specific green blob monster (seen here) would act like I was still in combat even after killing all of them. What did this mean? Due to the barriers presented in each combat room, I was now soft locked. I'd have to quit out, lose all my progress, and start the quest from the beginning again. This happened 5 straight times. I don't know what I did to Romanians, but they hate my guts I guess. Eventually, the game sorted itself out after my continued persistence (and trying to be patient when killing those enemies because maybe I was killing them too fast) and got to a point where it didn't bother me again. I got all of the various ending DLC trophies with Leshy, and before you knew it, now all I had left was the final 2 ending trophies to achieve. My 3rd and Final Playthrough - All I needed was 2 trophies left for the platinum and 100% completion. "The Blacksmith's New Clothes" & "Grandma's Wish". I did not touch a single side quest. I did not touch any of the DLC. I knew the game inside and out by this point and straight beelined for everything in the main story. I made sure both times to obtain BOTH the real & fake items for the apple/water. I gave the fakes both times to the Tzar. I did not select a single Foolish dialogue option for the entire game. When I reached Maria's quests, I made a backup save to the Cloud, completed them all aggressively (not the way she wanted), and set Koschei free while telling her that before going to the wedding and maiming Likho by taking her eye. With these selections, I achieved the 1st trophy listed as ruling alone. I then reloaded my save, did all of the quests again, all done aggressively, SEALED Koschei away forever, maimed Likho, got the eye, and this time was INDEED able to rule together with Maria, here's the platinum trophy popping for me. I was so freaking relieved man. The last thing I wanted was one more complication or denial or headache for the game to throw my way. I earned the 13.76% rarity platinum in 1 month and 6 days. Would I recommend Yaga? Probably not. I think this is a very sad case of my enjoyment of a game being diminished by trophy hunting. It hurts for me to admit as so many games have been enhanced by my love of pushing myself to the limits, but Yaga, for all its creativity and love poured into it, is, unfortunately, one that is designed in such a manner that works against a player aiming for these goals. The 40+ missable trophies. The save corruption. The bugs. The somewhat vague endings and lack of help online on how to obtain them. Do you notice how almost all of this review has revolved around the difficulty I had in achieving trophies as opposed to... yanno... the game content? Did I mention this game has voice acting? For EVERYTHING? And it's really well done in an exaggerated manner? Did I mention this game's music? LISTEN TO THE BLOODY VILLAGE THEME. How badass is that? There are so many small interactions I love like being able to give away some kopeks to a goat that makes you laugh or other ridiculous interactions you can pull off like answering riddles or being a complete a-hole by being super aggressive towards everything not even bothering with the storytelling elements. But I didn't talk about any of that stuff in this review. Instead, I'll remember it for the painstaking trophy process. That sucks. These developers have potential. I love the ambition. It may not have come out perfect but they can do big things. They're making a 2nd game called Monster Therapy. I hope they build on what they learned from here! Panda Score: 6.44 / 10 Panda Difficulty: 3.7 / 10 9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Copanele Posted August 20, 2023 Popular Post Share Posted August 20, 2023 2 hours ago, realm722 said: Game: Yaga (Limited World / Action (Complex)) Oh man...how did you even stumble on this game 😂 Yep indeed, this one is a game done by my fellow romanians. An ambitious game, probably abit TOO ambitious, that tried to convey every single dumb folklore story that we have (or borrowed). Stories that are more on the Slavic kind Interestingly enough, I actually...skipped this game for good reason. I saw the premise and what the game asks you to do, I swear it reminded me of the hundreds of short stories that I had to learn at school and was "nope". It is a very cute indie buuuut yeah heard it's buggy too. 2 hours ago, realm722 said: Due to the barriers presented in each combat room, I was now soft locked. I'd have to quit out, lose all my progress, and start the quest from the beginning again. This happened 5 straight times. I don't know what I did to Romanians, but they hate my guts I guess. Actually, that's lore accurate and represents the Romanian experience. Our life is like a D&D session. Maybe you'll have fun! Maybe life will steal your sweetrolls! Maybe you'll glitch out of the map via an uncovered manhole 😆Impressed that the devs were this faithful to the "source material" 2 hours ago, realm722 said: Did I mention this game's music? LISTEN TO THE BLOODY VILLAGE THEME. How badass is that? Ah, you found the..."techno folklore" version of our songs 😂 taking the old songs (and we mean OLD 400ish years old songs) and modernize them. That's honestly a good pick for a village theme lol. Sorry that you had to deal with the bugs, but this was a fun one to read. Also lowkey thanks for taking one for the team, I doubt I'll ever play this one 😅 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cassylvania Posted August 20, 2023 Share Posted August 20, 2023 3 hours ago, realm722 said: Would I recommend Yaga? Probably not. I think this is a very sad case of my enjoyment of a game being diminished by trophy hunting. It hurts for me to admit as so many games have been enhanced by my love of pushing myself to the limits, but Yaga, for all its creativity and love poured into it, is, unfortunately, one that is designed in such a manner that works against a player aiming for these goals. The 40+ missable trophies. The save corruption. The bugs. The somewhat vague endings and lack of help online on how to obtain them. Do you notice how almost all of this review has revolved around the difficulty I had in achieving trophies as opposed to... yanno... the game content? Did I mention this game has voice acting? For EVERYTHING? And it's really well done in an exaggerated manner? Did I mention this game's music? LISTEN TO THE BLOODY VILLAGE THEME. How badass is that? There are so many small interactions I love like being able to give away some kopeks to a goat that makes you laugh or other ridiculous interactions you can pull off like answering riddles or being a complete a-hole by being super aggressive towards everything not even bothering with the storytelling elements. But I didn't talk about any of that stuff in this review. Instead, I'll remember it for the painstaking trophy process. That sucks. These developers have potential. I love the ambition. It may not have come out perfect but they can do big things. They're making a 2nd game called Monster Therapy. I hope they build on what they learned from here! You know, this has always been that game for me in the backlog. I bought it a few years ago, occasionally get the urge to start playing it, and then I just...don't. It just feels like the kind of game I'll really want to like and end up hating because of the trophies or the multiple playthroughs or the gameplay (or *cough* the DLC). So there it sits, moving further and further to the bottom of the list, as I slowly whittle away at other games. Your review confirms my suspicion. Maybe someday... