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Rate the Last Game That You Played

Joined
Nov 30, 2021
Hat in Time reminds me of a lot of 3d Mario Games actually. Most of the levels remind me of Mario 64 and Sunshine but the hub world reminds me of Mario Galaxy. It actually reminds me the most of Mario Odyssey but it released 3 weeks before Odyssey so there was no way for either game to really get inspired by each other.
 
Kirby's Adventure 9/10

This might be my new second favorite NES game of all time, behind only SMB3. I love the level design with all the colorful worlds, and I enjoyed seeing where copy abilities originated from. My main complaints are that a few of the abilities are redundant and that the final boss was a lot harder than the rest of the game.
 

thePlinko

What’s the character limit on this? Aksnfiskwjfjsk
ZD Legend
StarFox Assault
StarFox has always been that series that never quite came close to its potential to me. I played the original, didn’t care for it at all. I finished 64, thought it was alright but I didn’t care to replay it or try for the good ending. Command is probably my favorite of the ones I’ve played but even it didn’t grab my attention. I’ve heard good things about Assault in the past so I thought that I might at least give it a try and its... ok.

The biggest issue is that half the time its not a StarFox game, its a 3rd person shooter with the occasional arwing or landmaster being dropped on your head for you to use in levels that clearly weren’t designed with them in mind. Every single one of these levels is bad, without exception. They’re all the same damn thing. “Navigate this clunky world and shoot 10 enemy spawners to beat the level.” With one or two swapping the enemy spawners for something else. They wouldn’t even be so bad if they didn’t use tank controls, but those alone ruin any sort of enjoyment I got out of these levels. Tank controls only work when you want a game to have some sort of tension in its atmosphere, like in Metroid Prime or old RE, and even then they’re less than ideal. Here they’re just awful.

Then there are the on-wing segments, where fox jumps on the wing of one of his allies’ ships and shoots things as said ally slowly flies around and doesnt even attempt to actually attack or dodge enemies. These are even worse than the ground segments. They take ages to complete and all you do is shoot things before they hit you. It takes any skill out of dodging or dogfighting like you’d want in a StarFox game and replace them with a stupid turret section. There are only 2, but 2 were enough to to put a bad taste in my mouth. The Corneria one in particular is simply awful, even if its not particularly difficult.

There are 10 levels in the game. Exactly 4 of them predominantly use the arwing (some of the ground missions allowed you to occasionally fly one to shoot some flying enemies in maps that were way too small or made you fight bosses with them). 4. That means that only ~2/5 of this StarFox game is spent being a StarFox game. Wasn’t this one of the biggest issue’s people had with Adventures? I mean sure, 64 had the Landmaster levels and that one submarine level, but not only they were few and far between, but they also played incredibly similar to the arwing levels. Keep in mind that not even all of the arwing levels are winners, the final one in particular is filled with traps and enemies whose attacks are nearly unavoidable.

The voice acting is good, but some of the decisions they made in the direction was weird. The voices in 64 were already great, iconic even, so replacing every single actor is definitely a weird choice. In most cases it works out fine, but I couldn’t get over how different Slippy, Andrew, Pigma, and especially Leon sounded.

Assault isn’t the worst game I’ve ever played, but it’s probably the worst StarFox game, at least out of the ones that I’ve actually finished. The arwing levels are (mostly) really good, the best in the series even, but the sheer amount of simply awful ground segments makes me not able to recommend this to anyone. Soundtrack is amazing though. 5/10
 
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The Dashing Darknut

DD, the dashing one
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Hollow Knight 9/10

A game I got from my brother for my birthday, at first I wasn’t too impressed

It was to me at first a pretty boring Metroidvania. The areas didn’t wow me and I found it to be tedious and frustrating. It didn’t interest me, didn’t feel very special

However, I kept playing it, and when I got to City of Tears, an area that I just loved, that’s when I started to like the game so much

The lore is generally really interesting in some parts, especially the Abyss and the Pale King. There’s a good amount of likable characters. I had a soft spot for Stag, and I loved Zote, and characters like Cloth Cornifer and Quirrel are really likable too. The dream spirits, despite their little characters, they’re pretty endearing and you can really feel for some of them

I love exploring, going through areas, finding new things or breakable walls, areas, it’s just so much fun exploring these great environments. It’s so well designed and it’s got great worldbuilding

I also like the gameplay mechanics like charms and spells. I also really like the mechanic of soul and having to attack to gain more to your meter to heal. The game overall is hard or really hard (for me) but fair, and rewarding getting through the tough parts.

