Kill Your Completion ∞

[Oobedoob S Benubi]

 

Valley

Non-VR game #7

First Hour Review

Total playtime: about an hour and fifteen minutes

 

So, I started on Valley, the final non-VR game on my list, meaning I've tried ten games now.

 

Valley is a 3D platformer, shouldn't be too long to get through. Again, a game I was somewhat interested in which I bought when its sale price was nice enough. In this case, €5, or a fourth of its regular price.

 

Three mistakes the game makes early on:

- doing a combination of 1) having an artifact original to the game and 2) having the artifact the game is about be some supposedly widespread myth in a world that should be a bit close to our own. Matter of fact, I'm making it bigger - doing a whole steampunk army, tree fairies, mythical artifact mashup while still pretending the outside world is our regular one. Just pick a flavour already.

- naming a facility the Soma Facility, which just serves to remind me of a much better game I played last weekend.

- naming something "quantum immortality" that has nothing to do with quantum immortality. Non-scientific writers trying to sound scientific and utterly failing always helps in pissing me off.

 

Other than that, the gameplay is fairly enjoyable (for a €5 game), the graphics aren't too bad... It's shaping up to be a game which I'll play through, and never think of again afterwards. Which is fine, not all games can be super memorable. "Enjoyable while it lasts" is no grade to be ashamed of.

[xFalionx]

Game #4.5: Hatoful Boyfriend (PSVita)

Final Review

Total playtime: about 14 hours

Trophies: 15/17 for an A rank (leaving the last two stacking trophies for Vita's anniversary event)

Completion: Can't say since I already got a trophy in Port Royale 3.

 

The good:

• Story: Oh, there sure are some twists.
• Comedy: Do I even need to elaborate? I think the banner speaks more than a thousand words for this games' comedic potential.
• Setting: A world in which birds and humans coexist as intelligent species. Pretty creative.
• Length: There's one or more route for most characters you meet that are rather short but there's so many choices that you'll have some new text to read fairly frequently and since there's so many endings, it would probably end up feeling annoying if the routes were much longer. There's also an incredibly long (at least when compared to the others) final route that can be unlocked after completing most of the endings.

The bad:

• Audio glitches: Very frequent weird sounds that tend to get fairly annoying.
• Slow text skipping: When there are so many endings and each of them requires you to skip text you have already read for half an hour, that's not really fun. I've seen some games that let you skip over already read text to each choice instantly and some even mark choices you've already picked, this game could really use the former.

The ugly:

• Crashes: This game does not automatically save your progress and tends to crash really often. This is especially frustrating when you're in the long route, your last save was 20 minutes of text skipping ago and the game manages to crash three times at the same spot like it did for me. Fun times. At least, thanks to all the downtime, I'm almost caught up with all the reviews to read.

 

This game really surprised me and I think you should really try it, especially if you picked it up for free on PSPlus. You'll get some laughs out of it, witness a certainly interesting story and have a guilt trip the next time you eat chicken.

 

Starting this game was a really bad choice of mine since I ended up studying way less for my exams this week than I planned for but everything still ended up going pretty well for me, so I certainly don't regret doing so.  

 

Rating: 

 

Next game: Port Royale 3 (PS3)

 

 

Game #5: Port Royale 3 (PS3)

1st day

Total playtime: about 30 minutes

I forced myself to squeeze in 30 minutes of gameplay yesterday since I was technically already a day late.

 

When this game was on Plus, I was pretty excited because I remember playing Port Royale 2 on my PC ages ago. While it's so far back that I only have very vague memories of the time, I do remember having fun playing the game. 

 

My experience with the game so far has been pretty mixed. At first I didn't feel the game at all. It doesn't help that the visuals are a weird mix between low res UI backgrounds, a fairly pretty map and city view and incredibly ugly NPC models that pop up in a little window to the top right and talk Warcraft-Style with unsynched continuous mouth movements. I think they must have used one of the tiny villager models that walk around in the city view as the model looks indescribably bad up close. The models in Warcraft, which are a lot older than this game is, are incredible lengths better than the ones used in this game. 

 

So far I've started the merchant tutorial which explains the trading systems and I guess other peaceful stuff. Basically you sail your convoy to a town that manufactures a product and buy cheap, then sail to a town that is in need of that product and sell high. There seem to be other interesting aspects like ship battles and city building (which was definitely not a feature of Port Royale 2) but I didn't get that far yet. 

