The Backlog Check-in Vol. 116: 3/21/20: Stay-At-Home Order Edition

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jfissel
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The Backlog Check-in Vol. 116: 3/21/20: Stay-At-Home Order Edition

Post by jfissel »

Finished: Nothing

Now Playing: Shadow of the Tomb Raider

Added to Backlog: Nothing

Current Backlog: 35 games

Decided to fire up Shadow of the Tomb Raider and it's good so far. I'm maybe 35-40% through the story, but it's definitely less combat-oriented and more exploration and tomb/crypt-oriented than the other 2 in this trilogy.
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isthatallyougot
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Re: The Backlog Check-in Vol. 116: 3/21/20: Stay-At-Home Order Edition

Post by isthatallyougot »

jfissel wrote: Tue Mar 24, 2020 1:35 pm Decided to fire up Shadow of the Tomb Raider and it's good so far. I'm maybe 35-40% through the story, but it's definitely less combat-oriented and more exploration and tomb/crypt-oriented than the other 2 in this trilogy.
I was disappointed by TR (2013). It wasn't a bad game, but it didn't live up to the series heritage for me. I've got Rise and Shadow in my backlog, and I'll play them one day though.

Being more exploration oriented sounds good to me.

I'm still playing The Last of Us remastered, and I'm having fun with that one.
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Phaseknox
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Re: The Backlog Check-in Vol. 116: 3/21/20: Stay-At-Home Order Edition

Post by Phaseknox »

Played: Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories (demo), Tokyo Xanadu eX+, Trials of Mana (demo)

Finished: Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories (demo), Trials of Mana (demo)

Playing: Tokyo Xanadu eX+

I've been playing Tokyo Xanadu eX+, and mildly enjoying it. It's basically a poor man's Persona. It's one part interactive story, and one part dungeon crawler. It has chapters, each with their own mini stories. The stories have been decent, and the cast of characters are likeable. It's very anime inspired which I like, but its design structure is repetitive. For the first part of a chapter you just roam around a few small areas such as a school, shopping district and park interacting with NPCs until you trigger the part of the story that leads to the dungeon crawling. Lather, rinse, repeat. The stories and characters are the main draw here, and the dungeon crawling is somewhat fun since the combat is real-time button mash-y action. But after a few chapters it all becomes a little too same-y. You just keep retreading the same small areas interacting with a lot of the same NPCs, and then go through maze-like dungeons until you reach the end and fight a boss. The stories and characters are keeping me interested enough to continue playing it for now, but I'm not sure that they'll be enough to keep me playing until the end.

I played and finished the demo for Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories. I really liked the first two Disaster Report games (Disaster Report, Raw Danger!) on the PS2, and have been eagerly anticipating this follow-up for quite some time. I don't know why it took two years after it came out in Japan to come out here, but better late than never. It goes back to the earthquake theme of the original, but feels quite a bit different compared to the first two games in the series. You create your character (male/female) at the start with very limited customization options, and then begin the game on a bus where it asks you why you're on the bus which seems odd since it doesn't seem to matter one way or another. While riding the bus in the city an earthquake hits, then you crawl out of the turned over bus and the game begins. The city shows obvious signs of an earthquake, and there's NPCs standing around all over the place. While there are a few that seem panicked by the situation, most are chill which seems odd. What's even stranger is that while walking around strong aftershocks occasionally occur to the point where sometimes buildings collapse, yet the NPCs barely react to them. And there's a multilevel building that you can enter where people are just hanging out, who hangs out in buildings during earthquakes especially when others are collapsing? The graphics and effects are quite good, but the NPCs not really reacting realistically to the events occurring seemed a little awkward. You get to wander around a semi-open area of a city interacting with NPCs during the demo, but when you reach the point when you leave the small starting area the demo ends. It's a short demo, and doesn't really give a good idea of what the core game is. But I was enjoying my time with it because it's something different, and I definitely plan on getting it. But since it's a somewhat low budget niche Japanese game it's not something that I feel that they should be releasing at full price, so I'll wait to get it when it's cheaper.

