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Finished INSIDE. Graphics are good, gameplay is good too. Not difficult but it increases over time and it was well done. There was almost no music and I did not get the story at all until I read theories on the web. I recommend it but I think it is a bit overrated.

Full list here.
KARAKARA

Another VN, in a post-apocalyptic, dried-out world. Not much of a game, I don't remember making any choice at all. So it is what the category is: a novel. No more no less.

It was quite charming and short (2 hours tops f you're a fast reader), but if you're looking for a game, then it's not for you.

So far in 2017: https://www.gog.com/forum/general/games_finished_in_2017/post15
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xa_chan: Not much of a game, I don't remember making any choice at all. So it is what the category is: a novel. No more no less.
I think the actual term for this kind of VN is "Kinetic Novel".
HunieCam Studio

By all rights, I should not have enjoyed this game. At the surface it's a slimmed down management sim game that relies as much on frantic clickyclicking for 3 hours at a time as actual strategy.

And yet, in my first session I played for like 6 hours straight, and if it wasn't a work night probably would've circled right back into another round of management. The mechanics themselves are straightforward, but the tiers for success you're targeting are high enough that just blundering through won't get you anywhere, and there was a compulsion to get better.

I even restarted my second game 15 minutes in b/c I realized I was making a crippling mistake in D2 that would completely leave me short for end-game. Learning!

Downsides:
Click/hold works, though not quite as optimally as repeat clicking. Bit too much of that here to the point it a) gets tiring, and b) while it's part of the addictive energy fueling the play session, it definitely takes away from having brain space to actually strategize, though I get the sense that's by design - can you still think at a management level while handling immediate queue priorities AND clickfest?

21 days (the cap for each round) feels like not quite enough time to really dig one's teeth in while being a bit too long for a quick session. Also perhaps part of what leaves you wanting more gameplay within a session, but also something of an impediment to coming back for future sessions.

I quite enjoyed the 6 hours or so I spent, and kept playing even an hour beyond bedtime to try and achieve business domination, but I paid for it the next day.

But this company can clearly pull off making gold out of some fairly simple core design.
Hero of the Kingdom

A very casual RPG, with a very basic story. Sideways thumb.

Pros:
Pretty good UI, some fun/inspired little features.

Cons:
Money-making is brutal, made worse by the fact you'll need a lot of it. The "fastest" way to make money involves making/selling break, and yet you'll need to click about 20-25 times plus travel time and wait through an annoying little animation to make 19 gold. And you need like 4000 gold. So like, 4,000 clicks. It's brutal. Like 50% of your play time will be making and selling the **** ***** bread.

Not clear at times which mats are to sell vs. which you'll want to keep for story progression.

I'm being optimistic/dumb enough to play the 2nd mostly on the hope that the $$ feature won't be nearly as horrible.
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xa_chan: Not much of a game, I don't remember making any choice at all. So it is what the category is: a novel. No more no less.
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kalirion: I think the actual term for this kind of VN is "Kinetic Novel".
Ah, I might have heard the term before, right ! Thanks !
So, earlier this month I got a PS4 Pro for my birthday so now I'm playing through some games that I had missed this generation. One of the first games I got for it was Killzone: Shadowfall because I really enjoyed the PS3 generation Killzone games, especially Killzone 2, and I was really looking forward to this one.

So, I beat it yesterday and the game friggin' sucks. I mean, it's an okay game but considering the expectations it's an utter disaster and it just feels like a generic AA action game, not a groundbreaking new entry in a flagship franchise. Honestly, it feels like the developers were just tired of the series but Sony requested another title to promote their new console, so the devs reluctantly made it just wanting to get it over with. It's literally how I already felt when I fired up the game for the first time - the main menu just appears. No intro, not even company logos, no nothing. You're suddenly in the eye-cancerous main menu. The heck? Anyway....

