Darling Baphomet Posted August 30, 2022 Share Posted August 30, 2022 I kept seeing Coffee Talk on sale and was interested, but could never justify pulling the trigger - maybe I'll actually get to buying it next time I see it at a discount. On 8/21/2022 at 11:05 AM, Rally-Vincent--- said: Maybe with a pure platformer. Or would that turn out as a rogue-like instead? Sounds like Super Meat Boy to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rally-Vincent--- Posted August 30, 2022 Share Posted August 30, 2022 21 minutes ago, Darling Baphomet said: Sounds like Super Meat Boy to me. Isn't a Souls-like kind of free roam, or at least continously expanding free roam instead of level based like SMB? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mori Posted August 30, 2022 Share Posted August 30, 2022 Coffee Talk was one of the best game I could have chosen for a small break between all the hassle of other games. Did you also read the short stories on your phone written by Freya? Overall I'd recommend the game to anyone when it is on sale, not much you could do wrong with that. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Cassylvania Posted September 4, 2022 Author Popular Post Share Posted September 4, 2022 (edited) Glad you guys liked the Coffee Talk review! I know these have been pretty rapid reviews for the past couple months... Playing a new game every week does that to me. On 8/30/2022 at 4:15 PM, Mori said: Coffee Talk was one of the best game I could have chosen for a small break between all the hassle of other games. Did you also read the short stories on your phone written by Freya? I actually didn't. I just put the game on autoplay and kicked back. It was neat to be able to flip through your phone and read stuff while conversations were going on, though. I've always wished more games allowed you to do stuff while NPCs are talking. Even just being able to manipulate the camera or walk a short distance in the Souls games is a nice touch. Alright, time for another chill game... Platinum #332 - The Wild at Heart In this game, which is definitely NOT based on the 1990 comedy starring Nicolas Cage, you play as best friends, Wake and Kirby. (And if you think I'm making up those names, let me assure you that those are the normal ones. My favorites were the twins, Can Dance and Can't Dance.) Wake and Kirby are kids who decide to run away from home and live in the woods. In doing so, they stumble into a strange, magical world called the Deep Woods and have to help its eccentric habitants, known as the Greenshields, battle against an evil creature known as The Never and the growing darkness. Not the most original storyline, admittedly, but one that I can totally get behind. Now, the first thing you're going to notice about the game is that it oozes charm, from its graphics to its writing to its music. The last of those is sorcery to me as far as I'm concerned, but the other two are done so well that I have to talk about them. First, the writing is simple -- as you would expect from a game intended for a younger audience and stylized to look like a children's storybook -- but it's fun and whimsical. The writers realized that you can get a lot of personality out of a character simply by WRITING IN ALL CAPS to indicate excitement or social awkwardness or shrinking the font down slightly to indicate mumbling or embarrassment. It says a lot about the quality of the writing when I can hear the characters in my mind, even though there is no spoken dialogue. As for the graphics, they're storybook-esque. I'm going to imagine the main inspiration was Where the Wild Things Are, given the title and overall theme of the game, and it's definitely beautiful to look at it. I mean, it's what sold me on the game in the first place. Unfortunately, it suffers from the same problem as a lot of games that are animated to look this way -- namely, it can be difficult to differentiate between items you can interact with and background objects or where you're able to walk (especially when it comes to verticality). The screen can also get pretty clutter too. The Deep Woods is a very busy place. What's the gameplay like? Well, it's difficult to put this game into a genre, but I'd say it's equal parts exploration, combat, puzzle-solving, and crafting. If I had to compare it to some other games I've played this year, I'd say it's a bit like The Survivalists/Kena (because of the cute little helpers) and Wytchwood (because of the story, crafting element, and aesthetics). That's not bad company. Throughout the game, you'll encounter tiny creatures called Spritelings who will join you on your journey. (I'm just going to refer to them as "goobers" because that's a lot easier to type.) There are yellow goobers, red goobers, blue goobers, purple goobers, and green(-ish?) goobers. Each of them has a unique strength. Yellow goobers, for example, are immune to spore damage, so you can use them to destroy mushrooms or toxic enemies in your way. Red goobers are immune to fire damage, so they can walk on molten ground and destroy fire rocks, and you can probably figure out what blue goobers do. Purple and green goobers are slightly more interesting, but I won't spoil what they can do. You only have access to yellow goobers at the beginning of the game, but you'll eventually gain access to all of them. I think the order you unlock them depends on which quests you tackle first, so it's possible you might get them earlier or later in your playthrough than I did. There are safe areas throughout the game in the form of campsites. In these areas, you can save your game, craft items, and choose how many of each color goober to take with you into the Deep Woods. The best thing to do in my experience is to have an equal number of each because you never know when you'll need a certain color. (There are a couple puzzles that involve having many of the same color, but not many.) As you find and purchase upgrades, you can take a larger number of goobers with you, up to a maximum of 60. Besides attacking enemies and solving puzzles for you, goobers can also harvest resources and carry items back to your base. They can also die, which sucks, but it's pretty easy to find eggs and hatch new ones. Wake and Kirby also have abilities, but they're pretty limited. Wake has a "Gustbuster" that he can use to rotate windmills and Kirby (who you gain access to a bit later in the game) can fit through logs to access secret areas. They both have a weak kick attack. They can walk through sludge, while the goobers cannot. You can swap between Wake and Kirby with the triangle button, which automatically causes the goobers to follow the active character, or you can double click to switch characters while keeping the goobers with the inactive character. Good if you want to want to scout ahead without putting your goobers in danger. The other major thing Wake and Kirby can do is craft items, only one of which (the bomb) is necessary to beat the game. The other items are potions and healing items. I chose to play on the easy difficulty, so I never needed these, but maybe they're more important on the hard difficulty. I guess that brings us to the day/night cycle. Time passes quickly in this game. When the sun starts setting, the music gets really eerie and warns you to find somewhere safe. I recommend doing that. Monsters come out at night and will absolutely wreck you and your goobers if you're caught outside the light. At least, that's what you're told... I found the nighttime monsters weren't that scary. They're kinda slow and easy enough to walk around. There are also lanterns strewn throughout the Deep Woods, so you can always just take shelter near one if it's too far to back it back to a campsite. The only problem is that there's nothing you can really do or work on when your character is standing still, so you just have to put your controller down for a few minutes and wait it out. This is where the gameplay gets kinda dull. I generally chose to just run around at night and try to avoid the monsters. (Or you can sleep through if you can find a campsite. That's probably the smarter option.) That's about it. You explore the woods, meet some interesting characters, solve a few (admittedly simple) puzzles, battle (?) some creatures, and generally try to have a good time. If you die ("get knocked unconscious"), it's no big deal. Your friend will just drag you to the nearest campsite and you might lose a few items and goobers, which are easy enough to get back. This is one of those games that's probably going to make me look like a hypocrite because I'm always on the "Gameplay is king!" hype train. In this case, we have a game where the gameplay is clearly the weakest link, but I'm still going to recommend it because the rest of the game is just that good. It's also relatively short, clocking in at around 10-12 hours, depending on how successful you are at unlocking the right upgrades and finding the different color goobers. For me, I spent a good deal of time wandering around until I was able to locate the purple ones, which are absolutely necessary to unlock some of the later areas. There are collectibles that are needed for the platinum, but you can buy maps that will show you where everything is, and there are no missable trophies. Hooray. Twelve spooky games to go! Edited September 4, 2022 by Cassylvania 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Cassylvania Posted September 6, 2022 Author Popular Post Share Posted September 6, 2022 (edited) Platinum #333 - Erica Just a warning: there may be minor spoilers in this review. I'm going to try to limit my thoughts to the first two scenes of the game and the overall premise, but it's going to be hard to talk about the game without delving a little into the story... This is basically an interactive movie, similiar to Hidden Agenda or a Telltale game. (Probably closer to the former since it's full motion.) In Erica, you play as Erica Mason, a girl with a troubled past. Her mother died when she was very young and her father was murdered right in front of her by an unknown assailant who left some demonic symbol on his chest. Both of them worked at the Delphi House, which is an all-girls asylum and also where Erica grew up. Shortly before he was killed (the first scene in the game), her father asks Erica if she has the same supernatural ability as her mother, which is apparently to stare into fire and see the future... Now, this is where the game missed a HUGE opportunity because that could have been a great premise for a choose-your-own-adventure game. Imagine if you could hover over the choices you're given and get a quick glimpse of the consequences of that action. Instead, it's rarely mentioned again, except when it's convenient for the plot. At any rate, Erica is all grown up now and lives in some shitty flat on the bad side of town. (I guess her father didn't leave her much money, despite working as a doctor.) One day, a package arrives in the mail that sets a series of events into motion that lead Erica back to the Delphi House to investigate a satanic cult and to find out what really happened to her parents. Along the way, she'll meet a colorful cast of characters who are each more suspicious than the one before. Your decisions throughout the game will determine Erica's fate. Unlike a Telltale game, this entire game is played with the touchpad. If a decision appears on screen, you need to slowly guide your finger along the touchpad to make your choice. Same if you're opening or closing an object. This is usually pretty intuitive. For example, Erica is given a lighter in the early game. When you see a close-up of it, it makes sense to open the lighter by sliding your finger from right to left and then sliding your finger from up to down to strike it. I was actually impressed by the technology in some of the scenes because, again, this is full motion video, so it's neat to see realistic objects move at the speed that you're controlling. I'm not sure what kind of camera magic is needed for that. The problem is that there often isn't enough room on the touchpad to perform some actions, so you'll end up running your finger off the controller and having to try again. This can be finnicky. Similarly, it can be hard to select the correct decision. You're sometimes given three or four choices on screen. In order to select one, you have to hover the cursor over the decision you want and then let go. If the decisions are too close together or if you let go at the wrong time, you could easily select the wrong thing, which is particularly troublesome because many of the trophies REQUIRE you to select a particular decision and there's no way to go back. (In fact, the trophies don't even pop until you finish the playthrough.) The game says you can download the Erica App onto your smartphone, which might work better, but that's not an option if you're playing on a PS5. Wish I had known that sooner. Fortunately, you're usually given ample time to make a decision. In some cases, you have to make a choice in order for the game to advance. In others, silence/hesitation will serve as your option. I actually preferred that over selecting something because it can be so hilariously awkward to watch a real person try to hold an expression for several seconds. I will say all the actors did a fine job. I didn't recognize any of them because I don't watch UK shows, but I felt like I was watching a low-budget horror film, which I don't mean as an insult. If anything, I think they were just held back by some subpar writing and that weird side effect you get when you get when you try to provide multiple story paths instead of one cohesive tale. (In Telltale games, this occurs when you tell a character to piss off, they snap at you, and then they're back to being your best friend a few seconds later. Here, their actions are more seamless and nuanced, which works well in a psychological thriller. You might only get the twitch