jonesey46's Trophy Travels

[jonesey46]

 Platinum #275 - Death's Door 

 

Introduction

Death's Door is a part of the underutilised but thankfully growing genre of 'Zelda-likes'. As someone who never played the original Zelda games, my first console was a PS1 and I've stuck with PlayStation ever since, I'm unfamiliar with the tropes. From what I can tell they are adventure games, often utilising an isometric view with a strong focus on exploration to find keys and items to help you on your journey, with tonnes of secrets and cryptic puzzles as well as some light combat with the odd boss fight thrown in for good measure.

 

I added this game to my wishlist shortly after it released in 2021 as I kept hearing good things about it and these days if an indy title is getting praise, I want to play it. It took me until now to finally play this for two reasons; the first being it finally reduced to a decent price on sale and the second, I was told it was like Tunic, and if not for Elden Ring, Tunic would have been my GOTY of last year. So because I loved Tunic so much I was craving more and thankfully, Death's Door hits that spot deliciously.

 

Story

You play as crow who works for the reaping comission as a soul reaper. You're sent on an assignment to reap the soul of a giant but right before you collect it, it gets stolen by an old crow. You find out that the old crow needed the soul to try and open Death's Door, a mysterious door which requires several giant souls to open. The old crow sends you to reap 3 more giant souls in hopes of finally opening Death's Door.

 

Gameplay

As mentioned before, Death's Door is a Zelda-like. When you start the game you are arriving at work at the Reaping Commission. Death and its process has been portrayed as being a mundane 9-5 style job at a boring office, so much so that the area is completely black and white. The Commission acts as a hub area where you can travel to the various levels and upgrade your abilities. There is a central level that acts as a secondary hub, this branches out to the three main levels of the game. Each level houses a boss who is in possession of the giant souls you require. The Old Witch lives in her estate which is a large house surrounded by a well kept garden. The house eventually leads into a steampunk dungeon with lots of moving pipes and traps. The second boss is The Frog King who lives in his kingdom, a stone fortress surrounded by swamp land. The final boss soul resides high up in the mountain region which as you can imagine, is snowy and icy! At the foot of the mountain is a small settlement which has a lovely sushi restaurant. The game is visually very pretty and has that indy/cozy vibe to it. Each area is unique and has a good sense of visual progression as you journey through the world. Levels hide a bunch of secrets and some can be fairly cryptic, as is tradition. With the game only having three real levels the game is quite short, but not lacking in quality. It's a fine length but does leave you wanting more.

 

Exploration of the world is the motivator and combat facilitates this. You have a melee weapon, of which there are 5 variations, which varies the swing speed and damage. You also have 4 spells, although you only start with one, the other 3 are collected whilst going through the story and in typical metroidvania fashion, the spells open up new areas and can open up secrets in previous areas, which encourages back tracking.

 

At the Reaping Commission you can upgrade your abilities such as your damage output, speed and spell damage. You buy these with soul power which you collect from fallen enemies or finding collectible soul deposits.

 

Once the game ends, you have the opportunity to continue exploring the world which is great for solving some of those tricky endgame puzzles.

 

Trophy Thoughts

Death's Door has a relatively easy platinum with only one trophy offering any sort of challenge. Most of the trophies unlock when achieving 100% game completion which is required. There's a couple of trophies for performing specific tasks during boss fights which can potentially be missable but the actions are really obvious so you might end up getting these without trying. There are no trophies for story progression so you might actually end up making it half way through the game before unlocking a single trophy. The only challenging trophy which I mentioned is to beat the game using only the umbrella as your melee weapon. The umbrella is the weakest weapon in the game so it turns the game into a kind of 'challenge run'. You're still able to use spells which are insanely useful and can make some parts much easier.

 

I did the umbrella run on a second playthrough as I did my first playthrough blind. This is recommended however you are free to do the umbrella run on your first go if you really wanted to. As I said earlier, the game is quite short and when you know what you're doing, even shorter. Combat takes longer as you're not doing as much damage but it's easy to rush the umbrella run and beat the game in 2-3 hours.

 

Summary

A wonderful indy title that pays homage to the original Zelda games and one to be enjoyed by both hardcore fans of those games and people that are new to games. It's something I realised when thinking about this game. It has a hardcore base but is actually quite accessible. It has its challenging moments here and there but for the most part, can be enjoyed by anyone and has a palatable style. Even the writing is enjoyable, if a bit eye-rolly at times. And as always, it has a great soundtrack, but it's published by Devolver so that's a given!

 

In my opinion though, it isn't as good as Tunic. So if you're torn between the two, I'd recommend Tunic over this.

 

Best Bit

It's just a jolly good adventure game

 

Worst Bit

A bit on the short side.

 

Arbitrary Rating

9/10

 

It might not have come across in this review but I really enjoyed this game. Multiple times whilst playing I'd stop and actually say out loud to myself; "I really like this game". I'm not joking.

Edited March 27, 2023 by jonesey46

[jonesey46]

 Platinum #276 - Enter the Gungeon 

 

Introduction

Enter the Gungeon is a bullet hell rogue-like that has a lot of personality and is really flipping hard. Yeah, I said "flipping", my son is now 5 months old, I really need to work on my language.

 

Enter the Gungeon was given away as part of PlayStations effort to get people to stay home during the pandemic. This came at a very opportune time for me as I had recently watched both Superbunnyhop and Dunkeys reviews on this game as they both appeared in my suggested feed on YouTube. At the time I was trying lots of new indy games and this becoming free was a sign!

 

So, playing this game I learned that it's really freaking hard. I actually went through a love/hate relationship with this game for a while but now it's one of my favourite games of all time. I uninstalled and reinstalled this game several times. I would play it, die a lot, get annoyed and delete it. Then I wouldn't be able to stop thinking about it so I'd reinstall it again and thus the cycle would continue. Turns out, I was just rubbish. Thankfully, I managed to break through the skill barrier eventually and finally started achieving goals.

 

This platinum has taken me just shy of two years and while I haven't been playing it non stop since then obviously, it really feels like it took that long. Currently, my play time according to my PS5 is at 118 hours. This number would be higher as there were certain times where I utilised backed up saves to cheese certain trophies.

 

Anyway! Enter the Gungeon is wonderful game with a lot of heart, great writing, actual funny jokes and very addictive gameplay. As someone that's not overly familiar with rogue-likes, I really fell for this game. I do plan to play more rogue-likes but in my mind, it's going to be hard to top this...

 

Story

Legend says that deep within the Gungeon, there lies a gun that has the ability to kill your past. 4 adventurers journey to the Gungeon in order to do just this. They all have regrets and they all plan to put things right.

 

Gameplay

Enter the Gungeon is a 2D, isometric bullet hell shooter which functions like a rogue-like. This means that when you die, you start from the beginning. The Gungeon has five levels and at the end of the fifth level, is the gun that can kill your past. Your initial goal is to do this for each of the 4 characters but there's actually a lot more going on in the Gungeon and a lot more things you can do.

 

When you 'Enter the Gungeon' you start on level 1, each level is procedurally generated with various rooms containing random enemies and hazards. Each level ends with a boss and you must defeat the boss to go to the next level. Enemies often fire bullets at you and you need to dodge around them in typical bullet hell fashion. The later levels can get quite hectic with tonnes of bullets flying in all directions. Each character starts with 3 hearts, getting hit takes away one half of a heart so you have six hits. You can gain more hearts through various means as well as armor which can shield you from one hit each. Die and like I said, you're kicked back to the start of the Gungeon and get to do it all again! Yay! Runs tend to only last around half an hour max though so it's not a massive loss.

 

Every level contains 2 chests which can hold either a random gun or item. Items can be either passive or active. Every level also contains a shop which stocks a random amount of items that can help you such as ammo, health and armor, as well as sometimes stocking weapons or items. You buy stuff using shells which drop from enemies when they die. Every inch of this game is stacked with secrets and you really need to know what you're doing to find them as they are very well hidden most of the time. Levels can also spawn random rooms which range from super helpful NPC rooms or optional side bosses that can ruin your day. RNG plays a BIG part of this game and sometimes it can really screw you over, other times the light of RNGesus can shine upon you and bless your run.

 

Your typical run is collecting all the guns and items you can find, trying to become super powerful, making it to the fifth level and not dying. 

 

When not exploring the Gungeon, you can wander around the breach which is the over world hub area. Here you can speak to NPCs which you need to save from prison cells on various levels of the Gungeon. You can also spend hedgemoney credits which are gained from killing bosses on new guns and items which makes them available to spawn in the Gungeon. There are a tonne of unlocks in this game which goes a long way to keeping the game feeling fresh as you inevitably spend at least 100 hours in it.

 

As you can tell by the name of the game, everything in this game revolves around guns. Everything from the enemies to the locations to the weapons themselves are either references to guns in popular culture or puns centered around guns. A lot of the enemies are literal bullets, the final boss is a dragon called the Dragun, there's a secret floor literally called bullet hell. There's a regular old shotgun that shoots shotgun shells and also a shotgun shell that shoots shotguns. This game is ridiculous and the amount of times I had a big smile on my face or actually laughed out loud when playing surprised me. There's a bunch of guns in the game that are from popular films or games such as the multi-functional rifle from The Fifth Element or Deckards pistol from Blade Runner. There's also lots of references to Dungeons & Dragons with a lot of the bosses and enemies being inspired by creatures from it.

 

Like I said, I got this game for free but even at full price, which is £10.99, you're practically stealing this game for the amount of content that's in it. It really is a massive game and its even had two major updates which added new characters, loads of new guns, new bosses and new areas. Its insane how much content this game has.

 

Platinum Thoughts

The trophies in this game are ridiculous. You need to kill the past of each of the 4 main characters and to do this you need to first craft the bullet to kill the past. This requires doing various tasks to collect the five pieces required to craft the bullet, once crafter though, you don't have to do it again, thankfully. This is your main goal at the start of the game and unless you're a gaming god, this will take you a while. Outside of that there's various tasks to do like opening shortcuts to the various floors, clearing the various levels a certain amount of times and unlocking all the NPCs.

 

The last trophy you're likely to get, it was certainly mine anyway, is completing all of Frifles challenges. Frifle is an NPC who gives you the task of killing specific enemies a certain amount of times. Problem is, you can only do one challenge at a time. If you kill enemies that later become part of the challenge, they don't count. You always start from zero every time you start a new challenge. Even after doing all the tasks bar DLC in this game I still had just under half of the challenges to do. This resulted in grinding these specific enemies which takes a long time. My advice is to start focusing on these ASAP to lessen the endgame grind.

 

Mostly though, it's a straightforward enough platinum that can look very intimidating. The game can be really difficult so it's initially about getting through that difficulty/skill barrier I mentioned earlier, which took a good number of hours for me. Also, RNG plays a part in this too, you'll have good and bad runs. Sometimes, the dice just don't roll in your favour and you need to accept that.

 

Summary

This game is super fun and its gameplay loop is addictive and satisfying. Eventually you just tend to get used to everything the game throws at you and you just inevitably become better at the game, despite the difficulty barrier being so intimidating at first. I hated this game with a passion at one point in time, now I love it unconditionally. I'm still pretty bad at it, but not abysmal like I was when I started! And I get the good run every now and then!

 

As rogue likes go, I've heard this is one of the best. Having not played many others (I plan to play Dead Cells one day) it's certainly my favourite. If you've got more experience with the genre, how do you feel about Enter the Gungeon?

 

Best Bit

Addictive gameplay loop, great humour

 

Worst Bit

It's really hard and requires investment to get better, also RNG can really hate you in this sometimes.

 

Arbitrary Rating

10/10

 

Yup, I really love this game.

 

---

 

I'm still to finish off the two DLC packs so I'm left with 4 trophies to unlock before getting 100%. I plan to give Gungeon a little break before tackling those though as I've definitely played a lot of this game recently. I've also picked up Exit the Gungeon, which is the sequel/follow up and I plan on starting this after getting 100% in Enter.

 

I'm really happy I stuck with this game as it truly has become one of my favourites of all time.

[jonesey46]

 Platinum #277 - Sayonara Wild Hearts 

 

Introduction

In my continued effort to play and platinum every Annapurna published game, I'm experiencing some fantastic games that I might not have checked out otherwise. Sayonara Wild Hearts is one of these as judging it by its cover (which you should never do, obviously) I would assume its an anime game. It doesn't even look like one but for some reason this is the assumption I made. Nothing against anime stuff btw, it just isn't my thing.

 

Sayonara Wild Hearts is a music and rhythm game that plays out like an interactive pop album. It's more akin to an experience but does have some challenging gameplay aspects and a score system to encourage perfection.

 

Story

Being an Annapurna published game, the story comes off as very arty and can be interpreted in many ways. To me it was about confronting inner demons and accepting who you are to be truly happy.

 

Gameplay

Sayonara Wild Hearts consists of several levels, each level has you on a track, you can move left and right and you move to either collect points or dodge obstacles. The more points you collect and the less times you wipe out, the better score you get. Levels tend to last no longer than a minute with only a few being over 2 minutes. Playing all levels back to back, you'll probably finish the game in an hour to and hour and a half. A game like this has great replayability though as you can replay levels to beat your score and get better ranks.

 

The music is the main draw of this game and each levels has a fantastic track accompanying it. Often your movements in the level will sync up with the music and it just looks and feels incredible. Sometimes levels will get you to hit a button in time with the music and this can be tricky, although if you naturally have rhythm you might not struggle with this! It took me a little while to get used to.

 

The game has this neon-noir look to it and it matches the soundscape perfectly.

 

The various levels have you riding a skateboard, driving a motorbike and a car, flying through the air and at one point you even fly a dragon. Its a visual spectacle from start to finish and its something you really have to play yourself to appreciate.

 

Platinum Thoughts

Unfortunately, getting the platinum for this game almost ruined the experience for me. Let me explain, trophies aren't awarded for perfecting the levels which you might expect from a game like this, instead they are awarded for solving 'riddles'.

 

In the main menu there's a riddle section, each riddle is tied to a star sign as the game has a zodiac theme to it. The solutions to these riddles range from arbitrary to completely antithetical to the games design.

 

The arbitrary tasks include pausing the game 18 times quickly or getting gold on a level three times in a row. The one that really bugged me which I believed to be antithetical to the games design was to complete a level only getting 'good' scores on the rhythm prompts. As mentioned earlier, sometimes the game throws up a prompt on screen and you need to press a button in time with the music, if you do it bang on you get a 'perfect' if you completely miss it you get an 'ok' but if you get somewhere in between that, you get 'good'. The level in question has around 20-30 prompts and you need to get 'good' on each one. We're talking milliseconds between these prompts. Teaching yourself to time these right is trial and error and again, completely against the point of the game. It really annoyed me.

 

There isn't a trophy for getting gold rank on each level but doing this does unlock an extra mode which is needed for a trophy. There's also collectible coins in each level and you need to collect them all to get a trophy.

 

Playing through the game for the first time, experiencing the great music and then going through it again to get gold rank on each level and collect the coins was fantastic and I loved it. Everything after that was a chore and I despised it. It just felt completely arbitrary and pointless.

 

Summary

Sayonara Wild Hearts is a fantastic experience which was almost ruined for me by the atrocious trophy design. Trophies shouldn't ever ruin an experience and the core game is still great and well worth your time but we are after all on a trophy centered website so it is worth mentioning.

 

The music is utterly incredible and I've been listening to it on Spotify ever since beating it.

 

Best Bit

The incredible music!

 

Worst Bit

The riddle trophies worked against the games design.

 

Abritrary rating

8/10

 

I would have given this a 9/10 but the riddles really annoyed me ?

Edited April 27, 2023 by jonesey46

[HelixNebula_x]

54 minutes ago, jonesey46 said:

 Platinum #277 - Sayonara Wild Hearts 

 

 

 

Phenomenal game, I absolutely loved it and smashed through it in a couple of days.

 

I still have the songs on my playlist with Inside, Dead of Night and Wild Hearts Never Die being particular standouts for me.

 

I'm quite the opposite to you though, in that I really liked the idea of the trophy list just being a bunch of miscellaneous tasks to figure out and go for. Although I know the trophy you're talking about, I think it's on Fighting Hearts? That was an exception, as like you said it completely goes against everything else you've been doing up to that point.

 

Congrats on the plat! What Annapurna game are you looking to do next?

[jonesey46]

7 hours ago, HelixNebula_x said:

 

Phenomenal game, I absolutely loved it and smashed through it in a couple of days.

 

I still have the songs on my playlist with Inside, Dead of Night and Wild Hearts Never Die being particular standouts for me.

 

I'm quite the opposite to you though, in that I really liked the idea of the trophy list just being a bunch of miscellaneous tasks to figure out and go for. Although I know the trophy you're talking about, I think it's on Fighting Hearts? That was an exception, as like you said it completely goes against everything else you've been doing up to that point.

 

Congrats on the plat! What Annapurna game are you looking to do next?

'Mine' is my favourite song and also my favourite level, I loved the other twin one too where the level changes when they click. So cool.

 

It's a neat idea but the execution was poor imo. I'd like to see them try it again in another game in the future though.

 

I'm at the stage where I have all of them in my wishlist, waiting for them to go on sale to buy them. They all tend to go on sale at the same time so I just buy the cheapest one ? by that logic the next one will probably be A Memoir Blue. Although the one I'm most excited to play is Neon White. 

[jonesey46]

 Platinum #278 - Tails of Iron 

 

Introduction

Tails of Iron was a part of April's PS+ line up and I'm bloody glad that it was. This is a game I knew NOTHING about and that would likely still be the case if it wasn't offered on PS+. This is a great indie title with challenging combat, interesting visuals and rewarding exploration. It's also narrated by none other than the great Geraldo himself!

 

Story

Redgi is a rat and is the son of the king of Ratdom, he is heir to the thrown and destined to wear the crown and continue the neverending war between Ratkind and the Frogspawn.

 

Gameplay

Tails of Iron is a 2D metroidvania-esque adventure game with punishing souls-like combat. It borrows a lot from popular genre defining games but does it's own thing well enough to stand out. It has a middle ages type setting.

 

There are three big areas to explore over the course of the game as well as one small endgame area. Areas start out flat and you move from one end to the other but as you progress, underground areas open up which have more involved exploration and platforming. There are certain areas that are locked off at the start due to you not having the right equipment. This is where the 'metroidvania-esque' comes from.

 

Combat is the meat of the game and how you'll spend most of your time. Redgi has a light and heavy weapon which can be either a sword, axe or spear. He also carries a shield and a ranged weapon which can be a bow, crossbow or a gun. The main enemies you fight are frogs (I hope it isn't a commentary on battling the French, that would be unfortunate), they mostly tend to be the same size as you although you do get ones that are much bigger but they tend to be bosses or mini-bosses. You also fight grubs, mosquitos and even other rats.

 

Combat is very weighty and Redgi feels heavy to move. There is a weight system based on what weapons you equip and what armor you wear, this affects how quickly Redgi moves. Combat requires patience and you'll often be waiting for an opening to safely deal damage. Redgi has a parry move which is honestly a life saver and will sometimes be the only way to deal damage. Like Sekiro, enemies have symbols above their heads when they attack, these symbols will let you know how you need to react. The combat tutorial will teach you how to react to these symbols, you can however, completely ignore this advice! Yellow means they can be parried which is true and consistent. The other two however are a bit of a crap shoot. A red squiggly line means you dash which is a short, quick dodge. A red circle means you need to dodge roll to get more distance. This is complete bollocks and in all honesty you just need to learn the context of each dodge when reacting to specific enemy attacks. You will get hit a lot and it may seem unfair, but you will get used to it as the game goes on and it will get easier. The first boss had me so confused and took me several tries because I was following the advice the game gave me, as soon as I stopped doing that, it got better. Not really sure what they were going for with the tutorial if I'm honest.

 

The story is semi-open, you are required to go to certain areas to continue the story but you can explore freely and even take up side quests. These side quests are presented as notice board requests and often have you clearing a specific area out of enemies. They reward you with cash which is sometimes needed for story progression so some side quests are actually required to continue the main story.

 

There are some light RPG elements, namely changing your equipment as you find better stuff to increase your stats and also food collectables which you give to your chef to increase your health. You gain new weapons from looting enemies, finding them out in the world or collecting blueprints. Blueprints are non-descript and when you hand them in to your blacksmith they get traded for a random weapon or piece of equipment you don't have yet.

 

As mentioned previously, the whole game is narrated by Doug Cockle, famous for playing Geralt in the Witcher games. My personal head canon is that this is a story Geralt is reading to a young Ciri.

 

Platinum Thoughts

My first bit of advice for this section, is that if you use the guide on here, ignore the missable trophy. Nothing in this game is missable. Everything can be done after the story is complete in free roam.

 

The platinum for this game is incredibly straight forward and easy. So long as you gel with the combat system because like I said, there is a lot of it! You're essentially required to 100% the game, collecting everything and finishing all side quests. After finishing the story, clean up took no more than 2 hours.

 

Some DLC has been added which tasks you with finishing an endgame tournament and fighting a boss enemy in a secret area. Both incredibly simple and easy to get. However, there is also a trophy for beating the game on 'Bloody Whiskers' mode which promises to be a much more challenging experience than normal mode. I haven't tried it yet so I can't comment on it. I plan to however.

 

Summary

Tails of Iron is a surprise hit for me and I'm glad I played it. For fans of the Souls series and Hollow Knight it's an immediate recommendation. If nothing else, play it to hear the dulcet tones of Geraldo.

 

Best Bit

Challenging but satisfying 2D combat. Doug Cockles narration.

 

Worst Bit

The tutorial for the combat is laughably wrong and ignoring it is your best option.

 

Arbitrary Rating

9/10

[jonesey46]

After my last review on Tails of Iron, I was feeling a little disappointed with myself. I feel my format has gotten a little tired and with Tails of Iron particularly, I felt like I was just going through the motions and word vomiting any thoughts I had on the game.

 

Because of this, I've decided to change the format a little, mainly to give the sections a little more direction so I can focus on specific aspects of the game rather than waffle on aimlessly.

 

My introduction will mainly focus on how I came about the game, why I started playing it and/or my general thoughts on it before going in. The story section will have a blurb as always to sum it up for people who haven't played it and then I will be doing a full run down on the story in a spoiler section below that. I’m adding a visuals section so I can focus on how the game looks in that specific area. The gameplay section will now be split into three sub-sections of what I believe to be the core aspects of each game. Platinum thoughts will remain mostly unchanged although I'd like to add an easiest/hardest trophy section to it. Summary, best bit, worst bit and arbitrary rating will remain the same, I will try a little harder with them though. I sometimes discuss DLC but not always, I plan to have a section on it (as long as the game actually has DLC of course) and discuss it regardless of if I've played it or not. I'm also adding a music section as I really like video game music and listen to it all the time.

 

All this will probably make the reviews MUCH longer but hopefully more insightful.

 

It'll all be a work in progress probably and I may change it as I go. I just found myself getting a little bored with it all but ultimately, I enjoy keeping this thread up as it’s always fun to go back and read. It's been going for about 4 years now (with some BIG gaps here and there admittedly) and I plan to keep it going for as long as I can.

 

Thanks for reading  

 

Which brings us to my next platinum and the first to try out the new format...

