Games Beaten 2020

[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
21. Persona 5 Royal - PS4
22. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Campaign Remastered - PC
23. Sublevel Zero Redux - PC
24. Final Fantasy XII: Zodiac Age - PS4
25. Maneater - PC
26. XCOM: Chimera Squad - PC
27. Sakura Wars - PS4
28. Stela - Switch
29. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 - DC
30. Darksiders III - PC

The previews for Darksiders III is what actually got me into the series in the first place; I figured I need to play the first two to get the story beats before playing the third. And it was definitely a good thing I did so; while the primary plot is self contained the events are intertwined in the others as part of the overall apocalyptic conflict being set up. As I see it there are two more games that need to exist; one for Strife (the final Horseman) and one set after Darksiders 1 where the team gets together and delivers a well deserved beatdown on all the machinations that have gone on. Darksiders III does a good job of setting up for that final conflict; it fleshes things out more while giving us a character with a real arc in Fury.

Like previous games Darksiders shamelessly copies another game; in this case it's Dark Souls. Combat is much more dodge based; while it was an option before here it is a necessity. Additionally, items are represented as little flames on the ground, there's no minimap, everything has a bunch of interconnections and shortcuts you unlock, you spend ever increasing amounts of currency to raise your attributes in lieu of traditional levels, and you spend increasing amounts of increasingly valuable materials to upgrade your weapons, up to +10. However, this does come with still having some of the stuff we've come to expect from Darksiders. Combat is still much flashier than Dark Souls, so your dodge windows are more forgiving and you have a perfect dodge mechanic where you get extra damage in. You can jump, which is needed in certain fights due to a ground wave that you can't dodge through; you have to jump. You still have the interplay of a primary weapon and a series of secondary weapons that handle in different ways. And you still will unlock traversal powers as you make your way through the story.

The game is set shortly after the prologue of Darksiders 1; War is captured by the Charred Council for starting Armageddon early when Fury gets called in. Apparently the Seven Deadly Sins also escaped and she needs to capture them to bring back balance. Cue an adventure through the decaying ruins of Earth as you fight demons, angels, and corrupted wildlife as you hunt down the sins. Fury starts off as the embodiment of her name, but over the course of the game her eyes are opened that there is more going on then a simple "capture the bad dudes" and she grows as a character; while she is acerbic and unlikeable at the beginning, by the end she has become a hero in her own right.

The Seven Deadly Sins are also very well realized. The designs are fun, and their dialog and voices even fit well with the idea of them being the embodiment of these abstract concepts. Sloth would be pissed at you, but it would be too much of a bother. He can't even care when you beat him. Lust is perfectly androgynous in voice and appearance and does their best to tempt you with what you desire most. And Wrath, he's basically Khorne, and also a bit in love with Fury given how much she mirrors him.

It is overall a strong game, though it does have some flaws. While the whole world is interconnected it is divided up into a smaller number of larger areas compared to Dark Souls; this, combined with some major twists and turns, ends up making it hard to place yourself in relation to other areas. For the most part you have to rely on the abundant save/teleport points and your minimap indicator that points towards the next boss (and is smart enough to point you at particular entrances, rather than just being an absolute compass). There is an area that a cutscene teleported me to that I then died in; I never found the area I was teleported to again. The cutscene made it seem like this would be important, but at best it contained an optional boss that might have given me an upgrade. It was a bit of a feel bad in the end. In a similar vein, the combat relies a bit too much on enemies with shields in the later game; some of the most egregious required perfect dodges (not just regular ones) to get in any real damage. Given the amount of swarming of very mobile enemies that can happen sometimes the Dark Souls combat was not at its best, especially when locked on.

Still, the game has some very nice looking environments and good design on the mobility powers. The associated secondary weapons and powers were balanced enough that I never felt like I should just stick to one outside of needing to make use of a specific mobility; each had their use. While the game just wasn't as tight as a Souls game, given their unfamiliarity with the genre I think they did a good job with it. It's not nearly as hardcore as Dark Souls thanks to the tools you're given, so it properly feels like "Darksiders by way of Dark Souls" rather than "Dark Souls ripoff". Here's hoping the game did well enough to justify a Strife solo game.

