Forgot to give my thoughts on some of these earlier and I needed to update soon, so I figured, "Why not now?"
Game 39: Yakuza: Kiwami (PS4) - 24 Hrs 22 Mins (9/6/2017)
#Not as good as Yakuza 0, but I still loved it a lot. Great game.
Game 40: Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle (NSW) - About 30 Hrs (9/9/2017)
#One of my favorites of the year. Loved the strategy, soundtrack and visuals. Ubisoft nailed this game.
Game 41: Muv-Luv Extra (PC) - 11 Hrs 42 Mins (9/20/2017)
#An enjoyable visual novel with some tropes, but had a really good cast
Game 42: Muv-Luv Unlimited (PC) - 15 Hrs 28 Mins (9/23/2017)
#Liked this a bit more than the first one since this was more interesting far as story goes.
I'll be getting to the next one at some point.
Game 43: Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony (PS4, PC, Vita) - About 30-35 Hrs (9/29/2017)
#Enjoyed the soundtrack and most of the cast.
The twist at the end was pretty predictable to me and soured a bit of the game for me.
I'd still say I enjoyed 2 more, but this one was still pretty good, not great.
Game 44: Doki Doki Literature Club (PC) - 3 Hrs (10/9/2017)
#Short, free visual novel that was perfectly fine and never overstayed its welcome.
Game 45: Pokemon Puzzle League (N64, Wii) - About 5 Hrs (10/15/2017)
#Enjoyable, fun puzzle game. I have some nostalgia for this, for sure.
Game 46: SteamWorld Dig 2 (NSW, PC, PS4, Vita) - 9 Hrs 4 Mins (10/16/2017)
#Loved this game a lot more than the first one, which was a good game.
This one improved on everything in the original in my opinion.
Game 47: South Park: The Stick of Truth (PS3, PS4, 360, XB1, PC) - 9 Hrs 29 Mins (10/24/2017)
#An entertaining RPG with a solid combat system and some typical South Park humor.
Just a fun romp all around.
Game 48: Super Mario Odyssey (NSW) - About 14 Hrs (10/28/2017)
#I loved the way the capture mechanic was used in this game. Just a fun, great ride all the way through.
Even though I loved the game to bits, I do think some of how much the game was trying to be Mario 64 was getting to me...
Still, one of my favorites of the year, for sure!
Game 49: Chaos;Child (PS4, Vita) - About 24 Hrs (10/29/2017)
#I loved this game! Definitely my personal GOTY so far.
I loved the soundtrack, characters, story... It kept me engaged from beginning to end.
Definitely one of my favorite visual novels I've played over the last few years.
Game 50: Horizon: Zero Dawn (PS4) - 37 Hrs 46 Mins (11/5/2017)
#Another awesome game that came out this year.
The story kept me engaged, the combat was interesting,
the music was great and I loved these mechanical creatures that roamed the world.
Game 51: Fire Emblem Warriors (NSW, N3DS) - 10 Hrs 36 Mins (11/18/2017)
#While the plot was typical and cast was disappointing to me, the game was still fun.
I liked the Fire Emblem elements added to the Warriors/Musou formula.
History Mode is going to keep me coming back for sure.
I've been lazy about doing my mini-reviews for the games I've played this year. I'm going to try to go back and do at least one a day until I catch up. I'm also going to try to keep it shorter than I did on the old site.
Game #1 The Order: 1886 - (PS4) - 100% Trophy Completion - Grade: 74/100
My first game of the year and it was a disappointment. It looks gorgeous but nothing interesting in the way of gameplay. The late game story twist was pretty much given away at the beginning of the game. The rest of the story was really poorly paced and a lot of the time the world and the lore was not really clear. The supernatural elements, which I was most excited about, barely came into play at all. The few supernatural combat encounters that occurred were poorly designed. Most of the game was shooting random dudes without a clear motive as for why. Plus poorly laid out combat areas. To top it all off there was a really lousy stealth scenario near the end with insta-fail.
Pros: Great graphics and good performances. Cons: Mediocre to lousy gameplay and story.
Even though I was quite skeptical of this game I'm a pretty big Kirby fan so I decided to give it a chance and picked it up on release day. It's essentially a minigame collection with a local multiplayer focus. The game consists of ten different minigames and they all have a few variations but there's not much more to it than that. There is a singleplayer campaign but it's basically just the same minigames with the occasional special enemies and some dialogue from King Dedede. The online multiplayer can be pretty fun but you can't affect basic things like the amount of rounds which is a bummer. The local multiplayer and download play matches are a bit more fleshed out and customizable. The game's main problem is repetitiveness, even if you're playing with a group of friends and experiment with all the different abilities you'll still be playing the same ten minigames over and over again. I think this would have worked better if it was released a year or two ago as an eShop title. Although there is some cutesy fan service here and there, I'd say it's safe to skip this one even if you're a Kirby fan. Overall a pretty mediocre game.
I was aware of the cult classic status this game has so I bought it from the Steam Halloween sale. It's a very odd, unique and disturbing point and click adventure about a man who was in a car crash and is now attempting to piece everything back together while questioning his own sanity. Lots of cool and creative scenarios in the game as well as an intriguing story which sadly ends in a bit of a lackluster fashion in my opinion. Still a pretty fun experience as I haven't played many point and clicks. I really liked the eerie soundtrack. Would recommend the game for sure.
Piranha Bytes is back, that much is clear to me after playing ELEX. The game features a beautiful yet brutal open world, where you will play the role of both prey and predator. This progression system where you go from weak to strong is very satisfying and is supported by lots of possibilities for exploration and loot. The game features the usual Piranha Bytes faction choices and each of them offers a variety of quests for you to complete. There is also a surprising amount of choice & consequence present for a modern RPG.
The developersh ave clearly chosen substance over style in this case as the game is really ambitious in most parts but leaves a lot to the imagination in the term of facial animation, asset recycling and general presentation. Nevertheless, ELEX is one of the best RPG's of the year and a must play for enthusiasts.
Games played: 31
Highest rated game: Prey (9)
Average score: 6.5
240. The Interactive Adventures of Dog Mendonça and Pizzaboy
Didn't enjoy this PnC adventure game as much as I'd hoped, but at least it got me interested in the comic, and the game was short thankfully.
This is one game with wonky English localization, as there were a handful of typos and the overall dialog could've been better translated, but it gets the job done at least.
One of my biggest issues with the game is that the mouse controls were rather wonky. Basically left clicking lets you interact with an object and right clicking will highlight objects. There are times when I am not on an intractable item and the interact icon pops up at a nearby location. The right clicking doesn't highlight stuff sometimes too.
It's a servicable PnC otherwise I guess, so if you're a fan of the series give it a play, esp. if you understand Spanish, German or Portuguese.
Kinda relieved I've completed the challenge on my first try. It's actually more fun to play games instead of just buying them and then look at your Steam library. Who would have thought?
54. The Settlers: Rise Of An Empire - 18 hours
It was so promising during first hours, but turned to absolute shit so quickly after devs started to pushing those terrible "battles" in last campaign missions. War gameplay in this game is beyond terrible, units AI is basically doesn't exists, there is no tactics, just very clunky and boring "who have more troops" fights. And don't get me started about castles siege, who in his right mind would ever put this shit as final mission? Traditional Settlers gameplay was also dumbed down in this game, so it's really not worth it even though graphics holds up pretty good and it's fun to play before you reach highest title.
Short but cool puzzle game with some unique mechanics and a surprisingly somber story about overcoming adversities. Its very short so its easy to get through, even if the gameplay gets very trial-and-error-y. Still, cool game if you like puzzlers.
Game #57 - Nioh Complete Edition
Time: 50 hours
Absolutely fantastic take on the Souls-genre (I mean, it's a genre at this point let's not kid ourselves), with more enphasis on action and dodging, not unlike Bloodborne. I love that all weapons had 3 stances so they have a lot more moves, I really liked the level structure (its level based as opposed to connected open world) as it let me play more at my own pace, just fantastic fun all around... until I finished it and the post end game content (which I assume is DLC?) has such a ridiculous difficulty spike that it almost ruined the game for me retroactively. It starts introducing a lot of dual boss fights (you know, like O&S) and I always hate those in these games, and you cn't even summon in these (I actually never summoned in the main game but still). I'm going to drop it for now because the game just simply stopped being fun, and I did "finish" it so im good for now.
Game #58 - No Man's Sky
Time: 26 hours
Not sure how I feel about this one. I enjoyed what I played of it, running around gathering materials, finding new ships and whatnot, but at one point it just kinda got old very fast and I never really went back to it. I never got to the "center of the galaxy" or anything, but at the same time, I feel like I saw all I was going to see in my 26 hours, at least I certainly got all I was going to get out of it. Even with all the updates, I cant help but feel a little dithe game. but that's probably more on me than on the game.
Game #59 - Xanadu Next
Time: 20 hours
Fantastic action rpg from the indie darling Falcom, which is very surprising for me since I'm not that uch of a fan of their games, Ys in particular. Still, I loved the Dark Souls-esque level design and interconnected world, I really liked the art style, even if it looks very old, and the gameplay was refreshing (again, its very much like dark souls where you are constantly trying to get on the backside of enemies). Great level design, lots of armor, weapons and spells to get, fun gameplay, just over a great game. Except for the various block puzzles, I hated those and felt they had no place being in the game.
I usually hate NRS games. MKX I wasn't a fan of, MK9 I didn't find fun and I never bothered with the first Injustice, but this game was absolutely brilliant.
I don't know, I guess I like the fighting style now, and Supergirl is one of my favourite characters in fighting games as well. This game also features the best fighting game story mode and I loved it. The variations of characters is brilliant and with characters like Hellboy, Atom, Echantress and the god damn Ninjas Turtles on the way there is much to be excited about. I'm an NRS Fan now!!
Rise of the Argonauts (PC)
Deadlight, (PC)
The Dark Eye: Demonicon (PC)
The Elder Scrolls III: Morowind - GOTY Edition (PC)
Refunct (PC)
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion - Knights of the Nine (PS3)
Torment: Tides of Numenera (PC)
Mars: War Logs (PC)
Dirt 3 Complete Edition (PC)
The Dwarf Run (PC)
Dragon's Crown (PS3)
Under Night In-Birth Exe:Late (PS3)
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion - Shivering Isles (PS3)
Hero of the Kingdom (PC)
8 Bit Bayonetta (PC)
Digital Devil Saga (PS2)
Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn (PC)
The Detail (PC)
Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Baal (PC)
The Temple of Elemental Evil (PC)
Invizimals: The Lost Kingdom (PS3)
Wild ARMS XF (PSP)
Fallout 4 (PC)
Mind Sphere (PC)
Suikoden V (PS2)
Shadow Hearts: From the New World (PS2)
Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria (PS2)
Gabriel Knight: Sins Of The Fathers 20th Anniversary Edition (PC)
Agatha Christie - The ABC Murders (PC)
Grandia (PS1)
CAYNE (PC)
Deadly Sin 2 (PC)
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - GOTY Edition (PC)
2000:1: A Space Felony (PC)
Hexcells (PC)
Game of Thrones RPG (PC)
Castlevania: Symphony Of The Night (PS1)
Beyond Good & Evil (PC)
侠客风云传(Tale of Wuxia) (PC)
Jade Empire (PC)
Adventures of Mana (PSV)
Anachronox (PC)
Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 2 (PC)
FATE (PC)
Divinity: Original Sin 2 (PC)
WORLD END ECONOMiCA episode.01 (PC)
STREET FIGHTER x TEEKEN (PSV)
Batman: The Telltale Series (PC)
ELEX (PC)
Cat Girl Without Salad (PC)
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl (PC)
Gothic (PC)
MDK (PC)
Gothic II Gold (PC)
Dusty Revenge (PC)
Heroes & Legends: Conquerors of Kolhar (PC)
Gothic 3 (PC)
OKAMI HD / 大神 絶景版 (PC)
Imperium Galactica II: Alliances (PC)
Pillars of Eternity and DLC (PC)
R-Type (PS3)
R-Type II (PS3)
Risen (PC)
Layers of Fear (PC)
I started this over on the other site and it was a really fun challenge & effective distraction from constantly being sucked into the doom and gloom that is the world in 2017.
I finally finished, so I'm posting my details on the new home!
Completed
January
1: Game of Thrones: Telltale - 13 hours
If you play enough Telltale games you start to seem the seams in their "choice-driven" narratives, and this was way more pronounced in GoT where the main story was a known-quantity and could not be affected in a way that would violate cannon. It was very transparent that the choices you made didn't matter, which made the game feel somewhat like an inevitable slog. I'd also mention that they got many of the HBO series actors/actresses to do voices in this, and leaned into that pretty hard, which means if you aren't familiar with the books or the show, you'd be totally lost playing this. I had an okay time with it overall, but have no desire to play season 2. 6/10
2: A Boy and His Blob – 11 hours
This PC port of the Wii remake is still very solid and a joy to play. The UI & presentation feels a bit outdated, and puzzles were generally not challenging, but it's a game directed at kids at the end of the day so that was easily forgivable. 8/10
3: Sunset Overdrive – 11 hours
Jet Set Radio + Ratchet and Clank sounds right up my alley, but the great art style and technical aptitude in this were somewhat wasted on a boring open world design. The open world exists as an area to travel between missions, and a location to find crafting collectables that you need to play base defense scenarios to combine. These were by far my least favorite parts of the game, and I dreaded every base defense mission in the main storyline. The last 1/3 of the game, when the best guns were unlocked, and the open world traversal was incorporated into missions rather than just something you did inbetween them, redeemed the game for me a little bit. 7/10
4: Song of the Deep – 6 hours
I was not thrilled when Grouvee randomized the only other Insomniac game on my large list right after finishing Sunset Overdrive, but I had a great time with this. The art was fantastic and they got a ton of mileage and variety out of the under sea setting. The light momentum-based ship movement & combat were simple but a nice change of pace for the Metroidvania genre. A few bad sections and a heavy hand collectible treasure that really didn't feel great to collect (had a very low value and never felt worthwhile) were my only complaints. 8/10
5: Aviary Attorney – 6 hours
This was Phoenix Wright set in 19th century france. I expected puns and a lack of substance, but was very impressed by the characters and story. The art style, and the level of personality lent by minor animation, is incredibly good. My only complaints were mission progression issues: I had to replay some trials when prompted for evidence I never discovered. Fortunately it wasn't too time consuming due to the ability to load any chapter/day, so it didn't ruin the experience for me. 9/10
February
6: Resident Evil 7 - 10 hours
I loathed RE5/6 and couldn't see myself every enjoying the series again, so I was pleasantly surprised by this. It reminded me of why Resident Evil felt unique in the survival horror gen back on PSX: player firepower. Where 5 & 6 leaned way too heavily into Action gameplay, 7 really got the balance right by having you feel like you weren't totally defenseless, but the scarcity of items and ammo always made the threat of becoming defenseless feel close by. I played the whole thing in VR and the immersion and sense of scale added so much to the experience. The locations weren't just video game versions of a house, a bathroom, a trailer, etc.: the scale made them feel authentic and real. Likewise, a monster becomes that much more terrifying when you realize it dwarfs you by 1-2 feet and that its claws are longer than your legs. 9/10
7: Steamworld Heist - 13 hours
2D X-COM + Worms is the common and most accurate summary of this game. I was impressed with how much more satisfying the manual aiming was over X-COM's percentage-based combat. Pulling off a trick shot and killing two robots at once when you're almost dead is one of the most satisfying moments of gaming in 2017 so far for me. I don't have any complaints about the game, and the length was basically perfect for my taste. 10/10
8: Nioh - 60 hours
I had a great time overall with Samurai Souls. The weapon variety, magic system, and Ki Pulse/combo based combat was super satisfying. That said, the game felt like it could have used some real editing: fewer/better items, fewer/better levels, and maybe even scrapping some of the under-baked weapon types. A few complaints aside, I can easily see myself replaying this at some point, and it's an insane value with the sheer amount of stuff they packed into the game even before NG+. 8/10
March
9: Steamworld Dig - 4.5 Hours
After having a great time with Steamworld Heist and hearing the Dig 2 announcement I decided to go back and play this. It felt fairly mindless and non-challenging to play, but I had an okay time all the same. On the plus side, the great art style and humor from Heist was still present in this game. On the negative side, digging endlessly through tunnels is not actually very fun. Most of the game felt like a slog even staying up-to-date on upgrades. 6/10
10: Zelda: BOTW - 60 hours
BOTW was not what I expected from a Zelda game and I usually hate open world games. Despite this, I enjoyed BOTW more than any Zelda since OOT. I have a bunch of substantial complaints about the game: weapons breaking was annoying, shrines weren't a sufficient replacement for thematically interesting dungeons, rain *always* sucked. But it wasn't enough to detract from my overall enjoyment of the game. When the credits rolled and I returned to the game world before exiting, I legitimately felt sad knowing that I was saying goodbye to the BOTW world for a long time. 1000 bonus points to Nintendo for not dragging everyone through a 2 hour tutorial again like in SS. The game trusted players to figure things out, and that was *very* refreshing for a Zelda game. 9/10
11: Shovel Knight - 8 Hours
I'm late to the party on this one, but Shovel Knight is a very intelligently designed homage to 8-bit games like Megaman. Playing it made me wish that all the older 8 bit character action games would be remade with optional frequent checkpoints. I would have given up on the game in frustration if it had antiquated relics of game design like Lives or finite Continues, but the modern compromises (no lives, infinite continues, checkpoints at a slight score penalty) meant I was able to play through the whole thing and enjoy it. I'm looking forward to checking out the two DLC campaigns they put out at some point during the 52/2017 challenge. 8/10
12: The Bug Butcher - 7 Hours
This was a fun modern take on Pang (the retro side-scrolling shooter where your character can only aim up, so you end up juggling enemies and leading them into bullets as they bounce around). I wish the co-op mode was more than just trying to see how many waves you could beat before dying and resetting, and I wish the game had a boss fight to cap it off, but it's still an impressive project given the small team. 7/10
13: VA-11 Hall-A - 10 Hours
I had pretty mixed feelings while playing this. It's very light on gameplay and fairly non-interactive. There were several embarrassing meme-embracing moments like those featured in the Steam store page screenshots. I wasn't a huge fan of the first half, but the story and characters eventually won me over and I was glad that I had played it. 7/10
14: Starcraft 2: Heart of the Swarm - 10 Hours
I played SC2: Wings of Liberty at launch but waited a long time to play the followup expansion. HOTS has an embarrassingly bad story, even compared to Wings of Liberty, but it also had a very fun campaign design that didn't feel too repetitive. There was great variety in the mission objectives and the game avoided the RTS campaign pitfall of presenting a long series of base-building missions that feel identical. Conversely, it definitely had some of those missions along the way, and they were fun when they did show up. After playing HOTS I'm excited to finally play LOTV. I'm even more excited that Blizzard can finally move past Metzen-writing. 7/10
15: Titanfall 2 - 8 Hours
I had spent plenty of time playing the multiplayer mode in TF2, but finally got around to the single player campaign. Ended up enjoying it quite a bit. I especially liked the second half, where the traversal and Titan gameplay that the MP mode is famous for started to become the focus of the campaign. Unfortunately the first half didn't lean into the best parts of the game, and felt too much like every other modern shooter (take cover, snipe enemies, regen health when the screen gets messed up.) 8/10
April
16: Snakepass - 11 Hours
The controls in Snakepass made it feel like a truly 100% new take on a platformer and the satisfaction from mastering them was immense. I loved the game but if I had one wish for something to be changed, it would have been for greater visual variety in the levels. The first two worlds in particular felt very samey, and it was a shame to finish half of the game before coming across levels with a bit more variety. 9/10
17: The Disney Afternoon Collection - 5 hours
This was a collection of 6 NES games but I'm counting it as one game because it feels like it matches the spirit of this challenge better. I had played most of these as a kid, but had definitely never beaten any of them besides Ducktales 1. Most of them haven't aged particularly well, but the last two (Ducktales 2 and Chip and Dale 2) were 100% new to me and I loved both. It was really interesting to see how much design and visual evolution they accomplished over the lifespan of a single console generation. The presentation of the collection was also fantastic. 8/10
18: Yooka Laylee - 21 Hours
I backed this on PS4 and was very disappointed by the performance and how it impacted the feel of movement in the game. I decided to buy it on PC and see how much that helped, and it felt like a completely different game. They pitched it as a modern refresh of the Rare 3D platformers people loved from yesteryear, and for me it met that goal admirably. I hope it does well enough for a sequel, as I'd love to see more. 9/10
May
19: Assassin's Creed Syndicate - 30 Hours
The last AC game I played was AC3 ~4 years ago. I expected to hate this, having long grown tired of Ubisoft open world games chock full of pointless collectibles and uninspired quests. This game ended up being… okay? I liked both of the main characters, I liked the setting of Industrial Revolution London, and I liked the improved movement options (grappling hook and carriages). Everything else about the game was the same tired AC formula, but the setting and characters carried me through to some extent. The game is definitely much too long, and I was ready for it to end by the 50% mark. My better-than-expected experience would be encouraging for AC: Empire (or whatever the reboot/2017 offering is), but I have a hunch that the long delay for this iteration will only mean it is more bloated and full of bland activities to do, so who knows. 6/10
20: Pony Island - 3 hours
I started this over a year ago and finally got around to finishing it. It's a very creative game with a bunch of unexpected twists. Not to the same extent as something like Frog Fractions, but the same premise. I'm glad I played and experienced this weird creative thing someone made, but I'm not actually sure it was all the fun. 7/10
21: RIVE - 5 Hours
This was a free Humble Bundle game that I had pretty low expectations for, but ended up really enjoying. It's like a twin stick shooter mixed with a light platformer, with very satisfying controls, visuals, and responsiveness. It was difficult, but very frequent check-points and instant respawns meant it was never frustrating. 8/10
22: Injustice 2 - 7 Hours
When will I learn? Several times a year a new fighter will come out and I'll think, "This is it. This is the fighter I'm finally going to get good at!" Then I play the training mode, see a bunch of Cancel attack stuff, and immediately realize "No, I won't." Injustice 2 is also a fighter I will never be good at, but it's got an incredible amount of single player content, a great mix of characters I already have some fondness for, and doesn't delve into hyper-violence in a way that alienates me. It feels much more accessible than something like SFV, but still not quite enough for me to wrap my head around. Still, it doesn't feel as out of reach as most fighters, and I did sort of okay in the multiplayer matches I tried. I expected the Story mode to be half as long as it was. It's the best time I've had with a fighter since the original Blazblue in 2008. 9/10
23: World of Goo - 8 Hours
I started this way back in 2009 and only got around to finishing it/replaying it thanks to this challenge. It holds up surprisingly well: the puzzles are still clever, and the physics gameplay is still pretty satisfying. The PC port is very barebones however, and occasionally the simplistic controls lead to some frustration. 7/10
24: Deadbolt - 7 Hours
Initially the similarities to Hotline Miami and this bothered me: it felt like borderline plagiarism. It won me over because at the end of the day, it's much more competently made: I didn't run into the same AI, aiming, and camera issues I had in Hotline Miami. The game played flawlessly from start to finish. I could have lived with a checkpoint or two in each mission, as it was pretty frustrating to finish a mission and die to an enemy on the way out, but overall this was a fun test of skill. I still think Hotline Miami is the more interesting game, but this was inarguably better made. 8/10
25: Farpoint VR - 7 Hours
This has a lot of similarities to RE7 in my mind. It's a very impressive display of what VR is capable of, but the last third of the game also throws away a lot of goodwill that the game earned by being too action focused. The PSVR Aim Controller mostly felt great to use, but towards the end with lots of flying enemies it had a lot of tracking problems with upwards aiming, and I experienced a ton of cheap deaths. This wasn't the best game I played in 2017, but it will probably be the one with the most jaw-dropping moments, and it makes me hopeful about what the future of VR tech is going to bring. 8/10
26: Vanquish - 7 Hours
I played a bit of this on Xbox 360 back when it came out, but the PC version feels like a new game: Keyboard + mouse controls, 60fps, higher resolution. It looks and feels wonderful to play. Some of the cover-shooter bits gave me an unwelcome sense of last-gen déjà vu, but the speed and style of the gameplay surpasses the sometimes-boring last-gen cover shooter design. 8/10
I picked this up back when it launched and put it down pretty quickly after being overwhelmed by the game. I also played dozens of hours of, but did not finish, Witcher 1 and 2. I came away from those games thinking that Geralt was an obnoxious character and that the frequent sex offers (and card collection from "conquests", smh) from female characters in the game were extremely juvenile and off-putting. I decided to finally make an effort at playing through 3, and it ended up being the only game I played in June due to the insane length. Turning off most side-content map icons ended up being great advice from GAF, and made it much easier to slowly digest the massive scope of the game. Even after ignoring 70% of the side content that wasn't related to the main story, this is by far the largest WRPG I've ever played. There are massive, massive sections of the map I barely scratched full of towns with quests and stories that, from the few I played, were actually pretty compelling. I think this is probably the best written RPG I've ever played, especially when it came to the quests outside the main story. Bioware and every other developer is on notice: this is how you write compelling side content. As for the negatives: ultimately while the game made Geralt more relatable and the world setting is incredibly well-realized, I'm still not a huge fan of the Witcher world's setting, and I'm being generous by saying that the combat was serviceable. 8/10
28: Witcher 3: Hearts of Stone - 14 Hours
I took a break for the penultimate main-game story quest to play the first DLC expansion. The main-DLC quest content was fantastic and I loved the storyline. I'm not convinced this earned the description of an "expansion" though. It didn't really change anything about the game, seemed to take place in regions that weren't noticeably distinct from the regular game, and it's too similar to existing quest content in the game. It seemed like a really, really good quest chain that would have fit naturally in the game as side-content at launch, rather than an "expansion". 7/10
July
29: Owlboy - 9 Hours
Absolutely gorgeous looking pixel art, but ultimately I didn't enjoy the gameplay. Too many frustrating sections and it too often involved annoying stealth sections and spammy simplistic combat scenarios. 7/10
30: Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate HD - 10 Hours
As a big fan of Lords of Shadow 1 two things stuck out to me from Mirror of Fate. 1) It is crazy how they adapted almost every gameplay element from LoS1, a 3D character action game, into a 2D action platformer. The combat system is the same: counters, combos, rolls, magic, everything feels 100% identical to LoS1. 2) It is crazy that this was originally a 3DS game. It isn't suited at all to a small portable format. Too much detail in the environments, too much complexity in the gameplay. The HD port looks fairly nice, which adds to the mystery of why this was greenlit for a handheld instead of a $20 digital XBLA game or something. It's not great, but I had a pretty good time with it, and it at least felt like a better followup to LoS1 than what I played of LoS2. I think it got a lot of flak for being too great of a departure from other 3DS/DS Castlevania games, but as someone who preferred LoS1 to those, I felt right at home. 8/10
31: Yoshi's Woolly World - 20 Hours
The art style of this game is incredibly charming and it never gets old visually. As for everything else, I'm not a fan. I thought it would be like Super Mario 3D World, where the challenge was in doing all the collectibles for each level. Typically in 3D World those were easy to find, but hard to figure out how to get to or execute actually getting them without dying. Wooly World isn't like that at all: the challenge is in finding all the collectibles, not actually getting to them, as they're all hidden in invisible ? clouds or fake walls. You get them not by execution, but by walking around every inch of the level, jumping in the air in random places, and checking every wall in the game. It's extremely tedious, and I was ready for the game to end halfway through. By the last World I was B-lining for exits and ignoring everything else. And it *still* took ~20 hours 6/10
August
32: Splatoon 2 - 8 hours
I was a little disappointed with the recycled content in Splatoon 2 but overall it's a pretty great package. What I wanted most out of a sequel was an expanded single player campaign, and 2 definitely delivered there. The campaign was longer and had much more creative levels than the first game. It also does a pretty good job of introducing you to each weapon, with levels built to teach and challenge you on how they work. The multiplayer feels the same as ever, and the 2 map rotation limit is still completely obnoxious, but the changes to ability acquisition and special attacks do a nice job of updating and refreshing things. The Horde mode feels pretty barebones, and having it available only certain times/days is also pretty annoying. Nintendo made several mistakes with the online implementation of Splatoon 2, as they always do, but it's a great game. Finished the single player and a couple dozen MP matches. 8/10
33: Dragon Quest Builders - 80+ Hours
I'm not a big fan of open world or crafting/survival based games where you're expected to make your own fun in a sandbox, but something like Minecraft with a lot more quest structure seemed like it was worth checking out. I had a great time with this, but I was not anticipating this game to take longer to finish than Witcher 3. It's absolutely massive. Each of the scenarios was pretty interesting, and the game avoided feeling like you were repetitively doing a building/weapon quality arms race each time you started in a new area by limiting what could be built and what resources you had available. My only big complaint was the combat, which was rudimentary and terrible. Still, this was really interesting to play: it felt like they had successfully opened up a genre that was previously completely inaccessible to me. It was a bad game for this challenge due to the length and time pressure though, and sucked up almost an entire month of gametime for me. 8/10
34: Sonic Mania - 6 Hours
This is the first time I've really enjoyed playing through an entire Sonic game, at least since when I was a kid and was more forgiving of mediocre games. Usually the 2D ones frustrate me by seeming to encourage speed and then having you get hit by spikes or enemies you'd never see coming. I feel like Sonic Mania avoids the problem. Going too fast doesn't ever mean instant death, but missing opportunities for better paths or powerups. You always get a moment to react before something bad happens, and fixing that (imo) prolific design flaw in the series finally allowed me to understand how to play the game enjoy the ebb and flow of speed in levels. I had a great time with this, which is shocking in 2017. The soundtrack was also absolutely killer. 9/10
35: Ratchet & Clank - 10 Hours
This is also the first R&C game I've played in a couple years. It's a remake of the first game, with updated and expanded levels. Even with the updates, it doesn't quite feel modern. Most of the levels felt linear & short enough to be theme-parky, and the combat (while improved) still feels weak compared to other third person shooters. Most guns lack impact and aiming feels a bit clunky. I understand that they were trying to make the game for a younger audience (their words) so I can excuse some of the problems to some extent. On the plus side, the humor & writing is as strong as it's ever been for R&C. The thing I enjoyed most about the game was definitely the visuals. This was the first 4K game I've ever played and the resolution bump greatly surpassed my expectations. With HDR, 4K, and an excellent art style it felt like a generation leap, no joke. 7/10
36: Severed - 5 Hours
Fruit Ninja swiping gameplay combined with a metroidvania game and RPG elements is brilliant. This is the first time I've played a touch-based control game on my mobile device (an iPad) and thought "this wouldn't be nearly as fun or interesting with any other control method". The swiping becomes more complex as you face different enemies with attacks and strategies to counter. Difficult battles feel like keeping several plates spinning. The combat in the game was genuinely challenging but it never gets frustrating due to generous checkpoints. Very cool. 9/10
37: SOMA - 10 Hours
One of the most interesting games I've ever played, narratively. I wish they had found a way to keep the threat of danger without the actual enemies, as the stealth/hiding parts with enemies was easily the worst part of the game. The fact that you couldn't look at enemies without aggro'ing them didn't help, I'd often find myself staring at a wall bored while waiting for an enemy to leave, which felt silly and robbed every event with enemies of tension. If they'd managed to keep the atmosphere of dread without the annoying enemy interaction, I think it would have been a stronger game. That said, what a fantastic story & setting. I didn't finish Amnesia but I'll be eagerly looking forward to the next Frictional Studios game. 8/10
September
38: Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle - 20 Hours
This wasn't on my radar at all, and I didn't even know what genre the game was until about a week before it released. I was pleasantly surprised to find a charming, funny strategy RPG that actually makes some improvements over XCOM. I think the game could have done with some more enemy variety, and some of the characters eventually do become so powerful that they almost break the game, but it's a wonderful addition to the Switch library. I would really love to see a sequel at some point, or some DLC that amps up the difficulty. 9/10
39: Ryse: Son of Rome - 6 Hours
I went into this with low expectations since the game doesn't have a great reputation. It was okay. The graphics hold up really well and for an Xbox One launch game it's easy to forgive some of the shallow gameplay and level design. The combat is much, much too repetitive though, and the whole vibe of the game felt last-gen in an unwelcome way. This felt like the spiritual successor to Gears of War for Microsoft, in terms of target audience and presentation. The tone combined with some of the other 1.0 Xbox One design choices (obnoxious Metro tile UI, gameplay seemingly designed for people that don't play games) left me feeling cold on the game. 6/10
40: Psychonauts: Rhombus of Ruin - 2.5 Hours
As a VR game, it's somewhat of a pain in the ass to play. The game makes no recommendation about whether you should play standing or sitting and if you're sitting you're going to be trying to look around at angles well past the point of comfort for most of the game. Even trying to minimize this (rotating my body more, rather than my head) I still had a sore neck each time I played. It feels like other early VR games, in that it's a bit on the short time and has design flaws that lead to discomfort. That said, it plays with scale in some really interesting ways and the Psychonauts world is as fun to visit as ever. 6/10
41: Firewatch - 4 Hours
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Absolutely beautiful. I enjoyed the story and the voice work in the game, but over my short time with Firewatch I never stopped having my breath taken away by the visuals. 8/10
42: Picross 3D 2 - 29 Hours
I enjoyed it, but ultimately think 2D picross is more fun. The 3D initially seemed like it made things more complex, but it also means more surface area to cover and less opportunities to get stuck (at least on Normal/Medium). I never felt like I had to think hard about a puzzle, instead just rotating puzzles for obvious blocks until the puzzle was done. Seeing the whole puzzle at once (2D) and having to think through it is more satisfying for me. Finished up everything but the post-game content. 7/10
October
43: Shovel Knight: Spectre of Torment - 4 Hours
An interesting Shovel Knight expansion, which emphasizes story and mobility more heavily. It felt quite a bit easier than Shovel Knight or Plague Knight, but I enjoyed the character exploration more. If we are comparing Shovel Knight to Megaman, this felt like Megaman X. 8/10
44: Yakuza 0 - 41 Hours
This was my first Yakuza game and I absolutely loved the setting and characters. Exploring a vision of a Toyko district in the late 80's is a total treat. Kiryu and Majima are fantastic characters as well, and I loved seeing their origin story. This was a smart way to introduce people to a relatively niche long-running series. While I have a lot of positive things to say about Yakuza 0, I can't get over the fact that there are *so* many cinematics. I felt like I played a 6 hour game and watched a 35 hour movie. That said, it was a good movie, and I will definitely be checking out the rest of the series next year. 8/10
45: Shadow of War - 25 Hours
I enjoyed Shadow of Mordor and this felt like a reasonable sequel. The game initially feels really redundant but by the second Act things change quite a bit compared to the first game. The Nemesis system is appropriately built upon and the siege stuff truly feels epic to participate in. The narrative setup feels super weak to start, but by the end I liked where the story went. The post-game content is utterly awful though, and it's confusingly presented as being part of the core campaign. For the record, I stopped after 2 post-game Siege battles and think it's insanity that they expected you to do another 18 after that. An awful way to end a pretty good game. 7/10
46: Golf Story - 16 Hours
A charming throw-back to 16-bit era games like Earthbound, but with some of the same lack of clarity in what to do next that older generations of games had (and why strategy guides were a thing). I had to look up what to do next several times while playing. I don't think it converted me to a fan of the sport, but I enjoyed my time with it. 8/10
47: Shovel Knight: Plague of Shadows - 8 Hours
The most mechanically interesting of the Shovel Knight spin-offs, but also feels like it suffers from a lot of awkward targeting issues and lacks the quick-swap weapon changes you'd want for the complex weapon modification system it features. Ultimately, it also felt a lot more repetitive than Specter Knight. It was cool to traverse the same levels in an entirely new way, but it was impossible to escape the fact that you were replaying the same levels as Shovel Knight. 7/10
48: Battle Chasers: Nightwar - 40 Hours
A nice modern take on a JRPG that makes some smart changes to keep combat interesting in battles. My favorite part about it was how compact it felt: the world initially seems large, but the space is well-used and you move through it at a good clip. The bonus content, ultimate weapons/abilities, optional bosses, etc. all felt like they were in reach without sinking dozens more hours into the game. The game also gives you a lot of options with your party and how you customize them, so I appreciated that I had so many ways to potentially form a team. The game did require some grinding to keep up with the level of enemies, which was my biggest problem with the game. Repeating an entire dungeon you just finished again with higher hp/dmg versions of the enemies isn't fun and doesn't feel rewarding. 8/10
49: Layers of Fear - 4 Hours
I liked the visual design in this but it feels wasted on a bad game design. It's extremely linear and most "progression" in the game is the result of moving forward in the one direction you can and waiting for things to happen. Unlike other horror games, I never felt like I was potentially going somewhere I wasn't supposed to, somewhere that might be dangerous, or like I needed to drive the game forward. It's an on-rails horror experience, and I never felt like my actions mattered in the game. This robbed it of any sense of dread, and I found the game incredibly boring as a result. 4/10
November
50: Mario Odyssey - 16 Hours
I'll preface this by saying that I loved this. It's a long-awaited and worthy follow-up to Mario 64, with bright interesting worlds and tons of stuff to do. It's by far the game that brought me the most Joy to play this year. That said, it was disappointing to me as someone who *loved* Mario Galaxy 2 (the best game I've ever played). Too often the tasks you are doing to get Stars/Moons don't feel earned or substantial, like randomly stomping a glowing part of a hill you come across. Where Mario Galaxy 2 had a pure focus on 3D platforming gameplay and built levels/planets to individually challenge your execution of a single new concept, Odyssey never really feels like it wants you to do anything besides explore a level, and the Star/Moon tasks feel very samey overall. After earning over 500 moons I didn't really ever feel challenged, and the platforming ability kit the game gave me never felt like something I needed to master. I think it's great that people finally got a sequel to Mario 64, but playing Odyssey made me realize that I want more 3D Mario games with a larger focus on gameplay mechanics. 8/10
51: Hollow Knight - 41 Hours
I had heard this was a mesh of Dark Souls and a Metroidvania, but it's so much more interesting than that. The game takes heavy inspiration from the way Souls games tells their story with mysterious scraps of information. It also borrows the map design concept from Souls games, where you'll get really far into a new area and feel unsafe, only to find that the level links back together with a shortcut in some interesting way when you press forward. These both work *really* well for a Metroidvania game. The atmosphere of the world and the art style also convey a sense of dread and mystery in an impressive way. I'll be blunt, this game is almost perfect and it's insane that such a small team made a game with so much content. I think the game makes a pretty major misstep towards the end with a platforming area you need to complete for the true-ending that feels more like Super Meat Boy than the game you've been playing and enjoying for dozens of hours. Visually bland and mechanically misguided, I don't know why the section is in the game, and it ruined some good will the game had built up. Still, I'd highly recommend playing this. 9/10
52: Horizon: Zero Dawn + The Frozen Wilds - 41 Hours
The thing the stood out most to me about this game was the visuals. By far the most impressive use of 4K and HDR I've seen to date, I was constantly taken aback by how gorgeous everything looks. Though, the darkness of the game at night on an OLED screen with HDR was almost too much: it was difficult to fight human opponents and navigate the terrain during night. Realistic and visually interesting, but not great for gameplay, I would have really appreciated a way to move time forward to day/night. The mechanical dinosaurs look fantastic as well, and I was impressed at how well the game actually manages to sell the visual design through the story.
