La5t Game You Fini5hed And Your Thought5

I may very well boot up the Evercade Vs. to give Time Knights a go, cheers for the recommendation.

~



Played all the match types, earned the maximum match rating and twice finished the main Road To Elite mode of the promising yet ultimately disappointing AEW: Fight Forever. There’s just a lot of deficiencies that are difficult to ignore here. Namely, that’s the strange roster omissions, the badly limited creation suite, the lack of variety and replayability with the Road To Elite mode, the janky online play and the myriad of graphical issues. I’ll come back to the full-price RRP.

Make no mistake, everything I typed in the paragraph above really needs tightened up and sorted out via a sequel or, preferably, through free updates. That said, Yuke’s have re-established a solid foundation on which Fight Forever and future AEW games can build upon. AEW: Fight Forever was marketed on the promise that it would provide a gameplay experience that was mechanically alike WWF No Mercy and the other classic AKI Corp wrestling games from twenty-five years ago, and I think it does a good enough job of replicating it (if not directly cloning it).

As a pick-up-and-play wrestling game AEW: Fight Forever just about succeeds, and that’s because the fast-paced and arcade-style gameplay can oftentimes be fun, uncomplicated and even quite refreshing when compared to every other game of its type in the last fifteen years. Getting the gameplay right was the basic yet most important thing that AEW: Fight Forever needed to get right, and I’m fairly satisfied that it does. In the end, I’d rather play AEW: Fight Forever than the likes of WWE 2K18, WWE 2K Battlegrounds and RetroMania Wrestling. By default it’s the best wrestling game on the Switch so far, and quite possibly on the PS5 and Xbox Series X too. On that note, the technical performance of the Switch version isn’t bad at all, it does the job as an on-the-go port.

Still, nothing about AEW: Fight Forever truly excels. The gameplay isn’t so fantastic that AEW: Fight Forever justifies its current £40 pricetag. Bluntly, it doesn’t come close. In my opinion it’s a total scadge that THQ Nordic have released Fight Forever at a high price, especially considering that all its contents are so patently low budget.  Everything surrounding the action inside the ropes is simply too barebones and underdeveloped for me to earnestly recommend it, at least until the game is heavily discounted. There’s clear improvements that can be made with patches before that time arrives though, and the newly announced Spring Stampede free DLC is a good sign that Yuke’s will carry on putting work into Fight Forever. I really hope this becomes a better game with additional work and further refinement, and I think it can do. So while it’s not a write-off by any means, right now it falls someway short of the great expectations that I feel it put upon itself. 6/10.

From footage of full matches I've watched the weak/strong striking seems a bit off to me, like it's almost too arcade-y? Good wee write up though and at least it sounds like it has something to build on.

When you say new Game Boy game I assumed you meant Grimace's Birthday, the only GB game that matter right now.

Also Magic & legends might be a few years old now as well still a 2020 GB game still seems new, anyway


The Light in the Darkness is free on PSN and is an easy Platinum, that you may think that is why I played it, which is mostly true. How I saw it was it is from Luc Bernard who has made a bunch of games that have come to the VITA, that I saw it brought up as his new game then that it would be made free etc.

Why it is free is that it is more of a piece of edutainment as it focuses on a Jewish couple during WWII in France, where you get archive footage and images in between chapters of the game on how Nazi occupation of France affected this family.

Yeah, so I did go into it thinking well it's an hour, it's free and easy platinum, yet I did learn some things that the game did do its job.


I continue my mission just to finish Square Enix games with my 20th in three years, and it won't be the last this year be that new release like Star Ocean 2D-HD or backlog such as Octoapth II.

VE is fine at best, think playing after FFXVI didn't help it as you got real-time combat with a combo system, you use your magic with the triggers and can only have like 4 at a time, RPG elements is put points into a chart and so on that it feels like what would happen if someone made FF yet with no budget.

For only Jay or Andy or if it comes to Plus for Smurf etc as it's only 11hrs compared to 40+ of XVI

I ended up writing this post out twice.  The first version I came up with shortly after finishing the game last night and is absolutely what Rum's accused me of doing before, tearing a game to shreds before slapping a 7/10 or better on it, writ large.  The second version I wrote today.

