#Recently Completed

[npfehr]

Recently Completed - Uncharted: The Lost Legacy (PC)

This is a third-person action-adventure game in which an unlikely duo must race to stop a madman from inciting civil war. To do this, the pair needs to find a legendary treasure before the madman does. There will be Exploring, and Shooting, and Solving Puzzles, and sometimes Driving to accomplish this!

So this is a spinoff that takes place after Uncharted 4. Chloe (from 2, and maybe 3?) and Nadine (from 4) have a mutually shared goal. They're combative with one another at first, but the arc of their relationship throughout the game is a real highlight and it turns out they're great together. Uncharted games have always had great banter, and this one is no exception.

The other thing they have is great set pieces, and this game is no exception there either! The middle chunk of the game revisits the jeep-driving open-world idea from Uncharted 4 and I fell into the trap of thinking there would be very little to do once I'd completed all the objectives. But there is plenty of story left afterward, and some inspired and exciting action sequences that I really enjoyed playing.

This is absolutely a game worth playing, as an Uncharted fan or not. Please do so at your earliest convenience!

[npfehr]

Recently Completed: Still Wakes The Deep (Xbox Series X)

This is a first-person horror adventure in which humans, not dwarves, delve too greedily and too deep and disturb something terrible. You're actually a scotsman working on an offshore oil rig in what looks like the 90s, when something fleshy and horrible comes up and starts transforming the rig and turning your co-workers into monsters.

The rest of the adventure involves your character trying to get from place to place to keep the rig from collapsing spectacularly, often while evading a monster or trying not to die of falling off something or drowning. Movements have a nicely heavy, tactile feel, and the voice acting was uniformly great.

It's not too long and I confess I probably wouldn't have played it if it weren't for Game Pass. But I did and it actually made me shed a tear at the end. Give it a try!

STILL WAKES THE DEEP - [2/?]

[ruporas]

1 kiss 2 kiss (ID in alt)

[heartorbit]

searching for a star that's still unknown to anyone!

[npfehr]

[photo credits: me]

Recently Completed: Manifold Garden (PC)

This is a first-person puzzle game set in a mysterious, infinitely looping realm. It owes a lot to Portal in that the basic gameplay mostly involves doing weird physics stuff to get cubes onto buttons.

In this case, instead of having a portal gun, you can face walls and shift gravity toward them. This effectively rotates the entire space that you're in and makes the walls the new floor. Do it again and you can be walking on the ceiling. It should be extremely disorienting, but the game does a fantastic job with colour and sound cues to help you out.

It also helps that none of the puzzles are too terribly taxing. I'm used to puzzle games introducing a new mechanic and then taking it to its furthest extremes, but this one was much gentler and tended to move on to the next new thing quite often. The endgame sections combined mechanics and did make me furrow my brow for a minute or two, but usually the solution presented itself before long.

This game has been on my radar for a while because I'm fascinated by physically impossible spaces. I devoured this game and loved just looking around in its world, being tickled by the fact that each structure I could see repeating all around me were also the same structure that I was standing on. Like I mentioned, the world loops in every direction, and the art takes advantage of that, presenting some remarkably beautiful and fascinating vistas. And often, the quickest way to the top of the structure you're standing on is to fall off the bottom.

Play this!! Unless you're easily disoriented and prone to motion sickness like my wife :(

[npfehr]

Recently Completed - Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (PSP)

This is a 2D action-adventure game with RPG elements and a focus on exploration. You play as Alucard, half-human son of Dracula himself. Al's upset that his dad's castle has reappeared, and heads home to register his displeasure by defeating Dracula once and for all. Only, one wrinkle? Dad's not around and the castle seems to be in control of one Richter Belmont. The Belmont clan has usually been the ones to rise up and defeat Dracula in times past, so something weird is going on. Also, Death shows up early on and completely just takes all your cool Alucard-branded gear. Dangit!

What a troublesome weekend!

I was never a big fan of the Castlevania series, having tried and bounced off the earlier (linear) games. In the late '90s, when I was in high school, a friend brought the PSX version over to my house and said "here, you have to try this". I knew nothing about it, but humored him and quickly discovered: 1.) it's gorgeous! 2.) they went Metroid with the series what!! and 3.) omg there are RPG elements and equippable items!!! Reader, I was instantly in love. My first time through the game was a struggle, but as I gradually learned about more secrets and fun ways to break the game, it has become a comfort title instead.

The specific version I played this time was included as a hidden extra in the Dracula X Chronicles game for the PSP. It features a new translation and English dub, as well as the restoration of some cut content. I wanted the experience to feel as fresh as I could, and while the new dub removes some of the iconic goofiness of the original, it helped me appreciate the game again.

