Kill Your Completion V

[voodoo_eyes]

Game #4 - Final Impressions

 

 

Despite still going to try out the co-op with Markus, I#ll wrap up my opinion on this game as I've played enough to get my thoughts on this one. I'll stick by my earlier description that this is essentially a good looking version of Minecraft. There are about 40 levels (worlds) and to get to them you need to activate portals. Those require materials to activate, which you can get from chests or by defeating enemies.

 

There are a few NPCs on some of those worlds, that either give you quests or let you buy and sell items (that's what the coins are for). There are also events like finding chests or killing specific enemies that scale with your level. These events need to be completed in an hour or they disappear.. Coins are also the price you pay for dying. Which will happen a lot as the balancing in this game doesn't feel right. Enemies are usually very close together, so you need to be very careful to not aggro more than one. If you do you're in a world of trouble. Enemies hit hard and can usually take quite a bit of damage, which often leads to having to resort to a hit and run tactic. I choose the Warrior class, and I get the feeling that it's the worst class to play with as ranged combat seems to be far more advantageous.

 

Here's is an example... one of the events wanted me to defeat enemies under water. Here's the thing, your movement is impaired while under water, and you can't dodge. Furthermore you can't be under water an extensive amount of time or you'll run out of breath. That combined with enemies hitting hard is an absolute pain to deal with. I tried to be smart about it and dug a few holes through the pond to drain the water (took 40 minutes....), so I could fight the enemies on land or shallow water so that I could move properly. Well, it didn't quite go as planned, as the enemies without water started popping like popcorn essentially killing themselves and of course those kills didn't end up counting for the event. If I had an Archer or Mage  I could have just picked out the enemies from the shore without problems and without wasting basically an hour for nothing.

 

There are also bosses in this game, out of which I've only encountered one so far. I assume after every 10 levels you get access to a boss level.

 

So there are quite a few good things about this game, the level design and aesthetic, the crafting, fast travel, good enemy variety and it's fun to play. There are however some things that aren't great. The combat and balancing aren't bad, but they aren't good either. The loading times are pretty hefty, even though there are none in each individual level area, there is one every time you use teleport to another level, and you'll be doing that a lot. I also have a minor complaint about the crafting, which doesn't show you the amount of times you can craft a specific items neither does it allow you to choose to make several in one go.

 

Overall it's still a good game, which could have been great with a bit more attention to detail.

 

 

Time played: over 10h

Trophies earned 10/30

Edited November 12, 2017 by voodoo_eyes

[MarkusT1992]

Game #4: Portal Knights (Day 1-3)

 

 

voodoo_eyes cover everything there is in this game with his review so I'll keep mine short.

We tried the multiplayer for about two hours and it seems that the worlds you can travel to are somewhat identical for each player. The might be only semi random generated.

It also seems that the enemies are a bit tougher when you play with more people. Either that or it was because we were on higher level worlds.

 

 

I started as a Mage because I always play mages and it was a good choice. Playing as a ranged character gives you the advantage to attack the enmies while walking backwards. I don't know if the Archer can attack while walking but I guess he can.

 

I played many games of this kind so I'll ty to compare them a bit. The obvious game that comes to mind is Minecraft. While in Minecraft you have no goal apart from killing the Enderdragon maybe and build your dream land you have a goal in Portal Knights and even a story.

Then there's Dragon Quest Builder which is again somewhat different to Minecraft and Portal Knights. There you have a map you can explore and get quests to rebuild a "city" to bring back the light. After completing a map you go to the next and repeat the process with new quests, new items and so on.

The last I want to mention is Terraria. It's 2D but still a survival/crafting/building game. It's more on the advancement part then on building like Minecraft is.

What all these games have in common is collecting material, craftting things from the materials you find and advance in some way.

 

In my opinion this game lacks long time motivation. In these games I like to build my base or small village and operate from there. You could do that by buying a flat land but have to travel to different worlds to gather material, which sucks because of the loading times. If those were faster it would be much better. It also seems that the loading times are much longer in multiplayer. I had to wait for one or two minutes each time we travelled for voodoo to spawn. It even crashed once for me.

Nevertheless it's not a bad game and could be even great if you have a group to play with. Solo could be boring pretty fast like it is with other games of this kind too.

 

Time played: 4 hours

Trophies: 10/30 for 17%

Rating:

 

Edited November 13, 2017 by MarkusT1992

[PerryToxteth]

On 11/8/2017 at 5:03 AM, Kevvik said:

 

While I am originally from Thunder Bay, I am currently working about an hour north of Toronto.  Nice to see someone who realizes there is more to Ontario than the GTA and NCR since the governments often forget.

 

Finally catching up with this thread after a BUSY family wedding weekend. 

 

Ontario, to me, is Thunder Bay and Quetico bc I grew up in Minnesota. In fact, I'm planning to take the family on a Circle Tour of Lake Superior. I think it will take a week to 10 days at a leisurely pace, but we'll definitely stop in at Fort William and Sleeping Giant Prov. Park. 

 In college, we used to drive up to Fort Frances to take advantage of the Canadian drinking age. Paper mills make that town a bit stinky but we didn't seem to mind the odor afer a few Labatts. 

 

 

On 11/10/2017 at 2:29 PM, MarkusT1992 said:

 

You can just use the hint feature to see where you can do something. All Artifex Mundi games I played so far don't have a trophy for not using any hints, only for not using them in HO scenes.

