Board 8 > The Great 2019 Video Game Challenge

(+) Yeah! (+)

Mega Mana posted...

Unfortunately, I don't think beating Trails of Cold Steel a second time months later counts as another game beaten ^_^;;;

But worth it for Towa

You could use it if you want, the rules state that a single playthrough can only be used for one challenge, but multiple playthroughs are fine!

Sara > Towa
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Time to figure out how many spots I can fit Slay the Spire, Spelunky, and Crypt of the Necrodancer in!

Not really
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7. Beat a game in a series you've already played some of
Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge
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21. Beat a strategy game

Slay the Spire

Hooray Defect. What a great game.
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46. Beat a game that features historical events or people

Fate/EXTELLA Link

21/50
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36. Replay a game from a long time ago

Shining Force 2

This is, like, the 17th time I've played through it? You'd think I'd have stopped when I bought the new Fire Emblem, but no.

42/50
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3. Beat a game released between 2000-2009
Final Fantasy X

Probably about my 10th time beating it. I was challenged to complete a playthrough over a 3-day weekend and was successful!
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1. Beat a game released before 1990

Dragon Quest

Beat this about a month ago but forgot to post it!

10/50
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4. Beat a game released between 2010-2018

Prey (2017)

43/50
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Robazoid posted...

34. Beat a game with an animal lead

Aviary Attorney beated! Only one route, but for some reason I don't feel compelled to immediately get the others despite having a good time with it and getting what I presume to be the worst ending >_>

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11. Beat a game made by a developer you like

Fire Emblem: Three Houses
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45. Beat a game that's been adapted into another medium

Shining Force 1

There was a Shining Force manga, apparently!

44/50

(Moved Princess Remedy 2 to game that's been on backlog, and Umineko (Question Arc) to romance as a central theme)
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44. Beat a game based on licensed stories/characters

LEGO Batman

I actually beat this like a month ago, but I forgot about checking up on this.

Note to self: final three categories are:
- Pre-1990 game (SMB or SMB: LL?)
- 2019 game (Eagle Island?)
- "K" game (Ken Follett's The Pillars of the Earth or a Kirby game?)
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11. Beat a game made by a developer you like

Fire Emblem: Three Houses

Edelgard route. Will probably start a new game plus as Golden Deer, if only because I ended up using almost as many Blue Lions on my team as Black Eagles. I think Ingrid even got the most MVPs.

45/50

Moved Cadence of Hyrule to licensed game, Prey (2017) to reboot/spinoff (I think it counts, even though it has nothing to do with 2006?), Into the Breach to 2010-2018 game, and Castlevania: Rondo to director I really like to make this one fit. Probably going to have to move some Yakuzas into the series category if I want to do any more juggling.
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38. Beat a game you'd dropped or had a long hold on

Atelier Firis: The Alchemist and the Mysterious Journey

22/50
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12. Beat a game made by a developer you've never tried

Burly Men at Sea

23/50
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10. Beat a game made by a director/composer/artist/etc that you like

Final Fantasy 4 (randomizer)

The Free Enterprise version, specifically. I ended up restarting this after a few hours, because I had somehow managed to get a party with almost every final weapon, and three adamant armors, and it was starting to feel more like a game genie run than anything else. I tweaked some of the settings, and ended up with a more reasonable run. Still ended up playing a generic party (Cecil, Rydia, Edge, Rosa, and... Cecil again.) It was a pretty quick playthrough, so I think I'm going to play one more time, with the final party excluded, a few harder settings, and Edward as the main character because I am silly.

