Late Shift

An FMV choose-your-own-adventure game that has great production values but 0 respect for the player's time. Do you like games with unskippable cutscenes? Do you like replaying games with unskippable cutscenes over and over from the very beginning, trying to get all the different ending? If so, this game is for you - it's basically a series of unskippable cutscenes where your decisions in between cutscenes determine which cutscenes play next! Want to see what happens if you do everything the same except for one decision at the very end? You have no choice but to watch all the same cutscenes from the start!

Needed to install third party codecs to get the game to stop blackscreening. And then uninstall a bunch of crapware that they installed alongsides (as I was dumb enough to skip through the installation without unchecking the aforementioned crapware) AND MSE detected and quarantined a Trojan, tho who knows if it was a false positive or not.

The story is decent though and the acting is great.

Ys Origin

Played this one 5 years ago, beat it with one character and stopped in the middle of a playthrough with the second character. Now launched it for screenshots for the "What Game is This" topic, and ended up actually resuming it. Beat it with the second character, and then with the final one. A then bit of a surprise with the final boss fight that final time Also only in the middle of this final playthrough did I notice that in the Launcher you can select resolution and rebind keys/buttons.... Man, all that time playing the game in 800x600 and 1080p was only a few clicks away! around. Still had to use Joy2Key to allow some bindings that the launcher refused to (like using the 360 pad's triggers, and binding direct skill/spell selection to buttons instead of having to cycle through them.)

Anyway, this is a very good JARPG (is that a term) gameplay wise, and I think I liked the story/writing even more. I loved how the story/encounters change depending on the character you choose to play as. I appreciated that the way the levelling worked, it often only takes a couple grinded levels to make a boss fight go from "WTF" to "This is very doable" (and a couple more to make it relatively easy, and so forth if you like.) I actually played the game on Normal instead of Hard like I do most games, and it still presented plenty of challenge, especially the boss fights. I have a feeling that if I'd played it on Hard, or worse, Nightmare, I'd have just spent most of my time grinding levels.

I came to the same conclusion earlier this year.

Sudeki, Nov 30 (GOG)-There's some good stuff here but there's also some bad stuff. I liked the puzzley parts and using different characters special abilities. Voice acting was generally pretty good I thought. Graphics weren't bad but there was some flickering and weird frame drops. Combat was luckluster, tedious, way too frequent at spawn points. The map and navigation in general were terrible. It was really frustrating to grind out a boring combat only to get turned around, go the wrong direction, and have to re-enter combat to pass back through. But there's definitely the core of something good here. The overly difficult final boss didn't even dissuade me that much.

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Finally beat Wings of Vi.

Hardest game by far that I've ever played, and ever will play because I'm never putting myself through a masochistic creation like this again. Many Steam reviews said, "Play this game on Angel mode for your first run." but I didn't listen. "Please." I told myself. "How hard could it be?" Played through and finally fucking beat it on Mortal mode. Took me nearly two months. Took a month long break after beating the Twin Orcs boss (500+ deaths, 7+ hours)...nearly uninstalled it after. The amount of rage this game manifested within me at that point was legendary. The next two bosses...not bad. Four + hours, a few hundred deaths. That break must've done me some good, I told myself. I'm not even going to mention the platform madness between bosses. Had I only known what awaited me...

Total game time: 55+ hours
Total deaths: 6139

Final boss (Supreme Jeh'Oul) took me just under 15 hours, 1060 deaths. The actual (successful) fight itself - under five minutes.

A genius creation, having been made mostly by one man. Incredible bosses, unbelievably well thought out platforming. Great visuals and soundtrack.
As for me, I don't even want to look at a platformer until the new year, and I have so many yet to play!

Question:

What do you do with games that you almost played through but then gave up on in the very last level or boss fight? Do you consider them "finished" anyway? Or "abandoned", "quit"? Neither feels quite right to me, but since I'm more in for the experience than the challenge and I try to keep a positive mindset, I'll just post about them here ...

*****

Mr. Shifty & Time Recoil

Two very similar games because they both take up the formula of Hotline Miami and add their own small note to it. Like the titles already betray, in Mr. Shifty that's shifting across space, teleporting through walls and such, in Time Recoil it's slowing down time (but with the added benefit of dashing through walls as well). I don't really remember the story of Mr. Shifty and I'm sure I will soon forget the story of Time Recoil, too. Something about time traveling to prevent a Mr. Time from taking over the world with his time weapon, yadda yadda. It's not bad, but equally simple as it is confusing.

