Last game you DIDN'T finish and your thoughts

Did the fabled day one patch make much of a difference, mas?

Doesn't seem to be much different to me part from more inventory space

It seems to drip feed its story and it's very vague in revealing what's really going on. Probably the best for this type of game - it's not designed to be a story driven experience.

Yeah sure, but still traded in the game today.

Fair enough - it's not a game that everyone's going to enjoy, which is fine. I'm liking it because it's a really chilled out experience... when it works. I had my play session cut short tonight just as I came across an unfathomably ancient and colossal alien construct and upon interacting with it, the game crashes. Cheers for that.

I really did try and play this. I sat down with all the intention in the world, having just watched some Halo cartoons and having spent the morning listening to Halo music. But a couple of missions in, I was bored as hell.

This is an RTS game. A streamlined one, yes. A good one, maybe. One set at an unexplored point in the Halo story, with good characters and all that. But a very traditional, very dry RTS and I just couldn't be arsed. I'm not that kind of gamer. If they released Halo Wars' maps and missions but put an AI in charge of the management and let me play as one of the soldiers, I'd bloody love it. I just can't be arsed to do the paperwork. This will probably forever be the one Halo I never finish (well, the 2 once the sequel comes out).

Your mad bro Wars is bangers and why it has been a cult fav amongst the Halo fanbase and why we cheered when 2 was announced, which from the BETA which I played on EofGiz's ONE and as it was so good I went and bought my own ONE based on a MP BETA, that's how good it was!

I thought the game was rather simple and wasn't much management at all, just select some units and send them in unless you take the game online.

I guess you could watch the cutscenes online, if you want the story.

It wasn't too complex, it was too boring. But like I said, just not my cup of tea.

Stella Glow

Oh no no no no no.  Oh God no.  Oh no.  All of the nos, from my knows to my nose.  

NO!:

Sod OFF

I knew there was going to be a bit of fanservice, it happened in the Luminous Arc games, but this is the last straw really.  Pathetic.  And a shame, because the strategy gameplay is pitched at just the right level for me - that is, several levels of difficulty below most strategy gameplay. Strategy-lite for those who can't be bothered with Fire Emblem's permadeath or punishing difficulty...

I'm now going to put this game in the back of my games drawer and pretend I never owned it.  Bleurgh.

You know you can play Fire Emblem without permadeath or punishing difficulty.

The picture in your spoiler box won't come up when browsing on my phone, Poochy & Balla - but that might be a good thing!

Likewise for some reason...  It's a well-endowed bikini, in fishnets, with a cardboard box over her head.

... thanks for letting me know. How weird.

masofdas wrote:

You know you can play Fire Emblem without permadeath or punishing difficulty.

Remove those mechanics and you're just left with a few games with the absolute worst stories on the 3ds and a bunch of pandering.  

Don't get me wrong, I'd like nothing more than for more people to play Fire Emblem (besides Revelation anyway, I wouldn't wish that game upon my worst enemy.  Actually no, it's exactly what I'd wish upon my worst enemy), but everything Balla's said in the past points to the series not being his scene.

Yeah, the main hook of FE is the gameplay. Tone that down too much, you're just clicking on enemies and sitting through text. It isn't the worst text in the world, but I wouldn't pay for it.

I played Awakening which was my first FE on Normal without permadeath as well and still it remains my favourite 3DS game. As the gameplay is still great and the story was rather nifty like any RPG from Japan.

I played Birthright the same, I've not played Revelation but every review seemed to point to it being the best version of Fates. Why is it so bad when the vast majority (of reviewers) seem to say its the best?

Before all of the fluff I doubt anybody'll read I'd just like to add that it's funny how I defended the localisation "purity" pre-release". Looking back on Fates, Revelation specifically, could have probably done with some extremely loose adaptations. Funny how the world works eh!

masofdas wrote:

Why is it so bad when the vast majority (of reviewers) seem to say its the best?

