Board 8 > The Great 2018 Video Game Challenge

(+) Yeah! (+)

35. Beat a game with a lead that's from a fictional species


Ratchet & Clank -PS4

I enjoyed this a lot more than the last Ratchet and Plank game I tried. Wasn't expecting this to be my favorite game on PS + this month
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19. Beat a platformer
Ty the Tasmanian Tiger

10/50
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33. Beat a game with a robot/artificial lead

Mighty No. 9

I can't remember the last time I played a game as unfun as this one. It feels like every level was designed around bullshit instant kill obstacles. I got this for free and still feel ripped off.

11/50
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30. Beat a game with a female lead

Metal Slug 4

I picked the girl.

12/50
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3. Beat a game released between 2000-2009

Metal Slug 5

This one felt a lot shorter than the other ones.

13/50
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20. Beat an action game

Metal Slug 6

14/50
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44. Beat a game based on licensed stories/characters

Guardians of the Galaxy: The Telltale Series

I enjoyed this one, and prefer it to the first season of the Batman game. Something about comedy meshes well with the Telltale style of storytelling.

15/50
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14. Beat a JRPG
Bravely Second: End Layer

38. Beat a game you'd dropped or had a long hold on
A Hat in Time
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8. Beat a spin-off or a game that rebooted a franchise

Dragon Quest Heroes: The World Tree's Woe and the Blight Below

- Finally beat another game after sputtering out on a few, and continuing to delay some 2017 save files.

Dragon Quest Heroes is the second musou game I've played. I started Dynasty Warriors 8 Xtreme Legends for this topic, but I've only completed one campaign so far and get quite disinterested in playing after a map or two at a time. I don't know how long until I can add that to this list, but I'm going to make some comparisons now.

Though DW8XL boasts many more weapon types, more complex combat, a host of personalities, and much bigger maps... as someone who doesn't know anything about the Romance lore, it's just too all over the place for my tastes. Characters come and go with little fanfare, the story jumps forward years after nearly every chapter, the maps are confusing and similar, and you're forced upon new characters with completely different playstyles all the time. The game has felt like more of a chore.

Dragon Quest Heroes is definitely an easier game that trades battlefield warfare and hidden missions for a really fun story, fun and familiar enemies, and a great cast of characters. I thoroughly enjoyed the pacing of the game and the amount of sidequests. Character voices and combat styles were well-defined and fun. The cutscenes were entertaining. I love the classic Dragon Quest soundtrack (that I heard all the time playing Fortune Street). This was so much fun and revitalized a yearning to play the classics. My friend even went out and bought Dragon Quest VIII after watching some of my play.

Some of the most fun continues to be trying to beat up Metal Slimes. I love the chase!
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29. Beat a game with comedy as a central theme
Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge

45. Beat a game that's been adapted into another medium
Hitman: Absolution

48. Beat a game that starts with the first letter of your username
Kirby: Planet Robobot

I'm not sure if Absolution qualifies for that category, but they have made two movies based on the series!
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16. Beat a rhythm game

Rhythm Heaven Megamix

First game in the series I've played for more than a couple minutes. I'm terrible at it! Good thing the requirements for passing a stage were pretty lax. I enjoyed it quite a bit. I'll probably go back and try to improve some of those scores before I stop playing this.

16/50
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12. Beat a game by a developer you've never tried

Slay the Spire?

- I'm finding no answers as to whether or not defeating the third floor boss is the final task, and like most roguelikes, I know there's lots of replay value and extra unlocks and ascension thing, but I got the credits, so... counting it! Though, I watched the RLM review and don't know anything about a boss that blocks tons of damage. Grah. I'm both satisfied with including this, and not satisfied because there's more and it's early access.

Still. Really, really fun game that scratches a good itch.

EDIT: Statistics screen says I have a victory so, we good.
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47. Play a technically unbeatable game for at least six hours
Pokemon GO

11/50
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12. Beat a game made by a developer you've never tried
Eco

4/50
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As long as I'm not the only one including an early access game, I'll add Dead Cells after all.

19. Beat a platformer

Dead Cells

(Demon's Crest moved to beat a game from 1990-1999)

17/50
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31. Beat a game with a child lead

Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep

I never thought I'd say it, but I am burnt out of this series. I guess playing nearly every game in it over the span of a few weeks will do that to you. Still a great game, but I'm glad to be moving on to some other genres of game at this point.

