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

(+) Yeah! (+)

Zapling Bygone (Steam)

Okay so, I played it nonstop for 3 and a half hours until I had beaten it, so clearly I was enjoying myself a lot. That said, it's hard to shake the feeling that this is just Worse Hollow Knight.

one night, hot springs (Steam)

This is a very quick one (especially if you read fast). I got both endings that involve heart to hearts with the other characters and it only took me 36 minutes total.

This game definitely makes me wish I had stayed at a hot spring when I visited Japan last month, but at least I went to one on my first visit back in 2015, before I had a tattoo (uh, not to mention before I was trans -- if this game is to be believed maybe they'd be cool with that, but color me unconvinced). I was with family this past time anyway and a public bath was probably a hard no from them regardless, so no big loss I guess. Anyway the game is cute and made me tear up at one point, and IIRC it's free. Can't ask for much more.

Wo Long: Battle of Zhongyuan (DLC) (PS5)
For the most part, a bit more of Wo Long, not too extensive or too brief. The patch brings some rather nice QoL features like tracked collectibles, and the new fist weapons are fun. I only got annoyed on the final optional stage, but ultimately it was about buckling down, trying different spell loadouts, and practicing.

Transiruby (Demo) (PC)
Seems cool. I went ahead and bought the full game.

Transiruby (PC)
Yeah, it's good. Kind of an easy Metroidvania but reminds me of the supremely chill Islets from a while back. Still collecting, not sure if I'll care to do speedruns/no death.

Lone Fungus (Steam)

Another Hollow Knight clone. In some ways this is the most Hollow-Knight-fangame of all of them, but in other ways it's the only one that has, like... any actual identity of its own at all. It's a lot more meaty than most recent metroidvanias - a normal playthrough is like 10-15 hrs and it took me 19 to 100% complete it (not getting all achievements though). There are a lot of fairly difficult platforming challenges but they're generally self-contained and optional, and I did all of them even though the rewards are. Bad. I imagine your enjoyment of the game will depend a lot on whether juggling six different movement techniques while pogoing off spikes for absolutely zero reward sounds like a good time to you or not. I am usually not that person but it clicked here. Definitely worth a look if you're a metroidvania fan!

Dead or Alive (Saturn)

Never played the original. It was a fun game, more of a 2D game in 3D (Unless I am doing something wrong lol) but still fun.

Only beat it once, but that was tough enough for me.

Friday the 13th: Killer Puzzle (PS4)

A spinoff of the good puzzle title Slayaway Camp, this one has you sliding Jason Voorhees through a number of puzzles where his goal is to kill everyone in each puzzle. There's a total of 13 chapters and a daily puzzle section, so it's a good amount of content. Sadly the developers couldn't renew the license to the game, so it's delisted everywhere - which is unfortunate, as some of the puzzles are very well constructed.

Streets of Rogue

Picked up for $5 on steam to play with my friend, having an absolute blast with it.

Sonic Spinball (GEN)

I think this is the first console game I ever owned. As with the other SNES/Genesis/etc era games I've beaten recently, I used a bunch of save states to finally finish this -- but hey, it's been 25+ years that I've owned this game. Time to wrap it up, however imperfectly, and move on.

I have a lot of affection for this game but it kinda sucks. The pinball doesn't feel very pinbally and the Sonic doesn't feel very Sonicy. It's very hard to make the ball do what you want, to say nothing of trying to control Sonic in the rare sections where he's not being a pinball. Dishonorable mention to the bonus, "realistic" pinball, stages, which are maybe the least satisfying pinball facsimiles ever made. On the bright side this game has some wicked boss designs and the soundtrack still slaps 30 years later.

Master Detective Archives: Rain Code
Wouldn't really recommend it.

Mortal Kombat (SNES)

Maybe it was because I was playing the SNES version but this game is ROUGH. The controls are janky as hell. Even on the easiest difficulty it still felt like the AI cheats you. And the worst of it are the 3 Endurance Fights where you have to fight two characters back-to-back in a single round, and you still have to win 2 rounds to proceed.

