Games You've Beat in 2017

[TheMightyEthan]

Black Flag was pretty great except for all the dumb parts where you had to go ashore (although I did enjoy freeing all the slaves from the plantations).

[Mr. GOH!]

Pyre.

A pretty cool visual novel/mystical sports/RPG game. I think it's worth your time.

[TheMightyEthan]

Just finished Aven Colony.  As I said in the What Are You Currently Playing thread, it's basically Tropico in space but with less personality.  It was a lot of fun though, and I would definitely recommend it to anyone who likes the Tropico or Anno style of economic management city builder.

[danielpholt]

I just finished the latest game by the Thomas Was Alone and Volume devs: Subsurface Circular. It's a text-adventurish looking thing where you play as a 'tek' detective who's trying his damnedest to crack a case about a series of missing 'teks'. It's a fairly simple game where you ask questions to various people on the city's subway network. Eventually you'll discover important details that are relevant to the case and then you'll be asked to interview some more 'teks', rinse and repeat until the games conclusion.

 

And what a conclusion that is. 

 

It's cheap, it's short and it's got a really interesting take on the story it's trying to tell. I say take a look.

 

[TheMightyEthan]

Just finished Rime.  It was pretty as hell, but that's about all it really has going for it.  It was fine, I don't regret having played it, but it wasn't really anything special.

[TheMightyEthan]

Finished Pyre last night, and it was amazing.  The music especially was really good.  I just wish there was a new game plus; I want to keep playing but I don't relish giving up all my upgrades and stuff.

[TheMightyEthan]

Just finished Ori and the Blind Forest.  Holy shit that game was amazing.  There were a few frustrating parts, namely the end of the first two dungeons, but they cannot detract from the amazingness that is the rest of the game.  Everything just feels and plays so well, and it's the prettiest game I've ever seen. 5/5

[toxicitizen]

Ys Seven.

 

Finished it last night. After playing two Trails games within the span of just a few months, it felt pretty good to go back to Ys. I hadn't played a new one since Napishtim came out on Steam like 2 years ago, so it had been a while. It's neither the best nor the worst Ys but it's still pretty damn good! The port is decent although it's apparently capped at 1080p for now. I think they're working on adding arbitrary resolution support.

 

The main thing is that this was developed as a PSP exclusive, so it's fairly limited in many ways. The character models scale up nicely enough but the environments are pretty small and some of the larger bosses just look godawful. Overall it kinda feels like the prototype version for Memories of Celceta, which I guess it technically kind of is. Crazy how big of a difference the jump to Vita made. I feel like Celceta would probably end up looking way better on PC. 

 

So yeah, Seven was the last Ys game I still hadn't played (ignoring those never released in english), so it was kind of overdue. Just in time for Ys VIII next week, too! That also makes Celceta the only one missing on Steam, so hopefully I'm correct in my assumption that it's coming next. It sounds like the team that worked on the port was pretty good and the results speak for themselves, so I'm sure XSEED will be working with them again. Seven sold pretty poorly but at this point XSEED just don't seem to give a fuck. They had to have known that releasing this PSP game just two weeks before the newest one wasn't going to result in a hit. So I can't say I feel too bad about it this time. It's gonna be really interesting to see how Ys VIII sells, though...

[TCP]

Assassin's Creed Brotherhood PS4

It was dope AF. Though I think the story's a step down from AC2, everything else is better. 

[Mal]

The Legend of Zelda: The Breath of the Wild

 

Beat this tonight with some shrines left over and a ton of side quests to finish. As an open-world game it is fantastic and may be the best ever. The sense of wonder as you turn a corner or go over a hill or just looking at the scenery is amazing in the varied world of Hyrule. It drove my exploration like I haven't done since I was a kid (I totally checked out a lot of nook and crannies in LttP). Plus you can almost literally go anywhere by climbing or gliding. That freedom, however, is the downfall of most of the mainline quests and hell, exploration. In most cases when the game provided me with a challenge, I have the option to completely sidestepped it in response. It is also common that I come across challenges backwards or bits and pieces. There's only a few times that I recall that I was forced to face something head-on.

