The last few games you beat and rate them IV

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Osprey

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Feb 18, 2005
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The ratio of time played doing something meaningful vs total time played has to be among the lowest I've ever scene.

I also have to mention I've had numerous bugs and visual glitches on PC, with an RTX3070.

I haven't played it yet, but I'm not really looking forward to all of the dead time that nearly every review (including yours) brings up. I wonder if there are mods for the PC version to speed up or eliminate some of that, like the skinning animation, though. Did you try looking for them? I try not to mod games unless I really have to, but this sounds like one game that I may really have to just to get through it.
 
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Andrei79

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I haven't played it yet, but I'm not really looking forward to all of the dead time that nearly every review (including yours) brings up. I wonder if there are mods for the PC version to speed up or eliminate some of that, like the skinning animation, though. Did you try looking for them? I usually don't mod games, at least on the first playthrough, but this sounds like one game that I may have to just to get through it.

I did since I couldn't stand it for a good chunk of the game, but there are no mods for that unfortunately. And it really is unfortunate, because there's a lot of dead time.
 
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Frankie Spankie

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Aragami - 8/10

I've heard great things about the stealth in Aragami and it did not disappoint! You have some really fun abilities and it is through and through a great stealth game. The game is very punishing if you get caught. You can't fight a standard fight, you have to rely on stealth to kill your enemies. You get plenty of abilities and the level layouts are very well designed. The story is pretty interesting to boot too but the gameplay is where this game really shines. If you like stealth games, this is definitely a must own. It's pretty short though, I finished it in about 5 hours.

Aragami: Nightfall DLC - 7.5/10

Aragami Nightfall looks like it would be more fun with co-op but I played it in single player. The story takes place before the story of the base game. There are some new abilities that are fun and the level design is even more challenging than the first. My main issue with this one is there's a lot of forced exploration. There were a couple moments where you have to find objectives but they don't appear when you click the show objectives button. I cleared out some levels entirely and ran around a few times just looking for what I was supposed to collect. Overall though, if you enjoyed the base game, pick this one up. The base game took me about 5 hours and the DLC took me about 2.5 hours .
 
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Osprey

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Aragami - 8/10

I've heard great things about the stealth in Aragami and it did not disappoint! You have some really fun abilities and it is through and through a great stealth game. The game is very punishing if you get caught. You can't fight a standard fight, you have to rely on stealth to kill your enemies. You get plenty of abilities and the level layouts are very well designed. The story is pretty interesting to boot too but the gameplay is where this game really shines. If you like stealth games, this is definitely a must own. It's pretty short though, I finished it in about 5 hours.

I think that I skipped this when it came out because I don't generally like a comic art style, but I think that I'll check it out because I love stealth gameplay, trust you and see that it has a 90% score on Steam. Also, I see that a sequel is coming out in Q3, which I'm guessing that you know about and wanted to play this before. Maybe I'll do the same. Thanks for the recommendation.
 

explore

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Jun 28, 2011
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Death Stranding: 9.9/10

I just finished my first play through of Death Stranding and it was such a roller coaster of emotions, and the “ending” (it felt like there were quite a few of them) just left me feeling in awe. The game is a masterpiece and it felt like a darker/adult equivalent of Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (which is my standard for near-perfect games)

Here are the key points:

At the time of this review,

- Only 32% of Steam users who own Death Stranding have completed Episode 3

- Of the 32% of Steam users who completed Episode 3, almost 70% of them went on to finish the game

- The point? Set your goal to stick with the game until you complete Episode 3. Treat it as an extended tutorial. Do not give up on the game before then because once you get past it, like most of us, you’ll have trouble putting the game down

- I felt like it took longer for me to get through Episode 1-3 than it did for me to complete the remainder of the game even though that’s not factually true (Episode 1-3 took about 30% of the game time to complete and the total game time for me was a little over 43 hours)

- The game feels like it goes by way faster after Episode 3 because it's after that point when you get the cool equipment, weapons, gear, and structures (it also becomes a lot less scary as you get used to the BTs in the game)

- The story is absolutely worth the time you spend playing the game

- The music is fantastic

- Unlike Cyberpunk 2077, the game was bug free for me (DLSS is an awesome feature)

Bonus in-game screenshots (non-spoilers):

20210515174833_1.jpg

20210515184341_1.jpg
20210515220950_1.jpg
20210515221132_1.jpg
 
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Commander Clueless

Hiya, hiya. Pleased to meetcha.
Sep 10, 2008
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Persona 5 Royal (PS4)

Took me awhile, but I finally played through the enhanced version of my 2017 game of the year.