CAUTION - GRIPING WITHIN:

Justifying the score:

Balladeer wrote:

Cracking write-up though, they say brevity is the soul of wit and you've incredibly managed to keep a description of an enormous game to three-ish paragraphs.  Brief playtime too, sixty hours!  I won't manage to keep either as brief I suspect, and I think you benefit from both.  Top drawer.

Well I wasn't wrong.

I'm not gonna read that for a couple of days for obvious reasons, but I feel like we're gonna disagree . . .

Not only do I think having scores is redundant, I think comparing BotW and TotK is incredibly moot, seeing as how this game is clearly designed to pair with that one.

I really hope this isn't what 3D Zelda is for the next twenty years, as you know and would like to talk about it on a cast as recent Mario Kart session was brought up how I played wrong again (You can play games how you want) but TotK I really do feel I played it how most of you guys have. Which I think you can see in my play times, BotW 25hrs finishes the game, Tears 20hrs only does two temples. You might say that is still quick or whatever, maybe it is, but I could explain better on what I did, how I did it and how I came to the conclusion I don't like these games at all.

Why if the next twenty years of Zelda are more of this, though we get a Zelda Universe thing on avg once a year and I expect remasters/remakes (maybe one Ball wants)/new 2D there is something special about a 3D Zelda look at the excitement for Tears because it's a new 3D Zelda even having a game a year, then much like Metal Gear Solid this will now be a legacy series for me.

Anyway on what I finished


I have no shame in easy one hour platinums which Peppa Pig is. Peppa is on Plus, though I didn't realize this till I saw a truetrophies thing where It had gone up the played charts and then the next day saw PlayStation Access had done a race to the Platinum video which is about 1hr 30 mins. Then I realized it was an easy Plat, and bam here we here.

Now I've never watched Peppa Pig, but it looks like the show as far as I'm aware and is pretty easy with just using the left stick and the X button, that I do think kids would enjoy it or someone playing it for them, and they can watch as longer episode of the show. Why, on my list of now 40 games & expansion finished this year, it isn't at the bottom.

Started and finished Oxenfree II yesterday, which I did enjoy and the main character in this one Riley I liked, she won't but could up for best VO. Of course other things the first had such as atmosphere, the music, dialogue choices, the supernatural elements it is all here. And according to HLTB this Oxen II is the longer game, yet it felt shorter now that might because I did in one sitting though I think it's down to the first having a bigger cast of characters which you get to know and interact with, where in the second is teens etc, yet you don't get to interact with as much.

This means to me the main thing of a game like this and why the first I've played multiple times on multiple systems is the story and the second just lacks in that department compared to the first. Still think if liked the first you'll get something out of the second.

An attempt was clearly made in TotK to implement the traditional Zelda that people wanted into the map of BotW, so if they can make further steps in that direction whithout railroading you through a bunch of linear corridirs, I genuinely don't know why you would want them to remove the option of having freedom.

As for being allowed to play a game however you want, of course you are, but if I bought MGS4 and stuck the disk up my bum before spending seven years complaining that its a game that hurt my bumhole, you'd be annoyed.

Not got anything against about having freedom in the game, it's what you're doing is my issue. Pokémon S&V went openworld and you can do the gyms which are still gyms in any order for instance.

Also not reading that TotK review yet but I'm getting closer and closer to just finishing it even though I don't want to just so I can join in these discussions.

Another wrong opinion from Masofdas, the voice acting in Peppa Pig is way off the quality of the show and for some reason Madamme Gazelle has the same jawline as Stan Smith from American Dad, add to that the way Peppa says "standing still is boring" every time you stop moving makes her the most annoying support character in a game ever.

Have to back you on Oxenfree, if you've played the first game you'll enjoy this, it doesn't hit the same heights but it's a nice compliment that broadens the story a bit more.

Peppa does seem pushy, like why doesn't she get some sticks as well?

I will probably play Oxenfree 2 when I have a free evening to just sit in the dark and play the whole thing, properly spook myself. Audio weirdness gets me better than any visual scare.

masofdas wrote:

Not got anything against about having freedom in the game, it's what you're doing is my issue. Pokémon S&V went openworld and you can do the gyms which are still gyms in any order for instance.

