KYC 777

[Kevvik]

Man, just realized that I hadn't put my end game summary up so here goes.  From most enjoyable to least...

 

Harvest Moon: Save the Homeland  - 9/10

Originally a PS2 game, a farm sim with interesting characters and multiple end game possibilities that overshadow the grind.

 

Nier - 9/10

A third person hack'n'slash RPG with an intriguing storyline.  Smooth combat and interesting (if scantily clad) characters.  Multiple endings but really enjoyable.

 

Tomb Raider Anniversary - 8/10

Lara Croft action adventure when tombs were the stars not endless gunplay.  Take this over the new Nathan Drake-ette anyday.

 

Until Dawn - 8/10

Interactive horror movie with characters better developed than the usual suspects in these kind of films.  Still want to kill Emily...

 

Adventure Time: The Secret of the Nameless Kingdom - 7/10

2D Zelda homage (or rip-off, your choice) that has enough personality and charm to make up for the gameplay's lack of originality.

 

LEGO Marvel's Avengers - 7/10

Nothing original here but that's not a bad thing.  Lots of LEGO action, charm and tons of collectibles with lots of DLC make this a fun romp.

 

The Sexy Brutale - 7/10 

3rd person adventure involving time manipulation.  Interesting storyline and good characters make this worth the time despite grindy collectibles.

 

Spellspire - 6/10

Combat through words in this psuedo RPG with lots of grind through a final dungeon for the plat.  Still fun in smaller doses unlike MeiQ during the last event.

 

Touhou Double Focus - 5/10

2D Metroidvania that works well enough but the characters do nothing for me making it more generic than interesting.

 

Valhalla Knights 3 - 4/10

Clunky combat RPG that requires lots of grind and some creepy attitudes towards recruiting female clerks (slaves).

 

1  out of 10 achieved

138/332 trophies earned

-1.90% completion rate for the event

 

Working through LEGO Marvel Avengers, Spellspire and Harvest Moon: Save the Homeland currently though I won't finish any plats until at least the 13th to qualify for the PSNP Spelling Bee.  Gotta get my CR back up before November.

 

Thanks again to all for another great event and a few adds to my wishlist.  Cheers all!!!

 

 

Edited August 5, 2018 by Kevvik

[Beyondthegrave07]

@Kevvik, out of all the characters, Emily was my least favorite and one other person (you'll know who it is if you haven't figured it out). My favorites were probably Michael and Sam. 1. Because Sam is probably the most reasonable person on the mountain (and in a bath towel ???). 2. Mike reminds me a lot of Nathan Drake. Gotta love that daring, loveable wise guy. The game is probably still in my top 5 PS4 games. Definitely a must try if you liked Heavy Rain.

[crimsonidol38]

Game 5

Muv-Luv Extra / Muv-Luv Unlimited (PS Vita)

Previous Posts:
Day 1, Review

 

First game finished.  As it's still quite warm over here I barely played anything on console. Instead I spend some time reading Muv-Luv Unlimited. My initial impression of Unlimited (from my final summary post):

On 31.7.2018 at 8:46 PM, Crimson Idol said:

By now I read the first few chapters of the sequel Unlimited which takes place in an alternate universe (?) where the earth is invaded by aliens and humans have to fight in big mechas. The story is way more serious and I'm curious how everything will turn out.

 

Well, the story sticked to the way more serious atmosphere but it still felt like a disappointment, mainly due to the fact that there are only three different endings. There's only one completely different ending and then there's a normal ending and the so-called unlimited ending. Both the normal ending and the unlimited ending are used for every one of the five female main characters and there's no real difference between any of them as they all have the same conclusion and only feature slighlty altered dialogues (and cg-scenes). And on top of that each ending was only about 5 minutes long. This felt like a second Hakuoki.

Nonetheless I'm curious about the story of the third installment Muv-:Luv Alternative. Mainly for the fact that the mechas and the aliens will have a much longer screen time and I want to see/know why MLA is the highest rated Visual Novel on VNdb to this date (it even outranks Steins;Gate  ). I mean ratings normally don't mean shit but when it's voted with an average of 9.17 from 10 with over 4,700 votes (Steins;Gate is rated 9.05 with nearly 5,800 votes) there's surely a reason for it.