My main complaint is how it gets really tedious and annoying with stuff like backtracking or the annoying boss that you have to deal with, or getting your shade back when you have no rancid eggs to give Jiji to.

But overall I loved this game. It’s a very well designed, atmospheric, and wonderful game, one that I might want to play again for a second time
 

twilitfalchion

and thus comes the end of an era
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Kirby and the Forgotten Land

Lovely game. Makes me happy to see the Kirby team actually do something decently ambitious with the series. Excellent presentation, great gameplay, half-decent plot. Plenty of good replay value with all the little side objectives. Even a few "wow" moments thrown in. Not much more you could ask for from a platformer. It's not at all worth a full $60, but it's a good game regardless.
 

The Dashing Darknut

DD, the dashing one
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Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Trials & Tribulations 8.5/10

This game… wow. I liked it. A lot. Characters, music, story, cases, were all great and well executed

The first game in series I’ve played where I’ve liked every single case. Even Recipe for Turnabout, a really dumb case, had a lot of charm in it, like Duck Gumshoe being a bigger help to Wright and Furio Tigre as a mob boss Phoenix Wright.
Turnabout Memories was a great first case where you got to play as Mia which was really great to her shine in court and have her as a playable character.

The Stolen Turnabout was a really interesting and fun case of it first seeming like just a case about defending someone charged of being a thief but takes a turn and becomes another murder case. And I loved Luke Atmey.

Turnabout Beginnings had some issues most notably The defendant being a pedophile but it was great to have another case of Mia in action and see Miles Edgeworth in the days where he was a Von Karma following asshole who’d do anything for a victory, and that It was the first case where no one wins, and leaves a big impact on the defense and prosecutor

And the Bridge to Turnabout. What a way to finish the trilogy. While I don’t like it as much as Farewell, my Turnabout (my favorite case in the series so far) this was such a great way to wrap up the trilogy and was emotional, exciting, suspenseful, and very satisfying. Maya was a great final witness, Phoenix grows as a character, Iris and Bikini (especially Iris, who’s a very sweet and endearing character) and all the main characters being there in it together, wrapping their stories for the trilogy

Music, as usual, was great. Amazing objection theme, Dahila’s theme was fantastic, Bitter Taste of Truth and Godot’s theme, the other reminisce themes as well, Luke Atmey’s theme, etc. I was kinda iffy on the pursuit theme, but I liked it, and cross examination theme is probably my least favorite, but still a great soundtrack

And Dahila Hawthorne. I really loved to hate her as a villain. She connects to the stories to almost every single main character. Being apart of the Fey family, being the witness in Mia and Edgeworth’s first trial, dating Phoenix Wright and getting him framed, she’s tied to all the stories, as a woman who did heinous and terrible crimes, one after another, to silence people, and take away from others. She’s truly a really terrible person, but such an interesting one too. Her story gets deeper and deeper the more you progress through the game, and finally being taken down, to not be seen again. Loved her as a character, such a fantastic villain introduced

The main things I disliked were some parts of Recipe for Turnabout and Turnabout Beginnings, and the prosecutor being my least favorite one so far and not being an endearing and dislike-able character for me who wasn’t fun to face off with in court, and even when he apologized in the end I stil disliked him and feel like he could’ve done a less harmful and easier situation instead of choosing to completely go with the plan he did, the game was still a very enjoyable and emotional experience, and my favorite in the series so far
 
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Ninja

Well well well
Joined
Jul 5, 2017
Fire Emblem Warriors - Three Hopes - 9/10

Three Houses was my first Fire Emblem game, and for me it was a masterpiece. Loved the story, the characters, the combat, and all the little quirks that the FE series brings to the table.

