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Menty’s Breakdown (of Games)
- Thread starter Mentalist
- Start date
Seph
* * Filthy European * *
Black Myth: Wukong is a truly exceptional computer game, its the best game i have played since i first got my hands on Bloodborne it gives me the same feelings and just itching to search every nook and cranny, boss fights all over the place it has open world hubs that intersect in a way reminiscent of Dark Souls 1, some of the boss designs are great and its a real challenge of a game so you get a lot of satisfaction when getting yourself past whatever the latest road block was and there will be many.
Incredible. .
10/10 easily i would mark it higher if it were possible.
Incredible. .
10/10 easily i would mark it higher if it were possible.
I think most of us who are into ARPGs knew that Elon was majorly bullshitting about his character's top 20 league position in Diablo 4. Now, he's claiming to have achieved the same in Path of Exile 2. However, Kripp and Quin—both actual veterans and experts in the game—have fully exposed him as a fraud. Kripp, in particular, has multiple world firsts in Diablo, Path of Exile 1, World of Warcraft, and other games. His insights are so respected that even the developers of PoE2 listen to him, and many of us rely on his expertise when it comes to games like this. Basically, if he says you are a fraud. You're a fraud.
Obviously, Elon lying about being the best player in a video game ranks pretty damn low in the awful things he does and says on the reg, but it's a good insight of what a complete twat he is all the same.
The fact he even thought he could get away with this without people noticing is baffling tbh. The Asmon recap currently has 1.5 million views:
Obviously, Elon lying about being the best player in a video game ranks pretty damn low in the awful things he does and says on the reg, but it's a good insight of what a complete twat he is all the same.
The fact he even thought he could get away with this without people noticing is baffling tbh. The Asmon recap currently has 1.5 million views:
CaptainWacky
I want to smell dark matter
One where you can marry Dawn.
So Todd has gone and dropped The Oblivion Remaster out of fucking NOWHERE, and I don't know how to feel. I've been cold on Bethesda since the highly disappointing launch of Starfield, and my hype for TES VI has dipped as a result—but this has caught everyone's attention because it’s seemingly come out of nowhere. There have been rumours over the past week or so, but considering this must have been in development for at least a couple of years, it's impressive something like this was kept under wraps in this day and age.
Here’s the other weird thing though. The longest-running and arguably most famous unfinished total conversion mod for Skyrim—called Skyblivion—has been in development for FIFTEEN YEARS, and they’re releasing the full game THIS YEAR. And yeah, it's the entirety of Oblivion remastered within the Skyrim Creation Engine, if the name didn’t tip you off.
Todd gave them all free copies of the game, at least.
I mean, it is a nice gesture—and a way of acknowledging (and approving of) Skyblivion's existence, I guess.
The Skyblivion team are being (of course) very polite and grateful about all this, but it’s got to sting a bit. Bethesda owns everything and can do what they want, and I don't think this remaster totally invalidates all the work the Skyblivion team has done—and I’ll probably play both. BUT STILL.
All I'm saying is: when they finally release the game later this year, I don’t think any of the hundreds of people involved in making it will be signing on for another decade-plus dev cycle over someone else’s IP ever again.
EDIT:
Annnnnnd here we go...
Here’s the other weird thing though. The longest-running and arguably most famous unfinished total conversion mod for Skyrim—called Skyblivion—has been in development for FIFTEEN YEARS, and they’re releasing the full game THIS YEAR. And yeah, it's the entirety of Oblivion remastered within the Skyrim Creation Engine, if the name didn’t tip you off.
Todd gave them all free copies of the game, at least.
I mean, it is a nice gesture—and a way of acknowledging (and approving of) Skyblivion's existence, I guess.
The Skyblivion team are being (of course) very polite and grateful about all this, but it’s got to sting a bit. Bethesda owns everything and can do what they want, and I don't think this remaster totally invalidates all the work the Skyblivion team has done—and I’ll probably play both. BUT STILL.
All I'm saying is: when they finally release the game later this year, I don’t think any of the hundreds of people involved in making it will be signing on for another decade-plus dev cycle over someone else’s IP ever again.
EDIT:
Annnnnnd here we go...
Last edited:
CaptainWacky
I want to smell dark matter
Will it be on Switch 2 lol?
I'm wrapping up my achievement run in WWE 2K25. Just the single-player content, of course. There's no chance I'm grinding through the online stuff for a platinum trophy. That said, I’ve had a blast with it.
I’ve been pretty cold on the 2K games for years now, mostly because they haven’t been good (that'll do it). But I’d heard some decent things about this one, and now I get it. The game modes are still hit-and-miss, but the actual gameplay is excellent.
