Kill Your Completion X

[Psy-Tychist]

Tacoma

 

Playtime: 4 hours.

Played: Completed Main Game.

Trophies: 7/13 - 59%

Completion: 60.86% - ➡️ 0.00%

Feeling: Hopeful and Calm.

 

As the picture implies, Tacoma was created by Fullbright, the company which made Gone Home. I played Gone Home with no real inclination as to what it would be about and was my second 'Walking Simulator' game I played after Dear Esther. I enjoyed the strange loneliness of Gone Home, of a girl getting home to an empty home late at night, her parents away and her kid sister missing. It doesn't deserve the genre of horror to be attached to it, but it is certainly creepy in part but uplifting as well.

 

Tacoma follows a similar vein as Gone Home but on a much more extreme setting and a much more involved story. You play Amy Ferrier, a subcontractor brought onto Tacoma Luna Station to collect the AI data relating to the incident involving the six crew members and return to the Venturis Corporation with the AI core in tow for analysis. As with Gone Home, you are entirely alone on the station and the only interactions you have are with replaying the recordings made by the AI on the station, ODIN. As you amass more recordings, you will learn about the characters, the situation they had forced upon them and the eventual outcome of the crew members.

 

The game is the same as many First Person games, you can't see your feet (unless in a transition or cutscene), you have one walk speed and nearly everything you pick up has no means of progressing the story. The one thing that this game does very well is the level of human background each character and the station as a whole has. You can learn about the crew members hopes, failings, mannerisms, relationships, history and hobbies. An example being that the Network Engineer Natali is a complete mess when it comes to living in clean quarters, listens to rock music to relax, hates exercising and is married to the other engineer on the station 'Bert. These are all small details which you find around the ship and in the personal logs that pop up during the AR scenes. It all feels very human and real, even though you never interact with any physical crew members at all.

 

Many people playing this will probably say it is too short, which quite true. If you just played all the story elements and finished the game, it would be over in about 2 hours. The same applies to the trophies in the game. Only 2 are related to the story and finishing the main structured story, but the miscellaneous trophies are for doing small, nonessential tasks around the ship. Like putting the medical skeleton back together or shooting a basket in zero-G basketball. My favourite was trying to spell Happy Obsolescence, considering it was highly ironic.

 

Overall, I enjoyed my time with Tacoma, the story was just the right length to enjoy and not be a chore to understand. The crew members all felt human and not an exaggeration or example of perfection. It was a nice little slice of life to dip into outside of the deep brooding stories, the intense battle sequences and the kooky comedic characters. Will definitely clean up the trophies on this before the end of the event.

 

If you like this, try these: Dear Esther, Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, Master Reboot, Gone Home, The WItness.

 

Next Game: WRC World Rally Championship 5.

[RuneEyesDragon]

Started playing my next game, Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep Final Mix. I am doing a few hours of each character's story. Sadly, Miitopia made it hard for me to keep focused on the game. However, since you only earn one trophy until you complete story events later in the game, I'll just put my update tomorrow when I am ready to move on. 

[SixyLove]

Update 008

Gravity Rush Remastered

Playtime: 16 hours

Trophies Earned: 64/64 100%

 

I have finished the game and done almost everything. Not much happened in my last 4 hours of play besides plot stuff. I'll write my review later and post it later today.

 

I'll start Touhou Genso Wanderer Reloaded on the 11th. I'll be playing Superdimension Neptune VS Sega Hard Girls and Minecraft until then.

[SixyLove]

Review

Gravity Rush Remastered

Playtime: 16 hours

 & 100%

 

Why this game?

I liked the design of the box art (shown above) so much that the image has stuck in my mind for over 5 years. Despite my love of the box art, I didn't purchase the game until it was on sale around the beginning of the year because I kept forgetting about it. I played the demo after I purchased my Vita; I remember thinking the game was okay but having a problem with the controls. I downloaded and played the demo again while writing this review because I wanted to understand what put me off from buying the Vita version but I was unable to figure it out. I did get around to this title until now because my focus has been on my PS3 games; I was feeling a little burnt out with PS3 before starting this event so I shifted my focus to PS4 and Vita.

 

Gameplay

Gravity Rush is a game that allows you to change the laws of gravity on a whim. Pressing  allows you turn of you own personal gravity, allowing you to float. From this state you can change gravity to pull you toward the point you're looking at with  or . You can hold  to fall faster. You are allowed to change gravity as many times as you want with no cool-down but you need to return to your floating state with  in between shifts. You can press  at anytime to return gravity to normal. Your only limitation is your gravity meter. The meter will constantly deplete while you are using any gravity power and runs out, gravity will return to normal. The meter will recharge to full if you don't use any gravity power for a few seconds. At the meter can be upgraded to last longer and recharge faster. The meter is only a concern at the start of game because the upgrades allow you to fly (it's more like falling with style) for minutes on a single charge. There is no fall damage in this game. You can preform a gravity slide by holding + while standing on any surface. The slide is the fastest method of "ground" movement and is one of favorite abilities to use. If you slide into an enemy, you will preform a unique kick attack that's stronger than regular kicks but sometimes doesn't activate.

 

This game has enemies in it. Since this you can't talk your way out of fights, you have some solve problems with violence. When standing on any surface you can press  a lot to do a combo of kicks to slowly kill your enemies. You can also jump and preform a kick during that jump. I didn't use this move very much. While you're shifting gravity, you can preform a flying kick with . The move will allow to travel fast, locks onto enemies also long a your aim was somewhat close and will take out a enemy weak point in 1-2 hits. You are required to learn and master the move if you want to win the game because a lot of enemies require you to use this move to defeat them. You can also press  to lift objects in a small radius around you and carry with you to throw at your enemies. I never used this move in combat because it's hard to set up and if you get hit, all the objects you were lifting break. You are required to use the move to carry NPCs and objects during certain missions.  allows you to use a special attack when pressed. All special attacks are very powerful and give you invincibility while being preformed. You're only allowed to preform a special once every minute or two but you can defeat entire groups of enemies if you use the moves properly. You can also dodge attacks in the air or on the ground by press  while holding a direction on the analog stick. You can cancel any action with a dodge and I think you are invincible during a dodge. You are also allowed to dodge multiple times in a row.  

