Discussion 2022 Backlog Thread

[Stg-Flame]

January - Chasm, Black Mesa, Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter, Serious Sam HD: The Second Encounter, Serious Sam 3: BFE
February/March/April - Skyrim, Skul: The Hero Slayer,
April/May - Battlechasers: Nightwar, Vampire Survivors

Que the shocked noise because I played an Early Access game and 100% it already (despite there being quite a lot of content).

After Battlechasers, I needed something fast-paced and laid back and that's how I found Vampire Survivors. This game is stuffed full of throwbacks to earlier Castlevania games so anyone familiar with those will notice a lot of familiar things but the game itself is an auto-battler in that all you need to do is move your character around. Sometimes that's easier said than done as the enemy spawns are directly tied to the timer in the level. Every minute the enemy waves will change, but it's not some mobile game knockoff because there's actually quite a bit of depth to the game at the moment. There's 20+ different weapons to choose from, 80 different unlocks, 24 different characters, and 7 different stages. Each stage has a unique theme to it with various other hidden aspects within that all provide different ways to unlock more weapons, characters, items, etc.

However, the only thing that people need to know about this game is that it's only $3 on Steam. For just $3, I played over 20 hours. The game is fun with a great soundtrack and the developers are constantly adding new things to the game. There's also quite a few hidden unlocks that took some time to figure out.

Still working on Rogue Legacy 2, but this was a great change of pace when I just wanted to unwind.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Completed the Light World in Super Meat Boy, along with a bunch of levels from the Dark World and Cotton Alley.

My hands can only cramp up so much, I'm considering the game beaten and moving it to the completed category.

Game is basically free-base platformer, and exactly that habit forming. Easy to love and hard to walk away from, but I'm quitting you Super Meat Boy.

 

[Stg-Flame]

January - Chasm, Black Mesa, Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter, Serious Sam HD: The Second Encounter, Serious Sam 3: BFE
February/March/April - Skyrim, Skul: The Hero Slayer,
April/May - Battlechasers: Nightwar, Vampire Survivors, Rogue Legacy 2

Any fans of the first Rogue Legacy should already know about this one. It's essentially the first game but with a new story that connects to the first game in a weird way, but it's best to think of this game as just an expansion. That's not necessarily a bad thing because it's basically the first game but with a ton of new content. At least 12 new bosses (not counting the different variants), new classes, new biomes, new spells, etc. I will say that I'm only on NG+1 and from what I've read, to see the true ending, you'll need to hit at least NG+9 which actually wouldn't be too difficult to achieve. I can't remember the first game since it's been so long since I last played it, but with RL2, when you complete the final boss, you get the option to tailor your NG+ through a myriad of different ways. You can make enemies stronger, tankier, more in number, you can make the castle larger, as well as about 15 other options to choose from on top of another 15 or so that are still locked until you get to higher NG+ levels. It definitely has a lot more depth than the first game.

My biggest (and only) gripe with the game is how little gold you make on a normal run and that if you want to get your upgrades, you need to gimp yourself by using heirs with traits that give +gold%. Again, it's not exactly a bad thing since not all gold traits are negative ones, but the upgrades skyrocket in price to the point that you're going to be running through the game hundreds of times if you want to get even half of them maxed.

 

[JujuFish]

Completed the Light World in Super Meat Boy, along with a bunch of levels from the Dark World and Cotton Alley.

My hands can only cramp up so much, I'm considering the game beaten and moving it to the completed category.

Game is basically free-base platformer, and exactly that habit forming. Easy to love and hard to walk away from, but I'm quitting you Super Meat Boy.

I installed Super Meat Boy to see where I left off the last time I played (2012 according to Steam), and my save was gone. Must have been pre-Steam Cloud. Oh well.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

I installed Super Meat Boy to see where I left off the last time I played (2012 according to Steam), and my save was gone. Must have been pre-Steam Cloud. Oh well.

- Its like 2.5 hours to complete the entire lightworld except for Omega, second the last level. That's like another 2.5 hours on its own. By the time you reach Cotton Alley even those levels don't seem that bad thanks to all the mad skilz you have by that point.