I think I'd recommend the arcade version for anyone wanting to play this unless they're an SNES aficionado like me or they want to try it on Sega Genesis. That said, I wouldn't say this game stacks up well to other fighting games on SNES, but thankfully the sequels seem a lot more well liked.

Baldur's Gate II
I've beaten this game many times before; I try to play it about once per year. This time, I went Kensai/Thief. Very fun.

Neonscape
Eh.

SpoinkRulezz posted...

Agreed. Love 4. I never get why people rag on its issues whereas both 2 and 3 have real issues themselves. 4 is big, Cossack's castle is unique, its soundtrack has its own identity and is more layered than the other NES titles, it gives you options with a great variety of good weapons (people complain about the Mega Buster but 5 and 6 literally have OP busters but not great RM weapons unlike 4, especially 5). It could do with slightly tougher Robot Masters and platforming, but in the same vein the others lack a lot of stuff as well.

I think people like to rag on the buster because 4 is literally the first game where they invented the charge and all these 2/3 purists are just butthurt in the same way that Resident Evil purists were so against the nixing of Camera Angles in the remakes.

Toad Man, dum as he is, still had an amazing level and a wonderful track. I can't hate his boss fight for the life of me. And they redeemed him for me when they made him extra tough in Battle Network. And yes I love Cossack's domain and how distinct it is. In the future games, they just went with the 2-fort format because 4 did it.

lost bits (PC)

It appeared on my Steam discovery queue, looked interesting, and it was free, so I thought why not. It's a solid and simple action/platformer. The intro level wasn't promising, but the others were good.

Phoenotopia: Awakening (PC)

Has anyone played this game? Or did I just miss this during the hype? Because it's so good. Play this now, everyone. Did you know this began as a Newgrounds game? Man, I gotta play that too someday.

When I first started this game, it sort of sat on my Desktop for months I think. At that point I was getting burned out from playing all the 2d Platformer Adventure games and thought this was no different, that I would finish it easily in 2 days or something. I had no idea this was a Zelda clone, and a very faithful one at that while its dna is distinct make no mistake this game stands strongly on its own. To get things out of the way first, when you load this game for the first time, please please please use the easiest or 2nd easiest difficulty setting. When the 1.0 of this game first came out, it had stupid Soulslike mechanics that were absolutely not needed here. Normal attacks used stamina, money was very scarce, and you didn't flinch so normal enemies could combo you. Fix all that first please, and don't feel like a sissy for doing it. This game was not meant to be a Soulsclone.

Anyways with that out of the way, where do I even start? As some might remember, I held Iconoclasts in very high regard. It had a great story and wasn't afraid to not pull punches and take the plot into weird directions. It also had great worldbuilding, music, and mysteries to solve. But it was also pretty linear despite having secret bosses that required massive backtracking and little else going for it. For all its flaws, it was charming enough of a feat to be made by a sole dev. Why do I bring this game up? Because Phoenotopia: Awakening is like if the Iconoclast dev actually had a team. It is everything Iconoclasts is, but better. Open Worlds, a shitton of collectibles, secrets abound, a lived-in universe, amazing worldbuilding, great bosses, and a spectrum of great music.

The game is set in a post-apocalyptic world, but fast forwarded a few centuries that the world has now revolved back into medieval fantasy with a few touches to science here and there. Here, the world we currently live in is literally a relic of the past and so there are ruins of modern cities your character can delve in and explore and like, these places always felt so soulless and empty, not unlike everything else in this game. Every character has something interesting to say and many states in which they will continue saying something else. Every side activity doesn't feel like its own quest or a list that needs checking. And every city and town has its own thing going on and in fact you do not get to see the entire world. The fact that alot of things remain out of our reach just intrigues me to dream and expect that this game could do alot of other things. Its just asking for a sequel.

