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

[Shaymin]

Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony (PS Vita)

I had heard where the ending was going, but to actually see it play out was exhausting (I think the final chapter ran for like, five and a half hours... you disable the map and add a time limit, thanks dicks).

Wasn't too thrilled with the early fridging, especially considering the last time the series had a female MC she ended up strapped to a groping machine at one point. At least it had a nice payoff, though.

[TOPHATANT123]

Metroid Prime 2: Echoes
The treasure hunt in this game is atrocious. There are nine INVISIBLE small bug things scattered throughout the huge map and you are given zero indication of where to find them. It's indefensible and a sin of game design. There are some things Metroid Prime does well, like it makes platforming in first-person work and there are really fun movement options with things like the morph ball. However the last part of the game ruins any goodwill with it's pseudo remake of Milon's Secret Castle. Prime 1 also had a treasure hunt though I remember it's macguffins were all placed in rooms you've not visited yet, and if you simply explore the entire map you will get to fight the final boss. In Prime 2 this isn't the case with it's INVISIBLE items placed in hard to reach areas of placed you've already visited making it near impossible to finish the game without a guide. Lastly another thing that bugs me is the kill rooms where enemies with too much health lock you in a room and force you to kill them, it doesn't help that the shooting mechanics feel dull, like it's missing something that I can't quite put my finger on.

Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne
This game gets heaps of praise but going back to play it for the first time in 2018 it doesn't hold up. There isn't really a story, or even any characters that you can get invested in, in addition to the most annoying dungeon design I've ever come across with invisible teleport puzzles every few paces. The game rarely gives you a good indication of where to go making it extremely difficult to play without a guide. For it's time the battle system would have been revolutionary but there are games released now that do it better and in terms of soundtrack Digital Devil Saga runs rings around it.

I feel like the dungeon designers should have taken to the motto "Do No Harm", I honestly would have rather had more long boring corridors rather than the "puzzles" that feel like they are designed to actively annoy the player.

Yakuza 0
The story telling in this game is phenomenal, the game has so many characters but they manage to make every single one of them unique and feel like they have a presence in the world. The game contrasts a high stakes drama, with a (to the point of comedy) hyper-violent battle system, with lighthearted set of extremely silly side quests and mini games.

Storywise I think I preferred the build up and journey compared to the pay-off at the end, I feel it's a lot to do with this being a prequel and being constrained by having to fit in a timeline. Inside the Yakuza is a big game of politics and I can see how easy it would have been to fall into the trap of making all the Yakuza members feel the same, but they all have their own backstories and motivations and personalities that really make you invested. During the game knows how to craft a mystery and there were many points where I was screaming at the TV things like "Oh my God!" or "Nooo how could you!" or "Whooooah". The writing is just that good.

The game has a real sense of humour, plenty of memorable story missions and there's enough side content to keep you going for 100+ hours. It's cheap too! Highly recommended.

[Sarail]

Battle Chasers: Nightwar

Goodness, what a game. Game has a super heavy emphasis on battles - I mean, the game is titled Battle Chasers, after all. But if you're looking for a JRPG type of game to play that is crazy big on aesthetics and art style, then Battle Chasers is for you.

I loved every single bit of my 52 hour play-through. I found all of the ultimate weapons for my primary three party members and levelled them to max level. Using the Tolkas Arena is a great way to do just that.

I found the sound effects and music really well put together. When Gully lands a hit on an enemy, you really feel the hit - thanks in part to the HD rumble, of course. I loved the art style, and you can definitely tell artists who worked on the Darksiders series, worked on this game as well. Alumon could be straight out of Darksiders!

But yes, heavy emphasis on battling, and story sequences are played out through a series of comic still frames with small bits of animation thrown in here and there. Most of these take place before dungeon boss sequences – but there are points where they'll stop the gameplay to drop another to pad the story along. They're fun sequences, definitely. Great artwork.

Seriously, if you love JRPGs, then this game is for you.

I recently finished Battle Chasers myself, it was a great game. The Perk system was really important and I would often re-arrange mine to get the most out of my crew. My mine three settled down to Calibretto, Alumon, and Garisson. Who did you play as?

