Games Beaten 2016

Post by **dsheinem** » Sun Nov 06, 2016 11:25 am

Games Beaten 2016

First 50:

Battleborn - PC
140 - PC
Last Duel - Arcade (PSP)
Alien on the Run - 3DS
Undead Bowling - 3DS
Chain Blaster - 3DS
Runny Egg - 3DS
Bound - PS4
Parasite Eve - PS1
Destiny - PS4
Destiny: The Dark Below - PS4
Destiny: The House of Wolves - PS4
Destiny: The Taken King - PS4
Otomedius Excellent - 360
Crimsonland - PC
Planet of the Eyes - PC
Destiny: Rise of Iron - PS4
The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing: Final Cut - PC
Eve Valkyrie: Gunjack - PSVR
Elegy for a Dead World - PC
SOMA - PC
The Typing of the Dead: Overkill - PC
Until Dawn: Rush of Blood - PSVR *new*
Actual Sunlight - Vita *new*

Total: 74

Previously: 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010

Until Dawn: Rush of Blood is an excellent VR experience - it is anything that I ever loved about stuff like House of the Dead, amped up to 11, and with a great sense of motion and speed. It is odd sitting on your couch and feeling like you are moving fast on a roller coaster while trying to shoot zombies that are coming at you from all sides...but this game delivers that sensation in a pretty compelling way. If you like horror games, if you like light gun games, or if you like VR games that make it feel like you are moving around a lot, this game is a must buy.

Actual Sunlight is fucking depressing as hell and, while it was intriguing in some ways, ultimately just felt like a sad trip through someone's diary. That said, I think there's a lot in the narrative that resonates with many middle-class nerdy white dudes at different points in their life,. But - even if the tone was convincingly and alternately confessional and confrontational, it nonetheless too often seemed a bit gimmicky and gamey. I think the author/dev made a good choice in selecting this medium to best engage a sympathetic audience, but there are much more engaging narratives of this kind with much more intriguing/better drawn characters out there in many other media (literature, film, etc.).

HLTB · Post by **Xeogred** » Sun Nov 06, 2016 12:51 pm

MrPopo wrote:73. Batman Arkham Knight - PC

I wonder if I can just find a good let's play to watch for City and this one lol. Now that I'm really digging The Witcher 3, it hit me that there's something about this game and the Assassin's Creed series (randomly came to mind) that don't bother me at all FOV wise... but there is something really weird about the Rocksteady Batman games. Like I said earlier I absolutely loved Asylum, but I also recall there being something about the visuals, perhaps the colors, and maybe the field of view that made me a bit queasy after awhile. Sometimes I felt that way after long sessions of Borderlands, so maybe it's the pseudo cel shading in these types. But yeah in the short time I tried City, this was another issue I had.

Might just be me I guess, never really see anyone complain about it. I never mind the over the shoulder thing, but I definitely think there was something weirder about it with these. But AC is pretty comparable gameplay wise and those never bugged me.

Post by **laurenhiya21** » Sun Nov 06, 2016 8:46 pm

1/16: Diablo III (PC)
1/19: Picross E (3DS DL)
1/23: Baroque (Wii)
2/5: LocoRoco (PSP)
3/31: Picross e2 (3DS DL)
4/7: Stardew Valley (Steam)
4/8: Voices From the Sea (Steam)
4/10: X-Note (Steam)
4/11: To the Moon (Steam)
4/19: Atelier Totori: The Adventurer of Arland (PS3)
4/19: Aquapazza: Aquaplus Dream Match (PS3)
6/19: Steins;Gate (PS3)
7/11: Yoshi’s Woolly World (Wii U)
7/13: Muramasa Rebirth (Vita)
7/13: Strider 2 (PS1 Classics)
7/16: Planetarian ~The Reverie of a Little Planet~ (Steam)
7/16: Narcissu (Steam)
7/26: Crimzon Clover: World Ignition (GOG)
7/28: LocoRoco 2 (PSP)
7/30: Criminal Girls: Invite Only (Vita)
8/1: Pokemon Art Academy (3DS)
8/5: Gal*Gun: Double Peace (PS4)
8/8: Before the Echo (Steam)
8/9: Ironclad (PC DL)
8/9: Star Fox 64 3D (3DS)
8/14: Super Paper Mario (Wii)
8/15: Metal Slug (Steam)
8/17: Metal Slug 2 (Steam)
8/17: Metal Slug X (Steam)
8/18: Metal Slug 3 (Steam)
8/24: Earth Defence Force: Insect Armageddon (PS3)
8/25: The Typing of the Dead: Overkill (Steam)
8/28: Hatsune Miku Project Diva f (Vita)
8/31: Fable: The Lost Chapters (PC)
9/8: Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni - Ch.2 Watanagashi (Steam)
9/28: Hatsune Miku: Project Diva (PSP)
10/9: Gone Home (PS4)
10/28: Pony Island (Steam)
11/3: Dragon Quest Builders (PS4)
11/4: Life is Strange (PS4)

