Last Game You Finished & Rate it!

[UniqTeas]

The original Pokemon Red and Blue are a little hard to play after you have enjoyed the quality of life updates in later games... and have seen the art. But there is a certain charm to the older versions that still draw a lot of people. I would typically play Fire Red and Leaf Green to get that experience, especially because I can emulate them on my phone easily, but I have to give props to someone playing the OG games in 2021. haha.

Glad to hear someone had a good time with RE7. It is a fairly divisive title, but I also really enjoyed it. I mean, the complaints about the game are real and legitimate, but I never really let that effect my personal view of the game. The atmosphere is really intense and fun.

 

[SpaceOwlHoot]

Actually just finished Resident Evil 6 for the first time. Some sections of the game felt very familiar so I think I might have played the game a long time ago and just didn't remember...nor did I care to finish it back then.

 

[Jonipoon]

I've been finishing and trying out a lot of games recently which is very unusual for me. I don't really consider myself a hardcore gamer by any means but I guess now and then I simply just "get the feeling" especially when there's so many good discounts on the PS store. That's one reason why I haven't really been online for most of the summer so far , the other reasons being work, hanging out with friends and just enjoying the good weather. But yeah, I've been pretty busy.

Around early June I finally gave in and completed RE7 in about 3 days out of pure boredom, having previously only watched the game through let'splays. The game was precisely as bad as I knew it would be, and I never really felt that I was playing a RE game. Ever. But it only cost me 5 bucks so it was worth it. I definitely enjoyed the early parts of the game the most, but as soon as the Molded appeared everything just became repetitive and lacking in fun. All the characters are stupid and make stupid decisions all the time, plus there are too many illogical plot points that makes no sense. Like why isn't Zoe affected like the rest of the Baker's, and why is Mia the only one to shift between normal face and ugly face? Bleh. The game was also way too easy and offered no challenges whatsoever. 4/10

After that, things got better. Way way WAY better. I picked up Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and had an absolute blast from start to finish. Holy sh*t I was not expecting this game to be as good as it is. Not only did they get the lore right, they did it 100000 times better than any other Star Wars project since Disney's acquisition and managed to tell a better and more original story than all of the sequel films combined. I've never played a Star Wars game with such amazing lightsaber combatics that makes the lightsaber feel like it's been taken straight out of the movies. Even though we're still not able to slice human enemies apart (damn PG13), it's not that big of a deal to me. The progression system is spot on and I loved how Cal, the main character, gradually "re-learned" his previous Jedi powers through certain situations that triggered strong memories. Also, thank god there was no political BS in this game, which is something that worried me from the start considering Lucasfilm's recent history with taking a huge dump at everything they touch. Luckily this game was made by an exernal developer with Lucasfilm only sending in 1-2 consultants to help. Those guys at Respawn are definitely bigger Star Wars fans than any employee at Lucasfilm at the moment. We even got a potential female love interest for the main male character who is probably the best original female character to come out of Star Wars for ages. My only gripe with the game is that it's too short and offers no interesting unlockables after completing it. The clothing customization is terrible, not that it ruins the rest of the game in any way but they made a mistake by not including more clothing options besides the ugly ponchos. 9/10

My journey continued. I picked up Life is Strange shortly thereafter and ended up falling in love with it. Everything from the story, characters, soundtrack, setting, atmosphere, mood, you name it - completely mesmerized me. Strange how this game has gone completely under my radar for the past 6 years since it came out. While it does have its flaws, mostly in terms of how certain characters' motives are explained, it is nontheless a beautifully crafted game with some pretty good emotional twists that qualifies as tearjerkers. It's only been a month since I completed it but I'm actually replaying it right now, lol. Unfortunately the same cannot be said about any of the sequels to the series. I speeded through Life of Strange: Before the Storm and Life is Strange 2 as soon as I finished the first one, and both are very mediocre stories with non-sensical plots, stupid characters, and sadly lots of political stuff. The second game especially is so overtly political that many moments made me laugh my ass off by the cringe handling of it all. So nah, this series feels definitely like a "one hit wonder" to me. The first one is still gold - 9/10

Lastly, before I started replaying LiS I bought Control and gave it a quick try. What absolute trash garbage of a game. I stopped playing after a few hours because the main character was so boring and the story was uninspiring. It's insane how this game was able to win so many gaming awards.... It's definitely one of the worst games I've ever played. 2/10

 

[UniqTeas]

Life is Strange is so good and just clever. But it really has a heart which makes sure you are never ready for the powerful decisions you make. I have never played the second one, but the first one is such an epic tale. It has clever puzzles, unique characters, and it really ups the ante with every chapter. Some areas are filled with so much charm and wonderment. And other sections are horrifying and powerful. It is one of those games I wish I could forget the story just so I could experience it again.

