47: Nier Automata End Of Yorha Edition (Switch) 10/10

I was going to give this 9/10 because it's the same game as before but slightly worse, given it's running on Switch, and the clunky map and menus could do with a do over.  But that's the 3rd time I've played it and the 3rd time I've been completely engrossed, so stuff it it have have a 10/10 for what must be my favourite game from last generation.

A lot of noise has been made about how it's a shockingly good port and it really is.  Running at a pretty solid 30fps wasn't ideal but wasn't a problem after a minute either.  Looks fantastic and is probably the best looking kinda realisticish Switch game I've played.  Some of the textures look dodgy and sometimes they don't load in quick enough but mostly it's all good stuff and playing in bed with headphones on is a treat.  The story and music are still the best.  With all that said next time I play it will almost certainly not be on Switch.

It really is!  Glory to Mankind!

Decided to give the PlayStation version a quick look for comparison’s sake, have to admit the high frame rate really does make a big difference to how it plays.  It feels so much faster and more responsive, even just getting around, especially in the 2D bits.  Way more than I credited it.

Still though!  Hugely impressed with the Switch version.

I need to take my Emile coasters out of their box and actually use them.

I have this on PC and I really should give it a go at some point

Moot_Geeza wrote:

149. Paradise Marsh - Switch (2hrs) Existential philosophy disguised as a collect 'em up.  Catch critters in a low detail, procedurally generated game world with a handful of distinct habitats, restore the night sky and join the dots to enlightenment.  I read next to nothing before playing and assumed it was a cross between Alba and a walking sim, which I guess it is at a stretch, but it's far more oblique than I expected.  Tilly lost interest in the first fifteen minutes.  I suspect mainly because it gives the player zero direction (as you saunter around I'm pretty sure it jumbles the layout of the marsh anyway), but the actual mechanics didn't help - it's all a bit imprecise, even just trying to centre the camera on a clickable object can be problematic, and the net wafting feels a bit like trying to catch a budgie with a T shirt (but without the guilt after repeated failure). It's a decent enough curio on the whole, just not my cup of tea really.  Plus the Switch port is horrible.  I'm fine with the visual style, but surely such a simplistic looking flat shaded approach should result in a game that doesn't run like shit?  It may have been patched by now, but we've got no WiFi for the week (in the family caravan, which I've probably already mentioned umpteen times as the daddy/daughter half term tradition is easily my favourite week of the year, no offence to Mrs. Moot who stays behind to work).  I've got no reference points but I'd suggest avoiding this version for now - I'd wager the Bone/PC versions run smoothly.   This next bit should probably go in spoiler tags as I'm not sure if it's a technical problem or a deliberately coded beard stroke:

Spoiler:

During the interactive end sequence, after the creatures have finished waffling, you approach a bench that you're able to interact with.  When I clicked on it the the dreaded software closed error message popped up (which anyone who's played plenty of cheap Switch indies will be familiar with) and it booted me back to the home screen.  I tried again, replaying the final 10 minutes a second time, and it crashed at the same place.  If I was (were?) more of a clever clogs I expect I'd instantly know if this was/were A Metaphorical Philosophical Device or just a software error, but as I'm a big thickie I'm none the wiser, and I've got no desire to try a third time.  It fits the narrative either way.

Considering the treacly controls and the fact that it chugs into flickbook mode whenever it rains or snows I'm settling on a [6] for this.  Not a bad experience, with some decent writing propping it up, but a swing and a miss on Switch overall.

So this has been patched fwiw, and runs reasonably well now.  Which is just the sort of bullshit we're expected to put up with these days.  I'd put my rant hat on if I could be bothered, but what's the point in buying anything at launch?  Mini rant: You're paying a premium for a version of a game that, with very few exceptions it seems, will be improved after a month or two.  Or in this case, less than a week (which also happened to be a week where I had no WiFi).  Don't release a game if it's fucked, surely that's a reasonable rule of thumb?  I get that minor bugs and glitches will be ironed out over time, but to go from shocking performance to 'runs quite well' in 6 days is some bullshit imo.  Just delay it a week so the day 1 players aren't shafted.  This version was in development for two years apparently.  /removes hat.

43. Scorn [7]
Too obtuse for its own good maybe, but it works to create a surreal and truly alien world.

44. A Plague Tale: Requiem [8]
Takes the best stuff from the first game - characters, locations, rats - and expands everything else around them to great effect.

