Games You've Beat MMXIX

[Mal]

Earth Defense Force: Iron Rain

 

I beat this on normal earlier in the week. It is for sure better than Insect Armageddon and it has some really great ideas. The set pieces and all that are fantastic. The customization for your character is a great addition as well.

 

The thing though is that there is a lot to be annoyed about. First off is the unevenness of the difficulty. Three to four missions in you get hit with quite the difficulty spike where the game throws a horde of a new enemy type at you. Sure there is a preset air strike that can help and at times take a majority of them out but usually it is not enough with the type of weapons you are given at that point. Peashooter with an enemy that can knock you down or stun you with their attack. Hell, this game's enemies frequently have an attack that can do that. Doesn't help that the enemy AI AIMS FOR YOU. They are relentless at hunting you down so you can be spammed by attacks that stun or knock you down which leads to you being hit some more since there's is no i-frames. You can get destroyed in a jiffy. This game is just plain unfairly hard in the early game. Even late game with better weapons it is an issue.

Speaking of weapons, I really do not like the weapon unlock system they have. I am fine with grinding for weapon drops while playing through the game normally but here it is playing missions at certain difficulties to get a preset weapon. Then you got to have the credits and resources to unlock them. The credits and the resources are the grind. It incentivizes grinding out one quick level to farm credits. I hate this sort of grind. AND THERE'S ONE MORE THING: Item uses cost you credits to use. So it kind of punishes you to use item, especially in the early game where it is scarce and highly valued. Like sure, after you get what you want (late late game) you can use to your heart's desire but before then... ugh.

 

As for multiplayer, I love the 6 players lobbies but loath the limited respawn (four), limited revives (imposed by item limits) and failing the mission if there is no more respawns and a player dies.

 

I'm really divided about this game. It can be an absolute blast but other times... ugh.

[Mister Jack]

Dark Souls III

 

Yeah, this one was much better than the first one. The QoL changes were sorely needed. Menus are much easier to navigate, crafting materials are much easier to come by, the curse status doesn't completely fuck your game until you get it cured, boss fights are more interesting, and while I know it's a controversial change, I like having my shops and blacksmith all in one place so I don't have to run all around the entire map just to get an upgrade. In fact, about the only thing I don't like is that now you have to talk to an NPC to level up when before you could do it at any bonfire. If I had to give the first game points over the third for something, it would be the level design, but only for the first half. The first game's world has higher highs, but this one had a more consistent quality throughout. I actually struggled with the difficulty for a while, but ironically enough, once I stopped playing like Dark Souls and started playing like Bloodborne I had an easier time with it. I guess that's another thing people don't like about this sequel but it didn't really bother me. I tried fighting the DLC bosses after the story's final boss but they are absolute motherfuckers and I think I'm gonna have to grind some levels or respec or something because they are so overpowered that it is actually kind of obnoxious.

[toxicitizen]

Nioh

 

Killed the bad guy and credits rolled, so I'm assuming that's the main campaign done. Now it's time for the DLC regions and achievement hunting. Not sure if I'll have enough time to get it all done before Kiwami 2, though. Anyway, this was pretty damn good. Not perfect by any means but I was completely hooked the entire time. It was nowhere near as hard as I expected, though. Once I switched to the Odachi as my main weapon (which I later found out was a weapon type added in one of the DLC), I started just fucking everything up with ease. And then I found out about the Sloth spell, which completely trivializes almost every single boss. Combined with a defense debuff, the one aspect of the game that was still pretty hard turned into a complete joke. In the second half of the game, most bosses were basically debuff -> living weapon -> over in seconds lol. I'm not complaining, though. After Sekiro, it felt pretty damn good to just steamroll my way through the game. I'd say the overall package isn't as high quality across the board as a From game but it's definitely the best Soulslike I've played and it's not even close. Hell, I consider Sekiro the better game but Nioh had me hooked in a way Sekiro didn't. I would play it for hours at a time and when I'd stop I'd be thinking about it again within minutes. I think the mission-based structure just made it easier to commit to doing "just one more".