Total: 40 games

I'm going to try and keep these short since I'm still a little bit sick.

Pony Island
A surprisingly neat game about being trapped in this weird demon computer. It pokes fun at other games and has a few tricks near the end that were pretty clever. Quite short though, but it was well worth the $1 I got it for when it was on sale.

Dragon Quest Builders
Kind of like Minecraft, but with a Dragon Quest flair I guess haha. I thought it meshed very well, as the story mode with quests really helped directed me as I went and kept me focused. Crafting is a lot easier than Minecraft as well (you don't need to arrange things or look up every 5 seconds for a recipe), and I generally had a blast playing. Biggest problem I had with it was that the combat is a little annoying. It's hard to tell how far your sword reaches, so I often kept on swinging too far away from enemies. Controls were a little odd as well (X for menu, O jumps, square places blocks, and triangle attacks), but I mostly got used to it after a while. Overall I really had a fun time with it.

Life is Strange
Not really sure how to feel about this one. The environments look nice and the concept is pretty neat (main character having ability to time travel and change decisions), but the characters never grew on me. That really didn't help the game, since there are some difficult decisions to make that can dramatically effect some of the characters, but I never cared about them. Unfortunately I think that the characters and those decisions are supposed to be the biggest draw, so when that failed the other things couldn't hold up the game for me. There are some mostly boring gameplay sections to break it up a bit, but I found a lot of them to be dull and pointless (like find 5 bottles in the junkyard!). The one exception was this section where you have all this information that you need to go through and find some clues to piece together where you need to go next. That was pretty cool. Overall though, I just didn't have a super great time with it. It wasn't awful either, but I don't think it ended up being my sort of game.

Post by **BoneSnapDeez** » Sun Nov 06, 2016 9:14 pm

First 50:

51. Akumajō Dracula (Famicom Disk System)
52. Castlevania (NES)
53. Classic NES Series: Castlevania (Game Boy Advance)
54. Guardian Heroes (Xbox Live Arcade)
55. Metal Slug (Neo Geo MVS)
56. Metal Slug 2 (Neo Geo MVS)
57. Metal Slug 3 (Neo Geo MVS)
58. Soul of Darkness (DSiWare)
59. Code of Princess (3DS)
60. Super Mario Bros. 3 (NES)
61. Super Mario Land (Game Boy)
62. The Legend of Zelda 2: Link no Bōken (Famicom Disk System)
63. Phantasy Star Online: Blue Burst (PC)
64. Shan Gui (Steam)
65. Space Fury (ColecoVision)
66. Smurf: Rescue in Gargamel's Castle (ColecoVision)
67. Gateway to Apshai (ColecoVision)
68. MURI (Steam)
69. Pink Hour (Steam)
70. Pink Heaven (Steam)
71. Planetarian: The Reverie of a Little Planet (Steam)
72. Princess Remedy in a World of Hurt (Steam)
73. Haunted House (Atari 2600)
74. Gremlins (Atari 2600)
75. Alien (Atari 2600)
76. Xenophobe (Xbox - Midway Arcade Treasures 2)
77. Frankenstein's Monster (Atari 2600)
78. Ghost Manor / Spike's Peak (Atari 2600)
79. Higurashi When They Cry Hou - Ch.1 Onikakushi (Steam)
80. Dracula II: Noroi no Fūin (Famicom Disk System)
81. Castlevania II: Simon's Quest (NES)
82. Beneath the Cherry Trees (Steam)
83. Voices from the Sea (Steam)
84. Mushihimesama (Steam)
85. Sonic CD (Steam)
86. Shovel Knight (Wii U)
87. Super Mario World (SNES)
88. Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins (Game Boy)

Yeah, more replays. My daughter is totally dictating what I play and that's just fine with me.

