RealM722's Trophy Cabinet

[realm722]

Game: Unravel

 

Analysis: Wait... I didn't play this game recently. In fact - I don't remember how much I bought it for, and what the hell - it says it took me 2 weeks and 1 day to platinum this game back on April 16th, 2016. Why the hell am I doing a review on this right now? In around a month and 9 days - it will be over 4 years ago that I completed this game!

 

WELLLL it's because it's the first in my series of throwback reviews! Taking care of a few of the platinums / 100%'s I completed before making this post.

 

Unravel may very well be the most important and meaningful game I ever 100% complete in my Playstation trophy hunting career. Why? It's the game that started it all for me. I would not even have bothered making a PSN Profile account before having played this game. Back in 2016 - my video gaming habits were very simple. Play the franchise modes of sports games. That's it. After the Wii had slowed down, and I had made the transition from Xbox 360 to Playstation 4 because one of them had a proper baseball game in MLB The Show - I didn't really play different games. I mean - look at the games I had trophies in starting back in 2014. Need for Speed: Rivals, Madden 25, FIFA 14, Madden 15, FIFA 15, NBA2k15, MLB The Show 15, Rocket League, Madden 16, FIFA 16, NBA2k16, MLB The Show 16, Scrabble, and Tropico 5 composed my ENTIRE GAMING CATALOGUE. That's essentially 12 sports titles and 2 non-sports titles. It was fun - back then. I perfectly enjoyed making my deep sports franchise threads on Operation Sports and was satisfied. But this game changed that... it's like I had tasted a different fruit. Back in the day on Xbox 360 I had my sports games of course but I loved Viva Piñata. On Playstation 2 I had my sports games and Sitting Ducks. On Gamecube I had ChibiRobo and Animal Crossing. I abandoned that as the years went on - content with playing my sports games despite the majority of them lacked a truly in-depth franchise mode (Madden is atrocious, FIFA is okay, MLB The Show is decent, and NBA2k has by far the best and greatest in MyLeague) - but that's all I would play as the Ultimate Team modes didn't suck me in like they did many others.

 

That's when Unravel came along. 

 

It's honestly been so long I don't quite remember a lot about the game. I mean - don't get me wrong. I remember it being a fantastically cute platformer where you played as your boy Yarnzy, but in terms of specific levels and stuff like that it's hard to remember other than the one level with the frigid cold snow and you fighting against the wind. I went through one of my favorite YouTuber's 2BCProductions playthrough of the series and his enthusiasm reminded me of some of the things I loved. The thing I remember most though - and by far the most important thing - was that I loved this game so much that when I finished playing it and had beaten the levels - I wanted to find an excuse to keep playing it. Simply because I enjoyed manuerving Yarnzy that much. That's when I discovered trophies. Oh you want me to find all the hidden pieces? Done - got all the secrets. Oh - you want me to freaking complete each level without dying (which for some could certainly prove difficult due to things wanting to kill you or your own stupidity) - and yet despite the challenge - I went for it. It earned me the 15.96% rarity platinum, my 1st platinum ever earned on Playstation 4. From that day onward - everything changed in terms of my gaming habits. Later I went for the platinum in Madden 16 and 100%'d a few other games. I still barely bought and played different games for the remainder of 2016 and most of 2017 - but then midway through 2018 things started changing. I started playing the free games available via PS+ which I had completely ignored in the past (stupid, yes, I know). I platinumed Ratchet and Clank, The Witness, I bought games like Oxenfree and NFS: Payback, and from then on I've been sale hunting for the r/PS4Deals subreddit and utilizing the PS Prices website to land deals and play games I would have never even touched 4 years ago. I currently sit at 82 platinums and am at Level 25 - but wish to complete 5 games a month in 2020 to continue to expand my library and gaming tastes.

 

Unravel opened a door for me I could have never anticipated - all thanks to it being an adorable brilliant platformer, and for that, I am forever in-debt to this game. 

 

Panda Score: 9 / 10

[realm722]

Game: Mirror's Edge Catalyst

 

Analysis: I bought Mirror's Edge Catalyst for $4.99 back in mid-December 2019. Mirror's Edge was always something that had caught my eye due to it's unique gameplay of playing as this runner doing parkour all around the city. YouTuber NerdCubed raved about the original Mirror's Edge back in 2008 - and it's always been a game that's been on the back of my mind. With it going on sale so frequently for $5 - I figured now was about time I pulled the triggered and tested the waters. The results? A mixed bag to be honest. There's some stuff here that Mirror's Edge Catalyst does brilliantly and other times it just gets so unbelievably bogged down it makes you wonder if they knew what made the original game good in the first place. Raycevick said it best when he said Mirror's Edge Catalyst is the same grade on a harder test. It's 100% true to say that they were ambitious in making the City of Glass a full-scale that you can traverse in any direction rather than having these limited levels - but some of the ways they grind things to a halt is brutal. The combat? You're talking about spamming chin music leg kicks with Faith until you've broken the triangle button on your controller. OR how about the absurd amount of hidden documents, hidden bags, and audio recordings you have to stop your momentum in order to snag. The GridLeaks are a fun collectible - they're everywhere and 500+ - but you can pick them up without stopping and they weren't too bad to chase down once you got the GridLeaks map for having completed the story. 

 

Mirror's Edge Catalyst is best played in the 22 focused dashes scattered around the city and just enjoying the free-flow movement as you run across the city. Now - I will say - this game taught me something about games that I enjoy that I'll remember moving forward. My enjoyment from video games comes from knowing the task and trying to accomplish it well - INSTEAD OF not knowing what I need to know and discovering the "AHA!" moment. Such as a dash like the scenic route. I don't get a lot of fun out of spending time trying to find the optimal route. My enjoyment comes from knowing the optimal route and then trying to complete said task. Definitely will be something I keep in mind for the future. All in all - I'm glad I finally played this game. It has plenty of flaws and that pointless skill tree doesn't help EA's reputation of just chasing market trends - but the core here of fast movement across high buildings is still here. It took me 1 week and 3 days in order to obtain the 8.99% rarity platinum trophy. If the story had even been mildly compelling this game would be higher up my rankings - but I totally checked out on it with a villain we don't care about - along with a plethora of useless forgettable side characters (Plastic, your sister, Icarus...) - so don't play this for anything but the gameplay and you'll have a good time with it!
 

Panda Score: 7.3 / 10

[realm722]

Game: Castlevania Requiem: Symphony of the Night & Rondo of Blood

 

Analysis: I bought this Castlevania package for $9.99 back in early January 2020. So much like Mirror's Edge - the Castlevania series is something that's always had a fantastic name and aura surrounding it. It definitely feels like it's fizzled out in recent years due to a lack of releases and their most recent games trying to go for the 3D-look and just generally falling flat - I still wanted to enjoy a blast from the past and finally dive into the series. Honestly - what really called my attention to it was @Cassylvania's name and the title of his trophy thread being the name of the platinum for this package - "A Miserable Little Pile of Secrets". Was honestly considering aiming it for a trophy milestone or level up but the game's title is so long I didn't like the idea of how it'd look cut off. Agh - enough blabbering, onto the games.

