TastyRetroGaming

Forspoken

I picked this up in for super cheap just before Christmas for like £10 brand new. I thought why not, surely it can’t be as bad as the reviews say and for a tenner I’d imagine most games are worth your time at that price.

I had liked the look of this title when early footage had dropped and contemplated buying it on release but it was pushed back a few times, and then the mighty internet slandering began. The sales weren’t the best either from what I am aware, which is why less than 10 months later it was so cheap.

The story is middling, nothing new and ground breaking but serves the game well. It won’t take you long to complete, I finished the game at about 21 hours and that was with a good chunk of exploration. You play as Frey, a New Yorker who finds a magical vambrace and gets teleported to a new land called Athia. The story here misses the point in helping to open the world up as you face off against the Tantas which give you your new powers. As there is a fair few activities you could easily just not bother with or skate on past. It obviously has a story to keep everything going, but most of that is covered in lore you find on your travels. You can easily understand the story just by reading everything. I enjoy a good open world where the setting has a deep history to be explored but not at the expense of the main story, which should be richer in detail. A few extra cutscenes or main missions would’ve easily fixed this.

The combat and traversal in the game are the biggest highlight of the game, but are again hampered by the story. It doesn’t open until you find your first power around a third of the way through the chapters, and the last three chapters which are just story exposition and a boss fight. So, once you have a complete arsenal it doesn’t leave much time to get acquainted with them. Each power comes with it’s own set of unlockable attacks and spells, which can be further upgraded by doing a specific action like kill the last opponent with it, or hit 1000+ damage from behind or with the use of another ability. You can swap between them mid fight and each action has a cool down period. Once you’ve got most of them and you are parkouring around exploiting the enemies weaknesses, it does allow you to mow down the mobs in a near effortless manner. The combat downside definitely comes from the weak dodging and parrying which you can’t upgrade, you are just lumped with it and you really have to pre-empt an attack else you’ll definitely getting pounded into the ground like a tent peg.

Each power comes with an individual tree.

Frey’s free running around the world for exploration is hella fun, you can just run full pelt everywhere, scale up mountains double, triple jump. Even zip across floating rock pathways to find a guild to explore, a monument to gain extra health/defence or trigger a time trial. You can go around towns and old fortifications as well to clear them out gaining an extra stat increase or some gear. Having this in the game for me does help me want to explore, as even in some bigger games I’ve played wondering around sometimes become tedious. Added with the many fast point travels dotted around clearing up a regions icons becomes no trouble.

Some of that tidy as parkour.

The game graphically looks fantastic and each new area you unlock adds a little something more to the land of Athia. As a setting and world to explore I really liked the aesthetics and scope of some areas. It’s a bit of a cross between dragon age and dragons dogma in terms of design with a bit of final fantasy sprinkled in. I enjoy going round doing everything as I work on the way to the platinum trophy. However, if you don’t go for trophies or not inclined to do much past the main mission about 70/80% game is completely missable. It’s basically do everything, get enough mana to unlock all upgrades and then do the level up to increase damage or stamina etc.

The map and all of the things i’ve yet to disover, this is about half of the full map. It’s fairly sizeable for the story that’s given.

I understand from a story point of view it makes sense but everywhere feels dead. There isn’t many side missions either and most of them take place in Cipal, the sorta last human city. A few more side missions which makes you go out and about are fully missing from the game. This would benefit the game and make for a reason to go scouting for stat increases or new gear.

Some pin point accurate combat from myself.

The gear is pretty limited, it’s cloaks, necklaces and nail blood infused paint, and is the main source of an increase in health, defence and magic increases. You can use the limited crafting upgrades to add two or three extra buffs to the cloaks and necklaces, and the nails are just set stat changes or buffs. As well as upgrading their base stats slightly which can give you higher health or defence. You can’t really do much of a character build and most of the increase are slight so don’t make for much of a difference during combat. In regards to the stats of Frey I think having everything tied to various gear or specific monuments or story related upgrade was a bad choice as well. You earn experience from your many battles but you don’t gain anything other then mana which you use to unlock new powers, even if it was every few levels some extra health or damage wouldn’t go a miss.

One thing I did enjoy were the boss fights, from the big bad, the Tantas and the mini dungeons bosses you have to defeat to clear them. They were always distinct from themselves and I’d imagine if you ramped the difficulty up it’s add a new edge to the whole game. Most of the enemies once you’ve acquired all the powers aren’t much of a threat.

I should probably mention the dialogue in the game considering the teaser trailer. It’s hit and miss it’s not completely unredeemable, but it does have its moments. I think sometimes they lay it on a bit thick for edginess. Especially with Frey as she’s the only character that seems to swear, maybe to signify cultural differences in each world.

Why is this apple so fucking big? It’s baffling.

Overall all I’d rate this game a Tasty 6/10.

The game looks fantastic graphically, it plays well. The combat and traversal is utterly fun, I think the story is too short and nothing amazing due to being a bit rushed, and if you don’t read the archives you might miss some of it. The world is dead and if you just reduce damage received it’s not particularly difficult. Having great combat hampered by poor defence mechanics doesn’t help. However not every game needs to be a masterpiece like God of War Ragnarok, and this game for me falls into the category of it’s worthwhile and can be played without much reason and a fairly straight forward platinum if you are a trophy hunter. If you can pick it up for cheap or get it for a good price it’d be worth your time.

Released 24th February 2023, Sony Playstation 5.

Tiny Tina’s Wonderland

For any returning fan of the Borderlands games, this game will be exactly what you expect it to be. It doesn’t reinvent the wheel for the pre-existing formula of the previous iterations, but it is good fun.

The gameplay is at it’s most basic a loot ‘n’ shoot game and with this being the 5^th full entry if you exclude the tales games, it has firmly stuck to that and for the better I say. The sheer quantity of guns you’ll come across even in this medieval inspired game is mind boggling. Just when you think you won’t need a new gun for a level or two, you RNG a enchanted legendary assault rifle with no reload, fire damage and homing firebolt strikes. It’s truly grand.

Now before I get more into the gameplay I should probably mention the obvious. This is a spin-off from Borderlands 2 DLC, the dungeons and dragons inspired Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep. I’d say that’s still the best expansion in the entire series. So, with this game you now have a full fledged 20 hour campaign and around 50 side quests. Expanding upon the original expansion.