Frozen Wilds added some interesting story pieces to the overall game. They really nailed the weather effects for the northern tundra-style environment: getting lost in a blizzard looks fantastic and is really effective. I don't know if it's a must-play piece of DLC, but if you're looking for more Horizon ZD it delivers.
Aside from the story and visuals which I really enjoyed, I think the game does suffer from a little open world bloat in quests/tasks and a lack of freedom in movement (after having experienced BOTW). Coming from a developer I had not previously cared for the output of, this was really pleasant surprise though. 8/10
December
53: Cuphead - 16 Hours
I greatly enjoyed playing through this with a friend over a few weekends. The visuals & audio are obviously the star of the show, but the boss variety is great too. There was a nice mix of regular bosses, flying bosses, bullet hell sections, and run & gun levels. The vast majority of the game felt very fair, only a few bosses where abilities could combine in either trivial or terrible ways felt like they strayed into the "unfair" camp since you could have a really hard attempt or a really easy attempt. The beautiful visuals go a long way in making the game less frustrating than it could have been, since every boss and phase feels like a treat. There were several times I died early in a fight due to poor play and was happy to have the opportunity to focus on the visuals while my poor partner had to try to finish the fight alone. The amount of love & attention to detail that went into the presentation of this game is going to be extremely hard to top. 9/10
54: NieR: Automata - 45 Hours
After finishing Route A I wasn't sure I wanted to play more NieR: Automata. I ended up finishing the remaining Routes and seeing the final conclusion. While I'm glad I did, as those sections gave much needed context to the story and delivered an excellent conclusion, I was still left thinking that this game could have used some serious editing. I would have preferred just one Route that removed the repetition of Route B and providing a satisfying conclusion by itself. I came away from the game with pretty mixed feelings: the game does some really interesting things and the way it seamlessly transitions between genres and perspectives is really impressive. I'm not actually sure that the gameplay is much fun most of the time compared to other Platinum titles though. While the story is great, I thought SOMA (which I also played this year) handled very similar subject matter in a much more coherent and interesting way. 7/10
And that's it! Phew!
I still want to play a few more games that I think might be in consideration for GOTY, but otherwise I'm done for the year.
I'd say prior to doing this challenge I probably finished about 5-6 games a year, and had a totally massive and daunting backlog. The way I play games feels much more manageable and ordered now, and I've had several games I was really glad that I stuck with through the end this year that I normally wouldn't have finished.
Thanks again to everyone that participated along with me or read my progress reports on the old site, this was really fun.
Well... I officially suck on regularly posting updates of my thoughts on the games I play, but here's one more:
Game #2 Star Wars: Republic Commando - (PC) - Single-Player Campaign Completion - Grade: 48/100
I decided to check this out after rewatching The Clone Wars at the beginning of the year. I know it gets a lot of praise, but I found it a boring slog.
Bland and meandering level design. Limited weapon and enemy variety. Enemy balance issues. Scant scripted events and one particularly poor one where you can insta-fail a self-destruct sequence but there's no on-screen UI letting you know how much time you have left. Really annoying. I was just glad when the whole thing was over. Also AI companions getting stuck. Some great music though. Why do the clone teammates all have different voices? They're the same person? Weird.
Pros: It has some cool music. Cons: Pretty much everything else.
I stopped playing this some time after I got it way back in 2014. Reason I stopped was because I hadn't had any good cards to make a useful strong deck to clear a stage. I eventually grinded through the game long enough to get some good cards and was able to beat the main campaign.
I might spend a few more hours in it to complete the card collection and the expansion, at least until my Magic addiction is curbed :V
GAMES FINISHED IN 2017 (all games beaten to the end credits unless otherwise stated):
1. The Last Guardian (PS4) - Ah, this fabled piece of work. So long we waited for its completion, only to be met with, what I feel is, a relatively tepid response. Myself, I personally really liked it. It has its quirks, and it does at times feel like a PS2-era game in terms of design elements, but that's exactly what I WANTED out of a new entry from Team ICO. And even though the controls are unwieldly and the camera sometimes atrocious and performance is a little dodgy, I can't help but be won over by how frickin' adorable and lifelike Trico is. Seriously, he/she really sells the game for me.
2. Knife Edge (N64) - An on-rails lightgun-like game. I had seen screens of it in magazines for years and I always wanted to try it out. Turns out it's actually pretty bad. The low framerate (even by N64 standards) combined with the jerky, erratic camera movements make this sometimes unbearable at points. The graphics are so murky and dark it's impossible to see anything going on, and the music is nothing to write home about. Also the camera is sometimes zoomed in way too far on the bosses - I think it was an attempt to portray scale, but it just comes off as clumsy now.
3. Pokemon Moon (3DS) - What can you say about a new Pokemon game? Honestly, a lot, both good and bad. This time it feels like they genuinely tried to shake things up. The Totem challenges (in place of Gyms) were all quite fun and refreshing and made for some memorable moments to the game. Rental Pokemon replacing HMs is by far my favourite change. Some things like evolving legendaries and Ultra Beasts flip around what are usually unbroken truths of Pokemon. There's a lot of things to freshen the experience up. However, I feel like some additions to the game were really scraping the barrel (I don't care much for Alolan forms of old Pokemon, and Z-Moves feel incredibly gimmicky). Wild, non-boss Pokemon calling for help was torture, and I feel like this generation may have been the weakest one yet for designs overall. I felt there is a lot the Pokemon franchise can take from this game going forward, learning from mistakes and fully adopting the welcome changes. I'm expecting the 4th Gen remakes to completely throw this out the window for authenticity's sake. D'oh!
4. Kirby: Planet Robobot (3DS) - I'm not a huge Kirby fan, I find the mainline platformers to be a little bland and uninteresting for my liking. However, Robobot may have been my favourite by a long shot so far. It had a lot of very interesting stages, the robot suits were really fun to use, and it looked an absolute treat all-round. Also, that final boss segment was phenomenal.
5. Rise & Shine (Steam) - A side-on run n' gun game. It has some gorgeous hand-drawn backdrops and awesome-looking bosses. What I expected going in was no-nonsense action, but it ended up being much more puzzle-based than I expected. And, honestly, this is one of the biggest problems I had with it. I didn't find much of the puzzle-solving fun or rewarding and lamented how unsatisfying a lot of the actioney sections themselves ended up being. The ending sequence also felt rather phoned in, which is a shame as it was starting to get good plotwise.
6. Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Switch) - Wow. That's all I can say about this one. Zelda has been accused of not shaking things up enough, but then this game comes along and it throws so much out of the window and starts with a clean slate. The end result is one of the best Zelda games of all time, and possibly one of my favourite games ever. Borrowing heavily from Skyrim's sense of exploration and wonder but injecting its own style, character and melee combat that's actually good, Breath of the Wild is a game that just lets you play it almost any way you want, almost daring you to try to break it (which you can, but that's not the point). It's so refreshing to find a game from a long established franchise that reinvents itself as well as this did.
7. Dark Souls 3: The Ringed City DLC (Steam) - The final DLC for DS3 and the final installment in anything Dark Souls (at least until Namco decide they want to make money again). The first DLC was good but very short and lacking in content: thankfully this DLC offered much more to do, with some really great landscapes and set pieces. Some of it isn't perfect though - of the four bosses, one is a frustrating slog against a damage sponge of an enemy, and one is another naff (and unoriginal) PvP tomfoolery incident. Thankfully, the other two bosses were excellent. Overall, I really enjoyed this.
8. Turtles: Fall of the Foot Clan (Game Boy) - As a huge Turtles fan I was sad to have never owned this when I was younger, but playing it as an adult I think I didn't miss a huge amount. It's not a bad game, but it's pretty no-thrills jumping and action. For a Game Boy game, though, it looks pretty nice.
9. Turtles 2: Back To The Sewers (Game Boy) - Now this is the Turtles game I should've been playing when I was younger. More levels, more variety, more of the established Turtles characters, more everything. A lot of these Turtles games have a mechanic which involves rescuing any fallen Turtles from the enemy's clutches, but I think this one is probably my favourite - you have a time limit between levels to defeat a prison ward-like boss in order to rescue the fallen Turtle, and failing to do so means you have to wait until the end of the next stage to do it again. It's tricky, but feels rewarding when you pull it off.
10. Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth+ (Switch) - I had this game and completed it many times before, but this is the first time since owning it that I managed to go forth and defeat every final boss in the game, including the true final boss Delirium - what waited for me was the biggest clue as to the real story behind the whole game. And man, it is FUCKED UP. Aside from that, it's the same tricky, easy to grasp, endlessly playable game as always. Now In Portable Form!(TM)
11. Wonderboy 3: The Dragon's Trap (Switch) - I never played the original game and was looking forward to this because of the absolutely beautiful art and animation. I was worried the game's flow and feel would suffer from the animation, but they managed to make it work and still play the same as the original (as evidenced when switching to the original graphics on the fly) The gameplay itself is fine, it has a nice, cheeky sense of exploration and adventure, and while it may feel a little archaic in terms of level design, it's no less fun because of it.
12. Blaster Master Zero (Switch) - I only played through the NES game late last year and I thought it was a great game that aged amazingly well, so it was relatively fresh in my mind when tackling this version. This version is certainly a fine adaptation - they added a lot and varied it up with more powerups and different bosses (and a new, hidden final level). But some of the changes I didn't care much for. I didn't think the music was as catchy as the original's, and the cutscenes and dialogue were entirely forgettable and a waste of time. I think if I were to replay either, I'd actually go and replay the original, but this game is a good one to go for if you've not played either.
13. Little Nightmares (Steam) - A short but smashing horror game. I really appreciate a horror game that, firstly, didn't have any jumpscares whatsoever, but also featured a lot of imagery that based itself around the idea of childhood nightmare situations - it truly felt unique among a genre that's so tropey, and that made it a great game. Only things I could say as criticism were that some of the controls were a tiny bit (only a tiny bit) unreliable, and as previously stated it felt too short. Perhaps I should check out the DLC.
14. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (Switch) - It's Mario Kart 8, but with a real battle mode and some added characters, karts and a few more bits n' bobs here and there. Not a lot to say about this to be honest, it largely speaks for itself. It's kind of the perfect Mario Kart package at this point.
15. ~Shock Troopers~ (Neo Geo via Switch VC) - Never heard of this before the Switch VC, and played through it pretty quickly. I had a fun time with it as a solo experience, but I would love to play it co-op someday.
16. Bomberman R (Switch) - A Bomerman game in 2017! Maybe Konami do still give a shit about making games I want to play. And... it was decent. Pretty much what I wanted out of a Bomberman game, although some of the graphics made it a little unclear to see where things were. Some great music too. A permanent fixture in my circle of friends' multiplayer fun times. Also welcome are the free DLC characters being added to the game, although some of them are incredibly broken during the single player mode *coughPyramidhead* It's nice to have Bomberman back again.
17. Armikrog (Wii U) - I really have a soft spot for The Neverhood, an old PC point n' click adventure game where everything was made from plastecine. I was happy to overlook its many glaring faults, and I did Kickstart this spiritual successor. I do have to say I'm glad for its existence and being different enough. However, I'd have a hard time recommending it to people. Some of the puzzles are downright nonsense and the storytelling is all over the place, with an abrupt ending that leaves things open for a sequel very unlikely to happen (no doubt due to a lack of funds, but eh) By far the most disappointing thing about it, though? Only ONE Terry Scott Taylor song in the whole game with vocals, and it's stuck in some easter egg room. His silly vocals were my favourite parts of Neverhood!
18. Thumper (Switch) - This game was so awesome. It's great to see a rhythm game with such a visually striking (and surprisingly terrifying!) sense of style to it, and the speed at which everything flies is such a scary white-knuckle ride. Game is hard as nails too, but never in a way that felt unfair. I'd definitely recommend this to people.
19. 88 Heroes (PS4) [DISCLAIMER: WORKED ON PARTS OF IT] - A platformer with a twist - your character roster has a whopping 88 playable characters, and each one is completely different to one another. To be honest I can't really comment on this one as I had a large(ish) part in its design so it'd be a bit biased. First time actually seeing all the way through to the end of it, though, so I'm still counting it.
20. Stick It To The Man (Wii U) - This is such an undiscovered gem of a game, a puzzle game where you use a giant pink hand extending from your brain to manipulate the world around you in order to solve puzzles. The art is stylish, the characters weird and voice acting was very good. I loved this one a lot, so much in fact I ended up playing through the entire game in one sitting, and it's not the shortest game either. Definitely recommended (I believe it just got a Switch release now too...Hmm.)
21. Monument Valley 2 (iOS) - A game announced and released on the same day is insanity. The fact that it is a game as nice, as polished, as satisfying and as beautiful as this just feels like the most wonderful surprise birthday present imaginable. Everything about this game feels so carefully crafted with a heavy sense of self-identity and the right pacing and length to make it feel satisfying without outstaying its welcome. Having two characters at once changes things up from the original without feeling overbearing. A very surprising treat!
22. ARMS (Switch) - I really like this game, it's a simple game that's easy to understand and has a surprising amount of depth. At the time I felt it was lacking content, and dropped it the moment I beat Headlok - however it has had a decent amount of content added that it's a perfect excuse for me to get back into it again (which I was meaning to, anyway, but y'know)
23. 8-Bit Fiesta (Steam) - Oh boy, what a stinker. I got given this game for free as part of a pack of games, and I honestly feel a little like I'm owed something for my efforts. You know how some people say pixel art is only used because the developer is lazy or incompetent? It's a nonsense argument and I hate it on principle, but this is the prime example of that being the case. It's possibly one of the worst-looking games I've ever seen (and I'm including programmer art-filled GameJam games in that) and is littered with some of the worst, most unfunny jokes and awful cutscenes imaginable. The game itself is a sloppily-coded I Wanna Be The Guy clone that frustrates and offers little in return. Overall a terrible, terrible experience. Avoid at all costs.
24. Night In The Woods (Steam) - After 8-Bit Fiesta I needed a real palette cleanser, and this was just the game I needed. It's a gorgeous little game full of charming characters, witty and heartfelt dialogue and an intriguing plot. I really felt for almost all of the characters in this, even some of the smaller NPC roles felt super memorable to me. The gameplay isn't much but for a story-driven game like this, and for a game that absolutely nails the story and writing, it doesn't need to (though having said this, there is also a small but very competent dungeon crawler minigame hidden away, and that alone is as good as some of the games I played this year.)
25. Broken Age (Steam) - One of the first games I ever backed on Kickstarter, one of the most infamous Kickstarter campaigns in gaming history, and only now have I gotten around to playing it. Yeah I'm slow, but whatever. Anyway, I enjoyed this quite a lot. It's very pretty with an all-star cast of voice actors and a very interesting storyline. It also feels pretty streamlined in the way puzzles are presented and solved, with a lot of good clues that give just enough of a hint without beating you over the head about it. The puzzles were well done... at least in the first part. The second part falls apart a bit, with one or two puzzles that needed extra support from the game itself to make bearable, and one which I thought was just badly misleading, and thus plain bad. As a game, it's good. I can't say it was the game I really wanted them to make, though, but thankfully I got THAT game in the form of the excellent Thimbleweek Park (which I've yet to beat)
26. Low G Man (NES) - Just one of those weird, quirky games you see in a magazine long ago that always stuck with you, and now I have the chance to play it. I can't say it was amazing, in fact there are some huge problems with it (EVERYTHING MOVES SO SLOWLY AND UNNATURALLY!) but there was enough there that kept my interest enough that I wanted to go ahead and beat it. I dunno if I'd recommend it to anyone, but I'm glad I got to play it.
27. Doom 64 (N64) - After having played DOOM 2016 last year I was itching for more DOOM to play, and the N64 one was the only one I hadn't played yet. I ended up enjoying this one a lot, with some great (if claustrophobic) level designs and intense combat throughout. What I wasn't expecting before going in was the soundtrack being just all ambience noises - it's so different to every other Doom game, and it's downright creepy (one stage I had to stop briefly because the sounds in the ambiance freaked me out so much). I'm glad I got through this, even though I thought the final boss was a bit wank.
28. Hook (NES) - This was a childhood game of mine that I remember owning and quite enjoying, but never got around to finishing. Having played it now (and beating it in an afternoon) I can't for the life of me think why I never beat it before - it's ludicrously easy and forgiving, almost as easy as the SNES game. The game has that problem of having one piece of music used through 90% of the game, but it was a catchy tune that ended up sticking in my head for the rest of the day. Also whoever thought having the large Tinkerbell sprite fly over all the dialogue screens was a good idea is a sadist that shouldn't be allowed to do such a thing again.
29. Double Dragon 2 (NES) - I loved the original game on the Master System (which, by the way, really hasn't aged well) and was curious to see how this one was. Turns out to be quite fun, but it has its problems. Some levels are quite lengthy while others are literally just a screen wide, so it feels inconsistent. Also; fixed jumping arcs + pressing A+B to jump + platforming sections over instant death pitfalls is never a fun time. Shame on you, devs. Disclaimer, there is a true final level and true final boss you need to do to see the real ending, but I was so fed up with the game by this point I called it quits with the fake final boss on the previous stage.
30. Jet Force Gemini (N64) - I never owned this game back in the day and I loved Rare's games on the system. For some reason seeing it in the magazines and even the high review scores, it never quite grabbed me. However after playing through it this year I have to say it's one of my favourite games Rare ever made. I really enjoyed this a lot, the level designs were fun with a ton of variety and awesome set pieces, it controls well and looks great (for an N64 game anyway) and has just enough of a sense of humour without being overbearing. I liked this game so much I ended up 100%ing it. That final boss was a real challenge, though.
31. Resident Evil 7 (PS4) - I don't like Resident Evil 6 and nobody can convince me it's a good game, so for me Resi Evil could only go up from there. And, largely, I think this game is a return to form. It does a lot of things right, or at least in a "faithful" way that appeals to me. It borrows heavily from the first few games in the series (too heavily in the case of a few puzzles, pretty much lifted from the first game) but intersperses some fresh new parts not seen in the series before, in the form of "prerecorded" events. It's not perfect, I have to say - the plot lost me at the halfway point, and the lack of enemy variety hurts it in my opinion - but it did reignite my interest in the series again. Which leads me to...
32. Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles (Wii) - ...this game! I was one of those that complained when this game was unveiled during the Wii's era, feeling betrayed by Capcom and their "tests", I wanted a true Resident Evil game! But thinking back on Umbrella Chronicles (and after playing this one) I realise I was a bit harsh on these lightgun Resi Evils. They're very solid, replayable games with a lot of content to unlock and, for Wii games, have pretty high production values. Overall I'd say the first one in the Chronicles series felt better to me, even though Resi 2 (which only featured in Darkside Chronicles) is a very memorable game to me. I might put this down to the connecting story segments being of more interest to me, as they focused on Umbrella themselves rather than their own standalone story. Were it not for its importance in Krauser's backstory, I'd say the connecting story in this one is entirely throwaway.
33. Cave Story + (Switch) - It's Cave Story, a game I feel really holds importance in the rise of indie gaming we know today. It's also a really quality, unforgettable game that I enjoyed playing through again. I don't remember it being as tough as it is, but it's not too tough to overcome. The true final boss is as maddening as ever, but the resulting conclusion feels great. It's a great game with a great story and great characters. A classic.
34. ~Blazing Star~ (Neo Geo via Switch VC) - Kind of an odd side-on shooter, it doesn't really do anything super memorable, but what it does is very solid and tightly crafted, full of colour and great effects and it controls great. Some fun bosses and even a bit of quirky, humourous engrish thrown in. It's a decent shooter.
35. Decap Attack (Mega Drive) - Another game I'd seen in magazines in the day and was curious about, now having the chance to play it. There's honestly not a lot to say about it - I thought it was quite bland and unremarkable, though neither was it offensively bad. It was just a okay experience.
36. Total Carnage (SNES) - Loved Smash TV back in the day and really wanted to play through this game. It feels pretty similar to the first game but with more going on with the level designs. The final boss is ridiculous, but being that it was originally an arcade game I was expecting that. To be honest, though, I regret playing this through the SNES version, as having seen videos of the other versions it looks like a LOT was missing from it, either though hardware limitations or censorship on Nintendo's behalf. I may have to play through a less neutered version of the game someday.
37. Super James Pond (SNES) - James Pond is a real relic of the Amiga days of gaming and that's precisely where it belongs, because this game is not good. The thing about Amiga games is their art is very often made to just showcase the power of the system and the colours it can push, without any regard for whether it actually looks good - as a result, the stages are garish eyesores full of repeating patterns and clashing colours. Level designs are very lazy, often full of whole sections of the stage devoid of enemies or hazards or anything interesting, and every single bossfight is a joke. The only somewhat redeemable part to the game is the unique trait of Robocod himself to stretch upwards to grab items and cling to the ceiling, but it's clunky and not very fun to utilise, making it a moot point.
38. Prehistorik Man (SNES) - A Titus game... But it's good! Yes, the company known for the legendary Superman 64 did make something that was actually fun to play, this underrated platformer is full of colour, great pixel art, good controls and a huge variety of level types keeping things interesting throughout. Some great music and memorable bosses too. The end of the game really ramps up in difficulty to unfair levels at point, though (looking at you, gently-tilting iceberg stage!) but I'd say it is a game that needs more love regardless.
39. Titanfall 2 (PS4) - I never played the original and had no intention of playing this sequel until the word-of-mouth compared it in parts to Vanquish, a game I love to bits. Now I'm glad I listened, because this game was excellent. The single player campaign was so fun to blast through, with great level designs and REALLY fun mechanics introduced on every stage. The bosses, while challenging, weren't too hard to overcome, and everything was nicely paced so nothing felt like it was overdone or grating. I'm so glad EA decided to make a singleplayer campaign for this series, and I hope they make more of them going forward.
40. Sonic Mania (Switch) - I'm one of those that really liked the classic Sonic games and fallen out of favour with his more recent outings - the last one I played and really enjoyed was Sonic Colours, and even that I wouldn't quite compare to the originals. So to have a brand new oldschool Sonic game in the year 2017 was really appealing to me, and this game absolutely surpassed my expectations. It has enough from the old games to make me feel comfortable, before flipping it around and turning it upside-down and subverting expectations, and that's before any of the brand new stages and content the game threw at me blew me away. It's gorgeous, speedy, and feels so good to control, and I loved every minute of it. I hope Sega makes more of this and less of the 3D ones.
41. Horizon: Zero Dawn (PS4) - I put a lot of hours into this and I remember enjoying it, but after having played Zelda before this game, there were just too many points during my playing where I wished it did things like Zelda did, like climbing (almost) any surface, hangliding from tall areas and not collapsing into a ragdoll the moment I fall twenty feet off a cliff. However the game offers things Zelda doesn't. It's a phenomenal-looking game, for one, with an interesting setting that I enjoyed learning more about through the great story, and hunting the various machines and picking them apart bit-by-bit while targeting new weak spots on the fly always felt intense, and the arsenal of weaponry you had to do that with made things a ton of fun. I liked this a bunch.