Ah! I ran with Red Monika, Alumon, and Garrison. Garrison, especially, got WAY incredibly strong.

[ShyGuy]

Battle Chasers: Nightwar

Goodness, what a game. Game has a super heavy emphasis on battles - I mean, the game is titled Battle Chasers, after all. But if you're looking for a JRPG type of game to play that is crazy big on aesthetics and art style, then Battle Chasers is for you.

I loved every single bit of my 52 hour play-through. I found all of the ultimate weapons for my primary three party members and levelled them to max level. Using the Tolkas Arena is a great way to do just that.

I found the sound effects and music really well put together. When Gully lands a hit on an enemy, you really feel the hit - thanks in part to the HD rumble, of course. I loved the art style, and you can definitely tell artists who worked on the Darksiders series, worked on this game as well. Alumon could be straight out of Darksiders!

But yes, heavy emphasis on battling, and story sequences are played out through a series of comic still frames with small bits of animation thrown in here and there. Most of these take place before dungeon boss sequences – but there are points where they'll stop the gameplay to drop another to pad the story along. They're fun sequences, definitely. Great artwork.

Seriously, if you love JRPGs, then this game is for you.

I recently finished Battle Chasers myself, it was a great game. The Perk system was really important and I would often re-arrange mine to get the most out of my crew. My mine three settled down to Calibretto, Alumon, and Garisson. Who did you play as?

Ah! I ran with Red Monika, Alumon, and Garrison. Garrison, especially, got WAY incredibly strong.

Yeah, Garrison was doing 10-11k damage with a Warblade Strike at the end for me. I had his perks setup for Criticals and Bleeding for most of the back half of the game, and I could sting almost any enemy and he would be dead in three turns.

Monika was great to, only Character I could get evade somewhat consistently. And her assassin attack did a ton of damage.

[ShyGuy]

2. Red Steel 2 (2010) a.k.a. door opening simulator



This one's more interesting to discuss, but a less successful game. Red Steel 2 is a pretty high quality production on Wii, I feel. Neat cell-shaded look, Wii Motion Plus is used to make a lot of different sword attacks possible, in addition to gunplay with the pointer, it's fully voice acted, and builds a pretty fun ninja-western world.

That said, you can really feel the game straining against the Wii hardware limits. I had several glitches locking me behind doors requiring reloading of a previous checkpoint (luckily they are everywhere), as well as it completely freezing the Wii. Most noticeable of all though, the environments are comprised of MANY smaller interlocking environments - Metroid Prime style.

Remember how the loading in Metroid Prime felt almost seamless from door to door? Yeahhhh not the case here. Almost every door will take a couple of seconds minimum, and since most of the environments are pretty sparse once you've cleared out the enemies, the gameplay loop quickly turns into moving between empty spaces, knocking down an ENDLESS supply of crates for money (hello carpal tunnel), and waiting for the next door to open.

Presentation is pretty good, the story is suitably cliché without turning into complete parody, a few of the later bossfights are genuinely challenging, the missions are just short enough to trigger your 'just one more' impulse. Overall, it's a pretty breezy experience to play through, but it also feels very shallow. I enjoyed my time with it, but will definitely forget all about it 5 years from now.
Three stars, barely.

Red Steel 2 was one of my favorite Wii games, and probably the best Wii Motion Plus game in my opinion. It's a little light on the content, but it felt about average for an action game to me at the time, Of course, I did a 100% on all side quests and upgrades so that helped. I really enjoyed the boss fights, and normally that is one of my least favorite things in games.

[broodwars]

Finished Chasm tonight on PS4, a game that released exactly one week before Dead Cells.

Just go play Dead Cells instead. Yeah, Chasm is a "real" Metroid-style Castlevania knock-off, but it's extremely average. I had an enjoyable 12 hours with it, and feel no real compulsion to go back to it.

