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

[ejamer]

Severed (3DS)

So I posted in the "what are you playing" thread about this game, mentioning that it was a disappointment initially. I've still got mixed feelings, but liked things well enough by the end of the game to at least understand why some people were really impressed.

What did I enjoy about the game? First off, the art style is fantastic and although I think they took a bit too light of a touch on the story aspects, once everything is done it's got a pretty solid sense of narrative (the game just takes a long time to build into it). Combat is generally good, and I like the push to earn body parts from your enemies that can later be used to upgrade your abilities.

What was I less keen on?
* Level design is pretty ho-hum. There are a few clever moments, and once you get far enough into the game the world is interconnected enough that you don't have to waste too much time back-tracking... but "puzzles" are very light and the vast majority of your progress will be entirely linear and obvious.
* The way that battles scale up by giving enemies an increasing number of buffs (instead of finding more strategic ways to challenge the player) felt disappointing. I did like seeing some enemies be made immune to magic though, as otherwise you might fall into a rut with combat technique.
* the upgrade system was maybe a bit too generous - I had everything fully powered up well before the end of the game, and was sitting on a mass of excess parts. Maybe this is because I'm a bit of a completionist, so ended up getting pretty much everything in the game on my first playthrough and focused on earning extra body parts whenever possible starting early in the game? It would have been nice to have some tougher decisions to make though.

So my final opinion?  I do recommend the game, but people should be aware of what they are getting into. Severed is a mostly linear, touch-based 3D dungeon crawler with a very interesting theme and art style. You might need to stick through the first half of the game to see enough to really appreciate what's being done - but luckily the game is short enough that doing so isn't much of a burden.

What it reminded me of: a mix of Dragon Quest Swords: The Masked Queen and the Tower of Mirrors (Wii) and Killer7 (GameCube).  Severed is quite a bit shorter than either of those games, and more polished than Killer 7. However, I would recommend either or both of these titles to anyone who really enjoyed Severed.

[azeke]

Silent Hill 4: The Room (PS2):

What a hilarious turdburger.

Devs bent over backwards to implemenet ALL features players hate:

• escort missions,
• breakable weapons,
• limited inventory,
• items that make limited inventory even more limited,
• inability to drop items which makes limited invetnroy even more terrible,
• rehashed levels,
• save points that HARM you,
• unkillable enemies,
• enemies that chase you through walls,
• and no bosses nor puzzles nor a decent story to speak of...

This game is a bad joke on people who play it.

[Order.RSS]

Took me ages to wrap this one up, but beat Pandora's Tower (Wii, 2011) this week.



You play as the chain-wielding Aeron, distinctly lacking in personality for most of the game, and you're travelling with Elena, a cursed girl. This curse means she will transform into a gross, dripping purple monster if left untreated. Thus, you team up with the vaguely helpful and also rather creepy Mavda who promises a possible cure. All we need to do is feed Elena, a vegetarian by religion, chunks of slimey monster meat at regular interviews. Consume the hearts of 12 special 'Masters' (bosses) and she'll be cured for good...? Maybe?

Where to get this monster flesh? In any of the 12 Towers (dungeons) nearby of course! Just rip it right from an enemy using your chain, and ultimately murder the Tower Master to yank their heart out. It's rightfully gross, rather disturbing, and not out of place in a horror tale. Adding to the misery: it's pretty obvious that at least the first 5 or so Masters don't even have a fight to pick with you, and most of them are tragic, once-human victims of war and abuse. You're clearly the aggressor in this scenario, legitimising all means in pursuit of an uncertain goal.

When not killing monsters and getting lost in spiralling dungeons, you're trying to keep the spirits of your understandably frightened companion up. Mostly this is done by chatting to her, getting her involved in uncovering the origins of the cursed (she learns herself how to translate, way to go!), and buying or crafting her gifts. While the methods are a bit crude ("just give women gifts and listen to them, in order to level-up your affinity with her!"), I do think the relationship angle is the game's biggest strength.

If you return too late from a Tower and catch Elena mid-transformation, you may find her profusely apologising for making a mess and breaking stuff you bought her, and even attempting to cover up slime spots despite dripping more goo everywhere.
I couldn't help but feel empathetic; if you care about people, especially frail and sick ones, this aspect may really resonate with you.
It's always been a bit skeevy in games like Harvest Moon on GameCube, where you give women the flowers growing in their own yards in order to marry them. By not solely making the relationship a romantic one, but also allowing for a more nursing/caring one, I think Pandora's Tower does manage to somewhat escape the inherent weirdness of dating mechanics in games (i.e.: presumed male player with interest in demure women who react predictable and rather robotically to very surface level conceptions of affection - essentially just bribing for love with goods).

