Anything that is gaming related that doesn't fit well anywhere else
User avatar
REPO Man
Next-Gen
 
Posts: 4647
Joined: Tue Jul 29, 2008 8:05 pm
Location: Outer Banks, NC

Re: Games Beaten 2016

by REPO Man Sun Jan 24, 2016 7:50 pm

Freedom Planet for PC, on Easy, both as Carol and Milla.

But due to changes between versions I had to beat the final boss as Lilac again for the game to count it as beaten.

It should be noted that I'm subscribed to the public betas and can also play as Torque, but only in Time Trial mode :( .

Can't wait for Torque to be playable in Story Mode.

Also can't wait to play as Space.
User avatar
MrPopo
Moderator
 
Posts: 23908
Joined: Tue Aug 26, 2008 1:01 pm
Location: Orange County, CA

Re: Games Beaten 2016

by MrPopo Sun Jan 24, 2016 7:55 pm

1. Oni - PC
2. Donkey Kong 64 - N64
3. Yoshi's Story - N64
4. Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide - PC
5. Forsaken 64 - N64
6. Bloodrayne: Betrayal - PSN
7. Fire Emblem Seisen no Keifu - SNES
8. Fire Emblem Shin Monshō no Nazo: Hikari to Kage no Eiyū - Nintendo DS

I remembered I had a save of this that was two maps from the true ending, so still on a strategy kick I decided to finish things off. I remembered why I never finished; the last couple maps are quite brutal in terms of trying their damnest to kill off your characters and I had to restart several times on the penultimate map to get things right. On the final map I said fuck it and blitzed the end, losing most of my units and not saving any of the maidens. But since I was stuck with three underleveled units to try and save them I didn't stress too much about it.

This is the remake of the third Fire Emblem game and is a sequel to Shadow Dragon. While it does modernize things it still hews pretty closely to the old gameplay. Most of the additions are in the in-between map base screen. That's where you have the ability to converse with certain units (which might give hints about the upcoming map or just build relationships) and to do base preparations. A less broken version of the forging system is also here. The other noteworthy addition is the first instance of a player avatar unit. In this case you end up being Marth's right hand knight and are lost to the history books afterwards to keep the general story in line with the original game. But the avatar apparently proved to be a hit with characters, as we got the tactician in Awakening and then the player character in Fates as a fully customized unit.

The biggest problem with the game is the assload of characters it has. It has approximately twice the number of units as Shadow Dragon did; in addition to nearly every character from Shadow Dragon it also has a full suite of its own characters. If you lose half your units on every map MAYBE you'd start to run out. Except the game also introduced the Casual mode where there is no perma death, which makes the cast feel more bloated fan Fat Albert. Also, due to the game's age every map is a seize map which means that judicious use of the Warp staff can blow through a map. Apparently on the final map of the regular game (before the bad ending/true ending fork) I beat it in a single turn; I must have just skipped straight to the boss and won. You'd think that this would leave units underleveled, but I was finding that there was still more than enough experience to go around and indeed several of my units were getting empty levels at the end, as they had capped all their primary stats. The other thing that seems like it'd be cooler than it actually was is the unit reclassing system. Here you can change a unit among several class options in a set (different sets for different units), but you can only get one extra of a given class. So if you have three Cavaliers you can only make one extra Cavalier through reclassing. The problem is that due to weapon experience most of the reclass options end up being a step downward in power, especially as the game goes on. And the limits keep you away from a lot of the real customization. It won't be until Awakening that they come up with a good reclass system. Although now that I've beaten Hard I've removed the reclass limits, so maybe if I do another playthrough I'll do something funny like everyone being Myrmidons or something.
Image
Blizzard Entertainment Software Developer - All comments and views are my own and not representative of the company.
User avatar
Key-Glyph
Next-Gen
 
Posts: 1709
Joined: Tue Sep 06, 2011 12:38 am
Location: Summer Games Challenge!