[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
16. Animal Crossing: New Horizons Switch
17. Streets of Rage 4 Switch eShop
18. Dragon Warrior IV NES
19. Super Tennis SNES *NEW*
20. Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse Switch eShop *NEW*
21. Pilotwings Switch eShop *NEW*
22. Castlevania: The Adventure Switch eShop *NEW*


Super Tennis



Super Tennis was the first game I played for this year’s Summer Games Challenge. Super Tennis is a one of the first games released for Super Nintendo in Europe, and was also one of the first games I owned for the system as a kid. My console was a 2nd hand one that my mum bought from a work colleague for me in the mid-late 90s, probably after the PS1 was already a thing, so it was probably someone clearing out old hardware for the newest machine. Anyway, my system came with a selection of games, most of which didn’t really gel with a 7 year old me who already enjoyed games like Sonic 2, Streets of Rage and Bomberman on my Mega Drive. I had Street Fighter 2 (this was OK), Prince of Persia and Flashback (I didn’t understand these ones and didn’t like them), Pit Fighter (even 7 year old me knew this was crap), Starwing (this one I liked) and Super Tennis.



Of the games, Super Tennis sat thoroughly in the OK camp. I’d play it fairly rarely, as I had enough games I enjoyed more to not need to play this much – but my cousins liked it, and I liked playing games with my cousins, so it got some time in the SNES. Anyway, fast forward almost 25 years, and Super Tennis remains one of the handful of games I owned before I really started getting into retro game collecting which I hadn’t beaten (alongside Wing Commander III on 3DO and Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life for Gamecube). So this summer I made a vow to beat it.



Super Tennis is a simple game on the surface – you can play tennis in singles or doubles play, or take on circuit mode – 8 back to back tournaments where you can earn points and attempt to be the best ranked player at the end. There are 30 or so playable characters, split evenly between male and female, each with different stats – although without the manual you’ll struggle to know what those are. Tennis play is simple, with each of the 4 face buttons doing a different shot. A is a slow shot, B is quick, Y is a high lob that can be used to force people back from the net (but often sets them up for a powerful counterplay) and X is a topspin shot which can be used to hit wider angles. A and B are context sensitive, with different strength near or far from the net, whilst X and Y stay the same wherever. L and R add clockwise and counterclockwise spin to the ball respectively, depending on which half of the court you’re on.The controls offer quite a variety of options for each play, and there are some other actions that can be done too, such as slam shots when the ball is just overhead, or dives for the ball if it’s just out of range.



Early progress in circuit mode wasn’t very successful, with the computer responding too well to every hit – some characters are very hard to beat. After a while I started to figure out shots which the AI struggled to handle though – highly curved serves which they couldn’t reach granted me lots of points from service aces, and using topspin (X) as my primary button during rallies proved harder for the computer to respond to than A or B. Eventually the game veered the other way and became a bit too easy overall, besides Kim, who was an absolute demon who all my usual tricks failed to work against due to her speed.



Anyway, I’m glad to say I finished up Circuit mode, having played 4 of the 8 tournaments (if you play 2 in a row you get tired and move slower, so it’s harder if you play them all), and placing first (ahead of Kim, screw you Kim!). It was during the ending credits, which show characters stats, that I realised I had chosen one of the worst characters!

Super Tennis is entirely OK. It’s nothing super special, and it’s not a must play, but it does have a lot of charm and it feels like some real effort was put in here. Music is sparse (only sound effects during tennis gameplay) but what’s there is super catchy (take a listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sw5Ujk6Kz68&list=PL-vD6rIjXrcKf-OgnNOT9v2M2VcMLMjCu&index=2&t=0s), and the graphics are colourful and pleasant, especially for an early title for the system. If you can tolerate old sports games, I think this is worth a go.




Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse



Castlevania III was the second game I beat for my Summer Challenge, and I (mostly) played the Japanese version of the game. If you aren’t aware, not only were there various difficulty changes in the US version that make the game harder and less well balanced, but, more importantly, you also get inferior versions of the music as the Famicom cartridge game with a special soundchip that boosted the quality of the audio beyond what a standard NES game was capable of.



I’ve played a few of the Classic castlevania titles – I’ve worked through Rondo of Blood, Castlevania 1, Castlevania IV, Bloodlines and Rebirth over the years, and I’ve generally enjoyed them all. I knew going in that Castlevania III is well though of, but I was interested to see how it compares.



