JCC Gaming Förceboat Parté - JC G4m3z thr34d (Gaming General Discussion)

Look, I can't pre-emptively crucify a game, OK? I do have the play the thing first.

 

Correction, that's a rant, not a review.

 

I always love when Ben plays games I've played and points out problems with them that literally never occurred to me when playing. We have two very different video game brains

 

You've a working brain, mine..... not so much - and that's not just a one-liner.

Anyway, did decide to do a proper review:
https://boards.theforce.net/threads...game-you-beat.18864661/page-118#post-56667750

Think I saw about 75% of the game, maybe a bit more or less.

 

Well, bye bye Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep.

When the end came, it was quick - it took a rusty katana, plunged it into it's guts and if blood loss didn't kill it, blood poisoning would. It went from zenith to nadir very fast. A glorious space fight of tearing through Heartless that was incredibly fun is followed by... 3D platforming bollocks of the worst order. There's no indication of where you should go, the camera is abysmal and you will press the jump many times only for the game not to register it and plunge you back to the floor. I just don't have the tolerance for this anymore so yeah, it ends there.

Other flaws were bringing big enemies immune from frontal attack but who rarely turn around. And while the camera was better across the combat, the enemy technique remains little more than break lock-on and hit from off the camera.

As to its melding and command deck, that remains incomprehensible to me. It says its explained but try and do one and it blocks everything - not that it's that easy to use. Also, I'm not a fan of the whole 'buy stuff and combine it to get random outputs', which this is. There are better synthesis systems, one is in FFX.

The battle menu is easier than Kingdom Hearts, but it's not that much easier. It's not helped by it removing a used ability from the list, so you can't easily see it charging.

Kind of a shame really, had enjoyed up to just under the halfway point but after that it kept doing self-inflicted and then decided to go with, well, what it went with.

 

This has been playing out of my speakers for the past 12 hours, and it's wonderful.

Spoiler

All thanks to my mum giving me my birthday present early.

 

Was it the Struggle stuff you had in mind Ramza? Because if it was, let me put it like this - I'm not going to be hating the rest of the game because I won't get to even see it.

Kingdom Hearts 2

Is harder automatically better? No and this game proves it. It's certainly harder, but it's not better. The QTE bollocks of the re-skinned Darkside boss didn't help either - as did the badly explained reversal idea that boils down to 'spam button, spam attack, alternate between them'. I took it out but I can't say I had a clue about what it was doing or how it was effective, there was so much graphical clutter on the screen.

This is after all those crappy minigames at the start that pay sweet **** all too.

Finally, there is the "Struggle", an idea to which the logical and entirely justified response is to slaughter everyone in the town because they're a bunch of sick ****s. It does the usual bollocks, OK first fight though I already despise the whole orbs concept. Then the second one they whack the difficulty way up, as you take on a dwarf steroid junkie and lose. The rest of it? Why should I care? Will there be a sense of 'pride and accomplishment' or just a sense of it being a complete waste of time with the difficulty contributing nothing? Based on that first boss, it'll be the latter and I've other games to spend my time. This one doesn't want to be played? That's fine, it won't be.

Onto Kingdom Hearts 2.8, place your bets as to how long it survives.

 

I don't want to jinx it, but I am enjoying Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance so far.

 

I hated hated HATED KH 2, but it was significantly easier than the original. Combat and overall gameplay, that is. The story was...oh jesus ****ing christ.

 

I guess all those rumours of a new Silent Hill being developed by Sony became much more credible. Otherwise this is such a random choice for the new Dead by Daylight DLC.

 

Yep, the rumor is that Sony licensed the IP, so they will have at least one new Silent Hill(s) game. Woohoo!

I like the crazy story fine, but yeah... KH2 is way easier than KH1.

 

State of play for the last of us 2 release today with a bit of a chunky game play demo from 14:30



Looks stunning and some of the clips prior to the game play demo suggest to me that I may end up playing this game with a lump in my throat a few times.
I managed 4 mins of the game play demo before I decided nope, don't want the spoilers.

only a few more days

 

I wasn't expecting a PS Vita or this...



...to show up in the gameplay segment.

Nor for it to be punctuated with an act of graphic violence that would make a photo-realistic Hotline Miami look tame in comparison.

 

Looking at PS4 double days sale: Are Persona 5 and Persona 5 royal the same game? Never played them but persona 5 seems to have garnered good reviews and im not sure if its an updated version or not

 

P5 Royal is an expanded and, by all accounts, far improved version on the already reputed to be excellent original.

 

It's honestly a bit scummy because Royal is arguably just what the game should've been from the jump (and even scummier that they still sell the original and don't sell an upgrade pack DLC or whatever), but ripping you off by making you buy an entire second game just to get stuff you should've had in the first place is a time-honored Persona tradition dating back to the release of Persona 3: FES.

 

At least when they ripped us off with 4 Golden, they had the decency of using its portability as a selling point, giving that version some extra value.

*cough* Royal should have been a Switch port of 5. *cough*

 

Golden also introduced Marie, who definitely isn't a Poochie and definitely doesn't waste your precious weekends.

Kiiiiind of beginning to remember why I went through a very intense "Mainline SMT is the only SMT worth caring about" phase.

 

Nope, been enough Switch JRPG ports, with Switch exclusive extras.

 

Well I say the number of Switch JRPG ports with Switch exclusive extras hasn't been enough, enough!

Edit: I mean, jokes aside what they should actually do is port every JRPG to Switch and then any extras should be made available for all platforms but Japanese devs all apparently take their cues on rereleases from Koei ****ing Tecmo I guess.

 

I'm not saying the extras shouldn't come to the PS4 as an update or DLC.

I'm saying that, if Atlus wanted to be greedy and sell Royal as an entirely new product, it should have been a Switch port, not a brand new PS4 game.

That way Royal would at least have the added value of being on a new system with portability to reduce the sting of the asking price.

 

Sorry, should have made it clearer I wasn't being entirely serious.

Talking of Switch, you can't get that console easily now - just as the XC1 remaster makes it so tempting. Though the £280 price is still off-putting, maybe it gets dropped when PS5 is out.

 

From what I understand theres been manufacturing shortages thanks to Covid-19.

It's why Ring Fit Adventure is currently impossible to find too.

 

I am really annoyed that Royal isn't available as a DLC for the original version. I have that version from a sale. I don't really want to spend a full $60 for what's essentially a DLC expansion.

 

I almost bought P5 but heard about Royal just in time