Admittedly, I'm not really an anime fan (lots o anime stuff in this game) and it can definitely drag a little on the wordy bits, but the gameplay, music....just everything is masterpiece class. Royal added a lot of stuff to the story and it was more of a great thing.

150 hours later and yep, this game is still one of my absolute favourites.

10/10
 

Andrei79

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Jan 25, 2013
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Death Stranding: 9.9/10

I just finished my first play through of Death Stranding and it was such a roller coaster of emotions, and the “ending” (it felt like there were quite a few of them) just left me feeling in awe. The game is a masterpiece and it felt like a darker/adult equivalent of Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (which is my standard for near-perfect games)

Here are the key points:

At the time of this review,

- Only 32% of Steam users who own Death Stranding have completed Episode 3

- Of the 32% of Steam users who completed Episode 3, almost 70% of them went on to finish the game

- The point? Set your goal to stick with the game until you complete Episode 3. Treat it as an extended tutorial. Do not give up on the game before then because once you get past it, like most of us, you’ll have trouble putting the game down

- I felt like it took longer for me to get through Episode 1-3 than it did for me to complete the remainder of the game even though that’s not factually true (Episode 1-3 took about 30% of the game time to complete and the total game time for me was a little over 43 hours)

- The game feels like it goes by way faster after Episode 3 because it's after that point when you get the cool equipment, weapons, gear, and structures (it also becomes a lot less scary as you get used to the BTs in the game)

- The story is absolutely worth the time you spend playing the game

- The music is fantastic

- Unlike Cyberpunk 2077, the game was bug free for me (DLSS is an awesome feature)

Bonus in-game screenshots (non-spoilers):

20210515174833_1.jpg

20210515184341_1.jpg
20210515220950_1.jpg
20210515221132_1.jpg

Ive noticed a lot of people say this is a great game. I just haven't seen many commenting on the gameplay. How is it ? Aside from the story, what makes it hard to put down ?
 

Static

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Ive noticed a lot of people say this is a great game. I just haven't seen many commenting on the gameplay. How is it ? Aside from the story, what makes it hard to put down ?
It is a very unique game, more of a walking simulator than anything else. Lots of item management, from what you choose to carry to how you choose to carry it.

The game is divided into chapters, with the early to middle ones focusing on making deliveries and creating more efficient delivery systems through building different things like vehicles to entire infrastructures. The later chapters have a lot more combat with other humans as well as, uh, "ghosts".

I would absolutely recommend trying it out with the caveat that it is unlike anything you have ever played before, for better or worse. Maybe find a cheap copy through eBay to minimize financial risk of it just not jiving because it's incredibly polarizing.
 

Frankie Spankie

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Feb 22, 2009
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Ive noticed a lot of people say this is a great game. I just haven't seen many commenting on the gameplay. How is it ? Aside from the story, what makes it hard to put down ?
I thought of it kind of like the American/Euro Truck Simulator games except you can build things to make things more efficient. On top of doing things to make your trips more efficient, I would think of how much I was helping other people by putting things into their worlds as well. It was certainly unique way to go about world building.
 
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aleshemsky83

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Apr 8, 2008
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Death Stranding I hate to say it, is terrible. Its not good. Now as I say that I'm about to give a widely panned game major props

Cyberpunk 2077

Man I love this game. Though I beat it I'm far from done with it. The main thing that it does so right is that it gets rid of stupid fetch quests or the "A to B back to A back to B to C back to A" that so many games (even Witcher 3) have to pad length. Maybe thats why I hate Death Stranding, since fetch quests are literally the entire game, lol. In this game, you start the quest and if the quest needs to change locations for story reasons there is always a button to just skip to the next location. If theres dialogue during a car ride 90% of the time you're the passenger and can listen, and once its done you can skip to the location. Theres no filler to the quests. Tons of interesting stuff to do.

The combat is great imo, but once you get a decent sniper rifle (and you use KB+M) its completely OP. One shot kills for everybody.

Graphics are great, played this on a GTX 1080 at 1080p ultra settings around 40 fps. Would've like 60 but it wasn't happening even at medium settings.

As for bugs. There was a lot of them. Some were really bad but the most annoying was textures and models would constantly take forever to load in. This is likely cause I was playing it off a HDD but thats no excuse. No other game has streaming issues that bad and Cyberpunk doesn't look that much better than other games (despite the lighting being extremely impressive at times).