The main characters of this adventure Tiny Tina, Valentine and Frette who form your party whilst playing Bunkers and Badasses.

The game looks top tier. I’ve always thought for the time when a Borderlands game comes out it looks phenomenal in it’s graphic novel style worlds. This is no different. The open level areas all look wonderful. Every game seems to add that extra notch in quality and finer detail then the last. From the more detailed weaponry, cell shading and details on skin or fabrics, or how the maps get bigger. Adding more variety, along with more scenery, really padding the game world out. I do find that even though this is supposed to be a high fantasy setting, the fact they stuck with more modern styled guns is a bit odd. I get the logic in it, but I’d have greatly enjoyed the use of more traditional medieval weapons which definitely could’ve still worked here. It’s not even a complaint I just think it’d have been cool and helped this stand out on it’s own a tad more.

I will mention briefly as well that I found this game to be hilarious, I genuinely laughed out loud regularly. From the expert voice acted dialogue of the main characters, or just random nonsense said by NPC’s. I think if you didn’t enjoy the original trilogy or the pre-sequel it’s not getting any better for you. This game has many returning characters, with Torgue being one of those and he’s more Torgue then usual, it’s stellar. This is a serious game in the sense that it’s got a big budget and has the likes of Will Arnett Andy Samberg and Wanda Sykes voicing main characters, but it absolutely doesn’t take itself seriously. It’s well written script always delivers and the banter as you cross the land or the overworld a new addition to the series, becomes all the more enjoyable because of it.

This game still has some of the nagging issues that was prevalent in 3. It’s about time they improved on the inventory, trying to wade through 60 weapons,armours,rings,amulets and wards is cumbersome. I often would sell a gun I was keeping by accident as it would flicker between how it wanted to organise them just as I pressed sell on a shitty shotgun I didn’t want.

Another issue I think the main campaign even though an improved villain and story to 3, still was short, lacking in actually having the villain be present. Most of the boss fights weren’t hard or as engaging as they should be. The final battle against the Dragon Lord was far to easy. A lot of weaponry is unbalanced I all but didn’t use snipers and rocket launchers. I found shotguns to be worthless as well. I understand balance is needed and they fit into your character builds. Not having true vault hunter mode and a level cap of 40 also felt like missed potential. I felt the game didn’t start to feel really borderlandsy until I had pretty much done everything. Legendary weapon spawns weren’t all that great, luckily when they happened they were worthwhile.

My favourite side misison, the wierd reverse smurf story.

An improvement though was having each character as a solitary main class, and then having a sub class you can use. This means you only have two skill trees to put skill points into but really helps varied gameplay. Especially if you want to go through it all again. You also have hero points which can go into permanent buffs to certain attributes, like higher health and ward or higher chance of hitting a critical hit. So around level 30 the character build really comes into it’s own and starts to become real fun. Again, though hindered by the low level cap of 40.

The game does lean far more into D’n’D, by making you feel like you are building a character rather than just picking a few stats to put a lot badass tokens into. As well as improving the melee a smidge, it still misses the mark somewhat, in that you can just not use it and not be penalised for it. Doing certain actions like finding all 4 shrine pieces or completing all the rune challenges grant permanent increases to your stats as well. Along with lucky dice hidden throughout the lands, this increase loot luck, but even sat at over 5000 by the time I finished I didn’t feel it was particularly worthwhile. I feel this also ties into the lack of mini bosses, and only 4 side quest were really worth your time. Having more of those would make for an easy improvement.

Whilst you wander between quest areas you traverse the overworld, which has loot, side quests, and dungeons to explore. I say dungeons but these are just mini areas where you fight off between 1 and 3 waves of easy enemies. I would have preferred actual dungeons with mini bosses, something that fits nicely into it’s theme. These are also similar to the bandit camps that spawn or a random skeleton catches you and initiates the same sort of fight. I’d argue it’s just weak padding that can again be easily ignored for the most part.

Lastly, a snppet of what the overworld looks like.

Overall I’d rate this a hefty 7/10, Positively Tasty.

I did really enjoy this game, it was a blast start to finish. It could’ve done with being longer, a level cap of at least 50, with better boss battles and true vault hunter mode. It was funny, well voice acted along with tight gun-play. It’s just lacking those few extra endgame bits to really flesh it out and this was somewhat let down with it’s mediocre DLC which is somewhere this series usually excels.

Released March 25th 2022 on Sony Playstion 5.

My Pre-Christmas Haul

I haven’t been as nearly as attentive to playing my games. Nor, have I being playing them effectively or efficiently as I should. In between work and my degree i’m fairly swamped. You’d think this would stop me buying an endless stream of new games. Boy oh boy, you’d be severely wrong. I went for it, not in the sense I actually bought what could be seen as aanything of worth, nay. I bought more random games, at least two or three of them I genuinely wanted. I think I just love a cheap bargain, either that or I just admit I have slight hoarding issue.

My award winning photography at the forefront once more.

As you can see I have a good ol’ stack of new stuff this time. I have surprisingly reviewed let’s build a zoo. After sinking 30 hours into it, and periodically still playing it, I’m ever so slightly addicted to it. I even managed to finish my Final Fantasy XIII trilogy. See below.

See I wasn’t lying, I’ve yet to decide to go straight for this bad boy or to start the trilogy from the beginning.

No Mercy on the N64, this is one of the titles I actually wanted and I have in fact played it for a few hours. Shocking I know. Poorly though, as even though it’s boxed it doesn’t come with the manual. So, every time I want to play it, I have to google the controls as I play so many at once it all blurs. Much like my average day to day.

I was genuinely filled with joy when I saw this on my travels.

Another title I wanted was Enter the Matrix and specifically I wanted it on the Gamecube. I do have it on the OG Xbox. It’s in my stack of utterly decimated discs. I bought a bundle from offline, the seller fucked me. They fucked me good. the controller was bollocked, all but 2 games weren’t decimated by what, one can only asssume to be that of a dying rabbid cat in it’s final moments was also electruted and decided to use the discs as scratching posts.

I do think to myself sometimes, perhaps I should save some money up and start buying complete in box versions of the Pokemon games I want, or some of the earlier Final Fantasy games. But, why do that when I can buy more random Scooby – Doo games, or some Yu-Gi-Oh games that cost pittance to me. I only have myself to blame.

