Games You Beat in 2022: PXoD's Bogus Journey

[CorgiShinobi]

It has been nearly four years, but I don't quite remember having a problem with the combat. Might require digging back through post history, but I was able to Platinum the game. The thing I remember is the ravens and commenting that backtracking through certain environments was a pain. Some areas are designed with a thematic sense rather than easily traversing an open world. Like when you're running through the foggy forest and come across a farm house. There's a raven there, but if you didn't get it the first time, you essentially reenact that whole moment.

[TheMightyEthan]

The valkyries were the things that kept me from getting the platinum, but that was before I fully embraced playing games on baby-ass baby mode, so I'll probably get it when I re-play it before Ragnarok comes out.

 

I would like the next place they go to be somewhere in mesoamerica, there's not enough of that in media.

[MetalCaveman]

Duel Princess

 

Not sure I would call this tower defence, for me that's more along the lines of Defense Grid, Arknights, etc. In this, you have your base on one side, the enemy base on the other and units just move in a straight line, you can't place defences, block lanes or anything like what I normally associate with TD games.

 

That said, it was still pretty fun, the main strategy element comes from unit synergy, skills and balancing deployment costs. You have three classes, the game gives them specific names, but I find it easier to go with the Fate approach, so you have sabers, archers and lancers.

 

Sabers beat archers, archers beat lancers and lancers beat sabers.

 

Within those classes however, you have a pretty decent variety of units, and rarity levels, from common to legendary, the more rare the unit, the higher the deployment cost, thought hey usually have some neat skill or effect to make up for it, including archers that can attack the enemy base directly, lancers that restore mana when defeated, sabers that have shields protecting them, all that fun stuff. You start with a simple deck of units and can get more either by encountering a shop in the map and purchasing more units (assuming you have enough gold), or by completing battles or story events. Running out of cards and losing a battle this way is, thankfully, not a thing here, but having more units to choose form is always a good thing, there's also an overdrive mechanic, where you can fuse two copies of the same unit, increasing their power and HP, pretty useful when needing a strong start or to counter stronger units, specially because deployment cost doesn't increase from this. Further, each princess has their own unique units obtained via story events. Once you've completed a princess' story, their units are unlocked for purchase in the store.

 

Each princess has their own skills too, with Karla IMO getting the short end of the stick, her skill just allows her to draw more cards, when other princesses have skills that poison enemy units, increase attack power and speed, grant invincibility, etc, Karla's skill just feels kinda useless. Specially as there's no increase in mana generation to complement the extra cards.

 

There's player level and princess level, princess level increases the HP of your base as well as increasing the level of their skill, you gain levels by completing stages and story events, up to a maximum of 5, the increase in level is pretty noticeable when it comes to skills, at lvl 5 Dorothea's skill can almost wipe out the enemy base in one cast. Player level affects the level of your units, maxing out at 20, each princess story has a recommended level, ending with Zena at lvl 18. Going back to the first area with a max level army was pretty fun, just a couple of units can handle every fight. Princess level applies to each princess individually, so you have to go through their respective stories and events in order to max their skills, while player level carries through all campaigns, even if you lose a battle and choose to restart, you still get some XP towards your player level, that takes some of the frustration from the early stages.

 

Speaking of princesses, there's quite the cast, the tsundere, the lonely princess that wants to make friends, the chuuni, the whole gang is here, still, they still stand on their own beyond the archetypes they're based on, and their interactions are pretty funny and wholesome (for the most part lol). Each of them also has their own unique design related to their kingdom, with Iris, the steampunk princess, being my favourite. \m/ \m/

 

The story, similarly, is pretty funny and wholesome, even though the whole thing is "gather the magic crests to defeat the Great Demon Lord" the actual focus is on the princesses and their interactions with each other, meeting other princesses for the first time, forging alliances, making friendships, in fact, and this was kind of disappointing for me at first, then it became a non-issue,

 

Spoiler

you never actually fight the Great Demon Lord, after obtaining the last crest, all you get is a cutscene with the princess going

 

"After a gruelling fight, the Great Demon Lord was defeated, and peace finally returned to the land", that's it.