 

There is technically a story, I guess, but it isn't very important since this is mostly a sandbox strategy game. I think it involves you getting stranded and being picked up by some of your Spanish countrymen, taking you back to their city of Port Royale, where you are now a small trader that has to work his way up the ranks in order to gain some influence.

 

While I did feel like this game is a bit clunky to play on a controller and could use some of those sweet PC mouse controls, as most strategy games tend to do, I still ended up warming up to the game and towards the 30 minute mark I had to force myself to stop because by then I really wanted to continue the tutorial.

 

Edit: I forgot to mention that it seems like the DLC content was free with Plus (or in general), at least the game let me toggle all three DLC packs on without ever buying or even downloading any of it. 

Edited November 23, 2018 by xFalionx

[SolarCat02]

51 minutes ago, xFalionx said:

Edit: I forgot to mention that it seems like the DLC content was free with Plus (or in general), at least the game let me toggle all three DLC packs on without ever buying or even downloading any of it. 

Port Royale 3 DLC is bundled in with the main game, so not really DLC, just add on modes or options you can play or ignore. Which is nice! 

 

Yeah, Port Royale isn't the prettiest of graphics, and the controls for sea battles are so unintuitive I actually stopped playing for over a year before taking the time to figure them out (and then writing that as my first guide so nobody else had to suffer through that), but overall I enjoyed the game a lot.

 

It gets much more complicated once you open up all the options via the tutorial progress, as far as managing towns and such, until you figure out how to properly automate the most important things like trading route settings. I do recommend saving frequently in a couple different save slots until you are cobfident your total funds are safely going up instead of stagnant or down. From that point on you can let it pretty much play itself while you manually do the parts that interest you. 

[Metal Slime King]

13 hours ago, Caju_94 said:

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!

 

I've never played Spyro the first time around but it looks like a good contender for a remaster, a game type that doesn't get made much anymore and it does look quite good. Crash Bandicoot was another good example of a game that hasn't been around for awhile that offers a different type of game than typically sees a big release now. Definitely better than another re-release of the Jak and Daxter trilogy. I know I could go the rest of my life never playing Jak 2 again.

 

3 hours ago, SyIaris said:

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.

 

Some people I played with beat the last boss required for trophies with 1600 Strength but yeah, your 200 Vitality was quite low. You must've done some good dodging. I made a decent end game weapon set without grinding Laser Sensors by crafting a bunch of Strength Gems by building weapons with whatever strength building items I had lying around and tearing the weapon down for gems. Whatever items didn't build strength I sold to buy more strength building items from the Imperial soldier in the mining town. Ended up with 2,723 Strength and 894 Vitality. Putting the +30% crafting boon on a dedicated crafting character really helped a lot. I would have to say this game was way more fun for me since I had a group of friends going through the game at the same time.

 

@DamagingRob or @Agent 47. Regarding Roundabout, do either of you guys know if the glitched trophy for 100% completing the game has been resolved? That would be the biggest concern I would have with starting this game.

Edited November 24, 2018 by Metal Slime King

[DamagingRob]

5 minutes ago, Metal Slime King said:

Regarding Roundabout, do either of you guys know if the glitched trophy for 100% completing the game has been resolved? That would be the biggest concern I would have with starting this game.

I haven't heard anything about it being fixed. Only people who have it appear to be hackers. 

[Arctic Cress]

Game #5 - Shining Resonance Refrain

Trophies - 10/48 (14% - D)

Playtime - 3 hours

 

The Shining series has not had a good history outside of Japan. We haven't seen a game from the series since Shining Force EXA way back on the PS2 except for a random fighting game spinoff on the PC. So eleven years later, a new Shining game finally gets released outside of Japan. It's apparently a remake of another game that never made it over back on the PS3, with a new storyline. Since I (obviously) haven't played the original I went with the original storyline first.

 

The game follows Yuma Ilburn, a boy who has the spirit of an ancient dragon known as the Shining Dragon within him. In the beginning chapter he is being held captive by the Empire and a number of knights from the Kingodm of Astoria have issued a rescue mission to break him out of prison and bring him back. The mission succeeds despite the appearance of the Empire's princess Excella by Yuma transforming into the Shining Dragon and flying away. He eventually pledges to use his power to help turn the tide of the war between the Empire and Astoria.

