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Rate the Last Game That You Played

Ys VIII Lacrimosa of Dana 8/10

A solid 8 here. Its got rave reviews across the board with little negativity. Apparantly this is the first fully 3D entry in the series and the first time the series has gone for an island survival narrative.

Its nice that all the NPCs that make your armour and weapons etc that take up residence in your makeshift village on the deserted island youre trapped on are fleshed out and its nice how the game builds their characters. Alison isnt just a tailor, she is a shipwreck survivor who has lost her husband, who is also a talented tailor. You want to find her husband not just for her because youre nice like that but because he can help make better armour when you do.

The gameplay feels like an arcade version of Tales or one of those crappy SAO games Bandai keeps throwing out (but better). Theres a lot of real time fast paced action to be had and it all works well.

Thing is its really tacky. It looks tacky (neon green waistcoats with glossy purple flares), the characters are tacky and the story is tacky. Ys has been around since the 80s and Tales less so but there's a reason why people prefer playing Tales. Ys feels like a tacky lesser Tales game and as an owner of Tales games I'd just rather play Tales. So I do.

If you dont like Tales though then fill your boots, Ys is the next best thing.
 

Cfrock

Keep it strong
Joined
Mar 17, 2012
Location
Liverpool, England
NieR: Automata
Some hours have passed and my complete dissatifaction with the ending (ending A, anyway) has subsided a little, so I feel I can give some thoughts on this without just moaning about things. I am going to start with some of those things I didn't like so this post can end positively.

First off, I really am not a fan of various story/style tropes found, predominantly, in Japanese ficiton. Some examples from NieR: The villain gives a long, elaborate speech on his thesis and motivations during a fast-paced, intense boss fight, robbing the fight of its tension and the speech of its gravitas and impact (this happened twice); multi-stage boss fights were the various forms have no relation to one another (Eve starting as a big ball, then becoming a big worm, then becoming Ghirahim with Wesker's arms from RE5); including grandiose themes (like what is life? what is human nature?) and 'exploring' them in such a shallow, farcical manner that it's like a small child trying to be deep and meaningful (the Romeo and Juliet play the machines put on at one stage did a far better job of examining humanity's propensity to love and kill than anything Adam said or did at any point); villains who have their skin turn black for no reason to show they are even more villainous now (pet peeve, it looks stupid).

Second, the side-quests I did were, with a couple of exceptions, fetch quests or escort missions. I liked the idea of protecting the 'happiness' parade from violent machines, but escort missions are boring when you do about five of them in a row. I gave up with side-quests after a point because I had no reason to believe they would be interesting. On repeat plays I will probably do more of them.

Those are my biggest issues, and I fully and wholly accept that the bulk of that is simply my dislike of general Japanese tropes and not issues related specifically to NieR itself, if that makes sense. As in, NieR doesn't do these things badly, but doing them at all is a turn-off for me. So it's not too bad. The big issue was that, since so much of that all happened at the end in a relatively short spam of time, it drowned out the things I really liked about the game just as it was finishing, leaving me feeling very negative towards the game for the immediate aftermath. Knowing I would level off and the salt would fade, I've held off posting about it.

So the good. Basically everything I didn't mention above.

Gameplay was fantastic. Fluid, very satisfying, intuitive enough to not be complex but deep enough to make me feel like I was being very skillful. The kind of combat were failure is very clearly due to your own failings and not some unfortunate nonsense or random number rolls. It was as fun to fight single, damage sponge enemies as it was to fell hordes of weak enemies.

The world was just big enough to feel big, but small enough that running from one zone to another wasn't as bad of a chore as it could have been. I would have liked the teleport ability to come in a little sooner, but it wasn't an issue having to walk.

The entire Amusement Park was effing 10/10. When that tank showed up I lost my ****. 9S is all "We have to destroy it, or it'll be a threat later on," and I was like, "It's firing ballons and confetti. Balloons have one speed, lad: harmless." Very enjoyable.

The music is great, too. I'm not sure it'll live with me the way some classic catchy tunes do, but the music in the machine village, the amusement park, while fighting the religious zealots in the factory, all top notch stuff that really added to the atmosphere of each location/event.

I really liked the shooter sections, as well as areas played on a 2D plane. Was a nice way to break up the pace of gameplay and offer variety without requiring I learn an entirely new style of gameplay. The fact that all of these forms of play tranisition pretty seamlessly is another bonus.

I got to put a pretty blue ribbon in my hair.

The sound of my heels as I run.

Dat ass.

I understand that I've seen very little of the game and will have to play it again (several times) to really 'finish' it. I've decided to play something else before I go back, though, to give that part of my brain that hated the ending time to simmer down so I can go back mindful of what I really liked about the game. Even then, NieR gets a big thumbs up from me so far.
 

