Board 8 > Post Each Time You Beat a Game: 2022 Edition

(+) Yeah! (+)

Do pure VNs count as games?

Up to you. I think that there are strong arguments for yes and no.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/9/6/6/AADUNGAAC22m.jpg
Pokemon Brilliant Diamond (Switch)
Actually beat it a week after release, but I just finished doing everything I wanted to do. Got a Black Trainer Card which means I finished the National Dex, got a 100 streak in the battle tower, beat a Master Contest and got 100 different statutes in the underground

Honestly...this game pretty sucks? it's such a lazy remake and took so many steps backward. It also shows that DP were not really good games. A regional Pokedex of 200 but you only have access to about 170 of them before you finish the E4 means you get to face the same Pokemon over and over again. Or make the same team again and again

The QOL features also took a huge hit. TMs back to one use. Hatching eggs take forever. No fast way to level up Pokemon. BP grinding is slow until you reach a high ranking in Masters but that will take a long time to get there

Also it forces friendship bonuses on you and that's feel like cheating. I can forgive the EXP share but the forced friendship is terrible. Suddenly I land a crit, or survive with 1 hp, or debuff a statues effect or...the worst - actually evade a move altogther. Can't help but feel like a cheating.

And If I mention cheating - the Battle Tower sucks and doesn't respect your time. To unlock Masters you need to clear a 49 trainers streak. To get a star on your trainer card you need to get a 100 streak.
You lose once and you need to try again. Losing at 47 or so means you just wasted 3 hours of your life. And you usually lose to some bullshit like missing a attack against Pokemon holding Bright Powder. Or getting hit by a crit.
It's too punishing.
At the end I used two cloned Pokemon with illegal move combo, like No Guard Machoke with Fissure and Endeavor Aron. I cheated and beat it. I beat Masters too. And I don't regret it one bit because the Battle Tower sucks so much

Also barely any new content but that's because I want to believe they saved it for Legends Arceus. I will see if it's true in just a few hours

Secret Files: Tunguska (Switch)
This is a point-and-click game that was apparently released on PC back in 2006. The game and its sequels were even ported to the Wii and DS and yet I never heard of it until another game that I apparently had on my eShop wishlist, Lost Horizon, was on sale for $2. All six games between both series were on sale for that price, so I bought them all and decided to start with Secret Files.

So, let's start with the good. It was pretty creative. I enjoyed trying to figure out the puzzles, even if sometimes I had to resort to trying every item on everything in the background. At least the things you could interact with were clearly marked so that didn't involve trying everything in your inventory on every square inch of the screen like some point-and-click games make you have to resort to trial-and-error. In case you got really stuck, the game came with a built-in step-by-step guide, which I had to resort to on 5 occasions through the game and only after I had been hopelessly stuck at an apparent dead-end for a very long time. The first time was because there was an interactive background object that I couldn't clearly see because the default position of my player character on that screen was in the way of it. The second was a dumb mistake on my part that made me learn my lesson about a gameplay mechanic. The third was something I swear I had tried without any luck. The fourth was because I totally missed a room because there were two exits so close together that they looked like one. The fifth was because I needed to use two different items on the same object in a way that trial-and-error was never going to get me to and I never would have thought to use them together in that way on my own. Even with those mistakes, there was nothing that made me go "who the FUCK would have ever thought to do that?!" like I have in some of these types of games. The graphics were pretty decent for 2006, even though they clearly hadn't been remastered or updated and have been directly ported from the original source code, and the level designs were pretty neat. And I kinda liked the two lead characters, and a couple of the supporting characters amused me a bit as well.

The bad. The plot? I didn't give a shit about it. It was boring, it was messy, it was poorly paced, and it was stupid. The dialogue was terrible. Very rote and basic, but probably made infinitely worse by the fact that the voice acting was atrocious. Even for a video game, not a single one of these actors was convincing. Every single line of dialogue in this game belongs in the "worst voice acting in video games" compilation on Youtube. It's awful. The inflection is always wrong, there's no distinction between the characters speaking out loud and thinking, every character speaks in a distinctly American accent despite only one character in the entire game being American (this was especially noticeable in the section that takes place in Cuba), there is no consistency in the pronunciation of some names (including the main character's last name), it's just terrible. The acting in Attack of the Clones was ten times more convincing than this mess.