Just to give you guys a taste of how much the devs love this game; sometime later you meet a fortune teller who will give you a riddle on literally EVERY collectible in the game. There's about 110 of them and the fortune teller has a riddle for every single one. Absolutely insane. And they're all fiendish as well, requiring you to talk to people and actually know where things are. I was surprised to be halfway into the plot and finding out I've missed around 10 heart containers already!

This game is challenging too and I must say prone to backtracking because of all the collectibles and quests. However I will say I didn't really truly feel the backtracking as padding or boring because of how healing is tied to cooking which you will need ingredients for which is found by exploring. This constant need to eat to heal while you're exploring uncharted territory gives you a sort of satisfying feedback loop. And you can truly feel the leg of your journeys as unlocking shortcuts between them are not only few and far in between but absolutely thematic and logical like I just discovered a shortcut from one dungeon to another which leads back to another town, and despite me never using that place ever again felt like it was great that it was there. There are about 4-5 secret dungeons for every main dungeon that you find and it all serves to increase the idea that you're living in an actual world that's had a history and such.

Finally, I also like how unlike Iconoclasts, this game's plot has harnessed cynicism and tragedy into a more colorful motif that goes beyond hopelessness and despair. I don't want to reveal much on the actual threat of this game but it really tests the character's wills and gives things a more idealistic bent no matter how dire the circumstance. I am reminded of Ashen and how it compares to Dark Souls.

After the disaster that was Curse of the Sea Rats and Siberia 3, I am finally blessed with a hidden good gem. My best game so far this year and probably going into my personal top 10. Here's hoping for a sequel.

Heck yes, Phoenotopia: Awakening is amazing. Definitely a hidden gem. It's just a shame that they've all but said "we're not making a sequel, the game didn't sell enough" because yeah, it desperately wants a sequel.

Majotori

I still haven't finished Tears of the Kingdom which I started on launch day but since the steam sale came about I picked up this singleplayer trivia title which I'd been recommended before. It's highly replayable but a single run can be completed in one sitting. It's got quite a nice selection of trivia which is integrated into stories which have a random outcome influenced by how many questions you get wrong and right each round which I found to be a quite fun way of doing it. My only complaint is the unusually large volume of anime questions (categories frequency can be adjusted in the settings, but they fall into a general animation category which covers other things) which 95% of the time I know nothing about.

Yeah I would have liked Majotori way more if it had more general knowledge questions and less about anime and Marvel films.

Baldur's Gate
I replayed the first game. I wasn't exactly speedrunning it (which takes like 2-3 hours), but I did sort of rush it, so it took 10~ hours instead of the 30~ hours it takes for a full clear.

WarioWare: Touched!

Finally did some funny and absolutely legitimate business with my 3DS yesterday so probably gonna be checking out some more stuff on there in the near future. This one was a replay but I don't recall if I ever previously bothered to go for the high scores on all the stages/toys to try and unlock everything like I did this time (have yet to go for the high scores on the individual minigames). I played this game with a mouse before and wondered if some of the trickier feeling minigames would be any different with an actual stylus and touch screen, and my conclusion is "not that much". The blowing into the mic minigames are a tad more straining when you're doing that for real though.

Cassette Beasts (XS/X)

I didn't take full advantage of what the game offered, but this was a nice twist to the creature collecting RPG genre.

Kenri posted...

Heck yes, Phoenotopia: Awakening is amazing. Definitely a hidden gem. It's just a shame that they've all but said "we're not making a sequel, the game didn't sell enough" because yeah, it desperately wants a sequel.

Nooooo daym. I thought for sure it was getting one. This is so criminal.

In between my boardgaming hobby and my new job, I'm just beating less games this year because my PC is due for an OS upgrade (I'm still on 7). As such, I am just trying to beat my current backlog and not finding new things to play.

Also DRG is still addicting as hell and suits my current purposes.

