Board 8 > 777 days later: Still playing through all 128 games of the BGE contest, AMA!

(+) Yeah! (+)

November 4th, 2015 started the quest of 3 guys attempting to beat all 128 games from the latest Best Game Ever Contest, and giving them ratings along the way. 777 days later, we're 70 games in and still going strong. This project has literally changed our lives, playing all sorts of games we've never touched before, finding new games to love and new games to hate.

Our progress so far (including ratings and all sorts of stats): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_SKvnMZTbqzkwbA1fEUfJ3ITIVLm3sZY_Gb62Tizamk/edit#gid=0

Notable life changing events that have transpired:

-Shox discovers his love for RPGs
-Dabu discovers AOE 2 is the hardest RTS of all time
-Shox unlocks the invincibility cheat for the first time
-Sonic discovers his hate for Resident Evil
-We learned we actually can work as a team in an mmorpg

Some fun moments along the way:

Goldeneye Invincibility: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/34634408
[BIOSHOCK INFINITE SPOILERS] https://www.twitch.tv/videos/155746407
[MAJOR FALLOUT: NEW VEGAS SPOILERS] https://clips.twitch.tv/DaintyEntertainingClintPanicBasket
Journey to the outlands:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dt13qeVIlhs
Questionable life is strange decision (minor spoilers) https://clips.twitch.tv/YawningElegantPassionfruitMingLee
FF7 Ruby: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/116189424
FF7 Emerald: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/116240929

Ask us (Dabu/Shox/Sonic) about our playthroughs, ratings, or anything!
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It's been really fun so far to play some new games :) I didn't have a wide variety of games as a kid so almost all of my playthroughs has been blind. I've been able to see what I've missed out on as a kid, but better to play these games late than never

Also want to give a shoutout to Board 8 Extra Life, really enjoyed the show this year!

interesting topic. what's your least favorite game you've all played so far?

Do you mean least favorite game from the contest or ever?
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Sorry for not clarifying. I mean from the contest.

Most of the games I played were pretty good. I'm gonna get some flack from this, but my least favorite was probably World of Warcraft. That may have had more to do with how we played it rather than the game itself though.
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BestBracketEver posted...

interesting topic. what's your least favorite game you've all played so far?

I'd say Shenmue. Story wasn't interesting, gameplay wasn't interesting, music wasn't interesting. I can respect what it did in terms of establishing a daily cycle where characters were in certain places at certain times. It was one of the first, if not the first game to do that, but there's just not a whole lot going on there that kept me interested. The voice acting is hilarious though

LordOfDabu posted...

Questionable life is strange decision (minor spoilers) https://clips.twitch.tv/YawningElegantPassionfruitMingLee

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I panicked and made a decision quickly. :( The clip would have been much better if I had saved the audio from our discord chat. We were all on voice chat while I played and having a really good time.

One thing I learned from this project is how much more fun it is to play through a game with people watching and commenting (and making fun of you constantly).
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Life is Strange is also an example of a game I wouldn't have played if it wasn't for this. I really enjoyed it though! I'm looking forward to playing episode 3 of before the storm soon; if there is interest, I might link the stream/discord and make an event out of it when I do.
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LordOfDabu posted...

Most of the games I played were pretty good. I'm gonna get some flack from this, but my least favorite was probably World of Warcraft. That may have had more to do with how we played it rather than the game itself though.

wow out of all the games i'm surprised you liked wow the least

BestBracketEver posted...

wow

BestBracketEver posted...

wow

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Pun intended

BestBracketEver posted...

Pun intended

boo
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I actually liked WoW a lot. I'm gonna try out the legacy servers when Blizzard releases them since I wasn't a fan of leveling up so quickly. I also regret that we didn't really get to explore the world, while the legacy servers will kinda force me to do that

This is really cool! Hope you'll have tons of fun.
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What's your guys' favorite game you've discovered for the first time as a result of this?

That's a tough question. For me it's probably Metal Gear Solid 2. I had some familiarity with the first one but know very little about the sequels and I played the second one completely blind. The plot was interesting and full of twists and I was genuinely impressed with how many little details the game has. I'm looking forward to playing MGS 3 after I finish Age of Empires 2 (which will be awhile as AOE 2 is way longer than I anticipated and at times an exercise in frustration).

I also really enjoyed playing Life is Strange, Shovel Knight, and Sonic 2 for the first time (I was a SNES kid growing up).
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Oh! How far are you in in AOE 2?
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You should do what I did and put all the games from Best Game Ever 2004, 2009 and Game of the Decade on the list.

Proud to say. I beat them all :)

Some games did make me wish I didn't take such a project though.

BTW. What are/were your conditons for beating games like WoW, Hearthstone, Team Fortress 2, Civilization, etc

Games which are actually unbeatable unless you make self imposing challenges like I did as conditons for 'beating' the game.

I started my project as far back as 2009 during the 2nd Best Game Ever contest on GameFaqs (and even then I already beat a lot of the games featuring in the contests) and completed the project in 2016, 7 years later. Being a completionist really put the project to a crawl in pace though and there were times I almost gave up. Glad I didn't cave in.

For AOE 2, I'm currently in the second level of the Saladin campaign. A lot of my difficulty is that I'm playing on hard mode, which is probably not meant for someone playing the game for the first time, but I'm stubborn.

Win conditions vary, and we usually have to come to an agreement on what's reasonable. For the games we've cleared so far, we have the win condition listed in our spreadsheet (and in the case of world of warcraft, we have a separate sheet for it). For the purpose of this project, we do have to redo games on the list we've already beaten, though we try to give them to the person who hasn't played them yet.
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Ooh boy. You're gonna have fun with Genghis Khan and Barbarossa then. Good luck.
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what's game 128 going to be?
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transience posted...

what's game 128 going to be?