Amongst all this I have also come to the realisation I need a game play plan, or simple structure, that i’ll actually attempt to follow. I’ll beleive in myself only so much, I can’t forsee it sticking but I have for the immediate future got a solid plan in place. I know what my next few games that I will be playing for review are. All i’m gonna say is, be prepared to be razzle dazzled or bitterly dissapointed but just know, my tasty devotees. I have some old, some new and some odd choices coming your way. I do this so that you may not have to endure hours of trash or to help gently guide you onto the path of gaming enligthenment. We are in this together, this’ll be my last collection update for like three weeks, until this entire plan immediately goes to pot with my post christmas haul. I should hopefully be putting up a game review up soon, as I’m well into finishing Tiny Tina’s Wonderland. I’m fairly positive I’ve got another few unfinished ones lying around on my laptop as well.

Until then, as always stay tasty. Have a grand Christmas and very Happy New Year.

Let’s build a Zoo

I’m a bit behind as of late on my reviews, well more so than usual. These things happen. It doesn’t help I am fairly inconsistent in playing just one game a go as well. I’m a sucker for simulation games, I’m a big fan of Roller coaster Tycoon, Planet Coaster and the likes. I’m waiting for the day we finally get a remaster of Lemonade Tycoon, to be completely honest I dream of it sometimes. So I was scrolling though the deals online and came across this game.

I was fairly sold on the two trailers for this game and it’s whimsical stylings. It also helps it’s not particularly expensive and came with one of the two DLC contents the Dinosaur Island pack. I have yet to start that content as this game ended up being far meatier then I anticipated. In the best of ways. It’s not as straight forward as building a pen and buying animals. It’s an expansive management sim. You have to build a suitable pen with water, enrichment and decoration for each specific animal. This starts off very limited but with the research centre as the days pass you earn research points to put into getting new shelters, toys etc. This also plays into what stores you can build. From food and drink stalls to gift shops. As well as the decorations for the park itself, varying styles of benches, trees, plants, subway station for easier access to your ever expanding park. It doesn’t stop there either, you need zoo keepers, janitors, mascots, vet’s, staff for all of your stalls, your recycling centre, later game for your farming, so you can become more of a self sufficient zoo. I am definitely missing stuff off here but you get the point. This all increases visitors to your zoo, as well as what they are willing to pay for entry and as they visit your food vendors.

My absolute shit show of a park, and current pinned tasks i’m working on.

The most unique part of this game, and something I particularly enjoy is the DNA splicing. The game comes with a base amount of 60 or so animals I believe. So you’d imagine there wouldn’t be much to collect, you’d be wrong. Each individual animal comes with 10 variants which have to be unlocked via breeding. A real fucking grind and one of my only gripes for the entire game. Once you unlock 5 out of the 10 genomes you can pick two separate animals to create a completely new creature. So you can end up with a spotty Capybara with the head of duck, or a snake with the head of a Hyena. I think this works out at over 300,000 variations you are able to put in your zoo. Well that’s what it says on the cover of the box anyhow.

The world map for trading and acquiring more animals.

The game for my personal preferences looks incredible, having the look of the games from yesteryear. With the super colourful and vibrant 16 bit style, it adds an easier setting for a deceptively in depth game. The animals looks great if not slightly chunky, i’d also argue they are all the same size whether a Hippopotamus or a Rabbit. This isn’t a criticism, rather, just something I noticed. To further your animal collection you have to buy new plots of land, and trade with other zoos across the globe with specific variants, and before you know it you’ve amassed like 400 animals with 30 to unlock still.

The builer selector, from buldings,paths to the trees,etc .

Buying plots of land gets expensive fairly quickly, to balance it out you have to really work on unlocking new bus routes. This comes from either the small tasks you are allocated as you go along or from research which gives you bigger coaches. Now visitors are tied into the games morality mechanics. You can either be good or evil. To be good is easy just make sure your animals are well looked after, you don’t buy from the black market or build glue factories, or an abattoir, or even a bacon factory to name a few of the evil buildings you can unlock. The next important thing to do is making your zoo look good. Now mine looks like shit, I won’t lie, this is mainly due to I’m just trying for trophies rather than the more fun sandbox mode I’ll inevitably move onto too. Picking where to spend your research points is somewhat critical here for this. Now you can unlock everything, but there is no clear path, each node unlocks surround ones that are previously hidden. Each node comes with stacking bonuses, and as you can imagine some are more important than others. Animal enrichment items give an over buff for how much happiness they have per item in their enclosures. Buying lampposts allow you stay open for longer, better transport, decorations increase visitors happiness and how much they want to spend. You also get access to atms, richer visitors, how much they rest when they sit on a bench or when using a shelter. This list goes on somewhat. For me this is a step up on the usual park building sims I’ve played and it’s something I’d like to see integrated more in the future.

Each animal has there own feeding requirements

Now this game isn’t completely perfect but very nearly. I do have some negatives, one I’ve already mentioned the breeding. You get access to nurseries and you pick a pair to breed and they have a chance of producing the necessary offspring you are after. It basically doesn’t happen, you get stuck on 1 or 2 genomes left and they have like 26% success rates, it’s fucking nonsense. Now my big three annoyances, at number 3. The pens entrances get blocked for no good reason and the zoo keepers can’t get in no matter what you do. You can’t just pick them up and plop them in there either, it’s bullshit. You could do that in the first rollercoaster tycoon, it’s a feature I’d like to be added. The only way to fix this is seems to be moving the entire pen and that’s if you’ve got room cause if not they all die from hunger. Now for number 2, low water, with every passing day comes the rising sun and the animals ever increasing thirst. For me this is the Ducks, the Geese, the snakes, the meerkats, it’s ceaseless. Now this ties directly into the biggest pain in my ass. The relentless overpopulation, some animals just don’t fucking stop. I give the bigger pens and more water and everyday they’ve tripled. The game gives you population hut’s as well feeding to auto buy food. Now I must be doing it wrong as from what I can tell. They straight up don’t work. I have to use the conservation hut to release an endless stream rabbits into the world every day. It takes away something when you have to start every day messing around with stocking up food, releasing a hundred animals, all the while the constant breeding fails for the variant you actually want.

I give this game a very high 9 out of 10, Pure Tasty Gaming.