 

Finally, there's the "punishment" mini-game. I thought this was going to be like Senran Kagura Reflexions but it ended up being a bit more simple, this will either be the main draw, or what makes you avoid this game like the plague, personally, I had fun with it but YMMV, however, do know you can skip it if you'd rather just play the rest of the game without worrying about this stuff. Your final score might decrease a bit, but this can be offset by going for as many elite enemies as possible.

 

I suspect it was that part of the game along with the... suggestive voices that accompany it, that resulted in Duel Princess being removed from the eShop, AFAIK, Steam also rejected the game, you can now get it via Fakku or DLSite.

 

Overall, I'd recommend it, fun, cute and wholesome story, a wide variety of characters, simple but entertaining gameplay, and a nice bonus with the punishment mini-game, if you're into games like SK Reflexions, this might be up your alley.

[TheMightyEthan]

Chorus

 

This game was pretty cool. The best way I can think to describe it is it's like Crimson Skies x Ghostrunner. It's a semi-open-world space flight sim. The combat is great, in addition to regular guns and stuff you have all these psionic powers you can use. But most importantly, it's the first space flight sim I've ever played where you can "drift": cut all thrust and keep moving on your previous vector while you aim whichever way you want. You know, like real space combat would work. It's badass

 

The missions are hit or miss, though the actual story missions are almost universally good (other than a couple of boss fights). I had a lot more fun once I stopped doing side stuff and just mainlined the campaign, which makes me think they should have just made it linear to start.

 

The game is full of little missteps like that, but the core is really good, and the campaign is great, so I recommend it anyway.

 

Grade: B with a 

 

---

 

Psychonauts 2

 

This game was also really good. Towards the beginning there was some issue with the editing that I assume is caused by its difficult development, like characters referencing things that never happened, or Raz magically knowing things that were never revealed, that kind of stuff. It was really grating and almost made me quit, because it broke my immersion every time it happened, but luckily it never happened again after the first couple of missions.

 

The game itself is really clever. It's a good platformer with creative levels, though I do feel like each part tended to overstay its welcome a little bit. Because of the way it's set up you can't do like Mario and move on to the next level when you get tired of the current one, so it can drag a bit. But there was never a part I would consider badly done, all of it was at least good, I just sometimes wished I could move on faster.

 

While the issues hold it back from being truly great, it's still really good, and I recommend it to anyone who's interested in a 3D platformer.

 

Grade: B+

[Thursday Next]

On 2/6/2022 at 3:11 AM, MetalCaveman said:

Duel Princess

 

wholesome 

 

You keep using that word... I do not think it means what you think it means.  

[Mister Jack]

On 2/6/2022 at 10:17 AM, TheMightyEthan said:

Towards the beginning there was some issue with the editing that I assume is caused by its difficult development, like characters referencing things that never happened, or Raz magically knowing things that were never revealed

 

You sure that wasn't just stuff that happened in the VR game? 

[TheMightyEthan]

Yes, I had that thought so I went back and checked. And some of it was stuff that involved new characters that were just introduced in this one, or things that were literally supposed to have happened like 5 minutes earlier.

 

*Edit - Related to this, there is a recap video that was really helpful in knowing what was going on, but it's buried in the extras menu and never tells you it exists (I discovered it when I went to watch cutscenes on Youtube to make sure my game wasn't actually glitching and leaving stuff out). It should have asked you when you started a new game if you wanted to watch the recap.

[MetalCaveman]

6 hours ago, Thursday Next said:

 

You keep using that word... I do not think it means what you think it means.  

 

In the anime sense of "cute, heart warming, happy, and generally devoid of blood, gore and otherwise dark elements in the story" yeah, I meant it 100% lol.

 

HOWEVER, it's also true that these games are the key to a healthy life, even if it kills your gains*.

 

Spoiler

 

*Not really the case, but still, the joke didn't work otherwise.

