Games You've Beat in 2017

[TheMightyEthan]

Akiba's Trip.

I quite liked it.  It's PG-13 anime silliness, which is what I was expecting.  The combat isn't the most refined in the world, but there is room to get good at it, and it's enjoyable.  I was tempted to dive straight back into NG+, and only didn't because of Persona coming on Tuesday.  I actually still might.

4/5

[Mr. GOH!]

Mass Effect: Andromeda. Despite my criticism, I enjoyed the game quite a bit. Of the sequels improve on it half as much as the original trilogy sequels improved on ME1, I think we're on for a treat. Specific major choices and loose ends discussion behind the spoiler tag.

 

Spoiler

Choices: Female Ryder who romances Peebee. I cleared all architects, got every world to 100% habitability and did all quests except some of the minor tasks.

I saved the angaran AI and gave it to the angarans.

I have the krogan the Remnant drive cores.

I exposed Serissa but kept her as the asari pathfinder. 

I convinced Rix to accept being the durian pathfinder.

I left the salarian pathfinder on the archon's shop and saved the krogan scouts to prevent them from being exalted. Hayjer is the salaries pathfinder.

Eos is a scientific outpost.

I saved the Moshae.

I let Akksul shoot Jaal in the face, which made the Roekaar fall apart. Jaal is fine.

I saved Sloane from Reyes's trap and shot him in the back as he escaped. Sloane runs Kadara but is an ally.

I let the salarian ex-STG agent go even though he gave the salaries ark to the left in order to infiltrate the kett.

No major good guys died in the final battle. I recommended the Moshae as Heleus ambassador.

Loose ends: who were the Jaardan, what were their goals, and, scariest of all, who attacked them and created the Scourge as a byproduct of the attack? 

What is the Remnant Abyssal on Elaaden? 

Where did Reyes and the Collective go?

What will the left empire do in response to their loss in the Heleus Cluster?

What is the angaran AI all about?

Will Ellen Ryder be cured?

Who is the secret benefactor of the Initiative and why did a/he have Initiative founder Jien Garson killed as soon as the Nexus arrived in the Heleus Cluster?

Why has the Milky Way been silent to all quantum phone calls?

What is the quarian ark trying to warn the Nexus about?

 

 

 

 

Edited April 5, 2017 by Mr. GOH!

[toxicitizen]

Total War: Warhammer.

I have united the Dwarfs and successfully repelled the Chaos invasion. The Old World is now safe. Until I go back and do a Greenskins campaign, that is. Then all will be crushed by the might of my WAAAGH!

Needless to say, I really enjoyed this one. My only experience with Total War was a single Shogun 2 campaign like 5 years ago, so I was pretty much a complete noob going into this one. I've also been having trouble getting into 4X games lately, I tried both Endless Space and Civ: Beyond Earth last year and neither really clicked. I think I just don't have the patience anymore for the learning phase and botched starts that inevitably come with these games. I anticipated it this time, though, and made sure to watch some tutorials and let's plays beforehand. I also played on easy because I'm a terrible person. I'll bump it up to normal next time.

Also, turns out the fantasy Warhammer setting is pretty damn cool. Not as cool as 40K but that's true of most things. But I'm actually really looking forward to the sequel/expansion now. I want me some of those Lizardmen and Skavens so bad. The downside to that is that, while I enjoyed the game mechanically, I have little interest in regular historical Total War now. I mean, Feudal Japan is cool but it just doesn't compare to rat people, dinosaur Aztecs and undead Egyptians.

It's a shame about the DLC pricing, though. I'd like to grab most of it right away but it's so fucking expensive that I have to wait for a sale. Except for Chaos, totally buying Chaos ASAP. 

[TheFlyingGerbil]

I've defeated Ganon (or technically, beat him down to the point where Zelda could seal him away) in Breath of The Wild, after playing for "115 hours or more". Strange thing is I took my time between Divine Beasts, but when I finished the last one (fire lizard for me) I felt the story pushed me forward to Ganon and I did get swept along with it and headed straight to Impa, then the castle.

 

It was as good as I hoped it would be, and more. I'm going to carry on for a bit looking for shrines, etc. but not going to attempt 100% (I finished at 32.17). One thing that makes me less keen to stay in there is that it takes you back to the game before you defeat Ganon, so there's no post game exploration as such which is my only real complaint, though it's something they've always done in Zelda games if I recall correctly. I hoped it would be different this time, since they'd made so many other changes to the formula.

[TheMightyEthan]

Yeah, my only real disappointment with that game is the lack of post-game play, and the lack of a NG+ or Master Quest.

