The last game you completed

[Johnway]

A quick game to cross off the list, this time i finished the point and click puzzle game Nobodies .

You play as a cleaner for a secret agency. Your task is to clean up the mess after the agency has made the successful hit. Your first task? clean up the hit on your predecessor.

its not a particularly difficult game and the pager even gives you tips if you're really stuck. There are multiple options to cleaning up the scene, some are better then others. But its very much trial and error in places. Its quite humorous in places as some of the wrong options are extremely entertaining. Like lacing cocaine in someone's coffee to distract them and if you also use the stash of cocaine the office worker has, he dies from an overdose. Perhaps you might kill someone by feeding them vast amounts of coffee.., the agent you play as delivers lines incredibly dead pan and his snide remarks on items is quite amusing.

The one stand out thing is that you have to clean up after yourself as well. Return all items back to their original place before you leave.

Would i recommend it? i think its a but too basic, but i found some entertainment. Would only get it if its on a dirt cheap price.

 

[February's Ghost]

The last game I actually finished?

Dragon Age: The Veilguard.

Before that was the Alone in the Dark remake.

 

[isleepinabed]

Last ones were Retro Mystery Club Vol. 1 (Ise-Shima Case) and Vol. 2 (Beppu Case) - I played them one after the other.
I don't usually enjoy japanese style text games because there's usually too much faff. I get sore fingers just skipping dialogue. Here, fortunately, there's more than enough interactivity and the silliness is quite toned down. I really enjoyed them.

 

[Pifanjr]

I just completed Storyteller. It's a puzzle game where you have to make a story that fits the title you're given by putting scenes and characters in the right order. Occasionally the game asks you to add a twist to the story, adding an extra layer to the puzzle. Sometimes it even asks for two different twists.

I got it on Android through Netflix and it's a perfect phone game. Each level only takes a couple of minutes at most and you just drag and drop the scenes and characters. The game is very short, but the concept is pretty simple, so I don't think it should've been much longer anyway.

 

[Pifanjr]

I just finished Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime. I'd beaten the first campaign with my kid a while ago and I beat the other campaigns with a friend today.

It's a good game. We played on norm and it was just the right difficulty where we felt like we had to be careful without it being frustrating or too slow. We died once but we knew what we did wrong and won the second time.

The game is pretty short, but you can unlock two alternate ships that change the way you play quite drastically. You have 7 stations you have to man with 2 people and in the starter ship anyone can take any station whenever they want. But one of the alternative ships assigns 3 stations to one person and 3 to the other, with only the engine being available to both. This presented a bit of a problem since we had made one person the designated pilot while the other person mostly shot the enemies. In the new ship this setup would leave one side defenseless.

Luckily we managed to fix this problem by putting our first two upgrades on our engine, allowing it to fire lasers every so often so I didn't have to walk to my weapons, which meant we could put all the future upgrades just on my friend's side of the ship.

It's not a strategy I'd recommend, but we did beat the campaign with it.

 

[isleepinabed]

^I hadn't seen it before but it looks like quite a fun game.

The last one I beat was *inhale* The Hokkaido Serial Murder Case The Okhotsk Disappearance ~Memories in Ice, Tearful Figurine~
This is a remake of an old Yuji Horii (creator of Dragon Quest) adventure, the one he did after Portopia (which is generally acknowledged as the first adventure game made in Japan), but still before Dragon Quest.

This remake overhauls the graphical presentation to high definition and it looks quite crisp. It does not use a parser but the menu-based interface of the Famicom.

The game itself can be described as a mystery. Unlike other games of the era, there is really no way to lose - just be persistent and thorough and investigate all possibilities. Therefore, I'd classify it closer to interactive fiction - there's no practical risk or drama inherent to gameplay (not least until almost the very end).
What is its strongest merit though? The story and the themes. It's fun without being juvenile, which is something you can seldom say of modern japanese visual novels and it handles mature themes quite beautifully and seriously. As a precursor and inspiration to Snatcher, it's quite a revelation.

Absolutely amazing and unthinkable that I would get to play this in English and in remastered form, 40 years after debuting on the PC-88. That, and the fact that they don't make games like these anymore makes it priceless.
It was certainly one of the highlights of the year for me.

