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Games Beaten 2018
1. Letter Quest Remastered Switch eShop
2. Batman NES
3. Little Nemo: The Dream Master NES
4. Mickey's Wild Adventure PS1
5. Mario & Luigi: Dream Team Bros. 3DS
6. Layton's Mystery Journey: Katrielle and the Millionaires' Conspiracy 3DS
7. Nier Automata PS4
8. Legacy of the Wizard NES
9. The Legend of Zelda (starring Zelda) NES
10. Tobu Tobu Girl Game Boy
11. Rhyme Rider Kerorican WSC
12. Sonic Advance 3 GBA
13. Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap PS4
14. Super Adventure Island SNES
15. Dynamite Cop DC
16. Pokkén Tournament Wii U
17. Mega Man 7 PS4
18. Rhythm Tengoku GBA
19. Portal 2 360
20. Shinobi X Saturn
21. Gravity Rush Remastered PS4
22. Mario & Rabbids Kingdom Battle Switch
23. Metroid Samus Returns 3DS
24. Shinobi 3DS
25. Resident Evil HD Remaster PS3
26. Advance Guardian Heroes GBA
27. Alien Storm Mega Drive
28. Ecco: The Tides of Time Mega Drive
29. Earthbound Beginnings Wii U VC
30. Mega Man 8 PS4
31. Dragon Quest Builders Switch
32. Vertical Force Virtual Boy
33. Snipperclips Plus: Cut It Out,Together! Switch
34. Conker’s Bad Fur Day Nintendo 64
35. Ever Oasis 3DS
36. Wario World Gamecube *NEW*

Wario World



Wario World is a 3D platformer of sorts released for the Nintendo Gamecube, and developed by that prime deliverer of cult-classics, Treasure. I picked up and played through the game for Together Retro’s Treasure month, and it was an interesting experience.



The story of Wario World goes that Wario gathered a bunch of treasure in his castle, but it turns out one of the gems was evil and it comes to life and turns all of Wario’s treasure into monsters and traps wario in a strange new world. Wario has to explore the levels of this world and rescue some kind of sprites who will apparently help him defeat the evil gem. Wario does this by platforming through 8 different levels and beating up a bunch of bad guys and bosses on the way.



Although I’ve said Wario World is a platformer a few times now, that’s only partially true, as in many ways it’s a beat-em-up. Wario can charge into enemies or punch them to stun them, after which he can pick them up to perform one of a few different moves. He can throw them (and this can be charged into a super throw to hurt stronger enemies), he can pile drive them into the ground (causing a shockwave which hurts other enemies), or he can ‘swing-ding’ them – swinging them around in circles before launching them away. These moves are not just used for fighting, but also are required for certain environmental interactions – you can throw enemies at switched, slam them into trap doors to open them, or swing them into cranks to turn them and open doors.



The focus of Wario World is not just fighting and platforming though – exploration is the name of the game here, as each level is crammed with items to find – you can find 8 red gems, 8 gold statue pieces, 5 sprites and 8 treasures in each level, all of which give different rewards. The gems are needed to finish the level – with earlier levels requiring only 3 but later ones needing as many as 6 to complete. Finding all 8 statues in a level will raise wario’s health by half a heart, for up to 4 extra hearts worth of health total after all levels are complete. The sprites determine your ending but also give tips for the stage you’re on, and finding all 8 treasures unlocks a GBA demo of Wario Ware, which came out around the same time. These items are spread throughout the level, and often require you to hit switches later in the level and then backtrack to find them.



Some of the items in the game can be found in puzzle rooms – small rooms you can access which feature some kind of block puzzle or platforming challenge which will reward you with an item or two. These are inventive and interesting, with lots of mechanics being made use of, and in some ways they remind me of the fludd-less platforming areas in Mario Galaxy, only with a clunkier control. These are some of the stronger parts of the game in my eyes, and if they were properly fleshed out they could almost have been a game in themselves. Wario doesn’t really fit the concept though.



Because there’s so much to find, the levels in the game tend to take a long time to complete – often 30 minutes or so on a single stage. This can make the game drag quite a bit, which is a shame considering the entire game is only about 4 hours long. The game has a kind of low budget feel too – lots of reskinned enemy assets appear, and the intro story is explained in text rather than animated.