[Order.RSS]

Metroid Prime 2: EchoesThe treasure hunt in this game is atrocious. There are nine INVISIBLE small bug things scattered throughout the huge map and you are given zero indication of where to find them. It's indefensible and a sin of game design. There are some things Metroid Prime does well, like it makes platforming in first-person work and there are really fun movement options with things like the morph ball. However the last part of the game ruins any goodwill with it's pseudo remake of Milon's Secret Castle. Prime 1 also had a treasure hunt though I remember it's macguffins were all placed in rooms you've not visited yet, and if you simply explore the entire map you will get to fight the final boss. In Prime 2 this isn't the case with it's INVISIBLE items placed in hard to reach areas of placed you've already visited making it near impossible to finish the game without a guide. Lastly another thing that bugs me is the kill rooms where enemies with too much health lock you in a room and force you to kill them, it doesn't help that the shooting mechanics feel dull, like it's missing something that I can't quite put my finger on.

This is the biggest Metroid game I've yet to play. Every time I think about doing so I read something that makes me hesistant, like your post haha. Are those invisible bugs only there at the end, or could one hypothetically get them during the playthrough already? I might compromise and just keep a guide with their locations open, the Metroid Prime padding scavenger hunts are such a drag on the games. Kills the pacing, needlessly adds time, and it's not like they tend to add some sort of critical element without which the story would make sense.

Red Steel 2 was one of my favorite Wii games, and probably the best Wii Motion Plus game in my opinion. It's a little light on the content, but it felt about average for an action game to me at the time, Of course, I did a 100% on all side quests and upgrades so that helped. I really enjoyed the boss fights, and normally that is one of my least favorite things in games.

Yeah the boss fights are certainly the highlight. I haven't played other Motion Plus games besides Nintendo Land, so couldn't compare, but yeah it does feel pretty accurate. What else required Motion Plus, Skyward Sword, Flingsmash, and Wii Sports Resort are the only ones I know of tbh.

[ShyGuy]

I think the ones you listed are the highlights

[TOPHATANT123]

I assume it's possible to get a few of the keys before they're necessary but personally I didn't get any of them berforehand.

[Order.RSS]

Here's a big one, The Last Story (2012, Wii).



This one got recommended to me on the Discord, and man was it a ride. The Last Story is a fast-paced action RPG where you fight in real time and simultaneously direct your party of mercenaries around. They get caught up protecting a lady of royalty of an island nation on the verge of (basically nuclear?) war with a southern continent.
No random battles, all the fetchquesty bits are entirely optional, a score with so many highlights, fantastic localisation with loads of U.K. accents represented and fun banter... Yeah I really dug this one.

Are there problems? Sure, the framerate can't always keep up with the size of the city they've created and will outright stutter during some of the bigger fights in the mines with loads of enemies and particle effects from spells popping off everywhere. The multiplayer mode is also down of course now, since it was online only - no local option.
The game is kind of ugly by today's standards too. Lots of bloom, and the major hub city is essentially all browns/beiges/grays. I personally also really dislike many of the character designs, though your mileage may vary there. Their voice acting picks up the slack though, really strong here.

Those technical & visual problems aside, I would also say the game makes some... curious narrative decisions at times. I'm pretty sure there's a sidequest which allows your main character to date several NPCs? I didn't follow that quest so could be wrong, but it feels inconsistent with the otherwise pretty central love story.

More importantly however, the game gives these false choices sometimes. There's fairly major reasons why you would want to refuse to cooperate with the Duke, and many characters encourage you to turn down his offers. But actually turning him down is basically impossible, since your character is dim as a lamp and won't see the super obvious warning signs until it's way too late.
While that's kind of neat in that the story basically makes you an accomplice to actual fucking genocide, it also really, really sucks you can't prevent that from happening because of these false choices. Don't pretend like I have a choice, especially on major themes like this, if you're just gonna force the player to pick one option anyway.

I have one more curious complaint about the pacing: the game is just around 40 chapters long, which I cleared in 27 hours. However, around chapter 30, 31~ish the plot basically goes full-throttle towards the finish. I suppose it's a good thing that everything felt tense and critical enough to wanna keep playing, but it basically overshot my planned bedtime by oooooh four hours? Haha, I suppose blaming my lack of self-control on the game is unfair, but that felt a bit wonky in terms of time balancing.

