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

(+) Yeah! (+)

Pool Panic (PC)

Cool and bizarre puzzle game centering around the game of pool. Given the creativity involved, there are plenty of highs and lows, but I totally respect the game nonetheless.

Thief Gold (PC)

Another one from last year that just sat on my Desktop. I have a knack for getting interested in something only to chicken out later whereupon it sits for as long as I can finally have the guts to play it.

I am not a fan of stealth of games. I don't have the patience. But after finishing Dishonored, I finally gathered the gumption to play its spiritual roots. I can now see why this game is and always will be stellar much like my recent play of Ocarina of Time. I remember that apart from MGS there really wasn't a Stealth genre back then. Not only did this game set a bar with the genre, it was overall great in its storytelling, minimalist worldbuilding, voice-acting, gameplay loop.

I have spent more time quicksaving and loading than actually playing this game but it was fun I'll admit. It got a bit much with the Gold-expanded levels and the Undead parts, but the final act was great and it changed up the dynamics of gameplay by introducing an alien realm but at least it wasn't Xen-levels of annoying.

I am planning to play the rest of the trilogy and perhaps the black sheep 4th game. But for now I just want to rest. I haven't played a game where every level is 1-2 hours long since Tri: Of Friendship and Madness. I'm drained. And I actually had sleepless nights finishing this shit. I'm just glad its over. I'm just glad I can finally say I beat one of the greatest stealth games of all time.

Now to watch the speedruns.

Also I played this with the fanmade HD Textures patch and fully recommend anyone do so. It really helps.

GOGZero posted...

This sounds neat. I shall wishlist it.

I second this. Really good game and really funny too

Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze (Switch)

This one has been in my collection for a while, but I never really played it properly. Every time I started, I quit after a few levels. However, after numerous JRPGs lately, this was a welcome palate cleanser and I played it at the right moment I think.

Overall, I thought it was a great 2D platformer. It looks so colorful and atmospheric, has really good level design especially in the spectacle department and surprisingly long and tricky boss fights. There really isn't much wrong with the game per se. I personally played it on Funky Mode but always with Donkey Kong, took a lot of the tedium of collectables out, but the levels themselves remain challenging enough.

I marathonned most of the game today. It is definitely short, especially considering the price. Obviously, it would be a little longer had I played the original mode with just 2 hearts, but still, maybe an extra full-length world would not have hurt. Sometimes, I felt the flow of certain levels wasn't so great; as if you're meant to go at a constant fast pace and "flow" into the action like in the most recent Rayman games, but the physics aren't suited for that I feel. The trial and error is sometimes too much as well; especially later on, margins to see what's coming next and act are small. And finally, I didn't always like the control/feel of using the rolls and dashes, and I found Dixie Kong far more useful than the others for most of the game, which made me just pick her as the partner almost all the time.

These are honestly small nitpicks that others may not even care about or consider a flaw in the first place. It didn't hamper my experience much in the end, but that's just what I felt. Nevertheless, terrific game. And it just so happens to be the first Donkey Kong game I have ever finished in my life, I just realised!

Shovel Knight: King of Cards (PC)

I'm half-tempted to replay the original campaign to know how I would truly stack up all the modes, but I am comfortable believing that King of Cards would top my list. I was a big fan of its shorter levels with multiple exits approach. I wish the post-Shovel Knight games didn't take the Yoshi route of every character needing to have gimmicky basic platforming moves, but unlike Specter Knight, I did settle in with King Knight rather quickly. I didn't delve too much into the card game, but it is moderately enjoyable.

Shantae: Half-Genie Hero (PC)

I first played this in 2019 when it was on Game Pass, and I later received it as a part of our Steam Secret Santa gifts the following year. My opinion on it hasn't really shifted. It's a decent game but pales in comparison to Risky's Revenge and Pirate Curse. Shantae games seem to have a decent floor, but without the cool pixel graphics keeping me preoccupied, the weak and/or frustrating level design really sticks out here.

