Last game you finished + Opinion

[Gamblet]

I haven´t found this kind of thread in this community, so I thought I might add it.

So, what was the last game you finished?

I finished Vagrant Story myself yesterday. Most of you probably know how good this game is so not much to add here. I loved the challenge at the final boss fight, you really needed to chain well to beat it. Now I am replaying the game with a different weapon, I´ll maybe use a staff this time.

I´d rate it 8/10

[Slothy]

smurf, I'm not even sure what the last game I played was. I guess it would technically be Mega Man X since I've been out of town working 9-13 hour days for the last two weeks and just needed something quick to play and found it in the ROMs on my netbook.

It's still an awesome game after all of these years. Tons of fun, and one of my favourite parts about it was always how beating certain levels first affected others. Like Storm Eagles flying ship crashing into Spark Mandrils power plant and whatnot. I did a mostly X-buster only playthrough this time, though I skipped it for fighting Sigma's final form just because I was getting tired and wanted to get him out of the way quickly. X3 might be my favourite for it's ridiculous number of secrets, but the first is still a close second (what?) and one of my favourite Mega Man games.

[Jessweeee♪]

Catherine. It was sooooo much more awesome than I thought it was going to be, and I already had some pretty high expectations from it. The puzzles themselves were pretty fun, nothing special, but the everything else was amazing. One of my favorite features is that it surveys all of your answers on the first play through and you can see how other players answered, with separate pie charts for males and females. Some of the results are actually quite surprising. This is the game's plot in a nutshell (spoiler free):

Catherine - Orlando & Vincent cutscene - YouTube

I still need to get the five other endings!

[VeloZer0]

Outland. For those of you who don't know it is a 2D platformer which's main 'gimick' is switching your character between light and dark alignment. As light alignment you don't take damage from light energy attacks and can only damage dark aligned enemies, vice versa for dark aligned. And there is all sorts of fun stuff like platforms you can only land on with one alignment. It makes for some very tricky platforming/combat as you have to be constantly switching as you are maneuvering and attacking.

There are some slight RPG elements to keep it interesting, as you go through you acquire new skills and increase your health. New areas are unlocked by getting the new skills that allow you to access them, similar to a Metroidvania title, but I wouldn't really classify it as that since there isn't really any backtracking.

Over all I thought that the game was amazing. Just when I was kind of giving up on video games something I like this falls into my lap.

[NorthernChaosGod]

The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap

Great Zelda game with a neat little gimmick. A bit on the short side dungeon wise though, I wish there was maybe one or two more. And I wish the figurine collecting wasn't quite as stupid. But overall a very good game with a nice storyline.

[Wolf Kanno]

I had two, because I literally beat them within days of each other.

Revelations Persona or Persona 1: I completed the SEBEC story and got the best ending from that. Persona is an interesting game with a lot of hang ups. Its easily the weakest entry in the Persona franchise and may actually have one of the most unlikable casts I've seen in a game (though Nanjo's snarky elitist attitude certainly grows on you). The game has a hard time not feeling like a silly B-Movie plot that would show up in MSFT3000 and the gameplay is a weird FF meets MegaTen mash up that really doesn't work. Its not a terrible game but it is decidedly "old school" with long maze like dungeons and grind heavy mechanics, so if the plot doesn't keep you going the gameplay won't do it either. If you love Persona, check it out but no one expects you to love it or even finish it. It does have some interesting mechanics for building a party and getting the games numerous endings which gives it more replay value but it only works out if you can stomach the gameplay/plot.

Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen: Meh, it was okay, definetly one of the weaker entries I've played. The game suffers from having to come after the awesome DQIII and before the awesome DQV so it probably looks worst simply by comparison, but really, once you get past the chapter gameplay mechanic, the game just feels like a a typical DQ game, without cool elements like the Job Class system or monster hunting to give the gameplay more life. The game tries to focus more on story and character but its definetly more FFII than FFIV in that regard and by the fifth chapter (when the main game actually begins ) any characterization or attempt to finish the characters stories are lost. The real shame is that Torneko's chapter is easily the high point of the game and sadly one of the shortest chapters. Mainly because the chapter actually has clever dungeons and asks you to do thing that are not typical in an RPG but sadly its all left to this chapter alone and the rest of the game doesn't bother to be as innovative.

