La5t Game You Fini5hed And Your Thought5

masofdas wrote:

I watched footage of the Switch version of Cocoon as did think maybe load times between worlds etc but seemed fine from what I saw that I would still highly recommend it on Switch. Might even work as a good handheld game of drop in do a puzzle and move on, though may lose some of the atmosphere around the game.

It's on my list as something to play before GotY season, and if it's getting played anywhere it'll be on Switch.

I've played some stuff!

Pokémon: The Teal Mask

This was alright. I liked Scarlet more than some people, and this was basically more of the same in a region which is basically the place I live, so I really enjoyed it. The story was slight, but left the characters in a position where I'm excited to see how it pans out. The new monsters were fun, and along with this DLC came some fixes for the most egregious bugs. The game's overall engine still chugs, so if that bothers you it might be an issue, but I'm not really interested in the opinions of people like that.

Splatoon 3

The recent trailer for the DLC reminded me that I left the singleplayer campaign with one more world to finish. This was a really good combination of the classic Splatoon 1&2 campaigns with the more experimental Octo Expansion style. There were some fun levels, clever challenges, great boss fights, epic setpieces and a better world to explore between levels. Still, after the initial trailer, I was hoping for something that felt a bit more expanded and different than this ultimately felt. Good stuff if you're into it, won't convert a newcomer.

Pikmin 4

I just got finished playing this. What a weird game. It sands off so much of Pikmin's rough edges that it ends up sanding off most of what the game was. it feels like someone played Mario and decided it would be better if the levels were flat and you didn't have all those holes and enemies to jump over.
Don't get me wrong, there's a lot to like here, but it was so streamlined that it felt like I was just coloring squares in my math textbook. While Pikmin 1 felt like a Strategy game disguised as a cute character thing, this feels like a 3D platformer about a guy on a dog who just happens to use Pikmin as his weapon.
There's some fun lore stuff for a Pikmin nerd, and later there are some fun challenges and side modes, but I would have liked that kind of tension and intrigue while I was exploring the world, not after the fact.
I feel like I have more to say about this, and I'm not 100% sure where I sit, so maybe I'll make a video or something a bit later down the line.

I haven't quite totally finished, as I have five more floors of a special bonus cave, which i think will give me the last two onions and help me net a final treasure.

I bet you lost your mind at the final Splatoon 3 fight though eh?

That is... pretty damning about Pikmin 4.  I assumed you'd like it less from what I know given that 1 is your favourite game in the series, but that's low-key a drubbing from Buska about a Nintendo game!  And for the same reasons it looks like the Pikmin game I'd get on best with.

masofdas wrote:

I watched footage of the Switch version of Cocoon as did think maybe load times between worlds etc but seemed fine from what I saw that I would still highly recommend it on Switch. Might even work as a good handheld game of drop in do a puzzle and move on, though may lose some of the atmosphere around the game. ...

Not a lot to say on Deedlit that I haven't before but have you checked out Ender Lilles or Afterimage?

The problem with Cocoon on Switch is the performance.  Which is to say, in handheld it runs fine, but it's a big atmosphere piece and it loses something being played on a busy train rather than a big screen with hefty speakers.  Docked though, it's always just stuttering a bit.  I'm not a big performance head, and the effect isn't massive, but it's constant and jarring.  It made my eyes hurt.  

I gave Ender Lilies a 4/10 in the last 'Balla Reviews Every Switch Game He's Played' post I did, although I didn't really get far enough in it to judge it.  Too grim in ambience, too floaty and unsatisfying in combat.  Afterimage looks like it has the Cocoon problem.

The_Jaster wrote:

I bet you lost your mind at the final Splatoon 3 fight though eh?

Yes! And the one that was a tribute to Sunshine.

Then they thought oh that's a great idea for TotK.

Sunshine finally getting the recognition it deserves!

The fiddliest boss to represent the fiddliest 3D Mario. It's perfect*.

Yes, the connoissuers choice for players who are good at games.

What was good? The story mode was fine

What was less good? Mini-games are random in the story mode meaning I'm missing 17 of them

What was bobbins? Not as good as I remember on PSP

Would I recommend it? Nah as other good PSP games on Plus now



What was good? The story is top-notch, it has been raised and on par with what you get from Santa Monica or Naughty Dog from a PlayStation Studios game. Everything else, like swinging around, have also been raised to make a spectacular sequel.

What was less good? Maybe too short, like I 100% the game and got the Platinum in 26.5hrs which for some at £70rrp might put some off, though the quality should be taken into account.

What was bobbins? Nothing

Would I recommend it? Yeah, the best PS5 exclusive and my current GOTY.

I'm keen for Spidey but I still don't think there's enough to make buying a PS5 worthwhile for me

I bought Ape Academy on the PSP recently, played through that same story mode over a few nights and I enjoyed it well enough. I’d give it a mild recommendation.

26.5hrs is too long for a game.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2


You ever play a game and question what you're doing with your life? That was me with The Amazing Spider-Man 2, I bought this a while ago when I decided I wanted to collect Marvel games on the PlayStation (it doesn't even have Marvel branding though so could probably not include it). I thought it'd be best to play it before the game that Mas was talking about released (Ape Academy) and I guess I was right because that feels even more amazing than I thought it would in comparison.

