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Review the Last Game You Finished Review the Last Game You Finished

02-26-2024 , 02:38 PM
Finally finished my first, and definitely not only, playthrough of Baldur's Gate 3. It's a remarkable achievement in the history of videogames. The scale of it, the production quality, the characters, the writing - amazing. I did have to use mods to make the combat more interesting and challenging, because there's so much OP stuff.

Some developers commented when the game was released that BG3 shouldn't be used a a benchmark for future RPGs. It's a reasonable point in some ways. BG3 was not created in isolation - it's the culmination of knowledge and technology (and money) Larian developed over the course of creating Divinity: Original Sin 1 and 2. The long Early Access period also helped a lot. It's unreasonable to expect every RPG developer to be able to draw on the same resources. I do think though that it should raise the bar for AAA studios that churn out a tweaked version of the same game every year.
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02-28-2024 , 01:10 PM
The Messenger

As someone who loves Metroidvanias I was really looking forward to playing this game based on all the positive things I heard.

The story/witty dialogue and soundtrack are probably the only things that kept me going.

Everything felt very repetitive, especially towards the latter half of the game. It just kind of dragged on for me. Practically no variety in enemies and every boss with easy to memorize patterns.

I don't know if this will make sense, but the deaths felt really cheap. Like dying in a game like Celeste just feels different than dying in this game.



6.5/10
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02-28-2024 , 01:27 PM
I enjoyed it, but I agree it was a bit repetitive and didn't feel too rewarding at the end. And the concept of switching between time periods felt too forced at times, meaning you didn't get a choice, you had to be in one or the other, making it more linear than it appears as a concept.

And the free DLC wasn't fun. I got to a part that was a race and just lost interest in trying to perfect my speed.
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03-04-2024 , 02:40 PM
I really loved the messenger, but, it was 85% due to the mentioned awesome story/witty dialogue and soundtrack, plus another 15% due coming-of-video-game-age in the late 80s playing NES games like Ninja Gaiden and getting a big nostalgia hug from the graphics and controls. I do think it drags at the end a bit, and, 100% agree the free DLC just isn't fun for some reason. But it's still a 8.5/10 for me overall.
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03-29-2024 , 12:40 AM
FF7: Rebirth

Just beat the main story, and took about 108 hours total. This was pretty much the sole reason I purchased a PS5 and it was worth every penny.

I would be shocked if it doesn't win Game of the Year.
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05-05-2024 , 08:29 PM
Slay the Spire (2019), PC / Switch

I originally bought StS on Switch in July 2019, and did not touch it at all. I actually didn't use my Switch much over a period of a couple years, but I eventually and unintentionally stumbled upon a couple YouTube channels of streamer runs (Baalorlord primarily) which gave me a bit of confidence to re-dive into it. This was just before Christmas in 2023 so I took my Switch back home with me to play while sitting around, and promptly got very addicted.

Fast forward to now, I've logged about 110 hours on Switch, and bought it on PC when I got back home after Christmas and currently have 577 hours on PC. Some of that is idling online of course but mostly gameplay. I definitely caught the itch in the last 4 months. The itch has died down a fair bit since taking vacation in April.

All the above is just prefacing that it's a very solid game. Has its own thread in the forum and tons of discussion. Not really much to be said about it, it is a deck building roguelike that when describing to others, I liken it to a single player version of a game like Dominion, and you're creating an deck engine to defeat increasingly difficult enemies.

Lots of interesting and fun ways to build decks, create combos, and plenty of variety in a roguelike sense with artifacts, rewards, randomness and difficulty scaling to keep the hours going by. Very much a "one more run" kind of game, easy to watch shows or movies while playing. Almost the perfect kind of game for me these days.

The negatives I can say are thematic with deck builders, once you find successful combos or styles of decks you want to emulate them over and over. However the game does a great job of not making it easy to do so with any regularity. And as there is no real story, you could play the game endlessly (and some people do). I think I'll take a break for a while, and maybe come back to it, but once you beat Heart in A20 with each character there's really nothing else to do other than chase achievements. At this point I'm far beyond the requirements I'd set for myself for reviewing the game.

