VideoGame_Discussion

sailorneorune wrote:

I’m not sure winning one race counts as beating the game, but this is an arcade game… I’ll let it slide in this case.

I beat Mega Man 2 .
[imgt w=2048 h=1536]https://i.imgur.com/MsZRx0h.jpg[/imgt]
Beaten on Difficult mode. The stages and Robot Masters are bizarrely easy. Then you reach Wily Castle and things get much harder—almost jarringly so. Shoutout to the Mecha Dragon that has elongated knockback on his projectiles (and only those ones) so that he can effortlessly knock you into the pit below. Honestly, half my playtime went toward that castle. It's a little crazy. But still a great game overall.

Updated! I was really off on the badge count, but everything should be fixed. I clearly have too much freetime on workbreaks if I'm beating that many 3DS games each week. And somehow I took an entire month between Mega Man 4 and 3... how in the world did that happen?

Thanks @SupremeSarna! Just one small thing: I noticed that I’m missing the Level Up! badge. I previously beat Final Fantasy I and The Caligula Effect: Overdose.

Bleed_DukeBlue wrote:
Gotcha covered.

Thanks!

SupremeSarna wrote:

I just beat Shock Troopers for the 4th time now. I imported all of my PC games into Launchbox the other day and noticed that I had the PC port of this from Amazon Games so I figured I'd try that. It plays a little different as your 'credit' only earns you 1 health bar for a given character you select and I didn't do the 'team of 3' mode where I picked 3 players. So with that approach I cycled through each of the 8 characters and did okay with the faster ones and not so great with the 3-4 slower ones, which is how I've been playing before.
I also decided to try to switch the paths to the final boss. There are 3 and in my first 3 runs I did each one and this time I started in the Jungle and went to the Mountains when they give you the 1 chance, after like the 3rd stage. Anyhow doing that seemed to give me a new mission in-between the 2 paths, so for my 5th run I'll do yet another set to see if there's another in-between mission and if it's different. If so I might have to beat it 6 times to hit that final unique mission. I also beat the final boss with another person to get the 1 still shot for their unique 'victory screen'.
I do think I'll beat it the 5th time on my mini, so I need to get that hooked up.

5th of June, 39th overall, 12th
Tinykin
Likely really only counts toward Bear & Bird that I already have

Heard good things about this GP title and jumped into it the other night. It was addicting of sorts with me playing until 3AM the other night thanks to my feeling of, 'just do this one more task and be done'... only to keep doing tasks. It was an endearing and enjoyable title, though I didn't pay much attention to the oddball story and blew through much of the dialog you had to read - the aesthetic, art style and simple gameplay was the sauce. I ended up doing everything in the game except for collecting all of the pollen in 3 of 7 rooms b/c I didn't want to hunt for ~45 little bits to collect from ~7k total as some rooms have over 1k in them. But I found all the pollen in more than have of the rooms and found/did everything else.

#27

Pokémon Brilliant Diamond

I enjoyed the remastered edition quite well for the most part. I just wish the global trade system was a bit more polished and fleshed out. The final Elite Four champion gave me a little run for my money too. Took me a few tries to beat her. Other than that it was another return to my early 20’s with this one. Next I think I’ll try out Arceus to see how the new Pokémon formula works.

I beat Pikmin 3's DLC: all 36 missions and boss rematches. For some annoying reason, purchased DLC on Wii U seems to only work on the one user profile that bought. My Pikmin 3 file was User 2, but only User 1 had access to all of it. Regardless, I beat each pack. There's a ton of content here, lemme tell ya, but I wasn't particular about getting a platinum score on every stage. I got two plats, a few golds, a buncha silvers, and plenty of bronzes. I'm just not a fan of multitasking with three groups of characters, so I can't make the best use of time. But I know quality when I see it, and the DLC for this game is certainly that!

#43 down: American Idol on Game Boy Advance (emulated on my Anbernic), first clear for the rhythmic badge.

This was pretty easy but not particularly fun.

