Kill Your Completion 12

[Fnee2000]

Game #1 - FarCry 4 (PS4)

 

Time Played - 23 hrs 30 min (Main story), 3-4 hrs (DLC)

Trophies earned - 58 of 58

Completion % - 100%

 

First off let me preface by saying it wasn't my intention to complete the game entirely right now. I just felt the motivation to keep going and I was ahead of schedule toward my next game. So, I guess this is my full review than just a partial.

 

The Good

• Well, it is FarCry, so you know what you are getting into. Although, it feels like they were a bit lost on what to do with this game. It was a generational gap game, having come out on PS3 and PS4. It isn't the prettiest game, but it does have some decent wind effects. Though, some trees were bending a bit too much sometimes. There was definitely a ton to do and a lot of collectibles to snag. Thankfully, you don't have to 100% the game to get the platinum. You don't even have to get that many collectibles or do that many side missions. Though, the Yogi & Reggie side missions were quite humorous. Even if you didn't need to do most of them.

The Bad

• The story, oh this story was a jumbled mess. You had bad guys, then good guys that want to do bad things. You were given these boring mountain snow missions and even worse missions in the distant past. Then there was quite possibly the most boring protagonist I have had to play as in a while. The main boss Pagan wasn't even that interesting either. I found the third boss Yuma to be more interesting and at least she had a boss fight (more on that later). The side main story of Amita and Sabal was truly awful and it never mattered who you sided with.
• The DLC didn't really add much really, it was just more of the same stuff that you had to do in the main story. You also had to reacquire all guns and relearn all skills again. The new Yeti enemies were cool and all, the enemy wave fights were a nice twist, but it was all quite forgettable in the end.

The Ugly

• Why do FarCry games shy away from boss fights? Yet again, this was another FarCry game where you had to go through tons of trash enemies just to kill the final boss with a button press (or not). It just seems like a lazy way to wrap up a 20+ hour story.
• FarCry multiplayer, enough said! (Pssst, it was unbalanced trash!)

The Verdict

This is definitely down there as one of the worst FarCry games in the series. Maybe even worse than Primal. Hmmm, Primal had some interesting characters and boss enemy fights at least. So yeah, I guess I will put FarCry 4 at the bottom of the pack. My final goat rating for this game is...

 

? out of 5 - Stay away, unless you really want to play a FarCry game...

 

 

Next up - Game #2 Tearaway (PSV)

[kingofbattle8174]

7 hours ago, PerryToxteth said:

 

Darn, cross that one off the wish list. I had high hopes for it too. Any other games you know of with similar Demo Derby gameplay, but more fun than this garbage? 

While not a pure demolition derby, Onrush is another option as well. The whole point is to smash the opposition out of your way. It was a ps plus as well so if you snagged it may be worth a try. And the platinum is not too hard. 

[DamagingRob]

Bonus Game #1- Final Review

Digimon World: Next Order

 

The game has really opened up. Went from having this small hub, that fit on a single screen, to now this massive town with several screens for everything. But they did make a way to fast travel around it. Press start to open up the map, and you can select any point to warp to instantly. Every day sees me going to the fields to harvest my meat, because growing meat in a garden is a thing in this game. Then getting whatever free items are available, and heading out to explore. 

 

The open world is huge, as well. And there is a fast travel system for it, too. Costs a bit of money to use, but that's easily earned back through battles. 

 

The game can get a bit tedious. When your digimon pass away, they are reborn. But that means raising their stats again through training, so you can handle the enemies again. Game is going to take time, no way around it. Can only do so much in a digimon's lifetime. 

 

Adding to the length, the game crashed on me once. Lost about an hour or playtime, so that wasn't fun.. I had just lost a fight, but my digimon were doing some crazy fusion evolution thing, instead of getting sent back to town like normal. Guess the game couldn't handle it. But yeah, save often. You can save anytime, anywhere, so no reason not to. I don't know why crashing is such an issue this gen, though. Can't games just... not?

 

So yeah, I think that's about it. Good game, so I'll give it a . The grind for the Plat may change my opinion, though. :/

 

Time played: 16+ hours (probably 17+ with the lost crash time).

Trophy progress: 22/45 for 32% and a C rank. 

Completion percentage: 92.34% (-0.09%) Moving the right way now, at least.

 

Next up:

 

All I know about this one, is that it's a sequel to the first. And a fighting game. The Ninja Turtles are also in it! YES! Ahem, time to go bash Superman's face in or whatever.  

[Arctic Cress]

Game #1 - One Piece: Pirate Warriors 2

Time played: 3 hours

Trophies: 11/40 (17% - E)

 

After finally obtaining the platinum in the original One Piece: Pirate Warriors during the last KYC and making it trophy 9,000, I decided in this KYC to jump into the sequel to this. It has been delisted for years, but luckily I had bought a copy previously and have had it on my PS3's hard drive for the longest time, waiting for the platinum in the first game to finally be completed.

 

One Piece: Pirate Warriors 2 deviates from the path a bit and does not follow the main storyline like the first game does - instead, it does its own original story in the New World between Fishman Island and Punk Hazard. In this, the Straw Hat Pirates find a mysterious laboratory filled with dials, items that store various types of energy. The Straw Hats examine the dials, but the dials release a black fog and they become hostile to everyone around them. Luffy and Nami manage to flee the area before the gas affects them as well, and after some battles they team up with the marine Smoker to rescue their comrades from the gas affecting their minds. The story is then divided up into a main storyline and separate episodes for all the crew members and allies that they meet during this alternate storyline.

