PSNProfiles Game of the Month Club

[MidnightCJ]

On 7/13/2017 at 4:00 PM, darkamdusias said:

Also, yes, you can totally join (or leave) on a month-by-month basis.

 

Why had this not shown up before I was invited to a platinum race? I feel like I should switch sides because I like game discussion better than cutthroat competitions. I'll gladly come here on a month-by-month basis, though I am always strapped for cash so I can't buy even the cheapest games at times.

[Mesopithecus]

11 minutes ago, MidnightCJ said:

 

Why had this not shown up before I was invited to a platinum race? I feel like I should switch sides because I like game discussion better than cutthroat competitions. I'll gladly come here on a month-by-month basis, though I am always strapped for cash so I can't buy even the cheapest games at times.

 

One of this months games, A King's Tale FFXV, is actually free on the Store.  So if you wanted to participate in the event you could download it and play.  Be a nice relaxing experience after all those points you've earned in the race.

[Alpsmile05]

8 hours ago, darkamdusias said:

I gave it a quick run through pretty recently as well, but I think my reaction was generally a positive one, as I enjoyed seeing lots of classic Final Fantasy enemies while playing an old-school brawler (the identity of the final boss was a treat too)

Yeah, I can see that the nostalgy feeling can help, but seeing this was my first ever encounter with FF that didn't work for me

[Karnacharya]

15 hours ago, Fredoline05 said:

Yeah, I can see that the nostalgy feeling can help, but seeing this was my first ever encounter with FF that didn't work for me

 

Thanks makes total sense. Are there games that you do feel nostalgic about? Or are you not a nostalgia kind of person?

[Alpsmile05]

I sure am a nostalgic person, I actually play pokemon Go from time to time, talking about a nostalgic adventure!

[Karnacharya]

Yeah, I love me some Pokemon too! I don't play Go as much, but I did put 300 hours into Pokemon Moon last fall.

[Karnacharya]

Thank you to everyone who participated in July 2017's Game of the Month discussion! August 2017's Game of the Month choices are up!

[Alpsmile05]

Oh the new games are up, and perfect timing too, I just finished off another game and was looking at what to play next.

 

So stories: my girlfriend started that one a while back but hasn't finished it, I might take it from her and give it a go, nice I got it through ps+, that means I don't have to spend money to play this month's game.

 

The second game: The deadly tower is another ps+ game and that one I already played and finished. I can say that I enjoyed that one, and it's an easy plat for those who want that

 

Now let's see what to vote for next month!

[MarkusT1992]

I already platted both games fom this month.

 

Both were good but Stories was the better game for me.

I liked the many different routes in Stories and the combat. It's like the Arkham combat system, which is one of the best combat systems for such games.

It's a huge grind at the end though.

 

Deadly Towers is like an old, bad B-movie. The commentary from the produce was great. You climb a tower in platformer style and fight different monsters on the way.

 

Both games are worth to try, especially when you got them for free from PS+

[jasondm300]

Stories has been on my backlog for a while.  This will give me a reason to start it up

[MadDogProskelion]

Will keep an eye on this.

Would start, but just signed up to something else for Halloween - took all my shekels!

Definitely interested as the games list grows though

[MachoLucha]

Have Deadly Tower from PS+, only played it a bit, but seemed like a decent enough game, nothing mind-blowing, but fun enough. Ta for the link to the guide, didn't realise its a quick(ish) one to platinum, so will try and give it a go.

[Karnacharya]

I might actually give Deadly Tower of Monsters another shot this month, if only because it's faster than Stories (I'm in the middle of FFXII right now, so I can't dedicate myself to a new game completely).

 

TDTOM was really fun on the first playthrough though. I grew up watching Lost in Space, Star Trek, and (Adam West's) Batman (all a few decades after they were released), so the goofy antiqued "special effects" made me smile. The commentary was also great, and more than made up for the fairly basic gameplay. 

[Karnacharya]

UPDATE: I ended up playing Stories: The Path of Destinies after all, and here are my thoughts:

 

1. Gameplay-wise, I liked the game a lot. I loved the organic growth in Reynardo's powers; starting from as a really basic character and then becoming unstoppable force of nature near the end felt really gratifying.

2. I've seen critiques of the game's repetitive enemy types (there are only six, I think?), but I honestly didn't mind. The combat was fun enough to keep me entertained, and while I did find myself occasionally wishing for a boss battle or two (it would have been cool to face off against the Emperor, Zenobia, or a certain backstabbing friend), it wasn't a big problem for me in the long run.

3. Story-wise, I loved the variation in all of the stories. I actually went out of my way to get more than the twenty-five endings required for the Platinum just so that I could see them all. I would recommend others do too.

4. I liked a lot of the characters and music in the game. I'm not going to remember much in the way of either five years from now, but overall, both did their job well.

5. SO. MANY. ENDINGS. Not that I'm complaining, mind you.

6. End-game leveling was unfortunately, a little bit tedious; it's nowhere near as bad as the grinds in say, the Hyperdimension Neptunia games (or even Final Fantasy games), though.