Three Hopes is really good, I love how Byleth is voiced, and the protagonist has their own personality. The music honors 3H very well, and I found myself taking my time through some of the maps to listen to it. I expected the story to be a sequel, however despite it being a spin-off, it was still enjoyable.

Combat is really fun, especially with the combos being different as the class is upgraded. Being able to recruit characters via strategy was a nice touch.

The only negative part for me is that sometimes the game just seemed like a slog to get to the main battle of the chapter, especially if you aimed to tackle all the side missions to unlock battle strategies for the last battle.

My first route was BE, I’m doing GD now with NG+, and will finish with BL. I’d love to talk spoilers in DM if anyone has more to share. :)
 

The Dashing Darknut

DD, the dashing one
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Kirby’s Epic Yarn 8.5/10

This is such a feel good game. The artstyle to the music to the overall fee of the game is so happy and charming

This is the only Kirby game where you can’t die, and while some may not like that, I don’t really care because if you get hit, you lose beads from you’re bead counter, which are important for getting a gold medal on each level. In Kirby games it’s also pretty easy to not die

While there are no copies abilities, the transformations are like copy abilities in their own way. I’d go as far to say the transformations are better than mouthful mode. There’s a fire truck, a dolphin, penguin, tank, etc for transformations, and they’re all very fun (minus the train)

Kirby also has a different play style this time. Instead of sucking things up, he uses a whip, which can be used to turn enemies into yarn balls to throw at enemies, and while not as good as the copy mechanic I still like it. Kirby also turns into a parachute and weight for his other moves, and his running animation is a car.

The levels are also very fun and unique. You have a level of anti gravity, a level that goes from day to night, and a level with cabins that are mittens that you have to go throw fast.

Overall this is a very cute and fun game and a nice feel good game
 

thePlinko

What’s the character limit on this? Aksnfiskwjfjsk
ZD Legend
Guild02

Ugggggggghhhhhhh

TLDR for the last one: 7 games that Level 5 made in collaboration with other developers, first 3 sucked, 4th was alright. Moving on to the last 3.

Attack of the Friday Monsters: A Tokyo Tale

This is a adventure/visual novel/ card game design with the help of Kaz Ayabe. Never heard of him? That’s probably because he’s only worked on 6 other games, and all of them were Japan-exclusives. Apparently “AotFM” is very similar to his “Boko no Natsuyasami” series, in that they primarily involve some kid just… doing something in a rural-ish environment.

So I played it, and my reaction is as follows:


I’m just gonna be blunt here. This is one of the worst non-shovelware video games that I have ever played. The entire game consists of navigating an overworld from point A to point B and talking to a specific individual to progress this story. Its a fetch quest. The entire game is just a long string of fetch quests. There is literally no reason why this should be an open world and not just a visual novel. The only other thing that you can do is collect “glims,” every 10 glims getting you a card to use in the minigame. A minigame which consists of one of the most poorly thought out collectible card games I’ve ever seen.

Each player places 5 cards in any order face down, each matching up against the opponents respective card. You are then told how many matchups result in a win, loss, or draw. Two specific matchups have their results (but not the cards themselves) revealed. The first player must then swap any 2 cards around (regardless of if it’s actually in his or her best interest to do so, which just feels like an oversight). Then 2 more results are revealed, and the second player swaps cards. The cards are then revealed, and you see how many you won or lost. Already you can tell that theres not much in the way of strategy, but it gets worse.

The victor of each matchup is determined by Rock Paper Scissors. Each card has one of those 3 as their attributes. Theres no way of knowing which is which on the opposing side unless you just happen to get lucky when they reveal the result. Draws are determined by each cards “strength” stat, and since you are most likely to get 2 wins, 2 losses, and a draw in each game that means that whether you win or is determined by if your effectively randomly selected card is stronger than your opponents randomly selected card. If both have the same strength its a draw. You lose the entire game if you draw for some reason. Every time you lose you have to watch this damn animation of your opponent pretending to “cast a spell” on you to knock you down. Not that any of this really matters because you literally only need to win one match in the entire game so the entire card mechanic is virtually pointless. See why I hate this game?