of an eye or a slight look to let you know how they feel about your response.) I want to say a little more on that subject, so I'm going to introduce you to one of the girls you meet at the Delphi House. Meet Tobi. Tobi is a bitch. In your first interaction with her, she's smoking and you're caught staring at her, likely because...you know, this is a hospital...and she's like "What?" in the most confrontational way possible. You're then given three options: ask for one, confront, or back off. Now, I don't know how it is in the UK, but "back off" can have more than one meaning. I thought that was the aggressive option, where Erica would say, "Back off!" and then shove Tobi to the ground or something. Instead, it was referring to "back off" as a verb, which meant Erica squeaked out an apology and then crawled back into her shell. There are other instances in this game where it's not clear how Erica will respond when you select a particular action. This is common with interactive games and even some RPGs (looking at you, BioWare), but it's especially noticeable here because you're often only given a single word or short phrase to work with. An easy solution would've been to use colored font to indicate mood, such as red for aggressive or blue for passive. (For the best delivered line in the game, ask Tobi for a cigarette.) So, that's two instances of this game dropping the ball. The story plays out much the same way, regardless of the actions you take. This wouldn't be noticeable if you only played through the game once, but the platinum requires at least five playthroughs, probably six, and I was actually worried I'd need a seventh. That's because some trophies require a very specific set of actions to be taken. The good news is that most of the trophies (all but one, I think) carry over. The bad news is that you have to keep track of how far along you are on each of them. Fall Out Girl, for example, requires "annoying" your three main gal pals: Tobi, Kirstie, and Hannah. It may or may not be possible to do all that in a single playthrough. If it's not, you can just annoy one during your first playthrough and the other two later on. Unfortunately, there's no way to see which girls you've annoyed on previous playthroughs, nor is it possible to see when you've successfully annoyed one of them. (Tobi, for example, is always annoyed. That's her character. How am I supposed to know what particular action is going to piss her off enough to count for the trophy?) I'm now going to do something unprecedented. I'm going to use the spoiler tag for its intended use. Do not read the next paragraph unless you want a major part of the story revealed. Spoiler Mia Greene is a terribly written character. So, she kills Erica's father right in front of Erica "to protect her", waits a couple decades, and then starts shipping Erica random dismembered body parts of supposed cult members as a "gift"? Like, I get that it's done for dramatic effect, but from a story perspective, it makes no sense. It gets even worse when she kills the chief inspector and then walks into the room with a gun pointed right at Erica. Yes, it's supposed to bring Erica back to that moment when she caught the silhouette of the person who killed her father, but why would she be pointing the gun when she's already neutralized the only threat in the room? And then she acts SURPRISED when Erica doesn't trust her right away. Bitch, you sent me a severed hand in a box. How about a more open line of communication next time? Can we call that three strikes? Maybe. See, most of my problems with this game stem from having to play through it more than once. That's when the cracks really begin to show, from a gameplay perspective and a story perspective. For as much shit as some people give it, the original Life is Strange has one of the best narratives I've seen in a video game, where your final decision actually seems to mean something. I didn't feel that here. The endings are fairly different in terms of what they mean for Erica and whoever survives, but we never know enough about Erica to care about her future because the entire game seems to revolve around one specific (though extremely traumatic) event from her childhood. Each playthrough is about as long as a feature-length film, but I never felt like we got to know any of these characters, which makes it very hard to get emotionally attached to any of them. Almost all of the tension is lost after the first playthrough because you've seen every major scene the game has to offer. The only difference in future playthroughs might be a few lines of dialogue along the way and a different gal pal you can hang out with or annoy. One thing I will say is that I'm glad I resisted my usual urge to post my review immediately after finishing the game. I started to and absolutely eviscerated this game for its bad storytelling and poor controls. But then I decided to sleep on it, woke up, and decided to give it a more fair review. I think this does the job. From a technical standpoint, this was an impressive game. I also thoroughly enjoyed my first playthrough. Erica looks like someone who would get startled if a fly landed on a telephone pole about a mile away, but the scenes were tense and everybody looked suspicious. There's something particularly unnerving about the scenes where you're spying on someone, likely because these are real people and that's not something you're used to in a video game... In short, good graphics (10/10 -- felt like I was there), good acting, good atmosphere; bad story, bad writing, bad controls. I give it four Tobi cigarettes out of 10. Edited September 6, 2022 by Cassylvania 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cassylvania Posted September 8, 2022 Author Share Posted September 8, 2022 (edited) Platinum #334 - Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba - The Hinokami Chronicles (Yes, I had to check that title five times to be sure I spelled it right.) So, maybe of you have probably wondered how I have the patience to stomach some of these games, particularly those with exceptionally long grinds (e.g. Dragon Quest Heroes 2) or multiple unnecessary playthroughs (e.g. Erica). The truth is that I watch a lot of other things. Recently, I've been trying to get into anime, and the first show I happened to pick was Demon Slayer, which is about a boy named Tanjiro Kamado, whose family is killed by a demon, and his sister Nezuko, who has been turned into a demon, on a quest to...well, slay demons. I don't usually review the shows I watch here (maybe I should), but I think the fact that I went out and bought this game -- a fighting game, nonetheless (my least favorite genre) -- says everything you need to know. Does it hold up as well as the show? Let's find out. To begin, this IS a fighting game, but it's a 3D fighting game, which is a genre that I didn't think existed. Most battles put you into a circular arena with either one or two opponents. You have a variety of attacks you can perform, including a normal attack, special attacks (which use an energy bar), jump, throw, shield, parry, dodge, Boost/Surge, and an ULTIMATE ART (the latter two of which will require filling up the yellow meter at the bottom of the screen). You also sometimes get a support character, who can be summoned to attack your opponent or help you to dodge an attack. During Story Mode, you usually play as Tanjiro, but there are actually a lot of playable characters in VS Mode and Training (especially if you buy the DLC packs). There's technically more to the gameplay than that. When you're going through Story Mode, you'll occasionally get to move around a small map for some reason. I'm not really sure why this is present, other than to pad out the campaign or make the game feel more like an adventure. You'll encounter scripted battles here and there are a few collectibles, but they're all marked on your mini-map and you can always revisit an area if you miss something. There are also two mini-games that you'll complete towards the end of the game. Both of these simply involve pressing the right button on your controller at the right time. I usually hate stuff like that, but these weren't hard. I kinda want to talk about the graphics, the audio, the gameplay, and the trophies. The graphics are...honestly, impressive. I don't play a lot of anime-inspired adaptations, but this looks damn close to the show. There are a LOT of cutscenes and they're very well done. In battle, the special attacks are gorgeous and the Ultimate Arts are fun to watch. They're basically just a chance for you to put down your controller for a few seconds and watch your character absolutely decimate your opponent. I'm pretty sure a lot of these were taken directly from scenes in the show. Audio is pretty good too. I watched the anime with English dubs and they used all the same voice actors from what I can tell, so take that for what you will. I know some people are very much against English dubs for this kind of stuff. Gameplay was fun, which was actually the biggest surprise for me. I don't usually like stuff like this and I only really considered it because I saw it was a fairly short platinum and thought, "Well, if I don't like it, at least I won't have to play it for long." But no, I actually enjoyed fighting the AI. I haven't brought this game up in a review for a while, but this honestly reminded me of -- yes, I'm about to say it -- Dark Souls. Attacks are very fairly telegraphed (with a colored area showing you the range), dodging is necessary to avoid taking damage, and you're often bouncing back and forth between an aggressive and a defensive playstyle. Most opponents only have a few attacks, so battles just come down to learning when to run away (standing still fills up your energy bar) and when to punish your opponent. You also want to make sure you're connecting on your Ultimate Arts, or you just wasted your best source of damage. One of the most amazing things about this game is that I didn't get frustrated, despite some tricky battles where I got my ass handed it to me. I found that every attack is dodgeable and most of the damage I took was my own fault for being greedy. You really want to combo your opponent (four or five normal attacks in a row, followed by one or two special attacks) and then back off while they're on the ground. If you stand still and use your support when your opponent gets back up, it usually buys you enough time to refill your energy meter. In some cases, you're better off baiting certain attacks than trying to counter everything coming your way. I found every opponent has at least one or two attacks that are easy to punish them for once they're done. As far as trophies go, your main priority is getting an S rank in every Story Mode battle. You'll probably get a lot of these naturally playing through the game. There are also "Special Missions" that you'll need to get an S rank on (both difficulties), but there are only a couple I struggled with. Getting an S rank on the final boss was a bit of a pain too. How do you get an S rank? Generally, you need to beat the battle without taking a lot of damage. Doing it quickly seems to help too, but you really want to be finishing with above 75% health most of the time, so playing it safe seems to be a better strategy. Sometimes your opponent will go into "awakened" mode, where they'll become much stronger, more aggressive, and not flinch from your attacks. I recommend staying back and dodging instead of trying to get a few hits in when this happens... Fortunately, you can choose which character you want to use (and your support) for a lot of these battles. I went with Nezuko whenever possible because she's fast and easy to combo with. I liked Zenitsu as a support (not only because he works well at range and can stun enemies, but because these two have some funny dialogue when they're together). Looks like it took me about 22 hours to get the platinum. That seems high, but I was probably idle a lot. Maybe a 4/10 in difficulty? In a shocking twist, guys, I really liked this game. I would recommend it. The unfortunate thing is that it's only on the PS5 and neither the physical version nor the digital version are in a price range that I'd consider acceptable, but definitely consider this if you enjoy the anime or fighting games. I think it gives you a good taste of both the show and the genre without asking for too much in return, which is what I hope for when I venture outside my comfort zone. Huh... Edited September 8, 2022 by Cassylvania 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Taruta13 Posted September 8, 2022 Share Posted September 8, 2022 @Mori, I really dig your animated signature pic, it's really funny seeing the girl cry "YAY!" after getting a cruddy bronze. On 9/4/2022 at 0:07 PM, Cassylvania said: as you would expect from a game intended for a younger audience and stylized to look like a children's storybook P_P Seriously, people just keep adding to the list of games I have to platinum for my nieces' entertainment. (They are 4 and 2 years old respectively and constantly coming over to visit while their mom and dad are out helping in a hospital and school[both my sister and bro-in-law, who live next door, are nurses].) First Disney Dreamlight Valley and now this. I won't beg to stop because I don't want you to stop the summaries, but ugh... Really love the reviews, Cassy. Keep it up. I have my own thread for all the games I platinumed. It's called "Tataru's House of Business." (Yes, I did like FFXIV but dread the thought of playing through Endwalker again. ) On 9/4/2022 at 0:07 PM, Cassylvania said: (I'm just going to refer to them as "goobers" because that's a lot easier to type.) Why not Pikmin? Oh wait, the Nintendo Ninjas would assassinate you then. Yeah, these Spritelings seem to work like Pikmin. I know that's only one aspect of the game, but... or we could call the Spritelings after those Pikmin creatures you use in Ni No Kuni 2. