Ghost of Tsushima
Golf Story
Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales
Superhot: Mind Control Delete
Monster Hunter World
Monster Hunter World: Iceborne
Credits rolled, at least.
I now have choice paralysis - do I just get on with doing what (presumably) little story beats I need to do to move the endgame on? Continue farming so I can branch out and make a "good" Switch Axe (the Great Sword especially is starting to irritate me a little, as I have to do an odd mix of dropping down to Low/High rank and fighting boss-level IB elder dragons for specific materials, and it's moderately painful)? Or just move on to Rise, and only play this in co-op if and when my partner catches me…
Probably some combination of those, to be honest.
Iceborne is/was excellent, in any case - it's MHW hard mode, which means it's both great but also even more like "work" sometimes than regular MHW, while making up the true second half of possibly my favourite game of all-time.
Having played a lot more of Rise since we last spoke about this - it's much much better than I originally gave it credit for, and continues to improve the more I play it.
However if you are enjoying MHW then I would stick with that for now, don't go directly from one game to the next and definitely don't go backwards and forwards between them. Rise will make MHW feel slow and clunky, it's a much quicker game and your character has vastly more mobility. Conversely though it's also much easier, and may feel a bit unsatisfying if you're coming directly from G-rank Iceborne monsters.
Finish off the one you're playing, take a little break, then you will absolutely love Rise, I'm sure.
It did occur to me earlier that going from having endgame equipment and challenges straight to the ground floor of Rise might be a terrible idea, actually. Thought I might get around it by doing a new weapon, but I doubt that'd do it either really.
Swaxe, Hammer and HH are all appealing (for when I move over) at the moment, though Gunlance is also something I consider frequently (for either or both), and I know I should be able to muddle through with a GS/Lance if it comes to it.
Beat Alatreon for me, I fucking lost to his ultimate attack because he has a very special and quite frankly 'un-Monster Hunter' mechanic to him and lost the heart to try anymore. But moveset wise he's the best fight in the game since Nergigante (who is SUCH a good fight, please show up in Rise) with very fair hitboxes. :^)
So this means I quit before the daddy himself, Fatalis. Who looks bastard hard but the perfect end to World. Spoiler - click to showThe Monster Hunter theme kicks in when you've nearly beat him, which sounds incredibly empowering
Persona 2: Innocent Sin
Somehow a really good and not very good Persona game at the same time, I like it but I don't think I can recommend it on account of its gameplay simply being as I said earlier, very flawed even though I got it to a point where it didn't bother me. The pacing of this game feels lightning quick and that's a good thing because the story and characters are good as anything in the later 3 Persona games, I'd even go so far as to say Maya is one of my favourite Persona characters period. It's also the only other Persona to possibly out gloom Persona 3, that ending really kicks you in the balls and there's no doubt I'm going to play the second game, Eternal Punishment to find out what happens next…somehow, we never got it over here. (if only there was a device that could play PS1 games on emulation)
Bring on the next RPG! 
Tetris Effect
Gris
Half Life
Donut County
Final Fantasy 15
Dragon Quest 11
Yakuza 3
Valheim
Wolfenstein Youngblood
Carto
A pretty neat puzzler that's like Carcassone. It's not as clever as it thinks it is, though, and out stays its welcome. Neat for the price of entry on Gamepass but maybe don't go out of your way for it.
Yep, agree with all of that, it’s very short but also oddly a bit too long, and it’s so twee I wanted to punch it in the face; but somehow it’s quite fun all the same.
Using this, but just for RPGs:
Ys: Memories of Celceta
Ys: Lacrimos of Dana
Ys Origin
Ys I
Ys II
Labyrinth of Refrain: Coven of Dusk
Tokyo Xanadu Ex+
Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore
Atelier Ryza
Tales of Eternia
Persona 2: Innocent Sin
Just beat Ys: The Oath in Felghana. For my money, the best Ys game, before the end I was contantly wrestling with thoughts of, is it better than Origin? Origin looks better and is more polished but honestly, a full Adol adventure (Origin has 3 playable characters and none are Adol) and characters like Chester and Dogi the Wallcrusher (he even breaks down a wall in this and he gets super happy about it, bless) really tipped it over for me. It will probably come down to the region of Felghana vs the Tower of Dharm, the latter of which still holds the superior atmosphere.
