Kill Your Completion ∞

[Caju_94]

Only two games left to review in order to complete review 5 games during this event. 

 

I would like however to swap Ratchet & Clank 2 (Vita) with Spyro the Dragon (PS4). I'm not really into starting a new game on my Vita for now, since I am really enjoying Lost Dimension and Ray Gigant (a game I started before the event). Is there any problem in doing that?

 

I started with Spyro the Dragon and I will still start with Shiness Kingdom this weekend probably.  

[voodoo_eyes]

Game #6 - Megadimension Neptunia VII - Preview

 

 

This game has one of the most nonsensical titles ever. To be clear this is the 4th installment in the main series and as such there is no reason as to why it should be presented as the 7th. Furthermore, supposedely it's not even to be read as the roman numerals VII, but as V II.

 

There have been 12 games in total in the series, two of them having only been released in Japan, additionally there have been 4 remakes. I^ve played 5 of them, some were fun others were just decent. The spin-offs were still the more enjoyable ones overall though.

 

For this one I hope for a total makeover in gameplay structure and progression as well as visuals. Especially the latter as the previous games look like PS2 titles. Putting "anime" characters in an ugly 3D world just doesn't fly anymore. If this one forces me to grind levels in order to progress through Chapter 2 like Victory did, I'm out.

Edited November 25, 2018 by voodoo_eyes

[MarkusT1992]

Game #5: The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing (Final Day)

 

 

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing is a game based on the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker. You play as Van Helsing, the son of Abraham Van Helsing from the book.

I know all of that only because I looked it up on wikipedia. I originally thought it had something to do with the anime Hellsing, but apparently not. I know none of the both things so it doesn't matter.

 

Van Helsing is a Diablo like game. With that I mean that you play one character and fight against hoards of enemies at once. The view is top-down just like Diablo's. The health and mana bars are also the same. It just looks and feels like Diablo in many ways.

At the start of the game you can choose one of three classes. The standard class is a hunter, which seems to be the only available class without DLC. Since this is the Extende Edition you can also choose a Thaumaturge and some kind of mechanic. I picked the thaumaturge as he's the magican class and I alway pick magic.

 

You have a companion called Katarina who is a ghost. You can adjust her behavior so it suits you. For me she does melee attacks and normaly acts as a tank while I shoot my magic from the distance. That's why she already died a few times. When that happens she just appears again after a while.

While fighting your way through the maps of the world you can get alot of loot. So much in fact, that my inventory is full pretty quick. The good thing is that you can warp back to the city anytime to sell your stuff. Enemies you killed seem to stay dead. I don't know if the respawn eventually but so far no respawns. That means it's no big deal to go back to the city to clear your inventory of all your stuff.

 

You gain levels by killing the enemies and completing quests. With each level you can level up your stats and learn new skills or upgrade them. There are a lot of skills you can learn, active and passiv. You can only equip up to five active skills so you have to decide what to use. It seems a bit much and overwhelming at first but after you know what you want it isn't that bad anymore.

 

Some objects in the world are portals to another dimension I guess called the Ink. These parts are mostly small ereas you have to enter for quests. One was a giant scarecrow which I had to fight once I entered the Ink.

 

All In all I enjoyed the game up to the point I'm now. I just entered the second bigger map of the game. I never really played any Diablo but some other games like it like Path of Exile. Van Helsing feels pretty much like the other games I played of this type and I wanted to play one again, so I'm kind of glad I tried Van Helsing. I don't know when I will continue with the game because I have other games I want to play first but I might play it a bit besides the other games I want to play.

 

Time played: Maybe 5h

Trophies: 10/41

Rating:

[XX_FTW]

I knew this would be a tough month to get in time to play (and it has) but I didn’t anticipate the hardest part being finding time to update you guys! So here we go with my impressions of game 2 and 3 of 5.

 

Game 2 - Burly Men at Sea

 

I ended up needing to swap in a game for game 2 after several days in a row of forgetting to switch out the Va-11 Hall-A cart for Deemo’s and downloaded Burly Men at Sea to my vita one day at work to play on my commute home. The game had caught my eye on several occasions simply because of its title treatment and profile image and I’d nearly purchased it myself on every such occasion. Well, PS Plus to save the day and I have to say folks, this is the sort of game I love to see get the promotion boost that is PS Plus. It’s the type of game I think most gamers would either never see/know exists or never give a chance to if not for the service. So bonus points to Sony for giving me the opportunity to partake in this game—and have people to talk to about it.

 

Several people have/will cover this game throughout this challenge so I won’t go on too long about it. I was so charmed by this game. It’s presentation and aesthetic is flawless and cohesive. It’s humor is mild but effective. The story branches in new and surprising ways based directly on your decisions. And the controls are simple and intuitive. Now, adventure games aren’t every one’s cup of tea but I enjoy them. I’m not one of those people that deny adventures as games (I find that line of thought needlessly oversimplified, reductive, gatekeep-y, and frankly hypocritical, but I digress) but I think even gamers who do feel that way could give this a try and get something out of it. At less than 30 minutes a playthrough, it’s a low commitment and charming af. If you’ve been on the fence, I hope you’ll give it a shot. At the very least, it’s a quick plat.