Against all odds, I beat Sonic the Hedgehog with zero lives to spare.
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This game was like $2 at a garage sale last August, and now I’ve finally gotten around to playing it. Not a bad time once you get past Spring Yard Zone. This game is pretty guilty of reusing level geography—enough so that I questioned if I was replaying an area I’d previously finished multiple times. Spring Yard and Star Light Zone we’re the biggest offenders here.

I have to tiptoe through Sonic stages to survive, so a lot of the high speed fun is sucked out for me. But unlike the later games, this one was a pretty reasonable jaunt through just a few worlds, enough so to beat it in just two or three attempts. There’s no darn Death Egg Robot in this one, so I could actually beat it. (I like Sonic 2, for those asking, but I’ve never beaten its final boss. I’ve beaten Sonic 3 & Knuckles.)

After a bunch of research and asking around, I downloaded and beat Grimace’s Birthday (“originally” GBC).
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McDonald’s is currently celebrating the anniversary of one of its old mascots, apparently, and they tasked a retro game developer to make a free tie-in game that actually runs natively on Game Boy Color hardware. It even has a “please insert this into a colored Game Boy” screen like GBC games often had. The attention to detail making this a faithful retro game is admirable.

It’s a very short platformer that has running and jumping stages and skateboarding ones. Grimace face plants too often on his board, but the game’s over so fast, you’ll barely notice. The music goes harder than it needs to, which is funny. I was a tad distracted every time a character used modern slang or 2020s vernacular (“I can’t even with you, Hamburglar”), since it’s anachronistic. This game does a good job advertising the Grimace Birthday Shake, the collectibles scattered across the stages and undoubtedly a delicious treat at your local fast food establishment. The game’s greatest challenge comes in the form of the Score Attack mode—collecting all 20 birthday presents in the labyrinth as the timer ticks down can get pretty intense. Somehow I got 32/20 presents on my last run…? Weird.

Either way, this obvious advertisement game had a lot of soul poured into it, and the fact that I can play it on a modded 3DS makes it way cooler. I’m quite happy I played it! Now go try it yourself if you have the means.

“I love war!” -Grimace, McDonaldland Card Game Party

The beats just keep on coming! I beat Gargoyle’s Quest II: The Demon Darkness (originally NES) at work.
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I played Gargoyle’s Quest for GB last year, and it kinda stunk. The screen was too small to display everything it should’ve, the text was poorly translated and barely fit on screen, it was far too open-ended, and there were too many identical enemy encounters. This NES sequel is an improvement. It’s far more linear, the screen shows you enough to play well, and the translation is decent. I had more fun and beat it far quicker. It’s no must-play, but it made a nice reprieve from Mega Man.

Just my 11th clear this year on 6/16.

Might and Magic book I

I do not envy anyone that had to hand draw out each and every map for this game. Different times for sure. It had to have taken hundreds upon hundreds of hours to beat this when it first came out. Auto mapping was the best thing to ever hit the cRPG genre! I received a party score of 420,326 upon completion. This was difficult to get into at first, and the difficulty is unforgiving at times. The classic grind is completely necessary here!

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OP updated!

My first impressions with Mirror's Edge: Catalyst weren't great. I'm a big fan of the original, in spite of its flaws, and I was thrilled to see the franchise called out as Frank's Game of the Month; but the lore reboot, the clunky platforming, and the cramming of a zillion unnecessary modern gaming conventions landed like a boulder. After filling out the Movement skill tree (ugh...) and reluctantly accepting the existence of the MAG, I was starting to really crave my playthroughs and the parkour zen that the series does such a great job of cultivating. I miss the original, though, especially its simpler aesthetic and dreamy soundtrack.

Number: 20
Full Title: Mirror's Edge: Catalyst
Platform Played: EA (Origin)
Collection: N/A
Native Platform: Windows
Original Platforms: Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One
Applicable Badge: Girl Power (1/2)

Five days until Final Fantasy XVI takes over my at-home game time. I'll be keeping busy with Golden Sun and Daytona USA in the meantime.

Renaissance2K wrote:

You played it on an EA (Origin)? What exactly is that? How should I classify it on the Google Doc?