 

For the mainline quests, it was the Zora's Domain due to the constant rain. It forced me to take the beaten path and face many things head on. In that time I got to know Prince Sidon quite well and in turn I remember and hold more dearly this part of the story. The rest is pretty forgettable, save for maybe Death Mountain. You hardly have time to build a rapport with anybody or any race.

For a shrine quest, there was one where you are in an enclosed ruins with tons of broken down Guardians. No real way to run through them all so it was a puzzle to figure out how to kill them all. Thing is that I got to the mid point when a Blood Moon rose and revived all the ones behind me. I was trapped in one tiny spot where none of them can see me. I could've teleported out (they should've lock this down since I've gotten out of quite a few of binds by teleporting out) but I didn't. I pretended it wasn't there since I was half way there. Problem is that I am severely running out of weapons to combat the Guardians. So... I ran and glided through laser fire to get to the shrine.

For a game, limitations can be a good thing!

 

Still though, this game is great. Second or third best game this year. It'll be interesting to see where Nintendo takes the series from here. Now to see if I can cobble Ganon soon after leaving the Shrine of Resurrection... or not. I got Cold Steel in my mind!

[toxicitizen]

The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel.

 

This game is way too fucking long! I'd say it could've lost a chapter but there was actually one that they had to cut. It was relegated to a drama CD or something. Should probably get around to reading the translation for that, actually. 

 

Anyway, I feel more or less the same about it as I did after my first playthrough. It's good but the structure really starts to hurt the pacing in the last few chapters and because of that it's probably the worst out of all the Trails games I've played. It's a shame because the good parts are really good. If it wasn't for the pacing issues I think I'd love it way more than Trails in the Sky FC.

 

Also, holy shit, turbo mode is freaking amazing! I finished the game last night and I started my NG+ Nightmare run this afternoon just for shits and giggles. I actually made it to the end of chapter 2 in about 2 hours. That's pretty much a third of the game done in a single sitting. It's gonna make this second playthrough a complete breeze and remove pretty much all the hassle out of achievement hunting. I think there's actually a very real chance that I might be able to finish NG+ before Ys VIII comes out on Tuesday lol.

 

edit: And that's NG+ Nightmare done. Not only that but

 

 

Turbo mode is seriously ridiculous lol. This is not a game you would expect to be able to speedrun in a single week-end. I still kinda feel like I wouldn't want to use it on a first or normal playthrough but it's such a fucking godsend for achievement hunting and whatnot. It might be a little hard to resist the temptation to use it right away when Cold Steel 2 comes out, though.

 

I managed to wrap this one up in time for Ys VIII tomorrow but woops, turns out the PC version is delayed. So now I don't know what the fuck to play next. Maybe I'll check out turbo mode in Trails in the Sky. I do have a few achievements left to get in the 3rd...

 

 

Edited September 11, 2017 by FLD

[TheMightyEthan]

I finished Sonic Mania yesterday.  Fantastic game.  The designers clearly had a masterful understanding of the original Sonic games on Genesis.  My only complaint is I would have liked one single QoL enhancement: I wish that it would save at the beginning of each act, rather than the beginning of each zone.  They could even have put in the options whether you want a modern save system or the classic one, so purists could play it the old way.  That is the only thing I would change though.  I have half a mind to play through again as Knuckles.

 

Also, this is kind of embarrassing, but

somehow I managed to beat the entire game without realizing that the drop dash existed.

[MetalCaveman]

Ghost Recon Wildlands. It was really fun, I did not try to complete all activities, mostly since there's no reason to do so after you max out rebel support skills, wish they did something like give out extra resources or something, as it stands, a lot of those missions are just there for no reason other than a trophy/achievement.

