Board 8 > Exdeath Plays Every Game in the GotD 2020 Contest

(+) Yeah! (+)

I think I'm close to the end in Crash Bandicoot. I'm on the level "The Lab", and Cortex's blimp is in sight.

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Finished Red Dead. Quick non-spoiler thoughts:

1. The middle isn't as good and drags on for a while, but the last act is worth it.
2. The stranger missions don't get any more interesting, and I'd say that they're not worth finishing except for the very last one.

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Finished The Lab yesterday, but Cortex gave me serious headaches.

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Gall posted...

It's too bad that the gameplay isn't as engaging. The bullet time mechanic looks pretty fun but I guess it's not.

When it comes to the bullet time, I think it doesn't really change the gameplay much and mostly functions as a crutch for less skilled players, so as you can imagine I use it a lot. Do you know what the title of the last stranger mission is? Is it The Wronged Woman?

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Today I spent some time riding around Nuevo Paraiso and met the two major characters John will be working with in Mexico: Vincent de Santa, a captain in the Mexican army, and Landon Ricketts, an old American gunslinger. They both talk a lot about their different approaches to sort of cleaning up the area, which is in chaos due to bandits and revolutionaries. Santa is more in favor of ruling with an iron fist while Landon is a bet smaller scale in his approach and seems to hang around a single town helping them deal with highwaymen. He teaches John Marston some tricks with a gun, which changes the bullet time mechanics so you have to manually place shots with R1 instead of them automatically triggering whenever the cursor is on a target, which actually seems like a distinct downgrade to me but I guess I'll see. Vincent's first mission is a train level that I found kind of tough and had to try a good few times. Once again, I probably shouldn't be playing this on hardcore, because I'm starting to find some missions kind of frustrating.

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The mission is unlocked after completing the main story. It'll be obvious when you see it.

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I played one of Landon's missions today, which involved rescuing a hostage. I've realized that the majority of the difficulty in this game comes from either having to shoot fast-moving horseback targets or just trying to ride and aim at once, so as a cover based foot mission it made a good chance to fill my deadeye meter back up. After a long ride back into town following the mission it was 9:40 and I didn't want to risk starting another one and having to leave for the overtime shift I have tonight without finishing it.

I think I actually like the Mexico section a little better than the later parts of the New Austin section so far, if only because Landon and de Santa are more interesting to me than someone like Seth or Irish, so the writing around them feels a little more satisfying.

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I actually made some significant progress today, finishing up all of Landon's missions as well as Luisa's, or at least all of those I can do without finishing up more of De Santa's. This meant meeting Abrahim Reyes, the leader of the local revolution. As soon as the game started establishing how devoted Luisa was to him I guessed it would turn out that he doesn't care about her, and my expectations were confirmed almost immediately upon meeting him.

For the sake of finishing the "Poppycock" stranger mission, I had to do a little sidequest where you help the army take out a rebel stronghold. I honestly wanted to just skip it and go straight for the treasure chest objective, but I got shot when I tried. It was kind of annoying because every time I died I had to trek back to the area of the map it takes place in, but I persevered. I doubt the story element of the stranger mission will be worth it, really.

I finished off with de Santa's mission where you have to retake a fort from the rebels. I will say that I kind of like how Marston is playing both sides of this whole dispute to try and find his outlaws. It's a good idea to use a neutral observer main character to show the conflict to the player. I do find myself becoming more and more tired of actually playing this game though, so I'm looking forward to being done with it. With any luck, I'll be free most of the weekend and I'll make a run at finishing it.

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Alright, I can cross two more stranger missions off the list: Poppycock turned out to be about opium smuggling. You can either keep the $1000 that the deal was worth or give it back to the British guy who hired you for a bit of honor and fame. It's probably better to keep the cash, but I ended up returning it. I should still have all the money I need from my Liar's Dice winnings.

Funny Man is about a guy who has headed out to the wild west to try and find inspiration, apparently as a joke writer for a newspaper. You keep finding him tied up in the middle of bandit strongholds, until eventually he realizes he's not cut out for the frontier life and goes back to the city. This one does have a complete character arc, and it's nice that it doesn't end with John Marston finding the guy's corpse in one stronghold, which would've been in line with most of this game's storytelling, but I guess the whole narrative here just feels a little underwhelming. It's also one of the strangers that takes the most work, since clearing out the strongholds is a bit of a pain.

Along with those, I did de Santa's next mission, which turned out to be a turret level with a train-mounted gatling gun this time. There's still a ways to go on the Mexican session, but I'm past its halfway point and then some.


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John Marston has completed his adventures in Mexico. One more stranger mission got wrapped up in the process: Eva in Peril, which is the story of a prostitute John Marston can help by paying off her pimp. She says she's about to go to a nunnery, but runs off instead and ends up getting murdered at the hands of the same man, whom John kills in a duel. I also triggered the start of Dedalus and Son, but since that one requires gathering 10 red sage I've already made up my mind not to complete it.

De Santa and Coronel Allende made the mistake of trying to betray John. Abraham Reyes actually has to save him resulting in a mission where all your weapons have been stolen and you have to get them back before shooting your way out of the place. It's not really the same as the sections of Chrono Trigger or especially Metal Gear Solid 2 that use that concept, where you're really vulnerable for an extended period of time. You kind of just sprint across a small area and get all your guns out of a chest.

The resistance decide to make use of the fact that they have a video game protagonist on their side and have John do things like single-handedly take over a train swarming with guards or use deadeye to shoot a guy manning a gatling gun. After a couple missions with them, he tracks down Javier Escuela, who talks about the old days for a bit before running off. I guess you can choose between capturing him alive and killing him, but I chose to put him down.

While storming the Colonel's villa, our quest giver Lusia dies trying to save Reyes, who still doesn't even remember her. In any case, both the Colonel and Bill Williamson wind up dead in the assault, and Marston leaves the rebellion to try and conquer the rest of Mexico on their own.

Allende and Reyes basically parallel one another, especially in that both of them are lecherous bastards. Reyes also shows a distinct elitist side, refusing to even entertain the idea of marrying a peasant like Luisa. It's hard to imagine the new leader being a Hell of a lot better than the old one, which I think is deliberate on the part of the writers.

I keep trying to catch a white horse when I see one. The last one I encountered was running along a cliffside and fell off when I tried to lasso it. This time, I successfully caught one, and then as I was riding back into town I got a random encounter where a woman asked me to take her back into Armadillo. I decided to accept, and when I completed that mission the game de-spawned my white horse and gave me back the one I had previously hitched. Oh well. I'm at McFarlane's ranch now, and next time I play I'll try to complete the entire section based around tracking down Dutch.