I beat Mega Man (originally NES). At long last, I'm done with all six games on Mega Man Legacy Collection.

I was under the impression that Mega Man 1 was a bad game, being the first in a series that was revolutionized by its second game. Turns out I was wrong! I quite liked Mega Man 1, even if it has some slippery feet and only six Robot Masters. The Magnet Beam is a nifty gadget, the Yellow Devil is a decent challenge without being the brutal beast I'd heard about, and the music and graphics were better than I'd thought. Color me surprised!

I'd rank the first six games as follows: 6>4>2>1>3>5. 6 feels like the culmination of the NES series (ignoring 9 and 10 since those are technically Wii games) while 5 feels rushed and uninspired.

SupremeSarna wrote:

Just put it down as PC.

@SupremeSarna EA Origin is their PC storefront and game launcher. Similarly Ubisoft has uPlay. I technically beat Mirror's Edge via Origin as well.
Annoyingly thanks to Origin, uPlay and others I've got 7 game launchers installed on my PC, including Steam.

Since some folks wanted to count Steam as a platform and whilst Stream is amazing, there still are plenty of games for the PC that aren't on Valve's platform, thus the need for the PC platform listing as well.

#44: Wario Blast: Featuring Bomberman! (Game Boy emulated on Anberic)- counts toward the Cross the Streams badge.

This was harder than I expected. The final boss took me a bit to figure out. Not a bad game. It was nice to play a stage here and there portably.

#45: Super Breakout! (Game Boy emulated on Anberic)- counts toward the Quarter Muncher badge.

An old classic. Since this is endless, I counted it as cleared once I beat the highest score from the original Breakout that you could get before it started repeating stages.

#46: Galaga (Game Boy emulated on Anberic)- This gets me the Quarter Muncher badge (alongside the Super Breakout! clear)

Another old classic. I beat the high score and went way beyond it, but this is also technically an endless game (although it has a glitch that gives you a game over once you get through 255 levels).

40th down, 1st on 6th in June
Strider 2014 remaster
Badge - I'm claiming this for Metroidvania as unlike the original (beat it in '21) which was more linear, this was an MV candidate - you gained upgrades to allow you to access doors and such that were blocked initially, there's plenty to hunt for in terms of upgrades and so on. Earns me the badge with 8 Doors being the first title.

Been meaning to give this a shot for a good while and it was actually a lot of fun, and not crazy challenging. I ended up collecting all 10 health and 10 energy upgrades and like 11/13 of the 3 other categories, plus a good number of the collectable things for I think art unlocks and outfits. I gained access to the final non-returnable boss area with only just over 60% completion and took a little time to hunt down some more stuff, but the game isn't fantastic with the map, fast travel nor the collectable % per area. There are large health containers that I came across and didn't need so I didn't acquire them, but they count towards the collectables and overall % complete for some reason. So I did revisit some areas and grabbed some as well as used all of my unlocks to search for and find a handful more stuff. I ended the game with a little over 80% on the completion listing, not that I really cared too much.
In general most bosses would beat me on the first attempt before I would get them on try #2. 2 outliers of that was the final boss's first phase (3-4 attempts needed, though attempt #1 I only had maybe 25% health to start) and the second phase (got him on my first try). The ascent to that boss encounter was tough as right before you reached him you faced 2 of the larger and nastier mini-bosses and they were freezing me and it took me 3-4 times on that as well. But besides all of that, I rather enjoyed my 6+ hour run, though Steam says I was 'in game' for 9.5, so the game's clock likely paused when I was looking at the map or cutscenes, maybe?