Wario World has some nice ideas and is an interesting adaptation of the Wario Land series into 3D, but it’s not a classic, and it’s one of Treasure’s weaker games. There's fun to be hand in the boss fights and puzzle sections, but the small enemy variety and move variety in the combat makes that element feel underdeveloped, and the game doesn’t have tight enough platforming to make up for that deficiency either. If you find it cheap, it’s likely worth the few hours it takes to get through, but don’t go out of your way for it.

Recommended Listening:
I might have thought the game was fairly average, but the soundtrack is a bombastic and jazzy ton of fun, and well worth a listen. Give it all a go if you can, but this is probably the most iconic music for me - the greenhorn forest theme. Click the image below to hear it.

You guys are killing it with the reviews. All of these are great. I particularly enjoy the 2600 reviews, though. Great work, Bone!

1. Ultima V - PC
2. Ultima VI - PC
3. Might and Magic VI - PC
4. Realms of Arkania: Blade of Destiny - PC
5. Pool of Radiance - PC
6. Curse of the Azure Bonds - PC
7. Secret of the Silver Blades - PC
8. Pools of Darkness - PC
9. Gateway to the Savage Frontier - PC
10. Treasures of the Savage Frontier - PC
11. Champions of Krynn - PC
12. Death Knights of Krynn - PC
13. Dark Queen of Krynn - PC
14. Into the Breach - PC
15. Lords of the Realm - PC
16. Dark Sun: Shattered Lands - PC
17. Lords of the Realm II - PC
18. The Alliance Alive - 3DS
19. Shattered Steel - PC
20. Guacamelee! Super Turbo Championship Edition - PC
21. Battletech - PC
22. Pillars of Eternity: The White March Part I - PC
23. Pillars of Eternity: The White March Part II - PC
24. Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon - Switch
25. Pillars of Eternity II - PC
26. Dragon Ball FighterZ - PS4
27. Detroit: Become Human - PC4
28. Call of Duty: United Offensive - PC
29. The Last of Us - PS4
30. The Last of Us: Left Behind - PS4
31. Prey: Mooncrash - PC
32. Horizon Zero Dawn: The Frozen Wilds - PS4
33. Resident Evil 7 - PC
34. Resident Evil 7: Not A Hero - PC
35. Warhammer 40000: Dawn of War III - PC
36. Overwhelm - PC
37. Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation - PC
38. Hard Reset Redux - PC
39. Nier: Automata - PS4
40. Darksiders - PC
41. The Banner Saga 3 - PC
42. Guacamelee! 2 - PC
43. Spider-Man - PS4
44. Shadow of the Tomb Raider - PC
45. Star Control Origins - PC
46. Valkyria Chronicles 4 - PS4
47. The Messenger - Switch
48. Dragon Quest XI - PS4

The latest in the long running Dragon Quest series, DQXI is a culmination of everything that has come before and is the best Dragon Quest experience available anywhere. If you like your traditional JRPGs then you will love this game.

Dragon Quest XI starts off with you discovering that you're the Luminary, the hero prophesized to save the world. You go and present yourself to the king, who immediately throws you in jail, because by his reasoning if you are prophesized to defeat the darkness that isn't here then you must be the one who brings it. Fortunately, your first teammate helps you break out, and you proceed on a world hopping journey to form a party and fight evil. Some twists and turns along the way, and you save the day. But the journey is really what things are about, and it's a super fun journey.

DQXI plays like DQVIII with some additional enhancements. Instead of four linear skill trees you now have a hexagonal skill grid that you can develop as you see fit. Some panels require you to have unlocked four adjacent ones, which does force you into some potentially "useless" skills (e.g. you need a greatsword skill to unlock a sword skill, and that greatsword skill isn't useable if you're wielding swords), but since you can swap weapons in battle at any time it ends up giving you some potential versatility. However, I felt like you don't get enough skill points to take advantage of that until late game, when the rate you accrue really ramps up. The psyche system is replaced with a pep system; you have a chance at the start of your turn to get pepped up, which is a multi turn buff that improves each character's statistics in unique ways. In addition to the statistical buff, you can consume this state to engage in a pep power. Some of these just require your one character, with some free assistance from another. Others will require multiple characters to be pepped up at the same time, and will consume all the characters' pep state. These tend to be the more powerful effects, which include an exp/money/item boost and removing all enemies and replacing them with three metal slimes appropriate to your current level (though that can fail and sometimes give you robots instead).

