Last game you DIDN'T finish and your thoughts

approved.



Shamelessly nicking GJones' pic despite coming to opposite conclusions to him.  

Inside was never a game I was excited by.  It was a game I felt I had to give a go to (once it was on eShop sale), because everybody (GJones included) showered it with praise; and give it a go I did.  According to the bar along the bottom of the 'load' screen I was maybe a third of the way through?  Got past the bit in the picture anyway.

Ultimately I felt exactly how I thought I would about Inside.  I play games for fun and frolics, not depth and despair; and Inside hasn't heard of fun.  Possibly it exists somewhere outside the heavily armoured compound, full of blank-faced men who'll shoot a kid on sight and dogs who'll rip you apart.  There was a perpetual feeling of tension while I played it, waiting for the next dog bark.  As an easily stressed person I don't need that in my life.

Inside being so diametrically opposite to the reason I play games makes it difficult for me to judge on any level.  I thought the art style was really striking and interesting, but not one I like.  The sound design was all ambient stuff without a hummable tune in earshot: matched to the design, not matched to Balla's tastes.  Some of the puzzles I got to were 'ohhhhhh' levels of clever; some were 'well I had to push a block/hide from a light'; and some, as Rum says, were trial and error (or so dark that it might as well have been, looking at you early dog chase).  Mixed with the grim audiovisual consequences for failure, the trial and error was particularly galling.  The bit I actually gave up on was a watery bit, because as an ex-asthmatic I have a big fear of anything that cuts off your airways, and the boy drowning out of nowhere the first time I took a dip made me not keen to trial-and-error how long he could survive.

This is a useless post for basically anyone, so I'll wind up.  If you've been tempted by Inside despite worrying if the subject matter might put you off, be worried and wait for a deep price cut.

Thank you, you've further strengthened my decision not to play this.

Not surprised you didn't like Balla but also surprised you got where you are not pushed through to the end as its not long.

I'm unsure about you Smurf as I put this in the Journey, SotC category (Inside nowhere near as good) which I know you're not keen on, but feel some of those sort games you do like.

Inside is comfortably better than Journey and SotC, don't listen to the haters!

Thanks Andy needed a good laugh whilst home sick.

masofdas wrote:

Not surprised you didn't like Balla but also surprised you got where you are not pushed through to the end as its not long.

I'm unsure about you Smurf as I put this in the Journey, SotC category (Inside nowhere near as good) which I know you're not keen on, but feel some of those sort games you do like.

It took me an hour, maybe a bit more, to get there. I really didn't fancy another two hours of drowning and dogs.

I know I've not played much at all of SotC (or any of Journey) but I would be very surprised at anyone putting them in the same categories as Inside. Apart from how they play (SotC is emphatically not a puzzle-platformer, Journey's all about working together I thought), the fears they evoke are surely very different, and I believe that's Smurf's sticking point. SotC is all epic fantasy about being trampled by giant monsters with maybe an undercurrent of creeping yet fantastic dread; Inside is all tension all the time, about very real fears like being shot, mauled, suffocated etc. by real humans and their chums. Maybe it gets more sci-fi after where I've got to, but Inside felt nothing like SotC and I'm deeply sceptical about the Journey comparison.

Yes they all play different, I'm putting them in a box together like when you browse DVDs in HMV the world cinema section has all sorts or foreign film at the Oscars.

That I'm looking at them even though not all indie more of as whole, EofGiz would put it as pretentious.

Crumpy Andy wrote:

Inside is comfortably better than Journey and SotC, don't listen to the haters!

I've not played SotC yet but I thought Journey was wildly overrated. Maybe I needed to play it at the time, but I just remember thinking "what's all the fuss about?". Much preferred pissing about with wind in Flower. I really liked Inside; constantly wanted to see where the game would go next even if it was playing to common human fears. The underwater bit was rough, I had to look at guides occasionally. The dogs definitely shit me up later on too.

