VideoGame_Discussion

TalonJedi87 wrote:
What were your previous 2? The spreadsheet has you up to 20 with God of War Ascension.

NES - Ninja Gaiden, Contra, Marble Madness, Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos
SNES - Super Castlevania IV
N64 -
GC -
Wii -
Wii U - The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD
Switch - Metroid Dread, Ori and the Will of the Wisps, Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, Kirby and the Forgotten Land, SteamWorld Dig, Steamworld Dig 2, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge, Shovel Knight: Shovel of Hope, SteamWorld Heist
GB -
GBC -
GBA - The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords
DS - Pokemon Black
3DS -
360 - Banjo-Kazooie
XB1 -
PS1 -
PS2 -
PS4 -
PSP -
GEN - Castlevania: Bloodlines

8/19 - Unique systems
19 - Total games

Badges
Metroidvania - Metroid Dread, Ori and the Will of the Wisps
Grown-Ass Man - Ninja Gaiden, Contra, Castlevania: Bloodlines
Bear & Bird - Banjo-Kazooie, Kirby and the Forgotten Land
Hyrulian Hero - The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD, The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords

benstylus wrote:

There were only 239 beans in that bean dip. Otherwise it would be too forty.

SupremeSarna wrote:

Ghostwire: Tokyo and Elden Ring. Doesn’t look like Ghostwire was logged yet.

TalonJedi87 wrote:
What systems were those for?

Elden Ring was Xbox Series X
Ghostwire Tokyo was PS5

Finished Resident Evil Village on Steam Deck.

#23 God of War: Chains of Olympus
Another one bites the dust. Short, sweet and to the point. How I like it when I’m speed running! This one def aged though in regards to graphics but the performance is better than Ascension at 60fps at 1080p in the remaster here. And you can definitely tell it was originally a PSP game first at its simplistic design and limited number of enemies on screen at once and lack of voice acting outside of CGI cutscenes. I also enjoyed the tale about Kratos’ daughter and Persephone and showcasing just the beginning of Kratos’ descent into madness. Next stop, the OG, God of War 2005.

I beat Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3 (originally GBA).
[imgt]https://i.imgur.com/IC32TQZ_d.webp?maxwidth=640&sh...[/imgt]

Here’s some Nintendo fan heresy: I don’t like Super Mario Bros. 3. It’s a fairly punishing game with a good bit of trial and error gameplay and a lot of annoying mechanics that newer Mario games have mostly abandoned—things like the mushrooms moving left or right based on the direction from which you hit the block, stages completely lacking checkpoints, being taken back several map spaces when you fail a stage, a heavier emphasis on those obnoxious note blocks, and so on. But this isn’t supposed to be a rant, because thanks to Warp Whistles, beating the story mode was only a tiny fraction of my experience.

The real reason I booted this up was to play the 38 e-Reader levels that come bundled with the Wii U version. These stages were super novel and often challenging, and because they were made in 2003, they tend to avoid the more antiquated elements I mentioned. Some of them pull elements from SMB2, World, and even Yoshi’s Island to make some truly unique stages. They felt like Super Mario Maker before Super Mario Maker! Seeing SMB3 Mario plucking turnips and flying with the Cape Feather was really cool, as was bouncing off Bumpties and running up walls. I reached an area in one stage that made me think I was about to fight Wart, and though he sadly wasn’t there, it’s telling that they were able to capture my imagination enough to think that was a possibility!

I beat each e-Reader stage as both Mario and Luigi, and nabbed all the Advance Coins and e-Coins. Tricky but satisfying! I highly recommend this for $8 if you have a Wii U. The e-Reader stages are worth the price on their own, and you get SMB3 (grumble) and a remake of Mario Bros. too. Or you can go on eBay and buy all the e-Reader cards and an e-Reader peripheral separately, if breaking the bank is more your style.

SupremeSarna wrote:

Banned.


Counter points:
I like that you can choose the direction of your shroom. Also as you get further into the game, you should have enough powerups in your stash that you rarely if ever need to enter a stage as shrinkydink Mario, so mushroom movement shouldn't be a huge deal.

I don't know what you mean by trial and error gameplay. Unless you are talking about the cryptic ways of unlocking a white Toad house or a treasure ship, or the bonus card matching minigame... or is it having too much freedom to fly around and then not know where you are going to land?

If you want punishing play lost levels.

Actually there was one thing I found annoying as a kid... in two player mode when the other player can steal your turn by challenging you to that Mario Bros style minigame if you enter the same space they are on.

benstylus wrote:



Mario 3 is GOAT material.

I haven’t played SMB 3 since 1936, but it was pretty cool.

Mario Strikers

Cleared all tournaments and gold tournaments.

#62 down: Band of Bugs on Xbox 360. That takes care of my 360 clear. One more system (PS2) to go. Since I needed a 360 clear, I literally just picked a game at random from my backlog, and it ended up being this. This was an unexpected surprise. Your mileage may vary depending on whether or not you like tactics games, but I love them, so this was right up my alley. This is not really a game you play for the graphics (passable but clearly dated) or the story (fine but mostly just kill the bad bugs with your team of good bugs and a human who everyone thinks is a kind of bug). The gameplay, however, is quite fun. I had to repeat a few levels because I made a mistake or took too many risks, but most of them aren’t particularly hard once you get a good handle on what each bug can do. When you beat a level, your bugs level up and automatically get new abilities and better stats (but you don’t assign any of this, so there’s no customization at all, which is a bummer). Still, there are fun moments with new skills (like when you first get inferno), and I found myself with a lot of opportunities to get creative as the levels threw new challenges at me. Some of the level design (while similar aesthetically) incorporates interesting gameplay ideas (varied levels of elevation, parts of the map that collapse beneath you, poison pods bugs can run into, tangled weeds, spiderwebs, etc.). Given how the levels are divided, this is a fun one to pick up and play for a bit at a time.

I finished the Splatoon 3 campaign the other day. Definitely the best campaign in Splatoon so far. I cleared it 100%, including the bonus hard level at the end which was a nice surprise!

NES - Ninja Gaiden, Contra, Marble Madness, Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos
SNES - Super Castlevania IV
N64 -
GC -
Wii -
Wii U - The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD
Switch - Metroid Dread, Ori and the Will of the Wisps, Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, Kirby and the Forgotten Land, SteamWorld Dig, Steamworld Dig 2, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge, Shovel Knight: Shovel of Hope, SteamWorld Heist, Splatoon 3
GB -
GBC -
GBA - The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords
DS - Pokemon Black
3DS -
360 - Banjo-Kazooie
XB1 -
PS1 -
PS2 -
PS4 -
PSP -
GEN - Castlevania: Bloodlines

8/19 - Unique systems
20 - Total games

Badges
Metroidvania - Metroid Dread, Ori and the Will of the Wisps
Grown-Ass Man - Ninja Gaiden, Contra, Castlevania: Bloodlines
Bear & Bird - Banjo-Kazooie, Kirby and the Forgotten Land
Hyrulian Hero - The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD, The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords

I have a duo of games that I finished up on the way to collecting G-roll for a new video, starting with Gradius III for the Super Nintendo.

One of my friends in middle school and high school had a dusty Super Nintendo sequestered in their basement. He didn't use it all that often, but being the budding gamer that I was, I made sure the little gray box got some exercise whenever I visited. His collection differed quite a bit from the collections of my other friends, one such example being his copy of Gradius III. It made enough of an impression that, when I finally picked up a Wii in 2007 and started exploring the Virtual Console, Gradius III ended up being my first such purchase. With a lot of Nintendo staples available on its portable platforms, the long-forgotten horizontal shooter seemed like the perfect choice.

There's a lot that I adore about Gradius III. For starts, the soundtrack - the big impetus to this year's playthrough - is an absolute banger, with its first few level tracks being standouts. I love how the enemy and boss designs merge organic Akira-style monstrosities and futuristic spaceship aesthetics. I love the way the game lets you pick a loadout, instead of just giving you a rotation of guns that grow progressively bigger as you accumulate power-ups. And, along those same lines, I friggin' love the Ripple gun. I don't even care if it's not the optimal choice (according to the Interwebs, the Twin Laser actually gets that distinction), but it's the perfect space weapon.

I was never very good at the game. Even with the Wii re-release, I had a hard time fully unlocking my loadout. By swallowing my pride and setting the difficulty to Easy, though, that happened a little more often this time around, especially in the later levels that seem to throw orange orbs at you. I also figured out fairly quickly that avoiding the orbs once you have your shield upgrade highlighted is great for a quick recharge when your defenses go down. The game's slowdown is actually a lot worse than I remember and not isolated to a few setpieces like some retro gaming pundits imply, but - and I'm slightly ashamed of this - I grew to appreciate it in the later, more chaotic levels where holding down the Fire button functions effectively as a "brake" when the heat goes up.

Following Gradius, I played through - and this is a mouthful - Rockman Complete Works 2: Dr. Wily No Nazo for the PlayStation.

For the uninitiated, Capcom released enhanced versions of the first six Mega Man games for the PlayStation in Japan. Later on, some of them made cameo appearances as PSOne Imports for the PSP and PlayStation, which is how I discovered them. I won't go into too much detail about my love for Mega Man 2 - I played through the Genesis version as part of my 2020 year of replays and consider it and its extraordinary 8-bit soundtrack as all-time faves - but this was a release I've been itching to dive into for a long time.

The Complete Works games look like straight-up ports of the Nintendo releases at first glance, but Capcom added a whole ton of enhancements and quality of life features that take advantage of the hardware without messing too much with the gameplay. There's a new HUD with 16-bit style graphics, hazard indicators, and tips as you play through each of the levels. There's Memory Card support that negates the need to take down pictoral passwords, and even a Pocketstation (!) app that lets you level up both Mega Man (or Rock, I guess, since this is a Japanese game) and his opponents. You can optionally turn on rapid fire, which makes huge difference even with the three bullet limit, and Dual Shock rumble.

