Games Completed 2021

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Jon Cheetham
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Re: Games Completed 2021

Post by Jon Cheetham »

Spoiler: show
8 Jan - Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin (PS4)
10 Jan - Donut County (Android)
20 Jan - Dark Souls Remastered (Switch)
23 Jan - Bastion (Switch)
30 Jan - Hitman 3 (PS4)
15 Feb - Loco Motive (Itch)
21 Feb - The Witcher III: The Wild Hunt (Switch)
26 Feb - The Witcher III: Hearts of Stone (Switch)
4 Mar - Quarantine Circular (Switch)
6 Mar - Bury Me, My Love (Android)
14 Mar - Dishonored Death of the Outsider (Steam)
15 Mar - The Witcher III: Blood and Wine (Switch)
18 Mar - Dishonored 2 (Steam)
26 Mar - Paradise Killer (Switch)

I'm kind of obsessed with this game. I thought it was a rollicking good detective story for one, with a sprawling murder mystery to unravel as you comb the island. The cast of characters is wonderful, with a group of mercurial, vain, bickering, entertaining and often likeable immortals to chat up and interrogate. A big part of your job as the investigator is to get to know these weirdos and it was always a joy to do so.

I feel the island itself is up there with some of the best interconnected game worlds, with a dense, very vertical tropical-urban environment. Getting up to vantage points and scanning around to see where you have and haven't been and maybe spotting something I should check out on a nearby rooftop always felt cool.

The menu did a great job of recording and indexing all my evidence, case files and suspects so I didn't have to worry about keeping track of it all yourself.

The world building has a unique tone and is really vivid. Wall to wall striking turns of phrase and evocative language. The names and ideas - you play as Lady Love Dies, who was born in the Longest Tower in AD1000 under the sign of Kiss Me To The Moon. How can you not want to know more! But the game doesn't toil to explain every last thing or ask you to sift through lore. It's to a purpose, this game is all about one night, and the crime to end all crimes and whether you can solve it. It's the sort of balance I like - enough flavour to make the world feel real, not so much that you get sick of reading it all which in a game about solving a mystery would probably be bad.

The soundtrack has rightly been much acclaimed and I just noticed there's a Sound of Play ep with Barry "Epoch" Topping! It's this chunky, '80s sounding upbeat city pop that's just grooving away as you explore and unearth secrets both shocking and eldritch and it's nearly all I've listened to on Spotify since I began this game. Play with headphones if you can.

This is one I won't soon forget. Fabulous game.
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ironedflemming
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Re: Games Completed 2021

Post by ironedflemming »

7. Detroit: Become Human (PS4 on PS5)

Second playthrough, tried to make all bad choices this time which did result in a bunch of differences especially near the end. Going this route also didn't show Markus in such a christ like light which was one of my major groans with story first time around. Mostly love the world building and presentation on show here though, top notch and looked great on PS5 too
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Jobobonobo
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Re: Games Completed 2021

Post by Jobobonobo »

Spoiler: show
January 30: Celeste
February 12: Katamari Damacy Rerolled
February 28: Panzer Dragoon Remake
March 26: Donut County

Nice short experience which has a fun story and very simple but rewarding gameplay. The gameplay is almost too simple as you are just controlling a hole that needs to get bigger by dropping as much items as you can into it but many levels will require some interesting puzzles to solve in order to progress. Its short length means it can play around with various ideas and move onto the next so that things are always kept interesting. The fact that there is even a boss fight at the end was also not expected for a game like this but ensured that it ended fairly memorably. So if you are not in the mood for a sprawling open world adventure or grinding on an epic RPG quest this is a nice little experience that should keep you occupied for an afternoon or two.
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ColinAlonso
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Re: Games Completed 2021

Post by ColinAlonso »

Spoiler: show
Jan 1 - Slay the Spire (Switch)
Jan 10 - Streets of Rage 4 (PS4) (Cherry - Normal)
Jan 24 - Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana (Switch) (True Ending)
Feb 28 - Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap (Switch)
Mar 28 - Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy (Vita)

According to my trophies, I tried to finish this in both 2012 and 2013. The upcoming podcast gave me the encouragement to start again.

The platforming can be quite finicky. Jak, in terms of control, is very much an evolution of Crash for good and bad, though more good as Naughty Dog have this style down at that point.

The camera shows its age and can get stuck up against walls, but its not a game breaker. The villains are notably dull. The music is boring.

