Completed Games (2020)

[Mera'din 307]

17.)  Vampire the Masquerade: Shadows of New York

This is a standalone expansion for Vampire the Masquerade: Coteries of New York. Basically a visual novel style of game with some slightly stronger gameplay elements than some have. I actually enjoyed it more than the first game. This picks up a few months after the original, from a different characters perspective and there's a set character you play as instead of picking one of 3. It's a Vampire from clan Lasombra which is one of the ones I find more interesting. It still had some of the same issues the first game had, but felt like it had a stronger ending that didn't jump at you out of nowhere. I apparently got the 'bad' ending though I thought it was a solid way to end it. Might actually play through again to see what the 'good' ending is supposed to be since it wasn't terribly long.

[Vic Boss 612]

1) One Piece - Pirate Warriors 3 (Platinum)

1a) Journey (Platinum)

2) Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty HD (Platinum)

3) Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater HD (Platinum)

4) Metal Gear Solid IV: Guns of the Patriots (Platinum)

5) Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker HD (Platinum)

6) Zone of the Enders HD (Platinum)

7) Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen

8 ) Zone of the Enders: The Second Runner HD (Platinum)

9) Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection (100%)

10a) Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes (100%)

10b) Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (Platinum)

11) Sonic The Hedgehog 1 (100%)

12) Sonic The Hedgehog 2 (100%)

13) Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna - The Golden Country

14) :ps1: Final Fantasy VII

15) Final Fantasy VII Remake (Platinum)

16) :segacd: Sonic CD (100%)

17) Infamous: Second Son (Expert Evil Playthrough/Platinum)

18) Infamous: First Light (Platinum)

19) Detroit: Become Human (Platinum/100%/Secret Ending)

20) :Genesis: Streets of Rage 2

21-30) Contra Anniversary Collection (100%)

31) TMNT: Turtles in Time Re-Shelled

32) Xenoblade Definitive

33) :Snes: Mario All-Stars Super Mario Bros 1

34) :Snes: Mario All-Stars Super Mario Bros Lost Levels

35) :Snes: Mario All-Stars Super Mario Bros 2

36) :Snes: Donkey Kong Country/101%

37) Super Mario 64/120 Stars

38) Super Mario Sunshine/120 Stars

 

Hard as fuck but not as hard as I remember. Twitchy as fuck but not as twitchy as I remember. TBH the way I remember Mario 64 is mostly how this game actually played out. Insane physics, badass trick jumps you can do, was fun as shit fucking around with it. I even loved the Blue coin collectathon because it gave an excuse to fuck around in huge levels. Even the ridiculously hard levels I remember (Pachinko Machine, Sand Bird, Lily Pad run etc etc) weren't as difficult. Good time.

[Mera'din 307]

18.)  Marvel's Avengers

Finally finished. Technically I finished a while ago, as the campaign wasn't overly long, but after the main campaign they had a bunch of side objectives that actually continue the story a bit so I waited until I finished that stuff. Last mission thing was actually pretty hard which was nice, but most of the post campaign stuff was a grind fest so it too a while. This game needs a LOT of work. They did some stuff right, but a lot of it is just uninspired. I can't help but think that two completely different teams worked on the game. One for the campaign and one for the "live service" multi-player shit because they are two entirely different levels of quality.

 

Campaign was really solid if a bit short and had a lot of good stuff in it. The lore collectibles add a lot to it too. You can tell the people that worked on it cared a lot about the comics. There are even a number of individual SHIELD agents that have names and are actually established characters from the comics that appear a handful of times. They laid a lot of ground work for where they can take it next too which I liked and I'm actually interested in seeing what they do with it.

 

The other half though is a ridiculous grind fest and what you're grinding for isn't even overly interesting. There's a few good character skins but most of them are ridiculously uninspired which is utterly mind boggling considering they have up to 60 years of comics to pull from for some of these characters. I get that Ms. Marvel has only been around for like 6 years, but making all of her "Legendary" skins be her in different super hero t-shirts is kind of a cop out.   A lot of the others too are just one or two decent skins for their Legendary one that is then pallet swapped 4 or 5 times. FUCKING WHY? Granted, I haven't seen all of them yet, but I've seen enough to be annoyed. Thor seems like the one with the best options. At this point, I spend most of the currency I earn on the fucking nameplates because at least those have a lot of variance and stand out. Emotes are pointless since you can only equip one and probably the best thing, the takedowns, are only in the "hard currency" store (outside of ONE you can earn on the challenge card thing) and cost the equivalent of $12 so fuuuuuuuuck that.

