Games You Beat in 2023: PXoD Face the Music

[toxicitizen]

Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin

 

This is a pretty chaotic game. No, really. It looks (and kinda plays) like a PS360 gen game and is one of the most impressively dogshit ports I've seen in a very long time. The writing is meme-worthy trash and the plot is borderline nonsensical. I think the original Final Fantasy is retroactively a sci-fi game now?

 

But seriously, what an absolutely garbage port. I actually had to turn off the e-cores on my CPU but I can't even say with 100% certainty whether it really helped or not. This game made me feel like i was going crazy.

 

When I set the framerate to 120fps the game could barely stay above 100 and often dipped into the 70s. Not a big deal, that's what g-sync is for. Problem is when set to 120, the game slows down when it drops below 90fps. At least, that's what I read online. I'm pretty sure it slowed down even above 100. Fine, I though. I'll lock it to 60 and have it be rock solid. Lol, nope. When set to 60, it could barely stay above 50fps. I'm not exaggerating when I say this is the most mindbogglingly awful port I've seen in a long time. It's a complete fucking technical mess. I just cannot wrap my head around why the game works the way it does. It felt better after I went into the BIOS and disabled my CPU'S e-cores. Maybe I just got used to it but I never really noticed any slowdown after that. At least nothing as bad as the first time I played.

 

I feel like this game was either rushed or made on a shoestring budget. I can't help but get the feeling that someone, somewhere, just did not give a shit about this project and I'm really curious to know whether that was Square-Enix or Team Ninja.

 

All that being said, I still kinda loved it. There's something deeply satisfying about the combat. When I wasn't stuck on a boss, I could've kept grinding missions for hours. I don't think it would be accurate to call it a Soulslike. I guess it's more of a Niohlike, if we wanna go there? It feels much simpler while still offering plenty of variety Then again, I ended up going for the same strategy with every single job I levelled up: find a hard-hitting move I'm comfortable with and just hit enemies with that combo as quickly as I can to open them up for a Soul Burst.

 

I did rage at a few bosses but tbh that was just me playing like an idiot. Once I slowed down and started learning their patterns, I always got them. The final boss, though. Goddamn, that one was fucking hard. I played carefully from the start and it still took me a shit ton of attempts before I got him. Ironically enough, that particular fight never frustrated me. I mean, I was feeling pretty exhausted after so many failed attempts but I never got angry about the fight itself.

 

Oh but one mission in particular was complete fucking bullshit. Maybe it's cause I was playing on hard and it's not as bad on normal but jfc. You don't have your party members for that particular section and the game likes to put large groups of enemies together in small areas. You literally can't even finish your attrack string on one before another one throws some bullshit at you. It's insanely infuriating and I just cannot fucking grasp what the hell they were thinking. Once I realized this bullshit was impossible, I just ran past the enemies but there's a section at the end where you have no choice but to take a similar crowd on. I don't even feel like I figured out a strategy or played well, I just got fucking lucky. I'll gladly admit it was my own fault when I raged at boss fights but this mission in particular was complete fucking garbage.

 

Anyway, I still have the DLC to play as well as Chaos difficulty but I think I'll put that off for now and come back to it later. This seems like the kind of game I could easily sink over a hundred hours into like Nioh, but right now I'm really feeling the itch to play some Trails. It's been way too long.

[TheMightyEthan]

Battlestar Galactica Deadlock: Anabasis

 

So, I didn't realize that unlike the other BSGD expansions this one isn't a grand strategy campaign, it's entirely a skirmish challenge mode. It has a "story" in that there's a premise and a narrative justification for why it's happening, but there's no real plot, it's just do these 10 missions, hope you can survive. It's basically FTL but in the BSGD skirmish engine. It's also stupidly hard. I played it on Easy mode with a completely OP fleet (you get a better score the weaker the fleet you start with) and still was barely able to survive to the end. I wouldn't have bought or played it if I'd realized what it was.

 

Grade: D

 

Battlestar Galactica Deadlock: Sin & Sacrifice

 

Okay, now this is what I'm talking about. This is the first real BSGD campaign expansion, and it absolutely rocks. You can import your save from the base game too, which means you keep all your fleets, fortified colonies, research, resources, etc, which is nice. I hate it when stuff like this resets your progress, but if you owned the Cyrannus system when you finished the base campaign then you still do when you start this one. Beyond that, it's just more campaign, so if you like that you'll like this, but it doesn't really bring anything new to the table, beyond a plot that really goes places.

