Last game you DIDN'T finish and your thoughts

Naughty Dog are great writers, animators and visual artists.
They're second-rate, derivative game designers though.

The_Jaster wrote:

I definitely do lean more to how a game plays than anything else but even when it comes to world building and narrative TLOU isn't even close to games like Ghost trick...

Neither is any other game to be fair.

Buskalilly wrote:

Naughty Dog are great writers, animators and visual artists.
They're second-rate, derivative game designers though.

Don't disagree but when the top bit is so exceptional and ND have upped their game with Uncharted 4 & Last of Us Part II in terms of gameplay, that overall package is better than most games ever.

Anyway Balla has moved this elsewhere and my opinion is ND are the best developers in the world, that I think you're all weird thinking different.

From Software I'd also put as one of the best, even though I don't get on with their games.

Balladeer wrote:

The_Jaster wrote:

I definitely do lean more to how a game plays than anything else but even when it comes to world building and narrative TLOU isn't even close to games like Ghost trick...

Neither is any other game to be fair.

It's also not an overdone post apocalyptic zombie story either and I say that as someone who actually loves zombie stories. (Actually there's a great South Korean series on netflix called Kingdom that puts a fresh twist on it)

Nexomon: Extinction



I started this a while ago and then got distracted by something else. Tried to go back to it recently, couldn't remember anything I had been doing, and found myself with the overarching feeling of "why play this when I could replay any one of the million Pokemon games I already own?".

Decided it wasn't worth the effort, appreciated it for the 10 or so hours I got out of it (due to its positives like an irreverent script and, well, similar gameplay to Pokemon), and duly freed up the 3.7 gigabytes of data it was taking up. Sayonara, Nexomon.

Exquisite screenshot choice . . .

Ah. Out of interest, what makes it so much worse?

The_Jaster wrote:

(Actually there's a great South Korean series on netflix called Kingdom that puts a fresh twist on it)

Ooh, I liked Kingdom! Not too dark. I presume Season 3 has been postponed like everything else.

Yeah probably, I still have Season 2 to watch actually & that Ashin of the North special was good even though it was basically just fleshing out the backstory of a character I assume will appear in season 2.

I think I might have missed that special!

Buskalilly wrote:

Exquisite screenshot choice . . .

Thanks babes!

Balladeer wrote:

Ah.  Out of interest, what makes it so much worse?

I mean it's not *that* much worse. It's just that I've played Pokemon since I was a kid and it all makes sense to me. Nexomon has slightly different type matchups and stuff and while the system is fundamentally the same, I couldn't be bothered learning all the differences. Plus I didn't form any attachments to any of my team (even though I named them after forumites - sorry lads).

Ice being super-effective against water would be a completely rational one that would throw me entirely.

I even get that a little in Monster Hunter; for example, a lot of aquatic monsters don't like fire damage, which makes a lot of sense but feels wrong.

I didn't realise there was a pokemon clone other than temtem. For me, I prefer things that are similar to pokemon but with enough twists. I've been enjoying monster sanctuary, although that's also not a game where you get attached to your monsters so it might not be for you. But in that game each battle is 3v3 and there are skill trees and items you equip to mons, making it somewhere between a pokemon and an old FF turn based system. Not a worldie but decent

I remember talking to Andy about this, I think in response to Monster Hunter Stories' combat. It feels like a lot of games are so desperate to differentiate themselves from the Pocket Monsters that they bend themselves into weird shapes trying to have a unique combat system or whatever. He rates the Digimon Story games highly because they're confident enough to have standard turn-based combat quite similar to Pokemon.

I liked the combat is Stories 2.

I do wonder why know one has really come up with a very good Monster Catcher part from Pokemon, as on paper it's a really basic JRPG which that genre loads do well but this sub one not so much

All I can think of is the crossmedia and characters.

It's the monsters, man. Pokemon's creatures are initially simple, surprisingly deep, fit well into their world and like you say have a cross-promotional behemoth helping them sink in. I think the reason Monster Hunter Stories has been able to make a bit of an impression where many others have failed is that it has the Monhan bestiary to utilise.

I fucking love Digimon but I don't think I could do Luke Loves Digimon every week and know there would be something to say.

I've had TemTem downloaded since December but yet to get round to it but from what I've seen of that it has some good potential, gameplay wise it's similar but it does a few things that limit you from doing the exact same move over again which is something I feel Pokémon could do with itself.