If you took out everything card related as well as the pointless overworld then you’d be left with a by the numbers visual novel, but even that would be terrible because the writing is completely incoherent.

Things just happen. You keep getting showered with plot twists that make no sense in any context. I’m just a kid in a world with kaiju monsters attacking every friday, except the monsters are fake, but the aliens are real and they show up with 20 minutes left in the game to tell me I’m an alien. And then my dad is an alien. And then the other alien is apparently a bad guy but the game never says this and my dad just randomly starts attacking his giant robot, and then the robot picks up my mom, and then the robot puts my mom back down, and then I can cast that make believe magic spell on the robot and it works for some reason, and then some kid learns a lesson that nobody taught him, and then etc etc etc.


Literally the only positive thing that I can possibly say about this game is that its art style is… pretty good. Thats it. Just pretty good. I’ve seen it compared to studio Ghibli and I can kinda see it.

Still, the fact that thats the best thing I can say about this damn game is astonishing. This game makes me want to retroactively bump up my score of Liberation Maiden to a 3/10. Hell, it makes me want to bump up Metroid Other M to a 1/10. This is a new definition of bad.

0/10


Bugs vs Tanks


Anyone who saw me talk about this game in the shoutbox will know my thoughts on this game. Its a top-down shoot em up made by… Keiji Inafune? Mr. Mega Man? I guess this was before Comcept was bought out by Level 5 (boy was that a smart move on their end, look where all the money from Mighty No.9’s digital sales got them) so it still counts as a partner developer of sorts.

There’s a relatively shallow story here, a battalion of tanks fighting in the European theater of WW2 mysterious disappear. It turns out that they shrunk. They now have to fight bugs to survive. Its a pretty fun premise. So how do they **** it up?

D8127E19-A926-4AD6-9E80-E5E1B0E3B723.jpeg
Yeah… This is a little bit awkward. I have no issue playing as a Nazi in a game when its something like a multiplayer WW2 shooter or a board game like Axis and Allies, I mean someones gotta be on the Axis team, but in a singleplayer campaign that doesn’t even give you the option to choose between them? I mean its not like they’re completely unaware that its this taboo in the west as they still went out of their way to not include any swastikas or other specifically Nazi imagery, instead falling back one the Iron Cross. Nothing about this premise requires or benefits from the fact that the protagonists are German in any way.


So why is it the best game in this God forsaken series?

Maybe its just the fact that I’m comparing it to the rest of these games, but I really enjoyed myself playing this game. It’s absolutely rough around the edges though. For starters, you don’t really control any of the guns on the tank. Each tank has 2 guns on it (even when these tanks historically had upwards of 6 on them), a machine gun in the front of the Tanks chassis, and the turret cannon. In addition to driving the tank, your job is to aim the turret so that your gunner can fire at will. You can turn on the ability to fire manually, but the game clearly wants it to feel like you’re commanding a crew here. The biggest problem with this control setup is that the levels are pretty blatantly design with both guns in mind, yet the front facing machine gun is close to worthless. It might help here and there in a boss fight where even the tiniest amount of damage stacking will help, but when you’re being swamped with a massive amounts of bugs (something that this game just loves to do) it just kinda sucks.

The other problem is that this is a top-down shooter with a camera thats way too zoomed in. This could’ve easily been fixed with a movable camera or maybe even one that’s slightly angled, but the camera will always be centered on the tank, only slightly zooming out if your turret is centered.

Probably the worst thing this game does is the swamp mechanic. One specific map has flooded sections in it, which, being in a 20 ton tank, meant that you can’t cross it. This is all well and good until you realize that one level later requires you to cross the water, and the only thing that even kinda tells you what to do to cross is a piece of dialogue mentioning an “amphibious tank.” Sound familiar? Yup, its the same crap that was in Crimson Shroud, only this time the internet will never tell you this because I scoured the internet and found nothing on this. Granted, its not nearly as bad as by then you’re almost guaranteed to have access to an amphibious tank, but that specific tank is made out of paper-mâché, and the only other one is in another amphibious level. It’s annoying but not undoable.

