Board 8 > Post Each Time You Beat a Game: 2020 Edition Part II

(+) Yeah! (+)

It is really simple. 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/1hKUEYYqdR79Y-sGxiL93ZMRJjTCOTKRYdgFBD-A2qSU
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New Super Mario Bros. 2 (3DS)

I wonder how many people accidentally skipped most of the worlds like I did. Strange how you're able to not beat a single world before the final one if you want to, but I guess it was the same with Super Mario Bros.

Shantae and the Seven Sirens (PC)

Overall I enjoyed it. Comparing it to previous Shantae titles it did seem easier than usual - though they were never very hard. Don't have a whole lot to say, without spoilers. It's a Shantae game!

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Sega Mega Drive Ultimate Collection: Space Harrier (360/ARC)

Fun, very hectic.

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The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (Switch)

Great remake, but jumping always felt a little off, and Link just seemed a little sluggish. I am "mad" at myself and the game for my only death in the game. It was to the slime boss in I want to say the third dungeon. If you are off by even a hair when dashing in the middle to separate it, you get hurt, and I died from repeatedly failing at that.
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Remnant: From the Ashes (PC)

aka Dark Souls w/ Guns Take 2. Some years ago, I played the first attempt which was Immortal Unchained. That was a very forgettable and shitty game. This one was slightly better. I can forgive its flaws mainly the lack of a pause button, the poor excuse of a swamp DLC which might as well be a part of the main game, the lack of a respecc and a weird skill tree whereby you discover skills yourself instead of planning ahead with unlocks. The bar Unchained set was really low so I didn't hold my breath this time around and found it satisfactory. high 7/10

I don't care much for its procedureally generated content, which meant that in order to fight every boss and have sustainable builds, you would have to "reroll" and repeat certain maps over and over and that works for short games where death grants progress but in a Dark Souls game its a bit sadistic. I do however love the gunplay and the manual cover. The game is basically Gears of War multiplayer with bots except you both take 1-3 hits to die. It never feels unfair save for a few moments and the boss fights were set in these large setpieces that allowed you to outrun, hide, and strategize instead of just setting everything in a big flat circle arena *coughfinalbossletdown*

Incidentally, I actually thought this game was made by the Immortal devs, because the plot and organization was quite similar; that is you're a dude traversing planets fighting natives on respective planets all leading up to a showdown back at home.

Also I hate the title of this game. I very often forgot what it was called because of how generic it sounded. Even as the loading screens had them all the time (and you will see them often), I still couldn't remember when I made this post.

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Rage 2 (PC)

Enjoyable enough

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Hakuoki: Edo Blossoms (Vita)

I originally went through the protagonist's solo route before anything else, but that felt more like a shortened mess with no real ending. Instead, I went with the 'canon' route of Hijikata here and got a much better tale, even if Chizuru is kind of a doormat half the time in the story, I still enjoyed it enough. I will do the other eleven routes at some point.

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Mekabolt (PS4)

Pretty good micro-platformer. For having almost 200 levels, it never got stale.
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Metro: Last Light (XB1)

An improvement over the first in just about every significant way.
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oh fuck, i've been meaning to get in on this for a while now

The Last of Us Part II
It was fun, but dragged on a bit too much. Not sure if I'll replay to get all the collectibles. They're super annoying and there are too many unskippable slow parts. Makes me want to play the first one again - I haven't touched it since release.

also, last week:

Borderlands 3
I think this was my favorite in the series. I loved playing as Brick in BL1, then didn't really like any BL2 characters and skipped the pre-sequel. Moze is awesome.

I gotta look back and see what other games I've beaten in 2020. It's not a lot.

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The Painscreek Killings (PC)

I love murder mysteries. And when I saw this game that came out a year before the Obra Dinn, I had to check it out. From descriptions, it is a "detective simulator" which is basically a walking simulator but no hints of any kind. On paper it sounds lovely, but the game is graphically intensive and the loading in between major areas kind of removes you from the immersion given the immense amount of backtracking necessary to get an A+ as you would have to find every single note and every single key gated quite annoyingly in such a way that you are forced to revisit areas of minor significance.

If you can get past all that though, you'll get a very rich murder mystery complete with an increasing amount of deaths the further in you go. It has quite a few loose ends though, but the ending is satisfactory. Two things though you might want to consider before trying to play this. I'll try my best to not spoil the damn thing. First, there's going to be at least 2 (god forbid I find more) moments where you'll see something...unnatural. Relax, it's not a horror and the music never changes. Secondly, the ending sequence suddenly becomes more...action-laden, much to the consternation of a traditional Adventure Gamer.

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One Piece: Pirate Warriors 2 (PS3)

It's a musou game, so you know what to expect from this. A great deal better than Pirate Warriors 1 and a lot more new characters to play around with, plus a really weird original storyline as well. I'll get the true ending sometime, but I'm satisfied with what I've played.