 

The enemies in this game are called Nevi. They're blackish red goo monsters with red orange orb/s sticking out from their goop. The orb is their weak point and only attacks that hit that point deal damage. Some enemy types have multiple orbs on their body. A Nevi is defeated when every orb on their body is broken. Sometime Nevi have rock armour over their weak spots; just keep kicking it and it will break off.

 

The combat in this game is generally very easy. Most Nevi types are not very aggressive and can be eliminated in 1-2 flying kicks. The combat does get harder towards the end of the game but I think I only died once in normal. The game will scatter a fair amount of heath restoring green gems in any area where the combat could be tough. The only Nevi that were challenging were the special green Nevi. There are only 3 in the game but died 10+ time to each of them. Aside from those fights, my only game overs were the results of me failing the objective. I usually didn't have to dodge many attacks but there where a few that 

 

Through out the game, you will collect purple gems of values of 1, 10 and 25. You can find them scattered everywhere in the environment, earn them from completing challenges and are rarely dropped by Nevi. The gems are used to unlock new challenges and buy upgrades. Challenges are little mini-games around the environment with a bronze, silver, and gold score. The challenges range from races to more combat. I really enjoyed to races. The challenges don't require getting max upgrades to earn a gold rank and the cost of unlocking one is very small. You need to unlock upgrades by completing missions and unlocking challenges before you're allowed to buy them.

 

I loved the gameplay. The combat is very simple but take a lot of precision and strategy to be good at. The platforming is were the game really shines. It's a unique game because there is no other game that I can think of that allows you manipulate gravity on a whim. The only game that I played that's remotely similar was VVVVVV. The simple act of moving around can be very fun. I found myself collecting random gems even when I didn't need them and messing around with the movement mechanics. The only a couple small nitpicks with the gameplay. It can be very hard to land on small platforms because Kat's landing animation has here go forward just enough that she falls and I did get stuck inside a massive building that one time. The game also has motion controls that you can't turn off, they're very easy to ignore though.

 

Story

The game has a story. There is this floating town that's 4 smaller towns connected by railways that sit around a giant pillar.You see what's bellow the town (I never learned the towns name) and it's not very nice. Whatever is above is probably sequel territory. The town itself is a alright place to live after you resolve the gravity storms, reattach all the missing bits, resolve all the random Nevi attacks and question why they built the school next the red light district.

 

Kat: A girl with amnesia who happens to be best friends with a cat with gravity manipulation powers. Being 1 of 2 people with the ability to actually solve the towns problems. Kat is also where some strange costumes on occasion. She also can fall from any height without taking any damage.

Dusty: The cat with gravity powers that allows Kat to exploit him/her powers for whatever Kat desires. Dusty also follows Kat everywhere.

Raven: The other girl who exploits an animals gravity powers. She hates Kat and beats her up sometimes. 

 

There also other characters and they're all great and lovely people. There was definitely no old man flashed girls in this game. In also honestly, the characters were all pretty good. I just don't feel like writing about all them. I really enjoyed the story even though it was really simple and predictable most of the time. I appreciated it when the game doesn't make me do a bunch of long drawn out missions because the villain actually succeeded a little.

Spoiler

I really enjoyed killing the main villain of the first half in the game during the first fight you have with them via trash compacter. It reminded of the ending of the Ninja Turtles movie I watched when I was little.

 

My favorite mission was the where a girl dropped a letter from her dead boyfriend and asks you to go find it. The mission doesn't go well and a lot of plot stuff happens that results with you being gone for a year. On your way back the ghost of her dead boyfriend and leads you to the missing letter and asks you to return it. After that part of game is over, if you go return the letter to the girl, she doesn't want the letter anymore because she found a new boyfriend. It's nice to see a story not have a happy ending sometimes.

 

Visuals & Sound

The game looks very good. The Vita demo I played also looked very good. The PS4 version didn't look much better than the Vita version. A few areas contained too much brown in my opinion. Most areas in the game look different enough from each other that I was able to tell where I was. I remember not liking the character models at first but I now I like them.

 

I don't like how the everyone in the game speaks some strange langue. There is rarely any voice acting so it didn't bother me to much but it was jarring every time I heard it. The majority is of the story is told through comic book style cut scenes or visual novel like text boxes. It's probably like this because it was originally a Vita game and I don't mind these type of cut scenes because they're very pretty to look at.

 

The game's soundtrack was enjoyable. I really liked the music of the school/red light district area. I probably wont be listening to the soundtrack in my own time but everything I heard was enjoyable.

 

Trophy Thoughts

The trophy list is a good one. There are no missable trophies and two collectible trophies. The collectible trophies don't require collecting very many and they're very easy to spot from a distance. I did use a guide for one of the sets because I was missing 3 and I don't this wandering around aimlessly for a few hours is very fun. I did come across the majority of the collectibles naturally or by searching with very little effort. The only platinum killer is getting gold on every challenge but I usually got gold on my 1st or 2nd try and my upgrades where not maxed out.

 

The PS4 version comes with all the DLC. None of the DLC trophies where too difficult but I felt getting gold on the challenges was a little harder on the DLC ones. I like how the DLC trophy images come together to form a giant photo once you unlock them all. It doesn't look very good on PS4 or PSNP but on Vita it looks good. I've only seen this done one other time with Touhou Double Focus.

 

Final Thoughts

Gravity Rush is a very good game.

 

I own the sequel and will probably being playing for Kill Your Completion XI. 

