LogFAQs > #974663489

What better way is there to return to Board 8 than with a ranking and some write-ups?? Tell me which games I need to play and which games I overrated/underrated.

#9. NBA 2K23
Lolllllllllllll. Bit of a joke entry, but it is a PS5 game that I played so I'm including it. It's just a bad game. There's microtransactions and lots of glitches. It's okay as a basketball sim but everything else is terrible. Don't play unless you like playing exhibition games for the hell of it.

#8. Sifu
I was really looking forward to this game, but the story is very cookie-cutter martial arts film stuff, it's short, and some of the boss fights kind of suck. It's a more difficult game than I was expecting, but that would be okay if it weren't for other shortcomings. I don't think the aging mechanic the game uses is all that interesting - moreso just frustrating. Mediocre game.

#7. Astro's Playroom
This is where the games start being good on my list. It's a fun demo for the PS5 and not much else, but that's all it has to be.

#6. Horizon Forbidden West
I LOVED the first Horizon, and was slightly disappointed by this one. I eventually started skipping lots of the dialogue if it wasn't a main story mission. Side mission characters are so quick to tell you their whole life story for no reason, and most of them aren't memorable. And their facial animations are SO bad!! Uncanny valley at its finest. The main story was good, but not as good as Zero Dawn's was IMO. The only thing this game improves on is the gameplay. Still a solid game, but not as good as I was hoping.

#5. Deathloop
This game got a little overrated by critics when it came out, but it's still pretty good. I liked how it's almost a puzzle-shooter with trying to figure out the order of things you have to do to beat the game. There's plenty of good gameplay mechanics here and an initially very intriguing story with some good villains. I do think the story eventually loses its luster sadly, and then the ending doesn't quite stick the landing. I'll also say that playing through the same levels over and over again gets tiring regardless of the fact that they change a little bit here and there.

#4.5. Final Fantasy XVI
Okay okay I haven't beaten this yet (hence the 4.5 placement), but it's pretty damn good so far! It gets off to a slightly slow start, and there are a LOT of cutscenes, but I'm enjoying the story, and the combat is ultra crisp. I like how the game keeps introducing new tools to use in combat just as you have had enough time to really utilize the last tool enough. It keeps things interesting without overloading you with new mechanics. If it keeps this quality up through the end, then it would be higher on this list.

#4. Spiderman Miles Morales
I had a blast playing this. If you liked the first game in the new Spiderman series, you'll probably like this one, because they play the same outside of a few new powers that Miles has (which I thought were great additions to the gameplay). Obviously, it's shorter, but I think there's still enough here to make it worth your while. The main story is about 6-7 hours long with some solid side content to go with it. If you get 100%, it's about 10-15 hours. It's by no means a masterpiece, but it's very solid. Outside of unskippable cutscenes and a few small gripes with the story, I don't have much to complain about.

#3: God of War Ragnarok
God of War 4 is my 2nd favorite game of all time. This game is definitely in the same vein as that one, but on a bigger scale. And dare I say it, Ragnarok isn't quite as refined as GoW4. GoW4 really transformed the series and stunned with its emotional depth/maturity, a change which Ragnarok continues, but I feel like GoW4 was more succinct and more nuanced. Ragnarok has a few story beats which seem like filler, the characters feel like they're always telling you the meaning of what's happening, and no one EVER LETS YOU SOLVE A PUZZLE ON YOUR OWN. Seriously, stop blurting the answers out! I'm being tough on it since I loved GoW4 so much, so let me be clear: Ragnarok is fantastic. The gameplay has been expanded in a good way, and the story is still incredible. In fact, I'll say this: while GoW4 left a lot of things unexplored story-wise (numerous realms being locked, Gods frequently being talked about but never showing their faces), Ragnarok is ready to face them head on. By the end, I was more than satisfied.

#2: Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart
I'm a sucker for Ratchet & Clank games. You know exactly what you're gonna get: fun arcade-styled gunplay with kickass and creative weapon choices, some simple platforming, and an overall light-hearted story. The formula doesn't fail. Rift Apart has the added bonus of being absolutely gorgeous though. The environments are varied, but every single one of them is beautifully created with the same amount of love. I also think this game has one of the better stories in the R&C franchise, though not the best. Fantastic game worth anyone's time.

#1: Returnal
I was shocked by how much I liked this game. Roguelites have been some of my favorite games over the last 2-3 years (Hades and Risk of Rain 2 in particular are ones I come back to regularly), and since Returnal is basically an AAA roguelite, it scratched an itch I didn't know I had. The gameplay is engaging, it's fast paced, it's satisfying, etc. You have plenty of viable options on what weapons and strategies you use in battle, but nothing comes free. Then there's the story. Wow. It takes risks with its story that most AAA games refuse to take, and to me, they paid off big time. It's a story that will challenge many people, but it's very meaningful, and keeps you intrigued until the very end. I don't know if this is a game that I would recommend to everyone, but for my tastes, it was just what I was looking for.