 

Also unlike the first game, Pirate Warriors 2 returns to being a traditional musou rather than deviating from it slightly. All quick-time events and platforming were removed and the enemy count was increased by a lot. Which is definitely helpful, as most stages require you to obtain well over 1,000 KOs to get a S-rank in them. I've only managed a single S-rank in missions so far (after three tries, even), mostly due to taking too much time or not having enough KOs.

 

Coins and skills return from the first game, but their usage is greatly changed. Coins all give flat increases to health, attack, or defense which is the same, but they also can appear on items called "Skill Notes" which are 3x3 grids that unlock skills when a group of three in a row, column or diagonal is completed. These skills are always active once unlocked, and do not need the coins to be used in them. Unlike the first game, the full amount of coins and skills is no longer a trophy requirement, which is a huge relief as that was the cause of the extra 25+ hours I had to spend in the first game. The difficult trophy this time around seems to be beating all the stages on harder difficulties, the hardest difficulty only being available after the True Ending is reached.

 

I already knew this would be a grind when I started it (and it's definitely a trend within musou games) so it'll be a while until I finish this. With Pirate Warriors 4 being released this month, I am well behind on the series, though I own Pirate Warriors 3 and plan to play it as soon as this game is finished. Maybe I'll catch up sometime next year.

 

Starting completion: 71.83%

Current completion: 71.75%

Difference: -0.08%

 

My completion did not drop that much as I added the recent PS+ game The Sims 4 to my account and used the new guide to complete it in a short amount of time. The rarity of it going from a sub 2% platinum to now a Very Rare one is pretty amazing, but the guide is very easy to follow so I can definitely believe it. Not proud of it, but it's there now nonetheless.

 

Next game: Resonance of Fate (PS3)

[PerryToxteth]

On 3/6/2020 at 6:42 AM, kingofbattle8174 said:

While not a pure demolition derby, Onrush is another option as well. The whole point is to smash the opposition out of your way. It was a ps plus as well so if you snagged it may be worth a try. And the platinum is not too hard. 

 

It's in my library but I thought I read a review that Onrush was a glitchy mess. Did they fix it? Or am I confusing it with another game?

[Kevvik]

Game #2: The Liar Princess and the Blind Prince

 

Initial/Day 3 Impressions

Time played: ~4 hrs

 

NIS has come up with some really good puzzle platformers over the past few years (A Rose in the Twilight, htoL#NiQ) so I've been looking forward to this one.  I'm not disappointed by this but neither am I blown away.  This combination of The Little Mermaid and Ico works pretty well so far but isn't anything earth-shattering.

 

The game starts out in a storybook fashion with a land surrounded by a dark forest filled with monsters.  A monster wolf sings every night and one night sees a human listening to her song.  Thinking about eating him, he applauds her singing (not knowing it comes from a monster) which makes her hold off eating the young prince.  This continues until one night, she doesn't hear the applause.  Moving forward to the edge of the ridge she is on, she is startled by the prince who has climbed up to see the singer.  She lashes out with her claws, damaging his eyes and blinding him.  She grabs him before he falls but he fights free in the terror of feeling claws grabbing him.  Guards find him and return him to the palace where he becomes a pariah and is locked away from view.

 

The wolf feels horrible about this and gets the witch of the forest to turn her human so that she can guide the prince to the witch to be healed, giving up her singing voice in the bargain.  The witch also allows her to change between human and wolf forms as the hazardous journey might require her to use her monster form to deal with threats.  When human, you can hold the prince's hand and lead him forward.  As wolf, you have sharp claws and can jump higher but cannot touch the prince. You break the prince out of the castle and lead him into the forest where the true game commences.

 

This is ultimately a puzzle game as you negotiate the prince through each level.  Normal puzzle mechanisms abound as you have small areas to jump across, obstacles to surpass, weight-based switches, etc.  You eventually gain a bit of trust with the prince and can send him forward a short distance on his own but will need to guide him from there on.  The mechanics are sound and the level ends with either you completing it or the prince dying (from fall, a monster or some form of environmental damage).  And what would a puzzle game be without collectibles.  There are 5 flower petals hidden in each level, some in the open, others out of the way.  The prince likes flowers and some levels have an abandoned garden where you can find a flower for him.  You need to collect this as the princess and remain that way until you give the flower to the prince which will affect how you choose your path to bring it to him.

 

From a trophy perspective there are a few other challenges such as completing a specific level either under a target time or without killing any enemies.  So far these haven't been bad but I've needed to use the stage selection to repeat the speedrun level I have found as the timing was pretty tight.  The artwork for the game is great, giving a real storybook feeling.  I haven't really noticed the soundtrack so nothing special but not bad either as it doesn't disrupt the mood the game sets. My only gripe so far is that the game really hasn't been that difficult so far, not really finding the challenge given in other titles.  I'm about halfway through the 3rd major area, each area having 4 sub areas to work through.  Each level has been straightforward with each area adding a mechanic or two to the game but it's really obvious how to employ them.  A bit of repeat when looking for petals at times but nothing outrageous so far.  The continuing story between the characters as you carry through the woods (trying to feed the prince raw meat was entertaining) is solid and endearing.  No big conflict yet but you know its going to come when the prince finds out you are a monster.

 

Overall, a title I'm enjoying (I'm a sucker for puzzle games) and it's story is charming but it hasn't blown me away like other titles that NIS has put out.  I'll definitely be coming back to this but I figure it is probably going to take about 10 hrs to finish as looking at the stage select area, I'm guessing there are about 6 areas to complete.