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With all the grousing I've been doing about Red Dead Redemption, I feel like this thread has become a little more negative than I want it to be. To try and rectify this situation a little, I've decided to do a little bonus feature: the top ten games I'm most excited to play for this project. I'm omitting any games that I've already played.

10. Nier: Automata

I've heard the combat system isn't as good as Bayonetta's, but with all the hype around this game's story I just have to find out what it's like. I'm also curious about the 3-playthrough structure, even if I'm a little skeptical that it was needed.

9. Bloodborne

I wanted to play this game the day it came out, but I didn't have the cash to buy a PS4 back then. Dark Souls is one of my all-time favorite games, so a similar combat system and Lovecraftian themes complimenting the excellent storytelling make me almost certain I'll love this one.

8. Rayman Legends

This basically looks like more of Rayman Origins, which I thought was fast-paced, really well presented, and just generally excellent.

7. Shovel Knight

I could've replaced this with Hollow Knight or Celeste, but I decided to go with Shovel Knight in the end. I love these kinds of indie platformers and this one looks really well made and a lot of fun.

6. The Stanley Parable

Everyone I know who has played this says the writing is fantastic and it makes great use of the "walking simulator" format, so it sounds right up my alley. I've been meaning to play it for ages.

5. Disco Elysium

The first two Fallout games were the last games I played before starting this project, and I absolutely loved them. I'm looking forward to revisiting the old isometric RPG genre, and I'm also really interested in this game's unique spin on the concept, with stats mostly being related to abstract concepts and mental stablity.

4. Night in the Woods

I actually know almost nothing about this game, but the cute art style and emphasis on characters and dialog make it seem like it's for me. I feel like this will be one of those games that I just find deeply compelling for reasons I can't fully articulate, similar to Owlboy.

3. Super Mario Odyssey

Odyssey looks absolutely phenomenal. It and BotW were the games that pushed me to get a Switch, because they both seemed like jaw-dropping must-play games. Life came up before I could get around to it.

2. Portal 2

Okay, I'm cheating a little, because I have played part of Portal 2 - enough to know how great the writing is. This game is more or less legendary by now, and even as someone who loved every minute of Persona 5 I was rooting for Portal to win its division.

1. Return of the Obra Dinn

I don't know for sure if I'll enjoy Return of the Obra Dinn as much as something like Portal 2 or Odyssey, but its unique concept makes it the game I'm most interested in playing. I have played this developer's previous game, Papers Please, and thought it was awesome.

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After a shorter session on RDR I finished up the long-running I Know You mission, which involves an odd man who claims to know John Marston giving him tasks that test his morality. In the end, he's revealed to be some kind of supernatural figure - maybe a ghost, but more likely some kind of immortal judge. I also finished off Lights, Camera, Action, where John helps out a man who is trying to found a film company, only to find out later on that he quickly went bankrupt. It doesn't break his spirit, though.

I had enough time to get introduced to the two quest-giving NPCs for this portion of the game. The first is Agent Ross, one of the government figures who is coercing Marston into hunting down his old pals. He's just a total dick. He mostly goes on about how much of an idiot John is. He also shows a patronizing attitude toward Nastas, an Indigenous man who worked as an informant - his method of treating these two men is fundamentally similar.

The other quest-giving character is Harold MacDougal. Now this guy I like. He's definitely got some charisma going for him and it's fun to have a quirky scientist type in the mix. One of the first things he says to Marston is "would you like to partake of a syringe of cocaine?" which got a laugh out of me.

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I think the main reason I didn't like the Mexico arc is how emotionally disconnected it is. The conflict feels pointless since both sides are portrayed so negatively, and even Marston himself seems to just want to get the whole thing over with. In the Fort Mercer arc you were building up a posse and witnessing the effect Williamson's gang had on the people, but here Javier Escuela just shows up at the end and immediately dies. And did I miss something, or did Landon disappear from the plot after the first few missions? I would've liked more of him.

On a more positive note, I can definitely vouch for Rayman Legends and Stanley Parable. I'll post my own excitement list later.

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Dutch died. I have to bounce. Real update tomorrow afternoon.

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Gall posted...

I think the main reason I didn't like the Mexico arc is how emotionally disconnected it is. The conflict feels pointless since both sides are portrayed so negatively, and even Marston himself seems to just want to get the whole thing over with. In the Fort Mercer arc you were building up a posse and witnessing the effect Williamson's gang had on the people, but here Javier Escuela just shows up at the end and immediately dies. And did I miss something, or did Landon disappear from the plot after the first few missions? I would've liked more of him.

On a more positive note, I can definitely vouch for Rayman Legends and Stanley Parable. I'll post my own excitement list later.

Yeah, I agree with that, and I think to a lesser extent it's a problem that I have with the entire game. I would say it doesn't have a complex story so much as one where almost everyone is just awful, which makes it a little hard for me to feel that sense of investment. Now that you mention it, yes, Landon only has a few missions right at the start and doesn't appear in any of the later ones, which I do think it a little odd. The encounters with Escuela and Williamson do feel pretty anti-climactic.

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Alright, a little late, but let's get to this.

There are a few more stranger missions to round up near the end of the game: in The Prohibitionist, you choose between assassinating a guy who keeps lobbying for the banning of alcohol or warning him that people want him dead. I picked the latter, but the game actually penalizes that choice somewhat heavily by increasing all prices throughout the West Elizabeth region if you take it. At least it's not such a big deal because the economy in this game isn't very relevant.

American Lobbyist is a really short one where you blackmail a politician to help another get re-elected. I guess it just serves to show some of the corruption in the eastern "civilized" parts of the country.

The Wronged Woman involves a pregnant woman who claims to have worked at the estate of a wealthy family, leading Marston to confront the man of that household, kill him in a duel, and rob his corpse for money for her. It turns out the woman actually invented the whole thing and just tricked John to make a quick buck.

In contrast to his former gang buddies Dutch does have a decent amount of presence in the story and I found the encounters with him over all more interesting. Two of the important facets of it are that John still feels a sense of loyalty toward Dutch and that he ultimately can't bring himself to kill him - instead, Dutch ends up jumping off a cliff when he's cornered. Either way, though, Marston is now free to go back home to his wife. I used today as a kind of break day but I'm hoping to finish the game tomorrow, though I may not have time for the Epilogue.

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There are a few non-awful characters, but they're all pretty underused. See: Nastas getting killed halfway through the chapter (by his own people no less.)

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That's true. I think the most prominent character that the writers evidently want the player to like is probably Bonnie. For me, they more or less succeeded with her, which is part of the reason why I like the early sections a little better I would say.