 

[Pifanjr]

My wife went to an orchestra today, so I decided to sit down and finish Shadow of War. It was fun, but I'm glad it's over. I really enjoy the stealthy parts of the game and using the environment to take out orcs, but the missions often force you into fights.

The epilogue is just a series of attacks on your fortresses, so you're running around killing wave after wave of captains, which honestly just sucks. There's so many of them that it's way too much effort to look at their strengths and weaknesses, so your best bet is to just hack at them until they're low enough health to dominate them and make them fight for you.

But it gets worse. Every time one of your captains kills an enemy captain or vice versa, you get a kill cam. Every time you lose one of the points you have to defend, you get a cutscene of a section of the wall blowing up and a new enemy captain joining the fight. And about half the time you attack any enemy captain for the first time it shows you locking swords while the captain taunts you. It makes an already chaotic fight even more chaotic while also interrupting its momentum.

I probably wouldn't have finished the epilogue if I had to come back to it another day, but since I had the time I managed to do them all quickly in a row.

 

[Zloth]

I probably wouldn't have finished the epilogue if I had to come back to it another day, but since I had the time I managed to do them all quickly in a row.

And the amazing thing is that it's actually a lot shorter now than it was at release.

I've been neglecting to post in here myself. Most recent finished game would be Distant Worlds 2, a unique 4X strategy game. That unique thing is the automation. EVERYTHING can be automated! Automation never does quite as well as you would do by handling a game system yourself, though. What ends up happening is that you'll start off with only a few things automated but, as your empire gets bigger, you'll put more and more things on automatic.

For instance, when you start out and are stuck in your own solar system, you'll want to control each exploration ship so you can find exactly what you are most interested in as soon as possible. As you start expanding outward, though, checking every little asteroid belt gets tedious, so you start putting scout ships on automatic while maintaining control of others. If you enjoy exploring, you'll keep control of quite a few and keep doing a lot of scanning yourself. If not, you might just have one or two that go from star to star looking for planets you can colonize and leaving everything else to the scout ships. If you don't like the scouting at all, you can automate every one of them. Heck, you can even automate how many are built!

Distant Worlds 2 on Steam

Distant Worlds 2 is a vast, pausable real-time 4X space strategy game.

store.steampowered.com

 

[Rolfil]

I've just finished Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. It's a fantastic single player game with a mix of stealth combat, puzzle solving and story telling.

What I really liked was that you could customise the difficulty of not just the combat but also separately the difficulty of the puzzle solving.

Apparently Disney already want more Indiana Jones games which is great!

 

[February's Ghost]

I've just finished Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. It's a fantastic single player game with a mix of stealth combat, puzzle solving and story telling.

What I really liked was that you could customise the difficulty of not just the combat but also separately the difficulty of the puzzle solving.

Apparently Disney already want more Indiana Jones games which is great!

Currently playing The Great Circle and everything you said is true, but what I found I like best so far is that it has the "heart" of an Indiana Jones adventure and that Indy in this game feels like Indy in the movies. Indy's child-like excitement at a discovery, his little humorous quips, his exasperation when something suddenly becomes more difficult, and even the more emotional moments. Troy Baker did a great job of vocalizing Indy's personality and the animations of the 3rd person parts really captured film Indy's physicality (especially the way he climbs walls with his whips).

 

[Tarrax Ironwolf]

Just finished all the achievements (330) for Fatal Zone just so I could close it and claim it as finished.

