Board 8 > Post Each Time You Beat a Game: 2021 Edition

(+) Yeah! (+)

Never participated in this topic before, but I'm determined to play more games this year than I have been recently, so hopefully this'll be a little extra motivation boost.

Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade (GBA)
The Good:
The first half of this game has some really fantastic map design. Chapters 4, 7, and 11A are among the best in the series, and most of the others have at least some kind of interesting gimmick or layout. Enemies are just strong enough to make sure you generally have to think about what you're doing.

Really underrated cast. It's a shame supports are so obnoxious to get in the GBA FE games, because they hide some of the best in the series here.

Unit balance is, I think, pretty good. You've got your standard amount of useless characters, including maybe the worst one in the series in Wendy, but there's a pretty decent number of decent options without a whole lot of overpowered ones. Even Marcus and Jerrot fall off pretty early on. Roy not promoting until the very end is something everyone can agree sucks, but I do like that he doesn't just steamroll the game like some lords in the series do. It's good for some variety.

I generally like the narrative and lore, although there were definitely places it could've been more fleshed out, especially with some extra scenes from the actual perspective of the characters as opposed to that thing FE does where the map of the world gets shown and a faceless narrator just describes what's been happening.

The Bad:
Most of FE6's problems, I think, can be boiled down to calling it a Strategy Guide Game. Ambush reinforcements, annoying Gaiden requirements (that are needed to even experience the full game) and character recruitments, dumb route split mechanics. None of these are that troublesome to deal with if you know about them, but I'm not gonna sit here and claim that's good game design.

The map design gradually gets worse as the game goes on, too. All the interesting side objectives and strategic enemy placement kinda goes out the window in favor of siege tomes and status staves by the end. FE is at its best when it presents an effective puzzle to solve - things like that just make you feel like you're trying to put together a puzzle where every once in a while someone will just remove a few of the pieces you've placed and throw them across the room. It's also well known for having the lamest final chapter and final boss in the series, and that reputation is richly deserved.

Overall:
It's unfortunate how badly it fails to stick the landing, but I quite enjoyed this game overall. I'm in the process of finishing up Sacred Stones as well, and unless that game really just blows me away at the end, I think I'd be inclined to call Binding Blade my favorite GBA Fire Emblem. It doesn't touch the upper echelons of the series - there's too many early-franchise quality of life annoyances for that without many of the charming parts that let Genealogy make up for them - but it does slightly more right than wrong.

Endgame Team: Roy, Fae, Milady, Shin, Lilina, Geese, Perceval, Clarine (who unexpectedly became a dodgetank that ran over half the wyvern riders in Chapter 21 all by herself), Fir, and Lalum

Other notable contributors throughout the game: Deke, Rutger, Allen, Shanna, and Lance

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Paradox Soul (Switch)

"Explore, Shoot, and Survive. Dr. Alli Rose is on the case.
Paradox Soul is an exploration based, survival Metroidvania that takes hand holding and throws it out of the window. Instead of spelling everything out for the player, the only way for Dr. Alli Rose to figure out whats going on in a peculiar test facility, is to descend deeper down the rabbit hole and figure it all out by herself.

No one is going to save her from this test facility, so help Dr. Rose collect every up-grade, defeat every boss and solve the mystery while you can. You are her only hope"

So...this Metroidvania was very average. It got a little repetitive with the duck and cover while taking pot shots at the enemies in some of the areas. That game description is from the eShop and the game does an awful job of even remotely telling you the story while you play. There is none. It just tosses you in. I'm all for gameplay but a little story would of been kinda nice. There are two cut scenes after you beat the final boss and the ending itself. It left me asking more questions and still wondering WTF was even the point of all of that. The ending creeped me out a little but it left me more annoyed if anything.

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Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia (DS)
The long-abandoned last DS Castlevania! Because it's tough as balls and I previously got sick of it near the end. It smoothed out near the middle but still was stressful overall.

