Mister Jack

Ghost of Tsushima I still have a lot of side stuff to do but I finished the main story and all the supporting character stories so that's good enough to post here. I'm surprised just how much I loved this game. A critique I hear over and over is "Assassin's Creed but good" and yeah, that's pretty accurate. This is more or less an Assassin's Creed game without all the tedious Ubisoft baggage (microtransactions, bugs, an overwhelming number of objectives) and with a lot more polish. I would be lying if I said it doesn't check a lot of the open world checkboxes. You clear out enemy camps, you do stealth kills in tall grass, you track footprints, and you do climbing/platforming challenges. All these things are competently implemented but they don't really bring anything new to the table. If this was all there was to the game it would be fairly average but there are two big saving graces to Ghost of Tsushima. First, the combat in this game is great. Sword strikes feel nice and heavy and the constant juggling of stances for managing different enemy types along with using your tools for crowd control is really satisfying. If you time your blocks just right you can also do parries that you can follow up with a powerful deathblow, but this is a lot trickier than it sounds, especially when you're being attacked by a group. Make no mistake, if you rush in and button mash you will quickly get your ass handed to you.You have to fight like a samurai, not a barbarian. It's also worth mentioning that stealth and open combat are usually both viable options for clearing your objective. I personally liked to start with stealth to thin out the herd a little, then jump out in the open and yell for all the remaining enemies to come get some. It's a lot of fun. The other thing this game does so, so right is the presentation. If this isn't the most beautiful open world I've ever played in then it's at least in the top 3. The world here is smaller than most open world games, but Sucker Punch took that smaller space and crafted an absolutely gorgeous environment that is oozing with atmosphere and natural splendor. I took so many screenshots just while riding around the map and I would gladly make any one of them into my desktop wallpaper. It looks that good and it feels super rewarding to explore the island when there's always some breathtaking new sight to see. As if that wasn't enough, the game's navigation blends seamlessly into the world itself. Animals you find will lead you to secrets and the wind blows in the direction of your current objective. Instead of following a map marker, you observe the grass, the trees, and the leaves to find your way. It makes you feel much more connected to the world and it's really cool. I won't say there's no map markers at all, but they only pop up once you're extremely close to your goal and need to narrow down your search area. You can also minimize the HUD if you wish to make it even more immersive. There's a black and white Kurosawa mode if you want to play it in the style of his movies, but while I appreciate the gesture I just can't imagine missing out on these colors. The story is fine. It's a solid if unremarkable samurai movie tale. The characters are also fine. I don't love them but I do like them, if that makes sense. However, even though this plot treads familiar ground there were still a few points where I felt an emotional impact. It's a story we've seen before but it's presented well with great music and strong performances, especially in Japanese. It's hard not to get at least a little invested when it's told with this much style. On one final note, I was really happy to see that this game doesn't lean too hard into realism to the point where it becomes a detriment to your enjoyment. You don't have to watch a slow animation to pick up every item you come across, you don't have to wait for your horse to catch up to you when you whistle for it, and some of the physics are kind of "video gamey." Is it realistic? No. BUT IT'S FUN, DAMN IT!

"This is the largest open world we've ever created!" When I hear this nowadays I actually see it as a negative. When a developer brags about how huge their open world is that tells me one of two things: 1) There's huge patches of boring, cut and pasted emptiness 2) The space between actual mission areas are filled up with an overwhelming amount of busywork and meaningless collectibles rather than meaningful content You know what I prefer? Open worlds that are smaller, but more thoughtfully crafted. I'd rather have a smaller open world with love and care put into every inch than an enormous world where long stretches of boring traversal is a feature. Even Rockstar is guilty of this.

I keep seeing this image and it's hard to deny.

Is it me or do the graphics look really bad for a late gen Xbox one game? Did they have to downgrade THAT much to achieve 60 FPS? It's really distracting.

When you're in the middle of an important samurai mission but then you see a fox.

