Games You've Beat 2020

[TheMightyEthan]

I wouldn't say it's harder per se, it's just the ways it's hard are frustrating instead of fun, like with the camera and controls fighting you. There are plenty of games that have extremely precise controls but are still balls-ass hard, but when you know what you need to do and you know (theoretically) how to do it, but it just doesn't always work, that's not a fun kind of difficulty.

[danielpholt]

The Solitaire Conspiracy

 

Fairly low effort take on Solitaire. The plot is cheesy as fuck and about as interesting as a slap to your genitals, but it looks pretty and the solitaire-esque card game it's all built around is fun enough. 

 

Hades

 

Fucking 2020 Game of the Year right here boys and girls. I don't usually go for this type of game but damn if it didn't offer everything a game needed to offer in order to get me hooked. Also Danielle absolutely hated watching me play it, so that's an added bonus. 

 

 

[TheMightyEthan]

Fiiiine, I guess I'll try Hades again after I finish Dead Space and Sleeping Dogs.

 

2 hours ago, danielpholt said:

Also Danielle absolutely hated watching me play it, so that's an added bonus. 

 

lolwut

[Hot Heart]

Yeah, I usually don't go for stuff like Hades but it's so good once it "clicks" and especially since I completed a couple of runs then turned on god mode. God Mode makes it much easier but it means you take more risks with chaos gates and experiment more with boons while being able to actually progress the stories more.

[TheMightyEthan]

I have been playing with God mode on since like my 5th run... 

[Hot Heart]

Yeah, but you also need a bunch of mirror upgrades, too. I had all sorts that were super useful, like increasing damage based on how many different gods' boons you had, starting with more money, finding more money in pots, etc.

 

I think the most essential boon, which I seek every run, is the Athena deflect dash.

[Mister Jack]

Doom Eternal: The Ancient Gods Part One

 

Ho-lee fuck. Where do I even begin? Well how about the fact that this easily takes the difficulty crown from the base Doom Eternal as the most blisteringly hard FPS game I've ever played. To be honest it's so hard that I got frustrated more than once. It's so hard that I actually think it was a mistake for id to let people buy this as a standalone game without playing Doom Eternal first. If you haven't played Doom Eternal, you do NOT want to start with this. Ancient Gods assumes that you have not only played the base game, but mastered it to a degree that first time players will never be able to grasp. No pussies allowed here. There are only three extra large levels in this expansion, which took me maybe 10 hours to beat on ultraviolence, but at least three of those hours came down to dying over and over. The first fight, the first fucking fight in this DLC took me five tries to get past it and by the time I finished these---I repeat, three levels---I had probably died over a hundred times and you bet your ass I mean that literally. I hate to keep banging this drum but I really cannot overstate how much the difficulty has jumped in this expansion.

 

So what makes it so much harder? For starters the encounters are much, much bigger with swarms of elite enemies, a far greater number of fodder enemies, and arenas that are full of hazards that you're pretty much guaranteed to run into over and over again. The waves are also looooooooong and you get very few checkpoints. Most of the time the game expects you to do the entire thing in one go with no deaths. That alone is tough enough, but the new demons feel specifically designed to give you the finger. The worst of them is an enemy who buffs other demons into minibosses while also removing all their weaknesses and making them immune to freeze grenades. You cannot kill this enemy without killing the buffed demon first, and even after you do that it's only vulnerable to one weapon that kills enemies very slowly, so good luck killing it without getting fucked in the butt in the process. You gotta do it though because otherwise he'll just buff another demon and you have to do it all over again. God damn. And don't even get me started on the final boss. That fight is so overwhelmingly, relentlessly unfair that I would not blame anyone who chooses to accept the super armor when the game offers it to you. Even then you might still get killed over and over.

 

I appreciate the work that went into this expansion. They made a decent amount of content and the level design is pretty well thought out. It adds to the story and lore in cool ways and the new music, while not as good as the base game's music in my personal opinion, is still solid. My only real complaint is just how carried away they got with the challenge. Doom Eternal was pretty damn hard but it always felt fair and balanced. Ancient Gods frequently feels like the game really doesn't want you to finish it and is willing to do whatever it takes to stop you. If you're an absolute masochist, a true glutton for pain and punishment, then I wholeheartedly recommend Ancient Gods. By all means, dive in and enjoy the suffering. If you are just a casual FPS player who wants to relax and shoot stuff, however, then you might want to ask yourself if you're willing to deal with the frustration. Seriously, this game gave me actual adrenaline rushes while playing it. My hands were still shaking when I started typing this post.