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Undertale (PC)

I know, I know. Forbidden word on this board. I did a neutral run without using a guide, then I did a True Pacifist run. Watched a Genocide run just because I've seen the bad time simulator and I know it takes some grinding, and I didn't want to go through either of those things.

It's pretty great. I feel like it is very slightly overrated, but it's definitely one of the best indie games I've ever played, and undoubtedly the most impressive, especially considering how it was largely made by just one person.

The gameplay is the part that will stand the test of time for me. It's unique and novel but still intuitive, married to the story, gives you freedom of choice, and manages to make an RPG fun thanks to the freshness of each character's encounter and their individual personalities.

Most of the rest of the game is strong too too: most characters are great, the plot is good, the music is pretty good (although I've never paid a ton of attention to the music in a video game, as long as it's not bad or jarring), the visual style is consistent and never gets in the way, etc. However, I thought the game wasted my time once or twice, most notably when I had to read all of Alphys's social media updates in a misguided attempt by the game to reinforce its humor and atmosphere, and it almost feels like a game you'd need a guide for to get the best ending without playing it all the way through 3 times. I could see many people killing monsters on the first playthrough, not giving Undyne water on the second playthrough, and then finally getting True Pacifist on the 3rd or 4th try.

It's somewhere around an 8.5/10 to a 9/10 for me.

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Hey! Pikmin (3DS)
I was never able to get into the main Pikmin franchise (I tried twice to play the first game, once on Game Cube and once on Wii, and it didn't keep my interest either time), but I enjoyed this side-scrolling platformer spinoff. It was very cute, kinda simple but with some challenging parts, and a lot of fun. Definitely makes me want to give the main series another look. A couple of negatives are that they didn't do too much with the Pikmin Park (I never even unlocked all the areas), and the bosses were mostly pretty easy. Some of them were a little difficult to read their patterns, but once I figured them out they were a piece of cake. Also, in the later levels where there was a lot going on, there was noticeable lag.

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Persian Nights: Sands of Wonders (Switch)

This was a very nice point and click game. Find hidden objects, puzzle solving with a few mini games thrown in. Nice graphics, decent voice acting and an alright story. It was fun.

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Sounds like this was your first foray into Artifex Mundi

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Girls und Panzer: Dream Tank Match (PS4)

I still don't know why I bought this one. Finished the story mode last night. Pretty similar to Valkyria Chronicles if everyone was a tank instead of having some (overpowered) foot soldiers and a few tanks. Nothing in the story mode was too challenging, except the one mission where you have to traverse an entire mountain stage in five minutes, where falling off or getting bombed from above is instant game over. Made it with only a few seconds on the clock.

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KCF0107 posted...

Sounds like this was your first foray into Artifex Mundi

Yes. I had Persian Nights sitting in my backlog for the longest time and finally got around to playing it.
I see Artifex Mundi has quite the catalog of games similar to Persian Nights, yes?

Haunted Castle (Arcade)

Castlevania at the Arcade in the same style as Castlevania on NES but with different stages, bosses and music.
I played this via Konami Arcade Classics Anniversary Collection on Switch.
I also opted to play the Japanese version cause enemies do less damage to you.

Protips: Get the Sword. Yes. A Sword. For whatever reason Simon Belmont can use a sword in this game and it's better than the Vampire Killer Whip in both range and power. Also, get the Stop Watch. The Stop Watch is ridiculously busted in this game cause it can also freeze every single boss in the game.

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Donut County (XB1)

What a fun, dumb game

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Sea of Solitude (XB1)

Well I am glad that I didn't buy it. It was okay. There are some frustrating elements to the gameplay due to it being unpolished, and while I know this is based on the writer/creative director's life, I was interested in story or characters.

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Gris (PC)

Oops, guess I'll have to play this again if it gets selected for February's GotM (hopefully not since it leaves Game Pass on February 1st, which I didn't know when I nominated it). Great game, though.

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Yakuza: Like a Dragon addendum: Got the platinum. That last dungeon is no joke but I guess the grind for it wasn't completely terrible.