That doesn't really matter though as you don't play these games for story but for the mechanics. Like in Hotline Miami, if you take a single hit, you're dead, so you can hardly afford making mistakes unless you're quick to react and improvise, which is both exciting and stressful, and which results in dying and retrying a lot. But in most cases that's fine because you can jump right back into the game and the fast-paced action combined with the music (especially in Time Recoil) pumps you up, gets you hyped and drives you on until you've beat a level and then on and on and on. Both games are fun that way, and at the same time occasionally frustrating.

I won't talk much about Mr. Shifty since it's been quite a while since I played it, I only remember that sometimes the checkpoints were annoyingly far apart (while mostly fair in general). One problem with Time Recoil is that ammo is rather sparse and contrary to Hotline Miami and (I think) Mr Shifty, in Time Recoil you're mostly done for without ammo, since the wild swinging of your fists is a subpar melee attack and will seldom be enough to defend against armed opponents, and there are no other melee weapons to pick up and you can't use the environment to your advantage either (like hitting opponents with doors as in Hotline Miami). So you really need to make your shots count and count your shots. This is facilitated by time slowing down for a few seconds after a kill, which makes it a bit easier to aim, and after several kills in a row you unlock more and more powerful dash moves until, after 8 kills, you can even stop time completely for a bit. But if you don't line up those kills quickly enough, or if you use up the energy for one of these dash moves, the build up is gone and you have to start from scratch again. Since the number of enemies in a level is limited and most of the times not that high, you won't get many chances for building up the energy required for the more powerful moves. In that way the game is at the same time somewhat hectic and tactical, which is not that bad though.

Worse is that enemies can see and shoot at you before you see them because they're still off-screen - they'll give you a cue by shouting "Hey!", but still, that undermines the tactical aspect a bit. Ultimately it means that you'll often fail the first few times and eventually succeed by memorizing the layout of the level, the position of the enemies and the best way to deal with them, which makes it also a bit of a puzzle, I guess. But what counteracts both the tactical and the puzzle aspect is that ammo drops from enemies are randomized. So sometimes you might e.g. kill an enemy with your last shot and he'll drop a fully loaded submachine gun or shotgun for you to pick up, and sometimes the very same enemy might not drop anything at all on your next try, and you'll have less ammo at your disposal than before. This can also lead to situations where you're doomed because this randomness. The random aspect of the game doesn't ruin it, it's still fun, but it kind of makes you wonder how this is meant to fit in with the other aspects like the sparsity of ammo in general, the more tactical nature of the game. Oh, btw, did I mention there are some levels with fast moving deadly lasers obstacles as well? So that's a thing, too.

Anyway, I've read that a lot of players found the game too hard, and that might be true for the difficulty suggested to experienced players, but on the "normal" difficulty decribed as being for the more "casual" players, the game is quite manageable, providing you're fine with the dying, learning and re-trying routine, coupled with a few instances of (sometimes bad) luck. I switched difficulty back to "normal" once it started to become a bit too repetitive, but I think the main difference is just that on "normal" the bullets of killed enemies can't hurt you anymore. It's still challenging enough regardless, what with all the off-screen enemies and limited ammo. But a tiny bit less frustrating and more fun. (I played with gamepad, btw.)

I gave up on the last (boss) level though, because while I knew how to beat it, putting it in practice and trying not to get one-shot in the process was too tedious after a while. It's not a long or complicated level, you can probably beat it in two minutes or so, but I just didn't feel like trying again and again, only to prove something to myself without actually enjoying my time with the game anymore. Still, the last level of Mr. Shifty was a lot worse. At the end of it, you have to survive multiple waves of enemies without getting hit, playing hide-and-seek with them in labyrinths as well, and if you beat that part, there comes another one, and if you die in that one, you're back to the beginning of the long arena part again. No fun. Despite of that I tried again until I was fed up, quit and postponed it to another day, only to find out that on reloading the game, you not only start at the beginning of the arena part, but way, way before that and have to repeat other challenging and tedious stuff to get there again. At least with Time Recoil, although that last level consists of multiple parts as well, if you've reached the part with the boss, you won't need to repeat all the other stuff before him, even if you quit an reload another time.

