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Post by excelsior on Aug 17, 2022 0:08:59 GMT -5
Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords (DS, First Time, 18:13)I've played this a bunch of times since it came out, mostly around its initial launch, but always put it down before getting to the end due to frustration. I figured I'd put a few hours into it in the wait for Xenoblade where I was at a loose end but to my own surprise actually saw it to the end. So the game is a turn-based match 3 puzzle RPG adventure, where we can gain gold, experience, magic, equipment and other tools to help in battle. Combat takes place on a standard grid for this kind of puzzle, where in your turn you will make a line to grant you mana of varying puzzle colours, gold, experience or to attack the enemy by matching skulls. Mana is used to grant spells which use a combination of various colours to have some impact on the battle, via the opponent or the board itself. Matching more than 3 gains an extra turn and as you level up you incrementally increase your chance of gaining a free turn without such a match. This creates a simple and therefore addictive gameplay loop, but problems arise when dealing with the CPU AI. As you grind your way through a battle picking up colours and matching what you can to make best of your turn it's only fair to say the CPU helps themselves to what they need. A CPU will inevitably land themselves large matching combo's and free turns, ultimately abusing the rules of play in their favour as blocks drop down to form new patterns. Even ignoring how cheap this feels it even more so becomes monotonous. The CPU turn will simply run across many. Where there's no row of 4 to match they'll of course help themselves to a 'random' free turn meaning their go just takes too long, leaving you waiting for your chance to participate. Things become worse at later stages as enemies begin to be able to cancel your spells; whilst still of course your mana is depleted from their usage, effectively cancelling your turn and causing you to need to start once again building mana. This largely undercuts the games purpose as both a puzzle and an RPG, as imagine if your turn simply didn't count at the computers behest in either genre and I'm sure it would be pretty aggravating. There's an RPG story to follow along to, with side quests, special items as rewards and the like. The story itself is pretty much 'go here', 'go there' without any real engagement, although in it's credit it does it's job of pairing the puzzle with it's fantasy world. Without any interest however it's simple to skip across dialogue, side quests etc and stick to the basic adventure, especially since there's plenty good equipment to be found on your main route. In the end the match-3 concept of Puzzle Quest is enough to remain engaged. It's addictive really. The problem is that the developers didn't seem to have an idea as to how to create a challenging opposition whilst retaining the fun this kind of puzzle game can hold. I remember this being a really fresh concept on release, but time has not been kind to Puzzle Quest and it has become difficult to recommend. Score - 6/10
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Post by excelsior on Aug 17, 2022 0:59:56 GMT -5
No More Heroes III (Switch, First Time, 15:14)No More Heroes 3 completes the story of the somehow endearing otaku assassin Travis Touchdown. Once again Travis is tasked with reaching the top of the ranking table, this time consisting of alien invaders who manage to piss Travis off royally from the offset. The story itself has more to do with his complicated on again off again relationship with Sylvia, who has once again positioned herself within the organisation of the coordinators of the ranking league. The game has received much criticism for removal of the pre boss stages, with Travis now advancing to a ranking battle without the need to take on swarms of the same few enemies. In my opinion it's a case of separating the wheat from the chaff, but realistically it has simply been moved to an optional side quest. Of course, we still have to work our way through overworld mini games and side quests to gain access to the battle, but this decision greatly improves the pacing and makes a great deal more sense. The boss battles themselves are quite the variety act. There's standard fights of course, with combat this time receiving a much needed shake up. Melee attacks from previous games have been removed, chopping much of the struggle and tussle in between the fun parts of combat and getting right to it. In their place we have rechargeable Death Moves which act as special attacks and a Bayonettaesque bullet time feature, slowing down enemies when a dodge is performed in a timely manner. Despite the removal of melee moves the enemies can still be stunned, allowing performance of Travis' trademark wrestling moves, which are now once again in abundance with Suda 51 at the helm, following being trimmed down in the previous entry. In actuality there are move moves here than ever before, with Travis no longer simply acting as some human suplex machine, there's some nice surprises beyond for wrestling nerds. Back to