That said...
It took me months to play through this game, because there's just a whole bunch of little flaws.

-The difficulty curve seems almost inverted. Towers 2-6 gave me some real trouble. I died fairly regularly, was constantly running low on supplies, underleveled, out of cash, barely making it back in time to Elena, etc. Then after a few smarter upgrades (skipped straight to the best armour, pooled only resources into upgrading a single weapon) everything suddenly became a lot smoother. But those can't happen early on, meaning the back half of the game feels easier than the beginning. Don't think that was intentional.

-Controls and movement aren't as good as you'd like. The Wii  pointer for the chain works really well, but swinging from anything is just totally unpredictable garbage. You frequently fall off ledges you shouldn't be, but also can't make the jump work reliably. Dodging has a very stiff animation that doesn't smoothly transition into regular movement. Using a weapon, you don't have many combos apart from a charged one, which I found mostly unhelpful a lot of the time.

-Music. This one's a mixed bag, it's decently atmospheric and they reliably repurpose classical pieces to build tension. The Towers are largely ambient noises with occassional musical swells. (The dies irae-esque chanting is a bit prepostorous during the ending perhaps.) When music is prevalent however, in the Observatory where you chill between dungeons, it just gets a bit grating. This has to do with...

-The length of the game. While all the boss fights are cool/interesting, I would REALLY have preferred this game to come in under the 15 hour mark. Just squeeze 2 bosses into a single dungeon, maybe add a floor to every one of them, and cut 5 dungeons out. It's so annoying how 5 entire dungeons are just remixed/harder versions riffing on the same elemental themes you encountered earlier. As it stands, I took 28 hours to reach Ending A. That's just way too long, especially since the game's mechanic mostly plateau out rather early.
I know this comparison is unfair, but The Last Story was 27 hours for me and had me engrossed all the way. Here meanwhile, the prospect of dedicating an hour or two to a dungeon was just not very appealing.

-Speaking of Endings... None of them really quite nail it, do they? The happiest ending is so absurdly, comically happy it completely falls out of tone with the otherwise grim, moody atmosphere. There's a real whiplash ending too which seem to come out of NOWHERE, and then the 2 most appropriate ones both end in the deaths of at least Elena, and Aeron in one too. Feels like something in between Ending A and the S-rank end would have been more appropriate and narratively satisfying?

Conclusion: Pandora's Tower is a really intersting and uneven game. In some regards it feels very close to a moody Zelda, or maybe what 3D Castlevania could have become, and I imagine it might have parallels to Shadow of the Colossus too. In other aspects it feels very different from any other videogame.

It succeeds in building atmosphere, invokes body horror and can genuinely unnerve at times there's a moment where I thought Elena would eat the main character that caught me off guard. Most convincingly, the game got me to care about protecting Elena, playing perhaps overly cautious and returning often to keep the timer at bay.
However, many of those positives come at the price of a way too long game with a rather repetitive gameplay loop. If the sprinklings of mystery pass you by, there's very little to keep you going here. I won't fault the game's ambition, but I don't think it delivered entirely either.

Three stars, comes recommended as a very interesting curiosity, but keep your expectations in check.

[lolmonade]

I brute forced my way into completing Bioshock Infinite (PC) today.  To be brief - The gameplay is much improved and I felt I made much more consistent progress throughout than I did in the original.   That said, I wouldn't necessarily even say I was having a lot of fun, more like it was less a slog than what the original was.  The story was interesting enough for me to want to unfold all that was happening, but  didn't throw me for a loop like the original did.

In essence, compared to the original:

- Story: 7/10
- Gameplay: 7/10
- Pacing: 10/10
- Barbershop Quartets: 10/10

[oohhboy]

Would you please kindly... Yeah the whole thing fell apart after that. It's weird that it took 3 games for them to finally put powers as right click.

Seriously, switch out your gun to use them was such a pain I didn't use them as much as I would have and missed so many opportunities. It didn't help the powers were pretty ineffective at killing without environmental(Even then) without mag dumping. Infinite fixed both of these problems so the combat was a lot more fun. It's those little details.

[broodwars]

Would you please kindly... Yeah the whole thing fell apart after that. It's weird that it took 3 games for them to finally put powers as right click.