16/50
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Bump
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34. Beat a game with an animal lead

Talespin. Working through that Disney collection

8/50
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35. Beat a game with a lead from a fictional species
Kirby Star Allies
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33. Beat a game with a robot/artificial lead
Nier: Automata

What a strange, beautiful, and emotionally-draining game.
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29. Beat a game with comedy as a central theme

Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy

Still one of my favourite platformers of all-time.

17/50
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18. Beat a third-person shooter

Spec-Ops: The Line
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4. Beat a game released between 2010-2017

Dead Maze (Kongregate)

- At least I've completed all current story content (Blue Mesa). If I had known the only category I could rightly fit it in was its year, I probably wouldn't have played so much, but it's really helped pass the work day the past month.

This is a pretty fun game. Its a zombie apocalypse survival MMO so you know pretty much what you're going to get for gameplay, but its got some surprising depth. There is a nice gradual growth to your character and what he or she can make use of. You start off with nothing but the ripped up clothes on your back and a banged up weapon, but after a decent prologue, you soon get to explore a rather large map at your leisure with a wide variety of items to pick up and try and figure out what's worth space in your backpack. Weapons break quickly, the zombies show no mercy, and you run out of food and water pretty quickly. There's a good deal of exploration and danger that isn't severe, but you do have to pay some attention. It's casual enough where you don't have to fully invest either (which is perfect for work).

Then after a little while, you obtain a house and start being able to craft things and store materials, then there's research, and gardening, and the daily quests, and the storyline opening up new maps. Then you may learn about Secret Passages and the hunt for its loot. Now you might be learning what items drop precious metals and why paper is functionally useless. You go on adventures and try not to lose your survivor gear by dying. Then you may find zombies with special clothing drops and Peruvians and boss monsters. And still, seventy-five levels later, you feel like you're not having as much trouble with the zombies as before, but its very easy to get too overconfident and get slaughtered.

I'm likely going to keep playing, but I just powered through the last of the current story today (Highway 99 is evil) to add to my list. Really more fun than expected. There are some pay-to-play elements, but its mostly just for clothes and cosmetics. Clothes *ARE* a big deal since they're expensive to level, difficult to find (while just last week only available in stores), and give you permanent buffs with what you add to the clothes, but you still never feel left far behind since even the best weapons have break limits and they're all lootable. Rarity depends on maps, containers, indoors/outdoors, difficulty of mobs, and certain perks you can equip for more difficult challenges.
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4. Beat a game released between 2010-2017
Environmental Station Alpha

34. Beat a game with an animal lead
Okamiden
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11. Beat a game made by a developer you like

Jak 2

Top 10 game for me, and something I always look forward to replaying.

18/50
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tag

49. Choose a random page on TVTropes and beat something from the video game section
Red Dead Redemption

My trope was: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheWarSequence

12/50
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12. Beat a game made by a developer you've never tried

VA-11 HALL-A

I believe this is the first VN I've beaten that's a pure VN and while I wish there was some more gameplay. I do fully intend to keep up with whatever Sukeban has coming next.
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34. Beat a game with an animal lead

Sonic Maina

Wow, really great game, it has all the fun of past sonic games with the modern know how of newer ones. Can't wait for plus to come out so I can play as mighty.
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11. Beat a game made by a developer you like

Jak 3

Despite the first two games being some of my favourite, I never really liked Jak 3. Something about the generic desert setting doesn't sit right with me. Let's just say I made heavy use of the debug menu to make my time spent with this game as brief as possible.

19/20
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12. Beat a game made by a developer you've never tried
SUPERHOT

Sadly, this did not meet my expectations, but I still overall enjoyed my time with it.
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40. Finish a game that took you at least twenty-five hours to beat
Monster Hunter World

It is done.
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1. Beat a game released before 1990

Alter Ego

- Beat a game without even expecting to, especially since the times I've tried playing before have a cut off at a certain point to but the whole game to play the rest. It was a fun bit of time wasted now that Dead Maze, Sporcle, and the rest of Kongregate are blocked at work. Le sigh.
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23. Beat a sports game

Punch-Out!! (2009)
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and now it doesnt

43. Beat another user's favorite game
The World Ends With You

I was surprised to find out this was not one, but two users' favorite game. I will not be making it a third.
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I reallly loved TWEWY when it came out, but it feels like it was a fun game for that era, and not really something Id enjoy if I played it today
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8. Beat a spin-off or a game that rebooted a franchise

Warriors All-Stars

Not exactly the best Musou game, but at least it isn't DW9! Was hoping I might be able to slot this in the under 70 Metacritic category. It's sitting right at 70. Damn you random website that decided this game deserved a perfect score.

