Last game you finished, tell us about it

Philistine said:

Damn it took 124hrs for my game. I did experiment with all factions before picking one (they all sucked).

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Wow!

Yeah, there is no goody-goody factions. They all have their pro and con. In sci-fi, I tend to prefer guns because I feel melee combat just doesn't make sense (unless you are a Star Wars Jedi ;-) )

Finished my first complete playthrough of a Souls/Borne game. And as expected it was Bloodborne and its expansion. In short, a fantastic experience. A perfect blend of awesome controls and combat, with amazing level design and exploration, all set in a victorian/cosmic horror setting that I imagine Lovecraft would approve of. And one that perfectly matches the emotional experience (rage/frustration/exhaustion/awe/thrill/joy/happiness) of the player while playing.

It's amazing that the game has an insight mechanic where the more insight you have into the world, the more you understand and the harder it is. The easier it is for your character to go insane. And that perfectly matches what the player is feeling. You can see yourself losing your mind after the nth retry of a boss fight. Or a brainsucker catching you offguard and raping insight out of your mind. This game does away with the ability to abuse the save/reload trick (you can still do it, but it's more of pain in the ass; and it's surprising how that little thing makes you not do it).

Anyway, I don't think it's worth going on and on about how awesome the game is. Most people likely already know about it. But it's definetely an experience worth going through. But, I'm not sure if I would've had the patience had it not been for the superb setting. I don't think I would've done the same in any of the Dark Souls games, none of which I've made significant progress in. They just feel generic. I think I'd rather choose to try Sekiro as my next From Soft game. But not before I try my hand at NewGame+ in Bloodborne, and maybe I can get a different ending than the one I chickened out with.

Just before I became obsessed w/ AC: Odyssey, i was hooked on another game that really captivated me, and I couldnt stop playing until I had finished it -

Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun

Harkens back to Commandos, but with a couple Ninjas, a Samurai, a wise old sharpshooter, and the prerequisite plucky waif. All fun to play, and if used right they are very deadly against overwhelming odds. Every time they introduce a new tool or ability, it's useful. You will use it, there are no "filler" abilities here.

It's one of those games where I stare at the assortment of enemies before me and think "there is no way..".

And yeah, it may take a while to get thru the level. It may take a couple sessions, but that's the point - you need to think while you, creep, stab, snipe, and sometimes just go balls out and try something crazy. Take a chance.
When it pays off, it's worth every minute. Very satisfying gameplay.

xSamhainx said:

Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun

Harkens back to Commandos, but with a couple Ninjas, a Samurai, a wise old sharpshooter, and the prerequisite plucky waif. All fun to play, and if used right they are very deadly against overwhelming odds. Every time they introduce a new tool or ability, it's useful. You will use it, there are no "filler" abilities here.

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I played little but was impressed with what I saw. Same with Desperados 3, but the same devs. Seems this series has found a good dev to take up the mandle of this type of tactics game.

I wonder if they'll ever get their hands at another Commandos game. It would be a real nostalgia trip to see a new Commandos game in this day and age. I'd love it.

xSamhainx said:

Just before I became obsessed w/ AC: Odyssey, i was hooked on another game that really captivated me, and I couldnt stop playing until I had finished it -

Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun

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You see that there's a stand alone expansion coming out for this?

Nice! I did not know that.

It can be a stressful game to play, tho. I dont know if I'm ready for another chapter just yet

I finished Disco Elysium for the first time today. I enjoyed it.

The start of the game was brilliant.

The story was good, but I think they overused the not very good detective story technique of the protagonist (me) stumbling upon answers. Especially the ending and the fact that I couldn't get to the last place even though earlier quests indicated this was a possible important location which I tried to get to. But couldn't because of gameplay limitations. There is no problem solving by me.