MyRISE, the story mode with your created wrestler, is painfully cringe. Some of the voice acting is atrocious—Charlotte and Becky in particular are rough to listen to. CM Punk comes off better and at least sounds like he knows what acting is. The whole storyline is oddly narrow in scope, mostly focused on a “Mutiny” in NXT. There's no proper career arc or big WrestleMania moment to build toward. That was a letdown.
MyUniverse mode is basically a fantasy booking sandbox. You can create and simulate shows endlessly. I can see the appeal for some, but I need clearer objectives. I only touched it for unlocks and achievements. Beyond that, I had no interest in sinking time into it.
Showcase mode is probably the strongest part of the game. This year it focuses on The Bloodline. You play through a long timeline of historical matches, starting with the Headshrinkers, then onto Umaga, Rikishi, the Usos, Roman Reigns, and the rest. There’s a lot of content, and each match has specific objectives that recreate key moments.
The mode is held together by Paul Heyman, who absolutely nails the intros. He filmed over an hour and a half of segments, and he’s as sharp and charismatic as ever.
There are some timed sequences in Showcase where you have to pull off specific moves before the clock runs out. They're annoying and feel like unnecessary padding, but the core gameplay makes up for it. The matches are just fun to play. The controls feel responsive and natural. Reversal windows are fair, the match pacing is solid, and for once, you can actually pull off the stuff you want to without fighting the system.
Older wrestling games made it a nightmare to do anything complex or cool. Table spots, ambulance scenes, rope tie-ups—all technically there, but awkward as hell to pull off. In this game, once you understand the logic behind the controls, everything clicks. The way you can carry and position opponents works really well and makes setting up big moments feel smooth and satisfying.
I’ve been grinding out achievements and managed to complete some of the rarer ones on Legend difficulty. The Rhea Ripley challenge has a very low completion rate, but I didn’t find it too bad. Beating the Wank Pheasant himself in a Bloodline match, though, was brutal. He constantly calls in help, and the reinforcements don’t leave. You end up in a permanent handicap match, and on Legend difficulty, he’s already massively overpowered. It was infuriating, but because the gameplay is so solid, it never felt like I was fighting bad mechanics. Even the hardest fights still felt fair—aside from the obvious stacked odds.
I’ve put around 20 to 25 hours into it. I finished Showcase, completed MyRISE, and got all the achievements I cared about. I feel like I’ve squeezed everything I wanted out of it. If they had added another dozen or so fun single-player achievements, I would have kept going. As it is, I’m done for now, but I’ll definitely be picking up 2K26 based on this experience.
If you know what to expect from it—and what to ignore—it’s absolutely worth playing.
CaptainWacky
I want to smell dark matter
I haven't played a wrestling game since No Mercy, but whatever the next WWE one (or maybe it's the on you just posted about) is it's coming to Switch 2 so I might actually give it a go! I'm sure objectively speaking they're improved a lot from No Mercy in many ways (when you mentioned how hard table spots were to pull off in the old games it gave me flashbacks.)
Eat Shit And Die
First impressions a bitch.
Yeah, I love No Mercy and the Smackdown vs Raw games on the original PlayStation. They were awesome, but to say some of the controls could be janky would be a massive understatement. I still have both as ROMs that I sometimes boot up for a nostalgia kick, but there’s been a lot of quality of life improvements over the last 25 years.
In 2K25, you can actually plan complex spots and then execute them easily. The way you can grapple up to just carry (from walking, to over the shoulder, to in the powerbomb position) is done with just the right stick. It’s hard to explain, but it’s way more intuitive than in any other wrestling game I’ve played. If I want to light a table on fire and then set up the opponent on the apron and then suicide dive both of us into it, this is now a feasible thing to do without tearing your hair out with complicated button combos and the like.
Obviously, all the moves look great and there are a metric FUCK TON of them, and it’s impressive how each wrestler feels really distinct now. You have a very different gaming experience as Sami Zayn than you do as Rikishi. OK, super heavyweights and lightweights might have felt distinct in other games, but it’s just better here. I’ve played a lot of wrestling games over the years. I know what I’m on about with this.
So yeah, the actual core gameplay of the matches is really, really good. There’s an incredible roster, an impressive amount of arenas and eras you can play, and they also brought back intergender matches for the first time in 10 years. This game is a clear step up from their previous efforts. I just hope they make the actual game modes a bit more engaging in the next one, because the actual in-ring action is great.