45. Signalis [6]
An atmospheric psychological horror game that I should have loved, but found it too bogged down in item management and dull combat.

CoD gets a higher score than Mario World. What has this forum come to.

I’ve been meaning to replay SMW on my SNES. Haven’t played in… a long time.

SMW 8/10? Ban request pls.

I’m with Vere. 2D Mario games are 5/10 at best.

35. Flashback (Switch) - 6hrs

Another iconic release ticked off the gaming bucket list.

I completed Another World a couple of years ago and as expected this is slightly superior in everyway.

The game has two main flaws, firstly every subsequent level gets a tad less intersting, the first three are generally good with the final two becoming a bit of a slog.

Secondly is the general clunkiness of the combat. You do adjust to it and it is playable once you do, but even after hours of play you'll find yourself wanting to break a pad because of Conrad not quite doing what you want.

As far as this modern re-release goes it ticks all the boxes. A few gameplay QoL features along with the option to toggle extra graphical effects etc, make it the definitive release.

Overall a product of its time that only gamers who played it back in the day likely to get any enjoyment from.

3/5

My list

Three DNF's from me, but I've played as much as I'm likely to for now (especially as Black Paradox has been unceremoniously deleted).  

156. Sega Ages Virtua Racing - Switch

Still beautiful arcade racer that was a blast in small doses, but better suited to the bells and whistles coin-op format.  It's a decent game but there's so little of it my heart bleeds for Michael Newnham, who sat near me in year 8 and begged his folks for the Mega Drive port.  Which he then lent to me, which was great, but £69.99 for three tracks (and probably a MIRROR MODE), JFC.  I only played this long enough to finish each course before the timer ran out.  It's a stunning converstion but the controls felt odd - I favoured the dpad aside from one nasty turn in the third track (the analogue just seemed to turn more sharply), but because my JoyCons are fucked if I touched the stick the car did its own thing for a little while, which resulted in it veering all over the place coming out of the corner until it settled.  WD40 time again I guess.  #First world problems.  

Anyway, it's a great game to dip in and out of for a nostalgia wallop, but not something I'm inclined to hammer until my name tops the leaderboards.  A good arcade game that wouldn't grace a legit Best Of Sega hall of fame imo.  Switching between views on the fly is still a glorious a thing though.



157. Black Paradox - Switch

Roguelike horizontal shmup that made a good first impression.  It plays well, looks neat and sounds great.  It didn't take long for the rot to set in though, and unfortunately it's one of those grindy kind of rogues where you've got no real chance of initial success because you need to put the graft in to upgrade your ship over time with permanent perks.

Not for me thanks, not with this genre anyway.  Would've enjoyed a whistlestop tour if they'd added a simple arranged arcade mode with level progression saved, but sod going through the same motions from stage one for 15hrs in order to slowly pimp up the spacecraft.  Shame.



158. Curses & Chaos - PS5

An old PS+ drop that I used to play on the Vita.  Thought I'd have another bash while I had access to my locked software again (mainly because Tribute Games didn't mean much to me back then, but now they're one of my favourite nu retro indie devs).  It's a simplistic screen clearance game where you deal with ten waves of enemies per stage.  You'll know if you'd enjoy it from a glance at the gif - and most people wouldn't, I'd wager - but it's nicely put together and well balanced for old arcadeheads, albeit in what might be considered a crushingly repetitive way for modern gamers.  It's okay solo, but very tricky, so I've shelved it again until I can rope someone into playing co-op with me, which is where it'd come alive I reckon.  Tilly wouldn't entertain the idea for a second, and it's not like I can win her over by saying things like 'think about how much you would've enjoyed something like this on the Amiga!'.  Will keep that in the locker for when certain mates pop round.  Good game.

Done for the year. Nier, P5R and Bayo 3 arrived for switch today. I've got Pokemon as part of F's Xmas. It's a switchmas for me.