It might end up being Baldur's Gate II. Sonic and I have already started it (we're doing it co-op) and we've made a little bit of progress, but I have a feeling it's gonna take us a while to beat it

Paratroopa1 posted...

What's your guys' favorite game you've discovered for the first time as a result of this?

Chrono Trigger and FF7 are the two best games I've played as a result of this. I'd give FF7 the edge as the better game but it's really really close. Pokemon was the only RPG I played growing up and I never ever played games for the story, so I'm happy we're doing this as it's basically opened up a whole new genre of games for me to play

As far as my personal favorite though, while I do think those two games above are better overall, I think I prefer Xenogears above them. The story is more appealing to me with so many themes going on and it was such a big effort. I also fell in love with the music, DKC2 was my favorite OST growing up but I think Xenogears beats it. There's plenty of flaws in the game and the gameplay is a little dull, but at least the battle system is a little unique, even though gear fights get pretty repetitive.

I'll also give a shout out to Fallout: New Vegas, which I just beat on Monday! I didn't like 3, but something about the setting of Nevada/California/Arizona was a lot more appealing to me and I just loved it and did a ton of exploring cause it was just so fun. Also the faction system worked really well, especially compared to 3 which only used the karma system. Fallout 4 isn't on the list but I plan to play it in the future, after I beat Skyrim, which will also be a blind playthrough!

Earthbound's story a meh? I liked it!

FF4 is probably my favorite game on the list. (unless FF9 was on the list, but I only looked at the ones you beat)
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tough to beat Xenogears. good choice.
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The 128th game will probably be something no one is interested in playing. Maybe Monster Hunter 4U
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who's playing FFVIII
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I am! Doing Bloodborne next, then Wind Waker, then I'll do FFVIII. Just like the rest of the FF games I've played, this will be a blind playthrough and I'm pretty excited for it.

hype

who's playing MGS3
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I'm doing MGS 3. It will also be a blind run!
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(Just gotta finish AOE 2 first)

BTW: If requested, we can tag you when we go live with the games you want to see on stream.
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I dunno if I'd want to watch a full playthrough. I'm not a big LP guy. I'd be interested to know what you think afterwards though.
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Alanna82 posted...

Earthbound's story a meh? I liked it!

FF4 is probably my favorite game on the list. (unless FF9 was on the list, but I only looked at the ones you beat)

The thing with Earthbound is that it was the second JRPG I've ever played (not including Pokemon). My understanding is that it's kinda meant to be a parody of other JRPG's, but since I had only played FF4 before it, I didn't really have the frame of reference to understand it. I've actually started Earthbound again on my SNES Classic, and now that I have more JRPG's under my belt, I'm excited to see if I like it more

Also, 9 is on there! From the FF series, 4, 6, 7, Tactics, 8, 9, 10, and 12 are all on the list. I've played 4, 6, 7, and Tactics so far. I also played 5 for the Four Job Fiesta and while I raged a fair amount at the difficulty near the end, I'll be doing it again next year. I played a little bit of 1 but then got distracted by other things, but I intend to play all of them in order, or at least the ones I haven't played.

what got you in 5? just the last boss, or something else?
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LeonhartFour posted...

I dunno if I'd want to watch a full playthrough. I'm not a big LP guy. I'd be interested to know what you think afterwards though.

I like to think we provide pretty unique thoughts on our games, especially me as most of my games are completely blind. Also my biggest character flaw is that I rage while playing games so I think Dabu and Sonic enjoy seeing which parts of games make me rage

FFVII Spoilers: For example, I struggled with Ruby and Emerald much more than I should have and there were some very interesting moments

well you will probably rage a lot during FFVIII if you're playing it blind until you figure out better ways to play it
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transience posted...

what got you in 5? just the last boss, or something else?

The difficulty spike near the very end in the last area really surprised me. I had to grind a fair amount to feel confident enough to take on the final boss, which did wreck me pretty hard for a while. However I love the final boss's music so much that I honestly didn't mind. It even got added to my video game music playlist that I've created after starting this event! Here's a link if you want to see what songs I've really enjoyed from games from this contest (there's a few songs from games outside of this contest as well): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVpUiMHRe0HwtUQ8X0Ue3hesmniJfGdGw

LeonhartFour posted...

well you will probably rage a lot during FFVIII if you're playing it blind until you figure out better ways to play it

Haha I'll look forward to that. I'll definitely be raging at Bloodborne, Wind Waker should be pretty rage free and I was hoping FFVIII would be too but I guess I'll have to prepare to contain my rage for that one :)

Well, I don't think FFVIII as a game is hard, but there's a learning curve for figuring out how to be efficient with its systems. You can break the game absurdly easily if you know what you're doing.
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https://imgur.com/a/zOZ1M
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man that is Heroic Mario levels of flip flopping
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Also just to get this out of the way here's my rankings of the FF games I've played so far (minus Tactics since it's so different):

7 > 6 > 4 > 5

However, the rankings of the battle themes differ a little:

4 > 5 > 6 > 7

Rankings of the boss battle themes:

7 > 4 > 6 > 5

FFVII's regular battle theme is great.
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I'm not saying it's bad, but I don't think it beats any of the other 3 games so far

what was your ff5 party?
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Thief, Monk, Samurai, Time Mage. Was a pure chaos run as well

The way I beat the game was pretty epic too

HUGE FFV SPOILERS: