Mesopithecus Posted August 18, 2018 Share Posted August 18, 2018 (edited) @eigen-space Thanks, I might give them both a try, as I'd definitely be interested to see the changes between games. I've been in a gaming lull since finishing Omega Quintet and I think I was trying to play games straight after that had equally long grinds. I think something like Earthlock (and Cat Quest) will be perfect. I change my mind often, but currently thinking that Mugen Souls Z might be my 150th platinum Edited August 18, 2018 by Mesopithecus 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eigen-space Posted August 20, 2018 Author Share Posted August 20, 2018 (edited) Two more games completed for me this weekend! This game was pretty great. It walks through the psyche of Alice Liddell, the only survivor of a fire that took the lives of her parents and sister. Throughout the game, you're attempting to piece together exactly what happened on that night, as Alice has buried the memories. She must navigate through the broken Wonderland, which is her "safe space", in order to put together all the pieces. This game was very much out of my comfort zone. First off, it's a platformer... and one that you actually need some level of skill to play. I'm actually surprised I was able to navigate through the levels as well as I did, but I suppose practice makes perfect? This isn't to say that the controls or mechanics were bad or buggy.... in fact, it's the controls being so good that actually saved me many, many times (unlike the controls in the DLC, which you can read all about in the KYC thread here). The second thing about this game that put me out of my comfort zone were some of the themes in this game. I usually don't pay attention to game ratings because there's not a lot that really strikes a nerve with me, but I wish I would have read some of the things that go into this games M rating just so I was prepared. If you're the kind of person that's easily triggered, you might want to do a little reading about the various themes in this game. I won't go into detail here as the things that bothered me are HUGE spoilers, but the things that were brought up really made my blood boil. I don't think I've ever been so mad at an antagonist in a video game before. This game does check off the boxes of Fantastic Art and Excellent soundtrack. In addition to having great level design, the cutscenes had an interesting art style that looks like 2D paper laid over each other in such a way that you get a 3D effect (not sure what this style is called): Anyway-- final point-- this game is fantastic and you should give it a go if you're not one to be upset by the themes in this game. Just... try not to be too pissed off by the horrible DLC. ----------------------------------------- You're literally the devil in this game, and you own an apartment building. Your goal is to get strong monsters into your apartment to fight off religious zealots and other "heroes" in order to eventually dominate the world. This game is really boring. It's kind of fun for the first hour or so, but there really isn't much to this game at all. Your monster tenants pretty much just rent the apartment, ask for new items in the apartment (which you can choose to buy for them or not), fight things, and sometimes make little baby monsters. You have the ability to evict monsters at any point... and sometimes monsters will run away from the apartment in the middle of the night if they haven't paid their rent in a while... but overall, the game is really, really simple and not too exciting. The only saving grace for this game is that it seems to be free of bugs and clunkiness. Everything runs very smoothly, so the inevitable grind to get the bestiary filled out isn't something that'll make you want to smash your head into a wall... The most exciting this is trying to figure out if this guy really is Vincent Valentine: Oh, and, be prepared for some greedy mother f*ckers. The monsters that want the most expensive stuff are the ones most likely to not pay rent.... I wouldn't suggest buying this game unless you find it for less than a dollar or two. It's a fairly easy plat, but it's not an "EZPZ" game as it does take a while to grind out. Edited August 20, 2018 by eigen-space 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DragonQuest238 Posted August 21, 2018 Share Posted August 21, 2018 20 hours ago, eigen-space said: I wouldn't suggest buying this game unless you find it for less than a dollar or two. It's a fairly easy plat, but it's not an "EZPZ" game as it does take a while to grind out. I'm used to grind-fests. (Am platting Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch, during the fall, so yeah, talk about a grind-fest. ) Might look into this, if only to avoid Undertale for my alphabet soup. (Not that I don't have anything against games like that but I'd probably die constantly because of the bullet hells you have to dodge in order to spare monsters.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zolkovo Posted August 21, 2018 Share Posted August 21, 2018 (edited) 22 hours ago, eigen-space said: [...] This game does check off the boxes of Fantastic Art and Excellent soundtrack. In addition to having great level design, the cutscenes had an interesting art style that looks like 2D paper laid over each other in such a way that you get a 3D effect (not sure what this style is called) [...] 2.5D, some people also call it Pseudo-3D but that's a little different imo. More specifically you might call it paper cut-out layering. You'll be all caught up by the time I get back Edited August 21, 2018 by Zolkovo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eigen-space Posted August 21, 2018 Author Share Posted August 21, 2018 2 hours ago, DragonQuest238 said: Might look into this, if only to avoid Undertale for my alphabet soup. The Spelling Bee is specifically why I played Unholy Heights so soon. I wouldn't have gotten to it for a while if it weren't for that event and not having another U game (all my other U games don't have plats associated with them) 1 hour ago, Zolkovo said: 2.5D, some people also call it Pseudo-3D but that's a little different imo. More specifically you might call it paper cut-out layering. You'll be all caught up by the time I get back 2.5D and paper cut-out layering.... how imaginative! And, I needed to catch up at some point. If you finished Trackmania with me not having made up some of my deficit, I'd would have had to wave a white flag. Instead, NO SURRENDER! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eigen-space Posted August 26, 2018 Author Share Posted August 26, 2018 (edited) Two more down! I hit platinum #60 with the addition of these two, as well as dipped below the 100k mark on the world leaderboards! Woohoo!!!! Note that it's very hard to talk about these two games critically without spoilers... I've done my best to leave out any spoilers, so the review is relatively lite. Life is Strange is a "coming of age" story that has you playing as Max Caufield, a high school girl attending a boarding school. This boarding school is located in the town she originally from but had moved away from a couple years prior. She was accepted to the school on scholarship due to her photography abilities. In addition to her knack for photography, she also learns that she has the ability to rewind time. Max eventually reconnects with her old best friend, Chloe Price, and they go on to investigate the disappearance of a former student of the boarding school. This game doesn't offer a lot by way of action with your game play-- all you do is walk around, solve rather simple puzzles, and rewind time. There are a couple sections where you do have to "stealth" your way through, but you can easily replace skill with rewinding time. There's pretty much no way to get a "Game Over" in this one. I did, however, really like that I could see at least the immediate consequences of my choices and "rewind" to see the immediate consequences of all the other choices before sticking with any of them. What the game lacks in game play, it more than makes up for in story and character development. Max becomes an increasingly complex and interesting character throughout the game, and all the characters around her also become more than meets the eye (depending on how much investigating you do). Nearly all characters-- even the "villainous" ones-- end up being sympathetic... and even the best characters have their irksome qualities. I enjoyed that they added so much depth to these characters and made them seem relatively real. However, one thing that bothered me was the portrayal of high school life. Perhaps things are different nowadays, but it seemed more like the kids were in college rather than high school. There seemed to be too much partying, too many drugs/alcohol, too little parental oversight.... just seemed a little off to me. Or maybe I was too oblivious to social life when I was in high school to pay attention to all these various things. The thing that -really- bothered me, though, is that Max is supposed to be a great photographer, yet she shakes her damn Polaroid pictures after she snaps a shot. You are not supposed to do this. I would recommend this game, though, as it definitely tells a rather unique story... and when the girls solve the mysteries they have been looking into, it will blow your mind! Life is Strange: Before the Storm is the prequel to Life is Strange and has you playing as Chloe Price, Max's best friend. This game focuses on the budding friendship/relationship (depending on the choices you make) between Chloe Price and Rachel Amber, the missing girl from the original game. The game play here is very similarly to Life is Strange, minus the ability to rewind time and take photographs. Instead, you're able to "argue" with people and tag buildings/cars/etc with a giant marker. The "arguing" mechanic could have been done better... it almost seems as though you can't lose an argument unless you run out of time or pick the obvious losing choice (though I never picked a combination that made me lose, so maybe that's impossible). Oh well... I wasn't expecting much in this department based on the first game. At least they gave you the ability to walk faster by pressing a button in this game... The story here also seemed to be lacking. Maybe I just wasn't as into it because I don't like Chloe as a character-- yes, she's been through a lot of things that could be emotional like (minor spoilers... nothing you won't find out in the first 10 minutes of playing this game, and stuff you'll already know if you played the first game): Spoiler her best friend moving, her dad dying, and her mom moving on with another guy. But none of this seems like it should warrant how much of a rebellious brat she has become. I seriously felt like the choices I was given to make were, "Which of these is the least shitty of the choices I'm being given?" At least in the first game you had the option to be a decent person if you wanted to be. I think this game was subpar in comparison to the first. I'm certainly glad it didn't last as long (3 episodes here versus 5... and the episodes even seemed shorter). --------------------------- I'll probably play the upcoming Life is Strange 2... but I'm not going to be picking it up until there's a significant discount. Edited September 11, 2018 by eigen-space 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eigen-space Posted September 17, 2018 Author Share Posted September 17, 2018 Alrighty!! Been a while since either Zolkovo or I have given an update (both of us have been a bit busy with life lately), and I'm pleased to say that I'm back in the lead by just a few points after completing my first 3x Points Game! I took @Zolkovo's suggestion of picking up L.A. Noire. I can definitely see why he would suggest it: IT HAD A BUTTLOAD OF DLC! MOST DLC I'VE EVER DONE OMG. L.A. Noire takes you through the career of late-1940s L.A. cop/detective Cole Phelps. You