This game comes with great art style and real in-depth sim management that I wasn’t expecting. It’s easy to sink a couple hours in and not achieve much but at the same time achieve a fair amount. A few quality of life improvements wouldn’t go amiss, like calm down the animal fucking, being able to move your staff as you’d please as well as knowing who’s being assigned to which zones for easier control of getting your animals fed,watered and cleaned more efficiently. However, none of this detracts on how fun the game is overall and I’m very much looking forward to going down the evil route in the future.

Released 29th September 2022 on Sony Playstation 5

Burnout 3: Takedown

This won’t be a massive review, for two reasons. I don’t think this classic really needs me to ramble all that much to do it justice, plus, I won’t lie I haven’t not played it all that much around 6 hours or so, so a fair chunk at the very least. What can I say I’m a busy guy, truthfully I’ve been trying to get the platinum on GhostWire, I’m nearly there only another 70k spirits to collect and then just the remaining collectibles I’ve not found yet, as well as playing WWE 2k23 a fair bit. I’m easily distracted, which leads me to playing a hundred games a go. I fully intend to play this game some more causing further backlog where it isn’t required.

Anyhow, on with the review. I’m going to first mention the soundtrack for this game. I feel it needs an honourable mention of sorts. With this coming out in 2004, the soundtrack is littered with punk, pop-punk bangers. From the likes of Rise Against, Pennywise, My Chemical Romance, the Romanes just to mention a few. This is something I find games of now really lack, it goes hand in hand with the Need for Speed Underground 1 and 2 with their glorious soundtracks. It could just be age catching up with me at this point as I am no longer a sprite fit youngling. I’m an old, out of shape mess who has fond memories of late 90’s to early 2000’s music. As well as playing these racing gems back in a time where I didn’t have mass debt and a job.

A standard race for me, a full wipe-out.

Again, back to the review I digress once more. The gameplay doesn’t need to be mentioned all that much it’s an arcade racer. At it’s core, it’s like any base racing game, and with any other title it gets spiced up in their own way. In this case it’s the carnage. I love it. It’s definitely the biggest strength of the game, but sometimes it’s also a detriment. This could be from just the games age showing through, meaning the driving isn’t as flush and receptive as the modern day counterparts, and with the base cars turning and drifting is the drizzling shits. What normally happens is I just plough into oncoming traffic, a pillar or head first into a blocked off section. As I said it could be the driving or it could be that I am just dog shit at the game, who’s to say. Don’t get me wrong the driving isn’t horrendous and works well enough, you can tell the difference between cars. The tracks aren’t massively populated but the longer trucks and buses can be a real pain in the arse though. Along with standard races, you get time trials, preview laps, face offs, road rage and crash mode. The last two being the best versions. The aim to make your opponents crash the most through take-downs and slamming them in a standard race setting. With crash mode, get some pick ups and then ram into traffic and just exploding the ever loving shit of everything in the vicinity for the highest cost from damage caused.

Can’t beat a bit of Crash mode. Pure chaos.

The game in terms of graphics and fidelity doesn’t hold up all that well. It doesn’t look bad but you can tell it’s coming on 20 years old. It handles and plays well, if not looking a tad fuzzy on my 4k TV, but it wasn’t made with that screen in mind. With the 173 events spread over multiple tracks in the US, Europe and Asia. It has a decent amount of variety and with everything being fast paced and really soaking in the arcade simulator minus the £1 a go play. Along with like 70 unlockable cars from getting gold medals, total takedowns, damage caused form the crash mode. There is enough to keep you occupied for a good 25-30 hours just to unlock and do everything. It’s highly replayable, and the most important it’s so much fucking fun. You can easily pass an hour in no time, in just trying to achieve a gold medal in one event.

I am awarding this game a 10/10, Real Fuckin’ Tasty.

I can’t overstate enough how much fun it is, even in the few short hours I’ve put into it. I was never bored and just enjoyed smashing into other cars at normal speed or whilst boosting. It still plays well, and enough variety to stop it from getting stale fast. Also, being on the PS2 it has the added benefit of local co-op. Something that I can easily see ramping the fun up even more. Not every game needs to be a graphical juggernaut, with an oscar level driven story and voice acting. Not that is a bad thing. I just think most games don’t have the simplicity and fun this game still showcases far above many newer games that fit into the same category. Even after nabbbing some footage for this review I carried on playing for another hour.

Released 7th September 2004, Sony Playstation 2.

Final Fantasy 16

I tried my hardest in not buying this game, and I told myself I’d wait until it went on offer or until it dropped in price. I did neither of these things, naturally. I bought it pretty much straight away, I did however manage to hold off from playing it for a while. Mainly whilst I completed Ghostwire, played some AEW fight forever and Tears of the Kingdom in between. I even put some hours into Tiny Tina’s wonderlands, as well as Timesplitters 2 and Burnout 3. Some would argue I have an attention problem, I’d be highly inclined to agree. Now I have been fully invested in the Final Fantasy games since the PS1 era, but I really came to love it with X, and then when XII came along I was fully hooked. This is somewhat similar to what XV was like, not everyone’s cup of tea. You’ll never please everyone and everyone also has a voice in expressing their opinion on what a Final Fantasy mainline entry should be. Now hear me out on this but that’s up to Square Enix and the team that makes them, so as long as it’s called Final Fantasy it is one. No point clinging onto the older turn based battle systems that let’s be honest fucked off like 20 plus years back now.

Needless to say I thoroughly enjoyed the newest entry much as I did XV before. Now XV did a fairly piss poor job of the main story but did well on the other stuff, exploration, dungeons, side quest, a nice open area, shit loads of enemies and bosses. This was a real complaint then and still is now, I still platinumed the shit out of it, as I intend to this once the DLC drops. So XVI excels in it’s story but real is a bit of wet blanket on the rest of the stuff it seems the flipped it around this time. Now luckily the story is is a good ‘un. Primarily focusing on Clive Rosfield and light spoiler here as he and his cohorts go about killing a God. It takes place at three points of his life, so from time to time there is a timeskip, which basically just adds longer hair and some face fluff. The linear design as a result means no direct open world. Rather more a Dragon Age Inquisition style of several large areas which are placed to make it feel as though you traverse the land mass of Valisthea. Now another feature that is primarily gone in the game is the party function. You do have several non-recurring characters that join you and fight alongside you, but you have no control over their move set or weapons etc. Now you do have Torgal (truly the bestest boy) at your side pretty much always and have some slight control, you have two attack commands and healing. Even I’d admit this is a bit of let down, one of the best features of Final Fantasy games and the like is the picking your companions, and creating a synergistic build. What you get instead is Clive and the special moves that come along with all of the different Eikon powers you amass.