But for me, the greatest feature in this "Special Edition" release is the soundtrack. While it's not a complete replacement, roughly half the tracks in the game were swapped out with CD quality re-arrangements. Standouts are the excellent Bubble Man remix, as well as the new version of Wily Stage 1, both of which turn already awesome songs into incredible modern tracks.

Wood Man's theme, however, remains untouched. Oh well. I guess you can't mess with perfection.

More random playthroughs coming soon...

Game #44 (I think) is Along Together on

2nd of Nov, 66th overall, 6th
The Gunk
I'm counting this towards Sasori Vader since we expanded that to any space-themed title and this fits

I heard this might leave GP before the end of the year and after learning it wasn't too long I decided to give it a shot... and it was alright. It didn't overstay it's welcome, so that was a plus. The world was pretty and the music was pretty good. But they left so much on the table. The core suck up the gunk mechanic was solid and could've benefitted from more things to do, more variety to it. But really there were 3 enemies, that were generally cake to deal with, I didn't die at all in the game. The story was predictable and the banter btwn the main protagonist and her partner was lame and pointlessly dramatic at times.
But at 6 or so hours, it was close to a walking-sim level of 3rd person mild puzzler/platformer set on an alien planet, you could get upgrades as well, but I'll be darned if I noticed them nor used any of the additional deployable stuff. Again I think they could have made this a good deal more impressive with only a few tweaks and less dialog driven drama. But in the end it wasn't a waste of time.

Jurassic Park: Aftermath Oculus dumb AI, but cool atmosphere. Finished.

Sorry haven't posted here in a while been working like crazy 12 hours a day 6 days a week but harvest is finally starting to slow down. It's been hard trying to squeeze in a bit of gaming but I managed to beat Tales of Berseria on PS4 and it counts as half of the girl power badge.

I beat soul calibur 2 on the ps2

Haven't posted in a while...

#13: Soul Hackers 2
It's fine. Cool combat, but it's a drag and it's lacking in so many areas.

#14: Deliver Us The Moon
Awesome sci-fi puzzle-adventure game. This is a walking simulator done right.

#15: The Red Lantern
Unique story-driven roguelite set in Alaska. Definitely the best new game I've played so far this year.

#16: Disciples: Liberation
Better than it has any right to be. 80+ hours and I never got tired of exploring the overworld and crushing the turn-based battles. The story is pretty standard fantasy fare, but I enjoyed it!

#17: We Are OFK
Very, very niche but I enjoyed it. Sick art style and an amazing soundtrack.

Currently working on The Chant and the new Saints Row. The Chant is awesome so far - gonna jump back into it tonight - and Saints Row is...not as bad as I thought it'd be. I'm really in the mood for something sandbox-y so it's scratching that itch for me right now. Only 2 hours in so let's see if I'm still into it after 10.

Not sure when your last updated but I beat Resident Evil 3 Remake on recently

Also add to my consoles.....

Just beat Scorn I will post a wordy detail tomorrow about it. Short version: No. Do not play this.

@Kommie
Everything's catalogued up to this point.

I beat fable 3 on the xbox360

#24-God of War
So many fond memories for me here. I’ve now beaten this game over a dozen times in it’s 17 year existence and while it’s become rough around the edges control wise and has a fixed camera that hinders more than it helps at times, the story and soundtrack alone with memorable characters shines on thru any muck along the way. Next stop in the Kratos chronology, Ghost of Sparta!

Sorry, @Scott , but I liked The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages better.
[imgt]https://i.imgur.com/9pquYPd_d.webp?maxwidth=640&sh...[/imgt]

I don’t know if it’s a Linked Game thing, but OoA has way more character and story than OoS. They found a way to differentiate the time travel from Ocarina of Time by having you travel hundreds of years, so you meet characters’ ancestors and explore a geographically different land. In some cases, you cause bootstrap paradoxes, where Link in the past was the originator of something that he was seeking in the present. They even fixed the problem with warping in ALttP: Not only are there way more warp panels spread across Labrynna, but you get an upgrade later that lets you ignore the obnoxious patch of sparkles.

Onox in OoS was a generic villain with no real presence in the game; Veran is a malevolent trickster who possesses people and casts spells, making her way more interesting. The focus on puzzles over battle results in really satisfying brain teasers, especially on Crescent Island and Zora’s Domain. Some of the bosses are hit or miss, like the first one being pretty gimmicky, but others are good. The Great Moblin was much funnier in OoS as well, as his role is diminished here.

I strongly recommend Ages over Seasons. By comparison, Ages felt like a passion project while Seasons felt like the other one they had to make to have the dual-release Miyamoto ordered.

@SupremeSarna, it was actually supposed to be a trilogy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legend_of_Zelda:...

I did prefer Ages back when I originally played them, but that’s probably just because I played that one first. (Though it appears you did the opposite. I just mean that it felt really good to be playing a new 2D Zelda at the time I played Ages,)

BloodPuppetX wrote:

Even better: It was conceived as six games (remakes of Zelda 1 and 2, plus four original titles). But that’s a ludicrous amount of work, so I’m glad they did what they did. I feel bad for Farore, though, as she’s stuck as a cashier for optional passwords.

I finished two more games recently, starting with the PC version of Deathsmiles.

Collector's Editions of games have always been around in one way or another, but they seemed to go nuts during the seventh generation of gaming when publishers were doing whatever they could to squeeze more and more money out of a game sale. First, they increased the price of a new physical game to $60. Then, the small tokens of paid downloadable content ballooned into massive investments that sometimes cost more than the game itself, albeit providing a fraction of the content. Most memorably, there was no shortage of gigantic boxes on store shelves filled with cheaply-made trinkets, additional discs, exclusive content, artwork, and in some rare and special occasions, well-endowed mousepads.

The limited edition release of Deathsmiles for the Xbox 360 didn't feature any emboobed PC peripherals, but it did include a sharp-looking purple faceplate that piqued my interest, despite knowing absolutely nothing about the game. Like, literally nothing. It could have been an accounting simulator for all I knew, but I doubted that considering how much praise the game was already getting.

When the game arrived and I played it for the first time, I was greeted by a shooter unlike anything I had ever seen before. This was my first encounter with Cave, the famed developer celebrated what I now know as "bullet hell" shooters that set aside the metered rationing of old school sh'mups like my beloved Raiden in favor of full-on chaos. Instead of piloting weaponized spaceships, you're controlling superpowered witches, but this is far from a cute-em-up. You spend the entire game destroying beautifully-rendered grotesque monsters through mystical environments as a wild soundtrack blasts in the background. And sweet Christmas, there's a lot of bright pink bullets to dodge. I've never done drugs, but the one hour where I blitzed through the main campaign as Rosa must come pretty close to what it feels like.

The Deathsmiles soundtrack is pretty bizarre, but it had its share of standout tracks, which is why I ended up revisiting it as part of this year's 30-Day VGM Challenge video. The original 360 game is long gone, but Deathsmiles and its sequel have been ported to a ton of platforms, including Steam and the Steam Deck, which is where I ended up buying it. Scaling effects and pixelation make the game look a whole lot worse than I remember (though I was much less anal about that sort of thing way back then), but playing through again - this time with Sakura, at the behest of the corresponding Steam community - was every bit as much of a head trip so many years later.

And then, last night, in the middle of the night, I finally finished Lunar: Eternal Blue for the Sega CD, which I started back in January.

Our friend @Lunar posted about his "Lunar New Year" concept - using the annual holiday as an excuse to play through a game from the Lunar franchise - a few years back. Since then, I've taken it as an opportunity to play through the original Lunar: The Silver Star on the Sega CD, followed by Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete for the PlayStation. I was briefly introduced to the latter over twenty years ago, but the more hardcore mechanics and anime-heavy presentation ended up being a tricky pill to swallow. Revisiting them recently, though, showed me why the franchise is so beloved.

Rather than play through another port of Silver Star, I decided to play the game's Sega CD sequel, both to see where the story goes and to put my newly-modded Sega Nomad through its paces. Part of Silver Star's charm for me was how simple it was. Despite the occasional cutscene, it resembled, of all things, Final Fantasy Mystic Quest with its predictable characters, booming (and heavily period-appropriate) soundtrack, and relatively simple mechanics obfuscated by a barely-functional menu. Eternal Blue, in contrast, is much more fleshed out and cinematic. The characters and cutscenes are more developed, the battle system is better-explained, and the demands the game makes of you are much broader.

At no time is this more clear than when you're dungeon crawling. Eternal Blue's dungeons are sprawling, filled with lots of branching paths and dead ends that take a lot of time to explore comprehensively. Most significant dungeons also feature a travel mechanic/obstacle - tube elevators, lava rafters, ice chutes, etc. - that needs to be decoded to ultimately make it to the final boss. After spending upwards of an hour smacking your compass, the bosses at the end of the dungeon were sometimes a lot trickier to crack than their predecessor's counterparts. Lunar's big battle gimmick is how your enemies telegraph what attack they're about to use. It was bonus information in the original Lunar, but this time around, it's downright essential to respond to your foe's incoming move in the endgame, once the bad guys finally hide their stride.

Eternal Blue took me a long time to finish. Despite being able to play and save anywhere, booting a Sega CD game on a bulky Nomad is nowhere near as seamless as resuming a game session on a Switch, so progress felt slow. As much of a conceptual leap as it was over Silver Star, I still missed the characters and the colors of its PlayStation cousin. Losing a chunk of progress about halfway through the game after a particularly gnarly dungeon crawl wasn't much fun either, but that's not the game's fault. Things moved a whole lot faster once I started playing the game at home, and I was pretty satisfied with the game's climax, though it involved having my face kicked in by the final boss more times than I'd like to admit.