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I technically have had this game done for a few weeks, but I kind of want to get to 100% and now that I have all characters, all mini-kits, and all gold bricks, I'll count this as beaten.

Lego Star Wars: The Complete Edition (Steam)

Still gotta do the challenges for each level, then I'll probably be done fully, but now all collectables that change things in the Cantina are done at least.

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Mafia III: Definitive Edition (PC)

Okay. When i first played Mafia I remake, I didn't know if I was going to do all three. I had already heard this game having bad reviews and all that. Repetitiveness, lack of things to do. Well. I went into it anyway, and I can see why its hated by both the Mafia fans and the non-fans. But what they don't tell you though is how underrated this game is. Is Mafia III a bad game? It's good, but not great. But is it a better open world game than most? Hell yes.

It's like if someone cobbled pieces of Saints Row, LA Noire, and GTA 5, added a dash of realism and racism, and made a few qol improvements. Dareisay, Mafia III is a better GTA 5 in itself as it improves a variety of aspects; the cars arent so soft and easily broken, the map isn't too big, and the missions while yes repetitive for the most of it is saddled with some satisfying shootouts and driving sequences paired with some great writing, characters, and its dramatic storytelling. The 3 drastically different and moderately paced DLCs come with the Definitive Edition and I wondered why they weren't just here in the first place. Perhaps it was the intent all along and the game was rushed as with anything these days.

But what I'd really like to bring up that really needs to be said is all the little details this game does. Like, you can put dead bodies at the hood of your car, drive to the bayou, and feed them to the gators. And no mission does this! You just can do it. Whenever you drive into a tunnel with the radio on, the music statics out. Whenever you speed up, Clay visibly changes gears and head bops to the music. And just walking around and experiencing what racism was like back then is satisfying on an immersive level. It's a shame my journey in this game and this series has come to an end. But I think if there was gonna be a next Mafia game, it has to absolutely build on this just as Asscreed Odyssey built on Origins.

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Mortal Kombat X (Story mode) (Replay) (PC)
It's a good story mode. Basic and linear. The QTEs are a nice touch.

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Maneater (PS5)

Pretty fun open world "clear all the icons off the map" kind of game. Gets a bit repetitive if you go for 100% but I also rushed through all of it in less than two days, so maybe don't do that and it won't feel as repetitive.

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Brave Fencer Musashi (PS1)

I finished this game a long time ago using cheats. Now I've come back to finish it for real and now its Done. All action figures acquired. Done.

BFM remains my #2 game of all time, hands down. It is a testament of what a AAA company aspires to achieve when they get their shit together. It is wrought with innovation for a game made in 1998 and it was my first foray into Action RPGs. I've been meaning to come back to this for a long time now and I have to say I was a little afraid, but as it turns out this is probably the only game I've played in a long time where the nostalgia goggles stay glued to my face. I whistle to the soundtrack I fondly remember. I play the game by heart, like picking up a bicycle after 20+ goddamn years. I have no complaints. Even Steamwood was a refreshing thing to come back to; you just don't get that many fairly unforgiving minigames in RPGs now these days.

I implore anyone who hasn't played this to give it a chance. It's still good and it's still well-made. Unfortunately, it seems the only way is to emulate unless you can hunt down the disc.

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Whoops, been a while since I posted.

Ori and the Blind Forest:
I replayed this after getting the physical version for the switch. It's a really great platformer, and it was pretty neat to see how much better I did this time than my previous playthrough.

Link: The Faces of Evil Remake
Played the fan remake that removed lives and had other QoL improvements. The best part was definitely the animations and cutscenes.

Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon Remake
Similar to the Faces of Evil.

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I Am Dead (PC)

Very chill, very nice casual exploration game that takes the hidden object genre to a different level. Just, forget about the story because I'm telling you right now the ambiguous ending will leave a bad taste in your mouth. I think it was meant to be open-ended and vague on purpose so you could draw your own conclusions, however it just ended up being "Wait, what? That's it?"

