Games You Beat in 2023: PXoD Face the Music

[TheMightyEthan]

The Witcher 3: Hearts of Stone

 

This was basically just a big side quest chain. I liked parts of it (the heist, the last quest) and really really didn't like others (the wedding, the house). So, very mixed, but I liked the way it ended, which is the most important part.

 

Grade: C

 

The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine

 

This was good, but I think it was overhyped. Everyone made it sound like it was this amazing epilogue to the main game, when it pretty much has nothing to do with it whatsoever. But, that aside, it was well done, and I found it interesting throughout, none of the lows of Hearts of Stone. And Touissant was very pretty, I didn't realize how drab and grey the Witcher main game was until I got there.

 

Overall, it's up there with some of the better DLC I've played, it just wasn't some amazing capstone on the game like people made it sound.

 

Grade: B+

 

As an aside, playing Blood and Wine made me really really want to go back to Cyberpunk, I wish we knew when that expansion was coming.

[toxicitizen]

How in the hell are you already done with both of them?! Hearts of Stone is a fairly lengthy quest line and Blood & Wine is basically its own open-world game. B&W alone easily added like 50 hours to my playtime.

[TheMightyEthan]

I beat the base game in 50 hours, Hearts of Stone in about 4.5, and Blood and Wine in 7.

 

I played both of them the same way I played the base game: mostly focusing on the main quest, and doing side quests that caught my interest.

 

*Edit - How Long to Beat puts Blood and Wine at 15.5 hours for most players, 40 hours if you 100% it, so I was fast but you were very much on the long side.

[toxicitizen]

1 hour ago, TheMightyEthan said:

I beat the base game in 50 hours, Hearts of Stone in about 4.5, and Blood and Wine in 7.

 

I played both of them the same way I played the base game: mostly focusing on the main quest, and doing side quests that caught my interest.

 

*Edit - How Long to Beat puts Blood and Wine at 15.5 hours for most players, 40 hours if you 100% it, so I was fast but you were very much on the long side.

 

It's been a while, so 50h may not be an accurate estimate (although I honestly think it may be too low). I can't imagine focusing solely on the main quest since getting lost in the world and just being a Witcher is like half the fun. I'd always investigate weird stuff I'd find out in the middle of nowhere and if I ran into a shitty village on my way somewhere I'd always take on any Witcher contract they had. Steam's timer obviously doesn't account for times when the game is left running or when you reload but this was after a single playthrough of the entire game :

 

 

And yeah, in my experience, unless we're talking about short super linear games then howlongtobeat is almost always wildly inaccurate. I've been playing Midnight Suns and had almost 50h of playtime according to Steam. Story was ramping up and I figured I had to be nearing the end. But then I finish a big mission and the game is like "Part II" I turn up the difficulty every time I unlock a new one, though, so I end up having to do a ton of side-missions for resources and to level up my characters. I also spent a ton of time exploring the abbey early on and I've already almost cleared out the research tree. So before long I'll probably have nothing left to do but the main story missions.

Edited January 29, 2023 by toxicitizen

[TheMightyEthan]

7 hours ago, toxicitizen said:

 I can't imagine focusing solely on the main quest since getting lost in the world and just being a Witcher is like half the fun.   

 

Yeah, that used to be the way I played RPGs, but I just don't have the time any more. As I said, I did the side quests that caught me interest, which was a fair few of them in the base game (I think I did every "secondary quest" there), but only like one in Blood and Wine. Basically a side quest has to be interesting enough from the outset that I'm more interested in doing that than I am in whatever the next step of the main quest is, and that's pretty hard to accomplish. The safest way to do it is to have a character I'm already invested in say something like, "come talk to me before you leave town, I have a thing I need help with." I did all of those type of quests.

 

That actually brings up one thing I really liked about this game though, the division of quests into primary, secondary, and contracts. It made it easy to immediately see how substantial any new quest might be.

