2020 52 Games in 1 Year Challenge!! - The Bear and Badger

retroking1981

It was a 9 on PS2.

The remake is in my Pile O Shame.

Moot_Geeza

What I thought.....

16. Shadow of the Colossus - PS4

Finished it then. I still hate the controls (on and off the horse), I still hate the cumbersome tit of a main character (woah, woah!! Ledge!), I still hate the last boss, I still hate the randomness of the readying-arm-for-strike thing, I still hate the fact that your character has a lie down here and there after taking a hit, and I still hate all of the in between boss bits. But I still really like the game, in spite of all my grievances. At times its Ueda's best - honestly, the best bits are among the finest sections in all of videogamedom - but when it misfires its his worst. A harsh [7], dropped a point thanks to the final colossus.

retroking1981

I reckon I'll end up feeling the same.

As a remake of a 15 year old game I can accept that. What I'm more nervous about is The Last Guardian, which I won't be as lenient on.

JonB

Moot_Geeza wrote:

What I thought..... 16. Shadow of the Colossus - PS4 Finished it then. I still hate the controls (on and off the horse), I still hate the cumbersome tit of a main character (woah, woah!! Ledge!), I still hate the last boss, I still hate the randomness of the readying-arm-for-strike thing, I still hate the fact that your character has a lie down here and there after taking a hit, and I still hate all of the in between boss bits. But I still really like the game, in spite of all my grievances. At times its Ueda's best - honestly, the best bits are among the finest sections in all of videogamedom - but when it misfires its his worst. A harsh [7], dropped a point thanks to the final colossus.

It's no Supermarket Shriek, right?

Moot_Geeza

Supermarket Shriek is a reasonably good example of something it's definitely not. You couldn't accuse SotC of having a pixel perfect control scheme for a start.

hylian_elf

Don’t forget. Heave Ho is a 10.

Moot_Geeza

I can't really comment on that one 'cos I haven't played it. Oh wait I have!

Heave-Ho! [10]
Shadow of the Colossus [8]
Shadow of the Colossus 2017 [7]

Journey [4]

Moot_Geeza

The Last Guardian is an [8] retro, quality experience on the whole (in my heinous opinion).

acemuzzy

It's always reassuring when both Elf and Moot seem totally wrong

Diluted Dante

When they post you mean?

Moot_Geeza

One of my alts is very well respected around these here parts so I'm still winning.

cockbeard

I'd describe myself more as "tolerated"

Moot_Geeza

Haha if asked I was 100% planning to reply with Cocko.

cockbeard

Thank you .. ... .... father

Moot_Geeza

I think everyone knows I'm an alt by now anyway. [8] for Videokid??

acemuzzy

I'm ready to claim Baba Is You with a completion flag now, but may carry on some more, so not nailing a sore yet (but thinking it's a [9]).

With two awful Midnight games, that's me up to 5 overall.

hylian_elf

2. Astral Chain (Switch) - 10/1 - 30hrs
Slow start but once this got going and you unlock some abilities and skills, the combat is good Platinum stuff as always. The mix of styles is good and works really well. Not the best example of each genre it puts into the mix, but the overall game is far better than the sum of its parts.
[9]

b0r1s

I’m glad you said that. Just tried the first bit of this yesterday and it seemed a bit basic and button bashy. Figured powering up will make it a better experience.

hylian_elf

Trust me, by the last fight, you’ll be dancing round enemies and [enter fight mechanic here] and [another spoiler mechanic here]. You can still mash your way through, but you can do that in DMC and Bayonetta. But why would you? Doing it well and feeling like a badass is the name of the game.

But yeah. Slow start. Bear with it.

cockbeard

hylian_elf wrote:

Trust me, by the last fight, you’ll be dancing round enemies and [enter fight mechanic here] and [another spoiler mechanic here]. You can still mash your way through, but you can do that in DMC and Bayonetta. But why would you? Doing it well and feeling like a badass is the name of the game. But yeah. Slow start. Bear with it.

I was reading the Book of Three a little while ago, and reading your redacted bit I'm think of Gurgi and assume it must be"smashings and bashings"

Wariospeedwagon

I'm glad Verecocha has torn into SotC! I've bounced off it a bunch of times since the original release and am planning on doing it once and for all this year. I feel as a video game nerd it's my duty to at least finish it once.

Wariospeedwagon

5 - Forza Horizon (XB1) - 7/10

This has been polished up a little bit for XB1, with a higher resolution and the jagged edges mostly smoothed over.

I'd never played this before but really like FH's 3 & 4. This is much like a barer version of those games. It's set out pretty much the same way, with an open map you can travel around, finding courses, winning races for new cars, money and EXP to unlock further races etc etc.

