Kill Your Completion ∞

[Metal Slime King]

Game #6 - Final Fantasy XV Multiplayer Expansion: Comrades

Wait a minute, that's only a DLC mp addition for Final Fantasy XV?! Well since Square is pulling it out of FFXV and releasing it as it's own stand alone game I guess I can call it a stand alone game . Technically I started all of Final Fantasy XV but since I'm focusing solely on Comrades that's all I'm reviewing right now. As you may have heard there was recently some news regarding FFXV, they are cancelling 3/4 of the second season of content for the game and reworking how the mp works. As of December 12th Comrades will be released as a unique game and will no longer be available in the main game. Not sure how that'll work, if you'll still be able to access it if you don't update and just play offline with AI team mates (you can play the whole mp with AI bots, which is nice). Whether the new Comrades will unlock the existing trophies in the main game's list or have it's own list (it is supposed to have new content) and whether the existing trophies will still be obtainable. There's been speculation but I don't even really think Square knows right now how it's going to pan out . One thing is for sure, if FFXV is in your backlog and you eventually want 100% well it's better to start now then to wait and see.

 

Comrades takes place somewhere later in the story of the main game, I think between chapters 13 and 14. You roll your own character who wakes up with foggy memories and finds out you are a member of an army of sorts, comprised of ex-military and hunters. You're en route to the last functioning urban stronghold in a world that is falling into an endless night of attacking demons. Your goal is to collect magic rocks that can be burned for electricity so you reclaim the lost continent by returning their electricity so they don't fall into darkness. You collect these rocks by doing missions and you get more missions by rescuing more territory. It's a vicious cycle. So far doing the missions has been enjoyable. I won't stop this one in a couple of days but I'll give a more final assessment.

Edited November 14, 2018 by Metal Slime King

[SolarCat02]

Mages of Mystralia

 

A few initial thoughts... 

 

The basic storyline is nothing terribly fancy. Mages used to be everywhere protecting the kingdom and trained by the royal family. The kingdom was attacked by trolls, lots of people died, including the royal family. As a result some untested mage was named king, he caused a lot of trouble wihh magic, so eventually someone non-magical was crowned king, and magic was banned from the kingdom. Except, you know, some people are still born with it, and now there is nobody to officially train them so accidents happen and the person whose magic breaks through is exiled. 

 

You play one of these, a young girl who just broke through unexpectedly with a fire spell and accidentally burned down her cottage before being exiled from her village. 

 

She is taken in by a man, a mage who introduces himself as "Mentor", and seems to know everything about her and what just happened except for her name for some reason. From what I gather this guy is abusive, insulting her frequently, calling her "idiot girl", always complaining about her being late, telling her she either accepts his training to become a mage or she will die, and then sending her into the dangerous woods by herself without teaching her anything and telling her to figure it out. Honestly she is lucky she found a magic spellbook because this guy still hasn't taught her a thing, just berates her constantly for being afraid (she just for thrown out of her old life and everything she knew, hello) or not knowing things. And then sending her out on her own into the woods to fight some other evil by herself, again. Some mentor. 

 

By the dialog it's clear the audience is not adults but children so I will admit concern at what this character building is trying to teach here. 

 

The game play itself is fun enough once you figure it out. I died a lot in the beginning because it wasn't clear you needed to hold down the button on your shield spell to keep it active, and that you had to face the correct direction because it only casts in front of you. Once I sorted that out though everything else was intuitive. Additionally all my deaths mean that I am loaded in some sort of blue orb currency as the jars they were in kept respawninh but I got to keep what I had already gathered.

 

It's clear there's going to be assorted puzzles for how to use my spells to achieve specific results but so far it is just an occasional easy task for the storyline.

 

The art style is charming if a bit haphazard. The intro was a beautifully drawn 2D world storybook style, which opens up into a bright 3D cartoon style world with set mostly top-view camera angles that shift as I travel. Cut scenes use the same 3D background but suddenly the actual characters are a completely different 3D rendering with more angles and some sort of computerized shadow texture. It was a bit jarring the first few times but I have adjusted now. 

 

The music backdrop reminds me of Rainbow Moon, so it's a pleasure to listen to, although if you would prefer not to you won't miss the storyline, after the introduction the dialog reverts to text where you hit X to continue after each statement. 

