Games You Beat in 2022: PXoD's Bogus Journey

[TheMightyEthan]

The Forgotten City

 

This is a cool time-loop mystery game, where you get to carry over knowledge and items from one loop to the next (because you are physically going back in time), in an attempt to free a city from a supernatural confinement where if anyone commits a "sin" then everyone gets killed. It was originally a Skyrim mod, and its TES roots are obvious, but it's been released as a standalone UE4 game. With the time loop it makes really cool use of the system TES games have where all the NPCs are off doing their own thing, they're not just waiting around to interact with you, and it actually does live up to the promise of making the world feel more alive. Gameplay-wise you're mostly walking around talking and exploring, with some very light combat that's entirely optional.

 

I can't really say much more without spoilers, but it's great and I highly recommend it. There's 4 endings and I went through to get all of them. It's also on Game Pass.

 

Grade: A

[TheMightyEthan]

Carrion

 

This game is great. It's a "reverse horror", where you play as a mysterious alien organism rampaging through a scientific facility to try to escape, like The Thing where you're the Thing. You eat people to regain health, and the bigger you are the more powerful abilities you have. It's a 2D side-scroller, kind of a metroidvania, and I'd highly recommend it to anyone who likes those. Also it's on Game Pass.

 

Grade: A+

[Mister Jack]

Elden Ring

 

This is easily the most impressive open world ever crafted in any game. Frankly, it makes Breath of the Wild's Hyrule look like amateur fare. I cannot stress enough just how enormous the map is, how beautiful and varied the environments are, and how rewarding it is to explore. There were multiple occasions where I entered a door or a cave expecting to find another little dungeon with a boss or an item only for it to open up into a gigantic brand new environment. There are plenty of mini-dungeons to go through too, of course, and while some of the bosses do repeat sometimes there are still enough unique ones that you probably won't be saying "oh not not this guy again" very often. 

 

Putting the incredible map aside, the Souls formula has gotten a few tweaks. There's a dedicated jump button now, and yes this is actually a big deal because it changes not only how you can explore but also how you can fight. Weapon arts are also swappable on your equipment and are much more useful than they were in Dark Souls 3. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that finding a weapon skill that complements your playstyle is borderline essential. In addition to summoning other players, if you prefer to go it alone you can still find items that let you summon NPCs to help you out with bosses.  Don't be ashamed to use them because the game is balanced like it expects you to. Oh, and we can't forget Torrent, possibly the best video game horse ever because not only is he super easy to control but he can also fucking double jump.

 

As much as I clearly love this game (it's definitely gonna be my GOTY), I do have a few bits of criticism. Firstly, some builds just don't feel as viable as others. I usually go with a strength build, but enemies and bosses in this game attack fast, hard, and often with combos. Not only that but poise really doesn't seem to help you much anymore. I did manage to brute force my way through the game with a greatsword, even beating the optional superboss, but I have no doubt in my mind whatsoever that I would have had a much easier time with a dexterity or magic build. Playing a strength build in Elden Ring is pure suffering. I'm also annoyed that the consumable rune items STILL don't tell you how many runes you'll get when you use them. It sounds like a minor thing but I use those a lot to top myself off and I don't like having to guess which one will give me just enough, let alone look it up. Sometimes it's hard to tell how far you can drop without dying from fall damage, but if you're online people will usually leave helpful messages on reachable platforms to help alleviate this. Finally, while I don't usually like to make this gripe, a few of the bosses just feel downright unfair, even for a From game. I can think of a handful that were more aggravating than fun to fight, and bosses like that really encourage you to use cheap tactics to just get them over with. 

 

That's about all I have to complain about, though. Still a 10/10 game, easily my game of the year, and it's practically guaranteed to go down as one of the greatest games ever made. It took me about 72 hours to finish, but a lot of that was because I wanted to explore every inch I could. I think you only need to collect two out of seven runes to access the final boss, but that's like going to a five star restaurant and then filling up on bread if you ask me.

Edited March 17, 2022 by Mister Jack

[MetalCaveman]

I'm more than a 100 hours in and judging from my map and that I keep finding underground areas, I'd say I'm nowhere near the end lol. Love the hell out of this game though, still some ways to go but it's pretty clear that it's one of the best games I've ever played, if not THE BEST game I've played.

