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

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Underleveled
03/29/23 11:40:07 PM
#152:


Aura-Aura Climber (DS)

A $2 DSiWare title from 2010, a first-party Nintendo game that came up on a recommendation video, and one of my final last-minute eShop purchases. For $2 you can't go wrong. It was fun but short - only 10 levels, and 10 short levels at that. The game is meant to be beaten in less than an hour. I WAS surprised by how frustratingly difficult the last few levels were. A couple of really horseshit spots. It was a fun little distraction for the night.

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darkx Twitch - MattyDsCorner
Games beaten in 2023 - 3; Most recent - Aura-Aura Climber
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Simoun
03/31/23 1:41:08 AM
#153:


Dread Templar (PC)

This game is weird and I can't quite put my finger on whether its good. I don't know if I like it enough to recommend it to people. I want to say you play this first on hard because the game at times can be too easy especially if you find the secrets, but even that advice is terrible because the fact is the game is very imbalanced and part of that reason is that the design is flawed in some parts.

Enemies, while deadly af, are dumb as flying homing bricks and about 70% of them don't fight close range so they can very well snipe you while slowly approaching you which would be fine if you didn't have shit sniping tools and some of them even have a limited range even if they feel like they don't. Enemies also lack tells and reactions so that zombie sniper you meet on the very first map will immediately shoot at you at the flick of a wrist as if it has an aimbot while taking more than enough pistol bullets to effectively finish off. This actually gets better later when accuracy isn't so important because your guns are pretty much overpowered but consume a ton of ammo.

I also found this weird thing with homing projectiles. They're not as intuitive to do sharp turns and so you can actually trick them. They also just disappear the moment you can't see them. Like literally turn into a sharp corner and they're gone. But turn into a sharp angle and they'll hit you. So weird. Mercifully there aren't alot of enemies in this game that can do that so it's not as annoying as say the final act of Forgive Me Father.

I like the maps. Thinking of it as a slight improvement over Forgive Me Father's and both games have very similar thematic progression but both games also have the same flaw in that it often tends to outstay its welcome. 5-levelled 5 episodes (not including secret levels) is just too much and its clear that some could just be combined into one. In fact the same metal soundtrack runs for at least 2 of each level and the music while repetitive tends to grate if you don't feel it. But for me I had no problems mostly.

A great amount of effort has been spent on secrets, specifically "Super Secrets" of which there is one per level. Was surprised as the breadth of references being tossed around. Who wouldn't love to see Leon Kennedy, De_Dust2, Sub-Zero, 007 Goldeneye, and the House of Harkonnen? But the biggest surprise is this campaign wide mega secret all leading up to a secret boss fight with Dopefish and upon beating them would grant you a game-breaking weapons modification. Honestly why hasn't anyone ever thought of making that a secret boss is beyond me it seems so obvious. Unfortunately or Fortunately though most of these Super Secrets are impossible to find unless you have a guide or are just really keen in observation but half the time spent humping walls for an off-texture wall in an already retrograde looking environment can be taxing at best. The game does its best to clue you in on what walls are hidden at least, and sometimes there are just dead ends for the sake of dead ends. So its a toss-up.

Story is edgy af. Though credit where credit is due, apart from the cutscenes you unlock (like there isn't even an introductory one, you have to beat level 1 for it), there is actually some lore but you have to go out of your way to find it. Very briefly, in a single level lies some stuff you can examine for a greater context. But don't expect anything revelatory if anything it's just an homage to Blood.

Notice how I'm avoiding talking about the gameplay I mean usually with these things its just your typical retro boomer shooter with modern sensibilities. I would say the combat is like Dusk if the enemies were dumber and less cleverly placed. I do like the variety though and for 5 episodes you have to be entertained. There are some weird choices in an attempt to be unique like a slow down bar which acts like an afterthought unless you play in Nightmare. There's also Runes which you can find to unlock to give you more passive bullshit like increased ammo capacity or modifying your gun to make it OP. But the thing is half of these runes don't purport what they say they do probably lost in translation or poor design idk.

One last thing I guess are the bosses. They're good. But they're a tad too spongy and idk how you're expected to beat them on harder difficulties because the game refuses to provide regular ammo drops a legitimate way so often I'd die because I didn't ration less ammo to take the more ammo from the mook flying around while the boss is kicking my ass. This pairs in with my on and off decision to recommend hard mode first; its great---up until you get stonewalled by a boss because you had poor resource management. In fact, one of the runes you find powers up the final weapon significantly that the rune description says "this makes the weapon cheese bosses". And its true, I took out the final boss in four hits. And its also true, that if I had fought that boss the normal way I would've had a very hard time very well done boss I haven't seen a boss that frantic in a boomer shooter since the Magician from House of the Dead 2.

I've tried my best not to compare this game with the greats like Cultic, Dusk, and Amid Evil. I think the game is solid but those games are definitely better. I'd chalk this one up to inexperience though it does have its merits. All in all, a nice filler boomer shooter while I wait for HROT or Phantom Fury.