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L.A. Noire (PC)

This was a difficult game to pick up again. I had tried to finish this some years ago but got bored of it fast. My penchant for new mystery games led me to re-open this once again and this time I dropped everything to see it through the end. I think I understand why I don't like this game. Despite its open-world trappings, everything about this game screams Visual Novel, a genre I am not so sure about. And at this point I was pretty much burned out with open world sandboxes so my previous gripe with the emptiness this game used to offer is now less harsh.

For me, the ending though a cop-out (heh) was actually pretty apt for the genre. And the themes of corruption in a noir are on par. Shame this is the only game that studio could have made. It was a bold attempt and a polarizing game all said.

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Block-a-Pix Deluxe (Vita)

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/78809076

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Secret of Mana Remake (PC)

Oh my fucking god. Never again. The grinding. So much grinding. Although tbh in a hilarious twist, the grinding in this game was alot more satisfying than playing LA Noire. It was a nice change of pace. I put this game off several months at a time as I could not stomach the grind. The magic grind. The weapon grind. Was it a good game? I guess it hasn't aged well with the mechanics. That radial menu. Did I mention THE GRINDING. The remake did make some QoLs to be sure so at least I wasn't grinding that badly. Meh.

Would I recommend this game? Depends. Do you like crashes? Because that was my main enemy doing the final dungeon. It was like a roll of the dice every fucking time. I almost gave up on it tbh.

It's done. Another demon from my childhood vanquished.

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Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest (3DS)

Another Fates path down. Don't know if you count these as different games, but w/e. Conquest is much better than Birthright. Its story is still Fates level, pretty absurd, lots of illogical choices and joke characters, but despite that I found it more engaging than Birthright's because it's actually something different (BR was super generic). And the maps were mostly fantastic, some of the gimmicks were incredibly fun to strategise around. Chapter 10, chapter 20 and chapter 24 were among my favorites. After 24 I found it dip a little bit, but at least it has still got the challenge. CQ is probably the best 3DS Fire Emblem game, although I have a huge soft spot for Echoes.

I will actually play Revelation as well, but maybe not right away.

Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption (PC)

Love letter from the makers of Quest For Glory. Hits on some mechanics, misses on others. Fun romp if you like point-and-click adventures with RPG mechanics and a bit of story.

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Mini Ghost (PC)
Perfectly decent Metroidlike. Not too much to say about it though.

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Metro Exodus (XB1)

It was just my luck that as I was getting into the series, this was going to be taken down from Game Pass (I own the first two), so I had to scramble to get through like 2/3 of the game in a matter of days.

It has excellent production values, an interesting cast of characters, and I am very impressed how deftly they were able to take the series in a different direction structurally and narratively. More on the former, they decided to have three standard, linear levels as well as three open-world levels, with several interlude levels between them all. It was rather fascinating playing it, even if it was a pain navigating the open ones.
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Runner3 (Switch)

I've played every or nearly every BIT.TRIP game, but I hadn't previously cared for the flagship series. Runner3 was definitely the most funner I've had out of any of the runner games.
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INSIDE (XB1)

My negative feelings toward LIMBO aren't exactly a secret, but man what a great sophomore effort from Playdead. It went on just a tad too long, but that final 15 minutes made it worth it.
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Gear of War 2 (XGP)

Meh! A lot worse than the first game, in my opinion - though will say I did play the ultimate edition. The set pieces weren't as cool, and all the vehicle sections were just annoying.

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KCF0107 posted...

My negative feelings toward LIMBO aren't exactly a secret, but man what a great sophomore effort from Playdead. It went on just a tad too long, but that final 15 minutes made it worth it.

Basically how I felt about it as well. LIMBO was a terrible game but INSIDE is so much better.

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Halo Reach (XB1)

Out of the mainline games, Reach was always my least favorite (still a great game), but I liked the campaign a lot more the second time around. I'm still relatively disappointed with the multiplayer though.
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Its time for that mid-year turnaround where KCF overtakes my game beats X3 coming soon

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Shin Megami Tensei: Persona (PSP)

What a ride. Probably the easiest Atlus game I've ever played, which is to say its just "Fair". I understand now why this was an easier spin-off to the SMT games. There were alot of old archaic things here that I quite liked such as being able to see how the demons reacted to your attempts to convince them stuff. Characters actually have different kinds of guns and its hilarious how every boss is weak to guns. Not having to fuse persona from persona meant I didn't have to worry about skill inheritance that much, which made the game very enjoyable. Music was amazing, and I honestly thought the story was gonna suck as it would try to forego that for dungeon-crawling madness. Instead I was quite surprised by the roster as well as the plot. Real classic gaming here, not disappointed. Could hold a candle to the modern Persona games.

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Dungeons & Lesbians (PC)

This was part of the Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality. It's a cute VN, short (about 20 minutes) but with multiple routes/endings. Not all the humor lands (it's a bit too heavy on the memes) but enough of it does.

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Simoun posted...