This game is absolutely chock full of secrets, oddities, and tiny details. It's abundantly clear that a lot of love went into its creation, but while I've enjoyed later entries with the Metroid style of gameplay, none have quite reached the heights of discovering this castle for the first time. I recognize that it's also the nostalgia talking; you can only be really blown away once, so that's no fault of the later entries. They're good too!

This is 100% a game worth checking out. If you haven't before and the ending you get seems vaguely unsatisfying, keep digging; there's a lot more to this game than first appears. Play it!

[temeyes]

casual simon riley (colored)

[batbabydamian]

Do you do commissions bc I need more of beastworld kitty damian🤭

i don't think i'll be open to commissions for a very long time but!! i love beastworld Damian so here's some doodles!!

[npfehr]

Recently Completed: Chrono Trigger (PC)

This is a time-hopping RPG in which a gang of friends cancels the apocalypse. It's also frequently held up as one of the best games of the 16-bit era, and one of the best games ever made.

Your main character and silent protagonist is Crono, a brave swordfighter with seemingly no other hobbies. After your new friend mysteriously vanishes through time in your old friend's teleporter pod, you courageously step up to travel back and make things right. This kicks off a whole sequence of crazy events that culminate (of course) in epic boss battles to determine the fate of the world and stuff. No pressure!

I've played this game plenty in its heyday, finishing it on my own and exploring the alternate endings with my older brother's souped-up characters on his save file. In later life I started but never finished a YouTube playthrough, but haven't seen the game all the way through in a long time -- admittedly I had to refresh myself on strats for some of the later boss battles. Overall however this really isn't a particularly difficult game, or even a long one -- 15-20 hours is pretty common for a playthrough, which is actually really brief for a game of its style and era.

Look, I love this game. There's so much to love about it and you'll find no shortage of people singing the praises of its graphics, music, gameplay, and replayability. Check it out if you never have, and play it again if it's been awhile.

Chrono Trigger Super Nintendo 1995

[mienar]

good morning bakery 🍞🥖

instagram | shop | commission info

[theegh0st]

huh?

[zodiac-monkey]

[npfehr]

Recently Completed: God of War (PC)

This is a third-person action RPG in which a beardy, angry man, and his mostly very nice son go on a big road trip to scatter the ashes of their wife and mother (respectively). Along the way they make powerful friends and enemies, listen to stories told by a strangely knowledgeable talking head, and even get eaten up by a big snek for a little while.

I purchased this game in a 2023 holiday sale and finally just now finished it. It took me all year to put 45 hours in, which includes ignoring a decent chunk of side content when I decided (as I do) that it was finally time to get on with it and finish up.

The writing and acting are stellar, and somehow the game is graphically astonishing while still being very easy to 'read' visually. Unlike certain other high-profile PS4 games that got ported to PC! Horizon Zero Dawn I am looking at you!! At least I think I am, but it's hard to tell with all the visual noise!!!!

Despite having very little interest in the series history to this point -- I've gotten a couple of hours into the very first one on PS2, and that's all -- the game does a nice job of getting you up to speed in terms of what you need to know of the lore. There are always explainer dudes on YouTube for any of the backstory you feel like you're still missing, anyway.

It's as good as folks say it is! Play it!

Kratos da god of war

[uncanny-tranny]

Basically, my philosophy around disability fakers is: I would rather a thousand people fake a disability than have one disabled person suffer without care, aids, compassion, or any help.

[mothcpu]

happy valentine's day!

[npfehr]

Recently Completed - Frog Detective: The Entire Mystery (Xbox Series X)

This is a trilogy of first-person mysteries starring the world's second-greatest mystery solver, Frog Detective! Can you find out what's going on on The Haunted Island? Can you crack the Case of the Invisible Wizard? Can you avoid the snares of Corruption at Cowboy County?

I played these with my young daughter and we loved it. The writing and art style are incredibly charming, and Frog Detective is wonderfully guileless and cheerful. The gameplay involves roaming a relatively small, contained area, talking to each resident in turn to understand possible motives and solve their individual problems. It's all very silly and lighthearted, since it's firmly established that crime doesn't exist in this world. The characters are quirky and we had great fun coming up with accents and voices to characterize them.

The 2nd game introduces a handy notebook mechanic for keeping track of clues, suspects, and your inventory. Best of all, you get to decorate the notebook cover with fun stickers. But even though you can individually designate characters as suspicious, it never really comes to much.

Whoever you are: if you like things that are cute and silly you will like this. Please play it!!