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Kenri
03/31/23 4:10:45 AM
#154:


Evan's Remains (Steam)

This is a puzzle platformer with gorgeous pixel art (albeit with character portraits that slightly clash) and a lot of story. It's one of those games like To the Moon and Iconoclasts that clearly had a lot of creativity and passion behind its story, but it just reads as amateurish in a lot of mostly-intangible ways (it's not nearly as bad as Iconoclasts though). The characters are kinda unlikable and while the twists and reveals weren't bad, exactly, they did leave me going "oh okay sure" instead of reacting with like... surprise, or emotion. A few lines seemed poorly translated too so that doesn't help.

The puzzles are all pretty simple and typically center around platforms that disappear as soon as you jump off them -- there's an achievement for spending longer than 15 minutes on any one puzzle, and I did not get that achievement in the process of beating the game, so that probably tells you what the difficulty level is.

I dunno, it's hard to say how I feel about this one, though I definitely don't actively dislike it.

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paperwarior
03/31/23 11:22:47 AM
#155:


Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty (PS5)
Also the Platinum
And thanks for all the fish.
Team Ninja's latest Soulslikeish effort takes a certain amount of its gameplay from Sekiro. You play as the Chosen Undead, introduced into a Three Kingdoms setting to defeat an evil wizard who has been turning it into a Three-Kingdoms-but-with-zombies-and-stuff setting.

Combat is simple, the RPG elements are less important than usual, but it's still quite fun. You have the Sekiro backstab and falling ambush, an all-important parry button, something like Nioh's Living Weapon summon, an elemental magic system that corresponds to your stats, and get this: Everything is your stamina bar. Magic uses stamina. Hitting with light attacks actually gains extra stamina. It doesn't actually add too much strategy, but it lets you use magic freely at least.

The other big system is Morale. As you defeat enemies you gain it, and as you get hit by big attacks you lose it. Dying loses all of it. This affects your relative attack and defense substantially. Activating Battle Flags (bonfires) and additional flags hidden around raises your minimum level for the stage. While finding some of the secondary ones can be frustrating, this creates an enjoyable sense of power growth in each stage. The downside is that the beginning of main missions can be rough, and you can't even use some of your magic before gaining a few Morale levels.

Given that it's Three Kingdoms, you'll be accompanied by some all-stars. You aren't required to summon them, although you can. Most levels will just provide you with one or two. They all seem to see Chosen Undead as a puppy sees the human who feeds it. They're sadly pretty dumb and vulnerable, and spend much of their time revive-begging. Incidentally the voice acting is truly "great"; some real old-school Koei stuff.

I'd recommend this for off-brand-Souls fans. Just don't expect anything like Nioh. The diminished RPGness may be too much for some, but it's a nice contrast from latter Strangers of Paradise at least.

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"God Hand is the ultimate expression of the joy of humanity, specifically the punching part of the joy of humanity."-Shigeru Miyamoto
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Simoun
04/01/23 3:31:19 AM
#156:


KCF0107 posted...
Watch Dogs 2 (XB1)

It had been 6-8 years since I played the first, but I initially was unsure if I was going to continue on with this game. I can't say which game did stealth better (gut feeling is the original), but it otherwise seems like a step up across the board.

I love how all the ingame rewards counterintuitively encourage you not to do stealth.

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KCF0107
04/01/23 10:21:35 PM
#157:


That reminds me that all of my experiences with its (Watch Dogs 2) online connectivity were hilarious, especially since all but I think one or two of them were not triggered by me.

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KCF can't actually be a real person but he is - greengravy
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KCF0107
04/01/23 10:23:35 PM
#158:


Mass Effect (XB1)

I'm generally not a sci-fi guy, but maybe only Elder Scrolls challenges Mass Effect for single player games to absolutely engross me to the point of frequently playing for many hours at a time.

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KCF can't actually be a real person but he is - greengravy
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paperwarior
04/01/23 10:39:31 PM
#159:


The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog (Steam)
April Fools!

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"God Hand is the ultimate expression of the joy of humanity, specifically the punching part of the joy of humanity."-Shigeru Miyamoto
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Kenri
04/02/23 5:28:46 AM
#160:


Ittle Dew (Steam)

Pretty cute. It's obviously a parody of LttP, but whereas that game is a combat game with puzzles, this is much more of a puzzle game with combat. I got all three major items and did most of the bonus stuff but didn't try to finish the Master Cave. It's not amazing but it'll do.

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KCF0107
04/02/23 5:36:21 AM
#161:


When I played that about a decade ago, I couldn't get into it. The sequel, however, I greatly enjoyed

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KCF can't actually be a real person but he is - greengravy
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Kenri
04/02/23 6:05:02 AM
#162:


I have the sequel too but I'll probably wait a bit before jumping into it. Glad to know it's better though!

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Kenri
04/04/23 12:32:55 AM
#163:


River City Girls (Steam)

Love any media about girls who are absolutely feral. The music, cutscenes, and voice acting are all great too. I just wish the actual gameplay was more interesting. The enemy variety is pretty bad and the controls are just as clunky as an actual 90s beat-'em-up, possibly more so. For instance: you have to double tap left or right to run, and you can only run left and right even though you can move in all four directions. It feels somehow much less acceptable in a game from 2019 than it did 2-3 decades ago.

