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Dragon Fantasy (iOS)

I've been looking for a solid retro-style RPG for a while, and this was the perfect answer. It's heavily styled in the feel of the original Dragon Quest games, but includes many key improvements: tons of humor, much better chip tunes, and the battle engine works very fast (so much better for grinding).

Hard to say how long it took me to beat it, since there isn't a built-in clock. Probably around 6 or 7 hours. Quite a deal for $2.99.

finally beat wiz pig 1 and 2 on diddy kong racing for N64

noiseredux wrote:I dont think the jpn version is still online boss.

It was the only version that was online-capable at the time. I don't think there's any PSO-style online support for that game still ongoing

timewarpgamer wrote:Dragon Fantasy (iOS)

I've been looking for a solid retro-style RPG for a while, and this was the perfect answer. It's heavily styled in the feel of the original Dragon Quest games, but includes many key improvements: tons of humor, much better chip tunes, and the battle engine works very fast (so much better for grinding).

Hard to say how long it took me to beat it, since there isn't a built-in clock. Probably around 6 or 7 hours. Quite a deal for $2.99.

Hey that looks pretty neat. I always liked those Dragon Quest tribute games. Warrior Dragon is another good one.

Company of Heroes PC
Super Mario 3D Land 3DS
Far Cry 3 PC
Mega Man 2 3DS
Resident Evil: Revelations 3DS
Fire Emblem: Awakening 3DS
Need for Speed: Most Wanted U WiiU
Mario Kart 7 3DS

Lego City: Undercover WiiU

I had a decent enough time with this one. I think if you're a fan of the Lego games, this one is probably the best out of all of them. It serves as a spiritual successor to the old Lego Island PC games and it's quite fun. However, just like all the Lego games, it does lack complexity and depth, and can be quite repetitive and boring in some cases. It doesn't help that the open world element just isn't nearly as well done as in other games. Luckily, the charm and excellent writing carried me through to the end. Lots of humor and references only adults would get. At the same time though, there's plenty of cringeworthy humor in there as well ("compuper...").

At the very least, there is tons of content. I finished the game with 19.8% completion and 14 hours into the game. That said, I don't really see myself revisiting this one that much.

Games Beaten in 2012 = 32
1/21 To the Moon (PC)
2/28 Kentucky Route Zero: Act I (PC)
3/12 The King of the Wood (PC)
3/14 The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings (PC)
3/17 The Darkness 2 (PC)
3/20 Persona 4: The Golden (Vita)
3/27 Castlevania: Lords of Shadow: Mirror of Fate (3DS)
4/2 Gravity Bone (PC)

Games Beaten = 8

4/6 Thirty Flights of Loving (PC)

This is another, um, experimental FPS game in the Citizen Abel series. I believe this takes place before Gravity Bone and it's over before you know it. It's really hard to describe these games, they don't convey much story, but certainly have a lot of atmosphere. You're almost playing an emotion or feeling or something... I'm not sure I entirely "got" all there was to get out of this, but I'd say it's defintely worth your time to play through, maybe twice, to see some things you may have missed the first time through.

The thing about 30 Flights is that it tells about as much story in 5-10 minutes as most games tell in 5-10 hours. All the quick-cut flash backs, jarring time edits, the metaphorical surrealism, and situational storytelling come together to effectively tell a heist-gone-wrong story very quickly. I think it is over all too quickly, and it doesn't really stand on its own as a game because it's so short and there is very little gameplay, but I think game designers have a lot to learn from this little powerhouse game in terms of translating cinema/editing techniques to the video game medium.

J T wrote:The thing about 30 Flights is that it tells about as much story in 5-10 minutes as most games tell in 5-10 hours. All the quick-cut flash backs, jarring time edits, the metaphorical surrealism, and situational storytelling come together to effectively tell a heist-gone-wrong story very quickly. I think it is over all too quickly, and it doesn't really stand on its own as a game because it's so short and there is very little gameplay, but I think game designers have a lot to learn from this little powerhouse game in terms of translating cinema/editing techniques to the video game medium.

