General Gaming ~*D1P's Games of 2020*~

[Nokt]

This does a pretty good job of rating current metroidvania games. Though I think he focuses more on the negative rather than a lot of the positives, nor would I rate Axiom Verge that high.

 

[SaysWho?]

3 hours ago, crispy4000 said:

Which ones have you played?  Dead Cells is one of the popular ones I haven’t.

 

Hollow Knight is the game that comes closest to Super Metroid vibes, other than ... Metroid Prime.  If you like those games for the feeling of exploring and getting lost in moody biomes, you’ll enjoy it.

 

Rogue Legacy, Binding of Isaac, Spelunky, Axiom Verge.

[crispy4000]

2 hours ago, SaysWho? said:

 

Rogue Legacy, Binding of Isaac, Spelunky, Axiom Verge.

Sounds like you’re following the hype on Rogue-likes more so than Metroidvanias.

I beat Rogue Legacy a few years back.  It’s alright.  Hollow Knight, Ori and Guacamelee are on a whole different level though.  They really show what a set level design can be good for.

 

Haven’t played Axiom Verge yet, so I wouldn’t know about that.

[Brian]

A Plague Tale: Innocence - 9/10 - great game. A linear experience that does a good  job escalating the story and gameplay

[SaysWho?]

38 minutes ago, crispy4000 said:

Sounds like you’re following the hype on Rogue-likes more so than Metroidvanias.

I beat Rogue Legacy a few years back.  It’s alright.  Hollow Knight, Ori and Guacamelee are on a whole different level though.  They really show what a set level design can be good for.

 

Haven’t played Axiom Verge yet, so I wouldn’t know about that.

 

Loved Guacamelee. It also made me laugh quite a bit!

 

Dead Cells has randomized levels, which worried me, but it seriously bloody works.

[CastlevaniaNut18]

First game I beat in 2020...

 

The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening(Switch)

 

Gotta get on a roll and do more. Technically I started it when it released back in September but I didn’t get too far. 

[crispy4000]

On 3/1/2020 at 1:49 PM, Nokt said:

This does a pretty good job of rating current metroidvania games. Though I think he focuses more on the negative rather than a lot of the positives, nor would I rate Axiom Verge that high.

 

 

Yeah that Hollow Knight take is ridiculous.  Like BoTW, it treats you like an adult that can make your own choices on where to go (including what to miss).  But no one is glossing over the badge shop unless they willfully decide to not explore the first area completely.  There's tons of badges hidden throughout the game as well, which are essentially powerups.  And the control scheme is simple but wonderful.  There are parts of the game that you'll likely only revisit once you become skilled or powerful enough, but the game doesn't lock you out of them automatically, as power-ups sometimes do in Metroidvanias.  There's a healthy tension in being able to get in 'too deep, too soon' and needing to claw your way back to safety.  A little bit of that helps these games from feeling too linear, which Hollow Knight avoids in spades.  Oh, and the environments are plenty varied too, not just in color, but in style, music and presentation.

 

Ori's controls are also fine, I don't think I ever ground-pounded accidentally like he kept showing.  The difficult bits of that game are the best parts.

[Nokt]

9 hours ago, crispy4000 said:

Yeah that Hollow Knight take is ridiculous.  Like BoTW, it treats you like an adult that can make your own choices on where to go (including what to miss).  But no one is glossing over the badge shop unless they willfully decide to not explore the first area completely.  There's tons of badges hidden throughout the game as well, which are essentially powerups.  And the control scheme is simple but wonderful.  There are parts of the game that you'll likely only revisit once you become skilled or powerful enough, but the game doesn't lock you out of them automatically, as power-ups sometimes do in Metroidvanias.  There's a healthy tension in being able to get in 'too deep, too soon' and needing to claw your way back to safety.  A little bit of that helps these games from feeling too linear, which Hollow Knight avoids in spades.  Oh, and the environments are plenty varied too, not just in color, but in style, music and presentation.

 

Ori's controls are also fine, I don't think I ever ground-pounded accidentally like he kept showing.  The difficult bits of that game are the best parts.

He is overly harsh on Hollow Knight, but I can't say that I disagree with a lot of his points.

