What are you playing, stupid?

[DayOfLavos]

Well let's see. I've been working on getting 100% on Kirby Air Ride, something I've wanted to do my entire life. It's pretty tricky!

I've also been playing through Bayonetta since that recently came out on Steam. Great game, though the PC port is a bit shoddy. I've really been enjoying it and I wanna play some more hack-and-slash games now.

Oh, and Senran Kagura Estival Versus. No shame.

[Shun-Di]

Spectre, it's pretty good for a SNES port of a PC game.   

[Tad]

Just finished Resonance.

Interesting premise and strong characters, but some puzzles seemed overly complex with an ending that felt a bit flat due to no real good choice and unfinshed business.

[max_cady]

They literally repackaged the same game over again changing only the story and characters based on which arc the anime was at.  I figured I'd wait until the anime was over and get not only the full story, but all the characters as well. 

Damn right. I will consider gettin' the quadrilogy package, though.

So after I was blocked by PSN for two weeks because I found out that one of the laptops in my house was jam packed with so many viruses and malware... I took it upon myself to take on Star Ocean V: Faithlessness and Integrity.

It's had a lot of mixed reviews and I can't say I blame 'em. I played Star Ocean IV: The Last Hope. Arguably one of the better Xbox 360 JRPGs. So does feel like a yuuuge step down in a ton of areas (fortunately it's not as abysmal as going from Final Fantasy XII to Final Fantasy XIII). The landscape is pretty, combat is solid but the way the game advances story is... odd. There are barely any cutscenes, much of the exposition is done in-game, in which your main hero is allowed to move around in a limited area, until all the characters are done talking (that also includes optional side conversations in which you get to know just a little more about the characters). It's weird, a little distracting but then again, the plot at least, thus far has been very, very straighfoward and easy to follow.

[MrTechnoSqueek]

Bought it the day it came out on steam never bought it when it came to 360 and PS3. And its good lol

[Shun-Di]

Bought it the day it came out on steam never bought it when it came to 360 and PS3. And its good lol

I didn't get it until years later used, but it's the most fun i've had in a looooong time. 

[Nameless 24]

Shin Megami Tensei 4 Apocolypse (WOW WE GOT AN SMT GAME PHYSICAL IN EUROPE!


My first MegaTen game and honestly? It's pretty good! Although I prefer 7th Dragon III's Battle UI as you actually see your characters make out the actions, this game is better on Story (Dagda looks like a Punk Biker god or something despite being something else).


I can see why the series gets controversy due to the religious themes, (Probably a coincidence that we get this game once SEGA acquired ATLUS since Nintendo is pretty iffy about religious themes) although for an Apocolyptic setting, I really really love the idea of it actually being about fighting Angels/Demons.


Having played this after 7th Dragon III, I sadly appreciate the former much more mainly because the Battle System is satisfying but SMT4A is holding up as a nice Post-Persona 5 snack to me. I definitely recommend it to those on the fence if you are not too hung up on religious tones. Dagda telling you not to trust others periodically really makes you feel like he is both using you AND guiding you.

[Asha]

Three amazing games:

This game is so fun! The final level with those invisible platforms is pure hell, though.



The character animations in Genesis Aladdin are incredible. It's still hard to believe that this came from a 16-bit console.



After many years of disinterest, I finally fell in love with Chrono Trigger. This SNES RPG deserves all the praise it gets imo.

[Centrale]

I picked up Guwange in the recent backwards-compatible sale for Xbox One/360. I'm not particularly good at these type of shooters but it's still quite fun. The artwork and music are fantastic.

[max_cady]

So I finally finished Star Ocean V: Faithlessness and Integrity. I'll start with this... If you remove all the sidequests, it's a really short game, by JRPG standards. At 15h, I was very much approaching the end of the game. So I took the detour and added another good 15h purely on finishing side-quests. Said sidequests tend to get dull very quickly because they are one of three things: pick one item, find and kill a super hard enemy or find one character.


Where I stand, SO V is good. Not really ground-breaking but good overall. Still a big step down from Star Ocean IV: The Last Hope. The story is easy to follow and very straightfoward (no heavy philoshopical themes). The characters are your usual mish-mash of stereotypes, Fidel Kamuze is your usual hero, not exactly mopey, a little brooding and that's about it. Miki is group's hen mother, Feria is the little girl that's responsible for the main thrust of the story. Fiore is basically Miss Wardorbe Malfunction, Victor is the expert swordsman and the two characters (Kenny Emmerson and Anne) are the outlanders who have an important stake in the story.


The way the story is shown is strange and takes a long time to get used to. Because most of it is done via ingame graphics with characters delivering exposition while Fidel can walk around and change the camera in a very small space. While most of the exposition doesn't take long it does get annoying from time to time when there's a lot of exposition going on. Why didn't they play a cutscene instead (which there are and are very sparce), I have no idea.


Same with private action, which allow to get some insight into most the main cast. You end up feeling a wee bit detached.