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[Thursday Next]

On the one hand, playing in the post game world can be a nice touch, on the other though, having stuff post game can lead to missable things. I think on balance, I prefer the game to reset to before the pnr and be able to hoover up everything in one playthrough, rather than having to reload an old save to get the bits I might have missed.

[Mr. GOH!]

Post-ending gameplay in story-centric games has always struck me as silly cheevo-oriented nonsense. The story is over, the tests of skills have been passed, and characters have been fully developed; why would I then waste time doing lesser things? It seems hollow to go back and do sidequests with a character who has already saved the world; it diminishes the achievement of beating the game. It's like it exists so that trophy hunters can go back get trophies at their leisure (which also diminishes what makes trophies/cheevos special insofar as they're easier to get than if the game ended when it, you know, ends).

I'm fine with missable content. Missable content can be deployed to make a game more interesting and raise the stakes of player decisions. 

I complete Torment: Tides of Numenera last night. I really dig the world and the writing and the overarching story, for the most part. There are six companions, though I only got to know four of them, but they were all good in their own way. I wish there was more room for loyalty quests with their own separate locations and more quests focused solely on the companions' arcs rather than have them all blend in with main quest locations. It also feels like the the game in split into halves that would better serve as thirds, with a missing third main set of locations and quests with heightened stakes once you kinda figure out what's really going on. As it is, the game does not give the player time to really reflect on its central themes, nor do there seem to be all that many consequences from the players' choices on the main quest. However, this is *all* in line with the original Torment, so I can't complain too much. I also both enjoyed the odd leveling system but I felt like it was capped too soon in terms of development (rather than too early on in the narrative itself; the main character can max out early, but your companions won't max out until the end of the game).

There are hooks for a sequel game, as it strongly suggests that the story of one companion in particular is not over. Otherwise, the main narrative and the story of the changing god is most definitely put tor est, one way or another.

I hope they make a sequel that's bigger and better now that inXile has made this one. There's a lot of potential for interesting stories in the Ninth World.

Edited April 10, 2017 by Mr. GOH!

[toxicitizen]

The Swapper.

Didn't want to start anything too long in case Bayonetta shows up on Steam tomorrow, so I finally got around to playing this. Don't know what took me so long because it's right up my alley. Sci-fi puzzle game with creepy philosophical implications? Yes, please. It has a pretty unique visual style, too. All the assets were hand-made with clay before being digitized, which is kinda neat. For some reason, I always associated it with The Fall but they're not really all that similar except for their dark sci-fi themes. The Fall has more of an adventure game vibe to it while this is more of a straight forward "puzzle rooms" kinda deal.

Anyway, yeah, fun game. 

[TheMightyEthan]

Zelda isn't story-oriented per-se though.  The story is really thin on the ground.  99% of what you're doing is "side stuff".  And in a weird way I feel like making me go back to before I beat the final boss to continue playing diminishes it, because to me then it feels like that never really happened, because in the world it hasn't happened.

That said, the save-right-before-the-boss method that they used is good enough for practical purposes.  Really I just wanted a NG+ and/or Master Quest.

[Mister Jack]

You expected them to rearrange 120 shrines for a master quest?

[TheMightyEthan]

No, but they could have done like Skyward Sword and made the enemies tougher/Link take more damage.

[TCP]

That sounds like a really lazy way to do a hard mode / master quest. Which is fine if it came included in the game, but as part of DLC, people will expect more. 

[TheMightyEthan]

Who said anything about DLC?  I'm saying I wish that was included as part of the base game.

[Mister Jack]

But then you couldn't pay money for it as DLC.

[TheFlyingGerbil]

Story-wise, the very last scene with zelda was literally the perfect setup to continue the exploration of the world, and they could have based Zelda in one of the research labs so they wouldn't have even had to remodel Hyrule Castle. 99% of the NPC dialogue would still make sense, it would be so little work. It has to be a decision they made and I wonder if they've ever discussed the topic publically.

Edited April 11, 2017 by TheFlyingGerbil

[Mal]

Hollow Knight

Amazing game. Pick this up if you don't have it. See FLD's post for more ways on why Hollow Knight is awesome.

I personally expected to get sick by the 20 hour mark but no, I almost made it to 28 hours. Granted I could've shaved 5-8 hours off if I wasn't exploring and doing stuff to get myself at 89%. There's a few extra things I need to do to get to 100%, some of which are pretty menial (collectibles), some that I have some/no idea on how to do and there is one so frustrating that I left after trying for a few hours (!).

I might try to 100% it to see if I can get a different ending. If not... I want to get the good ending. What I got was not preferable according to many NPCs, especially one I just talked to before I went in.