 

Grade: A+

[toxicitizen]

The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero

 

Man, it feels like I've been waiting for this one forever. It's been like 5 years since I last played a Trails game because I refused to continue on to Cold Steel III because of how important the missing games were going to become. According to Steam, I beat Trails in the Sky the 3rd in May 2017 and Trails of Cold Steel II in March 2018. So yeah, it's been a while...

 

After years of hearing people talk about how the Crossbell games were the best ones, it was hard not to go into this one with insanely high expectations. I didn't necessarily expect them to be my new favorites but I did expect them to be among the better ones. So I'm happy to say the game actually exceeded my expectations!

 

It manages to recapture the same comfy vibes as the original Trails in the Sky while having a plot that's more immediately engaging. It's a slow burn like the first Sky game but even the early chapters have you investigating stuff that feels important. You only find out how everything is connected later in the game but, unlike my first playthrough of Trails in the Sky, I didn't spend most of my Zero playthrough wondering when the plot would start. I can now appreciate that Trails in the Sky was actually setting up a shit ton of stuff but it took a replay for me to end up loving it as much as I do now.

 

That being said, Zero simply has the better story. The last few chapters in particular were very my shit. The game takes one hell of a creepy turn and I was super into it. It also manages to tell its own story while simultaneously paying off on things set up in the Sky trilogy. I was pleasantly surprised by how often Estelle and Joshua showed up and the way one particular plot thread left hanging in the Sky trilogy was wrapped up in Zero was pretty great. I even teared up a little.

 

Another similarity to Sky is that Zero focuses on a smaller, tight-knight group of characters again. In Sky, you get Estelle and Joshua as your main two and the other two slots are filled by a rotating cast of characters that are gradually introduced and each given time to develop and shine. In Zero, you get your four mains out of the gate and, other than the occasional guest party members, that's who you'll be playing with for most of the game. So they all have their moments and by the end of the game you actually care about everyone, unlike Cold Steel where like half of Class VII could jump off a cliff and I wouldn't really give a shit.

 

I think my only "issue" (I wouldn't even call it a nitpick, really) was the ending. I love me a good cliffhanger and I was bracing myself for the game to hit me with something at the last second that would make me need to start Trails to Azure immediately. And it just... never happened. The game ends with a few big questions left unanswered but by the end of it the current crisis is resolved and you leave everyone on a satisfying note. Hell, even that one big spoiler you inevitably get if you play Cold Steel first didn't happen! I was sure that was going to be the focus of either the ending or the final chapter but nope. That's not something I can hold against the game, though.

 

So yeah, I was expecting the ending to make me need to start Azure immediately but it just doesn't. I mean, I still want to start Azure soon. It's not like there's anything else I'd rather play right now, I just don't feel like there's any rush now lol. Although if I don't start it now, I might cave and get Baldur's Gate 3 because the hype is starting to get to me. And then who knows when I'll have time to get back to Trails...

Edited July 25, 2023 by toxicitizen

[TheMightyEthan]

Battlestar Galactica Deadlock: Resurrection

 

This is the second major campaign expansion, and sadly the changes they've made I'm not a fan of. The biggest one is they've gotten rid of the whole grand strategy layer. Now, instead of managing a war across the colonies, occupying/fortifying planets, positioning fleets, etc, there's a much more reduced interface. You still manage fleets and officers, but there's not war map, you just send individual fleets on individual missions instead. It really loses something.

 

The other thing is that most of the cast from the first "season" (base game through Sin & Sacrifice) is gone, replaced by a bunch of boring dudes with bad voice acting. I understand the story reasons for why that happened, but the game does suffer for it.

 

Finally, the story is a bit of a letdown as well, it doesn't really go anywhere, and doesn't have nearly the impact of Sin & Sacrifice. That said, there are two more expansions left, and this one does set up some stuff that could be interesting if it pans out well, so hopefully it's really just the first part of a 3-part story and the rest redeems it.

 

The core tactical gameplay is still there, and still as good as ever, but the package as a whole really feels like a letdown.

 

Grade: C

[Mister Jack]

Diablo IV

 

This entry tried some new things for the series, some good and some bad. How you feel about the changes will probably depend on how much of a purist you are, but here's where I stand on this game:

 

The Good

- The campaign is better than III's campaign. It's not amazing or anything but it is more interesting, and Lilith is a pretty good villain.

