Kill Your Completion - 6

[voodoo_eyes]

6 hours ago, Edward_FOX_86 said:

Clearly You've never played Pokémon ! 

 

lol

 

Oh, but I have... The first and last Pokémon game I played was Pokémon Stadium 2 on the N64. Exceptionally boring game.

[Oobedoob S Benubi]

45 minutes ago, voodoo_eyes said:

 

Oh, but I have... The first and last Pokémon game I played was Pokémon Stadium 2 on the N64. Exceptionally boring game.

 

That's not a 'real' Pokémon game.

 

Though I just checked what post of yours got that response, and Pokémon games handle that sort of thing a lot better. You can get new Pokémon later on but different areas have different average levels for wild mons. Also, you can put your inexperienced Pokémon first, so it gets loads of XP for being in the match, and your first action can then be to switch it out for your buff juggernaut Pokémon.

[Myu]

 

Day 3, 4, 5 and 6

I played this game on Day 3 and 4 and lost interest after that. I don't have anything to add to my first review, the game doesn't change one bit and gets repetitive after the first hour. The plat doesn't seem difficult to achieve but it's going to be a grind hell.

 

 

Play Time : about 13 hours

Total Completion % : 87.39% ( - 1.12% since the beginning of the event)

 

I went back to FFXII instead and earned two more trophies.

 

Next game : Exist Archive

 

[Metal Slime King]

Sword Coast Legends (Rating: )

This game is a bit of a weird duck. It's an RPG based on the Dungeons and Dragons universe and mechanics set in an overhead isometric perspective. You control a party of 4 adventurers, one of  which is your character (you choose gender, race, class and configure stat point allowance) and the characters you select from the pool of characters the story throws at you. You can cycle through which character you control directly and use abilities mapped to the face buttons. The other characters will engage enemies themselves. If you want you can pause into a menu giving you greater control of your characters actions. So it's kind of a combination of action and menu based RPG's. You can invite other players into your story campaign and their imported character will fill one of your party slots. They will exclusively control their character only. It's an interesting idea and works well and there is a trophy for completing the campaign in coop mode, so you'll need to find a partner if you want this UR plat. The story so far is that your guild is being hunted by another guild for fear that you are in league with a demon that communicates with your guild members in their sleep. Besides story mode there is a dungeon mode where you can set specifics to create random dungeons to grind xp and gold. You import your character files into this mode so you can actually strengthen main characters between modes. There's a third mode that requires coop to activate, tied to dungeon mode. One character can act as a dungeon master and antagonize players in the random dungeon. There are trophies tied to this mode so it will be part of the online grind to that UR plat.

 

It's a unique game that I think was more for a niche market of hard core Dungeon & Dragons fans. The races / classes, environments, enemies and combat mechanics are ported over rather well from that established universe. I would say the F2P MMO Neverwinter is a more accessible RPG and a more enjoyable game to play but that Sword Coast Legends is a little more authentic to the source mechanics. The graphics are alright, the music is somewhat subdued. The trophies are a bit of an excessive grind, particularly go through the campaign with a character from all classes and get a character from all classes to level cap, which will require more than just one pass through the story. There are 9 character classes to chose from and even if the last of those 9 (Warlocks, added as an update) are not required that's still 8 characters to max out. It defeats the purpose of allowing a choice when you then say that someone must choose all of the options. I'll probably stick with it but I would only recommend it to die hard D&D fans.

 

Completion: (7 out of 39 trophies) 10%.

[jasondm300]

Game 4 played and put away

 

Not a Hero

2/12 Trophies

B Ranking

3 hours

Not a Hero is a 8(ish)-bit side-scrolling action platformer that has multiple characters you can play.  You are trying to help Bunnylord become mayor by taking out the criminal gangs in 3 different cities to have the voters come and vote for you.  It reminds me a lot of Hotline Miami, as there is a copious amount of violence.  Each city has 7 levels, with 3 secondary objectives to finish.  I finished the first city and got almost all of the secondary quests done.  I don't really know if I like this game or not.  I found myself having fun with some parts, but just getting frustrated to the point of not wanting to play anymore.  It may be one I come back to at some point, but I would rather play Hotline Miami instead for my retro-looking ultra-violence.

 

Next up is The Last Guy.  We'll see how much I play that, as I just picked up a Switch yesterday and re-fell in love with Bayonetta

 

[voodoo_eyes]

3 hours ago, Riq IV said:

 

That's not a 'real' Pokémon game.

 

Though I just checked what post of yours got that response, and Pokémon games handle that sort of thing a lot better. You can get new Pokémon later on but different areas have different average levels for wild mons. Also, you can put your inexperienced Pokémon first, so it gets loads of XP for being in the match, and your first action can then be to switch it out for your buff juggernaut Pokémon.