[Mister Jack]

Half-Life: Alyx - Levitation 

 

This is a fanmade expansion for the base game, but for something fanmade it's polished enough to pass for official content. It even has voice acting, not by the official actors  of course but by very good impersonators. This campaign will take you anywhere from 3 to 5 hours to play through the first time, which is a pretty good length for something completely free, and there's some decent variety in the gameplay. There's even a boss fight at the end! If I have to criticize something, it's probably the uneven difficulty. Unlike the base game, which carefully distributed health and ammo so that you could always go into each new skirmish with enough of both to get by, Levitation is stingier with the pickups. There were a couple times in the campaign when I was constantly dying and reloading due to being stuck with only 1 HP after an especially grueling fight without a chance to heal myself. It's definitely more difficult than the vanilla game, so I guess if you feel like Half-Life: Alyx was too easy then you might enjoy that aspect of Levitation. Either way it's totally worth downloading.

[TheMightyEthan]

Plague Tale: Requiem

 

This game is so good, it's the perfect example of what a sequel should be, feeling very much like the original, just improved and expanded. If you liked Innocence at all I would definitely recommend you play this. I was slightly worried through the first third or so, where there were several sections of getting past enemies that I felt were too long and drawn out and finnicky, but luckily that dramatically improved later in the game, probably due to the additional tools for getting past/dealing with them. And the ending is *so* strong.

 

Spoilers for the post-credits scene:

Spoiler

About 2/3 of the way through the game I started thinking it would be cool to have a sequel set in the modern day with electric lights, it would be kind of similar to Alan Wake in a lot of ways, so I hope the post-credits scene pans out and isn't just a tease that never goes anywhere.

 

Grade: A with a 

[TheMightyEthan]

So I'm already noticing a pattern emerging for this year...

 

 

Though Xbox vs. PC is a weird distinction, since most of the PC games I've played have been through Game Pass and are Play Anywhere games so I can seamlessly switch back and forth. The 1 game I actually played on Xbox was Signalis, because its retro graphics didn't really benefit from being on PC and my Xbox uses less power.

[TheMightyEthan]

Deliver Us Mars

 

This game took everything that was fun and cool about the original, which I loved, and ditched it in favor of making a generic 3rd person action game that's okay at best. The story is dumb, the main character is annoying throughout most of the game, and you spend too much time doing stupid laser puzzles instead of fixing satisfyingly clunky broken space things. It clearly has a lot higher production value than the original (other than the weird decision to ditch the ray traced reflections on anything but perfect mirror surfaces), and they felt like they needed to make it more of an action game to go along with that, but it was the wrong choice.

 

If you liked the original then go play that again, it's better. If you didn't like the original then you're probably not interested in this one anyway.

 

Grade: C (if I'm trying to be fair, but in my heart it's a D-)

 

And this is what I spent my day off work for my birthday doing...

[TheMightyEthan]

Hi-Fi Rush

 

Holy shit, this game is just as good as everyone says it is. It's basically Jet Set Bayonetta Hero. I'm usually not one for this sort of character action game, but this one being intrinsically linked to music I think got me over the hurdle of learning the timing on everything. Everything happens on beat, your own attacks, enemy attacks, environmental movement, etc, which makes timing dodges and parries and everything a lot more manageable, and it feels so good to play.

 

That would be enough on its own, but on top of that the art style is gorgeous to look at, the writing is legitimately funny, and the characters are distinct and likeable. This is seriously a GOTY contender.

 

Grade: A+

[MetalCaveman]

Cyberpunk 2077

 

On one hand, this was really fun, enjoyed my time with it and some of the quests were pretty freaking cool, on the other hand, I wish I had waited until now to get it lol, got it when it came out and boy was it a mess back then. There's still some issues, but compared to what it was back then it's night and day.

 

Played as a Nomad, specializing in wielding the biggest, loudest, deadliest guns, which meant that anything that required stealth or intelligence was quite the challenge. Thankfully I never ran into a hard stealth section, none of that insta-fail thing, though I'm sure I missed some rewards and bonuses, it was still nice that you were never seriously punished if you chose to build your character in a certain way.

