*moons H*

Nothing less than you deserve

PUSH (PC)

One of my usual puzzler punts - and it was pretty dull tbh.  No particularly good ideas, aesthetic a bit meh, rules uninspired, ya standard [5] really.

What a good game

Paper Mario - The Origami King, completely complete .

Quite a bittersweet ending, which I wasn't really expecting, although not a patch on that moment, which if you've seen it, you'll know. That'll go down as a traumatic moment in my Mario history.

Frustratingly, like Xenoblade 2, I only really got the hang and mastered the battle system in the final area. Until then, for some reason, my brain hadn't even computed doing a sliding tile on a boss, I thought it was rings only. The last few bosses were cakewalk following that.

The battle system will be divisive, for sure. I found it just complex enough to keep me engaged through the game, and by the time you have enough accessories and strong enough weapons, defeating the enemies becomes about solving a puzzle, not really worrying about timing A presses, which is a bit of a shift for the series. That said, I wouldn't thank you for another game with the same mechanics.

The real joy of the game is the wrapping around it all - the visuals, the sound, and the writing. Every time I entered a new area I was excited to hear the music (and who knew the music in Toad Town slightly changed every time you cleared a streamer?!) Which is up there with some of Nintendo's best. I await spending £45 to import a 3 disc soundtrack from Amazon Japan. The writing keeps up until the very end, and not only does the great Nintendo pun game, but is completely affecting in about 4 key plot points.

It sounds like I'm saying it's a game you should play in spite of itself, and while I don't think that's how I feel, it was a game I kept playing to see what was next, rather than to get stuck into more minigames or battles.

If we did half scores, I would give it a 7.5, but ima round down and give it a solid 7. A good, entertaining Paper Mario.

I’ve been on a bit of a clear up of some games that have been hanging around recently, and also a recent purchase. I’ve finished:

Devil May Cry V
Horizon Zero Dawn
Spider-Man
Superhot

I think they were all solid 7/8’s, with perhaps Spider-Man being my favourite of the 4.

DMCV had excellent combat, but the story and lack of interesting environments let it down.

Horizon was a game I abandoned around 18 months ago, but I got more into it at the second try. Enjoyed it, but the world was quite bare for an open world game. Loved the concept and taking down the big mechs though.

Spider-Man was visually stunning and the combat got better as you unlocked new moves and gadgets, but there was a lot of busy work in the city that wasn’t needed.

Superhot was the recent buy in the Switch sale. Really liked it, but felt like smashing my Switch on the last level. Got there in the end, mind. Only downside was the text based stuff, because it wasn’t as clever as the game was.

Shadow of Mordor. I'm so glad I persevered with this one. I've had this game since I bought my PS4 but I just kept putting it off - at first because of the controls and then because I had so many other open world games.
In the end it turns out that I much prefer it's world design to others, despite it being pretty old now.

I never got on with sleeping dogs, but thanks for reminding me about Mad Max - I got that free on PS plus.

Again (Nintendo DS) - I thought about picking this up for years as I like Cing's other games but I never felt a massive urgency as the reviews were quite tepid and I was worried I'd be disappointed. The vibe I got was that it was significantly inferior to the Another Code and Hotel Dusk games, the localisation was bad and it ended on a horrific cliffhanger for a second game that never came. But with my recent interest in detective games, I finally decided to give it a go.

Presentationally, it's definitely very ideosyncratic in a way that I think few would argue stands up to the charming manga art style of Another Code and Hotel Dusk. It's very similar to the constantly-shifting character artwork of Hotel Dusk except the characters are real-life actors and the photography has been manipulated with a filter to give the same sense of constant animation. This is clearly a bunch of ex-pat would-be actors in Japan having a good time. Their gestures and facial expressions are quite exaggerated as though they've been directed to look like anime characters but real. It is not surprising that this art style did not charm back in 2010 but now that we are way beyond anything like this, it is pleasantly goofy to go back to, like a cheesy Mega CD game.

Gameplay-wise, aside from the visual novel segements, you have the ability to see in the past and use this ability to solve a set of serial murders from 1991 so that in turn you can solve a set of copycat murders that are taking place in the present day. You navigate a crime scene with the top screen showing the scene in the past and the bottom screen showing the scene in the present. By making the current scene look like the past (often using touchscreen interaction) you see visions of the crime. These gameplay sections were rightly critised by critics for having a health system where a life bar is depleted for trying to see a vision in the wrong area. Not only is this not a sufficient impediment for the player to be worthwhile but there is not enough internal logic in this 'spot the difference' for it to be fair - there are many occasions where the past and present scenes do not much for purely incidental reasons.

I actually really got into the plot, which is why I've torn through the game across three days. It's conventional and not as unique as Cing's other games but is engaging. The localisation has some dumb spelling and grammatical errors and is perhaps more literal and less lively than if it had been localised by Nintendo but is generally perfectly fine. I was bracing myself for the cliffhanger but feel the original criticism was unfair - the murder mystery in this game COMPLETELY gets wrapped up and the cliffhanger is just a sequel hook. I felt completely satisfied just, yet again, disappointed that Cing went bankrupt and left their plot threads hanging.

I would only recommend this to people who have exhausted Cing's well-known games and still want more but I do genuinely recommend it to those people - I was pleasantly surprised and had a mostly good time.

acemuzzy wrote:

I always admired ERE a stickler for the rules, and upholder of those good old-fashioned values that keeps the world ticking over, one if the good guys.

But here we are, in the Just Completed thread, and there's a review with no score attached. Fucking disgraceful. How have we sunk this low?

Fuck you 2020. Fucking Jeremy Corbyn.

I'm the OP, there is no score rule and the first two posts in this thread are two reviews from me with no score.

The Touryst (BoneX)

Looks great, and kinda charming too fur the most part - but some frustrations asking the way (painfully 2D camera for some 3D jumping bits, and obligatory endgame faff). But the highlights are pretty nice, so a [7] I guess?

Yeah that was pants

Yeah it's kinda weird but interesting, and just one person made it I think which is always nice!

hunk wrote:

Slay the spire.
GotG for me.

Yep... but have you “finished” it?

The name rang a bell but I couldn't remember why... I've never played it, but I'd read a nice article about it a while ago: https://www.hardcoregaming101.net/portopia-renzoku-satsujin-jiken
Must have been a real thrill to play something like this in 1983.