There's plenty that is inscrutable though, wouldn't you say? Isn't that a sign of poor storytelling? Is it because this is part 7 of a series that I've only played the last two of?

1. Okamiden (NDS)
2. Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection (Wii)
3. Pinball Hall of Fame: The Gottlieb Collection (Wii)
4. Cave Story 3D (3DS)
5. Theatrhytm Final Fantasy (3DS)
6. Rayman Origins (Wii)
7. Kim Possible: What's The Switch (PS2)
8. Super Street Fighter 4: 3d Edition (3DS)
9. Metal Slug Advance (GBA)

I picked this game at random from my GBA collection, and ended up having a lot of fun with it. It is a Metal Slug game through-and-through, but it does have some interesting features not seen elsewhere in the series.

First, the game has a P.O.W. and card collection systems that encourages exploration of the games branching levels. Moreover, you do not get to "keep" your P.O.W.s and cards if your charcater is killed; so, collecting these items is a lot of work. (I only collected the P.O.W.s and cards from the first level. I could probably get them from the second, but anything beyond that is going to require a bit more dedication.)

Second, your character has a life meter which makes the game both easier and more difficult than traditional Metal Slug titles. (You have unlimited continues, but if the life meter reaches zero, then you are forced to resart from the beginning of the section where your character died.) Notably, you get to keep your special weapon even if you sustain damage. You do not, however, get f resh supply of grenades each time your character is hit, however. Moreover, different types of impacts do different amounts of damage. Whereas grazing any type of bullet or other projectile resulted in instant death in the original Metal Slug games, a bullet does fairly little damages in Metal Slug Advance. A missile or grenade might wipe out 3/4 of your life meter, however, and a "pit" will cause instant death. As a result, the difficulty of each section varies greatly depending on the type of projectiles. (If there are a lot of bullets of lasers it is as if you have five or more lives. If there are lots of bombs, grenades, missiles, etc., it is as if you only have two.)

Finally - and in typical Metal Slug/SNK fashion - the final boss was more difficult than the rest of the game combined, but not nearly as difficult as the final boss in Metal Slug 7.

While I probably will not dedicate a lot of time to it immediately, I do see myself returning to this game to see if I can pick up a few more P.O.W.s or cards or whenever I need a short burst of easy to pick up, portable, run-n-gun" action. I also recommend it to anyone who has more than a passing interestin the Metal Slug series.

I should start keeping a list as well, going on memory for some of these earlier ones. In no particular order at the start at least.

Yakuza 4 (PS3)
Hotline Miami (PC)
Disgaea 4 (PS3)
Quest of Ki (Famicom)
Flow Free (Android)
Ni no Kuni (PS3)
Bad Dudes (NES)
Magic Knight Rayearth (Saturn)
Sexy Parodius (Saturn)
Ys 1 Chronicles + (PC)
Super Mario Kart (SNES)
Umihara Kawase (Super Famicom)
Sonic & Sega All Stars Racing Transformed (PC)
Hatsune Miku: Project Diva f (PS3)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time (SNES)
Atlantis no Nazo (Famicom)
4/8 - Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory (PS3)

The latest Neptune game was a big improvement over the previous ones in terms of its battle system. I'm a big fan of traditional turn based combat, coming up with good strategies for your moves and weighing in status effects and raw character stats. This game had all that, while it's not as balanced and challenging as something like Etrian Odyssey it was still a lot of fun.

The downsides were the dialogue dragged on at a horrible snails pace, and there was a lot of it. Several references to other game companies and franchises are made and they can be pretty amusing when it's not shoving it in your face and begging you to laugh at it. The artstyle is definitely not for everyone, and the overall story and characters can be irritating, this is the kind of game I play just to enjoy the combat system alone and try to ignore the rest, like I've done with FFX-2 and a few others. I will give it just props for having some really good music mixed into the dull boring bits of the soundtrack, if nothing else the boring music that's been used for 3 games now makes the newer, better composed stuff stand out even more.

Looking to tackle Ys 2 Chronicles+ on nightmare mode or Bioshock Infinite next.

As a side note... looking at this list and seeing everything at once... I really do play a pretty wide variety of games outside of RPGs, I never quite noticed it before.