 

I've found that my strength build slaps most bosses, only ones I've had trouble with so far were

Spoiler

the crystalians

which crumbled to dust when I switched to a great hammer and

Spoiler

Margit

because the timing on those attacks was messing me up lol, it was either 1-2----------------------3 or 123456789-----10-----------------------------------------11.

[Mister Jack]

Aha! I knew the shields were underpowered! Just now they released a patch to buff them.

[MetalCaveman]

Oh good, they nerfed the mimic!!! Fuck me then.

 

Edit: Interesting, they added an NPC and more stuff to some character quests.

 

Spoiler

Maybe now Nepheli will move on from "This ash reminds me of my hawk" lol

 

Edit again: https://www.bandainamcoent.com/news/elden-ring-patch-notes-v1-03

 

Also no, that NPC still says the same thing, guess there's more stuff to do before they move on.

 

Also, a neat change, smithing stones cost a ton less now! \m/ \m/

Edited March 17, 2022 by MetalCaveman

[danielpholt]

Regency Solitaire 

 

Finished the main campaign. It's solitaire, with added romance.

 

Return of the Obra Dinn

 

You ever play a game that you know is going to consume your mind for the next X months? That's Obra Dinn for me. From the moment I loaded it up, to the moment I put it down I was totally engrossed in its mystery, its gameplay and it's presentation. A top 10 game of all time for me, and one that I look forward to re-playing in the future. 

 

 

[TheFlyingGerbil]

What's the replayability of a game like that, would much be different?

 

I'm really torn on giving Obra Dinn a go, I think it needs better recollection of details than I have and I'm not going to be making notes.

[Mister Jack]

Obra Dinn keeps pretty good notes for you. It also locks in every three crew members you correctly identify so you can focus on them in separate chunks.

[danielpholt]

12 hours ago, TheFlyingGerbil said:

What's the replayability of a game like that, would much be different?

 

I'm really torn on giving Obra Dinn a go, I think it needs better recollection of details than I have and I'm not going to be making notes.

 

I'm hoping that in 2-3 years I'll have forgotten a lot of the detail, or at-least enough to keep it fresh. The game does a decent job of providing you with what you need to solve it's puzzle; although there's a certain amount of deduction built into it.

 

 

[TheMightyEthan]

Death's Door

 

I originally shelved this game on the third main boss, cause I thought it was too hard. Here's what I said then:

 

On 12/27/2021 at 2:16 PM, TheMightyEthan said:

Death's Door - It pains me to put this here, because I loved this game, but the fourth(?) major boss was just too fucking hard. I can't do it, and I can't even get far enough along in the fight to feel like I could do it with more practice. It just murders me. I already have the second-highest level of damage upgrade, and there are more health upgrades I could get, but only a couple, and that would definitely not be enough to see me through. I eventually just had to throw in the towel.

 

Well I went back because all the talk of Tunic made me feel like I should give this game another go, and I beat that boss on the 2nd try, with no additional upgrades. So idk what my problem was before, maybe I was just being too greedy about trying to do damage and not dodging enough.

 

This game is hard but manageable, and checkpoints tend to be reasonably placed, especially before bosses and stuff. It's a little bit Zelda, a little bit Souls, and it works perfectly. Really the only thing I'd want them to change is to add a map, as some of the areas can be pretty confusing even after you've been through them several times.

 

I say it's a little bit Zelda because the world exploration is in that vein, but it's definitely a simplified version. You do get items like bombs or a hookshot (I forget what it's called in this game) that allow you to access new areas and change how you move through the world just like you would in Zelda, but there's only a couple of them. The game as a whole is smaller too though, so I think it fits well with the scale of the game.

 

As far as the Souls aspects, there's the obvious one which is the difficulty. There's also the combat, which is based around dodging. You are definitely not a tank in this game.  Every time you get hit takes 1 health, and by the end I had 6 total health. I think there was 2 more I could get, but that's it. So combat revolves around dodging to avoid damage, and getting hits in where you're able. Also like in Souls games, you collect souls to upgrade your stats like damage and speed and whatnot, but you keep them when you die so there are no corpse runs, and in that way it's a little forgiving. If an area is too difficult and keeps killing you you're still making progress towards upgrades, so it doesn't feel so much like a brick wall. (The exception to this is bosses, because if you don't kill the boss you don't get any souls, so no progress is made.)

 

Overall, this game is fantastic, and I highly recommend it.

