Post Each Time You Beat a Game: 2024 Edition

Just post each time you beat a game throughout the year and the platform you played it on. Do not hesitate to add some discussion in regards to the games you or others beat.

At the bottom of this post is a link to a Google word doc that you are free to edit to immortalize your gaming accomplishments. Feel free to tinker with your color, font, and/or bulletpoint/numbering options, but do know that users are supposed to be in alphabetical order.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/15OFzmqNprpzjW33xJs3VYBG8rVCwLi1Zukyf5Q0nLUI

Happy New Year everyone! My 2023 retrospect was a bit sadder than my 2022 one mostly because it was just finishing my backlog so I can upgrade my machine. I'm hoping to get alot more AAA high end stuff in this year, but maybe not as well as I may have plans of moving out and I probably won't be able to game as much. I might also be delving into alot of Switch (Emulated) games now that my machine can handle it.

My play of 2023 was also mostly knocking out whatever was just around; I played 2 absolutely terrible games Syberia 3 and Curse of the Sea Rats and a bunch of others that I thought was great but did not meet my expectations like the moderately "okay, its Quake" HROT or the went on for way too long Book of Unwritten Tales 2. Code Vein was a surprise pleasure, and Ion Fury Aftershock filled a need. But game of that year for me was Phoenotopia Awakening with its charming design and lack of hand held gameplay. I know the ending was kinda meh and the mechanics were at times unnecessary but it was a whole mood and I enjoyed every step of that journey. It's a shame there really is no sequel.

My first beat of this year is DOOM 2016 (PC) . I've been wanting to play the new content for Doom Eternal, so I figure why not revisit the older game with the new GPU. Looks great, feels awesome, and I can only see the beginnings of something amazing.

But having played this retroactively, I can definitely see a somewhat flawed game. Perhaps this step up from the lulzy DOOM 3 was good for its time, but I can see why few ever talk about it now. Still, beating this is automatically better than most of anything I've been beating last year.

Cannon Dancer: Osman (Switch)

I was saving this game for the new year. Wanted to start out with a bang.

This game was done by the same team that did Strider and was an Arcade only release at the time.
The last level was brutal but I managed to finally beat it.

This home release contains both the US and Japanese versions.
Can be played on Standard Mode with Rewind, Save States, Cheats and Enhancements like Double Jump, Invincible Jump, Invincible Slide, Invincible Attack and Auto-Attack (Turbo). There's also a Challenge Mode where you can play it Arcade style with one credit only and are allowed to play with two Enhancements. Also the only mode to earn in-game Achievements.

It felt good to finally get this at a good price when it was on sale. As a fan of Strider I'm happy to finally own this game.

Oooh a Strider spiritual successor? Interesting...

Sunset Riders (Arcade)

Played via Fightcade with a friend. He was Cormano (The best character!) and I was Bob.

"Bury me with my money!"

Assault Spy (PC)
A shockingly good budget indie DMC-like. It's pretty short but has a campaign for each of the two characters, who play quite differently from one another. It's on sale for $4 right now. Go buy it.

Shakedown: Hawaii (PC)

The follow-up to Retro City Rampage, I got addicted to the real-estate portion of it, though it slows to a halt later in the game. It has been forever since I played RCR, but I felt like since that was a game piling on pop culture references, the mission variety in Shakedown was a little lacking in comparison.

Pyre on Fire: 10 Pages (Switch)

You play as a knight that has to rescue a nun that is being accused of witchcraft and is sentenced to burn at the stake. Your goal is to find the 10 Pages (Documents) to clear her innocence. You set out in an open world of sorts with non-linearity. You can get any of the pages in any order which is neat.

I had got this game from a sale long ago cause the game seemed interesting to me.
Finally got around to playing it and the gameplay itself is... not so good with a little jank.

You can't pause your game. Ever. Except if you press the Home Button.

It's hilarious when you hit any of the enemies at first sight. They start to run away from you after you hit them once.

There were a few times where I was cutting down trees and while the tree was falling when I was nearby it, I got launched upward. It didn't damage me or anything but it got a "WTF" out of me.

Some of the pages are easy enough to find and a few simple puzzles to solve. Though one of them did annoy me.

There are upgrades to buy mainly just to upgrade your health but it's really not needed and the enemies don't drop enough gold for it to even matter considering the length of this game is short and they made the upgrades expensive. There's no real penalty if you game over either since it autosaves your progress.

Overall, I ended up not enjoying this game. Far from the worst game I ever played. There are much better offerings out there.

Afterimage (Steam)

So this game rules, but it's still kind of a shame, because it's sooo close to being, like, a 10/10 metroidvania but instead it's only like an 9.