the boss encounters though, what's greatly fun is that anything can happen within the ranked battle, as often the game turns the premise on it's head in order to surprise and delight the player whether through the combatants introductory cutscene or the combat itself. Things can get so completely preposterous and off the wall. Not all of these ranked battles are equal, and the first one is bizarrely the most difficult part of the game which seems an odd choice, but generally there's a marked improvement over game no. 2, and I would say it's fair to put these central battles at least on par with the original game. The overworld is back this time around also, and of course once again it will be a subject that divides those that love No More Heroes from those who perhaps don't quite 'get it' or don't engage with it's messaging. Once again the overworld is fairly ordinary and unassuming, but it's relative emptiness is entirely intentional. Of course this overworld is supposed to contrast with Travis' lust for battle, and beyond that act as a driving force for his need for action. To be fair though it's not like there's nothing to do. There's several different types of collectables found across it's districts. There's also a good number of mini games, acting as jobs to perform as Travis will need to gain money to apply for ranking battles. Some of these games once again highlight the absolute absurdity of the No More Heroes saga. Suda 51 shows his personality once more through the humour found as we defend the beach from giant crocodiles, collect scorpions for ramen, or through replacing Ubisoft towers with an all too fitting toilet plunging mini game. No More Heroes 3's allure will be to those who can appreciate it's off the wall humour, as well as enjoy it's combat, despite being more simple and arcadelike than genre comparators. Suda 51 being once again at the helm endues an all too unique personality, as well as approach to direction. It's cleverness can get in the way of the gameplay from time to time, but for the niche audience that can appreciate his stylings it's fair to look past those few moments and focus on what's done well here. It's only a shame that what perhaps offers the most refined No More Heroes experience will be the last, though the game offers an apt goodbye to Travis and Santa Destroy. Ranking - 9/10
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Post by 🧀Son of Suzy Creamcheese🧀 on Aug 18, 2022 8:36:45 GMT -5
Xenoblade Chronicles 3 (Switch, First Time, 97:15) Jeez, you played through a nearly 100 hour RPG in 3 weeks? I wish I could do that. Great Cave Offensive- Easily my favorite back in the day and I think it still is. This puts you're understanding of power usage to the test and it ups the ante a fair amount from the last game. The treasures aren't terribly hard to get but they're no less satisfying to grab. As I said for years I could never figure out how to reach one treasure in the little section just before the final area so it was nice to get some closure on that now. I'd love to see them try to do a more explorative type game with Kirby like this with a bigger scope. Well, I heard they did try that with The Amazing Mirror on GBA and its apparently not good. Dunno, may check it out. Also the music from this one is just so intrepid and fun to hear. I don't know where you heard that. Amazing Mirror is great. It's not exactly a Great Cave Offensive successor, but it's still a lot of tun to try to get all the treasure.
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Post by dsparil on Aug 18, 2022 9:32:12 GMT -5
Xenoblade Chronicles 3 (Switch, First Time, 97:15) Jeez, you played through a nearly 100 hour RPG in 3 weeks? I wish I could do that. I feel like I'm slacking because I'd already beaten the others this long after release.
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Post by excelsior on Aug 18, 2022 9:46:22 GMT -5
Jeez, you played through a nearly 100 hour RPG in 3 weeks? I wish I could do that. I feel like I'm slacking because I'd already beaten the others this long after release. I would have preferred to have taken my time really, I don't like to play this many hours of video games in a day but I wanted to avoid spoilers. I was a little burned out the final few days and so rushed to the ending without doing most of the final chapter side quests. I think I saw basically all there is to the game regardless but ideally I would have taken an extra couple of weeks.
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Post by dsparil on Aug 19, 2022 8:15:05 GMT -5
I feel like I'm slacking because I'd already beaten the others this long after release. I would have preferred to have taken my time really, I don't like to play this many hours of video games in a day but I wanted to avoid spoilers. I was a little burned out the final few days and so rushed to the ending without doing most of the final chapter side quests. I think I saw basically all there is to the game regardless but ideally I would have taken an extra couple of weeks. I usually plow through these since the semi-auto combat is less tiring than some other games. I'm not really sure why this one is taking me longer. At 66 hours right now.