 

[Mal]

Horizon Zero Dawn

 

Pretty damn good game for keeping me occupied for 70 hours. Mind I went and did most things on foot. I hated riding a mount since it's not as nimble as I would like. Even on foot, Aloy does some strange things. It's kind of frequent on how I fight with how she moves or reacts. Quite a few stunlock deaths. 

 

Story wise, the Frozen Wilds kind of overtook the main storyline endgame by like a lot. Main storyline endgame just fell flat but built up to it was pretty good (the previous quests). So I am still looking forward to playing Forbidden West, whenever it ever appears on PC. I just hope the next game has better ammo management. Way too much stopping the game to craft ammo. Piss poor inventory management system. Using the focus is a pain in the ass and slows the game down. If they manage to improve those three (and related) things where thing is more seamless, I'll be more eager to play the sequel. 

[TCP]

Pokemon Legends Arceus

The best Pokemon game since Gold/Silver and unless BOTW2 comes out this year I think it'll probably end up being GOTY. 

[TheFlyingGerbil]

Pokemon Legends certainly seems to be splitting opinion.

[TheMightyEthan]

 

Pokemon Legends Arceus

 

I agree this is the best Pokemon in years. After Sword/Shield I thought I was done with Pokemon, but I really like how they changed up the formula, and it really refreshed the series. This is the main console title we've been wanting since the Gamecube, and I very much look forward to how they follow it up.

 

That said, even the best Pokemon in years is just solid. There's not really any major criticisms I have per se, but I'm definitely not into it enough to finish out the Pokedex and fight Arceus. It was fun while it lasted, but I rolled credits and that's enough.

 

Grade: B+

 

4 hours ago, TheFlyingGerbil said:

Pokemon Legends certainly seems to be splitting opinion.

 

Is it? The only negative opinion I've seen is Dan's.

[Mister Jack]

Maybe not here so much but I've seen plenty of purists who are livid that the game has cut things from the formula that have been there for decades. Held items, for example, which I can live without, and Individual Values, which thank fuck those are gone because they turn training into an absolute chore. They're also mad that the game has "only" 240 Pokemon, but I'll take 240 Pokemon with good animations and neat personality quirks over 900 cut-and-paste hack jobs.

[MetalCaveman]

The biggest criticisms I've seen online and from friends are:

 

1. It looks like absolute dogshit.
2. The biggest franchise in gaming shouldn't be allowed to get by with simply a decent game.
3. Not a graphics quality thing, but complaints about the art style lacking cohesion, certain things looking weird or out of place.
4. Open world isn't really open.

 

 

Having not played it myself I can't say how true these are, other than the fact that screenshots and videos I've seen from people playing look way better than some of the official trailers and screenshots. Overall, from what I've seen, it's definitively the kind of game I'd love to check out at some point. Hoping that they don't give up on this new style of games and continue to improve and expand on it.

[CorgiShinobi]

I absolutely love it as well as the wife. We both get sucked into the Pokedex tasks/goals sometimes, and I tend to be more battle focused. The game got rid of EVs and IVs and simply has Effort Levels. They can make a difference, but it's not like there is PvP in this game. The only human interaction is with trading and maybe recovering someone's satchel in one of the zones. It's not completely open world, but each zone is massive. The Hisui region forms are hit-and-miss, but for the most part I still enjoy them. This is certainly where Pokemon needs to be headed. Veteran players may get upset about the removal of certain mechanics, but I don't see why they can't return in a true mainline game.

 

The only downsides to me is the lackluster story (though it does have some neat twists) and the graphical quality. I'm not so hellbent on graphics, but certain areas of these maps didn't get a lot of attention. I would say on average the game is a solid 7/10, but there are moments where it bumps up to 8/10 for me.

[TheMightyEthan]

I didn't mean to say I haven't seen criticisms of the game, because I definitely have, including all the ones mentioned above, I just meant Dan is the only person I've seen who overall didn't like it.

 

I do believe hardcore pokefans hate it, because hardcore fans of anything always hate anytime the thing changes, but also because of that I tend to discount it in terms of it making the game "divisive", because the hardcore is such a small fraction of the overall playerbase (even in the gaming discord circles where I travel).