 

And try not to attack the jackalope rabbits. After you hit them they turn from benign into this black form jackalope that can do more damage than the actual enemies. That was unexpected. ?

 

Overall I think I will enjoy this story. I just hope the whole Mentor thing gets better because he is some Grade A Jerk right now. 

[Oobedoob S Benubi]

 

Broforce

Non-VR game #4

Final Review

Total playtime: about three hours

Trophy count: 4/9, 23%, for an A rank

Did it lower my completion percentage? Yes.

 

BROFORCE! 'MURICA!

KILLING ALL THE TERRORISTS!

WORLD PEACE! U! S! A!

 

Spoiler

Well, the game exists. It's there. 

 

If you think the idea of Team America is funny even without all the jokes, if you like testosterone-y MURICA! shouting, if you think the name "Rambro" is funny, then you'll probably like this game.

 

As a game, it's flawed, but not truly bad. I'm going to try to finish it at some point, but I'm going to forget all about it pretty soon after.

 

Final score: 

 

Up next:

Don't know yet. I'm behind on my VR games, but as said before, I might have to switch them out for other stuff.

 

Also, people probably have notived in this and the last few events, but I'm becoming increasingly bad at sticking to a three or six day schedule, and when I manage to stick to it, one or more of my games just have half an hour or so played. This because I have to juggle a few things to give my time to each day, because my work schedule has changed much in the past three years and because I can't just play past midnight any more like I used to. I see the day rule as first having been there so everyone would start a new game at the same time, but we have people now with five games, eight, ten, fifteen... If @voodoo_eyes accepts, I'm just going to ignore the day thing, play games where I find the time, and stick to a game for at least three hours or one story playthrough, whichever is shorter. That'll put less stress on my schedule, and it'll be fairer to the games.

[DamagingRob]

Game #5

Day 1- LocoRoco Remastered

 

So, as you can see, I made my first deviation from the list I had. Probably going to push P4U to the back of the list, so it's less console switching. Only played for about an hour and a half, and that consisted of playing just the first two levels. So... probably won't be a long post. :/

 

In this game, you play as little yellow creatures called the LocoRoco. You start each level with one, that you guide through the levels, and can eat red flowers to increase in size and number. You can also break apart into multiple LocoRoco to get past areas a giant LocoRoco could not. To move the LocoRoco, you have to tilt the screen. You do this by either holding  or , or by tilting your controller to the left or right. Though personally, I didn't like and turned off the motion controls, since it would tilt the screen when I didn't want it tilting.  Pressing  and  together will make the LocoRoco jump. 

 

Levels are pretty short, and only take a few minutes to complete. But there are multiple types of things to collect and time trials, that may force you to replay them a number of times. I had to replay the second level a handful of times, since the last MuiMui is situated in a place where if you don't make the jump to it, you miss it.. According to the trophy guide, you don't have to collect everything in one run, though. Can just do one set of collectibles per run, if necessary. 

 

So yeah, that's about all I got for now. Other than saying it's a cute game, and has some really great music. Missed the series on PSP, so figured I'd give the first game a shot and go from there. 

 

Time played: Hour and a half.

Trophy progress: 5/28 for 7% and a D rank. 

[xFalionx]

Game #3: Oreshika: Tainted Bloodlines (PSVita)

3rd day

Total playtime: about 8 hours

 

By now, I'm really glad I decided to play on one of the shorter settings since the game already feels pretty grindy as there's less of a focus on story progression and a larger focus on time management and improving your clan with each new generation of members. You are forced to either lose or retreat from the second boss battle so, since you can only challenge the boss of a dungeon on the date of an annual festival, I'm currently waiting for the year to pass after getting what I needed to try again a month later. Thanks to that I'm pretty sure that I'm overleveled enough by now to completely obliterate the boss as the only meaningful way to pass time is to grind in the dungeons.

 

Don't get me wrong, though. I really like the game so far but I wish it was a bit harder. Besides that I'm happy with the way the game keeps you busy using many mechanical systems that are unusual for your default JRPG but still not complex enough to be confusing. If you really don't know what you're doing you can always ask your weasel sidekick Kouchin. She's got a handy guide for pretty much every mechanic in the game to be accessed whenever you may need them.

