The Backlog Check-in Vol. 290: 7/22/23: Remnant II Edition

[Phaseknox]

I started playing Scars Above. It’s a game that I wanted at launch and would have bought if there was a physical copy for PS4, but like Asterigos: Curse of the Stars which is another game that I wanted a physical copy of they only released it physically for PS5 and Xbox Series X for some reason. I didn’t want to pay full price for the digital version, so I waited to get it on sale.

I paid $19.99 for it, and that seems to be the right price for it since it’s an older style linear third person shooter where you travel down directed and funneled environments shooting alien creatures and not much else. It kind of reminds me of the first Mass Effect, but without the RPG elements. It has a little Dead Space and Dark Souls in it too, but the Dark Souls elements of having set save points (pillars) where you can save and refill your life bar at the cost of respawning all defeated enemies just seems forced to make it somewhat Soulslike.

You play as a female character, but she’s kind of dopey looking. It’s almost as if they intentionally made her unattractive since that seems to be the trend in western developed games these days. She’s not ugly, but not attractive either. She’s just average and plain looking not what you would expect from a main protagonist in a video game. Her voice actress is good, but doesn’t really match the look of the character.

The graphics are really good and the gameplay is solid/tight for the most part, but the game itself is AA mid-tier without a big budget and just feels kind of middle of the road for the genre. It borrows from other similar games, but doesn’t really offer anything of its own. It’s also really linear only including some branching paths every now and then. It’s not bad by any means and I like it since I like sci-fi horror, but it does feel somewhat antiquated in a lot of ways since it’s primarily a straight forward linear third person shooter.

[argyle]

I think I'm going through a Phase right now. I bought Gotham Knights last night on the Xbox for $20. I'm looking for something semi-mindless to play on weekday nights, and while it's certainly dumb I'm not sure if it's any good yet. Early impressions are that the combat feels stiff & is pretty button-mashy. Can't really say much else so far. We'll see.

[Phaseknox]

I think I'm going through a Phase right now. I bought Gotham Knights last night on the Xbox for $20. I'm looking for something semi-mindless to play on weekday nights, and while it's certainly dumb I'm not sure if it's any good yet. Early impressions are that the combat feels stiff & is pretty button-mashy. Can't really say much else so far. We'll see.

Gotham Knights looks good to me, but I’m not sure if it would really click with me right now or not either because nothing has really been clicking with me lately, not even games that I should like.

I stopped playing Scars Above despite it being the type of game that I usually really like. I do somewhat like it and will play it again, but it’s just not really what I’m in the mood for right now. I’m still playing Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age, but I’ll probably stop playing it as well because I just feel like I’m doing a lot of talking to NPCs and repetitive dungeon crawling. It’s kind of slow paced, and the battle system is too much on autopilot. I like the story and characters, but I don’t think that they’re going to be enough to keep me playing.

At this point I’m probably just going to play through Assassin’s Creed Odyssey again, or perhaps this would be a good time to play Immortals: Fenyx Rising again since I didn’t get very far the first time that I played it. It all depends on what I’m in the mood for which I have no idea what that is right now.

[argyle]

Honestly, I think I would really dig this right now:

[Phaseknox]

I’m still playing Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age

Not anymore. I started playing Immortals: Fenyx Rising, and I’m liking it more this time than when I first played it. I don’t think that I was really in the mood for it when I played it before, but I am now. It’s appealing to me more than anything else has in a while. It’s open world with fun combat, platforming and puzzles, and my fem Fenyx is really cute.

Honestly, I think I would really dig this right now:

I don’t really like the chibi art style, but I’ll still probably get it when it’s on sale for cheap since I’m a Double Dragon fan. I’m kind of burned out on indie retro style pixel art games. I own a lot of them, but I haven’t really been interested in playing them. It’s probably just a Phase, and there will be a time that I’m in the mood for them. At least I hope so, otherwise I wasted a lot of money on them.

[canedaddy]

I started playing Immortals: Fenyx Rising, and I’m liking it more this time than when I first played it. I don’t think that I was really in the mood for it when I played it before, but I am now. It’s appealing to me more than anything else has in a while. It’s open world with fun combat, platforming and puzzles, and my fem Fenyx is really cute.

I really enjoyed that one. It does become a bit repetitive after a while, which might turn you off, but it didn't bother me.

[Phaseknox]

I really enjoyed that one. It does become a bit repetitive after a while, which might turn you off, but it didn't bother me.

I made it further than I originally did, but unfortunately I started to lose interest in it after that because it seems kind of like an open world collect-a-thon action platformer instead of an action adventure game or RPG. The world is like a big artificial video game playland with different challenges, collectibles and stuff scattered everywhere for you to do that doesn’t feel organic. It looks good, but doesn’t feel real or lived in. In open world games I like the worlds to feel like real places with things like NPCs going about their business creating a sense of liveliness to them. Of course there’s a reason why that isn’t the case in this game, but it still doesn’t change the fact that it all just feels really video game-y to me. It also doesn’t help that instead of having dungeons like caves and ruins to explore it has linear obstacle course type levels with platforming and puzzle challenges that take place in an otherworldly realm separate from the world. I somewhat liked them at first, but started to get a little tired of them after a while because they were starting to feel similar taking place in the same realm so there wasn’t any visual variety to them.

I like the comedic story, characters (especially fem Fenyx) and gameplay including the combat, platforming and puzzle solving, but the game is more of an action/platform/puzzle game than an adventure game or RPG which doesn’t appeal to me as much. I was expecting it to be more like a cartoonish and comical version of Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, but it’s not really anything like it. It shares some similarities here and there, but it’s ultimately a completely different game. I went into it expecting it to be more of a quest driven action RPG, but instead it kind of feels like a Nintendo game aimed at a younger audience which I’m not the biggest fan of. I was finding charm in it so there’s always a chance that I will play it again someday when I’m more in the mood for an action platformer with puzzles, but that isn’t now.

[crimson_tide]

I got real frustrated with the platforming in Fenyx. I tried going back several times but the jumping puzzles would always turn me off. That and they seem pretty stingy with the upgrade materials from what I recall. Maybe I just didn't get far enough into it for that not to be an issue like in Odyssey.

[Phaseknox]

I got real frustrated with the platforming in Fenyx. I tried going back several times but the jumping puzzles would always turn me off. That and they seem pretty stingy with the upgrade materials from what I recall. Maybe I just didn't get far enough into it for that not to be an issue like in Odyssey.

I just don’t really like how it’s kind of two different games in one: an open world action game and a linear level based platform/puzzle game. It would have been better if it was more like Assassin’s Creed Odyssey where it was an open world action RPG with quests, and included actual dungeons that had platforming and puzzles in them.

Speaking of Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, I decided to play it again. It’s my favorite open world action RPG, and probably my favorite game in general. The world is huge, varied and lively with NPCs everywhere making it feel like a real place, Kassandra is one of my favorite video game protagonists as she can be serious as well as humorous, sarcastic and snarky, it’s packed with quests to do everywhere, exploration is rewarding, traversal and combat are fun, the dungeons are almost like Tomb Raider, fighting bounty hunters hunting you is exciting and hunting down cultists and assassinating them is satisfying.