Last Game You Finished And Your Thoughts V3.0

Did the original not have a stamina meter Mas?

Celeste



Difficulty Setting Used: N/A (but I never enabled Assist Mode)

Guys, I finished Celeste at about 3am after I had an early evening nap and Jo went to bed. It's an immense game and is close to deserving all those tens out there in Review World. I'm putting my own review together for Les Gintendeaux, so more thoughts in that. They might not be coherent, though.

19/20

Wow, it must take a heck of a game to make Mr Ball stay up so late! Those are the kind of gaming sessions the rest of us would get a telling off on twitter for!

I look forward to reading your review, though perhaps not until I finish the game myself.

Treesmurf wrote:

Did the original not have a stamina meter Mas?

Yes but it's been reworked I believe.

TSB and Celeste are on my list anyway. I'm a bit unsure about SoTC; I know it's a classic, but I know what happens in the end. Mas likes it, Balla and Smurf don't (this doesn't help as I usually hate the games Mas likes and like the games Balla hates); GamesMaster have just broken the space-time continuum in a way I can't reveal to non-subscribers yet. I don't know man. I don't know.

It is only £20 on PS4 that you can't really lose much on it, I am now wondering what games I like you don't, I'm thinking the story driven indie games and the like.

Get Celeste though.

Get.

It.

(Also at a sexy mysterious masked ball having the same initials as a bank.)

----

Slime-san

This is definitely one of my favourite eShop games I've played so far, the level design is top notch and it's always throwing new stuff at you which keeps it interesting. As I mentioned in another thread the controls did take a while to click for me and because of that it can be a little frustrating when you dash in a direction you didn't intend to and die, but once you get used it is fun to play about with and gives good freedom in beating a level in different ways. (A good thing since the game does have a speed run mode)

There is probably better platformers on Switch 2D or otherwise but for 10 quid this is really good stuff.

The_Jaster wrote:

There is probably better platformers on Switch 2D or otherwise but for 10 quid this is really good stuff.

...Zero, will you or shall I?

Nah, your descriptions of it have put it firmly on my radar Jas becausetheymakeitsoundabitlikeCeleste, one for a rainy day.

It’s actually on sale right now: £6.70 instead of the normal tenner.

Oh that's good, I actually got mine for less than a tenner too and I believe an expansion just got released.

Shantae: Half Genie Hero DLC - Friends To The End



Difficulty Setting Used: N/A

Yet another excuse to work through the main levels of Shantae: Half Genie Hero, this time in the guises of her three friends. Bolo has a grappling hook, Sky can create a platform in mid-air, and Rottytops can throw her head and warp to the place where it lands - unless it's at the bottom of a pit or on some spikes - and you select the right person to solve the problem you're currently facing. The trio level up their skills by collecting gems, which basically translates to hitting harder with their attacks. To cut a long story short, it's got to the point where I will be glad to never see this game again (FTTE is the last S:HGH DLC). Aside from a slight restructuring to the levels to take into account the team's skills, they're the same as before... minus the secret areas, so there's less to do. The only new parts come right near the end, and were an enjoyable challenge. But too little, too late.

11/20

Night in the Woods is a odd one as I really did enjoy playing it and plan to play the two short stories almost right away but something about it stops it from being just a great game and part from Oxenfree this is the best of this sort of game on Switch.

8/10

Chalk me up as another that dislikes SotC. It failed the most basic of tests of a video game: good intuitive controls. I said it back when I quit the game before even the first Colossi and I'll say it again: I don't consider any video game to be "good" if it messes up controls as badly as SotC did.

It's like turning up to a gourmet restaurant and find all the food is locked away in unopenable packaging. Yeah, it might be some of the best food on the face of the earth, but it aint going to do you much good if you can't eat it properly.

They've improved the controls and stamina meter, I'm not sure what else they could do as it's meant to be difficult as you're trying to take down a giant Colossi who doesn't want you to kill them.

If it controlled like Uncharted or something then it would be a easy to take down a Colossi and wouldn't make sense.

Double Post as I beat two games this evening



After reading the wonderful ZeroJones review of OMJ and hearing it was top notch from other people, now it's on something that I use I thought I'd give it a go and even held off my Switch votes because of this game.

I can see why ZJ would give it a glowing review but to me, it feels like a great mobile game and not a great console game, yeah it still has the emotion but I just think it would be more impactful on mobile.

7/10

I also played and got one ending in



One ending was enough and this will likely be the worst game I'll play in 2018.

4/10

I recall people saying about The Game That Must Not Be Named that, hard though it is, it encourages you to keep going.  It puts a virtual hand on your shoulder and says, 'You died, but you got this.'  Celeste is the 2D platformer version of that.  It's brutally hard in places, but through a solid moveset, rigorous fairness, Assist Mode, motivational postcards, and that moment in the final level, it encourages you to die, die, die... and eventually succeed.