Super Mario World may be my favorite platformer ever. The only glaring flaw is the lackluster save feature (but of course I can savestate with my Retron 5 so that's moot).

Let me tell y'all how I play this game. First, ★96 (100% completion, all secret exits found) is mandatory. Second, I hit up the Special World as soon as possible (so, right out of World 2). This means the majority of the game occurs in autumn. Third, I always beat the game twice - first I take the front door of Bowser's castle, watch the ending, then reload and take the backdoor. Completely unnecessary, but it just feels right.

Super Mario Land 2 is fabulous. Feels like a "sister game" to Link's Awakening - both play like stripped down versions of their 16-bit big brothers, with some elements of the classic 8-bit titles thrown into the mix as well. Kazumi Totaka's soundtrack may be my favorite thing about the game. It's quite chipper and even mischievous at times. I regret to say I haven't played Super Mario Land 3, though I hope to rectify that in the future.

Post by **prfsnl_gmr** » Sun Nov 06, 2016 9:23 pm

It's completely different and, honestly, not that great. You should play it, however, since it is the precursor to the excellent Wario Land (VB), the excellent Wario Land 2, and the simply outstanding Wario Land 3.

Post by **MrPopo** » Mon Nov 07, 2016 12:10 am

I love Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3. Wario plays very differently from Mario and it makes for its own experience. The platforming is still incredibly solid, but a Mario knock-off it is not.

Post by **ElkinFencer10** » Mon Nov 07, 2016 10:16 am

Games Beaten in 2016 So Far - 110

January (20 Games Beaten)

February (8 Games Beaten)

March (8 Games Beaten)

April (13 Games Beaten)

May (6 Games Beaten)

June (13 Games Beaten)

July (7 Games Beaten)

August (15 Games Beaten)

September (8 Games Beaten)

October (10 Games Beaten)

November (2 Games Beaten)

110. Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel - Vita - November 6

I don't remember who mentioned the sequel of this right before it came out (probably Exhuminator since it's a Vita RPG), but I decided I'd pick up the collector's edition of the second game (since it was a same price as a regular Vita game) and the first game at the same time. It looked neat, so why not? Jesus Christ, I did not realize what a time commitment I was making when I started playing this game, though. Don't get me wrong - the game is amazing - but holy god, this game is really long.

So I didn't know this when I first started playing, but apparently Legend of Heroes is apparently a fairly long-lived series (and one that I'm now going to start looking into), so I can say with confidence that you need absolutely zero prior experience with the Legend of Heroes series to enjoy Trails of Cold Steel. The game revolves around a group of students at Thors Military Academy, an academy broken into six classes. Classes I and II are for children of the nobility; Classes III, IV, and V are for commoners; and the newly-formed Class VII is an experimental class of sorts that puts nobles and commoners together in the same class.

A lot of the game, it feels like a rather pointless slice of life sort of story; you play as Rean as he and his fellow members of Class VII go through their school lives and embark on field studies across the Erebonian Empire, solving problems for the townspeople and learning about the situations developing in the country. One common theme through every chapter that stays an enigmatic-but-probably-significant part of the story, however, is the monthly investigation of the mysterious old schoolhouse, a building that predates the 250 year old academy by at least several hundred years. You also begin to discover through your field studies that the empire is sitting on a veritable powder keg of civil unrest due to the growing political conflict between the Noble Faction and the Reformist Faction. Those two plot points serve as the core of the game's storyline.

The roughly 50 hour game familiarizes you with a whole cast of pretty memorable characters and places, and the optional "bonding events" you can do let you grow closer to and learn more about your favorite characters, culminating in a cute but underwhelming romance option at the end of the game. The end of the game, however, is legit rage-inducing. It's not that it's bad. On the contrary, the ending is fantastic. It is, however, a cliffhanger for the ages. Fortunately, I have the second game, so I can start it whenever I want (though I'm taking a break from the Vita to play Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse right now), but the wait for the third game (assuming it gets localized; my cursory Google search shows the Legend of Heroes series not to have a good track record in that regard) is going to kill me. X_x

In terms of gameplay, it's a pretty standard JRPG. The only big drawback, in my opinion, is the performance. The game chugs along at certain places - especially in cut scenes - and drops to 15 or 20 frames per second. I don't know how the Playstation 3 version compares, but the Vita version had some serious drops. It doesn't make it unplayable by any means, and it's not horribly bothersome, but it's definitely noticeable and casts a shadow on an otherwise incredible game. I also think the game drags out just a *little* too long. All in all, though, it's a fantastic JRPG experience that Vita and/or PS3 owners definitely shouldn't miss out on.