 

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 Platinum #279 - Marvel's Midnight Suns 

 

 

Introduction

Here's a game that, without the license, I never would have tried. When this was first revealed at whatever digital gaming show was on at the time (summer games fest, state of play, game awards; there's so many these days) I was intrigued because I'm a fan of Marvel and I appreciated a developer doing something a little different with the license rather than making another third person action-adventure title with set pieces every 5 minutes. Midnight Suns being turn based was a little bit off putting for me though as I don't care for turn based combat whatsoever. Still, I kept it on my radar and when it released it picked up some favourable reviews although I don't think it sold too well. Reviews made it clear that despite the game being turn based, it was not a game to be missed by naysayers. The game had a free weekend at the end of March, so I was able to try it and see for myself. It didn't take long for me to be won round by the game as I found it a lot of fun! I had just turned 30 (ugh) at the end of March and so using a gift voucher I got from someone, I bought the game at a great price, I think I got it for £30. The free weekend, the game being on sale and the birthday money I received seemed to have all aligned perfectly for me.

 

Story

An evil dark witch known as Lilith is summoning demons across the world. The Midnight Suns are a team of heroes who work in secret and are tasked with destroying her. Despite the odds being stacked against them they have one trick up their sleeve, her child!

 

full story discussion:

Spoiler

In Midnight Suns, you do not play as one of the legendary Marvel characters, instead you play as a unique character known as Hunter. Hunter can be male or female and there are a few customization options to make them look how you want. Hunter is the child of Lilith and hundreds of years ago they managed to defeat her. Hunter was then sealed away by The Midnight Suns, knowing that one day Lilith will return and when she does, they can resurrect Hunter from their slumber to banish her once again.

 

The story in this game is generic and filled with convenient plot devices and McGuffins. However, it still manages to be successful by having you play as an original character. Playing as the Hunter gives you, the player, an in to the Marvel Universe with all its famous and legendary characters. It allows you to exist in this world and hang out with or fight alongside some of your favourite heroes. This makes the story immersive and, if it works for you, makes you care about what happens. It makes you see these heroes in a different light and shows a different side of them than what you're used to in regular Marvel media.

 

Lilith is the main villain and the objective for the whole game is to bring her down. She is also the Hunters mother though. At various points in the story, when the Hunter goes to bed, Lilith comes to them in their dreams. In these moments, Lilith expresses to Hunter that they still deeply care for them and wishes for them to join her mission. I liked these sections a lot and they pave the way for the twist at the end.

 

At around the midpoint of the story its revealed that Cthon is the main threat, and you believe Lilith to be his servant and working to summon him. Cthon is an evil elder god and the creator of the Darkhold, a super evil book. During the final mission you learn that Lilith was trying to stop Cthon this whole time. Lilith sacrifices herself to banish Cthon and save the heroes. Hunter stays behind to comfort her, and they both seemingly die. The world is saved, but the character you spent so much time with, building relationships with other heroes, fighting alongside them, is gone and that hits super hard. That wouldn't be possible if you were playing as a known character cause comic book heroes never truly die. And even if Hunter returns for a sequel, it still works here as there is uncertainty. A lot of superhero media suffers from lack of stakes, and I feel Midnight Suns tackles this well.

 

After the credits there's a little scene (cause of course there is) showing Dr. Doom picking up the Darkhold and saying "amateurs" paving the way for a sequel and setting him up as the next big bad

 

Visuals

Marvel’s Midnight Suns really isn’t the best game you’ve ever seen. Models are quite basic looking and not what you’d expect from a ‘next gen’ release. Animations are stiff and sometimes weird looking and voice sync is as basic as it gets.

 

All that aside though, the environments are quite visually impressive and have a lot of style. Combat arenas are packed with details and The Abbey itself is a visual treat. Not to mention the various weather effects which look great. It’s funny because I was playing Resident Evil 4 at the same time as this and as you may know, the rain in RE4 looks terrible but the rain in this looked much better, despite being a graphically inferior game.

 

Gameplay is king in Midnight Suns so the visuals aren’t trying to impress you, but there are plenty of visual treats that may surprise you.

 

Gameplay

 

Core Aspects:

Combat · The Abbey · Heroes

 

Combat

As mentioned earlier, combat is turn based, but it's also card based. Card systems seem to be getting more popular and while I can't comment on how successful they are in games like Inscryption or Neon White (both of which are on my wish list) I can safely say that it makes a lot of sense in a game like this. Firaxis, the developers of this game, are most famous for developing The XCOM series, a series which I have never played unfortunately. In XCOM you control a bunch of no name soldiers, directing them to cover so they don't get blasted to pieces. In Midnight Suns, you control legendary superheroes. Moving Spider-Man behind a table doesn't make sense. Why would Captain Marvel need to hide from Hydra goons? And so, you now have this system where heroes stand out in the opening tanking hits when it isn't their turn but when it is their turn? They're annihilating everything in sight faster than any XCOM agent could.

 

So how does the card system work? When selecting missions, you get to choose which heroes you take with you. Story missions always involve the Hunter and usually one other hero, so you get to pick one other. General/Side missions are always led by one specific hero, and you get to pick the other two. Each hero has a deck of 8 cards. These decks are customizable, and you gain cards from completing missions, levelling up heroes, hanging out with them etc. When you start a mission a selection of 6 cards, taken randomly from each hero’s deck will be on screen. Some cards are attack cards, some are support. You use these cards to defeat enemies and/or finish objectives. You get three card plays per turn. Once your turn is over, all the enemies that are left will do their move and a new turn begins. It's very straight forward and simple to understand but there is some depth to it and on higher difficulties, you really are forced to think tactically about what cards to play and what enemies to wipe out first.

 

Cards have damage numbers on them indicating how much health it'll take off enemies. The most powerful cards cost a resource known as heroism. Heroism is built up by playing certain cards, support cards tend to offer the most heroism. This introduces a risk reward system and requires you to be a bit tactical. You can spend one or two card plays attacking no one to gain some heroism and then use that heroism to unleash your most powerful attack on your third play.

 

You can move your heroes once per turn and this is usually just to get a better positioning on enemies. You can also redraw two cards per turn in case you don't like your hand. There are items and special abilities that can increase your moves and redraws as well as do other things to help like cure heroes of afflictions or draw extra cards. There are also environmental hazards that can be used to defeat enemies such as crates or explosive barrels. These can be helpful if you run out of card plays. All environmental attacks cost heroism, however.

 

There are a handful of bosses in Midnight Suns, and these operate like normal enemies, however they usually need to be beaten twice. After wiping their health bar, they get 'downed' and on the next turn they get back up and you do it again. The bosses have much more powerful attacks than normal enemies and require different strategies.

 

Heroes have stats and these can be upgraded at The Abbey or out in the field. Hanging out with them, building up their relationships, giving gifts and sparring with them in the training yard all lead to higher stats and even new cards. Taking them on missions will also level them up but don't feel bad if you have favourite heroes, unused heroes’ level up automatically with everyone else. Because of this, heroes tend to be always around 2-3 levels apart from each other. Cards can be levelled up too; if you have two of the same cards you can combine them and make a more powerful version, sometimes with extra buffs. This is essential for the late game as enemies start hitting hard when you reach the second and third area.

 

The Abbey

When you're not out on missions you'll be hanging out at The Abbey. The Abbey is The Midnight Suns home base, and it acts as a social hub for the player, it's here where you'll do all your admin.

 

What I mean by admin is stuff like crafting new cards, researching additional resources, talking to the heroes, helping them, and hanging out with them to increase their friendship level and stats.

 

This aspect of the game is a deal breaker for some. I've seen some people express that they hated this part of the game. Like it or not though, it is a big part of it and important. I for one loved it and it was my favourite part of the game. I mentioned in the story section how I believe Midnight Suns' biggest achievement is how it gives the player agency within the story and world. The Abbey is where most of this agency takes place.

 

Each day follows the same routine. You wake up in the morning, you can explore The Abbey as much as you like until you select a mission, once you complete the mission you return to The Abbey at night, and you are again free to explore until you go to bed and repeat the process the next day. The Abbey itself is a large church and it's where all the heroes sleep and hang out. Surrounding The Abbey though, is a very large mystical wood. The grounds are split into 4 areas, the area immediately surrounding The Abbey is available from the start. Each area holds a mystery which must be solved by exploring and collecting items, with the aid of WandaVision star Agatha Harkness. Once the areas mystery is solved, you are rewarded with an ability which unlocks the next area. These mysteries all lead to one big central mystery which centres around Hunters past. This side story had me so invested that I would explore the grounds as much as possible to progress it. Once I'd finished the mystery, I was super disappointed and wanted more. I truly hope that a sequel expands upon this rather than removing it entirely if they respond to some of the criticism.

 

Whilst exploring you can collect plants which can be used to craft single use items which can help during combat. You can also discover 'Havens' which are special hang out spots. Inviting a hero to a haven gives a big boost to their friendship level but each haven can only be used once. There are also chests littered about which require arcane keys to open, these chests contain random colour palettes for Hunter, or any heroes combat suits.

 

Building up friendship with heroes is simple. On any given day, heroes will be around The Abbey and require help from the Hunter or they might just want to chat. Speaking with them can add or subtract friendship XP based on the responses you give from the dialogue tree. The Avengers like pure heroism and optimism whereas some of the Midnight Suns like Nico or Magik appreciate it when you're a bit of a dick. It's about learning what each hero responds to. Every time you gain a friendship level, that hero will invite you to hang out privately and you get a little cutscene with them as well as some additional dialogue. These scenes are great and always a nice reward.

 

Some of the heroes run clubs which you can be a part of. These act as little events that can happen randomly when you return from a mission. Each club gives some bonuses for attending but mainly they are there for the character interactions. Blade runs a book club, Robbie (Ghost Rider) runs a shop class and Nico runs a mystical gathering which exists to find out what happened in Hunters past.

 

Then there's the more functional aspects of The Abbey, namely the forge and the training yard. The Forge is where Iron Man and Dr. Strange hang out. Here you can unlock new abilities, craft new abilities, research artifacts and craft upgrades for The Abbey itself. You'll be visiting this place every day. The training yard allows you to spar with the heroes (you don't fight them; you just get a picture and some stat increases) and you can upgrade your existing cards.

 

There's also the Hero Ops which are like idle missions you can send heroes out on to gain XP and other resources. Once you send a hero out on one, you can't use them in combat whilst they're away.

 

Hunter has their own room, and this room can be customized with different furniture and even picture frames containing pictures you've taken in the game. Completely pointless but its these little touches that make Midnight Suns such a charming game.

 

Heroes

Midnight Suns has an impressive roster of superheroes that all have vastly different combat styles. Mixing it up on missions by taking different heroes every time keeps the game feeling fresh as each hero has a unique way of dealing with enemies.

 

Blade, being a vampire has lots of cards that cause bleed and can life steal from enemies. Magik, whose powers revolve around portals can place these portals around the arena and push enemies through them into other enemies. Wolverine is a close quarters character as all his attacks rely on his adamantium claws. Captain Marvel can go binary after three card plays which essentially makes her invincible. Each hero requires different tactics on the battlefield, and this is what makes the combat so fun and interesting.

 

Not only that, but they also have great performances that feel true to the character but unique in their own way. Aside from Iron Man who clearly is just channelling Robert Downy Jr's version (and doing a great job of it might I add) a lot of the actors are doing their own twist on the characters and in my mind, the castings make perfect sense.

 

Yuri Lowenthal reprises his role as Spider-Man from Insomniacs incredible games. Brian Bloom, most notably famous for playing BJ Blazkowicz from Machine Games Wolfenstein series, plays essentially the same character in Captain America, although, his performance for Cap is a lot more straight down the line. Wolverine played by Steve Blum is a perfect bit of casting if you ask me. Blade being played by Black Dynamite is hilarious but also makes a lot of sense and then of course you have Nolan North reprising his role as Deadpool in the DLC. These performances aren’t going to win any voice acting Oscars but for comic book media, they’re fantastic.

 

Music

The soundtrack for Midnight Suns is nothing mind blowing but it does get the job done. When in combat there’s plenty of these big bombastic superhero tunes to keep you motivated and then when exploring around The Abbey, there’s some nice and relaxing, almost mysterious pieces to aid that exploration.

 

Some of the tracks are reminiscent of Marvel’s MCU blockbusters but that helps to keep things consistent across Marvel media. There’s one track that almost exactly sounds like the main theme of Marvel’s Spider-Man on PlayStation.

 

Platinum Thoughts

Thankfully, Midnight Suns has a straightforward platinum requiring at least, 1 and a half playthroughs.

Most trophies will unlock naturally whilst you go through the campaign on your first playthrough. Nothing is missable as the game continues indefinitely after the credits roll, however, there are a few things you can do early on to minimise endgame grinding.

 

There are a handful of trophies awarded for making it through the campaign and beating the final level. A couple of trophies awarded for reaching certain friendship levels with heroes and the team. Some customisation trophies awarded for changing the look of your Hunter and decorating their room. Lots of crafting trophies that pretty much come naturally and of course a bunch of trophies tied to various feats during combat. There are also a few trophies related to fully exploring The Abbey’s grounds.

 

You’re able to enjoy this game as you go and like I said, most trophies will unlock through natural play. However, most are easy to clean up post-game so it’s nothing to worry about.

 

The reason you’re required to do another half playthrough is due to the light and dark balance trophies. When talking to heroes throughout the game, you sometimes have dialogue options that can either be light or dark, this affects the Hunters response and how that character responds back. Mostly its just flavour text but it does unlock suits and abilities the more you sway either way. Every time you pick one of those options you gain one point for either light or dark. The trophies are for getting maximum point balance which is 200. You can also gain points in combat by using cards that are marked light or dark. Focussing on just one side for your playthrough will net you the trophy around two thirds into the story. If you were to go the other way, once you reach maximum points for one side you would have to get 200 points to go back to neutral and then another 200 to reach max on the other side. This isn’t possible on one playthrough as there just aren’t enough points to gain. Going into NG+ resets the counter back to 0 so it’s much quicker to speed run the campaign again.

 

I cleaned up all trophies on my first playthrough leaving only the dark balance trophy left. I rushed through the campaign on NG+ and got every point I possibly could and was done about two thirds in.

 

easiest trophy

 Lilith Returns - Complete the tutorial.

You'll get this within the first 20 minutes of booting the game up and it's required to progress. Can't get any easier than that!

 

hardest trophy

 T.H.R.E.A.T. Eliminated - Survive 3 turns in the THREAT room with every hero.

The THREAT room is an additional combat area that you can access during the day in The Abbey. Each hero can use the THREAT room once a day. You must survive 3 waves of demonic enemies to succeed and, if you do, that hero is rewarded with massive XP gains. Combat here works a little differently, as long as you KO an enemy when playing a card you don't lose a card play, your goal is to keep this streak going until you wipe out all the enemies. If there are a few enemies left and you have weak defence you'll almost certainly be KO'd as enemies hit really hard here. It requires completely different tactics to regular combat encounters which provides a decent challenge. For the trophy you need to survive 3 waves with each hero. Some heroes are easier than others obviously but you can't get cocky, each hero offers their own challenge and its not something you can blitz through.

 

DLC

Midnight Suns launched with a season pass that at full price will cost you £40. This is an absurd amount of money to pay for DLC, I paid less for the game itself. As such, I will be waiting for this to go to at least half price. Borderlands 3 was the same, I waited about three years for that to go to half price and in my opinion, what I paid was suitable for what I got.

 

Because I haven’t played any of the DLC, I can’t speak for how much content they introduce. Maybe the price of the season pass is completely justified for the content you get. I just can’t get behind that price point for additional content.

 

The DLC brings a whole new four-part story that continues with each release. Each release introduces a new character into the Midnight Suns. These characters are Deadpool, Venom, Morbius (it’s morbin time?) and Storm. I believe the story revolves around vampires.

 

Each character promises to come with their own move sets, loads of new missions, new Abbey interactions and obviously a story campaign with cutscenes and all that good stuff.

 

I’m excited to try these characters out so I hope that season pass goes to a decent price sooner rather than later.

 

Summary

Midnight Suns is a unique experience. Marvel superheroes combined with a turn-based combat system using cards is something that doesn’t sound like it should work, but it does. As someone who isn’t into turn-based combat systems it was almost enough to keep me well away from this game but being a fan of Marvel, I opted to give it a go and I’m glad I did.

 

This is a wonderful experience for any fans of superhero media and one I urge everyone to check out.

 

Best Bit

Immersive story which places you in the Marvel universe.

 

Worst Bit

Visually lacking for a next gen title and animations are basic and stiff.

 

Arbitrary Rating

9/10

 

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I think that went pretty well. I had a lot to say about this game and directing my thoughts to specific sections helped to get all of it out. Thanks for reading as always!

Edited May 8, 2023 by jonesey46
Fixing mistakes

[jonesey46]

 Platinum #280 – Resident Evil 4 

 

Introduction

Resident Evil 4 is a remake of beloved title, Resident Evil 4, released in 2005. It comes hot off the tails of the remakes of both Resident Evil 2 and 3. With the former being a masterclass in remakes and the latter being, whilst still good, a bit of a disappointment. The original Resident Evil 4 is widely considered one of the best games of all time and a title that inspired pretty much every release after it. It revolutionised survival horror and third person shooters in general. As such, this remake had big shoes to fill. Well, if you haven’t been living under a rock, you’ll know that this remake managed to exceed every ones expectations and has garnered a flood of 10/10s from review sites.

 

I first played the original Resident Evil 4 in 2020 whilst binging the entire series over lockdown. I even reviewed it right here in this thread. Unfortunately, I was a latecomer to this series but after falling in love with the remake of Resident Evil 2 and then falling completely head over heels with Resident Evil 7 I have consumed just about everything this series has to offer except for the various multiplayer offerings.

 

The original Resident Evil 4 is a certified classic and I’m happy to say that it has aged perfectly (except for some of the jokes). In terms of gameplay this title has stood the test of time and is still a blast to play. When it comes to Resident Evil though, I’ve always preferred the puzzle and exploration aspects of these games. It’s why the remakes of the first and second game, and 7 are my absolute favourites. Resident Evil 4 steered the series into a more action-oriented direction, which spelled the downfall of the series with the subsequent releases of 5 and 6. While Resident Evil 4 still had a lot of RE’s identity, 5 and especially 6 felt hollow by comparison.

 

Because the action tends to be my least favourite part of Resident Evil, you’d think I wouldn’t like Resident Evil 4, but I still love it though because it’s just that good. It’s just not my absolute favourite. Because of this, I wasn’t overly excited about this remake. Sure, more Resident Evil is always a good thing, no matter what. But in all honesty, I would have preferred a remake of Code Veronica much more. My main excitement for Resident Evil 4 remake was how they’d handle the jokes. The original had a campy B-movie style to it and Leon would constantly rattle off cheesy one-liners. These jokes are baked into the identity of the game and as such, it just wouldn’t be Resident Evil 4 without them. Thankfully, the remake does carry them over, although they’re much more reserved.

 

Story

6 years after the destruction of Raccoon City, Leon S. Kennedy has been tasked with finding the presidents daughter who has gone missing.

 

Full story discussion

Spoiler

So, here’s the thing. The story of Resident Evil 4 is dog shit. It’s super basic. You are a super-secret agent and you’re rescuing the president’s daughter from the clutches of an evil cult. It’s a b-movie and it’s meant to be. This is all facilitated by Leon's cheesy jokes and general demeanour. The recent string of remakes have worked to make the games a little more serious but still keeping that cheesy undertone.

 

Because the story is so bad, taking it more seriously only works to further point that out. And that’s exactly what this remake does. Don’t get me wrong it improves some aspects like character motivations, but it does nothing to add to the story, only swapping what was for what is. Resident Evil 4 focuses much more on action and gameplay which works well in the original. With a greater focus on characters and story in the remake, it comes off as lacking. Not all that much happens and you only get little scatterings of story strewn between action set pieces.

 

In fact, the remake has arguably less story than the original. In the original, villains would call Leon up on his magic comms system and smack talk him. Because this didn’t really make sense, it was removed for the remake and so this means Leon has less interactions with the antagonists in the remake. Leon doesn’t even meet the main villain, Lord Saddler, until right before the end.

 

What the remake does improve on however, is characters…

 

Nick Apostolides reprises his role as Leon from Resident Evil 2 and Infinite Darkness. This works to make Leon more consistent from RE2 which is a success in my opinion. He’s now a little darker and more cynical due to the events of Raccoon City, this makes perfect sense to me. Ada also returns here but is played by a different actor. For what its worth, I really enjoyed Lily Gao’s performance and thought she channeled the no-nonsense attitude of Ada quite well.

 

Ashley Graham, the president’s daughter is a shadow of her former self and one of the best changes of this remake. She’s no longer a damsel in distress whose skirt you can look up, she’s now a real human being with her own personality.

 

Agent Krauser is the big one here because in the original, he just kind of turns up and no one had a fucking clue who he was. It wasn’t until the release of The Darkside Chronicles SEVEN YEARS LATER that his origins were explained. Luis also gets a bit of a glow up with more clear motivations and an updated back story that feels more involved with the wider narrative.

 

Plot wise though the remake follows its counterpart almost to the letter. All the changes seem to be character based. I enjoyed all the character interactions but, in a game this large it feels like there’s barely any. When remaking games, you must be careful to not add too much so you don’t upset fans. Remaking a game as old as Resident Evil 2 is easy, the shift from fixed camera to third person increases the scope and you can take more liberties. Resident Evil 4 arguably didn’t need a remake as its gameplay and style still hold up to modern scrutiny. Because of this I feel it plays it safe. With the inevitable remake of Resident Evil 5 coming, I hope they reimagine it more and add more to it. Although, the story of 5 is much more in depth than 4 and is almost a nexus point of the series’ plot so maybe it won’t need it.

 

Speaking of which, after Leon takes down Saddler and escapes with Ashley on a jet ski, we’re treated to a little scene showing who Ada was working for during the events of the game. It’s none other than series veteran villain, Albert Wesker. I enjoyed this scene but if Resident Evil 4 didn’t need a remake, Resident Evil 5 certainly doesn’t. I hope Capcom know what they’re doing and aren’t destined to repeat history. For those who don’t know, Albert Wesker is the main villain of RE5 and while he was always Ada’s mystery boss it was never made this clear and never alluded to the events of RE5 as heavily as the remake does.

 

As mentioned earlier I’d much rather see a remake of Code Veronica or even Resident Evil 1 again. But that’s maybe a discussion for a different section.

 

Visuals

Resident Evil 4 is now the fifth Resident Evil title on the RE Engine. The RE engine is gorgeous and one of the best-looking engines out there. All the RE engine games have been sights to behold. However, I will say that I prefer it from a first-person perspective. Resident Evil 4 looks great, but I think Village still looks better. That might be something to do with art style over graphical developments as I can’t imagine there’s much difference between the two as they released 2 years apart. Salazars castle doesn’t hold a candle to Castle Dimitrescu. In all honesty, Resident Evil 4 is quite dull. Now the dusty Spanish countryside isn’t as visually interesting as the snowy mountains of Romania but even the interiors are just boring.

 

Take the water room for instance. It’s one of the hardest rooms in the game and in the original its lavish looking but held back by the visual limitations of the time. In the remake it’s been made so utterly dark its hard to see anything, it’s light entirely by torches and for some reason the water is black. It’s so visually uninteresting to look at that if the combat weren’t so engaging, I’d fall asleep.

 

To be fair, Resident Evil 2 isn’t bursting with colour but there is a certain charm to RPD that fits the tone of the game. Resident Evil 4’s locations do the job and each is recognisable to players of the original but I guess we were just spoiled with Village and I wanted a little more of that flair.

 

Character models are incredible however and the game runs like a dream on PS5.