It doesn't quite have the feeling of abandon as the later games, given you are largely restricted to driving on the roads - you can't really go bush bashing and finding cliffs to jump off, and what not. The actual driving is very enjoyable and varied though.

You can't do your own avatar, and you are stuck with this silent handsome 5 oclock shadow man who the ladies seem to like. He wasn't my cup of tea though.

There is more of a story, where you're working your way up the ranks and challenging star drivers etc. I think the main rival was called Deckard Flint or something. I didn't care about any of that though and had turned the sound down early on, so I could listen to other things on my phone.

I normally like listening to car games' extensive music content. I did not like this one though. The second song I came across was by Lost Prophets, a band I had successfully avoided ever hearing before. I was surprised something like that mightn't have gotten patched out at some point. I don't know.

Anyway it was mostly quite good but the series gets better.

Moot_Geeza

12. Flipping Death - Switch (6-7hrs)

Took a while to warm to it, started to enjoy it immensely after an hour or so, then spent the back half of the game - at least - wishing it would end. In essence it's a humorous point and click that ditches the pointing and clicking in favour of wonky platforming, and massively over-eggs the humour. It is amusing in a fair few places, but it's all a bit relentless. Puzzles mostly consist of either obvious or contrived 'go here, possess this, do that' checklists, which wears thin pretty quickly. The screen flip real life/afterlife gimmick is neat, and it's a very nice looking game at times. It's ridiculous how often I reference Haunting Starring Polterguy these days, but here goes again: it's a bit like that crossed with Grim Fandango with a bit too much bad tween TV chucked in for good/bad measure. Tried to like it Unc, failed. The platforming is horrendously clunky and there just wasn't enough satisfaction tied to any success. [5].

Wariospeedwagon

6: Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore 9/10

This is a game that I stopped playing early on in the Wii U release. Combination of a few things (The Wii U gamepad functioning like a real life smart phone - bearing in mind you're playing as Tokyo's most popular boy you're getting texts every couple of minutes from your myriad friends. The first two dungeons are terrible; full of bad boring clunky puzzles that are only challenging because you keep getting into fights and forget what you're supposed to be doing. The story is initially not very gripping). Think I just didn't have a chance to play it for a week or so, then never went back.

But it is on Switch now, and Switch seems to make everything better. It got a lot more fun after the early mediocrity, even if you never stop getting hounded with text messages! The subsequent dungeons work an awful lot better, you get to know your party members and do well written dialogue heavy side quests with them (there are a LOT of side quests, but besides the ones specifically with your team mates, they're pretty boring. I stopped doing those early).

Even though the story isn't paced all that well (it's a little slow then powers home in the last couple of chapters with its reveals), along with the characters I ended up enjoying the slightly weird premise (You're still doing the JPRG thing of having a group of teens save the world, but this time they're singing, dancing, modelling, acting idols, drawing magical power from the sheer awesomeness of their performances, or something). And even though it's a bit silly, it's mostly played with a straight bat and it is able to hit some touching beats and has some decent humour.

Think a good sign you're enjoying an RPG; you want to save the world and kill the bad guy, but are reluctant to finish it because you want to keep enjoying the world and characters. Certainly had that feeling.

So yeah, had a great time. Also much like the Personas, it knows you'll be spending a bunch of time staring at menus, and has the courtesy to make them look awesome. Look at it!

Diluted Dante

1. Horizon Chase Turbo - I've been at this for over a year, but finially finished the World Tour. It's apparantly inspired by Top Gear, a game I gave never heard of so for me it was Legally Distinct From Outrun. There are a few tracks I'd probably have cut, but overally its a really strong Outrun clone, updated for the modern era. It was on Plus, so if you have a PS4 you probably have this, so give it a go.

Wariospeedwagon

7/10 Donkey Kong Country 2 (3DS) - 7/10

retroking1981 wrote:

monkey wrote:

Is Donkey Kong Country 1 worth playing? I had a quick crack at that recently and wasn't bowled over. Why is 2 better?