 

Grade: A+

[TheMightyEthan]

Cyberpunk 2077

 

Beat this last night and I've been cogitating on it, and the more I think about it the more I think it's one of the best RPGs I've played in a long time. I got the Devil return ending, and it left me feeling kind of empty and unsatisfied, but I think it was supposed to, and it really works well.

 

As I mentioned in the what you're playing thread, I didn't do a lot of the side content, because the game was so engaging that I really felt like I was V, and V had bigger properties. What I did see of the world felt really deep and fleshed out, where lots of RPGs feel like theme park towns.

 

It's a shame the launch was such a clusterfuck, it overshadowed a really great game.

 

Grade: A

[toxicitizen]

2 hours ago, TheMightyEthan said:

I got the Devil return ending, and it left me feeling kind of empty and unsatisfied, but I think it was supposed to, and it really works well.

 

Spoiler

Oh god, why would you trust Arasaka? Lmao. Yeah that ending is a downer, although none of the endings are exactly the "good" one, either.

 

2 hours ago, TheMightyEthan said:

As I mentioned in the what you're playing thread, I didn't do a lot of the side content, because the game was so engaging that I really felt like I was V, and V had bigger properties. What I did see of the world felt really deep and fleshed out, where lots of RPGs feel like theme park towns.

 

Damn, dude, you missed out. I hope you're planning to rectify that because some of the best content in the game is in the side-quests. The meatier one, I mean, though the smaller gigs that you always get calls about while roaming around were like crack to me. I just couldn't get enough of those.

Edited March 27, 2022 by toxicitizen

[TheMightyEthan]

I did do some of the bigger ones, Judy's and Johnny's specifically, because those felt emotionally important to V, so it felt natural to do those before finishing the main quest, it was mostly the random jobs I didn't mess with.

 

As far as the end goes

 

Spoiler

I thought Johnny's "kick in the front door" plan was liable to work out the same way it did the first time, and my goal was to survive. Trusting Arasaka was the best of bad options (I chose the wrong dialog options at Johnny's grave so I couldn't get the secret ending). It worked out okay too, as far as it went, Hanako kept her end of the bargain and let me walk free afterwards. They didn't betray me, my body was just fucked up beyond recovery.

 

I still stand by that decision as the one my V would have made. The entire game I was practical rather than idealistic, with a focus on protecting myself and the people I cared about. I think going with Hanako's plan is more consistent with that than Johnny's.

 

[toxicitizen]

2 hours ago, TheMightyEthan said:

I did do some of the bigger ones, Judy's and Johnny's specifically, because those felt emotionally important to V, so it felt natural to do those before finishing the main quest, it was mostly the random jobs I didn't mess with.

 

 

Did you do the Peralez quest line? Cause that's maybe my favorite out of the entire game. River Ward's quest (which branches off from the Peralez one IIRC) is also really fucking great, although it feels like it probably had some cut content because it's over very quickly compared to others.

 

Oh and Kerry's quest is also really fun although it's more character-driven and focused on Johnny. Really, all the quests around the main companions are great.

Edited March 27, 2022 by toxicitizen

[TheMightyEthan]

I did Kerry's, but not the other two you mentioned. I will probably do another playthrough when the first expansion launches.

[danielpholt]

A Memoire Blue

 

A very short game about a daughter reconnecting with her mother. It's light on the 'gameplay' and heavy on the feels. All in all it took me about 90 minutes from front to back. Super nice art, some incredible moments of spectacle and a heartwarming story. 

 

Solid effort. Also on Gamepass. 

 

Tunic

 

I'm guilty of using a guide to help me get through the final few hours of Tunic, and once I did that the first time I never looked back. It absolutely took some of the shine off of the game, but I still really rate this one. I'd be very surprised if this isn't in the running for some industry wide awards come November and December. 

 

4/5

Edited March 28, 2022 by danielpholt

[Mister Jack]

Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin

 

Man, Nomura can just never pick a normal name for these games, can he? Anyway, this is branded as a soulslike but I wouldn't really call it one. It pretends to be one, sure. It has the respawning enemies and the high difficulty like you'd expect, but I don't think of it as one for two reasons. One, there's a difficulty selection option which goes all the way down to casual. Two, you don't lose exp when you die. In fact, you don't lose anything when you die except for MP, which is easy enough to get back. You don't really level up in the traditional sense either. SoP uses a job system like FFV or FFXIV where you can switch between them freely and each one has its own levels up to 30 (at least until NG+). 