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Post by excelsior on Aug 19, 2022 9:55:29 GMT -5
I usually plow through these since the semi-auto combat is less tiring than some other games. I'm not really sure why this one is taking me longer. At 66 hours right now. I couldn't say really but I can see possibilities from two sides. On the lacking engagement side I would say the combat is a step back from 2, which itself was improved upon in Torna. I think those two games constantly having you plan towards hitting one of a couple of combos created a more meaningful sense of engagement with combat than in 3. In 3 I'd say combat is fun some of the time, but equally there's times of going through the motions. Battles are long, even when you're over levelled for them too. From the opposite perspective I'd say it's the Xenoblade game which encourages and enables completion of all of it's content the most in the series. I think the balance of quality and importance across the games whole content is the greatest in the series. There are quests where I have to do daft things like save soldiers from squirrels, sure, but then there's some nice character work and plot lines found in side quests too. The content isn't gated as with affinity grinding in X and 2 either, the openness meaning anyone can see all the content. I personally played the game more than other entries mostly for this reason, since I would give up on plotlines I was interested in due to whatever barriers for entry were present in those two games. I'd have liked an easier way to track quests for and fast travel to individual colonies, but that's a minor issue for me. On the other hand, I don't know, perhaps you're just slacking.
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Post by Apollo Chungus on Aug 19, 2022 18:51:36 GMT -5
Duke Nukem 3D: Nuclear Winter (PC; First Time; 1 hour 8 minutes)
I've been playing a good deal of Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot at the moment, but am feeling a bit of fatigue so I thought I'd pop back into Duke Nukem 3D for a bit with the last of the expansion packs featured in the Megaton Edition. Nuclear Winter takes on a Christmas theme, as you gun down snowmen, aliens wearing Santa hats and feminist elves with machine guns (oof) in an attempt to save the brainwashed Santa Claus. I've heard some pretty bad things about this one, which partially stem from its unusual decision to recycle the first two stages of Duke Nukem 3D but backwards and with snow skin (yes seriously), but honestly I thought this was pretty alright.
It doesn't offer anywhere near the inspired presentation of Duke Caribbean, going back to the old guns, using Christmas standards that may as well have been MIDIs ripped from the internet as the music, and not even giving Duke any new lines. However, it's a straightforward enough romp with the new levels having a decent enough flow without overstaying their welcome with winding, complex maps. I think it works best as the last expansion to try out in the collection, since it's simple enough that it acts as a way of winding down after an entire game and two fairly substantial expansion packs. I wanted a brief blast of Duke 3D again, and this gave me just that with some pleasant Christmas music to boot (I'm a sucker for that late 90s MIDI strings/piano you'd hear in PC games of the day).
I'm not sure when I'm gonna get round to Alien World Order honestly, or if I'll give Plug N Pray another shot, or perhaps I'll just dive into the mod scene. But it was pretty rad to finally delve into Duke Nukem 3D again after five years and to check out those expansion packs for the first time. What a good shooter.
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Post by JoeQ on Aug 21, 2022 16:02:57 GMT -5
Armored Core 2 (PS2) - First playthrough, Time: quite a bit, Rating: 4/5My first foray into FromSoft's old mainstay series and it did not disappoint. You play as a "Raven", a freelance mercenary taking jobs from various corporations as they battle for control of the newly terraformed Mars. Definitely has a bit of a learning curve due the old fashioned controls (this was the last AC game not to have dual analog controls apparently) and mech parts and building being completely unexplained, but when it clicked I really enjoyed it. Reminded me of the MechWarrior series, particularyl MW2: Mercenaries. My only real complaint is the clunky camera controls, which can make fighting the extremely mobile enemy ACs a pain, especially in the Arena. Looking forward to playing the rest of the series! I beat the game on Normal difficulty, beat all the missions and arena opponents, acquired all hidden parts and achieved 100% game completion. Alphabet Challenge: ABCDEFGH-JKLM-OPQRST------ Number Challenge: --234--7--
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Post by personman on Aug 21, 2022 21:15:32 GMT -5
I remember adoring 3 and Silent Line. Last Raven though I disliked enough I was too afraid to continue the series into the PS3/360 era since I heard so many mixed things. Man now I want to play the AC series again, I really need to get PS2 emulation going.
Super Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (SNES, emulated on 3DS; 4 hours; first time)
So much like the last game I only ever really screwed around with this game in debug mode on ZSNES back in the day. And once again I can't blame myself completely this game is just hateful in a lot of cheap ways. I tried normal and burned through all my continues on the second stage so easy it is which again is what normal mode should be. Really I think it's just a rule of thumb with this trilogy that easy is normal and normal is hard and I don't even want to think about Jedi, the highest one. Even knocking the game down to easy though only helps so much because the thing that will kill you most times are enemies zooming up in your face and shoving you off small platforms into spikes or pits. Real cheap crap and the first three stages are slippery snow levels to compound it. Yeah, they made the exact same mistake as the last time and front loaded the worst stages at the start of the game. Guys, come on.