46/50

One last bit of juggling. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild to username, Celeste to 90+ Metacritic, and Rondo of Blood to platformer.
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Moved 44. Arkham City to 42. Beat a game with a Metascore above 90

44. Beat a game based on licensed stories/characters

X-Men (1992 Arcade 6-Player)

11. Beat a game made by a developer you like

428 Shibuya Scramble

- X-Men is the magnificent follow-up to the amazing Pryde of the X-Men that never got made, with a good cast of characters for a fun action beat-em-up. I spent lots of quarters on this game as a kid and between this game, Alpha Flight #75, and X-Men #1 issue E (with all four inserts including - https://marswillsendnomore.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/comicnut038.jpg), I knew a lot of X-Men that weren't on the show and had a fascination for characters I'd never actually read until X-Men #80 and UXM #260 when Nightcrawler, Kitty Pryde, and Colossus rejoined the teams from Excalibur. Nightcrawler, easily my favorite character in this game for his awesome jump attacks, his hilarious stomping animation to downed sentinels, and the best Mutant Power in the game, was one of my favorite characters in all of comic-dom despite never reading a single issue featuring him in it until I was almost a teenager.

But anyways, X-Men. The one where Magneto welcomes you to die, nothing moves the Blob, and Winners Don't Do Drugs. Still fun, still a massively difficult quartersink, but thankfully the game was rigged for freeplays, and sadly two of characters were busted: Colossus could do nothing but move and jump (and constantly respawn forever), and Storm's move stick was busted and she'd walk left almost always. Played with a Cyclops friend, then a Dazzler/Nightcrawler friend as I hopped between Nightcrawler and Wolverine for feels (then Cyclops when first friend left in the final level). Still fun, still love Pryde of the X-Men in all its weird glory. Fun times.

As for 428 Shibuya Scramble... my god. My god what a game. So much emotion. Dels has a playthrough topic I participated in currently up, and it was worth the interaction. Part visual novel, part unique puzzle, all amazing. Live-action photos and cutscenes, great music and characters, a truly involved story and mystery, and some high-tension moments. A lot of great drama, some even greater comedy... Definitely in my top five games of the year. Thank you to Arti for the recommendation; would've completely bypassed the sale if it weren't for you, and later Dels. HIGHLY RECOMMEND 428 SHIBUYA SCRAMBLE!
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17. Beat a first-person shooter

Perfect Dark Zero

Haha what an awful game. Soundtrack was pretty dope though
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Yeah, I stopped playing that game after like three levels. I think I was in a snow level when I realized that I just wasn't having much fun and quit the mission then and there.
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It's a shame too, because while I wasn't a big fan of the first. It did do something really interesting with both its gameplay and story. Here it turns into a really generic FPS with an overly corny plot.
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34. Beat a game with an animal lead

Sonic the Hedgehog

The GameGear version! I guess it was kinda impressive what they could do on a handheld, but Sonic felt too slippery and I don't like the idea of SONIC IS FAST but it's a platformer so you gotta time your jumps...

Also hedgehogs are obviously real but if you guys feel like Sonic doesn't count as a real hedgehog I'll move him to fictional animal species.
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7. Beat a game in a series you've already played some of
Star Fox 2
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34. Beat a game with an animal lead

Tokyo Jungle

First place my mind went for an animal game to beat. I think this was the second PS3 game I ever bought, and I hadn't played it since then. Still enjoyable, although story mode was never the main draw for me (for all that I appreciate how insane the plot ends up being.)

That leaves <1990 game, and sports game for me to fill out before I move things into the series category. KCF was nice enough to pick the former for me with Game of the Month, but I'm not sure what to do for sports game.

47/50
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I like a lot of traditional sports games (I own plenty of baseball, football, and golf games). You can probably pick up a bunch of older titles for $5 or so on Ebay. If you aren't a fan of sports, some off-beat games in the genre include Rocket League (has a seasonal mode), Mutant Football League, Golf Story, and Pyre.

I can vouch for all except Pyre, which I own but haven't played.
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Thanks for the suggestions! Pyre's what I put there last year. I played some of Golf Story, but fell off it. I completely forgot that they made a new Mutant League game, maybe I'll look into that. Rocket League never interested me that much.