I liked that it is hard to know whether the weird experiences one's character has are real or not. Is he crazy, or is he experienceing parts of reality most people don't in this world? I enjoyed the world building they've done. I find the world weird, but also believable in that they've invented a sort of earth like place, and use similar names, but they twist names and use semi accurate words from different languages. And use real world politics, but also twisted.

They used skill checks in a very good way with both passive checks in every conversation and active choices in some of them. I liked that white ones could be retried, and that a failure wasn't that bad in most cases. Sometimes it even worked out just as good. It was fun to get to know the skills and the internal dialogue between them.

I disliked that the gameplay was too simple. Run around, talk to people and click on objects. That's it. It got worse since the running was so slow and fast travel almost never worked for some reason. I wasted quite a lot of time running back and forth.

Choosing thoughts to unlock was entertaining, but the "opaqueness" of the gameplay result wasn't. I enjoyed reading them, but was annoyed to sometimes realise that the thought lowered a skill I really needed, making the learning of the thought cost 2 level up points (unlock slot, unlearn thought). Luckily there are a lot of level ups if one has the right thought and high encyclopedia.

All in all the story was worth it, but the limited gameplay probably means I'll never replay it, now that I know the story.

Just finished Knights of the Chalice. LOVED IT.

Super fun dungeon crawling and combat encounters. Turn based. Make your own party of 4 adventurers. The very simple story was actually well done and fun IMHO.

Learned about the game here in the Watch forums. When I first downloaded the demo I thought it looked terrible. But don't let that scare you away. Truly a hidden gem. Developer apparently has a sequel coming out. I will definitely be buying and playing that one too.

Thank you Watch!

Quite possibly the best game I've played in the last dozen years or so, Knights of the Chalice may seem simplistic, yet one needs to actually play it to realize the depths it has. Over the years I believe I've played it through five times to date, and know I'll be playing it again, as well as looking forward to the sequel. If you like turn based combat, think gold box era games were mind-blowing, give this one a try. I'm really glad there's a demo for it, as that should likely tell you all that you need to know about the game.

I finished Fell Seal earlier today, what a fantastic game. I was one of those that had sponsored this game some time ago, and these days I tend to wait a bit before getting involved, to let any nasty bugs/fixes/updates land properly.

I've posted some of my musings on this fine game over the past few weeks, so I'll try not to repeat myself in this post. I will keep it simple: if you like games along the lines of Final Fantasy: Tactics, Disgaea, or Tactics: Ogre, you will be right at home with this. There are many classes to explore and you'll need to check out quite a few, because the opposition is no joke.

I'm not sure which game I'll be playing next, and whichever one it is, I don't envy the task of having to follow this one. As of right now, this very moment, Fell Seal is the best game I've played to date this year.

I might have to give it another try. I bought it, installed and played a little while, and it didnt grip me

xSamhainx said:

I might have to give it another try. I bought it, installed and played a little while, and it didnt grip me

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Same here, but probably because it just felt like battles. It didn't have anything else that made it fun to me.
The battles were fine, but not enough for me to play for more than several hours.

The story is indeed light, and most of the time spent will be in combat, with some light dialogue taking place shortly before or afterwards. There is quite a bit of lore to be found in the game, yet it's not exactly fed straight to you, you'll have to explore a bit to discover most of whats out there. It's well worth the effort. I've not played the expansion for the game yet, so I do know I'll be re-visiting to do that at some time. Most of all, I hope to see a full sequel to Fell Seal, it would be an instant purchase for me.

Octopath traveller in about 63 hours. The combat is pretty good and I like the art style. The whole game has that addicting one more chapter quest to it, but it falls short with the actual available mechanics (puzzles? actual exploration?). The combat can only drag it that far. As a whole the game is too simplistic (must be the switch effect?).

However, it got me in the mood for more and so I started Dragon quest XI. I am 25 hours in and barely level 11. Seeing how long it is (they say +100 hours) I'm not sure if I should continue. I just did the Cryptic crypt which was fun, but knowing me this combat will burn me out before long.