First of all, it feels like a much better balanced game than 1. I enjoyed my time there, but it definitely through a few too many cheap moments at you too early on, before you had a chance to settle in to the game properly. 3 is much friendlier in this regard (at least, in the Japanese version) – and I personally though was perhaps a little too much on the easy side. I actually ended up playing 3 of the levels from the US version because I loaded up the wrong regional version of the rom by accident when continuing after stopping for the night, and I can’t say I noticed much difference there either – despite me playing through some of the later stages this way.



Despite this though. Castlevania 3 has a lot of fun setpieces. I enjoyed getting to choose my route through the game, and it was interesting to be able to get another character to play as. I chose to go with Grant as my buddy, and his wall climbing was handy in a few locations. Overall though, I mostly stuck with Trevor, whose whip was far more useful than Grant’s daggers – even if he throws them in the Japanese version instead of stabbing with them. This is actually how I figured out my error with loading the wrong language version though – it took 3 levels before I actually decided to attack as Grant and noticed my mistake!



I’m not sure what else to say about Castlevania III to be honest. It’s a good game, and it’s more Castlevania. I enjoyed my time playing through it, and I’d happily play through again to try some alternate routes and one of the other partner characters. It’s not my top choice in the series (Rondo > Super > Bloodlines > Rebirth > III > 1) but I’ve enjoyed all the classic castlevanias I’ve played, so it’s still a solid recommendation from me.




Pilotwings



Aaaaand continuing the trend, here we have the third game I played for the Summer Challenge this year, and like Super Tennis, it’s another very early SNES title. Pilotwings is an arcadey flight sim game, where you’re tasked with completing various missions in a variety of aircraft to earn points. Each stage requires a minimum points threshold to be met in the vehicles on offer in order to earn your license and move onto the next stage.



There are 5 types of aircraft/aerial challenge in Pilotwings. The first is the standard biplane, whose challenges generally involve taking off and flying through a set of rings around the course, before landing successfully. Landings make up a large proportion of the scoring, and here they’re scored on your speed, accuracy (which I think measures whether you bounced and if you were level when you landed?) and angle (were you parallel with the airstrip, or angled awkwardly). Speed and rings make up the rest of the score generally.



Second is skydiving, which normally involves falling through a series of rings during your descent, before opening your parachute and landing in a target area. The target area normally comprises several portions worth different points, so landing in a high point area is the majority of the score here. Mastering landings is essential.



Third is the rocketbelt, which was my favourite. This is essentially a jetpack that allows you to fly freely around an area. Tasks generally involved flying to specific points and accurately hitting marks in any order, before returning to the landing area and making a landing. Landings are scored on impact (don’t fall too fast!) and the score associated with the area.



4th is the hang glider, which generally starts with you in the air. You can’t ascend manually with this craft, so you use air currents to gain height when needed. Tasks here feel like a blend between the plane and parachute, as you must fly through rings or ascend to a certain height before successfully landing on the target. We’ll cover the 5th vehicle shortly.



Pilotwings is a short game, but I feel it is quite a flawed one. Whilst the mode 7 graphics are cool, they can be an issue to precisely navigate a ‘3d’ space with, which is obviously the name of the game here. That’s not my main issue though. One bigger one is that points requirements, especially later on, are very tight – often requiring an average of 80 points per challenge (which is difficult to get) in order to pass. In addition, you only get one attempt on each challenge per stage, so if you ace the rocketbelt and plane missions, then screw up your landing with the hangglider, prepare to play all 3 again from scratch. Again, and again, and again. The game is lacking in content overall, and I feel they have compensated with high difficulty.



There’s also the issue that, for a game ostensibly about flying, there’s very little to be earned through flying itself. Navigating rings at speed normally only offers a small proportion of points for the stage – whereas the landing typically makes up 70 % of the points for the stage. Acing a perfect freefall in skydiving stages only to miss the 70 point landing area by a few pixels, earning only 30/70 points for landing sucks, especially when it often means replaying all the other levels again. Extra points can be earned via bonus stages – but guess how these are earned? By landing on special landing areas which are even harder to hit. This game isn’t about flying, it’s about making it back to the ground.