Since I bought the sequels and enjoyed the main characters enough to see where their next adventure takes them and kinda liked the gameplay, I will probably play them, but I'm not rushing to. If you're a fan of the genre and can get it for the $2 I paid, you might decide it's worth it. If you're not a fan, this won't draw you in and you're better off starting with one of the more well-known games/series the genre has to offer.

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (PC)
I was waiting on actually being fully done with the game before reporting and it ended up taking quite a while. There isn't much in common with Souls and Bloodborne here. It's not even really an ARPG, which makes for one less thing to fall back on when it gets difficult. But the combat, traversal and particularly boss fights make for dazzling displays of ninjutsu. The freaky fantasy creature designs are as cool as ever, too.

Blasphemous (PS4)

Really good Metroidvania (with a couple bad parts, most notably the Bloodstained crossover...). Not nearly as challenging as I'd heard but maybe I'm just awesome at this genre? (This is not the case.)

I wasn't a huge fan of the setting, which is Catholic Guilt: The Video Game. It's definitely one of those games where everything is so bleak that it stops being sad and just becomes exhausting. The fatalities you can do on enemies also feel very gratuitous and out of place. I liked almost everything else though.

Shovel Knight: Shovel of Hope (Switch)

Going to count each expansion separately because I'm not sure when I'll get to the others.

I wouldn't necessarily call Shovel Knight an all-time great action-platformer, but it's definitely quite good. Glad I finally played it!

Owyn's Adventure (PC)

It looks like a Game Boy game but doesn't play like one with its momentum-based running and jumping. Short but neat. I had no idea there was no auto-saving, so I ended up playing the intro parts like 3-4 times.

RE8, last week

Pretty good stuff! Some good scares, satisfying action, decent story and some classic RE insane characters

Felt like it was slipping more into RE5 or 6 mode than RE4 at the end, and that's not a compliment. That said, I mostly like the way it mixes RE7 and 4 to create something new.

Thought the factory went on way too long and the castle was the game's peak, a shame since it was so early.

8/10 I guess? Could go higher. I think 7 was better.

not sure if this counts, but I beat Final Fantasy XIV ARR recently. Onto Heavensward!

Batman: The Telltale Series - The Enemy Within (Switch)
This is the second season of Batman: The Telltale Series. I played the first one for Game of the Month way back in 2018, then the sequel came out on Switch that October. I picked it up instantly and got through the first episode and a half, and then abruptly dropped it. I don't remember why, even though I can remember a lot that was going on in my life at that time. So it got selected for January Game of the Month this year and I decided to finally pick it back up and finish it.

Anyway, this was a Telltale game through and through, and I mean that in all the best ways. It doesn't do much to deviate from the company's formula but, like the first season, it does take a LOT of liberties with the license. Obviously the star of this season was the Joker and how you can turn him into a vigilante rather than an outright villain, even though you have to take him down either way, initially leading me to believe I failed and got a bad ending. I realized long ago in Telltale games that if you try to please everyone all the time you end up contradicting yourself constantly and only piss everyone off (I made a gigantic mess of this in The Wolf Among Us), so the best way to play is to prioritize 1-3 characters to maintain a positive relationship with and please everyone else only when it doesn't contradict your relationship with those characters. Continuing from the first season my #1 was Alfred, followed by Selina and, once I caught onto where their plot twist was heading, Joker.

Episode 1:
You and 9.9% of players told Gordon you could not talk about Lucius; You and 74.3% of players chose to visit Mori for information on Riddler; You and 56.3% of players took the drive from Mori by force; You and 28.5% of players let the agents die by not answering Riddler's questions.

Episode 2:
You and 50.1% of players convinced Tiffany to hand over the Phalanx Key and remain hidden in the vault; You and 71.6% of players reached out to Gordon in their time of need; You and 23.9% of players took Willy down violently when he pulled a knife on you; You and 42.2% of players attempted to minimize casualties in the convoy raid by following Harley, countering her chaos at every turn; You and 95% of players accepted John's offer of a pinky swear, becoming "friends for life."

Episode 3:
You and 61.4% of players warned Catwoman. She avoided the GCPD, and stole Harley's laptop before John; You and 64.5% of players coached John to be himself, and he told you about his time in Arkham; You and 82.4% of players told Tiffany your secret; You and 82.6% of players took the fall and were left in one of Mr. Freeze's cryochambers to die.