 

Trophies earned: 11/24, 21% for E rank

Score so far: 6.5/10

Completion Rate: 84.10% (-0.42% for the event)

 

Next up: Game #3: Persona 4 Golden

 

[DamagingRob]

Game #2- Day 1

Injustice 2

 

Well, this probably won't do a lot of damage (if any at all) to my completion, either. Was able to get to a fairly high percentage, just doing a bunch of stuff with 2 controllers yesterday. But actually finishing it could prove challenging. I have the online to do still, which I don't know how hard it is these days. And boosting some would require a large number of people. Then there's the infamous Cat Call ability, which is an RNG fest. So, we'll see. Lol. 

 

So, what is Injustice 2? It's a fighting game with (mostly) DC comics characters. Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, etc. And if you have the DLC or Legendary Edition, you also get a couple of Mortal Kombat guys (Raiden and Sub-Zero) and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. There are 38 fighters in total, but I guess 41 with the turtles. Selecting each turtle is pretty weird. You have to go into a customize menu and equip them with different weapons, so they're not easily selectable. And until you level up enough, you only have 3 customizable slots, so you can't even set each one up. 

 

Equipment.. Holy loads of loot boxes, Batman! You get boxes from completing events and playing the game. Who knows what will come out of them. But it will often be stuff that raises a character's stats. It would be lovely if Cat Call showed up, but I'm doubting it. 

 

The fighting is pretty good, I guess. No real complaints. Looks good, has flashy super attacks, and it's fun. I'm even doing alright in ranked matches, so far. Well, 4 out of 5 wins is better than alright. But I need 10 wins, and I expect to get my ass kicked before I get there.

 

Probably one of the more interesting things, and something I'll likely be using a lot, is you can have the A.I. fight for you in Multiverse events. Good way to make progress, but not actually be present and accounted for. Multiverse events usually have you fighting so many fights, and you get a reward for completing them all. Depending on your performance, the rewards can be better or worse. I wish I was as good as the A.I. Lol. May as well keep letting it fight for me. 

 

And yeah, I guess that's it. Eventually, I'll have to play the story. I've mainly just been messing around in other modes, though.

 

Time played: No idea. If I wasn't playing after starting yesterday, the A.I. probably was. So, probably 10+.

Trophy progress: 54/75 for 66% and an A rank.

[ladynadiad]

Decided to make a couple of changes to my lineup because I think 3 URs that are very stingy with trophies and require multiple playthroughs to complete will be a bit much.  Also since my Vita backlog is so small and my PS4 backlog is so huge, I decided to just go with 1 Vita title and 3 PS4s instead.  I'm going to swap Dark Rose Valkyrie with Hero Must Die. Again which is an anti-RPG that just came out in English on the 26th.  Never played an anti-RPG before and it sounds really interesting.  Also going to swap Stranger in Sword City with Crossing Souls so I don't have two dungeon crawlers on the list.

 

So my list is going to change to the following:

 

1. Tales of Symphonia (PS3) (done, reviewed and still working on finishing first playthrough)

2. MeiQ (Vita) (in progress, will post a review by the 10th)

3. Hero Must Die. Again (PS4) March 11th-March 15th

4. Nier (PS3) March 16th-March 20th

5. Crossing Souls (PS4) March 21st-March 25th

6. The Alliance Alive HD Remastered (PS4) March 26th-March 31st

 

Won't be making any further changes, but I will be adding a bonus game when Monster Viator comes out, which is likely on the 10th if it follows the usual patterns for new Kemco releases.

[hittheroadbucky]

My participation might be a little off for a while. There’s been a bereavement in the family so I haven’t played any more of Beyond Two Souls since my last post and I might need to skip the next week or so ?

 

My next game is still Shadow of the Colossus though and I’ll post a full preview when I’m ready to jump in to it 

[dizzyshadow]

Game 1 : Stranded Sails - Explorers of the Cursed Islands

In stranded sails you are the son (or daughter) of a ships captain on a voyage to start a life in anew land. However the journey goes wrong and you end up shipwrecked on a island.  After searching for a gathering the rest of the crew you set about forming a camp, luckily the crew seem to have a good all the skills you need to survive between them, unfortunately they all seem to have an excuse not to it themselves and everything is left to you. You are soon gathering materials, building shelters, fishing, cooking food and exploring to find a way off the island. While the other crew members do little more than cheer you on. 

 

It's a very casual game, most of the missions are simple fetch quests, combined with a very basic crafting system, for making items to use. During the first half of the game there is no threat at all the worst that can happen is running out of energy and waking up back at camp. Its also reminds me of a basic animal crossing but with a bit of purpose to it. Its about half way through the game when you discover about the curse from the title, its still fairly tame but it does introduce enemies who must be defeated in order to complete objectives.

 

Its building towards an end game of hopefully escaping the islands.

 

I've enjoyed my time with this and its definitely one to play when you are looking for a relaxing experience. My only complaint is the energy system, and particularly how hard this makes it to travel anywhere, if you run you use energy way to fast so you end up walking everywhere which takes way to long. Running out of energy is very annoying as you have to return to camp to sleep or eat food of which you can only carry a very limited amount and if you want more you need to return to camp to make more. This makes exploring far flung locations quite tedious at times.

 

I'll likely dip back in and out of this until i have finished it off.

