Last game you beat

[CLXcool]

I said I'd review it. And I'm keeping a promise. I've already beaten Cuphead, now here's the review!

In this day in age. Everyone loves the cartoons of the golden age of the 1930s and 1940s. Whenever someone tries to recreate the golden age of animation, there are times they dont get what made the golden age good in the first place. They try too hard to be like it without doing their own thing with it(e.g Tiny Toons, Wacky World of Tex Avery to name a few). One video game has managed to do the impossible, be its own thing while taking some pointers from the golden age of animation. The video game in question is Cuphead.


The game was announced in 2014, all that was there was a trailer. Cuphead heavily stood out from the rest of the video games that were revealed for its 2D hand-drawn art style. It started as mostly a boss rush game, after the surprising amount of positive acclaim that was given from critics and gamers alike. Studio MDHR decided to add some platforming levels to make things even out for the game. The game was delayed a couple of times, Cuphead was then released on September 29th of 2017.

Now what's this game about? Cuphead and his brother Mugman take a bet with the devil in gambling, both of them lose, in order to get out of the debt, they got to get the soul contracts from various characters across the game that are in debt to the devil as well. What makes this video game fun is that it's always willing to throw you a challenge when you least expect it. Its filled with a lot of surprises from the various bosses that you have to fight. None of them are the same when it comes to attack patterns. It feels very much inspired by games such as Contra and gunstar heroes.

One major positive thing I want to say about the game here is its animation. Rather than go fully digital, they went with old school animating here. Every character animation in this game was done by hand and inked traditionally(while the coloring of the game's character animation is colored digitally) including beautifully crafted watercolor backgrounds to give it that 'feel' you're watching an old animated short from the mid 1930s(they even went out of their way to get the effects of old film in this game). One of my favorite levels in the game are the boss fights between the dragon Grim Matchwick(named after animator Grim Natwick who worked for the Fleischer studio, and some random trivia was the creator of Betty boop) and djimi the great is that the game's background changes to a 3D esque background. In some of the Fleischer cartoons(notably the Popeye shorts from Flesicher), the background would change from a painted background to a 3D like background set that was made by hand to give it a different 'feel' to it. Like looking at a fully crafted background you'd see in a stop-motion film. Here's a comparison from the Grim Matchwick boss and a scene from the two reeler popeye cartoon POPEYE MEETS SINBAD THE SAILOR(that uses the background technique I mentioned before).



This only appears in two boss fights, but it made me happy that Studio MDHR got this part down for the game. The only downside to this game isn't the game itself, its the gaming journalists who spend too much time on realistic video games to realize that there are more video games out there that are just hack and slash fantasy. If anyone asks, yes, I got through the tutorial stage in a snap, it's not that difficult.

This is a game that truly does pay homage to what it was inspired by. It does its own thing, and I tip my hat off to the people who worked on this game. I hope if a sequel does happen, they go for the Tex Avery approach(in terms of animation and humor but with a touch that they think is right) for the game. In the end I can highly recommend you playing this game. If you loved the golden age cartoons, loved playing games like Contra and Gunstar heroes. Then this is the game for you. Buy it in its full glory. Its worth every cent. The people who worked on this did their best to make a great video game.

[gamemaster1991]

I know that I'm really late to this band wagon, but I found out how great Shovel Knight really is. For someone who wasn't around for the NES let alone played a good number of it's library, I can see the love and care for those games went into making this game. There is so much that I like about this game, but I'll sum it up by saying that I was sapose to put down the game after one or two attempts at one of the challenges, and give or take an hour later, I beat half of them and had to force my self to get chores done.

[gamemaster1991]

Imported Umihara Kawase Portable. I heared that it's the worst version Shun, due to the physics engine being buggy, and yes I would agree that the rope was pretty buggy at times. However, it's not unplayable, and if you get use to how the rope works, it's kinda easy to get to the end.

I'm just not sure if I could call it completed, because the ending I got for beating it fast (not sure if the half hour time limit was caried over from the SNES game, but I beat it in around 12 minutes) came at Field 30 out of like 52 and the stage practice doesn't tell you how many levels there are. Still, the game told me I won, so I'll take it for that and play on it to get a little farther and maybe another ending.

[Arjahn]

Oh I finally got around to beating Zelda: Breath of the Wild a few weeks ago.

