What was the last game you finished?

Finished up "Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth: Record of Lodoss War"

This was a fun, if short metroidvania with gorgeous pixel art, solidly in the style of Symphony of the Night. The classic anime/manga Record or Lodoss War has a sequel manga that has been running since 2019 starring the elf Deedlit 100 years after the original, and this game is a prequel to this new series.

I honestly think it may have been dreamed up when someone mentioned that Deedlit's cloak/cape kind of looks like Alucard's, but there are worse origins for a game

This is one that I want to buy, maybe later this year: I like Lodoss War and my wife loves Castlevania, so it's a no-brainer. Glad to hear you enjoyed it.

I just finished The Messenger. As I've been using the "What are you playing" thread the most, I'll post my impressions there.

Finished up the story campaign on Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity.

I had a lot of fun with this one, but I doubt I will go on to complete a lot of the side stuff left over. My interest in any specific musou-genre game tends to wane after a while. Still very enjoyable, and nice to mess around in the Breath of the Wild world in a different way.

Man you are killing it beating all these cool games. I need to up my game.

I did beat Resident Evil 3 Remake on Sunday, so at least that's something.

I have to say what a cool remake that is. It literally feels like you are back in the GameCube era of games, at least the way you remember it.

Finished No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle, on the Switch.

It was decent. The presentation is more slick than the original, but it felt even more uneven sometimes.

Navigation is done via menu, instead of traveling around in third person through an uninhabited and uninteresting Santa Destroy, which is an improvement, and they try to vary up the action by letting you play as Shinobu and Henry at points.

Mini-games are mostly done in an amusing 8-bit style, which is cute, but I actually found them more tedious than the ones in NMH1. Fortunately, unless you're buying a lot of additional outfits for Travis, money is nowhere near as important as the first game, and barely needed to progress.

The assassination missions are oddly uneven. At one point, I spent more than 20 minutes fighting wave after wave of enemies in an empty parking lot before finally breaking out a walkthrough to see if I was missing something, only to be assured that no, this was just how that part of that level plays out...and NMH combat is fun, but not particularly deep, so the tedium is strong there.

I had fun, but it left me with an impression that the game was only semi-finished.

Finished Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes for the PS4 (played on the PS5).

I...am glad I got this one for $15 CDN on sale. Even on its initial release as a budget title, I think this was overpriced.

I've heard Suda51 talk about this being a tribute to indie games, and sort of practice for his team using Unreal Engine before developing No More Heroes 3...but it doesn't feel as much like that...as that they decided to flesh out an Unreal tech demo project and release it as a full game.

In addition, Suda seemed to really like the Unreal engine, actively promoting it during the game. This feels like his own strange enthusiasm rather than product placement, as Epic Games hardly needs the endorsement.

I knew going in that this is generally thought of as the low point in the series so far, so I feel my expectations were appropriately low.

Instead of fighting assassins as in the rest of the series, Travis and optional second player Badman enter a series of video games for the mysterious "Death Drive Mk II" game system.

The appearance of the levels have a bit of variety, but the simple combat mechanics don't change much throughout the entire game, and I quickly found levels to be very tedious and over-long, with the late-game 'CIA' level being the worst offender.

The NMH lore stuff is kind of interesting, and the 'Travis Strikes Back' segments between combat levels are treated as a visual novel with a black and green display like an Apple IIe monitor. These ones are pretty amusing and serve as a nice break to the gameplay itself across 7 segments.

Unfortunately the post-game 'Badman Strikes Back' VN scenario showing the backstory of the second player character is presented as 6 scenarios all at once when you finish the game (including what was originally DLC in the Switch version) and thus feels like more of a slog.

2 additional player characters (Shinobu and Bad Girl) are unlocked in the post-game, but I didn't find this enticing enough to replay any of the levels.

There's also almost no voice acting in this game, aside from the intro cinematics, and occasional exclamations from the characters, and I think that adds to the tedium. Travis Touchdown's personality just doesn't come through as well when it is text-only.

It was interesting to try this one, but I find myself agreeing with the unfavorable reviews. If someone is interested in watching story developments that may come up in No More Heroes 3, I'd say you're better served by watching the cutscenes on Youtube. If you do decide to play the game, I would say wait for a sale.