 

Did I mention jet lag? Kidding, in all honesty, I didn't study the trophy list very hard but I knew there was something about not using hints. Thanks for the heads-up in that you can use that in normal play, just not the mini-games.

[Melanogaster1987]

Game #4 of 10: Broken Age

 

This is only the second time I have played a point-and-click adventure game, and my first for many years. Not since trying out Blade Runner on PC, circa 1999, have I dipped my toes into this genre. And my experience with Blade Runner wasn't great - If I remember correctly, I somehow managed to fumble my way through Act 1 via almost pure trial and error, but gave up on trying to make any further progress, and just played the shooting range section for high scores thereafter. Will my second foray into the genre be more successful than my first?

 

Broken Age is a game that's split into two character's stories, that, while completely separated so far, I assume will intertwine later on in the game. In one story, we play as Shay, a teenage boy living on a spaceship, who clearly wants to break free from the overbearing "parenting" of the ship's computer, which treats him like a toddler. In the other story, we're taking control of teenage girl Vella, who's attempting to escape a land where girls of her age are ceremonially sacrificed to a monster called Mog Chothra, in order to prevent the monster from devouring their entire villages.

 

You probably know what to expect gameplay-wise from a point-and-click adventure game; look around for objects, and use them to interact with your surroundings in order to solve puzzles and advance the plot. It's all about these puzzles, it seems like there will be no other kind of gameplay in Broken Age. You can switch between Vella and Shay's stories at any time - a nice feature that gives you a second puzzle to have a go at if the first one has you stumped. So how am I finding these puzzles? Not terribly good...

 

Beware spoilers below!

 

Spoiler

 

There are some puzzles have nice logical, intuitive soultions. For example, in one part of Vella's story, you hitch a ride on a bird to a village in the clouds; your presence there startles a woman, causing her to drop a vital knife, which you find out of reach in a raised part of another area. How to retrieve it? Find the boy who has a ladder, ask if you can borrow it, use it to retrieve the knife, and return it to the woman, who gives you a reward. A nice simple, logical puzzle that won't really challenge your brain, but works perfectly well for something so early in the game.

 

On the other hand, how did you get Vella get to this place in the clouds, given that she was all set to be sacrificed to Mog Chothra along with 4 other girls in the previous scene? You had to convince one girl to give you a bottle of pop, which you then trade for another girl's fried chicken wing (but not until the beast has eaten all but you and her, else she won't agree to the trade). Then, use the chicken wing to attract a nearby bird, which will fly you to safety - if only you could grab on to it. How to grab hold? Use a corset that you obtained from one of the other girls before she was killed, as a makeshift harness, of course! Maybe that didn't sound too bad to you, but in my opinion, that solution was too convoluted, especially given the many dialogue options when talking to the other 4 girls here. I found the solution by brute force - just trying every permutation until something worked. And this is just the second puzzle, so it's probably easier than most - just how far out of left field are the solutions to the late-game puzzles going to be!?

 

As for Shay's half of the game, I seem to have hit a complete roadblock. It seems that I need to escape the room without the ship's computer detecting Shay and dragging him back to bed. But I've tried using every item I have on every interactive part of the scene, and still no dice. Brute force hasn't worked, so I can only conclude that either there's a trick I'm missing, I need to make more progress with Vella before I can continue with Shay, or that I did something very wrong earlier, and my actions have now made this part of the game unbeatable (If you've read the "Unwinnable" section on TV Tropes, you'll know that this is a common problem in adventure games. Totally unacceptable game design, though, so please let that not be the case here!).

 

 

Whatever the puzzle creators were going for, I seem to be unable to catch their train of thought, and this is mostly reducing the game to pure trial and error for me. I'm finding it exactly as much fun as trying to open a combination lock that I've forgotten the code for. Did 000 work? No? Try 001, try 002, try 003... and so on.

 

Any redeeming features? Well, at least the cursor changes when placed over things you can interact with, and these interactive objects can be easily selected by moving the right stick, which eliminates an infamous problem with many point-and-click games; hunting for exactly the right pixel to click in order to do something. I also like the art style - I likely wouldn't have taken the opportunity to download this from PS Plus had that not attracted me.

 

But in summary, it's been a painful, turgid slog so far. My play time sits at 2 h 42 min, but I've probably only made 10 minutes worth of progress. Are the puzzle solutions too obscure, or do I totally suck at this game... or this genre, for that matter? Whatever it is, I just haven't enjoyed my time with Broken Age. The story has potential, but if I'm going to see how it pans out, it'll probably be by blindly following a walkthrough click by click the rest of the way.

 

My rating: Bronze/Bronze/Black These last 3 days with Broken Age haven't been much fun. But I can't say with any authority that this is a bad game, given my inexperience of the genre and its kind of puzzles. Maybe point-and-click adventures just aren't my thing and never will be. If you've played this game, I'd love to hear your opinion!

 

---

 

Trophies earned in this game: 5 (1, 4) for 90 points [8% completion]
Total trophies earned in this event: 42 (2, 9, 31) for 915 points
 
Current completion rate: 58.17% [Down 1.66% since start of event]
 
Down 0.88% due to Pinball Arcade
Down 0.58% due to Thief
Down 0.09% due to Ratchet & Clank
Down 0.59% due to Broken Age
Up 0.48% due to other games not part of this event

Edited November 13, 2017 by Melanogaster1987

[Kittet3]

I forgot to download Oxenfree and I still have an hour left, so I’ll give my expectations.