Post by **MrPopo** » Mon Nov 07, 2016 11:25 am

I'm having trouble wrapping my head around you calling it a massive time commitment and then you stating it's a 50 hour game. That's about what I expect an RPG to be.

Post by **darsparx** » Mon Nov 07, 2016 11:37 am

@Popo seriously....I'm only like 4-5 hours in and barely scratched the surface. That game literally has so much to do that it's literally a slice-of-life rpg at this point. These characters are so freaking deep right now it's unreal. I feel like I'm so far in this game, but then I remember i've only played through 3 game days XD

This game next to ToP are games I actually look forward to getting home and playing whenever I do make it there today...

Post by **prfsnl_gmr** » Mon Nov 07, 2016 11:39 am

MrPopo wrote:I'm having trouble wrapping my head around you calling it a massive time commitment and then you stating it's a 50 hour game. That's about what I expect an RPG to be.

Yep. I took a break from DQVII at 21 hours...a point at which I have not yet unlocked the game's class system. I will undoubtedly get 100+ hours out of that game, and I don't consider it particularly long compared to the gameplay available in most modern JRPGs and WRPGs.

.....

First 50

51. Armillo (WII U)
52. Human Resource Machine (iOS)
53. Alone in the Dark (iOS)
54. The Room 3 (iOS)
55. Monument Valley (iOS)
56. Hysteria Project (PS3/PSP)
57. Azarashi (iOS)
58. Pink Hour (iOS)
59. Kero Blaster (iOS)
60. Pink Heaven (iOS)

A few months ago, Exhuminator mentioned that, while everyone loves Cave Story, almost no one has played the rest of Daisuke Amaya's video games. Having already beaten (and enjoyed!) both Cave Story and Ikachan, I took this comment as somewhat of a challenge and resolved to get through the rest of his easily accessible games. I am glad that I did. All of his games are good, and Kero Blaster is excellent.

Azarashi is the most basic of Studio Pixel's games. In it, three keychains are suspended by three strings, and each keychain has a starting point value of 200 points. The strings break at random, sending each key chain, and its point value, falling. You tap the keychain to pin it to the wall, and the faster you tap it, the more points you retain. (If you tap too early, you get a grisly animation and 0 points.) You play three rounds, and the keychains fall faster each round. Each game lasts less than a minute, and the highest possible score is in excess of 1790. My high score, however, is 1315, and that was high enough to earn a gold medal. (I played a lot, and I think that breaking 1400 would take a lot of practice.) In sum, Azarashi is a twitch-based score chaser, but its a good one that I plan to keep on my phone.

If Cave Story is Studio Pixel's Metroid game, Kero Blaster is his Mega Man X. It is a fast-paced action platformer with unbelievably smooth and responsive touch controls, well-designed levels, a plethora of unlockable and upgradeable equipment, awesome boss-fights, detailed sprite work, trophies, and tremendous personality. Beating the game also unlocks a more challenging "new game+" mode with a modified level design, new bosses, and, supposedly, a different ending. I was shocked by the game's quality; I enjoyed it thoroughly; and I really can't recommend it highly enough. (The game played great on my iPhone, but those of you who prefer tactile controls can also get the game on Steam.)

Pink Hour and Pink Heaven are a prelude and epilogue, respectively, to Kero Blaster starring one of the game's minor characters. They utilize the same control scheme, but are drastically shorter. (Each game is essentially one short level.) Nonetheless, they still have charming sprite work, multiple endings, a more difficult "new game+" mode, at least one boss fight, and all of the personality present in Studio Pixel's other works. Best of all, they are completely free. I enjoyed both games for what they are, and they serve as an excellent appetizer and dessert to Kero Blaster's delightful main course.

racketboy.com

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