 

 

Playtime: 7 Hours

Rating: 

Trophies 11/29

Completion: 60.71% (-0.09%)

 

Next Up: Children of Morta

Edited March 8, 2020 by dizzyshadow

[kingofbattle8174]

20 hours ago, hittheroadbucky said:

My participation might be a little off for a while. There’s been a bereavement in the family so I haven’t played any more of Beyond Two Souls since my last post and I might need to skip the next week or so

 

My next game is still Shadow of the Colossus though and I’ll post a full preview when I’m ready to jump in to it 

 

Take all the time you need. Family is more important. Like today for me is my wife's birthday so no gaming for me as I go into spoil mode. 

 

Small Update for me.

 

Starting PCG: 55.55%

Current PCG: 55.29%

Loss of -.26%

 

Coffee Talk

16/24 55% C Rank

 

Story Mode Complete.

 

Everything wraps up pretty nicely in the end with all the different dramas. That includes a surprise story twist for yourself in the end. There is a day select to use since I did miss some story parts. It appears that if you give a wrong drink that you may get different stories. The end of the game lets you know how many parts you need to redo, I just have to figure out the where. 

 

Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot

04/42 05% E Rank

 

Even after an hour I have barely scratched the surface of this game. I have not even fought Raditz yet. Partly it is because I am taking my time and soaking the experience in. There is so much to see and explore. Such as the hidden encyclopedia entries. These are fun little nostalgia story bits, such as coming across the rock from season 2 of Dragon ball. This is the rock that Krillen stole from Goku during a training session and Goku then had to go without dinner. There are also side quests like finding one of Master Roshi's girly magazines. I do have to make some adjustments to the flying system. In combat, the way I want to move makes me go the opposite way but I believe I can inverse it. Only a few more days for this one and it is on to the next one.

[voodoo_eyes]

Game #2 - Secret of Mana - Progress Update

 

 

I didn't get all that much time with this game so far, as I've been sidetracked by other games. As it stands I'm  just under 2 hours into the game. It's been alright so far, and it is fully voiced, which is nice. I don't recall whether the first game was voiced or not.

 

Anyway, I've defeated two bosses so far and have three party members. It lacks a bit of direction, just like the first game did. THere also seems to be a lot of going back and forth that is bound to happen at some later point. There are areas that you need specific weapons to access, so progress is constantly halted.

 

I'm not sure, if I'll have any time tomorrow to get back to it, but I should find an hour or two on Tuesday.

[Kevvik]

Game #3: Persona 4 Golden

 

Initial Impressions

Time played: 7 hrs

 

So where do I start with describing this game without typing a couple of pages of preamble about the series?  I’ll try to keep it brief.  Persona 4 Golden is a turn based RPG, a remaster of the original PS2 title but with a lot more stuff. You play the new student at a school in a smaller community, having relocated from the big city to live with your police detective uncle and his young daughter.  As expected, you are treated as the new guy at school and strange things become afoot in town. A woman staying at the inn has disappeared, having been hiding out there from paparazzi following the exposure of her role in an affair with a political secretary.  She turns up dead, found by a student in the year ahead of you. Did I mention the weird dream you had about tragedy being in your future followed by a mystery. No big spoiler here, it wasn’t a dream.  As you slowly make friends, the student who discovered the body also disappears, later turning up dead. Neither death appears normal with the bodies hanging upside down from very high places.  Trying out a rumour of watching a blank TV at midnight to find your soulmate, you find another world on the other side that you can reach by climbing through the TV screen.  Think I’ll try to stop describing most of the story here.

 

But where does the RPG come from?  A friend comes with you and you meet a doppelgänger of himself that you fight. Your weaponry is basic (a golf club) but more importantly your chosen one status reveals as you adopt a persona, a magical being associated to your personality, giving you access to spell-like abilities and extreme attacks. Defeating the double opens this up for your friend as well. Saving your other friends down the line increases your party size as they discover their personas as well.  Defeating enemies can open shuffle time which gives you a choice of cards containing buffs, new abilities or new personas to customize your attack. This is additional to xp, money and items.

 

Being in high school you also make social links by improving your relationships with others, strengthening persona related to that aspect.  Personal attributes (knowledge, understanding and the like) improve related to activities, tests you do at school.  Your personas can be fused into stronger ones with the right combinations. They also level up with use in battle as well.  There is a lot going on in this game and so far, it seems very well balanced and open to a lot of different applications.

 

I really don’t want to go further describing this so as to avoid real spoilers but at 7 hrs, I’ve just scratched the surface. I’m loving this and it runs so smoothly, it might be the best game I’ve come across on the Vita so far.  The talk about this being a 100+ hr plat doesn’t look exaggerated. I didn’t play P4 on PS2 but I did play P3 so some of this isn’t a surprise but I’m enjoying the hell out of it.

 

Trophies earned: 7/50, 10% for E rank

Score so far: 10/10

 

[AuroraHistoire]

White Slightly Fluffy Bread ~ Touhou: Scarlet Curiosity

 

I'm not sure how I feel about this game. It does nothing wrong or anything objectively bad, but doesn't doing anything amazing either. I still had fun with Touhou: Scarlet Curiosity but I honestly wished it was more interesting.

 

The game is a hack-n-slash with some RPG elements and a bit of platforming. The gameplay was quite simple. You have a melee combo that only requires you to hit the same button a few times to perform. There are stronger attacks called skills you unlock as you level up that make the gameplay more interesting. You have a magic meter that will regenerate overtime. The regeneration happens quickly enough that you can use skills freely but you can't constantly spam them. There is a third type of attack called spells, that use their own meter that fills by landing hits on enemies. Spells are powerful enough to clear the screen of any threats. Most of the enemies are easy to defeat and don't deal very much damage. Healing pickups are everywhere, so you don't have to worry about taking damage. I was able to play very aggressively most of the time. The game has boss at the end of almost every stage. The bosses will do stylish bullet hell attacks; they're not too hard to dodge and even if you do get hit, the damage isn't too severe.