Kenri posted...

I saw someone post on the Steam forums about how some of the changes made it feel like easy mode, but that they took that as a sign to finally just beat the damn game and put it behind them. I think I concur.

I felt the same way about the Spyro trilogy when they mapped the right stick to the mouse, which trivialized most of the challenges in this game. And this will probably be what I will feel when I eventually try to beat Turok 2

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (Switch)

I finally beat the game today. I have been playing since the game released.
I did every Shrine. I genuinely loved it. I wasn't gonna pull off what I did to Breath of the Wild like I did years ago by putting it off for a few years and eventually going back to beat it before Tears of the Kingdom released. I saw this game through to the very end and I'm happy I stuck with it.
It's a Top Tier Zelda game.

Abathor - Atlantis Landing Demo
Not counting this as finished, because I accidentally quit the demo and lost my progress. Basically an indie Golden Axe clone. Will probably buy the full game.

Abathor - Atlantis Landing Demo
Eh, I went back and finished the demo anyway. Little annoyed where it ends: just before the second boss. I feel strongly that it should have ended after the boss. Fun game, though.

Donkey Long Land
I like how different it was from DKC, except needing to collect the KONG letters to save after a level is BS.

WarioWare Gold

Figured I'd keep it going with another kinda-replay. This one's mostly rehashed minigames from earlier titles but it can be seen as an updated way to experience any that you missed. The high score goals for each stage feel a lot harder in this than for any of the previous games though, but since all the extras are now unlocked with coins that you can grind by playing any mode they're more of an extra thing than anything (even if they do help you get those coins faster).

Goldeneye: 007 (XS/X)

I was going in thinking that I was going to think much less of it than when I last played it maybe in the 00s. This is still a very good FPS, even though some of the levels are too frustrating due to some really stringent requirements/failstates and when there are endless enemies when you can deplete ammo like crazy. Frigate has always been and still is my favorite.

I've owned Goldeneye since around when it came out and never made much progress at all in it. Someday I'll beat it, maybe.

Simoun posted...

Phoenotopia: Awakening (PC)

Has anyone played this game? Or did I just miss this during the hype?

Played but did not finish. Got stuck a couple times because the game's tricky without a guide, and then I just grew apathetic when I finally hit a dungeon crawl and didn't feel like doing all the puzzle solving. Wasn't really sold on the gameplay, tbh.

Alwa's Legacy

Sprite-art metroidvania. Cute. Mostly pretty good. Very open-ended until you realize how you can't actually do anything in the dungeons that you aren't supposed to be in yet. About 8 hours to beat.

Epistory: Typing Chronicles

Got to the end of this one and stopped a while ago, but finally returned and finished. As far as typing games go, I guess it's pretty good. Some jank. Map navigation is annoying at times.

Journey (PS4)

I thought that I went through most of the game with the same person, but I apparently had my companion switched at some point, and I never realized it.

Ord. (PS4)

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/80512944

Ord. is a very simple game told in three word passages; the game chooses the first word, you choose between two words for the second, and the game replies with another word. No graphics otherwise, and limited sound effects. There are five stories included in Ord., each with a number of endings and trophies to collect from each. The format leads to some pretty funny reactions and also some bizarre ones like the main character testing a guillotine by cutting off their head. While most of the game's endings are pretty simple to get via trial and error, a guide is probably needed to get some of the trophies in the game, plus hoping the RNG gives you some of the events needed to unlock all the trophies.

Ninja Commando (PC)

I've been playing several old SNK games lately trying to see what's mediocre and what sticks. This is one of the few that stuck, and despite the sometimes terrible boss fights, I got through it.

Icewind Dale
I beat this once like fifteen years ago, and remembered nothing. Clearly inferior to Baldur's Gate in every way, but not bad.

Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc (PS4)

Still one of the most disappointing and complete misfire of a game that I've played

Oddworld: Soulstorm (PC)

The oldest game on my PC. I got it on release back in 2021 and just forgot about it after a quarter in. 2021 was a bad year for me as I focused on work and clawing my life back. One of the main reasons I didn't get back to this sooner was just the entire idea of me playing what is essentially an escort mission to get 100% So I put it off for a LONG time.

Anyways, I enjoyed it. I enjoyed that I managed to live long enough to see Oddworld Inhabitants was finally able to tell the story it always wanted to tell. Abe's Exoddus being one of my all time favorite games, I enjoyed this retelling in the true spirit of things. And I also enjoy this whole idea of an uncompromising publisher who went dark, came back, and proceeded to revitalize itself via its properties. Will we see its promised lineup of games claimed all the way back in the early 2000s? I don't really know, but for me this is enough at least and it can only get better from here.

That said, I know I entered this game without expectations but I felt like it wasn't without some issues. Pacing was a problem; some easy levels nestled between some fiendishly hard ones. Locations that appeared early on in Exoddus appeared much later in Soulstorm sure storywise it made sense but the difficulty too? It made me think that the levels were intended much earlier but just shuffled around later to tell the proper story. Also those early levels showcased alot more mechanics and sights to see than the simplicity of those later ones.

I also don't know if this is my controller being mediocre but I didn't particularly like the aiming and there is so so much aiming in this game. You wouldn't think a game like this required such precision but often times I found myself lopping molotovs just slightly over a Slig's head before being gunned down because my right stick wasn't sensitive enough. I only found out late that you can lob shit whilst hanging from a ledge which trivialized certain things but the game doesn't tell you this and previous Abe games didn't let you do this either.

But by far my biggest gripe was the extra emphasis on combat in this game. Well, I primarliy saw this game as a puzzler with the occasional schadenfraude of possessing a slig and going to town with it. That's fine. What I didn't expect was entire escort missions where you had to stop a bunch of sligs from open firing at hundreds of your fellow escapees. It gets tedious especially for that sweet 80% escape rate to unlock the good ending (and that 100% rate to unlock the secret end scene). And like, it would've been fine if it was just a one off, but there were 2 levels of this. And a third where there was nothing BUT this. A level segregated into 10 waves of this. It's ridiculous.

Congruent to this, the non-combat parts of the game were either simplified puzzle-wise or just an excuse to take in the sights and do some light combat. If you weren't running around huge stretches observing the background and foreground, you were dealing with the one or two levers needed to pass the challenge. Stealth was now a bigger part of this game and thankfully was not annoying because of the dumb Mudokon AI, but because there's just so much stealth. So much gathering mats and crafting them and dealing with the same challenges over and over. It didn't bother me so much until the penultimate level where you had to go through 12 missions of the same type. What kept me going was the plot.

One other thing that bothered me was the save system. Idk if this has been patched but for awhile, the next level refused to load and I was eventually forced to hunt down a save file to save my sanity. The levels are also VERY long most of them clocking at least an hour if your intent is to save all the Mudokons. Which would be fine, if there wasn't a bug that messed with your last saved checkpoint, taking you instead to one from the previous level. There is no ingame save and only a level select. And there is no profiles so you can't start a new game without deleting your entire progress. I must say these design choices are certainly Odd.

As a retelling, it works. It actually makes alot more sense now and I hear that this was always the original intent. A bit sad that some levels got shortened or trivialized but if it was all to sacrifice for the retelling then I don't mind as much. I also like the change in characterization. Delving a bit into spoiler territory here, Abe here was not a terrorist but a ghost, and the reason why his exploits were mostly undetectable was because the Glukkons never perceived that there could be an uprising. Up until the finale. The plot was centralized more on Abe finding himself and coming into his own as the savior of his own people though I'll admit that arc was as eventful as a molehill---Abe doesn't really gather the courage he just sort of keeps chugging along doing what people have tasked of him. Truly Abe in this game felt even more flat than he was in Exoddus and that's saying something.