Scarlet and Violet are actually an example of it being done really badly. The gyms are not levelled or scaled in any way to be played in an order of the player's choosing. There's a clear order from strongest to weakest but the game doesn't tell you it unless you look into a menu within a menu within a menu.

As for your complaint about what you're doing, the kind of puzzle-solving that used to be in 8 big dungeons is now in 120 smaller shriens and four dungeons. Is the issue just that it doesn't do the thing where it gives you an item and then immediately gives you the only puzzles that use that item? Because I think it's 100% a net positive not to do that any more.

It kind of does that anyway if you count each of your companions so even that's not a valid complaint, the scailing is actually spot on with the way different colour enemies start to appear as you get stronger and those in turn drop better items to fuse so you remain on the level.

You can of course have improvements to the next Pokémon game and have gyms scaled, I was just using another game which has gone open-world etc and I get the Pokémon Adventure I'm used to with S&V.

It's a complaint to me, as it's not enjoyable, and I hope we get what Zelda is to me still as well. That is the thing, some choice and at the moment even with a Zelda game almost a year only really been LA for me.

I think there's a way they can give you what you want from Zelda without sacrificing what they've achieved, but I also don't fully understand what you liked before and dislike now, so it's hard to say.

Anyway, anyone else finished anything?

Some of this Zelda chat reminds me of this video I saw the other day & while I don't necessarily agree with all of it they do bring up some interesting points which maybe explains why there's a little bit of a divide of those who do & don't like BotW/TotK.

masofdas wrote:

Anyway, anyone else finished anything?

Sure.

Last weekend I had a free day and played a big old session, getting the last tear and finishing the last regional phenomenon. Though I still had a lot of side content to finish, this lit the fire in me to finish off the main quests and get the game done before any of the biggest spoilers could come my way. After playing a bunch over the last week, I saw credits last night before bed.

This game is stellar. Breath of the Wild was a benchmark for what gaming can and should be; a bright shining light which several games have done their best to reflect but which arguably only one has managed to replicate. The prospect of a sequel, indeed a sequel using the same base map, seemed like a recipe for disappointment. Quite frankly, the accomplishment of Tears of the Kingdom living up to its predecessor is already staggering. The fact that in some ways it betters it is nothing short of miraculous.

Being back in this beautiful, immersive Hyrule was a delight, of course, as was travelling to familiar locations and seeing how they'd changed or developed. From the trailers we knew there would be a new sky element as well, and this was always delightful to visit. The surprise addition of the depths was cool, and the dawning sensation that this dreadful place was as massive as it was struck hard. Moving between the three, vaguely following the "intended" route while allowing myself to get distracted, this was an almost perfect gaming experience. Following various characters' stories and quests as a trail of breadcrumbs between major story events, there's a solid sixty-hour mostly linear Zelda campaign. At some points, I almost had to force myself to step away from the story and explore as I had in the previous game.

This attempt to insert a more traditional Zelda narrative into the open world can be less successful, no doubt. I didn't find the tears in precisely the intended order, but I was rarely struck with a twist before the appropriate time. I found the Master Sword a few days before learning how it got where it was, and the emotional gut punch was exquisite. However, while BotW had memories which provided character and flavour no matter what order they are discovered in, here the tears tell a specific tale which can feel weird if Link knows all the answers to questions other characters are asking but keeps schtum. It didn't bother me, and I don't think it could ruin anyone's game, but I think it is imperfect.




The new powers are a feat of engineering. From early impressions and from the kind of things people were posting online, Ultrahand might have appeared to be a Minecraft or Fortnite, or even a sequel to Banjo Kazooie Nuts n Bolts. The fact that the game can be played almost entirely with techniques from BotW - sword and bow, a little glide here and a levitation there - means that as I slowly did understand the nuances of building trucks, planes and killing machines, it felt like my own natural ingenuity. A really elegant difficulty curve means that even as more situations do require the use of these techniques, it feels like you're somehow cheating by using them.

Subtler are the Fuse, Ascend and Rewind abilities. Fuse reinvents the weapon system from BotW from something that rewards moment-to-moment action decision making to something that actively encourages creativity and adventure. Ascend and Rewind could feel lame if they were implemented like Twilight Princess' spinner, with very specific uses on individual walls and items. The fact that they work so well across this vast and layered world makes them something else entirely, and with Ascend I've gone on a journey from forgetting I have it in game to forgetting I don't have it in the real world.