Ronin

There you are! You monsters!
Forum Volunteer
Joined
Feb 8, 2011
Location
Alrest
Fate/Extella: The Umbral Star - 7/10

The latest game from one of my favorite series, but far from the greatest. Fate/Extella is an ambitious departure from the original visual novel roots, instead attempting to blend fast paced action with VN elements which leaves a lot to be desired. Being a hack'n'slash game made from the same mold as Warriors you might expect it to be just as fluid, but the reality is that the gameplay is choppy to say the least. While the combat itself is plenty fun, it's the camera or lack of a proper lock-on mechanic rather that makes the frenetic action feel nauseating. Most of the time you need to attack a specific target to clear an area of enemies (Warriors style), but it's hard to keep track of them because only indicator is an arrow pointing towards them. Although the gameplay fails in this regard, the story stays in line with the commonplace drama found in Fate as characters from various points in history with varying ideals gather to face off, and they are consistent with the source material. I can't recommend this to someone looking for a competent action game, but the story and characters made it worth the while.

YS VIII: The Lacrimosa of Dana - 9/5/10

YS is a series that had been around since the '80s and it practically created RPGs as we know them. The protagonist, Adol, is an adventurer who gets stranded on the mysterious island Seiren and he and a group of castaways must uncover its secrets in order to survive. A good portion of the game is filling out the map as you explore and defeat hostile creatures, but the dynamic real time combat is more than enough to keep you engaged for hours on end. Granted, there are abrupt difficulty spikes at times, meaning that you might have to change up the party to find a more suitable attack pattern. However, this is balanced out by allowing the player to customize the party in various ways and rewarding exploration; the monotony can also be broken up by taking on interception and suppression missions, both of which give perks for defending the village. Eventually, the plot gets more intricate as it goes on and the titular character, Dana, is introduced from another time period, allowing you to play in the past and present with a different moveset in each. The emphasis on survival makes the story worth checking out, but the payoff with some of the characters was undercut by tropey attributes and some annoying score-based missions.
 
Fate/Extella: The Umbral Star - 7/10

The latest game from one of my favorite series, but far from the greatest. Fate/Extella is an ambitious departure from the original visual novel roots, instead attempting to blend fast paced action with VN elements which leaves a lot to be desired. Being a hack'n'slash game made from the same mold as Warriors you might expect it to be just as fluid, but the reality is that the gameplay is choppy to say the least. While the combat itself is plenty fun, it's the camera or lack of a proper lock-on mechanic rather that makes the frenetic action feel nauseating. Most of the time you need to attack a specific target to clear an area of enemies (Warriors style), but it's hard to keep track of them because only indicator is an arrow pointing towards them. Although the gameplay fails in this regard, the story stays in line with the commonplace drama found in Fate as characters from various points in history with varying ideals gather to face off, and they are consistent with the source material. I can't recommend this to someone looking for a competent action game, but the story and characters made it worth the while.

I told you.

7/10 is generous too
 

Ronin

There you are! You monsters!
Forum Volunteer
Joined
Feb 8, 2011
Location
Alrest
I told you.

7/10 is generous too
Three points got knocked down for the camera, but I probably could have mentioned the terrible stage design too. Taking that into account...6/10 (can't go any lower because the story wrapped up nicely and the characters were consistent).
 

Castle

Ch!ld0fV!si0n
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Oct 24, 2012
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Crisis? What Crisis?
Gender
Pan-decepticon-transdeliberate-selfidentifying-sodiumbased-extraexistential-temporal anomaly
Final Fantasy XIV: We FK'd Up The First Time So Here It Is Again

It's WoW with a Final Fantasy skin. No surprise there. Your selection of races boils down to:
a.) Human, because everyone wants to play themselves in a virtual fantasy land
b.) Loli (check)
c.) Furry (check)
d.) Big beefy primitive giant with names like "Sits On Wind" (check)
e.) Can't even look at it on the character creation screen because it's locked behind a pay wall.

Appearance customization is woefully limited.

When you boot up you commence your never ending procession of b*tchwork fetch quests to run here click on this/fight this many enemies -> return. This will persist until you either quit the game or die from the sheer vapid monotony of it all.

You choose an initial job and early on you can switch to two others because they're in the same starting city you begin in. Every player can eventually progress along any job class and switch between them at will. So what little remains of actual roleplaying in our role playing game has been eliminated because players can now be any role at all times. Do not mistake this for Final Fantasy's lauded job system, because there is no over-lap between classes. No stats or abilities carry over from one job to another. Armor can be worn for any class but weapons are exclusive. Each class only has one weapon type. Specialization is virtually non existent.

You can own a house for no reason.

Combat is flashy which makes it look more action packed, but it's still the same tab-target style that predates Guild Wars 2. It would be easy to turn it into the more direct action style of combat as GW2, Black Desert, Tera, etc with the simple addition of a dodge function, but alas. You'll also cycle between the same 4-8 abilities in combat over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again for every fight from your first minute in the game to the sweet merciful release of the last.

It has a story. On rare occasion a scene might be fully voiced. Most of the time you will be skipping past thousands of lines of pointless inconsequential dialog reading.

Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm of Warcraft is every post-WoW MMORPG ever made. 2/10
 

Cfrock

Keep it strong
Joined
Mar 17, 2012
Location
Liverpool, England
Legend of Grimrock 2
Had a lot of fun with this. Felt a little clunky at first, since I've never played a game like this before, but once I got in the swing of it I was away. Provides a lovely sense of adventure, as well as plenty of good puzzles. It can be quite frustrating at times, but overall it was a blast.
 

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