Still recommend Origin or Ys VIII for newcomers but I have yet to play a bad game in this entire series yet, and I have only one more I can play without having to buy Ys IX and that is Ys VII, but that will be a while off.
Tetris Effect
Gris
Half Life
Donut County
Final Fantasy 15
Dragon Quest 11
Yakuza 3
Valheim
Wolfenstein Youngblood
Carto
Battlefield Hardline
Battlefield Hardline is a 2015 game from EA and Visceral Entertainment, where the player is told 'that some goddamn liberal left wing activist judge isn't giving us no knock warrants so we're going to have to do this ourselves.'
Maybe one of the ugliest games I've ever played. It's a piece of grotesque copaganda. It aspires to be like every afternoon police procedural drama you've ever seen; CSI, Blue Bloods, NCIS, Law and Order. It takes a completely uncritical look at the militarization of the police and embraces it as nothing but a positive. Because it has nothing to say other than aping the aesthetic of the media it's trying to be, it can say nothing good. This is a violently ugly game that I got a few levels into and decided that it is probably for the best that this was forgotten.
Tetris Effect
Gris
Half Life
Donut County
Final Fantasy 15
Dragon Quest 11
Yakuza 3
Valheim
Wolfenstein Youngblood
Carto
Battlefield Hardline
Doom 64
Finally took the time to get through this. Got all the demon keys, the Unmaker and torched the final boss for my bona fides.
This is a really weird game. It's probably more of a Doom 3 than Doom 3 was; spooky, atmospheric, more of a horror game than Doom and Doom 2, this wasn't developed by Id but was actually developed by Midway under the title of Doom The Absolution. It's a direct sequel to Doom 2, casting the player as the same marine who heads back into hell to kill the Mother of All Demons. This is the same guy that'd appear in Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal.
It's a, tonally, very different game than the earlier Dooms. Lower enemy counts than Doom 2, lower enemy variety, lower audio fidelity. Everything's gray and green and brown. Industrial corridors that move the player through increasingly grim locations, all laid out in the most atmospheric manner possible for the N64. I mean, just listen to the difference in the soundtracks. E1M1 from Doom and E1M1 from Doom 64. Imps no longer sound like camels when they're dying and the whole thing's a lot less heavy metal, more horrorcore.
It's not a fun game, but it's a fascinating historical artefact.
January
Blasphemous
February
Horace
Agent A: A Puzzle In Disguise
The Burnable Garbage Day
March
Nothing
April
A Way Out
FEZ - Finished on Switch, did it properly with all 64 cubes (there's a bug which means you can get all the anti-cubes without waiting a week for the bloody grey clock hand). What a lovely, smart game.
Ys: Memories of Celceta
Ys: Lacrimos of Dana
Ys Origin
Ys I
Ys II
Labyrinth of Refrain: Coven of Dusk
Tokyo Xanadu Ex+
Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore
Atelier Ryza
Tales of Eternia
Persona 2: Innocent Sin
Ys: The Oath in Felghana
Tales of Xillia 2 - A wholly unecessary sequel that arguably drags the first game through the mud storywise, however the first game had the best combat system of the entire series and this feels better or at least just as good.What's more is that the cast in the first was weak and they're actually a lot more fun here, so that's cool.
Got at least one or two more Tales games I can beat before Arise drops, should be interesting!
Monster Hunter: Rise - got plenty of thoughts which I will put in the main thread.
Yakuza 4
The narrative's complete bobbins with dudes getting shot in the head and then being okay because it was a riot munition. Or people getting into prison and then getting out of it in totally unexplained ways. Twists and turns and twisty-turny plot developments that are unexpected in a way that's not very satisfying.