Edited November 25, 2020 by Mister Jack

[MetalCaveman]

DOOM Eternal: Ancient Gods Pt.1

 

This was BRÜTAL!!! But in a good way, kinda, this DLC will punch you in the gut and kick you while you're down. When the trailer showed the double Marauder fight I thought I wasn't ready for it, by the time I made it to the last boss, I found myself wishing more fights were as easy as that one. Funnily enough, the Slayer Gates, which are meant to be challenge levels, were much easier than the normal fights, less enemies, none of that super-buffed-assholes, and plenty of ammo and armour to go around. The last boss had me screaming "are you fucking kidding me!", it's quite a thing.

 

Still, overall, it was fun, in a weird way, the fights, as relentless and brutal as they were, had this satisfying part to them, making it through with no health/armour and then running into the next arena was a thrill, the BFG was much needed in some parts, though ammo for it is scarce as hell. Not a fan of that new enemy though, and given how things went this time, I wouldn't be surprised if Pt.2 just goes "here, now there's MORE of that thing".

 

Spoiler

Possessed Archville spawning possessed Marauders is my nightmare.

 

 

Music was fine, I was worried that they'd go for a more atmospheric feel, but they did keep it kinda close to Mick Gordon, although it lacks that punch that his mix of Djent and Industrial has.

 

Story was fun, and it added a bunch of neat details, it also has, IMO, the best origin story for hell.  

 

 

Some other stuff: 

Spoiler

UAC Intern FTW.  

 

What's going to happen now?

 

Sammy probably won't be too happy about things, The Father seems calm about it, but his warning about  consequences was pretty ominous, also the codex mentions he doesn't want to kill the Dark Lord, so that's going to be a thing.  

 

Will Pt.2 begin with THAT fight? Where to go from there?

 

The codex fragments mention that only a primeval or higher level entity can fight the Dark Lord, will the Slayer be able to just rage his way through? Or will we have to get some help?

 

Before Pt.2 hits, I'm going to replay the base campaign and this DLC a couple of times, just to make sure I don't go in cold like this time, not making that mistake twice.  

[toxicitizen]

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

 

Well, ~10 months later I've finally reached the end of the Path. This is technically for Blood and Wine but I don't think I ever made a post for Witcher 3 proper, so here's the whole thing. It's been so long since I finished the base game that I don't really have much to say though. It was pretty incredible and completely consumed my entire existence for a solid month. The main story was kinda eh but a lot of the side-quests are fantastic and the world itself is just so easy to lose yourself into. I will say the main story loses a lot of steam near the end. After you find Ciri, things build up to a climax at the battle of Kaer Morhen but things just keep going from there and it never quite manages to get the same kind of momentum going. Then the actual climax feels a little unearned comparatively. But all in all, a fantastic game and I'm not sure what I could possibly say about it that hasn't been said a hundred times before.

 

Hearts of Stone is just a damn solid quest line. It's honestly up there with the best from the main game, I was kinda surprised. It all takes place in the base game's map, though, so it doesn't feel as meaty as an expansion.

 

Blood and WIne, though. In my Control post, I was going on about how story DLC that takes place outside the main game usually sucks and man does this one prove me wrong. I thought the main quest wasn't quite as good as Hearts of Stone but considering there's a ton of new side-quests, witcher contracts, a whole new tier of witcher gear and an entirely new area to explore (and a gorgeous one at that), I really can't complain. I'm really glad I post-poned this one until I had read the books, though, because I feel like I got so much more out of it now. They're not mandatory by any means but there are frequent mentions of Geralt's last time in Toussaint along with a major character from the books that shows up, so there's a lot I would've had no context for. Ultimately, Blood and Wine is like the Witcher 3 experience in a nutshell. It's to DLC what Witcher 3 was to RPGs for me: way longer/bigger than I'd normally want but I really didn't want it to end.

 

Also, I've never regretted not playing on the hardest difficulty more than I do right now...