Balladeer wrote:

I play games for fun and frolics, not depth and despair; and Inside hasn't heard of fun.

This is an interesting take, as I think I had a lot of fun with it but was it fun fun? By the end I was smiling my tits off but 90% of the time was an ordeal. Inside is full on survival horror in that respect. It's probably a better experience for someone that rarely plays videogames - it constantly pushed at buttons few games do which is why it got so much critical acclaim. If someone said "what five games would you make a videogame sceptic play?". Inside is definitely in there. I can see why it's not to your tastes though.

What you're saying gJones about showing Inside to people outside gaming that's also somewhere I'd put Journey, SotC and TLoU etc.

As recently on BBC Radio Somerset they where talking about the Resident Evil Village lycan drawing and they where like a Video Game!?! You could just tell they think games is Mario or COD how they spoke & tone.

Which is fair enough, but doesn't apply to Smurf who (I am led to believe) plays quite a few games!

gjones wrote:

This is an interesting take, as I think I had a lot of fun with it but was it fun fun? By the end I was smiling my tits off but 90% of the time was an ordeal. Inside is full on survival horror in that respect. It's probably a better experience for someone that rarely plays videogames - it constantly pushed at buttons few games do which is why it got so much critical acclaim. If someone said "what five games would you make a videogame sceptic play?". Inside is definitely in there. I can see why it's not to your tastes though.

I have read about what happens at the end and yep, I bet you were smiling.  That bit does sound fun.

I'm guessing those feelings were:

I completely agree with your point about rare gamers.  At the same time I don't watch horror films either for similar reasons.  I don't like being scared!

I think I mentioned it elsewhere where but the main thing that puts me off Inside is the ending which I already know about and could have likely soured me on the game a bit (same as with SotC), it plays in to a personal fear/nightmare from childhood that I just don't wanna put myself through. I can play intense games, I can play scary games, I can play artistic games that are all about the message, I just don't wanna experience "that". Aside from that it also sounds like the bulk of the game isn't worth the payoff of the ending and putting myself through it, maybe I'm missing something but I'm ok with that.

On the subject of games to make a video game sceptic play I will 100% agree with The Last of Us and I'd also add What Remains of Edith Finch to that list.

See with Inside I didn't find it aggressively horrifying or anything. The sense of atmosphere was great, but I also found mechanically it was sound. Every puzzle felt satisfying, I rarely felt I was stuck doing trial and error or repeatedly dying. It was just a satisfying game with an interesting world.

Crumpy Andy wrote:

See with Inside I didn't find it aggressively horrifying or anything. The sense of atmosphere was great, but I also found mechanically it was sound. Every puzzle felt satisfying, I rarely felt I was stuck doing trial and error or repeatedly dying. It was just a satisfying game with an interesting world.

I was stuck doing trial and error for some bits (the insta-death sound puzzle for one) and that bastard lass in the water. She can do one. But it never felt unfair or frustrating and as you say, the world hooked me in and I wanted to see what was next. Given most side-scrollers fall back on your lava level/ice level cliches, it just felt like a breath of fresh air.

Slightly embarrassing this.  Only yesterday I said I was having fun with it, despite the walkthrough.  And I was!  This is partly a rage quit as a result of the game getting much less fun/more frustrating/'git gud', but even before then it was a very flawed game; and looking at the walkthrough I've still got over a third left.

It's not a bad game though.  Miriam is pretty fun to control (especially underwater), the environments and enemy designs are fun too, the boss battles are an interesting bunch, and the music is boppable.  (That's a word now.)  Putting together the shards and weapons to suit your own playstyle is also fun.  Not remarkable, none of it is apart from a few amusing enemy moments - but fun.