As usual, I'm a bit behind the pace that I set out for myself, and only managed to do a few of the Marson Ranch missions tonight. The cow herding mechanics from the earlygame came back, with this section essentially being a day in the life of John Marston as he's trying to rebuild his ranch, which mostly fell apart in his absence under the guidance of a drunk man referred to as Uncle. John is in contact with the Macfarlane's ranch, buying cattle from them and then bringing them some grain, so it's nice to see those characters again. Most of the missions essentially just give the player something to do while Marston has long conversations with his family members. Unsurprisingly, his relationships with them are a little strained considering he's been away for so long. There's one scene where he tries to tenderly stroke his wife's face before leaving on some task and she pushes him away. Still, there's a decently-written sense of companionship between the pair of them. Overall, I like this part of the game so far.

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Well, it may have taken me a month, but I finally completed Red Dead Redemption!

The game's final chapter actually bears a bit of a resemblance to the first chapter of Mother 3: a tough rancher cowboy spends some time with the family, until his son runs away to chase a dangerous wild animal and he has to pursue. One parent dies, and the cowboy's son grows up with a broken family. It was a bold artistic choice on Rockstar's part to make a bear the final boss.

So after a bit of a reprisal of all the old ranch hand mechanics, the boys at the U.S. army decide to tie up the last loose end from Dutch's old gang and send a few hundred guys to take down John Marston. He manages to get his wife and son free at least, but after a dramatic last stand he gets filled with bullet holes and left to die. The game lets you explore the sandbox as a grown-up Jack Marston afterward, but the real purpose of that is to allow a final "stranger mission:" Remember My Family, where Jack hunts down Agent Ross and kills him in a duel as revenge. It's only once you've completed that mission that the credits roll.

Final Thoughts on Red Dead Redemption Coming Tomorrow.

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My overall thoughts will be up later in the day, but before that, I want to try my hand at an impartial narrative analysis of RDR, so here goes:

It's easy to romanticize things with a little distance. Pirates are a good example of what I mean. Kids dress up as them for Halloween, cutesy versions of them show up in puppet shows, and they're portrayed as suave, charming characters like Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean. People who lived in the Golden Age of Piracy might find that a little baffling, because the real pirates were illiterate, rapacious, and disease-ridden to a man.

Red Dead Redemption is about that concept. It consciously depicts the old west as a land of violence and ignominy and cowboys as immoral, greedy, and corrupt. At the same time, its characters have already internalized that romantic vision of the frontier, and they chase it, only to find ruin and usually death. The stranger missions around Sam Odessa and Jimmy Saint reinforce this theme, but it might be most visible with Jack Marston, whose western novels end up foreshadowing his own quest for revenge.

The title is misleading to a small extent, in that it's not about redemption so much as someone trying to redeem himself when it's ultimately futile. There's the government's obviously-hollow pardon that even John doesn't see any value in, but he's also trying to make up for his past just by living a decent life, and toward the ending he's trying to make up for lost time with his family. He talks a lot about escaping his old life and putting it behind him. But the idea is that he can't escape. It always comes back to find him in one way or another. In fact, it even entangles his son. We don't see what Jack Marston does as he grows up, but it doesn't seem likely that he became a writer. Agent Ross is the same way - he's supposed to be retired, but that old life catches up to him.

In typical Rockstar fashion, the writers aren't really impressed with anyone, so although the old west is a lawless hellhole, which even the mechanics reinforce since you'll get harrassed by bandits just minding your own business on the road, the "civilizing" eastern city-dwellers are all clueless racists with an unearned sense of superiority. The U.S. government is arguably the real villain, more so than Bill Williamson or Dutch. John Marston and Nastas have a certain degree of comraderie because they are both left out and talked down to by the federal agents, which is why they can speak plainly and comfortably to one another.

If it were only the west that was shown to be so horrible, you could hope that the cycle of revenge would end with Jack Marston, once the old gunslinger way of life died off. I guess ultimately RDR doesn't offer a solution as easy as all that - it just shows you some of the evil that men do, and a much lesser amount of the good, and leaves you to make of that what you will.

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Great job finishing RDR. It was obviously the first real barrier you came to, so props for sticking with this project thus far. It continues to be a very enjoyable read. I look forward to new updates.

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Final Analysis: Red Dead Redemption

What I thought of RDR: Decent story, dull shooting and sandbox
Would I play it again? Probably not.
Did it deserve to lose round two? Yes.

"It's important to look at your game and say 'okay, fifty percent of this is riding a horse, twenty-five percent is storytelling and cutscenes, and twenty-five percent is shootouts. Is riding the horse really the best part of the game?'" - Videogamedunkey, Videogame Stucture Evolution

Here's a short list of the media I went through in the past month, while I played Red Dead Redemption:

- I re-read the webcomic Gunnerkrigg Court by Tom Sidell. Despite a slightly rough start with some amateur artwork and an overly stoic lead character, I thought this comic was really rewarding - it specializes in patient, long form storytelling. A lot of the story arcs take years worth of development to fully pay off, the characters undergo a lot of personal development, and the setting itself was fascinating. The stand-out character was Coyote, an unpredictable, constantly hilarious trickster with an enigmatic master plan that has yet to be revealed over a decade's worth of story progress.

- I read the first half of the Moomin series of books by Finnish author Tove Jansson, a set of absurd children's stories with the kind of philosophical undertones that make them engaging for older readers. So far these books maintain a really high standard of quality - Jansson is great both at coming up with funny scenarios for her characters and giving them a lot of depth and emotional range. The stand-out character in these books is Snufkin, the main character's laid-back, vagrant, park keeper-hating best friend.

- I played the newly-released Henry Stickmin Collection, which is a re-animated version of a set of comedy flash games about the misadventures of an bumbling stick figure thief (with an excellent exclusive bonus game.) I loved every second of it. There are a lot of really funny gags, the action escalates to hilarious extremes, and it's surprisingly great as a branching story. The stand-out character was Charles Calvin, a friendly, fun-loving, accident-prone helicopter pilot, to whom I became surprisingly emotionally attached considering he's a stick figure.

Aside from self-indulgently talking about things I like, the point of the above is that it was easy to find more compelling stories than Red Dead, and secondly that Red Dead needed a Snufkin, or a Charles - or a Mordin. Oh, there are some good characters. John Marston himself is probably the best one. But when Little My got hooked on a fishing pole in Moominsummer Madness and I turned the page to see by the illustration that Snufkin was coming into the story, I felt an instant rush of happiness and excitement. No one in Red Dead quite does that for me. A nice anchor character like that would've really helped motivate me to slog through the repetitive gunslinging and the endless horseback riding.