[Hemiak]

On 7/3/2019 at 8:23 PM, dmland12 said:

 

Ah, thanks for the info.  I'll give it a try anyway.  It won't be the first game with glitched trophies on my profile.

 

Looks like some have managed to pop the trophies (although it's been a while), so maybe I'll figure something out.  Probably not, but we'll see. 

If you do please let me know. I left the very first God mode level undone, then got the other 179 blue stars so I could pop it anytime I wanted. I earned that star probably a dozen times. Earned it, then finished the entire first world with stars. Earned it, then went and redid the final level... Nothing. 

 

I have over 14,000 deaths and neither the 5k or 10k have popped. One thing to note with that is the deaths don't save until you finish the level. There's a level in one or the worlds called LOL. It starts you like half an inch above the bottom of the screen and you can farm deaths super quick afk. Just make sure to finish the level when you're done. 

 

Good luck man. 

[RuneEyesDragon]

I finished my second day of Game #3. I plan on waiting until the stroke of midnight(ironic as Cinderella is part of Kingdom Hearts) and just getting the last session done so I can write up my review and final thoughts on that game. I won't touch my PS4 until then so I can give a more accurate rep of my completion as I plan on getting a couple of platinums this week so the % might be a bit janky for Game #4.

[dmland12]

9 hours ago, Hemiak said:

If you do please let me know. I left the very first God mode level undone, then got the other 179 blue stars so I could pop it anytime I wanted. I earned that star probably a dozen times. Earned it, then finished the entire first world with stars. Earned it, then went and redid the final level... Nothing. 

 

I have over 14,000 deaths and neither the 5k or 10k have popped. One thing to note with that is the deaths don't save until you finish the level. There's a level in one or the worlds called LOL. It starts you like half an inch above the bottom of the screen and you can farm deaths super quick afk. Just make sure to finish the level when you're done. 

 

Good luck man. 

 

That sounds bad for sure.  Too late for me to turn back now, I've just started the game tonight. 

 

I saw your post in the forum about exiting to the map and have been doing that after every lvl.  Both to avoid the issue you described and also in case the game's not recording things correctly if it's saving multiple levels with multiple death counts at once.  If I do any farming, I'll also do it in small batches too.  There's a trophy for dying 100 times in a level, so that's probably safe, but I'm not sure I trust the game to be able to keep track of any more than that at once.

 

I'm also trying to avoid pausing and restarting the lvl when going for the yellow star time trials, in case that's leading to some kind of counting issue.  Instead, I just kill myself.  Sometimes, I'm still moving or jumping after and the timer restarts before I'm ready, so I kill myself again to reset it.  I'm already at 800 deaths, so I don't think it will be an issue getting enough.  As long as the game can recognize it.

 

I also plan to pay attention when I get close to 5000 and wait at the end of lvl screen.  I've seen some games that pop trophies late and if that's the case here, I don't want to miss the window in case the game has issues with that.

 

The game has never had any updates and is still version 1.00, so there must be some way to pop these.

[Caju_94]

I have been quite busy and it is a little hard to start some new games and do the reviews, but here goes the first one!

 

Game #1 - Flatout 4: Total Insanity

Platform: PS4

Playtime: 3~4 hours

 

Having played Flatout 2 and finished it multiple times when I played PS2, I had some nice expectations for this game... But I guess I got a bit dissapointed with this.

 

I really enjoy racing games, and what makes Flatout unique is the derby factor where your car can get crashed for good in the middle of a race as well as battling in derby arenas. Flatout 2 nailed it, and this game really gives you the same vibes from the previous games, with its menu graphic, soundtrack, cars, tracks and arena, however, it fails to give something better than the 2nd game. (Note: There is a 3rd game, but it is considered so horrible that it was completely ignored).

 

You have two "campaign modes" in this game. The first one being the Career Mode, similar to the previous title, where you have different cars classes, buy cars and upgrade them, and win money as you complete the cups and the challenges. The other one being Flatout Mode where you complete different kind of challenges like Time Trials, Stunts and Derbies with the preset cars the game gives you, and some of them can be quite challenging.

 

So far, so good, but as I started driving the dissapointement comes out. The cars feel lighter and every crash or single ram with another car makes my vehicle spin a little bit randomly, and the racing feels a little bit unstable sometimes. The AI is pretty unstable as well. Some races sometimes get really, really hard and at the beginning they start to be super aggresive to you. Other times, they are just lazy bums that let you pass and you stay in the podium for the rest of the race. Overall, the difficulty seems unstable and not on my favor, I've been having some difficulties on getting to the 1st place, even though I still manage to get on the top 3 always.

 

Some small details made the previous game FlatOut 2 very charming, like the character sprites. As soon as I notice, that the male characters and female characters are based on the same sprite (one for each gender) and only their colour pallete plus small acessories changes, that's a sign of lazyness to me. Even my main character is identical to one of the AI! 

 

I really like the tracks but there does not seem to be much of them in-game. Still, they are quite nostalgic as they are similar to the previous games in terms of design.

 

Overall, I do not hate the game, but I do not love it either. It's an OK racing game, that feels a little bit nostalgic for having played the previous games, but still fails to deliver what it should and had so much more potential. The platinum is going to be repetitive and boring probably.

 

 

 

Edited July 9, 2019 by Caju_94

[voodoo_eyes]

Game #3 - Zombi - Final Impressions

 

 

Time played: ~10h

Trophies earned: 17/21

 

 

This one was hit-and-miss for me. I've beaten the game on standard mode (normal). And what started as something enjoyable, turned into something that seemed to be annozing just for the sake of it.

 

It's set in London, you are survivor 1 and each time you die, you become the next survivor in the queue. There are about 8 different locations or so in-between which you keep travelling to complete objectives. These are given to you by some guy on the intercom, who has a tendency to start pouting,if things don't go his way. There's even one time towards the end, where he bcomes pissed and goes on about not helping you anymore. Then 5 minutes later he starts talking with you again.