 

Gameplay

 

Core aspects;

Combat · Exploration · The Jokes

 

Combat

Up to now I’ve been quite negative, thankfully I have nothing but good things to say about the combat.

 

The combat in the original is great, to this day. The combat in the remake is also great, but for entirely different reasons. That means that both versions have their merits and neither can be considered better or worse when it comes to combat.

 

In the original, when Leon aimed his gun, he would stop still in his tracks. This kind of shit doesn’t fly these days and so new Leon can now always move freely. Because of this the combat is fundamentally different; if you can always move, you should always move.

 

The opening sequence in the village (you know the one) is a trial by fire of sorts and while the game does keep its difficulty up throughout, nothing reaches the difficulty of this section. It’s essentially a combat encounter with a ridiculous number of enemies that never let up, after around 5 minutes the encounter ends. Surviving those 5 minutes might be the hardest challenge of the game.

 

Which brings us onto the difficulty. When booting up the game for this first time you have the option of three difficulty modes; assisted, standard & hardcore. I got a little trolled by the difficulty descriptions. Assisted is easy mode, standard is described as for people who never played the original and hardcore for people who have. As I have played the original, quite a few times, I went for hardcore on my first playthrough. While I did have a good time by the end, I wish I’d gone with standard as hardcore is HARD.

 

You can also unlock professional mode once you complete the game once. Professional is the ultimate challenge.

 

So, what’s different about the combat? The biggest change is that Leon can now parry pretty much any attack so long as he has a knife on him. This becomes the core of the combat in my opinion. You have your guns and grenades but in the nitty gritty of it all, you’ll always have your parry. Mastering the parry is satisfying as hell and while Sekiro it ain’t, it’s certainly effective.

 

Otherwise, you’ll be shooting everything in sight with RE4’s vast array of weaponry. There are pistols, rifles, submachine guns, magnums and even rocket launchers. Most weapons can be upgraded at the merchant. Oh yeah! The merchant! He’s not as iconic as he was in the original, but he still pops up everywhere and will buy all your shit. He’s pretty much your best friend.

 

Ammo is limited and on higher difficulties you may find yourself in a bit of a jam sometimes with very little ammo for all your guns. Thankfully you can craft ammo on the fly but even the resources for this can be scarce sometimes.

 

Combat becomes this juggling act that almost (read: almost) reminded me of Doom Eternal of all things. You must be constantly moving, managing your resources, parrying attacks and kicking as much as you can to stay alive. Some of the encounters can be quite stressful and get the blood flowing which is what made me think of Doom Eternal.

 

One thing before we go: the shooting range.

 

This is the best part of the game in all honesty. The original had a shooting range and with it you could unlock figures to view from the main menu. Not much of an incentive, is it? In the remake, doing the shooting challenges rewards you with coins which you can exchange for random charms. These charms can be attached to your inventory case and can offer bonuses like increased resale value of certain items, increased crafting gains or increased healing from herbs. Now that’s an incentive! However, you don’t need an incentive to play a mode this fun.

 

There are 12 challenges in total. The first shooting range has 3 and each shooting range after that unlocks another 3. Each challenge requires you to use a specific weapon or weapons and ammo is unlimited. Shoot all the targets and get as many points as possible! Each challenge has a side goal which unlocks a bonus round at the end and if you want an S rank you need to do this! I spent hours in this range trying to 100% each challenge and I had a blast!

 

Exploration

Exploration is a little different than it was in RE2 Remake or RE Village. You can mostly move freely and at the end of each area there’s shortcuts to open to facilitate going back to pick up stuff you missed. Unfortunately, they did away with the map turning blue once you’ve fully explored an area and picked everything up. Instead, all treasures and items show on the map if you’re near them and all treasures show up regardless, as long as you buy the treasure maps from the merchant (which are vital by the way). This is a huge downgrade in my opinion because it encourages looking at the map and following a marker rather than exploring the area yourself.

 

Because resources are limited and money is so important, its necessary to find and pick up everything you can. The main thing you’ll be finding when exploring is treasures. These are mostly jewels or artifacts and can be sold to the merchant for money. Certain treasures can have gems inserted into them to increase their value and this little meta game is a great addition. In the original, you had to find specific gems to fit into the treasures, in this any gems will do but the value is subject to what gems you insert.

 

There are puzzles to complete as you go through the world but not as many as RE2 because again, this is an action game first and foremost.

 

One addition to the remake is merchant’s requests. Throughout the game you may find these blue notices, they ask you to complete certain tasks like shooting blue medallions, collecting and selling certain items and even killing harder versions of regular enemies. It’s a nice addition to the game and gives you something else to look out for. Completing these requests rewards spinels, which can be used to trade special items with the merchant. In the original, spinels were just jewels you could find in the world, and they would be sold to the merchant like any other item. I really like this change in the remake.

 

One thing to note is that there are no shiny jewels on walls or ceilings. In the original you always had to be on the lookout for these hidden gems but in the remake all gems are in chests or dropped by enemies. Its odd because Village had these gems, which was presumably inspired by the original RE4, but they were removed for the remake? Maybe players didn’t respond well to them from Village and the developers decided to remove them.

 

The Jokes

Is this a waste of a section? Maybe. But as I said before, the jokes are a part of Resident Evil 4’s identity.

 

Very few jokes were carried over word for word. Most were changed to fit the remakes style and some were just straight up omitted.

 

At the very start of the game, you are treated to one of the most iconic lines from the original; “where’s everyone going? Bingo?”. This sets the stage and inspires hope that your favourite may have made the cut. My personal favourite is “your right hand comes off?” and unfortunately, this didn’t make it in. I’m not upset about it, why would I be? But like I said, the jokes are in this games DNA and without them, it isn’t RE4. I mean, Ethan has better one-liners in RE7 and Village than new Leon does.

 

Removing the pervy lines like the ballistics and overtime ones is fine by me. Completely tasteless and makes me cringe when I play the original. But removing “no thanks, bro” and the one about insect lives? Come on, you totally could have worked those in!

 

The one thing I hate about discussing remakes of any kind is the “new bad, old good” mentality. It’s inevitable that remakes get compared to their counterparts, but I want to make it clear, both the original and remake are fantastic games, but for different reasons. The jokes are a core part of Resident Evil 4’s identity but both games are a product of their times. I was excited to see how they’d handle the jokes in the remake because the idea of a game releasing in 2023 with silly early 2000’s jokes was hilarious to me.

 

The remake sets its tone perfectly and all Leons cheesy jokes match that darker tone. They come off as someone who has been through some trauma with Raccoon City and Operation Javier (where he met Krauser) and has become more cynical by nature. Capcom took the b-movie style of the original and made it make sense in a modern setting (despite still being set in 2004). Was this a good idea? I’m not sure. As I said in the story section, I feel like making a story this dumb more serious only serves to make it dumber.

 

For parity, my favourite Leon line in the remake is right after he swings on the chandelier at the start of the castle area. Ashley scolds him for being ridiculous and he says, “what are you, my mother?”. I love it. While not a joke, I would also like to bring up when you first fight a Garrador (the blind enemies). You can hear it roar and Ashley asks if its an animal. Leon falls through the floor and fights the enemy and after making it back to Ashley he says, “you were right about the animals”. I like this because it shows Leon being protective over Ashley and doesn’t want to freak her out.

 

Music

The music is largely the same as it was in the original, it’s been re-recorded and re-arranged and some notable differences were made to make it all feel more epic, a lot of the boss music for instance. There is one great addition however and one sinful omission. The shooting range has the best song in the entire game and it’s entirely original. When doing any of the challenges at the shooting range you’ll hear this and then when you get a bonus round, it turns into a full-on bop. The unfortunate omission is the lack of music in the merchants’ rooms. In the original you had this loud, synthesised piece that played, and it made you feel safe. The remake opts for silence unfortunately. Thankfully though, they kept the save theme for when you’re in the typewriter.

 

From the reveal trailer I was hoping for more tracks to utilise that Spanish guitar sound. Unfortunately, it only turns up in that shooting range song. It really is the best song on the soundtrack though.

 

Platinum Thoughts

Getting the platinum for RE4 is a standard Resident Evil affair. Multiple playthroughs all with different goals. I did mine in 5 playthroughs but I opted for an easier route. If you want to save time and don’t mind the obnoxious difficulty of professional mode then you can do it in 4 or even less depending on how brave you are.

 

You need to beat the campaign on both standard and hardcore mode getting an S+ rank. For some reason, getting an S+ on hardcore doesn’t stack the S+ on standard. Getting an S+ on professional though will pop both. No idea why.

 

Getting an S+ on professional isn’t required for a trophy although you do need to get an S to unlock a weapon. The difference between S and S+ is to get an S+ you must do it on a new game, you can’t do it on NG+. Making it a much harder challenge.

 

There’s a trophy for collecting all weapons and one for completing the story without using a healing item, without talking to the merchant and one for only using knives and pistols. There’s also some miscellaneous trophies here and there which are super easy to get.

 

All pretty standard RE stuff, right? There’s also a trophy for getting an S rank on all shooting range challenges which was the most fun trophy for me.

 

Easiest trophy

Knife Basics – Parry an enemy with a knife

Like I said, the parry is the bread and butter of this combat system, you’ll probably get this 10 minutes into the game.

 

Hardest trophy

S+ Rank Investigator – Complete the main story on Hardcore mode with an S+ rank

While professional is obviously harder than hardcore, trophy wise you can play professional through with an infinite rocket launcher. As said earlier, to get S+ you need to start from scratch and while there are unlockable weapons that can make your time easier, the start of the game still offers a huge challenge.

 

DLC
No DLC with trophies has been released for Resident Evil 4 yet although they did add a mercenaries mode. This mode is standard RE stuff and has you fighting infinite enemies for points. You can unlock a weapon using this mode that prevents you having to do the main story on professional mode with an S+ rank. This is super helpful for anyone not wanting to put themselves through that challenge.

 

There are rumours of Separate Ways being added into the game as an expansion. Separate Ways featured on the PS2 version of RE4 and had you playing as Ada, showing you what she got up to during the events of the game. I’m really excited for this and hope it expands upon the original.

 

There are also apparently new characters and stages being added to the mercenaries mode in the future. Whether these will have trophies or not, no one knows.

 

Summary

Resident Evil 4 is a behemoth of a remake and one that shouldn’t have worked. After the disappointment of the RE3 remake, a lot of people weren’t confident this remake could do its original justice. Thankfully though, it smashed it out of the park and while I personally think it lost some of its identity along the way, I still believe this is a fantastic game and a leap forward for the franchise.

 

So, what’s next for Resident Evil? I imagine we’ll see Resident Evil 9 before we see another remake. The post credit scene seems to indicate we will be seeing a remake of Resident Evil 5 next but what do you think? Do you think they should go back and remake Resident Evil 1 again or even Resident Evil 0? What about Code Veronica? Or do you think RE5 has the potential to be a great remake? And what about after that? Resident Evil 6? HA!

 

Only time will tell of course but one thing is for sure, I love this franchise and Capcom have been doing a great job recently so I’ll be first in line for whatever comes next.

 

Thanks for reading.

 

Best Bit

Overhauled combat system with a satisfying parry mechanic

 

Worst Bit

Takes itself a little too seriously

 

Arbitrary Rating

7/10

Edited May 11, 2023 by jonesey46

[jonesey46]

 Platinum #281 – Dead Island 2 

 

Introduction

Dead Island 2 is the long awaited sequel to 2011’s Dead Island. Initially revealed at E3 2014, Dead Island 2 finally released this year after many delays and studio changes. The first Dead Island was developed by Techland, it seems they weren’t keen on doing a sequel as they weren’t happy with the direction it was going and so development was handed to a different team and Techland went on to make the fantastic Dying Light.

 

I never played the original Dead Island as it didn’t really interest me. In all honesty I probably wouldn’t have played the sequel either if it weren’t for the free promo copy we received. My wife runs a gaming Instagram account with a few thousand followers. Because of this, she’s received bits and pieces from brands but never full games. Well, she recently partnered with Plaion, who are handling all the distribution for Dead Island 2 in the UK. They sent her out a physical copy and she played the hell out of it. She really enjoyed it, and so because of this I was compelled to play it myself.

 

Story

Zombies! There’s been an outbreak in LA (hilariously referred to as Hell-A) and you’re stuck. Your main goal is to get the hell out of dodge.

 

Full story discussion

Spoilers ahead

Spoiler

The story of Dead Island 2 is completely uninteresting and only serves to take you from one sandbox to the next. Gameplay and setting are the two main draws of Dead Island 2 and thankfully, they’re great but the story is generic, and I found myself tuning out of most of it, itching to get back to slaughtering zombies.

 

The game begins with a cutscene showing all the 6 playable characters getting onto a plane to leave LA and get away from the outbreak but, typically, there’s someone infected on board, and it all goes to shit quickly. The plane crashes and your chosen character wakes up. They meet Emma Jaunt shortly after who is a famous actor and lives in Bel-Air, she urges you to meet her at her place after you get split up. For some reason, your chosen character seems to become attached to Emma and they vow to get out of Hell-A and take Emma with them. You also find out that you’re immune to the virus as you get bitten and after a short fever, you wake up completely fine. This sets up the breadcrumb trail and leads you to finding a doctor who could potentially use your blood to make a cure.

 

As previously said, there are 6 playable characters, and these are Amy, Jacob, Ryan, Dani, Carla and Bruno. They all have their own motivations for getting out of Hell-A but their story plays out exactly the same way. The only differences between them seems to be flavour text.

 

I played as Amy and her motivations is that she’s a Paralympian and doesn’t want to miss the Paralympics. Amy has a false leg which doesn’t impact gameplay at all in case you’re wondering.

 

Over the course of the game, you’ll meet a cast of characters that are all inconsequential to the story, including Sam B, who was a playable character in the first game. You also meet three other immune people who call themselves Numen, and they believe themselves and you to be the next stage in human evolution. You see these people maybe 3 times in the whole game, I forgot about them for a long stretch of my playtime.

 

By the end of the game, you find out that your blood can’t be used to make a cure but there is someone capable of making a cure, the doctor’s daughter, whom he experimented on from birth. The game ends with you getting Emma, Sam B and another friend onto a helicopter and out of Hell-A but you choose to stay behind to clean up the mess and find the doctors daughter, Tisha, who can cure the virus.

 

As I said, the story was in the background for me but they’re clearly setting things up for another sequel or DLC. With the troubled development this game had, I’m sceptical. But if the team are confident enough that their game is good and will warrant a follow up then more power to them.

 

Visuals

Dead Island 2 is blisteringly gorgeous. Being set in LA, there’s plenty of sun-soaked villas, infinity pools and palm trees as far as the eye can see. It’s a great setting and with the impressive graphics, certain parts of Hell-A look downright real.

 

Character models are okay, not Naughty Dog level by any means but they do the job and look impressive enough during cutscenes. The environments are where Dead Island 2 shine.

 

Unfortunately, this game doesn’t have a photo mode, so I wasn’t able to catch any shots for my virtual photography Instagram.

 

When you’re not staring at beautiful vistas, you’ll be slaughtering zombies, and Dead Island 2 has an astounding gore engine at work. Hacking away at zombies leaves realistic cuts and contusions real enough to turn your stomach. And lots of blood. LOTS of blood.

 

Gameplay

 

Core aspects:

Combat · Setting · Exploration

 

Combat

Like the first Dead Island, the sequel focuses on melee combat using improvised and upgradable weaponry. Machetes, axes, crowbars, knuckle dusters, lead pipes and road signs can all be used to slay zombies and can all be upgraded by adding flame jets or batteries to give them an elemental effect. Weapons have durability which will wear down as you use them and eventually break, they’re never lost though and can be repaired at Hell-A’s various workbenches. Eventually, guns are introduced and ammo for them isn’t as scarce as you might think. I still focussed mainly on melee as I found it more reliable, but the guns are handy for quickly dealing with the stronger and more annoying enemies.

 

You do have a stamina bar but managing it was never an issue for me, you’re able to hack away as much as possible but running, jumping, and kicking become more sluggish as you run out. You have a flying kick which I used all the time as it was super fun.

 

As stated, weapons can be upgraded with elemental add-ons such as fire, shock, and bleed. And can also be given extra damage modifiers with perks. There is a levelling system in Dead Island 2 and weapons you find in the world always match your level, if you like a weapon but have levelled past its usefulness you can use money to match the weapon to your current level which brings all its stats up to speed. This works for melee weapons and guns. There is a bit of a Borderlands system at work her with weapons having rarity levels uncommon, rare and legendary as well as number-based stats. Because of this you’re always checking for green numbers when picking up a new weapon to see if its worth your time.

 

You will amass a great deal of weapons during your play time and any weapons you don’t want you can either scrap for parts or sell to a merchant for cash.

 

So, there’s your weapons, but what are you using them on? Zombies!

 

At the start of the game, you’ll be dealing with your standard walking dead but as the game progresses more variations will be introduced. It starts with elemental variations of the standard zombie and then you start seeing big body builder brutes, fat zombies that spit, exploding zombies, fast stalker types known as butchers and eventually enemies that mutate into something much more brutal.

 

Zombies litter the streets of LA and I mean it when I say, you will be killing zombies constantly. Pretty much every minute of playtime will be slashing away at zombies. The game isn’t very long so the combat never really gets boring. Another 10 hours though, and I could see it getting a bit tiresome.

 

Dead Island 2 falls under the category of a video-gamey video game, know what I mean? It’s not the best game in the world, it doesn’t offer anything unique, and it certainly doesn’t move the industry forward, but it’s a fun time that only asks for 15-25 hours of your time and you’re done. No microtransactions or bullshit grindy nonsense to bloat your playtime. It harkens back to the PS3 era which is interesting because the first Dead Island was right in the middle of that era. It’s a true sequel that improves on certain aspects but it’s essentially the same game, but more.

 

Setting

Hell-A is the setting of Dead Island 2 and it’s more of a character than any of the actual characters. It has personality and in my own experience, I haven’t seen LA represented in this way before. The most obvious comparison would be GTAV’s Los Santos which is more of a pastiche of LA. Dead Island 2 aims to be true to LA’s identity and does a decent job of it. As far as I can tell anyway, I’ve never been.

 

The interesting thing about Dead Island 2, and the biggest surprise for me, is that it isn’t open world. Hell-A isn’t a sprawling map with markers everywhere. It’s a hub and level-based world. You’re free to explore these hubs and travel freely between them but its world and mission structure is a lot more linear than you might have thought.

 

The starting area, Bel-Air, is a vertically dense neighbourhood of mansions. All these mansions are fully explorable, and all have little secrets to discover. The level design is well done as the area seems a lot bigger than it is, due to its verticality. Beverly Hills is similar in design although not quite as densely packed. You have Ocean Avenue and Venice Beach looking almost identical to their real-life counterparts. And then you have the absurd but entertaining Monarch Studios which acts as a movie production lot with different sets and productions to slaughter zombies in. There’s also a few one-off areas like the sewers or the metro which offer maze like level design filled with dangerous hazards.

 

The level design in Dead Island 2 is one of the main things I praise it for. It has a labyrinthian feel to it and always feels fun to explore. You only have your feet to get around so with the levels being as dense as they are, traversal is never an issue. Although, I do wish the game had a few more traversal options. Dying Light has the best parkour system since Mirror’s Edge (not sure about Dying Light 2, haven’t played it) but in Dead Island 2, you can run, you can jump and you can climb up and over some things but ultimately, your move set does feel a little lacking. It’s a shame too cause the levels are so great, you want to be able to climb more stuff and explore more of it, but it doesn’t let you.

 

Couple the great level design with its fantastic visuals, the setting of Hell-A is one to remember, although I feel its destined to be forgotten.

 

Exploration

As said in the previous section, the levels of Hell-A are fully explorable and most of the buildings and houses you see are fully accessible. Most houses have little secrets like locked doors or safes that require keys to access. Most of the time, the keys are on a zombie nearby. That zombie will be a unique zombie with a name and contextually, it’s the person that would have that key before the outbreak. Dead Island 2 has plenty of environmental storytelling like that. It also has a lot of environmental puzzles solving like opening gates to access new areas. The developers seemed to have run out ideas when setting out to make these environmental puzzles. They all revolve around finding circuit breakers and powering up electrical boxes. Occasionally you may be tasked with destroying junction boxes to release magnetically locked doors but for the most part, you’ll be picking up those damn circuit breakers.

 

Around the world you may find doors that need fuses to open. These doors are completely optional and only contain extra resources and/or a new weapon. I was under the impression you would find these fuses out in the world through exploration. You don’t. You need to buy them from merchants. This is kind of lame and as such, I never bothered with them. I think I only opened a couple during my playtime.

 

Main quests and most side quests will give you a marker to follow to your next objective. There may be some environmental puzzle solving when going from A to B but it’s straight forward for the most part. It’s the Lost & Found side quests that offer the most satisfying exploration. These quests start with you picking up a lore item out in the world. This lore item will have a clue in it leading you to your next stop and this can lead you on a breadcrumb trail which eventually leads to a unique and powerful weapon. There are no map markers when doing these, so you must pay attention and figure out the clues for yourself. It’s satisfying but unfortunately, there’s only a handful of these quests in the whole game.

 

Because the main story quests always give you a marker to follow and those lost and found quests are optional, exploration is up to you. It is fun to look around the beautiful world and you will need to loot for cash and resources, but it isn’t vital. Everything you need can be bought at merchants or is just given to you for completing quests. You can run past everything and focus on main quests if you want but I find this game has a way of catching your eye and you end up losing your way exploring.

 

---

 

That’s the three core aspects of the game in my opinion. I could have done a section on the co-op part of the game as the first Dead Island and this one is heavily based around co-op. I think it was chasing the Borderlands high back in the day and while Borderlands continues to be popular not many games try to do this anymore and the ones that do fail spectacularly (see; Gotham Knights). I played the game entirely in single player aside from getting the two co-op related trophies. I’ve heard it can be fun but in my limited experience, it was a little janky. It may have been connection issues to be fair, but there were a few loot issues that carried over to when I went back to single player which was a little upsetting. In one instance, a blueprint for a weapon mod wasn’t present where it should be and because of this I almost finished the game without the bleed mod. I was around where it should have been when in co-op so that’s the only explanation for its absence I can think of.

 

Also, if you’re playing in co-op and you care about the story then beware, other players can skip cutscenes and they skip for everyone. There were a few I missed when in co-op which meant I didn’t know what was going on even more.

 

Music

The music of Dead Island 2 really doesn’t wow. There’s barely any memorable pieces and the music system can be a little weird. Combat and general high intensity music has a habit of either starting randomly in completely irrelevant situations or it overstays its welcome and is still playing long after its needed. It’s very off putting.

 

There’s a couple of tracks that play whilst out exploring the world which do their job quite well but, in all honesty, some of them directly reminded me of music in similar games. There was one that reminded me of a Skyrim track of all things.

 

Put it this way, none of it is making it into my VGM playlist.

 

Platinum Thoughts

Thankfully, Dead Island 2 is a short game and doesn’t require much post-game stuff to get the platinum. You are required to finish all side quests, but you don’t need to 100% the game. There are some collectible trophies, one for reaching max level, a few relating to completing challenges and two measly co-op/multiplayer trophies.

 

The challenge-based trophies are the most intimidating but thankfully you’re only required to finish the first level of each one and all of them are straight forward. Challenges have 5 categories: zombies, combat, survival, exploration, and weapon. The challenges can be to kill a certain number of zombies, discover areas, unlock lock boxes etc. I kept an eye on them throughout and by the time I finished everything else, I only had two to clean up and both took a few minutes each.