As soon as they sort out their next big patch because they screwed a bunch of stuff up with their last update and the community is currently having conniptions, so I'm leaving it alone until they've fixed it. Which they will, I'm sure of that.
It’s finally fucking over. THANK FUCKING GOD.
Ugh.
I just watched the final achievement pop after 122 hours of playtime. The main story takes under 20 hours. So what the fuck have I been doing for the extra 100? Grinding this fucking platinum trophy. Never again will I seek to platinum a Yakuza game. RGG Studio are psycho sadists, and I'm clearly a masochist for thinking pursuing the 100% completion trophy was a fun idea. .
With Yakuza 0 and Kiwami 1, my personal completion criteria was to finish the main story and do all the substories. Once you do this, the secret bosses (the Amon brothers) spawn, and you have to defeat them. These are really hard fights that the game almost winks at you to try to cheese because they are so unfair, and completing them in Yakuza 0 and Kiwami 1 was a really nice finish line for those games. I also do most of the mini-games. Alongside the mini-games, there are usually more involved sub-games in each game. I complete these too. In Kiwami 2, these are the Cabaret Club Grand Prix, Majima Construction, and Bouncer Missions.
That is typically good enough for me, but for some twisted reason, I decided in January that I would pursue the platinum. I play on legend difficulty as default which helped make this decision since that is also required for the plat, so I thought “why not” like the moron I am.
And yeah, it's almost broken me. The completion list for the platinum in this game is obscene.
Haruka's Requests
Ah, sweet innocent Haruka. You pledge to look after her in Kiwami 1 and this is how she repays you?
This is the face of the most sadistic character. Forget the battle hardened Yakuza bosses. Forget the Chinese hitmen and Korean mafia you have to face. The Amon Bros? lol. No.
Haruka gives you 45 requests if you want the plat. They're mostly minigame challenges and specific item purchases. No combat-related tasks or gear-specific fights. Just a lot of running around, playing darts, batting, karaoke, and buying her snacks. It's tedious, but necessary for 100% completion. Doesn't sound too bad, right?
WRONG.
While a lot of the requests are decoding her vague requests to go to certain diners (of which there are about a hundred) and order her certain dishes. These are time-consuming but whatever. The real pain comes from her karaoke and golf requests. Karaoke in Yakuza 0 and 1 was easy. it's just a simple rhythm game. It's still a simple rhythm game in Kiwami 2, but it's WAY harder.
You have to score 90 points on her song and then on your song. It is SUPER unforgiving, though. There are two modes, casual and passionate. On casual there are fewer notes to hit but it's actually the harder mode. Miss one note? LOL. Fuck you. Not good enough. Hit EVERY single note but get 2 “goods” instead of “greats”?
LOL. FUCK YOU. Not good enough.
Passionate is the way to go because you are afforded a FEW more slip ups, but now there are 3 times as many notes and it's faster. I felt my arm tense at one point, and a solid thought about launching my controller into my wall did pass my brain. I didn't in the end, but that's the closest I've come to hurling my controller since I got skill checked by the Nameless King in Dark Souls 3.
The other hair puller is the golf bingo. It's bullshit. Trust me. She also has you grinding away in the batting centre, and multiple gambling achievements that are separate from their own mini-game win conditions. It's painful and EXTREMELY time consuming. Again, this is a fun part of the game that ties into the story but it's fun if you do say...10 of the requests. Not 45.
Street Bosses
There are 18 Street Bosses—9 in Kamurocho and 9 in Sotenbori. They appear after defeating a certain number of enemy groups (Delinquents, Thugs, Yakuza). You get emails notifying you when a boss is ready to fight. They're not particularly hard, but tracking them down is a chore. Also, you need certain enemy types to spawn to trigger the next boss, and it's really fucking annoying when the game refuses to spawn the right enemy types.
Coliseum
The Coliseum is absolutely required for the completion list. You’ve got to clear a bunch of solo and team tournaments, each with different rules, and grind out enough victory points to progress further through the ranks. I really enjoy the Coliseum but like with everything in this game once you're going for the plat it becomes very grindy. Also, the final missions of these modes ramp up difficulty in ridiculous ways.
Can't rag on it too much though because it's a lot of fun:
Bouncer Missions
There are 78 Bouncer Missions. Seventy. Eight. Why?
It’s just recycled combat in small arenas with waves of enemies, over and over again. Some missions are short. Some are tedious. But it’s the last few — the final high-difficulty ones — where things go completely off the rails. These fights are Dark Souls 3 DLC boss level hard. Not even joking.
