1st January - let's go.
I'll change this back to being just games I've finished or deem 'finished' in the case of stuff like MMOs or fighting games or the like.
SPOILERS - PROBABLY - MOST LIKELY - SPOILERS
Consoles:
Xbox series (Not X)
Nintendo series
Sega Series
PlayStation series up to Vita (edit January - got ps4 slim)
Microsoft Surface Book 1st Gen
This year I'm going to try and limit myself to old games - as in pre 2020. There's nothing currently announced beyond NMH3, Bayo 3 and Diablo 4 that I actually care that much about - only exception to this is fighting games. I'll always buy those when I want.
That said, I'm going to try and play stuff from the earlier eras more, like Snes/MD/PSX era. I've found that, beyond indie stuff, I have less and less interest in the big budget games that are released at the moment - which is fantastic for my bank balance and also the breadth of game genres that I'll play.
Let's see if I'll stick to the plan, or bottle out like last time - hey, at least I finished a 3d Zelda game and played most of a Wizardry game. 3d Marios just don't work for me.
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Vita 5 hours ish 'Inspector - Those who..something..ending' Haven't really seen the anime, but I like some of Gen Urobuchi's other stuff..no, not Saya. TBH I kinda got Urobuchi mixed up with Chiaki Konaka for a while in my head...which does no favours to anyone. Konaka wrote my favourite anime of all time 'Serial Experiments Lain' as well as 'Big O'. Urobuchi did Madoka and Psycho-Pass. Yeah, dumb I know...these things happen. Anyway, this is a VN with two different protags - but to be honest by the time I had played through with the male one I just had enough. There's a kernel of an interesting story here - kinda like a more bland GITS series or something..but the artwork and characters (bar the female lead and Shu) did zero for me. The 'hue' gimmick is...interesting, as it is supposed to represent your emotional stability (a dark hue means 'latent criminality' and you're either arrested and put in isolation, or just killed) but taking pills counteracts that so, it's not a big thing. Also the core conceit of the world - AI overlord, emotional stability...just doesn't wash. It might do in a highly regulated society such as Japan, but elsewhere..naah fam. 2.8/5 Just..not great.
Switch under 20 hours Normal Suicide I really enjoyed I am Setsuna last year and even liked the demo for this game, so sure...I was excited to play it. Now, having just finished the game...I'm conflicted to say the least. There's a kernel of a fantastic game here but most of it comes off as halfbaked. Let's start with the main focus - the combat system. It wants to be like a more restrained version of Diablo with Stands. 4 'Stands' = 4 weapon types that can be equipped, kinda like Astral Chain. Unlike Astral Chain, however, the fluidity of the actual combat - ie moving from standard attacks to skills to dodges - was not smooth enough. There are cancelling skills you can get, but they don't seem to apply to standard - skill, just cancelling the ending of a skill. It's like FDAC after a DP, not before. It has its uses but the lack of a auto in skill cancel makes it feel like a Global Cooldown System in an MMO and that is not what you want in an ARPG. This becomes most apparent in the final boss - getting stuck in auto attack animations when it can one hit kill you with little warning off screen..not cool. The story is fine. It doesn't reach the levels of pathos that Setsuna managed - mostly due to the lack of strong environment direction or soundtrack that really brought Setsuna's themes and story together. Oninaki has fantastic themes - how to deal with death and grief - but doesn't really follow through with them. The ending almost redeems it - though I don't think the choice is much of one if you'd actually paid attention to the game. It's fine...just, fine. Which is a let down for me given how much I loved Setsuna and the potential the each of these games exhibit. There's so much potential there, the fact it isn't entirely followed through is more of a frustration than the game itself. 3/5
Vita around 20 hours True ending It's a good VN, in the style of 999 but without the puzzles. It's gimmick is the Sense system - you can influence how the character feels about other characters and that changes the flags - and thus endings. It works well, but is a bit hit or miss sometimes. Major issue is the lack of a flowchart - having to scroll through everything after getting an ending is a pain. Oh and the character designs are peak anime..which is kinda boring. 4/5
