PixlBit

Yes I've seen some promo shots of Styx clinging to high structures which did recall Tomb Raider, PoP, etc. in my mind. Thanks for the reminder

Ok, well I'm not going to waste my time with Uncharted 1 then. I thought the platforming aspect would be more prominent, but doesn't sound that way. This series just isn't for me. I remember old Tomb Raider and the 3D Prince of Persia games. They had a sense of danger and thrill when it came to that. Like balancing on a tight rope, sometimes literally. Especially Tomb Raider sometimes you felt like Evel Knievel on legs with some of the traversal sequences they set up.  I don't think I once missed a jump in U2, or felt any sense of fear of height and falling. It felt entirely trivial and pointless to have that stuff in there.  And there is really nothing on the market that fills the void of those games now.  What, Assassin's Creed? More automated and can't fail movement.

I only played Uncharted 2. The gunplay and the platforming were weak imo. From what I've seen, the first game had more rigorous platforming. Seems like they dumbed/watered it down for the sequel. They auto corrected your jumps ffs. No sense of danger or being on the edge.

Personally..I thought FFX was weak as hell.  It does nothing I can't find better in other entries. The ony good thing it did was turn order being displayed on the screen...which crpgs had been doing for 20 years already. 

FFXII was amazing to me. A breath of fresh air for the series and JRPGs in general. Grand in scale, tons of content, lavish monster designs, lots of secrets, some good dungeon crawling atmosphere.  I never did finish the game, as I got caught up in grinding strats that took a long time. It's hard to complete a game like that because I start becoming obsessed with getting everything.  The biggest mark against it is that it's a wiki/strategy guide game. You will miss out on a lot of stuff that isn't intuitive to see or obtain. Second flaw is that many of the Espers are weak in combat. Was disappointing to summon this large creature just to have it go down in a few rounds. Thirdly, HP bloat on bosses; there is a point where knowledge and execution drops off and it's just about how much patience/time in the day you have.  Once you figure out your gambits/tactics for something like Yiazmat, it becomes a dull game of attrition. Not the kind of "challenge" I'm into.

Good luck with the platinum.

Damn, that's harrowing.

Another things is when you buy something you are buying based on the assumption that you will enjoy the thing, either because it looked interesting, spoke to your mind, or because it received a lot of praise, or a number of other reason. You are purchasing potential. And sometimes the actual experience of the thing either doesn't live up to the image you created of it, or isn't satisfying in some other way.

And let's face it, 10+ hours is a lot to spend on one single, continuous entertainment. WE don't always make it to the end. Some games, books, or Tv shows peak out eariler than they end, so that the rest is diminishing returns.

Retro isn't working on Metroid Prime 4

I've been saying that about the God of War camera since I saw it. Cutting off left hand "peripheral vision" and no rearward awareness seem like death to a good 3rd person melee system.

As far as Kirby and Yoshi: every new game in these series is new to somebody, so why the need to shake things up? Should companies just make games for the existing audience of jaded veterans? That's a narrow point of view. And yeah, going 3D would be the most obvious and thus not very interesting. Besides there is only so much you can do with a property before you start betraying its essence in the name of change (Hello Resident Evil). Better to come up with a new property with new ideas.

I mean, I don't even care if Anthem doesn't have any RPG elements. I'd rather have none than the meager ones we see in most AAA games. I'm not expecting New Vegas or Pillars of Eternity from this company. But there are a lot of action games out there and they have to be up to snuff if they are going to throw their hat into that arena. Actually I hope there is a healthy amount of exploration. World looks cool.

Poison as in the games don't sell well and are full of questionable design ideas. And Super Metroid was due to the genius of Gunpei Yoko and Makoto Kano. He didn't have the leadership position then he had now, even though he's creidted as director of that game. They had a different perspective of what Metroid is, one that apparently more people gel with. This is outside of whether or not Fusion and Zero Mission are good or not (they are well made, but their limitations compared to Super are obvious)

The games I'm interested in commenting on:

 The Last Night - my game of show runner up.

 Monster Hunter World - game of show. PC release and current generation production values on top of a series I already love

 Anthem - My inner graphics whore likes what it sees, but I don't think action games are Bioware's forte.But neither are RPGs anymore for that matter...

 God of War 4 - Tired of that left side skewed perspective in games. And I don't see how it can be good for melee combat with the lack of left side peripheral vision and rear visibility.  But I'm intrigued nonetheless.

 Samus Returns - sprites >>>>> 3D models, in sidescrollers. Plus Sakamoto is poison to this franchise.

 + Metroid Prime 4 - Name means nothing without the design talent to deliver something worthy of the name. No Retro on this, so who knows how it will turn out. Does Nintendo even understand Metroid? The appeal isn't in NPCs or 'story' in a conventional sense, it's in the world...