To defend yourself on your travels, you can find a fairly large amount of weapons. I'm not sure why there are 3 diffferent shotguns or submachine guns though. It seems like onems like one of each would be enough. I mean there's pistols, shotguns, submachine guns, rifles, machine guns and a cross bow. By the end of the game I didn't even have space to put all the waepons anymore, having to leave some behind. THe most valuable weapon of all, is the cricket bat though. It's the weapon I ended up using for about 80& of the game. There are also flares, grenades, mines and molotovs, for the fairly rare occasion where a lot of enemies gather up.

 

The inventoy system has it's quirks. There's limited space, and even when finding the bag expansions, it's still too little. Horror game, I get it, still sucks considering the amount of stuff you come across. I've also noticed that items don't stack properly. While every item occupies a single slot, ammo stacks up to a certain amount.  What has happened several times is I would use a weapon, it uses ammo from one slot, then it uses it from another slot before the previous stack was finished. leaving me with two occupied slots, instead of freeing one up. Since you can't manually combine things, dropping the item and picking it up again is the only solution. THe worst is the quick menu system.

You cycle betweeen weapons by pressing up or down on the directionals and takes forever, because it cycles through literally every single offensive item/weapon. You can "quick" slot 4 things. Pressing the left or right directionals, once or twice respectively. Absolutely hated that system. Oepning inventory doesn't pause the game either, sotrying to select an item from it when being attacked is basically guaranteed death.

 

Visually, it's subpar. It feels like a lazy port in that regard and has about the same graphical quality The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct did. It's not terrible, but lacks a lot of polish. There are the odd glitches as well. I've had one enemy sliding in a straight line through an entire building, before he merged with a wall. Arguably one of the best moments of the game.

 

Gameplay-wise, it's a fps that's a bit on the clunky side. Some enemies take so damn long to kill. There are "seizure warning" zombies (that's what I call them) that take several minutes to kill and it just becomes obnoxious. What's also annoying is the constant back-and-forth between areas. While there is fast-travelling in the game, it needs to be found and unlocked in each area. Some areas however won't let you access their fast travel until the final couple of hours of the game. This becomes especially annoying when you die. As your character gets replaced, you have to go get your gear back from the zombie that killed you. That can be quite the journey... there was one time where the game wouldn't let me get my stuff back at all. I was very close to the end, died and something must've broken the game because it would not let me open doors that were open, or hack them. Hacking and lockpicking is also in the game, but it's fairly simple. THe hacking device (which only unlocks towards the end, is mainly used to scout the area and it'll show enemies, and items and mark them.

 

Some story spoilers, which I didn't see coming. So this paragraph is for those whoe either played it or don't care to play it.

Spoiler

As far as surviving goes I was doing quite well, until I hit the arena. I haddied 3 times up to that point  First time was about an hour in, because I didn't expect the enemies to be able to crawl, especially not as a pack and ended up getting cornered. The second time was in the nursery, on the way out I just got bodied, because I tried to leg it instead of just dealing with the horde. Then the arena happened.. What might have been a mixture of tiredness and annoyance as of why this was in the game, turned into like an hour long slog of trying to get through that nonsense. What got me more often than not was either running out of bullets (I didn't find the mines until maybe 30 minutes in) or just being blown up by the blast radius of the guys with the gas canisters. The game lost me there... the whole arena thing didn't make sense and when it was over the people that were responsible for it, were just gone.

 

For the most part the game was between a and a for me. By the time I finished it, it became just a . Doing another 2 playthroughs of it for the plat, is going to be a drag.

[RuneEyesDragon]

So finally belted out my last play session. Yes, it's not even dawn yet but I had to get this out of the way as I have to work on some stuff, especially Dragon Quest Builders since the sequel is coming out in three days.   I actually managed to get a second trophy for doing 50 shotlocks.

 

Anyways... let's get on with it!

 

Game #3:
Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep Final Mix (1.5+2.5 Remix)

(This is not actually a screenshot from the game. I think it came out from an early beta trailer as this scene never happens. I just could not find a decent screenshot of everyone together.)

 

So begins the slog that is Kingdom Hearts. I'm still mad at my disk of Kingdom Hearts 3 that won't read and I have to buy the digital copy to get it with the update installed already so it won't cold-block me after part one, but I still love the universe.

 

New Completion: 87.47% (-2.43%)

# of Trophies that Passed Their Mark of Mastery: 2

# of Unearned Trophies Wandering the Lanes Between: 43

# of Hours Played: Around 8

 

My Game Review:

I decided to do the games in the universe's chronological order. (Actually if I had, I would have done all 350+ quests in Union X as that's the ACTUAL beginning of the timeline. ) But the easiest game to get through Critical Mode with is this game, in my honest opinion, thanks to the ability to merge commands(your special moves) into new ones and fuse them with crystals to give you passive abilities. I already got Leaf Bracer for Aqua and, by my luck on the Command Board "Monopoly" minigame, I got her Cure and Magnet, two very useful abilities if you've ever played Kingdom Hearts II. I still got a Game Over with her because I had been stupid as to fight the Bunnies from Hell(in fact, their name is Hareraiser, which is appropriate as they are evil monsters in Critical Mode against a weak-defensive mage like Aqua as they can gang-bang you without warning and they are FAST ).

 

 I actually enjoyed the grind in this game because there are places you can run back and forth in as the Unversed, this game's version of the Heartless, respawn every time you zone out of an area, so you can farm them for crystals(which you need to get passive abilities from Command Melding), cash and D-Link crystals that let you activate special Dimension Links that give you a whole new move set to work with and you can link with characters from Disney classics like Snow White and Cinderella that give special passive abilities. If you played a Kingdom Hearts game, you know it is going to have Disney properties in it.

 

Despite the fact that is it three stories in one telling the tale of three characters who ended up in tragic fates, this game is great.

