I had that on the Amiga.

I need to stop playing [7]s

I AM SETSUNA on Switch.  Another 7/10 for this thread

Very solid JRPG.  Very suited to the Switch especially to grind a few levels on the bus or at lunchtime.  

Nothing special though.  It all looks the same.  Every level is the snow level.  Oddly at one point in the game you play at dusk and this different lighting makes the game look gorgeous.  Think it's only seen the one time.  Also - it looks really neat in portable mode, but a bit stretched too thin on the TV.  Kinda like playing an old PC game in high resolution.  

The story is okay but I really liked the party characters.   They were fun and interesting to spend time with.

Battle system is pretty standard JRPG stuff, though when certain conditions are met you can activate buffs for your team.  I have no idea how that works, and it didn't really matter.  It was not difficult, especially for a JRPG where the final boss was actually a fair fight!  Maybe I just got lucky.  I mentioned grinding earlier, but I don't think you need to do it.  I wanted to keep all my characters levelled up pretty highly, but you only need to concentrate on your main team of 3, and each of the characters are really customisable.  

Also I wish western rpg's took JRPG looting systems on board more often.  You just get it automatically added to your inventory when you win fights!  Every once in a while you walk through a forest and see something shiny, and you press a button.  Like twice per map.  That's it.  No fishing though freshly slaughtered carcasses to find 2gp or a pocket knife or some shit.  

What I did not like:

* Needs better save points.  No excuse for this unskippable 5 minutes of dialogue before a boss fight nonsense anymore.  Also just an option to autosave when i go to a new place would be good.  Lost 1 hour of game at one point and nearly cried.

* Needs a proper journal - the codex has a lot of stuff in it, but a hint to guide me to my next plot point is necessary.  There is a lot of dialogue in this game and not all of it is good!  People bang on about shit and the words do not always sink in.  Also if I haven't played for a couple of days, I forget exactly what I'm doing (apart from saving the world etc)

Had a good time but was ready for it to end for a while before we got there.

Uh that's the same as what he's saying, isnt it?

Yeah that's what I meant, we're on the same page there

edit:  haha, all good!

Aaroncupboard wrote:

Wolfenstein 2 The New Collossus completed.

Oh I really wanted to love this...the story, characters and cutscenes are some of the best I have ever seen and I fell in love with all the characters. It was so anarchic and mental and over the top yet full of character and excellent writing. In fact the game did so much right: the music is stellar, the main bad guy is gloriously evil and it has absolute moments of magic in the game - including a mid game twist that is wonderfully twisted and insane. And then you start actually playing...dull missions, dull levels, dull combat and awful difficulty spikes. I have never known a game be so good yet so frustratingly bad too.

I’ve just finished this as well and agree with most of this. Atmosphere, setting, script and characters were excellent throughout. Gameplay was mostly great. But it became quite repetitive and there were quite a few sections that appeared to be allowing you the opportunity to stealth them. Then making it almost impossible to do so; guards with x-ray vision, silencers that evidently weren’t truly silent etc. There was a cut scene where a character exposes themselves for no obvious reason. The sheer amount of collectibles was a bit much although the lore was terrific and helped to develop your appreciation for the plot and setting. Whilst some parts grated there were enough fun times within to qualify for a 8/10. There’s an awful lot of content available within the game beyond the story.

Bollockoff wrote:

Subsurface Circular

For <£5 you get a proper (though short ofc) good detective story and subtle world building with music by Dan le Sac.

[9]

Every part of this has got me interested. Do I wait for it to turn up in a Humble Bundle or not though....

Just found out it's on iOS too. That'll do.

Sylvio

A low-budget horror game where the focus is on following electronic voice phenomenon with dashings of crazy (bad) shooting mechanics that were dropped in the sequel.

You've got your recording equipment in an old disused country park. Follow the voices and find out what lead to over a dozen people being killed decades earlier.

There are very few jump scares which is what makes it unique. Most of the dread is built up slowly and inferred when your character jots down a new word or phrase she hears in the static. It's automatically done, so when you're fast forwarding a tape to hear anything new or playing it slowly backwards for hidden messages and hearing "I'm beside you" it's more than a little freaky.

It's just let down by being so ropey in execution. Texturing is uniform, controls + save system are jank to the max and the payoff come the end means I can't really recommend it to anyone unless they fancy dipping their toe in a horror game that does things a bit differently to the norm.

[5]

Oxenfree. I really wanted to love this game more than I actually did. It’s got a lovely visual aesthetic, a superb soundtrack and the voice work and script (despite some initial misgivings) is pretty good too. But... I dunno, something was missing from it that I can’t quite put my finger on. Maybe it was that I left too long between sessions to finish it?

Anyway, there’s a lot to like in here and despite the lack of a spark for me I did enjoy my time with it. For a game in which you spend a lot of time just listening to people talking it kept my attention - despite some of the trudging about being slightly frustrating and getting the feeling that it was a question of extending play time and conversation time rather than contributing much to the agency of the characters or the story.

7/10

The Shivah

You're a Rabbi with Zionist leanings investigating the suss murder of someone you didn't like that much. It's a point and click and really short so the odds were already against it, but the last bit is a boss fight boxing match to the death with another, really evil Rabbi whom you have to "out-Rabbi" by always being the one to answer his question with a question (which is apparently a Rabbi thing) much like the battle of insults in Monkey Island. You wouldn't guess it's a really serious game about the nature of evil and conservative Judaism.

So in playing the best card at the end, it's bumped to a [6].

But it also has an entire after credits library of voice acting bloopers which are genuinely funny so it makes a [7].

I thought you had a steam account Jon.

JonB wrote:

Are you making these up?

Bollo doesn’t make up as many games as Muzzy and Moot.

Facewon wrote:

I thought you had a steam account Jon.

I think I did once. Maybe about 10 years ago. Not sure I ever bought anything through it.

I'm actually using a better computer now. It might run some of these things.

Dishonored 2: Death of the Outsider

Quality-wise on par with the main game.

A fantabulously impressive [10].