Apparently physical copies of Ghost of Tsushima are already so hard to find that people are scalping them for 100+ dollars online. Corona is bound to be a factor here but Sony still really screwed up on distribution. I feel lucky that I managed to get what might have been the last copy in the tri-county area in my state. Someone at a Gamestop told me they didn't even get enough copies to cover their pre-orders. Digital is always an option, at least, so nobody has to miss out on the game entirely if they are desperate, but I usually prefer having physical copies whenever I can. Modern games have huge file sizes that take forever to download and even if you can preload them they still wreak hell on data caps. If I ever have to delete or reinstall a game I'd much rather pop in a disc than wait for a download.

Ghost of Tsushima is pretty cool so far. It isn't exactly breaking the mold for open world games but it refines certain things in ways I really like. Using the wind as a navigation tool is a brilliant way to seamlessly blend player mechanics into the game world itself and I like how it does the same with certain animals. There's no need for map markers because the world around you gives you the guidance you need. It's really cool and I hope future open world games take notes from this. The world is also freaking gorgeous to boot. This is some of the best art direction I've seen for an open world in a long time. This game was made for photo mode. On another note, I appreciate that this game isn't afraid to just be a game when it needs to be. It has really nice animations during combat but when I want to collect a crafting resource I don't have to stop and get off the horse every time to watch a painstaking animation where Jin picks a flower off the ground and plucks off the petals and puts them in his robe. I don't have to watch him bend over an animal carcass and slowly skin it and pull off the hide and roll it up under his arm. You just hit the R2 button and boom, it's yours. You don't even have to watch him pick it up with his hand. You just get it instantly. I vastly prefer this to the tedious gathering animations in Red Dead Redemption 2. Sure, they look impressive, but they waste so much time.

Lookin forward to this one. I was going to wait a bit on it but from everything I'm seeing PS5 gaming is gonna be so expensive that I might as well hold off on saving for that and enjoy the current gen a little longer.

Yeeeah they kind of ran out of time and money with the anime's original ending. You can practically consider it non-canon.

I got a month of Disney+ so I could watch Hamilton and figured as long as I have it I might as well watch The Mandalorian too. After finishing it I'm starting to feel like Disney should just give Star Wars movies to the Marvel people too because they do it so much better than the people who did the new trilogy.

I've actually heard New Dawn is not very good, at least compared to other Far Cry games.

If you want to get into Souls games I would actually recommend starting with Bloodborne like I did. Well, I actually started with Demon's Souls but I hated that game and I hated it even when I tried going back to replay it years later. If I were to make a tier list of all the Soulslike games I've played (wish I could use Tiermaker but to hell with Twitter) it would go something like this. S tier Bloodborne - Still the best From game if you ask me. Best combat, most interesting world, coolest weapons, coolest bosses. If you can't get into this one I can't imagine you'll be able to get into the others. Sekiro - More of an action game than an RPG so it's easier to get into and delivers some fun ninja stealth along with some of the best boss battles ever made, but it's also by far the hardest game on the list. Fantastic game but not for the easily frustrated. Nioh 2 - Basically takes everything good about Nioh 1 and then fixes the stuff that was bad. This one is up there with Bloodborne for me personally. Can't wait for the DLC. A tier Dark Souls III - This one is my favorite because it feels the closest to Bloodborne, ironically enough. Combat rewards staying nimble with your dodges more than relying on a shield. It doesn't hit the highest highs of the first Dark Souls but I feel it maintains a more consistent quality throughout. Nioh - This game and its sequel have some of the best combat out of any game I've played, period. Mixing up your light and heavy attacks in high, mid, and low stances with several different weapon types gives you an incredible amount of playstyles to experiment with. Admittedly the story here is a little lackluster, there's not quite enough enemy variety, and the living weapon system isn't balanced very well, but all of these were addressed in the sequel. The DLC may have already addressed it but I haven't gotten around to playing that. B tier Dark Souls - I'm sure a lot of people would put the original game up at the very top, and it does have a very strong first half, but the second half is pretty weak. It did introduce a lot of the stuff people love about modern soulslike games, though, so you could do worse. It does have a couple of really shitty bosses, though. Star Wars: Fallen Order - If you want to dabble in the genre but are wary of the difficulty this is a good one to start with too. I hate to say it's a "normie" game but it kind of is. It's a kinder, gentler Soulslike that has actual difficulty settings and a surprisingly decent Star Wars story. It really rips off its inspiration but it's still fun to play. My only real criticism is that the unlockable rewards for exploration are lame as hell and that the game is kind of short. It's a good entry point nonetheless. C tier Dark Souls II - This game was designed by someone who thinks people liked the first game because they died over and over again. Nobody likes dying in these games. What they like is overcoming a tough but fair challenge but quite a bit of the challenge here is completely unfair. "Here's a boss that causes your weapon to degrade every time you hit it. Here's a room that aggros six enemies as soon as you set foot inside and also a mini-boss will spawn behind you." Absolutely ridiculous. D tier Demon's Souls - I swear I will never understand why anyone would say this is the best in the series. This is the first game they ever made with this formula and it shows because it's full of all kinds of tedious, unfun jank that they eventually ironed out when they made Dark Souls. Fuck moon grasses, fuck world tendency, fuck item burden, and fuck the Valley of Defilement. Code Vein - Trash game. Already explained why in this thread.

