Topic: Last Game You Beat

@Pastellioli Thank you and same back at you! Yes, Grabbed by the Ghoulies is very intense, very arcadey. I compared it on my mind to Luigi's Mansion because I was Nintendo-only until then, but Luigi's Mansion is more boring (and a plain adventure). It's like I compared Viva Piñata to Animal Crossing, but Animal Crossing is also more boring. Same with Banjo-Kazooie and Super Mario 64. Nintendo is good, but Rare is better.

"Modern" Rare's games are challenging, but also full of charm and almost always fair in gameplay terms, so that makes me go the extra mile. The old games in the collection (Spectrum, etc.) are playable and even enjoyable for someone like me that started gaming on SNES, thanks to the rewind feature. I really enjoy that you're playing Rare's games and writing about them, especially because I read that you played the Donkey Kong Country games and then got an Xbox and started playing Rare Replay. Donkey Kong Country was also the first Rare game I played! Then, I played other games on SNES, N64, the only one on Gamecube and those on Rare Replay. I admit that Grabbed by the Ghoulies is one of my favourites. Although it's difficult, that also made those power-ups so much better!

Hellblade 2 - 10/10, I really loved this one, the first true ‘next generation’ game of this console generation. I admire that it totally refuses to compromise on the vision it seeks to achieve and I thought it succeeded in every respect.

Also, how long since we had a big Xbox release that launched complete and with all features on day 1? Very refreshing! It will take something special for this not to be my GOTY.

Hellblade 2

Finished last night. Overall, really good experience, nothing great, but nothing
bad either. The walking was sometimes a little too much, but the running sequences, the battles, the puzzles, the audio, the visuals, ALL top notch next gen stuff. I can't really say anything negative other than there's alot of walking. Solid 8/10. Glad it was only a 5-6hr experience, otherwise it would've dragged on too long imo.

@Old_Man_Harper I'm with you on this one. It may be my GOTY as well. All my respect to Ninja Theory for making the game they wanted to create. They chased their creative vision to the very end, regardless of trends.

I'm not sure when I can say I've beaten Slay the Spire. Usually, I say it's when the credits roll. I completed a run which is technically beating it under my definition as the credits rolled but it really is just scratching the surface in that game. I'm also having a hard time doing it again, that game can be rough. Other than that, I beat Hellblade 1 a couple weeks ago.

Halo Infinite - 7/10

Finished the main campaign. Maybe I'm imagining it, but it seems the SP is much shorter than the Bungie-era campaigns. To me, it lasted around 10hrs or so and I did plenty of side objectives on the world map. That would fall inline to CoD campaign length.

Overall, I do like the narrative, but it got "over my head" in the final act – even though I saw Halo Story So Far videos on YouTube. The indoor environments are blatantly repetitive. Every goddam room and corridor are exactly the same. Even the outdoor environment is eactly the same everywhere. If this was the most expensive Xbox-exclusive title of 2020, where in the hell did the money go to? Not in creating diverse zones and indoor variety. Looks like to me that 343 Industries just copy-n-pasted stuff together.

My last game was ratchet rift apart. Pretty cool.

I was constantly sidestepping the Ghost of Tsushima game. But now it has recently been released on PC and I decided to try it. I was shocked! I love samurai games, I really liked sekiro, but this game is the best I've played in the last 2 years. Try it guys!

Final Fantasy XIII (Xbox One X/Series X version)

Final Fantasy XIII is an RPG with incredibly deep and fun battle mechanics, beautiful 4K graphics and a wonderful soundtrack. The story is a bit too complicated, but it makes sense if you read the files. There are some difficulty spikes and very hard bosses to test your patience if you don't level up enough. I didn't, but I had fun getting through with constant radical paradigms swops. One thing I had read and that is not true is that it's a completely linear game. It has the alternative routes with chests and different enemies of many Final Fantasy games and also some more open areas with optional objectives. Actually, I appreciated this tight balance, because exploring isn't that fun as fighting in most games. That was when I remembered Xenoblade Chronicles, an overrated game that has huge and empty areas, hollow side quest and a very long story. That is one of the most boring RPGs I've played. Even combat is a mess. That's exactly where Final Fantasy XIII really shines, the combat.

@SingleStooge Halo Infinite had a very long development that started for Xbox One. In spite of the huge budget, they needed external assistance to improve the campaign. However, it's far to say that 343 Industries has improved massively just comparing 5 and Infinite, so I'm sure that their next game won't be as troubled. They probably should start working on Unreal Engine 5, though, because the old engine and the cross-platform development also hurt it.

Dam I had this shelved since forever. Need to dust off my Xbox and leave my steam deck just for emulation or games not on Xbox.

I've been clearing some Assassin's Creed and Final Fantasy games! I was Nintendo-only until Wii U. By the way, the best version of Ocarina of Time I've played is the PC native version that was ported to Wii U. I hope that they port Majora's Mask to Wii U, but I haven't heard anything. I have a Switch but not hacked.

I don’t have any modded consoles except psp and NDS which I haven’t done much with but I plan to get a modded ps2 somewhere down the line.