 

The only thing that seemed strange so far was that, despite the game saying the people of my clan live for 2 years, everyone who passed away so far did so at the age of 18 months. It might be because they start getting weaker with age and the game mentioned that even healthy clan members can die at low constitution values and I've been taking them out to fight at that age, making it harder to manage their constitution so I guess my poor management might have killed them.

[SystmOveRide]

Game #1: Atelier Sophie ~The Alchemist of the Mysterious Book~

Total Playtime: 3-4 hours

Trophy Progress: 2/45; E Rank

 

So in between busy exam study, I've taken a few breaks and decided that this game has been on my shelf (along with the two sequels) for a while and thought I'd get it open and have a go at it.

From the get-go, it's honestly nothing spectacular.

My biggest gripe at this point is that cutscenes aren't skippable.

Otherwise, it's just very classic Japanese RPG gameplay with no real standout mechanisms in the overworld, and combat is pretty much the same as every other RPG game from Japan (Each character in battle selects their moves and then they're all listed in a turn order based on one would assume speed, and when you allocate all actions the round plays out). While these factors may seem for a pretty boring game, as it has been done numerous times over and over in other games, Atelier Sophie itself does have its own charms and I feel myself wanting to go back and play it more and more.

The alchemy minigames are simple yet fun (or at least to start with they are quite simple, but they may get harder further down the track, but who knows), and the game is very colourful and cheerful. While my gripe is that the cutscenes are unskippable, this can be made up for somewhat by the fact that the characters are charismatic and quirky, if not a little cliche.

 

I'm really looking forward to playing more of this game in the coming weeks (and eventually getting the platinum) so I can finish it and begin the sequel games. If I had to relate the feeling of the game to another game I've played, I'd say it's colour and charm is similar to that of Ni No Kuni 2, in that it's just a fun game, probably not for someone who likes to min/max, but I'd definitely put it in my pile of games that I'd play if I wanted to have a relaxing game after a long day.

[voodoo_eyes]

13 hours ago, Agent 47 said:

Also, people probably have notived in this and the last few events, but I'm becoming increasingly bad at sticking to a three or six day schedule, and when I manage to stick to it, one or more of my games just have half an hour or so played. This because I have to juggle a few things to give my time to each day, because my work schedule has changed much in the past three years and because I can't just play past midnight any more like I used to. I see the day rule as first having been there so everyone would start a new game at the same time, but we have people now with five games, eight, ten, fifteen... If @voodoo_eyes accepts, I'm just going to ignore the day thing, play games where I find the time, and stick to a game for at least three hours or one story playthrough, whichever is shorter. That'll put less stress on my schedule, and it'll be fairer to the games.

 

Actually the day rule is there so that there are updates from everyone on a regular basis and at regular intervals for the same individual games, Just to have some sort of structure in general. Furthermore it's so people try to choose a fitting amount of games depending on their schedule from the get-go. That's why I hard capped the allowed games at 15 as well. While possible, it's generally fairly unlikely that people have the time to get a decent number of hours into the games if they've got to play 1 a day or so. Even 1 every two days is somewhat of a stretch I'd find, but kept the 15 for now as it was previously an acceptable amount. That might change for the next KYC though (spoiler ).

Anyhow,... yeah I'm okay with the adjusting of schedule because sometimes life is a bit more unpredictable.

Edited November 15, 2018 by voodoo_eyes

[Oobedoob S Benubi]

26 minutes ago, voodoo_eyes said:

 

Actually the day rule is there so that there are updates from everyone on a regular basis and at regular intervals for the same individual games, Just to have some sort of structure in general.

 

Yeah, that's what I meant too.

 

26 minutes ago, voodoo_eyes said:

Furthermore it's so people try to choose a fitting amount of games depending on their schedule from the get-go. That's why I hard capped the allowed games at 15 as well. While possible, it's generally fairly unlikely that people have the time to get a decent number of hours into the games if they've got to play 1 a day or so. Even 1 every two days is somewhat of a stretch I'd find, but kept the 15 for now as it was previously an acceptable amount.

 

How it is for me, is that It'd be very hard for me to get even just two hours of PlayStation gaming in a Tuesday-Thursday set, while I usually have at least four or five hours of gaming across the weekend (and Friday and Monday are usually good days for me too). So how it might work for me is playing three games for at least three hours each across Friday-Monday, and then be silent for three days as I have little to no PlayStation gaming time until the next Friday.

