MetalCaveman Posted April 29 Report Share Posted April 29 Warhammer 40K: Dawn Of War - Dark Crusade A most excellent RTS gets a most excellent expansion. Completed the Space Marine campaign, will def return for the other campaigns at some point, but for now I'm marking it as completed lol. The campaign plays like Conquer the World in Rise of Nations, the map is divided into different provinces, you start with one under your control, your stronghold, and the objective is to capture the other strongholds in order to remove the other factions from the map. You'll fight Tau, Necrons, Eldar, Orks, Chaos Marines and even the Imperial Guard. Some provinces will give you honour guard units, special units that you start each skirmish with, extremely useful for stronghold fights as you'll be attacked on all sides as soon as you start lol. Other provinces have special effects, like allowing you to start with more resources or being able to attack multiple times per turn. Each stronghold mission has its own gimmick, some will have you building generators to take control of a Titan('s arm lol), others require that you capture certain points and use them to reveal hidden enemy units, the Ork stronghold allows you to destroy ork banners and then watch as they all turn on their leader. Overall, a really fun expansion, the complete opposite of Winter Assault, a bit more straightforward compared to how puzzle like some missions were in WA and in base Dawn of War, but still an excellent time. On an unrelated note, I was sure this game had come out 10-ish years ago... turns out it's been almost 20 years since... Grade: A+ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mister Jack Posted April 30 Report Share Posted April 30 Unicorn Overlord Another gem from Vanillaware. In fact, this might be one of their best games to date. This is a spiritual successor to Ogre Battle 64. If you never played it, imagine Fire Emblem except instead of turn based it's real time with pause and instead of moving one soldier at a time you have units made of up to five soldiers all moving as group. There is a rock paper scissors system of sorts in here like in Fire Emblem, but since each unit has multiple soldiers you can arrange them to compensate for each other's weaknesses and also edit their AI to determine when and how they use their various skills. Skirmishes play out automatically and the winner is predetermined based on how well you've set up your unit beforehand, but you can skip the battle scenes if you don't feel like watching them play out. I beat it on hard mode, which offered a reasonable challenge, but by the end of the game my main protagonist was such a beast that his unit could solo 90% of the enemy army, at least until he ran out of stamina and had to rest. I hardly need to tell you that Vanillaware games look good, but this might be the best looking one they've made yet. The story falls back on cliched fantasy tropes with an unambiguously good rebellion against a cartoonishly evil empire, but the characters are still pretty likable and fun to follow anyway. This game also has a pretty impressive localization. Not a difficult platinum trophy either, though this is a long game and it took me roughly 50 hours to finish the campaign. 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCP Posted May 1 Report Share Posted May 1 (edited) Final Fantasy VII Well, that was good but I have questions: Who did Red XIII bang? In all seriousness I think Remake/Rebirth kind of spoiled me, I would have enjoyed this more if I played it first. But it did make me even more excited for Part 3, things just kind of happen in VII with no weight given to it, I'm excited to see everything expanded. I also used a bunch of texture packs via 7th Heaven, they looked really good, Square needs to do something official and do a faithful remake/remaster. Grade: A- Edited May 1 by TCP 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMightyEthan Posted May 1 Report Share Posted May 1 22 hours ago, Mister Jack said: Unicorn Overlord This is next on my list once I finish P3R, which I'm finally getting close to. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MetalCaveman Posted May 4 Report Share Posted May 4 Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War - Soulstorm The campaign is pretty similar to Dark Crusade, just with the addition of the Dark Eldar and the Sisters of Battle. Some of the stronghold missions were also closer to OG Dawn of War, with you having to use a small group of units that you have to maneuver around the map, completing some objectives with that small team, at least for the first half, then it's back to base building lol. This time the campaign takes place across a couple of planets so there's an added objective, you need to capture areas with a gate that allows you to move to other areas, each gate connects specific planets so you'll end up moving around a lot when trying to capture all strongholds. One thing I would have liked to see in this one and Dark Crusade is the AI actually eliminating other factions. They'll try to attack other zones but most of the time the attack fails, then