Just one of the may impressive landscapes.

This game’s highlight is definitely the big set pieces involving the boss fights. In this world special people become dominants and get the powers to turn into Eikons. Which from previous series you’d recognise as the big summons that do a boat load of damage, and usually require unlocking. Now these really are impressive, from fighting ripping through the Earth like Gandalf ragging on the Balrog, or from having meteors rain down on you as you fight a Bahamut above the world below. You get a sense of how much bigger and powerful these creatures are in comparison to the average human. As you fight them as normal, there are cutscenes sprinkled throughout them as well as quick time events and they just come off as incredible.

Overall the combat isn’t ground breaking and in terms of even combos it’s slightly lacking. It comes across a bit Devil may Cry and with the big boss fights even a bit like Asura’s Wrath crossed with God of War. It handles well and functions as it should. You don’t really have the items or spell set from previous games either which somewhat limits the overall feel to fighting. There also isn’t status effects or ailments. Another problem that at the core if you got rid of certain enemies, and move names you could pass this off as game that isn’t a Final Fantasy, which I can agree with somewhat. You still have returning favourites in Chocobos and Moogles giving a small sprinkling of the older entries.

One of the coolest Eikon boss battles, just a glimpse of how big the scale of these fights go.

The game looks super crisp and detailed, definitely sitting up there in the upper games that have come out so far on the PS5. Even though you don’t have a singular open world to explore, the 4 different regions are designed so well, it does make you feel as though you are trekking through one. Seamlessly going from the desert to the dying and derelict swamp lands of Waloed. All having beautifully imposing castles and mother crystals towering on the horizon. The are highly detailed and truly first rate graphics. The move set that Clive can access all look top tier as well, and quickly swapping between 6 high levelled moves from throwing lightning bolts from Ramuh, cutting the fabric in space and time itself from Odin, or even summoning the flames of the Phoenix or Ifrit all look fantastically individual and perfectly executed. Something that does come off as janky can be in game cutscenes, sometimes the mouth movements really don’t sync up well with what’s being said. This especially comes off when a pre-rendered scene plays out and the quality does spike somewhat.

It’s not the longest entry in the series, it took me around the 59 hour mark to do everything. This obviously included the main story, every side quest and hunts. It’s pretty hard to not to do the side quests as for most the game there’s like 2 or 3 that randomly pop up every few main quests. Then in the last quarter of the game you get two big ol’ dumps of them. I found this to be the most enjoyable time playing the game. Having a reason to do the hunts, the longer quest chains which unlocked several new craft able weapons and armours. Crafting again is massively minimal. I feel this is one aspect that really wasn’t fleshed out. There are few unlockable schematics and you can often just out right buy them instead of making them. Every now and again you can get a slightly better version, much like you can upgrade certain armour pieces or rings/necklaces you can wear. These also don’t do a fat lot. Most of the missions are just fetch or kill quests, which again feel under worked. I would recommend sticking it out though, as the last few especially really help give more character to a chunk of the supporting cast, as well as function to build world lore, so it’s not completely worthless.

One of the coolest moves in the game, just astral God lasers annihilating the ever loving shit out of everything.

Something else to mention here, unsurprisingly with the 18 rating stamped on this game. This is definitely the bloodiest and most violent game in the series. Outside of Type- 0 I can’t really remember there being much in the way of blood. It’s not overly gory and most of the extreme moments happen off camera, however the game is littered with corpses and blood sprays everywhere. No idea if this is to become the norm for what comes next but I don’t mind it. It fits the setting and tone of the game. It’s like a weird mesh of the Witcher, Dragons Dogma and earlier final fantasy games. What I personally found more of shift rather then the violence is the swearing, having Clive drop the word fuck and shit repeatedly is truly new. In saying that most the swearing seems to come from Gav. The general atmosphere of the game is grim, dark and mainly miserable. Again fitting the tone with the warring nations, it’s pretty much everyone is either dead, will be dead or you are looking for them and they are also dead. So, in having this grim more mature outlook could also be a bit of a turn off for returning fans but the narrative pays off in setting up this new world in which Clive is looking to change for the better, another point adding to the notion in sticking it out.

Your skill tree that can be re-spec at any time.

If you want some epic boss fights with a strong linear story driven game, all powered behind the engine that is the Final Fantasy series in all it’s glory and legacy, then this game is well worth your time, it’s stellar in so many aspects. It does unfortunately falter in a few minor aspects. This comes from mostly weak side quests, slightly underdeveloped side characters which also includes no control of them, next to no exploration, few items and honestly disappointing crafting. None of this directly hampers the game, and could be argued as a personal preference or just being downright picky. I will almost certainly play through the entire game again when the time comes to collect the platinum trophy. Seeing as the only two left to get are get all Eikon abilities fully upgraded, and to run it back on final fantasy difficulty on NG+. I am waiting patiently for the 2 paid DLC’s that have been announced. I’d honestly love if one was just side quests, items, more crafting, additions of a few hidden bosses, bring back the dungeons, a few new standard enemies. I feel padding out what’s already there is far more beneficial then potentially unnecessary story content which for the most part I think isn’t all that needed.

I rate this game a staggeringly high 9/10, Certified Pure Tasty Gaming.

I thoroughly enjoyed this game from top to bottom, it has it’s weak points as do most games, but mostly nothing too detrimental. The Eikon fights alone give this game a 6/10. Truly a highlight and something I’d very much like to see fleshed out in the newer entries of the future. It’s a great game with a strong start of lore/world building. Graphically it’s great the combat isn’t technical but looks hella flashy with the abilities. I’m excited for the DLC, given how engaging the story was this time round and who knows it may even get a sequel like 10 and 13.

Released 22nd June 2023 on Sony Playstation 5.

My newest additions

I’ve not been very active as of late and I can only apologise for that my lovely people. You know how it goes, just the usual stuff mainly life getting in the way. Even with the average constraints of time and life slipping by without productivity, I have managed to attain a few more titles for my collection.