7. The voice actors were spot-on, and the narrator did his job excellently. Everyone on the voice team deserves serious props.

 

Overall, I'd say that this game was a solid 7.5/10 for me, and would recommend that everyone who likes these types of games (action games with RPG elements) play through it at least three or four times to experience just how varied and well-written it is. Did anyone else play the game this month?

Edited September 6, 2017 by darkamdusias

[jasondm300]

I played some of Stories, and I thought that the storytelling was really well done.  The characters were well written, and I like that the choices actually do change the story.  The battle system was pretty easy to learn, but getting the 60 hit combo took a lot of work.  I'll go back and finish some more endings as time goes on.

[Karnacharya]

1 hour ago, jasondm300 said:

I played some of Stories, and I thought that the storytelling was really well done.  The characters were well written, and I like that the choices actually do change the story.  The battle system was pretty easy to learn, but getting the 60 hit combo took a lot of work.  I'll go back and finish some more endings as time goes on.

 

I found that getting the skill that allows you to teleport to an enemy after your combo has a certain amount of hits made that trophy much more manageable for me.

[gazdavis11]

How long does it take to play through each game if there are 25 endings?  I think that's what puts me off or can you just continue from a save point near the end to go straight to the next one or do you have to play the whole game through each time?

[KittiBear]

1 minute ago, gazdavis11 said:

How long does it take to play through each game if there are 25 endings?  I think that's what puts me off or can you just continue from a save point near the end to go straight to the next one or do you have to play the whole game through each time?

From what I remember when I played a few months ago you have to play through each one. It's tedious and grindy but I managed to do it in the span of 4 days with only having the evening after work as my time to do it. So it doesn't take too long to do, especially if you have a large chunk of time to do it, but it certainly was boring since a lot of the endings are very samey after you've experienced the core of each branch.

[Karnacharya]

1 hour ago, KittiBear said:

From what I remember when I played a few months ago you have to play through each one. It's tedious and grindy but I managed to do it in the span of 4 days with only having the evening after work as my time to do it. So it doesn't take too long to do, especially if you have a large chunk of time to do it, but it certainly was boring since a lot of the endings are very samey after you've experienced the core of each branch.

 

Yep, this sums it up perfectly. I didn't mind so much as I needed the experience points for Sword-Fu Master, but admittedly, yeah it's tedious, but not particularly long; the last two trophies (Sword-Fu Master and Bookworm) take more time to get than the rest of the trophies combined. As a quick heads up, I believe that the 15 hour Platinum estimate on the PSNProfiles guide is pretty optimistic. It took me closer to twenty hours to Platinum the game. 

[Hemiak]

Hmmm, the way people talked about all the endings I was thinking Stories was a VN type game. Might actually play it now. I started TDToM in July and stopped playing right around Mechachameleon so I should probably finish that up first. Probably get to that after I finish Invisible. 

[MarkusT1992]

3 hours ago, gazdavis11 said:

How long does it take to play through each game if there are 25 endings?  I think that's what puts me off or can you just continue from a save point near the end to go straight to the next one or do you have to play the whole game through each time?

The first few playthroughs take about 40-50 minutes each.

After you leveld up a bit and learned a few skills you can do one run in 25-30 minutes.

[Arctic Cress]

I think I'll get to Stories either tomorrow or this weekend. Been a busy week at work even with the off day.

[Arctic Cress]

Went through and got my first ending (and secret) today. Game kind of reminds me of Bastion with the narration throughout the game and the general look of the stages each chapter is on. I am pretty bad at the combat system when I started because I kept going back to the control scheme of the last action RPG I played and pushing the wrong buttons to counter and dash. Should get better at that in the second play through. Hopefully there's more funny narrator dialogue to find, I've really liked some of the death quotes and lines for smashing breakable items.

 

Got ten trophies in that run, and since I've already committed to this game in the Fall Backlog Challenge I will be getting the platinum in this at some point.

[Karnacharya]

9 hours ago, Arctic Cress said:

Went through and got my first ending (and secret) today. Game kind of reminds me of Bastion with the narration throughout the game and the general look of the stages each chapter is on. I am pretty bad at the combat system when I started because I kept going back to the control scheme of the last action RPG I played and pushing the wrong buttons to counter and dash. Should get better at that in the second play through. Hopefully there's more funny narrator dialogue to find, I've really liked some of the death quotes and lines for smashing breakable items.

 

Got ten trophies in that run, and since I've already committed to this game in the Fall Backlog Challenge I will be getting the platinum in this at some point.

 

The narration stays pretty fresh throughout, with the exception of scripted story-related narration that are tied to quests. The combat does take a little getting used to at first (it took me some time to work out the kinks in my game as well), but your character becomes basically unkillable the more you play (especially with the bonuses you unlock after achieving the True Ending. Glad you're enjoying it so far!

[KittiBear]

Although the next picks are tied right now (Bully and Undertale) Bully is on sale on PSN at the moment so if anyone didn't have it already and was interested it might be a good time to pick it up :3