I bought this game after going to a roundtable discussion about game narrative and the proctor pulled this game up because of the choice mechanic. Otherwise, I really don’t know anything about it, so I guess this expectation is rather short. I’m expecting a good story and the narration to flow well together. I decided that I'm probably going to do bad playthrough, silent playthrough, good playthrough since the bad playthrough would make me interested in the good playthrough, but doing the silent in the middle would ensure I get it done.

 

1 hour ago, PerryToxteth said:

Ontario, to me, is Thunder Bay and Quetico bc I grew up in Minnesota. In fact, I'm planning to take the family on a Circle Tour of Lake Superior. I think it will take a week to 10 days at a leisurely pace, but we'll definitely stop in at Fort William and Sleeping Giant Prov. Park. 

 In college, we used to drive up to Fort Frances to take advantage of the Canadian drinking age. Paper mills make that town a bit stinky but we didn't seem to mind the odor afer a few Labatts. 

1

A fellow Minnesotan!  

 

4 minutes ago, Melanogaster1987 said:

Game #4 of 10: Broken Age

 

This is only the second time I have played a point-and-click adventure game, and my first for many years. Not since trying out Blade Runner on PC, circa 1999, have I dipped my toes into this genre. And my experience with Blade Runner wasn't great - If I remember correctly, I somehow managed to fumble my way through Act 1 via almost pure trial and error, but gave up on trying to make any further progress, and just played the shooting range section for high scores thereafter. Will my second foray into the genre be more successful than my first?

 

-snip-
 
Current completion rate: 58.17% [Down 1.66% since start of event]
 
Down 0.88% due to Pinball Arcade
Down 0.58% due to Thief
Down 0.09% due to Ratchet & Clank
Down 0.59% due to Broken Age
Up 0.48% due to other games not part of this event

1

This was one point-and-click game I was happy I used a guide for because I would never have figured out any of the puzzles and don't have the patience for trial and error. The story is really nice and you still get it if you go the guide route. BTW, how did you calculate the percentage of each game like that? It's really cool.

[MarkusT1992]

13 minutes ago, Melanogaster1987 said:

Game #4 of 10: Broken Age

 

This is only the second time I have played a point-and-click adventure game, and my first for many years. Not since trying out Blade Runner on PC, circa 1999, have I dipped my toes into this genre. And my experience with Blade Runner wasn't great - If I remember correctly, I somehow managed to fumble my way through Act 1 via almost pure trial and error, but gave up on trying to make any further progress, and just played the shooting range section for high scores thereafter. Will my second foray into the genre be more successful than my first?

 

Broken Age is a game that's split into two character's stories, that, while completely separated so far, I assume will intertwine later on in the game. In one story, we play as Shay, a teenage boy living on a spaceship, who clearly wants to break free from the overbearing "parenting" of the ship's computer, which treats him like a toddler. In the other story, we're taking control of teenage girl Vella, who's attempting to escape a land where girls of her age are ceremonially sacrificed to a monster called Mog Chothra, in order to prevent the monster from devouring their entire villages.

 

You probably know what to expect gameplay-wise from a point-and-click adventure game; look around for objects, and use them to interact with your surroundings in order to solve puzzles and advance the plot. It's all about these puzzles, it seems like there will be no other kind of gameplay in Broken Age. You can switch between Vella and Shay's stories at any time - a nice feature that gives you a second puzzle to have a go at if the first one has you stumped. So how am I finding these puzzles? Not terribly good...

 

Beware spoilers below!

 

  Hide contents

 

There are some puzzles have nice logical, intuitive soultions. For example, in one part of Vella's story, you hitch a ride on a bird to a village in the clouds; your presence there startles a woman, causing her to drop a vital knife, which you find out of reach in a raised part of another area. How to retrieve it? Find the boy who has a ladder, ask if you can borrow it, use it to retrieve the knife, and return it to the woman, who gives you a reward. A nice simple, logical puzzle that won't really challenge your brain, but works perfectly well for something so early in the game.

 

On the other hand, how did you get Vella get to this place in the clouds, given that she was all set to be sacrificed to Mog Chothra along with 4 other girls in the previous scene? You had to convince one girl to give you a bottle of pop, which you then trade for another girl's fried chicken wing (but not until the beast has eaten all but you and her, else she won't agree to the trade). Then, use the chicken wing to attract a nearby bird, which will fly you to safety - if only you could grab on to it. How to grab hold? Use a corset that you obtained from one of the other girls before she was killed as a makeshift harness, of course! Maybe that didn't sound too bad to you, but in my opinion, that solution was too convoluted, especially given the many dialogue options when talking to the other 4 girls here. I found the solution by brute force - just trying every permutation until something worked. And this is just the second puzzle, so it's probably easier than most - just how far out of left field are the solutions to the late-game puzzles going to be!?

 

As for Shay's half of the game, I seem to have hit a complete roadblock. It seems that I need to escape the room without the ship's computer detecting Shay and dragging him back to bed. But I've tried using every item I have on every interactive part of the scene, and still no dice. Brute force hasn't worked, so I can only conclude that either there's a trick I'm missing, I need to make more progress with Vella before I can continue with Shay, or that I did something very wrong earlier, and my actions have now made this part of the game unbeatable (If you've read the "Unwinnable" section on TV Tropes, you'll know that this is a common problem in adventure games. Totally unacceptable game design, though, so please let that not be the case here!).

 

 

Whatever the puzzle creators were going for, I seem to be unable to catch their train of thought, and this is mostly reducing the game to pure trial and error for me. I'm finding it exactly as much fun as trying to open a combination lock that I've forgotten the code for. Did 000 work? No? Try 001, try 002, try 003... and so on.