 

Some things I didn't like: the story's kinda shit. For most of it I had no idea who was who or what the fuck was supposed to be happening. Hell, calling it a story is probably being generous. It's really more of an excuse to keep going forward. Stuff starts ramping up near the end but by that point I seriously didn't give a shit about any of it. Also, having a randomized loot system in an action game remains an objectively terrible idea. I mean, this is arguably an action-RPG but it's not exactly Diablo. Skill plays a big part of combat and constantly sifting through garbage on the off-chance I'll find something slightly better than what I currently have really isn't my idea of fun. Eventually I just started ignoring it and only looked if I had anything better when I either hit a difficulty spike or needed to clear out my inventory.

 

Things I was mostly indifferent about: enemy variety. I swear there's like 6 mini-bosses in the entire game and you just keep fighting stronger reskins until the end. At some point some early bosses start showing up as mini-bosses, which is something I guess? It didn't really bother me all that much (especially compared to how much I've seen people complain about it) but it's definitely the area where there's the most room for improvement in the sequel. People also seem to complain about the level design a lot but it didn't strike me as egregiously bad or anything. There's a few levels I didn't really enjoy exploring but I thought it was mostly serviceable. Again, there's room for improvement but I was okay with it.

 

And for the good: well, the combat is what kept me going through the entire game, so I'd say this is one aspect they knocked well out of the park. I especially loved the Ki Pulse mechanic. Stamina management is a huge part of these games and if you master the timing here you can basically stay on the offensive as long as you like. From's games don't exactly have the most amazing combat ever, so it's not like the bar was super high here but still. This is like halfway between Souls and a character action game. There's just enough variety to your move set to almost scratch that itch and that's not even factoring the fact that most of the weapons play completely differently. I also really dug the mission-based structure. It's not as good as the interconnected world of Dark Souls but for me it went a long way towards giving Nioh its own identity instead of just being another imitator. Another plus is that you don't have to commit to this game's version of NG+. It's a difficulty setting on mission select, so you can go farm and level up and come back to finish bullshit NG sub-missions with overpowered gear. I've seen people say they hope the sequel goes interconnected world but this is one thing I really hope stays the same.

 

So yeah, really glad I came back to this one. I don't remember what made me stop the first time but this definitely would've been a GOTY contender back then if I'd stuck with it. Here's hoping the sequel will be day and date on PC because it's gonna suck waiting out a timed exclusivity period again now that I know I'm a fan.

Edited April 27, 2019 by FLD

[Mister Jack]

Bloodborne: The Old Hunters

 

Yeah, this is still my favorite soulsborne game (Sekiro isn't soulsborne). I beat Bloodborne once before a long time ago, but now I played through it with all the updates and DLC which adds new weapons, areas, bosses, and covenants. What a difference a little experience makes. The first time I played through this game I remember timidly keeping my distance from most big monsters and bosses, rushing in when I was sure it was absolutely safe to get one or two hits and then running for my life. I remember summoning for most of the bosses too. Things felt totally different this time. My usual reaction upon seeing a building sized boss or a room full of werewolves wasn't "Oh god I'm gonna die" anymore it was "Come get some, you pussies." It certainly helped that I had a better understanding of the game's systems and how to make a proper build, but even putting that aside I just blazed through this game with very little trouble. In fact, the only boss I really felt the need to summon for was the final boss of the DLC, and that was primarily because I was about 20 levels below what is generally recommended for fighting it. I already had a positive impression of the game the first time I played it but this time around it was still a lot more fun. Pretty much the only things I don't like are the healing item being a consumable and the damn frenzy mechanic, which can make certain sections practically impossible if you've accumulated too many insight points. Since I rarely summoned, it didn't take me long to buy out all the armor in the insight shop and then my points just kept building up, meaning my frenzy meter would fill up and kill me in mere seconds whenever I came across those damn abominations that can induce frenzy just by looking at you. It REALLY doesn't help that frenzy keeps accumulating even after you've removed yourself from the source of it. One shitty mechanic is not that bad compared to all the other changes from Dark Souls that I like though. No stupid item weight to worry about, armor is more about resistances than physical defense so you have reason to change outfits to fit the situation, the transforming weapons are more fun to use than pretty much any weapon in Dark Souls, I like that you can get your HP back by playing aggressively, and I generally just prefer the Victorian horror setting to the dark fantasy setting of previous games. I don't know if From ever intends to make a Bloodborne 2 for the PS5, but if they do it'll be the first game from them that I get day one.