I would still recommend it though. The best part about the game is probably the town of Shelmerston. The theme of the game depends heavily on knowing the town's history and culture and this game does that worldbuilding very very well, all the while making a solemn tug at those emotional strings as you explore people's past memories of dead inhabitants.

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Timespinner (Switch)

Very cool Metroidvania where your two big maps to explore are the same place, but one in the past and one in the present. Has a fairly intriguing story.

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Hades (PC)

Wow wow wow, was not expecting to like this game so much. I knew it'd be good but I didn't know how good. It's very, very good.

It never gets old, thanks to the great amount of fun builds you can get. The joy of jumping a few mobs and melting them in a couple seconds simply never gets old when you can do it in so many different ways. The story is solid too, and I think playing through the first clear is some of my favorite gaming I've ever done. I think 10 clears to get the credits was a tad bit extra, considering I was basically clearing the game just to be rewarded with a couple minutes of story for most of those, but this is basically my only complaint about the game.

9.5/10, super fantastic game.

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Fire Emblem: Three Houses - Verdant Wind (NS)

Just beat Claude's route. Dimitri's/Azure Moon was my first playthrough and I still have to play CF/SS (but I may never do that). Overall I thought this route was better than AM and delves much deeper into the actual lore. I'm fatigued by the game by this point however, it's a fantastic game but it's definitely quite slow. Maaaaaybe I'll still do Crimson Flower as it's shorter, but not for a good while yet.

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Dark Fall: Lost Souls (PC)

Put this off for a long time because it scared me shitless lel. It's a good game. A proper ghost one; the location was a more fucked up version of the one from the first Dark Fall. Some of the puzzles were brilliant and required observation above all which is quite rare in a pt click adventure. But some puzzles were frustrating as well and depended on triggers and steps taken. Probably the best puzzle for me was this simple 2x2 tile puzzle that was only difficult because there was this shadow thing in the room with you that was getting closer and closer if you didn't solve it in time.

Next up, Ghost Vigil

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The Messenger (Switch)

It was finally time for me to play this game after owning it for about a year and I felt like a fool for not playing it sooner!
This game was good. It felt very much like Ninja Gaiden.
I also enjoyed the Picnic Panic DLC. That was really something.

Cyber Shadow (Switch)

The wait for this game was worth it. While I was waiting for this game, I figured I'd play The Messenger to prepare me for this game sorta.
So yeah, there's some Ninja Gaiden vibes to this one but I'd say this game is more like Shadow of the Ninja. Eventually the game did have it's own identity as you get further into the game.

Game starts out a little slow but it picks up around Chapter 3.
Chapter 4 is where it gets good.
Chapter 7 is where it gets really, really good.
Chapter 8 is freakin' awesome and the rest of the game doesn't let up

My clear time - 06:54:17
Items - 100%
Deaths - 204

Not bad for my first playthrough!

Loved the 8-bit aesthetic, great soundtrack, good control and it has that old school difficulty you love and hate.
Definitely a must play.


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Hitman (2016) (XB1)

The series has long been one of my favorites, but man, I have a hard time deciding between this and Blood Money as my favorite. Blood Money has the best levels, but the freedom and quality of life improvements of the reboot are equally as great.

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13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim (PS4)

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/79265823

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Sackboy: A Big Adventure (PS5)
A cute, fun, and at times surprisingly challenging 3D platformer a la Super Mario 3D World. The levels were very well-made, the music was catchy (I especially enjoyed the levels set to actual popular songs), there were extras worth seeking out (although I did give up on a few of the Knitted Knight challenges... that 8th one I was never ever gonna beat), the villain was very entertaining and most of the other side characters were worth a chuckle as well, and I really loved Sackboy's facial expressions in the cutscenes even though he never spoke. I also like how they never really abandoned ideas. To my recollection, nothing was introduced just to be in one level and then never revisited. A couple of negatives - I wish they had done more with the aforementioned songs set to pop songs, like actually have you platform to the beat instead of just having enemies and a few stage elements move to them. I never really cared too much about changing costumes; I guess none of them really appealed to me. Plus the costume seller was the most annoying character in the game. And some of the level objectives weren't very clear. I still don't know what the spade was one each level. Other than those few minor gripes, I really enjoyed this and might go back to collect some more of the stuff I missed. I'd never played a game in the LPB series before, but now I'm inclined to dive deeper. As the PS5's launch platformer, this was a pretty solid effort.