I've read some things online about people thinking the battle system doesn't really take advantage of all its potential until the very last bosses. Not sure I agree with that, as it gets really complex and stressful by the end. The last fight especially is really tough and took me close to an hour to figure out. Up until there though, the game is mostly smooth sailing which I like.

The game is just kind of delightful really. You can paint your armours in really garish colours, so I had the big brute guy in hot pink and black, the shy introverted girl in a hideous tint of snot yellow, my main character I tried to turn into a walking rainbow for shits & giggles, had another one in Halloween colours running around. The game also tracks some really idiotic stats, like the amount of times you bang your head on street signs, trip over fallen oranges, and even rewards you for rudely bumping into people a lot. You can even load banana peels on your crossbow to trip up people and they even work on one of the final bosses, hilariously.

Add to that quite some strong characterisations, again, fan-tas-tic music, fast-paced combat, skippable filler chapters, some gorgeous CGI cutscenes, and you basically get what Final Fantasy 8 should always have been: a quarter of the length, techno-fantasy mix, floating castles, prison breaks, sewers, romance to actually root for, much more streamlined inventory stuff and way less obtuse.

Recommendation: if you have The Last Story still wrapped on a shelf somewhere, hook up your Wii (U) and play this one. You'll know within half an hour if you'll like it, since it hits the ground running and rarely lifts its foot from the gas. If I was an objective reviewer, I'd point to the problems and give it four stars. Luckily however, I can freely choose to ignore them and declare this my favourite Wii game since Brawl.
FIVE STARS.

[ShyGuy]

Went back to and finished Rime for the Switch. Sure it has an unpleasant case of the stutters all too often, but it doesn't really affect the gameplay. Which is easy breezy puzzle platforming for the most part. The story has a satisfying ending, although the connection to the rest of the game is kinda tenuous.

Score: A Solid 7

[broodwars]

Went back to and finished Rime for the Switch. Sure it has an unpleasant case of the stutters all too often, but it doesn't really affect the gameplay. Which is easy breezy puzzle platforming for the most part. The story has a satisfying ending, although the connection to the rest of the game is kinda tenuous.

Score: A Solid 7

It makes more sense if you go back and look at the chapter names now that you've unlocked chapter select.

[ejamer]

Finally finished Freedom Planet (Wii U), and rather enjoyed the game. It played well and had interested level design. The different characters feel good and are unique enough to add good replay value. There might be a few too many WTF moments regarding the story for my preference... but it still holds together well enough.


Definitely gets a recommendation from me. Anyone who wants a fast paced and colorful action/platformer should check it out.

[Sarail]

Here's a big one, The Last Story (2012, Wii).



This one got recommended to me on the Discord, and man was it a ride. The Last Story is a fast-paced action RPG where you fight in real time and simultaneously direct your party of mercenaries around. They get caught up protecting a lady of royalty of an island nation on the verge of (basically nuclear?) war with a southern continent.
No random battles, all the fetchquesty bits are entirely optional, a score with so many highlights, fantastic localisation with loads of U.K. accents represented and fun banter... Yeah I really dug this one.

Are there problems? Sure, the framerate can't always keep up with the size of the city they've created and will outright stutter during some of the bigger fights in the mines with loads of enemies and particle effects from spells popping off everywhere. The multiplayer mode is also down of course now, since it was online only - no local option.
The game is kind of ugly by today's standards too. Lots of bloom, and the major hub city is essentially all browns/beiges/grays. I personally also really dislike many of the character designs, though your mileage may vary there. Their voice acting picks up the slack though, really strong here.

Those technical & visual problems aside, I would also say the game makes some... curious narrative decisions at times. I'm pretty sure there's a sidequest which allows your main character to date several NPCs? I didn't follow that quest so could be wrong, but it feels inconsistent with the otherwise pretty central love story.

