Lurker > TheArkOfTurus

Pretty good choice for #1 imho.

I had a pretty hard time figuring out which song from that album to nominate. Can't say I see the R/S/E comparison, but I need to listen to more of Dr. Pez's stuff after randomly being recommended their Ocarina of Time as a prog rock concept album video a week ago.

Thanks for doing this ranking!

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I got The Butcher's Ballrom back in the day, really enjoyed it, then proceeded to never get another album by them again. I have no idea why.

This is a good reminder that I should change that.

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At least one isn't!

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I do like that one. A lot of my backlog now is made up of games I picked up for free at some point, at this point.

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Card Games

6. Beat a game in a completely new series

Griftlands

46. Beat a game you received for free or through a paid subscription service (Thanks again, Azuarc!)

Monster Train

Beat the first two scenarios in Griftlands, and Stygian Guard/Awoken in Monster Train. I'll probably play the third at least once, but I'll probably wait to play anything past that, mostly because I like Monster Train as a card game way more.

15/50

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36. Beat a game that's been in your backlog for a long time

Republique

38. Finish a game in one day

A Light in the Dark

Decent little VN with an interesting premise, but there wasn't really a whole lot to it.

37. Beat a game you'd dropped or had a long hold on

Dicey Dungeons

Dropped it because I sucked at playing the Witch. I still suck at playing the Witch, but I managed to get through her bonus round with enough luck. I liked the idea of the last episode a lot, but I wish it were a bit harder, or at least had a hard mode.

13/50

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8. Beat a spin-off or a game that rebooted a franchise

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity

Loved it. It'll almost certainly surpass the original for me if it gets as many content updates, and that's no small feat.

10/50

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28. Beat a game with the supernatural as a central theme

Paradise Killer

The ending sequence was a huge let down. I came in expecting to build and present a case, but the presenting part was pretty much handled automatically, just listing the evidence you've collected and almost nothing else. That didn't take away from how much I enjoyed the writing, characters, and especially worldbuilding, but I really wish there were more to it at the end.

9/50

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FL81 posted...

Despite being nearly 7 minutes long, this actually feels really short somehow.

Now I kinda wish I had nominated Graves instead.

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44. Beat a game that's been adapted into another medium

Robotics;Notes Elite (Although I think it's one of those that people would rather pretend doesn't exist)

There were some issues with the PC port, and there was one character who seemed determined to ruin every scene with her "comic relief," but I enjoyed it overall. Not as much as Steins;Gate, certainly, but more than the Chaos games. I bought DaSH with it, so that'll probably be my next entry, even though I expect that the comic relief character interacting with the other character I know shows up in it will be the absolute worst.

7/50

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35. Beat a game with a lead from a fictional species

Hollow Knight

This is my second time playing it. After the first time, I thought it was probably the best metroidvania I'd ever played. Now that I've given it a second playthrough, I can upgrade that probably to a definitely. I will never understand how a three person team could make a game like this. I still have some of the DLC left, which I'll be playing for the first time. I'll probably never do the end of Godmaster, though.

6/50

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14. Beat a JRPG

Final Fantasy IV: Free Enterprise

Tried this with some harder settings (no free characters/key items, EXP turned down, no dismissing characters after they join, no recruiting dismissed characters, no FuSoYa, some harder randomization settings, and some other things,) but got good enough luck to cancel those things out, mostly. Thought I'd end up with a weird, unbalanced party out of necessity, but I ended up with the standard party, just with Kain replaced by Cid.

5/50

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27. Beat a game with mystery as a central theme

Her Story

47. Play a game that's technically unbeatable for at least six hours

One Piece Treasure Cruise

Haven't played the latter in months, but I'm sure I played six hours of it.

4/50

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39. Finish a game that took you at least twenty-five hours to beat

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim

Just a bit over 25. I can't believe they designed a story this way, made it consistently entertaining, and made it make sense at the end. Enjoyed the combat more than I expected, too, although it was extremely easy on normal, and a few moves were beyond overpowered.

