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Speaking of Super Mario Bros 2:

Games Beaten January thru September:


October:

Super Mario Bros 2 (NES Classic)
Splatoon 2 Octo Expansion (Switch)

Continuing my run through the Mario Bros classics! Just beat the best Mario game on the NES, Super Mario Bros 2. What makes it the best besides being better than everything else? The ability to select characters, for one. Before each level, there is a sense of anticipation. Should I use Mario to be ready for everything? Should I use Toad to move quickly? Luigi could help me find some secret exits! And Princess Toadstool is just sheer fun to use.

It's kind of like Mario 3D World but the choices really do make a difference in the way that you tackle a level. Add to that, the level design that doesn't emphasize solely horizontal gameplay, the variety of enemies, the ability to pick almost anything up, and the fantastic music.

Splatoon 2 Octo Expansion is really fun! It's also really hard. I don't actually like it a whole hell of a lot, tbh but I do like the content it brings like the new weapons, gear, and the Squidlings. The story is fantastic and confirms much of what has been suspected about the world of Splatoon - like it actually being a dark as fuck post apocalyptic landscape. So much love for the devs for allowing you to 'skip' much of the game if you can't beat a given level (and some of them are truly hard). It's what makes the expansion great even if you don't have the patience to grind the levels over and over again. Or - if you are me, and you just suck at Splatoon despite loving it so much.

Partridge Senpai's 2018 Beaten Games:
Previously: 2016 2017
* indicates a repeat

1-20


21-40

41. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild: Expansion Pass DLC (Switch)
42. Battle Block Theater (Xbox 360) *
43. Magicka (Steam) *
44. La-Mulana 2 (Steam)
45. Yooka-Laylee (Steam)
46. Snipper-Clips: Cut it Out Together! (Switch)
47. Magicka: Dungeons and Gargoyles (Steam)
48. Hearthstone: The Boomsday Project (PC)
49. Timespinner (PS4)
50. Hollow Knight (PC)

51. Wuppo (PC)

Before today, I'd never heard of this game, but I'm glad I have now! I looked at the new Humble Bundle available now and saw it in the > $1 tier, so I thought I'd pick up the average price tier and give this one a shot. I had expected it to be a kind of Metroidvania, but it isn't really. It's an adorable but surprisingly difficult action adventure platformer, that was well worth the price of admission. It took me about 9 hours and I got about 80% on hard mode, which I thought was juuust the right difficulty for me (although easy, normal, hard, and impossible are all unlocked from the start, which is nice ).

You play a little blob, of a species called Wums, who lives in the Wumhouse and gets thrown out (literally, from the 4th floor balcony) for being a lazy good-for-nothing who always gets ice cream everywhere. With nowhere else to go, you set out on an adventure to find a new place to call home. Sooner than later you get a head-mounted gum cannon, and that's when the game takes a turn to be the 'action' part of this action adventure platformer.

It is certainly odd playing a 2D game like this that ISN'T a Metroidvania. You never get any movement upgrades, and all progression is done through solving world puzzles to open up new areas via the story or just because you've gotten to a new location. From the moment you're flung from the balcony and your television falls out of your gut (making you far less heavy so you can jump much higher), you are as able to do the platforming as you'll ever be. You never get a dash move. You never get a third jump. You never get a local teleport. You get a bazooka cannon and a rapid-fire water gun fairly quickly, and you can also buy mods for your guns later too, but your general power level never really changes much, and your mobility never changes, period.

The world is big, bright, colorful, and alive though. Walking through Popo City (that's what it's called! He founded his own city of Wums! ) or through the amusement park and seeing all the other little blobby members of society waiting in ques (and you'll have to wait behind them for things like going through customs or riding the roller coaster), purchasing items, getting arrested by the police, it's a kind of microcosm of a society that I've never seen in a 2D game like this. Even the train runs on a consistent schedule and if you're late for it you'll have to wait for the next one. I'd have to say at least half of my nine hours playing was just wandering around the world looking for more people to help, looking for more film-reels to bring to a projectionist to play for me to learn the lore, looking for more whacky fun bosses to fight. It's kinda crazy JUST how much of the game's content is optional proportional to what isn't. It's hardly Breath of the Wild in terms of the "alive"-ness of the world, but it's certainly exceptional for a game from such a small team in a genre like this.