The biggest strength of this game are the various tanks you can collect. In certain levels you can find abandoned tanks on the map, if you run into them they’ll become playable. This gets kinda weird because the in-game explanation is “these tanks were shrunk too,” and since there are tanks such as the Pershing or the Tiger II then this game clearly takes place towards the end of the war, yet the tank that you and your battalion start with is the Panzer III, which at this point was completely phased out.

Rant about minor historical inaccuracies in a $7 3DS eShop exclusive aside, the tank collecting is the best part of this game. There are 30 different tanks to collect, and each one of them has a model that’s relatively accurate to their real-world counterparts. This part is totally a me thing, but I always had a soft spot for WW2 era vehicular weaponry, so any singleplayer game that lets me play as them is a win. While everyone else my age said “holy crap Sonic is in Smash,” I would say “holy crap the ME-262 is in Secret Weapons Over Normandy.” This game absolutely delivers in this front, so every variant of the M4 Sherman I saw made me smile. You can also mix and match the various turrets and chassis, even give them a new weird paint job if you want. As funny as it is to see this massive Tiger II turret on a tiny FT17 chassis, I mainly stuck to the basic models. The one issue with the tank collecting is that some of the light tanks aren’t available until they’re pretty much useless, but who cares? I get to play as not one, but two different versions of the Stuart, hell yeah.

This game definitely isn’t for everyone, but I really did enjoy it, faults and all. This doesn’t save the guild series, not by a long shot, but I’d be perfectly happy to see a follow up to this one. As if that will ever happen.

6.5/10



The Starship Damrey


Ok… one more….

The Starship Damrey is a survival horror game with the development partners being 2 men named Kazuya Asano and Takemaru Abiko. The second one is apparently a decently famous mystery novel writer, but the first is… a Japanese body builder? What? You know, when I first started playing these, I was surprised that they got someone as obscure as Yoot Saito to do one, when I SHOULD’VE been surprised that they got someone as big as Keiji Inafune.

So the game starts off with this screen:

94479725-94D0-40AC-9B9C-92C24CE75E44.jpeg
Ok… you have my attention. This seems interesting.

You start off inside of a coffin-like cryosleep chamber-thingie. You are given no instructions and have to figure out the controls for yourself. It feels almost experimental, like they’re trying to see what you can figure out. Doing one thing on a computer will unlock another thing that the microphone will do, and you have to figure out what to do next until you eventually get to a remote control robot.


…aaaannnd then all of that goes away as soon as you take control of said robot.

The first 10 minutes of this game are really cool, and then as soon as you hit a certain point it just becomes a generic puzzle-“horror” game, and those quotation marks are there for a reason. Apart from the general “abandoned star ship” theme, there are zero horror elements in this game. Theres like, 2 jump scares and thats it. Luigi’s Mansion is scarier than this. All you do is go from point A to point B, and occasionally solve a puzzle. For the first hour the game feels like it’s building up to a shift in the gameplay, but then it just doesn’t.

That’s literally all I can say about this game. Its cool at first, and then just goes on to disappoint with a main gameplay loop that does nothing interesting. Its not awful, its playable, but it just… exists.

4/10

Yeah, this is definitely what put Level 5 out of business for good. A cute idea, one that had potential, ruined by poor quality control, and frankly just baffling design choices.

I guess if you want a ranking, then I’d say something like

7.Attack of the Friday Monsters
6.Liberation Maiden
5.Aeroporter
4.The Starship Damrey
3.Crimson Shroud
2.Weapons Shop de Omasse
1.Bugs vs Tanks

The fact that Crimson Shroud is the third best one says a lot. Of the 7, Bugs vs Tanks and Weapons Shop de Omasse are the only 2 that are even worth a damn, and even then you have to really be into that sort of thing.

