Just completed - The Bear and Badger

b0r1s

Rev wrote:

Horizon Forbidden West It's more of one of my favourite games of the PS4 gen so I'm in my happy place with this one. It's still very much a plan and attack kind of a game with head on combat being the last possible thing you should be doing. So I was surprised that they have a whole part of the game devoted to one on one combat as the game falls down a bit due to a lack of lock on and occasional frustrating camera. That being said the progression is brilliant and there are still some genuine jaw dropping moments in the game. Still plenty to play after the main story is done. 9

I've hardly scratched the surface of this, too much other stuff to play, but what I have I've enjoyed and my god, isn't it pretty?! Like jaw dropping in places. The best thing is how far they have come with the modelling of the NPC's, they are so much better than the first game, but also better than pretty much any other games, apart from Naughty Dog stuff, and their stuff would all be hand crafted. The fact that a lot of this stuff must be procedural is pretty amazing.

Rev

It's head and shoulders above a lot of games on the platform.

b0r1s

Final Fantasy VII Remake - PS5

Yep, enjoyed that after two failed attempts to get into it (and one very failed attempt to get into the original).

I enjoyed the mix of real-time and turned based combat and being able to switch characters on the fly was all handled well, though target could have been better executed, especially in some of the more hectic screen filled battles when you are trying to pick out a particular enemy.

One thing that irritated was the ability to assess an enemy but then not be able to switch Materia to match. Not an issue with the rank and file as you meet them again and again. But with some of the bosses you had to slog it out or start over which I never did. The times I did die on a boss I just stated over with the same gear. Edit - you can change materia with a major boss as it puts you back before the cut scene, but still.

Graphically, it was a mixed bag. The main character models were excellent as were the fights, particle effects etc. and the whole game played very smoothly on PS5 at least. What let’s it down is some shoddy backgrounds in places, particularly the interiors. And some of the textures were very very low res, the Shinra logo on the attack helicopters stand out in particular.

Overall, I enjoyed the story but didn’t really have much interest in the Sephiroth parts of it, preferring the fight to take down Shinra and helping the people. Guess I can watch the trailer to next chapter now.

Oh and the road rash bits were shite.

A quality game all around.

[9]

Moot_Geeza

b0r1s wrote:

Oh and the road rash bits were shite.

They were a bit shit in the original too.

Moot_Geeza

Loved The Delicious Last Course. I knew it was short but the dlc completion percentage stat duped me into thinking there might be another set of bosses on a second island (I'm sure it said 29% clear when I only had two bosses to go). Gutted, but what a treat.

Moot_Geeza

38% done apparently. Not a clue what else I need to tick off to bump that up tbh, I've done all the castle challenges/bosses I could see.

JonB

The graveyard puzzle?

Moot_Geeza

Spoiler:

Moot_Geeza

Apparently Expert mode counts towards the completion %

Nina

Completed Yakuza 0

I have a lot of thoughts but

Spoiler:

are occupying my mind at the moment.

It's really really good though, for so many reasons. Incredible face tech that made me cry at moments.

Ed_Flanders

It's great, isn't it? I'm about 40 hours in and I'm not even close to completing it. I'm having fun with the minigames and taking my time to savour the story.

Blue Swirl

I've yet to play a Yakuza game. I should probably get that sorted.

Nina

0 seems the place to start and is often really cheap. It wasn't what I expected at all, in a good way.

Ed_Flanders wrote:

It's great, isn't it? I'm about 40 hours in and I'm not even close to completing it. I'm having fun with the minigames and taking my time to savour the story.

Yeah enjoy it, there's a lot of good stuff to find. I've had a few week-month long breaks as my mind wasn't always in the right place to focus on story so I missed out on about half of the side stories / content. Part of me regrets that, but the main story is so incredibly good that it doesn't matter at all.
Although as someone who never played outrun I was really bad at it and it gave me a headache. Definitely lost hard there. Otherwise Y0 would have been the perfect game.

Minnesänger

Yak 0 = Best Yak.

Congrats Nina - really enjoyed hearing about your progress as you went through it. Apart from the bit where you complained about Outrun. Also, told you not to mention that on this forum of all places…

AndCallMeCharlie

Nina wrote:

0 seems the place to start and is often really cheap. It wasn't what I expected at all, in a good way.