 

Game 3 - Deemo

 

Guys, I’m having a really good run of games for this challenge so far. Each of them I want to digest to completion. The previous two games were story-focused; Deemo is alllllll mechanics.

 

For those unfamiliar, Deemo is a touch-screen rhythm game centered around piano motifs. When I say touch screen, I mean it. None of the vita’s button inputs work with the game. It is entirely touch from mechanics to pausing to story development. I believe the game may have been ported from mobile but it is right at home on the vita.

 

Mechanically, you are tapping the screen with the goal of creating the music (which generally speaking is tied to the piano sections of the various tracks) at the correct tempo. At the bottom of the screen is the a line representing the bar. The background looks like sheet music with the five staves stretching out before you. The notes you need to match come toward you and, if done optimally, you touch the screen at the moment the note meets the bar. There are two types of inputs: notes (which are either individual or appreggio notes represented by a short black line or a chord which are drawn as longer black lines and played by tapping the screen where/when it hits the bar) and slides (which are gold lines representing notes played in quick succession and is played by holding your finger down and sliding across to hit where each note lands as they land). Multiple notes and types of notes may need to be played at any given moment depending on the song and difficulty. And guys, this game gets hard. Generally I don’t recommend starting on easy for rhythm games but this one you might want to at least until you have a feel for the mechanics and timings.

 

I feel like I’ve been talking awhile so I’ll only just briefly touch on the music and story of the game as they are interwoven. There are two main characters in the game, Deemo the pianist and a little girl who somehow came to this place. It seems to me as though the songs are the communication between the two. Deemo’s songs are moody, generally w/o vocals, and lean into classical styles. The girl’s are more energetic, w/ vocals, and tend more contemporary in their musical styles like pop and electronicsa. I’m not sure yet of the overall story being told as I only unlocked a couple of the anime cutscenes (which are beautiful as is the key art used for each song) but I think they may be growing a tree with their music performances to help the girl return to her life above. Regardless, I really loved the art, the music, the mechanics—everything!—about this game. Do give it a shot.

 

I’ve taken screenshots of my profile between each game so I’ll get the stats together but my phone battery is running out... next time.

[dizzyshadow]

So I've encountered a problem with my VR games, its very difficult to play with a cat sat your lap, given most of my gaming time is generally spent with an immovable cat plonked on my lap, this has limited my ability to get through these games, to get round this i've been alternating between game 6 & 7 depending on whether the cat is around or not,

 

Game 6:  Moss 

 

 

I didn't know much about this game other than it was highly rated, so i had quite high expectations going into this game, often that leads to disappoint when games don't quite live up to it, but not his time i was absolutely blown away by this game, it works really well with the VR and is an excellent example of what can be done to create an immersive 3D world and as an added bonus no motion sickness. 

 

The story follows Quill on a journey to rescue his uncle, however its set as if you are a "reader" of a book, however the animals in the story are aware of your presence and that you are helping them to complete, the actual game play is fairly basic puzzle platformer with a little bit of combat thrown in, the difference is you as the reader can reach into the world and interact or intervene to help Quill out, this is quite unique and makes for an interesting experience.

 

I'm not usually one to be that impressed by graphics but the world they have created here is gorgeous and the attention to detail is fantastic, it really makes you feel like you are immersed in a real environment and you are constantly noticing little details

 

The game isn't particularly long or that difficult (although the no death play through required for the platinum may be a challenge) but it really has been a brilliant experience, I'd recommend anyone with a VR headset give this ago.

 

Play Time: 3 hours

Trophies : 17/32

Rating: 

Edited November 21, 2018 by dizzyshadow

[dizzyshadow]

Game 7 : Ticket to Ride

 

Ticket to ride is conversion of a board game into digital format, using the playlink functionality. Its one of my families favourite board games and something we have been playing for many years. the game play is fairly straightforward, you are trying to build a railroad on an map (USA or france in this version), to do this you collect card of different colours and when you have enough of a certain colour you can claim a route between 2 cities, the aim of the game is get the most points from building these routes and from completing ticket you have been dealt (which involves joining your railway between these 2 locations), its easy to pick up but incredibly fun each map generally has its own quirks but they all use the same basic mechanics.As its a playlink all control is handled by your phone or tablet, you need to download the app on every device and its a fairly hefty download so a bit of set up is required. The TV then acts as the board, however to be honest it unnecessary and i spent most of my time just staring at my tablet as everything is shown on there. 

 

The reason for buying was I was keen to see if this digital version could replace it the physical copy. The answer is a resounding no for now, there are plenty of bugs at present which makes the game frustrating at best or unplayable at points, there is a glitched trophy so the plat is unachieveable, and the pricing is very disappointing, making so many maps a DLC and so expensive (to buy everything costs in the region of £60) was a big mistake in my opinion.

