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52 Games Challenge 2025!!!

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marvelvscapcom2:

--- Quote from: bikingjahuty on March 01, 2025, 01:21:04 am ---
--- Quote from: marvelvscapcom2 on March 01, 2025, 12:22:12 am ---13. South Park: The Fractured But Whole [PS4] Finished - Feb 28th, 2025




South Park to me is a legacy franchise, it is up there with the simpsons and things like king of the hill but as a child I definitely watched it more.  This game is one big glorious 40 hour south park episode.  And that is a sell and a half.


The game follows the story of "new kid" again but this time as a 4th grader with an unorthodox time warping ass that farts different power abilities in an ever expanding super hero franchise battle between coon and friends (marvel) and freedom pals (DC).

The town of south park is free to explore at liesure. It is brimming with easter eggs from the show. From Mr. Hankey. To towlie. To shows on the tv being Terrence and Phillip.  Cameos of pretty much every main character. Its flawless south park fan service. It really is.

I wanted to be free with other creatures like me but now I got my wish.... because I know that im a gay fish lol.


The game focuses on things such as pronouns, gender, religion, income brackets. And you aquire artificats that upgrade your individual attributes and can choose between many different attack abilities. Its a full fledged grid style RPG. And a really epic one.  The show may be jokes but the gameplay is nothing but. It is serious. It is deep. And it's really freaking FUN.


I have beaten this game twice now. But this is genuinely one of the best games based off a tv show ever. It is funny. Very S13 southpark.  Super heroes. Puns. Insults. And brutal crude humor. 

You literally fart on a crab people, aliens, a weed sobriety towel, evil woodland critters and a alcoholic Randy with a time bending burrito gas made by morgan freeman.  I leave with no context. If that dont sell the game. Nothing will.


Collecting memberberries, yaoi art (craig and tweek hentai) and also the toilets leave a lot to explore.  What a sick, gross and crude but overly hilarious game.

Rating - 97/100

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I loved this game, but definitely prefer Stick of Truth. I'm with you about the series though; I've been watching South Park since season 1 (when I was probably way too young to be watching it) and still love it to this day. I haven't been as big of a fan of the Specials format over the last few years, and it would be nice to get actual seasons again that are at least 8 episodes long.

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I have stick of truth downloaded on my PS4 because I loved FBW so much and am eager to try it. I loved how accessible south park was in this game. Felt like living an episode. Is the combat system the same in SOT or does it go more Final Fantasy style turn based? 

I had a similar experience with southpark. Def began young lol. Seasons 1 to maybe 21 were so consistent. A lot of the episodes have a time capsule effect too. I used to watch free episodes on south park studios back when they had most episodes free. Now they limit it to like 10. So I had to get HBO Max to watch :(   But then I sorta lost keeping up with it and never got around to the Pandemic specials even though I heard good things.  South Park is like a piece of social commentary that catalogs America from 1998-2020s in a very smart way. Rewatching old episodes makes me miss the times too.


I also had a big Family Guy phase but South Park has aged much better for me and the humor hits adult me much more consistently. 

dhaabi:

--- Quote from: marvelvscapcom2 on March 01, 2025, 04:58:43 pm ---I have stick of truth downloaded on my PS4 because I loved FBW so much and am eager to try it. I loved how accessible south park was in this game. Felt like living an episode. Is the combat system the same in SOT or does it go more Final Fantasy style turn based? 
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The Stick of Truth is a much more straightforward game that utilizes a standard turned-based combat system that's simple to understand when compared to its sequel entry The Fractured but Whole. In my experience playing them, they were very much two different games regarding gameplay, but I enjoyed them both. The former is a short experience which I think works in its favor, while the latter takes about twice as long to complete and did overstay its welcome some toward the end. The Stick of Truth felt more like an episode, and The Fractured but Whole felt more like an ongoing narrative that's told over the course of an entire season. I don't think I necessarily enjoyed one more than the other, though—they both have their strengths.

dhaabi:
12. Life Is Strange: Double Exposure || PlayStation 5 || 02.27.25



Before writing my final thoughts for Life Is Strange: Double Exposure, I referred to my notes about my time playing the previous series entry. My closing statement then was that future entries needed better grounding to be successful, and I think that the game's writers may have understood that too. As a result, the latest game serves as a formal sequel to the very first, which a majority of series veterans consider to be the best.

Set ten years after the events of Life Is Strange, Double Exposures features Max Caulfield who reprises her role as the game's protagonist. Having been scarred from that time, she's departed her home and has since traveled the country on her own. But in recent months, she's settled down on the opposite side of the country where she now acts as some sort of faculty figure on a college campus to teach photography. For a while, it seems as if Max has largely been able to overcome her past trauma while maintaining a more ordinary lifestyle, yet this positive growth fully backtracks as, just like in the first game, she's forced to grapple with the murder of someone close to her. With all this said, it would be in players' best interest to play the preceding entry prior to Double Exposure, as there are numerous plot references and general character development that relies upon the player's knowledge of such context; nevertheless, players can choose to begin with this sequel entry, but they will naturally miss out on a more comprehensive experience.

Moving forward, Max is not your average person as she's able to control time in various capacities. However, unlike her previous ordeal where Max was able to manipulate time by rewinding it, her powers have since changed, much to her surprise. Now, Max has become able to shift between two distinct timelines—one with the murder having happened and the other without—after creating a rift in reality. Additionally, these newfound powers grant her the ability to have a sort of preview sense of what's happening in the other timeline. Despite there being only one difference in how time has moved forward in each timeline, the murder serves as the catalyst, which means that the events following such moment in time vary significantly. With the goal of trying to solve who her friend's murderer is while simultaneously working toward prevent it from happening in this altered timeline, Max freely moves between the two. For much of the game, players will need to gather information in each of the two timelines to solve the mystery. While prioritizing story-focused gameplay that features choice-based outcomes, Double Exposure also incorporates light puzzle and even stealth sections to achieve goals.