The main story quests for me were pure Zelda. The Rito village in its cold slumber made me really want to rescue it, the Gorons and their rock addiction were comedic, reuniting with Sidon and seeing his love for Link break through Nintendo's blatant attempts to sink the ship was satisfying, and the Gerudo was a cool action-packed siege setpiece. The approach to the dungeons, with their verticality and seamless segueing from open-world to bespoke scene was always excellent. The dungeons themselves were fine - about as fun as I've ever found Zelda's dungeons. The smartest puzzling was always in shrines, and the bite-sized approach suits my tastes better. I don't think the dungeons were as interesting mechanically as the divine beasts, but at least they were unique locales.

The boss fights urinate over BotW's equivalents from a great height. Gross monsters, awesome scale, a fun little Mario Sunshine/ Splatoon callback and then a grand finale that I'm still reeling from. Overworld enemies have also benefited from an increase in variety and the changes to combat.



Inevitably, people being what they are, the discourse has often boiled down to pitting this game against its predecessor or trying to nail down a numeric score.
I think both of these are moot and tedious.

Tears of the Kingdom expands on Breath of the Wild in numerous ways, but it couldn't exist without that game. Breath of the Wild had a more grounded power set and scenario, but that forced me to spend a lot of time with my feet on the ground learning the world. Had I jumped right in with Tears, I never would have found my bearings or developed a love for the world, which in turn would have stopped me appreciating the mad ways this game expanded it. Arguing which is better is missing the point; as a duology, they are unparalleled. If this were one disk, with the upheaval the equivalent of Ocarina of Time's sword-pull, there would be no debate about the greatest game of all time. There would be little debate that this was the single greatest piece of art and entertainment made by humans.

In this game, I can step out of an inn to the beautiful music of Kakariko village. I can get on my horse and ride out through the pass onto beautiful, rolling grasses. In the sky, through a sun-beam placed with a painter's talent, I see a floating island. I hop off my horse, construct a hot air balloon and fly up to the island. Up there, I find a map to a treasure below ground. I skydive from the island, into a menacing chasm, right past the earth and into a dark world below. All seamless, all designed deliberately by human gamemakers allowed to operate at the peak of their powers for as long as it takes.

There are criticisms of this game. One or two of them may even be valid.
They're beside the point.

Game good.

Balladeer wrote:

With that density of stuff, TotK's Hyrule feels less like an organic space, and more like... well, a videogame world.  

And... TotK also takes a few more backwards steps.

I don't necessarily agree that this is a backwards step because this doesn't need to stand alone but can exist as a sequal to BotW and OH MY GOD THIS IS GALAXY AND GALAXY 2 BUT WE'VE SWITCHED SIDES?!?!?

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The story is worse for 90% of the playtime, focussing on people I don't care about from long ago and mystifyingly repeating large chunks of itself after every temple.

I don't think I agree with you here. The story for me was about Zelda and Ganondorf, whom I very much cared about, while I saw Rauru and Sonia as merely representing Ancient Hyrule. The two Zeldas, the time stuff, the swords and stones, this I dug. The repeating sage cutscene . . . what happened there?

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BotW no longer stands alone.  TotK improves on its predecessor in so many ways that it highlights BotW's shortcomings more, but also it's a worse game.  It's a tremendous accomplishment, but it isn't my greatest game ever like BotW was, and pulls BotW down so that it is no longer my greatest game ever either.  If TotK had taken a completely different direction, BotW would have remained an incomparable pinnacle.  

Mate . . . are you okay?

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Not only is it not that, but we have our direction of 3D Zelda games for the next twenty years now, and they'll all look something like this.

I wonder how true this will be? BotW came out and the TotK was born from the team experimenting more with that, but it seems as though they've gotten it out of their system. Who knows how much the next Zelda will or won't be like this?

The Cappuccino Kid wrote:

The Gloom adds an exciting threat and heightens the challenge in a way that just didn’t exist in Breath of the Wild, when you could just pause your game and scran twenty Raw Meat steaks to refill your health and somehow not get food poisoning.