Into the Pit (XB1)

A really solid roguelike FPS. Mixing and matching magic types was a fun experiement until I settled on a select few to try and grab each run. My main issue is that while the gameplay was a lot of fun with plenty of enemy variety that is influenced by how you set up each run, the procedural level design could have just been a lot better. It just seemed like the pool of potential setups was quite limited.

Flynn: Son of Crimson (PC)

A by the numbers level-based platformer that appears to be following a laundry list of mandatory design choices. You got your pseudo-RPG skill tree, your Evil Warlord who doesn't do anything until you get to him. You got your 5 zones and your 4 elements. The chosen one. Your parents dead and actually members of an otherworldly bloodline passed onto you. That rival you keep seeing who keeps recognizing you somehow...and the sister you're hinted to have lost.

It had some interesting mechanics but in the end were not fleshed out. It had a BUNCH of characters, more than an average Shantae game and nothing actually happens between them save for 2-3 "quests". There's an RPG skill tree based on gems you collect but not only are levels and boss fights repeatable, the gem amount they harvest does not diminish allowing you to exploit the same level over and over. There's 3 weapons and 4 elements to play around with, but the puzzles concerning them are limited to 1 of the weapons and 1 of the elements. You would never use the Ice power again after the Ice levels, for example.

Bunch of incomplete ideas, masked as completed features in what is essentially a soulless effort. Music's great I guess. Long levels make sure I pay attention to them. Also the spritework is decent. The bosses all look cool like Shovel Knight cool but all of them have predictable tired patterns and no 2nd Form patterns to keep things interesting, that you would eventually kick their ass anyway. Solid platforming challenges. And in a surprise, this would be the 2nd game I've played this year with the accessibility option of making the player invincible, making me think this is probably just some budget title for children.

Oh and one more thing, the game controlled great and the combos though simple were satisfying right up until I unlocked the ability to wall climb. Even though this is a 2017 game, they decided to make it so you can't wall climb on the same wall repeatedly and are forced to input precision jumps of left to right in order to climb shafts. Mercifully these shaft sections are few and far and are always meant to transition. I dreaded that there would be an advancing floor of doom situation but thank god there wasn't.

This is probably the longest anyone will have ever said about this game. Only reason I didn't drop it midway was because I needed a fun casual palate cleanser after the meticulous save fest that was Thief Gold.

Celeste (Switch)

To be fair, I played most of this last year, but I just finished chapters 7 and 8 in the last two days. I made a start in the DLC chapter 9, but I feel like I'm done. I also did 3 B-sides I think. There is still a lot of optional content, but I consider it finished for myself.

It's a very good game in its genre; however, I have to accept that it really isn't my genre in the end. Especially that 8-direction movement is something I just couldn't deal with well with both the joycons and pro controller. So many deaths because of an input my thumb just can't control all the time.

Other than that, I can see that it's very good. Thematically fantastic progression, great music and lots of clever rooms to clear. Also, it's very forgiving by only making you clear a room once and then autosaving when you pass it. That is definitely great and makes it far less tedious, being able to focus on room-to-room challenges. Still they managed to build new mechanics in smoothly and with a great progression curve.

Almost only positives for Celeste, but the genre of 8-direction ultra-precise and hard platforming is not for me. I enjoy a little more chillness in my platformers, it can still be challenging but not the finger acrobatics that this sometimes becomes. And I assume this one isn't even as bad as some others in the genre. Still happy (and proud) I beat the game's main chapters and some of the extra levels, I'm satisfied with what I've gotten out of it.

The Looker (PC)

Lol.

Simoun posted...

Oh and one more thing, the game controlled great and the combos though simple were satisfying right up until I unlocked the ability to wall climb. Even though this is a 2017 game, they decided to make it so you can't wall climb on the same wall repeatedly and are forced to input precision jumps of left to right in order to climb shafts. Mercifully these shaft sections are few and far and are always meant to transition. I dreaded that there would be an advancing floor of doom situation but thank god there wasn't.