Well, I'm being overly mean to a certain extent. The shooting in RDR can be kind of fun. It's at it's best on horseback, when there's a unique challenge to both steering and aiming at fast-moving targets simultaneously. It might be the better shooter when compared to ME2, though that game has it badly beat when it comes to enemy variety. I appreciate how the gameplay and the theming work together, given that the constant random crimes and animal attacks help sell the feeling of living in a lawless frontier. Likewise, the section in Mexico does a good job simulating the feeling of being a stranger in a foreign country, understanding only snippets of the language, getting called offensive names, and dealing with the distrust of everyone around you. In general, the music, atmosphere, and setting are really detailed and well done, and although I grew tired of riding everywhere there it can sometimes be relaxing just to watch the scenery go by. The moment at the very end where you get one use of deadeye before the U.S. Army kills you off is a nice touch. We will actually be revisiting this kind of gameplay story mixing to convey futility in another game from 2010!

There are some persistent problems with Rockstar's game design. I hate having to mash the X button to sprint or keep up my horse's speed. There isn't much incentive to explore the larger world - if you come to a ranch, for example, you can't really interact with the farm-hands or loot the place or anything like that, which I thought did enough to make poking around the random corners of Skyrim fun. You end up staring at the mini-map for like 90% of the game - you use it for orienteering, spotting enemies, finding plants to gather, and just about anything else you can think of. A health meter would be really appreciated. The game's visuals are kind of indistinct to begin with and I often felt the need to squint to make out enemies, an issue that becomes all the worse when I got hit and the screen filled up with red fog. Crouching behind cover to wait for your health to regenerate is as much of a bore as ever. Dying out in the wilderness bites, probably more than it should in a video game, since you have to go miles back to your bed. Activities like gathering plants and playing Poker with AI are mind-numbing. I could go on.

Earlier in this thread I said that the story isn't complex so much as it is full of despicable characters. I admit that's an oversimplification. It has some complexity. John's family wanting to love him but feeling guarded because he's hurt them before is one example. There's some in characters like Bonnie, Dutch, and Agent Ross. John's own quest for redemption contains a little bit of it, since he's fighting the old outlaw instincts. Still, I do think Rockstar goes too far with making their characters evil or pathetic. I was mostly annoyed by characters like Seth, Dickens, or Reyes - and not in a way that serves the story! This was definitely a major factor in why I didn't connect with the game emotionally in the way I would've liked.

I think Red Dead Redemption exposed an unfortunate side to this project. I feel like I've been doing pretty well at choosing my own entertainment these days, but all the time I've had this big horse-shaped obligation looming over me. I'm probably being harsher on the game than it really deserves because of that. I would have stopped playing it if I had started it for any reason besides this project. Maybe I would've gone back to it later, or maybe not, but I probably would've looked back on it more fondly either way.

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wallmasterz posted...

Great job finishing RDR. It was obviously the first real barrier you came to, so props for sticking with this project thus far. It continues to be a very enjoyable read. I look forward to new updates.

Thanks. Yeah, it does feel good to have the game out of the way. I'm actually really looking forward to giving Galaxy 2 a whirl, so hopefully I'll get the pace back up going forward.

Before that, though, let's revisit this idea of extra games. Thanks to Gall for helping me narrow down the list back in the ME2 times. I put a bit more thought into it and I've decided, admittedly somewhat arbitrarily, where to place the remaining games:

Portal 1 - Next Red Dead Redemption
God of War 1 - After Halo: Reach
God of War 2 - After Super Meat Boy
God of War 3 - After Dead Space 2
Nier - After Minecraft
Danganronpa 1 - Feb 11, 2014 (After DK Tropical Freeze)
Ground Zeroes - March 18 2014 (After Stick of Truth)
Trials in the Sky - July 29, 2014 (After Shovel Knight)
Dragon Age - Rainy Day Game

So yes, I've decided to play the GoW trilogy after all. It looks like they're easy to download on PS3. I actually have a copy of 3 lying around unused that's just been there for years. I've put them after every third game starting now, if only to get through them at a reasonable pace, and then Nier is right at the end of the 2011 games just to get a bit of a streak going where I increment that number in my signature instead of having it stagnate through extra games. The rest of the games are set for their original NA release dates. As for Dragon Age, I'll play that one if there ever comes a time when I've arrived at a game I don't own yet. Since it's long, it will give me a while to catch up on that.

All that out of the way, I can move on to the next game:

Portal
Release Date: October 10, 2007
I will be playing: PC Version, Steam
Previous Experience with Portal: Played up to the Companion Cube section
Expectations for Portal: Short and Sweet

Can you believe my inability to finish what I start even extended to the original Portal? It's been years since I touched it. The first time was on an absolutely ancient laptop that ran the game with unbearable framerate loss and frequent crashing. I struggled through for a while but eventually decided to pack it in and pick the game back up when I had a better system. That computer actually survived a while longer and could run Hearthstone quite smoothly, but now I'm two laptops further down the road and should be able to run a game from 2007 with no problems (I should probably get a real computer one of these days.)

I remember really liking it! I was in that age group that made "The cake is a lie" and "Still Alive" into memes. As obnoxious as that was, the game legitimately does have great writing - GLaDOS cleaned up for most of Best. Female. Villain. Quote. Ever. for a reason. I remember the puzzle gameplay being fun too. Placing a portal directly above another portal and accelerating to infinity is an iconic video game sidequest (it's even one of the fails in the aforementioned Henry Stickmin) and the general gameplay is elegant and to the point - there's no flower picking to be found in this game. I think I'll really like it. That being said, my Saturdays are usually busy and I haven't slept for around 28 hours, so I'll probably just hop on the game so I haven't missed another day of playing and then hit the hay.

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Okay yes so in line with what I said I thought I would play until getting the Portal gun but that's really right at the beginning so I went until the point where you get the ability to fire orange portals, about 20 minutes in. I think I'm on test chamber 12. It's a good puzzle game so far. It's careful about gradually introducing new mechanics and escalating the complexity of the chambers. I had forgotten how smale-scale this franchise was at the start - just Chell running around a few sterile chambers while a highly robotic GLaDOS says vaguely-sinister things about the test center. I haven't really laughed out loud at the dialog yet but I have been chuckling along to most of it which is a good start, especially considering I've heard all these jokes before.

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"Well done, android. The Enrichment Center once again reminds you that android hell is a real place where you will be sent at the first sign of defiance." - GLaDOS

I just passed the part where you kill off the Companion Cube, which I think makes me further in Portal than I've ever been. As much as gaming pop culture did the whole Companion Cube joke to death, it really is a well-done gag. The big premise behind the first Portal is that this barely-sentient robot is trying to torment you with only a vague understanding of how humans work, so it tries to get you upset about killing the Companion Cube even though it's a non-sentient object and you spend about 5 minutes with it. There's a weird irony to that though because a lot of people legitimately did feel an attachment to the Companion Cube.