Content-wise the game is so bland that it hurts. The series was always known for its iconic enemies and Killzone 2 took it a step further with their iconic home world. Killzone 3 also provided quite a few breathtaking vistas. Shadowfall just takes place in utterly bland Halo meets Mass Effect sterile bases with some blue skies and a few green patches here and there excluding a few sections in the Helghan district which is all slums and is a far cry from the mindblowing industrial gothic Helghan in Killzone 2. It's just so utterly meh. I stopped a few times to look around, hoping that I'll find some impressive places hidden under this blandness but no, it's just brutally uninspired and boring. It hurts even more because the mostly sterlie setting just utterly fails to convey the possibilities of this new hardware generation. Generally, Shadowfall is just an utter failure as a game trying to promote a big technological leap in gaming. The same problems basically apply to other stuff like character models, animations and whatnot.

Another strong suit of the Killzone games were its characters. Badass but likeable heroes and charismatic villains. There's just none of that here. The protagonist has no personality at all, throughout most of the game the only other actual character is some commander dude who is just as bland. After a while you finally meet some Helghan half-breed sidekick woman who is an okay character but underdeveloped and not enough to carry the game. Then there's a ridiculous psychopathic villain who seems like a wannabe Vaas but who is neither menacing nor interesting. Then there's the Helghast chancellor, who could have been interesting but only appears for a few seconds in one or two cutscenes. And finally the brilliant villain from Killzone 3, Jorhan Stahl, makes a return but appears only for a few seconds. It's just pathetic compared to what the series provided at least since Killzone 2 and to some degree even Killzone 1 in the character department.

Oh yeah, and the plot is also quite stupid, starting with the fact that the basis of all the tensions is the good guys' guilt for destroying Helghan in the previous game. Everyone who played it knows that the guilt was actually all Stahl's and it takes serious mental gymnastics to blame the Vektans. Also, the format through which the story is told is quite lame. They clearly tried to speed things up and make them more intense by introducing big sudden leaps in time, you're suddenly moved from one place and time to the next. The result is just that I don't care much about what's going on. The plots in the previous games were (even) simpler but the fact that the games provided long connected journeys made you really live it. Here it's just scene after scene and then it abruptly and unsatisfyingly ends. Really not good. Neither helps the fact that there's almost no dialogue in the game, it's just mediocre characters talking down to the mostly silent protagonist.

Finally there's the gameplay, by far the game's biggest problem. Honestly, it feels like one of those early 2000's AA shooters. It's linear with only slight fake openness and it's this clumsy mix of FPS action and stealth, especially the latter being too underdeveloped to be fun or interesting. The biggest problem, however, is an utter lack of interesting enemies, combat situations or dramatic scenes. Whereas Killzone 2 and 3 were like Call of Duty on steroids, with epic dramatic battles, tough enemies who require cunning to be defeated and even some impressive bossfights plus some fun vehicle sections here it's just going from room to room, effortlessly killing the same enemies over and over with lame objectives in-between. Almost all enemies in the game are your basic footsoldiers who actually appear to be a lot weaker than in the previous games (and this just hurts considering how menacing the Helghast are supposed to be and actually were before). Eliminating a whole bunch of them just requires you to spray a few bullets in their direction and they go down in a second, nothing like in Killzone 2 where even at the start of the game you had to work rather tactically to get ahead. And even by the end of the game the only extra Helghast are some shielded guys and some heavy gunners who pose almost no threat at all, especially since the game usually provides guns at these points that make eliminating them a walk in the park. It's just utterly ridiculous compared (especially but not only) to the juggernaut-type enemies in Killzone 2 who were extremely hard to defeat, lethal and required you to hit certain body parts to eliminate them. A few times you encounter some big unmanned machines but that's where the drone comes in...