Barring a few exceptions like the fine establishment that saw this fine forum eventually sprout like a deku tree I stopped following the game "media" over a decade ago.  For a reason.  The complete lack of any real understanding of the media they proported to critique, that and the hilarious double standards they would apply to it.  I highly doubt many of them even played through the entire game given the well known time constraints on them.  If they did happen to play through the entire game and still, despite the glaring issues with it that are blatantly apparant when compared to its own counterparts, well, that's just all the more reason they lack credibility.  


Suffice to say everything is wrong with Revelation.  I didn't type a literal wall of text in the "game you beat" thread taking it to pieces because I thought it was an incredible experience.  

Since you ask why I consider it such a bad game, I'll give you what you asked for (beware what you wish for lol!)  Massive amount of text incoming!

The game is a pile of miserable poor design on every level.  To put it very simply the story is atrocious.  To compare it to even its own counterpart Birthright would be akin to comparing Twilight to Romeo and Juliet.  The gameplay fluctuates between stealing maps from the other two games with watered down and ruined gimmicks to unique maps so bogged down with gimmicks one questions if the designers actually bothered to play test the things (they certainly didn't bother to ask whether the gimmicks improved or worsened the maps, otherwise they would have dumped most of them).  

So, a story that is phsycially painful to sit through (I ended up skimming it.  I NEVER skim things.  It was that shallow and pointless) mixed with gameplay that is downright boring and tedious.  Sound like a good investment of forty-plus hours and twenty-five dollars?

Oh, they also ruined most of the non-royal units by giving them to the player with the same base stats they come with in the other two games.  The problem there being their bases are very often over five levels below what their levels are in Revelation.  You have level ten units with the stats of a level five unit, not even joking.  And they do this with almost all the non-royal units (who likely only escape it because they're flat out broken in their main games).  


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As for map design, which I touched on earlier.  Aside from the fact that they reuse at least six maps all while watering down their gimmicks to the point half of them stop working properly (Conquest wind tribe map I'm looking at you and the inability to skip across the map any more), the revelation exclusive maps are almost entirely terrible.  

As I said before the gimmicks in them ruin them.  Specifically they bog the pace of the gameplay down, to the point in later maps you will spend five minutes simply moving units.  Not strategically mind you, simply moving them to the next gimmick part of the map to trigger the next phase of enemies.  That is not good game design, spending minutes at a time at frequent intervals essentially not playing the game.  

Any critique that, for example, claims Revelation is a "balance between Birthright and Conquest" should have their entire review immediately dismissed, because the game isn't even close to a blend of the two games.  Conquest is filled to the brim with intelligent, brutal, and highly engaging map design.  The maps flow, they end up feeling akin to strategic puzzles that the player must solve, or face a harsh brutalizing time.  Birthright is simple yet fun, with decent enemy placement and an emphasis on creating good formations with your own units to deal with the waves of enemies it throws at the player in reasonably well constructed waves.  

Revelation?  It has the player going around a map triggering gimmicks (break snow to move across a map, board moving platforms to reach other islands, other pace destroying gimmicks that essentially halt progress at every stage possble).  Of the maps unique to Revelation I can name three good ones (one involving the players units divided across a fleet of ships having to survive waves of enemies until a time limit where they can then move on to defeat the boss and clear the map was a particular highlight).  The rest are bland, extremely slow, extremely easy affairs.

Speaking of difficulty, again anyone that claims Revelation is a "balance" between the other two games is flat out wrong.  Those gimmicks I just talked about?  They also result in drip feeds of enemies.  One map in particular has the player board elevators that they cannot disembark until surviving a wave of enemies and killing them all.  On paper it sounds good, but the reality was the player was forced to stick their biggest tank in the chock point of an exit and slowly whittle the enemies down over the course of about six turns.  Any other attempts would see the player lose a good chunk of their units (believe me I tried several different approaches for disembarking to avoid the slog, they all failed).

Story stuff, nothing major, just saving room:

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And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the mediocre excuse of a game that garnered an 88 on Metacritic and praise from the gaming media.  As someone who spends a considerable amount of their gaming time with their nose buried in games of this genre I have little time or patience for those few games that are, quiet frankly, a genuine displeasure to play.  It is far and away the worst version of Fates, both from a story and a gameplay perspective, and one of the incredibly few games I have actual buyers remorse over.

