Community Backlog Blitz Season 9 - Runs October 1 through December 31 with a raffle at the end

[gabbo]

Finally. Finally, I've finished the first 4.5 Halo games on PC. And man.... great story telling but level and encounter design is just breathtakingly bad.
Halo 4 down and over with, and it felt like just doubling down on everything I disliked about 1-3, but with vehicle sections. Those I did rather like, flying the pelican specifically.

I don't see how they keep extending the story when the core loop is so.. blah, but maybe I'm not the the one they aim for 6 games and countless millions of dollars into this franchise.... then again, maybe they should.

 

[Wibblewozzer]

Just finished my third game: Assassin's Creed Chronicles China. Honestly enjoyed it more than I had expected I would. I definitely won't force myself through the other two Chronicles games right away but as a simple sort of arcade style of Assassin's Creed game I didn't mind it much at all, even with the flaws and bit of wonkiness the game had. It's fast, plays decently, and had some really challenging sections to figure out.

I have Sly 2 and Far Cry Primal remaining. Still unsure about Far Cry Primal, though I would like to at least give it a shot before dropping it for something else. But I also really want to spend more time on 2021 games as the year is ending so I'll decide soon.

 

[Parsnip]

Just finished my third game: Assassin's Creed Chronicles China. Honestly enjoyed it more than I had expected I would. I definitely won't force myself through the other two Chronicles games right away but as a simple sort of arcade style of Assassin's Creed game I didn't mind it much at all, even with the flaws and bit of wonkiness the game had. It's fast, plays decently, and had some really challenging sections to figure out.

I have Sly 2 and Far Cry Primal remaining. Still unsure about Far Cry Primal, though I would like to at least give it a shot before dropping it for something else. But I also really want to spend more time on 2021 games as the year is ending so I'll decide soon.

Good to hear about AC China. I seem to recall the reception being really mixed in general among reviews and regular users too. I think I own them on uplay, they gave those away for free not too long ago.

 

[Wibblewozzer]

Good to hear about AC China. I seem to recall the reception being really mixed in general among reviews and regular users too. I think I own them on uplay, they gave those away for free not too long ago.

Don't expect to be blown away, but each level is like 10-20 minutes long (or maybe a little longer if you really push to collect everything), it's easy to just play a level or two per night, and the feel fairly snappy and each area with enemies is split up into obvious sections and eventually they really have that combat puzzle sort of feel. My only main tip is to not be afraid to go the kill everyone route if you want because the points you earn will still easily be enough to unlock all the upgrades. I was really trying to kill no one and be unseen for the first few chapters and eventually it just became really frustrating trying to perfectly get through areas halfway through the game. Doing assassin runs where you kill everyone without being seen is great fun, though.

 

[Ascheroth]

I am freeeeeeeeee.
Completed Crystar. God that was one of the most frustrating experiences I willed myself to "suffer" through.
It's a very good story trapped in a game that sucks. Or to be more precise, a very good story in a game that is mediocre but overstays its welcome to the point of sucking.
The gameplay is basic, but you can make basic gameplay fun by having clever interactions with other basic systems or just have a lot variety to keep things interesting.
Crystar has nothing like that.
Outside of combat there is nothing to do. The areas have nothing other than enemies and a few worthless items to collect. The enemy variety is ridiculous. There's only 8 different regular enemies and they don't even have interesting movesets. You've seen them all in the first few hours and after that it's... endless recolors. Seriously, every enemy has literally more recolors than there are total enemy types. And the progression is basic to the point of boring as well.

And what makes extra frustrating is that sometimes there are glimpses of "what could have been". Like, the progression system itself isn't bad by design,.You get random equipment drops from special enemies (which are basically stronger regular enemies with a red aura.) and can fuse the same items together to make them rank up and stronger. And items can have up to 2 slots where you can spend some currencies to get an RNG effect.
They just do nothing interesting with this. There's nothing interesting about the equipment itself, it's just stats. There's not even enough variety in the items, and then the game itself isn't even challenging enough that it's worth engaging all that much with this system.
And on the combat side the final boss is actually decently fun because it has an interesting moveset.
Just a ton of wasted potential.

tl;dr: Very good story, good visuals, good music, bad everything else. Hard to recommend.