- The overworld is huge and absolutely stuffed with dungeons, random world events, and side content. You can spend a time of time here without even touching the main story.

- Respeccing is relatively painless. Just pay some gold for each point you want back. The cost goes up as you level up more, but so far it hasn't been anything I can't manage.

- You can see other players running around on the map and can party up with them in just a couple of button presses if you want. Assuming they accept your invite, of course.

- Mounts are now a thing. You can't fight from them, but they help you move around the map faster. You can't use them inside of dungeons, but you can use them in towns and on the overworld. They also help you run through unwanted fights, although if you get too overwhelmed the horse will get scared and throw you off.

 

The Bad

- Always online. This sucks. While I understand that certain features like the world events and the timed bounties necessitate a persistent connection, there should at least be an option for a scaled down offline mode with fewer features. It'd be better than nothing.

- Level scaling. Some people like it, but I'm not a fan. When the enemies are always the same level as you it barely feels like you're getting stronger. This was patched recently so enemies never scale over level 95, but that really only matters after you've been playing for hundreds of hours.

- Some skills are just flat out better than others, build be damned. I played a druid and the poison creep summon was so much better than the wolves and the ravens that the latter two weren't even worth considering. We're talking a massive AOE summon that poisons huge groups of enemies and does lots of damage versus a couple of pets that bite someone every few seconds. 

 

The Ugly

- The game recently got a patch that buffed enemies and nerfed players by a lot without really giving us anything to make up for the nerfs. As a result the game now feels a good bit harder than it did before, and not in a good way. This actually pissed people off so much that Blizzard had to come out and promise never to do a patch like this again, but quite frankly Blizzard's word isn't worth shit to me.

 

I mostly enjoyed the game and I do intend to keep playing and go for the platinum (getting a hardcore character to 50 is going to be a bitch). However, if you're wondering whether or not to get into it my advice would be to give them a while to iron out the kinks and see where the game lands by the time they announce the inevitable expansion.

[MetalCaveman]

Seed of the Dead: Sweet Home

 

Holy mother of improvements Batman!

 

Yes, the first game didn't exactly set a high bar, in fact the bar was pretty much underground, but still, this is the biggest leap in quality I've seen from one game to the next.

 

The gameplay is way better, it's actually fun to play now! Weapon variety increased, now there's a fair amount of weapons including some sci-fi stuff and even magic swords, best of all, all of them are actually viable now, yes, some are still better than others, but all can still be used without issues. Enemy variety also increased a fair bit, several new mutants and different zombie models, so you don't run into just the same one over and over (and over and over and over and over) again. The last boss was awesome from a design perspective, super creepy and cool as hell, wouldn't look out of place in Dead Space.

 

Levels are bigger and more varied, each level being unique, there's no more going back and forth the same area a bunch of times, levels now have side quests too, like protecting supply crates, holding back a zombie horde while the girls rock out on stage, etc. Fun stuff all around.

 

Characters now level up, improving their stats, and in the case of the player character, you can also unlock skills, things like more health, more ammo, more stamina, the usual stuff, along with other skills that replace the basic pistol with a revolver and, eventually, a laser pistol.

 

The story also improved, it's still far from good, REALLY far, but it's fun, parts of it were like a low budget Resident Evil, each of the characters also has some extra story chapters for themselves, expanding on their personality, role in the new survivor city and other fun things.

 

There's now a base that you go back after each stage, you can collect materials during the levels and then use those to improve the base, unlocking more areas and character events.

 

Spoiler

The R18 stuff also improved.

That stuff can also be turned off now if you want.

 

Not to say there aren't issues though.

 

Character models improved, but there still rough around the edges, now that there's a base with NPCs walking around, the art style of the main characters sticks out even more than before.

 

Certain animations are still pretty awkward, some reloads make it look like your characters arms are made of spaghetti,

Spoiler

the R18 animations are as awkward as ever too.

 

The last boss was a bit of a disappointment, though given that weapon spawns are random, maybe I just got really lucky, the rocket launcher wiped it out in a couple of shots lol.

 

However, as much as I enjoyed it, it's still hard to recommend, if only because of the character designs, along some of the content which is most certainly not for everyone. If you've ever wanted a Highschool of the Dead game though, this one's for you.

