Modern Games Beaten in 2022

[+jgkspsx]

1 hour ago, wongojack said:

Games in the genre I did enjoy include: (stay away from these @Leonard Smith)  The Stanley Parable, Gone Home, and especially The Vanishing of Ethan Carter.  Brothers a Tale of Two Sons

With you on the first two! I need to try Ethan Carter. Brothers is quite challenging at times but I felt like they overplayed the story a bit. I did really like the final play sequence, it was a rare instance where gameplay actually made me get a bit misty-eyed.

[+wongojack]

19 minutes ago, Razzie.P said:

Yep, second game this year.   Numbering them is a habit I formed when I first starting posting my "games beaten" some years ago.   I found that I was looking back through all posts to manually count and see "how many have I finished this year," so numbering them as I go fixed that for me  ?

Of course!  I even posted a comment about your first game - Transformers Devastation on the previous page.

[Razzie.P]

3)  Archvale (Xbox)

 

This a cool game that I expect to see on a few “hidden gems” lists over the next few years!    I downloaded by accident on gamepass, and decided to check it out “for a few minutes” before deleting, and finished about 12 hours later.

 

I’ve not really played anything exactly like it before, that I can recall.  It blends a bit of 2D Zelda adventure/RPG with a Twin Stick bullet hell shooter.   All while feeling like a retro favorite as we remember it though our rose colored nostalgia glasses – clean visuals and silky smooth (60fps, I believe) gameplay

 

Only 2 gripes keeping this from being a perfect 10 for me –

 

1. The inventory management is a bit of a chore with several obvious “they should have added this” to make it more streamlined.
2. The difficulty seems a bit off.  I played Normal, but later read (from one of the devs, I believe) that normal was balanced for Co-Op and Easy was balanced for Single player.  And I can totally see that – it’s perfectly doable on normal, but the added HP of the enemies takes a bit away from the satisfying “like popping bubble wrap” feel of mowing them down on easy.

 

 

Even with those 2 gripes, this one is highly recommended.  And the second griped is easily avoided – just play on easy if you’re playing single player. 
 

[Razzie.P]

4)  Infernax (Xbox)

 

It was an “ok” sort of game.  It seems like it pulled a lot from Zelda 2, which is great since I love that one, but somehow the whole thing just felt a bit thin.  And the only real challenge came in the form of some poorly designed platforming parts.   And these weren’t really a challenge, just annoying.

Others seem to love it a bit more than me, so if anyone’s interested in a “modern Zelda II” type of game, it’s on Gamepass.
 

[digdugnate]

I finished a couple games out last week:

 

GetsuFumaDen: Undying Moon (Switch) - I enjoyed the playthrough and game cycle of this platforming roguelite.  Getting permanent upgrades really helps the accessibility of this title.  

River City Girls Zero (Switch) - Since I'm a RCG fan, I went ahead and picked this up knowing it was mostly a port of an unreleased Super Famicom game.  It's also super short.

[digdugnate]

I just finished Pokemon Legends: Arceus. (Switch)  ?

Edited February 21, 2022 by digdugnate

[Skippy B. Coyote]

Whoops! Wrong thread!

Edited February 22, 2022 by Skippy B. Coyote

[mbd39]

Cyber Shadow on PC, 100% completion. Took me a little over 40 hours and an embarrassing number of deaths. The last level is a beast, goddamn. Thankfully the game lets you re-spawn health and magic refills by re-entering rooms or it would have taken me much longer.

 

 

[newtmonkey]

Operencia: The Stolen Sun (PC)

A decent enough take on a traditional RPG (four-person party, turn-based combat, first-person step-based exploration [ala Wizardry, Bard's Tales, Might & Magic]).

 

It's extremely linear and the dungeons are not very large, but there are plenty of secrets to find and the exploration is good.  There are no random encounters, and you can see enemies walking around—run into them from behind for a free round of attacks.  This means you can freely explore an area to search for secrets, solve puzzles, etc. once you've defeated all the wandering monsters there.