Despite that, once I got into the groove of things and had Jak's moves down, exploring each level and collecting power cells became quite fun. The world is nicely designed and impressive for its time. I prefer linear platformers to collectathons but things here were quite compact. I got quite caught up in collecting the power cells and ended up collecting all 101. I'm 80 orbs short of the full 2000. but I'm not going to backtrack for the rest.

So enjoyable but flawed and showing its age.
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Alex79
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Re: Games Completed 2021

Post by Alex79 »

Alex79uk wrote: January 1st, 2021, 1:25 pmJAN - 80 Days (Android)
JAN - What Remains Of Edith Finch (PS4)
JAN - Judgment (PS4)
JAN - Donut County (Android)
FEB - Gorogoa (Android)
FEB - Horace (Switch)
FEB - Castlevania (NES on Switch)
FEB - Akumajō Dracula (Famicom on Switch)
MAR - Pinball FX3: Back To The Future (Switch)
MAR - Pinball FX3: E.T. (Switch)

Another fantastic table from the Universal Classics collection. Really fun, nice mini games and nice fast board. Really enjoyed this table, the collection is well worth picking up if you like pinball.
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Magical_Isopod
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Re: Games Completed 2021

Post by Magical_Isopod »

#7 - Ys IX: Monstrum Nox

Looks like this is the second year in a row where I've been deeply disappointed by a JRPG I was super hyped for (after FF7R last year).

Ys VIII is a top 5 JRPG all-time for me. It's set in a super interesting locale and premise - basically, you're shipwrecked on a tropical island that inexplicably has dinosaurs and ruins no one recognizes. Highly, highly recommend it, it's just an absolute joy. Ys IX is... A lesser work. The gameplay is quite strong, which is why I finished it and got 74% of the trophies. it's fun to explore, it's fun to fight, it's a pretty fun time. But man does the story in this game ever suck.

Basically, world-traveling adventurer Adol is thrown into prison while visiting a Baroque prison city. While there, he escapes, only to be transformed into a superhero-like "Monstrum" with supernatural abilities, and forced to fight these monsters that appear in a parallel dimension called the "Monstrum Nox". Without spoiling anything, I'll basically say... This game sets up a few mysteries that seem really compelling, but when plot revelations clarify what's really going on, I found myself audibly saying, "This is stupid." And really, it's a stupid, stupid story that feels more at home in a low-rent anime than in a series that frequently explores gods and mythology as though they were fact. And there's certainly elements of that here, but it's seriously nothing new or interesting.

The setting of this game is really lame too. While I think "prison city" is a great idea, the way it's handled here really isn't especially creative. We're talking bog-standard JRPG Medieval Europe, although perhaps advanced into a fantasy 1800s. None of the locales felt like anything special, which is in stark contrast to Ys VIII, where the island of Seiren felt utterly untamed and unattended, somewhere that really sold the whole, "Oh, I get why no one who's landed here has come back," part of the narrative. Where Ys VIII had ruins of an ancient civilization long-forgotten, Ys IX had ruins of a civilization that... Everyone just kinda-sorta remembers, but nobody has been arsed to study. And it doesn't have the same sense of mystery.

The characters in this game were quite strong though. All the main characters were interesting characters that mostly broke the cliche trappings on anime-style games, and it was fun watching them learn and evolve. However... There's a story revelation that really kinda undercuts the struggles of these characters. And by the end, I stopped caring. The narrative cuts off its own feet in a misguided attempt to create drama, and then attempts to stand.

Much like FF7R, this is a good game with a really dumb story. If you aren't particularly concerned about narrative and just love mechanically excellent action RPGs with exploration aplenty, I definitely give this one a strong recommendation. But if, like me, you expect a strong narrative in RPGs, give this one a pass and buy Ys VIII instead. And if you have Ys VIII already... I dunno, Xenoblade 2 and Final Fantasy XIII-2 are two great JRPGs I played last year. :P

&iso2021
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Alex79
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Re: Games Completed 2021

Post by Alex79 »

I do like the Ys games that I've played (only played 2 of them) but your description of VIII sounds interesting, might check that out once I've finished Ni No Kuni.

EDIT: Oof, it's £50 on Switch though. Wondered about the Vita version but can't find it on the store now - have PS3 and Vita stores already shut down!? It's selling for £100+ on physical for Vita! Hmmmm.
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Re: Games Completed 2021

Post by Truk_Kurt »

Alex79uk wrote: March 29th, 2021, 10:50 am I do like the Ys games that I've played (only played 2 of them) but your description of VIII sounds interesting, might check that out once I've finished Ni No Kuni.