Combat is arguably the best part of the game. The game's also very level grind friendly, so please take your time completing a ton of said dull sidequests because they do pay off in YUGE way. Plus, while the game does a poor job explaining that sidequests unlock new attacks and specialities, it gives you a lot of extras, like ability to create items, augment weapons or armor, see enemies offscreen, get more loot and money from various enemy types, sell items for a higher value, play a ocarina to summon enemies (very useful for monster killing quests), make various gestours (useless but better than just standing around while characters talk) and get more items excavating, fishing or harvesting.


The Role system is a way to tweak IA partners since you fight with 7 characters onscreen, reminds me a lot of Final Fantasy XII's AI commands.


Overall, a good JRPG, not groundbreaking, if you pick up at a discounted price like I did. It's a fun adventure that won't take too much of your time. And now I'm gonna finally get into Yakuza 0!

[max_cady]

Sorry for the double-post... I just wanted to get this out of the way...


Yakuza 0 is a good game. It's damn good game! It's so damn good it hurts!





For context's sake, the only other game that I've played was the original Yakuza on the PS2. A really good game. It had everything, RPG-esque gameplay, lots of street fights, a great story and amazing locals. This is my second game... And I think that Goro Majima is the greatest villain / anti-hero in this game series, hands down! I assume this is an origin story, which makes his chapters a lot of fun to play.

[Shun-Di]

Sorry for the double-post... I just wanted to get this out of the way...


Yakuza 0 is a good game. It's damn good game! It's so damn good it hurts!





For context's sake, the only other game that I've played was the original Yakuza on the PS2. A really good game. It had everything, RPG-esque gameplay, lots of street fights, a great story and amazing locals. This is my second game... And I think that Goro Majima is the greatest villain / anti-hero in this game series, hands down! I assume this is an origin story, which makes his chapters a lot of fun to play.

They could take the fighting segments alone and use it to make a 3D Streets of Rage game!  :D

[max_cady]

Finally finished Yakuza 0 (97 hrs total) This game in what of these special things that SEGA gets almost everything right. The combat, the story, the game design, nearly everything. It's in the Yakuza series that I see a little bit of the old SEGA from days gone by. I had fun with it. The story is well paced and the ending is a little... sad. As a prequel, it does it's job well in setting up may of the future events and characters. But hats off to Goro Majima. While Kazuma does play a huge part in the overall plot, he's the true star of this game. It's basically his origin story, he's one of the major key elements, has the more interesting  mini-games that cabaret mini-game is awesome. Props to the one-eyes crazy, yet warmhearted Tojo clan captain.

[Tad]

Finished: Until Dawn

As a game that follows the now familar setup made popular by Telltalle where your choices matter and can have good or bad results later in the story, I think Super Massive Games did a really good job here with their own attempt in a horror setting.

I can see why so many people were fascinated by this little gem and I can't help but agree with the general consenus of it being good. This could have easily have fallen apart if the story headed down the simple route you're sort of lead to believe, but it manages to go beyond that and create a rather interesting plot that has you wanting to replay to select other choices and open up other dialogues or different situations. Replaying this really does help too, as the more clues you discover the more you learn by yourself or from what the characters come to understand through conversations. You may think mentioning replayablity must mean it's short, but I think the game ends at a good spot without overstaying its welcome. There are ten chapters in total and each one varies in length from an hour to about two at most.

The only issues I really have with the game stems from the controls. Most of the time you'll fly through the game with no controller problems, but I quickly discovered the slow movements of the characters can be a pain - especially when you're replaying and the save points are only at the start of each episode. On top of that, some of the choices they give you aren't fully explained and by the time you realise as such, it's too late. The "do nothing" choice isn't even displayed for example, so I never thought it was a choice and I paid dearly for that one.

Still, I hope we see more of them from this team.

[Betwixt Thieves]

Currently playing: Hatsune Miku Project Mirai DX

I am sheepish to admit that this is my first Hatsune Miku game I have played. I realize it is fairly different than the Playstation offerings, but I have no background to compare it with.

The game is a fairly fun romp although the difficulty can ramp up rather quickly for a beginner such as myself. Nothing too crazy that a little bit of practice doesn't solve and the easy songs stay consistently at a level that make them easy to at least pass allowing you to open new tracks. A play through or two will yield a perfect.

The mini games (Puyo Puyo and Reversi) are fun to kill some time and enjoy hanging out with your partner (Hatsune or one of her friends). You can decorate your room with Sega artifacts, Hatsune Miku stuff, or just various things such as furniture.     

Sega implemented a stamp sheet that you fill up to act like a trophy or achievement system for the game. You will find that the requirements are vague so the hope is that the more you play you will be able to accomplish the task by spending more time in game. This leads to the most frustrating part of the game (being a perfectionist and completist at games). Some of the stamps are triggered by seemingly random events while hanging out with your partner. I found myself sitting in hotel rooms on business trips with my 3ds just propped open hoping my partner would randomly trigger an event I needed to happen. Most embarrassing was when I had it open at the airport waiting for my flight and an older woman saw my screen and wondered why a 30+ year old had a cute little girl playing around on my game screen. Her look of scorn made me switch over to Space Harrier 3d.

Overall this has been a fun game and I'm glad I gave this virtual idol a chance from Sega.