Vita 24:57 hours Not as good as the original's remake. They removed (or added in the remake?) the quick devour ability and the air devours - this makes a massive difference to the speed of the combat in the re-prequel. Otherwise it's the same thing again - just with a slightly worse story and far worse characters. Nana and her design are beyond trash tier. Eva style story was better than Astral Chain's version though. 3.5/5
PS4 32 hours - not DLC First ps4 game on any of my 'games completed' lists. I think this might be in the running for my favourite game of all time. It's certainly ruined all 'Souls' type games for me going forward. I originally played the game on a pc when it showed up on Steam..so about 2 years ago? Haven't played it since. Picked it up with my new ps4 and blaaaaaaaaaaaaazed through it. Stuff that I found difficult originally is pretty easy now - they must have lowered the difficulty in the game substantially in patches. Through the whole main game I only died 107 times - most of those were on bosses or me not being able to see the pits (my monitor doesn't deal with sunlight well, it can be tough to see things when the game is dark) I'll be playing through the DLC. 6/5
Vita 42 hours A1 (10 off A0) Easy Emma So, before talking about this game I should note that I've played through Trails in the Sky 1-3 and a bit of Zero/Ao. FC is among my favourite RPGs of all time and Third isn't too far behind that. This game though...not so much. Let's start with the good. The transition to 3d isn't awful and manages to keep the style of the Kiseki games pretty much coherent - despite the engine really chugging down to single digits on the vita occasionally. The expansion of the combat system to include raid and links is cool. Seeing characters from other games or hear of events from other games - ie World building..well, this is the best in gaming as far as I'm concerned. Nothing can touch the Kiseki series in regards to World Building. I liked some of the characters - Towa, Marchias (or however it's spelt) Laura, Emma, Gaius, Angelica..most of the secondary characters. These guys had charm, especially Towa. She's great. It was great to see Olli too, but I'm not sure about that VO. I doesn't really do him justice. The game turning into G Gundam at the end was pretty cool too. And then the bad...which is everything else. I think the major culprit for me was Rean - who is a shitty harem shounen MC self insert, which really really hurts after Estelle. He's just terrible. Alisa as the 'main girl' is just a whiny bitch 90% of the time - the forced 'I hate you' scenes between pairs during the game was cringe inducing. C and the reveal make no sense, as none of that stuff was even hinted at during the game. It's obvious who he is, but his reasons? ehhh something something blah. Imperialism! I mean, yeah bro, I'm with you - give me the fucking sniper rifle..but there needs to be more there than that. Richard at least had his moment to shine. C..not so much. That goes for all of the villains but I kinda expected that after the let down that was SC. Still, they were far better characters than these chumps. The localisation...Why is Fie saying 'Ja?' randomly? Is she German..does Germany exist in this world along side France and Scotland? For a series that take such pains to create a believable world these random accents along with German and French words make no sense. Why are there celtic crosses in Laura's hometown and why doesn't anyone know why they're there? The performance at the end...oh god, that clap loop..make it stop. Also, what is rock music? Also why was there only a piano and singer in the encore and everyone else appears to be going ham? Why is there a violinist playing the guitar? That's not how music works...urghhhh. To be fair, most of that is just nitpicking. The real problems are Rean, the lack of diverse environments (barring Gaius home and Laura's home..both great locations) shitty school teenage nonsense - Persona has really fucked up a generations worth of RPGs on that front...and the bastardisation of the quartz system. The master quartz thing is cool, but removing the mix and match system to get the right amount to trigger certain spells was half the fun of building the character. Simplifying it to just "here have the spell" sucks. Also Sara is a poor, poor budget Schera. And it's essentially the same plot as FC...but worse...with worse characters...and slower. My final reaction to the game was that this was Trail's "Phantom Menace". If you'd never seen another Star Wars movie, you'd think this was pretty great - despite the shit characters and mediocre writing 'TRADE FEDERATION' but if you'd seen A New Hope - well. Yeah. That's what this game is to me - the Phantom Menace. Hopefully we'll get to the Revenge of the Sith next, rather than the Clone Wars...buuuut I'm not holding my breath. 3/5 and that's me being generous.