Guild 2 is a 4/10, Guild as a whole is probably a 3/10.
 
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Chevywolf30

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Portal
I've wanted to play this for years, and now that I've got decent equipment and Steam, I finally got my chace and MAN. This was FUN. First and foremost it was a puzzle game, which was great fun, but it also had some unsettling elements as you went on, not straight up horror, but it was still creepy. Mayhaps a bit short, but there's some bonus levels, and it was only $10 bucks.

10/10
 

twilitfalchion

and thus comes the end of an era
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Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition

The JRPG of all time.

Kidding aside, it was a fun game. Suffers from a bit of pacing issues (both early and late game; the early game pacing and gameplay being why I dropped it for so long) and the grind:tm:, but hardly enough for me to not say it's a very solid RPG.

The story is nothing particularly original, but I don't need a perfectly novel story to be satisfied. Tried and true tropes done well can be just as fulfilling as a story that diverges from the norm in every way. Xenoblade is the former, and while I think the later parts of the story lose some focus/direction, I still enjoyed it well enough that I'd never call it a bad or even mediocre story.

The cast of characters are where it shines much more brightly (and is what matters most to me in RPGs anyway). Not every characters gets as much as they deserve for time in the spotlight, but the ones I liked most did, so you won't see me complaining. Riki is bestest heropon and that's just an objective fact.

Music is fantastic. That's it. It's fantastic. I have nothing more to say apart from absolutely loving the sound direction the game has.

DE is the version of the game I played first, though I've seen the art style for the original as well. I have no preference between the two. Both look good to my eyes, and I like how even the much-more-mainstream-anime-ish DE still manages to look distinct from the vast number of other JRPGs out there.

Gameplay takes a while to get going, but once it opens up, it's very satisfying to mess around with. Mid-late game is that sweet spot where you have so many options available to you that experimenting is as enjoyable as progressing the story.

Future Connected is a nice side story. You'll never see me complaining about more Melia-focused story moments, and FC doesn't disappoint there. The story and gameplay changes are just alright, but as an overall experience, it's pretty fun. FC also has some of my favorite battle themes in the entire game.

Nicely done, Monolith Soft.
 

Link Floyd

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Sep 23, 2014
capsule_616x353.jpg


This is not just one game, but a package of two Klonoa classics that was released on Switch last month. I had played the second game, Lunatea's Veil as a child but didn't get an opportunity to play the first game, Door to Phantomile, until now. (I take that back...I played like two levels of the Wii remake and hated it.)

However, this time around, I was able to enjoy the first game and finish the main story.

These two games are incredible and I highly recommend it to anyone who likes platformers with more puzzle-solving elements. The story in both of these games are surprisingly heavy and dark for a game that looks so cutesy and colorful but that's why I enjoyed it so much. Also, the soundtrack for both of the games are great and I found myself going on YouTube after just to hear some of the songs again.

So, I am going to rate this collection in categories, and then give it an overall rating:

Gameplay: 9/10
Story: 10/10
Art style: 9/10
Characters: 10/10
Music: 10/10

Overall score: 10/10
 

twilitfalchion

and thus comes the end of an era
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Koumajou Remilia: Scarlet Symphony

A short and (somewhat) sweet game, Touhouvania was something I had looked forward to for a while now.

It was alright. The gameplay is action platformer through and through (100% Castlevania inspired, which is admittedly a style of game I'm not terribly familiar with), but nothing exciting or special to make it feel anything distinct beyond simple Touhou fanservice. A couple of the later stages have some questionable design, and a few bosses do as well. Felt a bit too close to BS for my liking.

The presentation is the strength here. Music is banging, sprites/portraits are very nice, and the voice acting is a nice touch for a remastered fangame.

Terribly short for $30, it should only be $10 tops (especially when the original was free). I beat it in a couple hours. That said, it was still fun enough. It's just not a game I'd really recommend, regardless of what kind of fan you are. Castlevania, Touhou, or otherwise.
 

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