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KCF0107
04/04/23 6:05:59 AM
#164:


Lil Gator Game (PC)

It's very easy to get lost since the game doesn't have a map, there are only a couple of distinctive landmarks, and because I am the way that I am, I can easily get sidetracked with exploring. That being said, this was great at scratching that A Short Hike itch.

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KCF can't actually be a real person but he is - greengravy
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WhiteLens
04/04/23 5:46:07 PM
#165:


Street Fighter II: The World Warrior (PS4)
Street Fighter II': Champion Edition (PS4)
Street Fighter II': Hyper Fighting (PS4)
Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers (PS4)

All through 30th Anniversary Collection. Played them throughout different times.

This is my first time really playing through World Warrior, Champion Edition, and New Challengers, I don't think I ever full played through Normal Mode in Street Fighter II Turbo on SNES which is Champion Edition.

Speaking of which, this is also my first time seeing a character ending when beating arcade mode. When I played SFII Turbo as a kid, I was bad at the game so I would always play on the lowest difficulty, which would say "Try a Harder Difficulty" after beating arcade. You have to beat the game on the default difficulty or higher to see the character ending.

And while I'm mentioning difficulty, it felt like the Difficulty setting didn't do jack in these game. I played through World Warrior on the default difficulty, but then lowered it for Champion Edition and Hyper Fighting and they didn't feel much different from each other. The opponents are still aggressive. I guess by emulating the arcade they were designed to eat quarters, so the AI is gonna be cheap as hell.

I'll probably hold off on going through Super Turbo for a bit since I'm going to also try to get the trophy for facing Akuma and may need to be decently skilled at the game for that.

On another note, pretty much all this time, I did not know the general FGC refers to the 3rd version of SFII as Hyper Fighting. I've always called it SFII Turbo and I've seen it referred to that on this very board.

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Simoun
04/06/23 12:06:32 AM
#166:


Kenri posted...
Ittle Dew (Steam)

Pretty cute. It's obviously a parody of LttP, but whereas that game is a combat game with puzzles, this is much more of a puzzle game with combat. I got all three major items and did most of the bonus stuff but didn't try to finish the Master Cave. It's not amazing but it'll do.

What I really like about this game is it was made with speedrunning in mind because you can acquire 2 of the 3 main tools and bypass certain parts to finish the game anyway. I think you can also do it with just 1 but you'd have to be really smart about it.

EDIT: Btw the sequel is more combat focused but the puzzles are still good especially the Dream World which used to be dlc but now I think is part of the game's latest edition

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paperwarior
04/06/23 12:12:31 AM
#167:


Semi-related
My evaluation of the Vampire Survivor clone bundle games so far:
Bounty of One: Fairly conventional and simple, but fun. Western theme, and you can only shoot (normally) while standing still.
Just King: First of all, no full controller support always sucks. The gameplay doesn't do much for me either, taking heavy management as a priority over skilled action. Managing is annoying without full controller support.
Repetendium: Possibly the current favorite. DOOM-esque aesthetic, three very distinctive characters, lots of depth and customization, mining through walls and fast arcade action.

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"God Hand is the ultimate expression of the joy of humanity, specifically the punching part of the joy of humanity."-Shigeru Miyamoto
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Simoun
04/06/23 12:21:32 AM
#168:


Mortal Shell (PC)

Okay so, I accidentally made this game harder for myself. I was exploring the hub world and inadvertently just went for the 3 dungeons without going towards the central hub which would've granted me some very necessary abilities and options. Instead I blazed through it like a soulslike wondering why is this game so jank. I mean it still is but without realizing that the game expects you to rely on ripostes and alternative movesets I got a little frustrated. For example, you can't really trick an enemy into attacking somewhere you're not, because for some reason 90% of their attacks will snap onto you regardless of moveset/animation. Instead the game expects you to use that Harden ability of yours to parry and riposte juggling your meter. I don't know, because by the time I learned all the ripostes and what it even is I was already at the final boss and saw no need to do newgame+ or the dlc unless I wanted a roguelike.

It's clear that this game was meant to be replayable for something so short and sweet. As such I don't really wanna say the limited reused enemies are a detriment to this game. I would gladly put it above the more indie soulslikes I've played like Hellpoint and Ashes which isn't really saying something as it is the most "soulsy" of the Soulslikes in that category. Anyways, next one might be Salt and Sacrifice or Sekiro. Or Nioh 2.

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Kenri
04/06/23 12:57:53 AM
#169:


Simoun posted...
What I really like about this game is it was made with speedrunning in mind because you can acquire 2 of the 3 main tools and bypass certain parts to finish the game anyway. I think you can also do it with just 1 but you'd have to be really smart about it.
I did think that was cool, though I got all three main tools anyway and I'm not sure I'll replay it. Nice that there are so many options for people who dive deep into it though!

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Congrats to BKSheikah, who knows more about years than anyone else.
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Simoun
04/06/23 11:59:00 AM
#170:


The Case of the Golden Idol (PC)

When I first saw this game I passed it off for a long time because I thought it was like a modern version of 5 Days a Stranger which was also about a cursed creepy idol. To my surprise it's not so much a pt click adventure as it is a detective game. The logical portion of the game at times felt shoehorned but I still enjoyed it and as the overarching plots came together I appreciated how it all escalated and ended. And the plot itself? A classic tale of power and how it corrupts men's souls, bending them to their desires. It was satisfying and did not outstay its welcome. By the time I was getting tired of the logic puzzles, the game had pretty much wrapped itself up.