 

[isleepinabed]

I have completed my replay of Creaks. Creaks, along with Return of the Obra Dinn and Heaven's Vault is a sort of personal trinity. Foolishly I had waited for them to be discounted before getting them. They inspired great joy and somewhat renewed my interest in games at a time which was personally vexing during the argybargy of work during the pandemic. Nonetheless of the 3, perhaps suffering too much by comparison, it was the one that came out as distinctly third best.
All three had, of course, lineages of the most high orders. While I was an admirer of Papers Please it was, to me, very much a modest indie game - something that was more of an art piece with a message than a full-fledged game. So Obra Dinn blew that one up. I was also a huge fan of 80 Days, although it was somewhat tainted as a mobile game (I always played it on computer) and Heaven's Vault was also sufficiently different to become something else entirely.
Creaks, on the other hand, wasn't so lucky at first time. On the one hand it is a direct continuation of the gameplay of the Samorost series, Machinarium and Botanicula. And, for that reason, in 2020, it didn't seem as fresh. Competent, fine and interesting, but it didn't grab me as much. I actually preferred the much more modest Pilgrims, which had a pretty original gameplay. As I commented elsewhere, I think a problem resides in the setting and characters - it's just not fantastical enough. The main character is a bland blond boy and the other characters are mostly anthropomorphisized animals - just not weird and quaint enough comparing with Amanita Design's previous games.
Playing it in 2025 not everything is the same, as I'm now having the opportunity to play it in a 27inch 4K monitor. I think because its worlds and settings are so memorable, I tend to forget that the older games are not as slick as this. Creaks looks beautiful. There are no polygons, it's all handdrawn of the highest quality. The music, while not as strangely endearing as Flöex's previous works, fits and, rather fittingly considering the title, a lot of extra work is present in incidental sound effects that add a lot to gameplay.
Gameplay has dropped the mouse and grasped the keyboard or controller. I played it with keyboard - it's just WASD, Space and Control so perfectly playable with one hand - an advantage in these winter days if I can keep one hand warm in my cardigan's pocket. As I was playing it I hadn't realised how much of an hommage it was to games like Jordan Mechner's Prince of Persia and Another World/Out of This World - the main character specifically has the same everyman appeal, someone who lives in the real world and is somehow magically transported to a fantasy world.
Another point that highlights this heritage from Another World lies in the storytelling which uses absolutely no words. In this way, using anthropormophized characters serves a purpose - there are facial expressions and limbs for perceptible non-verbal communication. This is set to great effect within its Czech animation heritage. All the gibberish playwords, the central european aesthetics - for outside observers perhaps a mix of the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen played by a hopeless Jonathan Harker.
The gameplay of this sort of game lives and dies by its puzzles. As best as I could argue I don't find faults with them. Having to have some dexterity they're still very approachable and, above all, satisfying to crack. Mechanics are added progressively in a coherent way to its world setting. Some require quite a few moving parts but it's all rather cleverly done as you manipulate levers, enemies and weight switches in "A ha!" moments.
A word as well for a lot of hidden rooms and minigames within. These don't operate as well (although they're presented as mechanical games, so gameplay roughness might be part of its design) but there's a lot of play in the chase to see and do everything.
Thus as I neared the end it started to become apparent. This was Amanita's greatest game yet. Not a revolution from their previous efforts, but perfecting the formula. It delivers in every aspect and, while the setting may indeed not be as instantly appealing for its oddity and aesthetics, it is at the same time much more of a love letter to their european roots, be it in fairytale or game, and I argue that it is the best game of its kind yet made.

 

[Frag Maniac]

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. Was a pretty good game, and best Indiana Jones game ever. I found it a bit disappointing that the Shanghai and Iraq levels were so short though.

 

[Zloth]

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. Was a pretty good game, and best Indiana Jones game ever. I found it a bit disappointing that the Shanghai and Iraq levels were so short though.

Do the Tomb Raider games count as Indiana Jones games?

 

[Frag Maniac]

Do the Tomb Raider games count as Indiana Jones games?

How could they, seems like that's not a serious question.

 

[Zloth]

How could they, seems like that's not a serious question.

It's not - but there's some ancient history behind it. It's rumored that the early Tomb Raider games were heavily inspired by Raiders of the Lost Ark.

 

[Frag Maniac]

It's rumored that the early Tomb Raider games were heavily inspired by Raiders of the Lost Ark.

That may very well be, but the canon is still noticeably different. Indy and Lara also have quite dissimilar styles, one using a whip, the other her dual pistols. I enjoy both characters, but I prefer Indiana Jones.