Seriously, switch out your gun to use them was such a pain I didn't use them as much as I would have and missed so many opportunities. It didn't help the powers were pretty ineffective at killing without environmental(Even then) without mag dumping. Infinite fixed both of these problems so the combat was a lot more fun. It's those little details.

Or you could just play Bioshock 2, the best game in the series and the one that allowed you to dual wield from the outset.

Seriously, one of the nicer things to come from Infinite is the game's general disappointment leading to people going back & giving Bioshock 2 a critical re-evaluation.

[Mop it up]

Took me ages to wrap this one up, but beat Pandora's Tower (Wii, 2011) this week.

Did you ever run into the infamous freeze glitch? You didn't mention it in your impressions. That glitch is one of the reasons I still haven't played the game, as I haven't wanted to bother with that kind of thing.

[Order.RSS]

Did you ever run into the infamous freeze glitch? You didn't mention it in your impressions. That glitch is one of the reasons I still haven't played the game, as I haven't wanted to bother with that kind of thing.

No, the glitch only appears to occur upon re-entry of the final tower(s) in the NA version, according to pages like this.

This means you have one very useful option:
Clear the final two towers in a single run! It's totally doable if you rush and aren't opposed to using guides. I would highly recommend using this  detailed, annotated video and following it to the second. Yeah that's tedious and may feel like cheating/spoiling the game for yourself, but here's my reasoning:

1. This way you can completely avoid the glitch altogether, assuming it indeed only occurs upon re-entry.
2. There's one or two totally unfair "use this new, randomly spawning item you've only just started using on one specific, unmarked spot to open up invisible portals you cannot progress without" moments in these last towers. You could hypothetically figure these out by sheer happenstance, or perhaps they're hinted at in one of the texts and I missed it... But frankly, it's disrespecting your time late into an already bloated game.

If you still wanna play with an NTSC copy AND do the final tower(s) at your own leisure without a guide, there's a lot of workarounds posted to the Internet. Some claim to reduce crash rates to about 5%. Keep several save files handy for sure. Not sure if any of these work, I did none of them.

Basically, the problem seems to stem from a loading error. People seem to recommend variations on the following: you go to Sheerdrop Spire first, return to the Observatory, stand in the spot where you can access the Towers from, do nothing for at least a full minute until 'the cape stops moving in the breeze' (yes, really). Then open up the Tower select menu and leave that open for several minutes too, before going in.
Some people also say to only enter through the Dusk Tower, and only reach the other through portals.

There's a few more additional/optional steps, such as deliberately 'saving up' cutscenes between Elena and Aeron and emptying those out of the memory (??) right before going in, as well as purposefully bringing some monster meat into the tower (aka letting it spoil). I've also seen people recommend you DON'T bring meat though, so YMMV.
Both of these require more preparation though, and to be honest I think saving up the cutscenes really requires you to constantly be mindful of the glitch and would heavily impede a normal playthrough - doesn't seem worth it.

It's a real bummer, especially since there's a lot of cool lore to be discovered in/after these tower(s) and the story will definitely feel incomplete if you just stop before finishing it. Therefore, in my view, using the single run video and following it to a tee is 100% justified given the amount of trouble it appears to save you.

[Mop it up]

Wow, I wasn't expecting that kind of detailed response. Bravo. After I posted I then noticed that you dated the game as 2011 rather than 2013, so that made me think you probably played the PAL version.

Unfortunately I already bought the US version long ago, might not had heard about the glitch before I did, so I don't want to spend money buying another version, nor do I want to pirate.

I think there were still a couple people reporting the glitch happening on first entry, but even if so it appears that it's far more likely on re-entry at the least. Since I like to take my time and explore things and complete side stuff, then yeah, using a guide and beelining to necessary completion doesn't sound like a fun idea either. It's why it turned me off playing the game even if it doesn't sound like a big deal to others. It's too bad people couldn't develop a homebrew "patch" to fix this glitch.

I mean I guess I wouldn't be following a guide the whole game, so maybe it'd still be worth playing, but knowing it's going to end on a sour note one way or another makes it a bummer.

Anyways, thanks for the advice.

[MagicCow64]

Yeah, I've commented about this before, but I hit the glitch and could never solve it after hours of trying every posted work-around at the time. It was a huge bummer, as I actually liked the game quite a bit despite its issues and really wanted to beat it. This is what 3D Castlevania should have been like!