 

I'm writing this and it feels like a copy and paste from every JRPG ever.

 

Anyway, the battle system seems like I'm playing a Tales game, specifically a similar system to Tales of Xillia. You have a bar on-field that is used for regular attacks and replenishes itself when you aren't attacking, as well as a MP bar for more powerful attacks (while regular attacks refill your MP bar). One nice thing is there isn't any battle transition - the battle just takes place on the map that you are currently on. Yuma has the ability to transform into the Shining Dragon in battle and can use attacks based on his remaining MP bar - going too far has him going berserk. One thing I'm disappointed is how terrible the healer AI is - I had to manually control her on the last boss fight because she had a tendency to stand right in the dragon's breath attack.

 

The game has plenty of quests and an alchemy system that requires many, many enemy drops. I did a few quests and barely any of them gave any reward that was worth doing. I'm not that interested in the alchemy system since the enemy drop rate is pretty poor overall. There's some night-time events with Yuma and your party members that help develop their characters a bit more, which is interesting but it lacks the frequency of some similar games.

 

If you want an action RPG similar to this one, I would just play a Tales game instead. This is too generic to get much praise from me.

 

Starting completion: 70.74%

Current completion: 69.75%

Difference: -0.99%

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)

Shining Resonance Refrain: 10/48 (14% - D)

 

Starting to really see the completion drop now (though I'm pretty close to finishing Word Sudoku by POWGI). Next up on the list is Dragon Quest XI.

[Oobedoob S Benubi]

5 hours ago, Metal Slime King said:

 

@DamagingRob or @Agent 47. Regarding Roundabout, do either of you guys know if the glitched trophy for 100% completing the game has been resolved? That would be the biggest concern I would have with starting this game.

 

5 hours ago, DamagingRob said:

I haven't heard anything about it being fixed. Only people who have it appear to be hackers. 

 

If only hackers have it, then I'd say it's not just glitched, but unobtainable.

 

But no, I don't know. I don't pay much attention to trophies. I've put games on my trophy list before ehile knowing full well I couldn't obtain all trophies.

[DamagingRob]

48 minutes ago, Agent 47 said:

If only hackers have it, then I'd say it's not just glitched, but unobtainable.

 

But no, I don't know. I don't pay much attention to trophies. I've put games on my trophy list before ehile knowing full well I couldn't obtain all trophies.

Yeah, there's pretty much no known way to obtain it.. Two people supposedly have, but are not listed in the list of achievers. Leading me to believe they used hacks.

 

But I knew that when going in. Lol. There's also a trophy that requires driving for 8 hours straight, and you can't pause the game or anything. Rest Mode apparently works, but is risky. So, I don't know if I'd even have tried to 100% it if it were possible. :/ But I at least had fun with it. I get it may not be for everyone, though. I do like some things that received some pretty harsh reviews.

[Edunstar84]

Game #6 - First Impressions

 

Playtime: 1 hour

Trophies: 1/36

 

I voluntarily, almost, went back into the Despair. This time though, I'm able to fight back, sort of. You play as Komaru Naegi (there's another character I have yet to meet). She's been trapped in an apartment for a year and a half, while the Biggest, Most Awful, Tragic Event in Human History was happening. Can't go much in detail about it, since it'll spoil a lot of the story. Anyway, you're rescued by one of the original members of the first game, but separated soon after with a "gun", which looks like a bullhorn. Komaru soon finds out that there is a group of people out there that want to cause more chaos and take over the island.

 

So far the gameplay is easy. Komaru uses the bullhorn gun to defeat bears called Monokumas. Hitting them in the eye results in a perfect shot that yields money or prizes. Yeah, the gameplay is easy, but the shooting aspect is a bit clunky. Having to aim for the eye is a bit slow, while the Monuma attacks. You can't dodge, so you have to run away and aim, which does take a bit of time. The more interesting aspect is the type of the bullets you can use to defeat your enemies. During the tutorial you're given an infinite amount and different types of bullets, but now that I'm passed that, all I have are the Move and Break bullets. The Move bullets help to press buttons, open doors, etc., while the Break bullets are used to damage the bears.

 

The game is cool. I liked the anime cutscenes at the very beginning, and as always, the voice acting is on point. 

@voodoo_eyes Would it be possible to switch my last game World of Final Fantasy with Final Fantasy 15? 

