What games have you played over the past year, and maybe even finished?

I started playing Destiny 2 when stadia offered 2 months free.

Endless loot farming but a lot of sweet production value.

 

For me, I have conquered a few oldies that I had not previously been able to beat:

1) Ninja Gaiden (NES): the nemesis of my childhood. Jacquio always destroyed me, but I eventually got the timing down and have beaten it 3 times now.

2) Castlevania (NES): the Grim Reaper and the hallway leading up to him is the most difficult part. Knowing which sub-weapons to keep and which to pass up at various points is key to success. Can beat it pretty consistently now.

3) Final Fantasy 2 (NES): the most difficult Final Fantasy game, by far, and it isn't close. The level-up system is completely broken. Anyone who claims to have beaten this without utilizing the "hit your own party members" glitch is a liar. Even using that, it is incredibly hard.

4) Maniac Mansion (NES): not really too difficult, but easy enough to mess up and get stuck if you miss something or make a bad decision. Fed the meteor to the Pot for Plant.

5) Robocop (NES): the hardest part is going up and down stairs! Seriously.

6) Mike Tyson's Punch Out!! (NES): to be fair, I have beaten this before a few times as a kid, but back then it was always by final decision. Now I can actually TKO Mike.

I was really hoping to beat Adventure Island (NES) and gave it a good try. However, I failed. To me, that is probably the most difficult "good" NES game. There are a lot of NES games that are hard because of crappy controls, etc. Adventure Island is well-made and fun... just damn hard.

I am currently playing Military Madness (Turbo-Grafx 16) and it is an incredibly well-designed strategy game. Only 2 maps left to go on the advanced campaign!

 

I'll look at that and give my opinion after I'm done. I'm trying to avoid any spoilery content.

The battles haven't been too bad so far. I watched and video and now understand how to chain attacks. Unfortunately, with the party of Shulk+Reyn+Sharla, they don't share chainable arts yet. I do prefer XC2's timing arts compared to XC1's positional arts better, but that's also coming from someone who loved Legend of Dragoon and Super Mario RPG.

 

Sharla seems to be a love-or-hate character. I think I mentioned awhile back you eventually get a character who's OP who you actually want to control yourself, so once I got that character I would then typically run Shulk and either Reyn or Sharla in support, FWIW. I didn't find chains necessary because of the OP-ness of that character so I went all-in on support from my AI companions.

I do often wish I could swap in a battle system from a different game. XC's battles are fine but the rest of the game is amazing. Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits' combat is amazing, and the rest of the game is forgettable. If only those two would get together.

 

Finally decided to pick up the Witcher 3 after hesitating due to its age... I’ve never been so excited to get home and play something after work. It has aged beautifully, and truly one of the best RPGs. Can be overwhelmingly massive, but who’s complaining about that during quarantine?

 

The Last of Us Part 2 will be released on the 19th of this month. Who else is looking forward to this? I haven't seen any of the leaks and know little about the story so this will be a fresh playthrough for me.

TLOU remastered was one of the best game ever made so I'm pretty hyped about this new one.

 

Same, avoiding trailers and spoilers like hell to get the wow factor.

Did you try Days Gone as well? Story is a tad worse than TLOU (but still enjoyed it a ton), but I had an absolute blast with the open world and zombie hordes, the game really shines when it comes to presenting a zombie apocalypse.

 

Not yet. I have some mix feelings about that game. The game has great presentation from what I've seen, but the whole open-world elements is turning me off a bit being all too similar to other open-world game. I'm honestly a bit tired of them along with these fetched quest stuff and they take a long time to complete. I'm more into a smaller scale game, that is somewhat linear but with just enough exploration/branching path that doesn't halter the story or pacing. Naughty Dog games as well as the Tomb Raider and Resident Evil series are great example. I will definitely check it out if I can get it at a bargain price.

 

Man, you're really good for beating some of these classics! These oldies were freakin hard as hell and when I go back and try some of them on an emulator such Mike Tyson Punch Out, Contra, Secret of Mana, Shinobi, Battle Toads, The adventure of Bayoa Billy and Megan Man...I was like how did I even beat these games when I was only 10-12 years old??? They are kicking my ass today compared to the modern era of gaming. I also used to own the original Turbo Graphx-16 with the added $400 CD-ROM. It was the best system for shoot'em up and was worth it alone for Ys book 1 and 2 CD. So much good memories during those days of the 8 and 16-bit gaming.