SupremeSarna wrote:

I love both games, and honestly think they're fairly close in quality. But if I have to compare them and pick a favorite, it's easily Seasons for me. Mostly because I prefer the unique season changing mechanic over time travel, but also because I like how it's more focused on combat than puzzles. Subrosia is also a pretty cool area they included, I enjoyed the extra 'world' to explore. I do agree that Onox is a fairly weak villain though. It's perfectly understandable if you prefer Ages, but I think you're being WAY too hard on Seasons here. They're both fairly comparable games.

The fact that you played Ages second as a linked game does make a difference, you get more story that way, not to mention the big finale which you probably now associate with Ages, when really it belongs to both games. I usually recommend playing both of them twice, in each order. There are bits of story and little bonuses in both that you'll only get if playing each one as the 2nd, linked game.

Scott wrote:

I knew a handful of things were tied to the linked game, like the entire Twinrova plot and Zelda’s mere existence, plus the Donkey Kong reference. So I’m not counting those as Ages-exclusive. But the fact that Ages has Ralph, a pathetic but dutiful hero wannabe, and the manipulable Queen Ambi adds to its cast of characters. Every once in a while you’ll catch up with one of them and see a bit of growth from them, or Ambi will build more of the Black Tower, or something like that. The female Maku Tree also left more of an impression, as she has much more personality than the sleepy male version in OoS.

In OoS, I liked the stuff with Moosh, Ricky, Dimitri, the Great Moblin, and the Subrosian girl you “date,” as well as the pirate skeleton bell quest. Thing is, most of not all of those characters reappear in OoA with a slight difference regardless of linking. They’re both good games, and I’ll play them in the reverse order someday, but Ages felt to me like it had something the Seasons lacked.

@SupremeSarna It's been a few years now since my last playthrough, so my memories are a bit fuzzy. But I'm pretty sure those characters only reappeared in OoA because of the linked game. Or at least, there was more to them because it was a linked game. When you get around to playing the games in the opposite order, you'll see the same sort of thing, with characters from OoA reappearing in OoS and having more story/development.

@Scott That makes sense, I suppose. But one thing's for sure: Minish Cap is better than both!

I liked Minish Cap a lot the first time I played it around 2006, but not as much when I finally replayed it a couple years back.

Speaking of Zelda, NL ranked their favorite dungeons:

https://www.nintendolife.com/features/the-top-15-l...

Forest Temple at #1. That was the dungeon that forced me to buy a strategy guide back before I had internet. I think I missed a Poe that was hiding in a painting or something.

I love the Forest Temple, definitely can't argue with it being #1. The Shadow Temple, however, wasn't nearly as good as I remembered it being when I last replayed OoT.

SupremeSarna wrote:


For the longest time this was my favorite Zelda game. Period. It might still be, I dunno, I don't like having to rank stuff like that because there's only a few in the series that I liked enough to play all the way through.

#25-God of War Ghost of Sparta
I blew through this one so quick I forgot how short it was. Probably shorter than the OG GoW 2005 but it was sweet while it lasted. I enjoyed the whole brotherly love side of Kratos even though they kicked each others butts a few times along the way. It also makes it’s due of the secret 2005 cutscene in the 2005 GoW you get when beating the game on god mode which is nice as they revolves an entire game around Kratos’ quest to find his lost brother. The final boss Thanatos was still a chump though. He’s got nothing on Hades. Next stop, God of War II ! (Which will probably take me a bit longer since it’s about 10-12 hours from what I recall)

I beat Castlevania. It wasn't nearly as difficult as I remembered.

NES - Ninja Gaiden, Contra, Marble Madness, Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos, Castlevania
SNES - Super Castlevania IV
N64 -
GC -
Wii -
Wii U - The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD
Switch - Metroid Dread, Ori and the Will of the Wisps, Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, Kirby and the Forgotten Land, SteamWorld Dig, Steamworld Dig 2, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge, Shovel Knight: Shovel of Hope, SteamWorld Heist, Splatoon 3
GB -
GBC -
GBA - The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords
DS - Pokemon Black
3DS -
360 - Banjo-Kazooie
XB1 -
PS1 -
PS2 -
PS4 -
PSP -
GEN - Castlevania: Bloodlines

8/19 - Unique systems
21 - Total games

Badges
Metroidvania - Metroid Dread, Ori and the Will of the Wisps
Grown-Ass Man - Ninja Gaiden, Contra, Castlevania: Bloodlines, Castlevania
Bear & Bird - Banjo-Kazooie, Kirby and the Forgotten Land
Hyrulian Hero - The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD, The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords

Scott wrote:

What was your last clear? I have Splatoon 3 as your 19th--did I miss one?

@SupremeSarna The latest clear was Castlevania on NES. I usually bold any changes (new games, new numbers), but it doesn't really stand out that much in dark mode.

Scott wrote:

Before that, I mean.

@SupremeSarna Oh, umm....I think the last one before that was Super Castlevania IV.

I finished Kirby Star Allies on Switch with one of my sons. It is a good game overall, but the last couple of levels were great.

I beat Frogo on PS5... What a disappointment. I thought it was going to be a Frogger clone but nope. Just some Bullcrap Platinum Trophy.

3rd of Nov, 67th overall, 7th title
Midnight Fight Express
Badge - going to count this for Ninja Gaiden and change Dishonored to Vault Boy - so I keep the Ninja Gaiden badge and have 1 towards Vault Boy

This was a lot of fun and a touch annoying in a few sections (I'm thinking of the fights in the cemetery, vs. the harvester and with the Apache). I abused my controller playing this and recommend it if you like some mindless fun. The music is solid and controls were great even if I wasn't a pro at them. Big aspect was the nuts story with many pop-culture like tidbits like the clear nod to MW2's No Russian scene but the story was all over the map with lots of characters and settings that were 'fun'.
This gets me past my total from 2020 and I'm sadly slowing as the year comes to a close. I normally get busy in these final 2 months and that's happening again. I fully expect to get into the 70s as I've got at least 3 titles with solid progress, but the 80s are likely out of reach. I've only got 5 consoles without a completion yet and have 1 in progress and 2 with games I've already picked out, so hoping I can get at least 23 or so consoles done.

As I collected more G-roll for my video project, I beat Street Fighter X Tekken for the PlayStation 3, unintentionally checking off that platform in the process.

In an era where Final Fantasy VII Remake is a thing, Noctis is a playable character in Tekken 7, and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate somehow manages to fill its roster with representatives from all my favorite franchises (sentient racecars excluded, naturally), it seems somewhat quaint to admit that Street Fighter X Tekken was nothing short of a dream come true when it was first announced. Tekken had cemented itself as my favorite fighting franchise from the day I bought my first PlayStation, and Street Fighter IV had unexpectedly knocked my socks off when it landed for the PlayStation 3, despite being a lukewarm Street Fighter fan before that point. The game was seemingly backed by all the money in the universe, was oozing with the same overabundance of style as Street Fighter IV did, and - of course - featured a rogues gallery of characters from the Capcom Street Fighter / Final Fight universe mashed up with a few generations of Tekken characters, pulling from their Tekken 3 variants whenever possible. And that's not even considering that the game was to be followed up with a Tekken X Street Fighter "sequel" a few years later that did the same thing with the modern Tekken engine.

I don't know if any of you were following along with this game at release, but if you were, you probably realize that "dream come true" is not what we ended up with. Street Fighter X Tekken should have been peeled out if its shiny Special Edition box (it came with a BANK, yo!) and stubbornly glued itself to the innards of the console's disc drive, not to be removed from its shiny black coffin for months. In reality, I barely touched it. I paired up my favorite Street Fighter and Tekken characters (Sakura and Yoshimitsu... don't ask), slumped my way through Arcade Mode once, and then barely picked it up after that. Even when the game was ported to the Vita and had the benefits of "anytime" portability, I paid the game very little attention or time. Something about it failed to click with me, especially when it came to tickling the twisted dreams of a Tekken fan like myself.

I've wondered for years what it is about Street Fighter X Tekken that made it land with such a wimper, but I've usually just attributed it to three things: the luster of the new Street Fighter engine wearing off (we'd seen two Street Fighter IV retail releases at this point), the intense marketing for the game overselling what we actually ended up with, and the fighting system itself, which appeals to Street Fighter fans like second nature but feels like putting casts and braces all over the Tekken characters. Those things were all true on some level, but this great video from Matt McMuscles went into detail about it. Despite stealing Street Fighter's art style and turning the "XTREME" dial up to 11, fights weren't very exciting. They took too long, attacks didn't do enough damage, and the massive roster didn't leave enough development time for things like more fighting environments or interesting single-player objectives. Double all that for the Tekken characters, who were treated like exchange students / substitute teachers that felt signficantly lost in translation that other, more compatible guest franchises hadn't in the past.

Namco also never delivered their promised Tekken X Street Fighter either, which is besides the point and probably a wise financial choice, but still manages to suck. They did shove Akuma in Tekken 7 for some reason, which almost feels worse than if they hadn't done anything at all.

The game wasn't entirely without merit. I ate up the presentation like a supermarathon runner with a pint of Ben & Jerry's; the intro FMV, in particular - which swaps out Street Fighter IV's "ink" flourishes with fighters made of water - is exactly how an overhyped release that brings together two massive fanbases should begin. The roster, despite being in a game that doesn't deserve it, is massive and loaded with obvious must-haves and obscure guest characters, and that's before considering Fat Mega Man and Pac-Man driving a Mokukin body suit. Finally, I'm a sucker for remixes of classic songs, admittedly, but Street Fighter X Tekken's reinterpretations and mashups of classic songs from Street Fighter II, Tekken 3, and Tekken Tag Tournament are outstanding, hence the whole reason for me digging out this accursed game after so many years.

