Does anyone own the game Man of Medan, it came out on the 31st is August and would be interested in playing it online? (You don’t need to talk on the mic or anything) I just want to get the trophy for Shared Story

It is also currently on sale with the PSN store in Australia

I have Man of Medan for PS4 but haven't gotten to it yet. I would be interested since I am doing the game eventually, thinking it will be one of my October games of the month.

But I am in the US timezone and am at work between 7AM to 7PM so not sure if the time will work barring the weekend?

Finished Link's Awakening for Switch which was GREAT(Had so much fun for the 15 or so hours I got, didn't do a full completion run but hey I got 17 hearts and a whole chunk of side content done) outside of the frame drops but this month I am dedicating to:

Luigi's Mansion 2: Dark Moon(3DS)
Man of Medan(PS4)
Blair Witch(XB1)
MediEvil Remastered(PS4)

and MAYBE Luigi's Mansion 3 for Switch but that would leak into November. Hoping to knock off one horror/spooky themed game a week. This will also be me juggling Gears of War 5, Astral Chain and Control all at once before the two big bombs of NOV(Pokemon Sword/Death Stranding) hit. I don't think I got it in me  

Leaving December open for Last of Us entire playthrough including DLC. Time to jump the fuck in again. 

Cat Quest. No litter box shops sadly.

Finished up Borderlands 3, do you like Borderlands? Because it's Borderlands, didn't reinvent the wheel in the slightest, just the new classes. I did really enjoy the Gunner though, I wasn't sure who I was going to pick, then I saw one with a giant fucking murder machine, so, yeah.

Though a few of the bosses feel more bullet spongey than ever (especially annoying with the amount that had thing's that'd decimate your entire life/shield bars in a single hit, some near unavoidable), and it kind of overstays it welcome, dragging a bit by the end. Also, final boss sticks to the Borderlands tradition of being anticlimactic, other bosses gave me trouble and frustrated me to know end, I beat the final boss without even being downed a single time.

Still, like I said, your enjoyment of Borderlands standing, probably what you'll feel about the game, unless you get tired of more of the same with just a new story and a couple new classes.

Starting in on Code Vein, fun so far, really did dig the character creator, though not as in depth of sliders for every bit of your body, it has a plethora of templates to chose from, that you can change a moderate numbers away. You can even give your character 2 different eyes if you like. As for the game, it's definitely the most Soulslike of the Soulslikes, not far enough in beyond seeing that obvious comparison. Though they completely mess up dodging, as every enemy with a weapon has attacks with ridiculous reach, and swing attacks seem like they go a full 360, and enemies can readjust to perfection on a time, so even if you dodge right as the move is come in, they redirect and still hit you, or the radius gets you, because you can't dodge far away. The reach truly ridiculous too, I was once almost entire up a ladder, and got hit by a melee attack, a few more instances where shit that shouldn't have been able to get me got me.

Last note, some of the shit that happens is ridiculous, I had this HUGE blubbery fucking enemy attacking me on a ledge, I though I had him because of how he missed me and went to the ledge, somehow his pinkie toe kept him from falling, as that was literally the only thing touching any sort of ground, and he was basically just hovering in the air.

Still, despite those gripes, I'm enjoying it so far, have to see if the little things add up to lose me eventually.

Finished up Code Vein, I mostly enjoyed it, not as good as the best of the Soulslikes, but mostly  but mostly solid...mostly. One important thing when balancing a Soulslike, is making the bosses tough but fair, here, they're almost unanimously tough and cheap. Pretty much every last boss has HUGE area of attack attack that devestate life bars, and a good portion of their moves are FULL SCREEN attack, and this is every boss. Made even worse by the just this side of useless dodge mechanic, maybe have been palatable if dodging did even the slightest bit of good, but even if you dodged out of the way of a single move, which takes a hell of a lot of luck to begin with, either it'll arc so wide that'll hit you anyway, or they'll have an immediate followup quicker than you can dodge a second time. That's another big problem, every damn thing just takes SO long to do, even if you dodge at leave them completely prone, they often recover before you, and you get no real opening. Plus there's one boss who literally just starts attacking non-stop for like 30 seconds once you have him almost dead, and it only takes an attack or two to kill you. They weren't overly tough otherwise, felt like they erred on the side of cheapness, rather than legitimately challenging boss fights.

