Board 8 > Post Each Time You Beat a Game: 2018 Edition (topic #2)

(+) Yeah! (+)

Dragon Quest III for GBC

I liked it a lot more as a kid.
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Bump
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Conquest of the Crystal Palace (NES)

Replayed this one.
It has been quite a few years since I played this game.
Long ago my mom found this game for me at a Goodwill for about 3 Dollars and it was a game I never heard of at that point. Developed by Quest and Published by Asmik Corporation of America.

You play as a prince named Farron and with the help of his guardian talking dog named Zap, you have to take back the Kingdom of the Crystal Palace from the evil Zaras.
Before the game begins, you get to select which Crystal that will grant you a permanent power up for the rest of the game. Spirit Crystal gives you a permanent fireball projectile, the Life Crystal increases your health bar and the Flight Crystal increases your jump height.

IMO the best one to use is the Spirit Crystal cause you can always increase your life bar and get jump shoes from the Shops throughout the levels.
Game is pretty fun and challenging. One thing you have to be aware of is you drop like a rock if you use your sword in the air. It also has a very good and catchy OST.

Little fun fact: This game was developed by Yasumi Matsuno who worked on Final Fantasy Tactics series, Ogre Battle series, Vagrant Story, Final Fantasy XII and the composer is Masaharu Iwata who composed Ogre Battle, Tactics Ogre, Final Fantasy Tactics, and Final Fantasy XII. That was neat to find out.
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Dragon Boar and Lady Rabbit for PC

The game doesn't keep track of levels, so I never knew how close I was to beating it until a message popped up saying that I did.
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Mega Man X4

With that, the first X Legacy Collection is finished. I had never played MMX4 before. but I certainly enjoyed it. Nevertheless, I don't think it's the best MMX there is. I love the upgrades, they are a lot of fun and it allows you to finally play with boss weapons without worrying about energy (although that also makes parts a bit easy). However, not all stages are that great, and I was flabbergasted by the final stages which were incredibly short with easy bosses. The final boss (oh em gee who could it be) made up for that by being so long that dying is extremely easy, adding almost an hour of game time, which admittedly was partly my fault for just playing bad.

Still, I have always loved the music and Maverick designs in this one, and that's still the case. Overall, great Mega Man title. Now onto the second X Legacy Collection. Oh boy...I'm afraid those four are going to be the trainwrecks everyone thinks they are, but we'll see.
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Super Mega Baseball: Extra Innings for PC

A solid arcade baseball game that I had plenty of fun with. Unfortunately, it has little lasting appeal to me due to various issues I had with the game.

- I utilize check swing a lot, but the check swing in this game is awful. They need to tweak things so that the button sensitivity/contextuality is much more refined.
- While the pitching and batting controls (aside from the above issue) are great, the baserunning and fielding controls are unintuitive.
- Fielding in general never seems right. It doesn't help that I do not have full control over my fielders, and they often take bad angles that give batters two extra bases.
- The Batting Angle should not be angled like it is. It shouldn't be a reason why its hard to discern a ball from a strike.
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bumpsy daisy
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Dance Dance Revolution GB (Game Boy Color)
Dance Dance Revolution GB2 (Game Boy Color)
Dance Dance Revolution GB3 (Game Boy Color)

These games were in Japan only.
It may not be the same as dancing on a Dance Pad/Mat, but it does it's job well with the arrows and buttons. Some nice 8-bit chip tune renditions of the songs as well.
For the arrows where you have to press Left and Right at the same time, Buttons pressed are Left and A while arrows that are pointing Up and Down is performed with Down and B.

I liked these songs
Dance Dance Revolution GB
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The Olivia Project - Have You Ever Been Mellow
Smile.DK - Butterfly
Julia Roberts - Bad Girls
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Dance Dance Revolution GB 2
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Thomas Howard - Silent Hill
Kate Project - If You Can Say Goodbye
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Dance Dance Revolution GB 3
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NM featuring Sunny - Higher
Angie Gold - Eat You Up
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Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls (PC)

I still really enjoy Diablo 3
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Kung Fu Kid (Sega Master System)

This game is very similar to Kung Fu/Kung Fu Master
Your character, Wang, has a jump kick that has crazy active frames and can also throw Talismans. There are certain levels where you can also jump off of walls that you need to do in order to proceed for some nice level variety.