42. StarFox [replay] (SNES) - SNES Classic time! In order to unlock Star Fox 2 you have to finish the first level of the original Star Fox, but I just ended up beating the whole game in just over an hour (on the Easy path) It's still a really fun game, even if the 3D is positively archaic by today's standards, but it's a very replayable game that changes things up so often. It's the right length of time to be an intense rollercoaster ride whatever path through the game you take.
43. StarFox 2 (SNES) - The game I'd been waiting nearly two decades to play. I can't confidently say it was worth THAT amount of time to play, but I did like it a lot. They changed the formula a bit from the first one, though nowadays it feels a little familiar, not only to Star Fox 64 (with the inclusion of such staples as Star Wolf) but also the DS game Star Fox Command, particularly how the player tackles stages. I'd also say that the move away from on-rail stages in favour of more arena-based levels feels like a disappointment. But there is a lot to the game I barely touched and I would very much enjoy going back to see as much of it as possible.
44. Cuphead (Windows) - I fucking love this game. I love traditional 2D animation very much, it speaks to my soul and I grew up with so many classic cartoon characters, so naturally the 1930s-inspired aesthetic this game strives for hit me on a level no other game before it has done. Simply put, it's a work of art, and the painstakingly hand-drawn animations are an incredible joy to behold. The game itself is very, very solid too. Perhaps it lacks ambition in terms of design (and the pure level-based stages are a little hit-and-miss) but what it does, it does very well, and none of it is interfered with no matter how fluidly the wonderful animations flow. One of my favourites this year.
45. Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle (Switch) - I wasn't expecting a lot when going into this one, and it ended up surpassing expectations and becoming a really fun, really well designed game. Even though I'm not a huge fan of the Rabbids themselves, I love Ubisoft's take on the Mario universe from. It's nice to see how it was all interpreted by new and very talented developers, and the end result has a really appealing look to everything, giving the feel of an awesome theme park I'd love to visit someday. But the gameplay is what really sells it - there's a lot of things to play with, strategically, during the turn-based battles, all explained in easy-to-digest chunks of information, and each character brings a lot to battles that makes them all very useful to switch between. The game is pretty challenging but not insanely so, and the base game kept itself interesting all the way to the end (and beyond, in the form of other challenges) Certainly one of this year's most surprising games.
46. Contra: Shattered Soldier (PS2) - I love the classic Contras but never delved into any of the 3D or 2.5D ones, so I thought I'd give it a go with this one. And you know what, this game is awesome. It's ridiculously difficult and pretty much a memory game throughout, but that's exactly what I wanted from a Contra game. There's bosses constantly and they're all great fun to take down, and everything feels so fast and fluid. I was honestly surprised at how much I enjoyed this. There's no way I'm getting to the final two stages, though, unless I somehow miraculously git gud and S-rank everything beforehand.
47. Legend of the Mystical Ninja [replay] (SNES) - This game is a classic, and it was so nice to revisit again (with the added bonus of a second player to play it with - before I'd only played it through single player) even though it's been a long time, it's surprising how much of it I remember. It's a fun, cheerful adventure that just sort of feels like a really big theme park trip. There's one platforming section on the penultimate level that's not very fun, but other than that I feel it's just as much of a joy to play now as it did before.
48. Stardew Valley (Switch) - You can't technically finish this game, but I got to the point of judgement and was ranked the highest level you could possibly get and given an item that helps spawn infinite numbers of another really useful item, so I think that counts as the end. That hasn't really stopped me playing it a bunch, though... I can't stop playing it. There's something so compelling, always something to do, which always leads to something else to do, ad infinum. There's so much to the game and it's all presented in a cheery, adorable front that owes most of it to the Harvest Moon series. Having it portable just pushes that to ridiculous levels of addiction, though. One of my most played games on the Switch already.
49. Super Mario Odyssey (Switch) - This game is amazing. With some similarities to Breath of the Wild, Mario Odyssey's return to more open, freeform level designs is a nice change of pace from 3D Land and 3D World (and all the "New" Super Mario Bros. games), but it's amplified to ridiculous levels. There are so many Power Moons to find that it's sometimes overwhelming just how often you can come across them, but that just makes it such a joy to tinker around in each landscape. And I love how every world looks like its own thing, with some wildly different art styles and themes truly pushing the boundaries of what a Mario game should be like. It's gorgeous, a musical dream and a massive, massive amount of fun. In fact it might be my new favourite Mario game.
50. Yo! Noid 2 (PC) - I had debated at first whether I should include this in the list, as it's a GameJam game and not a "real" game as such. However there is a lot of love that went into this PS1-era tribute and it has a fair number of hours of gameplay behind it too. It's janky and technically wonky, but intentionally so - it emulates the PS1 era so perfectly that it feels ripped right out from that time period. It's polished in how... unpolished-feeling it is. Some of the platforming segments it requires for you to tackle are absolutely infuriating, though, especially with the intentionally twitchy and hyperactive controls, and that does hurt the overall enjoyment. But for a free game made in a month, it's a great time - and far better than a sequel to the terrible NES game based on an unloved pizza mascot actually deserves, so there's that.
51. Monster In My Pocket (NES) - I had no expectations going in, but I remember the original toys I had and saw this in a market place sale recently, so I decided to pick it up. Turns out it's actually a very enjoyable, if simple, co-op action game. It doesn't have every Monster In My Pocket, but the amount it does have is quite staggering, so it's pretty fun to keep ploughing ahead just to see which ones do feature. One of the little touches I loved was that the points you get for killing each enemy actually matches their power levels on the original toys (the Tyrannosaurus Rex enemies, for example, had a power level of 25 on the toy, so killing them nets you 25 points in the NES game) though it's a bit upsetting to beat a boss only to get a measly 5 points because that's how much the toy was worth (which begs the question, why would 5 point monsters be bosses?!) Anyway it's a really minor point, but I liked it. Even if it is a little on the easy side, I'd say this game gets a thumbs up from me.
52. Transistor (Steam) - This was a gorgeous game. Being from the creators of Bastion I was hoping for an endearing, charismatic narration throughout, and I was not disappointed - what I was pleasantly surprised by, however, was how the combat actually worked. It's an unusual take on action RPGs mixed heavily with tactical combat, almost, and it all works very well and combat remains engaging throughout. It's a beautiful game too, set in a unique world mixed with heavily computer code themes. One thing I would say soured the game for me, though, was the ending, which felt very out of left field and incredibly self-defeating. But everything up until then I enjoyed.
(A bonus 53rd game because why not) Headlander (Steam) - I'd heard of this a few times and thought it was going to be some quirky puzzle game with a ridiculous premise (a moving, disembodied head navigating around to land on bodies as a goal in some kind of puzzle game), however I was not expecting a Metroid-style game set in a striking, 80s-inspired setting. The game is bursting with colours, sometimes literally, particularly every time your head dies. Having the head detach in order to explore nooks and crannies and collect upgrades is a very novel concept and a nifty twist on the normal formula, and utilising a body and a head at the same time to combat enemies feels great. I thought the boss battles were pretty creative too. Some of the plot elements felt a bit rushed near the end, but other than that I thought it was a nice surprise of a game. I would definitely recommend it.
TOP THREE GAMES OF 2017:
1. Zelda: Breath of the Wild
2. Super Mario Odyssey
3. Sonic Mania
Worst games played in 2017:
1. 8-Bit Fiesta
2. Super James Pond
3. Knife Edge
January
1. Diablo 3(PS4)-Started from scratch and completed main campaign and expansion.
2. Here They Lie -Genuinely creepy/disturbing atmosphere but not a very good game.
3. Titanfall 2- Just a casual FPS fan but wow was that a great campaign.
4. Loading Human- I payed half price and still felt like i paid to much. Buggy game with bad controls/story/puzzles.
5. Valiant Hearts- Wow, this one was great. fun little puzzles and loved the story/characters.
6. A Boy and His Blob- A fun and charming adventure game with puzzles that make you think but aren't hard enough to be frustrating
7. Limbo- a 2d black and white game that seems more gruesome than most AAA action and horror games
8. Until Dawn:Rush of Blood- Good on-rails shooter. Crazy giant spiders and the last level got real crazy. If you have PSVR, I recommend.
9. Tearaway Unfolded- Fun platformer oozing with charm.
10. Resident Evil Vll- Played the whole game in VR. If there is a VR killer app out then this is it. Amazing experience.
February
11. Abzu- Not much in terms of gameplay but wow is it beautiful.
12. Infamous: First Light -Was interested in this game and actually enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would.
13. Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare - Pretty fun game, good campaign but I still liked Titanfall 2 better.
14. Little Big Planet 3- OK game, short main campaign, fun to check out what other people have created.
15. Never Alone- Annoying when your AI controlled partner dies on their own but otherwise a solid platformer.
16. How We Soar- It was alright but it felt like I was flying on slow motion the entire time
17. The Last Guardian- Its a pain in the ass 95% of the time due to terrible controls but it has one hell of an ending
18. Dishonored- Great Game. I wanted to play it again because I'm planning on playing the sequel in the near future.
19. Tales From the Borderlands- Most fun I have had with a Telltale game that i have played.
March
20. Trine: Enchanted Edition- Fun puzzle platformer. I loved how the backgrounds of the game looked.
21. Strider- Really fun metroidvania game. Check it out.
22. Journey- Visually looks great. I dont think I'd have liked it as much without the multiplayer aspect to it.
23. The Last of Us Remastered- Good game. Gameplay shares a lot of similarities to Uncharted but I found this more fun.
24. Trine 2- Not much innovation, just more of what the original did which isn't bad at all.
25. Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris- Ok game. I wouldnt pay money for it but its alright for a ps plus game.
April
26. Batman: A Telltale Series- Huge performance issues, otherwise exactly what you'd expect from a Telltale game.
27. Stick it to the Man- Ok game. I really dont have a strong opinion of it one way or another.
28. Transformers Devastation- This might have been the first Platinum game I've played. It had surprisingly fun combat.
29. Assault Android Cactus - Really fun twin stick shooter.
30. Mortal Blitz - A really fun, but short, PSVR shooter. If you can find some space, the ability to move around adds to the fun
31. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan - Same formula as Transformers. Good gameplay, repetitive enviroments.
32. Counterspy- Pretty fun 2.5D stealth action.
May
33. Assassins Creed: Freedom Cry- Just like Assassins Creed Black Flag. Mostly fun game with great sailing and frustrating controls on land
34. The Legend of Korra- I heard bad things about this game but I really enjoyed it. Absolutely worth it if you grab it on sale.
35. Gravity Rush Remastered- Really fun game. Love the gravity mechanic. Glad i picked it up during the sale.
36. Time Machine VR- Its like they created a couple of underwater enviroments, threw a few dinosaurs in it and then tried to make a game around it. Not recommended.
37. Farpoint- Amazing. Really enjoyed the game and the Aim controller was a blast to use.
38. Fated: Silent Oath- Short and no smooth turning option. Other than that it was outstanding.
39. Marvel Heroes Omega- Completed all chapters in story mode. Fun Diablo style game. Was able to beat it without spending a dime.
June
40. Uncharted 4 - I'm not a huge fan of the series but still enjoy them somewhat. This is more of the same, good story, fun characters and ok gameplay.
July
41.Roundabout- You are a limo driver that drives in circles instead of straight, It was featured on websites for its live action cutscenes, It was worth what I paid for it, less than $2.
42. Infamous: Second Son- Had no interest in this game until I played First Light and I really enjoyed it.
August
43. Super Hot VR- Amazing. Makes you feel like an action hero. A must play for any VR enthusiast.
44. Eagles Flight- Pretty fun flying around a deserted Paris. The aerial combat was really fun.
45. God of War III Remastered- Fun combat, mediocre platforming, hated the story and characters.
46. Trine 3: Artifacts of Power-didnt like having to unlock levels by collecting items and had a cliffhanger ending but otherwise enjoyable.
47. Ratchet and Clank- Great platformer/shooter. Really enjoyed the variety of weapons and upgrade system.
48. Statik- Fun puzzle game for PSVR. Really cool how they throw you in situations without explanations and just let you figure it out.
49. Until Dawn- Amazing game. Really impressive how they managed to blend so many different horror genres together.
September
50. Rise of the Tomb Raider- unpopular opinion but while there are things I like about Uncharted more I like the rebooted Tomb Raider more.
51. Batman: Arkham Asylum- Button mashy combat, detective view and inaccurate controls should have ended up as a bad game. This game is better than the sum of its parts.
October
52. The Walking Dead: A New Frontier- Enjoy them even though Telltale sucks at writing interesting characters, They seem to write a certain number of them just to be nothing more than assholes.
November
53. Dragons Dogma(PS4)- Amazing game. Hopefully will get a sequel.
54. Voltron VR Chronicles- Pretty fun just dont pay full price. It was on sale for around 6 dollars which is about right.
December
55. Dragon Quest Heroes - Really fun. enjoyed seeing characters from previous games
Well I have arrived and have found my favorite thread of the other place. Time to catch up on what has been going on, if the text seems weird or outdated this was written relative to the dates of when I finished a game.
Blindy's Quest for 52+ Games:
1) Psychonauts(PS4) 12/26-1/2
So I took down my 1st game of 2017, Psychonauts!
If there was a game that for 14 of the 15 hours was absolutely fantastic without any kind of flaw, this would be it. However, the final hour or so of this game dragged it down so much to the point that I wanted it to end and was frustrating to see the game continue to throw thing after thing at you. The last world lets be honest here folks is absolute crapola on a stick.
Why would I say this? Two big things that hurt what was otherwise an absolutely fantastic and awesome platformer.
1) The camera rotating on its own is frustrating. Yeah PS2 platformers did this notoriously but that doesn't mean it isn't harmful to the game. Especially with portions of the game needing tight platforming to get where you have to go. There were parts that I was fighting in a tug of war with the camera in an effort to position it where I can see and there were numerous occasions where I went through a rail on my perspective. The railing was pretty lousy as well, the game came out after Ratchet and Clank so natural the comparison of the two would be coming in and the latter blows the former out of the water in this category due to the perspective problem that a player would endure.
2) There were specific platforms in this game that disallowed you to do a double jump off a roped section and this often led to cheap deaths/retries, especially by the end. You have to use the float ability and hope for the best and hope your character can latch on.....which this game often falls victim as the 2nd big problem. No auto grabbing is frustrating as there are given portions when trying to climb up somewhere and you think by getting so close to the area that your character would automatically grab the ledge but Razputin would essentially not. Very inconsistent in this regard where it sometimes you grab it when within the vicinity, sometimes the game will not give it to you.
But besides these two gripes, the game is clever, quirky, full of imagination, full of fun and when the game gets it all right, this game is just so much fun. Sucks the final hour full of frustration and rage put a bad taste in my mouth on this game because besides that last world, I enjoyed all of the character engagements in this game and thought some of the worlds were fantastic. The game feels like a reoccurring Saturday Morning Cartoon and not enough games hit on home in this regard so I really do appreciate what this game does.
If the 2nd game fixes on some of the problems the 1st may have had, we will have ourselves a breath of fresh air at a time where there are not enough quality platformers coming out.
Final Verdict: Yay or Nay. I overall enjoyed my 14 or so hours with this game and I got over 30% completion with the trophies and the trophies aren't too ridiculous to get so there's replayability to be had. The aforementioned flaws could be contributed to being a 10+ year old game I suppose but overall these flaws should not scare anyone from playing this. A must play for any platform fan, the game kind of reminds me of Banjo Kazooie from a quirky humor standpoint but this game does not always fall into the collect-a-thon which is a very good thing.
(Never got this game over throughout the playthrough but man this screen scared me as a little kid when I played this for the SNES)
2) Donkey Kong Country(New 3DS) 1/5-1/6
Confession to make here, this is my favorite series of all time. The DKC Trilogy is some of the finest platforming and gameplay ever for me and I figured after getting a new 3DS on black friday that I might as well treat myself to an all time classic series by getting all of the 3 games and playing them while commuting or at work. It kills time during lunch and on the ride home. Last time I played this game was back on an ZSNES emulator and while that gave me a good experience, there's nothing better than playing it on something other than the keyboard. Such an easy game to get into and to really play altogether. Music is amazing, gameplay is great, there's hardly anything negative I can say from a game standpoint. Sure the bosses are easy(Which is a reoccurring theme for the most part in this series) and I felt in comparison to future entries in this series that the bonus rounds didn't really offer up much purpose but that's purely nitpicking.
Took me 2 days officially but I finished the game under 2 hours and 30 minutes. Still a great timeless game altogether, I can never honestly get sick of it. Though the one problem I did end up dealing with in this version is when jumping very high up, you go off screen and in a level like the 1st level of the last world(The one you have to hit the fuel to keep the machine going or else you die) and in such tight jumps where you have to hit the next platform and avoid a Zinger, this was very frustrating. I also think it was a smudge off with the barrel shooting in this game, remembering it being much more crisp on the SNES. There were also 1-2 times that an enemy popped up out of the blue when moving onto the screen.
Altogether though the game is very short and (somewhat) challenging and the bosses do get reused but that's usually a common occurrence in the trilogy by Rare. Forgot just how short the game was which is why I happened to save this game as a game I play during Lunch/the commute at home though I got antsy and the final map and half I finished at home.
Recommendation: Yay or Nay? Well this is my favorite series of all time and while I might happen to find the game easy, that does not mean that it would be easy for anybody else giving this a 1st time try. It's a no brainer to give this series a try as a video gamer IMHO.
3) The Darkness(PS3) 1/2-1/8
Such mixed feelings on this game. I had always wanted to try this game for the sole basis of the whole The Crow meets The Punisher sort of deal with this comic always intrigued me and I had quite a bit of familiarity with the origins of this story. I also happen to know that Faith No More's Mike Patton oddly enough was the voice actor of the main protagonist, Jackie Estacado which was a pretty odd choice but given his ability with his voice to project it in so many ways, it makes sense from The Darkness standpoint to have that.
I had to notch the difficulty down from hard to normal in large part because you die in like 2 shots to the 1st couple of enemies on hard to the point that I kept on dying and needing to restart over and over again.
My initial impressions about 1-2 hours in was that this game felt very outdated with the AI doing the same 1-2 cover moves making it predictable and I wasn't sure what to think of the game but as the game progressed, the very intriguing story and gameplay that is helped immensely by the Darkness powers because this game is bare bones and gets borderline mediocre with it's gun play, especially in 2017.
The storytelling and presentation is rather good though the side missions were lousy and featured just killing a group of enemies and reporting back to the person who asked you to do the deed. Didn't even bother to finish up the side quests since there's no trophy support to even warrant finishing up every single thing in this game.
Without the powers that you get, this would have been an unbearable game to play through and at given portions, this game randomly converts into being like Medal of Honor with some random war trench fights with AI enemies in some bland gun play. Thankfully you can summon some minions to help you fight and there are 4 different minions offers in this game so not all is lost.
Recommendation:
Yay or Nay. I'll side with neither because let's be honest, you are not missing out by not playing this game. It feels outdated, the gun play is lousy, there are portions in this game that get unbearable to have to deal with, game features tons of backtracking on trains that seemingly wastes a few minutes and some mediocre sidequests. What is good with this game is the story, presentation and the darkness powers. There's so much good and bad together that I can't say I would recommend you to go out of your way to play it but at the same time, it's not terrible by any means and you aren't totally wasting your time to play this game.
4) Metal Slug Anthology(PS4) 1/7-1/10
(I was torn to count this as one entry or seven but honestly given Metal Slug X is like a carbon copy of 2 but with a little more content and add the fact that each entry is like an hour at most long, I decided to go with the former and not cheese it up....otherwise this challenge would be a breeze lol)
I think heading into Metal Slug, it's one of those games that you best know what you are getting yourself into. You can expect a ton of deaths and some pretty brutal bullet hell parts where at times you aren't even sure what hit you as there's so much shit going on in the game. There were some dropped frames at given points and especially as to how vital it is to have the proper reactionary time to survive, it got somewhat frustrating to play.
My biggest pet peeve with the game is that there's a second delay with the jumping in this game and this is a very huge deal, especially with such tight jumps and so little margin of error to make these jumps. But besides that huge glowing problem, this is just endless fun and if I remember you can knock out each Metal Slug within an hour so you are getting about 8 hours altogether for this Anthology that was on the PS2 but has been trophyfied(Made up word) for the PS4....though some of the trophies are ridiculous like not having to use more than 5 continues for a trophy or rescuing 10 prisoners in a single level(Which means you cannot die a single time while doing this, good luck). But I got this game on sale for like 7 dollars so a Metal Slug for a dollar is a steal given it costs a quarter to start up a game and you have infinite continues to move forward in the game(Had to burn 24 continues to beat Metal Slug 1..........)
There were portions throughout this game that I just tanked the bosses by continuously dying to get 10 bombs and chuck all of them while in my frames of invincibility. Sounds awful but my other problem with this game is the game doesn't change the onslaught of enemies if you single player the game or do co op which I don't necessarily get. There are just portions in this game that you suffer without a partner so if you do end up playing this, you want to make sure you get a partner to play along with. You put yourself at a disadvantage without one.
They do reward you with beating the 1st boss and finishing the game as trophies but the other trophies are very unreasonable like beating a game without using more than 5 continues when the game is stingy about extra lives(Don't recall ever getting one) or rescuing more than 10 prisoners at least one time(Note if you die once while gathering up __ prisoners, you have to restart all over again so you really have to 1 shot a stage and I only did that with Metal Slug VI in the 1st level)
But if you can ignore these admittedly picky reasons, you have yourself about 6-7 hours of pure fun and carnage of a game that is tough but never daunting to finishing. None of the characters do much different than one another besides the last game so it just becomes a matter of who looks cool or who you like.
Recommendation: Yay or Nay. If you and a buddy want a couple of hours or want to spend a lazy day just trying to run through some senseless violence in a fast paced run and gun, this is your series. Just know ahead of time you will die, you will die a lot. Cheap deaths galore, and deaths that you can't really avoid. Add about a near full second delay response from your controller input and just be aware that if you die a lot, it's not necessarily your fault. As long as you can have fun and just laugh about it, you are playing this Anthology the right way. May god ever help you if you want this platinum trophy though.
That and well.....
ROC-KET LAUN-CHA! Dat soundbite. Not going to lie, I kamikaze'd to get the damn R letter to hear them feels.
5) The Darkness 2(PS3) 1/10-1/13
Playing this game quickly after playing the 1st one, I came to realize that this game blows the 1st one out of the water in the gameplay department….as it should being it came out 4-5 years later. I think the game being more linear and not having the slow and unnecessary subway traveling was a change for the better. Though what this game loses that the 1st game had was stealth, particularly stealth kills which was a vital part of the 1st game. This game is all guns blazin and nothing else. You still get to use the Black Hole and of course you get to flaunt your darkness powers now more than ever but gone are the cheap and easy kills from afar. The abilities of regeneration, shield, ammo or power up charge(I think?) when staggering an enemy to help your cause is HUGE and vital.
This is a pretty good game that shines up the 1st game with ease. But speaking of shine, I will say the light in this game is ridiculously OP(Played on 2nd hardest difficulty) and even the hint of it makes you absolutely easy pickings so you really have to watch where you are since you are just a man with his gun(s) at that point and some areas there's really no way around it. Biggest gripe I can have with this game is the lack of ammo around had to have been the sole reason I would die consistently in this game, you would spend literarily minutes just running around the area just begging for ammo and when you don't get it, especially in lightened places, you are dead meat and can do nothing but run around and hope the enemies miss (Which they have very good aim). Wish the ammo placement was a tad bit more generous as you do not get enough ammo after an ammo execution to be quite frank.
The game is rather quick and the 1st game does outdo the 2nd game in this department and I wish the main antagonists had more buildup, particular the cronies of the main antagonist who get introduced, fight em, and then die off…yeah. Game quickly moves you place to place, no real time for explanation and again I do like linear style games but it Is something to consider when playing this title.
I will say the new voice actor for Jackie in this game comes off a bit too tryhardish, I never would envision Jackie Estacado's voice to be so Italian mobster-ish, especially coming off of the 1st game, it felt a bit over exaggerated and unnecessary. Did bother me in given portions but not enough to have me put the game down.
Recommendation: Yay or Nay. In comparison to the 1st Darkness, it's not even a contest. The 1st Darkness is one you can honestly skip, especially when the game wraps everything in that game up in a nutshell in the 1st 3 minutes. This one does hold up well by FPS standards and you will get a nice 6-7 hour game out of this. Def. worth a rent and a playthrough, the ending was quite a twist and the story telling is just as good as it was in the 1st one. There are some annoying segments in the game and again the negative blemishes I mentioned 3 paragraphs up kind of speak about them loosely but besides that, a pretty solid game all around.
6) Mighty Gunvolt 1/16
I am kinda ashamed to put this one on here given I only played through this with the Gunvolt main character and it took me about 15 minutes to wipe this game out. The game is Mega Man esque with the feel and look sure but the game lacks serious depth besides a 5 level travel that is about 3 minutes each and not much challenge in the levels itself and some very unimaginative set pieces in the levels that if you grew up on Mega Man, you would not be very impressed. The bosses provide a little challenge though once you get their pattern, it is a wrap.
I think I spent 1-2 dollars on this and I feel ripped off. A pack of gum would have lasted twice as long as this game. It's not TERRIBLE but I can't possibly say that after playing it that I was wowed or impressed. It's a typical safe Mega Man clone. Very unforgettable but the game was cheap to get.
Folks, sometimes you just need layups to get you to the path of 52. To kind of borrow sports analogy, It's not about how you get there, it's as long as you get there is what truly matters.
Recommendation:
Yay or Nay. Saw this being charged for 4.99 on Steam, what? I did hear there was additional DLC for this game so maybe that explains the total cost there? If you can get this game for a dollar or something, then only buy this game. The game length and lack of any differentiation from a Mega Man game leaves you with a pretty unspectacular game altogether. This game is great for a 52 game challenge though, so it did help me out in this regard.
7) Alan Wake + The Signal DLC + The Writer DLC
I figured after that short addition that I can wrap up a full title game with 2 DLC attached to it to save some face :D
Finished Alan Wake, and the 2 DLCs, The Signal and The Writer. The story got over the place here or there(Either that or it just flew over my head) but the gameplay had some very good moments. The game is much better than Quantum Break, at least for me. Remedy still has no idea how to incorporate platforming elements into their games which hurts my head, they have had like 6 years to correct this yet they can't. The platforming portions of these games felt very rough where I would fall off the map in some funky actions. Quantum Break suffered from the inability of trying to jump and make platforms for the sake of exploration and I think Wake actually did it better in that regard.
The 1st half felt very survival horror alone, the 2nd half with co op partners(And I have to take back my complaint that the AI was awful, Chapter 5's AI partner was badass, in like 10 minutes alone she is a better co op partner than Dom from Gears of War) sort of ruined the element of scare/thrill though the game in given portions did have some big moments of having you get chased around.
Each of the DLCs were barely an hour and the credits were 1/10 of the overall timer of that thank god for some Space Oddity to keep you through the credits.
Unlike with Quantum Break, these collectables I think were better done and weren't so overcomplex with the descriptions where it took you 2-3 minutes alone to go through a file during the game to try and understand the story. The ability to do this in a storytelling fashion helped for the matter. The simplicity of combat for this game was the right move for a game like this, nothing ridiculous, the protagonist you played never felt OP and felt like a ridiculous person who can take on everyone and everything.
What did frustrate me is the random losing of items in between chapters and even during portions of the chapter given you are never too sure when a chapter will end. I held onto Flare Guns and Flash Grenades in hopes to save them for a boss or when I truly need them most and low and behold, I enter a new chapter completely itemless. Ruins the whole "Risk/Reward" method behind the game where if I fend off enemies with guns and flares/flashlights to save the top tier stuff for the more difficult portions that there was no reward to it.
All I have left is Alan Wake's American Nightmare and that's a standalone DLC so that might be a playthrough I go later in the year, maybe during Summer.....
Recommendation: Yay or Nay: The game intentionally had a Twin Peaks/Stephen King(Which they hold no shame of mentioning his name a few times) real feel so I think with it's own cheese, it kind of captures the essence of both of those well known thrillers/mystery stories. I thought the game was good though the story somewhat lost me at given portions though I think it lends itself to wanting to read the lore behind what I just watched and played so in that regard there's some intrigue and mystique attached to the game that further adds to the overall entertainment you get when playing this game. I can say with my 17 or so hours with the mainline game and it's DLC that it was enjoyable. The DLC were about an hour each and I don't think you are missing too much with it so if you can get it at a reasonable price, go for it but you're not missing all that much if you just play the main game.
55. Thrillville: Off the Rails - 7 hours
What a pleasant surprise, i thought that this game is some another boring theme park tycoon, but instead i've got minigames compilation with optional coaster building mode. Game is surprisingly well made and fun to play, minigames are well varied and absolutely crazy, you can speak with your park visitors and every line is voiced (not just regular nonsensical Sims-talk), there is even story with Pixar-like cutscenes and unique characters. One of those rare examples when i came with zero expectations but ended up loving it and completing the game, it was fun to play just for minigames, to see in what other crazy thing devs would throw you at, like beat' em up with chinchilla and beavers or arcade flight simulator.
About time I moved my post over here, though I'm even further from the goal than usual (thanks big RPGs!).
1. Steins;Gate 0 - 40 hours - 8/10
Great little follow up to one of the best stories told in gaming. Doesn't live up to it's predecessor but is still great in its own right. The game did drag at times, and the split storylines were a part of that. You'd reach a climax in one line and have to then go down another with a slow build up again.
2. Final Fantasy XV - 65 hours - 7/10
A flawed gem. I had a ton of fun following the four guys on their adventure. Messing around in the open world was a blast, the story was intriguing, the music was phenomenal and the presentation was great. Unfortunately the combat was fairly poor and the story was told in a poor manner (likely due to changes throughout development), and the characters weren't built up enough for me to care about them.
3. Kingdom Hearts 0.2 Birth By Sleep: A Fragmentary Passage - 4 hours - 8/10
Really fun little prologue that has made me super excited for KH3. The game controls well, the combat is fun and flashy, the environments are beautiful, the boss fights are big in scale, the voice acting and animation is top notch. Just great all around.
4. Gravity Rush 2 - 45 hours - 8.5/10
Really fun game. The open world is much bigger in scale than the first, and there is so much more life all around. The story is bigger, the side quests are bigger, your arsenal of powers is bigger, all around, it's just bigger and better. That said, the control gripes I had with the first are largely untouched, and the climax (while breathtaking) didn't satisfyingly answer all my questions.
5. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - 120 hours - 10/10
Wow. This may possibly be my favourite game of all time. The amount of joy I experienced exploring Hyrule is simple unmatched.
The freedom from the very beginning was a breath of fresh air for the series, the game gives you an objective, and then leaves the rest up to you, and that holds true throughout. Just making my way around the plateau at the beginning was exhilarating, and that feeling came back again and again as I explored the various regions.
The physics system as well was a load of fun, you're given all the tools in the first few hours and the game makes good use of that fact. Almost every puzzle has multiple solutions and you have so much freedom is how you tackle them.