 

They have at least put some decent thought into the trophies, however realistically they have made them too difficult to obtain in natural play (the requirements can be spoiled easily by other player and there is nothing you can do about it) but they are very easy to boost (even with yourself) providing you have more than 1 device. Also they have missed a massive trick by not including online play, its clearly been designed for couch co-op, but the IOS version does online play brilliant and this is what made it work, playing strangers from around the world or friends and family wherever they are. This will get a bit of use in couch co-op but it will be very limited.

 

There is a good game here but if you want to play it pick up the physical copy or the IOS version which is much better right now.

 

Playtime: 5 hours

Trophies: 20/69

Rating: 

Completion: 54.94% (-0.96%)

 

Next Up : The American Dream (VR)

[PerryToxteth]

KYC 8

Game No. 6

Blackwood Crossing

 

 

Playing Time: 3 hours

Trophies Earned: 18/23 (77% C ranking)

   Well, another KYC event is starting to get away from me. Running out of time to play, do reviews, etc., etc. Sadly, I haven't even been able to do first impressions for most of my games. With this week being Thanksgiving here in the States, I'll have even less time for gaming but I tried to pick short games in case I only get an hour or so to play from here on out. But good job everybody on the reviews! I can't recall another KYC event where there have been so many games I've added to my watchlist; and all because of the great reviews! 

And now onto Blackwood Crossing...

Final Thoughts: I knew my run of playing great games during this event would come to an end at some point and it has with Blackwood Crossing. It's not a bad game, but it's certainly not great. Best way to describe this is story-driven game that takes place in the Twilight Zone, to the point the developers may be liable for copyright infringements. 

  Basically, you play the character of Scarlett, a teenage English girl who runs around dealing with her annoying, bratty little brother named Finn. Finn pretty much throws gasoline around and you are responsible for putting out the fires. The Twilight Zone comes in by the setting constantly switching. Just as you accomplish a task in the a train car, the setting suddenly switches to a treehouse.

  After playing for an hour or so, I suddenly realized this game was very similar to Everybody's Gone to the Rapture with the storytelling. There really isn't dialogue but just one-liners and snippets of conversations that don't follow a chronological pattern. You have to piece them together to figure out what is happening, or just like EGTTR, what HAPPENED. Everything occured in the past. It's a neat premise but it falls pretty short in the execution and mainly on the gaming end because there just isn't much to do.  The setting looks good but you can't really react with most items. What's worse, with the stuff you can interact with, there's a game delay in the prompt. So you might look at something but because the prompt is so delayed, you move on thinking there's nothing to do. Only to come back five minutes later because you're stuck, and finally getting the prompt because you stood still for 5 seconds. Aargh!

  Also, the gameplay is in first-person and it can get dizzying at times. I wonder if this was originally intended for a VR release but got scrapped at the end. I managed to finish the story and I will admit that is done well enough to provide an emotional charge to the game. But because the gameplay is so boring, I was more anxious  to be done than to find out the ending. Sadly, I have to replay it because I missed some collectibles. That's what you get for going in blind. If you decide to play this, definitely use a collectible guide. It's not worth going through twice. Also, I feel the developers decided to make this Trophy Whore bait with all the gold trophies the game gives out for doing miniscule tasks. There's 8 in total (and a plat) for a 2-3 hour game. But I guess thats the trend in gaming these days...

I'll rank this as a  because it's story-driven and it delivered on that end. 

 

Next Up: F1 Race Stars

[ImBossy83]

Final thoughts Game #3

Resident Evil 7 VR

 

I wanted to play Resident Evil 7 in VR because it always gets pointed out as the AAA Game in VR. I was a bit hesitant because I'm not a big fan of horror Games but since i wanted to get some use out of my PSVR i decided to try it out.
There are a bunch of optimisation options for your VR experience, you can for example switch on this white Grit that moves with you and is supposed to give you a better sense of depth. You can decide how the turning shot work, for example you could play the game with 30°turns or smooth turning. But since i always had strong VR legs i decided to play it pretty much as it is when played without VR.

The feeling of horror was intense. I think this is probably the most scared i was in a long time. For me it all was a bit too intense. Moving and also the first fighting scene and shooting worked well and it was a really convincing experience.

 

The second time i played ended with me getting a knife stuck in the head and that was the moment i decided that i quit playing this game,at least in VR, because getting a knife in the Head in VR is not something i want to happen to me again.

 

Playtime:  2 hours
Trophies: 5/59 Rank E
Enjoyment: 5/10

 

 

Initial thoughts Game #4

Yakuza Kiwami

 

I don't have a lot of experience with Yakuza Games, I only ever played Yakuza 0 for a couple of hours, but i must say i really like the beginning of this Game.

The basic gameplay is a kind of mix between open world and fighting game. The story so far is fun and the first few fight where great. I don't have much else to say but i like it so far.

 

Playtime:  1 hour
Trophies: 1/59 Rank E
Enjoyment: 8/10

[Kevvik]

Game #7: Headlander

 

Initial/Day 3 Impressions

Time played: 3.5 hrs

 

Headlander is a sci-fi shooter/Metroidvania made by Double Fine on board with Adult Swim. You play a head. Really. A head is a rocket powered helmet. As you have no vocal cords, you don't speak so the game is "narrated" by Earl who is guiding you forward to figure out why a flesh and blood head still exists in a time when peoples' personalities have been transferred into androids.  You are also being hunted by shepherds (combat droids) in the service of Methusulah, what appears to be an old AI.

