What are you all playing?

Still working slowly along Fire Emblem Fates: Revelations. However, I've been playing the Mega Man Legacy Collection on the PS4.

I'm enjoying it so far. Last time I played through MM1-6 was a few years ago when I picked up the individual games on the 3DS. I am a bit spoiled by save states, but my reflexes aren't what they used to be, so I don't mind so much

I do miss the ability to toggle between weapons with L and R from the anniversary collection, but it isn't the end of the world.

The dude's mental state is always questionable, I feel that's one of the reasons the series is so great.

In terms of worldwide brand recognition by franchise within the PlayStation ecosystem Tekken ranks in the top 5.

1. Grand Theft Auto
2. Call Of Duty
3. Gran Turismo
4. Final Fantasy
5. Tekken
6. Kingdom Hearts
7. God Of War
8. Tomb Raider
9. Uncharted
10. Metal Gear Solid
11. Resident Evil
12. Dragon Quest
13. Assassin's Creed
14. Ratchet & Clank

That's crazy considering how big the PlayStation fanbase is. No wonder why Tekken games always end up with those ugly Greatest Hits red boxes.

Resident Evil is definitely hot right now after one of the biggest reveals ever made when they dropped the Biohazard VR announcement.

I haven't heard that one. That sounds great, 2 and 3 are a must missing on current gen consoles.

I would say that with the increasing popularity of IPs like Fallout, Skyrim, Red Dead, and Mass Effect, I feel that list is going to change, but those IPs are quite massive nevertheless, at least within the PlayStation ecosystem.

I finished Tomb Raider Chronicles and just started Angel of Darkness.

About Chronicles: I stand by my opinion that it is a fine, mostly well designed classic Tomb Raider, albeit not even close to be ambitious as any of the previous games, especially Last Revelation. The levels are very, very short, so there's not a lot of exploration, and most of Lara's moves are underutilized or not utilized at all (I don't remember any section were I needed to sprint, for example), but that's not a problem. What was a problem were the very last three levels, especially the final one: these levels are in a high-tech military building (always a terrible setting for this series), with a focus on action instead of exploration/platforming, while at the same time heavily limiting your ammunition (first time you don't get infinite ammo in the classic series), they keep introducing new mechanics that just don't work (imagine stealth sections with classic Tomb Raider controls...) and the worse thing: the last level is chock-full of bugs. If you save almost anywhere in the level, something will bug and the level will be unfinishable, so I had to keep going back to previous saves all the time as the bugs appeared. The level even throws a cyborg fight at you, which really doesn't make sense in TR. In conclusion, it's a fine game with abismally bad final levels.

Now, Angel of Darkness is just strange. It feels a lot like I'm playing one of those prototypes made by modders/students: it gives me an idea of what will be implemented in the final game, but the animations/levels/mechanics are all unfinished. First of all, the controls are just wrong, and the way Lara moves is the worst I've probably ever seen in a 3d action game from its era. They apparently wanted to introduce some RPG mechanics, but they are limited to you pushing a random box then Lara saying "I'm stronger now", or you opening a random door. It doesn't make any sense and is completely random when she will "upgrade" her strength - by the way, this is the only thing she upgrades, which is a completely random thing. It determines the time Lara can hang on something, and just having a timing for this is annoying. Then I got to a level in which I'm in a city and have to go talking to people (imagine Deus Ex), except every one is annoying, the dialogue is really bad and there are several loading screens right in the middle of the streets - also, after a loading screen, the game changes the direction Lara was facing, so I'm just confused all the time. Sometimes you can choose different dialogue options, but they seem to make no difference - sometimes, after Lara says the option I choose, she follows it by saying the other one. By the way, some of the animations in the dialogues are unfinished, so in a scene the NPC is moving its mouth, in the next one he/she is just moving its head while the voice goes on. Some levels are very strictly linear (I'm talking corridors here) and take less than five minutes to finish. I mean it when I say this looks like a prototype, this is easily on par with Sonic 2006.

There's one good thing, though: the graphics are quite advanced for a game this old. It was a 2003 PS2 release, but the pc version looks as good as an 360/PS3 game. I'm not joking, it's that good. Most pcs at the time probably couldn't run it in maximum settings, but it's nice to know the developers wanted to future-proof their game. So, I guess Core Design spent all their time polishing the graphics engine, and then had to rush to build a game around it and certainly were pressured to release it unfinished, which is unfortunate as this shows a lot of promise. It's not the direction I would like for the series (I prefer when Lara is, you know, raiding tombs...), but if this game was complete it would probably be something big at the time. It would mostly be a mix of Tomb Raider and Deus Ex, which, being both Eidos properties, makes sense.

I'm done with the classic Tomb Raiders! Yay! I can confirm that Angel of Darkness is every bit as terrible as everyone says. From the new ones, I still have to play Lara Croft Go, Temple of Osiris (I have both) and Rise.

But, for now, I decided to play Shinobi (3ds). This is one TOUGH game. It uses 3d graphics (not very good 3d graphics, by the way...), but plays entirely in 2d, so just think of it as similar to the Strider reboot. Its gameplay is remarkably similar to Shinobi 3, albeit with a focus on a new parry mechanic - I should point out, though, that you could already parry ranged attacks in Shinobi Legions (I don't know about the PS2 games, as I haven't played them). Everybody knows how much I love parrying, and it works very well here. You can parry just about anything, but the timing have to be precise - there's no way to spam it, so it demands skill.

My main problem with it is on the technical side: the game runs in 30 fps, which is terrible for split-second precision mechanics like parrying. I just feel the game doesn't give me enough time to react and doesn't control as smoothly as the Genesis games.
Also, the graphics in some levels are dark to the point that I didn't notice pitfalls and fell to my death. All that probably contributes a bit to its ungodly dificulty: I'm playing on normal, but it's kicking my butt. You have limited lives, so you go back to the beginning of the level after losing them all, and some levels can be very long and difficult. On higher difficulties, there are limited continues. So this is a modern game as hard (or even harder) as any of the classic ones, much like the Ninja Gaiden series.

Keep in mind those two technical problems don't really make the game worse in my eyes: I'm having a good time with it. There are also some nice setpieces, like riding a horse, surfing and jumping on the roof of cars; those bring some variety. The hand-drawn cutscenes also look nice, although they are obviously on the cheap side.

I think this is a worthy successor to the Shinobi series, and I wish it got sequels to solve those technical issues. Sadly, this is a 2011 release and Sega never announced anything new, so they probably don't have any plans for it.

A quick update on Shinobi 3D: man, they made the later levels too long. One of them (the shark one) took me 20 minutes from start to finish, so imagine what happens when you die at the boss and is obligated to redo those 20 minutes of gameplay... repeteatedly. I spent at least one and a half hour (probably more) replaying the same level. It's clearly a fake difficulty thing because the level has a boss in the middle of it (that's actually harder than the end level boss), and the second part of the level is in an entirely different setting, so it's clear it was two different levels that they put together so you had to redo everything after dying. The worse thing is: the second section has a lot of one-hit deaths (either by falling into a pit or by being crushed), so it's very trial and error, except you have to replay the previous 15~20 minutes before each retry.

I still like the game, but damn, the fake difficulty is strong with this one. I really wish it got a more fleshed out/balanced sequel.