I owned this game back in 2004 and didn't particularly care for it. However, I've given it another go and enjoyed earning the Time Trial coins, beating the Gate Challenge mode and even worked my way through the very short Match Race mode on Novice and Hard, but I've given up on Expert. It's simple enough getting through the 5 races, but the final Avalanche challenge is a piss-take. The core racing mechanics and levels themselves are genuinely fun to play, but the Avalanche races have always annoyed me. It feels like a gimmick used in order to hide the lack of racers.

It's not a long game either, with a few unlockable boards. Always wanted to try the 4-player LAN mode but that's about as likely as a game of Phantasy Star Online on Gamecube servers. I really wanted to like this game more, but it's definitely not worth the 90 that NGC gave it back in the day. I get that the focus is on speed with tricks giving you more power and inevitably a speed boost, but when the racing isn't that enjoyable in the first place, what's the point.

Devil World



It's an endless arcade style game, but I've seen enough of the gameplay loop to know what it's about. A Pac-Man-esque game, it is, though the gameplay has a couple of extra twists. The first, that you can only eat dots when you're holding a power-up, is a neat thing which doesn't get in the way of progress too much. The second - that the maze has borders and scrolls in a random compass direction, helps to up the ante too. There are even two stages: on the second one you collect four Bibles and place them in a central switch. It's all jolly enough but a bit too straightforward, like a lot of the games of the era. There's a reason NES Remix 1 wasn't as good as NES Remix 2, after all.

9/20

This was the infamous Miyamoto game that never came West, yes?

Fun fact: among the many things we mocked Norris for was calling the devil "davros" during a game of Smash one time.

It's been ages since that name came up. Can we have another "Not For Norris" moment on Gintendo soon?

If I get a Switch and he doesn't, you can bet on it.

Shin Megami Tensei IV, simply because it's a little too deep and difficult for the limited time and patience that I have. Good fun, and I have gotten invested in a few solid playthroughs - I've probably sunk about 15 hours into it - but it hasn't hooked me quite enough for me to go through with the entire campaign.

In that my Mum played it, and I saw quite a bit of it.
The review scores have been all over the place, so  wasn't sure what to say. But:

CONS:

• The camera is partially programmed - it gets itself stuck, and gives up and goes back to the last place it thought was safe, rather than figure out where it should have been; therefore you get an effect similar to spoof comedy show things, where a camera zooms in repeatedly on someone's face.
  
• Your man there controls a bit weird - the analogue control is almost 0-60, and therefore you go from tiptoes to hitting the edge of a platform, whereby you flop about like you're in Gang Beasts.
  
• Minor gripe - because of Trico's programmed pet-like behaviour, sometimes you think you're not telling him to do the right thing, so you walk away, only to find he then goes and does what you wanted him to do in the first place, by himself, once your back is turned.
  

PROS:
Despite those technical flaws, the game is still a good'n:

• Trico is absolutely adorable. I frown at games - and most fiction in fact - that ham-fistedly attempt to shoehorn in some kind of emotional response; but when Trico's upset, it's unbearable.
  
• The game's traversal mechanic ticks all of the Prince of Persia goodness boxes, and avoids that game's tacked-on combat for the most part.
  
• It also uses a similar narrative style to POP as a hint system.
  

• Ending Spoiler:

Rating? Er... it should probably have some penalties taken away for technical issues, but they don't really count as much. Er... 8.5-1.5 / 10.

Papers Please

I've read reviews and thinkpieces, listened to podcasts and watched videos about this game. I knew what it was and what to expect ages ago. Nonetheless, I thought I'd better play at least a bit of it.

Everything people have been saying is true, to be fair: it is clever, darkly comic, meaningful and a great exploration of how the mundanity of administration can make monsters, or heroes, of anyone.

Unfortunately, it is pretty tedious but design and having already heard what to expect, I didn't feel any great urge to see it through to completion. I also don't think I'll need a game to tell me what it's like living in a police state that is unwelcoming to foreigners soon enough.

APPROVED.