 

Symphony of the Night - Holy crap this game is impressive given it was made in 1997. I know a lot of people say now that the inverted castle isn't as wondrous as when the game was first released but I thought it was still a really cool twist. Admittedly, the traversal can be a bit frustrating at times given the layout now doesn't allow you to easily jump or even double jump to many platforms - and that means you're going to be utilizing your bat and wolf forms a lot more often, but I still thought it was dope. This game is gorgeous. Literally dripping with style - comparing it to other pixel art games, this game sets a new standard for me personally when comparing it to games released just 1-2 years ago. Oh - and may I say - the sheer amount of monster variety in this game is outstanding. You'll see games today that are mammoth releases have many 10-25 different monsters in the entire game, and that's with a few reskins and minor visual changes. Castlevania SOTN has 100+ and while a good deal of those are just visual changes, I was consistently impressed how each section of the Castle has it's own distinct enemies as opposed to repeating them over and over again. I naturally used a trophy guide so the difficulty wasn't harsh at all, but I think you can still get a great deal of fun out of game just being this rampaging menace in Alucard who just one-shots all these behemoths. My only other complaints would be getting all 200.6% room completion was a tad annoying given you needed to walk in a specific section in order for the room to be recognized as discovered, and getting the spells for "Spelling Bee" feels a lot more like button mashing until you luck your way into the combo you're trying for. All in all - it was a fun time with a classic that I can say I'm glad I've played now. 

 

Rondo of Blood - My initial experience with this was frustration. Frustration at the knockback and how easy it was to die. Then once I started treating this as a proper game that couldn't be cheesed like SOTN and learned the enemy attack patterns in order to progress through each stage - I enjoyed it a great deal more. Rondo of Blood was released in 1993, it undeniably feels a lot older than SOTN, but it honestly has it's own fun I really enjoyed. Learning how to survive the Death boss fight specifically was fun. I blazed through things after that with Marie - saved all of the different women in the alternate stages (chuckled at the super old dialogue and Marie's man-like hands in one of the cutscenes) and voilá! - I earned the 100% in RoB and earned the 21.17% platinum rarity in just 3 days and 34 minutes. For anybody looking to enjoy two games with a different pace than many games we see nowadays, check these out.

 

Panda Score: 7.1 / 10

[realm722]

Game: Slay the Spire

 

Analysis: This is gonna be a big one. I bought Slay the Spire from Gamestop for $8 back in mid-March 2020. I saw that it was the "Deal of the Day" and couldn't believe how cheap it was given how recently it had come to Playstation 4. I snatched it up, and after having completed Castlevania I said what the heck - it's time for me to enjoy a roguelite deck-builder even though I've never played one in my entire life. Well now I can say that it's probably a good thing I've avoided them given the utter vortex this game has devoured my life into since playing it. Granted, being quarantined and COVID-19 have made being devoured a lot less problematic but still. All I know otherwise about this game was that it was fantastically recommended and Joseph Anderson enjoyed the bit he played of it when he live-streamed it. I was a little bit worried to play it since I knew it'd be a huge time commitment given the rarity of the trophies and if I didn't like it - or couldn't grasp the strategy/concepts, I'd have a nasty low percentage game added to my profile. Hell, I already have one in Sonic Mania and that one is only a 100% game not a platinum. Well...

 

78 hours, 18 minutes, 27 seconds later. 50+ more hours watching Northernlion and Jorbs. I am the fastest player on PS4 to achieve 100% in Slay the Spire.

 

So yea... this game has kind of eaten me alive but I chewed on it for 2 weeks and 1 day, and spit it back out. Now I have the ridiculous 3.74% rarity platinum and 0.89% 100% completion. Of course, this accomplishment is minimized slightly by the fact that 1) The Watcher update DLC released literally right as I was going hard for the other miscellaneous trophies vs. people who were faster and had their progress reset due to something out of their control but WHO CARES - READ THE LEADERBOARD. There's a lot I want to talk about this game. First was the playing time. That just under the 80 hours is a tad deceiving. This is a difficult game. It does not test your reflexes - so I thought how on earth could it be harder than Dead Cells? In many ways it's not, it's not challenging you in that aspect - what it is asking you to do is build an incredibly competent deck on higher difficulties that can both tackle the immediate challenges you face while also preparing and setting yourself up to win towards the end of the game. Immolate is a fantastic card for Act 1. It becomes less and less useful on the Acts after that while still being a great card. There was a point and time where I thought that Flex+ was legit one of the greatest cards in the game... that doesn't fly as much on higher Ascension levels. Speaking of which - Ascension difficulty was the #1 target I had when I started playing. I didn't care about the other characters, I didn't care about the specific random trophies, I cared about getting the hardest individual trophy, climbing all of the Ascension's, and beating A20. How long did that take me? Look at the results below.

 

Ascension 20 Grind Attempts

A0: 9 attempts (won in 01:25:14)

A1: 4 attempts (won in 01:10:29)

A2: 1 attempt (won in 01:14:25)

A3: 7 attempts (won in 55:06)

A4: 9 attempts (won in 43:01)

A5: 1 attempt (won in 46:30)

A6: 7 attempts (won in 54:03)

A7: 3 attempts (won in 47:20)

A8: 5 attempts (won in 01:16:47)

A9: 2 attempts (won in 48:25)

A10: 4 attempts (won in 01:16:45)

A11: 5 attempts (won in 53:59)

A12: 2 attempts (won in 35:21)

A13: 1 attempt (won in 43:31)

A14: 2 attempts (won in 29:01)

A15: 6 attempts (won in 39:02)

A16: 2 attempts (won in 40:10)

A17: 7 attempts (won in 53:56)

A18: 2 attempts (won in 42:04)

A19: 2 attempts (won in 01:11:51)

A20: 17 attempts (won in 01:40:19)

 

I definitely went through various ebbs and flows when it comes to the difficulty. I'd say 9 attempts given this game is quite difficult is pretty dandy on my behalf. I hit a wall on that A4 difficulty but from there never got stumped very hard in any other section. I really cruised from A11-A14 sections, hit two small speed bumps on A15 and A17, but for the most part the unbelievably most challenging Ascension was of course A20. The funny thing is - it wasn't like I was getting all the way to Act 3 and then dying to the 2nd boss you had to face. I couldn't clear Act 1 for like 10-12 of those runs and was just stuck in the mud. By who you ask? Here are the 8 monsters that killed me the most during the A20 grind.

 

My Worst Enemies During A20 Grind

#1. Slime Boss: 11 deaths

#2. Lagavulin: 8 deaths

#3. The Collector: 7 deaths

#4. Gremlin Nob: 6 deaths

#5. The Champ: 5 deaths

#6. Bronze Automaton: 4 deaths

#7. Hexaghost: 4 times

#8. Gremlin Leader: 3 times

 

Any other enemy killed me 2 times or fewer. It's kind of funny that Slime Boss was my prime nemesis given he was the first Act 1 boss I beat when I started playing the game. But his brutal attacks plus the way he grinds you down with his split forms led to a lot of pain. Lagavulin is constant 16-18 damage once you wake him up. The Collector is the hardest Act 2 fight. If you'll notice - not a single Act 3 boss here! It sure seems like once I've proven I'm good enough to the end - I usually close. Time Eater killed me 1 time. Donu Deca killed me 1 time. The Awakened One NEVER killed me during the A20 grind. The Guardian did kill me twice (he's pathetic). I can say safely that through all of my plathroughs, I didn't die to Jaw Worm a single time. All in all - the A20 grind took me 1 week and 7 hours. So you may be asking... what took the next part of the week up? Well - now I needed to go for the random trophies and actually play with the other characters. That's true - this was my playtime split across characters.