A very easy platinum to get as well, so that is a nifty addition!

 

[Jonipoon]

Kena: Bridge of Spirits
What I initially dismissed as a silly kids game last year turned out to be a neat surprise and fun experience for all audiences alike. While the story and dialogue leaves much to be desired, the game offers a pretty well-crafted experience with engaging battle sequences, a beautfiful art direction, fantastic sound design and a very balanced difficulty setting. Although the combination of Ghibli-like scenery and Disney-like characters felt a bit jarring at times, I mostly found myself blissfully immersed in Kena's wonderful fantasy world of spirits. Although I really wish there was an option to either make all characters silent or speak in gibberish, since their spoken English took me out of the game a few times. Kena herself is also a rather bland protagonist, and I think her backstory and personality could have been explored more. Also, her childlike facial features were a strange sight to behold since she's rather plump and speaks with a grown woman's voice.

It's far from a bad game, but it lacks certain polish when it comes to the story, characters and open-world. As fun as it is to explore the various villages, mountains and forests, the game severly lacks replayability. There are a few extra quests you can complete and a few outfits and skills you can unlock - but it's just not enough and it's over pretty quickly.

At the end of the day Kena: Bridge of Spirits is far from unique, since it borrows heavily from both Zelda and Horizon Zero Dawn (among many other things), and it does feel like PlayStation's answer to "We have Nintendo at home" but without their massive scopes, respectively. But maybe I'm being too harsch - after all this was just meant to be a neat little game, and I would lie if I said I didn't enjoy it.
Rating 7/10

 

[Ikawaru]

A Plague Tale: Requiem

It is a heavily story driven adventure medieval stealth game where you play as a young woman named Amicia and her little bother Hugo, who is infected with something called the "Macula" which makes rats come out of the ground whenever Hugo is distressed and causes them to wreck havoc and kill anyone who touches them and only light can keep them away. Graphics wise it is a very nu gen game so you will need a powerful GPU or system to play it properly and it isn't even well optimized to boot so don't expect to play it comfortably unless you're packing some serious hardware power. Visuals are amazing and the environments look really nice if you can get it running at a good setup.

Gameplay is pretty good albeit linear, it is fundamentally a stealth game at heart so I found myself hiding from guards, studying their patrol routine, and waiting for an opening to either get by them or find clever ways to kill them using many various methods the game offers like setting them ablaze, extinguishing their torches so that rats will attack and devour them, or simply killing them with a crossbow, which has very limited supply and you can only carry so many bolts at once. I like it how leveling up is done automatically based on how you play, like if you're very sneaky and get by the guards w/o killing or being detected you will level up your 'Prudence' skill tree and the skills that come with it, I wish more games would do stuff like this. You can also craft certain equipment using "tools" and "pieces" at a workbench at anytime to make your adventure somewhat easier.

Where the game truly shines is its story, dialogue and characters, much effort was put in to demonstrate the intense bond between Amicia and Hugo, as you you truly feel a heartfelt and powerful bond between them. This right here is the strongest aspect of the game so if you love really strong characters and strong emotional bonds between them you should love the game. Even the dialogue they speak in low whispers when they are hiding from patrols is really good and you get that sense of urgent fright of trying to not get caught when they speak to each other, very good VA here. All of the characters hold their own and are well portrayed, much effort was put into this category.

All-in-all I give it a 8/10. The positives being it's story, characters, visuals, and good fairly diverse stealth gameplay and leveling system whilst its negatives would be its linearity, poor optimization, and fairly shallow crafting system.

