Board 8 > Post Each Time You Beat a Game: 2019 Edition Part II

(+) Yeah! (+)

Star Fox 2 (SNES)

Played it via Switch.
This game was...ok.
It felt like I was playing an early prototype of Star Fox 64/Star Fox Command.

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Dark Souls Remastered (Switch)

I finally know what all the hype is about

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Senua's Sacrifice (PC)

Had this in my PC since last year and put it off waaaaay too much. I stopped at the final dungeon because I was just fucking sick of the combat. Little did I know, that I had just a few miles left. Anyways, its not so bad. I might appreciate the whole mental sickness depiction better if the combat and puzzles weren't so banal. Imo, Ether One does a better job at telling a story like this, but for what it looks and how it plays its decent at least.

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The Hanged Man (PC)

And with this, I end the Strange Men series all neatly for this year. Rankwise, I would put it above Crooked and below Boogie. Gamplay-wise, it's Silent Hill 2 with a mix Clocktower by the end. There are only 4 main characters here and while's its nice to see the returning cast once again, I feel that the minimalism harkens back to the first one while retaining the maturity of the series thus far. All in all, a welcome way to end it.

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Refunct
A Bird Story
Ori and the Blind Forest Definitive Edition
^all on steam, and The Walking Dead S1 and 400 days on Epic. Picked up the definitive edition during Epic's Christmas sale. Will give it a while before moving on to S2 tho.

SteamWorld Dig 2 (XB1)

Definitely an improvement over the original, but Heist is still my favorite from the franchise. I likely won't do all of the challenge caves.

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The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (PC)
Auuuugh.

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I'm actually trying and failing to finish one more horror game before I call it a night. But other than that, I think I'm done for this year.

I'm going on a vacation tomorrow and I won't be back till the last day of the year which may or may not be midnight so. I just wanna break down my faves:

Best Games Played This Year:
Iconoclasts (PC) - A true labor of love. It has every right to join the pantheon of Cave Story and Iji for an awesome solo-developed game. Alot of people will probably steer clear of the plot which starts rather normal for a platformer like this, but it just deconstructs and changes up about a third in and its a beauty to see.

A Hat in Time + 2 DLCs (PC) - Oof, just a fun little throwback. It was really easy, and I would've liked some Gex 3 kind of complexity but it's a small studio and it's got charm and solid gameplay. Favorite part: The Cruise Ship DLC.

Stasis (PC) - Smalltime adventure game with alot of cliches, but it's hard to find a game that a) pits an everyman into some catastorphic danger and pulling it off well, b) deconstructs the very plots that make Event Horizon and Dead Space Work, and c) punch you hard with melancholic and absolutely disastrous scenes and characters; heartless villains, complicated circumstances, pitiable but un-saveable victims. It's a shitshow and I love it.

MO: Astray (PC) - The pixelized setting, the minimalist cast, the unique boss fights given that you are just a tiny slime, and the unfolding lore and story. It just fits together pretty well and gives me hope that 2d Platformers can still be a good genre on its own.

Resonance (PC) - I initially just wanted to get through this to get to Wadjet Eye's latest Unavowed. There wasn't much PR for this entry and no reviews I've seen. But I think it beats Technobabylon just a little bit, and is a fine contender for Gemini Rue as well. Just a minor issue with the interface but all in all a very solid modern sci-fi thriller that unfortunately ends in a cliffhanger and the developer losing the interest in telling a future story.

Bad Games Played This Year:
The Hong Kong Massacre (PC) - Hotline Miami wannabe that outstays its welcome after the first (of five) acts. No change in enemy design, repetitive music, and the camera is actively working against you. Its refusal to stretch out like HM does is often the cause of many unfair offscreen deaths.

Nibiru: Age of Secrets (PC) - Broken Sword wannabe that seems to just take everything that makes BS good, and strips everything else. There's no wit. There's no substance to the lore. There's things happening in the game that's only happening "because Broken Sword did it". Absolute Nonsense. Later on I would play Memoria 1 and 2 and at least those games had some kind of Supernatural element going on.

Photographs (Android) - Given its author's track record, I expected something amazing when I heard it was a serious game but it boiled down to be one of those "Story content gatelocked with an abstract Puzzle" games. But the cheapshot came at the end when you are given no choice to save and must unlock only 1 of the game's 5 possible paths. Such bullshit that forces you to replay the game 4 more times for longevity is beyond cruel.

Best Underrated Games Played this Year
The Aquatic Adventure of the Last Human (PC) - Melancholic tale told through presentation than exposition. Awesome boss battles, some of which are of the Shmup variety. And doesn't overstay its welcome.

BYTEPATH (PC) - If I had more time to tinker with this one I'd do it. That skill tree is just insane, for an Asteroid clone. This is how to modernize a retro game.

Tri: Of Friendship and Madness (PC) - It has its flaws, such as the absurd length of each of the levels; terrible pacing, but matched with an oddly addicting soundtrack and enough leeway to play around with triangles in the game, which I always thought was something Portal was bad at.

Football Game (PC) - It's very short and a little predictable, but it has a distinct style which somehow invites a sense of dread to an otherwise innocuous event.