This was a really smart little move and forced me to actually think about cooking and engaging with the game's systems right up to the final boss.

Quote :

Plus: it’s right enough that I used the now-patched duplication glitch in the past, but in all honesty that just streamlined my experience and let me focus on the game’s strengths and most enjoyable aspects. I still played the game with loads of freedom and endless possibilities, albeit I bent the rules a bit.

I'd say you've robbed yourself of something, but that's because . . .

Quote :

After sixty-odd hours it’s time for me to move onto other games so I’ll leave it at that.

. . . I don't get this. I'm glad I spent my 115 hours playing TotK rather than 10 other games for 10 hours a pop, and when I'm ready to go back I'll gladly pour 150 more into getting all the shrines and sidequests and whatnot. I know we have pretty different tastes in that regard. You're more of a varied cheese board kind of guy, while I'm a whole-block-of-cheddar-down-the-gullet guy.

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10/10.

Obviously.

Will give that video a watch, Jas

Top review from you Buska and Balla as well, I can see the passion for the game from both of you in the various things about it.

If it is art, it is not for all, and if it is for all, it is not art

masofdas wrote:

If it is art, it is not for all, and if it is for all, it is not art

True.

I also went and read your review in the didn't finish thread, and I always forget you don't like the direction Resi went (you said something about the Resi 2 remake in another thread recently too). You have very specific tastes, I guess.

I forget; ignoring the unfinished angle, how did you feel about MGSV? I think that's as close a pivot as any game series has ever made to the BotW one.

RE to me is a Survival Horror game and the new ones are just sort of Action Horror, like REmake 3 cuts out a whole puzzle part. Why I liked Signalis as it has the puzzles elements etc

I don't feel I have specific tastes, much as Andy brought up about VN recently be games in genres I like and dislike, and just don't like JRPG's and nothing else. The upcoming BGIII looks really cool, not my normal genre a CRPG for instance.

MGSV is my 23rd favourite game of all-time, sure it evolved in terms of gameplay when you do select your mission but was still tactical espionage action and had a mad story etc

There has been... too much posting since mine in this thread to respond in detail to all of it when I'm very sleep-deprived. A few sporadic points then:

• Mas played BotW wrong.  There's no denying that fact.  However, Mas learned from his mistakes and did give himself a better chance at TotK.  And still didn't enjoy it.  Fair play, maybe it's just not for him!  I understand his dismay at seeing a series he liked take a direction he didn't and can relate to it, I saw the Paper Mario series do much the same thing.  It's not fun.  I'm lucky that I like all types of Zeldas, but I'd still rather see the 2D ones at least retain a tighter design.
  
  
• Absolutely not here for the shrines being straightforward replacements for previous Zelda's dungeons.  Since Buska referred to us switching places on the Mario vs. Zelda, here's a Mario Galaxy example: Matthew Castle goes on and on about how Galaxy's galaxies introduce an idea, iterate on it, and then blow the idea up big.  If you hack those out into three separate mini-galaxies, you're left with a worse experience.  Same here.  (As well as the individual shrines quite often only having two steps in and of themselves.)  That's ignoring the benefits of aesthetic differentiation, a better mix of combat and puzzling, and the fact that mid-dungeon items that suddenly cast the dungeon furniture in a new light are good actually.
  
  
• I don't know whether a tight story-driven experience can ever fit neatly into an open world.  All I know is that TotK ain't that.  The difficulty curve consists of plopping a few more white monsters into the later-game groups of beasts.  The power curve consists of weapons strength and stamina, and isn't as interesting as getting more items.  The story can't smoothly escalate, it has to go back to zero at the start of each quarter.  And the pacing is different - not worse, but different.  You're not driven from beat to beat, you're driven from organic discovery to organic discovery.  I don't really think TotK tries to do this either, apart from maybe a token nod.  And like the pacing, in my opinion that's not worse.  It's just different.
  
  
• Zelda is fine once you turn her VA to Japanese.  I maintain that there's too much of Rauru and the Zonai in this story for me.  The overarching plot doesn't get good until the final bits of the final quests.  (Then it gets really good though.)
  