 

BotW is still giving you pushes you in directions of what to do next as soon as you leave the Plateau. The game tasks you with searching out Impa in Kakariko Village, Purah in Hateno, the divine beasts. Its just your own choice whether to follow its guidance or not. The game doesn't punish you for the exploration either, it rewards you in most situations with shrines, great fairies, equipment. You'll inevitably reach an area that your are under geared for, but the game isn't punishing you for dying. You lose nothing upon each death and the game autosaves often. You can also instantly teleport out of any situation that you don't want to be in.

 

Hollow Knight is harder by design and having a completely open design means that you'll inevitably end up in areas that you probably shouldn't be in. The game has such little direction in where and what you should be doing though that its fairly easy to end up in a place that you shouldn't be in and you are constantly being punished for exploring. I'm all for having a little difficulty spike in a game and being able to increase my own difficulty, but I'm not even making that decision in Hollow Knight. The game isn't giving me any direction on what/where I should be, I won't know that I shouldn't be in an area until I'm half way through it surrounded by hard enemies and tough platforming. At that point you're either deciding if you should go back for your ghost to get your money or just count it as a loss.

 

You can easily miss some power ups in BotW like not finding a great fairy even missing the master sword. Difference being though that BotW is easily beatable without any of that. Having to 100% complete an area to find an important shop seems a bit extreme in a game that is already hard by design. I can't say that I ever ran into that shop in my couple attempts to play the game or even knew about its existence. There is variance in Hollow Knights areas, but most of it feels samey. The differences in visuals just isn't drastic enough to make it feel hugely different in the entire map. There are subtle differences, it just all feels really samey.

 

His comment about the ground pound in Ori is 100% his fault. He is playing with a controller that doesn't have a great d-pad. It's like me playing Celeste for playing with an Xbox One d-pad and blaming the game that my button presses aren't precise. He also side steps Axiom Verges problems too. There are too many powerups and most of them are absolutely useless in the grand scheme of the game. I think I kept a rotation of 3-4 in total. The soundtrack is not one of his highlights at all, it goes from bearable to absolutely annoying. 

[crispy4000]

2 hours ago, Nokt said:

He is overly harsh on Hollow Knight, but I can't say that I disagree with a lot of his points.

 

BotW is still giving you pushes you in directions of what to do next as soon as you leave the Plateau. The game tasks you with searching out Impa in Kakariko Village, Purah in Hateno, the divine beasts. Its just your own choice whether to follow its guidance or not. The game doesn't punish you for the exploration either, it rewards you in most situations with shrines, great fairies, equipment. You'll inevitably reach an area that your are under geared for, but the game isn't punishing you for dying. You lose nothing upon each death and the game autosaves often. You can also instantly teleport out of any situation that you don't want to be in.

 

Hollow Knight is harder by design and having a completely open design means that you'll inevitably end up in areas that you probably shouldn't be in. The game has such little direction in where and what you should be doing though that its fairly easy to end up in a place that you shouldn't be in and you are constantly being punished for exploring. I'm all for having a little difficulty spike in a game and being able to increase my own difficulty, but I'm not even making that decision in Hollow Knight. The game isn't giving me any direction on what/where I should be, I won't know that I shouldn't be in an area until I'm half way through it surrounded by hard enemies and tough platforming. At that point you're either deciding if you should go back for your ghost to get your money or just count it as a loss.

 

You can easily miss some power ups in BotW like not finding a great fairy even missing the master sword. Difference being though that BotW is easily beatable without any of that. Having to 100% complete an area to find an important shop seems a bit extreme in a game that is already hard by design. I can't say that I ever ran into that shop in my couple attempts to play the game or even knew about its existence. There is variance in Hollow Knights areas, but most of it feels samey. The differences in visuals just isn't drastic enough to make it feel hugely different in the entire map. There are subtle differences, it just all feels really samey.

 

His comment about the ground pound in Ori is 100% his fault. He is playing with a controller that doesn't have a great d-pad. It's like me playing Celeste for playing with an Xbox One d-pad and blaming the game that my button presses aren't precise. He also side steps Axiom Verges problems too. There are too many powerups and most of them are absolutely useless in the grand scheme of the game. I think I kept a rotation of 3-4 in total. The soundtrack is not one of his highlights at all, it goes from bearable to absolutely annoying. 

