Kill Your Completion ∞

[Oobedoob S Benubi]

 

SOMA

Non-VR game #5

First Review

Total playtime: not sure, still under an hour probably

 

So, brother-in-law checked in to fiddle with the 3D printer he's keeping at our place, so I have no idea how long I've been playing, probably under an hour total, and it felt like a good place to write up dome first thoughts.

 

To those who've played the game,

Spoiler

I just made contact with someone alive, and apparently need to be going to the comm center.

 

So, in short, this game plays like Alien Isolation without the stupid AI and human combat (for now). You're a guy who has some brain injury, you go to some thesis writer who has some experimental way of maybe hypothetically fixing brains, he scans you... And you wake up in an obviously different room, with nobody around except some... thing.

 

The game is just scare effects for now but I have little doubt that I'll be hiding and/or running for my life real soon. There's just basic gameplay for now, walking around interacting eith stuff, some light puzzling, and the story gets drip-fed to you.

 

Curious to see where it all leads, I think that will be a large decider on whether or not I like this game when looking back.

[SystmOveRide]

Game #2: Dishonored 2

Total Playtime: 3 hours

Trophy Progress: 4/51; E Rank

 

Alright so, in Aus around the start of the year, or sometime mid last year, I took advantage of upgrading my PS4 to a PS4 Pro 1TB and it came with Dishonored 2 (+download code for the Dishonored Definitive Collection), DOOM, and I believe The Elder Scrolls Online: Morrowind. I knew I'd eventually get to Dishonored at some point due to the rave reviews and I'd always wanted to play it after the hype. Due to the ease of loading it off a disc instead of a complete download, I opted for the sequel for Kill Your Completion. Though, maybe I should have played the first game first.

Objectively the game is great, looks good, the story seems a little cliche at this point, and mechanics are I guess interesting (having never played any of Bioshock games I assume it would be vaguely similar?), but honestly, I'm just not enjoying the game. I can't seem to get into the mood to play and I have to play in little short bursts otherwise I guess I'll never get through it. This one will be a tough one for me to eventually plat unless I get the sudden urge to play.

As for the game itself, it runs smooth, and as mentioned plays well, and from an objective point of view, I agree with the review scores that will roughly average around ~80%. However for me I'd have it down as a 6/10 as personal preference. I'll get through it, but on my own time at some other late date and I'll consider this 3 hour minimum rule for gameplay all I'm doing for playing Dishonored 2 for Kill Your Completion.

 

Edit: Whoops, forgot to change the name after copying from my last writeup 

Edited November 18, 2018 by SystmOveRide

[Oobedoob S Benubi]

 

SOMA

Non-VR game #5

Day One Review

Total playtime: several hours

 

In the end, I played more SOMA today instead of Astro Bot. Went on for several hours so even if I don't continue this tomorrow (which I doubt), I've managed to do more than three hours.

 

I liked it much more than I thought I would after the first bit of playtime. You're constantly trying to figure out what to do next, but the answer never seems out of reach. What I initially thought what was obviously going to be a shocking twist, has been rrvealed with little fanfare an hour or two in, and the story took some weird turns since then.

 

Definitely looking forward to finding out what the conclusion is going to be, if there's any more twists or if it's straight shooting from here on out.

[PerryToxteth]

11 hours ago, Agent 47 said:

My planning for the day

 

So, my original plan yesterday was get through two hours of additional Assassin's Creed Odyssey missions first, then go on to another KYC game. However, my brother-in-law suddenly dropped by and what ended up happening was I made him play two VR games, Accounting+ and then Statik, and by the time he was gone (after dinner) my wife wanted to watch one of those corny Netflix christmas movies, so I galantly granted her the screen and went on to play Pokémon myself.

 

Smart move! Have the dinner guests play VR games and get nauseous before the meal is served so they don't eat too much food. 

[Oobedoob S Benubi]

1 hour ago, PerryToxteth said:

 

Smart move! Have the dinner guests play VR games and get nauseous before the meal is served so they don't eat too much food. 

 

... Then I should've let him play other games as those two are no VR-sickness causers

[madbuk]

On 11/16/2018 at 10:20 PM, PerryToxteth said:

KYC 8

Game No. 4

Pic-a-Pix Color

 

Playing Time: 5 hours

Trophies Earned: 16/25 (64% C ranking)

Final Thoughts: I wasn't sure what to expect of this game, and given its price point and subpar graphics (see above), I was pretty skeptical. But was I ever wrong! This game is incredible fun and is seriously addicting!

  I first got interested in this when a recent Artifex Mundi title had a similar game in it to unlock a clue. Unfortunately, in that game the instructions were absolutely shitty and I felt pretty frustrated. But just as I solved it, I realized the premise of the game could be a fun mental challenge.

Well, one month later, and with PROPER instructions, I have a pretty serious addiction to this game, and they better come out with more! Honestly, it's not complicated. Your goal is to paint a picture on a grid using coded numbers listed in the horizontal and vertical columns. The numbers indicate how many of the specific color's titles will be in a row together (so a red 3 means somewhere in that column, three red titles will be next to one another). By lining up the numbers to correspond horizontally and vertically, you begin to solve the puzzle. Here's an example below:

 

 

 Essentially, this is a logic puzzle just like Sudoku. One move, will lead to another move, etc., etc. Unlike Sudoku, this is more trial and error based. In Sudoku, one wrong move written in pen, and you're basically fucked. 

  The game starts with small 5x5 puzzles for beginners and they get large enough for 20x20 for experts. I was finishing the 5x5s and 10x10s in under 5 minutes, but the bigger ones usually take 10-15 minutes. There are a few time-specific trophies, but don't panic. You will find some easy puzzles to finish in the allotted time.

  This game will take me probably 15 hours to finish but I'm really enjoying it. Evidently, word has leaked to Trophy Whores that this is an easy plat because people are finishing it an hour-plus and the platinum completion rate is in this high 60s. It can be easy and cheap if you just want to cheat on the internet and look up the solutions. But why? The regular gameplay is so much fun!!

  This one is a huge winner! Especially when you just want to play for a half hour or so. !