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The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan (PS4)
Oof, I kinda sucked on that one. My only survivors were Alex and Brad. Better than I predicted though. I predicted (rather arbitrarily) that I'd only get Alex out alive. Fliss died by failing the QTE when Brad was attacking her with the wrench. Conrad died by jumping instead of facing the pinup zombie. Julia died because when Brad went to crush Orson with the door, I thought the QTE was a single button press. By the time I realized I had to mash the square button repeatedly, it was too late. But I do consider this type of game "beaten" if I get at least one survivor, so there's that. This wasn't nearly as good as Until Dawn. Fewer characters meant less grouping/splitting up, which is an aspect of anything with an ensemble cast that I really enjoy, and none of these characters were nearly as good as the upper tier of Until Dawn's characters. On the plus side, I didn't outright dislike anyone in this one, which is more than I can say for Until Dawn. I hope eventually this series gets back up to UD quality. I might replay this in the future to try and get everyone out alive.

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Hexologic (Switch)

Pretty cool number puzzle where you have each hexagon has an input of 1-3 dots, and select rows and columns have to equal a certain amount of collective dots. It's not too difficult, but I had to go through some puzzles many times before I finally came up with the correct solution.


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Dishonored 2 (PC)

Time heals all.

Four years ago, I beat this game on low-chaos but, I was under a feeling of ennui and distress. I was in the middle of a break-up and we were both fans of DH and its sequel was very anticipated (already announced at the time). She had gotten to play DH2 first but it was around this that a rift had formed. I remember just playing this game at the time because I thought I was over it only to feel even worse as the memories rushed back.

Today, not only do I get back into it enjoying it again, it was simply for High Chaos which just let me let loose playing this "stealth" game. I also think time has made me appreciate this game even more. DH1 is definitely a tough act to follow, but having forgotten it has made me feel less unkind towards to repetitive plot of the 2nd. It has 2 memorable levels of course; the Clock Mansion and the Time Twister, but also just being able to skulk around and looting and killing everything with a single level taking one and a half hours was just magical. I was much more into exploring things rather than the rushed tense stealthy nature of my first time.

With this, I can finally put this game behind me and look forward to a new chapter in more ways than one.

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Perfect Dark (XBLA)

This is a fun game. It was just kinda nice to go back to a game that still had enough big areas and mazy corridors but wasn't overwhelming in its hugeness. Pretty much all the weapons felt useful and had different modes to just make that even better.

There were some annoyances with the game where it felt it was very harsh. In one of the missions, you're supposed to blow up a gunship with an RPG. Except you only get one rocket and if you don't put on tracking mode, chances are you will not hit it. Except to put on tracking mode, you have to stand still for a bit and let it lock-on. This is after the gunship has been following you throughout pretty much the entire level together with enemies shooting you. And after this, you still have to take out about five enemies with shotguns who surround you. And if you do miss that rocket, objective failed, game over. Another mission later on asks you to put a communications tracker on a satellite dish. You have to throw this tracker, and you have to lower the satellite dish to do so. If you throw it before the dish is fully down, tough luck, the device will fly through and mission failed.

I also think the game has a rough difficulty curve in the final levels with some really obscure stuff it wants to you to do (blow up a rockface to reveal a ladder, except the ladder is really difficult to see especially if you don't really know to look for it). The overall gameplay is just so fun though, and Joanna is confident and sassy without it becoming too much.

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Bravely Second: End Layer (3DS)

This was one was pretty good as well. However, I felt virtually no connection to the characters or story, and the amount of (sometimes overly lengthy) conversations about food stopped being funny at some point. The gameplay is better than Default with many more jobs as well, but I thought Default's system was already good enough that the improvements weren't enough to offset my lack of real interest in the story and characters most of the time.