It's probably more fun away from Switch.  The patches have done a heck of a repair job, to the point where frame rate drops are pretty rare (although the game's visual style remains mediocre and all the patches in the world won't improve that); but the loading pauses remain dreadful, especially upon firing up the game, and the game has slowed to a 'has it crashed?' standstill twice in two days.  The game also has some inherent problems, chief among which is the utter lack of signposting at times, to the point where a walkthrough feels mandatory unless you have an absurd amount of patience or a really good memory for details.  The requirement for a random drop shard to proceed is also awful design, in a shock 'Andy was right' move.  

The point at which I rage quit was the more common Metroidvania issue of bad checkpointing, where I jumped into a new area (the lava one if you're curious) and was immediately confronted by a horrendous lot of new foes and environmental obstacles.  I died almost instantly, on both the first and second goes.  The most recent checkpoint was twenty minutes away, coupled with a difficulty spike and a lot of floaty quick hard-to-hit enemies, not to mention the sickening reload time upon Game Over.  The game had finally, 10-15 hours in, tipped too far over the 'fun-frustration' border.  Incidentally half an hour earlier I'd struggled into a similar new area and, because I chose the wrong door, found myself facing a surprise boss on low health as opposed to going into the recovery room opposite.

I don't usually score unfinished games, but I think I've played enough of this.  It's very much not a bad game, and I think in fact the core is a good game; and on another machine you could probably give it another point.  It is nasty hard at times, which seems to go along with the genre sadly.  Kirbyvania when?





Saturday EDIT:


In retrospect we got the order wrong.  The Lady and I had a good time playing Super Mario 3D World in co-op, and upon finishing it sought about for something else that could deliver a similar experience.  What better pick than the original Wii U Mario co-op game?  Turns out the answer was, 'Almost anything.'  The thought remains that if we'd played NSMBUD first, we might have had a much better time.  On the other hand, it might just have put us off SM3DW.

Everything is worse.  The two dimensions leave less space for players to navigate around each other.  You can't stomp on each other's heads for laughs any more, but you can land on each other's heads by accident for frustrations.  The art style is more washed out and less vibrant, the soundtrack less interesting, the levels less well designed.  The main characters play exactly the same, with the only choice being between 'normal', 'easy', and 'piss-easy'.  The way they play, by the way, is with horrid momentum: noticeably slidier and more irritating to pilot than SM3DW's lot.  This is exacerbated in the ice world, natch.  The squirrel's less fun than the cat, the Koopalings are less fun than basically anything, and you have to fight Worst Mario Character Of All Time Boom Boom in every world.  The final nail in the coffin is that you're thrown out to the overworld upon every death, presumably to allow you to pick an item, which slows the game down no end.  

Actually no, the final nail was the choice between an ice world and a water world, the two worst things in platformers.  Sigh.  

I did then have a crack at New Super Luigi U on my tod, shortly before The Lady said, 'Have you ever given up on a game this fast?'  Perhaps not: it took three levels for me to confirm that every one of them has a 100-second time limit, after which I wanted as much distance between me and it as possible.  Time pressure is the worst thing about 2D Marios, and they made a whole game's worth of levels with it in?  Ludicrous.

It's also ludicrous to think that I thought this was an improvement in the New Super Mario Bros. sub-series when it launched on Wii U.  How starved of quality we were!  To be fair it was better in single-player, but I've already played this in single-player, and when I had less choice in my games too.  The best thing about NSMBUD is that it makes me feel more kindly disposed towards 3D World, which in no way makes up for the price I paid.

Monday DOUBLE-EDIT:

Wasn't New Super Luigi U a reaction to New Super Mario Bros. U being too easy? It certainly felt like the whole point of it was to just a Hard Mode, that should have been part of the game already. It's weird to think that New Super Mario Bros. U was the first Mario launch title since the Nintendo 64, and it was hugely underwhelming.