 

The job system is easily the best part of this game. Jack can equip two jobs at a time and swap between them freely during battle. Figuring out the best ways to synergize your jobs for encounters is pretty appealing and there is rarely a "best job" for any particular boss, only what works best for YOU. Strategy guides online told me to use the black mage against Tiamat and I was really struggling with it until I decided to try switching to the lancer and throwing spears at her until she died. It made me feel pretty clever to come up with my own way, and the combat in general is very customizable and full of combos. Team Ninja excels at action combat systems better than anyone else except maybe Capcom. 

 

Of course, it's everything else that's kind of lackluster. The story is hilariously cringe and Jack is the edgiest video game character since Shadow the Hedgehog. At one point his response to a character saying something he doesn't like is to say "bullshit" and then walk away while blasting rap metal on his phone. This is what Nomura thinks is cool? What is he, 14? I can't say it didn't make me laugh, though. It's just so absurd. The plot in general is also really convoluted, but what else do you expect from a Nomura game? He has a complexity addiction that hurts every project he's in charge of. But I didn't buy the game for the story anyway. 

 

Unfortunately, the level design is also...well, bad. It's not frustrating or confusing or ugly. It's just dull. Lots of corridors and hallways like it was put together in a map maker program. No real sprawling vistas or anything like that to speak of, which is disappointing for a Final Fantasy game. There are a few interesting gimmicks sometimes but by and large the levels are basically just vehicles to get you from one combat encounter to the next. 

 

This is a game I might recommend after a price drop or if it gets a big sale on steam or CDkeys or something. The combat is quite fun like I hoped it would be, it's just surrounded by fairly mediocre trappings. If they ever made a second FF game like this and improved it the way they improved between Nioh and Nioh 2 I could see a hypothetical sequel becoming one of my favorite games, but right now it's just not there. The foundation is solid, but everything around it needs work.

[MetalCaveman]

Elden Ring

 

Currently on NG+++.

 

Easily the best game I've ever played, no question about it.

 

There were however, some issues:

 

• Upgrade materials seem oddly scattered, this might just be due to the open world nature and how I played, but I had a bunch of upgrade stones 6, a ton of 7 and some 8 while 5 was nowhere to be found.
• Pop-up messages "A door has been unlocked" "Stonesword key lost with use", these things get in the way take too long to disappear and having to press a button to instantly dismiss them almost got me killed a couple of times.
• Being asked if you want to use a flask to re-summon your horse, this was extremely annoying and would be better off as just a tutorial once you get Torrent "Hey, if it dies, you can use a flask to call it once more!"
• Multiplayer co-op and pvp, but at this point it's kinda pointless to complain about it, FROM has their style and it's unlikely they'll change.

 

Everything else though, pure awesomeness. The map felt like an actual map, not a glorified checklist of quests and NPCs I don't care about, opening it and being able to just mark a path to a place I wanted to go was awesome. Being able to look at a map and just see the map instead of getting anxiety from the trillion icons, npcs, quests and other pointless shit was a breath of fresh air and I don't think I'll ever be able to go back to other open world games.

 

NPC quests are fun, and even the more simple ones either lead to secret areas, unlock merchants or have other cool rewards. The fact that there's no quest tracker makes it that much more fun to actually complete these quests IMO, found a lady who was like "You got any grapes?" and it turns out that I did because earlier I found a ghost dude next to a "grape" (it's actually an eye), asking for a maiden to take his grapes... Never saw that lady again even though I had collected a bunch of those things, and that was cool. On the other hand there were NPCs I had forgotten about until I ran into them while doing other stuff, this IMO, feels way more organic than just having map markers or quest logs that tell you exactly what everyone wants, where to find it and where to find them once you have their items.

 

The gameplay, it's Souls, with improvements, some streamlining and new additions, the stealth mechanic was worrying to me because I didn't know how well it'd work, how necessary it would be or if it would lead to areas that could only be cleared by using it, thankfully, it works much better than expected, and was actually quite useful without feeling like if you didn't stealth you were screwed. Having a dedicated jump button is awesome and it's hard to explain how much it improves things compared to previous Souls games. Guard counters make shields feel more useful, spirit summons are awesome and a great way to get some support without the penalty of increased boss health when summoning other players, and IMO, the best new change is the Stakes of Marika which allow you to respawn much more close to boss gates or to certain areas with tough enemies instead of having to respawn at the last bonfire site or grace, this eliminates much of the tedium and annoyance of having to fight, or run all the way back to the boss.

