Last game you finished, tell us about it

Originally Posted by joxer
And thus nostory phonegames were created.

nostory phonegames have crappy gameplay, so no.

Originally Posted by Drithius
However, I was disappointed to discover that the Long War 2 mod was not updated, nor would it be updated for the War of the Chosen expansion I had been looking forward to it.

I'm dreaming about a Long War mod for Battletech now.

Hopefully the game is long enough that you don't need a long war mod

Originally Posted by Zloth
I'm dreaming about a Long War mod for Battletech now.

Ok I guess. WHen I played the game I never thought of it as missions - but then again I never paid attention to achievements.

Originally Posted by Thrasher
Yep, check your achievement list:
Alien: Isolation
Unlocked every Alien: Isolation trophy
.
.
.
My Turn Now
Kill an android using only the maintenance jack

Just finished Deus Ex: Mankind Divided and all its DLCs.
I have to agree with JDR13, it's a damn good game. Underrated. A decent amount of choices and consequences, driven by character dev, quest approaches, and even the occasional dialog-driven choice. Sneaking and shooty stuff was also pretty good, IMO. A pleasing mix.

Of the DLCs, Criminal Past was excellent, System Rift was just "good" (the cyber-space parts were a bit ho-hum), and Desperate Measures was a joke - so obviously a chunk of the original game that they carved out to make a pre-order bonus. A main quest of the core game is left dangling, unresolved, without it.

A pity that the franchise has been (temporarily?) abandoned; there is plenty left to explore, especially with the revelations that are in the hidden end-game video.

Regular co-op session:
We finished Torchlight 2. Loved it, though the end boss was a bit easy. The boss in the secret side mission (to do with collecting robot parts), was much harder.
We actually restarted the game after the first 3 hours, because you can only respec to a certain point and we'd both made mistakes with our character, and the game only allows you to respec the last three choices (annoying!).

I never played the DLC. I was pretty burned out on the sneaky sneak by the end of the main game. Loved it still.

Finished Trails of Cold Steel the second, utterly fantastic. Even better than the previous entry, I finished with just over eighty hours in.

Here is my analysis.

Listen close, don't miss it.


Game of the Year.

Battletech, Bard's Tale, whatever else comes out this year, best of luck surpassing this one.

If you even slightly enjoyed the first Trails of Cold Steel, play this one. If a game has jaded you recently, and you even remotely care for turn based games, give this one a go. It will make you smile, and restore your faith in games.

Fin

Originally Posted by Carnifex
Game of the Year.

Sorry but no. I'm pretty sure KCD will win it on most sites. Unless CP2077 gets released in this year.

But it wouldn't surprise me ToCS2 appears among nominations.

I've not played that one as of yet, maybe this summer I'll get to it. For me, I would be quite surprised if I found it better than the game I just completed. Right now I'm thinking the Last Remnant might be my next game.

After 90 hours let's say I've finished: Ni No Kuni 2: Revenant Kingdom

The truth is I didn't kill last 10 post endgame optional bosses and I didn't cook any of post endgame brownies. Everything else possible I think I did.
Anyway, the game will have an expansion and I probably won't bother with "leftovers" till it's released.


Great:

- Visual style can't ever get outdated, a smart move as by turning the world into anime style I can't make my usual objections on AAA graphics, the thing is once the style was set there was no compromise on it's quality.

- The game merges RPG, building sim and simplified on field "strategic" battles in a way it actually works.

- The openworld and skirmish battles are presented as chibi_world and it's so silly it's actually awsome.

- You may save game anywhere in openworld outside of combat, but in dungeons you can save only on checkpoints and game makes an autosave on trying to nail the "tainted" boss - this liberty is pretty rare when it comes to jRPGs.

- Thanks to building sim feature, crafting materials are obtainable through facilities in town, the player doesn't have to grind 'em.

- Trashmobs respawn a few minutes after you kill 'em. Bosses don't respawn. Why is it awsome? Once you outlevel trashmobs a bit they won't attack you. You may still attack them if you want. Another rarity in jRPG.

- Main story is easy, side content is challenging. No more dick sizes difficulty crap. Everyone can decide difficulty they want in one playthrough!