[MagicCow64]

Mega Man 11 (PC):

Just beat this one an hour ago, clocking in a whopping 3.5 hours. I'm frankly pretty surprised this game got such a glowing reception. It's a significant step down from Mega Man 9 in the design and "gamefeel" departments. There's two or three levels that have a cool motif that shapes the gameplay (Torch Man, Blast Man) but for the most part things are pretty dull/overextended. The boss bots are mostly rehashes of previous boss bots. Mega Man feels sluggish, and the 3D approach keeps things from feeling as snappy and precise as they should. The game is also trivially easy until the first Wily stage; I didn't even figure out half of the boss weaknesses until the final rush because I beat them on my first shot with the buster. The gear system feels like an afterthought and I went long stretches where I forgot about it. There are no secrets to find in the levels (fine for a 9-style game, but this one really needed more meat on its bones). There's only two real Wily levels, and Wily himself is a joke, beat him on my first try.   

There are a few decent ideas kicking around. Having multiple forms to the boss bots is a good concept, but deployed haphazardly. Being able to knock shielded enemies out of their defense with a charged shot is a good addition, relieves a standard annoyance of these games. While the 3D models/backgrounds are hit or miss, the energy effects look good.

[lolmonade]

I'm just 3 or 4 trophies shy of wrapping up Marvel's Spider-Man (PS4), which for me has been the video game equivalent of a Chinese buffet - going back for plate after plate that isn't quite filling until it accumulates and hits me at once that I had too much, then doing the same thing next time I go.

In a lot of ways, the PS4 title feels like the logical evolution of Spider-Man 2.  Combat is brisk but erratic, requiring a healthy use of dodge-then-counter tactics.  There are move and ability upgrades that can diversify your tactics some, but I found sticking to the same few moves took care of most enemies.  The story is good enough to keep you invested, even if you have a good idea of where the story is going to lead, along with a few surprising moments. 

The star of Spider-Man is exploring the city.  I was skeptical reading reviews gushing praise about the web-swinging, since I've read similar praises about other recent Spider-Man titles and found them absolutely lacking the kind of momentum, logic (swinging off of air instead of connecting to buildings), weight you want to feel in movement, and fluidity as you string together swinging from a web, running along a wall, jumping off, running UP the side of a building, leading to a fight where you ground pound an enemy on your opening move.  This game nails the fun of simple movement, a critical component (to me) for an open-world Spider-Man.

And it's this fun in movement that makes side missions and non story critical tasks tolerable, because if it weren't for that, it'd be a chore.  The majority of non-story missions involve either taking a photo of a building, collecting something, time trials, or fighting waves of enemies.  On top of this, each district has a good 15-20 different crime events to stop, which are usually beating down different factions of enemies, with an occasional mission to find a hostage, chase down a runaway vehicle, or rescue civilians trapped in vehicles.  Maybe if I hadn't mainlined so much of the story up-front then doing all the side missions wouldn't feel like a game of "clean up the map".  I would have preferred less side missions that were more developed or diverse, but given the length of the story, I suspect this was a form of padding the length of time to get 100%. 

But the fact I'm still chipping towards 100% completion is a testament to its strengths.  And holy moly, all the collectable costumes.  Hard not to recommend to anyone whose enjoyed open-world superhero games or a fan of Spider-Man.

8/10.

[azeke]

Celeste (Xbox One):


Got the game from Games with Gold on Xbox One and since my 1$ subscription was gonna run out at 16th of January i kinda put aside Assassin's Creed Origins for a while to finish Celeste to at least reasonable degree before my Gold subscription runs out.

A great game. Really, really good level design. It's a shame the game is more known for other aspects instead of great game and level design it has. The way how game teaches your movement options and at the very same screens hints at the tricks you can do to abuse them to reach optional strawberries is very smart.

Hoping the game soon goes on sale so i could buy for reals and finish the fight. Some strawberries still left here and there and some extra levels.

[ejamer]

Finally finished Freedom Planet, and I loved it!

Nice job!  Are you going to do any of the post-game content? We put the game away once finished, but it was enjoyable enough that I wouldn't object to going back for a second round and to explore some of the other characters, etc.

[ejamer]

Ys Seven (PSP)

I've been slowly pushing through this game for the past couple of months, and finally wrapped up the main story. It was enjoyable and worth the time invested.

The Ys series of games haven't always appealed to me, since action-RPG games seem like a weak mix that don't excel at either story-telling or tense gameplay... however, I've learned to appreciate the more casual nature of these games. Combat is a bit button-mashy, although knowing when to make smart use of special attacks and dodging goes a long way to ensuring your survival. Story is mostly typical JRPG fare, including a introducing bunch of familiar tropes for playable characters, but does the job well enough. On both points, you can continually make progress without having to invest too deeply - which has been perfect for me.

