WHAT PLAY YOU!? Version 3.0

[The King Of Swing]

Metaphor Refantazio (PS5)

Story is bang average, characters are mostly bland and music is probably the weakest of any Atlus RPG I can recall.

Reduced the difficulty just to get it out of the way which is something I don't think I have never done with an Atlus RPG until now.

Knew I should have trusted my gut and waited for a sale. 

 

 

[TildeGuy~!]

48 minutes ago, The King Of Swing said:

Metaphor Refantazio (PS5)

Story is bang average, characters are mostly bland and music is probably the weakest of any Atlus RPG I can recall.

Reduced the difficulty just to get it out of the way which is something I don't think I have never done with an Atlus RPG until now.

Knew I should have trusted my gut and waited for a sale. 

 

 

Thanks for that, was on my list to buy but I think I won’t bother now. 

I’ve gone back to Persona 5 as it’s free on PS Plus, I finished Royal when it came out but never played the original

Edited October 18, 2024 by TildeGuy~!

[FLips]

Yeah I played the demo and was bored to tears by the time I got to the boss. Even for an Atlus game they never shut up talking and the gameplay wasn’t anything special.

[BrodyGraham]

Picked up Phantom Spark and Kill Knight this week. 

Phantom Spark is a kind of slightly psychedelic cross between F-Zero and Trackmania. It's really quite lovely. It's got just the right mix of being relaxing and having that just one more go appeal.

Kill Knight randomly popped up on my socials and is bloody intense. It's ostensibly a twin stick shooter with a bunch of different combo mechanisms and melee mechanics. It's a bit like what I'd imagine Platinum would come out with if they made a twin stick shooter or a Grimdark fantasy version of Nex Machina. I'm fucking shit at it though!

[Devon Malcolm]

Started playing Gonner but I'm not sure I'll stick with it. The design's fantastic and there's the basis of a really good platformer here but the difficulty just ramps up so high after a very early point that I can't be arsed getting frustrated with it. Seeing a pattern with these roguelike platform games and I don't think I like it.

[Devon Malcolm]

Gave up on Gonner. A real shame but it's stupidly difficult and I cannot get past this one part of it. Just obnoxiously difficult.

Rayman Origins continues to be a joy, except that fucking level where you have to kill the big spiky thing. What a pain in the arse.

Started Turok. Very much enjoying it so far, plays great on Steam Deck too. 87p well spent!

Tried Freedom Fighters but found it quite boring and the controls were very annoying. Might give another shot on a more patient day.

[TildeGuy~!]

So the Like A Dragon: Yakuza series on Prime is absolute garbage unfortunately 

[FLips]

15 minutes ago, TildeGuy~! said:

So the Like A Dragon: Yakuza series on Prime is absolute garbage unfortunately 

I had no idea it was out already. How garbage are we talking? Aside from Kiryu looking a bit rubbish the trailer looked decent.

[thevestofdeanambrose]

I finally got round to playing Cyberpunk after all the fixes and updates and the purchase of a PS5.

Wow what a game! It's not perfect and the driving is wild but it's fantastic with a great main story with super addictive side missions and stories.

Leveling your character up can be confusing AF and the inventory is a bit messy but a few YouTube videos kind of help on this!

It's defo one you can do more than one run through.

Just to add an edit on this. I'm usually not one for open world games and lose interest after a while and prefer linear games like The Last of us but this has kept my interest and saying its worth doing more than one run through is huge for me haha!

Edited October 25, 2024 by thevestofdeanambrose

[TildeGuy~!]

8 minutes ago, FLips said:

I had no idea it was out already. How garbage are we talking? Aside from Kiryu looking a bit rubbish the trailer looked decent.

It’s like the director read up about the story of the first game by watching a 10min YouTube video and thought fuck it, that’s all I need to know.

First 3 episodes went up at 4pm yesterday.

 

[The King Of Swing]

Funnily enough I recently restarted Yakuza 0. I'd forgotten just how satisfying that old school Yakuza combat can be. 

I'm not sure how to feel about the recently announced Majima Pirate game. I loved the wacky adventures of Secret Agent Kiryu, but I'm worried that RGG are about to truly jump the shark.

Feels like the series has finally run out of steam and now they are leaning almost exclusively into wacky side for the memes.

RGG did really well with Yakuza Like a Dragon and The Man Who Erased His Name, but the wheels started coming off with Infinite Wealth, imo.

