Would like to review some of the most recent games I played.
Nier Automata (PC)
Really good game. Its an action RPG in post apocalypse setting. You play as robots fighting robots.
Graphics, story, music and game play are all good.
Only downside is you need to get the settings correct for PC or else it the game crashes.
Final Fantasy XIII series (PC)
The first game is walking through a straight hallway and repeatedly hitting auto attack. It had the most boring side quests. I was asleep most of the time. There were no towns. Only good thing are their beautifully rendered cut scenes which only last a few minutes. Not sure how I managed to finish it. The story is about how a fal'Cie (some kind of deity) wants to kill himself, so you and your party set out to kill him, effectively causing Cocoon (your home world) to become frozen, weird plot.
The second game was much better than the first. It lets you time travel and go back to different locations after you altered the past, i.e. the side quest were alright. You control Serah, Noel and you can select the third character to be any monster that you've captured. I think graphics, story, music and gameplay were best among the three games. Battles are faster than the first game. The final boss was crazy, kept switching paradigms and still dying continuously, it was a good challenge. I didn't like the plot twist at the ending, I was expecting a reward but got an advertisement for the next game instead. And you have a Moogle companion.
The third was worse than the second but better than the first. It had the worse story, its anti-religion and anti-god theme was much stronger than what FFX had. Graphics, music and game play were average. The story is about how everybody is sad that the world was destroyed/going to be destroyed.
Final Fantasy XV (PC)
This game is full of dark scary caves and imps that jump scare at you. Worse part is if you're low leveled, you won't die because you have alot of potions, you'll simply go through the nightmare at a slower pace. There are also giant snake head creatures. Luckily, there is classic FF music that can be enabled through the radio player, making the caves less scary. The side quests were really bad, generic fetch quests. Car trips are boring. Towards the end, the game reveals that you were actually playing Resident Evil. Overall, boring game.
World of Final Fantasy (PC)
I didn't finish it because I felt bored and stopped playing once I arrived at Midgar.
Bravely Default & Bravely Second (3DS)
Really good game. It is a turn-based RPG game with a twist. The brave and default system needs abit of thinking to win. Story is about awakening the crystals to save the world. It has really good job and weapons system that lets your characters become anything. There are strategies towards the end game which is almost cheating (Ninja + High Jump), which is fun. Story, music and game play were good. Graphics were average chibi styled like in FFIX.
Town of Salem (Web)
Mafia/Warewolf type game that you played at parties. It seems to rely alot more on facts and logic than other Mafia/Warewolf type game that rely on body language or talking behaviors. Like if you role blocked someone and there were no kills, most likely your target is suspicious. Or if the doctor is dead, but someone accidentally claims to be a doctor, he is most likely suspicious or they might be jester.
Opus Magnum (PC)
Quick fun beautiful puzzle game. It reminds me of programming a little where you create a set of recursive instructions in order to form colorful shapes. It lets you export the solutions into animated gif images too. It gets abit stressful at the later levels.
Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun (PC)
Interesting puzzle game. It is a top down stealth/RTS game. Each character is fun to play, you have a ninja, samurai, kid, sharpshooter and geisha. You need to plan and sneak about the map, coordinate between the characters to defeat the enemy. The ending is a little bit underwhelming, it just lets you kill the final guy then everybody goes back to their normal lives.
Banished (PC)
I didn't managed to finish this game, basically it is about resource management, manage the town folks to survive, and building the city. Doesn't seem to have any story or end game, just keep building. It was kind of fun in the first few minutes.
Frost Punk (PC)
Similar to Banished, resource management to survive and city building, but is has an end game at around 30 days when everything becomes freezing cold. Really nice winter theme and graphics. Kept failing the first few attempts, needed to allocate more manpower to research at the start of the game. Sometimes you have to set laws for your citizens to work long hours making them a little bit unhappy in order to survive the cold. Really additive until I won, after which there is not much to do post game.
Factorio (PC)
Really addictive factory building game. It has a procedural generated map. The starting is similar to Minecraft of getting some wood and coal and smelting iron. Then it escalates to conveyor belts, coal powered drills, oil pumps, assembling machines, trains and construction robots. The end game is to construct a space shuttle in order to leave the alien planet. Its alot about figuring how to put together all the components together in order to exponentially automate all the resource gathering and crafting.
Apollo Justice (3DS)
This crime and law visual novel has alot of plot twists. Especially during the first and final chapter. The mystery kept the game engaging. Phoenix Wrights lost his attorney badge 7 years ago, then comes Apollo Justice.
Summary: Nier Automata was really good. Final Fantasy 13 series and 15 were bad. There are quite a number of good puzzle games released during the past few years.