 

Most of the levels have a top-down camera and allow you to roam freely. There are few levels that play like a 2D sidescroller; those levels usually involve the most platforming. The platforming in this game is not very difficulty and only a couple of levels feature platforming to a notable degree.

 

The game features two playable characters, Remilia & Sakuya. You select a character at the start of game and you stick with them. I got 100% only using Sakuya (I picked my character via coin flip), so you're only required to play one characters story to get all the trophies. I played Remilia briefly out of curiosity; she pretty much plays the same as Sakuya except her jump allows her to fall slowly.

 

The plot is about a mysterious monster and beating it up for destroying Remilia's mansion. The story takes a back seat to the gameplay. Characters keep their conversations breif so the story never gets boring. There were a few funny lines in the game that made me giggle. The little bit of Remilia's story I played was mostly the same as Sakuya's; the only major difference was that the first level took place at night instead of the day. 

 

I enjoyed the music in this game, it was quite relaxing. The levels all look good. The trophy list wasn't that difficult. The hardest trophies involve getting good equipment drops. I suggest holding on to anything that increases your critical hit chance. 

[Psy-Tychist]

The Council - The 1790's never looked so pretty and forboding.

 

Time Played: 4 hours

Trophies Earned: 25/44 - 48%

Coins Collected: 23/55

Completion: 63.27%  -  +0.07%

Voodoo_Eyes Review: https://forum.psnprofiles.com/topic/80491-kill-your-completion-11/?do=findComment&comment=1950985

 

So I haven't got as far as @voodoo_eyes got with this game, but I can honestly say that it is a striking game with some fun mechanics that seem unwieldy at the outset.

 

You play Louis Mouras de Richet, part of The Golden Order based in France under the tutelage of his mother, Sarah de Richet. After the brief introduction, the story begins with Louis being summoned to Lord Mortimers property in regard to the disappearance of his mother while staying there. Upon reaching the island, you understand the level of power and influence Lord Mortimer has by seeing the mansion and its interior and what world you have stepped into. When you arrive you meet two characters, the Cardinal and the Duchess and after a brief conversation, the game mechanics start appearing in earnest. You have the opportunity to choose from three professions; Diplomat, Occultist or Detective.

 

 

Each of these professions has several skills that will be useful in certain situations but you will be locked out of some dialogue options and physical options regardless of which you pick. I chose to be an Occultist which has skills like Subterfuge, Science and Languages which I believed would be useful in gaining information on my fellow attendees. You also have access to a Trait tree in which you have to do certain things in-game or raise your skills to certain levels to earn passive bonuses. The other mechanic you are introduced to is a time-sensitive choice system based on the conversation and you will normally learn about a certain persons vulnerability or immunity. This will help in gleaning more information later on but you only have about 5 seconds to choose an option.

You have nearly a free-roam of the environment around you, with certain areas triggering the story to progress. When you interact with the environment or in conversations with guests, you will have to use skills you have unlocked to gain access or information you would otherwise not have access to. These come at a cost, you only have a limited number of Ability Points you can use before you become exhausted (mentally and physically) and would only be able to use the basic dialogue options to complete the task at hand. You, however, can pick up consumables around the environment which will boost your points and help make situations easier but they are also limited and do not respawn. 

Finally, you can also find books/manuscripts and coins around the mansion. The books will help you level up skills after each mission you complete and the coins do nothing except there are 55 to collect throughout the game. You will get bonus XP from the coins retroactively when you get a trait later in the game which could be significant in leveling skills but only time will tell.

 

There are 4 missions to go through in Episode One of The Council, depending on how well your conversations went and how much you explore you can be awarded a huge difference in points to put into skills. I received 4 points from Mission 1, 3 points from Mission 2 and 12 points for Mission 3 and 4 points for Mission 4. By the end of the Episode, I had over 10 Level 1 skills (which results in a trophy), 17 coins and 9 manuscripts. Hopefully this will put me in good stead for the later game.

 

Graphically, the game is quite gorgeous to look at. The opulence of the mansion and its interiors, the paintings, sculptures, furniture all scream expensive and you can tell. Everything is grandiose and it's meant to make you feel small and in awe at the power you don't hold. Sadly, I think that because of this the developer decided to make all the characters facially caricaturish to stand out from the backgrounds and it makes them look eerie and otherworldly. Louis has a nose that would cut steel, the Duchess has a forehead bigger than a bald man, the Cardinal has wrinkles so deep-set they seem like canyons and Elizabeth Adams has a haircut straight from 80's punk with massive anime eyes.

 

Trophy-wise, as I mentioned before the trophies are heavily lopsided to Episode One. I have nearly half of the trophies just from completing tasks in Episode One and there are some for getting skills to the max level and getting to Level 15 overall, but the rest of the trophies are all story related for completing missions only. Quite an easy game for trophy hunting, just a little prep on skills to make it easier to finish quicker.

 

Overall, the game is stunning to look at, expects you to use your brain not just in puzzle situations but in conversations and has a nice starting plot to get you into the game. Whether it continues only time will tell, then again, there has been a murder in the house...

 

Next Game: The Sexy Brutale.

