Games Beaten 2016

[Ack]

Yes, prfsnl, you now have to collect game show simulators.

Also, the master approves of your post. I've seen every movie you referenced with the exception of one, which I own and plan to watch this October(for noise). I even worked on a novelization of Robot Monster for a while, though it's pretty bare bones and I struggle with the thought of returning with it to begin the second pass because it means I'll have to watch that movie again for the...12th time?

[prfsnl_gmr]

When you startin' the Summer Challenge, chief?

I've already started! Virtua Fighter 2 is really hard, though...

Yes, prfsnl, you now have to collect game show simulators.

Noooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!

Also, the master approves of your post.

Thanks! (The Master definitely did not approve of my completion time, however, which was approaching an hour.) The game really is fun, and it definitely filters the source material through a strange "Japanese-developed video game adaptation" lens. The strangest things - such as the people kissing in the car at the beginning of the film or the mantelpiece in the lodge - are rendered as enemies and bosses. (Also, there is a segment with Torgo in a bi-plane.)

I would love to see The Final Sacrifice get the same treatment.

[Ack]

Excellent. More things should involve Torgo in a biplane.

[PartridgeSenpai]

Scurge: The Hive (DS)

This game is more or less an isometric Metroid, although with a heavier focus on action and less well polished level design.

You're a female bounty hunter with a special suit sent by the military to recover any valuable data from a research facility that was holding the only known specimens of an alien life form very adept at assimilation. (So it's basically Metroid Fusion in that case).

The locations are colorful and varried, as well as the enemy types being fairly diverse and all each annoying in their own unique ways, but that one words sums up a lot of this game: Annoying. A big part of the Metroid-esque upgrades you find for your suit are just different elements for your blaster. You open a toggle wheel with R, and can switch to eventually six different weapons. The issue that comes up eventually is that while some enemies are weak to certain elements, other are strong against them, and have their attack and speed buffed when exposed to it. This becomes an even larger issue because when you kill an enemy with their weakness, they create a zone of that element around them damaging other enemies in their immediate vicinity. Granted, stuff tends to die pretty fast and you stop time when you open your toggle wheel, but it just gets kind of annoying when the enemies stack in such a fashion that the one you want to kill is just behind the one you're unintentionally powering up.

The level design isn't really great, and I put that mostly up to their insistence on using keys. Unlike Metroid, there're no optional areas to get life or ammo capacity power ups. You get blobs of health/exp through slain enemies (in a style basically identical to Metroid Fusion) and this just raises your base HP and damage output. But you NEED to explore everywhere, because you NEED to find EVERY key card. If you miss even one, you'll be stuck and can't progress forward, and especially in the last and second to last stages, it can be a very serious pain in the ass to navigate through the huge tunnel systems and large open spaces via the pretty bad map system. The game even throws branching paths at you to make it more likely that you'll not take one way, forget you didn't go that way, and then get lost hunting desperately for a key card. At the very least, the game does give a chime when you're in a room with/close to a key card.

The biggest extra pain in the ass when it comes to getting lost is in how you're "infected." In terms of story, your suit doesn't completely protect you from the infection of the alien hive-mind, and it always slowly building up in side of you. As such, you effectively have a constant timer which you're limited by, and you need to go to save rooms constantly to bring it back down to 1% and to fully heal. The save rooms are fairly frequent, even more frequent than in Metroid at times, but considering that it effectively even gives you a hard time limit for bosses, it really is just a bad design choice in my opinion. It makes what are already painful searches for key cards even worse because you're constantly stopping off in a save room. However, I will give the game props for a pretty cool death animation if you die from infection damage.

The action is pretty darn good. The bosses especially are great, with all of them being very well designed, and they all felt like a legitimate challenge with all of them having multiple phases with changing weaknesses. The bosses were probably my favorite part of the game, even though the final boss was a ridiculous fiasco of dodging and trying to fit in time to aim a shot to take out some of his massive HP. The only complaint I have is that you often need to move so precisely and frantically in those battles that playing on my heavy NEW 3DS XL began to hurt my left hand after a while. I would recommend either picking up the GBA version of this game (which is totally identical and you're not missing anything with the terrible map on the bottom screen) or playing it on an original DS where the D-pad is in a more comfortable location.

The difficulty curve is very nice however, and I never felt there was an unfair spike in difficulty at any point. Just be sure to take the time to collect the XP orbs, because otherwise you'll probably be underleveled. The game accounts for this though, and despite it being a 7-8 hour game, assuming there's no points of persistent lostness, it has not 2, but 3 extra difficulty modes past the "Normal" which is what is unlocked at the start. Beat Normal, you get Hard mode. Beat Hard, and you get Insane Mode. Beat that, and you get Ultra mode. I don't like the game nearly enough to try Hard Mode, but I thought Normal Mode was plenty hard enough, at least in terms of the bosses. As long as you're persistant at picking up health orbs and try to kill most of what you come across, you shouldn't really have to worry about dying from normal enemies.

Verdict: Decent. If you're really starved for a sci-fi action game on DS, you can certainly do worse. The only cardinal sin it really has against it is the level design, and if you can look past that, I think you'll at least find it fun, although perhaps not engaging enough to beat it. If you find it for cheap, don't be afraid to pick it up, because you might really like what you find.