 

[beep boop]

Ascheroth interesting write up, I can recognize the frustration. It’s always especially unfortunate when you enjoy one aspect of a game and the potential that is lost makes missteps stand in more painful contrast than if you could abstract yourself from it.

 

[Ascheroth]

Ascheroth interesting write up, I can recognize the frustration. It’s always especially unfortunate when you enjoy one aspect of a game and the potential that is lost makes missteps stand in more painful contrast than if you could abstract yourself from it.

Yeah in a way it's worse than just being a bad game. Because those you can just drop and move on.
I still don't know how to completely feel about it. I really liked the story and in some way am glad I saw it through. But did I have fun overall? Probably not.

 

[Parsnip]

Finished Breath of the Wild, 4/5 done.
It's pretty good. Not revolutionary though, but has some neat ideas.
Some of the English voice acting though is .

Watched the DLC cutscenes on youtube since the content in the Champion DLC seems to be bunch of combat trials and 15 minutes of cutscenes.

 

[Futaleufu]

Finished Battlefield 4. Bland campaign. And that was the final game of this season.

 

[Wibblewozzer]

I'm still maybe considering swapping out Far Cry Primal but I started it up last night and had a good time in the hour I played. I typically enjoy the Ubi style of open world action/adventure stuff. So I'll likely just keep it and hope to finish it (and Sly 2!) before the end of the year while still trying to give time to more 2021 games.

 

[Wibblewozzer]

And now Far Cry Primal is complete. Just kept going and despite finding out I had to do far more than I initially expected to get the credits to roll and consider it complete I had a pretty good time. I like the Ubi formula most the time and this one has enough unique about it and the concept is just weird enough and not used in other games that I didn't mind dealing with the flaws that cropped up.

So with that one done it just leaves Sly 2 and quite a bit of time to get through it.

 

[Deku]

Been playing Oninaki this past week. The game's story is quite depressing, it's mostly about death and afterlife. The close ones of the dead one should not mourn. If they do the dead won't go to the afterlife and there is a risk to turn into a monster

 

[Wibblewozzer]

Been playing Oninaki this past week. The game's story is quite depressing, it's mostly about death and afterlife. The close ones of the dead one should not mourn. If they do the dead won't go to the afterlife and there is a risk to turn into a monster

Did you play Spiritfarer? That was another game centered completely about death. It can hit hard but from what I've read around different people find different parts emotionally challenging depending on which story/character in the game resonates with you and you can relate with the most. It's a fantastic game but it's one of the few times a game left me feeling fairly emotionally drained by the end. I know they've done a number of updates with new characters and stories but I can't imagine going back to it after finishing the game.

 

[Deku]

Did you play Spiritfarer? That was another game centered completely about death. It can hit hard but from what I've read around different people find different parts emotionally challenging depending on which story/character in the game resonates with you and you can relate with the most. It's a fantastic game but it's one of the few times a game left me feeling fairly emotionally drained by the end. I know they've done a number of updates with new characters and stories but I can't imagine going back to it after finishing the game.

No, I haven't played it. I thought it was a builder game. Is it a story heavy game? I don't know if I can handle this much about death after Oninaki, not for a long time.

 

[Wibblewozzer]

No, I haven't played it. I thought it was a builder game. Is it a story heavy game? I don't know if I can handle this much about death after Oninaki, not for a long time.

It's a big mix of things that certainly doesn't work for everyone. But yeah, fairly story-heavy. The general flow of things is you sail between islands frequently which you can't speed up, so as the ship is sailing you farm, cook, talk to the other characters, fish, etc. There's usually always something you could be doing as it takes time to travel. On the islands there are small stories to take part in, resources to mine, platforming and exploration, etc. There's no way to die or lose, so there's no stress to that or anything. So mostly it's about completing adventure game style tasks of exploring and collecting things to complete quests, getting resources, upgrading and building out your ship, all to meet whatever requirements your crew has for finally passing on.