 

The co-op trophies are for reviving an ally 5 times and to complete 5 missions in co-op. Super easy and can be done in less than an hour.

 

Everything else should come naturally as you play.

 

Easiest trophy

 Welcome To Hell-A – Survive a plane crash, get bitten, and create your first Zombie-Free Zone.

This is for completing the introduction. You’ll get this before getting anything else.

 

Hardest trophy

 Sharpest Tool in the Box – Complete 5 Lost & Found Weapon Quests

Not hard in the slightest IF you use a walkthrough. Doing it by yourself requires some thought and that makes this the most challenging trophy in my opinion.

 

DLC

No DLC at time of writing but there is a season pass for sale that promises some story content that will continue from the ending. No other details are available unfortunately and I think that’s kind of scummy. You want me to spend £25 for your season pass with no idea what I’ll get? No thanks.

 

Summary

Dead Island 2 is a game so late to the party that it’s ended up being a bit nostalgic. If this had released in 2014 shortly after its reveal and the release of the first game, it would have come and gone. Releasing a whole 9 years after its reveal has made it feel retro and therefore, a bit refreshing? I had a blast slashing zombies away for 20 hours and after that I was done. The game wanted nothing more from me and that’s rare in 2023. As I said, it harkens back to the PS3 era and that’s something I can respect it for.

 

It's not going to be on any game of the year lists at the end of 2023 but it certainly was a blast to play and I appreciated it for what it was.

 

Best Bit

7th generation-style fun, gorgeous world and visuals, a great gore system.

 

Worst Bit

Story is nonsense, co-op can be a bit janky.

 

Arbitrary Rating

7/10

Edited July 28, 2023 by jonesey46

[jonesey46]

I was reading through this thread again and I noticed there's a few things I've said on here that I've completely changed my opinion of and a few things that I said I'd do, which I still haven't fucking done ?

 

I thought it would be fun to look back and eat some of my words.

 

---

 

On 3/26/2019 at 8:45 AM, jonesey46 said:

but this time I'm determined!

 

This is in reference to doing Mein Leben on Wolfenstein 2. Which is to beat the game in one sitting without dying. It's been 4 years since this comment and I still haven't fucking done this trophy. I still say I will one day but who fucking knows at this point.

 

On 1/13/2020 at 0:19 PM, jonesey46 said:

I'm ridiculously excited for (The Last of Us) Part II but I'm trying to contain myself so as not to set my expectations too high.

 

So despite keeping my expectations in check, I was still hugely disappointed by Part II as a whole. I recently 100%'ed it shortly after finishing the remake of 1 by beating the game on Grounded. I've made my peace with it, it is a good game and has a lot to love but the story (although its really the characters I take issue with) is still a huge disappointment for me.

 

On 1/28/2020 at 2:29 PM, jonesey46 said:

 Platinum #146 – Death Stranding 

 

You know, I gushed over this game in my review and if I were to review it today, I'd probably gush over it more. I'd even give it 10/10 now instead of the 9.5 I did give it. I've played it another 3 times since then I think, including the Directors Cut, and yeah, I love it more and more each time. Following on from the previous quote though, I am keeping my expectations HEAVILY (and I mean HEAVILY) in check for Death Stranding 2, or DS2 as its currently known.

 

On 2/11/2020 at 8:34 AM, jonesey46 said:

I've never played a soulsborne game

 

Now I've played them all and they are seriously some of my favourite games. Bloodborne and Dark Souls I genuinely couldn't live without.

 

On 2/19/2020 at 10:48 AM, jonesey46 said:

and if you're wondering, no, I will not be buying Watch Dogs Legion.

 

Well, I did, and it was actually really good. Easily the best Watch Dogs game.

 

On 2/21/2020 at 8:54 AM, jonesey46 said:

My last Assassins Creed game was 3

 

I've stayed true to this, however, I may break it with Assassin's Creed Mirage.

 

I remember playing Assassin's Creed 3 back in 2012 and thinking "wow, I'm not really sure how this series can continue, it's just the same shit over and over" and guess what? It's still fucking going!

 

Mirage does look promising though, it seems to be going back to the roots of the first and second game, which I enjoyed. I will be waiting for all the reviews to come out first though, no chance in hell is it a day one buy.

 

On 3/2/2020 at 2:04 PM, jonesey46 said:

I should have the platinum in the bag along with the whole series.

 

This is from my Far Cry Classic review and the quote is in reference to Far Cry 2 and it's infamous multiplayer trophies. Well, I never did get round to it and the servers for it are completely dead. Looks like I'll never have all the Far Cry platinums after all.

 

On 3/17/2020 at 11:20 AM, jonesey46 said:

PS4 Backlog Review

 

This was an interesting post and I'd like to do it again. Essentially, I took a look at my (at the time) 16 uncompleted PS4 games and had a look at the potentially problematic trophies that might stop me from getting 100%. Since then, I've completed 3 of them: Borderlands 3, The Crew and Dying Light. Every other game on that list I haven't even looked at since the post. If I'm being honest, I probably never will.

 

Right now, the number of uncompleted PS4 games on my profile is 24. A few more than 16. There's a few difficult ones in there but of them, the only ones that may pose a problem are The Long Dark and Concrete Genie. The former because its so grindy and the latter because I'll need a PSVR headset to finish it and I don't fancy dropping that kind of cash for the sake of a few trophies.

 

On 6/9/2020 at 10:45 AM, jonesey46 said:

I honeslty prefer 2016 over Eternal

 

From my Doom Eternal review. I've completely flipped on this now. Eternal is immensely better than 2016 in almost every way. I've also added an edit to this post because I just couldn't bare leaving Doom Eternal with a 7/10. It's now where it belongs, in the 10/10 section.

 

On 6/21/2020 at 5:42 PM, jonesey46 said:

Finished The Last of Us Part II earlier today and I genuinely think I might hide the game as I can't bare to even think about playing it again. 

 

I am disappointed and frustrated beyond measure. 

 

Alright Mr. Dramatic! Haha.

 

To be fair, this was right after my first playthrough and the wound was still fresh.

 

As said above, I've made my peace with this game and have since 100%'ed it. Its a good game, alright?

 

On 7/28/2020 at 9:26 AM, jonesey46 said:

The more I play Ghost of Tsushima, the more I love it.

 

I did enjoy Ghost of Tsushima but these days I'm pretty mild on it. I'm just tired of these open world games, no matter how well made they are.

 

On 8/18/2020 at 10:08 AM, jonesey46 said:

 Platinum #155 - Resident Evil 2 

 

And thus began my infatuation with the Resident Evil franchise. I've just bought a PS3 move controller so I can play the Chronicles light gun games. I really love this series.

 

On 9/8/2020 at 9:56 PM, jonesey46 said:

Just busted my ass to get the platinum for Dead Space Extraction and I can't even get it cause there's a bronze trophy for playing split screen and I don't have a second DS3 ? lol

 

I literally just knocked out this platinum finally and it'll be my next review. I did it using the aforementioned move controller.

 

On 9/15/2020 at 0:02 PM, jonesey46 said:

I plan on buying a second PS3 soon to start self boosting some old titles.

 

I never ended up doing this and at this stage, I probably never will.

 

On 10/9/2020 at 0:13 PM, jonesey46 said:

I've decided that I'm going to take a year off trophy hunting.

 

lol

 

On 11/12/2020 at 0:37 PM, jonesey46 said:

I have a rule about not giving out 10's because nothing is truly perfect.

 

There are currently 6 10/10's in the ratings section of this thread.

 

On 11/13/2020 at 8:55 AM, jonesey46 said:

I have no interest in playing 6 or any of the spin offs

 

Regarding the Resident Evil games. Yeah that didn't last haha. I've played them all pretty much.

 

On 12/14/2020 at 4:55 PM, jonesey46 said:

 Platinum #168 - The Crew 

 

Still really proud of this one. What a great game that was, shame about The Crew 2 though, that one really sucked.

 

On 12/16/2020 at 8:48 AM, jonesey46 said:

Let’s hope for a repeat of this with Resident Evil 8 in 2021.

 

This was regarding the DLC for Resident Evil 7 and how good it was. So, unfortunately, Resident Evil Village didn't follow suit. I mean, Shadows of Rose was okay but it was basically just an asset flip and didn't really add all that much to the story. It has me intrigued for Resident Evil 9 though because Rose's story was supposed to continue there but they've obviously changed course now, so 9 could be about anything.

 

---

 

And that brings us up to my return to this thread in April 2022. There's no point going any further cause it was all pretty recent. This was fun. Might do it again in a few years time.

 

[jonesey46]

 Platinum #282 - Dead Space Extraction 

 

Introduction

This is going to be a weird one.

 

Dead Space Extraction is an on rails light gun shooter and it was a Wii exclusive until it was ported to PS3, in order to utilise the PS3's new move controllers. Extraction is included on the disc of the special edition of Dead Space 2 and this is how I played it.

 

I first played Extraction in 2011 but never stuck with it. I played the first four levels and fell out with it. Not sure why. In 2020 I was returning to Dead Space 2 to finish off Hardcore mode and I thought why not? Lets play Extraction and clean up the trophies. I unlocked all the trophies bar one, the one for playing a game in local co-op. I was unable to unlock this trophy because I only had one PS3 controller. Sometimes you can use a PS4 controller in PS3 games, but not Dead Space Extraction! It just doesn't recognise it.

 

So, in order to unlock this trophy and thus, the platinum, I would have to buy another PS3 controller. I intended to do this sooner, I promise! Recently I purchased a move controller so I can play the Resident Evil Chronicles games. With a second compatible controller, I was finally able to unlock the trophy.

 

I had a little bit of a panic though. I had to re-format my PS3 last year due to a problem I had with The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (long story). For those that aren't familiar with the PS3, when you sync your trophies, it only syncs the games you've played recently. So, if you haven't played a game in a while and you've previously unlocked trophies in it, the PS3 won't know that and will pop trophies as if you've never played it before. When I loaded up Dead Space Extraction, I went into co-op, popped the co-op trophy but I didn't unlock the platinum because the PS3 thought it was my first trophy. I synced up and my trophies showed 100% but no platinum. Uh oh. I took a break to put my kid to bed and when I came back, I reloaded the game up and it popped the platinum for me. Although, a couple of hours later.

 

Because I did the bulk of this back in 2020 I'm going to be doing this review entirely from 3 year old memories. I'm going to try and keep this one brief and do my best ?.

 

Story

Set before the events of the first Dead Space, Extraction has you playing as Nathan Drake... *ahem*... excuse me... Nathan McNeil. Seriously look at this fucking guy, he looks just like him! McNeil is sent to investigate the strange happenings going on at the colony of Aegis 7.

 

Full story discussion

Spoilers ahead

 

Spoiler

The story of Dead Space Extraction is a true prequel and shows pretty much everything that leads to the events of the original Dead Space. It's set on the colony of Aegis 7 and eventually the Ishimura itself. It shows the initial outbreak of necromorphs and honestly, as a huge fan of the original Dead Spcae, it was great to see.

 

You play as McNeil and you have a few pals that tag along. Namely, Lexine and Gabe who accompany you through out the entire game and eventually make an appearance in the Dead Space 2 DLC, Severed. Although you might wish they didn't appear in that because that DLC is depressing as fuck.

 

Anyway. The story follows these characters as they make their way through familiar environments to escape the necromorphs. They also set out to warn others about the outbreak but they fail obviously, otherwise Dead Space wouldn't have happened.

 

At the very end, you escape the Ishimura but McNeil succumbs to the markers influence and turns into a necromorph, forcing Lexine to kill you, in glorious POV.

 

 

Visuals

As a Wii game, it doesn't look great. In fact, it looks exactly like how you'd expect a Wii game to look. A lot of the environments are re-used from the first game but they look worse as they've lost their dark atmospheric mood.

 

Gameplay

 

Core aspects:

Gunplay · Setting · Motion Controls

 

Gunplay

Dead Space Extraction is a light gun on-rails shooter. You don't move your character at all, they move for you. As you move, enemies will come toward you and you move your cursor to shoot the enemies. That's pretty much the game.

 

Dead Space Extraction uses all the same guns from the main game as well as a security pistol and an electricity arc gun. You can choose your loadout at the start of each mission and you unlock weapons as you play through the campaign. You can also upgrade your weapons just like you can in the main game.

 

You also have stasis and kinesis just like Isaac does.

 

The thing that makes this such a good spin off of Dead Space, is the dismemberment mechanics. Just like Dead Space, you're encouraged to shoot at the limbs of necromorphs in order to sever them, slow them down and eventually kill them. This mechanic lends itself so well to a rails shooter. Because its on rails, all you have to do is aim and shoot, and keep an eye out for resources and collectibles which you pick up by aiming and pressing a button (can't remember which one). You always have to aim for limbs to maximise damage, other rails shooters has you dumping bullets into enemies where as Extraction requires a bit more accuracy, this is what makes it so good. There's also a flare mechanic which you use to see in dark places, the flare dies out and you have to shake the controller to reactivate it.

 

The necromorphs are all the same as they are in the main game although there are two bosses in Extraction that don't feature in the main series. It's great seeing them up close and personal and slicing off their limbs is always fun.

 

Setting

As stated, Dead Space Extraction takes place in mostly reused environments from Dead Space. As well as some new areas that act as extensions to familiar areas, which helps flesh out the world and gives you a bigger picture of the colony and Ishimura.

 

Motion Controls

I used a regular DualShock 3 for this but you are encouraged to use a move controller. Using a normal controller means you aim with the right stick just like a first person shooter. You only use the sixaxis motion controls to activate your chemical flare.

 

Using the move controller is much more satisfying and gives you that arcadey feel. Having only just got a move controller I haven't had much of a chance to play about with it. The bit I did play was a blast however.

 

---

 

Music

I literally cannot remember. I imagine it was fine but nothing too stand out.

 

Platinum Thoughts

Dead Space Extraction asks you to complete its campaign on impossible mode, which is the hardest difficulty. To collect all collectibles and weapons, upgrade every weapon and to earn 5 stars on each level. There's also a bunch of trophies tied to the challenge mode and a few chapter specific tasks.

 

There's quite a lot to consider here but it's all relatively straight forward. Thankfully, the campaign is quite short. There's no way to speed it up on repeat playthroughs though as its on rails! Duh! That can get a little frustrating when you're going through half a level just to get a chance at picking up a collectible. Because its on rails, all collectibles have to be picked up as soon as you can see them. Some are on screen for a second and they can be quite easy to miss.

 

The stars you need to get on each level are tied to accuracy, damage taken, item pick ups, retries and solving puzzles. You can get 5 stars on easy mode which makes this a breeze. I remember this being much easier than I thought it would be.

 

Impossible mode can be challenging but if you do it on your second playthrough, you will have all your unlocked weapons and all upgrades too, making it much easier.

 

The challenge mode has you facing off against waves of necromorphs and for the trophies you need to beat the top score on each one. Not hard because again, you can use all your upgraded weapons from the campaign. 

 

Easiest trophy

 Skill - Stasis - Complete any level with at least 80% Stasis Accuracy

Hit one enemy with stasis, don't miss and that' it! Once you complete the level, the trophy will pop.

 

Hardest trophy

 Isaac 2.0 - Complete the game on "Impossible"

Again, not hard by any means but definitely the most challenging of this relatively easy trophy list.

 

Summary

I'm not that familiar with rail shooters unfortunately but its safe to say that Dead Space Extraction is fantastic and a must have for any fans of the series. It fleshes out the world quite well and can be quite immersive under the right circumstance. I plan on going through it again with the move controller and a fake gun with the lights turned down for maximum immersion, and I look forward to it.

 

Best Bits

Fleshes out the world of Dead Space, dismemberment mechanics work great for a rails shooter.

 

Worst Bits

Dated visuals, can be frustrating getting some of the collectibles.

 

Arbitrary Rating

8/10

 

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This was a struggle, could you tell? I'm sorry. It was three fucking years ago! I could have replayed the whole thing in preparation of this post but who the hell has time for that? I hope to play the Dead Space remake soon but having a kid is expensive and I have no money for games . Bye!

Edited July 28, 2023 by jonesey46

[jonesey46]

 Platinum #283 – Dark Souls 

 

Introduction

Dark Souls is one of my favourite games of all time, as such, I feel a bit nervous about doing this post for two reasons; firstly, I’m massively bias and so this post could never be considered a fair review, not that that was ever my intention. Secondly, I doubt my writing skills could accurately portray how I feel about this game. I felt this way when I did my Hollow Knight post, and I still feel the same about it. It’s probably one of my least favourite posts on here because I love the game so much and I feel that the post doesn’t even come close to giving it justice. But I digress.

 

In fact, I’ve already written extensively about Dark Souls in my big mega jumbo SoulsBorneRing post earlier this year. Where I described my journey through Lordran with Edwina the Moonlight Mage. I had a lot of fun doing that, but I hope that this post with my new format, can cover Dark Souls a bit more extensively and serve as a full review.

 

I should point out that this is the PS3 version of Dark Souls. I had already achieved the platinum for Dark Souls Remastered back in 2021 and I fancied doing it again. I did the original Demon’s Souls on PS3 earlier this year and yes, I will be doing the PS3 version of Dark Souls 2 sometime soon. Then I’ll have the full set on PS3 (not counting the Demon’s Souls region stacks, although I'll probably do those one day too).

 

The original PS3 version of Dark Souls is almost identical to its remastered version on PS4. It’s nothing like the Demon’s Souls remake or the Scholar of the First Sin version of Dark Souls 2. The performance is obviously the biggest difference, but I felt like I noticed fewer enemies in certain areas, although that might be my memory failing me. They also added a bonfire in the catacombs in the remastered version which made getting to the blacksmith much easier than it is in this version. The performance of this version isn’t ideal, most noticeable when in Blightown, but if you love this game as much as I do, then it shouldn’t be an issue.

 

Right, with all that out of the way, let’s get into the review proper.

 

Story

The fire fades. The prophecy of the undead notes that a chosen undead will link the first flame and extend the age of fire. You escape the undead asylum and are tasked with fulfilling said prophecy.

 

Full story discussion

Spoilers ahead

Spoiler

So, no surprise here, I love the story of Dark Souls. I think it’s incredibly well thought out and poignant. And it’s poignancy carries through its two sequels and comes to a very satisfying end with the DLC of Dark Souls 3. As much as I like the stories of the sequels, I do feel they muddy the waters a little and they never reach the highs of the first game.

 

When you start the game you get a CG cutscene describing the events that lead the world to where it is now. Essentially, the world was shrouded in darkness until fire was discovered, in the fire, 4 great souls were found. 4 beings took a soul each and ushered in the age of fire. The fire gave rise to humans who built empires, most notably, Lordran, where the game takes place. In present day though, the fire is fading which has brought about the curse of the undead. Basically, no one can die, they keep coming back and after so long, they lose their minds and go hollow, essentially making them mindless and violent husks. Gwyn, one of the beings who took a great soul is coveting the fire and extending the sorry state of the world. Amongst the undead there is a prophecy that says one day, a chosen undead will usurp the fire from Gwyn and reignite it, ushering in another age of fire and extending the life of humanity.

 

That’s the bigger picture but in your world, you and your created character start the game locked in a cell in the undead asylum. A man named Oscar frees you from your cell and shortly meets his end. Before he dies, he asks you to take heed the undead prophecy and ring the bells of awakening. Now, at this stage you don’t know everything going on in this world, you saw the history in the cutscene and now you’ve been freed from captivity. There’s no reason for you to follow a prophecy, you’re just a regular person right? Well, Oscar did you a solid, the least you could do is fulfil his final wish. This really works for me on a personal level. Yeah, it’s a videogame, you’re more than likely the hero of the story and you will more than likely succeed but in the context of the actual world Dark Souls takes place in, your character is just a regular person who is afflicted with the curse of the undead. You might not care about the curse or some prophecy but Oscar helped you and that’s motivation enough for me to do what he asks and take part in the story.

 

The idea of the world being close to collapse and it all being caused by one man who refuses to let go of his power is strangely apt, and seems to mirror the real world we live in. The sequels expand on this idea more so, where you get to see how the world has progressed further into madness the more times the fire becomes rekindled. Culminating in the world being completely exhausted and unable to continue at the end of Dark Souls 3.

 

Anyway, once you ring the bell of awakening a being appears in the starting area, Firelink Shrine. His name is Fraampt and he is a primordial serpent. He explains to you that you need to collect the four great lord souls to gain access to the kiln of the first flame to achieve your goal of rekindling the fire. These souls are being held by those great beings shown in the intro, except for Gwyns, he split his soul into parts and gave them to the four kings of New Londo Ruins. What follows is you travelling the entire land of Lordran to kill these beings and take their souls. Once you have them you can fight and kills Gwyn and rekindle the flame to extend the age of fire. OR you can walk away from the fire and usher in a new age of dark, abandoning the age of fire. Unfortunately, with the existence of Dark Souls 2 and 3, its implied that if you don’t link the fire, someone else will. I like this because it means you aren’t special. Every undead is destined to follow the prophecy and every person who plays Dark Souls is a canon element of the world. Did you beat the game and link the fire? Good for you! Did you walk away to start the age of dark? Tough, someone came in right behind you to link the fire. Did you get stuck on Ornstein and Smough and give up? Congrats, you went hollow and never achieved your goal. It adds a lot to the world and makes it feel like a real place, and that’s the games biggest strength in my opinion.

 

Visuals

Alright, lets face it, this games visuals are DATED. In all honesty the remastered version only serves to point out how dated they are. The haziness of the PS3 kind of hides how bad they look. Graphical fidelity has never been Fromsoftware’s forte, even with their most recent release, Elden Ring. However, what they lack in graphical fidelity, they make up for in graphical design. All their games are gorgeous because of the way they look, not how they look.

 

The visual design of Lordran is astounding, with Anor Londo being a sight to behold that still looks great to this day. Lordran feels like a real place and despite some areas lacking detail, that’s more than likely down to technical limitations rather than lacking visual design.

 

Gameplay

 

Core aspects:

World Design · Combat & Bosses · Multiplayer

 

World Design

I’ve said it before, the world design of Dark Souls is still unmatched to this day. Upon starting Dark Souls you’re given a tutorial area to get through and after that you are dropped off at Firelink Shrine. From here you can travel to almost every area in the game, on foot, without ever seeing a loading screen. Not only is that impressive, but the world is designed in a way that this all makes sense and is internally consistent.

 

From Firelink Shrine, the intended path will take you to Undead Burg which is the first area of the local town, from here you can go to the Undead Parish and Lower Undead Burg, these both lead back to the first area but also branch out to new areas like the Darkroot Garden and The Depths. Essentially, the game continues to branch out this way whilst always offering a way to return to the previous area or Firelink Shrine itself. It’s masterful world design and I still curse the fact that they’ve never attempted it again. It’s why I would love to see a remake of Dark Souls in the vein of the Demon’s Souls remake, as I imagine it’s the only way we’ll get a world like this in a new gen game. I’d love to see how this world could look with the tech we have available today. Elden Ring’s world design is fantastic, don’t get me wrong, but its very flat. Dark Souls seems like it exists in a tower, where all the areas are stacked on top of each other, unable to spread out.

 

For 60% of this game, you are unable to fast travel. This forces you to physically walk to where you want to go, and it also requires you to think about the world and memorise its layout. There’s nothing more satisfying than understanding where you need to go and mapping out your route in your head and then making the journey, its one of the reasons I love Death Stranding so much.