More importantly however, the game gives these false choices sometimes. There's fairly major reasons why you would want to refuse to cooperate with the Duke, and many characters encourage you to turn down his offers. But actually turning him down is basically impossible, since your character is dim as a lamp and won't see the super obvious warning signs until it's way too late.
While that's kind of neat in that the story basically makes you an accomplice to actual fucking genocide, it also really, really sucks you can't prevent that from happening because of these false choices. Don't pretend like I have a choice, especially on major themes like this, if you're just gonna force the player to pick one option anyway.

I have one more curious complaint about the pacing: the game is just around 40 chapters long, which I cleared in 27 hours. However, around chapter 30, 31~ish the plot basically goes full-throttle towards the finish. I suppose it's a good thing that everything felt tense and critical enough to wanna keep playing, but it basically overshot my planned bedtime by oooooh four hours? Haha, I suppose blaming my lack of self-control on the game is unfair, but that felt a bit wonky in terms of time balancing.

I've read some things online about people thinking the battle system doesn't really take advantage of all its potential until the very last bosses. Not sure I agree with that, as it gets really complex and stressful by the end. The last fight especially is really tough and took me close to an hour to figure out. Up until there though, the game is mostly smooth sailing which I like.

The game is just kind of delightful really. You can paint your armours in really garish colours, so I had the big brute guy in hot pink and black, the shy introverted girl in a hideous tint of snot yellow, my main character I tried to turn into a walking rainbow for shits & giggles, had another one in Halloween colours running around. The game also tracks some really idiotic stats, like the amount of times you bang your head on street signs, trip over fallen oranges, and even rewards you for rudely bumping into people a lot. You can even load banana peels on your crossbow to trip up people and they even work on one of the final bosses, hilariously.

Add to that quite some strong characterisations, again, fan-tas-tic music, fast-paced combat, skippable filler chapters, some gorgeous CGI cutscenes, and you basically get what Final Fantasy 8 should always have been: a quarter of the length, techno-fantasy mix, floating castles, prison breaks, sewers, romance to actually root for, much more streamlined inventory stuff and way less obtuse.

Recommendation: if you have The Last Story still wrapped on a shelf somewhere, hook up your Wii (U) and play this one. You'll know within half an hour if you'll like it, since it hits the ground running and rarely lifts its foot from the gas. If I was an objective reviewer, I'd point to the problems and give it four stars. Luckily however, I can freely choose to ignore them and declare this my favourite Wii game since Brawl.
FIVE STARS.

Oh, goodness. Great review.

I have five favourite RPGs. And those five are as follows:

Chrono Trigger
Xenoblade
Final Fantasy VI
The Last Story
Final Fantasy IX

In that order, too. I long so much for an HD revisit of this game for Switch. I'm not sure what Mistwalker Studios are doing at the moment (maybe phone games, LOLs), but Nintendo need to buy them outright, and make them their new "Final Fantasy" studio. I seriously love The Last Story so much, as I feel it could be a stronger series than Final Fantasy could ever dream of being. Sakaguchi knows how to create wonderful characters, and their stories are so fantastically woven together in The Last Story. I want The Last Story II...and then TLS III...and TLS IV...and so on.

If Nintendo aren't going to get Camelot to continue with Golden Sun, then The Last Story should be their franchise RPG series. Yes yes, they own Monolithsoft, and Xenoblade is all kinds of wonderful, but there's something about the characters and story of TLS that Xenoblade just can't touch. They're so memorable, and their actions speak massive amounts of volume more than the previously mentioned RPG series.

[Order.RSS]

Oh, goodness. Great review.

I have five favourite RPGs. And those five are as follows:

Chrono Trigger
Xenoblade
Final Fantasy VI
The Last Story
Final Fantasy IX

In that order, too. I long so much for an HD revisit of this game for Switch. I'm not sure what Mistwalker Studios are doing at the moment (maybe phone games, LOLs), but Nintendo need to buy them outright, and make them their new "Final Fantasy" studio. I seriously love The Last Story so much, as I feel it could be a stronger series than Final Fantasy could ever dream of being. Sakaguchi knows how to create wonderful characters, and their stories are so fantastically woven together in The Last Story. I want The Last Story II...and then TLS III...and TLS IV...and so on.