This is probably the longest anyone will have ever said about this game.

KCF0107 posted...

Flynn: Son of Crimson (XB1)

Very good 2D action/platformer, but sometimes the levels felt overly long, and the wall jump sucked, but that was only activated and sparingly used in the final quarter of the game.

You got that right

KCF0107 posted...

You got that right

I just found out it was a crowdfunded game. So that would explain the feeling of incompleteness to it. I feel bad that it got released on consoles for what it was. It could have just been a 10 dollar game on itch io or something.

I was actually on the verge of giving up my progress in that wall climb section. I only managed to beat it by switching to a controller and waggling the stick left and right while mashing the jump button.

Pocket Crystal League + (PC)

Free game and would highly recommend to fans of Pokemon and Inscryption

Nikopol: Secrets of the Immortals (PC)

So. Based on a novel, eh? Flying pyramid over a dystopian church state in France while a struggling artist finds out its his destiny to rule it after rescuing his father for Anubis. Okay lol.

This is a first person 360 degree point clicker (a genre that I thought was unique to only one studio) and honestly quite short but has some nice things you don't often see in a game like this such as stealth sections and death sequences. Thankfully it didn't have QTE thrown into the mix and instead relied on spatial quick thinking puzzles. It had the right amount of challenge and didn't overstay its welcome with padding.

Decent.

Lost Words: Beyond the Page (XB1)

This is a bit of a strange one. Half of the game takes place on literal journal pages where you do some platforming and other interactive things as the main character narrates parts of her life. It can be visually striking at times and this is where the voice actor for the girl performs the best, but it is ultimately a drawn-out, boring experience that could achieve everything it wanted to do narratively in a fraction of the time.

The other half of the game is playing out the story the character is writing. Here is another sort of platformer with light puzzle elements. This part is pretty pointless, something that it ultimately can't shake, but they do some interesting things here. Unfortunately, it is a very uneven experience with one chapter early on showing the promise that the various mechanics could exhibit while the subsequent ones don't expand upon or live up to it.

This could have been a very good or even great game if they cut this to about the two hour game it should have been while making the story chapters more robust. As it is, it is an okay game and something that I am glad I didn't buy outright and played through Game Pass.

A Memoir Blue (XB1)

A decent low-interaction adventure game about a former competitive swimmer. It doesn't linger too long from scene to scene and it the environments and effects look great.

Ori and the Will of the Wisps (Switch)

Great game. Pretty much every complaint I had about the first Ori is addressed here. Definitely the best Metroidvania I've played in a while.

It did chug a little on Switch though. Gotta imagine the Xbox version runs a bit better.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge (XB1)

A great retro-style beat 'em up. I'm glad this was on Game Pass while the player count was high enough to be able to do the pop-in, pop-out co-op with randoms. I didn't realize that you could look for players playing on a particular level, so I actually played the game completely out of order lol. I think that I did stages 12-15 first, then 6-10, then 1-5, then 11, then I purposely finished up with 1. I mostly played with April or Donatello, mostly by accident or was forced to because they were the only available character. I never played as Raphael or Michelangelo.

Maneater (PS4)

A very fun shark carnage simulator with savagely hilarious commentary on humanity by Chris Parnell. An arbitrary level system designed to have several foes be absolute tanks late in the game and disappointingly vanilla mission design do hold the game back.

The Blackwell Legacy (PC)

Mainly gonna write about the game as a whole soon so not much right now. I played this ages ago and just went back to it now that all of them are complete.

I'm finally getting back to this series. I got the collection and I'm gonna periodically finish em up one by one. This game has a special place for me; it was a time when Adventure Game Studio was popular and free shit like this came out all the time. Nobody expected it to end at five games at the time and I was just excited that the 4th one was being made when I finished what was the trilogy at the time. I like the premise alot and there's a ghost story in it too. Games by Wadjet Eye and its affiliates is also something I'd like to knock out of my list. I've played alot of them over the years: Resonance, Primordia, The Shivah; you'll find them on my game beats in years past.