 

TG-16 was definitely the shooter console. Blazing Lazers is one of my favorites games of all time. I finally ended up beating that too, but couldn't have done it without using the "super power up" secret to get like 30+ bombs (I.e. wait out the 1st level boss without shooting him at all -- eventually he just goes away and you get a ton of bombs and extra lives).

I find as I am getting older, my pure twitch reflexes are not as good, but I have better focus, which can be just as helpful when tackling these difficult oldies.

 

So I finished the game a few days ago. To be honest, I was a bit disappointed. I didn't love it as much as I thought I would. I'm gonna play through NG+ and be more completionist in my playthrough to get the most of it, but I kinda expected more after all the hype.

I'm not sure which party member you're talking about (Seven?) but I mostly controlled Shulk with a party of Dunban and Reyn. I just prefer to use leads in my games.

The soundtrack is definitely on point but I liked XC2s better, I think it just had more tracks.

One thing I didn't like in the DE is the default waypoint. I was at about chapter 12 before I figured out you could turn it off. It made my playthrough quicker but I missed out on exploring the maps. I think it should be default in casual but not regular.

 

Sorry for building it up then, haha. I'll definitely be interested to play through DE... as I said above, some of the changes they mentioned don't so much sound like enhancements as just... different, and sound like maybe they discourage exploration compared to the original. Though it's been so long that probably some of the new things I won't even realize are new, haha. I don't recall anything called "default waypoint" in the original, and there weren't any different difficulty modes either. If default waypoints stopped you exploring the maps then that;s a bummer, because the maps were the star of the show for me.

The OP character is Melia, if you set up her gems right you could murder things with her lightning very quickly. Though I have no memory anymore of how to do the setup, I'd need to either look it up or look at my save file from the original.

FWIW I'm middle of chapter 8 in XB2. Once I got Zeke I save-scummed to get every rare summonable blade and also earned every rare blade you can earn besides the NG+ exclusive ones, and have used this time when I have the whole party together to do some love source farming and filling out affinity charts of blades I use... I'm in the middle of Zenobia's now, and once I finish with her I think I'll just continue forward and finish the story. I have gotten all my rare blades to at least tier 4 affinity, so I could do my love source farming, but realistically I'm never going to use all of them so I'm trying to force myself not to bother. I'm debating whether I'll do all the quests that have popped up too, IDK. I was doing every side quest through around ch 6 or 7 but not sure how much I care anymore. The main story is so much better than the sides.

Overall I think I do actually like the characters better. Melia and MetalFace were huge standouts for me in XB1, but on balance I like the folks in XB2 better. The story so far as been roughly on-par I feel, though obviously I can't judge for sure until I've finished it. Soundtrack is fantastic though nothing as good as Gaur Plains IMO.

Will be interesting to see if I was just seeing XB1 through rose-colored glasses or not. I remember it consuming me more than XB2 has... maybe I just liked the areas better? I also enjoyed that characters are at different locations at different times, which made the world feel more alive (rather than just appear and disappear). Also the various annoying micromanagement aspects of XB2 are more omnipresent than my single annoyance in XB1. In XB1 I only loathed the gem-crafting. In XB2 infuriating thing #1 was how it kept forcing me to re-arrange my party to fulfill field-skill checks (why? can't you just pass me if there exists a combination that can do it?), I also got what they were after with Merc Missions but they just became this nagging management thing.

 

It's not hype from you but mostly the whole Xenoblade fanbase. I mean, this is the third edition of this game so it must be good, right? For some reason, it just didn't connect with me as much as XC2. I liked XC2's character-centered story more. Part of it has to do with the story and the main themes, but also how its integrated into the side quests and Heart-to-Hearts. One thing I dislike about XC1 is that Heart-to-Hearts are locked behind affinity grinding when I found them very important to the game in XC2. I think that's why I fell in love more with XC2 because you could really learn about the characters and blades more. I hope I'm able to connect more with the characters in NG+ now that I can focus on grinding and completing the side quests.

I didn't use ether-based parties but I want to experiment with that on my NG+ run. Watching guide videos, it seems like a fun build to play.

I do agree with XC2 has its annoying aspects with Merc Missions and field skills. If they continue field skills, they should allow 3 blades to be equipped solely for field skills. I essentially had my other drivers as those auxiliary blades to limit my menu micromanagement. Zeke is a great character and Zenobia is one of the strongest blades. They make a good combo. Affinity charts in XC2 are a bit of a grind, but I like how it directly tied to upgraded skills. Building trust was the biggest flaw in that system as it took forever. Completing nodes should've increased the trust to make it easier to unlock the next tiers.