I own a bunch of old sports games if I want to go that route. Was considering a season of Tecmo Super Bowl 3.
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I don't know how I forgot this one, but there's also 100ft Robot Golf. It's from the makers of Roundabout, and your skill/success is irrelevant. You will beat the game regardless of your play. That's probably why the golfing isn't very good, but it''s very silly and funny.
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8. Beat a spin-off or a game that rebooted a franchise

Tomb Raider (2013)

Wow, this game was outstanding. Had I known it ends up being a mix of Uncharted and the Arkham games I would've gotten around to beating it much sooner.
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As for sports games go Ark, Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 & 3 are both a lot of fun. Punch-Out!! wii was great as well
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Oh yeah, I never think of the Punch-Out games as sports games, but they would fit well.

I never really got into the THPS games, though.
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23. Beat a sports game

Greatest Heavyweights

Somehow KCF's suggestion of older games, and Tangy's suggestion of Punch-Out turned into this. I actually liked this game a lot as a kid, but I don't think I've played it in 20 or so years. Is it good? Not really, but I found myself still having a good time anyway. It's basically a really simple 2D fighter. The difficulty curve is odd, when you get near the halfway point of career mode, the AI seems to start cheating, throwing punches significantly faster than you can regardless of stats. I can accept that from Muhammad Ali, but not so much coming from random generic 10th ranked boxer. It's really easy if you happen to be fighting one of the short boxers, though, since they always seem to charge in with their head and gloves lowered at all times. Not entirely sure how Rocky Marciano went undefeated doing that. I did appreciate that most boxers did have their own tendencies and styles, even with a really limited moveset, and even with generics. It was also kind of nice that the ranks weren't static, with AI characters rising and falling regardless of what you do. Helped give things a bit more character. Being able to create a fighter in a game this old was pretty nice, too. Giant bald green boxer is the best boxer.

48/50
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41. Beat a game with a Metascore below 70

The Dark Pictures: Man of Medan

https://imgur.com/iAnRpH2
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1. Beat a game released before 1990

Super Mario Bros.

Now it's time to start moving Yakuza games, I guess.

49/50
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7. Beat a game in a series you've already played some of

Trails of Cold Steel II

What It Is: Blues Brothers the Trails Game. We gotta get the band back together!
- The Epilogue definitely made things a lot of fun, as it had become a bit of a slog in the final few chapters. I would regularly stop playing after an hour or two because I would need a nap. It just hit me with roteness. Don't get me wrong, this was still an excellent game and a great continuation of the Trails series, but it definitely felt the most paint-by-numbers of the games, and how Class VII always seemed to get bailed out was just repetitive (Let's take down these bosses guys! Okay! We did it! Oh, wait they have true power! Oh no, but wait! Here's MENTOR and MENTOR to save our butts so we can continue on to repeat).

Ranking the Trails games I've played SC > FC > CS > 3rd > CS2

75% RANKINGS!

BEST
1. 428 Shibuya Scramble
The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel
2. Tales of Berseria

FANTASTIC
Life is Strange: Before the Storm
The Talos Principle
Batman: Arkham City
3. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Dragon Age: Origins
4. The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II
Heartbeat

GREAT
Risk of Rain 2
Sonic Mania
5. Void Bastards
Risen
6. Injustice: Gods Among Us
For The King
Supraland
7. Dragon Quest V
8. FTL: Faster Than Light
Thronebreaker

GOOD
9. Geneforge
10. Grim Dawn
11. X-Men
Flame in the Flood
Dragon Quest II
Dragon Quest IV
Dragon Quest
Epic Battle Fantasy 5

OKAY
Ninja Pizza Girl
The Last Word
Unheard
12. Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers
SEGA Bass Fishing
Glass Masquerade
13. Silence
Caravan
What Never Was

BAD
Thirty Flights of Loving
Evoland
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21. Beat a strategy game

Plague Inc: Evolved

24/50
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14. Beat a JRPG

The World Ends With You -Final Remix-

Still probably my favorite video game of all time. I think I prefer the original over this one, while a lot of the refinements are nice. TV play is just a disaster and while plotwise I enjoyed the bonus story, hot damn did they make it frustrating for no reason. It's just a bunch of fetch quests and grinding, hopefully we'll actually get a sequel this time.
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40. Finish a game that took you at least twenty-five hours to beat
Fire Emblem: Three Houses
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Moved Risk of Rain 2 from 47. Unbeatable to 18. Third-Person-Shooter

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

Teamfight Tactics

What It Is: Mercenaries

- Moved Risk of Rain 2 because I've unlocked all seven characters and had my character deleted by the game through an event and not through just death. Teamfight Tactics is hella fun, and you can blame Shad if I don't finish the Challenge this year XD XD XD
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7. Beat a game in a series you've already played some of

Super Mario World
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40. Finish a game that took you at least twenty-five hours to beat

Final Fantasy 8 Remastered

First time replaying this without losing interest some time on disc 3. I don't care that much about the graphical differences, but 3x speed is fantastic. I still don't think that highly of the game, but this is my third time buying it, so I guess I enjoy it enough!

30. Beat a game with a female lead

Blade Strangers

Rented this, and beat story mode a couple times. I like a few of the character choices. Everything else is pretty unremarkable.

49/50

Moved Bloodstained to action game, and Yakuza Kiwami and Yakuza 3 to three games in a series.
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3. Beat a game released between 2000-2009

Mario Party 4
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48. Beat a game starting with the first letter of your username

Moonlighter

What It Is: Fairly decent shop/dungeon game. It doesn't have the depth of Recettear, and the dungeons are alright, but once you figure things out, there's not much more to it. You figure out the price of items, you sell them. You figure out how to beat up enemies, you take their goods, you buy weapon upgrades, you just walk through them. The beginning of the game is definitely the most difficult and most fun, but the final upgrades for me for everything came before even getting to the last floor of the fourth dungeon, so there was nothing to build towards except more money. And the story, imo, may no sense and I had no investment in that aspect.
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26. Beat a game with revenge as a central theme

LISA: The Painful

I saw someone playing it, so naturally I immediately had to replay it myself.

Moved Yakuza Kiwami, Kiwami 2, and 3 to beat three games in a series

50/50

Started a second list (it's a nice way to record of what I beat, if nothing else). Don't have any beaten games on it yet, but I do have

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

Ultra Fight Da ! Kyanta 2

I mean, I did beat arcade mode, but there's a story mode that's currently unfinished, so I guess I put it here. At first glance this game looks pretty shitty, but thankfully it's completely free. I ended up loving it. I think it's the best attempt at really simplifying a traditional fighting game's controls I've seen. It managed to sneak into AnimEVO recently, I can only hope it makes the main stage next year.

1/50
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1. Beat a game released before 1990
Super Mario Bros.
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so, someone deleted my progress from the spreadsheet. going to rebuild it before I post my new beats, but please try to watch what you're doing more often, thanks!
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OK, so now that my progress is back, let's add in

6. Beat a game in a completely new series

Sengoku

27. Beat a game with mystery as a central theme

Tacoma

Moved 428: Shibuya Scramble to 32. Beat a game with a non-white lead

26/50
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Going to swap a few games since I finally completed three games in a series, so

Move Pic-a-Pix Classic to 50. First game in a series
Move Pic-a-Pix Pieces to 51. Second game in a series

52. Third game in a series

Pic-a-Pix Color 2

that frees up 5 and 7, which I'll use for another game

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

Doodle Kingdom

Still at 26/50, but the most time consuming challenge is over.
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37. Beat a game that's been in your backlog for a long time
Zelda II: The Adventure of Link
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20. Beat an action game

Yakuza 0

27/50
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44. Beat a game based on licensed stories/characters

Star Wars: Battlefront II (XBOX)
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