Re: Games Beaten 2016

by Key-Glyph Sun Jan 24, 2016 8:34 pm

Now that I've caught up with the unbelievable amount of pages already in this thread, it's time for me to hop in!

01. MagMax (NES)
02. World of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse (GEN) [2-player]


MagMax...
was a gift from my friend Josh, who says that the first time he truly noticed music in a video game was when he was playing this arcade title as a child. It's a slow horizontal shmup with a funny little twist: you start as a standard flying ship, but your power-ups are actually robot limbs that you affix to yourself, Megazord-style, until you're eventually stomping along with legs, a torso, a head, and what I can only describe as a lightsaber weedwhacker.

This sounds awesome, and so does the fact that you fight a giant robot dragon with three heads that breathes fire. But I don't know if I'd say MagMax is fun. (Josh wouldn't, either.) It loops indefinitely and continuously through three or four different environments, each comprised of a surface and subterranean section that you can jump between. Your three-headed dragon friend is the boss at the end of every section, and his tactics don't change. There's just not a lot of variety here. And yet I find myself wanting to go back to it and see how many points I can rack up.

I think it appeals as a test of will. How long can you endure this game? And/or the subterranean music? This is what drives the masochism of MagMax.


World of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse...
is a title I rented a bit as a child, but had never played co-op. So, while one of my best childhood friends (and my forever Genesis partner) deliberately got snowed in with us this weekend, we finished a game we'd started sometime over the summer via a carefully scribbled password.

We had a lot of fun with it, but that's because we've known each other since we were five years old and are easily amused by each other. Does Mickey pulling Donald and his too-big butt through tight spaces ever get old? Nope!

That said, the game plodded a bit toward the end. There's a section where you literally revisit small pieces of levels you've already completed before you can reach the final boss. We're not sure if we had to revisit all of the game's levels to proceed or if we just had bad luck picking doors, but we found this gimmick lame -- and this is from someone who enjoys a good boss parade.

In the end it has a lot of charm, will make you smile, and is definitely fun to play with a friend. Especially a friend who enjoys shouting "ALAKAZAAM!" in a Donald Duck voice with you at 12:30 AM.

* = replay
Last edited by Key-Glyph on Sun Jan 24, 2016 10:04 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Image

BogusMeatFactory wrote:If I could powder my copies of shenmue and snort them I would
User avatar
alienjesus
Next-Gen
 
Posts: 8775
Joined: Tue Feb 24, 2009 7:10 pm
Location: London, UK.

Re: Games Beaten 2016

by alienjesus Sun Jan 24, 2016 8:44 pm

Key-Glyph wrote:
Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse is a title I rented a bit as a child, but had never played co-op.

... Does Mickey pulling Donald and his too-big butt through tight spaces ever get old? Nope!

...There's a section where you literally revisit small pieces of levels you've already completed before you can reach the final boss.

... Especially a friend who enjoys shouting "ALAKAZAAM!" in a Donald Duck voice with you at 12:30 AM.


I think you got the wrong title. This sounds like World of Illusion, not Castle of Illusion!
Image
User avatar
Key-Glyph
Next-Gen
 
Posts: 1709
Joined: Tue Sep 06, 2011 12:38 am
Location: Summer Games Challenge!

Re: Games Beaten 2016

by Key-Glyph Sun Jan 24, 2016 8:53 pm

alienjesus wrote:I think you got the wrong title. This sounds like World of Illusion, not Castle of Illusion!
You are correct, sir! I always get these confused. Thanks.

Good catch, by the way. I'm impressed.
Last edited by Key-Glyph on Sun Jan 24, 2016 8:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Image

BogusMeatFactory wrote:If I could powder my copies of shenmue and snort them I would
Snatch1414
Next-Gen
 
Posts: 1279
Joined: Mon Aug 31, 2009 8:33 pm

Re: Games Beaten 2016

by Snatch1414 Sun Jan 24, 2016 8:53 pm

Beat Shovel Knight. Really good retro-style game, as its reputation would have one believe. It's not gods gift, as someone on Reddit put it, but definitely in the running when discussing the best crop of throwback style games. On to Plague of Shadows and the challenges.

