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Finally wrapped up my ~65 hour playthrough of Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth. I'm constantly surprised, although I shouldn't be at this point, at how well this series marries the sentimental with the absurd and goofy. Legit had me tearing up at points recalling Kiryu's past adventures in a way that wasn't pandering, but then a second later had me busting a gut laughing. Cheered when Ichiban got to go on a date with Etsuko. And the minigames keep me coming back time and time again. Curse it for making me play Animal Crossing, but I'll be damned if I wasn't going to get that resort to 5 stars by blanketing the island with white SUVs to make number go up. The world continues to revel in the weirdos and it's such a good fit for turn-based RPGs, getting to fight perverts or a guy wearing a giant beach ball instead of goblins and the like. I found it easier than LaD 7, but I also never found anything as game breaking as the darts were in the previous entry. (Also I only realized that Eri was an optional character in 7 by the fact that I never heard her mentioned once in this game.) An early GOTY contender for me, definitely in the top 10 at least. To rest my brain, I also went through a few quick ones I had in my backlog. 20 Small Mazes - It's cute. It's free. There are small mazes, twenty of them. Celeste 64 - Celeste as an N64 game made by the creators of Celeste works quite well. Invokes nostalgia from that era, all the way down to its most difficult part - the camera. Only one world (with some fun subareas reminiscent of Super Mario Sunshine), but I'd play more if they ever make more. Mainly gets me wanting to go back to Celeste. Bzzzt - Short platformer with cute art and solid mechanics. It wears its intention to be a time attack/speed game on its sleeve, but I was more focused on collecting all the screws than on trying to skip cycles or find shortcuts.
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Feb 19, 2024 01:01
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I finally got through Pentiment on my third time starting it up, determined to stick with it for more than an hour this time, and I finally let it sink in its hooks. I bought it late last year after reading the GOTY thread, not really knowing anything about it besides the art. The writing in this game is top-notch. The village and characters feel so dynamic based on the choices that this game is the ideal medium to portray the story it wants to tell. Still, the gameplay loop, while serving the story incredibly well, outstayed its welcome with me by about 2-3 hours. For anyone familiar with the Trails games, it felt like running around Crossbell talking to every NPC after each plot beat in order to find any hidden quests. Especially when the game's prompting me to go to bed to advance the time activated every gaming instinct I have to go check every area once again so as not to lock myself out of anything. And excepting the surprisingly fun card game, the few minigames thrown in felt more like unnecessary padding than a welcome breather. So I spent a good bit in Act III trying to advance the endgame by mashing through dialogues with villagers I didn't care about but was still forced to talk to. Kudos to it, however, for including so many conversations or events that I was certain would become plot relevant and either never did or did in a completely unexpected way. And for how much can be inferred about the village and its inhabitants by the things not said. Ultimately, I'm glad to have stuck with it, saw the story to the end, and learned you should never let me try to solve a murder.
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Mar 28, 2024 23:39
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Captain Hygiene posted:I beat Princess Peach Showtime, which I hadn't expected to pick up any time soon, but happened to pop up right when I was looking to give myself a little reward. I ended up liking it, even if it's a bit different from what I'd initially expected. It has various sets of levels to go through with challenges or abilities based around each outfit you wear - a lot are combat and platforming centric (what I generally expected), but others go into things like baking minigames, top-down space shooters, and even detective investigations. I'd rank them in three general levels of enjoyment - the more action-y ones were the best, the minigame ones were a bit less fun, and the detective ones were my least favorite. Not *bad* or anything, just slow in a way that feels more like what I'd want in a Professor Layton game or something. Playing through this with my kids, and it's been a ton of fun. Enjoying it both as their first platformer/puzzle game as well as when I go back through it solo to clean up the remaining sparkle gems. Each level has so much charm, and they explore each role decently enough for some good depth amongst the varied gameplay. The gimmicks feel actually coherent on the whole, which is something I felt Mario Wonder was missing. Except why oh why are the only skippable cutscenes the Sailor Moon transformation ones? The detective levels take so long on a replay from all the cutscenes. And wow does it make the Switch chug.
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Apr 2, 2024 07:26
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Finished up Rise of the Ronin, getting the plat which only took an extra 30 min after the main campaign. Greatly enjoyed my playthrough on the whole, but it probably ranks as my least favorite of the Team Ninja games. The combat is phenomenal; it's a great refinement to the parrying in Wo Long, and it just feels so good parrying a 6 or 7-hit combo to pressure your rival samurai. The cities and surrounding areas are beautifully designed, but I wish the open world were more of a way to seamlessly transition from mission to mission instead of feeling just like collectible bloat. The faction system is also a bit of a mess and doesn't seem to impact much beyond who you fight in a few story missions, as far as I can tell. In its historical setting it necessarily is a much more grounded game than Nioh etc., but as a result a lot of it blends together. All the bosses are human with a different weapon. Oh this one has a hammer, but this one has a shotgun, etc. etc. Outside of a select few, typically those at the end of an act, none of the (probably 80+?) bosses are all that memorable. Sometimes I just want to fight a sea monster or a giant tentacled demon house, ya know? The fact that the combat was so fun really buoyed the playthrough to the end. At hour 10 I was thinking "oh I''m going to do more runs later with different weapons" but by hour 50 "nah, I've had my fun, time to put it away."
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Apr 6, 2024 16:03
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Finished Another Crab's Treasure last night. I really enjoyed it! The cartoony aesthetic and underwater setting makes this a very charming soulslike. The gameplay stands out because of the mechanic of equipping shells with differing defense, durability, and There's a surprising amount of story which works best when it's world building. But it tries to juggle three different themes about pollution, lonliness/companionship, and capitalism without really tying them into each other coherently or even really making a definitive statement on any of them at the end imo. Also, the game is functionally a bit rough around the edges; I experienced multiple crashes. Collision is wonky. I unintentionally skipped half of a dungeon when an enemy pushed me through the floor to right outside the boss arena, and I'd also find myself stuck in different geometry or respawning under the map on occasion. The camera and lock-on would also sometimes bug out. So not the smoothest experience, relatively minor in terms of my playthrough, but noticeable. Still very fun and I look forward to Dark Shells 2.
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Apr 29, 2024 03:03
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