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pelagia14 Posted August 21, 2023 Share Posted August 21, 2023 19 hours ago, realm722 said: Would I recommend Yaga? Probably not. I think this is a very sad case of my enjoyment of a game being diminished by trophy hunting. It hurts for me to admit as so many games have been enhanced by my love of pushing myself to the limits, but Yaga, for all its creativity and love poured into it, is, unfortunately, one that is designed in such a manner that works against a player aiming for these goals. The 40+ missable trophies. The save corruption. The bugs. The somewhat vague endings and lack of help online on how to obtain them. Do you notice how almost all of this review has revolved around the difficulty I had in achieving trophies as opposed to... yanno... the game content? Did I mention this game has voice acting? For EVERYTHING? And it's really well done in an exaggerated manner? Did I mention this game's music? LISTEN TO THE BLOODY VILLAGE THEME. How badass is that? There are so many small interactions I love like being able to give away some kopeks to a goat that makes you laugh or other ridiculous interactions you can pull off like answering riddles or being a complete a-hole by being super aggressive towards everything not even bothering with the storytelling elements. But I didn't talk about any of that stuff in this review. Instead, I'll remember it for the painstaking trophy process. That sucks. These developers have potential. I love the ambition. It may not have come out perfect but they can do big things. They're making a 2nd game called Monster Therapy. I hope they build on what they learned from here! Oh wow, I've been eyeing this game for quite some time. I'm a sucker for games that feature folklore - especially those that are not commonly featured in Western media. It's a bummer to hear that the trophy hunting experience coupled with bugs/save corruption issues ended up tarnishing the positive aspects of the game. Now that I have a better understanding of the game experience, in the future (once my backlog is more manageable) there's a slim chance that I might still pick up the game on a whim when it has a good sale. After all, per @Copanele I'd likely be getting an authentic Romanian experience. 😂 Or more likely I'll just wait for The Witcher 4 to get more tiny crumbs of Slavic flavor within its melange of European influences. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post realm722 Posted August 24, 2023 Author Popular Post Share Posted August 24, 2023 Game: Rocket League (A Review Redux) Explanation: I originally wrote my platinum league experience for Rocket League back in 2018. This post will not cover anything remotely trophy-related to RL. Why A Review Redux? I've mentioned here and there that at some point down the line, when all the good video games have dried up and we're left with nothing left but Pokemon and Mario clones (this is facetious), I'm going to have to break into my archives and replay some of the video games I've already fallen in love with and conquered. In part to reexperience them all over again. In another part to do them more justice when it comes to these reviews. I'm at a very happy length for most of my posts right now that I feel like I perfectly crystalize how I felt about a game having completed it. But my pre-2020 reviews? Incredibly vague, shadow, and while I do forgive myself (it eventually birthed into what this has now become), I'd like to be more descriptive going back so as to better encapsulate my feelings when engaging with the game. That's all well and dandy. But why of all games, do I chose to start this endeavor with Rocket League? Well, that's quite easy. Rocket League is my forever game. Why Is This My "Forever" Game? I guess before explaining why Rocket League fulfills this role, I should explain what a "forever game" even is. It's not simply a game I love. I have a lot of those. Heck, a lot of people's "forever" games are ones they hate. It's a game, typically online competitive or collaborative, that you can play endlessly. This can be a sports title (FIFA), it can be an FPS (COD, Destiny), or it could be a MOBA (League of Legends) or MMO (World of Warcraft). This is a game that for whatever reason has made its mark on you and you've played it for several hundreds of hours, if not, thousands of hours. You may or may not have a certain group of friends or crew online that you consistently go to battle with you. It can be your "hangout" game while you chill out and talk with friends on the mic. You could even call it a comfort game. At this point, there aren't really many radically new things for the game to throw at you. You're familiar with all of the mechanics, as are your opponents, and the main thrill that keeps you coming back is the difficulty of trying to perform whatever task or skill is needed to succeed. It's a comfort game. One where discovery has long died and familiarity is your new best friend. I can't remember how long ago Rocket League became part of an everyday thing for me. I remember how it started. It can get scary going from new game to new game in a vast variety of genres several times month after month. Sometimes I don't want to think, worry about trophies, or have my eyes glued to a guide online.... I just wanna twiddle my thumbs and have a good time. Rocket League provides that in spades. My Routine - I've fallen into a wonderful routine with Rocket League. When I'm first booting up for a gaming session, I won't jump straight into the game I'm trying to 100% or platinum at the moment. Instead, I'll boot up RL. I have a very simple rule. If I lose in 3 v. 3 a SINGLE time, I move on to 1 v. 1. When I lose in 1 v. 1, I close the application and move on to whatever game I'm currently working on. Why is this so perfect? Well for one, it's a brilliant warm-up. Rocket League matches are only 5 minutes long. In a high-scoring contest, it can realistically rise up to 7-8 minutes but most of the time it won't get that far. If I manage to win 2 matches, then lose 1, I'm satisfied, and will typically have gotten 20 minutes in of just spacing out before getting to the challenges / guide research / exploration for a game. I do not rage at video games. At least, not anymore. Sometimes, FIFA would take me there. But RL? It does not matter if I make the stupidest mistake, if my AFK teammate costs us the game, or if somebody keeps demolishing my car, I just close the application and move on. This method has masterfully also helped me avoid spiraling losing streaks. If I lose my first two matches in each ranked playlist, it just wasn't my day, and I quickly move on to whatever game I'm dealing with. If I get on an ultra hot streak rattling off 8-9 wins in arow, that's awesome and I just enjoy the ride! My Skill Level & Stats - Well it's about time I reveal where I'm at with over 760+ hours of play-time (according to PlayStation). In 3 v. 3 matches (never in a team, always with randoms), I am Platinum 3 (Division 1). In 1 v. 1 matches, I am Platinum 2 (Division 2). I think this is... where I'll always be ranked. Quite frankly, outside of an awesome win streak I went on with a few great teammates several months back where I managed to rise Diamond-tier, I am through and through a platinum-caliber player. I know the fundamentals of the game. I know the typical strategies (dump and chase in the corner, clear the net if you've made the pass, can't really dribble but I can aim some shots, can't do an aerial to save my life). If I truly made this my FOCUS, could I be Diamond-tier? Probably? But, again, I'm not trying to make it up to Champion rank or anything. This is my casual, turn my brain off, have a good time and enjoy some thrills with some last-second saves to steal a match or putting the cape on with a bunch of bums like I'm 2018 LeBron and snagging MVP by 400pts. Here's a short video I took of my in-game stats. I haven't changed how my car has looked in several years since I just don't care about cosmetics no matter how much the game promotes them. I'll rattle off a few quick stats. 4,023 matches played. 2,212-1,811 Record. 55% winning percentage. 6,483 Goals. 1,138 Assists. 2,950 Saves. 426 MVPs. The 3 v. 3 Experience - Playing a competitive game online in ranked play with a bunch of strangers can lead to a lot of interesting interactions. A few years back, I was a participant in chat. Actively engaging with both my team and the opponent. At some point, I stopped, turned off chat, and have never looked back. Thus, I play without any communication and mostly rely on "feeling" the game out based on how my peers are playing. I am of the fundamental belief that doing everything possible to help the team win is the greatest thing one can contribute in a group setting. I believe this philosophy in my soul. I apply it to all of my life interactions. Thus, I am being 100% dead honest when I type that I don't care what I have to do, I just want to win. This means that if I got two ball-chasing freaks on my team, I am 100% content sitting back on D as the 3rd rotation man for the entire match while they go buck wild trying to hit the grey sphere. Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing. Do you know what I do in EVERY single match when we're up 2 goals and there's 1-minute left? I get back on D, sit in my goal, and kill clock for that final minute. Why the hell does it feel like everybody online wants to press and keep scoring when all we gotta do is hold onto the lead? This is stupid if there are 3+ minutes left in the match. But a minute? 2 dudes vs 3 dudes can absolutely kill clock and get the job done. There's more strategy I could talk about here. I LOVE being the player who is willing to get dirty and rough and tug for a ball in the corner just to center it out in front of the opponent's goal for a waiting teammate who can drive it home. I genuinely don't care about scoring. It's fine. I'll do it. But my enjoyment comes much more from doing all of the supplementary roles. This is probably why I've never learned how to attack the ball in the air for aerial hits. The 1 v. 1 Experience - Inevitably, despite my love for being the "Draymond Green" of the squad in a 3 v. 3 matchup, I will inevitably sometimes get completely bewildered by the incompetence of my teammates and start to blame everything on them, mentally, of course. To pour some cold water on my ego, I'll jump into 1 v. 1 matches to remind myself that sometimes, losing, is in fact, my fault. There is nothing like playing a matchup with just one other opponent, completely WHIFFING on a wide-open ball, conceding the easiest of goals, and then having no one else to point the finger at but yourself. I enjoy 1 v. 1. Particularly because you have no excuses. Sure, you can get screwed on multiple flukey backfired kickoffs and allow a goal or two but most of the time, if you lose, it's because your opponent outplayed you. The mental gymnastics of deciding whether or not the guy is trying to piss you off or not by watching the replay is such a fun miniature meta-game. For the record, if I ever do it to you, it's probably because I'm doing something on my laptop next to me while playing, not intentionally trying to piss you off specifically. Will I Ever Move On? Perhaps one day. I think we need more games like Rocket League. The skill gap can be so huge between players that it never gets old for me. Some days I'll be on fire and rip off a hot streak and others I'll be cold for a few and hardly dedicate more than 10 minutes. It's such a neat and tidy game that I struggle to see anything surpassing it any time soon. Inevitably, I probably will. But in the meantime, I wanted to shine a spotlight on this lovely game that has brought me so much fun over the years. We'll now return to our regularly scheduled program, thanks for reading! 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post realm722 Posted August 28, 2023 Author Popular Post Share Posted August 28, 2023 How Popular Are My Top 55 Favorite Games On Steam? Every now and then I get a funny idea in my head about questioning whether or not my tastes are truly niche or if I'm more in line with what the mainstream gaming audience thinks than I'd like to think I am. It's natural to enjoy what's popular. There's a reason it's so well known. Once you get into a hobby (whether it be music, movies, games, or anything else), whatever served as a gateway to your enjoyment may not be hitting like it used to. You begin to search for stuff that's more specific to your tastes. More... counterculture. It becomes easy to be a fan of movies and dunk on Marvel. OR bemoan the latest hit pop album for your super niche jazz fusion indie band outta Tokyo. I wanted to test this experiment with games. What games do I love (8.00 rating or higher) that are truly underrated? What are some of the most obvious fan favorites out there? I've decided to combine steam user reviews + # of owners on PSNProfiles for this test in order to separate the big boys from the games I've loved that you may not have heard of. Let's get to the data set! (Numbers accurate as of February 27th, 2023) The Big Boys (100,000+ Steam Reviews) Stardew Valley (9.5) (460,498) + (76,316) = (536,814) Hades (9.7) (202,842) + (43,213) = (246,055) Sid Meier's Civilization VI (8.5) (184,011) + (28,291) = (212,302) Undertale (8.7) (169,405) + (77,229) = (246,634) Risk of Rain (8.8) (153,663) + (22,438) = (176,101) Slay the Spire (9.1) (108,766) + (37,844) = (146,610) Dead Cells (9.5) (107,998) + (53,031) = (161,029) The Truly High Class (50,000 - 100,000 Steam Reviews) FIFA 22 (8.4) (95,920) + (194,325) = (290,245) The Sims 4 (8.0) (88,958) + (277,701) = (366,659) Inscryption (9.2) (79,995) + (5,212) = (85,207) Horizon Zero Dawn (8.2) (69,137) + (895,092) = (964,229) Detroit: Become Human (8.0) (65,903) + (485,489) = (551,392) Enter the Gungeon (9.1) (63,532) + (114,722) = (178,254) Batman: Arkham Knight (8.5) (62,118) + (682,880) = (744,998) A Successful Hit (25,000 - 50,000 Steam Reviews) Batman: Arkham City (8.2) (35,879) + (738,489) = (774,368) Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun (8.8) (26,706) + (11,587) = (38,293) Spiritfarer (9.3) (25,850) + (10,901) = (36,751) Transistor (8.7) (25,594) + (205,035) = (230,629) Enough To Make Mom Proud (10,000 - 25,000 Steam Reviews) Persona 5 (9.5) (23,659) + (403,685) = (427,344) SUPERHOT (8.2) (21,910) + (59,796) = (81,706) Return of the Obra Dinn (8.3) (17,853) + (5,234) = (23,087) Wizard of Legend (8.3) (14,310) + (8,560) = (22,870) The Banner Saga (8.6) (12,249) + (18,600) = (30,849) Children of Morta (8.0) (12,249) + (9,656) = (21,905) Final Fantasy VII Remake (9.6) (11,647) + (382,590) = (394,237) We've Officially Hit Niche Status (Under 10,000 Steam Reviews) Furi (9.1) (8,219) + (162,350) = (170,569) Oxenfree (8.0) (8,137) + (21,912) = (30,049) Desperados III (8.4) (7,607) + (8,204) = (15,811) Pyre (9.3) (7,283) + (14,277) = (21,560) The Messenger (8.5) (6,655) + (13,235) The Forgotten City (8.8) (6,560) + (3,019) = (9,579) Sayonara Wild Hearts (9.0) (6,446) + (5,726) = (12,172) Dragon Quest Xi: Echoes of an Elusive Age (9.6) (5,708) + (125,119) = (130,827) Okami HD (8.3) (5,469) + (134,825) = (140,294) Dragon Quest Builders 2 (8.5) (4,909) + (26,882) = (31,791) Axiom Verge (8.0) (4,565) + (34,625) = (39,190) Unravel Two (8.0) (3,166) + (57,632) = (60,798) The Banner Saga 2 (9.1) (2,696) + (3,945) = (6,641) Unravel (9.0) (2,619) + (116,575) = (119,194) Ash of Gods: Redemption (9.0) (2,615) + (2,116) = (4,731) Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch (8.5) (2,526) + (241,415) = (243,941) Guacamelee! 2 (8.3) (2,139) + (18,858) = (20,997) The Banner Saga 3 (8.7) (2,018) + (1,774) = (3,792) Jotun (8.1) (1,960) + (8,711) = (10,671) Going Under (9.4) (1,936) + (2,302) = (4,238) Absolute Drift (8.0) (1,904) + (9,268) = (11,172) Rollerdrome (8.6) (979) + (5,585) = (6,564) Games Not Included: 8 (Horizon Forbidden West, Gravity Rush Remastered, FIFA 17, Rocket League, MLB The Show 20, FIFA 19, MLB The Show 18, FIFA 18) My Thoughts: At the very top of the list is many titles you'd expect. Stardew Valley has been co-opted by the Cozy Gamer Girls Defense Force and alongside Animal Crossing and The Sims, you'd struggle to find a much more well-renowned series. I'm a bit stunned to see Hades THAT high up the list but the fact that Supergiant Games is making a sequel makes all the more sense once you realize the true popularity of their first truly MAINSTREAM hit. Civ 6 is a famous grand strategy game for PC. Undertale is a cultural phenomenon. Risk of Rain is hands down the most shocking game of the big bunch as Slay the Spire/Dead Cells are two of the most popular indie hits of the last decade. Moving into the 2nd tier, I'm just a bit stunned to see Inscryption that high. It's one of the newest titles on this entire list and I think it's going to be damn near impossible for Daniel Mullins to live up to the hype of his next release. HZD makes sense for a Sony title making it on PC. In the 3rd tier, I'm just a bit stunned to see both Spiritfarer and Shadow Tactics rise to those levels. In the 4th tier, Persona 5 Royal has continued to garner massive attention and probably will continue to do so. I checked all these numbers in February and just checking them now in August, it'd qualify for the 25-50k tier. Wizard of Legend was more popular than I expected. Why the hell haven't more PC players enjoyed FF7 Remake? Finally, hitting the niche hit status... it unsurprisingly has the most indie titles on the list. I'm a bit perplexed how a real-time tactics series like Shadow Tactics so overwhelmingly performed a known IP in Desperados? Do people, such as myself, enjoy feudal Japan over Wild West America that much? Pyre deserves more love. (If you're a daily enjoyer of this thread, add Realm asking you to play Pyre to your tally counter for the 28th time). The Forgotten City deserve just about as much love as Return of the Obra Dinn. I guess it kinda makes sense the retro JRPG fans who'd love DQ11 are almost exclusively console players as opposed to PC enjoyers which explains the shockingly low amount of reviews in comparison to Persona. Rollerdrome, even all these months later, still has a shockingly small amount of reviews (1,098) which is still totally bizzare to me... In Conclusion - I got all these numbers months ago, was gonna make a post, never did, and just decided to cobble this together now since I had forgotten about it. It's kinda interesting in retrospect. When I scroll through the Top Reviewed Games on Steam list, a handful of games I've enjoyed pop up along with plenty others I have zero interest in. CS:GO, PubG, Dota 2, Rainbow Six Siege, Rust, L4D2, & Ark just to name a few. Holy crap Baldur's Gate 3 is already up there... that's INSANE. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post realm722 Posted September 1, 2023 Author Popular Post Share Posted September 1, 2023 Game: FAR: Lone Sails (Mosey Adventure / Resource Management) Analysis: I bought this game while it was on sale for $2.99 in mid-July 2023, and it is surprisingly one of my favorite 100% completion games of the year! Why FLS? I'll be quite honest and say that I had never heard of this game nor ever given it much consideration as a potential purchase despite the fact it originally released back in 2019. The first time the game ever popped up on my radar was when @Cassylvania gave it a shoutout in their thread as a solid little title and latter that same week, @Briste gave en even lengthier review endorsing it. Before I read a full review or post of a game I've never heard of, I'll typically skim through it to say if they'd recommend it for most people and given that was the general vibe I took away, I closed up the threads and wishlisted it. About a month later it popped up on sale and another month play I'm happy to finally give a review. I can say, to this game's credit, I've never played a game quite like this one. Learning What the Hell to Do - Playing brand new games completely blind can be a bit intimidating. But as you're required to do a minimum of 3 playthroughs anyway(which I'll explain later), it's really not that bad. The game takes place on a purely side-scrolling basis so that'll help lessen the intimidation. You start off walking to the right as the emo, shorter brother of the main character from Journey, and soon enough will stumble across this steampunk-barely-held-together amalgamation of a vehicle that you'll soon discover you must control and manage in order to survive! There are no pop-up tutorials. There are no prompts explaining what certain things do. You're expected to mess with the various obvious, incredibly pushable bright orange buttons and figure out how to get this thing moving and most importantly, KEEP it moving. Once you've built up some momentum, it's only a matter of time before some obstacle blocks your path and you must venture outside of your mobile home(get it?) and do whatever is necessary to keep moving forward. There is no story, no combat, no dialogue, and to be quite honest, I think the game is better for it. Lemme explain why. Some Wonderful Roleplay - While roleplay has become a catch-all term to describe a lot of games, I think FAR: Lone Sails brilliantly captivates the essence of running a machine and trying to keep things in tip-top condition. In this game, you're always juggling SOMETHING. I'll describe the following realistic scenario you'll experience many times while playing. Alrightie you've gotta push in the orange button so the engine is engaged and you're moving forward, locked it in, awesome! Oh damn go ahead and get some fuel from the bottom level and bring it up to the fuel reserve, take the elevator on up, have it prepped to go, fire it in the hole! Oh damn now you gotta go ahead back to the engine and lock it in again, THE STEAM METER IS RED PUSH THAT BUTTON FOR A BOOST LESSGO, oh snap now the flag is pointing out to the right that means we have the wind behind us, let's get the sails up! Oh damn, we're going REALLY FAST now and we've got some gas reserves ahead! Quick! Fire up the item gatherer! Reengage the engine! Prep the next fuel! OH NO WE'RE GONNA CRASH SLAM ON THE BREAK- BAAAAAAAANG WE JUST RAMMED INTO A BUNCH OF METAL NOW THERE ARE 3 FIRES! SOMEBODY GET THE HOSE! PUT THOSE FIRES OUT! OH GOD! EVERYTHING'S BROKEN! WHERE'S THE REPAIR MODULE? Rinse and repeat. It's honestly quite cathartic. You are this little man running this gigantic machine and trying to keep things running efficiently. Balancing your fuel reserves so you try to keep moving forward at such a constant rate without ever running out. Venturing outside of your vehicle on occasion to resolve some obstacles and continue onwards. The journey is relatively short, all things considered, and yet each time I played it I appreciated how much the various setpieces added to the overall experience. The Setpieces & Puzzles - (SPOILERS THIS PARAGRAPH) With how short a complete playthrough of the game is on the whole, I'm still surprised by how many memorable moments they managed to include in a relatively quaint journey. When you're first setting off and just trying to figure out how to operate the damn thing can be intimidating. Slowly, you add more and more gadgets. Yet when you reach some of the more brutal sections (a thunderstorm with a lightning strike that damages your sails), you appreciate so much more the tranquility and calm moments in-between. I love that rush you get post-windmill where you realize that tornado in the distance is COMING TOWARDS YOU and you've gotta GO GO GO, GET THIS BABY MOVING, you start gliding at an incredible rate if you're running everything perfectly and the music swells is one of my favorite moments in the game. There's the hailstorm where any refugee from the elements feels like a safe haven. I love the "pimp my ride" upgrade where you get some new wheels. The sequence where you have to venture QUITE far out to the right without your baby in order to get in the little shaft was a bit intimidating as I was quite attached to my vehicle and feared abandoning it, for even a bit. The game knows how to finish things off with a tremendous crescendo and the final 10-12 minute sequence between discovering the absolutely mammoth land cruiser, getting it working, completing the final puzzles, and escaping the volcano explosion at the end is just... I felt more with this game than plenty of other small indies with boatloads of dialogue and interactable characters and story elements. What more can you say? My Trophy Experience - As this is a 100% game instead of a platinum, the path is fairly simple. You'll honestly be quite alright with the following aids. This trophy guide explains the road map and this video is the speedrun guide. I know some people are immediately turned off my games with speedrun trophies but buddy... just hear me out. The 1st playthrough can be 100% blind, don't stress it, maybe if you want the missables you can look for them but you have to do these playthroughs no matter what because of the final trophy. On the 2nd playthrough, I say go for the speedrun. You know the ropes, should know when to stop to maximize your return's for gaining the most fuel, and despite a 1 hour & 39 minute speedrun seeming kinda tight, it's very doable now that you know all the solutions to the puzzles. You'll need to do a 3rd playthrough anyway to get any of the remaining miscellaneous (I love FIRE IN THE HOLE) and visiting a few unique sights, none of them are tricky or pose any difficulty. The trophy that prevents this from being a 4-hour, 2 playthrough game is the final one. "Over 9001". I needed to do 3 3/4 playthroughs to earn this. You can only increase by going forward with your vehicle. There is no loophole. I did 3 playthroughs bunched together at the end of August and did a 4th today to wrap things up. Does the game wear itself a little thin by the end? Maybe, but I didn't hate it. I think the overall experience was well worth it, and I ultimately earned the 13.45% 100% completion in 1 week and 4 days. Room for Improvement - Having enjoyed the game as much