 

Edited March 10, 2020 by Psy-Tychist

[kingofbattle8174]

Game Three Preview

 

 

I do not know much about this game so it will be a surprise. I did see a short video so I know you rehab houses like you are a HGTV star. There seems to be a story mode of sorts that I assume is you have various areas and as you sell enough houses you unlock other areas. Other than that and filling certain orders, it is hard to tell from the trophies. Alot of them are very vague and since it is a new game there is not alot of info yet either. I did see something about  that the controls can be clunky. It is a 3D building sim, so it may take some patience to get what you want. It is demo time so let me find my goggles and gloves...

[Gretchen27]

Game #2 Review

 

Borderlands 3

(At some point I’d like to post my own screenshots of games, aiming for wrap up post)

Playtime: ~6 hours

Trophies: 8/52 (10% complete)

Percent Change: -1.41% (includes the start of game #3)

Enjoyment: 9/10

 

Here I had plans to allow this game the most time, & personal matters had to come along to claim my time. & likely will continue to zap my play time this week & some of the next. But I’ll try not to be late, though my posts may be shorter than planned.

 

My much anticipated favorite game for the event is going pretty well. A few grumbles to contend with that keep it from a perfect enjoyment score though. The first striking feature I noticed is the visual aspect. It’s still the cell shading typical of Borderlands, with a strange new polish. I’ve noticed it most in the new world to explore, & that may have to do with its neon futuristic vibe. But the visual upgrades (especially for the guns) is a step that will take some getting used to. Enemies sort of blend into the environments or scopes seem to create blind spots. I’m finding myself using the mini map just to locate where an enemy is. This causes a big waste of time when I use my mech action skill. Surprise, surprise, I chose the Gunner (unoriginal title) for the COD version of the bubblegum mech chick in Overwatch or a straight up Titanfall user.

 

Story wise, I honestly haven’t been working too hard toward getting through. I’ll drop my reasoning in a spoiler just in case:

Spoiler

 

 I feel the main story drive in any Borderlands game is the villain. Even in B1, which is my least favorite, the villainess was someone I looked forward to taking on. & you don’t even need to get me started on the perfections of Handsome Jack as a villain. The Calypso twins though are unoriginal trash. Commandant Steele may have had clichés, but she was still far preferable to these streaming attention seekers. The whole Youtuber vibe feels like an overshot window of relevance that will not stand up over time.

 

Their only redeeming point is the brief glimpse of Tyreen’s siren abilities & how they relate to keeping her brother alive. I’m literally just within the first mission of the Prometheus planet & have only seen them in person once, so I expect more to this. Sadly, they still won’t kill off Lilith (a hopeful yet) in this series. I may be in the minority here, as she’s a hated character for me.

 

Also, the BS replacement of Troy Baker voicing Rhys was a major disappointment. Either this character is going to have such a small role that hiring TB shouldn't have been that big of a deal, or this character is going to have a big role where hiring TB should have been a priority. I almost want to mute the TV the next time I see him just so I can read the subtitles instead. 

 

 

With the new gloss over the HUD features, & the intrigue of a new world to explore, I’ve spent most of my time exploring the new maps & doing side quests. The ability to see the list of available objectives from the world view is much easy to look through then the scrollable challenge list we usually get (& should be helpful when going for the completion). Though now the challenge list that unlocks little percent boosters is locked until the main story is complete. I feel like those should have been switched as the side missions & challenges you complete while doing them to earn those boosts were really helpful for the endgame boss fights before. Based on this review it seems like I've only got gripes with the game, which isn't what I was aiming for at all. Overall, it is still very much a Borderlands entry that I look forward to sinking hours into, once I get used to the visual disparity. If you've played one of these, you know how the humor & just general action element can combine into a fun adventure for hours at a time. I haven't had the time to get into that groove, but I'm confident it'll get there. 

 

 

Game #3 Initial Review

 

Drive Girls

Playtime: ~2 hours

Trophies: 7/36 (11% complete)

 

Even though I didn’t find the time to post, I did find it to at least start my next game on time. Drive Girls is a beat ‘em up on the Vita fairly similar to Hyperdimension Neptunia U: Action Unleashed. Replace the CPUs with female transformers, full Japanese voice acting instead of English, more cleavage exposure per female character, less environment variation & you have Drive Girls. To be fair, I have only been through the tutorial & a bit of episode two. So there is hope for better environments. But from the two areas I’ve played through; environments consist of highway overpasses blocked infrequently by trucks & infested with these mechanical bugs (the targets). You’re tasked with eliminating this invasion of bugs from a local island as part of the Drive Girls task force. Though originally the main character applied for the Emergency Response task force to help people not fight. The game is broken into episodes consisting of a few missions a piece & seems pretty straight forward in terms of completing it. I’m so early into the game I can’t speak on any interest points in the story or mechanics yet.

Edited March 10, 2020 by Gretchen27

[kingofbattle8174]

 

After one night I have already completed the required three hours and it just seemed to fly by. Right at the start you are given a gross shack as an office and just short of enough money to buy your first house. So the game allows you to do odd jobs at first like cleaning peoples houses and painting walls. After about three side quests you have enough to buy that first fixer upper. That is the point I am still at. House 1 is about 65% done. I may have been done already but I decided to knock out a wall and close up another. The painting and tiling are a process. You only get so many brush strokes before you have to go back to the paint can, or for tiling grab a handful, tile, grab another handful. Even when you do installations like toilets and sinks, you simulate putting the plumbing and stuff together. The game is very greedy with its low amount of trophies. I have one for the three hours. The next will be for completing this first house, oh did miss one sort of as I forgot to try to smash a cockroach with a sledehammer when I was cleaning the kitchen. Most of the others are still unclear unless they pertain to certain buyers. The controls work well enough. My only grief is that I wish things lined up a bit more cleanly with the wall. That and when getting that last section of a wall installed , getting it to line up correctly. All in all another low intensity game. It is a time leech though and before you know it it may be late night before you get things just perfect.