Episode 4:
You and 5.3% of players turned your back on Mr. Freeze, leaving him to suffer; You and 86.9% of players told John that you trusted him to find Harley by himself.

Episode 5:
You and 70% of players saved Willy; You and 77.4% of players took Tiffany out into the field; You and 68.5% of players refused to hand over Joker to Waller; You and 36.3% of players told Alfred you would give up being Batman; You and 55.1% of players defeated Vigilante Joker.

Overall I liked it. This is certainly a very good series. Knowing there probably won't be a third game made the final choice of the game a lot easier for me, even though I probably still would have done the same regardless (although I guess now that Telltale has risen from the dead maybe there could be a third game after all). I'll certainly play some more Telltale games in the future, but that was never in question anyway.

God of War 2

Much better game than the original. It still had some of the instadeath nonsense but it wasn't nearly as egregious

Agatha Christie - The ABC Murders (PC)

A long time ago I had finished a couple of AC point clicks and this was just something shelved a long time for. I would say this was the most faithful of the 4 but also obviously the least Adventure Gamey. But at least unlike And Then There Were None they didn't butcher the story by changing the plot completely. I think my favorite is still Evil Under the Sun cos it got that balance right. ABC Murders is interesting but its too simple and I like it because I've never read the actual story but I imagine this is probably the best way to do it unless you went full visual novel which should have been the choice honestly.

And just when I think its over, I now see that there is a "new" Hercule Poirot game where he looks nothing like Hercule Poirot. Looks like he got the Sherlock treatment. Playing that one soon.

EDIT: Nvm I'm reading that it sucks

Shovel Knight: Plague of Shadows (Switch)

Sooo this was an interesting campaign. Definitely harder than playing as Shovel Knight, definitely slightly more puzzle-y, definitely more frustrating in certain areas (on the other hand, you pretty much annihilate the bosses in seconds). For the first couple levels I didn't realize Plague Knight had a double jump and let me tell you. Some jumps were pretty tough without it!

Legends Arceus

Not "finished" finished but got the credits. This was fantastic. It's not just because it's a good, satisfying game but because future games that improve on this have so, so much potential.

Eldest Souls (PC)

Last year I played a terrible top-down pixelized soulsclone called Morbid. That game had everything I wanted in a 2d Soulsclone but the execution and certain useless mechanics left a droll taste in my mouth. Does this game hold up? Well. It did everything Morbid did wrong. Then, it lacked the bones to do anything else like I dunno tell a story. It's a boss rush game and I'm not gonna fault it for that but when you beat it the 2nd time it leaves this weird taste in my mouth and it normally expects you to do it 4 times.

The greatest strengths of this game were what it showcased: The boss fights which in turn unlocked skill points and a unique item that can be slotted 5 different ways so theorycrafting is the name of the game. Apart from that, the game attempts to do by the numbers Souls ambiance but without any curiosities save for about 5 pieces of paper to peruse it just feels like its a Souls plot as an excuse for the boss fights.

Still. Better than the last close I played (Hellpoint) so there is that. Maybe its finally time for me to get in on Nioh 2...

Murder by Numbers (Switch)

I have done some picture logic puzzles before but never a game solely dedicated to them. While I was a fan of the adventure elements not becoming bloated to completely ruin pacing or make me go through a needlessly convoluted plot, the lack of variety in puzzles did wear a bit thin at times. I beat it in around a week, but I would probably recommend going through it at a slower rate unless you already love picture logic puzzles. Also, the puzzles themselves could have added some quality of life aspects like an undo button and other basic features.

Back to the Future The Game (PS3)

This game seems like an amazing love letter for anyone who loves BttF. There are a ton of callbacks to the films, the developers managed to get a voice actor who does an uncanny impression of a young Michael J. Fox, and of course, Christopher Lloyd reprising his role as Doc does a great job. I like the films just fine, but I'm not a fan by any stretch of the imagination, so I mostly judge this game from an outsiders perspective.

It's a decent traditional adventure game. The story is not as good as the films, but that's not shockingfew games can stand up in that sense. It is good enough. Like most Telltale adventure games, it is split into five episodes, each 2-3 hours long. It does a commendable job at avoiding complicated puzzles or logical leaps, although there are a few spots where it's basically 'try everything and see what works.' I got a little stuck in the Speakeasy sequence with George McFly's picture and the final episode when trying to jog Edna's memory, though those are rare exceptions. For a Telltale game, the performance is pretty smooth.