 

Next Up: 11-11 Memories Retold

If you're enjoying this, I recommend Falcross if you have an iPhone/Pad, dunno if it's on Android. Essentially limitless numbers of these puzzles - hundreds of free ones and then there are thousands of user created ones (which can't be published unless they're provable without guesswork, so they're fair) and they just keep making more every day. And unlike the majority of mobile games it doesn't spam you with ads - in fact, there are no ads at all (and it's free!)

 

I was interested in this game but man the trophy whores have really dampened my excitement to ever play it. It's kinda like Jak, I loved those games, but once debug was found it feels kinda shameful to have them on my list even though I never actually used debug

[xFalionx]

Game #4: Child of Light (PS3)

Final Review

Total playtime: about 11 hours

Trophies: 20/20 for an S rank

Completion:

Overall - 65.01% -> 64.12% | -0.89%

Current - 63.98% -> 64.12% | +0.14%

 

The good:

• Story: Despite having some pacing issues caused by the combat in my opinion, the story is an experience and the main focus of the game. I don't know how I feel about it being told as a poem. On the one hand it is a creative idea and has a certain charm, on the other hand it breaks the immersion and lets it seem more like a story being told than an experience being lived.
• Visuals: Water color art style with much character. A joy to look at.
• Audio: Emotional overworld music with epic boss battle themes. The OST is just as beautiful as the art, if not even more so. Also kind of makes me want to make more time for piano practice again, I'll make sure to learn a couple of these songs as I get better. I really had trouble deciding on which songs to showcase since they are all brilliant.
  Spoiler

  This plays while you're walking around in the overworld:

   

  And a boss battle theme to show off that crazy contrast:

   

• Setting: I like the light and darkness themes going on, other than that it's a medieval fantasy setting that doesn't just use your standard fantasy creatures but adds some unique species into the mix.
• Difficulty: There are two difficulty settings. I started out on the higher one and it was definitely challenging. Later on, as I started to avoid combat I was forced to switch to the lower setting which still ended up being pretty hard towards the end with my playstyle. 

The bad:

• Gameplay: Traveling across the overworld feels fun and the game nails all of the RPG systems it has to offer. With the focus on combat relying heavily on interrupting your enemies and trying not to get interrupted yourself it feels a lot more tactical than traditional turn based systems. It's fun, so why is this in the bad section? Well, being an RPG, you've gotta grind from time to time in this game and since the combat forces you to pay attention at all times when fighting, a usually mindless activity like grinding a little between boss fights becomes a chore and I found myself skipping most enemies towards the end of the game. I think it would have been a better idea to make more use of the fun overworld gameplay and turn this game into an action RPG instead.
• Pacing: I felt there was just too much fluff in between exposition for this kind of game, partially caused due to long RPG fights.

The ugly:

• none

 

The first game on my list that wasn't a completely positive surprise. Beautiful art, beautiful music, beautiful story to go with it but in the end I guess my expectations were just too high. Still, I've had to add quite a lot of music to my playlist today. It's been a while since I've played a game with a comparable soundtrack.

 

I'd still recommend the game if you got it on PS+ or at a cheap price, like Journey, this is more a piece of art than it is a game so if you're into these kinds of games it's definitely worth checking out.

 

Since I got done two days early and I've got another PS3 game coming up I'll start up Hatoful Boyfriend as a bonus game tomorrow and play it alongside Port Royal until Friday. That's sure to get me some funny looks on the train tomorrow.   

 

Rating: 

 

Next game: Hatoful Boyfriend (PSVita) (Bonus 19th to 23rd) and Port Royal 3 (PS3) (21st to 25th)

 

On 11/17/2018 at 5:43 PM, voodoo_eyes said:

I really liked the art style as well as the music. Couldn't stand the combat though.

 

I love the art and the music. I started out liking the combat and even later on I still liked it for boss fights but it got annoying fairly quickly. I kinda like the system but I guess it's complex enough that it stops feeling relaxing like a turn based combat system should be but at the same time fights take way longer than in a non-instanced action combat system. So in the end it feels more like the worse of both worlds instead of the best of both worlds.

 

 

[Kevvik]

Game #6: White Day: A Labyrinth named School

 

Day 3 Impressions

Time played: 13 hrs

 

So, I completed a run through on Easy mode.  For the most part this felt straight forward, though if this is easy, hell mode is going to be hell.  I felt it worked smoothly but found that the AI for the patrolling homicidal janitor left me a bit perturbed.  There didn't seem to be any consistency in when it would or wouldn't detect me.  You get an eye on the screen when you are within his range and I found that most of the time, when he is looking away, no issues.  Every now and then though, he suddenly turns around and starts chasing me even though he was facing away from me and I was crouched and not moving. WTF? Likewise, losing aggro at times was inconsistent as well as the speed at which he chased me.  Maybe it's getting me ready for hell mode by doing this at times?  Some deaths felt cheap...

 

This brings me to the autosave.  Generally a great thing so I don't have to use markers every time I save.  However, at one point I hadn't hard saved in over an hour and I got killed right at an autosave point.  So, my every respawn had me at almost dead and the janitor directly behind me and killing me before I had a chance to move.  This frustrated me immensely so I left myself there to die repeatedly and knock off the 100 deaths in one playthrough while I walked away to calm down, knowing I was going back to my hard save an hour+ previous.  After that, screw it, I'm in easy mode, I'll waste my markers and practice for the limited saves of hell mode when I get around to hard mode.

 

I played through a few endings by a judicious hard save before the last building.  Reviewing the ending collection, you need to get every ending in every difficulty mode.  Difficulty modes do NOT stack so I have probably 20+ playthroughs and multiple close to end-game save work to do for the platinum so this is going to take a while.  The story up to the ending was really good.  A couple of the endings I saw were kind of cool, a couple a little bland.  Curious to see if they tweak at all for the difficulties.  We'll see.

 

I also ground out a few of the multiples trophies to get them out of the way and not have to worry about them during gameplay at any future point as some are a little tedious.

 

Overall, I still have an enjoyable opinion of the game but the cheap deaths take the score down a little bit right now.