 

The Struggle:

So... how did I do? Well, since I knew I had to get through every chapter of the game's story (including the secret parts) in Critical Mode for the difficulty trophy Critical Competitor, I decided to just knock that out first. You void a trophy for getting all of the puzzle stickers if you hop between the three stories(which you must complete 100% for three trophies) but I am planning on wiping my saves and replacing them with Beginner mode saves after I get that trophy so for each day of this game's run, I played a little bit of each of the three stories - Terra on Day 1, Ventus on Day 2 and Aqua on Day 3.

 

Aqua on Critical Mode is BRUTAL. She dies in two hits from the Bruisers and Hareraisers(who don't do as much damage as a powerful Bruiser but they can gang up on you and stun-lock you until you die) but luckily her cartwheel dodge move makes her untouchable so I used that to get to safety and then ground stuff out. Her story was the only story I spent any time on the Command Board as I needed her commands to get leveled up so I could merge them. She is the only one who starts with Thunder, the boys have to earn the Thunder spell, and Magnet-Thunder basically nukes enemies by sucking them into a black hole and then vaporizing them. However, Ventus was the only story where I got him out of his first world and unlocked the next two worlds because his first world, Dwarf Woodlands, is very small and farming doesn't take very long.

 

My Rating for the Game: 5/5

My Rating for the Trophy List: 3.5/5 (because a minigame trophy will be very annoying after I get the Critical mode trophy and start doing the regular runs to get 100% journal completion)

 

Hardest Trophy Left to Obtain: Maestro, because I really hate the ice cream rhythm minigame as I am not good at it.

Easiest Trophy Left to Obtain: One of the story-related trophies, probably Terra's first story-related trophy as you only need to clear out the first ring of worlds to get directed to a new area.

 

I'm going to try to get a platinum trophy for something else today after I take a long sleep and then tomorrow, more Kingdom Hearts stuff.

Edited July 9, 2019 by RuneEyesDragon

[Psy-Tychist]

I have had a small setback as my glasses broke yesterday. Not really a huge issue but I need them to see anything properly over 6 feet ahead of me. 

So no text on the TV, no driving and not very good gaming.

 

I was able to finish another rally on WRC 5 while squinting, but I can't do it properly until I get my glasses back.

In the meantime, I've been doing trophies I'm missing which require no reading or effort.

 

Hopefully will finish my first rally season and have a better review later.

[DamagingRob]

Mr. Shifty- Day 1 2

 

Didn't start this till yesterday, 'cause I was just tired and didn't feel like playing after boosting Uncharted on Sunday. And there really might not be much to add to a final review. I've already played through 16/18 levels, and it's much shorter than I anticipated. :/ Of course, that final trophy could take a very long time.. It will be an absolute nightmare to get through every level without dying, and I'm unsure if I will bother. The last level I played, I died 65 times. 

 

But anywho, the game is still pretty fun, and worth the $1.50 I picked it up for. It reminds me a lot of Hotline Miami. You move through levels and rooms with a top-down perspective. Tons of enemies, which you can kill with doors, throwable objects, weapons like staffs and swords that break after a few uses, and your fists. Though the real unique thing about it is the ability to "shift," and where the name of the game comes from. 

 

Shifting is basically a short teleporting ability. You don't move very far, but it instantly moves you to a different position. And can be used to get past thin walls, as well. If you spam it too much, you'll enter a cooldown period where you're unable to shift. Which could be very bad, if a bunch of enemies are shooting at you. Similar to Hotline Miami, getting hit once spells death.

 

Another power you have is one that temporarily slows down everything. But this one can't be used quite as frequently. A yellow bar fills with each enemy you kill, but rapidly decreases with time. Once it is full, though, it stays that way until you use it. I think it activates when you dodge a shot that's about to hit you. 

 

Enemies come in many different forms. There are numerous ones with guns, with one that will dash away after you hit them. Big guys that try to punch you, or that carry a huge missile launcher. Flamethrower enemies that are not only a pain to avoid, but have a chance to explode after dying. Ninjas with swords. And ones that throw mines that detonate after a short period of time. You can actually pick those up and throw them, if you want. I'm usually too busy trying to dodge every other enemy to think about that, though.  

 

There are also various obstacles that will be thrown at you. Lasers, an energy field that stops your ability to shift, and explosive barrels. The energy fields are the biggest one. These can be stopped by destroying the generator that powers it, and then you can shift again. Barrels can only be destroyed by an enemy, I think. Usually have to be shot. And it can cause a chain reaction of explosions if there are a lot of them. Lasers can sometimes be shut down, and then later activated to instantly kill all the enemies that just happened to appear on your way back.

 

Friendly fire is also a very useful thing. By running around the room, you may find yourself with less enemies to deal with, as they're shot or blown up by their comrades. Another thing you can sometimes do, is punch an enemy out of a window. Resulting in giving you the best trophy:

 

Ah, nothing but good times with this one. It can be pretty frustrating at times, though. So easy to get killed. It also started to lag a lot, and then eventually crashed last night. So, it could have some performance issues. Which would only make the no dying in every level trophy that much more annoying... 

 

Anyways, I'll probably try to finish the last 2 levels over the next... 4 days. Yeah, that is going to be tough.

 

Time played: ~3 hours, according to in-game stats.

Trophy progress: 11/14 for 57% and an A rank. 

[PerryToxteth]

KYCX

Game No. 2

 

 

Trophies Earned: 18/28 (57% D ranking)

Playing Time: 3 hours?

 

Final Thoughts: Didn't bother with a first impression of this game because it's one-dimensional.  You'll figure out what to do in the first five minutes. The game is almost a jigsaw puzzler, except that you need to concentrate on matching shapes rather than colors.  The puzzles are stained glass, so each piece is going to have slightly different colors than its neighbors. 

