Board 8 > Post Each Time You Beat a Game: 2023 Edition

(+) Yeah! (+)

Murder by Numbers (Switch)

Man, the first couple hours of this had me saying "this game was made to appeal to me specifically. this is the best game ever made." And the picross part of it stays really good throughout, though I could have done with some harder puzzles (the toughest puzzle in the main story is 20x15 and there's only one of those).

But geez, I have some issues with this game's writing. The characters are written pretty well but the game can't make a working plot to save its life. The game never makes me feel like the main character is qualified to be a detective, and the game's explanation for why she's good at it is that it's in her genetics(???). And her general incompetence gets two people killed so she actually ends the game significantly less likeable than at the start. The whodunnits/howdunnits aren't great either; I don't expect Ace Attorney level but a random episode of Detective Conan blows this stuff out of the water. (Also it's pretty bad copaganda and the characters constantly complain about how due process/defense attorneys/civil rights/etc make it just so difficult to get the bad guys.)

The kicker is that there's a missable puzzle in case 3 and you need to play every puzzle in the game to unlock some extra scenes, and if you miss it you have to replay the entire case and every puzzle in it again. Stupid!

Bugsnax (XB1)

Very goofy and creative. A good, long-awaited sophomore effort from the makers of Octodad (Young Horses). That being said, while the designs and catching methods were creative, it did not extend to the quest design, which was disappointly vanilla. Their options were probably limited with no combat and limited movement options, but it just seems that they wasted a lot of potential here.

Kenri posted...

The whodunnits/howdunnits aren't great either; I don't expect Ace Attorney level

Does not compute.

Seriously though, I think you might have the wrong idea here. The point of the game is the puzzles with the cases just a backdrop to serve as a bit of a rest between puzzles. You can tell because of the complete lack of correlation between puzzle and story beats and how lopsided the pacing is in terms of puzzle/story in favor of the puzzles.

I thought the game was just okay when I played it a year or two ago, so I'm not saying this as some sort of fan defense or anything

Right but if the point is the puzzles there are lots of picross games that are just puzzles. Clearly the story is supposed to be part of the draw or it wouldn't be there at all. It's kinda the same issue I had with PictoQuest, where it's a picross RPG but the whole RPG part is completely half-baked. It just makes you wonder why they even bothered.

I actually thought the pacing was fine! I just want the game's mysteries to not be immediately obvious within the first 5 minutes of a 4 hour long case.

PowerSlave Exhumed (Steam)

I've been wanting to play this game since, gosh, maybe 12-15 years ago when I first learned about it? It's an FPS sort-of-metroidvania from the era before Metroid Prime. I guess this new version sort of combines the existing PS1 and Saturn versions.

It's a decent shooter. There's not a whole lot of Metroidvania-ness to it but I definitely see the comparisons, and the movement abilities are very fun. Moving around in this game just feels good. The shooting, a little less so but it's fine. The less said about the game's story/aesthetic the better. I collected all the major collectables but didn't get the 31 staff easter eggs.

Royal Defense: Invisible Threat (Vita)

Some tower defense I bought in a pack with like fifteen or so other games by this developer. For some reason I finished most of them back when I bought it, but this one stayed unfinished for five years until now. As for the game itself, it's a pretty basic tower defense game that has some gimmicks like invisible enemies (hence the name) which you have to build radar towers or use spells to decloak the enemies.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge (Switch)
As everyone's told you by now, it's a fun time. No surprise from the makers of Streets of Rage 4.

Return to Monkey Island (XS/X)

What a return indeed. I get the complaints about the art style, but I liked it except for the character eyes.

Lemme try again.
Hi-Fi Rush (PC)
My friend called this the best character action game since DMCV, and I have to acknowledge that it's possibly better than Bayonetta 3. Airheaded "future rock star" Chai (He doesn't know how to play an instrument) accidentally receives superpowers when his MP3 player is grafted to him alongside a mundane cyborg arm, and is therefore caught up in the schemes of an evil robotics megacorp. This means music combat! I've seen a number of games attempt this "matching the beat while fighting" concept lately, but this blends the two perfectly, so it doesn't feel like fighting while also keeping track of the beat so much as always fighting to the beat and trying to keep your inputs to the beat when possible. There's so much to the combat system that it may take a while to grasp all the abilities even after you unlock them. I highly recommend this to anyone who likes character action or feeling the beat.

Hi-Fi Rush looks sooo good but I'm really bad at both character action and rhythm games :/

I went straight to hard mode so you could probably swing normal with some effort. I believe in challenging oneself.

