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Post by UsualNoise on Aug 19, 2018 22:53:57 GMT -5
Hey - thanks for the in-depth review. Pocket Card Jockey is sitting on my 3DS as an unplayed game so having this info is useful. Out of curiosity, can you just 'beat the game' without getting all the trophies? Given the amount of randomness involved I don't think this would be one I tried to complete.
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Post by dschroll on Aug 20, 2018 14:59:43 GMT -5
Hey - thanks for the in-depth review. Pocket Card Jockey is sitting on my 3DS as an unplayed game so having this info is useful. Out of curiosity, can you just 'beat the game' without getting all the trophies? Given the amount of randomness involved I don't think this would be one I tried to complete. I never saw any end credits in the game. They attempt to tell a story about the character you're playing as, but it's not all that interesting. I suspect maybe after you collect all the trophies in the game you would get some finality to it all but I can't say for sure. I unlocked all the puzzles in the game and have all but 5 trophies. As I said, if I could go back and select my race and try my hand at that particular trophy I would still be playing. But I basically have to start over and level up my horse again, playing races I've already done, to get another shot at one of those 5 particular races I have left. And one of those in particular requires that you basically win several tough races to get invited to this race. I may go back to this one and play it every now and then as a time killer, but I've given up on actually trying to "complete" the game because it would just require too many more hours and likely cause more frustration for me. I know it sounds strange, but like I said, it's a lot of fun...but also frustrating when you thought you did perfect and ultimately still lose a match because the game decided the other horses were better than you. The game even goes out of the way to tell you how great you did but that the racing world is tough and not to be discouraged. But when that happened for the 10th time, it is hard not to get discouraged. So, I must get this pocket card monkey off my back now and focus on other games which deserve my attention
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Post by dschroll on Aug 21, 2018 18:10:46 GMT -5
Played through Metal Slug 4 today. I have to say that this is my leave favorite Metal Slug. It just wasn't as over the top and goofy as previous games have been. This one seemed fairly cookie cutter. Still, if you love arcade shootem ups then you'll enjoy this one. Probably the best deal out there is the Metal Slug Anthology which has 7 Metal Slug games in it. That's how I've been playing through them.....until I save up enough money to get the Flash Cart for my Neo Geo ;-)
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Post by dschroll on Aug 22, 2018 17:08:38 GMT -5
Played through Metal Slug 5 today. Definitely better than Metal Slug 4, but still not quite as cool as some of the earlier games. This one suffered a bit from audio glitches at times, but it could be from the emulation. Still, lots of fun and a blast to play in co op. Metal Slug 6 is all that's left for me to finish the entire anthology.
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Post by UsualNoise on Sept 3, 2018 18:25:40 GMT -5
Finished up the latest Picross game on my 3DS: Sanrio Characters Picross. I felt a bit funny playing this one at times, given it's all Hello Kitty characters.
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Post by oldskoolboarder on Sept 3, 2018 23:45:58 GMT -5
Donut County iOS. That's a much darker story that I would've thought.
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Post by UsualNoise on Sept 19, 2018 15:38:28 GMT -5
Finished Picross S2 for the Switch.
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Post by oldskoolboarder on Sept 22, 2018 21:15:04 GMT -5
Detroit Become Human on PS4. If you like games w/ a story, this is GREAT.
However, fair warning, the story can get INTENSE. Not in a gory way, but if you get invested in a character, you have to make some hard decisions. Ones that you can't take back w/ a reset. Trust me, I tried...
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Post by dschroll on Sept 27, 2018 22:15:43 GMT -5
Completed Metal Slug 6 last night, which has completed my venture through the Metal Slug Anthology. 6 was fun and holds true to form, but I have to say I'm partial to the earlier Metal Slug games. It just doesn't feel like the later ones are as over the top or funny as the earlier ones. If you're looking for some good dumb arcade fun, I cannot recommend enough the Metal Slug Anthology. I think it's currently on sale on PSN for $10.
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Post by dschroll on Sept 30, 2018 18:51:56 GMT -5
Finished Spiderman on PS4. Overall a fantastic game. Borrows a TON from the Arkham games, but if you're gonna draw inspiration from something, might as well be the best superhero game out there. Overall the story for Spiderman is fun and engaging, the graphics are gorgeous, the audio seems to draw inspiration from the avengers movies, and the controls take a little getting used to, but become second nature early on. It's an absolute blast swinging around NYC as Spiderman and the game gives you tons of reasons to do so as there are collectibles or crimes happening all over NYC. Getting collectibles or taking on challenges and such not only provide you experience points to help you level up, but grant you tokens to unlock things such as gadgets, more spidey suits, and mods for your suit.
But it can't be a dschroll review without some point of criticism, and indeed that is the case here. While I mostly love this game, my biggest beef with it is the challenge tokens. There are various challenges for you to do around NYC and you can bronze, silver, and gold these challenges. Depending on which medal you get will them provide you with a comparable amount of challenge tokens. Bronze gets you 1 token, silver gets you 2 tokens, and gold gets you 3 tokens. The nice thing is if you get silver it will automatically give you the bronze token as well, so you will get a total of 3. The same goes for gold. Challenge tokens are used to unlock things like gadgets and suits. Here's my problem though, you have to gold on several, if not all of these challenges in order to collect enough to unlock everything. That irks me as I've completed all the challenges and have silvered on all save for 2 that I actually did gold on, and I still don't have enough tokens to unlock all the suits and gadgets in the game. That means, if I want to get these things that are useful in the game, I will have to repeatedly practice and play these challenges so I can gold them to get more challenge tokens. I don't mind if you want to hide a trophy behind getting golds on things, but don't lock in game items behind this. That just stinks. I don't know if I have the patience or interest in doing these challenges over and over until I can gold them so I can fully max out my weapons. I've already beaten the game without that ability. I think I should have access to these in game devices to enjoy them but the game is locking me out until I perfect some challenge. I just don't like that and feel you shouldn't hide in game items behind these types of challenges. Trophies, yes, but not in game stuff.