 

You don't really create a party of characters in this.  Instead, you create a single character, and then recruit other characters are you progress in the story, ultimately recruiting six other characters, of which three can be in your party at any time.

 

Like with The Bard's Tale IV and Might & Magic X, character development uses skill trees with very MMO-like roles (tank, healer, etc).  I found this to be pretty dull up until the midgame, where you finally have enough ability points to come up with builds that work together well.  This also means that the game peaks in difficulty pretty quickly, and actually gets easier as your progress through the game (as long as you are paying attention to building your characters).  You can reset/respend attribute and ability points at any time, so you will never be stuck with a subpar party.

 

The game promises "a world inspired by Central European mythology" but most of the game was your typical warriors and wizards fighting skeletons and dragons in caves. There were some cool-looking environments later on, though.  Although the focus of the game is definitely on exploration and combat, it does have a focus on story and dialog—but I found neither very interesting.  Characters talk and behave either like bickering elderly couples or teenagers, depending on the character, and it feels completely out of place in a game that is trying to present itself as a sort of mythological tale.

 

It's a short game for an RPG at around 25 hours to complete nearly everything (I skipped a couple of optional sliding block puzzles).  Like I mentioned above, the progression of difficulty is strange (starts out very easy, becomes quite difficult just a few hours in, plateaus, and then drops off the last half or so), but it's satisfying to see your party getting stronger and stronger toward the end.

 

Overall, I enjoyed it enough, but would rank it below both The Bard's Tale IV and Might & Magic X, both of which attempt something similar.

[Razzie.P]

5)  Elden Ring (PS5)

 

Finished it at approx. 71:45 hours, according to the game.

 

I have some pretty mixed feelings about this one.  At times, it feels like it perfectly captured what my imagination always thought how these types of adventures should feel.  And those bit of “amazing” shine through.

 

But then it just got cheap.  Not difficult.  Just cheap.   Huge bosses that cause your camera to go bonkers (if you’re a melee player and getting up close) while they leap out of view and launch a “one shot” kill, kind thing.
So it stopped being fun at a lot of points.  

 

But overall, I liked it.  I predict they’ll patch it to make it much easier, though.  Currently, a very low percentage of people seem to be getting very far, which goes against the director’s statements of “I believe more people will finish this one than past Soul’s games” or something like that.
 

[digdugnate]

No screenshot because all of them would be spoiler-y, but I finished Triangle Strategy (Switch) over the weekend!  Finish time was 47 hours and change.

[+jgkspsx]

I finally got around to playing and beating A Normal Lost Phone. It’s very very short, and somewhat ethically dubious (if you find somebody’s lost phone this is definitely not the way to handle it), but it was an educational experience.
 

[newtmonkey]

Ember

A decent light/casual RPG that excels in exploration and has somewhat enjoyable combat.

 

Combat is alright. It's all in real-time, but you can pause at any time, and can also set the game to automatically pause at certain times (low HP, etc.). It's like a really, really simplified Baldur's Gate.  You can customize your equipment with runes, which give you special attacks/spells to use in battle, and finding good combinations of runes that work well together is where most of the strategy lies here.

 

Ember has a pretty large world to explore including several towns and one massive city. Although the main quest is extremely linear, the game is full of optional quests and content to find; some side quests are shown on the map with a question mark, while other quests require traveling off the well-beaten path to explore on your own. Although the side quests never go much beyond your typical fetch quests, they can be enjoyable to seek out and follow.

 

The story isn't anything great, but it's written well and there were a few interesting characters here and there. The game takes place in your typical fantasy world, with elves, dwarves, etc.  The biggest twist to the world is that all technology and magic runs on elements called "embers," and it turns out that these embers are actually living things on the verge of extinction. That's where you come in, as a sort of demigod-like character brought back from the dead to save the world (you are a bit like the Avatar in the Ultima series, actually).

 

The game is not very difficult on normal, but there are some tough boss fights toward the end of the game. You'll never get stuck in an unwinnable position, as you can always redistribute your ability points, and the game has a crafting system that allows you to inexpensively create very helpful potions. If you hate crafting (I'm not a fan), you can pretty much ignore it completely, as you find more than enough equipment and items just through exploration and following the main quest.

