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Flake wrote:And then it's all undone by an absolutely boring game map that requires endless backtracking and a late game 'fetch quest' that completely derails the game's pacing and kills the experience.

What you wrote there is exactly what made me stop playing the game. The tedious unfriendly backtracking and ridiculous key fetching was the opposite of fun.

Flake wrote:It was challenging but it was not fun.

Bingo.

Prime 2 is just a whole lot of pretty busy work.

It's worth nothing that Echoes is the only console Prime that Nintendo really gave Retro full reign on. Nintendo realized their mistake after that, because Satoru Iwata himself actually co-directed Prime 3 to keep it on the rails. "Mark Pacini, you are NOT going to screw this one up."

I'm going to be a weirdo again, but I thought Echoes was easier than Prime. Maybe it was just me being used to the control scheme, dunno.

I still think it was a great game, too. Not as good as Prime, no, but still great.

First 50:

51. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (SNES)

Secret of Mana had me itching to play this again.

Flawless game.

Final save has all items & heart pieces collected, max rupees / bombs / arrows. No deaths. I just wish my "Games Played" total was 000 but as far as I can tell that requires a straight run-through with no saving.

No big write-up this time. You've probably played it and enjoyed it. If you haven't played this get off your ass, turn off your Pico, and grab a LttP cart pronto!!!

Sum Fighter (XBLIG), Story Mode as Edison.

It's basically BlockSum, but as a 2D-Fighter inspired puzzle game (a la Super Puzzle Fighter).

1. Call of Duty United Offensive Expansion Pack - PC (January 16)
2. Dead To Rights - Gamecube (January 24)
3. River City Ransom EX - GBA (February 21)
4. Call of Duty 2 - PC (February 28) (link missing due to this game's post being wiped during the great RB server move)
5. Quake - PC (March 31)
6. The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay (PC) (April 5)
7. *NEW* Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon (PC)

You may remember when I beat this game on the Gamecube last year. This PC version had a little bit more to it, namely, being able to assemble 3 teams at once. Other than that, it looked a little better and was just a little less harder in difficulty, unlike that *other* FPS from this series I'm playing now.

1.) The Silent Age(iOS)
2.) Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective(ds) - beat it on one battery charge got stuck in a few spots but not as much as last time. Even though I was remembering the story more and more since this was a replay, it still managed to keep me hooked and kept me going until the very end. I think I could see myself playing more games like this in the future, really interesting

First 50:

51. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (SNES)
52. Tic-Tac-Toe / Shooting Gallery / Doodle / Quadra-Doodle (Channel F)

So, inspired by noisedishstark, I have decided to jump into the "Year Challenge." Essentially I'll be playing one game released per year from 1976 (start of the 2nd gen) until the "present" (at the rate I'll be moving I'll probably wrap this up in 2017 or so). I'll be doing this on-and-off, of course, as I still plan on moving forward with my "regular" gaming schedule, as well as participating in the Summer Challenge, Together Retro, etc...

A few notes on methodology, for those interested:


Moving on...

1976...

Tic-Tac-Toe / Shooting Gallery / Doodle / Quadra-Doodle

1. Painkiller - PC
2. Front Mission 4 - PS2
3. Wasteland 2 - PC
4. Arcanum - PC
5. X-COM Terror from the Deep - PC
6. Military Madness - TurboGrafx-16
7. Unreal - PC
8. Shadowrun - SNES
9. Warcraft III - PC
10. Dungeon Keeper - PC
11. Final Fantasy X-2 HD - PS3
12. Descent - PC
13. Quake Mission Pack 2 - Dissolution of Eternity - PC
14. Quake 2 Mission Pack 2 - Ground Zero - PC
15. Sokobond - PC
16. Hybrid Heaven - N64
17. Sonic the Hedgehog - Genesis
18. Castlevania - NES
19. Super Castlevania IV - SNES
20. Castlevania III - NES
21. Castlevania II - NES
22. Castlevania Rondo of Blood - Turbo CD
23. Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders - PC
24. Fractal - PC
25. Kirby's Adventure - NES
26. Pillars of Eternity - PC
27. Bioshock 2: Minerva's Den - PC
28. Command & Conquer Generals: Zero Hour - PC

The expansion for the Generals sub-series of C&C, I felt like this was pretty blah. There are only 5 missions per side and the bulk of those missions are "commando" missions or missions with bases with conspicuous gaps in the tech tree (as opposed to just not being at a particular level yet). And the Generals series has always felt the weakest to me; the story is very stripped down compared to the other C&C games or StarCraft and the units aren't very satisfying to use. Especially egregious is how pathetic the air units are (except the Helix). Everyone gets a lot of solid anti-air units and the base defenses are all anti-air, so you lose the ability to do any sort of surgical strike from the air to soften up targets. And then, of course, there's the part where Generals is more of a modern military StarCraft rather than a C&C game.