 

 

 

When I started, I was worried Death March would be too frustrating but about 50 hours in I realized that if you do all the side-quests and witcher contracts then you end up so overleveled that the game becomes ridiculously easy. Guess that gives me an excuse to do New Game + at some point in the future. Ideally after the ray-tracing update drops and once I have a card that can run it.

[MetalCaveman]

Kandagawa Jet Girls

 

 

HELL YEAH! \m/ \m/  

 

A fun game, but it definitively feels, and looks like they wanted to deliver THIS and ended up with this.

 

Things like costumes and accessories feel pretty limited and most of the stuff that's there is just:

 

• A plain swimsuit
• A swimsuit with horizontal stripes
• A swimsuit with vertical stripes

Stuff like that, just minor variations of the same basic items.

 

Gone are a bunch of the things you could do in the SK games in terms of outfits, accessories and yes, dressing room interactions. Machine visual customization is also pretty limited, though you can change the colour of the overall paint scheme you choose, so you can have camouflage that's bright pink with green and red, or whatever you fancy.  

 

There aren't that many locations, but they do some neat stuff with different routes per location, so you do end up with a fair amount of race courses, machines look cool and they are all different from one another in neat ways, visually at least.

 

The two biggest issues for me are the way machines feel, and the difficulty.

 

Machines look different, and they're supposed to have different characteristics, but all of them feel the same way except for Messy the Hunter, which actually feels heavy and somewhat clunky, other than that, there's no difference between them.

 

The difficulty is, well, I don't know how many people watch F1, but most races here feel like you're Lewis Hamilton in his Mercedes and everyone else is racing F3 cars. There's no challenge, you'll leave everyone behind at the start and then never see them again. There was a race that a lot of people complained about in terms of being a sudden difficulty spike due to some upgrade restrictions, but I found that to be the most fun one, it was an actual race, your opponents were always close and you had to be careful not to crash, make good use of items and time your boosts/jumps, it was the best, wish more of the game was like that.

 

Storywise, it's fun, just a silly funny little sports anime story, power of friendship FTW and all that, except for the 7th school:

 

Spoiler

It goes from "We're racing to win the Kandagawa cup! We're all friends!" To "Since we were born, we were owned by this secret organization that had us travel around the world and hunt items that posses some kind of power, now we're useless to them so they are going to get rid of us."

 

Yes, DRESS has money and Hell's Kitchen is popular enough they're close to untouchable, but I still don't understand how a group of jet-racers is going to face some kind of shady organization and their power items of doom.  

 

 

Still, I had fun with it, and would like to see it continue, it does seem like they wanted to set up a new franchise, but I don't know how well it did. Considering we're unlikely to see SK Seven anytime soon, or ever, KJG is, IMO a neat successor, they just need to iron some kinks out, polish the trophies and upgrade some engines.

[TheMightyEthan]

Dead Space 2

 

I really loved the first Dead Space, but for some reason when I played this one the first time I bounced off it. I'm guessing it's because I tried it immediately after replaying the first Dead Space, and horror creatures like these never work as well if you're too familiar with them. It's been years now though, so I think that effect wore off to some extent, and it stuck with me this time. Though I don't know if I could say I "enjoyed" it per se, it's really good, good enough to have me considering buying Dead Space 3 at least.

 

4/5

[TheMightyEthan]

Sleeping Dogs

 

This game was pretty good, it was nice to play a GTA-like somewhere other than America. The melee system was a lot of fun to, to the point that I actually enjoyed combat for its own sake, which is rare for me in a game like this. I also liked the Chinese action movie vibes, and while the plot was fairly predictable it didn't really detract from the overall experience.

 

4/5

[MetalCaveman]

Nitroplus Blasterz: Heroines Infinite Duel

 

Holy sh- Holy f- HOLY.

 

I did not expect to get this excited over the story mode of a fighting game, but here we are. 

 

What I can say without spoilers: If you like DEMONBANE, you should play the hell out of this, if not then, it's still worth a look, though it won't be nearly as interesting.  

 

Spoiler

Another Story, the actual story mode, serves as a prequel to Demonbane. Explaining what happened to the necromancer, how Al ended where she was, etc. Al, Kuro and their daughter play a big role in the whole thing, along with Demonbane.

 

It also answers the question "what happens if you eradicate all evil?"