Anyways, this one's the first and its pretty simple. I love it right out of the gate and I know that the central mystery behind the ghost was never resolved so I'm really excited for that. They just don't make adventures like this anymore so I'm going to enjoy this for all it's worth. If you know about this series, I also suggest the Ben Jordan games which are a series of 7 ones about an X Files type fella that got longer and longer each time.

Even more excited that after a period of disappearance the guy who made Blackwell is actually back making a new one for Wadjet so I still have a ways to go.

999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors (XB1)

I believe this is the fourth different platform that I have beaten it on. For the third time in those four runs, my first ending was axe (the lone exception was sub).

Blackwell Unbound (PC)

Second game now. This one's a prequel about Rosa's aunt. I believe at the time this was like a spin-off that was free. Back then, there was no certainty of how many games there was going to be. This one was mostly dialog and not much on puzzles. But its always got good voice acting and writing and that's what matters. It also introduces some dark implications that perhaps call forward to the future about mediums and spirit guides.

Honestly what I like about this series is that it doesn't grow a beard---it starts out with the implications bare and honest. Its already a spoopy ghost story mixed with some shocking reveals and a likeable but clearly cursed protagonist. I can't wait till I get to the 4th game although I do not remember a thing about the 3rd so looking forward to that too.

AI: The Somnium Files - The Nirvana Initiative
It is impossible to discuss this game without spoilers. Enjoyed it well enough.

Nex Machina (PC)

Very generously gifted to me by our very own KCF, so thank you again for that! Not much to say about this one - it's a wild, fast-paced bullet hell twin-stick shooter, and it's awesome. Short and sweet. I'm not often an arcade-y, high-score-chasing kind of gamer but this is one that I'm gonna keep installed to do runs of every once in a while when I have just a bit of time to game. This one had been on my radar for a while and it didn't disappoint.

TROUBLESHOOTER: Abandoned Children (PC)

Speaking of games that have been on my radar for a while... I have a ton to say about this game but I'll try to keep it relatively short.

This is an XCOM-style SRPG made by a small team of Korean developers, and it's an all-timer of a hidden gem. SRPGs outside of Fire Emblem normally don't land with me, but reviews were super positive and really spoke to me, and that dev team is still putting a ton of work into it two years following the release, so I figured it very much deserved a shot.

And it paid off. There's an insane amount of content here for a game that regularly goes on sale for $15. 70 hours to get through the six chapters that make up the main story plus a few scattered side missions from time to time, and there's a whole additional chapter that's been released as free DLC that I haven't even touched yet, along with tons of other optional missions for players that just can't get enough. And to go along with that insane amount of content is an insane amount of depth. Character customization is ridiculously expansive but never complicated, and you can spend as much or as little time tweaking your units as you want. There's a loot system, equipment crafting, monster taming, character bonding, and probably one or two other mechanics that I'm even forgetting. Maps are tightly designed and can even be huge sometimes with ~100 enemies to take down, but there was only one occasion I can think of where a mission felt like it actually dragged.

The story is pretty great too, only held back by a pretty rough translation that's mostly headed by the community. That's honestly the game's only flaw in my mind - it's never so terrible that you can't tell what's going on, but a good bit of dialogue will come off as very awkward to native English speakers and I'm sure there's quite a bit of nuance lost. Which is a bummer, because there's a ton going on - lots of characters with different alliances to keep track of and so forth. There's of gang warfare, religious cultism, shadowy government programs, deft political maneuvering, and more, all held together by a super likable main cast with a couple of real standout characters. AND this is only the first game in what, as I understand it, is planned to be a pretty sprawling series.