 

Any redeeming features? Well, at least the cursor changes when placed over things you can interact with, and these interactive objects can be easily selected by moving the right stick, which eliminates an infamous problem with many point-and-click games; hunting for exactly the right pixel to click in order to do something. I also like the art style - I likely wouldn't have taken the opportunity to download this from PS Plus had that not attracted me.

 

But in summary, it's been a painful, turgid slog so far. My play time sits at 2 h 42 min, but I've probably only made 10 minutes worth of progress. Are the puzzle solutions too obscure, or do I totally suck at this game... or this genre, for that matter? Whatever it is, I just haven't enjoyed my time with Broken Age. The story has potential, but if I'm going to see how it pans out, it'll probably be by blindly following a walkthrough click by click the rest of the way.

 

My rating: Bronze/Bronze/Black These last 3 days with Broken Age haven't been much fun. But I can't say with any authority that this is a bad game, given my inexperience of the genre and its kind of puzzles. Maybe point-and-click adventures just aren't my thing and never will be. If you've played this game, I'd love to hear your opinion!

---

Trophies earned in this game: 5 (1, 4) for 90 points [8% completion]
Total trophies earned in this event: 42 (2, 9, 31) for 915 points
 
Current completion rate: 58.17% [Down 1.66% since start of event]
 
Down 0.88% due to Pinball Arcade
Down 0.58% due to Thief
Down 0.09% due to Ratchet & Clank
Down 0.59% due to Broken Age
Up 0.48% due to other games not part of this event

 

Just a little hint what to do on Shay's side

 

 

The only thing you can do is selecting "missions" to do, am I right? If so, select the one with the train. When you have to click on the mountain to open his mouth do so and wait till you drive again. Then immediately click on the mountain again to close his mouth. If done corecctly you should crash.

If you have already done this you have to escape throught the vent in your room. For this you have to use the inflatable raft as cover. use the gas tank on it and put it on the bed.

 

You can complete each side without doing anything with the other character.
 

 

Edited November 13, 2017 by MarkusT1992

[DamagingRob]

Final Review- Thief

 

So there is a run button.  You'd think that would have been something they'd want to teach you how to do in the tutorial, but I guess not.. And I don't really want to spoil things too much, but there are more types of enemies than just guards. It's weird as hell, though, the dogs in this game are locked in cages. But I don't mind. They usually fuck me over in other stealth games. Lol. 

 

There's not a lot more I can add since I covered most of it in my Day 1 review. But it's a pretty fun stealth game, and is probably going to take me awhile to complete. I'm already 10 hours in, and still have 3 story missions to go, a lot of cleanup, and a second playthrough. 

 

The PS3 version does seem to be a bit buggy, though.. At least I hope the PS4 version runs better. Sound tends to get choppy, or cut out lines of dialogue completely, so I turned on the caption words. That only helps so much, though, as sometimes, the text appears for a split second and is gone before you even have a chance to read it.. And then on Day 2 when I first booted it up, Garrett was stuck in a wall, forcing me to reload an earlier save. Still playable, but I feel like I'm not getting the whole story here. 

 

Anyways, I'd probably put it somewhere between a  and a . It's still a decent game, even with some of the technical issues. But there are far better games in the genre. 

 

Time played: 10 hours.

Trophy progress: 12/38 for 17% and a B rank. 

Did it lower my completion? Yes. 

 

Screw the rules! Bonus game coverage: Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls

 

I decided to start this today when I was once again whisked away by my parents (my uncle, who we hadn't seen in years, was nearby due to his trucking job. So we went to see him), and couldn't play Thief. Didn't really feel like doing nothing the whole time I was out/during the football I planned to watch upon my return. 

 

I was pretty excited to finally play this, as I loved the first 2 Danganronpa games. This one.. well, it's pretty different. Which I kind of knew, but I thought I'd at least enjoy the story. So far, though, it's just been okay. Makoto's sister isn't really that likable. She's too wimpy. The new villain group, consisting of a bunch of grade school kids, also aren't likeable in the least. The only character(s) that make me somewhat invested in the story at this point, are the returning ones from the first game (Byakuya and Toko). And Byakuya was only there briefly at the beginning. I hope it gets better, I really do. Or this will probably just feel like a pointless slog. 

 

As for the gameplay, this one is a 3rd person shooter. Monokuma try to attack you, and you can shoot them with your gun which carries quite a few different kinds of ammo (but after the prologue, you go back to having just one and need to obtain the others). Shooting them in their red eye qualifies as hitting their weak point, and they'll drop more coins. There will probably be quite a few different types of enemies, but so far I only encountered normal Monokuma (who just run up and try to smack you) and Bomb Monokuma (as you can probably guess, they throw bombs). 

 

Besides the normal kind of bullets, I have Move ammo. This is used to move cars and other objects out of your way, activate switches, and get items from vending machines (ammo for your other guns and health). 

 

You can also switch to Toko/Genocide Jack and slice and dice Monokuma. This ability requires energy, though. So you can't do it all the time, and will still need to play as Komaru quite a bit.

 

Saving can only be done at save points, or certain times when the game asks you. Which wouldn't be so bad by itself, but you basically can't do anything else with your Vita while this game is running. No internet, no messaging, no syncing trophies, etc. Opening any other App requires closing the game. Never seen something like that before.

