Games Beaten 2019

[prfsnl_gmr]

Great Sexy Brutale and Super Burgertime reviews.

Also...”hardcore Data East fans”...they’re like , at most, two or three of those in the entire world. They just can’t get enough Karnov!

[BoneSnapDeez]

Great Sexy Brutale and Super Burgertime reviews.

Also...”hardcore Data East fans”...they’re like , at most, two or three of those in the entire world. They just can’t get enough Karnov!

Probably tied with the number of hardcore Jaleco and Kemco fans.

I'd like to think that in Japan there's like a couple of middle aged dudes who swear that Pony Canyon was the best publisher ever.

[prfsnl_gmr]

Micronics or GTFO! Just kidding...Tonkin House rules!!!

[Ordinary Gamer]

Great Sexy Brutale and Super Burgertime reviews.

Also...”hardcore Data East fans”...they’re like , at most, two or three of those in the entire world. They just can’t get enough Karnov!

Thanks. I think I could have done a better job describing the graphics though, as I booted it up today and the game looks even nicer than I remember. Even though the graphics have a simple, 2d style to it I don't think there's any way The Sexy Brutale could have been made on old systems like the Genesis or Saturn.

[prfsnl_gmr]

1. The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Anniversary (NDS)
2. Reigns (iOS)
3. Castlevania: The Adventure (GB)
4. Castlevania II: Belmont’s Revenge (GB)
5. Castlevania Legends (GB)
6. Yankai’s Triangle (iOS)
7. Mega Man III (GB)
8. Mega Man IV (GB)
9. Mega Man V (GB)
10. Sin & Punishment (N64)
11. Love You to Bits (iOS)
12. Mega Man Powered Up - Old Style (PSP)
13. Mega Man Powered Up - New Style (PSP)
14. Mario vs. Donkey Kong (GBA)
15. Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2: March of the Minis (NDS)
16. Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Minis March Again! (NDS)
17. Detective Pikachu (3DS)
18. Super Fantasy Zone (GEN)
19. Fantasy Zone Gear (GG)
20. Fantasy Zone - The Maze (SMS)
21. Fantasy Zone (Famicom)
22. Fantasy Zone (NES)
23. Kung Fu Master (2600)
24. Kid Dracula (Famicom)
25. Kid Dracula (GB)
26. Fantasy Zone (TG16)
27. Double Dragon V (SNES)
28. Fantasy Zone II (Famicom)

Double Dragon V is a terrible fighting game. To find out why, visit this month’s TR thread!

Fantasy Zone II isn’t that great of a game on he Sega Master System, and it isn’t that great on the Famicom either, (Strangwly, the remake Fantasy Zone II W is the best shmup of all time.) It looks great, and Sunsoft outdid itself with the graphics in this game. It also starts out strong, and the first few levels are a lot of fun. After that, however, it becomes extremely tedious. There are many, many enemy generators in each level, and each one of them is a bullet and bomb sponge. Groups of enemy generators are also separated by points that warp you to different parts of the level. This translates into a lot of flying around looking for enemy generators and, once you find them, mindlessly pumping bullets and bombs into them until they fall. (Also, they don’t indicate damage; so, you have no idea how close you are to defeating one.) The bosses, usually the high point in a Fantasy Zone game, are all very easy...except the sixth and seventh. The detection on the sixth boss is so poor that you seemingly die at random, and whether you defeat the seventh boss seems to be entirely a matter of chance. (Since I cared only about content tourism with this one, I played this game on an emulator and used save states. I developed a strategy to beat the sixth oss consistently, and I tried to develop a strategy for defeating the seventh boss. After many attempts with mixed results, it became apparent there was none to be found.). I really like this series, but I have a very hard time recommending the original version of Fantasy Zone II on the Sega Master System, and I certainly can’t recommend its Famicom port. If you are interested in it, however, and have already played the first game in the series, I really can’t recommend Fantasy Zone II W (which is available for the PS2 in Japan and for the 3DS in North America) highly enough.

[MrPopo]

I'll be honest, I read that as "Dragon Quest V is a terrible fighting game" and I was thinking "this is a true sentence, but a weird one."