 

[Stg-Flame]

I take it back what I said about Rogue Legacy feeling like an expansion. There's so much extra stuff once you hit NG+ that it's well past the "expansion" label. Any fans of the Rogue Legacy series definitely needs to get this game and considering how much more content is left after you beat the game the first time, I'll likely throw it back up on my list again. It feels like only about 25% of the game is completed after the first boss clear.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

I can't do it guys, C&C 4 sucks too much, its just miserable trying to play for the sake of completing the game. Gonna pause my run there and go to something I'm sure I'll enjoy: Dishonored Death of the Outsider...

 

[sdifox]

I can't do it guys, C&C 4 sucks too much, its just miserable trying to play for the sake of completing the game. Gonna pause my run there and go to something I'm sure I'll enjoy: Dishonored Death of the Outsider...

Told ya.

I never finished Ultima III.

 

[Artorias]

I've gone through exactly zero games in my backlog this half year.

I should probably finish God of War, and Elden Ring that I started this year. I guess they count as backlog now haha.

 

[sdifox]

Witcher 3 and Borderland 3 have been sitting on my ssd since nov 2019 and I haven't got very far. Just not motivated. On the other hand I have played through Outer Worlds a few times.

 

[sdifox]

I've gone through exactly zero games in my backlog this half year.

I should probably finish God of War, and Elden Ring that I started this year. I guess they count as backlog now haha.

I installed GoW and then deleted it after a few missions. Too boring.

 

[Artorias]

I installed GoW and then deleted it after a few missions. Too boring.

I was actually enjoying it quite a lot. I needed a break from gaming and left it at a good spot, kind of like an intermission that old movies had.

 

[JujuFish]

I installed GoW and then deleted it after a few missions. Too boring.

I love GoW.

 

[Stg-Flame]

January - Chasm, Black Mesa, Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter, Serious Sam HD: The Second Encounter, Serious Sam 3: BFE
February/March/April - Skyrim, Skul: The Hero Slayer
April/May - Battlechasers: Nightwar, Vampire Survivors, Rogue Legacy 2
May/June - UnMetal

If anyone is familiar with the UnEpic/Ghost 1.0 games, you'll have an idea as to what you should expect from this game as Francisco's games always have a really unique feel to them. UnMetal is basically an incredibly (and I don't use this lightly) hilarious spin on the Metal Gear Solid series. You play as a civilian, Jesse Fox, who was imprisoned for a crime he didn't commit and has to escape from a terrorist military complex in the style of older MGS games. The game's story is centered around a flashback sequence with Jesse being interrogated by the "allies" as he recalls his heroic escape. It plays very much like the original MGS in the isometric view and focuses heavily on stealth and being creative with your approach to many scenarios. It took me less than ten hours to complete it and with the current price tag, I'm actually going to say it's worth it just for the quality of the game (plus I actually helped Francisco beta test his first game UnEpic back when it was only available via e-mailing him so I don't mind paying full price). To anyone who loves the MGS series, I highly recommend this game. Phenomenal voice acting, gameplay is excellent, and the amount of bullshit encounters in this game is very limited (looking at you Nuclear Submarine).

Edit: I don't think I stressed it enough how funny most of the dialogue is in this game. Just the way the story is told along with some of the interactions made me pause the game a number of times simply because I was laughing too hard to actually play the game.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Got my repeated crashing issues with Death of The Outsider sorted out (Turned off dynamic resolution, turned on bordless window mode rather than fulls screen). Some questionable design decisions but as I get used to Billie Lurk's powers it's starting to feel like a solid addition to the series.

Started playing Gris in the meantime. Beautiful game, ultra chill, really enjoying it's gentle tone and pace.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Completed Gris. What a weird, beautiful little game.

 

[Whirlwind]

I started Ghost Recon Wildlands last week and I must say that it is really quite fun and enjoyable.

I loved GRAW 1 & 2 and am loving this as well.

It looks great also and the photo mode is really cool.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

Finally jumped back on Sekiro. Can't believe I ever quit playing this game, it's addicting as hell.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Finally jumped back on Sekiro. Can't believe I ever quit playing this game, it's addicting as hell.

-I keep waffling on Sekiro because on one hand souls likes kinda wear on me hard but at the same time everyone says Sekiro is not like the other souls likes and is accessible in a totally different way.

Thoughts?

 

[SteveGrabowski]

-I keep waffling on Sekiro because on one hand souls likes kinda wear on me hard but at the same time everyone says Sekiro is not like the other souls likes and is accessible in a totally different way.

Thoughts?

Less accessible than Souls games. Basically, learn to parry or die.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Less accessible than Souls games. Basically, learn to parry or die.

