Games Beaten 2020

[Note]

This is an interesting perspective from a newcomer, as someone who grew up with castlevania on the NES, CV4 was amazing because of how fluid and dynamic the controls were in comparison, but as someone who is not experienced with the series I could definitely see how the controls would feel clunky.

SOTN is amazing and deserves all the praise it gets, I definitely feel that bloodlines is a very over rated game, it is not a bad game by any stretch, but some put it on the same level as CV4 and it is nowhere near as good.

Rondo of blood is also a very good game, many people say it is TEH BESST GAME EVARZZZZ!! and while I feel that is a dramatic overstatement, it still is an absolutely great game and definitely worth playing if you are exploring the series

Since I'm not as familiar with the series in it's earlier NES days, my only reference point for the controls are other 16-bit platformers, and I think in comparison to a similar platformer such as ActRaiser, the controls are not nearly as fluid, IMO. However, with time and practice the controls can definitely be picked up.

I definitely want to play SOTN, my issue at the moment, besides not owning the game just yet, is that I currently do not have an extra PS1 memory card with free space, so I need to handle that. I played a little bit of Bloodlines earlier this year on the Genesis mini, and enjoyed what I had played of it. I got through about the first three levels of the game.

Also, I do not have the hardware to play Rondo of Blood but the gameplay footage I've seen looks pretty good too. I'll have to go the emulation route for this one, so I'll most likely play this last, perhaps next year.

[Note]

1. Streets of Rage 2 (GEN)
2. The Ninja Warriors (SNES) [3x]
3. TMNT IV: Turtles in Time (SNES)
4. Golden Axe (GEN) [3x]
5. Beyond Oasis (GEN)
6. Super Double Dragon (SNES)
7. Shenmue II (DC)
8. Shining Force 2 (GEN)
9. Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island (SNES)
10. ActRaiser (SNES)
11. OutRun (GEN)
12. X-Men 2: Clone Wars (GEN)
13. Captain Commando (SNES)
14. The Pirates of Dark Water (SNES)
15. Final Fight (SNES)
16. Gradius III (SNES)
17. Super R-Type (SNES)
18. U.N. Squadron (SNES)
19. Super Castlevania IV (SNES)



20. Arrow Flash (GEN)

After binging through some SNES shmups, I wanted to play through a few on the Genesis as well. I'd heard good things about this game in the past and wanted to finally give it a go. For starters, I wanted to check out this game simply from the box art, as the box art from Renovation looks great. Both the US and JP Mega Drive releases had awesome covers.

Regarding the graphics, I'm a bit mixed on them actually. The plane and robot sprites are detailed and look good for the main ship sprite in a shooter, but some of the level backgrounds are pretty plain for a game of this era. Some sections have little animation or parallax scrolling that signify movement, and for a shooter, I think this takes away from the game. However, for the most part the levels are colorful and the boss sprites are large and look good. Also, I really liked the end cut scene in this game. I also like the anime influenced artwork for the game and ending cut scene. The soundtrack is pretty good IMO, with an upbeat vibe that pairs well with this style of game.

Gameplay wise, the game plays very smoothly and I don't miss the slowdown experienced on some of the SNES shooters released around the same time. Also, a unique aspect to this game is that you have the choice at any time to morph between a ship or a flying robot. However, the flying robot sprite is much larger than the ship. I think the decision to make that sprite so much larger than the other pretty much negates any usefulness with switching between the two, unless I missed something. I played the whole game as the ship. In hindsight, it would've been cool if some levels were designed specifically for the robot and others for the ship. Also, there isn't much variety in power-ups. This wasn't a big deal, as the enemy patterns are also not too complex, but it's something to note in comparison to other titles in the genre. While I found the game challenging (especially the last two levels), it wasn't nearly as tough as some of the other shmups I played recently, and the game's quite short, with only five levels.

Overall, I recommend Arrow Flash to fans of the genre. This is a short fun title that's very easy to pick up and play, and I'd definitely revisit it in the future. Maybe I'll try to play the whole game as the robot next time, and see how well (or poorly) I can do. I'm glad I finally checked this one out!

[BoneSnapDeez]

This is another game I played through a large portion of multiple times, but never finished previously.

This is where I'm at. Love the game, but have never committed to it fully. Perhaps now is the time!

bone - Oink! sounds pretty cool. I've never run across it in my searches (granted I wasn't necessarily looking for it). I'll have to keep an eye out.

Kinda stating the obvious but "buy the Activision games" is some of the best advice I can give to Atari 2600 owners.

