Games You've Beat in 2017

[Mister Jack]

Horizon: Zero Dawn.  Got the platinum while I was at it.

 

This was a great game, easily the best Guerilla has made so far.  I actually enjoyed the overarching story of the game, even if a lot of the side characters are rather forgettable.  Learning the truth behind the apocalypse was satisfying.  That said, the story stuff wasn't nearly as compelling as the actual robot hunts.  If the game had been nothing more than Aloy: Robot Dinosaur Hunter I think I would have enjoyed it just as much.  My only major criticism is that sometimes it can be hard to tell what you can grab and what you can't.  White markings on snow covered mountains aren't exactly the best way to convey that information.  Still, this is well worth any PS4 owner's time.

 

Now I can move on to Zelda.

[toxicitizen]

Hollow Knight.

 

Finally beat it last night. Goddamn, what a game. Took me a little under 24 hours total and that was with 69% completion. I can see that shooting upwards of 30 hours easily if I end up going for 100%. That was also with what is presumably the bad ending, gonna have to look into getting the true one at the very least. 

 

Like I said in the games you've bought thread, this is one hell of a great metroidvania. It should be on every fan of the genre's radar. Also, I kinda hate making that comparison because it's generally overused and not particularly meaningful, but in this case I think it's warranted. There's a surprising amount of Dark souls in Hollow Knight. Not in terms of difficulty (it's not particularly difficult outside of boss fights) but in terms of pretty much everything else. There's no real story to speak of but if you talk to NPCs and explore you can figure out some things about the backstory. There is an absolute fuckton of optional boss fights, some of which are pretty damn good and challenging. There is something of a thematic similarity in "something happened, we don't really know what but the world is a little bit shit now" and there is the obvious mechanical similarity where you lose your geos upon death and get one chance to recover them (currency only, there is no leveling up outside of your typical mobility and gear upgrades).

 

But really the strongest similarity to Dark Souls is the complete lack of hand holding. It's actually a little overwhelming at first. You drop down into this world and you can go left and right, with both eventually branching off into other paths, and there is no clear indication of which way might be better to go first. Hollow Knight forces you to explore. And that doesn't stop at backtracking when you get mobility upgrades. For most of the game, there is simply no objective marker whatsoever on your map indicating where you should go or what your current goal should be. Hell, when you enter a new area you need to find the map maker and buy the map off of him first before you can start relying on it. You fill it out in more details as you explore but you're flying blind until you buy it. Even having your current position displayed on the map actually requires an item to be equipped in one of your limited slots. This isn't baby's first metroidvania by any stretch of the imagination.

 

There were a few instances where I was at a loss for how to progress and had to just start exploring almost at random. It was sometimes annoying in the moment but in hindsight those were some of the most enjoyable moments because of how much more satisfying it was to finally find a way forward and enter a new area. You didn't follow a damn objective marker to get here, you found this fucking place on your own! And chances are it looks like some place you really don't want to enter.

 

So yeah, fantastic game and wholeheartedly recommended to any fans of the genre. I'll probably try to get 100% completion for my current game but I don't think I'll bother doing it for the achievements. There's some crazy ones in there, including multiple speedrun achievements as well as a permadeath mode that was unlocked upon beating the game (and there's a speedrun for that mode, too). Yeah, I don't know about those... It's a shame because I find metroidvanias to be some of the most satisfying games to complete.

Edited August 13, 2017 by FLD

[MetalCaveman]

Dark Sector.

 

A surprisingly decent game, the shooting mechanics are very similar to Gears of War, though the glaive adds a nice little touch, it took me a while to figure how to properly use it as it has a shorter range than expected and controlling it using after-touch can be hard sometimes, but being able to use it to take down enemies behind cover is pretty fun. Having to buy weapons is kind of annoying, specially as many of them are rather expensive, so I ended up looking up which were the best and went with those, glad I did, as some enemies can be bullet spongy as hell. Mutants were specially annoying, since they deal a ton of damage, can grab you, which, even if you shake them off still leaves you open for a bit, and some also like to jump around all over the place and/or become invisible for short periods of time.

 

Bosses were... there I guess, all of them have some weakness related to the glaive that you can use, but they're also killable by just emptying everything you have on them, except for the last two which do require the glaive to kill them, pretty much impossible to do so without it. Not much more to say, boss fights weren't great, but they also didn't suck, their main purpose is just to give you new powers.

 

The story was also lacking, there's some interesting stuff there, but it doesn't tell you enough about anything to make you care, it's basically "something something virus, something mutants, something something dark/tragic past, who cares".

 

Overall, the thing that elevates this from forgettable bargain bin game to something that was actually enjoyable is the glaive and all related powers.