 

 

Edited November 24, 2018 by Edunstar84

[DamagingRob]

@voodoo_eyes I think I'll also request that switch for my final game, if possible, and it arrives on time.  Probably won't be able to give Tales of a lot of playing time, if I'm busy playing FFXV. :/ Server closures are a pain.. The Royal Edition is still $15 and in stock at Target, if anyone is looking for a cheap copy. Sale ends today.

Edited November 24, 2018 by DamagingRob

[PerryToxteth]

18 hours ago, xFalionx said:

 

Game #5: Port Royale 3 (PS3)

1st day

Total playtime: about 30 minutes

 

This is the only game on my profile that has the Hester Prynne-like Scarlet E.   I have tried twice but both times I couldn't get through the tutorial. But it sounds like Solar Cat wrote a guide, and maybe that will motivate me to get back into it for try No. 3. I like the concept of the game because it reminds me of Sid Meier's Civilization games (which I lost hundreds of potential study hours to in college).

 

If you like this game, the developers later came out with Grand Ages: Medieval. I played this a few KYC's ago and enjoyed it. It has a very similar concept of establishing trade routes but it's in Europe and you get to pick where your cities go. The tutorial is much more informative as well. 

 

Along a similar vein, Tropico 5 is also about building/ managing an environ. I highly enjoyed that and the ultra rare plat isn't that difficult and it's highly entertaining.  

[Kevvik]

Rest of the day will be busy so here's an early Day 3...

 

Game #8: 3D Dot Game Heroes

 

Initial/Day 3 Impressions

Time played : 3 hrs

 

This is a 3D Zelda clone which is way more than that simple nomenclature describes. You are the prototypical hero character which has arrived to save the world. The last hero saved the world from Darkness in 2D prompted all sorts of tourists to come to the kingdom. When the tourists stopped, the king decided to go to 3D in an effort to get them to come back. Darkness has been imprisoned in an orb so, of course, a Mage buggers off with it and now monsters have returned everywhere. You arrive on scene, go find the last hero's sword and agree to save the day for the king. You have to find the six sages who imprisoned the DArk Lord last time to get the power to do it again.

 

Sounds fairly standard and plays that way as well but there is a real charm to the game. The appearance I chose is that of a scholar, so I'm apparently an expert of these things as it seems apparent to everyone that we actually are in a game. I apparently wrote a wonderful treatise on end-game grinding. There is lots of self-aware humor and over the standard gameplay is an atmosphere that just really connects with me and I find myself smiling a lot when these occur. 

 

Swords are are kind of neat, being upgradable but in interesting ways. Spin allows you to shift your strike so as to seem to swing your sword and hit foes in multiple directions. Pierce lets your sword strike through trees, rocks or walls to hit enemies on the other side (without destroying the object you attacked through, cool huh?) and the power, width and length of your sword can be increased as well.

 

As you find the sages, you also get access to magic spells. The first helps you with puzzles, the second to reflect magical attacks. That's where I'm at presently. 

 

The other tools arrive gradually. The shields, boomerang, bombs, and bow. Candles for dark rooms. Life/ magic up items to boost your max health and magic. Those familiar with this style of game will recognize these but again, it's the charm of the game that is the real sell.  I'm really liking this and will definitely be going through it more in the future.

 

Trophies earned: 11/51, 15% for C rank

Score so far: 8.5/10

 

Completion Rate: 80.85% (-1.04% for the event)

 

Next up: Hopefully Silent Hill 2 

 

[voodoo_eyes]

11 hours ago, Edunstar84 said:

@voodoo_eyes Would it be possible to switch my last game World of Final Fantasy with Final Fantasy 15?

 

10 hours ago, DamagingRob said:

@voodoo_eyes I think I'll also request that switch for my final game, if possible, and it arrives on time.  Probably won't be able to give Tales of a lot of playing time, if I'm busy playing FFXV. :/ Server closures are a pain.. The Royal Edition is still $15 and in stock at Target, if anyone is looking for a cheap copy. Sale ends today.

 

Updated both of your game lists in the OP .

