Games Beaten 2017

[Segata]

Ys III is amazing. 5.5....that hurts my soul.
Try Oath of Felghana at least. It's a fantastic remake and arguably one of the best gaming remakes ever.

[Exhuminator]

114. The Last of Us | PS3 | 2013 | 8/10

The everyman's favorite fungus-zombie apocalypse simulator. Very expensive graphics make the PS3's Reality Synthesizer live up to its name. Above average writing for the medium, but still enough plot holes and contrived setups to remain video game caliber. Repetitive and simple environment puzzles are offset by gory combat. The combat itself is fairly vanilla vis-à-vis shooting, but melee attacks are fun to execute. The Last of Us is about five hours longer than it should have been, and tends to stop short from being as shocking as it could have been (had to sell millions after all). Still, Naughty Dog took some admirable chances with this AAA showboat, most noticeably stepping up their craft in regards to pacing and character development. Voice acting and environmental ambience are very convincing. Joel often makes choices that are cathartic for the player. When allowed to simply explore, this game can be a serene experience. One might not always have "fun" with The Last of Us, but maybe "fun" was never the point. I can respect that.

[Sarge]

Ys III is amazing. 5.5....that hurts my soul.
Try Oath of Felghana at least. It's a fantastic remake and arguably one of the best gaming remakes ever.

Oh, Oath is amazing.

[noiseredux]

1. Fire Emblem Heroes (Android)
2. Sara Is Missing (Android)
3. Civilization V (PC)
4. Portal 2 (PC)
5. Halo Wars 2 (PC)
6. Mario Run (Android)
7. Super Blackjack Battle 2 Turbo Edition (Android)
8. Diablo III (PC)
9. Madden NFL 18: Longshot (Xbox One)
10. Ultra Street Fighter II (Switch)
11. Layers Of Fear (Xbox One)
12. XCOM 2: War Of The Chosen (Xbox One)
13. Guardians Of The Galaxy (Xbox One)
14. Destiny 2 (Xbox One)

Finally got around to finishing the Destiny 2 campaign. Not because I wasn't into it, but because I love the game so much I wanted to take it slow over the months. Still have some side-quests plus the expansion to do.

[Markies]

1. Phantasy Star II (GEN)
2. Guitar Hero (PS2)
3. Adventures of Lolo (NES)
4. Animal Crossing (GCN)
5. Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse (NES)
6. Beyond The Beyond (PS1)
7. R.B.I. Baseball (NES)
8. Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo (PS1)
9. GoldenEye: Rogue Agent (GCN)
10. Project Gotham Racing (XBOX)
11. Ristar (GEN)
12. Conker's Bad Fur Day (N64)
13. Crash Bandicoot (PS1)
14. Pikmin (GCN)
15. Syberia (XBOX)
16. Xenosaga Episode I: Der Wille zur Macht (PS2)
17. Tetris Plus (PS1)
18. Metropolis Street Racer (DC)
19. Darkwing Duck (NES)
20. Marvel Vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes (PS2)
21. Ico (PS2)
22. Final Fantasy V (SNES)
23. Mega Man X (SNES)
24. Beyond Good & Evil (XBOX)
25. Beetle Adventure Racing! (N64)
26. Sonic Adventure (DC)
27. Giga Wing (DC)
28. Metal Arms: Glitch in the System (XBOX)
29. The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (GCN)
30. Landstalker: Treasure of King Nole (GEN)
31. Soul Calibur II (GCN)
32. Destruction Derby 64 (N64)
33. Faxanadu (NES)
34. Sudeki (XBOX)
35. Skies of Arcadia (DC)
36. Wild Arms 3 (PS2)



I beat Wild Arms 3 on the Sony Playstation 2 this evening!

Wild Arms 1 and 2 were some of my favorite Playstation 1 RPG's. They were simple and fun little games that had an interesting mix of fun stories, wonderful puzzles and a fantastic setting in the Wild West. There was nothing too deep about them as they were fun and original romps. Once I beat the first two games, it was time to move onto Wild Arms 3. It took me a while to pick it up because I had heard mixed reviews about the game. My excitement level never peaked for the game and I always passed it over for other games. However, during on my large game buying trips before the Backloggery, I decided to finally take a shot at it.

Wild Arms 3 is an absolutely beautiful looking and sounding game as those are the games strongest points. The game has a cell shaded look that is perfectly timeless and really shows no imperfections. Also, the character design and costumes are super as well. Each character has their own unique look and way about them. It is a stylized Old West setting and it plays that to its strength. The characters are colorful in look and in action. Also, the music is some of the best I have heard in a very long time. The tracks and score is wonderful and incredibly catchy. It made exploring the world and the town that more exciting. The battle system is unique and it works most of the time. Your character get their own role and I love the decisions you have to make before you choosing your actions.

However, the battle system begins to fall apart at the last quarter of the game. Your only heal spell is a basic Cure Spell, so you rely on items way too much. By the end of the game, I only did one skill over and over to defeat the increasingly hard bosses and that is the cheapest move in the game. But, you have to use it because it is the only skill that works. The puzzles are mostly good, but some of them are tedious and beyond frustrating. But, the biggest fault would be the story as it literally makes no sense. I was lost only a few hours into the game and the big boss changes several times during the game.