 

Once you hit max level too, the gear grind is one of the most ridiculous things I've seen in a game like this. It would be decently balanced if you could focus on one character, but to do the hardest thing in the game, you literally need to max out everyone or you're going to have a bad time because if you get downed by something during it, you have to swap characters and can't if they're not a high enough power level. I also find it kind of ridiculous that the current end game content is something you HAVE to do by yourself. So much for the multiplayer I guess? Not that I mind not having to play with people, but they seem to have their wires crossed with what they want from this game.

[webhead 519]

Sounds like it's exactly what I expected.

 

Single player is intriguing but probs a discount buy.

[Mera'din 307]

I'd say it would definitely be worth a discount buy. Especially since by then there should be more to the story. XD

 

There is a lot of love that went into this buried under the 'live service' bs. Even the "loading" elevators inside AIM instillations have great (and hilarious) conversations that I rarely hear repeat and still hear new ones despite the time I've put into it. Everything from discussions about their "hero" names, to Widow accusing Thor of stealing her hair ties. Really makes me wish this game could have been more like Spider-man.

[Mera'din 307]

19.)  Untitled Goose Game

This was a fun little distraction. Good for a laugh. They just added a 2-player co-op mode so decided to grab it on sale and played it with the wife. Had a lot of fun though it was pretty short (beat it in a couple 2-hour (at most) sessions). Looks like there's more to do after you "beat" it which is nice since it seemed like there was a lot more you could do to fuck around in the game so will probably play it some more when we both have time to see what else there is to it.

[Vic Boss 612]

1) One Piece - Pirate Warriors 3 (Platinum)

1a) Journey (Platinum)

2) Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty HD (Platinum)

3) Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater HD (Platinum)

4) Metal Gear Solid IV: Guns of the Patriots (Platinum)

5) Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker HD (Platinum)

6) Zone of the Enders HD (Platinum)

7) Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen

8 ) Zone of the Enders: The Second Runner HD (Platinum)

9) Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection (100%)

10a) Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes (100%)

10b) Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (Platinum)

11) Sonic The Hedgehog 1 (100%)

12) Sonic The Hedgehog 2 (100%)

13) Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna - The Golden Country

14) :ps1: Final Fantasy VII

15) Final Fantasy VII Remake (Platinum)

16) :segacd: Sonic CD (100%)

17) Infamous: Second Son (Expert Evil Playthrough/Platinum)

18) Infamous: First Light (Platinum)

19) Detroit: Become Human (Platinum/100%/Secret Ending)

20) :Genesis: Streets of Rage 2

21-30) Contra Anniversary Collection (100%)

31) TMNT: Turtles in Time Re-Shelled

32) Xenoblade Definitive

33) :Snes: Mario All-Stars Super Mario Bros 1

34) :Snes: Mario All-Stars Super Mario Bros Lost Levels

35) :Snes: Mario All-Stars Super Mario Bros 2

36) :Snes: Donkey Kong Country/101%

37) Super Mario 64/120 Stars

38) Super Mario Sunshine/120 Stars

 

39) Super Mario Galaxy/242 Stars

 

Mostly fun, mostly easy, dat music

 

It kinda wore out its welcome when I was 40 stars into the second playthrough, and I'm not a huge fan of the Purple Coin levels either.

[Eizan 126]

4.  Persona 5: Royal - I enjoyed the added stuff, the new palace theme is easily my favorite of the game. However with Kasumi being added, Makoto is still best girl. 

[Mera'din 307]

At least Kasumi got more interesting near the end. Initially she just felt a bit like a sportsy Makoto clone.

[Mera'din 307]

20.)  Vampire the Masquerade: Night Road

Basically a full on 'chose your own adventure' novel with stats that influence choices/success of choices. Straight up text with very few images. I enjoyed it well enough, but it was kind of hard to play sitting at my computer. Would have been better going with a mobile format I think. Had to put on background music from a different game to stay engaged too. Not sure this is quite my kind of thing. I can do visual novels since they tend to have regular images and music and what not. Mechanically, the game was pretty solid. Was basically like playing a TTRPG with limited choices with the way it worked. Seems like solid replayability too compared to similar games. Just hard for me to stay into it. Something with this writing quality/depth with more of the visual novel type of feel would probably be pretty good but this was definitely too bare bones for my tastes.

