The Backlog Check-in Vol. 119: 4/11/20: Fallout 76: Wastelanders Edition

[Phaseknox]

Played: Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana

Finished: Nothing

Playing: Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana

I've played Ys VIII for close to 40 hours now, and I'm ready for it to start wrapping up at this point. Usually 40+ hour JRPGs include a lot of story cut-scenes, towns and NPC interaction. While Ys VIII has some story scenes and NPC interaction here and there, it's mostly gameplay. Outside of the castaway village hub area and another area that I won't spoil, the game is like one big dungeon despite a lot of it taking place outdoors. Every area is crawling with monsters, and you're engaging in combat constantly. There's not much downtime throughout the game, you're continuously running through areas and dungeons fighting monsters and bosses most of the time.

The combat is fast and fun and there's a good variety of enemies, but a lot of the game world is somewhat same-y looking (tropical island, jungle, caves, ruins) and you retread a lot of the same areas over again. Also, the game originated on the Vita so it looks like a Vita game and is somewhat low budget. The art design is good and it's colorful, but a lot of the game world looks cut and pasted with low res textures. While I'm not a graphics whore, the dated look of the game from a technical standpoint does hinder the overall experience somewhat as it leaves a little more to the imagination in terms of visuals than a game should this gen IMO.

The story and characters have both been entertaining enough to keep me interested, and there's a decent amount of variety of things to do. The side stuff is better than it often is in JRPGs, and the music is great. I've definitely been enjoying my time with the game, but it's starting to feel like it's dragging on a little longer than is necessary. I'm ready to finish it and move onto something else at this point.

Fallout 76: Wastelanders comes out this week.

[isthatallyougot]

I finished up Samurai Western. It was a good game that was close to being really good if had had some tweaking and fine-tuning. But, it was a pretty enjoyable PS2 hack-n-slash.

I'm not sure what I'm going to play now. Time to peruse the backlog.

[jfissel]

Finished: Shadow of the Tomb Raider (DLC)

Now Playing: No idea

Added to Backlog: Nothing

Current Backlog: 34 games

Shadow of the Tomb Raider is all done now! Hope everyone is doing well and surviving just fine.

[crimson_tide]

Played: AC Origins, Nier Automata, Wonder Boy, SAO Fatal Bullet, Hollow Knight, White Male Rage: The Game (or you may know it by its slave name, Prototype)

Beat: Nothing

Bought: SAO Fatal Bullet

After beating Vesperia (I really, really miss that hat...), I tooled around my backlog. Nier is just goshdang weird, I make it like 1-2 hours every couple months before I put it down and shrug. Wonder Boy is cute but not sit down and focus to play through cute. SAO Fatal Bullet is fine. I will go back to it at some point. Hollow Knight, like Nier, I kinda stumble through every now and again until I get stuck. Prototype is just Hulk Ultimate Destruction HD with an edgelord OC Do Not Steal protagonist who is just the goshdanged worst. His quest is so hollow and empty but the game is so fun. I find myself at odds with it. It's so blatant in its disregard for just about everything though I can just dick around in it even if the protagonist is just so flipping lame.

He's no Bayek. AC Origins I dabbled in before but I am in for the long haul now. It really reminds of Yakuza with its approach of do the story stuff whenever but there is so much other things going on and you are encouraged to at least dabble in all of it. Bayek is my boy though. I really like the dude because like Kazuma, he just does the thing beleaguered but knowing it's helping and he just can't not help. I really love this game!...and then they ruin it with real world nonsense. I thought they stopped that garbage? It's really unnecessary and takes me away from my boy Bayek! It makes me want to avoid the story missions in case I get ripped out of an otherwise solid yarn. But I will stick through until the end. Who knew Assassin's Creed games were like fun and whatnnot?

[canedaddy]

Prototype is just Hulk Ultimate Destruction HD with an edgelord OC Do Not Steal protagonist who is just the goshdanged worst.

DANG IT, why did you make me aware of how much I'm missing a Hulk Ultimate Destruction HD remaster? So sad...

Played recently: Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age, Twin Breaker: A Sacred Symbols Adventure

Finished: DQXI (sort of), Twin Breaker

Added to backlog: nothing

Current backlog: 36 (14 PS4, 9 Vita, 7 3DS/2DS, 5 PS2)


Twin Breaker is meh. I like brick-breakers, so it was fairly fun to play through, but it doesn't really do much with Colin and Chris in the story, no humor that I could detect, and there are sections where you're covering all four sides with your paddles that are annoying.

I won't spoil DQXI but I've seen the credits and entered the postgame. It's been a great time.