Not to mention the combat, there's a good feeling of weight to everything, bringing a large club down on a Bokoblin feels great, shooting arrows is satisfying, and the slow-mo when you time a dodge is phenomenal. I had so much fun mastering the systems here. I didn't even mind the weapon degradation, the game throws so many of them at you that cycling through them isn't an issue at all.
I could go on and on about this game but I'll save an even bigger write up for the GOTY thread ;)
6. Pokemon Go - ??? hours - 8/10
I've finally done it. I finished the original gen 1 Pokedex. Been playing since launch, 550+km walked, 350+ eggs hatched, and still I'd been missing one sole Pokemon for months now, and then I look at the app while sitting on my bed this morning and see that Snorlax shadow on my nearby.
My heart was racing as I drove over there to grab it haha.
This game has definitely given me a lot of joy. The social factor from the game blowing up was a big part of it. I ended up catching up with a friend from high school over it and we went out hunting quite a bit when it first came out.
More recently I've been going out after work with a coworker, especially thanks to gen 2 getting us excited again.
Of course some parts of the game aren't that great but who cares? No point getting nitpicky about a game that's so fun anyway.
Let's hope my gen 2 post isn't far away, only need a few more to finish that pokedex (one of which is Unown though...).
7. NieR: Automata - 58 hours - 9.5/10
I honestly couldn't believe it when a NieR sequel by Platinum Games was announced, and it still seems so crazy that this happened, but here we are, and it's as good as expected.
The gameplay is fast and snappy, the story is full of intrigue and beauty, the music is masterclass, it's just an all around great package.
8. Pokemon Go Generation 2 - ??? hours - 7/10
More of the same, they're working on big changes though which is good.
This Pokedex was completed much quicker than the first gen. There aren't really many ultra rare Pokemon like Snorlax and Lapras were, just Unown, which unsurprisingly was the last one I needed. A friend messaged me that one had spawned while I was at home cooking dinner.
9. Persona 5 - 160 hours - 10/10
So uh, I got halfway through this game when the HDD on my PS4 died and I didn't have a backup. So I restarted, and then when I finished I did another playthrough for the platinum trophy.
So this game ate an entire 2 months of my gaming life.
It was worth it though, P5 takes the previous foundation and polishes it to the max. The gameplay is fast and fluid, the interface is sleek and stylish, all the systems are refined to perfection and play off each other perfectly, the music is ace, and the story and characters were charming.
Worth the wait.
10. Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch - 80 hours - 7/10
Really charming game, went and got the platinum. Loved the world, characters, story, music, designs, did not like the combat system. Very big stain on an otherwise stunning JRPG. Super excited for the sequel now.
11. Metroid: Zero Mission - 6 hours - 8/10
Thought I'd smash this out before diving into Samus Returns. Really solid remake that breathes some new life into the old NES game. Wasn't really a fan of the added stuff at the end though, didn't really fit the flow of the game.
12. Metroid: Samus Returns - 13 hours - 9/10
Really great Metroid game. Beat it 100%. Brought the 2D series back with modern controls and refined gameplay. Being a remake it was obviously held back in what it can do, and the linear progression of Metroid 2 hurt it, but they did great considering the source. Also has the best boss fights in the 2D series.
13. Ys Origin - 23 hours - 8/10
This was a neat little game. Fun but simple combat, with boss fights that really make the most of the games systems. Played through with all three characters, enjoyed how the story diverged, and different characters had different fates depending on the protagonist, but ultimately it was pretty repetitive having to play the game three times to get the proper story. Only played Ys 1 and 2 before this, so excited to keep moving on with the series.
14. ARMS - 10 hours - 8/10
Such a fun little fighter. Really suited for casual play as it's easy to grasp and just dumb fun really. The cast of characters is fantastic and varied, and they're all compelling in their own way.
Single player content is a little light, and unlocking all the ARMS is grindy (though I think the game is better using each characters defaults anyway, makes them more unique). Really solid foundation and I hope we get some sequels to expand on it.
15. Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony - 105 hours - 9/10
Wasn't really hyped for this pre-release, but once I dove in it definitely lived up to the first two games. Honestly, this probably had the best cast of characters in the series, there wasn't a bunch I absolutely despised which was cool. The story was great and the twists were fantastic, only issue was that some of the cases paralleled previous games a bit too much.
I almost regret putting in the amount of hours I did, I beat the main game at around 45 hours and decided to grab the platinum seeing I had all the previous ones and well, the post game content was a bit time consuming.
16. Super Mario Odyssey - 45 hours - 10/10
Sublime platformer. The movement feels perfect and it's a joy to traverse, and the possession mechanic adds a layer of depth to the stages. The various kingdoms were amazingly varied, right up to the art styles, which I enjoyed. Only gripe would be that because of the vast amount of content there is, I felt like I'd seen all the games tricks by around the 30 hour mark, and the rest felt like I was just ticking off boxes in the sandbox areas. Definitely prefer the linear style levels of the Galaxy games in that regard.
35. DanganRonpa V3: Killing Harmony (PS4, 2017) - 39:30 Completed the game on Normal Logic/Normal Action.
As a series known for shocking plot twists and unforeseen turns of events, DanganRonpa has only so many chances remaining to surprise its players. Every time the series pulls out a new trick, we add that surprise to our list of possibilities, and each subsequent game labours under that weight. Is this new murder case like chapter 4 in DanganRonpa 2? Does this scenario sound similar to what happened in case 3 in DanganRonpa 1? And so on and so forth. Eventually, we'll all be too busy trying to predict where the game is going to actually enjoy any of it.
Given that backdrop, DanganRonpa V3 performs its tasks admirably, though it's not without its problems. The main issue is pacing; V3 is substantially longer than the two mainline games preceding it, and you can really feel the difference. Having characters obliquely comment on the pacing in the game is one of those silly meta tricks that feels like a weak excuse for bad design, just like Halo's self-referential names for the Library levels. Some of the murder cases feel convoluted for the sake of being convoluted, as if they were designed solely to throw people off in multiple ways. And for all that, there isn't a ton that happens in those cases that feels truly surprising. None of the murder trials in this game approaches the heights of the previous games, which is a bit of a shame considering how masterfully DanganRonpa 2 raised the stakes in what is still the best class trial in the franchise.
But the way the game's plot unfolds is worth the occasional slack in pacing. It's not clear to me where the franchise goes from here, but at the same time there are theoretically limitless possibilities. Moreover, V3 feels like a game creator meditating on intriguing topics that go beyond the franchise's usual conflict between hope and despair. Ah, but I've already said too much. You'll just have to play V3 to see what happens.
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty
Strong level design, solid stealth mechanics, and a great variety of gameplay scenarios. Some of the cutscenes feel endless and the story goes off the deep end by the time the credits roll, but I'm pretty invested in the overarching plot at this point, having played MGS1 and 2.
Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence
MGS3 is a big step up for the series in terms of presentation. Some of the character models are really impressive. Especially, The Boss. She's so cool. The cutscenes are also sharper than ever, but still needlessly verbose. This is most evident at the start of the game wherein the first two hours consists of maybe 20 minutes of actually playing. I'm glad I stuck it out after that first boring play session though. I liked getting some more MGS lore.
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
Such a love/hate relationship with this one. It's really more movie than game at this point. The game part is amazing, though. MGS4 is vastly superior to its predecessors in terms of playability. The bosses are awesome and there are a lot of cool and creative gameplay sequences throughout. Aside from one tedious trailing mission, it's totally engaging from beginning to end. On the other hand, the story is excessive, confusing, melodramatic, and filled to the brim with self-indulgent nostalgia. This is what I've come to expect from the series, but MGS4 takes it to another level and it's pretty hard to stomach. Still one of the better games of its generation for me, all things considered.
Castlevania: Lament of Innocence
This is basically a slightly bland DMC1. The combat feels pretty good and controls well enough, and there's a robust magic/sub-weapon system. Not much depth to be found, but fighting the basic enemies is decent fun and most of the bosses are solid. Environments are nicely detailed but extremely repetitive. If you stripped out every duplicate room, you'd be left with like 30% of the game.
Nuclear Throne
A simple rogue-like top-down shooter with satisfyingly punchy guns and melee combat. Sometimes the random generation gives you a seemingly unfair situation but you're also allowed to be pretty overpowered, so I guess it balances out.
56. Unreal Tournament 3 - 7 hours
Well, technically i finished it, story campaign is done, but that "story" is basically same instant action with 5-6 CGI cutscenes overall. Having a blast with this game once again, love this old-school arena type FPS and definitely would play it more, for achievements or just for fun.
Added two more games to the November list, which means the total number for this month is now 5.
#48 MCPixel PC- ★★★☆☆ Finished 16/11/2017 2 hours played
Noticed that I bought this game back in 2013, the entire point of doing this challenge was to clear the back log and it's a short game. There are some clever puzzles in this game, sadly most are either far fetched or simply trial and error. It didn't help either that I didn't learn until after finishing half the game that you can skip the cut scenes..but that one is on me!
#49 Yakuza Zero PS4- ★★★★☆ Finished 29/11/2017 35 hours played
My first experience with the Yakuza series and it did not disappoint! Amazing writing with some occasional dumb moments. The game play itself wasn't that amazing, sometimes even clunky but the story, the people and the city made it quite an experience. Definitely grabbing Kiwami next time it's on sale.
3 more games to go, 4 weeks left..to quote Morgana from persona 5, Oh we can do this!
I'll come back and update my post with impressions but for now, this is my list. Almost everything on the list was played to platinum trophy/100% completion.
8) Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy Kong's Quest(3DS) 1/9-1/13, 1/18-1/19
Disclaimer: Donkey Kong Country 2 is my favorite game of all time and I don't think that will ever get surpassed in what is my favorite series of all time. Why might you say? The platforming is very fair, the upgrades they did such as dual tag teams with a great female character in Dixie, more creative levels that have it's own gimmick, bosses that differentiate with each other besides 1-2 tricks, a game that is longer and has collectables that give you a challenge and make it worth while to go after and additional content in The Lost World that throws you the most difficult maps one can get. Add David Wise once again putting forth a timeless, classic OST and you have yourself a top notch game.
Like with DKC1, I strictly kept this game to a game I only play at work and nothing else.....well besides "grinding" for Kremcoins that I had to cave in and look for a guide since they were some very scarcely hidden ones and given you need all the kremcoins to go for the true ending, I had to do it. I did get 100% for this game and I am 4-5 DK Coins away from doing it, it might be something I look into but there's no real reward for you besides surpassing Mario in the top spot of collected DK Coins.
I would say getting the Kremcoins alone is worth it because you get the tall task of by far the most difficult level in the series, Animal Antics with the infamous Squawks part that anyone who adores this game knows and hat...loves. Unlike with DKC1, I felt nothing really cheaped me out in this game where I was at least able to see where I was going. I beat the game from 1/9-1/13 but I wasn't satisfied without not getting to defeat Animal Antics and K Rool the 2nd go around, that to me isn't finishing the game so I spent around 1hr 30 minutes in getting ready to tackle those 2 obstacles.
Just a well thought out and absolutely phenomenal game with tons of variety in it's stages. I don't know how one succeeds in surpassing your 1st entry in the game but Rare somehow, someway did it.
Recommendation: Yay or Nay....it's my favorite game of all time, what do you think? ;)
9) Gravity Rush 2(PS4) 1/22-2/4
There's so much good this game does but the bad end up overshadowing and overcoming what is so good about the game sometimes that it left me with such a mixed reaction to the game.
Positives:
- Beautiful looking game, I love the artwork as I did with the 1st one. It's simple, it's full of life and it captures a real Studio Ghibli feel. Game will always give you such a beautiful atmosphere with the town even if the same 4-5 character models get rehashed
Was a beautiful game 1 minute in and was a beautiful game by the credits rolling. BY FAR the best thing this series has to offer, the art work is amazing. You got no soul if you aren't smiling or get some sort of flashbacks by playing this game to some form of Studio Gibli/Animated Kids cartoon(movie).
- A lot of new optional content in this sequel. The photo mode which I put a gif up above is much appreciated, the photo hunts are somewhat addictive, the emotes that Kat can do are sweet. This game has so many new modes that you can do compared to the 1st as expected, you can find yourself burning a lot of time doing the photo hunt or the mining missions.
For the sake of progressing in the game, I cracked down on simply the story mode but this game just felt longer, this took me a bit over 35 hours to wipe out side missions/main missions and a sprinkle of mining/photo hunts here and there. The costumes come late and often, I think in the span of like 2-3 hours, you can get 4 different costumes which is crazy talk! There's a lot of fanservice with the costumes but nothing vulgar or over the line, all the costumes serve a good purpose and don't put Kat in a scenario that she looks trashy which is a good thing.
- Story is somewhat clique but I mean I like it thus far. It has the whole "Rich vs Middle Class vs Poor" element to it that a lot of games do but I think the characters really help out here to make it bearable. But it is nothing absolutely groundbreaking.
Yeah the story got somewhat predictable but I really liked how much they opened up between the 1st and 2nd game like revealing Kat's history, revealing a character's unmasking. It felt like this is the last game of the series and the creators just owed it to the fans and just let loose everything and anything. The game is clique and if you watch enough kid friendly movies/shows, you will see everything coming but I like that type of storytelling that you know what is upcoming but say your kid or someone young does not. I was pretty damn happy by the end of the game over what happened so in that regard I had some emotional investment in this game and that's not always easy to get out of a gamer.
Negatives:
- Some of the mission structures, particularly the stealth missions are lousy. This was a major problem in the 1st one though fortunately there were 1-2 of these, they upped the ante for this game. Why they continuously reshuffle these missions is beyond me, if there was a major gripe with this game it is the lack of innovation with missions. Having played the remaster of the original last February, this was as clear as day for me that this game borrowed some of the previous missions only fluffed it with new story/dialogue and some new enemies.
Missions do repeat in this game but you know what you sign up for when getting an open world game so I cannot fault GR2 in this department.
Overall,very few missions can I honestly say I had fun with in this game which sucks to say. The gravity sliding is the best feature in the game for me and very seldom do they feature it in this game in the form of a mission. To me, I felt the missions verged more so on padding the game length rather than give you a truly unique experience. I did them for the sake of completion but I can count on my fingers how many times I truly had fun doing them. There were a few missions that I cannot for the life of me think why is this in the game outside of just extending the game to be longer.
Might be in the clear minority but some of the Lunar modes(New concept for GR2) I found to be way too complex for what it suppose to be a simple game. I can not for the life of me perfect the rocket jump, the instructions on how they tell you do it just are not precise and what I ended up finding myself doing is button mashing all of the ways the game tells you(TILT the stick and hit X continuously, I am doing that fellas!) Nothing!) I for the life of me do not get the reason to have to make this so complex. I also feel like when I "Flick" the touchpad that there's a 3-4 second delay in getting the mode activated, which is a massive problem given the combat can be very fast and quick, especially playing on the hardest difficulty.
I honestly don't know if it's me or the game, I just feel that the modes in this should not be this complex. Compared to Kat's Gravity Shifting abilities, night and day with how easy that was to pick up versus this.
As I progressed through the game, I got better with this though I will say the game will randomly drop me back to normal mode for whatever reason despite not commanding it, which isn't too big of a deal given I can flick it right back on. There was a new panther mode that magically just appears without any forewarning which is frustrating since it's such a key mode towards the end stretch of the game. Still did not get the rocket jump down, didn't end up needing it as I found other ways to get to the objective though it would have been much easier in doing so.
- Like with the 1st, this game has uneventful music. It fits the game and atmosphere, absolutely it does but not one track that I encountered in the 1st game or this one can I truly say that I can constantly go on Youtube and hit the replay button over and over again. This is purely nitpicking and I think the majority does not agree with this one but this series never hit home in the music category and I am an absolute sucker for good VG music and those are gimmie points if anything when "reviewing" a game.
Nothing I will go out of my way and listen countless times on Youtube but I will say the music fits the theme and mood well which is all you can ask for. Though there is one song that is somewhat neat that the game constantly goes to, and without spoiling too much it is somewhat "important" of a theme throughout the game.
(It was posted by the last person to review Gravity Rush 2 in this thread in fact!)
- The cameras......my god, the 2nd half of the game they absolutely cripple you in awful spots. You cannot see where you are going. You cannot, especially in gravity mode. I got stun locked a few times to my death( I am not even, stun locked like this is a fighting game) because the cameras treat this game like it's Dark Souls and I am trying to fight the camera to see how the hell I can escape to void a game over. They get out of control for the gravity portions of the game and for the gravity sliding which is much of the combat of this game so I felt very frustrated in that regard. I can't say I felt like I was in control of Kat's actions at certain portions and it's the auto lock as well as the camera that hurt this for me. I try and dive bomb an enemy and when trying to go after them because I tilt the camera somewhat to see my surroundings, my character will suddenly try and go after a nearby enemy and completely miss the enemy I had intended for. In fairness, you can disable some of these features but I never felt this way back from the 1st game. But the cameras you cannot do anything about.
- This game dips into the 10 FPS category at times, absolutely frustrating. Once again, game developers.....DO NOT put too many enemies or animations into segments of the game if you can't handle the ability to give 30 FPS or better. In scenes where you are fighting an onslaught of enemies at a time, the game will dip immensely to 10 FPS and it just feels so bad altogether. I am not even a FPS sucker by any means but this one was as evident as day to how bad it was for the experience of the game.
Recommendation:
Yay or Nay.
Yay if you at all liked Gravity Rush 1
Nay if you did not or never played the game before
Altogether this is a solid game but if you have never played the 1st game or liked the 1st game, you might not be bothered to check in for this one as you really need to have liked/enjoyed GR1 to some capacity to get the most out of this game. Game does not do enough in the main combat portions to pull a newcomer in as it does not differentiate enough from the 1st one despite the new Lunar and Jupiter mode features IMHO. The missions to me which the dialogue added life to it felt lifeless and a majority of them were just not fun which is the worst thing I can possibly say about an open world game. I was doing some missions for the sake of doing them. One particular mission was a walking simulator that made Uncharted 4's walking sequences feel like a Platnium game to the point where I said out loud "What the fuck is this doing in the game? Am I playing Gravity Rush 2 or Everybody Goes To The Rapture?". Looking at you Chapter 22. Good god it felt like 20 minutes of absolute nonsense that did not need to be drawn out this bad. You just walk to the same locaiton nonstop to progress story each time since "time freezes" and it's like I get it.....you are suppose to be trapped in a neverending repeating cycle but my god, did it need to be this drawn? NO. I honestly had no idea what the hell I needed to do to get out of that, thank god the next chapter had a cool puzzle which actually ended up being one of the best things this game offered.
Much of the missions felt like time killers for the sake of saying this is a 30 or so hour mission based game and given the combat can be wonky at times, I can say while playing this on the hardest mode possible that I just did not have any fun at certain times with this game.
Besides all of that, the game is fine and I happen to enjoy the series enough to look past it but I cannot say I was blown away by this game and I did expect more/better in plenty of departments with this game that it failed to deliver for me. Someone said it best 1-2 pages ago(Sorry I forgot the name, I am very lazy! :()
"What this game does good, it does really good. What it does bad, it does really bad." Just so frustrating because there are segments in this game that are so good.....but then you compound it with some mind numbing and frustrating sequences.
10) Double Dragon IV(PS4) 2/4
Awful. Absolutely awful. Where do I begin with this mess?
Positives:
- Game looks like a Double Dragon on the outside, looks like something straight out of Double Dragon 2 out of the NES. Game even rips sprites and music straight out of it, which in essence might actually be a negative as it shows little to no creativity.
Negatives:
Let's dissect this mess of a game
- The combat is so simplistic and so broken, it's ridiculous. Come on Arc System, you put your name on quality fighters like Blazblue and Guilty Gear, how dare you put this out? I am all for simple gameplay, believe me I am. But the key to winning with this game is timing it right to do a spinning air kick to continuously stunlock enemies down before they finally die. However, the same rules apply to the enemies to you and there are specific enemies are are obnoxiously broken like these Judo guys who shine and take half your health and can repeat this every 2 seconds. Abodo a mainstay in the series also plays cheap with this hammering vertical flying elbow that can combo and destroy you in one hit if he either throws you in the air or if an enemy throws you in the air and you get comboed. Go figure, you can't fucking combo in this game but the enemies can. The final bosses have a gun that 1 shot takes half of your health and you have to be lucky enough to frame jump the bullets, and you know you can't duck in this game because that would actually mean some game design work to be at hand here.
- The platform parts are horseass, considering your character moves so stiff it's like Jimmy or Billy are holding their shit in their pants when moving around. Same 2-3 platform gimmicks every now and then, and given you fall off you lose a life, this is obnoxiously lousy platforming. The game offers little to no innovation but has to throw in this shit. It's acceptable in 1987 to do this, not 2017. Again, I am all for a homage to the series but come on....show some growth. Show some innovation. Separate yourself from previous entires whether it's new obstacles, new style of combat. Do whatever you have to do.
- No health regains, no live regains. Point system matters none, you know it's just there because nostalgia and shit. Yeah you know screw lasting a while on one life and getting rewarded. Not once in my 1 HOUR OF STORY MODE did I ever run into health or lives. You know Streets of Rage 2 actually gives you something for points and gives you ACTUAL HEALTH. Golden Axe....ACTUAL HEALTH. ALTERED BEAST. ACTUAL HEALTH. No but not a game developed in 2017. After reading the main thread here it seems like it is a staple in this series but games like Battletoads and Double Dragon and Double Dragon Neon had this, not sure when you throw this many amounts of enemies that you refuse to throw any health seems kind of crazy.
Enemies also just randomly take health off you, no consistency. Some enemies take 1 bar, others take half, under right circumstances you can lose 3/4 of health. Not sure if possible to drop your health from 100% to 0% at any point, would not put it past this game.
Oh yeah and uhhh if you die, you start over again and there's TWELVE MISSIONS in this game. Yes I know, TWELVE. But of course, in grand fashion there is a way to stage select the mission you were previously on....or rather the mission you beat as you can't simply start right off at the mission you began at. You die at stage 11, you start at stage 10.....why? The heck if I know.
How do you do that btw because it isn't explained. At least the NES games that did this had menus inside the cartridges that show you this. This? Magically tap options and keep tapping it to get to the mission before the mission you died on to get selected.
- I just let out a sigh of happiness after beating the game, I have zero interest in the tower, not with this loose combat. That's another thing too, the 2 second delay to turn your character around, unforgivable.
- The story....hohohohoho. Now, this game is a typical beat em up, bare bone story. Listen of all the negatives here, this I won't rag on but honestly the "villains" somehow see the light by the game's end and it's all for naught. It basically sums up my thoughts, an absolute waste of 1 hour of my life that I am never ever getting back. The cutscenes are NES esque, no problems here. Like I said, the story and presentation while uninspiring are by no means awful....the combat and other shit though, yeah fuck that.
Recommendation:
Yay or Nay
Put it this way with this mess of a game, I paid 6.99 for it and I felt jipped off. If this game is somehow in my top 10 by year's end, this means this year of gaming was an absolute abomination altogether. If you can get this for 1-2 dollars, only then go for it on the PSN Store folks.
Oh and find a 2P. I played this solo and as always, the game doesn't let up regardless. No friendly fire for the opponents, nothing. I would not be surprised if the game offers the same amount of bad guys for solo as it would for a duo.
I am sorry if I sound miserable but I was genuinely looking forward to sinking my teeth into this game and to say I was letdown would be an understatement.
11) Ori and the Blind Forest Definitive Edition(XB1) 2/4-2/6
Game is fantastic, very few deaths can I honestly say were a bit cruel. Game is fair and I am playing this on hard mode. The only gripe I can possibly offer if at all is the enemies and their attacks blend in so well with the beautiful atmosphere and environment that I often don't know what I am dodging. Also some of the commands I think are so close together like when trying to climb down the wall to try and do a dash off the wall in a tight platforming spot, by accident I get a stomp and fall to my death. Wish the right analog stick had a use in the game, I feel like the aiming would have been easier that way.
Everything else has been so crisp though, a lot of thought put into this game. A lot of heartfelt moments, very fitting soundtrack to boot and some very good mechanics that take a lot of thought and precision/skill to succeed with. Just a phenomenal game, it's amazing I got this game for 1 dollar more than Double Dragon IV and it isn't even comparable.
Can't wait for Ori and the Will O Wisp, Microsoft would be foolish to not dedicate a good couple of minutes on this game this June.
Game is an absolute must have for an XB1 owner, so good. Clocked in about a little less than 9 hours altogether with the game I didn't even 100% the title either! I played on hard difficulty to get the utmost challenge, glad I did!
Recommendation: Yay or Nay. Must play for any Metroidvania fan, must have for an XB1 owner, so good. So simple with it's storytelling, so powerful, so colorful, so much life and thought put into this game. Just remarkable, well worth the hype. This game set the bar for the best game I may have played in 2017 not counting DKC 1 and 2 given those are enshrined on my all time favorite games ever. To get this game for less than 10 dollars is such a steal.
12) Nioh(PS4) 2/7-2/18
And wrapped up Nioh Saturday night with a couple of dedicated hours, taking care of both the side missions AND the main story line mode all the way to the end. I took down 2 twilight missions and did not touch any of NG+ but I think I got my fix out of this, totaling 63% of the trophies. Altogether, a quality game throughout as I expected after playing the Alpha of this a little less than 1 year ago and this is going to be a very strong candidate for 2017 GOTY when we look back at things. In hindsight, I am glad Persona 5 got pushed back until April as it allowed me to sink my claws deep into this game and for the little less than 2 weeks that this game occupied my utmost attention, I felt this game gave far more good than bad.
Positives:
- Deep combat system. I basically used the axe and at times cheesed with it along with some magic and ninjitsu spells but surely there's so much more you can do with in this game. Very fluid combat style, very responsive combat style(Choose 60 FPS over better graphics), everything just feels so crisp. I think it is on Bloodborne's level of high pace, fast movement style of combat, if there's a game best to compare this to it would be Bloodborne which was masterful from a combat perspective(For me at least). You can get a good amount of ninja skills AND magic skills at your arsenal and you add a splice of guardian spirit and some items to help tilt the cards in your favor, and what you have is a game that can be played and beaten with many possibilities.
- Lengthy game albeit there can be some repetition in the side missions as you are essentially just backtracking a mission only this time you often are starting from the bosses room and working your way backwards for the goal in mine. You feel like you are getting your money's worth with the length of this game and the different amounts of level and exploration throughout. Now unlike with Souls games, there's no connection between levels so it isn't a case of Metroidvania where you explore and than end up stumbling a big shortcut to a previous level but the game hits it on home with the hub of each world.
- 60 FPS for a game like this is something not to be taken back by....I feel often that I died because I made a mistake and there was no slowdown that caused me to mess up. I felt in complete control in my actions and decisions, which is how it should be with a game like this. Game is also very fair with it's shortcuts and passageways that aren't too daunting for me to retrace your footsteps after a death.
- It keeps the real balance and joy Soulsbourne games give you while having it's own touch with the kodama minions which allow you to feast on additional items, elixirs(My choice always), weapons, amrita and gold.....and the different fighting stances in high, mid and low that give you so many fall back plans in tight and close combat where one mistake can cost you it all. It borrows the good from the series but it does not outright rip it off by any means which is absolutely important worth note.
Negatives:
- Biggest gripe I found myself if giving you 500 items to carry which to me is ridiculously low given you have 5 sets of armor, relic equipment AND items all included together. Often, I found myself offering equipment that I wasn't sure if they were one of a kind or not, just on the basis of getting more room to pick up items at stages. I could not put armor at the warehouse too which I don't quite understand the thought process, I would have simply dumped those one of a kind costumes to storage to open up more space. You get elixirs(Which is key) in these offering along with amrita(EXP) so not all hope was lost but it was a killjoy having to go and look at the worst equipment and just sell it off. My idea was if it wasn't good enough to wear, that I needed to clear the space for it.
- Enemy design/boss design is lacking and I think you can count on both your hands how many DIFFERENT enemies there are in this game. Hate to compare it to Dark Souls in this regard, but pretty much each world in Dark Souls had enemies with different battle styles that it was refreshing to see what FROM Software could come up with in each world when getting engulfed in each area. With this, I am not exaggerating in saying that you fight one boss maybe 9 times if you do all the side missions and main missions....and nothing changes in any of these fights except phase one is done away with for some of these battles. Felt kinda lame to not see any changeup with enemies in this game, even the bosses late in the game sort of borrowed from one another for the most part give or take 2-3 moves.
- If you aren't reading the descriptions prior to the levels and cutscenes, you will get somewhat lost with the story as it really goes all over the place but I think I sort of get the thought process but I think it could have been told better. You really have to read the descriptions during the loading screens and see every dead body's left behind's to get a better idea of what each level represented during this timeline and why it created a character.
- Music soundtrack sans 1-2 songs were lackluster and didn't give off a real triumph feel, especially when it comes to boss battles. It wasn't an awful soundtrack BUT it was lacking a real standout song that games like Dark Souls and Bloodborne put forth out there. The music fit the time line and everything but I wish it was done better.
Recommendation: Yay or Nay
Oh yeah, def. recommend this, especially if you at all appreciate the Dark Souls series or just a game with a great combat system.The game all around is a real joy to play and I knew after playing all of the Alpha, Beta and Last Chance demos that this was an easy Day one pick up for me and I knew this game would be very good, not just as a Soulsbourne inspired type of game BUT as a stand alone title. I haven't even divulged into the co-op of this game or collected every single Kodama but I felt the game had enough challenge for me to not feel overwhelmed by any level at some point. I even 1 if not 2 shotted bosses towards the end of the game, including the final boss that I took down in my 1st try!
Like The Order 1886, this game would be dreadful getting for 60 dollars(Though there's more replay value) but getting that at almost 1/10 of the cost? Much better.
The game has so much potential man, like I can absolutely see the promise in it. I don't get the game being lifeless at all, do not get that gripe in the least bit. Game is colorful, has it's own charm, the platform sections that it does have are actually Cerny goodness and the game gives you solid length for a platformer. Game is no pushover as well. It was so frustrating playing this game because I knew this game was a launch title and kind of knew this was a game to have for the debut of the PS4 to give buyers something to buy so I knew this was not going to be fully polished and my 3rd complaint can be excused for this very reason so the fact that there is a sequel sort of gives me hope that Cerny and company may learn from the flaws of the 1st game and build upon that, which gives me reason to think the sequel could be solid if not very good.
Big Knack is so much fun, you feel so powerful and it gave you almost a Godzilla/King Kong/Rampage sort of feel to it which is fantastic, little knack just doesn't compare to the fun element of just smashing shit up and down. I wish there was more platforming and more Big Knack because those are by far the two best things as far as in-game experiences this game gave to me.
But the flaws of this game..........
1) The checkpoint system is ass. At times, I am just yelling out loud "Checkpoint, checkpoint, checkpoint, checkpoint! plz!" I am cool with not getting a cake walk each and every single time, I get it. Believe me I do....but to not restore your belongings the exact same position that you previously had I just don't understand as far as the sunstones go. Sunstones are VITAL, especially in a hard mode run(Like I did) in these situations that you get wiped out without them. Feels like at times, I had to do run after run to accumulate enough sunstones(And let me tell you, IF you play this game YOU BETTER GO FOR THE UPGRADE OF GETTING SUNSTOKE POWER AFTER KILLING ENEMIES. Cannot stress that enough, game was dreadful without it!) and if I blew it, it's regrinding essentially since....