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Cassylvania Posted September 24, 2022 Author Popular Post Share Posted September 24, 2022 (edited) On 9/8/2022 at 1:15 PM, Taruta13 said: Why not Pikmin? Oh wait, the Nintendo Ninjas would assassinate you then. Yeah, these Spritelings seem to work like Pikmin. I know that's only one aspect of the game, but... or we could call the Spritelings after those Pikmin creatures you use in Ni No Kuni 2. They basically are Pikmin. You wouldn't be the first person to make that comparison. Platinum #335 - Demon's Souls (PS5) I guess this is now my second "stack" on this account. But much like Shantae: Half-Genie Hero, I don't know if it really qualifies since the new trophy list is very different than the one in the original game... I'll let you guys decide. Anyway, this is a gorgeous remake of one of my favorite games of all-time and arguably one of the most influential too. I know I've talked ad nauseam about my experiences with this game, and I'm glad a lot of people who fell in love with the Souls series later on have a chance to play this on a console other than the PS3. I honestly don't even remember what compelled me to pick up this game in 2009 or 2010. I wasn't a hardcore PlayStation player or even a console gamer. I even remember giving up on the game about halfway through because I found it too hard. It wasn't until I revisited it a few weeks or months later and started a new character that I "got" it. I even did the same thing with Dark Souls! I distinctly remember returning that game to GameStop because I didn't think it was as good as the original. Hell, I even drove around town looking for Demon's Souls at GameStop because I had stupidly sold my copy of the game after I beat it. I don't even shop at GameStop. What the hell was wrong with me? This was an easy buy when I lucked into getting a PS5 last year. I was glad to see the trophy list had been changed so I could justify playing through it again for more than just updated graphics, but I see the devs still found a way to force players to farm for the Pure Bladestone. Classic FromSoft. (Yes, I know they weren't involved.) There isn't much else changed here, which was a bit disappointing. I was hoping for some surprises, maybe a couple new mini-bosses or changes to the existing bosses, or some sort of explanation about the broken archstone that you never get to visit... But most of the changes seem to be graphical improvements or an admittedly much sexier looking UI. At least it's easier to tell what world tendency and/or character tendency you're on (even if that's still the most confusing mechanic I've seen in this series), and I guess some people will appreciate the improvements to multiplayer. I always preferred playing these games offline. Glowing messages and bloodstains everywhere are distracting and destroy my immersion. They fixed at least some of the exploits you can use, such as the dupe glitch or being able to kill the first Maneater through the fog door. I was still able to cheese most of the bosses. I am proud to say I finally beat Old King Allant the legitimate way -- not because I was forced to, but because I wanted to try. Much like when I played through Dark Souls Remastered in 2018, though, I found myself not really enjoying the game as much as I did over a decade ago. It has NOTHING to do with the quality of the game, which is still a masterpiece. I just think this series has gotten progressively better over time, and I've played these older titles so much over the years that I'd rather play something new. Fortunately, that's not just a pipe dream. I can't begin to tell you how ecstatic I am that this weird little indie game from thirteen years ago turned into a modern video game genre. As far as I'm concerned, this is the game that saved gaming for me. That Maiden Astraea fight still gives me goosebumps. Edited September 24, 2022 by Cassylvania 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Cassylvania Posted September 25, 2022 Author Popular Post Share Posted September 25, 2022 Did you expect a double platinum weekend? I'm just full of surprises. Platinum #336 - Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2 Now, I could sit here and review this game -- and I will -- but first I want to discuss something near and dear to me. Consider this a thesis in multiple playthroughs and their role in modern games. I don't know about you guys, but checking a guide for the minimum number of playthroughs required for the platinum is one of the main criteria I use in deciding not necessarily what games I will play, but what game I will play next. There's a fundamental difference there. I have a lot of games in my backlog. Some of them have been there for several years. Most of these I paid for -- the others were given away for free -- but seeing that a game will require more than one playthrough is probably the quickest way to lose my interest. I already know the platinum is going to be a grind. Knowing the game will be too is discouraging, to say the least. Every now and then, there will be a game where multiple playthroughs is just part of the natural progression. Rogue-likes are like this, I guess. Slay the Spire is a great example. I think I played through that game like 50+ times. Other games have NG+, which can be varying degrees of awful. I never really understood the point of this. NG+ is almost always either "original game but harder" or "original game but easier"...at which point, why not just have a difficulty slider? I've rarely seen it done right. In fact, I struggle to think of a good example now. There needs to be some fundamental change in the mechanics of the game to keep it interesting. Giving the enemies more health or making them deal more damage just makes the game feel like a slog. Carrying over your end-game gear to a low level dungeon can be fun for a while, but that's more like a cheat code or a victory lap. In either case, it breaks the balance of the game. Outside of games that are specifically designed around multiple playthroughs, I rarely find myself saying, "Yeah, THIS is more enjoyable than the original game." I point this out because Bloodstained: CotM 2 requires you to play through the game SIX times. That's eight stages, with essentially the same enemies and enemy placement every time. Yes, the playthroughs are short (an average of maybe 2-3 hours each), but this had the potential to be a very grueling experience. It was not. Let's discuss why. I want to keep this train of thought going, but I need to discuss some of the mechanics of the game first. I'm going to keep this short. Similar to the original game (the 8-bit version -- not the more modern-looking Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night), this is an 2D action platformer with several playable characters that you can swap to at any time. You begin the game with only Zangetzu, but you eventually gain access to Dominque, Hachi, and an old man whose name I can’t remember and am too lazy to look up despite already Googling the first name's guy because that's not a real word. Let's just call him Old Man. Now, each character has subtle differences in their gameplay. The original was like this too. They all have a basic attack, which you can use indefinitely, and three possible magic attacks (except for Hachi, who only has one), which use mana. We'll call those spells. Each character can only have access to one spell at a time. To switch to a different spell, you first need to find it, which can be done by breaking floating lanterns and other objects throughout each level. There's always a chance that a spell, healing item, or mana potion will drop. This can be annoying because picking up a spell automatically replaces your existing one. If you like the one you're using, there's not much you can do about it except slow down or switch to a different character. (Spells only drop for the character that is currently active.) This was pretty standard in the early days of gaming, though, so it's not that big of a deal. (And if you're playing as Hachi, all spell drops are replaced with mana potions anyway, since he only has that one spell.) Each character has their own health bar, but they share a mana pool. This means there are a few ways to play. You could just pick your favorite, but this isn't like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on NES, where Donatello is the only good character. Every character is viable, and they all have their own strengths and weaknesses. Again, there's a fundamental difference here. Making every character good is one thing. Balancing every character is something else. I was very impressed in how this was done. Let's go through each of them. Zangetzu is your standard starting character. He has a decent-sized health bar, a quick melee attack with good range, and at least one amazing spell (the whip, which hits enemies above you and at angle). Dominque has a smaller health bar, but she has a down thrust, which allows her to bounce off enemies and obstacles. This is also good for traversal, allowing her to reach areas that other characters cannot. That's something we're going to get back to in a bit. Old Man, who reminds me a lot of Takuma from Shadow Tactics, is a sniper. Yes, that means he can attack from afar, but he can also lie down and crawl across the ground. Good for reaching secret areas and dodging certain attacks. And then there's Hachi. Hachi is a dog. Hachi is a good dog. Hachi rides around in a mech suit. Hachi breaks the game. Hachi can hover. Hachi can walk on spikes. Hachi can punch enemies. Hachi can kill enemies that others cannot. Hachi can smash enemies below him. Hachi's health bar is enormous. So is Hachi's hit box. Hachi's only other downside is Hachi only has one spell. Which spell does Hachi have? Hachi turns invincible. It costs mana to keep it up, but as long as Hachi has mana, Hachi cannot be killed (except by falling). You're waiting for me to say something bad about Hachi, but Hachi is a good boy. There are three difficulties you can play on, but I always played on Casual (the easiest), so take that into account with what I'm about to say because I don't know if it holds up with the higher difficulties. Basically, each level has several checkpoints. These are usually a few screens apart. If you die (usually by falling off the screen or losing all your health), the character you're playing as is no longer available until every other character is dead, which puts you back at the previous checkpoint. If you still have a character left when you die, you can continue from the start of the screen you were on. It's...kinda dumb that it doesn't just revive all your characters if the start of that screen is also a checkpoint, but whatever. It just means you're probably better off killing all your characters each time you reach a checkpoint so that you can have everybody alive and at full health. (Or just go into the main menu screen and select "Retry".) This is what makes the game interesting, though. If a character's health drops to zero, you lose them until the next checkpoint. That's obviously bad. Knowing this, it would behoove you to take your time, kill enemies from a safe distance, and watch your step. The platforming in this game is probably trickier than the enemies. Like a lot of old-school games, you jump in a predetermined arc and you can't control yourself in mid-air. This will lead to a lot of deaths. (If you play on a higher difficulty, I think you have to deal with knockback when you take damage too. Have fun with that.) You also have to contend with enemies while you're platforming. Fortunately, you CAN attack in mid-air, but you also risk getting hurt. Do you play as the character with the most remaining health so you can take a few hits -- knowing that, if you fall, you're also going to lose that character until the next checkpoint -- or do you try to power through with a different character at low health who stands a better fighting chance? That may not sound like much of a decision, but you'll find yourself constantly stopping to see what's up ahead, scrolling through your existing characters and abilities, and trying to figure out the best solution to every situation. Enemies are rather predictable with their movements and their attacks, and you'll get to know the limits of your characters too. Because the game has to account for you having anywhere from one to four of the playable characters at any time (save for the early game), there's never a point where you're completely stuck or unable to progress with the team you currently have available. Some characters are simply better equipped to handle certain situations. For example, there's an archer enemy who always stands in one place and fires three arrows (two low and one high) in a predictable manner. How do you want to deal with this enemy? If you have the Old Man, you can snipe him. Probably the safest. Hachi can easily hover over the arrows and melee him. If you don't have either of them, though, you're going to have to carefully time your jump (or attack) with Zangetzu or Dominique to get over the arrows (or destroy them). So, while having every character alive is good for finding the optimal way to handle every situation, it's not necessary. In some cases, though, a specific character or ability is necessary in order to take a shortcut or different pat. For example, you might need Dominque to bounce off a lantern in order to reach a high ledge or you might need Hachi to hover over a large gap. This is typically how you find secret items or power-ups, which can make your playthrough easier. (And don’t think you can simply backtrack to these areas once you get to the next checkpoint, because there are a lot of one-way doors in this game.) So, how do the developers keep this game fresh on subsequent playthroughs? Well, by changing your access to certain characters. When you beat the game the first time, you gain