[Mera'din 307]

21.)   Werewolf the Apocalypse: Heart of the Forest

This is more of what I was looking for from the above game. REALLY felt like playing a TTRPG. Some really cool art too here and there. A bit more abstract than this kind of game usually has, but it was nice and really fit the tone of the game. Also made use of music and sound effects really nicely. Choices felt like they mattered and you had a character sheet that was constantly being updated based on your choices which was interesting. Never been super into WtA, but I've always been interested in learning more about the other World of Darkness stuff outside of VtM so this was a nice introduction. There's a full on Werewolf the Apocalypse game coming out early next year so this was a nice primer. 

 

Only complaint is that it was pretty short. Got through it in like 4 hours, though there seems to be a pretty solid amount of replay value and I got it for like $10 since I owned the Vampire games that have come out recently so it still felt relatively worthwhile.

[MT 917]

1) (NES) Strider

2) (NES) Metroid

3) (NES) Super Mario Bros. Special

4)  Black Mesa

5)  Doom: Eternal

6)  The Last of Us 2

7) (SNES) BS: The Legend Of Zelda (3rd Quest)

? Hades (1st Time)

 

Beat the final boss with three whole health left. I thought I had died, but I was wrong. This game is fantastic, everyone should play it.

[Vic Boss 612]

1) One Piece - Pirate Warriors 3 (Platinum)

1a) Journey (Platinum)

2) Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty HD (Platinum)

3) Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater HD (Platinum)

4) Metal Gear Solid IV: Guns of the Patriots (Platinum)

5) Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker HD (Platinum)

6) Zone of the Enders HD (Platinum)

7) Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen

8 ) Zone of the Enders: The Second Runner HD (Platinum)

9) Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection (100%)

10a) Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes (100%)

10b) Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (Platinum)

11) Sonic The Hedgehog 1 (100%)

12) Sonic The Hedgehog 2 (100%)

13) Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna - The Golden Country

14) :ps1: Final Fantasy VII

15) Final Fantasy VII Remake (Platinum)

16) :segacd: Sonic CD (100%)

17) Infamous: Second Son (Expert Evil Playthrough/Platinum)

18) Infamous: First Light (Platinum)

19) Detroit: Become Human (Platinum/100%/Secret Ending)

20) :Genesis: Streets of Rage 2

21-30) Contra Anniversary Collection (100%)

31) TMNT: Turtles in Time Re-Shelled

32) Xenoblade Definitive

33) :Snes: Mario All-Stars Super Mario Bros 1

34) :Snes: Mario All-Stars Super Mario Bros Lost Levels

35) :Snes: Mario All-Stars Super Mario Bros 2

36) :Snes: Donkey Kong Country/101%

37) Super Mario 64/120 Stars

38) Super Mario Sunshine/120 Stars

39) Super Mario Galaxy/242 Stars

 

40) :snes: Mario All-Stars Super Mario Bros 3

 

I don't like this game as a full game. World's 7 and 8 are designed around doling out cheap deaths and the game is much more keyed to using suits to make it through levels rather than having the suits accentuate your unpowered skills like in Mario 1. I guess it feels more balanced if you skip levels and use warp whistles and the like but I played through and beat every level and definitely started hating it near the end.

[dr. b 492]

I've done the play-all-the-levels thing a few times and yeah it gets annoying towards the end. I wouldn't bother at all with World 7 anymore, and I don't think there is any shame in using a P-Wing to fly through certain very annoying/cheap levels. Doesn't really matter how you get to the end credits as long as you get there!

 

7 hours ago, MT said:

Hades (1st Time)

 

This one's on my radar. I don't feel like spending the money right now, but I will grab it eventually. It's actually 25% off right now but I'll wait for a bigger discount.

