July update
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- Nice graphic
- Good story and dialogues
- HOG sequences are story related (so you look for scissors when you need scissors, not for butterflies like in Artiflex Mundi games)
- Action elements when you have to use gun
- Enjoyable puzzles
- Easy 100%
Cons:
- Bit short
- It suffers from "I have knife, why do I have to look for scissors to cut this?"
- I had a gun, but couldn't go on rampage and kill bunch of random NPCs
Conclusion:
If you are into HOG games, but are bored with Artiflex Mundi clones this game is for you. It mixes nice mechanics, simple puzzles, good story and action elements into enjoyable 4-hour experience.
Screenshots
- Generally bug free
- Nice artstyle
- Easy 100%
Cons:
- Various collision problems
- No plot
- Repetitive music
- Way too easy platforming and puzzle elements
Conclusion:
Artstyle gives immediate Limbo vibe but in the end it's generic platformer with collision problems. And they are so easy to trigger that you will get glued to platforms ledges or bottoms all the time. Although apart from this game is bug free.
Screenshots
- Gorgeous art
- Fitting music
- Really good (and moderately easy) platforming parts
- Enjoyable albeit really tough combat
- Well designed bosses
- Involving plot
- Edit: Game will have 3 free DLC, first one is out and include new area, 2 bosses and various fixes. Looks like I will beat this game again after all DLC will be out ; D
Cons:
- One save with checkpoint / resurrection system, so if your save is damaged you're screwed
- No native mouse support, if you want to use K+M you have to remap keys to mouse buttons
- Lack of tutorial
- DarkSouls-like system where you loose all money if you won't be able to go back to place you died
Conclusion:
First thought after starting this game is "Oh it's soo like Ori". And it is, but not quite. As in Ori difficulty is based on timing and platforming parts while in Hollow Knight on boss fights and DS-like death mechanism. I had already played ~26 hours and was near the end when game broke in weird way and I was respawned on level with 1 enemy, but without my character. Good thing that I made manual save backup around 6 hours before this. Otherwise I'd drop this game and couldn't count it as part of monthly theme. Some platforming parts were hard, as game doesn't explain how to do certain moves. Especially cut-down-jumping.
Screenshots
- Nice graphic
- Enjoyable head shots
- Ability to play whole campaign in co-op
- Possibility to beat whole game in stealth approach
Cons:
- Bad AI and dumb enemies even on highest difficulty
- Generic "stop Nazists from destroying world" plot
- Bone fractures and blood in killing scenes looks off sometimes
- Stealth approach is ruined by dumb enemies
- Grindy achievements
- Various physic bugs
Conclusion:
It's nice head shot simulator. But at the same time it's not really good. Enemies lost interest quickly, even when there are tons of bodies lying around (they don't even stay in alert mode). Only thing that is affected by difficulty is distance they spot you and their damage, so you get killed after 20, not 4 shots.
Screenshots
- Mad Max prototype
- Various guns and possibilities to kill enemies
- Fights with creepy creatures without horror themes
Cons:
- Terribly outdated graphic
- Small map (there is no in-game map at all, creators decided you won't be able to get lost either way xD)
- Inconsistent difficulty
- Player "classes" without real impact on gameplay
- Tons of junk to collect
- Optimization problems
Conclusion:
If you already beat Mad Max, RAGE will feel like badly made Mad Max rip-off. But then you realize that this game is 4 years older. So in fact Mad Max took all mechanics from RAGE, polished them, changed theme from "kill mutants" to "kill bandits", and FPS combat into batman combat. So you have driving in upgradable cars around small map and junk collecting, with some dose of out-of-the-car combat. Biggest game flaw in inconsistent difficulty, where you walk through 90% of game like a pro with tons of spare ammo, near the end there are 2 super thought missions which I ended up with most simple pistol (other ammo completely depleted), and for lats mission you get super-duper minigun that kills everything in 2-3 shots and has 1000 bullets. Yeah.
Screenshots
- Nice adventure / visual novel mix
- Few different characters with their backstory
- Interesting story
- Simple puzzle / logical elements
Cons:
- Even though there are few characters, there is only one route every time
- Annoying moving through doors animation
- Repetitive sounds
Conclusion:
You end up in damaged colony and have to evacuate. Base AI creates holograms of dead crew members to help you improve escape ship. Gameplay is divided to day part where you go to damaged colony buildings to gather necessary junk / bits of info, and part where you talk with holograms to get to know them better and motivate them to work better on upgrading escape ship. Game is nice, tho midway it gets repetitive due to "go to mine and scan junk to be able to talk with hologram" gameplay.