Oh I missed this topic, here's what I've got this month:

Jan. 1: Pokmon Violet
Jan. 6: Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble!
Jan. 17: Fire Emblem Heroes Book IV (if you count each book as its own title)
Jan. 22: Tomb Raider Definitive Edition
Jan. 25: Donut County

Bonus shoutout to Jan. 9 where I finished the extra levels in DKC3 for 103% and Jan. 22 where I went back for all the bonus levels in a late-last-year playthrough of DKC1 for 101%.

Mega Man 5 (NES)
Certainly not the peak of the series. Stages feel longer and more annoying despite not being all that tough and it feels like this is the point where the creativity in Robot Master design is beginning to wane a bit. That being said, these games have a pretty high floor and I'm still quite enjoying myself.

Haiku, the Robot (Steam)

...I almost want to call this "Hollow Knight but bad" but it actually is a good game. It's just obviously Hollow Knight but with a different coat of paint. And not just the gameplay, but even the story and setting and everything. Not quite as good, either, though I still enjoyed my time with it. I really liked the true final boss too.

Yeah, it's very Hollow Knight and decent.

Atelier Ryza beated! Probably gonna send it back to get Ryza 2 from Gamefly next. Very fun game.

Mega Man 6 (NES)
I imagine this is probably a fairly hot take - 6 has the best OST of any of the classic Mega Man games. Some of the cooler Robot Master designs in a while, too, overall. Very enjoyable showing for the Blue Bomber's last NES game.

2 >= 4 > 3 > 6 > 5 > 1.

Feel like I should play 9 and 10 while I'm still kind of in a rhythm but I don't know if I'm gonna.

NieR: Automata (PS4)
Well... This game certainly leaves an impression, doesn't it? I feel like I don't see Automata talked about all that much anymore, but maybe that's just because I'm one of very few people that had any interest in it at all that hadn't already played it.

Anyway, I didn't really know what to expect coming in except that I was pretty sure it'd be memorable, and it definitely was that. I don't really feel qualified enough at this moment to speak on any of the big themes and emotions of the story and this topic probably isn't the place to do that anyway, but yeah - this is one that'll definitely stick with me for a long while. Certainly a top 20 game of all time for me, could be top 10 once I've had the chance to sit and think on it awhile but there's some stiff competition there.

Really wish I'd documented my playthrough with a topic here, because the game kept surprising me over and over with some of its gameplay ideas and wonderfully cinematic moments to the point that I feel like I've forgotten some of even the really cool ones.

All I can say is I'm glad I'm about to go on a very fun vacation for the next week because I sure wouldn't want to just get up for a boring, average day at work tomorrow.

Life is Strange: True Colors (XB1)

I don't think that they stuck the landing with the overarching narrative, and I didn't like how half of the final episode was effectively a flashback, but the slice-of-life stuff was great, and I thought the performances were as well.

Space Funeral (PC)

This was a game

I think I forgot this because it was drawn out.
One Piece Odyssey (PS5)
A Pirate Oddity
You all know One Piece, I assume. There have been many, many adaptations of this hit manga since its debut, with my favorite being the Pirate Warriors games from Omega Force. There have been various types of pseudo-fighter, platformers, action-adventures, and at least one baseball sim, but the last time they tried for a turn-based RPG, we got the infamously dreary Romance Dawn. Odyssey means to take a mulligan on that one.

The plot starts like many of the adaptations since Unlimited Adventure for Wii, with the Straw Hat Pirates stranded on an island containing mysterious forces that affect and conjure up memories by way of some form of artifact (Here, it's cubes). This provides wa power reset as well as an excuse to redo some famous plotlines from the series. Being a JRPG, its gets a little twistier than that, with the memories acting as more of what-if scenarios tied into the overarching plot than retreads of canon.

Story aside, what you really want to know about a turn-based JRPG is gameplay, right? The battle system here is pretty solid, with enough depth to demand more than repetition of the same moves, if not much difficulty. Outside of battle there are 3D explorable dungeons, with character-switching to use different abilities, although Luffy pulls by far the most weight with his ability to sling himself toward specific points. Being able to grab items from a distance is nice as well.

One standout of the game can be found in the writing. The Dragon Quest style is a natural fit for One Piece's humor, and the main crew have as much charm in their interactions as ever. The story is a bit by-the-numbers but still contains some interesting mysteries.

I recommend One Piece Odyssey to fans of the series with any interest in JRPGs. Non-fans needn't bother. They'll be lost at sea trying to get anything out of the many plot references and callbacks, unfortunately.

SUPERHOT(PS5)

It's one of the most innovative shooters I've played in years (though that isn't saying much with the whole bar being it, TF2, Warframe, Deep Rock Galactic [sorta] and Overwatch 1/2.) Meme aside, it was a fun, quick shooter with a neat plot and gameplay gimmick - though the constant flashes of light and repetition of "Super! Hot!", while having a reason in the narrative itself, serve more to annoy than attract. Alas.