One thing though is that the puzzles relied on finding keywords of which their locations were 99% logical and it did encourage you to look into the setpiece with a fine tooth comb also while attempting to understand the story without skipping details. But some of the word locations are really dumb like the word "drugged" had to come from an innocuous and irrelevant poster of "drug" plants. Very reaching. Fortunately you a) do not need to find every word to solve the puzzle and b) the ability to highlight clickables is toggle-able. This game is very short if you minimize pixel hunting but it's worth it in my opinion. A true mystery and brainteaser to keep you busy for awhile.

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WhiteLens
04/06/23 8:29:22 PM
#171:


Super Street Fighter II Turbo (PS4)
Street Fighter II: The World Warrior (SNES)

So much for saving Super Turbo "for later". I honestly don't think "gitting gud" would have made much of a difference because seriously, fuck the arcade in this game. I'm hearing that the arcade version for Super Turbo was rigged to always be the hardest difficulty no matter what setting you put it on, which got retained in the 30th Anniversary Collection, and it sure fucking felt like that.

Of course I saved scum my way through, which did lead me to fight Akuma as I was going for, and I save scum that fight too because holy shit is he tough!

So as a comparison I also did a run on the SNES version of The World Warrior for the first time, and while I may have gotten a bit better at the game from playing more recently, it did feel a lot more fair on the default difficulty than when I was playing the arcade version. Vega, Sagat, and M. Bison still sucked to fight though.

What's interesting about the SNES version of World Warrior is that all the character endings were re-done for the SNES, so they look different than on arcade. SFII Turbo however, uses the endings from the arcade version.

I'm a pretty big SNES guy, so getting another game beaten for it, which I haven't done in a long time, is always nice.

Anyways, since I'm done with Street Fighter II in general, I can say....it does show its age. Like it still holds up very well for its time, but the movements can be a little stiff for me. I see it the same as I would for Smash 64, where it's great for laying the foundation of the franchise (much better than Street Fighter 1 did that's for sure), but I'd probably prefer playing the later games in the series. Like I had more enjoyment playing the one 3rd Strike ranked match I did for a trophy than my entire time playing SFII on this 30th Anniversary Collection.

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Kenri
04/07/23 2:36:56 AM
#172:


OlliOlli (Steam)

Honestly I'm not sure how I feel about counting this as beaten when all I did was beat all the amateur stages, but there's no way I'm unlocking, much less beating, all the pro stages, so I'm done here. I liked this game at first but the more demanding it got the less I found myself tolerating the control scheme, to say nothing of how unresponsive those controls felt (the plot twist is gonna be that my Steam Deck's left analog stick is just broken or something but god I hope not).

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WhiteLens
04/08/23 12:20:11 AM
#173:


Hyper Street Fighter II: The Anniversary Edition (PS2)
Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike (PS2)

Looks like I wasn't done with SFII after all. Basically I did a quick run of each game on Street Fighter Anniversary Collection on PS2.

Hyper Street Fighter II is essentially Super Turbo but you're able to choose between any SFII version of the character.

The difficulty was a lot more fair for Super Turbo than I had to put up with in the arcade run, and I actually got Ryu's ending this time since I used Sagat on the arcade run to make things a little easier for me.

Then I did one run with 3rd Strike, to which I liked the gameplay much more than SF II.

Fatal Fury (PS2)

So moving to a completely different retro fighter, I did a run of Fatal Fury through Battle Archives Vol. 1 on PS2.

I honestly wasn't expecting this game to only have 3 buttons. It's just punch, kick, and throw. I was playing on Easy because I'm not that good at fighters and it was fine.....until I got to Geese Howard. Holy crap even on Easy, he took me so many tries! It wasn't until I finally found a pattern I could look out for to find an opening to attack him. Supposedly the trick is to spam throws on him, but the throws weren't connecting half the time, which kept leaving me open.

So as I was playing these games, I've come to the harsh reality that.....my PS2 is having hardware failures. It can actually read discs ok, but the problem is that it won't spin the discs, like the sensors don't detect that there's a disc once the cover is closed. However if I push down on the disc cover, it'll start reading the discs, so putting a book on top can help, but I don't know how long that'll help.

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F/GO: 271551102; FFBE: 886783216; LLSIFAS: 438166726
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WhiteLens
04/08/23 7:35:53 PM
#174:


Street Fighter Alpha: Warriors' Dreams (PS4)
Street Fighter Alpha 2 (PS4)
Street Fighter Alpha 3 (PS4)

All through the 30th Anniversary Collection as usual.

It was nice not to bash my head on the arcade modes even on the lower difficulty unlike the ones in SFII.

The Alpha games felt very nice to play, the combos felt like combos. But reading through the info of each game that's given in the collection, I think the Alpha games are a bit too technical for my liking.

The presentation I'm a little mixed on. The sprite work is great, but some of the portraits were a little uncanny for me. I guess it's fine since they are a bit of a prequel game, taking place in-between SF1 and 2.

You know, I played a decent amount of Marvel vs. Capcom back in the day, but not so much of the Alpha games, which is where the Street Fighter sprites come from.

