VideoGame_Discussion

Dug out my old DSi this morning. I totally forgot about it. @SupremeSarna mind adding it to my list?

Also might as well add Frogger Returns as my game for as well. I just played through all 4 courses in about 29 minutes. This game is definitely rough. Terrible framerate and slowdowns, and awful depth of field.

Edit: That will make my console count 29 (it's currently at 28 but you have it marked 27)

@Frank
Gotcha covered!

#6 Heroes of Might and Magic II

Cleared all original maps on normal difficulty....whew. Probably 120 hours or better to complete. On to shorter experiences...

@SupremeSarna You've got me listed for 6 consoles, but I've got 7. 7th was

Doom 64 was the Retro Talkshop Thread's first Game of the Month of 2023, and it kicked our collective asses. Though I usually prefer to play through a game on its original platform for my first playthrough, I was really missing the controls and the in-level save functionality of the Bethesda re-release. After three months of slow progress and many grueling attempts at the final battle, I finally closed the book on the Nintendo 64 version last night.

Number: 15
Full Title: Doom 64
Platform Played: Nintendo 64
Collection: N/A
Native Platform: Nintendo 64
Original Platforms: Nintendo 64
Applicable Badge: 2nd Amendment (1/2)

Progress in Golden Sun and Crisis Core continues, albeit at a slower pace than expected. It turns out that Evercade's current Game of the Month - Donut Dodo, a callback to single screen arcade games of the early 80s - is surprisingly awesome. I've been cutting my gaming sessions short to take another whack at the kleptomaniacal peacock wannabe.

And on that note, I'm adding Evercade to my platforms list and retiring the Neo Geo CD. With a NGCD core imminent on the MiSTer side and a library that doesn't have much going for it, I've disconnected it and looking to find it a new home.

I beat The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures on
Pretty fun game- the levels take 10-20 minutes each, so it's a good game to play in sessions when you've only got an hour or so. I beat the game in singleplayer, but in multiplayer I like that all 4 links can travel anywhere in the stage using the gameboy advance. The story is kind of lacking, that is until the wind palace and the end. A double final boss is always fun in a game, and I thoroughly enjoyed the fights, even though if you've played Four Swords you'll already know how to kill Vaati, and the Ganon fight is very similar to the classic 2d ganon fights.

incubus421 wrote:
If you can prove that time, you can count it toward the first half of the Days Gone By badge.

El Viento - Retroid ()

Continuing my emulator fun, El Viento for Sega Genesis.
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I beat Dead Rising 2: Case Zero on the xbox360

I also beat Resident Evil 6 on the xbox1 (beating this and resident evil 5 gets me the raccoon city badge)

I also beat Resident Evil 5 Lost in Nightmares (DLC) on the xbox1

#29 down: Resident Evil 4 Remake on PS5. This (alongside my previous clear of the Dead Space remake) gets me the Raccoon City badge.

I had never played Resident Evil 4 before, and this was everything I had hoped it would be. The gunplay is fun, there are lots of interesting ways to navigate each scenario, the bosses are epic, and the graphics look great. Definitely a GOTY contender.

I beat Mega Man 6 (originally NES).
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Great game, as expected from ‘90s Capcom. I haven’t played the NES Mega Mans since high school, so I can’t compare them. I recall digging 6 back then, though.

4th of April, 22nd overall, 8th
Ryse Son of Rome
Badge - earns me Hackin' & Slashin' with Jedi Fallen Order

Tis another Xbox exclusive I've had for a good while and finally just dove in and played it. There actually was a challenge this month to earn 3 achievements in just 5 games of which Ryse was the best choice for me as I played the first mission around 2 years ago for another Xbox Rewards thing and figured it was time. Overall I mostly enjoyed my time with it, though I wasn't great at it. The Achievements didn't work 100% as it didn't credit me for beating the 2nd mission and thus not the game either, so I might replay that and see if I can do better and get the achievement. The final boss fight was rough for me as I wasn't nailing the block timing initially, but when I got it down I did a lot better.

This was pretty good and I'd recommend to anyone who's not played it. But it doesn't support Quick Resume on the XSX, and I went to my X1X for the final session to see if that would cause the achievements to pop - which did the trick for Recore, but not here. The game really hid the collectables. I enjoy exploring and finding them, but I got less than half as they were seemingly well off the beaten path. I did notice some branching paths and assume many of those I missed where on such paths. One gripe would be the general lack of variety of foes, it's really only like 4-5.

