VideoGame_Discussion

LOL @Kommie - thought you were being a smartass at first but ha that video was pretty funny.

I beat FF15 on PC

Count me in

Frank wrote:
Same systems as last year?

Also add Crisis Core Switch to beaten list - guess thats Level Up! badge?

SupremeSarna wrote:

Looks like it’s just me this time around.

#1- Valis: Legend of a Fantasm Soldier PC Engine CD via Valis Collection

I cut my girl-who-fights-monsters game teeth on the Genesis version of Valis along with Golden Axe II back in the day thanks to the Sega Channel. Valis I and III are available on the Evercade, and yeah, I suppose I could have just done that. However, the English-subtitled version of the Valis Collection was on discount on the eShop this week. It was high time to give the PCE versions a try without all the hassle.

1 point toward the Girl Power badge

2nd game of month/year, 1st
Pupperazzi
Badge: 2nd Amendment maybe, kidding but you do shoot a lot of dogs... with film. Actually think this would be GuyBrush or maybe Bear&Bird? Thoughts @SupremeSarna

I saw this was a pretty quick title and sort of well reviewed and then that it was leaving GP at the mid-month so I jumped into it. It was decent, 100% fetch/do quests to take pictures of dogs doing X or wearing Y and standing with/near Z. But I nearly platinum'd it and the only achievement I didn't get was to do 10 tasks as a selfie... didn't notice that one until I had done 90+% of the tasks. I also got the full puppypedia getting pictures with all the dog breeds and accessories and other stuff. Stats show me playing for 3.5 hrs, but it felt a touch longer than that. I might start a new game and try for the final achievement... but meh I think it took me a number of tasks to unlock the selfie cam and some tasks were annoying.

There are 4 main areas and a final one you unlock and trigger the credits with and you need to complete tasks to access each area in the 4 times of day (morning, mid-day, evening and night) and there are tasks that come up for each time more/less and some you can do really anytime/where. I ended up with 1 that was a PITA and some tasks were annoying to get right to their requirements. The one I didn't get was using a Roomba to scare 4+ dogs at once. It was annoying b/c the Roomba would go off wherever it wanted to and wouldn't always scare any dogs, plus not many times/places were there 4 dogs all together.

The game crashed on me once, but I don't think I lost any progress since I was leaving an area when it did. I technically played this on my X1X and XSX and cloud gaming on my phone, but I finished it on the 1X but likely played a little more on the SX, count on the 1X.

I've finished my first game of 2023.

I've really enjoyed posting write-ups of games when I'm done with them, especially ones that I really enjoyed or are personally significant. At the same time, I've felt somewhat cramped writing them in a text box, and I imagine a few people on here get a little thrown off slamming into one of my Great Walls of Text.

I've used that as an excuse to throw a simple blog together as a dumping ground for all my recaps and video links. The scaffolding of the site is still under construction, but it seems perfect for posting a recap, showing off new YouTube videos, and attaching a few screenshots where appropriate.

That said, to my great surprise, my first completion of 2023 is Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid on Stadia.

I haven't been gaming as much yet this year - part of the reason why my first completion is so out of left field - because I'm still grinding away at my Year in Review video for 2022. Illness, travel, and the usual holiday shenanegans have gotten in the way, but the end is in sight. When I do have time to play, connection permitting, I've been experimenting with a bunch of Stadia games - Hot Wheels Unleashed, Wreckfest, Worms W.M.D., and Cake Bash, the last of which I'll be posting a write-up of shortly.

I was planning on playing a bit of Rock Band Blitz and maybe knocking out a few more achievements before the game's service is shut down, but to my disappointment, the game is already barely playable in its current state. Since before the pandemic, the game's servers have been broken, making it impossible to save high scores, use or unlock power-ups, or otherwise make any sort of progress in the game. Even if you manage to get a few good scores, they're gone as soon as you exit the game. I'm some combination of sad and frustrated. Though I don't necessarily prefer it to the more traditional Amplitude/Unplugged formula, it's a fun game, and it's fantastic to be able to use your entire extended Rock Band library. Rant over.