2) The tradeoffs, like WTF? Is this a hard mode only feature? Knack's range is such shit outside of his Sunstone powers, so when ends up happening too many times in this game is when you try and go for a swing, the enemies will catch you in time to either beat you to the punch or a tradeoff where both you and the enemy die together which does you no good since you have to restart over. So many times, I try and seize an opening only for the enemy to have such recovery time to respond and trade off and essentially win the war. You can't recall how many times I had to replay part over part because of this nonsense.
This was on hard mode need I mind you.....cannot imagine what this "very hard" mode would entail? Given the enemies can one shot you and the health pickups often give you such a minuscule amount back that you end up dying still in one hit(Essentially making them worthless), how much harder can this game be? More enemies on a map?
3) The FPS drops were brutal in particular when there were segments(ESPECIALLY the end bosses) of having overcrowded enemies and or lasers/projectiles and given you have such a limited dodge and jump/double jump, it was sluggish and just rough to try and navigate around and go on the offensive. This excuse gets a pass for me because again this was a launch title and was new to this generation's/PS4's power so I expect and anticipate this to be resolved for the sequel.
4) There's tons of loopholes with the story and it does feel somewhat rushed where it doesn't capture the magic say a game it tried to imitate in Uncharted from a storytelling standpoint does. Game bounces around place to place, introduces characters that really don't matter much in the grand scheme of it all and the main antagonist you don't even get any satisfaction of fighting the person......Story does tend to go all over the place and there's so much flip flopping with characters in a matter of minutes where someone helped contribute to doing bad things who ends up turning good and someone who is bad ends up falling in love with someone they had no relationship with prior :lol:
Knack is also mistreated pretty badly throughout the game and is treated like a drone where the people often take advantage of it and you just kind of shrug and shake your head towards the other protagonists who view him as a tool or weapon. Knack just feels like a weapon who doesn't get to share too much personality with it's other protagonist which in turn makes the human companions he's with look pretty shitty for the most part.
5) I don't mind linearity but there was way too much scene by scene fighting of 2-3 enemies and BEING FORCED often to have to clear out a segment of enemies to progress. Very seldom could you evade enemies and just progress further in the game, you are forced to fight enemies that get as much if not more priority than you and can one shot you. Not a good recipe of game design success Mark Cerny. Just feels like you are very limited to how much you can change it up as far as progressing in the game, especially given the special knack powerups(Ala Vampire Knack, Crystal Knack etc.) cannot be played until after the 1st playthrough is done. HUH, you are getting 10 or 20 parts to get this thing and you can't even use it in the 1st playthrough?
Recommendation: Yay or Nay?
I would side with neither because there's promise and some good things this game does do well but the bad often overshadow it and you often find yourself frustrated with this game. Frustrated is the best word I can sum Knack up with but I will say that the game does deserve a 2nd chance and I am happy Cerny and Co. are getting this 2nd chance because these are very fixable mistakes. But to say I was getting frustrated with this game overall would be an understatement, having to replay segment after segment over the enemy and I trading shots was rather annoying.
There are much better platformers out there so if you don't ever play Knack, you aren't missing out on much but it is by no means "terrible" just a flawed game that does some things right but it ends up tripping itself over some unnecessary nonsense.
14) Kameo: Elements of Power 2/22-2/25
About half way through Kameo: Elements of Power and I don't get any of the acclaim that it gained 12 years ago. Maybe this game can be chalked up as a game that is just clearly outdated and has not aged well but even then, I don't think I can buy that given the same company made Banjo Kazooie, and Banjo Tooie where both games clearly outclass this game in many aspects.
1) The worlds of each place feel there for the sake of being there, they aren't fun or engaging and for me 2 worlds down, I didn't find the need to explore any of that and nor are any of the side characters actually worth helping out. There have been very few optional missions that I can honestly say I accomplished. The format and structure of what you can vs what you cannot do leave me puzzled where even if I go out of my way to try and do something on the side, I find myself unable to help out and if anything am losing health for fighting enemies that I cannot kill or cannot stop from respawning so I just find myself skipping on this said side content.
2) The controls or better yet the aiming controls are brutal. Once again I ask of Rare, how is it that they can at least give you respectable aiming controls in Conker's Bad Fur Day but for a game that was out 6-7 years later they refuse to go back to the basics with this game? The game requires you to be so pinpoint with the aim with the fire element that if you are remotely off, the fireball will squiggle.and go off balance. But the worst culprit of this might you ask that I have encountered? The water element, good grief is that awful? I was wondering a few hours in about the complaint about this game having poor controls if they were valid or not because the game hadn't been bad in that aspect but once the water element was introduced, all bets off.
Again Rare has had their mixed bag of results when it comes to swimming mechanics in their video games. For me, it was mediocre swimming mechanics in the Banjo series but Donkey Kong Country has among the most smoothest swimming but Kameo takes the cake out of the entire contest. How might you ask? Well you need to hold up on the analog stick to go down which is a chore but not impossible to get familiar with but the aiming controls and trying to center them on obstacles is brutal, like the way I found myself doing this was to be right next to the enemy(Even if it hurts me) and just unload as much as I possibly could. The less water objectives in Kameo I feel, the better the experience because they dropped the ball with the underwater aspects. I should be loving underwater fights with submarines but alas. And the 2nd boss, that was 20 minutes that I can't ever get back......brutal isn't the word to describe it. Just a tedious chore all around, not fun or excitement in any way shape or form.
Just my 2 biggest gripes thus far. I will say I have no qualms about the story of this game which is a typical platformer and I think the game is VERY forgiving when you die where they start you at the last checkpoint which the game is very good about and on paper the idea of getting to use different transformations to get around is pretty cool and the game does make you use the different transformations to get around a stage even if it does feel somewhat repetitive at times.
But am I blown away by this game so far? Not at all. Other platformers that precede this game just do their roles so much better that you feel like you are playing but given I have pretty much loved anything SNES onward that Rare has put out, I had to give this game a shot and maybe it gets better in the 2nd half of the game though I can't say I am expecting that.
2/25 EDIT:
I finished Kameo not too long ago, not much really changed with my initial impressions except I fought a pretty good final boss but a god awful 2nd to last boss which is compounded by an annoying elemental power that is mandatory to win this fight. Thank god I got to cheese the last boss with a nearly fully upgraded Thermite and just absolutely spanked it
The sections where you have to pinpoint your rolls and time it right to not fall to your death was silly, in fact the entire Castle should be known as "One Hit KOsville" because that's what it felt like to me. Now again, thank goodness the developers had good judgment to not be stingy with the checkpoints because otherwise this would have verged onto becoming unplayable.
Not a game that is completely awful but it's one that I expected to be so much better and there's just so much bad that outshines the good in this game.
Recommendation: Yay or Nay
By no means is Kameo a terrible game because again I want to say it is not but as someone who doesn't have any nostalgia whatsoever attached to this game, I just cannot look past all of the fallacies that this game has and for a Rare title, I just expected much more. I would normally chalk this down up as this being a 12 year old game but Banjo series, Conker, DKC etc. do what this game does but does it oh so much better and they are years older than Kameo. On paper, this game sounds lovely with all of these different transformations that all are needed throughout your journey(Rubble got a gigantic shaft though, did not pull him for almost 3/4 of the game. Easily the worst of the elements, at least for me).....but it is the execution that fails this game.
There are just better platformers that are worth your valuable time over Kameo, heck the Rare Replay has 3-4 alone.
It's weird that Grabbed by the Ghoulies is the game that gets the negative pub of the first two post Nintendo Rare titles and Kameo is the one that gets better praise but I would gladly reverse that.
15) Battletoads Arcade Edition(XB1) 2/26
Well I initially tried to take down Battletoads via Rare Replay and with all of my tricks of the trade including rewind, I got all the way to Stage 11 before the awful game design took into effect and took me down. I for the life of me never can understand why they have the spinning wheel run faster than you in a straight line, that's awful. Just a incoherent mess for Stage 10 and 11 after I was actually enjoying the game from Stage 1 through 9.
I did take down Battletoads Arcade Edition however and it takes the good parts of the original Battletoads and gives you about an hour's worth of beat em up fun. The game is full of personality, knows what it is, very seldom does it throw you anything other than a side screen beat em up. One of the better beat em up's I played and the game thing with this is the infinite continue ability which is fantastic so I can just die and not suffer any consequences as I played this single player and not with someone else.
The only 2 gripes I can throw out for this game are:
1) The ability to pick a toad was not working for me, the border of this game says one button for one toad, another button for another toad and a 3rd button for another toad but after dying when you press it you do not get any other toad but the toad you started out with. I kept getting Rash and could not get Pimple or even Zitz...and while the main bulk of gameplay has the toads using the same formulated moves, there are minor differences. Like I was playing Pimple for a brief moment and he as always was my favorite toad as he was the strongest of the 3 and he had some cool moves like a TOUCHDOWN helmet tackle instead of a running boot from Rash and he can lift crates up with one arm though he's naturally slower to react than the others.
If I had my call, I would have wanted to rock with Pimple but I wasn't able to switch it up which is a shame.
2) The game ends very much abruptly and you do not even get to face off with The Iconic Dark Queen, I saw the acheivement pop up after beating Manus and said "WHAT THATS IT?". No ultimate boss fight with the dark queen, just ended out of the blue. What resolution did they get vs Dark Queen? She can still go about conquering the world.....
But in all seriousness, the final boss of this game actually hurt my hands so in that regard, I am kind of glad I didn't have to do another level or two lol. So much bullet hell, what am I playing a beat em up or Metal Slug?
Recommendation: Yay or Nay?
Yeah it's a good beat em up game and for the hour that you get out of the game, I would say there's plenty of fun to be had. You have to know going in what you're getting out of this game and I wanted a fun beat em up game that isn't ridiculously hard and I got it from this game. Maybe some would prefer a little more meat on the bone but as someone who grew up with beat em ups, I know that they can be finished within an hour or so of gameplay so nothing too shocking though the last boss being what it was....was unsatisfying and shocking.
16) Horizon: Zero Dawn(PS4) 2/27-3/14 PLATINUM TROPHY
Very seldom do I go out of my way to obtain a platinum trophy for a game, especially for an open world game but I went all the way for this game. Yeah there are some minor gripes I do have with this game but for the most part, this was very enjoyable and if you haven't played many open world games or are at least not turned off by them, you will fall in love with this game. If you happen to play Far Cry, Tomb Raider and those sorts of open world adventures, you might find this game doesn't really bring too much to the table so I think it's one of those games that doesn't necessarily change the ball game for this genre but it doesn't do anything worse than these open world games.
The Good:
1) By no means am I a SJW or anything of that capacity but I don't know if there's a game that has a more diverse ethnicities, skin color cast of characters than Horizon: Zero Dawn. Plenty of African American characters, plenty of Asians, plenty of Whites, few Muslim inspired characters too. Seems like it is the medicine for people who want more diversity in their games as you will get this early and often with this game. The game is led by a very strong, very likable main female character that falls along the lines of Ellie from TLOU in being a real tough hombre who will kick your ass if it means to survive yet still has good intentions in what they're doing even if it means they have to kill.
2) The real bread and butter of this game, the robotic machines are at first such a blast to tackle on. You have variety ranging from aerial creatures to ground creatures to sea creatures to hulking giants to animals you can ride upon. I do wish there was a creature you can swim on(Which I will get to later on) but the game makes these robotic creatures a real showdown at times to fight where you need to hit weak points to turn the tides.
You have numerous weapons at your disposal to do such. Explosive traps? Check. Basic arrows? Check. Slingshots? Check. Ropecasters? Check. Very specific/elemental arrows? Check. Good ol spear whacking? Check. Yeah it does repeat with different versions of these weapons later on but you have numerous ways to go at these robots which is much appreciated.
3) I thought at times the story flew over my head but the general basis of the story is pretty good even if it tries to do a bit too much(At least for me). A lot of thought put into this story and it doesn't necessarily always fall into the same old rehashed clique terms for it.
4) Game is gorgeous, almost too gorgeous if that makes sense. The surroundings are so well detailed that you can't honestly tell at times what the heck you are grabbing(Uncharted style) to climb up a mountain as they blend in too well. The rain at times is actually a hindrance for how good it looks because you can't see a damn thing in a fight. I played this on the regular PS4 so I can only imagine how much better it would look on a PS4 Pro. The game does have the occasional sprite pop up here or there but for the most part, game looks fantastic.
The Bad:
1) The lack of variety with missions was evident, had your take out group of enemies missions, take out a certain machine to acquire a part mission, 15 different GOD AWFUL trials that are necessary for the platinum, having to track footsteps at least on 10 different occasions. After a while, it got a bit tedious just doing the same things over and over again but I also know this is a common problem with open world games today but I just wish this game maybe became the one to stand out from the pack in this regard.
2) Some of the hitboxes in particular with the stormbirds and rockbreakers are lousy, they are among the biggest enemies in the game and due to their size if a part gets you, it will sometimes(Key word being sometimes) consider it a big hit and in the sawtooth cases, they can 1 shot you early in the game due to a 2 hit combo that really should not happen(It's the only enemy that can combo you in this game lol). In turn, it makes the fights with these enemies not fun and in both cases, I just run away and try to run to safety rather than try and take them down.
The fall damage is very inconsistent and you think you can going to touch a small piece hanging on the mountain but when you commit, you end up falling and after a giant fall end up dying instantly.
While human enemies fight with robots, I also never got why robots don't fight with robot outside of overriding/controlling robots. Why would an alligator robot work together with a small hawk? Would that alligator not try and eat it? Seems silly to me to see a giant TRex robot work with a horse robot together to kill you or allies when one should be the primary food chain for the other.
3) Inventory system sucks.....100 items altogether,(excludes armor, ammo etc.) it leads to you routinely needing to sell off pieces time and time again for small shards. So many times I had to leave behind animal meat because I did not have the room for it. I never get why games limit you to so little inventory, this isn't even like Dark Souls where you can stock it and go into the leftovers when you need a said item. One can say realism but to me, fighting giant robotic animals is anything but realistic.
4) The swimming is useless in this game and if anything is an absolute hindrance as you can fall into a lake in a fight with a big creature and be left vulnerable for anything and everything as you can do absolutely nothing in water. The only purpose for the water is to go underwater to avoid being detected but that does nothing if an enemy already has their eyes set on you. I actually ran into a glitch that killed me because there was a great idea of putting water in the mini boss area of a cauldron and I ended up getting stuck below the platform and died due to losing air.
If there is a sequel, there is so much untapped potential with the swimming portions. So many robotic animals that can utilize this, shame this did not happen with the 1st one. The water is absolutely useless and if anything more frustrating.
Recommendation: Yay or Nay. Well I plat'd this game so I think I got my money's worth out of this game, the enemy and mission variety could have been much better and the trials were dreadful to play but other than that, there are very few complaints I could have with this game. If you are not burnt out by open world games, go for it with this game and make this one of your first stops in this genre as what it does, it does real well. If you have played the likes of Tomb Raider or Far Cry, you will see a resemblance and if you've played enough of this genre, this won't be a refreshing experience by any means. Game is very well done and is going to be worthy of the accolades it will command later on this year most definitely.
17) Manhunt(PS3 emulation) 3/14-3/25
Truth be told, the game is nowhere near this long, just there were days that due to being exhausted from work that I didn't play anything for the day. That and like with plenty of stealth games, I take my sweet ass time to not screw anything up. For most people, they can wipe out people 1-2-3, for me I try and calculate a move and what to do next.
This game had very good memories for me when I played this around 2008 but it was something i never finished for whatever reason. I stopped playing around the middle of the 14th scene if I recall so after getting this game on a flash sale last year, I thought coming fresh off a plat'd open world game like Horizon, that a much more linear, less complicated game would be the way to go. Why I stopped, is a really good question. Nothing wrong with the game, I just happen to find it somewhat difficult when the guns got involved and still to this day for me, each scene is so draining with them taking a little under an hour for much of the scenes throughout the game that I might have just been overwhelmed. Add in me being a college student and having failing grades at that time that I picked up on big time and yeah.
What I really enjoy about Manhunt altogether is that it isn't overshadowed by it's appeal of being gorey and violent. Maybe to a common person, that's all they see of this game and completely write it off but what you have a is a solid stealth entry for half of the game with terrific atmosphere, a great antagonist/protagonist combo with the former having terrific voice acting. The AI gradually picks up with gang by gang(And there's a ton of em from hoodz to skinz to wardogs to innocentz to smileyz to the police to CEREBUS) and you need to adapt to what the game wants you do. You have 20 scenes filled with some peculiar and unique themes in each one such as having to take co-op partners(None are backbreaking to carry around given you can dump em harmlessly in the shadows) to get around a level or having to wipe out an enemy infested prison in a Time Crisis/Max Payne style of gun-hodown to the common sneak and kill victims to get around to an area. The dialogue of the bad guys helps with the overall atmosphere of this game and keeps you laughing or wanting to smash a bigot's face in with the baseball bat in your possession as soon as you get an opening.
There's solid gameplay to be had but it is outdated as far as the gunplay goes. It gave me glimpses of Time Crsis of the "Pop up, shoot, duck, reload" routine where if you stick yourself out too much you're going to get your health dropped early and often and given this game for much of the 2nd half shifts from pure stealth over to gun play, you'll need to pick up on this trick to even make it through the game. For some, the shift of stealth to gunplay can be a letdown but I didn't mind it so much. It's just the auto lock is very wonky at times where 1 shot to the head saves you ammo and calling on reinforcements where as the game will accidentally give you a shot towards the torso which pending on the gun you have will take more than one ammo and it leaves you in a vulnerable spot.
The story and controls are simple and it's again much appreciated coming off a quality open world experience that I did. You are the star of a snuff film series after being saved from the electrical chair/death and are thrown in a sick director's game of kill or be killed to move on. Very few controls change throughout the game, you get a mini tutorial level to open up but it's simple enough that it's an easy experience yet one mistake or getting too greedy will cost you severely. Add some micromanaging with the painkillers/health and there's some strategy involved with this game. You get weapons from a crowbar to a baseball bat to a glass shard to a paper bag to guns like sub machine gun, shotgun, assault rifle, sniper riffle, revolver so there's a range of weapons to use and some come in better scenarios than others(Long range gun play favors the pistol, upclose fights shotgun is your buddy, assault rifle wipes down the CEREBUS like no tomorrow)
There's a star rating at the end of each mission that opens up side content like art, minigames etc. but nothing too necessary but you'll want to see as many executions as possible to see how crazy the game can get with a simple item like a glass shard and see how it can be used on an enemy. The game has a 3 mode execution style with white being rather tame, yellow being somewhat severe and red being grotesque. It's kinda cool to see all 3 get used but in the grand scheme of things, a kill is a kill so you can't go wrong with any of the 3 and to not get greedy, it pays to just settle with a 1 or 2 level execution and go about your business.
The graphics are PS2 level, what you see is what you'll get. They are clearly outdated but this isn't a game to be blown away upon from a graphics element. It's the atmosphere that this game has where this game will scare you without the supernatural being involved and doesn't rely too badly on jump scares to get your goosebumps shivering. Every move, every calculation will be paramount so your decisions as far as getting a kill goes is vital to survive. The music isn't overbearing but it flows right through like spread butter on a hot piece of toast. I do wish the ending was a bit more satisfying but you get your hands on tons of evil people and get to slay the man who had you in a dazed nightmare throughout the game so you get what you wanted just wish there was more to it in that aspect.
Recommendation: Yay or nay.
It's a game you get to bash the brains in of pedophiles, serial killers, white supremacists, and a morbidly obese deranged looney with a decayed pig mask and chainsaw, what's there not to like?
If you like stealth games and don't mind the very violent nature of the game, give this a shot and if you can get it for the PS4 it has trophy support so all the more better. This game is half stealth but does divulge into Max Payne like gunplay for the 2nd portion to change things up. The game's simplicity is a very good thing(At least for me) and you are getting a lengthy(well unless you bumrush through everything which props to you if you do) amount of content in this game. Game was everybit as good as I remember it to be.
18) Gravity Rush 2: The Ark Of Time(Raven's Choice)[PS4] 3/26-3/27
Well what can I say? I liked Gravity Rush 2 but not loved it, I think my writeup on the game back in late January kind of sums the game up altogether for me but I kept the game still in the back of my mind because of this Raven DLC that was free and promised to the fans. So low and behold a date was put behind this and I was excited to really send this game off in style.
But this DLC really falls flat altogether, this might as well had been included in the overall game day 1 because this offers up little to no substance. It does absolutely nothing to solve or touch "Night Gale"(Without spoiling too much, I think people who have played this game know what I mean) which I thought would be a lock in this DLC. It does touch the children of the arc which was cool and there were brand new characters that while you are given absolutely no background of nor given any reason to care about them were decent enough boss battles, it was the overall mission structure that really lets this game down.
Particularly mission 3 might have had the worst designed mission arguably in the whole series and this series has had some brutal stealth missions in it. Maybe I am an idiot but the light that needs to show the way is there so briefly and is so hardly recognizable that I essentially abandoned it and just was flying around the town and happened to stumble upon the objective.
I felt like at times that I did not have total control of Raven when trying to strike in the air and you were so limited with the attacks you can do with Raven, especially in comparison to Kat that the combat felt very bone dry.
DLC lasted about 2-3 hours so had I played this right after GR2 I would have not given this it's own gaming slot on my goal but I played this about 2 months after the game so I will shamefully put this one on here.
Trophies are easy enough to get though the problem with the trophies is you have one shot to get them and if you don't you'll want to restart the chapter over because they are tied to doing a specific challenge right or without any mistakes to obtain them which I think is a mistake in doing. One is to avoid getting detected, another is to make sure the monster follows you throughout in a path towards everyone's favorite character in the series. You mess up once, you will have to re-do to get the trophy. Bleh.
Recommendation Yay or Nay
I won't pick one because it's free so it would be silly to hold this against the game. But it's such a forgetful experience, that you pop the game in, do six different chapters and say goodbye to everything and anything. This wasn't the DLC I envisioned getting but again it's free so give it a shot.
19) Dark Souls 3 DLC: The Ringed City(XB1) 3/28-3/30
This is essentially the last hurrah of what is a well beloved if not well recognized franchise in video gaming dating back to last and this generation and if so, this is a DLC to really end on. A very, very good DLC though not great and I will explain as to why(At least to me) why that happens to be.
Pros:
1) The city is much deeper in terms of depth than the other DLC and is one of the prettier maps in the game. While it wears out it's welcome and there are certain points that are instant death that aren't covered in the mandatory drops, the drop portions of the DLC are neat. The enemies are cool enough, and there's loads of very useful items in this DLC.
2) The bosses....................the first boss was awesome. I held it with the final boss of the 1st DLC and had it neck and neck and said no way can FROM top this boss in this DLC but NOPE. After a admittedly less than spectacular 2nd mandatory boss in this DLC that I 1 shotted on the first try, I said "THATS IT. That's how we're ending this series. Say it isn't so!"...............FROM Software rest assured said "Nope, we got this."
And the final boss of this DLC, wow. Just wow. I said it for the first DLC that the end of the DLC I felt like I got my money's worth but this boss, just amazing. Quite honestly the most fun boss of the game, that's the word to describe it. Fun. It's a game of patience, coordination, smarts, and management of stamina. The different phases just had your jaw drop, and the overall environment was stellar. It sucks that you have to go through so much to experience this boss again but my god this boss hits the mark on so many aspects. Job well done FROM, much to be proud of with this killer boss.
Cons:
1) Experienced some crappy framerate but I played this on the XBOX ONE so I want to take note of that. Happened more so at the beginning of the game but it got much better later on.
2) The premise and gimmicks that the stages had were nauseating, not fun and I think this is a theme that FROM Software misses upon. Points 2 and 3 will preach to the choir on the matter here.
Making a game very difficult does not always mean the game/experience will be fun
Case in point two portions of this DLC where you have ridiculous speed arrows/lasers that can dwindled your HP in seconds if chained right. You can't outrun them, blocking eats your stamina, you don't have enough hiding to escape them entirely. One of the two thankfully can be stopped by PERM killing a enemy lurking around but the other will consistently respawn which sucks. I like traps, I liked Sen's Fortress. I like challenge.....but what kills a challenge is making obstacles that aren't a matter of patience or skill but more so luck and trial/error of knowing where to go and where to hide.
Some may find those two aforementioned obstacles fun, not me. I like fighting enemies that I can actually hurt and kill, not be forced to take damage in a means to run around for safety. You really can't take in the scenery or explore for items with these nuisances around.
3) The optional boss............................let me just say this, this is pure opinion and I know some will vehemently disagree but it's awful. Let's bring back the quotation from earlier before:
Making a game very difficult does not always mean the game/experience will be fun
Case. In. Point. This boss.....now it's not Ancient Dragon's levels of obnoxiousness but it's still an obnoxious boss. HIGH HP, high defense, high strength, ridiculous hitboxes, an ARSENAL of moves that you will have to dedicate hours upon hours to even get a pattern only to have the script flipped for phase 2. The fire it shoots covers a ridiculous amount of range and you are forced to essentially block it and watch your stamina dwindle and or try your damnest to dodge it. For a melee character you are left with fighting this boss in only 2 methods, attacking the tail, roll, not get greedy, rinse.....repeat for 10-15 minutes and hope you aren't caught . Or to go after the head, try and bait him fortunately in a pattern that you can dodge/block and be weary of the beams that can 1 shot you.
You compare this shit to the 2 bosses you fight in this DLC and you just wonder how they miss the boat so much on this boss but not the others. This one just isn't fun, the others are magnificent and are among the best in the game.
I didn't beat the boss and I don't even care to summon help to beat it. It ruined my overall time with the game to the point that I can put it down and not have a single regret . I got my fill with the other bosses in this DLC that I enjoyed my time but I won't stress hours upon hours of trying to take out this behemoth's obnoxious HP to get caught and have to re-do it all over.
Recommendation: Yay or Nay.
Yeah go for it absolutely. I won't let a shit optional boss ruin my time and run with the game altogether, had far more fun than dread for this DLC. Two of the three mandatory bosses and even some of the optional PVP fighters including this tank of an enemy were just as fun too. The last boss is worth the price of admission in itself, that's how quality it was. I am excited to see what FROM Software does now post Souls but it sucks to put this series to bed because there have been so many fond memories and experienced stemming from this great franchise.
20) Donkey Kong Country 3(New 3DS) 3/27-3/31, Early April
(I lost the exact date of when this game was finished but it was a game I played throughout my train rides which is why I didn't finish this game so soon)
Well since getting myself a New 3DS, I owed it to myself to play all of the games of this iconic and amazing series so I felt like it was a must to conclude this series(At least the SNES games) by playing DKC3. It was a real good way to burn time on the train to and from work.
Now in comparison to the other two games, it doesn't have the same charm or appeal. I think the enemy designs are part of the reason which such needless and wacky choices like replacing the iconic Zinger with a Buzzer and the kremling overhauls which made them look uglier in this game. Another part of the reason is the needless reasons to overhaul to the duo attack(Such as not allowing Dixie to throw Kiddy which as much as that makes sense, very seldomly were there parts that opened because you threw Kiddy while as Dixie) and also the new DK Coin gimmick in this game. Unlike in DKC2 where you simply had to find and touch to get a DK Coin(very few exceptions to that) in this game you had to throw a barrel and time it right or projectile the barrel in a way to get the kremling to drop the coin.
I happened to think this was a case of if it wasn't broken don't fix it and I think that's really the theme of the game. By no means is it a bad game, I still enjoyed it and think it's still superb but of the big 3 games on the SNES but it's the worst of the three because they tried changes that I don't think were necessary. I would have been fine with a DKC2 similar enough game with very minor alterations but this game tried to put it's own print. Some of the gimmicks like the backwards controls were more of a nuisance more than anything else IMO.
I like that the bosses offered a challenge which the 1st 2 games very seldom provided and this game of the 3 was the most difficult for me so the challenge is much appreciated but playing this game after how much of a masterpiece DKC2 is.....is somewhat underwhelming.
Recommended: Yay or Nay
You know what, despite me sounding a bit pessimistic in my writeup of Donkey Kong Country 3, the game is still awesome and if you loved the 1st 2 games, you are going to still enjoy yourself for the couple of hours that this game provides but it is a drop off altogether from DKC2 but that speaks more so to how good DKC2 was. The game does try to be a bit different which to some is commendable for me I don't necessarily mind much of the same...........as long as the much of the same is quality which the 1st two games of this series were. The core gameplay is still there so it isn't a drastic dropoff but the few aforementioned reasons have this game 3rd in this series behind it's 1st 2 predecessors.
21) Gex: Enter the Gecko(PS3) 4/1-4/3, 5/1-5/3
It's tail time!
Ever play a game that the more you played of it, the more it just got on your nerves and you just began to laugh a lot of less each session you play of said game? This would be it for me.
Now don't get me wrong, the game has a lot of personality, I can't help but laugh at the one liners that Gex is throwing. They are so outdated and so 80's and 90's yet I get a good chunk of them that it's one of those they are so bad they are good sort of ordeals. So far the enemies have not given me fits but it's been more so Blindy vs the Camera throughout this game which is the root of the problem here: The Camera.
The camera is ridiculously obnoxious where you are routinely fighting against it which is quite of the norm for these types of games in the 90's but it is still nevertheless annoying. The most annoying thing of the camera is that there are jumps you need to make or else you have to start over from the beginning of the stage since there are no checkpoints in certain stages, thus making you start from the beginning. Thankfully the stages aren't too long themselves but it's still making me play 5-10 minutes of the same level again and again because the cameras do not cooperate with you as the player.
Another annoyance would be Gex's inconsistency to grab onto ledges, some parts he will make grabs as expected, and other parts he simply will not grab onto it even if you are hugging the platform, with you easily grazing the platform and falling down, sometimes to your death. The grabbing features will haunt you in some portions because it is practically death for floating & moving objects in the game as you continuously are in a grabbing the ledge motion due to the platforming rotating and it's 50/50 if you land on the platform or get thrown off. One of the last levels is the textbook definition of this frustration.
The reoccurance of level themes was a bit of a letdown though each level isn't the exact same but given this game is a 80's and 90's pop culture pokefest, I would have loved to have seen more level themes incorporated because the game does a nice job of poking at franchises like COPS, Looney Tunes, and Star Wars.
The game is a collectathon and you are required to replay the level two, sometimes three times to get the necessary red remotes that are at the end of a specific branched path which means you can never collect everything in one swoop, which can be a good and/or bad thing depending on how you view it. Without this gimmick, the game would have shaved off a couple of hours of it's overall length which is about 7 or so hours if you aren't going for every single item in the game. Me? I got all the red remotes but didn't play any of the 3 secret levels and I did not get every single optional silver remote but I would say I did enough to feel like I got through the game with tons done.