as I did, I couldn't help but ask myself: "how could they... expand upon this?" as a game genre, I mean. I really loved the feeling of juggling all these different aspects of the fuel. The engine, the sails, the fuel deposits, the item gatherer, watching your momentum, etc... but... once you get them down pat, it feels like the game could include a few more elements to REALLY keep you on your toes. I don't think combat against enemies trying to board your vehicle and do you or your ship harm would be good but it was something that kept popping in my head on subsequent playthroughs. Could an entire genre be made behind this gameplay loop? It sounds a bit crazy but Vampire Survivors kind of spawned its own after its mainstream success... ya never know. Would I recommend FAR: Lone Sails? Absolutely, 100%. This is one of my easiest and strongest recommendations of the year. I don't have to give any qualifiers about gameplay preferences or anything since the game is so unique I think a broad scope of players will enjoy it. Hell, the worst case scenario or accusation you could make against the game is you found it "boring" if you don't really engage with many of the vehicle's mechanics and I dunno... stupidly waste all your fuel and now you gotta drag the entire damn thing with a cable until you reach the next reserve. I'm now going to do some research on the Swiss' developers sequel, FAR: Changing Tides. Did it build off the wonderful foundation laid by the original or go in a different direction? That's all from me. I've got some other quick game reviews in the cooker but we'll space them out so as to not send out too many cakes all at once. Do you smell that in the air? It's September, football season baby! Panda Score: 7.33 / 10 Panda Difficulty: 2.74 / 10 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Briste Posted September 2, 2023 Share Posted September 2, 2023 7 hours ago, realm722 said: I'm now going to do some research on the Swiss' developers sequel, FAR: Changing Tides. Did it build off the wonderful foundation laid by the original or go in a different direction? Having played that game immediately after the first, I can say that they did build off the wonderful foundation. You will experience more of the same with new wrinkles. If you liked the first one, you'll like the second one as well. I think it was very, very clever what they did with this game. I'll be curious to hear your thoughts if/when you get to it 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Platinum_Vice Posted September 3, 2023 Share Posted September 3, 2023 Planet Coaster, Far: Lone Sails, Pyre, The Banner Saga, The Forgotten City... I know, I know! Gotta play em. I'm getting to them! 😄 Signs of the Sojourner, however... that one I'd not heard of. You've got me on the hook for it! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cassylvania Posted September 3, 2023 Share Posted September 3, 2023 On 9/1/2023 at 4:37 PM, realm722 said: Would I recommend FAR: Lone Sails? Absolutely, 100%. This is one of my easiest and strongest recommendations of the year. I don't have to give any qualifiers about gameplay preferences or anything since the game is so unique I think a broad scope of players will enjoy it. Hell, the worst case scenario or accusation you could make against the game is you found it "boring" if you don't really engage with many of the vehicle's mechanics and I dunno... stupidly waste all your fuel and now you gotta drag the entire damn thing with a cable until you reach the next reserve. I'm now going to do some research on the Swiss' developers sequel, FAR: Changing Tides. Did it build off the wonderful foundation laid by the original or go in a different direction? That's all from me. I've got some other quick game reviews in the cooker but we'll space them out so as to not send out too many cakes all at once. Do you smell that in the air? It's September, football season baby! I feel bad not reviewing this game, but your review echoes anything I could've said. I'll give @Briste the credit on this one -- I only heard about it because he played it first. Of course, he only played it because of the "Over 9000!" trophy, which he wouldn't have known about if not for me playing DBZ: Kakarot, so nevermind, I'll take back credit. (I deserve it after slogging through that.) I think Briste has played the sequel or at least bought it. It's on my wish list. But glad you liked it. It's such a neat and unique little game. I don't know if I mentioned it in my brief...well, mention of the game, but you're right, it's those moments where the music kicks in and you really get sucked into the atmosphere of the game that make it memorable. It's one of those games where I'd feel you'd be doing yourself a disservice by not giving the game your undivided attention. Fortunately, you'll probably be too busy multi-tasking in the game to do that anyway. Let's get football season started. That slog from mid-February until now is such a drag. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post realm722 Posted September 3, 2023 Author Popular Post Share Posted September 3, 2023 Game: Lone Survivor (Survival / Horror / Resource Management) Analysis: I bought Lone Survivor when it was on sale for the disgustingly cheap price of $0.99 in late July 2023. Cue the RoboCop! Why Lone Survivor? Despite the fact that this game will have been released for a literal DECADE later this month (10 Year Anniversary as it was originally released on the 24th of September, 2013) I had never heard of Lone Survivor in my life. if I had to venture a guess as to why, it's PROBABLY because I avoid horror games at all costs. Meat Loaf famously said he'd do anything for love, but not that. I'll do anything to play good video games, except play horror games. But we can all be persuaded outside of our comfort zone if given the incentive. My motivation stemmed from trying to find quick-to-complete ultra-rare platinums. It's how I discovered and decided to platinum Titan Souls last month. A game mentioned by @TehUberCheezCatz and the Doc himself was that of Lone Survivor. I was initially resistant. In large part due to the horror element. Yet after seeing it on sale for a dollar, and the trophy guide promising it'd only take 12 hours even with multiple playthroughs, I said screw it, let's give this baby a whirl! My Blind Playthrough Experience - Well, to be perfectly honest, calling it a "blind" run isn't totally truthful. I paid close attention to the outline set out by the guide for the 1st playthrough on not using any rotten meat / flares or mirrors as each has their own distinct trophy. This removed any peaceful methods of distracting monsters and meant I'd be a shoot first, ask questions later sorta co- survivor. I also couldn't use the helpful mirror fast travel system to quickly get back to safety in my apartment. All in all, it wasn't too bad. The game allows you to receive infinite ammo/batteries by simply swallowing a blue/green pill which can be gained infinitely through the bathroom sink in your safe haven apartment. This prevents you from ever truly getting "soft-locked" out of a certain area and zone without a method to clear out enemies. Of course, the player character makes it VERY obvious that these pills... probably aren't good for you. So you shouldn't abuse them. The Sacklers HATE this game! Nonetheless, with this comforting feature in mind, I progressed through a fair amount of the game on my own. The 2nd floor (where you start out) is extremely basic. The horror isn't too bad. I mean.. it's 2D man. Maybe the game can be freaky, but it can't exactly offer the same outright jump-scare horror I'd expect to suffer in a 3D game. It's honestly a bit funny how fast you can progress through the game once you know what you're doing. Get to Chie's apartment, circle back around, unlock passage to Floor #1 by using scissors on the weird blockage, navigate Floor #1 and wind up gaining access to the basement, cry because it's the hardest section of the entire game, get through it, persist, find all the necessary items to get the elevator working, escape the evil gigantic monster, end up outside, gather the materials to get the bus working, face the final boss, go to the hospital, and you're done! Here are my 1st playthrough stats. (27 days, 391 shots fired, took 16 blue pills, 6 green pills, got the Blue ending with X mental health). Trying To Do A White Ending Speedrun - Let