 

While it may be less bad, it still doesn't sound like a good mechanic to me. A lot of RPGs these days give the characters that aren't in your party some percentage of the XP earned, just so they aren't completely underleveled when you swap them out.

Edited March 13, 2018 by voodoo_eyes

[voodoo_eyes]

Game #3 - Day #1 - Preview

 

 

Not really sure what to expect of this game. I essentially bought this after watching some gameplay videos of it, and it looked fun to play. The game had a nice aesthetic to it and it seemed to be different enough from other RPGs for it to be interesting.

 

Ain't got more to say about it really until I have played the game.

[MarkusT1992]

52 minutes ago, voodoo_eyes said:

 

While it may be less bad, it still doesn't sound like a good mechanic to me. A lot of RPGs these days give the characters that aren't in your party some percentage of the XP earned, just so they aren't completely underleveled when you swap them out.

In the newer Pokemon games you can activate an item called Exp. Share which will give every Pokemon in your team experience. In previous games only one Pokemon could hold the Exp. Share to gain experience without fighting.

 

Game #2: Agents of Mayhem (Day 6)

 

 

A bit late but I was too tired yesterday to write something, so here we go now.

 

I guess Voodoo covered most of the important things about the game.

The missions feel kind of repetetive after a while. The main and agent missions are, at least the ones I played so far, pretty similar. You need to drive somewhere only to kill some Legion guys. After that you drive somewhere else and kill some more Legion guys. Sometimes you have to chase a car and destroy it with your own car. You can use an EMP or ramm the cars with your boost to destroy them. The ramming works better for me as the EMP takes a few shots.

The side "missions" you can do are more like little activities. I'm not sure if they are unlimited or not. There seem to be some which could spawn randomly and some fixed ones. The bigger problem by these activities is reaching the place they are. The ones I did were on roofs sometimes where I had to find a way up. I'm pretty sure I didn't use the intended way.

 

On the Ark, your base, you can unlock several stations depending on your Mayhem rank. I unlocked an upgrade shop which lets you buy helpfull things like upgrades for your scanner to locate the shards and chests or to gain more exp. In another shop you can buy special one time use abilities or unlock new cars buy collecting blueprints you can get randomly through missions and chests.

The latest thing I unlocked is something called Global Conflic (I believe). It's basically a waiting game. You can send your spare agents on missions and have to wait a given time before the mission is completed. The missions are set all over the world and you need to "complete" all of them to unlock the last one. Like I said you can't do anything on these. Choose your agent you want to send on the mission and wait. You can halve the time by choosing an agents from the region the mission takes place.

 

All in all I liked what I played. You can see that it has some things from the Saint's Row series which isn't bad. Still it adds some new stuff. Combining old and new makes a decent game despite the critics. The only downside is the repetitivness of the missions. If you want to play a game from Volition ty Saint's Row first.

 

Time played: ~ 5h

Trophies: 17/50

Rating:

[Edward_FOX_86]

What’s up!? 

 

I was just joking about the Pokémon cause I was pretty sure voodoo never played them. 

And yes I have to agree stadium does not count  Even so I also have to agree that the mechanic of raising the level of specific team members is kind of dated. Usually these days the newcomers don’t start at level 1 but then again I haven’t played that many newer rpgs.

 

I have started dragon age though and I have to ask “is this considered playing a retro game?”  I’m just joking of course but the game was made in 2009 ! Even so I think it aged pretty well and I’m really enjoying the dialogues and gameplay so far.

 

I’ve put in about  one hour of playtime and I’m more invested in the story than before ( I had played this on my other account but just a couple of hours, or at least it’s how it felt). 

It feels similar to the lord of the rings theme and there’s much to do and much to read  .

 

Anyway I’ll write a better review on the 18th after playing it more.

 

Cheers 

Edited March 13, 2018 by Edward_FOX_86

[PerryToxteth]

Game No. 2

Rime

 

 

Trophies Earned: 18/32 B ranking

Time Played: 8(?) hours

Final Thoughts: So, I had played through Chapter 2 in my last update and stated that the game was dark visually, but not story-wise. Uh, I'm going to need to retract that statement before I get accused of "Fake Newsing" it. It gets pretty bleak in chapters 3 and 4, not in the macabre, gruesome sense; but in a sorrowful way. There's depression, loss, bereavement, and all that other fun stuff. But a credit to the writers in how they were able to convey such a powerful story without any dialogue. It really is moving.