 

I didn't complete all of the side quests (sorry @toxicitizen lol), but I did play a bunch of them, some of them are really cool and lead to some interesting story stuff, others are just the usual, go somewhere -> get thing -> get reward, at the end I had a couple left on my journal, that I didn't bother with because the last main quest was ready and all of these side jobs were "wait until X happens/calls you", and I'm sure a bunch more would have unlocked later on, but by that point I was happy with my progress and wanted to see the end.

 

My favourites:

 

• Sinnerman, that was quite the ending lol.
• Peralez, this was the best one, no doubt, really hope they explore more of it in Phantom Liberty.
• The Hunt (River Ward's story), wish he had gone through with the original plan but I can see why he made the choice he made.

 

I also liked all of the Silverhand missions, those were pretty neat and showed a different side of Johnny, the rewards were neat too.

 

Spoiler

That side job where you get to play a gig with Samurai was most excellent.

 

Playing mostly blind (I did look up how to unlock certain cars and how to complete a certain romance route) I got the

Spoiler

Nomad/Panam

ending, which, after looking up some of the other endings, feels like one of the better ones. The messages you get during the credits were cool too.

 

Spoiler

Ended Smasher with Johnny's gun, after telling him that Silverhand was still alive lol, felt like the best way to deal with that dude.

 

My biggest, non-bug related issue was that this is one of those games where the dialogue options you get have nothing to do with what your character actually says.

 

Pick "nice ride", thinking V would actually praise the ride, he goes "nice piece of shit you have here, it fucking sucks, you suck, I fucking hate you" and I don't know whether to laugh or reload my save lol.

 

Wish they'd just give you a list like:

 

• Aggressive response
• Friendly response
• Sarcastic response

Or something like that, rather than dialogue choices which then don't reflect what the character actually ends up saying.

 

In terms of bugs, I did have a bunch of issues with cars popping in and out of existence, sometimes right in front of my car, leading to some interesting traffic accidents. Also at some point I was stuck with the UI of a certain vehicle, had to close the game and reload to fix this, and finally V would sometimes just teleport out of the car, instead of getting out normally, this broke physics a couple of times, launching V into space.

 

All in all, a fun ride, cool weapons, fun skills, and an interesting story, it's a shame that it was hilariously broken at launch.

 

Also, shoutout to some of the best in-game radio stations, obviously Ritual FM was my favourite, but Royal Blue Radio was also excellent, and how could it be anything less, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, and Dexter Gordon in one radio station? HELL YEAH!! \m/ \m/ Need for Speed and Forza Horizon could learn a thing or two from this game.

 

Grade: A+ \m/ \m/

[toxicitizen]

1 hour ago, MetalCaveman said:

I didn't complete all of the side quests (sorry @toxicitizen lol)

 

Why, you little-

 

1 hour ago, MetalCaveman said:

Peralez, this was the best one, no doubt, really hope they explore more of it in Phantom Liberty.

 

Nevermind, we're good.

[Mister Jack]

Hogwarts Legacy

 

I wasn't originally planning to play this right away but I got a Scottish friend who insisted and I can see why because I had a great time with this one. It doesn't really do much that you haven't seen some variation of in other games, but it's all wrapped up in a package that's so enjoyable that I really didn't mind at all. My biggest concern going into it was the combat. I worried it would just be spamming pew pew spells the whole time like an over-the-shoulder shooter, but it really isn't. Spells are categorized into different groups, and different kinds of enemies require different kinds of spells to do damage. It starts off pretty simple and basic in the beginning, but once you start unlocking more spells and the enemy types start to increase then you'll be constantly juggling between all your various spells to keep up. As for the flow of combat, I'd call it "Arkham except ranged," which I think is a fair assessment, and I don't mean that in a bad way. 