I found a couple of the ratman's little hideouts. I definitely appreciate how some storytelling is being done through small details in this game, between the environmental storytelling with him, lines like "The enrichment center reminds you that the Weighted Companion Cube will never threaten to stab you" creating implications about the previous tests, and even the warning signs for the test showing a "heartbreak" warning in front of the incinerator.

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I finished Portal. I thought that was absolutely awesome. By far my two favorite games from this project so far aren't even from the 2010s, lol. Maybe I should've done Exdeath Plays Every Game in the GotD 2010 Contest instead. Anyway, let's keep things moving right along:

Final Analysis: Portal

What I thought of Portal: Elegant, hilarious, and generally brilliant.
Would I play it again? Of course.
Did it deserve to make division finals (in GotD 2010?) Yes, it probably should've gone even further.

Perfection is a near-impossible thing to achieve in any artistic domain, but perhaps video games especially. I can think of a few movies that come close. Lawrence of Arabia, as long as it is, has no real flaws that come to my mind. 2001 is just about perfect as long as you like sci-fi. I would even say Akira is essentially perfect. Movies don't really have glitches and they don't have to mix storytelling and game mechanics, which can really be a tricky thing to manage. Let's look at my favorite game, Mother 3. Yes it makes me cry every time I re-play it, but the RPG mechanics were archaic even in 2006 with the inventory management especially being a drag, it's hurt by lack of choice in the character progression system and one of the major late-game story developments is conveyed through a monumentally long exposition dump. If someone told me that he thought it had beaten him over the head with its communist messaging I could understand where he was coming from. I could easily do this with most games I love. Shadow of the Colossus has frequent frame rate drops and texture pop-in, some of the Colossi suffer from blatant programming and physics errors, and it can be downright frustrating to play. Dark Souls has parts like the Bed of Chaos and the Tomb of the Giants that no one will stick up for. Majora's Mask had that well business, a lot of the sidequests like the shooting galleries and the Goron section on the moon are better off skipped, and constantly going into the menu to switch active items is an especially big flow-breaking problem because of all the masks.

Tetris tends to come up. It's about as complex as games can normally get without accruing a lot of minor flaws. That's why it's astonishing that Portal manages things like a linear story and a physics engine and is still really hard to actually criticize. I remember that it's still the only game the notoriously caustic Yahtzee Croshaw has failed to come up with anything to bash about, and honestly the best thing I can think of is that the Source Engine feels a little old and clunky. Now, that's definitely an effect of how short it is. I bet I'll have an easier time coming up with flaws in Portal 2 once I get to that. For now though, let me try and summarize what makes the first Portal so special:

First of all, a lot of the mechanics are just inherently fun. Launching yourself through portals, preserving your momentum, and desperately firing a new one just as your about to land doesn't really get old, and the level designers understood this well enough to make use of it. It can even be fun just to play around with portals independent of actual progress, like firing one above another and watching yourself fall forever or placing both portals on floors so you keep falling in and out. Taking down the turrets is a lot of fun. There's a certain satisfaction to dropping in behind them with a portal and snatching them off the ground (I was tempted to say "Nothing personnel, kid" to my computer screen) and although it doesn't matter from a results standpoint the game gives you a lot of different options to take them out. You can drop them through portals, you can grab them or push them over, and you can use portals to drop other things on them, including their own allies. You want the raw mechanics to have their own fun. On top of that, though, the actual pacing and the level-design are top notch. It does a good job slowly ramping things up and it continues introducing new concepts right up until the end.

Portal achieves something kind of rare in comedy writing, which is that it creates its own completely original logic and manages to make that charismatic and hilarious. You get caught up in it. That's why people felt connected to the Companion Cube even though its a generic object. It familiarizes you with its visual storytelling quickly enough to let you enjoy the small gags, like the cake icon on the last test chamber. The references to cake and the larger aperture science are clever and build upon one another. GLaDOS is a great central character. Her robotic misunderstanding of human behavior makes a good comedic device and so do her reactions when she starts losing control of the situation. Since it's a short game, it makes use of everything. The environment design, the enemies, and even the credits turn into narrative devices.

I think the final sequence was my favorite part. Although the game is tightly controlled and entirely linear, it evokes this feeling of breaking the rules. There's a huge contrast between the sterile test chambers and the noisy, industrial back alleys of the Enrichment Center, which are so broken down that you need the portal gun to get around. The game establishes glass walls as impassible obstacles and then lets you redirect rockets and shatter them, which is oddly satisfying. I also liked how you see weighted cubes moving through a long chute and then eventually break it to get one for a puzzle. The final battle against GLaDOS might be one of my favorite sequences in any game. It's clever, tense, and full of hilarious dialog.

It's been nearly a decade since I played Portal, but revisiting it made me sorry I hadn't done so earlier. If you've somehow gone all this time without giving it a shot, I highly recommend you do so.

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Portal is definitely going to be a tough act to follow, but luckily the next game is one I've been looking forward to for a while:

Super Mario Galaxy 2

Release date: May 23, 2010
Previous experience with Mario Galaxy: Played the first one a lot, the second a little
My Expectations for Galaxy 2: A top-tier platformer

A lot of people my age are really nostalgic for the Nintendo Gamecube, but I've never actually owned one personally. I had to buy Gamecube games later on and play them on a backwards-compatible Nintendo Wii, which was the first console I'd had at home in years (I would play PS2 at my dad's house when I visited.) For a good few years after that, I didn't have a job and had to rely on a really small amount of pocket change for new games. I played the first Mario Galaxy when it was almost new. I remember finding it really difficult at the time, and specifically I have a shameful memory of being frustrated to the point of tears trying to beat the no-hits challenge against the rock ghost boss. That did make it cathartic to go back and take down that challenge on my first try as a grown-up, though.

Galaxy is a really easy game, but I was young and getting used to the Wii-based controls takes time. Since it was my main childhood console, I'm now as comfortable with a wii remote in my hand as I am with certain other similarly-proportioned objects, and Galaxy was one of the few games that actually implemented Nintendo's hardware gimmick really well. On top of that, it was varied in the best way, fast-paced and consistently fun, and it had a mind-blowing soundtrack. I have an innate distrust of anyone who doesn't get chills listening to the music for Gusty Garden Galaxy. Super Mario World was one of the first games I ever played (Just after Elmo's ABCs) and I'll always have a soft spot for it, but the first Mario Galaxy is my favorite game in the franchise, gammon soiree or otherwise.

But I only bought Galaxy 2 recently. My wii is actually chipped to play burnt games, so there is save data for the game on my console and I remember playing part of it, but those burnt discs were pretty crappy and just straight up didn't work a lot of the time. When I was cleaning up in the process of moving to my own apartment, I ended up throwing them all away. I saw the "greatest hits" re-release at my local game store all the time, and then just a few months before I started this project I found a copy from the first printing, which is what I'll be using to play it now.