  So I finished the story and am doing cleanup. There's roughly 30-40 collectibles in the game and I grabbed about 40% of them in my first play through. And I thought I had covered the sandbox world pretty well. Whoops. This is what will keep the platinum rarity down (28%) as it's not difficult, but extremely tedious. I don't think you can follow a text walkthrough to get everything because the Rime world is so open and non-linear. So I've been YouTubing it and it STILL takes a long time (almost 2 hours per chapter). The boards are just really long and you have to repeat all the puzzles in the first play through to keep advancing. And when you try to rush, you end up screwing up. 

  The game still looks incredible. I had mentioned it has a "Fantasia"esque cinematography aspect to it. Well, that might be a bit understated. Disney could probably accuse these developers of 'aesthetic plagiarism.'  Once you see the water, it's a blatant rip-off. Still looks stunning tough!

  This was definitely worth playing. It's not for everybody though. I was going to let my 8-year-old have fun with it but after it went dark in Chapters 3 and 4, there's no way. Maybe I'll just let him play GTA instead. 

Ok, maybe not. 

 

I'll give this game a . It does what it sets out to do. And it was free. If you like this type of game, I highly recommend "Submerged." I played it during a prior KYC and although there is no platinum, the collectible cleanup isn't as daunting.

 

KYC6 Statistics 

Pre-KYC numbers are in ().

Games Completed - Played 94/68.  ( 92/68)

Trophies Earned - 3235                      (3207)

Unearned - 519                                  (459)

Completion % - 84.71.                     (86.04)

Down - 1.33%

 

Next Up: Game of Thrones

[dizzyshadow]

Game 4: Hidden Agenda

 

The best way i can describe Hidden agenda is an interactive movie, your only control over the game is to make a few decisions about how characters should act or talk, otherwise you just sit and watch the action unfold in front you. I'm not going to cover the story as it really the only reason to play this game and so i don't want to spoil it, other than to say it focuses on a cop & a DA trying to solve some serial killer murders.

 

Its not a long game, a full story play through lasts around 2 hours, however at the end i found i'd really enjoyed myself and even my wife who wasn't expecting to enjoy it really liked it as well. Also surprisingly for such a game there s actually quite a bit of replay value, i've played through twice and the story was quite different each time, with different outcomes and there were whole sections I didn't see in each playthough. I feel like there is probably still more to see. 

 

The other talking point about this game is that its marketed as a Coop experience to play with friends, when doing this you each get a vote as to how the characters should act, but you have to get a majority to proceed. You also get Hidden Agenda's which is where 1 player gets a mission to try and steer the story in a certain direction, if they succeed the get points, the other players get points for correctly identifying who has the hidden agenda. At the end of the game the person with the highest score wins. Personally i just found this annoying and that i got in the way of the story, i preferred the single player playthrough.

 

Its part of the playlink series, which means you don't actually use the controller at all in gameplay, instead everything is controlled via you phone or tablet, this seems to work well once youget connected however getting connected is a battle , search the internet or read the reviews of the app and there are plenty of people sayign the same thing, however most people say iOS is the problem and android works fine, i had the opposite problem, no matter what i tried my android phone would not recognise the game but my ipad & my wife's iphone both worked straight away. You just need to be aware that there is potential for great frustration.

 

Trophies wise it looks like it is an easy plat, there are videos showing how to get everything in 2.5 hours, although that must involve a fair bit of save backing up. Doing legit you probably need 4 or 5 playthroughs so more like 10 hours.

 

Overall i'd recommend it and i'd definitely play a sequel if they made one. 

 

Playtime : 5 hours

Trophies 32/42

Rating: 

Completion 52.97% (-0.13%)

Future Plans : Should be easy to finish up and get the plat.

 

Next Up: Dungeons 3

 

[Metal Slime King]

My next game was swapped in as well to work on MP with another person. Picked up the Bioshock collection for PS3 and found some people who wanted to do the online for Bioshock 2 so I had to get that on my system pronto and it pretty much sucked up all the available space. Sorry Tokyo Jungle, you'll have to wait for another event (another sacrifice to the gods of Impending Server Shutdown). It's a pretty sweet collection CD, having the game and all DLC on disk, it was the fastest full install I can remember. I started with the Minerva's Den DLC which is a stand-alone story. I got through the first level, killed some Big Daddies, gathered some ADAM, saved some little sisters and smashed some vacuum cleaners along the way. Fought a Big Sister which was like a slightly smaller but much angrier version of a Big Daddy. The game warned me she was coming so I holed up in a room where I'd already hacked a security camera. Don't know why she was so angry, I rescued all the little girls.