 

Well, as it turns out, the universe(s) ceases to exist.  

 

Long story short, Demonbane Vortex succeeds in eliminating all evil, all dark gods, chaos servants, etc. This destroys the macrocosm, forcing Yog-Sototh to take pieces from the destroyed universes in order to create a temporary one, this so it can obtain:

 

• The soul of Al Azif, the necronomicon, the most powerful grimoire
• The Silver Key that can open gates to anywhere
• The Shining Trapezohedron, to create a world and serve as its vessel

Using those 3, YS begins creation anew (kinda) restoring universes to their natural state, allowing Azatoth to sleep once more, creating dreams and dream worlds, although it's mentioned that since Demonbane Vortex exists outside time and space, it could still pull something off again.

 

Pretty cool stuff!

 

 

Gameplay wise, I assume more experienced fighting game enthusiasts might find this to be a bit too simple, specials are triggered using the exact same button sequence, regardless of character, breaks, counters and support attacks are much easier to pull off than other fighting games, still, it's pretty fun, and even with all that I found the last boss of story mode to be a pain.

 

It's also really fun to watch Sonico, a normal human girl, beating the crap out of eldritch abominations and godlike entities.  

 

Overall, if you're a fan of Nitroplus and their series, it's worth a look, though there are better 2D fighters out there, so if you're not that interested in these series, it's safe to skip.  

[TheMightyEthan]

Ghostrunner

 

Holy shit this game is fantastic. It's like if Mirror's Edge and Super Meat Boy had a baby, and I am here for it.

 

Basically you are a robot assassin in a cyberpunk dystopia, and you kill baddies by wall-running and grappling around and slicing them with your cybersword. You die constantly, but like Super Meat Boy you respawn instantly to give it another go, so each encounter is like a puzzle. Then you get to feel like a complete badass when you do this: 

 

(that's actually a very simple encounter from early in the game, I tried to record more but for some reason Game DVR stopped working so all the rest of my videos were just blackness )

(also the video is only at 30 fps because that's what my capture settings are, but I was actually playing at 60)

 

As you all know I'm a complete wuss about frustrating games and having to replay segments, so the fact that I liked this should prove it's not bad at all. There were a few parts where I thought the checkpoints were a little too far apart, but on the whole it really strikes a good balance between difficulty but letting you get right back into the action. I could probably count on one hand the number of times I really got frustrated with the game, which coming from me that says something.

 

5/5

[toxicitizen]

25 minutes ago, TheMightyEthan said:

It's like if Mirror's Edge and Super Meat Boy had a baby

 

 

...once the price drops a bit.

[Baconrath]

wow that Cold Steel 3 ending was a bit of a gut punch 

 

At least now I can immediately go into CS4. I can't imagine having to stew in that cliffhanger for months. 

[TheMightyEthan]

Rage 2

 

Played this on Gamepass, and it's pretty good. Way better than the first one, which I bounced off of a couple hours in. It's your basic open world game, but the fast paced shooting is fun, and I like the lighter tone they took with the world design. All the bandits have pink mohawks and that kind of stuff, it's not your typical grimdark post apocalypse.

 

4/5

[MetalCaveman]

Astro's Playroom

 

Fun little game, a neat showcase of the PS5 controller and all the stuff it has. Still have to get some of the collectibles, but I have finished all the levels and the final boss, so that counts.  

 

Based on what I saw here I really hope devs use all of the controller features, that would lead to some really cool stuff.

[TheMightyEthan]

Spider-Man: Miles Morales

 

Holy shit this game is good, even better than Spider-Man 2018. They edited where it needed to be edited (there's only two kinds of upgrade resources now, instead of like 6, and the ability tree is simpler) while still maintaining what made the first game awesome, and adding stuff in some places (like his venom powers). The smaller scope I think helped too, it just felt more focused. And without spoilers, they did some really cool things with his rogues gallery. All in all it was just a really excellent follow-up to the last game.

 

5/5

 

*Edit - Just realized I never posted in here when I beat Astro's Playroom a few days ago. That is also a really excellent game, way better than it has any right to be as essentially a glorified tech demo for the DualSense. My only real complaint about it is that it's only four levels and isn't a full-sized game.

 

5/5

[Thursday Next]

@TheMightyEthan <--- Oooh, didn't know that was a "thing". 