 

26 minutes ago, voodoo_eyes said:

That might change for the next KYC though (spoiler ).

 

SPOILERS!

 

Anyway, one game a day might be a lot of fun, for one event. I wouldn't do it each time but just once, it'd be like a dive, extremely killing the completion percentage while playing only an hour or so in each game, or at least until getting one trophy.

 

It would lead to less in-depth reviews, but it might be fun for different reasons.

 

26 minutes ago, voodoo_eyes said:

Anyhow,... yeah I'm okay with the adjusting of schedule because sometimes life is a bit more unpredictable.

 

Thanks. It's weird how easy I could stick to one game in three days just two and a half years ago.

[voodoo_eyes]

2 hours ago, Agent 47 said:

Anyway, one game a day might be a lot of fun, for one event. I wouldn't do it each time but just once, it'd be like a dive, extremely killing the completion percentage while playing only an hour or so in each game, or at least until getting one trophy.

 

It would lead to less in-depth reviews, but it might be fun for different reasons.

 

That sounds more like testing, if the disc works .

 

It could be fun, sure. I do believe that it would be more suitable for a different event though, for the very reason you mentioned... the reviews/impressions. I don't think 1 hour is enough to form a proper opinion on a game. Sure it depends a bit on the game's length or genre. If it's a very short game or a fighting game, 1 hour is usually sufficient to cover most things and get a good overall feel for the game. While arguably 3 hours aren't all that much either, it gives the chance to dig a bit deeper. It's pretty much the ideal balance for what the event is.

Edited November 15, 2018 by voodoo_eyes

[Oobedoob S Benubi]

18 minutes ago, voodoo_eyes said:

 

That sounds more like testing, if the disc works .

 

It could be fun, sure. I do believe that it would be more suitable for a different event though, for the very reason you mentioned... the reviews/impressions. I don't think 1 hour is enough to form a proper opinion on a game. Sure it depends a bit on the game's length or genre. If it's a very short game or a fighting game, 1 hour is usually sufficient to cover most things and get a good overall feel for the game. While arguably 3 hours aren't all that much either, it gives the chance to dig a bit deeper. It's pretty much the ideal balance for what the event is.

 

Yeah, it'd be more like "first impressions" than actual reviews. Would help with figuring out what to play next in the backlog though.

 

... Hmmmmm. I might just make an event like this for January. It sounds like fun but it's not what KYC is about, not really.

 

Three hours is enough as a minimum. That should be at least one fourth of any non-RPG storyline.

[voodoo_eyes]

20 hours ago, SolarCat02 said:

Mages of Mystralia

 

By the dialog it's clear the audience is not adults but children so I will admit concern at what this character building is trying to teach here. 

 

The game play itself is fun enough once you figure it out. I died a lot in the beginning because it wasn't clear you needed to hold down the button on your shield spell to keep it active, and that you had to face the correct direction because it only casts in front of you. Once I sorted that out though everything else was intuitive. Additionally all my deaths mean that I am loaded in some sort of blue orb currency as the jars they were in kept respawninh but I got to keep what I had already gathered.

 

It's clear there's going to be assorted puzzles for how to use my spells to achieve specific results but so far it is just an occasional easy task for the storyline.

 

I played that game during the last KYC event. By now I've completed it and thought it was decent overall.

 

It sounds like you're close to the beginning of the game, so I'll try not to spoil anything.

 

While the dialogues are rather child-oriented, the gameplay down the line gets a bit more challenging. In particular the "create your own spell" gimmick, gets very convoluted the further you get into the game. While it isn't all that necessary to progress through the story, the optional secret challenges will require a lot of tinkering with that menu.

[crimsonidol38]

8 minutes ago, Agent 47 said:

... Hmmmmm. I might just make an event like this for January. It sounds like fun but it's not what KYC is about, not really.

 

From the OP of KYC1:

On 24.6.2016 at 4:48 AM, Hemiak said:

This event was inspired by one brave visionary's epic journey to tackle the mountain of games that he found himself buried under.

-->

 

 

[Oobedoob S Benubi]

Just now, Crimson Idol said:

 

From the OP of KYC1:

-->

 

 

 

Yeah I know, it was inspired by such an event, but KYC is not about playing 30-31 games but about playing less, and forming more of an opinion about them.