The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky ⭐️⭐☆☆☆
jRPG Turn based46 hours playtime, 11 of 27 achievements (41%)
- Character humor
- Plot that looks interesting and not generic
- Ability to outrun every non-boss combat without repercussion
Cons:
- Outdated handheld graphic
- When you think game will reveal it's secrets, it ends abruptly and make you feel like you wasted 50h on way too long prologue
- Credits basically scream "You played prologue, now go and buy 2nd chapter to know what game is about"
- Boring and repetitive combat
- Economy where you can sell sepith (magic gems) but can' buy them
- To unlock special abilities you need convert sepith into quartz but as exchange rate is ridiculous you can't do this through most of the game (after 46h of gameplay I had ~2600 of each sepith and 1 quartz cost 800. You need at least 2 quartz to unlock end-game abilities and you have 7 characters)
- Inability to fast travel to previous locations, even though it looks like game has working airliners fast travel system
- Characters doesn't stack on the map, so you run with them like in snake game, and mobs can easily engage you in combat
- Terribly grindy to get sepith, but you basically swim in gold all the time
- Way too long ending sequence that ends with shallow "love theme"
Conclusion:
It's first game I'm giving only 2 stars, even tho I'm on this site for 9 months. I wanted to beat it, as it was part of monthly challenge and direct gift from friend, so I forced myself to sit for so long and play. But at the end I sat and happily said "At last, the nightmare is over". Only positive thing about this game are nicely written characters, but I could find it in other game that wouldn't be so painful to play xD
Screenshots
Hollow Knight <3 Currently playing it (only 2 bosses in), had no idea that can happen to save files. Thanks for warning me at least.
I’m not sure why you would say ‘Lack of tutorial’, there’s a tutorial area and they explain how to use new abilities when you get them, right? I wouldn’t have liked anything more I think.
It’s best to find save game folder and copy it somewhere from time to time. That way in case of “something went wrong” you can copy it and enjoy game again :D
As for tutorial - they do say something when you acquire new ability - dash, monarch wings, vengeful spirit, wasps etc. But they don’t say how to unlock map (I was unluckily enough that I couldn’t find cartograph and spent like 2h in the dark, lol), how to do this attack jump or that you can store geo in a bank. I died like crazy on those attack/jump sequences till I understood that I can keep pressing down, attack and move at the same time. I though that doing so will break combo, so I kept doing “down + attack, move to the side, down + attack” etc. Ha ha.
I will do that, thank you :)
Those are some good points actually. After I made that comment yesterday I was also wandering around without map xD
I don’t think I’m far enough for those sequences you mentioned, but I’ll keep it in mind.
I see that you’re at the beginning of the game :D
First time attack/jump technique will be used in Fungal Wastes on small purple/pink mushrooms. And later on on 2 enemies.
I was talking about Fungal Wastes when I was wandering around without a map! And I came across those mushrooms but thought I needed a new ability to be able to jump high on them! At least that’s what I think they’re for. Ok, then I totally agree, they should have made a tutorial part for that :P
Well, it’s sad to see Trails In the Sky didn’t rock your boat. I’m playing it at the moment and having a blast.
And to reply to your “Outdated handheld graphic”, know that the original was released (on PS2?) in 2003 or 2004.
I don’t see why graphics, with a game that old, should a problem…
Yeah, I know that it’s that old game. They did upped resolution nicely, and made totally new and high-res avatars and menus as a part of PS3 remasters. But it’s not original handheld game, it was released in 2004 for Windows in Japan, then ported to PSP in 2006 and remastered on PS3 in 2012. And this game doesn’t even have full 3D, characters are flat textures, that’s why they move around so awkwardly when camera moves.
2004 is year of KOTOR 2, Half-Life 2 or Fable. So fact that it’s old doesn’t explain why it looks like this.
I also wrote about (terribly) outdated graphic in RAGE part. It’s just that some games do age nicely, and others don’t. RAGE was released the same year as Deus Ex: Human Revolution or Dead Space 2, and they look way better. Trails in the Sky could also look better, but isn’t.
Though it’s not written to attack those games, just to show that buyers shouldn’t expect good graphics out of them. As Steam screenshots are not always accurate :P Esp in RAGE example, as they focused there on good looking NPCs models, completely omitting backgrounds.
Nice progress, congrats!
Alone with you is really intriguing.
So Trails in the Sky is a prologue to the whole series? It doesn’t have a self contained story? Damn. I keep wondering for months if I want this game or not, and I can’t really seem to make my mind either way :/ I’m also a bit scared about the grindiness of those kind of JPRG.
It does have it’s own story. Your father go on journey (no one knows why) and you have to go around whole continent to became full-fledged bracer (it’s like mercenary-help-people thingy). Along the way you find weird black “thing”, and then you discover (more or less) what it is, who found it, big conspiracy etc. (It’s nothing spectacular, main villain is standard “looks nice, but it’s evil” type of enemy).