As Matt's video notes, the game eventually got a huge post-release patch that fixes character balance, power-ups, and the damage curve overall. Fights are snappier, attacks feel more consequential, and the game feels more like the Street Fighter IV game from which it inherited so many mechanics. Part of my bad initial experience also may have simply been with the characters I chose. Yoshi and Sakura - God love them - bumbled around like they were still learning there moves, but playing through Arcade mode with figureheads like Ryu and Kazuya felt more like real brawling. It's sad to think about what the legacy of the game could have been had the patched game been available at release, instead of dropped months later after being buried by negative press and DLC nickel-and-diming.

4th of Nov, 68th overall, 8th title
Gravel
Already have driving badge

This was pretty solid in most areas and amusing to annoying in a few others.
The good is that it looked excellent, especially the events in the stadiums (under the lights) or in the driving rain. It also controlled great once you got used to the breaking characteristics and the audio was great in 5.1.
The meh was the 'story' about a fictional TV station that covers this racing series with 5 dudes to take down and the announcer guy was annoying - he repeated many lines, thankfully only at the start or end or events, but so many of the lines were really bad. The cheese factor was in full force. Another minor annoyance was the menu of episodes, it frequently wanted to highlight the highest episode you could do and would show that on screen, but you were still active back on the episode you just finished, so it got confusing if you hit A or L/R and the display had to snap back to your episode or enter into one you maybe didn't expect.
There are a few different types of events but one was kind of dumb - it had these black signs that would cycle and show either a red X or green up arrow and you had to hit the green and avoid the red and couldn't skip them all together. Red slowed you, but what was annoying is with certain cameras and taller vehicles you couldn't hardly see the next set and they would sometimes not lock on red/green until you were almost too close. Lastly the physics were pretty amusing. If you or the AI cars hit certain things along the track just right you could sail off into the sky spinning like crazy.
To consider this beat I did beat the final dude and triggered credits. I also hit level 50 (I think 99 might be tops) and I earned at least 6 stars (of the 9-18) per episode. 3 stars were on offer for any given event or series in the episodes. There are 15 episodes + 4 bonus ones (free DLC I believe), plus the 5 episodes against the 5 characters. I got 160 of the total of 270 stars (90 events). I will likely go for the full 270 and it was enjoyable to play. I also unlocked and used most of the 64 vehicles in the game as I tried to use different ones frequently.

Game was decent and for the like $4 I paid, was worth at least triple my $$.

I THINK Gravel was made by the team that did the WRC games (which now got taken by codemasters). Or maybe it was Dirt.

I beat Ty the Tasmanian Tiger HD on Switch. Pretty solid 3D platformer.

Zombie Nation last night.

Planning to do some Pocky and Rocky co-op this weekend.

ErickRPG wrote:

Milestone did the old WRC games up through 2013. Kylotonn handled them after that up through the recent WRC Generations. The license has now gone to Codemasters (now part of EA), who developed the Dirt and Colin McRae Rally series.

Milestone was seemingly having a ton of games released around the time Gravel came out. MXGP, Ride, Sebastien Loeb Rally, Moto GP...

Their most recent game that anyone took note of was Hot Wheels Unleashed.

Milestone did great with the game, if you like rally racing I do recommend it. Hot Wheels is on my list so that's good to know they did it.

I also beat Arietta of Spirits on Switch recently. Would have mentioned it with that last game but forgot all about it. Probably because I was surprised when the credits rolled. Glad I got this one for $5 because it didn’t feel like a full game. Watch a trailer and you’ll think it’s just showing the opening area, but that’s pretty much the whole game.

#26-God of War II
Another one bites the dust in my God of War replay crusdade! I forgot how much fun God of War II was but it doesn’t hold a candle to what comes next in God of War III but it was a nice precursor of what was to come.

5th of Nov, 69th overall, 1st title
Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe
Counting this towards the Cross the Streams Badge

I finally got a PS3 title in - after my Slim crapped out last year on me I was able to pick up a Super Slim and then super annoyed to learn that Sony locked HDDs to consoles, so my recently installed 1TB drive in that Slim wouldn't swap in. I haven't wanted to stick in another drive into the S-Slim and format it so I've been just living with the 12GB internal space and honestly WTF was Sony thinking there, since they didn't even include a bracket for a drive and 12GB is absurdly low when so many games require an install or patches - dumb.
Anyhow back to the game, I beat the DC story path last year and maybe could have pushed to do the MK path as well, but that noted issue above blocked that and it gets to be a clear this year. Game was decent, nothing special, nothing terrible. The story had you playing as 6 of the MK characters against both the DC side and several of your 'teammates' with 4 fights per character. I recall the game being a touch annoying at times from last year and I was maybe a bit worse with the MK cast, but it really only took me like 90+ mins to get through all the fights and several story cut scenes. I also took a break as I was charging my controller whilst playing - yet another dumb Sony decision, and the cable was just loose enough to randomly trigger a few buttons or something as I was getting phantom inputs from it.

Gypsy wrote:

My son and I tried playing Pocky & Rocky a couple months back. We liked it, but we got our butts kicked. We're overdue for a game night so we're probably going to try it again soon.

Check out Reshrined. It’s really good!

Scott wrote:

First one is definitely tougher. Though it got easier when we realized you can deflect a fair bit of enemy fire.

#45 The Dark Pictures Anthology: The Devil In Me on

My #49 is Kirby and the Forgotten Land.

https://ibb.co/HdpB3qX

----- OP now updated
... for the slightly past mid-point of November

A few noteworthy things:
- We surpassed 50% on all consoles cleared - nice to see several folks getting a few more cleared.
- We hit 150 collective badges with @incubus421 earning the only one so far this month, though I think @TalonJedi87 could have some with his God of War push, if he wants them.
- The Top 10 participants on the year all have except for position 10 who is just 1 short, but that person, @DemonAlcohol just above, earned only the 3rd (and 1 of those globes belongs to a participant with just 2 consoles).
- We're at 56 games in Nov which is down a bit from our recent pace, but with this week including a nice 4 day weekend for hopefully most of y'all, maybe we'll get a bunch completed before December rolls around.

Monthly leaderboard so far:
1. @TalonJedi87 & @Renaissance2K - 7 clears
3. @Heavyd814life & Slickriven - 5 clears
5. @BloodPuppetX & @SupremeSarna - 4 clears
7. @Bleed_DukeBlue & @Scott - 3 clears
X. 6 folks with 2 clears & 6 more with 1 clear

Wow, I don't think I've ever been on the monthly leaderboard before.

Sweet! I am glad I decided to go on my God of War marathon spree in light of Ragnarok! I should beat God of War III before 12/1 so that'll be another one for me. I may possibly squeeze in Kirby: Forgotten Land too as I am on world 6 now and I think that's the final world.

Hey @Slickriven , I just noticed this now but can you please remove the PS4 Pro from my list of active consoles? I sold that when I got my PS5. Sorry for not double checking my list. Thanks!

Hey @Slickriven , I just noticed this now but can you please remove the PS4 Pro from my list of active consoles? I sold that when I got my PS5. Sorry for not double checking my list. Thanks!

#28 - Horizon Forbidden West

Just like the first one, I found it hard to put down. I couldn't help but venture to each '?' as I revealed it. Obviously, such is the nature of these games. Aside from a few holes in the story / abrupt endings to built up branching stories, I can say I liked FW about on the same level as ZD.
I completed this with 89.18% completion and topped it off with the Platinum trophy. Took almost 92 hours.

6th of Nov, 70th overall, 1st title
Woody Pop
Already have the badge(s) it could apply to

I wanted to get in a title and have a list of 40+ titles that were recommended on the system and this is one of them. It's apparently a Japanese only release that got ported to all regions for the GameGear. It's a themed break-out clone with around 50 levels to beat and most times lets you pick the next room/board after you clear 1. You also can collect powerups like a larger paddle, slowing the ball, 2 balls, fireball, sticky paddle, stronger balls, etc. Then there are obstacles like toy trains, or blocks that will release 3 toys that mess with your ball or just studs that can't break. The ball starts to speed up within 5 seconds after release and trying to control the paddle with a d-pad was not a lot of fun as I easily went too far and missed the ball once it got going faster. They also have the corners of the screen protected (in about 10% I suppose), so you don't have to move your paddle there, but that wasn't helpful as my brain continually forgot and wanted to cover them.

Overall it wasn't horrible, but save states btwn levels helped some and you got 3 balls per life with endless continues - so long as you didn't quit or end the run you could keep going, but lose all lives on a room and all progress was reset, which is understandable. I did it on the advanced (middle) difficulty vs beginner or expert, but watched a YT vid to get an idea on how many levels I maybe had left and the player was on expert and didn't miss a single ball, so maybe he was using the required knob controller on the Master System version or other hacks... or was just amazeballs - I was not that good and my final score reflected that as it reset on each continue.

#27-God of War III Remastered via
Still probably my favorite game in the OG GOW series. From the gorgeous set pieces to the voice acting and adrenaline filled action sequences the whole game feels like a non stop ride at Disney land that I don’t want to end. Next stop, God of War 2018! Almost time for the Ragnarok!

Game #18: Saints Row

Solid 7/10. Fun ride!

7th of Nov, 71st overall, 2nd title
Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins

Beat this mainly for the RTT GotM. Not much to say, it's a decent early Mario title that was pretty easy and not abundantly long.

#29 - Braveland

Short and charming little game that takes it's combat system from Heroes of Might and Magic. I wish there was more to it aside from additional "expansions" to purchase. There aren't enough games like Heroes; I need more!

image

incubus421 wrote:

Thanks for the heads up. I love Heroes of might and magic and was looking for something similar. I picked up the trilogy for $5

DemonAlcohol wrote:

@DemonAlcohol That's a good call. I might grab the others while they're still on sale as well. It's certainly worth the price!

Game #19: The Quarry

I beat dead rising 4 on the xbox1

I finished Robo Aleste on Sega CD for the RTT thread.

I do still own a Sega CD, so you can add that system and count it for that.

Does beating a game twice count? My friend and I finished a second playthrough of The Devil In Me last night but if only one playthrough counts then that's fine.