4 different stories told from 4 different perspectives. It's neat when they overlap for sure, and it's cool seeing characters from different perspectives, but some of the characters are better than others for sure. Tanimura's cool and I strongly prefer his fighting style over everyone else's bar Kiryu. Saejima's a fucking creep and I hope he never returns.
It's a good game. If you're into Yakuza, play it and enjoy it. if you're not, it's not a good example of the breed. Kiwami 0 and Kiwami 1 are still probably the best of the bunch so far.
Yep, worst one for me. The plot is just utter bullshit from start to finish, has the worst twist I've ever seen in anything and then the ending is completely stupid.
Akiyama's cool though I guess. He and Saejima do return in the next one but Saejima at least is a lot better than he is in 4.
I like how even the characters seem bored of it by the end.
Spoiler - click to showFuck it, just put the money on a roof, see what happens and then punch that thing.
Destroy all Humans
This is dumb but also fun. Brain go switch offy.
January
Blasphemous
February
Horace
Agent A: A Puzzle In Disguise
The Burnable Garbage Day
March
Nothing
April
A Way Out
FEZ
May
South Park: The Fractured But Whole - Story finished, a tiny handful of quests to clean up and then onto the DLC. Really enjoyed this, made me laugh a lot despite being massively un-PC (but it's South Park, so hey). Glad I put time into this.
Ys: Memories of Celceta
Ys: Lacrimos of Dana
Ys Origin
Ys I
Ys II
Labyrinth of Refrain: Coven of Dusk
Tokyo Xanadu Ex+
Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore
Atelier Ryza
Tales of Eternia
Persona 2: Innocent Sin
Ys: The Oath in Felghana
Tales of Xillia 2
Lunar: the Silver Star Complete
Well this was a lovely little PS1 RPG, very limited gameplay wise and the story is a pretty generic good vs evil….but it's really charming, has nice music, anime cutscenes and really likable characters. I can see why it's such a classic.
Wasn't sure if I was going to move on to Lunar 2 at one point because of how frustrating the difficulty got (if it means anything I one shot the final boss, so it gets better) but now I'm SO down for more, I hear the sequel is even better so I'm going to play that sometime in the future because going directly into an RPG sequel sounds a bit crazy, they naturally come out years apart when you're refreshed after all…
Rain On Your Parade - it's a lovely day in the village and you are a horrible cloud. 50% Goose Game (here's a list of tasks you need to carry out to fuck up someone's day) and 50% Donut County (short and self-contained levels, and a knowing tone), this is nowhere near as good as either but is OK in short bursts and I did eventually make my way to the end. It's surprisingly janky and in places comes across almost as a game engine demo or something someone's knocked up in a game creator, but it was never terrible enough for me to ditch it and as a passing diversion it does its job.
No need to apologise, I'm not saying it's actually good, just that it's a Game I Completed in 2021.
Ys: Memories of Celceta
Ys: Lacrimos of Dana
Ys Origin
Ys I
Ys II
Labyrinth of Refrain: Coven of Dusk
Tokyo Xanadu Ex+
Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore
Atelier Ryza
Tales of Eternia
Persona 2: Innocent Sin
Ys: The Oath in Felghana
Tales of Xillia 2
Lunar: the Silver Star Complete
Disco Elysium
Think Planescape Torment with like 50x more dialogue and 100% less shitty combat.
Wild Arms 3 aka I SURVIVED THE DESERT STORM (SAFE AND WARM!)
Just how many rooting tooting JRPGs are there that mix dusters and revolvers and saloons with typical JRPG bullshit? In that sense this was really refreshing, the only things that let this down for me was that random battles ended up taking too long and despite a cool system that lets you choose to skip them by collecting crystals in each dungeon, they don't even let you run away from battle! I got a spell to flee much later on and it worked like 3 times. Yes, I skipped 3 whole battles the entire game (and got peanut exp for them all)
There's a system also that you can NOT find anything on the world map, even if you stand in front of where it should be, unless you talk to someone and they tell you it exists. This is pretty bizarre, kinda' stupid but gameplay wise it's only a problem because you can get random encounters while looking around on the world map and you can't escape them to resume your search asap.Were it not for that I wouldn't mind that much.