It also pulls what FFVI did by instead of re-using a job class system, it's cast each fit a particular job role from the previous game. Unfortunately, the designers didn't quite balance them when they did this so the Cleric and Mage characters are split with one being exceptionally more useful over the other so that quickly drops a few people from the active party.The one novel idea from DQIV is that Psaro, the villain, is actually given a real backstory and motive as opposed to the rest of the evil villains of DQ who are simply card carrying members of evil for the sake of being evil, yet Psaro has more in common in terms of presentation as Xande, mainly being a figure you hear stories of but rarely interact with him. The DS remake even gives him his own sixth chapter which was fun to play through. Overall, the game wasn't as groundbreaking as the two games its sandwiched between and even despite trying to give it more of a story/character focus, its just not Horii's strong point. Its still a fun adventure but there are better entries in the franchise and just better RPGs in general.

[Flying Arrow]

I finished Dark Souls again the other night. I wrote a mini-thing on it in another thread here, so I'll just copy-paste that:

...one thing this game does so well is unpredictability. You never know just how the next area will challenge you. You might have to do some precision timing and movement to dodge Indiana Jones-y traps (Sen's Fortress), you might have to descend a cliffside in pitch darkness (Tomb of the Giants), or you might be faced with enemies that can only be killed if you're inflicted with a certain status effect (New Londo).

Even better, is that joining certain covenants will actually change some areas. For instance, being heavily embedded in the Chaos Covenant will open up shortcuts through the underground lava ruins area (not to mention providing you with potential story insight). Running through a certain area of the Darkroot Garden in human form will set you up with the PvP guardians of the forest. Conversely, if you're a part of the forest covenant yourself, you can be summoned from any area in the game to defend your covenant's turf (winning or losing returns you to precisely where you were initially summoned, so it doesn't erase your progress). Hell, you may even get Disastered by a Gravelord Covenanter, who curses your world to have super-strong enemies to hinder your progress. Invade this player and kill him to return your world to normal difficulty.

Nothing in Dark Souls is ever straightforward, although the mechanics themselves are all pretty basic. What makes it all come together like some of the past masterpieces in gaming is that From Software have taken the game's basic mechanics and done absolutely everything with them. There is not a point in the game without some wrinkle to keep you on your toes.

I could seriously write about this game forever. Nothing else I've touched this year since I've played it has really impressed me. Everything else seems amateur and a little bit sloppy, even the mighty Skyrim.

Just expanding a bit - on the unpredictability, Dark Souls is always throwing curveballs. Most areas are very well done, with only one or two areas (out of 25, I think?) being shaky. Lost Izalith, for instance, is a bit of a miss, but I can still appreciate it because it's just another facet of the game's level design.

A lot of people think the game's final 'third' section of areas (Duke's Archives, Lost Izalith, Tomb of the Giants, New Londo Ruins) to be a step down from the rest of the game but I actually have to disagree. These four areas are shorter-ish, but they all have a huge rub that keeps them from just being simply an early level + difficulty. Duke's Archives ends up being a pretty decent multi-level maze, Tomb of the Giants challenges you to move more cautiously than you have before by literally placing you in pitch black. New Londo is one of the game's complex town/ruin areas (similar to Sen's Fortress or the Painted World) but with enemies that can only be killed while under a certain status effect. It also has a whole second level to it, so a first time player who may have wandered in and did the first section in the early game (there is a very good possible reason for players to want to go there early) will find a whole new layer with tougher enemies and what I think is hands-down the most legitimately grim and troubling scenery in a game in a long time.

The game is just flat-out well made. I've seen reviews of people who say 'what's great about it?' and I think the problem is that no individual thing about Dark Souls is great. That is, it doesn't have one thing that's intended to be the most awesome or be the gameplay hook that carries the rest of the package. Everything in Dark Souls works (with the recent patching of course), everything comes together, and every element is solidly done. It's as full and complete a game as has come out in years - no DLC and no hand-holding. The developers knew exactly what they wanted to make and then made it.

[NeoCracker]

Last game I finished was Skyrim. And it was highly underwhelming.

It's not bad, and there is an insane amount to do. However a lot of skills are poorly balanced, example being the blatent overpoweredness of smithing and enchanting.

The main plot was short and rather weak, severly dropping the ball in way more areas then I would give most games leeway on.

