The Backlog Check-in Vol. 287: 7/1/23: The Legend of Heroes: Trails into Reverie Edition

[Phaseknox]

Played: Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: China, A Juggler’s Tale, King’s Bounty II, The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel, Twogether: Project Indigos, XEL, Yoku’s Island Express

Finished: A Juggler’s Tale, King’s Bounty II

Playing: The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel

Added: Nothing

After finishing A Juggler’s Tale, I played Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: China, Twogether: Project Indigos and Yoku’s Island Express. Unfortunately, despite liking a lot about each of them I had issues with them that made me stop playing them.

Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: China is a 2.5D side scrolling action platform stealth game that looks and plays pretty good, but unfortunately the trial-and-error stealth aspects hurt the experience. The combat, platforming and silent takedowns are all satisfying, but unfortunately the bulk of the game requires you to be stealthy which is slow paced and often leads to trial-and-error which is frustrating. You have to sneak, hide and wait constantly to figure out how to get past enemies, and it becomes a repetitive slog. Fighting enemies is not encouraged despite the combat being pretty fun, but you’re almost always outnumbered and die by only a couple of hits while the enemies take several hits to defeat. The game is designed for you to be stealthy the entire time, and sneaking, hiding and waiting isn’t much fun. I stopped playing the game because I wasn’t enjoying the stealth which is the majority of the game.

Twogether: Project Indigos is a cartoonish third person sci-fi puzzle game where you switch between two different characters to solve environment puzzles, but I barely played it because there’s no option to invert the up and down camera movement which made the game essentially unplayable for me. It completely baffles me how any game now with camera controls doesn’t offer the option to invert the up and down movement as it has been a standard option in every game for generations now.

Yoku’s Island Express is a colorful and cute 2.5D side scrolling Metroidvania pinball game that is creative and different. I was really enjoying it at first when it was a good balance of traversal and pinball with somewhat linear progression, but it wasn’t long until it opened up more and became almost all about pinball challenges. I like a good game of pinball, but I was expecting a little more traversal that utilized pinball mechanics such as flippers and bumpers in the environments to get around instead of primarily being continuous enclosed pinball areas. And the pinball challenges become somewhat difficult rather quickly which I wasn’t expecting from a game that seems aimed at a younger audience. I started to get frustrated with the non-stop collect-a-thon gameplay and constant pinball challenges, so I stopped playing. I would have liked the game more if it was less about needing to continuously collect fruit and play enclosed pinball challenges, and more about traversing the world like a platformer utilizing pinball mechanics.

After playing those games I got in the mood to play a JRPG, and I started playing The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel. I’ve been enjoying it, it’s very anime which I like since I’m an anime fan. It’s story driven, and features an all voiced cast. Despite the graphics being somewhat blocky with simple textures since it was originally a PS3 and Vita game, I find them appealing since they’re colorful with a certain charm. The game runs at a smooth 60fps as well which is nice. The turn-based combat is good, too. It somewhat reminds me of Wild Arms. The game isn’t an adventure RPG where you embark on an epic journey, but instead it takes place primarily at a military academy with a large campus and different facilities where you interact with NPCs and take on quests/side quests. There’s a small shopping district on the outskirts of the military academy as well that has shops, and other things. However, you also sometimes go to different regions for field studies that have quests/side quests for you to do too which add variety to the locations that you go to in the game. The game in general is kind of slow paced with a lot of story and character interaction, but I’ve been finding both interesting enough to stay invested.

Games releasing this week
Beetle Elf
Bruxa
Catch & Cook: Fishing Adventure
City Limits
EchoBlade
Full Quiet
Gimmick! Special Edition
Gylt
The Legend of Heroes: Trails into Reverie
Necrosmith
Safari Pinball
Scarf
Sentimental Death Loop
Silent Paws
Synapse
Tad the Lost Explorer
Tyrion Cuthbert: Attorney of the Arcane

[jfissel]

Finished: PowerWash Simulator SpongeBob DLC

Now Playing: The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, ??

Added to Backlog: PowerWash Simulator SpongeBob DLC

Current Backlog: 43 games

Bought and finished the Spongebob SquarePants DLC for PowerWash Simulator in about 2 days. That invisible boat level was pretty fun and different from other levels.

[canedaddy]

Happy Fantavision Week! This time in high definition!





Played recently: Octopath Traveler II

Finished: nothing

Added to backlog: nothing

Current backlog: 31


I think I have one more character's storyline to finish up in Octopath, then I'll focus on the side stuff. (Assuming there's not some other storyline that picks up when each individual's story is done.) Great game.