Also, like Dragon Quest VIII and IX, there is a post game after you defeat the final boss. This one is the most extensive in the series, as it really ties up some very important lose ends from the main story and is half again as long as the main gain. Sure, IX's could go longer than that, but that's because if you're grinding grottos to do all the legacy bosses it takes ages; there's not more real content there. This postgame is more of a "here's more story" type thing. You could stop after beating the main game and have a pretty satisfying ending, but going into the post game gets you something even better, in my opinion.

The localization is top notch. They are continuing their trend of using European accents for all the characters. Everyone is having a really good time with their characters, and it all feels like if fits really well. One reason I tend to prefer to switch to Japanese voices in JRPGs is that the US voices don't feel like they fit; no issue here. And even cooler, when they have some scenes that follow characters from long before the story, they have them speak in Elizabethan English. And not that patois that they used in the original DQ1 localization; they got some real Shakespearian linguists to ensure the vocabulary and sentence structure is correct.

If you've never played a Dragon Quest game before, this is the one to play.

Games Beaten 2018
1. Letter Quest Remastered Switch eShop
2. Batman NES
3. Little Nemo: The Dream Master NES
4. Mickey's Wild Adventure PS1
5. Mario & Luigi: Dream Team Bros. 3DS
6. Layton's Mystery Journey: Katrielle and the Millionaires' Conspiracy 3DS
7. Nier Automata PS4
8. Legacy of the Wizard NES
9. The Legend of Zelda (starring Zelda) NES
10. Tobu Tobu Girl Game Boy
11. Rhyme Rider Kerorican WSC
12. Sonic Advance 3 GBA
13. Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap PS4
14. Super Adventure Island SNES
15. Dynamite Cop DC
16. Pokkén Tournament Wii U
17. Mega Man 7 PS4
18. Rhythm Tengoku GBA
19. Portal 2 360
20. Shinobi X Saturn
21. Gravity Rush Remastered PS4
22. Mario & Rabbids Kingdom Battle Switch
23. Metroid Samus Returns 3DS
24. Shinobi 3DS
25. Resident Evil HD Remaster PS3
26. Advance Guardian Heroes GBA
27. Alien Storm Mega Drive
28. Ecco: The Tides of Time Mega Drive
29. Earthbound Beginnings Wii U VC
30. Mega Man 8 PS4
31. Dragon Quest Builders Switch
32. Vertical Force Virtual Boy
33. Snipperclips Plus: Cut It Out,Together! Switch
34. Conker’s Bad Fur Day Nintendo 64
35. Ever Oasis 3DS
36. Wario World Gamecube
37. Solar Striker Game Boy *NEW*
38. Pop'n Twinbee GBC *NEW*
39. Halley Wars Game Gear *NEW*

I was feeling in the mood to play through something quick and accessible the other day, so I decided I would play some 8 bit portable shmups. I had a few that had been sitting for long enough, so I sat down and played through them a few times until I had them cracked. Here’s what I though of the ones I played:



Solar Striker



Solar Striker is a shmup for the original Game Boy, and was one of the earliest games for the system. As both of these facts might suggest, it’s quite a basic game – your ship only has one fire button, and as far as I could tell it moves at a constant speed too. You can gain power ups which upgrade your laser – the first power up will increase the firing speed, and the second will increase the size of your shots, and then they alternate. Your shot starts off as the typical pea shooter, before becoming 2 pea shooters, 3 pea shooters and then 2 thick lasers in turn.



There are 6 levels in Solar Striker, and they’re pretty simple in layout. Enemies come in in consistent patterns and often only one variety of enemy will be present at once, so you can easily react to what they’re doing, but later levels feature tougher enemy types who shoot more often, take more hits or have aggressive movements.



The game is pretty reasonable in difficulty for the most part, but a few of the late game bosses are hard to handle due to how much screen estate they fill up with their body and bullets and how many hits they take to go down. It’s one hit death in this game, but when you respawn you keep some of your power ups – you’ll drop down to the previous tier of laser, which is punishing but not as bad as most games of the genre.



Overall, Solar Striker is a fun little time. It has catchy music and basic but serviceable graphics, and there’s an odd kind of charm to it that’s hard to describe considering it’s a generic space shooter. I like it though, and although it’s never winning any awards for best in the genre, it’s worth the low price it goes for if you’re a fan of the Game Boy.