Still was a neat pickup for a freebie, though I dont think I'm doing the achievement dive for it.

Kirby's Return to Dream Land (a couple days ago)
The rerelease coming out soon made me realize I never finished this one, so I spent a couple days working on it in downtime and had a blast.

Kirby: Squeak Squad
Fun little game; not a top-tier Kirby but there aren't any bad platformers in the main series.

Pokemon Legends: Arceus
Beat the main story last night. I held off on this one when it was released because I thought it looked rushed, but ended up hearing nothing but incredible things about it and even watched a friend play it on Twitch and thought it looked good. Asked for it for Christmas and got it, and was not disappointed. Really fun Horizon-esque Pokemon game. It was a fun departure from the typical main series style and I hope they make more (I could definitely see Pokemon Legends: Celebi set in an ancient Johto, especially since Celebi's whole gimmick is time travel). Alphas were tough on me at first but I eventually started catching them regularly. My final team ended up being Hisuian Decidueye, Luxray, Staraptor, Golem, Overqwil, and (Alpha) Snorlax (Snorlax was replaced with the Pokemon you're forced to use against the final boss). I also had an Umbreon and Gabite that helped me through long stretches of the game. I really loved all the obvious references to modern Sinnoh and some nods to other regions as well, displaying them all as being connected. I was a little disappointed in the final boss, specifically their identity. Going into the final stretch I thought that there were three potential options for the final boss - Arceus, Giratina, or, if they went the trainer route, Kamado. It was a little weird that the main story actually had, from what I gather, a determinant final boss. For me it was Palkia, but I'm assuming that if I had taken Irida on the lake quests instead of Adaman, it would have been Dialga.

Sumire (PC)
A wistful game about youthful wishes and regrets, kind of Studio Ghibli or... you know, that kind of thing. I liked it. You don't do much other than walk and make choices, but it has a mood.

Sheepo (Switch)

A neat, challenging, and brief pure platformer with goofy transformations

Chorus (XB1)

Awesome space combat game that looks and performs great. While the multi open worlds had that initial cool factor, they did wear thin at times with all the backtracking that I think that I would have preferred they had made it stage-based instead.

Mega Man Zero - 2/9

This was a game that was a lot more fun that I was expecting.
I did not really realize what the Cyber-elfs were for....I accidentally used one at the start of the game, it didn't seem to do anything really and then that elf was dead and could never be used again. I had no idea some were to be leveled up. I didn't know what the points were for...I was looking for a shop for a while lol....luckily I farmed them at the very beginning for a while (as no other place is good to farm...) But ultimately I didn't do anything with the Cyber Elfs. I WANTED too for the final boss, but it wouldn't let me go back to a portal to upgrade (Really game only a portals lol).

Also, I played this on the collection for the Switch. I don't think I would have had the patience to beat this on an unlit GBA back in the day. Or even on the DS. I am so glad the collection had all of those checkpoints everywhere lol

But in reality, I really enjoyed the game!

Kirbys Dream Land
First game I remember beating as a kid, first thing I did when GB games hit NSO.

WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$
Still a fun time (and very confusing for my wife, whod never seen it before)

Picross e6
Not really anything to say about a Picross game but I do enjoy them

Sonic Lost World:
I hated every moment.

Dragon Quest XI:
I loved every moment. Still have Act III to get through

Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze (Switch)
Long, long overdue. I bought this on the Wii U and never played it.
What a pain! Seriously, this is one of those really frustrating games, and yet also very satisfying when you make it through a level. The design is great, visuals dazzling, and controls just inflexible enough to force you to master working within their limitations. I thought it was cool how they involved multiple support characters with their own slightly-different abilities, too.

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance (replay) (PC)
This one really threw me for a loop since I expected it to be easier than I remembered, but there's a lot going on to make it quite different from the other Platinum games. It's still wild, crazy, exciting and Metal Gear as all hell, while also mixing in the Platinum style of absurdity, topped off with the famous explosion-filled slugfest against an up-and-coming US senator with enormous muscles and iron skin.

Slay the Spire
Technically. It's a roguelike, so it's not really winnable in that regard and I'm likely to have a true ending SOMEWHERE but it's a cool simplistic card battle that runs up the mental math sometimes.

I will say I hate certain "gotcha" things like a power card that exhausts itself and drains your damage below baseline after a few turns of boosted, making drawn out encounters impossible if you fucked it up with no chance of escape (what killed my last Watcher round, actually. Thanks, Bias.) Or the malleable monster that shifted to Thorns in the middle of a multi attack. Or the hex/daze stacks when im playing a skill heavy deck. Blegh.

Mega Man 7 (SNES)
I, uh, did not really enjoy this one. Definitely my least favorite MM as of now.