 

Ironclad: 56 hours, 35 minutes

Defect: 11 hours, 50 minutes

Silent: 6 hours, 57 minutes

Watcher: 2 hours, 55 minutes

 

You could say I certainly preferred a character that heals 6HP and is strength focused than any other. But yes - I had picked up a few convenient trophies during my A20 runs (Feed was a big one on a A9 victory, as well as collecting Barricade), but now I needed to go for different goals than the toughest challenge. I got the "speed climber" by absolutely dominating with uppercut's, whirlwind's, and demon form. I beat the game as Silent which I enjoyed because with Catalyst and dare I say multiple catalyst's, you just eat the monsters alive with all the duplicating poison damage you do. I really did not enjoy Defect. His character was the hardest for me to ever get a true handle of due to the orbs and just feeling like I wasn't doing enough damage, and if I didn't have the proper frost I couldn't block Muggsy Bogues if he was my opponent. Nonetheless after beating the game the 1st time as then I started going for the Act 4 "true endings" which means you have to fight 2 elites and defeat the heart. Did it as Ironclad, struggled as SIlent and thus I went for the "Common Sense" trophy which was fun with multiple perfected strikes. I then got the other true endings(after more bashing my head in with Defect) and then the Watcher DLC dropped which was cool! I then got lucky after a day of grinding and got a huge Searing Blow+12 run which earned me the Transient and "You Are Nothing" trophies. Got Minimalist and Infinity with a 2x dropkick, 1x defend, 1 strike, 1x bash combination which was fun to stomp Time Eater with. Did the specific Silent/Defect challenges with all the shivs and plasma. Conquered The Watcher - and was left with my final trophy being "Who Needs Relics?". I actually tallied this. 39 attempts with over 25 of those being from Ironclad - I only made it to Act 2 twice. I did it ONCE as the Watcher, got "Velvet Choker" and never looked back. A clutch divinity potion vs Donu Deca got me the victory and the platinum. If the DLC hadn't been released - I'd still be stuck on this in all likelihood. 

 

This game is special and near and dear to my heart forever now. Learning so much from Jorbs who's just a chill laid back streamer who posts his ridiculous runs on YouTube, learning from our lord egg Northerlion and all the frustration directed at him in his comments for not learning at A20, until he finally clutched victory. I'll admit I was initially very iffy on the art style and thought this was an ugly game for the longest time. I appreciate it's charm a lot more now having played so much of it. This game is truly phenomenal - I wouldn't have gotten so sucked in and invested if it wasn't. Be warned those who decide to play it... once you get used to the various rule set-ups, I think it can be an outstanding background game you still have to pay attention to without being mindless, but I enjoyed the entirity of Ozark: Season 3 while playing. Shoutout to the developers Mega Crit for releasing such a magnificent game. Genuinely can't wait to see what they do next. 

 

Panda Score: 9 / 10

Edited February 27, 2023 by realm722

[realm722]

Game: Thomas Was Alone

 

Analysis: I bought Thomas Was Alone as part of the Instant Indie Collection Vol. 1 bundle that went on sale for $4.59 in early March 2020. So all I knew or really remembered about this game was NerdCubed's video on it over 7 years ago and it's delightful narration despite the fact it was a deeply simplistic game where you move some squares and rectangles around. That was it. With it being so cheap, I picked it up, and I can say I enjoy it's simplicity and Danny Wallace's narration but it doesn't go much deeper than that. Some of the puzzles were fun, particularly with the long yellow rectangle and the double jump purple smaller rectangle - having them work together to reach the end goal - but it's just that. I made sure to pick up all of the secret cubes across the 100 levels. I achieved 100% completion and it's 26.79% rarity in just 23 hours and 43 minutes. I don't really have much more to add to it than that, on a grander scale, I guess these 100%'s getting lower ratings is due to the fact I typically pick short quick games that I can get through since I don't want to spend so much time on one without a platinum. Then again, there's Sonic Mania and I really have not enjoyed my time with that game. Have to find something more in the Risk of Rain-tier for more in the future.

 

Panda Score: 6.1 / 10

[realm722]

Game: Batman: Arkham City

 

Analysis: This is a bittersweet review for me. I got Batman: Arkham City as part of the Return to Arkham bundle for $5.99 back in in December 2019. I played Arkham Knight in Nov. 2019, Arkham Asylum in Jan 2020, and now was looking to complete the trilogy in quite arguably the most out of order way possible in Arkham City in Apr. 2020. So what are my initial thoughts? Arkham City strives in many elements that I now understand some of the criticism Arkham Knight took. I claimed that after playing Arkham Knight it was "the Batman games to end all Batman games". City is better in a few key aspects. 1) The boss battles are fantastic and memorable. 2) I finally understand the complaints of the Batmobile overuse and it becoming a "tank" game, having now played a full Batman open world game where it's not featured. That's it. Those are the 2 departments I'll give City credit for. I still believe, with 100% confidence, Arkham Knight is a better game than Arkham City. The fluidity you feel in the other game is unparalleled. They were still learning the ropes here. The grapnel boost is nice, but it was perfected later on. Batman's variety of movements and different enemies with drones and the militia is further scaled up - whereas here they were still figuring out what they could handle. It's okay - I'm not gonna argue it anymore - this game is still great. One thing that I absolutely love about Rocksteady is much like many of Sony's mainline games and some Rockstar games, they do spectacle and theatrics extremely well. The opening where you're there tied up and Hugo Strange is looking over you with that bald head of his and beard... the sequences of Batman losing his sanity and feels his life drifting away after being transfused with Joker's titan blood, any scene with Talia al-Ghul, Catwoman bailing you out, and the final showdown with Joker/Clayface. It's all fantastic. I love games that do this without drumming it over your head about how serious things are - and Rocksteady did it perfectly within the theme of Batman. 

 

Another area of spectacle? The boss fights. When I think of this game - other than the Joking dying - I'm going to think of the Mr. Freeze fight. How you can be legitimately terrified trying to scramble to cover and think of maximizing your skillset in order to take him down. The Solomon Grundy fight being the real fight rather than Penguin and you trying to get away from that behemoth. The Ra's al-Ghul fight was just solid but not bad at all with all the ninjas coming out, and you had finally the Clayface fight at the end where you take him down with the freeze blast. It's a real damn solid collection - and I 100% get now why you would be disappointed by the tank battles in Arkham Knight (Deathstroke... I love him as a villain, and we don't fight him in hand-to-hand combat like Arkham: Origins? Are you kidding me?) - the only defense is that boss battles in this sense can seem a bit... cartoonish. At least a little in comparison to the seriousness of the tone they were trying to go for. But c'mon, still. At the very least - this was a direct response to how poorly received the final boss battle in Arkham Asylum was (and it WAS awful), goes to show you what Rocksteady are capable of. In regards to the overall story - I dig it even if you have to overlook some dumb stuff... such as why is Batman cool sitting under rubble until Catwoman bails him out? Hugo Strange should have had a larger role than waltzing around until Protocol Ten, and was he planning on Bruce Wayne just... not doing anything? It's okay - it's still compelling and while Two-Face is too much of a side character (he can be explored 10x better if they ever wanted to do a reboot), the main focus will and always will be Batman v. Joker and this game provided the "conclusion" to that rivalry in legendary fashion getting carried out of Monarch Theater.