TL:DR
The two games have interesting (although not entirely original) mechanics and are fun to play, despite a few minor flaws - unless you challenge yourself to actually complete them, because the finale in both titles is rather tedious and frustrating (Mr. Shifty's even more so than Time Recoil's). Until I got there and eventually gave up, I spent about 6 hours on Mr. Shifty and 5 hours on Time Recoil, but I did so because the gameplay was addictive, not because I set out with the goal to complete them. With that in mind, I got really far and the games managed to keep me interested up to the very last parts, even if I did not actually finish them but watched other players struggle with the last minutes on YouTube instead. ;P

Time Recoil is a game by 10tons, btw, the same devs that did Crimsonland, Neon Chrome, Jydge, Tesla vs. Lovecraft etc. Even though I think it's one of their lesser liked games, I think for me it might be close to second place, after my favourite, Jydge.

Dragon Age 2 + all DLCs, all companions are friends and alive but Sanders is a peace of sh... and I romanced Isabella because there was not much of a choice for an old school player like me. Nice game, many repetitive levels (like 20 different quests in the same cave/dungeon/crossroad).
The most amazing thing about this game is that how it could make you hate it from start to end only for you to appreciate it later when you try a sequel, Dragon Age: Inquisition, for the first time. How is that all the magazines reviewed the game so positively, it's not good, in my opinion it's worse than DA2 in every aspect, even old engine could provide more likable character models, gosh Cassandra Pentaghast was so sexy in DA2 now she looks horrible, she even speaks differently, it's a different character even. I don't recognize Varric and his explanation about Orsino's fate, the Bioware explanation to be precise, is so weak.

If I didn't actually finish it but wiped all traces of it, deleted saves, have no intention to ever try again, I consider it abandoned, no matter how far I got.

I finished Tokyo Xanadu Ex + (GOG Version) a while back after finishing the game for the 1st time on Steam. I love the game Falcom has done an amazing job with this game combining some Persona elements with the action RPG of YS.

I also completed Nights of Azure 1 on PC after nearly finishing on PS4 but couldn't due to a very hard boss which caused me so much frustration.

One game that sticks out like that for me is Spacechem. It took me over a week to make a design for the final boss puzzle, which promptly imploded once I tried running it. I eventually decided to call it 'finished' anyways since of the tiny percentage that even gets to the end boss only half of them beat it, according to Zachtronics own data.

Full Throttle Remastered, Dec 1 (GOG)-I thought this was thoroughly terrible and disappointing. I didn't like the plot, I didn't like the puzzles, and I didn't like the combat mini-game. I'm beginning to think Tim Schafer is incredibly overrated. The only bright spot was the voice acting. One of the worst games I've played this year.

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Since I'm not a competitive player, I think what counts for me is not so much that I "beat" it, but how much of the game I've seen, and in the few cases when I put a review in the Finished section even though I had not actually beaten the last part, I hadn't really missed out on anything but the feeling of triumph at the end. More often than not, the reward for actually beating the game - that is the ending - was pretty lame on top of it and totally not worth the time and nerves invested, from the POV of someone mostly playing for story, exploration and fun rather than the experience of eventually overcoming frustrating and tedious challenges.

Spacechem is a game I'll openly admit I quit right at the beginning though, way too abstract for my taste. So kudos for making it (almost) all the way to the end. :D

12 Labours of Hercules

It's a decent time management mechanic, it's well made, and it is not difficult.

Charming, and nice to unwind with. Enjoyed it enough to pick up the next one.

Atelier Ryza - basic game

I finished basic mode for Atelier Ryza and it was a blast! I loved the visuals, the combat was really fast paced, and all the cutscenes were skippable which was huge bonus. Alchemy was intriguing and I finally started to understand how Gust designs alchemy in other games too. A must play!

Just beat Far Cry 3: Classic Edition on PS4. I first played the game some six years ago and didn't like it, quit maybe two hours in. I decided to give it another try, also because I'm curious about many of its sequels and wanted to see how the series developed over the years. I enjoyed it more than last time I tried it but the truth is that I still don't like it.