Still, a good game. I'm happy I beat it now, because I do want to play Bravely Default II in a month and now I'm up to speed with the series.

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One more to wrap up January...

A Hat in Time (Switch)
Sooo, based on how this board had spoken of this game in the past, I was expecting a masterpiece. I... didn't get that. I sure do have a lot of thoughts, but let's start with the good. I love how this was clearly a throwback to N64/PSX/Game Cube/PS2 era 3D platformers. The style, level design, characters, even animation were all reminiscent of those times, while looking just crisp enough to be on new platforms. The level design was great. Honestly, it reminded me a lot of Super Mario Sunshine (and I don't just mean the Time Warp levels, but the influence is particularly blatant in those), and, despite my gripes with the game that I will get to, I will probably recommend this to a friend who really, really loves that game. The music was fantastic. As a music lover, this is always a huge plus for me in any game I play, but particularly in platformers it seems to affect me the most. The humor was spot-on. It wasn't laugh-your-ass-off hilarious or anything, but I really appreciate when a game (or really any piece of media, but especially a game) can so pointedly and deliberately not take itself seriously. The characters, dialogue, and scenarios were so ridiculous that the game didn't just serve as a throwback to early 3D platformers; it was practically a parody of them. Mustache Girl, The Snatcher, DJ Grooves and The Conductor were all great, memorable characters.

And now for the bad. The first time I tried to play this game, over a year ago, I started to feel sick very early on (after just five hourglasses). I didn't really think the game was the cause, but because of an almost Pavlov-like reaction, I didn't go back to it. I restarted for this run through and once again, I started to feel sick very quickly. This time I figured it was the game, so my first thought was to turn down the brightness, which helped. So yeah, I had to turn down the game's default brightness to play it without getting sick. Great start. Technically, the game was a mess. The camera sucked. I have no idea how you can mess up a free-roaming camera on a 3D platformer in 2017, but they friggin' did it. The physics, specifically Hat Girl's interactions with objects, terrain, and enemies, were weird. It made it difficult for me to pull off the type of precise acrobatic maneuvers that I'm used to pulling off in, say, a 3D Mario game. These two things combined led to a lot of deaths that I really didn't feel were my fault. Lots of graphical glitches too. This, combined with the bad camera and wonky physics, made for an experience that felt very unpolished. Was that intentional, being a throwback to older games? If so, I didn't like it. A lot of the hourglasses were way too long for just a single hourglass. Murder on the Owl Express comes to mind (even though I loved it), but the biggest offender was the Alpine Skyline, which was just way too big and way too long for its own good. The Disease Has Spread was particularly annoying, basically having to go through the whole giant level all over again for one more hourglass. Oh, and in that level, it didn't autosave after every hourglass like it had done the entire game up until that point. You had to exit the level in order to save. This wasn't made clear to me and I shut the game off after getting two of them, and came back to find the level untouched. This frustrated me so badly that I put the game down for a week. Real nice.

Overall, while I'm glad I played it, I was a bit disappointed and didn't get the experienced I expected and hoped for going in. I can absolutely see what they were going for. There's something there, and even as it is there was plenty of good, but there were just too many flaws and the end result was a game that just didn't quite click as well as it could have. If they had just ironed out the creases, I think this really could have been an all-time stellar 3D platformer. Instead, it's just okay.

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So right now I'm on pace to beat 108 games this year. That's obviously not gonna fuckin' happen, but I think I could easily beat my personal best of 27 in a single year.

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Why 108

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They beat nine games in January, and multiplying that by 12 months in a year comes out to 108.

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Song of the Deep (XB1)

It kind of reminded me of a cross between Aquaria and Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet. It ultimately didn't realize its full potential, and controls were a little finicky in non-combat situations, but it was still a thoroughly good game.

