Games Beaten 2012

[dsheinem]

Golden Axe Warrior - SMS
Current - iOS
Golden Axe: The Duel - Saturn *new*
Golden Axe - Genesis *new*

TOTAL: 4

2011 Games Beaten
2010 Games Beaten

After beating Golden Axe Warrior, I wanted to play some other games in the series. I tried Ax Battler (SMS) the other day for a very short while, and did not like it at all. I'll be passing on that one. Today I tried Golden Axe: The Duel and got sucked in. Make no bones about it: the game is quite tough, but it looks and plays like a dream - almost as good as some of the best titles from SNK and Capcom on the Saturn, which is really saying something. The game's fighting system offers some nice complexity, the sprites are nice and large, and the animation is fluid and quick. I highly recommend people hunt down a copy, as it is certainly worth a play.

At times I am convinced that Golden Axe is my favorite Genesis game, and it is probably the first-party Genesis game I have sunk more time into on the system than any other over the years. Death Bringer is still an unreasonably hard boss given the sheer ease that almost everything else can be beaten, and I actually had to play a second game to get to the credits as he took me out on the first go (I must be rusty!). Afterwards I played Golden Axe II for a bit, and made it to level 5 or so...and died. Rusty on that one too. If the mood strikes me, I may go back and play.

[Flake]

1/2 Cannon Spike (DC)
1/9 Mega Man X4 (GCN)

Mega Man X4 is my hands-down favorite game of all time. This time around I actually challenged myself and did a mostly-minimalist run, something I have not yet done in the 12 years I have owned this game. I was surprised to learn a few things about this game that I had never noticed before. There were a lot of exploits and tricks I had always blown by when fully equipped.

[SpaceBooger]

1. Sonic CD (PSN)

Did you go back and destroy all the generators and Metal Sonics?
I am playing through this one too and have that as my goal since I suck at the special stages (I have yet to get one time crystal).

As for my games beaten 2012
1/9 Golden Axe Warrior - SMS

I hated the controls. The game was challenging and I had to play a couple dungeons hours upon hours - D6, D7, and D10. When I think of this game I think about all the stuff that I didn't like and then realize that I put more time into this game per sitting than any other game in a while. I found myself getting sucked in for hours at a time almost every day for the last week. There was something fun about reading maps, taking notes (I did the same as noise) coming up with a perfect game plan only to find out that I had no life and the route I wanted to travel was only accessible by killing every enemy in that room. The planing, disillusionment, excitement, discovery and adventure that this game instilled in me while playing made it all worth it and I am happy that I put the time in and played this through to the end.

[Gamerforlife]

1/2 Cannon Spike (DC)
1/9 Mega Man X4 (GCN)

Mega Man X4 is my hands-down favorite game of all time. This time around I actually challenged myself and did a mostly-minimalist run, something I have not yet done in the 12 years I have owned this game. I was surprised to learn a few things about this game that I had never noticed before. There were a lot of exploits and tricks I had always blown by when fully equipped.

One of my all time faves too, I think the game is actually way more fun with a minimalist run. It becomes a whole different game

[YoshiEgg25]

1/6: Puzzle Agent 2 PC *NEW*

Total: 1


More of the same from Puzzle Agent 2, which is far from a bad thing. Great dialogue, a very interesting art style, and mind-bending puzzles return from the first game. But my one qualm with the original Puzzle Agent remains: it's just too short, taking me less than two hours to complete. If you're looking for a PC puzzle game though, grab both titles; you will not regret it.

[noiseredux]

1. Sonic CD (PSN)

Did you go back and destroy all the generators and Metal Sonics?
I am playing through this one too and have that as my goal since I suck at the special stages (I have yet to get one time crystal).

no I didn't. I've never been a completionist gamer. And really this play-through was more about just beating the game. See, I had it on SCD when it first came out, and loved it. But I had never beat it back then. Odd since it seemed ridiculously easy to me now -- much easier than Sonic 2, which I had beaten back then.

1/9 Golden Axe Warrior - SMS

I hated the controls. The game was challenging and I had to play a couple dungeons hours upon hours - D6, D7, and D10. When I think of this game I think about all the stuff that I didn't like and then realize that I put more time into this game per sitting than any other game in a while. I found myself getting sucked in for hours at a time almost every day for the last week. There was something fun about reading maps, taking notes (I did the same as noise) coming up with a perfect game plan only to find out that I had no life and the route I wanted to travel was only accessible by killing every enemy in that room. The planing, disillusionment, excitement, discovery and adventure that this game instilled in me while playing made it all worth it and I am happy that I put the time in and played this through to the end.

you summed it up perfectly. It's this totally flawed game -- but there's just something about it that makes you WANT to keep playing and see yourself conquering that final dungeon. Though far from perfect, I can't help but sort of really like the game for that suck-you-in quality.