First off: the narrative is utterly meh. I get it that making the hero and his white entitled friends at least potentially unappealing to the player was intentional but that doesn't change the fact that the hero and his friends are uninteresting assholes I don't care about and the game also lacks other relatable characters. There's of course Vaas, the memorable villain that everyone instantly fell in love with but he is utterly wasted by the game and also hasn't stood the test of time - that he's so uninteresting now only shows how far games have come in this regard since Far Cry 3. In the end the story and the game's characters are as pulpy and shallow as even in the original Far Cry. The developers' self-proclaimed goal was to focus on making the game fun but in terms of narrative they failed to embrace this, the game takes itself far too seriously narrative-wise but at the same time it is too badly written and executed to deliver any deeper meaning - that is especially jarring because the game has a whole number of provocative moments which end up just feeling tasteless.

As for the gameplay: it is very mediocre and it is not like the developers could not have done better at the time, like there was no point of reference for making an open-world game, even an open-world shooter. At first the world is quite breathtaking and it does still look great to this day but soon enough you notice that the whole map is just one big jungle island without any diversity or interesting places. To use an expression of one of my colleagues: it's like they've just pooped generic terrain all over the place and then planted some buildings and towns there without actually making them meaningful or interesting in any way. We had seen open world RPGs with diverse maps before Far Cry 3, with Stalker and Borderlands we had even been shown how fascinating and diverse a world can be in an RPG-ish open world shooter. Far Cry 3 has nothing of that, perhaps even the original Just Cause has a more interesting world. The first time you stumble upon a Japanese WWII bunker you may still be intrigued by it and explore every inch of it but once you notice that there's literally dozens of samey bunkers all over the place you just stop giving a crap, especially since there's no unique rewards for exploring the island. You won't find a unique gun or skill this way or anything like that. That's just awful. The content of lootable chests doesn't even differ in value which is downright stupid and means that I have no reason to go actually exploring the world.

The story missions are passable but all the other activities range from mediocre to awful. Hunting animals is the only decent activity, as despicable as it is once you start hunting "rare" animals just to improve your wallet (yeah, you kill extremely rare animals just so you can squeeze more money bills up your butt). The "story quests", on the other hand, are ridiculously bad. There's only fourteen of them and they have Boiling Point level of writing and scripting at best (which was actually another earlier earlier open world shooter that was almost universally panned but did a number of things better than Far Cry 3). And generally the sandbox format is not utilised sensibly. I mean, the more progress you make and more powerful you become, the fewer enemies there are on the map. Many times I kept myself from clearing out outposts because the world just becomes utterly boring if you clear out too much of it too quickly. That is of course a problem of many open world games, at least the ones where you make progress of this kind (e.g. Mad Max and The Saboteur) but still, that's not an excuse as far as I'm concerned (but in the game's defense: you can restore enemy outposts after beating the story - a hint would have been nice!). Also weapon and ability progression are underwhelming, especially the latter are badly designed as a whole number of them is utterly contextual and the level design fails to offer many occasions to use them. It's one of those cases where you feel like the developers created a basic set of abilities that could be there from the beginning without making the player OP and yet they just took the stuff away from the player so he has stuff to unlock.

Mechanically the game is just okay. The shooting itself isn't awful, although at least the PS4 version suffers from terrible aiming. It is of course a last gen title but even on PS3/X360 many shooters had much better controls - it has been ages since I've experienced a game where you constantly "overaim" due to a huge dead zone and botched sensitivity curve. Combine that with far too small hitboxes for enemies and you get a pretty shitty shooter. However, combat was still fairly enjoyable. Guns pack a punch, sneaking up on people and taking them down with the knife is immensely satisfying. The game isn't even remotely as tactical as it could have been and lacks the polish and enemy diversity of linear shooters but I've played worse. It says a lot, though, that I would take Stalker over Far Cry 3 any day, also in regard of gunplay and even stealth.

Anyway, to me it's a mediocre and sometimes tasteless mess that is minimally better, if at all, from the original Just Cause. And don't get me wrong: in spite of all this I've had fun playing the game. It offered some fun moments, clearing out outposts (as trivial as it soon becomes) didn't get old and I even enjoyed long rides around the island thanks to the beautiful surroundings. But the game did waste a million opportunities and its success almost offends me when I consider how many things had been done better by other earlier open world shooters.

Did you feel the crafting got old? Is that part hard?

Personally I am interested in playing the fourth game, if it ever comes here while I am still capable of hitting anything than myself.