But other than dodging and the vast majority of the bosses, still never found myself tired of it, annoyed, but not tire...better than the first Surge, below all the other Soulsborn games I played (including the 2D ones).


Played about an hour of Breakpoint, then shipped it back, just not a fan of the new tier based world, and even getting around was feeling tedious, a detriment to the quite expansive map. Might revisit it someday when I've nothing else to play, but too top heavy right now to waste time on a game I'm not enjoying.

It's been nearly two months since my last update/confession.

Astral Chain (Platinum; 2019)

One of those games that managed to kick my ass, and yet I only had one game over through out. It's about as difficult as a Yakuza game where you're handed healing items like candy, so there's very little incentive to improve beyond getting better rewards for clearing missions. Even so, whatever incentive there is to get an S+ is completely dashed as the game constantly throws you into missions when you're just exploring and grades you on it. In fact, the game felt extremely judgemental through out. One minute you're strolling around, the next the mission triggers automatically and your reaction skills are put to the test. It's like growing up in the Orton household and getting RKO'd out of nowhere.

My opinion of the game could change drastically on replay if I have a guide handy and have a better idea of what to expect, but at the moment it falls in that good not great territory. I like the genre and the game hit enough of the right notes, but it was so easy that even on the hardest available difficulty the first time through, I was able to beat the game ass-backwards.

I did want to give a shout out to Lappy, an enjoyable side character voiced by the same person who did Morgana in Persona 5. Fun character that livened up the game during some of it's slower chapters when the game threatened to be a slog.

Dragon Quest XI: S (Square Enix; 2019)

One of those games I promised myself I'd buy on launch no matter what. I intended on getting the PS4 version, but opted for RDR2 instead and by the time I was finished with that game, DQXI had less than a stellar rep. I still heard enough good things to pick it up, but then details about the Switch version emerged so it became a no-brainer to wait for it's release.

I've only played the opening 30 or so minutes where you perform the rite of passage, but so far so good. It has the same DQ charm as VIII which won me over 3 years ago and now that I'm done with Astral Chain, I can see myself sinking my teeth into it.

I don't know how long it's been since my last update. All I know is that it's been too long.

Dragon Quest VIII
I don't remember where I got to when I posted my last update, but I have now officially completed Dragon Quest VIII. I dread to think when I actually started playing it. I've had several breaks of one month or more, but never through lack of enjoyment of the game. Simply, video games are not so high on my priority list these days.

I managed to get up to A Rank in the Monster Arena. I acquired a good share of the best equipment in the game, admittedly through using a list of all the alchemy possibilities, but who has time to figure that shit out in-game? I beat Rhapthorne once, then entered the final chapter. The mission is to find seven orbs located at the spots where the seven descendents of the seven stages died over the course of the game. While I didn't explicitly remember most of these, somehow the memories had stuck in my mind because I was able to find them without too much difficulty. That speaks to the impact of the game's storytelling. The orbs acquired, I was able to confront Rhapthorne once more. The final boss battle was disappointing. I wouldn't call it easy, but it certainly wasn't the toughest fight in the game, and I didn't have to do anything special to win. Just chip away. It took a while, but not as long as I expected.

Thus ends Dragon Quest VIII. The game ended in its characteristic heartwarming style, with the cursed King of Trodain and Princess Medea restored to their human forms. Although the story as a whole was a standard "save the world" affair, the goal of restoring these two faithful characters to their normal forms felt a lot more important. After all, it is the Journey of the Cursed King. The epilogue, set a few months after the final boss battle, was also really nice and ended the entire story on a high note. Now it's time to confront the post-game.

Shantae: Risky's Revenge
I've got a few of the Shantae games on Steam, and having not been recently satisfied by old school side scrollers, I thought I'd give these more modern ones a blast. What a great decision that was. Risky's Revenge is the second game in the series I believe, but the first was not released on Steam as far as I'm aware.

Beautiful artwork, great humour, fluid controls, simple mechanics, a nice mixture of puzzles and combat, secrets, different worlds, different characters. Everything I could want in a game.