Still, despite all that there's more good than bad for me, just one for the 'this doesn't really deserve a remake but if it did it'd be a classic' pile.
Day of the Tentacle Remastered - as discussed in the PWB thread this month.
Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow. I honestly can't remember the last game I finished. No Man's Sky maybe?
January
Blasphemous
February
Horace
Agent A: A Puzzle In Disguise
The Burnable Garbage Day
March
Nothing
April
A Way Out
FEZ
May
South Park: The Fractured But Whole
Call of the Sea - So slow. So. Fucking. SLOW. The puzzles are fine, the story is alright but not nearly as Cthulu-esque as I'd expected. But dragging out the length of a game by making the lead character walk at the pace of a goddamn snail (even when using 'sprint') is just shit design. Including levels where the slowest speed is mandatory for a whole five minutes where absolutely nothing happens is incredibly shit. A lot of the achievements are obtuse too. I'm glad this was free, I'd have been really annoyed otherwise.
I really liked it, and didn't think it was particularly slow. It's a game of exploration and puzzle-solving, not Doom Eternal.
Then let me explore at my pace. Don't make me walk up and down the same hillside multiple times to solve one puzzle (chapter 2, I'm looking at you) if you're going to do that at the pace of a slug. Don't put ladders in when they're only a means of slowing everything down and not serving a purpose. Don't put in on-rails sections where you can't do anything but sit there while still moving at the speed you'd normally be forced to go anyway.
I get it, she's a frail lady with an illness. She's going to be slow. But it's a forced convention, a means of making a two hour game last five. Nothing wrong with a game lasting two hours. I'd have been happier if it had.
January
Blasphemous
February
Horace
Agent A: A Puzzle In Disguise
The Burnable Garbage Day
March
Nothing
April
A Way Out
FEZ
May
South Park: The Fractured But Whole
Call of the Sea
Scott Pilgrim Vs The World - I could have sworn that I finished this when it first came out on PS3/360, but playing the re-release on Series X made me realise I didn't remember anything after the third level. Very, very odd. It's fun, more difficult than I remember, and enough to make me want to watch the film again (which I have today). Only a couple of achievements to go, but they're all online-related and no-one is playing. Sigh.
Can you guess I'm on two weeks holiday, sitting on my sofa all day? 
Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne
True Demon Ending, not necessarily the ending I wanted but it's the one with the most content and being that I won't play this again any time soon, I couldn't bring myself to celebrate this re-release by skipping it even if I did it on the PS2 version, which is what you have to do if you want to get the three original endings. In a game about making your choice this is a bit of a flaw, but the new content was added on in the EU version of the gamein a way that least involved reshuffling the entire endgame about so it's not really their fault.
Man Eater
A checklist of things to do and little else. Really becomes very dull towards the end, especially if you try and 100% it. Utterly forgettable but with a weird, b-game charm. I hope it sold well and they get to make a sequel because it's a neat idea that needs more camp comedy.
Really becomes very dull towards the end, especially if you try and 100% it.
… which I did, so can totally agree with. The final boss fight is fun once you work out how to do it, but it's not very clear at first.
Yakuza 5 - an epic in every sense of the word, and one of my favourite entries in the whole series. It's just so ludicrously overstuffed, it genuinely is four games rolled into one with a final chapter that's the Yakuza equivalent of a Marvel crossover event. After the lesser entries of 3 and 4, this is the point at which the Yakuza team really worked out what these games should do.
I had a really good go at completing as much of this as I could - did all substories, defeated the Amon Clan, did all training, completed each of the big side activities for each character (taxi driving, hunting, baseball etc), and a fair amount of other stuff, and ended up with a score of… 52% complete. Not bad. I'm satisfied that I've seen all the good story content in this one and most of what's left is grinding and minigames, so I'm happy to consider this done. Props to anyone who Platinums this one though.