The game hits a lull in the middle. The Citizen Brown stuff is kind of goofy and not really compelling, and the adventure tasks in that episode are not stimulating. It leaks a bit into episode 4, but going back to the main setting helps a lot with that. The finale also feels a little disconnected from the rest of the game. The main conflict wraps up halfway through the fifth episode and then another thing happens that could have maybe been it's own episode, but is resolved in two scenes. Despite this, I still say I enjoyed playing and it's a fun epilogue to that movie trilogy. If you have not seen the movies or don't like them, I think this one is easy to skip.

Serious Sam: Siberian Mayhem (PC)

Finished Normal in one sitting. This is what SS4 should've been. Taking advantage of the updated engine and graphics whilst giving it the charm from The First and Second Encounter instead of trying to be as obnoxious as possible. Elements that made SS4 terrible are gone in favor of the classical run and gun this series is known for. Its a shame there are only 5 levels however the third level took well over 2 hours for me as it is essentially a road trip from the highest snow mountain to the grasslands below, a journey spanning 2 vehicle sequences and alot of sightseeing as well as 25+ secrets had me taking my time and just admiring the design of it all.

Also love the final part where you get to fight the bad guy from SS4 who in that game was taken care of in a cutscene which wasn't at all expected because as this game explains in the ending, this expansion actually takes place in an alternate timeline---a very good excuse to set up this boss fight honestly. It was sorely needed after the disappointment that was the final boss of SS4.

These guys should be in the dev team for SS5. Or they should just make more of these Standalone Expansions. Its awesome!

The Punisher (Arcade)

Played via Fightcade with a friend. He was Punisher and I was Nick Fury.
Punisher and Nick Fury team up to take down Wilson Fisk, The Kingpin.
Very fun beat em' up. The main highlight of this game is the large amount of weapons you can use and temporarily using pistols to shoot down thugs whenever they wield firearms.

Cadillacs and Dinosaurs (Arcade)

Played via Fightcade with a friend. He was Hannah and I was Mustapha who is one bad Mamma Jamma. Another great beat em' up with a consistently good soundtrack. This one appears to be based on the comics (there used to be a short lived Saturday Morning Cartoon).
Feels good beating up a bunch of poachers that are hunting down dinosaurs.
This also has the best elevator sequence, a common beat em' trope, of all time. Mainly for the music
that plays in it.

Alien vs. Predator (Arcade)

Played via Fightcade with a friend. Another great licensed beat em' up by Capcom. My friend was Lynn Kurosawa and I was the Predator Hunter. Game is super fun and it has quite the intriguing story for a beat em' up which is something you don't really look into cause well, you want to play a beat em' up to beat stuff up! The body count on so many enemies on screen is quite impressive.
Interesting to note that is a well known piece of trivia: Lynn Kurosawa appears in Ken's stage in Street Fighter Alpha 2. I always felt her design was a prototype Ibuki.

G.I. Joe (Arcade)

Played via Fightcade with a friend. He was Roadblock and I was Scarlett.
A third person shooter developed by Konami.
Very good presentation. Too bad they didn't use a good voice for Cobra Commander.
Overall it was a fun game. Again, good presentation.

Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon (Arcade)

Played via Fightcade with a friend. He was Sailor Moon and I was Sailor Jupiter.
Based on the first season. It was very solid, if a little long.
The attention to detail with the levels with scenes based off the Anime was done really well.

Secret Files: Tunguska (PC)

I have been pronouncing Tong-goos-kah wrong this whole time apparently.

I decided to finally get in on an old adventure game trilogy after the bad taste in my mouth that was Saint Kotar. I've been hearing alot about this one so I finally got into it. Actually reminds me of another 3d-fied Broken Sword clone but this one's pretty good. Ah I miss my Adventure Gaming inventory puzzles. It's yet another globe-trotting mystery solving romp with two wise-cracking beta couple protagonists. What more could I ask for.