Recommended Listening:
Solar Striker has a simple but solid soundtrack that fits the game nicely. The most memorable track is probably the one that plays in the very first stage. Click the image below to listen:






Pop’n Twinbee



Pop’n Twinbee is a shmup for the original Game Boy, but the version I played was the Game Boy Color port found on Konami Classics Collection volume 3. As with all the games in the series, the most notable thing about the game is it’s oddball power up system – shooting clouds will release bells, which fly into the air. Shooting the bells will change their colour, and each colour gives different power ups. I found this mechanic to be even more frustrating here than normal – bells need tons of hit to change colors, but will then cycle back to normal as soon as they’re hit once more. I also found it harder to juggle multiple bells, and despite playing through the game multiple times trying to beat it, I never quite figured out what effect each colour has.



Pop’n Twinbee on the Game Boy is an interesting game – it features 5 levels, and a variety of cutsey and colourful settings to fly around. As usual you have a standard shot which hits airborne enemies, as well as a bomb to hit grounded foes. The problem with the game though is that it just feels horrendously cheap and not a whole lot of fun to play. The bell system is the main culprit this time round – it’s just too much to handle on a GB screen whilst other enemies are coming at you, and the juggling act isn’t fun. I can’t imagine how much worse it would be playing on original GB when bell colour would be even harder to distinguish!



Personally, I recommend you avoid this one – it’s far inferior to the decent-but-also-a-pain-in-the-ass SNES version, and if you’re going to get one of them, definitely go with the console port. This game was not fun to play through at all.

Recommended listening:

The music of Twinbee is catchy enough, and I heard it many times whilst trying to best the game. Stage 5 theme's was my pick of the bunch, click the image below to hear it:






Halley Wars



For my 3rd 8 bit portable shmup, I went for something a little bit different and played a game on the Game Gear instead. Halley Wars is a vertically scrolling shmup for the console with a rather generic space theme, but a few nice ideas that make it stand out a little. The main gimmick is the % in the lower corner of the screen – this is the health of the planet earth, and every enemy that gets past you will raise this % meter, with 1005 giving you a game over.



Other than this mechanic, Halley Wars is a fairly competent but generic shooter. You can find power ups to boost your speed, or add to the spread of your ships shot, which is very useful for keeping that % low, and you can also find options. Unlike most games of its kind, the options in Halley Wars are destructible, meaning that you don’t normally keep hold of them for long. However, pressing the 1 button whilst you have one equipped will detonate it, so they also serve as your bombs for the game.



There’s not a lot more to say about Halley Wars – it has a cool twist where you think you got to the end only to be turned around and sent back the otherway, but it’s a fairly basic game. However, of the 3 games on this list, it’s likely the best playing one. If you have a Game Gear (or especially if you have a way to play Game Gear games without dealing with the original screen) it’s a fun little game worth a play, and I’d recommend it.

Recommended Listening:
The soundtrack to Halley Wars is not anything special, but it's enjoyable enough. My pick is this track which plays on stage 1, 5 and 7 - click the image below to listen to it:

Games Beaten in 2018 So Far - 97
* 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 (6 Games Beaten)


November (1 Game Beaten)


97. Xenogears - PlayStation - November 12



Xenogears is the one game in the "Xeno" series that I don't have, but with my new attempt to embrace digital games, I decided to buy it on PSN and dust off the ol' PS TV. I was SUPPOSED to be playing this in tandem with flake, but as usually, he lived up to his name and flaked out on me and decided not to play it. -insert sadness-



Xenogears is, in a lot of ways, a perfect example of Square's late 1990s JRPG offerings - it's too long, the story is convoluted to the point of confusion, and it's so much damn fun that you can't just quit. The BASIC story (and this is a bare bones synopsis) is that a colony ship of some sort crashed on this planet 10,000 years ago when some super weapon went haywire and blew it to pieces. Human survivors established an advanced civilization until some major war destroyed a bunch of it 4,000 years ago, and then some other giant war destroyed even more stuff 500 years ago. There are like three specific people whose souls are apparently so important that they get reincarnated infintely, and their memories get passed down as well, and then there's some split personalities, and there are giant robots, and somehow the giant doomsday weapon is god but also god doesn't exist but at the same time god is core to everything and...yeah. It doesn't make any sense. Unfortunately, it's also a perfect example of what ruins a lot of otherwise good games - plot holes, huge leaps of logic, and cut funding that led to a rushed and frankly terrible second half (or, in this case, last third). Imagine if the Democratic Party's 2016 presidential campaign were a JRPG. On paper, it should be amazing and a hole in one. Certain aspects of reality, however, forces it to crash and burn. I love games that incorporate ancient Judeo-Christian mythology into their story. I don't love it when it's done poorly and doesn't many any sense whatsoever.