BoTW punishes you for not finding climbing gear first IMO.  If you don’t do either that or head straight to the flying bird dungeon, the whole game becomes a climbing slog.  Likewise, finding those tropical fruits to cook down south makes healing a cakewalk.  It’s not the worst thing if you head out in a different direction, but all roads are far from equal.

 

There’s really one place in Hollow Knight where there is a dangerous difficultly spike you can ‘fall’ into (Deepnest).  But the path to it is also guarded by one of the hardest bosses in the game.  It’s much harder to beat them than survive in the area that follows, or even recover your shadow in there.

The shop isn’t hidden.  It’s near the first mini-boss you’re likely to encounter in the game.  And again if BoTW is the comparison, I think it’s a lot more straightforward to find than the climbing gear.

 

I think the variety of enemies and challenges in each area of Hollow Knight help make it distinct.  It’s not just a subtle palette swap, it’s different sorts of challenges.  I felt the opposite about Ori.  There’s a wide variety of different looking areas, but combat felt so samey that only a few bits stand out in my memory.

 

 

[Nokt]

30 minutes ago, crispy4000 said:

BoTW punishes you for not finding climbing gear first IMO.  If you don’t do either that or head straight to the flying bird dungeon, the whole game becomes a climbing slog.  Likewise, finding those tropical fruits to cook down south makes healing a cakewalk.  It’s not the worst thing if you head out in a different direction, but all roads are far from equal.

 

There’s really one place in Hollow Knight where there is a dangerous difficultly spike you can ‘fall’ into (Deepnest).  But the path to it is also guarded by one of the hardest bosses in the game.  It’s much harder to beat them than survive in the area that follows, or even recover your shadow in there.

The shop isn’t hidden.  It’s near the first mini-boss you’re likely to encounter in the game.  And again if BoTW is the comparison, I think it’s a lot more straightforward to find than the climbing gear.

 

I think the variety of enemies and challenges in each area of Hollow Knight help make it distinct.  It’s not just a subtle palette swap, it’s different sorts of challenges.  I felt the opposite about Ori.  There’s a wide variety of different looking areas, but combat felt so samey that only a few bits stand out in my memory.

Oh yeah, there are definitely better routes to take.

 

None of the game is really that hard, but it emphasizes the games lack of direction. Its great to allow the player to tackle any obstacle whenever they choose, but giving them a rough semblance of a route to follow goes a long way towards a natural progression and a deeper understanding of the game. Just throwing them in and saying here you go isn't always fun. I can't imagine someone who isn't a vet in metroidvania's liking Hollow Knight all that much from the get go.

 

I only have my own experiences to go off of and the video shares my opinion, I don't have much else to go off of. I typically just throw my first few orbs into stamina, 3-4 stamina points and you're set for a long period of time really.

 

Its mostly that the artwork keeps the same general appearance in every area. The actual artwork might look different, but its giving off the same vibe as everything that came before it. Its not a drastic enough change in scenery to make it feel any different than the area before it. The hue changes, musical compositions, change in enemies help, but overall I couldn't pick one area out from any other area and tell you what part of the map that came from.

[Nokt]

Control

Metro Exodus

Star Wars Battlefront 2

Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Ori and the Will of the Wisps

 

Beat BotW again. Watched a buddy play while we were having a gaming night and it inspired me to play again, especially since I haven't done any of the DLC. I still didn't do most of the DLC, I only did about half of Champions and maybe got half of the new gear. I did spend a lot more time upgrading gear this time around. I enjoyed it a lot, despite me saying that I probably wouldn't find myself playing it again anytime soon. 

 

Ori is current GOTY for the year though it has some intense competition coming soon. Probably going to go back in when I get minute as I'm really relatively close to having all of the abilities and upgrades. 

[Nokt]

I hate to keep blowing up this thread, but now that I'm working graves I have a ton of time to blow through games.