[Ack]

1. The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (Switch)(Adventure)
2. Final Fight [Japanese Version] (Switch)(Beat 'Em Up)
3. Ziggurat (PC)(FPS)
4. Magrunner: Dark Pulse (PC)(FPS)
5. The King of Dragons [Japanese](Arcade)(Beat 'Em Up)
6. Captain Commando [Japanese](Arcade)(Beat 'Em Up)
7. Knights of the Round [Japanese](Arcade)(Beat 'Em Up)
8. The Witcher (PC)(RPG)
9. Tenchi wo Kurau II (Arcade)(Beat 'Em Up)
10. Dark Sun: Shattered Lands (PC)(RPG)
11. Lichdom: Battlemage (PC)(FPS/RPG Hybrid)
12. Star Wars: Republic Commando (PC)(FPS)
13. DOOM 64 (PC)(FPS)
14. Half Dead 2 (PC)(Adventure)
15. Powered Gear - Strategic Variant Armor Equipment (Arcade)(Beat 'Em Up)
16. Torchlight II (PC)(RPG)
17. Battle Circuit [Japanese](Arcade)(Beat 'Em Up)
18. Hard Reset Redux (PC)(FPS)
19. The Stanley Parable (PC)(Walking Sim)
20. Waking Mars (PC)(Adventure)
21. Requiem: Avenging Angel (PC)(FPS)
22. Night Slashers (Arcade)(Beat 'Em Up)
23. Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath HD (PC)(Action Adventure)

Night Slashers

Numerous arcade games have been successfully ported to the Nintendo Switch, and having gone through the Capcom Beat 'Em Up Bundle, I wanted something else to sink my teeth into. Lo and behold, Data East delivers. Night Slashers is a ridiculous, violent, and fun experience that doesn't do anything necessarily new for its genre when it came out but still delivers the most important part: fun.

Sometime in the near future, monsters get unleashed upon the world. Vampires, werewolves, zombies, and the like wander the streets. The three top monster hunters from the United States, Europe, and East Asia decide to team up and go find the source, but since that's gonna take some work, they also opt to kick some ass long the way. Night Slashers debuted in 1993, and while it cribs a lot from Final Fight and Capcom's early '90s catalog, it brings in a few tweaks of its own that make it worth checking out.

What kinds of things will you find? Basic combos, a solid throw system that even works on bosses, a couple of different air attack options for each character, crowd clearers for when you get trapped, and even a massive room-clearing super attack that eats health but annihilates your competition. One amusing trick is also a throw that will plant an enemy in the dirt, and then you can do low kicks to their faces while they struggle to get out. While the weapons you'll come across are pretty lackluster, your regular hand to hand moves stay useful for pretty much the entire game, and every now and again the game mixes in a running section or funny bonus games to vary things.

The other thing that makes Night Slashers worth tracking down is the tone. The game begins with our heroes driving a van over a bunch of zombies and into the side of a hospital. From there, you're literally melting, crushing, and splattering enemies in a gore-fueled frenzy of action that feels intensely rewarding, complete with awesome sound effects and badly read voicework which just adds to the charm. I absolutely love picking up a zombie, slamming him into the ground, and watching his skull splatter into pieces under the weight of his body. So satisfying.

If I have any complaints, it's that the emulation on Switch swapped the controls around, so they're reversed from both the Capcom Beat 'Em Up Bundle and what the game's attract screen tells you when it goes over the controls. It's a minor quibble in the face of a lot of fun action, but purists may be turned away.


Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath HD

The Oddworld games have a weird mix of ideas, and this one goes in a completely different direction from the Abe-focused titles. Stranger's Wrath is a hybrid of 3D action platforming and First Person Shooter design, with some fun twists. You play as Stranger, a bounty hunter who must use an array of living ammo to bring down bounties and turn them in, dead or alive. At least for half the game. And all of this is in a pseudo-Western setting. At least for half the game. Then the whole thing goes into this weird jarring shift, and suddenly it's not a Western, though you're still shooting squirrels out of a crossbow.

That's perhaps my biggest issue with Stranger's Wrath is that the game feels split down the middle about a lot of things. It works great as an FPS, but you get some trade offs, like not being able to run. It works well as a Western, but then you reach the change, and it drops those trappings entirely for you to go take on dams and battle through what are basically war zones. Your character even admits in the opening video to not liking guns, which lends a sort of anti-violent sentiment, further enhanced by the game showing a definite preference for taking enemies alive, yet most of your most useful tools are the violent ones, and you inevitably half to kill. Hell, the bounty system gets dropped midway through too, and the reason you take enemies alive after that is solely so you can feed them to your ammo supplies so they'll breed and create more.