But you have cliffhanger at the very end of the game that say “Oh you discovered black thingy? Well it’s the tip of the iceberg, and to know what really is happening you have to buy second chapter!”
Sure, you can have series that continue main theme in few games (like Mass Effect, where you learn something at the end of 1st game and know that there will be 2nd part, and want to discover more). But IMO here it feels like bigger game is cut into half, so you get 1st part (prologue that explains world setting and character interactions, show how you became bracer), and then they show you that there is 2nd part where you will (at last) start to really do something on your own to save the day (well plus “big love” theme between 16 y/o kids - looks like it will be main hero motivation through big part of 2nd chapter). There is also 3rd chapter, so I think that those kiddos will find each other in 2nd game, and save the day in 3rd game xD
Thanks for the explanation :D
Quite a progress and the games you’ve played are good as well.
From your update I’ve played Sniper elite 3 and Toby. I can say I’m big fan of Sniper Elite, I really liked the second one V2. Got all the achievements for it some of which were very hard. I share your feels for the 3rd game, I can’t say I liked it. They keep making the same game in different places. MP is a mess, DLCs are stupid and pointless.
Toby was fine, I simply put it in my self named category “Discount Limbo”.
For the rest of your update Rage and Hallow Knight picked my attention and probably pick them some time in the future.
I really love your CSS style for your update, looks pretty neat.
Thanks :D
Yeah, I expected Sniper Elite 3 to be improved version of SE 2. But apart that it’s in open maps it’s nothing new. More like evolution of old theme than game with big changes (and killing cams do look worse in SE3 xD). Plus there are no ricochets! I tried to many times to line up enemies and kill them with one shot. Nope. First enemy is dead, and second is like “what happened? D:” And SE 2 had achievements for killing enemies that way. Lame.
I fully recommend Hollow Knight if you like simple platformers and Dark-Souls-like combat (bosses with attack pattern which you have to learn and use against them). As for RAGE - I’s nice, combat is indoors-only (so it feels like normal FPS) plus you drive around in car. Just don’t expect amazing story behind this ;P
And it’s not CSS (BLAEO doesn’t support it at all, you can’t even use it to change font color in whole post :P). So it’s plain HTML with some panels. I tried to use carousel for screenshots, but this doesn’t work as well.
I’m currently playing Dead Cells and many people compare it to Hallow Knight? Dead Cells is VERY nice mind checking it if you want :)
Ok, I’ll trust you. But I gotta say, that all the things I have published on FF.de so far, are older. Everything recent is either not far enough/done or was written in Forums, so…. yeah, nothing new among it ;)
Already ninja’ed it, thx. Tho it may take me a long time to get through even one text with my german proficiency xD
No problem :)
You don’t even have to red it, if you don’t feel like it, at some point :D
One more thing. How did you do this breakfast board? WIth magnification glass or soldering iron? Or something else? ; D
Nah, it’s not soldering iron. Soldering iron is used to connect various electronic stuff together by melting down metal.
And this is to burning images in wood. And only for that. And as we don’t have something like this in Poland at all, I don’t have name for this. Heh. Cool tho, as it’s not pricey. And english translation is “woodburning pen”. Kinda fitting xD
I am not sure though if it is not the same thing. Like you could probably use it for that as well, but… I will not try it. For one reason, because I don’t do that kinda stuff. For another: My current woodburning pen seems to be heading straight to a break down. It’s super quick getting super hot, so I have to either burn my fingers while holding it or take an awful lot of breaks.
I’ll get a new one for my next project. This is madness! ;)
Well, you could get one through amazon.de right? I mean, even if you can’t get it in Poland per se. If you really wanted to start with that ;)
Ohhh nooo, I’m sorry you didn’t like Legend of Heroes <:c I absolutely agree with everything you said about it, but for some reason… it just didn’t bother me.
I’m glad you enjoyed your other games, though.
I’d enjoy it far more IF they would have travel system. I was struggling with shining poms in 1st chapter and thought “well they have airliners, so I will go back here after I buffed my characters, as now killing them is impossible”. I played like this to end of 4 th chapter to learn that I can’t go back and use my strong characters to clear past areas. This made me angry and I ran through rest of the game without caring much.
I’m fine when they give you clear indication that there is point of no return, but not after every district gate and without notification >_> I like to grab as much achievement as I can, so this was final blow on this game.
Oh god I just had a war flashback to struggling against those friggin shining poms in chapter 1. I had to grind SO MUCH to fight those. One the upside: I was pretty overleveled for a long ass time?
I absolutely agree - I started with a guide and that’s how I was able to swing everything in one go (though I had to restart a few times and lose some hours of progress) but without one I’d be in your position.