PizzaTheHutt wrote:

Was it one a different platform? A second playthrough only counts if it’s a different version of the same software.

I beat Super Castlevania IV (originally SNES). I liked it a little better than before, but I still say it’s one of the lower games on the Anniversary Collection. Above Adventure and Kid Dracula, below Simon’s Quest.

My #50 is Yoshi's Crafted World. Was able to beat it before I give it to my daughter with a bunch of Yoshi stuffed animals and Yoshi shirt. She's really into Yoshi right now.

https://ibb.co/PFHZmt5

SupremeSarna wrote:


Nah it was on PS5 both times, we just always play through these games twice and swap the characters that we used in the first playthrough.

Got two more to report today... #123 is Nintendo Badge Arcade for 3DS. I'm filing this under the "seen everything the game has to offer" section rather than the credit roll, for reasons I will explain below.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/83dcsjE8EqPSjAs79

This is a free-to-play game from the time wheb Nintendo was trying all kinds of things to staunch the bleeding of cash when the Wii U was performing so dismally.

It plays like a crane machine, except the only prizes you get are little pin badges you can affix to the touchscreen home menu. There is a LOT of variety in the badges and the ones available rotate out every day.

They currently give you two free plays a day, plus the chance to earn a few more through a daily practice game (generally 1 or 2, but sometimes it is generous and gives you more!).

Run out of free plays, and it's a dollar plus tax for 5 more plays, or come back the next day.

My biggest issue with the game is that the most recognizable or popular badges are usually behind or beneath other ones, so in some cases it's impossible to get them without paying, or getting extremely lucky with the practice game.

After a few months of almost daily play, I finally hit 1,000 badges. At that point you have to start managing them and decide which collections you want to keep available for your home screen and which you want archived. I thought 1000 was going to be the end but no, apparently it goes up to 5000, and there's no way I'll get that before the eshop shuts down in March. So I'm calling this one done.

Interestingly, while there are a lot of shared badges between regions, there are some badges in Europe and Japan that the US didn't seem to get. Anyway i hit 1000 badges a week ago (11/19) and haven't played it since.

Next up, another Mahjong game! Just kidding, it's
Pokémon Violet for Switch.

Breaking from the mold of the traditional Pokémon games, this one is very much open world (and gets more so as you defeat the Titans and gain additional options for traversing difficult terrain).

It's probably the best story a mainline Pokémon game has ever had (which admittedly is a low bar, and anyone even remotely paying attention will see the plot twists a mile away. Despite the graphical and early gameplay glitches I experienced, as well as a number of questionable choices for returning Pokémon from older games, overall it is a very good romp through a mix of new and familiar territory.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/yBpa7bKbBh4ovUpV8

Clocked in the victory at slightly under 40 hours on this one, which I felt was maybe a bit longer than what my idea amount would have been (closer to 30). Of course that's also entirely my fault for refusing to use anything other than premier balls to catch Pokémon, so towards the beginning of the game when pokebucks are tight, I had to be very choosy about which mons I tried to catch.

Final endgame team was the water starter, the Cinnabon dog, the angry electric bird, the lawnmower engine, the game-specific armor evolved fire kid, and the olive (all fully evolved). No I don't remember most of their names because I gave them all Nicknames. If you want their nicknames, I named them all Steve. I started doing that in the GBA days thinking as a younger lad how hilarious that was that all the Pokémon are named Steve. And I still do it today not for teh lulz but because now it's an honest to goodness tradition.

The new gimmick of Terastallizing Pokémon is not as cool as the previous gimmicks of Gigantamax in sword/shield or Mega Evolutions in the 3DS games, but it does open up some fun strategic options.

I think this is one of the better entries in the series. Leagues ahead of sword/shield and the diamond/pearl remakes. Although they did add a crafting element to TMs, which I strongly dislike, you don't really need to do much of that to win the game. It's only if you want to play competitively against others and I have zero interest in losing to a 9 year old who can dedicate every waking hour to mons.

January:

February

March:

April:

May:

June:

July

August

September

October

November

@benstylus It’s cool yo see you enjoyed NBA. I played it religiously for years, amassing an impressive number of badges I don’t use anymore. Back when Nintendo cared about it, they would take user-created home menus and display a new one each day, with Arcade Bunny commenting on them. I was lucky enough to have one of my posts chosen, so I saved it on my computer. I’ll try to post it tomorrow.

Turns out I collected a ton of badges from games that I only recently started caring about, like Zelda II and Rhythm Heaven Megamix. I obviously got every Kirby badge, which took three years and a bit of money. Which were your favorite badge sets to collect?

#63 down: Floppy Knights on Xbox Series X. This was a random Game Pass game that caught my attention, because I love games with card-based battle systems. You have a board with different objectives, and you move your creatures around and attack with them (among other things) using cards. As you complete challenges, you get currency to buy more cards and shape each of the three possible deck types. This game was pretty challenging at times (based on the achievements, apparently I'm part of the only 0.43% who beat everything in the last world), but it's satisfying. The new dynamics you encounter force you to think about new ways to structure your decks. When you find the right combos, it's really fun. I enjoyed this one.

SupremeSarna wrote:

I wouldn't say I "enjoyed" it. Let's be honest, it's barely a game - it's entire purpose is to prey on nostalgia and people with obsessive or addictive personality types.

As I mentioned, they often place the "best" badges in a catcher in places that make it so you have to get most or all of the other badges before you can get the one they know you REALLY want. Some of the catchers are frustratingly difficult. And since the catchers reset when you exit the app or when a new day happens, you are expected to spend to get them.

Likewise, the collection screens will show you cool dioramas with each set of badges... but if you are missing some then that diorama will be incomplete and not look as cool. So you are encouraged to clear out a catcher completely and finish the set. And to do that, you are again expected to spend.

Maybe you got all but one badge out of the catcher, and just need one more try to get that final badge. Well they sell them in packs of five, so when you get that last badge to complete your set, you now have four more tries to spend on another catcher. Didn't quite clear that one? Oh just buy 5 more and keep going. They don't let you carry your purchased tries over to the next day - use them immediately or lose them.

Finally a complaint about the UI. The bunny is VERY talkative. So much so that after a few plays you might eventually start rapidly tapping A to get through his dialog. After you run out of free tries he starts talking and asks if you want to switch to paid play, and it defaults to yes. Accidentally tap A there and you're in for 30 seconds of waiting for it to connect to the server and pull up the payment page before you can back out of it. And even if you say no, he has more dialog screens to get through before you are back in control. Except on the catchers themselves, if you have no tries available, the A button ALSO goes to the payment page (with the aforementioned connection and loading time) . I am sure Nintendo intentionally made the bunny long-winded, and only allowed you to advance dialog with the A button specifically to get you to try to speed through the dialog and accidentally go to that page because after you sit through the loading maybe you will figure you might as well do it.

So you have your "just to get my favorite badge" buyers, the "gotta complete the set" buyers and the frustrated "fine just shut up already" buyers. If I wanted to be in a manipulative relationship I would have stayed with my ex.

I tried it when it first came out, and if I recall correctly they didn't even give the 2 free plays every day back then - they encouraged you to check in every day for the training catcher, and occasionally they would throw free plays at you. I deleted it within a week the first time.

With the eshop closing down I re-downloaded to give it a second chance. It's not quite as bad with the two free plays each day, but I have zero desire to go back to it.

I guess I just was doing it to see if I could hit 1000. The only reason I stuck with it is because it was over quickly each day. Unfortunately with all the catchers changing every day it feels like it takes as long to load as it does to play.

The whole thing feels so antithetical to how Nintendo typically works. It stands alongside Animal Crossing Amiibo Festival in that regard.

God of War: Ragnarok

@benstylus There are a few more things to point out, good and bad. For the good, if you buy plays but fail to nab a single badge, the bunny does give you one of the set badges as a consolation prize. I can’t remember if it’s limited to the just the ones remaining in the machine at that moment, or if he can give you one that you got earlier (probably the latter), but it’s nice that they don’t just say “them’s the break, kid.”

For the bad, if you decline to buy any plays in the Japanese version, the bunny looks sad and asks, “Oh… really?” This got changed in Western releases to a smile and “Okay, that’s cool.” They did a similar thing to the StreetPass Mii Plaza, when the bunny there asks you to buy the StreetPass games—Japan and North America got a sad response if you decline, while Europe got a “Fair enough” answer.

Nintendo bunnies need to take a course on manipulation and how to control their habits. Next it’ll be the Jump Rope Challenge bunny.

I just got done with my yearly playthrough of Super Mario Land . I think I'm going to play again actually, with the DX mod

I had PAC-MAN Fever recently, so I got a GBA collection of PM games. Tonight I beat PAC-MAN (originally GBA) and PAC-MAN Arrangement (originally GBA).

[imgt]https://i.imgur.com/MBzHwLa_d.webp?maxwidth=640&sh...[/imgt]
[imgt]https://i.imgur.com/leCTPt6_d.webp?maxwidth=640&sh...[/imgt]

PAC is a classic, and it’s adorable on GBA because they give you a single-screen mode that crushes all the graphics down to fit. They’re absolutely tiny, and it’s funny to see. I reasoned that 20,000 points seemed like a fair goal to reach in a near-endless game like this. (I know there’s a kill screen after an obscene number or rounds, but no one on GameTZ is going that far without save states.)

Arrangement is a novel game that adds Kinky the Ghost, warp pads, dash panels, unique stage layouts, and a bunch of other stuff to make a completely new game. There’s even a final boss! It’s weird and not as good as the OG, but I liked it enough to play through the whole thing.

I wanted to beat stinking Pac-Mania, but it’s just so bad I gave up. Giant stages that don’t fit on one screen, lots of space between each dot, about ten ghosts relentlessly chasing you at every moment, a jump ability that becomes much less useful once jumping ghosts are added… it’s a mess. Even the unlimited continues can’t save it, since you restart the current stage whenever you continue—seems reasonable, but as mentioned, the stages are gigantic and they get brutally tough later on. After the fifteenth try in the Jungle world, I threw in the towel.