I finished that a couple of weeks ago, and moved on to the direct sequel: Shantae and the Pirate's Curse. This is more of the same, but they've taken some of the weaker points out of Risky's Revenge and polished the rough edges, which is of course excellent.

Love all things Shantae. The original made my top 10 on the Gameboy countdown. Cheap plug, not that you can revisit it.

The sequels improved on it but they do tend to feel samey, especially in close playthrough.

The original Shantae never got remade?

Don't think so. Would think they would since it was one of those late GBC games when everyone was already looking at the DS and all the others were multiplatform.

Finished Yooka Laylee and the Impossible Lair, and HOLY HELL that may be the most insane difficulty spike in video game history. That's not to say it's the hardest level ever, just compared to the rest of the game, it's a leisurely walk to frantic fight for survival. Even the hardest level of the main game is 100 times easier than the Lair. It's a halfhour gauntlet with no checkpoints or extra lives, just the bees (you collect 1 in every level, with the hidden bees, a total of 48) Kudos to those who have the time to learn, and patience to perform, that bitch in 1 go with no bees; took me all 48 bees and several tries. My total tally I think was 21 tries, but that counts all the times I lost a bee or two early, and said "Fuck it." and quit out. I'd think 10-15 full effort tries. 48 hits sounds like more than enough, but every single jump is a pin point exercise in precision, and there are hundreds of jumps in each section, capped with an ante upping boss fight after each, 4 sections total...the final being a mad dash against a timer and crumbling world. Honestly, it was a "Buy" until the Impossible Lair, but to 100% the game you HAVE to clear the Lair first try with NO bees, the second you make it beyond the opening, can't do it...I'm not sure if I'll ever have the saintly patience it takes to do that.

I mean, in total, I really enjoyed the game, it could have really faltered making you play every level twice, one normal and one altered, but the altered versions were usually distinct enough that they stood out regardless. Some didn't even feel like the same world at all. A collect-a-thon for lovers of collect-a-thons. But "the Impossible Lair" is NOT fucking around, not quite impossible, but pretty fucking improbable.

I hated Yooka-Laylee but this looks right up my alley, I love the DKC games.

I'd say definitely better design choices for the 2D plane, levels felt well built with secrets hidden enough without being convoluted. It's not the best the genre has to offer, but a solid entry for a rather dry market for them.

Even the Impossible Lair is well built, it's just an absolute dick of a level.

Guess you can't say it's false advertising.

Been playing through Crafted World a bit. A few levels a day, nothing major. Only complaint is the timed events for the flowers are one and done, so if you fail you gotta redo the level to try again. Dunno if that was a thing in other Yoshi games, but I hate it because 90% of the time I can't get it on the first try. And it's always just one more I need to finish it. Not gonna go for 100% anyway, but ya know.

Lony

Pokemon Platnium - Picked up an old random save and got swept by Garchomp. After grinding for the length of three Rocky movies, I came back, gave him a good Ice Punch and got on with my evening. I'm curious if the game is notorious for it's late game grinding, or if I just messed my team composition up.

Nioh 2

I was beginning to wonder when the open beta was about to come out, turns out it's been out for a few days! I loved the original Nioh, I poured hundreds of hours into it and just couldn't get enough of it.

I'll walk you through my impressions of the beta. So initially I struggled because I was still in Sekiro mode and hitting the shoulder buttons and trying to stealth and time all my attacks. I actually died in the first area of the game to the first Yokai I came across, so whatever fear I had of this game being a walk in the park was quickly averted. The Yokai was this knife wielding old hag who will charge her attacks and go on a flurry. She was easy enough to deal with once I knew what to expect. The next Yokai was one of those powerful shadow Yokai's where beating it actually counts towards your progress. I found this Yokai to be deceptive, he's a big guy but he's got a lot of agility and can execute a OHKO grapple from out of nowhere. After a couple of attempts, I was able to beat it and move on.

The next section saw an NPC come along for the ride. I thought this kind of took away from the experience as this was the first stage and yet I could cheese most of the area by standing back and letting my guy fight my battles for me. I tried to avoid that as much as possible, but there were a few occassions where I stumbled upon an area and wanted to go back and loot some more treasure but the NPC had already taken out all the enemies for me. There were a couple of more yokais here. One was a humanoid who would fire off it's mutated arm and would typically stay in the background while you fought other enemies. The other was like something out of Silent Hill, this giant slug type creature. I didn't really get a chance to fight it the first time around since I was basically double teaming it but later on I found it fairly easy. It's a tank, so you can't get too carried away, but it's attacks are fairly easy to dodge.

