DisturbedSwan Posted December 23, 2016 Share Posted December 23, 2016 Played through it earlier. Really enjoyed it I have to say, watched all the first games cut scenes on YT so I knew what it was about before heading in. It's rather short as you say, chose the 'experienced' course and was pleased with how deep the combat is with the styles to switch in between, will take me a while to get used to the controls completely though, was still getting quite disorientated at times at the end and getting stuck in a ledge or something, but when it all comesa together it's great. There's nothing else like it really, very unique, graphically astounding and some great characters I've warmed to already, few worries over the combat and camera but it's still on track to be a day 1 buy for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DisturbedSwan Posted January 20, 2017 Author Share Posted January 20, 2017 Your wish is my command @Nag Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DisturbedSwan Posted January 20, 2017 Author Share Posted January 20, 2017 Started this off today, played through the first 4 hours. Unfortunately I can't really say I enjoyed it all that much, it has one of the worst starts to a game I've ever seen, reminded me of the start of Zelda: Skyward Sword it was that bad. You start off in this flying collection of man-made islands and the game proceeds to take you through a 3.5 hour tutorial doing medial tasks and making sure you know absolutely everything there is to know about the control scheme, the map, quests, enemies and everything. This includes a section where you fly from island to island doing challenges against enemies and collecting Ore, followed by a boss fight. It just feels like filler really, I was absolutely gagging to get into the city and have a nosey about and here I was finding a load of ducks on a floating island, just not what I expected at all and takes an absolute age before you get into the city itself. Things definitely picked up once I reached the city, I felt I was off the leash and could finally explore after hours of needless exposition. Got into my typical open world groove of picking up tons of gems, doing all side quests possible and taking to everyone I could before calling it a day. The side-quests have been rather boring so far, only had one which I enjoyed which was taking pics of 'beautiful women' for some old perv, everything else has been very boring and fetch-questy though. Had a few camera issues too where its spooned out on me whilst exploring and I strangely felt a bit queesy too at times, only had it once before in games with Mario Galaxy, so I guess my brain doesn't like gravity related shenanigans or something. So yeah, not a great first impression, the graphics are absolutely astounding (especially in 4K) just an absolute sight to behold, I've liked the combat too and Kat is an amazing character and personality but everything else has just left me cold so far, really hope things pick up tomorrow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DisturbedSwan Posted January 20, 2017 Author Share Posted January 20, 2017 I wholeheartedly disagree, FF XV had soul, humour and bants with the lads, this was just soulless floaty duck fetching Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DisturbedSwan Posted January 21, 2017 Author Share Posted January 21, 2017 Thankfully I've enjoyed this loads more today, as I said in my previous post I felt like I was finally free when I reached the city yesterday and things really started to click today, I was doing some missions finding gems ans doing a few story missions to and it all felt very free flowing and a lot of fun, the side quests still haven't been all that interesting but they've gotten a little better and I have had fun with a few of them now. Didn't realise how big the map was either, had to go to another area today in a story mission and discovered another 3 more areas I didn't even know existed, really cool heading down and seeing this shanty town I didn't even know existed appear from beyond the clouds. The story has finally managed to pick up too, after ages of appearing to do inconsequential fetch-quests for friends things have gotten much more interesting and intriguing. The undertones there about the rich and the poor and taking fuel from a naive rich women to give to the poor was a nice touch, really didn't expect a game like this to be critical of capitalism and its many negative aspects. So yeah, very pleased its now clicked for me and I'm having a lot of fun, got in my open world groove and am really enjoying it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DisturbedSwan Posted January 23, 2017 Author Share Posted January 23, 2017 Played another 3ish hours today. Not a big update in store, just wanted to say I'm still really enjoying it, it's clicked with me now and I'm having a lot of fun, the characters and their kookiness are what make it really, and the fantastically designed open-world, still not seen anything incredible from either the story or side-quests really, a couple of side-quests have made me chuckle, but most of them are incredibly boring hide n' seek type affairs, had one earlier where I had to defend a shop using only the stasis field to chuck boxes at enemies and it was one of the most frustrating things I've ever played, rage quit out of that after getting so annoyed with the 3rd phase. So yeah, I'm considering leaving the side-quests for now and mainlining it for a bit to try and make more of a dent in the story before Yakuza 0 arrives, I'm on Episode 10 now so I'm guessing I'm about half-way through. A few pics too: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DisturbedSwan Posted January 23, 2017 Author Share Posted January 23, 2017 Yeah it seemed weird that it gave you all of the styles in the Demo to learn and then you get midway through the game before you get your first one, really odd decision, I guess there hasn't been too much combat to do in the story so far, but even so it would've been nice to play around with them earlier on in proceedings. The stasis field is fantastic for dealing with mobs and I use it a lot, feels bloody badass too, but this particular side-quest required you to stay on a roof and have a finite amount of boxes to throw before you have to reorient yourself, move around an area to pick more up, all whilst defending this shop. You just want an unlimited amount of boxes to batter people with and when you press O and nothing gets sucked up when you desperately need it to, it's hella annoying, but yeah this is the only side-quest that has been incredibly annoying thus far luckily. I've got Resi coming too, no idea how I'm gonna juggle that and Yakuza 0 really, think I'll finish GR then make a start on Y0 and try to get some time on Resi at weekends or something. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spatular Posted January 23, 2017 Share Posted January 23, 2017 On 1/21/2017 at 11:17 AM, Nag said: Bumped into @Blakey i saw Blakey too, he's everywhere! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DisturbedSwan Posted January 24, 2017 Author Share Posted January 24, 2017 Had a mammoth 7 hour session on this earlier on my day off and made a hell of a lot of progress, now up to Chapter 3, Episode 15, probably around 18 hours in. Still having an absolute whale of a time with it, think it's probably gone up even more in my estimations. Concentrated mainly on the story missions, but still doing quite a few of the side-missions when they pop up, they've actually got surprisingly good today, it was the weakest part of the game for sure for me before today but now I've had a few which are really unique and interesting. One where you dress up as a Nurse and act as a stunt-double performing action sequences like falling of buildings etc. for a film crew and director, another where you dress up as another Gravity Shifter in Hekseville and have to lick an ice cream to make customers go to an ice cream parlour and another where you dress up as a waitress and hand out flyers to tons of people, just really unique, kooky encounters which I bloody loved. The story has been amazing today as well, after not much happening for quite a while now things started to heat up in Jirga Para Lhao, you face off against the council to protect the Benga settlement and then have to defeat a random monster drawn in from a gravity storm which has the ability to eat islands, loved all this stuff, felt really high stakes and intense at times and the couple of boss battles were great (albeit rather easy) and a huge ton of fun, as soon as I saw the Planet-Eater I just had a huge grin on my face. It actually felt like this might've been the end of the game if the Devs had just put this out on Vita as it was that climatic and had an end-game kind of feel about it, but no it goes on into Hekseville, I bet it's incredible going back here after exploring it in the first game and evokes a sense of nostalgia to those that have played the original, but for me it was just a cool new city really, had all these returning characters that I didn't really remember at all that Kat would bump into on the street and cool ties into the original like that. But yeah, for me it was just another bloody-huge, rich, unique city to explore. Set about doing my usual thing of getting loads of gems, then finished off a story mission, and that's when the incredibly cool side-missions above came into play, they actually award you outfits as rewards too so they're definitely worth doing. I would like to mention the Red Light District area of Hekseville in particular, as soon as I flew in there the mood changed from a rather happy (albeit more melancholic than Jirga Para Lhao) to one of seediness and noir, with an absolutely incredible jazz song playing when you arrive, all the lights lit up in Neon and a huge Ferris wheel, just absolutely adored it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DisturbedSwan Posted January 25, 2017 Author Share Posted January 25, 2017 Only had time for a short 90 minute session yesterday. Did a couple of story missions, got up to Episode 17, think I'm quite near the end now as things have ramped up again (seem to be near the end now) and a few of the incredible side-missions, I've no idea why they saved all the great side-missions for Hekseville I really don't, but they've been an absolute joy, did one earlier where I had to follow a suspected cheating boyfriend around, you wait outside the window and hear lots of innuendo like 'Oh I'm sure that will fit nicely...' and lots of giggling, do your Special attack to burst through the wall, drag the 'cheater' back to his girlfriend to find that he had actually been buying her an engagement ring and her friends had been helping him with the engraving Kat's little face and 'de duhhh' after it when she realises her mistake, such a fantastic character, a bit dopey and naive and that's why we love her. Going to try to get the 'Do 40 side missions trophy' and then mainline it and finish it off tomorrow hopefully. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DisturbedSwan Posted January 26, 2017 Author Share Posted January 26, 2017 Finished this earlier, took me about 26 hours or so. Continued on with the story missions this morning, followed by a couple of side-missions which get you a couple of outfits (Idol and School girl), then went back to finish off the story later in the afternoon. Unfortunately the last Episodes of the story let the whole thing down a bit, there was more of the goddamn stone tablet challenges, they just feel cheap and like a challenge room more than adding anything meaningful to the gameplay and they've been repeated far too much, with a couple more levels thrown in for good measure in the last few episodes which really disrupted the pace of things. It suffers from false endings too, you finish Chapter 20, the credits roll and then instead of finishing it comes up with 'Final Chapter - Eto', I thought this would be just be a brief epilogue but it went on for AGES, another 6 chapters to complete! SIX, and this was after facing a huge bombastic boss battle and seeing the credits, felt for sure it was the end of the game...but nope. The final chapter just isn't great at all, you make your way up a tower doing the stone tablet challenges, then when you reach the top an entire Episode is devoted to literally walking around a bit, the plot is interesting though (and will be even more so for those who played the original as it explains a lot of stuff, and more importantly who Kat is), then you're put into a series of incredibly dull puzzles where you have to move blocks about, so so damn boring and completely killed all the momentum the game had. It picks up a bit after this with a series of increasingly bombastic boss fights (that wouldn't look out of place in a Platinum game), but by that point I just wanted it to end really, that whole chapter should've been cut in my view, just put the ties back to Kat's past and who she is in a cutscene and be done with it, we don't need a load of episodes of pointless exposition. Loved the story, the characters, the majority of the side-quests and just exploring the cities, it felt so alive, so beautiful and just so magical to be flying over these amazing cel-shaded vistas