 

Control

Metro Exodus

Star Wars Battlefront 2

Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Ori and the Will of the Wisps

The Messenger

 

Messenger was pretty good, but there are some platforming puzzles that are pure rage inducing. With Celeste you 100% know its your fault, there is no RNG involved, but I specifically remember this section where to get across to have to hit 3 ghost enemies and for the most part they were at the same location, but not always. They would randomly take a different route and I would continuously fall to my death. I had to stop playing on 3 different occasions in the same night because I couldn't get past it.

 

The rest of it was pretty good, a good use of the mechanics to platform, moderately difficult (outside of a select few platforming sections). I wasn't all too interested in the story in the beginning, it doesn't really start making strides until the very end of the game. Once I started developing an interest it ended. The music has some bangers, but because you retread the same stages throughout the game they lose their spark.

 

The last part is the time travel mechanic. Honestly don't really know how I feel about it, it serves more of a story purpose rather than an actual gameplay mechanic. I wish when you warped between the two there was different mechanics to differentiate the two a little more rather than just different paths opening. They never created a puzzle that peaked my interest with it, I just wish they had done more with it. Probably give the game like a  7/10, which I feel I rate a lot of games at that score, but if I finish the game it deserves at least a 7.

[SaysWho?]

Overcooked - I talked about it in my Overcooked thread, but it's a 100% recommend if you have friends or a girlfriend/wife/boyfriend/husband to play with.

 

Resident Evil 3 Remake -- Definitely recommend. It's not quite Resident Evil 2 Remake, but it's not as short as reviews claim, and it's a lot of fun. It's more action-oriented, and there's less, "You're in this place for a while and doors will be crying out to be opened for half the game." Locked doors don't stay locked for long in this. Still, I'm happy to say that the engine and gameplay work well in a more action-oriented world, and I think playing it on Hardcore (scarcer resources) will give me a better sense of item management than normal.

 

2020 Games

 

Death Stranding

Overcooked

Resident Evil 3 Remake

[crispy4000]

Finished Uncharted 2.

It's an interesting game to play for the first time now.  It's still a good time and great looking game, and was a pioneer for that back when that I'm sure.  It's also fairly well paced, in how it breaks up the combat sections.  But it also feels like it's stuck between Resident Evil 4, the PS2-era Prince of Persia series, and the later Tomb Raider reboot.  All 9+/10 games IMO.  Uncharted 2 really tries hard to get there, but doesn't develop its gameplay enough over the course of it.

 

It also leans into spectacle and its plot.  Pulls off the former quite well, but stumbles in the latter.  I wasn't expecting the absurdity of it all.  There's poorly explained villain motivations, a dramatic death scene of an under-developed character (Karl Schäfer), a twist towards the supernatural explained by another supernatural twist, and an "invincible" last boss that is apparently immune to nothing.  He should have taken tips from one of his thugs on a traincar that literally takes 100's of bullets to kill.  And that ending ... so cliched it hurts.  It's a worse end than any Bond movie I can remember, but just as campy.

 

Overall, it's at its best when it just tries to be a fun romp as a pseudo-Indiana Jones.  There's plenty of that to enjoy.  But it's also a bit bare bones when it tries to do anything of significance other than set piece moments.  The stakes the story tries to build don't match the gameplay at key points.

8/10

[Brick]

I have finally played and beaten Doom! Only took me four years, but hot damn was this a kick-ass game!

[SaysWho?]

9 hours ago, crispy4000 said:

Finished Uncharted 2.

It's an interesting game to play for the first time now.  It's still a good time and great looking game, and was a pioneer for that back when that I'm sure.  It's also fairly well paced, in how it breaks up the combat sections.  But it also feels like it's stuck between Resident Evil 4, the PS2-era Prince of Persia series, and the later Tomb Raider reboot.  All 9+/10 games IMO.  Uncharted 2 really tries hard to get there, but doesn't develop its gameplay enough over the course of it.

 

It also leans into spectacle and its plot.  Pulls off the former quite well, but stumbles in the latter.  I wasn't expecting the absurdity of it all.  There's poorly explained villain motivations, a dramatic death scene of an under-developed character (Karl Schäfer), a twist towards the supernatural explained by another supernatural twist, and an "invincible" last boss that is apparently immune to nothing.  He should have taken tips from one of his thugs on a traincar that literally takes 100's of bullets to kill.  And that ending ... so cliched it hurts.  It's a worse end than any Bond movie I can remember, but just as campy.