me explain. There are 5 different endings to obtain in Lone Survivor. Blue/Red are the two worst. it makes sense for you to get them on your 1st run. I got Blue, then tanked my remaining health to get Red (which btw, when you go to the hospital, it'll still say take the BLUE pill, you gotta actually see in the cutscene if you got Red or not, I prob wasted an extra 20min torturing my survivor beyond what was necessary). Anyways, there's Green (which is the best ending you can get on 1st attempt, maintain your guy's mental health pretty well and it's achievable) and White (best ending, supreme health, very pristine run, only obtainable after seeing one of the other 3). I saw a lengthy 2-hour+ walkthrough but thought to myself: "nah, there's gotta be some way for me to do it FASTER." Then I found THIS YouTube channel. Perfect! This man got the White ending in 44 minutes, that's nothing! Uhh... guess what guys. You probably SHOULDN'T try to replicate a speedrunner's efforts, even for an ending. I got a bunch of miscellaneous trophies following him regardless, but I was unable to perfectly follow his movements during certain sections due to... I dunno, lacking the ability/skill for as goofy as that sounds in a 2D side-scrolling survival horror game. He juked out some zombies that I couldn't. When I tried to get the White Ending at the end, i didn't have the flares necessary, didn't realize you could hide in the wall (which I discovered LATER), and uhh... yea... ended up settling for the Green Ending. Not the worst run, I needed to do another one REGARDLESS to get the "Pacifist" trophy so it was time for playthrough #3. Appreciating the Game On 3rd & Final Run - Do you know that 2-hour video I dismissed earlier? It's this one. Guess what perfectly led me to the platinum and scooped up all the other miscellaneous trophies along the way? Yea, that one. I should know better. It has damn near 50k views for such a niche title! It is such a simple and easy-to-follow guide that avoids virtually all peril and reveals so many hiding spots that I just... didn't even realize existed in my first blind playthrough since I was just killing every enemy in sight. The zombies don't respawn after they've been killed, so it felt like a just-worthy enough reason to marauder my way through and make any return visits much easier. The reality is, you don't return to areas often whatsoever in Lone Survivor. The game functions more on a level basis than an open world. Once you clear floor 2, circle back around, and can unlock the door right next to your apartment, you pretty much never need to roll through floor 2 again. Once you get through floor 1, there's really NO REASON to go back there as you can get down to the basement from nearby. Once you unlock the outdoors, you NEVER need to visit either the basement, floor 1, or floor 2 as you just use the fire escape in your apartment to jump straight to the relevant content left. I took too long to appreciate this fact. Can I talk about The Director for a second? I TOTALLY ignored this dude on my 1st playthrough. Literally NEVER MET HIM ONCE. So when my player is crutching him in his arms towards the end I'm like: "who the hell is that?" That's a great character, man. He's so helpful! He practically gifts you an entire kitchen like he's got a Bed Bath & Beyond up his ass! Lemme say, the writing in this game is pretty damn good. The little notes/diaries you find are compelling. I love how the character talks to himself. Seeing him gush and be so bloody happy whenever you make him a halfway decent meal is quite engaging for such short prompts. I'm impressed by the robustness of so many systems too. You can use your gun, no doubt. You can aim for headshots, body shots, or shoot a bro in a leg and scooch past them before they can react. OR you can use flares and make them wave their hands in the air like they just don't care. OR you can sneak past many of them by noticing shadowed backgrounds and stay out of brain-eating range. Your guy will complain when he's hungry or tired and while you won't die for not tending to his needs, it will affect your final ending due to your mental health. Being kind and gracious to all is encouraged. While it took me a little bit to warm up to it, I'm glad I eventually did. Would I recommend Lone Survivor? Depends. If you try to get all the trophies in the game blindly, you're going to have a VERY bad time. Just to give an example, you have to be careful where a certain point is to not lose a certain character and get locked out of a lot of options. You have to give a very specific nonessential item to every person you meet to unlock an ending. It's purposefully obtuse and probably infuriating if you try to play it honestly and think: "how the hell do I get X item? I haven't found that in the entire game and I've scanned every room and level" and it's because you didn't do X thing in the first 30 minutes of your playthrough. That being said, if you don't mind using a guide, I think you can appreciate a lot of the game's other aspects while having your handheld. I would also be remiss if I didn't give a shoutout to the game's main creator, Jasper Byrne. This dude's career resume is... fascinating. He did the music on Hotline Miami 1 & 2. He's connected with Terry Cavanagh, the dude who made Dicey Dungeons. He decided to make a proper crack at handling the art, sound, design, & coding of his own game in Lone Survivor (which I think is a solid little title, it has nearly 100k owners on here) and ended up leaving game & music creation all-together late last year after his squeal game, Super Lone Survivor, got a meh reception. Damn man... I'd like to have a conversation with that dude. Regardless, I earned the 4.57% rarity platinum in 3 days and 23 hours. 2 completions in the first 2 days of September. Can we go for a 3rd? Panda Score: 7.24 / 10 Panda Difficulty: 5.73 / 10 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post realm722 Posted September 4, 2023 Author Popular Post Share Posted September 4, 2023 Game: Axiom Verge 2 (Metroidvania, Action (Complex)) Analysis: I did not buy Axiom Verge 2. Rather, I got it for free along with many other PS+ Users during the month of January 2023. Why Axiom Verge 2? Over 2 1/2 years ago, I played the original Axiom Verge and thoroughly enjoyed it. While I'd be lying if I said I picked up anything regarding the story aside from what I wrote in gigantic purple font, I loved the atmosphere, music, and most especially the moment-to-moment gameplay making it one of my favorite titles back in 2021. When I heard the sequel by Thomas Happ was coming to consoles I made sure to put it on my radar. The fact it came to PS+ and I was able to obtain it for free was an added bonus. I'll admit that I was slightly skeptical about playing it since I heard fans of the original didn't love the deviation the game made away from a few of the core elements that made the original so much fun (namely the humongous variety of guns). No better way to put those claims to the test than to try it for myself! Oh No, Accessibility Strikes Again! - Forgive the inflammatory introduction to this paragraph. Accessibility is cool. Anything that helps more people play and enjoy games is wonderful. Unfortunately, I can't help but feel Axiom Verge 2 teeters on over into the: "oh... so there's just NO challenge I guess" by allowing the player to completely disable all damage done by enemies. This is the first detail mentioned in @ZOLANTON's well-crafted trophy guide under the heading "GOD MODE". The retort is quite simple. "Yanno, you could choose not to mess with it and play the game normally first." I could do that.... OR I could take the easy route! I'm sorry y'all. Rather than spend the next few hundred words rambling on about how it's good if games include these modes but I'd rather wish they'd at the very least disable trophies to force me to engage with the mechanics would be a bit tiresome. I've talked a little bit about it in my Ikenfell review. I'm going to link a very well-done video by NeverKnowsBest who explains in a sincere and level-headed fashion why there actually is some reasonable pushback to the idea that there are no downsides whatsoever to these modes. It's not gamer gatekeeping. I'll confess here I took the easy way out enabling all these options. Appreciating the Game Regardless - I think my biggest takeaway from Axiom Verge 2 is quite a similar sentiment to