@Slickriven I’m back from my vacation, so I’ll post everything from PAC-MAN onward to the spreadsheet. Thanks for helping me out!

@SupremeSarna & @Slickriven

I have wondered about what counts as beat as far as classic arcade games might go. I play Pac-Man and Burgertime pretty regularly. I keep track of my personal best high score. It's real easy to beat the preprogrammed "hi score", so you could rattle off a ton of clears if that's all that is required. As SupremeSarma mentioned, I doubt we're seeing kill screens, and it would be far out of reach for most to ever consider an arcade game "beat" if that's the requirement. Any thoughts?

incubus421 wrote:

If you feel like you've "beaten" an endless game based on a score goal or a certain number of levels, post it. There are no game-beating police in this topic, just the peanut gallery who might give you some flak.

I beat Mario’s Picross (originally GB).
[imgt]https://i.imgur.com/9duiaT2_d.webp?maxwidth=640&sh...[/imgt]

Quality Picross, though the other two Mario ones are better. Every Mario Picross game has a bafflingly annoying design choice that sours the experience at the last minute—this game gives you 80 more puzzles to solve after you finish the Star-level puzzles but doesn’t let you choose them from a list like the other modes, instead giving them to you randomly and not recording which you’ve already cleared. Given that the game doesn’t tell you when you’ve finished the final batch of puzzles, and they’re technically postgame content, I’m calling this game done. Fun puzzles, though.

incubus421 wrote:

Agree with what BenStylus said, more/less - endless type old school arcade (and modern similar) games are basically 'use your own judgement' types. If you consider it beat, then it is. Sure that could mean somebody might claim beating a bunch of games but whatever makes them happy.

I've claimed DK Jr. in the past after getting as far as I could after a few attempts as that game has only like 4 different levels that repeat with faster foes and more of them. Similar to pinball games or whatever. Put some time in, earn some reasonable things/score/boards/etc and call it complete. For pinball, I've tried to trigger all of the areas to consider it beat, but with the 2 you mentioned that might not apply.

Still not willing to put down the can of turtle soup, I found an excuse to boot up the PC version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection and play through the original arcade version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time.

I've played various ports and versions of Turtles in Time over the years and came to the conclusion (like many others) that the Super Nintendo port is my favorite, if not the superior version. Still, the arcade version has the best animation, a slightly better instrumentation, and a lot more voice integration than its console counterpart, and none of its shortfalls keep it from being a good time.

The Cowabunga Collection adds a couple of optional game tweaks, the most notable of which is Nightmare Mode. The enemy count seemingly triples (which the menu mentions), and the enemy difficulty shoots up (which the menu doesn't mention), effectively turning your turtle into the love child of a pinball and a green pinata. The game doesn't scale evenly on a Steam Deck, which was the driver for me getting the PC version, but it looks glorious and crisp on a full-size PC without too much noticeable lag either. But the most memorable - and probably the most unsettling - thing about the Cowabunga Collection is the acknowledgement that *some people playing Starbase 2100 today will still be alive when the actual 2100 rolls around*. Whoa, dude.

For the first time, after jumping back and forth between Leonardo and Donatello for years, I finally played through the game as Michelangelo without too much of a fuss. He doesn't reach as far as his purple and blue brothers, but his special attack still covers a ton of ground, which makes him play about the same. When the Steam Deck failed to record my playthrough (I guess this is why they tell you to make a test recording first...), I attempted to play through the game again, this time as Raphael, but Raph's vertically-oriented special attack made the game feel clumsier than I liked. I switched back to Donatello and took down Shredder neither much fanfare nor a "Weren't you just here?" acknowledgement from the spiked one.

House of the Dead Overkill -
My first clear. One of my all time "gun game" favorites. Super funny, and amazingly fun levels. And my first officlal clear on my Wii I bought brand new for $300. Not regretting this purchase. I am going to have a lot of fun on the Wii.
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Dream Park Story - IOS
A theme park building game from Kairosoft. Their first game to tackle that specific theme. It's good. not their best, but above average.
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Sengoku 3 - MAME/arcade
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Triangle Strategy -
Highly recommended by players on gtz. It's definitely a good one. It's quality is up there with tactics ogre and final fantasy tactics. Each playable character has a totally unique skill set. So while you might have 2-3 archers, they each operate differently and have different specials. Least favorite parts: The overuse of the word "pray", and the "dot . . . dot. . . dot. . . . " delay.'
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TMNT: Shredder's Revenge -
I waited for the physical version. Really good. It's so fun and so well made. Now I have 2 what I consider amazing brawlers physically on switch. This and Streets of Rage 4 are both amazing and worth owning/playing.
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I agree about Triangle Strategy. I didn’t expect to like it as much as I did. It was one of my favorites of the year.

ErickRPG wrote:

Game #20: The Chant

I beat Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga + Bowser’s Minions .
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What a remake! I played the GBA version in high school after playing PiT through DT, and I had a few beefs with it. When they announced the remake in 2017, I nodded, figuring that a remake could fix the issues that bogged down my first playthrough. Alphadream did just that—the graphics look good now, the Bros. Actions are far more streamlined and less of a chore to perform, the special moves remind you how to use them in the heat of battle, and the map is more convenient. They brought out the best in that wacky adventure!

Additionally, that added a fun new mode: Minion Quest: The Search for Bowser. It tells the story of what happened to Bowser’s loyal followers after the Koopa Cruiser crashed at the start of the game. Turns out with the power of amusing retcons, a single Goomba—your unconfident hero—inadvertently caused many of the problems Mario, Luigi, and Bowser faced. Huuuuh-whoops! He and his band of fellow minion captains are a likeable bunch, and you find yourself really rooting for them to beat Fawful and earn the respect of their brainwashed superiors. The mode is a sort-of RTS, with two armies clashing and you passive influencing their stats and attacks. You might find yourself grinding a bit as it gets harder, as enemy levels just keep increasing and you’re frequently switching out your team, and the EXP isn’t evenly distributed as a result. But it’s worth it to see the conclusion:

8th of Nov, 72nd overall, 20th
Prodeus
Earns me the 2nd Amendment badge after completing Crysis 2 earlier

This was a solid title, with a few mehs. It clearly is an homage to the classic Doom titles as its look, atmosphere, some of the enemies and some of the weapons all feel like I was back in the early 90's. I enjoyed much of this, but did yearn for it to end oddly.
The few mehs were the enemies color choices - 1 line of them were all red, another basically blue variants of the red ones and they'd shoot you with those colored projectiles and many would explode in those same colors (covering the walls/floor/etc), so if you got close it was sometimes difficult to discern dead enemy guts from incoming projectiles or area of effect projectiles. Another meh was you needed to collect ore as currency to purchase some guns and all levels had generally 4-10 each. Well some were overly tough to find and then there were a few sort of optional levels for a weapon trial and you'd have to rush through it, shooting targets to reach the end fast enough to unlock like 3 bits of ore. Well I sucked at the rushing/aiming approach with an Xbox controller (that would do auto-aim assist and that was also blah), so I think using a KB/M would've been better there, but the whole locking of the weapons behind the purchase system was something I could have lived without.
Also they judged progression on a % scale and I finished the campaign, revisited 1 level and did all the trial levels (poorly) and only got to 68%. I did miss many bits of ore in mainly the earlier levels, so much so that I couldn't afford the final shop weapon and barely got the next to last one. But you also needed to get 100% kills and 100% secrets (which was often those ore bits, but not always). I got 100% kills pretty much every level as I was an explorer, but with my barely over 2/3rds percentage, I surely left a lot there.
I don't think I enjoyed it enough to replay most of the levels to find the ore even though in later levels, after unlocking the double-jump, I did generally find all or all but 1 bit.

#28-God of War 2018
I adored replaying this again on the PS5 at a much deserved 60fps mode! It was smooth as butter. And of course everything else along with it right down to the iconic storytelling and voice acting and orchestrated score to really make you feel the weight of the journey at all times. I forgot how much the reinvigorated gameplay made the game feel that much more whole too. Now I am finally ready to tackle Ragnarok!

Bleed_DukeBlue wrote:

Story was real good also. With the decisions I usually chose loyalty or honor (making house Waldorf seem like House Stark). I didn't hate the english VO either. I think the weakest part is there is zero chemistry between the main love interests, and the main character isn't that great of a VA. He's not terrible, but isn't good for the weight of the story. Also, they used "pray" too much. Other than that, the VA was never cringe bad to my ears. It was passable. With some characters being way above passable.

#64 down: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II (2022) on PS5. The campaign wasn’t very long, but it was fun (other than a couple of tedious parts). Some parts were pretty creative, and it’s a good-looking game.

Bleed_DukeBlue wrote:

very cool. Definitely want to play some day. But I only ever played the very first MW. So I'm playing that again, and gonna work my way up to modern COD campaigns eventually. Lots of FPS fun ahead for me!

I'm free! I've finished the last Zelda game in my year-long Legend of Zelda marathon! I'll be doing a full write-up in a few days to share my experiences with this star-studded adventure franchise.

[imgt w=1280 h=720]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fi8tESNagAE7y0u?format...[/imgt]
I beat The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening . This Switch remake is excellent, perfectly capturing the spirit of the original while updating the graphics to look like a diorama. You can equip more items and so you no longer have to pause every two seconds to switch things out. The Nintendo references remained untouched, right down to those characters the Zelda team used without permission (looking at you, Anti-Kirby). A few alterations were made to make the game more uniform across regions while removing any immature implications (the hippo and the mermaid, respectively). Koholint Island is more fun to explore than ever!