This might be a spoiler but what surprised me is that I thought Keanu was a side character or cameo in the game or at best have a Kiefer Sutherland as Snake role with hardly any dialogue. No, hes essentially the main character. Hes in 95% of the game with full dialogue.
 
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Frankie Spankie

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Feb 22, 2009
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Huntdown - 5/10

Huntdown is a classic style action platformer. It's pretty bloody and has an 80s action move vibe to it. It's pretty fun but overall forgettable. The gameplay doesn't really add anything new. It's fairly challenging and some of the boss battles are fun but it just feels like a bit of a generic platformer. It's not bad per se, but it's not particularly good either. I would skip this one if I were you.
 

Unholy Diver

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Resident Evil Village - 8.5/10

Great follow up to RE 7, good enemy diversity with both lower level enemies and bosses, while many have referred to it as more open world, it is still pretty linear, only with a larger more varied group of locations, (Castles, dungeons, village, caves, etc) . I thought it started a little slow, it didn't really pull me in untill about an hour or 90 mins into the game, and I thought it was a tad too dark ( visually, not the story itself) at times, otherwise a very good to great game.
 

Rodgerwilco

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Feb 6, 2014
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Red Dead Redemption 2.

But, the story can't compensate for the gameplay, where the game is a 5 or maybe a 6/10 at best. It's just not that fun to play. There's no real challenge. The shooting is ok. There are some incredibly tedious aspects in the game that just makes some features a chore. Like, looting is just infuriating. Same for skinning or cooking meat. It's just completely unnecessary to have to watch the same goddamn slow animation every single time. Ive read some people call it immersive. The argument just doesn't hold up as there are so many immersion killing aspects. It's just bad game design, making the game artificially longer than it actually is.

The ratio of time played doing something meaningful vs total time played has to be amongst the lowest I've ever seen.

I would definitely recommend to casual and lower skill gamers (I don't mean this as an insult, I know a lot of gamers that just don't enjoy "difficult" games).

But for anyone else, I'd say wait for a significant sale.
As much as I love this game, the bolded is very true. Which is okay if that's what you're looking for. It's a great time-sink and visually pretty great.

I've completed the story already, so now when I play this I use it to relax and explore the forest/hunt various animals to complete outfits, etc. Despite having played this game for hundreds of hours already, I find a lot of the side encounters to be entertaining and fun, I'm still finding things that I've never seen before.

I'm absolutely with you though, the janky and unnecessary animations really don't add to the immersiveness for me. It's sort of ironic that it's preferable when the game glitches and skips the skinning/looting animation.
 
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Bocephus86

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It's crazy to me that they didn't make a 'skip x animation' option. I'd skip both skinning & looting after about the first 5 times. Also I stopped playing a ton of the mini games because of the slow pace watching other players go. Wish skipping those was optional too.
 

aleshemsky83

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Apr 8, 2008
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Sunset Overdrive

sunset-overdrive.jpg


I really recommend this game. For those that dont know this is the engine the new spiderman games are based on, Its really good. Its kind of a combination of Spiderman, Jet Set Radio, and Deadpool.

It even has a handful of moves like the wallrunning and air dash (aka web zip) that made it into the spiderman games. Also for some reason you can infinitely grind on rails with just your shoes. Not that it makes sense to be able to do that with rollerblades or skateboards but still.

As for the deadpool stuff. Your character basically knows he or she is in a videogame and constantly cracks jokes about videogame tropes. Sometimes its really funny but to be honest a lot of times it misses the mark. Still the game is worth playing if you like games like Spiderman or Infamous.
 
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Frankie Spankie

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Feb 22, 2009
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Alex Kidd in Miracle World DX - 4/10

I assume this is a true remake of the original Alex Kidd games, which I never played. The controls feel incredibly floaty and even simple platforming is challenging simply due to the controls. The main attack is also a punch which forces you to get in close which is hard to do without dying due to the slippery controls. This may be worthwhile for fans of the original looking to relive some nostalgia but otherwise, just skip this title.
 

GlassesJacketShirt

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Aug 4, 2010
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Sherbrooke
Dark Messiah of Might and Magic (2007)
Developed by Arkane Studios
Played on PC

One of the hardest games I've ever had the pleasure/pain to nail down. It feels halfway between being a Thief game and Half-Life 2 yet the combat is most reminiscent of Oblivion and Skyrim, all while being an entry in the Heroes of Might and Magic franchise.....and also acting somewhat as a precursor to Arkane's own Dishonored. It feels like a long lost masterpiece half the time.....and insanely dated for the rest of its duration.

