by niflhe
It's another year, time for some more games that I played for at least an hour.
(i write these over the course of the year, so any passages of time are denoted by dashes between paragraphs)
Showing 1-10 of 76 items
I said briefly last list that the Final Fantasy VII Remake should not be as good as it is. This still holds true, though I find my motivation waning just a bit as I approach what is likely to be the final few hours. Set entirely during what normally takes 4-5 hours in the original FF7, Remake expands that to a 30+ hour feast for the eyes in the dingy and dystopian two tiered caste city of Midgar. A giant plate in the sky upon which the elite of the city lives blocks out the sun for the lower citizens in the slums. Even through the squalor the people have banded together to eke out some kind of existence. All of this existed in the original game, but it's been expanded in really meaningful ways. Characters everywhere comment on the goings-on of the world, people gather around the one working TV above a food vendor to see the news, small sidequests litter some of the slower moments to give your party some connection to the area. And all this is without touching the combat, which is such a beautiful combination of the classic turn-based style in Final Fantasies of old and the modern attempts at action based combat a la Kingdom Hearts or Final Fantasy XV. It's sublime and an absolute blast to uppercut dudes constantly as Tifa. I spent most of my time playing as Tifa because of just how much fun I had stringing all of her moves together. I never thought I'd be so happy to see Cloud, Tifa, and Barret hanging out again. I missed my friends so dearly. ----- I loved everything up until a point right at the very end where failing a battle set me back half an hour before a big sequence popped off. Extremely frustrating and ended up dropping down to Easy so I never had to repeat that bullshit again.
The Trails series has always been a bit niche, but they have some of the finest character writing and development in any game I've seen. Protagonist Estelle Bright is one of the all-time best characters ever. I love this gang.
Inspired by an Hbomberguy video on how great Fallout: New Vegas is, I loaded up the copy I happened to own on Steam and got to work installing mods and bug fixes to play what they termed as one of their favorite games. I had a lot of fond memories of New Vegas, so I was excited to get back in. About two hours in I had already gotten stuck in three pits that I couldn't fast travel out of and failed two quests. See, here's the thing about New Vegas - at least the New Vegas of my memories on the 360. It's one of the best games I've played and allows the player to really drive the narrative in ways few other games do. It's also one of the buggiest and most broken games I ever played on the 360. I had characters fall out of the world, fall through the map, texture issues that caused black streaks to appear in the sky and swallow me whole, quests that failed randomly, companions that randomly disappeared, and doors that if opened or looked at the wrong way would cause my console to lock up. I love Fallout New Vegas, but it's an absolute goddamn mess.
My father got me one of those Arcade 1UP HDMI Pac-man consoles. The idea is neat, in theory, classic games that are easy to play and hook up to your TV! Wanna show your kid Dig Dug or Mappy or some Pac-Man? Here you go, it's there. Unfortunately, all the sprites are smoothed with no way to turn it off, there's a weird black border around the entire screen, and the controller is awful in terms of usability, design, and feel. Just an absolute waste of money.
I just made it through the prologue(s) and hoo boy those do not prepare you for how wildly the story veers right out of the gate. Saying too much about any of the stories will spoil it all, but I love how 13 Sentinels takes literally every sci-fi trope you can imagine from giant robots, time travel, single screen loops, aliens, magical girls, what have you, and throws them at the wall, and somehow they all stick! Incredible game. ---- The ending reveals didn't quite nail the landing for me, but I also didn't hate it. I felt like it cheapens the experience a bit, but this is very much a journey, not the destination kinda game. Your mileage may vary, but I still highly recommend 13 Sentinels.
Am I going to learn Mahjong this time? (no).
My daughter has expressed some interest in playing Mario Kart but her main strategy is to turn on auto accelerate and course correction, sit back and occasionally use an item. I wonder if she'll still be into this when she's a little older.
I bought this right when Sony announced they were going to shut down the PS3 store and I sorta panic grabbed a few PS3 JRPGs I was missing - and now that Sony has back tracked on that, those prices have mercifully come down a little bit. I like to say I've always enjoyed the Tales games, but that's not exactly true. They're the most B-tier JRPGs around. Fantastic gameplay, stereotypical stories that then twist on their heads, decent characters, but it's always kind of a gamble if I'll fall hard for any given Tales game. I loved Symphonia, loved the Abyss, liked Berseria, and hated Zestiria. Right before playing Xillia, I spent about half an hour trying out the updated Tales of Vesperia which I remember enjoying bits of on the 360, but holy shit I was awful at the combat. Something about it felt so broken and stilted. I loaded up Xillia and it was completely eye-opening. Jude doesn't feel like he's swinging a sword through molasses, he's just flash stepping behind dudes and punching them in the spine and it's incredible. In this house we love and respect Milla.
Rocket tag, demon edition. Removing any semblance of defense stat is interesting, but it makes for an extremely rough early game. Was really helpful that I managed to get Concentrate from a demon skill mutation that let me stomp through the early game casting triple strength Bufu. ---- I feel like I spend as much time staring at the demon fusion menu as I do traversing the overworld. And considering that I do not have an internal map of Tokyo just memorized, I had to find one online (which helped tremendously and I definitely recommend that). How's the story? Fine. It's your standard mainline Shin Megami Law/Chaos/Neutral routes, but demons aren't locked to specific routes (so far). I don't think SMTIV does any favors for itself by making it very hard to tell which of the story paths you're on unless you find one specific NPC at the occasional bar. The characters are decidedly alright, if a bit useless in battle. How did Jonathan make it through the same dungeon I did while only able to cast Bufula and I'm slinging around Megidolas? The world may never know.
I didn't exactly love Streets of Rage 4 on my first run through, but spending a few hours with it and finding a character I love playing as helps. Cherry's dash is really useful in learning the ropes and now I can kinda blaze (hah) through with about any character. I think I might actually grab the DLC for this one!