2/50

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22. Beat a fighting game

BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle

Bought this with spare gold points at some point, thinking it might be fun to mess around with. It was... Somewhat.

50/50

Started a second list, which I'll open with

5. Beat a game released in 2020

Spelunky 2

Spelunky is one of my favorite games, but this one didn't grab me quite as much. The difficulty kind of went from endearing to aggravating. Not sure if I'll keep going back to this one.

1/50

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50. Beat three games in a series

Streets of Rage 2, Bare Knuckle 3, and Streets of Rage 4

Streets of Rage 4 was already on my list, so I'd still be at 48/50, but it does free up room for

7. Beat a game in a series you've already played some of

Fire Emblem: Three Houses

Picked up a somewhat old save, and finished a Golden Deer playthrough. Did the DLC, and am playing through Blue Lions now, but I honestly kind of wish I was replaying Black Eagles instead. Dmitri should be more interesting after the time skip, at least.

49/50

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23. Beat a sports game

Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed

48/50

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1. Beat a game released before 1990

River City Ransom

I should probably play literally any other Kunio-kun game at some point.

47/50

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18. Beat a third-person shooter

Wild Guns

Does this count? I'm gonna say it counts.

46/50

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4. Beat a game released between 2010-2019

Enter the Gungeon

This is my third time starting a new save file for this game, but my first time actually clearing it. Feels good.

45/50

Finally at the point where I won't be able to fit random games I beat in. No idea what I'll end up doing for a couple, but we'll see.

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40. Beat a game with a Metascore below 70

Long Live the Queen

Mostly replayed this because I saw it fit the category. Ended up beating it by focusing mainly on magic, athletics, and weapons while remaining completely oblivious to military affairs, her own countries' history, economics, foreign relations, and the ability to hold a conversation. Truly the ideal queen.

44/50

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10. Beat a game made by a director/composer/artist/etc that you like

Hypnospace Outlaw

Did a quick playthrough for the plus update. Still fun to read, but it's a shame that game'll never be challenging a second time.

43/50.

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14. Beat a JRPG

Final Fantasy VI

Well, a romhack (Meeple Fantasy 6) of it, anyway. Mostly replaced characters/items/locations/etc. with ones from other RPGs. The plot was like 75% in-jokes I didn't understand, but I mostly picked it up because the characters and boss fights looked fun, and hey, they were!

42/50

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4. Beat a game released between 2010-2019

Into the Breach

Surprised it took me this long to play through it this year.

41/50

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13. Beat a WRPG

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

could be playing The Witcher 3 for the first time instead of Skyrim for the tenth, but no, I have to get random urges to replay Skyrim. Why am I like this? The game isn't even that good!

40/50

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35. Beat a game with a lead from a fictional species

Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits

I think I bought this near when it released, but this was my first time actually finishing it. The dual protagonists on opposing sides always seemed interesting to me, but the writing and characters being pretty awful squandered any potential there, and the gameplay was pretty unremarkable. Not entirely sure why I ended up sticking with it this time.

I think I might end up going on a less well regarded PS2 sequel to a PSX RPG binge. Kind of a narrow category, but Valkyrie Profile 2, Wild ARMS 4, and Breath of Fire 5 all are somewhat tempting, and I do remember liking them quite a bit more.

39/50

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27. Beat a game with mystery as a central theme

Raging Loop

Kinda surprised I ended up replaying this before other VNs that I liked more, The new game plus mode made it pretty interesting to play along with Visual Novel Book Club. Well, until I got impatient and ended up finishing it again. Whoops.

38/50

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2. Beat a game released between 1990-1999

Dragon Force

Mostly started playing this to help tide me over until Brigandine Runersia released. Ended up wanting to go back to it after (mostly) stopping with it, unfortunately I had to buy another battery for my Saturn, so there was no save to go back to. A fun, but very flawed game that I'm glad I own, but isn't at all worth what it costs on ebay.

37/50

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FL81 posted...

Also, apparently these guys are in some way connected to Ayreon, and they're one of my favorite bands as of late!