Here's an example:

 

 

  The above puzzle only has 31 pieces so don't fret, you won't be assembling every little stained glass section.  But as you can see, the puzzles are creative, visually pleasing, and there's a meditative soundtrack (I like to call it "Spa Music").  So this fits well into my Passive Gaming genre.  Want to play something to wind down your day before bed? This is probably a better choice than CoD. 

  This game also set a personal record for fastest trophy earned in history.  After the Main Screen, you click  to begin and bam! the New Visitor bronze trophy pops.  Literally five seconds of gameplay and you are on the board. Want to know something even crazier? Out of 788 PSNP gamers, only 778 people have earned that trophy. Which means there are 10 gamers out there who saw the Title Screen and said "F this" without even playing a second of the game. ???

  The trophies pop pretty fast in this one. The puzzles are averaging around 10 to 15 minutes to solve, with the shortest being 4 minutes and the longest being 30.  You can turn off a starting guide (which I did), which will indicate where a few select pieces might go to get you on your way. Considering it has a plat rate around 90+%, the word must have leaked to the trophy whores that this is a fast  with a guide. But why bother, just relax and enjoy, because it's a well-built game that is 'chillax' experience. As a Gen Xer, I can't believe I used that word! What's next? Me trying a YouTube Challenge? 

  My only knock on this game is that there's not enough content. There's only 25 puzzles, so you can burn through this in just a few nights.  So with the price point it is currently at, I'd wait on it. But definitely snatch it up in a sale.

 

Final Grade: . If it had closer to 50 puzzles, .

 

Next Up: The Invisible Hours

[Together_Comic]

Game 3: N++

 

Starting Statistics 

Platinums 28

Completion Percentage 79.95

Games Played 44

Games Completed 33

Unearned Trophies 382

 

So this game represents one of the reasons that I really like trophy hunting.  If I did not care about the trophies, I would have written this game off an hour or so after starting it and never looked at it again. After playing for a bit longer however and having more time to grow acclimated to the game's controls and feel, there is a lot to like here.  

 

N++ is the third game in the N series following the success of the original N and the sequel N+.  You play a ninja trying to make his way through 5 rooms in 90 seconds in order to complete an episode.  Along the way, you can collect gold coins that extend your timer to get through the level and add to your overall score. The game plays in a vein similar to super meat boy.  If you've played super meat boy I would describe this game as similar, but more floaty.  A fact that I hated when I first started the game.  It felt like I didn't have a lot of control over my character that I couldn't adjust to anything. Sometimes my character would make a hop that would make your loyal dog ashamed of you, and sometimes he would do a hop that embarrassed an Olympic high jumper.  A fact that is especially highlighted by how crisp super meat boy's controls are. But as I got used to the game and figured out the mechanics the jumps started making more sense and I got more consistent (I guess occasionally the answer is "git gud") I started to really enjoy myself.  

 

Like any game where you play as a ninja, the game has a backbreaking difficulty (seriously I can't think of a ninja game where its easy).  Games like this tend to live and die on their level design and this one has a lot of good ones. The initial stages are designed to slowly teach you about the game and how the mechanics work slowly ramping them up in complexity until finally letting you loose on the actual game.  The game has 125 tutorial stages contained in 25 episodes, the solo stage select looks like this 

 

 

Where each of the boxes represent 5 stages.  The stage titles also are really clever, smart, and often contain a hint about what you are supposed to do in a level.  Early on you'll encounter this level

 

 

Which features a lot of these golden coins that a new player can't possibly reach.  If you read the title the game offers it as intro to accepting your limitations?  Its trying to teach you that its ok to just move on and you don't always have to 100% complete every level.  The game constantly does this and it offers a really interesting game design insight. On top of all this the game features multiplayer co-op where two people work together to solve a puzzle that one player cant do (thankfully the trophies for it are doable entirely solo), a race mode where players race to the end of the level, legacy mode where you can play old levels. All in all the game has more than 4000 levels (#Ididthemaths). In addition, there is a creation mode where players can create their own levels, the content in this game is nothing short of endless.  Thankfully for all the trophies you only have to do all of the solo mode levels and snipits here and there of the other modes.  

 

One of the things that I still don't care for about the game is that the levels come in sets of 5.  Meaning that if you get stuck on level 4 of a set, you can't set the game down and come back later without redoing levels 1-3.  Fortunately the levels are often short and once understood aren't to difficult to get through a second time.  First world as it may be, however, its still annoying.  Further, the game doesn't look like much as you can no doubt tell from the screenshots. It very much sticks to its flash game roots, but I guess in a way that's charming. You can alter the themes and colors of the game, change the color of the ninja and even give him a neat headband, but that's about all there is to it.   The sound design and music is good, though for games like this I usually just listen to my own thing while I slowly beat my head against the wall until I conquer it. Technically the game runs well (I expect it too given how basic and simple it is), but is still worth mentioning.  

 

Overall, I think this game is solid.  If you enjoy difficult platformers like super meat boy et al, and are looking for another like it, this title will be good for you.  If you don't like the difficult platformy games than like the last one I'd skip it.  

 

Here's the report card brake down

Story: N/A

Gameplay: B

Visual Appeal: D 

Audio Appeal: B

Technical Quality: A

Trophy List: A

Overall: C+

 

Finishing Statistics 

Platinums 28

Completion Percentage 78.69

Games Played 45

Games Completed 33

Unearned Trophies 396

Trophies Obtained 11/27

Total Play Time 6 Hours

[dizzyshadow]

1 hour ago, PerryToxteth said:

 

 

Final Grade: . If it had closer to 50 puzzles, .

 

 

 

I've played this on Steam and it actually has DLC which takes it up to around 50 puzzles, not sure if they will ever be released on PSN. Also the total price including the DLC was around £5 (in a sale), which i thought was a far fairer price than what they were charging on PSN. But overall i agree with your assessment a good puzzle game which is great for a relaxing experience. 

