What are you playing on your PlayStation 4?

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Finished up the main storyline on Sand Land last night on my PS4. I had a really fun time with this game and a bit more unlocks after to give you a little more to play if you wish. I'm not sure exactly how quickly the game can be tackled as I have right about 100 hours invested into Sand Land and still didn't 100% Complete everything there is to do (Although pretty close). 

 

One thing I will state about the game is that it does play more like a Borderlands game in the open world aspect of it and ability to just about explore the entire maps. But unlike Borderlands, it is much more comical in nature in how the artwork is presented etc. But game play elements are similar overall.

 

One thing I will warn to those that might want to check this game out, is to read those little tutorial panels fully when they pop up on occasion to discuss new game play elements. I more or less breezed through them because I figured I already understood the basic of what was needed and it bit me in the but a little. An example of this is that while most of the vehicles basically control the exact same way, some of them do work a little differently due to different abilities they might have. I didn't check this carefully and found myself essentially fumbling a bit with controls with some of the vehicles I used that were forced to be used in a situation all of sudden that prior to that point, I hadn't needed to use it. 

 

Another area that bit me a bunch in this game was some of the dungeon or interior levels with multiple floors that you have to explore and navigate through. I didn't learn until midway through the 3rd act that there was a MUCH easier way to exit back out of these places because again, I had skipped through most of the info that was presented the first time I entered one of these areas. I KNOW for fact that many hours of my playthrough were due to me wandering in circles trying to get out of these particular dungeons until I finally figured out the shortcut. This is important because while you can't use or take these shortcuts the first time through, you will find that you have to revisit some of these areas for side quests etc. And in those instances the level is no longer as linear as it was before so yeah... I was wondering around for quite a while before finally realizing I could use the interior fast travels in those areas to help move throughout much quicker.

 

Next up for the PS4 games to play? Not sure, but I did also get 2 of the Star Ocean RPG games around the same time I got Sand Land. One of them is Second Story R which, I've been told is the best of the series so far?

 

[Shawn]

Lego Star Wars: Skywalker Saga. Been playing off and on for a bit. Only have Episodes 2 and 3 left to complete the game. Very fun game for anyone that enjoys the lego style game formula. All the episodes are like shorter versions of the previously released stand alone and trilogy versions from the last generation of consoles.

[BassGuitari]

I've been sidetracked from it for a couple of weeks now, but I'm working on my second or third playthrough of Resident Evil 4. It's sooo good, and distinct enough from the original GC/PS2 version that it doesn't necessarily obviate it. (That was a great thing about RE2 and RE3 as well.)

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I finished up Star Ocean: Second Story R over the weekend. Not sure how many hours exactly it took me, but I'd say it was easily just over 40 hours. Seems I unlocked a few of the nearly 100 different endings to that game as well. I really enjoyed Star Ocean Second Story R, but I also might have made it a little too easy on myself with some earlier and easy grinding.

 

I will state that the Bodyguard ability is pretty awesome! Most of my leveling up was done by just simple running around the over world and letting the members of my party just run up and take out groups of enemies without any battles even being required. And by midway through the game I was already leveled up enough that all enemies on the over world were green at all times indicating they were easy enemies to take on.

 

My party had lots of folks I could swap in and out but I mainly stuck with my main character, Pricis, Rena, and Celene. Rena was locked in as strict party healer while Claude (Myself) and Pricis did all the combat. Celene used her crazy spells to do battle field damage and effects. Once I equipped both Rena and Celene with magic enhancing items, they pretty much nearly had unlimited magic during the battles. And with all the bonuses being scored during battle, everyone was pretty much at full health and magic points at the start of each battle as well. So yeah... midway through the game you pretty much have the party at an OP level of things. Still it was a lot of fun to play and some of the graphics are really amazing to look at even if the characters are still portrayed in their pixelized from from the original game.

 

Now I'm back to No Man's Sky playing the new Adrift expedition. I've a few good starter notes on this I might share later.

 

[newtmonkey]

Dragon Age: Inquisition

I keep on going back and forth on this one.  It looks great, and once you figure out the combat and start chaining abilities together, it just feels awesome.  On the other hand, even if you skip the worst of the MMORPG-style sidequests (in every single area, close 4/4 rifts, find 4/4 camps, gather 4/4 squirrel nuts), it does start to feel like you are just doing the same thing over and over for dozens of hours.  There is clearly some level scaling going on, and that applies to equipment as well, which is both scaled and locked, so you never have the pleasure of fighting your way through some difficult area by the skin of your teeth and finding some overpowered sword or whatever.  Every enemy is roughly your equal, and every piece of equipment you find is roughly the same as what you've got or maybe a slight increase in power.

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Well after I did the Adrift expedition in No Man's Sky, I then started up the next Star Ocean game I purchased to play. Divine Force.

 

I wasn't sure what to make of this one at first since the combat on it was so different to me from Second Story R and thus tactics to be used are all different. I do like all the exploration that is possible and flying mechanic that you get is pretty cool although I pretty much only use it for getting to those taller parts of the map where extra crystals are found and chests. I also pretty much use it for the initial combat trigger strike and during battles at my first hit for all new enemies. That said, I've not found a good party setup to stick with. I just use Ray all the time and don't swap between characters. Then again, I didn't do that on Second Story either. I pretty much just keep Laticia and myself as the main combatants. I always have Nina in there for healing everyone and stat buffs. But I've found the 'mage' like users to not provide much. So as I'm in the last half of the game at this point, I've got JJ as my 4th party member currently. But I sometimes swap him out with Elena. Unless I'm doing something wrong, I just don't feel that magic like users are that important in this game as they might normally be?

 

Combat is odd in this one too because I do actually have to move my character around more and point him towards the enemies to lock on whereas in second story R you just press the attack button and the character would pretty much automatically rush up to the next nearest enemy to go after them. Storyline is... okay in this one but it isn't gripping me quite as well as Second Story. But I knew this going in since Second Story is regarded as the best of the series by most fan I believe? Still, I'm curious to see how it ends up and I know it too has different endings. Although again, unless I'm missing it, I don't see anywhere that shows what affinity level characters have with each other? In the Second Story it was obvious as there were hearts around the characters that would change as you moved between the stats screen so you could see who was buddies with whom more. But I don't see anything indication of this in Divine Force?

 

That said, I've got more hours in Divine Force so far than Second Story took to complete it so Divine Force is a longer game for sure and does require old school level grinding by doing actual battles over and over. I've found a few places good for this where I basically just move in a big circle around the map and the enemies respawn as I come back around and take them out again. Can also just pop in and out of maps on the region to reload the maps, but it feels like I'm getting more done being able to loop a map to constantly fight battles.