Fun game for it's time. Worth checking out if you like Kung Fu.
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Oh yeah, I guess I beat Dead Cells (PC)

Beat the last boss on a run at least. That is a very strong contender for my GotY
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Dragonball: The Mystery of Shenlong (NES)
Cute as DB fanservice but that's about it. The RNG is God here, because it determines whether you get precious health (which drains continuously) and your weapon if you don't have it, or a bunch of useless junk. Oh, and the last checkpoint is about 4 levels back from the ending.
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DJMAX Respect (PS4)

Finally finished playing through all songs. The game says I've played for 200 hours but I know I've spent a lot of time idle so it's not close to that. Definitely a great candidate for my GotY.
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Fallout 4: Game of the Year Edition (PC)

This is the reason why I suddenly went dark in this thread. Skyrim took me 3 months. This game sucked me in and I was never really truly ever able to get out.

That said, I...wish I can hate it. I wish it was called STALKER 2 instead. This game is a betrayal of everything Fallout was. And even if I could do less with these radial settlement quests, the game itself is flawed from a fundamental level. The story is bullshit. Your companions save maybe Nick are bullshit. Everything being said and done are just excuses to move around the huge open world map. I barely felt anything for the people I was talking to. They'll say probably a line or two about their backstory which is admittedly deep enough but then that's it. At least with Fallout 3, the game kept you moving, kept you interested despite the blandness of everyone. And at least that game had karma. God I hate the dialogue system.

The only good thing to come from all this is Far Harbor, which I will say is pretty much like the Dead Kings DLC of Asscreed Unity. This is a DLC that proves that the company can make a competent scenario, but fails in their main content to do so. Far Harbor works because every single person in that place was useful or meaningful in some way. A faction or town was filled to the brim in its sidequests, and I actually felt like belonging to these people; a feeling now rarely sought in any main game content. And this DLC manages to improve my respect and love for Nick Valentine.

All in all, it was okay. It was great in the beginning, not so much halfway when you had to pick a faction, and then meh by the end save for Far Harbor.
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Nancy Drew 1: Secrets Can Kill Remastered (PC)

This is a game series I've been considering doing for a long time now. I have played a few already, but like the latest 5 ones or something. Never really looked into starting from the beginning because I might get turned off by the age (the clunky slow unskippable interface that plagues many an oldschool adventure). But being so bored of the relatively easy Fallout 4 has given me some perspective.

Technically this game came out after the 22nd in the series (since its Remastered version) so I will have yet to encounter the clunkiness here, but having played this now and knowing what's at the end, I marvel at how far this series has come. Only 3 locations and only 1 of them had a huge map, which is still small compared to the newer ones. Only 4 suspects and the killer wasn't even one of them but the guy who called you in the first place!. All in all, I would say nothing has changed and that's a good thing. Whether it is the first or the nth of the series, this adventure is still a tough cookie, and one that encourages you to write things down and look at things instead of relying on inventory puzzles. I really like how the series started and hope I can continue down the line. Needed a break from the Sherlock Holmes games anyway.
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Super Mario Odyssey (Switch)
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2064: Read Only Memories (PC)
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Oh dear. I forgot about this topic. Heres a few:

South Park: The Fractured But Whole (PS4)

Mega Man 2 (Switch)

Pokmon Quest (Switch)
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Shatter for PC

This is one of my oldest non-Valve Steam games (all games I owned prior to 2010 were made by Valve), and I finally got around to beating the final five or six levels. I think that I beat the final boss in like 60-75 seconds when two or three bosses earlier took over 10 minutes and multiple continues.
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Adventure in the Tower of Flight for PC

Earlier this year, I was about 70% through the game when an update wiped out my save. Last night, I decided to give it another go, and I powered through it in about two hours.
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Iron Crypticle for PC

I guess that I got this enhanced version of Iron Fisticle for free due to owning the latter. I had a lot of fun solo, but I had to space out my sessions to prevent burnout.
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Nancy Drew 2: Stay Tuned for Danger (PC)

Hoo-boy. It sucks hahahah

The villain was out of nowhere, the interface was really bad. Like I just wanted to get over to a certain part of the room and it won't let me because I had to enter it a certain way. And this is something I never realized starting from the old ones but the game expects you to be so thorough before anything significant triggers. I spent maybe an hour furiously clicking around wondering why nothing was happening until I realized I didn't examine a slip of paper in a screen where something more obvious wasn't clickable so I ignored it.
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Nancy Drew 3: Message in a Haunted Mansion (PC)

Okay this is alot better. It came out in 2000 so it's pretty cliche though. The "Manor being renovated is filled with treasure and ghosts" plot. It turns out to not be a scooby doo hoax though as the ghost was a publicity stunt to get people into the bread and breakfast, having nothing to do with the treasure

I liked this alot better. It flowed well and the inventory puzzles start showing up more. But it's still pretty old and with that it had some minor grievances; sliding block puzzles, repetitive music, triggers necessary to move the plot forward. But it wasn't as stupid as the previous game. All in all I liked it.