 

Anyway, it's a cool idea.

[crimsonidol38]

5 minutes ago, Agent 47 said:

Yeah I know, it was inspired by such an event, but KYC is not about playing 30-31 games but about playing less, and forming more of an opinion about them.

 

Anyway, it's a cool idea.

 

Depending on the time someone has for playing the games the participant could still form an opinion about a game even if it's only played for a sole day. And if it's more about forming an opinion (which I agree with) then there were already quite a few participants who didn't play by the event's "rules" as they added games they already played.

[Oobedoob S Benubi]

14 minutes ago, Crimson Idol said:

 

Depending on the time someone has for playing the games the participant could still form an opinion about a game even if it's only played for a sole day. And if it's more about forming an opinion (which I agree with) then there were already quite a few participants who didn't play by the event's "rules" as they added games they already played.

 

I recall "no previously played games" being a pretty explicit rule in earlier KYC events, together with a new game in a know franchise being allowed if it wasn't the only type of game you'd play.

 

As said, it'd be more about "first impressions" than about a full opinion if it was just one day, with only the weekend games getting any true gaming time. Speaking as a full time worker here, my student days are long gone.

[crimsonidol38]

19 minutes ago, Agent 47 said:

I recall "no previously played games" being a pretty explicit rule in earlier KYC events, together with a new game in a know franchise being allowed if it wasn't the only type of game you'd play.

 

Still the first rule was broken AFAIR by at least one user, but then multiple times already. But I don't want to be a party pooper and spoil the mood of the event. 

 

22 minutes ago, Agent 47 said:

As said, it'd be more about "first impressions" than about a full opinion if it was just one day, with only the weekend games getting any true gaming time. Speaking as a full time worker here, my student days are long gone.

 

My student days are (not so) long gone, too.  But I guess it's better to call such opinions first impressions then. Although I have to say that in retrospect most KYC-reviews (can also be called first impressions due to the reduced playing time. At least most of mine can be called that way  as there were quite a bunch where my opinion changed completely.  

[Edunstar84]

Game #4 - Final Review

Beyond: Two Souls

 

Playtime: 3 hours

Trophies: 10/46

 

Story: It's a great compelling story. I feel really sorry for Jodie and her "friend". She was dealt a very bad hand in the very beginning. I went through one of the chapters thinking that it must be like someone with severe mental health, even though the story isn't real. 

 

Gameplay: I never knew how much I hated QTE's until this game. "Move the left stick in the motion that Jodie is moving towards" my ass! Yeah sure, it gives a nice "rush" element to it, but when you're trying to do some of the trophies, whilst doing a perfect QTE run, then it becomes frustrating. I've done 2 such trophies so far, and I hope those are the last, but it's probably not. 

 

Soundtrack: Very moving, compelling and thoughtful. 

 

Recommend: Yes, though I heard the platinum can get tiring because you have to do multiple playthroughs, and you can't skip scenes.

[SyIaris]

Gah, so late. Had a rough few days and haven't even gotten to the game I should be on the last day of.

Probably going to start up Plague Inc shortly and get that review in later, since it should be something like an hour per "playthrough".

 

On a random note, after checking occasionally for over a year and twice a day all month, I finally got the last target needed for one of ESO's DLC trophies. 1% bronze, ick. Glad to finally have it done.

 

InFamous: Second Son

Game #4 (10th-12th)

15+ hours played

36/48  (-0.68%)

 

Well, the server shutdown definitely won't effect the platinum. Found what they were talking about and couldn't get it to connect anyway. 

Really happy with where I left it - I'm not a fan of immediately replaying a game like this, so going back for my evil/expert run in a month or so works out perfectly. Beat the story and got most of the miscellaneous trophies done. Somehow managed to lose a whopping 0.01% after the previous game.

 

Third-person superhero game? Yes please. Aside from a couple boss fights (the lava...  *sob*), this was really fun. You get some interesting abilities to work with, though unfortunately they don't vary a lot in effect. That said, they do have different strengths and can be more useful in certain situations. Definitely appreciate all the improved movement options compared to the first game - sprinting through the streets or straight up a wall made getting the collectibles a lot less painful.