Yeah, that's right, I captured a guy alive so I could breed more wasps in his body. What is the tone they're going for here?

This is further not helped by everything being bright and colorful, yet characters swear, there is a lot of toilet humor, and there is at least one subtle reference to a character possibly being traumatized from a prison rape that I detected.

Throwing all that aside, you get some interesting options in your ammo choices, and the gameplay is generally well executed. If Stranger's Wrath had been more focused as a pure FPS, I would have loved it, because that gameplay is well handled. Stranger is responsive, the ability to swap out ammo quickly leads to some good options, and there are some fun combos you can come up with while also mixing in melee to help keep a crowd of enemies under control. The platforming elements are jarring, and unfortunately some of the forced swapping to third person makes things frustrating. Likewise, third person swaps you to melee only and does not let you use your crossbow, so what is perhaps the most interesting component of the game gets lost at the same time.

Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath is a good game, but it's too confused to be a great one. I like it well enough, but there are a lot of things I wish had been more focused. That detracts from the experience, because while I'm having a good time, I keep seeing things that I just wish had been handled differently. Still, I'm glad to have this piece of my backlog done.

[MrPopo]

1. Elite Dangerous - PC
2. Soldier of Fortune - PC
3. Star Wars: TIE Fighter: Defender of the Empire - PC
4. Star Wars: TIE Fighter: Enemies of the Empire - PC
5. Star Wars: X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter: Balance of Power - PC
6. Star Wars: X-Wing Alliance - PC
7. Phoenix Point - PC
8. Serious Sam HD: The Second Encounter - PC
9. Descent II - PC
10. Inbento - Switch
11. Ori and the Will of the Wisps - XB1
12. Doom Eternal - PC
13. Serious Sam 2 - PC
14. Black Mesa - PC
15. Descent 3 - PC
16. Darksiders II - PC
17. Resident Evil 3 (2020) - PC
18. Overload - PC
19. Final Fantasy VII Remake - PS4
20. Trials of Mana (2020) - Switch

Let the remake train continue! The 3D remake of Trials of Mana (aka Seiken Densetsu 3) is the perfect blend of familiar and update, not screwing up the core of the SFC original but instead adding its own garnish outside the expected graphical update. Add in a dash of positive rebalancing (you'll hit class change around the time you get to the Wind Manastone, enemies don't auto punish you using cool moves, smoother boss difficulty curve) and you have something that pretty much eclipses the original.

The Trials remake starts by taking the original game and making all the characters and environments 3D, with a behind-the-back (but repositionable) camera. This meant they needed to tweak all the outdoor areas to better suit a 3D adventure, so while the general field layouts haven't changed, they've added in platforms you can jump on, the occasional side area for more treasure, and things of that nature. It still will feel the same (and the town layouts are 100% the same), just more detailed, if you will. And this is a running theme through the changes.

The combat system has been tweaked to be a bit more interesting. Instead of one button to attack which builds up super moves after X hits, instead you have a weak and strong attack, and a rudimentary combo system (chain several weaks into a strong and the strong will have different effects based on the number of weaks). You can lock on to enemies, but the game pretty fiercely auto-turns your character at enemies, so it isn't super necessary. You can jump at flying enemies (and can knock them to the ground with enough damage). The game no longer has pauses for things like level 2 techs and spells; everything happens in real time and is targeted. So you can dodge enemy magic and skills now, which is a major part of improving the balance. Enemies can, but for the most part don't, do the same to you; really it ends up being that sometimes they wander out of the edge of an aoe but your primary target still takes it on the face. The special attacks also have been changed in terms of how you build to them. Like before you gain meter from attacking, but now it's a more gradual "fill up each bar" when you attack. You start off with a stock of two bars, and can end with four bars, and each special takes one or more bars. Most importantly, you keep charge between fights, so the top end specials are much more usable (and can be a great way to just insta-win a fight to keep yourself rolling). Fights now draw a circle around you; you can escape by running against the edge, but otherwise it despawns enemies outside the circle until the fight is over. This gives you an arena to fight in while still being seamless, and is a compromise given the fact there are no longer a ton of screen transitions in a large contiguous area.