next turn they'd try again, and fail, and so on, would have been cool to see an AI capture a bunch of strongholds for themselves, making it harder to get to theirs since you'd have to conquer a ton of areas to get to them, or maybe even grant them access to multiple strongholds if they manage to eliminate other factions, that kind of stuff would be neat. More Dawn of War is always good. Grade: A+ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mister Jack Posted May 18 Report Share Posted May 18 Stellar Blade There is no way to not compare this game to Nier: Automata. They have similar storylines, similar main characters, similar post-apocalyptic worlds, and even the music has a similar feel to it. Nothing is to the point of plagiarism, but you'd have to be stupid not to notice if you ever played Nier. I would say that Nier definitely has the better story, but Stellar Blade has better combat. It's half Bayonetta and half Sekiro, where you have flashy skills and combos to play with but you also need to master timed parries and dodges in order to open up opportunities for powerful counterattacks. You can't get by simply mashing the attack button like you usually could in Nier. Not a bad game. Didn't blow my mind or anything but I'd give it a solid B. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MetalCaveman Posted May 18 Report Share Posted May 18 How Sekiro is it? Kinda hesitant to get Stellar Blade since I'm not a big fan of the combat parts of Sekiro, though I'm also not that far into it, Spoiler last I recall, I went to the past(?) and defeated Lady butterfly. Loved the sneaking around Tenchu style parts of it, but the combat hasn't clicked yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mister Jack Posted May 18 Report Share Posted May 18 Bigger enemies and bosses have balance bars. If you parry them enough times they get stunned and you can do a powerful stab attack. Parrying also fills up the bar you use for special moves. You can choose to dodge most attacks instead, but some attacks can't be dodged, only parried. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MetalCaveman Posted May 18 Report Share Posted May 18 Think I'll wait for it to go on sale lol, I struggle a lot with the parry timings, though I might also try and finish Sekiro and use it as practice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mister Jack Posted May 18 Report Share Posted May 18 This one's easier than Sekiro. There is an accessory you can equip that makes the timing more generous 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMightyEthan Posted May 19 Report Share Posted May 19 Homeworld 3 This game was great. The story was a little silly and I felt like got away from the tone of the previous Homeworld games, but the missions themselves and the gameplay is pure classic Homeworld, but with improvements. The missions have actual "terrain" (usually ancient megastructures) that actually matters, which gives it some more depth as far as positioning and navigation, without losing the 3D combat. It's not massively game changing, but it's a great addition, and even allows for ambushes and stuff. Overall if you like Homeworld you'll like this, but it's probably not changed enough appeal to anyone who didn't already like it. Grade: A Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MetalCaveman Posted May 21 Report Share Posted May 21 Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War II One of the biggest shifts from one game to its sequel. No more fun RTS stuff, now it's more of a squad-based tactics game. Definitively one that I would have enjoyed more if it had another name. It's not bad, commanding the different squads, using their skills and moving them around the map was fun, but part of me still wanted more of the first Dawn of War lol. Also, certain units feel too squishy, the Dreadnought in particular, I understand it's due to balance reasons but still, feels like the dude was a bit too weak for what a Dreadnought is supposed to be. Devastators were also a bit weak but their main role is to suppress enemies allowing your other units to flank them so it's not that big of a deal. Mission results only count whether or not the squad leader fell, so it was kinda funny to get full stars for not losing a single squad in spite of several marines dying during the mission. Not what I wanted out of a sequel to Dawn of War but still pretty cool, looking forward to Chaos Rising and Retribution. Grade: B+ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mister Jack Posted May 24 Report Share Posted May 24 Moss Book II PC is in the shop so I'm catching up on my VR backlog. This is the conclusion (maybe?) to the story started in Book I. The first Moss was a pretty good VR game and this one improves on it in pretty much every way. Quill is as adorable as ever and now she has more weapons to make combat a little bit less brainless, although it's still not very complex. The boss fights are pretty good though. Quill also gets new traversal abilities and you, as her guide, get new abilities to alter the environment to help her solve puzzles or get past obstacles. Quill