The tragic story of Xenogears' production is that it was originally intended to be a four disc game as several other Square JRPGs were. The first disc is a long and epic 40-50 hour adventure full of world building and character development, and if the game were judged just on the first disc, it would be a great game. Unfortunately, when they finished the first disc, they were out of money... and only about a third of the way through the story. So the rest of it got slimmed down beyond the max and crammed into one disc with the bulk of the story being either skipped entirely or relegated to boring vignettes between boss fights with the occasional dungeon or two (compared to the dozen solidly fleshed out dungeons in the first disc). There's a ton of potential there, and had the story elements in disc two been given the same treatment that the first disc received, it would probably be remembered as one of the best JRPGs of the era. As it is, however, the second disc totally sucks and ruins the game.



The games visuals are largely so-so in my opinion with a decent 3D world but 2D sprite characters. Character attack animations are cool, but the game overall fails to match Square's Final Fantasy offerings of the era (probably because of the cut funding). The music, however, is quite good. Again, not on the level of the PS1 Final Fantasy games, but it's a solidly second tier soundtrack. The piece of the presentation that really falls apart, though, is the anime cutscenes. There are some full anime cut scenes, but the English dub is like something straight out of a 1950s Godzilla film; you'll see mouths moving a mile a minute with no words whatsoever, and you'll hear talking when no one's mouth is moving. I understand that it's extremely difficult to get English even half synced with Japanese animation especially with a depleted budget, but regardless, the effect is that is just looks sloppy and half-assed.



Xenogears is a Shakespearean tragedy of game development; the first disc is SO exceptional and well done in almost every regard that they blew their whole budget and were left with a second disc that tries to do way too much with way too little to work with and, as a result, ruins the overall product. I really can't overemphasize just how soul-crushingly disappointing that second disc is. It truly does ruin the game for me and leave a bad taste in my mouth for the whole game. I honestly have a hard time recommending this one just because of how much of a let down the last 20 hours or so are, but I'm going to err on the side of a recommendation simply for how excellent the first 40 or 50 hours are. If I were rating each disc on its own, disc one would definitely get a 4/5 with disc two being given a 1/5. Unfortunately, that's not how multi-disc games work. The experiences on each disc may be of RADICALLY different quality, but it's still one single game.

ElkinFencer10 wrote:Xenogears is the one game in the "Xeno" series that I don't have, but with my new attempt to embrace digital games, I decided to buy it on PSN and dust off the ol' PS TV. I was SUPPOSED to be playing this in tandem with flake, but as usually, he lived up to his name and flaked out on me and decided not to play it. -insert sadness-

Or he's a normal person who will take a month to complete this game, unlike you, who beat it in two days.

good review btw

I'll have you know that it took me a whole two and a half weeks to finish this game!

Can confirm. He was updating me every step of the way. Usually with "how much longer?!" and one amazing moment when he did the Chu Chu boss fight.

I'll never agree with people who think a bad ending or finale ruins the entire experience. 40-50 hours for the first disc is longer than most games. It was already novel heavy up to that point regardless, how the second disc text dump can ruin it for someone is beyond me. I'm not completely defending it, it'll always be the ultimate "what could have been", but what we GOT, is still a 10/10 and miracle in my book. Love the Xenoblade's, but I wish Tetsuya Takahashi would get back to the Gears/Saga scope again someday.

The frequent funny theory is that FF8 sapped it's sources. I'm a FF8 fan but that's unfortunate if true, not a good payoff haha.

1. Ducktales: Remastered
2. Grand Theft Auto V
3. Diablo III: Darkening Of Tristram
4. Final Fantasy Type-0
5. The King Of Fighters: Neowave
6. Guardian Heroes
7. Puyo Puyo Tetris
8. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
9. Gunstar Heroes
10. Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
11. Ultimate NES Remix
12. The Legend Of Zelda: A Link To The Past
13. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Yup. I still love Skyrim hard. And now I've actually beaten the main quest instead of just exploring aimlessly. Love it. Hard.