 

Apparently they're already working on a third one, hopefully they'll continue with the improvements. Looking forward to it.

 

TL;DR: A huge improvement over the first one, in all aspects, though I still wouldn't recommend it to most people.

 

Grade: B-

[TheMightyEthan]

Battlestar Galactica Deadlock: Ghost Fleet Offensive

 

This expansion keeps the reduced strategic layer from the previous expansion, but this time there are story reasons why it makes sense so it's less galling. Also, there are spoiler things that mitigate some of my other complaints, but obviously I'm not going to go into those here. Suffice to say it is an improvement over Resurrection, though without the grand strategy aspect it doesn't reach the same highs as the first season did.

 

Grade: B

 

On to Armistice, the last one!

[TheMightyEthan]

Battlestar Galactica Deadlock: Armistice

 

This is the last expansion, and it follows on from the previous one. It's kind of a let down, tbh, it just ends with no real culmination, and the story reasons from Ghost Fleet Offensive that excused the lack of a strategy layer are gone again, so it's back to just being frustrating. It did have some good character moments, and as far as the combat goes it's the same as ever, but it just was not a suitable finale for this game.

 

Grade: C-

[TheMightyEthan]

Venba

 

This game is super short, like an hour and a half long, but it's great. It's a little story about a Tamil family who have immigrated to Canada, told around food. It's neat and very heartfelt and I highly recommend it.

 

Grade: A+

[TheMightyEthan]

Astro Bot Rescue Mission

 

I actually beat this on PSVR last week before I got my Quest. It's super good. Easily the best 3D platformer I've played that didn't have Mario in the title, and pretty high up there even once you include those. The whole thing is just so charming, the controls feel great, the levels, while linear, are very dynamic. It's just a really nice game.

 

Grade: A+

 

Batman: Arkham VR

 

This one I did play on Quest. It's really cool, as far as it goes, but it's extremely short. You get a grappling hook, a taser, and batarangs, and I don't think I even used the taser once. There's only two scenes that even involved enemies at all, one was entirely scripted and the other I threw a single batarang to end it.

 

Don't get me wrong, what's there is quite good, but there's almost nothing there. I'm glad I only paid $4 for it.

 

Grade: C

 

The Last Clockwinder

 

This is a fun little VR indie puzzle game. You're fixing this giant machine, and you can record your own actions for a few seconds and it sets a robot guy on a loop repeating what you did. So for instance, you might need to cut a fruit off a stalk, combine it with another fruit, and then put it in a press. So you record yourself cutting the fruit off one plant, and tossing it toward another plant. Then you go over to the other plant, record yourself catching the fruit, sticking it to another one, and tossing it toward the press, etc. Your little robot clones repeat your actions on an infinite loop, it can get pretty complex and be immensely satisfying to watch. It's kind of got a Zachtronics vibe, where you can solve a given puzzle in 10 minutes, and then spend another hour and half optimizing that solution, or just call it good enough an move on. It's also fun to be able to see the little quirks of your own movements in your recordings.

 

I have a couple minor complaints, like the gravity isn't Newtonian, so different objects will take different arcs when thrown at the same speed and direction, which can make aiming throws frustrating, but nothing that really detracts much from the overall experience.

 

Grade: A-

[Mister Jack]

Game quality notwithstanding, how are you liking the actual experience of using the Quest vs the PSVR?

Edited August 20, 2023 by Mister Jack

[toxicitizen]

Mortal Kombat 9, Mortal Kombat X, Mortal Kombat 11 + Aftermath

 

It felt weird to me that Street Fighter is the series that got me into fighting games in a big way when Mortal Kombat is the one I played a shit ton of as a kid. I'd rent Street Fighter II every now and then but I played the shit out of my copy of Mortal Kombat II on Genesis.  So, for the past couple years I've been feeling like I should try to get back into MK.

 

Well, the trailers for Mortal Kombat 1 have been looking insanely good. So, I figured what better time than now? I had never played the story modes for MKX and MK11, so I figured I'd just do the whole trilogy to get caught up for MK1. The story mode of MK9 is pretty sloppy but it's really fun if you're like me and have a ton of nostalgia for the original trilogy. MKX is basically a really solid Mortal Kombat movie and MK11 just improves upon MKX in every conceivable way. Aftermath ends things on a bit of a dud, though. It's not bad but I felt like it undermined the insanely fun climax of MK11 and mostly felt like unnecessary filler. Other than a small teaser for MK1 at the end, it doesn't really add much beyond getting to play as the bad guys.