Non-Strider related.
I think I decided to give myself a new challenge. With SO dang many games in my library, I got the dumb idea to try to beat the alphabet the rest of this year. So I went through mainly my Xbox library of games (including all the GP and GwG titles), as well as my massive library from Steam, Epic, Amazon and a few others and added many games for each letter to a spreadsheet. I also went through my much smaller Sony and Sega libraries and I'm ready to try this personal challenge.
Clearly some letters (D, H, L, M, R, S, T) were really easy to find games and most of those I have 20+ to pick from. Others like (#, E, J, O, Q, U, X-Z) were a good bit harder to find options, so I don't think I'll be able to fully do an alphabet 'set' too many times. But I think I'm going to try pretty hard to complete a 'set' before repeating letters. I mean I have SO many games to choose from, this sort of helps me pick my next title.
Strider kicks this off, which sort of stinks b/c S is the strongest representation with just over 40 to pick from, but that's the goal of this. I'm working through Hi-Fi Rush, Uncharted 3 and about 5 others from different letters (with less progress), so this could be an interesting experiment. Depending on how it goes, I feel like I could maybe turn this into a new GTZ thread and pick like 2 letters per month and 'challenge' folks to beat a game or 2 from each letter in that month. But with the RTT and Frank's GotM threads already, maybe I won't bother... Heck, maybe I'll find this experiment annoying and abandon it, though really it was a way for me to get a good list of around 365 total games that I legitimately want to play, from the 10k+ that I have. I have complete sets of ROMs for many systems, plus a huge Mame set that I get the 10k+ number from, so surely many of those I have zero interest in. I mentioned before that I've beat north of 300 in the last 3.5+ years, so having this list of 365 doesn't feel too nuts... but yeah it sort of is.
Anyhow if anyone wants to join me on this experiment, let me know, be fun to chat about things.

Made a slight tweak and included 2 games I beat earlier in the year for the # (8 Doors) and Q (Quake) columns as they have very few game options. Figure that will make completing this now active set a touch easier. I might add a few other games that I already beat in '23 to this set, but the point is to beat more, not backfill.
I also added a count to the spreadsheet and brought over the 300+ that I've recorded as beat recently and S is surely the most represented letter at 43 beat, with a few multiple versions (like Soul Calibur 2 on and ) M comes in 2nd with 28, then 26 for T.

I decided to be daring and play a random Wii U game I bought months ago. This is Klonoa: Empire of Dreams (originally GBA).
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I dunno what Klonoa normally is, but this is a quality 2D puzzle-platformer. You grab and inflate enemies, then throw them or leap off them for a double-jump. Run through each stage and pick up emeralds and Stars of David to open the exit door. The difficulty is kind of all over the place—I thought everything in it was easy or at least comfortably challenging, then the final world and the bonus stages are brain-bustingly difficult. I wish the end of the experience were as comfy as the rest, because it’s excellent otherwise. Bonus stages 2 and 3 are maddeningly tricky, but that just means you have to master the mechanics and use your mind to the fullest!

There are also autoscrolling stages and hoverboard challenges, which are the worst in the game. I resorted to save states on the last hoverboard stage, since you have to redo everything if you miss even one collectible (that is, if you’re trying to 100% the game like I was). Those were a pain, but the platforming stages are sweet.

I definitely recommend this one. I’d better try the rest of the series.

6/20 for these next two:

#12 -- The 13th Doll
Decent tribute to The 7th Guest. The original bad guy making a cameo was awesome. The soundtrack is great, upbeat and jazzy and somehow still fits the creepy mansion vibe perfectly. Puzzles were not nearly as painfully difficult as in the older games. Multiple endings and branching paths...you can't visit all the rooms in the mansion in one run, so I'll likely be playing through it again to see all the different puzzles. This is worthy of a replay being as it only took me 4-5 hours to beat it the first time.
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#13 -- Final Fantasy IX
FF9 felt a lot like FF8 for me, but then again I played each of them to completion for the first time just in the past few years. I find it unfair to these two FFs that I played them so late after their launch. I wonder how I would have felt about them had I played them around their original release. For me, I can't say they're better than say FF7, nor would I hold them as high as most of the other great RPGs we saw during the PS1 era. It's a shame I didn't get to appreciate them for what they were in their prime. Playing them so late I think has diminished their value to me personally.
I did have one major gripe: while I enjoyed that you could steal multiple items from enemies and bosses, I couldn't stand the drop rate...even with the success rate up items. It really took away from the boss battle experience when I had to have three characters heal and/or skip their turn for 10-20 minutes waiting for Zidane to steal everything. Let alone the fact that now your main character is essentially dealing no damage the entirety of the fight. I finished up all the side content, but did not max level any characters. In fact, I stuck with my main 4 as Zidane, Steiner, Freya, and Quina. They can output damage waaay quicker and just as effectively as your casters/summoners where you have to sit through constant casting animations. Completed in about 66 hours.
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#47 down: Diablo IV on PS5. I would like to claim the Hyrulian Hero badge with this clear and my previous clear of Star Wars Jedi- Survivor.

