toxicitizen Posted November 21 Author Report Share Posted November 21 I have returned! Ok, so this didn't turn out quite how I had expected. I now have a better grasp of what was going on, what the different character's motivations were, their relationships to each other, etc. All the endings put together really paint an overall picture that explains all of that very clearly. The thing is the endings don't quite work together in a "this is what happened" kinda way. Without getting into spoilers, the first NG+ cycle immediately drops a bomb that was deliberately omitted from the initial playthrough. So basically every conversation in the entire game is recontextualized. It feels kind of artificial but it makes the first playthrough pretty mysterious and mindfucky so I don't really have a problem with it, I guess. But after that, the other endings mostly serve to flesh out everyone's motivations and feelings with ending 4 providing the last pieces that tie everything together. It's hard to talk about this without dropping a huge spoiler so I'll just say that the game never quite explained the parts that I was the most curious about because, ultimately, that wasn't the point of the game. Or maybe there's some stuff I just didn't pick up on... I'll probably watch some youtube videos to see what others have come up with. I'm sure there's a ton left to unpack since the endings have some contradictory elements and even some hints that Spoiler there are actual supernatural forces involved in the game's events rather than it all being metaphorical/in Hinako's mind. But yeah, overall I really enjoyed the game. I'm not enough of a Silent Hill superfan to say whether or not it's a valid entry into the series but I loved both the SH2 Remake and this and I'm looking forward to Townfall, whatever that turn out to be. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MetalCaveman Posted November 27 Report Share Posted November 27 Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth Though it has some serious issues with localization/translation*, it was still a really fun game, with a cool story, ending had me in tears lol. *Some stuff doesn't make sense, other stuff feels out of place, in the Digiline thing for example, there's this message exchange that went a little something like this: Quote - I saw some kids today, reminded me of family. * That's good to hear, when will you come back? - I don't know the meaning of that yet, if I keep working, maybe one day I'll understand. What?! Being the complete edition, which includes Hacker's Memory, there's a ton of Digimon that you can get, I was able to get pretty much all I wanted for my main party, only one missing was Beelstarmon, but I don't know if she was around when these games came out lol. Fun thing, on Switch (don't know if this happens on PlayStation), putting the console on sleep mode doesn't stop in-game time, this means that any Digimons you have on your farm will continue to level up. This makes it super easy to end up with Mega Digimon early on, depending on how often you play, it's cool though, because you can leave a Digimon on the farm while you do other stuff, then when you come back to play, you can add that Digimon to your party and they'll have leveled up a bunch, no need to grind for XP. The main dungeon does get a bit repetitive, different floors have different gimmicks, but it all kinda looks the same, however, that didn't bother me that much. Only thing I had an issue with was the last boss, felt more like a test of patience than a challenge, but that was mostly due to my party, apparently depending on which Digimon you have, you can end that fight super fast. Definitively recommend this one if you're a fan of Digimon. Grade: A+ 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MetalCaveman Posted December 1 Report Share Posted December 1 Ninja Gaiden 2 Black More accurately, Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 Black. This builds upon NG Sigma 2 improving things, removing some of the boss fights that were added for Sigma, removing an area in the late game that was pretty annoying, plus some other good stuff. Overall, it's a pretty big improvement over Sigma 2, still doesn't beat OG 2 IMO, but if you don't have access to OG 2, this is the next best thing. Grade: A+ 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMightyEthan Posted December 6 Report Share Posted December 6 Ghost of Yotei Good game, as I'm sure will come as a surprise to absolutely everyone. Its tale of revenge is not original, but it's pretty well told, and manages to not just fall into the grimdark take on it like some other Sony studio's game... I'm not in love with it though like I was the first one. I enjoyed it, but there were little niggles that hampered the experience for me. Like there were numerous times in the game where it felt like it was setting you up to make a choice about what to do, but then no choice was forthcoming. Which is fine, I don't need choices in all my games, but it felt a little like a bait and switch each time it happened. I wonder if they were originally planning to have player choices at those moments and then changed course during development. And the combat... I like it on paper, but in practice I felt like it was unfair. Like 75% of the times I got hit I felt like it was the game's fault, not mine. It was frustrating, and not in a good way. Overall though the game is good, I enjoyed my time with it, there's stuff to do in the world but