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General / Re: 52 Games Challenge 2025!!!

« on: November 23, 2025, 08:04:51 am »

Game 27: Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies (DS) - 40 Hours

It's been a really long time since I played a Dragon Quest game. For all the Final Fantasy and Tales games, Dragon Quest is still series that I haven't really spent a lot of time with. I suppose it's fitting that I play 9 since the last game that I finished was 8. So how did my second foray with the series go?

I'm just going to start things right off by saying I didn't really care for this game very much. The biggest let down for me was the story. It probably takes a good 20 hours to get going. The story is propped up by paltry unrelated episodic stories that you must complete with no significance to an overall narrative other than a flimsy “doing good in the world will help you, main character!” It felt so painfully bland and uninspiring. The main villain isn't even introduced until 30 hours in, and he's given almost no back story and up until this point nothing that you have done has ever related to him at all. Character-wise this game feels very old school to me. Unlike Dragon Quest 8 which had a cast of lovable memorable characters in this game you get to create 4 characters of your own and as a result they have no character whatsoever and they don't develop at all during the course of the game.
 
Outside of the story the gameplay is vastly superior and that is just OK. It's a typical standard Dragon Quest fair that's very classic yet works well. To me the biggest change for this game was the use of different classes that you could swap between. To be honest, I never use this feature. I just never really saw the benefit to switch classes. I picked up four players that were set to my needs and was able to clear the game pretty easily. You also get skill points that you can dedicate to learn different abilities across all of your classes but you don't really earn them at a fast enough rate to really be able to explore the various options that are offered for you. It doesn't feel very balanced in my opinion.

The another annoyance is that switching to a different class drops your character down to level 1. That would be fine, if the leveling system in this game wasn’t so strange. Experience points are set by level, so it doesn't matter what monsters you fight you're always going to get about 50 exp points for a level 1 character and about 1000 exp for a level 30 character. So you will never be able to catch up levels to previous characters, especially if they die and lose out on experience altogether. My main character was 3 or 4 levels higher than all my other characters because it took me a while to figure out that you could even add more than one character to your game, and that was just the case for the rest of my playthrough.

Graphically the game is very impressive it might be the most impressive 3D DS game that I've played, second maybe to Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days. This game maintains the high level of Polish that is known from other games that have been developed by level 5. Other aspects of the game just don't really feel that well done. For one thing there wasn’t enough music. You get 1 theme for every single town in the game and one theme for the entire overworld and it got really repetitive.

Ultimately this game isn’t bad, but it doesn't live up to the pedigree that is Dragon Quest. Maybe it’s fun to play with friends, but wasn’t able to experience that of course. A huge chunk of the game’s multiplayer elements are of course gone now too since the servers no longer exist. Given the amount of time investment it takes for you to finish it, I would recommend you stick to other entries in the series.

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General / Re: VGCollect 2025 Secret Santa!

« on: November 20, 2025, 02:30:19 pm »

Anyone want to do a virtual opening together?  I was sad that we weren't able to have one last year!

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General / Re: 52 Games Challenge 2025!!!

« on: November 06, 2025, 05:45:42 pm »

Game 26 - Ty the Tasmanian Tiger HD (PS5) - 8 Hours

Have you ever gone back to your childhood middle or elementary school? Walked through the hallways, looked at the lockers and thought to yourself… when was I ever this small? That’s basically how it felt playing Ty the Tasmanian Tiger. I greatly enjoyed playing this game on my PS2 when I was a kid and decided to pick up the HD remaster digitally for a much-needed change of pace from all the stressful horror-filled games that I’ve been playing over the past few months. And immediately, the game conjured up a lot of fond memories. I thought the game was way vaster and more complex than it actually is, and I also found the game was a lot easier.

Of course now as an adult, I can see that this game is pretty simple and yet it's still fun and offers a really solid gameplay experience. I found the controls to be very fluid, and I really enjoyed the level design that borrows from a lot of Australian topography. Of course the characters are great with lots of Australian slang and silly dialogue. Even though the game is a clone of Mario 64, which was very popular during this period of gaming, it's still fun to collect all the Thunder Eggs the Golden Cogs, all the boomerangs, and the hidden concept art. I had just as much fun playing this now as I did when I was a kid.