 

The combat? It's the 2nd best in the series. You cannot tell me Arkham Knight has worse combat. I'm not having it. Still, this does a good job expanding his gadgets and including more enemies, even if it becomes way too easier dodging over everything and you feel untouchable. On my 1st playthrough - I still died prolly 15-20 times. How were the side missions? Zsaz was chaotic because I legitimately felt pressure to get to the other phone on time in order to protect the hostages. I don't want to know what happens if you don't get there on time. AR Knight will take you a number of attempts but you'll get it if you just make slight tweaks adjusting to your performance. What I did notice is that the "cut" content OR limit of a 2-year release cycle prevented them from fleshing out some of the side missions. Literally going to put up 2 gadgets is 2 side missions? Hush's stuff was a bit interesting, but it was demoted to being a single quick time event in Knight. The random Political Prisoners was a decent side piece. Deadshot was alright. Mad Hatter was a neat trick. I<3 Azrael. I'd give them a decent 6.8/10 overall. as far as side missions go across games, and I think that's because they were finding their footing with it still. It feels like 1 more type was missing between 1) detective mode / 2) combat/stealth stuff. 

 

In terms of trophies, how was Arkham City? You have to 100% the game and that will take you a little bit. Finding all of the Riddler trophies for the final time (unless....) is a lowkey decent enjoyable activity once you've saved the city and Gotham and can just go around at your own leisure. I can't say I'll miss them greatly though. "Storyteller" which involves you having to change your PS4 date and time to visit Calendar Man and get different dialogue regarding a murder he committed on each day was a wild easter egg, if a little bit tedious to go out of your way for. Getting all of the campaign medals for Batman is absolutely the most challenging portion of this game and as I'm writing this I'm at 94% completion overall for the whole game. I still have the Catwoman campaigns along with ranked maps/campaigns to go for Robin and Nightwing. I'll get to those eventually - they're absolutely difficult and annoying on the extreme challenges but with enough practice I know I'll get them. The biggest thing I miss is having access to all of Batman's gadgets and moveset when playing as other characters. Finally, I 100%'d the game a 2nd time on New Game + mode which means doing the entire story and all of the side missions again, and having done that, I achieved my 9.60% platinum rarity in 2 weeks and 23 hours! The Batman: Arkham trilogy is a piece of video game history. I've played and squeezed all of the juice out of them in my mind. They are fantastic fun and I think offer a broad appeal to a majority of players, even those just branching out. Here's to hoping Rocksteady announce a return to the video game landscape by the end of 2020!

 

Panda Score: 8.2 / 10

Edited April 22, 2020 by realm722

[AJ_Radio]

4 hours ago, realm722 said:

snip

 

I still need to finish off Batman: Arkham City myself.

 

First played it on Xbox 360 when it came out back in 2011, but wasn't concerned about completion so I never got all the achievements. Then come 2014 - 2015 I buy the game for cheap off of Amazon, before it got remastered on the PS4.

 

I feel that anybody who has 100 percent in Arkham Knight like myself is capable of 100 percenting Arkham City. The big issue I have is the challenges get rather tedious after a while. I also find Catwoman difficult to master and she is simply weak. Her gadgets aren't nearly as good as Batmans, and some of those predator challenges are a real pain in the ass. I'm a lot better at combat challenges, I can do Brutality 101 in Arkham Knight 10 times over if I wanted to. But I'm terrible at stealth, which makes me wonder if I'll ever finish those Metal Gear Solid games that are sitting on my backlog.

 

The Harley DLC should be fairly easy. Then it's getting New Game Plus done (with all side content finished) along with all the challenges. I may take a break and do the Robin, Nightwing and Catwoman challenge maps when I'm up for it.

 

Good soundtrack, good voice acting. Mark Hamill once again is top notch as the Joker. Conroy is of course very suitable for Batman.

[realm722]

4 hours ago, Spaz said:

 

I still need to finish off Batman: Arkham City myself.

 

First played it on Xbox 360 when it came out back in 2011, but wasn't concerned about completion so I never got all the achievements. Then come 2014 - 2015 I buy the game for cheap off of Amazon, before it got remastered on the PS4.

 

I feel that anybody who has 100 percent in Arkham Knight like myself is capable of 100 percenting Arkham City. The big issue I have is the challenges get rather tedious after a while. I also find Catwoman difficult to master and she is simply weak. Her gadgets aren't nearly as good as Batmans, and some of those predator challenges are a real pain in the ass. I'm a lot better at combat challenges, I can do Brutality 101 in Arkham Knight 10 times over if I wanted to. But I'm terrible at stealth, which makes me wonder if I'll ever finish those Metal Gear Solid games that are sitting on my backlog.

 

The Harley DLC should be fairly easy. Then it's getting New Game Plus done (with all side content finished) along with all the challenges. I may take a break and do the Robin, Nightwing and Catwoman challenge maps when I'm up for it.

 

Good soundtrack, good voice acting. Mark Hamill once again is top notch as the Joker. Conroy is of course very suitable for Batman.

 

Oh absolutely - if you're able to get 100% in Arkham Knight, then you will without a doubt be able to get it in Arkham City. Since I played the games out of order, I really feel like doing the final DLC challenges ("A Chill in the Air", "Requiem for a Killer", etc...) basically drilled the combat into my game that I never fail a combat challenge at this point. The stealth is a gigantic pain. Particularly since a lot of the fundamentals of stealthing as Catwoman involve finicky ways of surviving. I managed to beat all of her ranked maps, but I'm holding off on doing the campaigns because I can already imagine how frustrating it'd be to do a certain chain of events for requirements, I'm 1 second late, and now the guards easily see me, kill me, and that's one of my 3 attempts gone just like that. My BIGGEST piece of advice is - DON'T follow the outline by Batman: Arkham Videos. That'd be like trying to learn how to play basketball and impersonating how Michael Jordan plays. You'll do a very poor job at it. There are some other vids for levels on the extremes on YouTube that have much simpler paths, even if they take a few minutes longer to execute.

 

Harley DLC was extremely simple, you can get it done in 30 minutes, just have a side video open so you know where all the balloons are. 

[realm722]

Game: Sundered

 

Analysis: I bought Sundered ages ago. Purchased back in early December 2019 for $4.99 - I was so excited to play it after some recommended it as a decent comparison to Dead Cells, one of my favorite games ever played on Playstation 4. I was pumped, ready to play it, and.... oh. What's this? An infuriating PS4 error that will lead to days of digging through bizarre Russian websites trying to find any help whatsoever, being completely unable to find any help outside of an odd Brazillian tweet, and a Reddit post that got 8 upvotes... I managed to find some comrades who had the same issue and we worked back and forth with one another to try and find a solution. Eventually - a helpful PSNProfile user by the name of @HaGetOwned suggested I reset my router. I did just that and Sundered unlocked for me and was now playable. Still - for whatever reason, I decided to hold off on playing it in fear the game would glitch out again and I'd get a locked low percentage game on my profile. After several months it was still there and I figured what the heck, it'd time to go for it. Was it the game I had been waiting for that rivaled Dead Cells for my roguelite loving heart?

