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Post by Woody Alien on Jan 4, 2020 13:23:25 GMT -5
Cthulhu Saves Christmas (PC/Steam, first time, 11 hrs)
The prequel of Cthulhu Saves The World by the same devs, meant to be a humorous short game to be played during the holidays. I really liked their early Breath Of Death VII and CTSW comedy J-RPG and I enjoyed to an extent their bigger effort Cosmic Star Heroine so I decided to buy this one too. I liked that this one has the improved graphics and music from Cosmic S.H. (the anime-esque character portraits especially, and a rocking remix of "Carol fo the Bells"), but I was disappointed that they also reused the same needlessly complex and tedious battle system. I hoped that, as a short little game, they would go back to the same simple system meant as a streamlined JRPG from the earlier game, but they wanted to use one that made every fight a slog. By the time of the final dungeon I was glad that it was a short game and just wanted to get it over with. What minimal innovations are there are nice, but for the rest it also has the same problems of all other Zeboyd Games titles, so I don't know if I'm still buying their stuff again. 6.5/10
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Post by paperchema on Jan 4, 2020 15:08:20 GMT -5
Titanfall 2 (Xbox One, 1st time, 8 hours, Score: 9.5/10)
An excellent shooter. Gunplay is satisfying and the jumping and running mechanics add an element of speed and platforming that elevates the whole gameplay. The titan feels as heavy and powerful as it appears to be. On top of that, the campaign has a good pacing and each level has its quirk. The story is simple albeit functional; I became invested in the fate of the story's protagonist. And best of all, it doesn't overstay its welcome. It knows when it's time to end.
As for the graphics, the game looked great on my Xbox One despite its resolution drops in the most intense battles. Those drops are also an acceptable sacrifice for 60fps, which makes the gameplay smoother and more responsive. The game feels just great to play.
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Post by dsparil on Jan 5, 2020 10:57:15 GMT -5
AI: The Somnium Files (Switch, First Time)
This did restore my faith that Kotaro Uchikoshi can still put together a coherent story after how much I hated Zero Time Dilemma. It does feel a little convoluted for a while, but it does mostly come together eventually. There's still a loose thread of two by the end, but I am impressed by how much it did manage to come together. The adventure gameplay can be a little hit and miss though. There's occasionally some Ace Attorney style screen investigations and some of those have really annoying pixel hunting. The other adventure game element also has a time limit attached that detracts from things a bit. There's occasionally gameplay attached to the fact that there's a limit so I wish it was a little more lenient at times rather than gone entirely.
The Switch version sadly has a multitude of technical issues. On the annoying end is that the game does not react well to accidentally undocking a JoyCon. The game simply ignores it even if the system shows both as being attached and set as one controller. This would be a bigger issue if the game didn't frequently autosave as restarting is the only way to fix it. There's also some slowdowns that seems to come from nowhere and frequent pauses for loading mid conversion if there's a "flashback" being put up on the screen.
I finished in 21:06:36.
Rating: 7 (8 without technical problems)
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Post by dsparil on Jan 6, 2020 14:31:18 GMT -5
Star Fox 2 (SNES/Switch, First Time)
I first played this on Normal and was a little miffed at how short it is! Replaying on Hard changed my mind though since additional gameplay gets added. Barely missed out on unlocking Expert which is probably the real way to play it. A missile hit Corneria while I was in a level and I think you need 0% damage to unlock Expert (plus B rank which I did get). I did think it was fairly easy though outside the "Team Wolf" battles. I can see why Nintendo decided to shelve the game, but it would have been interesting if this and 64 had been released.
Rating: 8
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Post by lurker on Jan 6, 2020 15:26:58 GMT -5
Star Fox 2 (SNES/Switch, First Time) I first played this on Normal and was a little miffed at how short it is! Replaying on Hard changed my mind though since additional gameplay gets added. Barely missed out on unlocking Expert which is probably the real way to play it. A missile hit Corneria while I was in a level and I think you need 0% damage to unlock Expert (plus B rank which I did get). I did think it was fairly easy though outside the "Team Wolf" battles. I can see why Nintendo decided to shelve the game, but it would have been interesting if this and 64 had been released. Rating: 8 The game does have some randomization going on, though.