[crimson_tide]

Phase. Bruh. Fam. Trails of Cold Steel was too anime for me. I have a ridiculously hard time sticking with it. I'm about 4-5 hours in since January because I get so bored with the world building and anime tropes. I'm slowly plugging away at it but I find it to be such a slog that I am not really looking forward to it when I play. It becomes something just to occupy hands honestly. I did like that but of the battle system I engaged with. Oh and one dude has a shotgun. Too bad he just sucks as a character (how can you be a sexist, belligerent leftist? Oh Japan, never change )

I liked the bit of Yoku I played too. I just suck at pinball. I fell off pretty quick but I do want to go back during a lull. Seems like a good unwind from work game.

Played: Marvel Midnight Suns (ok, even being kinda...ok really fugly, the repeated crashes, the music going in and out, the barely there story...it might be the greatest game ever made because my character can rock a Magneto Was Right t shirt. ****ing LOVE this game! Oh, and the DLC character and story is actually pretty baller. The voice acting and writing, especially on their little message board is just really good.)

Bought: Nothing

Playing this week: Guess

[Phaseknox]

Phase. Bruh. Fam. Trails of Cold Steel was too anime for me. I have a ridiculously hard time sticking with it. I'm about 4-5 hours in since January because I get so bored with the world building and anime tropes. I'm slowly plugging away at it but I find it to be such a slog that I am not really looking forward to it when I play. It becomes something just to occupy hands honestly. I did like that but of the battle system I engaged with. Oh and one dude has a shotgun. Too bad he just sucks as a character (how can you be a sexist, belligerent leftist? Oh Japan, never change )

You’ve only played 4-5 hours of it since January? You do realize that it’s like an 80+ hour game, right? I’ve played it for 10 hours so far myself, and it took 8 hours just to go on the first field study that takes you to a new area. It picks up a little more at that point, and the new area is a nice change from the military academy. I personally like the anime tropes, despite the somewhat serious political aspects of the story the game almost seems like a comedy. It’s had me laughing out loud quite a few times, I enjoy the silly humor. By the way, I also dislike Machias (the shotgun dude), it’s a shame that he has the shotgun because he’s not a character that I like to have in my party. I naturally like the girls best, especially Alisa and Laura. I currently have them in my party, Alisa has a bow which is cool and Laura is a badass with a giant sword that kills enemies with one blow. I can see how the game could be too anime and slow paced for some people considering the amount of story and character conversations that it has, but as an anime fan I’m enjoying those aspects of it especially since I like most of the cast.

I liked the bit of Yoku I played too. I just suck at pinball. I fell off pretty quick but I do want to go back during a lull. Seems like a good unwind from work game.

I used to be pretty good at pinball in my youth, but I guess that I suck at it now too because I was finding the difficulty of this game to ramp up rather quickly. It’s definitely a good game with a lot of charm, but I myself would have liked for it to have been more of a platformer and less of a pinball game. With that said, I might give it another chance in the future since I did like a lot about it. It’s definitely creative and different which is a good thing.

Played: Marvel Midnight Suns (ok, even being kinda...ok really fugly, the repeated crashes, the music going in and out, the barely there story...it might be the greatest game ever made because my character can rock a Magneto Was Right t shirt. ****ing LOVE this game! Oh, and the DLC character and story is actually pretty baller. The voice acting and writing, especially on their little message board is just really good.)

I think that I might really like this game as well for all of the same reasons that you do, but it sounds like I should wait and get it for PS5 when I get one if the PS4 version is as bad as you say that it is.

[argyle]

Games added: Nothing

Last week: Finished nothing, played Diablo 3, Final Fantasy 16, and just a little Octopath Traveler 2 & Takedown

This week: Still playing D3 a little and a LOT of FF16, and will probably play some more of OT2 and/or Takedown later this week - plus Fantavision tomorrow, natch.

FF16 is fantastic. It's such a different game that I kinda think it feels more like a FF spin-off than a core game, but that really doesn't matter. The combat is a blast and has enough complexity to give you that RPG feel of strategizing while still being a full-on action game. It looks amazing, of course. But the highlight is what I didn't really expect - the story. Wow. It's had me from the beginning, and even tho I'm early on I'd say it's easily the best story in a FF game since FFX. They implement something really cool where you can hold down on the touchpad at pretty much any time for a few seconds and it will bring up a list of places, people, factions, etc. that are relevant to what's currently going on and you can click any of them to get a up-do-date refresher on who & what they are. When I say any time, this includes during cutscenes - so you can pause the cutscene and figure out exactly who that person is or what their country's deal is, whatever. Really helps keep the sometimes complex political points straight in my head. This is the feature of the game that needs to be copied.