 

Eh, Sundered is a thoroughly decent video game. 

 

That's good! It could have been bad. Immediately what caught my eye was the visuals. I couldn't tell if it looked out of date or not all put together, but the more I played the more I grew to love it. The movement system is fluid and while you have to do some traversal in order to get a double jump, that greatly improves movement in the game as you make your way through all of the biomes of the game. It can honestly be a bit intimidating at first having all these sprawling directions you can go in, until you find your first power-up that gives you a new ability and start to get a footing for the world. Important Note: the worlds are NOT randomly generated. I thought they were. Only the levels to get to main sections (basically anything) are random, then from there everything is purposefully placed. All abilities / hidden elder shards / etc... will always be in the same location, just the things you encounter along the way to get there may change. I manage to defeat my 1st miniboss, collect a perk, 10k shards, and survive my 1st horde on my first day of playing. Then coming back to it I was able to defeat the first major boss, accidentally corrupt my 1st ability (it is so obnoxious how you just shatter it and it corrupts, with no chance to reload or un-do your save if you screw up, annoying ass flaw there for those going for trophies) - hence I recommend you back-up your save to the cloud every here and there as opposed to losing hours of progress.

 

Once I got my footing with the game, corrupt abilities and Normal difficulty allow you to steamroll everything. One thing I will say I enjoy - I LOVE the skill tree. I love how gigantic it is. No matter what you do you feel like you are going to be upgrading massively with each little bit of progress due to all the shards you can put in. Sure some people may say it's hollow and doesn't offer as complex a design for upgrades as other games but I just thought that little gameplay loop was a lot of fun. As I said, accidentally corrupting my ability meant I had to start a whole new playthrough, was very careful, corrupted one accidentally again while searching but had made a cloud save at 58% progress. I just continued as is and figured this would be my corrupt playthrough that makes the game so easy it's stupid. The boss designs are fantastic. The story is a bit incoherent with the ridiculous spelling all over the place. You won't remember a specific biome by a name, rather it'd just be "jungle zone, red yucky zone, sky / cloud zone". There's also this demonic sounding trapezoid trying to turn you evil. You do it, Destroy Humanity, lose your own humanity and whatever is left, and then reload and do the other endings. Killing Nyarlathotep is easy - The Shining Trapezoid is even easier with maxed out cannon damage + high critical chance rate at 40-50%. Overall, pretty chill game just to bounce around and wreck stuff in once you get overpowered. It took me 5 days and 22 hours to earn the 15.01% platinum rarity. What I'm most excited for now is Thunder Lotus Games next project, Spiritfarer! Saw it in an E3 trailer and it is one of the few games I'm considering buying Day 1 when it releases given how much it intrigued me. My dream is it releases this year and lives up to the hype I've built up for it in my mind.

 

Panda Score: 6.7 / 10

[realm722]

Game: Spyro the Dragon

 

Analysis: The 1st in a trilogy. I bought Spyro: Reignited Trilogy for $19.99 in April 2020. Figured it'd be a nice pick-up since it's a 3-in-1 package and will give me something easy to play in-between some of the harder games I'm going for. I remember playing the original Spyro way back on the Playstation 1 and it was nice to revisit him now that he's been made anew with HD graphics. I know there's some debate whether it keeps the old charms and all that - I thought they did a pretty solid job. It's a kids game, so it only took me 1 day and 2 hours to achieve the 51.68% platinum rarity. This is actually my 2nd most common platinum now only being outdone by Burly Men at Sea. Nothing is at all too difficult. Collecting all of the gems just requires you to be extra observing to the environment plus there are YouTube videos to help with any of the super rare collectibles. There are some random miscellaneous trophies that are not at all difficult that are the rarest trophies so I think it's fair to say anybody who wants this platinum has it in the bag. Besides that - the flying levels were the most fun for me as they took me a few tries to get the hang of, plus all the dragon designs they had is kind of crazy given they're only on screen for a minute at maximum. I'll be playing the later 2 games across different months in order to not get burnt out on the collect-a-thon but as I said, they'll be nice changes of pace when I'm tired of bashing my head in with harder games.

 

Panda Score: 6 / 10

[realm722]

Game: Subnautica

 

Analysis: I bought the physical edition of Subnautica for $?? (I don't remember how much, prolly north of $20) back in April 2019. Yea... I put this game off for a really long time because of the simple fact it seems terrifying. Oh so you're telling me I'm on this alien planet and I have to swim hundreds of meters down vulnerable from all directions to the behemoths of the underwater world? No thanks. I'm good. But I wanted another proper plat to fill out my month of April 2020 and so I sacked up - decided to overcome my fears, and used the cheat developer codes in order to gain these trophies. I know, I know, braver than the US marines over here. But in seems the game read into my cheating ways. I follow this video to the letter. But the game crashed on my 5 different times (it's very unstable, be warned those who are reading this wondering if they should buy it), and none of the trophies popped except for the final 2. That's very concerning. Now I have hardly any completion on this game I thought I was going to be able to zoom past. Instead - I had to go through the slow approach. Meticulously activating the codes where and when, logging out, and re-entering (un-doing the fact it disables trophies) and picking up the trophies individually by teleporting (which does NOT turn off trophies) to specific locations so they'd pop. It's mortifying that I'm teleporting to these dangerous locations with literally Starter spawn gear but you only need to be there for a few seconds for the trophies to pop and you can teleport back to base. This actually worked! I got the infection cured, built all the items I needed to build (by spawning them in my inventory) and all I had left to do was to repair the Aurora Reactor that is one of the first things you do in the game if you're playing it normally! This one I actually decided to do fairly since I didn't want all of the game to be ignored. I got on the ship, fended off some parasites, repaired all the leaks and boom! The 19.90% rarity platinum popped for me in just 22 hours and 33 minutes. Overall - it's an incredibly unique game that has a beloved community and I 100% those who want to take their time and earn all the trophies fairly. For me, I'm content with getting the majority of the experience from Joseph Anderson's video review of this game. Props to the developers for closing in on "Subnautica: Below Zero" - and I can't wait to see what they release next!

 

Panda Score: 6.4 / 10

Edited April 29, 2020 by realm722

[realm722]

Game: The Swapper

 

Analysis: I bought The Swapper as part of the Indie Collection Vol. 1 bundle that went on sale for $4.59 back in early March 2020. Never really had my radar on this game but it was bundled with Thomas Was Alone, seemed like it was short and sweet in terms of play time and the ability to gain all the trophies - so I picked it up. The result? it's nice and easy. It honestly feels like something that could be made in the game "Dreams" due to it's relative 2D simplicity, but it gets props for it's easy to understand mechanics and the nice "game feel" it has. Pretty funny seeing your clones or replicas squash when falling from a high distance as you make your way through the levels. I think I've discovered pretty clearly at this point that puzzlers aren't my genre. Still - this ones very decent and it has an intriguing atmosphere with the outer-space uncovering of why you're here and what happened before you got there. If you can pick it up on sale, you can easily knock it out in an afternoon and have a decent time. I achieved the 13.78% 100% completion in 12 hours and 12 minutes. 