If Nintendo aren't going to get Camelot to continue with Golden Sun, then The Last Story should be their franchise RPG series. Yes yes, they own Monolithsoft, and Xenoblade is all kinds of wonderful, but there's something about the characters and story of TLS that Xenoblade just can't touch. They're so memorable, and their actions speak massive amounts of volume more than the previously mentioned RPG series.

Thanks, I love that people here still remembers games like this and Pandora's Tower! Yeah Mistwalker are doing mobile games now, they're called the Terra Battles series I think. Apparantly the director said he intended Last Story as a one-off, but I also found this article of him expressing at least some interest.
 
But yeah given MonolithSoft's recent success with XC2 and the speed at which they can produce (XCX, Project X Zone 2, Breath of the Wild assistance, XC2, XC2: Torna are all within 3 years of each other), I expect Nintendo sees them as their main RPG house now - with AlphaDream & Intelligent Systems on the side. [EDIT: whoops totally forgot about Pokémon haha]

I think Last Story could really benefit from a Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn type of sequel, with characters from the Gurak kingdom in the lead roles this time. A major gripe for me with the story was how the genocide on their civilians is just never brought up again really, despite being a rather brutal, heart-wrenching sequence. A sequel from their perspective could paint our heroes as (accomplices to) genocidal mass-murderers; I'd say that's enough reason for conflict to rise anew. The current ending, while satisfying, is a bit too happy and perfect given the events that transpired.

From those of your list I've only played Chrono Trigger, which I loved as well. From Final Fantasy I only played 8 and low-key hated it, should try 9 or one of the classics one day... I did start Xenoblade X years ago, but maybe I'll download the first Xenoblade after I'm done with Pandora's Tower instead to complete the 'Rainfall trilogy'.

[TOPHATANT123]

I really want to play The Last Story, whenever I go to a used game store I immediately go to "T" in the Wii section. It's such a shame it wasn't put on Wii U virtual console.

[BranDonk Kong]

Ninja Gaiden (NES)
It only took me 29 years to beat this game. Such a classic. It's such a difficult, yet easy game - once you learn all the patterns and stuff you can burn right through it. It would be awesome if Tecmo put out a direct sequel on Switch. Now I'm on Ninja Gaiden II: The Sword of Chaos.

[ShyGuy]

Wow, Ninja Gaiden is considered one of the hardest NES games ever. I remember watching the Angry Video Game Nerd episode about it and he couldn't get through.

[Soren]

The Last Story is one of my favorite RPGs ever, and this is coming from someone who's not really that into RPGs.


I finished Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus on Switch. I decided early to just play on an easy difficulty and just space out. And it works great for that. Finished the main story in about 10 hours and while there's some filler content still to explore I found that I don't really need to play it much more than that. (Also the loading times between areas can be too much). It's honestly a marvel that I got to play it on the Switch screen because even though this is a great port it sometimes feels like the game is about to crumble at the seams from how much it's taxing the hardware. Scenes can look muddy and it always feels like there's a light coat of vaseline on the screen. That being said the combat feels really good. Gunplay is excellent even with Joy-Cons. The plot is beautiful b-movie nonsense and I couldn't stop grinning as it got more and more ridiculous.

[BranDonk Kong]

Ninja Gaiden II (NES)
Better than the first one. Harder, yet also a little bit easier. The double/tripe Ryu Biff is awesome, especially since it applies to weapons. I really didn't even get the hang of using it properly until the actual final boss fight - I feel like it would be *incredibly* difficult without having that buff going in. Only took about three tries. Fucking great NES game though, cut scenes (while the dialog is corny as ****) are amazing. Time to start the final part of the trilogy.

[broodwars]

I recently finished (and Platinumed) the SP Campaign of Onrush, and overall I quite enjoyed it. The game desperately needs some new modes & maps it'll never get and some of the challenges towards the end of the campaign are downright sadistic. The "Tournament" events are also a colossal pain since they drag on for 4-5 matches, and you have to win all of them in what can often be a very luck-reliant affair.

Still, great to see creativity in the racing genre again, which of course means it totally failed in the marketplace.

