Board 8 > Post Each Time You Beat a Game: 2019 Edition Part II

(+) Yeah! (+)

Little Briar Rose (Android)

Beautiful looking game using a church glass stained window art style. Too bad it's terribly executed wrought by reflex-based mini games, and puzzles that are either too straightforward, rely on conversational triggers, or are too simplistic.

One of the puzzles literally expected you to fail the first time because it wanted you to press a button behind an unskippable dialog box. It required you to know when that part is coming so you can press it before the dialog box appeared and judging from the NPCs reaction, this was intentional.
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I think that is one of my longest-tenured games on my Steam wishlist.

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Devil may cry 5

Dandara (Switch)

Another cool Metroidvania, reminds me of Aquaria a bit. There were some frustrating parts and it crashed on me 3 times, but I still quite liked it.

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I was ultimately disappointed in Dandara and quit maybe halfway or so into the game.

I don't mind the traversal method in and of itself, but it was poorly executed at times when if you made one misstep, with no way of realizing it even, in a room, you couldn't go back and had to go all the way around in several rooms. I guess it is more accurate and simpler to say it had some baffling level design choices/mistakes.

Boss battles also turned out to be monotonous bullet sponge affairs.

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KCF0107 posted...

I don't mind the traversal method in and of itself, but it was poorly executed at times when if you made one misstep, with no way of realizing it even, in a room, you couldn't go back and had to go all the way around in several rooms. I guess it is more accurate and simpler to say it had some baffling level design choices/mistakes.

Yeah this is definitely true and one of the more frustrating things about it. At least enemies only respawn when you rest at a campfire, so you don't have to deal with them again when you make a mistake.

Part of the issue I think is that you never get any movement upgrades. You get door keys that call themselves movement upgrades, but they don't actually help you get around more quickly.

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Blazing Chrome (Switch)
If you like games like Contra (especially the 16-bit ones) and Metal Slug, don't miss this game. It's something special.

Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 3 (Switch)
Had to play it on the easy setting because my kids wanted to play too, but dragging them through the game probably made the overall experience harder.
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Crossovers by POWGI (Vita)

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/78093995

Antiquia Lost (Vita)

This is a pretty basic jRPG by Exe-Create and published by Kemco, who specialize in localizing these jRPGs, mostly for mobile with several console ports like this one. It is very easy to completely destroy the battle system, even on the hardest difficulty level, though most bosses are still challenging. It took around 17 hours to beat the game, which is a nice length as well. Not too long to overstay its welcome.
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Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order (Switch)

Finished this with my bro yesterday as well as the first DLC with Punisher, Moon Knight, Blade, and Morpheus. I have mixed feelings. I feel like the game was rushed and too tainted by the MCU. It's funny in the first game, I didn't even know who Winter Soldier was until we fought him and all he did was give a one liner. But in this game, he's a good guy and we're all expected to know who he is without context. How the times have changed.

Our final team ended up becoming Captain Marvel and Cyclops for him, and Ms. Marvel and Elsa Bloodstone for me. The latter of which is a very interesting choice. What compelled Marvel I wonder. Is there a revival comic I haven't heard about? Is Nextwave a thing again? Either way, she's very awesome and I welcome her.

That said, the game itself could stand to be a bit longer. Plot wise, it's taking less of a risk than it ever did before with the plot and making it cookie cutter MCU. At times it just felt like a grand tour of the MCU than the game, with Thanos barely making an appearance so that when he did appear it felt like nothing was at stake and he was just another guy to beat up. The worst enemy in this game though is the camera. What we're they thinking removing the ability to move it around in local multiplayer?? That caused our deaths most of the time.

Coming from the makers behind Dynasty Warriors, I like the influences. The combat is now pretty damn good and the engine is able to handle hordes and hordes of mooks to beat up. The way combat works also encourages dodging which can make the game less boring at times especially in boss fights.

The story cutscenes could stand to be less cheesy but its DW so what was I expecting. The bosses are actually challenging now, albeit, challenging in a way that invites grinding at times and this is where my fanaticism for DW stops. I'm not too keen on the Infinity stuff. It's busy work, and the challenges are repetitive with nothing but cosmetic changes as rewards. It's got that stink of microtransactions but not exactly written all over it. I would have also liked a little more customization with moves and powers, and the first 2 games did this with loads of chars so it's not like it wasn't possible.
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Undertale (Switch)

Uh, I dunno. Some of the humor landed and there were a few very cool moments, but this kinda falls into the Earthbound sort of niche where I like the idea of it more than actually playing it. If the battle system was more generic I 100% would have dropped it midway through just because it doesn't respect its players' time at all.

(Pacifist-neutral ending for what it's worth.)