It's also interesting to note that since I've played some of the latest ones, I'm curious as to when the series will begin becoming modern. As of now, you still had to manually dial numbers to call your friends for hints whilst in the later versions, Nancy already has a smartphone that could call at a press of a button. The devs even went out of their way to put minigame apps in Nancy's phone. Love it!
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Downward (PC)

Ehhh, it's okay. It's the only Mirror's Edge alternative aside from NaissancE and if you're up for open world and time trials then it makes decent use of its parkour. However, the game is marred by bugs and poor design choices. I spent the whole game ignoring a potentially useless skill tree, backtracking because the portal system was broken only to just realize at the end of the game that the ability to fucking fast travel is in that useless skill tree.

There were also multiple endings, but they're all bullshit. They barely last 15 seconds and require you to collect things out of reach and out of sight. It doesn't help that the story is cliche and almost non-existent, making you not invested at all. The cool parkour can only hold your attention for so long.
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I plan on beating a game tonight, granted it's actually finally starting to wrap up and there isn't like another 4 hours. It's already exceeded my expected length (which was pretty short).
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KCF0107 posted...

Hotline Miami 2 for PC

I'm not sure if I liked this one or the original more, but I did like the expanded abilities list, even if I didn't use them.

While part 2 was ok, I think I like the first game a little more. Most of the levels felt more open ended and more freedom on how you can approach most of them.

Part 2 I felt that most of the levels focused more on gunplay on the majority of the levels and there were too many glass windows (personal gripe).

Mega Man (Game Gear)

An ancient replay for me. The last time I played this game was when it first came out. I used to own a Game Gear long ago and I thought this was really cool until I revisited it...

For starters, this port of sorts is nothing new. The game is a mix of Mega Man 4 and 5.
Kinda funny how this game introduced me to Mega Man 5 before I played the actual Mega Man 5.

The bosses in this game are Stone Man, Napalm Man, Bright Man and Star Man. After you beat them, you move on to Cossack's Citadel but instead of going through those stages you actually face...Wave Man (for some reason Gravity Man's theme playing instead of the actual Wave Man theme) and Toad Man.

Then for whatever reason you go through Quick Man's stage from Mega Man 2 and after you pass Quick Man's stage (you don't even fight Quick Man), you get transported to Wily and he fights you in his Wily Capsule II from Mega Man 5.

The Boss AI is super sped up like they are all hooked up on sugar. Toad Man in this version is hilarious.

You can only shoot 2 regular shots instead of 3 and due to the resolution of the screen, you can't really see too far ahead or what's below you. There is a fix to this though: You can hold Button 2 (jump button) and move the D-Pad around to move the screen/camera around. Bright Man's Flash Stopper also works differently in this version and it just does a smart bomb effect (similar to Centaur Flash) when you use it.

Also, the Mega Buster is ridiculous in this version cause it does 4 units of damage instead of 3.
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That's ridiculous haha, kinda like a bootleg Megaman
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It pretty much is considering the publisher is U.S Gold and developed by Freestyle!
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Nancy Drew 4: Treasure in a Royal Tower (PC)

So I guess they found the sweet spot with the 3rd game and decided to copy its formula in the sequel. It's pretty much the same except the "Mansion" is bigger and there are no ghosts. There is a sense of improvement when it comes to the puzzles and the progression. My only complaint here is the bad guy was so obvious about a 5th into the game and came to no surprise. The treasure hunting was more focused on solving logical puzzles and I learned a bit about Marie Antoinette too (if I didn't already in Asscreed Unity).

Also, one thing to note is that I'm starting to see a pattern with these games. You got a main mystery, a culprit, and a slew of suspects to deduce. And capturing the final bad guy always constituted solving 1 final puzzle. And boy I thought nothing could top the 2nd game's luck-based stupidity. The first was kind of clever, the 3rd had you dropping a chandelier on the guy. This one? Why, just pressing a button beside the staircase you came from to drop the baddie in a prison cell. As in, that was the button's only purpose! I would never have known unless I happened to fiddle with it randomly.