A Plague Tale: Innocence (PC) - I don't know if this is truly underrated but I don't see people suggesting it enough or talking about it. It's a solid clone for The Last of Us with its own distinct style. I'm really hoping I'm right about the way the title is phrased to imply that there will be more than one "Plague Tale".

Beaten "Ghosts" from Last Year:
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice (PC)
Assassin's Creed Chronicles: Russia (PC) -
Yomawari Night: Alone (PC)
Resonance (PC)

New "Ghosts" for Next Year:
Borderlands 2 + All DLCs (PC) - I stopped because I got bored grinding but all that's left are some solo raids, the latest DLC connecting to the next game, a few sidequests from DLC3 and 4, and UVHM. Then I'll never revisit this again. Best Funnest Class is Krieg hands down.

Metro: Exodus (PC) - It was going great then I got bored halfway into the Autumn part of the campaign. The open world aspect is great, and I'm not complaining. But this is so not a Metro game not like the rest.

Yomawari Midnight Shadows(PC) - Gives me the fucking creeps. They're doing a good job one upping the previous game that's for sure.

Dragon Quest 8 (3DS) - I was on a roll and I just had a burnout I guess after beating all the DQs in a row. I will say thought that I'm glad I started this series in order because if I started with 8, I would never have gone back for the others because this one is just so good. Also, what a coincidence to become a fan before the Smash Bros Reveal!

Happy New Year Everyone!

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Hello? Hell...o? (PC)

Here we go, beat the underrated vgperson game. True Good End. Tells the right story, doesn't overstay its welcome. And is just scary as fuck. It only uses 2 pngs for the jumpscare and it never really gets easier. It's more the implication than the effect and is never annoying.

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I completed 4 games on my Sega Genesis Mini.

Street Fighter II: Special Champion Edition (Genesis)
Completed the game with Ryu in Champion Edition. Switching between Punches and Kicks with the Start Button was really weird and awkward but it was playable nonetheless. I like how the OST sounds in this version.

Altered Beast (Genesis)
WISE FWOM YO GWAVE!

Mega Man: The Wily Wars (Genesis)
Finally, after all of these years I was finally able to officially beat this game now that I was able to access The Wily Tower.
I had some good memories playing Mega Man: The Wily Wars on the Sega Channel back in the day. I was unable to access the Wily Tower at the time. I couldn't even access Wily Tower on an emulator cause I apparently needed a patch to bypass the regional lock out or something.
Thanks to the Sega Genesis Mini I finally got to play through the Wily Tower and it was a fun experience.

I liked and disliked some of the changes that were made in the three games. I'm 50/50 on them. Some things were fixed for better or worse. I still prefer the originals of course. I liked some of the remixes but I also miss certain sound effects I enjoyed hearing from the NES. Overall, this was great to play through as a fan of the series and Wily Tower was worth it IMO.

Golden Axe (Genesis)
Completed the game with good ol' Gilius Thunderhead.
The OST in this version still holds up incredibly well to this day.


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Not a post about a beaten game, but man. Had the plan to beat at least one a month this year but the middle of the year came with some bad decisions and not enough focus on games. As I won't beat anything more in these next four days, I end the year with 6 beaten games. Still more than previous years. And I've gotten some beatable things this December.

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Little Inferno (Steam) (Replay)
A forgotten gem. The gameplay isn't much, although it's the sort of thing I like, but it's an experience.

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Judgment (PS4)

I think this is actually better than Yakuza 0 overall. This is also probably it for the year.

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Ori and the Blind Forest (Switch)

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Oh oops. Haven't updated here in awhile.

16. Yokai Watch (3DS)
17. Final Fight (Switch)
18. Captain Commando (Switch)
19. The King of Dragons (Switch)
20. Resident Evil 4 (Switch)
21. Pokemon Sword (Switch)

Yokai Watch was super good. I was surprised. It prompted me to buy the rest of the series. I played through half of 2 and some of Blasters, but didn't beat either of them yet. I'm also over halfway through Dragon Quest 5, but got distracted by other stuff. I'm halfway through like 5 other games too. It's ridiculous lol

But anyways, I played through some of the games in the Capcom Beat Em Up Bundle and all of them were fun. RE4 was great, as always. I played through the main game three times with different weapons and also played through Separate Ways. And Pokemon Sword was disappointing. I had fun, but good lord was that a lazily made game.

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Hohokum (PS4)

A neat, bizarre British game that is tough to describe but a perfect game to cap off 2019!

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Happy New Year's from over here.

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Ghost Recon: Breakpoint (PC)

Anticlimactic ending aside, I enjoyed this game

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Streets of Rage 2 (Genesis)

Closing out the year by playing one of the best beat em' ups around. Replayed this via the Genesis Mini. Beat it on Normal with Axel without using a continue.

I want to try and do a lot better personally in 2020 in trying to beat a lot of games. I have such a backlog to go through!

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Batman: Arkham Asylum (PC) (Replay)
Still pretty fun, particularly the stealth and hunting for collectibles. It's an old game so max settings seemed to work pretty well. One of the Scarecrow sequences caused the game to crash, and on retry had bad slowdown for a few seconds afterwards while the game "recovered".

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Around 11:20 last night 12/31, Mega Man 2 (Dedicated TV unit)

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Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun on Epic

great game