#30 down- Drink More Glurp on Steam Deck. I would like to count this toward the Bo Knows badge. It’s a bunch of Olympic track and field-style challenges with weird physics. You’re this strange creature whose arms and legs are all wobbly and who sometimes has wheels for feet or sticky limbs. It’s frustratingly difficult at times as the controls are awful. I went through all of the challenges managed to get a silver or bronze trophy for most events though after running them way too many times. I will never play this game again.

#31 down- Xeodrifter on PC. This (alongside my previous clear of A Robot Named Fight) gives me the Metroidvania badge. Xeodrifter has simple graphics and presentation, but the mechanics are deeper than meets the eye. You get power-ups like the ability to shift into the background (which means there are boss battles in which you fight in both the foreground and background, and secrets and routes hidden in both). Some of the boss battles are tough, but each introduced a little bit more challenge in an arc that helped me get better as I went along at a reasonable pace. Not a great game but not a bad one either.

Number: 16
Full Title: Sega Ages: Shinobi
Platform Played:
Collection: N/A
Native Platform:
Original Platform:
Applicable Badge: Grown-Ass Man (2/2)

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Shinobi to me is "the other" great pure action series (as opposed to, say, run 'n' gun) from the 1980s and 1990s alongside Castlevania. This one was relatively fair for a 1987 arcade action game. After a few tries, I believe I beat the last boss without getting hit.

Those last couple levels of Shinobi are hard, it's one of my favorite games and I've never beaten it, great job! Definitely going to tackle it again.

Got my 5th of April, 23rd overall, 1st
Gals Panic SS
Badge - 1 towards Localize since it's in Japanese

I've been moving my ROMs from my older PC to a new one and my last machine didn't do emulation great for the Saturn and others, so I wanted to try some games on this new machine and go through some of the massive library I have. I focused on getting rid of a lot of games that I simply wasn't going to play like late 90's sports titles and a lot of Japanese titles that I couldn't read or follow along with. This game was one that I checked on to see if I wanted to keep it in my library and it was one of those hidden images you need to expose by dragging your cursor around to expand the exposed space. You then 'win' by exposing 80% or more of the focused object behind - being an image of a girl in this case, while dodging the floating objects that could break your line. It has some era-worthy anime/manga art that you exposed, whatever, guess I'm not a 12-14 year old boy. There were 5 boards per girl and 10 girls total with unlimited continues, though your progress on a board would reset after continuing, so I resorted to using some save states. I got a little impatient at times, but overall it maybe only took me an hour+ to finish it since there is a timer you're also up against on each board - thus you don't want to waste time and more time = more objects to avoid.

This weekend got away from me, considering my grandfather had two unexpected strokes in the past 48 hours. I'll get to the weekly update tomorrow, and any prayers would be appreciated.

I’m really sorry about that. I’ll pray for your grandfather and your family.

SupremeSarna wrote:

#32 down: Final Fantasy on PS3. This (alongside my previous clear of The Caligula Effect: Overdose) gets me the Level Up badge.

As a kid, I never played the original Final Fantasy games, so I thought it might be nice to try this out. For how old it is, it actually holds up pretty well, although there are definitely some issues with quality of life. Random encounters with enemies are very frequent, saving is tricky (only in towns in inns or outside of dungeons using specific items), and there isn’t much visually to indicate progression or better gear (except in one minor case that I’ll leave vague so as not to spoil it). The graphics are old school, and traversing is often confusing and difficult without a walkthrough. Still, the turn-based combat isn’t bad, there’s decent variety in enemies and dungeons, and I uncovered a few secrets here and there that were neat. Looking forward to Final Fantasy XVI!

Sorry to hear about your grandfather @SupremeSarna - hope he recovers fully. If you need any help with this thread, let me know if I can help you out since you helped me last year.

As of today, April 16, it's officially been ten years since the elusive Wii RPG Pandora's Tower released in North America. As such, I felt it fitting to send developer Ganbarion my thanks on Twitter, and beat the game once again.
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Pandora's Tower is absolute fire. Your love has come down with a terrible curse to gradually become a beast--can you save her? Scaling massive towers with the Oraclos Chain weapon and taking on horrific servant beasts is oh-so satisfying. Then you take their still-dripping meat to feed to your girlfriend Elena, who is such a charming lady. She's optimistic and stands up for herself, even when things look hopeless! You really find yourself caring for her... but you're missing part of the experience if you keep her in her human form the whole time. For the full effect, you should sometimes spend a little too long in the Thirteen Towers and return to her. You'll feel repulsed and saddened by her hideous transformation, and her behaviors and dialogue will also change to reflect her sorry state. The various weapons give combat more variety, and the memorable nomad Mavda can enhance them to give you combo chains! With ominous lore to discover and a booming, classical orchestral soundtrack to enhance the mood, this game is a masterpiece!

