PS2 Backlog Committee

Played: Assassin’s Creed Odyssey

Finished: Nothing

Playing: Assassin’s Creed Odyssey

Added: Nothing

Games releasing this week
Arietta of Spirits
Checkers for Kids
Fracked
Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut
Greak: Memories of Azur
Humankind
Madden NFL 22
Mayhem Brawler
Monster Harvest
Orbibot
Out of Line
Pile Up! Box by Box
Recompile
Rims Racing
Rise Eterna
Road 96
Rogue Explorer
Squares: Brain Game
Solitaire TriPeaks Flowers
Synthetik 2
Tetris Effect: Connected
Train Sim World 2
Twelve Minutes
The Vale: Shadow of the Crown
World Soccer Strikers ‘91
Yuoni

Finished: Nothing

Now Playing: Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart PS5, Final Fantasy VII Remake

Added to Backlog: Nothing

Current Backlog: 39 games

Didn't get any playing time last week, though I'm hopeful to get going on Ratchet & Clank and then prepare for Psychonauts 2!

Psychonauts 2... never thought I'd see the day. Sure hope it lives up to the original.



Played recently: Immortals: Fenyx Rising

Finished: nothing

Added to backlog: nothing

Current backlog: 17 (13 PS4, 1 Vita, 3 Switch)


I'm nearing the end of Fenyx Rising. I'm getting everything on the map before I go into what looks like the last section of the game. (Well, not everything. I'm punting on getting the treasure in two of the vaults... just can't do it and tired of banging my head against the wall).

I’ve played Assassin’s Creed Odyssey for over 60 hours now, and as much as I’ve been enjoying it I also have some complaints and nitpicks with it.

One of the bigger things about it that bothers me is that it was clearly designed to be played as Alexios instead of as Kassandra, this is especially apparent when it comes to the romance quests/options. The romance options are almost always women, and the few times when they’re men they’re usually effeminate gay men. But there are really no romance options if you want to play as straight Kassandra. She doesn’t really strike me as being gay like female Eivor in Valhalla does (they purposely made her butch since most of the romance options in Valhalla are female as well). So primarily only having women and effeminate gay men romantically interested in Kassandra just seems weird to me.

I don’t care about the romance stuff in the game too much since it’s mostly for comic relief, but it bothers me when it’s tied into a quest storyline. For example, I just finished a long quest with a romance theme that was clearly meant specifically for Alexios. It doesn’t even work if Kassandra is gay, it’s specifically written as if you’re playing as Alexios. It’s stuff like this that pulls me out of the experience, but they could have made it work had they simply replaced the female love interest with a male one if you play as Kassandra instead of as Alexios.

Other things that annoy me in the game are things like if you fight an enemy in the streets, civilians start attacking you. WTF? I expect them to flee the area, but instead they pick up something like a broom and start hitting me with it which is completely absurd. It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Also, bounty hunters can freely go into bandit camps, soldier forts and leader houses without incident, but you get attacked as soon as you’re seen even close to them. Why is my character and my character alone the only one that everyone wants to attack on sight? At least the animals don’t single me out, they attack everyone. By the way, don’t mess with the chickens or you’ll regret it.

Also, why do horses run really slow at times even out of cities and towns? I’ll be riding a horse, and it will just slow down to a crawl for no apparent reason. Why do you swim so slow? I dislike swimming in the game because it’s so friggin’ slow. Why do you flail your arms around like an idiot when underwater fighting sharks? You should be stabbing them.

While these things are little annoyances, they do add up in a game as big as this one that offers hundreds of hours of content. I’m still really enjoying playing it again and discovering some things that I missed the first time, but there are definitely things that could have made it even better overall.

Phaseknox wrote: ↑Mon Aug 16, 2021 10:39 pm I’ve played Assassin’s Creed Odyssey for over 60 hours now, and as much as I’ve been enjoying it I also have some complaints and nitpicks with it.

One of the bigger things about it that bothers me is that it was clearly designed to be played as Alexios instead of as Kassandra, this is especially apparent when it comes to the romance quests/options. The romance options are almost always women, and the few times when they’re men they’re usually effeminate gay men. But there are really no romance options if you want to play as straight Kassandra. She doesn’t really strike me as being gay like female Eivor in Valhalla does (they purposely made her butch since most of the romance options in Valhalla are female as well). So primarily only having women and effeminate gay men romantically interested in Kassandra just seems weird to me.

I don’t care about the romance stuff in the game too much since it’s mostly for comic relief, but it bothers me when it’s tied into a quest storyline. For example, I just finished a long quest with a romance theme that was clearly meant specifically for Alexios. It doesn’t even work if Kassandra is gay, it’s specifically written as if you’re playing as Alexios. It’s stuff like this that pulls me out of the experience, but they could have made it work had they simply replaced the female love interest with a male one if you play as Kassandra instead of as Alexios.

Other things that annoy me in the game are things like if you fight an enemy in the streets, civilians start attacking you. WTF? I expect them to flee the area, but instead they pick up something like a broom and start hitting me with it which is completely absurd. It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Also, bounty hunters can freely go into bandit camps, soldier forts and leader houses without incident, but you get attacked as soon as you’re seen even close to them. Why is my character and my character alone the only one that everyone wants to attack on sight? At least the animals don’t single me out, they attack everyone. By the way, don’t mess with the chickens or you’ll regret it.