 

Edited August 17, 2018 by Crimson Idol

[Oobedoob S Benubi]

So, @Hemiak... Ever going to add "the peeps" into the OP? ?

[DamagingRob]

I got you, @Hemiak:

 

Also, soldiered through Fallout Shelter, despite it being such a painful experience.. That's the two worst games done, and some of my completion recovered. 

Edited August 9, 2018 by DamagingRob

[voodoo_eyes]

I've been making some progress in a few of the games from the event.

 

Shantae Half-Genie Hero - Finished my first playthrough, all that's left is getting the speedrun trophies and couple of misc stuff. Taking a break from this game at the moment though.

 

South Park: Fractured But Whole - Close to finishing the game, if I'm not mistaken. Probably going to wrap up the story tomorrow. Some misc stuff left as well.

 

Utawarerumono: Mask of Truth - Still doing those goddamn Mock Battles. I probably put over 5 hours into those. Can't wait to be done with those so I can finally get back to the actual game.

 

Mages of Mystralia - No progress made, but the game received a patch today that added Hardcore mode, 4 new languages and improved performance. I hope they also fixed the audio issues the game had.

Edited August 9, 2018 by voodoo_eyes

[Hemiak]

On 8/9/2018 at 1:24 AM, Ezio Auditore said:

So, @Hemiak... Ever going to add "the peeps" into the OP? 

That sounds like a lot of work. I might get around to it eventually, but don't hold your breath. 

[voodoo_eyes]

Ended up getting the plat in South Park: Fractured But Whole. My opinion did not change from my initial impressions. It's a fun game, but the combat feels a bit half-arsed and some battles drag out way too long.

 

I also finally finished the mock battles in Utawarerumono: Mask of Truth. Back to story mode now and the VN aspect of the game overstays it's welcome quite a bit. There's a scene after each battle and it lasts for a good hour every time. I always was the opinion that long interruptions interfere with the gameplay, and it holds true for this game as well. 10-15 minutes of gameplay vs 1 hour of cutscenes is a really bad ratio.

 

I'm about 20 hours in and the game is still adding new mechanics, granted 10 hours were put into those damn mock battles. Apparently characters have an element assigend to them, as do the battlefields. If a character (friend or foe) is weak to the element of the battlefield they are negatively affected.. I've also unlocked special attacks with some characters, which seems to become available sometime between level 20-25.

[crimsonidol38]

So, I decided to continue with Owlboy and it seems like I'm near the end of the game. I'm not really enjoying it and I honestly wonder why the game is so praised. Overall the game features barely to none explorational sections. If you want to find all coins you have to hug the walls all the time as there are barely any hints for hidden sections AND there's one annoying freefall minigame with fixed camera where the dev also decided to add some rings which you have to fly through as those will earn you another bunch of coins. Yay.

[DamagingRob]

Horizon Zero Dawn has been Platinumed. Probably elevated to at least a , if not tied with GTA V for the top spot. Really enjoyed the rest of the game. 

[crimsonidol38]

Game 6
Owlboy (PS4)

Previous Posts:

Day 1, Review

 

Well, a few minutes ago I finished this game and saw most of the ending. Why most? Because the game decided to crash right during the ending when the final trophies popped.  The remaining ~2 minutes I had to watch via a YouTube-video as I can't be bothered to do the final boss fight a second time, although I had the last perk that makes you more or less invincible.

 

After having seen what I thought would be the first third of the game (it was more or less the first half) during the event I played the game over the last few days and ventured through the other dungeons of the game. The good thing is: They are pretty much straightforward and there's barely a chance to go in the wrong direction. But, there's also barely anything to explore and yet still you have to hug the walls most of the time because finding the necessary amount of coins (2800 of possible 2860) makes the last boss fight either a breeze or quite annoying due to need to constantly evade the attacks. I like the fact when a game has some hidden areas but when you have to move right in front of the wall just to see a tiny glimpse of a texture which may suggest that there's a hidden room nearby is annoying as hell. I had to rely on some videos which showed all hidden regions of the various sections and I gladly managed to get 2842 of the 2860 coins.

