i just beat a video game.

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > i just beat a video game.

fridge corn: Apr 2, 2003; NO MERCY, ONLY PAIN

Terper posted:

I just beat Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising, a prequel story to Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes, the spiritual successor to Suikoden that releases later this year. Rising is a companion game that was part of a Kickstarter goal. I actually backed the Kickstarter and got Rising at a discount (and so can you, it's 50% off on Steam rn). It's 10-15 hours long.

Unlike the main game, which is a turn-based RPG just like Suikoden, Rising has some light 2D platforming and simple, easy-to-execute action combat.

The premise is simple: Three of the 100 characters you'll eventually recruit in the main game had a cool little adventure, became friends and built a community before the "real" story started. It's essentially Sidequest: The Game. You get sidequests from the townspeople, go into dungeons and gather materials, rinse and repeat. You don't need to do that and just focus on the main story, but it's incentivized and a fairly core part of the game's content and themes.

I was originally not really planning on playing it, but in hindsight I'm really glad I did. The strongest part is the main trio; they're all very charming and I'm really looking forward to having them in my party in the main game. The story is simple but effective.

I'd give it a hearty recommendation to anyone who's planning on playing the main game.

I was in the same boat of eagerly awaiting the main game but not particularly interested in this title until it became available on PS+ and I'm so glad I decided to give it a try! It impressed me so much and gave me such an extra boost of hype for the main game that I put it at #10 on my goty list last year (out of 29 other jrpgs)!!

# ¿ Jan 6, 2024 14:33

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 00:06

fridge corn: Apr 2, 2003; NO MERCY, ONLY PAIN

abraham linksys posted:

also holy gently caress the "town building" was TERRIBLE. the buildings just go from ruined buildings, to identical straw-roofed buildings, to identical straw-roofed buildings with frames. gently caress YOU! if you're going to put "town building" in the description of your game make your town look loving interesting!

e: also if anyone's wondering i completed the "platinum" stamp card and will not be touching the black card. also this meant the last few story fights were totally trivial because i was fully outleveled/geared for them. at least that's standard for the genre

I'm sorry you had such a bad time with the game. As someone who has a lot of appreciation for this title I can honestly say the majority of your complaints are completely valid. Everything in the game is very simple and basic to the point where its practically a mobile game. As a big fan of the Suikoden series however i will say where Eiyuden Chronicle Rising succeeds is how well it manages to capture the feel and spirit of a Suikoden game and what that possibly means for the main title coming out in a few months. Yes, I put this game at #10 on my goty list purely because it's given me confidence in an as yet to be released title

. Fwiw I only ended up playing it because it became available with my ps+ subscription and probably wouldn't have paid money directly for it. Are you a fan of the Suikoden series? Are you planning on playing Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes?

# ¿ Jan 9, 2024 09:40

fridge corn: Apr 2, 2003; NO MERCY, ONLY PAIN

I beat Lies of P yesterday. What a phenomenal game. The only soulslike that I've been able to stand more than 10 minutes of let alone finish. Fantastic from beginning to end and the sequel hook is insane. I can't describe how much I want to play that next potential game right now lmao

# ¿ Feb 19, 2024 12:12

fridge corn: Apr 2, 2003; NO MERCY, ONLY PAIN

SchwarzeKrieg posted:

Just finished Days Gone, a very good game that's very difficult to sell. I don't want to throw the word "generic" at it, but it certainly is an amalgamation of every AAA open-world trope of the last decade, and the two defining features (the motorcycle you upgrade ala Mad Max and the giant hordes) aren't quite immediate enough to set the game apart from every other open-world zombie game with light crafting mechanics. It looks like the ultimate Daryl Dixon simulator about 10 years after the sell-by date, and while I guess that's not entirely inaccurate, the game as a whole works far better than that would imply. For starters, the game just feels great in the hands on all fronts, from the hefty punch of the guns to the weighty but still loose handling of the bike down to the simple inertia and movement of the main character, it's all a joy to control. It strikes a perfect balance of feeling sturdy and deliberate without being sluggish. The core gameplay loop is great too, and the crafting and scavenging mechanics are tuned just right to feel rewarding and not punitive. For me at least, the typical cycle would be to clear out a couple missions or objectives then swing by any site that looked interesting on my way to the next one (or whenever I started to get low on something specifically useful). The locations are near-universally interesting to explore, with nice little environmental storytelling vignettes and plenty of opportunities for emergent events (ambushes, survivors in trouble, etc).