I'd give this a solid if somewhat tentative recommendation. The combat, usage of the rope bow and physics, player progression and level design are all novel elements worth giving a go for, but the inconsistent platforming, subpar storytelling and glitches give off an incomplete feel. It's an 8-9 experience trapped in a 5-6 game.....or is it the other way around?

Gameplay: 7/10
Presentation: 6/10
Score: 7/10
 
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Frankie Spankie

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Dark Messiah of Might and Magic is a ton of fun if you just go in for the game play. The story's meh and the level design is pretty much all corridors. But the combat is a blast and it's fun to experiment with different things. I definitely recommend it to people just for that.
 

93LEAFS

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Nov 7, 2009
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Ratchet and Clank:Rift Apart: A bit short, but looks and plays amazingly. Shows off what the PS5 can do when optimized for a game by in-house studios. Considering this game was released 8 months or so after launch, I can't wait to see what else some of Sony's premium in-house studios (ND, Insomniac, Guerilla, Santa Monica and Sucker Punch) can do with this hardware. Disappointing we won't see that for a while. I'm say 8.5 to 9 out of 10. Fun game, just a bit short. Although, I'd rather a game be great and 10 hours than try to drag you through a 50 hour or longer ordeal.

Infamous Second Son: I enjoyed Ghost of Tsushima so much, I decided to go back and play there other PS4 title that happened to be on Playstation plus. I enjoyed it, they and what they knew to be capable on the PS4 obvious took significant steps forward between this and Ghost of Tsushima. It was a fun game, good story and combat. I'd say 8/10.

The Outer Worlds (and both DLC's): Until the pandemic I primarily played Rockstar, South Park and Sports games (although I stopped buying those 3 or 4 years ago). I got back into it with Fallen Order, and have played a ton since. But, I didn't venture much past AAA 3rd person games and a couple platformers. Due to this, I felt I'd give a shot to a first-person RPG open world, that wasn't as daunting (heard this was about 20-25 hours compared to other open-world RPGs compared to the length of some others like Witcher or Fallout). I enjoyed it, and will probably pick up another one soon (I have Fallout 4 free on PS Plus collection). First person and RPG's still aren't my style of game, I can find all the talking slowing down the game a bit much, and I prefer 3rd person over 1st but I still enjoyed it. I'd say it was about an 8. Maybe this will be the franchise that gets me to buy a PC when prices finally become reasonable or pick up a Series X or S. As I am intrigued by Avowed and The Outer Worlds 2 at this point.
 
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aleshemsky83

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Apr 8, 2008
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Final Fantasy 7 Remake PS5 (Main Game) - Hard Mode

I have a few things to say about this one. The PS5 update first of all is amazing. Literally 2 second load times and perfect 60 fps, all texture pop-in is gone, and some textures were touched up. This one is worth buying on sale even if you own the PS Plus version of it (which really should have the ps5 version included but whatever). Dont select the 4k mode, it looks the same as framerate mode. Its kind of a shame those hidden hallway load times cant get taken out but what are you gonna do.

As for hard mode. I saw Tim Rogers say that the hard mode changes the combat completely and turns it from a mindless hack and slash to extremely balanced, I have to say thats right. I constantly had to tweak my characters and adjust strategy against bosses in hard mode and the bosses were super fair. It really is an extremely good New Game + (you can't play it without beating the game). To explain a little bit, in the hard mode you can't use items at any time. Not even out of combat in the pause menu. The only MP recovery you get is at the beginning of each chapter. It creates an extremely tense situation where you're trying to save as much MP as possible for the boss at the end of the chapter, which in turn makes you far more concious of how much damage you take because you dont want to spam heal and waste all your MP. You use characters much more strategically. Barrett becomes a legitimately OP tank with Lifesaver and Steelskin, Aeriths Pray Materia becomes integral to the game when you get hit with silence now that items are out of the question, Tifa and Cloud pretty much play the same but it forces you to learn their stagger combos far better.

That said, all the old criticisms hold up. Parts of the game feel like the quality of a yakuza spinoff game. Chocobo Sam still looks like a PS3 character, though I think they touched up his beard slightly on PS5. Though the actual story cutscenes look insanely good arguably next gen.

Also, I'm so glad those stupid ghosts aren't coming back in the sequel. On to Integrade next.

edit: Oh also, while they did in fact fix a ton of the pre-rendered sky boxes, there were still a few that looked jpeged.
 