1. Painkiller - PC
2. Front Mission 4 - PS2
3. Wasteland 2 - PC
4. Arcanum - PC
5. X-COM Terror from the Deep - PC
6. Military Madness - TurboGrafx-16
7. Unreal - PC
8. Shadowrun - SNES
9. Warcraft III - PC
10. Dungeon Keeper - PC
11. Final Fantasy X-2 HD - PS3
12. Descent - PC
13. Quake Mission Pack 2 - Dissolution of Eternity - PC
14. Quake 2 Mission Pack 2 - Ground Zero - PC
15. Sokobond - PC
16. Hybrid Heaven - N64
17. Sonic the Hedgehog - Genesis
18. Castlevania - NES
19. Super Castlevania IV - SNES
20. Castlevania III - NES
21. Castlevania II - NES
22. Castlevania Rondo of Blood - Turbo CD
23. Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders - PC
24. Fractal - PC
25. Kirby's Adventure - NES
26. Pillars of Eternity - PC
27. Bioshock 2: Minerva's Den - PC
28. Command & Conquer Generals: Zero Hour - PC
29. Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves - NES

Those of you old enough to remember video game rentals, did you have that one game you rented over and over trying to beat? This was mine. A friend showed it to me once and I thought it was the coolest thing ever; you run around and sword people from a top down view like Zelda, then you have a side view for one-on-one fights with bosses, and then there's a super zoomed out mode for huge army battles. And an inventory so you could get better gear and use heals. It was so cool. As a kid the furthest I got was right before the final boss; there's a special monster that guards the final boss and as a kid I was so nervous I couldn't get the timing right to kill it. The monster is a giant skeleton that can only be injured with a special dagger you have (weapon reach varies among weapons so this was hard to use). The skeleton will lift his sword up, swing it down, then pause for a bit, then repeat. He always matches your horizontal position on the screen so he will always hit you with the sword when it comes down if you're close enough. I think as a kid what I tried to do was to run in really fast when the sword was up, since otherwise the sword was always in front of him. This didn't work. As it turns out, after he swings his sword loses its hitbox, so you let him swing, then run in and poke him, then run out again.

As an adult I've learned the reflexes and patience to be able to overcome all of this game's challenges. Instead of ignoring the bow at the start until I can get the one-handed varieties I now snag it right away since it kills almost everything in one shot, ammo is plentiful, and it has a larger range. I can react quickly enough to take out the bow wielding guards before they can destroy my health (the biggest threat in this game), and I have the patience for the boss fights that I can't just cheese out. So it was nice being able to make it through this game that had stood unbeaten for so long.

But having finished it, the game ends up being rather mediocre. The game has RPG elements but they aren't fully fleshed out. You gain levels from killing stuff but everything gives only 2 experience (first level is 100, +25 to that requirement for each subsequent level) except for some minor enemies that die on contact which give 1. Leveling up does have a real benefit, as it increases your max health, heals you a bit, and increases your stats. The armor stat is the most relevant as it makes your HP go further (though interestingly your armor only is applied if you have a piece of armor on; naked your defense is always 0). Damage is pretty meaningless since your real damage comes from your equipped weapon; since enemies only take 3 hits at the start a weapon upgrade will hit those breakpoints faster than your level damage boost. The real stat that matters is your agility, which determines your movement speed. A faster movement speed lets you take out enemies before they can hurt you, which is vital. Agility is decreased by your carried gear, so a level up can take you over a breakpoint where you suddenly go fast. By end game you MIGHT be level 5 if you grind, so this ends up not being as interesting as it could be.

You have a party of up to 4 people including yourself, but the purpose of other party members is to be pack mules and to participate in the army battles. During regular movement you always control Robin. As a consequence the gear you give your party doesn't matter much. The main questions are "does he have a weapon", "does he have a bow", and "does he have armor", and I'm not sure that last one applies. All enemies in the army battles die in one hit so the weapon you give them doesn't mean a thing.

There's gold drops, but the only things you can buy with gold are the 200 you need for a quest (and the previous quest gives you far more than that for free and you can't miss it) and you can spend 20 on a chest key which seemed to be bugged (I didn't check my inventory, got involved in an army battle which awarded a chest key, then afterwards I only had one) and I don't think there's any chests you can open past that point anyway. It seems chest keys was another mechanic that didn't get fleshed out. This game definitely feels like it wanted another several months development and got cut off due the usual things that happen with licensed games.

At least it's short; it took an hour and a half to finish and I saw on the SDA forums that people were driving their general times down to around the 30 minute mark. The optimization points are the boss battles (there are safe strats that take a long time so you need to get aggressive), getting only the required items (lots of stuff is out of the way), and just getting good enough at maneuvering that you don't get caught up on the terrain with your weird movement hitbox.

1. Super Smash Brothers - N64 (January 3)
2. Shovel Knight - Wii U (January 6)
3. NES Remix - Wii U (January 14)
4. NES Remix 2 - Wii U (January 14)
5. Streets of Rage - Genesis (January 16)
6. F-Zero - SNES (January 21)
7. Super Mario 3D World - Wii U (January 28)
8. Hyrule Warriors - Wii U (February 5)
9. Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask 3D - 3DS (February 23)
10. Double Dragon Neon - PC (March 1)
11. Mario Kart 8 - Wii U (March 3)
12. Hotline Miami - PS3 (March 14)
13. Pokemon White - Nintendo DS (March 17)
14. Pokemon Soul Silver - Nintendo DS (April 2)
15. Pokemon White 2 - Nintendo DS (April 14)

So, Red is pretty brutal. That Snorlax is really whom I despise. Never would I have thought that Red could be so tough. Still, this is a great game, I managed to snag most of the legendary Pokemon, get all the badges. It's really something special to recreate and rerelease one of the best Pokemon games, and still be true to the original story. 9.5/10

White 2 was just as good. I like some of the subtle details that let you move through the game at a decent pace. The continuation of the story is really cool, and having Memory Link provide some backstory of events in between the two games is a neat feature. In this game, I started catching more Pokemon along the way, as the Unova Pokedex feature was something that hooked me. 9.4/10