 

And that's about it. You pretty much just go through areas killing Monokuma, and moving the story along. Which isn't terrible, but not nearly as much fun as solving murders in the other games. 

 

Time played: 3 hours. 

Trophy progress: 7/36 for 10% and an E rank. 

Edited November 13, 2017 by Ditto

[voodoo_eyes]

5 hours ago, Melanogaster1987 said:

But in summary, it's been a painful, turgid slog so far. My play time sits at 2 h 42 min, but I've probably only made 10 minutes worth of progress. Are the puzzle solutions too obscure, or do I totally suck at this game... or this genre, for that matter? Whatever it is, I just haven't enjoyed my time with Broken Age. The story has potential, but if I'm going to see how it pans out, it'll probably be by blindly following a walkthrough click by click the rest of the way.

 

I feel that that is the issue most point-and-click games have, which is why they usually have to be carried by their story/characters. Most Lucas Arts and Double Fine games of the genre aren't very logical in the puzzle department, but usually have a good story and/or great characters. I despised Broken Age, because it had neither, as well as the puzzles not being very intuitive

 

I feel more accessible games of that kind are the Broken Sword games. Yesterday Origins is another good one when it comes to offering a good story and reasonable puzzles.

Edited November 13, 2017 by voodoo_eyes

[Metal Slime King]

Game #4 - Ys Origin

Ys (I pronounce it like yeast but without the t, you can feel free to pronounce it however you like ) is a long running series of action RPG's from Falcom with a disjointed, piecemeal history of western releases. We get what we get. Ys Origin is a prequel to the series, taking place 700 yrs before the rest of the story, it fills in the legend of the collapse of the magical kingdom of Ys. Well that's somewhat foreboding . Twin goddesses reign over a kingdom which is besieged by demons. The goddesses raise the capital city into the sky and those persistent demons build a tower to the city to complete their conquest. The goddesses disappear with the source of all magic into the tower and the people send in a party of adventurers to investigate. That's where you come in, as one of the initial two main protagonists you've gotta climb that tower and find out whats up. I don't know yet how different the stories are for each character but they are supposed to be different views from the same story intertwined, which is always a neat narrative vehicle. For a Ys game it's not very cinematic, not a lot of voice I've noticed. At times it seems the dialogue has been translated awkwardly but it's not a deal breaker.

 

The game is rendered in 3D but the camera is fixed in an isometric overhead perspective like most of the earlier games. The only time it's really deviated was moving outside the tower, along ramps going up, up, up. It works good, you can see everything you need to see, I haven't had any problems with it. The combat is fairly basic; stab, jump stab (up or down stab, depending where you are in your jump) and various magic specials, it all works. The controls are nice and tight, the graphics are ok and the music is rockin' and upbeat. I miss the blocks and evades from Celceta as well as swapping your characters out on the fly. The bosses really shine though, I got up to the 4th main boss and they've all been interesting and challenging. Usually in this type of game the boss is a character on the ground, you hit him with your attacks, avoid his attacks and hopefully he runs out of hp first. Even if the boss is a big character hacking away at their knees will usually suffice.

 

Boss chat:
 

Spoiler

 

The first boss is a big guy and after you hit him a bit he gets stunned and you can run up his arm and whack his weak spot.

The second boss is a giant centipede like creature. You kill his tail then jump on his back killing segments as you go until you get to his head.

The third boss is a giant demon in a lava pit. He attacks with his arms, after you hack them off he tries to headbutt you. Whack him in the head.

The forth boss is some kind of bullet hell sand-anemone. As you dodge waves of attacks you need to kill some eyes that sprout out of the ground. Killing them will stun the boss and you can .. wait for it .. jump up on his head and attack his exposed weak spot eye.

 

 

Maybe they've been nothing exceptionally ground breaking but it's still a step up for the series and I think the genre as a whole.

 

I'm giving Ys Origin a (-). It's a great, solid game but it's certainly not perfect. For a Ys game and one that's supposed to tell this epic backstory, it's not very epic. It needed more effort put into the intro to really setup what's supposed to be this big war that's going on RIGHT NOW at the top of this tower. Now maybe the ending is truly epic but c'mon you've got to give me enough at the start to give me a reason to expect the ending to be awesome. The gameplay is fun but not as good as Celceta but the bosses are better. Even playing on my PS4 on my full sized TV some of the text and the numbers that pop up are very tiny, that may be more of an issue on the Vita. Anyways, I'm sure I'll have enough fun to carry me through the somewhat grindy trophies and the numerous playthroughs required for the plat.

Edited December 11, 2017 by mking_63

[voodoo_eyes]

Game #5 - Initial Impressions

 

 

So maybe it wasn't the smartest idea to play two somewhat similar games one after another. However, I just can't be arsed to change the list around so that's how it's gonna be.

 

I tend to call these games busy work simulators, as they generally lack characters with interesting personalities, story, and other gameplay elements (like combat in this one). All you do is fetch-quest, which is something I already disliked when WoW implemented it with their "Dailies".

 

I remember one of the selling points of this game was that it supposedly looked gorgeous. I mean beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder and all that, but fuck me them eyes might need new glasses. It doesn't look bad by any means (except for the rain, that effect is just plain terrible), but it doesn't look all that great either.

 

This kinda already feels like it's the first and final impressions combined, and I'm only a bit over an hour into the game so far but there just doesn't seem much more to it really. I'll put a few more hours in and see if it evolves into something more enjoyable.