Please see below for some expert pictures, only the best quality here.

This picture comes with added artistic flair some would say.

I had initially gone out of my way to buy the Final Fantasy 13 trilogy. This mainly comes from the fact I’ve sunk nearly 50 hours into 16 and nearly completed it. I had begun reminiscing of previous titles in the series. With 13 being among them, having many fond mementoes of this game and enjoying part 2. Strangely enough though I never got round to playing the concluding part in lightning returns. Still can’t currently as I couldn’t find it, I’ll probs pick it up offline in the near future. These two titles alone will sink around another 100 or so hours of my life before getting to that anyhow.

I also got a super bargain in the 3DS port of Majoras mask. Which is one of my big wants for my N64 collection. Having never actually played it and skipping past it back when it re-released in 2015, managing to get it for cheaps is always a positive. Cause by god I love me a good fucking bargain.

Another 10/10 picture which doesn’t show the shit condition of some of the cases.

Lastly, I went for Predator on the Xbox. Part of my collection I admit I do tend to ignore. I just get so backed up in playing so many other games at once I forgot to give some of these a go. I’m not sure what it was as a child that made me want to play this so much. To my knowledge I never did or I played a demo of something that resembles it. However in my old age I now have somewhat of an expendable income which allows my to spunk money on games I wanted and could never get. Except for Pokémon XD Gale of Darkness. That fucker just keeps going up and up. So if any of you nice people out there wanna throw it my way for cheap I won’t say no.

One thing I have noticed is that most second hand game cases always look fucked in some way. Random dents, holes and general shit stains on them. I understand that wear and tear exists but I don’t get how some of these games get in such a state. I think it’s about time people start to respect this stuff a bit more. I mean it could just be me, but if you don’t intend to keep it you may as well look after it by not throwing the disc through a blender, but what do I know.

Again another quick collection update has come and gone. I’ll try and get some more reviews done as soon as I’m able too. Until then, stay frosty and always stay fucking tasty.

GhostWire Tokyo

I waited a while before picking this up, I was pretty sold on the game with the style and setting piquing my interests from early footage. I did hold off awhile namely due to the reviews not coming off as the best sorta around the middle ground. I get not every game can be a God of War or Ghost of Tsushima. This didn’t stop me being pleasantly surprised by it once I eventually started playing it.

The game’s biggest accomplishment comes from the open world itself. The district of Shibuya is the main playground for this game. It’s a highlight of an open world, with the game permanently set in darkness and with onset downpours aiding in the atmosphere set in this horror light setting. The streets are littered with abandoned vehicles, bicycles, walls covered in graffiti, Yokai cat venders which are a particular highlight for me. The world isn’t completely devoid of life cats and dogs roam around still which you can in fact communicate with.

This is the most interesting boss battle, having to use stealthy tactics.

The recreation and design of everything is on point. It looks fantastic whether it’s aimless wondering, or using a Tengu to scale the heights of the buildings in search off some pour trapped souls to collect or some hidden Tanuki. Some of the many collectibles dotted around the world to be collected. They also come in audio tapes, relics, jizo statues and case files amongst other things. Most of which I’d argue isn’t worth getting unless you are going for the full platinum trophy run. Collecting the trapped souls is worth while though as it gains you easy XP and with levelling up you gain extra HP and skill points to put into your skill tree.

Some stealthy core smashing, an easier way to take out the weaker visistors.

As you wonder the streets and alley ways of Shibuya which are now deserted from the big bad of the game Hannya. Who decides to fuck everywhere up with a spell, turning everyone into a pile of clothes from where their spirit was forcible ripped from them, all with the aim to amass 240,000 lost souls. Which coincidently is the amount you’ll have to collect for a trophy, each floating pile luckily contains on average 100 souls if not more so there isn’t actually 240k to collect.

Just some spirit absorption, the main bulk of the collecting you’ll do in the game.

The main characters of the game are Akito and the soul KK who gives Akito his powers. These powers are used to fight the visitors of the world. Along with the spider threads add on, there is around 30 or so different enemies to combat. Again their design is tight, they really fit in with the horror aesthetic. If anything they are the most horror part of the game, even though they look great but this leads on to one the flaws of the game. The combat is kinda basic if not uninspired, and this goes for the visitors. They all only have a few different moves so it’s easy to get use to what they are going to do. You only have basic combos, even with upgrade sit doesn’t do much, faster fire rate and slight damage boosts. Dodge and blocking is pretty wank, and clunky. It wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t such an integral part of the game. Considering everything involves shooting wind,water or fire based attacks out of your hands. The only bit that changes it up is you get a bow which one shots most enemies. Honestly i’m surprised their wasn’t a sword or something similar introduced even late into the game. The combat is easy to get to grips with but it is highly repetitive, the same can be said for many open worlds, however the animations and moves them selves with the hand sigils you use give a fluid motion and expression to them at the very least.

Something else that lets the game down is the story, and the way it’s interwoven into the 6 chapters you play though. It’s not that it’s bad, far from it, the main characters are well written and the story itself I found to be pretty decent. I find the while game and it’s themes revolve around the sense of loss, and it’s never focused on that much. This could’ve gone into the boss battles, given them more personality and reason behind it. Even in the side missions which some are slightly stranger in tone and work well as a result, especially when introducing the yokai you hunt. You don’t get to the meat of the story until around chapter 4, and for me chapter 5 as result is one of the strongest chapters. Especially how well they deal with Akito’s back story and his childhood with his sister. Considering KK is the second biggest character again focusing around loss and his family, you find out very little about him and what you do isn’t until at least half way through the game.

Another game fully representing myself, here in the form of a door yokai.

I did really enjoy this game, it just fell flat a bit. Even with the open world, you only unlock side quests by cleansing torii gates which only involves clearing the area out of visitors. I think if this game does get a sequel, it just needs to build upon everything here. A better skill tree/upgrades for builds. Maybe even adding another weapon or two for variety. You get talismans that can stun enemies or expose their cores for insta kill. Again though they don’t necessarily do much and can easily be forgotten. I think the story could be fleshed out more, I’d even think making files you find around the district could easily add an easier layer of depth to the game, especially story related. Even a few longer side quests that add to the lore. Add to this with some better enemy physics and greater move sets would make for a real top tier game.