Hell, even the soundtrack is great! I really can't say enough good things about this game; I think it could really threaten to be the favorite game of all time for a certain type of gamer. Definitely wish it was more well-known, because it deserves to be spoken of in the same breath as the titans of the genre. If you're a fan of SRPGs at all, please do at least check out the Steam store page to see if it grabs you.

The Blackwell Convergence (PC)

Third game down. Now I remember. It ended on a fairly ominous cliffhanger with alot of implications towards the universe itself. I had forgotten that Convergence built upon the threat of its previous game while also welding a bit of the first. This time the bad guy was a step up from the last, a sort of dark reflection of things to come. I honestly only remember that one crazy guy who I thought was the bad guy but turned out to just be a favorable NPC.

I also like the concept of this dynamic being seen as more acceptable because of the Internet as opposed to back then where you really didn't stand a chance in a padded cell.

I'm excited. I think I just forgot about this at the time and moved on with my life. The game's old and like every other Wadjet Eye game except Unavowed, I don't often hear anything about it.

Uh

i guess i beat Tame It last night lol

NBIceman posted...

TROUBLESHOOTER: Abandoned Children (PC)

This sounds pretty interesting. Definitely something for me to keep an eye on.

The Hex (PC)

I wasn't into Pony Island enough to bother finishing it, but I was intrigued enough to want to try future works of Daniel Mullins. I still need to finish Inscryption, but in the meantime, I went through this game. I wasn't a fan at first, but it was better as it went along, and I ultimately liked it a lot.

Garden Story (PC)

I feel like I say this every year, but I have decided to make a concerted effort to finishing all the games I have received as Steam Secret Santa gifts. I'm now 2/3 of the way through with what Dream(eater?) gave me. It reminds me a little of Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion in art style and movement plus they have dungeons for you to go through, not that they do dungeons all that similar. I wish that the village building stuff had more meaningful rewards/wasn't such a grind, but other that, I had a great time.

Alien: Isolation + All DLCs (PC)

Its kinda funny that I have 4 Stealth Games accumulated on my desktop (I have a system where I cant install more than what it takes to fill 3 columns of games on it.) which really shows my disdain for this genre. After being emboldened by Thief I finally decided to pick this up. I'm a fan of the movies and this is just so darn well done. Its I think, to be able to play a long game of this quality that isn't an RPG or open world. They just don't make experiences like this anymore. It does cheat it a bit with recycled environs but honestly they're hardly noticeable.

I don't care if its innovative and it learns from you. I hate hate hate that Alien AI. I don't like it being unfair levels of innovative. Mercifully you don't fight it for most of the game so I was fine with the experience. Its your classic scifi horror in space scenario. I kinda wish there was an Event Horizon game now.

One thing I did not like was giving you the illusion of never having to backtrack as you subtly open up areas to previous levels and sure some of them are mandatory but the most egregious is when you get the 3rd level hacking device and realize practically every single end-level blueprint is locked behind them which would actually force you to backtrack but unless you're after the achievement there's no reason to do it. You can't even rush them because the Aliens are still active in these sectors where the story is pretty much done. This slump in the gameplay loop is just a minor scuffle in what makes this game great.

Floating Cloud God Saves the Pilgrims (PS3)

I think there is a Vita version of this game with trophy support, but I just played the Playstation Mini version. It's a side-scrolling shoot em up and very basic. About 90 minutes long.

I beat it, but I did not save all the pilgrims. Just enough to win.

Tunic

Man, this game absolutely rules, though I'm a little bit mixed on the post-game, where it basically transitions from a Zelda-like to The Witness. What surprised me about this game is how much I enjoy its original ideas - it's not really the Zelda influence at all that's the highlight here. It's the weird ideas, like assembling the instruction manual in-game, the use of perspective, the more Souls-like combat. There's a lot going for it. While I absolutely don't have it in me to figure out all of its insane secrets without a guide, I have mad respect for games that do these absurdly intricate secrets. Rightfully belongs in the "secrets games" hall of greats, alongside The Witness, Braid, Fez and the like.