[Vic Boss 612]

1) One Piece - Pirate Warriors 3 (Platinum)

1a) Journey (Platinum)

2) Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty HD (Platinum)

3) Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater HD (Platinum)

4) Metal Gear Solid IV: Guns of the Patriots (Platinum)

5) Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker HD (Platinum)

6) Zone of the Enders HD (Platinum)

7) Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen

8 ) Zone of the Enders: The Second Runner HD (Platinum)

9) Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection (100%)

10a) Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes (100%)

10b) Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (Platinum)

11) Sonic The Hedgehog 1 (100%)

12) Sonic The Hedgehog 2 (100%)

13) Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna - The Golden Country

14) :ps1: Final Fantasy VII

15) Final Fantasy VII Remake (Platinum)

16) :segacd: Sonic CD (100%)

17) Infamous: Second Son (Expert Evil Playthrough/Platinum)

18) Infamous: First Light (Platinum)

19) Detroit: Become Human (Platinum/100%/Secret Ending)

20) :Genesis: Streets of Rage 2

21-30) Contra Anniversary Collection (100%)

31) TMNT: Turtles in Time Re-Shelled

32) Xenoblade Definitive

33) :Snes: Mario All-Stars Super Mario Bros 1

34) :Snes: Mario All-Stars Super Mario Bros Lost Levels

35) :Snes: Mario All-Stars Super Mario Bros 2

36) :Snes: Donkey Kong Country/101%

37) Super Mario 64/120 Stars

38) Super Mario Sunshine/120 Stars

39) Super Mario Galaxy/242 Stars

40) :snes: Mario All-Stars Super Mario Bros 3

 

41) Fire Emblem Awakening

 

Beat the game, all the bonus teams and all the bonus and spot-pass missions, almost 120 hours. Definitely a special game, you can easily see why it saved the franchise. Easy to understand mechanics, good characters, story wasn't anything special but it didn't need to be, and the future-children aspect of it was pretty cool.

[Mera'din 307]

22.)  The Talos Principle

 

Fun puzzle game. The "main" stuff was relatively straight forward, but the extra stuff for the "real" ending and bonus stuff for the extra ending got pretty hard in a few places. Nice balance overall it felt like. Relatively interesting premise as far as this sort of game goes though exceptionally typical for the genre as well (crank the "mystery" and philosophical themes up to 20 and let it ride). I still enjoyed it though and sought out the collectibles to find out more about the world. Finished the last ending earlier tonight and am playing through the DLC now since it came with it. MUCH harder puzzles and a lot stronger in the story/world building department so far. Still enjoying it, but I am starting to feel that edge of "That's about enough of this, thanks" so the DLC might have been a tad unnecessary overall.

[MT 917]

1) (NES) Strider

2) (NES) Metroid

3) (NES) Super Mario Bros. Special

4)  Black Mesa

5)  Doom: Eternal

6)  The Last of Us 2

7) (SNES) BS: The Legend Of Zelda (3rd Quest)

8 ) Hades (1st Time)

  8a-8i)  Hades (2nd - 10th Time)

 

Beat it enough times to get the true final ending which I didn't even see coming, because I had miscounted the number of times I'd beaten it.

[Vic Boss 612]

1) One Piece - Pirate Warriors 3 (Platinum)

1a) Journey (Platinum)

2) Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty HD (Platinum)

3) Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater HD (Platinum)

4) Metal Gear Solid IV: Guns of the Patriots (Platinum)

5) Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker HD (Platinum)

6) Zone of the Enders HD (Platinum)

7) Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen

8 ) Zone of the Enders: The Second Runner HD (Platinum)

9) Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection (100%)

10a) Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes (100%)

10b) Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (Platinum)

11) Sonic The Hedgehog 1 (100%)

12) Sonic The Hedgehog 2 (100%)

13) Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna - The Golden Country

14) :ps1: Final Fantasy VII

15) Final Fantasy VII Remake (Platinum)

16) :segacd: Sonic CD (100%)

17) Infamous: Second Son (Expert Evil Playthrough/Platinum)

18) Infamous: First Light (Platinum)

19) Detroit: Become Human (Platinum/100%/Secret Ending)

20) :Genesis: Streets of Rage 2

21-30) Contra Anniversary Collection (100%)