Hellblade Sauna Sacrifice - A Cool game to play and look at. Highly recommend it.
Right so I recently had the good fortune to play and yeah beat Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice finally! I say finally because it takes a long time to try out, but yeah I am more than happy that I did. To state that that the game was something special would likely be an understatement.. I don't want to spoil too much about the game but yeah it was a very interesting experience to state the least and one which I think is very much worth trying out if you have the courage. You will likely not be disappointed. Not least did I enjoyed the graphics in the game which I thought looked very nice.

*Hm its cool that there now seems to be a few of us that have played and beaten Hellblade. Wounder many how have who have played and beaten the sequel heheh .

Perfect Dark

I just finished the game maybe an hour ago after I started it nearly two weeks ago. I kept hearing the game being cited as one of the best video games of all time and a classic, but out of all of Rare’s IPs, it was one that I had the least interest in since it wasn’t a platformer. I had tried to play it back in December, but I didn’t make it past the first level since I found it confusing and uninteresting at first. After Microsoft gave a recent update on the upcoming reboot of the game with a gameplay trailer, it actually interested me, so I thought I would give the original game another go to sort of build excitement for it.

The shooting gameplay was really fun and easy, and luckily one that I was already familiar with thanks to having played other shooter games in the past like Overwatch. The different weapon types were fun to use and the gunplay wasn’t clunky and pretty good for a remaster of an older game. Since I was new to the game and needed to get used to it, I used aim assist and played on Agent (the easiest mode in the game), though the difficulty with the enemies still racked up nearing the end regardless, so I had to make sure I retained enough health over time, which still made it somewhat challenging for me. The enemies weren’t too hard or easy later in the game, and they actually took significant chunks of my health too!

The gameplay also involves gadgets that need to be utilized to complete specific objectives, which was something very unique to me since other first person shooters focus on being fast paced and don’t require you to stop for a little to do something in order to win, and I would say that the gadgetry blends fairly well with the gunplay.

I also loved the theme and aesthetic of the game too, and its plotline was really interesting. Not deep and I didn’t really connect with the characters or know them much, but it was cool to me, and I don’t really care if any game has a strong narrative or not. It first starts off as your typical spy thriller with a futuristic setting, but then extraterrestrial life get involved and the game basically becomes somewhat of a buddy cop game (but with spies), with your partner being an alien you saved from being dissected at a lab in Area 51, and your goal changes from exposing a conspiracy by a rival company to sending an opposing alien race with the ability to disguise themselves as humans into a state of disarray by slaying their leader. The entire plot just screams Rare with how it starts off normally and gets unbelievably crazy and amazing as time goes on and I love it!

However, the only problems I had with the game pertain to some level layouts and aiming. The way the levels are designed are fairly simple and easy at first, but get more bigger and confusing the more the game nears its end, and there were multiple times where I had no direction and went around in circles. There are objectives that tell you what to do and those did help during early parts of the game, but they sometimes don’t delve into specifics and are not entirely helpful, which made me need to rely on a playthrough for the game’s final levels. Sometimes you aren’t told what to do either, which is a small issue I had with a couple of Rare’s other games like Conker’s Bad Fur Day, specifically in a nightclub level. The final level in Perfect Dark ticked me off the most, mostly with this part where you had to throw gadgets at these pillars, since in each playthrough, the correct pillars generate differently and you fail the mission if you use the gadget on the wrong pillar, so I had to read a YouTube comment and discovered that I had to use a tool to tell which pillars were incorrect, which the game I believe never informed me about, and everyone else who played this game seems to collectively agree that the final level dropped the ball with its layout and design. I can also recall this part at the start of another level where you can retrieve a rocket launcher from a helipad, but the helipad has this hidden explosive(?) that swiftly kills you when you walk across it, so you have to throw grenades at it; however, I only found out how to do this part correctly from a video online since the game never gave directions or any type of hint for what to do at the helipad. Given that it is an remaster of a old game now from 24 years ago, the level design being this way isn’t too surprising, but can be somewhat infuriating when playing the game nowadays.

The aiming is also somewhat off when you try to aim closer. When I was at the final boss, I tried to aim and shoot closer at a pillar thing (which is crucial to defeating the boss) but the gun reticle sometimes went off center or shot at the enemy instead. This one is more minor, but it’s difficult to get precise aiming in this game.

Anyway, I would say that I had a really positive experience with the game despite having issues with its layout, and I am so happy I did not give up on it. It was a pretty good shooter, and I really cannot wait for the reboot, which I hope does the original justice and improves upon it. Now I gotta decide what Rare game I’m going to play next… I’m stuck between Perfect Dark Zero and Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts.

@Pastellioli congrats on beating PD! Looking forward to how you feel about the sequel!
I’ll be catching up… eventually xD

@Yousef- I was pretty happy when I finished Perfect Dark and I’m so glad I gave it another try instead of giving up on it. I think I just needed to get used to it over time.