Edited November 13, 2017 by voodoo_eyes

[Kevvik]

13 hours ago, PerryToxteth said:

Ontario, to me, is Thunder Bay and Quetico bc I grew up in Minnesota. In fact, I'm planning to take the family on a Circle Tour of Lake Superior. I think it will take a week to 10 days at a leisurely pace, but we'll definitely stop in at Fort William and Sleeping Giant Prov. Park. 

 

 In college, we used to drive up to Fort Frances to take advantage of the Canadian drinking age. Paper mills make that town a bit stinky but we didn't seem to mind the odor afer a few Labatts. 

 

 

Canadian drinking age and real beer, best of both worlds for you (though I prefer Molson to Labatts).

 

For me growing up in that neck of the woods, vacation was heading down to Duluth/Superior with the odd run down to the Twin a Cities for North Stars games. That and an eternal appreciation of classic movies from watching the Matinee Money Movie on Duluth TV (all the Abbott & Costello, Japanese monster movies plus endless just awesome old black and whites).  Between that and UMD hockey games, I miss those channels.

[vin_rob]

On 12-11-2017 at 10:47 AM, Myu said:

Day 12 - Game 2

Dungeon Travelers 2

 

 

 

Time played : 9 hours

Completion rate : 86.77% (-0.95% since the beginning of the event)

 

Dungeon Travelers 2 is a dungeon crawler from 2013. 

You are Fried, a man obsessed with monsterology and your job is to seal monsters into your Grand Sealbook to help reduce their ever increasing population.

On your first mission, you get trapped underground and meet Alisia and Melvy, two childhood friends that are here to help you. Alisia is from the Fighter class and Melvy is a mage.

The story is very basic : you get a mission, you go seal the monster with your team and you go back to headquarters to report.

 

Being the second game of the franchise, there are a lot of private jokes and references to the first game and I don't understand any of them, the 1^st game being in Japanese. Some dialogues are still very funny though. There's this comic duo you encounter in every dungeon and they frequently breach the 4^th wall.7

 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

 

 

 

 

There's also a lot of references to other games and anime. It makes the tutorials less boring

 

So far, I got a new member to join my team in every chapter. I now have a Spieler, a Maid (yes, that's a class in this game...) and a Scout. When they reach lvl15, you have the possibility to upgrade their class. For example, the Maid can become a Bard that will help with buffs or a Dancer with debuff skills.

They also change costume which is pretty nice.

 

The dungeons are very short and there's nothing to do in them, except opening treasure chests and finding the boss.

 

Fried has the ability to transform mobs and bosses into Seal Books that have different effects. Since the beginning of the game, the only book I've equipped is a book that ups the enemy encounters. There are not that many enemies in the dungeons and I often have to wander aimlessly for a while to grind a couple of levels or to find better equipment. I wish they did it just like in Demon Gaze and Operaton Abyss/Babel, where you get an enemy encounter every time you go through a door.

 

You can only get new equipment from treasure chests and monster drops (and also from a wandering seller, but those are so expensive that it's really not worth it) and it takes a while to find something useful.

 

When I got the game, I noticed the 16+ PEGI rating and it was kinda intrigued because the game's cover is pretty innocent. Well I think male players will be very happy with this title because there is a ton of CGs with very-lightly dressed ladies of all kinds because guess what, the so-called « monsters » are in fact human-shaped and apparently, nobody told them you're supposed to wear clothes.

 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

10 minutes into the game



 

'Monsters'


 

 

 

 

This game is full of fan service. When you defeat a boss, you get a CG, there also are scenes and dialogues between two expeditions and of course, you get a CG. And let's not even talk about the class costumes.

Funny things is, the MC is not really disturbed by all that nudity.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think Dungeon Travelers is not bad but it's not a good dungeon crawler either.

I prefer Operation Babel/Abyss for the lengthy dungeons, the interesting story and the great chara-design. Dungeon Travelers is lacking on many points and I just hope it won't take too long to plat it.

 

I think I've got this game somewhere, your review makes me wanna play it

[vin_rob]

Game #3: Root Letter vita

Day 7-9

 

 

So Root Letter is an Visual novel, haven’t done that much visual novels but that could change.. since I did enjoy this one.

 

You are a guy that looks for a pen pal and of course you find someone. Not just somebody but a girl. And the story changes a little bit at least the ending depending on how you reply on the letters. Hard to really say anything about the story since everything you say about the story is a spoiler. So I’ll just continue.

 

The game uses a point and click system. When you can find information or talk to people check a guidebook and travel to new areas. Most received letters require you to reply to them with some personal touch from you the player. (add 2 sentences at the end of the letter in the ps section)

For the rest there are ways to skip some chapters when you finished the story line at least once.

 

I did got it 100%, but that’s mostly because I liked the story but didn’t really liked the endings so I just wanted to keep playing till I had a ending I really liked.. of course that was the final one, with 1 trophy left till plat I just couldn’t help myself.  

 

 

 

Final trophies 27 / 27

Percentage 53.33%

[Kevvik]

Game #4: Way of the Samurai 3

 

Day 3 Impressions

 

Time played: 7.5 hrs

 

So I'm getting better at combat since having a half decent sword makes a big difference. I did a bit more grinding before making a run to an actual ending rather than just leaving. Played through after killing the bandit clan leader and took over. Got myself a bit of money and some stuff, the last battles being about taking out 1-2 hundred or so opponents (maybe not so impressive as there is a title for 1000 kills in a story run). You pretty much fight them all one opponent at a time which is helpful as you aren't getting ganged but it slows things down considerably.  Combat is a little clunky but not too bad. Quick items keep the health up. I ran through on easy just to get the feel a bit better. Normal for the next run.