HotShot Racing is a game tailor-made for gjones. Except if it was tailor-made for gjones, HotShot Racing would be a slightly loose, garishly ugly and ultimately hollow pair of trousers. It's the Asda tracksuit bottom of arcade racers. That's not necessarily a bad thing - HotShot Racing has enough character to exist on its own terms despite being completely influenced by games like Virtua Racing and OutRun 2. The actual characters are fun stereotypes that play up to the 1990s attitude of games like Street Racer and even Super Punch-Out!. The problem I have with the game itself is that it doesn't feel as reliable as the great SEGA racers that inspire it. Drifting is inconsistent and the mechanic fails to let you string drifts together. The AI is hopelessly aggressive, even on Normal difficulty, utilising the dreaded Mario Kart rubber banding meaning races feel more kart racer-y than pure arcade racer.

Visually, the cel-shaded look is eye-catching but also not something I'd consider appealing. The cars look chunky but don't feel chunky and contact between vehicles feels cheap. There's enough championships to plug away at and you can upgrade the vehicles, but it just doesn't satisfy like an arcade racer does. I wasn't chomping at the bit to have another race. To be fair, I only paid £3.99 and that's a decent price for this. I'd heard some positive things surrounding HotShot Racing, but I was a bit disappointed. A decent diversion and probably a better experience in multiplayer, but ultimately a pale brightly-coloured imitation.

6/10

Treesmurf wrote:

I've had TemTem downloaded since December but yet to get round to it but from what I've seen of that it has some good potential, gameplay wise it's similar but it does a few things that limit you from doing the exact same move over again which is something I feel Pokémon could do with itself.

Yeah that stamina system does sound quite refreshing. I also like that you can change your mon's moves from the main menu, as opposed to having to talk to specific NPC's and things like that. I'm just not sure I particularly like the monsters or the fact that it's an MMO. There's just something weird to me about seeing hundreds of players all gathered around the same few quest givers. I do however like that it seems to build to go through with a friend, a co-op 2v2 pokemon with a stamina system to stop move spam sounds like something that should work.

I see Buska's point about companies bending over backwards to differentiate themselves from Pokemon, and I don't disagree that that happens. But for my money, I think this is a trend with the turn-based RPG genre in general. Those games are always trying to reinvent the wheel to distinguish themselves from, let's say, Final Fantasy VI... or IX... or VII etc.

I don't have much to say about Hotshot Racing, but I like the way it looks. There's a game called Art of Rally that came to gamepass the other day which I'm excited to try. A somewhat-retro styalised arcadey rally game. It looks really pretty if nothing else, but I'm hoping it scratches that itch that Hotshot Racing didn't.

Art of Rally is good been waiting for it on console for awhile, might good on Switch due to short stages useful on the go.

I wouldn't, it's apparently much uglier.

Buskalilly wrote:

It's the monsters, man. Pokemon's creatures are initially simple, surprisingly deep, fit well into their world and like you say have a cross-promotional behemoth helping them sink in. I think the reason Monster Hunter Stories has been able to make a bit of an impression where many others have failed is that it has the Monhan bestiary to utilise.

I fucking love Digimon but I don't think I could do Luke Loves Digimon every week and know there would be something to say.

I've been feeling this hard. Every so often The Lady reminds me that I've still got half of Digimon: Cyber Sleuth to play, and I just... can't be bothered. And it is indeed the monsters, man. Pokémon's designs are so impressively layered. Even the bobbins ones get plenty of personality the moment you see them animated. Meanwhile in Digimon you spend so long evolving and devolving each monster (which you need to do to get to Mega stage) that you develop absolutely no attachment, and that's before you considered the way-simplified lore and animations combined with worse designs. And y'all know what I think about MHS.

Put it this way: if there was another Sword/Shield adventure of the same size, despite my issues with the games, I'd already be on that.

STONEFLY:

I had similar thoughts about Hotshot Racing after buying it for full price on it’s launch day. £3.99 is very reasonable for the amount of content you get, but the price doesn’t change the humdrum track design, the lack of online community or the outrageously overpowered AI. I was really disappointed by it.

masofdas wrote:

Art of Rally is good been waiting for it on console for awhile, might good on Switch due to short stages useful on the go.