 

Anyway, will deffo be playing Spider-Man first when my console arrives (tomorrow). Just wondering (non-spoilery) are there any annoying timed mission 3 star things like the Taskmaster stuff in the last game? I really hated them.  

[TheMightyEthan]

There are a few training challenges Pete gives you where you're timed on how fast you can complete a given scenario, but there's no "limit", you just get a lower rating the longer you take.

[Thursday Next]

Cool. I feel like Taskmaster stuff in the original was targeted way too high.

[TheMightyEthan]

Bugsnax

 

I enjoyed this game way more than I thought I would. It's kind of a puzzle-Pokemon with vaguely sinister overtones. Figuring out how to catch each Bugsnak is pretty satisfying, there are enough patterns that you feel like you have a place to start, without it ever seeming rote. It was a good length too, and had surprisingly well-developed characters, that each go through a real arc. Good enough that I platinumed it.

 

4/5

 

---

 

Super Mario Galaxy

 

I liked this game better than I remembered it. It's still not as good as Sunshine though. I really like a lot of the worlds, especially the more abstract ones, but like Mario 64 I found myself fighting with the camera a lot, and Mario not moving the way I want/expect him to because of the weird camera angles. It wasn't all the time, but it when it happened it was extremely irritating. Good game, but not great.

 

4/5

[MetalCaveman]

Demon's Souls

 

TL;DR: On one hand, it's Demon's Souls, so it's awesome and pretty fun, on the other hand, it's Demon's Souls, really, it's pretty much the same, and in the years since it originally came out, the Dark Souls and Bloodborne games have added so many gameplay changes and QoL improvements, that Demon's really shows its age.

 

First off the good:

 

• The graphics: Holy hell does this game look amazing. The Shrine of Storms looks great, the rain and how Storm Ruler affects it is awesome, the Tower of Latria has never been creepier, the Valley of Defilement... is still the Valley of Defilement but it looks better, enemies also look much better which in some cases is kind of a bad thing, as the gross, decaying, rotting, putrid characteristics of some of them are much more obvious this time around.
• Loading times: Super SUPER fast, you can die and be back in seconds, moving from one area to another is also much faster than ever before.
• Some QoL: You can now move between archstones instead of having to go back to the nexus each time. You do have to defeat an archdemon, but it's still better than before. Finding an item that would put you above carry limit now lets you send that item directly into storage. Also, now you can climb up and down ladders faster, that's great.
• They've added a ring that lets you walk normally in swamps.
• Immediately went into NG+ and will likely get the Platinum at some point.  
• It's Demon's Souls, what more do you need?  

 

The not so good:

 

• Grasses: They have changed the weight of this things, increased them a fair bit, good if you're into PvP, but it sucks if you're just trying to explore, full moon grasses can now weight more than a freaking sword.
• DLC/Pre-order items: Most of these were just reskins of normal items that you could obtain from playing, except they couldn't be upgraded, the rings are available from Sparkly, but still, it was kinda lame.
• Design changes: Not a fan of the way some enemies look, the maneater looks kinda lame IMO, and Stockpile Thomas now looks like he's one full moon grass away from shouting "Welcome to Flavour Town MOTHERFUCKERS! YEAH"
• It's Demon's Souls: You have to die if you want to place your summon sign/invade, item burden is a pain, certain gameplay aspects show their age, specially compared to From's latest games, if you didn't like it before, this version is unlikely to change your mind.

 

 

[Mister Jack]

Yakuza: Like a Dragon

 

Man I have a lot to say about this game. For starters, this has easily become one of my favorite games of the year. A lot of people scoffed when they heard Yakuza would be moving to a turn-based RPG format but it's not a joke. They took it quite seriously and did their best to make a real, respectable RPG. Most Yakuza games take around 20-30 hours to beat the story so I figured this would be a smaller scale RPG but I was dead wrong. By the time the credits rolled I had clocked in 51 hours. This is a full-fledged turn based RPG that deserves to stand among the giants of the genre. There is room for improvement in a possible sequel, but this is a great first effort.