I played and finished the demo for Trials of Mana, and I really enjoyed it. Unlike the Disaster Report 4 demo, it's long. It took me roughly three hours to finish. Part of this is because I played all but one of the character origin stories. There's six characters to choose from, and they each have their own origin stories that you play out. The game is a 3D remake of a SNES game that wasn't released here until somewhat recently on the Collection of Mana for Switch. It's a cartoonish and colorful anime style third person JRPG similar to Dragon Quest and the Tales games. The story and characters are both good based on what I played, and the gameplay is fast and fun. I especially like the combat system which is real-time action. The enemies are in the game world, and you engage in combat with them like you would in a Zelda game. You have a couple of attacks, magic and dodge/evade. You can also jump which you need to do to hit flying enemies. The game is somewhat linear but with semi-open environments that you can explore and find goodies in. It's an old school style JRPG which are my favorites, and I found it to be a charming and delightful time. If it was out now I would buy it, because I didn't want to stop playing it.
Last edited by Phaseknox on Wed Mar 25, 2020 4:19 pm, edited 4 times in total.
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isthatallyougot
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Re: The Backlog Check-in Vol. 116: 3/21/20: Stay-At-Home Order Edition

Post by isthatallyougot »

Phaseknox wrote: Wed Mar 25, 2020 9:43 am I played and finished the demo for Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories. I really liked the first two Disaster Report games (Disaster Report, Raw Danger!) on the PS2, and have been eagerly anticipating this follow-up for quite some time.
I had no idea this series even continued past those entries.
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Phaseknox
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Re: The Backlog Check-in Vol. 116: 3/21/20: Stay-At-Home Order Edition

Post by Phaseknox »

isthatallyougot wrote: Wed Mar 25, 2020 11:48 amI had no idea this series even continued past those entries.
Now you know, and knowing is half the battle. ;)
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crimson_tide
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Re: The Backlog Check-in Vol. 116: 3/21/20: Stay-At-Home Order Edition

Post by crimson_tide »

Played: Mordor, Yuri's Balling Ass Baller Hat Adventure

Bought: nothing

Beat: nothing

Thanks for confirming what I thought Shiness would be last week by the by, Phase. Bought it cheap on PSN and thought it would have a more interesting battle system with the fighting game angle but it was extremely dull after a couple hours and I dropped it.

I am still pondering taking on Tokyo Xanadu before P5 Royal because Royal will eat Xanadu's lunch. Didn't play the original P5 because I figured that atlus would pull this. With the extra in home time, I might grab Royal but I do like real time battle systems a sight more than turn based. So it's convenient Phase had thoughts about Xanadu this week!
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Phaseknox
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Re: The Backlog Check-in Vol. 116: 3/21/20: Stay-At-Home Order Edition

Post by Phaseknox »

crimson_tide wrote: Fri Mar 27, 2020 2:22 pmThanks for confirming what I thought Shiness would be last week by the by, Phase. Bought it cheap on PSN and thought it would have a more interesting battle system with the fighting game angle but it was extremely dull after a couple hours and I dropped it.
I liked the core game, but the enclosed one-on-one battles along with its somewhat punishing difficulty ruined it for me. If it offered regular real-time action combat where you fought reasonably challenging enemies in the actual game world it would have been a lot better IMO.
crimson_tide wrote: Fri Mar 27, 2020 2:22 pmI am still pondering taking on Tokyo Xanadu before P5 Royal because Royal will eat Xanadu's lunch. Didn't play the original P5 because I figured that atlus would pull this.
I have Persona 5, but I haven't played it yet. I stopped playing Tokyo Xanadu because I was finding it a little dull since a good chunk of the game is just interacting with NPCs. It's like two different games in one: an interactive story and dungeon crawler. I know that's similar to the Persona games, but it's not nearly as compelling as them. It's still good and I would have probably stuck with it until the end if I didn't have so many other games that I would rather be playing right now.
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crimson_tide
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Re: The Backlog Check-in Vol. 116: 3/21/20: Stay-At-Home Order Edition

Post by crimson_tide »

Oh. My. God!!! Guys, I have wonderful news...nearly all my characters in Tales of Vesperia now have balling ass baller hats! I needs to find a costume that counters stupid old guy's dumb hair so the hat will show up but other than that only 2 characters don't have balling ass baller hats! Also, I found this Sassoon person and he updated the hat to have shades too!

So my wife asked me if the only reason I was playing this game was to dress up the characters. I admitted absolutely that was the driving motivation. She judged me, which she should...

Also, in Ring Fit Adventure, she was livid that after finding a blender that they are still charging her for smoothies. I told her this was every RPG, you are the savior and you still have to pay. She was not pleased...
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