 

 So how do you fight? By vacuuming off the shepherds heads with a mod to your helmet, then attaching to the body and fighting with that. Sound like fun? I thought so too.  The combat is serviceable if not great but the idea works. Different shepherds have access to different areas as you progress the story, based on the color of the shepherd (red, yellow, green, you get the idea). As you find hidden areas, you pick up boosts to health, power, thrust and unlock XP to get other upgrades as well.

 

So why aren't I enjoying this that much? Frankly, I really don't know but I'm just not getting into it. Even before a glitched mission that wouldn't let me turn it in for the XP by telling me I hadn't cleared a room even though repeatedly returning there shows me it is clear. No manual save that I've noticed and auto save occurs pretty often so fortunately I had backed up a save to the cloud and bounced back there. Me and auto saves just aren't getting along these days.

 

Just not feeling this game but we'll see what it feels like when I come back to it later.

 

Trophies earned: 8/31, 22% for D rank

Score so far: 4/10

 

Completion Rate: 81.15% (-0.74% for the event)

 

Side note: Finished the plat on Obduction. Not the masterpiece that Myst was but a solid experience though the ending felt rushed. The only other negative is the constant loading times when warping. Really excessive. Would still love to try it in VR.

Final score: 8/10

 

Next up: Hoping to do Silent Hill 2 but not 100% sure yet. Company coming the next few days so maybe 3D Dot Game Heroes instead.

 

[Metal Slime King]

Game #6 - Final Fantasy XV Multiplayer Expansion: Comrades () - PS4

This game kind of sucked up most of my time for 6 days and threw off my schedule as it also sucked up all of my hard drive space on my PS4 as well. I finished all of the mp trophies then deleted FFXV so I could download updates for FFXIV and get into the remainder of a free month of server access they are currently offering because of course they are offering a free month of FFXIV service at the same time they are making unknown changes to how the mp in FFXV works.

 

Anyways, Comrades is the multiplayer expansion of Final Fantasy XV currently added to the base game as DLC which is scheduled on Dec 12th to be removed from the game and become available as a stand alone application. No one currently knows for certain exactly how that will effect the existing trophy availability. The game takes place between chapters 13 and 14 in the main game and as such contain some spoilers, which the game will remind you of and ask if you're sure you want to proceed if you haven't got that far. I haven't played very far at all in the main game, there were some spoilers for sure but they aren't really an issue for me. As I stated previously, you roll your own character who is a recovered soldier from the Kingsglaive with foggy memories. Your new task is to bring light back to the world by essentially bringing fantasy coal back to the last remaining town that has a power plant and routing the power you generate to open up the world map. In opening up the world map you collect new, harder missions, bonus items and sigils, which act as a sort of interchangeable class system. Equipping different sigils changes your stats and how your character acts in combat. Opening the map and collecting all the sigils appears to be the primary objective in the game. Much like FFXV itself, Comrades is an action RPG where you engage with various FF enemies. In Comrades engagements are isolated to missions you select from a menu after unlocking them in the world map. The combat is rightfully panned as being a little to oversimplified, you could hold throughout an entire mission to continually attack the nearest enemy. There are some advanced mechanics in combat to spice it up a bit, you can parry and counter an attack to put an enemy into a vulnerable state. On larger enemies there are often multiple points you can attack that will cripple or help you get rare item drops from an enemy. They did a really good job capturing the iconic FF enemies in 3D and presenting them in different environments and some of the encounters are quite impressive.

 

Missions start in a base camp where you gather a team of 4 players, this functions as an ad-hoc lobby. You can start an open lobby that is available for any other players to join or create a custom lobby that is only visible to PSN friends or anyone with a 4 digit password or you can just start with 3 AI bots. Any empty spaces will be filled from (the rather small selection of) random AI bots. It's a rather informal way to handle match making and I would've rather seen a more formalized group approach. Like this is a group of people that will be doing a series of missions together and just a group leader can pick the mission and drag the rest of the group along instead of each individual having to join a players base camp each mission. Perhaps this will be one of the changes to the stand alone version. The AI bots are functional for the most part but are less helpful in certain mission types such as defend where human players might more effectively split their attention. The AI's levels scale to yours but xp levels in this game aren't nearly as important as properly building a weapon set. You can equip four weapons and switch between them with the d-pad. Each weapon has it's own stats that are pooled onto your character stats if they are equipped, not just currently selected. You can build weapon stats by reinforcing weapons with resources you get from mob drops. The AI's keeping their scrub tier gear is the biggest factor which limit them in later missions and makes it preferable to play with other well equipped human players.