  
• This is the second game on the same machine, using the same world, music, and general mechanics.  It absolutely makes sense to compare the two.  I couldn't stop myself frankly, both in my head while I was playing and after the fact.  That said, it also makes sense to consider them the greatest double act in gaming, pushing the Galaxies into a distant second.
  
  
• Playing Peppa Pig for an easy Platinum is both a choice Mas should absolutely be allowed to make, and great supporting evidence for my argument that achievements are bad actually.
  

Balladeer wrote:

Fair play, maybe it's just not for him!  

Absolutely fair play. Like in all things in life, people are allowed to have any opinion they want, but I'm allowed to judge them for it.

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Absolutely not here for the shrines being straightforward replacements for previous Zelda's dungeons.  Since Buska referred to us switching places on the Mario vs. Zelda, here's a Mario Galaxy example: Matthew Castle goes on and on about how Galaxy's galaxies introduce an idea, iterate on it, and then blow the idea up big.  If you hack those out into three separate mini-galaxies, you're left with a worse experience.  Same here.  (As well as the individual shrines quite often only having two steps in and of themselves.)  That's ignoring the benefits of aesthetic differentiation, a better mix of combat and puzzling, and the fact that mid-dungeon items that suddenly cast the dungeon furniture in a new light are good actually.

I agree with a lot of this . . . in theory. How many classic Zelda dungeons actually delivered all of that, though? How many had maybe enough ideas for two of the three mario steps but actually dragged it out for eleven rooms?

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It absolutely makes sense to compare the two.  

I didn't say it doesn't make sense, I just said it's boring and moot.

Buskalilly wrote:

How many classic Zelda dungeons actually delivered all of that, though? How many had maybe enough ideas for two of the three mario steps but actually dragged it out for eleven rooms?

Most of them had more decent examples than not IMO, with the 3D ones being better than the 2D ones.  Twilight Princess was ace at it.  

Buskalilly wrote:

I didn't say it doesn't make sense, I just said it's boring and moot.

Mate . . . are you okay?

---

We all know Buska hates scores.  The rest of us know that scores are occasionally useful and usually fun.  For example, when I've spent several paragraphs moaning about TotK, there's nothing like seeing myself type out the score it deserves to give me a reality check.  Some games however are tougher to score than most.  Do I score GTPDR on the quality of the game, the quality of the remaster, the quality of the game on a replay?  They're all going to be different numbers!  It makes no sense!

It's kind of irrelevant anyway.  Everybody should be buying this.

If you've never played it before, this is a no-brainer.  Ghost Trick is easily the closest thing I've played to a perfect game.  Surely you all know this, but just in case: it's a narrative puzzle adventure, closest to point-and-click in style I suppose but without any of the clumsy inventory management associated with the genre, in which you play a ghost trying to solve the mystery of why he was killed.  The gameplay is intuitive and surprisingly deep, the aesthetics and animation are beautiful, the music is banger after banger - but it's the writing that stands out.  The characters are superbly individual, well-written and developed, and the plot is the twistiest knottiest and yet most surprisingly consistent thing.  You'll never see the main twist coming but you'll think you should have, which is the sign of a great one.  It's all wrapped up in a writing style that's light and breezy without sacrificing drama.  Even people you wouldn't normally see championing wordy games, like Jas, love this.

If you have played it, the remaster itself isn't the greatest thing.  The animation, beautifully smooth back in the day for the DS, has been upscaled to 60fps - but the upscaling is obvious and intermittently jarring.  The new controls are fine and touch-screen is still available, the extras are all but pointless, the new achievements do nothing bar get in the way with their pop-ups, and the music... well the music really benefits.  You can change back and forth between the original and remastered, and while the remaster isn't fully orchestral or anything the difference is noticeable and appreciated.  To be honest though, are you buying this for its QoL improvements?  Surely you're buying it to support Shu Takumi making more weird experimental games like this, which is a superb reason to pay full whack for a game you've already finished.  And honestly, this is one of the best games to replay: going back through it knowing the twists is a different and almost-as-great experience.

If everybody should be buying this, and everybody should, that makes the score all but moot in this particular case only.  Still, I like numbers, so I'm going to put one here.  And if everybody should be buying this, there's only one number I can really give it.