From what I understand, Galaxy 2 has the exact same engine as the first one, but most people who have played both seem to agree it's even better. I'm in for a treat if that's the case.

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Started up the game, I have three stars so far. Would've liked to play for longer but I'm too sleepy once again. Definitely a strong resemblance to the first game including basically the exact same Piranha boss in the first level. Yoshi was one of the big selling points for this game, which harkens back to good old Mario World for me, but the difference is in that game Yoshi was a very incidental power up while entire levels are designed around him in this one. Nothing wrong with that approach. Having him weaponize the pointer as his tongue attack is a good idea and I like how he joins you for the animation when you get a star.

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This is my favorite game of the decade. Enjoy!

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You're gonna enjoy this!

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I think with time to sit on it, and reflecting after reading your writeup, RDR2 is a vastly superior game to RDR1 despite sharing some flaws. I'm interested in what you think of it eventually!

I think RDR was a great game that is bogged down by its GTA DNA. This is most evident in the shooting. However, I think it makes up for it in terms of story.

I wouldn't worry too much about the old GoWs relative to the new one, but they're pretty short so go for it!

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A few final thoughts on Red Dead:

I think the story couldve had better emotional investment if there was more focus on how Marston was affected by having to hunt down his former friends - his interactions with Dutch do have some of that, but by that point it felt like too little too late. They probably shouldve introduced Dutch at the beginning and had fewer villains overall. Its still weird to me how Javier just dies as soon as you meet him.

It wouldve made the last chapter even better, since that shows the other side of things: what Marston was fighting for the whole time. His interactions with his son do a good job at conveying his conflicting desires to train him into a strong man and to have him avoid going down another path of self-destruction. Abigail is just a lot of fun, and their genuinely loving interactions are an effective contrast with the cynicism of the rest of the game. I think she couldve easily been the kind of emotional anchor character you wanted if only shed been in the game more.

From what I know about Red Dead 2, it goes into the backstory of Marstons gang and what caused them to break up, and has Abigail in a more prominent role. Not that it excuses this game skimping on the details, but I am eager to see that when the time comes. 2018 seems so far away

As for the gameplay, it seems like I didnt miss much. I know what the thread title is, but I doubt anyone would mind if you elected to just watch through some of the more story-focused games to come. I plan to do so fairly regularly.

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And heres my top 10 games Im most looking forward to play:

10. Octopath Traveler
Im interested to see what kind of twists this game has on the traditional Old Square style of RPG. I also like the concept of seeing the world through the stories of multiple characters.
9. Resident Evil 7
Similarly, Im interested to see how this game puts the Resident Evil flavor into the first person horror genre. Southern Gothic horror is something you dont see very often in video games and has the potential to be really creepy.
8. Yakuza 0
What I know about this series is that it combines dramatic storytelling, hand-to-hand combat, and bizarre minigames and side activities. I have to see whats going on in there.
7. Crypt of the Necrodancer
I already played a little of this a while ago but didn't get that deep into it. Its blend of roguelike and rhythm is fun and addictive.
6. Tales of Berseria
I've wanted to get into the Tales series for a while and this one seems like a good starting point. Maybe I will finally understand why people love these characters enough to get like 15 of them into the contests.
5. Cuphead
I'm already a fan of difficult 2D platformers, so the wonderfully-realized art style and soundtrack are the icing on the cake.
4. Obra Dinn
I also loved Papers Please, though in a weird way that makes me a little less excited for this game since I feel like the follow-up just won't be as unique. Regardless I'm sure it will be a great experience.
3. Disco Elysium
I had my eye on this game's development before it came out, and I remember thinking that what the devs were trying to do would either turn out a huge mess or something outstanding. Seems like they actually pulled it off.
2. Baba is You
This is the game that looks like a worthy successor to Papers Please, in the sense that it's a puzzle game with a gimmick that's never been done before, or at least not this well: solving puzzles by changing the rules of the game itself. Ive wanted a game like this for a long time.
1. Trails in the Sky 1 and 2
Two for the price of one! I dont know too many specific details of this seriess gameplay or story, but I do know that whenever Ive seen it mentioned on Board 8 and elsewhere its always been praised to high heaven. Im eager to see what the best of JRPGs has to offer.

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ctesjbuvf posted...

This is my favorite game of the decade. Enjoy!

Wow, that's high praise! I know you're not the only one, though.

Lightning Strikes posted...

I think with time to sit on it, and reflecting after reading your writeup, RDR2 is a vastly superior game to RDR1 despite sharing some flaws. I'm interested in what you think of it eventually!

You're not the first person to tell me that, actually. I do think I'll have some of the same complaints toward the second one, especially how much time is spent just riding around on horseback. It definitely does look like it benefits from having more advanced technology behind it though. I can see things like the livelier base camp helping to make the game more compelling.

Gall posted...

A few final thoughts on Red Dead:

Definitely agree about Javier. I think three different villains was okay, they just needed to expand their roles in the story. I do think it was odd how unclear what Dutch was trying to achieve seemed, but maybe there was a certain intention behind that, like that he didn't know himself. RDR does leave a lot of room for the sequel to expand on the backstory, which I guess has its ups and downs. We'll have to see how it pays off.

Yeah, maybe after a point I should've stopped actually played Red Dead and just watched the rest on Youtube. That probably would've helped me get through it a little sooner. I'll keep that idea in mind going forward.

So we share an interest in Obra Dinn and Disco Elysium. Baba is You definitely looks cool and would probably be in my top 20 most anticipated at least. I've played Cuphead and thought it was excellent, but I wasn't huge on Octopath even as someone who loves Square RPGs. It will be interesting to give Trails a whirl since it's such a board 8 darling.

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I got up to 15 stars today, and completed world 1 in the process. My approach was just to clear all the available levels in each Galaxy before going on to the next. I had to go back for the comet tokens a couple of times. There are a few moments that make me think "oh, this was in the first game," like the beetle bosses, but I'm definitely having fun with it so far. The first boss was pretty cool. I like how it gets away from the usual Nintendo formula where there are distinct phases where the boss can attack and where you can attack. You can actually win the fight really quickly if you're skilled enough, which I think is a good thing to aim for in game design.

Maybe it's just my desire to insist that the version I have more nostalgia for is better, but there are a couple things I kind of miss from the first game. I think I preferred the hub world to the level map and I definitely like Rosalina better as a character compared to Lubba. The structure seems a little less open in this game too. Still, those are really minor details, and the level design and sense of variety are definitely as strong in this game as they were in the original.


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Been awhile since I posted in here, but I am still working on Red Dead! I just got really distracted with Tony Hawk and Paper Mario, both have been infinitely more fun so far!