Overall, Wild Arms 3 has its good and bad points. It's not a long game, clocking in at around 25 hours. It's not a bad or terrible game, but it's not one you should buy tomorrow. If you like the series and are curious to see where it goes in each installment, then I would say it is worth playing. However, be prepared for an uneven experience.

[Sarge]

Oh, dang, just noticed that you finished The Last of Us. Glad you enjoyed it, Exhuminator. 8/10 is high praise for a Naughty Dog game from you!

Also, good job finishing Wild Arms 3, Markies! Yeah, the game relies on healing items a lot; it pretty much encourages you to use the farm to stock up a bunch. It can also get a little directionless at times. I remember stopping playing at some point, and it took me about two hours to finally get my bearings to where I was supposed to go. That was with a walkthrough, because the game decided I didn't need any hints on where to go next after my lengthy hiatus. It was one I was really happy to get out of my backlog. Now if I could finish off Alter Code F. Ironically, it and the first game are the only two in the series I haven't finished. Well, unless you count Wild Arms XF, which is a completely different beast. But it's got an amazing soundtrack.

[Markies]

Also, good job finishing Wild Arms 3, Markies! Yeah, the game relies on healing items a lot; it pretty much encourages you to use the farm to stock up a bunch. It can also get a little directionless at times. I remember stopping playing at some point, and it took me about two hours to finally get my bearings to where I was supposed to go. That was with a walkthrough, because the game decided I didn't need any hints on where to go next after my lengthy hiatus. It was one I was really happy to get out of my backlog.

That reminds me of another problem with the game. It literally is rinse and repeat for like 10 hours and about 15 dungeons. The final part of the game, once everything is explored, is the same pattern over and over again.

You do a dungeon. You beat several bosses and puzzles to do it.
You get thrown into the world.
You talk to one person who gives you a hint on where to go.
You find the place, which is another dungeon.

Yeah, if I did not have a FAQ, I would have been completely screwed. I'm still interested in the series and I will be playing Wild Arms 4, 5 and Alter Code: F. I've heard Wild Arms 4 is kind of the black sheep as it is no longer in the Wild West and they use a hex grid based battle system.

[MrPopo]

5 also uses the same hex system. It's one of those interesting concepts that falls down in the execution. There's supposed to be some measure of risk/reward involved, except since bosses have sky high HP compared to your characters the risks far outweigh the rewards. The best thing I can say about it is it lets you potentially protect your squishies in a boss fight if the arena lays out correctly and the boss doesn't have good ranged attacks of its own.

As I recall on my 5 playthrough, I was in a section where I was cleaning up dungeons to unlock the final dungeon or something. I remember the boss fights getting intensely frustrating because there was never a great path for winning; it always felt like it came down to just slogging through like a random encounter. Whereas when I'm playing a Final Fantasy game I suddenly can bust out some major artillery that I was saving up.

[Exhuminator]

115. Mystic Formula | PCECD | 1993 | 7/10

Mystic Formula is a Japan-only on foot shmup, developed and published by Micro Cabin, for the PCECD in 1993. Instead of using a ship to move and attack, in this shmup you pick one of four humanoid characters. The player is allowed free movement to stop and shoot at baddies, using magical attacks that upgrade with enemy drops. The player can also attack using special "scrolls" that do massive damage, but are rare to acquire and disintegrate upon use. Each stage has plenty of enemies to kill, a mid-boss, and a final boss, and there's quite a few stages. Mystic Formula is playable simultaneous two player, and I recommend doing so. I say that because Mystic Formula is rather difficult, your character dies via one hit, and with enemy projectiles flying all over the place, death is never far away. Granted the player is given extra lives, and continues. But continues simply start the stage over from the beginning. Only by grinding against enemies for power ups does a player stand a chance. However, after beating a stage, all power ups are reset and the player is back to square one again. The player also loses their power ups if they die. This is why I say two players are better then one here, due to increased fire power.



Being a CD-ROM based game, Mystic Formula offers prerecorded music and voice acted animated cutscenes. I wasn't too fond of Mystic Formula's OST, it's rather vapid honestly. However the voice acting sounded convincing (granted I can't understand Japanese, but there was definitely gusto), and the animated cutscenes are cleanly animated, and fun to watch. (I'm not exactly sure what the plot here was, but apparently our four heroes are trying to secure a powerful crystal from some arch nemesis.) Background graphics are kind of bland, but enemies and bosses are drawn well. I appreciated the classic 90s anime trope of mixing sci-fi with fantasy to inform the atmosphere. There are occasional vehicle sections, where the player controls an offensive craft. (These parts help to shake off monotony.) If you're looking for something not entirely unlike Gain Ground or Pocky & Rocky, Mystic Formula is worth checking out. Especially if you enjoy early 90s anime aesthetics. The initial difficulty may be off-putting, but once your technique improves, you'll fall into a conquering rhythm. While it's certainly not a perfect experience, Mystic Formula is a good choice for a shmup fan looking for something different.

[BoneSnapDeez]

Yay Micro Cabin. That game looks boss, shame it's so expensive.