Anyway, after qualifying through 4 stages, your flight instructors are kidnapped by an evil organisation all of a certain (it comes out of nowhere, believe me) and you are tasked with piloting an attack helicopter to the enemy base, shooting down sentry turrets along the way, then landing to rescue them. This is a trial by fire because the game has never given you access to a helicopter before, so you have to learn to fly it mid-mission. It’s also pretty tough as the turrets are accurate, and one hit spells death. Complete it, and you unlock expert mode, required for credits – 4 more rounds of even harder challenges and then another assault on the enemy base in the helicopter await.



I persevered with Pilotwings long enough to beat it, but I have to say, I didn’t really enjoy my time with the game. The points are focus on the least fun aspects of playing the game, and the monotony of trying missions over and over until you luck out with the parachute and hangglider targets really sucks. Both sequels to this game are better, and if you’re going to play a game in the series, try one of those (they’re only OK though). Not one I’d recommend sadly.




Castlevania: The Adventure

And now for a c-c-c-c-combo breaker. Castlevania The Adventure is the first Castlevania game for the Game Boy, and it was NOT one of my summer games for the year. I figured that whilst I was playing through Castlevania III on the switch collection, I might as well spend some time to finish up another game on the collection too. I deliberately chose one of the less well regarded games I still needed to play (I didn’t want to be left with only the bad ones at the end!), and yeah….I’m kind of inclined to agree with popular opinion on this one.



Castlevania The Adventure deviates from the classic Castlevania formula a bit, and it’s not for the better. As before, the whip can be upgraded with special items to make it have more range and power, but now these powerups are lost if you are hit. Losing your power up really sucks, but the game doesn’t care and loves to place incredibly awkward enemies with hard to avoid projectiles in places you can’t really anticipate so that you do. Dodging them often feels impossible, in part due to the usual stiff castlevania physics, and in part because your character feels like he’s walking through water at all times. He is slow. So slow. I know the OG Game Boy had screen blur issues, but I feel this is maybe a bit of an overkill response to the issue.



Another thing thing castlevania game is really keen on is pixel perfect jumps. We’re talking Mega Man style literally stand on 2 pixels of your characters back foot before jumping levels of perfection required, and the game just doesn’t feel set up for it. Best get practicing the jump though, because the game also loves trolly sections where you jump from one 3 pixel wide platform to the next for the length of about 4 screens. Gameplay!



Luckily, the game is blissfully short at only 4 stages long, although be prepared to ‘enjoy’ the stages over and over again whilst you learn them. Bosses are generally fairly easy, besides Drac who gave me a few issues. I wouldn’t say this game is awful by any means, but it is painfully mediocre – and in a series with games of the quality of the ones I discussed earlier in my Castlevania III review, that’s not good enough. You can ignore this one.

[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
21. Persona 5 Royal - PS4
22. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Campaign Remastered - PC
23. Sublevel Zero Redux - PC
24. Final Fantasy XII: Zodiac Age - PS4
25. Maneater - PC
26. XCOM: Chimera Squad - PC
27. Sakura Wars - PS4
28. Stela - Switch
29. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 - DC
30. Darksiders III - PC
31. Shadow Warrior (2013) - PC

The original Shadow Warrior was notable for three things: being a Build Engine game, adding racism on top of Duke Nukem's sexism, and playing better than Blood no matter what wrong opinions Ack may hold. When Duke Nukem Forever came out it kept the sexism and dropped the good gameplay. Shadow Warrior reboot does the opposite; it drops the racism and keeps the good gameplay. Add in a dash of a genuinely interesting story that slowly unfolds and then hits right at the end and you've got a really solid FPS reboot that properly brings the good parts back while ditching the bad parts.

Once again you are Lo Wang, this time a Chinese hitman living in Japan and working for Orochi Zilla. You live in Japan because you're a major fan of Japanese culture, which is used to justify the mishmash of elements from the original. You still drop a wang joke now and then, but not to the same degree as before, and in a way that feels just right. You start off trying to acquire the Nobitsune Kage sword for your boss, and when your monetary offer is rejected you need to start stabbing dudes in the face with your sword. Then the demons invade.