 

Admittedly, the world design does lose a little of its lustre once you gain the ability to fast travel after acquiring the lord vessel. From then on, you’re able to warp to a select number of bonfires, which act as your checkpoints, meaning you no longer must physically walk to your destinations. After this point in the game, the actual world design takes a hit too as the four areas you need to visit for the great souls branch out with no connections to other areas and at the end of each one, there is no way to get out, you must warp. I’ve heard a few times this is because the devs were pushed for time once they got to this point and had to wrap things up. To see how Lordran would have turned out given unlimited time and budget would have been incredible.

 

Combat & Bosses

I’m cheating a little here, I’ve combined two parts into one but only because the boss fights of this series are so integral to the core combat.

 

So, its Dark Souls right? You know how the combat works. It’s a deliberate system where you must commit to every move you make and if you make the wrong move, you will suffer the consequences. One of the major adjusting points playing Dark Souls after coming from Elden Ring is the fact you can only dodge in one of eight directions. Other than that, the combat is very familiar if you’ve played any of these games.

 

Anyway, at the start of the game you pick a class which decides your starting attribute spread and weapon/equipment. You then pick up weapons around the world and decide how you want to approach the combat. For this run I opted to go for my original build from my first playthrough where I used an Uchigatana, which is like a katana, and nothing else. I relied entirely on dodging and stamina management. But of course you can play the game however you want. You can be a mage and cast spells, you can be a pyromancer and set everyone on fire, you can use big swords or little swords, you can even just punch everyone. The builds are very versatile and can be further enforced by strengthening your stats like strength, dexterity, faith, intelligence, endurance, and vitality. You strengthen those stats by levelling up using the souls you collect from defeated enemies.

 

Enemy variety is always something the Dark Souls games can be praised for. You start the game fighting standard fantasy enemies like zombie soldiers, giant rats, and rabid dogs but you’ll eventually be fighting mushroom people, basilisks, massive dragons and tree people. Every enemy has its own unique attack pattern and a core part of the combat of Dark Souls is learning these patterns so you can avoid attacks and punish the enemies when they leave an opening. These games have completely changed the face of third person close quarters combat in games. I fell very unsatisfied when playing games that don’t use this kind of combat system, for example, Ghost of Tsushima. It’s a great game and the combat system can be kind of fun but it seems a little basic and easy by comparison.

 

Bosses are the main courses of this game. Each area is bookended by an amazing boss and they sort of act like progression markers. Beating a boss for the first time is exhilarating. Based on your build you can struggle with certain bosses and stomp all over some others. Everyone’s experience with this game can be different.

 

Having played this game a few times now I didn’t struggle with any bosses on the first playthrough but on NG+ I struggled with the Capra Demon and Gwyn. Capra Demon is a tricky one only because of the arena you fight him in and those two annoying as fuck dogs. The Capra Demon turns up later as a regular enemy in a wider area with no back up and he’s piss easy.

 

Gwyn is the final boss and he gave me trouble on NG+ because he does a lot of damage and has very fast attacks. He was killing me in 2-3 hits. I had to parry him over and over to beat him as I was unable to dodge his attacks consistently due to how fast he is.

 

If you get stuck on a boss its best to just keep trying. You’ll eventually learn their attack pattern and be able to adjust accordingly. Before you know it you’ll be beating these bosses with ease. And if you just can’t do it, there’s always summoning help to get through.

 

Multiplayer

Now, I don’t tend to partake in the multiplayer in these games. Mostly because I enjoy experiencing the world and atmosphere of these games at my own pace, and when it comes to bosses and combat, I like to learn the fights and do it all by myself.

 

There are two types of multiplayer in Dark Souls, cooperation and invasions. When wandering the world you may come across some glowing writing on the floor, if you go over to this writing you will have the opportunity to summon help into your world. This will bring another character into your world and they can fight enemies and bosses with you. These characters can be NPC’s that are AI controlled, or a real persons character. One the boss of the area you’re in is defeated, the summoned character will be sent back to their own world. Alternatively, you can leave your summon sign which will show up in other peoples worlds and they can summon you for help in their world.

 

To take part in both co-op and invasions you need to be human. Because you are undead in Dark Souls you spend most of the game, well, undead. You can use a finite resource known as humanity to restore your human form and this will be lost when you die. If you’re wandering the world as a human, you can be invaded. When invaded, another player or AI controlled NPC will try to kill you. I’ve only ever invaded in these games when required for trophies, otherwise, I find it kind of pointless. To me, it just seems like a way for people who spend all their time on this one game, to annoy people. People that dedicate their lives to being summoned by people to help with bosses are amazing though and jolly co-operation with strangers is always fun.

 

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So there’s the three core aspects done but I can’t leave this section without bringing attention to the performance of this version of the game. The remastered version on PS4 runs at 60fps even on a base PS4, it is the definitive version of the game on console, and you should only play the PS3 version if you’re a mega fan.

 

This game can drop to single digit frames in places, and it is absurd. Especially in a game that requires immediate reaction a lot of the time, in most places it will run at 30fps max. I couldn’t really tell if the low frame rate was messing with me sometimes. I’m familiar with this game so I knew what I was doing most of the time. When dying I couldn’t tell if I was just being shit, out of practice or it was the frame rate.

In Blightown, the frame rate is working against you and will really make your experience there worse. In a place that’s already hell on earth.

 

With the existence of the remastered version this isn’t an issue. But when this was the only option for console gamers, it’s completely unacceptable.

 

Music

The soundtrack for Dark Souls is iconic, however I’ve always found it a little inconsistent in tone. The soundtracks for this series and it’s spin offs have improved with every entry in my opinion. There’s something a little jarring about this games soundtracks and by extension, the original Demon’s Souls too.

 

I’m no music critic so it’s a little difficult to explain but the instruments used or the levels are always a little off to me. Boss themes tend to hit you like a truck when you enter their arenas, often when you’ve just been wandering about in silence. Does anyone else know what I mean? It’s off.

 

I’m not saying it’s a bad soundtrack by any means. I love it and like I said, it’s iconic. Some of the tracks are series favourites of mine. Like the character creation screen track, Gwyns boss theme and of course the Firelink Shrine theme.

 

The Firelink Shrine track rivals some of the Resident Evil safe room tracks in the way that it makes you feel safe. It never fails to put you at ease.

 

Platinum Thoughts

Despite being such a hard game, the platinum is pretty easy. It requires a minimum of two and a half playthroughs due to a trophy involving boss souls. Because of this, you’re able to play your first playthrough at your own pace without worrying about missables, because you can clean all that up on NG+, or even NG++.

 

So, why the multiple playthroughs? Once you reach Anor Londo, which is about half way through the game, there is a blacksmith who can craft weapons using boss souls. There is a trophy for collecting all unique weapons, including these boss soul weapons. There are three weapons that require the same soul and because you can only collect it once per playthrough, you need to fight this boss three times across three playthroughs.

 

Other than that, you’re required to upgrade one of each weapon type to max. Discover all covenants in the game, beat some optional and main bosses and collect all spells and pyromancies. You’re also required to see both endings the game has to offer but since you’ll be finishing the game twice anyway, this is a non-issue.

 

There are some special requirements that you’ll need to watch out for like the faith requirement for joining the Warriors of Sunlight covenant and the upgraded pyromancy hand needed to see a certain pyro merchant. My advice would be to be aware of these beforehand so you can plan accordingly.

 

To acquire all spells/miracles you need to level up two covenants using certain items. Thankfully, the requirements are nowhere near as obtuse as Dark Souls 3 so rest easy. That game is a pain in the arse when it comes to covenants, put it this way, I’m glad there’s not another stack for Dark Souls 3 because I really don’t want to do that platinum again.

 

Upgrading each weapon can be a pain which is made slightly easier on the remastered version because you can back up saves to avoid wasting resources. The PS3 does have a back up feature but it also has locked saves for some games, and Dark Souls is one of those games. Basically, you can upload your save but you have to wait 24 hours before you can download it again. A huge inconvenience! BUT, backing up saves only makes it a little easier. You can get all the resources necessary for these trophies over two playthroughs and considering you need to do two playthroughs anyway, its fine. Although, it will require a bit more back tracking.

 

It's like the original Demon’s Souls trophy list with a similar difficulty level. If you’ve done that then this will be no issue.

 

Easiest trophy

 Estus Flask – Acquire Estus Flask

You gain this shortly after starting the game and its essential to continue the game.

 

Hardest trophy

 Knight’s Honor – Acquire all rare weapons

Not hard but this is what requires the biggest time investment.

 

DLC

The DLC for Dark Souls is available for the PS3 version but there are no trophies for it. Since buying DLC for PS3 games is a headache these days, I never bothered with it. If I want to play the DLC for Dark Souls, I'll do so on the remastered version.

 

I've talked about the DLC before, so I'll reiterate here; It's fantastic, has the best bosses of the game and the level design is just as good as the main game. It also has a PVP area for people who are into that shit.

 

Summary

Dark Souls is the game of a generation and one of my personal favourites. In future, I will always play the remastered version but it was fun to come back to the PS3 and play the inferior version to test my skill and patience.

 

I’ll be playing this game well into old age and I hope to one day see a remake. That would be neat.

 

Best Bits

The interconnected world and general world design. The amazing combat and boss fights. The poignant story that you have to work to understand.

 

Worst Bits

The framerate is atrocious on the PS3 version.

 

Arbitrary Rating

10/10 obviously

Edited July 7, 2023 by jonesey46

[jonesey46]

 Platinum #284 – Metro Exodus 

 

Introduction

This is the PS5 version of the game which was offered to all owners of the PS4 version for free. It comes with all the regular upgrade features like ray tracing, a performance mode which targets 60fps, quicker loading times and haptic feedback on your controller. Metro Exodus was already one of the best looking games on PS4 so having the chance to play an even prettier version? Yes please!

 

I platinum’d the PS4 version back in 2019 not too long after the game released and finished the DLC in early 2020. The PS5 version is the exact same game, with the exact same trophy list, it also includes the DLC provided you purchased the DLC previously.

 

Trophy wise, the biggest difference between versions is, unfortunately, some massive trophy glitches. We’ll go into it in the ‘Platinum Thoughts’ section but be warned if you plan to play this version, some DLC trophies will refuse to unlock. There is an effective workaround that requires a bit of effort which is detailed in this very handy thread in the forums:

 

With the completion of this version, I now have the full set including all versions, which is pretty cool.

 

Story

For those not in the know, the Metro series of games is based on the cult novel Metro 2033 by author Dmitry Glukhovsky. The first game in the series follows the book very closely but the sequel to the game, Metro: Last Light, does not follow the events of the sequel to the book, Metro 2034. Metro Exodus sort of brings the story back in line with the books, specifically the latest book in the series, Metro 2035, by following the same basic premise, although they do diverge quite a bit.

 

Essentially, there was a nuclear war 20 years ago and Moscow’s inhabitants were forced to take shelter underground in the Metro, which doubles as a nuclear shelter (this is true and is essentially the authors inspiration for writing the books in the first place). Metro Exodus has our hero, Artyom, searching for answers outside of the Metro. It is believed that the surface world is completely uninhabitable but a revelation early in the game shows this not to be true. Forced to leave the Metro, Artyom and his team of rangers set out to find a new home.

 

Full story discussion

Spoilers ahead (for both the games and books)

Spoiler

Like I said, Metro Exodus has the same premise as the third book, Metro 2035. In both instances, Artyom wants to leave the Metro and live above ground. In the book, this is caused by a brief radio signal which he hears at the very end of the first book. The second book follows a different character so Metro 2035 is essentially a direct sequel to Metro 2033, despite 2 years having passed. Metro Exodus starts in very much the same way, Artyom is constantly leaving the Metro to listen to the radio and attempts to contact the outside world and becoming heavily radiated while doing so. This is strange because this isn’t how the game Metro 2033 ends, and even still, the ending of Metro Last Light does not allude to Artyom hearing any radio messages from the outside world. So, we’re to assume this obsession of Artyom’s begins off screen, even though its explicitly stated in the book. Anyway, his wife Anna and all his friends believe Artyom to be delusional, that there’s nothing outside of the Metro.

 

While the book mostly takes place in the Metro, like the previous novels, Metro Exodus leaves the Metro during the first chapter and the rest of the game takes place in various locations across Russia. Thinking about it, you could consider Metro Exodus a sequel to Metro 2035 as that ends with Artyom and Anna leaving the Metro for good. Although you really shouldn’t! As they don’t follow the same continuity at all. Basically, the games and books diverge after their first entry, the only thing that’s taken from the books after the first game is Artyom’s obsession with radio signals and finding life outside of the Metro. Because I had already read Metro 2035 before the release of Metro Exodus, this character motivation was not lost on me, but if I hadn’t, I’m unsure how I’d feel about it.

 

Interestingly, I think the Metro novels are the only instance in my life where I’ve read the source material before seeing or playing the adaptation.

 

Leaving the books behind now, Metro Exodus is a great addition to the franchise and nicely closes the book (pun intended) on Artyom’s story. Provided you get the good ending that is.

 

Once you leave the Metro, Artyom and his friends commandeer a train and use this to travel across Russia. Each chapter of the game takes place in a semi-open world area which presents a problem that needs to be solved and in between chapters, you have a short interim on the train which offers the nicer, more character focussed moments. There are three semi-open worlds to explore and these are a swamp, desert and forest respectively. Game franchises going open world is almost a meme at this point but Metro Exodus does it tactfully. They aren’t open worlds per se. They’re more like immersive sim style sandboxes, allowing you to tackle your goals in any order you want and giving you the freedom to explore and scavenge for supplies, which makes perfect sense in a game like this.

 

The main driving force of the story is to find a new home above ground. Each area ends up being inhospitable and so the team must move on to the next.

 

Overall, I like the story of this game and its much more a positive experience than the book, which is astronomically depressing. However, I do take issue with two things;

 

Firstly, Artyom is a silent protagonist, this was mostly fine in the first two games as he mostly travelled alone and conversations were done in a way where characters where talking at Artyom, rather than to him. However, Metro Exodus has a greater focus on character moments than the previous two and it comes off as weird when characters are talking to Artyom, and he never responds. Weirder still, Artyom technically isn’t a silent protagonist as he has dialogue during the loading screens as he narrates the notes of his journey. It’s weird and one of the biggest complaints of the story across the board. If 4A games were to follow up this game, I’m almost certain they’ll do away with the silent protagonist.

 

My second issue is Anna’s illness. During the first proper level, Anna falls into an ammo dump without a gas mask and inhales some nasty stuff. She spends the rest of the game with a cough and this ultimately leads Artyom to Novosibirsk where he searches for experimental medicine that will cure her. This is a major plot point that spans the entire game and in my opinion, it just gets in the way and it doesn’t need to exist. It’s similar to Atreus’ plot cough from God of War that doesn’t really lead anywhere. And the miracle cure that Artyom has to get for her at the end of the game is so contrived.

Firstly, one of the passengers acts as a doctor for the crew and before the final level, she mentions that her mum had heard about this medicine. So, someone else had heard it, not her, and she happens to know exactly where it is and that it will definitely cure this mystery illness, which it does. It’s incredibly contrived.

 

My fix would be to get rid of Anna’s subplot entirely. Have the game entirely be about finding a suitable home and finding that each place that might be suitable is faced with its own problems that are entirely different to the challenges the Metro faces. Showing that while life is sustainable on the surface, it’s not all a happy story. The game does do this but it spends too much time focussing on Anna’s plot cough which takes over the entire conclusion of the game. After the final level, you find a suitable home in the ending cutscene, which feels unrewarding. Maybe the last level could have been another open area with a specific problem and this time, Artyom and the team are able to work together to solve the problem and make it a suitable home for them. This would improve the pay off by making you, the player, put the work in to make a home for the team.

 

In the ending cutscene, the team have found their new home and depending on what ending you get, Artyom will be there to send off Captain Miller, who dies during the final mission. Or he will be dead himself, and Anna will be crying. Like I said, it’s a little rushed and unsatisfying.

 

Visuals

As said in the intro, this game is gorgeous. It was easily one of the best looking games on PS4 and the PS5 version is now one of the best looking games on PS5. It’s impressive what they’ve managed to achieve with the hardware. Character models are impressive with great facial animations but the environments are where the game shines. Each environment is visually unique with the forest Taiga biome being the most impressive. The game also throws various harsh weather effects at you which look great and always add to the immersion.

 

There’s a big focus on stealth in this game so light plays a big part in gameplay. The lighting is always great looking especially when ray tracing is on. There is also a day and night cycle in the game which shows off the dynamic lighting.

 

Gameplay

 

Core aspects:

Environments · Immersion · Survival

 

Environments

The environments, and by extension, the atmosphere of the Metro games is arguably the most important aspect of the series. Even more so in Metro Exodus. A large portion of the previous two games take place in the dark and dank tunnels of the Metro, only venturing outside briefly. Metro Exodus takes place almost entirely outside and there’s a few different biomes you venture to across the campaign.

 

As said, the first area is a swamp known as the Volga. This area is run by a religious cult that worship a large, mutated fish. This beast will try to eat you at various locations and as such, you need to slay the beast before you can move on. Doing so pisses off the cult though, as you’d imagine.

 

You travel the area by rowboat, and your journey will take you to a church, an abandoned train yard and a few old warehouses. The area is very misty, and it tends to rain a lot. It’s a very moody looking level. It’s reminiscent of some of the outside areas in Metro Last Light.

 

The second level is the biggest departure for the series as it’s a desert in the Caspian Sea. It’s the largest area by far and to get around you get a car. It’s scorching hot here and never rains, there’s always a sandstorm round the corner too. This area is run by a slaver and to progress, you need to take him down and liberate the slaves, if you wish. Explorable areas in this zone include some beached ships, a lighthouse, an underground bunker, a water gathering plant and an oil tanker.

 

The last open area in the game is the Taiga biome. This place has more religious fundamentalists and a crazy bear that follows you around. Despite being open and explorable, it’s quite linear and as you move forward, previous areas become inaccessible. It’s the best looking biome by far but I always love a forest. The inhabitants live inside a valley which has a dam. The dam is close to breaking and it’s holding back thousands of gallons of toxic water. This is why the area is uninhabitable for you and your team. This area gives off camping vibes which is what makes it so cozy, like Timber Hearth in Outer Wilds. Near the end of the level you explore an old power facility which feels like old Metro in a lot of ways.

 

The final level takes place in snowy Novosibirsk and you end up underground in a Metro. This is the part of the game that is most like the older games. The snow is gorgeous but you don’t spend too much time in it before going underground. The atmosphere of the underground area is tense but nothing we haven’t seen before.

 

As said, there are a few in between levels on the train and one in a big locked down facility, but the open areas is where you spend most of your time and where the game shines.

 

Immersion

The Metro games borrow a lot from the immersive sim genre. A starved genre if you ask me so I’ll take what I can get. It’s not strictly an immersive sim as when it comes to your journey through the game, it tends to be linear with only a few binary good/evil choices that can change some dialogue and cutscenes. However, at every moment of your experience, there are a handful of things that you need to manage that only exist to make the experience more immersive.

 

Things like, wiping your mask if it gets dirty or bloody. Making sure to swap out the filters of your gas mask. Charging up your electrical equipment. Patching up any breaches in your suit. Using your lighter to burn away any cobwebs and even cleaning the dirt off your guns and equipment. Like I said, these things don’t actually do much for gameplay, but being required to manage them can be a little stressful on harder difficulties and certainly goes a long way to increasing immersion.

 

When playing the game, you can choose how you approach things. The basic go stealthy or go loud choice is always there but there’s also other choices to be made like what direction you approach your objectives from and the time of the day. Guards change shifts in real time, and you can manipulate this to your advantage. You can sprint straight to your objective, or you can explore the area to scavenge for supplies or find a person that might need your help with something.

 

As said, there are two endings that you can get based on your morality. Throughout the game, you can make choices that can affect your karma. They aren’t exactly signposted like in infamous though so you need to be mindful of your decisions. Basically, don’t kill anyone that isn’t currently trying to kill you. And try to help everyone that needs it.

 

Survival

Metro Exodus introduced a crafting system which allows you to craft ammo and other equipment out in the field. To get the resources for this you need to collect bits and bobs out in the world and you need to ensure you always have a supply on you.

 

Exploring the world can also reward you with new weapons, attachments for those weapons and even equipment. This is why its always worth exploring. You can either scavenge weapons and parts from fallen enemies or find them in the world. Things like stronger gas masks that don’t break as easily, a brighter torch or a larger battery that makes your torch last longer. Things that effect gameplay, making it worthwhile to always look around.

 

---

 

Music

The music in Metro Exodus is nothing remarkable if I’m honest, same for the two previous titles. The sound mixing though, is straight up bad. Combat music can be loud and drown out everything, it can continue well after combat has finished and then just shut off randomly, and voice levels can be jarring.

 

I will say though, the game doesn’t really use music all that much. Mostly they let the atmosphere do its work which as I’ve said is great. Music would hinder these moments I feel so I think they made the right choice.

 

My favourite track has to be the one that plays during the climactic moment of the final level. Easily the most effective piece in the game.

 

 

Platinum Thoughts

Right, here we go. Thankfully getting the platinum isn’t an issue, the glitches I mentioned earlier seem to be isolated to the DLC.

 

More than half of the trophies you will naturally unlock on your first playthrough including all the story specific ones and a bunch of combat ones that are almost impossible to miss.

 

The things to be mindful of are your collectibles, which consists of notes/diaries and postcards. And also, level specific trophies that require you to complete certain tasks during missions. You also need to make sure you act like a saint and do all the good deeds possible to make sure all your friends stay with you, and you get the good ending for the Full Strength trophy.

 

Difficulty wise you will need to beat the game on Ranger Hardcore mode, which is the hardest difficulty the game has to offer. It makes combat much more difficult and removes a lot of the HUD elements to make it the most immersive it can be.

 

DLC is where we start to have problems. There are 3 DLC packs, a NG+ mode and two story expansions. None of the trophies in these packs are particularly difficult. But when you get hit with these glitches, and believe me you will, some trophies will just not unlock. Even basic trophies, for example, the second DLC has a trophy for finishing the DLC, this didn’t unlock for me, despite unlocking a different trophy relating to finishing said DLC. It makes no sense.

 

The developers have been made aware of these glitches several times and they refuse to do anything about it, saying that everything is working as intended. For the record, these trophies weren’t glitched on the PS4 version.

 

Thankfully, there is an amazing workaround laid out in this thread that I linked above. It requires a little bit of work but its 100% effective

 

Easiest trophy

 Exodus – Complete the MOSCOW level.

You will get this after finishing the first chapter and its likely the first trophy you will unlock.

 

Hardest trophy

 Full Strength – Duke and Damir stay with the crew, Alyosha doesn’t get wounded.

This one’s a bit tricky because it requires you to do enough good deeds during the main chapters to have your buddy stay with you/not get wounded. The tricky part is, there’s no way to know if your mates will stay until the cutscene where it happens. And once you’re watching the cutscene, it’s too late to go back. It’s a little obtuse and requires a lot of investment so it’s easily the hardest/most annoying.

 

DLC

So, we’ve gone through the DLC being glitchy as fuck when it comes to trophies but what is the DLC actually like?

 

Well, the NG+ update was a typical post launch NG+ mode that didn’t really offer all that much. It did add 3 new collectibles which are required for a trophy, and it also added game modifications. When starting NG+ which allows you to carry over all your upgraded weapons and equipment into a new game, you can also activate certain modifiers. Things like, permadeath, one weapon only, crossbow only, armoured enemies, developer commentary and various other limitations you can impose on yourself.