That's really my main gripe with the game. If you liked the Arkham games, you will love this game. If you like Spiderman you will love this game. It's a lot of fun, it has tons of nods to the movies and marvel universe. I've basically 100%'d everything save for the challenges in the game. Maybe I will go back to those at some points to try my hand at gold, but for now I'm taking a breather from Spiderman.
UPDATE: LOL...I couldn't just leave it be so I played through the challenges until I golded enough of them to unlock all the suits. Thankfully you don't need to gold them all to get the suits, but I suspect you would to unlock all the gadgets. I'm not obsessed enough yet to get those yet, as I've unlocked them all, just not upgraded them. Anyway, now I am officially done with Spiderman until the DLC comes out ;-)
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Post by oldskoolboarder on Oct 3, 2018 23:07:40 GMT -5
Life is Strange: Before the Storm. I wanted to finish before I bought the new episodes. I did not play the bonus, my ass is too cheap to pay $10 for 1 bonus episode.
I like the game, granted it's a bit teenage angsty. But I prefer good stories and this wasn't too bad.
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Post by oldskoolboarder on Oct 7, 2018 18:25:07 GMT -5
Gardens Between on Swtich. Very interesting game mechanic. Time manipulation going back and forth. You have to notice sometimes VERY minor things that can create an effect.
Melancholy story. Man, these last 2 games gettin emotional.
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Post by dschroll on Oct 21, 2018 11:25:41 GMT -5
Finished Wonderboy: Dragons Trap on switch. This is a remake of an old sega master system game. What’s cool with the remake is that you can flip back and forth between the original graphics and the new style. Truth be told, the new style is just much nicer than the old, so I played through the majority of the game with the updated sounds and visuals.
This game is definitely an old school game though in the likes of the original Metroid or Zelda. It doesn’t tell you where to go, it has tons of hidden things that are in obscure places you would never think to look, etc. I ended up using a guide for this game as I just didn’t want to wander around aimlessly until I stumbled on the next thing I was supposed to do.
Overall this is a solid game and the remake is absolutely outstanding in sounds and visuals. The gameplay is solid when you know what you’re doing and where you need to go, but I wished they had modernized it as part of the remake. 7/10.
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Post by oldskoolboarder on Oct 21, 2018 16:32:58 GMT -5
Yeah, I stopped this one because I never played the Sega version and I got pretty lost. Maybe I'll go back w/ a guide.
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Post by UsualNoise on Oct 24, 2018 19:44:35 GMT -5
Finished Pac-Man Championship Edition 2 on the Switch.
This was the hardest game I've ever finished in my life. To reach the final boss you have to complete every level on the hardest difficulty level, and most of the last 14 levels require crazy levels of skill to finish. It probably took me about 20+ hours to finish those 14 levels and there were times I almost gave up. To put it in perspective, one web site that tracks achievements (for the XBox version) showed that only 1% of all those who reported their results actually finished the game ... and remember, this is a site specifically FOR completionists - still only 1 out of 100 could finish the game.
It was a really enjoyable game up until the last 14 levels. I still enjoyed playing it, but the bar to clear to simply finish the game is so high that the game creators did a really bad job. If it was just to unlock extras that would be one thing, but you need to do all that insanity to just unlock the final boss (which, by the way, was pretty easy once you cleared the previous challenges).
Anyway, I can't recommend it for completionists but if you're a Pac-Man fan and don't care about finishing everything it's pretty fun.
One other note: some levels had issues with dropping frames ... with this kind of a game that becomes problematic since you need split second reactions.
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Post by dschroll on Oct 27, 2018 10:57:30 GMT -5
Congrats UsualNoise. Seems like a big accomplishment to completing that one. At the very least, you have to feel some sense of accomplishment. There's only been a handful of games I've finished where I felt a strong satisfaction afterwards for completing them.
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Post by UsualNoise on Oct 28, 2018 23:21:08 GMT -5
Thanks. Yeah, it was nice to finish such a hard game ... but a very poor example of game design!
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Post by UsualNoise on Nov 24, 2018 3:26:58 GMT -5
Finished Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, finally. The part that took the longest (as a completionist) was beating all the 200cc ghosts. Man that was insane. (Particularly Toad's Turnpike, Ribbon Road & Music Park.) I still have to get the gold glider but that takes 10,000 coins and isn't really related to something you can actively pursue. I'll collect it eventually but for now this game is complete.
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Post by UsualNoise on Dec 3, 2018 21:49:06 GMT -5
Completed Kemono Friends Picross for Switch.
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Post by dschroll on Dec 6, 2018 22:29:20 GMT -5
Completed Framed 1 for Switch. This is a really neat puzzle game that tells a story through comic book style panels and you have to rearrange those panels so the spy you play as can get through the area without getting caught. I highly recommend this one. I think the bundle(Framed 1 and 2) is sold on the eshop, but I've only played the first game. My daughter and I loved it.
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