STALKER 2 is interesting and has a great atmosphere, but like the other games in the series, I found it easier to admire than enjoy.
-
Welcome to Talking Time's third iteration! If you would like to register for an account, or have already registered but have not yet been confirmed, please read the following:
- The CAPTCHA key's answer is "Percy"
- Once you've completed the registration process please email us from the email you used for registration at percyreghelper@gmail.com and include the username you used for registration
Once you have completed these steps, Moderation Staff will be able to get your account approved.
Beating Games
- Thread starter Octopus Prime
- Start date
-
- Tags
- the end times
Indika is a surreal, psychological, philosophical game about a nun in pre-revolution Russia.
Violentvixen
(She/Her)
My spouse just picked that up in the Steam sale. I'm really intrigued to try it as everything I saw about it is wild.
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown was a pretty solid metroidvania -- the exploration and platforming felt great, but I never really clicked with the combat. Still, most bosses went down in only one or two attempts, so I guess it wasn't that big a deal. I did all the side quests but noped out of the optional challenges (except the very first one), as they seemed a step beyond the difficulty of the rest of the game.
The character models all kinda looked like they were from a previous console generation, and the fact that there was zero facial animation when they talked didn't help that. A bit of a weird choice in Current Year, but if it helped them focus on other aspects of the game instead I'm fine with it.
The character models all kinda looked like they were from a previous console generation, and the fact that there was zero facial animation when they talked didn't help that. A bit of a weird choice in Current Year, but if it helped them focus on other aspects of the game instead I'm fine with it.
Mouthwashing has maybe the best narrative of any game I've played this year. It's a bit annoying when you're in situations that have fail states, but not enough to hurt the experience too much.
Dicey Dungeons was overall a lot of fun, but after beating all 36 episodes and the final boss I felt like a couple of the characters (Witch, Jester) had clear Best Strategies and trying to do anything else with them is asking to fail. Still, there's an incredible amount of game in this game, and I'll probably do a few more runs before moving on. Good game, even if they keep using "dice" as a singular noun.
Don't forget to check out the halloween and reunion episodes if you're still looking for more content.
Silent Hill 2 is a good remake of a better game. It's best when it's just looking pretty and not changing things just to change them or pad them out.
Cherry Bomb on Pico-8. It’s a short, Space Invaders style shooter. I think 9 waves of enemies, then a boss. There are 4 kinds of enemies, though some don’t show up until later on. Sometimes they drop cherries, and pressing the second button unleashes a bunch of shots depending on how many cherries you’ve collected. It’s not anything revolutionary, but I had a lot of fun with it. There’s a v2/sequel that I’ll check out at some point.
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past on GBA. This is actually my third time attempting to finish this game. Once on the original SNES hardware (I think I got to the dark world), again on Wii Virtual Console (stalled out in the ice temple), and finally this run on Vita, then I moved my save to a Trimui Brick where I finally, finally beat it. So it took at least 25 years in total! My final impression: it’s a great game and it clearly had a massive influence on Ocarina of Time and the next few big Zeldas. But man, I just prefer the GB/GBC style of Zelda. The movement & sword swings just feel way better to me in those games. Still though, it was a lot of fun and I’m really glad I finally played this in full.
Trip World on Game Boy. A super short (like 30 minutes total) but pretty interesting game. You can just dash past enemies, but bosses are moderately challenging. There are some neat powers that barely get used. The art is great. I wish it had a longer sequel that explored the mechanics more.
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past on GBA. This is actually my third time attempting to finish this game. Once on the original SNES hardware (I think I got to the dark world), again on Wii Virtual Console (stalled out in the ice temple), and finally this run on Vita, then I moved my save to a Trimui Brick where I finally, finally beat it. So it took at least 25 years in total! My final impression: it’s a great game and it clearly had a massive influence on Ocarina of Time and the next few big Zeldas. But man, I just prefer the GB/GBC style of Zelda. The movement & sword swings just feel way better to me in those games. Still though, it was a lot of fun and I’m really glad I finally played this in full.