Being blunt, I just didn't enjoy Hawaii as a setting and the more interesting ideas (dealing with helping ex-criminals rehabilitation, for example) were just kind of tossed aside in favour of a much less interesting main story.

[LaGoosh]

Gris is free on PSN. A lovely, relaxing and fun platformer with beautiful art that only takes about 3 hours. Try it out!

[RedTwoster]

2 hours ago, LaGoosh said:

Gris is free on PSN. A lovely, relaxing and fun platformer with beautiful art that only takes about 3 hours. Try it out!

I’ll second this recommendation - I’m sure I’ve recommended it myself while it was on a Steam sale at some point and I’m delighted to see someone else bring it up. It’s a stunning little game, and it sticks with you in spite of the short run time. It deserves to be played, and given that it’s free…I mean, what have you got to lose?

[FLips]

Sonic X Shadow Generations

The Sonic half still holds up ok as a flawed but fun 360-era platformer. There's been minor graphical and fps improvements but nothing added in the way of content unless you count the Casino Night pinball level DLC that comes as standard with it.
The Shadow half undoubtedly looks and handles a lot better, but suffers (at least for me) from the fact that outside of Colours there hasn't been a good standalone 3D Sonic game so all of the ones Shadow has been in, I've never played outside of Adventure 2. This means that all his stages hold no nostalgia for me, I don't know them. Shadow is also rubbish and because he's stroppy and edgy so are his stages and music. May as well be playing Devil May Cry for kids.

It's bang average. The fact they added nothing to the Sonic portion of the game as a crime, and the Shadow stuff plays well enough but doesn't do much for people like me who don't recognise any of it as it's too short to merit it's own game.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6

Campaign is good so far. Decent level variety and a bit more to do in the stages, and a nice hub level with easter eggs and upgrades to do outside of it. Zombies is the best it's ever been with a couple of unique and fun levels that go back to classic rounds and none of this open world Warzone style rubbish from last year. Multiplayer is still a frustrating mess with awful matchmaking, the worst spawns in any multiplayer game since the last COD, and that awful "shoot first, die first" issue they've nearly all had regardless of how good my wired connection is.
That being said, Hardcore Nuke Town 24/7 still scratches a specific itch while I'm running around it with smoke grenades and a baseball bat. Worth a shot this year on Xbox at least as it's on Gamepass.

The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom

I'm beating a dead horse here after Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, but this is now the third Zelda game in a row that deviates from the classic style of gameplay and to be frank I'm bored of it. Not to say they don't have their strong suits, but they're not proper Zelda games. This one especially feels like a spinoff that could have came out on the 3DS or something.

You play as Zelda and despite her historically being able to fend for herself quite well, in this she forgoes any sort of proper defense to instead use a wand that can spawn items and enemies in to help her. On paper this sounds creative and open to experimentation, and to a point it is, but the game soon devolves into spawning beds to climb things, bird for air things, sharks for water things, and knights for ground things. The menu, with it's dozens and dozens of items that you only need 4 of is a slog to go through.
You can change forms into an echo of Link with his sword and bow but it's temporary, and only acts as a way to remind you how better the game could be.

The overworld is still fun to explore, but exploration boils down to placing beds. Just give me a sword and shield and be done with it.

Pokemon Trading Card Game Pocket

I've been playing Marvel Snap for the better part of a year and this has came out and I haven't been back to it in weeks. Might be my new card battling game of choice. It's had a rocky launch, lacking content and being dominated by a 4 card meta that makes competitive PVP a slog, but you can't match the dopamine hit of opening packs and getting a shiny.

They're slowly drip-feeding events and content into it too. Worth a look now but if you jump on board a couple of months from now there might be a fully fleshed out game here.

Pokemon Trading Card Game (Gameboy Colour)

To offset the wait times that come with any mobile game, I've booted this up on the Switch virtual console and it's a blast. A game I played briefly and found boring as a kid, makes a lot more sense mechanically to me now. Also has an amazing soundtrack for a Gameboy Colour game. The gameplay on the overworld is basic and not close to the typical Pokemon experience but if you like making decks, opening random packs and card battles there's still fun to be had. That soundtrack though, wow.

 

[Devon Malcolm]

Finally finished Rayman Origins last night to 100%. It's a great game overall but some things just outstay their welcome, don't they? The last four or five levels are obnoxiously difficult and Land of the Livid Dead just goes on and on and on. It's just not fun to the point where I might not replay it because fuck having to do that again. Otherwise, like I say, a great platformer.