31) TMNT: Turtles in Time Re-Shelled

32) Xenoblade Definitive

33) :Snes: Mario All-Stars Super Mario Bros 1

34) :Snes: Mario All-Stars Super Mario Bros Lost Levels

35) :Snes: Mario All-Stars Super Mario Bros 2

36) :Snes: Donkey Kong Country/101%

37) Super Mario 64/120 Stars

38) Super Mario Sunshine/120 Stars

39) Super Mario Galaxy/242 Stars

40) :snes: Mario All-Stars Super Mario Bros 3

41) Fire Emblem Awakening

 

- Genshin Impact

 

Didn't number it because games-as-service means it'll have more content eventually (acks sounds like the next major area is going to drop in December just before Christmas). As of this point, I'm only missing one World Quest (the prereq is tied to a specific random daily quest popping so I'm waiting for RNG), and three Trophies (Ascend A Character and Weapon for the sixth time, which are both at 0.1% because it takes so long to grind for, and 400 Chests in Monstadt, which I'm about 45 off and I'm waiting for weekly bounty missions until I can unlock a recipe for a treasure-chest tracker to bother doing that one). I've done every other Archon/Story/World Quest and Banner event, collected all the Anemo and Geo things, beat all the bosses at least once and at this point the only things I can do are daily quests, weekly bounties and farming for Ascension materials and in-game Achievements, which I'm not really gonna go hard on because my PS4 started ticking and had to rebuild itself a few days ago soooo since it might die soon I want to get in a few more games if I can just in case

 

It's a mash-up of a Tales-of game and quite literally Breath of the Wild, I don't know how Nintendo didn't sue them for so blatantly stealing the entire game. The gameplay is addictive as fuck just BOTW is, I'd easily go "Oh hey, what's that" and then spend a few hours going in the opposite direction of the quest I was meaning to do. The F2P mechanics don't seem to hold you back as much as people say F2P games do (you only use it to gamble for weapons and characters, it doesn't seem like it chokes you off though I have hit the point where Mora is hard to accumulate), I like the story and lore of it, and some of my enjoyment probably came from having extreme luck, I popped three five-star characters really early and I think I have around 15 characters all together, so I had a lot of gameplay variety and a good party to tackle the game really early on.

[Mera'din 307]

23.) (PS5) Miles Morales: Spider-man

This was tons of fun. Story was a little weaker than the first game, but it had its moments and wasn't entirely unexpected since it was a decent amount shorter. Combat was interesting with the addition of Miles' powers and though it felt harder than the original at first, I'm going through on New Game+ now to clean up trophies and being used to the new abilities is letting me absolutely tear through everything. Length wise, at a guess I'd say it a LITTLE longer than the length of the 3 DLC chapters but WITH all the side quests and collectible content of the original game which gives it a pretty decent length if you do everything. Probably could have benefited from a lengthier story ultimately, but I don't felt that it suffered much as is. Some of the costume options you can unlock were really cool too. 

Villain spoiler stuff:

 

 

Villain choices weren't bad either. Kind of dug up some more obscure stuff in places. I really liked the updated/gender swapped Tinkerer. That character has always been interesting in concept, but dull in execution so this story made them more fun. The ultimate version of Prowler is always fun too so I'm glad they fit him in there. The surprising one was Simon Krieger. That's some obscure as hell Iron Man shit right there. Had no idea who he was initially, but I don't know much about Roxxon as far as comics go outside of the name and some more recent stuff with Thor, but his presence and roll in the game gave off a strong "this guy has some sort of comics relevance" vibe so I looked him up and there he was. XD
 

Also DEFINITELY getting a Harry Osborne version of Venom in the next game it looks like. Not that it didn't seem to be going that way after the events in the original, but end scene in this one seems to take out a lot of the "maybe".

 

[Mera'din 307]

24.)  Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory

 

This was actually kind of impressive. IS basically one of the 3DS Theaterhythm: Final Fantasy games (which were excellent)but turned into a full console thing. It functions as a summary of all the KH games via the music from them, though it kind of starts phoning it in by KH3 which was a bit disappointing, but overall it was a fun distraction with some cool new stuff thrown on at the end (thus continuing the tradition of literally EVERY KH release, no matter how trivial or unimportant seeming, being used to advance the story. XD ). Some of the music was really fun for a rhythm game setting to and had a small sampling of actual Disney songs here and there too. Might actually be able to get the Platinum on this even but we'll see. Depends on how many songs I can do flawlessly on the highest difficulty. Think I'm about halfway and if I can manage that one the rest is a cakewalk (if a bit time consuming).