I could go on about it's issues, but dispite it's massive flaws, there is an insane amount to do in the game, it has a lot of really pretty enviroments, and the shear amount of ways fight in this game is spectacular.

As well some of the side trout is good. On a whole, the Markarth quests are my favorite in the game. And while I feel people overhype the dark Brotherhood in this, it is still a good story.

[Pike]

I'm having a difficult time coming up with something to post in this thread because 99% of the games I play aren't ones that can be "beaten", per se. (Civ, SMAC, Paradox games, et al)

I guess the last game I beat was Final Fantasy I a few months ago, then. It was fairly solid; definitely not the best RPG I've ever played but it had a lot of good moments. (And to be fair I'm not a big RPG person so I'm not exactly sure how to rate most of them.) I'd give it a 4/5.

[Laddy]

Final Fantasy XIII. Again. The plot is good and the characters are likable and one of the best in the series. The sound, graphics, and battle system is all spectacular. However, the non-combat parts are incredibly tedious. I give it an 3.5/5. A 2/5 for gameplay, 5/5 for everything else.

[Crop]

I just finished beating Deus Ex again, since I'm getting the new one next week I thought I'd refresh myself with this classic.
Still just as good as ever....and still just as hilarious to kill Mr Renton.

I'd give it a 9/10. One point deducted because I've never really been a fan of the final section of the game, this time didn't prove to be any different, still easily playable but I felt it was a let down compared to the rest of the game.

[Bolivar]

Damn, Flying Arrow's writeup on Dark Souls makes me want that game bad, although I'd feel guilty because I still haven't finished Demon's Souls yet. I can't remember if the last game I beat was Valkyria Chronicles II or Modern Warfare 3.

MW3 - definitely satisfied, but doesn't live up to the series, definitely because the team left partway through the development.. Single Player probably worst in the series and definitely worse than Black Ops. Multiplayer is very solid, much more balanced than MW2 but it just doesn't have that WOW factor every CoD has on day one. Maybe too simplified.

Valkyria Chronicles II -Wow. They've definitely kept it up with this one. Might even be better than original. The handheld design philosophy of delivering everything in bite-sized chunks from a hub, and its execution, make this such a perfectly paced game. Very addictive, very powerful, very charming. One of my favorite games in years. Only complaint is it might be too easy to blitzkrieg your objectives once you get the system down.

[Chris]

Toy Story - Sega Mega Drive II/ Genesis

For as long as I can remember, I have treasured this game. I beat it over and over as a kid, and I just recently finished it for the first time in many, many years.

It is every bit as magical as I remembered it to be. It is actually quite, well, surprisingly hard for its type of game. Ah, Disney really did make magical games way back when. Aladdin, The Lion King, Mickey Mouse, TaleSpin and this one! What has happened to Disney in the gaming department?

[Mirage]

The original Command & Conquer. The gameplay is pretty dated, lacking any form of build queues, waypoints, and the game also has terrible pathing, making units often end up spending twice as much time getting from one point to another than if you had micromanaged them all the way there.

It is none the less a very classical RTS game that anyone with an interest for gaming history should at least try. The game's graphics are naturally pretty simple, being from the mid 90s, but also still bloody enough to give it a 18+ rating at least in europe. It's not too strange really, considering those small soldiers explode in almost a red cloud of blood and organs, and you ended up slaughtering thousands of them through the course of the game. It also has a wonderfully cheesy (but cool!) story line. It was worth every minute I put into it.

[Gamblet]

Outland. For those of you who don't know it is a 2D platformer which's main 'gimick' is switching your character between light and dark alignment. As light alignment you don't take damage from light energy attacks and can only damage dark aligned enemies, vice versa for dark aligned. And there is all sorts of fun stuff like platforms you can only land on with one alignment. It makes for some very tricky platforming/combat as you have to be constantly switching as you are maneuvering and attacking.

There are some slight RPG elements to keep it interesting, as you go through you acquire new skills and increase your health. New areas are unlocked by getting the new skills that allow you to access them, similar to a Metroidvania title, but I wouldn't really classify it as that since there isn't really any backtracking.

Over all I thought that the game was amazing. Just when I was kind of giving up on video games something I like this falls into my lap.

Wow, this game looks awesome, but I do not have a Xbox or a PS3, so I guess I can't play it.