 

Trophies earned: 22/43, 35% for A rank

Score so far: 7.5/10

 

Completion Rate: 81.21% (-0.68% for the event)

 

On a side note, played a bit more Obduction as well.  The next level required a lot of warping and the load times became a real pain when moving through it, especially while exploring and figuring out which ones go where.  Little disappointed in that when the game quality has been so high.

 

Next up: Game #7: Headlander

 

 

Edited November 19, 2018 by Kevvik

[dmland12]

Game #6: Way of the Passive Fist

Trophies: 34/37 (82%)

Completion: 91.78% (-0.09%, -2.98% from start)

 

Way of the Passive Fist is a 2D action game, with an interesting gimmick:  you can't really directly attack the enemies most of the time.  Instead you'll need to parry () or dodge () their attacks until they wear themselves out.  At that point, you can just knock them over () and they'll die.  There's also a combo meter that will let you use an offensive attack after you build it up high enough with successful parries & dodges.  Some enemies can only be dealt with this way, like bosses and mechanical robots.  The robots will never wear themselves out!

 

There's a decent variety in the enemies you'll face, and they all have predictable attacking patterns.  They also almost always kindly take turns attacking you so that you only need to face one at a time (one major exception is that some of the bosses play dirty).  So, it's mainly about learning the patterns and getting the timing of your parries and dodges correct.  The timing window's not that tight, especially on normal difficulty.  A lot of the time, it sort of plays like a rhythm game.  You also need some patience.  If you're like me, when you see yourself surrounded by multiple enemies, your first instinct is probably not going to be to just hang back and calmly block several hits or more.  I was getting a little jumpy initially, and blocking too soon before settling down into the pace of the game. 

 

It sounds like this type of game might get old real quick, but I rather enjoyed it.  If you're interested, you can see how the game plays in the video below.  I think it's more engaging to play than it looks in the video.  You've always got to keep your mind on what you are planning to do next and keep the timing/rhythm going.

 

 

 

[Caju_94]

Game #3

Current percentage: 79,84%

(I think I was initially around 82% and 83% before the event)

Gameplay time: 6/7 hours

 

Since I loved the original Mafia game on PC, I had to try this one. Of course, being a PS4 game, I was expecting it to be quite different than the original. I have some mixed feelings about this game.

 

The story goes on a fictional city of New Bordeaux, inspired by New Orleans, in a post-Vietnam war epoque. Lincoln Clay, a black male, your main protagonist is back from the war and wants to live a peaceful and normal life, until he notices his family is into trouble with the Mafia, and therefore begins a typical revenge story, where Lincoln avenges the death of his family.

 

In order for Lincoln to complete his Kill List, you need to conquer businesses and districts and assign them to underbosses (3 different friends who will help Lincoln conquer New Bordeaux) who will then reward you with upgrades, money and other useful rewards. The story missions are related to conquering these districts, so getting these distrcit is no sidequests at all. Each Underboss has then sidequests you can complete in order to raise their earn and therefore giving you more rewards. All this in order to reach the big ol' Sal who destroyed your family.

 

The good:

 

I love the storytelling of this game. As you progress through the story, you will be able to see interviews made to characters. These interviews take place after the game story, so basically, these characters are explaining and telling what happened in this past. I also love the dialogue script between characters. The cutscenes are immersive and really got my attention.

 

The soundtrack. There is not a song that does not fit in this post-vietnam epoque and into this mafia story. Even during combat, these classical songs can turn a tense moment to a chillin' and enjoyable experience. 

 

The graphics and the environment. New Bordeaux is quite the beautiful city. Not only that, but the level of detail they put into the world is so deep, it impressed me greatly. For example, at Bayou Islands, you have these really muddy roads full of ponds and you can see every wheel almost burying into each one of them. The level of detail of the characters faces and their particular features. The sunsets. The different environment you battle in: piers, fun parks, warehouses, bars...

 

The bad:

 

Repetitive.The missions and sidequests do not variate a lot. It's basically killing and stealing stuff. The first time it is really fun but the tenth time... God! In order to conquer the enemies' business, you have a list of tasks to do in order to bring on the boss and reach him. The tasks are mostly the same. Fortunately, there are not much collectibles, but they don't reward you with anything besides a mere trophy.

 

Mafia 3 is not a bad game, but it is a little hard for this game to stand out from other open worlds, mainly because it is repetitive mission-wise and simple in terms of combat. Despite having many different weapons, I can beat the missions with a mere pistol. however, in my opinion, others things such as the soundtrack and mainly the story telling are elements that really saved this game.

 

[DamagingRob]

Game #6

Homefront: The Revolution - Final Review

 

Well, I'm still having fun with this. I really like the areas with citizens roaming around (referred to as yellow zones). They really look good. The areas with just enemies (red zones) are a little more bland, though.. 

 

I said you could only carry two weapons? Well, turns out each one has 3 different "forms." Like my pistol can turn into an SMG, my shotgun can become a flamethrower, and my assault rifle can change into an LMG and a sticky bomb launcher. Pretty cool stuff. You can also use the hacking tool to hack robots, and have them turn on the enemy. And then there are the RC cars I mentioned before, which let you attach one of those tools to it, and then you can drive it up to enemies and blow them up. And stuffed teddy bears that work as proximity devices. Don't mind the stuffed toy, guys. It certainly won't explode when you get near it.  

 

Now, for some of the stuff I don't like. Devs don't know the meaning of the word "easy.." I don't know how much harder the highest difficulty is, but I'm not really looking forward to that playthrough after this one. I'm dying quite a bit. :/ Enemies don't seem to ever stop coming in many places, so you often have to run and hide (or die). And if an airship spots you... you will be constantly swarmed until you shake it. 

 

Some of the trophies are downright obnoxious and stupid. Like one for killing 10 enemies with traps. These things are fucking useless.. They're on top of some buildings, and shooting at them or pressing when standing next to one releases some exploding barrels. But they take ages to explode, so even if you get an enemy near one, he usually runs to safety before it blows up.

 

Then another one requires infiltrating a stronghold and turning the valve without getting detected. As soon as you start to turn the valve, it alerts any enemy in the place. So you have to take them all out first. And man, was it a pain.. I finally gave up on me not getting detected, and recruited a bunch of resistance fighters (you can bring about 4 NPCs with you). As long as I stayed down and out of sight, they could kill all they want and I wouldn't be detected. 