I have given up on Guilty Gear Xrd: Revelator after beating the tutorial and arcade mode. I saw the credits but I wouldn't say I've beaten the game. For the uninitiated, Guilty Gear is a series of 2D fighting games that started back on the PlayStation. They are extravagantly illustrated and often acclaimed for being a gorgeously animated alternative to your more traditional street fighting titles, featuring all sorts of weird characters. I had a copy of Guilty Gear X on the Dreamcast in the early 2000s, and have fond memories of one fella who has a snooker cue and fires airborne pool balls at his enemy. It felt more like Rakuga Kids than Street Fighter.

Guilty Gear Xrd: Revelator is a random selection of words and it accurately reflects the madness. The tutorial has platforming tasks that are hugely frustrating because the dash mechanics aren't designed for pinpoint precision. I got through it though and then decided to try the Story mode. Except, there is no actual Story mode like there is in Tekken. It's an anime episode and you're advised to put the controller down. Yep, you just watch... It's a ballsy move, but one I quit after five minutes as it's absolute arse. Granted, I'm not an anime guy, but the problem with Guilty Gear Xrd: Reveleator's "story" is that it's got a generic backdrop (robots vs a crew of super-humans) that belies the wildly creative character designs. I want to know more about snooker lad and guitar chick's history, not hear hollow dialogue about humanity's conflict with technology for millionth time. It's the antithesis of the creativity and originality seen in the character design - but then what fighting game has managed to provide a worthwhile plot behind its violent premise? Arcade mode even includes bits of the story anyway, with each character having unique interactions with each opponent, so Story mode appears to be purely for hardcore Guilty Gear fans that like this world.

The actual fighting mechanics are decent and you've got your standard blocking and countering. I like the look and feel of the fighting itself, but my main issue with Guilty Gear is there's just so much going on. The characters are large and beautifully designed, but so is the background. I often found myself distracted or losing my sense of control of Venom (snooker lad) simply because the foreground was blending in with the background. I'm not great at these games so I put it on Easy and rattled through with little issue on that front, but I can see the depth in the gameplay that's available for anyone looking to explore this series further. The music is also a welcome change - it's all heavy metal and it really suits the aesthetic.

Guilty Gear Xrd: Revelator just leant too heavily into the lore for me; it's a difficult sell to any newcomers but I'm sure there's a similar title in the Guilty Gear series (probably an older one) that strips back the anime stuff and focuses on the fights, which is where this game can be a fun diversion for both casual and hardcore gamers.

6/10

That sounds fair enough, and I would be up for a challenge hike.  I'm not up for a simultaneous reduction of all time limits to 100 seconds!  Challenge doesn't have to equal artificial urgency.  Also, I genuinely liked NSBMU at the time, but I think my expectations were set really low.

The Guilty Gears look nice but I'm sure I would be really bad at them, as I would with most fighters.  I have tripe reaction speed and finding learning combos frustrating.  I only got through Soul Calibur II by spamming the cheapest moves.  (The 'getting lost in the background' can't be as bad as Smash though, surely?)

PUMPKIN JACK:

SILENCE - THE WHISPERED WORLD 2:

Expected to see this sooner, didn't you?  Well, I've really enjoyed my time so far with MHR.  That's despite being a newbie to a series that doesn't welcome newbies, playing what was meant to be a co-op offering on my own, not liking the very short last time I tried out a MonHun game, and not liking action titles in general.  I don't think I'm necessarily done with it either.  I have, however, taken out the box monster (twice - died the first time), so I figure it's time for me to take a break and focus on other games in what looks like a busier second half of the year.

There was a point where it clicked.  Before that point, I was forcing myself to hunt a monster every so often.  After that point... well immediately after that point I was going 'NOT THE RAMPAGE MODE', but otherwise I was churning out the hunts every night I had to myself.  I guess I'd got to grips with my Hunting Horn well enough and felt powerful enough, and the monsters were mostly interesting enough, that I was enjoying the hunts rather than feeling stressed out by them.  It really helps that the new monsters are based on yokai too: I've got a large soft spot for Japanese ghouls and goblins.  I definitely prefer them to their more Western counterparts.  I think the wirebugs helped as well: the levels were as fun to explore and learn as the monsters were to fight, largely due to their verticality.

