Games Beaten 2016

[Sarge]

So I've played some of Woolly World, and it's definitely the best game in the series since the original. Have you played through that one yet? I'm guessing so, but I always have a hard time putting any of the subsequent games in the series above Yoshi's Island.

[ElkinFencer10]

I saw BoxBoy in the Nintendo eShop sale and wondered what it was. Now I will definitely be getting it

Now that the semester of school is over, I was considering getting either Overwatch or a big ol' $50 card for the Nintendo eShop, so I can get Octodad to play with the reletives and FAST Racing NEO for going FAST. Just got one more tick towards the eShop card with BoxBoy though.

Get a big ol' $50 eShop card, fam. Both Octodad and FAST Racing NEO are amazing, and I would recommend you get the Gunman Clive HD collection on Wii U instead of each game on 3DS. I've got both, and I personally enjoyed it on Wii U more.


Also also, Woolly World is the best platformer on the Wii U IMO, and as far as I'm concerned, it's the best 2D platformer they've made since Super Mario World.

[Xeogred]

So I've played some of Woolly World, and it's definitely the best game in the series since the original. Have you played through that one yet? I'm guessing so, but I always have a hard time putting any of the subsequent games in the series above Yoshi's Island.

I'm glad everyone seems to be saying this. Might be the next U game I get after beating Bayo 2 and Rodea.

[MrPopo]

Yoshi Story had 5000% more adorable singing Yoshis than Yoshi's Island. That's a massive point in its favor.

[PartridgeSenpai]

So I've played some of Woolly World, and it's definitely the best game in the series since the original. Have you played through that one yet? I'm guessing so, but I always have a hard time putting any of the subsequent games in the series above Yoshi's Island.

Woolly World ranks above Yoshi's Island for me mostly due to the co-op and accessibility of all of it's content with things like the badge system. They both have incredible graphics, music, level design, and controls, so it's really just personal preference on which one you like more. I would say that it's hard to argue that Woolly World isn't at least as good as Yoshi's Island though.

Also, I'd never really heard of Gunman Clive before, but it looks soooooo fun from the trailer. Gon' buy dat bad boy :I

[Xeogred]

Yoshi Story had 5000% more adorable singing Yoshis than Yoshi's Island. That's a massive point in its favor.

Sounds like they're rapping "Yo shit" in the caves level.

Story is abysmal in my book. I'm not sure what's worse, introducing the constipated Yoshi noise to the series, the music, the ugly style, the fruit UI taking up the entire border of the screen, the short length even with the various paths... lol.

[MrPopo]

Your complaints about the music makes every opinion you've ever had about anything invalid.

[PartridgeSenpai]

Yoshi Story had 5000% more adorable singing Yoshis than Yoshi's Island. That's a massive point in its favor.

Sounds like they're rapping "Yo shit" in the caves level.

Story is abysmal in my book. I'm not sure what's worse, introducing the constipated Yoshi noise to the series, the music, the ugly style, the fruit UI taking up the entire border of the screen, the short length even with the various paths... lol.

I'd certainly call Yoshi's Story the worst in the series, but not for those reasons. I always thought the music was very charming (I love the ridiculous chanting in the jungle world), and the world design to be very fun and colorful. I also don't mind the Yoshi "constipated noise" :p

I'd say the questionable game design is what really kills the game for me. The focus on collecting fruit and the weird score-attack system that it revolves around is just an odd, and not terribly fun concept for a platformer. If someone just redid the game to have the same 6 worlds with the same 4 levels but you just go from beginning to end instead of collecting fruit, I think it'd be a much better game.

[Sarge]

Yeah, PS, that's always been my issue with Yoshi's Story as well.

[ElkinFencer10]

Games Beaten in 2016 So Far - 65

January (20 Games Beaten)

1. Shadow Warrior - Playstation 4 - January 1
2. The Order: 1886 - Playstation 4 - January 2
3. Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop - Wii - January 3
4. NyxQuest: Kindred Spirits - WiiWare - January 4
5. Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA F 2nd - Vita - January 5
6. Shadow the Hedgehog - Gamecube - January 9
7. Fairy Bloom Freeia - Steam - January 10
8. Petit Novel Series: Harvest December - 3DS - January 13
9. Gas Guzzlers Extreme - Steam - January 14
10. Muramasa: The Demon Blade - Wii - January 16
11. Project Zero 2: Wii Edition - Wii - January 19
12. Killzone: Liberation - PSP - January 20
13. Sin & Punishment: Star Successor - Wii - January 20
14. Kirby's Epic Yarn - Wii - January 24
15. Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love - Wii - January 25
16. Corpse Party - PSP - January 25
17. Freedom Planet - Wii U - January 25
18. Earth Defense Force 2: Invaders from Planet Space - Vita - January 25
19. Silent Hill: Homecoming - Xbox 360 - January 26
20. Life is Strange - Playstation 4 - January 28

February (8 Games Beaten)

21. Corpse Party: Book of Shadows - PSP - February 2
22. Megadimension Neptunia VII - Playstation 4 - February 12
23. Dr. Discord's Conquest - NES - February 13
24. Corpse Party: Blood Drive - Vita - February 17
25. If My Heart Had Wings - Steam - February 18
26. Missing: An Interactive Thriller - Steam - February 18
27. Her Story - Steam - February 18
28. Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright - 3DS - February 26