I'm not much for FPS games but I will admit this game is somewhat of a special case. The environment and underlying narrative are very interesting and I'm enjoying the game quite a bit. I know, it's a pity I couldn't start with the first game but there wasn't room to squeeze it onto the hard drive as well.

 

Edit: And now it turns out the PS4 collection is on sale for the price I paid for the PS3 collection on NA PSN. Guess I could've saved myself an mp grind. Oh well, what's done is done. We must follow the paths we choose.

Edited March 13, 2018 by mking_63

[jasondm300]

So awesome news.  My TV died today and it might take a few days to get a new one.  So I am going to update my playing to Crypt of the Necrodancer. And after that Oddworld as those are the only Vita games I have

[CJ_Mystery]

Period 3, Day 2:

 

More Cyberdimension Nep-Nep! Cleared the Logi Mountain and now the CPU Candidates were added, so I designed a party of Nep-Nep(to tank attacks), Nepgear and Uni(to do distance attacks) and Blanc(to heal everyone). Two new areas opened up, the Tethyr Temple and Adroie Field. (I apologize, I didn't check the names of the places closely.) I got the Guild to Rank 2 and opened up the Gem Shop and Tamsoft's smithery so now my team has upgraded to Level 2 in their weapons and armor, mostly.

 

Also got the Low Angle trophy because, being a Neptunia game, I took on a Star Ocean Mindset and clicked on everyone with ! over their head to trigger events. I thought it was hilarious.

 

Trophy Completion: 20% (12/50 trophies)

1 hour ago, jasondm300 said:

So awesome news.  My TV died today and it might take a few days to get a new one.  So I am going to update my playing to Crypt of the Necrodancer. And after that Oddworld as those are the only Vita games I have

Sorry to hear that. It sucks when you can't play PS4 games.

[ladynadiad]

1 hour ago, jasondm300 said:

So awesome news.  My TV died today and it might take a few days to get a new one.  So I am going to update my playing to Crypt of the Necrodancer. And after that Oddworld as those are the only Vita games I have

 

You know, the VIta has remote play capabilities and I know it doesn't require the TV to be working to do it.  You just need to be able to power on the PS4 and get as far as the home screen.  Just an idea if you're really itching to play something on PS4.

[Kevvik]

Game #4:  Dragon Quest Builders

 

Day 3 Impressions

 

Time played: 12 hrs

 

Alright, so I have continued with DQB actually having had a bit of time to play over the weekend (and about 20 minutes this morning) and completed the first "world".  A number of quests along the way led to a boss battle at the end of the chapter, followed by a segueway into the next world where I will start rebuilding another land in order to bring it out from under the influence of the Dragonlord.  It played out kind of cool though you are pretty much stuck on a linear path of story progression.

 

Part of the quest process is to level up your base by either adding rooms or making those rooms more impressive with furniture and other accoutrements.  This is kind of neat and you also need to protect your base from attacking monsters which can destroy your rooms and make your base less impressive.  Combat was kind of fun, involving a normal action-based boss battle with a few tweaks such as chasing the boss around as he tries to destroy your base along with summoning supporting monsters to make your battle feel a little less focused.  This was following several waves of attacking monsters where there was time to save/recover in between.

 

Wrapped around this of course is the building and exploring new areas to get different materials to make more complicated and sturdier parts for your base.  Overall, a pretty cool concept that hasn't gotten tired yet.  Completing the first world also unlocked a free play area where I can build to my hearts content.  It also exposed challenges which were available in my world, one of which was a speed run that I will have to do a new run for.  Trophies, of course, exist for completing all challenges for each world.

 

Still, all in all, I am still having fun with this (being a long time Dragon Quest junkie doesn't hurt) and will slowly work away at this in the future.

 

Trophies earned: 4/20, 9% for E rank

Score thus far: 7/10

Completion rate: 79.50 (-1.00% for the event)

 

Next up: Game #5: Exist Archive

 

I've played about an hour so far today but again, RL is looking to have its way with me (personal stuff plus additional teaching at work) so I'm not sure if I'm going to get a review in before Day 3.  We'll see what happens.

 

[ladynadiad]

 

Progress: Beat the game

Trophies: 47 out of 47 (S rank)

 

Well, looks like they weren't kidding about this game being an easy plat.  Just beat the game today and got the plat.  I know this is supposed to be Kill Your Completion, not beat your games fast considering I've gotten two new plats from this already, but I wasn't expecting to finish it early.  The game was just really addictive and hard to stop playing.