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Yeah, I didn't care for Undertale. I'm glad that I played, but it was a pretty average game. The pacifist battle gameplay and music were great, but it was very boring outside of battle, and the amateur writing and pacing reared its ugly head when exacerbated by the frequency and length of the text drops.
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Transistor (Switch)

I didn't like it quite as much as Bastion, but I really, really liked Bastion. In theory I actually prefer the combat here, but it definitely got repetitive near the end whereas Bastion's different weapon load-outs kept it fresh. Great music and a very compelling and unique world. Would recommend.

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I have both Bastion and Transistor waiting to be played in my backlog. I'll get around to playing them someday.

Breath of Fire (SNES)

Replayed via Switch.
Breath of Fire is the first RPG I played and it was what got me into the genre.
One of my faves of all time.
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Thirty Flights of Loving (PC)

Uh, it's definitely interesting. Feels weird to post about "beating" this because it's like half an hour long and mostly just story.

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Spanky's Quest (SNES)

I used to use save states during the Boss Rush super long ago when I discovered emulators.
I'm glad I finally beat this one legit with no save states this time around.

You play as a monkey named Spanky and you have to go through towers by finding keys while you fight against sentient fruit that came to life from the evil witch that trapped Spanky in said tower. There's also a boss fight at the end of each tower.

I like the mechanic on how you attack in this game. You get a magic ball you can bounce on your head and it has 4 power levels. You can use a Baseball, Soccerball, Volleyball and Basketball. Each with their own power properties. The magic ball can also be used to stun enemies and even retrieve keys for you/grab items. Spanky can also wear different hats that can slow his descent after a jump, grant temporary invincibility, not slip on ice, make the magic ball go to maximum power after one bounce and make the ball gravitate toward his head.

Game is very fun and has a great OST.
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Demon's Crest (SNES)

Replayed via Switch and got all 4 Endings.
This game is great. It's like playing a hybrid of Mega Man X mixed in with Super Metroid. Some game publications compared those games with this game and they were right.

Despite getting good reviews, it's a shame that a lot of people apparently returned the game more than when they bought it according to some stories. It just came out a bad time and didn't get much attention.

It's downright criminal this game didn't get the respect it deserved when it came out. A gem of a game. This series needs to come back to life and deserves a sequel.

Kirby's Avalanche (SNES)

Puyo Puyo Kirby Edition.
The most amusing thing about this game is Kirby's personality and how mean he is to his opponents with his trash talk.
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The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD (Wii U)
A good 3D Zelda. As 3D Zeldas have been thus far. Nice dungeon complexity, cool boss fights, cool items (ball and chain!) not excessive overworld depth, and you can aim decently unlike playing any of the ports from N64. All in all probably in the top 2 of 4.
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Costume Quest (PC)

I'm glad that I had an excuse to replay this game. I would play more RPGs if they were like this.
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Vampyr (XB1)

More positive than negative feelings toward it, but knowing what I know now, I regret not doing story mode.
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banananor posted...

KCF0107 posted...

The Order: 1886 (PS4)

I remember this being mostly panned way back, but I always had mild interest in it, and when it was $5 on PSN several years ago, I decided to take the plunge. I'm glad I did because that was great! Being more narratively-focused, it does have some interactive and pacing issues when not engaged in combat.

I agree 100%, people gave this game too much flak. It was a little short, and I'd probably be unhappy if I had spent $60 and was expecting uncharted 3 levels of quality and length, but it's not a bad game.

qft
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Luigi's Mansion (3DS)
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The Revenge of Shinobi (Genesis)

Replayed and beat it without the Infinite Shuriken (Kunai) trick for the first time.

Gotta love a game that features fights against Spider-Man/Batman/Rambo/Terminator/Godzilla rolled into one package.
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Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward (PS4)

Another replay; forgot to post this last week.

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The Outer Worlds (PS4)

Just finished it. Well, beat it, at least. Did all the companion quest and almost all the sidequests. Great game, love how it kind of feels open world without it being so but is not overly large. Some people may find it short, and I guess the main story is, but honestly all the interactions outside of it is what makes the game satisfying.
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Baobab's Mausoleum Ep. 1 (PC)

I feel like I have owned it for two years or so, but I finally got around to beating it. It had some promise, but movement and text speed is slow. I'm unsure if I will buy other episodes.
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Miles & Kilo (PC)

1:15:31
278 deaths
813 coins
7 S-ranks, 15 A-ranks, 9 B-ranks, 4 C-ranks, 1 level I used dragonfruit

Well this game was an unexpected challenge in some areas. More than half of my deaths were in three levels, and a random mid-game level is when I used the dragonfruit, which makes it much easier to complete a level.
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MO: Astray (PC)

aka Ori and the Blind Space Station

Went into this completely blind, was amazed. The puzzles and difficulty was sufficiently paced, as I only started dying alot around the half way point. But despite that, it had this engaging and quick design that didn't make me throw the keyboard in frustration. Perhaps the Celeste fans will say its too easy with the peppering of checkpoints and regenerating health but this one is mostly played for its story of which are contained in fragments hidden around the world.

