PS2 Backlog Committee

Played: Gravity Rush, River City Girls, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game, The Takeover

Finished (playing): Gravity Rush

Playing: ?

Added: Immortals Fenyx Rising: The Lost Gods, Indivisible, Ruinverse

Games releasing this week
The Caligula Effect 2
Corpse Party
The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes
Disciples: Liberation
Echo Generation
Energy Cycle
Evertried
My Friend Peppa Pig
Inscryption
Into the Pit
Klang 2
Monomals
Murder Diaries 2
Princess Loot Pixel Again
Sheepo
Silver Chains
Skul: The Hero Slayer
Spectacular Sparky
Tandem: A Tale of Shadows
They Always Run
Toy Soldiers HD
Youtubers Life 2
War Mongrels

2 things:

1. I stay waiting for River City Girls to be $10 or less. I want to get my goddaughter into beat em ups so bad...

2. How is this edition of this thread not My Friend Peppa Pig? Do you want us to get savaged on Twitter like she did Kanye West?



We don't want none of that smoke, fam...

crimson_tide wrote: ↑Sat Oct 16, 2021 7:28 amI stay waiting for River City Girls to be $10 or less. I want to get my goddaughter into beat em ups so bad...

When River City Girls came out for $30 I thought that the price seemed steep for a 2D pixel art beat-em-up, but now having played it that price makes more sense to me because it’s really well made and has production values. It’s still not something that I would want to pay more than $20 for, but the overall quality of it does justify it’s initial $30 price IMO. I paid $15 for it during a PS Store sale, and I feel that it’s definitely worth that much. I would have been fine even paying $20 for it, it’s really good.

crimson_tide wrote: ↑Sat Oct 16, 2021 7:28 amHow is this edition of this thread not My Friend Peppa Pig? Do you want us to get savaged on Twitter like she did Kanye West?



We don't want none of that smoke, fam...

I played and finished The Takeover. It’s a fairly average arcade style side scrolling beat-em-up. I enjoyed it for the most part, but it’s not as good as the classics. The graphics and music are really good, but everything else is middle-of-the-road. The levels are strictly linear left to right layouts, the gameplay is a little slow and stiff, your move set is fairly limited, there’s not many different enemy types and there’s a severe lack of melee weapons.

I started playing Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game, and I’m somewhat enjoying it but I also don’t quite get the hype. The graphics and character sprites are colorful and cute and it’s fast paced, but the gameplay is a little loose and sloppy. The enemies can be pretty annoying as well constantly blocking and pummeling you and knocking you down. It’s fairly obvious that it was meant to be played with others as you get overwhelmed by mobs of enemies. I also dislike the overall lack of story and character interaction beyond knowing that you have to defeat Ramona’s seven exes. Since it’s based on the comic it seems like a missed opportunity that there’s not comic style talk bubbles for character interaction, it would have added a lot more to the experience if there were IMO. Also, I’m not a big fan of gaining money and purchasing things in stores. I know that it’s a nod to River City Ransom which the look and feel of the game borrows heavily from, but RCR is an adventure beat-em-up while this is a straight-up linear arcade brawler so I would rather just get health regain drop items while playing instead of having to enter stores to buy them. It just doesn’t seem to really fit, and slows down the pacing a bit having to constantly exit the action to buy things. I know that it was included to add a little more depth, but it really doesn’t. I’m going to keep playing it for now, but I’m not sure if it will hold my interest until the end especially since I’ve heard that it has difficulty spikes.

Finished: Nothing

Now Playing: Final Fantasy VII Remake, Lost Judgment PS5

Added to Backlog: Nothing

Current Backlog: 40 games

6 hours into Lost Judgment, having a good time with it. You get a skateboard to ride around the streets! Of course, drone racing is back (haven't unlocked it yet) and there are plenty of side things to keep a player distracted from the main story.

I got to the third level of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game, and decided to stop playing it and play River City Girls instead since it’s the better beat-em-up IMO. I was somewhat enjoying Scott Pilgrim, I started it over again as Kim and was liking it a little more as her. I initially played a little as Ramona and Knives, and liked Ramona more so I played as her for a while but then decided to play as Kim and liked her the most. But all of the characters play rather similar, so it doesn’t really matter too much who you play as. I also discovered one of the reasons why the gameplay was feeling a little sloppy to me was because I would constantly run just when sometimes moving the analog stick which seemed sensitive, but then I saw in the options that you could change run from quick press of the analog stick to double tapping it which I prefer and makes gameplay feel tighter. I’ll most likely play it again at some point since it is a somewhat fun little beat-em-up.

River City Girls is a good blend of old and new when it comes to beat-em-ups, and I’m having a really good time with it. It has appealing pixel art graphics and character sprites, cool music, tight gameplay and a somewhat open-ended design structure. It’s an adventure beat-em-up as opposed to an arcade one that just has you beating up enemies through short linear stages. It has an interconnected game world that you travel back and forth through, and open up other areas of as you progress. There’s also a leveling system where you level up and gain better stats as well as unlock new moves at the dojo. You get money from defeating enemies and there’s shops to buy healing items and such in, but the main reason for the money is to buy fighting moves at the dojo.

This is the natural progression of the beat-em-up genre IMO. The core gameplay is beating up lots of baddies, but in an interconnected game world and also offering adventure and light RPG elements. The 2D pixel art gives it a retro charm, but I would like to see a AAA game like this with current 3D graphics played from a third person perspective.

Games added: Nothing!

Last week: Technically, I finished the story mode of Diablo 3 again, but I'm still playing it since the story isn't really the point anyway. Also, played some Far Cry 6.

This week: Still playing D3, mainly because Tam is playing and we enjoy playing it together. Will probably hold off on playing more FC6 until they patch it.

So...FC6 has a bug (*SHOCK* ) where if you turn off the system without properly exiting the game, when you come back later & try to resume it will crash. Since it's pretty common for me to stop playing mid-mission, I'm just going to put it aside until they fix that bug.

I got frustrated with the third boss in River City Girls, but instead of rage quitting like I did with Gravity Rush I decided to take a little break from it and come back to it at a later time. It’s not rage inducing, just annoying and drawn out.

I decided to check out some other games including Evoland Legendary Edition (which includes Evoland 1 and 2) and Zombie Army Trilogy. Evoland is charming and plays out like an evolution of JRPGs both action and turn-based in a cute and humorous way. It starts out 8-bit, and slowly evolves into 16-bit, 32-bit, 64-bit, etc. as you play. I’m enjoying it, and I think that it’s something that everyone here should check out.

Zombie Army Trilogy feels kind of half-baked with its almost complete lack of story and characterization. You pick a character from eight choices (four male and four female), and then basically get a weapon load out screen that has text explaining the situation and then you start playing. The graphics are really good with a lot of detail, impressive lighting and everything moves at a smooth 60fps, but based on what I played you just make your way through linear levels killing zombies. It wasn’t really engrossing me since it was lacking any kind of an adventure feel to it, and I just wasn’t in the mood for it when I was playing it. I’ll give it another try in the future when I’m more in the mood for it, but I have a feeling that it’s going to be too basic from a narrative and character perspective to keep me invested.

I decided to fire up Ghosthunter for the PS2 in honor of Halloween season and since I'm the only true member of the "PS2" Backlog Committee.

It looks really good, given its age, although I'm playing with everything upscaled and spit-shined on PCSX2. I only dipped my toes in yesterday, but it seems like it will be fun.