The world is *massive* and it's super fun to explore. The moment when you get a waypoint for the main quest and you check your map and realize how far you have to zoom out to even get it and the part of the map you've already explored on the same screen is really when the game sinks its teeth into you. That was my moment of "oh, uh-oh. this is gonna be my life for the next week". (Strictly speaking I act the same with 4 hour metroidvanias too, but then I finish those ones in... 4 hours...).

There's tons of stuff to find. Equipment (including a half dozen weapon types), multiple kinds of upgrades, movement abilities, optional bosses, lore, money, etc. Basically everywhere on the map that can have something hidden in it, does. The world feels packed with secrets to a degree where it feels daunting to even find them all.

The setting is cool too. The whole game takes place on a floating island world called Engardin that is reeling from a near-apocalypse after the humans went to war against their own nature gods, which threw off the natural cycle of rebirth and made death (mostly) permanent. It's cool, it's original, and it's a big part of the game's plot, not just set dressing. It feels like the exact midpoint between Tales of "we give thanks to Groundo, spirit of the earth, for letting humans live in harmony with nature :)" style worldbuilding and FromSoft "ah ha ha... you've heard of King Dipshit, who lives in Castle Fuckoff... yes, he lit the Bigmatch, driving away the Allplague... ah ha ha... but now he is nought but a husk" style worldbuilding and more interesting to me than either one of them.

The problem is the translation isn't great. It's not as incomprehensible as people say but it's basically on the level of the bad lines from FFVII, but for the entire game. It's compounded by the game throwing tons of in-universe jargon at you immediately and not explaining much of it (and the stuff it does explain, it only explains once and expects you to remember). There's also a little mascot character who is constantly talking and yes, he did grow on me, but it's a very, very bad first impression. The game is also easy, and I think there were difficulty options so maybe it's my fault for picking normal, but after a point my strategy for every boss was just "face tank and win a battle of attrition". That's always kind of a strategy in metroidvanias but it usually doesn't work nearly so effectively against almost every boss in the game.

But man, I still think this is *up there*. It's not Hollow Knight and it isn't Symphony of the Night but it's very clearly in contention with them, and I don't say that lightly.

Really want to get to Afterimage in the next couple of years because I'm the same way with massive Metroidvanias. Big part of why I enjoyed Aeterna Noctis so much.

Welcome to Elk (PC)

Weird, goofy adventure game about storytelling that gets randomly dark at times.

Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name (PC)
This is an unusual one for the series. You could compare it to Spider-Man: Miles Morales, following a different character on the leadup to the core sequel, and on a relatively smaller scale. Here it's an uncharacteristically jaded Kiryu Kazuma, pressed into the service of an undercover agency that makes the yakuza seem warm and fuzzy by comparison. This of course means he gets a selection of James Bond gadgets, starting with the Spidey-esque wire launcher named... Spider, but he can toggle back to his traditional fighting style which centers on sheer brawling power. Without spoiling too much, it resembles a non-turn-based Yakuza game with less stuff in it, story and side activities alike. This suits me just fine after Ishin.

Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection (PS3)

Just one arcade run. Pretty upsetting that they stripped out the story mode that was apparently in the PS2 version. Even the arcade run didn't have a character ending after finishing it. This will probably be a one run and done so I can move on to Tekken 6.

Ghostwire: Tokyo (PC)

It's been awhile since I've played anything by Tango and we all know we want an Evil Within 3 but it just ain't happening and this game is the closest thing. Well, it's an entirely different animal. Parcel that with the fact that I'm just done with open sandbox games and you got a very Uhm Okay average experience. Mercifully, the game actually gates you to follow a somewhat linear experience for practically half the game, but then in chapter 4 it opens up the whole map just like that 2nd island after you kill Vargas in Far Cry 3. While I recognize at that point the game trying to pad itself and taking me for a ride, I'm not that bothered as I guess I enjoy exploring Shibuya and the voice-acting was great I suppose. Whoever is voicing KK I could listen to him all day. I actually thought it was the same as Sebastian Castellanos. Also this is the one time I can accept repetitive assets as you are in a city and it doesn't really look as big as it is. I also appreciate that the streets are not rife with random encounters and once you deal with something it's usually gone for awhile. Many hours in this game are spent just exploring and finding cool shit. Maybe I just miss Tokyo.

This game is actually pretty short. I wish they just stuck to the EW formula and made it a series of levels instead of an open world game. Were they chasing a trend I wonder...? Remember when I said chapter 4 open the map, taking up the content of the first 3 chapters combined? Well Chapter 5 and 6 are just scripted linear levels and then the game just Ends. The impact made by the plot and how it ends is great if you just played nothing but the main stuff. But because it's an open world, the pacing loses its flair.