The waypoint marker highlights the quickest path to the objective. It did make the game more straight forward and it was kinda hard to ignore, like how captions draw your attention when they're on. After turning them off, I found it more enjoyable to dungeon crawl and find my way. I still enjoyed the game and hope to get more out of it on my second playthrough. Now that I've seen the story, I can dig into the lore online more and avoid spoilers to get a better understanding.

 

So I finished the main game... also unlocked Shulk/Fiora and whatshername in the challenge mode, and got every single rare blade's final affinity chart tier unlocked (though obviously did not fill them all out).

I think the story kinda kept getting stronger actually, which is the opposite of XB1 IMO. Story felt more personal rather than political, just due to the good characters. Particularly liked Jin. While it was kinda generic and it's not like it put me in tears or anything, I did like it. Vaguely makes me want to go through it again without worrying as much about the farming and affinity chart nonsense.

Two things I'm curious about... I'm an hour into Torna: the Golden Country. How long was it for you compared to the main game, assuming a relatively completionist playthrough? And what did you think of it compared to the main game? So far I like it even better. Feels like they made some engine improvements, the tutorials are (ironically) better, it seems more story-focused. Maybe Torna will end up being my favorite XB game.

Also, just curious about what you main team or teams was in end-game of the main game. By the end I mostly played Tora, because having all pieces of the driver on one character was great, plus he's super-tanky. Almost always had Zeke in the #2 slot with Zenobia, KOS-MOS, and Pandoria. Last slot I used whoever depending on the situation, but most often Rex with Pyra/Mythra, Roc, and either Nia for tough stuff or T-Elos for farming. When I used Morag I mostly ran her with Brigid, Kasandra, and Aegaeon.

Also, bonus question, and maybe I already asked this and forgot, but I assume you never played XBX? If you haven't, probably a good thing, since the story was awful and the mechs IMO ruined the combat balance at the end of the game. It was a beautiful mess really.

 

Nice, congrats on your progress! I did enjoy XC2s story more because it's more personal about the characters. It just elicited more emotions and was more enjoyable. For my first playthrough, I controlled Rex with a party of Nia and 4th. After Chapter 7's reveal, I replaced Nia with 5th. Most recommended Tora not be used until NG+ when you could better equip Poppi by exchanging EXP for Ether Crystals to upgrade her. When properly equipped, Poppi QTpi is arguably the strongest blade in the game. You had a good party with good blades on your drivers.

Torna takes maybe 20-30 hours to fully complete. I did have fun with it and it is more fast paced, but I felt it made combat too quick. Orbs were much easier to create and made it too easy during chain attacks. You are required to do all the side quests in Torna, though, its development system is annoying.

Never played XCX. XC2 was my first. I heard its gameplay and exploration was its biggest draw. I do have a Wii U. I'm actually itching to play XC2 again after my NG+ run in XC1.

 

I know Personal 5 have been out for a while now and I've just beginning to gain some interest due to the rave reviews and I love JRPG. I've never been a fan of the Persona series with its dungeon crawler gameplay but this one could changed my mind. Only one issue, it takes 100 hour to beat the game!? Man, that's just way too long for this style of gam .

 

I forgot how long it took me to beat it, but that doesn't sound too far off. Definitely not something you'll finish in 30 hours or so. The Royal version adds content I think, so could be longer. Maybe you can ignore some things and cut some hours out, but that would probably make the game more difficult. Might affect your enjoyment of the plot/characters too if you try to speedrun it.

The Persona/SMT games in general have a good gameplay loop, so it might not *seem* quite that long, though definitely pretty long. I guess that assumes you like each part of the gameplay though. I love these games, but if you don't like long games, it might not be for you.

 

Also try Persona 4 if you end up liking 5, the remaster launched on Steam a month ago.
Many Persona fans have 4 at the top of their ranking due to the extremely likeable cast and good plot.

 

If it helps, it doesn't feel like a 100 hour game.

Even after my personal 100+ hour playthrough, I felt like I could play more.

 

I picked up Persona 5 (game only, no DLCs) from the PS Store...$20 seemed like a good deal based on the discussion here and the reviews across the internet.

Holy hell...one hour and fifteen minutes in...one really small fight...and a crap ton of X, X, X, X, cutscene, X, X, X, X, cutscene. I've read that this is going to last about five hours before things pick up. So I took a break and jumped back over to Borderlands 3 to satisfy my digital killing needs.