 

As a minor addition to FFXV I thought this was a really fun and content rich little bite sized RPG appetizer. I'm not entirely sure about Squares decision to pull it into it's own game or ultimately how that decision will be received. Since the stand alone version is supposed to be free for anyone who owns the season's pass I would probably play it again if it has a unique trophy list. If it just feeds back into the existing trophies I probably won't bother with it, though it was fun the first time I've got plenty of other games to play. The graphics and audio were of course FF calibre. Game mechanics worked well enough although the combat could have been more engaging. The load times seem a little long, particularly since they could've just as easily handled the matchmaking in a menu or automatically and dumped you right into the mission. It's not the best the game to play hungry, there's a little mechanic about finding food items in a mission and bringing them back to camp where a random person makes a random meal from the ingredients provided which gives you a random buff for the next mission and some of them looked pretty tasty. Malboro tentacle soup, not so much.

Edited November 22, 2018 by Metal Slime King

[DamagingRob]

Game #7

Shiness: The Lightning Kingdom- Final Review

 

Still really enjoying this. But enemies have started to hit hard. Lol. They can knock you out in no time, and if you're not careful, you'll get a Game Over. Like I have.. So, I will be trying for the no Game Over trophy on the next playthrough, since it marks every save file with a red flower as soon as one registers. :/ Not sure if downloading a save from Plus will prevent this or not, but will test it early on. Otherwise, I will have to play very carefully and close the game if it looks like I'm in trouble. 

 

Everything about it just feels like a JRPG you'd get from a big name developer, though probably a bit short when compared to those. Eventually, you get a creature you can summon and ride that functions like a Chocobo. A music track reminded me of one from FF7. And you get an item that lets you teleport to places you've been, making for easier backtracking for sidequests. 

 

Speaking of sidequests, there are missable ones. And choices that affect which ending you get. I couldn't find a trophy guide for this game, but the achievements are exactly the same, and there was a guide for that. Including a complete walkthrough, which can help with not missing anything. Been extremely helpful. Link to guide.

 

It is best to try being at or above enemy levels, though. Even being a level or two below them can lead to you having a rough time.. But this is a really good indie game, in my opinion. Love the combat and graphics. Story and music are pretty good, too. Looking forward to resuming it. Score: .

 

Time played: 15 hours.

Trophy progress: 23/43 for 37% and an A rank. Easy A. Seems as though people don't even give this one much of a chance. ?

Did it lower my completion? Yes.

[SolarCat02]

So, I finished Tacoma which wasn't really the point of this event, but it was shorter than I realized when I picked it, and I just needed something calm and relaxing to break up this lovely stressful week. So no regrets! 

 

Tacoma is definitely a narrative. The basic premise, you are a contractor for the tourist-centric Venture Corporation, who has sent you to their Tacoma space station to retrieve its AI and bring it back for analysis after a debris field hit the ship causing the loss of all oxygen storage communications. 

 

You don't interact with the station so much as you recover data files and holograms of the six people who worked on board. In the process you learn not only details of the disaster and how each crew member coped both separately and as a team, but also tidbits of their personal lives and histories. Each area you unlock reveals more of the story as you trace their efforts for survival in the face of being left with only 3 days of oxygen (the oxygen in the space station itself),as well as details about the corporate dystopia system in which they live.

 

I won't say more than that to avoid spoilers. I did enjoy the twists towards the end, not that they were completely unexpected but they were very well done, I prefer simplicity in the execution of plot twists as it tends to be more believable than the more complex efforts. 

 

The game itself runs well, although your character cannot run at all. You do have a crouch function but its only real uses for me were to get credit for finding one of the cat holograms, and for slowing me down when moving until I realized that I hit crouch again by accident. There's no combat, the story itself can be unfolded in slightly different orders but not much variation there due to the fact you unlock each section of the spacecraft as you finish the previous. The attention to detail, even with small things, adds a lot of depth to the game. I mean, they even decided to design a futuristic looking toothbrush (which looks totally impractical but whatever) and you stumble into unique little item displays throughout the ship. For example, in botony I found someone's stress smoking corner, with two empty cigarette packs, a ton of used futuristic cigarettes, and a book and stone for "smooth stone meditation". It really is the little things that make this stand out. 

 

If you want an action game, this is not it. 

If you want a quick platinum, yes you can get it here but you would miss out on so much. 

If you want a relaxing investigative narrative story game with depth but no pressure or requirement to solve anything, to just experience and eavesdrop on shadows of the past as you go, I highly recommend this game. 

But it's not for everyone. Don't go into it thinking it's something it's not. It's more passive narrative than game, it's not even like a telltale game, and none of your actions impact the story in any way. Sort of a space based smaller setting Everyone's Gone to the Rapture sort of thing. 

[dmland12]

Game #7: Crawl

Trophies: 27/46 (54%)

Completion: 91.43% (-0.36%, -3.34% from start)

 

Crawl is a pretty weird game.  It's a dungeon crawler, designed for four players (though you can play it just fine solo with AI controlling the others).  The story/setup is simple.  You all start out in some kind of dungeon, but it's cursed or whatnot, and you're all driven to madness and try to kill each other.  Whichever player survives starts out as the hero and the goal is to escape the dungeon by finding a portal and killing the boss within.  The catch is that the other players become ghosts and can possess traps and summon monsters that they can control.  The goal here is obvious: revenge!  Whoever lands the killing blow on the hero becomes the new hero and then tries to get out (or is killed trying, and on and on it goes).  When the hero does make it to the boss, the other players control it's attacks, which is pretty neat.