PSP 15:41 All of the main scenarios, bit of 00. So, this is a kinda action rpg arcade game set in the UC (with added 00 and Seed bits) timeline. You create a character as a merc with two wingmen - err..wing people? and then play through some of the most famous battles in Gundam history - from Jaburo and A Boa Que to whatever the hell was going on in F91. Even V and Hathaway turn up. No Unicorn as this was before the anime releases. I'm a big fan of Battle Universe - which was the one before this. This is kinda just a compilation of those previous games with an added 'development' layer to unlock different MS. Using a Sniper GM to take down every Gundam never gets old. What does get old, however, are the maps (recycled), sounds (uhuh) and units (pretty much) the only additions are Seed and 00 units - which you can't use in the main campaign unless you finish everything and unlock the secret delimiter that costs $$$$$. Even then, those machine aren't a patch on Hi-Nu or Qubeley. The 00 machines are just trash anyway. Dynames and whatever GN-X Mr Bushido uses are about the only interesting mechs in that series. As for Seed - well the sequel to this game on Vita is all Seed all the time and..well..yeah. I dunno - as the final psp 'Battle' game it's fine just very...iterative. 2.5/5
PS4 20:41 hours Single player story content with some additional missions. So, there's not much to really add to my last review of the series. Sure the move from the vita up to ps4 allows for better enemies and more flashy attacks, but that wasn't ever really the problem - also a random Jho appears! Kinda. Additions - I used the crescent blade for most missions - it acts like a cross between a scythe in standard form (without the reach) and like a hammer in axe form. It killed things - quickly. I rarely had mission last more than 5 mins if that. The dual blades/glaive was cool but tying it to the stamina gauge is kinda limiting - axe didn't have that problem. Bring back aerial devour is great as is quick devour - plus the additional boost arts are a nice extra bit of dps. The removal of bomb bullets is a bit shite and the tweaks to the abandoned god arcs system (I barely got anything useful and rarely got health or stamina) was really shite and boring. They tried with the story - but it was nowhere near as effective as the first, but on par with the second. There isn't much more to add beyond the standard 'wtf is with the female character designs?' 3.5/5 let's try to change it up next time
Ps4 Under 20 hours? I could say a lot about this game - I'm one of those people who knows who Mac Gargan is and how he used to eat people for a while. I know far too much about Spidey stuff. As such I was rather cautious about this game - the last great Spidey game was Shattered Dimensions which was a proto Spiderverse. I'm not the biggest fan of Dan Slott's run on the character and when Feast and Li turned up I was...not exactly thrilled but..well..when Miles turned up things got really good. Like, best understanding of Spider-man as a character (well Parker) since JMS. The changes to MJ - giving her an actual part to play and some agency, and taking away the stupid Supermodel/actress slant, perfect. I even didn't mind the stealth sections. Shit, even the side activities were quick, fun and easy to hive off into during gameplay. Apart from the relative slow opening, weird power levels and okayish combat (saved by the gadgets) there's very little to complain about.. The writing is so good - give these people the comic. They get it..they really do. The moments with Miles, Ock, May - at Feast..those moments were what made the game special and gave it far greater depth than would have been thought otherwise. 5/5 That sequel hook tho….
ps4 30:40hrs lvl 87 All bosses in main game. First boss in DLC So... I can see why a lot of people like this - it takes the strengths of Dark Souls (environments and storytelling, sound) and speeds up the combat from the turtling that dragged on in the Souls games. It still suffers from camera issues and I died more often to getting stuck on the environment than anything else (same with Sekiro). Last boss gave me the hardest time - probably the last 5 hours or so was me attempting to beat him and eventually going off to level up etc and trying again. I don't think anything comes close to the Lady Butterfly fight in Sekiro for me (before the ghosts arrive) The combat is still not as good as Nioh - it doesn't flow as well, nor are there as many skills to use. Nioh suffers in environment and storyline. Mush these two together and you'd probably have the greatest game of all time. As it is - Bloodborne is a very good game, far better than Dark Souls 2 and 3. About the same as Dark Souls, not as good as Demon Souls. Nothing beats Latria. 4.8/5