Cue 17 levels of demon stabbing and shooting, with a handful of encounters with human enemies that end up being ho hum boring. The demons come in a wide variety, with some melee, some ranged, and some big guys who make your life suck if you don't manage them right. The game is a bit more combat arena focused, similar to the developer's earlier title Hard Reset. The demonic nature makes it less of an ass pull when they have enemies teleport in waves, as they're coming from the shadow realm after all. The pacing ends up being pretty good, aside from one level that climaxes midway through AND is the longest level in the game. But after that the levels are back to normal, with one final extra hard combat arena that really makes you feel like you've mastered how to deal with all the enemies.

The game strikes to balance making melee viable with having a selection of guns, and it ends up balancing a bit more towards the sword. The guns all have their use, but for the most part enemies are a bit too much of a bullet sponge for you to use guns as your primary weapon. It tends rather to be for specific encounters where having a ranged option is important, or the fact that you're using a heavy weapon against a big guy. You learn a handful of special moves for your sword as well as gaining a bunch of passive skills to improve your ability and the net result is the sword is not only viable, it's a great weapon to use. I would have liked a bit more balance to make firearms a bit more viable, but then they risked having you never use the sword (which they put a lot of effort into), so I can see why they went the way they did.

The game also has a handful of magic powers you can learn, but these, aside from the heal, aren't really worth your time. They all tend to fall into the category of "the time I spend activating these is time I could use killing dudes", as most enemies aren't sturdy enough to be worth the setup (the powers are all support powers) and the big guys aren't affected by them. The game also has a weapon upgrade system where you can use found currency to either improve stats or unlock secondary abilities (like an extra two barrels for the sawed off and a second ability to fire all barrels at once). Unusually, you can also directly buy ammo from the upgrade screen, so you pretty much never need to worry about running out (though the game is also extremely generous with ammo, including infinite spawns of ammo in boss arenas).

Overall, while I came into this expecting something middle of the road this is a much better title than that. It brings the intended spirit of the original, of being a kung fu movie inspired FPS, ditching the problematic elements, and having a good balance of gameplay to make a satisfying package. And without spoiling anything, the underlying story behind the events was genuinely interesting, drawing upon themes of Eastern mythology without using anything specific. Three cheers to Flying Wild Hog for doing what Gearbox could not.

[Ack]

Not my fault you have bad taste.

[dsheinem]

Games Beaten 2020
Mortal Kombat 11 - PS4
The Force Unleashed II - 360
Tatsunoko vs. Capcom - Wii
Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light - 360
Super Fantasy Zone - Genesis
Fable Heroes - 360
Castlevania Bloodlines - Genesis
My Friend Pedro - X1
Super Fantasy Zone - Genesis
Darius - Genesis
Ape Out - PC
Doom Eternal - PS4
Dead or Alive 6 - PS4
Plague, Inc. - PC
Space Harrier II - Genesis
Space Harrier - Arcade
G.I. Joe - Arcade
Chaos Control - - PC
Super Off Road - SNES
Pyscho Dream - SFC *new*
Psychosis - Turbo Grafx-16 *new*

Total: 21

Previously:
2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010

It's been about a month since I last posted and I think these are the only two games I've actually finished in that time, despite playing a lot of different things. Hopefully I can pick up the pace this month, it would be good to hit 30+ by the half way point.

Both of these games are nice enough to look at and have half-way decent sound, but neither is really amongst the best in their genre and while I am glad I played them, I can't see going back to either one at any point.

[elricorico]

1. NBA Jam (GEN)
2. Astro Bot Rescue Mission (PSVR)
3. Bastion (PS4)
4. Octopath Traveler (NS)
5. Uncharted: Drake's Fortune (PS4)
6. Final Fantasy Adventure (NS)

7. LEGO: The Ninjago Movie Game (PS4)

Recently a freebie on Playstation Store, I downloaded this and played through the story with my youngest daughter. We finished the story this evening.

Like so many other LEGO games this is a pretty simple playthrough with lots of hand holding and little consequence for mistakes. It is bright and colourful, runs well as a couch co-op game and even gave us a couple of laughs in the course of the story.

You play as many different characters throughout, though for the most part they all feel very similar. Late in the game the main ninjas get some skills that set them apart slightly, but they are mostly meant to gate off certain areas and force you to follow one path until you have the right character/skill.

My biggest complaints would be long loading times, poor camera control(certain areas seem to harshly limit the bounds of camera movement) and the feeling that the story really felt incomplete or rushed. I dont expect much story from a LEGO game, but even piecing together some of the main characters' motivation wasnt there.