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paperwarior
04/08/23 8:17:48 PM
#175:


Pokken Tournament DX (Switch)
Kingdra of the Aron Fist
This is actually a pretty fun arena-ish fighter. There's a lot to the characters, the assists and supers are cool, and single-player goes on for a while. The announcer is annoying even at minimum settings, but that's fine when the combat is so enjoyable.

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NBIceman
04/10/23 9:35:47 PM
#176:


Pandora's Tower (Wii)
Threw out a recommendation for this in the Wii U/3DS eShop topic a couple weeks back before it closed down after I'd gotten right up to the final boss, but then life got wild and I didn't actually finish it until Saturday.

The oft-overlooked third game from Operation Rainfall is a unique and pretty fascinating mashup of genres. I've seen it compared to Zelda a fair bit, which I think is a bit of a stretch - I'd liken it much more to a 3D Castlevania-style skeleton, though even before getting into the dating sim aspects, that's far from a perfect analogy.

You play as Aeron, a former soldier whose girlfriend Elena is suddenly afflicted by a curse that is slowly but surely turning her into a monster. Fleeing from civilization, the two are taken to an abandoned fortress made up of thirteen towers by a mysterious merchant woman who explains to them that each tower is ruled by giant beasts called Masters. If Aeron can defeat these Masters and bring their flesh back for Elena to consume, the curse should be lifted. In the meantime, bringing her flesh from other monsters roaming the towers can keep the curse at bay temporarily. So the basic gameplay loop is to gradually explore these towers, solving puzzles and fighting enemies, while periodically taking back flesh to the little Observatory they're using as a home base to keep Elena's curse from taking over. While you're there, you can interact with her in various ways to raise her affection, which eventually leads to one of multiple endings.

I would stop short of calling this an amazing game, but I can definitely say I've never played anything else quite like it, and I will always applaud games that are willing to make their game marginally less "fun" with some of their mechanics for the sake of promoting a specific feel and creating something more artistic. I don't want to get onto a soapbox here and turn this into an even longer essay, but there's some very strong theming going on in this game about living with someone who has a chronic illness or ailment. That's powerful stuff, and parts of it are really going to stick with me.

Honestly, if a magical genie granted me the ability to choose one video game in history to get a remake, I might pick Pandora's Tower. There's a lot present here that doesn't necessarily detract from the game, but could be improved dramatically with a little effort without having to change anything about the main concept. Graphics, for example - there's some amazing setpieces and very cool cinematic moments that are held back significantly by the limitations of the system. Add original music (the existing soundtrack is made up mostly of Western classical music with a little bit of remixing), expand interactions with Elena a bit, and iron out some of the minor camera issues and this would be something really special.

As it is, it's still memorable, and it's a shame that so many factors will have combined to ensure that it's completely lost to time for most gamers. This game came out after the Wii U did, and long after Operation Rainfall was any kind of hot topic. Now with the eShop closing, your only options to experience it are to shell out multiple hundreds of dollars for a physical copy or to emulate it, and I can't imagine either of those choices is going to appeal much to anyone that hasn't already played it.

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Underleveled
04/11/23 1:01:28 AM
#177:


NBIceman posted...
your only options to experience it are to shell out multiple hundreds of dollars for a physical copy
According to the value site I follow, the most recent loose copy on eBay sold for less than $60 so it's still possible to get lucky.

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darkx
Games beaten in 2023 - 3; Most recent - Aura-Aura Climber
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Kenri
04/11/23 2:05:46 AM
#178:


DOOM (2016, Steam)

What a good shooter. I do wish there was more variety later on -- the last couple levels don't have any new enemies and by that point I was pretty much settled on my Super Shotgun / Gauss Rifle combo, so it got a little repetitive. It was fun repetition, though.

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KCF0107
04/11/23 2:13:23 AM
#179:


The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog (PC)

As someone who is not a fan of the franchise, this was better than I expected. The isometric arcade/platforming challenges were I think great in theory, but I wish that I wasn't restricted to pure keyboard controls and could use the mouse to jump.

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KCF0107
04/12/23 12:55:08 AM
#180:


Smile For Me (PC)

A pretty compact and surreal adventure game that was solid throughout. I could not get the sensitivity to my liking so I had to abandon keyboard and mouse and use a controller, which still wasn't perfect but whatever.

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KCF can't actually be a real person but he is - greengravy
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KCF0107
04/12/23 12:57:22 AM
#181:


The Floor is Jelly (PC)

A challenging, serene, and ever-changing physics platformer that started to overstay its welcome toward the end despite being like a 2 hour game because the mechanics in the final two worlds were just aggrevating.

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KCF can't actually be a real person but he is - greengravy
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Simoun
04/12/23 5:51:09 AM
#182:


GRIME (PC)

I forgot I actually had this souls-like-vania so here we go. This game is great. I don't mind the clunkiness one bit and would put it above Salt and Sanctuary. Think of this game as a grotesque version of Hollow Knight. Everything is appropriately themed around body parts and organs and there's this whole caste system that I really love. The usual solemness of the game subsides about midway when I find out you're actually the harbinger of death and everything is suppose to die anyway which in all honesty would've been a neat tug were it not for everyone in this game being a complete asshole, children not included.