 

The game overall didn't really change much from my initial impressions.  The enemy you fought remained pretty much an evil entity out to destroy the world.  The game did give a bit of background on why, but the conflicts in this game's story remained mostly personal conflicts.  There was Hinako needing to accept herself as she is and no longer able to dance, along with her gaining the confidence to build friendships and save the world.  Each character had their own personal conflicts to resolve over the course of the story.  So pretty much they focused more on the bonds between the girls and using those as a strength to fight the enemy when it came.

 

Now this may not seem overly exciting of a plot, but by the end it did get very emotional.  I actually was in tears towards the ending and the ending did surprise me.  Not going to spoil it, but this definitely is a game that I feel is good and worth the time spent.  It's short and sweet, not very hard and while not the best game I've ever played, it's a good game and a nice little hidden gem I probably wouldn't have ever played if it hadn't been for impulse buying it.

 

That doesn't mean it's without faults.  There definitely were faults.  The battles did get a bit repetitive, but I really liked the boss battles.  The dialogue definitely had a fair share of blatant typos and errors in it, especially towards the end.  I usually don't complain about typos, but that's because often I miss them.  There were enough that I noticed it got very sloppy towards the end and they didn't even seem to have bothered with basic spell checking on the last few chapters.  There were also issues where the dialogue would break in the middle of a contraction and go to the next line in the middle of a word because of that.  The biggest issue was in the last couple of chapters they couldn't decide if Lime's name was Lime or Raimu (which would be a more literal romanization of her name).

 

But all in all, the faults were pretty minor.  I think it's a shame the publisher won't at least go over the script and fix it in an update because a lot of the typos could be easily resolved with a quick spell check.  Repetitive battles is definitely a fault too, but pretty common for a turn based RPG.  The battle system itself was quite well designed and honestly it was a bit of a shame the game was so easy because battles being harder could have really taken advantage of some of the aspects of the system that are unique to this game.

 

Games played: 91

Games completed: 76

Completion: 87.96% (-0.91%)

Unearned Trophies: 309

 

Trophies for this event:  86/270

 

Anyway, I'll see you guys on the 16th when I start my next game, which is Secret of Mana for PS4.

Edited March 14, 2018 by ladynadiad

[Arctic Cress]

 

Game #2 - New Little King's Story

 

This game has an interesting history behind it with me. I have deleted and redownloaded the game many times over the last four years since I bought it. I wonder if I would have liked the game if I had started it then, because of what I played now is not really impressing me much.

 

You play as Corobo, a king whose kingdom was recently destroyed. As such, you are tasked with rebuilding the kingdom and learning what happened to the original kingdom as well. Your citizens are the main driving force here - different buildings you can purchase allow them to take on a job, such as a farmer, who specializes in digging holes, a solider (this is a legitimate localization typo) who specializes in fighting enemies, and a builder who can build stairways and bridges. More jobs unlock as the story progresses, such as hunters or lumberjacks. As you claim lands from enemies and then start developing, you're able to build more houses for extra citizens to come. Quests are sometimes given and task you with defeating a boss monster, some which have an impact on the plot.

 

To do anything in-game, you must charge your citizens into things. For example, to build a bridge, you would charge your builders into the sign where the bridge will be, and they will start working on it. This applies to all of the jobs that your citizens may do. Corobo can attack with his sword, and while it does significant damage to enemies, it's not a very good idea as he has the lowest health of any character, less than even a level 1 villager. He can still take out weak enemies like Onis if they are alone.

 

The problems start coming once you've built up a sizable amount of villagers. I got my Royal Guard up to 12 members and the framerate just plummeted. The lag in town was absolutely ridiculous and makes it look like the Vita can't handle the amount of villagers on-screen (it's twelve plus any of the ones wandering around town - and there are plenty of those as well). There's an upgrade to make it up to 30 at the end of the game - I'm afraid that the Vita will crash if it has to load all thirty of them, plus the villagers in town. The font is extremely small in-game as well, like it was made to be played on the PSTV or something, but I don't have one of those. Like the solider I mentioned before, the localization has some extremely odd word choices as well as typos. I don't know how solider was missed when it literally comes up every time you make a villager a soldier. Also, when leading around a large amount of villagers, the AI pathing is extremely bad. Villagers will constantly get stuck and miss going up stairs, or fall off cliffs in areas with lots of hills. They snap back to Corobo if you move far enough away from the place where they screwed up, but that could lead to a powerful enemy at times, so it's not a practical solution.

 

Like I said, I feel I might like this better if I started it back then when I actually enjoyed playing these kinds of games and just exploring as much as possible. Now though, I'm just going to shelve it for now and move on. Maybe I'll delete it again, even.