The world itself is great fun to explore though. A lack of any destructible or hidden walls means you're always exploring just what you can see, as most secrets lie in doing quests for NPC's that can range from fishing up someone's hat from the bottom of the polluted river to breaking someone's definitely-a-criminal friend out of jail! The platforming is very tight, and I never had a problem with it. The boss battles are also plentiful and always a good challenge (and if they're too hard, there are 4 difficulties at the start. I'd say a veteran to the Metroidvania genre would feel right at home on hard mode though). The most fun part about the boss battles has to be with the weird controls, or at least controls weird for a game in this genre. It may seem odd at first that you move with the left joystick and jump with left-trigger, but once you get your gum-cannon and learn that you use the right joystick to aim and fire it like a twin-stick shooter, the weird jumping button becomes much more clear. Though it seems odd, I never had a problem with how the game controlled (and the buttons are rebindable if you wanted to make them more normal-feeling ).

Verdict: Highly Recommended. Considering it's a buck right now and bundled with 2 other great games on Humble Bundle, this is something very easy to recommend. This is a great game full of charm and style and I've never played anything else quite like it. If you want something simple and colorful that the kids can watch if you have a weekend with nothing better to do, then this is something that fits the bill just right ^w^

Well 2018 is almost over, so I guess I better get mine in from now. Now I've played a ton of games this year, but the one I actually finished were God of War, Celeste, Shadow of Colussus and Divinity. And I enjoyed every last minute of it.

Games Beaten in 2018 So Far - 91
* denotes a replay

January (16 Games Beaten)


February (18 Games Beaten)


March (10 Games Beaten)


April (7 Games Beaten)


May (6 Games Beaten)


June (20 Games Beaten)


July (8 Games Beaten)


August (4 Games Beaten)


September (1 Game Beaten)


October (1 Game Beaten)


91. Panzer Dragoon Mini - Game Gear - October 5



One of the great things about my Everdrive GBA is that someone made a Game Gear emulator for it. I have a Game Gear as well as the Master System/Master System card/Game Gear adapter for my Retron 5, but what I don't have is the ability to acquire some of the prohibitively and out of reach Game Gear imports - Panzer Dragoon Mini, for example, a Japan-only Game Gear exclusive that seems to fetch prices around $300 and up on eBay these days.



Panzer Dragoon Mini plays almost exactly like its Saturn counterparts just scaled down to fit the capabilities of Sega's handheld. I'd heard all sorts of gloom and doom about how bad it is online, but having played through, I can't imagine why. It's not a masterpiece or anything, but it's quite a competent game for the system, and I had a lot of fun playing through it. It's broken into five stages each of which is composed of random enemies that attack you, usually a mini boss with some more enemies following, and then an end boss. The final stage is largely a boss rush with an extremely brief interlude and a handful of enemies before the next boss.



I'll be the first to admit that my experience with the Game Gear isn't particularly extensive, but of the Game Gear games that I have played, this is definitely one of the better looking ones. The sprites are fairly simple as are the backgrounds, but the scaling gives a nice impression of a three dimensional environment, and the colors and animations are all well done. I was playing this one in public without headphones, so I can't speak to the sound effects or music, but as far as the visuals and gameplay go, it's a great game. The criticism it frequently gets online is totally bizarre to me.



Panzer Dragoon Mini is a seriously good handheld game to play if you have an hour or two to kill. My playthrough took just a bit over an hour - maybe 70 or 75 minutes if I had to guess. The visuals are nice and colorful, and while the artstyle does takes a super deformed approach to the dragons, it fits with the handheld and looks totally fine. It plays well and controls fine, and with a password after each stage and three difficulty settings, it's a very accessible game for players of varying skill levels. Given the hefty price tag, most folks won't get to experience this one, but if you're open to emulation or Everdrives, then I strongly suggest playing this one if you're a fan of on rails shooters. For me, at least, Panzer Dragoon Mini did not disappoint.

Help I'm trapped in a bottomless backlog of reviews! Ah well, nothing left to do but write my way out of it ...

The List So Far:

25. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy: Trials and Tribulations [3DS]


Reviewing the third title in the Ace Attorney Trilogy is a bit like sitting down with a packet of jelly beans and writing a review for the third one you eat ... after having written separate reviews for the first two. Sure, each one might have subtle individual nuances that mark it as being vaguely distinct (Oh, look this one is actually two jelly beans fused together!), but for the most part it's the generic traits of jelly beans as a whole that remain with you rather than the individual traits of each one. And so it goes with the Phoenix Wright trilogy; each entry in the series doesn't do a whole lot to differentiate itself from the last. Still … jelly beans aren't half bad when the mood is right. So let's start there.