It was a great game. But if I had one thing to say its probably the tone. Nina the protagonist doesn't appear to have a day job and the way she constantly refers to her "Daddy" (and I just realized she's suppose to be Russian!) and from how she talks implies that she's pretty much still a teenager which doesn't really match the serious tone of the game. There's also what I imagine to be a budget problem where these people go all over the world and everyone sounds absolutely American lol. Removes from the immersion sometimes.

All in all the puzzles were great. I thoroughly miss that idea of just picking up everything and using them anywhere. Some of the more out there solutions is taping your celphone to a cat to listen in on someone inside a house which honestly I sorely miss haha. I think this is also the first of its kind in the genre to let you combine items because it actually doesnt allow you to make false combinations. As in the UI will only let you combine what needs to combine. Pretty nifty design choice and I wish it became the standard.

I also love the animation its clearly well done and emphasis is shown on presentation instead of aesthetic. I could care less for a 30 second animation of that lady from Syberia picking up a book in the library when a 5 second jump cut could do just fine.

Two more games in this set. Definitely finishing them this year. Maybe I'll just jump in the sequel next.

God of War 3

And a better game yet than God of War 2. Also it only took three games to get character progression out of Kratos. I look forward to the next one that everyone seems to like

Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment (Switch)

I'm glad this campaign was a bit more transformed than Plague Knight's was (though that one was fun too). It felt like a different game, even though the levels and bosses were still pretty similar. This might be my favorite so far, so we'll see if King Knight changes that.

Simoun posted...

Secret Files: Tunguska (PC)

I gotta ask, did I remind you of this? If not, what are the odds?

@Simoun

I wasn't certain if I wanted to include this, due to the fact that it's a VN where your only interactions with it is choosing what you read first at times and because this has been like two years in the making, but regardless, it counts.

Sorcery Jokers (Steam)

A VN with two protagonists, has some clear magical themes in a modern time period. One protagonist is obnoxious at the beginning, which really helps that the time period that'd be essentially the "Normal Route" of the game actually takes you through the PoVs of 5 different characters, then you hit the climax and then stick to just two characters. There's definitely some... things I really did not like with how a lot of the game was presented and the story told, but I mean, if there's someone that reads VNs, and likes the themes this VN has, I would just say there was someone who bought me this VN and swore by his recc of it. And I mean, the best heroine was worth it. Which adds to the fact that it's possible someone else reading this won't have that heroine as their favorite.

And turns out I wasn't far from the end of this one either.

Baba is You (Steam)

Feels a bit weird to count it as beaten when there's "post game", but you don't have to access the extra world where You have to win while on the map screen which all in all was pretty clever. I'll still be going after everything, but at least the base game of it is done.

The Medium (PC)

This was an interesting game. I'm not one to play horror games but I've been meaning to play it since last year due it being on Game Pass, but with it leaving Game Pass next week, I thought I'd finally give it a go especially since I saw that it wasn't very long.

The game is essentially a horror walking sim with some puzzle solving. There are sequences where a monster chases you and you run or hide from it, but those don't happen very often. There's only one real jump scare in the entire game and it's a pretty random one. Sure it has things that'll startle you, only one scene in the game is a deliberate jump scare. In all honestly though, hearing that's what the game is like is probably what got me to even play it.

Plot was ok if kinda abstract, though I can't exactly say I was thrilled to see the game end on a cliffhanger. But I have to say, the character Troy Baker voiced was definitely not one I was expecting. His range really shows here.

Well that's the 2nd game I've beaten this year and on Game Pass as well. This thing is starting to show its worth.

Masters of Anima (XB1)

I'm a big fan of Pikmin/Overlord-style RTS with its tower-defense PC and strong exploration/adventure elements. No clones of those series have been on their level, and Anima is the same. The non-combat portions are very good, especially in the later forest levels, but the combat is a slog and not very dynamic. Unit control is also a bit of a pain given the movement and attack speed of enemies and their target tracking.

Devil May Cry HD (PS3)

I came to this game kind of late. Never played any other game in the series before, so did not know quite what to expect. My first experience in the genre was the God of War series, which I see owes a lot to DMC. Some of it is very explicitly taken from it, like the red orbs in both games, or the interconnected world.

Devil May Cry is very rough, but that's not surprising for what it is. It was early on the PS2 and I do not think there was anything quite like it before. The problems with the game are a product of its time: bad voice acting/dialogue, awful camera, and uneven balance. In some ways the game feels like a prototype of later character action games. Some of the attacks you can unlock early are game-breaking if you just spam them. This is not a problem on harder difficulties, because once you get to the toughest one, it doesn't really matter what attacks you use, they all do basically nothing. On normal, it's easy to just kind of forget any sort of comboing or strategy.