Everything you need to do/get is marked on the map. Miles better than relying on a printed map to check off or going in blind, that's for sure; on the other hand, those stationary shards were a lot less annoying than all these flying ones...

Controls are a huge upgrade as well, much less finicky. Can't say I enjoyed being stuck with inverted motion controls for the graffiti bits.

 

Character reactions stood out to me at points. Oddly harsh or oddly mellow - hey, why are you having a civil conversation with the person that just murdered ___ last time you saw them?

Ignoring that, the story's not bad, just feels like some motivations are a bit twisted.

 

Definitely worth playing, and nice that it's not reliant on the story in previous games.

[voodoo_eyes]

17 minutes ago, Edunstar84 said:

Gameplay: I never knew how much I hated QTE's until this game. "Move the left stick in the motion that Jodie is moving towards" my ass! Yeah sure, it gives a nice "rush" element to it, but when you're trying to do some of the trophies, whilst doing a perfect QTE run, then it becomes frustrating. I've done 2 such trophies so far, and I hope those are the last, but it's probably not.

 

If you thought the QTE's for this were bad, you might want to stay away from Heavy Rain as that one is even worse in that regard .

[Kevvik]

Game #5: Obduction

 

Day 3 Impressions

Time played: 5.5 hrs

 

So I've finished up 2 worlds(?). The goal of each world seems to be activating a tree within it. I started the water flowing early in the game and this seems to be the initial requirement as the rest of each level/world seems to be getting to the tree and turning on the water flow to it.  Upon completing the first world, I have found a device that seems to teleport me to another land (maybe planet?), this one a rocky mountain and travelling along mountainside trails and through caverns with large machinery, some ruined, others operational. At times you need to go back and forth between the two worlds to access new areas, the goal, again to reach and activate the tree within it.  From there, I found a new warp point which seems to lead to a grassy area waiting for me to start exploring.

 

The game still looks amazing and really makes me wish I had the PSVR to experience it like that.  If I ever get it, I'll definitely be revisiting this.  You definitely appear to be on another world. The skyline is definitely not Earth, regardless of your current environment and you come across walls of alien material which seem to instantaneously terraform on contact with you, opening other areas. Or back routes to previously explored areas while the land behind you reverts to the alien material.  Large alien insects populate the mountainside amidst enormous skeletal remains. Makes for a wild perspective.

 

One drawback, loading times, occur every time you shift worlds and it can get tedious when shifting worlds frequently. This is the only negative I can really point to as the puzzles are very challenging. Sometimes documentation you come across is very easily understood. Others are not so clear and only point you in the right direction to start experimenting with switches and levers.

 

Any fan of Myst and the older (and more difficult) adventure games should really get into this. People who want their hand held and everything gifted to them need not apply. Heartily recommended.

 

Trophies earned: 6/15, 26% for D rank

Score so far: 9/10

 

Completion Rate: 81.29% (-0.60% for the event)

 

Next up: Hopefully start White Day this time...

Edited November 16, 2018 by Kevvik

[SolarCat02]

Mages of Mystralia

 

Was able to spend more time with this game tonight, and I am still enjoying it. First two boss fights, they are definitely a scripted attack sequence where you need to essentially solve the puzzle of their weakness. It's pretty straightforward once I realized the bosses were immune to my attacks unless I did something specific; the game is not punishing and gives you many hints as to what that something might be. 

 

I am happy to say that the relationship with Mentor seems better, after he learned the identity of the second boss he wasn't quite so snooty. Hopefully this stays this way. 

 

I am still enjoying the music as well. And I got to do my first bit of spellcrafting, looking forward to playing with that a bit more as the game progresses. 

[dmland12]

Game #5: Cities: Skylines

Trophies: 21/69 (20%)

Completion: 91.87% (-1.07%, -2.89% from start)

 

Cities: Skylines is a city-building game that draws heavy inspiration from the SimCity series of games.  I played a lot of SimCity 2000 and SimCity 3000 a long time ago, and this game has the same feel (and many similar mechanics) as those games.  I'd say this game managed to stay true to the formula that SimCity laid out two decades ago, as well as improve on it.  Overall, I really liked it.  It was familiar and brought back some nostalgia. 