It doesn't have a deep plot, it's really just for the characters. So it's tough to say it's story heavy when the story is really just "Figure out how to help your crew pass on" but there's a lot of dialogue and story for each of your crew that fleshes them out and then it's a kick in the gut when you have to bring them to the end of their journey.

Ultimately it's a peaceful and laid back game but I know some people really didn't like all the time it takes to sail since it relies on you keeping busy with ship tasks. I think it's balanced pretty well and I'm not the most patient gamer but I thought it worked really well.

 

[Parsnip]

Game 5, Super Mario Odyssey is finished. Well, I saw the credits. I know it opens up a few new areas for more to do, and I'm probably going to get bunch of moons here and there still.
Lots of fun was had. Really the only knock I have against it is the motion control extras. Shake your controller to do a spin throw and such. Nothing against them in principle, just that they didn't have alternative means to do all of that. Which is ridiculous considering there's plenty of unused buttons or buttons that are just duplicating actions.

 

[Deku]

Finished Oninaki. That will be the fourth and probably my last game for this seasons Blitz.

The game started fun, but the longer you played the more bored you get. The story is kinda boring, lots of death, afterlife and reincarnation. It feels like that the game could be around 5-10 hours shorter

 

[Wibblewozzer]

Only five days left for the Blitz. Prize is still only at $20 so if anyone wants to chip in you're running low on time! Thankfully the Steam sale means that $20 goes a lot further so that's convenient.

I should easily finish all five of my games since I've simply focused on them more than other games. Just have Sly 2 left to complete and I have about 1.5 chapters left (out of 8) and probably will do that today.

 

[Wibblewozzer]

Fifth game complete! FInished Sly 2: Band of Thieves with 100% completion and got the Platinum Trophy. Nice! It was a bit of a drag with infinite repetition with every mission and frustrating bosses but it does play pretty well for a PS2 platformer and I had fun the majority of the time. But also glad to finally be done as it should have been half its length.

 

[Wibblewozzer]

In the final moments of the Blitz we had $5 chipped in towards the prize so there's now a $25 prize pot thanks to Parsnip. Woo! Thanks, Parsnip!

 

[Wibblewozzer]

Something like 36 hours left until I close it up and do the raffle. Any last minute donations towards the prize pot need to be done soon and make sure you mark your completed games on the tracker!

 

[Involution]

Finished the 2 games I was working on:

Tales of Vesperia DE: Still the best overall Tales package out there. The DE additions really seem patched on haphazardly, but I'm not sure if that's because I played the 360 version first. I tried to just forget about the experience of the 360 version when playing this and I still got that feeling though.

Narita Boy: Man, this game kinda sucks. It took me a while to choke this one down and it was like an oversized pill that stays in your throat for way too long. Graphic style I found pretty ugly but decided to soldier through. Then I found the story to be dumb, the controls and/or combat system to be loose and dull and moveset wasn't all that useful or fun. If someone found anything redeeming about this game I'd love to hear it and see if maybe I was missing something.

 

[Wibblewozzer]

And the Blitz is over! Congrats everyone. The new thread will go up shortly with a new tab on the Sheet for us to jump back in the big news is we have a winner for the Blitz.

This season's winner is Knurek! Congrats! Knurek won for completing God of War. Good job, Boy.

The prize pot is $25 this time around. PM me what prize you want either priced in my currency or in yours for the equivalent and we can make this happen.

Good job everyone. It was a bit of a quieter Blitz this time but hopefully, the new year brings in a renewed urgency in getting through some backlog games!
Knurek has made their prize choice which did leave a bit of the prize pot leftover. So we have a second winner if you can find something with the remaining prize pot. Congrats on getting the runner up spot, Futaleufu, with $5.21 remaining for a prize. Thank goodness for the Steam sale! And you can also thank Forza Motorsport 7 for being the game that won you the runner up spot.

Anything leftover beyond that will get added to the next Blitz prize pot as per usual.

 

[Kurt Russell]

Congrats Knurek!!! I'll be playing Dad of Boi myself in 2 weeks

 

[Parsnip]

Congrats Knurek !
And Futaleufu !

 

[ganmo]

Congratulation to Knurek and Futaleufu