The other major change worth pointing out is the change to stats and leveling. They removed the agility stat (which was broken in the original anyway, so they would have had to invent a bunch of stuff for it to actually do) and combined magic attack and defense on the INT stat, so now that's one less buff/debuff spell to cast (as, like Pokémon Gen 1, affecting one affects the other). Instead of leveling a stat by one at level up you instead get a series of skill points (only one at the start, then you start getting more as you get in the higher levels). These can be assigned to each of the five stats, and hitting certain milestones unlocks something. This might be an increase to the raw stat, or it might be an equippable passive skill. These passive skills are the other major change; they might be things like "your damage is increased by 10% when hitting weakness" to "item drop rate increased by 10%" to "increase spell damage by 30% by spending 5% of your health". You have a limited number of skill slots, so choose wisely. The milestones for skill points is also where you learn your spells/abilities you gain from the spirits and your classes. This actually impacts Angela the most (of Angela, Riesz, and Hawkeye, my party) because unlike the other two her spells are split across all five spirits (whereas originally it was just crank INT and go). You end up having to make decisions about how to level her that are trickier than the other party members, though you can pay to respect if you don't like what you've done.

Otherwise, the game is an extremely faithful translation of the original. Everything will be very familiar, including the dialog. This was more of a touch up project rather than a full remake like the FF7 remake. And personally I'm happy to see that; I'm hoping this will help show Square that the classic Mana games still can hold their own gameplay-wise and maybe we get some more in the series that hew closer to the SoM/ToM formula, rather than trying to branch it out like they were doing.

Oh, one final thing to point out. Once you beat the game you unlock a post game dungeon which is about 2-3 hours to get through (with ample points to save and quit, and two spots to return to the entrance) and a final boss. This also comes with another class change (which is basically just a statistical upgrade, no new abilities) and some story segments for each character which give them a bit more closure than the quick vignette in the credits. Only after beating this bonus boss do you unlock new game plus, which carries over all your items, gear, and unlocked skills (plus some special skills for beating the game with your party and a +300% exp skill). I'm not sure how far the gear carry forward goes, as most gear is character locked and I only went to the first save point in the new game. I'd need to get further to see what the character who was in my old party has equipped (maybe she keeps her class as well?)

Recent times have been really heavy on the remakes, but frankly they've been knocking it out of the park with them, unlike that period in the PS3/360 era where they were focused on rebooting franchises without understanding why we enjoyed them. The Trials remake can sit on the shelf with all the other remakes that take a classic, update it, but still keep what makes it great.

[prfsnl_gmr]

@Ack

Time to clean it up!!!

Great Night Slashers review. It’s the video game equivalent of Evil Dead 2, and I think it’s become one of my favorite beat ‘em ups.

[Note]

1. Streets of Rage 2 (GEN)
2. The Ninja Warriors (SNES) [3x]
3. TMNT IV: Turtles in Time (SNES)
4. Golden Axe (GEN) [3x]
5. Beyond Oasis (GEN)
6. Super Double Dragon (SNES)
7. Shenmue II (DC)
8. Shining Force 2 (GEN)
9. Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island (SNES)
10. ActRaiser (SNES)
11. OutRun (GEN)
12. X-Men 2: Clone Wars (GEN)
13. Captain Commando (SNES)
14. The Pirates of Dark Water (SNES)
15. Final Fight (SNES)
16. Gradius III (SNES)
17. Super R-Type (SNES)
18. U.N. Squadron (SNES)
19. Super Castlevania IV (SNES)
20. Arrow Flash (GEN)



21. Forgotten Worlds (GEN)

I pulled this game out this afternoon for April's Together Retro, themed on 1980's Sega Genesis titles. I played a bit of Revenge of Shinobi and Truxton earlier in the month, but wanted to participate a bit more. This is another title that I played the first few levels in single player mode, but never finished it. When I was younger I had only played this through emulation, as I wasn't aware of it when originally released, but last fall I picked up a nice CIB copy at a local game store.

I think the graphics are well done for a title originally released in 1989. The boss sprites are particularly impressive, with a few bosses taking up most of the screen. Also, the main characters and enemies look good for an early Genesis game. The graphics in the cut scenes between levels and the moments while in the shop also include large character sprites. The soundtrack is decent, I really like the music to the first level, but afterwards I don't think the themes of the later levels are as memorable.

Gameplay wise, I found this game to be pretty challenging. You are usually being attacked from enemies on every side and have to manage dodging enemy fire, collecting the money they drop (would be nice if it was just automatically added to your total), and rotating your character to shoot at other enemies. The control scheme's inclusion of rotating the character to aim by holding down a button can be tough at times, if you misjudge your timing you might be firing in a totally different direction than intended. Each level includes a shop or two where you can purchase armor, info, and upgrade your weapons. This is a nice touch, as you can customize your weapons a bit, but I seemed to always be just short on money to get the best upgrades. The game includes seven levels, but is actually quite short and can probably be completed in less than an hour.

