toxicitizen

I kinda stopped watching movies as much the past few years. I'd occasionally go see one in theaters or watch one at home if I was really interested in it but little more than that. So, I built up a bit of a backlog of movies. This week I've started working my way through it and, since none of them so far have been bad, I guess I'm just going to dump them all here. The Wolverine This was by far the worst one of the bunch. I don't even feel like talking about it all that much. It wasn't bad or anything but overall just kind of seriously meh. I can't believe I put off watching Days of Future Past this long because I felt like I needed to watch this one first... X-Men: Days of Future Past Now this one I enjoyed a lot. It's been a while since I've rewatched X2 but I've long held it as one of the best superhero movies ever made and I think DoFP is at the very least a very close second, if not the new number one of the series. I loved First Class but this was much better in every single way. It was especially nice seeing the old cast again. Really looking forward to Apocalypse, now. The World's End. This is another one I'm not sure why I've put off watching for this long. I enjoyed both Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz and I remember looking forward to it prior to its release but I never got around to watching it until now, for some reason. It's been too long since I've watched the first two to really compare it to them but on its own I thought it was pretty enjoyable. Oh and it had some surprisingly well choreographed fight scenes for what's pretty much a sci-fi comedy. They have this energy to them that was actually kind of funny in how unexpected it was. John Wick. I didn't really know a whole lot about this one. Just the basic premise and that it was apparently one of the best action movies in recent years. It was a nice surprise that it somehow managed to live up to such high praise. I thoroughly enjoyed it but I'm not sure I see the same franchise potential everyone else seems to. But whatever, if the sequel is also this good I won't be complaining. Gone Girl. Watched this one tonight. Finished it like 15 mins ago, actually. David Fincher has yet to make a film I haven't loved (well, Benjamin Button was kinda whatever) but I didn't expect this one to blow me away like this. This might actually be my second favorite of his after Fight Club. I somehow managed to remain unspoiled even after this long and thank fucking God for that. Once the movie hit the halfway reveal, I had no idea where the fuck it was going to go and I fucking love that in a movie. Especially when it comes to this kind of mystery/thriller. When the credits rolled, I just started laughing my ass off. In a very good way. I'm still not entirely sure whether I loved or hated the ending. That's it for now, I think. The next one I'll be watching will probably be Birdman. I've heard so much high praise for it that I can't help but have similarly high expectations. Hopefully I won't be disappointed.

... that was a joke, guys

So, Nuuvem are currently having their winter (???) sale, because South America doesn't give a shit, I guess. And after the conversion of taco dollars to CAD dollars, this was like 10 bucks. This one is actually long overdue for me. I mean, yeah, it's only the second game and they just announced the fourth game a couple days ago. But I also played a shit ton of BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger when it first came out. It's the only fighting game I ever platinum'd, actually. I remember grinding ranked matches with someone from here. I'm thinking... Kovach? Or something like that. I don't think he's around anymore. Anyway, I never got around to grabbing this one on PS3, for some reason. I'm really looking forward to playing the story mode. The one in CT was great and the BlazBlue lore in general is pretty weird and interesting.

I don't see why not. I mean, what about Bayonetta? That's pretty much the same style of gameplay but better modernized than DMC4 was. Hell, Bayo 1 felt like the true DMC4 at the time. When I say I want DMC5, I don't mean I want more of DMC4. DMC4 feels archaic as fuck in many ways. I want a proper step forward for the series, both in terms of design and mechanics. And as much as I loved DmC and think it doesn't deserve the shit and hate it gets, even I have to admit that that's simply not what it was. And replaying the old games can only bring you so far. At some point it's nice to have new levels and a new story to play through.

Devil May Cry 4: Special Edition. There really isn't much to say about this one. It's DMC4, neither the best nor the worst of the series. That being said, I think I enjoyed it more this time around than I did when I played it for the first time a few years ago. Not really sure why, though. It was pretty much exactly how I remembered. Anyway, this version has a bunch of extra characters, so I'll probably end up replaying it again in the near future. I remember reading that Vergil even has his own story with new cutscenes and everything, so that should be fun. For the past couple years, the one thing I really wanted out of the series was a sequel to the reboot but that's clearly not happening at this point. And, frankly, I think after this I'd actually prefer a proper DMC5, anyway. Bring back Dante, Nero and the others, find a way to fit Vergil in there somehow, and make the ultimate DMC game. That sounds pretty damn good. Oh, but remaster DMC3 first. Seriously, do it. I need that to happen. A proper version of DMC3 on Steam would make me so happy.