Marvel Super Heroes vs Street Fighter

I bought a Saturn, it's great.

This game is wonderful, if you ask me the VS series is one of the best fighting series ever. Everything from MvC2 back is just phenomenal. This game in particular really does have one of the best attract screens ever.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UybgyKjr5Dk

Wish Capcom went back to 2D with one of their new releases honestly.

Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward (XB1)

Despite being my least favorite of the trilogy, I have probably beaten it the most since it was released on the most platforms.

Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered (PS5) (Replay from PS4)
Still a great time and really captures the spirit of Spidey even if it cribs blatantly from Batman Arkham in the process. Now, the DLC.

AI: The Somnium Files - nirvanA Initiative (PS4)

Beaten and platinumed. Only my third beaten game this year, jeeze!

Sayonara Wild Hearts (PC)

@psaltery, thank you again! ...And yes, it did take me this long to get around to this two-hour game. I did quite enjoy it, though, and I'm looking forward to perhaps playing levels over and over again.

Kirby and the Forgotten Land (Switch)

Still need to do the postgame

Golf Club: Wasteland (PC)

It looks great and the physics are good and easy to get accustomed to, but the trial and error aspects of the golfing along with a minimumally helpful ball landing indicator and long, unskippable, repetitive animations hold this back.

Radical Rabbit Stew (PC)

Some annoying obstacles at various points in the game but otherwise a very fun arcade/puzzle game.

Pokemon Shining Pearl (Switch)

Stopped in the middle of victory road for some reason earlier

POSTAL: Brain Damaged (PC)

aka Postal Does Painkiller. It is a mindless boomer shooter dressed up in a nightmare/dream theme . This game is just a parody. Everywhere you go. You fight ridiculous things like the Illuminati symbol, the coronavirus, 5G Towers, Furries, Eye of Sauron cosplayers, etc. The references are everywhere too. It's also got that patented "so offensive its funny" charm Postal naturally brings (the developers aren't RWS but people who made other FPS' like ELDERBORN another game I played before).

Its all very fun with some Quake/DOOM Eternal vibes (the shotgun even has the same grappling hook). That said, its unpolished in parts. Enemies can't see you very far it seems so one rocket in the middle drastically reduces numbers by 50%. This strategy works most of the time because of the level design; arena-like locales were frequent in Episode 1 but not so much in 2 and 3 instead relegating to small cramped spaces which isn't necessarily a dealbreaker but I feel that enemy placement and abundance of items puts a monkey wrench in the gameplay flow at times.

Also the bosses are cheesy themselves but the items you get allow you to out cheese them even more which is a shame. I suppose you can just "challenge" yourself and not do it but its just so easy to break the game in several ways. One boss requires you to constantly climb an eternal vertical shaft, slowing it down and shooting it downwards...or you can just tank damage standing directly on top of it and go guns akimbo (a powerup that give you infinite ammo) on the thing.

As of this writing, the devs have posted that they will fix this issue; make better enemy placements and add new modes. But for now, its decent if you aren't tempted to cheese.

Marvel's Spider-Man (PS4)

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/80103781

A nice milestone platinum! Similar to #150 (MLB The Show 18) I picked a game that referenced some of my hobbies outside of video games. I haven't followed the comic in many years now, but I did read many superhero comics when I was a kid, and Spider-Man was always my favorite. It was definitely a treat to play through, and even though I liked it a lot now, I feel that I would have liked the game even more back then.

The platinum itself was simple, and you'll get almost all the trophies on the way to completing the story, getting 100% in all districts, and unlocking all the suits. Despite being an open-world game the game doesn't overstay its welcome and takes about 30 hours to finish. (My in-game clock said 38 hours, but I did leave it on for long periods of time without playing.) I will do the DLC at a later date.

Finally, in some scenes I could not get Yosuke and Rise from Persona 4 out of my mind, thanks to Yuri Lowenthal and Laura Bailey using the exact same voices for their take on Spider-Man and Mary Jane Watson. Thankfully that won't be a problem when I eventually play Miles Morales on PS++.