 

Then there are a number of jobs you need to complete, requiring killing certain enemies, killing them with certain weapons, or taking pictures of things with your phone. And flash point missions that only pop up every so often (10-20 minutes, I think), and you have a limited amount of time to complete them before failing. And melee killing a number of snipers. Who thought some (or any) of these were a good idea? 

 

Game also still has some bugs. I can't complete one of the strike points, because the thing is glitched.. But they supposedly carry over, and by completing a few on my second playthrough, the trophy for doing them all should pop. I've also seen some objects floating in the air, and a person teleport. Lol. 

 

So yeah, certainly not the greatest game ever. But I'm at least not disappointed with my purchase, and will hopefully finish it later on. Will give it a score of . Like it a bit more than the games in a 3-way tie, but less than Blue Estate.

 

Time played: No idea. 15-20 hours probably.

Trophy progress: 28/75 for 34% and an A rank. Continuing to be a straight A student.

Did it lower my completion? Yes. All that DLC made it drop more than the others, I think. 

[Caju_94]

15 hours ago, xFalionx said:

*snip*

 

 

*snip*

 

 

This was my first PS4 game ever! Before playing the PS4 I played the demo on a retail shop and I really enjoyed it. Not one of the best games out there, but it really gorgeous and beautiful and unique. I also started on the hardest difficulty and had to lower because I started to get stuck on certain bosses.

 

I loved the fact the story was told through a poem, yet, it started to bore me a little, since the only thing I wanted was really brawling. Yeah, feels more tactical due to the interruption system, which is quite interesting and different from the RPGs I normally play.

 

Now, imagine getting this gorgeous thing to make you a first impression of a PS4 (alongside inFamous First Light), during the day, curtains close, no light and hearing the piano soundtrack. I am well capable of getting the Vita version and play it again.

 

Glad you enjoyed this one.

[xFalionx]

Game #4.5: Hatoful Boyfriend (PSVita)

1st day

Total playtime: about 1 hour

 

Hatoful Boyfriend is a parody of the Otome genre, which usually has a female protagonist follow various male love interests in visual novel style gameplay and there's usually a different ending for each candidate. Now imagine this protagonist is the only human in a world filled with birds.

 

Storywise, you are a female student that visits an all bird high-school and you socialize with your for some reason almost entirely male school mates as the year goes by.

 

I don't really have much to say so far. I've gotten a sort-of ending by now or at least the game calls it an ending but I can still continue playing. Overall it's pretty funny and my favorite character so far is Okosan who is a bit like Hodor in a way because he only makes "Coooo!" noises but somehow everyone understands what he is saying and he's totally in love with pudding.

 

I'm looking forward to the twists that were mentioned by @eigen-space in KYC 777.  

 

On 11/14/2018 at 11:36 AM, Caju_94 said:

Lost Dimension (Vita) Note: Also available for PS3

 

Spoiler

 

This game looks like a fusion of two franchises: Valkyria Chronicles and Danganronpa.

 

This game consists of 5 chapters, and I just managed to reach the 4th one (I probably spent 5/6 hours of gameplay on this one). It is a tactics RPG which is quite short but has a NG+, in which you should do in order to get different results from your first playthrough (I will explain as you read this review).

 

Basically, you control a team of characters, with the main protagonist, Sho, that are called the "Gifted", people with different powers such as elemental magic, telekenesis, super-strength and so on... Their objective is to reach the top a tower with 5 stratums (each stratum being a chapter per say) and defeat "The End" who is basically a bad guy who for some reason wants to end with humanity but challenges the gifted to reach the top of the tower. So far, so good, you have a nice bunch of characters with different abilities and personalities and everything seems looking good. However, some of them are traitors and are allied to the "The End". Plus, everytime you complete the main missions of a stratum you have to go through a Judgement where one of your team members must be eliminated for good in order to progress.

 

That said, you need to identify the traitors, and eliminate them in judgement by voting and influencing others that you know who is a traitor. So basically, there is traitor on each stratum (except the 4th, where there are 2), and you have this interesting system, where after each mission your main character, Sho, can "hear" other's voices and identify if they are a suspect or not. After identifying the 3 suspects (there are always 3 suspects), you have a mini game where you spend limited Vision points to check if they are traitors or not. These traitors are RNG based (it can even be your fav character or the one you use the most), and are different every playthorugh (except for the first in the first playthrough which in unevitable in order for you to understand the game). Meaning you need more than one playthrough in order to bond with other characters if the RNG lets you. (You need to bond with other characters to unlock their missions and get the respective trophies)

 

The combat in this game is quite simple. It is a turn based tactics RPG like Valkyria Chronicles for example, and you can control each of your character once. You can move, attack (and get assists attacks from nearby allies), use your Gifts (special abilities), pass your character turn to a character whose turn as already been used, use an item or simply wait and restore some sanity. Besides the traditional HP and MP (in this game it is GP, which stands for Gift Points) you have a third meter which is Sanity which starts at 100% and can deplete during the battle. You can lose Sanity by using gifts and getting attacked. If a character reaches 0% sanity, it goes berserk, acts on his own and start attacking enemies and allies alike, leaving your other team members with fear. However, depending on your strategy, going berserk may not be a bad thing. I was once facing two bosses and was having some trouble finishing with them. I went berserk with Akatsuki (a fire mage of some sorts) and used a gift which killed one of her allies but also both bosses, because during Sanity, despite other members fearing the situation (decreasing their accurracy), the character in question has its defense decreased but his attack brutally increased. You can heal that berserk mode with gifts and items anyway. 

 

The character progression is also simple. The members that are not battling also receive EXP. Every level up a character has gives them a gift points which you can use in order to upgrade/unlock new abilities. You can also get these in missions. The weapons and items can be bought and sold at the Lobby through Energy points. And after a Judgement, when one of your characters dies for the rest of your playthrough, you can pass their gifts to another character through a leftover item they leave behind when they die, which are called Materia, so don't worry if your healer is a traitor, for example.

 

The soundtrack outisde of battle is pretty tense and really gives you the environment that things are not good at all in Lost DImension's worlds, mainly when there are traitors everywhere and characters are constantly doubting and accusing others of being traitors.