[TheFlyingGerbil]

I finished the Assissin's Creed Chronicles Trilogy. China was OK, India improved on it in several areas and I preferred the styling of it. Russia was really frustrating. So many timed events where you had to be absolutely perfect and the controls were not good enough for that, so many times I'd try to jump off a ladder and automatically catch back on to it and that one mistake was enough to fail the section I'd even have to repeat some sections half a dozen times or more with literally no errors but still not be fast enough - it had to stop playing a few times because it got so annoying. The other problem was while playing through the first two games I got the first bonus on each level every time and sometimes the second bonus, but on Russia I did not get a single bonus, so had to complete the whole game with one bar of health. Since it was the last in the series it soured the experience a bit.

[TheMightyEthan]

I liked China, but didn't like India as much (in fact I quit playing partway through). I never played Russia because of India, even though I own it.

 

Glad you liked them, I just find it interesting how different people's tastes can play out like that.

[deanb]

Uncharted 1, Uncharted 2, Uncharted 3. AKA The Nathan Drake Collection

 

Already beaten these on PS3. IIRC a bunch of us played UC2 MP back in the day. Fun times. My main thing was I was bummed that a bunch of the stuff wasn't unlocked right away (so no Doughnut Drake), and also "Easy" didn't seem like it had changed much at all on difficulty, plenty enemies took just as much effort to take down as I remember. Though I did only die once in Uncharted 2 against Lazarvic but could just be skill (heh). Uncharted 3 while having more "heart" I'd say is still the weaker of the series. Uncharted 2 still pretty damn great (aside from the end). Really like the broad range of areas you're at from jungles, to cities, to trains and glaciers. And it has Nazis. A must have trope for archaeology-adventuring genre.

 

Now onto Uncharted 4, which does the cardinal gaming sin of changing all the controls on a new entry of a series. Even worse when I've come right off the PS3 games.

 

edit: oh yeah cos it was Easter school holidays had my sisters over and they "helped" tad on 1 and 3. Pointed out I had at least Uncharted 2 for PS3 in one of the rooms at theres, so maybe they'll dig it out and play in full. Even my mum all "come on, gotta go before the shops shut" mode got a bit engrossed helping solve a puzzle

[Baconrath]

Oh I finally beat Cold Steel 2 a while back. I really liked it but how the game handled how it assigned party members for the finale was kind of clunky and frustrating and it forced me to fall back on quaffing a bunch of CP restoring items and spamming S-Breaks.

I'm actually considering giving Trails FC another go 

[CorgiShinobi]

All of Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, and I mean all of it.

 

Nothing like taking the bad ending route on NG++! I even lost my mind for a moment at...

O'rin of the Water miniboss. I never struggled with her, but on NG++ I lost to her twice (and lost 35,000 XP). Mainly because if you try to create some distance to heal, she has the longest forward lunge. I wanted to at least raise my Attack once using the Dragon Mask. In truth your Attack stat doesn't increase much mathematically at a certain point. I forget at one point, but still... the principle of it!

 

And Isshin Ashina's second phase is ridiculous! Emma can wreck you if you're careless, but compared to Isshin the Sword Saint, she's good practice. Isshin's fire though, I didn't figure out how to counter every attack and really only beat him by luck. You can use Shadowfall and he has no counter to it. I ran out of Spirit Emblems and had no healing options. In a poetic sense, I popped a Bundled Jizo statue. So I died, came back with half my health, got two hits in and landed the Deathblow.

 

So yeah, I guess "a shinobi would know the difference between honor and victory." 34/34 Steam Achievements!