 

Psycho-Pass Mandatory Happiness: 8/36 (25%)

New Little King's Story: 6/50 (8%)

Starting completion: 70.23%

Current completion: 69.50%

Difference: -0.73%

 

Psycho-Pass actually got a lot more interesting when I finally made it to an ending, which is cool. Got four true endings so far in that.

I did get my Root Double key but 3.38 GB is a lot and I do not have the space right now on my Vita, so I'll hold off on starting that. Next game will probably be Exist Archive to line up with everyone else.

[Jaguargenie]

Evening y'all. I've put in about 3 hours since yesterday of my Game 3 so I thought I would post some initial impressions:

 

Shadow Complex is a remaster of a 2009 xbox game. It is a Metroidvania but relatively linear in it's presentation. You have all your typical Metroidvania elements: powers that you pick up that help you advance, doors that only open after picking up a certain power, power ups placed just out of reach. It also adds a something new by making it 2.5D. This is NOT a positive improvement, but I will get to that in a second.

The game drops you in (literally) as you jump down into a big canyon while hiking. While in the cave, you get swept up in some conspiracy to over throw the US government by this organization that has set up shop in this huge base build into a subterranean cavern. As you run around and collect more of their tech, it allows you to advance deeper into the base. There is a huge blue line on your map that literally leads you to your next objective; this is a nice little feature since the biggest problem with most Metroidvanias is the sense that you are lost and don't know where to go.

The remake was done relatively well with the textures and animations done pretty well. There are two GLARING issues that I came across thus far though. The 'videos' on monitors scattered throughout the base were not redone. They look like they were pulled straight from a ps2 cut scene. Just plain ugly. There are also sections where you ride a mine cart down a track. I have never seen something stutter so badly.

The aiming is the biggest control problem I have found thus far though. When an enemy is on your plane, its fine. You use the right stick to aim, similar to a twin stick shooter. When they are in the background though, good luck. The game tried to auto aim for you, which works, maybe 15% if the time. I have found the best technique is to just run back and forth while shooting and eventually enough bullets will connect to kill the guy. Its super annoying.

I know I mentioned a bunch of negatives, but I am still having fun. I'm only about 3 hours in, but it seems that I am about 3/4 of the way through the story. I'm enjoying it, but there is no chance in hell I go for the plat. There are trophies for speed running, min/maxing and doing both on the highest difficulty. I don't find any of those fun.

I'll be back in a few days with a full review.

 

Progress: 10/40 for a C ranking and 14%

Completion: 75.17% (-.44%)

[CJ_Mystery]

@Kevvik: Glad to see you play DQB. I have it on the Vita and starting Chapter 2 as well, plan to plat this game for my 50th platinum.

 

@ladynadiad: Well, definitely adding Blue Reflection to my games to try out. Actually doing Cyberdimension Neptunia for KYC and enjoying it. I'm sure it'll start kicking my ass on Day 6 but until then I am going to have fun.

[voodoo_eyes]

Game #3 - Day #2 - First Impression

 

 

Time played: 1h30m

Trophies earned: 1/45

 

 

This game takes an interesting approach goes the side-scrolling route in an RPG, giving it somewhat a metroidvania vibe. I played something similar to this, but it was the more hack-and-slash oriented Earth's Dawn.

 

Essentially you travel through a dungeon and you can explore other entrances in the back- or foreground, often leading you to loot. Some of the areas you'll have to double jump to in order to get to them, an ability that is not available to you from the start. In other words, there's going to be a lot of backtracking. I' ended up running through the same dungeon several times and only explored about 40% of it, because the remaining areas aren't accessible for now.

 

The combat is something that'll take getting used to a bit. I feel the tutorials are not very good. It's the kind that gives you 3 pages to scroll through, but essentially doesn't tell you anything except for "this is an ability you can use now".

Fairly at the beginning there is a tutorial that says. Down attacks give more XP while Up attacks give a chance for more items. That's great and all, but how do I do them? Do I have to press something? Do I have to use the analog sticks? Does it trigger automatically? Can I influence the conditions in any way? I assume it's automatic, as nothing I do seems to influence the combat at all except pushing back on the left thumbstick, which cancels the attack and still uses up the AP for it regardless of me getting a hit in or not.

 

Speaking of AP, it's what you use to attack and guard, so you'll have to take that into consideration when going into combat. At this point in the game it hasn't been necessary yet to conserve AP for guarding, but it might be something to keep in mind further into the game.

 

You can have up to 4 party members (I have just reached the point where I have 3), and each of them will be assigned to one of the buttons. Pressing the respective one, makes them attack. That's another thing I think will be important for doing specific combos down the line.