the one I felt after completing the original Axiom Verge. Just... props to Thomas Happ man. I'll admit. My enjoyment from video games does NOT come from exploration and discovery. It's nice. I CAN enjoy those elements. But I prefer being familiar with a system and grinding an addictive, delicious gameplay loop above all else. (Hence why rogue-lik(t)es are my jam!) That being said, I undeniably can't help but be impressed by the amount this game aims to offer. All of the various movement upgrades, most particularly with the drone where you can reach a certain point of playing exclusively as the little guy as opposed to the human version of yourself. That little grapple hook to snag onto out-of-reach edges is incredibly addicting. The L2 flying function you gain in the late game makes cleaning up some of the remaining map titles remarkably easier. There's so much here that I cannot fathom attempting on my own. Bouncing back and forth between the "real world" and the "Beam world" and trying to find where to manipulate the portal, using all the gadgets and abilities at your disposal, HACKING enemies allowing for very specific commands. There's so much going on here. I'd be wildly intimidated playing the game WITHOUT an aid since that's not really my jam, but for those who love getting lost in a world and figuring out all its idiosyncrasies and tricks, I imagine you can have an absolute ball of a time. @Optinooby Is The GOAT Guide Creator - Let's say you're a cynical bastard who doesn't care whatsoever about engaging with the game on a deeper level and wants to fly through the experience as quickly as possible to scoop up an ultra-rare platinum. Boy do I have a guide for you! Your eyes do not deceive you. You can snag a sub <5% platinum in less than 2 1/2 hours by following the meticulously curated path created by the Wayne Gretzky of Trophy Guides himself. He even offers some lovely commentary while following the guide and even offering vocal cues for each scooped-up collectible making the process easier than ever before. I imagine being able to turn damage OFF made creating such a straightforward platinum guide like this easier than many other games but still to find the pathing and best method of expediating the experience is something not enough trophy guide enjoyers appreciate from the trophy guide curators. He even takes care of the 1000 bubbles burst / 1000 weeds whacked / 500 boxes destroyed segment at the end in a matter of minutes. All i all, I completed the 4.02% rarity platinum in 1 week and 3 days. Would I recommend Axiom Verge 2? Probably not. On second thought, I wouldn't hold my opinion to this game with any amount of serious weight. I just... I didn't play it the way anybody trying to honestly engage with the game would play it. Part of that is my fault. But I highly speculate that a lot of trophy hunters are going to take the same route I took unless they are incredibly disciplined. I'm a little bit bummed out at the removal of guns and while I admire the diversity that Happ went for with regard to the different options for platforming and movement, I think the majority opinion is that the game did not live up to many of the wonderful highs enjoyed in the 1st game. I'm inclined to agree. Building a sequel off a beloved original property is really freaking hard. I can't imagine the weight Team Cherry must feel when Silksong eventually releases. I have no doubt it'll be good, but will it live up to the hype of years of adoring fans veneration? That's tough to say. I've managed to pick up 4 ultra-rare platinums in the last 2 months, now totaling 7 on the year. Hmm... why do I still care about that in 2023? Sounds like a fun thought exercise for a future article. Panda Score: 6.22 / 10 Panda Difficulty: 1.5 / 10 (with damage reduced to 0) 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post realm722 Posted September 5, 2023 Author Popular Post Share Posted September 5, 2023 Why Do I Still Go Out Of My Way For UR Platinums In 2023? So toward the end of July 2023, I started looking back at all the games I had completed in the year thus far. One detail stood out to me. I had only completed... 3 ultra-rares through 7 months. Sure, one of them officially clogs my entire rarest trophies cabinet now with a 0.43% rarity platinum (Invisible, Inc.) but 3 felt small compared to prior years' efforts. Sure enough, I was woefully short of my desired target. In the following months, I made an effort to rectify this deviation by focusing on 4 ultra rares. Having accomplished them, all I have left to do is earn a single UR in the 3 months that remain (October, November, December) in order to achieve my desired goal of 10. # of UR Platinums Earned By Year 2016: 4 (Madden NFL 16, Tropico 5, Knack, Madden NFL 17) 2017: 3 (FIFA 17, MLB The Show 17, Madden NFL 18) 2018: 4 (FIFA 18, Chess Ultra, Madden NFL 19, FIFA 19) 2019: 4 (Dead Cells, Knowledge is Power, Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life, FIFA 20) 2020: 6 (Madden NFL 20, LittleBigPlanet 3, Slay the Spire, Unravel Two, Stardew Valley, The Banner Saga) 2021: 10 (Harvest Moon: Save the Homeland, Furi, Madden NFL 21, Enter the Gungeon, Jotun, Superhot, Moonlighter, Ash of Gods, The Last Guardian, Rez Infinite) 2022: 10 (Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime, Rogue Legacy, FIFA 22, Madden NFL 22, Sid Meier's Civilization VI, Neon Abyss, Super Time Ultra Force, Team Sonic Racing, GoNNER, Party Golf) 2023(so far): 7 (John Wick Hex, Dandara, Invisible Inc., Planet Coaster, Titan Souls, Lone Survivor, Axiom Verge 2) Total: 48 ultra-rare platinums Of course... whenever you're driven for a goal, sometimes it's important to stop and ask yourself: "why am I doing this?". The ultra-rare platinum is especially finicky when it comes to making it something to "focus" on. There are a number of reasons for this. 1) What's honestly the difference between a 6% plat and 4% platinum? I can tell you right now that some plats not listed here (Frost, Shadow Tactics) were harder than many of the games listed. 2) Rarity can be inflated due to PS+ offerings. A huge amount of the titles listed here are either only UR because they were available for free during a month for PS+ subscribers or their difficulty has been GREATLY exaggerated because of this factor. 3) Many UR games have less to do with difficulty and skill and more to do with exhaustive amounts of time and repeated efforts/repetition. Just looking at my catalog, games like The Banner Saga & Ash of Gods require many playthroughs. Most players don't even complete a full playthrough of a single game. Asking them to do so MULTIPLE times for the same game will dramatically increase the rarity even if the challenge remains in line with many 15-20% rarity platinums. With all this being said, why do I continue to care about an arbitrary measurement? I've compiled a few reasons as to why. #1. I Need To Prove To Myself I Still Have It - There's a famous saying from one of boxing's finest, Marvelous Marvin Hagler that goes: "It's tough to get out of bed to do roadwork at 5am when you're sleeping in silk pajamas." It's a great quote that embodies a very present reality for many fighters who've made it. Once you receive the glory, wealth, fame, and adoration... the hunger to still be the best fades. You don't put in as much effort as you used to. It befalls almost all of them at some point. It may seem like a silly quote to attribute to trophy hunting but the reality is sometimes I do end up feeling like I'm playing a bunch of persnickety, unique, artsy indie titles and hit a point where I ask myself: "Yo you haven't really been challenged by a game in a minute." When that happens, I want to prove I'm not a fat cat who can't beat a "difficult" game anymore. I'll confess that a lot of URs in that bunch in reality aren't all that challenging. They can be obtuse, time-consuming, somewhat complicated, and very precise, but the effort to reach them via guides or cloud saves or any other means pushes me to still have to put my best foot forward. I like that I still have it in me to push myself outside of my comfort zone. #2. Some of My Favorite Games Are URs - Making an active effort to play games that are challenging has also benefitted me in the form of discovering games I never would've dreamt of bothering with. There are a solid handful of 9.0-tier games in that list. I've always made sure that no matter how difficult the