The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages (3DS)
I'll count this for this year, even though I've played through this game quite a few times throughout my life. Another fun run, it's interesting to see how my perception of the dungeons changes as I play through this multiple times. The 7th one is always a complex maze no matter how old I get, but I did complete it somewhat comfortably without any help this time. But the 5th, 6th and 8th dungeons, which used to be tricky for me too, are now pretty much a breeze. Especially the 8th one (Ancient Tomb), which is considered one of the harder Gameboy Zelda dungeons I believe, was not very complex as it's so segmented and didn't have as many puzzles as I remembered. Of course I'm taking into account that I've played this and other Zelda games a lot, but it's not like I know these dungeons inside out either.

B.I.O.T.A. (PC)
Fun simple Metroid-type game with a bunch of playable characters. They all have different sets of weapons but you're generally not required to use specific ones very often so you can just pick one you like. There are a lot of minigames like vehicle and shooting sections throughout, all done reasonably well.

Elden Ring (PC)

What a wild ride. Finally been able to put some real time into this over the past couple months. Basically had the final boss and one other boss left for the past few days. Malenia proceeded to drive me insane for a while, I think I died at least 50 times. Final boss wasn't nearly as bad, though I was level like, 167 lol.

Super fun game, but now I can branch out to some other, lighter, games for a while!

Fire Emblem Engage (Switch)

And that's the game beaten on Hard/Classic! All maps done aside from the non-Tiki Divine Paralogues. That was a lot of fun overall. Just a really nice, well-playing Fire Emblem game. Its side dishes weren't always great, but the main course was delicious. Mostly great maps, fun and flexible battle systems wrapped in style with a solid look and fantastic soundtrack. Characters were charming. Story and other gameplay-related content were not the greatest, but they don't hinder much either. I think the Skill system could have been better for me and the balancing of some stuff as well (gacha bond rings, animal adoption/rewards, ingredient distribution for cooking). But overall, very good Fire Emblem game.

Theatrhythm Final Bar Line (Switch)
Add that to things the original didn't have: An ending. Even though it didn't take me very long to clear, it's a rhythm game and there's still plenty of tracks, to say nothing of the fact that I've mostly kept to the lowest difficulty. Good stuff.

Red Earth...maybe?

I played through the game on the Fighting Collection. It was awesome....it just took a lot of 'quarters'.
I don't know if that counts lol

The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky

Yeah, finally got through the first game before the one everyone creams their pants over. That was definitely a wild ending.

Next for me: finish a couple of shorter games, then play Ys: Memories of Celceta (I'm alternating between Ys and Trails for Falcom games).

Dark Envoy Demo
Very unpolished game. May be good in the future; who can say?

Ittle Dew (PC)
Neat Zelda clone with a heavy focus on puzzles and funny writing.

I never bothered to finish Ittle Dew. The sequel, however, I greatly enjoyed from start to finish.

Kirby and the Forgotten Land (Switch)

Beat the final boss! Well, technically I still have to play the postgame world, which I've played the first level of, but for the sake of my own criteria, I consider it beaten as I've now played all the main unique content and seen the credits. Not going for 100% anyway, but I'll keep playing a bit as long as I feel like it.

All in all, really good Kirby game! One of the best ones. It's still formulaic as Kirby games typically are, but this one is pretty good at masking it through its creative level designs and looks. The abilities are fun to play with and so are the transformations. Treasure Road was also a great inclusion to really let every ability shine. I've played a few Kirby games now and I'd say this is the best one I've played. It's not even that insanely easy at some moments. Still, it's a game that I definitely enjoy but never really peaks very high for me. In the end, for the most part it felt like the same old Kirby but with a fresher, 3D coating.

Theatrhythm: Final Bar Line (PS4)

I forgot about this because the ending is just kind of there and doesn't really matter as I still have over half of the series quests to do. As such, I like the return of the Event Quests for the main series and a lot of the added tracks that were not present in earlier games. I'm not a fan of what happened to the FMS tracks in this game, though - I feel like they were much better represented in what Curtain Call had them as. That's my only real complaint over the twenty hours I've spent with the game already. Nice to finally see Gilgamesh, my favorite FF character, as playable in this one.

A couple replays on NSO in the last couple weeks for me.

Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins

The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX

Bonus shoutout to finishing the Paldea Pokedex last week.

The Tetris Effect: Connected (PS4 via PS5)
Crazy dazzling EDM trance Tetris from the creator of Rez and Lumines. What can I say, I like Tetris and I like it looking and sounding great when I play it.

Fire Emblem: Engage
Fine, I guess. I wasn't in love with it, but I enjoyed it well enough.

Kuru Kuru Kururin

Spanky's Quest

Two games I used to emulate way back in high school (albeit it was the GB version of Spanky's Quest, not SNES) now finally beaten.