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Tales from the Borderlands (PS4)

As someone who loves FPSes, I am disappointed by the lackluster gameplay from the main series, but the lore and humor is perfect for this kind of game. I was skeptical when people said it was the finest work of the final era of Telltale (Sam and Max games from the previous era still reign supreme), but I have to say that they were right.

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Spider-Man: Miles Morales (PS5)
Obviously not quite as good as the first, which is to be expected since it really isn't a full-fledged sequel, but I think calling it an expansion is not quite doing it justice. It feels kinda like what Lost Legacy was to the Uncharted series. A smaller-scale entry, but still a full-fledged game. Still a lot of fun. The changes to the combat took a lot of getting used to, despite the fact that they were mostly relatively minor tweaks. That being said I do like how these changes established Miles as his own Spider-Man rather than just being the same Spider-Man with a different person behind the mask. I liked Miles as a protagonist and the more personal relationship he had with the antagonists, whereas Peter's was mostly professional. I also wasn't a fan of the app. I liked just randomly finding crime in the first game, which felt rather absent in this one. I look forward to this series continuing. Hopefully the next one will be a joint-venture where you play as both Peter and Miles. Looks like they're finally setting Green Goblin up for the villain.

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Yoku's Island Express (Switch)

I think I bought this game sometime during Spring last year, probably April. I generally just played it a little bit occasionally, but I was at 26% until a couple of days ago, when I picked it up again and got quite into it. I beat the game with 70% on my file, so I didn't quite find everything but still did a good amouny of side stuff. Really fun and beautiful game with a mix of genres, incredibly charming as well. Sometimes moving around through some pinball sections got a bit tedious, but I found it incredibly clever how they created this game world entirely with those pinball mechanics, very impressive!

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Cyber Shadow(PC)
Really good Ninja Gaiden like. I'd say it brought more to the table than The Messenger.

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Rance 01- Quest for Hikari (PC)
This is a weird one. The original Rance 1 is super low-budget, archaic, has MS Paint graphics and is carried entirely by its writing and characters. They took the plot beats of this some 24 years later and made an actual modern RPG. With H scenes. The battle system is a casino chip thing where you "bet" any number of items with cooldowns to attack and defend each turn, and dungeon navigation is based on choosing cards. It's not meant to be that deep but still has some challenge to it. And there are some highly unusual status effects.

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Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage (PS4)
Such an improvement over the first one! Level progression was much better, and even though I think the game was actually smaller in area than the first, there was so much more to do. Collecting orbs was way more involved and fulfilling than rescuing the dragons. The story was much better and the final boss fight was actually fun, unlike the awful one in the first game. Very satisfied with this one and I've heard that the third one is even better still.

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Underleveled posted...

Very satisfied with this one and I've heard that the third one is even better still.

That's questionable, expect a slightly more unbalanced experience with some worse level designs here and there, and a few annoying minigames, but the best parts of Year of the Dragon are as good as 2.

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Hades (Switch)

Very fun game, although after the first five or so escapes every run started to feel pretty same-y. I love the characters and the writing but think the plot is pretty weak, especially compared to Bastion (and to a lesser extent Transistor).

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Yo-kai Watch (3DS)

Well, that was short. That's all right though, it is very charming and the combat is fun and interactive, but the rate of befriending Yo-kai is annoyingly low (even with the ways you can increase it), so testing out different yokai was kind of difficult and the sidequests are underwhelming (and some require that low befriending rate to work). Not sure if I'll play the other two in the series, but as they're considered better, it might be worth it considering the foundation they laid in the game is really good.

I could go and do the post-game, and I may check that out later.

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Medal of Honor: Allied Assault (PC)


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Super Mario Run (Mobile)
First time I think I can ever say I finished a game on a break at work. Finally wrapped this up having played most of it when it was fairly new. It's a free-to-play mobile game. It's fun for what it is and at times surprisingly tricky. Nothing I'd have paid more than a dollar or two for. I suppose this is exactly what I'd expect from a one-button 2D Mario platformer. It's nothing to write home about but it's not meant to be.

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