Phoenix Wright: Trials and Tribulations is an excellent representation of what makes this a great series. It's a thinking man's adventure game wrapped in the trappings of a visual novel. I think the best adventure games are the ones that make you feel clever (rather than lucky) for discerning the puzzles therein. And just like other games in the series Trials and Tribulations does a really nice job with the puzzles. Despite the fact that sometimes the puzzles are a bit overly specific (I feel like there are a few puzzles in the game that only accept one answer as the 'correct' one where multiple answers could technically be correct), there's nothing resembling full on moon logic here.

Another aspect the series is known for is its strong cast of characters and Trials & Tribulations is once again a fantastic representation of this. All the old standbys are here and well represented. I don't want to get into too much detail here for fear of spoilers, but one repeated aspect is that once again we find Maya in some kind of danger over the course of a particular trial. I found this slightly disappointing due to setting up her character as the 'peril monkey' of the series. C'mon Capcom, Maya's better than that! Let's see her saving Phoenix for a change! (maybe in a team-up with Edgeworth!). I have to say though that Trials & Tribulations introduces one of my favorite characters in the series, that of Prosecutor Godot. This sharply dressed oddball is so delightfully strange and jazz-man cool that it's hard not to love him. Plus he's a hopeless coffee addict just like this reviewer. "Blacker than a moonless night, hotter and more bitter than hell itself … that is coffee." Preach it brother!



It needs to be said that the writing here is also pretty sharp. The cases are well constructed and build on one another towards a satisfying finale, not just for this single game but for the entire initial trilogy as well. Just like the end of a good book, I was a bit sorry to have to leave these characters behind, if only for the time being.

So Trials and Tribulations is a good representation of most of the qualities that have come to exemplify the Phoenix Wright series, but perhaps none so much as the steadfast lack of change. If one were to knock anything about the series it's that up to this point it's remarkably resistant to change. I mean I guess 'if it ain't broke' there's no point in fixing it … but it's just by the time you get to Trials & Tribulations it's hard to fight that feeling of 'been there, done that'. I'm not sure I could suggest a solid strategy for 'shaking up the formula', but I can definitely say that by the time you get to the third game it starts to feel like a predictable formula.



All the same I'm not sure I can complain too readily about this. Coke tried to change their formula once, and look how that worked out. I suppose if you have a good thing going, maybe it's wise to stay the course. Bottom line, if you're playing this game it's likely that it's not your first day in court with Phoenix Wright. And if you've enjoyed his previous outings you'll find no … Objections … here (har, har). Just don't expect to find any groundbreaking new evidence of changes to the formula. Recommended for Phoenix Wright aficionados and adventure game fans. This court is now in recess.

Objection!

Edgeworth rules. The series’ only flaw is that it doesn’t feature him enough.

prfsnl_gmr wrote:Objection!

Edgeworth rules. The series’ only flaw is that it doesn’t feature him enough.

Objection!

I'd actually say that between 1 and 3, he's featured JUST the perfect amount (he's barely in 2 which is one of many reasons that game isn't very good, but that's another discussion ).

I actually found him kinda grating and uninteresting in his stand-alone game. I think he makes a much better supporting character/rival than he does a protagonist. Perhaps AA Investigations 2 has better writing though.

prfsnl_gmr wrote:Objection!

Edgeworth rules. The series’ only flaw is that it doesn’t feature him enough.

Actual and true quote by me:

I wrote:I'll say this for Trials and Tribulations, Godot might very well be my second favorite prosecutor in the entire series. If not for Edgeworth, he'd easily be my favorite, but no one can top Edgeworth. I'm comfortably straight, but the Edgeworth bro-mance is strong.

I love it. Edgeworth is just, in so many way, the better lawyer. I was just so sad when Phoenix beat him. (That said, I was playing as Phoenix...so he had somewhat of an unfair advantage...) He also always ends up doing the right thing, even if the justice system in those games is insane. (Seriously...its like something from the Spanish Inquisition.)

If you like those games, you should give Harvey Birdman a shot sometime. You can beat it in no time, but it is by the same team that made the Phoenix Wright games and plays very similarly.

prfsnl_gmr wrote:If you like those games, you should give Harvey Birdman a shot sometime. You can beat it in no time, but it is by the same team that made the Phoenix Wright games and plays very similarly.

I've actually always thought Harvey Birdman was a lot harder than Ace Attorney because there are several cases where you can start the trial whenever you want. Therefore, it's very possible to begin a trial you literally cannot win because you don't have all the evidence you could've possibly gotten from the visual novel section previously. Combined with the usual moon-logic Capcom uses on top of the general overall weirdness of Harvey Birdman's universe and that is a game I've never been able to enjoy like I can enjoy the Ace Attorney games.