The Backlog Check-in Vol. 78: 6/29/19: Super Neptunia RPG Edition

[Phaseknox]

Played: Days Gone

Finished: Nothing

Playing: Days Gone

I'm still playing Days Gone, but starting to feel a little fatigue with it at this point. I don't know how many hours that I've played, but it's been a lot. Outside of the story missions, it repeats what you do in it quite often. And with a somewhat small game world, you end up doing a lot of the same things in the same areas over and over again.

The same enemy encampments that I originally had to kill all of the enemies in now have me going back to them to rescue a hostage. These missions feel like filler to extend the game's length which doesn't really need extended since the story alone seems lengthy.

I feel like I've experienced most of what the game has to offer in terms of places to go, and things to do. I'm still enjoying it because of the story, characters and gameplay, but I feel like I'm getting to a point where things should start wrapping up.

Super Neptunia RPG comes out this week:

[canedaddy]

Hold up, shouldn't that be Fantavision Edition??




Played last week: Red Dead Redemption II, Cave Story

Finished: nothing

Added to backlog: nothing

Current backlog: 37 (15 PS4, 9 Vita, 7 3DS/2DS, 5 PS2)


I couldn't stay focused on DQIII... it's a great game but I just don't like playing it on my phone. So I picked up the 3DS and noticed I had Cave Story sitting on there and decided to give it a try. Nice little 2D puzzle-platformer-shooter, if you haven't played it.

And yes, I'm still playing RDR2. I've wrapped up most of the collectibles (cards, legendary animals/fish), focused now on getting pelts to finish out the trapper's stuff and the exotics (orchids and whatnot).

j, did you do all that?

[jfissel]

And yes, I'm still playing RDR2. I've wrapped up most of the collectibles (cards, legendary animals/fish), focused now on getting pelts to finish out the trapper's stuff and the exotics (orchids and whatnot).

j, did you do all that?

I did not do the exotics, and I only went after a few of the legendary animals/fish. Plenty I didn't do in that game...


Finished: Nothing

Now Playing: Judgment

Added to Backlog: Nothing

Current Backlog: 29 games

About 4.5 hours into Judgment and it's about as Yakuza-y as could be. There are a lot of side things as usual, so of course I'm trying to do as many of those as I can while moving through the story at a decent pace.

[isthatallyougot]

Still playing Harvest Moon, Dark Souls 3, and Mad Max. I also began playing PES 2019, which I picked up through the Steam sale. It had been a few years since I had played a version of PES, and it's one of my all-time favorite franchises, so I bit.

Mad Max is looking like a bit of a repetitive grind. Not sure how much longer I'll stick with it. The world is really a nice representation of the Mad Max universe, but there doesn't seem to be much real meat on its bones - just an incredible amount of filler. I'll give it a bit longer, but I don't think it's going to be worth finishing for me. Production values are really nice, but I need some substance.

[argyle]

Games added: Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon, R-type Dimensions

Last week: Finished Witcher 3 (main story), played Bloodstained

This week: Focusing on Bloodstained, but I may jump into some of the W3 DLC as well later this week. And of course, Fantavision.

I think I'm getting close to the end of the main story in W3 - hard to tell really, the side content is so compelling I keep getting sidetracked.

Now that you've put some serious time into it, what's your overall opinion of it? Is it comparable/better than Assassin's Creed: Odyssey which I know is one of your favorite open world action RPGs. By the way, did you finish Tales of Berseria? I'm just curious if your opinion of it changed at all. I liked it enough to play it again at some point.

Witcher 3 is amazing, and so is Odyssey. They're both open-world action RPGs, true, but they also both have very different feels to them. Dunno which I would say is my favorite - both are very much worth playing. I was pretty thorough with my playthrough of W3 (besides not touching the DLC yet, of course). I managed to complete all contracts, and more importantly, I collected all Gwent cards. I have mixed feelings about the overall story of the game, especially the ending...but the side quest stories are so interesting that they more than make up for it. It's a minor complaint in the grand scheme of things.

Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon is an incredible game...on the PS4. Unfortunately, it's a terrible port on the Switch. That's what I had changed my Kickstarter copy to, and I was very disappointed when I first popped it in. I hadn't read anything about it yet, so there was no preconception of the port being bad on my part - it was just very clearly terrible. Looked it up afterward & saw I wasn't crazy. I ended up lucking out & finding a used copy of the PS4 version at a local GS (the manager said the guy who traded it in told him it was "too goth" for him ) and I sold the Switch copy on eBay, so I more or less broke even there.

The highest praise I can give it is that it is absolutely a worthy follow-up to SotN. I doubt it will replace SotN as my all-time favorite game, because there's a lot of nostalgia wrapped up in that game for me at this point. But it doesn't have to. It has tons of depth - the shard system that lets you acquire powers from enemies, a crafting system, cooking, missions, etc. And it has the same quircky details that SotN has, the kind of things that don't really do anything for you gameplay-wise but just add a touch of charm to the game. I love it.

Oh, and yeah, I put Berseria down for the time being. It's fun, but I just wasn't in the mood for it right now.

[isthatallyougot]

I doubt it will replace SotN as my all-time favorite game, because there's a lot of nostalgia wrapped up in that game for me at this point.