 

 

It seems this game might be a little underrated. Overall, I really liked the experience. I guess the traitor/judgement and the sanity system are what makes this game different than others. You should try it. You should. Careful, because your favourite characters may turn down on you.

 

Never even heard of this game but it sure sounds like something I would enjoy. I gotta make sure to remember this in case I ever have some money to spend.

 

[PerryToxteth]

KYC 8

Game No. 5

 

 

Playing Time: 6 hours

Trophies Earned: 17/51 (27% C ranking)

 

Final Thoughts: So this one was released in time for the centennial anniversary of Armistice Day, in which World War I ended on the 11th hour, of the 11th day, of the 11th month. I managed to get six hours in, which left me one-third short of completing the story as my last trophy was completing Part II. I definitely will get back to this one quickly as I'd like to see the ending...er endings, as this game has seven different trophies for separate endings. 

  I would categorize this game as somewhere between a walking simulator and kinda VN as there's not much action in the gameplay and you are listening to a whole lot of dialogue. You are pretty much moving the whole time though and there's not mountains of text to get through.  The graphics are done in a unique impressionist art motif, along the vein of Monet or Cezanne. It seems to work well in giving the game an early 20th century feel, though at times, the hazy graphics can cause difficultly in finding collectibles (more on that later).

  You play as two characters, a young, naive Canadian enlistee who's looking for adventure, and a German father who has personal reasons for heading to the front. You flip back and forth between the two characters and slowly, their stories start to roll down a similar path. I won't go much beyond that to avoid spoilers, but as it's a war story, typical narratives of military camaraderie, adventure, loss, loved ones back home, war is hell, are all touched on.

  There's not a lot more to say because it's so story driven. But it's kept me intrigued and I'm eager to finish an ending (or seven ).  And I will have to replay it because the collectibles are a chore without a walkthrough (as the game is new, I doubt one exists yet).

  In each chapter, there are roughly 20-30 collectibles and some are easy to spot as the game's environment has very little movement beyond your character. Chances are, if something is moving, it's a collectible letter that basically just spins in the air. Easy enough, right? The hard part with collectibles is that one character in the game has a camera and certain collectibles will only unlock when you take a photograph of specific person, item, landscape, etc. So if you really are trying to thoroughly hunt every collectible, you will spend tons of time stopping, getting your camera out, and searching your surroundings.  So yeah, damn if I'm going to be platting this one soon until someone releases a guide. 

  I'm glad that a game like this has been made to bring to light the history of WWI. The developers certainly put more effort into remembering the sacrifices that young men carried out than Trump did! (It's just rain, you lazy POS!). Strangely enough, I'd say from an educational perspective, Battlefield 1 did a better job than this game. Of course, legions of gamers play BF1 for the fast-paced MP play, but there is a TON of history packed into the game if you feel like looking.

  Without getting to the ending(s),I feel like trying to rank this game wouldn't be fair. I will say that I'd wait for a drop in price because I can't see the replay value being real high on this one. Once you finished the story and trophy wrap up, I can't imagine coming back and playing the story over and over and over. So let's leave it as Incomplete for now.

 

Next game: Blackwood Crossing

Edited November 19, 2018 by PerryToxteth

[PerryToxteth]

On 11/16/2018 at 7:16 PM, MarkusT1992 said:

Game #4: Kona (Final Day)

 

 

 

Thanks for the review - added to my Watchlist!

(I think someone else played this in an earlier KYC).

On 11/18/2018 at 4:02 PM, madbuk said:

If you're enjoying this, I recommend Falcross if you have an iPhone/Pad, dunno if it's on Android. Essentially limitless numbers of these puzzles - hundreds of free ones and then there are thousands of user created ones (which can't be published unless they're provable without guesswork, so they're fair) and they just keep making more every day. And unlike the majority of mobile games it doesn't spam you with ads - in fact, there are no ads at all (and it's free!)

 

I was interested in this game but man the trophy whores have really dampened my excitement to ever play it. It's kinda like Jak, I loved those games, but once debug was found it feels kinda shameful to have them on my list even though I never actually used debug

 

Thanks for the heads-up! I just added it to my iPad. I'd say Pic-A-Pix is worth playing. Anyone who might scoff at it on your profile could be rebutted by how long it took you to plat it. This is by no means a My Name is Mayo blatant trophy whore bait. It's a legitimate game and people exploit the internet to speedrun it. And frankly, screw anyone who gets worried about what's on someone's else's profile.

[PerryToxteth]

On 11/15/2018 at 7:44 PM, Kevvik said:

Game #5: Obduction

 

Day 3 Impressions

Time played: 5.5 hrs

 

This one's been on my radar but is it more an earth game feel to it or more a space game feel? I just can't do space. Or at least sci-fi space.

I actually like real space stuff, just read a book on the Apollo 8 mission, which will celebrate its 50th year anniversary next month. Apollo 8, commanded by Frank Borman, made a bigger leap in the space race than any other mission. Prior to 8, no astronaut or cosmonaut had ever left earth's orbit ( roughly couple hundred miles). These guys went 200,000 (!) on their way to the Moon and they set the path forward for Apollo 11 to pull off its Lunar landing seven months later. 

Sorry to go off on a tangent, I thought Myst was pretty neat back in the days. 

[Kevvik]

7 hours ago, PerryToxteth said:

 

This one's been on my radar but is it more an earth game feel to it or more a space game feel? I just can't do space. Or at least sci-fi space.

I actually like real space stuff, just read a book on the Apollo 8 mission, which will celebrate its 50th year anniversary next month. Apollo 8, commanded by Frank Borman, made a bigger leap in the space race than any other mission. Prior to 8, no astronaut or cosmonaut had ever left earth's orbit ( roughly couple hundred miles). These guys went 200,000 (!) on their way to the Moon and they set the path forward for Apollo 11 to pull off its Lunar landing seven months later. 

Sorry to go off on a tangent, I thought Myst was pretty neat back in the days. 

 

The game has a very Earth-ish feel as your environments, at first, seem to simulate an Earth environment. It is deceptive though, with the alien skyline and running into barrier-like obstructions apparently of alien rock but which transform into a continuation of your environment when you pass through them.