[TheMightyEthan]

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.  59 hours of amazing.  I wish the framerate was better, I feel like they could have left out some of the ambient occlusion and other visual bells and whistles to get it more stable.  But other than that, it was fantastic.

[Mister Jack]

Ace Attorney: Spirit of Justice

 

Man, I knew this was my favorite VN series for a reason.  I meant to keep this as something to play whenever I couldn't get to Zelda for whatever reason, but I was so invested in these cases that I couldn't put it down. I even ended up downloading the DLC cases.  As far as this series goes, this entry might be the best one yet.  If not then it's certainly up there with the high points of the franchise.

[TCP]

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Quite simply, it was the finest game Nintendo has ever released.

[danielpholt]

Stories Untold

 

An infuriating bug that required me to throw 20 minutes away whilst I restarted the final episode aside, its really fucking good little game.

 

 

 

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[TheMightyEthan]

Assassin's Creed Chronicles: China

 

Not the greatest game ever made but I enjoyed it.  Midway between "it was okay" and "I liked it".  Solid 3.5 stars.

[deanb]

Horizon Zero Dawn

 

Yeah really enjoyed this game. Might aim to get my first platinum with this, I've got 74% of the trophies so far, I think the main ones next are to do the hunting trials and clear out the remaining corrupted areas.

[Mister Jack]

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

 

Great game, but would I call it the best in the series?  I dunno.  The strides it's made in the gameplay department are certainly profound, but on the other hand the story and (most of) the characters were kind of mediocre and forgettable.  It's a game that certainly plays great in the moment, but I wonder if I'm going to be remembering it ten years from now the way I still remember Ocarina or Majora's Mask. I guess only time will tell.  Ganon was also kind of a letdown.  Having him as a force of nature rather than an actual person means he has pretty much zero personality or chemistry with Link and thus only exists as the game's final boss. Still, this was a much needed breath of fresh air in the formula.  For a while I had resolved to skip this game completely because I'd gotten tired of the usual Zelda shtick. Obviously, I haven't seen everything there is to see in this game, but I've had my fill for now.  Maybe I'll come back to it later to see some of the other side stuff.

 

For now, on to Nier.

Edited March 23, 2017 by Mister Jack

[TheMightyEthan]

I'm hoping that the "expansion" this fall will be more story focused.

[toxicitizen]

NieR:Automata.

Finally got the true ending tonight and holy shit, that was a hell of a ride. I think it might actually be one of my favorite games of all time. I am so fucking glad I ended up impulse pre-ordering it at the last minute. It's similar to the original in a lot of ways but it blows it out of the water in just as many others. The gameplay actually being very good this time around certainly helped but it goes even further than that. At this point I'm pretty sure Yoko Taro went to Square-Enix and pitched them the game like this:
 
"I want to make Nier 2 AND Metal Gear Solid 2."
"Nier sold like shit and we don't own Metal Gear Solid. Besides, you're not getting the budget for two games. You need to pick one."
"It IS one game."
"Here's your check."
 
Seriously, if this game isn't remembered in the same way MGS2 is then something went horribly wrong. I'm honestly hesitant to make my usual in-depth impressions post, this game just needs to be experienced and I don't want to risk ruining any part of it. I think I'm gonna have to keep playing and get all the non-main/joke endings and achievements because what the hell do you even follow this up with? Nothing I pick could possibly compare. Unlike a certain other member that won't be named, I'm not one to say shit like this lightly but I'm calling it now: this is going to be my damn GOTY.
 

For now, on to Nier.

 
I am so excited for you right now. You're in for something special. One question, though. Have you played the original Nier? If not, I would suggest watching this recap. Don't bother with the Drakengard stuff if you don't want to (I didn't), just watch the 3 videos on Nier. It's pretty thorough and thanks to it I didn't feel like I missed out on anything story-wise.

[Thursday Next]

Also Horizon Zero Dawn. Amazing fun. Want more!

[Saturnine Tenshi]

Now you know how we felt about the first NieR, FLD.

[toxicitizen]

Honestly, I put something like 20 hours into the first Nier (or however long it took me to get to the second half of the game) and at this point I've pretty much spoiled the entire thing for myself. So I get it, I've seen what the game does that made people react so strongly to it. But I still think it has nothing on Automata. Automata destroys it in every conceivable way. It's not just a more competent game mechanically. It even out-Niers it, if that makes any sense. I'm confident that even if I had played Nier all the way through to NG+ and whatnot a few years ago, I still wouldn't feel about it anywhere near the way I feel about Automata.