Just like those early 2000's AA shooters I mentioned this game also comes with that one "original" feature supposed to serve as a selling point: in this case a drone. As you largely control it via the Dualshock 4's touchpad I can imagine that it was forced just to promote the new gamepad - it's quite a weak attempt, though, as the game only uses the touchpad as a second d-pad. And the drone itself doesn't really contribute much to the game, as a matter of fact it only makes the already far too easy combat even more easy, which is why I mostly didn't use it. It can attack but the attack is so weak that it mostly works a diversion, allowing you to mow down the disoriented enemies. It can put up a shield but again, the combat is already easy enough as it is, not once did I feel the need to use the shield since traditional cover did the job just fine and didn't require me to stay in one place. The only sensible combat option is the stun which is able to disable even those massive attack bots, eliminating almost any need to actually combat them and it also disables the shields of the shielded Helghast, practically rendering them standard enemies (and stunning them in the process, making them perfectly harmless). Finally there's some hook / zip line / whatever option that allows you to get past gaps or reach high places and stuff. There's no reason to use it tactically during combat and the level design does not support any interesting use for it. There are a few moments where you have to use it to get past a gap but in other moments where you think it could allow you to get to out-of-reach places it usually just says "invalid angle" or "too large distance" or something.

The only rather good section was the ruined homeworld of the Helghast but, kinda fittingly, it's just a shadow of its former glory.

Bottom line: it's a painfully mediocre, unexciting and uninspired game. If it had been some debut title by a smaller studio I would probably end up defending it to some degree but as the next title in Sony's flagship franchise it's just a disaster and it also absolutely wastes the pretty cool Killzone lore. Bad boy, Guerrilla Games, bad boy!

The good news is that their next game, Horizon: Zero Dawn, so far seems to be a pretty awesome game and I'm looking forward to finishing that one.
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bler144: Hero of the Kingdom

A very casual RPG, with a very basic story. Sideways thumb.

Pros:
Pretty good UI, some fun/inspired little features.

Cons:
Money-making is brutal, made worse by the fact you'll need a lot of it. The "fastest" way to make money involves making/selling break, and yet you'll need to click about 20-25 times plus travel time and wait through an annoying little animation to make 19 gold. And you need like 4000 gold. So like, 4,000 clicks. It's brutal. Like 50% of your play time will be making and selling the **** ***** bread.

Not clear at times which mats are to sell vs. which you'll want to keep for story progression.

I'm being optimistic/dumb enough to play the 2nd mostly on the hope that the $$ feature won't be nearly as horrible.
Lovely little games those two, I enjoyed them much.
I've used an AutoHotkey script for all those bloody clicks when making money. Probably a memory editor like ArtMoney would do the job too.

I'll post some links to different guides, if you're interested in the second game.
Final Fantasy VII. Before I played this, the FF's I'd played were all the ones that got original English-language releases: 1, 4, and 6. I figured it was about time I got around to seeing how this one was and I would say...it's decent enough but I think I prefer the older ones.

I did enjoy playing it, for the most part, so if I criticize it's not that I'm screaming about the emperor being naked, but I wasn't crazy about the on-screen party being shrunk down to three people, and the graphics are a classic case of early 3D that has aged poorly (actually, from what I remember of seeing this in 1997, I'm not sure it was particularly good-looking even in its own time). The materia system didn't agree with me too much and I would have preferred a skill/magic system that was more intrinsic to the characters, despite whatever flexibility you may get from swapping materia around. I'll admit that I'm generally not good at uncovering the intricacies of JRPG systems and I mostly win by alternating between my best attacks and my best healing spells.

The music is really good, and CGI cut-scenes aren't bad aside from the expressionless characters. The big combat moves, like the summonses and limit breaks are a lot of fun - I've read a lot of criticisms of them being too long and bogging down the combat (including one particular move the final boss uses), but I guess I enjoyed getting a little breather during the fights. I also love that Tifa uses a brain buster as part of her limit breaks. I'm shallow like that.

The story reminded me of what Captain Planet might look like if it was given a grim'n'gritty reboot. Despite the caricatured fossil fuel execs and stuff, I was hanging with it until it reached a certain point, maybe it was when they started going on about the planet having a soul, and then I sort of checked out and just wanted to punch monsters and win the game.