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Post by dsparil on Jan 7, 2020 9:53:55 GMT -5
Star Fox 2 (SNES/Switch, First Time) I first played this on Normal and was a little miffed at how short it is! Replaying on Hard changed my mind though since additional gameplay gets added. Barely missed out on unlocking Expert which is probably the real way to play it. A missile hit Corneria while I was in a level and I think you need 0% damage to unlock Expert (plus B rank which I did get). I did think it was fairly easy though outside the "Team Wolf" battles. I can see why Nintendo decided to shelve the game, but it would have been interesting if this and 64 had been released. Rating: 8 The game does have some randomization going on, though. The randomization is a big element for replays, but I think it could have used calling Normal something like Easy or Training and having Hard be Normal just to properly set people's expectations. On the one hand, Normal is such a short and easy play that going to Hard is a natural progression. On the other, I can imagine people not realizing that the game gets longer on the higher difficulties.
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Post by lurker on Jan 7, 2020 15:48:22 GMT -5
The game does have some randomization going on, though. The randomization is a big element for replays, but I think it could have used calling Normal something like Easy or Training and having Hard be Normal just to properly set people's expectations. On the one hand, Normal is such a short and easy play that going to Hard is a natural progression. On the other, I can imagine people not realizing that the game gets longer on the higher difficulties. You can also unlock the original Corneria theme if you do well enough.
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Post by Digitalnametag on Jan 7, 2020 17:43:32 GMT -5
Super Castlevania IV SNES FTP 5 hours
One of my recent SNES purchases that I finally got around to playing. Other than Dracula most of the bosses are pretty easy. I did struggle with Level 8 for awhile. The whip is so versatile in this one sub weapons do not have much opportunity to shine outside of a few key spots. On the other hand I never felt short of hearts like I do in Castlevania I and III. Fun play through and less frustrating than the earlier titles.
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Post by alexmate on Jan 9, 2020 15:30:18 GMT -5
Painkiller: Black Edition (PC GoG FTP time taken: 8 hours guesstimate) Fun Pc game with a lot of imagination. It's best treated as an arena shooter. Unfortunately tedious platforming and the fact you need to kill every enemy make it a 7 rather than an 8.
Rating: 7
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Post by dsparil on Jan 10, 2020 8:12:16 GMT -5
Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia (DS, Replay)
I love Order of Ecclesia! It is my favorite Castlevania game as it fixes up some of the rougher edges from the last few. You can always tell when an enemy drops a glyph so there's no guessing (or looking up) like in Portrait of Ruin. They're all weapons/spells or specialized abilities so they're all worth getting unlike the Sorrow games. There's much less armor so new equipment is generally an upgrade instead of the panoply of useless equipment you accumulate in the other games. There's a wealth of accessories mainly rings named after the Major Arcana which is a nice touch. Magic is very useful since everything including normal weapons is technical a "spell" and uses MP so the bar refills very quickly. Constant effect spells only use a small amount when activated and don't drain otherwise so they're actually useful. You get a nice mix of levels and a reasonable sized castle at the end which actually feels more like a castle since it doesn't have some of the structurally odd elements that get crammed into it traditionally. The difficulty is ramped up but not to an extreme degree. I think some of its reputation for hardness is overblown. There's definitely a few spikes in difficulty, but it's very reasonable overall.
I'd say the only real downside is that some of the side quests require way too much material grinding which also ties into some of the sorer points with the treasure system. Standard chests respawn and can possibly be "rare" chests with a different set of potential items. There's no guaranteed rare chests although there is a hat that can increase the frequency of them appearing. Too many quests require multiple rare drops either from chests or enemies and it can be tedious grinding for them. I literally killed 150 of one enemy for it's very rare drop. I looped through a few levels dozens of times in order to get drops from rare chests which even with the treasure hat might not show up in a level with 4 or 5 chests.