 

Once I made it to MK11, I also started dipping my toes into the online portion as a test run of whether I wanted to get MK1 or not. Well, I've basically played nothing but MK11 online all week and haven't touched Trails to Azure since last week-end. So, yeah, I'm getting MK1 lol.

 

Much like when I tried Tekken last year, it took some getting used to. MK is closer to Street Fighter than Tekken but the movements are kinda stiff, so the matches have a different kind of rhythm to them. Also, goddamn did I need to relearn how to use a block button.

 

At first, I kept eating shit because I would always try holding back instead. I've gotten used to it now but that was definitely the biggest hurdle to overcome. Even the different way combos work was easier to adapt to. I just needed to get a feel for the timing, so I figured out a string I liked with Scorpion and just practiced it for like 20mins before trying to land it in an online match, and that was basically it. But between online and story mode, it took me like a week before I was blocking effectively lol.

 

I'm kinda regretting not doing this years ago. I've managed to get all the online achievements for MK11 pretty quickly because it still has a fairly decent population on PC (despite no crossplay) but MK9 and MKX are completely dead at this point, so there's unfortunately no way to complete them now.

[TheMightyEthan]

On 8/19/2023 at 9:51 PM, Mister Jack said:

Game quality notwithstanding, how are you liking the actual experience of using the Quest vs the PSVR?

 

It's way better, the screen is much sharper and the tracking is flawless, none of the drift I would sometimes get with PSVR. Also, the lack of cable (when I want) is super nice.

[Mister Jack]

I know, right? I originally played Saints and Sinners on PSVR and I liked it there too but some of the guns like the sniper rifle and especially the lever action were literally impossible for me to use reliably with the PS Move but when I replayed it on the Quest they became my favorite guns. So much fun when the tracking actually works.

[Mister Jack]

Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition 

 

I bought this game dirt cheap to basically test out the series before taking the plunge on Baldur's Gate III. I know that it came out in 1998 so I wasn't expecting to know exactly what 3 will be like, but I had no idea what kind of game Baldur's Gate even was so I wanted to acquaint myself with the formula. As far as this particular entry goes, I...kind of liked it? 

 

I know it was made a long time ago, and there are good ideas in there, but boy this game did not really age all that well. Encounters often come down to trial and error or just plain luck, and I'm not kidding when I said I probably pushed the quick save and quick load buttons over a thousand times by the time I was done. You just have to save CONSTANTLY or risk losing precious progress in every single fight. I'm not against challenging mobs, but the game really feels stacked against you like it wants you to save scum. I cannot imagine trying to get through this without scumming, and that really kind of sucks. The pathfinding on your party members is also atrocious. Navigating six people through a narrow corridor is often pretty frustrating, let alone trying to fight in said corridors. Good luck using spells indoors when they have friendly fire and your people are all crammed together shoulder to shoulder. Ultimately my primary tactic was to have my archer go forward on his own, pelt an enemy with an arrow, then run away until they de-aggroed. Rinse and repeat until dead. Did it work? Usually, yeah, but I didn't like the fact it was my best option. I don't like D&D 2nd edition rules either, which this game utilizes. It's archaic, confusing, and frustrating.

 

Most of these gripes are things I assume have been ironed out by the time the third entry was made. I like the general idea behind the series, where positioning of your party members in combat is important and battles need to be carefully planned out because every enemy is a legitimate threat. Despite how clunky this game felt (I'm sure it was great in 1998) there is a foundation of good ideas there that just needed more time and more polish to realize the franchise's potential. From what I'm hearing, that's what has happened now with Baldur's Gate 3.

[TheMightyEthan]

Red Matter

 

This is a VR walking sim/mystery game that starts off pretty promising, but I don't think really lives up to its potential, and then the end is kind of a cop-out. The space base you're exploring is really cool though, with a faux-soviet aesthetic, and a really strong sense of place. I definitely felt like I was there, so that was cool. But overall, I felt like the beginning is a lot stronger than the end, and ultimately I felt let down by it. I'd recommend checking it out if you find a sale for a few dollars, but not otherwise.