I heard Zero was ok, but I’ll still be giving it a shot at some point! Though I do not know if I will start it later today or not, since I might want to go back to Nuts and Bolts and finish it possibly next month since I actually made some progress on it the last time I played it and it’s the only Banjo game I haven’t completed, plus I stink at it and want to master it so I have a better time with it.

@oliverp I beat both Hellblade games recently and I posted here my opinion. Like you, I think that the first one is something really special in spite of a few rough edges, but don't hesitate to play the second game as well for a very impressive experience!

@Patellioli As you probably know, the difficulty levels in both Perfect Dark games and Goldeneye 007 change the damage you receive, the health of enemies and the amount of ammunition and health shields, but also the number of objectives. I beat the three difficulty levels, but I know some missions are very hard and there aren't checkpoints, so I'm glad that you could beat the game in Agent mode and enjoy the story that you described perfectly!

The lack of maps was a big problem for me. It was not in Goldeneye 007 because the levels are more realistic and smaller, but the bigger and uniform stages are confusing in the first Perfect Dark. By the way, I also liked the sequel, unlike others. As you said, the layout and level design is crazy in the last part. Everything you say in this regard is true, but the game is worth playing. Kudos on not giving up!

It's been a while since I played Banjo-Kazooie Nuts and Bolts and other Rare Replay games. I beat everything in Banjo-Kazooie but the included DLC that consist of additional, more difficult challenges. To win the different challenges that you will find in this big game, it's all about upgrading Banjo at the gym as soon as possible, collecting all or as many items as possible everywhere you go and build vehicles or use blueprints that then you modify in order to beat the challenges, e.g., more power, more fuel, reduce weight, add weapons, etc. The possibilities are almost endless as you progress and you need to make choices. I had much more fun building vehicles and controlling them than the half-baked and boring The Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom mechanics. Nuts and Bolts is not a platforming game and it sucks as such, even more before upgrading Banjo, but when you realise it's not a platformer and you need vehicles and can go anywhere and do anything, it's a lot of fun. However, I think that you should play Perfect Dark Zero that is also on your play list, now that you're used to the first one. In gameplay terms and level design, it's quite the improvement.

@Banjo- I tried to do the final level in Perfect Dark initially without a playthrough and I just got so angry and was even considering dropping it, since all of the videos I used afterward didn’t use the tool that tells the player where to put the gadgets on the pillars. I only found out what I was doing wrong thanks to a YouTube comment, as I thought that first that pillars I used were initially correct but I didn’t put them on the right way, so it led to me restarting the level a ton. I think the final level is better if you do know what you are doing and if you use the tool, but it still was one I wasn’t a fan of. The layouts and lack of maps are something I just really dislike about the game and were my only main issue with PD aside from the somewhat off aiming, though the earlier levels alongside the level midway through the game where the main institute gets attacked were the easiest since the areas are smaller, and I’d say the institute was my favorite level from how cool it was, though the enemies definitely took a ton of my health if I wasn’t careful or aware of my surroundings.

If I recall, I did actually get all the improvements for Banjo in Nuts and Bolts, but I need to get more items and blueprints for the vehicles, since there was this challenge in Banjoland I attempted maybe an hour or two ago where I have to protect Clanker’s eyes, and although I do have some weapons that are helpful (like the grenade gun) it’s hard to hit the enemies since I don’t have a weapon that helps me aim directly at them with a reticle. I don’t know where to get the specific weapon, so I’ll have to try using a playthrough to find some of the weapon parts. I am considering doing the challenge without a vehicle, but I think it’ll leave me more frustrated and waste a ton of time so I’ll try to persevere, but I don’t think I’ll try to 100% the game compared to the previous ones. Also, I think I got that orb thing (the name escapes me) that I need to use to unlock a world near the docks, but it got stuck on this magnetic vehicle thingy that I’m assuming I have to move somehow to unlock the world, and I think that part made me drop the game last year. However, before I made an account on this site, I did come across some of your comments in a few comment sections and threads and I recall you saying Nuts and Bolts is more fun and less upsetting if you treat it as more of a sandbox game and less as a platformer, so maybe I should do that to get more enjoyment out of it. I’m hoping I get the hang of the game soon, but I only just started playing it again.

@Pastellioli I can't remember now how I beat those parts in Nuts and Bolts, but you can visit different worlds and chapters as you progress. You really need time to explore the game, so don't play it when you're not in the mood. I loved it but only once I was able to build more powerful vehicles and had access to more areas of the hub world. Also, drive in circles in the centre of the hub world and shoot Gruntilda when you need to release stress 🤣. It also helps to learn the controls of the trolley, that can also be upgraded to jump considerably high.

EDIT: Yeah, definitely take it as a sandbox game and not something you need to beat quickly nor a platformer.

@Banjo- I’ll probably have to find a guide or playthrough to solve the orb being stuck on that magnetic thingy, but I’ll attempt it later and hopefully I can make more progress in the game since that was the part I got stuck on. I’ll try to look around the worlds more for parts that can help me complete the game. I’m just really happy I’m completing more games now and not giving up on ones that I initially tried playing, like how I dropped Perfect Dark when I played it back in December because I thought it was confusing.