When my video duties are done, therefore, I'll be diving into Doom 64 for the Retro Talkshop Thread's Game of the Month.

@Slickriven I'm thinking Guybush for that one

Bout to start updating. BRB.

Updated! Impressive that we have two badges earned already; good work, @Bleed_DukeBlue and @brian9824 !

Sorry to hear that, @sailorneorune . I quite enjoyed reading his thoughts whenever he posted last year. Maybe next time!

SupremeSarna wrote:

Yessir

Well to be fair both were 90% done in 2022 lol

#5 down: Card Hog (first iOS clear). I would like to count it towards the The Best Offense badge. It’s a strategy game where you move pig characters around trying to collect resources, kill or avoid enemies, and stay alive (using card-based mechanics) as long as possible. There isn’t really an ending, so I 100%ed the achievements, earning all 33/33. I got into the top 100 worldwide for fastest loop (cycle of the game before you continue with the difficulty level increased or end the run. I also got into the top 5% of enemies defeated in a single loop.

Should there be a badge for Visual Novel games with how much more prevalent they have gotten lately?

My #2 is Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order.

https://ibb.co/TrskWYR

Not much of a Star Wars fan but this game was surprisingly good. Not a fan of the backtracking, but it got inspiration from the souls games and uncharted games.

I like the way @sailorneorune listed the emulated and emulator platform, so I will likely match that. I'm only including platforms not sleeping in their carboard coffins, which I suppose could lead to a dynamic list.

Number: 1
Full Title: Ys II: Ancient Ys Vanished - The Final Chapter
Platform Played:
Collection: Ys I & II Chronicles+
Native Platform:
Original Platform: NEC PC-8801 (1988)
Applicable Badge: Hyrulian Hero (1/2)

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails...

I hadn't played these since the Turbo CD version in the 1990s, and the updates Nihon Falcom has done without fundamentally changing the gameplay are impressive. The music is particularly amazing.

@Yoshi Welcome to the thread! I'll get you posted in a jiffy!

#3 was a quick one Limbo

https://ibb.co/bdcpnBR

Didn't really like this as i don't like puzzles in games. Managed to get through most of it without a guide.

I beat High on Life on the xbox1 / I beat my high score on Dig Dug on the xbox1

Working on Bayonetta 3. The first hour is fudging terrible. Cut scene, kill 2 enemies, cut scene, repeat. After that it gets awesome.

Number: 2
Full Title: River City Ransom
Platform Played:
Collection: Double Dragon & Kunio-kun: Retro Brawler Bundle
Native Platform:
Original Platform:
Applicable Badge: Pile Drivin' (1/2)

image

I had never finished this one before, and now I know why. It's fairly obtuse in terms of which enemies need to be defeated and what all the items from shops do. That said, I wish RPG beat 'em ups were a thing these days.

First game of the year is down!

Arcade Paradise

I really enjoyed this. I don't typically like the Sim games, but the arcade games incentivized me. I snagged a physical copy at a good price, and figured if I didn't like it I could get rid of it. I'm definitely keeping this, as some of the games are legitimately great!

Taking a leaf from @Renaissance2K’s book here...

#2 Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid cleared Arcade mode with Adam (1995 Power Rangers movie Black Ninja Ranger) and Tommy (MMPR Season 2 White Ranger)

benstylus gifted the Super Edition to me sometime ago. I later picked up the Season 4 DLC pack because Adam. My inner child is happy; however, my outer grownup wants to scream at this game so much. But I won’t.

Truth be told: It’s a decent fighter that I wish got a little more love from its dev team. Unfortunately, it appears nWay left this one to fade away like the Green Ranger’s powers back in 1993, in favor of adventures in money laundering mobile game Power Rangers Legacy Wars, with still-incredibly-obnoxious AI (24-hit combos out of nowhere? Confirmed.) and no recent DLC packs. I’m glad Adam made the cut, but it would have been nice to see more characters, like the Dino Fury Rangers or the RPM Ranger Operators.