Another thing I learned to hate are the controls. I already complained about them during the event but it didn't get any better. 

 

I'm glad that I'm done with the game and that I can get rid of it. Thanks to the annoyances I will gladly lower the score to a . The only good thing about the game is that I can use the plat for the Spelling Bee-event.  

 

 

 

 

Edited August 17, 2018 by Crimson Idol

[Kevvik]

Finished the first of my clean up plats on Harvest Moon: Save the Homeland.  Really enjoyed this even with grinding through the years for new endings.  Only the last one I got (catching the Legendary Fish) drove me a little squirrely.  Took three runs to get the events to move past the 2nd one of the set, then about 2.5 hrs of trying to catch the freaking fish and reloading my save after the full moon to try again without waiting for 2 weeks.  Still a great game all in all.  

 

Only a couple of chapters left to finish off Until Dawn as well.  Emily is DEAD (and there was much rejoicing) along with Chris and Matt.  Three teens down and five to go.

 

KYC 777

Spoiler

Tomb Raider Anniversary  19/42, 33%, C rank

The Sexy Brutale 

Until Dawn  16/19, 89%, A rank

Valhalla Knights 3  11/27, 18%, A rank

Spellspire  21/23, 91%, A rank

LEGO Marvel's Avengers (PS3)  54/71, 68%, A rank

Harvest Moon: Save the Homeland 

Adventure Time:  The Secret of the Nameless Kingdom 14/36, 31%, C rank

Nier  7/42, 11%, D rank

Touhou Double Focus  9/32, 13%, C rank

 

141 trophies still unearned

 

Edited August 27, 2018 by Kevvik

[voodoo_eyes]

I also just finished another game from the event.

 

Got my 300th plat milestone with Nier Automata, and my opinion on it remains the same. Fantastic game, that I enjoyed a lot. My only gripe is the fast travel only being available halfway through the game, and that goes for each of the 3 main playthroughs.

 

 

Anyhow, I'm already setting games aside for the next KYC .

[Kevvik]

Finished 3 more games from 777.  

 

Until Dawn is done, all teens effectively deceased. I really enjoyed this one, the branching paths/butterfly effect actually felt competent.

 

The Spellspire grind is complete along with the plat. The challenges in the dungeon usually didn't feel bad, just so many to do. A few felt cheap too. Kill 10 monsters with words starting with the letter Y but then it take forever restarting to get a Y to come up, usually with crap letters. Or kill 4 tier-3 monsters and then not get one to show up even after killing like 40 monsters. Frustrating at times but was a good casual time killer at camp. Not something I'm likely to return to though.

 

LEGO Marvel's Avengers is a LEGO game and still fun in doses. I'll probably start another around Christmas.

 

5 plats done out of 10 so a good start.

 

[voodoo_eyes]

Short update regarding Utawarerumono; Mask of Truth. Just finished the story after about 65 hours, during which I unlocked another game mode (basically a challenge mode). Apparently there's one more mode that becomes available after finishing the story, but I haven't looked for it yet. In other words, the game ain't done yet. Still need to complete that game mode and get all the battle rewards from it, which aren't guaranteed drops. Then there's still some misc stuff missing. as well. Still contemplating, if I'll actually go for the plat, as the dialogue really made the game tiresome. By the way, you get 2 sections of credits that can't be skipped and are also interrupted/supplemented by more dialogues.

 

The game really could have been a , if it wasn't for the obscene amount of dialogue. They could've at least left out the sort of slice of life-esque 10-15 hours or so, that really just feels like pointless filler. As for the battle system, it's by far the best tactical-RPG and puts even Disgaea to shame. It's far more complex than it seems at first glance  and is just really well done.

 

As such it is still a , which makes it the best VN I've played .