TASM2 isn't necessarily that bad when it comes to making you feel like Spider-Man when swinging around the city, it's just not very good at the rest of it. Combat is extremely limited with only a few moves available, the story was mainly a bunch of disjointed encounters with various villains including a tacked on encounter with Electro as the only real inclusion from the movie. The writing is so bad its almost funny but eventually you hear so much of the same thing it becomes annoying, the way Spidey flails his arms around in cutscenes to show he's talking is meme-worthy.

I think the most annoying thing though was my stupid compulsion to want to get the Platinum, most of it was straightforward but the final trophy was such a slog it added at least 10 hours to my playtime because I'd fell asleep with the game on countless times. Add to this a dumb system where you get inconvenienced for not helping with every single random crime/rescue on the map and you've got a game that was dated when it released 10 years ago.

4/10

Thank you Smurf for providing yet more ammunition for my 'achievements are bad actually' stance.



(And by 'finished' I don't mean the final final level because those have always been more annoying than fun.  Super-hard with frequent checkpoints >> a bit less hard with no checkpoints.)

This is 2D Mario: The Charm Offensive, and by God is it charming.  From the elephant to the talking flowers to the incessant gambit of ideas served up by the Wonder mechanic, it layers on the charm that's been missing from the sterile NSMB games thick, and I love it.  That animation too!  I'll never get tired of Mario's angry little face when he dashes.  The charm offensive isn't entirely new, with most of the best Wonder mechanics being things I could see fitting into Odyssey; but the fact that it could be done elsewhere doesn't stop it from being great here.  

In doing so it slightly papers over the fact that the game itself feels a bit unfinished in places.  To be clear, the gameplay is the best it's been in properly 2D Mario since either World or World 2, depending on what you consider the latter.  Mario and chums feel as good as ever to control, the levels they canter through up nattily designed and filled with interesting gimmicks even before the Wonder Flowers.  It's for the most part pretty easy but it also doesn't have the level of irritating obfuscation of World (ghost houses I'm looking at you).  And challenge can definitely be found: Climb to the Beat will be emblazoned onto my eyeballs for weeks, in a good way.

But... there's the fact that not all secret exits lead to new levels.  And the bosses in general.  And the levels where bosses should be but aren't.  And Captain Toad's 'involvement'.  Corners have definitely been cut here.  While we're talking about negatives, the charm offensive doesn't work all the time: any time Mario isn't doing platforming, the game is decidedly weak.  I want to stick the caterpillar despot to fly paper and leave him there, and his subjugated populace aren't much better.  The flowers work because their dialogue adds to the action: this doesn't.  

To some degree this feels like a game that almost hits a lot of the heights but just misses out on all of them.  It isn't quite as good a 2D Mario as World, or quite as good a multiplayer experience as 3D World, or - despite everything - as charming or imaginative as Odyssey.  At the same time though, in the strict sense of the term it's the first truly good 2D Mario in twenty years.  That's just wonderful.

Ecosystem reward system is good and Nintendo should have one, and not  a lot to add to Mario as I'm yet to play mine.


Qu'est-ce qui était bien? Le style artistique et la nature simple du jeu, qui est bien exécuté.

Qu'est-ce qui était moins bon? L'histoire est racontée via des lettres, ce qui est bien, mais des jeux comme celui-ci sont souvent racontés via le gameplay et ce qui se passe autour de vous.

Qu'est-ce que les bobines? J'ai eu un étrange problème technique.

Est-ce que je le recommanderais? J'ai joué via Xbox Game Pass qui est disponible sur console, PC et Cloud, ce qui signifie que tout le monde peut facilement jouer.

Balla wrote:

In doing so it slightly papers over the fact that the game itself feels a bit unfinished in places.

I think you're being very very harsh here, especially when it comes to bosses as the game just isn't designed around that like SMB 3 was for example. The hook is the wonder flower moments which hit way more often than they miss so I can see why Nintendo maybe didn't want to add many boss battles on top of that, I think it also might have taken away from that final Bowser fight if they leaned into more bosses with various wonder abilities.

One thing I do agree on though is it is absolutely the best 2D Mario we've had since SMB3/World.

I'm not that far into Wonder. I've enjoyed everything I've played so far, and there is a palpable feeling of "newness". . . but I don't like the way the whole world has been talking like the NSMB games weren't tight, fun games. They felt a little samey, sure, but they were all excellent at what they did.

What was good? The story is pretty good of the main character Jala facing her 6 exes and has a diverse group of people to represent the LGBT community.

What was less good? Everything about the gameplay is just adequate, be that the cooking mini-game, the skateboarding or the turn based combat. Though having a mix between all of these during the chapters doe break it up a tad.

What was bobbins? It's a bit rough and I don't mean like frame rate, feel the art style gone with looks cheap, but being bright & colourful does help.

Would I recommend it? Tough one as what it is good to see and being on Game Pass might get more people to try it, but then it does part from the story super well like I feel this would have been better as a VN making choices to move story along.