Which, after writing it out, still sounds exactly like every AAA game of the last 10 years, but everything actually meshes together in a cohesive way instead of feeling like a dozen separate systems loosely cobbled together. It just works real good, y'know? The power curve is smooth, there's a nice progression from struggling against a handful of zombies to manipulating giant hordes, and the motorcycle grows alongside you in a satisfying way (even if I never quite got attached to it as a character in the way the game seemed to want). The core mechanics are good enough to carry it a long way, but the game around them can be kind of hit or miss. The characters and dialogue feel natural - I especially appreciated how unpolished a lot of the dialogue is in a believable way. Deacon St. John (side note: what a Hideo Kojima-rear end name) is constantly distracted, stressed, and struggling to articulate his thoughts or even finish a sentence in a way that actually makes a lot of sense and isn't often done in games. A lot of the side characters and camp leaders feel pretty well-rounded and three dimensional as well, with understandable motivations and outlooks. The relationships especially are a highlight, and all the characters bounce off of each other in interesting ways that, again, feel surprisingly natural and believable, which makes it stand out even more when the game dumps some boring video game-rear end video game villains onto you from a seemingly different universe. The story as a whole just kinda spins its wheels, occasionally feinting in interesting directions before reverting to the mean. Without delving into spoiler territory, it feels like the game wants to be an intimate, personal story but is afraid to be too low-stakes so it throws in a generic Big Bad occasionally to ratchet up the tension, but it just ends up in an unsatisfying middle ground where the 'climactic' moments feel unearned and the personal moments feel unresolved. There are some bafflingly bad mission design choices too, with a bunch of instant-fail stealth missions and bizarrely terrible QTE boss fights. It's always a bummer when the latter levels of action games lose inspiration and just start throwing bullet sponges at you, doubly so here when the game spends a couple dozen hours teaching you how to tame hordes and bears and create all kinds of crazy emergent situations and then decides to strip all that away and turn into a corridor shooter against a bunch of walking tanks.

Again, a tough game to sell, but the bones really are strong enough to overlook the weak aspects. It's a shame the underwhelming reviews (and subsequent Chud-y Twitter tantrum by the game's director) seem to have confined this to Reddit le-hidden-gem posts and killed off any chance of a sequel, because this ended up as one of my favorite open-world games in recent memory even notwithstanding the glaring issues. A sequel that irons out the rough spots could have been something really special, but either way I'm pretty curious to see what the studio is working on next.

This is an excellent write up of Days Gone. You really hit on all the points which make it a game that ends up greater than a sum of its parts. Enjoyed reading this, thanks.

# ¿ Mar 5, 2024 11:37

fridge corn: Apr 2, 2003; NO MERCY, ONLY PAIN

I enjoyed SO2R for what it was cuz I genuinely enjoy playing old games that are a bit obtuse and mystifying and having questionable mechanics or design decisions that would have gone completely over my head as a child but I am able to grasp now with my powerful adult brain. Star Ocean 2 and SaGa Frontier are both games I owned on the ps1 but never managed to get very far in. Playing through the remastered versions of these games was a real treat.

# ¿ Mar 8, 2024 18:02

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 00:06

fridge corn: Apr 2, 2003; NO MERCY, ONLY PAIN

I also just finished Pentiment. It did a really good job of at times making me feel really clever and also incredibly dumb at others. Just like any good piece of literature should

# ¿ Mar 30, 2024 09:41

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > i just beat a video game.