access to "Episode 2", which is essentially the same playthrough...minus one of your core characters. They could've easily done this two more times and forced you to play through the entire game with any combination of three of those four characters and I think it would have been a unique experience. Why? Because having or not having access to certain characters or abilities fundamentally changes the way you play the game. They didn't have to turn enemies into bullet sponges. But the developers took it one step further. There are enough other tweaks in the gameplay that the fourth, fifth, and even sixth playthrough will have something new to offer. I'm tiptoeing around a lot of things here to avoid spoilers, but the point I want to make is that this is multiple playthroughs done right. This was a legitimately fun platinum and I appreciate that. I have two complaints. First, while I love the general aesthetics (especially the campfire scenes between stages), they did a poor job with the character portraits during dialogue. They show their faces, but they're all shaded the same color or close to the same color, so it's hard to tell who is talking. That's such an odd design decision when each character model is a unique color. Why not use red text for Zangetzu, blue for Dominique, green for Old Man, and yellow for Hachi? Second, bosses are dicks. You either need to be very patient or very skilled to avoid taking damage. You can often only get one or two hits in and then you need to spend the next 5-10 seconds dodging one of three or four possible attacks. Sometimes I'm not even sure how to dodge an attack. If you have Hachi, you might as well use his invincibility, melee the boss until your mana runs out, and then switch to a different character. Even if a character dies, the damage you did to the boss persists (until you get a game over), so let someone besides Hachi die, break some lanterns to refill your health and mana, and repeat. That almost always seems like a better method than trying to avoid getting hit. Bosses also use a last desperation attack, like they did in the first game. If you didn't play that, every boss (except one, I think) has a unique death animation that can hurt you, and some of these are really tricky to dodge. It's not just a matter of standing in the right place. You often need to move or jump at the precise moment. I wouldn't call this a "bad" feature, but it does feel kinda cheap because you probably won't know how to avoid taking damage on your first attempt. This is an easy recommendation. As are the other games in this series. You might as well start with one of those if you're going to do it, but at least you'll know they're all high quality titles. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James_Tonto Posted September 26, 2022 Share Posted September 26, 2022 I have been meaning to dip my toes into Bloodstained, ever since Miriam cameo'd in Blasphemous. Your review has encouraged me to check out the main game first, then maybe these two games from the 'Curse of the Moon' series. Congrats on hitting 336 platinums, a monumental feat! Good luck reaching your next milestone of 350! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cassylvania Posted September 28, 2022 Author Share Posted September 28, 2022 On 9/26/2022 at 1:42 AM, James_Tonto said: I have been meaning to dip my toes into Bloodstained, ever since Miriam cameo'd in Blasphemous. Your review has encouraged me to check out the main game first, then maybe these two games from the 'Curse of the Moon' series. Congrats on hitting 336 platinums, a monumental feat! Good luck reaching your next milestone of 350! Thanks! I don't think we'll have trouble hitting that this year. Blasphemous is on my list too. I got some easier Metroidvanias I want to get to first, but knowing it has cameos is interesting. That's the first I've heard of that. With October quickly approaching, we have a lot more spooky games to get to. I'm probably going to end up starting a lot more than I can finish by Halloween, but that's what the rest of the year is for. Then we'll get to that milestone... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cassylvania Posted September 29, 2022 Author Share Posted September 29, 2022 (edited) Platinum #337 - Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth: Hacker's Memory I'm starting to wonder if I even like RPGs... Disclaimer: I was never into Digimon. I grew up in the era of the console wars. As a kid, it was forbidden to like two things that were similar. If you liked Nintendo, you hated Sega. If you liked Marvel, you hated DC. If you thought the pink ranger was hot, you wouldn't even look at the yellow ranger. We were at each other's throats over these things. This was serious business. Hell, I remember not even liking ZELDA because I thought it was the "more adult" version of Mario, and how DARE you insult my favorite Italian plumber by saying his games are too "kiddie". We won't even discuss how I felt about SONIC. Digimon was basically the adult version of Pokemon. From what I understand, Digimon could actually die in battle and the show dealt with much darker themes overall. I just wasn't into that. Plus, I didn't like the more robotic/futuristic creatures in that universe. You could always tell a Pokemon from a Digimon. Pokemon were your friends. They were the ones you'd want as a pet. Digimon always looked off to me, like some sort of deformed monster, like they were created by the B-team. I say this because I want you to understand that I have an irrational dislike towards this series. But that doesn't mean I haven't given it a fair chance. I played the original Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth back in 2016, before I even made this thread, and I remember thinking it was...okay? Honestly, there were only two things that stuck out to me. First was the beat-the-game button. Whenever you got into a battle, you could press the Options button and it would simulate the rest of the battle for you. No need to have to select your own moves. I remember thinking that was a really nice option for cutting down on the grind. Second was the stupid gacha machines. There was this ridiculous trophy that required getting 30 unique medals from every gacha machine in the game, and it was literally just a matter of spamming the X button over and over until the RNG gods smiled upon you. For better or worse, both of those features are back. In fact, so are all the same characters and dungeons. I'm not even sure this qualifies as a new game. There's a new storyline, I guess, and a few more Digimon to add to your party...but it's largely unchanged. This also has some of the stupidest features I've seen in a modern video game. The first is the Options button. Like before, this will allow the game to select attacks for you. Press it once and the AI will take over. Press it again and you regain control (in case you want to use an item or switch party members). The problem is what the Options button does outside battle. I want you to take a guess. Pretend you're a programmer and you're designing an RPG. Which of the following commands would you assign to the Options button? A.) Open the Options menu B.) Open the party menu C.) Open the inventory D.) Open a window asking if the player wants to return to the title screen (without saving) If you answered D, congratulations. You were probably on the development team for this game. If you answered anything but D, you're probably wondering, "But wait.... So what if you accidentally return to the title screen? This is an RPG. You can just return to your last auto save." You poor thing. You thought this game had auto save. 60 hours in, I was STILL so baffled by the exclusion of this that I kept returning to the Options menu (accessed by the triangle button, by the way) to see if there was a way to enable it. "OK, no auto save for a game that came out in 2017 is pretty dumb," you might be saying. "But how much is that really going to affect you? If all your Digimon die in battle, you probably just get sent back to the nearest Digimon Center." WRONG. You get booted to the title screen. This game will happily set you back HOURS if you forget to save. And -- while this is a minor complaint by comparison -- only giving the player three save slots is bizarre. Especially considering there's at least one critical decision you need to make midway through the story that affects the remainder of your playthrough. The gacha machines are back too. There are more of them this time. In fact, now you need 700 medals for a trophy. (In the original game, you only needed 500.) If you're smart, you'll have your save from the previous game and you can import the first 500 medals. If you're like me, you get to do it all over again. The good news is that not every medal is unique to a gacha machine. You'll get many just by playing the game and picking up shiny items you see on the ground. The bad news is that some of them are rare drops from Digimon, so get ready to grind. Speaking of grinding -- because that's all this game is -- the most amazing trophy I've ever seen is Vanguard, which requires maximizing your hacker rank. How do you increase your hacker rank? You do quests. You need to reach rank 20 for the trophy. "Surely there are enough quests in the game to reach rank 20..." you start to say before you realize I'm setting you up again. ENJOY HAVING TO PLAY THROUGH THE FIRST HALF OF NG+. What other dumb features can I think of...? Well, there's no mini-map in the overworld. That's annoying. The way you access certain areas is annoying. You have the "real world" and then the "Digiworld", which I guess they call EDEN. If you're in the real world and want to navigate to another area, you have to walk to the edge of the map (but only in specific areas). If you're in EDEN, you have to find an exit portal. To enter EDEN, you need to find a computer terminal in the real world. Most areas have one of them, but you're probably going to use the one in your HQ, which is the only computer terminal you can use to access the BBS. The BBS is basically what you use to start a quest or turn in an existing quest. You can only take one quest at a time, which is stupid, and you don't have a quest tracker to let you know where to go. (This is technically not true, as you can go to the Options menu, down to Player, scroll all the way over to BBS, and you might see a hint of where to go next. I have no idea why this is only a feature some of the time.) It's VERY easy to get stuck wandering around, unsure of what NPC you need to talk to or what area you need to visit in order to advance the plot. I recommend a walkthrough. Speaking of the plot... yeah, not interested. This is a personal preference, but I couldn't bring myself to care. I bailed shortly after the scene where the character you play as (Keisuke) walks in on the female lead (Erika), and she proceeds to wail on him...with a keyboard/whale (don't ask). I figured this was the highlight of the game. If you're interested, though, this is neither a sequel nor a prequel to the original. It's supposed to be taking place at the same time, so you'll run into many of the same characters and fight many of the same battles. Some people might call this "paying homage" to the original. I call this a lazy excuse to avoid having to come up with something different. The only time I've seen something like this done was right The Lion King 1 1/2, and that's because they changed the tone and did something interesting. That said, I ignored 80% of the story, so maybe it's really good. I don't play Pokemon games for the story either. How does the battle system work? Well, I sure hope it's amazing because it's the only game mechanic I have left to discuss... So, Digimon is a bit more involved than Pokemon when it comes to type match-ups. In Pokemon, creatures have one or two elemental types, such as water or flying/electric. Digimon have elemental types as well (not quite as many as Pokemon, admittedly, and each Digimon only has a single element), but they also fall into one of three (technically four, but the last one is neutral) categories: Data, Virus, and Vaccine, which have their own rock-paper-scissors mechanic (Vaccine beats Virus, Virus beats Data, and Data beats Vaccine). I generally only paid attention to the latter. If my opponent was using Virus Digimon, I'd put out my best Vaccine Digimon, etc. You can have three Digimon on the field at once and up to 11 in your party (although you're limited by Memory Capacity, so you can't just fill your party with all the strongest Digimon). This can also provide you with some necessary or useful abilities outside of battle, such as being able to activate panels or repel enemies, but you need the right Digimon for the job. Best to have a good variety with you at all times. Then there's the DigiFarm and Digivolution and De-Digivolution and...it gets confusing. I hate the evolution system in this game. This isn't like Pokemon, where you have a creature that starts out weak and you slowly raise them over time so they can grow big and strong. Instead, you're constantly evolving and unevolving (yeah, not using the proper terms) them in order to raise their ABI, which is necessary to unlock stronger forms and also to allow them to get higher stats from the farm. I'll let you figure all that out if you decide to play the game. It's not overly complicated -- I'm probably making it sound more confusing than it actually is -- but I lose all attachment to my party members when they're constantly changing form. I just got two silver poops and used them for most of the game. (Yes, that's an actual sentence I wrote.) There's probably a strategy in this game, but I found I could just spam my strongest attacks or have the AI fight for me to win most battles. It's only when you go the Master Cup trophy that you really need to concentrate. I spent an entire afternoon putting a team together for that. The PSNP guide is more than sufficient for letting you know which Digimon are the strongest. (Hint: get Sistermon Blanc (Awakened) from the free DLC.) Other than that, it's your standard turn-based battle system where you kill your opponent before they can kill you. The game's bad, guys. I'm sorry. I don't go into these reviews thinking, "What popular series can I tear apart this time?" I know this game has its fans, and I know some people get upset when a reviewer criticizes a game they really enjoyed. For those of you who have stuck with me over the years, I hope you can appreciate how I'll always tell it like it is. You could say I'm biased against this series or that I didn't give the story enough time, but I put over 120 hours into this game and didn't find it enjoyable, even from a gameplay perspective. If it had some voice acting, maybe. If I didn't have to spam X to get through dialogue. If there were clearer directions on where to go, if the grind was cut in half, if the dungeons weren't recycled from the previous game, if the buttons made sense, if you didn't have to spend so long scrolling through menus, if you didn't have to save every few minutes because you're afraid of losing your progress... Basically, just get rid of all the design decisions and make a new game. Is that too much to ask? Edited September 29, 2022 by Cassylvania 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rally-Vincent--- Posted September 29, 2022 Share Posted September 29, 2022 I'll just be waiting for the Othercide review... 