Presented as a murder mystery of sorts, there is unexpectedly a lot of information to sift through, and much of it feels superfluous. To the game's credit, though, a high percentage of the game's dialogue and written text is optional as it serves world-building and character development purposes. Nevertheless, there are way too many things connected to Max's phone which serves as the information hub to the point where it obtrusively feels like micromanaging. With nearly every action taken—no matter how inconsequential it may be—some social media post, text message, journal entry, or character profile is being updated. And, to make things worse, the information is nearly doubled as those first two items are unique to each timeline. Apart from information directly related to characters, there is also a high number of items to observe and comment on during any given moment. Again, it's entirely optional, but I imagine many players fond of these types of games will want to seek out as much written dialogue there is. As somewhat of an aside, I also routinely found Max to be annoying. Despite being ten years older than she was previously shown in the first game, there doesn't seem to be much character growth by way of personality. In many circumstances, she comes across as a self-justified and nosy Nancy Drew type character as she decides to delve into the secrets of people's personal lives.

To be upfront, Double Exposure will not appeal to everyone, including those who are more drawn to this kind of story-driven adventure game. The game clearly has its own audience that it's written for, and that fact permeates all throughout the gameplay experience. Perhaps because of the game's setting of a college campus and that the majority of the game's cast are still relatively young, there seldom is a conversation where some sort of romantic issue isn't being mentioned. Alongside this fact also lies the level of writing which, in truth, was regularly cringey and especially so when dialogue concerns personal lives and not the overarching plot itself. Apart from these subjective aspects, vocal performances are generally okay. For some reason, there is a lot of auditory interruptions to be experienced, and it's made worse by just how much plays automatically while wandering about even when wanting to interact directly with something else. At the same time, there are some minor visual issues such as assets not loading in correctly, but these were few and far between.

Ultimately, Life Is Strange: Double Exposure is a game that will immediately alienate many potential players due to its content, themes, and tone, but I think this enables it to be the kind of game it's wanting to be without shame while better attracting more of that niche demographic. It is not without its faults on a more objective level, but I did find it to be one of the more successful entries within the series. The direction that's being taken for the series seems to now be fully grounded in Max's story with this latest entry, and I think that may have been the best decision for it in some time. I'm not particularly interested in extended series with one direct sequel following another, but I am curious to see what the follow-up game will be like, and hopefully this specific story can reach its close then.

bikingjahuty:
22. Shinobi Legions (Saturn)

Despite owning a Genesis throughout most of the 90s, I never played Revenge of Shinobi or Shinobi III on that system. For better or worse, my introduction to the Shinobi franchise was actually Shinobi Legions on the Saturn which I played for the first time in the late 2000s when I first began collecting retro video games. I never beat Shinobi Legions, but have been meaning to go back and replay it for nearly 20 years at this point. I finally decided tonight was the night and fired it up on my Saturn. Unfortunately, the game fell way, way short of what I was hoping to get out of it.


Shinobi Legions is not a fun game to play. In fact, it's gameplay is okay at the best of times, and terrible at the worst. Poor level design throughout 2/3 of the game, annoying enemy types, unresponsive and annoying gameplay mechanics (mainly the double/spin jump, and some poorly designed boss fights make this game mostly an annoying slog to get through. Luckily there are in stage checkpoints which helped alleviate some of the frustration, but the fact that there are limited continues almost entirely negates this. In fact, the one thing that kept me going in Shinobi Legions had nothing to do with the gameplay at all, but rather its memorable visual presentation and audio.


I have to give Shinobi Legions credit for being the most unique and maybe even the most memorable game in the franchise. The game uses digitized graphics (ie. Mortal Kombat, Pit Fighter) which add to the games charm in a way, even if they can be somewhat ugly at times. The in game graphics and stages exude mid 90s video game charm when the industry was in a very experimental phase, and many different graphics styles and gameplay styles were being explored by big budget studios. Legions totally embodies this in its presentation, however that's not even the best part of the game's visuals. Between stages there are live action cutscenes that piece together the game's story which combined with the low budget costumes and sets, bad acting, nearly incoherent plot,  and crappy special effects, feels right out of some direct to video ninja movie you would have have as a VHS rental back in 1991. It's honestly so bad and cheesy, it's amazing if you're into some of those crappy ninja movies from the 80s and early 90s. These live action cutscenes are 90% of the reason I kept on playing, just to see what nonsensical direction the story would go in next. The other 10% why I kept playing mostly had to do with Shinobi Legions's surprisingly good audio.


The OST in this game is way better than it has any right to be. I guess there are audio differences between this game, and the PAL release, but for what it's worth, the US/Japanese OST is awesome with some very cool Japanese instrumental tracks scattered throughout. Sound effects are also good, but the real appeal to the ears had to do with the aforementioned soundtrack is needs to be heard.


I really wish I'd enjoyed playing Shinobi Legions more. It really is a unique, interesting game from an equally interesting period in video game history, but the gameplay and overall design is just too poorly designed and implemented to recommend this game. I'd actually recommend people skip this game entirely and just listen to the soundtrack and watch all the cutscenes on youtube to get most of what the game has to offer without having to suffer through playing it. The gameplay does have a few redeeming qualities, but not nearly enough to warrant a playthrough despite the game's fairly short length. (3/2/25) [26/50]

Cartagia:
Cat Quest is the most rudimentary RPG I have played in a while.  The graphics are nice, and it is an overload of cutsieness, but the gameply loop was fun enough to spend a couple of hours running around and grinding out kill quests and reading cat puns.  Don't think it could have held out for much longer, though.  Ends at just the right time.

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