 

As the game progresses, your environment become more natural/unnatural though you warp back/forth between different regions/planets(?). It does a very good job of making the game environments familiar but unreliable so, if that makes sense. It's hard to trust if what you are experiencing is actual or just a manipulation of your senses, which is what I believe.

[SolarCat02]

8 hours ago, PerryToxteth said:

 

This one's been on my radar but is it more an earth game feel to it or more a space game feel? I just can't do space. Or at least sci-fi space.

I actually like real space stuff, just read a book on the Apollo 8 mission, which will celebrate its 50th year anniversary next month. Apollo 8, commanded by Frank Borman, made a bigger leap in the space race than any other mission. Prior to 8, no astronaut or cosmonaut had ever left earth's orbit ( roughly couple hundred miles). These guys went 200,000 (!) on their way to the Moon and they set the path forward for Apollo 11 to pull off its Lunar landing seven months later. 

Sorry to go off on a tangent, I thought Myst was pretty neat back in the days. 

 

You do end up in alien landscapes and such but your feet never leave the ground. At the beginning you end up on a piece of earth, an old mining town, that appears to have been teleported to a different planet based on what you can see outside the dome. The other worlds, in true Cyan fashion, are variations of the same. 

 

Also in Cyan fashion, everywhere is pretty much deserted. It's not about character interaction, it's about puzzle interaction. 

[DamagingRob]

Game #7

Shiness The Lightning Kingdom- Day 1

 

I am definitely digging this. Feels like a JRPG, with a fun combat system (so far). Hasn't been a whole lot of story, but the stuff at the beginning was pretty entertaining. Starts off with an actual cutscene and then changes to a comic book style to tell the story, with some pretty good voice acting. Haven't seen a scene of this nature in awhile, though, with it becoming a "read some text" game.. The main character and his friend crashed their ship, and are now helping the citizens of this strange new land.

 

The world is really bright and colorful, and fun to explore. With some puzzles here and there, that aren't too complicated. Enemies are visible on the map, and coming too close to them will result in you entering a field of battle (like the Tales of/Star Ocean games). And various animals can be snuck up on and caught for materials. Though it's quicker to just run up to them, in my opinion. They rarely all vanish before I grab one.

 

The battle system is fun. You are placed in one-on-one fights, and it feels something like a fighting game. But not a super complicated one. You press and to attack and perform combos, while blocking and parrying with . Holding will bring up your list of spells, which you can assign one to each face button. And directions on the d-pad can be used to consume assigned items. There's also a powerful move called Hyper, which you can activate with a full energy bar. Then you have to input a button combination pretty quickly to have it succeed. Fights with multiple enemies will result in having multiple rounds, and you can switch between party members with . Another one will also take a knocked out party member's place. If every party member goes down, I'm assuming it's Game Over. But haven't had that happen yet. 

 

Equipment reminds me of... FF9? I think that was the one that had something like this. But equipping something with a new spell or combo attack will let you use it in battle, and using it enough times will let you master it. Then you permanently have access to the skill. Materials can be used to craft new equipment and items at shops. 

 

So yeah, had a good time with this one yesterday. Hope it continues.

 

Time played: 5 hours.

Trophy progress: 9/43 for 14% and an A rank.

[Oobedoob S Benubi]

 

SOMA

Non-VR game #5

Final Review

Total playtime: not sure but definitely over 9 hours

Trophy count: 10/10, 100%, for an S rank

Did it lower my completion percentage? Nope, apparently all trophies were story related.

 

So, I won't use my usual template with a haiku/limerick. This is because I want to, NEED to, talk about the game, in spoilers, and I don't want unsuspecting people to have the game spoiled since it's my MO to put the regular reviee inside a spoiler.

 

Consider yourself warned, do NOT open any SPOILERS in this review unless you've finished SOMA yourself (or if you are sure you will never want to play it)!

 

Well, now we've got that out of the way, the review can start.

 

I was in doubt about adding one or two golds to my three point score instead of platinums, but what the hell, I'm feeling generous.

 

I have to say, knowing the trophy list was so small (nine silvers and a bronze) up front (though I hadn't actually read the trophy names and descriptions yet, as I never do with a story game), I thought the game was much smaller and less well put together than it actually was. I figured this would be Gone Home size, maybe a bit more spread out across a larger map, but this game is bigger than Everybody's Gone To The Rapture.

 

That I use two "interactive story" games as a comparison is no accident. SOMA is, at heart, an exploration game. By reading documents, listening to audio files, and conversation, you slowly find out what happened in the game's setting. There's additional gameplay in two flavours - one, puzzles (in several ways, as in searching puzzles - example: finding a specific item you need to advance - and direct ones - example: finding the right way on a computer to unlock a door), and two, stealth. The last one might be off-putting for people who just want the atmosphere. Most of the game is exploration, and the stealth sections can have Alien Isolation levels of frustration to those who aren't prepared. But fear not, as the developers even want those people who just want to explore to experience the game and the game has a "safe" mode where the enemies can't hurt you. I want to mention this in my review, because I think the game's setting and story are great and just because you don't like stealthily hiding from monsters in your games shouldn't be a reason not to get SOMA.

 

In the end, SOMA is a very entertaining game with lots of twists and turns. It stays interesting until the end, it manages to avoid the mistakes that Alien Isolation made in my eyes (which were annoying additional enemies - just keep it to the Alien please, don't be scared that I'll think it's too little gameplay without those annoying humans and bots - and too much backtracking) and it's just overall great.

 

So, on to looking at the story, so here are SPOILERS. SERIOUSLY... SPOILERS.

 

Spoiler

I saw the ending coming. That is to say, I saw it coming that IF the Ark would be successfully launched at all, then we'd stay with the Simon that was left behind. I didn't see that post credits scene coming.