herself is as adorable as ever and she charmed the heck out of me with her little victory dances after beating a boss, bringing me in for high fives both up high and down low. This team really did a good job making a protagonist you can get invested in and attached to. I don't know if there will ever be a Moss Book III (the ending is a bit ambiguous on that) but I wouldn't mind going on one more adventure with my little mouse buddy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMightyEthan Posted May 25 Report Share Posted May 25 Senua's Saga: Hellblade II Where to begin? This game is worse than the first one in every way except graphics and presentation, which are the best I've ever seen outside of the Matrix Awakens demo. The story feels extremely rushed, it messes up the psychosis stuff, large portions of it are just very boring. Even combat is less fun that the original. The worst part is that it undercuts the messaging of the original game, though I can't really go into specifics because spoilers. If you have Game Pass I'd recommend checking it out just because it is extremely technically impressive, but it is not a good game. Grade: D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mister Jack Posted June 27 Report Share Posted June 27 Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door Switch version, obviously. I never actually played the original Gamecube version, so I'm actually kind of glad that I got to go into this remake completely fresh. Since I have nothing to compare it to I don't know how exactly they improved the quality of life for this version, but I know they did add new features meant to reduce some of the tedium of the original, or so I have read. Putting that aside and just judging this game on its own merits, I can see why people are so fond of this one. The turn-based combat with no stupid gimmicks like later on in the series is just so much better. I suppose you could maybe consider the audience during battles a gimmick, but it's a very unobtrusive one that doesn't demand the whole battle system be reworked around it. I like the characters, I like the story, I like the music and the graphics and the exploration. This one really should have been remade a long time ago but better late than never. I do think that some of the chapters drag on for too long, particularly near the end, but that doesn't bring it down much for me. I'm just happy that I got to finally experience this game everyone loves so much. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMightyEthan Posted June 28 Report Share Posted June 28 I'm slowly making my way through that game as well. I'm enjoying it so far, but it hasn't really grabbed me the way Origami King did. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MetalCaveman Posted July 17 Report Share Posted July 17 Elden Ring (PC) It's Elden Ring, it's awesome, not much more to say. Although I did run into a bunch of performance issues I didn't have on PS5, crashes, freezes, etc. Not enough to deduct points from it though. Grade: S Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree More Elden Ring, and I mean MORE, "about the size of Limgrave" yeah right, except it's the size of Limgrave, with another Limgrave underneath, a third Limgrave at the top and them another Limgrave next to it. It's MASSIVE. The new weapons are fun, at least the ones I used, even found what's one of the closest representations of Mjolnir in any game ever, made me wish we had gotten a new lightning ash of war. Didn't get to use some of the new dex weapons but they look cool. This expansion also had some of the best new armours, including one of my favourites not only in Elden Ring but across all Soulsborne games. In terms of difficulty, if you're the type of player that thinks that using summons, spirit ashes, buffs and shields is "kinda cheating" you'll hate this, unless you're also the kind of player that can do a NG+7 lvl 1 no hit run lol. This expansion really wants you to use the Scadutree Blessings, they make a HUGE difference, I went from being 2 hit by basic enemies to barely being tickled by them and that was with blessing lvl 10. Made a pretty big effort to find all of them lol, and it helped a ton for the final boss. Didn't get all of the spirit ash blessings but even without all of them mimic was able to do what I want it to do, draw aggro from me so I can heal. That said, there are some issues with the combat, specially with some heavy enemies that show up in different places, they hit like a tank, have infinite stamina and infinite poise, unless you play ranged, they're a nightmare to deal with, even at max blessings. Camera is still a huge issue with some boss fights, the arena is too small, the boss too big and so the camera becomes the real enemy and the reason for many, many deaths. I definitively see the last boss getting a nerf, not necessarily in a "this is impossibly difficult" kind of way, but more like Balteus from Armored Core 6, where it's perfectly doable with the right build (I went giant shield with poking stick lol) but with other builds it becomes a nightmare. Much like Balteus, its attacks have