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dsheinem
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Games Beaten 2017

by dsheinem Sat Dec 31, 2016 10:38 am

Welcome to the Games Beaten 2017 thread! In this thread, we list and discuss what games we've beaten this year.

Per Racketboy tradition, this thread is not a competition, not a place where we hold to hard and fast rules about what games can count, when, or why, etc. The only expectation is that you perhaps talk a bit about what you've beaten: What were your thoughts? Why did you play? Would you recommend it? This thread is about sharing our personal accomplishments and engaging one another about the games we have played!

If you are new to this thread for the year, feel free to jump in any time between now and the end of the year. If you have questions or need help, feel free to hit me up! For reference, here's a couple of past threads so you can see how people have approached their participation, their list making, etc.


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Kuruwin
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Re: Games Beaten 2017

by Kuruwin Sun Jan 01, 2017 7:26 am

Just beat the legend event on driveclub so i guess that count's the game beaten? After beating and noticing that the trophy i got was part of the DLC got me confused on whether this game even had a singleplayer at launch.

Anyways. I count the game beaten but there's still a ton of things to do thanks to season pass.
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Re: Games Beaten 2017

by Flake Sun Jan 01, 2017 12:08 pm

Kuruwin wrote:Anyways. I count the game beaten but there's still a ton of things to do thanks to season pass.


One of the great things about the "Games Beaten" thread is that is really just a chance to talk about what titles we personally feel we finished. My personal metric for 'beaten' is to have completed the main task and seen the ending credits. For some people, consuming all the content means a game is 'beaten'.

Since it's not a contest, you get to use your own method!
Maybe now Nintendo will acknowledge Metroid has a fanbase?
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MrPopo
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Re: Games Beaten 2017

by MrPopo Sun Jan 01, 2017 1:48 pm

1. Pokémon Moon - 3DS

I had hoped to beat this last night, but unfortunately I died on my first attempt at the final dungeon of FFIII and that cost me the time I needed to finish Moon. Had I won the first time through I probably would have beaten Moon in 2016, but it would have been a real buzzer beater. I ended up leaving off right in front of the Elite Four, and that series of fights takes quite a while.

So I'd say Moon is actually the shortest of the mainline Pokémon games, or at least it felt that way to me. The game is set in a Hawaii analogue and so you'll end up jumping between four different islands. Unlike other Pokémon games there are no gyms; instead you're going to be doing a series of challenges capped off with a fight against a captain. Some of these challenges are simple "get to the end of the cave" but the others tend to involve engaging in some sort of activity. It ends up being similar to the later gyms that require you to actually think about a path you're taking but it does still feel weird. It's presented in-story as the Alola region not having a traditional Pokémon league until near the end of the game; you end up becoming the very first champion of the Alola League.

The requisite bad guy team is basically Seth Green's character from Can't Hardly Wait. For those who haven't seen the movie, picture really white guys and girls trying to act black. It ends up making them pretty comical and I ended up enjoying it. There is an evil plot involved in this game, but you aren't going to see it right away (Team Skull are mostly hoodlums). It's a bit more personal this time compared to the more disastrous plots of previous games.

Also, one super nice thing they did in this game was replace HM moves with Ride Pokémon. You unlock these as you go through the story, and each one takes the place of an HM move from previous games. So you can ride a Tauros to break through rocks, ride a Machamp to shove blocks, ride a Lapras to surf, etc. There's a few new ones added due to this new flexibility of not being restricted to the conventions of the original tile based games. Several of the old HM moves still appear as TMs (possibly all, I just haven't gotten all the TMs).

There's also a fairly substantial postgame of capturing legendaries and whatnot, but I'm saving that until after they release the Bank upgrade that lets me transfer from the Box. At that point I'm going to put in the time to do the living dex for this generation (by importing my existing living dex).
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Xeogred
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Re: Games Beaten 2017

by Xeogred Sun Jan 01, 2017 6:55 pm

1. Duke Nukem 3D: 20th Anniversary World Tour (PC)

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Someone gifted me this on Steam right when I was playing with the idea of playing through it again! I have the Megaton edition too (played it on the 360, also got it on Steam before it was removed because of this release). But this version is the one I will be going back to from here on for sure, you can change the rendering style on the fly to something a bit more modernized that scales verticality more normally, in addition to ambient lightning and some other neat additions. I think because of this smoother rendering style, I was able to get through the game a lot easier than I had in the past... cause you know the Build engine games have some weirdly placed switches and more varied level design than Doom, so it's a bit inconsistent sometimes. It was just easier to see things? That and or maybe I'm just more versed with the game by this point. I think there were new Duke lines recorded which was probably "Legacy Duke Talk" in the options, but it was unchecked and I left it that way. I heard the guy just phoned it in, but honestly I was just playing this alongside listening to podcasts and such since it's not a first time through.