[MT 917]

1) (NES) Strider

2) (NES) Metroid

3) (NES) Super Mario Bros. Special

4)  Black Mesa

5)  Doom: Eternal

6)  The Last of Us 2

7) (SNES) BS: The Legend Of Zelda (3rd Quest)

8 ) Hades (1st Time)

  8a-8i)  Hades (2nd - 10th Time)

9) Destiny 2: Beyond Light (campaign)

[Vic Boss 612]

1) One Piece - Pirate Warriors 3 (Platinum)

1a) Journey (Platinum)

2) Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty HD (Platinum)

3) Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater HD (Platinum)

4) Metal Gear Solid IV: Guns of the Patriots (Platinum)

5) Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker HD (Platinum)

6) Zone of the Enders HD (Platinum)

7) Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen

8 ) Zone of the Enders: The Second Runner HD (Platinum)

9) Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection (100%)

10a) Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes (100%)

10b) Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (Platinum)

11) Sonic The Hedgehog 1 (100%)

12) Sonic The Hedgehog 2 (100%)

13) Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna - The Golden Country

14) :ps1: Final Fantasy VII

15) Final Fantasy VII Remake (Platinum)

16) :segacd: Sonic CD (100%)

17) Infamous: Second Son (Expert Evil Playthrough/Platinum)

18) Infamous: First Light (Platinum)

19) Detroit: Become Human (Platinum/100%/Secret Ending)

20) :Genesis: Streets of Rage 2

21-30) Contra Anniversary Collection (100%)

31) TMNT: Turtles in Time Re-Shelled

32) Xenoblade Definitive

33) :Snes: Mario All-Stars Super Mario Bros 1

34) :Snes: Mario All-Stars Super Mario Bros Lost Levels

35) :Snes: Mario All-Stars Super Mario Bros 2

36) :Snes: Donkey Kong Country/101%

37) Super Mario 64/120 Stars

38) Super Mario Sunshine/120 Stars

39) Super Mario Galaxy/242 Stars

40) :snes: Mario All-Stars Super Mario Bros 3

41) Fire Emblem Awakening

- Genshin Impact

 

42) Horizon: Zero Dawn Complete (Platinum/100%)

 

Platinum'ed the main game, 100%ed the Frozen Wilds Trophy list and beat it on New Game+ on Ultra Hard to 100% the extra trophy list.

 

I think this is a 7.5/10 game, in that once in awhile it plays like an 8+ and most of the time it's down around a 6. The characters and plot were pretty so-so, very stock and Mary Sue, but the background story and how that unfolds is really good and the attention to detail in the costumes and culture was fantastic. The game is fun to play, I think I hit 90ish hours and it didn't feel like I'd played that much, and I generally liked open-world complete-a-thons and this was no different from those. I think this game even for its time made some open-world rookie mistakes that not even just the previous generation of games solved, but the previous generation of Sony first-party games mostly solved. Mass Effect 1 style inventory system (don't know what you need so you keep as much as you can, but you can't carry one of everything, and it also doesn't tell you what you don't need anymore because you might need it again because you can't carry everything ) instead of something better, an emphasis on stealth but unless you're fighting the super-easy enemies, it's mostly useless because you can't do enough damage before tipping off the enemy group or herd, Melee combat is bad and only lightly upgradeable with the expansion, Uncharted-style climbing and pathfindig in a game where Infamous/Assassins Creed style climbing would suit it more (tbh I really noticed it just coming off of Genshin, which lets you climb anything, and then there's this, where you might not even be able to a clear a ridge that Aloy is taller than). I played it on the Normal difficulty because I did want to 100% the list and that meant an Ultra-Hard playthrough, but it probably would've been a funner game to play on the easiest difficulty.

 

Taking away the things that annoyed me about the game, Frozen Wilds is a 10/10 expansion. "Oh, you really liked our video game. Here's new mechanics, some minor fixes to the system, and a big area of more of this video game to do something in." Couldn't really ask for more. Sony has a pretty great expansion pipeline from the looks and sounds of things.

 

Kind of like the first Last of Us game, I'm not as enthused to play the upcoming sequel as I probably would've been just based on hype and reputation before, but we'll see.