Games NOT Beaten 2017

[Sano]

Too-god-damn-many!

Including, but not limited to:
BOTW
FFXV
FFX and X-2 (PSVita HD Version)
FFXII (Original PS2 version)
Xenoblade Chronicles X

[Exhuminator]

Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain
So out of all the Legacy of Kain games, the first one was not developed by Crystal Dynamics, but rather Silicon Knights. I didn't know that until today after I spent about two hours playing Blood Omen. Well to be honest I've never been a big fan of Silicon Knights work, and Blood Omen didn't change that opinion. There's a lot I can respect about Blood Omen though. The story is dark and serious, as is the whole game really. It's a very gritty action-RPG about a vampire on a mission of revenge. The action is violent, with no shortage of the ability to be sadistic to everyone you encounter. You've got some cool abilities, like shape shifting, brutal magic, and horrific weaponry. However none of that matters because Blood Omen plays like a janky mess. Yeah I get this game is from 1996, but there's older action-RPGs than that which still play fine today. The biggest problem is the camera. How can you screw up a camera in a 2D overhead game? Silicon Knights pulled it off. If you zoom the camera all the way out, the lack of detail is detrimental to actually playing the game. If you zoom the camera in, the camera will erratically pan all over the place making this player get nearly nauseous. I also found the level designs to be sprawling and messy, filled with repetitive enemies and spikes galore. Voice acting is quite good, but the music is bland, and though the graphics are well animated, the lack of detail really hurts the experience. But truly the worst thing is the constant loading. Just going into your menu can take up to five seconds alone. So overall, I can see the plot potential and good intentions of Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain. But the execution was highly lacking, with the overall experience feeling amateur and sadly slipshod. I'm glad Crystal Dynamics took over development for this series.

Vanguard Bandits
After two hours of this junk, I can say I'm done. Well, I thought I was going to get a decent mech SRPG with some Working Designs charm. Nope. This is a bare bones dirt simple SRPG, with one of the blandest combat systems I've seen in the genre. It didn't take long for the mission designs to irritate the mess out of me. I mean it sure is fun to watch 15 enemy units slowly move around, waiting forever to finally get to move 1 or 2 units yourself. And once again Working Designs couldn't stop themselves from putting idiotic pop culture catchphrases into a game in which they clearly didn't belong. Yeah Vic, I'm sure the Japanese dialog said things like "Catch the wave!" and "Calgon take me away!" when you attacked enemy units. It also doesn't help that the plot was barely Saturday morning cartoon caliber. I really don't know what possessed Working Designs to even want to localize Vanguard Bandits. It's got lethargic and banal combat, boring mission designs, lackluster graphics, and a protagonist I couldn't stand. Yeah there's a reason I never see anybody talking about this droll potboiler on forums.

[Segata]

After Finishing two amazing games in Kiwami and Ys Origin. I decided to put FFXV back in to try the Ass Fest thing. Well, I gave up on it because it's just awful. It's Ass even for Ass Creed. Such horrible shoehorned mechanics.

So after that, I downloaded the PS+ game of the month Infamous Second Son. I never played this series. I don't think I want to after playing a couple hours of this. It feels like a mix of every cliche open world AAA game but also some B game on PS2. Combat is horrible. It's just another bland empty open world where you take over bases with arbitrary tasks with 2 enemy types.

[Segata]

I mentioned that about Legends in the Games Beaten thread, there's definitely a lot of similarities. One thing to consider though is that Legends came out in 1997, a full year before Ocarina of Time. So it's interesting to see which gets a lot of credit and which doesn't... heh. I'm now hours into 2 and it's even more like 3D Zelda, with different islands and unique dungeons that are more complex. Have you ever tried this one out? It's a pretty different flavor and the story seems more serious. But if you don't like N64 Zelda, yeah I'm not sure if you'd enjoy these then.

I've been curious about the differences between Legends PSX and Mega Man 64, but they don't sound too dramatic I guess. N64 probably doesn't have voice acting or the cutscenes? Maybe the PSX version is somehow better... but I can say it does start a little slow and is one of those games that gets better and better. Only took about 9 hours too so it's even shorter than the Zelda's.

Well... I'll take Legends and you can have Horizon.

It has Voice acting and cutscenes. The voices are pretty muffled, however. I like it tho since it adds analog control for Mega Man.

[PartridgeSenpai]

After Finishing two amazing games in Kiwami and Ys Origin. I decided to put FFXV back in to try the Ass Fest thing. Well, I gave up on it because it's just awful. It's Ass even for Ass Creed. Such horrible shoehorned mechanics.

So after that, I downloaded the PS+ game of the month Infamous Second Son. I never played this series. I don't think I want to after playing a couple hours of this. It feels like a mix of every cliche open world AAA game but also some B game on PS2. Combat is horrible. It's just another bland empty open world where you take over bases with arbitrary tasks with 2 enemy types.

Second Son is definitely the worst of the Infamous games. Infamous was there with the first Crackdown and Prototype in the "superhero vs gangs"-type theme of open world games, and Second Son really shows that the formula needed reworking (especially after all of the much better games like that that have come out since the PS4 launch) because it was getting stale even back in 2014. They don't help themselves when they fuck up things the old games did better, like having VERY few enemy types and boring powers (which yeah, you get newer more cool ones later but why can't I just have cool powers from the start? Why base your game around having not fun powers?) Then tie in the fact that Second Son's story is just nowhere nearly as well done as the old games and you have a recipe for a fairly weak third entry. Not a terrible game, but more mediocre than the series deserved. 1 and 2 can easily be found for $5 or less, so I'd definitely say one of them is worth trying out if you do like big-city open world games. If you're totally burnt out on big-city open world games, I'd say the series just isn't really for you.