I have been excited about this coming out for years, and it’s everything I wanted it to be. Easily my Game of the Year and one of my favorites overall. I am moving on to FF XVI tomorrow, but I will definitely be coming back to this later in the year and going for the platinum.

I beat Fat Princess: Fistful of Cake .
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I believe @nonamesleft wanted to hear about it. It’s a twist on capture the flag with a humorous, medieval twist. Two teams of 16 depart their castles and attempt to seize the enemy princess, bringing her back to their dungeon. There are several classes each player can use, like a strong warrior, a sniping archer, or a healing priest. You can take enemy outposts, kill your foes, and use slices of cake to fatten up your own princess, which makes her harder to capture. It’s good, but I imagine it’s much more fun in an actual multiplayer setting. I played the story mode for this clear.

As for the comedy, it made me laugh out loud a few times. One day, two princesses from rival kingdoms ate a giant cake they found mysteriously sitting in the woods, and it was so delicious, they ate themselves to giant sizes. The king is understandably upset and learns from the Oracle that the cake was cursed to have this addictive effect on its eaters. He says the only cure is the kiss of a prince, and as it so happens, Prince Albert is going to be visiting the land from afar in search of a bride. King Red becomes increasingly obsessed with making sure the rival princess is out of the picture so Albert chooses his daughter. There’s a crazy back and forth as war breaks out and casualties mount.

The funniest chapter is the dragon one, where the king swears and the game bleeps it out, but it’s obvious the VA dropped a real F-bomb in the recording studio and they just covered it up. And the kicker? The narrator who voices all the characters is Tom Kane, the prolific actor behind Prof. Utonium in the Powerpuff Girls and Admiral Yularen (the iconic announcer) in Star Wars: The Clone Wars, among many others! He adds quite a lot to the comedy, even in a match (“They’re in our base, killing our dyudes!”). There are plenty of 2000s memes in the game also, from “Pwn’d” to “All your base are belong to us.” They’re certainly a relic of their time.

So it was as funny as I expected, but you need a larger group of likeminded players to get the most out of it. There were a couple chapters that really stunk, too: You have to deplete the enemy force to 0 by taking their outposts and killing their units, but the CPU is just as fast as you and it likely to leave you in the dust quickly. Those were a war of attrition, but the rest is enjoyable.

I beat minecraft on the xbox1

Tears of the Kingdom on Switch. Now I can finally start looking for some other games to beat.

I’m probably crazy enough to do an alphabet challenge with you. Coincidentally, I actually thought about doing that earlier this year.

Slickriven wrote:

#48 down: Barbie: The Prince and the Pauper on Game Boy Advance (emulated on Anberic). This was about as bad as I had anticipated, but it did get me the second clear I needed (after beating Avenging Spirit earlier) for the Hop n' Bop badge.

7th of June, 3rd 41st overall
Uncharted 3 - Drake's Deception

When I started the Uncharted series, I was sort of expecting a similar vein to the Tomb Raider series and 1 and 3 felt that way. 2 felt a bit more action-y and over the top with the opening train section, that you had to do part of twice, as well as take on several choppers and a tank - that turned me off with just too much bombastic suspension of belief type stuff. 3 was more like 1, with mostly grounded things, but surely a bit fantastical and yes some frustrations via some oddly placed checkpoints during gun fights, but top to bottom I liked 3 way more vs. 2.