 

Overall, it's at its best when it just tries to be a fun romp as a pseudo-Indiana Jones.  There's plenty of that to enjoy.  But it's also a bit bare bones when it tries to do anything of significance other than set piece moments.  The stakes the story tries to build don't match the gameplay at key points.

8/10

 

Funny enough, none of the new Tomb Raiders have gotten close to any Uncharted except 1 (which hasn't aged well). Mostly because the leanness of Uncharted works, whereas something like Rise of the Tomb Raider throws all this miscellaneous stuff and really bad side missions your way. Plus, 2 really is well-paced as all heck. 4 definitely goes for some slower moments to breathe, though some people actually really dig it. I think 4 and Lost Legacy are definitely the best ones, and if you liked 2's pacing, Lost Legacy should be up your alley.

[crispy4000]

3 hours ago, SaysWho? said:

 

Funny enough, none of the new Tomb Raiders have gotten close to any Uncharted except 1 (which hasn't aged well). Mostly because the leanness of Uncharted works, whereas something like Rise of the Tomb Raider throws all this miscellaneous stuff and really bad side missions your way. Plus, 2 really is well-paced as all heck. 4 definitely goes for some slower moments to breathe, though some people actually really dig it. I think 4 and Lost Legacy are definitely the best ones, and if you liked 2's pacing, Lost Legacy should be up your alley.

I haven’t played Rise or Shadow, but I prefer the reboot to Uncharted 1-2 in pretty much everything.  It takes more lessons from RE4’s pacing and environments.  Plus I really enjoyed the combat, traversal and progression in it. The only place it faltered for me was at the very end.

 

I’ll probably continue with Uncharted at some point, but may hop over to RIse soon.

[CastlevaniaNut18]

Just beat Resident Evil 3 Remake, so that's a whopping two games on the year! I'm in a gaming mood, though, so that's good.

 

The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening(remake) - Switch

Resident Evil 3(remake) - PC

[Nokt]

Control

Metro Exodus

Star Wars Battlefront 2

Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Ori and the Will of the Wisps

The Messenger

Doom Eternal - A great game, but a bad sequel. 8.5/10

Resident Evil 3 - A short pleasant experience. 8.5/10

Final Fantasy VII Remake - A fantastic game held back by unneeded story changes. 7.5/10

[skillzdadirecta]

So far this year I've finished

GREEDFALL

OUTER WORLDS
UNCHARTED 4

DEAD RISING 4

THE DARK PICTURES: MAN OF MEDAN

BLOOD AND TRUTH 

RESIDENT EVIL 7

DOOM ETERNAL

 

Currently working on Claire's campaign in REmake. Not sure what I'll finish next... maybe Sekiro or Deus Ex Mankind Divided 

[SaysWho?]

Yakuza Kiwami 2 - If you liked Yakuza 0, you'll like this. Mainly because the cabaret club mini-game returns and it's fun as hell to play.

 

Resident Evil 3 Remake - If you've not played RE3make yet, I recommend starting on hardcore. RE3 does have some item management and, "Can't unlock this yet," moments like in RE2, but normal doesn't have that much item management. Hardcore will give you more of it, not to the level of RE2, but a closer experience to it then normal would. I hear Nightmare feels significantly different than Hardcore, so eventually I'll have to try that.

 

2020 Games

 

Death Stranding

Overcooked

Resident Evil 3 Remake

Yakuza Kiwami 2

Resident Evil 3 Remake (Hardcore playthrough)

[Keyser_Soze]

I 100%ed Untitled Goose Game!

 

[Nokt]

Control

Metro Exodus

Star Wars Battlefront 2

Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Ori and the Will of the Wisps

The Messenger

Doom Eternal

Resident Evil 3

Final Fantasy VII Remake

Wolfenstein: The New Order - Didn't pay attention to a single plot point, just wanted to kick back and shoot some nazis.

Super Meat Boy - I feel spoiled by Celeste, it has a much more natural skill curve and going back to this just gets me aggravated. Relatively easy levels, then they throw in like random jumps that are exceedingly difficult. Like you'll blow through 3 levels, then die 50 times on one level, then pass another 3 easily. I was stuck on one of the later levels for probably as much time as I played this game. I didn't even bother doing the dark world or the meat girl levels. I beat the main story and put it away.