 

The biggest star, however, is the sheer attention to detail. You not only have the entirety of Hogwarts at your disposal, but also Hogsmeade and the surrounding countryside and its various hamlets and labyrinths. Hogwarts itself is definitely the draw here. I loved just walking through the halls and seeing what weird magical stuff was happening. Sometimes students will be having mishaps with their spells, the suits of armor will salute you as you go by, the paintings talk to you, and you'll even see some of the franchise's well-known ghosts roaming the castle and making a nuisance of themselves. No pun intended, but it's all very enchanting and if you have any attachment to the setting then you'll probably find it extremely charming like I did. Of course, if you don't have any attachment to the setting then I'd probably ask why you're even playing it to begin with. I also appreciate that it lets you immerse yourself in ways it really didn't have to. For example, you can ride around on both a broom and a magical beast. There is not really any practical reason to choose one over the other, but they knew there would be people who wanted to ride on beasts so they let you do it. Hogsmeade also lets you visit iconic shops that don't really sell anything that would help you from a gameplay perspective, but you can still look around and interact with stuff. The only way to get more immersed in the setting would be to go to Universal Studios.

 

I don't really have that much to complain about here. The story wasn't mind-blowing, I suppose, but it was presented well enough and I actually got invested in some of the side stories with your classmates. Most of the characters are at least interesting if not always likable. If I have to complain about something I suppose it's the fact that after a while most of the gear you find will be at a lower level than what you're already wearing so it's only good to sell for money. However, this is somewhat alleviated by a feature I love and think absolutely every gear based game should have. As soon as a piece of gear enters your inventory, you can always set its appearance as a cosmetic skin, even after you sell it. Found a cool looking hat but the stats are garbage? You can sell it guilt free and still set your good hat's appearance to match the cool looking one. Why doesn't every game do this?

 

For some reason, there is no Quidditch either. Maybe it's meant for DLC or a sequel or maybe the devs just didn't think they had the time or resources to properly implement it. I dunno, but I hope it shows up in some form in the future. Aside from those two things I feel like any negatives I bring up would be nitpicking. Great game. Can't wait to play through it again as a bastardly dark wizard.

Edited February 22, 2023 by Mister Jack

[MetalCaveman]

Moero Crystal H

 

That was an ending.

 

A sequel of sorts to Moero Chronicle, some monster girls return, and the gameplay is largely the same, but the main characters and the story are different and with no relation to the previous game.

 

There's a bunch of QoL improvements and some extra stuff that improves on the experience a fair bit. First, monster pets are gone, as is the egg crafting system, instead, you can now choose another monster girl and have her be a companion to anyone in your party, they have their own skills which activate under certain conditions. To get building materials you now have Deep Reaches dungeons, unlocked through a shooting minigame, these dungeons not only give you building materials, but also gifts to increase bond with, each girl has their own set of dungeons and completing them unlocks special bonuses.

 

One of them unlocks a special skill, another reveals more about each character, their origins, motivations, some inner thoughts, stuff like that, and the third one allows you to mix and match outfits (or as the game calls them, Job Panties lol), these change stats and skills, so you can turn your dps glass cannon and turn her into a healer, or change elemental attacks, by combining them you can have the skills of a mage but with the HP and defense of a melee brawler, allowing you to fine tune your party.

 

There's also a new mechanic called seals, by defeating enemies you get elemental tokens, these can be used to lift a seal on each of the characters, unlocking a special support skill that can then be applied to any item you have. For example Necromancer has the Death support skill, which recovers HP each turn, by lifting her seal, you can apply Death to a ring and then have that ring restore HP on top of whatever stat bonuses its base version had.

 

The last new addition is the Resting Place, that you can use to either increase certain stats at random, or, for a higher fee, you can select which stats to increase, these are hefty increases but only last for one dungeon, as soon as you return to town all stats return to normal.

 

In terms of dungeon gameplay, it's the same as the previous one, first person dungeon crawler, couple of bosses per dungeon, all that fun stuff. Except for the last boss, the last boss in Chronicle was pathetically easy, this one can easily wipe out your party in one hit, you need a healer and someone with solid defense buffs or you're toast.

 

The story is as silly as before, the world is on the brink of destruction... because the Bra of Darkness and the Panties of Light have been separated. So you go on a quest to free the leaders of each area from the Darkness and prevent the world from going BOOM.

 

There's a bit at the end where it seems like it's going to get serious, with the big bad revealing their motivations and all that and... Then it goes back to silly.