Ori and the Blind Forest. Really cute, short and simple metroidvania. Think Dust: An Elysian Tail but without the ugly art and with short range projectile attacks instead of sword combat. It's not the most complex metroidvania ever but it is surprisingly challenging. Hell, at times it can even be a little frustrating. It's not Super Meat Boy difficult or anything like that but it does require you to at least be decent at quick precision platforming. Also, every single "dungeon" is followed by a fast-paced escape sequence that you pretty much need to pull off flawlessly because it arbitrarily disables your ability to create checkpoints. That's probably my biggest complaint about the game, that was complete bullshit. It's also fairly short, I went out of my way to backtrack and get all the upgrades (there's only health and energy) and it still only lasted about 10 hours. That's a pretty decent length all things considered but it felt a bit short compared to other similar games. I don't know if I'd recommend it at full price but for 10 bucks or so it's definitely worth a look.

The Harley Quinn DLC is pretty bad. It's like 20mins long and was clearly phoned in. I really hope the others about Batgirl and Red Hood will be better. --- The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky. So, I finished my replay of this last night. I'm usually not crazy about replaying long JRPGs but Second Chapter could be coming out any week now and I felt I needed a refresher on the main plot. It turned out to actually be a fucking blast to replay. Last summer, I enjoyed the game a lot but I went in completely blind and it backfired a little bit. I normally love doing that but this game is so dense with world-building and lore that it moves very slowly for the first 30 hours or so. I was enjoying the characters and everything but I kept waiting for something to happen. This time around, now that I'm more familiar with the Kiseki world and have some knowledge of the other games, I got a lot more out it. References to neighboring countries and historical events felt much less abstract now that I have reference points like "Right, that's where game x takes place!" and such. And the way this game is written, NPC dialogue changes pretty much every time the story moves in some way. So, if you really go out of your way to talk to them, you can get some really interesting little nuggets of info that hint at upcoming plot points and even foreshadow stuff from future games. I'm not exaggerating when I say this game is just fucking dense with lore. Not only that but, while I vaguely remembered most of the main plot events, I had actually forgotten pretty much all the important details and specifics. So, I would've probably been confused as all fucking hell going into SC like this. Replaying it was definitely a good idea. Also, I'm really glad I decided to switch to the Steam version because at one point I fired up the PSP version to check something and holy fucking shit, my eyes! I don't remember what the resolution of PSP games was but that shit was so blurry and full of aliasing. I mean, the game still doesn't look all that great on PC but at least it's clean and sharp. The only visual "issue" I noticed was that while the game runs at 60fps, there's the occasional animation that's clearly locked at 30, for some reason. It makes them look a little jerky and out of place but that's pretty much it. Anyway, I wanted to get a perfect clear save ready because you can transfer it into SC and get some bonuses but man, this game goes kind of insane with missable shit! And it's not just collectible items for achievements, either. You can miss out on entire side-quests if you're not at the right place during very specific (and short) time windows to talk to whatever NPC triggers them. Then there's also choices you make during some quests where making the correct one will earn you more points and a perfect clear save requires getting the maximum amount of those points. It's pretty much impossible not to miss anything without a guide. Hell, I was following one and there were a couple times where I had to go back to an earlier save because I realized too late I'd missed the window for something or other. But, unlike my recent playthrough of DXHR, I managed to not screw anything up! I also couldn't resist and had to craft the badge. Hadn't done that in a while. Now I just need SC to come out soon. This month would be perfect, actually. If it takes too long, I'm a little worried I'll just start forgetting the plot details all over again...

What?

What?

Oh, yeah, some of the batmobile Riddler stuff was actually pretty cool. I'm talking about the time trial ones specifically, where you have to do 3 laps around a race track.

Well, there's some other racing-like stuff but those Riddler ones are what I was talking about, yeah. They're the worst by far, although that might have been in part due to being early in the game when I still sucked at controlling the batmobile.

I think there might be a way to trigger the ending without doing it, actually. From what I've been reading, having 100% completion only adds a little extra bit at the very end. Maybe go on the roof of GCPD near the Bat-signal and see if a button prompt doesn't show up? I only found out after I'd already finished doing all the Riddler stuff late last night so I couldn't try it.

