Topic: What is the last game you beat? Thoughts/impressions?

[Evan_B]

In the same boat as you, zeke. Trying to clear out a backlog with little new content coming out in 2016.

[elvshaunt2]

Not much to worry, since summer is coming.

[Order.RSS]

Beat Shantae and the Pirate's Curse (on Wii U)



Kicked a few bucks to charity in the Humble Bundle, mostly to get Affordable Space Adventures. Tried this one too though and found a very competently executed 2D platformer with some Metroidvania tendencies.
 
Shantae controls very precise, music is super catchy and the visual presentation is coherently cartoony throughout. The powerups aren't very unique but they make you considerably more mobile. The story was decent enough, gameplay is varied and the dialogue is generally light-hearted and kinda funny.


Things I didn't like: all the women have stupidly skimpy costumes and the game actively contrives dumb reasons to dress them up in more ridiculous outfits. They make jokes about it, but it still feels at odds to give all these women a lot of agency and simultaneously dress them in bikinis and corsets the whole time. Just kind of a "can't have your cake and eat it too" situation, imo.


Also the final dungeon can go straight to hell with its insane spikey death traps everywhere. It felt rewarding to beat, but the difficulty absolutely skyrockets there. Lastly, concerning the ending: turns out to get the full boss battle you need to collect every bit of dark magic. But I saved in the final dungeon and I'm definitely not gonna backtrack, find all these secrets and go through it again. Watched it on YouTube though and yes it does look like a much cooler ending, but yeah no way.


Final verdict: 8/10 a very polished, fun platformer, with a few things I disliked, but overall would recommend! Kinda feel guilty only paying them a few bucks, since for most of the 12 hours it took me I was having a blast.

[Wah]

Fallout 4
Not as great as excepted, but still a really great game, and of course the modding community is already amazing.

[ClexYoshi]

Dark Souls 3

So, before I start talking, lemme post my final build for my first playthrough.





This is probably middle of the road as far as Souls/Borne is concerned. the game actually feels like... really content-lite at this point? there's less bosses and even zones than even DS1 or Bloodborne. it's really kinda strange... The other weird thing is that in Bloodborne, it seemed like the folks over at From REALLY nailed boss design, but there's some really, REALLY awful bosses in this game... and it stands out, especially given this game's smaller boss count! there are really good ones though too. (champion Gundyr and Nameless King stand out immediatley in my mind.)

System wise, there's stuff I love and stuff I could live without. I like the balance between estus and ashen estus, and pretty much everything brought on by focus points and weapon arts. it feels like more than ever, it's doable to be a mage in a Souls game, and that Attunement is now worth leveling on a pure physical build depending on what weapon you're using and if the weapon art is a big part of what makes or breaks said weapon. I'm not so hot on the poise controversy, fast roll being so easy to attain, and the lack of stability in shields. even if you're using a greatshield with a really high stability ,it feels like blocking an attack eats up like... at least twice the stamina of a roll, and guard breaks are so devestating! combine this with how insanely long some of the attack chains on the regular mobs are in PVE, and like... it feels like the game isn't designed with blocking in mind, and that shields are meant to be a parrying tool and a suppliment for the dodge roll. Seriously, though, I'd fear for what would happen if they put Dark Woodgrain into a DLC or something.

lore wise, I'm glad they crutched more on the stronger Dark Souls 1 lore and gave some closure to certain characters, but at the same time, there's really not NPCs that stand on their own as their own thing. Seigward of Catarina takes the voice actor and appearance of Seigmeyer of Catarina but serves a role similar to Biorr of the twin fangs in what serves as a double Demon Souls reference later on. Anri of Astora is neat and following his/her questline through is important for one of the endings, but they ultimatley feel like a companion that should have been at your side the whole game and only factor into one little part of it. the one new NPC that really stands out to me in my mind that doesn't borrow that much from an existing character or archetype is Greirat of the Undead settlement.

in spite of all my bitching here though, I'm still playing a ton of this game, and I still love it, but I loved Bloodborne, and I loved Dark Souls, and I even loved Demon's souls!

That being said, I'm really looking forward to something like... I dunno, From Revisiting Armored Core or RUNE or one of their other odd IPs.

[Luigi Dude]

Bayonetta 1 + 2

So yeah, these games are awesome.  At first I only planned on playing til I beat the games on their normal settings but before you knew it I was addicted and I just spent the last 3 months straight playing both games.  I ended up playing each for around 80 hours, beating their hardest setting, even went for Platinum's on the normal difficulties as well which I dreaded at first but eventually ended up loving. 