PS: it was challenging but definitely beatable. I think a lot of people claiming it was extremely difficult are probably people that don't play a lot of old games. As long as you use the tools the game gives you you shouldn't be leaving a level unbeaten at the end of a sitting.
Subscribe to the Snatch Gaming podcast on iTunes!
SnatchGaming.com
Twitter: @SnatchGames
User avatar
Sarge
Next-Gen
 
Posts: 7276
Joined: Thu Mar 14, 2013 12:08 pm

Re: Games Beaten 2016

by Sarge Sun Jan 24, 2016 9:04 pm

1) Bonk's Adventure (NES)
2) Little Samson
3) Holy Diver
4) Holy Diver (legit!)
5) Mitsume Ga Tooru
6) TMNT II: The Arcade Game (NES) (repeat)
7) Mighty Final Fight (repeat)
8] Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! (repeat)
9) Monster In My Pocket (repeat)
10) Battle of Olympus
11) Gunstar Heroes (repeat)
12) Dragon Age: Inquisition
13) Dragon Age: Inquisition - Trespasser
14) Captain America and the Avengers (NES)
15) StarTropics
16) Double Dragon II: The Revenge (NES) (save states)
17) Double Dragon II: The Revenge (NES) (legit)
18) Crisis Force
19) Esper Dream 2
20) Felix the Cat
21) Moon Crystal
22) Panic Restaurant
23) Frankenstein (NES)

Yeah, I've got no shortage of new stuff to play... and I spend the afternoon playing all NES stuff. Ha!

So, Esper Dream 2 is a sort of RPG/action amalgam. Probably similar to stuff like Faria or Radia. It's one of the few games that utilizes the VRC6 sound chip, and I wanted to give the NES a go with the sound mod, see how it all sounded. Not bad, actually. The game was fun, and I figure you could blow through it in 4-5 hours. I started yesterday on it, actually, so I wasn't that crazy.

Felix the Cat is a pretty bog-standard platformer. It does a few interesting things with vehicles, controls well, mixes in aerial and underwater stages, and all-in-all is decent, but nowhere near spectacular. It's also really easy. I did I think one save state toward the beginning, but honestly, this one's done legit, I stopped and had 35 lives by the end. Probably took about an hour.

Moon Crystal is a game that I thought about making a repro of those years ago when I was putting together my Earthbound Zero and Radia carts. It's a pretty spiffy action-platformer, kind of Prince of Persia-ish but with more responsive control. Sometimes you'll wish it were more responsive, but it's not too bad otherwise. It's got lots of cutscenes that I quite honestly skipped this time through. I'd recommend it, just be ready for some cheapness against the bosses. An hour, tops.

Panic Restaurant is a pretty fun little platformer as well, and it's also ridiculously expensive. It's fun to see all the food-related enemies, and the controls are solid. I'd love to find a legit copy of this, but it sells for something like $350-800, in various states of completion. Oof. Probably took under an hour.

Frankenstein looked interesting in one of my old NPs, but it's... not very good. It looks pretty decent, anyway, with some cool-looking character portraits, but it's a cheesy, cheap game. Wouldn't really recommend it. It's certainly not the worst thing I've played (there's far, far worse on NES), but it's doing good to be average. Probably an hour to finish as well.