[toxicitizen]

Nioh: Complete Edition

 

By which I mean I finished the last DLC last night. I'm glad I made separate posts because it kinda deserves to be talked about on its own. Overall, it's pretty damn good. I generally tend to ignore story DLC that takes place outside the main story because it's often not that great and by the time it comes out I'm well past giving a shit about it. But since I had the whole package here, I figured I might as well keep going and in this case it actually acts as a kind of continuation of the main story. Maybe it's because it was shorter and mostly focused on a single location but I enjoyed the story a lot more here than in the main game. The level design also felt like an improvement over the main game, which seems like a good sign for the sequel.

 

My only real issue was the difficulty curve, which ended up being completely backwards due to how the DLCs were seemingly balanced for players that had already spent some time in NG+. So, the first one started kinda rough and ended up being pretty frustrating at times, especially on the very first boss. At some point I went to grind a little into NG+ but what ended up making the biggest difference was getting Divine-tier gear and upgrading its +value past the level cap. So by the time I got to the second DLC, the difficulty already felt a lot more sane and the third one was even more manageable.

 

Oh but the first mission of the second DLC is some trash-tier fucking bullshit. Literally the worst mission of the entire game when you're going through it for the first time and looking for collectibles. It's a battlefield constantly being showered by flaming arrows, only the arrows are aimed at your fucking ass in particular and don't operate on any kind of timing you can learn to exploit. You hear the gong when you step into the open and the arrows come. Step back into cover right after the gong? No arrows until you step back out. It is absolutely fucking maddening. You can permanently stop the arrows by firing some cannons but these cannons are the only ones in the entire game where you need to have cannonballs to load them. You're given two near the start of the mission and the third one is on a corpse fuck knows where. Oh and when you reach that third area where you need to look for the cannonball, suddenly those wooden shields you've been relying on as cover all this time break if even a single arrow touches them. I feel like calling it infuriating is underselling just how fucking bullshit it all feels. Luckily, it's much less annoying on replays or sub-missions that reuse the map because then you don't have to explore and can just run through the entire level.

 

Oh and one thing I forgot to mention in my previous post that I really like is the balance of leveling up. At some point in most Souls games, usually around NG++, I'll just give up on leveling up any more. The amount of souls required for the next level gets to a point where I can't realistically expect to accumulate that much without losing it at some point. I got to what felt like that point before the end of the main campaign in Nioh but the game is actually pretty good at balancing how much amrita you get. And when you factor in the difficulty spike in the DLC on top of that, I'm basically leveling up as frequently now as I did in the early game which as it turns out is a pretty good motivator to keep playing. Stats also don't seem to suffer from diminishing return as much as in Souls either (still getting decent damage boosts from strength at ~65), so I'm getting close to (or past?) level 200 now and my damage is scaling up very nicely along with it.

 

At this point I think I've done all I can realistically hope to do before Kiwami 2 next week. I only have 9 achievements left to get but they all require either excessive grinding or unlocking the game's equivalent of NG++ difficulty, so it's not gonna happen anytime soon. But I think I'll keep the game installed and keep plugging away at it for a while. I'd really like to fully wrap it up before the sequel comes out.

[Mister Jack]

Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen

 

I've had this game for a while but I never got around to playing more than an hour. Since I've been on such a fantasy RPG kick lately I decided to go back to it and it was an interesting game. I can see why people want a sequel so much. The thing about this game is that you can definitely tell it's Capcom's first real effort at a large scale western RPG because it can be pretty rough around the edges. The graphics look like total ass and the story, while it has an interesting premise, never really goes too in depth with it so there aren't too many memorable quests or characters. Some of the menus can be clunky, the carry weight system is a real hassle, and Dragon's Dogma commits a major cardinal sin when it comes to open world games. There aren't enough fast travel points. In fact, the fast travel system is weird. Aside from three points that are already unlocked, you have to find the rest of them and physically place them in the locations you want to be able to teleport to later. While this is neat in theory, these portcrystals are few and far between. I went the whole game only finding three of them, so I still had to do an absolute fuckton of walking and yes, it got pretty old since the open world is huge yet mostly an excuse for monsters to ambush you while you go from place to place. I heard that in the original version of the game you needed an expensive consumable item to fast travel too, so I can't imagine having the patience to play it. Thankfully the Dark Arisen version gives you a permanent fast travel item in your storage, so at least they addressed that problem.

