Games You Played in January 2017

We'll give this thread another try. What did you play this past month? And will you be getting any new releases in February?

I will be getting Persona 5...Persona 5...Persona 5. Final Fantasy XV has been a fairly big disappointment as it wears on, but everyone I know who played P5 says it's everything I want it to be so suffice to say I am HYPED.

I'm also replaying Mark of the Ninja and the DLC which I picked up in the winter sale. I still have Last Guardian and Dark Souls III on the shelf and I have every intention of replaying FF7 after I finish XV.

EDIT:

...Persona 5 was delayed to April. I feel...so sad. But it's probably the best for my backlog.

Volgarr The Viking (PS4/Vita): I continued my playthrough from the tail end of December. I started on the PS4 and then switched to the Vita and once again, it turned into a game that works better on the Vita for me. I managed to beat this tough bastard but only to find that I unlocked one of three endings so I'll probably return to this.

The Division: I jumped back into this one after the news of patches had reportedly resulted in a more balanced game with more content. I do feel that it's a better game in terms of controls and things to do, even if I'm still too much of a scaredy cat to venture into The Dark World for any reason right now. I'll probably buy the season pass this weekend so I can jump into the bonus areas and get some better loot.

Stardew Valley: The PS4 port of this is charming and very relaxing. I really hope the Vita port comes around soon. This would be perfect on the go.

I also keep playing Overwatch, Titanfall 2 and I've even given the Survival mode of Uncharted 4 some attention.

Games I finished:

Shantae and the Pirate's Curse: I loved this. A retro throwback done right. Set up like a Metroidvania and a sidescrolling Zelda. Has a wonderful world full of colorful characters and a great sense of humor. Looking forward to playing the new one soon. Grade: A-

Oxenfree: This is a really cool game. It is sort of in the mold of the Telltale games and Life is Strange. It is similarly dialogue-driven, but it lets you play as conversations play out and is more of a 2D game I guess. I love the dialogue. It has the feel of some of the TV shows I like and it gets sarcastic dialogue between friends right. The atmosphere and artstyle are great too. A fun, spooky adventure.Grade: B+

Games I started:

Gravity Rush 2: I've really enjoyed what I have played for the most part. It has many of the same strengths as the original with some nice improvements you'd expect from a sequel. I do feel there is some open-world bloat though and some bad mission designs that bring it down. I think I'm maybe two-thirds of the way through, but may focus on the story for now and come back for side stuff later.

Battlefield 1: Played a bit of this one's campaign. I respect what they are trying to do with the story given the tricky nature of tackling this war, but I was just super bored playing it. Maybe these sort of FPS games just aren't for me. I don't think I've ever enjoyed one of these military campaigns all that much.

Unravel: I like the idea of this game, but the execution is really lacking. The controls can be really finicky and the way it saves made me lose a bunch of progress both times I turned it off which was frustrating. There are some cool physics puzzles and the look of the game is certainly pretty unique, but overall I just haven't been digging it very much.

I'm very excited for Horizon this month, but the fact that it is coming right before Zelda puts me in a bit of a tough spot. If they weren't both big open-world games with bow combat, I'd be more inclined to play them simultaneously, but as is I'm a bit unsure what to do now.

Fallout 4- A good game, but not as good as the 7th gen games. Mostly due to the awful new leveling system. No more stat building, just pick a single perk you have to upgrade SPECIAL for to get a good one. But combat is so much better and I love the angle they took for the story where there's quite a bit of a personal v ethical approach. Boston is cool, better than Mojave Wasteland, but not as cool as the capital wasteland. B+

Not picking anything up for Feb. Had Nier and Persona preordered, but cancelled them so I could get a Switch at launch. Gonna just be playing DQVIII this month.

Trip I'd base your choice based on whether you want a Switch at launch or wait a bit.

Yeah I'm definitely getting the Switch and Zelda at launch now. So I guess what I was saying was I may wait on Horizon until after I finish Zelda. Maybe rent Neir during as it would seem a better complimentary experience while playing Zelda. Or perhaps I'm just overthinking it and will play both at once, but in my mind it doesn't seem ideal.

I know I'm gonna be having trouble juggling Zelda and Mass Effect to March, want to take my time with Zelda, but it's too big and close to ME to finish it before that game and do that. Horizon I feel would be easier to wait on since you don't know what you're missing out on as opposed to the other two games where I know exactly what I'm missing out on.

Yakuza 0 - prequel showing the origins of Kazuma Kiryu and Goro Majima. I enjoy the stories, roaming around Tokyo, and the brutality of the combat. It's honestly funner to me than Grand Theft Auto. A-

I've always meant to try the Yakuza series, is this a good jumping in point?

I think the only new game I played in January was Superhot. Played about 45 minutes but decided to refund it. It's not bad at all but now that the hype has died down, the central mechanic just doesn't seem as interesting. It peaked at the elevator level in my opinion

Ocarina of Time - I finally got around to beating this game. I've attempted it probably 3 times in my life, but the only way I had to play it was the Wii and I rarely ever played my Wii so it would get forgotten. Having it on the handheld made it possible because I game a lot more on that since I take it to work. Great game, loved it, I'll give it an A+. Combat really isn't that fun though.

The Last Guardian - The camera and controls can be a bit wonky at times, but the story is fantastic. The cut scenes you get might be very few, but man are they powerful. A-

Final Fantasy XV - I beat it in December, but worked on the platinum in January. It's by no means my favorite Final Fantasy or even in the top 5, but it was a nice return from the lameness that was the XIII series. Loved all of the side quests, and I liked the bromance between the characters. Not a fan of how leveling up feels like it practically does nothing for you, that's a bigger gripe to me than the camera. Despite the flaws, I had a lot of fun with the game and I was expecting to hate it. A- The last few trophies really annoyed me, and almost made me rate it a B+, but since trophies shouldn't determine games, I'll let my original thoughts stand.

For anyone that cares, here's the Final Fantasy games I think that are better than XV...

VII, IX, X, V, VI, X-2, and probably XII (only played this once, and it was a while ago).

Final Fantasy XV - I read a review that summed it up best when they said that if you were to describe the outline of FFXV's plot to someone it would not only sound good but actually pretty great, yet would be so at odds with your experience of the game. There's some great ideas here but the execution of the story is so poor, everything from the world to the characters so underdeveloped, that none of it comes together. Ironically for such a big, physical world, the worlds of the SNES era Final Fantasy's felt more populated and bigger.

Also, it very much felt like a Japanese developer going "Skyrim...GTA...those are popular in the west! Do that!" But there's not much to actually DO. The sidequests are mostly MMO-style collectathons, the game desperately needs some QOL improvements. That said, there was SOMETHING that kept me at this game for almost 60 hours, but I'd hesitate to really recommend it to anyone when games like Skyrim and The Witcher are out there. C+

I will say though, FFXV has one of the best soundtracks since the Uematsu days though, good stuff.

It sure did have a great soundtrack. I mainly listened to the older game soundtracks while playing, but the original score was great too.