Item issues aside, a really great capstone to the "classic" Castlevania series before Konami tried and failed to reboot it with the Lords of Shadow games. I still don't know who thought Mirror of Fate was a good idea.
I finished in 10:22:36.
Rating: 9
Demon's Crest (SNES/Switch, Replay)
I like the two Gargoyle's Quest games, but I feel iffy about Demon's Crest. It looks great with a nice art style and a Mode 7 map. The gameplay is a little more mixed. The difficulty is all over the place especially with the bosses. The Flier boss in particular is incredibly tedious. The final boss is just an absolute nightmare while also being totally beatable with 4 or 5 full health potions and the armor talisman. The first three phases are fine, but the final one is has four elements which in total make it such a pain (lava floor, limited attack opportunity, homing attacks, destroyable platforms), but would have been significantly fairer with any combination of three. You basically have to abuse post-hit invincibility to get in a series of attacks on the bosses's weak point and heal once you're down to one pip of health. The transformations and additional attacks should been upgrades instead of selectable options. There's really no reason for it to be this way except to give you an ultimate crest for the extra boss which I didn't do. It just makes general gameplay more tedious with constant switching just to give something for a single extra battle.
Rating: 6
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Post by alexmate on Jan 10, 2020 15:01:36 GMT -5
One Night, Hot Spring (PC/Steam, first time, 31 minutes timer all achievements) Good text based visual novel about transgenderism. Maybe a bit light on content, but a charming game with a nice artstyle that looks a bit like cut out paper.
Rating: 7
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Post by Null0x00 on Jan 10, 2020 22:13:17 GMT -5
Cleared NiGHTS into Dreams for Sega Saturn with A-ranks on all the stages in 3.5hrs. Repeat playthrough. 8/10. Still a Saturn classic, but the updated HD version with widescreen and 60FPS makes the original hard to go back to. Stick Canyon is still a bitch to play through after all these years.
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Post by dsparil on Jan 11, 2020 8:00:32 GMT -5
The Tower of Beatrice (Switch, First Time)
I was mainly enticed by this game's total lack of reviews on Metacritic (RIP Game Rankings) although the Steam reviews are mostly positive and the low price of $6 although I paid under $4 due to a sale. This is a 6 single screen escape room adventure game where you play as a thief tasked with stealing the eponymous Beatrice's book of alchemy from her tower. Of course you get captured immediately after getting the book and get taunted by Beatrice through the book. The puzzles are mostly pretty good and inventory based with a few mechanical ones thrown in. It can be slightly obtuse at times but nothing major. There's a few bits of charming dialogue with some of the "inhabitants" of the tower you talk to. I wasn't expecting much and ended up having a good time. Being only 6 rooms, it is pretty short but there's also little padding.
Rating: 8
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Post by X-pert74 on Jan 12, 2020 18:26:24 GMT -5
GRIS (PC/Steam, first time, 3.7 hrs)
This is officially my first game completion of the new decade! It ended up having an impact on me, connecting with me on an emotional level. It's rather abstract, and my interpretation of what the game's story was supposed to mean may possibly have not been intended by the developers... but screw it, lol. I still liked what this game had to offer. Outside of a couple gripes with its mechanics (certain puzzles' solutions aren't telegraphed very well to the player), I had a good time playing through this <3
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Post by paperchema on Jan 13, 2020 9:19:24 GMT -5
The Darkness (Xbox One via BC, 1st time, 10 hours)
The gunplay shows its age, but the strong atmosphere plus the voice acting of the Darkness made it an entertaining shooter. I liked the bleakness permeating the story and world, the high level of violence and the Darkness itself. The level design is weak, mostly a linear set of interconnected hallways, the hub system is inconvenient, and there are some annoying spots where the game could have communicated essential info better. But the game's flaws were not enough to sour my experience. It ends before it becomes tiring.
Rating: 7.5/10
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