 

Simon was acting pretty dim on the matter. I mean, the first time he switched bodies I didn't see it coming - I knew that it would act as a file transfer, I just thought the old body would be shut down before the new body would be booted up. But apparently that's not the way Catherine thinks. It would've prevented some trouble if she had linked the upload to the shutdown of the old body - Simon wouldn't have been the wiser - but she'd rather copy past than cut paste, and there's something to say for that too. It'd suck, "losing the coin toss", but, well, if Simon had kept his cool, they probably could have figured something else out. They were included in the Ark, and the Simon and Catherine that stayed on Earth might have figured something out too - like help WAU improve on his humans. There were bodies lying around and apparently WAU's last effort was Simon, which was a pretty strog improvement over earlier efforts. Alternatively they could have gone to the surface - apparently the comet did not cause a planetwide extinction, as documents in the game show the whale and squid populaces getting hit badly but even within months they were already bouncing back, so there's a probability that smaller animals on the surface survived too, perhaps even humans in bunkers. Two robo-humanoid buddies in diving suits probably could have survived and started the rebuild. All it would have taken... Was a little bit of patience.

 

Next up: the story as a whole. I love this kind of story, where there either has been or will be an apocalypse, and the story follows humanity desperately to figure out a way to live on, in any way possible. SOMA, along with Horizon Zero Dawn and The Talos Principle, are the best stories like this I've experienced in recent years. If anyone has recommendations about games with this kind of story, please tell me. Just make sure that the fact that it's a story like this isn't an endgame spoiler

 

Lastly, the Ark. I've seen comments online about the Ark not being significant at all since it's digitised people in a satellite cage, with no way of communicating to the outside. However, I've heard a (possibly missable) conversation in-game where Simon asks Catherine what the first thing she would do on the Ark is, and she talks about all sorts of maintenance checks, which makes it pretty explicit to me that she has a way inside the Ark of controlling the satellite. And if she has that, then it's safe to say that there's also some form of robotic arms and/or mic system so they can figure out to 'do' stuff and communicate with any other life forms they might find. So I'd say it's a pretty open ending, but one filled with, as Catherine says, hope.

 

Final score: 

 

Up next:

I still have Astro Bot to play, next up as non-VR would be Valley as the only planned non-VR game left on my list. I'm now at a total of seven played games for the event, sounds like it's on schedule.

Edited November 20, 2018 by Agent 47
typo

[Arctic Cress]

Game #4 - Yakuza Kiwami 2

Trophies: 6/59 (8% - E)

Playtime - 4 hours

 

Last November, for Kill Your Completion V, I started my first Yakuza game, Yakuza Kiwami, and enjoyed it very much, enough to push it to one trophy away from the platinum. I just can't get past the car chase on legend difficulty there, but I've done everything in the game besides that. Eventually, I just decided to move on and continue with the series.

 

Yakuza Kiwami 2 starts a year after the events in the first game. Kazuma Kiryu is living a peaceful life with Haruka Sawamura, his foster daughter, when certain events transpire that place him back into the Tojo Clan's affairs once more. Instead of staying within Kamurocho as in the previous title, this game features another area, Sotenbori, Osaka, which is based off of the actual Osaka district of Dotonbori (similar to how Kamurocho is based off of Kabukicho, Tokyo). So far, the story has had a lot of interesting parts and is much more engaging than the one in Kiwami, even though I'm only in Chapter 4. Kiwami's story kind of moved around at somewhat of a dull pace after the beginning chapters, so it's a welcome change.

 

Like most Yakuza games, it wouldn't be the same without a huge host of mini-games and other activities designed to waste your time provide more content in the game, and Sotenbori itself adds a few more games onto the list, such as a golf mini-game and a bizarre game called Toylets which has to be experienced to be believed. There's also over 70 substories in this game and I've gone through twelve of them so far. I really enjoyed some of the substories that were present in Kiwami, so I am excited to continue with these here. You can unlock the skill Substory Finder very early on to find all the available substories, and I've run dry of them in Sotenbori so I'll probably have to continue the story again.

 

Yakuza Kiwami 2 uses a new engine and with it, the game has seamless transitions where you can now enter and exit buildings, restaurants, and other areas seamlessly with no loading, which is an amazing step forward for the series. However, the combat system that was well fleshed out in Kiwami with its multiple styles of fighting has been lessened in Kiwami 2. Instead of multiple styles you get one style with a bunch of moves from each of the styles in Kiwami jumbled together. It's not exactly very exciting so far, but hopefully it develops a bit better once I've unlocked more of it. The EXP in this game is also done differently - you collect points in five different sections, with each corresponding to various upgrades. It can be annoying when you're looking to raise enough points for a certain skill and you can't find enough to get that one section up (I was looking to level up the red section at one point and none of the food in the restaurant I was in gave anything towards that) so it's hit or miss here. I think like before though I will probably have more EXP than I will ever need so it's less of an issue.

 

I'm interested in going back to this later and continuing the story - I feel like I'll enjoy it more than Kiwami overall even with the lesser combat system in this game. That's for another time though.

 

Starting completion: 70.74%

Current completion: 69.93%

Difference: -0.81%

Dynasty Warriors 9: 11/44 (17% - D)

SoulCalibur VI: 15/49 (29% - C)

Gal*Gun 2: 18/37 (42% - C)

Yakuza Kiwami 2: 6/57 (8% - E)

 

A significant loss here, as I only got six trophies (a lot of it is story related or backloaded so it will take some time). I'm nearing the end of Word Sudoku by POWGI though so that will bump it up a bit once finished. Next game up is Shining Resonance Refrain, to lead me into the Thanksgiving weekend.

[Hemiak]

Looks like the event is going well so far. Keep up the good work everyone and thanks again Voodoo for taking over. 

 

Happy gaming. 

[voodoo_eyes]

Game #5 - Fate/Extella: The Umbral Star - Final Impression

 

 

Time played: around 3 hours

Trophies earned: 11/53

 

 

Barely made it to the 3 hour mark with this one. The reason for that is mostly due to the type of game it is. While I enjoy  musou games in general, they're the type of game that I can only play in short burst wihout getting bored. The other reason is that I've been playing Evil Within 2 on the side, and that game is fantastic, so it kind of sucked me in.