Fortunately despite the game being harder there is a password system this time around so ironically I found the game much less anxiety inducing to deal with. Once you get past the first three levels things improve considerably as well with the actual battle for Hoth being pretty decently realized and things just plain becoming more reasonable. They actually did a really good job with the snowspeeder stages as you trip up AT-ATs. Had a much better time with the game at that point up until one of the last stages in Cloud City where they go back to small platforms and enemies shoving you around. Even with Chewie's new impression of Zangeif making him invincible for a time it was a massive pain in the ass. This boils to a head in the final stage with Luke who has these flying stormtroopers who are just the worst and a ton of tiny platforms just out of view. Its really, really poorly designed.
But then I noticed Luke gets force powers once you reach Degobah. You start out with a heal which is freaking awesome but it looks like you can get more yet I never received any. I think what the deal is you have to explore the rather short levels on Degobah and find the things but unless the game's physical manual mentions anything about it You're never gonna know to look for them and with one of the powers pretty much letting you fly I think I see why they thought Luke's final stage was alright, well okay guys but if you're going to design stages around these powers maybe don't make them missable? Hell's bells.
That all being said outside of those instances I did find the rest of the game pretty nice, Han's stages are all good, I love Chewbacca being able to do a double lariat and the vehicle stages are pretty painless now. And of course the game looks wonderful and sounds great again, Luke doesn't look like a Pillsbury doughboy anymore lol. But for every step forward they took they also took a step back so the game is only a marginal improvement, so marginal in fact I'd hold them at about the same level. It's a fair game like the last but only just.
Rating: 4
Tiny Toon Adventure's: Buster Busts Loose (SNES, Emulated on 3DS; 3 hours; first time)
Ran through this for the weekly SNES thread. Not too much to say about it that I didn't over there. Was a nice way to kill a couple hours and it definitely gave me a nice little nostalgia rush. Love how it looks and sounds and I appreciate that they put a decent effort to get creative with the bosses. However the game itself didn't wow me any. Plenty serviceable just nothing I'm gonna want to go back to or anything and if it wasn't for the nostalgia the show brings me about the time period it was around I'd probably feel pretty indifferent to it.
Rating: 5
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Post by dsparil on Aug 22, 2022 9:11:42 GMT -5
God Panic — The Most Powerful Army Corps (TurboGrafx-CD, First Time)
Sort of a cute-em-up but also slightly but not entirely adult oriented. In a way, it's sort of like a vertical Parodius but without any sense of cohesiveness or graphical quality. I really wonder who this is even for.
I finished in 00:45:49.
Rating: 6
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Post by excelsior on Aug 23, 2022 8:39:44 GMT -5
The Outer Worlds (Switch, First Time, 16:14)This is something that falls outside of my usual comfort zone in terms of the styles and genre's of games that I play. Although I put the majority of my game playing time into JRPG's it's incredibly rare for me to play something from the western end of the RPG genre. Explanation - it was a gift (and I always play games I'm gifted). The game has an alternate future setting all to do with American politics, not the most interesting aspect to someone from across the pond, but ultimately is built around the concept of mega corporations who have colonised across space and their impact on the characters found within. We take control of a character who doesn't fall within these corporate systems giving a representation of the player through sharing an outsiders perspective. Along the way we are presented with differing perspectives from prominent characters and will be driven to resolving these quandaries based on our own judgement. Despite the relevancy of the subject matter, the actual presentation of it's themes is something of a mixed bag. Initially I found a good deal of interest in the characters in the early segments of the game, and felt a great deal of weight to the decision making. I found however that the more I played the less I felt empathy, which I think had much to do with the depth of the characters themselves. Each will have one or two personality traits expressed, to give them some individuality, but essentially only exist as separate arguments to the overarching theme. It's more akin to reading a study than interacting with actual characters, a feeling I found driven more due to the fact that they only seemed to exist within the context of corporate repercussions. The story itself is particularly stagnant further strengthening the idea, as much of our time will be spent performing fetch quests and busy work before eventually moving onto the next area once an important decision is made. Due to my inexperience in this sub genre many of the ideas were new to me. Being able to level individual traits in such a way that we can build our characters to a particular strength where it allows for differing ways of progression for instance was not something I am used to. I enjoyed that I could gain experience through conversational skills or through hacking rather than purely through combat. There's the allowance for a nice range of character types, and generally you can progress with each one, though at some points the game calls for particular strengths to drive you