Finished the main plot of Dragon Quest XI, and have some thoughts about the choices made in the post-game story.
Spoiler - click to showI'm not sure how to feel about Veronica's resurrection from a story standpoint – she's my favourite character in the game by a long shot, but her death's permanence gave Serena an arc (and a haircut) that I found really compelling. Rewinding time is easier to accept than a "find an artifact" quest, though, and it's got the additional benefit of messing around with the events I've already seen in ways that I hadn't predicted. The new big bad had been foreshadowed more thoroughly than expected, too – although there are still some elements that feel out of nowhere. Maybe I just haven't paid enough attention to the in-world literature.
It's an enjoyable, fairly relaxing way to spend time, though. I'm glad there's more to do, 'cos I'm not sure I was ready to put it down yet.
I finished Monster Hunter World. Might be the first game I've completed for years.
It's kind of OK. Still don't like the combat, but some of the dinosaur things were quite impressive.
The flying ones can fuck right off.
Fez
All cubes, proper ending. Still fundamentally a really good game - clever, inventive, mechanically sound, fun and engaging in both an intellectual and moment-to-moment-play sense.
The meta stuff doesn't really work outside of the initial ARG-style hype, and the obelisk/what's my name "puzzles" are needlessly obtuse but that's easy to forgive when the rest of the game is so good. And honestly, who really needs the red heart cubes anyway..? Thoroughly enjoyed around 201.5% of my time with it.
The switch port is a bit buggy though, had quite a few crashes and freezes along the way.
January
Blasphemous
February
Horace
Agent A: A Puzzle In Disguise
The Burnable Garbage Day
March
Nothing
April
A Way Out
FEZ
May
South Park: The Fractured But Whole
Call of the Sea
Scott Pilgrim Vs The World
June
Tick Tock: A Game For Two - It's £2.50 in the current Switch sale, but it's technically a fiver since you need two copies on two separate devices. Played it through this morning with my other half; it's a co-op puzzle game where you have to work together because each one of you sees different information. It's not online, you just choose who is P1 and P2 when you start, then you read each other what's on screen and work out the puzzles together. You're not supposed to look at each other's screens, so it can be played long distance over voice chat/Discord too. Very short but I really enjoyed it. Would recommend if you have a like-minded partner/friend.
Taking a break from DQ11, I hopped back to Mass Effect Legendary Edition to discover that I was really close to the end of Mass Effect 2, so that's been checked off (again). No surprises or changes from my 360 days (though the in-game achievement medals are still borked), but I was surprised to discover how tense the Suicide Mission was. Even following a guide to pick the right characters for each section, I couldn't quite believe it was going to be okay until we'd moves on to the next.
Tetris Effect
Gris
Half Life
Donut County
Final Fantasy 15
Dragon Quest 11
Yakuza 3
Valheim
Wolfenstein Youngblood
Carto
Battlefield Hardline
Doom 64
Yakuza 4
Destroy all Humans
Man Eater
Bit of an update to the list
Command and Conquer Remastered
I never played the original CNC all the way through as a kid and it's interesting going back to it now. It's remarkable how small it feels? The maps are a bit wee, the units feel properly like toys and it's just not that well balanced. The remaster feels like a great effort, though, with the cutscene's looking janky enough to remind you that they're not even 240p but fresh enough to make you appreciate the AI upscaling that's gone into them.
If you played CNC back in the day and want to go back and relive it, worth a look especially for free on Gamepass but otherwise it's probably not going to pull you into the RTS genre.
Power Washer Simulator
One of those games that falls deep into the 'zen brain switch off mode' genre right next to House Flipper and Car Mechanic Simulator. There's a very light, pointless metagame in the way, but you hold down mouse 1 and point the middle of your screen at bits of the object, house, car, whatever that's dirty and the alpha texture on the bit that's dirty disappears.