The bosses for the most part are easy and once you get their concepts down, can be taken down in mere minutes but the last boss is a pure RNG nightmare, you have to be lucky enough to be right at the vital switch in the final phase with it's last health or else it's a runaround and waste of time until you get such. Boss sucked and it was a 20+ minute time waster for me and I was able to breathe a sigh of relief to be done with that. Not sure who thought that was a good idea to give you mere seconds to be lucky enough to get near the necessary switch AND manipulate the boss to whack it(Which is a problem in itself since you have to be right next to the switch and often run the risk of getting whacked).
Recommended: Yay or Nay
This game reminds me of a Spielberg cartoon like Animaniacs, Freakazoid, Tiny Toons, Pinky and The Brain etc. Seems like a game that kids can easily enjoy and like but they have some puns and humor that older ages would also get and I happen to grow up with these cartoons so this game and series seems like something absolutely up my alley.
The American voice actor for Gex, Dana Gould does a terrific job with his celebrity impersonations that often got a chuckle out from me. Adam Sandler, SNL, Roseanne, Real World are not spared by this brilliance. Some of it still holds up oh so well, some of it might be outdated and some of it you have not a clue where it stems from but the tone and delivery of the lines are so good. This is Freakazoid/Deadpool esque so if you like that wacky type of craziness, you are going to absolutely love Gould's Gex. It saves the game in so many instances and it makes it worth playing to see all of these zany pop culture puns and one liners.
But games around this era like Banjo series and Mario 64 just do their craft so much better which is why I think there are other games that deserve your attention more than Gex. The game isn't bad and the humor will be real hit or miss for you so it isn't a total time waster but again it's a game as you keep playing, the lust and allure of the presentation run out and you're left with a frustratingly annoying game that repeats its jokes and levels one too many times.
22) Lollipop Chainsaw(PS3) 5/18, 5/20-5/21
I have enjoyed myself with this game for the most part. I actually appreciate the zany humor and nature of this game. The combat outside of the couple of frustrating framedrops when there are many zombies on a battlefield and the camera which often has enemies getting you off camera with attacks or getting so close that you cannot see entirely has been relatively fun. The boss battles are pretty swell and the dialogue is well acted even if you aren't necessarily buying into the game's crazy nature. There have been a surprisingly good amount of enemy and stage variety which for a last gen beat em up, is very much appreciated. This game has incorporated the usual beat em up mechanics, some racing esque portions, some rail gun portions, some other minigames.
However my biggest gripe with this game and it might be a fair or unfair one is that the chainsaw blaster portions force you to have to use a PS3 controller and sadly my PS3 controller routinely continues to bug out and hit start often so for the portions of the game that I need to use the chainsaw blaster, I am stuck with a fight between me and my controller and for a game that's less than 5 years old, not sure why the Dualshock 4 does not work all the way for this game. You can absolutely do the basics of the game but for some lousy reason, the chainsaw blaster games often bug up where the game routinely goes haywire with it's aiming. I took auto aim off, after it was previously on, made no difference. It would routinely not allow me to control where I want to aim and for Zombie Baseball, I was just button mashing L2 and R2 and got away with it but for portions that I HAD TO aim, I had to make the switch to the Dualshock 3 sadly. Sucks that I have to even do this though this was a last gen game so technically it was meant to be played from a last gen controller but games that have a few years on this one allow the full usage of the Dualshock 4. The game has some glitches like having my character just stay in one place until I button mash the circle button enough to just move and after beating the 3rd stage the loading screen senseless just staying for a few minutes before I pressed some buttons and got it to progress.
I am playing this on Hard Mode and outside of having 3 lollipops instead of 5 and having additional zombies in certain parts, I don't think the game is all too difficult outside of the aforementioned frustrating elements. I feel like the game is more than generous with its health refill lollipops.
Should you play it? Yay or Nay?
The game was absolutely enjoyable for the most part but once again the game's inability to fully adapt to the Dualshock 4 and essentially forcing me to to play with my busted Dualshock 3 which causes a pause in the game every other minute it felt like really really hurt this for me and it's not necessarily the game's fault. Besides that this game was very much enjoyable, I do agree it is the right length and I think it is such a good compliment to Persona 5 for me. The combat was very, very top notch, the zany humor was in good fun and the game wasn't just a beat em up as it complimented so many elements to the game from rail gun shooting to chainsaw racing to other wacky minigames. If you can get this for 20 bucks or below go for it, you'll have a solid weekend with this game. Game does offer up multiple playthroughs to fully upgrade Juliet and get her some brand new skills.
This is a game I hadn't played since I was about 7 or maybe 8 years old so this was a flashback from a game I really liked two decades ago. It was going to be a matter of how well it holds up, here in 2017 after countless platformers have went after it and have incorporated its own quirky humor in it and I must say that this game still holds up very well. Yes it is a very short game, maybe clocking you a little under 2 hours if you know what you are doing. There's not much to the game and it is simple to an extent but the levels do provide some difficulty such as For Pete's Sake and In The Lab where the gimmick/premise of the level can be somewhat annoying even to expert players.
The HD remaster was pretty well done though they did change the voice of Earthworm Jim(Which I kinda like). There was an opening comic book scene to give backstory as to the Earthworm Jim character though I kinda wish there was more of those comic book scenes for each level, the game looks cool for its time and there's a high score system involved and the best part is there's a way to play each level you've beaten . This is great for if you blow your lives and continue and would not need to be forced to play the game again from the start. There's a differentiation of difficulty from easy to normal to hard(Which I played) to the original SNES/Genesis/PC Earthworm Jim challenge so there's enough variety with its difficulty for long time fans and newcomers to get along with.
Tommy Tallarico absolutely kills this series with such great music, one of the most underrated OSTs in video game history IMHO. New Junk City, Ascension, and Snot a problem are problem my top 3 if I had to choose with Buttville and Psycrow's battle to round out a top 5 of this games' soundtrack.
Should You Play It? Yay or Nay
"Ohhh Yeahhh". The game is so quirky, simple enough and the HD remaster does enough to make it worth a purchase in my eyes where it doesn't completely destroy the game and the reasons people adore the game. Cool level design, cool characters, it's worth it for the couple of hours you'll get out of it. It still holds up well for me. Add in some new secret levels and I THINK an Earthworm Jim 2 level and you got some new goodies in this HD remaster that didn't previously exist.
24) American Mcgee's Alice(XB360 via XB1) 5/24-5/25, 5/27
And finished American Mcgee's Alice. I got the game for free as apart of getting Alice: Madness Returns digitally in a real neat backwards compatible sale for the XB1 so no qualms or complaints on a free game but it's time to discuss the shortcomings of this game and the frustration that this game will bring forth to the player.
- By no means is this a terrible game, it isn't and certainly not for 2000 but is it a good game? Not really. The game does not age well in the very least bit which unlike games like Banjo Kazooie that precede do despite the latter coming before this game. How does this game not age well might you ask?
1) The platforming feels very clunky and not fluid in the least. Often you will find yourself needing to time your lands correct and even when you think you got the jump down to pat, you may end up clipping off the edge to your death. Add some enemies like Banshees that can obnoxiously push you back and even the most veteran platform fans will experience their frustration boil over time over the clunky platforming. Anytime a game cannot do it's supposed bread and butter well which in this case is platforming, you are simply going to have problems.
2) The inability to limit your item inventory is brutal. In this game you get about 7 or 8 weapons to use and by end game about 3 of them really matter at all, the Jabberwock staff, the starter knife and the jaxx. The timer does serve some purpose and before end game, the ice staff is very useful but the point I am trying to get at is that you are constantly needing to shuffle different items on the run which in turn can be frustrating when enemies can chip away at your health. The pause option does absolutely nothing worthwhile except for very vital concept of the game which I will touch upon later on so you can't even change it up while pausing the game.
3) The underwater swimming is a nightmare in this game. It's a constant battle with the camera while having these fish enemies nibble at your life consistently and they sometimes even come in schools. Very archaic system which is the theme of this review for this game.
4) There's a very shaky auto aim system that you have to be specifically close enough to the enemy to have have it be put upon them so your attacks don't completely whiff. The game is somewhat generous enough with the attacks homing, specifically the deck of cards and jaxx but still it will take time to get used to, especially in comparison to modern games.
5) Game is quite cryptic, like you aren't going to realize how to progress and I admittedly had to look up a few things to proceed in the game. Simple things like missing 1-2 clocks from getting hit or not stepping on a platform are the littlest of things that can throw you off. By no means is this Zelda type of cryptic but it is still nevertheless frustrating to not have the slightest clue on what to do to proceed.
6) Awful awful awful boss fight with the Jabberwock. The 2nd fight with it. Awful. He does ridiculous damage and can 2 shot you in given circumstances, he can tank a crap ton of hits and the lone real good way to hurt him is to have to use the staff but the problem is it drains your magic quite hastily and it then requires you to have to run around and pick up recoveries to get it and it goes back to him absolutely destroying you with hellfire. I spent about a half hour on this lousy boss. It somewhat just comes down to luck and RNG of him giving you enough time to secure recoveries to unleash your magic upon him to win.
- Now the one thing this game happens to do right is the save anytime option. It's EXTREMELY vital in this game where there's zero shame in saving even after the littlest of accomplishments. You best make use of this because this game is unforgiving enough that a mistake like not saving at a certain spot can and will lead you to have repeat the segments over and over again. The game will autosave but that's usually meant for the beginning of each level so not hard saving can be quite fatal. However, pick your spots with saving because all of your hard work will be for naught if you save in a spot that will repeat death such as missing a jump or getting hit by an enemy on your last bit of health.
Should you play it? Yay or Nay?
I'd say nay. Not to say it's a bad game, it's not the worst game ever. Game has some neat designs, has a cool story and the instant save feature is huge. But the aforementioned blemishes are too much to overcome for some and the question you're going to have to ask yourself is: Is this game worth my time? You may or may not play many games on the year so time is precious as The Mad Hatter would attest to and this game simply just isn't must play. It's not awful but much like with Gex: Enter the Gecko, there are just games that outclass it that have come out before or after it and this game just has not aged well in the very least.
25) Persona 5 4/3-6/1(PS4)
Wow what a game. I think this might be my GOTY when it is all said and done. Like with plenty of JRPGs, I think it goes on maybe a dungeon too long but you can never complain about getting extra content for your buck. Game rolled me about 120 hours deep, played it on Hard because there's just no other way to experience such a game. The music is superb, especially maybe the track of the year in "Rivers in the Desert", I like the ability to switch characters and to have them gather up experience which was a big problem in previous installments. I can say safely that every single character I got to use was apart of the trip and journey, which is awesome. The SMT classic negotiating is a great move to bring back and I like fighting demons I had previous fought because pretty much they have the same strengths and weaknesses in past games even though the game has two brand new magic spells, Psy and Nuclear which throws things off as far as who is weak to what going by SMT memory alone. The game gives you more than enough time to finish up a mandatory dungeon/arc and you add so many dang things you can do from social links to minigames to boosting your stats. The menus look amazing and are chock full of art, the music as aforementioned Meguro hits out of the park and the list of characters, while admittedly they don't stray too far off from previous installments(Ryuji is the hotheaded bestfriend like Junpei and Yusuke, Morgana is much like Teddy as that "Mascot" character who is trying to find his place), are still well done and the neat references to past fictional thieves is well done. Tons of positives to be had with this game!
My gripe still stands of the whole "Main character dies, everyone dies" being nonsensical and illogical and the quicker this gets abolished, the better everyone will be. The other problem is like with other games, the social links discontinue at a given date which granted you are given notice of beforehand but in my situation I sort of got screwed over from concluding a social link(Temp.) because your school life comes to danger deep into the game(Without spoiling things) and it stops you from finishing this link if you didn't do so already or had known about this plot in the story. I don't know if this game is as cruel as past games where as if you don't finish your social links by the end of the game, you need to start over(Which is silly in itself) but I still feel like I got a lot of them done. This in spite of continuously being denied from doing anything day or night because of being forced to go to sleep for storyline purposes which can be very, very annoying but I guess they want to force you to do a 2nd playthrough.
Two (IMO) overblown negatives I see some people have are the homophobic tones in this game which are hardly anything at all, it's a flamboyant couple who I thought fit the tone of comic relief rather well as it got a chuckle out of me and the over-analysis of the localization which I would have had no idea about had it not been for the stories made by Kotaku and the lot. Neither struck me as negatives unlike the other stuff up above, neither bothered me as well.
Recommended. Yay or Nay
I thought NiOh would have this GOTY on lockdown for me but as expected Persona 5 came through. It spent me about 140-150 hours to take down and I took my sweet time with the game to be not feel overwhelmed or feel like I am playing this game for the sake of playing it and it worked wonders for this game. I can hardly say I needed to grind for this game and looking at other players recc. levels(Great, great feature btw!), I was quite a couple of levels down before finishing. To put that in perspective, tons of players seemingly finished the game over level 80....I think I just hit level 75 to finish the game, on hard! Game in the beginning doesn't do the Pokemon mentality of giving your team and personas EXP boosts but later on, you get Personas who can gather EXP while riding the bench and with specific social link choices, you can get your party members who are reserves to get experience too so you don't feel too overpowered at the same time unless you truly go out of your way to make it so.
Game hits on so many aspects and aside from the few nitpicks, it's a must play for any JRPG fan and anyone looking dive into the genre, would not do themselves any wrong by making Persona 5 their 1st choice as such.
26) Assault Android Cactus 5/27-5/28, 6/2(PS4)
Giving Assault Android Cactus a whirl and boy is the game absolutely fun! Think of this game kinda like Super Smash TV if any of you guys remember that bad boy in the late 80's/early 90's. It's a arcade style shoot em up that you are running around a map blasting everything around you that's after you. Unlike Smash TV, you are given a health bar and it isn't a one hit KO deal which is great given there is plenty of bullet hell. Game does have some challenge, particularly the boss battles which are rough. The music is phenomenal, and it has numerous characters including earning a new character to use. It has an all female cast by the looks of it but all of the characters feel different, some much goofier than others. The best part is the game is very simple and easy to figure out and each character has a different primary move and a powered up move and given power ups like shutdown/freezing the enemies, making your character super fast, getting 2 helpers to boost your damage ala Gradius/R Type and white particles that allow you to do more damage....you are given loads of firepower to help you survive the onslaught and vast amounts of enemies this game has thrown in thus far. It's a battle royale fight to the finish and the way to win is to outlast your opposition and be the last one standing against hoards of machines and other threats like bees.
Very, very good game again. Lone complaint I can possibly say on this game is not giving you the necessary battery power after killing a group of enemies automatically, instead you are forced to go and walk towards it which includes having to put yourself in harm's way to go and get it. Very suspect game design choice in my honest opinion, as there were times that I killed an enemy but because I wasn't close to the battery powerup(It goes wherever after coming from a dead enemy when you kill an enemy, so one time it went to the otherside of the dead enemy from where I was and I died due to no battery). Should be an automatic powerup after you kill an enemy that doesn't force you to drop everything and to play a game of chase the battery powerup.
Otherwise, the campaign is a couple of hours and it offers multiple playthroughs as you get 9 different female androids to use. My two personal favorites were Starch(PINEAPPLE!) and Holly though I did use Coral for the final boss, as that was necessary given her damage output. What the game does well, it does really well but there were some deaths where I finish one phase of a boss fight, than with very minimal battery power left, I need to get the battery and I get walloped or don't even get the chance to given the battery didn't gravitate towards me unfortunately.
Recommended? Yay or Nay?
Definitely worth your time, I only divulged into the main campaign but there are other modes like boss rush that I haven't tested around with. Main campaign will take a couple of hours to beat, might be quicker or slower for some depending on how they can adjust to the bullet hell portions. I found that some characters were utilized FAR better than others in certain scenarios, like I never used Coral in any previous stage prior to the final boss but she made too much sense from a damage output to not pick her as everyone else could not do enough in time. There's some strategy in which android to pick which is always appreciative.
27) D4: Dark Dreams Don't Die 6/3-6/4(XB1)
Don't know if there is a weirder game that I have or will have played than this game. Sometimes the weirdness is there just for the sake of being there but it also does offer up something unpredictable and hilariously over the top in a game that does get very wacky in it's explanation. Some of the dialogue seems like something someone in real life would never say("Little Peggy" routinely mentioned instead of baby or my wife seems very unrealistic) but you can easily ignore that. Some of the characters are so far out and so batshit crazy that you find yourself laughing out loud to the point that you think this is like Law & Order on drugs. Feels like a parody, intentional or not, of a law show on TV. If there's a game that sorta reminds me as far as an episodic and flow style goes, Wolf Among Us would be a nice comparison.
The game is a few hours and it does end on a clusterfuck of an ending and given the sales weren't too swell and that Swery65 has departed Access, very doubtful there's a followup to this game but I thought this was a decent enough entry. The QTE make Telltale's look tame, very well done though for me, I am not so accustomed to the XBOX controller so my noobness once in a while forgot which buttons meant what but clearly that would be me in the minority so I can't possibly hold that against the game. The collectables hardly seemed any worthwhile to go out of your way for though there are "sidequests" in this game that offer up additional minutes of gameplay but again you aren't missing much.
Recommended? Yay or Nay?
I felt like I could not take this game seriously enough to honestly muster any emotion of the game, which might have been the goal by Swery65 so I think this game really comes down to coming in with a mindset of not taking this game too seriously and expecting the unexpected and you'll come out of this with a plesant surprise. It's not must play by any means so don't go out of your way for this game but if you get this for free like me, there would happen to be worse ways to spend your couple of hours.
I agree with a previous poster in this thread who also mentioned they would combine the games into one, would feel it'd cheapen my goal to have all the games listed as individual counts. Said the same for Metal Slug Anthology so I will stick to that. Think it makes sense to talk about each game individually.
(The repeat system is so, so, so good btw. Big ups to Capcom for putting that in, it makes things so much less complicated and frustrating over cheap fall deaths. Not sure why Megaman Legacy Collection I doesn't have it?)
Ducktales 1: Very, very good game though the cane usage doesn't feel as fluid as I would like it to be. You have to really pick up on that from the get go. Game does make you go through levels a second time if you didn't pick up something along the way as it stops you from going into the ruins unless you got a key from Transylvania. Don't know if I love the game like some others do but I know I didn't necessarily play this in the 80's to get caught up in nostalgia. The cane swipe is a frustrating mechanic to use which I will explain more in the sequel.
Chip N Dale Rescue Rangers: Pretty fun game, arguably my favorite of the entire set. I found myself bobbing and weaving through levels rather than actually fighting enemies as the combat is strictly you picking up boxes to throw at enemies. Think it's funner to play it by dodging enemies through the levels. Some levels are made obsolete and can be skipped entirely for some strange reason. No difference between Chip and Dale as characters go, because their look.
Talespin: Could have been the best game of the bunch but two things that stick out at me about this game....
A) The backwards movement will stop you from progressing and you could actually trace back in a level which is frustrating at first....it is vital to change your rotation of your ship to take down the opposition but it doesn't move the screen alongside with you when you do this so you're inadvertently going backwards in the level when there's hardly any point ever to do this. Not a big deal in comparison to the second gripe
B) The boss fights are inconsistent, one boss requires you to shoot at a diagonal shot glance when the diagonal shooting in the game is limited to one shot per frame when your ship makes it's 180 degree turn. Not a good thought about boss fight, other boss fights are good enough to offer challenge but be fun too. I often repeated on a boss because I believe this game makes you start from the beginning of the level if you lose.
It is the most unique of the games as it's the lone non platformer of the group but those two things hold it back from really being top notch.
Darkwing Duck: The game I was looking forward to the most does not disappoint though the grappling system does get on your nerves quite often as your muscle memory will make you want to jump up to avoid danger yet you need to drop down off the grapple hooks to really do damage on boss fights. 3/4 of the bosses revolve around this gimmick so this game becomes enjoyable or not if you can "get" the grapple hook system or not. I love the boss variety as this was the first game that had bad guys from the show on it, I like the attention to detail.
Ducktales 2: Feels like much of the same in comparison to the 1st game though this game does take a page out of Darkwing Duck and incorporates the grappling mechanic. Doesn't really change much at all in comparison to the 1st game, which is a good thing, at least for me. Different levels, some different gimmicks in the levels but it feels almost identical to the 1st game.
Chip and Dale 2: Game unlike all of the rest really goes to task on incorporating dialogue and a story. It's funny because the dialogue actually lasts longer than the levels more times than not as again I found myself just avoiding and running through levels rather than actually fighting the bad guys. This game didn't have a boss after each level but I like the boss fights much more than in the 1st game, more variety though the final boss has an obnoxious amount of health and you find yourself either mistiming the bomb throw or it not hitting the boss despite the explosion radius clearing hitting it.
Recommended? Yay or Nay?
If you can get it on sale, go for it. I essentially paid a smudge over 2 bucks for each game so I feel like I got my bang for my buck out of this collection. If you at all like 2D platformers, go for it. Great theme music in its 8 bit glory too. The rewind ability is such a win too, so good for people of all skills to get into. These games will go quick sure but there are six games in this collection, there's something bound to be in it for you. Add other features like Boss Rush and Time Attack which are essential for trophies/achievements and you got something worthwhile in this game. Do wait for a sale though, don't know if I would get it at 19.99 but the games are solid for the couple of hours they will all give to you combine.
29) Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons 6/5, 6/9, 6/10(XB1)
Man what a bummer of a video game......and that isn't because the game is bad. It does what it does well.....just geez I can't remember too many more games that conclude on such a dark note, the game is filled with like all of humanity's worse kind of acts. Experimentation, trickery, you had suicide implemented, a tragic backstory in the beginning and an unfortunate death. It's weird too because the game is very pretty art wise and is bursting with personality but the dark tone this game implements is contrasting against such.
You control 2 different characters with the joysticks and use (In my case) the bumper controls to implement different moves such as swimming, jumping to ledges and pushing a lever together. What could have done been done better are segments like rowing the boat which were painful to do as well as turning a lever to adjust it to move to the right place to progress in the story. In particularly the boat segment, it did hurt my thumbs trying to navigate the damn thing. But looking back, that's the lone real blemish of this game. Sure the game is like 3 hours so it is on the short side of things but given I played this for free on the XB Game Pass and that I think the game accomplishes quite a lot in that brief time, it isn't too bad that the game concludes in such a short time.
Recommended? Yay or Nay
Game is worth your couple of hours, quite a lot of thought was put behind this game. There was only one real blemish along the way personally for me and even then that segment is like 5-7 minutes in itself. Game is a real bummer again though, had me really sad for 2 different segments.
30) InFamous: First Light(PS4, 6/10-6/11, 6/13)
I first played InFamous: Second Son right around June 2016 so a year removed from the main frontline game, I dipped into it's following DLC which stars one of the side characters from the main game, Abigail Fetch Walker and I happen to find her even going back to Second Son as the better character of the two "protagonists". Just a better backstory altogether and while she is stuck with one power, her power was always the best of the 4 major powers you acquire through the game(The neon ability).
I think what was well done by this game is it is much more condensed and it doesn't feel like you are truly going out of your way for side things in this game. I didn't finish up the arena battles nor saving hostages granted but I did everything else from graffiti to collecting these neon bugs in these very fun races or these glowing powerups in high elevations. The side content I felt was simply better as opposed to Second Son, I felt like it really stressed the use of your powers whether it be in speed or jumping to acquire powerups. The main story is rather short so you would do yourself well to divulge into the side content because if I recall, there were maybe 10 or so main mission quests throughout the game.
However, less is more is not necessarily a bad thing per say because I think had this game gone any longer, it would have easily have dragged it's feet and honestly....wore out it's welcome. You don't really get to pick a side as you are simply forced into one main arc of Fetch, which can be good or bad given this series is about either being good....or bad. There is no final boss battle in this game at the end which is a shame so you don't really feel satisfied in giving the major antagonist of the game what was coming but outside of that, I think this game does well as a standalone DLC.
Recommended: Yay or Nay?
I actually liked InFamous Second Son when I first sunk my teeth into the game last year so you are now given a game with far less content but doesn't necessarily drag itself and are given a cool protagonist with the best skillset in the original game and are given fun side missions too? Count me in. If you liked at all Second Son, this is a no brainer. Even if you didn't, if you can get it on the cheap, still would say go for it.
31) Shadows of the Damned(XB1 6/14-6/21)
Going to be upfront about this, I expected a bit more out of this game with Shinji Mikami and Suda 51 together in this game and with GAF's high praise of this game, I felt a little underwhelmed when it was all said and done. That's not to say this is a bad game per say but more so that when the game was finished, I thought there were simply too many frustrating moments and so many correctable mistakes that were placed on this game that ruined this from being a great experience.
What the game does good is the different amount of variety of gameplay it gives you. It gives you the standard third person RE4 experience even though it does feel tankish and sluggish when in combat against numerous enemies in a room where you're literately rolling blindly around to avoid getting hit. There are 3 weapons you get in your arsenal to use, a pistol, shotgun and semi machine gun and you will be using all 3 because ammo(At least at the Legion Hunter/Hard mode I played on) is SCARCE which is a problem I will get to later on which allows for different variety of ways to go about killing off a hoard of demons. There are numerous puzzles this game throws at you, usually it pertains to needing to shine the light in the darkness, as darkness=bad in this game. Darkness will eat at your life and you really have to go out of your way to find the light because after an initial bar that doesn't eat away at your HP, your HP will dwindle and dwindle fast if you aren't drinking any alcohol/liquor(Yes that's how you get HP in this game) so there's a certain thrill that this gives you that you have to survive and solve the rather easy puzzles.
But this third person experience isn't all this game offers.....this game has you do side scrolling in a Gradius style of gameplay for a few segments which I thought was rather fun though easy to die in due to getting caught in a bad predicament that will essentially one shot you. This game has you protect the fort essentially in a fight against giant titan like demons that can one shot you if they get close enough and grab you. This game has an (Albeit annoying, IMO) chase scenes from someone who can one shot you if they touch you as you're running around senselessly trying to kill enemies or escape harm's way to progress. In essence there's tons to enjoy with this game and the best choice that could have been done is to not be one dimensional and stick too much with the third person perspective for all of the game.
The story in typical SUDA 51 fashion is balls off the wall crazy though there's something inside of the story though I wish the ending would have been better as I thought more so this game was a psychological action game and the ending without getting too much into spoilers was a letdown after hours upon hours of the game really diving into the temptation of your lover only to see it not essentially matter in the grand scheme of things. I'll be frank, there is humor and scenes in this game that not everyone will like. A lot of potty humor, a lot of sexual innuendos, that type of spill.....what you expect out of Suda 51 so if you don't like that, this may be a tough sell to spend 10+ hours playing this when it's chock full of this.
Three negatives about this game that I would like to discuss are the cameras at times can get frustrating especially in fights with enemies where I am again blind rolling to avoid harm's way regardless of what I am rolling myself into. The game offers up a very stiff turnaround mechanic to allow you to catch people in your 180 degree line of sight but it doesn't feel right per say and I find myself turning my character after countless rolling attempts to get the right vision. Another is the ammo or lack there of. There were 1-2 situations that I had to restart AN ENTIRE CHAPTER OVER(The checkpoints are great but you either have to restart from a saved checkpoint AKA right before this scene or restart the entire act again....) because I was not only out of ammo but for some in explicit reason, there was no ammo refills when the game was usually decent enough on that(There are usually a box refill that respawns every 10 seconds). You are able to buy ammo from a merchant but the merchant appears per say maybe 5 or 6 times throughout the game and for me at least, it's never when I want/need him the most. You have to solely rely on either lucky drops from enemies or picking up spare ammo lying on the ground and I found myself being always low on ammo, especially on bullet sponge bosses which will be discussed momentarily and having to waste 2-3 minutes alone restocking my ammo by essentially running around the arena without fighting the boss and dodging it's attacks.
But by far the biggest negative and drawback I can say are that the boss fights were a massive letdown and part of the reason is the lack of health bar which is something a future SUDA 51 game did in Lollipop Chainsaw that I played last month. You honestly have not a clue when a boss is going to die or when to hit it and this was especially the case for the second to last boss of the game which is easily the worst boss that I played in any game for 2017 due to the amount of damage it takes. The boss is repetitious, it does crazy damage on hard mode and I died one time because it unsuspectingly despite the boss dying had body parts flying around that killed me because I put the controller down after literately 15-20 minutes of a boss fight that the gimmick is you need to have light up after enough damage to put a explosive round(Which is very inconsistent of when it pops up on an enemy) only to die from flying body parts and needing to start all over. Unnecessary in the game and that's the real memo with the boss fights, just unnecessary portions of these boss fights that drag on and on and on. When it was all said and done, the boss nearly took an hour and that's because it used patterns that dragged the fight on in all honesty. You know the game has glitches here and there, like firing a gun when I simply take it out and have it ready to fire despite me not touching the right bumper to initiate fire but I can look past it but boring, repetitive boss fights that drag on far longer than they should are a true nuisance that hurt my enjoyment of the game.
Recommended: Yay or Nay
Despite all of it's shortcomings, I put yay but a slight yay as the negatives did bring down my enjoyment of the game. At the end of the day, you have a pretty cool protagonist voiced by Stephen Blum who does a pretty good job pulling off a convincing Spanish accent and a Mexican protagonist without falling TOO much into stereotypes, a neat set of side characters and some interesting gameplay and I see why this game is talked rather well about via word of mouth but the drawn out boss battles, some of the tankish controls really working against you at times and ammo resources can really spoil the fun. There's replay-ability in getting the hidden red gems that power your character up so there's that too.
It's an alright game, nothing to go out of your way for......
32) Sonic Adventure(PS3 6/24-6/25)
Wow, what to say about this game......I think had I come into this game expecting something more serious, I would have been left with sheer dissapointment because this game has massive shortcomings such as glitches that has led to instant fall deaths, an awful Big the Cat segment that I got the trick to doing(It's a fishing minigame) that was still relatively boring, easy bosses that can be topped in seconds, no exaggeration, a nonsensical story and some of the most lousy facial animations ever, even if the game is nearly 2 decades old.
But I didn't come into such expectations at all..........and thus, I found each and everything to be downright hilarious and it led to me just laughing my ass off throughout this entire game. There are some good with this game, and I will discuss each of the 6 character arcs and essentially rank them.
From good to bad:
E-102 Gamma(I actually found the whole "Man made machine to destroy grow compassion after seeing it's family get used and abused as toys when they lose their importance" actually.....well done which is amazing as far as Sonic storytelling goes. And the twist in this story was cool. Its mode was the best too, it was like a run and gun system that was rather easy as I beat bosses in literately 5 or so seconds outside of the final boss who took about 2 minutes. I had heard it had the best mode in the game and best story and that was certainly the case.)
Tails(The whole racing against Sonic didn't make much sense in the grand scheme of the story because what is the problem with losing to Sonic in a race?!?! You guys are together and are best friends! But heck if those races weren't fun, the ability to fly and soar past areas that Sonic had to be precise with the platforming on were great and it led to be running through this in seconds. Wish the airplane minigame was completely different as while fun, it stunk going through the exact level twice.)