But going back to the difficulty, Dante Must Die! was a bit too much for me. It did compel me to really improve my play, but ultimately I finished it by grinding out NG+ items and using them to brute force my way through a few of the hardest bosses. I think with enough patience I could have done it the normal way, but I got tired of it and the items you get are basically cheat codes once you stockpile enough of them.

The style is a turnoff for me. Very "edgy" and every character is totally boring. Dante is so silly. I was happy to finally understand the context of the infamous "fill your dark soul with light" scene, though. It's slightly less nonsensical to me now.

Shovel Knight: King of Cards (Switch)

So I think this was my least favorite of the 4 campaigns. The stages themselves were fine, but I really did not enjoy Joustus at all and never felt like I got any good at it. Luckily you can kind of brute force your way through with powerful cards and Chester's cheats.

I didn't think I'd end up playing all 4 stories in a row like this, but I wasn't really up to starting some new game and this was simple and familiar. Taken as a whole Shovel Knight is a really, really good package of game(s).

Knockout City (PS4)

Another multiplayer game that I platinum'd.

Overall a pretty fun game. The skill ceiling doesn't seem absurdly high so it's easy to kinda jump into the game and just have fun. That said there's not a whole lot of variety so it's not that fun to play for a long period of time.

Underleveled posted...

I gotta ask, did I remind you of this? If not, what are the odds?

@Simoun

I don't believe so. I'm a part of a Point Click Adventure group on facebook. And this game comes up often. Damn I just saw your post about it haha, what are the odds indeed!

I honestly miss pt click adventures that just have a ton of inventory and in this one I love how the protagonist is self-aware about it like OH I WONDER WHAT CAN I USE IN THE TRASH...ILL TAKE THESE.

And I remember the game I couldn't bring up when I made that post---Nibiru. Nibiru followed the formula of Broken Sword and Secret Files and did everything down to the indiana jones plot and the twist being aliens and it was terrible. Progression and elements felt like a checklist. Dialog was boring. Backtracking. Puzzles were there for puzzles sake. Logical puzzles depended on talking to someone before being able to interact with something. But it had all the beats.

I look forward to your opinions on the 2nd and 3rd game. I dunno if I'll get to them yet.

Corecraft PRO (Android)

Bought the no ad version to earn me twice amount of bits per level. There was no fanfare or anything but I did finish the final level and that was good enough for me. Paying for PRO is all but necessary in the endgame where you are forced to grind to upgrade some very necessary parts. This, and Bullet Hell Monday are what I consider to be the 2 best shmups on mobile. Both games present unique mechanics in the tired genre and more importantly, are smartly designed to accommodate the fact that you're playing on your phone. Often times a shmup does not translate well to phones because your finger often blocks incoming shots making you lose easier.

Disgaea PC (Steam)
Well that is a broken-ass port, but once the troubleshooting was done to an adequate extent, a very enjoyable SRPG. The lightness of it is what makes it fun. No permadeath or level-scaling, you just play the best you can and build characters at the speed you want. And Item World is such a great concept, just SRPG procedural map generation before the Roguelite craze, even if it does like putting enemies in places where it's actually impossible to reach or attack them sometimes.
Got a bad ending because I guess I team-killed with an AOE at least once. Oh well.

Oh yeah also
Pokemon Legends: Arceus (Switch)
Also not done with it but saw the credits yesterday or so. A solid game of a unique type. Not your typical Pokemon experience but quite engaging to me as a long-time fan. Throwing Pokeballs and running around with your creatures is great... Dealing with some less-polished aspects around RNG and lack of signposting when it comes to completion, not so much. It also has some of the text cutscenes I've least felt like clicking through in a video game, but it wasn't entirely bad as a story.

And follow-up
I have mixed feelings.
The RNG killed me at the end, specifically Distortions spawning, but it didn't take that long. It's weird how I expected Pokedex completion to take longer than catching all Pokemon but they were nearly simultaneous simply because of the 4-5 species locked behind those RNG monstrosities.
But as a reward I get to be Jacob and have a badass boss fight with God Itself. I know saying the boss fights in this are Soulslike is a bit of a stretch but that last one grasps the concept. Regardless it's a good boss fight of any type.
I also like how you don't capture Arceus but just prove yourself enough to get a construct presented to you that fights the same way. Always seemed weird to catch God in a Pokeball.