It's a thrilling juxtaposition, really. It's a gothic horror game with the most wonderful romantic atmosphere, and also a charming dating sim where both the monsters and your girlfriend spew purple gore everywhere. Depending on your mood, you may long to spend time with Elena and help decorate your observatory, or you might want to see how grisly things get as her heinous curse progresses. There are a handful of errors in the game--most notably a game-crashing glitch in the last dungeon if you play the North American version--but nothing that will ever make me turn my back on this shining jewel of a game. Even like this, I still love it; never doubt that.

Oh, and Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles was good and stuff.
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Good remake, but not as punchy graphics-wise as the original game. I didn't expect to unlock Symphony of the Night in a random stage, but I'll take it! I got this for Christmas after reaching out to another user here, and only just now got around to finishing the last few stages.

I'm now updating the OP... please be patient.

I finished Bayonetta 3 on Switch. Also AI: The Somnium Files - Nirvana Initiative on Switch a week or two ago.

OP updated! As always, everyone let me know if I made a mistake or missed something. Now for a knock-knock joke:

Knock knock.
Who's there?
Wii U.
Wii U who?
Wii U just buy a Switch already?!

#19 Kirby 64 The Crystal Shards via

Another simple and clean Kirby game in the books. I never finished it on the 64 when I was a kid but man once you get that fireball and great sword combo power up it kinda breaks the game and that’s just fine to me. Completely breezed thru this in a few hours. Kirby games are great for serene easy going gaming. Next stop another chill game. Yoshi’s Story as my nostalgia trip continues.

#20 Atomic Heart

I have no idea why I played this until the end. It was kinda boring even with it being an action shooter. The plot was dull, acting felt crass and forced, puzzles felt overly complex and not in a good way. More in a frustrating way. Controls were wonky especially when aiming and platforming. The crafting and upgrades were okay but nothing to write home about and the boss fights were too chaotic and frantic and felt like I wanted it over just as quickly as they begun. Even the basic enemies were just annoying AF to encounter whereas they felt like chores as was the theme of the entirety of this game. A chore. And the only really redeeming quality I could find without much flaws were the music. It had a nice mix of classical orchestral music somewhat remixed and I thought it fit nicely with the theme and setting. But yeah this game is trying to become Bioshock so much it blatantly referenced it in one scene hoping for that crossover that’ll likely never happen. Plus to add salt to the wound, it’s buggy as hell. I had to restart the app so many damn times because it either soft locked me without letting me open a door or a scene wouldn’t pop when it should have to progress again I do not know why I saw this thru to the end. And you have a choice in the final part of the game to walk away and get the bad ending or stay and do a set of boss fights and get the good ending and because I pitied this title I stayed and trucked thru the final battles to get the “good” ending which don’t ask me what it’s about because like the rest of the game it’s too uninteresting to care about. Thank the maker it was on Game Pass. I cannot see why someone would charge nor spend $70 on this.

Here's some more, having some fun with my retroid pocket 2+ with some shorter games before I move on to the RPGs.

Twinkle Tale - retroid ()
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Mega Turrican - retroid ()
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Demolition Man - retroid ()
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#33 down: Cult of the Lamb on PS5. I’d like to count this toward the Mustache-Twirlin' badge.

You are the last lamb sacrificed to the Bishops but are resurrected by The One Who Waits to kill the Bishops and free him. You are tasked with starting a cult to raise your power along the way. As an evil cult leader, you sacrifice your followers, have them build a colony, farm, heal the sick, preach sermons, declare holidays, marry, etc. There are also other locations you visit with interesting storylines. All of that is to get you strong enough to fight the bishops who each have a realm with a series of procedurally generated places you have to navigate with roguelite gameplay. The combat is fast and fun, and there are some unique powerups you can unlock. It’s like an easier, less complex version of Hades mixed with a farming simulator. The length is perfect. You can get all of the achievements in under 20 hours, and it was enjoyable the whole way through. This was an impulse buy that turned out really well. One of my favorite games I’ve played this year.