As I understand it, the Switch version isn't ideal. I played a bit yesterday on the PC and it's gorgeous but it seems like they uploaded the wrong screenshots for the switch version so it looks quite barren in reality. Game is meant to be mechanically as good but I think a large part of its appeal is the way it looks. I know the developers are looking into improving the switch version, they're a small team of like 8 or so people, so I think they just ballsed things up a bit as opposed to being super malicious. They've acknowledged the mistake and offered steam keys for switch owners so you might want to steer clear of it for a bit.

Ahh that's not good, I'm playing on Xbox because Game Pass but does feel like a pick up and play game.

I got Kena for my girlfriend's birthday. She's been streaming it and enjoying it for the most part. Graphically it's as you'd expect, just as bright, colourful, and detailed as the trailers would have you believe. There's also a very good soundtrack that hums along in the background throughout, reaching crescendo at key intervals and capturing the mood throughout. There's a lot of ambition executed really well here and it's easy to see why people throw about Pixar comparisons.

I started a new game myself and found it to be... ok. While all of the above holds true, there's a comparative lack of ambition when it comes to the actual playing of the game. Like Deathloop, Kena borrows from other games. Pikmin is an obvious inspiration for the little Rot fellas, and the combat system is somewhat like Sekiro - at least in terms of parrying and dodging, not so much the other aspects of Souls games. But unlike Deathloop, Kena doesn't come up with gameplay riffs that make you feel like there's something special and new here, instead its a bit tired and a bit incongruous with the things that make the game stand out.

The setting, a woodland tribal village, isn't something we get to see in games all too often, and its imbued with themes of death, rebirth, loss, and growth. We're tasked with helping heal a village torn apart, all of which is a fine motivating setup. But at almost every juncture we're guided by bird poo towards yet another hack n' slash sequence. What you can and can't climb is delineated by, I guess chalk but I call it bird poo, which detracts quite a lot from the otherwise really vibrant and totally believable forest surrounding you when you're on the lookout for more poop. I would liked to have seen them try to guide players more organically, I mean we have the rot, who will helpfully point towards things anyway, let them shine a little more.

But the bird poo is one thing, it doesn't really put too much of a damper on the game. It's the combat and the lack of meaningful ways in which you can interact with the world that end up detracting from it the most. General waves of mooks are fairly easy to deal with, and you'll come across them quite a lot on your travels. Twisted twig lads that are born of the forest's corruption. You can hack and slash your way through these with little thought, but there is a parry system if you want to get fancy. As in Pikmin, the little rot fellas can help out, but unlike Pikmin there's no real sense of risk involved. We're told that Rot will hide because they're scared, but watching you fight will strengthen their courage and let you use them in attacks. Really all this means is you do enough combos and you can do a big rot move, and then you do more combos to do more rot stuff. But again, rather than having this develop organically, perhaps with Rot joining in on their own when you're doing well, you just fill a meter.

The rot can't be lost during fights or anything, and they don't have to be, but whereas Pikmin gives you mechanical feels for the Pikmin because they're out their throwing their lives away like Scouts in Attack on Titan, there's nothing to connect you to the Rot beyond how cute and goofy they look. And while they help you cleanse the corrupted forest, that typically only happens after you bash something big's head in as you traverse the bird poo road. And you could argue that's fine, it's a kid friendly game, but like, is it?

On normal difficulty the difficulty curve spikes wildly during boss fights, some of whom can delete your health bar in a couple of moves. You're encouraged to get comfortable with parrying, but I haven't been able to get the timing down. The game has generous checkpoints and there is an easy difficulty, but even so I think it's a shame that a primary way I interact with the world is through force. Yes there are some puzzles, some really simple puzzles, but there's just a lot of fighting. And I wonder if that's really what the world of a spirit walker should be?

I think the developers have tried to create an indigenous tribal culture in a respectful manner, and I think they've done a good job there. The voice acting is good and the iconography seems good to my untrained eye. But to have conquest, even if it is conquest of corruption, act as the primary means of fixing everything that's gone wrong. I think there's a disappointing lack of imagination there, especially since conquest is an idea so closely connected to colonialism.

Kena is pretty, there's ambition in places, but it relies too heavily on well worn mechanics and doesn't really have enough ideas of its own to really stand out in the way I was hoping it might. It's not a bad game by any stretch, and if it was the first PS5 game I'd played I might have given it more of a pass because of just how good it looks and sounds, but as good as all that is I can't help but feel there wasn't enough love in the rest of the game and that much of what stands out is only at the surface level.

I don't think I'll be finishing it, it's my partners present after all and I like watching her enjoy it. I hope those of you who are looking forward to this one are enjoying it, but this one's not for me.