 

Now I'm going to say because a few more times. Because because because.

[Mister Jack]

Dying Light 2

 

It's better than the first game but it still has some of the same problems that are just inherent in the series. The biggest one is that you start off weak as hell and the first few hours can be kind of brutal because you have so few defensive options at your disposal. This really is one of those games that gets better after the first act because once you unlock some essential parkour abilities and tools along with a few invaluable combat moves then the game picks up considerably and becomes a lot of fun. Of course, whether or not you're willing to put in the work for that is going to vary from person to person.

 

The open-world gameplay is the real draw here, not the story. The story is better than the first game, but that isn't really saying much. It has multiple endings but you should never expect a whole lot of production value in the endings when there's several different permutations. The characters vary from inoffensive to god-awful. Funny enough, the game clearly tries to push you into siding with the civilian Survivors over the authoritarian Peacekeepers, but many of the Survivors are such rude, ungrateful, dishonest assholes that I sided with the Peacekeepers purely out of spite. What's even funnier is that the Peacekeepers, with one or two exceptions, are all around much nicer and friendlier to you and show you proper gratitude for all the dangerous jobs you do for them. I'm sure it wasn't Techland's intention but I found it deeply gratifying to find some of those former NPCs who always lied to me, cheated me, or threatened me and literally stomp their heads into chunky paste. 

 

The story is really just an excuse to run around the city and kick zombie ass, which is fun once you're sufficiently equipped. In fact this is probably the best parkour system I've used when all is said and done, but it takes a while to get everything out of it. Combat is entirely melee focused. The game takes place 15 years after the fall of civilization so all the ammo has been used up and with the exception a disposable pistol you can make out of scrap there are no firearms whatsoever. There are bows and arrows but I found those better for starting fires or poisoning people than sniping them from afar. Fortunately there's more going on with the melee than in something like, say, Skyrim. Still, you do have to work to unlock the combat's full potential but once you do drop-kicking people off of rooftops never gets old. 

 

I guess the main takeaway here is that it's a good game that falls shy of being a great game and you need to have some patience to get the most out of it, but your effort will eventually be rewarded.

[toxicitizen]

Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood

 

There isn't a whole lot to say about this one. It's still way better than A Realm Reborn but it's definitely a step down from Heavensward. The overall plot is pretty good and pays off/wraps up plot threads that have been getting weaved into the narrative since the very beginning. The way it's structured is fine in theory but there are some pacing issues. There's a chunk around the middle that's kinda boring and way too long and by the time things start to pick up again the game is ready to start wrapping things up so it kinda feels like it all goes by in a flash. It's a shame because that boring section takes place in some of the most unique and gorgeous zones of the entire game so far. I definitely loved visiting that place, I just wish I'd had something more interesting to do there.

 

All in all, it's not the best chapter of FFXIV but it's still a pretty decently fun time and now I get to finally play Shadowbringers! Which means Endwalker is only another ~100 hours away! Maybe a little bit more depending on how long the questlines leading into and out of Shadowbringers are. That being said, I think it's time for another break from the game. The end of an expansion is pretty much the ideal stopping point and I'm not going to get anywhere by the time Elden Ring comes out. Besides, it took me like a month to get through the final stretch of Stormblood, even when it became good again. That tells me I'll likely get burned out on the game if I force myself to keep playing.

 

This game is weird because the story is really good but the gameplay is very much an MMORPG that came out in 2013. When you're getting into the story, it can consume your entire existence in a way few games can. But if you're not really feeling it at that particular time or you're in a stretch of the story that drags a bit then the gameplay certainly isn't going to keep you hooked. So it ends up being in this weird binary state of either I want to play nothing else or I have to force myself to keep playing because I want to power through this bit that sucks. Knowing when to recognize it's time for a break is key because the main quest alone is literally hundreds of hours long lol. I can't imagine binging all of it marathon-style and still enjoying yourself when you reach Endwalker...

[MetalCaveman]

Remnant From the Ashes

 

One hell of an anticlimactic ending, had too look up whether or not that was the actual ending or if I had missed some bosses or secret quests, nah, that is really the ending.