And one more thing. This is probably the only game where you can absolutely kick the ass of several Japanese Horror game tropes. It knows. It got that EW energy making things as grotesque and bizarre as possible. But you got spirit powers. And you just chant the evil away it's just so refreshing, almost cathartic.

Dredge (XB1)

In spite of the atmosphere, this ended up being more than chill than I thought it would be.

Sea of Stars (PS5)

Loved that this was free on PS Plus Premium. I honestly enjoyed this one a lot. Story and characters are kind of whatever (script is definitely not a strong point in this one), but I liked almost everything else. It's weird, to me it feels like more than the sum of its parts. It doesn't particularly stand out in anything, but it's just so nice to play, pretty rewarding as well. I think at some point the game becomes a tad easy, basically when you can start spamming Sera's Disorient with the right accessories equipped every boss becomes the same easy joke. At the very least, the strategies stop evolving at some point. On the other hand, I don't mind this much because the retro JRPG's it's inspired by didn't really do that either. Also, the genre change during the true final boss was a weird choice, I had no trouble with it but I wouldn't have put it in myself.

But overall, really fun to play, not too complicated and very smooth to control. The music and graphics are all nice. I like that there is a lot of environmental interaction and progression, even if it's very simplistic. It's a nice change of pace throughout that never gets too complicated.

Tag

The Turing Test (PC)

A good enough puzzle game. Portal-esque in structure but entirely serious in tone.

The last 2 chapters definitely have a few more difficult puzzles but I wouldn't call this a hard game. The philosophical bent gets a little thicker near the end, though a lot of that is optional reading. The ending, whichever you pick, was very underwhelming.

The type of game you play and think "that was fun enough" but ultimately leaves no lasting memory.

Garden Story (XB1)

I was bed-ridden for several days and wanted to play a game that wasn't mentally taxing, so I landed on playing through this again on different platform since it was leaving Game Pass.

Maybe not the most outstanding marriage between action-adventure and town management/city building/whatever you want to call it, but it is still a great game.

Detective Pikachu Returns (Switch)

Let's play a game. It's called "describe a video game with a Homestar Runner quote." This one gets, "I am over here! Now I am back over here!" I honestly think this was a step down from the first one. There were only five episodes in this one, to the original's nine, and the games were about the same length, but that wasn't because the second game had more in-depth cases. It was because they were artificially-inflated in length with excessive running back and forth every two seconds and inane sidequests that also amounted to little more than running back and forth. I even think that the puzzle-solving was far more elementary in this one (which is really saying something). They also did so many of the characters from the first game dirty by excluding them entirely or drastically reducing their roles (most insulting of all, the tritagonist from the first game is reduced to a complete nobody that appears on a TV in some optional material between episodes). That being said, it still retained much of the charm from the first one. The main characters are still very likable, the way they interact with each other and with Pokemon is cute, and they furthered their development. I guess I'm a little sad that they pretty definitively concluded the story and really didn't leave much of a door open for any further sequels but I pretty much knew that was inevitable so I'm not utterly disappointed or anything. I'm glad I played it but I'm not really itching to play it again like I am with the first one someday. It was a Christmas gift (albeit one I had expressed interest in) and for that it was certainly worth it, but I can't really recommend it unless you REALLY loved the first one (though I'm guessing that those are the people who would get it anyway).

As a side note, according to my "games beaten" list, this is the 200th game I've ever beaten, which seems like a small number but my ADHD pretty seriously hindered me from finishing most games before 2014 when I determined myself to finish more (seriously, the split is probably something like, 30/170 pre/post Jan 1, 2014). That being said, it's a give-or-take because there are probably a few games that I have forgotten to chronicle and a couple that I feel probably shouldn't actually be on the list for one reason or another.

Final Fantasy VII Remake (Replay) (PS5)
Replayed in advance of the sequel. Other than the graphics not quite holding up, the game does, and it's actually kind of interesting to see the story again now that I know what the deal with the ghosts is.