 

[isleepinabed]

Obduction

Myst (1993) is a classic and at this time still one of the most historically relevant computer games. Its impact on the industry is absolutely relevant as the killer app that cemented CD-ROM and Windows as standards, while in terms of game design it delivered the final blow that relegated text adventures to the realm of the dedicated indie set. Despite this it ended up taking the mantle of the thinking man’s game, especially considering that 1993 saw the release of another of computer game’s milestones: DOOM. Myst sold the computer, but after getting utterly confused after the first few areas, everyone put it back in the box and booted up a pirated floppy of DOOM. I personally didn’t grow up on Myst although I recall trying realMyst and I’ve played a quite few of its clones over the years. Of these, the ones I most fondly remember are The Neverhood (1996) which for years was a true favourite, The Last Express (1997) which is another favourite although played much later, Ring (1998), Return to Mysterious Island (2004) and certainly a few other, mainly European early XXI century ones, whose names now escape me. I would consider The Return of the Obra Dinn, a top favourite, something else entirely that happens to share some of the same game mechanics.

Much like text adventures, Myst and its clones usually provide their most memorable moments right at the beginning, where the average player will progress to. Progress was usually slow, puzzles doted with hard to grasp logic which were usually incoherent with the logic set of the game world ("why would an alien race hide a teleport device behind a checkers puzzle?").

I had tried Obduction once before but hadn’t given it a proper go as I invariably got distracted with something else. The Riven remake that came out this year caught my eye and I thought now was the time to get into this. As for first impressions it’s hard to believe this game is going to be 9 years old this year because it looks incredible. The game was co-developed as a VR game and some measure of this is palpable in the way you interact with the world. I don’t have a VR set but I can say that this would be a game that I would really like to see in VR and the fact that it was made with VR in mind in no way detracts from playing it without VR. Movement is either free-flowing or scene by scene as in the old games – I opted to play free-flowing.

There are a couple of design choices that are worth addressing in a positive light. One is the use of FMV. You know in FMV you rarely get outstanding acting but it adds to the quirk of the game and it looks fine in the otherwise photorealistic environments, much more so than animated polygons would. Since these scenes are quite few it does add to the charm and nostalgia. Another point is the complete lack of an inventory. What this means is that every puzzle will be solvable by what is there: buttons, doors, pulleys, teleporters, you name it. This lack of objects also means there is no map, which as the gameworld gathers complexity may or may not become a problem. This is a bit of a nod as well to the old. It’s almost mandatory to take notes (digital or otherwise) to beat the game.

As far as the important first impressions go it is rightly impressive how perfectly the challenges are laid. Right from the start you see doors you can’t open yet, rivers that are yet uncrossable and machines you can’t operate. But, little by little, the challenges keep coming and you start taking down, one by one, all the barriers put in front of you. What is immediately surprising is that right up until the end, while challenging there is none of the abstract “puzzling for the sake of being puzzling” designs here. Everything makes sense and as long as you’re thorough, a good observant and make notes everything is surmountable. This is a delight as you make progress relatively quickly and being stuck is usually just a case of perhaps something which was forgotten, overlooked or un-noted. Above all, everything makes sense.

The gameworld is the ultimate puzzle, the one every small puzzle contributes to. Apart from making it technically so satisfying to uncover and beautiful to see, the fact is that there is also artistic merit in the way it is designed, unifying western and s-f sensibilities with a touch of the steampunk added in. The lack of a map forces you to build a mental map of the long-game puzzle which happens to be the game world itself. Unfortunately, the last quarter or fifth of the game, without spoiling anything hopefully, becomes quite a lot more convoluted and inane and, quite frankly, just laborious and artificially annoying puzzles surface (what I mean by this: for instance having to physically travel between far away locations to move different pieces on the same puzzle).
While movement is relatively zippy thanks to the WASD+Shift controls, the fact is by end-game you’re moving all over the map because certain areas are only accessible through other specific areas. Some sort of instant travel would have made it rather less painful although, in a way, contrary to its heritage.

Also unlike most other games of the same type the story is especially captivating. While later on it gets understandably convoluted, there is an intrigue here as you peel back the layers and start to understand what is really going on. The fact that this is done all by exploring the game world made it a lot more endearing. In a game with few characters and where everything, to some extent, has already happened, I have to consider this fact quite worthy of merit.