Here's my Top 10:

10. Baba Is You
So this is one of the few games I hadn't heard of before the contest, but having seen a little bit now, it looks really fun! The concept is really cool and it seems like it has the potential for some interesting twists. Plus it looks like a nice little short Indie game

9. XCOM 2
I've always loved the concept of permadeath. It makes you actually care about your characters and you have to take serious consideration when making decisions based on that. However it also makes the games a lot harder, throw in the base building and the first one was really difficult to me, but having beat it earlier this year. I feel more than ready to tackle this one.

8. Dark Souls
Speaking of really hard games I keep putting off... Dark Souls has always intrigued me, based off what I've heard it's unfairly difficult to an absurd degree and the first one in particular has some technical issues. Yet this franchise is insanely popular nonetheless, so I guess I'm excited to see what I'll the hype is about.

7. Hollow Knight
Recently I've been having a lot of fun with Metroidvanias. A couple years back I had beaten Super Metroid and Sotn and this year I finally beat Shovel Knight. So HK is definitely on my radar, especially thanks to one of my irl buddies. My only 'issue' is the same as the last two as well, I don't know if I'm ready to invest a lot of time into a difficult game! So as a result I can't put any of these much higher.

6. Octopath Traveler
So I've actually put a lot of time into this one already, and I was honestly really enjoying it despite its flaws. However I did reach a point where my characters weren't even close to holding their own in battle, so I am in a bit of a grinding road block that's made it kinda hard to jump back into. Thankfully I know once I get past that I'm sure I'll be enjoying it once more.

5. Doom
I adore games with a good flow and I've heard that Doom has it in spades. So I'm just really excited for some adrenaline filled combat. I did hear it gets a little stale after awhile so thats why it isn't any higher

4. Minecraft
Oh man am I ready for this one. So I have beaten Minecraft already, but I've mostly just played it with a friend or two. What I'm really looking forward to is the full multiplayer experience. If we can manage to get several Board8ers into a server the amount of fun would be huge. Minecraft has such a good mix of strategy, combat, platforming and especially creativity that a variety of different gamers would make it a really unique experience.

3. Ori and the Blind Forest
So for Ori, I seriously can't get over its gorgeous art style. Mix that with my interest in Metroidvanias and I'm so ready to give this one a whirl, plus I'll have the sequel to look forward too, since I heard it fixes a lot of the problems in this one

2. The Stanely Parable
Man I've wanted to play this game since release, but I never really had a decent PC to play it on until now. I've heard nothing but good things on this one and I love me some quirky writing, so this is definitely of my most hyped games.

1. Night in the Woods
So i know very little about this game, but I do think the art style is great and heard that it carries a lot of thought provoking messages. It really is the mystery and intrigue here that have me hooked more than anything else.

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Evillordexdeath posted...

Wow, that's high praise! I know you're not the only one, though.

I really love platforming and always have, I found this game to be the absolute peak of it.

Granted, I have played less than half of the games in the contest, but I doubt anything I haven't played could dethrone it.

I do agree with the things you said about the hub and Rosalina, but I don't recall any of the Galaxy games being more open. Both were a lot less open than 64 and Sunshine. Odyssey too.

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BetrayedTangy posted...

Been awhile since I posted in here, but I am still working on Red Dead! I just got really distracted with Tony Hawk and Paper Mario, both have been infinitely more fun so far!

Sounds like you're having something of a similar experience with Red Dead to mine. On your top 10, though Dark Souls is a pretty hard game I would say the difficulty tends to get overstated at times. I personally don't consider it an unfair game outside of a few poorly designed sections. I'm looking forward to Doom too - I like how it focuses on a single style of gameplay and tries to make that as tight as possible. I think that's a nice contrast with a lot of other AAA games. I would like to try hosting a Minecraft server for this project, now that you mention it. I'll have to look into how that's done.

ctesjbuvf posted...

I do agree with the things you said about the hub and Rosalina, but I don't recall any of the Galaxy games being more open. Both were a lot less open than 64 and Sunshine. Odyssey too.

Yeah, I phrased that poorly. What I was trying to say is that you have a little more freedom as to the order in which you tackle levels in the first Galaxy. If you cleared out enough earlier levels in that one, you could pretty much skip entire worlds because the only requirement was how many stars you had. In this one it seems like you have to have enough stars to access a level as well as having found at least one star in all the galaxies that are behind it on the map. That being said, the best way to approach both games is probably to play the levels "in order," since that results in the most well-designed difficulty curve.

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Day 3
32 Stars

I completed the entirety of world 2 and made a little progress on 3. One level that I particularly liked was the twin falls one where you start out swimming, then freeze the ocean so you can wall-jump up a pair of waterfalls to reach the star. Then in the second level for that galaxy everything is still frozen but you go into an underground tunnel where there's still flowing water. I just thought that progression was kind of cool. I got 15 comet medals which finally spawned a prankster comet, and then got caught up knocking down comet levels one after another. I stopped on the purple coin level on that galaxy where you flip which platforms you can stand on every time you spin, after dying a few times trying to get through it. Out of the normal levels, I think the one that's given me the most trouble so far is the one with the Mario 64 style slide.

One thing I have noticed is that my wrist gets really tired from playing this game, so it's another one that's made me feel kind of old.

The music is unsurprisingly great. I'm glad that you get a little background percussion when you're riding Yoshi, like you did in Super Mario World. So far my favorite track is this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oaf2gUhy74o

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Evillordexdeath posted...

I would like to try hosting a Minecraft server for this project, now that you mention it. I'll have to look into how that's done.

If I recall there's two main options. So you can do a Minecraft Realm which is limited to 10 players, but has crossplay with the Xbox, PS4, Steam and Switch versions of the game or you can have unlimited players in the Java version but only players using the Java version can play

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Ah, okay. My initial inclination was to play Minecraft on the PS4, but if there's enough interest in an online server that the 10 player limit could become an issue I don't mind going for the Java edition. That being said, POST HERE IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN A B8 MINECRAFT SERVER.

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Day 4
37 Stars

I had a lot of housework to deal with today and could only play for like 40 minutes, but I beat the purple coin level from yesterday and finished up the rest of the currently-available comet levels, including another purple coin one on the tree slide that looked absolutely impossible at first until I realized that you don't have to get every single coin to win, just 100 out of a much higher number that are placed around the slide. I got 85 on my first try and then the full hundred on my second. With that done I've been able to fully complete a decent chunk of the galaxies in the first three worlds, which gives me a certain feeling of satisfaction. Afterward I had some time to play the ghost level in world 3, which was where I stopped after getting my first game over playing the second level as Luigi. I kept rushing things too much and falling to my death.