This era of gaming will always have a special place in my heart and I think it would be fun to play more games from this time period. Maybe that will be something fun to do next year. I want to start with Scooby-Doo: Night of 100 Frights, the first game I ever played on my PS2. That will be really interesting.

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General / Re: 52 Games Challenge 2025!!!

« on: November 03, 2025, 03:56:04 pm »

For me, I knew it was going to be a big disadvantage for f. That's not to say that I don't think it's a good game. I do, but that was my biggest reservation regarding the new direction that this game took from previous entries. I think a similar story/idea could definitely be done in an American setting but obviously the game would have to have been completely different and I don't think that's the story the developers wanted to tell.

Do you think that they had an original idea for a horror game and just made it Silent Hill for IP recognition?

Yes I do think that. I don't think it would have sold as well if it wasn't branded Silent Hill.

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General / Re: VGCollect 2025 Secret Santa!

« on: November 03, 2025, 08:13:15 am »

I'm all done shopping! I hope my recipient will like their gifts, also I hope they will catch the silly theme I came up with for their items. 

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General / Re: 52 Games Challenge 2025!!!

« on: November 03, 2025, 08:12:28 am »

For me, I knew it was going to be a big disadvantage for f. That's not to say that I don't think it's a good game. I do, but that was my biggest reservation regarding the new direction that this game took from previous entries. I think a similar story/idea could definitely be done in an American setting but obviously the game would have to have been completely different and I don't think that's the story the developers wanted to tell.

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General / Re: 52 Games Challenge 2025!!!

« on: November 02, 2025, 06:25:13 am »

Game 25 - Silent Hill f - 13 Hours

I finished this game almost two weeks ago, and I'm just now getting around to writing a review about it. This was a difficult game for me to review. There are many things about this game that I like. However, there are several glaring issues for me that will take a long time to articulate. I think this game will take the new spot of the longest review I will ever put on this site – that is, until I play the Silent Hill 2 remake which is probably also going to be a long ass review.

For me, a Silent Hill game not only has to be functionally capable, but also contextually relevant. In other words, the game is not just about the gameplay, but how it adds and broadens our understanding of the world of Silent Hill. While this game is functionally and visually great, it is the least Silent Hill game in the entire series. It hung over my entire experience playing, and while it may not bother some people, it significantly worsened my ability to appreciate this game on its own.  I had in the back of my mind “this isn't like Silent Hill”, “this isn't like Silent Hill”. This game to me is way more closely aligned with Clock Tower, Siren, and especially Fatal Frame, with how the female protagonist is depicted, and the heavy reliance on Shinto and traditional mythologies for its horror.

But why did I feel so strongly about this? One of the most important things about Silent Hill's theme and style is the merging of traditional western and eastern horror elements. The original Silent Hill was a game set in America, yet is grounded in the more subtle horror that is found in a lot of Japanese media. That is how the original game was conceived, and to me it’s a very important balance that has not been achieved since Silent Hill 4. The newer games were fully entrenched in western horror ideas and cliches, but f swings the pendulum in the other direction and is full on eastern horror. Neither approach is correct; it’s the balance between the two that matters most!! Obviously, I'm dichotomizing the idea of what horror is in different cultures and generalizing here, but the simple fact is that this game is not set in America, least of all Silent Hill the town, which to me is a MASSIVE problem. Even the original cult in the first games were a blend of western and eastern religious influences, which again, has been completely removed in this game. The intermediary story focusing on the three main characters and their relationship to each other also felt really out of place to me, with almost high-school like drama permeating the story and taking precedence over the real issue of the town becoming a nightmare.