It was around this section some of the new features popped up. To be perfectly honest, I still feel like I've got a lot to learn. In particular there's a new soul system where defeating certain enemies will give you a skill like a blue mage. You can equip two skills at one time and they all provide different stat boosts and handy attacks. I think they also affect your new over-drive, but it wasn't something I really looked into since there was a lot to take in. On top of all that, the way you learned abilities completely changed and instead of it being level dependant, it came down to how proficient you were in whatever area you wanted to level up. Basically it's the infamous FF2 system.

Anyways after being dumped into the deep end, I managed to run past everything, unlock the last short-cut for the boss and proceeded to back-track at my own pace. I really enjoyed the Kodama system in the original Nioh, so I made sure to explore every nook and cranny finding them all. Once I was satisfied, I went onto the first boss.

Holy hell, that first boss was a pain in the ass. It's an extremely quick Panther that likes to spam all these hit and run attacks that just drain you of your key. Since the area is so dense with trees, it's easy to get stuck in certain areas making the boss a real hassle. I must have died at least 20 times against this boss before the law of averages kicked in and I happened to get a good run. I found that once you knew it's pattern that sticking close was the trick, knowing when to dodge when it was going for the grapple.

The second level was a cave level where there's tons of loot but also plenty of traps to dodge. There were two new Yokais, one was another tank like monster with an elemental hammer. It was relatively easy to take down, especially given it's position on the level. It came after fighting the hardest enemy from the Nioh DLC. Those things were tough with all the skills unlocked, in early game they're a nightmare. The other was the Madusa creature from the alpha. They were surprisingly tougher than I thought, but pretty easy to read. After collecting all the loot and kodamas I made my way to the boss and proceeded to get my ass kicked around 20 more times.

Once again, it was about keeping close to the enemy, my only issue is that it would spam it's heat-seaking charge attack right when I was low on key, so unless I timed the dodge perfectly I was typically dying. Since I had some more ninja skills and stronger magic, I thought I'd make it through relatively easy, but it was just as hard if note harder than the first. Once again after plenty of trial and error, I got a good run and was able to clutch to progress.

That unlocked the Twilight and Side mission. It was kind of a bummer that the Beta ended on those notes. The Twilight mission is basically a remix of a previous level with harder enemies and better loot. A lot of my least favourite enemies from the original popped their heads in and I made relatively short work of the level. Even the cat boss this time only took 3 goes before I was able to take it down.

Side mission was a one-on-one fight with a spear user who likes to summon up powerful assists all the time. I'd always make good progress, but die right at the death from some homing attack. Once I became more aggressive with the magic I was able to take them down.

Again, I should stress that the game is really trying to push the soul mechanic as much as possible and I hindered my experience playing it more like Nioh 1. I'll go back and try to learn more since I thought for sure there would be one final level to really cap things off but that seems to be it. March 2020 is going to be insane with this, FF7, Animal Crossing and seemingly Persona 5 Royal Edition.

Oct 22, 2019 17:47:34 GMT Big Pete said:

Pokemon Platnium - Picked up an old random save and got swept by Garchomp. After grinding for the length of three Rocky movies, I came back, gave him a good Ice Punch and got on with my evening. I'm curious if the game is notorious for it's late game grinding, or if I just messed my team composition up.

Never beat Cynthia and wasn't invested enough to grind my team to see it to the end. If it ever got a remake I'd try again. Alas I reside in Soviet Russia where the game beat me!

Death Stranding:


You ever wonder it would be like to...

DELIVER THE FUCKING MAIL?!

Boy do i have a game for you.

Does it have the greatest walking mechanic of all time or did Skill Up lie to me?

So I’ve pretty much wrapped Days Gone.

I’ve got a handful of collectibles left to find and I’m probably not going to because fuck that. Ain’t nobody got time for that.

Fun game though. The controls take getting used to and it feels a little glitchy at times, but I ended up liking it. I had the same feelings as Assassins Creed: Origins, where I didn’t think I was going to like it but toughed it out for a bit then wasn’t able to put it down.