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Day 5
51 Stars (21 Comet Medals)

The first three worlds are almost fully exhausted now. The boss on the third world actually took me a really long time to beat. I don't think it's hard at all, I just played terribly for some reason. The last world I did was the supermassive Galaxy, which I thought was a fun concept. I've been playing as Luigi almost every chance I get. I also completed the galaxy based on that mechanic from the first game where you roll around on top of a ball by tilting the motion controls, which I found kind of stressful.

I'm finding it a little hard to write about the game, because I'll play a lot of levels at once and it'll be harder to remember as much in the way of specifics, but I'm enjoying it a lot so far. I don't think there have been any levels that I didn't find fun, and the level of variety is definitely commendable.

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I finished Crash Bandicoot 1 and proceeded to immediately finish the first five levels + boss of Crash 2. I THINK I slightly prefer Crash 2 so far, but both games are similar enough mechanically to the point it's close.

The final boss of Crash 1 gave me more trouble than it should have but once I stopped being a klutz it felt anti-climactic. And regarding Crash 2's "plot", I do know what's going to happen already but even if I didn't I highly doubt I'd be fooled by Cortex's apparent alliance with Crash. This seems like another "villain tricks hero into getting stuff for him" plot, and I can now think of at least FIVE well-known games released in 1997-1998 alone that did this: the other four being Final Fantasy VII, Metal Gear Solid, Ocarina of Time, and Sonic Adventure. Why was this such a popular plot device?

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Congrats on finishing Crash Bandicoot, LMS!

Day 6
59 Stars, 24 Comet Medals

After doing a comet mission on the second boss level (which I thought was a cool idea - I don't think the first Galaxy ever did that) and a hidden star where you have to lure a Goomba into a specific area, I've now completely cleared out the second world. As for World 4, I'm at the point where I can go straight on to the boss tomorrow. I did the Starshine Beach galaxy today, which an ultra-open water level with Yoshi. The Galaxy games are another example where the swimming mechanics are actually pretty good and I look forward to water levels instead of dreading them, though they aren't quite as much pure fun as the swimming in Majora's Mask I would say. The last level I did today was the Sweet Mystery Galaxy, which is the first one where you have both Luigi and Yoshi. It was a case where I found every possible ridiculous way there was to die, but I got through in the end.

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Thanks man. I beat two more stages yesterday morning.

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Four more levels down in Crash 2, probably the most fun I've had playing a video game in a LONG time.

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Day 7
66 Stars, 26 Medals

Unto world 5, which is apparently the penultimate one - though that being said there are over 200 stars in this game so I'm nowhere near finished. The second boss fight against Bowser is quite similar to the first, which is to say kind of lame. I remember they were a weaker part of the first game too. Bowser apparently took some tips from Cloud on how to beat Mario, but he must have forgotten that Cloud had never won against him as of 2010, and the fact that he keeps using Meteorain turns out to be his downfall.

I did the comet version of Chompworks galaxy, which was pretty diabolical - it's a variant of a level where you need to stand still, but it adds those shadow clones that follow in your tracks and hurt you if you stand still too long. The first level in world 5, Space Storm galaxy, was the first time this game extensively used those blue stars that you move toward with the pointer, which were around a lot in Galaxy 1. The map here is also much more open-ended than previous worlds and you can play the levels in any order. I could even skip just about all of them if I wanted to, given how many stars I've cleaned out from the previous worlds.

The last level I did was the hidden star at Upside Dizzy galaxy, where you have to burn a bunch of crates within 20 seconds as Fire Mario. I had already done an identical level earlier on, but it took me a ton of tries for some reason, so I ended up calling it just after I finally won.

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Once we get closer to Minecraft I'm thinking about setting up a topic where I give out some free copies, maybe to get some more people interested

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Four more stages in Crash 2 done. With one level I finished without getting the Purple Crystal because I took a side-path that skipped it, necessitating for the first time me having to finish the level twice. In between I found the level named "Un-Bearable" to live up to that title and then some, though I still finished it. And then after that and replaying the earlier ruins level, I promptly got beaten by Tiny Tiger.

Also really liking this game's music. Something about it feels like it characterizes Crash as being even edgier than Sonic, but without going too far in that direction or making it the whole point.

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Day 8
75 stars, 30 medals

I had intended to play for more, but my wii remote kept warning me that it was about to run out of batteries so I decided to stop on a nice round number. Knocking on the end of world 5 now. I completed the Daredevil run of the world 3 boss, which took me a few lives, unsurprisingly since I struggled a bit with the original fight. The levels in world 5 have been pretty good. Shiverburn Galaxy uses the hot/cold alternation that was also in certain levels in Galaxy, and combined with the skating mechanics being good that made for fun levels. There was a long sand slide at the Egyptian-themed Slipsand Galaxy which I thought was a neat idea, and the last level I did was in Boo Moon Galaxy where the shape of the world around you distorts Inception style as you progress.

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I died so many times in that swamp in Boo Moon. Cool use of the gravity system.

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Two more stages in Crash 2 done, and Cortex was not kidding when he said the levels were getting harder!

In the stage "Hangin' Out", I found a secret passage that warped me out of the level after some slightly tricky grate climbing and unlocked a stage with the gimmick of fireflies. After trying this stage and the three other stages I haven't beaten yet and getting Game Overs, I decided to go back to Hangin' Out to see what the rest of the level was like. That's all I really have to say.

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Day 9
85 Stars, 32 medals

I've made it to world 6, where the game is really starting to roll out the big boy levels. A long maze on Boo Moon, the second level in Melty Monster Galaxy that gave me some flashbacks of the Moon Goron section in Majora's Mask, and the long first level of Clockwork Ruins Galaxy in particular took a bit out of me, and after that last one I decided to pack the game in for the night. There was a lot of verticality to the level design in that one, which can be a little bit frustrating. I thought the first level in Melty Monster was quite cool, partially because it was a re-emergence of the lava creatures from Super Mario World, which you don't see used too often. The second level is definitely better designed than the Majora's Mask section and is actually pretty fun, but it was the first level in a while where I burned through enough lives to get the ghost Rosalina to offer to beat the level for me. I didn't take her up on that offer, of course. On the bright side, it was a good chance to earn a ton of star bits - I got over 600 from that level alone.

The way I've chosen my level order might have been a little bit of a mistake. I figured it would be best to start from the earlier, easiest levels so that I would be better at the game by the time I made it to the hard ones, but on the flipside it would be nice to go back to world 1 for a quick easy level as a way to unwind after making it through a level like Clockwork Ruins.


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I beat the level "Cold Hard Crash", as well as "Totally Fly" with the caveat that I have no idea how to break the six metal boxes before finishing the level. I lose the firefly pretty fast and then I'm completely in the dark.

The levels "Ruination" and "Bee-Having" continued to give me trouble, but it seems those are two of the most notoriously difficult levels in the game so that's...good to know. The latter level makes me think of Nicolas Cage for obvious reasons.

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