EDIT: Oof, it's £50 on Switch though. Wondered about the Vita version but can't find it on the store now - have PS3 and Vita stores already shut down!? It's selling for £100+ on physical for Vita! Hmmmm.
The stores are still live, the closure of the stores still hasn't been officially announced so it might not even happen (fingers crossed)!
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Magical_Isopod
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Re: Games Completed 2021

Post by Magical_Isopod »

Alex79uk wrote: March 29th, 2021, 10:50 am I do like the Ys games that I've played (only played 2 of them) but your description of VIII sounds interesting, might check that out once I've finished Ni No Kuni.

EDIT: Oof, it's £50 on Switch though. Wondered about the Vita version but can't find it on the store now - have PS3 and Vita stores already shut down!? It's selling for £100+ on physical for Vita! Hmmmm.
Ys 8 has never really dropped in price since launch, so 50 quid for the Switch version is completely reasonable. Think of it this way - if you don't like it, you can still flip it for the same price you paid more or less, because it wasn't dropped. It's also on PS4, not PS3. Maybe PS3 in Japan? But I have it physical on PS4.

I've seen it go on sale for 30-50% off digital too on both Switch and PS4. It's also on PC I believe.
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Re: Games Completed 2021

Post by ratsoalbion »

Truk_Kurt wrote: March 29th, 2021, 11:24 am
Alex79uk wrote: March 29th, 2021, 10:50 am I do like the Ys games that I've played (only played 2 of them) but your description of VIII sounds interesting, might check that out once I've finished Ni No Kuni.

EDIT: Oof, it's £50 on Switch though. Wondered about the Vita version but can't find it on the store now - have PS3 and Vita stores already shut down!? It's selling for £100+ on physical for Vita! Hmmmm.
The stores are still live, the closure of the stores still hasn't been officially announced so it might not even happen (fingers crossed)!
It's now official:
https://www.playstation.com/en-gb/suppo ... nt-notice/
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ReprobateGamer
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Re: Games Completed 2021

Post by ReprobateGamer »

Spoiler: show
Jan - Donut County - Xbox One
Jan - Eastshade - Xbox One
Mar - Nier: Automata - Xbox One (All Endings, All Achievements)
26th March - Call Of The Sea - Xbox One (100%)

Took the time a few evenings ago to run through chapter select and pick up the few things that I had missed on the first playthrough. This is an interesting take on the 1st person walk and explore games with a number of environmental puzzles to engage with.

The setting is an interesting mix of 1930's adventure with a light dash of Cthulu Mythos and the washed out drawn style of the graphics was really nice and wonderfully colourful for a tale that is always flirting with tragedy. Even the character's propensity for writing everything in journals and letters is slightly handwaved, though there are one or two narrative elements that don't quite fit.

Nevertheless, this is an engaging story and with a play time of less than ten hours certainly does not outstay it's welcome
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Re: Games Completed 2021

Post by duskvstweak »

ReprobateGamer wrote: March 30th, 2021, 2:12 pm
Spoiler: show
Jan - Donut County - Xbox One
Jan - Eastshade - Xbox One
Mar - Nier: Automata - Xbox One (All Endings, All Achievements)
26th March - Call Of The Sea - Xbox One (100%)

Took the time a few evenings ago to run through chapter select and pick up the few things that I had missed on the first playthrough. This is an interesting take on the 1st person walk and explore games with a number of environmental puzzles to engage with.

The setting is an interesting mix of 1930's adventure with a light dash of Cthulu Mythos and the washed out drawn style of the graphics was really nice and wonderfully colourful for a tale that is always flirting with tragedy. Even the character's propensity for writing everything in journals and letters is slightly handwaved, though there are one or two narrative elements that don't quite fit.

Nevertheless, this is an engaging story and with a play time of less than ten hours certainly does not outstay it's welcome
Yeah, glad I played it. I dug the setting but the PC version has some glitchy things still going on (the movie scenes that come with the letters never showed up on my screen). I'm glad it's on Gamepass, it feels right for it there, gets more eyes on it.
Spoiler: show
Fallout: New Vegas
Halo 3: ODST
Halo 4
Cyber Shadow
Ori and the Will of the Wisps
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night
What Remains of Edith Finch
Call of the Sea
Titanfall 2
Finished Titanfall 2 myself. Nice breezy campaign. Obviously, Chapter 5 is a standout and I could have used more of that, maybe the whole game...
Totally forgot they went on and made Apex Legends. I spent the whole game thinking it was like if Mirror's Edge had had strong combat.