Trip World on Game Boy. A super short (like 30 minutes total) but pretty interesting game. You can just dash past enemies, but bosses are moderately challenging. There are some neat powers that barely get used. The art is great. I wish it had a longer sequel that explored the mechanics more.
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom is clever when it tries, but a lot of the time the same few solutions will work over and over again.
Tactical Breach Wizards is a pretty good time start to finish. Good tactical combat with fun twists because of all the magic. I especially like the writing, both the overall story and especially the comedy and character interactions.
Violentvixen
(She/Her)
Just beat Universe for Sale, a lovely little visual novel with a bit of adventure game in there too. I played it on Xbox and there were definitely points when I would have preferred to use a mouse to click on things as the controller just didn't quite work in a couple spots. Also a couple awkward translations/typos. But I still had a lovely time in the world of the game. There is a demo on Xbox and on Steam if you're curious to check it out.
Last edited:
Violentvixen
(She/Her)
I'm home sick and decided to knock out another game that had been on my Gamepass list for a while: Dordogne. I dunno if I'd recommend this one, the art is gorgeous and the story is interesting but it's kinda clunky to actually play. There's a camera but many times when I wanted to use it I couldn't, a lot of steps felt like obnoxious padding when trying to open things and the control responsiveness is very slow. I was still willing to recommend it until the final chapter though, the game ends WAY too fast and it's quite confusing. It was so slow until then I was pretty baffled by that choice of pacing.
Visually stunning though. I would love to see another game by this team that fixes some of these issues while maintaining such stellar art direction.
Visually stunning though. I would love to see another game by this team that fixes some of these issues while maintaining such stellar art direction.
FelixSH
(He/Him)
I'm confused, what are you actually doing in this game? Enjoying your holiday time on this island(?), while taking pictures? It would look interesting, but also not very clear about what I'm actually doing. Especially with the movement seeming to be on a 2d-plane. I would expect this to be a game where you run around that place, snapping pictures and learn about something, while getting to know the people here.
Violentvixen
(She/Her)
It's a good question! Broadly if I had to pick one genre it's Adventure Game, but as you noted there's also some mild platforming, and nothing is difficult so I could see someone even pushing it toward Visual Novel.
A bit more detailed of an answer is that the game jumps between the protagonist being an adult in the early 2000s and a child in the 1980s. The adult is going through the old house that's about to be sold after her grandmother has died. There's been a rift in the family and she never saw her grandmother after that visit but can't remember what happened and no one will tell her. As you go around the house picking things up, making tea or feeding the cat you find objects or scenes that jog your memories and you relive/replay the relevant day in the 80s. The adult character is entirely adventure game/visual novel, and the kid has mild platforming but is still mainly adventure game I'd say. There is a fun mechanic as a kid where you collect words/pictures/sounds to assemble a scrapbook page at the end of the chapter.
There's basically only two other characters with a model, the rest are just dialogue/portrait interactions. It's very much about your character and her grandmother and their interactions rather than the town. It's on Gamepass right now so if you're curious I'd check that out, if you go through one adult/kid cycle you have a good idea of how the game plays.
Sarge
hardcore retro gamin'
Gonna talk up Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon here. For those that don't know which one it is, it's the first N64 entry. I've had it for years, but never stuck with it until now. Frame rate aside (and it gets chonky), it holds up quite well, and is a fine action-adventure that hit a year before Ocarina of Time. Very impressive.
Of course, if you don't want to suffer the frame rate, there's a recompiled version out there.
Of course, if you don't want to suffer the frame rate, there's a recompiled version out there.
Violentvixen
(She/Her)
Beat Citizen Sleeper 2 tonight. Beautiful, powerful game.