 

Grade: C

[deanb]

Yonder: Cloud Catcher Chronicles

 

Bought it in the recent "chill games" sale. It's one without any combat; all the beasties on the island are just for luring to your farm, and the "Murk" which is the bad stuff in the game is just an environmental obstacle. I'd say I've completed it purely because I got to the end of the story, but there's still loads for a completionist (got like 16 side quests still open, and one pretty much requires each part of the island to be 95% happy - which means building up all the farms, completing most the quests, and finding all the fairies) 

Overall an enjoyable fun game - one for if you're wanting nothing too intense or one for younger gamers. I'd say it could have done with a few bits of QoL improvements that make it a tad clunky (and definitely driving me off from completing the game as it'll just be purely grinding). A big one is you have various tools - hoes, hammers, sickles, pickaxe, seeds to plant, etc. But they're all on a row so if you're cracking open a stone with a hammer then go to pickaxe some ore you need to cycle through seven or so tools. Annoyingly it knows what tool you need for each as you get a thought bubble pop up each time you're near one - so not sure why it couldn't just have you auto-use that tool for that interaction.

It has no fast travel per-se - but it's such a smallish interwoven island that it's kind of fine. There's some day/night activated beacons that connect to opposite ends of the island, and you can also do quests to unlock "sage stones" which take you to a hub world. They're not named so it's a bit hit and miss sometimes to come out at part of the island that you intended to (as you can't open the island map in the hub world).

Farming isn't too complex - mainly involves kiting animals to your farm. I had only one farm set up though as it takes an inordinate amount of resources to be able to build any of the animal pens (resources required to do anything is basically why I have the quests left that I do. There's a bit of the island I'd like to visit but Iv'e already had to build a couple bridges and they use hundreds of "stone" before even turning that into the components of a bride).

So yeah, it's chill for the main story. Not too difficult, but becomes a nightmare for the end game. Worth picking up for £10-15. It's on most platforms - a good gift for the younger gamers in your life (and they're probably fine with the grinding aspect. Gosh I know I was as a kid)

[TheFlyingGerbil]

i always look at that when it's on sale for switch but exactly what you described put me off, so glad I resisted. Sounds like I should keep my fingers crossed for a sequel.

[deanb]

Yeah, it's sweet but clunky in ways that annoyed me after a while. And looking up my playtime, it's just shy of 10hrs for me, and a chunk of that will be me having a crack at wrapping up the final quests, so I'd say 8-9hrs long to get to the "end" with the namesake cloud catcher.

[Mister Jack]

Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon

 

Technically you're supposed to play through this game three times to see everything, but I still played enough to see the first ending which I think is enough to say I beat it. This is my first AC game so I have no idea how it compares to the rest of the series. I'm going into this franchise completely fresh, so what did I think about this one? I liked it quite a bit, except for when I hated it. I'll explain.

 

Usually I don't gel with mech games because they're either too fast and just feel like people with robot skins or they're too slow and everything feels like a slog. This game finds the perfect middle ground where you have a decent amount of agility and maneuverability, but you're not so agile that you no longer feel like you're controlling a robot. Using your boosters to fly and dodge enemy fire always feels good, and while the controls take a little getting used to, once you get the hang of it piloting your core feels like second nature. The biggest draw of the game is customizing your bot both mechanically and cosmetically, and there were several encounters where I needed to change parts and approach the situation with a different build. It feels rewarding when you figure out just the right setup to plow through whatever obstacle is in front of you. 

 

I do still have two major complaints. First off, the camera can be really disorienting if you're locked on to an enemy that's right up in your face. If it's a particularly fast enemy, there will be moments where you have no idea what's going on because of all the lasers and explosions blocking your field of view while the targeting system is jerking all over the place. It's not a constant issue, but it does crop up enough for me to feel the need to mention it. My second gripe, and the one I suspect will turn off some people, is the seriously uneven difficulty. Most of the missions in the game are fairly easy and probably anyone could clear them. However, there are a small handful of boss fights, including the very first one in the game, where the difficulty dramatically spikes up to insane levels. Not every boss is like this, mind you. I can think of maybe four or five total in my playthrough that gave me serious hell, but these spikes happen so suddenly and are usually sandwiched in between much easier bosses and missions, so it feels jarring. Some of the bosses just straight up break the rules of the game and it becomes extremely tempting to use overpowered builds just to get them out of the way. Until it gets nerfed you're bound to see a lot of people dual wielding shotguns because they just do so much stagger damage. I wouldn't say using said builds ever feels required, but it does feel like you're gimping yourself if you don't in these instances. 