 

The story is a bit more straightforward this time, there's still a whole lot of "read item descriptions" and stuff, but NPCs and cutscenes also reveal a fair bit more than in other SoulsBorne games.

 

My favourite part was just abandoning all weapons and instead carrying a huge shield, with a couple of talismans to reduce damage, this thing can tank through even the strongest of bosses, except for two, one which is just a pain, and the other... Kinda makes sense that trying to block wouldn't work on it.

 

Spoiler

Malenia laughs in the face of Shield of Doom because she just heals with each attack anyway...

 

Fire Giant laughs because he just pancakes me with or without shield lol

 

 

 

TL;DR: Love it, best game ever!!! lol

[TheMightyEthan]

I agree with a lot of what you said, but I do think it needs some kind of a quest log. I'm not asking for map markers or detailed directions or anything like that, it could be as simple as a record of what NPCs have said to you, so it would still be up to the player to put it together for themselves, just something so you can refer back without having to go straight to a guide online.

[toxicitizen]

Persona 4 Golden

 

Sweet fucking Christ, this game is long. I picked my playthrough back up 40 hours in, right after Rise's dungeon, thinking I was roughly halfway through but here I am over 70 hours later having just finished it last night lol.

 

Still a fantastic game, though. I remember not being 100% into replaying it when the PC port first came out but playing a lot of Persona 4 Arena Ultimax a couple weeks ago made me really eager to spend more time with these characters.

 

Also, I did not remember the Hollow Forest being this fucking awful. It really feels like they didn't want to create a new tier of equipment and enemies solely for it, so they just took away your gear and items and have you fight low level enemies. That made me just avoid combat as much as possible, which they clearly anticipated because on like half the floors you get into fights when you open doors lol.  Good thing it's not the final dungeon like I was thinking because it would've ended the game on a pretty low note.

 

You'd think I would've had my fill after 70+ hours of playing this but I want PC ports of P3 and P5R more than ever. I want more, just... with a different cast. I really hope they'll announce the P5R port this year...

 

In the meantime, new game + will have to do. I'll probably rush through it with a guide and skip cutscenes because as much as I enjoyed coming back to the game I really don't wanna spend another 100+ hours on it.

 

Also, thank fucking God I once again got Hardcore Risette Fan without even trying because that would've probably made me put it off for a while. I mean, I did try and went out of my way to constantly trigger as many of Rise's lines as possible but I'm really baffled that I got it so easily not once but twice when everyone else seems to have so much trouble with it. I wasn't even using a spreadsheet to keep track of which lines I got like people recommend. I really wonder if I'm somehow doing something that everyone else isn't or just really fucking lucky with this one particular achievement. But yeah, really glad to have one less thing to worry about on NG+ because I feel like I'll already have enough to keep track of with maxing out all social links and filling out the compendium.

[TheMightyEthan]

1 hour ago, toxicitizen said:

I once again got Hardcore Risette Fan without even trying

 

Just rub it in whydontcha...

 

[toxicitizen]

1 hour ago, TheMightyEthan said:

 

Just rub it in whydontcha...

 

 

Lol to be fair, like I said, I DID actually try. I just didn't expect it to pop-up so effortlessly considering that what I was doing wasn't that different from how I would normally play.

[MetalCaveman]

4 hours ago, TheMightyEthan said:

I agree with a lot of what you said, but I do think it needs some kind of a quest log. I'm not asking for map markers or detailed directions or anything like that, it could be as simple as a record of what NPCs have said to you, so it would still be up to the player to put it together for themselves, just something so you can refer back without having to go straight to a guide online.

 

Fair, I did use a notebook to keep track of particularly important things , but yeah, after seeing how they added NPC markers on the map, I'd be willing to trust FROM to implement something like that without it being too obtrusive/overwhelming.

[Mister Jack]

6 hours ago, MetalCaveman said:

Upgrade materials seem oddly scattered, this might just be due to the open world nature and how I played, but I had a bunch of upgrade stones 6, a ton of 7 and some 8 while 5 was nowhere to be found.

 

It's easier just to hunt down the bell bearings for them, really. They patched the twin husks merchant so that you buy crafting materials for like 80% less than what it used to cost.