[voodoo_eyes]

Game #2 - Secret of Mana - Final Impressions

 

Time played: 6h

Trophies earned: 10/38

 

 

Made decent progress since the last update and am 8 bosses in at this point. I didn't have any technical issues with the game so far, then again I never played more than two hours in one go.

 

Visually it's alright, pretty much looks just like Adventures of Mana. Would've expected a bit of a graphical update, but am not too fussed about it.One thing that seems to be worse is the menu, as to where you switch characters and accessing spells and weapons. It seems far more clunky and is annoying to navigate. I think Adventures of Mana had something similar, but it was implemented in a better way.

 

AS for gameplay, you walk around, kill mobs, level up and search for the next area you need to go to. NPC's generally nod you in the right direction, but it's usually fairly vague. Eventually you'll find the area, or sometimes even the pixel you need to walk in and get to move on.

It seems I've completed the first region and am now told to get to the next one. There is some fast travel, which is mainly between the main plot areas and regons. It's a bit annoying as you got to remember where the fast travel spots are, as they are somewhere off the road in a dead end.

 

Combat-wise there's weapons and spells. Different weapons have different uses, that also applies to the environment. Only slashing weapons can cut down shrubbery, an axe can break rocks and a whip can be used to traverse small gaps. Speels range from damage to buffs to heals and are often essential during boss fights. Some enemies/bosses are immune to melee damage or spells, so you'll have to adjust.

 

Weapons can only be upgraded at a blacksmith and also require orbs, that usually drop from bosses. Armor and potions can be bought at shops. However there's only been one shop so far that sells mana potions and it's stupidly expensive. Guess someone didn't bother balancing spells, so they just made the mana refill option extremely expensive. Just so you get an idea, HP potion costs 10 gold (for 100 HP), the mana potion (walnuts in this game) costs 1000 gold.

 

Quick edit and update. Played another hour and a half and defeated two more bosses. One thing I forgot to mention, is that hte AI si dumb as hell. Especially your friendly party AI, keeps running into things and won't move around them, if you're too far away. I've also encountered most NPC in villages running into walls. The AI programming is an absolute joke.

 

 

Anyway, the game is alright, but feels a bit bland. It's still only a though.

Edited March 11, 2020 by voodoo_eyes

[ladynadiad]

 

Game #2  MeiQ

Trophies: 3/37 (4%) E Rank

Current completion: 95.52% (-1.09%)

Current unearned trophies: 266 (+61)

Current games played: 191

Current games completed: 178

Current unstarted games in backlog: 76 games

 

Another UR plat that is very stingy with trophies so my completion is not happy with me.  This time it's a dungeon crawler called MeiQ.  The game is definitely your typical Compile Heart/Idea Factory grindy nightmare and excessive amount of fan service.  Seriously, every character in this game with very few exceptions is a big busted female whose breasts are being held up by almost nothing.  Being a female myself, I get nothing from this and am just thinking of how much back pain those poor girls must be dealing with and how they are not constantly popping out of these skimpy outfits while exploring these dungeons because seriously their breasts are held up with barely enough cloth to be called a ribbon.  Outside of the designs though, it's not an excessively fan servicey sort of game, if you want that in a dungeon crawler, I'd recommend to go play Conception II.

 

But moving on from that, pretty much the game is a dungeon crawler.  So you play a bunch of female mages called Machina Mages who seem to be called that because they can control little mechas called Guardians.  Most of the time the guardians are going to be the ones doing the attacking and taking the hits, but sometimes you have a need to use some magic the girls can use, like if you need to heal or need a good attack spell for all enemies.  These girls were sent to the city to undergo a trial so they can gain the ability to turn the Planet Key and save the world because apparently their planet is weird and is like an old wind up clock that stops rotating after a few hundred years if no one does this.

 

One big thing that annoys me is that unlike most dungeon crawlers, there's no way to bring up a map and set the game to automatically travel to a certain spot.  You can view the whole map, but not any coordinates.  There also isn't a way to bring up the map and just move around on it to easily find spots you missed exploring.  The game is overall all right, but nothing special.  The combat grows tedious fast with you just using the same attacks over and over again, pretty typical for Compile Heart games, then on top of that there is a trophy for beating 30k monsters.  That and all the collection and level related trophies explains why this plat is a UR.  It's clearly a very excessive grind and will require a minimum of 3 playthroughs because there are also trophies for beating the game on each difficulty and the last one isn't unlocked until your third playthrough is completed, but apparently once you beat the game the third time you can load the save and beat the final boss again and get that trophy at least.

 

Overall, the game is okay.  Nothing special and there are plenty of games that do it better.  It's not terrible, just not anything special.

 

Probably won't play this any more today since Monster Viator came out and I am going to play that and then my next game, Hero Must Die Again.

[voodoo_eyes]

45 minutes ago, ladynadiad said:

 

Another UR plat that is very stingy with trophies so my completion is not happy with me.  This time it's a dungeon crawler called MeiQ.  The game is definitely your typical Compile Heart/Idea Factory grindy nightmare and excessive amount of fan service.  Seriously, every character in this game with very few exceptions is a big busted female whose breasts are being held up by almost nothing.  Being a female myself, I get nothing from this and am just thinking of how much back pain those poor girls must be dealing with and how they are not constantly popping out of these skimpy outfits while exploring these dungeons because seriously their breasts are held up with barely enough cloth to be called a ribbon.  Outside of the designs though, it's not an excessively fan servicey sort of game, if you want that in a dungeon crawler, I'd recommend to go play Conception II.