Ed_Flanders wrote:

It's great, isn't it? I'm about 40 hours in and I'm not even close to completing it. I'm having fun with the minigames and taking my time to savour the story.

Yeah enjoy it, there's a lot of good stuff to find. I've had a few week-month long breaks as my mind wasn't always in the right place to focus on story so I missed out on about half of the side stories / content. Part of me regrets that, but the main story is so incredibly good that it doesn't matter at all. Although as someone who never played outrun I was really bad at it and it gave me a headache. Definitely lost hard there. Otherwise Y0 would have been the perfect game.

Interesting, 0 is the only game of the series I finished and likewise I loved it (despite it being completely not the type of game I enjoy). I had to stop two thirds of the way through as a cut scene kept crashing on me but when I went back 6 months later it was like I never stopped.

Moot_Geeza

Poinpy. Got a bit obsessed with that. 2-3 hours last night and my entire commute today (which is looong) + quick sessions here and there this evening. Maybe mobile gaming is my thing after all. Brilliant stuff, at least as good as Downwell (which was in my recently updated top 100). GotY or thereabouts.

LivDiv

Route 96
Excellent interactive story type game. Managed to be political without being groan worthy. Characters are fun.
There is obviously some kind of system for randomisation/decision making consequences under the hood but it never revealed itself to me unlike games such as The Walking Dead.
Don't want to say more than that because it's too easy to spoiler these type of titles.

Sonic Origins: Sonic the Hedgehog
Played through as Knuckles which is the major novelty of this Origins collection. Surprisingly gliding doesn't totally break the game and less of the levels can be skipped than in Sonic 2, although I couldn't say if that's because the Devs went in and added blockers or not.
Labyrinth act 3 remains a dick but at least it has infinite lives.

Sonic Origins: Sonic 3
This time as Sonic & Tails.
Plays as I remembered although there are bound to be some tweaks and fixes here and there. The main difference is the changed out music for Carnival, Ice Cap and Launch Base. The replacements aren't offensively bad just very forgettable in comparison to the originals. Carnival comes out worst for me, the music really sold the theme.

I also got to the end of Sonic 2 but I hate having to fight Robo Sonic over an over to try the big Robotnik boss.

JonB

Moot_Geeza wrote:

Poinpy. Got a bit obsessed with that. 2-3 hours last night and my entire commute today (which is looong) + quick sessions here and there this evening. Maybe mobile gaming is my thing after all. Brilliant stuff, at least as good as Downwell (which was in my recently updated top 100). GotY or thereabouts.

I played a couple more hours yesterday, and it's really very good. Definitely gets better the more you play and unlock stuff. There's a bit of grind gating, where I knew I couldn't reach a target until I levelled up again, but it's fun all the same.

Blue Swirl

LivDiv wrote:

Sonic Origins

Is that worth the money? Not that I haven't played the Sonic games a thousand times before, but I'd still like them again on Switch in a neat little package. But it seems expensive, and I hear it's riddled with bugs and microtransactions.

LivDiv

It's good but wait for a sale.
There are some bugs but nothing major I have noticed. Mainly Knuckles in Sonic 1 which is kind of expected in some ways, I dunno, it's no worse than Sonic has always been. It's worth remembering Sonic online communities are fucking weirdly obsessive so I wouldn't go off forums but maybe some reviewers have found stuff I have missed.

No idea what the microtransactions are. There are tons of unlockables in the Museum, stuff like artwork and soundtracks. These are unlocked using coins, coins replace lives in the Anniversary or Story modes. So instead of life boxes, 1up bubbles, 100 rings or certain scores giving a life you get a coin instead. Maybe it's possible to buy more coins but I can't see any unlockable worth spending real money on.

£20 if you are really into Sonic. £10 of you have a passing interest. If you don't like Sonic avoid as there is nothing new to change minds here.

Blue Swirl

LivDiv wrote:

£20 if you are really into Sonic. £10 of you have a passing interest. If you don't like Sonic avoid as there is nothing new to change minds here.

Seems like a reasonable summary to me.