 

Little vignettes called inklings help move the story along though it can be confusing at times following multiple backgrounds and maybe not getting the whole picture if you miss one. Still, there is a fair bit going on and more run through so will hopefully help me see the big picture.  At the end of this run, I died like a bandit in one last big standoff against an army.

 

I've enjoyed this a fair bit which is good since the plat is based around 100+ hours to get all the endings and skills.  Definitely coming back to this later.

 

Trophies: 14/51, 21% for B rank

Score thus far: 7.5/10

Completion Rate: 80.58% (-0.90%)

 

Next up: Another surprise for me. Console vs Vita, we'll see in a few hours.

Edited November 13, 2017 by Kevvik

[Melanogaster1987]

13 hours ago, Kittet3 said:

BTW, how did you calculate the percentage of each game like that? It's really cool.

 

Just by noting my overall completion rate before and after each time I sync my trophies.

 

 

13 hours ago, MarkusT1992 said:

 

Just a little hint what to do on Shay's side

  Reveal hidden contents

If you have already done this you have to escape throught the vent in your room. For this you have to use the inflatable raft as cover. use the gas tank on it and put it on the bed.

You can complete each side without doing anything with the other character.

 

Thanks for letting me know - it never occurred to me to use an item on another item in your inventory like this.

 

11 hours ago, Ditto said:

And then on Day 2 when I first booted it up, Garrett was stuck in a wall, forcing me to reload an earlier save. Still playable, but I feel like I'm not getting the whole story here. 

 

Something similar happened to me - I saved while in a vent, and when I resumed, I had clipped through the top of it, unable to move. I've read about others finding themselves stuck in vents, walls and rafters too upon reloading; there seems to be a problem with the game not positioning Garrett correctly when resuming. I don't think I will try saving when in a confined space again.

Edited November 13, 2017 by Melanogaster1987

[Jaguargenie]

15 hours ago, Melanogaster1987 said:

 

But in summary, it's been a painful, turgid slog so far. My play time sits at 2 h 42 min, but I've probably only made 10 minutes worth of progress. Are the puzzle solutions too obscure, or do I totally suck at this game... or this genre, for that matter? Whatever it is, I just haven't enjoyed my time with Broken Age. The story has potential, but if I'm going to see how it pans out, it'll probably be by blindly following a walkthrough click by click the rest of the way.

 

That's a shame you feel that way. I played Broken Age last event and it isn't nearly as obtuse as old point and click games. The formula is mostly 1) walk around the environment and pick up EVERYTHING you can 2) try and solve puzzles using the items you have collected 3) any puzzles you can't find, randomly try and use items with puzzles that make no sense to try and make a solution pop 4) repeat. I loved the humor in it though. Thought that was it's most redeeming quality. 

 

@Myu I was really intrigued initially by your Dungeon Traveler review. Thanks for the honest assessment. And btw, that totally reinforces the terrible stereotype that most westerners that have zero interest in anime have about anime: women are going to be naked or scantily clad for no reason at all. Lol. 

Edited November 13, 2017 by Jaguargenie

[DamagingRob]

2 hours ago, vin_rob said:

I did got it 100%, but that’s mostly because I liked the story but didn’t really liked the endings so I just wanted to keep playing till I had a ending I really liked.. of course that was the final one, with 1 trophy left till plat I just couldn’t help myself.

Yeah, I really liked the game, but most of the endings didn't do it for me. The ending you're talking about was great, though. 

 

1 hour ago, Melanogaster1987 said:

Something similar happened to me - I saved while in a vent, and when I resumed, I had clipped through the top of it, unable to move. I've read about others finding themselves stuck in vents, walls and rafters too upon reloading; there seems to be a problem with the game not positioning Garrett correctly when resuming. I don't think I will try saving when in a confined space again.

I saved while I was on top of something, and couldn't jump down off it. Lol. But that's a shame it has those problems.. At least it autosaves, too, so I wasn't set back too much. 

 

11 minutes ago, Jaguargenie said:

And btw, that totally reinforces the terrible stereotype that most westerners that have zero interest in anime have about anime: women are going to be naked or scantily clad for no reason at all.

[Jaguargenie]

Type Game 4 Review

I suck at traditional FPS so keep that in mind. Crysis 3 is a different kind of shooter. It introduces a super powerful compound bow that wasn't found in the previous interactions of the game which means it can be played completely stealth. Now THAT is right up my alley. 

 

So what is this game? You play as Prophet. A man who has been bonded to an alien exosuit that gives you superpowers. Specifically, you can stealth and become completely invisible, tank and become almost invulnerable or do other less impressive stuff like jump high or easily melee kill. The flip side of the equation: Your suit has an energy level and using those power depletes your energy VERY quickly. Once it's depleted, you have to hide out and let it regen, which is pretty quick. The world is a post apocalyptic world in which this group of aliens, called the Ceph, invaded Earth years ago. They were pushed back, but this left a power vacuum in which an evil corporation called Cell stepped in and took over the world. 

 

Mechanics. You can play this like a traditional shooter and run and gun with cover. The armor portion of the suit was designed for this approach. That would be a bear. This game is very unforgiving. A handful of bullets downs you quick, the enemies and really on point with their aim, most rooms are huge Monster Closets, and the checkpoints are few and far between. The other option is to play like me: . I'm about done with chapter 3 of 7 and haven't used my gun yet. Sniping with the bow and stealth melee kills is quite fun. The game is designed very well to cater to both play styles. 