The original is a decent platformer but isn't as good a the hype that surrounded it back in 94, those graphics did a lot to sell the game. DK himself is quite cumbersome to control compared to Diddy, the bosses are quite poor and the secrets are to obscure to make it fun enough to 100%. The level design is ok, it has a few highs but overall it's nothing outstanding. The second game improves on everything. Dixie Kong controls much faster like Diddy and the level design takes advantage of that, whereas in the first you was at a disadvantage if you had the wrong character. The secrets are well hidden for the most part, still not Mario levels but it does enough to show you the breadcrumbs to suck you in if you like 100% these types of games. The bosses are an improvement and it's a much more difficult game for the right reasons. It's a minor thing but I think the way you finish a level sums up the creativity of platformers sometimes. SMB had the flag and World had the goalposts, DKC literally has an exit sign as you walk right. The sequel has an end of level target that works like a strenght tester where you have to come in high and time your landing to get the best prize. Like I say it's minor within itself but it kinda shows how rushed the original was imo. Never played the third so can't comment but if your only gonna play one DKC SNES game definitely pick 2 over the first one.

That sorta covers my thoughts on DKC2!

Though I did think it was a bit too hard and could have done with an extra checkpoint or two in the later levels. Was using save states pretty liberally as the game went on.

Does a better job of mixing things up without the difficulty spikes.

That said I was a bit sick of it by the end, due to playing it so soon after the first.

As an aside: I'll take a break before doing DCK3 - but had a quick look, and I completely forgot that I rented this from Blockbuster as a teen. Was reminded by the more open world style of the overworld. Can't remember if I finished it, but it's highly unlikely. Other games I rented from block buster in their 5 weeklies for $10 deal were Time Cop (Jean Claude movie adaptation), Phantom 2044, Zombies Ate My Neighbours and Something Else

Moot_Geeza

13. Journey to the Savage Planet - Xbox One (11hrs 9mins)

A pleasant surprise for sure. It's an explore 'em up with unlockable abilities used to access previously inaccessible areas. Someone should probably come up with a more suitable descriptor for the genre. It's also another humour heavy type, falling somewhere between Portal 2, Twisted Pixel games and Starship Troopers. The voice over never got annoying for me (there's an option to reduce the waffle or turn it off, so it seems pointless to complain even if it does grate). It also has plenty of PAKISTAN IS THREATENING MY BORDER type TV ads, but they're mostly okay as a one watch, and you can turn them off too.

It's not an absolutely whopper, but it is a bigger game than I assumed it would be going in. Still, it's a tiddler in comparison to something like Breath of the Wild. I much prefer these smaller, intricately designed game worlds over square foot dick measuring maps, and this really does give off a lovingly crafted glow at every turn. Visuals are surprisingly excellent too; it's a damn fine looking game. I quite liked the platforming in the end, especially once your character becomes a bit more manoeuvrable. The ledge grab traversal assist is fairly well implemented, especially when you're scrambling over clusters of rocks that are often surprisingly scalable. The exact rules for the grapple hook LB trigger still remain elusive to me - and I like exact rules in games - which means I fell in frustration half a dozen times, but it rarely takes long to pick yourself up and try again. The shooting never felt quite right either, and I can't put my finger on why. There's a chance I've lost any meagre FPS skills I had during the wilderness years, so it could well be a case of me not you with the gunplay, but half the time it felt like the aim assist was set to '1mm off target trollolol'. Either that or it had no aim assist, but according to the settings it does. Shrug. As Tin mentioned in the thread there's huge scope for cheesing a lot of of the time, which compensates somewhat. It's serviceable anyway, not strong enough to maintain a shooting game for sure, but not weak enough to detract more than a smidge from the overall package here.

The exploration was quite addictive, which isn't something I say very often. It was nice to have a good old fashioned bastard as an end boss too. You know the drill, montage incoming: that's not fair/that's shit/bollocks did that hit me/what the fuck is hitting me/nooo not again/where am I supposed to stand then/aargh [slowly and lightly pounds joypad in frustration]/FUUUUUU...oh, I've done it, great stuff.

It's an odd game, and I've spent most of the review wondering whether to plump for a 7, 8 or 9. No prizes for guessing that we'll take an [8] for the bottom line, but it's better and worse than that. It's a wonder I don't review games professionally really.

Edit: And I forgot to mention co-op, which is what I bought it for in the first place. The way the game saves for two players is a bit odd though, as player one hosts, and player two joins their save. So the guest is just a visitor really, which to me feels like it either has to be played entirely in co-op, or completed solo by each player first. I'll do a bit of mopping up in co-op, but in the end the single player was too good to resist so we both ploughed on.

JonB

The last boss was definitely one of those, but in the end it wasn't unfair at all.

Spoiler:

Moot_Geeza

I still died a few times after realising that. Was the only time the dpad weapon selecting felt a bit fiddly. I appreciated the two sections of calm where you could retool and recharge before triggering the next phase.

retroking1981

@Wariospeedwagon glad you enjoyed DKC2, I'm taking a break before 3 to avoid fatigue myself. Out of interest what would you rate the original DKC out of 10?

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