Spacey_Dweeb Posted September 6, 2021 Share Posted September 6, 2021 1 hour ago, Briste said: I'm going to take a break from some events for a bit so I can clean up some of the stuff in my backlog. Most events don't allow DLC only playthroughs to count, so I'll never be able to finish TLOU2 or KH3 or AHIT if I keep signing up for stuff. Once those beasts are slain, I'll be back in the saddle! I've heard a rumor that someone is going to run an event based around finishing DLCs soon. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Briste Posted September 20, 2021 Author Share Posted September 20, 2021 (edited) On 9/5/2021 at 11:52 PM, Spacey Dweeb said: I've heard a rumor that someone is going to run an event based around finishing DLCs soon. oh please be true lol I have all of the DLC's purchased....just haven't had the time/motivation to actually play them yet. Platinum #157 Dragon Age 2 With the Dragon Age: Origins platinum officially popped, it was time to start Dragon Age 2. I had mostly enjoyed DA: O so had high hopes for DA 2 and by and large, I was not disappointed. It had the potential to be a disaster to be honest. One thing that made the Mass Effect series so great, was the fact you got to continue the story with the same characters and was able to get emotionally invested over several games. While I mostly enjoyed Mass Effect: Andromeda, I know a lot of people thought it wasn't a real ME game and were largely disappointed. This game was created in a similar mold to ME: A. The story takes place shortly after the conclusion of DA: O, however you no longer play as the Warden. You play as Hawke (who can be either male or female...I was male), who is fleeing the Ferelden Kingdom after the recently ended Blight, having lost everything. He and his family flee to the city of Kirkwall, attempting to return to the land of his mother and restart their lives. At first, I had the 'ughh' kind of feeling since I wouldn't be following the same characters. It seemed dumb to import a save where none of the characters would be involved. I also didn't love the initial look at combat system right away either. The camera felt a bit choppy and the combat didn't feel as fluid. This game suffered from framerate issues that I didn't recall in the first entry. I played as a rogue again since I always play as a rogue when I can, and after getting through the Prologue I was a little worried. Turns out my worry was unfounded. They did a really good job, as Bioware has done in the their games I've played, of creating a lot of quests around developing the characters. By the end of the game, I really enjoyed the new cast of characters. While none of the characters you played in DA: O are playable in DA 2, apparently a lot of people fled the Ferelden Kingdom after the Blight because you do run into a lot of familiar faces. I ended up really enjoying the cameos and how they weaved what happened in the Ferelden Kingdom into the fabric of what was going on in Kirkland. So, I've started this review kind of scattered....let's step back. I wasn't sure I'd get into a story that didn't seem like it was going to be a progression, however after having played the game, I think they did a really good job making it seem pretty organic. After the blight was defeated at the end of DA: O, one would kind of wonder what is next....and they took the next most interesting story line from the first one and expanded on it here. Throughout the first game, there was an undercurrent of the escalating problem of the mages and the templars. There was a major quest in the first game that introduced you to the age old struggle of the mages and templars, but it wasn't explored much beyond needing them to battle the blight. This game takes that controversy and expands upon it....which actually makes a lot of sense in terms of story telling. After the crescendo of the blight and mankind uniting against a common evil, people are able to settle back into their old habits prior to the catastrophic events. The mages vs templars has been bubbling up for centuries and it comes to a head in this game. As Hawke, you are caught in the middle of it at what will be ground zero for I'm sure happens in Dragon Age: Inquisition. This story is very much an 'Empire Strikes Back' kind of story....it picks up after what could have been a stand-alone story and expands upon it. The cool thing about the story, is you can make up your own mind about which group you wish to support. Are the mages too dangerous and need to be kept in check by the templars? Or are the templars taking it too far and are all the mages being held responsible for the bad decisions of a few? If you choose to use an imported save, it carries your decisions from the first game and there are some consequences (minor) in the story based on what happened. While a trophy makes it so that you have to back each faction at least once, my cannon in this series has been to support the mages, and on my complete playthrough that will carry over to Inquisition, that's who I chose to support. The graphics seemed slightly better, but nothing major. It was pretty much the same aesthetic as the first game. I did like what they chose to do with the map though. Instead of the game taking place over a large area of country, the vast majority of the game takes place within the city of Kirkwall. You are able to travel to a few places just outside the city, but virtually the whole game takes place in the city. You cycle between day time and night time in order to do certain missions and it was kind of a neat idea to keep the story so isolated. While it was a little annoying that the same areas were used over and over as far as battles go, I give them credit for taking a risk and keeping it all in one spot. The game gets split up into 3 acts, with each act lasting about a year and then about 3 years in between acts. I'm not sure why they chose to put so much time in between each acts....it seemed to make the drama last a lot longer than I think it normally would have. They could have just made it a year between acts and it would have made more sense in my mind, but that is a small complaint in the grand scheme of things. While the battle system was different in the sense they got rid of auto-attack, so there was a lot more button mashing, the rest of the battle system was pretty similar. You level up and select abilities from different styles of attacking. It lets you customize your character quite a bit, and with 3 different job types that you can choose from, there really is a lot of replayability should you wish to play the game through more than once. If you were to play this game without a guide, you would most definitely need several playthroughs in order to platinum this game. While the game itself was a lot of fun and I liked it very much....the trophy list is one of the worst I've ever tried to get. There are so many missables and so many of the missables are stupidly missable. The dumbest of the missable trophies is for reading all 4 codex entries about the Chantry. One of the entries is in Act 1, two in Act 2 and one in Act 3. The one that makes this really stupid is one of the ones in Act 2. One of the entries is only available during one quest, and the codex entry is only accessible during a battle. You can't get it before or after the battle since the battle is sandwiched between cutscenes. You can't interact with objects during a fight, however there is a brief pause in between waves, and you need to grab the codex entry in the few seconds break you have in between waves or that trophy is missed. You cannot redo quests, unless you saved before hand and you cannot redo Acts once you've moved on. If you missed something in Act 1....well you better hope you have a save or you are shit out of luck and will need to replay the game. This happened to me with the Supplier trophy for getting all of the craftable items in the game. I missed one in Act 1, which was really frustrating because I counted the ones I got before going to Act 2 and just miscounted. Fortunately, I kept a save from the end of each chapter before doing the quest of no return and was able to shed about 14 hours off of my replay. I had realized my error as I was checking my craftable items before going to Act 3. I had read that you could buy any missed craftables from a previoius chapter at the 'Black Emporium' (a DLC store in game), but that it may not work for the trophy....well for me, the missed craftable didn't even show up in the store so I had to replay from the end of Act 1 on. I skipped all the text and was able to do it in about 10 hours or so....but that was super frustrating. What makes the Supplier trophy so annoying, is it forces you to play the game a certain way to achieve. In DA 2, you can deny people from joining your party or they can get pissed at you and leave depending on some choices you make....but the problem is some of the craftable items are trapped behind quests related to the different characters. If that character isn't in your party, you do not get the quest and therefore cannot get the craftable item. For example, Isabella (who was who I romanced) has to be in your party in Act 3 because the craftable item Ambrosia is only available in her companion quest. If you don't play the game in a way that she wants to join/stay in your party, then you miss this trophy. The same is said for Fenris, Merrill and Anders. There are craftable items that can only be found in companion quests related to them and if any of them leave your party, you miss this trophy. For people who don't go for the platinum, it's no big deal...but if you want the platinum you either have to play this game several times to make sure you do it right, or follow a guide to make sure you make the necessary choices so that they join/stay in your party. I really don't like it when RPG games make it necessary to follow a guide throughout the whole game to get trophies. Having said that...guides are really good these days at removing most spoilers and just give the bare minimum information needed. In my playthrough, I did every quest possible to make sure I didn't miss anything, but I always made sure that I did or said what I thought was needed to get my companions to stay with me. The cool thing is that once you maxed out their 'Friend' or 'Rival' points, they stayed there. So if I maxed out Isabella's friend stat to where she was a 'friend', I could do things to piss her off and it wouldn't change her friend status. That made it a little easier to worry less about the things I did or said once I got to that point...but it was annoying to have to do that in the first place. I thought the DLC entries were ok. They weren't necessary to the overall story, but they weren't terribly long and were interesting enough to make them worth playing. I thought it was interesting that in both of the added DLC's, there were pretty complicated puzzles when nowhere else in the game was there a single puzzle that needed to be solved. They required a bit of thought, but wasn't anything ridiculous and didn't need to be done in order to finish the DLC's, but the one in Mark of the Assassin is required for a trophy. Overall, this was a very worthy addition to the series and I had a lot of fun playing it. The humor from the banter between your companions is classic and there was a lot of humor interjected throughout the story as well. When it made sense, I almost always picked the funny/sarcastic response. Isabella and Varric tended to appreciate those, but they also made the game a lot funnier as well. To that end, the voice acting was quite good in the game. I was convinced that the person that voiced the Male Hawke character was the same person who voiced Jonathan Reid from Vampyr, however it wasn't. They sound exactly the same though lol and oddly enough, the dude that voice Reid did voice a character in DA: I. The game came out 10 years ago, so odds are if you wanted to play it you would have by now, but if this game gets the same remaster treatment that ME did, I would definitely recommend playing it. I'm not sure it's worth the money you would have to pay on the PS3 store right now, but the game was good and worth playing. Edited September 20, 2021 by Briste 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Briste Posted October 20, 2021 Author Popular Post Share Posted October 20, 2021 (edited) It's been exactly a month since I put any kind of updates here. It's been a kind of existential month for me....going to get a bit personal for a bit so if you are just interested in the game review skip down below. So last month was the 20 year anniversary of my father's suicide. It was something that took me a while to come to grips with but I had felt, for years, that I had come to peace with what happened. I thought that I was able to put myself in his shoes and understand how he could do it....but that was 20-25 year old me. That was a young me, someone that hadn't quite experienced much in life yet. I thought I had....but I'll tell you something....having kids truly does change everything and you really have no idea until it happens. My father was 47 when he died and I just turned 40 this year. I'm creeping very close to the age he was and when I was a kid, 47 seemed pretty old. Now that I'm 40....it is wild to me how young he actually was. I have started to look at his suicide through a different lens and it has made me question a lot of the things I thought I knew about what happened. I'm not a terribly emotional person and cry maybe twice a year and it's usually because I just watched Gladiator and Gracchus has just asked 'Who will help me carry him?'