Amy(She's been kinda labeled the kind stalker of Sonic's for some time and it was kind of ironic to have a robot stalker her throughout the arc. That Zero robot was almost Nemesis esque with it's obsession, even when she didn't have a emerald anymore! I wish her hammer was a bit better as it was a neat move to be able to hammer down and vault herself to farther distances, just sucked you needed to build up speed to do it.)
Sonic(The bread and butter of the series, his was hit or miss with the levels. He had the most content naturally as Sonic experienced almost all of the levels that the others end up doing. Sonic's speed led to tons of fun and tons of cheap deaths too. He too had super easy bosses........except for Egg Viper. That boss was mucho garbage....compounded with glitches. You hit Eggman in an opening, game will choose when or if you bounce back on the platform to resume or to not and fall to your death. That boss took longer than Gamma's whole story for me! Wow. Sonic's facial animations throughout the game were a-ma-zing. His eyebrows would obnoxiously extend like rubber while he's speaking, it reminded me of Super Mario 64 when you can stretch out Mario's face.)
Knuckles(Playing SA2, his and Rogue's find the crystal scavenger hunts were never favorites of mine. Now you add gimmicks as to when/how to move an object in order to get the crystal? Nah. Stinks Knuckles gets resorted to this because he was always a favorite of mine dating back to his debut in Sonic & Knuckles. So much more could have been done with him in these two games IMO.)
Big the Cat(Wow. I had heard how bad this was, but I didn't think it would be too bad. The problem with the fishing game is it takes a while to really get a hang of it and to get a feel as to how to navigate the bait to the right spot and it also relies on the fish/frog to nib on the bait too. You'd think his boss battle would include throwing boulders or what not but nope, just have to get lucky with the reel and if you get the frog correct, you win in seconds. Add how silly this thing sounds and you have hilarity casting over some rather poorest game design choices)
Recommended: Yay or Nay
Honestly comes down to the mode/vision you enter to this game. If you are expecting a serious game and a really good game(And I get why you enter that when you are paying for a game), I don't think you will have a good time with the problems this game has. However, if you expect a silly, nonsensical mess of a game that is unintentionally hilarious, than this might be for you.
(1st Nintendo Switch game from my list, proud owner back in early June 2017!)
Not going to lie......I honestly thought I would get much more mileage out of this game but ARMS is a game that suffers a little something that nowadays sadly tons of multiplayer games end up suffering from, not enough content Day 1. Yeah there's different characters that have their different set of moves but for the most part, the ARM usage remains the same. The story line doesn't really change much up for each character besides shallow dialogue, there's a stage for each character that is admittedly quite different from one another which is always appreciated, but really besides that, there's just not too much content to be had with the game which is going to make this game rely upon the gameplay to carry the way ala Overwatch and not Street Fighter V for me last year.
And the game does succeed in such but sadly, at least for me…..this just isn't a game that I can spend myself getting lost to. I totaled over 5 hours in between story mode, the online friendlies and of course ranked(Got to Rank 5, Red Ribbon Army FTW). What is great about the game is the ability to just jump in anytime and sort of get an easy feel of the game but what was frustrating is this game is very rough with the motion controls/joycons and it is essential to play with the Pro Controller as you'd more accurately get the inputs you are hoping to get, especially in ranked. Very curious decision to not have the block button on the pro controller as the shoulder buttons and the inability to change the controls to make it cater towards what you want is a very suspect decision. However if you can get past the ranked mode of this game, I can definitely see some getting lost in quick bursts with how easy it is to get into the game but I can't stress enough the need of a pro controller to really do well with this game.
Recommended? Yay or Nay?
Overall the game accomplishes what it sets out to do and it is to be a perfect party game with some deepness in the mechanics if you can devout the time into doing such. There's tons of fun to be had but I don't know if this game has much longevity, especially if the updates aren't coming in frequent waves. I never found this game to be a game I would lost an entire weekend day with but I do appreciate the simpleness of the basic mechanics where I can come back to said game a few months down the road and not be overwhelmed. Can't knock the game but maybe I expected more from the game and thought this would be this year's perennial multiplayer game much like Rocket League and Overwatch were in 2015 and 2016 respectively.
34) Mighty No.9(PS4) 6/27-6/28
Maybe it's because I was not a kickstarter backer for this game but the game was nowhere near as bad as most make it out to be. Now there are certainly problems with the game like the lack of health outside of set health points and if you die, and there are way too many cheap one hit KO deaths like instant spikes and this ridiculously cheap electric hazard that it represents the lone time you'd need to slide (Except the perspective of needing to do this is very deceiving where you need to nearly touch the hazard to do enough of a slide to get fully past the hazard) that get frustrating. The game also does not tell you specifically things like the use of a subtank unless you go out of your way to go through menus so honestly up until the very last boss, I hadn't used a single subtank to beat these bosses and hardly used their weakness which in a way ramped up the difficulty to make it fairly challenging. Yeah the music doesn't touch Mega Man and in pure comparison with a Mega Man game, there's no contest but as a stand alone game, the game isn't necessarily bad. The game is average but I can't say at any point despite the final boss being a chore to get to and to beat that this game was terrible.
I admittedly raged but I thought for the price I got the game at(6 dollars was it at a previous PSN sale?) that I got my money's worth and while the game may not be perfect, I still found the game for the couple of hours it lasted to be worthwhile. The game borrows a lot of aspects that Mega Man games often had of 8 robot masters with their weakness being another robot master's ability but what this game does well is it gives some life and actual importance with these robot masters by having them interfere with another's stage and make things much easier by doing this. The charging ability is pretty neat and it led to some pretty cool fights with normal enemies and I think that was a rather nice change up.
Recommended? Yay or Nay?
I say yay.....yes a yay but get it for a very affordable price and nothing more. I got this on a PSN sale of about 6 bucks and I think I got my money's worth. Game was alright and nothing more, nothing less. Again I totally see if you kickstarted this game and expected this game to be the next Mega Man that this game would swing and massively miss. This game is average but I knew heading in this game would be average which sort of eased the cushion of my overall feelings of said game.
35) Shovel Knight: Spectre of Torment(3DS) 6/21-6/22, 6/28-6/29
The old adage goes, "Sometimes less is more" and boy is that the case ever for the Shovel Knight franchise. I as so captivated enough with Shovel Knight that it was my GOTY back in 2014, everything went too smoothly with the game. It was a good retro title but it didn't just rely on it being retro to be so quality, and it had enough challenge but wasn't overwhelmingly crushing. It had some really fun tunes, a decent enough simple story but most of all the game was simple from a game mechanics standpoint, especially once you have the pogo shovel gimmick down to pat. You felt like you were in control of all your actions, you knew what would and would not work and it was easy enough to get. I cannot say the same when I tried Plague of Shadows as the bouncing gimmick that game featured was far too much for me and in a game that stresses tight jumps and needing to be pinpoint, Yacht Club Games made what should be such a simple mechanic end up being too complex for my liking.
So I was hesitant in trying Spectre of Torment. On one hand, the game does offer some new innovation such as slashing your way diagonally through levels and there is a decent and simple enough story behind the game and the game does offer tons of different versions of the stages that the original Shovel Knight had. However, on the other hand this game ends up complicating the navigation through the story where you have to specifically be at a certain angle in order to get your command. There will be times you die where you mean to press a certain button but because you weren't positioned well enough, you end up dying and not getting the command you meant to do. The wall jumping on paper sounds awesome as that's not a feature the original Shovel Knight has but the execution comes off very bad, and in particular there were two instances where it was a struggle alone to come up on the platform. Game should have allowed you to walk on the entire portion of the wall and not only have 2 seconds worth before falling off in my honest opinion.
Recommended? Yay or Nay?
Yay if you are getting it free as apart of buying either Shovel Knight Day one or getting the currently expansion
Nay if you are buying it stand alone.
I think the game is alright but it doesn't hold a candle to the original which was phenomenal, but hey I got this for free so who am I to complain? The game ran me 6 hours and there is certainly challenge to this game and some optional side content to go with it so I would say the game is worth it, it just isn't as good as the original and the game falls under the "It tries too much" scenario which hampered this game from being alright towards being great.
36) Crash Bandicoot 1 Remaster(PS4) 6/30-7/1
(I'll count each game as a separate game because in the case of 2 and 3, I essentially 100% them besides the relic races in 2 and getting gold or better in 3)
Not going to lie when this was announced 1-2 years ago in one of Sony's conferences about this remaster, not only did I know I was going to support this with a preorder and Day one purchase but I was legitimately counting the days until this game was unleashed for all to play, enjoy and rage at. It was a long climb to the end of June but when this bad boy arrived in the mail, boy was I hooked. All of the nostalgia came back to me all at once. With the 1st installment, I remembered it the most because it was the only 3 that I played just a few years back when I first got my PS3 to just get the fun back of this great series on the PS1.
Yeah it's a game filled with cheap deaths but good god is this game still grand or what? Not going to lie, I was in absolute awe just seeing such simple changes such as Crash's reaction to the boulders, and there's no doubt Vicarious Visions did such a bang up job. So happy this game is selling like hot cakes, the Crash fans and fans of good platforming pulled through in the biggest way(Hope Sonic Mania can get the same support!). This game is made easier with the generous checkpoints and also with not having to destroy all the crates in one go and not punishing you for dying but at the same time you still have to go for broke and do a no death run of a stage to get the vaunted colored gems in this game so this game still holds up as the most difficult of the trilogy. Now admittedly the hit boxes will take time to adjust, and in particular some stages(Looking at you final boss!) the hitboxes will make you simply scratch your head and the jumping is very iffy where you think you make said jump but you scrape off to your death but much like with any hard platformer, you can adjust and within minutes you will begin to get it. As someone who played all 3 of these games going back to as a little kid, maybe outside of The High Road(No rope shenanigans here!), no stage really ruined me but again I did not 100% this game. There's just too much frustration to go around, especially the colored gem runs but credit to those who stick it out and do such.
I will add that I finished Stormy Ascent not too long ago from publishing this writeup here on GAF and boy that stage took me an hour and half to finish. I got all the boxes and got the gem so I am satisfied with that but god bless the people who want the platinum of this stage because my goodness. You need to be pinpoint accurate on the timing of the bounces and platform jumps. Big credit to Activision for putting that stage as free for the first month.
Recommended? Yay or Nay?
Great game all around, yeah it's somewhat hard especially for 1st timers but I think the game is more than fair in its difficulty, there are far tougher games out there than Crash 1. Not to say I am perfect or anything but I got one game over in my entire playthrough and I am even disappointed in myself with that one. So happy more people get to experience what was and is a great trilogy of platformers, so happy for Activision to finally have the smarts to put out Crash 1 in cohesion with Sony's marketing and having a talented team like Vicarious Visions nail Crash 1.
37) Crash Bandicoot 2 Remaster(PS4) 7/1-7/2, 7/4
Of the 3 games, I remember this one the least given it was the biggest drought of time since I originally played this game. I had at least played the original back in 2012 when I first got my PS1 so there was still some familiarity but this game it had been almost 2 decades since I played this so this was somewhat fresh in my mind. The additions of the slide(Which took a bit of time to perfect) and body slam were neat and I thought some of the stages were well done. I happen to get all of the gems in this one and boy there were some stages that required you to backtrack blindly into harm's way given the game's camera layout which often led to death falls or getting whacked by an enemy I did not finish off in my 1st initial run at the level. The reward of getting all the gems wasn't very satisfying IMO so I was pretty letdown over the reveal of it but overall the game was really good and I got a good amount of challenge in the platforming. The bosses were much easier in this than in the 1st game which can be seen as a good or bad thing pending on how you look at it.
Recommended? Yay or Nay?
Great game, great remaster of it. All around, we are 2 for 2 in this N Sane Trilogy extravaganza, can Warped carry the torch home to victory?
38) Crash Bandicoot 3 Remaster(PS4) 7/4-7/6, 7/8
So can Vicarious Visions nail it and go 3 for 3 with this N Sane Trilogy? Yes, yes they can! Yeah this game can be a turn off because of the lack of platforming but over time, I grew to just nail all the races and jetski levels and animal buddy riding. Of the 3, this game gave me the least troubles but in 2017, I can say I clearly underestimated this game as I died much more in this game that I would like to have. Going for the 104%(Screw getting the final gem) really made me work for it, especially the relic runs where I say I got more gold relics than sapphire and even snuck in a couple of platinum ones too for good measure. Even though Coco Bandicoot could be used in Crash 1(Cool feature) and Crash 2, this was Coco's debut in the series and boy she shined in her exclusive levels with her heartwarming catch after a fail of Pura the Tiger and her disappointment of you after you fail in a jetski level. Her getting her own boss is cool beans too.
Recommended? Yay or Nay?
Altogether, what a great remaster of 3 classic games and as a big Crash Bandicoot fan, after finishing this game, I could not have been more happy. What an easy purchase for big Crash fans and for platforming fans too. Non-platforming fans who can be easily enraged over missed jumps and cheap deaths might not be as gun ho to buy this game but besides that, if you know heading into this game that this isn't going to be a pushover of a series, I think you will enjoy the reward that this game will give you. Whether you go for the 100% or not, I think this game will give you some thrills, kills and overall fun.
39) Voodoo Vince Remastered(XB1) 7/9-7/10, 7/12
This game was coming fresh off what I feel are amazing platformer games in the Crash trilogy so this game really needed to step up and not get left in the dust so the judgment below might be fair or unfair but I have been in a platforming mood for much of this year so we want to keep the theme going with this game!
This game was going to fall under the "Meh, it's okay. Not bad though" grading up until the final level where once again a platformer is ruined because of obnoxiously bad and ridiculous swinging carnival mechanics. Take you back to my 1st game completed of 2017, Psychonauts and the god awful Meat Circus level with the lousy swinging mechanics that hampered my experience with the game. What was it with these games in the early 2000's and these ridiculous swinging levels between these two games? I'll get back to a second on why the final boss/level is lousy but lets go back to Voodoo Vince. See unlike with Psychonauts, this game doesn't have the creative humor and natural flow in script that the former ended up having. You have a lackluster main protagonist who tries to be slick but comes off very much bland in dialogue and in his punchlines/humor, you have some very simplistic game design choices with the stage that doesn't offer up anything memorable or new if you have played plenty of platformers and you have enemies that maybe outside of 1 or 2, simply do not do enough damage to put you in serious peril throughout your journey.
What the game does do well is offering up tons of alternatives in its game. Rail shooting part? Check. Racing? Check. Airplane navigation sections? Check. This isn't a start to finish platformer which is very much appreciated. The character outside of Vince are also not too badly done, I thought the villain was inept enough to be charming at times, and the other side characters play their parts well even though the main character really lets the game down by being so boring and bland. The game has a Grabbed by the Ghoulies type of look as far as graphics go which wasn't so bad and I think from a graphical standpoint, the remaster does do well enough where the game doesn't look outdated.
However, here come the problems. First off, there are some very technical problems with the landing of the game where there were clear times I landed on a platform but the game still counted it as an instant death which is bizarre. Granted, I was teetering on the edge of making a jump but making a jump is making a jump and it is frustrating to die on something rather unearned. Also, about 95% of your deaths will be fall deaths so if fall deaths aren't your thing(Understandably, it is overused in video games as an obstacle IMHO) you will be frustrated at times, there are two particular sections where this game really frustrates you and it is the Butler section and the aforementioned awful final stage. Now lets get to why that final stage is oh so bad……much like with Psychonauts, the battles aren't the problem, it's the inept swinging and navigating in these sections that are troublesome. See much like with Psychonauts, this game for god knows what reason has a punishment in it where if you do not time your jump or floating or swings, you will fall all the way down and have to start from the beginning again and even further if you lose all your lives as you have to do a boring, drawn out minicar target section. Who or why these people during this era of platforming thought this was a good idea is beyond me. So many damn one hit Kos in this section and the random robotic final boss arm that can squash you and take about half your health each shot is ridiculous too, for me because the swinging is so damn rough, you can very seldom see as you are swinging point a to point b to point c. Then you have an airplane section that all of the attacks from the boss can 1 hit KO you so essentially I am blinding barrel rolling that would make Pippy The Rabbit proud and blindly aiming at the target on the boss to not get killed or to not have to restart the entire segment again.
The enemies have maybe killed me once or twice because they do so minuscule damage or they can be easily avoided or get done in with your voodoo power(Which BTW there's absolutely NO difference or matter when you get the optional powerups, all that is different is the character animation so essentially you are good with just one of these powerups) though the 1-2 times I did die is because out of nowhere, these strong gator enemies come in who can wipe you out in 3 good shots. You add the already talked about weak main protagonist and you have some serious game crippling flaws that admittedly not everyone will and can get over.
Recommended? Yay or Nay
Had this game ended prior to the final level(s), would have been a yay but the final segment was just that bad it downgraded it to a nay. I just think this game is so easily forgettable and that there are just so many more platformers better this day and age that you will do well to spend your time elsewhere in my honest opinion. Unlike with Psychonauts which had charm in it's characters, this one is dragged down by Vince himself where unlike say Clank or Murray who are purposely dry cut at times, where the character gives you no reason to really care much about the game itself. It sucks because had you switched Gex from Enter the Gecco as a main character alongside the level design of Voodoo Vince, you might have had something better but alas.
The music was pretty lackluster which sucks given the theme of this game is New Orleans so you'd think this game would pop out more great jazz tunes but alas….not until the ending credits do you see anything worthwhile from a soundtrack perspective goes. The worst thing I can ever say about a platformer is that the platforming brings the game down and that would be the case here because again I appreciate and like the ambition this game brought with the minigames. The side characters brought a little something to the stew, there is decent length of about 10 hours on a non-completionist run and the bosses aren't necessarily push overs….it's just the platforming is not crisp at all. And with so many platformers out there that excel at this, whether it be 2D or 3D, it is evident that the platforming segments of this game really stick out and not in a good way for this game. It's not a matter of aging well or not, because games came out before this that did well ala Banjo Kazooie or Jak and Daxter 1 that both still hold up very well….it's just the mechanics behind the platforming leave much to be desired. The cannonball segments are pure trial and error, the swinging mechanics are ridiculous where there's no exact radius of how close/far you need to be to get a chance to extend your rope and the jumping/floating in this game can be deceiving enough that you either seemingly don't make the jump when you clearly see you land on the platform or the mind boggling decisions to have some platforms have a roof/top cover on it where you simply struggle jumping vertically and may end up dying because your character has to chance it and make a jump far out enough where you aren't bumping your head on something but time it enough to get on top of a platform.
Is the game terrible? Nope. It's playable and it's not awful but so many games do their platforming better and I get why this game never got a sequel.
40) Salt and Sanctuary(PS4) 7/19, 7/22-7/25
Here's a game I was late to the party 1 year because had I played this in say 2016, this would have been easily midpack for my 2016 GOTY which says something which IMO was a mighty fine year all around in gaming. However, better later than never as the old catchphrase goes as Salt and Sanctuary tickled both my Dark Souls and more so my Metroidvania fancy. The game is more Castlevania more than anything else IMO and the lone Dark Souls traits are the souls system of where you die after dying, you lose whatever you had and some of the customization borrows from the Souls series Besides that, this game just isn't a 2D Dark Souls like plenty of people are saying. There is so much Castlevania influence from the air dashing to the worlds connecting with one another but unlike with Castlevania, I just wish there was a way to see the enemies health bar as you would blindly swing non boss enemies until they died not knowing how much health they have. Yeah over time, you kind of pick up on how many hits it'd take at your level it would take to down an enemy but regardless for experiencing new monsters for the 1st time, it would have been great to see so you'd know when to back off and momentarily retreat. Besides that, the game really scratched a huge Castlevania itch that I had been having which may be why I ended up appreciating this game so much more.
Very minor gripes outside of the lack of enemy health bar would be the facial designs for the main protagonist seem sort of goofy but it's not a big deal considering you'll cover the person's face within a couple of hours into the game, the game not having anywhere near Castlevania's iconic soundtrack themes and the story was forgettable at best but outside of this, the gameplay in itself dictates how quality of a game this is and you will come to overlook these setbacks for what was a great game altogether.
Recommended? Yay or Nay?
The game ran me about 18 hours but those 18 hours were tons of fun and this game becomes such an easy recommendation for any Castlevania fan. The game isn't too challenging depending on what build you make for yourself, I myself made a strength build and went to the end game with a weapon I picked up around 8-9 hours into the playthrough and simply buffed the weapon up. This was one of those games where half the bosses I either first or second tried and the other half ran me up a good half hour to take down but everyone goes as their own pace. Never did I feel anything was excessively difficult that I had to grind for levels, quite often I died because of a mistake I made or just rotten luck that the boss followed back to back attacks in perfect fashion to wipe me out.
Easy game to recommend, one of the best games I have played this year. A lot of effort and polish went to this game and it shows and you should have loads of fun playing this game. I don't feel like any one area of the game overstays it's welcome and within like maybe 10-15 minutes you'll be in and out of an area before stumbling upon the area's boss battle. With different builds like a magician, warrior among others to play with, numerous playthroughs can and maybe will be had with this game so it's an easy get for the price it is going for.
41) Cosmic Star Heroine(PS4) 7/26, 7/29-8/2
I can sort of relate to people's thoughts on last year's Furi when it comes to this game because I feel there just wasn't a difficulty that satisfied my want in an RPG. The 2nd easier difficulty felt far too easy sans a couple of fights in the game where I would bulldoze through enemies and the 2nd hardest difficulty made each battle a legit chore, talking 5-7 minute fights(At least for me). Not each boss fight, each regular fight. It made the game go progressively go slow in an RPG that isn't too necessary in doing so. I felt like there wasn't a right difficulty in this game in what was otherwise a more than solid entry. The game length is relatively short for this type of game, which can be a good or bad thing depending on how you look at it but given the game isn't a full charged release. The inability to do any kind of grinding sort of is a bad decision where if you are stuck on a boss especially at a higher difficulty, makes it much more tedious to have to repeat the same fight again and again. I tried the 2nd highest difficulty for this game and the game became too much of a chore by say Chapter 3 with the fights but the greatest thing this game provided was the ability to switch difficulty at any point, which was a god send of a decision by whoever.
The art design and gameplay is a real throwback to games ala Phantasy Star and Chrono Trigger and it is easy to see the influence behind these games. Some characters feel like they are just there and it would have been nice even if the game had fleshed out some of the background stories of said characters even if it was done by readable bios because it felt like you are forced upon a character for a few fights, wham bam, thank you and good night and they are forever in your party. Each character has their own traits though some characters share similar enough traits with one another. The music is very good and it does indeed fit the narrative of each scene in the story and the story is pretty simple but simple enough to follow and isn't too convoluted enough to lose track of things, which is always appreciated.
Recommended? Yay or Nay?
I think you should go for it, the game is somewhat bare bones with strategies and the two big glares I had with the game with the game not having a proper difficulty for what I was looking for and the inability to grind to make up for the lack of know all of picking right decision after right decision in a tough battle are drawbacks in what was otherwise a solid throwback JRPG style of game. There's better going for this game like the art work, music, story to not give it a shot, especially if an RPG fan. The game isn't very deep and there's very minimal optional content in this game though the optional bosses are pretty difficult as one would expect so there's some content to do before going to the "No return" section of the end of the game. I think for the 15 or so hours you'll have on a run of this game that you'll experience more good than bad, especially if you happen to have a knack for these style of games.
A great game on the go. Reminded me of games from the Atari 2600 and NES era of shoot-em-ups. The dual stick controls worked extremely well.
2. Sonic The Hedgehog (XB1/XB360 BC) (Replay}
Completed: 1/4/17
Time: 2ish hours
Played this 23 years ago when I first got a Genesis. My kids started watching Sonic cartoons on Netflix so I picked up the Sonic series off of the XB BC so we could play through them together. For a game as old as it is, I think it held up well.
3. Final Fantasy IV Interlude (Vita)
Completed 1/7/17
Time: 2 hours
FFIV is one of my favorite games of all time, and the FF I'm most fond of (as it's my first one). So when I got a Vita this summer and was able to get the complete edition I was thrilled. After replaying the initial game, I slowly worked my way through the interlude. It's more FFIV which is good IMO.
I have a long history of not playing this game. I didn't game much last gen but heard good things about it. Bought it, never played it. Sold it to buy the GOTY edition, never played that, sold it when I sold off my PS3. When the PSN store gave the remaster for "free" if you preordered the sequel, I thought what the hell - third time's the charm. So glad I did. This game was great. Had a blast even though I'm not the best at stealth games was still able to finish with the low chaos ending. This is my favorite game I've completed this year *for the first time - see below* so far.
I bought this (and the original which I played last year and the third) for dirt cheap on a PSN sale. This was such a massive step above the first Alpha game. They really beefed up not only the roster, but the game play.
See above, bought the trilogy on a PSN sale. Again, another step above it's predecessor even though the last fighter in Arcade mode pulls off some cheap moves usually. But that's pretty much how Capcom fighters were back in the 90's.
Was thrilled that the Return to Arkham collection came out but sad that Origins didn't make the cut :(. Loved these games last gen and this game in particular was my favorite game from last gen - the only one that I played through twice during that generation. I still love this game. The pacing of the game was close to perfection, never a dull moment. I have never been the biggest fan of the Killer Croc sequence, but no game is perfect.
8. Plants vs. Zombies (XB1/XB360 BC)
Completed: 1/11/17
Time: No idea
My kids love playing PvZ on tablets. When I saw it was part of EA Access, I downloaded it so we could play together. They don't get much video game time and they split it up between several games, so this has been a slowburn. (I think we started it last spring lol). I had always poo-poo'ed the game in my mind but as I got to playing it, I really enjoyed it.
9. VVVVVV (Vita)
Completed: 1/16/17
Time: 1.5 hours or so
Making an effort this year to try out more of my PS+ and GwG games. First up was this little gem I got on the Vita. For anyone who hasn't played it, don't let the Atari 2600 retro graphic turn you off. The gameplay is a lot of fun.
10. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (XB1/XB360 BC) (Replay)
Completed: 1/20/17
Time: 2 hours
As mentioned previously, I'm playing the old Genesis Sonic games with my kids. I had forgotten how great this game was. Such a leap over the original Sonic IMO. Took the core mechanics of the first game and really polished everything up. Also I noticed this game is quite a bit easier than the first one (and when I subsequently played 3 later this month)
This is a classic Genesis game I never played before. I remember seeing the magazine ads for it when it first came out and was in awe about how cool it looked and how great the graphics looked (for that time). This was my first time actually playing it though. Standard 8/16-bit side scrolling beat-up-um with the transformation mechanic to set itself apart some.
Dusted off Rare Replay again to play this and get all the stamps I could. Was able to get 8/10 stamps - the two I'm missing are combo ones that would be challenging for me to acheive unless I just completed cheesed them in faux two-player mode. SO will count as done.
13. Max Payne (PS4)
Completed: 1/23/17
Time: 8ish hours?
14. Killer Instinct Season 2 (XB1)
Completed Story mode with every character: 1/24/17
Time: 4 hours
Have always been more of a Street Fighter fan, with Mortal Kombat as my 2nd favorite fighting series, but this Killer Instinct thing MS and Iron Galaxy has going on is winning me over. I still favor Street Fighter V more, but this game is my 2nd favorite fighter to date.
15. Sonic The Hedgehog 3 (XB1/XB360 BC)
Completed: 1/24/17
Time: 2 hours
This is the first time I've ever played Sonic 3 as it was released when I was in college and didn't have much time for games. I liked how they made the levels longer (actually ran out of time once in Casino Zone and was close at the very last level) but overall I just felt like the fun factor took a step back from the classic Sonic 2 game.
I was going to skip this game as I wasn't the biggest fan of TF1. Then with some of the word of mouth here I decided if/when it was added to the vault I would play the campaign. But the word of mouth kept growing so during one of the December sales I bought it. Wow. Am I glad I did. Fantastic campaign. While Overwatch is my favorite MP shooter right now, I'm going to play around a bit with this one too.
Bought this on PS3, but gave up on Chapter 2 as it wasn't clicking with me back then. Picked it up on a sale on PS4 and wow - this is a great game! The partner AI is the biggest drawback, but otherwise a fun game to romp through.
First time playing through this as I hadn't gotten rid of my 360 when this came out. This is now my favorite Halo campaign. It was tremendously well done.
19. MLB the Show'16 (PS4) Replay
Completed: 2/8/17
Time: ??
Played through another season on RTTS. This is by far the best baseball game ever to come out and I look forward to continue playing it for years to come.
20. Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy (Vita)
Completed: 2/16/17
Time: ??
I bought this originally on the PS2, but dropped it about 1/3 of the way through. I enjoyed revisiting it and playing through it for the first time. The camera/controls were a bit rough around the edges compared to what you see in games today, but overall I thought it held up pretty well.
21. Arkham City (PS4) Replay
Completed: 2/17/17
Time: 15 hours
One of my favorite gaming series, right up there with Zelda. While I played through Arkham Asylum multiple times, this was my first time replaying Arkham City. My only negative about these games is that I feel there are always way too many Riddler challenges/trophies. Othwerwise a flawless masterpiece. The Harley DLC, which I had played for the first time, was well done though short
22. The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap (Wii U VC)
Completed: 2/21/17
Time: 15 hours
As alluded to earlier Zelda games are my favorite series, and I love 2D Zeldas the best. Was thrilled this came to WiiU VC as I had never played it before. Really enjoyed this game as like other handheld Zelda's, they are 1) 2D and 2) change up the Zelda formula a bit.
23. The King of Fighters 2000 (PS4/PS2 classic)
Completed: 2/22/17
Time: 2 hours
First time I played a KoF game. The mechanics aren't bad and hold up well for as old as it is. It's hard for me though as I'm a big SF fanboy and constantly compare all fighters to that series. A bit unfair to these games, but will continue to try KoFXIV likely.
I played the original on PS2 so long ago I just remember the general game, and not much specifics so I can't remember how similar this game is to that game. Nonetheless, this was a great game and I couldn't put it down. I was able to play through it in a matter of a couple of days. Very fun game all should try for it's current price.
One of my sons loves dinosaurs and we got this when it first came out. We played it together quite a bit at first then got stuck near the end of JPIII and dropped it. We picked it back up again last month and finally completed the game. The first Lego game I really played. Was ok, he really liked it so there's that.
26. Hitman (PS4)
Completed Main Story Episodes: 3/7/17
Time: 10 hours or so
Bought this during Holiday sales on PSN due to GAF word of mouth. Really liked this game and will keep coming back to it to increase my mastery levels and also play the side content.
This is a great console RTS. Had a lot of fun playing through the campaign missions. Probably won't spend much time else with it as I have HW2 to dive into.
This was a really fun on the go RPG. The game is well written, esp for anyone who lived through the 80's. I enjoyed trying out all the different weapons, but I felt like so many of them were garbage. Still, all-in-all, a good game and something I would recommend to any RPG fan and/or older adults like me who would pick up on all the references.
29. King of Fighters XIV (PS4)
Completed 3/13/17
TIme: 2 hours
Going through a lot of fighters this year. I found this one as one of the better ones. Great tutorial as the only other KoF I've played was 2000. I liked the team concept of this series and is nice to be able to mix up the line-up each round in story mode. I played through story a couple times before realizing to really get the whole concept/story, you need to play through with each pre-selected team...plus the 2 bosses. I'm not for sure if I like this game that much to do that grind but will keep playing this here and there
30. Nier: Automata (PS4)
Completed Main Story
A-#
: 3/22/17
Time: 40 hours
This was my first game in the Nier/Drakengaard Universe. What a great experience. I'm not the biggest fan of Platinum games on here but I liked the gameplay of this so much better than the previous ones I've played. Also this was my first Taro Yoko game and what a great story with so many layers! I would highly recommend this game to anyone.