 

The game's more detailed than I thought it would be.  There's 61 different monsters, including a system where you can level up into better monsters.  There's some similarities, but each one plays differently.  Some have ranged attacks.  Some have defensive or healing abilities.  And the hero also has a lot of different weapons that you can purchase as well as items and special abilities etc.  There's a lot here.  Overall, the game plays fast and hectic especially with the hardest difficulty AI controlling the other three players.

 

I don't mind the old graphics look, but I have to knock this game on it's overall presentation.  Right off the bat, the title screen is purposely flickering and glitching the logo.  The text on the menus pulsates.  The transitions between rooms etc. often seem abrupt and jarring, especially when you're not controlling the hero.  There's some unnecessary flashing and flickering in places.  It's not so much that the graphics or sound are bad, but that they seem to be designed to annoy and irritate.  It's really a shame, since there's some nice gameplay mechanics here as well as some challenging trophies.  Overall, I'd say the gameplay wins out, but, as it is I can't recommend it.

 

If you're interested, here's some of my gameplay.  It's probably going to be hard to tell what's going on.  But, in general, I start out this floor as a ghost and eventually take down a hero, then find a portal and beat the boss.  I'm the blue one.  The rest are hard difficulty AI.

 

 

[vin_rob]

On 14-11-2018 at 9:44 AM, Agent 47 said:

@vin_rob good to know you enjoyed Valkyria Chronicles 4. I still have it lying around.

You should play it, =) 

 

The Order 1886

 

So the Order 1886 is a third-person action-adventure game. In my opinion, the game started a bit weird. I mean you started getting tortured so yeah, that was a weird way to start a game. But after some events, the game really starts. You mostly plat the story before the torture as a flashback. You play as a pretty high ranking member of the Order. The order is in place to protect the “world” I guess from vampires and werewolf’s (Lycan’s). The order has some really high tech weapons for the time (1886) that are mostly developed by the tech guy Tesla.

 

So for the rest controls were pretty good, just walk/run around. Shoot stuff, find collectibles you know the usual. The only thing I had to get used to was that there were quite some quick time events and a bit different then what I was used to. But in the end, it wasn’t really a problem. But yeah, killing some enemy’s with stealth required quick time events.  

 

The Order 1886 isn’t a bit game, it’s also not that hard to get the platinum, especially nog in 5 days .. So that is what I did, in other words, I “repaired” some of the loss I’ve gotten.

[vin_rob]

Disgaea 1 Complete

 

Disgaea 1 complete is a tactical, role playing and turn(ish) based game.

So when you start the game, you take control over the character Laharl, you wake up with your trusted right-hand gall. Your father the demon lord has passed away recently (2 years ago) and you the prince will now go out there and claim his rightful throne by beating the competition.

 

So there is a way of recruiting characters, and also give them a small boost. Recruiting characters cost mana, if you want them to have that small boost. You have to pay more mana. Every character can collect mana, you get mana for every enemy the character kills. The amount of mana you get for each kill depends on how strong the enemy is. You can recruit all kind of teammates when you’ve beaten a monster you can even recruit them. But they cost more.

 

Every chapter has a view missions in there, where you have turn-based battle’s on a grid. You move your characters, give commands and execute them. Then you can give more commands until every character you’ve got deployed did his, her of its move. But you can also end your turn pre-mature. Your characters gain mana, and experience of course so you can level up.

 

There are also other things you can do to mana, you can try and get new rules into the “kingdom” or try and promote your demon rang. Since I’m not that far in the game yet I didn’t get all options yet. But 1 option I did try out a bit was a way to “change” a character to a different kind, and turn it back to level 1. This sounds weird why would you do this?? Well a, you can get a stronger version of the same type and off course you could get a new boost (I think these boost stack) next to an x percentage of growth boost.

 

In the end, I finished something like 8 chapters, and I will probably continue this game after this event, trying a chapter every now and then

So Disgaea 1 complete lowered my completion again since I got 12 % of all trophies

[Oobedoob S Benubi]

8 hours ago, vin_rob said:

You should play it, =) 

 

I should, but I've got it physically so at first it got pushed aside by Atarlink and now it got pushed aside by Pokémon. It's much easier for me to keep playing a digital game one or two levels at a time.

 

 

On my progress in KYC, haven't played anything since SOMA. I wanted to do more in Astro Bot, but my weekend is pretty filled and I don't know what next week will bring. So, I'm going to do three games today with at least one hour of playtime each, so that come what may, at least I did ten games for the event.

[Metal Slime King]

Game #7 - Curses 'n Chaos (PS4, also available on Vita but with 1 shared list.)

I think I found my next hard retro game to chew on in intermittent spurts now that I've platinumed Downwell. Curses 'n Chaos is a retro 2D action game. Each area takes place on one screen, enemies come in waves from all sides. You have to clear 10 waves and then you get a boss encounter. On a first play, it's pretty hard, enemies come fast and can easily overwhelm you. You have 60 seconds to clear a wave or the Grim Reaper starts floating around and taking swipes at you. It's not an instant game over, if you can avoid him and finish the wave then he disappears. I thought it was pretty fun the little bit I played, the trophies look really challenging though. I'll see how it goes.