Great soundtrack, lots to keep you busy, opportunities to be creative with kills and missions...7.5/10

....

Since I beat that I’m finally playing Horizon: Zero Dawn. I’ve been putting it off for like a year now. My wife beat it a while ago but I’ve been playing other stuff and never got around to it

So far I love it. Beautiful game, gameplay is smooth, but I’m annoyed that you can’t climb everything. Escaping danger is harder than it should be. I’m still hyped to play it but that’s jumped out at me like immediately and I can already tell it’s going to annoy me going forward.

Nov 8, 2019 5:24:26 GMT Big Pete said:

Does it have the greatest walking mechanic of all time or did Skill Up lie to me?

Ralph would never lie to you..
Sam on the other hand.

I picked up both Luigi's Mansion 3, and Mario & Sonic at the Olympics. I haven't touched Mario & Sonic yet, as I've mostly been playing LM3 with whatever free time I have. Having said that, I'm hoping to beat the game before Pokemon Shield is released though.

Oct 20, 2019 23:45:09 GMT @ness said:

Been playing through Crafted World a bit. A few levels a day, nothing major. Only complaint is the timed events for the flowers are one and done, so if you fail you gotta redo the level to try again. Dunno if that was a thing in other Yoshi games, but I hate it because 90% of the time I can't get it on the first try. And it's always just one more I need to finish it. Not gonna go for 100% anyway, but ya know.

Lony

Yoshi's Crafted World was a cute/adorable game, I had a lot of fun with it... and then Cuphead came out a couple of week's later and I stopped playing the game.

My insurance has complicated my recent appointments and prescriptions, stuck out in Rancho for another week, by the time I get back I'll have Outer Worlds, Death Stranding, and Fallen Order waiting for me. I'm dying on the inside.

Nov 8, 2019 9:10:09 GMT System said:

Nov 8, 2019 5:24:26 GMT Big Pete said:

Does it have the greatest walking mechanic of all time or did Skill Up lie to me?

Ralph would never lie to you..
Sam on the other hand.

Sam would do anything for review codes.

Is it one of those games that gets good after a few hours in? Or is the entire game just one big troll on the internet?

My insurance has complicated my recent appointments and prescriptions, stuck out in Rancho for another week, by the time I get back I'll have Outer Worlds, Death Stranding, and Fallen Order waiting for me. I'm dying on the inside.

That's rough mate. I've got a stressful week ahead of me myself and I'm mentally getting through it with the promise of whether things pan out or not, I'll be home on Friday evening playing through Pokemon Shield and I'm going to spend the entire weekend beating it.

A good way through Star Wars: Fallen Order, easily my favorite Star Wars game to date, KOTOR wasn't my thing (might like it more these days, as I've softened to the style), and while I liked Force Unleashed, this just feels better. Combat wise, it's a bit like a dumbed down Sekiro with force powers, playing on Jedi Master (which, while just below the hardest difficulty, feels like "Normal" mode to me) it's not nearly as hard as any of the Soulsborne games or their imitators, but offers a stiff enough challenge (and has far easier modes for the sissy little chicken babies that cried about Sekiro and the like). Can't wait to keep going.

At the moment, I'm currently alternating between Pokemon Shield, and New Super Lucky's Tale.

Finished up Fallen Order, everything I say stands, my favorite Star Wars game to date, I'd give it a 9. Had a few issues, but nothing to overshadow the positives, definitely buy it eventually.

So this spinning dial puzzle in the Uncharted Lost Legacy was really giving me a headache. Eventually gave in and looked at a Youtube video. First 10 seconds showed me what I missed. Mother fucker.

Been playing MediEvil Remaster for PS4 and Yooka Laylee and the Impossible Lair for XB1.

The former besides the button mashing meh combat is still a cute, clever game that offers fair amount of challenge and has the PS1 esque puzzles in it. The latter is actually really good, it plays like DKC: Tropical Freeze and while the polish isn't as good as Tropical Freeze, the game when trying to 100% it is still very fun. Play a couple levels a night, very enjoyable and a good amount of challenge if you want all the coins. Really enjoying my time with both games.