The new episode is pretty cool. Doesn't have much of a theme throughout the levels, it's mostly contemporary city levels and whatnot for the most part, like some of the older episodes. Great level design and some cool new enemies and bosses, though the final boss in this one is a hilarious joke since he has a flamethrower that can't exactly hit you unless you're in his face. Not sure what they were thinking.

The Abyss is still one of the worst levels ever conceived. No matter how many times I've gone through the first episode, I always forget that stupid red hand print in a cave that triggers mountain explosions and things that let you progress through the level. It's so stupid and lame. I think I'm just done with L.A. Meltdown in general, outside of the classic two first stages. The rest are pretty weak and amateurish compared to what follows with the later episodes. I liked Lunar Apocalypse way more than I remembered and Shrapnel City is probably my favorite. The Birth is a real mixed bag with some lame levels and "wtf do I do now moments" alongside some really inconsistent difficulty slides... feels like Master Leves for Doom 2 or something. Very all over the place.

Anyways, yeah it's an awesome package. Plays great with a gamepad and has the rewind feature like the Megaton edition did.
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Re: Games Beaten 2017

by MrPopo Sun Jan 01, 2017 7:54 pm

1. Pokémon Moon - 3DS
2. Tony Hawk's Underground - GCN

I remembered that I had a late game save of this from a while back so I decided to finish it off. It took me a little bit to remember how the controls work, but once I did then I remembered why I never got around to finishing this in the past.

So my time with THPS has been a rental of 1, owning 2 on the DC, downloading 3 on the PC (and beating 2 & 3), and then picking up THUG because it was on sale. The previous THPS games had a fairly simple formula; you get 2 minutes in a level to achieve a variety of goals. These include scoring a lot of points, collecting items, and performing specific tricks. The completion of these goals is persistent, so you basically do the game in 2 minute chunks of going nuts having fun with the skate controls. THUG changes things up, and not for the better.

THUG is now a story based game; it follows you as a young up-and-coming skater with the worst friend in the universe who you still aren't smart enough to ditch after his third betrayal. It's now taken on some open world aspects; you start in a map with no timer and no objectives. There are some collectables, like secret tapes and nailing all the gaps, but the meat is that you need to accomplish a certain number of goals to move to the next chapter. These goals are given by quest NPCs (or you can jump straight to them through the menu), and unlike previous games these tend to be more specific and more esoteric. Some might be collecting a bunch of icons (which usually requires you to skate a specific course), others will be to land several specific tricks in a time limit (which is much less fun than the versions in previous THPS games which were things like "5-0 grind the helicopter"), and then a few are to get a certain number of points or a large enough combo in a time limit. It's less organic than THPS, and the level design is far worse. While THPS levels were pretty contrived in terms of how everything is super skate friendly at least it meant that you could have a lot of fun just screwing around and letting things take you were they will. The levels in THUG are much more real world and consequently less fun to play in.

The less said about the vehicle sections the better.

This is definitely where the series goes downhill.
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Re: Games Beaten 2017

by ElkinFencer10 Sun Jan 01, 2017 11:24 pm

Let's start this list again!
Games Beaten in 2017 So Far - 1

January (1 Game Beaten)
1. Persona 4 Arena - Playstation 3 - January 1


1. Persona 4 Arena - Playstation 3 - January 1

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I'm a huge fan of the Persona series. I honestly like it much more than the base Shin Megami Tensei series. Why? Because of the characters. Don't get me wrong, there are great characters in the regular Shin Megami Tensei games, but the character development in the Persona games is on a whole different level. Naturally, I like the idea of anything that keeps using characters that I've come to know and love, and that's what this game does - bring back the beloved characters from Persona 4 and even a few from Persona 3 in an all new storyline taking place after but referencing events from both games.