What to make of Obduction then? For me this was the most technically enjoyable first-person, Myst-like adventure I’ve played. Of course, The Neverhood and The Last Express are gems just by being what they are, although its technical issues stopped them from living up to the expectations they set. On the other hand Obduction actually moves the now dilapidated genre forward. It’s interesting that it came out in the same year as The Witness, which was far more celebrated then. Still, I would consider this one the better game, even if conceptually not as refreshing. Its real inventiveness lies in the way Cyan presents the gameworld. It’s a closed structure that you’re gradually uncovering in a flawless rhythm. It’s a shame that that rhythm comes to a syncopated, irregular and sweaty ending. Running out of steam? A nod to their heritage and the fans from back then? The result of being a Kickstarter-funded game?
All things considered, and in a way, I would argue that these sort of games, much like their polar opposites arcade games, aren’t as much meant to be beaten but to be enjoyed, within your own limits, for as long as possible. In that sense, the way it sets a perfect pacing of the puzzles and opening up the gameworld like a flower at the start is done in a way which I hadn’t really experienced before. Its last leg is perhaps thought of as a punishing boss – something cruel and laborious where only masochists will persevere.

Although I suspect the Myst and Riven remakes, adapted as they are for modern sensibilities will not change their core content and should still be filled with puzzling inanity. However, I have certainly renewed my interest in Firmament (2023), which seems to have gone under the radar. While Obudction's last impressions weren’t as enchanting as the first, I have no doubt I will want to replay this, to soak in its atmosphere and relive the enjoyment of reconnecting all of this wonderful game world again.

 

[DXCHASE]

Finally finished Cyberpunk 2077: Liberty City dlc and 100% the game (except for the re-occurring stuff).

I stopped playing months ago and didnt realize i was on the last mission so this couldve been easily done sometime last year. Enjoyed the game though! So my first completed game this year.

 

[isleepinabed]

Finally finished Cyberpunk 2077: Liberty City dlc

Phantom Liberty, right?
Liberty City is from GTA, I think.

 

[Johnway]

Well i'm calling it as i've seen/played enough of the game. Resident Evil 2 Remake finished. For a remake of the classic game its pretty impressive with what was created. The police station is lovingly recreated and very familiar yet the tasks you perform are completely different. beyond the police station the whole game is completely different from the original (the NEST lab is not the same and the orphanage is new) so those who did play the original have a lot to see and not a visual upgrade like some remaster.

The devs have made some tweaks to the mechanics to spice things up for those familiar with the old game. The original wasn't that scary or difficult as you could gun everything down with ease. RE2 Remake makes zombies surprisingly durable and the lickers, G adults, et al are bullet sponges and as i was soon to find out, trying to headshot your way to victory is expensive and put you under pressure very quickly. less welcome is being constantly being chased by the tyrant as i have to constantly make detours or he corrals you into dangerous situations (usually forwards into a crowd of zombies) as he chases you. if he catches you in a room with a licker and its pretty much game over.

lengthwise, the game is admittedly fairly short, but its surprisingly well made to squeeze so much in so little area and reusing it effectively. But that said, whether you want to play it 8 times (i played it 5 times) might differ from everyone. but those of you looking for more content there is a fair few things to unlock and there are the extra modes namely the 4th survivor and the "ghost survivors" a sort of what if's and scenarios that are short and extremely challenging. What i find somewhat disappointing is that i don't get to see more of the city. yes, RE3 sort of covers it, but i think it was a missed opportunity. The other thing was the 2nd run scenarios, the characters just arrive at the back entrance. no story or the struggles encountered compared to the main story where you had to run into the station.

For the price you get on sales these days, RE2 remakeis well worth getting. How much milage you get will really depend on your tolerance to replay the game several times. ideally 4 times to see the story from both scenarios.

 

[neogunhero]

Yakuza 0 - 9/10

An engaging story about a Yakuza clan fighting within itself for power and control all stemming from a 3x3 square meter piece of real estate, fluid beat-em-up combat with surprising depth, enough side content to make you forget about the main story, and karaoke.