I'm also stoked to have wrapped up my run through the trilogy and think I'll take a break before trying 4.

@Bleed_DukeBlue I welcome you joining my Alphabet challenge. I'm counting the following:
# - 8 Doors
Q - Quake ('22 remake)
S - Strider 2014
U - Uncharted 3

@Slickriven Since you started this sub-challenge halfway through the year, I’m including everything I’ve played so far. So that’s…

#
A Alleyway
B Bayonetta
C Crashmo
D Donkey Kong 64
E
F Final Fantasy VI
G Gargoyle’s Quest II: The Demon Darkness
H
I
J Junkbot Undercover
K Kirby’s Return to Dream Land Deluxe
L LocoRoco
M Mega Man Powered Up
N New Play Control! Pikmin
O
P Pikmin 2
Q
R Rhythm Thief & the Emperor's Treasure
S Star Wars Episode I Racer
T Tetris 99
U
V
W Wild Guns Reloaded
X Xenoblade Chronicles 3
Y
Z Zelda II: The Adventure of Link

It’s debatable if I’ve beaten E, since I played Disney Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion, which starts with a D, but only because the franchise owner is in the title. Some people just call the series Epic Mickey, like the Disney World vs. Walt Disney World debate.

I would never complete the alphabet challenge in a single year, but I kinda want to start tracking it just as a personal ongoing challenge. I think I'll do that.

Alphabet Challenge Progress So Far:

A: A Robot Named Fight
B: Barbie: The Prince and the Pauper
C: Cult of the Lamb
D: Dead Island 2
E: Eternal
F: Final Fantasy
G: Gotham Knights
H: Hogwarts Legacy
I: Inscryption
J: Jesus: The Terrifying Bio-Monster
K: Kayak VR: Mirage
L: (The) Light Brigade
M: Marvel's Midnight Suns
N:
O:
P:
Q:
R: Resident Evil 4 Remake
S: Star Wars Jedi: Survivor
T: Tekken 3
U:
V:
W: Wario Blast: Featuring Bomberman!
X: Xeodrifter
Y:
Z:

I’ll play too!

Alphabet Challenge Progress So Far:

A: Atomic Heart
B: Bayonetta 3
C: Crysis Remastered
D:
E: Evil West
F:
G: God of War: Ragnarok
H: Hi-Fi Rush
I:
J:
K: Kirby’s Dream Land
L: Little Hope
M: Metroid Prime: Remastered
N:
O:
P: Pokémon Brilliant Diamond
Q:
R: Resident Evil 4 Remake
S: Stray
T: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge
U:
V:
W:
X:
Y: Yoshi’s Story
Z:

It's cool to see a number of folks jump on this goofball idea I had. I think I'll update mine to include the games I beat already this year since most are as well. Will have to update that later when I'm on my PC.

To be clear, I’m not recording these specifically. This little game isn’t an official part of Beat a Game 2023.

Got it. I only have like 10-12 games left in me to get to hopefully by the end of this year. All longer titles too and only a couple with letters I’m missing so I probably won’t update the A-Z list after today but it’s fun to see like I got 14 out of 26 letters already with the titles I’ve beaten. Pretty cool.

My set thus far in '23
# - 8 Doors
A - Aces Of The Luftwaffe
B - Bugsnax
C - CupHead
D - Doom 2016
E -
F -
G - God of War 3
H - High on Life
I - Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet
J -
K - Kentucky Route Zero
L - (The) Legend of TianDing
M - My Friend Pedro
N -
O -
P - Planet of Lana
Q - Quake ('22 remake)
R - Ryse: Son of Rome
S - Strider 2014
T - Tinykin
U - Uncharted 3
V - Virtua Fighter
W - Wreckfest
X -
Y -
Z -

I decided to exclude from above some E and F titles that were dumb, DLC or mobile games as personally I'm not sure they're worthy of counting. Plus I wanted to use this as another tool to help me pick new games to play and I want to find E&F titles to play. So I've got 8 letters to focus on next and after more time than I should've spent just now, I think I've picked some good candidates for those 8 letters.