There are a large number of collectables, by the ending and a short exploration of post game content our save is only a little over 60% complete. We will likely pick away with a little more free play to gather up more characters and challenges, but I will be surprised if we go much further than about 80% before getting bored.

No big surprises here, fun enough and family friendly.

[prfsnl_gmr]

1. Her Story (iOS)
2. Elminage Original (3DS)
3. Legend of Grimrock (iOS)
4. Silent Bomber (PS1)
5. Crash Bandicoot (PS1)
6. Bust-a-Move 2 Arcade Edition (PS1)
7. Transformers Cybertron Adventures (Wii)
8. Squidlit (Switch)
9. Sydney Hunter & The Curse of the Mayan (Switch)
10. Mega Man Legends (PS1)
11. Revenge of the Bird King (Switch)
12. Blossom Tales: The Sleeping King (Switch)
13. Gato Roboto (Switch)
14. Kamiko (Switch)
15. Night Slashers (Arcade)
16. Subsurface Circular (Switch)
17. Iconoclasts (Switch)
18. Wonder Boy Returns Remix (Switch)
19. Resident Evil 3 (PS1)
20. The Messenger (Switch)
21. The Messenger: Picnic Panic (Switch)
22. Samsara Room (iOS)
23. Heroes of the Monkey Tavern (Switch)
24. Sayonara Wild Hearts (Switch)
25. Gris (Switch)
26. Donut County (iOS)
27. Donkey Kong Country 2 (SNES)
28. Donkey Kong Country 3 (SNES)

Donkey Kong Country 3 is an excellent platformer I played for the summer games challenge, and I wrote more about it in the summer games challenge thread.

[PartridgeSenpai]

Partridge Senpai's 2020 Beaten Games:
Previously: 2016 2017 2018 2019
* indicates a repeat

1. Invisigun Reloaded (Switch)
2. Human: Fall Flat (Switch)
3. Shantae: The Pirate's Curse (3DS)
4. Darksiders: Warmastered Edition (PC)
5. Splatterhouse (PS3) *
6. 3D Dot Game Heroes (PS3)
7. Tokyo Jungle (PS3)
8. Pictobits (DSiWare)
9. Puzzle Quest: The Legend Reborn (Switch)
10. WarioWare Gold (3DS)
11. Disaster: Day of Crisis (Wii)
12. Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition (Xbone)
13. Sleeping Dogs: Nightmare in North Point (Xbone)
14. Sleeping Dogs: Year of the Snake (Xbone)
15. Dynamite Headdy (Genesis) *
16. Shovel Knight: King of Cards (3DS)
17. Shovel Knight: Shovel of Hope (3DS) *
18. Shovel Knight: Plague of Shadows (Switch) *
19. Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment (Switch) *
20. Shovel Knight: Showdown (Switch)
21. Dragon Quest Builders 2 (PS4)
22. ActRaiser (SNES)
23. Castlevania: The Adventure ReBirth (WiiWare)
24. Mega Man X (SNES)
25. Breath of Fire II (SNES)
26. Ape Escape 2 (PS2) *
27. Doubutsu No Mori+ (GC)
28. Ape Escape (PS1)
29. Ape Escape 3 (PS2) *
30. Maken X (DC)

31. Cubivore (GC)

When I started streaming on Twitch, I never imagined that I'd be going back to any game enough to actually finish it on stream, but lo and behold, I finished Cubivore on stream! This is one of those games I never thought I'd actually ever play because the American version is SO hilariously expensive, but apparently the Japanese version is WAY less sought after and more common, because I picked up my copy for a little less than $10 USD at Book Off. It took me about 6.5 hours to beat the Japanese version with the good ending over the course of 3 streams (so 3 sessions over about a month).

​Cubivore is a game with a simple story but a very odd concept. The world of cube-shaped animals is peaceful and animals live with no worries until the day a group of mysterious, colorless animals come and begin eating everything in sight and taking all the color from the world. The world is on the brink of utter destruction until you, the player's animal, are mysteriously born from the sky one day. Outside of that, virtually all of the text in the game comes from the player avatar themself as they narrate from their perspective between stages. All the player avatar really cares about is eating, evolving, and mating, and the fate of the world is only sort of a tangential concern of theirs beyond their own quest for power XD. It's a very silly story that really doesn't take itself seriously at all, and the silly, almost childlike way the main character talks was thoroughly entertaining for me to translate for people watching the stream.