It's the most charming game I've played thus far on Switch, too.  I reckon everybody knows about the themes of the game by now, and how endearing a protagonist Madeline is.  I can only echo those sentiments.  The music is exceptional, the character art's lovely, and even the pixel graphics have their moments.  I suppose.

It's not perfect, although there's certainly nothing game-stuffing in there.  It could have done with a map, it could have done with fewer moments of no return, it could have done with the N64 controller's octagonal analogue stick socket.  (Plenty of dashes I thought were diagonal until I pressed the button.)  It could have done without some mechanics in the middle levels.  But these are quibbles.

I think where Celeste succeeds where so many other games in the genre I've played recently haven't is in its sense of speed and smoothness.  Mis-aimed dashes aside, Madeline is a joy to control.  It's all in her dash, I think: it gives the game a rapid feel.  And it only feels better with the rumble.

Due to those quibbles, I can't quite say that I give Celeste full marks.  What I can say is that it's my favourite 2D platformer ever, my favourite indie game ever, and - yes Mas - well worth its asking price.

Ugh. Right. Fine. BRB

Put the snow day to go use by completing the first Bayonetta on Switch. I don’t often replay games that I’ve completed in the past, but I was in the mood for something brutal, and this was the ticket. That’s also a compliment to how much I enjoyed it on 360 – I felt that it was the best game on the system. In 2018, it’s not as imaginative or unique as it was back when it first game out, but the combat system, the sounds and the finesse of the Bayonetta character herself are still absolutely brilliant. Cool as fuck, 9/10.

I think it says a lot about my opinion of Bayonetta that even though there are several games I've never played before waiting for me on Switch, all I want to do is fire it back up and bash through it at every difficulty.

I'm well up for powering through Bayonetta 2, but I hink I'll enjoy it more if I give it a bit of a breather. For now...



I started and finished Mighty Gunvolt on 3DS last night. I understand that it was a free extra with another game, and it's just meant to be a quick tribute to Mega Man (which is by far the most overrated gaming series of all time, natch). But as a standalone release that's selling for four quid on the eShop...meh. It's all competent, but I'm struggling to remember even three things about it just a day after completing it. Not bad, not good, so straight down the middle here, 5/10.

I downloaded yesterday evening Mike Bithell's short Subsurface Circular for Switch of the eShop, with this being the first place to play it outside PC (might be on mobile but I'm not sure).

Now I've used the term game loosely in the past for walking sims, well in this there is no walking around or anything like that as your robot character is confined for the evening to this train on the Subsurface Circular.

Meaning Subsurface is very much a text adventure, which certainly won't appeal to everyone but if you do decide to download this short designed to be played in one sitting adventure you'll be trying to solve a case about missing robots which you have to solve by talking to passengers and unlocking dialogue options to possibly solve puzzles.

The storytelling and writing are on point making this an engaging experience.

As I've played on Switch the game does HD rumble and the gyroscope in the controllers so you can look around the train but I got a low battery on my Pro controller that I switched to my Zelda 3rd party one which doesn't have either of those things.

Might be considered a spoiler about a slight issue:

Overall I very much enjoyed the experience Subsurface Circular gets an 8/10

Just got your credits on that there Celeste. Words escape me right now, but it is genuinely phenomenal. I'll have a bit more of a thorough read of Balla and Zero's words now that I can't be spoiled. It was bloody good, though. I didn't even dislike the two levels Balla was upset about!

P.S: I thought the same thing about wishing for the classic Nintendo analogue stick octagon.

I am very happy with this post and/or statement. To clarify, though, I didn't dislike the levels - just thought they were less stunning than those around them. They were still good. All of Celeste is good.

Er... difficulty mode: hard? (there's a casual mode for people less familiar with the genre)

A good point-and-click adventure makes you sad when you work out a puzzle; there's a possibility that you never need to talk to a person or look round a place again. Thimbleweed Park does it... good...ly. And - avoiding spoilers - at least twice will you think things are done and dusted when the game throws a curveball at you. It's properly funny, uses a bunch of old LucasArts in-jokes (that's a good thing), and towards the end it gives you a mega-subversive task, breaking all the logic in the best way. The hint system is brilliant as well, actually slowly prompting you towards the direction of the puzzle, as opposed to the dreaded walkthrough.
Complaints: without wanting to spoil too much, the last part of the game ignores a lot of outstanding plot points. Also, I had to get the hint system to tell me what to do in one case, as I didn't realise I could scroll an area further, and therefore missed something.
Still a good'n though: the dialogue's excellent (I'd argue Ransome the Clown is funnier with the *beeping* beeps), and the Twin Peaks-style music is beautifully haunting (really; I had a fever last week and it kept looping in my head). At the beginning of the game, it does feel a bit slow (your options are limited until you complete a certain puzzle) but stick with it.

9/10 he says