The immediate thing I like about this is the music. The tone is immediately apparent in its Zen-style presentation despite the premise being of the Dead Space variety. The man behind everything is also not on this station in the end. His escape is implied and left ambiguous as his deeds are what brought upon the chaos of the whole game which is...frustrating but I think the point of the game was not to be as implied in the good ending.
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Simoun posted...

aka Ori and the Blind Space Station

Immediately added to wishlist
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The Legend of Zelda: Links Awakening (Switch)
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Super Metroid (SNES)

Replayed via Switch.
Clear Time: 01:28
100% Items

After learning how to do the Mockball, I was very happy with a new personal best and shaved off a good 25 minutes off of most of my previous times.
Getting the early Super Missiles, doing the Spore Spawn skip for the other Super Missiles and early Ice Beam was all very fun to do.
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Creature in the Well (XB1)

I started playing this when it came out, but it never hooked me. I started giving it a serious chance over the past several days, and boy am I glad I gave it another go. It could get downright fiendish when I was going for 100%, but this is a cool, highly original puzzle/pinball game with Breakout elements.
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Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island

Replayed via Switch.

Very charming game. This game really made Yoshi come into his own.
The graphics really stand out to this day, aiming with the eggs, the flutter jump, the transformations, getting 100 points on every level, the boss fights are fun stuff.

Solid game all around.
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Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night (Switch)

I know I'm on the Switch version here, but this really felt like playing a game that's still in beta. Can't imagine what it was like before the v1.03 update. Items fell through the floor, enemies clipped through walls, some enemy models would stretch across the screen or duplicate during their death animations, the script had typos and places where it didn't match the voice acting, and during the fight with Gebel he threw me out of the boss room completely (I could still attack him from behind the door, and when I beat him this way, the game crashed - one of two full-on crashes I lucked into). This isn't even mentioning the more fundamental performance issues because I was expecting and can mostly forgive those.

My biggest takeaway is that I think the game would play, run, and look significantly better if it was fully 2D. But even then, it's just not a very compelling Castlevania game, and has 0 identity of its own. It's fine but I'd rather have been replaying SotN or Hollow Knight or something.

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Outer Worlds (PC)

I love this game so much. It has made it into my favorite games of all time.
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Memento Mori 2 (PC)

I can't believe I played the first one just early this year, because I could not remember anything about it. I had to look it up again and remember that the first one ended in this fantastic twist regarding the Angel of Death. Well guess what, they use the exact same twist in this version too. Dumb. I guess.

On the plus side, they added a bit more detail into the investigative aspect. At times it felt like I was playing CSI. I would say it's at least better than Still Life 1 in that it isn't so stilted. But it was still rather mediocre. It's like there was so much potential and for a game that came out in 2013 it should've done more with it, but it felt like it was afraid to. For god's sake there was even 1 "puzzle" where you had to fix a jammed printer. As in, remove cover, unpin ink thingie, remove paper jam, screw everything back up. What the fuck.
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Little Misfortune (PC)

Charming, endearing, and a little bit sad by the end. You could spot the twist a mile away so sit back and just enjoy it. I've got to stop expecting Killmonday is making horror games. That way I'd be more appreciative of Fran Bow. I think the voiceacting in this game is hit or miss, but the dialogue is both morbid and fun, playing to the strengths of childish innocence.
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Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride (SNES)
Long overdue. Actually outright failed the final boss. Couldn't outdamage his heals. So I went and traded in my medals, ate strength seeds and got a lot more MP restoration items than I needed from the casino, went back through the dungeon and beat him.
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Riptide GP2 (PS4)

I originally had this for mobile, but I hit a wall and knew I needed a controller. Other than bizarre AI design that rubberbands when close but either turns on the mega jets or half-speed when there's great distance between you and them, it was very fun. The most recent pure water racer that I've bought was Hydro Thunder Hurricane like six or seven years ago, so this scratched an itch.
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Resonance (PC)

I don't recall if it was last year or the year before that, but I was finishing up Wadjet Eye's games. Technobabylon. Primordia. Shardlight and Gemini Rue. After this, all that's left is that new one Unavowed and the Blackwell games.

I don't know why I put this game off for so long. Burnout I guess. Shardlight was pretty interesting but it was your typical Post-Apocalyptic affair.

Boy was I so wrong.

Resonance I would say ranks just slightly below Technobabylon. Or above it. It's done some things I've never seen before in a pt click adventure and for a game that came out in 2012 to boot. Map manipulation puzzles, Trine-esque puzzles, using a magnet to fish a key out of a locker. I know the Adventure Game Studio engine and those tricks were not easy to pull off. Not to mention, the fact that you control 4 very realistic characters each with their own inventory, behavior, and ways of talking to NPCs. The game also uses an odd system whereby anything in the environment can be 'dragged' as a thought and memories of events are also essentially inventory items.