Good at best:

- Music is hit or miss, some scores are okay, some are very irritating.

- UI is not bad, but could be better, especially the town building, due to different play modes usage you won't fix it with remapping T and TAB for example.

- You play a party of 3 from 6 possible persons. And you'll use only 3 of them. Those 3 who have CC (stun) skills. Other 3 you'll ditch out and forget.


Horrors that will prevent your sleep:

- I wrote before that the story is naive. It's not. It's retarded. Don't bother getting into it, I tried and tried, but it's so unbearable. Wanted to skip sillyness later and for whatever reason cutscenes are not skippable. Had a nightmare yesterday.

- The game is not fully voiced, where it is, normal sentences are okay. But I'm sick of hearing "gosh" all the time. I mean, really, who talks like that? Also, translation is hit and miss. Japanese Rolando is here without "o", makes it Roland. Which then makes you feel stupid at a certain moment unlike Koveras in Baldur's Gate. Whoever did these translations I can only comment - WTF were they thinking.

- About 20 sidequests are locked in the playthrough and appear only after you finish the main story. Also, only after killing the final boss you may maximize the town buildings, collect all possible citizens and Research some more stuff. Yea, there is endgame material. Why is it bad? Because the endgame is nothing but a mindless grind and these leftover quests and other stuff are deliberately removed from the main game only to justify the stupid grind.

- Brownies, if combined properly, can boost your party during fights and also themselves and their combos. Additionally skills/spells your party members use and brownies can be upgraded. Yay! If only that made any difference. You'll still want cc skills when you deal with bosses.



From pretty much unique game, when you finish it, it gets unmasked and turns into yet another outdated jRPG clone where you'll grind 30 floors of a dungeon over and over, where inside that dungeon you can't save the game anywhere and where most of trashmobs outlevel you so you grind your arse only to be able to nail the final boss in that dungeon. A boss level 95. And you finished the game on level 70, 71 max.

Yes, from hero to zero, but even without the disappoiting "endgame" it'll provide you with hours of fun and definetly deserves buying.
It will be remembered as a good hybrid of RPG and building sim until a better one emerges.

7/10

Originally Posted by Carnifex
Finished Trails of Cold Steel the second, utterly fantastic. Even better than the previous entry, I finished with just over eighty hours in.

Here is my analysis.

Listen close, don't miss it.


Game of the Year.

Battletech, Bard's Tale, whatever else comes out this year, best of luck surpassing this one.

If you even slightly enjoyed the first Trails of Cold Steel, play this one. If a game has jaded you recently, and you even remotely care for turn based games, give this one a go. It will make you smile, and restore your faith in games.

Fin

But…but…isn't ToCS a JRPG? I haven't played one of those since FFXII…

There seems to be a lot of JRPG interest lately here.

Even I am playing Dragon's Dogma which is a japanese open world western RPG.

The grinding seems to be serious in these JRPGS….

Nice review; but i guess this means I should skip it.

Originally Posted by joxer
After 90 hours let's say I've finished: Ni No Kuni 2: Revenant Kingdom


7/10

Beyond being a jrpg, Trails of Cold Steel one and two are excellent games, if you enjoy above average quality in tactical combat. You also have a robust group of people to choose from, but do not neglect too many folks in your squad because you never know when you might have to include someone in your party!

Originally Posted by Carnifex
Beyond being a jrpg, Trails of Cold Steel one and two are excellent games, if you enjoy above average quality in tactical combat. You also have a robust group of people to choose from, but do not neglect too many folks in your squad because you never know when you might have to include someone in your party!

Well, that does sound interesting. Will look it up.

The last game I "finished" was Into the Breach. Not that finishing is expecially hard nor time consuming if you only mean winning the game once, but I have every squad unlocked and all the achievements done which was about enough for now. A very nice change of pace and a different experience than most other games I play, it's more of a puzzler than a tactical combat game. Well worth the low price, even if not anywhere near as addictive as FTL (the last couple of days I actually started playing FTL with the Captain's edition mod because Into the Breach made me crave FTL. Go figure).