 

The second DLC was The Two Colonels. This was the first story DLC and it offered an alternative viewpoint to the final chapter and shed some light on a character that you never actually see in the main game but hear a lot about. It’s very linear and is very reminiscent of the first two games as its mostly limited to the underground area of the final level of the main game.

 

The third DLC was Sam’s Story. The largest DLC which offers a whole new explorable area which is by far the best of the lot, new weapons, and new equipment. It follows Sam, who is a member of Artyom’s crew, and takes place after the main game. If you’d like to read my full thoughts on this DLC, you can read my dedicated post on it right here in this thread, from 2020.

 

Summary

A great game and a nice change up for the franchise. Still one of the best looking games to date and top of the class when it comes to immersion. I still think Last Light is the best of the trilogy, but Exodus is seriously a fantastic game.

 

Best Bits

Immersion, amazing graphics, dripping atmosphere.

 

Worst Bits

Story is contrived, voice acting is kind of bad but its Russian actors speaking English so I’ll let them off. The DLC trophy glitches is completely unacceptable.

 

Arbitrary Rating

9/10

[jonesey46]

 Platinum #285 – Exit the Gungeon 

 

Introduction

Exit the Gungeon is a sequel/spin-off to the fantastic Enter the Gungeon, of which I recently did a platinum review of right here:

As I said in that review, Enter the Gungeon is incredible and most likely the best game in its genre. Exit the Gungeon is a traditional spin-off where it offers much of the same experience, but it turns the original idea on its head somewhat.

 

Interestingly, Exit the Gungeon was developed as a mobile game and released on consoles some time later. As expected, this limits the possibilities of gameplay somewhat, but that’s not to say this isn’t a game with a lot to offer, and in my opinion, it fits right at home on console.

 

The main difference between the two is that Enter is isometric 2D whereas Exit is traditional 2D. Leaving you with a lot less room to maneuver and a lot more verticality.

 

I picked this up for around £3 which is the price of a coffee, and I had a great time with it. I played it almost immediately after finishing Enter the Gungeon so I could keep my Gungeon momentum going. While the experiences are distinctly different, the design and general gameplay goals are much the same.

 

Story

In Enter the Gungeon, 4 heroes’ journey into the depths of the Gungeon to kill their past. Well, having successfully done this, they now need to get out of the Gungeon, or EXIT the Gungeon, right? This makes no sense which I’ll discuss below.

 

Full story discussion

Spoilers ahead

Spoiler

So, if the 4 (or 7, because there are 3 extra characters that you can play as) heroes managed to reach the bottom of the Gungeon in Enter the Gungeon, and successfully killed their past, then they wouldn’t have ever come to the Gungeon in the first place, as they rewrote their past right? So if they’d never come to the Gungeon, they’d never have to Exit the Gungeon.

 

To be fair, they do try and explain it by saying the Gungeon is destablising because of all the pasts that have been killed and that's why its so important they Exit the Gungeon. So maybe it's an alternate or fractured timeline.

 

I’m clearly taking this way too seriously. It’s a silly game where the plot doesn’t matter obviously. And despite it making no sense, I really love the novel premise. You entered the Gungeon, now you need to leave. So how exactly do we exit the Gungeon? We’ll get to that in the gameplay section coming up.

 

Visuals

Exit’s visuals are almost identical to Enter’s but there are some interesting additions, some good, some bad.

Most of the sprites have been re-used from Enter the Gungeon, from characters to enemies to guns. I love the art style of Enter the Gungeon. The 2D pixelated sprites have been done to death but when it comes to enemy and weapon design, Gungeon looks great.

 

Exit the Gungeon introduces a few unique visual elements not seen in Enter. One thing I really liked was the 3D design of the final boss, The Last Dragun. The whole game is in 2D so when you see the final boss is 3D and move like a 3D character, it’s impressive but also makes the boss intimidating, as he moves like nothing else in the game.

 

The not so good elements of the visuals are the mini-game art screens. Essentially, every now and then you may enter a room that has an NPC in it, some NPCs allow you to play mini-games like golf or pinball. When you go to play these modes there’s a short loading screen with a bit of art representing what the mini game is, and they are BAD. They look like they were made in paint by an intern. For example:

 

 

Yeesh.

 

Gameplay

 

Core aspects

Elevators · Guns · The Breach

 

Elevators

(or levels)

 

So, we’re at the bottom of the Gungeon, how do we get out? Well, a series of 5 elevators will take us to the surface and once at the top, we can finally escape, which ends the run. At the end of each elevator, you fight a boss.

 

Remember, this is a roguelike/lite (I don’t know the distinction) game where you need to fight through several levels, building up your gear and if you die, you go right back to the start. If you finish a run, you’re rewarded but you’re also sent back to the start to see if you can do it again, but even better this time.

Each character, of which there are 7, has a different series of elevators, and these can range between static elevators to elevators that offer a little more challenge. For instance, there are platforms that need to be moved to avoid hazards, there are train platforms where you need to be careful not to fall off, and there are platforms that will deteriorate as you play so you need to watch your footing. These are interesting gameplay modifiers but can be really frustrating sometimes, especially when you have a lot of enemies on screen.

 

Like I said, the novel concept of Exit the Gungeon is great. The fact that the elevators run through the levels from Enter the Gungeon in reverse order is very clever.

 

Halfway through each elevator ride you will stop at a shop, it’s Bello’s shop! The same shop from Enter the Gungeon. Here you can buy new items, top up your health, armor, or blanks and can fight in some combat rooms for some extra cash. Occasionally, an NPC will be in one of these rooms and they will either have their own shop of items, or they will have a mini game for you, or they might just give you a free chest. If you can’t afford what you want, you get another chance to visit this shop before moving to the next elevator. Each floors shop you visit will have a new random assortment of items and rooms for you.

 

Guns

(and combat)

 

Much like Enter the Gungeon, Exit is a bullet hell shooter but because its traditional 2D, it works completely different from its predecessor. Because it’s 2D, there’s much more verticality and as such, you can now jump as well as roll. However, the roll is almost completely useless. When you jump you become invincible and any bullets that hit you won’t do damage. Not only can you jump, but you can also double jump! If you hit the jump button whilst in the air, you will jump again in whatever direction you are facing. Once you get the hang of this, you can pretty much never take damage. This makes Exit the Gungeon much easier than Enter.

 

So that’s how you avoid damage, but how do you deal it? Well, by shooting guns!

 

Unlike Enter the Gungeon, Exit gives you a blessed gun from the start. A blessed gun will change form every minute or so to be a different gun. When you start the game you’ll have a pool of guns that the blessed gun can change into and you can buy more in the breach to increase your pool. The blessed gun does exist in Enter the Gungeon but it’s an optional run modifier, traditionally, you collect guns from chests or from bosses. There is an option to turn on gun drops in Exit but you still keep the blessed gun, so all this does is give you some permanent guns that use ammo and severely limit your item drops, which are what really makes a difference run to run, as they give you more damage or special abilities.

 

Most guns have returned from Enter the Gungeon with a couple of unremarkable additions. Same with the items.

 

When you’re on an elevator, a bunch of enemies will spawn in and your goal is to shoot them all until the level is complete. At the end of each level, you fight a boss. For the first 4 floors, bosses are randomised, you don’t generally know who you’re going to fight although there aren’t that many bosses so after a while you might be able to predict. The last boss is always The Last Drugun. There is an optional boss you can fight at the very end before you leave the Gungeon behind for good. On the final floor, you can pay 200 shells to buy some bait which will attract the Glocktopus. This is the hardest boss in the game but doesn’t really offer any worthwhile reward aside from a trophy. So fighting him once you have the trophy is kind of pointless.

 

As I said in the previous section, each shop you visit has some rooms to enter and most will be combat rooms. These aren’t elevators, they’re normal rooms that are themed to whatever floor you’re on. Doing this award extra money and a guaranteed chest so they’re always worth doing.

 

The Breach

The breach is the home base where everyone resides before attempting to Exit. Much like the breach in Enter, here you can find several NPCs that you need to rescue first, and these NPCs can sell you things like new guns and items to add to the Gungeon or skins and hats for your character.

 

Here you can select your character and you can also change the route of your elevators. Once you exit the Gungeon with a character successfully, you unlock that character’s route and can take that route with the other characters. This can make things a little easier as some routes are harder than others.

 

There are also NPC side quests available in this game which you may sometimes need to return to the Breach to progress.

 

---

 

Music

For the most part, the original soundtrack from Enter makes a comeback here so a lot of what you hear will be familiar. There are some original tracks which are serviceable. My absolute favourite track is the slightly altered version of the main theme which plays any time you exit the Gungeon. It’s almost the same as the main theme from Enter the Gungeon but with the words changed to match this new game. It’s shameless, but in a good way.

 

 

 

Platinum Thoughts

Well, Exit the Gungeon is much easier than Enter and to prove this, my playtime for both is as follows;

 

Enter the Gungeon – 118 hours

Exit the Gungeon – 22 hours

 

Now, did my knowledge of Enter the Gungeon help me master Exit the Gungeon much quicker? Maybe. But the games play fundamentally different, so I’m not sure.

 

Anyway, to get the platinum for this game you need to exit the Gungeon with each of the 7 characters. Fight each boss a certain number of times. Beat the boss of each floor without getting hit. Complete each NPC side quest. And buy all skins and hats.

 

The NPC quests can be a bit of a pain as they rely on RNG. You might end up doing several runs before one particular NPC spawns. As a little advice, if you want to focus solely on the quests; Restart your runs until you get a mini game room on the first floor, grab the item you need and then continue the run and in my experience, the relevant NPC will always spawn on floor 3 or above.

 

Other than that, it’s pretty straight forward and you’ll likely get everything before buying all skins and hats which might require a bit of grinding.

 

Honestly if you’ve platinum’d Enter the Gungeon, this won’t be a problem for you.

 

Easiest trophy

 Passing My Test – Completed Manuel’s Test, A Great Achievement

This is for beating the tutorial which you technically don’t have to do as its optional. Still, it’s the easiest trophy in the game.

 

Hardest trophy

 Tentacle Espionage Action – Mastered The Gloctopus

This is for beating the somewhat difficult optional boss 5 times. Once you beat him once, the next 4 times shouldn’t be too much of an issue though.

 

DLC

Unfortunately, no DLC was released for Exit the Gungeon which is a shame because Enter had fantastic DLC. I don’t expect any to come either cause its been 3 years and the developers have move on to their next project, which is insane btw:

 

https://enterthegungeon.com/house-of-the-gundead

 

Anyone got a spare £5k?

 

Summary

Exit the Gungeon is a fun, casual game that has all the charm of Enter the Gungeon but with barely any of the complexity or difficulty. What it does is great and its fun for fans of the other game but if you had to choose between the two, choose Enter the Gungeon.

 

Best Bits

The Gungeon charm is still intact. Novel premise and concept.

 

Worst Bits

A little too simple making it not as replayable. Can be repetitive.

 

Arbitrary Rating

7/10

Edited July 28, 2023 by jonesey46

[Copanele]

Wheeew took me a while to catch up with this thread! Took quite a bit of reading (and all my upvotes lol) but reached the end ?

 

So, very very super late congrats for all the personal accomplishments, including becoming dad of boy? those are the very best out there!

 

And second...yeah I read all of the Soulrority, damn that was hilarious and painful ? (GODDAMNIT ADP STAT IN DS2). It was so fun to see your experience and struggles. I actually never tried to finish Bloodborne with Arcane soooo maybe another playthrough for me?

 

Looking forward to more gaming experiences out there! And yeah...i am convinced that i have to play that damned Hollow Knight at long last...

[jonesey46]

10 hours ago, Copanele said:

Wheeew took me a while to catch up with this thread! Took quite a bit of reading (and all my upvotes lol) but reached the end

 

So, very very super late congrats for all the personal accomplishments, including becoming dad of boy those are the very best out there!

 

And second...yeah I read all of the Soulrority, damn that was hilarious and painful (GODDAMNIT ADP STAT IN DS2). It was so fun to see your experience and struggles. I actually never tried to finish Bloodborne with Arcane soooo maybe another playthrough for me?

 

Looking forward to more gaming experiences out there! And yeah...i am convinced that i have to play that damned Hollow Knight at long last...

And I thank you for reading! I've been pretty busy on here lately ?.

 

PLAY HOLLOW KNIGHT YOU MUST PLAY IT

[jonesey46]

I'm likely to be a bit quiet on here for the rest of the year mostly because my planned games are all very long adventures.

 

I'm currently playing The Witcher 3 on PS5 and have just made it back to Kaer Morhen with Uma. Still lots of game to go and all the DLC on top of that.

 

Once I've platinum'd that, I'll be cleaning up Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga which takes around 100 hours, so I'm told.

 

And after that I plan to play a game so far out of my comfort zone that it honestly makes me nervous... Persona 5 ?. In fact, should I play the original version which I own thanks to the PS+ Collection or should I get my wallet out and go for the Golden version? Let me know!

 

I'm also periodically playing The Long Dark which is famously a massive grind and can take up to 200 hours for the platinum. I'm all caught up with the story mode so I'll be heading into the massive survival mode, at least until the final chapter of the story mode releases this year.

 

And I of course have to work in a replay of Hollow Knight, Bloodborne and Resident Evil in there somewhere, because if I don't... I'll die! ?

 

My wee boy is growing up so fast it isn't even funny. I find myself having less time for games as the days go by, but it's great! Being a dad has been the best thing to happen to me. Also, money is tight as any spare income I have, goes straight to stuff he needs. I desperately want to play Dead Space and Star Wars Jedi: Survivor but I don't know when I'll be able to buy them.

 

Thanks for reading as always and I hope to see you soon!

[jonesey46]

“you’ll choke to death on 3 pounds of steel”.

 

 Platinum #286 – The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 

 

Introduction

Aw man, this is going to be a long one…

 

The Witcher 3 is generally touted as the best game ever made. Why? I don’t know. It’s pretty good, it has good writing, but for the third entry in a franchise where barely anyone played the first two entries, it seems a little strange right? Well, The Witcher 3 was another entry into the growing genre of massive open world single player games boasting hundreds of hours of content. The difference between The Witcher 3 and every other AAA game releasing at this time was that it used its world to its advantage. It entrenches it in politics, it has distinct areas that behave differently in terms of story and gameplay, and it was very pretty. It felt hand crafted rather than procedurally generated. It was filled with interesting quests with compelling characters and stellar writing. Although its gameplay is lacking, especially when it comes to combat, its world more than makes up for it.

 

I played The Witcher 3 shortly after it came out in 2015. It took me a few months to beat it because I wasn’t exactly captured by it. I was dropping in and out of it. I went back to it in early 2016 to attempt at getting the platinum and I fell head over heels for it. To get the platinum I was required to do a new playthrough on the hardest difficulty (Death March) and make sure to get good at Gwent as I needed to play a lot of it to get all the cards. Something happened during this playthrough that just made the game click for me. I can’t say what it was though.

 

On this first platinum playthrough I ended up doing way more than what was required and essentially did a 100% run. For some reason though, the DLC completely passed me by in 2015/16 so I didn’t end up playing that until 2019, where I completed both and achieved 100% trophies.

 

To this day, The Witcher 3 is #3 in my top 3 played games on PlayStation at 303 hours (I’m not even joking, 333303). That’s not including the hours I’ve put into the PS5 version, the version that we are reviewing today, which is currently at 100 hours exactly, at time of posting. For those who are curious, #1 and #2 are GTAV at 480 hours and Minecraft at 405 hours, respectively. Unfortunately, I was really into GTA Online in 2015.

 

The Witcher is huge now thanks to this game and its Netflix series which started out good but is now garbage because Netflix hates everything.

 

The Witcher 3 released its next gen version for PS5 and Xbox Series X in December 2022, for free, for all owners of the previous gens’ version. A very generous offering for a 7-year-old game but CDPR’s only option after the debacle of Cyberpunk 2077’s launch. The new version offers revamped visuals, ray tracing, 60fps, haptics, new quests, new items and all previous updates and DLC included.

 

My household is a Witcher household. My wife played through The Witcher 3 over lockdown and it’s now her favourite game. She also fancies Geralt. So, we all love Witcher. She’s already planned to make our son play the game when he’s older, and I hope for his sake he likes it.

 

I jumped into the next gen version straight away as it had been 6 years since I’d played the main game and 3 since I’d played the DLC. But because it was so soon after my son was born, I fell off with it. New games are scarce for me these days so as I’ve been completing things I’ve been looking to the backlog for my next adventure. Unlike a lot of PS5 upgrades, The Witcher 3 doesn’t have an auto-pop feature so if I wanted the platinum, I’d have to work for it.

 

Story

It’s been two years since Geralt saw Yennefer because of some amnesia nonsense and so he’s tracking her down. On his journey he learns that his young apprentice and child by prophecy, Ciri, is in trouble and so he sets out to find her and help her.

 

Full story discussion

Spoilers ahead

Spoiler

So, before we start, I’d like to tell you that outside of The Witcher 3, I’ve read the first three Witcher novels and I’ve seen seasons 1 & 2 of the show. I haven’t played the first two games, because I’m a PlayStation boy and I have no way of playing them.

 

The Witcher games are set after the books, although I don’t think they’re strictly canon. Knowledge of the books and the previous games is rewarded but the game does a VERY good job of introducing you into this world. It’s important to remember though, that the world of The Witcher is a very rich one and upon starting the game you do get the impression that you’re stepping into an established world with lots going on. It can be intimidating but like I said, it does a good job of welcoming newcomers.

 

PlayStation doesn’t have this obviously but on PC, you can carry on your saves from Witcher 1 & 2 which can transfer your decisions over to Witcher 3 and keep things consistent. It can also open extra quests which aren’t available to regular players. This is amazing and I love it. Mass Effect did this, and it was incredible.

 

Anyway, this is a long story, so I’ll be glossing over it as best I can.

 

The world of The Witcher is filled with monsters and Witcher’s are basically monster hunters for hire. They always work for money and tend to be neutral on all political matters, to ensure they always have work. You play as Geralt, one of the last Witchers.

 

As I said in the synopsis, you start the game with Geralt looking for Yennefer. You can infer that Yennefer is important to Geralt, but if you haven’t read the books then you might not understand why. It’s prudent to outline that both Yennefer and Ciri are the two most important people in Geralt’s life.

Why is he looking for them? Well, if you haven’t played the first two games then you this might be lost on you too. The games are set after the books and at the start of the first game its established that Geralt has amnesia and therefore doesn’t remember anything from the books. As far as I can tell, this is to give the games a clean slate for storytelling. At the end of the second game, it establishes that Geralt has recovered from his amnesia and so logically, the first thing he would do, is look for Yennefer.

 

If you’re unable to play the games because of platform limitations like I am, then I HIGHLY recommend Joseph Anderson’s analysis videos on both The Witcher 1 & 2, which covers pretty much the entirety of both games. They both total around 9 and a half hours, but are worth the watch. Just make sure to free up an evening beforehand.

 

The Witcher Critique – The Beginning of a Monster

 

The Witcher 2 Commentary – A Grand Experiment

 

Whilst Geralt is looking for Yennefer, he learns that Ciri is being hunted by the Wild Hunt. The Wild Hunt are like these trans-dimensional warriors that bring death and destruction wherever they go. As well as snow and frost, lots of it.

 

When Geralt realises he needs to help Ciri, he sets off retracing her steps. Much of the main questline follows this formula of finding a lead of where she went, investigating the lead and then finding another. This breadcrumb trail has you travelling the entire continent and it works well. Leading you to every corner of the map as part of the story is a great way to structure an open world game.

 

Most of the main quests will splinter off into side quests and the side quests in Witcher 3 are generally considered the best quests in the game. The arbiter being the Bloody Baron questline, where you’re tasked with helping a toxic husband reconcile with his family. Spoilers: it doesn’t go well.

 

You finally link up with Yennefer in Skellige, which is basically Ireland. And you don’t exactly embrace each other immediately. You’d think they would as it had been 2 years since they saw each other last. This is probably because, despite Yennefer being Geralt’s soulmate, you as the player have romance options. You can sleep with various women in the game as well as prostitutes but when it comes to serious relationships, your choices are between Yennefer or Triss. Triss is also a sorceress who features heavily in the first two games and uses Geralt’s amnesia to her advantage so she can essentially rape him. Yennefer is canonically Geralt’s soulmate, so to me; the choice is clear. Sorry Triss fans.

 

You can begin to work your charms on Yennefer almost immediately after you meet up and there are plenty of opportunities for sexy times from there on out. If that’s your thing.

 

Interestingly, once you play the DLC, Geralt seems to develop amnesia all over again as he tries to bed various women with no regard to his main game romance.

 

Once you find Ciri, the game railroads you to the end despite there being about 25% of the game left. There are still opportunities to free roam and do side quests but a lot of the time you’re automatically travelling to the next area of the quest.

 

After finding Ciri the game becomes all about taking down the Wild Hunt, which is the only way to stop them from hunting Ciri. You first fight them at Kaer Morhen which is the Witcher’s training grounds and home. It doesn’t exactly go to plan however, as Vesemir, the oldest Witcher, dies protecting Ciri.

 

Vesemir is an established character from the books but isn’t in the any of the games for any length of time. Even this one, he’s with Geralt at the start and then you don’t seem him again until you return to Kaer Morhen right before you find Ciri. Because of this, it’s easy not to care about the death of Vesemir. However, the game does such a good job of showing the other characters grief and how important he was to them, that it can affect you quite a bit. I know it did for me anyway.

 

The climactic moment is killing Eredin, the leader of the Wild Hunt, and watching Ciri disappear through time and space. A short scene plays and then you are treated to one of three endings.

 

The deciding factor for each ending is based on various dialogue options. It’s not exactly spelled out what dialogue choices seal your fate (or rather, Ciri’s fate) but I like this. The ending you get is based on your choices and how you treat or feel about Ciri and your quest to help her. She can die, become empress, or stay by Geralt’s side and become a Witcher.

 

Each ending has emotional weight to it, and each are satisfying in their own way.

 

Visuals

In 2015 The Witcher 3 was rightly considered to be one of the best-looking games ever released. Now, in 2023, with the new gen update, it can still go toe to toe with modern releases despite being 8 years old.

Yeah, it has been upgraded to look better but were still looking at models that were in a game that released in 2015. It’s frankly incredible.

 

The vistas are astounding, the draw distance almost non-existent and the weather effects are immersive and gorgeous.

 

Surprising to no one, I have spent a lot of my time in photo mode and have been uploading my best shots to my virtual photography Instagram account which you can check out below.

 

Instgram.com/reissykins

 

Gameplay

 

Core aspects

Combat · Quests · Gwent

 

Combat

So, unfortunately, I think the moment-to-moment combat in this game is bad. There is a lot of depth to it though and a lot of things you can do to make it easier for yourself.

 

Witchers carry two swords, one made from steel and one from silver. In The Witcher 3, the steel one is used for humans and the silver for monsters. It is established that both swords are for monsters as Geralt only kills bad people.

 

So, you have a light attack and a heavy attack. You can block and parry. You can also put your swords away and punch everything if you like. You also have a ranged option in the form of the crossbow, useful for flooring flying enemies and not much else.

 

Witcher’s can cast signs, which are like magic, but it is NOT magic! There are five and these are flame throw, force push, confuse/daze, magic barrier, and shield. These are essential to combat, especially on the higher difficulties.