some insane tracking, way too ridiculous. The story and new lore revelations were cool, Spoiler Miquella not being "the kind" but more "the brainwasher" was not unexpected, but still cool to see how it affected certain NPCs. Learning more about what happened in the Land of Shadows also changed how I saw a certain character. The end was disappointing though, seriously disappointing Spoiler OK, so Miquella brings back Radahn, you fight them at the gate of DIVINITY, which we saw in the trailer and after you win... Nothing, no cutscene to show something cool with the GATE OF DIVINITY, no nothing. As the fight starts "become my consort" During the phase change "You're my consort" After the fight ends "Will you be my consort?" That's all! As far as I know, there's also no changes in the base game, nothing to knowledge what happened, or anything like that. After the lore and story revelations of Messmer and the AWESOME Igon storyline it just felt pointless, a huge letdown. On the other hand, there's Igon, won't go into details but this dude was the MVP, not only of the DLC, but of all Elden Ring lol, Richard Lintern (I learned this was his first videogame VA job) did an amazing job and that monologue will go down in history. \m/ \m/ The whole Spoiler Dragon Communion thing was pretty cool, my favourite part of the DLC. There's also a serious issue with exploration rewards, some dungeons have 4 or 5 new weapons, others give you... Tier 4 upgrade stones, given the overall difficulty and which bosses you need to have defeated to make it here, the type and amount of upgrade stones you're given feels way too low to be worth it, I even ran into a bunch of tier 1 upgrade stones in a dungeon with 2 bosses lol. Overall though, I enjoyed the hell out of this, I wanted more Elden Ring and I got MORE Elden Ring. Grade: S Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toxicitizen Posted July 21 Author Report Share Posted July 21 Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree Finished it about a week ago. Overall, I don't have a ton to say about it. It's more Elden Ring. I think the smaller size worked in its favor. The main game had to re-use so much content to fill up the map that the whole open-world thing really only works on your very first playthrough. On subsequent playthrough, there's little point in exploring all that much since you know the content isn't as interesting as the main dungeons and the rewards are rarely worth it. That being said, Shadow of the Erdtree is only "small" when compared to the main game. It's an absolutely insane value for a lower-priced expansion. If the base game didn't exist, From could've released this as a full price game and I don't think anybody would've complained. I was planning on starting a brand new playthrough for the expansion, but because I impulsively bought it earlier than planned, I just loaded up my original character and picked up where I had left off. So I used this as an excuse to clear all the optional content and bosses I had missed or just not gotten to in my initial playthrough. So now I'm only missing the 2 achievements for the other endings. I'm not done 100%ing the game yet but it feels good to have finally made this much progress because this was the first Souls game in a while that I hadn't 100%d at launch. Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers I beat this like 2 months ago but I had been holding off on posting about it since I was planning on playing it and Endwalker back to back but that didn't happen. Still slowly working my way through Endwalker but it's not my main focus anymore. People often say that each FFXIV expansion is basically like its own full-blown Final Fantasy game and Shadowbringers is the best one yet. The quests leading up to the expansion had me on the edge of my seat and when the expansion proper got started, it really didn't waste any time getting things going again. It was so good, I got through the entire expansion in a little over a week, which is the fastest I've ever gotten through one of these. The only reason I slowed down a bit is because this game is so full of stuff to do that I ended up spreading myself too thin wanting to do everything at once and feeling a bit overwhelmed. And when I finally decided to just focus on the main story again, Kingdom hearts came out and distracted me from the game entirely... So, catching up in time for Dawntrail didn't happen but I'm closer than ever now. And I don't plan on stopping entirely like last time, so at the very least I'll slowly be progressing until the story picks up again and the game sucks me back in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mister Jack Posted July 31 Report Share Posted July 31 (edited) Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree Took me a while to find time to finish this one. I don't have much to say that hasn't already been said. It's fantastic DLC. My only real gripes are that some enemies seem to have infinite poise and some bosses are designed in such a way that if you don't like using summons, you're gonna have a bad time. Is it possible to win solo? Sure, but you are given very