Like Hollow Knight, a portion of the game is dedicated to platforming but unlike Hollow Knight the platforming at parts is insane. Gated behind eq and items sure, but a mandatory gauntlet right at the end just to pad the game? Idk about that. Basically imagine a slightly easier version of the optional gauntlet (the white palace) from Hollow Knight, but there's like 5 of them spread across the map. So when I say slightly easier I mean "still insane but not crazy insane". Some of them don't even have great rewards and just amount to some pithy collectibles. I have no problem with it but maybe some people do. This is also the first game I know where Double Jump is the final upgrade you acquire which is just insane.

If you're just after the plot, you might accidentally end it too soon. For the beauty of this game is actually backtracking and exploring whichever way. Because of the inane map system where you have to find a pylon to unlock the map of that area, until that happens you will get lost alot. And you will find secrets. I actually for once did not use a map here and just took it all in. By game's finish I found out I actually missed 3 bosses but at that point just didn't care. Most of the backtrack rewards aren't worth it but it's just that I wanted to see more of the world and that was enough for me. This game also has some of the easiest boss battles I've seen in a souls-like. Perhaps a bit on the forgiving side. But at least the bosses aren't cheap or annoying. They do have predictably slow movesets and rarely a weird timing window, but for the most of it they've been enjoyably unique.

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SpoinkRulezz
04/12/23 12:19:54 PM
#183:


Ghost of Tsushima (PS5)

Beat the game and did everything I could from the main game! I haven't played the DLC yet, but I most likely will do that soon.

This is a game that I've had a vague interest in but never bought. When I saw it included in the PS Plus Extra selection, I thought it was a great opportunity to try it, especially since I almost never play modern games multiple times anyway and it's very expensive. So I got it from the catalogue to try it out and I got absolutely hooked. It's in many ways another very formulaic open world game, but this one for some reason clicked (maybe it helped that I hadn't played one for a while). I think it also helps that the PS5 just lets you jump into a game in about 2 seconds.

I really loved this game. It was just very chill to play, even if on normal difficulty it became very easy at some point with everything you have at your disposal. I really enjoyed the story and characters for an open world game as well and the ending was quite beautiful.

I did sometimes find the controls to have a bit of clunk to them and there were some glitches/bugs, but nothing really major. I did personally find Act 3 a little weaker than the other two. Maybe it's just me, but the final mission from act 3 kind of disappointed me as well. Nevertheless, those gripes are still fairly small. Overall, I enjoyed this game a whole lot for 56 hours, probably 60 when I'm done with Iki Island.

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Currently playing - Octopath Traveler II (NS), Ghost of Tsushima (PS5)
InSIGnificant mesSIGe
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paperwarior
04/12/23 9:39:30 PM
#184:


Bloody Spell (PC)
A very janky Chinese Ninja Gaiden clone. It's fun to laugh at the machine translation and other weirdness, but everything works decently well at this point. I'd hesitate to call it 1.0 when it's not even got all the text translated, but it still seems to be getting updates as the developer's Minecraft avatar assures your character in a white void, right after you defeat the final boss.

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"God Hand is the ultimate expression of the joy of humanity, specifically the punching part of the joy of humanity."-Shigeru Miyamoto
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Arti
04/15/23 6:05:54 PM
#185:


Demon Slayer -Kimetsu no Yaiba- The Hinokami Chronicles (PS5)

I've never watched Demon Slayer.

But maybe I will now.

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Arti
04/16/23 1:57:47 AM
#186:


Where the Water Tastes Like Wine (PS4)

This game has you control someone traveling through the entirety of the US sometime in the early 20th century, collecting stories and then telling them to various characters at campfires. Each one of the 16th named characters has a separate story to tell, and all of them are fully voiced. Even has a random appearance by Sting, who voices one of the game's characters. The game is rather short - even with the slow walking speed you'll probably be finished around or before the fifteen hour mark, with another five cleaning up any loose stories lying around. (My PS5 said I finished the story at the eleven hour mark, but I had 30+ stories left to find.)

One thing I would have liked to see is how the stories evolved throughout the game - it just tells you that the story changed to another one, but not really saying how the story changed. There's also some annoying bugs where stories fail to appear. I managed to get around that by simply reloading the game, but it seems to have affected many people on the Steam and PSN copies. As for the visuals and music, they are some of the best I've seen in an indie game, and I'm probably going to nominate a few tracks when VGMC starts up in a few days.

It's a shame that the creator said that the game was a commercial failure, so we probably won't see another game like this one from him. I did enjoy it though!

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Underleveled
04/16/23 8:49:42 AM
#187:


Pushmo (3DS)

Another late eShop purchase for me. I can't believe I sat on this series for so long! It's so fun and addicting (and cute)! I beat every main game puzzle but haven't done the bonus puzzles yet. Will probably do some of those after I finish the series. Nintendo should continue or port this series to the Switch, they really should.

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darkx
Games beaten in 2023 - 4; Most recent - Pushmo
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WhiteLens
04/16/23 5:51:03 PM
#188:


Street Fighter III: New Generation (PS4)
Street Fighter III: 2nd Impact - Giant Attack (PS4)
Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike - Fight for the Future (PS4)

Got done with the set of SFIII arcades on 30th Anni Collection. It's probably commonly known by now, but the animations on this game are really slick. The gameplay is quite fun too. I also love the general hip-hop style of it.