[Sarge]

January:

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)
7) Mighty Final Fight
8] Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!
9) Monster In My Pocket
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)
24) Crystalis
25) Nekketsu Kakutou Densetsu

February:

26) Killer Instinct (GB)
27) Mashin Hero Wataru Gaiden
28) Sly Spy (Arcade)
29) The Red Star (unreleased XBOX, also on PS2)
30) Adventure Island 4
31) Cocoron
32) Batman: Arkham Knight
33) Xeodrifter (Vita)
34) Doom 2
35) Brandish: The Dark Revenant
36) Magical Pop'n
37) The Ninja Warriors (SNES)
38) Phantasy Star (SMS)
39) Phantasy Star III
40) Super Smash Bros. for 3DS
41) Brandish: The Dark Revenant (Dela Mode)

March:

42) Freedom Planet (Milla, 82 lives lost)
43) Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
44) Lara Croft Go
45) Oniken
46) Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam
47) Batman: The Video Game (GB)
48) Batman: The Video Game (NES)
49) Super Spy Hunter

April:

50) Mega Man 2
51) Mega Man 4
52) Mission: Impossible (NES)
53) Mega Man 6
54) Super Mario Bros. 3
55) Sword Master
56) DuckTales 2
57) Rush'n Attack (NES)
58) Mega Man 3
59) Mega Man 5
60) Mega Man
61) S.C.A.T. - Special Cybernetic Attack Team
62) TaleSpin (NES)
63) Double Dragon III (NES)
64) Donkey Kong (NES)
65) Astyanax (NES)

May:
66) Master Chu and the Drunkard Hu
67) The New Ghostbusters II (NES, proto)
68) Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (PSP, via Dracula X Chronicles)
69) Revenge of Shinobi
70) Shinobi III
71) Shadow Dancer
72) El Viento
73) Earnest Evans
74) One Must Fall 2097

Just a quick little play of OMF2097 on the highest difficulty. Jean-Paul using the Shredder. Had to continue a few times. Also dove into the tournament mode, who knows, I might try to finish that again some time.

[Fragems]

1. 9 Hours 9 Persons 9 Doors (DS)
2. The Order 1886 (PS4)
3. The Division (PS4)
4. Until Dawn (PS4)
5. The Crew Wild Run Edition (PS4)
6. Mad Max (PS4)
7. Uncharted 4: A Thief's End

If you liked the Uncharted games you will definitely enjoy this one as well. This time around the environments are a lot larger usually with multiple paths to choose from which all converge at the end which adds quite a bit to explore when hunting for collectibles albeit at the cost of being a little confusing at times if you get turned around. There are also a few new gameplay features which are pretty cool including some diving and quite a bit of driving offroad in a Jeep which has a winch which you use for some puzzles/traversal. The game also cuts out the paranormal stuff there aren't any mutated baddies that pop up for a 3rd quarter twist or anything it's all human baddies and booby traps. The story is also really good and introduces some interesting new characters and villains. Altogether this is a really nice setup for anyone who liked the previous games and this also wraps the story up really nicely while leaving room for possible future games.

I also usually don't like the MP in Uncharted but this time around it's pretty awesome got sucked into it last night and I really like the power up system(especially the AI Buddy Summon system) and loadout/character customization. While enemies are still spongy like in all Uncharted games they still go down pretty easily and the hit detection has been top notch. Plus the variety of really neat power ups really adds a lot of cool strategies to the game play.

[Exhuminator]

Scurge Hive could have been great, but for me that constantly depleting health really ruined the fun. That and the final boss was ridiculously hard.

[Markies]

1. Star Wars Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader (GCN)
2. Max Payne (XBOX)
3. Eternal Poison (PS2)
4. Dragon Warrior III (NES)
5. Arkanoid: Doh It Again(SNES)
6. Super Mario Brothers 2 (NES)
7. Phantasy Star Online (DC)
8. Power Stone (DC)
9. Bare Knuckle 3 (GEN)

I beat Bare Knuckle 3 on the Genesis this evening!

I bought the Japanese Version of this game in a Game Reproduction and I'm glad that I did. I have played the American version several times and the game is just too freaking hard. The Japanese version is so much better and such a better game overall.

However, the game is definitely the weakest in the series. The music is okay at best, mostly using noises and weird sound effects. The level design is very annoying with cheap areas all throughout the game. And the controls are a bit too tight for their own good.

But, that doesn't mean the game is a bad game. It is still a really good brawler and a very good game by itself. However, in comparison to Streets of Rage 2, it just can't compare!

[PartridgeSenpai]

Scurge Hive could have been great, but for me that constantly depleting health really ruined the fun. That and the final boss was ridiculously hard.

I veeery nearly just gave up and didn't beat it, but I persisted. The second form just has SO much freaking health and his attacks are so weird and hard to dodge. The fact that you're timed as well just makes it an exercise in frustration. It doesn't help that the first time you do it you'll almost certainly die to the third form too. It took me like 3 tries to figure out a strategy that worked reliably for the stupid amount of health that thing has.

[ElkinFencer10]

Alright Exhuminator, got a question for you. Since you mentioned how much you enjoyed them, I ordered both of the Endless Ocean games. I haven't started them yet, but I'm planning to play them as my "relaxation games" once school is out a in a couple. My question is (well, actually, there are three) - what kind of game is it, is there an "end" or way to "beat" it, and roughly how long would you say it took you?