[Kevvik]

2 hours ago, PerryToxteth said:

My only knock on this game is that there's not enough content. There's only 25 puzzles, so you can burn through this in just a few nights.  So with the price point it is currently at, I'd wait on it. But definitely snatch it up in a sale.

 

That's good to hear. I picked it up a couple of weeks ago for $3CDN on sale as it looked like a good little game for just chilling on later in the summer.

[dizzyshadow]

Game 2 : Hollow Knight

 

I had high hopes for this as it has such a good reputation, came into knowing i wouldn't be going for the plat, as i have no patience for the sort of challenges in this game, but i thought i would at least enjoy the story and beating the game, however again i've found this somewhat of a let down. Full disclosure i didn't get that far through the game so it may pick up, but i have no plans to rush back.

 

At heart its a Metroidvania platforming game, it has a reputation for being difficult, but to be honest i found it tough but fair in terms of difficulty, what does annoy me though is that there is no autosave so if you die you go back to the last manual save point which can be quite spread out, this for me is incredibly frustrating and unnecessary and the particularly annoying point is that you lose all the currency you've collected and it can only be recovered by finding your corpse and defeating your ghost/spirit. It took my quite a while to realise this and so i actually ended up starting again as i'd "lost" so much currency. 

 

Visually its great and i can see this is one of the games strong points. In terms of actual gameplay its entirely up to you how you explore and because of this you can reach some areas before you are really ready for them, leading to perception of difficulty. Having the relevant upgrade really makes certain parts easier. Personally i'd have preferred more story or guidance here to help you navigate through the game. 

 

Overall the game just didn't really grab me so i'm keen to move on. Will see if i come back to this after the event.

 

Playtime 3-4 hours

Trophies: 2/35

Rating: 

Completion : 57.83%

 

Next up : Bad North

Edited July 9, 2019 by dizzyshadow

[SixyLove]

Update 009

Psycho-Pass: Mandatory Happiness

Playtime: 34 hours

Trophies Earned: 9/36 27%

 

I have a few days before I have to start my next game so I decided to play a little more Psycho-Pass. Last time I tried to get as many people killed as possible and make my mental state as bad as possible. That plan didn't work out very well in the end. Maybe I just wasn't evil enough. ? I decided for my next playthrough that I'd be as good as possible. Surprisingly, being a good person actually got me to a couple good endings and earned me two trophies. I also got more bad endings because I'm not very good at picking the options that don't kill me.

 

I'm not sure if I will play more of this or something else tomorrow. 

[Kevvik]

Day 3 won't be a total write-off today but not sure how much I'll finish so here's my full update for:

 

Game #3: Atelier Rorona Plus: The Alchemist of Arland

 

Initial/Day 3 Impressions

Time played: ~12 hrs

 

So this is a little different from the usual RPGs I've played where what goes on outside the combat is the focus of the game and the fighting feels almost incidental.  You play Rorona, a young girl with no self-confidence (though at least you aren't an amnesiac) but you have friends despite being dumb (which is pointed out frequently by other characters). You are pupil to an alchemist in a village. Your female boss apparently is very good but really does nothing all day but treat you like crap or try to get you to sleep with her. The castle has decided to close the alchemy shop unless it is proven that it is valuable enough to keep open.  Your master decides that she doesn't feel like dealing with this and gives the shop to poor dumb Rorona who then decides that she can't just give up and tries to meet the challenge of keeping the shop open.

 

The challenge comes as a total of 12 different objectives, one every 3 months for a 3 year period.  If you fail one, the shop closes.  You need to gather ingredients in order to synthesize in your cauldron whatever is required to meet the challenge. You can buy stuff from shops or go to outlying areas and gather supplies.  While in those areas, you harvest stuff and fight monsters with up to 2 friends helping you out.  Combat is turned based and simplistic so far. Your real enemy is time and how that must be managed.

 

Everything uses up your 3 month period to one degree or another. Travelling to an area to gather ingredients uses days as does changing sub-areas within the larger area. Once you start synthesizing items, that takes time as well, more complex items taking more time.  In addition to your main objective, you have optional objectives which can be met. Finishing these gives you stamps for a bingo card which can give you cash, items or stat increases as you fill lines.  There are also requests from unidentified villagers to help increase your popularity in the village and from companions which increases your friendship with them.

 

There is a bit of a story which unlocks with events as the assignments unfold. Some events are based on your friendship level with different characters.  So far it seems pretty generic but the characters aren't total wastes of time so I'm still following it despite how everyone seems to view Rorona. Your dad, in particular, seems like a waste of oxygen to me, being infatuated with a widow who runs the shop in town (like most other men in town) despite still being married to your mom...

 

I'm through the first year and just finished a festival event that I won by picking up a lot of cabbage (go figure) and am just starting Year 2.  The time management of all the synthesizing is more challenging than the combat and this is keeping my attention better.  Overall, my first foray into Atelier is positive and while not overwhelmingly so has a lot to keep me busy.

 

Trophies earned: 7/54, 10% for D rank

Score so far: 7/10

Completion Rate: 84.02% (-0.30% for the game, -0.26% for the event)

 

Next up: Game #4: Superdimension Neptunia vs Sega Hard Girls

[voodoo_eyes]

 Game  #4 - Conception 2: Children of the Seven Stars - Preview

 

 

One of those games with a title that is a mouthful. It's an RPG that is supposed to have some similarities with the Persona games, As someone who only played Persona 4 very briefly, I'll have to see what I remember and if it ends up being comparable. As most JRPGs, this one has a gimmick (it's not a dig, it's just the way it is). In this one you apparently "give birth" to children who can be used to fight in battles (maybe?). Talk about child labour...

 

RPGs on the Vita are a bit hit-and-miss with me. More often than not there isn't an option to save whenever you want, which for a system on the go should be a default option (it should be default for any game really, but especially for those on portable consoles).  I'm also hoping that it has english voice acting, because I really am not a fan of reading dialogues on a tiny screen.