-We'll, damn.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

-We'll, damn.

It's a game about swordfighting so it's hugely important to get your parrying down. It does a lot of posture damage to enemies when you parry successfully. I think the timing is easier in Sekiro than say Bloodborne, the other FromSoft game where parrying is critical, but that could be since it's 60 fps on my PC vs the unsteady 30 fps Bloodborne is. It also relies hugely on stealth, for instance a lot of bossfights you can sneak up and backstab to take out the equivalent of one health bar.

If you try to work around avoiding learning the timing for parrying youre going to have a bad time though. It's probably why I stopped playing it, as it's frustrating trying to play it like a Souls game. But it's funny, there was a flaming bull miniboss who gave me hell the first time I played because I'd try to chase him and hit him in the butt. But after getting more confident with parrying it was almost trivial to bait him to charge me, then parry and deflect right as the horns were about to connect, stunning it for a few easy sword slashes.

I highly recommend the game. Just note you gotta get your parrying down or you're going to die over and over and over and over.

Also is very easy to run. Doing 1440p60 on a 1660 Super.

 

[JujuFish]

I think the timing is easier in Sekiro than say Bloodborne, the other FromSoft game where parrying is critical,

In my experience, Bloodborne is *significantly* easier to parry, and is the biggest reason it is easily the easiest FromSoft game I've played.

 

[Stg-Flame]

January - Chasm, Black Mesa, Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter, Serious Sam HD: The Second Encounter, Serious Sam 3: BFE
February/March/April - Skyrim, Skul: The Hero Slayer
April/May - Battlechasers: Nightwar, Vampire Survivors, Rogue Legacy 2
May/June - UnMetal,
July - Rogue Legacy 2 (again)

Decided to come back after I had 100% Rogue Legacy 2 since I didn't really get a feel for how much meat was inside the actual game after beating it only once. The amount of content inside this game is staggering but the best bits about this game is how well hidden the lore nodes are for uncovering the entire story of the Estuaries of the castle as well as what really happened during and before the war. If you're not too good at subtle hints or you simply hate exploring (there's a few that I found by complete accident), I suggest reading up a guide because the story is actually well worth reading about. There's also challenges called "Scars" to uncover which add another layer of replayability to the game and those are hidden just as well as the lore nodes.

Now, I will say that I do have two main complaints with the game. Most people would expect a rant about a chunk of the new classes being useless but they all have their uses and some that were voted to be the most-hated on the Steam discussions, I actually enjoyed using because it required you to completely change your play-style (looking at you Bard). No, the first complaint comes with the repetition. I understand that in order to uncover the entire story and see everything the game has to offer, you're required to play through the game time and time again. My complaint stems from the fact the developers added such a massive swath of content, yet skimped out on the enemy type/room layouts. This is the main reason why it took me so long to 100% the game. I simply kept getting burnt out at seeing the same things over and over again. Still, even with that massive gripe, the game is ridiculously fun and it was quickly overlooked because I wanted to do a money run to upgrade my castle, uncover more lore/Scars, find upgraded equipment, or just beat the game to unlock more challenge options to tweak my next run.

My next complaint is only for those who want to 100% the game (minor 100% spoilers ahead). In order to get 100%, you need to get everyone's affection level maxed out and the only way to do that is to speak to them in the hub before you venture into the castle. The only caveat to this is that you can't just keep talking to them forever because you have to wait until one of them has a little chat icon above their head and only two or three NPCs can have the chat icon before each run. This doesn't sound so bad considering the game is built around playing again and again and again but the sheer amount of times you have to chat with each NPC to uncover their individual stories to completion is staggering. I literally spent the last hour and a half just picking the first class, speaking to everyone with a chat icon, jumping into the castle, and immediately retiring (killing) that hero so I could get the next group of chat icons. Again, this probably won't be a huge deal to fans of the game because it honestly is a lot of fun and if I would have just kept playing it casually, I would have eventually worked my way to maxing all my equipment and runes and eventually heard everyone's stories to the end, but we're here to finish our backlogs and I don't have that kind of time with 100+ other games waiting.

If you're on the fence about Rogue Legacy 2 or you enjoyed the first game - definitely get this one. Pay full price and then tip the devs because they deserve it with this one.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

In a bit of a motivational slump right now. Inching my way through Death of the Outsider. I enjoy it when I play but the motivation to play is on hiatus at the moment.