---

I did mostly everything I could find, but didn't explore all of the outdoors maps completely. Overall, it took 18 hours to complete, and I enjoyed most of it (the final area is a bit repetitive and dull).  Recommended!

[+jgkspsx]

Insofar as Breakout can be beaten, I beat Breakout Recharged.

There wasn’t even a congratulations screen

 

Along the way I came in first place on a number of challenges, sometimes by a very wide margin:

 

 

 

[+wongojack]

Ok, I know this one has made an appearance here and in the "Games I Quit" thread, but I finished the main story in Horizon Zero Dawn last night.  It took me around 117 hours (including The Frozen Wilds DLC).  The first thing that was a surprise for me was how story-driven the beginning of the game was.  I've never played Far Cry, but the comparisons were easy to find to that series, and I don't think of it as a game series people run to for story.  I am a fan of a strong narrative in my games.  At this point, I think of a big budget game as incomplete if it can't tell me a compelling story with memorable characters.  I like to know what I am trying to accomplish as a participant in a well-crafted narrative, and this element of gaming has been on the decline.  Soooo I was surprised that HZD embraced this right off the top.   I also don't think of Killzone (this company's previous big title) as being very story driven, but I haven't played that either.

 

I can see the flaws in this game - that it borrows from other games and the facial animations are bad - but I absolutely loved it.  It has been a while since a "modern" game clicked with me quite like this.  I've kinda forced myself to play some others (All of which I have mentioned in these threads), but this one seemed to scratch the right itch of story, explore, combat, create, etc.  It also looks amazing of course.

 

The game definitely borrows from other series, but I'm not sure that is really a problem here.  While I haven't played Far Cry, I have played Uncharted, multiple Assassin's Creed games, Batman Arkham XYZ, Bethesda, Breath of the Wild, Bioware, Rockstar, and (what is probably the closest for me to HZD) the Tomb Raider series that started in 2013.  I suppose a big missing game for me is The Witcher 3, but I have watched my wife play that, so I'm exposed.  Most people who complain about the fact that HZD is borrowing from others seem to think that it is simply worse than those games.  Maybe that is true but playing HZD is definitely NOT an "average" experience.  It is an exceptional experience.  So even if the bow and arrow game play isn't as good, or the climbing is worse, the game still manages to deliver on everything and put it together in a way that I'm not sure any of those others have done.

 

If you can't tell, I REALLY liked HZD, but there are always things to pick at.  While I enjoyed the main story, it really felt like it developed heavily only at the beginning and near the end of the game.  That probably comes down to my personal choices about where to go and what to spend time doing, but I enjoyed the first 8 hours or so of very story heavy (almost tutorial) content.  Then I got sucked into improving my gear and practicing hunting while slowly pushing out into new areas of the map.  It took me a while to even get to Meridian as I was experimenting with new abilities, opening hidden vantages and "unfogging" parts of the world.  After many hours of that stuff, I finally got back to a story mission.  then I played through all the DLC before finally deciding it was time to see the ending.  It was a bit of a disappointment that so much of the story ended up being told through logs and dumps of text that you find in the last few missions.  I wish they had let us go back in time and play as some of the characters who are so critical to the history of the story in this game.  I suspect that might have been in the plans at some point, but alas the player is left to discover everything the same way Aloy does.  Which is completely fine of course but perhaps a bit of a missed opportunity.

 

I give this a strong 5/5.  In terms of the blockbuster PS4 games, this one was better for me than both God of War and Uncharted 4, but probably not quite as good as Astrobot.  I still have yet to play Last of Us II and Spiderman, but I'll get there.  While I am excited for the sequel, I definitely need a break before starting it.  Knowing me, it will take another 5 years, but now I know I can't miss "The Forbidden West."

 

 

 

[digdugnate]

I don't have a super huge write up for it, but I finished Tiny Tina's Wonderlands (XBox Series X) tonight!  I've got about 91 hours in the game total (give or take).