 

Panda Score: 6 / 10

Edited May 5, 2020 by realm722

[realm722]

On 11/18/2018 at 11:04 PM, realm722 said:

Game: Burnout Paradise Remastered

 

Analysis: Got a classic that I had never touched before back in September when it was $15, and now it's even cheaper. I had no idea what to expect since I figured it was going to be a fun racing game given the fact many recommended it over the Need for Speed games, but still when a game is aged it will have some bad flaws. The fact there was no quick travel features to hop around was pretty bad, and the rubber-banding AI was also pretty piss poor occasionally. Still, I had a good time with the game given the fact it had some cool races and modes as well as the fun challenges. Got the Burnout License, and managed to get the 8 players in Wildcat Stadium by doing the offline method of getting all the cars there during a Offline Road Rage. Got a few more DLC trophies and am on 84% completion but I don't think I'll go back to it to get the full 100%. I'm happy with my 18.67% platinum, and I do recommend it(especially for it cheaper at $9) if you wanna have a fun racing classic to play through. 

 

Panda Score: 7/10

 

Quoting this as a bump since I have actually managed to achieve 100% now! 

 

It took me a little under 4 days in order to achieve the platinum on Burnout Paradise Remastered - but after getting to 84% completion through doing a variety of random DLC trophies, I put the game down in September 2018 without much intention to ever revisit and get the full completion due to the requirement of some fairly heavily needed online help. That was of course until early this past May of 2020 when @GhostRush37 made a gaming sessions forum post and I decided to join. We were able to get into contact and talk sports/games while blazing through the remainder of the trophy list. Got the timed challenges, cops vs robbers, bike freeburn challenges, and eventually with a larger group also managed the ride 10 miles in an 8 player lobby! The next day I grinded out the races for the bike license and what do ya know - I achieved my 3.90% rarity 100% completion in a mere 1 year and 8 months. Not too shabby! In terms of the game itself - I'd say rating it a classic 7/10 is fair given the old issues of 0 fast travel are still there, but there is a joy in just wandering around the city at lighting fast speed. 

 

Next game I'm targeting is quite the doozy that I'm going for right now but it is a beloved metroidvania. Let's see if I can pull it off. 

Edited May 18, 2020 by realm722

[realm722]

Game: Hollow Knight (Voidheart Edition)

 

Analysis: Hollow Knight is a game I bought for $7.49 back in early March 2020. It's been available on Playstation 4 since mid-2018, and went on sale a good number of times before with it being highly recommended. I know I had heard of it from Joseph Anderson's Critique and him calling it his Game of the Year in 2017. I had heard a bunch of great things about it as a metroidvania, basically traversing through this bug world as this adorable little character - the only thing holding me back was seeing how damn difficult it was - or at least how difficult many claimed it to be. I don't consider myself a very skilled natural gamer. If I'm going to get "good" at a game, I'm going to have to invest a lot of time in it. Eventually sometimes I can get there, but naturally I will do extremely poor at many games. So I held off on Hollow Knight for the longest time - until I said yanno what, it's so cheap, I've heard so many great things, let's check it out. That's when I discover via this forum there is such a thing as an "invincibility glitch". Hmm... that could come in handy. I tell myself I'll play through the game and enjoy it - and if push comes to shove I'll utilize that glitch to wrap up the remaining things needed for the platinum. 

 

Taking pointers from Hollow Knight's guide - holy crap this game is spectacular. I should come out clean and say this right out of the gate. I used that glitch. I used it for the entirety of The White Palace AND all of the Pantheons. But the rest of the game until that point I completed legit with the help of the correct charms and available upgrades. The fact that Team Cherry made a game of this quality with their smaller development team makes me wonder what the hell other game developers are doing. Honestly - there's so many little things. The Mantis Lords fight and music is where the game had me saying "okay this is pretty awesome". You have the Nailmasters, adorable Hornet (SHAAAA), Cloth, Elderbug, Seer, BAPANADA.... just - damn man. Stuff that isn't even required or necessary that you can pass over and ignore (for example - Zote died in my playthrough, I had no idea he was even a thing) that just contributes to the lore and world-building. I'll admit I wasn't a huge fan of places like the Deepnest and Ancient Basin because I don't like those depressing claustrophobic atmospheres, but Queen's Garden, Crystal Peak, Greenpath, etc... were exquisite. I really enjoyed the Colosseum as well even though the Trial of Fool whooped my ass for 3 hours straight. But what I would say most is a tell tale sign of if I enjoy your game is what I do after completing it. Here's mossbag's extensive Hollow Knight complete lore video. I checked out Phantom Troupe lore. I checked out Reylea's videos reviewing hidden easter eggs and stuff that doesn't contribute to 112% completion. I love this video. I wandered through the Hollow Knight subreddit and was blown away by the community that is still pumping out tons of fan art and content for a game that's relatively old at this point - of course Hollow Knight: Silksong is around the corner but still. I have to admit - I think I enjoyed all the stuff I learned around the game afterwards than the game itself (and I had a good time with it even if I didn't LOVE it like others did). This game is special - and I really think it should be played by every type of player. All in all, it took me 1 week and 6 days to earn all 35 trophies and achieve the 6.20% rarity platinum. I have a profound respect for people who earn this platinum 100% legitimately. That 5th Pantheon, fighting every boss in the entire game, and then trying to takedown Pure Vessel and Absolute Radiance is mind-boggling to me. I feel like if you're good enough to do that - you can earn the platinum in virtually all the games in PS4's library. 

 

Panda Score: 7.9 / 10

[Arcesius]

9 minutes ago, realm722 said:

-- snip --

 

You know, I have been pretty vocal about the glitch and how I don't like that it exists.. How it affects my way to trophy hunt, how I think is disrespectful to the game... blah blah. 

 

But the fact that you have used the glitch and still found that much enjoyment in this game, how your review reads... Man, let's just say I'm really glad to have read your post ? I completely agree with your assessment, too... It is incredible that two people created this thing.. and that it was offered on release for 15$. It's just mind boggling, but in a good way. 

 

Anyways, yes, I don't like that the glitch exists. I don't like knowing that people didn't have to work for the pantheon. I don't like the fact that one can look at my profile and has to guess whether I did the game legit or not... But then again, you mentioned that you might not have picked it up due to the difficulty,..so I sure am glad that you found the glitch and consequently got to enjoy this fantastic game. ? Definitely something positive to take away from this. 

 

I have to wonder though.. how did you get to your 7.9/10 rating? The review definitely reads like it would score higher... Just curious ?

[realm722]

21 minutes ago, Arcesius said:

 

You know, I have been pretty vocal about the glitch and how I don't like that it exists.. How it affects my way to trophy hunt, how I think is disrespectful to the game... blah blah. 

 

But the fact that you have used the glitch and still found that much enjoyment in this game, how your review reads... Man, let's just say I'm really glad to have read your post  I completely agree with your assessment, too... It is incredible that two people created this thing.. and that it was offered on release for 15$. It's just mind boggling, but in a good way. 

 

Anyways, yes, I don't like that the glitch exists. I don't like knowing that people didn't have to work for the pantheon. I don't like the fact that one can look at my profile and has to guess whether I did the game legit or not... But then again, you mentioned that you might not have picked it up due to the difficulty,..so I sure am glad that you found the glitch and consequently got to enjoy this fantastic game.  Definitely something positive to take away from this. 

