Board 8 > Post Each Time You Beat a Game: 2018 Edition (topic #3)

(+) Yeah! (+)

I decided to finally do some of my longer games, so I might be done for the year in terms of beating games.
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You and me both!

It's been quite a ride this year. Somewhere around game 70 I had gained a fan.
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Up.
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Pokemon Silver (Game Boy Color)

This was quite the ancient replay. The last time I played Pokemon Silver was many years ago when it first came out.
Replaying this for second time several years later felt...nice.
The first time I played, I remember steamrolling most of the game with just Feraligatr and didn't really explore most of the new Pokemon except for a few and stuck with some of my old favorites I came across while lugging around many HM Slaves. So many things they added to the second generation and most of it was overwhelming. The whole Day/Night/Breeding stuff were pretty good ideas.

I liked it this time around. I started with Cyndaquil instead of Totodile.
I raised a bunch Pokemon and I had a whole lot of fun rotating my teams around. The second half of the game (Kanto) after you complete the Johto region will always be one of the best parts and that final battle...so good.

Pokemon I used
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Typhlosion
Houndoom (It felt satisfying leveling it up until it learned Crunch when I proceeded to decimate a certain Psychic Gym)
Lanturn
Ampharos
Kadabra (this Pokemon still got it for going through most of single player)
Scyther (False Swipe made catching the desired Pokemon I wanted was made sooo much easier)
Haunter
Crobat (It evolved for me at Level 28 while keeping it happy)
Machoke
Donphan
Jynx (I raised a Smoochum and didn't evolve it into Jynx until she learned Psychic)
Graveler
Raticate (Hyper Fang too good. Served me well for a little while)
Hypno (for using Headbutt on trees)
Piloswine
Dewgong

HM Slaves
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Geodude (Rock Smash)
Bellsprout (Cut, Flash. Bellsprout learning Flash is kinda weird)
Krabby (The OG HM Slave. Cut, Strength, Surf, Whirlpool)
Chinchou (Surf, Flash, Whirlpool, Waterfall)
Fearow (Fly)

Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon (Super Famicom)
This was an alright beat em' up. Based on the first season. Pretty short with only 5 levels to go through.
Completed it with Sailor Jupiter (my fave).
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Beyond Two Souls (PS4) - Platinum'd

Been slowly working my way through the platinum for this and I'm finally done. Quantic Dream games seem pretty great, had a lot of fun going through this one. Story was a bit weird at times but for a PS3 remaster the game was visually stunning and it was really pretty neat to see so many actors play the characters. Looking forward to playing Detroit now.
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Daze Before Christmas (Genesis)

So...this game most certainly does exist and it was a pretty good one to play through around this time of year.
Published by Sunsoft and Developed by Funcom, you play as Santa Claus in an action/platformer to save Christmas.

Santa can shoot magic to defeat enemies and can use magic to open presents to reveal elves, bombs (that can hurt you) and power ups.

Another interesting mechanic is if you pick up a cup of coffee, Santa becomes Anti-Claus where he wears a blue suit, turns his skin red and has horns (like a devil). For a few seconds, Santa becomes invincible and his different means of attack is whacking enemies with his sack of toys. Anti-Claus can also smash down certain walls in this form.

One thing I didn't like about the controls is that to grab onto a rope, you have to make sure you leave the D-Pad in a neutral position in order to grab on and climb.This tripped me up a lot cause one of the first things anyone playing a game where you can grab onto a rope/ladder would be to hold up or down on the D-Pad in order to grab. Other than that minor gripe, the game played really well.

Boss fights were pretty easy and the bonus stages were nice after you beat the boss. You get to ride Santa's sleigh in a shoot em' up segment where you drop presents down the chimneys.

Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon S: Jougai Rantou!? Shuyaku Soudatsusen (Super Famicom)

This is a good fighting game. It's pretty neat that there's a scene for it.