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Not many fighting games put storytelling above gameplay and flashy finishers, but being an Atlus game, narrative is at the heart of Persona 4 Arena. Honestly, it's not entirely fair to call this a fighting game. In my opinion, it's more aptly described as a visual novel with a fighting game packaged in because that's what the story mode will feel like - a visual novel. I spent probably around 10 hours with this one playing through the 5 of the 12 characters' stories that I did, and probably spent half an hour max actually fighting. You'll spent twenty minutes of dialogue to get to a fight that will be over in thirty seconds. Only once did a fight take me longer than a minute; it took me about a minute and a half. Many will say that's a major flaw, but I think it's this game's strength. If you're a fan of Persona, you're a fan because of the storytelling above all else, and this game gives you the full Persona story experience. The feel of the actual fighting shows that, too; it's apparent that the focus was on continuing the narratives from Persona 3 and Person 4 first and on the fighting mechanics second. It's not that the actual fighting is bad because it's not, but it feels rather...standard. It doesn't stand out as especially polished like Street Fighter or Virtua Fighter, for example. That may turn fighting game junkies off.

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My favorite thing about this game - other than the brilliant story - is the music. It's the exact same soundtrack from Persona 4, and that should be all I need to say to tell you exactly why this game's music is so good. Persona 4 has, in my opinion, one of the greatest gaming soundtracks of all-time, and the used that same soundtrack for this game. Brilliant. Utterly brilliant. Now let's get to the one aspect of the game that I really didn't think was at ALL brilliant - the facial animations. More accurately the lack of any real ones. During the dialogue, the only thing that would move on the faces would be the mouths. That's not that uncommon, I know, but when you have a face that takes up a third of the screen and the only thing that even remotely moves is the mouth, it's creepy. It's even creepier when that mouth is just moving up and down repeatedly with no attempt to match any real words whatsoever. It's a minor gripe, I know, but it's REALLY creepy once you notice it, and once you see it, you can't ever NOT see it again.

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Honestly, this is the first fighting game that's ever truly impressed me. I'm a very single player oriented kind of gamer, so for a fighting game to really suck me in and knock my socks off is completely unheard of. The fighting itself may just be so-so, but the storytelling and the unique perspectives of each of the 12 characters is absolutely phenomenal. Enough praise cannot be heaped onto this game.
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Sarge
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Re: Games Beaten 2017

by Sarge Mon Jan 02, 2017 12:17 am

I dunno, I sit up and take notice when Arc System Works gets involved in a fighter. The only real issue with their games, though, is that they tend to be overly dense mechanically. But they almost always look fantastic, at the minimum.

I assume Atlus' involvement led to the beefed up story, and it might give me a good reason to snag P4A Ultimax at some point.

So, time to start a new list!

January:
1) The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition (PC)

Yep, the classic. I'd actually gotten around 2/3 done with the game years and years ago, but lost the save when the PC I was using crashed and burned. And it was an old, temporary PC that I'd cobbled together for when I was visiting the parents, so that it happened was no great surprise.

Anyway, the special edition has redone graphics, which look good in some spots and not as good in others. I hate how Guybrush looks, though. That haircut... yeesh. He doesn't look that doofy in the other entries. Other than that, it's classic Lucasarts stuff. A nice feature of this release is that you can press F10 to swap between the new graphics and the old ones on the fly. It's pretty great! The voice work is good enough that you'll probably want to hear that, but I always like to see how the backgrounds looked in the original, and I also found it easier at times to manage the UI in the old version.

A true classic, even if I don't play adventure games a ton, and I definitely snickered at a few bits of humor, so I'll say 8.5/10. Probably took around 5-6 hours. (Also, this version adds a hint system in, although sometimes the hints are a little too on the nose.)
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isiolia
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Re: Games Beaten 2017

by isiolia Mon Jan 02, 2017 12:29 am

ElkinFencer10 wrote:Honestly, this is the first fighting game that's ever truly impressed me. I'm a very single player oriented kind of gamer, so for a fighting game to really suck me in and knock my socks off is completely unheard of. The fighting itself may just be so-so, but the storytelling and the unique perspectives of each of the 12 characters is absolutely phenomenal. Enough praise cannot be heaped onto this game.


