Game #15: Far Cry 4

Far Cry 4
Platform: PC
Total Playtime: 25 Hours

Was really not expecting this game to be this long. I also only completed about 52% of the activities and collections. I tend to not 100% open world games as I don't really like collectibles. PC was definitely a ported platform for this title, as the default controls are all over the place and took me a non-trivial amount of time to figure out.

So this game plays almost exactly like Far Cry 3, which is both good and bad. One new system though is a branching campaign where you can do good guy missions for the whiny guy, or more morally gray missions for the hot chick. I think that was done on purpose to get people to be evil since the large majority of players will take the "Good" route in games that offer a choice like that. Gear upgrades come by killing and skinning animals just like in FC3, though the pacing is incredibly weird this time. You can get the second highest tier of all of your gear within the first 5 hours of the game. I don't know if that was the intent, but I felt it trivialized the entire upgrade system when I was walking around kitted out like a badass so early in the game.

I wanted to call out something that particularly stuck out to me. Now I know I am playing a video game and at the end of the day, player enjoyment trumps realism, but there were two really glaring things that just didn't make sense to me.

•  While hanging on a rope attached to a grappling hook, you can detach the hook and throw it onto another ledge...while you're still on the rope. You won't fall, and you can keep climbing up like nothing happened. This isn't a bug, there are sections of the game where this mechanic is mandatory.
• You can silence a .50 cal Sniper Rifle. I would take out entire Outposts like a thief in the night with this silenced monstrosity and no one would ever know what was going on.

Also for a game that had unskippable cutscenes, the ending was so short and abrupt that I didn't even have time to skip it. The ending I got was an incredible letdown, and just left me feeling disappointed. Great gameplay, but the story never really got me engaged.

Game #14: Tales of Hearts R

Tales of Hearts R
Platform: PS Vita
Total Playtime: 31 Hours

So most people I know have heard of "Tales of Symphonia", a pretty popular JRPG from the Gamecube era. That game was great for its time and I beat it way back when, but that was the last "Tales of" game I played since I picked up Graces 2 years ago. Graces blew me away, and I really wasn't expecting such a great game when I picked it up on a whim for something to play. Ever since then, I have been working my way through the back catalog of Tales games, something Namco has been making a lot easier with recent re-releases. The latest one is Tales of Hearts R.

The problem with these re-releases is that the games have been getting better (for the most part) with each iteration. Going back and playing the older entries, while still fun, just makes me appreciate the more recent ones even more. Being limited to only one set of special abilities, a pretty basic story, and a comparatively small play time jump out to me as the biggest areas that are improved in future games. The play time alone was a pretty big shocker to me. For comparison, I completed Tales of Graces after about 80 hours.

Still though, combat in Tales games is always fun, even if this one was a bit on the easy side. I enjoyed my time with this game, and it passed the time very well during my flight to Japan.