People will tell you the mini games and side activities are what make the Yakuza games special, and while they aren’t wrong, I am personally drawn to the core story more. In between 15 minute long cutscenes of battle-hardened Yakuza whose every facial wrinkle tells a story of the life they’ve lived is a goofy side activity that seems like it would kill the mood instantly, but doesn’t with how seamlessly the game transitions from drama to silliness.

The combat is especially engaging, with 3 fighting styles and an unlockable 4th, you can choose to learn to switch up your styles when needed or master just one. Each fighting style has lots of unlockable perks and abilities, with even more abilities available to learn through training activities. Switch between throwing your entire bodyweight behind a punch to dancing with the enemies as you sidestep them into a flurry, then to picking up an entire motorcycle to slam onto your enemies skulls.

The side activities have a lot of offer depending on what you are feeling. You can single karaoke and dance at the disco, or if you are feeling more strategic, pick up a game of Shogi and crush a tournament full of lifelong players. There are also literally 100 side missions/stories for you to complete. These can be a bit hit or miss, but for the most part they are entertaining, and there are a few that really standout, like being the bodyguard for pop mega star Miracle Jackson and cinematic maestro Spinning Spielberg against undead backup dancers.

For me, my favorite part is the core story. The power struggle and infighting against the different families of the Tojo Clan all because they would like to own a piece of land smaller than your living room that also just so happens to be worth 1 billion Yen makes for a very dramatic and gripping story. You learn of all the different families, their leaders and lieutenants, their goals and ambitions, and the more you learn about them, the more you learn of their secret plans. There is a lot of betrayal and plot twists so at no point was I getting bored of the story. I was always trying to figure out what was going to happen next.

Highly recommend if you like story heavy and action heavy games.

 

[isleepinabed]

Scar of the Doll (1998; 2017)

Late last year I played three remarkable old style Japanese adventures, on the trot: Retro Mystery Club volumes 1 (The Ise-Shima Case) and 2 (The Beppu Case) and The Hokkaido Serial Murder Case The Okhotsk Disappearance (~Memories in Ice, Tearful Figurine~) [posted late December in this topic]. What made them remarkable? Perhaps first, as someone who lived through the lean years of Japanese imports, the fact that these games are even coming out is amazing, let alone Okhotsk being remade 40 years after release. The other is how fresh they seem. Japanese-style adventures came up late. Earlier home microcomputers notoriously had difficulty in allowing the various “alphabets” used in the Japanese language. This made difficult the use of parsers. Not much later, the domination of the Famicom at home instituted a menu-based interface. This makes these games less of a chancer in terms of trying to guess what the parser will recognize but does tend to make them very straightforward. Thus what came to be called visual or sound novels were born. Still, the average visual or sound novel is either an erotic embarrassment or a teenage cutesy drama. So the freshness is how mature these games look and feel. The themes are grim and hard, and the tone is serious. A far cry from the usual light-hearted stuff.

Scar of the Doll was a small and unexpected indie/doujin hit when it came out in 1998. Its developer is sparsely credited, mainly known for the PS3 exclusive Folklore, which was critically claimed but flopped commercially. At this time there are two versions on Steam. A 2017 version that translated into English but kept almost everything the same, including music and art-style and a 2023 remake version that, unfortunately, redraws the original art to a generic modern anime-like (and costs over twice as much). I have only played the 2017 version.

Gameplay is very limited. It’s all menu-based which offers you some options to move between areas or decide whom to talk to. The challenge relies on making the right choices. A “wrong” choice invariably ends in a game over. Thus, it’s somewhat a game of attrition to constantly replay scenes until you figure out the right choice to move on. This makes it sound like an incredibly dull task but there are a few design options that ease this pain. The first is a small but useful hint at the end of each game over that tells you what you did wrong or didn’t do right. The other is the fact that you can save quite often, so a replay can only be a case of replaying one scene, and not the whole game from the start. The game over situation adds the necessary amount of tension to proceedings, in addition to the thriller-type storyline, and gives this the description of a game, rather than just a book, which you read passively. The game world is quite small in terms of locations but, as any interactive fiction player knows, this is a plus, as it makes the story and exploration more focused. The art-style is sparse but, for me, quite charming. It does look somewhat antiquated, and I have to assume it felt so already when it came out in 1998.