I did have a few platinum trophies waiting for this to finish, so I'll go ahead and finish those soon - nothing special, and probably no topics either - I'll just use this one again.

Nioh 2 (PS5)
Better than the first, but the combat was quite hard to adjust to for me. I love those rolling cats so much.

Fire Emblem: Three Houses - Cindered Shadows (Switch)

Honestly, it's kinda mid. The story's pretty weak and several of the maps are huge slogs, though there's also at least one stand-out map. Yuri, Balthus, and Hapi are cool characters (though Yuri is really just Claude 2.0), but Constance is down there with the absolute worst FE characters. I don't mind the lack of character customization but I do wish there were more, like, weapons and items and battalions available? FE isn't great when you're just throwing Iron/Steel weapons at everything, and you're doing that for like 90% of this DLC.

Quick itch.io backlog clean-up:

a new life. (PC)

This game is gorgeous and it destroyed me.

Don't Take It Personally, I Just Don't Like You: The Camping Trip (PC)

Apparently a prequel for a full game that's supposed to be out, like, soon. But was also supposed to be out last year, so there's that. It's fine! There's some really good foreshadowing and subtle hints about the characters and some clever almost-fourth-wall-breaking. It also does a very good job simulating every time you've ever awkwardly watched two of your friends from different friend groups get into a dumbass screaming match at a party and you just sit there going "why did i facilitate this". Unfortunately it is one of those VNs where it feels like they wrote a male main character and then just changed the pronouns (well, they let you change the pronouns here).

Cinders (PS4)

Played through the game once, and made some saves to get four different ending variations. It's an interesting twist on the Cinderella story with a lot more freedom on how the tale branches out due to the choices you make. Despite that, there isn't much variation in the dialogue the game does on the different ending routes besides a few scenes. I'll still be going through and aiming for 100% on all ending paths, since the story was interesting enough to play through the first time.

Live a Live (2022)

Really enjoyable. two minor nitpicks otherwise everything is as good or better than an original that was already great.

Ziggurat 2 (PC)

A long time ago I remember posting on topics like this that I beat the first one. It was a simple hexen-inspired roguelike FPS that had significant effort put into it. I'm actually glad that they made a sequel because this one feels well-polished if the first game was like a high school summer project.

This time they added TONS of weapons. Probably my favorite part of the game is how distinct and different the weapons are and quite thematic to the fantasy theme. Whoever wrote the blurbs for each individual one is great as it explores this generic theme of a world through lore building. And even though there were only 6 elements, they didn't just go and make "ice but shot gun, ice but machine gun, etc". Each weapon truly felt unique and you were by design forced to wield them if only to gain their Mastery.

Thats right. Each character and weapon has a Mastery stat that incentivized you to use them for special bonus stats and perks unique to that item/hero. All 64 weapons and 11 Heros. That might not be much for a roguelike but the flow and replayability of things was enough to not outstay its welcome.

Barring the trash plot, Ziggurat 2 is bigger and better than its roguelike copy paste roots. They took everything fun about a roguelike and made things more arcadey. I barely even noticed the copy pasted enemies and environs although I do wish there was more variety to them. Enemies are dum like Serious Sam with only 1 programmed behavior but in exchange you move and shoot like the Quake guy, balancing between 3 spell types (that use their own mana).

It didn't feel like a grind to me until the last few runs honestly. Unlocking stuff in this game is based on finishing runs instead of encountering them within runs. I also appreciate how there is an Easy mode that doesnt try insulting you for picking Easy mode. Youll need it honestly if you wanna grind for weapons because as you move from chapter to chapter, you'll keep getting longer stages and it wont be as "easy" to acquire them anymore.

All in all a solid game. Not really for the hardcore roguelike appreciators, but it got me hooked for awhile.

That is to say, if you like

Ghost Trick
Pretty good.