I didn't really have the patience going for all Pure Platinums though, since beating levels without taking any damage is a little too much for me.  I was crazy enough to beat Rodin in both games which almost drove me insane since he's a cheap motherfucker that required days in each game just to train my brain enough to be able to handle him.  Still though, I did feel like a major badass when I finally beat him. Just a crazy experience the whole way.











When it comes down to deciding which I liked more it's kind of hard to decide.   I liked the larger variety of weapons B2 provided, with most of them giving different styles of play allowing for more unique combat then B1.  On the other hand, B1 on Infinite Climax was a hard challenge that was still fair while Infinite Climax in B2 was pretty cheap, with some of the enemies and bosses having attacks almost impossible to predict and dodge in time, requiring you to basically cheat with Bracelet of Time against them which is insanely broken in this game.

So I'd say I enjoyed Bayonetta 2 more for normal play when I just want to **** around and kill everything as fast as possible because of it's smoother controls and better weapon variety, while I find Bayonetta 1 better for when I'm looking for a better skill based challenge on the hardest setting.

[azeke]

Reading your impressions is bittersweet to me because while i am glad you enjoyed yout time with Bayonetta, i am also reminded that i lost my own Pure Platinum saves due to HDD malfunction.

I didn't really have the patience going for all Pure Platinums though, since beating levels without taking any damage is a little too much for me.

There is a trick that makes Pure Platinum challenge easier -- when you take damage you can exit to title screen and from there press "continue" and game will restart the encounter from the last checkpoint.

I was crazy enough to beat Rodin in both games which almost drove me insane since he's a cheap motherfucker that required days in each game just to train my brain enough to be able to handle him.  Still though, I did feel like a major badass when I finally beat him. Just a crazy experience the whole way.

Most people just Pillow Talk power-up which turns all your regular hits into overpowered wicked weaves. I know i did.

Also i recommend you to persevere through some grinding some and unlock nun-chucks in the first game, if you didn't already:

Easily one of the most unique and fun weapons in either games.

[Luigi Dude]

There is a trick that makes Pure Platinum challenge easier -- when you take damage you can exit to title screen and from there press "continue" and game will restart the encounter from the last checkpoint.

That certainly would make things easier.  Maybe I'll try it someday then, but right now I really need to work on the rest of my massive backlog.

Most people just Pillow Talk power-up which turns all your regular hits into overpowered wicked weaves. I know i did.

Yeah I eventually ended up just using a combination of Pillow Talk and Lt Col Kilgore, with Climax Brace equipped to finally beat him in the first game.  I tried to fight him without the Climax Brace but after a while I gave up on that since attacks just don't cause enough damage and when he gets low on health his attacks become way too fast for me to even react to anymore.  Of course even using those, it still required several more hours of practice since one mistake is all it takes to get my ass stuck in one of his combo's and suddenly most of my health is gone.  So many times I was just a few more hits away from killing him and then BAM, I'm cheap shot right before the final blow, only to have to spend another hour before I was that close again.  Still, I consider it a big win when I eventually won, even if it was the easier way to beat him since it was still insanely hard to me.

It's the same reason the only way I could beat him in the second game was by using Rosa with the Bracelet of Time since Bayo and Jeanne just don't cause enough damage to survive a longer fight, especially during the second half when his attacks can kill both of them at full health in a few hits anyway, making the only advantage they have over Rosa pointless.

Also i recommend you to persevere through some grinding some and unlock nun-chucks in the first game, if you didn't already:

Easily one of the most unique and fun weapons in either games.

I got the nun-chucks but didn't really use them too much.  Of course after watching that video I didn't realize how useful they could be so when I replay the game in the future I'll see if I can make good use of them.  I'd say my favorite weapon in both games was the ones you get for beating Rodin.  Being able to use all those different Angel/Demon weapons with it was just too good.

[Soren]

Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright

Almost 40 hours. Completed the game, a half-dozen paralogues, 2 invasions, and almost every challenge that was presented in addition to the free DLC mission.

I like the game, but it's far from perfect. While it does feel like the social aspects of the game are being put at the forefront here, there's still a bit of strategizing to look forward to. More often than not though you'll just be looking to avoid the cheap death. I honestly felt the RNG was not on my side. Way to many times I would roll up to a battle I was confident in only to have my opponent connect when only had a 15% chance of doing so. That would almost certainly snowball into me losing a character, and frustration. The difficulty curve had an odd way of ramping up sometimes. The levels themselves weren't all that memorable aside from the one inside the dragon and the one with the spitting rocks and even then I'm grasping at straws. Even the final battle was a bit of a let down, part of the difficulty coming from not being able to save between the last two chapters. That caused me to go unprepared into the endgame and I got sloppy.