 

Surprisingly, I did not have any issue with the stealth missions, mostly because unlike other games, this one allows you to just kill all guards and then move in without worry. Playing with the AI also makes the game super easy, as they can just shoot marked targets through walls/mountains/anything, and unless you tell them to stand in front of the enemy, they're pretty much invisible.

 

My issues were with the anti-air missiles, since in certain areas they make it pretty much impossible to fly as you immediately have 4 or 5 missiles locked on to you, there's a supply mission I skipped when I realised you couldn't get off the ground without being targeted by all the missile sites in the region. I also ran into some issues with civilian spawns, I was trying to stop a convoy by blowing up one of the escort vehicles with a mine, but civilian cars kept spawning before the convoy arrived, pretty much on top of the mines, which ended up with the convoy getting alerted and all hell breaking loose. Had to restart that mission a couple of times before I gave up on the ambush tactic and just when in with a tank.

 

Vehicle controls were kind of annoying, though helicopters got a massive upgrade with a recent update, and cars/trucks weren't so bad once you got used to how they control, still kind of annoying when you were trying to follow an enemy, or reach an area before time ran out though.

 

Gameplay wise, it was fun, story wise, it wasn't bad, but it was a bit disappointing that the story was linear, sure, you can choose the order in which you play each mission, but you can't change what happens, so you can't decide to capture/kill vertain buchones, the story already decided for you. I was hoping for a bit more freedom with that, specially since the trailer implied being able to start a war withing the cartel by blaming certain people for some of your actions. Still, not bad, and I enjoyed the "true" ending far more than I thought I would, and though I don't think it's setting up a sequel, I wouldn't mind one.

 

The ending actually reminded me of the ending of Future Soldier.

Spoiler

Where you learn that the guy behind everything has some sort of immunity deal going on, except in Future Soldier that ends up getting him killed when he falls on some train tracks and the Ghosts tell him that his deal means they can't touch him, so they leave him there to get run over, while in Wildlands, Sueño just sort of gets away with it, for the time being.

 

So yeah, overall it was really fun, and coming back to modern times after the more futuristic approach of FS was pretty cool.

[danielpholt]

Mario + Rabbids = Kingdom Battle.

 

This game is good. Is it the best game released this year? No, but it achieves what it sets out to do, and gave me exactly what I wanted; an lighter take on the XCOM type game with Mario and Luigi and cosplaying Rabbids. That's not to say its a walk in the park. The difficulty is there, with the later worlds demanding you fiddling with your squad to find the best pairings, and actual planning in the way in which you move your characters around the um..boards?

 

Honestly, I think you owe it to yourself to play this game if you've got a Switch. As well as Nintendo has done stocking that thing up with Indie titles, this remains of the one of the better 'big budget' games on the system. It's got some truly memorable moments (Moustache) and looks pretty nice on the Switch itself. Will it make my top 5? I doubt it, but it's a game I'd happily return to if they release some more story DLC for it (Yoshi's Island anyone?).

[TheMightyEthan]

They've already announced more story content coming in 2018.

[TheMightyEthan]

Finished Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle yesterday.

 

Really excellent game, and I second Dan's recommendation for anyone who has a Switch.  I especially like that hit chances are limited to 0%/50%/100%; it really enhances the planning and strategizing aspect of the game by enabling you to know for sure whether you'll hit or not most of the time, and when you take a 50% shot you know it's a crapshoot so it doesn't feel like you got screwed when you miss.

 

I really hope they do a sequel, and judging by the reception I think that's probably likely.

[TheFlyingGerbil]

I finished Pan Pan. It was just about worth £5. The graphics and music were nice and the gameplay would be something I should like but there were a few to many problems for me to able to recommend anyone else play it. The game tasks you with solving puzzles to obtain batteries to power up a space ship but while some of the puzzles were good some of them were just dumb luck I worked them out and a couple even after I'd done them I couldn't understand the logic of them so were very unsatisfactory to do. Plus the controls were janky. I don't know if it's because it was ported from a touch screen method but you had to stand so particularly in front of objects to interact with them it was quite frustrating and one in particular I actually gave up on because I spent so long trying I thought I must be doing the wrong thing.