Finally, a game like this lives and dies by its story. Without spoiling it, this starts as a missing person investigation and later introduces some science fiction undertones but still grounded on the present day, planet Earth. By this I mean that thematically it explores the ethics of scientific advancement. Do not expect laser guns or spaceships or anything of that sort. The action is mostly set in a university lab and most of the characters are in that periphery. Being a short story (point to point, not taking in the need to replay scenes), characters are somewhat well developed.

Is this game worth it? Yes. I don’t think there’s anything quite like this, in an official English language version out there. At $4/€4/£3.40 full price for three hours of your time even if it’s too alien an experience for action gamers or someone who is just not into this, I’m sure no one will feel cheated out of their money either. At discount it’s an absolute steal, even if you treat it like an interactive book rather than a game. There just isn’t anything quite like this.

On a historical note this is quite a remarkable game for being a hit for computers in Japan in 1998. Remember this was the year when Metal Gear Solid came out for the PlayStation (another Japanese game that explored similar themes, although in a more militaristic way), inaugurating the modern cinematic game on consoles – right on the other end of the spectrum of Scar of the Doll.

 

[isleepinabed]

Yakuza 0 - 9/10

An engaging story about a Yakuza clan fighting within itself for power and control all stemming from a 3x3 square meter piece of real estate, fluid beat-em-up combat with surprising depth, enough side content to make you forget about the main story, and karaoke.

People will tell you the mini games and side activities are what make the Yakuza games special, and while they aren’t wrong, I am personally drawn to the core story more. In between 15 minute long cutscenes of battle-hardened Yakuza whose every facial wrinkle tells a story of the life they’ve lived is a goofy side activity that seems like it would kill the mood instantly, but doesn’t with how seamlessly the game transitions from drama to silliness.

The combat is especially engaging, with 3 fighting styles and an unlockable 4th, you can choose to learn to switch up your styles when needed or master just one. Each fighting style has lots of unlockable perks and abilities, with even more abilities available to learn through training activities. Switch between throwing your entire bodyweight behind a punch to dancing with the enemies as you sidestep them into a flurry, then to picking up an entire motorcycle to slam onto your enemies skulls.

The side activities have a lot of offer depending on what you are feeling. You can single karaoke and dance at the disco, or if you are feeling more strategic, pick up a game of Shogi and crush a tournament full of lifelong players. There are also literally 100 side missions/stories for you to complete. These can be a bit hit or miss, but for the most part they are entertaining, and there are a few that really standout, like being the bodyguard for pop mega star Miracle Jackson and cinematic maestro Spinning Spielberg against undead backup dancers.

For me, my favorite part is the core story. The power struggle and infighting against the different families of the Tojo Clan all because they would like to own a piece of land smaller than your living room that also just so happens to be worth 1 billion Yen makes for a very dramatic and gripping story. You learn of all the different families, their leaders and lieutenants, their goals and ambitions, and the more you learn about them, the more you learn of their secret plans. There is a lot of betrayal and plot twists so at no point was I getting bored of the story. I was always trying to figure out what was going to happen next.

Highly recommend if you like story heavy and action heavy games.

I'm in the sidestories camp just because they're so unique. But reading this review as well as your comments in the Yakuza topic, I remember how fresh the stories are too. While it is somewhat the story of endless power struggles, something which is part of world history and continually captivating, the setting is still fresh. There are other games set in modern Japan, but not many, and not with the same depth and lore.

 

[Frag Maniac]

Been grinding through Control for a couple weeks, and finally finished it last night and the two DLCs via a long session that had me up all night. I only had one side mission give me issues where the boss fight at the end would cause the game to crash at a certain point. Upon close observation I figured it was at the point when a certain number of Hiss that spawned were killed by myself or the boss when spewing out more clocks. I solved the problem by speed running it moving to each of the 4 platforms as quickly as possible and tossing the one large clock at each platform at the boss when it was exposed. This way not enough Hiss died to cause a crash.