I almost tapped out. Multiple times. I seriously considered abandoning the whole platinum run because I genuinely didn’t know if I could clear the final ones. They expect perfect spacing, tight dodging, and absolutely zero room for error. You get juggled, stun-locked, and nuked by enemies that seem like they were balanced for someone playing on NG++++.
I finished them. Somehow. But I didn’t feel accomplished. I felt drained.
Cabaret Club Grand Prix
This is one of the main side modes in Kiwami 2, and it’s actually really good. Back and better than ever from Yakuza 0 I spent way too much time mixing and maxing accessories and dresses on my hostesses. Playing glorified doll dress up at 41. Nice.
You manage a cabaret club, scout and train hostesses, then compete in league matches to climb through five ranks. You need to hire platinum hostesses, build their stats, max their affection, and win every match. There are also individual hostess side stories you have to complete. There is a lot of story in here as well. It's just a really cool part of the game.
Majima Construction
This is a real-time strategy minigame where you defend a construction site from waves of enemies. You hire NPC fighters (including real-life pro wrestlers), assign them to different positions, and watch the fight play out.
There are 21 missions in total, and you need to win all of them for completion. Early ones are fine, but later missions get ridiculous — enemies do massive damage, and if you didn’t level the right characters or place them perfectly, you’ll get steamrolled. What is more, the final mission has 17 waves, and it would take 15 minutes to play through, and I'd keep dying on wave 16. It… tests one patience. Let's leave it at that.
It’s another mode that’s fun in small doses but turns into a grind when you’re chasing 100%.
Traditional Japanese Games
Mahjong, Shogi, Koi-Koi, Oicho-Kabu. You can't skip them if you want the platinum.
I’ve been playing Mahjong for 30 years, so that was a big advantage. I didn’t need to learn the rules from scratch like most players do. Even then, the expert tables and tournament wins are unforgiving. You can't just know what you're doing — you also have to play well.
And then there’s the STUPID achievement where you not only have to win two separate Expert Mahjong tournaments, but also go out with Ron or Tsumo THIRTY FUCKING TIMES. Pure sadism from the devs.
Shogi usually filters people out fast, but again I’ve played chess for years and am way above average and Shogi’s very similar. Same ideas of tempo, piece value, spatial control. So that section wasn’t too bad for me, though winning without take-backs is still rough on expert.
Koi-Koi and Oicho-Kabu are pure RNG hell. You need to win thousands of tags for completion, and it’s just hours of praying the cards don’t screw you. Easily the most joyless part of the gambling section.
There’s also the random one-offs that show up in the completion list and waste your time. You have to win at Virtual-On with every character, beat the Toylets games on hard mode (literally a piss-based minigame), complete the Gravure photo shoot sessions perfectly (OK, this was pretty fun tbf), hit the UFO catcher prizes, and even take ten touristy photos across both cities.
Skill Trees & EXP Grind
You need to fully unlock every single ability on Kiryu’s skill grid. That means farming tens of thousands of experience points in every category — Soul, Technique, Body, and Charm. You don’t get enough from regular play, so you’ll be grinding minigames, eating meals, and doing repeat fights just to fill it all out. You will absolutely hit a wall late game where it’s nothing but XP farming for hours.
Final Thoughts
The game itself is fantastic if you ignore the platinum trophy. The main story is great, the drama, intrigue, twists, and turns are all top-notch as is to be expected from a main line Yakuza game. The thing is, I technically beat the main story just after Christmas, lol. I've been grinding since then. It should be noted my gaming time has been greatly reduced these past few months because of the move and upheaval but still. I love this franchise so much, but the 100% completion trophy stopped being fun at the end, and it was pure sunk cost that made me grit my teeth through the final ten hours of grindy bullshit. Play it, enjoy the story, do the substories, do the feature modes like Cabaret Club and Majima Construction, but don't pursue this platinum unless you enjoy pissing yourself off.
Amazing game. Platinum trophy? Not worth it.
I will take a break to finish Ghost of Tsushima and then probably Last of Us Part II before I dive back in for the next Yakuza adventure. I'm definitely going back to my previous completion criteria for that and all the ones after.
Attachments
Cheers, brev. Those last 10 hours were a slog, but I'm just glad it's done now. The amount of content crammed into Kiwami 2 is insane. I thought it would be similar in scope to Kiwami 1, but it's closer to Yakuza 0 in content (Yakuza 0 still wins out there though, but I finished that at 90%)
Seph
* * Filthy European * *
At least half the series are a full time commitment to 100% but of that 50%, 20% are outright brutal undertaking and YK2 is fer sure in that 20%.