Spoiler

And I seriously doubt the last boss has only one easy form that really doesn't change up its attack much. All those spirit bosses are harder, especially Lost Kin. Holy hell was Lost Kin hard but SO GOOD. I swear it can read your moves but not in a way that you cannot react to it. Biggest problem was its parasite spawns. No breathing room unless you have the right charms. It took about one to two hours on that bastard until I figured out how to deal with its parasite spawns.

And if anybody is wondering, the third arena fight is what I need to finish after trying for several hours. My last few attempt I got the the end boss, I think? It isn't the guy who wants to fight me so... I might cry if he's after the boss I'm having some issues with. It feels like a ten minute slog to get to the boss.

Edit: Seems like the third Trial of Fools is pose to be that hard. Now I don't feel so bad but seems like there's some stuff I should get to make it a bit easier...

 

Edited April 13, 2017 by Mal

[toxicitizen]

8 hours ago, Mal said:

I might try to 100% it to see if I can get a different ending. If not... I want to get the good ending. What I got was not preferable according to many NPCs, especially one I just talked to before I went in.

Did you

take Hollow Knight's place in the egg?

If so, yeah, that's the "bad" ending. But from what I've heard it's not linked to collectibles or completion. It's a bit more... Dark Souls-y than that. When I get around to it, I'll probably just look up a guide, to be honest. Should probably do that soon, actually. I was in a rush to move on to Nier: Automata when I finished it but I have plenty of time now.

[Mal]

Yes. That one.

Spoiler

From what I'm reading, I do have the ability to get at least another ending with another mask. If you heard about the White Castle, it's part of what you need to do to get it. God I hate the hamburgers and to a point, here.

Another ending may be tied to Mr. Mushroom. Mr. Mushroom is cryptic as hell and I'm wouldn't have known to try to even attempt to translate what he is saying.

I wonder if some endings depends on if you spare the Nailsmith, Zodd or whatever his name is (the old and weak MC lookalike) and all the souls you come across. Only Zodd has been left alive unless I killed him in the Trial of Fools.

One thing I'm really liking is how sometimes it is not preferable to use any movement upgrades.

[toxicitizen]

Bayonetta.

Arguably still the best character action game ever made. Holy shit, is this game good! Harder than I remembered, too. Except for the boss fights, which is the complete opposite of what I remembered. I beat the final boss on like my second try last night and I'm pretty sure I had a lot of trouble with him years ago.

Gonna jump right into hard mode and go for 100% achievements completion right away, I think. Right now I just want more. But man, replaying this has really made me want a new game in this style. Hopefully Kamiya can get to work on a multiplatform title now that ScaleBound has been shitcanned. If not, there's still hope that 2017 will be the year Capcom surprise us with a Devil May Cry 5 announcement, I suppose...

[Mister Jack]

How's the PC port?

[toxicitizen]

Pretty damn solid. Decent amount of graphical options, locked 60fps (except for pre-rendered cutscenes, which are 30fps) and arbitrary resolutions support. Apparently some AMD users are having performance issues but I haven't experienced anything like that on Nvidia.

[Saturnine Tenshi]

Got ending A in NieR: Automata. Moving on to the rest. Ended up doing like 60% of the quests the first time around. Pretty much all that were available but the lvl 60 Father Servo and one other.

[toxicitizen]

Any unfinished side-quests will still be available on subsequent routes (as well as a few new ones).

But more importantly, just ending A? Get out of this thread! You're not even remotely close to having beaten the game!!

[Mal]

22 hours ago, FLD said:

Pretty damn solid. Decent amount of graphical options, locked 60fps (except for pre-rendered cutscenes, which are 30fps) and arbitrary resolutions support. Apparently some AMD users are having performance issues but I haven't experienced anything like that on Nvidia.

If you are running some odd resolution then you'll get a double movie in the film strip cutscenes. A little odd and annoying but the core gameplay is normal and chances are you'll hit a stable 60fps. I'm sure there are people out there seeing if they can unlock it and then see what happens...

On the Hollow Knight front, I might just beat the game again since I have what I need for another ending. Then back on to Trails SC. Then Nier Automata. Then Bayonetta. If I'm successful you guys will see a completion rate unseen in me for years.

[Saturnine Tenshi]

1 hour ago, FLD said:

Any unfinished side-quests will still be available on subsequent routes (as well as a few new ones).

But more importantly, just ending A? Get out of this thread! You're not even remotely close to having beaten the game!!

Yeah, I know about the quests. Don't rush me! I spent a lot of time doing random shit like fishing and upgrading weapons before pressing on. Only 9 hours behind you in hours played.

Edited April 15, 2017 by Saturnine Tenshi