 

I have to wonder though.. how did you get to your 7.9/10 rating? The review definitely reads like it would score higher... Just curious 

 

Hah glad to hear you enjoyed my review - it's much appreciated, and there's no question I get why you'd be frustrated about having properly earned something so difficult while others got it by impure means. 

 

As for my 7.9 / 10 - I'd say the first thing I'd point out is that by my personal ratings measurement - there's damn good. I've played 125+ games on PS4, Hollow Knight with that score lands in the Top 25 of that bunch - I only have 8 games I would consider a 9/10 or higher, generally most games fall in the 5.5 - 7.5 range that are "eh this was decent" to "ooh this did some unique stuff I enjoyed". The reason I do it that way is because I despise people handing out 10/10's to games and anything that isn't a 8.5/10 or higher isn't worth playing. There are games I've rated as a 6/10 that I'd recommend (FEZ, Tiny Brains, Onrush, Kona, etc...) 

 

But the bigger factor for me is that this game falls more into the Celeste category for me. I read in many places it was peoples GOTY for 2018. I played Celeste with Assist Mode due to that game being incredibly difficult (and am convinced if it forced you to beat all the levels legit would also be <1% platinum) - I think Celeste is a spectacular game. But I don't love it like other people love it. That's not a game I would come running back to play again. Yet, I acknowledge it's greatness. I enjoyed Hollow Knight more than Celeste, but due to the difficulty, I don't love it the same way I love for example... Pyre (SuperGiant game that I adore and replay occasionally). Honestly, I could see myself playing Hollow Knight down the line completely "blind" again once I've forgotten a decent amount of the map layout and just enjoying the atmosphere and tight controls. If someone said Hollow Knight is their game for All-Time and a 9.5/10, I wouldn't argue with them. This game is of that echelon where I'd "get" it. But my personal rating score matters more to me than what I think it is as a product. It's why past FIFA games get 8/10's for me - I just enjoy coming back and playing them even if I would say there's absolutely no argument for them being individually better games than Hollow Knight, Marvel's Spider-Man, Celeste, Batman: Arkham Asylum, The Witness, etc... 

[AJ_Radio]

It irks me that you say stuff like "back in March 2020", like it was a long time ago. Honestly, it wasn't.

 

People have a tendency to say things like "....in early 2015. Back then, I was doing yadda yadda yadda...", which I will agree to an extent that it was some time ago. For a 10 year old kid, two years is a long time. It all depends on how you see time. I don't think two years ago was a long time ago, but then again I'm much older than 10. It's true with what they say, the older you get, the faster time flies by.

 

How time passes by for me is quicker today than it was when I was 21 years old, a decade ago. Your posts are enlightening and elaborate with good detail, but saying "back in March 2020" is basically saying it in retrospect because March felt like it was only three weeks ago for me.

 

We're already saying 2010 - 2012 was back in the day and is widely considered as such because a lot has happened since then. But people tend to over exaggerate time as being further away.

 

Yes, January 2020 was a little while ago. It's just not a long time, no matter how many people say it is.

[realm722]

On 5/24/2020 at 7:52 PM, Spaz said:

It irks me that you say stuff like "back in March 2020", like it was a long time ago. Honestly, it wasn't.

 

People have a tendency to say things like "....in early 2015. Back then, I was doing yadda yadda yadda...", which I will agree to an extent that it was some time ago. For a 10 year old kid, two years is a long time. It all depends on how you see time. I don't think two years ago was a long time ago, but then again I'm much older than 10. It's true with what they say, the older you get, the faster time flies by.

 

How time passes by for me is quicker today than it was when I was 21 years old, a decade ago. Your posts are enlightening and elaborate with good detail, but saying "back in March 2020" is basically saying it in retrospect because March felt like it was only three weeks ago for me.

 

We're already saying 2010 - 2012 was back in the day and is widely considered as such because a lot has happened since then. But people tend to over exaggerate time as being further away.

 

Yes, January 2020 was a little while ago. It's just not a long time, no matter how many people say it is.

 

I feel you, and I actually agree with you 100% since I see that a lot on Twitter - but I don't really use the time references I give as a means to say "wow I got this a long time ago". Personally, I compare when it was on sale on PS Prices and go "ahh okay I got this game 2 months ago, now I'm playing it - cool". It's been helpful for me to compare whether I should consider buying a game that's on sale or hold off on playing it since I likely won't even get around to playing it before the next time it goes on sale. 

 

I hope that makes sense - he's an example if I'm not explaining myself right.

 

On my Hollow Knight post, I wrote I bought it in "back in March 2020". Prolly should have just put "in March 2020", fair enough. But I just got around to playing it this mid-May. By checking Hollow Knight's price on PSPrices - I can tell it took me pretty much 2 months to get around to feeling up to play it. By comparison - the 1st game in the Spyro Reignited Trilogy I bought $20 for, and since it was the exact type of game I was wanting to play, I played it in the same month I had purchased it. Yet, I still cited "bought in April 2020". On my post about Sundered, I showed that I bought it "back in December 2019" - and got around to playing it in mid-April. That's damn near 4 months between purchasing/playing (granted - I had a very annoying error with that game that had me worried it would glitch and not let me complete it), using PSPrices - it went on sale for the exact same price 1 time since before I had played it(and coincidentally is on sale for the same price at $5 right now).

 

TL;DR - I gotchu, I use those statements more as a reference to show how long between purchasing/playing + it helps me better gauge if I should buy a game on sale VS. using it as a reference for a long period of time passing.

[AJ_Radio]

Sorry I didn't mean to cause drama or try to change your habit, because you do put real effort in your progress thread and I enjoy reading your posts.

 

I tend to say "back in 2015 - 2016" because obviously, four - five years was quite some time ago. There is stuff from 2014 - 2016 that I STILL haven't gotten around to. I'm sort of killing my own purpose of defeating a backlog but such is a tendency for me as a trophy hunter.

 

To change subjects, I'm a little of a Miami Marlins fan. Not as big as a baseball fan as I was when Juan Pierre and Miguel Cabrera were both playing on the team back when they were called the Florida Marlins. Giocarlo Stanton brought a bit of my interest back on the team. Barry Bonds was the hitting coach in 2016, still tragic their star pitcher died at only 24 years old.

[realm722]

4 hours ago, Spaz said:

Sorry I didn't mean to cause drama or try to change your habit, because you do put real effort in your progress thread and I enjoy reading your posts.

 

I tend to say "back in 2015 - 2016" because obviously, four - five years was quite some time ago. There is stuff from 2014 - 2016 that I STILL haven't gotten around to. I'm sort of killing my own purpose of defeating a backlog but such is a tendency for me as a trophy hunter.

 

To change subjects, I'm a little of a Miami Marlins fan. Not as big as a baseball fan as I was when Juan Pierre and Miguel Cabrera were both playing on the team back when they were called the Florida Marlins. Giocarlo Stanton brought a bit of my interest back on the team. Barry Bonds was the hitting coach in 2016, still tragic their star pitcher died at only 24 years old.