Spoiler

I love the mechanic of optional dungeons that effectively defeat stages of the Final Boss for you, that's a really creative way to make them more rewarding. The final fight in general was really enjoyable, albeit slightly too easy for my tastes. It's probably my fault for going in with a ton of silver lynel weapons but I really expected to use up more than one or two items after spending so much time preparing -.-

All in all, it's my favorite Zelda game since Ocarina of Time. Everything but the dungeons was just handled so well and the open world just feels so damn liberating after Skyward Hallway.

That said, the Dungeons are reeeeeeall bad. Maybe not quite as bad as I made them out to be on my first playthough, but they're still miserable collectithons of shit for the most part. There are a few cool parts sprinkled throughout, and I really enjoyed most of the bosses, but hot damn were they tedious. Also hey Nintendo, guys who made the best 3D platformers of all time; precise jumps don't work in 3D, knock that shit off.

My three least favorite mechanics in gaming are Stealth, Escort Missions, and shitty Light/Dark sections. Hey look at that! There's an Escort Mission where you need to Sneak and avoid spotlights! That's a Shit that makes Arjahn stop playing your game Bingo!

[Arjahn]

Just finished South Park: The Fractured But Whole.

Overall it was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed the combat system, much better than Stick of Truth's. The story was solid with a few highlights, felt like a long episode of the show.

While playing I noticed just how much it reminded me of Paper Mario. The combat's very similar, so is the badge system and the buddies helping you in the overworld one. It's not nearly as great of a game as the original Paper Mario is, but since the actual sequels to that game kind of suck it's nice to have these around. If you would've told me a few years ago that the closest thing to a good Paper Mario sequel we'd get would be fucking South Park games I never would've bought it.

That all being said, the game definitely has its shortcomings. The most egregious being that there are unskippable cut scenes constantly. Not the story cutscenes themselves, the little ones that play every time you summon a buddy or every time you use an ultimate in combat. These take anywhere from 10~15 seconds and after the first few times watching they just get fucking tedious. There was a room where you needed to use 3 different buddies in order to pass. In Paper Mario, you'd just go into the menu, pick your dude quick, press the joystick down and bam that's it 5 seconds tops.

In Fractured But Whole, you need to first go into scanning mode to scan the area you want a buddy to interact with, then hold down a button while it scans, then a sillohuette of said buddy will appear, then you need to walk over to that silhouette and text your buddy then they play an animation where they show up then you need to do a quick minigame to actually use their power then they say one of 3 voicelines that get old fast THEN they play another animation where they go away.

This happens throughout the game constantly, sometimes multiple times in a single room, and it's just tedious as shit and so easily fixable. Just copy Paper Mario. C'mon now.

There's also not a lot of consistency with Boss Battles, especially in the last third of the game or so. Some bosses are immune to all status effects, some are only immune to a handful and some are just not immune to anything so you can cheese the crap out of them. The thing is, it's not really a type of enemy or anything that determines their immunity, it's just sort of random.

Spoiler

Like the giant blob human kite cousin isn't immune to much of anything, but then the Coon is immune to everything, then your past supercharged self isn't immune to anything, but then a random Ninja dude is immune to stuff and it just is weird.

The final boss is also kinda shit.

Spoiler

You have to fight Cartman and his thing is that he cheats at the game which is funny for a minute before you realize how fucking obnoxious it is trying to fight him. He just goes immune for a round and a half, randomly steals your turn and shakes off damage, sometimes reflecting it back to you before giving your whole team a random status ailment. It's just boring as shit. It reminds me of the Deadpool game where he says "WOW ANOTHER SEWER LEVEL THESE SUCK" then proceeds to have a sucky sewer level. Acknowledging a trope doesn't put you above it assholes.

Also can we stop having these fucking progression systems that stop half way through the stupid game? Owlboy did this last year, now South Park. If I hit the XP/Loot/Whatever cap before the last third of your game, it makes everything feel pointless. I don't even know why I'm venting about this seriously why is this happening. What if you were playing Final Fantasy on normal difficulty then after 10 hours the game said "hah you can't level anymore" YOU'D JUST RUN AWAY FROM SHIT BECAUSE FIGHTING IS POINTLESS. That's what I ended up doing for a while in this.




All in all, it's a really solid RPG that I'd recommend in a heartbeat, just sloppy in a few areas.