I think I take for granted that first person platforming has been pretty solidly figured out at this point.
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markfm007
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Re: Games Completed 2021

Post by markfm007 »

Jan 22nd - Jedi Fallen Order
Feb 21st - Little Nightmares
Mar 30th - Final Fantasy X

Been playing Final Fantasy X since the start of the year and finally finished it, about 70 hours total playthrough. Very enjoyable game. Combat was really fun, enjoyed the tactical decision making and how you can swap characters on the fly. Everything just fit right. The setting, characters, music and art were great too. The story was enjoyable, a bit silly and convuluted at times, but that adds to the charm for me.

The main downsides for me were the incessant random battles, worsened by how small the levels are. The last areas in particular are absurd. The other was the endgame, where the game has a huge difficulty spike, and I can't imagine how I'd have done it without a walkthrough. Sidequests are also convuluted, and frequently frustrating (chocobo racing anyone?) I did enough to to beat the final bosses, but if I ever wanted to do a full, 100+ hour playthrough I'd need to start from scratch. Maybe one day.

Overall though great game, I'm enjoying playing through the Final Fantasy series and looking forward to the next one.
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Re: Games Completed 2021

Post by OneCreditBen »

Image

Rise of the Robots SNES for the upcoming One Credit Classics April Fool's day special.

Wank.
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OneCreditBen
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Re: Games Completed 2021

Post by OneCreditBen »

Necromas wrote: March 24th, 2021, 8:48 pm
OneCreditBen wrote: March 22nd, 2021, 9:14 am

The Simpsons Arcade - No Death

After my appearance on the recent podcast, it felt only right to try and put a bit of time into the clear.

Loads of fun and made me think about doing it live and maybe with some other characters.
You just made my wallet ache over how many quarters I must have put into that game in the past.
The Japanese ROM is the difference maker tbh, it's a lot more well rounded and fun. Did it with Bart the other night on the livestream. Thinking about getting the other two characters done as well.
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Hunter30
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Re: Games Completed 2021

Post by Hunter30 »

March - Main Heroquest campaign on Tabletop Simulator (PC)

So it's a mod that provides a virtual recreation of a board game within a simulated physics sandbox - this still counts as a game, right? I'm saying yes, because at least it gets me off the mark for the year. :)

The physical version of Heroquest is a classic sword-and-sorcery romp through dank dungeons that I had very fond memories of from childhood, although I'm not sure I ever played it 'properly' at the time. Fast forward to 2020/2021, and four mates and I played through the entire campaign over the course of about 80 hours (there were frequent periods of digression from the game to swap lockdown film/game recommendations, replenish drinks, exchange witty and not-so-witty banter).

While the ability that modern technology has given us to maintain connections with friends and family over the past 12 months has been a godsend, sitting round a virtual table will never quite beat the real thing for me. A lot of that has to do with the camaraderie of being able to look your pals in the eye, share a takeaway, and then moan at them when they get hoisin sauce on the treasure cards. But there's also something about the tactility of the real board game experience - especially rolling dice - where in comparison the virtual equivalent left me with a slightly hollow feeling.

Quite apart from any criticism of the digital experience, Heroquest itself hasn't aged all that well in my view, or at least not to my more critical adult eye. There are some real issues with balance which meant that to maintain any sort of challenge for the heroes, I (in the role of the evil Zargon) had to cheat liberally/be a creative 'AI director'. These days we're spoiled for choice with great board games, and Heroquest does not fare well when put up against excellently designed recent dungeon crawlers such as Descent.

That all said, we did have a blast, and even the quirks and glitches of what is an incredibly impressive and faithful mod were a source of amusement.
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Miririn
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Re: Games Completed 2021

Post by Miririn »

10. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

I did it. It's done. DONE. And I got the good ending! Or the one I wanted, at any rate. So... yeah I'm sorry for the upcoming long, long novel-length essay:

The DLC are saved for another time. I'd say I did... a large amount of the side-quests but if I had forced myself to complete them all I would have grown to hate the game - because there was a point around week three where it did feel like I had been playing the game for five hundred years - so I think it was good to stop them once I realised towards the end I was getting close to being burnt out. All in all it took me just under a month, which is quite long for me as I tend to prefer more linear, shorter games (with my precious RDR2 being the exception).