I beat two games: Donkey Kong and Game & Watch Gallery . Thanks to @HEHEHATE and @Missile for the sales!
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The first is tricky. Donkey Kong 64 emulates the original arcade ROM, complete with Game A and Game B, but you get a single life and the game doesn't loop when you beat Crank--er, Donkey Kong. So while it isn't exactly the same experience as arcade DK, it is still the game and a harder version at that. Took me a good number of tries to beat each game mode.

As for Game & Watch Gallery, this is way better than G&WG2. You only get four games: Manhole, Fire, Octopus, and Oil Panic. Each one has modern and retro versions, both of which are unlocked from the start in this entry. I find these games waaaay more fun than the six games in Gallery 2, but Gallery 3 is still the reigning champ in my eyes. Octopus has the best music in the series thus far, though Gallery 3's Egg comes close. I wanted to get all the stars from the Modern games, but Hard Fire and Hard Octopus were just too daunting, and I'm about ready to move on. As shown above, I reached the credits that you get from earning 40 stars, so I consider that beaten.

I'm the first person to earn Makin' Money with Minigames!

I beat my high score on PacMan on the xbox1 (beating this and dig dug gets me the quarter muncher badge)

@SupremeSarna, you can add me with the following systems:

Switch
3DS
DS
GBA
Evercade
Genesis
Sega CD
Turbo Grafx 16
Neo Geo

I won't even bother with systems I have in storage. I'll call Dragon Quest Treasures on Switch as my first game beaten in 2023. I rolled the credits, but like DQ XI, that doesn't mean it's actually over. So I'm not quite done with it yet.

I beat Wild Guns Reloaded five times, earning me the Gamer's Day badge.
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Awesome game, can't recommend enough. Give it five tries!

Third game down, first on
Bugsnax
Badge: 100% counts towards You're Winner as it was poor.

It was nearly a walking sim in terms of what you do, though you have to capture the titular Bugsnax by various means and then could feed them to the cast of around a dozen. Very much a fetch-quest style and got boring quick, to say nothing of the questionable story choices for a game aimed at children. Even without that aspect that I didn't care for, it had about 2 redeeming qualities: Bunger, Bunger was amusing and you really can't say the map wasn't diverse as it had forest, beach, desert heat and a frozen mountain. But it was pretty boring and had some rather insulting stereotype characters like the Valley Girl or the Meat Head exercise Bro, even the simpleton farmer and rude scientist were a bit much.

And the ending was simply odd, thoughts:

Bugsnax is a 10/10. Should not count towards You're Winner

I'd like to participate. Very cool idea. I have almost every system, so perhaps it would be easier for you just to add them as I go instead of making a huge preliminary list?

ThirdeYe wrote:

Welcome! Honestly, it would be easier to list them all ahead of time so I don't have to change my recording style for just one user. It's best for me personally to record everyone the same way. Hope that isn't a bother.

Kommie wrote:

@Slickriven I'm with Kommie on this one. Bugsnax isn't shovelware-y enough to fit You're Winner.

SupremeSarna wrote:

That's fine... I added/changed the language of the badge last year to be what I see you still use:
Beat 2 games with <55 review OR user score on Metacritic (ex: Sonic '06), or justify how poor your game was.
I did that b/c originally the threshold was <40 and I looked on Metacritic and found only like 200 out of 16k games or something would've qualified. So I upped it to 55 and put in that justification language.

I suppose Bugsnax wasn't that terrible on it's face, so count it for??
Bear & Bird? It was an first person perspective and didn't do a lot of platforming though, but was focused on mindless, although slightly more challenging collecting vs. say Banjo
Girly? It was on the nose about not being specifically aimed at girls though
Guybursh? Was more heavy on story and just walking around and doing small catch/fetch quests.

Slickriven wrote:

Collectathon sounds about right. It is about collecting things in a 3D space, even without the platforming.

SupremeSarna wrote:

Failed to mention last night because I was tired: Battle for the Grid is 1 point toward the Street Fightin’ badge

sailorneorune wrote:
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I should play Bugsnax again on XsX. Such an amazing game.

Kommie wrote:

Funny way to spell utter crap.

I beat Gin Rummy on the xbox360