 

As to be expected, combat gives you XP and skill points to spend on the characters. You also get to pick up gear and items and you get to sort through them all in the various character screens. Swapping gear is simple enough, to the point where it seems to auto-switch at least weapons to either the most recently picked up one or the most powerful one.

There are also skills you can unlock with the skill points (apparently they can be transferred in-between characters at some point). most of which you can't see as they seemed to be tied to level progression. You can however upgrade available skills for better versions by investing skill points. Now here is where the problem lies. Not knowing which skills exist and what they do can turn into a real hindrance later on. As skill points are fairly limited and upgrading skills costs more and more each time you upgrade it.. It also doesn't seem to specify enough what the effects of the upgrades are. For example some characters have skills related to increasing drop rates of gear. You can improve that skill, but it doesn't seem to tell you by what % it is increased. If it's just 1%, I'd rather not waste SP in it.

 

The way the skill system is set up, it might get to a point where you'll have a tough time because you invested in the wrong skills and as far as I know, respeccing ain't a thing in this game.

 

There's also a section to select which attacks a character is supposed to use (you can select 3), however I have yet to figure out if there's actually a way to make them use a specific attack or if the characters just automatically do whatever they feel is adequate. Again assuming the latter, and the the order you set the attacks at ends up being the automated rotation the characters end up doing in combat.

 

There is also a pseudo online component again... 5 dungeons are picked at random and ranked depending on how many people are playing said dungeon. These will then give more XP / better loot after "shattering a spent essence crystal". You might be wondering what that means, well... so do I, because once again it isn't explained adequately.. No word on how to get those crystals or what they are.

There''s also a speed run mode that is supposed to give you better rewards and the times can then be uploaded to the leaderboards.

 

 

Anyway that wraps up this game for now. Next update on this one in a couple of days.

[ladynadiad]

10 minutes ago, voodoo_eyes said:

There is also a pseudo online component again... 5 dungeons are picked at random and ranked depending on how many people are playing said dungeon. These will then give more XP / better loot after "shattering a spent essence crystal". You might be wondering what that means, well... so do I, because once again it isn't explained adequately.. No word on how to get those crystals or what they are.

 

I don't think they cropped up until the cave on a regular basis.  But you remember toward the beginning how Kanata saw a crystal and heard the voices of his friends and then after that it no longer glowed?  That was an essence crystal and the leftover from that was a spent one.  After that area you start seeing them around in dungeons.  You hit it with an attack and you have a chance of getting an item and they items you get from those are usually pretty good recovery items.  The dungeons that are hotspots also tend to have a lot more of those around too.

 

And as far as the down attacks give more experience and up more items, it's based on the skills you have.  Certain skills will knock an enemy into the air or onto the ground and if they are attacked there orbs or crystals pop out.  Each blue crystal adds 1% bonus XP.  Later on you can start getting chain encounters that add to the value of those orbs and crystals and you can get insane amounts of experience and drops from those.  I do think increasing the drop skills is worth it because you can't buy gear, it has to be obtained from drops.  It doesn't seem to matter too much what skills you get, but you want to level up the magic user's classes first and get Mitsuhide Training and then Echoes of Experience.  When you get Namero, get him the Demon's Greed related abilities.  For anyone else, it doesn't matter too much, just don't get everyone all the same skills.  Eventually you pick up something called Learning, where Kanata can learn skills from other characters.  I haven't even gotten that yet.  I haven't found anything yet where you can get stuck for having the wrong skills, it seems to be more about the strategy you use on a boss and the gear you have.  If you're having trouble with a boss or any area pretty much it amounts to grind for some levels and gear or try a different party setup or attack strategy.   The suggested levels for quests are usually pretty solid and give an idea where you should be.

[jasondm300]

16 hours ago, ladynadiad said:

 

You know, the VIta has remote play capabilities and I know it doesn't require the TV to be working to do it.  You just need to be able to power on the PS4 and get as far as the home screen.  Just an idea if you're really itching to play something on PS4.

Yeah, but three of my games are PS3 games

[voodoo_eyes]

12 minutes ago, ladynadiad said:

 

I don't think they cropped up until the cave on a regular basis.  But you remember toward the beginning how Kanata saw a crystal and heard the voices of his friends and then after that it no longer glowed?  That was an essence crystal and the leftover from that was a spent one.  After that area you start seeing them around in dungeons.  You hit it with an attack and you have a chance of getting an item and they items you get from those are usually pretty good recovery items.  The dungeons that are hotspots also tend to have a lot more of those around too.