March (8 Games Beaten)

29. Saints Row 2 - Steam - March 1
30. Saturday Morning RPG - Playstation 4 - March 3
31. Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest - 3DS - March 6
32. Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze - Wii U - March 8
33. Pokken Tournament - Wii U - March 20
34. Moe Chronicle - Vita - March 22
35. Tom Clancey's The Division - Playstation 4 - March 23
36. Yoshi's New Island - 3DS - March 28

April (13 Games Beaten)

37. Alien Rage - Steam - April 1
38. Alien Breed: Impact - Steam - April 2
39. Alien Breed 2: Assault - Steam - April 3
40. Alien Breed 3: Descent - Steam - April 3
41. Bravely Second: Ballad of the Three Cavaliers - 3DS - April 6
42. Quantum Break - Xbox One - April 7
43. Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric - Wii U - April 8
44. Akai Katana - Xbox 360 - April 9
45. Otomedius Excellent - Xbox 360 - April 9
46. Chasing Dead - Wii U - April 10
47. Fire Emblem Fates: Revelation - 3DS - April 14
48. Ratchet and Clank - Playstation 4 - April 20
49. Starfox Zero - Wii U - April 23

May (6 Games Beaten)

50. Aero Fighters 2 - NeoGeo - May 8
51. Bravely Second: End Layer - 3DS - May 11
52. Uncharted: Golden Abyss - Vita - May 15
53. Doom - Playstation 4 - May 20
54. Uncharted 4: A Thief's End - Playstation 4 - May 22
55. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan - Playstation 4 - May 25

June (10 Games Beaten)

56. MegaTagmension Blanc + Neptune VS Zombies - Vita - June 2
57. Republique - Playstation 4 - June 3
58. Splatterhouse - Playstation 3 - June 4
59. Spec Ops: The Line - Playstation 3 - June 5
60. 1943: Battle of Midway - NES - June 6
61. Mirror's Edge: Catalyst - Playstation 4 - June 12
62. Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem - SNES - June 13
63. Homefront: The Revolution - Playstation 4 - June 15
64. Gone Home - Playstation 4 - June 15
65. Double Dragon Neon - Playstation 3 - June 16

65. Double Dragon Neon - Playstation 3 - June 16



After my evidently less-than-common opinion of Gone Home, let's see if I'm more aligned with the masses on Double Dragon Neon. This is a game that I've had downloaded on my Playstation 3 for several years, but I was turned off to it early on by the 2.5D perspective. Having a couple of friends over today, however, made me think "Hey, it's a decent co-op game. Let's give it another whirl." We ended up plowing through all 10 levels in one sitting (which, admittedly, only took about three hours).



So Double Dragon Neon was WayForward's shot at rebooting the Double Dragon IP, and all things considered (given how hit or miss the series has historically been), I'd say that they did a pretty good job, but it's not quite the rebirth I think long time Double Dragon fans like me had hoped for. First and foremost, as I mentioned, I don't think the 2.5D perspective was perhaps the best design choice. I get that, in the 21st Century, 2D games tend to look a bit odd unless it's a straight platformer (or one of the intentionally "retro" styled games I've bitched about in other threads), but throughout the game, all three of us (we passed the controllers around) frequently had difficulty gauging just where on the Z axis we were. We'd either miss attacks or get hit by enemy attacks because we were a little to far up or a little too far down. By no means does it ruin the game, but it is a constant aggravation and worth mentioning.



One thing that this game does EXCEPTIONALLY right is the style; it absolutely DRIPS with 1980s stereotypes. The music, the dialogue, the aesthetic style of the characters - everything screams homage to the 80s. For some people, the tropes are going to get old fast; for me, however, it felt like a beat-em-up version of Farcry Blood Dragon, and NOTHING about that is a bad thing in my book.



Now being a punk ass bitch, I thought the difficulty could have used a bitch mode. The default difficulty (and the only one unlocked initially) kicked my ass by level 4. Granted, I got through it, but that was mostly because one of the two guys playing with me is better at video games than I am. The other was fine until it came to anything remotely resembling platforming; he was rather helpless with spike traps. The one big gripe that I do have is that extra lives bought in the shop do NOT carry over to the next level. If you buy 8 extra lives with your hard earned cash anticipating a tough boss battle and end up not dying a single time, you start the next level with the default 2, not 10. You also don't get back the $4000 you blew on those extra lives. I wouldn't expect to see that money again, but I would expect my lives to carry over to the next level.



All in all, hardcore Double Dragon fans will probably still prefer the arcade original or NES port - I do - but it's a competent game and certainly better than the abysmal fighting games that got released on Genesis and NeoGeo. One last thing to mention, though - as a white Southerner with Confederate ancestors (I'm thoroughly ashamed of my heritage), I felt extremely uncomfortable using the whip weapon that Poison drops to defeat black enemies with FANTASTIC 70s/80s afros, especially since the two friends playing with me were both black gentlemen. It was one of those awkward I-don't-know-what-to-do-but-laugh-nervously moments. They, however, cracked up at my discomfort.