The gameplay loop of Cubivore is going through stages eating to get more powerful so you can battle the head animals of each stage to gain their special ability and move to the next stage. As you eat, you assimilate the colors of the cube animals you're eating. There are a variety of colors of animal with different intensities (strengths) and which combo of which colors will give you new evolutions, and you need to have had 100 unique evolutions in order to fight the final boss of the game. Different evolutions and different color types play a bit differently, and some quite differently, as they add little panels of locamotive body parts to your Cube with each evolution. Most are fairly straight-forward as you lock on to attack, charge up, and lunge for the kill, but some prioritize evasion or blocking instead of pursuit and offense, and some even configure the head in different directions (like sideways or even backwards) or use wider turning circles to make you fight very differently. You also collect love points to mate and grow another "limb" (another panel that makes up your body) and be able to get way more powerful forms. Those are all at pre-determined points in the story though, so it's not like you even could choose not to mate if you wanted to (although the scenes for them are pretty funny).

The controls, as one would expect of a Nintendo game, play quite well. The only real thing to get used to is the camera, which can take a LOT of getting used to as it very much feels like a game from the mid-90s in that regard. You even need to tap the C-stick one tap at a time to reposition the camera in 60 degree increments, like you're pressing C-buttons on an N64 controller. But outside of that, the game has a lot of cool ideas and other things that make it feel older. The way the game isn't super hard, but also doesn't really hold your hand is cool, but won't be for everyone. There are some evolutions that it will be very hard to get used to, but the game DOES, in a way, give you an idea of how to use them by the animals you eat to become that evolution fighting that way in the first place. It's a neat idea that you have to analyze the way your enemies fight because soon you too will be that enemy and will need to fight like they do.

Verdict: Highly Recommended. You'd definitely have to emulate it, as the price tag for the English version is utterly unjustifiable, but I ended up loving Cubivore a lot more than I ever thought I would. It takes a while to get into the swing of how the combat works, but once you do, getting new forms to mess about in is really fun and creates a neat risk-reward of getting new forms but also still being able to fight well enough to get more forms after that. It is absolutely a hidden gem on the Gamecube well worth emulating

32. Wario World (GC) *

I've reviewed this game on the site before, but I learned that the Japanese version of this game has a little more content in it, so I spent the 8 bucks and picked up this game I like to play through again through the course of the afternoon-evening a week ago~. The Japanese version of Wario World is nearly exactly the same (save being in Japanese instead of English :b), but the final boss has a second form! It's nothing super special to write home about and certainly not a big reason to import the game to replay through it if you've already played it and aren't a big fan, but it's cool that it's there~.

I still really like this game. As far as Treasure's entire catalog goes, it's pretty far from a Gunstar Heroes or a Dynamite Headdy, but then not much is in my book . I think it's a good game and a fun 3D action/platformer, even if it is a little short.

[elricorico]

1. NBA Jam (GEN)
2. Astro Bot Rescue Mission (PSVR)
3. Bastion (PS4)
4. Octopath Traveler (NS)
5. Uncharted: Drake's Fortune (PS4)
6. Final Fantasy Adventure (NS)
7. LEGO: The Ninjago Movie Game (PS4)

8. Captain Commando (PS2)

Played through Captain Commando from the Capcom Classics Collection Vol 2 on PS2 last night. Two player co-op with my daughter. This is a game I had never experienced in any form before, and I was pretty impressed.

Beat'em-ups have always been a favourite of mine in the arcades, going back to Golden Axe. This one seems to have an excellent balance of quick gameplay, nice large sprites, a difficulty that doesnt seem unfair, and good quality sound and visuals.

The game isn't very long and doesnt really bring anything new to the genre; it just provides a straightforward good time. I didnt keep track of how many credits I fed, but it certainly didnt feel like too much. The one exception was the last boss felt a little cheap, as I'm not convinced that there were ways to avoid some attacks.

I must say this game collection was a really worthwhile pickup, and I've only gone through most of the beat'em-ups so far. Still plenty to explore and enjoy.