I respect that the goal was to remain extremely faithful to the Game Boy game, as that's an admirable goal. But comparing this 2019 game against 2013's A Link Between Worlds does make me think that they may have stuck a little too close to the 1993 original. Link's animations for turning are deliberately jerky with no frames between them. Any sprite that was created for the overworld in 1993 has been recreated and placed in the exact same spot here, which is evident when you see a large gap made up of five identical square holes placed side by side--a modern remake could've made that one big hole to make it look more organic. This doesn't affect the game's quality, but it's something I noticed. As a '90s remake, there are a couple moments that may tempt you to Google the solution, but I got through 99% of it using my own brain and Ulrira's phoneline.

Thanks to @Missile for the sale! Best price I've found for a complete copy!

Hi all, took a break from the site, but not from gaming I'll list most of what I've been up to the last few months and if you really need to know which month I completed them I'll check time stamps and throw up some pictures.

I got back into Destiny so I've spend allot of time playing that. I had allot of catching up to do given its been so long since I played. I went through and completed all the DLCs I had missed (that were still available, allot were vaulted).

I completed the story and raids for the following DLC expansions:
Destiny 2 Shadow Keep
Destiny 2 Witch Queen
Destiny 2 Beyond Light

I also completed these seasonal DLC story campaigns
Season of the Haunted
Season of the Risen
Season of Plunder

One thing I've been wanting to do for a while now was complete all the Skylanders Playstation games on my new profile. The only version I still want to play is the Wii and Wii U versions so I can use DK/Bowser finally. Since I have a ton of characters already max level (stats are saved to the character) it definitely made the games much easier. I even still had chaos trapped in a crystal. Some of the imaginator characters I had were super over powered, not even the bosses could put up a fight.

Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure
Skylanders: Giants
Skylanders: Swap Force
Skylanders: Swap Force
Skylanders: Trap Team
Skylanders: Trap Team
Skylanders: SuperChargers
Skylanders: SuperChargers
Skylanders: Imaginators
Skylanders: Imaginators

This next game I beat was a game that I really enjoyed. So much so that I bought it again on Playstation. Really fun game with some great music. I completed it a while ago on Game Pass then bought it again recently when it was on sale for Playstation.

Metal: Hellsinger
Metal: Hellsinger

Here are a few games I completed because I found the servers were going down. So wasn't something high on my to play list, but I had to bump them up.

FarCry 3
Onrush

I've been wanting to finish up watch dogs legion for a while now. I completed it a long time ago, but to get all the DLC trophies I had to start the game from scratch. So I played through the entire game again on resistance mode and I also completed the Aiden/Wrench DLC story lines (Bloodline). The game was so much better getting to use the DLC characters. I mainly used Aiden, Wrench and Darcy.

Watch Dogs Legion
Watch Dogs Legion

Watch Dogs Legion: Bloodline DLC
Watch Dogs Legion: Bloodline DLC

As good as Legion is, it still had me thinking about how good the previous games were. I must admit the DLC characters in Legion made the game better, but I still liked Chicago and San Francisco much better. So I decided to play though them again. I was a bit worried with all the games Ubisoft was taking offline I might loose my chance. The PS3 version is a mess, it never finds people even where your standing in the same spot on the map. I still haven't gotten some of the PVP stuff done.

Watch Dogs 2
Watch Dogs

I'm going to be doing a Resident Evil marathon as well, it wont be all the games, but plan to play 5/6 for PS3/4 and all of the remakes. So far I have completed 1 RE game.

Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City
Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City - Echo Six Expansion Pack 1
Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City - Echo Six Expansion Pack 2

Some easy games I added in between longer games:

Magus
Ice Age 3
Synergia
The Bunker
The Little Acre
Alien Engine
Organic Engine
Steam Engine
Cyber Engine
Windmill Engine
Alexio
Black Death: A Tragic Dirge

And here is another random DLC I completed

TOEM: Basto DLC

I also completed the Cowabunga Collection again on the not sure if you will count them, but I'll list them anyway since I did clear them all again on

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Arcade)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time (Arcade)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall of the Foot Clan
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Back from the Sewers
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: Radical Rescue
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Hyperstone Heist
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters

I'm about to play through Goat Simulator and the DLCs before I take on the newest game.

@WithinTemptation It would be a huge help if you sorted them by month, since you probably don't want them all added to November. Thanks!

SupremeSarna wrote:

Agreed. I wish they had done more with it than just a 1-for-1 remake.

For November:

Kromaia Omega (PS4): Interesting game for some quick plays. It can get headache-inducing sometimes and it's not that long to beat, but it seems like it needs multiple playthroughs to see the real ending. Might go for it later.

Assassin's Creed II (PS4): Had an impulse to play some AC and went with this one as I had the Ezio Collection installed for some time now. I played the first one a long time ago, but this one definitely feels better to play. The history is cool, although I think it drags a bit at the end. Also, the map is a bit sluggish. Got the plat for it.

Assassin's Creed Brotherhood (PS4): Started it immediately after ACII. Having it confined to a single, larger region makes it flow better. The main story also felt shorter, although the post-game clean-up feels heavier because of the synchronization requirements. The map is smooth this time, and the visuals are better. The store/income management made more sense in the previous game though. I'm missing 2 trophies for the plat (all flags, 100% sync) but idk if I'll go for it soon, I might just move on to Revelations.

Earthworm Jim 2 (Genesis): Finally beat this after 25 years of first playing it, god bless save states lol The last stage was infuriating. It's cool how every level has its own thing going. Such a shame this was the last good EJ game we got.

@WithinTemptation How was Synergia? I still haven't beaten a game on the Vita this year and I'm thinking of playing it since I hear it's not very long.

#46 is BioShock 2 on

#65 down: Captain America: Super Soldier on PS3. I did it. I finished all of the badges. This clear + my previous clear of Henchman Story on PS4 gets me the Quest for Peace badge. This was a pretty solid superhero game. They got the shield mechanics just right, and the fighting was decently fun. They gave the Captain a good dodge option and counters. I found myself getting lost a few times, because the game has you backtrack several times to areas you've been to previously, and, at times, you have to navigate a sewer system to get from place to place in which pretty much everything looks the same. Still, there were some cool cinematic moments, and some of the boss fights were quite solid. The Metacritic score has this at 61%, but I think it's a little better than that.

Heavyd814life wrote:

If you like visual novels then I think you will enjoy this. Story is great. I wont say much more to avoid spoilers. There is a kickstarter page you can check out that gives allot of information about the story and characters. I'd guess you can beat it in 3-6 hours depending on how much you "explore". There is also multiple endings so you could maybe double that time.

For Frank's Game of the Month thread, I finished Super Mario World for the Super Nintendo.

I already talked about how Super Mario World was my favorite Mario game when I beat the Game Boy Advance port last year. If there was any doubt to that devotion, I picked the game again back up again year to take it all the way to 100% with every exit and every Yoshi Coin collected. Despite the love I have for the game and its portable version, never having a childhood Super Nintendo means I've spent comparitively little time with the original, save for a brief playthrough with the Wii Virtual Console release, and a 100% run on an emulator back in college.

(Bonus Artifact: One of my suitemates noted that the mustachoed, baseball-capped "fall" variant of Koopa Troopas looked like a mutual neighbor named Adil. I still have the 22-year-old screenshot that we used to immortalize that revelation.)

Taking Frank's nomination as an opportunity to revisit one of my favorite games, I played through it this time on my MiSTer for the first time on an analog display since I played it in a friend's living room three decades earlier. As usual, I spent way too much time uncovering secret exits in Donut Ghost House, breezed through Star Road with an arsenal of colored Yoshi's under my arm, and limped my way through the front door to Bowser's Castle after the trial and error of figuring out which doors don't lead to deathboxes.

Before long, I was starting at the end card that a friend had once - in the pre-Donkey Kong Country era - considered the best graphics he'd ever seen.

We're approaching the end of the year, and with a long vacation and another large video project on the horizon, it doesn't seem likely that many of my ten remaining platforms will see a completed game by the time 2023 rolls around. I'm expecting to finish Mega Man 7 for the Retro Talkshop Thread, and I'm working my way through the epic final stages of Kid Icarus: Uprising, but both of those are on platforms that have already been checked off for 2022.

There's a chance I might be able to squeeze in a Game Gear, Vita, or even a Stadia game because of their portable natures, but we'll see how time and network connections can afford such things. With my Analogue Pocket Game Gear adapter (and dock!) coming tomorrow, I'm itching to try the console's Game Gear support and screen filters.

For Frank's Game of the Month thread, I beat Mega Man 7 .
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Great game for sure, but the final boss kinda ruins the ride at the very end. Oh well, I'll forgive it and play it again eventually. I wish the series had more games with the MM7 art style--it's really good! I always hear the Mega Man 8 voice actors when I read the dialogue in 7.

I kinda wish they made the original version of MM7 available as an option in Mega Man Legacy Collection 2. They used the superior second print, evident by the cool credits scene I posted above. The original is just as important though, as it forces Mega Man to battle Dr. Willy and a potty-mouthed Bass. Some things must die for some to live, I suppose.

SupremeSarna wrote:

That's the wrong GotM club.

Time for me to add a December clear. Decided to see what had been added to Switch Online and found Psycho Dream, a super famicom game that I had considered buying before but decided against it due to the price.

Although the cost of the cart is a bit high, there's really no better way to describe this game than a poor man's Castlevania.

You start out with a ridiculously short range weapon, but after several powerups you get a six-way screen filling shot that makes short work of anything but bosses (and it makes long work of them).

Take too many hits when powered up though and you go back to the original dinky weapon of worthlessness.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/fmeGstWbLq7m1Ro78

It's...okayish. Controls are average, hit detection is very sloppy. Level design is sometimes a slog but they do try different things in some of them which is nice. The bosses are large and cool and easily the best part of the game.

It takes maybe 45 minutes to an hour to clear it, so if you have Switch Online you might want to check it out. No English required - there is some story text at the very beginning of the game but that's about it. It's an action game the rest of the way through. Honestly though, any castlevania game is better.