 

Hah no worries man. As for the Marlins - woo! We are few and far between but it's nice to see another on the internet. I absolutely love the early 2000s teams, Pierre was a ton of fun and Miggy is quite possibly the best pure hitter to ever play for us (even though his MVP and triple crown success came AFTER being traded). The teams that are near and dear to my heart personally were the late 2000s teams even if they never made the playoffs. I dunno how much you followed then but that infield of Mike Jacobs / Dan Uggla / Hanley Ramirez / Jorge Cantu was a group I adored. IIRC, they were 1 HR shy of becoming the 1st infield in MLB History to all hit 30 homers or more in a single season. Shame the pitching wasn't anything to write home about after Josh Johnson. Since then it's been a bit rough... Stanton is one of my favorite players and I went to game #162 during his 2017 MVP Campaign to try and see him hit home run #60. Even though he didn't he made that season so much fun in it's own right, I remember tracking his homers each game. Sadly, also took a pic of that outfield united (Stanton/Ozuna/Yelich) and it was the last time they played together before the team got blown up (again :/).... I like our farm system - we'll see how Jeter does as Ownership tryna build new trust (tho with this virus we'll see when the season begins)

 

As for Jose Fernandez... yup :/ - that day is still vivid for me. Woke up hazy getting ready to go to a Dolphins v. Browns 2016 Week #3 regular season game and the news came in he and two others had died in a boating accident. Couldn't believe it - especially since he had one of the best games of his entire career just a few nights before vs Washington. He was Cy Young-caliber at home. Just hope life goes on for his mom, abuela, and daughter really. 

[realm722]

Game: Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage

 

Analysis: The 2nd in the trilogy. Bought for $19.99 back in April 2020. So... I've had a weird experience with Spyro thus far. Honestly, playing through the 1st world I wasn't enjoying it. It felt... and forgive me if this is sacrilege, soulless? Just mindlessly wondering around these worlds getting gems. But slowly the game grew on me. Especially with all the mini-games and the first one that captivated me was the ice hockey game against the enemies. It wasn't particularly exceptional, but I liked how it switched things up. This video helped me a little bit figuring stuff out. Once I got all of the moves, did a little bit of back-tracking and zoomed through the game fairly quickly. A few of the mini-games (like the frigging cart tracks) took me a few tries but eventually I get the feel for them and achieved 100% completion. In terms of the trophies, nothing was at all too tricky. Conservationist 2 initially was brutal for me but once I unlocked the unlimited flame it was a complete joke. Duck and Cover was done on the 1st try. Olly Olly Oxen Free can be cheesed by barely going onto the ice, jumping up, and firing your long distance fireball to take him down without getting hit by the ridiculous bombs on the ice. All in all, it took me 3 days and 3 hours to achieve the 40.18% rarity platinum. I think I can comfortably say these games are prolly great for kids and a decent trip if you're looking for some nostalgia. In terms of a modern game it's aight and good to have on and tackle while you're listening/watching something else as it never demands too much of your attention. Personally, I love listening to The Ringer podcast w/ Bill Simmons and just falling down different YouTube rabbit-holes. (MLK Movie)

 

Panda Score: 6.6 / 10

Edited January 18, 2023 by realm722

[AJ_Radio]

I personally enjoyed the little cutscenes that played before and after each world. Helped give the game some humor and life.

 

Ripto I felt was a little better than the villain in the first game. Hunter was like your old longtime buddy who always goes for the next challenge. I never played the Spyro games as a kid, so the nostalgia just wasn't there for me.

 

I can spoil you with Spyro 3: Year of the Dragon, but I'll leave that up to you.

[realm722]

Game: Arcade Game Series: Dig Dug

 

Analysis: Bought for $1.99 back in late April 2020. I originally played Pac-Man back towards the very end of December 2018, I then played Galaga at the start of 2020 in January, and now I figured I'd play Dig Dug. According to the platinum rarity %, it should be the easiest of the bunch. I remember Pac-Man taking some attempts and having to abuse the save/cloud loophole, but eventually getting it. Galaga was hard as hell even with that exploit even though I still beat it in a day. How was Dig-Dug? Decent fun. The hardest trophy for me was easily clearing out the entirety of the level. Just learning the dynamics of the game and the most efficient way to clear through the level. From there I worked on the 100 kills utilizing the save/cloud loophole, got that trophy, and finally played through one last time to get the 1000 spaces cleared. All in all it took me 6 hours to achieve the 27.33% rarity platinum. It was pretty decent to be honest. Very simplistic of course but the game absolutely ramps up in difficulty as you move up the ranks (the speed at which the enemies move just gets goofy) but it works. 

 

Panda Score: 6.4 / 10

[realm722]

Game: Island Saver

 

Analysis: This was not a game I had on my radar but surprise - it's free to play and I got it late May 2020! Yea - saw this as a nice and easy 100% since I'm trying to play at least one per month and figured it looked pretty cute. It's honestly a fantastic kids game! Specifically for kids - but still, there are some elements I love about this game. It utilizes caring for and cleaning up the environment to attract beautiful creatures while teaching kids about the importance of banking and saving. Basically - and I think I'm far from the first person to think of this, this game is essentially baby's edition of Viva Piñata + Slime Rancher. My mind went directly to that comparison while playing, I browse through the 10/10 steam reviews - and yup that's also why it's being praised. That's very nice. Viva Piñata is one of my All-Time favorite games from the Xbox 360 days and I WISH there was a more modern in-depth version to play. I also bought Slime Rancher and will get around to playing it before the end of the year. This game is a great introduction for kids to that setting when it comes to cleaning up plastic, the shiny elephants and gorillas are wonderful, and yea... it's good mindless fun as an adult if you're watching a movie / listening to something else in the background. That being said - let's not ignore it's flaws. Since it's a kids game, the depth is very minimal, you tend to repeat the exact same tasks over and over again, and the way the game gets more "challenging" is making tasks more tedious rather than building off it's concepts. That's 100% fine, I still had my fun with it. It took me 4 days and 8 hours to achieve 45.04% 100% completion! None of the trophies are difficult or at all tricky and as long as you turn your money in at the exchange rate you'll wrap it up just playing through the 3 islands normally.

 

Panda Score: 6.5 / 10

Edited January 18, 2023 by realm722

[realm722]

Oh no he has a YouTube Channel

Yea... 

 

Here's the link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMmDcVOfCm-7tKAfIv8692g/videos?view_as=subscriber

 

So I've always liked making goof videos. But never actually bothered posting any of them until now. Let me warn right now - most of that stuff the vast majority of people here won't have any interest in watching (advertising GOD over here I know). Lots of the videos are South Florida sports related. I just get the communities since I'm a fan. The channel is largely gonna be for goofs - I don't expect to actually generate any semblance of audience but ya never know if I make enough funny stuff maybe people will stick around. In terms of video games, there's a funny one titled "The Legend of Raimo Tarkki" from NHL YouTuber 2BCProductions who's the GOAT NHL YouTuber and that ones probably the most funny to a general audience. Unbelievably, I posted it in his discord, the fans really liked it, one of them donated it to his Twitch stream and he watched it live and loved it which was pretty awesome for me. In terms of other actual video games, here's a lil Hollow Knight one I made.

 

 

I know - the apex of comedy. But yea... I think I wanna do one on a movie next with an actual voice-over - we'll see. Just figured I'd post it on here because lord knows the strategy I'm taking my channel in - the Youtube algorithm will literally recommend videos on insect genocide before I pop up anywhere. 

Edited June 15, 2020 by realm722