 

If you haven't played SimCity (and there's a good chance of this since the series has been mostly dead since SimCity 4 was released in 2003), the basics aren't hard to grasp.  You start out with an empty map and you'll need to build roads and decide where the buildings will be built.  Instead of just placing down most buildings individually, you place a "zone" down where you want them to be built.  Then, after a while the buildings will be constructed.  You need to make sure that there's power and water, as well as city services (hospitals, schools, police, fire stations, etc.).  It gets a little more complicated than that, and you do have a budget you'll need to watch.  But, since you start off small and unlock additional buildings and options as you grow, I don't think it's that steep of a learning curve.

 

There's a lot of flexibility in how you design your city and you can get in fairly close and look at the details of an individual building, follow a fire truck responding to a fire, or watch people going about their daily business.  It's nice to just look around and see how things are going sometimes.  But, thankfully, you don't really have the option or the need to micromanage things at that level.

 

Have a quick look around my city in the video below for an idea of what this game looks like and what you can build.  I was pretty happy with how my city turned out so far.

 

 

 

[SyIaris]

Plague Inc: Evolved

Game #5 (13th-15th)

~5 hours played

15/55  (-0.95%)

 

Can't say I was expecting to look up and realize I'd been playing for four hours straight and gone right through normal dinner time.

 

Plague Inc is apparently a fairly addictive strategy/simulator game where your goal is to take a type of infection and mutate it enough to eradicate humanity. Once they notice it, they tend to start working on a cure, and if it's lethal? Prepare to have scientists in every nation against you.

You unlock different perks that can give you a handy boost, and are likely required to win on "mega-brutal" difficulty. Beyond that, each option has three general categories: how it spreads, the symptoms it causes, and what it's resistant to; some of the less standard types such as the DLC vampires alter them a bit. How you make your way through those trees can make or break your run.

My foolish attempts seemed to take about 10-30 minutes each, mostly on casual with the fast forward maxed out. Great game for short bursts.

 

Stupid Greenland is rather isolationist. Not a problem for floating zombies. 

 

Wish I'd been able to put more time into it, but it won't be waiting long. Definitely worth a look; seems to have a fairly low number of players but it deserves more.

[DamagingRob]

16 hours ago, Edunstar84 said:

Yes, though I heard the platinum can get tiring because you have to do multiple playthroughs, and you can't skip scenes.

Just a second playthrough. Never really minded doing so either time. Although, replaying the final chapter for endings was more of a slog.. Found out about a faster method on the PS4 version, that makes that much less tedious. 

 

Final Review- LocoRoco

 

So, first and foremost, this game does not autosave. Found that out the hard way.. Thankfully, I only played for a little bit on the first day. It can also be really frustrating, if my status update ranting about it wasn't an indicator. This game is going to take quite some time for me to complete, if I actually manage to do so. I only made it through the first 9 levels during my 8 hours of play (according to my save file), and there are 40 of them. Not to mention, needing to do speedruns of them all.. Getting through levels is easy enough, but throw in missable collectibles, not losing a LocoRoco, and a time limit? Lord have mercy. :/ 

 

Various enemies and obstacles can make you lose LocoRoco. There's usually a small window where you can pick them back up, before they disappear and you permanently lose them. Depending on where the flower pickups are that increase your LocoRoco count, getting through a level with all 20 can be really easy or really difficult. It certainly doesn't help that the LocoRoco have a mind of their own, hopping one direction or another if you go too long without pressing anything. :/

 

There's a crane minigame that seems easy enough, though a bit hard on the arms. Lol. Basically, I'd turn on the motion controls for this, and then rapidly turn my controller left and right. This kept the LocoRoco from falling out (most of the time). And you can use parts to build a house for your LocoRoco. There are no trophies for this, though. 

 

So yeah, pretty fun but frustrating game, with a really good soundtrack. I'm not sure where I rank it.. I guess another may be in order, since it's again the trophies sucking the fun out of it. Choosing an entire list of games with Ultra Rare trophies may not have been my greatest idea.

 

Time played: Going to say ~10 hours with the time I lost from Day 1. 

Trophy progress: 11/28 for 20% and an A rank. Stringing up those A ranks. 

Did it lower my completion? Yep. 

[voodoo_eyes]

Game #4 - One Piece: Burning Blood - Review

 

 

Time played: around 12 hours

Trophies earned: 42/50

 

 

So this one is going to be a full review from me, as I pretty much did everything there was to do in this game.