Bright Memory - Very impressive for a single guy to develop in his spare time. Some weird choices in UI design like the rings around the gun (though it looks like he ditched that in the new gameplay footage), voice acting is uh.... bad. Looks great, plays great, excited to see the full game or whatever he ends up doing with it.

[skillzdadirecta]

Finished Claire's campaign in RE2 REMAKE. Started The Evil Within 2. Also playing through Sekiro and Deus Ex Mankind.

[Moa]

Doom Eternal - a fantastic game but a somewhat weird successor to Doom 2016. My heart loves 2016 but my head knows that when it's time for me to come back to Doom it will be Eternal that I return to. My main desire coming out of 2016 was "moar demons" and I got that. 

 

Black Mesa, Half-life 2 and eps - I loved Half-Life 1 when I was initially introduced to it like 20 years ago, but I'll admit this is the first time I actually finished Half-Life 2 and I feel like everything was 20% longer than it needed to be. 

 

Kentucky Route Zero Act 5 - The dream ends at dawn. What a journey it has been. 

 

Hollow Knight - 10/10, I rolled credits a few days ago and have been retreading through the game finding everything I missed and doing the additional content. Hollow Knight belongs in the select class of perfect games where each design element reinforces the others and everything is coherent. 

 

[Nokt]

Control

Metro Exodus

Star Wars Battlefront 2

Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Ori and the Will of the Wisps

The Messenger

Doom Eternal

Resident Evil 3

Final Fantasy VII Remake

Wolfenstein: The New Order

Super Meat Boy

 

Titanfall 2 - Hard isn't hard, still a good game though

 

Gravity Rush Remastered

 

I almost gave up on this game pretty early on. I can get agitated with games pretty quickly depending on the circumstances and drop them almost as quickly. Why spend time on something you don't like right? In the end I'm glad I stuck with the game though as its a really unique experience. The closest thing I could compare it to is Infamous and that even doesn't quite fit right.

 

To start off with my issues, the game starts you out explaining your toolkit, but very soon afterwards introduces challenge missions. Everything in challenge missions is based off of how fast you can do a specific task. Reach all the checkpoints with X amount of time, kill as many enemies as possible, etc. I spent a good 30 minutes trying to do the very first challenge (it was a race type challenge) and get the gold tier reward for it. I became increasingly agitated as no matter how much I refined my movements I just couldn't accomplish it. So I moved on, only to find out that the next couple missions are still teaching you the rest of your toolkit.

 

The stasis field is borderline useless and very unreliable. No matter how much you upgrade the ability it still will only grab 1 item despite being equally apart from the other item. For example there is a challenge mission where you have to move as many items as possible into an area, you could be standing on top of two boxes and the game will only grab one or perhaps even none. Not only was I unable to gold tier these challenges, but I hardly ever used stasis in combat unless I was forced too. This impacts combat pretty hard because there is only really 4 things you can do. Gravity kick (a dashing kick while in the air), Stasis (throw objects), kicking on the ground, and special attacks. Kicking on the ground is essentially useless, half the enemies can't hit you in the air and gravity kicks are more powerful. Combat basically just boils down to gravity kicking until your special pops.

 

As negative as those examples are, the game really is pretty fun. The challenge missions, outside of the stasis field, are just challenging enough, but not unachievable. A few of them will probably take you a couple tries to nail down some movement. Flying around a blast, there is gems littered all over the map and incentivizes exploring, as well as collectables that serve as "ghosts" who tell a part of a story when you find them. The side missions aren't anything special gameplay wise, but the do offer a little world building and let you get to know some of the side characters a little more.  

 

I never quite knew the extent of the Vita's power as I never really played anything on it besides ports of other games I already played, but I'm amazed at how large the world is in Gravity Rush and how you can travel between all of it without loading screens, buffers, nothing. Initially you just start on 1 of 4 islands, but as you unlock more you literally just fly between all of them. Granted there are quick travel mechanics in the game, but its really fun just to fly around as you unlock more parts of the map. Granted it might be different on the PS4, but the few videos I watched didn't seem to have any huge differences.