Edited July 10, 2019 by voodoo_eyes

[voodoo_eyes]

@Kevvik If you enjoy one of the Atelier games, it is highly likely that you woulld enjoy them all. They are all very similar in characters, story exposition, combat and synthesiying. The more recent ones tried to mix it up a bit, removing the time constraint, making it partial or making the game more open world.

 

I've actually been playing Atelier Ayesha on the side. For some reason it's one of those games where I can sink hours into without realising it. The unfotunate thing for me is, that the one thing I dislike in the whole series, is their damn synthesis gimmick. It's overly complex and keeps changing enough from game to game that you have to relearn it.

[AsaraBaenre]

Game 3: Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor (Game of the Year Edition) (July 7th - July 9th)

 

Time Played: 8 hr 15 min

Trophies Earned: 14/52 (20%)

Current Completion: 23.54% (+0.70%)

 

I've had a very long day today with a nine hour drive on my birthday so I'm only going to write a short review here. I absolutely love this game. Considering I only got two days instead of three to actually play it and still managed eight hours in those two days, I would love to finish this one. I knew I should have saved it for last! 

 

The combat is fun (though having just finished Assassin's Creed II I have to strongly agree with those people who said that the animations are directly from there, I swung right on into the game with no problem at all because my ACII muscle memory is still strong and it works with this character).

 

The nemesis system is my absolute favorite game mechanic. I haven't progressed very far in the actual story because I've been running around hunting orc captains and finding intel about them so I can beat them with their own weaknesses. I had worried that the system wouldn't be as in depth as the PC version that I watched my boyfriend play (I'm not sure where I had read that) but either it's just as in depth or I don't remember the PC version that well because it seems to be working great. So far I've got one guy that followed me around everywhere and kept getting in my way when I was hunting other orcs so I finally put him down. Next fight, he showed back up with a metal plate welded in his head and he's been a thorn in my side ever since. I'm currently at having killed him 6 times and he is probably going to show up next time I get in a big fight too!

 

Overall: 8/10, will be returning to platinum and 100%

 

Game 4 Preview:  Reus (July 10th - July 12th)

Game Stats:

1,477 Game Owners; 8 (0.54%) Platinum Achievers; 2% Average Completion
29 Trophies (1/7/7/14)

 

Playstation Store Description: In Reus, you control powerful giants that help you shape the planet to your will, creating mountains, oceans, forests and more. Enrich it with plants, minerals and animal life. Only one thing you do not control: mankind, with all their virtues and vices. You can shape their world, but not their will. Provide for them and they may thrive. Give them too much, and their greed may gain the upper hand.

 

I'm very intrigued to see how a god game translates over to the PS4. This one looks like you have some world-rotateyness going on so it may not translate over as strangely as I may think. The trophy guide says a crazy 50 hours to platinum this little game so I don't think I'll be reaching that any time soon but I'd like to give it a good go! 

[voodoo_eyes]

3 hours ago, Ashuri-B said:

Game 3: Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor (Game of the Year Edition) (July 7th - July 9th)

*snip*

 

I finished this one up, shortly before the event started. Your comparison with AC, made me realise how much better SHadow of Mordor did the climbing. I've been playing some AC Unity on the side, and the amount of times the character climbs where I don't want it to is infuriating.

 

The PS3 version, must be an absolute bore to play though, with them having stripped the nemesis system from it.~

 

 

P.S.: Happy belated birthday!

[Hemiak]

On 7/9/2019 at 1:40 AM, dmland12 said:

 

That sounds bad for sure.  Too late for me to turn back now, I've just started the game tonight. 

 

I saw your post in the forum about exiting to the map and have been doing that after every lvl.  Both to avoid the issue you described and also in case the game's not recording things correctly if it's saving multiple levels with multiple death counts at once.  If I do any farming, I'll also do it in small batches too.  There's a trophy for dying 100 times in a level, so that's probably safe, but I'm not sure I trust the game to be able to keep track of any more than that at once.

 

I'm also trying to avoid pausing and restarting the lvl when going for the yellow star time trials, in case that's leading to some kind of counting issue.  Instead, I just kill myself.  Sometimes, I'm still moving or jumping after and the timer restarts before I'm ready, so I kill myself again to reset it.  I'm already at 800 deaths, so I don't think it will be an issue getting enough.  As long as the game can recognize it.

 

I also plan to pay attention when I get close to 5000 and wait at the end of lvl screen.  I've seen some games that pop trophies late and if that's the case here, I don't want to miss the window in case the game has issues with that.

 

The game has never had any updates and is still version 1.00, so there must be some way to pop these.

I wonder if maybe there was a leaderboard somewhere and then they took it down without telling anyone and trophies were linked to that. Dunno. 

 

You'll probably get the 100 deaths trophy without trying. There were half a dozen or so levels I hit that target on. 

 

Also yeah, it's annoying that you just start as soon as you die. Can't count how many times I was mashing dash, hit something, and auto started the timer. Kind of annoying. 

 

Everything popped normal except the God mode (blue stars) and deaths. So hopefully you can figure something out. I was also wondering if maybe all the deaths need to be in the main mode or something weird like that. I once farmed over 10k in a single session to check and see if that would pop it, saving every few hundred deaths. Nothing.

[AsaraBaenre]

18 hours ago, voodoo_eyes said:

The PS3 version, must be an absolute bore to play though, with them having stripped the nemesis system from it.~

 

 

P.S.: Happy belated birthday!

 

Ohh, that must have been what I had heard then, because around the time that it first came out is when my boyfriend played it and I do remember someone saying that if I got it to get in on PC because the console version had a really dumbed down nemesis system. They must have brought it back for the PS4 editions because it's certainly here in the one I played!

P.S. Thank you! My brother got me a PSN gift card so I'm just waiting now for a good sale *rubs hands together*