platinum, if a game looks like something I'd thoroughly enjoy, I have to play it. I know myself well enough by this point that if I think I'm PROBABLY going to enjoy it, I'm almost absolutely going to enjoy spending the time learning its intricacies in order to snag every trophy. Some titles that come to mind here are of course the FIFA games, Civ 6, & Slay the Spire. #3. The Undeniable Sense of Accomplishment - There are some games that I completed years ago that I look back and still kinda of can't believe I managed to conquer. BEFORE the game was patched to make it easy, Stardew Valley was far and away my proudest plat. I spent several evenings just grinding away learning to get good at Journey of the Praire King. Unravel Two was one hell of a test of both skill and endurance of not only having puzzle solutions memorized but also having the patience to endure cutscenes in between full 5-8+ minute runs. Furi & Jotun are some of the best given they're both tough-as-nails boss rush games. The Last Guardian was my white whale for several years. Team Sonic Racing was surprisingly enjoyable. From this year, despite the rarest far and away going to Invisible Inc., I still find myself thinking about grinding away at John Wick Hex and having a damn fine time while doing so. You only really get that sense of pride from toppling a difficult obstacle in games that test you to your limits. These 3 core reasons have kept me coming back for more, even during times when I won't really want to play anything that'll give me too much of a hassle. Yet I'll be truthful with you all for a minute. I'm a little bit worried I'm running out of UR games within my scope of appeal. I'll explain why. The results on this thread for short UR plats has had diminishing returns. Many of the games listed are either sports titles (I'm used to them), PS3 games (not an option), or just games I want nothing to do with. I then resolved to literally sort by all games, UR platinums, and go through the many pages of results. It's hard to find decent games doing this. Currently in my backlog, I have 0 URs on the docket. I have a few games I'm considered for the 3 months remaining. Thumper (rhythmic violence, 3.04% UR), Curious Expedition 2 (turn-based narrative roguelike, 3.05% UR), Downwell (scrolling shooter platformer, 2.18% UR), & Realpolitiks: New Power (grand strategy, 4.36% UR). I know those are some weird choices, some of which y'all have probably never heard of. I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel here. I'M OPEN TO SUGGESTIONS. All I ask is... please, <50 hours. We like to keep up the variety around here. I know there are many URs that are doable but take several tens of hours and I simply have a few games in my backlog that I think I'll enjoy more for that amount of investment. I'm looking forward to y'alls recommendations(if any :')) 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Platinum_Vice Posted September 5, 2023 Share Posted September 5, 2023 8 hours ago, realm722 said: I'M OPEN TO SUGGESTIONS. All I ask is... please, <50 hours. Such a short time frame rules out the Red Dead Redemption games, I guess. You convinced me to play Planet Coaster mostly because I enjoyed Surviving Mars and Jurassic World Evolution II so much, so I'd suggest them as reverse recommendations, but again, they're more than 50hrs each. Otherwise, I wax lyrical about Hyper Light Drifter just as often as you bring up The Banner Saga. It's UR for a few reasons (trophies could be better) but it's a >9/10 every day of the week. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
realm722 Posted September 6, 2023 Author Share Posted September 6, 2023 On 9/5/2023 at 8:35 AM, Platinum_Vice said: Such a short time frame rules out the Red Dead Redemption games, I guess. I have a tremendous admiration for both those games. NerdCubed's Permadeath Run in RDR was one of my favorite YT series ages ago. But yea... the time commitment is crazy and I got a few other big boys I wanna take care of first. 😂 On 9/5/2023 at 8:35 AM, Platinum_Vice said: You convinced me to play Planet Coaster mostly because I enjoyed Surviving Mars and Jurassic World Evolution II so much, so I'd suggest them as reverse recommendations, but again, they're more than 50hrs each. Otherwise, I wax lyrical about Hyper Light Drifter just as often as you bring up The Banner Saga. It's UR for a few reasons (trophies could be better) but it's a >9/10 every day of the week. It's funny, I've looked at both of those games. I actually have the 2nd as Jurassic World 2 was available for PS+ subscribers. Surviving Mars was made by the same folks who made Tropico 5 which I thoroughly enjoyed years back. I still have Tropico 6 in my backlog as my "next time I wanna play a city builder" but glad to hear you enjoyed them both, we'll come the door open for the future. Hyper Light Drifter man... I wrote about it back in 2020. I've completed 2/5 of the games on that list since then. I'll reconsider it! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
realm722 Posted September 15, 2023 Author Share Posted September 15, 2023 RealM722 Reviews PlayStation's State of Play (Sep. 14, 2023) Howdy, everybody! I've been away for the last few weeks as I'm currently thoroughly enjoying the game I'm playing + football season has started and believe it or not y'all, I really think this is our year. Not to win the Super Bowl or anything. But to witness the Dolphins' first playoff win in over 20 years. I believe in Tua Tagovailoa more than I believe in myself. He's that special. Still, while football fervor has me slurping up every Dolphins-related podcast in the stratosphere, I saw that Sony dropped this nifty State of Play that was allegedly supposed to be "indie-centric" which kind of piqued my interest. State of Play's have been helpful in the past as they've helped me discover games like Rollerdrome. A few months back I also reviewed 2023 Summer Games Fest which has essentially replaced E3 and had some games jump onto my radar that I had previously never heard about. Let's see what this presentation has in store! Green - Super Interested, 100% Want To Play Blue - Intrigued, May Went To Play on Sale Purple - Wait and See, Want to Know More Red - Not Interested At All, 0% Basically State of Play (LINK) (0:09) Baby Steps (RED) - Good to see Bennett Foddy making more games. Great trailer in terms of humor. Think it'll be entertaining to watch, not to play. (3:50) Ghostbusters: Rise of the Ghost Lord VR (RED) - Yea... the brand ain't for me and it's VR so nah (5:15) Resident Evil 4 VR & Separate Ways (RED) - Never even played a RE game, let alone a horror game in VR. Never will I ever. (7:20) Avatar Frontiers of Pandora (PURPLE) - I like the colors... but I dunno. Remember when Guardians of the Galaxy game came out and everybody was surprised by how solid it was and yet I feel like I haven't seen a single mention of the game since it's release which is surprising for a major IP? Curious if this game can hit that tier of quality. The 1st person perspective makes me a bit... suspicious and I can already see "Blue Poor Man's Version of Horizon Zero Dawn" which... yea, I get it (9:45) Ghostruner II (RED) - I've gotta play the first game before I try out the 2nd... got is for free via PS+, I'll get around to it (11:20) Helldivers II (RED) - Woof... aight, I'm disappointed of all games this is the one chosen for the extended developer commentary man sheesh (14:40) Marvel's Spider-Man II (GREEN) - Damn they got GTA 5 switching with Miles & peter... I've gotta play the Miles game, man. Looks good though I'll play it! (18:40) Tales of Arise Before the Dawn (RED) - Are the Tales games honestly any good, man? I know they have fans but eh... too anime... even for me (19:55) Honkai Star Rail (PURPLE) - What are the trophies gonna be like? If it's similar to Genshin, I'll pass. If not, maybe man... (20:51) Foamstars (RED) - I will be genuinely STUNNED if the game isn't struggling with player base after the first 2 weeks, not tryna be mean but yea (22:45) Final Fantasy VII Rebirth (GREEN) - I don't need to elaborate. To quote Kylian Mbappe, I will be there, no matter what. All in all, nothing I didn't know about previously. Kinda thought it'd be newer releases but eh, I guess we'll wait for The Game Awards (& BG3's GOTY Win) to discover more. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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