Aaaand now it's time for NES detox for a little bit.
Snatch1414
Next-Gen
 
Posts: 1279
Joined: Mon Aug 31, 2009 8:33 pm

Re: Games Beaten 2016

by Snatch1414 Sun Jan 24, 2016 9:42 pm

I played Panic Redtaurant on a knockoff cart. I agree it's a pretty fun game withy unique aesthetics
Subscribe to the Snatch Gaming podcast on iTunes!
SnatchGaming.com
Twitter: @SnatchGames
User avatar
PartridgeSenpai
Next-Gen
 
Posts: 2989
Joined: Mon Dec 14, 2015 9:27 am
Location: Northern Japan

Re: Games Beaten 2016

by PartridgeSenpai Sun Jan 24, 2016 10:03 pm

MrPopo wrote:7. Fire Emblem Seisen no Keifu - SNES

Well, it's been nearly two weeks but I finally have another game beaten. I blame missing out on last weekend because it was the Oath of the Gatewatch prerelease. But that's ok, got this shit done and it was a total blast.

So Seisen no Keifu is the fourth entry in the Fire Emblem series. In it you play as Sigurd, a young lord who first sets out to rescue a kidnapped friend but gets caught up in the machinations of the various dukes of the continent. Before long he is branded as a traitor. You must fight your way to the capitol, defeat the traitorous dukes, and clear your good name.

Then the new emperor summarily executes you and your party. Welcome to the second half of the game with the generation two characters.

Seisen no Keifu introduces a lot of elements that would be seen in later entries, though there are a few things that are unique to the game alone. The biggest addition is the weapon triangle; this is the first game to have the axe beat lance beat sword beat axe triangle, and it also has the three anima elements in a triangle. The second addition that gets seen a lot is the introduction of supports. Every female in the first generation can fall in love with any of the males; these pairings will generate characters in the second generation (with replacements if you don't pair/kill the mother). These pairings also provide a battlefield benefit of some crit chance, so you can already see the seeds of what would be expanded into the more general support system of later games. The final thing the game introduces is the skills. There are a variety of skills characters can have such as the ability to critical, the possibility to attack twice (as if using a brave weapon), or the ability to fully negate damage. Some skills are tied to the class but most are just tied to the character. It is the latter ones that are the most important, as they tie in to the generation system.

The children generated from the pairings inherit the combined growths of the parents and all of their personal skillis (along with equipment if they can use it). This lets you customize the second generation by making the ideal pairings in your mind. What is the perfect combination of skills divvied up across all the children?

The big thing that has never been brought back is the fact that Seisen no Keifu is a much grander game than any other Fire Emblem. Rather than a small skirmish near a castle every map is a real war. You will have to capture multiple castles and fight off large formations of enemy units. The actual map seems to take months in universe, and gameplay-wise they are multi-hour long afairs. The last few maps took me 3-4 hours each to complete. It really gives a different feeling to the tactics and the overall happenings in the story. It becomes very important to set up defensive formations that can handle an enemy charge (as you usually can't just chokepoint to a single tile) and on the flip side you need to learn how to properly assault an enemy formation. I'd really like to see them bring back the scale of Seisen no Keifu in a future game, though I'm not holding out hope.

Oh, and Aira and her kids are busted as hell.


Super psyched to give this game a shot now that I've read your review, Popo Sensei.

I'll be buying it through my Japanese Wii's eShop though, so I'm gonna give it a while. My reading level just isn't where I want it to be for how much extensive Kanji those games have, especially with how difficult FE 4-6 are XP
I identify everyone via avatar, so if you change your avatar, I genuinely might completely forget who you are. -- Me
User avatar
Exhuminator
Next-Gen
 
Posts: 11573
Joined: Tue Apr 30, 2013 8:24 am

Re: Games Beaten 2016

by Exhuminator Sun Jan 24, 2016 10:17 pm

MrPopo wrote:I'd really like to see them bring back the scale of Seisen no Keifu in a future game, though I'm not holding out hope.

I sincerely doubt it, unfortunately. If anything Nintendo is working to dumb down the series to be more approachable for the general masses. The only thing being made more complex are the social linking and waifu aspects from what I've read.

However, on a more positive note, the man himself Shouzou Kaga is working on a new SRPG. His first in eleven years:

http://serenesforest.net/2015/07/16/fir ... ndie-game/
PLAY KING'S FIELD.
Return to General Gaming

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 70 guests