[Markies]

Vanguard Bandits
After two hours of this junk, I can say I'm done. Well, I thought I was going to get a decent mech SRPG with some Working Designs charm. Nope. This is a bare bones dirt simple SRPG, with one of the blandest combat systems I've seen in the genre. It didn't take long for the mission designs to irritate the mess out of me. I mean it sure is fun to watch 15 enemy units slowly move around, waiting forever to finally get to move 1 or 2 units yourself. And once again Working Designs couldn't stop themselves from putting idiotic pop culture catchphrases into a game in which they clearly didn't belong. Yeah Vic, I'm sure the Japanese dialog said things like "Catch the wave!" and "Calgon take me away!" when you attacked enemy units. It also doesn't help that the plot was barely Saturday morning cartoon caliber. I really don't know what possessed Working Designs to even want to localize Vanguard Bandits. It's got lethargic and banal combat, boring mission designs, lackluster graphics, and a protagonist I couldn't stand. Yeah there's a reason I never see anybody talking about this droll potboiler on forums.

Vanguard Bandits is a game I own and played SEVERAL years ago. I wouldn't say it was as bad as you made it out to be, but I can definitely see where you are coming from. The game is not exciting at all and the battles can get really annoying.

Just to let you know, it does not get any better. The morale of your team affects stories and battles and it is concept that is basically out of your control. I was barely scraping by levels, so my morale was absolutely garbage. I eventually beat the game, but I got the worst ending in the game because of my crappy morale.

I beat it, so it's still in my collection. However, I have little desire to go back to it because if I did, I'd come up with the same opinion and then eventually just get rid of it.

[Segata]

After Finishing two amazing games in Kiwami and Ys Origin. I decided to put FFXV back in to try the Ass Fest thing. Well, I gave up on it because it's just awful. It's Ass even for Ass Creed. Such horrible shoehorned mechanics.

So after that, I downloaded the PS+ game of the month Infamous Second Son. I never played this series. I don't think I want to after playing a couple hours of this. It feels like a mix of every cliche open world AAA game but also some B game on PS2. Combat is horrible. It's just another bland empty open world where you take over bases with arbitrary tasks with 2 enemy types.

Second Son is definitely the worst of the Infamous games. Infamous was there with the first Crackdown and Prototype in the "superhero vs gangs"-type theme of open world games, and Second Son really shows that the formula needed reworking (especially after all of the much better games like that that have come out since the PS4 launch) because it was getting stale even back in 2014. They don't help themselves when they fuck up things the old games did better, like having VERY few enemy types and boring powers (which yeah, you get newer more cool ones later but why can't I just have cool powers from the start? Why base your game around having not fun powers?) Then tie in the fact that Second Son's story is just nowhere nearly as well done as the old games and you have a recipe for a fairly weak third entry. Not a terrible game, but more mediocre than the series deserved. 1 and 2 can easily be found for $5 or less, so I'd definitely say one of them is worth trying out if you do like big-city open world games. If you're totally burnt out on big-city open world games, I'd say the series just isn't really for you.

I love an open world in theory. My favorite thing to do in ANY genre of game is exploring. Even a fighting game. I know it sounds impossible. I like to pause the game and look at the backgrounds a lot for example (I esp did this in Smash bros games and more modern fighting games as they let you look at them). Old NES games I wish I could explore the world in those backgrounds in 3D. So I love the idea of them. The problem is so many AAA devs suck at it. They are often just playgrounds or give you a check list. The GTA formula is also so worn out to me. The worst kind to me is the Ubisoft formula. Towers and icons and taking bases to bring a percentage down. Shenmue, XCX, Botw were such a breath of fresh air. Botw esp (I like the art of the world in XCX better) because it's the game I wanted since playing Zelda on NES. Exploring that world in 3D with total freedom to explore and experiment. In TP when I got it in 2006 I tried to pretend to add more to it by "camping" at spots like I was on a bigger journey than I was. Botw makes you want to explore and discover. Games with a big world or open world should let the player discover and not give them a series of checklists with a crap ton of icons on a map right away. Destroy so much of this, collect this, destroy this on bases, blow up thing, fight base boss thing. Ugh.. Keep using Botw but it;s a great example. Botw has towers yes but they don't give you icons and approaching them to get to the top each offer a different challenge for you to experiment.

[Exhuminator]

Just to let you know, it does not get any better.

I appreciate you letting me know that.

I started playing Vanguard Bandits because someone told me it was a better PS1 mech SRPG than Front Mission 3. Ha! That guy must have been high.

[BoneSnapDeez]

Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain

Funny you mentioned this. I almost began a playthrough the other day but got distracted. I just purchased the rest of the series on GOG.com, but this one's not included (licensing issues?).

Vanguard Bandits is a pile. Part of the Working Designs "ass trilogy" along with Vay and Cosmic Fantasy 2.

[Xeogred]

Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain

Funny you mentioned this. I almost began a playthrough the other day but got distracted. I just purchased the rest of the series on GOG.com, but this one's not included (licensing issues?).

Vanguard Bandits is a pile. Part of the Working Designs "ass trilogy" along with Vay and Cosmic Fantasy 2.

I wonder if the GOG versions are better, Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver on Steam seems funked up.