 

The DLC is supposed to add more to it, but not really in the mood to check it out right now.

 

In general, it was quite a ride, my initial impressions were that this was a neat souls-like with guns, a fun take on the genre, then I learned that areas are procedurally generated, and that explained why certain areas looked the same (literally, had the exact same building appear twice in the first area lol). Around this point, my weapons didn't feel like they were doing much damage even though I had upgraded them a fair bit, and I learned about the annoying scaling system this game has, where essentially enemies are always one level above your highest upgraded gear, in your inventory, so if you have a +5 rifle and it's not equipped because you found a +2 shotgun... good luck, every enemy is going to be scaled to that +5 rifle. This also takes into account your armour, so yeah, things can be pretty annoying.

 

At this point I was kinda getting ready to drop Remnant, the desert world having the most boring design didn't help, what stopped me is that I ran into a dungeon that looked really cool, sorta reminded me of the Necromongers from Riddick, really tough area, with swarming enemies that explode on death, but the aesthetic and combat kept me going, at the end, the reward was more than worth it, a rifle that shoots radioactive beams, add to that the fire shot mod and this thing melted enemies and bosses alike, a huge change from the more normal weapons I had before it. This thing made the game fun again, up until it vaporized the last boss, which probably contributed to how underwhelming it was. This thing is even better than some boss weapons, specially because you can change the mod attached to it, boss weapons have specific mods that can't be replaced.

 

Even then, that weapon appears only in a specific dungeon, which may not even appear in your world given the procedurally generated element, the fact that this really cool weapon is restricted in such a way kinda sours the whole thing.

 

Another issue I had is with upgrades, in spite of pushing for a balanced upgrade path, keeping everything at about the same level, there's a severe lack of resources, specially if you go for boss weapons, which require an extra item on top of the usual iron.

 

Overall, there's a fun game here, and I'd love to see more games like this, not only souls-likes, but just games that combine this kind of fantasy (with a touch of sci-fi) stuff and normal third person shooter mechanics, without going full Destiny space-wizards lol. However, the issues it has make it hard to recommend, although chances are, some/most of you will already have it, as it was given for free in the Epic store lol.

[TheMightyEthan]

Horizon Forbidden West

 

 

This game is just like the first, but better in every way, so if that appeals to you then I highly recommend it. Everything just feels more fleshed out, and more refined. The only complaint I have about it is that there's maybe a bit too much game here (took me just shy of 69 hours, nice), but everything that's there is really done well. I'm especially impressed with how they managed to avoid things feeling repetitive. Every side quest, every "errand" (as they call the mini quests that don't even get to be full side quests) feels unique. And even the main quest, which at first glance looks like it will follow the rule of three, ends up keeping it varied quite well. They never fall into a pattern, and that keeps everything feeling fresh. I can't wait for the next one.

 

Grade: A+

[TheFlyingGerbil]

Reminds me I want to play the first one, but am trying to get through my disks first and I have that digitally.

 

I finished Ni No Kuni II. I enjoyed it well enough but am not tempted by the post game content, not least because it does the think I dislike of returning you to before defeating the final boss so I don't feel like I've completed the game and there's no extra story just completionist stuff, which is not me. It's tempted me to look out for some more light hearted RPGs.

[Thursday Next]

On 3/6/2022 at 4:20 PM, TheMightyEthan said:

Horizon Forbidden West

 

Grade: A+

 

My only issue with HFW is that there is more focus on melee combat (which is good), but there is no way to lock on to a target which makes keeping track of an enemy really difficult when you are jumping around and slashing.

[TheMightyEthan]

Yeah, I did miss a lock-on, but it's interesting to me you say there's more of a focus on it, since overall I barely engaged in melee combat outside of specific instances where I had to (like the melee pits, or that one boss fight). Otherwise I mostly stayed back and used my bow or other ranged weapons, even against humans.

[Mister Jack]

Is the melee better than in the first game? That was easily the weakest part.

[TheMightyEthan]

Yes, much better, but it's still nothing special, just passable, but you also barely need to do it, so it's fine.