January:

February

March:

April:

May:

June:

July

August

September

October

November

December

Got my first clear of Dec, 73rd overall, 7th MAME
Spinmaster
Would've got me the run-gun, but already have it

Had a personal goal to beat something on all of my mini/classic type systems and I only needed something on my Legends Gamer Mini and this fit the bill. Was a decent run-gun (yo-yo) game that looked/felt a little like Metal Slug. I beat all 5 levels pretty easily, burning through maybe 8+ credits and the final section was annoying with green poison water I suppose coming out of the walls in certain areas that was a bit too easy to miss and get hit by. The final boss was also kinda crazy as he had 4 phases and therefore simply took to longest to beat, though really none of his phases were overly difficult.

I beat Super Metroid. Though I didn't list listed under consoles, since I don't currently play it that often, so no need to count it. Wanted to post a beaten game here, since it's been awhile.

Pretty fun game. Holds up well. I got lost numerous times, which sometimes made things tricky, but overall it was a fun experience, and worth playing.

@WithinTemptation Gotcha recorded! Do try to update more frequently so it's not a tidal wave next time. But hey, congrats on reach well beyond 200!

nonamesleft wrote:

So how'd you play it? Wii? Switch Online? An eeeevil emulator? How would you like me to record it?

SupremeSarna wrote:
No need to record it. I was just writing a game that I beat, since I haven't posted here in awhile that I beat a game.

It's already listed as a beat but I'll just post my review here as well:

God of War Ragnarok: 7.5/10

I'm going to post everything behind a spoiler. Major spoilers, obviously

I beat it at 21.5 Hours with no side content on story mode.

On all technical levels, it's a great game. Just the bad/not-so-great story drags it down so much.

The story feels a bit rushed just to get it out for Q4

I've got a tradition of playing a Griptonite-developed Harry Potter RPG every December, and this year was Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (originally GBC). It's a great little adaptation of the book/movie with tongue-and-cheek writing and charming visuals. It and the first one could use some improvements--spells and items don't tell you what they do until you've already chosen them, enemy weaknesses aren't told to you on the battle screen even after you used Informous to learn them, and armor is so expensive you probably won't have every slot equipped before the final battle. I avoided the Card system since it never really jumped out at me, but it might've fixed the steep difficulty spike in the last hour of the game. In this case...

I got through it all just fine, but there were some really close scrapes at the end that a hypothetical remake could iron out. Don't take me as a Moaning Myrtle here--it's a quality game that's worth your time if you like the Harry Potter series, and the dialogue was both witty and accurate to the book. I recommend it!

I got one of these as a free bonus in a trade from someone here. Will need to see which one it was.

benstylus wrote:

There are three: HP1 (GBC), HP2 (GBC), and HP3 (GBA). The GBA versions of HP 1 and 2 aren't RPGs, so I can't recommend them from experience.

My funny story was at a flea market. I found a seller offering bother HP1 and 2 for $5 each. I didn't know if I'd actually get around to playing them, but I had both in hand. I ultimately dropped HP1 and just bought HP2, since I'd heard that it was better. As I turned to leave, I walked past a glass case owned by a different vendor that had exactly two video games in it--one was HP1 with a slightly-damaged label, and had a $2 price tag. Score!

I have Chamber of Secrets.

Pocket Academy 3 - IOS
Finally getting around to some of the newer ones after focusing on old ones (1 year + old). This one was really good. Kairosoft has definitely improved over the years. I am playing Convienience story right now and it's also very good.
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Call of Duty Modern Warfare - XBOX 360
The original that started it all. While it was the 4th Call of Duty. This was the big award winning super title that made Call of Duty. I beat this years ago, but since I have my 360 hooked up to a small TV, and I have a new gamertag. Might was well play it again. Because I am going to be playing most of the Call of Duty games. On 360 first, and then onto Xbox One.
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#30 - Pac-Man (Arcade 1UP) New personal best high score of 62,550
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#31 - New Super Mario Bros. 2
Aside from absolutely throwing coins and 1-ups at you throughout the whole game, it actually provided a bit of challenge. I ended with 300+ lives! I appreciated that I had to slow down on some levels and explore a bit for all the Star Coins. I ended up collecting all 99 of them. I have to finish the last few Star Road levels, but I look forward to it.
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#32 - Hades
Took a long time to finally get around to playing this. I'm not a huge fan of the Roguelike genre, but this is a story-driven Roguelike done right! Even in death I still feel like progress was made, that I'm not absolutely back to nothing. It lives up to the praise and accolades it has received. I got my first clear using the Raging Rush version of the Eternal Spear. I look forward to several more clears.
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Personal Stats/Achievement related to this topic
- Gamecube and Dreamcast can be removed from my platform list. I no longer have games for these consoles after my recent downsizing.

- I feel like Hades is difficult enough to count towards the Grown-Ass Man badge. Roguelikes are built to be challenging. Hades + Elden Ring would earn me the badge.

I beat two games: WarioWare Gold and Fire Emblem Heroes .
[imgt]https://i.imgur.com/ThmNDvH_d.webp?maxwidth=640&sh...[/imgt]

For $30 used, I expected more from Gold. It boasts 300 microgames and full voice acting, so I expected it to be longer than WarioWare Touched, which took me about 5 hours in 2020. Instead the story mode wrapped up in about 3, and three of the 18 chapters were tutorials! Every character got one chapter and then appeared in the last cutscene—weak! There are other challenges I can play, and I probably will, but they lack the same charm as story chapters.

As for Fire Emblem Heroes, Book 6 has officially concluded for the year, which we count as the game being “beaten” for this year. I finished every Story and Paralogue on each difficulty over the course of 2022. This was the year they made my dream come true and added Brigand Boss, a random side villain from Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia. He’s glorious with his new art, though it looks like he put on some pounds.

If the Minerva's Den DLC for BioShock 2 is worthy of being counted as a clear, then that's my #47. version

SupremeSarna wrote:

Nintendo was still desperate for money at the time of Warioware's release. Switch had only been out a year and while it was doing well, they had a lot of ground to make up from Wii U.

2027/2018 releases included Mario Party Top 100 and Rhythm Heaven Megamix were also both "best of" compilations (Mario Sports Superstars was arguably another one); the Pokemon release for that year was Ultra Sun/Moon, an expanded remake of Sun/Moon; we got ports of Yoshi's Woolly World, Kirby's Epic Yarn, Luigi's Mansion, and ports of not one but two Mario & Luigi games.

In short, I'm not surprised WarioWare Gold isn't your favorite. Nintendo was scrambling for content.

benstylus wrote:

They’re porting Megamix in five years?! What’re you doing leaking that?


M&L is a little more complicated than that. AlphaDream was a small company that had the Mario & Luigi IP but very little support from Nintendo. They didn’t have the funds to develop expensive HD games for the Switch, and their 3DS entries were bringing in less revenue as fan interest waned. After Paper Jam, they only had enough money to remake existing games for the non-HD handheld, which was on its way out. And then Bowser’s Inside Story 3DS bankrupted them in 2019 by selling less units than Mario’s Virtual Boy games. Ouch.

If AlphaDream could have ditched the 3DS for the Switch, I think they would’ve. Shame, really. As for me, I would’ve dug if they’d made Mario & Luigi: Partners in Team + Admiral Shroob’s Armada.

SupremeSarna wrote:


If Nintendo had paid them to make new ones they would have (just ask Platinum games about Bayonetta). But since Nintendo were also hard up for revenue back then, ports of existing games would be faster and cheaper.

Honestly they would have done much better as Switch ports. BIS especially because the 3DS could already play the original so people wondered why they should pay $40 for the new one instead of $20 for the DS version.

You say Alpha Dream couldn't afford hi res graphics for switch, but again, it all comes from the budget they are given. I don't think even Nintendo believed in the series anymore.

benstylus wrote:

It was a darn shame, truly. Would’ve been cool if Nintendo lifted them out of bankruptcy when the story broke in 2019. It’s sad to think the series’s creativity peaked with Dream Team in 2013 and they just kinda sputtered out over the next six years.

At least Captain Goomba was likeable in Bowser’s Minions. That new side story was legitimately quite enjoyable.

SupremeSarna wrote:

Paper Jam was just as good as Dream Team.

I don't think the creativity really sputtered, just the sales. And with declining sales Nintendo didn't see a point in keeping it going. I wouldn't be surprised to see a new entry eventually though, from another developer.

Want to talk about Nintendo published games that declined in creativity, let's talk about the Professor Layton series. Should probably have ended after the first trilogy. I'm partway through game 6 now. Game 4 was OK, Game 5 had a rubbish story (the ending especially absolutely infuriated me), and Game 6 doesn't appear to be any better so far.

In fact, I am enjoying May's Mystery: Forbidden Memories for DS more than the later Layton games.. It's very low budget but interesting to see a different studio's take on a Layton game

2nd of Dec, 74th overall, 3 title
Hob
Earns me Hyrule Hero with Tunic

I loved Runic's first game - Torchlight and had this on my radar for a good while and had started it a long while back, but decided to push to beat it recently.
For a game with no dialog it did okay with telling a story of a beautiful land corrupted by some purple ooze and monsters. You play as a dude who gains a mechanical arm in the first 5 mins of the game and has to traverse the land to find stuff and eliminate the purple infection. It feels a LOT like a Zelda title, especially the earlier ones and it was fun to play, I'm happy I finally put the time in to finish it.

I found just about everything too - the 20 butterflies, all 12 pieces of sword to upgrade mine, the 3 different cloaks, all of the skill upgrades and I think all of the observation spots. I didn't collect enough currency though to be able to afford either of the final 2 upgrades I found (1 being a cloak that I wouldn't have used anyhow), but that was kind of a bummer. I used an online map to track my progress of collected things (until the image file I was drawing on crashed with only a mere few to locate, so that could be how I missed them). In any case I enjoy exploring the wonderfully crafted world and the atmosphere and music/audio of the title.