[gamemaster1991]

Just beat Final Fantasy IV on the PSP. I have to say, all of the SNES games are amazing even though this is the only one out of the trilogy that I've beaten) and I know I'm going to regret saying this, but this has to be my favorite main Final Fantasy game. It seems to be one of the few RPGs that knows how to level a character. Every boss was difficult to fight (to a point), but I think I only died to two of them (not counting the corador at the end of the game that is filled with boss level monsters).

The game does have it's flaws. For one, almost no one knows how to die. Two examples being when Spoiler:Rydia (the green haired girl), Edward, and Yang fall off the boat when Laviathon attacks but they all come back later and Spoiler:Palom and Porom when they turned themselves to stone to protect the team from a crushing room, which I thought was going to be a side quest to save them, but nope. They come back near the end of the game with a "We're alright. The master destoned us offscreen." BS answer.. Also, the story has the same problem that II and V had of the villain is always ahead. We have the next crystal, oh no we don't any more. We found an underground passage, oh no they are already down there. We have an airship, oh no it's blown up. You don't really start winning until near the end.

Still I liked it. Like I said, gameplay is good and most of the charicters I didn't hate (aside from Edward being next to useless in battle and Edge being a prick when he opens his mouth. Even Golbez, who, as a character, is kinda boring and one dimensional, I kinda liked where they were going with him in the end, and it made me appreciate his character in Dissidia a bit more. Really it's a solid game that holds up really well.


I kinda want to continue on with The After Years, but I'm kinda burnt out with the game, and from what I hear, they added in something that involves the moon phases, which kinda makes me want to wait a little bit before jumping in again.

[Psychospacecow]

Dragon Ball FighterZ gets really repetitive during the 3rd story arc, but its a fun experience throughout.

[gamemaster1991]

I beat Brothers: a Tale of Two Sons last night. It's a good game and I had fun with it, but I think it's overhyped a bit. I can't explain why I feel this way but I do. I do have an idea of doing this game two players in the future, see how well two people can play the game with one controller.

BTW, The subtitle is crossed out because the developer of the game hates it, and only wants it to be called Brothers.

[Berry]

Recently beat Bayonetta. The battle system is pretty good but the bosses were hard as hell(or heavenly, seeing as the enemies are "angels"). The story wasn't compelling but the character made up for it. Heck, even the child character had her moments.

Going thru Bayonetta 2. The chapter completion theme is so damn good that it actually gives me more effort to do better. and the bosses aren't as hard

[CLXcool]

Crash Bandicoot(the first one) on the insane trilogy. This game was such a hoot. Man. I never got through this on the original PS1, but now that I have. It felt good to get a taste of the past with a modern touch in the mix. It felt good to play the original Crash bandicoot game from start to finish. After I get the gems for this, I'll take on the second and third adventures.

[gamemaster1991]

I beat 999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors. This is one of those games that I wish I could go into depth about, but I can't because that would ruin everything. From the relationship that each character has with one another, to the foreshadowing that characters off handly spout, to how everything seems stupid when you first look at it but in context it makes. I even love the very last puzzle because it uses the DS's two screens amazingly, and I really want to pick up The Nonary Games to see how they translate it for the PS4.

I do have gripes, such as the bad guy being a card carrying villain when everything about them says otherwise, and the fast forwarding mechanic being pretty dumb (which I hear was fixed in latter games and The Nonary Games port). However, most of the game is well made and the story seems thought out for the most part. 8.5/10

[RepentantSky]

I just beat Pokemon Blue again again. It's still a pretty solid game despite it's age, but man the grinding to get ready for the Elite 4 is meh.

[Psychospacecow]

Today is 4/20, the day Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light came out 28 years ago. 6 years today of Awakening's release. Lucina's birthday. The day I have just beaten Awakening for the 3rd or 5th time in a row.

[Berry]

Just completed Bayonetta 2, its some pretty good stuff. Combos and such.

For now, I'm just going thru King of Fighters 13. Loving it and using my main Leona, now learning how to do Drive Cancels, Super Cancels, HD Cancels, and Max Cancels. There are just so many cancels, it's just so damn delightful.

[Psychospacecow]

Went and beat Dragon Ball Fusions for a 3rd or 4th time. Its really weird, the game doesn't even really get good until you beat it proper, and its a terribly RNG heavy collectathon, but I keep coming back to it again and again. Easily my favorite Dragon Ball game. Its a shame the translation is garbage.