Last game you finished and your thoughts

At the risk of reigniting things, Super Mario 3D World. Much like Stu said, the final Bowser battle ended up being disappointing, but the level before was brilliant. I must have died over fifty times - a real challenge (it says something about either me or the game that I missed the gold flag, so I went back to get it with a Cat Suit equipped... and beat it in one). Overall, I thought it was too uneven to truly rival the Galaxies, though it did have some fantastic moments of invention and innovation. I would go on to the bonus levels but I've decided to go for LEGO Marvel Super Heroes instead.

As everyone probably knows by now, I feel much the same.


Bravely Default: Where the Fairy Flies


"I'm here to make your life ****ing miserable! Hooray!"

This is a game of two halves.


The first half is one of rubbish story and good gameplay.  

The characters, especially "hero" Tiz, are as clichéd as they come, as is the awaken-the-crystals plot.  Meanwhile, your fairy (imaginatively named Airy, or so you'll think at first) trumps Navi and Fi hands-down in the "most annoying guide in the world" competition.  

That said, nondescript dungeons aside, the "playing" is pretty good.  It's scenic enough, with some excellent tunes (the special moves!); the Brave/Default system freshens up the turn-based battles; additions such as fast-forwarding, auto-battle and varying monster frequency (varying monster frequency!) take a lot of the grind out the game; and the job system, with the customisation it offers, mixes up the best bits of the old Final Fantasies.  And have I mentioned the fun that growing your item-producing village with StreetPass is?  It's probably a good job we got the re-jigged version, but the re-jigged version offers some splendid RPGing.


The second, however, is one of rubbish gameplay and good story.  

Past the halfway mark, there's barely anything new to see - landscapes, characters, and shortly afterwards enemies - until the endgame.  Side-quests abound, but again, most offer little new.  (A hint - unless you want the extra dialogue, the only side-quest worth doing after chapter 4 appears in the sage's hut, 3/4 of the way through chapter 6.  Do all of them before that, though.)  

But from shortly before halfway, the story becomes much more sinister.  Documents, dialogue, and a diary all suggest that something isn't quite right, leading up to an unsurprising but fun culmination, via one of the best title screen tricks I've ever seen.  


Overall, this isn't the return to Final Fantasy-ing glory that some might have described, but it comes close.  The gameplay will get you through the first half, and the urge to find out what happens through the second.  (Just don't do what Fronkhead did and sidequest yourself out.)  It's maybe a chapter too long, but that's still 60-80h of decent game.  

Cappa will hate it; Jas too, probably.  Most of the rest of you should give it a shot.  And once you've done that, like me, you'll probably want the sequel.


7/10



LIMIT BREA- er, I mean SPECIAL MOVE!

Good Review, I'm still yet to play mine. I rarely bother with side-quests unless they do develop the story some how like a bigger fleet in mass effect 3.

Do play them until chapter 5, and that one in chapter 6. The initial ones unlock jobs, which are (in my opinion) the best aspect of the game. I won't spoil what the chapter 6 one unlocks, but it's equally good.

Cool, what about this title screen trick and is there different endings

Balladeer wrote:

Cappa will hate it; Jas too, probably.

The only thing I like about it is the hand drawn backgrounds.

The towns are pretty, I'll give them that.  The rest of the game is meh, visuals-wise.

masofdas wrote:

Cool,  what about this title screen trick and is there different endings

You'll come across the title screen trick automatically, and you may well figure out how to get the alternate ending too.  You can unlock it from chapter 6 on, I believe.  If you haven't by chapter 7, ask in the thread.

Flower



So when I had my PS3, during a sale I bought Journey, as I saw it was getting all these awards. I really enjoyed it, so much I wanted to check out thatgamescompany other games. Being Flow & Flower, as I knew they were coming to PS4. I waited to download on that, I bought Flower as Flow doesn't look interesting at all.  

If you read what I put about journey on here, I'm going to say much of the same about flower. It's not what I would call a game it's more of an art piece and an emotional experience, taking this petal from one end to the other with the sound of the wind, the colours that spread when you bloom more flowers. It's just magical. Having played on PS4 and not PS3 previously I can't say how much better it looks in comparison, it is gorgeous though and the sound of the wind coming out of the Dual Shock 4 just adds to the experience.

After I finished on PS4 and owning a VITA, I could download on that as well via cross-buy, so last night I played and finished it on that as well. It looks great on that as well, also nice to have to control options on there touch or motion control. It has been one of the best motion control experiences I've had on both PS4 & VITA.  

Now I've played Journey and Flower, which is better you might ask. I personally enjoyed Journey more not to stay Flower is bad as it's a high

8/10

PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale



I've always been intrigued by this being a fan of Smash Bros and most of Sony's IPs, I did play the DEMO many moons ago. It was okay that I would buy if I saw cheap, which I did last week £9 on VITA.

