Lurker > paperwarior

TEVI (PC)
TEVI is, to a significant degree, the sequel to Rabi-Ribi. Many people seem to fall into one of two camps: Rabi-Ribi is the gold standard for Metroidvanias, or Rabi-Ribi is too cringe to play. To the former, TEVI is often regarded as a step down, but still respectable. To the latter, TEVI may be easier to tolerate. Personally, I find it very good, although I didn't turn up the difficulty past normal, so it wasn't that rough a time. There's a lot to like here: visuals, music, boss fights, movement, combat abilities, exploration, loadout customization, hidden secrets, and an involving-enough story and writing. I recommend it to anyone who likes the genre.

God of War Ragnarok: Vahalla (DLC) (PS5)
After Ragnarok, Kratos plays Hades in Valhalla. This is a nice little Roguelite mode with some interesting story. First, downsides
-Coming back to it after a long time, there are a lot of controls to have to remind myself of between all of Kratos' weapons, shields and rage powers.
-The temporary perks, consequently, are not as significant as in some Roguelites because they're built on top of so many actions that are always available.
-Helios is a jerk! I know he's supposed to be, but I could live without having insults yelled at me in the high-pressure timed section before the final boss.
-The sanctuaries could be smaller. Running around looking for junk is kind of a waste of time. I was glad to take the meta perk that destroys all the pots when you enter one.
Otherwise, it's quite good, and it was a free content patch so, nice.

Like a Dragon: Ishin! (PS4)
The PS3 era is back! Feels like the Yakuza 3 era, really. This game has far too much stuff and not enough design, making for an ugly mess of busywork, grinding, weird balance, flashy magic attacks and confusing progression. If you manage to push the bad off to the side, which is no easy task, the core combat and story are still pretty good.

Final Fantasy XVI: Echoes of the Fallen (DLC) (PS5)
Went through this in a sitting. It's basically an action stage with a side-story around it. I think it fits fairly smoothly into the part of the game they stuck it into, and it's a cool stage. Once I acclimated to combat again, it was exciting to take on a new threat on Final Fantasy mode.

Might as well include this
TEVI (demo) (Steam)
The successor to Rabi-Ribi, this feels like what Flipwitch was vaguely imitating with its Metroidvania melee-and-shoot mechanics. And it's decidedly more fun. Those who balked at Rabi-Ribi's characters and writing will appreciate that they've toned it down. I'm currently playing through the demo on max difficulty after collecting stuff and clearing the optional post-demo bosses. It's a pretty nice, substantial demo. I'll probably buy the game soon after I finish it.

My BF's playing Turok 2 now too.

Flipwitch: Forbidden Sex Hex (Steam)
I played this one because a friend sent a copy as a joke, and I thought it would be funny. Well, it wasn't that funny. It also wasn't that good. Nothing about it is terrible, and of course nobody expects this sort of game to hold up to real games, but the controls, movement, enemies and stage design are all half-baked. I think the main reason it isn't that bad is that it isn't a difficult game, and so nothing stuck around long enough to particularly annoy me.

Marvel's Spider-Man 2 (PS5)
Yeah, actually that was pretty great. While it starts as a safe follow-up with some clunky gameplay asides for the sake of narrative, it escalates. Oh man does it escalate. The finely-tuned cores of combat and movement established in SM1 and MM aid the succession of bombastic setpieces, staving off the AAA curse of a scripted-feeling experience. The key moment here is when you take control of Venom to rampage through Oscorp, smashing through walls and learning abilities on the fly. Nothing establishes a fearsome threat like embodying it yourself. Pete and Miles both get quite a few new tricks as the story proceeds as well, and even good old Mary Jane Watson sees DBZ-like power growth. It feels like the sort of dramatic events you would see in a superhero comic or battle manga, and it certainly is exciting throughout, in both presentation and gameplay. I don't mind seeing this up for Game of the Year anymore, although I'm not sure it would be my pick.

Super Mario RPG (Switch)
Yeah, can't complain. This is quite a solid remake of an excellent game, doing enough to modernize gameplay and visuals without changing much else. I appreciate the new superbosses, particularly Culex 3D, mostly for the concept and the nice remade soundtrack by Shimomura. The Yoshi race minigame is still abhorrent.

foolm0r0n posted...

They haven't thought enough if they can't decide a simple leaning direction. If they really weighed it, one side would be heavier. What's are the chances that a coin flip lands on its edge? Or rather, given that someone claims that their coin flip landed on the edge, what's the chance they are BSing? I'm not saying it's 100% BS, just like 99% BS.

Is it useful to the reader to require classifying the 40-60% range (for instance) as "good" or "bad" by gut impulse?

foolm0r0n posted...

You can write whatever you want but if you can't decide up/down then your review should go in the trash

Why? They've given thought to good and bad factors and weighed them against each other. They may have insight that would be informative to readers.

foolm0r0n posted...

And the middle one is neutral, which is effectively like not voting at all, so you can remove that

Oops, you invented thumbs up/down

You need neutral to accompany written reviews. You know how many Steam reviews say "I wish there was a neutral option"?