2. (Yes I know.....) Stray - PC (6 hours)
Picked this up almost on release then life distracted me from playing it. Had a bit of time over the last week and thought I would play it. I knew it wasn't too long. I really enjoyed it - they got a lot of what life with a cat is like (the random punting of shit off ledges) and the jumps felt very cat like. They obviously know cats too as the mannerisms they show for the cat are really lifelike.
I had a bit of a disconnect with the robot being able to talk to the cat, even in some sort of weird future, how would they know words... but that's a me problem, I know. I went full collectible with the playthrough, hence the 6 hours, because while I would say I'll go back and get everything, we all know, me especially, that I won't. None of them were in too much of an out of the way place, so it wasn't as frustrating as it could have been.
A very good game, that stops short of being great, but that's OK - greatness should be rare. [8]

160. Grounded (Xbox Series S/Xbox One S) - 12-15hrs co-op, maybe 7hrs solo

I've been chipping away at this with Tilly in co-op for just over a month, with her on the hobbled One S version downstairs wearing her snazzy new gamer headphones, and me in the nerd den upstairs on the current gen version.  I'm amazed MS allow this on a single profile, so +1m points to them.  She's been hooked on the Honey I Shrunk the Kids premise since the footage first appeared, but other than a quick mooch around an early access build we didn't jump in until the 1.0 release.  

It's a survival game, which means plenty of crafting, resource management and item hunts.  Which also means it's not my sort of thing whatsoever, but I didn't have much of a say in the matter.  Thankfully the accessibility options are plentiful.  If you don't want to know the score, look away now: we played with stamina, weapon degradation, hunger, thirst, backpack loss and structural integrity off, and also set the bugs to ignore players. This allowed us the focus on the adventure, which now has a full set of story missions, but even so there was a hell of a lot of busywork required.  Even in what was basically full moran mode I had to spend hours looking for stuff Tilly couldn't be bothered with (there's a lot to do in the game, but looking for stuff is what you'll be doing the most).  It felt like Spiritfarer all over again, which I also had to grind solo for it to allow progression in co-op.  

I'm aware that this is the deal with the survival genre, but to me the gameplay loop felt a little like having to go to the shop if you want a cup of tea.  Then when you get there it turns out they only take cash, so you have to go to a cashpoint somewhere else.  The first one you find isn't working, so you eventually find one that is, but it's only dispensing £20 notes and the shop that sells tea has no change.  So you have to trek to another shop way over yonder to break the note, then return to buy the tea.  Which doesn't come in bags, so you'll also need a teapot and a strainer.  You've got cups and milk, thankfully (you went on a long winded mission for those yesterday, you're not an idiot).  An hour later, after much to-ing and fro-ing, you return with the necessary ingredients/materials to brew your tea.  Then, once you settle down to enjoy it, you accidentally press RB and chuck it all out the window like a mug and have to start the fetch quest again because you can't find the cup in your garden...

It's not all bad though.  Elements of the game are fantastic and at times it rivalled the best experiences I've had this year.  It's great to play co-op with a screen and a mic each, which has opened up a new set of possibilities for our co-op sessions.  Music is great, plus it runs nicely on the Series S (and reasonably well considering on the Xbox One, not that Tilly noticed or gave a shit).  I blame the Series S anyway.  The blur effect on distant items made no sense to me, as it seems to randomly waft in and out of focus, but that's minor in the scheme of things.  Parkour is a bit annoying, but that's to be expected in a first person game really.  If you're anything like us you'll fall off stuff a lot, even if you switch to the third person view.  Combat is crap too in fairness, not that it matters a great deal (to us anyway; indifferent spiders ftw).  It's easy enough to pick holes in this and that, but it's greater than the sum of its parts, as they say for slightly janky games that are still decent, and despite the crushing boredom of certain tasks I loved playing this in two player.  I accidentally made Tilly cry when I threw my toys out the pram yesterday, which took the shine off a little, but I'm forgiven apparently (there's a known glitch in the final mission that fucks everything completely - like lol start again stuff - but luckily I found a workaround that did the trick on a forum somewhere and stopped stropping/declaring that I was never ever going to play it again ever).     

Late game (fairly obvious) spoiler: You have to craft an embiggening cocktail to finish the story, and I sourced the ingredients with the help of YouTube.  This appeared as 'how to get embiggening cock...' in the viewable text of my search history, which of course one of my mates immediately spotted when I had people round for a drink on Saturday.  You love to see it.

A nice little game with enough charm to outweigh its flaws.  You'd have to be insane to play this properly though, imo, as it would literally take 100hrs to make a dent in it, but there must be some people out there who love to inject that sort of laborious grind into their veins.  I bet it's a blast with more players through.  [7] feels about right - for all the wonkiness you can feel the love that's gone into this in places.  Worth it for the absolute joy from Tills throughout most of the game.  She was absolutely buzzing when we got through the final mission.  I expect she'll review it at some point if I ask nicely, so there's probably a [10] on the way.