What You've Been Playing This Week

[Paddy]

Pressing through Ys VIII on the Switch. I'm wondering why its taken me a while to play this now as many of the game's elements come together very well to create a great action RPG. The main bonus is it respects your time as a player (you feel like you've made decent progress after playing for 2-3 as opposed to other RPGs that get too bogged down in dialogue). Seiren Island is a great place to explore and Falcom has done a solid job of making the island feel vast and varied.

I don't think I've got that many hours until I reach the game's end but I've enjoyed my experience with it throughout. I'd rather have that be the case for 40-45 hours with an RPG these days than it be twice as long (maybe its due to getting older but Ys VIII has kept me engaged throughout and I applaud it for doing so).

[CMcK]

A bit of Freedom Finger and LUMINES last night. Until my controller battery went flat. And I have no replacement to hand. Freedom Finger is a real hidden gem IMHO. Novel game mechanics, irreverent humour and a brilliant soundtrack.

[Neon Ignition]

Starting this week off on:

Nintendo Switch
Still Animal Crossing. Terraforming is open as is the penultimate shop, final loan etc so I'm very much getting into my endgame with it now.

Nintendo 3DS
Just closing out Book 2 on Captain Toad, not too much longer to go now.

PlayStation 4
Once TLOU is completely done I'll be resuming Judgment

[prinnysquad]

Chapters 10 and 11 of Uncharted 4.

Wow. Especially 11. So many standout moments. The bustling marketplace. The puzzles with the bells where you’re navigating the cogs. The view as you clamber out of the window. The painting puzzles. The armoured car attacking you. The jeep ride through the town. The bits where you’re trying to save Sam. And finally, the shock of seeing the wife rock up.

The facial animations, natural body language and pacing of the characters’ dialogue is a cut above. Has it been bettered since? Genuine question. This is an incredible level, in so many ways. As far as spectacle goes, it balances the puzzles and climbing with the action beautifully.

This just keeps maintaining the quality throughout.

[Neon Ignition]

Uncharted 4 is one I want to try again even though it wasn't that long ago I last played it. The tone and really poor scripting always puts me off, certainly compared to the superior PS3 trilogy but with TLOU being a decent revisit I'm feeling a but buoyant about enjoying one more jaunt through UC4.

[teddymeow]

Boom!!

Days Gone main story finished!! At least 35 hours if I had to guess - as there's no statistics page.

Going to go all out to finish all side missions before TLOU2.

Credit to Bend for working so hard to patch the issues post launch and also provide loads of free DLC to keep things fresh and interesting.

Fantastic!!

Still, still, still.

Days Gone is like a drug I can't get enough of!!

I've earned 90% of the trophies from the main game and it's going to be my third PS4 platinum.

This doesn't mean much to most but to me it's a sign that I've enjoyed the game so much that I want to spend more time in the world that Bend Studios have created after the main story is finished and get everything I can out of the game.

[randombs]

Every time I see teddy online playing not-EDF, an angel is zombified.

Gob bless.

[prinnysquad]

Uncharted 4 is one I want to try again even though it wasn't that long ago I last played it. The tone and really poor scripting always puts me off, certainly compared to the superior PS3 trilogy but with TLOU being a decent revisit I'm feeling a but buoyant about enjoying one more jaunt through UC4.

I like the tone and the scripting of the cut scenes is very natural and, frankly, a cut above most games. Although still pretty basic compared to films, it has to be said. There’s a lot of good visual scripting in the game, like the way Drake touches his wedding ring when talking about his wife. Elena’s twitching as she tried to comprehend Nate’s lies to her was nicely done. That’s a couple of examples. The meta-scripting is your typical Boy’s Own yarn.

I’ll go back and give 2 and 3 a proper blast, but for me, this is a streets ahead of 1. As it should be! 4 has real spectacle, it’s a solid play, and the visuals are just stunning. Loving it.

[Neon Ignition]

Yep, UC1 has aged quite a bit, surprisingly quickly as you really feel it going back from UC2 to the first game. UC4 has an eye for detail that presumably bodes well for benchmark level stuff on TLOU2. The main issue for UC4 script wise is probably the often raised narrative glitch that the game essentially makes Nate the villain and so gets the character wrong.

[wakka]

Yeah, I'm with Prin on this. It's not Ibsen, but the script in UC4 is about a million miles ahead of most games. It's almost a victim of its own success - because it is so much better than the corny stuff in most games, its defects versus a decent film or TV show actually become more apparent.

[Neon Ignition]

Perhaps, but I'm on the side that thinks UC4 isn't aware that its story undoes Nate's legacy. Presumably a result of drafting in a different team to finish it off, though not a true game I still prefer Lost Legacy.

[prinnysquad]

Is Nate a villain? I’m only on Ch 12.

I just get the feeling he’s caught tween a rock and a hard place. He ****s on his wife, and he’s got Stark-esque addiction to thrill, but his heart is in the right place concerning his brother. Unless bad things come soon?

[Neon Ignition]

The argument to UC4's plot is generally that the games villain is actually the real good guy as by and large he's conducting his actions via largely legitimate channels. Nate and his brother are the ones actively disrupting his plans, breaking into his territory, killing his men etc for personal gain which ultimately destroys his operations. Whereas previous games still had Nate adventuring out of self interest the villains were much worse than him, not better. The game tries to justify it by saying Nate is only doing it to help his brother but as Sam was always such a clumsy retcon of the characters history from past games it shadows that justification, especially with how easily Nate screws over Chloe and lies to her etc. There was a thread on it the other week on Era and it's funny to break down because of how awful Nate and Sam are to games 'bad guy'

[wakka]

Yeah, it’s far from perfect. I do think it’s cool how they tackled the dissonance of the games though, that clean cut good guy Nate has to massacre about 5000 people to get the job done. I really liked that.

And while the macro was flawed, I loved the micro. Dialogue between characters in cutscenes was actually engaging and to some extent believable, rather than something that felt like it was just there as a bit of connective tissue from one level to another. It’s one of the few games with actual characters, rather than simply plot devices and cardboard cutouts.

The script was the most important aspect to delivering that for me, but the physical direction of cutscenes and the facial technology helped to sell this, too.

I can’t really think of many games that do this stuff nearly as well.

[Neon Ignition]

Definitely, outside of ND's games I struggle to think of another series where the characters are so well realised and delivered as like you say a lot of it rests on the non-narrative moments and cutscenes. Even in other Sony series it's the same, God of War had the same production levels but Kratos is still something of a blank angry slate by comparison.