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJ_Radio Posted October 1, 2022 Share Posted October 1, 2022 On 9/27/2022 at 7:07 PM, Cassylvania said: Thanks! I don't think we'll have trouble hitting that this year. Blasphemous is on my list too. I got some easier Metroidvanias I want to get to first, but knowing it has cameos is interesting. That's the first I've heard of that. With October quickly approaching, we have a lot more spooky games to get to. I'm probably going to end up starting a lot more than I can finish by Halloween, but that's what the rest of the year is for. Then we'll get to that milestone... I definitely recommend Blasphemous. Fair amount of challenge as is expected from a Souls like game. Automatically comes with DLC content when you install the updates. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Taruta13 Posted October 1, 2022 Share Posted October 1, 2022 (edited) I wanted to try Hacker's Memory and then I read your review and thought "Yeah, I changed my mind." I had platinumed the original Cyber Sleuth on an ancient account, but when I tried to play it again, the game couldn't be booted up. I think I had downloaded the Vita version and it crashed on start-up. What a shame, but if I have to do two playthroughs for a game just to get to Rank 20, I'll die of old age knowing I never had to suffer through that. In other words, you play games so I don't have to. Edited October 7, 2022 by Taruta13 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Cassylvania Posted October 4, 2022 Author Popular Post Share Posted October 4, 2022 (edited) Platinum #338 - Outer Wilds Outer Wilds, not to be confused with the totally unrelated shooter/RPG Outer Worlds, is a space exploration game that focuses heavily on lore, puzzle-solving, and fourth-dimensional thinking. It would be difficult for me to write this review without going into spoiler territory, but I'm going to limit these spoilers to explaining the basic premise of the game (that is, its overall gimmick) and the first couple hours of gameplay. If you consider that a spoiler, you should probably stop reading here. I'll give the game an early recommendation and say it's probably worth a blind playthrough. If you're okay with minor spoilers, game on. So, the overall premise of the game is that you're trapped in a 22-minute time loop. Every 22 minutes (in real time), the sun will explode and destroy everything in your tiny little solar system, including you. You will then start back at the beginning of the game with only the knowledge you've gained from that playthrough. Everything else will be reset. Your main goal, of course, is to find a way to end the time loop, which is done by exploring the various planets and other celestial bodies in the solar system and looking for clues. There's a whole story here about a failed space project and an alien civilization that you belong to, but I want to focus on the actual gameplay. For the most part, you're either flying your ship or you're exploring a planet on foot. Both of them control...decently, but there is a bit of a learning curve. In space, you use R2 to move up and L2 to move down, but you can combine them with the control stick to move left, right, forward, and backward. You can also rotate your ship using L1 and match the velocity of a nearby planet or object by selecting it and holding down X. This works for both your ship and your playable character, as you sometimes need to exit your ship in space to perform repairs or reach an area that your ship can't enter. When you're on a planet, gravity keeps you centered, so there's no need to reorient yourself. Instead, the game becomes a bit more like a first-person platformer, where you're using your thrusters to jetpack to higher areas or to soften the impact from long falls. Depending on the gravitational pull of the planet you're on (which is fortunately listed for you on the UI), you may need to apply more or less thrust in order to do this successfully. I wanted to say all that because I think it would be very easy to get motion sickness while playing, which seems to be a recurring problem for me with both space games and first-person games. Here, I only really noticed it on the starting planet, which is in a relatively confined area and serves as more of a tutorial for the rest of the game. Once I was in open space, I was okay. Now, the time loop thing is interesting. There are certain...events, let's say...that happen at pre-determined times during the 22-minute cycle. For example, at precisely 10 minutes in, a specific object in space might collide with another specific object in space. This will always happen during the cycle, unless you do something to stop it. In some cases, you can stop it. In others, you are powerless. Since these are celestial bodies, you're generally powerless. But this is what I meant when I said "fourth-dimensional thinking". For most of the game's puzzles, you have to factor in the time component. There are some areas and objects that are simply inaccessible during certain times in the cycle. For a comparison, think of Majora's Mask, when certain characters or quests could only be triggered at specific times. If you go to an area at a particular time and think nothing is there, it could just be that you waited too long or arrived too early. This can be frustrating with this style of gameplay. For the most part, I think it was handled well in this game...but the lack of a timer on the screen kinda sours things. Your only indication of how far into the cycle you are is the brightness of the sun, which gets redder over time, and music that starts playing when you only have about a minute left. There's very little direction in this game too, which could be another source of annoyance. The good news is that this is NOT like a Metroidvania, where you can only access certain areas once you're obtained a particular power-up. In fact, you're free to do anything, visit any area, and even beat the game during the first playthrough (which is required for a trophy). The only limitation is knowledge, which is probably the deepest thing I've ever said in this thread. I do need to explain a little more so you understand, so I'm going to walk you through my first run. Again, this is just the first hour or so of gameplay. Your experience may differ. That's because, once you leave your starting planet, you're free to explore anywhere (including the rest of your starting planet). You could fly around space for a while to learn the controls or immediately crash into a moon. You're likely to do both. But if you're like me, you'll probably up end on Giant's Deep...since it's, you know, the biggest planet in the solar system. Now, the first thing you'll notice in Giant's Deep is that it's ravaged by cyclones and there are very few places to land. The planet is almost entirely water and there is a current that prevents you from going deeper, even though all the clues you find on the planet tell you that there's something down there. If you stay on Giant's Deep long enough, you'll notice the cyclones eventually pick up the island you're on and thrust it into space before bringing it crashing back down. This was a pretty horrific thing to experience during my first playthrough. Of course, I didn't know what to do, so I should just wandered around that tiny island until the sun blew up, which I didn't even notice until my screen turned white because I couldn't see anything through the storm clouds. As it turns out, there are actually multiple ways to get below the current, and I could've done any one of those during my first playthrough. It didn't require anything except what I know now. This one, I will put a spoiler tag on. Spoiler So, there are three ways I know to get below the current on Giant's Deep: All of the cyclones on the planet spin in the same direction, except one. If you get too close to one of those cycles, it will launch you into space, like it does to the islands. However, if you find the cycle that's spinning in the opposite direction, it will pull you under the current. You could solve this for yourself by randomly flying into cyclones, but there's also a clue on a different planet that the direction cyclones spin can affect whether they force objects up or down. You could wait for an island to be thrust into space, quickly navigate your ship to the "bottom" of the island, and wait for it to crash back down. The force should propel you beneath the current. You could fly your ship into the planet at such a high velocity that you break through the current. You would think this would be the easiest, but it requires being very far away from the planet initially, so you can gain enough speed...and hoping you don't hit an island upon entry. All three of those methods are perfectly doable and don't require obtaining some item or switch on a different planet. It's kinda refreshing to have a game where you're not like, "Well, I can't progress any further here. I must not have the right ability yet." Granted, there aren't always multiple ways to solve the problems you come across, but you already have all the abilities you need to solve them. This game does an excellent job at teaching the player how to progress through examples and I'm saying that through gritted teeth because I actually found this to be a wholly infuriating experience, for reasons we'll discuss in a bit. Now, there is a way to "beat" the game, and this does require having to visit multiple planets during a single playthrough in order to complete a specific series of actions, but a general playthrough will probably only consist of a single planetary visit. Your ship has a log, which helps to keep you to keep track of all the clues you find, and this is very convenient if you do get stuck to get a long break from playing. For whatever reason, the log does not get erased between playthroughs. (I'm assuming it's not a "physical" log, even though it's portrayed on a screen that way, but rather your character's memories.) What's annoying is that there is a trophy for completing the log, but not every clue in the game is an entry, some are well-hidden, and there's no way of knowing if you already got an entry when you come across it because they're reset between playthroughs, so good luck finding them all without a guide. I have two sources of frustration with this game. I've already discussed both. First, the waiting game is aggravating. There is technically a way to speed up time, I guess, but it's not something you can rely on or even use very often. There are going to be times in the game where you know what you need to do, but you have to wait until 10-15 minutes into the cycle for a certain event to happen, and that might only be to get an attempt at it. Dying in this game before the sun explodes is not an uncommon experience. You can run out of fuel or oxygen, fall from too great of a height, have your suit punctured, land in lava, get crushed, or do what I did a lot and end up in a black hole. Having to redo something -- in a game that's already repetitive -- is not a great experience. Second, the timer is stressful. This isn't the same issue. When you're 20 minutes into a run and you start hearing that sun-is-about-to-explode music (which is ironically very relaxing), you start panicking because you're going to have to redo everything up until that point if you don't finish. What I'm specifically referring to are the log entries. Time does NOT stop while you're translating and reading these. A single entry can be several paragraphs long too. I generally wouldn't even read these because I knew I only had a few minutes left, so I'd be quickly trying to scan everything in sight so it would register in my log. I get why the game was designed this way, but it makes it hard to appreciate the story. And while I try my damndest not to let the trophies get in the way of my review, I have to say Hotshot is terrible and whoever came up with the idea for that trophy should be launched into the sun. (Not really, but then they'd share my pain.) I spent a good five hours on it, only to go to bed and get it immediately on my next attempt. I feel bad saying this, but I don't think this game was a masterpiece. It was good -- very good, actually -- but I'm about where I was with Spiritfarer, which is a game I expected to be a 10/10 and probably ended up around a 7. In many ways, that's more disappointing to me than something like