 

A friend of mine was asking me for suggestions on dungeon crawlers for PS4, that don't have any or only very little fan service. Turns out I couldn't think of a single one, as that' seems to kind of be a mandatory requirement for japanese dungeon crawlers. I wonder how much the whole fanservice aspect actualy factors in, when it comes to sales.

[ladynadiad]

43 minutes ago, voodoo_eyes said:

 

A friend of mine was asking me for suggestions on dungeon crawlers for PS4, that don't have any or only very little fan service. Turns out I couldn't think of a single one, as that' seems to kind of be a mandatory requirement for japanese dungeon crawlers. I wonder how much the whole fanservice aspect actualy factors in, when it comes to sales.

 

I wonder sometimes too, but then go look at the reviews for Nekopara on Steam and you can see that fanservice definitely has an effect since that game sold pretty well and about all it has going for it is pretty art and a lot of fanservice.  I thought the story was incredibly boring and ended up skipping the rest after a couple of chapters.  I can deal with some fanservice if the game has other elements that make it fun, like Conception II, but Nekopara is pretty much a harem anime with catgirls and I clearly wasn't the intended audience for it.

 

I admit, I can't think of many dungeon crawlers that lack fanservice, much less on PS4 since they are mostly a Vita thing.  The least fanservicey dungeon crawlers I can think of are Mind 0 and Ray Gigant, but those are Vita/PC games.  Demon Gaze II is the only one I can think of that may not be too bad and is on PS4, but I can only attest to the fanservice not being as clearly blatant in the first game, the sequel could well have more.

[Mesopithecus]

19 minutes ago, ladynadiad said:

Demon Gaze II is the only one I can think of that may not be too bad and is on PS4, but I can only attest to the fanservice not being as clearly blatant in the first game, the sequel could well have more.

 

I'm playing this at the moment and the sequel definitely has a lot more fanservice, including a maintenance "touching" minigame and dating aspects for demons.  It's needed for skills and stat upgrades too, so sadly you can't ignore it completely.  Oh and of course all the perfect touch spots are in those obvious fanservice places

[Kevvik]

2 hours ago, ladynadiad said:

 

One big thing that annoys me is that unlike most dungeon crawlers, there's no way to bring up a map and set the game to automatically travel to a certain spot.  You can view the whole map, but not any coordinates.  There also isn't a way to bring up the map and just move around on it to easily find spots you missed exploring.  The game is overall all right, but nothing special.  The combat grows tedious fast with you just using the same attacks over and over again, pretty typical for Compile Heart games, then on top of that there is a trophy for beating 30k monsters.  That and all the collection and level related trophies explains why this plat is a UR.  It's clearly a very excessive grind and will require a minimum of 3 playthroughs because there are also trophies for beating the game on each difficulty and the last one isn't unlocked until your third playthrough is completed, but apparently once you beat the game the third time you can load the save and beat the final boss again and get that trophy at least.

 

Overall, the game is okay.  Nothing special and there are plenty of games that do it better.  It's not terrible, just not anything special.

 

Probably won't play this any more today since Monster Viator came out and I am going to play that and then my next game, Hero Must Die Again.

 

Yeah, you can dodge a bit with only 3 playthroughs and a reload (you can chintz that rather than completing a 4th) but my problem is that you can do those 3 runs and still only have 10k kills.  Even with 30k kills for the trophy, you still may not have all the forms maxed.  This is still my benchmark for pointless grinding, even over Omega Quintet.

 

1 hour ago, voodoo_eyes said:

 

A friend of mine was asking me for suggestions on dungeon crawlers for PS4, that don't have any or only very little fan service. Turns out I couldn't think of a single one, as that' seems to kind of be a mandatory requirement for japanese dungeon crawlers. I wonder how much the whole fanservice aspect actualy factors in, when it comes to sales.

 

I'd recommend Stranger of Sword City for doing a good job of avoiding most of the fan service stuff, but it's Vita only and not PS4. If they have PSNow, the PS3 Wizardry title would be a good choice (haven't played it myself but friends enjoyed it).  Old Wizardry games on PC used to be great as well.

Edited March 10, 2020 by Kevvik

[Kevvik]

Game #3: Persona 4 Golden

 

Day 3 Impressions

Time played: 10 hrs

 

I played a few more hours and really didn't do any further combat.  I've finished almost 1.5 months of gameplay and the next victim has been taken.  I think I'm ready to go into the TV World after him so we'll see how this dungeon goes.  The majority of the last couple hours has been story, social activity and building links. 

 

What I will say, coming from a guy who loves story over almost everything else, is that I really want to see where this goes.  I've quickly become invested in these characters and the journey they are experiencing.  This will keep me coming back through for completion.  I went through the first chapter of Trails of Cold Steel a couple of events ago and while I really enjoyed it, I haven't gone back to it though I plan to.  This is holding my interest even more and I will likely get back to it very shortly after the event is done (tough fight between this and Baldur's Gate but it gives me console and portable to play with so maybe both?).

 

Trophies earned: 10/50, 16% for E rank

Score so far: 10/10

Completion Rate: 83.99% (-0.53% for the event)

 

CR is higher than it should be because I did some Liar Princess the other night at my wife's behest.  She wants to see me finish that so she can see how it ends so I'll probably play more of that behind the next couple games.  Still much easier than the other NIS platform/puzzlers but the story (there I go again) is pretty good in its fairy tale way.

 

Next up: Game #4: Layers of Fear