 

And as far as the down attacks give more experience and up more items, it's based on the skills you have.  Certain skills will knock an enemy into the air or onto the ground and if they are attacked there orbs or crystals pop out.  Each blue crystal adds 1% bonus XP.  Later on you can start getting chain encounters that add to the value of those orbs and crystals and you can get insane amounts of experience and drops from those.  I do think increasing the drop skills is worth it because you can't buy gear, it has to be obtained from drops.  It doesn't seem to matter too much what skills you get, but you want to level up the magic user's classes first and get Mitsuhide Training and then Echoes of Experience.  When you get Namero, get him the Demon's Greed related abilities.  For anyone else, it doesn't matter too much, just don't get everyone all the same skills.  Eventually you pick up something called Learning, where Kanata can learn skills from other characters.  I haven't even gotten that yet.  I haven't found anything yet where you can get stuck for having the wrong skills, it seems to be more about the strategy you use on a boss and the gear you have.  If you're having trouble with a boss or any area pretty much it amounts to grind for some levels and gear or try a different party setup or attack strategy.   The suggested levels for quests are usually pretty solid and give an idea where you should be.

 

Yeah, I remember those. I just thought the game was unclear on how and where to find them. Instead of me having to stumble into them eventually, the explanation given about the mechanic should have covered it off the bat.

 

I pretty much figured that the up and down attacks work the way you're describing. Not sure how I feel about that mechanic though. Guess I'll see how it gels with the setting up of the chain attacks in the long run.

 

I'll try to keep your advice about upgrading certain skills in mind. .

[Hemiak]

Race Game 2: Bound 

??? Hrs played - 25/27 trophies. 

 

Well yesterday was crazy and didn't work out to start a new game, so I'll post my thoughts on the 2nd game from the race I'm doing. 

 

Bound was free on ps+ a few months ago and I've considered starting it for a while. The others in the race thought it looked good and we all had it free so why not? 

 

Bound is a very interesting experience. The visuals are amazing, and the animations are smooth. I have had no glitches of any kind which is always a plus. 

 

The game has three main parts to it which all fit together. You start as a pregnant lady who gets out of a car and goes for a walk on the beach. Occasionally she sits down or pulls out a note book full of doodles she flips through. This is basically the level select screen and there are 5 main levels to choose from. You always play the chess level first, and the finale after you do the other 5. As she walks she gets closer to a house and her eventual goal, which I won't spoil. 

 

The 2nd and main part of the game is the stuff you may have seen. You take control of "The Princess" who isn't named. She has green skin, a shimmery knee length dress, and a wierd metallic red face mask. The princess is tasked by her Mother to "Stop the Monster that is destroying the Kingdom". As you set off you quickly discover the princess moves like a dancer. All of her moves are ballerina like, from her running, her leaping, and if you stop for a few seconds she'll do a little twirl or stretch. You make your way through the dynamic environments using your abilities to leap gaps, climb/descend ladders and ropes, and navigate moving platforms. The game has an edge guard turned on automatically that will save you from accidentally walking off platforms. You can still fall if you miss a jump or roll off an edge, but you go back to the last stable platform you were on and get to watch her waste 5 seconds stretching. :/

 

Along the way you are confronted with various obstacles and hazards. These are called "fears" and they tie in to the third part of the game. Occasionally, usually in the middle and end of each level, you are put in a black room, and moving the camera around causes pieces of paper to flutter in to position and reveal a scene from the blonde ladies childhood. These scenes depict the reasons that caused her fears to take root. Finishing a level, which is each named after one of the fears, causes that fear to lose its power over the dancer for the rest of the game.

 

Thats pretty much it for the story. It can be completed in 3-4 hours easily, and is definitely interesting. If you don't like to be challenged or worry about your completion % you should probably avoid this game. Or not actually, as long as you don't find one of the secrets, finishing the game once will net you exactly 0 trophies. 

 

The platinum is challenging but not overly difficult. You have to play the game a 2nd time, with the levels in a   different order. You have to beat individual level speedruns for the intro and 5 main levels. You have to do a full game run in under 50 minutes (42 minutes 2nd try), a full game 100% run in 1:05 (1:01:30 with a few restarts because I missed a shard or accidentally hit restart :rage: ). The 100% run will net you 12 trophies for finding each levels secret, 100% each level, 100% the whole game, and the speedrun itself. You also have to do a full game deathless run with edge guard off. 

 

All in all the game is decent, though the camera will occasionally try to murder you. It's not badly done, just in providing a cinematic experience the camera shifts on it's own which can and will cause problems when trying to go fast. If you're looking for something different to play, this is worth trying out. 

 

Currently I only need the deathless run for platinum. One of the other competitors finished the game yesterday, but he hasn't finished Downwell yet so we're essentially tied atm. Neither of us has started Furi yet, I'm looking forward to it.