There was actually a patch today. Is anyone still playing it and able to evaluate how much less broken it is now?

Oh, nice. Guess that confirms me refunding it!

I suppose Souls players have grown to distrust patches

I think a substantial part of the demo being tough is that it ends with Scrapped Watchman.

MacArrowny posted...

So, it seems like the patch has some elements that make the game harder as well, patching out a bunch of cheese strats. Too bad people are complaining about this without knowing all the details.

Well they didn't nerf Pandaemonium into the ground. That's the most abusable/fun subweapon in the game.

andylt posted...

I'm curious to read reviews from those who don't have nostalgia attached to this. 50 is a lot for a 1996 game they could've just thrown on the online backcatalog!

You'll have to find someone interested in this who hasn't played SMRPG

Hey, it's me, I had issues with the difficulty. Not like complaints, but I found it on the hard end of the genre rather than the easy end. I also doubt the early patch had the impact some suggested. I can't speak for the new one since I'd already finished with the game for now, but free Rising Dodge itself doesn't exactly break the game.

Reading opinions about game difficulty always wrecks my self-esteem. >_>
Still, I can understand not wanting to miss out on how a game previously was, and it would be nice to have in-game options to that effect.

Jason
Not to be confused with Press X to Jason

But I really scraped together all my resources just to get Jingliu, over the course of most of that banner's runtime. The only resources left are whatever new ones appear. Pulling at this point is incidental to my game plan.

I did one pull and got 2 Arlans

UshiromiyaEva posted...

I want a Zelda that's only dungeons.

Even Hyrule Field is too much.

This would have dramatically improved at least the DS games. They wouldn't even have to add extra dungeons, just get rid of the other stuff.

Thought they did this one not that long ago. But if you want to get these, sure, why not.

Personally, I think TotK improves on basically everything about BotW. There have been sequels to some great games recently that have been just acceptable enough sequels, not a downgrade but not terribly exciting when held up to the original, but TotK is one that completely nails it.

We are on the cruise

Lies of P (PS5) (Final)
I did NG++ out of a sort of obligation, rather than save-scumming for endings like a sane person, but I'm kind of glad I did, because ++ is the cycle where you get to style on enemies. This is, strangely, one of the only good non-From Soulslikes. There are some rough spots. The first and second cycles both had parts where the difficulty was abnormal for the genre, I thought, mainly because of the focus on precise parry timing with enemies that deliberately vary their animations to fake you out. And overall it's a bit linear. Nonetheless, it's a good, memorable game and I hope to see more from this studio.

I remember messing with a Hello Kitty MMO back in the day. Oddly good music.

Someone put a curse on Showtime?

You're never going to have a well-defined 5 point scale across all of civilization. Aim for 3 at most.

Have they told you that you're always welcome to come touch the merchandise?

That's a difficult comparison. There are many models of phone, and even somewhat older ones can still do the job. I'm inclined to say you should spend enough to get something that will work well for a long time. Consoles are like, do you want the current console from this company? Here's the MSRP.

If only it was a followup to something as good as DKCR

You've added some Os, I see

The ones that are like "I'm going to try to get you to imagine our product. Doesn't it smell nice? Bet you really want it right now."

I'm clueless about these things. So this is the third game in the Modern Warfare reboot series that started with 2019's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare hold the 4, huh?

TBH I'm not wanting to go back to the PC version before a patch that fixes the softlocking etc. That way I can claim a refund if needed.

ivysnow posted...

because it's the same devs, yes

Strangely enough, I wasn't aware of that until now.

KCF0107 posted...

At least this infers that the Xbox version came out acceptable for those wanting it on a game console.

No, sorry, Xbox One version is as well.

Late, but just got the other trophies: Unpacking (PS5)
I almost wrote "Stacking" by accident.
It was a nice experience playing through it. The remaining trophies I wouldn't have done without a guide, and doing them with a guide wasn't particularly interesting.

This was that game that had the exact visual style of NitW, right?

Okay, tried arcade mode. During the Flying Dutchman boss the screen got stuck in screen-shake and gave me slight motion sickness, and after I beat the final boss it took me directly into fighting the final boss again and then softlocked on the stage screen.

Zigzagoon posted...

I've already encountered 3 bugs (all soft locks) in an hour of play.

Fun so far but uh.... lmao

Yeesh. Let's hope for a prompt patch. I hear it more or less works on Steam Deck so I'm sold. No direction input remapping in-game, though? Why?

Apparently the Switch/PS4 versions are botched, so steer clear of those. But I'm tempted to get the PC version. Anyone else thinking of getting it?

People definitely talked about TotK for at least several months after launch. There's so much wacky shit you can do with the engine. Easy video content.

SF6 ought to make it to a GotY nom this year, but it's unlikely. Hi-Fi Rush will be in category(s) other than GotY. We'll see Mario and Spider-Man 2 altogether too often due to recency bias and name.

Ghost Trick involves a cat

I just wish F.I.S.T ran better because last time I tried, mannnn