I loved the social elements though, loved the challenge from the paralogues (even though the logic behind them was paper thin) and I loved having my female avatar marry Rhajat (on the subject of her, I felt nothing for her overall.I get why she exists but ultimately she doesn't make up for what kinda made Tharja cool. Her parents also made no sense. One thing that did suck was the slight disparity between genders in this game. Losing Kaze in chapter 15 didn't help. I felt bad that I couldn't get a main character like Sakura to marry. The male options on this game were very limited if you didn't opt for a male avatar.

Overall I like it, but I feel like this game will be overshadowed by Conquest and Revelations. It's not a bad game per-se, but I feel like you'd be hosed if this was the only game of the 3 you played.

Well, on to Conquest now.

[Phil]

Ooh! I'm excited to get back into Fates now! Thanks for the writeup, Soren!

[Order.RSS]

Beat Star Fox Guard (on Wii U).





This came out alongside Star Fox Zero, but honestly I've been playing this a lot more so far. Mostly because Star Fox Zero feels much more like a co-op game, though.

If you're at all into tower defense stuff, this really feels like the ultimate version of that. By monitoring 12 security cameras at once you gotta check for drones and robots that are trying to sneak into your base.
Select a camera that has a good aim at them, and take them out with the camera-mounted gun. There's a few special cameras, like ones that shoot charged shots, ice beams, or hover above to give you a good vantage point. Would've liked more of those though, flamethrowers, or maybe spike traps to slow bots down or something
This is exactly the type of thing Wii U excels at, with 2 screens for optimal control. This should've been a launch game!

Presentation is alright, a little light on music (the last planet has some cool tunes though!) and some sound effects get pretty repetitive. But the Star Fox layer of paint on top feels convincing. The robots are charming and kinda cute, there's voice acting, cutscenes, boss fights and everything. 100 Levels too, plus theoretically endless ones created online by others.

Plot is dumb in typical Star Fox fashion, but I'm glad I've finished this before Star Fox Zero because it feels like it sets the stage for Zero pretty well by fleshing out the world a little bit.
Haven't tried many of its functions yet, like the level editor, online mode or the Amiibo functionality, but I'm already pretty pleased with this purchase.

Minor gripe: from the 5 planets only 3 end in bossfights, would've preferred if all 5 did. Also the last boss is a lot easier than the second one, which just doesn't feel right.


There's no local multiplayer, but it's surprisingly fun to play this whilst others help check the cameras for incoming robots. Very quickly devolves into frantic yelling: "little dudes on cam 4!", "wait no a big yellow one on 12!", "the shield bot is almost at the core!"  etc.


Verdict: the most interesting evolution of the tower defense genre I can think of. A polished package overall that took me 7.5 hours to finish, and there's still quite a dozen extra missions and several modes to go back to. 8/10

[broodwars]

Edit: wrong thread.

[rygar]

Ghosts n’ Goblins - 3DS
 
I originally fell in love with this game in the arcade. The music and sound effects are probably its most enduring hook, but I am also a huge fan of the demonic motif's pulpy art style.

The dark theme, art design, great musical score, interesting enemy design, and diverse progression of stage settings, gives the game narrative depth, and the scrolling pre-turn menu animation adds a sense of expanse.  The gameplay itself is punishing, capricious, and attritional, which strangely adds to the scope. Progress feels earned and takes time, which makes the world feel bigger. Trojan, another Capcom title I love, and a contemporary, is probably similar in length if measured by size of setting. But since it can be beat it in 15 minutes on one life, its world seems smaller.

As a kid, I completed stage 2 in the arcade, and stage 5 on the NES, but I never owned a copy (edit- except for the caveat below)  until now. I won't say I beat it because I used in-stage saves to complete it. I prefer playing it in 10 minute intervals. It would probably take me hours of continuous play to clear stages 3 and 6.

One of my all-time favorite games; I'll play it perpetually as long as I have the 3DS.

[azeke]

^ i have arcade version of GnG on Wii and judging from all i seen from NES version (Gamecenter CX episode and a speedrun on AGDQ) it's a lot more trolly version.