I checked out BNA on Netflix. It's inevitably going to get compared to Beastars and maybe even Zootopia because it has similarities to both, but it really isn't that much like them. I like the former two works because they sprinkle in lots of interesting details like how each animal species has special needs and how their unique animal instincts and abilities factor into their daily living, but that's not as much of a factor here outside of Shirou's amazing sense of smell and a few remarks by other characters. Since there are actually humans in this universe it's more about how the beastmen are living a precarious existence within their city, knowing that the human government in mainland Japan can easily have them all rounded up and the city shut down if they step out of line. Even so, like pretty much every Trigger anime it's style over substance, but Trigger's style is so entertaining to watch that it's forgivable. Michiru is also a fun and likable character, although she takes a few episodes to come around. If anything I wish this show had 24 episodes rather than 12 so we could have had more time really explore this city and its nuances, but for what it is it's still a decent watch.

Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin It was okay, but I agree with the general sentiment that it's the weakest of the trilogy. The first half of this game is actually pretty bad and not very fun. I was tempted to drop it, but I decided to push through it and it did get better in the second half. Not great, but better. There's a fair bit of artificial difficulty going on here such as ambushes by enemies you couldn't have possibly known about, mobs of 6+ enemies in a game that really isn't designed for fighting against crowds, and tying your i-frames to a stat—which might be one of the dumbest ideas I've ever heard for an RPG. The early stages are downright painful, but once you level up a bit and actually build yourself a character that isn't useless it becomes more fun. I'll probably try out the DLC, but I kinda doubt I'll ever want to revisit this one like I could see myself doing with the other two.

I started playing Dark Souls II. I know it's the most divisive one, which is why I originally skipped it, but I was in the mood for a soulslike game and figured I'd like it more than Code Vein, at least. So far I do, but I'm not sure that's saying much. The other Souls games are about rough but reasonable challenges but this one seems designed like it doesn't care if you have fun or not, it just wants to beat you into submission with ludicrous enemy placement to preserve its reputation as "teh hardcorez gaem". Not even Nioh makes you fight this many enemies at the same time. That cutscene in the beginning where the witch is like "You're gonna lose all your souls over and over! Mwe he he he he!" made a pretty bad first impression. It doesn't help that I decided to play as a cleric for a change and then four bosses later found out that clerics were nerfed into near uselessness and never fixed. I also really hate the adaptability stat. It makes me feel like the first twenty levels I gain don't even matter because you really need to raise that stat at all costs if you want your rolls and your healing to be worth a damn. There are a few things it improved upon from the first game that I appreciate, but in many ways it feels like a step back. I'm enjoying it just enough to stick with it, but I really hope it gets better later on.