Violentvixen
(She/Her)
Gameplay is fun, they added a few new mechanics (crew members and new dice status things). You no longer need to get stabilizer which is a nice change to remove from the constant maintenance. The story feels like there's more branching, although I only did one playthrough so can't say exactly what might change on different runs.
Meant to post this like a week ago but got distracted:
Steamworld Heist 2 is a GOAT. Really solid from start to finish, and the perfect length. Easily the best part of being stuck in my chair for two weeks with a crippling back injury. It improved on the original in pretty much every way while not losing any of the things that made the first game fun, taking the same core gameplay and layering in a bunch of fun new systems on top of it. The little real-time sub battling minigame was fun, I liked equipping my sub, the new push-your-luck daily mission limits were fun, and the new cross-classing system was genius. It's fun and flexible and lets you build a bunch of tiny broken gods* that feel necessary against giant enemy hordes. And the way that the system encourages regularly changing jobs has the subtle effect of keeping easier missions more interesting because much of your team will often not be in their preferred job and instead moonlighting at reduced effectiveness for more robust builds.
*Dame Judy Wrench was a one-woman army. In a single turn she could teleport, aimbot, blow up a bomb canister halfway across the map, take a free pistol shot, yell at someone on the other side of the room to damage them through their armor and light them on fire along with everyone else standing near them, and then finally shoot a cannon to blow up a giant group. And if she was feeling spicy, she could fire it twice. And her CD reduction was such that she could do the teleport, aimbot, and yelling every turn at no cost.
Anyway, it's a shame what happened to the dev, because every Steamworld game continues to knock it out of the park.
Steamworld Heist 2 is a GOAT. Really solid from start to finish, and the perfect length. Easily the best part of being stuck in my chair for two weeks with a crippling back injury. It improved on the original in pretty much every way while not losing any of the things that made the first game fun, taking the same core gameplay and layering in a bunch of fun new systems on top of it. The little real-time sub battling minigame was fun, I liked equipping my sub, the new push-your-luck daily mission limits were fun, and the new cross-classing system was genius. It's fun and flexible and lets you build a bunch of tiny broken gods* that feel necessary against giant enemy hordes. And the way that the system encourages regularly changing jobs has the subtle effect of keeping easier missions more interesting because much of your team will often not be in their preferred job and instead moonlighting at reduced effectiveness for more robust builds.
*Dame Judy Wrench was a one-woman army. In a single turn she could teleport, aimbot, blow up a bomb canister halfway across the map, take a free pistol shot, yell at someone on the other side of the room to damage them through their armor and light them on fire along with everyone else standing near them, and then finally shoot a cannon to blow up a giant group. And if she was feeling spicy, she could fire it twice. And her CD reduction was such that she could do the teleport, aimbot, and yelling every turn at no cost.
Anyway, it's a shame what happened to the dev, because every Steamworld game continues to knock it out of the park.
Finished off Blade Chimera which, of Ladybugs output... I would give a solid Silver Place medal to (liked Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth a lot more). It's a very solid Metroidvania, and one with some clever mechanics, but it just didn't grab me like other games in the genre have.
I mostly enjoyed my time with Dragon Age II, which does a clever job of dealing with an obviously short development cycle.
R.R. Bigman
Coolest Guy
Astro Bot is a very fun platformer that is unfortunately saddled with being a celebration of the PlayStation brand during the absolute worst Sony console generation.
It was comfortable to play after just replaying Fusion right before, and didn't leave me painfully stumped like a lot of Metroidvanias, so that puts it way at the top of my rankings of those! I always loved the aesthetic (box art, cutscenes, and in-game) so it's nice to have been able to appreciate the game itself a bit more - even if I'm still not a fan of the stressful Zero Suit section.
So much of the game is "Ahh, I remember these wonderful playstation games!" but then realizing that they don't really make 'em like that anymore. Good for a nostalgia trip, but perhaps not the best situated for the modern moment. It's still a lot of fun though, I really like it.