[PartridgeSenpai]

Partridge Senpai's 2020 Beaten Games:
Previously: 2016 2017 2018 2019
* indicates a repeat

1. Invisigun Reloaded (Switch)
2. Human: Fall Flat (Switch)
3. Shantae: The Pirate's Curse (3DS)
4. Darksiders: Warmastered Edition (PC)
5. Splatterhouse (PS3) *
6. 3D Dot Game Heroes (PS3)
7. Tokyo Jungle (PS3)
8. Pictobits (DSiWare)
9. Puzzle Quest: The Legend Reborn (Switch)
10. WarioWare Gold (3DS)
11. Disaster: Day of Crisis (Wii)
12. Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition (Xbone)
13. Sleeping Dogs: Nightmare in North Point (Xbone)
14. Sleeping Dogs: Year of the Snake (Xbone)
15. Dynamite Headdy (Genesis) *
16. Shovel Knight: King of Cards (3DS)
17. Shovel Knight: Shovel of Hope (3DS) *
18. Shovel Knight: Plague of Shadows (Switch) *
19. Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment (Switch) *
20. Shovel Knight: Showdown (Switch)
21. Dragon Quest Builders 2 (PS4)
22. ActRaiser (SNES)
23. Castlevania: The Adventure ReBirth (WiiWare)
24. Mega Man X (SNES)
25. Breath of Fire II (SNES)
26. Ape Escape 2 (PS2) *
27. Doubutsu No Mori+ (GC)
28. Ape Escape (PS1)
29. Ape Escape 3 (PS2) *
30. Maken X (DC)
31. Cubivore (GC)
32. Wario World (GC) *

33. Hatoful Boyfriend (PC)

As my username might hint at, Hatoful Boyfriend is a game very near and dear to my heart, but believe it or not I'd never beaten it and honestly had barely played it until fairly recently. Up until now it was just a game whose style I really liked, but I'd never really put much time into it until a month or so ago. My girlfriend and I played through it together over Discord over the course of the past month or so, as she voiced the main characters and I gave voiced to all the other characters. A fun bonding activity that lets me indulge in making like I'm a voice actor X3. It took about 20 or so hours to get through all the routes.

​Hatoful Boyfriend is a dating sim that began as an April fools joke around a decade ago that the authors were compelled to make into a full game by the incredibly positive feedback to the little snippet of the joke they'd made up until that point. The joke, of course, being that it's a dating sim where you're a human girl who dates birds. Not birds who turn into humans, just straight up talking birds. There are little splash-screens when you first meet them that show them what they might look like if they WERE human, but they're in actuality birds and definitely not humans XD

Silly premise aside, Hatoful Boyfriend is actually quite a well written game. The translation can be a bit odd at times (with numerous obvious spelling mistakes, including one character's NAME being misspelled everywhere but his splash screen), but that mostly adds to the quirky fun of it all. And just as it is humorous, it's also fairly adept at being serious when it's trying to be, with particularly the BBL ending having some very good plotting and buildup. Around the silly premise of dating birds is the question of exactly why and how birds and talk, use tools, and go to school, and the tidbits of smaller mysteries surrounding that intermixed with the personal journey of the main character finding love is quite well done.

There are 8 characters to romance in the game, with the HD version on Steam on PS4 adding another two endings during summer vacation (which are honestly one of the more weak parts of the game). In addition, once you've gotten an ending with every character in the game, you gain the option at the game's start to "fulfill the promise", which activates the BBL ending (Bad Boy's Love). The BBL ending is much more of a larger mystery primarily concerning the other side characters and not the main character you spend the rest of the game as, and you mostly play as the birds in this much much longer (it's like 6-7 hours long) route. In the original PC release it was more like an adventure game visual novel with choices that could kill you, but those have been streamlined into an un-failable straight VN. While this does remove the frustration of dying, it does make this part feel a bit odd as places where choices or even kind of stricter save system have textual remnants but no mechanical ones. That said, my girlfriend and I both agreed that the BBL route was by far the best part of the game, even if it stumbles at the ending a little.

Verdict: Highly Recommended. Hatoful Boyfriend is my no means a perfect story or a perfect game, but it's one I enjoyed a ton. It does a good job of balancing seriousness with silliness, and is far more than JUST a gratuitous joke about romancing birds (although let's not kid ourselves that that isn't a decent part of what it is XD). Granted I imagine very people will play the game like I did, I still recommend it if you're a fan of VNs~