It's not perfect - it's very linear, for one. You can jump back to previous areas, but the story pulls you very linearly through the game. That's not a deal breaker, but if you like a ton of exploration in your RPGs, it's not here. Still, it's hard to fault it too much for that, especially since I really just WANT to move forward to see what will happen next in the story. Definitely a good choice of games after Zelda, going from something completely about exploration and fully non-linear with a lighter story (tho I still very much enjoyed Zelda's story in TotK) to something linear and action-heavy with a strong focus on story.

Happy Fantavision Week! This time in high definition!

You just made my week - they announced this as a VR game, and I thought it was VR only and never gave it another look - was pretty salty about it, actually. To see that it's VR *optional* - yes please, about to purchase it now.

fireworks fail.gif (3.19 MiB) Viewed 17437 times

[Phaseknox]

FF16 is fantastic. It's such a different game that I kinda think it feels more like a FF spin-off than a core game, but that really doesn't matter. The combat is a blast and has enough complexity to give you that RPG feel of strategizing while still being a full-on action game. It looks amazing, of course. But the highlight is what I didn't really expect - the story. Wow. It's had me from the beginning, and even tho I'm early on I'd say it's easily the best story in a FF game since FFX.

Sounds good, I’ll check it out when I eventually get a PS5.

[argyle]

Fantavision has been played to the credits - Fantavision 202x this time. I never would have imagined they'd make a sequel to what's basically an obscure PS2 launch title, and that they'd make one so faithful to the original is even harder to imagine. Down to the quircky retro-future aesthetic and weird cutscenes involving kids calling each other, it's all here. The levels even keep the same themes as the original - you could almost just call this a remake. Whatever you call it, I'm glad I get to play it - it's fantastic.

[Phaseknox]

Phase. Bruh. Fam. Trails of Cold Steel was too anime for me. I have a ridiculously hard time sticking with it. I'm about 4-5 hours in since January because I get so bored with the world building and anime tropes. I'm slowly plugging away at it but I find it to be such a slog that I am not really looking forward to it when I play.

It took 18 hours, but I think that I pretty much feel the same way as you do about it now in terms of being a slog. I’m fine with the anime tropes, it’s the repetitive nature of the game that’s wearing on me. It’s essentially an interactive story with some occasional dungeon crawling and combat. The story and characters are the primary focus, the dungeon crawling and combat are secondary. In the 18 hours that I’ve played the majority of that time was spent running around the same areas talking to the same characters and doing same-y delivery/fetch quests, very little of it was spent dungeon crawling and fighting. I just made it to the second field study that takes place in a new area, but you do the same exact things in it. Despite liking the story and characters, I don’t think that I can stick with it any longer because it’s feeling like a drag at this point. I’m glad that I only bought the first two games in this series instead of all four.

[crimson_tide]

Phase. Bruh. Fam. Trails of Cold Steel was too anime for me. I have a ridiculously hard time sticking with it. I'm about 4-5 hours in since January because I get so bored with the world building and anime tropes. I'm slowly plugging away at it but I find it to be such a slog that I am not really looking forward to it when I play.

It took 18 hours, but I think that I pretty much feel the same way as you do about it now in terms of being a slog. I’m fine with the anime tropes, it’s the repetitive nature of the game that’s wearing on me. It’s essentially an interactive story with some occasional dungeon crawling and combat. The story and characters are the primary focus, the dungeon crawling and combat are secondary. In the 18 hours that I’ve played the majority of that time was spent running around the same areas talking to the same characters and doing same-y delivery/fetch quests, very little of it was spent dungeon crawling and fighting. I just made it to the second field study that takes place in a new area, but you do the same exact things in it. Despite liking the story and characters, I don’t think that I can stick with it any longer because it’s feeling like a drag at this point. I’m glad that I only bought the first two games in this series instead of all four.

...I thought we were cool Phase! I did buy all 4, why you gotta say it like that?

I will likely get back to it, but these Trails games are taking their sweet time. As I understand it, once the thing happens the rest of the games pick up the pace. Which takes until the end of the first game. Which is 60-80 hours. So at my rate...like 2030 something I might finish . But I like a good game loop. That's how I got roped into Huntdown and Marvel Midnight Suns so hard. They have a very satisfying loop for me. Trails hasn't shown that yet but it could hook me. I guess. Maybe. We'll see.