get to see him rise through the ranks of the LAPD as well as discover things from his time as a Marine during the war. The Good The story was definitely this game's biggest asset, with plenty of backstory and twists with Cole Phelps and the crime scene around Los Angeles. I'm finding that these days a lot of games provide too much foreshadowing to truly surprise me; not that this game was much different, but there were a few plot points that I didn't catch on to, which I appreciated. Regardless, the story was fantastic, and the cases were mostly all plausible (there were still a couple that seemed too far-fetched, but it's a video game so I wasn't exactly expecting total realism). The writers definitely built up their characters rather well, from the victims to the suspects to the detectives... I actually got invested in some of the cases and characters due to the character development. Some of them I loved, and others I completely hated due to the good development of the characters. My favorite character of the game was Jack Kelso, a former Marine who served along with Cole Phelps. Toward the end of the game, you're able to play as Jack, and it was the highlight of the game IMO. Phelps was pretty much a hardass, whereas Jack is simply a bad ass. He had some of the best one-liners in the game, and had far more personality dimensions than Phelps. I personally would buy a followup to L.A. Noire where Jack Kelso was the main character. I was also a fan of the shoot-outs and fist fights. I don't play many games that have real-time battle like that, so it was kind of fun for a change. Definitely took some getting used to, but I ended up pretty good at it. Even the dreaded Bulletproof Windshield trophy only took about 10 tries because I was pretty decent at shooting toward the end The Bad But of course there's also the bad.... which mainly revolves around all the pointless collectibles in the game. There are trophies for killing enemies with all types of guns, finding all newspapers, driving all vehicles, finding landmarks, finding all film reels, locating all novels, and finding all records. The only one of those which serves any purpose in the game is finding newspapers as it gives some rather interesting cut scenes that show the underlying plots develop. The Landmarks search isn't terribly tedious-- you actually visit many of them during the course of the game anywayFinding all guns is moderately fun because it's interesting to see how each one works. Some people might enjoy driving all the cars as they handle differently (and some people might be car buffs), but ultimately it's a huge pain in the ass; many of the cars look identical apart from minor nuances, and it's hard to distinguish them. It becomes a huge chore when you get down to the last few as many of the cars don't have reliable spawn points (and the "trick" mentioned in this site's guide didn't work for me). And lastly are the bullshit film reels, novels, and records (novels and records are exclusive to PS4).... you literally just drive around picking these up... and you won't come across them naturally, so it's definitely beneficial to use a guide (I liked the text/picture ones on IGN better than the ones on this site as I don't like video guides). The only reason that these were even a LITTLE bit interesting was that it took you to some well-designed areas that you wouldn't have explored otherwise (like the underground tram system or the middle of a city lake). One aspect of gameplay I hated was DRIVING. Holy shit. There were too many car chases... at least in the main game you could fail the chases then just skip them, but you had to go through them for street crimes. It's like you hit one small trash can and you've lost your person. Hate that. And also the 194.7 Miles Driven Trophy (my last trophy) was a pain in the ass. I only had a bit over 100 miles driven by the time I got all other trophies (had my partner drive whenever possible), and it took like 2.5 hours to grind out the last 90ish miles... I just don't understand how I can be going ~60 mph in the car and then go through 3 day-night cycles before driving those 90 miles... should that have been 72 in-game hours? Seriously bullshit. And the game also decided to crash on me when I had accumulated 180 miles... and due to only having auto-save, I was reduced to 120 as that was the last time the game auto-saved -_-; Maybe I wouldn't have minded driving so much, but I already have a 120-mile daily commute to work.... last thing I want to do when I come home is drive around in a video game. Last but not least was something that was just good story writing... and that was the setting of late-1940s. There was SO much sexism and racism, and the game definitely brings that to the forefront. Again, it was just good, accurate writing, but I didn't like it. ---------------------- Overall, this was a fantastic game for the story, but a really tedious platinum. If I hadn't yet played Sorcery Saga, this would rank as the worst trophy set due to those driving and collectible-related trophies. I think this is a fantastic game for non-trophy hunters, and I wish I had played it several years ago before becoming interested in trophies because the story is FANTASTIC. I'm really loathe to recommend it to a trophy hunter though just due to the frustrations with those trophies... 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eigen-space Posted November 1, 2018 Author Share Posted November 1, 2018 Both Zolkovo and I have decided to end this event a bit earlier and call it a tie since we were so close. He has some fun things going on IRL that need his attention, and I've been sick the last month and unable to play much of anything. Though I plan on resuming my gaming habits this month (with less intensity), I don't believe Zolk will be returning soon. Donations have been made to both charities we were playing for 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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