 

[Jonipoon]

I finished the Guardians of the Galaxy video game a couple of days ago. It's a pretty well-made game that captures the flavorful characters and atmosphere of the team extremely well. While most of the inspiration is clearly taken from the film series, there is enough originality and comicbook stuff to please the more in-depth fan. Gameplay is unfortunately quite repetitive and basically comes down to 1. explore 2. fight 3. explore 4. fight but there are enough variations in environments and enemies to make it work, somehow. The story is good for the most part, but drags on towards the latter half and didn't need to be as long as it is. There are a record-breaking three instances where you feel like the game is about the end, but then it pulls a UNO reverse card and either does a surprise twist or simply continues - This would've been okay if it happend once and maybe twice, but three times? Come on. The only reason the game is durable towards the end is because of the funny quips between characters that are constant throughout the entire story.

My biggest complaint however is the inability to travel to previously visited planets throughout the game for collectibles and exploration, which is a result of the extremely straight-forward level design. They might be fun as you play them, but replaying them for collectibles and exploration is only possible from the main menu as a separate "Replay Chapter" option, which sucks. I'm not asking for a vast open-world game, but the level design could have been more "fluid" to make way for backtracking and revisiting. There are so many parts of the game that feels like they were made for an RPG, but in the end they are useless since everything (for the most part) is so straight-forward. I had quite fun playing this game, but I'm not sure if I would've enjoyed it as much if I weren't already a fan of the movie characters.

6.5/10 for trying

 

[Ikawaru]

I just finished Dead Space Remake. Yes, I just said in another thread that the series did not interest me. Well, that's true, in 2008 I literally had zero interest in the game or series for a variety of reasons, but I dunno, something compelled me to buy the Remake and try it out in 2023 and I'm very glad that I did because I just had a great experience. The visuals, atmosphere, story, combat, and horror elements are solid and I was deeply engaged the whole way through. The interface and some of the gameplay elements do feel a bit dated, especially for someone who has never played the game, but this is forgivable when you factor in everything else.

The game takes place about 500 years into the future (sidenote: I don't like when plots time jump so far ahead into the future because it's almost 100% certain that it's going to be absolutely nothing like that in actuality) and you play as Isaac Clark, engineer onboard the USS Kellion sent to investigate the mining ship called Ishimura that has gone silent. Isaac's wife, Nicole, was also onboard so he has personal reasons to be on this mission as well. Things immediately go wrong and creatures called 'necromorphs' start attacking the crew and your goal is to gather the survivors and try to get out, naturally. It reminds me of 'Alien(s)' and 'Event Horizon' as the story unfolds.

Gameplay is very survival horror-ish, your given limited ammo that you have to be careful with and shoot at the right areas of necromorph body parts. The game takes an opposite approach of standard norms of headshots being weak points and introduces the "Limb Buster" mechanic where shooting arms, legs, and tails is a much more effective solution than head and body shots, which works fine. Most of the weapons are pretty unorthodox, and they're not even labeled "weapons" in the game but "Tools", not sure I love this approach but it works, you just gotta spend time learning how each "Tool" functions and get the hang of it, which requires some work. Since you're given very limited upgrade "Nodes" in the game and spending them on your 'Suit' is vital, I found myself just sticking with the flamethrower (Seriously, roasting 'necromorphs is very fun) and the pulse rifle, and had those two weapons fully upgraded when I finished it.

Visuals are solid, but there is some noticable in-game lag that I hope they fix in a future patch. The environment is very creepy and claustrophobic at you traverse the Ishimura, a lot of the ship looks and feels identical, but I think that's what they were going for here, to get a feeling of consistent dread. There is backtracking and revisiting previous areas to unlock previously locked areas, which is crucial for a GREAT survival horror game and this does it adequately. Unfortunately though, since the envirionments are very tight, claustrophobic, and look nearly identical, and the interface feels very dated (getting to your map and navigating where you are on the menu is quite a chore), it is quite tough to find your way around in this game, I think better design and a more user friendly interface could have gone a long way here, because travel is so poorly implemented you literally need a navigation feature to help guide you along, which I think is a lazy solution. Design the game so you don't need to rely on a magical GPS, please.