It took a while, but I finally 100%ed Pikmin 2 .
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A bigger, more ambitious Pikmin adventure that takes a big step back. The point of Pikmin is to be an RTS game with a ticking clock. This game keeps that for the overworld areas but puts a big emphasis on Cave dungeons, which have no time limit but tons of floors. These really drag the pace down. It feels like your motivation to play is entirely motivated by corporate greed this time around as opposed to survival, so there's less of a hook to keep going. The second half of the game has you searching for your kidnapped partner (who controls the final boss, lol), so at least there's that. It's decent, but I suspect Pikmin 3 will be better.

#21 Yoshi’s Story via

Such a weird Yoshi entry this was but I get what they were trying to convey. A choose your own adventure book so to speak. You select which levels you want to experience within each world and it tells a story at the end of the game in a storybook format. But the gameplay is just strange. The basic objective is eat enough fruit to make the Yoshi happy to end the stage with a final boss fight at the end of the game which was the only real fight I felt in the game. The rest of the game was basically eating fruit.

I beat Alleyway .
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It’s a decent little bit of breakout action with surprisingly good ball physics. Breakout games usually have a problem with getting the ball to hit the last couple blocks but the trajectory is just never right. This game doesn’t really have that issue, for the most part. This was a worthy use of $3 as the eShop closed.

#34 down: Darius II on Sega Genesis. I would like to count this one toward the Destroy the Core badge.

Darius II is a space SHMUP that is incredibly difficult. Not only do you die from a hit or two and have only a handful of lives and a few continues, but you also carry over powerups permanently until you die, so, if you die, you go from formidable to helpless immediately. It takes a long time to get enough power-ups to be reasonably strong again. Even with a ton of power-ups, some of the bosses are brutal. There's definitely a bullet hell element to this game. I'm still not totally sure how I managed to beat this. It was exhausting.

Retroid - Super Off-Road ()
I've played about 50 races. Maxed out boosts and gear. Can win every single race.
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#35 down: Mars Matrix on Sega Dreamcast. This (alongside my previous clear of Darius II) gives me the Destroy the Core badge. This is another brutally difficult, bullet hell SHMUP. This time, it's a vertical one. I am very ready to be finished with SHMUPs for the year now and can't see myself playing another anytime soon.

I beat BurgerTime Deluxe (originally GB). Beep this game.
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I thought I'd like it, and I partly did... but hot dang, are levels 4 and 6 dreadful. I had to use save states to make it to the end--I would've quit had it not been for save states at the start of later stages. Stage 4-2 in particular is heinously designed, with too many enemies climbing up too many ladders on the left side of screen, not even mentioning the right side. It's just too hard for its own good.

Number: 17
Full Title: Rygar
Platform Played:
Collection: N/A
Native Platform:
Original Platform:
Applicable Badge: Metroidvania (2/2)

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I know I played this around when it was released but never got far. It was probably an overnight rental and didn't stick. It's definitely worth a play through on NSO. It's not too dissimilar from Castlevania II, though probably harder.

OP updated! We've sure earned a lot of badges!

Just beat super mario rpg on super Nintendo and counting it towards first half of level up badge please

#7 on 4/19
Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origins

Took about 30 hours to beat, including all side missions and cleaning up a few trophies in end game. It was neat experiencing the first Final Fantasy story in a different way, but in the end it left a little too much to be desired. I didn't hate it entirely. The nostalgic enemies and bosses were cool to see. The ending was chaotic and fun. Still, this is a 5.5 or 6 out of 10 for me. Without being too long-winded, here are a few of my gripes:
- Sure you can up the difficulty, but this game was easy from the get go. A single strong attack breaks the guard of almost all mobs in the game. You can R1 > R2 most of the way through the game. All this depth in the combat: job classes, attack combos, monster skills, and it was all lost on me because you can blow right through with an R1 > R2 combo for 90% of the game.
- You acquire gear at such a rapid pace, and most of it is meant to be discarded for upgrade materials. So much so that you can set filters to auto discard gear you pick up. However, even the upgrade system is a lost cause, as you'll probably just find better gear on the next mission.
- Why did we not remix the OG soundtrack? Not even Mt. Gulg...

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#8 on 4/23
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe

This needs no rating or review from me. Me and my family got on a Mario Kart kick in the last few weeks. We obtained 3-star gold on all original cups 50cc, 100cc, 150cc, and Mirror. We earned just the gold trophy, not caring about the star rating, on 200cc. Some of those tracks on 200 are brutal! Neo Bowser City and Twisted Mansion are particularly terrible.

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I beat Game & Watch Gallery 3 yesterday, but I intend to keep playing to get the remaining stars.