Also something I've noticed now is that every game has at least one Quick Time Event or you're dead! I find it hilarious because these games came out in what 1999? And so QTE's before they became standard at one point and annoying, was already being annoying here. Thankfully the games gladly rewind time back to the moment before your demise. I just always found it kind of funny in the Nancy Drew games. Almost like a running gag.
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Rockin' Kats (NES)

The mechanics for swinging around is similar to the likes of Bionic Commando with your punch glove. You can also use your punch glove to not only grab onto certain projectiles and toss them back, you can use it to propel yourself even higher when you punch the ground and even punch off of walls.

Would be cool to see Atlus revisit this game again with a sequel of sorts.
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Mystery Case Files: Revenant's Hunt (PC)

It's not terrible, and it actually improves as a HOG, but it's not the same. I hear the next one's going to return to its more innocent roots. When the finding really mattered.
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Minit (Switch)

Fun game
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Word Search by POWGI (Vita)
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metaIslug posted...

Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage

I liked Spyro 1 so much, I thought it was gonna be downhill from here (expectations now exist).
But nope! Spyro is still awesome, I wish I had these games growing up because they are so legit. Anyway Spyro 2 just delivers the goods in almost every way. There's only one complaint I have. It's the lack of egg thieves. There is one level where you chase them, but it's very short and hardly memorable. Seeing as egg thieves are so great in Spyro 1, seeing them not in 2 is disappointing. In every other way though this game is just great

Spyro 2 is the best! The third game is also great but I think the 2nd game hit the sweet spot very well.
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Muv-Luv (Vita)

Includes both Extra and Unlimited. A standard dating sim in Extra turns into quite the ride in Unlimited. I'll be going on to Alternative once I finish collecting all the Unlimited endings.
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Rusty Lake: Roots for PC

I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't this. I sort of liked my time with it, but I have no intention of playing any more games from this series.
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KCF0107 posted...

Rusty Lake: Roots for PC

I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't this. I sort of liked my time with it, but I have no intention of playing any more games from this series.

Is it because nothing makes sense? I hate that about some games too.
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KCF0107 posted...

Rusty Lake: Roots for PC

I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't this. I sort of liked my time with it, but I have no intention of playing any more games from this series.

aw man Rusty Lake Roots is awesome

like it's so absurd that it's a little funny and the puzzles are cool
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Nancy Drew 5: The Final Scene (PC)

Holy. Shit. I mean I expected the series to get better eventually, but not this good. Didn't see that twist coming a mile away! Also, they combined the real-time death QTE of the game with the final boss in a way I've never seen Adventure Games do it before. Very well done. Good enough for tenth in a top ten.
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Snakebird for PC

The amount of puzzles that I beat without any help was under 50%, but I'm not ashamed to admit that!
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Detective Pikachu (3DS)

Man that game was a lot longer than I expected. I mean, it wasn't like, RPG long, but I expected like 5 hours, and every time I thought it was getting ready to wrap up it just kept going and going. Despite its length, it was very easy, and even with all the twists being thrown at you, pretty predictable too. I also wish there were more/longer action sequences.

On its behalf, the game was clearly made for like 10-14 year-olds, and I think it was pretty much perfect for that audience. I also thought the story and characters were pretty fun, and got some decent laughs, especially from Pikachu. I also liked the action sequences; as I said before I wish there were more of them and/or they were longer. It was fun and enjoyable enough that I will probably play the inevitable sequel since the ending leaves it open for one, unless it's just setting up the movie.
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Properly finished God of War, beat The Valkyrie Queen and got all the collectibles and favours.

Totally outstanding. I liked the "smaller" open world. It went for deep dives into more confined individual areas more than huge, sprawling landscapes which was a welcome change and differentiated it a bit imo
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A Story About My Uncle (PC)

It got hellish in the final zone but it was worth it. The ending leaves it ambiguous enough for the situation to either be real or not. But I'd like to think it's the latter because it makes the narrator's storytelling towards his daughter more sweet.
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Doom (PS4)

Pretty fun, got better as it went on until the last level. Last level was kinda underwhelming. Ending scene was cool.
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Donut County (PC)

Hilarious. It's short length is okay given that the novelty will run out fast, but it's strength also lies in its writing and storytelling. I also love how it pokes at certain things in our current culture. I love that final stage and boss, it was fun all the way through like I was watching an episode of Steven Universe.
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Orwell (PC)
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