 

You can level up and acquire new skills using skill points. These can increase your damage, sign intensity and various other abilities, including a bunch to do with alchemy that I have never once even looked at. There is something like 80 different skills you can acquire but only 12 slots that activate them. This is to encourage you changing your skills to suit the situation however I always found this fidgety and never bothered with it. I just equipped the higher damage ones and left it at that.

 

Speaking of alchemy, Witcher’s can use potions to enhance their abilities and there are A LOT of them. There is a potion for just about everything in this game. I only ever used Swallow, which heals you and is your only option for healing on the hardest difficulty.

 

When hunting monsters, it’s prudent to apply specific oils to your swords to increase your damage against those monsters. You must first collect the formula for the oil and then brew it. You can also craft bombs which have various effects. Once you craft a bomb, oil, or potion, you do not need to craft them again. You always restock your supply using alcohol when you meditate. Meditation is a way to pass time in game and, on lower difficulties, to heal you.

 

There are various points in the story where you play as Ciri, and this is to show you what’s happened to her on her journey. Combat for Ciri is dumbed down compared to Geralt’s as you don’t have the complexity that comes with the potions and oils and whatnot. However, Ciri has powers, and so this makes her combat sections much more fun and casual. She has a teleport in place of her dodge, and she can also charge up an attack and phase through enemies dealing massive damage. These sections are limited and short so never really get in the way.

 

As stated, your enemies are either human or monster. Human combat is standard stuff, they’ll block most of your attacks and it’s about wearing them down and attacking them when they stagger. Some will keep their distance and shoot you with arrows with near Hawkeye level accuracy. It’s the monsters that are the real meat of the combat.

 

Monsters range from humanoids to huge goat monsters. A big part of The Witcher 3’s quest system is to accept contracts on monsters that may be bothering a nearby town. The bread and butter of being a Witcher. These quests usually have you investigating a site of a massacre and following tracks to a monster’s hideout. You’re then encouraged to prep by reading the bestiary, brewing potions, and applying oils before facing the monster and killing it.

 

As The Witcher 3 is an open world game, it’s suitably filled with open world nonsense like bandit camps to clear and hidden treasure chests to loot. However, you could play this game for 100 hours without engaging with any of it so it’s never egregious like it is in something like Assassin’s Creed.

 

As I’ve already said, the moment-to-moment gameplay isn’t overly engaging, but where the combat shines is the prep before taking down a monster and enacting your plan.

 

Quests

The Witcher 3 has a veritable bounty of quests, and they can be split into four categories: Main, Side, Contract, and Treasure Hunt.

 

Main quests are obviously the main story and all the quests you need to do to finish the game. These have a great way of funneling you through all the interesting areas of the world. You start in the war-torn countryside of Velen and its small villages, to the academic town of Oxenfurt. Then to the bustling capital of Novigrad and finally to the Norse lands of Skellige.

 

Side quests are a bit broader as this section tends to contain all the quests that don’t fit in the other three categories. These can range from 5-minute requests involving finding someone’s lost frying pan, to multi-quest behemoth stories that involve summoning the ghost of someone’s stillborn baby. It’s kind of wild the adventures this game can take you on.

 

Witcher Contracts are the monster hunter quests that I mentioned in the previous section, and I love them for their puzzle like nature. On lower difficulties you absolutely can just hack away and win but on higher difficulties you need to prep and get everything in order before taking on the beast.

 

Treasure Hunts are exactly what they sound like. A short quest that leads you to something valuable, often diagrams for special armor and weapons. The game has several different types of armor and weapons, and most can be crafted provided you have the diagrams and the materials needed. A vital part of the game on harder difficulties is hunting down the Witcher specialty armor and weapons. These come in a few different forms based on which Witcher school they derive from. There’s wolf, feline, ursine and viper. These offer different buffs to attack power, signs and alchemy depending on what you go for. Crafting a full set of these is a journey and a satisfying one when you see how cool Geralt looks afterward.

 

My favourite quests were the ones involving Zoltan and Dandelion in Novigrad. Novigrad is a huge city that feels alive and real. There’s a sense of existing in this world when you get into it, and it makes the quests much better as you feel personally involved. The countryside and open plains are always a visual treat but as you’re travelling alone most of the time, you don’t get a sense of belonging in the world. That is, until you make it to Novigrad in my opinion.

 

Gwent

I was going to have World as my third section, but I realised that I’ve described the world extensively in the other sections. So, the obvious choice is the side mini game that took the world by storm, Gwent!

 

I’d like to first admit that both my wife and I love Gwent and we even have a physical set of Gwent cards so we can play real life Gwent on occasion. It’s a full set of each of the five decks and a playmat that resembles the background from the game. There is a standalone game called Gwent, released after the Witcher 3 but I've never played it. It's since had its servers shut down so starting it now would be redundant.

 

I never really ‘got’ Gwent on my first playthrough. I half-heartedly played the mandatory games and never bothered with it outside of that. It wasn’t until my second playthrough where I was going for platinum that I HAD to take part in Gwent to collect all the cards.

 

This was me, early in my second playthrough:

 

So, what is Gwent? It’s a strategy card game set within its own universe. You play cards that are based on characters from The Witcher, and each card has a power level. There are three rows of attack, and these are close combat, ranged and siege. Your goal is to place cards down and get a higher score than your opponent. There are several rounds and the best out of three wins.

 

The best part about Gwent is that you have to build your own deck. There are four factions, five if you include the DLC one, and each faction has its strengths and weaknesses. It’s entirely up to you what faction you play with, and you’ll almost certainly find the one that complements your playstyle best. I for one play with the Northern Realms deck.

 

As well as offensive cards you also have neutral cards that can inflict weather effects on the battlefield, or destroy the card with the highest power, or even double the power of one of your combat rows.

 

You can collect cards by playing strangers, buying them from merchants, finding them out in the world or winning unique ones from important characters. As you build your collection you can edit your deck at any time to make sure you’re playing with your best cards. Most merchants and smiths are always hankering for a round of Gwent so it’s a good idea to play everyone you see so you’re always adding to your collection.

 

There are several quests related to Gwent and these tend to be simple affairs that ask you to play certain characters for their unique cards. There is an endgame quest relating to a Gwent tournament that you are required to win. It’s not as simple as playing some people and winning though, no, this is The Witcher 3! It’s a fully fleshed out quest with mystery, intrigue, and brawling! And there’s also follow on quests after it! This quest provides you with 4 cards that you need for your collection, and it can be quite challenging, so it’s one to do once you’re confident with your deck.

 

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Music

The soundtrack to The Witcher 3 is a perfect match for the game. It’s fitting for a high fantasy world but draws from its eastern European roots. The combat music is epic and encouraging whilst the exploration music is calming and wonderous. Then of course we have the music that plays when you’re playing Gwent and each one of those is an absolute banger. Here’s my favourite:

 

 

Platinum Thoughts

The Witcher 3 has a lengthy platinum but one that can be done in one playthrough if you know what you’re doing. There are several missables, mostly Gwent cards, so its prudent to have a guide handy.

 

The first time I platinum’d this game was over two playthroughs as I didn’t play on the hardest difficulty for the first time. This time though, I jumped straight into Death March because a.) it isn’t even that hard and b.) I knew what I was getting myself into.

 

Honestly? My recommendation is to play on Death March straight away. It is a bit of a struggle at the start, but it gets much easier as you go through it. You get to decide how hard it is on Death March based on how many of the games systems you engage with. I always make sure to have the best Witcher gear equipped which requires some extra questing. I always check the Bestiary when dealing with monsters and use the appropriate bombs, oils, and potions. There’s more you can engage with like optimising your skills and mutations and using more potions, which I didn’t bother with. That’s what’s so great about this game, there’s lots to engage with but it’s up to you.

 

Outside of the main quest and completing the game. There’s plenty of trophies relating to side quests like completing the major side stories and completing all Witcher contracts. The game also contains several horse races and fight clubs, and you need to win all of them for a couple of trophies too.

 

There’s Gwent trophies relating to collecting all cards, winning under certain circumstances, and beating the tournament. These are where most of the missable trophies are.

 

And finally, a bunch of trophies relating to combat, requiring you to kill enemies in certain ways several times. These are quite unnatural, I think. They aren’t difficult to do but doing them just isn’t natural to the way I approach combat. Thankfully there is an area in Skellige with two infinitely spawning enemies that you can use to complete all these trophies.

 

Easiest trophy

 Butcher of Blaviken – Kill at least 5 opponents in under 10 seconds.

Sounds like it could be tricky, but it really isn’t. You’re likely to get this in one of your first fights.

 

Hardest trophy

 Walked the Path – Finish the game on the “Death March!” difficulty level.

Like I said, it isn’t super difficult, but it can be a bit tricky at the start when you don’t have much equipment and skills. There are ways to make it easier by engaging with all the games systems.

 

DLC

Thankfully, The Witcher 3 has fantastic DLC that act more like traditional expansion packs. There are two and both rival, if not exceed, the quality of the main game.

 

 

Hearts of Stone

The first expansion and the shorter of the two, takes place within the main games map. It see’s Geralt being hired by a powerful man to investigate a monster beneath the streets of Oxenfurt. Once he slays the monster however, Geralt is knocked unconscious and wakes up on a boat. He is saved by a mysterious man who places a brand upon his face. To remove the brand, Geralt needs to help this man fulfil 3 wishes for the powerful man who hired Geralt at the start. There are five main quests in this DLC and every single one is leaps and bounds ahead of anything in the main game. Each one is a rollercoaster ride, and it never lets up. One quest involves a heist, another involves going into a world within a painting, another has you attending a wedding whilst possessed by a ghost. The variation is insane, and it makes this DLC highly entertaining.

 

There’s also been some other stuff added like side quests, new equipment and merchants and some new open world bullshit too.

 

 

Blood and Wine

A much longer expansion and that’s because it’s set in a whole new area! Travel to Toussaint and help the duchess expel a vampiric threat that is wreaking havoc on her lands. It’s incredible that Toussaint, an expansion area, can rival almost all main maps in full AAA releases.

 

First things first, Toussaint is utterly gorgeous. As far as I can tell, its based on the south of France. It’s a wide-open area of beautiful countryside, soaked in sun, with some quaint towns dotted about and a main city with a beautiful castle.

 

The main quests revolve around finding and defeating an elder vampire, with the aid of a friendly vampire. I’ve just started this DLC on this playthrough at time of writing, so I’m working on 4-year-old memories from when I first played it. Forgive me if some of the details are wrong.

 

There are a nice spread of side quests too including a knight’s tournament and a quest relating to solving problems for rival vineyards. Which culminates in getting a wine named after you.

 

You also get gifted your very own vineyard with a beautiful house. You can even customize your house with various upgrades.

 

Toussaint is massive and has plenty of stuff to do. You could easily spend 50 hours here.

 

Summary

The Witcher 3 won every game of the year award when it released in 2015 and for good reason. A massive sprawling adventure with some of the best writing in games to date. The platinum can be a bit of a journey but it’s certainly worth it.

 

Although I had already platinum’d this game back in 2016, I had no problems doing it all again with 2022’s PS5 upgrade. Speaking of the upgrade, a lot of them can feel pointless *cough, the Resident Evil ones, cough* but what CDPR have added to the Witcher 3 more than makes up for its existence. If you enjoyed this game previously, I’d certainly recommend checking out the upgrade, you may be surprised at just how much it's changed.

 

Best Bits

Gorgeous open world without the usual baggage. Amazing writing and quest design. Music is incredible.

 

Worst Bits

Core combat isn’t great, gameplay wise. Lots of missable stuff.

 

Arbitrary Rating

9/10

 

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This was game was too big for me. Amazing to play, but to write about after? Forget about it.

 

I'm currently finishing up the DLC and then I have a couple of small indie palette cleaners to play before jumping into my next behemoth, Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga.

 

I ended up buying the Royal edition of Persona 5 btw, looking forward to playing that.

 

Thanks for reading, see you around!

Edited August 5, 2023 by jonesey46
My top two most played games were wrong. Corrected.

[jonesey46]

"Extinction is forever"

 

 Platinum #287 - Endling 

 

Introduction

Endling was a part of PS+ Essential's line up in July. I'm always a fan of these short, cute indie games so I wasted no time jumping into this once I'd finished The Witcher 3.

 

Be warned, this game will make you feel guilty for not recycling properly, or something like that.

 

Story

You play as a momma fox in the midst of an environmental apocalypse. Shortly after the game starts, momma fox gives birth to 4 beautiful cubs and mommas only goal is to keep them safe.

 

Full story discussion

Spoilers ahead

Spoiler

There is no dialogue or text in this game, aside from some graffiti here and there. The whole story is portrayed through the visuals and through gameplay.

 

The game begins with momma fox running through a burning forest, you eventually make it to a den and give birth to the cubs. The birth is implied, you don't see the gruesome details.

 

Shortly into the game, one of your cubs gets kidnapped and the main objective of the game becomes 'find the missing cub'.

 

The world of Endling is harsh. With no dialogue or text its very impressive that the game manages to be so on the nose with its messaging. The world is this way because of climate change. It's cruel and gruesome and perfectly lines out what the human race is doing to our planet is disgraceful. I mean, come on, the sub title of the game is 'Extinction is Forever'.

 

We're all too busy hating each other to really do anything meaningful towards climate change, but who doesn't think foxes are cute? Well, it's easy to feel sympathy for a cute animal when it's struggling, especially one with cute little babies. Like I said, it's on the nose.

 

I am 100% supportive of preventative measures towards climate change, although it's easy to feel helpless when billion dollar corporations unleash toxic chemicals into our water and atmosphere and face no consequences. Because of this, the message of Endling was not lost on me, although not effective as I'm already behind it. I'm not entirely sure the Venn diagram of people who would play this game and people who aren't aware of the effects of climate change or just straight up don't believe in it, would intersect.

 

The cherry on top of it all is that right at the end of the game, momma fox dies and the credits roll as we watch her cubs snuggle up to her corpse. She gets shot by an evil human, desperate for food, just as she gets her cubs to safety.

 

Like, it's sad, don't get me wrong, and the music facilitates this effectively, but it just feels so heavy handed that I couldn't help but laugh. There's hope for the cubs but your cubs can actually die throughout the course of the game, so it's possible to reach the ending with no cubs. I imagine that ending is tortuous.

 

Visuals

Endling has nice visuals, although pretty standard for an indie game made in Unity. It has a cartoony style although semi-realistic. Humans have exaggerated proportions and most importantly, the fox and her cubs look cute as heck. The world itself has decent visuals and each area feels unique enough.

 

Gameplay

 

Endling is a 2D, open-world, scavenging game with a focus on finding your missing fox cub. As foxes are nocturnal, you only ever go out at night. Each night you can scavenge for a period of time and then you need to return to your den before the sun rises. The game lasts for 30 nights and on night 30, the ending of the game will take place, whether you found your cub or not.

 

Core aspects

Scents · Scavenging · Skills

 

Scents

To find your missing cub, you must follow scents. Visualised by a purple line. You follow the line to three clues. On specific nights you'll catch the scent of more clues and as long as you follow these every time they come up, you'll find your missing cub on one of the last nights. You might also pick up a green scent out in the world and this will lead you to food.

 

Scavenging

A vital mechanic in Endling, is keeping your cubs fed. There is a hunger bar on the bottom left of the screen. This will slowly go down as you explore and you need to make sure you find food to keep it topped up. If it empties, one of your cubs will start lagging behind you, you then need to pick up the cub with your mouth and carry it until you can find food. If you go back to your den whilst your cubs are hungry, it's possible for one of them to die.

 

There are various types of food you can find, all of them provide varying levels of hunger satiation. There's trash which doesn't offer much and live animals such as birds and rabbits which provide quite a bit.

 

There is a trophy for eating each type of food, but other than that, there are no collectibles in this game. So, if you've sniffed out the clues for that night and your cubs are well fed, there's no need to explore anymore.

 

Skills

As you progress through the game, your cubs can learn various skills. These skills will help them follow you to more complicated areas, or be able to catch their own food. Although all of these skills are on the main path, some of them are missable as you can breeze right past them.

 

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Music

The soundtrack for Endling is nothing remarkable but perfectly serviceable for what the game is. The track that plays at the start when running through the burning forest matches the visuals well and sets the tone for the game.

 

 

Platinum Thoughts

Endling was one of my palette cleansers between The Witcher 3 and Lego Star Wars, and this is because of how short and sweet it is.

 

Most trophies will come naturally with only a few you might miss on a blind playthrough. A second clean-up playthrough won't take you long.

 

The platinum can be done in an hour from start to finish with the use of this incredible guide from the always amazing @Optinooby ;

 

Easiest trophy

 Home Sweet Home - Reach the first lair.

This is your first objective right after starting the game.

 

Hardest trophy

 Omnivore - Let your cubs eat every kind of food in the game.

Not hard but the most easiest to miss.

 

Summary

A nice, short and sweet indie game with cute foxes and a heavy handed message. Recommended to people who added it to their library from PS+ but not to people who need to spend money on it.

 

Best Bits

Cute foxes.

 

Worst Bits

Messaging is a bit on the nose.

 

Arbitrary Rating

7/10

 

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I've realised that 7/10 is my rating for games that I liked, but they annoyed me for one reason or another.

 

I'll be back tomorrow with another palette cleanser review, Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion!

Edited August 8, 2023 by jonesey46

[Copanele]

On 8/4/2023 at 2:26 PM, jonesey46 said:

 

 Platinum #286 – The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 

 

God this game made me go "what am I gonna play next" for a good few days after I finished it... 

Congrats for this one  definitely one of the best RPGs out there, euro-RPGs even if I so dare to say it (clunkiness is a feature).But the real feat is writing this monster of a review. That's some nice patience (and lecture - that's why I reply to this one so late)

 

First of all though, gotta pay some due respects here...

On 8/4/2023 at 2:26 PM, jonesey46 said:

 

The Witcher is huge now thanks to this game and its Netflix series which started out good but is now garbage because Netflix hates everything.

Thank you Henry Cavill for your sacrifice you were the hero we needed but didn't deserve

On 8/4/2023 at 2:26 PM, jonesey46 said:

 

Combat

So, unfortunately, I think the moment-to-moment combat in this game is bad. There is a lot of depth to it though and a lot of things you can do to make it easier for yourself.

 

Honestly I was one of the few that really had 0 issues with the combat...but only because I played Witcher 1 and 2.

Holy moly Witcher 1 combat is so bad you'd think it was created in a lab on purpose. It's this mash of rhythm clicking and repositioning that makes absolutely no sense, like trying to eat soup with a sheet of paper. Someone really dumped three crates of liquor in CDPR studios at that time because only a drunk dev could invent such atrocity.

And Witcher 2...it just kicked your ass. Combat was legit worthless when drowners ignored it.

 

In 3 it actually felt...good? Of course there were some random ass encounters, but nothing a bit of Quen or Yrden (get swamped) couldn't solve. Of course, compared to RPG from devs like Fromsoftware though...yeah this combat is rudimentary.

 

Also there is a crossbow build that absolutely obliterates enemies...some explosive one shot crazy build. It does trivialize the game however  

On 8/4/2023 at 2:26 PM, jonesey46 said:

 

 

 

Hearts of Stone

The first expansion and the shorter of the two, takes place within the main games map. It see’s Geralt being hired by a powerful man to investigate a monster beneath the streets of Oxenfurt. Once he slays the monster however, Geralt is knocked unconscious and wakes up on a boat. He is saved by a mysterious man who places a brand upon his face. To remove the brand, Geralt needs to help this man fulfil 3 wishes for the powerful man who hired Geralt at the start. There are five main quests in this DLC and every single one is leaps and bounds ahead of anything in the main game. Each one is a rollercoaster ride, and it never lets up. One quest involves a heist, another involves going into a world within a painting, another has you attending a wedding whilst possessed by a ghost. The variation is insane, and it makes this DLC highly entertaining.

 

There’s also been some other stuff added like side quests, new equipment and merchants and some new open world bullshit too.

Oddly enough...I loved this DLC more than Blood and Wine (I know, blasphemy). But mainly because:

• Gaunter O'Dimm is Geralt's biggest challenge yet, in both books AND videogames
• I absolutely love the  "Don't deal with the devil" story that this DLC is based on
• It has the best optional boss fight in the entire game + the soundtrack(you can miss the Olgierd fight)
• The wedding mission is totally how a countryside Eastern European wedding is ?

On 8/4/2023 at 2:26 PM, jonesey46 said:

 

This was game was too big for me. Amazing to play, but to write about after? Forget about it.

Yeeep I am not revisiting this game despite it being amazing, it's a damn huge time investment.

 

3 hours ago, jonesey46 said:

"Extinction is forever"

 

 Platinum #287 - Endling 

The message delivery cracked me up  

Congrats for hungry fox simulator too! I was planning on trying this...but a lot of people complained that it's kinda clunky.

[jonesey46]

18 hours ago, Copanele said:

God this game made me go "what am I gonna play next" for a good few days after I finished it... 

Congrats for this one  definitely one of the best RPGs out there, euro-RPGs even if I so dare to say it (clunkiness is a feature).But the real feat is writing this monster of a review. That's some nice patience (and lecture - that's why I reply to this one so late)

 

First of all though, gotta pay some due respects here...

 

Thanks for reading and commenting as always!

 

I need to cut back on these mega 100 hour games man, they're gonna kill me.

 

18 hours ago, Copanele said:

Thank you Henry Cavill for your sacrifice you were the hero we needed but didn't deserve

 

I don't think I'll ever get round to watching season 3, Netflix completely fucked it in my opinion and mark these words; Liam Hemsworth's Geralt will never see the light of day, the show will be canned before that season releases.

 

18 hours ago, Copanele said:

Honestly I was one of the few that really had 0 issues with the combat...but only because I played Witcher 1 and 2.

Holy moly Witcher 1 combat is so bad you'd think it was created in a lab on purpose. It's this mash of rhythm clicking and repositioning that makes absolutely no sense, like trying to eat soup with a sheet of paper. Someone really dumped three crates of liquor in CDPR studios at that time because only a drunk dev could invent such atrocity.

And Witcher 2...it just kicked your ass. Combat was legit worthless when drowners ignored it.

 

In 3 it actually felt...good? Of course there were some random ass encounters, but nothing a bit of Quen or Yrden (get swamped) couldn't solve. Of course, compared to RPG from devs like Fromsoftware though...yeah this combat is rudimentary.

 

Also there is a crossbow build that absolutely obliterates enemies...some explosive one shot crazy build. It does trivialize the game however  

 

Maybe I'm being harsh on the combat but I feel you use the right word there "rudimentary". It's not offensive in anyway, it's just basic and not very fun. Cast Quen, hack away until you get hit, repeat. It doesn't need to be fun though, everything surrounding it is what makes Witcher 3 so good.

 

18 hours ago, Copanele said:

Oddly enough...I loved this DLC more than Blood and Wine (I know, blasphemy). But mainly because:

• Gaunter O'Dimm is Geralt's biggest challenge yet, in both books AND videogames
• I absolutely love the  "Don't deal with the devil" story that this DLC is based on
• It has the best optional boss fight in the entire game + the soundtrack(you can miss the Olgierd fight)
• The wedding mission is totally how a countryside Eastern European wedding is 

 

I'm with you on Hearts of Stone, It's much better than Blood and Wine. Both Gaunter and Olgierd are far and away some of the best characters in the game. Also Shani is nice.

 

18 hours ago, Copanele said:

Yeeep I am not revisiting this game despite it being amazing, it's a damn huge time investment.