 

I know this all sounds awful, but the rest of the game shows real potential. While there's no online co-op (another thing to fix in a sequel), you create an NPC follower called a pawn to accompany you through the game. You can also go online and recruit other people's pawns to create a full party of four people. This is pretty neat! I still miss the absence of actual human players, but in theory this is a good system for those times when you wouldn't be able to find other players to help you. Pawns may talk too much---though you can turn the chatter off in the menus---but they are genuinely helpful in battle and will even show you where to go for quests if they've done them before with other players. Online pawns don't gain exp, so you're encouraged to trade them out for new ones every few levels, which keeps your party from getting too stale.

 

Speaking of the battles, they're easily the best part of the whole game. You can try out and freely switch between several different classes, including hybrid classes if you want to try abilities from multiple paths. I spent the late game as an assassin, keeping my sword but trading out the shield for a bow and it was a lot of fun. Class abilities are easy to use in the heat of battle and if you are willing to put in the time, you can even learn abilities in one class and use them in another if you have the right equipment. The best part, however, are the giant monster battles. Huge monsters like chimeras and gryphons wander the land, and fighting these creatures is no simple affair. They're tough, often with specific weaknesses or body parts you need to target. In fact, you'll often need to climb on them Shadow of the Colossus style to get to those sweet spots or keep them from escaping if they start to fly away. The large monster battles are the real highlight of the game without a doubt. Capcom made a good game here. Not great, but pretty good. If they can take what they learned here and apply it to a sequel with improvements and fixes now that they have more experience with making western style RPGs, I think a Dragon's Dogma 2 could potentially be a GOTY contender someday.

[Mal]

If you haven't gone and done Bitterblack Isle then YOU MUST DO IT. It condenses all the good parts of the mainline quest into a pretty meaty add-on. It can be quite hard but it's so good.

 

DD:DA is one of my favorites and I am indeed one of those who so wants a proper sequel. Hideaki Itsuno (and fans) got Devil May Cry V. It's time for Hideaki Itsuno (and fans) to get Dragon's Dogma 2 and realize his original vision for Dragon's Dogma. One can only hope for a sequel if for some odd reason, we are getting a Netflix anime...

[deanb]

Uncharted 4

 

Pretty much paused for the night the other day and turns out I had like 10 minutes of game left (then a while of the epilogue stuff). It's a game that maybe was a little bit too long, it kinda felt like it was 2 uncharted games long. And the opening is a bit all over the place with both the mid-game boat chase (similar to Uncharted 2 start on the train), and then bits about Panama prison from 15 years prior and then bits of the orphanage as kids. 

I was slightly bummed that there was no ghost pirates considering the pedigree of the series so far. It was fun and all, and super pretty but from a story perspective it felt quite unnecessary. It also changed a lot of the controls too, which after blasting through 1-3 was a bit jarring to find that suddenly reload is  instead of R1.

 

Anywho, not super sure what's next. Technically I've P5 near the end. I messaged my sis about swapping Uncharted with her for RDR2 so maybe that'll be my next title.

[TheMightyEthan]

I keep wanting to do a P5 NG+, but with P5R coming out next year I feel like I should just wait.

 

Although looking, there are still some trophies I need that you can only get in NG+...

[CorgiShinobi]

Late to the Dragon's Dogma discussion, but I too yearn for a sequel to the game. I played the original version of the game and even had the BradyGames guide to help me navigate the large world and combat the varying enemy types. The bosses you could encounter in the game's endgame were brutal, but again this is before the expansion that required buying the game all over. It does fix a lot of things, but you couldn't bring over your original save.

 

Starting over in an RPG is asking a lot on the player. Heck, I didn't want to have to recreate my amazing Pawn! Eventually Dark Arisen became a PS Plus game and that's how I got it. In a sense, and I don't know if this was fixed in Dark Arisen, but doing NG+ was awful. The enemies didn't scale with you, so you' be somewhere Lv 60-70 and mindlessly swinging because everything dies in one or maybe two hits. So you might as well start over.

 

The things I remember most were the killer Hybrid classes, goblins don't like fire, and "They're masterworks all, you can't go wrong."