[voodoo_eyes]

Game #6 - Megadimension Neptunia VII - Final Impressions

 

 

Time played: 4 hours

Trophies earned: 3/35

 

 

I'm pleased to say that most of the changes I had hoped for, have been implemented. It looks vastly superior to the previous entries of the franchise. It also plays a lot smoother

 

The basics are still the same. Cringy/silly dialogue, turn-based combat, reasonably large areas with  several sections, items scattered around the areas. There's still a shop to buy/sell items, as well as item development. HDD mode is still there too, although I haven't quite figured out on how to enable it. Every time I was able to use it, it was scrypted. Anyway, you also have the usual items you can use during battle, as well as skills.

 

There were however a few changes as well. Items will not respawn, once they were picked up. The crafting system doesn't tell you anymore from which enemy the drop is/which area to get it from. The major boss battles have their own battle segments that varies from the regular combat. There are also formation attacks, essentially your characters must make a link through or around an enemy to increase damage and be able to do a special attack from all characters.

The areas are linked on the overworld map, and while going trom one to another random battles can occur. There are challenges for every character, which when completed increase a stat by a few points. Things like jumping , taking x amount of steps, being the lead character and so on.

 

For the most part, I enjoyed the game. The music, the updated look and menu, the boss battles and the formation attacks are all great. It still has a bit of the grind for your life feel to it though, which is a bit unfortunate. Sometimes the game lacks explanation, or rather introduces mechanics at an irregular pace. Right in the first area there are items that you can see, but there's no way to get to them. On the world map it indicates hidden treasures in every area, but there^s no explanation on how to get them. What also bothers me is that, since it's a game that's quite focused on grinding, why the hell is there no "exit dungeon" option at the very end of the dungeon? If you finally found a way to get to the blocked off items, you'll have to go through the whole dungeon and all the way back to the entrance just to get that item. The worst thing though, is by far the characters always opening their mouth whenever they perform an action. There are only so many times you can tolerate Neptune say "boing" every time she jumps, before it gets on your nerves. I swear, I'd love to know what goes through developers minds when shit like that gets put in a game.

 

In any case, this will be the first from me in this event.

Edited November 25, 2018 by voodoo_eyes

[Edunstar84]

Game #6 - Final Impressions

 

Playtime: 3 hours

Trophies: 7/36

 

I voluntarily went back into the Despair, and it didn't disappoint. 

 

The Story So Far: Continuing on, I gain a partner after I'm separated by a member of the Future Foundation. I find out that actually kids rule the island, and my goal as Komaru Naegi is to try to get off the island. Along the way I get collectibles (notes, books) that describe the chaos, and how various people reacted to it. I also met "someone" from the 1st game. I didn't recognize this person at first, but then I realized who he/she was, I immediately felt a little bit sad because I knew where the story was going. The first murder of the game. I couldn't help but laugh. Those scenes are always hysterically stupid that I can't help but chuckle.

 

Gameplay: Honestly, it felt like I played 2 hours of tutorials and 1 hour of gameplay. It stills feel a bit clunky, and it is difficult to shoot and aim. So much so that I really needed to line up a shot in the 1st second. If I missed I needed to run away, then line my shot. A lot of wasted shots and frustration over the control I had over the gun. Also, the girls were introduced to a new enemy, Bomber Monokuma - or some such. Yeah, you guessed it, it throws bomb. I'm really glad that it's aim is really horrible, although after trying to dodge a bomb I got blasted into a hole resulting in my 1st game over. My partner has a different battle system - I think I mentioned this before. I get to dodge and attack. It's a lot less clunky than Komaru's gun.

 

Soundtrack: If you played the 1st two games, the soundtrack becomes easily recognizable, like nostalgia or despair hitting you in the face.

 

Recommend: Yes. Not as good as 1 or 2, but offers a nice filler for what happened to the rest of the world.

 

Platinum: It's an easy game. Some might have trouble with the collectibles because there's a lot, but it's not too bad. I did get a little bored after a while; there's so much story.

 

Bonus game: Oceanhorn: Monster of the Uncharted Seas. I totally forgot I started this game a long time ago. At the time I only completed 1 dungeon, and wasn't really feeling the game then. 

[SolarCat02]

Trying to get the living room painted, and my PS4 is currently in a box to protect it from the soapy wall scrubbing we did this afternoon.

 

Hopefully will be able to play my last game before the end of the month. I did start Murdered: Soul Suspect but haven't progressed past the menu so all I can say is that the menu picture looks cool and I am looking forward to trying it out later this week if possible. 