Erica or Digimon Cyber Sleuth: Hacker's Memory, which are games I wasn't expecting much from anyway. I still think it's worth playing. I'll still give it a recommendation. There aren't a lot of games out there like this and it does a lot of unique things that I think a lot of people would enjoy. I'm going to check out the DLC sometime in the near future and I'll let you know if my opinion changes. Edited October 4, 2022 by Cassylvania 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Cassylvania Posted October 12, 2022 Author Popular Post Share Posted October 12, 2022 Platinum #339 - The Witch and the Hundred Knight 2 In The Witch and the Sequel Nobody Asked For, you play as the titular Hundred Knight, which probably sounds like a translation error to you. No, it's not the Hundred Year Knight, suggesting that our hero is a grizzled fighter. It's not the Hundred Knights either, suggesting that there are more than one. It's just...Hundred Knight. From my understanding, he's called that because he supposedly has the strength of a hundred men, but I think it's really just an excuse for the female characters to call him "Hunny". If you think the game is about the Hundred Knight, though, you're sorely mistaken. The rest of the cast barely acknowledges your existence. I've seen other games with silent protagonists, which is more or less what the Hundred Knight is, but this game does a weird thing where you're more like a puppet and your only purpose is to advance the plot. This isn't entirely unwarranted, I guess, since the Hundred Knight has been reduced to "doll" form in this game, but it's still a little bizarre. It's like having to sit at the kid's table while the adults are talking, which is nothing like the original game. The story isn't about "the witch" either. The protagonist this time around is Amalie, who is...just an ordinary girl who lives in a small village with her little sister Milm. One day, Milm contracts the witch disease, forcing them to flee their village in the hopes of finding a cure. They eventually meet the Weiss Ritter (abbreviated as "WR" in every line of dialogue in the game, which is very annoying because most of the game is fully voice acted), which is an anti-witch organization full of busty women named the Holy Valkyries. The WR try to help Milm, but she dies...only to be awakened as Chelka, the "witch" in the title. Milm's doll (i.e. the Hundred Knight) also comes to life. The Hundred Knight is bound to serve his master, but it's not clear if that's Milm or Chelka, so you spend much of the game serving them both as they bounce back and forth between having control of their shared body. Meanwhile, Amalie is stuck in a precarious situation, as she must continue cozying up to the WR to find a cure for the witch disease, but she also can't let the WR find out about Chelka, who is really, really bad at keeping a low profile. As the Hundred Knight, your main duty is protecting Amalie, whose sole purpose in life is saving her little sister. And that's basically the plot of the game. If you're thinking this is one of those RPGs that I just spammed the X button throughout...OK, I can see why you would think that, but you'd be wrong. I listened to every line of dialogue. This game is so absurd that I couldn't help myself. It was like reading somebody's fetish-filled fan fiction. In one scene, Chelka turns somebody into a frog and then gets her giant gay crow servant (Huinnmuginn) to throw the frog in a fryer. In another, a woman repeatedly stomps on a man while he begs for more. Then there's a scene where Amalie is completely paralyzed and Chelka...uh, well, I don't know what happens because the game was being very vague about it, but the point is that this isn't the kind of stuff you can just ignore. There are also some surprisingly mature concepts here. There's usually a line to where most games will go, and I feel this sticks its toe just a taaad over that line... I remember the first game being like that too. That doesn't mean the story was good, mind you. Yeah, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but a decent premise doesn't translate into a good story if the execution is all wrong. Chelka is the best thing this story has going for it, and she's a bargain bin Metallia (the witch in the original game) at best. It doesn't help that she spends much of the game asleep. When she's not Chelka, she's Milm, and Milm is a horribly written character. For what is essentially the driving force of the game, I never felt the connection between Milm and Amalie, except for an unhealthy obsession that never seemed to go anywhere. (Is it common for sisters to want to bathe together?) I also wanted to punch her every time she said "Sissy", which she says at the end of every freakin' line, like some kind of Animal Crossing character. Amalie...is useless. I think this is supposed to be played off as a joke, but why would you make the protagonist of your game a complete wimp? Almost every boss encounter begins with her getting laid out in a single hit, forcing you to come to her rescue. Chelka constantly refers to her as "obnoxious cow" and I kinda share her sentiment. That just leaves Huinnmuginn, who...is actually pretty good. Thumbs up for this character. I haven't mentioned the voice acting yet, but it ranges from solid (essentially, the main cast) to cringeworthy (everybody else). I recognized several of the English VAs from other anime titles, which was promising. As usual, I blame bad writing for most of the problems with this story. Let's move on to graphics. They make me want to puke. The hand-drawn portraits are good, which is what I expect from an NIS title, but the actual levels are dull, repetitive, and uninspired. This whole game reeks of copypasta, and it only becomes more noticeable when you're revisiting areas later on. It also uses a disgusting color palette. There are no animated cutscenes. If an NPC performs an attack, they'll just show a glowing orb over the portrait or slide the portrait across the screen like some kind of marionette. It's lazy. Occasionally, you'll get a painted still frame, which is nice, but I don't think the story is good enough to be presented in the way a VN would. Oh, I haven't even talked about what kind of game this is... Uh, yeah. The Witch and the This is What You'll Be Doing Ninety-Five Percent of the Time is probably best described as a hack-and-slash. The Hundred Knight can use a variety of weapons and can freely swap between various "facets" during battle. You can think of facets as traditional classes in other RPGs, such as tank, mage, and rogue. Each facet has a unique set of skills and you can equip up to four skills per facet. It's up to you if you want to use a single facet for the entire game or swap between a maximum of three at any time. The advantage of using a single facet is that you won't have to spread around your skill points, but the advantage of using several facets is that you can be better equipped to handle a variety of situations, as some enemies are weaker to certain types of attacks or spells. Unlike the first game, I felt like all the facets here were useful, so it's really up to you. (And even if you change your mind, you can switch your facets or refund your skill points at no cost.) I mostly used the Shinobi Assassin and Marginal Gaze facets. Each facet can also equip up to five weapons. This is the combo system. Weapons later in the combo get a small bonus multiplier. What do I think about this? Well... Let's pretend you have a crowbar and a straw. Assuming it takes an equal amount of time to swing both weapons, would you rather alternate between the crowbar and the straw or just keep wailing on your opponent with the crowbar? Yeah, don't bother with the combo system. The bonus multiplier is not worth it. In fact, this game uses stored inputs when you're using a combo, which can be a hinderance. Basically, if you tap the attack button twice, the Hundred Knight will attack twice, with no way to cancel the second input. This is bad if you were hoping to dodge an attack. This is aggravating if you one-shot an enemy and have to wait for the second swing before you can move again. Most enemies, including bosses, only have two or three possible attacks. You'll spend most of the game learning to dodge them because the Hundred Knight goes down quickly. If you dodge at just the right moment, you get a slow down effect, which is pretty overpowered. One of the facets even has this as an ability. You're probably going to want to abuse this because this game isn't easy. The bosses have extremely large HP bars and the Hundred Knight does not. It's not uncommon for him to die in a single hit. He can "run", but it only activates when he's moving for a certain amount of time. That makes it hard to rely on, as attacking OR dodging causes him to come to a standstill. The best strategy I found is to bait specific attacks and counter only when it's safe. It's not very engaging and I admit that I grew bored of combat very quickly. The Hundred Knight doesn't have enough AP (mana required to use your skills) to make up for it. Fortunately, enemies are stupid and predictable, so you can get through most boss fights just by abusing the AI. The Witch and the Hundred Hour Grind also has some annoying shit you have to watch out for. The only "missable" trophies I'm aware of relate to the endings, which are just as messed up as in the first game (where the "bad" ending requires the most work and the "true" ending is what you're most likely to get if you don't read any guides), but you're going to spend a lot of time trying to find the 21 "Unique" accessories for Collector. Do yourself a favor and never sell these, as you need all 21 on hand at the same time. If you're lucky, you'll get some of these during your main playthrough, but they're generally very rare drops. Even when I was farming Notorious enemies (which are stronger versions of basic enemies and have a higher chance to drop rare items), some of these took several hours to find. This is what's going to constitute most of your post-game experience. With all that being said, you're looking at a 40+ hour platinum with a 4/10 difficulty. Is it something I would recommend? I don't know what in this review would make you think "yes" to that. There might be an argument to playing the first game, which had a better story and decent gameplay, but this was an unnecessary sequel and a step backwards in every way. I hope this doesn't become a trilogy. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James_Tonto Posted October 12, 2022 Share Posted October 12, 2022 Damn I had been planning to play this game as well, I guess I'll just play the PS4 remaster of the first one. It really sounds like NIS severely fumbled this sequel, which is sad. I mean they've managed to keep the game play plots of the Disgaea games fairly interesting and in-tone with their setting. The first Witch and the Hundred Knight definitely felt darker, but the story, characters and multiple endings kept me playing. A third game might redeem this series, but I get the feeling that the fanbase has probably checked out if the experience you had is any indication Cassy. Instead of a sequel, maybe NIS could release Prinny: Can I Really Be the Hero? 1 and 2 on the PSN with Trophy support instead? Those games sound better than what you endured and they already got ported to Switch, so fingers crossed? ^^: 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Cassylvania Posted October 15, 2022 Author Popular Post Share Posted October 15, 2022 On 10/11/2022 at 11:06 PM, James_Tonto said: Instead of a sequel, maybe NIS could release Prinny: Can I Really Be the Hero? 1 and 2 on the PSN with Trophy support instead? Those games sound better than what you endured and they already got ported to Switch, so fingers crossed? ^^: Wouldn't mind more Disgaea, honestly. D5 is still one of my favorite JRPGs on the console. Don't know anything about the spin-offs, but I'd be willing to give them a try. Platinum #340 - Young Souls Now they're putting "Souls" in their titles just to tempt me... Here's a game I bought solely because of the art style. Young Souls is a...semi-2D hack 'n slash, dungeon crawler, I guess? Very similar to something like Double Dragon, except with RPG elements. You play as teenage twins Jenn and Tristan, who live in a small town with a man they call the Professor. One day, the Professor goes missing, and they discover a portal in the basement that leads to an underground world of goblins. There, they have to try to save the professor, by defeating the evil Goblin King Dwarvengobben and his henchmen. It's a ridiculous plot, to be sure, but it has some more mature themes than you might be expecting. Let's begin with the gameplay. There are four dungeons for you to explore. You'll go through them linearly, but you'll need to do some backtracking because you need keys from later dungeons to explore certain areas and open some treasure chests. Fortunately, all of these are labelled very conveniently for you on the map and there's a useful fast travel system. During combat, you'll fight waves of enemies, either by yourself or with a co-op partner. If you're by yourself, you can play as either Jenn or Tristan, and quickly swap between them with L1. Both of them have unique weapon and gear loadouts. As far as I could tell, there's no physical difference between the twins (initially anyway -- you can boost their individual stats by using the gym), so you can have them play whatever role you want. I mostly used Tristan as a tank and Jenn as a ranged fighter. Both characters have an attack, charged attack, parry, shield, and dodge. While this may sound standard, the dodge is a little annoying because it only has a limited amount of uses before you have to wait for it to refill. You can also equip one of six accessories (unlocked as you play through the game) that work the same way. Those accessories are unique