 

Fantastic game from start to finish.  If you even moderately like D&D and Borderlands it's a 'natural 20', in my opinion.  The quests were (to me) really well written and I laughed more through my playthrough than I had certainly most of the Borderlands content I've played through and finished.  Will Arnett, Wanda Sykes, and Andy Samberg voiced their roles absolutely amazing.

[digdugnate]

Just finished Lego Star Wars: Skywalker Saga (XBox Series X)- all nine movie episodes.

[+wongojack]

I completed God of War: Ghost of Sparta (normal difficulty) on the PS3 via the God of War Saga collection.  It was easy.  I wish I had started on a higher difficulty.  The only part I really had trouble with was one of the challenges I unlocked by completing the campaign.  I really prefer the combat in the old series to the new GoW on PS4.  I wish I could say that I'm looking forward to playing GoW Ragnarok, but I'm really not.  I give Ghost of Sparta a solid 3/5.

 

 

[Punisher5.0]

Been a while since I finished a game but today I got a Platinum trophy for Episode One Racer. Looked amazing in 4k on a PS5.

[+jgkspsx]

I “beat” Soldner-X 2 PSVita, though it’s really just the beginning:

Fun game. Not the most refined shmup but it’s pretty great on the go. Highly recommended if the Vita store ever reopens.

[digdugnate]

I finished Chrono Cross with the 'true' ending on Switch today.  Good start to my vacation!

 

I don't think I'll have the patience to see the other eleven endings, though.  ?

[Eltigro]

Beat Castlevania Harmony of Dissonance for the GBA today.  I had gotten what I thought was the "bad" ending last week, but today found out that was the middle (?) ending because I got the real bad ending today.  Looked up some things and tried again and got the good ending.  

[digdugnate]

11 hours ago, Eltigro said:

Beat Castlevania Harmony of Dissonance for the GBA today.  I had gotten what I thought was the "bad" ending last week, but today found out that was the middle (?) ending because I got the real bad ending today.  Looked up some things and tried again and got the good ending.  

That's cool!  I keep trying to play the GBA Castlevanias, but I just can't get into them.

[+jgkspsx]

I beat Mile High Pinball (Nokia N-Gage) from scratch. Final score in the first loop: 1443135

 

 

The conceit of the game is that you are climbing a mile high tower of pinball tables. There are 80 normal tables (so each “table” is apparently 66 feet high) and I think 20 secret tables. You start in the dirt of a valley stream and climb level by level until you’re in deep space taking on the ultimate pinball brain. Or something.

 

For the second “Extreme” loop, all the tables are reversed. I’m not sure why but that seems to make them trickier. I have found one of the medallions I missed and finished one of the N-Gage cross-promotion tables I messed up the first time, but the last medallion is proving elusive. I’ve already made it a quarter of the way up.

 

The artwork is bizarre in a mid-90s way (even though this came out in the mid-2000s). The physics are somewhat iffy. But man I have not been glued to a pinball game like this in a long time. It’s similar to the Crush series in the way it combines realistic pinball and fantasy enemies, and while it’s not as good, the fact that each table is a puzzle to be solved adds an element of progression that largely makes up for the quality gap.
 

As much as I like Yoku Island Express, Momonga Pinball Adventure, Flipper Critters, Pinout, and other continuous world pinball adventures, the portrait orientation here and the more traditional top down view makes for a much less frustrating experience in general, which makes for a more tolerable experience when you are trying to make a tricky shot repeatedly and keep missing and faling back three tables.

 

EDIT: Found the last one!!

 

There are still 12 ball skins that I haven’t found. Huh. I wish I knew which skins mapped to which Nokia games:

 

[Punisher5.0]

Finished the puzzle game Relicta today. This one is definitely for the more hardcore puzzle fans. It has some complex sections that most people wouldn't bother with (only has a 1.9% clear rate on PSN). It felt similar to Portal but harder and didnt have nearly as good of a story (whatevs).