Graphics are ok due to the high-quality textures (really those look amazing) but the world is not too detailed and pretty empty (seems a trademark of most JRPGs?). I also tuned the music volume down a couple of notches, it is very repetitive.

Today I completed Order From Caos, an rpg-maker type game. This one was rather different in several ways from others in the genre, some good and some interesting. First off, the person that did the game, english isn't their first language. Nothing wrong with that, yet some of the dialogue can be pretty interesting, sometimes adding to the comedic value.

If you enjoy playing mages, this game doesn't like them. Oh they are fine, and you'll want at least one in the group, but they do not compete with the melee at all. So for me, I loved it!! I stuck with the three melee all the way through, and picked one of the three mages to join us. I went for the summoner, as she also can fight well with her archery/gun skills. The story is good, the fights are downright brutal at times, there is a fair amount of real estate to explore, I certainly got my monies worth out of the game. One I'll be replaying for sure.

Completed Alpha Protocol again. I love that game despite the harsh critics and low sales. The timed conversations are a blast of fresh air, and I'm glad other RPGs use it as well.

Just wish a sequel was made but chance of that happening are zero.

I was re-reading my recap on Order from Caos, and I think I should mention a few other caveats on the game. Like I said earlier, mages seem to be weak to me, and that includes healing abilities, which vary from mage to mage. Only one is truly competent, yet what I found myself doing for the most part is something I usually shy away from: using tons of potions. Early on the game is tight with the cash, yet maybe a few hours in and you'll notice the money is ticking up. Keep a goodly supply of healing potions, and the mana ones, and you'll be hunky-dory.

I finally finished Divinty: Original Sin tonight. I started playing it last year but lost interest and quit about halfway through. I picked it up again about a month ago and started playing it on and off. I never found the game very compelling which is probably why it took me so long to finish it.

Not sure why, but Larian's games always seem to drag at the end. Also, I'm not a fan of including another area and a bunch of dialogue after the final boss. Just roll the credits and show me some ending slides or something. I don't want to walk around and talk to more NPCs after the 100+ hours I've already put in.

Anyways, I think it's good but not great, and imo it's a little overrated. The combat was fun, and I liked the crafting system. The music, as it is in all their games, is really good. I found the characters very average though, and Larian's writing, especially when it comes to dialogue, just doesn't do much for me.

I finished the last Resident Evil last night (Village). To put it in a spoiler-free way, I liked the story/plot twists, and I feel Resident Evil went another step further in becoming a true horror game. Some of the sections of the game are damn creepy, and I foresee some players stop playing just because they just can't force themselves to go through the next dark corner with creepy sounds coming from it.

For the braver of hearts, it's a pretty good game, although as I said in another thread, it's questionable whether it's worth the £60 price tag when you can fully complete it in under 15 hours even at the slowest of paces, and has little to none replayability value.

There will be an online mode called RE:Verse given for free to people who purchased the game that may be an incentive to some people, since you can PvP with some of the franchise's iconic characters, but to me is waste of disk space so I won't even install it. Probably best to wait for a discount/sale in general, which unfortunately, doesn't seem to be something this franchise does often.

JDR13 said:

I finally finished Divinty: Original Sin tonight. I started playing it last year but lost interest and quit about halfway through. I picked it up again about a month ago and started playing it on and off. I never found the game very compelling which is probably why it took me so long to finish it.



Not sure why, but Larian's games always seem to drag at the end. Also, I'm not a fan of including another area and a bunch of dialogue after the final boss. Just roll the credits and show me some ending slides or something. I don't want to walk around and talk to more NPCs after the 100+ hours I've already put in.



Anyways, I think it's good but not great, and imo it's a little overrated. The combat was fun, and I liked the crafting system. The music, as it is in all their games, is really good. I found the characters very average though, and Larian's writing, especially when it comes to dialogue, just doesn't do much for me.

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Your opinion pretty much mirrors mine. Good, but not great is a good summary.