Also, why do horses run really slow at times even out of cities and towns? I’ll be riding a horse, and it will just slow down to a crawl for no apparent reason. Why do you swim so slow? I dislike swimming in the game because it’s so friggin’ slow. Why do you flail your arms around like an idiot when underwater fighting sharks? You should be stabbing them.

While these things are little annoyances, they do add up in a game as big as this one that offers hundreds of hours of content. I’m still really enjoying playing it again and discovering some things that I missed the first time, but there are definitely things that could have made it even better overall.

I thought I had read somewhere that Kassandra is canon...hmmm.

They probably recognize that most dudes playing the game would prefer lesbian romance options if they're playing as the woman.

jfissel wrote: ↑Tue Aug 17, 2021 12:42 pm

jfissel wrote: ↑Tue Aug 17, 2021 12:42 pmI thought I had read somewhere that Kassandra is canon...hmmm.

Ubisoft claimed that she was the canon character after the game was out a while and a lot of people stated how much better that they liked her and her voice actress compared to Alexios and his voice actor. When Odyssey is referenced in Valhalla Kassandra is the hero and not Alexios, but if Kassandra was meant to be the canon character from the beginning then why is Alexios on the front and back of the box, on the game startup image and on The Fate of Atlantis image?

canedaddy wrote: ↑Tue Aug 17, 2021 12:55 pmThey probably recognize that most dudes playing the game would prefer lesbian romance options if they're playing as the woman.

Possibly, but selectable female characters are usually put in games for female players since studies have shown that guys usually prefer to play as male characters while girls usually prefer to play as female characters. I usually prefer to play as female characters not only because I find them more appealing to look at, but also because I usually prefer their personalities and voice actors to their male counterparts.

OOH OOH I KNOW!!!...because games with dudes on the box sell better than those with women and Ubi Soft. There's volumes of material stating that the AC creators wanted a woman forever and the higher ups kept insisting they put a dude on the box. Also, 65% of people who played Odyssey made the objectively wrong choice and picked Alexios. I did the first time I played it and then shelved it for a year and a half after about an hour with that chuckle****. With Kassandra, easy game of the year contender. I found the difference that profound.

As for the female romance options, well...Phase. Fam. I really, really cannot wait until you get to the first chapter of the first DLC. I NEED all your hot takes! I tend to avoid romance nonsense in games because I don't care. I will if there's a trophy and they force me to (Persona) or it's required for gameplay (Sakura Wars) but it's mostly because I am not there for romance in games. The romance stuff in Mass Effect made zero sense to me because of the situation (literally the universe hangs in the balance...but I really want to nail the blue chick because...ummmm... ) Gaming scenarios generally just don't lend themselves to romance. I also find they don't give you access to interesting pairings outside of straight up heteronormative options. You could do wonders with games showing LGBTQ and especially asexual relationships. That could be fascinating and give people a glimpse into a world they should be well aware of. But I am getting off topic of why I avoid romance in games. Anyway, in Odyssey however, the only time I actively went in for a relationship was Kassandra and that hunter chick. She was a fantastic flirt. I couldn't see her with that chuckle**** Alexios because he sucks but Kassandra? I was down. And that romance option had an unexpectedly cool payoff. Which was summarily ruined by DLC .

Played: DQ11S, Kill La Kill IF

Bought: Surprisingly nothing? I have access Tekken 7 on PS Now and I really just want to play through the story anyway. I own the Sam Show collection on PS2 and didn't touch it, can't think I wouldn't do the same now. Everything else I wanted goes on sale at least monthly since the pandemic started and I have way too much to choose from at the moment anyway. Well, that and I bought a functional trainer for my shed gym...I am super leery about spending money like that...so I don't think I will be grabbing anything until like...next week .

Beat: Well...I rolled credits on DQ11S. It had a satisfying wrap up. Of course there's still 20-30 hours of game left but I want to move on to something else after 100 or so hours.

Done with: Shadow of War and Kill la Kill. Shadow just doesn't do it for me. I try and try and it just falls flat every time I go back to it. My play times kept getting shorter and shorter so I finally just deleted it. Fenyx scratches the same itch and keeps my attention better anyway. Kill la Kill was amazing, will end up on my GOTY list at the very bottom. It committed the cardinal sin: glitched 3 times and crashed back to the PS4 menu at the same point. So it had to go. I had the same problem with Mad Max last year and that got the boot too. Shame, I was having a blast. If you like arena fighters, it's pretty fun. I just wish I could have finished it...

I have been all over the place since finishing DQ11S. I can't settle on anything. I am going to watch the TWEWY anime next week so I can start that up. In the meantime, I tried Shadow of War, Kiil la Kill, Yakuza 4 (I don't like Akiyama's substories), Capt Tsubasa (I don't get how to play soccer but the ball becomes a tiger so I will soldier through this at some point), DB Fighterz (it's like...a lot), Soul Calibur 6 (I got bored in the character creator) among many, many others and then the biggie...P5 Strikers. I wish Argyle were here to help me with this one, I am so flipping LOST! They overwhelmed me out of the gate. There is too many characters to choose from, too many systems, too much to keep track of...I don't play musou games, the hell am I supposed to do? Save me Argyle, you're my only hope !!! Seriously, I just keep falling on my face with this one. It doesn't feel like I am ever getting a grasp on it...

crimson_tide wrote: ↑Thu Aug 19, 2021 11:29 am The romance stuff in Mass Effect made zero sense to me because of the situation (literally the universe hangs in the balance...but I really want to nail the blue chick because...ummmm... )

Hello, it's a blue chick! If the universe is lost because Shep is engaged in cerulean intercourse, so bet it.