Before that it was OpenXcom with the X-Piratez mod installed. Best total conversion mod I've ever played, putting even the stellar Fall from Heaven for Civilization 4 in the backseat. If you're a fan of the orginal X-coms and haven't played X-piratez, do so. You won't regret it.

Originally Posted by you
Nice review; but i guess this means I should skip it.

No it doesn't. I'm not IGN, the game is above average, fun and worth buying. It's not a masterpiece sadly, had a potential to be if only somehow somewhere someone didn't decide to make it infantile and turn it into a mindless meaningless grinder past final battle as if it was some MMO.

Originally Posted by Thrasher
Even I am playing Dragon's Dogma which is a japanese open world western RPG.

The grinding seems to be serious in these JRPGS….

I can't possibly understand the love for that game. It gave me every reason to hate it and I do. Passionately.
Not all jRPGs are grind based. Trails of Cold Steel is one of such titles where grinding is optional and basically a waste of time as you can pass through any obstacle without grinding eccesively.

Does the difficulty ever pick up or is it a sleep 'fest the whole way ?

Originally Posted by joxer
No it doesn't. I'm not IGN, the game is above average, fun and worth buying. It's not a masterpiece sadly, had a potential to be if only somehow somewhere someone didn't decide to make it infantile and turn it into a mindless meaningless grinder past final battle as if it was some MMO.

I can't possibly understand the love for that game. It gave me every reason to hate it and I do. Passionately.
Not all jRPGs are grind based. Trails of Cold Steel is one of such titles where grinding is optional and basically a waste of time as you can pass through any obstacle without grinding eccesively.

Wrote above. Main "story" is easy peasy. Sidequests and optional content tend to be challenging, plenty will take you to skirmishes or dangerous bosses.

Skirmishes at first are hard as opponents have much more units than you and also outlevel your ones. Luckily you can research some bonuses and recruit better units over time plus train existing ones where these will become easy. The thing is to get those better units - you need to pass hard skirmishes first. So there.

Bosses I'm talking about, so called tainted, even if lower level than you still pose a threat. Some can instakill your whole party, some "cheat" and hide every now and then return comepletely healed. As you're leading a party of 3 controlling only 1 character, it will happen a lot that one sidekick dies and you'll have to use pots. However, you can't use all your pots during one fight, just a few of each type. Once you've used them all… Game over. I did say you'll take only 3 of possible 6 characters, but not instantly, the truth is you won't have any cc capability earlygame to stop bosses AI do it's most devastating moves.

This game is not unforgiving as Regalia though - you can if you want (and you shouldn't, it's openworld so you can always return later) grind your way out of anything just like in overrated "hard my arse" dark souls. But Regalia does not respawn trashmobs, remember? If you want a hard game, first make sure it doesn't contain reviving opponents. At the same time it's not easy as FF15 where all you need to do is equip Ragnarok then spam F on the keyboard.
Ni No Kuni 2 at the same time offers you easy and hard content. There is no global difficulty, it's only your choice if you'll fastrun it or try to complete the side stuff.

Originally Posted by joxer
Wrote above. Main "story" is easy peasy. Sidequests and optional content tend to be challenging, plenty will take you to skirmishes or dangerous bosses.

So how easy will it be for me who a) Don't care about post game content, and b) won't grind but I do try to do all the side quests.

IIRC you don't care about stories which won't make you irritated like it did to me. All the time during the game I felt like the writer is trying to lower my IQ, but you'll just ignore it.
You'll adore the game's normal combat part, it's nothing groundbreaking, but it's still fun especially when your party members learn some new tricks and you go to try new moves on the next (optional) boss.
Skirmish part and town development, dunno. I loved the way they made three different things mixed with each other. Note that it's nothing complicated or very deep, for skirmish just make sure you have at least two different ranged units (initially you'll have only two units but will later get more) and for town development concentrate on upgrading training and invention buildings first so you have a steady income plus your normal party and skirmish units benefit from all that.

Just remember that NNK2 is an unique experience. I can't possibly compare it with any other game. If it gets nominated for GOTY anywhere, it'll be only because of it's successful hybridization, nothing else. Which is sad. If only they had more courage, the game would ended up a masterpiece.