The one BS thing about SFIII is Gil. He's the final boss in the arcades and if you K.O. when his special bar is full, he resurrects himself potentially at full health. And that's not taking into account the other cheap stuff that boss characters are known to have in fighting games.

While it's not surprising that the first two versions of SFIII aren't talked about much since 3rd Strike makes them obsolete, they do have some of their own unique things. New Generation has some stages with transitions in-between rounds, which is neat. The first two versions also build on the victory screen that SFII had where the losing fighter is shown with their face all bloody and beaten up and the winning fighter says a victory line. Only this time it's their whole bodies shown. It hilariously made some characters look psychopathic with them smiling and doing a victory pose over a character that's all bloodied and tattered with a look of despair. I'm not too surprised that they took that out in 3rd Strike.

A bit of a shame that the console releases for SFIII didn't get much attention, but that's probably because during the PS2/GCN/Xbox/Dreamcast era most people moved to 3D Fighters. Not to mention that the roster being mostly original characters may have put people off.

And with that, I'm all done with all the arcades in the Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection. It seemed like people really complained about this collection, but I didn't have much problems with it. But one issue I had had was that whenever you paused, when you unpause the controls suddenly didn't respond. Like the inputs reset itself even if you were already holding down a direction, which can be a problem if you're trying to block an attack.

I guess the problem is mostly with online, which I didn't really do too much on.

Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix (PS3)

Alright, looks like I wasn't quite done with Street Fighter II yet. All the Street Fighter I've been playing lately as a bit of a prep for SF6 has gotten me to finally check this game out that I had on my PS3 for a really long time.
I have to say....I'm not too impressed with this version. At its core, the gameplay is still SFII and you have the option to make the gameplay just like Super Turbo, so that part isn't bad. But the redrawn sprites are rather uncanny. They look like something out of indie fighter, which in of itself isn't a bad thing, but not something I'd want out of Street Fighter, and it makes the animations look choppy. And the a lot of the remixed music aren't that great.

However one thing I did like about it were the re-done endings. I think most of them are their SFII endings done in a new way, except for Ryu's. His is completely different and it actually feels like a follow-up to Alpha.
I also like how they brought back Guile's old Sonic Boom voice clip. If there's one change I really didn't like in Super SFII, it's how they changed Guile's voice. The way he said Sonic Boom in those games really sucked. It's like they took the new announcer and just had him read the words, Sonic Boom. It sounded terrible.

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FFXIV - Faerie Server: https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/character/5086952/
F/GO: 271551102; FFBE: 886783216; LLSIFAS: 438166726
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Anagram
04/19/23 11:36:53 AM
#189:


Fire Emblem: Engage: Fell Xenologue DLC
Good premise for gameplay, bad everything else.


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Not changing this sig until I decide to change this sig.
Started: July 6, 2005
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paperwarior
04/19/23 11:43:35 AM
#190:


Lone Fungus (PC)
I started out enjoying this a lot. Then as I unlocked more abilities it got worse. There are just too many buttons involved in technical precision platforming here, including at least two face buttons and every shoulder button in default settings, and hitting the wrong one even once or missing the timing can throw you right back to the beginning of a long, demanding section. There are similar problems with clarity and navigation, but no worse than other games in this genre I suppose.

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"God Hand is the ultimate expression of the joy of humanity, specifically the punching part of the joy of humanity."-Shigeru Miyamoto
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TomNook7
04/19/23 11:12:53 PM
#191:


Final Fantasy (NES)

I know it makes no sense seeing how the pixel remaster just came out, but i really wanted to play the original release on original hardware on a CRT television, just to say i did

That said this game is hilariously broken. Half the spells dont work, getting poisoned rearranges your entire party for some reason, and man you have to buy items one at a time. It would take me 2 minutes straight of mashing the A button on an nes controller to get 99 heals

But i did it


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I'm the original TomNook7 from the old days. The other guy is just TomNook. Know your TomNooks.
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paperwarior
04/20/23 1:05:08 AM
#192:


I beat FF1 on original hardware too. It's really an experience.

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"God Hand is the ultimate expression of the joy of humanity, specifically the punching part of the joy of humanity."-Shigeru Miyamoto
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Anagram
04/21/23 12:44:10 AM
#193:


Resident Evil 4 Remake
I have a lot of thoughts on this game, but I guess I'll sum them as just "not quite as good as the original, but still good."

---
Not changing this sig until I decide to change this sig.
Started: July 6, 2005
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KCF0107
04/24/23 1:58:32 AM
#194:


DOOM Eternal (XS/X)

I talked about this every time I spoke about the game, but a very fun game with a poor ammo economy that arbitrarily reduced ammo from the 2016 reboot by a considerable amount.

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KCF can't actually be a real person but he is - greengravy
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Kenri
04/26/23 3:02:50 AM
#195:


Quake (Steam) and all its expansions

So, first time playing this and I know it's the darling of the OT3 boomer shooter trio (Wolf3D/Doom/Quake) but honestly my first impression was not super positive. My love for Wolf3D is definitely partly nostalgia but I finished Quake with the distinct impression that I liked Wolf3D more.