. I've probably broken down crying a half dozen times in the last 5 weeks and it all stems from my kids. I look at them and am filled with such an overwhelming amount of love and joy that I can't imagine doing to them what my father did to me. How can a man with a family make that choice? I keep coming back to his bi-polar disorder and manic depression...which is 100% valid...but since I don't suffer from those conditions...it breaks my heart to think that he did not feel that same way for me or my three siblings that I do for my kids. I only want the best for them and could never put them through what my father put us through. I don't care what I'm feeling, it would be my burden to carry and shield them from that kind of pain. Reflecting on my father's choices now as a parent, has made what happened hurt so much more and so much more poignantly than it did when I was younger. It hurt then because he was gone, but now in hindsight, it hurts because what he has missed. I like to think he would have loved my boys....I think he would have enjoyed meeting my wife...I think he would have been proud of me as a Dad....that is of course if he was able to feel those kinds of things, but these are lingering questions I'll have for the rest of my life. I've said it before and I'll say it again....suicide is a very permanent solution to what are usually very temporary problems. Besides the anniversary of his death, the other reason this history has reared its ugly head again, is I recently had a conversation with my brother about how he has coped with it....if he has had any thoughts like I had in light of the anniversary. Turns out he took my father's suicide far worse than I did. I won't belabor all of the points here other than to say he was in a far worse situation than I was when it happened and he's never really recovered. He's going through marital problems and should probably get a divorce, but won't and he told me that he has attempted suicide three times just this year by trying to OD on pills. We've talked more in the last few weeks than we have in years and I wish I had asked him about what happened years ago, because it may have been cathartic for him to talk about our shared and unique experiences. Alas, we live in different states and our lives just don't put us in a position where we talk much. Not that we don't get along or anything....just we don't have much in common other than our last names anymore, so we're just kind of doing our own thing. Anyways, if you're feeling depressed and suicidal....please, please reach out and get help. You never know what is coming down the street for you and you have no idea how much you can affect the people around you....the people you've lost touch with....and even the people you haven't even met yet. Get the help you need....you are worth it. So why am I sharing all of this? Mostly because this is my Diary of a Madman and sometimes you need to write about this shit in your diary...but also because it did make me take a look at my own life and in turn, my gaming habits. While talking with my brother, I learned that he started playing a 'Link to the Past-Super Metroid' combination game on an SNES emulator that randomizes item locations. Items for Link could be in Metroid and vice versa and you can bounce back and forth between the two games. We've played it a bit, however it takes me about 10 hours to beat and was not something I could do in one or two sittings. He has gotten really good at it and has started racing on twitch. I think he can do it in under 4 hours pretty consistently now. The cool thing is you can play as a team where items in my game unlock for him and vice versa. The problem we ran into is he's much better at it than me and he would get stuck waiting for me to unlock stuff for him. It's pretty fun, but too long for me to do consistently. What it did though, was cause me to look up other randomizers and I found one that I absolutely love. It is a Final Fantasy 1 randomizer and it is delicious. You can beat the whole game in less than 2 hours and I started watching some runs on Youtube. They have done amazing things with that game that are loads of fun. I haven't signed up for the Discord channel yet, but I probably will at some point. I've had a lot of fun playing it over the past few weeks. It won't replace trophy hunting or anything, because I do still enjoy that a lot....but I decided to start playing more things that aren't on a PS that could be fun. If you enjoyed FF growing up, I highly recommend checking it out. I can beat the game pretty consistently between an hour and a half and an hour and forty-five minutes now. In addition to the randomizer, I decided to play Dragon Age: Inquisition more in line with how I used to play games before trophies and that was to get 100% of everything. Because of that, this game took a bit longer to finish....but I was able to do that today so without further ado.... Platinum #158 Dragon Age: Inquisition I don't know if I have ever felt more conflicted about a game in my whole life. This game did a lot of things I really enjoyed...and several things that I truly despised. Overall, I'd give this a passing grade and say there was a lot more I liked than didn't here. The place I'm going to start in my review is the graphics....what. the. fuck....When I first turned the game on, I thought the graphics were a glitch or something. I played as a Dwarven Rogue again, because I always play as a Dwarven Rogue when possible, and I was bald with a beard. When I say that the beard looked bad, I mean the beard looked baaaaad. It doesn't even look like hair! It's some weirdly shaped thing with some kind of weird sheen to it, like it was coated with Vaseline or something. While I found my dwarven beard to be the worst offender...the whole game looks like it was dipped in Vaseline. Everything has this weird looking coating on it that is shiny and reflective. It looked cool on like the dragons and stuff, but it just looked so unnatural most everywhere else and was really hard to look past throughout the game. I spent 115 hours with this game so I was able to get used to it....but I felt the graphics in DA 2 were way better. The change in graphics also made Hawke (who at least makes an appearance) look completely different as well. Honestly, it was just so bad lol It was shocking to me how bad it was and I clearly still haven't gotten over it. The other biggest sin in this game for me was doing away with healing magic. They also got rid of the auto-healing after battle. I could have accepted that second change just fine, but how do you completely remove the healing magic component from the game? Speaking from just an RPG/lore perspective for a second....did the mages just forget the spell? Did it get wiped out from Thedas after the Conclave exploded? What logical explanation could possibly exist for why there was healing magic in the world for the first two games and it just disappears for the the third? It makes absolutely no sense at all and it just seems like a mechanic they added to artificially make the game more challenging. The only healing you have in this game is from resting at a camp site or from potions and you only get to carry 8 to start...that are shared among your whole team. 8....At least your healing pots replenish when you rest at a camp, but any of the other potions you use need crafting supplies to replenish. The lack of healing is what made this game more frustrating than anything else...there was a raise spell if you died...but it was on like a one minute timer. I did like that you had to beat the game on Nightmare for the plat. I do like when they add that challenge...having said that....I don't love how they tended to make Nightmare harder here. They just buffed up the defense and added HP to the enemies it seems. No new mechanics or anything....just beefier enemies. When you couple that with how often enemies would replenish their block/armor (it's like adding HP over HP. You have to remove the armor HP before you can take down the actual HP), it just dragged some fights on FOREVER. I spent 20 minutes fighting a Pride Demon because every 5% HP I removed, it replenished its armor and I had to bust that down to zero before hurting it again. The other super annoying thing was how barrier worked in this game. For you and your characters, the barrier starts to deteriorate the moment it is cast. If you stand still it will just run out. Again, that would be fine if that's how barriers worked for everyone, but for the enemies, their barriers last forever unless you dispel it or damage it down. It does not deteriorate over time....which again makes no logical sense. If the barrier mechanic is to degrade over time....it should be that way for everything in the game. The defense of the enemies is really annoying because, at least as a bow rogue, I did negligible damage until I was level 20 and was able to equip a weapon I found in The Jaws of Hakkon DLC. Pride Demon with 48k HP? Sure, I'll whittle it down with 35 damage bow strikes and 300 damage ability bursts in between armor recharges. The game actually got a lot more fun after 20. Not because I could demolish everything, but because the damage output at least seemed to match the HP and guard of the enemies. My bow damage rating was like 120 for most of the game. Once I hit 20 I could equip a bow where my damage rating went to 210. It made a huge difference. Another thing I didn't like very much was the addition of the crafting. It would have been fine if you didn't have to spend half your time running around, collecting shit. You pick some Elfroot and you get one or two Elfroot, but you need like 40 Elfroot for a quest and you need Elfroot to make some potions and so on and so forth. There are like 30 or so different crafting items that you have to harvest/mine and others that you need to kill wildlife for. You spend more time clicking the L3 button searching for crafting materials and stuff than you do fighting enemies. I liked it better in DA 2 where you found a crafting item type and then you could just use it indefinitely. It meant you could spend more time playing the game and less time bending over to dig up roots. And yes, the animation in the game has you bending down and spending a second or two to dig up the plant/root. It is a maddening waste of time. It would have been fine in a smaller dose probably...but you could also craft weapons and armors and all of those weapons and armor could have different grips or leggings or whatever. I honestly was too annoyed with the system to spend much time with it. It could have been cool but it was just way too much and could mostly be ignored. Towards the end game (especially during The Jaws of Hakkon DLC) I spent more time with it, crafting some good gear for my main four, but beyond that I ignored it. The last thing I'll say that I didn't like was how they changed the level up system. You no longer get attribute points each level up to spend on a specific attributes. You just get an ability point and the ability you unlock will give you a boost to a different stat. Not sure why that change was made either...but that one wasn't as egregious as the others in my eyes. So I just used a lot of words to describe all the things that I didn't like....and not just didn't like, but hated. Yet with ALLLLL of that, I still did like this game. While I didn't think I was going to like getting to know new characters again...I've decided I like what they've done with this series. A lot of times, the story revolves around the same handful of characters that always seem to be at the center of the craziness. How these individuals are so lucky/unlucky is usually incredible. They didn't do that with this series. They gave you the world of Thedas, where a lot of exceptional things were going on and they gave you several heroes that popped up to face the different situations. While I had hoped in DA 2 that I would get to expand on the Warden's story, I grew to like Hawke and enjoyed his story of becoming the Champion of Kirkwall. Again, when Hawke disappeared after DA 2, I had hoped I'd get to continue his story, but I ended up enjoying following the story of the Inquisitor, the Herald of Andraste. While none of the three entries in the series follow one character, they do a great job of creating cameos that make sense or carrying over characters where they make sense as well. I was especially happy that Varric was back for this entry as he made DA 2 pretty entertaining. While I enjoyed the Inquisitor quite a bit as a character, I did not like the supporting cast quite as much in this one as previous entries in the series. I didn't love Cassandra....she was fine I guess, but she was kind of annoying when she appeared in DA 2 and I held that against her in the beginning. She ended up being who I romanced since I could start it earlier with her and since she was always in my party, I ended up liking her by the end. I think Sera was supposed to be a humorous character, but she was kind of annoying as well and I didn't end up using her at all. Dorian and Cole were mostly forgettable and I didn't use either of them much either. Vivienne was extremely powerful to use, but her character was kind of boring. Blackwell and Solas proved to be extremely interesting and compelling characters though. I would have loved to be able to play as Cullen or Leliana, and while they are a part of your team, they are not playable. I would have romanced Leliana if able, however I romanced her as the Warden in the first game so she didn't show much interest. Josephine was interesting as an advisor, but was also not playable. I downright disliked Iron Bull. He was another guy that was supposed to be humorous, but I felt like his personality was really out of character for being Qunari. Actually, that reminds me of another thing I didn't like about this game (actually the one thing I didn't like throughout the whole series) was how the Qunari were portrayed. I felt fine about Sten in the first one. He played the role of the emotionally detached warrior and I was under the impression that he was part Giant and that all the Qunari were. I was really surprised in DA 2 when the Qunari showed up with horns like a demon or bull on their heads and was super confused when I killed several Qunari named Sten. I then realized that Sten was a rank among the Qunari and that was what 'Sten' was in DA: O. He just referred to himself as his rank...but the horns really threw me off. They kind of explained it ok by saying that anyone can be Qunari since it is more a religion than a race, but it was just disjointed in the presentation. They showed this point pretty well in the Assassin's Mark DLC from DA 2 with the Elven Qunari, but it was my least favorite 'race' in the game....In DA: I, Iron Bull looked the part from what they established the more traditional Qunari to look like during DA 2...but his voice acting was just so out of character. I mean I kind of get it, since he had been away from the Qun for a while and surrounded himself with humans, and just like Thor in the MCU, he lightened up and developed a sense of humor. It just seemed like they weren't sure what they wanted the Qunari to be and ended up being all over the map with them. Anyways, my main crew for the beginning of the game was the Inquisitor, Cassandra, Varric and Solas. That party tended to be a bit squishy so I ended up replacing Varric with Blackwall once he joined the Inquisition. This gave me two tanks that could share the hate and ended up keeping Solas and the Inquisitor mostly safe during battle. The