The_Jaster wrote:

Balla wrote:

In doing so it slightly papers over the fact that the game itself feels a bit unfinished in places.

I think you're being very very harsh here, especially when it comes to bosses as the game just isn't designed around that like SMB 3 was for example. The hook is the wonder flower moments which hit way more often than they miss so I can see why Nintendo maybe didn't want to add many boss battles on top of that, I think it also might have taken away from that final Bowser fight if they leaned into more bosses with various wonder abilities.

Do you feel like it was intentional though? I could maybe, maybe see World 3 being a design choice, but World 5 straight up felt like they ran out of time to make a level in which you rescue the Poplins. Because I agree that you don't need bosses, but then each world should have a climactic level or set-piece of some sort to feel like a proper ending, a pacing conclusion; and they didn't have that either. They managed that really well in the final world, I'm convinced they would've done it elsewhere too if they'd been able to.

More specific boss talk:

Buskalilly wrote:

...but I don't like the way the whole world has been talking like the NSMB games weren't tight, fun games. They felt a little samey, sure, but they were all excellent at what they did.

I would dispute this in some cases, and argue that 'what they did' wasn't enough in others... but I think this could be an entire thread, where we go back through the NSMBs and look at each one. Unfortunately lacking the time to make one right now.

What was good? Blowing dicks off creeps, doing silly side-quests like issuing a parking ticket and saving cats, being 1987 in 2043

What was less good? Had an odd performance issue during a mission where the frame rate absolutely tanked to about 6fps that I had to reset, and the last save was like 10 mins back. Few other things with like the lip-syncing and stuff but the game is so fun I can late it fun also wasn't expecting AAA polish from it.

What was bobbins? It does late in the story think it's Terminator Resistance

Would I recommend it? Yeah! This was pure 80s action movie in Video Game form and should have been Robocop 3 it's that good, certainly buy this for more than a dollar. I am now thinking about checking out Terminator Resistance, though not sure shooting at a T-800 will be as fun as a human gang member that you can blow heads clean off.

Andi Hamilton talked about Terminator Resistance in our Robocop podcast and he made it sound absolutely incredible.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/7z7Qr5NWC4N0HxpRX8ZpDa?si=f5F8mEeDSAiq_2EOwzOUyQ

I'll give that a listen, I know like everyone that plays Terminator seems to really like it.

Edit
Have given a listen and yeah he seems to like it a lot, and sure I've not played TR, but I would from reviews more care has been put into Robocop (Forgot to say even put the effort in for the Platinum) which I guess is off the success of the Terminator game allowing more budget. I am also keen on what they do next, Predator?

What was good? Reminds me of late PS360 era AA games.

What was less good? It looks like a PS360 game.

What was bobbins? Kinda short, like the main story in an AA open-world game took about 12hrs.

Would I recommend it? Not really, it's like a poor Forspoken (I really liked Fospoken) as in the devs saw the first trailer for that and thought let's give that a bash, which end up with a game with less polish than something with Squares money behind it.


What was good? Still two of the best indies around, which playing on the Portal to try some remote play of things I have done that before to see how it compares from that time like 10 years ago when I tried it on PS4 + VITA.

What was less good? Flower was awkward to play with the motion when trying to see the screen at the same time, no one on the journey with me in Journey.

What was bobbins? Nothing

Would I recommend it? Yeah, like Journey is still one of the best experiences ever made in the gaming medium.


What was good? Playing in the Ghostbuster universe in a 4v1 Multiplayer game which does have a story which used to be like 8 Acts but with the Ecto Edition which recently came to Switch & STEAM along with other versions getting the update for free added two more acts woven into the story that have to be done to get the end (achievement/trophy) now.  

What was less good? I'm not a big fan of playing as the ghost, and sure won more games as the busters then have lost to even others playing as a ghost.

What was bobbins? Not really a bobbins as such, but you really only have that 4v1 on around 10 maps, meaning not a lot of variety. Not sure if Dead by Daylight etc is like this as well, just the one mode.

Would I recommend it? I found it really fun and did stream with the Save Slot 3 lads, for £11 of PSN (think physical only like £15 now from the £35 I'm sure it was) feel it's a fun multiplayer time and does have cross-play as long as you have an Epic account.

masofdas wrote:

I am also keen on what they do next, Predator?

Predator tends to just be one monster, though.
Judge Dredd could be cool.

That be a great as MegCentral in Mega City One could replace Old Detroit, and The Lawgiver can do the same for the Auto 9 then the dialogue options can tie into Judge, Jury, Executioner. They did do a very mediocre Rambo game, so could they go back to that?


What was good? Bluey is way more likeable than Peppa Pig, and this felt more like a game. Still an easy Platinum mind

What was less good? In the last episode, the game seemed to freeze when loading to the next cutscene

What was bobbins? Short like finishing the game took a 1.5hrs then getting the Platinum which not sure the attended audience would do only takes it to 3hrs.

Would I recommend it? Maybe for bluey himself Smurf for his kids or like me played for some #contact & getting the platinum.