Just a casual big ol’ lucky cat wearing a mask. ‘Cause why not.

If you can pick this up on sale or second hand, it’s worth a go, it really is. The story with some additional exploration and quest completion. I can’t imagine it’ll take much more then 16 hours to do. It can be easily put down and picked back up again at a whim, and if you choose to go for the platinum it’s basically just find and do everything. Nothing too tasking, maybe a bit tedious but the game does make for cataloguing what you’ve missed or collected very easy. Even using spirit vision that highlights enemies and collectibles in the immediate area. The dual sense does make a relic or jizo statue specific noise again aiding in getting everything. I think one other thing I should mention is that this is a horror based game. Another thing that could be turned up a notch or so, especially considering this comes from the studio that made the evil within games. I mean this could be more a personal preference, but considering it’s based around Japanese folklore and superstition it’s something that could aid in the overall feel of the game. Again a small addition aiding in building on top of the basic foundations already in place.

I’d give this game a very strong 7/10, Positively Tasty. A strong foundation for a new series with an interesting concept taking place in a beautifully dark vision of Tokyo, that can only be strengthened by adding to the existing base.

Released March 25th 2022 on Sony Playstation 5

CyberPunk 2077

This is one of the many reviews I have half started, or nearly completed and I think with the release of the DLC Phantom Liberty on the very near horizon it’s worth putting this review out now. I never got round to getting any footage of the game, mainly due to the fact I wrote this after doing everything so there wasn’t a fat lot to get footage of as a result. I will also be putting everything on hold for the DLC and playing through from the beginning again, as I am deeply invested in this game. So I will be getting an endless amount of footage and I will be returning to do an updated review, with some nice shiny pics and vid clips.

Well what a difference a bit of time makes, I am in no way defending the way the game initially launched back in November 2020. I mean I’ve always played it on PS5 so I never had that much grief, and rather enjoyed it first time round, but since patch 1.5 dropped adding a next-gen spruce and some smaller bits of DLC, bundled with many many smaller patches prior. The game really has had a second coming, and could easily fall in to the category of No Mans Sky with the turn around that it’s had.

On this 100% platinum run I did, which clocked me in at just under 80 hours, so there is a far whack of content to be had. I had nothing but a grand ol’ time. I thoroughly enjoyed it to the point it was the only game I played until I was done. Having re-jigged the skill trees, and made driving actually bearable even if the best cars are still needed for a fluid drive, the open world of Night City has never felt better to be a rampaging mercenary on a quest to stay alive all the while trying to take down one of the worlds biggest megacorps. All this is accompanied by the masterclass choice of Keanu Reeves as Johnny Silverhand, which really aids in the story telling and to get a feel for how the times have changed in the world and subsequent evolution over 50 years. With the character arc really unfolding over the course of all the side content rather than the main missions. All of which makes for an interesting perspective and overall outlook of the character from the initial meeting with him.

The world of night city for me is one of the best open worlds I have played in, the world whilst still lacking in a few places now feels reactive and alive. Certain areas are more active on the time of day, how crowds now react to gun fire, either running away, cowering or even joining in, fast travelling around and seeing a random car bomb go off, shows you what sort of city you are in. With all the neon lights flooding your vision at every turn, or the sweeping carriageways that interlink the whole city together, and take you out to the sticks where you can see massive energy stations,a giant burning rubbish heap, hidden slums or even abandoned half way stations leading to a new city the corps have left half finished. All the while flying cars litter the skies above with massive cargo ships, and giant advertisements that blend straight into the clouds. It would be more fun if you could get a flying car, or like a mech suit or even parkour cybernetics that would make traversal far more fun and the world more open. Sadly the closest you’ll get to that is either double jump or boosters in your leg slot for your cyberware.

Shooting now feels far better and more responsive than before, which is an integral part of the game as you have to gun down hundred if not thousands of enemies in the various missions. Whether it’s the main quest, gigs offered to you be every districts fixers, NCPD hustles and active assaults, which near 200 hundred dotted over the entire map, or side missions, it’s nice to feel that as you upgrade your desired weapon tree that the later levels and perks really feel worth your time. Ammo for my rifle being my main weapon of choice though was always a bit of issue, I would run out all the time with the max you can hold being 700. I would always have to run to gun shops between missions as crafting ammo isn’t very economical and most ammo crates contained shotgun and pistol ammo.

I feel for the most part weapon and armour choice is fantastic but it’d be nice if there were some real hard to buy/unlock weapons and complete special sets of armour with dedicated bonuses across the board. This in turn would aid in your character build as even though weapons have elemental like effects for the most part it’s just an added gimmick, but more in-depth or a new skill tree to build on this would be the icing on cake as for the most part the armour you’d only pick the ones with the highest defence and armour bonus as the other perks were kinda shit.

For all there is to do in night city, a few more side missions wouldn’t go a miss this is something I do still feel they are short on, especially as having 5 main side characters with their own missions to complete, most feel an after thought. Rogue only has two missions, and River has three and his story could’ve been really fucking good if it was fleshed out more. And considering rogues story if completed can give you one of the 5 different endings you’d think more effort should’ve been spent there. Not that some of the more smaller ones aren’t fun like the sentient drinks vending machine Brendan, or the guy who’s cybernetic dong explodes on him. I also think some of the fixers should’ve had more gigs to give you. With Pacifica’s Mr Hands being annexed entirely, only giving you just a random one that unlocks along with the story, for the most part that entire area is lacking. This to a point also plays into the opening sequence with Jackie, rather then having a couple missions to play and get to know him better it’s all played out over a couple minutes worth of a cutscene.

The whole game is gritty,dark and utterly unforgiving, and this is reflected perfectly in the city itself. Each districts has it’s own distinct feel and design which are mirrored in the different gangs, some partake in extreme cybernetic modding and drugs which has ruined their remaining pysche. The human trafficking where people are gutted for parts to be sold. All this is a stark contrast to the bustling street markets and neon lit world around you, especially when you enter the corpo district with all the high rise offices and pent house apartments, which are still controlled from either dodgy dealings or just outright by the upper echelons of the Tyger Claws and Mox. With this even not escaping the upper classes as one of the best side missions you find out the potential next mayors’, brain has been transfigured to someone elses design with memory and personality manipulation. Which for me is where the expansions should lead onto as I feel there is much to be had there for exploration. Adding more lore building onto the netrunners of the city, who hack into everything and everyone.