LivDiv

Sonic Origins: Sonic CD
Hot trash.
My understanding is development of this and Sonic 2 happened alongside each other.
Sonic 2 released improving on Sonic in almost every single way, loads of people played it becaus eit was on the MD and it was well loved leading to Sonic's popularity booming. Pun.
Sonic CD I'm guessing wasn't played by many and that's probably a good thing for Sega. It doubles down on Sonic 1's frustrating instadeath moments. It looks like absolute ass from. Design perspective. None of the levels have any real theme to their design it's just clusters of shite in different colours. This isn't helped by switching between past, present and future versions of the zones.
Speaking of, what a fucking pointless feature. Travelling to either time period requires spinning a sign post then running at speed for a set amount of time which not ally won't happen because the slightest thing can slow you down including going through loops.
If you do manage to time travel its use depends what way you go. Going to the future appears to be totally pointless.
To to the past and you can hunt down a robot machine, destroy these in every Act 1 and 2 for a good ending.
Good luck though because there are finite Past signposts that can only be spun once and if you fuck that speed run after that's it, gone. Could die I suppose, which you probably will from some bullshit spring into spikes.
Bosses are all absolute crap which is super dissaponting as this era of Sonic games had excellent bosses.

There's a mystique about this game or at least there was back in the 90s. It's the one nobody got to play because nobody's parents were buying them a Mega CD. It had a cool for the time FMV animated intro and looked good from screenshots. Probably we didn't play it back then, trying to pretending on Xmas morning that it was worth the however many hundreds a Mega CD would have been a challenge.

Hey maybe it went down better back then but today it's just terrible.
I've played through all 5 of the games on Origins, just got to do the final bosses of S2 and S&K then Emeralds and Final Boss on S3&K. All 4 of the MD games hold up to their original popularity, Sonic CD is a hard pass.

Moot_Geeza

That's the only classic entry I haven't played. Still plan to give it a go at some point but I'm glad I resisted pestering my dad for a Mega CD. Potentially short lived add-ons seemed like a mug's game to me.

*Hides photo of the grand 32X unboxing*

LivDiv

It's worth playing through to scratch a long standing itch. It's really short as well if you don't fanny about trying to do all the past stuff. If you do go for the 'good' ending by doing the past stuff I can only imagine it takes forever and is totally joyless.

I've never played Chaotix. I don't think Sega have ever rereleased it either, probably for good reason.

Moot_Geeza

Chaotix got weirdly high reviews in an American mag I used to buy. It's interesting as a curio and I wouldn't call it a bad game, but it's not all that either (based on playing maybe three levels of it). 32X games run quite nicely on even the cheapest emulators, it's probably not worth much more than a quick look to satisfy curiosity.

Moot_Geeza

Sonic Rush was one of the most disappointing Sonic games for me. The reviews suggested it was a back to form legit release but I thought it was irritating and full of sudden death traps. There have been plenty worse since (Sonic 4, jfc) but that was probably the last one that annoyed me.

LivDiv

Sonic Advance was good. Mostly it's a complete pile of shite other than the MD games and a couple of MS/GG ones.
Generations is passable.
Mania is excellent.

I've never understood the love for Adventure bar a couple of levels.

I would love Mania 2 but Sega still make such random decisions I'm not gonna hold my breath.

Moot_Geeza

I'd go with most of that. I played Adventure on import in early '99 so it had much wow factor as a console only gamer, still got a soft spot for it as I think it's a better 2D to 3D transposition than people give it credit for (it does rollercoaster Sonic pretty well). The Edge 8 felt right.

Will add Colours to the not bad pile, but it's not something I'd replay. Advance 2 was good too.

I do like a bit of Sonic, can't lie.

LivDiv

Yeah good Sonic can be fun, I'm quite happy for it take over and send me on a rollercoaster as you say.
Music is generally spot on and the 8-16bit era games all have great sprite work.
There's a lot to like.
I'm waiting to finish &Knuckles to do a proper write up but that is a top, top tier 16bit game.

Moot_Geeza

Combined with Sonic 3 it creates a monster. Some great design. There's not much between the stacked combo and Mania, the latter just pips it for me though.

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