[MarkusT1992]

Game #6: Cosmic Star Heroine (Final Day)

 

 

Cosmic Star Heroine is a RPG in retro look.

It is set in a futuristic world filled with a lot of robots and other automated things. You play as Alyssa L’Salle, one of the best agents of a secret organisation. During the game you meet lots of other people who will join you. Up to four can be in your party.

The game starts with Alyssa being on a mission to stop the bad guys. While doing this you stop an explosion and retrieve some mysterious objects just to steal them again later from your organisation after discovering stuff. Now Alyssa is on the run, trying to save the day.

 

The battle system in this game has some strategy involved. Each character has their own skills you can use. But each skill can only be used once. After that it gets deactivated. To use it again you have to use another abillity to recharge all deactivated skills. Besides your skills you can use an item, but again each item only once per battle. There's no way to recharge them during battles. Also they are shared between all characters. The last thing you can use are techs which are gained from the shield you have equipped. Also only usable once per battle.

Your characters can also activate a hyper mode that makes your attacks stronger. Hyper mode is activated automatically when you have enough points. Each character gets one when it is their turn. You can see when hyper mode is activated so you should have your skills ready by then otherwise you would waste it.

Then you have style points. You get them for using some skills. When you have enough style points and your HP reach zero you will go in negative HP called despair mode or something like that. You can still save the character by healing him but healing is reduced in that state. After that character's turn he dies if not healed beforehand.

There are no random battles in this game. You can see every enemy walking in the world. Getting near them will start the battle right where you are without going into a special battle screen, just like in Chrono Trigger. Also the enemies won't respawn. Once defeated they're gone for good. If you wish however, you can do the fight again by choosing the battle in the menu. You also get exp. for those fights should you need to level up a bit.

 

While exploring you can find treasure chests with new items, equipment or money in them. There are areas where you have to fight against enemies to get to whatever it is you are looking for and you have your save areas which are like cities. There you can talk to people, buy new stuff and even do some basic quests. These two areas take turns. There's also a kind of world map. It's basically the other maps zoomed out.

 

At first a thought the battle system can be difficult but it's pretty easy when you get the hang of it. The equipement of your party can influence how you fight though. For example one of my party members has an equipement that allows her to target everyone in her first turn. This leads to me always using the same skill in her first turn. As soon as she gets another equipement and looses this abillity I probably will change how I use her. Now her first hyper mode is mostly useless because I don't have skills ready.

But that's actually the most interesting part of the game. You have to think about changing your equipement. Sometimes the one with worse stats is still better, depending on which skills they grant.

 

Time played: 5h

Trophies: 11/34

Rating:

[DamagingRob]

Game #8

Rive- Final Review

 

Well, no Day 1 review for this one.. Was fairly busy/lazy on Thanksgiving and again yesterday. Put in a decent amount of time today, though, and am about 2/3rds of the way through a playthrough.

 

I'm not exactly sure how to describe Rive. It's like a metroidvania, but... not? You can't really backtrack, but always end up in the room with the upgrade terminal after a mission, which is located in the center. And there's something of a focus on exploration, with some hidden pathways in the linear levels. Not to mention, cockroaches all over the place to shoot for a trophy.. Why cockroaches? I've seen enough of those in my lifetime.

 

The gameplay has some platforming, and a lot of twinstick shooting. Waves of enemies will come flying at you, as you make your way through the linear levels. You'll have to shoot them down and dodge their attacks by jumping/double jumping over them. You also have special attacks you can use with , which can get you out of a tight spot. Destroyed enemies will drop loot and sometimes health items, as well. Loot can be spent on upgrades such as new special attacks, health, and armor upgrades. 

 

The game started out kind of easy, but is definitely ramping things up. One level had trains coming at you, with enemies from both sides of the screen to contend with. Got smashed by the train many times, which is an instant kill.. Then there are these boss fights, where the bosses are constantly spawning minions, and you're trapped in a small space. It's pretty hectic. Lol. But also fun. 

 

You also have the ability to hack things. Hack a health bot and it will heal you until it's destroyed. A Smasher bot will ram everything in sight. Turret bots seem to be the same as normal shooting, but were needed when your guns stopped working. Because the safety was on. There's a lot of funny stuff like that in this game. Some of the dialogue is great, too. Especially with the deep and gruff voice of the guy you're playing as.