That's how I found them! Well, it's usually just Mike Mills (that's the only song in the album with other musicians IIRC.) He's been on the last two Ayreon albums, and some of the live ones.

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27. Beat a game with mystery as a central theme

Death Come True

It was alright. Felt like there were some neat ideas starting up, but it was a bit too short to do much interesting with them.

36/50

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10. Beat a game made by a director/composer/artist/etc that you like

Brigandine: The Legend of Runersia

I still can't believe this exists. My playthrough took me 21 hours, and it came out two days ago, so it's pretty safe to say I enjoyed it! It's pretty much everything I wanted from a Brigandine sequel. Now to beat it a minimum of six more times!

35/50

(Moved Papers, Please to game that's been adapted into another medium.)

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24. Beat a game with romance as a central theme

A Normal Lost Phone

Back to playing random bundle games.

34/50

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42. Beat another user's favorite game

Phantasy Star 4

Hearing people talk about PSO2 made me want to replay this instead. I think this is the fifth time this? Safe to say, it's one of my favorite games, too.

33/50

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49. Choose a random page on TVTropes and beat something from the video game section (Rocket Ride)

Contra 3

I miss when I actually used to be good at this game.

32/50

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20. Beat an action game

Bold Blade

A game where you attack almost entirely by swinging the world's biggest sword in a circle. A pretty novel concept, and one that works pretty well. I just wish it were more than an hour long.

(Moved Pirate Warriors 4 to spin-off, and Streets of Rage 4 to series I've played some of)

31/50

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6. Beat a game in a completely new series

Hidden Folks

Pretty neat. Don't think I would have ever played it if not for that bundle, but I'm glad I did.

30/50

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28. Beat a game with the supernatural as a central theme

Death and Taxes

Playing a bunch of games that look vaguely interesting from the itch.io bundle. This was... vaguely interesting! Well, the gameplay part was. The writing was quite a bit more enjoyable.

29/50.

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30. Beat a game with a female lead

Lenna's Inception

Good game. Liked it enough to start replaying it immediately for a different ending (although the randomization helps with that.)

Had to move Brigandine: GE to beat a 2000-2009 game, Spelunky to beat a remake, and a Short Hike to beat a game in one day.

28/50

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10. Beat a game made by a director/composer/artist/etc that you like

Papers, Please

Hmm, I don't really know what I feel like playing. I'll just look at my Steam library. Hey, Papers, Please, I wonder if I feel like playing that?

*Four hours later.*

Maybe a little!

27/50

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30. Beat a game with a female lead

A Short Hike

Pretty neat. Not going to leave much of an impact, I don't think, but I enjoyed my time with it.

26/50

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37. Beat a game you'd dropped or had a long hold on

60 Parsecs

25/50

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32. Beat a game with a non-white lead

The detective game+picross pitch was nice, but I found it to be pretty mediocre across the board.

24/50

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29. Beat a game with comedy as a central theme

Void Bastards

No one wanted the code I was giving away, so I just replayed it myself instead! Still pretty fun. Not really enough variety to justify the $30 it costs, but I highly recommend it at the price of free if anyone in this topic wants the code!

23/50

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11. Beat a game made by a developer you like

Hades

Fantastic game, although it's Supergiant Games so that probably goes without saying. Hades might end up being my favorite of them, though, (it certainly is from a gameplay perspective,) and it might end up being one of my favorite games of all time. This will almost certainly end up on the list of roguelikes I have on my list every year.

22/50

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bump

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46. Beat a game you received for free or through a paid subscription service

Moonlighter

21/50

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9. Beat a remake or enhanced port

Brigandine: Grand Edition.

Because I couldn't wait a month and a half to play the sequel (even though I've been waiting 20 years.)

20/50

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34. Beat a game with an animal lead

Gato Roboto

19/50

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4/5 in the top half, not bad.

The Old Haunt going out hurts as much as it would for one of my own nominations, though.

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20. Beat an action game

Streets of Rage 4

Pretty much exactly what I wanted out of a new Streets of Rage game.

18/50

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