I still don't love it as much as the Mashers, and some of that's inevitable.  I just haven't played it with real people, and I know I've hamstrung my enjoyment of it through that.  Other aspects I think see genuine flaws.  I had to drag myself through mountains of information and shoddy introduction work to get to the enjoyment point: I do feel that a couple more skippable tutorial missions could have made a huge difference.  (I don't at all buy the argument that this barrier to entry should be part of the experience.)  I believe that previous games gave monsters unique musical themes: I don't think I heard any apart from Magnamalo, although I was busy trying not to die most of the time so I might have missed some.  A fair few of the monsters did fall into the 'generic-ish-lizard-or-dragon-with-an-element-added' bracket - hi Rathian.  

Still: I enjoyed this much more than I should have done by rights.  I can see myself coming back to this down the line to do the higher ranks and get the 'proper ending', and I'll be there for the next Monster Hunter game.  Except I won't, because it'll release on PS5 and XBSX.

BONUS - Deponia:

I'm not the much further on the then you, I did the last village urgent hunt and started on hub quests. I've put on my list (think seen on Smurfs Twitter list as well) as finished as Single Player sort is, just know still lots more to do in it.

I hope they alternate like World 2 for PS5 and XSX then Rise 2 for guess maybe even Switch 2 by then. Maybe even an Iceborne like expansion for Rise would be neat.

If you beat the box monster and got the credits, I think you'd have been justified putting this in the other thread. But I guess that wouldn't fit your narrative. . .

Also proper ending didn't come to 3.0, like what was at the end of all the urgent Hub quests in 1.0? This could all change like 5.0 might bring new ending etc

The 3.0 ending I would say should have been in the game from day one. Other than that, though, I don't think any of the DLC will be a new "story" until the inevitable expansion next year.

Buskalilly wrote:

The 3.0 ending I would say should have been in the game from day one. Other than that, though, I don't think any of the DLC will be a new "story" until the inevitable expansion next year.

Bingo! Though them deciding to chop it up like that was the best call as the alternative would've been a major delay.

mas wrote:

Also proper ending didn't come to 3.0, like what was at the end of all the urgent Hub quests in 1.0?

Without spoiling anything you basically get a TV show style mid season finale after fighting a new monster.

Buskalilly wrote:

If you beat the box monster and got the credits, I think you'd have been justified putting this in the other thread. But I guess that wouldn't fit your narrative. . .

Nah, it didn't feel like I'd finished. I haven't met half the monsters on the loading Night-of-100-Monsters screen, including one that looks like an oni/namahage. The next round of battles holds MonHun series de facto mascot Rathalos. And as you all say, there's another ending waiting that should have been shipped with the game. I've done similar with other games in the past - Octopath Traveler for example, where I finished all eight stories and all that was left was the superboss. However, the superboss was what actually tied the stories all together, so it went in the 'unfinished' pile. You could argue that I shouldn't be posting about it at all yet because I do intend to carry on down the line, but it felt like a good pausing place to talk about it... and, er, I really wanted an excuse to post about Deponia before I forgot.

Also: surely 'my narrative' was that I'd give it up roughly five minutes after The Lady refused to play it with me? In which case I've already torn it up.

Glad you enjoyed the game. There are definitely a few monsters which are more generic than others. There are some really good ones gated behind high rank, but it's honestly not too difficult to go through. If you've beaten low rank, you can beat high rank. You may have to spend a bit more time ensuring you have the right loadouts, but it's all perfectly doable solo.

Having a dabble when you feel like it sounds like a good plan, there are still things to work towards if you feel like it. I feel like it's easy to burn out on Monster Hunter if you're not super into it so knowing when to take a step away is a good thing. There's a lot to admire about Rise but it's still a very particular game and, while you could say this for any game, it definitely benefits from you being in the mood to play it.