It's like someone stuck a percentage complete indicator on the eraser tool in Photoshop and it's strangely compelling.
Maneater
It's a lovely morning in the bayou, and you are a horrible shark.
Actually that's a bit of an understatement: you're a complete bastard of a shark, an insatiable appetite with an attitude problem, and you power your way through various enviroments eating everything in your path. I don't think sharks are particularly well known for their propensity to do side quests, but this one does, and there's the same satisfaction in clearing an area of question marks as there is in, say, Assassin's Creed. Sharks do lack a rich cultural life, however, and so the tasks do eventually get a bit repetitive - the first time you flop across a golf course gulping down fat Americans, it's hilarious; the seventh or eighth time, a little less so - so thankfully the game doesn't outstay its welcome.
Maneater also absolutely nails the feeling of growing power - at the start of the game your little sharklet is in trouble every time an alligator looks at it funny, by the end of the game you're a battle-scarred bone-covered monster with * checks notes * electric teeth?? - and there's great fun to be had going back to earlier areas and causing absolute carnage. And the framing of the whole thing as a low-budget cable TV show absolutely works, giving a bare sliver of a plot to propel you onwards and providing the opportunity for the best sardonic voiceover since Crackdown.
I really enjoyed this. It's exactly the sort of middle-ranking AA game that Game Pass seems designed for, a few days of highly enjoyable ultraviolence then onto the next game. Thoroughly recommended.
The only issue I had with Maneater was of my own doing: I seemingly missed the tutorial for flipping something out of your mouth and hitting it at a target with your tail. Unfortunately, this was the main skill needed for the last boss fight.
Still really enjoyed it though.
Not sure I ever did that - was that even a thing?
The last boss fight was fine but I had to cheese the big orca a couple of levels earlier. I was totally maxed out by the end so Scaly Pete never stood a chance. Chomp chomp motherfuckers!
Not sure I ever did that - was that even a thing?
Yep. If you didn't use it, how the hell did you beat Pete? You're meant to tail flip the gas canisters he throws back at the boat, because you can't get close enough to attack while the lightning shield is up…
Went in hard and fast from the beginning and took out both the shield generators under the boat. Retreated and stocked up on energy by eating wildlife while evading constantly to avoid missiles. Took out the hunters. Took out the boat. Easy.
Ys: Memories of Celceta
Ys: Lacrimos of Dana
Ys Origin
Ys I
Ys II
Labyrinth of Refrain: Coven of Dusk
Tokyo Xanadu Ex+
Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore
Atelier Ryza
Tales of Eternia
Persona 2: Innocent Sin
Ys: The Oath in Felghana
Tales of Xillia 2
Lunar: the Silver Star Complete
Disco Elysium
Wild Arms 3
Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne
Hajimari no Kiseki
I was worried this would end up being Cold Steel 5 and while Rean is still a bit too important, it's mostly set in Crossbell and not Erebonia and Rean is but one of 3 separate routes you play through, with Lloyd being just as important. They've absolutely perfected the gameplay and I absolutely see why they're changing things up for Kuro next, this is by far the best gameplay of the 'Cold Steel' series. (51 playable characters!)
January
Blasphemous
February
Horace
Agent A: A Puzzle In Disguise
The Burnable Garbage Day
March
Nothing
April
A Way Out
FEZ
May
South Park: The Fractured But Whole
Call of the Sea
Scott Pilgrim Vs The World
June
Tick Tock: A Game For Two
July
There Is No Game - Enjoyed this, a quirky puzzler that doesn't outstay its welcome and ended up going in a different direction to how you might expect. One annoyance in the middle, as Chapter 4 has a mechanic that's story-relevant but still a bit repetitive. Even so, I'd say this one's worth a look on Switch when it's in the sale.
Black Mesa
Black Mesa is the perfect version of Half Life to play if you've never played Half Life before. It also asks maybe the most impossible question anyone's ever asked in a videogame.
What if Xen, but longer? And also good?
Really good stuff. If you've not played Half Life before give it a whirl.