The other thing about Silent Hill games is that they are always (with the exception of Origins), set in the present day. Remember how in my Origins review I said how I wished they would revisit a prequel story about the cult or the spiritual power? Well this game certainly misses that opportunity, because it literally offers nothing in connection to Silent Hill. The closest thing is maybe the pills? Maybe? Those are just how the cult made it's money in SH1. Maybe the red liquid is aglophitis, maybe it isnt? I kept waiting and waiting for the game to finally tie things back in some meaningful way to the rest of the series, but like Mary waiting for James, it never came. The closest thing that ties the old and the new together is the heavy use of symbolism in both monster and world design, that links to the characters backstory, motivations, and fears. Side note: it’s interesting how so many Silent Hill games are deadest on re-telling this aspect of SH2, when of the original 4 games most of the nightmare/monsters are derived from characters that are not the main character. These aspects where I think the game thematically is closest to Silent Hill, but to me it’s not enough. A game drenched in symbolism does not a Silent Hill game make. The town itself being abandoned and covered in fog is an obvious nod to Silent Hill too, but I felt like the town in this game plays second fiddle to the other aspects of the story regarding the characters unique Japanese lore that to me is very, very different than the cult activities from previous games. It felt clear to me that the connections made in the psychology and symbolism are just that - connections - nothing real or tangible (at least not yet). And I've read extensively about this game's story and endings because I didn't want to replay the game so many times, so I'm aware of the many connections that can be made here - it's just not enough for me personally. It felt too different in the broad strokes.

On that note, the story. If I don't focus on the complete disconnect from anything Silent Hill, I actually really like the story. My review’s already gone on too long, and I don't want to spoil it but I do like it for the most part. It is a very deep and complex story that requires you to really think and hypothesize about what’s going on, but I didn’t mind that as much as I have with other games. To me the unforgivable aspect of this game is the endings. Multiple endings are a trademark in Silent Hill. In this game, not matter what you do, you will always get the same ending first. And it’s a joke. It’s the – “it was all in the character’s mind” ending that cheapens all the symbolism. In order to see more endings, you have to replay the game again. So just like Downpour, the endings are changing the symbolism, which gets very messy and contradictory. And because that first ending has absolutely no meaningful connection to any of the others (except don’t do the thing that got you the bad ending) why the hell do we need to play the entire game through with that ending first? It baffles my mind why they would do that. While I did play through Undertale multiple times to get different endings, this is not a game that fits in with replaying for me. I refuse to do that, and I think it’s a big knock against this game’s story.

So with all of that out of the way, I think my favorite aspects of this game are the combat, visuals, and music. I felt like these represented the best modernization of traditional Silent Hill combat. Only things I didn’t like (as with other horror games) are the weapon degradation and limited inventory. The visuals are simply fantastic, and the score and sound design perfectly sets the mood and theme of the game. Loved every bit of that. Also really loved the visuals done with the map design too. The game’s a little bit on the easy side, and the puzzles were a little hit or miss too, but easily I did find this game to be a very scary experience. So if you’re not all caught up on the story stuff like I am, I think you’ll find this game to be really great if you’re into horror.

At the end of the day, I think it's obvious that this game was marketed as a Silent Hill game for it to sell more than anything. This game is great, don’t get me wrong, but it is not a Silent Hill game, and to me, that’s a big deal. The less I think about the connections, the more I like this game, and if that didn’t bother you, I’m sure you’ll have a great time with it!

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General / Re: VGCollect 2025 Secret Santa!

« on: October 30, 2025, 04:48:54 pm »

I'm going shopping this weekend! 

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Modern Video Games / Re: Limited Run Games Showcase 2025 discussion/predictions/wishes

« on: October 29, 2025, 02:43:02 pm »

Yeah there wasn't anything I was particularly interested in unfortunately  Oh well!

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General / Re: Halo is going multiplat...end of an era

« on: October 25, 2025, 03:27:11 pm »

Most disc based games are glorified CD keys now. They possess a relatively small amount of data on disc, while the majority of the game requires a 20+ GB download. I've played a few games this year that were a 100GB+ download just to play the game. The PS4/XBONE suffered from this also, but not to this extent. It's not a problem now (other than constantly having to manage internal storage space just to play a new game), but it will be when Sony and Microsoft inevitably shut down their content servers on these systems. It essentially takes ownership away from you and either forces you to buy the game again on a newer, supported platform or accept that you now have a PS5 or series X/S collection that are more or less unplayable paperweights.