 

Combat is interesting. While it is turn based like what you're probably already familiar with, there are things to consider regarding positioning and timing. There's no battle screen and everyone just fights at whatever location they happen to be standing at, which can be important. If you attack an enemy who is standing near furniture or a trash can or something else like that then your characters will pick up whatever object is in their path and use it as a weapon for extra damage. If you're fighting near a road you can even kick enemies into oncoming traffic if you hit them at the right angle. While you can't manually control where your characters are standing or walking during battle, your position is something to keep in mind when choosing commands, especially since enemies you aren't targeting can knock you out of an attack if you happen to run past them while trying to reach a far off enemy. There's also an interesting mechanic where certain strong attacks can knock enemies down and if you hit them while they're down it's a guaranteed critical. However, despite being a turn based game enemies recover from being knocked down in real time and will only stay down on the ground for a few seconds. You have to follow up quickly to get that damage bonus but that also means sacrificing a chance to heal or use a skill. You have to decide what's more worthwhile and you don't have much time to do it. There's also a job system here and while it's not as deep as something like Final Fantasy it still gives you enough freedom to decide what kind of role you want each party member to play. You can even your cell phone during battle to call in summons for hugely powerful attacks, but each summon costs money and the stronger the summon the more it costs so you'd better not neglect your bank account.

 

The story is great and probably the best in the series since Yakuza 0. Ichiban Kasuga is a wonderful protagonist and more than worthy of picking up where Kiryu left off. Ichiban himself is nothing like Kiryu in terms of personality, strength, or intelligence and this is a good thing because it allows him to have his own identity and not just be Kiryu Jr. The party members are all compelling and fleshed out with stories of their own that are easy to get invested in. The voice actors all give great performances as usual. Even the English dub, which hasn't been done since the PS2 days, is very high quality. I can honestly say that people who choose to play in English would not be missing out or getting an inferior experience. Both the Japanese and English cast really gave it their all. The ending also provided a satisfying, emotional payoff that even got me a little misty eyed at certain points. I don't know if they plan to make a sequel to this game. I would assume so since it's such a big franchise for Sega, but if the creator were to decide he wanted to retire the Yakuza series and move on to something else, the plot of this game would be a good way to wrap up the series.

 

Oh, and it wouldn't be Yakuza without side activities and the activities here might be the best yet. You got your batting cages, golf center, classic Sega arcade games (of which this game has the best selection in the series), battle arena, shogi, mahjong, and karaoke like in other Yakuza games, but there's also an addictive business management side game that can make you filthy rich AND a Mario Kart style go-kart circuit called Dragon Kart, both of which have their own separate storylines! It's just crazy how much effort they put into things that some players might never even touch. That's not even a complete list of everything you can do. I'm deliberately leaving out some things that weren't in the advertising so people can discover it for themselves. This game, like every other Yakuza game, can keep you busy for a long, long time if you let it.

 

I usually try to find things to criticize when giving my thoughts on a game but I really don't have many complaints. The biggest thing I think they could fix for the sequel would be to give you direct control over where your characters move during a fight so you can plan out those environmental attacks more deliberately. I should also mention that while about 75% of the game is fairly forgiving, there is a massive jump in difficulty during that last 25% that will almost certainly require level grinding. Fortunately, right around the time you hit that point the game provides you with a pretty efficient way to level up so it's not the end of the world, but the fact it does that at all shows that they knew exactly how much of a spike there was going to be. I know why they chose to do this but it's still kind of jarring.

 

So yeah, I loved the hell out of this game and even after 51 hours I still have a ton to do. I haven't even beaten Dragon Kart yet! And that's not even getting into the stuff that only opens up after you've beaten the main story. This is the kind of game you can easily play for 100, maybe even 200 hours. It's the perfect quarantine RPG.

 

Oh yes, regarding the whole "is it okay to start here" debate I would say the following. If you have no intention of playing the Kiryu saga and want to jump into this as your first Yakuza game, you should be able to do so without feeling completely lost. While past events in the series are frequently referenced, it isn't mandatory for you to have played the games detailing said events to be able to follow the story of this one. Just accept that they happened and you'll be fine. If, however, you are still working your way through the Kiryu saga then you should be warned that this game WILL spoil the ultimate fates of many characters and storylines. Like a Dragon doesn't exist in a vacuum. Many things that happen in the plot are the consequences of things that happened in earlier games.

Edited November 25, 2020 by Mister Jack