South Park: The Stick of Truth

After sitting on my shelf for like ten years i finally got around to playing it. And dude i loved it. Its so god damn funny. And like pretty good rpg elements actually? I was rummaging through someones bathroom, found some pubes in a drawer, attached them to a dildo, and now i have the staff of grossness that makes the enemy constantly vomit and they cant heal. Used it on the mongorian army, and literally all of them + their horses just had to sit there puking their guts out

Also just a really clever commentary on video games in general, especially for the time. I KEEP LISTENING TO THESE AUDIO LOGS THINKING IM GOING TO HEAR SOMETHING IMPORTANT BUT ITS ALWAYS JUST FILLER. ITS ALL JUST A BUNCH OF FILLER! NOOOOOO!!!!

also ^5 to the guy who played cannon dancer

Blacktail (PC)

A thoroughly mediocre game that doesn't feel like it was designed very well. It's got this big open world but the main story line takes you through maybe 15% of it. All the rest is presumably for side quest stuff but there was no need to actually do those quests unless you're really a completionist because the rewards weren't great.

Combat was aggravating. You're constantly having to go into the menu to craft more items. The bow shooting was okay but I would often find myself overwhelmed and unable to figure out what was damaging me. I tried to avoid combat as much as possible.

Not recommended.

That's a shame about Blacktail. It looked pretty interesting but I'm glad I waited on buying it.

Kenri posted...

That's a shame about Blacktail. It looked pretty interesting but I'm glad I waited on buying it.

Just my opinion, of course!

It does visually look interesting and Baba Yaga isn't in the normal ground covered by video games. But it really felt like this was an indie game with a ton of ambition that just couldn't make it all come together. They just threw everything in there (open world, morality system, skill tree, collectibles, lore, etc.) but 90% of it seems superfluous.

Hidden Cats in Santa's Realm
Too many stages.

DOOM Eternal + The Lost Gods (PC)

Ya know coming back to this was not what I thought the game would be. I know this one spawned alot of games like Ultrakill aiming to copy its style and now I feel like I should be playing those intentionally retro games instead. Because for all its awesomeness and variety, this game remains outdated to me most likely because its Not My DOOM.

The base game left me a little tired of it all but I loaded up the extra story and it was even more of that. Even more arenas. Even more ways to kill demons. But fundamentally speaking I have a problem with the system itself, like how it encourages you to quickswap because of the low ammo count. Now that I've had to play this on a real machine that can run it, I grew bored of it real quick, so much that it took me a week to get past the 2nd part of the extra story because I was falling asleep at having to repeat the arena loop every two minutes or so.

The base game had environmental storytelling; the world around you was alive and framed your goals and actions. The Lost Gods was just I dunno. It was just Serious Sam---it was just one area after another of horde mode while and I laugh at this part; exposition regarding artifact macguffins that must be found. It's kinda weird but I expected that kind of lame exposition in a Serious Sam game. I expect DOOM to have none of that bullshit at all which I mean both have their shallow styles but DOOM is suppose to be simple rip and tear idk. If I wanted SS, I would've just loaded up Siberian Mayhem not this crap. Also, since you're playing as the best version of yourself (all upgrades), there was barely anything to collect so there were barely any secrets. It was just a linear challenge that tested your ability to arena and it got old real quick as no new enemies were introduced, just variants of existing enemies that gave you the illusion of variety.

It was a slog, but its finally done. Not coming back to this again.

Super Mario Bros. 3 (GBA)

My first time ever beating this game. I finished up a save file from summer 2021 that was stuck on World 8. HOT DAMN the last five levels were an absolute doozy! But I persevered and did it.

Hidden Cats in Spooky Town
I kind of preferred the games where there's just one map, instead of many.

Last Beat Enhanced (Switch)

A retro inspired beat em' up.
It was ok.
Also had some bonus stages and a couple of unlockables.
I discovered a trick/glitch on my own where I was able to get my in-game cash back to get the rest of the unlockables I needed so I didn't have to grind.

Super Mario Bros. Wonder (Switch)

Obviously a very good game overall. I got all the Wonder Seeds but am not going to bother going for all the Flower Coins and Flagpoles to unlock the final final stage.

I'll say, usually the Mario games are the leading edge and doing all the things that other games copy. That didn't feel like the case here. Instead, it felt like they were stealing successful ideas from other games, such as the silhouette parts from DKC Returns and music stages from Rayman: Origins.

The badges were an interesting idea but I just stuck with the Parachute Cap for 99% of the game.

Final Fantasy II Pixel Remaster (Switch)

Thanks to the QoL stuff from the Pixel Remaster, I could stand to play through this game and knock off another mainline FF game from the list that I've played for the first time. Only 6 and 8 left!

This game isn't great, but it has okay things. The plot and script are still small as, but they don't hold back with the darkness for a NES game. This game has a decently high kill count . I liked seeing it all unfold, but one playthrough will suffice. The leveling system is tedious (thank god for the boosts), there are random difficulty spikes and calculations are all over the place. Dungeons are bad and paced horribly. Why do you still find starting equipment in one of the last dungeons in the game?