The game is pretty challenging as many have said, but honestly, I was expecting the main game to have a tougher end game. There IS a bit of a cool extended end game post credits, where the "Ashtray Maze" redeems itself with intricate design for those like me who fruitlessly tried to solve it when the game was trying to tell me it was unsolvable at that point. I guess a big part of my thinking the endgame was a bit lacking in challenge was due to my assumption we would have to fight the person protagonist Jesse is looking for the whole game, her brother Dylan. The first actual encounter with Dylan toward the end also seems to fortify that assumption.

Speaking of redemption, fortunately the two DLCs Foundation and AWE, are everything one could ask for challenge wise, and then some. I played Foundation first, which seems intentional, as if you have both DLC installed, the game automatically starts you on that DLC just after the end of the base game. You tend to learn with these DLCs that using the option to call for a Ranger to accompany you, along with an upgraded Seize skill, are quite useful. After beating Foundation and getting halfway through AWE, I was assuming the former would have the tougher end game, boy was I wrong. I found it was not only more important to call for a Ranger on the final fight of AWE, you also need to keep the boss occupied enough and Seize one, preferably two enemies (especially before the wave you plan to kill him on), to ensure a victory.

This is because the boss in AWE, which is a page taken from Alan Wake 2's The Cult of the Tree's deer antler wearing monsters, is not only hurt by light, he will quickly snuff a couple of the 4 you need to keep operating to have enough energy to do anything. And as well two Hiss enemies spawn each time he does. The weird thing about having your Ranger and two Seized enemies gunning at him as I did though, is I'm pretty sure it's why instead of getting the normal ending of the fight like most I've seen have, where the boss is shown turning bright white and disappearing, the game jumps straight into a cutscene. While the cutscene seemed to indicate victory, the game afterward did not show AWE as a completed mission like it did Foundation.

Another strange thing was after the cutscene, I found myself surrounded by lots of Hiss attacking, including Rangers (Airborne), Sharpened, and a Distorted, plus the 2nd wave of them is harder. I found this fight so difficult there was no way to keep my Ranger alive in the battle area, and there was not adequate cover. I ended up jumping off the ledge you jump down from to start the fight and levitating far enough forward to trigger the fight, then turned around and dashed back onto it. It was still very challenging even from up there, as the Distorted would teleport behind us in the hallway, and several Sharpened would somehow climb onto the ledge, even though they are not an enemy that levitates like the "Elevated" version of them in the base game, and there's no other way to get there without a super jump.

The time I finally beat it, two of the Sharpened were left at the end. I'd damaged them enough to where they were Seizable, as I could barely make out via 3rd person view, but since they were taking cover under the ledge, I could never see them long enough to Seize one. They were also tossing nades, and since I'd died from a nade near the end of the previous attempt with a similar scenario, I wasn't about to make the same mistake again. These guys also seem Kamikaze enough to warrant worrying about them trying to climb up onto the ledge again, even at low health. My well upgraded Charge and Grip pistols were what I used, The Charge when upgraded well has enough splash damage radius to whittle down enemies in cover, but you also have to be VERY careful when in cover yourself not to accidentally hit the edge of the broken steel mesh on the ledge, as it will do serious damage to you, even if standing back a ways.

I was at first relieved when I retried that post Hartman boss fight battle of AWE, that at least in loading the checkpoint again, the game dialog DID verify Hartman was dead, but boy was I worried I'd have to fight him again. I will likely go back and try the Jukebox challenges, which I tried unsuccessfully several times roughly halfway into the game, as I am now MUCH better equipped. However I've still yet to see any Legendary mods, and I've been reluctant to make any mods as they are only random and of lower tier. There's a lot I don't like about this game, for one, it has the tiered loot feel of Ubi's The Division, which I personally can't stand. It also loves to throw tons of difficult kill these guys or that challenges at you at random points throughout the game, and you often times aren't geared up for them well enough. On the one hand it plays more SP-like than The Division, but I worry with these tactics Remedy will eventually succumb to online play like Ubi did.