racketboy.com

marurun wrote:

Markies wrote:The only Castlevania game I grew up with as a kid was the first one, so all of this is very new to me. And since I love to play series' in chronological order, I haven't gotten that far yet.

But, yes, that is the game I am MOST looking forward to playing. That is the game that got me interested in playing through the Castlevania series.

You are going to love Rondo of Blood on the PC Engine, that's for sure. And once you have Castlevania 2 and Rondo of Blood behind you, Symphony of the Night will be even more interesting, because there's so much that comes from those two older games.

Agreed.

I am in the camp that SOTN is one of the best games ever by the way.

BoneSnapDeez wrote:a frothy cacophony of beep-bloop bullshit

Best line I've seen in a review so far this year.

Partridge Senpai's 2017 Beaten Games:

1. Tales of Hearts R (Vita)
2. UPPERS (Vita)
3. Volume (Vita)
4. Overlord: Minions (DS)
5. Kirby: Planet Robobot (3DS)
6. Overlord II (PS3)
7. Overlord: Dark Legend (Wii)
8. La-Mulana (Remake) (PC)
9. Infamous: Second Son (PS4)

10. htol#NiQ: The Firefly Diary (Vita)

So, I did an Exhuminator the other week and bought some random Vita game because it looked cool and I'd never seen it before. Though I did look up some reviews online in the store before I checked out, I was fairly interested with a weird-ass title like that, although healthily skeptical given that this is a game published by NIS. I heard of several comparisons to LIMBO, and was warned to change the controls ASAP to version C as to turn off all touch controls and switch them to joy-stick ones. Both of these turned out to be very true.

The comparisons to LIMBO were very apt. It's a very beautifully drawn puzzle platformer that has virtually no text in its story-telling elements. However, the story telling is a good bit more in depth and complicated than LIMBO's, as well as the gameplay. There are cutscenes between each chapter, as well as one memory fragment in each stage which reveals the backstory to what you're going through (you need them all to get the true ending and final boss, but that's not too hard a task with the stage select feature). The story does get fairly dark, and really had me switching on who I was actually rooting for, which I commend, given that its told completely without words of any kind. The simple interactive cutscenes portray their story well, and I was satisfied with the true ending (the regular one is like "wut").

You have a fairy you control with the left stick, and the player character follows it. Follows it down passages, up ladders, can tell her to sit still, interact with objects, the works. You also can toggle the world into shadow with triangle, and move with the darkness fairy through the shadows of the world to activate far-away items or switches. They're fairly neat mechanics and are explored in quite fun ways. There was never a time when I was just completely, unfathomably stuck. There was always some way to progress. The only puzzles I straight up didn't like were the "don't touch the walls" mazes, which could be very annoying because of how somewhat inaccurate the sensitivity with both the touch controls and analog controls can be though. Far from a game breaker though. Just a bit annoying.

Verdict: Recommended. If you enjoyed LIMBO, this is a good one to pick up to scratch a very similar itch. It's not too long a game, and the art and music are great, so that someone could very easily enjoy watching you play a fair bit if you were to slap it onto your PSTV.

Bone...your reviews are awesome. I think I know a lot about video games, but you always teach me something new. Keep fighting the good fight!

1. VVVVVV (Vita)
2. Firewatch (PS4)
3. Watchdogs (PS4) replay

It's okay bot exactly amazing though . Rushed through it again to catch up in case there were any connections to it in the sequel. Game was a hell of a lot easier this time since I basically didn't bother trying to go none lethal since there is no reward for not killing and the game interprets downing an enemy as a death pretty much anyways . AI is insanely dumb to so 99% I basically just equipped my silenced 1911 and murdered everyone in the area in a matter of seconds with no one ever really noticing .

Updates have definitely helped it out a lot since my last playthrough on PC although the driving still sucks. Controls are just really stiff and vehicles slide off one another whenever there is a collision which is weird but intentional.

Surprisingly there still seems to be a pretty active online community although that may have just been thanks to the boost from people drawn back by Watchdogs 2.

Anyways still working on Mass Effect which I should be only an hour or two away from completing and I'm probably about 1/2 - 2/3rds of the way through Persona 4 Golden. Will probably run through Watchdogs 2 before sinking back into those though.

Xeogred wrote:Nice, yeah I'm getting a little bored of RE3 the more I replay it. It's extremely linear and more action focused, but not the refined RE4 at all. Still has some good music, the Nemesis concept is cool, and the late gen PSX pre-rendered backdrops make it look gorgeous... but yeah it falls flat a bit. The plot is about as pointless as it gets haha.

I have many issues with CV, but it's easy to see how that one is more truly RE3 than RE3 itself, and it did start in development first apparently. Or they started up around the same time.

RE2 is perfection and ages like a dream. I just wish it was longer, it's so easy to knockout in one session thesedays haha. Been awhile since I did Claire's scenario. It's a shame Capcom is doing a remake of this and saying they're going to change the gameplay. REmake is perhaps my favorite game in the entire series now and I wish RE2 would get that treatment... give it a facelift and maybe some new areas, but don't change how it plays.

Yeah dude, that Dualshock version of RE1 is something else... I need to get the original or original Directors Cut sometime haha.

I really like REmake and is another game that i have barely played more than 1 time, now to think of it the only games i have played numerous times are Resi 2,4,5, need to give that and 0 another go sometime in the future. I still need to actually beat CV, i did try it on a dreamcast emulator a few years back but never get pass Claire.

Not a lot of game playing so far this year, but I did knock off a few today and hopefully can get back on the horse, so to speak, before the month is out.

Games Beaten 2017
Inside - PS4 *new*
Street Fighter V - PS4 *new*
TIMEframe - PC *new*
Rituals - PC *new*
Mother Russia Bleeds - PC *new*

Total: 5

Previously: 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010

Inside is a nice follow up to Limbo, and in many ways I think I much preferred it. The sense of mood and the feeling of mystery are both exquisite in their presentation, and there's a lot of reads that can be mapped onto the game. Fun to play and hard to put down.

Street Fighter V has a story mode. It is ridiculous, and only the last few fights are any kind of challenge. Not worth your time, really.

TIMEframe and Rituals are two "walking simulator" type games with some light puzzle solving along the way. Each has a distinct visual style and both of them do little of anything to help you figure stuff out along the way (this is a good thing).

Mother Russia Bleeds may be the best side-scrolling beat-em up I have played. Cross Streets of Rage II with Hotline Miami, add a heavy dosage of Soviet imagery, and crank the difficulty on the later levels, and you have a really solid entry in the genre. Beautiful pixel art, rockin' chiptunes, and raunchy themes - it is the complete package and highly recommended.

--
Also, WTF? How are there 60+ pages in this thread already and its only mid-February?

I have lost track of how many times I've RE-bought the RE games and REplayed them. But yeah after my last run through most of them and the newest PS4 releases, I think REmake is my cemented #1. It's perfect. RE2 and RE4 come close, but REmake is just too good.

dsheinem wrote:Also, WTF? How are there 60+ pages in this thread already and its only mid-February?

I blame Elkin, Exhuminator, Bone, and Popo. Beatin' too many games

Lots of discussion and long posts, and some of these guys don't do much on their downtime.