forward. Whilst the ability to rebuild your stats is a great option it is a shame that you are essentially forced to use it at times should your character build not fit the situation. The other aspect of this style of game that was less welcome was the inclusion of a weight limit for carrying items. I'm not sure why western RPGs do this. Pairing it with the inclusion of many throwaway items results in needless busy work that seems to appear here simply due to being a genre convention as it certainly doesn't add anything of value. Playing on the Switch I found some issues with the port. Loading times are long enough to effect the pacing, and particularly disappointing when you find what lays before you once you eventually get into the game. To be fair indoor environments are usually interpreted well, as are character models, which can be nicely expressive which is a need to fulfil the characterisation requirements. Outdoor planetary landscapes, however, look downright ugly. Landscapes often don't really resemble anything beyond lumps of clay, giving no real context to the worlds themselves, which seems like it should be important in selling the games themes. Within combat the framerate will drop significantly when faced with a number of enemies, again in particular in outdoor surroundings. It's bad enough to make the game difficult to play at times and between these issues it seems obvious The Outer Worlds is better experienced elsewhere. The game was certainly not a total miss for me. It's just that the ideas here are perhaps best expressed at the very beginning of the game, and there's no real evolution of the themes or story to grasp onto and hold my interest. Score - 6/10
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Post by excelsior on Aug 23, 2022 11:40:00 GMT -5
Danganronpa v3: Killing Harmony (Switch, First Time)The finale to the Danganronpa series stays close to formula, as did 2, though this time playing it safer with it's murder mysteries. We have a more out there selection of characters this time around, which could prove divisive, but at least they characterisation is more present within the main plot this time around. Actually each of them gets their own chance to shine over the course of the game and so no character feels pointless. The overarching plot does manage to put a new spin on things adding real intrigue to what was previously the weakest part of the series. Once again the chapter by chapter plot revolves around the killing game the characters found themselves thrust into with each having a structure of plot, body discovery, investigation and then class trial. Through plot to investigation these elements remain as they were previously, but the class trial is once again given some small changes when it comes down to it's mini games. Generally speaking they've been reeled in after over correcting the difficulty with left some of them too confusing, though the explanations are still dreadfully overstated. There's a new one, and others have had significant rehauls, but the basic structure is the same. Trials take upwards of two hours with an interval in between for a quick save point. Technically you can save when you like, but regardless when I've begun a trial I'm compelled to finish to see where the mystery goes. Generally speaking there's a good bunch of investigations here, with evidence tying in nicely and the game will clue you in just enough to keep you one step ahead giving a feeling of discovery regularly. There is one trial that's a stinker, which seems to be a recurring issue in each of the three mainline games. I liked this entry much more than the third game, and it would perhaps surpass the original if the characters were a bit more believable. Regardless of their tropeyness being exaggerated even further this time around I enjoy the writing, even if it's never going to be considered great literature. It entertained me for most of it's once again longer playtime, usually pacing nicely with the exception of the late game, and did a great job of bringing closure to a somewhat messily plotted series. Of course it also helps that the writing is ever accompanied by a wonderful and inexplicably unavailable on vinyl OST. Score - 8/10 That's me up to date with write ups for the first time in a good couple of months at least. Will I manage to stay that way for the rest of the year? Probably not. But I'll try not to give myself such a backlog once more.
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Post by dsparil on Aug 24, 2022 7:56:20 GMT -5
Terra Crest II: Mandler's Counterattack (TurboGrafx-16, First Time)
Pretty good but also a little too long. At about 1:20 for a straight playthrough, this might be the longest traditional shooter on the platform.
I finished in 02:49:40.
Rating: 7
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Post by spanky on Aug 24, 2022 12:54:25 GMT -5
Panel De Pon (Super Famicom via NSO, First Time)
I guess I had so much fun with Pokemon Puzzle League that I needed to play another version of the game! Beat the versus mode and the line clear modes. First of all, is there a reason they chose the Japanese language version of this game to put on the US version of the NSO when there's a perfectly adequate localized version already...? Regardless, PDP is a puzzle game that has really grown on me in the past few years. I never used to like it because well...it's tougher to play than the Puyo Puyos and Super Puzzle Fighters of the world. It's a bit less random and requires more planning and quicker thinking (IMO of course...). Being a late first party SNES game, it looks and sounds absolutely fantastic and I prefer the overall aesthetics to Pokemon Puzzle League for whatever that is worth.
8/10.
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