Buying, selling, and upgrading in this game is serviceable, but also feels a bit dated. Every weapon has 3 upgrades that you need to find in the game that unlocks node slots where place a node in each one which upgares things like damage, reload speed, ammo capacity, etc. It's a decent system, but again, it just feels....old. Going to a store to buy ammo and health spending credits is such a dated system, I mean it's probably more advanced than many other popular games, I just wish crafting and upgrading went a step or two deeper especially in a survival horror game. Nevermind buying and selling, how about Making everything from scratch, including ammo? I hope survival horror games in the future really add some depth to weapon and ammo crafting.

I digress though, I will give the game a 8/10 for it's overall great engaging atmospheric survival horror experience with a great story and backtracking, but some flaws like in-game lag and some dated mechanics like shooting red blobs to advance the story and kill bosses and a weak and dated interface.

 

[Kayowakimono]

Assassin's Creed Syndicate, always wanted to experience Victorian london in any way and this game just happened to be recommended to me in the psn store. I haven't technically finished it yet, but I am somewhere near the end, Sequence 8 I believe, and It's a.fun game, love the parkour, love the little details in this game, it still holds up nicely seeing how it was released about 7-8 years ago. Story is also fun, love both Evie and Jacob. I played Assassin Creed games in the past, but then I stopped for whatever reasons, my last AC game was Black Flag back in the days when it was still fresh new. So yeah Syndicate is lots of fun, I also finished 2014 Thief, that one was also great, didn't really like the levels, except maybe few, like the Forsaken chapter. But all in all, I haven't really been playing single player games that much, I get invested a lot in a mmo FFXIV and yeah, that takes away a lof ot my time abd money when I should be really trying out some.of the new stuff that came out, don't even want to talk about my backlog shelf lmao, I think I have enough of older games to keep me going for at least a year, I should really get to it at some point.

Anyways yeah, finished Thief was lots of fun and currently ending Syndicate.

Thief 2014 6.5/10
AC Syndicate 8/10

 

[Frag Maniac]

I just finished Dead Space Remake. Yes, I just said in another thread that the series did not interest me. Well, that's true, in 2008 I literally had zero interest in the game or series for a variety of reasons, but I dunno, something compelled me to buy the Remake and try it out in 2023 and I'm very glad that I did because I just had a great experience. The visuals, atmosphere, story, combat, and horror elements are solid and I was deeply engaged the whole way through. The interface and some of the gameplay elements do feel a bit dated, especially for someone who has never played the game, but this is forgivable when you factor in everything else.

The game takes place about 500 years into the future (sidenote: I don't like when plots time jump so far ahead into the future because it's almost 100% certain that it's going to be absolutely nothing like that in actuality) and you play as Isaac Clark, engineer onboard the USS Kellion sent to investigate the mining ship called Ishimura that has gone silent. Isaac's wife, Nicole, was also onboard so he has personal reasons to be on this mission as well. Things immediately go wrong and creatures called 'necromorphs' start attacking the crew and your goal is to gather the survivors and try to get out, naturally. It reminds me of 'Alien(s)' and 'Event Horizon' as the story unfolds.

Gameplay is very survival horror-ish, your given limited ammo that you have to be careful with and shoot at the right areas of necromorph body parts. The game takes an opposite approach of standard norms of headshots being weak points and introduces the "Limb Buster" mechanic where shooting arms, legs, and tails is a much more effective solution than head and body shots, which works fine. Most of the weapons are pretty unorthodox, and they're not even labeled "weapons" in the game but "Tools", not sure I love this approach but it works, you just gotta spend time learning how each "Tool" functions and get the hang of it, which requires some work. Since you're given very limited upgrade "Nodes" in the game and spending them on your 'Suit' is vital, I found myself just sticking with the flamethrower (Seriously, roasting 'necromorphs is very fun) and the pulse rifle, and had those two weapons fully upgraded when I finished it.

Visuals are solid, but there is some noticable in-game lag that I hope they fix in a future patch. The environment is very creepy and claustrophobic at you traverse the Ishimura, a lot of the ship looks and feels identical, but I think that's what they were going for here, to get a feeling of consistent dread. There is backtracking and revisiting previous areas to unlock previously locked areas, which is crucial for a GREAT survival horror game and this does it adequately. Unfortunately though, since the envirionments are very tight, claustrophobic, and look nearly identical, and the interface feels very dated (getting to your map and navigating where you are on the menu is quite a chore), it is quite tough to find your way around in this game, I think better design and a more user friendly interface could have gone a long way here, because travel is so poorly implemented you literally need a navigation feature to help guide you along, which I think is a lazy solution. Design the game so you don't need to rely on a magical GPS, please.