31. Forza Horizon 3 (XB1)
Completed Final Showcase: 4/1/17
Time: 20 hours
This is easily my favorite racer of all time. Simply sublime game that everyone should be able to experience. Will continue to play this game through the next year, but will go ahead and count it completed. Also picked up Blizzard Mountain and can't wait to try that!
32. Resident Evil 6 (PS4)
Completed Main Story (all campaigns): 4/4/17
Time: 18 hours
Um.....I'm not for sure what I played here. I enjoyed all the previous mainline Resident Evil games (as well as Code Veronica which was probably my favorite of the original 'style' of the series and Revelations 2). I had heard the not-so-great word of mouth of this game so I went in with tempered expectations but still was glad to be done with this.
33. Dark Souls III DLC - Ashes of Ariendel and The Ringed City (XB1)
Completed both: 4/13/17
Time: 8 hours
Due to the amount of content (and quality), this DLC will fall under a "game played" category for me. Comparing this DLC to most, it's great. However, after playing the DLC for the first two games in this series as well as the Old Hunters, I can't help but be a little let down. IMO, the weakest DLC of the 4 games. Still got much enjoyment out of it and very much worth the money.
Wow. Loved this game. I was let down by 6 when I played it a few weeks ago, but this brought the franchise back in spades. Easily my favorite RE game since 4 (have played 5, 6 and Revelations 2 in the last couple of years). It's been years since I played 1-4 and Code Veronica, so I don't want to compare in case of recency bias, but I do feel this is one of my top 3 games in the franchise.
35. Ryse (Xbox1)
Completed: 5/17
Time: 7 hours
I am making more of an effort to at a minimum try some of the PS+/GwG "free" games and this was one of them. Man, this was surprisingly good, esp after getting stuck and frustrated with Kingdom Hearts Final Mix, a refreshing palatte cleaner of a game. Is it an amazing game? No, but I'm very glad I played it.
36. The Legend of Zelda - Breath of the Wild. (Switch)
Completed 5/17
Time: Dunno
Maaaaan this is easily GOTY for me so far and is the first game to challenge Bloodborne as my GoTG (Decade even). Easily my favorite 3D Zelda game and ranks up there with LttP as my favorite Zelda game overall. Beyond that I have nothing to say that hasn't already been said a thousand times on this board.
37. Golden Axe (Xbox1)
Completed: 5/17
TIme: 1-2 hours?
I got a Sega Genesis soon before I went to college, so I missed a lot of the classics on that console. I remember Golden Axe as a game I always wanted to try. It didn't age well. I still have fond memories of the side-scrolling beat-em-ups from the 16-bit era, but this one wasn't one of the better ones
38. Golden Axe II (Xbox1)
Completed: 5/17
TIme: 2ish hours?
See above, this falls under the same category. Except much more polished and enjoyable to it's predecessor.
39. Ys I (Vita)
Completed: 5/17
Time: 6-8 hours?
This was my first foray into the Ys series and man, did I enjoy it. Simple fun action RPG with a great soundtrack. Story was a bit simplistic and sparse for an RPG, even for the time this was first made. That's pretty much the only drawback I have about this great game
40. Alpha Mission II (Switch)
Completed: 6/17
TIme: 1-2 hours?
Um, I can't even imagine how ridiculously hard this game would have been on the OG Neo-Geo version with limited lives, etc. I found this game a bit frustrating and frankly bleh. Would not recommend to anyone. Many, MANY more shumps that are more fun.
41. Ghost Recon: Wildlands (Xbox1)
Completed: 6/17
Time: 25 hours or so
I completely solo'ed this game so I didn't get the experience it was designed for. That said, still not a bad game and I enjoyed it for the most part. I
didn't get the true ending
as I only took down 2 of the 4 branches of the cartel. The one thing I hated about the game kept me from doing it - which was the need to do little fetch quests in order to unlock each story mission. bleh
42. MLB The Show '17 (PS4)
Completed: 6/17
Time: ??
Love this game, love this franchise/series. By far my favorite sports game. Road to the Show alone is worth the price of the game.
43. DOOM (PS4)
Completed: 6/17
Time: 10-12 hours
Wow, I knew GAF spoke of this game in high regards, but daaaaaaamn, this game is great. So much fan running and gunning and blasting through a great campaign that had very little fluff to it.
More Forza 6 with the caveat is that some of the races force you to take pitstops. Beyond that, same Forza. After 70+ hours of playing Forza 6, I'm done with it. It's a great racing game, but for someone who is mainly a SP player, the progression system is soooo repetitive.
46. Ys II (Vita)
Completed: 7/17
Time: 12 hours or so?
More of the original Ys with the addition of magic. Great fun retro game. Look forward to playing more of the series on the Vita.
Another of my PS+ freebies. At first, I thought it was just another Horde/CoD Zombies game, but as I played it a little more, realizing the benefits of leveling up the perks, I was drawn more to it. That said, I put in enough time for now to feel satisfied with it and will throw it into my "done pile"
48. JumpJet Rex (Xbox 1)
Completed 7/17
Time: 3 hours
This was a game on the Gamepass and decided to try it since one of my sons loves (LOVES) dinosaurs. It was a bit too challenging for them, but they enjoyed watching me play through it. It's a solid throwback platformer.
49. Don't Die Mr. Robot (Vita)
Completed: /17
Time: 2 hours?
Another PS+ game I gave a try. It's a fun old-school shoot-em-up. I enjoyed it quite a bit and worthwhile to try out and play. Not a lot of replayability to it, but that's ok.
50. Splatoon 2 (Switch)
Completed: 8/17
Time: 15 or more hours
This is a game that I want to really love, but like most online-centric shooters, after 10-20 hours, I'm pretty much done with the concept. The SP mode is short and fun like the first, but the core of the game is online. After taking a break, I should give Salmon Run a legit try however.
51. Sonic Mania (Switch)
Completed: 8/17
Time: 5 hours
Good old-fashioned Sonic. I only played the Genesis Sonic games, and this was a great tribute to them. Nothing new, but definitely upgrade and polish on those games.
52. Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus (Vita)
Completed: 8/17
Time: 8 hours?
Other Games completed:
CupHead
Mario Odyssey
Injustice 2
Severed
Resident Evil 0
Metro 2033
Metroid: Zero Mission
Sitting at 108 now. This will probably be my peak record for any year of my life from now on, unless I'm still able to play through games this fast when I retire.
Shadows of the Damned: November 7-11
An amazing hidden gem that I'm glad I picked up. This is how you do horror. The writing is so good and keeps me interested. It blends modern common parlance such as crude humor and uses it as the web for a deep and serious story. This method of storytelling is curious. The storybooks, backstories, and lore of how the underworld works remind me heavily of Soul Sacrifice.
Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy (HD): November 15-19
I'm so psyched they brought back this unknown game. Best 3D Zelda clone. I found it a lot easier now compared to the last time I played; I had little if any trouble getting through it this time. I even went for 100% this time, including the horrible farming sidequest. Great game with great music and a great setting.
Killer is Dead: November 19-22
I prefer the Grasshopper games that embrace silliness in their identities. Killer is Dead keeps it arm's length. The attempts at humor and seriousness are at ends with each other. Story is all over the place and is hot garbage. Combat is a bit too simplistic. Then there are the Gigolo missions, which are fucking creepy and unrelated. They seem honestly depraved. The core gameplay is fun but gets repetitive. Either this port was a mess or the base game is glitchy. Probably both.
Star Fox Adventures: November 24-27
While this was a nice adventure game, I'm not sure why Nintendo decided to compete against itself with a Zelda clone. I enjoyed the hilariously-out-of-nowhere twist at the last minute.
57. The Technomancer - 24 hours
Low-budget eurojunk RPG that not completely junk after all. Yes, it may be kinda repetitive and ugly, combat is weird, animations are terrible, sidequest relied on backtracking way too much. BUT story and world is kinda interesting, your choices actually have consequences, companions are great (not old BioWare level yet, but close) and last story twist and ending slides a-la Fallout was satisfying. I would even recommend to get this game on sale if you don't mind regular eurojunk, just don't expect AAA quality and everything will be fine.
32 | Divinity: Original Sin 2 | PC Time: 120 hours
Score: 10/10
Larian has always had a special place in my heart, especially with Divinity II: The Dragon Knight Saga and more recently after the release of the stellar Divinity: Original Sin. This time the fine folks over at Larian have improved upon the game in almost every single way. The writing has improved spectacularly: there are so many memorable characters and events in the game and all of it is narrated and voice-acted superbly. Besides presentation, the gameplay has remained as engaging as ever. The major difference is probably the armour system, which adds an extra element of strategy to the combat. The main highlight of the game is the reactivity and non-linearity of the game. Choice & consequence is a large part of Divinity: Original Sin 2 and every quest has multiple approaches and solutions, which all help define your own character and their companions. Those companions are also interesting in their own way and have their own agenda's and motives.
All of this makes for a spectacular RPG, truly in the vein of old tabletop games, with a crazy amount of replayability and very rewarding for creative people. You'll often find yourself wondering: "I can do that?!". Is the game perfect? No, of course not. There can be annoying encounters which require a fair share of clairvoyance in order to tackle them (i.e. reload and position your party better next time), some quests can bug out and the loot system can become overwhelming really quickly. But despite some of these flaws, Divinity: Original Sin 2 is up there for me with the best RPG's of all time.
Games played: 32
Highest rated game: Divinity: Original Sin 2 (10)
Average score: 6.6
73. Cuphead (13 hours)
Just an absolute delight, even if it's hard as hell.
74. Hook (1 hour)
A simple, relaxing puzzle with some damn fine puzzles. Nice while it lasts.
75. klocki (1 hour)
Compared to Hook, klocki really piles on the mechanics, making for no shortage of confusion. It's still a relaxing puzzle game in its own way, though.
Game Thirty Two Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus (PC) - November 6
★★★★ 1/2 (4.5)
Technical issues on PC hindered my experience and dragged the score down a bit, but otherwise, it's between it and Titanfall 2 for shooter of the decade so far.
Game Thirty Three Horizon: Zero Dawn - The Frozen Wilds (PlayStation 4) - November 11
★★★★ 3/4 (4.75)
The best piece of DLC this year and helps strengthen Horizon's spot in my top three games of the year. What a brilliant piece of content.
Game Thirty Four Subsurface Circular (PC) - November 15
★★★ 1/4 (3.25)
An interesting semi-dystopian short mystery game from Mike Bithell.
Game Thirty Five Super Mario Odyssey (Nintendo Switch) - November 16
★★★★ 1/4 (4.25)
Perhaps not as enamored with it as much as everyone else - loved Galaxy a lot more - but the final ninety minutes or so I had playing the game had some of the best gameplay design I've seen in a game in a long time. Still a fantastic game all the same.
Game Thirty Six
Tacoma (PC) - November 16
★★★ 3/4 (3.75)
Definitely enjoyed it a supppppper ton more than Gone Home. Also, has Marcus Dixon from Alias!
Game Thirty Seven Half-Life 2: Lost Coast (PC) - November 17
★★★ (3)
It was half an hour long. It was fine. *shrug*
Game Thirty Eight Persona 5 (PlayStation 4) - December 2
★★★★ 1/4 (4.25)
I loved this game but man did the last ten to twenty hours feel like a slug and especially padded out. I was hoping to give this a bigger score as it was a game I was looking forward to for a long time - that's not to say it 4.25 isn't great, it is! - but that last third of the game near drained my enthusiasm. Still fantastic, but P-Team need to work on not padding stuff for the sake of it as they did this in Persona 4 as well, but its worse here. Here's hoping Persona 6 doesn't fall victim to it.
A solid four games for my November update, given the length of some of these! All being well, I'll hopefully finish up somewhere a little over 70 games for the year.
63. Middle-earth: Shadow of War (PS4) - 5 November 2017
Platinum trophy. Shadow of War is a fun game that improves on the original Shadow of Mordor in pretty much every way. Very much focused on its combat, there's a set of well-realised mechanics at play here; while these do start to get repetitive by the end of the game, the 'Nemesis System' that the game utilises to generate and then develop the uruk (orc) captains who'll be your primary notable opponents helps to keep things interesting, with a nice variety of strengths and weaknesses coming into play, forcing you to keep your approach to combat varied.
The place of the game's plot within the Lord of the Rings canon is somewhat questionable, but the game does make good use of the existing lore to provide an interesting setting, and alongside that we see a much greater range of environments (a total of five areas) compared to Shadow of Mordor.
It's a shame that the inclusion of a micro-transaction market somewhat overshadowed the game's release, as making use of this really isn't at all necessary, even in the game's final Act - though this part of the game is definitely still too long!
64. Epistory: Typing Chronicles (Steam) - 16 November 2017
Story completed; 100% of achievements unlocked. Epistory presents an entertainingly unusual take on an adventure game, being based wholly around keyboard controls and typing as a combat mechanic. Players control a fox, traveling through a diverse range of environments, stylised with storybook-like graphics, which expand as you progress though the game and its light but entertaining story. Combat here is achieved through typing words that appear above enemies that you encounter, complemented by (again keyboard-controlled) spells, which serves to create some impressively frantic and challenging encounters, scaled to match your skills as a typist - perhaps even with the incidental benefit of improving your typing skills!
65. The Room (Steam) - 19 November 2017
All chapters complete, with liberal use of hints. This is a very decent puzzle game, tasking you with solving the mysteries of a large locked box in the centre of a room, through observation and manipulation of a wide range of features and mechanisms found within. The game's roots as a mobile game are clear as interactivity is fairly limited and wholly mouse-driver, but it's a solid port with some interesting puzzles. I'd recommend playing through the game one chapter at a time rather than all in a single sitting, as that helps to maintain interest as you progress. Notably, behind the puzzle-solving there's a series of letters telling the experiences of a scientist who's preceded you in this investigation, and a somewhat spooky atmosphere throughout, through a subtle musical score and various imagery - all very well-implemented.
66. Super Mario Odyssey (Switch) - 27 November 2017
999 moons, 9,999 coins, all hats/costumes unlocked and gold sail earned. An absolutely superb game in every way, with some vbery high highs and a joy to play all the way through to completion. While I still think that Breath of the Wild will take my personal game of the year spot, Odyssey will be right up there with the best of a great year in my view.
36. Cosmic DJ (PC, 2014) - 1:47 Completed the campaign.
More of a simple musical toy than an actual game, Cosmic DJ is basically Baby's First Sequencer. As the Cosmic DJ, it's your job to repair a bunch of Jamtennas to pump out good vibes across the universe using THE POWER OF MUSIC. You build this music one layer at a time using a basic sequencer, where you can either tap out notes in real time or program them yourself by clicking on a grid.
While it would be easy to dismiss the whole thing as trifling nonsense, there is a certain joy to Cosmic DJ's party trick: after building several loops for each Jamtenna, the game will then remix all your loops into one (theoretically) coherent track. Hearing your own creations morph into something that sounds good is pretty neat, and makes the relative lack of freedom when composing your loops almost forgivable. Almost, but not quite; with only four notes per instrument, it's hard to really jam like the game encourages you to, and it can be very easy to get stuck in the same rhythmic ruts as a result. And since Cosmic DJ doesn't really have a metric for success beyond "did you fill the track with enough notes," there's never any reason to push yourself too hard. In fact, you could fill each track with complete garbage and it wouldn't matter one bit as far as your ability to finish the story.
Thus, Cosmic DJ is pretty good as a really basic way to create some sweet loops, but it's not really a game as such and it's too limited for any remotely serious music composition. It feels like a proof of concept of something potentially greater.
37. Windosill (PC, 2009) - 0:35 Completed the game.
Windosill is a short and sweet puzzle game that feels almost tactile in the way its interactions work. You're presented with a number of rooms, and you have to find the magic cube key that will unlock the door to get to the next room. It's not really intended to be a difficult game, and it's full of whimsy and charm. About the only criticism I can really level at it is that it's a touchscreen game first and foremost; playing it on PC feels distinctly different and just a little off compared to how I imagine it would feel on a phone or tablet. If you have an iOS device, I'd recommend playing it there instead. That said, if you picked this up in a random Steam sale or bundle, definitely give it a shot; it's worth half an hour of your time.
I was really busy last month, so I'm only just getting around to re-posting my OP. I figure I'll post my complete list now and then follow this up with a few posts with all my write-ups over the next couple of weeks.
#28
Vanquish
PC (Steam)
Completed: September 18, 2017
Playtime: 7h 26m
Fun combat with flashy moves and an over-the-top mecha sci-fi future setting are the main things Vanquish has going for it. Story and characters feel like they're there only to give the MC an excuse to shoot hordes of enemies and huge bosses and look good doing it. While I enjoyed the gameplay, I had a tough time getting invested in what's going on screen, and was left with kind of indifferent impression of the game after it ended. Also, a relatively rare case when the soundtrack is just plain bad.
#29
7 Days to Die
PC (Steam)
Completed: October 04, 2017
Playtime: 22h 24m
My first attempt at playing a Minecraft-like crafting game, with lots of zombie survival mixed in to spice things up. The game is an open-world sandbox and doesn't have an "end" per se, you just keep surviving for as long as you can/want to play. So initially I decided to set the end goal for myself - build a cool-looking base with some electricity-powered shit like lamps and electric fences, where I could stay comfortably safe. I had fun learning how to avoid zombies and trying to survive on water and berries in the first few days, that was tense. However, soon after that I realized that I won't be able learn some of the skills necessary to build the electric stuff I wanted for a good long while, because the game gates them off by character level. And it needed a LOT of XP to get to that required level. Basically, the game is just too grindy for me in its current state. Also, I found the crafting system isn't explained well at all, I had to look up outside the game to find out how to build some essential things or why I couldn't build stuff I had schematics for. Finally, it's poorly optimized - one of the few games I tried that my GTX1080 Ti has had trouble with at 4K.
#30
Persona 3 FES
PS3
Completed: October 13, 2017
Playtime: 150h 40m
Persona is quickly becoming one of my favorite series, and it's all because of the characters and moment-to-moment writing which brings them to life. Some folks in that team of theirs are just very good at creating and writing characters that I can't help but relate to or care about. That's what I liked the most about Persona 3 as well. Things that I didn't like so much: the same random-generated dungeon with same repetitive combat throughout the whole damn game, frustrating companion AI in combat (why, why, WHY won't you use your Ice spells on that boss, Mitsuru, even after I analyzed him to show he's weak to ice AND attacked him with my own ice spell to prove to you the analysis was indeed correct?!), bad checkpoint/save system which could easily lead to losing hours of progress in a dungeon trip or after fighting a boss. Really, I loved playing this game so much because I wanted to see what's happening next in the story, but at the same time I was already tired of Tartarus and of the combat there by the midpoint of it.
The Answer portion warrants its own paragraph for how much worse an impression it left. Did I mention I was tired of Tartarus and combat by the middle of the base game? Enter this expansion which adds like 30 more hours of combat, but without much of a story, or any social links, or any other secondary activities from the main game to detract from its repetitiveness. Also, at a forced Hard difficulty level, which means all boss fights are that much more frustrating. Also, without the ability to go back to the entrance to restore health/SP before fighting the boss like in the base game - now, you have to choose between facing a boss with depleted mana or return to the entrance and trudge all the way back while avoiding encounters. Also, without the ability save/recall Personas via the Compendium. Sounds like fun, right? Enjoy the increased challenge, indeed. Who on earth thought all this a good idea, I wonder.
#31
Inside
PC (Steam)
Completed: October 18, 2017
Total playtime: 4h 04m
This is an amazing short little platformer gem, I loved pretty much everything about it. The visual style and the animations are superb, as is the sound design and the controls. The puzzles are very well-done and fun to figure out.
The ending is kind of abrupt and ambiguous, but I think it fits the game well.
#32
Dropsy
PC (Steam)
Completed: October 29, 2017
Playtime: 7h 49m
An interesting and unusual (sometimes even bizarre) point-and-click adventure game. Mainly because of the main protagonist - a mute clown who cannot read or write, and is very ... simple in his perception of the world. Dropsy just wants everyone around to smile and be happy so he could give them hugs. The puzzles here are not too frustrating, and the soundtrack is excellent.
#33
Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony
PC (Steam)
Completed: November 22, 2017
Playtime: 52h 26m
I think V3 definitely has the most interesting trials in the series, both plot- and mechanics-wise. It features some of my favorite characters of the series (Kokichi is just plain awesome, Kaito is the bro-est of the dudebros, and I really like Maki and Kaede), cool soundtrack and better visuals than ever. Two things seriously spoil the impressions from the game for me though. First is the monokubs. I didn't like Monomi in the 2nd game either and thought her and Monokuma's exchanges were annoying as hell, but at least in the end there was a good story reason for her to be there. The monokubs, though, why the hell are they in the game? Why do they get so much screen time? All they do is spout offensive, crude, unfunny jokes with some out-of-place references mixed in. Ugh. The second thing I didn't like is the ending, for a couple reasons:
- It makes all the clues you'd been brainstorming throughout the game irrelevant. Which kind of makes me feel like a kid who's just found out the puzzle pieces he'd been trying to fit together for a good while were never meant to fit together in the first place, and it was all a prank by someone.
- It is too nonsensical. I had a really hard time maintaining my interest in what's going on after Maki was told her feelings for Kaito were fictional/pre-written, and SHE BELIEVED THAT. Even though the information was coming from someone who was already proven to be a cheater and a liar. Nobody challenged that, nobody said "Wait a minute, that's ridiculous. What reason do we have to believe anything you tell us?". This is just nonsense, and I can't believe the trial went on for an hour after that point on the premise that they were told the truth.
Bottom line is yeah, I'd take the endings from the first two games over this one any minute of any hour of any day. They didn't make me feel like I've wasted my time playing the game.
#34
Metal Gear Solid
PS3
Completed: November 23, 2017
Playtime: 16h 18m
The first 3D entry in the series, it's the same old Metal Gear with cool boss fights, crazy plot, long-ass codec conversations (sometimes in the middle of combat, you gotta love those), lots of sneaking around and lots of throwbacks to the two original games. Also with a horrible, terrible, AWFUL 3rd person camera view which got me killed or at least discovered so many freaking times it's not even funny. I really hope the following entries in the series fix that shit.
#35
P.T.
PS4
Completed: November 26, 2017
Playtime: 1h 51m
It's a good demo for what could have been a fantastic horror game. But honestly, I was expecting more after all the internet hype. On its own, there's just not much here apart from a few repeating rooms with well-crafted nerve-wrecking atmosphere and an occasional chilling jumpscare. Still, big thanks to Era-user Kindekuma for posting a tip on how to download the game from PSN if you own the license.
#36
Starcraft
PC
Completed: December 01, 2017
Playtime: 41h 15m
This great RTS classic looks and plays better than ever with the new remastered version. Played and finished the base game story campaign for each race, which amounts to 30 missions total. Will leave Brood War for next year as I feel like I've played it enough for now.
Currently playing:
SWTOR
Fallout 4
Tyranny
Persona 4: Golden
The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask 3D
Prey
Game 45 - Gran Turismo Sport ★★★★★
If 3 years ago anyone would tell me PD would be the developer to try to bring iRacing to console racing games, I would simply call you crazy. Shame on me though because they actually did it, not without some flaws but at it's core, GT Sport is iRacing for consoles which brings another level of fun factor for console games that makes this game a generation ahead of anything else on that regard on consoles. It still lacks some important features like driver swaps, dynamic TOD and multi-class endurance racing. GT Sport managed to make me feel thrilled about a racing game like I didn't since Grand Prix 4. Throw away the typical predictable AI systems and make way for racing against players with similar skill levels, where even fighting for 12th place will make you sweat like never before. The biggest merit of this game is that if you are really into racing aspect of racing games, there is fun for everyone because there are always going to be people of your skillset around you. Yes, this isn't the traditional pokemon with guitar hero gameplay that people expect from Gran Turismo, to me it's fantastic they changed from an already stale formula, for others that's what they want and that's fine. While I think car list is more than enough, the tracks need to be increased with free DLC, it's the only big flaw of the game even if you consider the fantastic "fantasy" tracks included in the game (seriously whoever designed the fictional tracks need to design tracks in real life). As it stands right now, it's my GOTY easily and will keep playing it for a long time.
58. Experience 112 - 10 hours
This game is a trainwreck, so much potential wasted because of poor execution. At first, it actually leaves a very good impressions - you are operator of surveillance system and watching through camera for woman who woke up on some dirty abandoned ship. You can't control her directly and should guide her way through the ship by enabling lights in right direction and looking for passwords in system files. During first hours game feels like a truly unique experience, while heroine is exploring locations and retrieving credentials for new profiles of ship personnel (which is mostly dead of course), you looking through personal emails and trying to understand what happened here. Those levels inside the ship before completing first main objective (making cure for heroine by locating ingredients and mixing them to right temperature in lab) are great, it has mysterious atmosphere and intriguing story. But once you moving to the outer deck, game starting to slowly fall apart. Main twist about what happened to ship crew is not "experiment goes wrong" or at least "lovecraftian mystery", it's another "secret society conspiracy" and that ancient underwater civilization are innocent and all those weird flowers all around the ship are harmless. Logic also starting to slowly disappearing, those cameras and security doors apparently located everywhere, even in underwater civilization home lands and their important places like hall where all their leaders are come together to decided important questions. Gameplay designers are also starting to run out of the ideas, there is too much backtracking and pointless long corridors later in the game. Some of the puzzles are nice and cleverly using indirect control ideas, like moving camera up-down and left-right to agree and disagree with what heroine said, and also to give her tips how to answer on questions during interrogation. But sometimes scripts just not working and she refusing to react on your commands, mostly when you trying to guide her by enabling-disabling lights. Also, there is huge amount of bugs and gamebreaking glitches, once area map just showed blank page and i had to reload older save in order to fix this. Performance in some locations is terrible, game run like shit even on GTX 1080ti, FPS constantly dropped below 20 and i never been able to get stable 60 FPS regardless of screen resolution. Final nail in the coffin was absolutely insulting "2 hours later" style ending, when after entering last password sudden CGI cutscene happened and heroine told in her own words what happened - basically, "we didn't had budget to show the ending, so listen about stuff that happened right after you leave". And i thought that Mass Effect 3 ending was most possibly insulting ending ever, this shit is easily surpass it in those therms. I had some much hopes for final revelation, and they crushed them just like that, by fucking "it ended behind the screen" CGI garbage! This game is another example when it's better to stop after first hours to have positive impression about it, just like Overlord and Settlers 6, devs simply didn't had enough resources to make a proper game from interesting prototype.
I didn't know what to expect from a mobile Animal Crossing but I guess they got it right for the most part. I was pretty much hooked for almost a week and I got to level 31 before I decided to call it quits but it was alright for a F2P mobile game. The game definitely lacks a lot of the charm of the main games and didn't offer enough incentive for me to continue playing past a certain point, even if I spent real money on it. Completing requests, making new friends and decorating your camper is fun for a while but the game turns into an endless cycle of the same few tasks pretty quickly. I got my enjoyment out of it and I'm ready for Nintendo to reveal a new Animal Crossing game for the Switch now.
39 | South Park: The Fractured But Whole | PS4 22.5 hours | Completed Dec. 2nd
Finally picked this up on Black Friday, I wanted to play it on release day but didn't have time to do so then. The Fractured But Whole is longer, bigger and beefier than The Stick of Truth, the combat system has been revamped completely and there's a bunch of new features in the game but is it better than the previous game? In my opinion, no. The Stick of Truth was a fun, light RPG with tons of references to the classic South Park episodes and it felt great walking around the town doing ridiculous quests in stupid costumes. The Fractured But Whole is more of the same with a superhero theme and an even bigger focus on farts this time but the story feels less cohesive, a lot of the jokes and references are based on the newer episodes and though there are a ton of bosses in the game only some of them are actually memorable in my opinion. Also, as ridiculous as the main antagonist of this game is I couldn't help but feel that the whole thing was sort of lame compared to the epically dumb finale of The Stick of Truth. I liked The Fractured But Whole quite a lot despite all those things, especially all the new combat allies, the fantastic soundtrack, the vast ability arsenal you unlock and all of the Butters scenes, but I still feel like The Stick of Truth is the better game.
42) Retro Sonic Block:
Well with Sonic Mania having arrived in August, it made sense to go back to where this series all started by playing the 1st 4 games on genesis.
Is "Retro Sonic Block" a game? Nah. But I figured it's best to lump all of these games together given I counted the Disney Afternoon Collection games as just one entry and the Metal Slug Anthology as simply one entry despite having numerous games. Best way to explain this is to decipher each Sonic title.
Sonic 1: Game still holds up but boy is that spin dash ever so missed in this game? The future installments flat out spoil you in that regard. I feel like a problem with this game is that the series has always meant to be fast paced and to cater to how quick Sonic goes yet there are so many obstacles ranging from one hit KO fall deaths to spikes that make you essentially platform and watch your step, bit of a curious decision IMO. Soundtrack is awesome which is going to be a recurring theme throughout this writeup and for a game that is almost 30 years old, it still can be a blast to play. Some levels like Labyrinth do not pull any punches though, the water theme even as a kid scared me. The minigame in this hurt my eyes, it became a chore to collect all 7 of the chaos emeralds...not sure how I managed to do this in the game.
Sonic 2: Considered to be the best of the Genesis series, this game introduced the spin dash and brought forth an iconic sidekick in Miles "Tails" Prowler who changes the game with his flying ability. If you can get a 2nd player to jump in, this game will get even better as the AI for this companion lacks, especially in the minigame which can be fun as long as you know beforehand to not play with Tails from the get go if you do not have a partner. Probably pound for pound IMO the best soundtrack in this franchise led by that killer Chemical Plant Zone theme, I think it had the best stages altogether out of these 4 games. A lot of incorporations like riding on Tails' plane were brought in this game that future installments used. Game still has its cheap pitfalls but it does allow you to do more with speed than its predecessor. Felt like there were less lives to be had in this outside of collecting the 100 rings as ironically enough, Sonic 1 gave me more than enough lives to beat this game.
Sonic 3/Sonic 3 and Knuckles: Game(s) introduced a huge new feature in the saving files department where the previous two games punished you for losing lives by forcing to restart the entire game again. Very well needed feature so everybody can enjoy the game without the frustration of starting over again, especially at a time where because it was on a cartridge that the game could accidentally restart itself over again and force you to replay a game. These games introduced yet another vital character to this series, Knuckles the Echidna and in the latter's case, allowed you to play with him. The gliding and ability to climb walls was a super neat feature however Sonic's abilities still made for him to have the better of stages of the two. Yet another standup soundtrack helped by Michael Jackson's vision, Ice Cap is simply great.
Games still offered difficulty that cost me some lives and altogether, I was glad to spend 1-2 days on reliving what was one of the absolute favorite series as a young kid.