 

23 hours ago, Kevvik said:

Company coming the next few days so maybe 3D Dot Game Heroes instead.

 

Even though this was a fairly simple zelda 'homage' it's one of my favourite games for PS3. It was pretty hard in it's own right, doing the Spelunker run and booking all the bosses. Best monster encyclopedia mechanic of all time, you hit monsters with a book until they get in the book.

 

I really loved playing around with the character editor, made a transformer that was a car when moving and a robot when attacking! It's a shame the map editor they hint at being originally intended to be included never got finished.

[SystmOveRide]

Game #3: Blue Reflection

Total Playtime: 5-6 hours

Trophy Progress: 5/47; E Rank

Have you ever wanted to attend an all-girls school in Japan? Have you ever wanted to be the heroine of your own shōjo manga? Specifically, have you ever wanted to be a magical girl? If you answered yes to these questions, Blue Reflection may be the game for you!

So as I said with Atelier, Blue Reflection is still a pretty generic JRPG but I'm a sucker for Slice of Life anime so that's why I bought it, I think. 

You play as school girl Hinako who I guess reluctantly becomes the manga protagonist she never wanted to be and has to save people from their emotions that exist on one of four emotional planes. The game is almost reminiscent of a Persona game, you complete some tasks in the outside/overworld and boost your relations with your classmates to receive fragments which can be socketed into your moves to provide secondary effects, and then "The Common" as it's called, is where you fight the demon things that terrorise your classmates.

The combat is pretty plain but somehow it makes me want to play more of it, and it uses a time-line combat system where you can knockback enemies to push their turns back which is pretty cool. The animation I guess is a bit eh compared to lots of other games out of Japan, I don't know how to explain it, maybe just google Blue Reflection cutscenes, there's plenty of them (thankfully once the setting is enabled they're able to be rushed through if you can't be bothered), but you'll see the "airy fairy" animation it has, I guess that's the best way I can describe most of the animation within the game's cutscenes.

Anyway, I actually don't mind the game, and I'll easily play it through to completion, though having just picked up Red Dead 2, not sure when that'll be exactly though ?

[Caju_94]

Game #4 - Spyro the Dragon (Reignited Trilogy)

Playtime: 2h30

 

Having played the original PS1 game, I feel I had enough playtime to make my review of this game. I couldn't resist not buying one of my favourite PS1 game of all time remastered, increasing my backlog with three more games. 

 

For those unfamiliar, Spyro is basically a small dragon who goes through different worlds in order to save the dragons and defeat Gnasty Gnorc, who had to power to turn things into jewels, turning the remaining dragons of the worlds into jewels.

 

I am really, really happy with the work done with this remaster. The remaster is loyal to the original one. The levels have the same structure, the enemies are the same in the exact same place, many sound effects have been preserved and the music soundtrack is not THAT different from the original soundtrack.

 

Of course, it is obvious thet graphically the game is better and is really gorgeous. I really love the level of detail they put into the levels, putting more elements without altering the structure of the level itself. I also love the detail that every dragon you save is different from each other (many dragons in the original were the same, the only thing that changed were colors and voices) and appealing to the world you are saving. (For example, on the Magic Crafters world, the dragons wear magician outfits and items like alchemy bottles and books for example).

 

Gameplay-wise and control-wise, I do feel slight differences in gliding (at least in the beginning), for some reason, I end up falling more times into the nothing for failing my glides more than I remember in the original game, haha, maybe it's just me. Plus, the game is quite simple. Collect all the jewels by defeating all foes, save the dragons and the eggs, go back to the world, do another level, and so on.

 

Still, this game is a proof that you do not need a complicated game to be fun. I know some people have strong opinions about remastered and how companies keep getting money out of our nostalgies, but damn... It's Spyro we are talking about!

Edited November 23, 2018 by Caju_94

[Oobedoob S Benubi]

 

Wayward Sky

VR game #3

First Hour Review

Total playtime: about an hour

 

As said earlier today, I'm not sure how much PlayStation gaming time I have left in the month so I'm trying to do an hour of gaming in three games whenever I have time, so that I at least have ten started games in the event, come what may.

 

 

First of the three "play an hour and move on" games: Wayward Sky.

 

I've heard about Wayward Sky that it wasn't challenging and that it was too short, but I did moderately enjoy the demo, so I figured I'd wait for a great sale and then just go for it, which I did when it was €6, less than a third of its full price.

 

So far, those opinions I heard seem to be correct. I've played for an hour, in which I finished two of either four or six total levels (level select seems to indicate six but the collectable wind chime rack seems to say four, so maybe two full levels, a boss level and credits, or something?) and the game is a bit of fun but its puzzles never get challenging, making the game feel less like an adventure and more like chores.