[voodoo_eyes]

Finished another game from the event. Shantae Half-Genie Hero, is now platted. Fun game overall, and the speedrun stuff wasn't really anything stressful either.

 

Still tried out the new game mode in Utawarerumono as well and I seem to be a bit underleveled. I'll be going back to it occasionally though.

 

 

@Hemiak any plans for another iteration next month?

[MarkusT1992]

6 hours ago, voodoo_eyes said:

Finished another game from the event. Shantae Half-Genie Hero, is now platted. Fun game overall, and the speedrun stuff wasn't really anything stressful either.

 

Still tried out the new game mode in Utawarerumono as well and I seem to be a bit underleveled. I'll be going back to it occasionally though.

 

 

@Hemiak any plans for another iteration next month?

Wouldn't it be in November?

[voodoo_eyes]

19 minutes ago, MarkusT1992 said:

Wouldn't it be in November?

 

I suppose technically it would be. I jjust thought that way the busy time around Thanksgiving could be avoided. Although, I guess it falls on different months anyway for the US/Canada .

[Metal Slime King]

Sporadic update time.

I finished Evolve, the first game I started for this event. I think the I originally gave this game holds up because of the crazy grind to finish it off insured that it stuck around long after the appeal had worn off. The servers may have shut down making some of the trophies unobtainable when they were supposed to or they maybe up sporadically, reports seem conflicted. Either way I deleted it shortly after helping the last person I was boosting it with. I was actually planning on taking the disc in today to see if it had any resale value.

 

I finished Sword Coast Legends, which I believe I started for KYC6 and think I gave a ? That might've been a bit harsh. There was a bit of a push on this game as there was a server shutdown reported for the PC version and nobody was hearing anything officially about how that would effect the PS4 version. The original devs for this game closed house shortly after release and the title was kind of in limbo so the safest path was to assume that none of the mp would be available after the posted PC shutdown date, possibly even before. Some of the trophies totally require mp and some of the super grindy (level every class to max, beat the game with every class) trophies could be significantly shortened using certain mp tactics. In the end the PC shutdown date came and went and nothing happened to the PS4 version. Current thinking is that the mp is P2P and as such not dependant on the maintenance of any central server. After playing through the push a couple of times and getting used to the controls and mechanics of this RPG I'd probably bump my score up to a . I even wound up co-authoring a trophy guide for this game on PSNP, though to be fair @big_bob002 did most of the work and I just helped with the formatting as he was only accessing the site through a mobile device and formatting was much easier on a PC.

 

I finally got around to playing and finishing The Order: 1886 which I started way back in KYC4. Fun fact; even though I started a year ago I never earned 1 trophy back then so it still shows as being completed in under a day. Back then I gave the game a even though first person shooters aren't my thing because the quality put into the title was still obvious. I suppose in the interim my tolerance for this genre has increased somewhat by playing titles like Destiny and BioShock. I knew the game was panned for being short and took that into consideration in my review and suggested picking it up on sale but it wasn't just that the game was short the story concluded at an unexpected point. Like there was supposed to be an Order: 1887 or some DLC or something but it's been awhile and ... nothing. It was an interesting story that just got cut off prematurely.

[voodoo_eyes]

1 hour ago, Metal Slime King said:

Sporadic update time.

I finished Evolve, the first game I started for this event. I think the I originally gave this game holds up because of the crazy grind to finish it off insured that it stuck around long after the appeal had worn off. The servers may have shut down making some of the trophies unobtainable when they were supposed to or they maybe up sporadically, reports seem conflicted. Either way I deleted it shortly after helping the last person I was boosting it with. I was actually planning on taking the disc in today to see if it had any resale value.