I decided to play yesterday, and I was surprised how good it is. I've only done story mode with Kratos at the moment, but plays really well and really enjoyable on the VITA it really suits a handheld as I can do a few match's then come back. Which makes me think about Smash 4 it might suit the 3DS more then you think apart from online play maybe. Online has been a issue on All-Stars I can't find any games and there's a few online trophies, and this is where I feel like Andy as yesterday on this I spent nearly all my time unlocking trophies that I've got 56% all ready with out doing story mode another 19times. I feel if I could get online I would be able to Platinum this (what's wrong with me), but unfortunately that looks like it's out of the question.

Anyway I'm giving this a solid
7/10

Not sure if it counts, but my streetpasses just gave me the final card I need to complete Mario and Sonic London 2012 Olympic Games Card Collection.

So, it wasn't much of a game, but it was kind of a cool coincidence that I completed the collection on the day the Sochi Winter Olympics began.

Mario & Luigi: Dream Team Bros.

Clocked up over fifty hours in beating Dream Team Bros. Alphadream threw everything they could at this, to the extent that there can't be very many ideas on the cutting room floor. And it was too much. If about fifteen hours had been cut, DTB would be my favourite 3DS game. As it is, the thing's just too bloated.

Two more points: the ellipsis speech bubble is overused, and I've had enough of the "A pattaro pitaro racist" speech sample that M&L come out with when they're explaining stuff to other characters.

8.5/10

Bravely Default almost a week back. Overall it was a solid return to the roots of what made older jrpgs so loved by their fans with a lot of polish and flare, but it wasn't without its flaws. What it aimed to do in its second half was ambitious, but the execution was overall very flawed and dragged down a game that up until then was a solid 8.5 for me. Thankfully the game picked up for an epic finale. The graphics were nothing to write home about, but they made up for it by running incredibly smoothly, and the music rocks, not on the system itself as the 3ds had some serious compression issues that removed most of the punch the music had, but the separate release of the music is a treat for the ears, especially some of the last few boss themes.

Overall I'd give it a 7.5 out of 10. It lost 1.5 points because of the midway section, but made back .5 of a point for the epic finish. Overall a really fun jrpg that I'll probably replay some day.

Yup, I pretty much agree with that. I'm not sure I can see myself replaying it (a combination of the length and tedious middle section), but it's a good game nonetheless.

masofdas wrote:

Flower



So when I had my PS3, during a sale I bought Journey, as I saw it was getting all these awards. I really enjoyed it, so much I wanted to check out thatgamescompany other games. Being Flow & Flower, as I knew they were coming to PS4. I waited to download on that, I bought Flower as Flow doesn't look interesting at all.  

Flow is the best of the three, more of an actual game and not an artsy piece like the other two.

I like flOw but it just feels like the first part of spore. Flower is my favourite, I could play that all day.

I think we can both agree that they're both better than Journey anyway.

I didn't think that would even need saying!

I might give Flow a Go, as I have some money in my virtual wallet, but I doubt it will topple journey as one of the greatest downloads ever.

EDGE (videogame) 

EDGE was originally released at £1.79 so, as Dusty himself said, you'd be rude not to. I did. EDGE is an incredibly basic game: you roll a cube around a level, collect the multi-coloured prisms where possible, and get to the exit. And then repeat. The graphics are functional but everything else is great: most of the many tunes are worthy of the Balla tuneage thread (I might), it controls well (more on that later) and is incredibly addictive.

As a port of a mobile game it is a bit slight. The main issue is like The Wonderful 101: one of the main mechanics, the EDGE move, is difficult to control. Some of the blocks in the level move around, and there are moments where you must hitch a lift by part-climbing the block and keeping yourself from falling off it by tapping the control pad in the appropriate direction. It takes ages to learn this and doesn't work perfectly when you do. Once that's mastered, the only irritation is the occasionally unfair moments (you can be kicked off the level by moving scenery without warning)..

Overall (tl;dr?) it's a basic but fun experience.

7.5/10

Metal Gear MSX, 1987

To kick off my mission to play through all the Metal Gear games, I played through the original for the first time. It only took me an afternoon but, bar a couple of times when I got lost, it was a damn fun couple of hours.  

Like the 2D Zelda games, what really impresses is the way almost everything that happens in the newer games was done here first. Unlike the NES Zelda,  though, this is still really playable. It has aged brilliantly and of course, is a chapter in the whole Metal Gear narrative. If you own the legacy collection but have been hesitant to fire this up, you owe it to yourself to give it a play.
8 out of 10 (obviously within the context of a nearly 30 - year - old game)

*MSX

Why not in timeline order though

I prefer to do things in release order (I.e star wars). That way I know everything the game assumes I know and get all the references/ in jokes etc

Even if you did play it in timeline order, you still won't no what's going on.

People exaggerate the whole 'metal gear doesn't make sense' thing.

Yeah it's not to bad but it's when games in between get added and makes things more complicated.