Its time for that mid-year turnaround where KCF overtakes my game beats X3 coming soon

Unlikely. In years past, I would go through my massive Steam backlog of short games while I continuously play Apex Legends, Rocket League, and Halo MCC. Now I am playing those games while also going through my backlog of longer games.
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KCF0107 posted...

Unlikely. In years past, I would go through my massive Steam backlog of short games while I continuously play Apex Legends, Rocket League, and Halo MCC. Now I am playing those games while also going through my backlog of longer games.

Well. It happened last year.

It's also got something to do with me. I start the year strong, then I slowdown when I play long games like RPGs. We both have excellent clear rates though, I enjoy posting here because I see you post. I dunno if that matters.

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I was trying to keep up with you two and Kenri, but I had to give up on that dream.

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Tag. Planning on spending the rest of the year going through my backlog.

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I've got Persona 4 crashes, Tales of Vesperia collecting, and Critical Role catch-up disguised as Octopath Traveler play.

Hope to post again here by... August? Possibly?

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A Short Hike (PC)

Very cute game. I liked the metroidvania aspect to it with the movement upgrades, exploration, backtracking, and opening shortcuts. I didn't finish even half the quests I started so I might replay it and try to do more.

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By Your Side (PC)

Another one from the Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality. It's a cute, fluffy VN, but hard for me to recommend. The dialogue started repeating almost immediately and there was probably only 20-30 minutes of content in its 1.5 hours of playtime. I nearly dropped this one a couple times before making myself stick it out.

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Majotori (PC)

Majotori is a game about a witch who grants wishes, but only if you can win a game of trivia (and then get lucky on a spin of a roulette wheel). I played through 32 scenarios and lost 10 of them, which doesn't properly convey the number of times I only missed one question but lost the roulette anyway. The game's cute and I love me some trivia but you really have to be dialed in to a couple specific topics (anime and movies mostly) to do well.

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One Piece: Pirate Warriors 4 (PC)
Overall worse than three...Don't really have much to say about it, if I'm being honest!

Tomorrow I get Catherine on the switch, so looking forward to replaying that.

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Ninja Gaiden Sigma (PS3)
Very overdue. While I like a lot of it (It's clearly derivative of Devil May Cry but does its own thing for gameplay) it could be rather frustrating. Like that last stage... I didn't have trouble with the boss but the platforming was really annoying.

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Deadly Premonition: Origins (Switch)

Man I forgot how much this game railroads you onto the main plot once you hit a certain. But in good news I found out that each chapter has its own unique lunchroom scene.

Mana Spark (Switch)

Took me probably twice as long as most people, but darn it I beat it.
Took so many stupid deaths in late stages...but good thing the final boss was easy. 1st try.

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Braid (PSN)

Too clever for me, but I still enjoyed it, and all the puzzles I did manage to solve did feel like a pat on the back, so that was nice.

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Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly (PS2)

One of my old console backlogs finally beaten. FF2 brings me back memories of console horror gaming with the guys. I don't really have much to say other than I'm glad this weight is now off my back. I don't care much to replay it for the true ending or fighting the final boss though, but I got a ton of ghosts and side stuff that has made me a happy gamer.

FF3 is next but, I probably won't play it for a long time. Probably also done with this kind of horror in awhile. I think this is the first time a horror game has me truly stressed simply because the game was scary.

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Fire Emblem Fates: Revelation (3DS)

I didn't plan on beating this right afer Birthright AND Conquest, but I was kind of into Fates at thar point so I thought, why not keep going. Having all the characters was fun, but the story isn't any better than the other two and while it tries to have unique map gimmicks like Conquest, they never feel as good (or they're literally copied). But still, it's nice to have played all three paths and I have definitely warmed up to Fates by playing it a lot.

Hatoful Boyfriend (PS4)

Had a slight interest in this game just because of the meme value and saw it was on sale for like two bucks a while back so I picked it up. Figured if it gave me any sort of entertainment it would've been worth it. Most of the game was pretty much but the BBL ending was pretty interesting. Would've been fun if the entire game was like that.

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Mario Party: Star Rush (3DS)

This game feels like they remembered to put in all the side content of a Mario Party game and only after they went gold did they finally remember that they didn't put in the main part of the game.

Serious Sam: The First Encounter (PC)

I've wanted to play this for a long time, just always waited til I had a friend to play it with. Overall it was a damn good time. The amount of enemies on the screen at any given time was insane, and there were countless deaths between me and my friend. The weapons all felt really great to use, and I think I used all of them outside of the pistols til the very end.

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Tomba! (PS1)

First time in awhile that I'm actually going back to a game I really loved and beating it fully. In this case, I finally got all 130 events even that goddamned motocross gold medal. Fond memories for this game and sad the dev went bankrupt before it could do anything more. I even remember that the gfaqs board for Tomba had individual members representing each of the evil pigs in their signature. It was just that kind of quirky game!

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