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Ceremony

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Jun 8, 2012
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Gravel (PS4, 2018)

Back when I was too young to buy my own video games my mother would get me them, mostly from the local supermarket. As a result I used to have a pile of PS1 and PS2 games that were about various forms of motor racing, usually with really generic names like "Rally Championship." With this in mind we come to Gravel, an offroad racing game from the people who make the MotoGP games.

You have an assortment of vehicles to drive including classic rally cars, modern rallycross cars and racing trucks. You have an assortment of courses and race types to race them in, with lap races around original tracks and real-world rallycross tracks and checkpoint races in point to point courses across a varied range of locations. In addition to the slightly bizarre Off-road Masters career mode which I'll expand on shortly there are free race, time attack and multiplayer options where you can set up any event you like.

The bulk of the game is in its career mode, titled Off-road Masters. It's basically a sequence of events like I've just described, only occasionally there's a race against a named driver in a specially painted vehicle, with an intro video from some guy in racing overalls posing and gurning at the camera. Throughout the races there's a voiceover from a guy introducing the races and the series as if it's a genuine racing series shown specially on "Gravel Channel" and it's all a bit... odd. The overall tone of the game feels like it's attempting to copy Driveclub in terms of the culture and off-track immersion in the cars and races but it all comes off a bit cheap and pointless. The guy doing the voiceovers only has one speech for each location for instance, so every time you race in Alaska you'll hear the same speech about how great Alaska is. At least you can skip them.

In terms of cars there's a genuinely surprising selection. I didn't know much about Gravel before going in other than seeing it described as a bit soulless and boring. I wasn't expecting the amount of classic rally cars to drive - Lancers, Imprezas, Celica, Delta, 037, Renault 5, they're all there and they all look really good. There are several different classes to choose from with lots of different vehicles in each, although this isn't as promising as it sounds. Pretty much every vehicle in a class sounds and handles the same. The specifications for each vehicle aren't very detailed, with power and drivetrain being the only ones that seem to make a difference. (Tip: pick the most powerful 4WD car and you'll probably do well) Weight isn't even listed.

There is visual and physical damage but you need to really crash into something hard to cause it, and even then it only manifests as pulling your steering slightly to one side, or making the engine sound funny. You'll still reach and maintain your top speed. And even then, there's an unlimited rewind feature so you can go back and undo your crash anyway. As fun as they are to drive and as close as the racing can be, I'm trying to think right now and can't remember any car being especially memorable for its performance.

In addition to the (slightly dumbed down) real world rallycross circuits there are courses set in a range of locations including Alaska, Namibia and Iceland. Each location looks really distinctive and has a different type of surface to race on - Namibia has sand and absolutely massive jumps, for instance. Similar to the cars however regardless of whether you're driving on sand, mud or ice there's basically no difference in how a car handles. You slide at the same rate, you go at the same speed, you have the same reaction to landing from a jump. The only real difference is in the visuals and thankfully they're varied enough to keep the interest up, so I never really felt bored.

Although graphically the game isn't very impressive - there's very little dust kicked up behind cars for instance, although cars do get dirty - there's something charming about it that I could never really fully explain. In a way it's like it doesn't feel like the full-on, fully licensed cars original circuits that it is. It feels like something made lovingly by a small group of people who wanted to make their own game with real cars but didn't have an unlimited budget or resources. The result is something I'm probably not going to think about again, and which I only spend 15 hours on, but which I quite enjoyed.

One final note has to go to the noise my PS4 made while playing this. It's warm right now, but I've never heard a noise like I heard from this game. Concerning, but at least it was quick.
 

Frankie Spankie

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Feb 22, 2009
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Dorchester, MA
Astalon: Tears of the Earth - 8/10

I feel like this will be a nice little hidden gem that nobody really ends up playing which is a shame. It's a great metroidvania with a retro aesthetic. You'll often find yourself revisiting areas to find new items or characters. You start off with 3 but can get up to 5 and they all have their own strengths and weaknesses that you will have to switch between to solve rooms. The exploration is a lot of fun. The game is a bit difficult at first and can be a bit tedious early because dying sends you back to the beginning but you'll unlock fast travel points as you progress. Every time you die, you'll be able to purchase upgrades at a shop to make yourself stronger and get through tough sections you may keep dying at.

The game is a decent length for a metroidvania. It'll probably take you about 15-20 hours to 100% it and there are unlockable game modes for some added replayability if that interests you. Overall, it's a really neat retro game that definitely deserves a playthrough if you're into retro games.
 
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