I was mildly disappointed to find that there was no post-game content similar to what Ys: Memories of Celceta provided - it would have been fun to race through Ys Seven again with overpowered weapons/characters to complete the quests that I missed. (On the other hand, having already played for something like 25 hours was probably more than enough. The fact I wasn't sick of the game by then is a good sign.)

Although there are "better" games available in the series, Ys Seven still gets a strong recommendation from me.

[ejamer]

Batman: The Brave and the Bold (Wii)

Attractive art and great use of the license.Overall the beat'em up action is well done and the fact you have a new playable character available for each of the 4 "episodes" helps to keep the game fresh and interesting. More creative level design and/or more secrets to discover would have improved the game, but it's not bad as is... and the post-game Bat-mite Challenge is a nice bonus.

My one complaint is difficulty - I know they targeted kids with this game, but it's a shame they didn't add some more challenge levels or settings. Beat'em up games like this are great fun, especially with a friend on the couch, but there is essentially no possibility of failure here so you are literally just putting time in unless you set some kind of artificial limitation to challenge yourself.

Enjoyed playing it, but hard to recommend unless you are gaming with kids.

[ShyGuy]

Alan Wake

With the arrival of Steam Play, I installed this game on my Linux drive and gave it a spin. I played it way back in... 2010? for the first few levels on my cousin's Xbox 360.

Alan Wake is a horror novel writer who visits a small Pacific Northwest town with his wife but then she goes missing. Things start getting weird and it's video game time!

Alan Wake is a game where you run around the woods after dark, shining a flash light at people and shooting them. That is most of it. Occasionally you run across a mild puzzle or fight a "boss battle." There are flocks of birds and flying objects as well. The twist to make it stand out is you have to give enemies a certain amount of light before you can shoot them.

The controls and game mechanics aren't that great. you're run button is the same as your dodge button so every time you sprint you do flail around for a split second. Sometimes the environment gets especially evil and things get blurry and shadows bleed into the image, so you don't know what you're looking at. I wish you could zoom the third person camera out further.

The world design funnels you through an open level and the action mostly happens on the designated path. There is a lot of empty space, but sometimes they try to fill it with items like ammo and grenades to give you a reward for exploring, but it's still mostly empty. There are a number of collectibles that have no bearing on the game and aren't even mentioned in world. Collect your multiple thermos and shoot you stacks of beer cans to unlock achievements! yay! One thing worth collecting are pages of your manuscript which you can read with voiceover from the earnest protagonist. The writing is a bit cheesy , but it helps fill out the storyline.

What I did like was the overall game story. One part Stephen King, one part Twin Peaks, combine into a tub of cheap knock-off juice. The vibe and premise are intriguing and you end up fighting your way through the samey-combat to do the next cutscene or voice over.

The game is good looking. Remedy has a talent for combining a realistic art style and setting with a lot of mood and style. There is a ton of grass blowing in the wind and bushes that don't look like paper cutouts. Be warned though the character models do a really bad job of lip syncing the dialog in the cut scenes.

The sound effects and music are also well done, I enjoyed the songs at the end of each chapter.

I think the game would have been improved by reducing the combat by about 75%. The sections where you are problem solving during the day were my favorite parts. Maybe instead of killing 200 people in the woods you could kill 50, but it would have meaning!

I was a big fan of Max Payne, and this was okay but not quite there. Remedy's newer release Quantum Break isn't very appealing to me but I may give it a try someday.

[MagicCow64]

I probably wouldn't have the patience to play through Alan Wake today, but I did have a go at American Nightmare a while back and thought it was pretty good. Tightens up the gameplay from the original, and has a novel structure. The way the narrative is weaved into the game is also enjoyable, and almost certainly a better use of live action actors than Quantum Break.

[broodwars]

Alan Wake is one of my favorite games of the last generation. I didn't think the combat got out of hand until the DLC, which is VERY combat-focused.

Pity the game sold so poorly that Remedy will never make a sequel to it, despite them constantly teasing that they will in their subsequent games (Alan Wake's American Nightmare & Quantum Break).

[ejamer]

Finished LocoRoco (PSP). Not really keen enough on the game to keep playing through levels to get better scores and/or more stuff. It was generally pleasant, although sometimes frustrating (for all the wrong reasons). As discussed in the "What are you playing?" thread this game ended up being kind of disappointing - considering how many "best of PSP" lists it sits on, and the critical acclaim it garnered from reviewers, it couldn't live up to the hype.