[TheMightyEthan]

Finished Human Resource Machine this morning. I really enjoyed the puzzles, but I feel like there weren't enough of them, so I'm having trouble deciding whether it was a good value.  There were only 43 or so, and I wish there were more like 100.  But then on the other hand I played it for 6.5 hours and it was only $10...

 

Anyway, the game itself was great.

[Mister Jack]

I beat Cuphead.  Took me around six and a half hours.  The tutorial took up five of them.

 

In all seriousness, it actually is a pretty hard game.  If you played perfectly with absolutely no deaths then you could probably get through its content in maybe two hours.  However, the much more likely scenario is that you're going to die a lot and spend a lot of time perfecting your skills and learning how to outmaneuver the bosses.  It's still kind of short, but I can see myself going back to this one again and again whenever the mood for some run and gun hits me.  Plus, beating it unlocks an expert difficulty, which I'm sure will kick my ass for twice as long.  At the moment this game is the number one seller on steam, which I'm glad to see because it really is a labor of love and it deserves to succeed.  I couldn't help thinking that the recent controversy with Dean Takahashi probably contributed to the game's current popularity.  Ever since that embarrassing video came out everyone's talking about Cuphead, and I bet at least a few people out there bought it just to show him up.  Take note, indie developers.  If you want free publicity for your game, offer a live demo to the worst game journalist you can possibly find and then make sure he uploads it to youtube.

[Thursday Next]

On 01/10/2017 at 5:01 AM, Mister Jack said:

offer a live demo to the worst game journalist you can possibly find and then make sure he uploads it to youtube.

 

Not sure if you're being facetious, but he's not necessarily a bad journalist, he just sucks at side scrolling shooters.

[Mister Jack]

1 hour ago, Thursday Next said:

 

Not sure if you're being facetious, but he's not necessarily a bad journalist, he just sucks at side scrolling shooters.

Worst as in bad at games.

[toxicitizen]

Most game journalists have their jobs because of their writing/journalistic abilities, not their gaming skills. And, honestly, that's how it should be. I'll take that over the fucking shit show we currently have with a lot of YouTubers.

 

If you're gonna accuse the guy of being bad at his job, don't do it for his inability to work out a simple tutorial. Do it for how his article initially attributed Cuphead to Team Meat. Failing to do a 5 seconds wikipedia fact check is the real journalistic offense here.  

[Mister Jack]

Just Cause 3.   Man, this is quite a mixed bag.  I really loved the core of the game.  Zipping and parachuting and gliding around is a lot of fun, and just blowing shit up is even better, even if it does get a little repetitive.  But what idiot decided that all the upgrades have to be tied to online challenges?  Seriously, that's the ONLY way to upgrade your equipment in this game, and doing challenges is such a chore.  Even if you put aside the fact that most of them are races and time trials, the most boring part of any open-world game,  every time you load one up you have to wait while it connects to the servers, then sit through another loading screen to actually start the challenge.  It does this EVERY SINGLE TIME, which means if you want to fully upgrade your character you'll have to sit through a ton of loading.  After I got maybe three or four upgrades I didn't even bother doing the challenges for the rest of the game because it was just so tedious.  If there is a Just Cause 4, and I'm not sure there will be because if I recall this one underperformed, I hope they cut that shit out.

[TCP]

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past 

My shameful secret is NO MORE!!

[Thursday Next]

I also completed JC3. Had exactly the same issues with it as Mister Jack. The only tree I maxed out was the tethers one, everything else, I just muddled through with what I had.

 

The upgraded tethers came in very handy when I turned up to the final boss fight with a sniper rifle and a machine gun.