 

Graphics are really so/so. The enhancements of the remaster really do make the game shine in a way it never really did on the Vita. Character models get more smooth out some of the rough edges like on characters shoulders. Environment textures have added new effects that weren't present in the original. I believe the view distance got a bit of a boost too. Its really a solid upgrade, but it still looks a bit dated, like the facials animations for in-game cutscenes are not the best. Luckily most of the games story is presented in a comic book style much like Mirror's edge. The games story alludes to some plot elements, but doesn't really explain them. Which I'm told is explained in Gravity Rush 2, but a bit jarring at times.

 

I will note that Gravity Rush 2 so far has knocked out every complaint I had about Gravity Rush. Challenges aren't introduced until after a tutorial level, stasis field is 100% more reliable,  combat so far isn't just spam gravity kick until your special pops.

 

 

[CastlevaniaNut18]

Just wrapped up Devil May Cry 4 Special Edition on PC. Man, I am not great at these games.

 

The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (Switch)

Resident Evil 3 remake (PC)

Devil May Cry 4 (PC)

 

Not to mention 140 hours and counting of Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

[SaysWho?]

Overcooked 2 - The ability to throw food to one another actually adds a lot to the game, more than I thought it would. My gf and I continue to nearly kill each other while playing.  

 

FF7 Remake - I just have to complete a couple more optional fights accessible in the post-game and then I've fought all optional battles. The battle system is a lot of fun and way better than FFXV's, which I couldn't get into. It gives you quite a bit of control, the ability to switch characters on the fly to combine moves and raise your ATB gauge. I'm was very happy to see that not only was the materia system in the game despite the different combat, but that it was implemented very well.

 

The end game dragged somewhat for me. At a certain point, the game makes it clear that there's no going back, but the no going back part must have lasted, like, 8 - 10 hours? Still highly recommend it, and it's pretty damn cool that after years of requests and a surprise reveal in 2015 that it's in my hands.

 

2020 Games

 

Death Stranding

Overcooked

Resident Evil 3 Remake

Yakuza Kiwami 2

Resident Evil 3 Remake (Hardcore playthrough)

Overcooked 2

Final Fantasy 7 Remake

[CastlevaniaNut18]

Tack on Streets of Rage 4. Co-op. Beat the main story, but I’ll be going back for more. 

[CastlevaniaNut18]

Just did a co-op run of King of the Monsters 2 on Neo Geo(MVS). Never played that one before and the husband had bought it based on nostalgia. That will not be going on my list of favorite beat ‘em ups. 

[Keyser_Soze]

59 minutes ago, CastlevaniaNut18 said:

Just did a co-op run of King of the Monsters 2 on Neo Geo(MVS). Never played that one before and the husband had bought it based on nostalgia. That will not be going on my list of favorite beat ‘em ups. 

 

It was a fun game to mess around with when you were at a restaurant waiting for food but it's a pretty big quarter muncher.

[CastlevaniaNut18]

9 hours ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

It was a fun game to mess around with when you were at a restaurant waiting for food but it's a pretty big quarter muncher.

Fortunately, we don’t have to worry about quarters at home. The controls make no sense. No matter what you do, you’ve got about a 30% chance at a successful grapple on the boss and that’s the only way you can deal any real damage to them. 
I think this one is going to the chopping block. Least he can get back more than he paid for it.
 

I think we’re finally going to start the Metal Slug series today. He bought them all on MVS years ago, but I’ve never gotten him to sit down and play them with me. 

[Brian]

Finished AC Odyssey. The modern day stuff stinks.  It always falls flat. 
 

Since Nier is on Game Pass, I plan on giving it another shot. If it doesn’t click for me again, I will move onto RDR 2. 

[CastlevaniaNut18]

Played through Metal Slug on MVS with the spouse tonight. First time playing one of those games. T'was fun.

 

The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (Switch)

Resident Evil 3 remake (PC)

Devil May Cry 4 (PC)

Streets of Rage 4 (Switch)

King of the Monsters 2 (Neo Geo MVS)

Metal Slug (NEo Geo MVS)

[CastlevaniaNut18]

Metal Slug X (Neo Geo MVS)