 

I'm quite a nostalgic person so I always enjoy going back to games that I loved, doubly so if they get a whole new trophy list but yeah, this may have been the straw that broke the camels back for me. I still have a handful of free PS5 upgrades to claim and I'm not sure I'm so keen to play them after this.

 

18 hours ago, Copanele said:

The message delivery cracked me up  

Congrats for hungry fox simulator too! I was planning on trying this...but a lot of people complained that it's kinda clunky.

 

Ach, its a fine game. Very short so no harm done if you don't like it too much.

 

I'm not sure I'd use the word clunky though... It's actually quite a smooth experience.

[jonesey46]

"dude! what the heck!?"

 

 Platinum #288 - Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion 

 

Introduction

I added Turnip Boy to my wish list earlier this year for the sole reason of it's cuteness. It was on sale recently for around £3 so I picked it up and decided it would be a palette cleanser between bigger games.

 

I was right, it is cute. It has a great sense of humour too which utilises a lot of meme culture.

 

Story

Turnip Boy has been a bit naughty, he hasn't paid his taxes. Mayor Onion needs some items fetched and asks Turnip Boy to be his assistant to pay off his debts.

 

Full story discussion

Spoilers ahead

Spoiler

This game is really weird.

 

When it starts, it's made clear Turnip Boy hasn't paid his taxes and Mayor Onion wants you to fetch some stuff for him. You need to fetch 4 items for him over the course of the game and each time you collect an item, something more sinister is revealed.

 

It's a game about sentient fruit and veg, which is a premise that is easily swallowed due to its cute style but that isn't enough in Turnip Boy. It's revealed that all humans were destroyed in a nuclear war and the reason the fruit and veg have sentience is because of the radiation from those nukes.

 

It's also revealed that Turnip Boy is the son of a mafia boss.

 

The items you were gathering for Mayor Onion were essentially power ups for him so he can mutate and kill you. I'm not joking.

 

You beat Mayor Onion and restore peace to the village. And you finally get the deed to your property back.

 

Visuals

Turnip Boy is a colourful game with lots of character. The game is made up of pixelated backgrounds and sprites which gives a retro feel. Cutscenes and dialogue however, has that cute cartoony style which matches the games personality well.

 

Gameplay

Turnip Boy is a Zelda-like. It's a top down 2D adventure game where you explore a small map, collect items, solve puzzles and defeat enemies and bosses.

 

Core aspects

Exploration · Combat · Puzzles

 

Exploration

The map in Turnip Boy has 4 main areas, each with an item and a boss at the end. Progression to the next main area is blocked off by the IRS until you finish the objective of each area. You start in a village and move on to a farm, a dark forest and finally a bomb bunker. With a few side areas here and there like the graveyard area.

 

As well as the main items you need to fetch for Mayor Onion, there are other items you can gather for other characters. These side quests reward you with either hats, documents or heart plants which increase your health.

 

Hats are purely cosmetic as you'd imagine. Documents are collectible items and you need them all for a trophy, and to access the secret ending. When you receive a document your only option is to tear it up. You first do this with the letter about your overdue tax bill right at the start of the game, and then continue to do it with every document you collect, including love letters and educational books. This novelty never wore off for me and made me laugh every time.

 

Combat

Combat in this game is very basic and limited. You gain a plant sword early in the game and you use this to attack enemies. You eventually upgrade this sword to a shovel.

 

There are 5 main bosses in the game, and three more optional bosses. Bosses often require you to utilise a mechanic introduced in its respective area, like the bomb plants and fire plants that are used in puzzles.

 

You have a dodge that you can use to avoid damage, although its called 'trip' and Turnip Boy falls over when you use it.

 

You have hearts that represent your health and you can increase your health by collecting heart plants. If you die, you just reload the last checkpoint.

 

Once you complete the game you get given a train ticket which gives you access to the limitless line. The limitless line is an endless series of combat rooms with roguelike elements. All enemies and bosses are reused from the main game although they can be altered with higher damage, health, speed or size. As well as poison. There are two unique bosses on the limitless line and both need to be beaten for the platinum. 

 

Puzzles

All puzzles revolve around plants that need to be watered to do certain things. Plants can have bombs, catch fire or create a portal. You are given a watering can at the very start of the game and near the end you gain a portable portal. Most puzzles block progress or reward you with a heart plant.

 

In the graveyard section there is an interesting puzzle that requires you to read clues to figure out what way to go through the maze like area.

 

---

 

Music

The soundtrack to Turnip Boy is fantastic, although a little disjointed. Tracks can be VERY different from each other and they abruptly change from area to area. Pretty much every track is a bop though.

 

There is an amazing acoustic song that plays over the credits which I recommend checking out. During the final boss for the true ending this absolute banger plays:

 

Platinum Thoughts

Thankfully, this game has a very simple platinum with only one minor roadblock.

 

You're required to rip up all documents, collect all hearts and hats, and see the final ending of the game.

 

The roadblock I mentioned is the Limitless Line. As I mentioned earlier, it's an endless stream of combat rooms. After about 15 rooms you fight the conductor and once you beat him, there's a 5% chance a certain boss will spawn after that. It took me four tries to get it to spawn. You need to beat it for a trophy.

 

Easiest trophy

 Tax evader - Commit tax evasion.

This is for tearing up the first document you get which is 5 seconds after starting the game.

 

Hardest trophy

 ??? - Defeat ???

This is the secret boss which spawns on the limitless line. There's a 5% chance for it to spawn so it might take a few tries.

 

Summary

A super cute game with a hell of a lot of charm. Combat is lacking but aside from the limitless line, its barely necessary. It has a great sense of humour and I laughed a lot. I'm looking forward to its sequel Turnip Boy Robs a Bank which is set to release this year (fingers crossed it comes to PlayStation).

 

Best Bits

Great sense of humour, cute style, amazing music.

 

Worst Bits

Mediocre combat that is necessary for the platinum, but otherwise doesn't get in the way.

 

Arbitrary Rating

9/10

[jonesey46]

pictured above: me taking a break from this game.

 

Right. Here we go…

 

--- 

 

“I hate sand”

 

 Platinum #289 – LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga 

 

Introduction

So, right off the bat I want to get something out of the way.

 

On 1/30/2023 at 11:16 AM, jonesey46 said:

I am not a Star Wars guy

From my Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order post.

 

So, why the fuck would I play an 80-100 hour Lego game of a franchise I’m not into? Well, I kind of am a Star Wars guy now? What helps is that my wife has slowly gotten into it over the last year and it’s always nice to share things that she's passionate about. Although, it’s mostly because she fancies Kylo Ren’s actor, Adam Driver.

 

Although… I don’t blame her…

 

 

Ahem... Anyway...

 

Together, we have watched all the films, including the two spin offs and we recently finished watching all three seasons of The Mandalorian which we both enjoyed thoroughly. So much so that I paid the princely sum of £1.69 to have The Mandalorian as a playable character in this game.

 

Earlier this year, on my 30^th birthday, I received a PlayStation store gift card and whilst browsing the sale section I saw this game on sale for around £20. With a growing interest in the franchise, I decided to take the plunge.

 

Story

LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga or LSW as I’ll be referring it from here on out, follows the events of all nine of the mainline Star Wars films. I won’t discuss the events of these films because this is a game review, not the IMDb forums.

 

Visuals

LSW, like most Lego games, utilises a mixture of realistic environments and structures built by the titular toy bricks. It’s an interesting mixture because if the world were made up entirely of Lego bricks, it would probably be quite tiring to look at. The realistic environments can seem a little strange at first, but it fits well, I think. You could argue it’s like taking your Lego sets and playing with them outside in your garden.

 

So, how does it look? It looks fine. Nothing mind blowing. It looks like Lego! However, I will say that the space sections are pretty and visually impressive.

 

Gameplay

LSW is a third-person action-adventure game that allows you to play through the events of all nine mainline Star Wars films in Lego form. When not following the story, you can also free roam the galaxy in your favourite ships and explore some of Star Wars most iconic locations and planets as your favourite character.

 

Core aspects

Movies – Free Play – Collectibles

 

Movies

As previously stated, all three trilogies of the films feature in this game. Each episode has five missions that cover the main events of each film. So, that’s 45 main missions. Seems like a lot, right? Well, it is, but not all missions are created equally. The Phantom Menace felt a lot shorter and gimmickier than any other episode, for example.

 

With five missions per episode, there are some parts of the films that are left out, but any missing scenes tend to be shown in cutscenes.

 

Each mission is preceded and followed by a cut scene. These cut scenes recreate scenes from the films and set up the previous and following missions. All story events tend to stay true to the source material, only changing things to make silly jokes which are paramount to Lego’s style. Little easter eggs litter these missions and these can range from stormtroopers secretly dancing to contextual references to events from prequels and sequels that wouldn’t have been possible at the time of the films’ releases.

 

One thing I’ll say here that is relevant to every single section of this review. This game was clearly developed by people with a deep passion for this franchise. Every corner of this game is made with love, and it shows.

 

Free Play

Once a mission is complete, that mission then becomes playable in free play mode which allows you to play it again but with any of the 400+ unlockable characters. These characters are split into 8 classes which are mechanically different but the characters within those classes are just cosmetic, so you’re free to play your favourite one. The classes have unique abilities that are essential for solving certain puzzles and getting to certain collectibles.

 

Playing missions in free play mode is essential for collectibles as the characters you play in story mode can’t access certain areas.

 

In between missions you’ll be travelling through open areas and once an episode has been completed, all areas on their relevant planets are available to explore in free play mode. Once again, you’re able to explore these areas as any of your selected characters. The game allows you 8 slots for characters which you can quick swap between at the press of a button. Swapping out these slots is easy too but requires a few more button pushes. The 8 slots conveniently allow for one character of each class and although you can just have 8 Jedis if you want, it won't be efficient.

 

So, upon completion of the story, the entire galaxy becomes available to you to freely explore. It’s not a massive open world though, rather a series of open areas separated by animations and loading screens. Still, as a Star Wars fan, this is still amazing.

 

Every planet that features in the main films and thus, in this games story, are available here, which amounts to 24 planets. Most planets are limited to one explorable area, but some have a few areas, such as Tatooine and Coruscant. Each planet also has an explorable space area above the planet which can have unique missions or dog fights to get stuck into. Whilst flying in space you may also encounter a capital ship. These are unique ships that can be overtaken by whittling down its defences in space combat and then boarding the ship to take down the captain. These are cool missions and once you’ve taken over the ship, you can buy the ship and use it to travel the galaxy. They’re also fully explorable and can even have unique missions on them as well as collectibles. One of these ships is the Death Star. The actual Death Star. How cool is that?

 

Despite the story of the films taking centre stage here, the free play is the real meat of the game and its where you’ll be spending most of your time if you’re going for the platinum. And what will you be doing you ask??? Well…

 

Collectibles

 

This game has a lot of collectibles.

 

A LOT of collectibles.

 

Too many collectibles.

 

Each story mission has 3 challenges to complete and 5 mini kits to find. The challenges are self-explanatory, they require you to fulfil a specific task during the mission. The mini kits are like miniature versions of ships that don’t have any function and only exist to be collected and looked at.

 

By far and away the collectible with the largest amount is easily the Kyber brick. These are glowing blue bricks that allow you to buy upgrades for character classes. In total, there are 1200 of them although you only need to get around 1160. It’s a small solace, but you’ll be thankful of those 40 you don’t need to get.

 

Each mission has a total of 6 Kyber bricks to collect. 3 for collecting three tiers of studs, the games currency, 1 for completing the mission, another for collecting all mini kits and the final one for completing all mission challenges.

 

Other Kyber bricks can be collected by doing side missions or destroying comets in space but most of them are hidden around the world and usually require a puzzle to be solved to collect them.

 

As well as Kyber bricks there are also character skins and ships to collect out in the world.

 

Each planet has 1 to 3 areas. Each area can have anywhere between 10-40 Kyber bricks, 1-10 characters skins and 1-3 ships to collect. That’s not to mention the collectibles in the space areas and the capital ships, which don’t account for much relatively speaking, but are still required.

 

That amount of Kyber bricks is just utterly unnecessary. Each area could have easily had a max 5 Kyber bricks, 1 skin and 1 ship with no changes to anything else. Each upgrade has 3 tiers which cost 4, 8 and 12 Kyber bricks respectively. So, a total of 24 for each upgrade. Lower that to 1, 2 and 3 and there you go, problem solved.

 

Collecting character skins is unnecessary too. Fine, we can collect the important or cool ones, but all the others could have just been bought in the menu with studs like the older Lego games. Same with the ships.

 

I just don’t know what they were thinking. It’s too many and they aren’t meaningful in any way.

 

Oh, there’s also data cards, but there are only 19 of them so they seem insignificant. They are important though, as they allow you to buy special modifiers and most importantly the stud multipliers. You’re always collecting studs and you’ll need the multipliers for a trophy and to buy everything, so you’ll want to get these as soon as possible. The trophy you get is for collecting 10,000,000,000 studs. I didn’t grind for the multipliers, I just played the game naturally and at the time of unlocking the platinum, I had close to 20,000,000,000 studs. Ludicrous.

 

---

 

Music

It uses the music from the films.

 

C’mon man, its iconic.

 

 

 

Platinum Thoughts

Since most of this platinum run is collecting all those god forsaken collectibles. Then you already know my feelings on this platinum.

 

The game was fun to play but honestly made me want to take up smoking again. Could you tell with the multiple pictures of people smoking? I quit over 4 years ago and this game almost made me relapse. 

 

It’s just too much.

 

My total playtime was 80 hours. Maybe that doesn’t seem like a lot, but you’ve got to remember at least 50 of those were doing the same thing repeatedly.

 

Here’s a quick rundown of what’s needed to get the platinum:

 

- Complete the story

- 100% all story missions

- Collect everything and do all events on every planet

- Collect 10,000,000,000 studs

- Complete all world challenges

- Acquire all upgrades

- A few miscellaneous things like destroy 100 tie fighters and ride every mount

 

The only thing I haven’t already mentioned from that list is the world challenges. There’s about 10 of these that require you to talk to a character or kill an enemy across different locations around the galaxy.

 

It’s worth mentioning that you can buy upgrades that allow you to see every collectible in the world, shown as a circle on screen. You can also bring up your map and plot a course to the collectible and the game will guide you right to it. Which goes to show how little challenge there is to doing anything in this game, which begs the question, what’s the point?

 

I don’t fucking know.

 

I’m not even going to bother with the easiest/hardest trophy section because none of it is challenging or engaging, it just takes a lot of time.

 

Summary

This game is a no brainer for fans of the Star Wars franchise. It takes all the films and lets you play through them. It lets you explore most of its galaxy as your favourite character in your favourite ship. This game is the dream come true for a child somewhere out there. It’s breadth of content means you could play it for a very long time. It was made by people who love the source material and that shows at every turn. As someone that is only half into the Star Wars franchise, I was still thoroughly impressed and enjoyed most of my time with it. It’s an easy recommend to anyone who is a fan of the films.

 

Coming at it from a trophy perspective actively harms your experience and while I do think the developers went a little overboard, I can’t help buy feel partly responsible because I went and forced myself to do it all anyway.

 

With the platinum in the bag, I’m looking forward to booting this up a few years from now when my son, who will invariably like both Star Wars and Lego because what kid doesn’t? gets to play this game and I get to see the look of wonder on his face.

 

Thanks for reading.

 

Best Bits

The clear love and passion that went into this game

 

Worst Bits

The unnecessary, almost masochistic amount of collectibles.

 

Arbitrary Rating

7/10

 

…aaaaaaaand breathe.

 

 

See you guys around!

[jonesey46]

"🎶When I use my witchcraft oohOoohOoohOoh🎶"

 

 Platinum # 290 - Lake 

 

Mini Review

This game is too short and too basic to really warrant a full feature review, so I'll briefly cover it in this Mini Review™️.

 

Lake was my palette cleanser between finishing Lego Star Wars and starting Persona 5 Royal (my next behemoth) and it served its purpose well. It's a short game and took me a total of 5 hours of playtime to finish it and see all three endings, thus securing the platinum.

 

For the first time ever, I took this game off my wifes shelf rather than my own backlog. She played it on PC gamepass over a year ago and because she liked it so much, she bought a physical copy for PS5. 

 

In Lake, you play as Meredith Weiss who is a big shot, corporate programmer working in the big city. She takes a vacation to her home town of Providence Oaks to cover for her Dad's mail delivery job while he and her mum go on vacation to Florida.

 

What follows is two weeks of delivering mail, reconnecting with old friends and making some new ones. Finally, the second Strand type game!

 

Providence Oaks is a small town in Oregon, which surrounds it's titular Lake. The gameplay has you driving around this lake delivering both letters and parcels to houses around the town. Every day starts you at the post office with a van full of mail and a map filled with markers. You deliver the mail and sometimes you might get chatting to the people you're delivering to. Sometimes these people might ask for advice or for favours. When the day ends you get a series of cutscenes before the next day starts. These cutscenes range from being at home and watching TV, to hanging out with someone or going on a date.

 

There is zero challenge to this game. It's impossible to give someone the wrong mail. There is no time limit. Your van does not get damaged. You cannot die. So what's your motivation? Well, it's the story of Meredith and the relationships she builds.

 

The writing isn't great but it does have a certain charm to it. The main crux of the story is what will Meredith do when the two weeks are up? Go back home to her regular life? Or stay in PO and deliver mail? Or something else? Well, it's up to you.

 

There are three endings with slight variations that can occur within those endings. I saw all three in quick succession for the trophies but my first ending and the one that I wanted revolved around leaving PO but not going back to my old life and instead, starting a new adventure with a special someone.

 

One thing you'll notice when playing this game, is the music. There are maybe five songs that play on loop when you're driving around. Despite the game being so short, you will hear these songs several times over and they will make you go insane. It's the kind of royalty free music you hear playing in a budget shop like Home Bargains or B&M (if you're from the UK you'll know what I mean).

 

Trophy wise the game is a cake walk. There are missable trophies but as long as you are nice to everyone and always say yes to anything they might ask you to do, you'll unlock everything. There are two locations that you need to visit in your own time and one character that you need to talk to who only appears twice throughout the game. The game autosaves all the time and none are ever overwritten so you can always go back if you miss something. You are also required to see all three endings as previously mentioned. Unfortunately, if you save right before the point of no return to see all three endings, there are still 20-30 minutes of cutscenes you need to watch before you get to the ending and its trophy.

 

Would I recommend this game? Probably not. It doesn't really do anything special, its gameplay isn't engaging and it's story is basic. It's a very short game though so it won't take up too much of your time.

 

If you really want a mailperson simulator, play Death Stranding.

 

Arbitrary Rating

5/10

[jonesey46]

"Best night ever, guess who made dessert?"

 

 Platinum #291 - Twelve Minutes 

 

Mini Review™©®

Okay, admittedly this one isn't so mini, but I think its worth it.

 

I took a break from Persona 5 for a night to play this odd mystery thriller game published by Annapurna. I've mentioned before that I intend to play and platinum every Annapurna published title, only because I really dig Annapurna's style and they tend to only publish interesting games. Not all of them are good mind you, but they're ALWAYS interesting in some way.

 

I made a good amount of progress on my Annapurna mission last year when I had a subscription to PS+ Extra. There's quite a few of Annapurna's games on there and I played all of them. Well, at least the ones I hadn't already played. By far my favourite was the souls-like Ashen and by far my least favourite was the fever dream Wattam. Progress has slowed down quite a bit because now I actually have to buy the games to play them. Ugh. All of them are in my wishlist and I wait for a decent sale to pick one up. I try to wait for at least a 50% reduction but some games, like Kentucky Route Zero, refuse to go below 40%.

 

What are we here to talk about again? Oh yeah! Twelve Minutes.

 

By far this games main draw is that the characters are voiced by famous Hollywood actors. Specifically James McAvoy, Daisy Ridley and Willem Dafoe. Now, I take issue with Hollywood actors being in games because a good screen actor doesn't always make a good voice actor. For every Stephen Merchant in Portal 2 there's a Liam Neeson in Fallout 3. However, for a game like this? I'm okay with it. It's not some big AAA game that happens to have famous actors like most of Arkane's output. It's an indie title that has a strong focus on narrative and performances and seems to rely heavily on these famous people being in it.

 

So, how are the performances? They're okay. The game is set in America and its characters are American. Now, if you're familiar with the actors you might notice that 66% of them are British and to be pedantic and more specific, James McAvoy is from

 

It's not unusual for British actors to play Americans. I mean, the current Spider-Man and Batman are played by English lads and the last person to play Superman, a literal American symbol, was also English. A lot of the time they do a good job, look at The Wire, one of, if not THE best TV show ever made and two of its best characters are played by English actors. On screen it makes sense, they look and can act the part of the character perfectly. But when voice acting, why bother? Just get Americans to do it.

 

To be fair, Daisy Ridley does a good job here, you can actually still tell its her despite talking in an American accent. But my pal Jamesy is doing some strange New York/Boston type accent where if they didn't plaster his name all over the game, I'd have NEVER known it was him. And obviously Willem is doing a great job because when isn't he?

 

So what are Professor X, Rey Skywalker and the Green Goblin up to? Well, Professor X is stuck in a time loop that lasts for, you guessed it, Twelve Minutes™. Oh, the characters don't have names by the way so I fully intend to refer to them as I have above.

 

You play as X and the game starts with you getting home from work. Twelve Minutes plays like a top down point and click adventure game and is entirely restricted to X and Rey's very small apartment. Rey is X's wife and she greets him lovingly when he returns home. After some dessert and conversation there is a knock at the door and Green Goblin has come to ruin both of their lives.

 

He's always at it isn't he?

I love this video so much

 

Anyway, Goblin is a cop and he arrests Rey for the apparent murder of her father 8 years prior. He asks about a pocket watch and when Rey doesn't give it up, he begins to strangle Professor X to motivate her, killing him in the process. X then wakes up back at the door to his apartment, he enters and is greeted by his wife the exact same way he was before. This is where the games begins proper and it becomes clear to X that he's stuck in a time loop.

 

Controlling X, you need to manipulate the loop, learn new things, carry that knowledge over to the next loop and use that knowledge to figure out what is going on, why the loop is happening and how to stop it.

 

Now, I was VERY interested in this game when it was announced, I planned to buy it day one. However, it reviewed pretty poorly and because of this, I held off until now. The reviews made it clear that this wasn't a clever time loop game like Outer Wilds. Instead it was awkward and obtuse. In all honesty, I would have written the game off completely and wouldn't have played it if it wasn't an Annapurna game. Because I had every intention of playing it, I wanted to give the game the best possible chance. The reviews made it clear that puzzles were obtuse but the story is serviceable.

 

So this is the part where I admit that I CHEATED. I used a guide, specifically this one: https://psnprofiles.com/guide/13956-twelve-minutes-100-walkthrough-guide

 

I didn't fancy banging my head against the wall with this one and just wanted to experience the story. As such, I did this in one sitting and it took me just shy of two hours to complete. I would recommend this game based on my experience, but without a guide? I'm not sure, cause I don't know what that experience entails.

 

The story took an unexpected twist for me and although it doesn't have a clear ending, I still found myself thinking on it after finishing it. It's one of those unsettling stories that gets under your skin. And for that, I praise it.

 

This game is okay but if you're looking for a time loop game and only have time for one, don't play this, play Outer Wilds. Simple as.

 

Thanks for reading!

 

Arbitrary Rating

6/10

 

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With another Annapurna game off the list, I've updated my ranking list over on ggapp.io which you can view here: https://ggapp.io/jonesey46/lists/ranking-the-annapurna-games-that-i-ve-1GwUJzEu