On the other hand, playing through Story Mode was not fun. The AI is ridiculous. Almost close to SNK Boss Syndrome.
Mars and Moon gave me a lot of trouble. Especially Moon.
The last boss of the game is Sailor Uranus and...she flat out bodied me. I was almost close to giving up. I think I spent close to 2 hours in finally taking her down as Chibi-Moon.
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Celes;VIII
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Super Mega Baseball 2 for Xbox One

I forgot that I had a few Games with Gold titles that I was close to beating. I might get a few more done by the end of the year then!

While I prefer the more cartoony character models in the previous game, this is an improvement in virtually every meaningful way.
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Assault Android Cactus for Xbox One

Thanks for the advice @RyoCaliente. The shutdown/blue power up made that Venom and Medulla fights doable.

Twin-stick shooters can be hit-or-miss with me, but I mostly enjoyed this. It was the right amount of chaotic. I just wish that the boss fights were less of a chore and more fun.
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Totally agree! I got pretty lucky with Liquorice, but then Medulla made me want to kill myself.
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Nancy Drew 12: Secret of the Old Clock

Unfortunately I could not get ND11 running so I had to skip it.

This one was okay. For the first time I actually got the bad guy wrong. But the game was actually shorter than usual, or in the very least less taxing and thus the complete opposite of the previous game. The bad guy also had nothing to do with the "treasure" of the game, and had another scheme running in parallel, which I thought was refreshing.
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RyoCaliente posted...

Totally agree! I got pretty lucky with Liquorice, but then Medulla made me want to kill myself.

I ultimately had more trouble with Venom. I kept experimenting with characters for Medulla and quickly found that Lemon was excellent against it.

I beat Licorice on my first try, but I admit that I didn't really understand the win condition until I was halfway done.
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That was surprisingly good.

Haha, love it. It reminds me of Banjo Kazooie for some reason.

XBlaze Lost: Memories (PS3)

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/77337256

and

Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight (PS4)

It's a good game, but it's just not worth the price that it's currently selling for. However, dropping the story for social link events is a definite improvement, and not needing to grind credits to unlock accessories and costumes is also very good. Better than the Persona 4 dancing game, but that's not saying too much.
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Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon (Vita)

A fine throwback to old Castlevania games. Pretty interested in what happens next in the actual Bloodstained game coming out next year.
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I'm thinking if my new year's resolution is to nut up and binge on my horror games next year
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Even the Ocean (PC) and Dragon Quest 1 (Android)

One might wonder why play the most boring jrpg in existence. Well I had to goto work on the last day of the year and decided to pass the 8 to 5 grinding. Better than an gacha game could in a day. I'd like to say I appreciate a piece of history but this is just too boring for me in the end.

Anyways. I am surprised Even the Ocean has less marketing to it than its predecessor (Anodyne) but not like Hob at least. It's a beautiful game with a beautiful message although I must admit these games about the Environment end up always being so tragically inevitable. That said the game is easy. Its puzzles are divided into so little chunks, I wish they bridged some of them to feel a little bit annoying. It only really got annoying in the end and by then I was done with it.

And then I played Developer Mode. And I found out that the game was meant to be alot harder. And that 2 games were originally planned. Even. And The Ocean. Somehow, only the latter got made. The dev notes stated that the game had alot of challenges chalked up to bad design, instead changed to make it flow better. I can ride with that. It wasn't pathetically easy at least and the stuff you did mattered and made sense not like another stupid puzzle game I played earlier this year (Spectrum Retreat).

Would recommend Even the Ocean.
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Well, I'm pretty sure that the company that made Hob went under, so they probably couldn't afford much in marketing.
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Far Cry 4 for Xbox One

Far Cry 2 is probably in my Top 10 favorite games, Far Cry 3 was in my Top 10 games from last gen as well, and Blood Dragon is up there too. I'm clearly a Far Cry fan. Overall, I think that this is a great game, but I am a little disappointed.