special attacks, such as a bow, bomb, or healing totem. All of these can be upgraded, as can your armor, which is a single piece of gear. (You can equip a helmet too, but these cannot be upgraded. If you have a matching armor and helmet set, though, you get a bonus.) The weapon types in this game include swords, hammers, axes, and daggers. Many of them have unique abilities, such as vampirism and mana regen, and upgrading them usually unlocks more abilities. This leads to a lot of customization options. Graphically, this game is great. It has a very Saturday morning cartoon feel, with a lot of dialogue bubbles and comic book-style transitions. Again, this is what drew me to the game in the first play -- the solid gameplay is just the icing on the cake. The writing is...refreshing. Jenn and Tristan are cocky assholes and nobody in town seems to like them, but that's just what happens when you're a teenager. The better writing comes from the villains in the game, who are both funny and sympathetic. I particularly liked Dinkoy. Now, before you think I'm gushing, I would like to point out I have several issues with the gameplay. First, the difficulty. The platinum requires you to play on Expert, which is the highest difficulty. This would be tough, but there are also accessibility options that do NOT disable trophies. These options include the ability to slow down enemy attacks, speed up your attacks, cancel an attack by blocking, and auto block. The last of these is...uh, game-breaking, to say the least. I did something I usually don't do, which is to constantly fiddle around with these sliders throughout the game. I typically don't like to change my difficulty options once I start a game, but I was curious how to strike a good balance between challenging and fun. I...wasn't able to do it. The difficulty is all over the place, with combat being either mind-numbingly easy or unfairly hard. This leads into my next gripe: I don't like the cooldown system. Almost everything you can do in combat has a cooldown. Your accessories have a cooldown. Your items have a cooldown. Your stamina has a cooldown. Your mana more or less has a cooldown. Even the ability to swap characters has a cooldown. (That last one can be particularly annoying when you're knocked down because the fastest way to get up is to swap to the other twin. If your swap is on cooldown, there's nothing you can do but wait for it to recharge or wait for your character to get up.) This becomes less problematic later in the game when you upgrade your accessories (which gives the bow more ammo, for example) and have more stamina "cells", but it's a slog early on when you're mostly limited to using basic attacks. Finally, it can be difficult to dodge. This is a perspective problem. Because you're standing on what is essentially a slanted floor, you have to make sure you're on the same "level" as your opponent if you're expecting your attack to hit -- and not on the same level if you're trying to dodge. There's some leeway here, but I'd often whiff because I was slightly too "high" or slightly too "low", or I'd take unnecessary damage because I thought I was outside of attack range or the enemy can attack diagonally but I can't. It doesn't help that it seems to take longer to move "up" and "down" than it does to move left or right, and vertical dodging covers a shorter distance than horizontal dodging. It's not terrible, but it does take some time to get used to. Dying isn't a huge deal because it never sets you back very far, but dungeons aren't really that exciting to explore (they're mostly linear corridors that require defeating every enemy that spawns in order to move on) and I'd be lying if I said I was ever looking forward to running back to where I was before. Enemy variety is pretty limited too. Most of the later enemies and some of the mini-bosses are reskins. Bosses are OK, but there are only a few and they don't really introduce any new mechanics. Throughout the game, you bounce between the human world and the underworld. When in the human world, you can upgrade your weapons or gear, visit the gym to increase your stats (through one of three mini-games that will undoubtedly hurt your thumb), or buy clothing that is mostly cosmetic (except sneakers, which have useful perks). Other than that, you're mostly fighting your way through the underground dungeons. You might think all of that would be enough to ruin the game, but the thing is that it's only an 8-12 hour experience. Add in a couple more hours for clean-up and only one missable trophy (five-starring a gym session, which you'll get plenty of chances to get throughout the game and honestly wouldn't even take that long if you had to do a second playthrough), and you have a decent little indie title here. I'm going to recommend it because -- come on, just look at some of my recent reviews -- but hold off for a sale. $25 is way too steep of an asking price right now. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Together_Comic Posted October 17, 2022 Share Posted October 17, 2022 On 10/15/2022 at 4:30 PM, Cassylvania said: You play as teenage twins Jenn and Tristan, who live in a small town with a man they call the Professor. One day, the Professor goes missing, and they discover a portal in the basement that leads to an underground world of goblins. There, they have to try to save the professor, by defeating the evil Goblin King Dwarvengobben and his henchmen. Sounds like a David Bowie movie. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Cassylvania Posted October 18, 2022 Author Popular Post Share Posted October 18, 2022 (edited) Platinum #341 - Cult of the Lamb This game has the extraordinary honor of being one of the only games I've bought on release day in years. Unfortunately, it also came with several game-breaking (well, trophy-breaking) bugs that made me have to shelf it for a few weeks... Finally got back around to it and finished my playthrough, so let's discuss. Cult of the Lamb is a genre mash-up between an action rogue-like and a cult management simulator, making it probably the only game of its kind. As usual, it was the artwork that initially drew me in, which uses very cute, anthropomorphized characters (similar to Animal Crossing) mixed with a gory and eldritch-styled aesthetic. I was a little worried going in that it would lean too heavily on the shock value component (like the animated show Happy Tree Friends, which is WAY too grotesque to be enjoyable), but I was pleasantly surprised by the way it was handled. Yes, there's blood and many of the themes revolve around death and sacrifice, but it's done tastefully and never loses its charm. (Remember that when I talk about eating poop.) In this game, you play as a literal and sacrificial lamb. You are spared from death by The One Who Waits, an ominous deity who asks you to create a cult in his name and take down the four bishops who are keeping him imprisoned. You'll spend about half of the game managing your cult and the other half battling through dungeons. There are four difficulty options. I'm not sure what the difference is, but I chose to play on Easy and still found the combat to be challenging. I think you can change the difficulty at any time. Let's talk about combat first. There are four dungeons in the game, which must be beaten in order. Each dungeon consists of a series of procedurally-generated floors, with each floor having several rooms and waves of enemies that you must fight through. When you reach the top floor, you will face either a mini-boss or the boss of that dungeon (which is unlocked by killing three mini-bosses). If you die at any point, you have to start back at the beginning of that floor. That essentially means you need four successful runs through each dungeon. This isn't a particularly long game. To add some strategy to your runs, you do get to choose your "path" to the boss, similar to Slay the Spire. Most of the floors are combat-based, but some allow you to gather resources, recruit a follower, shop for supplies, or take your chance on a random event. This is neat, but there isn't a ton of variety and runs tend to be short. I think I averaged maybe 10-12 minutes per run. There is no armor or leveling up in this game (in the practical sense anyway). Instead, you're given a random weapon and spell (the game calls them "curses") at the start of each run. Like Young Souls, I think the weapon choices are daggers, swords, axes, and hammers, ranging from fastest to slowest and weakest to strongest. You can find better weapons and spells during your run, and you can also find tarot cards, which are permanent boons for that run only. This can be stuff like increased movement speed, additional health, or allowing you to hurt enemies by rolling into them. There are no disadvantages to taking a tarot card -- which is a missed opportunity, if you ask me -- and there are stronger versions of each and more to unlock as you play through the game. In combat, you have a melee attack, a spell, and a dodge roll. That's about it. Your melee attack depends on the weapon you're holding. I found all the weapons to be pretty useful, but the hammers are probably the best once you get the timing down. There are a variety of spells, but most of them are ranged attacks. Using a spell requires fervor, which is obtained from killing enemies. I tended to only use these if I was surrounded or when I first entered a room, as it's very easy to take damage when there are a lot of enemies around. Some of them have erratic attack patterns and a lot of them use projectiles or launch themselves across the screen. You seem to have invincibility frames when you're using your dodge, so roll often. That's about all I want to say with the combat. It's good. You do unlock fleeces later in the game, which you can equip to give yourself an additional bonus. The golden fleece is clearly the best, as it causes your damage to increase by 5% for every enemy you kill (until you take damage, which resets the counter). This is how you completely cheese the trophies for beating each boss without taking damage. Build up a big enough multiplier and you can take down every boss in a matter of seconds. The cult management is what makes this game unique and honestly got me the most excited because you know how much I love my base-building/farming sims. You begin with a single follower and a place to worship, but you'll eventually be able to grow crops, cook food, harvest resources, and add decorations if you're so inclined. I don't want to go too much into the mechanics because there's a lot to explain and I think the tutorial does a good job of easing you in, but I am going to say that this is important enough to the gameplay that I don't think you can simply ignore this if you want to succeed. That's different than something like Kitaria Fables, where I felt farming was almost an afterthought from the developers, Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin, where you only needed a basic understanding of the base mechanics to do well in the combat sections, and even XCOM, where you could just place rooms anywhere and probably do OK if you understand the rest of the game. Here -- at least initially -- you're going to want to spend a good amount of time planning how you're going to expand your base and how to keep your followers happy. There are three meters you have to keep an eye on: Faith, Hunger, and Sickness. If they're green, your followers are happy. If they're red, they may begin to dissent, which is really bad because I think you can lose the game if you don't have any more followers. Faith is essentially how much your followers trust you. If you die, your followers will think you are weak. If you deny or fail a quest, they'll get annoyed. There are also various traits followers might have, which might make them easier or harder to please. Hunger is probably the meter you're going to struggle with the most. Followers need to eat. I'm pretty sure the more followers you have, the more food you need to supply, and you have to cook all the food yourself. It's pretty much the only thing that can't eventually be automated. Early on, you can start growing crops, but you have to plant the seed, add fertilizer, water, and harvest the crops when they're done. Eventually, you can get your followers to do this for you. You can also send out on missions to gather resources or build a lumberyard or mine within your base. Fortunately, you get a lot of seeds and other materials from exploring through dungeons, so it's not really a lack of resources that's the problem. It's having to top off the meters between each run because time moves exceptionally fast in this game. If you take too long or try to do two or more runs before going back to your base, you might find it in disarray. Sickness, on the other hand, refers to the overall cleanliness of your base. Your followers don't like rotting corpses or disgusting food for some reason. They also don't like having poop everywhere. You can clean this stuff up yourself, ask a follower to do it, or build a commodity (such as an outhouse or grave) to eliminate the problem altogether. Even if you don't like micromanagement, I never found this to be tedious or time-consuming. There are quite a few more mechanics, but I just want to go over the rituals and doctrines real quick. Every day, you can hold a sermon in your church. You can also use rituals, which give you some sort of temporary boost at the cost of one or more of your resources. For example, you can hold a funeral for one of your followers that has died. This increases your Faith, but it costs bone and camellia flowers. It also has a cooldown. You can also sacrifice a follower, which can increase your devotion (another currency in the game, used to purchase upgrades to your base) or gold. These rituals are unlocked by purchasing doctrines, which...is the first bad thing I'm going to say about the game. I don't like the