I didn't know SotN was your all-time #1. I knew you loved it, but didn't know it was your personal goat.

I've been working on my list forever, but I'm so anal about everything in terms of placement that I made a spread-sheet of all my favorite titles and I rank every title against every other title on my list with a "point / no-point" versus matchup to ultimately give a numerical score or point total to each game relative to the total list. (That way my rankings auto-rank when or if ever completed) But it's taking forever. (I've been working on it for years.) I obsess over single comparisons for long stretches sometimes. I may finish before I'm dead, lol.

Edit: I do know SotN will be fairly high on my all-time list though. Can't say exactly where at the moment.

[jfissel]

I've been working on my list forever, but I'm so anal about everything in terms of placement that I made a spread-sheet of all my favorite titles and I rank every title against every other title on my list with a "point / no-point" versus matchup to ultimately give a numerical score or point total to each game relative to the total list. (That way my rankings auto-rank when or if ever completed) But it's taking forever. (I've been working on it for years.) I obsess over single comparisons for long stretches sometimes. I may finish before I'm dead, lol.

That's really cool, I'll wait...

...

...

... okay, maybe not. Back to Judgment.

[isthatallyougot]

That's really cool, I'll wait...

...

...

... okay, maybe not. Back to Judgment.

Hope you're really patient. I'm currently letting Crash Team Racing fight it out against the other juggernauts from my list . I have more than 120 games I currently consider all-time classics, and that list is, of course, growing while I'm trying to process this whole project. When I have to pit every game against every other game in a one-on-one match-up, and many of those battles require serious mulling over, watching youtube videos for reminders/clarity, even playing through pieces of the games sometimes...well, you do the math. And then I write reviews for each game when I'm finished with its column. And then I don't even have time to give this thing attention at times, well, it just drags. But if I ever finish it, I will be properly satisfied...I hope. (I've currently only completed 11 titles in full, and it has been several years since I started, lol.)

[Phaseknox]

I'm still playing RDR2.

It's hard to believe that it's already been like ten months since it came out, it doesn't seem like that long ago.

About 4.5 hours into Judgment and it's about as Yakuza-y as could be.

Are there any differences between it and the Yakuza games, because based on gameplay videos that I've seen it looks exactly the same.

Mad Max is looking like a bit of a repetitive grind. Not sure how much longer I'll stick with it. The world is really a nice representation of the Mad Max universe, but there doesn't seem to be much real meat on its bones - just an incredible amount of filler.

That was my concern when I played it, because there's only so much that can be done with a vast desert wasteland. There also seems to be a big emphasis on car customization, and car combat which doesn't really interest me. I still plan on giving it another chance at some point in the future, but I have a feeling that I'll get bored of it before finishing it.

Witcher 3 is amazing, and so is Odyssey. They're both open-world action RPGs, true, but they also both have very different feels to them. Dunno which I would say is my favorite - both are very much worth playing.

Good to know, I have both waiting to be played which I'll do when I'm in the mood for 100+ hour open world action RPGs.

Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon is an incredible game...on the PS4. Unfortunately, it's a terrible port on the Switch.

I think that you mean Ritual of the Night. Yeah, I heard that the Switch version is gimped.

The highest praise I can give it is that it is absolutely a worthy follow-up to SotN. I doubt it will replace SotN as my all-time favorite game, because there's a lot of nostalgia wrapped up in that game for me at this point. But it doesn't have to.

My brother said the same thing, Symphony of the Night is one of his favorite games and he said that Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is a comparable spiritual successor. I only played a little Symphony of the Night back in the day when I wasn't a big RPG fan and didn't care for the direction that they took Castlevania in with it since I was a fan of the action platformers that came before it, but I really like Metroidvania games and RPGs these days so I expect to like it now. I'm going to get Castlevania Requiem so that I can play it.

I put Berseria down for the time being. It's fun, but I just wasn't in the mood for it right now.

Yeah, it's not bad but there's definitely other games that I have that I want to play now instead of it. I'll play it again at some point in the future when I'm more in the mood for it.

As for Days Gone, I'm still really enjoying it. I mentioned feeling some fatigue with it, but that's because I was playing it a lot. I took a little break from it, and when I came back to it recently I had a really good time with it again. There's still a good amount left to do in it, and I look forward to doing it. It's definitely one of the best zombie apocalypse games that I've played.

[jfissel]

About 4.5 hours into Judgment and it's about as Yakuza-y as could be.

Are there any differences between it and the Yakuza games, because based on gameplay videos that I've seen it looks exactly the same.

Kamurocho is back, there are similar fighting techniques and moves, substories can be just as hilarious/crazy, the minigames are similar (mahjong, shogi, crane game, casinos, virtua fighter, etc), and the overall pace is familiar (talk to someone here, then go there and something happens, then go to another location). The main difference is in the investigation parts, where it changes to first person view and you need to find clues in order to solve the area and move on. You also will be tailing people around the city, using a drone for evidence collecting in places a person can't get to (through a 4th floor window, for example), and taking pictures with your phone or the drone.

So I'd say it's very much the same but the addition of the investigations makes it different enough to feel fresh. And, of course, you aren't playing as Kiryu for an entire game instead of just parts like 4, 5, 6, and 0.