[Mal]

VA-11 HALL-A

Oh hi, honey!

 

First off let's say that the writing is tight in that each characters in many ways have their own voice. You can practically hear the characters speak. Secondly, while the gameplay is very simple, the game keeps you on your toes with understanding the dialog and reading between the lines. Almost like you are a bartender... There's also a basic money management going on... aka don't buy frivolous shit. Hell, it's probably possible to play the game without buying anything and it probably will be considered Hard mode since Jill's mind will be distracted while making drinks so no hints. It shouldn't be a problem if you at least remember the order/requests or what people likes.

 

I think the only bad thing I have to say is that the ending I got came on rather suddenly and it came with a time jump. I wonder what would happen if I didn't fail to pay rent... but yeah, I have the other endings to get and with that, I think the game could use a "fast" mode or something.

 

Lastly, while short, I consider this a real gem of a VN/game. I swear it might just help me with a personal issue as well (it's not that far off from Jill's... like my problem doesn't make sense but it does. Fear and shame... I got to apologize.).

 

ANYHOW,  I really, really look forward to N1RV Ann-A. Spoiling since some people might want to be surprised. Plus VA-11 HALL-A's story spoilers... ish?

Spoiler

If I recall, it should take place in Panama and the owner is a friend's of VA-11 HALL-A's owner (Dana). There should also be a N1RV Ann-B where the owner is typically at since it's more personal to her. N1RV Ann-A is at a hotel if I am not mistaken. It'll be an interesting one for sure since the protag is Sam, a 32 year-old mother. Also since it's way outside of Glitch City, Lilims are probably going to have a more restrictive role in society. Also... looks at it! It's like a PC-88/89 game!

 

Edited May 17, 2019 by Mal

[deanb]

COD:MW Remastered

 

It's COD4 but prettier. Not much more to say. Pretty much just did the main mission to clear it off. Somewhat nostalgic, doesn't feel 12 years since it came out. Also a fun contrast to go from Uncharted where many enemies take quite a few bullets to shift to a game where most are one-shot kills, with the odd one struggling on the floor.

[TheMightyEthan]

CoD: Infinite Warfare

 

It was a lot of fun, and I liked the ship/mission selection aspect, but goddamn was the story bad. And not bad like incomprehensible, or simple, or whatever, but bad like the moral of the story is that you have to order your people into suicide missions in order to be an effective commander. According to this game there are two kinds of commanders: bad commanders who sacrifice the mission objectives to ensure that all of their people survive, and good commanders who do not care at all if their people survive as long as the objective is completed. I'm not sure if it was intentional or not, but the leader of the enemies actually represents the quintessential good commander by this game's view. Which brings me to my second major complaint.

 

The enemies are cartoon villains who seek destruction for its own sake, with no regard for their own survival or the survival of those under their command, and without even the benefit of actual historical context to justify why they hate you so much. Like they're basically the villains from Modern Warfare with all the nuance shaved off. Which I feel like is saying something in and of itself: that the villains were paper-thin by the standards of Call of Duty.

 

It was a lot of fun though. Also I liked the robot squad mate.

[toxicitizen]

Yakuza Kiwami 2

 

Man, I love this series! This is the third one I play in less than a year and if they released the next one tomorrow I'd be ready to just jump right in. It helps that this one was a massive improvement over Kiwami 1, though. The new engine goes a long way towards making Kiwami 2 feel like a current-gen game, not just because of the improved lighting and physics but also small things like being able to physically walk through the door of almost every single building without having to go through loading. It really helps make Kamurocho feel more cohesive and lived in.

 

I also found the story (and main antagonist) much more interesting than in Kiwami 1. That was probably partially due to it being completely new to me but it also felt less meandering and unfocused. I really got the sense that this is where the series truly found its voice. The only disappointing aspect for me was early on when the game said I'd be going to a different region. I got excited but it turned out to just be Sotenbori again. I realize that this was its original introduction but I've already visited it in Yakuza 0, so it wasn't new to me. It was a bit different, though, so there was at least that. 