This is just not true. The large data files you're talking about are data being installed to your machine from the disc. It is not being downloaded from the internet. Pre-installing the game data from the disc to the console has been pretty much standard since the late PS3 era. The Wii-U was the last home console to load all data from the disc actively while playing. Wouldn't make sense for RDR II and Last of Us 2 (for example) have "data discs" in the physical package if the data comes from the internet.

Google any PS5 or Xbox game you want on DoesItPlay. The vast, VAST majority of games on both PS5 and Series X (85% for each) contain all major content on disc and can be played without downloads. Where this gets complicated are the updates needed to make the games run smoother, which highly depends on game to game.  Pretty much every game has some update that needs to be downloaded, you just need to check which ones have the more serious problems. Some games do need updates from the internet or else they are unplayable, but it's still about 10%.

The only games that you're really talking about are online-only games, of which only comprises about 3% of the PS5's library and 4% of the PS4, at least everything that's been fully tested so far.

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General / Re: VGCollect 2025 Secret Santa!

« on: October 20, 2025, 10:37:06 am »

Sounds like a team effort was had  I'm going to start looking sometime this weekend! Been really swamped right now.

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General / Re: VGC's Anonymous/"General" Topic:

« on: October 17, 2025, 08:15:24 am »

Part of me was hoping that the extra time Game Freak got for Pokemon Legends ZA could mean they put abit more work into it, especially after how bad Scarlet/Violet was, but it seems like the put the bare minimum into the game again and it's so frustrating lol I want to like Pokemon and there's still things I could enjoy, but they just don't make good games.  If they were an indie company making these games for a relatively low budget and it had flat textured buildings, lacking features, low range pop in, and just in general very basic features, there's some leeway there and it wouldn't be an 80 dollar game, but something that's probably half the price. 

I can't even get auto box sorting in these games, what are we doing, Game Freak? lol

I'm picking it up today and I think I'll still enjoy it from a gameplay perspective but yeah - it's pretty rough. I just want voice acting in the games haha

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Video Game Database Discussion / Re: Error Listings and Rejected Edits 2025

« on: October 14, 2025, 08:51:57 am »

https://vgcollect.com/item/286857
This is the title on the cover and spine: The Unauthorized Strategy Guide to the Magic: The Gathering Card Game

I submitted Unauthorized Strategy Guide to the Magic: The Gathering Card Game, The

Magic: The Gathering is both a card game and video game. Please correct the title yourself.

I actually created a topic elsewhere to gain input about how a title like this should be formatted. While we only utilize the Chicago Manual of Style for capitalization, I tailored the question so that formatting would also adopt this source.

Though I didn't get many answers (I gained four, all of which were different from another), other sub-comments indicated support for one in particular: Unauthorized Strategy Guide to the "Magic: The Gathering" Card Game, The. The reason for this is because Chicago Style has guidelines specifically for when a title of another work is inserted into the title of the work in question. When this occurs, the inserted title is surrounded by quotation marks. So, this formatting style has no relation with what I was thinking when I originally made the edit change—that articles at the beginning of a title precede the first immediate colon. Although I'm sure there's a correlation between the two, because I can't think of any other instance why there would be a colon in the middle of the full title of a work that doesn't indicate a subtitle following it.

With that said, I've disregarded the quotation marks entirely since we generally omit them in the Name field. So, your original entry name has been reverted: Unauthorized Strategy Guide to the Magic: The Gathering Card Game, The. Sorry about that.

Should this item even be in the database since it's a guide for the physical card game and isn't video game related?

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General / Re: 52 Games Challenge 2025!!!

« on: October 13, 2025, 04:26:45 pm »

Lots of Silent Hill going on in this year's challenge! Love it! 

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General / Re: VGCollect 2025 Secret Santa!

« on: October 12, 2025, 05:27:54 pm »

Yikes that stinks  Thankfully we're still early in though!