But... then I played the expansions.

Scourge of Armagon and Dissolution of Eternity are just good as hell extra campaigns that add new weapons, new enemies, and some much more interesting maps. It ruins the game balance slightly because it gives you a rocket launcher that shoots like 5 rockets at once which 1-2 hits basically everything but that's fun! It's fun to just be able to kill stuff without it being a huge slog.

Then I played Dimension of the Past, which is probably the worst expansion. It's still good but it dials back all the additions from Armagon and Eternity, and it's extremely stingy with ammo so you really have to play conservatively.

Then I finished it off with Dimension of the Machine, which unfortunately still doesn't bring back the enemy/weapon variety but does keep things fresh by introducing a hub world with 5 mini-episodes you can tackle in any order. Each episode is two fairly lengthy missions long and they take place in really cool, unique locales and have some of the most hectic firefights in the series. Really good expansion to end things off with.

So overall I loved this game and you can tell because I basically marathoned all 20-some hours of it in less than a week lmao

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Congrats to BKSheikah, who knows more about years than anyone else.
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paperwarior
04/26/23 2:28:12 PM
#196:


Teslagrad 2 (Switch)
If you played the first one, this fits into much the same mold, a hybrid of Metroidvania and Limbo-esque puzzle platformer. A quick rundown- There are some really fun movement abilities, boss fights can be rather fiddly, and for a game shadow-dropped in a Nintendo Direct, it runs disastrously poorly on Switch. Framerate problems are ubiquitous in modern games, but they're always particularly unfortunate in games where you can speed through the game world, making the problem worse by requiring faster loading.

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"God Hand is the ultimate expression of the joy of humanity, specifically the punching part of the joy of humanity."-Shigeru Miyamoto
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KCF0107
04/27/23 4:30:53 AM
#197:


If Found...(PC)

I don't know, this is a weird one to evaluate. I really liked the presentation, but I found the mechanics of moving on with a scene to be tedious at best. I really did not like it when they wanted me to move the screen around and try to guess just what the hell they wanted me to do exactly since it changes and is seldom intuitive. I probably should have checked with their settings to see if there was an accessibility option relating to this, but the non-eraser cursor was shockingly small and in many cases dull to where I struggled to locate it. I can't be the only one who experienced that. It was more of an issue with menu-based stuff, but I found that odd and frustrating.

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KCF can't actually be a real person but he is - greengravy
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JonThePenguin
04/27/23 12:38:52 PM
#198:


Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster
Fun game!

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JonThePenguin
http://www.backloggery.com/main.php?user=erunion
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Kenri
04/27/23 3:06:47 PM
#199:


KCF0107 posted...
I found the mechanics of moving on with a scene to be tedious at best. I really did not like it when they wanted me to move the screen around and try to guess just what the hell they wanted me to do exactly since it changes and is seldom intuitive.
I can definitely agree with all this. I liked the game but I only really tolerated these kinds of issues because I liked everything else.

There are a few cute little touches like the eraser cursor getting smaller the more you use it but overall I think it just padded the game out unnecessarily.

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Congrats to BKSheikah, who knows more about years than anyone else.
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Kenri
04/30/23 4:02:29 AM
#200:


Turok: Dinosaur Hunter (Steam)

I loved Turok 2 on N64 as a kid but never beat it. First time playing this one and... it kinda sucks! Definitely the worst FPS I've played in my recent FPS spree.

I do appreciate that you start out fighting dinosaurs and dudes with guns but by the end of the game you're just straight up fighting dinosaurs with guns.

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NBIceman
04/30/23 4:47:09 PM
#201:


Time Stalkers (Dreamcast)
A fascinating relic of my childhood, this bizarre roguelike-esque... thing is quite possibly the first RPG I ever played. Almost definitely the first non-Pokemon RPG, anyway, and it definitely may have even predated my initial foray into that series.

This isn't a great game or maybe even a good one, but I think I'd probably stop short of calling it actively bad. There's some cool ideas present, but it all just kind of feels unfinished. The story and world, for example, have some isekai elements and almost seem at times to be something of a meta commentary on fantasy adventure tales about 15-20 years before that sort of thing became popular, but it really doesn't get a whole lot of time to develop fully and so a lot of the bigger beats end up falling flat. The characters hardly interact with each other, considering most of them aren't even around for the majority of the game, but they have some fun banter on the rare occasions that they do. And then there's the gameplay, which includes such things as randomly-generated dungeon floors and a monster capturing-and-training system, but is ultimately pretty badly balanced and repetitive. Even the entire concept of the game - a big crossover between the characters and worlds from Climax Entertainment's (the developers of Shining Force, most significantly) prior games - was a fairly novel idea for the time, but the aforementioned narrative problems kind of put a ceiling on how cool it ends up being.

If nothing else, though, this was an RPG on a system that was pretty famously starved of the genre aside from the few pretty obvious exceptions. And with it being such a formative game for me in some ways (RPGs are by far my favorite genre now), I'm glad I finally went back and finished it. Doubt I'll ever put the disc into my Dreamcast again, but that's okay.

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Chilly McFreeze
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