 

At first I was disappointed to see the different fighting styles had been removed but I quickly realized that everything I needed was still there, so it ultimately didn't really matter. Having access to Tiger Drop without having to switch to Dragon of Dojima style was actually pretty damn convenient and Beast style's ability to just grab weapons on the fly is now part of Extreme Heat mode. So, it's not like they just removed them for the hell of it, there was some thought put into it.

 

Another good change is that the completion list is mercifully shorter this time. There's nowhere near as many pointless tasks like collecting 100+ fucking weapons. I ended up getting most of it done before finishing the main story. I still need to go back and finish mahjong and the bouncer missions, though. Mahjong will likely be a huge time sink but I kinda love it. It's those fucking bouncer missions that are tedious as fuck. There's just way too many of them. Oh and speaking of mini-games, the karaoke one is finally good! Maybe it was just me but I had trouble parsing some of the harder songs before and they ended up requiring a little bit of memorization. But it's much more readable now, to the point where I got the required score on most of them on my first try.

 

When I finished the last one, I said I wanted Kiwami 2 ASAP but I have to admit I never expected to be playing it just two months later. I'm honestly not sure what to expect next at this point. The remasters of Yakuza 3-5 still haven't been announced for the west (although with Y5 coming out next month in Japan, I have a feeling that might change soon) and a PC release of Yakuza 6 was once again mentioned in those SEGA shareholders documents but jumping ahead to 6 seems like a terrible idea. If they release it next, I'm definitely gonna skip it until the others come. I think the most likely one to come next might actually be Judgment. A PC release was mentioned in some interview as something they were considering and I think this is one they'll want to get ported quickly because it's a brand new release they could charge full price for. And it being a new IP means it has the potential to reach a new audience. 

 

Now watch them announce the Fist of the North Star game at E3 just to prove me wrong lol.

Edited May 27, 2019 by FLD

[TheMightyEthan]

Surviving Mars: Green Planet

 

I "beat" this game to the extent that you can beat a game like this. I did like that the Green Planet expansion gave you a larger overarching goal of completely terraforming Mars, but there wasn't really much to it when I finished, so it still just like of petered out like these games tend to. I had fun though, and that's what counts!

[TheMightyEthan]

Observation

 

It's basically 2001: A Space Odyssey where you're HAL, and it's fantastic. To go into basically any detail would be spoilers, but it's great and everyone should play it.

[TCP]

Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age

Man, I still have no idea what this game is about. But I really like being able to choose my characters jobs and the license system. Once the second license board opens up, you can pick what combination of jobs your characters have, it's great. The Hunts were my favourite part, I wish more Final Fantasy games had them. Music wise it's kind of ho-hum, nowhere near as good as FF13. Ivalice is an interesting fantasy world, I like the middle eastern influences a lot of the cities have. Story wise, it's not as incomprehensible as FF13 but it's also hard to give a fuck about anything when Vaan is pushed into the middle of everything as the main character... even when Baltheir openly refers to himself as the main character. He would have been better but I'm if the opinion that Basch or Ashe would be better. I also want to mention how great the English localization is, especially for 2006. It's spot on.  I have to say, almost without exception, every character in this game dresses stupidly.

I have to say playing at 4x speed is great, when you turn it back to normal speed it's incredibly sluggish, I can't imagine playing that on the PS2. I've read that FFX remastered does not have the fast forward feature, too bad.

Also too bad this never got a direct sequel. Yes, yes, I know there's a DS sequel but it's a tactical RPG or something and it's also on the DS. In a world full of unnecessary Final Fantasy sequels, I feel this one actually deserves one. 

Most importantly... were Baltheir and Fran banging? 

[Mister Jack]

Setting the record straight by saying FFX Remastered does have the fast forward.

[TheMightyEthan]

Tiny Metal: Act V

 

They added another act to Tiny Metal some time ago, and I never got around to playing it. It was added for free, which is fantastic, I would have been quite happy with it as a paid expansion. It's more of the same from the main game, so if you liked that you'll like this, but it doesn't really add anything new either (other than new missions, obviously).

[TCP]

7 hours ago, Mister Jack said:

Setting the record straight by saying FFX Remastered does have the fast forward.

On Switch? PS4? I thought someone said fast forward is PC only??