Ah well, everything has been said about this game already. If anything, the remastered PR soundtrack was a joy to listen to as always. I'm happy I played through this once at least.

Pizza Tower (Steam)

I had no idea what to expect going into the game, I just saw it had good reviews and a weird art style. It was a B8 Santa gift.

Fun game, never played the Wario games for more then a few minutes, but this was a fast paced action platformer that got a little mental near the end. The last boss sequence was actually great.

Good art style, great music, fun gameplay, unique boss battles, yeah this game was pretty good.

Beat it in 6 hours, I only played a stage or two at a time till the end there. I know you can go through each level twice (And I did that a couple times), it's hecktic and fun but I don't think I will be doing that......it's just too much lol. I enjoyed that!

Also side note, this topic and that word doc have been kinda weird motivation for me to actually beat games over the past year. IDK if I said that in last year's topic or not. I usually just play games to half completion or so and never actually finish them lol

Super Lesbian Animal RPG (Steam)

This game is so real. When a gay person kisses me, my stats also go up by 15% for 5 turns.

Curse Crackers: For Whom the Belle Toils (PC)

A very fun acrobatic (literally) platformer that unfortunately is held back by seemingly designed for speedrunning as the main levels don't seem to take great advantage of your platforming abilties. Secret and side quest-specific levels do a much better job at this though.

2000:1: A Space Felony (PC)

I've had this forever and finally got around to it. Even with objects of interest being color-coded and the small setting, gathering evidence was a lot more tiresome than it should have been. The presenting your findings and exposing contradictions was fun though.

Addendum:
Final Fantasy VII Remake (Hard Mode) (Platinum)
That final boss sequence made me work for it.

Toree 2 (PC)

Probably my least favorite of the three. The levels made less of an impression on me, but honestly the bad final boss is probably the only thing that matters.

Once Upon A Crime in the West (PC)

I didn't realize it while playing it, but I suspected that this was by the same people as 2000:1: A Space Felony. I think as a whole this was a more interesting package.

Cocoon (XS/X)

Great puzzle/adventure game that does a great job at making everything intuitive (except for some of the orb world within an orb world puzzles) when it could have easily not been.

Shipwreck (PC)

Another game that I've had for such a long time. It's a no-frills top-down action-adventure game that is all about the dungeons. Overall they were inconsistent there, but of the six dungeons, several were quite impressive for being made by a sibling pair.

KCF0107 posted...

Cocoon (XS/X)

Great puzzle/adventure game that does a great job at making everything intuitive (except for some of the orb world within an orb world puzzles) when it could have easily not been.

I played this late in 2023 and I agree. It was just a really well designed puzzle game.

Quake (XS/X)

I actually only played the multiplayer when I was a kid, so this was my first time going through the campaign. There's quite a bit more variety/nonlinearity than maybe any other classic 90s boomer shooter that I've played. Great game!

Picross e5 (3DS)

Starting the year off with... another Picross game. Only three more to finish all the ones on the 3DS (that we got over here - one more is Japan only until the Switch port later this year).

Moonscars (Steam)

I have three things to say about this game:

1. If I had a nickel for every time recently that I've played a metroidvania where one of the final bosses is a melee a trois with three versions of yourself , I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot but it's weird that it's happened twice.
2. If I had a nickel for every time I've played a metroidvania where you leave your body behind to continue on as a simulacra, only to return later and realize your body has gotten up and walked away , I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot but it's funny every time it happens.
3. If I had a nickel for every time I've played a metroidvania about beings made of earth that suffer from insatiable hunger, eternal pain, and a deep feeling of wrongness, would that be enough nickels to understand that flesh is already exactly that and that the metaphor is unnecessary?

2ECONDS TO STRLIVHT: Forever My Diamond (Steam)

Aside from having a ridiculous title, this is the free prequel VN to a rhythm shmup that I probably will not play because I'm sure I'd be awful at it. It's cute!

The Witch in the Forest (Steam)

Am I ever going to stop playing ~1 hour long VNs about lesbians? Maybe .

Final Fantasy VII InterMISSION (PS5) (Replay)
It's Yuffie time! Rather briefly, and with an appearance from original character Sonon. The different combat dynamics here are neat, and build well on the battle system. I'm not quite finished here but I'd have to put together a build for the hard boss arena and god I hate AP grinding in this game. At least it seems like they've thrown enough multipliers at this expansion to make it faster.

This was a couple days ago
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown (Switch)
Pretty excellent all around.
Turnip Boy Robs a Bank (PC)
If you played the first game, this is in the same spirit, but with an improbable gameplay structure which seems to be part of the joke.