Buying, selling, and upgrading in this game is serviceable, but also feels a bit dated. Every weapon has 3 upgrades that you need to find in the game that unlocks node slots where place a node in each one which upgares things like damage, reload speed, ammo capacity, etc. It's a decent system, but again, it just feels....old. Going to a store to buy ammo and health spending credits is such a dated system, I mean it's probably more advanced than many other popular games, I just wish crafting and upgrading went a step or two deeper especially in a survival horror game. Nevermind buying and selling, how about Making everything from scratch, including ammo? I hope survival horror games in the future really add some depth to weapon and ammo crafting.

I digress though, I will give the game a 8/10 for it's overall great engaging atmospheric survival horror experience with a great story and backtracking, but some flaws like in-game lag and some dated mechanics like shooting red blobs to advance the story and kill bosses and a weak and dated interface.

You're the first I've seen say the game is laggy. From what I've read, you need to let shaders compile for a few minutes before playing the game. Once they're compiled, you don't have to do it again. If you've not done that, it should make the game play smoother.

Also, if you want weapon crafting, try Dead Space 3, which allows crafting of tons of weapon variants from scratch if you have the right parts or enough resources to craft those parts. DS3 goes the opposite way ammo wise though, it's all premade and universal vs specific to a weapon.

I would recommend playing Dead Space 2 before 3 though. DS2 has some pretty scary dark combat moments that freak me out every time I play it. It's also the first of the 3 games to get suit thruster navigation in Zero G (the first originally didn't have that).

Lastly, I'm not sure if you know this or not, but the reason most of the weapons are actually tools instead is the Ishimura is a mining ship, or "planet cracker". The Pulse Rifle is the only true weapon in the first game, and more there for security purposes than anything.

 

[Ikawaru]

Remnant 2

So, after my initial nasty first impressions of the game playing as a Hunter class, I decided to start over and play as an Alchemist/Handler and I had a much better time of it. My health constantly regenerates and I have mastered the art of healing, concoctions, and skills and am frankly, quite satisfied with my character and grasp the mechanics of this game much better. It all boils down to finding a playstyle that suits you, and what worked great for me in 'Remnant 1' didn't necessarily translate to what works in its sequel so I retract all of my previous stupid criticisms of the game in the other thread and will happily contradict myself and say that I really liked the game.

The gameplay is very serviceable but not revolutionary, however the art direction and some of the bosses are very well portrayed and I found much of the encounters quite intriguing. The optional puzzles in this game, however, have really gotten the better of me and I will be honest and say that I absolutely cannot for the life of me figure them out, especially the ones with the circular symbols. I am completely, utterly, and thoroughly stumped and for now have skipped all of them because they are not worth the time and would rather just grind for scrap and upgrade boss weapons to become more powerful, which works fine for me.

The game does feel bit randomized and all over the place, as the games progression is not a single trajectory but every time you play the game you are given a random locations in random orders with random layouts, not sure if I like that too much. Maybe it's the survival horror/RE fan in me but I think I prefer stronger narratives, progression, pacing, and handcrafted set in stone locations than total randomization. However, when you factor in all of the other gameplay quirks and all of the things you can do to improve your character it's not a game breaker.

So far I have have been strictly offline because I wanted to finish the game by myself w/o help from other players but from what I can fathom the online co-op feature in this one is just as good as the previous game, if not better. I have made it clear in other threads that I do not like co-op shooters but I do not mind them in the 'Remnant' games for some reason, maybe its because I treat them as pure fun and don't take these games super seriously, as the plot and the gameworld certainly aren't the type that you are supposed take super seriously so it all just kinda works well for this type of 3rd person action RPG game. RE games I take much more seriously of course so co-op shooters and rugged survival horror should be mutually exclusive.

There's probably much more stuff I could iterate but I think this is enough. Despite my bad first character and overall impressions, I learned to git gud and tromped through the game pretty effortlessly on my second character.

8.1/10