 

It is also stunningly beautiful. This is a ps3 game, but man, it is gorgeous. I've never played anything from Cryteam or the Cryengine but I've heard about it and it really lives up. 

 

I'm not a multiplayer guy so I haven't touched that mode and the trophies look really tough for that. They also require public matches only. Don't know if I'll ever do that unless I can get some people together and try and fill a match just to boost. I would imagine the servers are empty enough now that it would work. 

 

All in all, really high marks for this. I'm enjoying it a lot. It isn't your typical shooter and the mechanics that the suit adds make it different enough that I can recommend it. 

 

Rating: B+

Trophies: 13 / 51 for 16% and C ranking

Completion %: 74.60 (-1.09%) since the events beginning.

[Myu]

@vin_rob If you're not afraid to die repeatedly against a stupid boss, be my guest.  

 

I've played a little more of the game and I can say that the Catacombs dungeon is a step-up : more enemies, a bigger map, and secret passages to find. There is now a blacksmith to upgrade weapons.

 

@Ditto I don't mind fanservice up to a certain point. I enjoy fanservice when it's oriented towards females so I understand how those CGs are interesting to males but I prefer when it serves a purpose or when it's more subtle. Fanservice for the sake of fanservice is kinda meh.

 

@Jaguargenie since I mostly play Japanese games, I can tell you from experience that fanservice is almost everywhere (and especially in dungeon crawlers). On my Vita shelf, there are very few titles that are "fanservice free". Most VNs have some fanservice scenes, even Stein's Gate with the shower scenes. I can't remember well but Root Letter might be the exception. 

 

My next game is Criminal Girl 2, another dungeon crawler with a lot of fanservice.  

[Psy-Tychist]

53 minutes ago, Myu said:

My next game is Criminal Girl 2, another dungeon crawler with a lot of fanservice.  

 

Now it looks fun this game, but I haven't seen the uncensored version yet.

[MarkusT1992]

7 hours ago, Melanogaster1987 said:

Thanks for letting me know - it never occurred to me to use an item on another item in your inventory like this.

 

It's pretty common in Point and Click Advantures to combine items in your inventory actually.

If you play more you should remember that.

[voodoo_eyes]

Just a small update related to a previous game form these events. Okage plat is finally out of the way. As mentioned in the previous thread, not a fan of it and the final boss fight is one of the most anticlimactic boss fights ever. Well, at least it's one more game off the backlog list.

[dertswa687o]

Life is simply unfair. I joined the event late, got all pumped to start a bunch of games... and today I found out I'll be working crazy hours for the next 3 weeks. I'm talking like 8:30am-11pm hours. Needless to say I won't have as much time to play games so I'm going to cut my list down from 7 games to "I'll do what I can". I'll still have time on the weekends and over Thanksgiving so I'll try and play some stuff.

 

Sorry everyone ?

[DamagingRob]

4 hours ago, Myu said:

I don't mind fanservice up to a certain point. I enjoy fanservice when it's oriented towards females so I understand how those CGs are interesting to males but I prefer when it serves a purpose or when it's more subtle. Fanservice for the sake of fanservice is kinda meh.

True. Unfortunately, Japanese games with pointless fanservice galore are a dime a dozen.. 

 

Guilty Gear Xrd: Revelator- Day 1

 

This. Game. Is. Awesome! And I haven't even played Story mode yet. Started out with the Tutorial, and replayed it a couple of times to finish it in under 10 minutes for a trophy. Did a couple of Arcade runs, but didn't really feel like doing 18 more, so moved onto Combo challenges. And that's all I've tried so far, with a lot of stuff still to do. 

 

Tutorial mode teaches you how to play the game, by having you attack these small enemies. They can be grouped up on the ground, the floor, or come out of a totem pole-like object. When the latter happens, you have a small amount of time to kill 10 of them by pressing the correct attack button, before the counter resets. Which would be easier if they popped up the button you need to press.. I've never understood why fighting games insist on having you learn whatever they call it, where P is , K is , etc. Is it really that hard to just show the button image instead? 

 

Anyways... you'll also have to jump over obstacles and collect balloons, block enemy attacks and counter, and string combos together. Not too hard to do, but completing it all in less than 10 minutes can be a bit of a challenge. 

 

Arcade mode consists of fighting 8 opponents and you're done. There's a short scene at the beginning and again at the end. You can set the difficulty you want, how many rounds you want the fights to last, and how much time until the fight ends if both sides are still standing. 

 

For the combo challenges, I had to complete 400 of them. Which, even though this was four times the BlazBlue Continuum Shift Extend requirement, I managed to do without too much trouble. This part of the game was definitely easier than that one. 

 

You have 20 characters to choose from, all with some crazy abilities. One guy has a paper bag over his head, and I'd swear he must be one of Kakashi Hatake's pupils. He seems to know one of his abilities, at least:

Spoiler

 

The game is visually pretty damn stunning. It's like playing an anime with high production values. Really beautiful to look at. And the music is badass. With all this praise already, I think I'm going to continue to have a good time with this one. 

 

Time played: 3-4 hours. 

Trophy progress: 8/43 for 21% and a C rank. 

[PerryToxteth]

17 hours ago, Kittet3 said:

A fellow Minnesotan!  

 

 

A fellow Duck, Duck, Grey Ducker! Only we know how wonderful Sweet Martha's is and how scrumptious a Juicy Lucy is.