I also recently finished (and Platinumed) Guacamelee 2, and...eh...it's OK. It's basically Guacamelee 1 again, but with slower pacing, more Ikaruga B.S. and more chicken powers. The team has still never learned when to end a joke, so they'll have sections of the game dedicated to mocking specific things (including criticism of Guacamelee 1) that feel like they just drag on forever.

[TOPHATANT123]

Deus Ex Mankind Divided (PS4)
I really love the world of Deus Ex. For the sequel they took something dumb where basically everyone temporarily turned into zombies in Human Revolution and instead of ignoring it they fully explore the consequences of this dumb thing that happend. It feels like it's missing the stakes of Human Revolution but this is still a great game. Breaking into people's apartments and snooping around is always a joy.

One gripe I had with the game is that the subtitles are really tiny and lots of the in-game dialogue isn't captioned. Which is a shame because there is some really great world building to be found from listening to radios and televisions.

Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty HD (PS3)
Wow what an amazing game. The attention to detail really is incredible, and there are some really memorable moments that will stay with me towards the end of the game. I think Jonny said it best on RFN when he said Kojima needs an editor, if you cut down the exposition monologues during the ending by half you would have a greater impact. Metal Gear Solid 1 is still my favourite of the two, there's something endearing about low-poly Snake and it feels more impressive that such a game was pulled off on the PS1 rather than the PS2.

Yakuza Kiwami
Kiwami is a remake of the first Yakuza game and I don't think there's any arguement that Kiwami isn't inferior to Yakuza Zero. Kiwami has everything Zero has but less, there's things you expect to be reused and then there's some things like the boat area which seemingly have no reason to be in both games, however since Kiwami has the claim as the original game it's difficult to tell who's copying who like a snake eating it's own tail.

From the gameplay to the story Kiwami feels very familiar, however I commend the work they've done making Zero and Kiwami feel like a cohesive story, even though Zero was added after the fact and I'm looking forward to seeing where the story goes in future entries. The game's redeeming feature that ups it from a good game to a great game is Majima Everywhere, it makes as much sense as it sounds and adds another layer of humour and surprise to the game, keeping it just fresh enough to warrant playing despite the mass reuse of elements from Zero.

[Order.RSS]

Still, great to see creativity in the racing genre again, which of course means it totally failed in the marketplace.

Just out of curiosity, what would you consider other, recent racing games that tried things a bit differently? I can really only think of DiRT Rally with its time-rewind feature to compensate for the difficulty, and maybe that racing-platformer hybrid Skylanders game I guess...

[broodwars]

Still, great to see creativity in the racing genre again, which of course means it totally failed in the marketplace.

Just out of curiosity, what would you consider other, recent racing games that tried things a bit differently? I can really only think of DiRT Rally with its time-rewind feature to compensate for the difficulty, and maybe that racing-platformer hybrid Skylanders game I guess...

Split/Second's an easy pick there, along with Sonic All Stars Racing Transformed. Going back to the N64 days, I'd also cite Beetle Adventure Racing and Diddy Kong Racing.

[TOPHATANT123]

Overcooked 2 (Switch)
Overcooked 2 is really fun but it's a disappointing sequel. There isn't much of a step up in content and in some cases it's lateral or a step down.

To change chefs you have to go back to the main menu now unfortunately making it more a set and forget feature. Online is very limited and has connection problems, we also encountered bugs that meant we had to restart levels but it didn't happen often enough for it to be a big issue. There's not really much of an evolution in terms of challenge and while there are still some annoying levels I didn't think there were as many as the first game.

It's a fantastic co-op game, but if you're interested I'd start with the original Overcooked Special Edition that comes with some extra dlc.

I Am Setsuna (Switch)
It's a ok RPG but it doesn't go much further than that. The battle system isn't anything special but it works, same goes for the story, it's not overwhelmingly boring as there are a handful of interesting story beats but overall the characters aren't that memorable and neither is the world. I liked the soundtrack and I feel like they did the "Only Pianos" thing better than Breath of the Wild did.

My Switch says my playtime was around 35 hours so it's on the shorter side of RPGs, but your time is probably best spent elsewhere