I have mixed feelings but on the whole I enjoyed it and while I could never bring myself to love it, I do like it... and admire it? I like the scope and ambition. I like the sheer density of it and the amount of things to do. Not every mission or side quest was a winner, but the huge amount of variety in the writing and lore around these missions really highlighted how flat and samey a lot of large open world quests can be. And I liked learning about the folklore in the bestiary and things like that (I preferred that to stuff like gwent, which I pretty much ignored).

The story and characterisation was a mixed bag for me. By the end I was ride or die Team Yennefer and Ciri (but I'll tolerate some Lambert and Geralt), while disliking most everyone else... because I'm judgey and grumpy, generally. I thought the way the love triangle was handled was awful and I pretty much hated it (I've subjected this forum to an apoplectic rant about this before so I will... refrain, go into the west, and remain Miririn). But there were some lovely things in the story, like the parental relationship between Geralt and Siri.

Mainly, I loved how even seemingly minor decisions in optional quests could really impact the main story. I spent the entire game looking forward to killing
Spoiler: show
Radovid
but at the end of the main story he was alive and wreaking carnage, so clearly I must have missed something or picked wrong dialogue at some stage. I did like how the game didn't always beat you about the head with what consequences your choices would wreak - sometimes games seem so anxious the player is going to be unhappy with the consequences of their choices that the choices are too blatantly signposted ("Will you kick the orphaned one-legged puppy who was a gift from your long lost dead fiancee, or will you tell the puppy it's a good good dog and give it a biscuit?"). In this game I genuinely wasn't sure a lot of the time what the consequences of what I was doing would be. And I ended up always stopping and thinking at the big decision moments, which is great because that's what you want from a branching narrative like this.

Combat was just serviceable. It was fun enough, and responsive enough, and I love playing as magical people so I bloody loved using the Witcher signs. But the game was so dense already and I was in it more for the story and world, so I cranked down combat to easy so I wouldn't have to deal with it being too tricky. One issue that became apparent during the late game and particularly the final battles, is that I realised I much preferred combat as Ciri, zipping around, to combat as Geralt, who felt more clunky.

They did a good job at giving the main and a lot of side characters interesting, distinctive looks and facial expressions, although at some point someone needs to teach the women of this world how to do up buttons before they catch a cold. The character movement was sometimes a bit jerky or clumsy, and I always laughed when EPIC DANGEROUS WORLD CHANGING MISSIONS OF HELL were happening and then Geralt/Yen/Ciri would shuffle-run along like little waddling hens. But generally, considering how massive the game was, I was impressed with the consistently high visual quality (and I was playing on a Switch!) and the character models and environments. Some of the monster designs were to die for, too. Especially the Leshen and the Crones. Really excellent stuff.

It was a good experience and I'm glad I finally completed it because this was the fourth try after three previous failed tries and it was starting to feel like my video game Everest, sitting there on my homescreen, judging me. I feel a bit sad that I didn't have the "love at first button click" reaction so many others seemed to have, but I did enjoy myself with it.
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Re: Games Completed 2021

Post by ratsoalbion »

Congratulations!
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Alex79
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Re: Games Completed 2021

Post by Alex79 »

Man, what a game. Sounds like you had a great time with it. I think I took almost six months to finish the game, and that was playing almost every day, and by the end I really felt like the world was a place I'd been and the characters were people I knew. I almost missed them when they were gone. The only other game I've ever had that with was Red Dead Redemption 2.
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Re: Games Completed 2021

Post by Miririn »

I missed everyone in RDR2 so much that almost right after I finished it I played the entire thing through again! I have a ridiculous amount of affection for that game. (And I still wept buckets at the end of the second playthrough even though that time I was more prepared - I think the only other game that had me shedding tears even close to that amount was "The Last Guardian").

I didn't quite get to that point with "The Witcher 3", but apart from RDR2 I'm mostly not into huge open worlds (I'm a big fan of The Bad Pups' style of linear, cinematic games), so that's my issue rather than CDPR. And by the end of the game I felt incredibly protective of/affectionate towards both Yen and Ciri, so there was definitely some emotional connection. (I love emotional games!)
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