But yeah anyways, glad to finally knock this one out. 7/10

Oh yeah one more thing, I really really hate that this game has crappy Mouse KB Controls. Non-existent essentially. If I could play this game with a mouse for aiming, I probably wouldn't complain so much about the sensitive controller aiming.

Cats Hidden in Paris
Highly recommend this game if you want something that's 5 minutes long.

Crypt of the Necrodancer (Switch)

I had this game on the backburner for a long time. Made it to Zone 4 and stopped playing while I moved onto something else in my backlog.
3 years later, I came back to it. I finally beat the game with Cadence and Melody.
I dunno if I'll be good enough to beat the game playing as Aria.
Taking a lot of breaks from this game helped in the long run and the practice modes to practice on enemies/bosses also helped big time.
I'm satisfied with what I set out to do and that's all that matters to me.

FUR Squadron (PC)

This was a very fun and short legally distinct Star Fox game!

GOGZero posted...

I dunno if I'll be good enough to beat the game playing as Aria.

Aria mode is one of the most ridiculous challenges I've ever seen in a game. I barely even tried; I just knew I'd never be able to do it.

Purrfectly Hidden Cats: Kittenwood
The same game as before, basically, but harder.

Theatrhythm Final Fantasy Final Bar Line (Quest Mode)
I didn't expect to, but I cleared all the quests for the main game. A good variety of challenges there, from setting loadouts to overcome durable bosses, to playing the rhythm game itself to certain standards of accuracy.

Castlevania: Circle of the Moon (Switch - Advance Collection)
I beat the game! Second time beating it, first time was on an emulator. This was definitely a much better experience now. Some design choices were questionable though, such as every equippable being locked behind RNG drops that have very low rates. The DSS system is quite fun to experiment with, but it's just too inaccessible. Also, while I love the amount of Health/Magic/Heart upgrades that are found while exploring, they really should have mixed it up with DSS cards and armor as rewards.

But still, really fun Castlevania game. Great soundtrack as well.

Oh right, never did put this one down

Mass Effect (Steam)
Got the Legendary Edition when we had that huge sale, had a moment where I could barely play it but finally finished it back on Friday. Second time through so not much to comment, when I get to it it will be my first time in 3 though.

High On Life (PC - Xbox Pass)

I don't watch Rick and Morty, but this game was a lot of fun. It was very funny at times too, however I waited around to hear most of the comments....and that took forever lol, wasn't worth it half the time, but my OCD kicks in. Some of the jokes went a little too far. It isn't a kids game lol

The actual gameplay was really good and the environments were great. I don't think the desert biomes was used enough and the forest area was used too much. But overall it was fun.

The story was also captivating lol. I thought there was going to be a twist at the end due to some things that happened but there wasn't...except for the one but you saw that coming a mile away

I don't think knifey was used enough, he was hilarious but wasn't featured through most of the game.

There was SO MUCH little bits of stuff to wait around and listen too, some was actually great and worth the time. But it was also hit and miss. I really like the fact that there were 4 full movies hidden in the game. Shame you had to watch 2 of them at certain points or they were gone forever (Though I honestly didn't check post game if that changed...I think it just stayed with the third one)

I was also hoping for that intro game to be fleshed out more lol

Anywho, it was overall a good refreshing game! I liked it a lot.
It's kinda short? but if you listen to everything .... its really really long.

I'd play a sequel

Edit - Oh right, I played this game on max settings in 4k. It was IMO one of the best looking 3D games I've played.

Metal Slug (PC)

I've played a couple of the sequels, and I think that they are more interesting than this, but it's still a fun hour.

Kizuna Encounter: Super Tag Battle (PC)

Stands out more than most 90s fighters that I've played. I chose two fighters that looked like they could be fun, and they ended up being my favorites from the roster. It is unfortunate that this follows the trend of ending the arcade or whatever mode on a very poor note with an infuriating final fight.