bursting with a French flavour, but the actual story missions themselves let the game down a bit, particularly the final chapter which is mostly terrible. Still think it's worth playing though, such a unique, inventive and genuinely jolly game with fantastically written characters, so incredibly pleased a game like this got greenlit in this day and age, just don't expect too much fun from the final chapter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spatular Posted January 29, 2017 Share Posted January 29, 2017 i've been playing this loads, about 30 hours in, not been reading anything about it, still not finished and i'm taking it slow. unusually for me i've been doing all the side missions, collecting gems, doing the online treasure hunts, and there's so many i'm struggling now, which is why i don't usually do them all. think i might just get on with the main missions now and hope i can come back to the other stuff later. but i say that like it's a bad thing, if i didn't really like the game i wouldn't have been doing all that extra stuff in the first place. i really like floating and sliding about all over the place, and general atmosphere, just being in the game world - is great. i like the characters and the plot even if it probably is a bit silly. the missions can be really hit and miss, some of the side missions/challenges that involve racing/sliding, throwing people into cubes, crashing into as many people as possible, and other stuff, are usually fun. but there's others that involve things like finding info, stealth, and platforming (with no gravity powers), that range from boring to annoying, although sometimes they're good. and sometimes even if the missions aren't great the little stories that go with them can often be good. there's a massive amount of different mission types too, you're always doing new stuff, even if the new stuff isn't the best i guess it keeps things interesting. the main missions are generally better quality. some of the best bits from the first game were the timed races imo, and there aren't enough of those for my liking so far, and the difficulty seems to be all over the place, the first one is really simple but i've retried it 10+ times and i'm struggling to beat the top time, others i've done first try. i had real problems with the fighting in the original on the vita, but on ps4 i thought it was pretty good fun (not sure if anything other than a bigger screen and better controller was helping here) - where i would basically gravity kick everything, throwing stuff was a pain and not worth bothering with. in number 2, throwing stuff is much more viable and easier, and probably the best way to fight, but maybe not as fun as gravity kicks. then there's the other styles which are interesting but i get a bit confused between what they do and mainly stick to the normal one. the ikaruga voice when switching between them is ace. the graphics and music are both great, maybe the graphics aren't technically great but i like the style of it. so yeah i'm generally really enjoying it but maybe should have stuck to my usual policy of skipping most side missions. oh you can take pictures of stuff which is pretty cool too, some missions involve this, and there's treasure hunts where you get a picture of where the treasure is, then when you find it you take a picture that gets sent onto other people to help them find it - i really like these bits. although one area is pretty drab and samey which makes it really hard sometimes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spatular Posted January 31, 2017 Share Posted January 31, 2017 Finished just now, really enjoyed the end chapter, it's completely bonkers like asuras wrath or something. The story twists and turns, it's great. Did all the side missions and challenges and whatnot which is really unusual for me. 38 hours. I've read above what you guys think to it too and agree with most of it. I think its quite a mixed bag but I really enjoyed it. Think I enjoyed the last bit loads more than Blakey too. Main disappointment for me was the lack of decent challenge races, there are a few but I was hoping for more. And the combat was mixed too, seems like they improved some stuff from the first game but other parts not so much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spatular Posted February 2, 2017 Share Posted February 2, 2017 Yeah that bit was pretty crap, apart from one sliding bit I enjoyed. Sliding is pretty much the only thing I used that style for as it's much faster. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DisturbedSwan Posted February 15, 2017 Author Share Posted February 15, 2017 Sounds like we had a pretty similar time with it then @Nag. Jealous of that outfit too, looked for it on the PSN store but to no avail, did you get it from the Japanese PSN store or something? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DisturbedSwan Posted February 15, 2017 Author Share Posted February 15, 2017 Ah OK fair play, I did look when it came out but found diddly squat, it's the Catwomen outfit I really wanted though and you could only get that if you had a GR Remastered save I believe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spatular Posted March 29, 2017 Share Posted March 29, 2017 The free dlc is out now Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DisturbedSwan Posted March 30, 2017 Author Share Posted March 30, 2017 As I sold the game shortly after completion I've just watched someone play through it all on YouTube. I know it's only watching and not playing it, but I thought the DLC looked pretty awful. A few other-worldly insta-fail stealth sections and more bits like the Missile bit in the original game where you have to protect something for a while, the YouTuber I watched finished it in about 2.5 hours too so it's pretty short. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spatular Posted March 30, 2017 Share Posted March 30, 2017 yeah i finished it earlier, some bits were fun but others, not so much. can't complain for free i guess. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bellow Posted December 31, 2020 Share Posted December 31, 2020 Been having a good go on this with my PS now sub. What an unusual game. So much so I really didn't know how best to play it. I remember having a go of the vita one years ago and failing hard with that. But I've stuck with it until reaching the big city, done all side quests available, and I'm pretty good at it now, I think, or at least I have a method of playing it under my fingers. See where it goes. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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