little room for error. Spoiler I would also like to congratulate Mohg for beating the allegations. Edited August 1 by Mister Jack 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mister Jack Posted August 6 Report Share Posted August 6 Blasphemous The first one. I beat it once before after it launched, but later on they added DLC that included a true ending, so I figured before I play 2 I should go back and get that. Ho-ly fuck is it cryptic. If you don't use a guide like I did I don't know how you'd ever be expected to figure it out on your own. In fact, even with a guide I ended up having to play the game twice because I accidentally fought a boss too early and locked myself out of the true ending. Yeah, I was pissed. It's still a good game but while playing it I was reminded of some very aggravating things about it, such as the instant death spikes, flask upgrades decreasing how many you can carry, and needing to spend 20,000 tears at the donation box in order to be able to teleport between shrines. Does it ruin the game? No, I wouldn't say so, but it did make it less fun. I'm done now, though, so I can finally play Blasphemous II and see what the devs learned from the first game. I'm excited. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMightyEthan Posted August 10 Report Share Posted August 10 Baldur's Gate 3 This game was really cool. It has more player agency than any other RPG I've ever played, it's like immersive sim levels of "if it seems like you should be able to do this, then you can." I did think the plot at the end was a little weak, with a couple characters making decisions that just seem weird, but it wasn't enough to really detract much from the game as a whole. It's the closest you can get to playing D&D in a video game. Grade: A 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mister Jack Posted August 10 Report Share Posted August 10 Blasphemous II As I suspected, this sequel solves just about every issue I had with the first game. The Soulslike mechanics are still there, but this game leans more into the Metroidvania side of the formula than the Souls side, which I think is for the best with this genre. The Penitent One is now more agile, the controls are better, movement upgrades are pickup items rather than hidden behind cryptic soulslike quests, and oh yeah... SPIKES AREN'T INSTANT DEATH ANYMORE. Thank GOD for that. In fact, spikes in general have much less of a presence here than they did before. They're still around and they still hurt like hell, but if you fall in them you'll be teleported back to the platform as long as you have life enough to spare. The combat is also much improved with three weapons instead of one, and now you have two swappable magic abilities instead of one. You also don't have to go back to a specific location to buy upgrades. The weapons all have their niche too and I got plenty of use out of all three of them depending on what I was fighting, though my favorite would have to be the heavy flail since it swings in such a huge arc. If there's anything to complain about, it's that certain bosses in the game are such a ridiculous difficulty spike that I was tempted to quit a couple times. I pushed through it, but I at least thought about it. It only happened with two of the bosses, but those two were so much harder than every other boss in the game that it felt like going from Elden Ring to Sekiro out of nowhere. It was painful. Really great sequel otherwise, though. I'm glad to see the developers took player feedback into consideration when making it. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMightyEthan Posted August 11 Report Share Posted August 11 Well that's on my wishlist now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMightyEthan Posted August 11 Report Share Posted August 11 Alan Wake 2: Night Springs This is the first DLC for Alan Wake 2. The premise is it's 3 episodes of the in-universe TV show Night Springs, and each one represents a separate failed attempt by Alan to write himself out of the Dark Place. There's one with Rose, the diner waitress, one with Jesse from Control, and one with the dude from Quantum Break. Each one is about an hour long, they all have very different tones, and are very cool. I definitely recommend it if you like Alan Wake. Grade: A 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toxicitizen Posted August 11 Author Report Share Posted August 11 2 hours ago, TheMightyEthan said: and one with the dude from Quantum Break. Wait, as in Jack Joyce the actual character from Quantum Break? Or Tim Breaker, the Sheriff from Alan Wake 2 that's basically a replacement for him? (lmao Tim Breaker... how did I just get that?) Because I was under the impression that Quantum Break isn't part of Remedy's shared universe because the rights are still with Microsoft. For example, Mr. Door is likely also meant to be a stand-in for Martin Hatch from Quantum Break, who they couldn't use. I know the first time I saw him, I did a double take wondering if it was Lance Reddick. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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