In retrospect, I feel like the game has a bit of Bioshock syndrome going on, in that it's a game that generally doesn't do what it does as well as its precursors, but it's the one that won the public because it had the best presentation, the most hype, and the widest distribution. Is that unfair?
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bler144: Lovely little games those two, I enjoyed them much.
I've used an AutoHotkey script for all those bloody clicks when making money. Probably a memory editor like ArtMoney would do the job too.
It's strange what was said here. From what I remember it took me no more than 3-4h to complete Hero of the Kingdom and it wasn't long enough to become so much bored and it wasn't worth to look for such workarounds. The sources of money and various resources are changing during the game and I do not remember repeating one single process so many times...
Finished Shadow of the Comet. This one has a strong story and mood. But the UI is quite clunky and there are some very difficult puzzles... until you get to day 3 and then everything is too difficult. Finished it with a walkthrough.

Full list here.
Hope I get this title right...

Half Minute Hero: Super Mega Neo Climax Ultimate Boy

Nailed it.

This is a jrpg like any other, you go around helping random people deal with bandits in a cave, grind, defeat an evil Lord in a castle, grind some more, slowly get better transport and armour, do some more grinding. But there's a catch with this one, you only have 30 seconds to beat each level. Once beaten you are reset to level 1 and must do the whole thing over again. Technically you don't have 30 seconds, you also have the ability to pay the 'Time Godess' to reset the clock, granting you plenty of time to get through all that grinding. There is an achievement for completing all levels in under 30 seconds, but I can't even comprehend how that's even possible on some levels. Anyway the game lasts slightly more than 30 seconds, I had completed every level in the game in a few hours, though there is multiplayer and the choice to spend another 40 or so hours getting every achievement. Music good, story is... well it's meant to be a comical game so it's alright. All in all it's a good game, I'd recommend it.
Crackdown (360)

Thought I'd better finally play it, since the new one is due out late this year. Crackdown is sort of the original inspiration for the open world super powered hero games like the underrated inFamous series (Sony's best IP IMO), Saints Row 4 and Sunset Overdrive.

Crackdown uses the extinct Render Ware engine and looks pretty good for a 2007 early Xbox 360 game. Gameplay is as expected- rid the open world city of it's crime lords one by one, collecting power up orbs along the way to increase your suits powers so that you can reach the later areas. As a sign of it's time, the crime bosses are not just conveniently put on the map for you, back in those days you had to actually scour the map and find them! Also the entire city can be accessed from the start- though you will not have the power ups to reach the higher buildings.
Collecting the power up orbs and working out how to get up to the harder ones is addictive and results in tangible upgrades as rewards- you really feel the upgrades, making the effort worthwhile.

Overall it's a very fun game to play even now, though the above mentioned games it inspired all improved the formula in some way and are superior- especially Sunset Overdrive with it's awesome traversal system.
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CMOT70: Crackdown (360)

Thought I'd better finally play it, since the new one is due out late this year. Crackdown is sort of the original inspiration for the open world super powered hero games like the underrated inFamous series (Sony's best IP IMO), Saints Row 4 and Sunset Overdrive.
This was probably my favorite Xbox360 exclusive. Even the achievements were actually fun because it was early enough in the system's lifespan that they weren't outright telling you how to get them. I got one for throwing the Fu Manchu guy off of his penthouse balcony.
Since I've posted here last time, I've added to my list of finished games two more games.

Two months ago, I have finished the climb to the max ranks in Project CARS and won the LMP1 championship against AI opponents on level 70, in less than 10 seasons (took me 6 seasons), starting with 125cc Kart championship.

Few hours ago, I was able to finish Tales of Berseria. And I was not disappointed :) All in all It took me almost 138 hours, but I was playing it intentionally on hardest difficulties. Unfortunately, the final bossfight was very hard on these difficulties, so I had to drop to Moderate :(

I do not remember the last time, when I played a game for so long, and was still eager to continue forward, doing sidequests didn't feel like a chore, but complemented the main story. And I really loved the main characters, which were different to what we are mostly used in other games. No saving the world cliche this time in the story. It was just an afterthought next to the main quest for revenge of the main heroine.

I will probably do now few optional postgame sidequests, but I am already itching to finish my postponed quest for Platinum Trophy in Tales of Xillia 2 (missing last two of the most grindy trophies in game).

And probably, I'll launch the free Rebel Galaxy, which I got in last GOG sale :)


List of my games finished in 2017.