 

I don't know how completing this game is going to go, though.. There's a trophy for buying all upgrades before Mission 9, which I have failed to get enough loot for. And I farmed quite a bit of the stuff, at certain points. Then there's the Single-Credit Mode, which gives you one life on the Hard difficulty setting. Backup saves may make it possible, but I'm struggling on Normal.  Though I haven't really bought many upgrades, since there's a trophy for only buying one over the course of a playthrough. And I wish I'd put it into Health or Armor and not a special attack, since I'm trying not to use those for another trophy.

 

So yeah, I'm enjoying this one, so far. Seems like a solid gold, so will give it a triple gold score: .

 

Time played: 4-5 hours, I think.

Trophy progress: 12/42 for 17% and an A rank.

Did it lower my completion? Yes, and I have now dipped under 91%. ?

[dmland12]

Game #8: Knack

Trophies: 28/42 (61%)

Completion: 91.14% (-0.28%, -3.62% from start)

 

Knack is a 3D action-platformer that was available on PS+ earlier this year.  It was one of the original launch titles for the PS4 and got a lot of poor reviews.  I guess it couldn't live up to the hype, because it's actually a pretty solid platformer.

 

In Knack, you play as some kind of weird creature that's composed of some strange magic artifacts.  The main thing that sets Knack apart from most other platformers is that your character varies in size and power depending on how many of these relics you find and add to your body.  While playing the levels, you'll generally start off small, then gradually grow larger until you're gigantic-monster sized.  And then you'll need to shrink back down again for some plot reason.  It's interesting, because you'll often face some enemies that gave you trouble when you're small.  But as you grow in size, it gets easier.  Before long, you're able to one-hit them, or in a few cases even trample them.  That's very satisfying.  Of course, you'll soon find new larger enemies that will give you a greater challenge.  Also gigantic mech boss fights. Overall, it's an interesting mechanic and gives you a good sense of getting more powerful without being unbalanced.

 

The story is probably the game's weakest point.  It's not terrible, but it's also not particularly engaging.  It's kind of just there.

 

The combat is where the game made it's best impression on me.  The enemies you face will generally hit hard, so you must get good at avoiding their attacks and counter-attacking.  Sometimes you can jump them first, but you need to be careful.  They're fairly predictable and have set patterns.  Overall, I thought it provided a fair challenge without being frustrating.  I mean, sure you'll probably die the first time you face some tough enemies or a boss that you haven't seen.  But once you know what they're going to do, it's up to you to get good at avoiding that.

 

If you're interested in seeing what the combat is like, here's a video from the hardest (my opinion) coliseum attack, which is a sort of post-game arena challenge.  It also will give you a chance to see Knack grow from the tiny starter Knack to a somewhat larger Knack quickly.

 

 

[ImBossy83]

Final thoughts Game #4

 

 

Yakuza Kiwami

 

Again i like what i saw. The story is this strange mix of really serious themes with over the top silliness and the Graphics where much better than i anticipated. There's "only" a Japanese voice over but it's pretty good. The only problem is that you always have to stay focused and read the subtitles unless you can understand Japanese.

I played a bit over three hours and i have barely scraped the surface of the game. I don't know if  i will ever invest the 100+ hours that are needed for the plat but i will complete the story when i find the Time.

 

Playtime:  3.5 hours
Trophies: 4/55 Rank E
Enjoyment: 8/10

[Edunstar84]

Game # 7 - First Impressions

Assassin's Creed Syndicate

 

Playtime: 1 hour

Trophies: 1/57

 

This is the first Assassin's Creed I've ever played, and it didn't disappoint. However, I wouldn't know how to describe the myriad of information that this game gives you in the beginning. Information about the Animus and Abstergo Industries. I still need to read more about it, and fortunately Ubisoft has created a really great Menu system where I can peruse the info whenever I want to.

 

As I understand it, each Assassin's Creed games takes place in a specific time period. In Syndicate, we're placed in Victorian England. It's my favorite time period, especially the niche concept of steam punk. I wouldn't want to live during this period, but I do enjoy reading about it. I get to play as twins Evie and Jacob Frye trying to find pieces of Eden. I'm not sure why, but know that it's important. 