Definitely in my top 20 games in terms of time played, for sure. Recommend.

8.5/10
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05-06-2024 , 05:42 AM
There's a ton of mods that can be very hit-or-miss. Sequel also comes out next year.
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05-06-2024 , 12:45 PM
I was just browsing a 'best Android games' thread and Slay the Spire popped up a few times, I've never played. I navigated to the Google Play page and almost pulled the trigger, but decided not to because I have never had a deck builder really grab me. (Only exception is Meteorfall which I got enjoyment out of for a week or two a year or two ago.)

Anyway I think I'm taking the timing of this post for a 5-year-old-game to be a sign of the heavens to give it a shot.

Also, I really wish I had a few hundred hours to invest in FFVII remakes + BG3. Work sucks.
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05-06-2024 , 12:51 PM
I think it's a game where you will decide it's not for you, put it down, then realise you've played 5 hours straight. Then start playing again...
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05-06-2024 , 01:20 PM
The only thing that broke my Slay the Spire addiction (500+ hours since buying it last year) was Balatro, which I'm currently up to 150 hours with since it came out a couple months ago. Both are great for when you have an hour or so here and there and want to complete a game in that amount of time.
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05-06-2024 , 02:03 PM
Yes, +1 to all. The impending StS sequel also pushed me to pause for now, I don't want to burn out on it so bad that I don't enjoy the sequel. I also want to try and tackle a few games in the meantime before it and Hades 2 come.
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05-11-2024 , 03:44 PM
Unbound: Worlds Apart

This is a poor man's Hollow Knight, but don't let that fool you into thinking it's a bad game. It's not.

8/10


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05-13-2024 , 12:01 AM
I've played 2 runs in Slay the Spire on Android, so far I'm kind of underwhelmed. I died before the first boss the first time and killed the first boss/didn't make the 2nd boss the second time. It doesn't have it's hooks in me, that's for sure, I'm having to force myself to try to find time to make a 3rd run. I kinda don't get the hype - I've seen glowing reviews for years so I assume I'm just missing something, but I hope it gets clearer fastish.
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05-13-2024 , 10:56 AM
I'm kind of feeling the same about Balatro. But yet I'm thinking about it a lot when not playing. I think I just need to reach a certain skill cap and the interest will skyrocket.
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05-13-2024 , 03:32 PM
I started liking Balatro a lot more when I began to treat it as a strategy/deckbuilding game (like Slay the Spire) and not as a poker game. For example some of the highest-scoring builds you can make are based around High card which of course is the worst hand in poker. When I flipped that switch in my brain I started winning a lot more often and it became more fun to play. I suppose trying to play it like a poker game is a trap that fans of poker are more likely to fall into.
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05-14-2024 , 12:50 PM
Yeah, that makes sense and my eyes are being opened to that from several YouTube channels. I just naturally want to make flushes/straights/fullhouses every run, but it's far deeper than that.
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05-14-2024 , 01:19 PM
we kind of hit the limit of a flush-build deck passing ante 11 and getting crushed on 12

gonna try the high card approach the next time we have a promising build going

still fun to watch the scoring though

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05-14-2024 , 10:32 PM
Animal Well

Another Metroidvania. This one an ode to the classics with zero hand holding. Huge maps, lots to explore, different abilities, and all the backtracking.


9/10
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08-19-2024 , 11:12 AM
I played FFVI to FFIX growing up and feeling nostalgic so gonna replay those games on the remastered versions, FFVIII was my favourite back then I wonder if it will still be

I also played old Pokemon games (Gen 1-3) but can't find anywhere I can play those anymore gen 2 was my fav as you went back to Kanto after completing the Johto region
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09-05-2024 , 08:33 AM
Moonscars is a pixel-art, grimdark soulslike metroidvania(?). With this being basically me favourite genre of games, I had very high expectations for this. Unfortunately, the game mostly fell flat for me, although it does deliver decent entertainment in some key areas.