Quick hacks in the game are a cool feature, allowing you to personally hack people or electronics in your surroundings. With the higher tier ones being the best, detonate grenades in peoples pockets, force them to commit suicide, cripple their movement or spread a virus among neighbouring allies, stunting them for easier take downs. If you want to go a more indirect route you can drop weights bars on them when they are working out, trigger tv, alarms to distract enemies, hack into the main servers through cameras and many many more options for you.

The entire world is fleshed out perfectly that only more minute and subtle details can add to the overall atmosphere. Say a few more shop fronts, maybe a few more missions with specific gangs,and some deeper more meaningful side missions. With the entire jacking in of personal constructs into machines, and the human modding this game has endless scenarios that it can go down. With the incredible engaging if not slightly short main story interwoven between all this. Great combat, along with choice of weapons at your disposal with a myriad styles of play at your fingertips. Up the level cap from 50, and add one maybe two more skill trees in. More personal customisation on your cars, weapons and character themselves all for making the replay value or choice of skill tree with the respec option becomes far more appealing. I could go on about all the other cool shit I’d like to see added in but I’ll wait patiently.

With more fixes on the horizon and confirmed expansions the skies the limit for this game, and potential series. I only see it getting better and better from here on out. And as of patch 1.5 it’s very nearly redeemed itself already. With potential to become one of my favourite games of all time. So lets hope that a new game plus mode drops some time soon as I will 100% be picking this game back up to go through again, this time to do a blade, slowing down time build to make use of the super cool mantis blades.

I’d certify this game a solid 10/10 real fuckin’ tasty

There is so much to love about this game now it’s practically fixed, and really deserves your time again or if you are a new player. With so much content packed into a near breathing, living city that is riddled with corruption and plagued by the biggest questions of life. Such as what happens to humanity with the addition of A.I, humans no longer dying, what makes a human, human, even personality constructs. This game storytelling is probably the biggest draw for me and really makes the weight of the actions of V seem of high importance, all fuelling the ending of your choice.

Released, 10th December 2020, Sony Playstation 4.

Luigi’s Mansion

This game has been on my playlist for some time, even going further back than when I initially got it. I had decided it was time in-between all the new and newer releases I’m playing I need to up my dedication somewhat to the older hidden gems and classics. So I reached into my old faithful that is my Gamecube and dug this one out. This review was supposed to have more pictures and some light video sprinkled into it, but it transpired my piece of shit capture software chose to not record most of my gameplay. Meaning there is only a few screenshots going at this time and can only give you my tasty followers a small apology which ultimately falls flat and probably means nothing, but alas I am sorry. I may choose to attempt to capture some more stuff in the not too distant future but I wouldn’t hold your breath. I wouldn’t mine.

Finally sitting down and putting a few hours into this game, and by few I mean a few. It isn’t a particularly long game. I’d imagine it’ll clock in the region of 6-8 hours for the vast majority of people so if you are expecting anything past that you’ll be sorely disappointed. All the action of the game takes place in the mansion. This mansion was awarded to Luigi in a game he never took part in and naturally Mario has been taken and gone missing in said mansion.

Professor E. Gadd, a new character whose first outing comes from this spin off series.

The gameplay and mechanics of this game highly differ from your standard Mario game, outside of returning characters and for some their first game appearances in the Mario universe. It’s completely different. This is for the best it helps set Luigi’s solo outing apart, giving way to two sequels so far.

Whilst roaming around the mansion, the game play fundamentality stays the same, you wander through all the different rooms and suck up some ghost with your modified vacuum cleaner, called the poltergust 3000. Once you have cleared the allotted ghosties, you are awarded with a chest that gives you a key to another room, as they are locked and if you wander into a room that doesn’t exist the door smashes you up a wall knocking some of your health off. There is a few variety of different ghosts to suck up and turn into portraits for some reason and then at your leisure you can look at them in a gallery at any time. You also gain the access to water, fire and ice elements which help you with certain puzzles and enemies. Whilst you try and suck up the ghosts you have to wiggle the C-stick in the opposite direction to drain their health, which if you aren’t fast enough you get dragged around and slowly injures you. The coolest feature for me though is the Gameboy horror, this is where you track the map and rooms you’ve been too, your items and the ghost portraits you have collected so far. Not only that though you use it as a camera which helps you unlock how to defeat some of the mini-boss type ghosts, as sometimes your flashlight isn’t enough.

During your search for Mario, you also collect money, gold and cash notes which don’t really do shit. It just effects the sort of mansion you end up with at the end, which for the most part confuses me as they could’ve just added purchasable items or even just different clothing items.

The gallery where the smashed to fuck ghost you capture get forcefully get turned into paintings you can look at your leisure.

I’d imagine in the sequels every aspect here is built up upon, as this game is a solid entry level title. I’d even go as far as saying that potentially for a game in the Mario series it could’ve been a tad better. For a game that’s over 20 years old now, in some aspects graphically it holds up well. I imagine at the time it looked tip top. The styling of the game and the use of darkness do build up a horror light ambience, with out having to push the age rating up to far. The game excels in it’s audio, with everything being on point and being perfectly balanced aiding in the ambience the game is aiming to build. Along with Luigi’s minimal voice acting usually calling out for Mario as he searches the mansion, it’s gotta bit of extra content outside of the main story, mostly just collecting the extra hidden 50 Boo’s who have escaped. I’d say there isn’t much replay value in it, you can easily blast through it in a few hour sittings, or once you’ve done it once or twice probably easily done in one go. You do unlock a harder mode once you’ve completed the game, admittedly I’ve not bothered with this mode, namely cause I can’t be arsed. However if I did want to play it again I would probably give this version a go, it might add a little more to the game.

There isn’t a whole lot to write up here, as the game is short and once you get going outside of a few extra functions, the gameplay doesn’t change a whole lot. The only parts that stick out are the few boss fights that occur during the game, culminating in a fight against King Boo. It’s an easy game to pass a few hours in, and if you like Mario games and ghostbusters, then you’ve got a neat little hybrid here.

Overall I’d rate this game a meaty 7/10, Positively Tasty. A strong first outing, for a series that is now over 20 years old and I’d imagine only get better with each sequel.

Released May 3rd 2002 on Nintendo Gamecube.