it's not too cluttered, it manages to chart a different course than Tsushima and not just be a repeat. It's number 6 on my top 10 for the year right now. Grade: B+ 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MetalCaveman Posted December 8 Report Share Posted December 8 The Surge This was a thing. A sci-fi Soulslike is a cool concept, and one I'd like to see more of, but this game is just lots of interesting ideas and systems, but with a pretty clunky implementation, it's also a bit of a grindfest. The whole "target different body parts" is an interesting idea but most weapons feel really clunky and slow, heavy weapons specially, feel completely useless with how slow they are and how easy it is to get staggered. Leveling up is different too, you don't put points into stats, instead, you level up your energy, which allows you to equip more implants, which is what determines your stats, want more HP? Get HP implants, or stamina, or energy, etc. Implants are how you build your character. This is part of the grind, not enough HP? Farm for a better health implant. Need more energy? Farm for a better energy implant, repeat for any implant you may need. Right from the start, you don't get your full gear set, you need to farm for the missing pieces, more grind. The whole idea is neat, want a specific helmet? Target the enemy's head! This applies to the different gear pieces, except once you get it, you get the schematic, then you have to farm for materials to craft or upgrade each piece. Got a trophy for clearing a dark area with a specific weapon type simply because I couldn't get the chest piece (which has your lamp) to drop, instead got a weapon that glowed and decided that was good enough. There are different areas, but within each area it's super easy to get lost because everything looks the same. Last boss was a pain, actually uninstalled the game for a while, then today I went back and managed to defeat it, I was ready to give up again when I saw it had a second phase lol. Overall, I wouldn't recommend this one, second is supposed to be better so I'm looking forward to it. Grade: F 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MetalCaveman Posted December 15 Report Share Posted December 15 Ninja Gaiden 4 It's 100% a Platinum Games game, just with the Ninja Gaiden name, the gameplay, music, writing, story, everything is 100% Platinum. Which isn't a bad thing, IF you're looking for a new Platinum game, if you were looking for a new Ninja Gaiden game, your mileage may vary. For me personally, I wasn't feeling it at the start, then towards the end I had some fun, even started to like it, except for one thing: The Platinum Platforming Bullshit (PPBS for short lol), if you've watched the trailers you've seen part of it, Yakumo rail grinding or gliding while dodging obstacles, I've never been a fan of this stuff, and this was no exception, chapter 10 was particularly bad because of this. The worst part is that every time I felt like I was actually having fun, PPBS would strike and take me out of it. Overall, if this had been a spin-off I would have enjoyed it a lot more, remove the PPBS and it would have easily been a 9/10. Grade: B- 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCP Posted December 17 Report Share Posted December 17 Metroid Prime 4 Beyond Honestly I thought this was pretty solid. It seems like a lot of people wanted The Force Awakens of Metroid Prime and this is not that. If you can accept that they tried to do something different and appreciate it for what it is, I think it's a solid FPS with Metroidvania elements... maybe sometimes even some Zelda elements (dungeons). I do have a few nitpicks: Samus should talk and it's weird that she doesn't. Since you can't see her mouth move, I do fully believe she had lines at one point probably late into development and they removed them. It's fine to have her be a bad ass woman of few words but when people ask her general questions like "where are we" "what do we need to do" etc it's weird when she's just silent. It's not like Zelda where it's implied Link is talking sometimes. The green crystals... I have a few left and can't find them anywhere. Fuck those crystals. I don't mind the characters talking at Samus, even over the radio, but we could probably scale it back slightly. Let me ride around smashing crystals on my motorcycle, Miles. Fast travel would be nice. I hope they get a chance at Prime 5, I feel like they have a lot of stuff here with potential that just needs some refinement. Having a fresh start without inheriting some other studio's work would be good for Retro, I think. As for a score I think somewhere in the 8s would be appropriate. I need to reflect on it more. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MetalCaveman Posted 9 hours ago Report Share Posted 9 hours ago Playing through a bunch of games right now, but I doubt I'll finish any of them before end of year, so here's my list for 2025: Star Fox 64 Star Fox Adventures Star Fox Assault P.N. 03 Area 51 Def Jam: Vendetta Def Jam: Fight for NY Ninja Gaiden Sigma Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge Elden Ring Nightreign Sekiro The Suffering The Suffering: Ties that Bind Lords of the Fallen Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth Ninja Gaiden 2 Black The Surge Ninja Gaiden 4 Two less games than last year, still better than expected though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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