To not sound overly negative, I'll start with the positives. The main one, which is also the reason why the game got decent amount of attention, is its absolutely gorgeus artstyle. Mostly 3-color pallet of black, white and red, paired with some incredibly fluid animations works perfectly for this genre and conveys a great atmosphere.

Combat against regular enemies is also very well design, you have many offensive options and the game encourages (and rewards) you for seamlessly switching between all of them. It feels great to land attacks, parries and spells on all the foes the game throws at you.

I liked the story as well, it is a bit less cryptic than your typical soulslike, but all the usual themes of decaying kindgomds and death are there, as well as some other interesting ideas.

Unfortunately, this is where my praising ends. My biggest issue with the game comes from its biggest diversion from the standards of the genre - namely, its implementation of roguelike-ish mechanics.

As you go kill enemies, you get continuous levels of upgrades, that are lost on death. Additionally, on death there is a decent chance that the game will go into "ravenous moon" mode, making enemies hit harder and have more health. Basically, you are rewarded for not dying more than in other soulslikes and punished for death more than in other soulslikes.

This creates an awkard gameplay loop, where for a while you're just cruising, snowballing into a powerhouse and making the game extremely easy. Then, when you finally die, it becomes much, much harder. Fortunately, there are some ways to remedy this, but they are mostly tied to limited consumables. Overall, it just feels like a bad design for a soulslike.

Exploration is also lacking in my opinion. I hesitated to even call it a metroidvania - yes, there are movement abilities and ability gates, but these were planned in an incredibly linear fashion. Sure, you can "preview" some areas earlier if you want, but you will be stopped very quickly - the overall progression of the game is completely linear.

The level design seemed cool at first, but it got very repetetive very quickly and by around half of the game I was already bored. There are some secrets, but they are not exciting - this is tied to a very limited character progression/customization, I understand that this is not an rpg, but you need some way of rewarding exploration other than one of 2 ingame currencies.

Finally, my feeling on bosses are rather mixed. There's not many of them (I counted 7, with 1 reskin) and I wouldn't necessarly call them "bad", but they are just designed in a way that's not my style, with tons of adds, projectiles and AOE attacks. I understand that designing a fair, but challenging straight duel can be difficult, especially with parry window and reward being very generous, but what we got just isn't doing it for me.

Despite all the negativity above, I still had a decent amount of fun with the game. It's not bad, it just tried very hard to be different than others in the genre and, in my opinion, all those diversions were not succesful. That being said, big part of my disappointment came from my high expectations. If you're looking for a pretty game with great combat and don't mind overly punishing mechanics, Moonscars might be for you. From me it's a 6/10.
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09-07-2024 , 03:08 PM
Midnight Suns is an excellent deck building game mixed with a Marvel comics social simulator. Thw combat is tactical with lots of flashy animations. Biggest criticism is that enemy variety is limited.

In between combat, you get to hang out with Captain America, Spiderman, Wolverine et al. There's a lot of dialogue, much more than you'd expect from a game like this. Some of it is decently written - joining a book club run by Blade is a fun diversion. What doesn't work as well is how every one of these legendary superheroes fawn over your protagonist, an original character known as Hunter. To all of them, you're the most wonderful bestie friendy-wendy they've ever had, mwa mwa, hugs and kisses, they all love you. No romances thankfully. The love-in is over the top and not credible.
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09-07-2024 , 03:38 PM
Deaths gambit afterlife was free on epic a couple weeks ago.

It's most like salt and sanctuary, solid 2d platformer good controls one of the best free games I've gotten from them.
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09-08-2024 , 12:36 PM
Sweet, Ill add it to my list.

Also, Salt & Sanctuary was a free game from them as well. 90% of my PC games are free from them!

Currently playing Assassins Creed Unity which was free from somewhere also.
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09-12-2024 , 12:14 AM
Either Ninja Gaiden 3 or Bucky O'Hare for the NES. Can't remember which. Bucky's a lot like the Mega Man games (level design, switching characters/weapons mid level), but it does better with just about every aspect. Arguably the best platformer on the NES.

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