 

Spoiler

"I wanted to stop the priests from profiting off of the goddess image and gifts, and treating the shrine maiden as their puppet!"

 

"Also I like wearing bras for fun and to relieve stress, so I just decided to try the Bra of Darkness on, and then I wanted to destroy the world lol".

 

TL;DR: A fun sequel to Moero Chronicle, different characters, different story, some much appreciated QoL changes, worth it if you're into dungeon crawlers and monster girls.

 

Grade: B+

[TheMightyEthan]

Hogwarts Legacy

 

This game was pretty great, though I think your mileage will highly vary based on how much you like the Harry Potter world. They do a great job recreating the feel of that universe, so if you're a fan it'll feel absolutely wonderful. However, underneath that IP is a fairly serviceable, but by no means mindblowing, open world game, so for anyone who's not a particular fan of Harry Potter it will probably seem like just an OK game. It does feel like there are some parts missing (like it feels like there should be some kind of morality system, but there just isn't), but what is there is very well polished and feels good. It also doesn't overwhelm you with side content like lots of modern open world games do, and as a result I actually did all the side quests (though not all the collectathon stuff) and didn't feel like it was dragging or overstaying its welcome.

 

The main story revolves around a goblin rebellion, and honestly I wasn't too interested in it, but it was serviceable enough to keep me moving through the game. I did really enjoy the major friend questlines, of which there are basically three, all of which were well-done, and I was much more invested in those than the main quest, to the point where often the only reason I did the next main quest step was to trigger the next steps in the side quests becoming available.

 

Also, to my great surprise, the combat actually feels really good. I wouldn't have thought it would be possible, but they managed to make it fast, fluid, and fun. It feels great to bust into a room full of enemies and just start blasting and dodging and perfect parrying, until you're the only one left standing, like frickin Neo in the lobby scene.

 

So basically, if you are at all a fan of Harry Potter then I would recommend it, you'll likely love it. If not, though, then it's going to feel like a competent but otherwise unspecial open world game.

 

Grade: B+

[Thursday Next]

7 hours ago, TheMightyEthan said:

Hogwarts Legacy

 

it feels like there should be some kind of morality system, but there just isn't

 

I kind of like the idea that there is no external morality system and that the things you do to people (good or bad) just change how they specifically react to you. It reflects real life a little better and relies on the individual to internalise their moral choices.

[TheMightyEthan]

I agree with that, but it doesn't even change how people react to you. Like there may be one line of dialog that's slightly different depending on whatever the last thing you said was, but beyond that everything just plays out exactly the same.

 

*Edit - To clarify, what I was trying to say originally isn't that every game needs a morality system, it's that a lot of the aspects of this game make it seem like they were going to have one, but it's just missing, and I would include "characters reacting differently" within the category of morality systems for this purpose. It feels like the world and characters should react to your actions, and they just don't.

[Mister Jack]

Morality system or not, the last thing a game needs these days is a paragon/renegade dichotomy complete with a karma bar. I think we should have outgrown that by now.

[MetalCaveman]

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order

 

That was fun, the

Spoiler

Order 66 stuff was brutal, all those clones being like:

 

"Yeah, you got this kid!" *high five*

 

Then minutes later hunting Cal down, that whole section was pretty intense.

 

Then when Vader shows up, that was awesome! \m/ \m/

 

I didn't like the platforming, but that's just me, I'm terrible at third person platforming, so there were some sections that were really frustrating, the bounty hunters were kinda annoying too, mostly the first encounter, and the part that follows it.

 

Combat was fun, combining the lightsaber with force powers was cool, running around shoving stormtroopers off cliffs while laughing maniacally never gets old.

 

The customization stuff was kinda lame though, tons of chests to find but I gave up on getting them all, no real reason to, there were two Mantis colours I liked, BD-1 remained default for most of the game, and the very limited character customization kinda sucks, the lightsaber parts were the only cool ones, and even then, it takes forever before being able to get the cool colours, I get this is due to story reasons, but still, felt like it took forever before I was finally able to get my purple lightsaber and then the game was over. Doesn't help that every time you open a chest you have to stand there watching the full animation play.