[rygar]

Were you saying the Wii or NES version was the troll-ier? I definitely think the arcade is easiest just based on the fact that I was able to clear level 2 as a kid on a couple quarters. I played the Wii version at a friends house and it was really difficult, but that was a long time ago and we were partying pretty hard while we were playing so I'm not sure how it compares with the 3DS. I had actually picked up a Capcom collection for a PS2 I got second hand a few years ago just to play GnG, but the music was recreated so poorly I never bothered playing since that is one of the game's chief attractions for me.

[azeke]

Wii Virtual Console has both original Arcade version and NES port.

NES port is definitely more trolly with random wizards (?) added that turn you into duck or something -- they weren't in original game.

[rygar]

Interesting. There is an item that turns you into a frog in the NES version. I had memories of the same thing in the arcade, but after looking it up online, I see that you had to do a specific set of actions to get an angel appear who could turn you into a frog. It's coming back to me now. There was also a way in the arcade version to continue to use your weapons as a frog, but in the NES version you can't as far as I know. I just jump over the items.

[rygar]

Fire Emblem - Awakening

I completed this game a month or so ago on Normal Casual, resetting when a character died unless it was really unlucky. I was trying to avoid power gaming, so I didn't read anything on character builds, or even much on mechanics. After it was over, I did a bit of research and began to replay it.  I had planned on writing about that play through since I still have to play a significant portion of the game (I didn't realize the paralouges needed to be unlocked by marriages). But I feel burned out after getting most of them opened and Galeforce queued. I kind of want to take a long break and switch to the 2016 games, but I have about six chapters of unseen paralouge content left, and all the DLC unpurchased.

I really enjoyed this game. It's beautiful, while still rough around the edges in places, and ridiculous, while still being compelling. I think the music is fabulous, the map design visually clever, and I love the 2D art and anime clips.
 
The gameplay is fun and interesting, and as a newcomer, I appreciate that the systems have apparently been simplified. I actually ended up not paying attention to most of it and just relied on the hit percentages and obvious strengths/weaknesses to plan tactics, which was somewhat liberating. The story and characters are obviously cliche at times, but I still found it engrossing, and enjoyed my time with the characters. The main story is compelling enough, and the anime clips enhance it immensely. The collatoral dialouge is frequently amusing. The avatar 2D art is outstanding.

I did feel a tension between getting the most out of relationships and enjoying the battles. The battles are more fun if they are harder, but it's tedious to build relationships if you have to keep resetting, and opening up dialogue trees often conflicted with preferred battle orders. It sounds like the Birthright/Conquest split will address this for me.

I had originally bought the 3DS as a retro machine, but this game has really piqued my interest in contemporary titles.

[Wah]

I do think the relationship's are very well written. (in Europe anyway #nomemes)

[rygar]

 I finished my Castlevania play through this weekend and was going to write it up, but as the credits were rolling, I realized that I had beaten it already.  It was another classic title I played a lot but didn’t own and I didn’t have a memory of getting past the Grim Reaper.  Outside of when you are using the stairs, it’s a fabulous game.  Still very hard, but not as torturous as GnG.  The visual design of the stages and the music are the highlights for me.

[broodwars]

After Platinuming Valkyria Chronicles Remastered, I finally got around to finishing Quantum Break on my Xbox One and...suffice it to say that the only emotion I experienced the entire game was the relief I felt when I was finally able to uninstall it and free up that 122 GB of storage it was hogging. Not since Rise of the Tomb Raider have I see so much money thrown at a project that made me feel absolutely nothing, just pure indifference from beginning to end. Bleh.

[oohhboy]

When did you Buy Quantum Break? The writing was on the wall well before release. If you brought it post release you're your own perpetrator and victim.

[broodwars]

When did you Buy Quantum Break? The writing was on the wall well before release. If you brought it post release you're your own perpetrator and victim.

I bought it at release, played a few episodes, and then put it up for a few months. I only just now got around to finishing it.

[Evan_B]

After Platinuming Valkyria Chronicles Remastered, I finally got around to finishing Quantum Break on my Xbox One and...suffice it to say that the only emotion I experienced the entire game was the relief I felt when I was finally able to uninstall it and free up that 122 GB of storage it was hogging. Not since Rise of the Tomb Raider have I see so much money thrown at a project that made me feel absolutely nothing, just pure indifference from beginning to end. Bleh.

I sure hope you made a mistype there, because that is an absolutely disgusting amount of data.

[oohhboy]

Nope that's real if you install the videos also as the streaming is unreliable. It takes up so much space they don't know compression has been invented. It's absurd, there is about 2 hours of footage, but it eats up more space than a Bluray at 77GB iirc.