[dsheinem]

1. Sonic CD (PSN)

Did you go back and destroy all the generators and Metal Sonics?
I am playing through this one too and have that as my goal since I suck at the special stages (I have yet to get one time crystal).

no I didn't. I've never been a completionist gamer. And really this play-through was more about just beating the game. See, I had it on SCD when it first came out, and loved it. But I had never beat it back then. Odd since it seemed ridiculously easy to me now -- much easier than Sonic 2, which I had beaten back then.

1/9 Golden Axe Warrior - SMS

I hated the controls. The game was challenging and I had to play a couple dungeons hours upon hours - D6, D7, and D10. When I think of this game I think about all the stuff that I didn't like and then realize that I put more time into this game per sitting than any other game in a while. I found myself getting sucked in for hours at a time almost every day for the last week. There was something fun about reading maps, taking notes (I did the same as noise) coming up with a perfect game plan only to find out that I had no life and the route I wanted to travel was only accessible by killing every enemy in that room. The planing, disillusionment, excitement, discovery and adventure that this game instilled in me while playing made it all worth it and I am happy that I put the time in and played this through to the end.

you summed it up perfectly. It's this totally flawed game -- but there's just something about it that makes you WANT to keep playing and see yourself conquering that final dungeon. Though far from perfect, I can't help but sort of really like the game for that suck-you-in quality.

I don't know...had it not been for the fact a bunch of us were playing, I'd probably not have felt motivated to continue based on the game itself.

[noiseredux]

I don't know...had it not been for the fact a bunch of us were playing, I'd probably not have felt motivated to continue based on the game itself.

but you also said you're not a fan of "Zelda style" games. So there's that.

[AmishSamurai]

1/12- Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

I had actually gotten just about to the endgame several months ago, but some game fatigue set in, and I really didn't want to do another planet. I had fun while playing, but found most of the characters were pretty bland, and the endgame and tutorial are both pretty dry. Everything else in-between? A blast.

[alienjesus]

Super Mario 3D Land 3DS
Professor Layton & The Spectre's Call DS
Trip World 3DS VC
Streetpass Quest II 3DS *NEW*
Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse - Episode 301: The Penal Zone PC *NEW*
Kirby's Fun Pak VC *NEW*
Golden Axe Warrior SMS *NEW*
Total: 7

Streetpass Quest II was a nice update to the Streetpass Mii Plaza games on 3DS. It added lots of new enemies, more options of what to do each turn to add more strategy, more unlockables, and branching paths for some replay value. It was a pretty decent little game, although the new potions were overpriced at up to 20 play coins (2 days worth) per potion. The option to 'hire' people you've previously met on Streetpass was also nice, as it meant I could hire a level 7 Mii of a friend of mine rather than getting 5 rubbish level 1's. Good stuff overall.

Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse is the third season in Telltales episodic Sam & Max series, and it has been given a much needed update to make it feel new. The graphics have been marginally improved, with some gritty textures and filters which are actually very fitting to Sam & Max's 'detectivey' actions, aswell as the paranormal theme of this season. The new interface is odd, and seems like it was designed with the PS3 in mind (as the games came out on that also), but it actually grew on me well enough, and made me think a little bit of Grim Fandango with its arrow key movement.
The gameplay is pretty much identical, but has one nice new gimmick with Max's new psychic powers. These make Max a little more involved in the game, and the powers create some new, cool, out of the box puzzles. The future vision power is also nice for hinting at solutions to puzzles you might be stuck on. The new story is OK so far, it seems like it's actually going to be a major continuing story between the 5 episodes. The episode was fairly funny, and the puzzles were well balanced. Overall, it's looking to be a pretty awesome season if it keeps this quality up.

Kirby's Fun Pak (aka Kirby Superstar) is a fun little kirby game for Super Nintendo. The game has a wide variety of powers to use, but the real fun is in how they all have a medley of different attacks to use for each power. Yoyo was a particular favourite of mine. The way the game is split into smaller sub-games is pretty cool too, and makes for nice bite-size chunks of kirby, kind of like the original dreamland on game boy was, only 4 6 times in one game. It's probably the best Kirby game I've played overall.

Golden Axe Warrior is a game I played this month for Together Retro, and I have to say, I prefer it to the original Zelda. Although its still pretty lacking it direction, it's much better than zelda with secrets and items, and the translation is especially an improvement - you actually understand the clues being given to you. Little things like being able to chop multiple trees down quickly with an axe instead of burning them really really slow like in Zelda make up the reasons why I prefer this. The game isn't as hard as Zelda imo, but it's not easy either. Overall it's one of my new favourites for Master System, and it's a game I think any fan of the genre should play.