[argyle]

Games added: FF7 Remake

Last week: Finished nothing, played Animal Crossing: New Horizons, FF7

This week: More of the same, plus a touch of Fallout '76: Wastelanders w/ the missus

Animal Crossing is just crazy fun. I can't get into any of the Harvest Moon games or their ilk (Stardew Valley, etc.) to save my life, tho that doesn't stop me from trying. But AC is my guilty pleasure along those lines. The wife & I checked the other day, and we had both logged around 165 hours in it at the time - I imagine we've gotten up to 200 by now, if not passed it. It's just super laid back chill crack. Is that a thing? Iunno, it is now. They just really knocked it out of the park with this one. The crazy amount of customization you can do to your island make it so that there is just always something to do. The game is also low-key hilarious.



Final Fantasy 7 is just...wow. It's insane what they've done to that game. The amount of detail is off the charts, and it's simultaneously extremely nostalgic and very fresh & new. Crim, I totally get where you're coming from w/ Barrett w/ him basically being a caricature, but...well, I guess I sorta see ALL of them like that, and that's part of the charm to me. They could totally replace all of Cloud's music w/ Linkin Park and it will fit perfectly. I do think they walked a line of staying true to the original w/ the characters while still expanding them somewhat - I mean, Cloud for example is still moody as all get-out but at least they sorta add enough to him that you can KINDA understand why. I honestly haven't dealt a ton w/ Barrett after the intro part yet, so I can't say much about him - it's mostly been the Cloud & Tifa show up to where I am (and Tifa rocks, she's just cool ).

Tam & I picked Fallout '76 back up about a month ago - we got 2 copies for $5/each, figured it was worth that to tool around in a little. Created our characters, but held off doing anything until Wastelanders hit. We still haven't done a ton, we've played it once since the update (that's more AC's fault that Fallout's... ) but I *can* say that it feels like an actual finished game now instead of some weird empty beta. Hopefully we'll get some more time in it this weekend. They have this system where whenever you enter an area w/ major story content your party leader is the only one who can make dialog choices. Makes sense, you couldn't have one person on a team accept a quest while the other just ticks off the NPC & leaves, but it does take a little getting used to. Since we're sitting side-by-side playing it's not that big of a deal for us anyway, we can just discuss it before choosing a response. That's only for the major story points tho, there are still NPCs in the wild that you can both talk to & interact with however. It's a small concession to give us an actual story & things to do, so I'm more than OK with it.

I also finally popped in Doom Eternal last night because honestly, I just needed to kill something digitally. It definitely fit the bill. Love, love, love what they have done with Doom this gen - which is basically make it a super high-def version of what it was to begin with. Very little story, no ducking behind 2-ft rubble, no reloading, just moving REALLY fast & blowing the crap out of everything that moves. It's technically very impressive because it looks fantastic & is locked in a 60fps (something I don't typically notice much, but with as fast as this game is it's impossible NOT to notice how incredibly smooth it feels - no stutter, no tearing, nada). But all that really does is let me forget about the mechanics and just cackle in glee as I rip some demon's arm off and beat him with it.

BTW, this is neither here nor there but you guys are aware of the company Limited Run Games that started the whole low-print run of indie games schtick this gen? Yeah, I think you can mark yesterday as the day they fully went off a cliff and gave up:

[jfissel]

Chex Quest? And wow, 200 hours into Animal Crossing? Are you working towards anything or just doing random stuff?

Cane, congrats on beating DQ XI - keep going as the postgame has some great moments.

And yes crim, Bayek is pretty cool. The real-life stuff is way more toned down in the newer AC games. Enjoy Egypt!

[crimson_tide]

Hulk UD HD would...oh god old man, I would be so so happy! Weekly, my poor wife actually has to endure me bringing up that or Def Jam Vendetta FFNY as HD updates I need them to do the work to get the licenses in order to get those games back in people's hands! Prototype is...fine but I can't surf on a bus or play home run derby with soldiers jumping from helicopters. Or wrecking ball bowling. Like how has Hulk UD HD not happened yet?

Chex Quest? 'Ight, if someone wants that who am I to judge. I just spent a paragraph on HD updates I want of some old ass games .

After I beat Origins (pretty close I imagine, level 28 and there's like 4 story trophies left) I want to try Odyssey in a month or two. Glad the real world stuff is toned down more! I can't imagine the Greek dude being as good as my boy Bayek (Egyptian Kazuma is a tough act to follow) so I will go for the female option to change pace. But before I do that, I may go through Prototype and then another JRPG since we're officially locked down in NYC until at least May 15. Might as well take advantage of being here at home!