downside of this party setup, was there wasn't a ton of DPS so battles tended to drag out pretty long. For the most part, I was OP in most areas. I did every possible side quest I could before doing the next main mission, so I was pretty over leveled for a lot of the main story line things. When I say this game is expansive....this game has tons and tons of quests. Most of them pretty straightforward and none of them added that much to the overall story of the game. They mostly serve as a vehicle for earning 'Power' to unlock main story missions and earning 'Influence' to level up the Inquisition to learn perks for your group. I wanted to do as many of them as I could, and I'm happy to say that I was able to do about 98% of them. Several were locked out because I didn't romance that character, but I did virtually every one I could. One mission I missed because I progressed the story too far and one quest glitched out on me. It was a quest for defeating three high dragons and I killed two of them before I went to the guy who gives the quest. Since I had already killed two, the option to accept the quest never popped up. So I completed the requirements for the quest, but never officially completed it. The main story felt like it was only about 10-12 hours long, but all the side content added like 90 hours to the game. It probably didn't need to be that long, but doing it all in Nightmare ended up dragging it out a bit. As I mentioned above, some of the battles dragged on and on. As far as combat went though, I thought it was a lot of fun. It was mostly smooth and the different abilities were pretty fun to use. It was also pretty easy to cycle between the different characters. They added a tactical menu....which was pretty disjointed and turned the fluid combat into more of a TBS style game. It gave you the opportunity to kind of play as all four characters at the same time. But it really slowed things down. You got to this menu by pressing select during battle and it ended up being useful more as a chance to pause the fight and survey what was going on than an actual battle mechanic. Sometimes the fights got pretty chaotic and it provided an opportunity to think through what you wanted to do. It was probably totally unneeded outside of Nightmare mode, but considering how squishy your characters are, it proved invaluable at times for making sure a needed ability would go off when you wanted it to. I really didn't find the game to be that challenging for the most part. It took some getting used to the changes, but other than the high Dragons and some of the Rifts, most of the game was pretty straightforward with its difficulty. This was not the case at all for the DLC 'Jaws of Hakkon'. My goodness was that a challenging DLC. The enemies scale with your level, so there's no leveling up to the point of just being OP. Despite the added challenge from the battles, the DLC provided some pretty good gear that ended up making the DLC really fun to play...for the most part. One thing about the DLC really pissed me off and made me lose about 4 hours of time. In all fairness, I should have made a separate save before doing one of the final 'main story missions', but I didn't see the need at the time. Basically, one of the final missions of the DLC calls for an assault on a castle. Once you start the mission, you can't leave it until you are done. It was challenging, but doable...until the boss fight. That boss fight got me stuck in there since it was impossible for me to beat with my party setup. Since there was no option to change the party, I was forced to either change the difficulty or go back 4 hours to a 'milestone' save the game made for me right before I started doing the Jaws of Hakkon DLC. I tried the fight for a good three hours and never got the boss down below 55-60% health. I decided to change the difficulty to the easiest setting to just gtfo of there and then go back to my other save on Nightmare to finish up the game. I'm going to describe this fight and how ridiculously hard it was on Nightmare. There are these enemies in the DLC called Bruisers that are giant dudes with huge mauls that have high HP, utilize an armor ability every minute or so that basically heals them for 10kish health and they hit like a fucking truck. The boss fight takes place in this freezing cold area. One of the dynamics of this zone is that you need to be close to a fire to warm up every 20 seconds or so or you start to take cold damage. There are campfires located throughout the zone, and in the boss arena there are four such fires. The battle starts with two bruisers and four mages. When you drop into the area, the two bruisers come running towards you because the mages are busy doing something else. If you do it right, you can take out the two bruisers while the mages are distracted (really the only option because otherwise you add barrier to the fight if the mages join). After taking out the bruisers, which isn't a guarantee because the arena is pretty tight, and the cold makes you go back to the fire pretty regularly, the mages stop what they are doing and start to attack you. They hit pretty hard as well, but are much more squishy and can be managed a bit easier than the bruisers. Once you deal with all of those enemies the boss enters the arena. He has like 230k HP and also uses armor. After you take about 10% damage off of him, he casts a spell that puts out one of the campfires, shrinking the battle arena. When he puts out this fire, two Corpse Archers join the battle. They need to be taken care of first since if you damage the boss too much, he'll put out another campfire and two more corpse archers and two normal Hakkon warriors join the battle and it gets really chaotic. My two tanks were getting shellacked by about this time in the fight. Still, on a couple of occasions, I was able to deal with these enemies and go back to work on the boss. At about 60% health, he puts out one more fire and summons six enemies, including two bruisers. At this point in the battle I would get absolutely lambasted. I would usually run out of healing potions and my characters would drop like flies and even with using the tactical menu....I could never even kill one bruiser during this part of the battle. It became painfully obvious to me, that I would never be able to beat this boss with Solas as my mage. I lowered the difficulty and was able to beat him first try. Even on the easiest setting, it wasn't a cake walk, but they were much more squishy and I got through it. I ended up knocking off a couple of other trophies while on that easy setting before going back the 4 hours to my Nightmare save. I was really disappointed to do that. I felt like I had taken the easy way out, plus I had lost like 4 or 5 levels and was just feeling dirty about the whole thing. I decided that I would swap out Solas for Vivienne (Knight Enchater is very macho). I hadn't used Vivienne at all before this, but I saw that her job class was the most powerful, and while I was sad to replace Solas, it needed to be done if I was going to actually beat the Jaws of Hakkon on Nightmare. I loaded up the save and worked toward learning how to play Vivienne and practiced on some of the Dragons. I did allll of the remaining quests to get myself ready for that boss fight. I was level 26 when I was ready to try again. I didn't make the same mistake this time and made that second save before going into the battle...just in case. I got to the boss without too much trouble. I was ready to show this fucker who was boss....that MFer wiped the floor with me AGAIN. I could get to the same point, and while I was in a better position with plenty of healing pots and a sound strat....those two bruisers just beat the absolute shit out of me in that shrunken arena. One second my party was up, fighting the good fight and the next we were all dead on the floor. At this point I'm going to tell you about the 'Focus' ability 'Thousand Cuts'. This ability is something that only a Rogue in the specialization class 'Tempast' can use and you can only use it when you have enough 'Focus'. You earn focus by combo'ing with your team and is not something that fills up terribly fast. There are up to three levels of Focus you can fill with Inquisition perks, and a level three Thousand Cuts does insanely ridiculous damage. My strategy on the dragon fights was to get the dragon to about 50% health using normal battle strats, and then go in and use Thousand Cuts and it would kill off the remaining 50% health. It is also a bit of an AOE ability and will mess up anything that is standing close to the target. My goal in this battle was to get the boss to about 50% health and then see if Thousand Cuts could finish him off. The problem is, those bruisers always entered the battle around 60% health and the fights got too chaotic and we'd end up wiping before I got the chance to use it. I tried using it from the tactical menu, but it never seemed to work the same way as when I used it during normal battle. Felt like I was out of range or something most of the time. I ended up getting really lucky on the attempt that I beat him. One of my characters, I believe Vivienne, has an ability that causes my guy to do insane damage. Like 1000% damage from what I usually do. She also has a 'snail' ability that creates a small dome and the things trapped inside can't move for a short period of time. On the fight where I ended up winning, I was able to use that snail ability and trap both Bruisers in there with the boss, while I had that insane damage bonus on the boss. I was able to run in quick and use Thousand Cuts and I murdered not only the boss, but both of those fucking bruisers that proved to be the bane of my existence. I was able to do that with all of my characters left standing and we were able to finish off the last couple of stragglers. After winning, I was so happy that I decided to go back to the DLC and commit to beating it on Nightmare. After that, I had pretty much a free run to the end of the game and nothing else proved to be nearly as challenging. So why did I write so much about that DLC fight? To circle back to how this post started, I did a lot of reflecting over the past month or so and I realized that since I started hunting trophies, I stopped challenging myself when I knew there was an easy button in a game if I got frustrated. I did it with Hollow Knight, I did it with Celeste and I felt a little dirty about it afterwards. I wanted to go back to challenging myself at times. This game needed to be beaten on Nightmare for the platinum and that was what I wanted to do. I know that the DLC is separate from the main game....but the thing was that I wanted to prove to myself I could beat it on Nightmare. It had been a while since I had that real feeling of accomplishment from beating a game and I missed it. I don't know if I'll always do things the hard way if I don't have to....but in this game and in this time, I wanted to and I succeeded. For as frustrating a time as I had with this game at points, I got one of my biggest feelings of satisfaction at the end. The only bummer I have now, is that not all of the DLC was released for the PS3 version of the game. This game has major cliffhangers and I would like to see them play out....but I'm not ready to play the whole thing on Nightmare again right away. I do have the PS4 version so there is a chance I do play it some day in the future. I have a feeling that they fixed a lot of the issues I had with the PS3 version, but next up for me is the DLC event and cleaning up these unfinished games on my profile. I would like to get back to 100%. While this series wasn't as good as the Mass Effect series was for me, it was still an awesome ride and if you haven't played the series yet and still have a PS3, definitely give it a playthrough. If anyone made it this far through my review, may Andraste smile upon you Edited October 20, 2021 by Briste 13 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rally-Vincent--- Posted October 20, 2021 Share Posted October 20, 2021 Probably not easy to share something so personal, but the message is worth it. Thumbs up and all the best for the both / four of you. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arcesius Posted October 20, 2021 Share Posted October 20, 2021 I couldn't read the game review after reading through the first paragraphs. I... really am sorry to hear what you and your siblings had to experience. I can't even begin to imagine how it must have been for you 20 years ago, but I can definitely feel how it must be for you today, having kids of your own now. I don't want to talk too much about my own experience, but I haven't spoken with my dad in over 20 years now. He never cared for me, and let's just say the last time I saw him was in court. I never cared for this either, I have a wonderful mum with whom I moved to Switzerland, and never thought about the lack of care from my father. Having a son now... yeah, I understand where your thoughts are coming from. Experiencing now what your father experienced many years ago with you and your siblings raises many questions which, unfortunately, will remain unanswered. What you can do is to keep loving your kids as much as you do, and be the best dad to them you can be All the best for you and your family! I hope your spirit brightens quickly again 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jens Posted October 20, 2021 Share Posted October 20, 2021 9 hours ago, Briste said: It's been exactly a month since I put any kind of updates here. It's been a kind of existential month for me....going to get a bit personal for a bit so if you are just interested in the game review skip down below. Yeah, I pretty much did the opposite. You'll hear from me, and you'll know where to find me if shit hits the fan again dude. That's all I have to say at the moment, but a simple click on an arrow seemed too cheap to me. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Briste Posted October 21, 2021 Author Share Posted October 21, 2021 19 hours ago, Rally-Vincent--- said: Probably not easy to share something so personal, but the message is worth it. Thumbs up and all the best for the both / four of you. Thanks. I've found throughout my life that it is good therapy to speak openly about what I'm thinking or feeling. My honesty is not always appreciated the first go round, but people have come to trust what I say to them because I'll be honest with them, even when it's hard. If sharing my experiences can help someone in someway, it's all worth it to me. 19 hours ago, Arcesius said: I couldn't read the game review after reading through the first paragraphs. I... really am sorry to hear what you and your siblings had to experience. I can't even begin to imagine how it must have been for you 20 years ago, but I can definitely feel how it must be for you today, having kids of your own now. Honestly, the whole thing was surreal anyways. He died on 9/13/01...two days after 9/11 so everything was a blur. The proximity to 9/11 was what made things even harder for my brother. He was a freshman in college down in Florida and had a hell of a time trying to get home for the funeral. I never knew this, but he apparently had to connect in 8 or 9 different airports to try and get home. I also learned that my mother wouldn't tell him how it happened. She had just told him our father had died and to get home...those few days really messed him up. What made the whole thing really hard to swallow at the time, was that just a few weeks prior, we had been at my father's house having a good time. We were watching fireworks off of his dock and eating some fish on the grill that we had caught earlier in the day. My dad was telling us what a good time he had and how we'd need to do it again the following summer when we were back from college. According to my Uncle, my father knew then that he was going to commit suicide...we couldn't figure out why my father would lead us on that we would have a better future and it was a real mind fuck at the time. As I said in my post, it took some time, but I had grieved and come to terms with everything....just felt odd to grieve all over again recently. My kids ask about him often and I haven't decided what age they are going to be when I tell them the truth about him... 19 hours ago, Arcesius said: I don't want to talk too much about my own experience, but I haven't spoken with my dad in over 20 years now. He never cared for me, and let's just say the last time I saw him was in court. I never cared for this either, I have a wonderful mum with whom I moved to Switzerland, and never thought about the lack of care from my father. Having a son now... yeah, I understand where your thoughts are coming from. I'm sorry....we're at about the same stage in life with you being a newer father as well and I feel for you man...it's got to be every bit as hard knowing that he's out there somewhere and just doesn't give a damn. We just have to be better...the bar is low lol but it sounds like we both have the proper motivation to do so 13 hours ago, Jens said: You'll hear from me, and you'll know where to find me if shit hits the fan again dude. That's all I have to say at the moment, but a simple click on an arrow seemed too cheap to me. Thank you my friend...I swear I haven't been absent on purpose Just been distracted. I can assure you that I am really ok and this reflective period I've been going through has only strengthened my convictions. It's kind of funny....if my father didn't do what he did....would I still be the same person? Did that hardship soften me and make me a more empathetic person? I keep coming back to the idea from The Matrix that there is no spoon...as terrible as that was, I'm very happy with the person I am today and I can't say I would be able to say the same if I hadn't endured a tragedy like that....bah who knows lol Thanks for the support all, it is very appreciated that I can come and vent and have a supportive community 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PlutoRico Posted October 22, 2021 Share Posted October 22, 2021 Might not have been easy to open up like that on this forum, the fact that you used this chapter of your life to try to be a better person for your kids is admirable tho, it's something to be proud of. Wishing all the best to you, your siblings, your kids and the rest of your family. ? 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Briste Posted October 24, 2021 Author Share Posted October 24, 2021 On 10/22/2021 at 0:24 PM, PlutoRico said: Might not have been easy to open up like that on this forum, the fact that you used this chapter of your life to try to be a better person for your kids is admirable tho, it's something to be proud of. Wishing all the best to you, your siblings, your kids and the rest of your family. Thanks for the kind words I appreciate it! So to bring it all back to the reason I started this thread, the gaming journey. Now that I have finished the Dragon Age series, I'm going to take some time to finish up all of these unfinished games littering my page. The DLC event is a perfect excuse to knock out about four or five of them. I had decided to start with Maneater since it was the game I enjoyed the least of my DLC eligible games and it was a shitty way to start off the event. Everything was going fine until I went to unlock the trophy Fan Fare for eating all of the 'Questers'. The DLC makes fun of conspiracy theorists and this trophy is for eating several people wearing a tinfoil hat. After I killed the last one, I was expecting to here the underwhelming PS5 dingish noise that the new trophy sound is and crickets....no pop. No problem, must've missed one. Went back around and nope...all of them gone. Decided to actually check the forum about it to see if it was common and yep...this DLC is a steaming hot pile of garbage. Tons of people with glitched trophies with apparently no rhyme or reason to them being glitched. I did read about a workaround that involves replaying the entire game on a blank account account offline, then deleting my profile from the PS5 and signing into the blank account with my login name...that seems to fix the broken trophies...but I really don't want to play this game again quite yet...The bad news is, that one trophy glitching apparently glitched all the rest of them because none of the remaining trophies popped after that one glitched. I completely finished the DLC, just have nothing to show for it. Kind of wish I checked the game page before starting with this one....but at least there is a workaround if Tripwire Interactive doesn't get their shit together. I'll probably leave it alone for a bit, to see if they come up with a fix without me replaying it. After that debacle, I've started up A Hat In Time's two DLC's. It's been three years since I fired this game up and I am a bit rusty. I'm also rediscovering that I'm not terribly good at 3D platformers...much better at the 2D variety. It's not quite like riding a bike, but the controls are coming back to me. So far so good with the trophy popping at least for this one...after beating Hat Kid DLC's I'm either going to bite the bullet and do KH3 next or TLOU2, which I enjoyed much more...probably will save TLOU2 for last. Technically I have some Genshin Impact DLC's I could try to complete, but that is going to be a long term project game. Since I won't probably have many Plat's popping while I'm chasing down these DLC's, I was thinking of doing a 'clip show' and doing some rankings. I'm thinking of doing a post that ranks my groups of 10 from the OP. So far I have almost 16 groups of ten....going to look at each of them and rank which group was my best ten game set to date. It's going to be pretty challenging because a quick look at them all and there's a lot of good games mixed into each group. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Briste Posted October 25, 2021 Author Share Posted October 25, 2021 So I know I said less than 24 hours ago that it'd probably be a while before I got another platinum due to the DLC event, well I lied. There's a couple of games I want to get done ahead of the PS3 event coming to an end next week. So with that in mind.... Platinum #159 Zone of the Enders HD Edition This was a game that I got as a part of PS+ two or three years ago and is another game I had never heard of. It wasn't one that was really on my radar, but with the PS3 event I'm participating in, it is one of the few remaining games that I have in my PS3 backlog so I wanted to get to it. I decided to start it while redoing the Jaws of Hakkon DLC from Dragon Age: Inquisition on Nightmare difficulty since I needed a game I could get some quick trophies in to keep my streak alive (I'm up to 344 days in a row with a trophy ). For some reason I thought that this game was an RPG, but it's actually a hack n' slash game that was probably the inspiration for the movie Pacific Rim. I haven't seen that movie yet, but I know it involves people driving giant robots that fight stuff. I wasn't in any rush to beat this game because I had thought the PS3 event went until the end of the year, but when I went to post my DA: I update, I saw that it actually ends on Novermber 1st. Since there is only a week left to the event, I wanted to finish this and the surprise second game that came with the HD Edition. With regards to the HD Edition, I had no idea that 1) Zone of the Enders had a sequel or 2) that it was included with this PS+ game...but Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner HD Edition is also included. Bonus! I'll be trying to finish that game this week ahead of the end of the event. Anyways, as I mentioned, I had never heard of this game and didn't know what to expect. I was actually pleasantly surprised by the game. It originally came out on the PS2, so I was expecting some pretty retro things to come with it and it didn't disappoint. The graphics had an Atari Arcade game feel to them. I don't know why, but it reminded me of a cross between Missile Command and Star Fox...I can't really defend that, but those were two games I thought of when I was playing. The voice acting was predictably pretty bad (in a good, nostalgic kind of way) and the controls and camera work really did bring me back to the beginnings of 3D gaming. Despite the fact what I just wrote might sound like it's dripping with sarcasm or contempt, it was actually pretty enjoyable. That's not to say there wasn't some extreme moments of frustration due to some of the trophy requirements...but for the most part, the game was really well done. I ran into no glitches and everything was pretty smooth. The story wasn't terrible but wasn't great either. You play as a teenage boy named Leo, who lives in a town that is under attack from giant robots. Some are controlled by humans that are wearing them and some are droids. While trying to hide/get to safety when his town is under attack, he climbs into one of these robots and is all of a sudden controlling one. He is not a hardened soldier and shows a lot of empathy with the decisions he makes. The program, ADA, is very logical and tries to get Leo to complete the mission that the robot suit was created for and Leo is thrust into a battle to save the world. Along the way, Leo decides to save the towns that are under attack, much to the chagrin of ADA. This part of the game is where the biggest frustration comes in. There is a trophy called Damage Control that requires you to get an 'A Rank' on all of the rescue missions. In order to get an 'A Rank', you need to play the game on Hard difficulty, keep the damage done to the city that is under attack under 10%, and save all of the citizens without any casualties. It's not that bad once you figure out the order to attack the enemy, but it can be frustrating during the learning process. Basically there are enemies that roam and some that stand sentry. You can mostly ignore the sentry ones since they don't really do anything until you engage them. But the ones that roam, they cause structural damage and can destroy a building with citizens inside. If any of the citizens die, you need to quit out to the main menu and reload the save. You can't use a continue if you are also looking to get the Valedictorian trophy for getting an overall grade of an A. It's really easy to cause damage by accident and if you select the wrong group of robots to attack first, citizens die pretty easy as well. It took me several tries in each area to figure out a route that worked. If anyone does plan on playing this game, I'll give you a hint to spare you a ton of frustration on the 2nd rescue mission. The first boss fight is in the same zone as the 2nd rescue mission, and the damage done during the boss fight carries over to that rescue mission. It does mention that in the guide, but what the guide does not tell you is that you should exit the zone right after killing the boss. Once you kill the boss, there are like 5 or 6 groups of robots that patrol the zone and your instinct is that you need to clear them out before you can leave the area....this is not true. You can leave the area right after killing the boss and keep your damage percentage in the zone to a minimum so that when you come back to this zone later in the game, you are much more likely to keep the damage percentage under 10%. I ended up beating it with 9.6% damage done so only beat it by the hair of my chinny chin chin. What was super annoying, was that you fight this boss, then do a couple of other areas, including another rescue mission before you attempt this second one. I tried like ten times to get the damage less than 10% and every time it was up around 20%. It is impossible to keep the damage under 10% if you do not leave the zone right after beating the first boss. It was a quick game, probably took me about 6-8 hours to beat. That's including watching all the cut-scenes and replaying the first 30 minutes or so because I missed a trophy for attacking some enemies before you're supposed to. While it definitely doesn't age well compared to the stuff we are playing today, it was a fun, quick little game that was definitely worth the 'free' cost of a PS+ game. Hopefully the second entry is more of the same. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJ_Radio Posted October 26, 2021 Share Posted October 26, 2021 That’s quite a story you’ve written up about your past life and your father. I don’t like a lot of children. Now it’s commonplace for parents to automatically regard me as an asshole, but truthfully I don’t like kids in general. I personally don’t believe in the “you need to be a parent to see where I’m coming from” line that a lot of parents out there like to throw on people. It seems to be this unpardonable sin, because in the past I had to explain this to countless parents out there on Facebook and Twitter on why I don’t like a lot of kids. They blocked me anyway, so much for healthy conversation. What does hit me is your past life with your father. Our fathers more often than not shape who we are as human beings. Not having a father figure greatly disturbs and hurts the child. I’ve had many friends in the past who were physically abused, beaten, raped and verbally talked down. Usually by their father or their uncle. They didn’t have a caring father, and some have even told me they didn’t have a father because he never cared for his children. Abuse in the family is always disheartening to hear about. It’s very sad to hear what happened to your father. We all want a father figure growing up as kids. My father was grateful and thankful, trying to care for his children because his own father never cared about him. We generally never know what is going on with someone who takes their own life. That puts a strain and tragedy in the family that will be felt for a very long time. In these hard times we’re living in, we have to stay strong and look forward. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Briste Posted October 29, 2021 Author Share Posted October 29, 2021 On 10/25/2021 at 10:17 PM, AJ_Radio said: I don’t like a lot of children. Now it’s commonplace for parents to automatically regard me as an asshole, but truthfully I don’t like kids in general. I personally don’t believe in the “you need to be a parent to see where I’m coming from” line that a lot of parents out there like to throw on people. It seems to be this unpardonable sin, because in the past I had to explain this to countless parents out there on Facebook and Twitter on why I don’t like a lot of kids. They blocked me anyway, so much for healthy conversation. Children can be a challenge for sure. It's kind of weird how I can tolerate some stuff that other kids do, but not when my kids do it and there's a lot of things my kids do that I can tolerate that'd bother me if it was someone else's kids. I don't think not liking kids necessarily makes someone an asshole off the bat...they consume a lot of energy and it's very tiring. Having said that though, there is an innocence and true joy that they have that kind of gives you hope for society sometimes. At some point, virtually everyone one becomes a cynical asshole to some extent and that 'wonder' is gone. While I can appreciate that you don't believe in the 'you need to be a parent to see where I'm coming from' line, however actually having a kid adds a perspective that you can't have until you have kids. You'll never understand that fear that comes with having a child if you don't have a child. I wasn't really afraid of much in life until I had children....now I'm constantly on alert about shit. I've found most times in life when I've gone into something with preconceived notions of what will happen, I've been completely wrong and learned something. Before I had kids, I had a very specific idea of how I was going to raise my kids. That went right the eff out the window once I was actually put in the position of a parent. My college baseball coach used to say that you don't know that you don't know that you don't know. The first step is to know that you don't know that you don't know and those that are really successful turn those don't knows into knows. Of course he was talking about baseball....but I've found in most things in life it's amazing what I don't know that I didn't know that I could know. Say that last sentence three times fast....It's convoluted, but I think is a good mantra to live by. If you don't go into a situation thinking you may have something to learn, then you won't. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJ_Radio Posted October 29, 2021 Share Posted October 29, 2021 (edited) 35 minutes ago, Briste said: Children can be a challenge for sure. It's kind of weird how I can tolerate some stuff that other kids do, but not when my kids do it and there's a lot of things my kids do that I can tolerate that'd bother me if it was someone else's kids. I don't think not liking kids necessarily makes someone an asshole off the bat...they consume a lot of energy and it's very tiring. Having said that though, there is an innocence and true joy that they have that kind of gives you hope for society sometimes. At some point, virtually everyone one becomes a cynical asshole to some extent and that 'wonder' is gone. While I can appreciate that you don't believe in the 'you need to be a parent to see where I'm coming from' line, however actually having a kid adds a perspective that you can't have until you have kids. You'll never understand that fear that comes with having a child if you don't have a child. I wasn't really afraid of much in life until I had children....now I'm constantly on alert about shit. I've found most times in life when I've gone into something with preconceived notions of what will happen, I've been completely wrong and learned something. Before I had kids, I had a very specific idea of how I was going to raise my kids. That went right the eff out the window once I was actually put in the position of a parent. My college baseball coach used to say that you don't know that you don't know that you don't know. The first step is to know that you don't know that you don't know and those that are really successful turn those don't knows into knows. Of course he was talking about baseball....but I've found in most things in life it's amazing what I don't know that I didn't know that I could know. Say that last sentence three times fast....It's convoluted, but I think is a good mantra to live by. If you don't go into a situation thinking you may have something to learn, then you won't. I have a very young niece and nephew that I have to look after on occasion. They are downright spoiled, living in a very well to do home in an urban neighborhood with people who are financially well off. We're talking a neighborhood that is impossible to live in unless you have at least a Masters Degree or a Doctorate. My sister is in her 40s so she is the same age as you, graduated high school back in the late 90s, graduated from university in the early 2000s before moving on to graduate school. There is the neglected child, the one who never got financial support and grew up in a very poor setting. My uncle's girlfriends kid was like this. He was abused and mentally disturbed. He is now 25 years old, and last I heard of him he was arrested for drug possession. Someone that I watched get beaten and thrown around back when he was in the first grade and second grade. So even not being a parent, as guardian and babysitter I've had to do parental duties because well, that's what you have to do. I've been paid a little nice sum of money for it, just like my old babysitter did decades ago. You need a balance, but furthermore your partner needs to be on the same level as you. I've had many girlfriends in the past, some of them were nice, others weren't so nice. But just about all of them, after our relationship developed for a few months, I knew deep down that they would not be proper parents. It might be an age thing, because I find a lot of girls in the 18 - 25 age range to be very immature, misunderstanding and overly self entitled, all on top of being inexperienced. Sometimes it isn't age, it's the person themselves. Loving your partner, caring for her and making sure she is on the same level needs to happen before you start to think about having children. So far, I haven't reached that in life. Edited October 29, 2021 by AJ_Radio 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Briste Posted November 1, 2021 Author Share Posted November 1, 2021 Platinum #160 Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner HD Edition This was a surprise game....in that it was a surprise that I even owned it. When I went to start the first Zone of the Enders game, I saw that there were two games to choose from on the menu. I mean the PS+ game did say Zone of the Enders Collection, but it never dawned on me that it was multiple games. After beating the first one, I liked it enough to just continue on to the second installment right away. They both seemed like fun, quick games and it was something I could use after the marathon that was Dragon Age: Inquisition. ZotE 2 did everything I liked in the first game and just improved upon it. It wasn't perfect, but there were a lot of improvements made from the first one. The graphics were better, the fighting was smoother and the story was much more fleshed out (not that this game had some deep story, but it was just much deeper than the first one). As the title of the game indicates, you play as a new 'runner' named Dingo. I had a real hard time taking a guy named Dingo seriously throughout the game lol I kept imagining Elaine from Seinfeld saying "Maybe the Dingo ate your baby". Anyway, this game involves a lot more story cutscenes than the prior entry. I haven't watched a ton of Anime in my life, but this seemed like a pretty stereotypical Anime storyline. You play a righteous former soldier of BAHRAM who is out for revenge after his unit was left to die. Mix in your standard Waifu named Ken, a little bit of treachery and a psychotic bad guy and you have your story. While it is pretty shallow, they do spend a lot of time fleshing out and providing backstory for a lot of the characters. Not that you get super attached to them, but I appreciated the effort. While there are tons of different weapons to use, I would melee 85% of the time and you can jump that up to 95% in NG+ once you get access to Jehuty V2. The 'warp' ability is pretty fun and broken. It is an entertaining hack n' slash game. I wish I spent more time trying some of the other weapons though, but the melee was pretty mindless and I tended to play this game quite a bit while I was watching TV and/or working so I appreciated the mindless. The only weapon I really used other than melee was Homing Missile and a handful of other weapons when forced to during different missions. Without the cutscenes, the game is quite short...you can get through it in less than 2 hours. It has a handful of missions and several boss fights. The boss fights could get a little frustrating since it wasn't always clear how you needed to beat the boss right away and the targeting in this game was not terribly good. It was the weakest part of the game by far. Generally speaking it is fine. The default is to autotarget the next closest enemy after killing the current one you are attacking. You can switch to a different target by tapping L2. One problem I found is that trying to change the camera angle with R3 would also change your target...sometimes. To get rid of the autotarget, you had to hold the L2 button down for a couple of seconds. There are a few missions where you need to do this and then try and target friendly characters to try and mark them to be healed. It is really clumsy attempting to toggle back and forth between enemy and friendly targets. You are just as likely to attack friendlies as you are to attack an enemy. This is especially frustrating when going for a couple of the trophies. For two trophies, you need to get an SS ranking on a mission, which means you have to do the missions perfectly. In one, you need to make sure there is no damage to the buildings, no civilians die and no LEVs are destroyed. In the other, you have to make sure no LEVs are destroyed, which sounds easier, but there are like a thousand enemies and the map is ginormous....The targeting makes these missions hard...the fact that the LEVs in the first one have no regard for human life also makes that one hard....I tried for like 30 mins on NG to get the SS ranking and just got too frustrated and figured I'd try on NG+. NG+ wasn't that much easier...those dickhead LEVs in the first mission kept damaging buildings and I had to kill all of the enemies almost immediately after they spawned or the LEVs would mess up the run. Other than those two trophies though, the rest of the list isn't too bad. There's really not too much more to say, it's a fun little game that I got for free. If you got it free and still have a PS3 to play, I definitely recommend playing them. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Briste Posted November 9, 2021 Author Share Posted November 9, 2021 Thank the Jeebus....with the added motivation of the DLC event, I have started to go back and finish off some DLC. I started a few weeks back with Maneater and The Truth Quest DLC pack. This DLC was more of the same from the regular game, however I wish I had checked the gaming page before starting the DLC because apparently there are several glitchy trophies. For me, six of them did not pop ? Everything was popping as normal and then I decided to finish up the Fan Fare trophy for killing all of the 'Questers'. In order to do this, you have to leave the DLC area as some of the questers are in areas from the main game. Well, after killing all of the questers, the trophy did not pop so I assumed I missed one. I figured I'd clean it up after finishing some more stuff....well once that trophy did not pop, none of the remaining trophies popped for me. It is super annoying that this happened since I didn't particularly like the game much to start with and this DLC was overpriced at $15. After I had this issue, I of course checked around and saw this was a known issue so shame on me. I did see that the publisher, Tripwire, was looking for feedback from people that had this happen so I made a support case with them. I got a generic response that gave me solutions to the PS4 version....I replied that I'm playing the PS5 version so that won't help and got a generic 'we're looking into it'....The good news is that there is apparently a work around, the bad news is that the workaround involves playing the entire game over on a blank account and then logging into that account from my PSN account...I really don't want to have to play this whole game all over again since it wasn't very good. I figure I'll let Tripwire do another update to see if that fixes things. If it does great, if not, I'll bite the bullet to get it done. Shitty start to the DLC event, but what are you going to do? I tell you what you're going to do! You're going to move onto the next DLC game, which for me was A Hat In Time and the Seal the Deal and Nyakuza Metro DLC's. I played AHiT back in 2018 and I remember mostly enjoying it however having a few extremely frustrating trophies to try and get. It took a little to get a hang of the controls again and I started with the Nyakuza Metro DLC. This was mostly straightforward and I kind of enjoyed the area. This area mirrored the main game and was a great place to start to get a hang of things again. The real pain in the ass here is in the Seal the Deal DLC. Holy Shitballs was this hard. The new level wasn't terribly hard and was pretty short. The hardest trophy for the new zone itself is a trophy for doing a bunch of fetch quests for the captain without pissing him off. He's pretty quick to get pissed and it took me about ten tries to be able to do it. This trophy is somewhat RNG based as it is random which fetch quests you are given. Sometimes they are far away from each other and it's very important to learn the layout of the boat to get to them pretty quickly. After a handful of attempts, you'll learn the boat and it's really not that bad. The true terror of this DLC is the I Refuse to Die! trophy for completing all of the Death Wish requests. So the Death Wish requests are a series of tasks you need to complete that are given to you by the Snatcher, who is a boss from the main game. Each area has a handful of 'contracts' and each 'contract' has 3 tasks to do. One is the main task and two are bonus and to finish the DLC you need to finish all of the tasks. The good news is that they added an 'assist' mode that adds four hearts to your character and makes it so that completing the main task also gives you credit for the other two bonus tasks. The difficulty is upped to the 9's and I have absolutely no idea how anybody would be able to beat all of this without the assist mode. In addition to the extra hearts and fewer tasks to do, you also regen hearts by standing still for a about five seconds or so and the requirements are lessened. For example, if normal mode says you need to complete an area in five minutes, assist mode might give you seven or eight minutes. I was going to add a video from the last 14 seconds that is recorded when you win a trophy from my last battle vs the Snatcher, but it started recording right after I beat him. That is one CHAOTIC fight. It took me a dozen tries to get him and I almost choked. I could see the last two hits I needed to win. I had 5 health left and got over excited since I had never gotten that far. Thankfully, I was able to get it done. I am very conflicted about this game....like 75% of the game is a lot of fun, but the 25% that isn't fun really, really isn't fun. One of the 'tasks' involves getting four time pieces without jumping. A platforming game that is requiring you to beat levels without jumping....fun. One of them has to be this train level that is pretty hard with jumping let alone without it. You have like 3 minutes to blow through the level, with all sorts of chaos going on and you can't jump. Thankfully, there are checkpoints that you can continue from. Without those, there's only a handful of people that could probably beat it. The beefed up boss fights are also insane. If you have some time, just go watch someone do the 'Seal the Deal' challenge boss fight. It's insane how good some people are. My biggest gripe with the game is the camera. You can't look up or down while moving....you can look left and right...but up and down zooms in and out instead of looking up or down. The fact that left and right will move left and right also means you may accidentally slightly zoom in or out if you're slightly off with pressing left or right. The other super annoying thing is that clicking L3 brings up a sticker menu....because lord knows you need a hot key to access your stickers in a platforming game. I can't tell you how many times, especially during the 'no jump' runs, that I accidentally clicked L3 while trying to quickly change direction and had the sticker menu pop up only to plummet to my death when exiting the menu. It is incredibly stupid to have and I couldn't find any way to shut it off. It's a bummer that the frustrating parts are so frustrating, because I'd like to recommend the game since it plays a bit like Mario 64 and has a lot of fun aspects too it...but I got so pissed off so many times playing this game. That would be fine if it was a good kind of frustrating, but it was due to things like bad camera angles and some weird glitches. I got stuck in several walls and had to exit out of levels and/or die to get out. When the margin for error is so small, those issues can cause a major headache. I'm happy to be done with AHiT and I hope they are all done with DLC going forward. Next up will be TLOU2 I think. I'll be happy to go back to that one 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Briste Posted November 19, 2021 Author Share Posted November 19, 2021 (edited) It's been a good week! They fixed Maneater so I was able to finish up that DLC. I was a little bummed that it didn't keep the original trophy times and just autopopped them when I logged into my save....but I'll take it. The update notes said that a trophy could get stuck in the queue and block the others from popping when they should....based on that explanation, I would have thought they might keep their original earned time, but they all popped the moment I loaded my save. I'm glad I waited since I would have been annoyed if I played that again and they fixed it so soon after. In addition to the Maneater 100% re-achieved, I was able to get the 100% in The Last of Us 2 again. Grounded difficulty is extremely hard in this game. There are just some areas that feel impossibly unfair. The hardest part about this game is that none of the battle areas have a 'safe zone'. You can virtually always be flanked by something and not see it coming. Unlike with Maneater, I was very happy to return to this one. It was nice to play again and I still enjoyed the story. It was nice since I had forgotten a few things, but remembered the overall gist of it and was able to pick up on a ton of little things this time around. I was actually shocked at some of the things I missed the first time around. There's a rather large plot point involving one of the secondary people who join you and I really have no idea how I missed this the first time through. Spoiler I somehow completely missed that Lev was transgender....I remembered him being called an Apostate for shaving his head....but I completely missed that he was born Lily and shaved his head because they wouldn't let him become a warrior and he was to be the wife of an elder. I think the first time around I interpreted that as a cult leader being a pedophile and completely missed the Lily reference. It was another interesting angle to the story and another instance of them creating a storyline for an under represented group in a subtle way. Subtle enough anyway that I completely missed it the first time around.... I went as far as I could in grounded without using the exploit for using the 'power ups' before I caved. It was just too hard in some areas and I didn't want to have the grounded run ruin my experience with the game. Even with the easy button enabled, some areas took several tries. I ended up dying 54 times in the playthrough and I think about 35-40 of them was the boss fight against Spoiler Ellie It was really frustrating how aware that boss is during that battle. I kept getting spotted and it's basically one hit and you're dead for that part. Thankfully that fight was at the start of the chapter and you only lost about 3-5 minutes to retry. I got really frustrated at one point because I had been trying that fight for about an hour and finally beat the fight....only to step on a landmine during the cutscene....I must have got the final hit near one and as the game was transitioning to the cutscene for the end of the fight it tripped and killed me...took me another 30-40 minutes to finally beat it. It truly is a great game though and I would highly recommend it. I think it was a perfect follow up to the first one. Just so much of it makes sense and I really like how they explored the idea that what is 'evil' or the 'bad side' mostly depends on what side you're standing on. For me, the game has a real Breaking Bad vibe to it with regards to the character development and it is something I really enjoyed. You will not feel good about the story, but I think anyone has to admit that it is one that is compelling. I bought Jurassic World Evolution 2 and started playing that with my son. I had heard it was coming out and it was on my radar since I enjoyed the first one quite a bit....but I hadn't planned on buying it on release....well as I had mentioned earlier, I've started playing a Final Fantasy Randomizer a bit and have been watching some of the races on Youtube and my son has watched a bit with me. Well he saw a review thumbnail for the game and got super excited and wanted to watch it. He loved what he saw and I ended up buying it for him as a reward for being a brave guy when he got his first Covid vaccine shot last week. We're having some fun with it and I'll take it slowish to play with him. he's a little bummed that everything isn't unlocked right at the start so I may play a bit by myself to speed that part up for him. This game is going to be much harder than the first I can tell. There is sooooo much more to pay attention to. You need to hire scientists now to do anything, which is expensive. They can get tired/disgruntled if you overwork them and you need to allow them time to rest (which also costs money). You need to pay for gas for the jeeps and helicopters and it just seems like it will be very easy to get overwhelmed in this game. Beating the challenges on Jurassic mode will take some time I think. This will probably be a long time before I finish this one up. Even with those changes though, I have enjoyed the few hours I've played so far. Next up on my DLC quest is Kingdom Hearts 3. I started the other night and so far this DLC is highway robbery at $30. It is literally just the end of the game replayed with some subtext....and then some boss fights (basically the Organization fights from KH2 again) and a challenge mode. How they are able to sleep at night adding so little content and charging so much money for it is beyond me. I had forgotten how bad this story is and was surprised at how bad the voice acting is....Xigbar is almost unbearable to listen to. When I had played all these games back to back to back a couple years ago....the story didn't seem that bad. However, after taking two years away from it and to come back....it is ridiculous. I'm really annoyed that I don't like this game so much because I really, really wanted to like this series...but I don't...it's a bummer but I don't. Next week is my favorite holiday! I always take the day before and after Thanksgiving off. Nothing beats food, football and video games! Edited November 19, 2021 by Briste 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Together_Comic Posted November 19, 2021 Share Posted November 19, 2021 10 hours ago, Briste said: Next up on my DLC quest is Kingdom Hearts 3. I started the other night and so far this DLC is highway robbery at $30. It is literally just the end of the game replayed with some subtext....and then some boss fights (basically the Organization fights from KH2 again) and a challenge mode. How they are able to sleep at night adding so little content and charging so much money for it is beyond me. I had forgotten how bad this story is and was surprised at how bad the voice acting is....Xigbar is almost unbearable to listen to. When I had played all these games back to back to back a couple years ago....the story didn't seem that bad. However, after taking two years away from it and to come back....it is ridiculous. I'm really annoyed that I don't like this game so much because I really, really wanted to like this series...but I don't...it's a bummer but I don't. Yeah this is the type of DLC that probably should have been free or at least very cheap. Though, I had the opposite experience when I came back to it for the DLC and actually enjoyed the game more than I did the first time, but perhaps that's because I was just skipping the cutscenes and focusing on the gameplay and combat aspect of the game which has always been a series strong point. It was definitely a let down after having waited 14 years for this one to drop, and they definitely never managed to recapture the magic of that first game, but I enjoyed it at least. Though all of this may be my nostalgia talking and trying to justify it ? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
realm722 Posted November 19, 2021 Share Posted November 19, 2021 19 hours ago, Briste said: Next up on my DLC quest is Kingdom Hearts 3. I started the other night and so far this DLC is highway robbery at $30. It is literally just the end of the game replayed with some subtext....and then some boss fights (basically the Organization fights from KH2 again) and a challenge mode. How they are able to sleep at night adding so little content and charging so much money for it is beyond me. I had forgotten how bad this story is and was surprised at how bad the voice acting is....Xigbar is almost unbearable to listen to. When I had played all these games back to back to back a couple years ago....the story didn't seem that bad. However, after taking two years away from it and to come back....it is ridiculous. I'm really annoyed that I don't like this game so much because I really, really wanted to like this series...but I don't...it's a bummer but I don't. Lemme know how the DLC goes for you ?. I remember paying $60 for KH3 which is something I NEVER do (it's one of a handful of games since 2019 I've bought on release day), and given the fact that I just wanted to play a Kingdom Hearts game again, it served its purpose (mid-7.0-tier game IMO). I 1000% get how someone who didn't grow up playing the games wouldn't fall for it. You have to have a very strong stomach for the voice acting. I've held off on purchasing it since 1) That exorbitant price and 2) That ultra-rare "Risk-taker" trophy has me queasy. Last thing I would want to do is pay an extortion-tier price for DLC and then be UNABLE to actually get the trophies lmao. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Briste Posted November 20, 2021 Author Share Posted November 20, 2021 14 hours ago, Together_Comic said: Yeah this is the type of DLC that probably should have been free or at least very cheap. Though, I had the opposite experience when I came back to it for the DLC and actually enjoyed the game more than I did the first time, but perhaps that's because I was just skipping the cutscenes and focusing on the gameplay and combat aspect of the game which has always been a series strong point. It was definitely a let down after having waited 14 years for this one to drop, and they definitely never managed to recapture the magic of that first game, but I enjoyed it at least. Though all of this may be my nostalgia talking and trying to justify it I notice you just finished it up yourself so congrats! What difficulty did you play it on for the challenge mode? I played the game through on Standard originally and have been doing the DLC on that mode so far....I'm leaning towards beginner mode just to make it as painless as possible....but I beat all the other games on Critical so I'm sure I could do it here....just not sure I want to. This absolutely should have been a free DLC...or $4.99 at most. It's similar to TLOU2 DLC with the grounded mode and permadeath modes....nothing really new there either, but at least they had the decency to make it free. I'm sure your letdown her felt similar to my letdown with FFXV. That was the series I held sacred growing up and was really disappointed that they released an incomplete product after so long. They should have just released that as the Royal Edition and it would have been far better...I'm not sure why I didn't play this series when I was younger...I have a feeling it was because I thought it was a 'kids' game and just never gave it a chance. Despite not having that nostalgia to hold onto, I did look through rose colored glasses at this series when I played it a couple years ago. I really did want to like this series...I mean I love FF characters and I love Disney and this started as a clever idea....but they M. Night Shyamalan'd it up and just got too convoluted and took a cool idea and made it a mess. I enjoyed the combat in KH2 the most and this game isn't terrible either. I'll probably skip most of the cutscenes as well when I go through the main game again. 4 hours ago, realm722 said: Lemme know how the DLC goes for you . I remember paying $60 for KH3 which is something I NEVER do (it's one of a handful of games since 2019 I've bought on release day), and given the fact that I just wanted to play a Kingdom Hearts game again, it served its purpose (mid-7.0-tier game IMO). I 1000% get how someone who didn't grow up playing the games wouldn't fall for it. You have to have a very strong stomach for the voice acting. I've held off on purchasing it since 1) That exorbitant price and 2) That ultra-rare "Risk-taker" trophy has me queasy. Last thing I would want to do is pay an extortion-tier price for DLC and then be UNABLE to actually get the trophies lmao. Most of the voice acting was ok when I went through it the first time....but Xigbar having a 'bro dude' voice doesn't fit the character (at least in my mind) and Axel has the worst catchphrase in history with 'Got it memorized?' while pointing to his head...There was also a few FFX style laughing scenes that were just painful as well lol I completed the 'story' part of the DLC and that was exceptionally easy. When I say easy....I mean it was easy. It was shocking to me how easy it was lol I took next to no damage and I was beating things in like 5 seconds. The Organization XIII fights are not so easy. They're not that hard either. I've beaten 9 of the 13 so far and I've only been at it a couple of hours. I beat 6 of them in 3 tries or less and 3 of them took me a bit. The 6 that I beat in 3 tries or less you could pretty much brute force through without much strategy. Between Ariel and the Ultima Weapon form change they went down without much strategy. The remaining ones I have left though, I will need to learn the mechanics of the fights a bit since they don't seem to stagger as easy. I wouldn't worry too much about the difficulty to be honest. I'm sure if you could beat the other games on Critical, you'll be able to beat the 'Risk-taker' trophy mode. It's taken me a little bit to get used to the controls again, but I'm sure you'll be fine. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Briste Posted November 21, 2021 Author Share Posted November 21, 2021 Q.U.B.E.: Director's Cut Slowly starting to whittle away at my active games. Q.U.B.E. was a free game that I got some years ago with my PS+ subscription and was nothing that was really on my radar as a game that I needed to play at some point. I had figured it'd fall under the category of games I never play actually. I had downloaded it to my PS3 as a part of the PS3 event that ended at the beginning of the month and it was all of a sudden on my radar. After finishing up the Dragon Age series, I was looking for something a little more casual to break up some bigger games and this game turned out to be the perfect tonic (well mostly). You might be thinking, what the hell is Q.U.B.E.? (maybe not though since most of you guys are way more knowledgeable about games than I am) Q.U.B.E. is a first person puzzle game that was apparently developed by three college students as a part of their class project. You play a dude that is trapped in a cube. You were apparently unconscious and thought to be dead. After regaining consciousness you hear a voice. According to the voice that is coming through your coms, you are in outer space and are humanity's last hope before the Earth is destroyed. You need to solve the riddle(s) of the Cube and destroy it before it collides(?) with the Earth, destroying life as we know it. The person who is speaking to you claims to be in space with you, in orbit, and is drifting in and out of coms range. Since you wake up and appear to have amnesia as to why you are there, the voice tells you about your history as you progress to try and give you a reason to complete the puzzles. There is another voice that appears that is trying to warn you that you are not in space, but are a lab rat being tested. Solving the Cube will end in your death, not the saving of the Earth, and you should stop trying to get through. The story really has little to do with the puzzles since I don't think you really have a choice in the matter. It'd be cool if there were a couple of endings depending upon which person you choose to believe, however there isn't and the story just unfolds as is. As far as the gameplay goes, the puzzles are pretty fun but were not terribly challenging. The movement is pretty stiff and the reticle you have to target the different cubes seems a bit too small. In the main game it's not an issue, but when you are doing the timed puzzles for the hardest trophy, there's not much room for error with the targeting and it got to be pretty frustrating. The puzzles consist of different color cubes and you have to figure out how they need to interact with each other to get to the next room and ultimately to the next sector. There is a new wrinkle added in each sector which made the puzzles more interesting. Each color cube does a different action. The Blue cubes serve as a launcher/catapult, the Red cubes can be extended up to three lengths, the Green cubes can be moved around via the other cubes, the Yellow cubes always come in a pack of three and can either make stairs if you select either end block or something resembling a middle finger if you select the middle block. There are also blocks that will rotate the room or shift the room up or down. They introduce magnets, fans and balls as well that you have to maneuver into certain areas. It really is a pretty fun game when there is no timer and you can take the time to survey the area. You interact with the different cubes with gloves that you are wearing. It kind of seems like magic is how you interact since you just wave your hand and the blocks move. One hand will move them out and the other will move them back. You have a small reticle to target as I mentioned above to select which block you want to activate and it's all pretty intuitive. The trophy list is pretty straightforward. Nothing is missable since there is a chapter select at the end, but you'll probably need a guide to find the hidden areas. I doubt you'd need one to solve the puzzles though. The main game could probably be beaten in just a few hours as it is a relatively short game, however having been a school project and a free game, I won't complain about the length of it. The only challenging trophy is the first trophy on the list Whatever Floats Your Boat, which is part of a racing/challenge section of the game. The trophy itself isn't that bad, but it is blocked behind 20 medals you need to earn to unlock the level needed. There are 10 levels and the one you need to beat is level 9 and you need to earn 20 medals in the prior 8 levels in order to unlock that level. You can earn up to 3 medals per level depending on whether you get Gold, Silver or Bronze (Gold is 3, etc). The levels are relatively short, only about a minute to a minute and a half each, however there is not much room for error in order to get the gold. Thankfully you do not need the gold in each level to get 20, but you do need quite a few golds. I tried to do the levels blind the first time through them, however you need to get powerups throughout the levels in order to finish fast enough to get a medal so you'll probably need to watch a video to see where some are hidden. The biggest challenge in this area is two fold. First, the movement is kind of choppy since the camera is a bit stiff so it can be hard to aim on the move. Hand in hand with that is the small reticle you have for aiming. As I mentioned above, it's not a big deal with no time limit, but when you only have 52 seconds to beat a level and you have to try and hit a small block or powerup while moving, it can be frustrating. Even with those issues, I would have beaten that mode in just a couple hours, however I hit some weird glitch. It wasn't saving my times or the medals that I was earning. It saved all of my medals properly the first time I played a couple of days ago, but when I went back to finish tonight, I got a few gold medals and had earned 20 so that I could attempt the trophied level, however it wasn't showing as available from the race screen. I backed out to see why and saw that none of the times/medals I had earned tonight registered and I was still sitting at 11 when I had earned 20. I reset the game and tried again and again the medals didn't save (I checked after beating the first new level this time). Thankfully, this was a known issue and there was a thread on the forum here that had the solution of disconnecting from PSN and resetting the game and trying. Doing that ended up working and after about 45 minutes, I was back to where I was when the glitch happened. It was pretty frustrating since I did not enjoy this mode of the game as much as the story mode....but the levels were short enough and it was just a matter of getting lucky with my aim on some of the power up items. If you have the game in your backlog, it was fun enough for me to recommend. If you do not already have the game, I can't say it's worth much more than $5. It was a fun puzzle game and with the pink in the thumbnail it counts towards the Cancer event and since it starts with a Q it also gives me my first Q game for a 100% ABC list. With this PS3 game done, I really only have about 8-10 PS3 games left in my backlog to play. I would like to finish them all in the next year and then I may officially be able to retire that console. I'll keep it of course, as I have with all the consoles I've owned, but it will take its place on my retirement shelf with the other consoles that have been put out to pasture....you never know when you may want another ride! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Together_Comic Posted November 22, 2021 Share Posted November 22, 2021 On 11/19/2021 at 10:17 PM, Briste said: notice you just finished it up yourself so congrats! What difficulty did you play it on for the challenge mode? I played the game through on Standard originally and have been doing the DLC on that mode so far....I'm leaning towards beginner mode just to make it as painless as possible....but I beat all the other games on Critical so I'm sure I could do it here....just not sure I want to. This absolutely should have been a free DLC...or $4.99 at most. It's similar to TLOU2 DLC with the grounded mode and permadeath modes....nothing really new there either, but at least they had the decency to make it free. I'm sure your letdown her felt similar to my letdown with FFXV. That was the series I held sacred growing up and was really disappointed that they released an incomplete product after so long. They should have just released that as the Royal Edition and it would have been far better...I'm not sure why I didn't play this series when I was younger...I have a feeling it was because I thought it was a 'kids' game and just never gave it a chance. Despite not having that nostalgia to hold onto, I did look through rose colored glasses at this series when I played it a couple years ago. I really did want to like this series...I mean I love FF characters and I love Disney and this started as a clever idea....but they M. Night Shyamalan'd it up and just got too convoluted and took a cool idea and made it a mess. I enjoyed the combat in KH2 the most and this game isn't terrible either. I'll probably skip most of the cutscenes as well when I go through the main game again. I played the challenge mode on beginner. I played the main game on critical, but like you I wanted to try to get through the challenge mode as painlessly as possible. Looking back, Risk Taker would have taken so much longer on critical so I'm glad that I played it on beginner. I played 15 after basically all of the content was released for it since I didn't really get a playstation 3 or 4 at all till 2018ish, where I got both lol. Was it most of the post game content that was added with royal edition? a la that really cool dungeon that you have to land the flying car in the middle of nowhere to get to, and the Omega fight? On the whole, I thought it was fine, even pushing towards the good side. However, I had the advantage of low expectations since I was so late to the party, but if you grew up in the hype of playing 6,7,9, and 10, and to a lesser extent 8 and 12, I can see how it might be a pretty big let down. Especially if it was missing content. On 11/19/2021 at 10:17 PM, Briste said: Axel has the worst catchphrase in history with 'Got it memorized?' while pointing to his head...There was also a few FFX style laughing scenes that were just painful as well lol I seem to recall that getting some explanation in birth by sleep, where... Spoiler His greatest fear is being forgotten, and that becomes his whole motivation for being a nobody to begin with. Though it was never well explored and just sort of glossed over. lol. but maybe I'm over justifying. On 11/21/2021 at 0:44 AM, Briste said: Q.U.B.E.: Director's Cut I remember picking up this game because it represented a Q game and I don't have any Q games on my list. ?. Congratulations on the 100%. On 11/21/2021 at 0:44 AM, Briste said: Slowly starting to whittle away at my active games So can we expect the meatboy grind to return soon? I know you can finish it! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Briste Posted November 23, 2021 Author Share Posted November 23, 2021 On 11/22/2021 at 9:41 AM, Together_Comic said: I seem to recall that getting some explanation in birth by sleep, where... For some reason I can't open that spoiler...it keeps jumping me to the top of the screen. Did it on my phone and desktop. I think I vaguely remember what you're referring to though, but it is still a pretty brutal catch phrase. On 11/22/2021 at 9:41 AM, Together_Comic said: So can we expect the meatboy grind to return soon? I know you can finish it! I have made a solemn oath that can't be broken to @Arcesius that I will finish SMB for my 200th milestone. So I either complete that game for 200 or forever had 199 plats and a bunch of games that are 2 trophy's away That will be very hard for me to do since I just lose interest so fast in that game, however the challenge has been issued and accepted, so I will get back to it in the relatively near future. On 11/22/2021 at 9:41 AM, Together_Comic said: I played 15 after basically all of the content was released for it since I didn't really get a playstation 3 or 4 at all till 2018ish, where I got both lol. Was it most of the post game content that was added with royal edition? a la that really cool dungeon that you have to land the flying car in the middle of nowhere to get to, and the Omega fight? On the whole, I thought it was fine, even pushing towards the good side. However, I had the advantage of low expectations since I was so late to the party, but if you grew up in the hype of playing 6,7,9, and 10, and to a lesser extent 8 and 12, I can see how it might be a pretty big let down. Especially if it was missing content. I had pre-ordered it like 5 years before it came out. I don't exactly remember all of the things that were missing...but the DLC content for each character should have been included. There were major gaps in the story that were kind of answered with the DLCs....but yes that one fun dungeon was not include or the Omega fight. The big fight on release was with Adamantoise, which was just a ridiculously long fight that wasn't terribly challenging. My favorite part of the game was driving around and listening to the sound tracks from the other games. They should have just released the Royal Edition, with all of the dungeons and DLC included. I don't mind paying for DLC when it is an addition to the game or something extra....but these DLC's felt like they omitted part of the story so they could later sell it to you. It felt like buying a house where they didn't include the bathroom but let you buy it piece at a time over the following year and then decided to sell the house with everything included. I didn't hate the game, but the way it was put out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arcesius Posted November 24, 2021 Share Posted November 24, 2021 21 hours ago, Briste said: I have made a solemn oath that can't be broken to @Arcesius that I will finish SMB for my 200th milestone. So I either complete that game for 200 or forever had 199 plats and a bunch of games that are 2 trophy's away That will be very hard for me to do since I just lose interest so fast in that game, however the challenge has been issued and accepted, so I will get back to it in the relatively near future. Haha yeah you better get it done! Me saying this probably isn't the best strategy for motivation, but honestly only go through with it if you enjoy the grind. If you notice that you start feeling miserable, screw the milestone! ? I'd still love to see you finishing the game, given that it's the first game on your list to not be at 100%, but don't stress yourself out over it. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Briste Posted November 28, 2021 Author Share Posted November 28, 2021 On 11/24/2021 at 8:37 AM, Arcesius said: Me saying this probably isn't the best strategy for motivation, but honestly only go through with it if you enjoy the grind. If you notice that you start feeling miserable, screw the milestone! I'd still love to see you finishing the game, given that it's the first game on your list to not be at 100%, but don't stress yourself out over it. I'll enjoy the feeling once I've accomplished it I can deal with the grind because I know it will be a challenge ahead of time so nothing will be surprising there. I just have learned that I don't love platforming games all that much. They are fine when it is a piece of the game, but pure platformers get a bit boring for me. I'm not sure how many more of those I'll do, but who knows....I may get the itch for something else at some point. Speaking of completing a satisfying challenge, I just beat Yozora in the KH DLC. Man was he a pain in the ass....the first couple of times I fought him, I died in seconds and was legitimately wondering how I would ever be able to beat him. I probably spend a good 4 hours practicing that fight before I beat him this afternoon and all I can say is that Ariel was the MVP of that fight. I have no idea how anyone can beat him without Ariel. The hardest part is he is slow mixed with super fast. It's so hard to be patient for him to start his attack, but once he starts his attack, it is quick and punishing with just enough pauses to mess up your timing. While it is extremely hard and fast paced....I do agree that it is a pretty fair fight. The mechanics seem to work as intended and there are opportunities to take a breather to collect your bearings....the hardest part is he has so many different move sets to remember. I ended up needing 4 elixirs and a lot of Ariel, but I was able to get through it. After beating him, the story continues and I'll I have to say now is what!?!!? I won't go any further than that, but KH went into the multiverse with this DLC. I have no idea what direction they plan to take this story. It has been a mess to follow and it's starting to reach the level of Inception in some regards. I'll work towards the last two trophies now, but I feel pretty confident I can do the rest. I feel like beating Yozora means you should be able to do the rest...we'll see I guess! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Briste Posted December 9, 2021 Author Popular Post Share Posted December 9, 2021 Overcooked I believe this was a 'free' game that I got with my PS+ subscription and I had heard it was a couch co-op game so it wasn't something I thought I'd be able to play since I don't have anyone who lives around me that plays games. My sons will when they're older, but outside of LEGO games, they aren't ready for most co-op games. So while it wasn't on my radar, I've heard nothing but good things about it and it was something that I wanted to play. I have been on an epic trophy streak (for me) at over a year with at least one trophy per day, and I was running into a situation where I wasn't going to be able to pop a trophy one day. I checked my backlog for something that would be short, fun and with an early trophy to start and this looked like a good option. I got that first trophy and then put this on the back burner while finishing up my other stuff. When I went back to it to pop my next trophy to keep the streak alive, I found out that this game is a lot of fun. It's extremely basic...you take some tomato's (and other ingredients over time), slice them up, throw them in a pot, heat it up and dump it in a bowl. Wash the dish and repeat. As you progress, you get more recipes such as burgers, pizza, burrito's and fish n' chips. So while the game itself is basic in the sense you are just cooking stuff....the wrinkle comes with the levels being not so straight forward. Maybe the level is on a pirate ship and the prep stations are moving around due to the rocking of the boat, or maybe you are working on a sheet of ice and slip-sliding all over the place. The levels are pretty interesting and are what make the game challenging. Actually, what makes the game challenging is having to three star each of the levels. For each order you complete, you get $20. If you complete the order quickly, you can get a tip up to $6 (I think that is the highest) and if you are too slow, you'll miss an order and lose -$10 (missed time is pretty generous). The stars are given based on the amount of money you earn for putting out orders. Most levels have about 4-6 minutes of time for you to reach the threshold for the three star rating. I found the requirements for three stars in the levels to be extremely reasonable. The biggest reason that I found it reasonable is because I was able to beat all of the levels (up to 6-1 anyways) without using the speed boost. Since I got my first trophy so quickly and then had a large gap until my second trophy, I had forgotten that the speed boost was a thing. I was able to three star every level up until the last four levels without it, so the three star requirements are definitely fair. The only reason I found out about the speed boost is because I was stuck on 6-1 for quite a while. I was about $90 from a three star rating (which is quite a bit) and I couldn't figure out how to get faster. Turns out I also didn't know that you could go around certain obstacles and was cutting myself off from a lot of the board. I watched a video to see what I was missing and saw the person using the speed boost....I found myself thinking how that would have been very useful the whole game....but even without it....none of the levels took me that long to do. With the use of the speed boost though, I was able to finish up pretty easily. I had read that this game was very hard to do solo. I didn't really think it was that hard. Each level is about finding a rhythm with the gimmick that is being thrown at you. Once you get the rhythm down....it's not so bad. I can definitely see how this game would be super fun with a partner and I agree that it is the best way to experience the game if you can....having said that though, the game is still a lot of fun solo. From a 'pure fun' standpoint, this game is probably the most fun game I've played all year. If you haven't played it before, it is definitely worth putting on your radar. I will now be playing Overcooked 2 and All You Can Eat at some point. With regards to my other games, I have made decent progress with KH3's DLC. I am currently in the Pirate's of the Caribbean and I think San Fransokyo is the last regular world left after that. I've been able to beat the bosses with all of the Pro-Codes on except for Skoll and Lump of Horror. For those two fights I had to turn on the Shotlock to finish. With those two fights, I'm only 1k behind the max score you can have at this point. As much as I've bitched about this game so far....it's actually been kind of fun with the codes on. I've had to do more than just mash to beat the bosses. I would have much preferred if the whole thing was just a boss rush instead of having to replay the whole game. You only get points for the boss fights and the codes only need to be turned on during those fights....so there is really no point to playing the story again other than to lengthen the play time of the DLC. I'll have to replay the DLC to get to the Organization fights, but once I'm there I should be home free. I'll be able to turn on some more of the codes then and I'll be able to retry some battles as well since it'll take your best score. I also started Rayman Legends on the vita. I enjoyed the PS4 version and I saw that there was a glitched weekly challenge for the diamond trophy. I figured if I planned on playing this game ever, now was the time to start. I'll have fun with this one again...and I'll be spending a lot of time on my Vita because.....I learned the hard way that I'm not 25 anymore Every year around Thanksgiving, me and a handful of guys I grew up with meet up to play a pick up game of football in my home town. We skipped it last year due to Covid and this year we decided to play this past Sunday as opposed to the Friday after Thanksgiving. The game was going good for the first hour or so and after our second halftime (remember, we're all around 40 so need lots of breaks lol), I ran out for route as a Wide Receiver and heard/felt a pop and felt like someone kicked me in my ankle area and I hit the deck. I initially thought that the guy covering me just tripped me, but when I got up to yell at the guy for being a dick, I saw that no one was around me. I went to get up to go back to the huddle and just collapsed from immense pain in my ankle area. I politely told the guys I was done for the day and hobbled over to my car. At the time, I just thought I pulled something so the plan was to just walk it off' My wife wanted me to go to the ER, but I wasn't in a ton of pain (unless I tried to walk) and I told her it wasn't an emergency. I said if it felt worse on Monday I would go to the clinic. Well it felt worse on Monday and I went to the clinic. The clinic basically told me I was a jackass for waiting a day and that I needed to go to the ER. I went to the ER and they told me I had ruptured my Achilles and told me I had to go to an Orthopedic specialist to determine if I'd need surgery. Yesterday I made that trip and the doctor told me it was fully ruptured and that I could elect to not have the surgery, but it may not heal properly, in which case I wouldn't be able to run or jump or stand on my tippy toes again since my Achilles would be f*cked. I'm too young to risk not being able to do those things, so I have elected to have the surgery done. I will be having my Achilles repaired next Friday and will be laid up in my chair for at least the first two weeks and potentially longer. To keep from dying from boredom, I'll probably be playing my Vita quite a bit. What's that you say? Oh, right.....this might be a good time to work on SMB again.....well, you're probably right....I might take this 'opportunity' to hone up on my SMB skills and see if I can't get that plat. I was going to save it for plat 200, but I'll be pretty bored for the foreseeable future, so might as well take these lemons and make some lemonade. The person I feel the worst for is my wife...she did not need to add a third boy to take care of to her plate. I've tried already to continue to help out around the house, but I'm not very graceful moving around yet. The good news is it was my left foot, so I can still drive....but that's about the extent of how I can help for now. Anyways guys....pro tip....stretch before playing lol might've made the difference here. 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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