Persona 5 Strikers (PS4)

A definite worthy follow-up to the original Persona 5 story, though in the end I thought the overall ending was kind of underwhelming. Was nice to see all the characters again and some of them finally getting a chance to develop, like Haru missed out in the original. Played it mostly on PS5 so there was very little load times and the game ran very smoothly throughout the entire experience. Will get the platinum soon as I already did the bond grinding in Osaka when I had the chance.

Guardians of the Galaxy

Got it because it reviewed well/had good worth of mouth and dont regret it. Initially before it came out I thought it looked pretty bad, but its a very enjoyable game. The character writing is great and theres a ton of good banter and funny moments in the dialogue. Gameplay is decent though could be better. Great game!

swordz9 posted...

Guardians of the Galaxy

Got it because it reviewed well/had good worth of mouth and dont regret it. Initially before it came out I thought it looked pretty bad, but its a very enjoyable game. The character writing is great and theres a ton of good banter and funny moments in the dialogue. Gameplay is decent though could be better. Great game!

Glad you enjoyed it. Admittedly I didn't play TOO much newly-released stuff last year, but of the five or six new games I did play it was my GotY pick.

Badland (PS4)

Badland is a mobile game that was ported to console. It's a simple one button plus one stick game. You control this little flying thing that has to navigate an auto-scrolling level full of deadly obstacles. Not hard to pick up, but very challenging and kind of frustrating at times. It's pretty fair, with only a couple moments feeling like they are too hard, at least as far as finishing the game. There are side missions in each level which might be a bit too hardI went for a few and I am not even going to try to go for all of them.

Rainbow Billy: The Curse of the Leviathan (XB1)

There was a lack of puzzle variety, and sometimes the battles had some really unfair gimmicks, but overall this was a great lighthearted game.

Serious Sam 1st/2nd Encounter HD + Legend of the Beast DLC (PC)

Siberian Mayhem made me reminisce the good ole days so I decided to fire this up and finish it. I never truly finished it back then I was a kid and I just used cheats. But now I can finish it on normal and call them beat. 1st Encounter was a real tech demo and didn't really earn the classic formula until the last leg of the game but 2nd Encounter *smacks lips * is still good despite its flaws like the infamous bouncy bouncy room. I also got all the secrets while I'm at it and I absolutely hate Kleers now.

The DLC I thought was gonna be another short classic romp but it turned out to be a well-designed set of three stages where the aim was to starve your resources and toss you into a difficult situation. Your strongest weapon in this was the rocket launcher which you wouldn't get until the final level (you could snag it early but won't have the ammo for it). You don't even get the shotgun until close to halfway into the DLC, forcing you to suffer through the twin pistols you almost never use and the knife. Enemy placement was more tactical here that is to say theyre more varied and spread out than just send multiple Xs in a wave and let you deal with it. And that final boss was uhhh well I preferred it honestly even though it was a puzzle boss and a throwback at that.

I actually now want to finish SS2 and 3 properly; I never really got to before and just cheated them as a kid. I know SS2 sucks balls but recently it was updated to be less-sucky. I wanna see how the devs made it possible hahah call me a masochist. At the very least it'll tide my retro shooter hunger until Shadow Warrior 3 on March.

Bartzyx posted...

Badland (PS4)

I love Badland. Beat it on the iphone ages ago. You gonna play the 2nd one too? I think its slightly easier cos they add more mechanics.

Kirby Star Allies

Short and simple game with Kirby charm. Theres lots of ally characters you can have on your team and you can combine abilities which is fairly fun. It feels really short though since the whole game is so easy youd have to be super distracted or intentionally trying to die. One thing that annoys me is a full clear of the story doesnt get you anywhere near enough puzzle pieces to fill out the ton of them they put into the game so youd have to replay stages or modes A TON to actually finish all of them (its optional at least). Wanted to play it before the new Kirby next month since that looks incredible and I felt playing this after that would be a bad idea.

Simoun posted...

I love Badland. Beat it on the iphone ages ago. You gonna play the 2nd one too? I think its slightly easier cos they add more mechanics.