 

The first 2 missions serve as a tutorial. It shows you how to run, jump on rooftops, attack, and assassinate people. I prefer the stealth approach, and it felt satisfying as I made my first assassination. There's also a looting system, which earns you a bit of money and helps replenish your throwing knives. I didn't get to loot everybody until I upgraded the Loot skill. Did I talk about the Menu system? It's possibly the best Menu layout I've ever seen in a game. It's very easy to use and has loads of information. I'm able to buy and upgrade equips (with the money I earn from looting and completing missions), switch between Evie and Jacob, upgrade skill sets, and much more. So far it's one of the top games I've played during this event.

[voodoo_eyes]

Game #7 - Uncharted: Lost Legacy - Preview

 

 

Well, it's time for a game that I'm pretty sure I'm going to enjoy. I've finished teh first 3 installments, and played a little bit of Golden Abyss. The latter being the weakest link so far, but still not a bad game. Hopegully it won't feel out of place, since I haven't played the 4th one yet. Either way I'm expecting more of the usual run and gun, climb and shimmy with gorgeous cinematics and great dialogues.

[SyIaris]

Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc

Game #8 (22nd-24th)

~1-2 hours played

1/38

 

Well, that was a failure. I knew that would be a busy stretch and intentionally left the Vita game for it, but I barely had time to play. Only made it to the first free time segment, not even through chapter 1. 

Main impressions:

Thank goodness you can fast travel with the map, because I got lost enough as it was.

I hope a couple of these characters get killed off quickly, because man are they annoying.

 

On 11/23/2018 at 4:16 PM, Metal Slime King said:

Some people I played with beat the last boss required for trophies with 1600 Strength but yeah, your 200 Vitality was quite low. You must've done some good dodging. I made a decent end game weapon set without grinding Laser Sensors by crafting a bunch of Strength Gems by building weapons with whatever strength building items I had lying around and tearing the weapon down for gems. Whatever items didn't build strength I sold to buy more strength building items from the Imperial soldier in the mining town. Ended up with 2,723 Strength and 894 Vitality. Putting the +30% crafting boon on a dedicated crafting character really helped a lot. I would have to say this game was way more fun for me since I had a group of friends going through the game at the same time.

 

Okay dodging, but it largely came down to the AI being pretty good about reviving. Think he OHKO'd me 4-5 times, but I got him first try - it let me dump the rest of my cash into kW to speed that up. Only had two weapons maxed out. 

Yep, playing through with friends would definitely help. The garrison shop may not be as good as some of the things you'd need to grind, but at least it's way easier.

 

Out of curiosity, did you have trouble with the Ghost in the Machine mission? It crashed the game more than it cleared for me.

[PerryToxteth]

9 hours ago, Edunstar84 said:

Game # 7 - First Impressions

Assassin's Creed Syndicate

 

Playtime: 1 hour

Trophies: 1/57

 

This is the first Assassin's Creed I've ever played, and it didn't disappoint. However, I wouldn't know how to describe the myriad of information that this game gives you in the beginning. Information about the Animus and Abstergo Industries. I still need to read more about it, and fortunately Ubisoft has created a really great Menu system where I can peruse the info whenever I want to.

 

The AC games have a arcing story but to sum it up into one paragraph: Abstergo=Templars=Evil. You are a modern day Assassin and you use the Animus to time travel and fight the Templars in various time periods. Pieces of Eden have supernatural powers, and the Assassins attempt to keep these items out of the Templars' hands to prevent them from achieving their ultimate goal of world power. 

It goes way more in-depth than that but that's all you need to know for Syndicate. The modern day story in Syndicate is almost nil.

 

- Also, don't waste time grabbing collectibles until you unlock the grapple gizmo! 

[ImBossy83]

Initial thoughts Game #5

 

 

Death Road to Canada

 

From time to time i like to delve into these rather obscure Titles. With only 588 Owner and 5 Platinum achiever on this site Death Road to Canada is one of them. The game premise is that the world is overrun by zombie's and apparently Canada is the last Safe place. So our goal is to reach Canada. On the way you have to fight against zombie's, loot places, make decisions, recruit other survivor's and find enough food to feed everyone. The style is your typical Indie 16bit pixelated look. On your way you also can earn Zombie points. With those points you can buy new Perks after you finished your run. I played for two hours and didn't earn a Single trophy but I still liked it a lot. 

 

Playtime:  2 hours
Trophies: 0/66 Rank F
Enjoyment: 8/10