The Story. Mmmm, ironically it was the reason why I put it off so long. Generic Modern Day Sci-Fi. I wish I knew that it would eventually become a political thriller around the third act. Shocking swerves and revelations and all that, I won't reveal them here. Needless to say, this one's a must play.

It is unfortunate that it seems the author of this game has given up on any kind of sequel (the game ended in a way that suggests it but caps it off all the same). His last news from 2015 was a desire to create a comic sequel. However, I guess life got in the way. Maybe in the future he can come back to this masterpiece. I can only hope.
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Milkmaid of the Milky Way (PC)

Nothing special, but it is heartfelt and endearing for what it is. It's about an hour and even less if you know what to do.
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Darkwing Duck (Game Boy)

Replay
Beat the game using just the default gun and without losing a life.
It's a compact port of the NES version.
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Destroy All Humans! (PS4)

I miss Pandemic so much. Despite some various issues I had while on foot, I had a lot of fun with this one. From what I know about the sequel, I am expecting to like it even more. I need to look up the lines that random townies and armed foes had because a lot of the voice work was hilarious as hell.
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Bad North (XB1)

I have a long list of Game Pass games to try, and I have made a concerted effort these past few weeks to get cracking. I was quite impressed by this. I have played many games that take after the FTL formula, and this has to be the best of the bunch. However, the campaign feels pretty lengthy to where it eventually hit a lull that a sharper spike in difficulty toward the end helped out. I'm glad that I was able to beat it in my first attempt or I probably wouldn't have done a second campaign (at least for quite some time) given its length.

2687 kills
408 soldiers lost
247 gold
10 commanders recruited
8 survived
40 islands visited and defended
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Nancy Drew 26: Tomb of the Lost Queen (PC)

This is the 2nd ND game I've played once before that I'm crossing over to again. I think this is the earliest time the UI really got a sweet upgrade. If the last game was like a prototype version of that, this one certainly got rid of the ugliness I've been suffering through for the past 5+ games.

I think I put this off more than usual because of the theme; not exactly as rattling as the rest. But when I got into it, I immediately remembered why this one was so forgettable. The pyramid puzzles themselves were intriguing, and I wish the whole game was just that. But half of it was just interspersed with these suspects that I could care less about. I just want to find that damn tomb! Fuck the bad guy.
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Nancy Drew 27: The Deadly Device (PC)

Something I failed to mention that I just noticed is ever since the UI upgrade (Alibi in the Ashes), so have the plots significantly improved, not just in synopsis but in progression. For the past 20 ish games, the puzzles and progression revolved around juggling a central riddle whilst fingering a suspect. Then there'd be a deathtrap here and a finale there and one of the 4 suspects always did it.

This sort of shook itself after Alibi. In the last game, the bad guy was p obvious and the accomplice not so much. But I think this game went even further with the subversion and made it masterful. For one, the case is seriously a murder investigation, a classic whodunnit with everyone having secrets. But. And while I knew who it was 70% in, I was surprised by the 3rd Act whereby the villain is fingered earlier than usual and the finale is spent trying to achieve a truer goal. It's nice to finally see a certain maturity in the way these games have been played, and I can see why alot of fans put this one in the toplists of ND games.
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Minit (XB1)

I have now beaten this game six times in 2019, one for each of the three modes across both the Steam and XB1 versions.
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Bloodborne and the DLC

Yea, I hadn't gotten around to playing this until now. And I owned it for years. I don't even know what to say. I guess the first thing to say is that I was already spoiled on the author that inspired the game. Sadly. It'd be impossible not to get spoiled on that over the years.

Other than that, I don't even know where to begin. For one thing, I used the same weapon the whole game. The cane-whip. Sorry but, it's a cane that transforms into a whip. I tried using other weapons but none of them were a cane that transforms into a whip.

There's a lot I could talk about. But I guess the one thing I wanna say is that I came out of this game completely clueless as to what was going on. Like I thought I had it for a while, then I lost it, then by the end I was just "wat". And I thought I was just stupid, because in spite of reading item descriptions I don't really reflect on them. But after watching some videos, no, there's a lot of unanswered things in the game. Which I guess is cool in a way and adds some mystery especially to the you-know-whos.

A second playthrough would probably help, but I don't think it would help that much. There's just a lot of ambiguity. Still, cool game!

Darq (PC)

Fun little puzzle game, the end sequence is a little trial and error though
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Stardrop (PC)
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Breath of the Wild (Switch)
Great game. found the bosses and the divine beast dungeons a bit meh tho.