No. It's a mobile only game and I don't play those.

Huh. I would've assumed they ported the 2nd one too. My bad.

finished Fell Seal this week. it was pretty fun but I didn't see any reason to use weapons other than guns

Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion (Steam)
I came in with no assumptions and it was okay. It's not quite a Zelda-like as a 3/4 overhead walking sim with light Zelda dungeons. The humor is also hit or miss. Very meme-heavy. And I always felt like I was fumbling with my equipment in combat. But it's fine, I gave it an hour or two and didn't regret it. The later-added battle gauntlet was fun for long enough to get its associated achievements as well.

Fire Emblem (Blazing Sword) (GBA)
This... Ain't great. And I knew that coming in, because it had lost my interest once before, but I pressed on this time since I've been on such an FE kick this past year, and it just never really got better. Has all the problems of the other GBA games in the series, plus an even more basic story, less interesting characters, and unmemorable map design on top of it.

Better than Fates and Shadow Dragon but that's it as far as localized titles go, but worse than everything else including the three unlocalized entries I'm familiar with. Oh well, can't all be winners.

No more FE for a while, I think.

Sprung (DS)
This game has always been on my radar. I was aware of it through Nintendo Power when it was one of the first games for the DS, and was kind of aware of its premise. I associated it a bit with Feel the Magic, another dating-based DS game that came out around the same time and which I've also played. I knew that Sprung got poor reviews when it came out so it kinda flew by me for many years. Then it came up in a topic on this board last year and a few people said it was actually kind of okay. This prompted me to look into it and as it turns out, the poor reviews were mainly because VNs and dating sims hadn't taken off in the States yet, and retrospective reviews of the game have been much more positive. I did however know that the game was a bit tainted because a certain infamous internet persona actually got their letter into Nintendo Power stating that the game helped them overcome their fear of talking to women (and let's just say that that fucking explains a lot), but I decided to give it a go anyway.

I wouldn't say the game is a pure VN, nor is it a pure dating sim. It's kind of a mix between the two. There is one "right" person you're supposed to end up with and most missions can be failed with poor dialogue choices; actually, as the game progresses, many scenarios have a very specific set of dialogue choices that you have to select in order to progress, and there can be a lot of trial and error involved - the instinctive "right" thing to say isn't always really right. I guess I'd call it a text-based adventure game.

There are two stories, both involving the same characters, but with parallel continuities. I played through both stories and initially thought I was going to be playing through the same set of events from two different perspectives, but that's made blatantly clear from the start that that isn't the case. The two leads, Brett and Becky, are both very likable. They're believably flawed while still being good enough people at heart to want to root for them. This is especially true of Becky, who was, hands-down, the best character in the game. I actually enjoyed playing through her story more because I felt it had a lot more heart put into it, and some more interactivity beyond just talking to people, as awkward as it was for me, a heterosexual man, flirting with men, while Brett's story was a bit more on the "just go around picking up chicks" side. Obviously, the goal in each story is to end up with the other, which I accomplished under very different circumstances (as I said, Becky's ending definitely had a lot more heart and passion put into it, but both had elements that really just warmed my heart; there's one particular pic of them together that really just made me melt). Most of the rest of the characters were over-the-top caricatures of the sleaziest pick-up artists you'd ever meet. Some of them are hilarious, others are pretty loathsome. The writing ranges from funny to sweet to really cringy. It's kind of a mixed bag but I forgive it for being a pioneer of the genre.

Some of the scenarios are just plain weird. There are several dream sequences, and "bonus rounds" that seem to be non-canon where you either insult people back-and-forth or just get as many people as possible to make out with you. The side characters also hook up with each other so frequently that I could never keep track of who was dating who at any given moment. The pacing could be weird at times, but again, I can kinda chalk that up to being an early entry in the genre. The animation and character art was actually really good and made the emotions the characters were feeling really believable. Becky of course had the best. Brett had a few really ugly ones, actually. Oh, and the music was REALLY catchy. Some of the tunes will be stuck in my head forever.

For such an early VN/dating sim, it's really not that bad. I am glad I finally played it and may play it again someday. It's no masterpiece or anything, but it's easy to find fairly cheap on eBay, and if you're a fan of the genre you'll probably find it was worth the time and money. Probably.