Exploration is huge in Far Cry, and while I love Kyrat, how vertical it is lowers its ceiling some, no pun intended. I would liken it to Skyrim. Both have huge worlds that are a blast to explore 80% of the time, but that other 20% is hard-to-reach areas that have maybe one or two ways to get there and are a chore to figure out how and do. FC4 has these flying vehicles, Buzzards, but the game has a phantom invisible ceiling that causes it to go haywire if you go too high by their standards. Unfortunately, this makes a large number of secret areas and collectibles only accessible via grappling points. Good luck finding them sometimes though. They can be far away from the collectible/area in question, be obscured by trees, rocks, and buildings, and they are hard to discern at night.

Far Cry is also known for its insane randomness. You can come across some crazy shit every five minutes or less if you are observant. My all-time favorite VG moment was something of the sort in FC2, but I also remember in FC3 where I stared down an enemy and were both startled by a noise coming up from the hill above us. Whatever happened, a single flaming tire came careening down the hill. I just stared as it eventually crushed said enemy to death once it reached the bottom. I also have fond memories in FC3 of freeing an animal in a cage and have it free an outpost (or whatever they were called in FC3) all on its own as I watched it through my binoculars. FC4 still has some great random events. I was riding an elephant to a mission and was surrounded by three or so jeeps full of enemies. Out came a random rhinoceros who obliterated everyone and sent many off the nearby cliff. However, they seemed to have scaled back from previous entries in the series. I think the cutbacks were the price of adding in these karma events. There are like ten different types of partially-scripted events (such as a predator terrorizing civilians or a soldier pushing a hostage along) that reward you with karma XP (that nets you rewards eventually) for intervening. Also, releasing animals from cages in outposts doesn't come close to securing the outpost anymore. They can kill just a few soldiers before being gunned down themselves.

I don't put a huge emphasis on story in video games since it is one of the weakest mediums to do so, but this one took a long time to get going. Being unable to skip cutscenes, which I wanted to do most of the time, didn't help matters. The saving grace was Pagan Min, the sort-of-but-also-not antagonist. Pagan Min was one of maybe three characters that I found to be interesting and the only one that I can say that I liked. I didn't like either of the Golden Path leaders with Amita not really caring about people and aspiring to run a drug empire and Sabal narrow-minded, and believing in collectivism and that if you aren't with him, you must be against him. It took awhile to get things going, as is the nature of open-world games really, but I wasn't truly invested in the plot until the very, very end when revelations were revealed that led me to spare Pagan Min and finally feel that I accomplished something.

I own Primal and 5, but I like to space things out, so I probably won't get to them until late 2019 at the earliest.
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Pagan Min is kewl. He's honestly the only thing that saves FC4.

Saving yourself for Primal may be good or bad depending on your preferences. Primal is basically FC4 without guns. And the ending is pathetic "yay we win" stuff. FC5 changes things a bit, so that might be divisive depending on how much you liked FC3 and 4's mechanics.

KCF0107 posted...

Well, I'm pretty sure that the company that made Hob went under, so they probably couldn't afford much in marketing.

Yes but. Hob doesn't even have a trope page. Nobody on reddit knows about it. Nobody in any place, any blog talks about it. There's no news articles, no buzz, no reviews.

Even the Ocean is the same, except for one review I managed to scrape.

And yet both are pretty cool games in their own right.
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Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (PS4)

I beat this maybe 10 years ago but I didnt go through the inverted castle for the proper ending so now I can actually claim to have beaten it the right way
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Nancy Drew 13: Last Train to Blue Moon Canyon (PC)

Okay this was good. The voice-acting improved. Loved especially the Hardy Boys. I think the animation also bumped up slightly here. The mystery was centrally focused on finding the treasure of the day and the villain himself was in a hilarious twist, a dumbass. And as if to mock the cliche, there was this tiny bit near the beginning that hinted something spooky was afoot but it was explained away very early into the game as a logical plot device.
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Shutshimi (PC)
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Haha for some reason, I thought the game was like a Japanese American version of slutshaming
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I didn't even know that game had an end. I thought it was an endless ship.
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Doodle God (Vita)

Not much to say, it's a bunch of matching various elements and objects to get new ones. It's not a bad game, at least.
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Final day of the year!
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