way doctrines are handled. There are five categories of doctrines, each with several unlockable abilities. The thing is, you have to choose between two abilities, and it's not always clear which is the better option. This is fine, as both should have their own advantages, but it becomes very clear later on that some abilities are unquestionably more beneficial than others. For example, that ritual to conduct a funeral? I did that at the cost of the ability to revive dead followers. This was one of the earliest doctrines I chose, back when I had no idea how quickly your followers would die from old age. There's also a doctrine that unlocks a ritual to allow your followers to eat grass without getting sick. Thank The One Who Waits that I chose this, as that ritual is absolutely broken with how much grass you'll have by the late game. I didn't hate this system, because it does make every playthrough somewhat unique, but I do wish there was the option to change your doctrines mid-game. I almost restarted my playthrough once I realized how many poor choices I made. Another problem I have is how dead followers are handled. In the early game, the best option seems to be to bury them, which requires a grave. The problem is that these graves become permanent fixtures in your base. I'm assuming if you have the ability to resurrect a follower, you can eventually remove the graves by performing that ritual, but I had about 15 graves that I was stuck with for the whole game. (And I would've had a lot more too if I hadn't gotten the doctrine that allowed me to turn corpses into fertilizer.) Fortunately, your base has a lot of room. I only ended up using one side of it by the end of the game. And yes, you CAN move objects after you've placed them, which is an absolute godsend. I can't tell you how much that annoys me in other base-building games. Here, it's important to have that option because you might want to change your layout in order to be a little more efficient. For example, you could choose to keep your bedding close to the place where your workers work, so they have less distance to travel when they wake up in the morning. I never found this to be necessary, but it's good for those of you who like to maximize your efficiency. (I did place my outhouses and silos close to the center of the base, since those constantly needed my attention.) You can name your followers, which is great. I chose to name mine after American politicians and social media personalities, but you can do whatever you want. You can also name your cult. I went with the default "Cult of the Lamb", since it's...you know, the name of the game. You can also change what your follower looks like, using any character skins you've unlocked, and there are a variety of color options. No way to change any of this after you've decided, though. As I said, time travels pretty quickly in this game. I finished at around 105 in-game days and had about 65 followers (only 10-15 at a time, though). There's enough to do that I never found myself waiting around for something to happen, which is the mark of a good simulator. I think that's all I wanted to say. The game is still buggy, which is unfortunate. I don't think it ever crashed on me, but it sure felt like it was going to at times. There were a couple slowdowns and stutters. I also had an instance where I had to leave a dungeon because the game wouldn't register all the enemies in the room as dead, preventing me from moving on. The same thing happened to me on my next run. I wouldn't say these are game-breaking, but it's not great to see when we're two months past release day. Despite the performance issues, this is easily the best game I've played in a while. One of the reasons I've been so hard in some of my more recent reviews -- particularly the last two -- is because was I playing them alongside this game. When I'm playing multiple games simultaneously, and one of them is clearly doing combat better than the others, it's hard to ignore. So, don't take my negative reviews to be a bad thing. It's likely that I'm playing something much more fun alongside it. Easy recommendation. Maybe wait for a couple more patches to iron out the bugs, but this is a legitimate GOTY contender as far as I'm concerned. I'm expecting DLC or a sequel. Edited March 2, 2023 by Cassylvania 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Taruta13 Posted October 19, 2022 Share Posted October 19, 2022 Glad to see this review. I'm not really into farming sims but I am glad you enjoyed the game despite the bugs. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darling Baphomet Posted October 19, 2022 Share Posted October 19, 2022 On 10/18/2022 at 3:56 AM, Cassylvania said: This game has the extraordinary honor of being one of the only games I've bought on release day in years. Unfortunately, it also came with several game-breaking (well, trophy-breaking) bugs that made me have to shelf it for a few weeks... Finally got back around to it and finished my playthrough, so let's discuss. Every time I rent / buy a game at launch I end up regretting it. Even with Forbidden West, which launched relatively stable, it got a patch fixing most of performance mode's issues right as I was finishing my playthrough. I just recently platinumed Destroy All Humans 2, and I'm definitely not happy with my decision to rent it so early, because while the base game is fairly good, my experience was soured by frequent memory leaks, crashing, screen tearing, and countless other bugs. The state of the game industry in regards to game launches is really ridiculous right now. You're practically punished for not waiting a year or two to buy games, given they're not only cheaper but vastly improved experiences given a year or two. I've been keeping an eye on Cult of the Lamb myself, but have been wary due to all the bugs. I'll probably keep holding off on it. I'm glad you had a good time with it despite all the technical issues, though! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Cassylvania Posted October 22, 2022 Author Popular Post Share Posted October 22, 2022 (edited) On 10/19/2022 at 4:07 PM, Darling Baphomet said: The state of the game industry in regards to game launches is really ridiculous right now. You're practically punished for not waiting a year or two to buy games, given they're not only cheaper but vastly improved experiences given a year or two. Yeah, this might be the last time I do it. The only other games I remember buying at launch in the past few years were Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin, Valkyria Chronicles 4, Langrisser I & II, and -- hilariously enough -- No Man's Sky. There may have been more, but I'm usually content to wait for reviews or a sale. Back to games nobody has ever heard of... (Yes, you're going to have to wait on Othercide for a while longer. I won't be able to finish that by Halloween.) Platinum #342 - Creaks In my search for games I can finish by Halloween, I came across this little gem from the makers of Machinarium. (I say that because the latter has almost 85k owners on PSNP, compared to 700 for Creaks.) I suppose calling it a "gem" already tells you my feelings for the game, but I should probably review it anyway. So, Creaks has you playing as...well, he doesn't really have a name, so let's call him Larry. Larry lives in a shithole. One day, Larry is sitting at his desk and notices the wallpaper starting to peel. Behind it is a door. Larry enters the door and finds a ladder that leads to a gigantic structure (depicted in the platinum image above) in a cavern beneath his shithole of a house. There, Larry meets a variety of terrifying creatures that would like him dead. He also meets some bird-like people that may or may not want him dead too. The eerie, hand-drawn art style and my terrible-as-always summary of the plot may lead you to think this a horror game, but this is more whimsical and weird than spooky and scary. There's a charm to this game and even the deaths Larry might suffer are depicted in a light-hearted, almost cartoonish way (which makes them all the more horrific, if you ask me). There's also not a single word of spoken or written dialogue in the entire game. The story is told exclusively through facial expressions, body gestures, and gibberish noises from the avian residents, as Larry ventures deeper into the structure to find a way back home. As far as I'm concerned, that's a litmus test for good storytelling. If I can play a game and follow what's happening on screen without having to hear or read a single line of dialogue, you're probably doing something right. This indie team did a wonderful job in telling what's admittedly a simple story, but holding my interest throughout. I particularly liked the quirky humor and the interactions between Larry and the bird people. As far as gameplay goes, I would call this a "single screen puzzle game." You enter a room, which takes up roughly the size of your TV screen, and your goal is simply to reach the exit. Do this a few dozen times to complete the game. The challenge is trying to figure out how to navigate the room without getting Larry killed. There are almost always monsters in your way, and Larry simply isn't a fighter. You'll have to use your wits to get through this. This is where the game goes from being a master class in storytelling to a master class in game design. We're talking Super Mario Bros. 1-1/Green Hill Zone levels of ingenuity, introducing the player to a new mechanic and then gradually incorporating that mechanic into more advanced gameplay. Larry is a simple man. Larry can walk left, walk right, climb ladders, jump off small ledges, and flip switches. He cannot pick up items and any enemy he touches will kill him instantly. Fortunately for Larry, all of the enemies in this game are simple too. Every one of them acts in a very predictable and manipulatable way. Take the robot dog, for example. The robot dog is the first enemy you will encounter. He is sleeping comfortably in a single space on the map. If Larry moves too close, the robot dog will begin chasing him. If the robot dog catches Larry, Larry will die. If Larry moves out of the robot dog's sight, the robot dog will eventually lose interest and return to its starting position. Pretty simple, right? But now you take environmental factors into consideration. What happens if you jump across a gap? You find out the robot dog cannot jump. What happens if the robot dog encounters a light source? It won't enter the light. What if you move the light towards the dog? It will back away. What if you back the dog into a corner? What if the dog encounters another enemy? Suddenly, what seems like a basic encounter is full of possibilities when it comes to puzzle-solving. But the game never throws all of this at you at once. You're taught one mechanic at a time and then it slowly builds so that you're always being challenged just a little more than the previous room. And even if you forget how an enemy might react in a particular situation, you're free to experiment and solve puzzles by trial and error. You're never put too far back if you die and there are even "checkpoints" in each room if you die after solving a large part of the puzzle. This is nice, even if most puzzles don't take more than 30 seconds to puzzle once you know what you're doing. Now, one complaint people might have is there is no hint system. (There is a musical cue if you're on the right track.) I'm an idiot, guys, and I was able to solve every puzzle on my own. In some cases, I felt even dumber once I knew the answer, but I don't think any of the solutions were unfair. They can't be because the game gives you everything you need. You know Larry's limitations and you can very clearly see the items and enemies he can interact with. There are a few instances where timing is important, but those time limits are always generous. If you feel something is possible but it's just too tight, you're probably not doing it right. That said, I did get stuck several times. I think I cheesed one room. There were at least two that I "solved" by brute force. There was another that I stumbled into the correct answer accidentally. I'm pretty proud of myself for my solution to the four dog puzzle, where you have to manipulative four dogs to allow yourself to sneak past a fifth. This was one of those times where my subconscious was smarter than my consciousness, so I knew what I was doing instinctively, even though I'd be way too dumb to explain it to someone sitting next to me. It reminds me of some of the calculus problems I solved in graduate school. Guys, this is another easy recommendation, particularly if you like short puzzle games. You get the entire platinum by playing through the game and finding all the secret paintings/rooms. I found all but three of these simply by exploring each area thoroughly, and there's a convenient chapter select to go back for anything you missed. Some of these paintings require completing a puzzle or mini game, which can range from easy to maddening, but the high platinum rarity (currently around 65%) leads me to think nobody struggled too hard. I only had trouble with the maze, the fish hoops, and the opera singer. Nothing I wasn't able to complete in under a few minutes. I'd say if you can get this game for $5-6, it's certainly worth the 5-6 hours it'll take to platinum. (I took 9 hours, but I'm a simple person, like Larry.) Edited October 22, 2022 by Cassylvania 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rally-Vincent--- Posted October 23, 2022 Share Posted October 23, 2022 22 hours ago, Cassylvania said: (Yes, you're going to have to wait on Othercide for a while longer. I won't be able to finish that by Halloween.) Well, Othercide probably fits that description as well, but I am patient - voluntarily or forcibly, either one of those. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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