 

The game could use a little rebalancing and a couple of bosses definitely need to be nerfed, but other than that I had a lot of fun building and trying out all kinds of different robots, and the constant unlocking of new parts in the shop ensure you'll always have new toys to play with. If you have the determination to brute force your way through the roadblocks the game throws at you, it's a pretty cool time. I didn't try the PVP mode but I highly suspect it's full of shotgun users right now.

[toxicitizen]

The Legend of Heroes: Trails to Azure

 

Whew, finally. This one wasn't particularly long for a Trails game but it kinda felt like it because I accidentally put it on hold for like 3 weeks while I was hooked on MK11. I was planning on playing both Crossbell games back-to-back but that didn't quite work out.

 

There's not a ton to say about Azure specifically that I haven't already said about Zero. Much like Trails in the Sky SC, this is the payoff game. And it doesn't waste any time throwing shit directly at the fan. Even having secondhand knowledge of these events from having played Trails of Cold Steel, I was still on the edge of my seat for some of these chapters. This game is a hell of a ride. There's even some unexpected twists in there (including stuff that I had been spoiled on but hadn't quite put together correctly).

 

I'm not ready to jump back into Cold Steel right away but I can't wait to replay CS1 and 2 now to see how much more I get out of them. There's so much stuff in those game that you don't really have the full context for without having played the Crossbell games. And it goes the other way, too. In Azure you get a lot of secondhand info about the events going down in Erebonia and it actually spoils Cold Steel 1 and 2 about as much as Cold Steel spoiled Zero and Azure lol. It's honestly baffling to me how Falcom handled this. Even at the very end of Azure, there's a completely unnecessary info dump that ruins some late-game twists from Cold Steel 2.

 

I can't help but wonder if this is like with Sky where they planned to make just one big game and then ended up having to split it in two. Because otherwise it really doesn't make a ton of sense for them to have gone back in the timeline as far as they did for the starting point of the Cold Steel arc. At least, not when you consider the glacial pace of CS1 and how much padding there is in the game. I feel like you could cut out a good chunk of CS1 and 2 and combine what's left to make a much better version of the same story.

 

Anyway, now I can finally focus on Starfield. In the end, I didn't get much out of the early access period lol. Put a little less than 20 hours in and haven't touched it in 3 days. Mostly because I was starting to really enjoy it and felt like I should go back to finish Azure before it could get its hooks into me. I wanted to make sure to finish Azure this week and that wasn't going to happen if I was obsessed with Starfield. Anyway, it turned out I had longer to go in Azure than I thought I did, so now I don't have enough vacation time left to really get into Starfield as much as I was hoping to.

 

At this point I think I'll just not play Phantom Liberty at launch. I'll keep playing Starfield without rushing it until MK1 comes out and then just juggle the two for a while. Besides, while I'm rooting for CD Projekt RED to finally turn the game around fully, going in day one after the last time might not be the best idea lol.

[Thursday Next]

FF16

 

Enjoyed this one. Will probably shoot for the plat since I am an FF nerd. My only complaint really is that the combat went a bit too actiony, the complete lack of statuses and elements took a lot away for me.

[TheMightyEthan]

Starfield

 

Based on some recommendations I saw online that the NG+ in this game is something special I bee-lined through the main quest (in 40 hours) to get to NG+ and I think I made the right choice. This is bananas. I would recommend others do the same.

 

Beyond that, what I've experienced so far is great, I love how big and empty the universe feels, just like a space frontier actually should. None (or very little) of the open world nonsense of the game telling you you're on the raggedy edge of nothin but in reality there's a settlement every 50 feet. It's great.

 

I'm not going to give it a rating yet because in some ways I feel like the game really only starts at your first NG+.

[toxicitizen]

9 minutes ago, TheMightyEthan said:

Based on some recommendations I saw online that the NG+ in this game is something special I bee-lined through the main quest (in 40 hours) to get to NG+ and I think I made the right choice. This is bananas. I would recommend others do the same.

 

I'm so curious about this but I don't want to get spoiled... I kinda feel like rushing the main story is the wrong way to play a Bethesda game, so I'm really torn on this lol. Then again, if I take my sweet-ass time and spend 100h on my first playthrough, I'm probably not gonna want to do NG+...

[Mister Jack]

First time I've ever heard someone complain that open world games aren't empty enough.