[kaijugamer]

I just finished the single-player campaign of Splatoon 2. I didn't know much about it at first because I went directly to play Online Multiplayer. It was fun but kinda short, good thing Octopath expansion is available.

[pokepal148]

I finished Starlink the other day. This is overall a really good entry in the Star Fox series. The ground combat feels really good (and that's not something I ever expected to say about a star fox game) and the RTS elements feel like a more logical evolution of Star Fox 2's real time elements than something like Star Fox Command. The new controls for All Range Mode take some getting used to but once you get used to them it'll be hard to go back to the all range controls in older Star Fox games. It's hard to describe but it just feels like you're more in control. The lack of classic on rails action is disappointing though.

The decision to move focus away from the Star Fox team is a bit strange honestly, and some of these new characters don't feel as strong as the main Star Fox team. That said, I really like Eli's old cowboy schtick, Shaid is pretty cool, and Chase compliments her ridiculously OP pilot ability (which is matched only by Fox himself) with a really solid backstory and the perfect amount of youthful optimism. While the other new characters they added are kind of forgettable those three in particular feel like much better additions to the Star Fox team than Krystal and I hope to see them included in future entries.

Overall it's a good game and you should play it.

[ShyGuy]

Resident Evil 2 Revelations



After sampling Resident Evil 2 Remake at my cousin's place, I decided to go back and finish RE:R2 (is that the right acronym?)

Claire on a Prison Island! Wait...

This first level of the game makes a bad first impression right from the start, at least it did for me. The setting is generic horror and enemies are even more generic. A rusted out prison and you are facing rusted out "zombies" wrapped in barbwire and carrying spike clubs. Your weapons and items are very limited and it emphasizes survival rather than action.

This game was really designed for two player, and it sucks. One player has weapons, the other does not. In one player you occasionally have to switch back and forth and it's feels clunky. Let's make the game harder with bad gameplay!

The style of gameplay flips in the next chapter and you're playing Barry Burton who is armed to the teeth in comparison.  I like this much better, it feels more like Resident Evil 4 where Leon was equipped to handle whatever the game threw at him! To balance it out your unarmed partner is even worse!

You continue building your arsenal and abilities as the game goes on and it gets easier and easier. What a strange way to design a game!

- This game is BROWN, it's HD console in 2007 brown. It gives Gears or War 1 a run for its money. It gives Resistance Fall of Man a run for its money!

- Claire has a lot of botox and can't move her face.

- After the prison you get a lot of other fun generic horror settings: Creepy Mine, Factory of Death, Run down village, and eventually secret villain lair!

Despite the bad first impression, the game rolls along gets serviceable. Its fun managing your inventory and upgrading your weapons. The cutscenes are cheesy delicious. It doesn't reach the level of the first Revelations game, but I could see where some would prefer it.

The not-so-secret reason this game really exists is for more Raid mode. That seems to be what people online were into. I played a couple rounds and it's alright. It's RE Raid mode!

[decoyman]

Resident Evil 2 Revelations
…Let's make the game harder with bad gameplay!…

Resident Evil 2 Revelations
…- This game is BROWN, it's HD console in 2007 brown. It gives Gears or War 1 a run for its money. It gives Resistance Fall of Man a run for its money!

Hallmarks of the series, both!

I recently played Dust: An Elysian Tale, and had a good time with it. It's a modern, side-scrolling, metroidvania adventure/buddy-copswordsman game with great graphics/effects, decent voice-acting, and fun (if a bit button-mashy) gameplay all under a Disney-esque exterior.

My only complaint with it is that it ends rather suddenly. They spend the whole game building up this villain who seems like he might be sort of sympathetic, but suddenly the game's over and much of the build-up just disappears without any resolution. He's just evil, it turns out, don't worry about it! And then I read a developer diary and realized that yeah, there was supposed to be another chapter after that one, but it got cut when they were trying to meet this Xbox Live Summer deadline. So… that explains that.

Still, it's a good play and I'd recommend it. It's all the more amazing because it was designed almost solely by this formally trained animator who'd never designed a game before and taught himself pretty much everything he needed to create it (i.e., LOTS OF PROGRAMMING).

[Stratos]

I actually liked how the broke up the roles of RE:R2. Worked out great for my wife and I as she liked the more non-violent role. I'm much better with weapons so we made a pretty good team (when she didn't run off screaming and get into worse danger than I could handle)  .