 

I mean, at this point if they ever remaster the original Nier I would buy it and play it. Mainly because all the things I've seen about it have actually made me interested in playing it again. I'm even interested in checking out Drakengard, to an extent. So this isn't just me trying to shit on Nier because I thought its gameplay was poor. If you actually loved the first Nier that much, then I don't even know what to tell you about Automata, dude. Hold on to your butt.

[Saturnine Tenshi]

Yeah, the more I hear, the more I want to play it. So many convention expenses this month, though. And a trip to Italy next month. : \ Trying to avoid spoilers is difficult, though.

[TheMightyEthan]

The Last Guardian, and I am seriously fucking torn on how I feel about this.

 

On the one hand it is a terrible, terrible game.  Just atrocious.  It is miserable to play.  I cannot oversell how not good this is as a game.  The performance is awful, fps in the teens and twenties the entire time.  The controls are horrendous, without nearly the precision necessary to accomplish what the game asks of you.  The puzzles are obtuse and stupid.  Everything about playing this game is bad and unfun.

 

On the other hand, it's fucking compelling as shit, and Trico is the best/most convincing character I have ever seen in any game ever.  I seriously love that griffin like I love my own cats.  It's amazing, he just has such personality.  Of course that's also a downside when you need him to advance and he's just not doing what you need.  (Seriously, when a walkthrough just says "wait for Trico to do this thing, be patient, it could take a while" that's just bad game design.)  I want to say this would have been better as a movie, but I don't think I would have nearly the attachment to Trico that I do if it were, so in that sense the game format definitely served it.

 

I think where I'm coming down is that I'm glad I experienced it, but I will never put myself through that bullshit ever again.

[Mister Jack]

They STILL haven't patched the controls or the performance?  I was waiting for that to happen before I played it but if they still haven't fixed it by now then fuck it.

[toxicitizen]

Lol, what part of an almost 10 years dev cycle made you think the game's issues could be patched? They had plenty of time to get it into shape, if they couldn't do it in time for launch then it's probably just not feasible. I don't even want to imagine how it ran on PS3...

Edited March 26, 2017 by FLD

[Saturnine Tenshi]

Yeah, that game was god awful in every way but Trico. And even Trico was irritating oftentimes.

[Mal]

I'll wait for the PS5 remaster. I waited a decade (and got the PS3 in hopes for it) so another half decade is nothing.

[toxicitizen]

Styx: Shards of Darkness.

The short version is that it's about as good as the first one, which is very. It doesn't improve on the formula as much as I'd hoped but there are a few refinements here and there and some neat additions to the items and abilities at your disposal. I do have a few minor nitpicks, though.

For one, the levels are shorter by about 50%. In the original, each level was made up of 4 zones but here it's almost always 2 (with one or two that had a third boss zone). There are more missions, though, so it's still a bit shorter than the original but ultimately not by a whole lot. The actual maps are as great as ever, though. The excellent level design of the first game is still present and, while I don't think the maps are particularly bigger than in the first game, they felt more packed and detailed. The switch to UE4 means the game is also a bit prettier than the first one, which is always nice.

Another thing worth mentioning is that the levels weren't as thematically interesting as in the first game. The original was set in this large structure that was designed by a Da Vinci-like crazy architect, so it was full of neat things like secret passages, hidden laboratories, crazy libraries with maps hidden in them, etc. The sequel has a few cool areas but is overall set in more normal locations, which is fine but the surprisingly cool setting was one of the things that made me love the original so much. Also, the fact that it takes place in a few different areas makes the map reuse stick out a bit more this time around, especially given the shorter missions.

But by far the single biggest issue with Shards of Darkness is the writing. The actual story is fine and ended up being a fairly interesting way to follow up the ending of the first game. No, the problem is that I guess there was a gas leak at Cyanide's offices or something because the game is full of "jokes" and, well, I'll let them speak for themselves. It's just the most cringe worthy type of pop culture references and 4th wall breaks. There's also some Joker-like game over screens but those didn't bother me anywhere near as much since I tend to just hit start and manually reload my last save before they get to play. There's like two jokes in the entire game that made me laugh. It's easy to ignore but just kinda makes you wonder wtf they were thinking. On the positive side, this one has full cutscenes, which is a nice upgrade from the original's more concept art-ish presentation.

Anyway, I actually finished it a couple days ago and I've since pretty much wrapped everything else up.

So, yeah... Back to being starved for good stealth games.  Hopefully they end up making at least one more, especially given that non-ending...

[TCP]

Don't worry FLD, Metal Gear Survive will be out this year!

[toxicitizen]

Wasn't that supposed to be out in early 2017? The complete silence made me assume it was quietly cancelled.

[Mister Jack]

Nier: Automata

I've already got most of the trophies so I might as well platinum this one as well before I get Persona 5 in the mail.

Spoiler

2B 

PASCAL