I enjoyed this title, and think most other fans of run and guns or shooters will too. This is definitely game that's better in co-op, and as long as someone's still alive, the game doesn't serve you with a game over, so it's easy to complete. I really appreciate short pick up and play titles, and this fits into that category for sure. I hope to revisit this with a friend down the line!

[BoneSnapDeez]

lmao at Popo finishing Trials of Mana before my pre-ordered copy even arrived in the mail.

[MrPopo]

lmao at Popo finishing Trials of Mana before my pre-ordered copy even arrived in the mail.

With the postgame content it's about 22 hours. An easy thing to knock out in a weekend.

[alienjesus]

Games beaten 2020:

1. Ys: The Oath in Felghana PSN Vita
2. Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age Switch
3. Super Mario Party Switch
4. Moss PSVR
5. Paper Mario: Colour Splash Wii U
6. The Firemen SNES
7. Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon SFC
8. Kuukiyomi: Consider It! Switch eShop
9. Valkyria Chronicles Switch eShop
10. Illusion of Time SNES
11. Trials of Mana Switch
12. Undertale Vita
13. Rastan SMS
14. Rainbow Islands SMS
15. River City Girls Switch *NEW*
16. Animal Crossing: New Horizons Switch *NEW*

River City Girls

It has been a long time since I played River City Ransom, but I had a lot of fun with it. Beat ‘em ups are a genre I occasionally enjoy (Streets of Rage 2 is one of my all time favourites) but the biggest reason I tend to enjoy them nowadays are because they are a genre which I can normally convince my wife to play with me. We’ve played through a few over the years – Castle Crashers, Sailor Moon, and most significantly, Scott Pilgrim, which was a favourite of hers. River City Girls is a lot like Scott Pilgrim so it was a good fit.

The style of River City girls is great, with pleasing visuals and good animation, and good animated cutscens in between. The character interactions are sometimes amusing, although in standard WayForward fashion they can try a bit too hard to be funny as well. Combat is fairly satisfying, especially once you start buying new moves at the dojo – although a downside is that it takes a good way through the game before you really start getting the money to afford that.

Difficulty balance is pretty decent overall, with a nice challenge, although we found a few of the boss fights to be a little unfair – particular the fight against Noize and her almost impossible to react to guitar hero attack patterns. I found the character balance felt a bit off, and it seemed to me that Kyoko was obviously better than Mizako, but maybe that’s a matter of preference.

Still, overall we had a good time with the game, and cleared it over a handful of sessions. Both of us enjoyed it, especially the soundtrack which we thought was excellent. I’d recommend picking it up if you like the genre.




Animal Crossing: New Horizons

This has been my life for the past month or so, with 165 hours invested so far, making it my second most played Switch game, just narrowly behind Sega Mega Drive Classics (where I cleared all 51 games), and very likely to overtake it soon.

The last few Animal Crossing games haven’t done much for me – I adored the Gamecube original, but each successive game added too little to previous entries for me, and it became a slog rather than something fun. This one felt different though, and I think it’s a combination of the starting set-up, new flexibility and the outside world that are the reasons why.

First off, the new structure of starting on a deserted island and building it up over time is immediately gratifying, begins the game feeling very different to other entries in the series, and really gives you a sense of progressing goals that are ultimately very satisfying. Going from a starting point of just trying to find enough sticks for a fishing rod, and being unable to explore 2/3rds of the island, up to building new traversal tools and setting up a shop, right through to micro-customising your now thriving island is great, and it really gives you a feeling of ‘I can spend time making this better’ and always having a new goal.

And speaking of micro-customising, having the ability to terraform your island, drop furniture outside, move buildings and more is a big step up. It gives you so much more to do on the island because you can just decide ‘today I’m going to turn the area outside the museum into an open air café – and then you spend an hour setting down paths, crafting furniture and positioning it just how you want it, and it provides some real satisfaction seeing your handiwork afterwards.

And then of course, the elephant in the room. There’s something positively uplifting about Animal Crossing, and it’s entire premise of going outside and spending time socialising with your neighbours, and it’s only enhanced by the fact that no-one can do that in real life.

New Horizons is fantastic, and whilst I have some nitpicks with it, and there’s still content from GC that should have returned by now, I’d be comfortable declaring this the best in the series, and a must own title for Switch. I’m running out of big goals now – I’ve got 5 star island rating, paid of the house and finished the main plotline – but I’ll likely still be playing this for some time yet.