@TheMightyEthan I agree with pretty much all of that. Honestly if I had been in charge I would have tossed out that storyline entirely because the theme it is addressing just feels really sophomoric for a universe with so much heart and thought put into it. I've seen that story done a million times before and done better too. Wikipedia says Druckmann wrote both games but I swear there had to be someone else doing some major input for the first one because I don't know how else you have such a staggering drop in quality in a single sequel.

@TheMightyEthan Everything gets more expensive but at the same time wages on average have stagnated for god knows how long. You just can't have it both ways. If the minimum wage were actually raised to a livable standard like it should have been ages ago I think people could swallow a 70 dollar price point a lot more easily but I suspect that for a lot of folks this is just too much. When the federal government still believes that $7.25 is good enough to get by in the year 2020 then at some point something's gotta give.

OneShot I got this in that bundle for racial justice that itch.io was doing a while back. In fact, this was the main game I wanted when I got it. This is a puzzle/adventure game where you guide a little catboy (or girl?) named Niko on a quest to save a dying world by reviving the sun. I really can't say any more than that without ruining what makes it so unique. You can probably beat it in two or three sittings and it's worth experiencing at least once.

Hamilton Does this count? Whatever, I watched it on Disney+. I wanted to see it live but ain't nobody seeing any plays anytime soon so I just subscribed for one month so I could see it at all. It's pretty good. Good songs, good cast, some pretty funny moments in there too. I think anyone who likes musicals should reasonably enjoy this show. I also want to give credit to the cinematography. This is basically a recording of a live performance and I was afraid that lazy camera work would make it feel boring to watch at home but they really made the most out of what they had to work with so the Disney+ viewers wouldn't feel like they're watching a watered down version. I'd still like to see it live someday if this damn pandemic ever goes away but in the meantime this is a fine way to experience the play.

Well this certainly explains why Sony is gung-ho on bringing former Playstation exclusives to Steam. Nothing wrong with wanting to double dip on other platforms but Jesus Christ, you can get the complete PS4 version with DLC for 10 bucks these days.

Okay I would pay 70 bucks for Bloodborne 2.

I'm hearing rumors recently (and there are also some articles floating around) suggesting that next gen games could cost 70 dollars. If that turns out to be the case I'm gonna have to seriously rethink this hobby and probably stop buying new games at release except for stuff I'm anticipating years in advance like Persona 6. It may "only" be 10 bucks more but that would add up really quick. I have a huge backlog of games I've never touched, and if this new price point becomes the norm it might be time to finally start going through that.

Return of the Obra Dinn This is a great little puzzle/detective game brought to us by the guy who did Papers, Please. The premise is that you play as an insurance investigator for the East India Company in the year 1807 who is sent to check out a ghost ship that has mysteriously returned after a five year absence to figure out what happened to everyone onboard. You are given a logbook to chronicle the people and events that you uncover and a pocket watch that can show you the immediate events preceding a person's death as long as you have a trace of their corpse. Being able to directly witness the moment of someone's death makes it sound like this game is going to be easy but it really isn't. There are only a handful of corpses on the ship out of a crew of 60 and very few of the death scenes directly reveal the victim's name. You have to infer the specifics for yourself based on extreme attention to detail within the death scenes you examine. You need to pay attention to things like clothing, occupations, languages, accents, and even social circles to figure out who everybody is, how they died, and sometimes who killed them. Sometimes it comes down to sheer process of elimination. It can be very tricky, and I was almost tempted to consult a guide a couple of times. If you went into this knowing ahead of time who everybody is and how they died you could blow through this game in maybe 90 minutes but as a first-timer it took me roughly 10 hours to figure everything out. It's well worth solving too because the fate of the ship's crew is quite interesting. I don't want to spoil anything but take my word for it that this crew has seen some shit. If figuring out the identities of 60 strangers sounds daunting, rest assured that the game helps you out a little by permanently locking in every 3 correct answers you submit so that you'll be working with a progressively smaller list, although those last few entries can be the hardest of the bunch to figure out. Great game, though. Anyone who likes solving mysteries should pick it up.