18/50
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51. Beat three games in a series

Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair

- Finished it last night, staying up an extra five hours from my usual cutoff time to complete it because the endgame was just that hectic. Just Monokuma. It was definitely a much better and fully realized game than the first with improved gameplay, some better mechanics, and an insanely twisty story that builds well off the first.

There was a point late in the game where we receive a certain bit of information, 11037, and I quit the game to play a bit of the first again. It was a weird transition hearing Monokuma's old voice and the chirpier, more cartoonish characters. I got to refresh my memories on the characters, and came out of the first case... really appreciating the depth and complexity of all the sequel's peoples. The first game had some terrible, terrible inclusions (Toko, Kiyotaka, Yasuhiro, Hifumi) that only got worse and more flanderized over time. Pretty much everyone in the sequel are people I really want to go back and get hope fragments for.

I'm definitely rambling. DR2 was an excellent game and likely in the top five of games so far, but I have to mention a few flaws first.

- The endgame, as fun and nostalgic as it was, did feel a bit disappointing in how it really felt like a lot of agency was taken from these characters with the endgame of DR1 spilling completely over. It makes absolute sense in terms of story, but I also felt pangs of despair when our characters were brushed over to the side as tools for the plot. The Darth Revan reveal was not wholly unexpected, but kind of disappointing. I was the ultimate badguy and chance for ultimate good all along! From zero to most important person ever in no time. At least it explains why Hajime, and a lot of the cast, are such complete awful jerks near the beginning.

- A lot of the cases, while very fun to figure out, were just convoluted and silly. I blame Nagito.

- I think I've heard about a certain portion of a certain case talked very negatively before. The swimsuit with gravel in Case 2? If so, holy **** that was aggravating and unintuitive. I really hope there was something lost in translation there because the rest of the game felt somewhat logical in the steps it took despite the zaniness of some of the murders.

I'm done rambling. Very, very fun and entertaining game I'm going to play more of soon.

First Game Complete Report Cards: Celestia, Kyoko
Second Game Complete Hope Fragments: Gundham, Chiaki

This write-up sounds awful, but I've only had three hours of sleep so its to be expected.
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dont wheelchair him off a stage, unless you do it gently

thanks

bowing out for 3 days while avoiding tar spoilers

3. Beat a game released between 2000-2009
Conker's Bad Fur Day

I nearly forgot that this was late in the N64's life cycle
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37. Beat a game that's been in your backlog for a long time

Bonanza Bros. One of several games from the Ultimate Genesis Collection that's been on the backlog for awhile. Not really fun, but super short.

10/50
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19. Beat a platformer
Refunct
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22. Beat a fighting game

Injustice 2
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hey guys I updated this for the first time in awhile, lol. I haven't played a ton of games this year but I have played my new favorite game of all time
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37. Beat a game that's been in your backlog for a long time

Severed

19/50

Also moved Warriors All-Stars to 46. Beat a game that features historical events or people. Didn't notice that when I was looking for a spot to put it.
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Moved Owlboy from 39 to (19. Beat a platformer)

39. Finish a game in one day

Candy Box 2

- Another browser game to pass the work day. It was decently fun and I'm glad it had a goal line. It wasn't just an idle clicker, but a half-way decent action-platformer-RPG... okay, it wasn't all that great, but it passed a solid five and a half hours. Some decently difficult puzzles and hidden picture kind of puzzles in an ASCII grid.
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28. Beat a game with the supernatural as a central theme

Oxenfree

So a group of teens go to an uninhabited island for a midnight beach party. Spooky stuff starts happening and they have to find a way to escape from the island.

This had some cool stuff going on -- the spooky stuff was appropriately spooky, the dialogue system was neat, and you can change some things with your decisions (in ways I didn't realize; I would've played differently if I'd known). But I didn't really like any of the characters, which is not so great for a narrative-focused game.

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

The Alchemist Code

beating out "Kittens Game" and "Pokemon Go" for this coveted spot. I figure I ought to give it to a game I started in 2018.
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1. Beat a game released before 1990

Alien Syndrome

11/50
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