 

 

Right off the bat it's noticeable that this borrows a lot from the Naruto games, but only put half the effort into it. It's a 3D single round anime tag team fighter. Which to be fair there aren't too many off. It as over 40 characters and a shitload of support characters, which is a pretty good roster overall.

 

A quick overview of the modes. There's story mode, online mode, wanted mode and free battle.

 

Story mode - Is trash. It has 4 chapters, each having about 7 battles (except the last one that only has like 3). Then there are also EX missions (2-5 in each chapter), which are way more difficult. Throughout the story mode you can't choose characters, so you're often forced to playing with characters you aren't used to. To be fair the Naruto games tend to do that as well, however they are a bit less complex in their mechanics as well as actually balanced.

 

Online mode - Just played a match in ranked and casual for the trophies. Net-coding, as for apparently any fighting is shit. Either match was a laggy experience.

 

Free battle - Is just regular versus mode.

 

Wanted mode - This again borrows from the Naruto games. It's essentially a challenge mode. You get an restriction on what characters to use or their quantity and are expected to defeat enemies using certain attacks. The harder ones put you up against 8 characters. while you only get to use one. They're not as difficult as the survival battles form Naruto where you have to defeat 30 in a row though.

 

 

I'm going to get the main positive out of the way now, which is that the game looks pretty good overall, the stages and characters look great and not as bland as the ones from the Naruto games.

 

Now the most important aspect, the gameplay. This is a mixed bag.  At first almost all the modes are locked off, so that you do the story mode, as it's first chapter serves as a tutorial.  Each battle introduces you to maybe 5 different  things you need to know on how to play the game. In-between the battles there are also tips thrown at you during the loading screens. So far so good.

 

I'll try to break this down a bit.

 

So you've got your normal and heavy attacks, either of which can be enhanced to a special attack. There are also jumping attacks, again normal and heavy with possible enhancement into a special attack. All of those have a ranged variant as well. Then there's an ultimate attack, that needs to be charged up throughout the battle by dealing/taking damage.

Additionally you have guard break attacks, which kind of break the game. Fighters can either side step or guard attacks. The issue with the latter is that at least the CPU will do so constantly and you can't break through with just a regular combo anymore on higher difficulties. Which leaves only guard break as an option to get through. Those have a wind-up time however, which as a result will leave you open for punishment. The main issue however is that characters aren't balanced at all and as a result you'll have ranged enemies zone you out throughout the whole battle. The worst thing are ranged guard breaks, as the AI abuses the hell out of them (so can you though). Essentially you can only try to avoid getting hit, but it's very difficult to actually close in. Especially if you're playing characters that are only useful when they're up close.

 

There are also assist attacks that also use the bar needed for the ultimate, but can be useful to get you out of a bad situation or push some extra damage. Although I've noticed that those are somewhat unresponsive at times. Essentially the character that assists you will swap in, replacing the one you were using before. The actual support characters are more like passive abilities than anything else.

 

Speaking of abilities, each character has one and it's activated by a button press and deplete a meter while doing so. These can also be used in combination with attacks or guarding. Some will negate any damage except from attacks that also use the ability meter, increase your damage and the likes. Needless to say, the one that negates damage is utterly broken. Even if it's just for a few seconds, it's enough time to get a combo off, knocking back the enemy and wait for the meter to recharge while he gets back up.

 

There's also a lot of downtime during battles, as any combo will knock over most characters which will stay on the ground for several seconds. This just draws out the fight and adds nothing to it.

 

As usual a lot of the characters are locked off until you unlock them through story mode/wanted mode. Which then results into getting about half of the roster, while needing to grind stupid amounts of currency to unlock the rest. Furthermore you actually have to level up characters to improve their defense and attack. As usually initially leveling is fairly quick and once you reach the halfway point it takes forever to just get one level.

 

So yeah, that's pretty much what I have left to do in the game, grind currency to unlock characters and leveling up one character to level 10 (highest is currently level 8).. Fun times.

 

 

Anyway, it keeps in line with the decent game average for me throughout the event so far. Fans of the series will probably enjoy it a lot more, especially as it's something different than the usual musou variant. I think it's worse than most of the Naruto games, but still enjoyable enough to put a few hours in. It's another .

Edited November 16, 2018 by voodoo_eyes