 

I finished Sword Coast Legends, which I believe I started for KYC6 and think I gave a ? That might've been a bit harsh. There was a bit of a push on this game as there was a server shutdown reported for the PC version and nobody was hearing anything officially about how that would effect the PS4 version. The original devs for this game closed house shortly after release and the title was kind of in limbo so the safest path was to assume that none of the mp would be available after the posted PC shutdown date, possibly even before. Some of the trophies totally require mp and some of the super grindy (level every class to max, beat the game with every class) trophies could be significantly shortened using certain mp tactics. In the end the PC shutdown date came and went and nothing happened to the PS4 version. Current thinking is that the mp is P2P and as such not dependant on the maintenance of any central server. After playing through the push a couple of times and getting used to the controls and mechanics of this RPG I'd probably bump my score up to a . I even wound up co-authoring a trophy guide for this game on PSNP, though to be fair @big_bob002 did most of the work and I just helped with the formatting as he was only accessing the site through a mobile device and formatting was much easier on a PC.

 

I finally got around to playing and finishing The Order: 1886 which I started way back in KYC4. Fun fact; even though I started a year ago I never earned 1 trophy back then so it still shows as being completed in under a day. Back then I gave the game a even though first person shooters aren't my thing because the quality put into the title was still obvious. I suppose in the interim my tolerance for this genre has increased somewhat by playing titles like Destiny and BioShock. I knew the game was panned for being short and took that into consideration in my review and suggested picking it up on sale but it wasn't just that the game was short the story concluded at an unexpected point. Like there was supposed to be an Order: 1887 or some DLC or something but it's been awhile and ... nothing. It was an interesting story that just got cut off prematurely.

 

Evolve - did the same with my retail copy, I think I got like 3-4 bucks cash for it, which isn't bad considering the game is being sold everywhere for a 5er over here

 

FPS games - Sounds like you prefer the traditional FPS over the "spunkgargleweewee" (aka Military shooters) variant.

[Beyondthegrave07]

@Metal Slime King I thought the same thing about The Order 1886 and thought it felt rushed towards the end. Almost like they had more planned for the game, but didn't execute it due to money, resources, and time constraints.

 

I thought that maybe they'd create DLC or a sequel where you become a vigilante, but I suppose they could always make a sequel sometime in the future (really doubt the dlc now).

 

I liked the game, but I couldn't justify the $60 price tag when it came out. I snatched it at $5 and felt like I stole it.

[Hemiak]

On 9/15/2018 at 7:53 AM, voodoo_eyes said:

 

@Hemiak any plans for another iteration next month?

 

On 9/15/2018 at 2:28 PM, MarkusT1992 said:

Wouldn't it be in November?

It usually is in November. However I got into the graduate program I wanted and have been pretty busy lately. I'm not sure how much time I'll have then. I could always just slap it together and let it run itself like I did last time. Or if someone wants to take it over and show it some love I would be OK with that. Please pm me if interested, but I've only been checking the forums about once a week or so. 

[voodoo_eyes]

1 hour ago, Hemiak said:

 

It usually is in November. However I got into the graduate program I wanted and have been pretty busy lately. I'm not sure how much time I'll have then. I could always just slap it together and let it run itself like I did last time. Or if someone wants to take it over and show it some love I would be OK with that. Please pm me if interested, but I've only been checking the forums about once a week or so. 

 

Congrats! on getting into the graduate program. Best of luck with that! I'll be throwing you a pm then.

[Kevvik]

4 hours ago, Hemiak said:

 

It usually is in November. However I got into the graduate program I wanted and have been pretty busy lately. I'm not sure how much time I'll have then. I could always just slap it together and let it run itself like I did last time. Or if someone wants to take it over and show it some love I would be OK with that. Please pm me if interested, but I've only been checking the forums about once a week or so. 

 

Congratulations!  I've looked at going for my Master's as well but work and RL just carry too much unpredictability to really be able to make the commitment.  Best of luck with it!

[eigen-space]

26 minutes ago, Kevvik said:

 

Congratulations!  I've looked at going for my Master's as well but work and RL just carry too much unpredictability to really be able to make the commitment.  Best of luck with it!

 

Same happened with me. I tried to work full time, have hobbies, and do a distance learning Masters program... it was all too much and I dropped out after 2 semesters.

 

@Hemiak, congrats on getting in your program! That's really awesome that you got the one you wanted

Mind sharing what field/focus you're in? I'm curious.