 

Next up:

I'm probably going to stick to non-VR games for now, as I want to take my time for SUPERHOT VR and Tethered. So I'd have Valley, which is actually on my list for the event, and probably Roundabout, since @DamagingRob was praising it in the PS+ thread.

[Oobedoob S Benubi]

 

Roundabout

Non-VR game #6

Final Revew

Total playtime: about thirty minutes

 

Ugh. NOPE. Delete! Couldn't even finish a whole hour. What a shitty "game". The gameplay isn't fun, and the live action "scenes" that are supposed to be corny eighties movie like aren't funny at all, just corny. Better call it Awkward Silence: The Game.

 

I could go on but it doesn't deserve a full review. It needs to get the hell away from me and feel bad about what it did.

 

Final score:

Up next:

Valley, I guess.

[DamagingRob]

@Agent 47 I'll take a brief moment from Thanksgiving festivities to say:

[SyIaris]

Song of the Deep

Game #7 (19th-21st)

3:20 hours played

3/10

 

Well, not being able to get at a ton of rewards right in front of my nose drives me slightly insane. Love the story and narration so far - I'll be getting back to it fairly soon to see where it goes.

The physics of trying to fling explosives at something can be frustrating, but everything else controls nicely.

Don't feel like I've gotten that much progress yet.

 

 

Final Fantasy XV: Comrades DLC

Bonus Game

~36 hours played

10/10

 

Time's shorter than that, since there was a good bit of idling involved. Time's also longer than that, because it seems way too low if you include loading screens.

Shoved this in just to make sure it got done - would have preferred to stick with Song of the Deep in particular, but at least it's out of the way.

 

Have something else to do. Even if you're playing with AI, you're looking at something like five minutes of loading screens per mission. It's slower with other players.

Ran into others pretty rarely, mostly on urgent missions or the daily. If you want to play, I'd advise finding a group both for the highly improved combat abilities (the AI is very weak and kinda dumb) and to bring some life into the game.

 

It's almost entirely grinding hunts and defense missions, sometimes the same one over and over and over and over. Thankfully, aside from most of the urgent missions, you can pick and choose whichever you prefer. You don't have to unlock everything on the map or clear every hunt. You can get all trophies without grinding for a set of super powerful weapons - I finished up with relatively low stats, from what I've gathered.

 

Not sure I would have bothered to play it if it wasn't shutting down. While I didn't really enjoy it playing mainly solo, I might give the standalone a go if they fix loading times and a friend's interested.

[afc-razor-84]

what is the topic about? Messing up your completion rate or improving it? If its messing it up i did at the start of my ps4 days when i switched from "xbum 360". I had no interest in trophies so the 12+ games at the bottom of my list are awful, to make thing's worse i bought a ps3 3 month's later didnt delete anything on it which added another 5 games to my list there also games i would never play 8( if its for improving your completion rate then, just finish homefronts dlc's mafia 3 dlc's resident evil 5 dlc, went back and did my first ever 2 games and finished them AC black flag and rayman legends. If i have this topic all wrong could someone please give me some information cheers guys

[Kevvik]

13 minutes ago, afc-razor-84 said:

what is the topic about? Messing up your completion rate or improving it? If its messing it up i did at the start of my ps4 days when i switched from "xbum 360". I had no interest in trophies so the 12+ games at the bottom of my list are awful, to make thing's worse i bought a ps3 3 month's later didnt delete anything on it which added another 5 games to my list there also games i would never play 8( if its for improving your completion rate then, just finish homefronts dlc's mafia 3 dlc's resident evil 5 dlc, went back and did my first ever 2 games and finished them AC black flag and rayman legends. If i have this topic all wrong could someone please give me some information cheers guys

 

The idea of killing your completion is to, ideally, decrease your completion rate percentage.  Many of us will play a game and actively continue with it until we achieve the platinum or burn out on the game.

 

With this event, you pick 10 games (or some variant thereof) and play a new game every three days, with preferably 3 hrs+ gaming time, giving commentary on it as you go.  Ideally, these are not games that are too short and easily completed during the 3 day period.  This would be dependent on how much gaming time you have.  By the end, 10 games played in such a fashion should have dropped your completion rate as well as given the other participants information about the game that you played so they might add (or remove) a game from their backlog list.  Choosing 10 games to play in fairly quick succession also leads to some interesting choices as you might not otherwise get around to them in anything resembling a timely manner.

 

This is the 6th event I've participated in and I've dropped my CR each time, often taking until the next event to recover my completion rate before killing it again.  I've had games that I've been on the fence about that I've picked up afterwards based on feedback from other participants or conversely removed from my busy agenda due to very negative feedback.  I've also had games that several of us have played at the same time and enjoyed a variety of opinions at the same time, some of which agreed with my own, or were in conflict with it.  Exist Archive several events ago was a prime example where 4 or 5 different people all included it on their lists so we adjusted and all played it at the same time.  Not everyone experienced it the same way but the conversation was great.  Most of us also continue to post opinions about further work on the games we played during the event in the months following.

 

I've found the small community that has developed around these events to quite the enjoyable crew, though we certainly encourage new participants (and with that, new opinions), and I find myself looking forward to the next event shortly after the last has completed.