Persona Q is the only one I missed. I still need to get a 3DS at some point, not just for PQ but also for Shin Megami Tensei IV and all the other SMT spin-offs. And I'm definitely getting P4DAN when it comes out this Fall. Anyway, back on topic I passed on it during the summer sale but it was 75% off for a couple hours just now, even cheaper than it was during the sale. Glad I jumped on it because it turned out to be a pricing mistake, it's not even discounted anymore. I usually miss out on those so it was pretty lucky that I happened to be in the Steam thread on GAF when someone noticed it.

Nocturne was also like that, with a very minimal story. I'm surprised to hear that about DDS, though, since I heard it was more of the "Final Fantasy version" of Shin Megami Tensei, with a bigger focus on story and characters or something. But yeah, you shouldn't compare SMT games with Persona. Or rather, you shouldn't go into any proper SMT game and expect Persona. Persona aren't true Megaten games, ATLUS only slapped the Shin Megami Tensei label on P3 and P4 for brand recognition. They're a completely separate series in Japan, not a spin-off of SMT, and it looks like that's about to be true in the West as well. As far as I'm aware, none of the recent releases (PQ, P4G, DAN and even P5) have the SMT moniker.

Batman: Arkham Knight. I finished the story a couple days ago but as it turns out you need to do all the Riddler shit or something before you can get the ending. I've been reading stuff that suggests it's only for a little extra bit a the end but the game never indicated that I could trigger any kind of ending sequence until I had done 100% so whatever. Anyway, I finished doing all of it last night. I'm not really sure what to think of this one, to be honest. PC version issues aside (I was lucky enough for the game to be decently playable on my rig), I thought it was fantastic. I actually enjoyed the batmobile stuff a lot, which seems to be the main divisive point for most people. I mean, some of the racing challenges are fucking terrible but there were only like 2-3 that were truly bad. Once I got a hang of the controls, it was pretty fun blasting through the streets of Gotham. I always found myself driving to places instead of gliding, even when I wasn't going very far. So, my initial reaction was that Arkham Knight is the best game of the series. But the more I think about it the more I wonder if some stuff really was better or not. I'm glad that they picked up pretty much every single plot thread left dangling from Arkham City, even the side-quests, but while it was satisfying to see those things play out, a lot of it felt...I dunno, less thought out? Like, for example, Clearly most of their efforts went into crafting the main story, which I can't really blame them for I guess. Arkham City's main story was pretty weak by comparison. But overall, I kinda want to say AO <<<<< AA < AC < AK but I feel like I need to give AK some more time to sink in before I'm sure. Probably do a new game plus run at some point, too. I played both AA and AC to death so I feel like I need to spend more time with AK before I can truly decide how it stands against them.

Yeah, it's kinda weird to gate the ending behind that. I mean, I was probably gonna do it anyway but I reached the end of the campaign two days ago and I'm actually getting a little sick of doing all that Riddler shit. Oh well, only one island and one main area left...

That's good to hear. And yeah, Nocturne could be pretty unforgiving at times so I'm not too surprised to hear that this is similar in that regard.

Probably because My Chemical Romance broke up.

There were some sales on PSN this week that I couldn't resist. I've been curious about Monster Monpiece for a while but the only reason I finally bought it is because it was only 4 bucks. If I end up hating it, no big loss there. As for Digital Devil Saga 1 & 2, I had a blast with SMT: Nocturne last summer so I've been meaning to get them for a while. I still don't own a 3DS so they're pretty much my only option if I want to play some more Megaten games. Which I really, really do. I'll probably try to find the time to play them before the end of the summer.

Lol, holy shit, I didn't think it was this bad for some people. I thought it was just performance issues and missing effects...

Isn't that a result of

Interesting point about Damnit, now I really want to play. It's actually decently playable on my rig. Maybe I'll just finish this first playthrough and leave the achievement and completion stuff for later...

Keep in mind I still haven't had in-game confirmation since I've put the game on hold until it gets patched, but... Also, for something a little more convincing (and probably actually spoilerish in this case)

Before talking about a sequel, how about patching GFWL out of the original? That's be nice. I wonder what happened for them to return to being independent, though. Did they buy themselves out from under Epic kinda like Bungie did? Or did Epic just no longer feel the need to own them and opted to release them rather than shutting them down? My guess would be the latter since PCF haven't done a whole lot in recent years to suggest they'd have that kind of spare cash whereas Bungie most definitely had a whole bunch of Halo money. Plus, it seems like Epic don't actually have a whole lot going on these days outside of UE development. Even the new Unreal Tournament game is basically outsourced to the community.