 

 

Anyway, back to Fate/Extella. As mentioned, it's a musou game, although it has a few twists to it. While there are several sectors that need to be taken over/defended, it's a lot faster to get from one to the next. Reason being, that they're separated into individual sections, that are linked by warp areas. As such it literally takes seconds to get from one sector to the next. I love that idea, as I absolutely hated the often long interludes of riding from one to the other, as it's the case in the other games of this genre. The art style is more vibrant and colourful.

 

The combat is very fast paced, which is great. You have your usual normal and heavy attacks that can be combo-ed together, then there's the special attack as well as two novelties. One is a transformation that increases attack, with idfferent combos that last about 30 seconds. The other one is a bit weirder, as it seems to vary a bit depending on the character you are using. It's another kind of transformation that just does one single attack for huge damage, but it also has different properties occasionally. It's sort of a symbol that consists of 3 individual symbols. When activating that ability, it gives you various choices, namely how many symbols you want to use. Using one can revive you,using two I don't remember to be honest and using 3 increases your stats for the duration of the ability. That's exactly the point where it turns a bit into a mess.

 

What contributes to this is how characters are divided in this game. So there's the story missions, consisting of four archs. You seemingly have to complete one to unlock the next one. During the story you control a main character and some equipment can allow you to switch with a "servant" character. These have their own side-missions and are dependant on those to be played to actually level up. These side-missions are fairly bland and limited to 5 out of several servants.You have to play through the previously completed story missions with those weaker characters. The oddity though is that from the second level onward, the missions are level gated. So I started the 1st mission at level 1 and got to level 5 in that mission and the second mission is for level 8. Meaning I^d have to play through each mission several times over, as every servant has to go through them,. That^s just taking the piss and poor a poor design choice. I hate it when games try to artificially lengthen their actual playtime, because their main content hasn't enough to offer and this feels just like that.

 

There is a weird equipment and skill system in this game, that I don't like. Both are either enemy drops or rewards for reaching a higher bond level with a specific servant. These bonds increase bz doing the character^s side missions and giving them adequate responses during dialog choices. So if you intended to skip dialogue because the story is kind of crap, you^ll have to put in some guess work when it comes to picking the right answer. For those curious about the language settings, it's Japanese voices only with subs in English.

 

The number of characters is very limited in the beginning, which is a bit unusual for this type of game. You gradually unlock more the further you get in the story. In a way it's good because you actually get to experience several characters.However if you don't particularly like playing with the character you^re stuck with, tough luck.

 

 

Well, you can probably guess what^s coming. While this game gives a refreshing touch to the genre and is fun in short bursts, the whole side mission nonsense and limitations just dampen the enjoyment. Not good enough to be a good game, so it's another .

Edited November 25, 2018 by voodoo_eyes

[SolarCat02]

I have Soul Suspect and The Witcher 3 left on my list, but I have not been in the mood to play either. Husband is terribly sick, everyone wants everything done before Thanksgiving, and I have been taking care of the kiddo and my husband and trying to squeeze everything into the reduced hours I am able to do at work what with the pickup and drop off and don't even get me started on what we've been eating this week... ? ?

 

So booting up Tacoma instead. No idea which one on my original list I am replacing. I will figure that out when breathing is possible again. 

 

EDIT: So, editing this post to avoid a double post. This game is going to be shorter than I thought. Don't regret buying it, I am enjoying it, but keep in mind it is very short. 

 

The basic gist... 

This is a Science Fiction "interactive drama" where you play some sort of data retrieval specialist who is traveling to a space station to collect data records left behind. In the process you get to experience via virtual reality the last few days of the crew aboard the ship. (It says they were evacuated, I don't think they died). Six people plus an AI, running some sort of "hospitality" ship or something. As you go you can investigate their computer files as well as their personal belongings, and learn more about them. 

 

It's a game but not quite I guess? It's perfect for me today with the relaxation I need at the moment. If you want something intense or difficult or requiring thought to progress, this isn't it. But the story it is setting up does show glimpses of dystopia and raise some interesting thoughts on a variety of topics including AI, corporate control, employee retention techniques, and just plain human interaction in general. As a simple example, if you investigate everything you learn that the supervisor received disciplinary action for repeatedly making a request for access to something. You learn soon afterwards that one of her employees keeps requesting this access because she feels she cannot perform her job without it... And that as frustrated as she clearly is that the supervisor said no again, the supervisor does not reveal that she was disciplined for trying to get the employee the access she feels she needs. 

 

It's just the little things like that, the tiny pieces clicking together, that adds depth to this otherwise simple interactive drama not-quite-game. 

 

I am enjoying it! But it's not for everyone. 

Edited November 21, 2018 by SolarCat02

[Edunstar84]

Game #5 - Final Impressions

 

Playtime: 8 hours

Trophies: 5/55

Trophy Completion %: 75.56%, -2.25 (the lowest it's been for ages)

 

I am soooo late. I had this review written since Thursday/Friday, and I'm 2 games behind. But don't worry I'll be on track in no time. So now for the review....

 

Story: So as I said before you play as Kou who happens to find himself in a dungeon-like setting, which is created by the darkness of people's feelings. You know..the usual...greed, jealousy, etc. Anyway, he meets a girl who fights with an organization to collect info about the dungeon. The 2nd time you find yourself in a dungeon, your childhood best friend gets stuck in one, which makes you angry, and somehow gives you the power to save her. 

 

Gameplay: It's very simple, once you get use to the flow of battle. You have buttons to dodge, attack, and jump. You also can only control 1 character at a time, but you can switch between them when there happens to be an enemy that character is strong against. At the end of the dungeon, but before defeating the final boss, you get graded on how efficient you went through the dungeon. So far I've earned S ranks on 3 (I think) dungeons. I'm playing on Easy though. What's great about the system is that you can redo dungeons and bosses to earn a higher rank. 

 

Soundtrack: Pretty standard JRPG music. 

 

Platinum: There's a lot to do to earn some of the trophies: collect all books, S rank all dungeons (need 2 playthroughs), open all treasure chests, and complete the game on the highest difficulty.

 

Recommend: If you love the Legend of Heroes and Persona series, there's a good chance you'll like this one. Also, if, like me, you're still waiting for Cold Steel 3 and 4 to drop, this game can serve as a nice filler. And we'll be waiting for a good while.

Edited November 21, 2018 by Edunstar84