 

All that said, I still had a ton of fun with it, and Jedi Survivor seems to have fixed some of my issues, so looking forward to that one.

 

Grade: A

[TheMightyEthan]

19 hours ago, Mister Jack said:

Morality system or not, the last thing a game needs these days is a paragon/renegade dichotomy complete with a karma bar. I think we should have outgrown that by now.

 

Oh yeah, that's definitely not what I was asking for. Just something to track the kinds of things the player has been doing (doesn't need to be visible to the player) and have people react accordingly.

[Thursday Next]

Oh right... It doesn't even do that? That does feel like a bit of a miss. 

[TheMightyEthan]

Right, no reaction whatsoever to player actions, except occasionally like one response in the same conversation in which you did the thing. Example:

 

MC to Character A: "We should tell Character B"
Character B like 2 minutes later: "I appreciate you saying that he should tell me"

 

That is the most the game ever does. It never has any effect on what anyone does, or how they react to you, or what happens, just the very rare verbal acknowledgment of what you said.

[Mister Jack]

When it comes to morality systems I hold Witcher 3 as the gold standard that has yet to be surpassed.

[Mister Jack]

Hi-Fi Rush

 

I got a month of game pass to play this and I am so glad I did because holy shit, this game is an absolute banger. I honestly can't praise it enough. It has the best cel-shaded graphics I've ever seen in any game, the soundtrack is killer, the jokes are funny, the characters are extremely likable, the boss fights are super memorable, and the rhythm based gameplay permeates the world so completely and naturally that I often found myself trying to keep the beat with my movements and jumps even outside of combat. Hell, I even caught myself scrolling through menus to the beat a few times even though there is absolutely no gameplay benefit to doing so. It just sucks you into the music and doesn't let you go. I am no programmer so I can only imagine how hard it must have been to make sure everything that you, your enemies, AND the environment do are always on beat. Given the unpredictable and dynamic nature of playing a game, that is one hell of a feat in my eyes. It blows my mind how Tango went from making a mediocre game in Evil Within to a pretty good game in Evil Within 2 to GOTY material in Hi-Fi Rush. They've grown so much and they are definitely a studio to keep an eye on now. I could probably think of some complaints if I wanted to, but they would feel so miniscule and petty in the face of everything this game does so, so right. If you have any love for action games or rhythm games then this one is an absolute must-play without question.

[MetalCaveman]

Seven Pirates H

 

Another entry in the Genkai Tokki series, except that unlike Moero Chronicle and Moero Crystal, this one's a 3D RPG, though still centered around monster girls.

 

Most likely due to the switch to 3D, the cast is way smaller this time around, iirc Chronicle had 68 characters that could join you, this time around there's only 7, there's 4 more other monster girls, but they don't join your party.

 

Gameplay is pretty simple, it's still turn based, you can walk around while exploring, but the moment you start a fight, it switches to turn based combat. Each character has an aura, there's 3 auras, which for the sake of simplicity and making them easier to remember I ended up calling fire, grass and water, as usual:

 

fire -> grass -> water -> fire

 

You play as Parute, a pirate, who gets transported to the Monsupi Sea, where monster girls and treasure await, she's sure she's the "chosen one" because she got bonked in the head by a compass that fell from the sky one day, her crew isn't so sure about this claim.

 

You explore the map on board your ship, going from island to island (and the occasional ghost ship) finding treasure and fighting monsters. There are quests which reward you with a bunch of stuff, from money to items and most importantly, pieces of the map, which unlocks more islands to explore.

 

The biggest issue is the boss fights, bosses don't deal that much damage, nor do you deal that much damage to them, but they have a TON of HP, so each boss fight takes forever.

 

The story is as silly as ever, no issues with that one.

 

Overall, I had fun with it, but it feels really lacking in several aspects, some parts I can forgive, given it originally came out for the Vita 7 years ago, but other stuff really hurts it, more party members, being able to change their outfits (you do unlock different clothes, but they only change stats, not appearance), better dungeons and fun bosses would have greatly improved the score.

 

Grade: C