Aksys games tend to do pretty extensive story modes as well, if you haven't played 'em - most/all of the Blazblue games do (and there are the XBlaze prequel VNs for them), along with the newer Guilty Gear games, offhand.
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PartridgeSenpai
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Re: Games Beaten 2017

by PartridgeSenpai Mon Jan 02, 2017 1:28 am

My 2016 List

Partridge Senpai's 2017 Beaten Games:

1. Tales of Hearts R (Vita)

Another year, another Tales game just narrowly beaten past last year's end. Of course, this year was far closer than last years (I think I beat Vesperia on January 8th or something, but whatever). I wanted to beat this yesterday, but I guess I thought I was like 10 hours from the end, when I was actually 20, so I ended up beating it earlier tonight. Not my favorite Tales game, but a very good one none the less. For reference, I played through with the combat difficulty on the default setting, and I hunted around for goodies quite a lot (although completely without a guide), so my end clock was at right around 47 hours.

The combat is very Tales with the Linear Motion Battle System LMBS-ing it up like normal, with a few minor twists as the series is want to do. This is a post-Abyss Tales game, so not only are the battles in 3D environments (like Symphonia), but you can also free-run around in them (like in Abyss). One feature (which was added especially for the Vita remake) is the Chase Link system, which is basically the ability to kick off a super combo where the enemy will be unable to block for a few seconds once they've been sufficiently beat upon. Any member of your party can do it, and it makes combat flow much faster.

The main limit on your Artes is the TC limit of each character, which is very similar to the CC gauge that would appear in Graces, where you can only do so many Artes (but not normal attacks, which are free, unlike Graces) before you need to not attack for a moment to let the gauge recharge. It adds another element to combat that keeps it from being crazy spammy like Vesperia or Abyss were, but TP also ends up not being so much of a problem for users of mainly physical Artes (like the main character can be (and as I played him)). Lastly, there are manually activatable overlimits with the easiest to execute Mystic Artes out of any Tales game I've played so far, which was greatly appreciated (they were so confusing to do in Vesperia and Graces that I basically never even tried to do them on my own). The tutorials on how to do every fighting mechanic are also very good, and are also the best out of any Tales game I've played so far, which was very nice.

The leveling up system is also very unique from any other Tales game I've played. Instead of just getting basic level ups, you get a certain number of AP which you can allocate into any of 5 different sections of your character. Just putting points into a certain section will raise certain stats, but once you put in the required number to level up that section, you'll unlock a new Arte, skill, weapon, or stat boost for that character.

It makes it so you can really make any character play how you want them to play, for the most part. Everyone does have their own unique artes, but everyone does have physical, hybrid, and spell Artes, so you can be a spell slinging main character if you want to. Though because everyone has their own spells, only certain characters can fill certain roles (ex: Only 3 out of 8 characters ever learn healing artes, so only they can be healers, and even then they learn different healing artes). Characters also have bonds between them which level up if they participate in enough battles with each other (and can also be boosted through viewing skits or story events), and once their bonds are high enough, then certain character-exclusive skills can be shared among those who have sufficient bond levels. It makes for very customizable characters, and I'd say that this is the most customizable Tales game I have so far played.

The story, however, is where this game really kills it for me. Tales of Hearts R has a very divided opinion on its story, and for good reason: The game's English translation has a very distinct tonal dissonance with what the original Japanese version had. Couple this with the fact that the game has only Japanese voice overs and only English text, and someone with a knowledge of Japanese like myself got annoyed very quickly that the two were so very different. The Japanese puts across a much more serious, darker tone, while the English lines constantly try to be silly and add in tons of jokes in scenes where they feel really inappropriate (like, every other damn line).

This bad translation is most sour for me, because of the really cool things the story tries to do. The story has the biggest effort out of any Tales game I've played on trying to give its (rather wide cast of) villains, if not realistic, motives that the player can empathize with. Incarose especially, has to be one of my new favorite villains from the series.

Add this in with the fact that Hearts R is a remake of Hearts into which they inserted a brand new character to the main cast (Gall), who generally sticks out as feeling inadequately developed and focused upon compared to the other 7, and you have a story that really isn't up to par with what I'd come to expect from the series. Granted, the story is still quite good and interesting, but it isn't up there with games like Graces or Vesperia in terms of ones that are my all time favorites. This is just a more basic level JRPG story (although I will admit I did cry at once scene, though that is not my end-all judge of how good a story is in an RPG).

Verdict: Recommended. It's a Tales game, so it's obviously gonna be good, but it's not the totally incredible level that I'd come to expect from the late 2000's games. Though, for English speakers, this is probably the best portable Tales experience you're going to get mechanically speaking, I'd probably stick with Abyss on 3DS if you want a more fulfilling story experience.
Last edited by PartridgeSenpai on Mon Apr 10, 2017 10:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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