[prfsnl_gmr]

I'll be honest, I read that as "Dragon Quest V is a terrible fighting game" and I was thinking "this is a true sentence, but a weird one."

It’s still a better fighting game than Double Dragon V!

[Flake]

January Games:
Megaman (Switch)
Megaman 2 (Switch)
Megaman 3 (Switch)
Megaman 4 (Switch)
Megaman 5 (Switch)
Megaman 6 (Switch)
Megaman 7 (Switch)
Megaman 8 (Switch)
Megaman 9 (Switch)
Megaman 10 (Switch)
Kirby's Dreamland (Wii)
Time Spinner (PS4)

February Games:

Megaman Legends (PSTV)
The Misadventures of Tron Bonne (PSTV)
Donkey Kong Country Returns (Wii)

March Games:

Metroid: Samus Returns (3DS)
Mario Galaxy (Wii)

April

Batman: Arkham Asylum (PS4)

May

Shovel Knight: Shovel of Hope (Switch)

Shovel Knight is pretty awesome. The Treasure Trove is one of the first games I purchased when the Switch came out - but for some reason I played it in bits and pieces. I think I eventually beat it but it wasn't a very good approach to experiencing the title. This time I did it the right way and really focused on it.

A few thoughts: Yacht Club made incredibly wise decisions on what elements they lifted wholesale from Megaman, Zelda 2, and Duck Tales. It's the difference between being influenced by or derivative of. So you have the Zelda 2 style towns but only 2 of them - making for a tidier presentation that the player can connect to better. Instead of each Knight having a specific weakness, the 'special weapons' are used to let you figure out how you want to play. The result is just a fantastic experience that is a joy to play with a great difficulty curve and modern quality of life features. The music is worth mentioning to - it really is a great throwback to old NES chiptunes.

Next, I'll probably move on to Plague Knight's game - I'd like to see how they adapt the existing levels and bosses for such a different style of play.

[PartridgeSenpai]

Partridge Senpai's 2019 Beaten Games:
Previously: 2016 2017 2018
* indicates a repeat

1. Night Slashers (Switch)
2. Bye-Bye BOXBOY! (3DS)
3. GTA4: The Ballad of Gay Tony (Xbox 360)
4. Katamari Forever (PS3)
5. Detention (PS4)
6. Donkey Kong 64 (N64) *
7. OctoDad: Dadliest Catch (PS4) *
8. FlintHook (Switch)
9. God of War (PS4)
10. God of War HD (PS3)
11. Tiny Barbarian DX (Switch)
12. God of War 2 HD (PS3)
13. Starlink (Switch)
14. Shin Gundam Musou (PS3)
15. Battle & Get! Pokemon Typing DS (DS)
16. Banjo-Kazooie (N64) *

17. Super Mario 64: Rumble Edition (N64)

Another 250 yen pick up from a day or two ago. A version of the game I'd always thought about picking up because of the gimmick of the Rumble Pak compatibility, and here I am without a Rumble Pak to actually test it with XD. Though this is technically a game I thiiiink I've finished on the N64 before, it's been SO long that other than my memory of most stages, I don't feel that familiar with the game. My most recent memory of it is the DS port that I played along the time it came out, and it's difficult to separate the memory of the two versions in my head XP . It's definitely a game that PLAYS way different than I remember, and this is the first time I've ever actually gotten all 120 stars on the N64 version, so I feel an exception is warranted from being a * repeat completion like Banjo-Kazooie was.

As far as what the game is, it's Mario 64. Chances are, you know what that is. A major pioneer of modern 3D movement in games and especially the 3D collectathon genre as a whole. 15 courses with 7 stars each, a castle hub area with 15 stars hidden in it as well, and 3 big Bowser fights before you reach the end. One of the all-time classics of the N64 that really doesn't need any serious introduction.

That said, the game certainly plays more like a pioneer in the genre and less flawlessly than I remember. This game is HARD to control after going through Banjo-Kazooie a few days ago, and even harder since it controls so differently from any other Mario game I've played recently. It honestly made me kinda wanna pick up a GameCube and Mario Sunshine just to refresh my memory on how well that game controls compared to this, because while I certainly remembered always preferring the Banjo games to Mario 64 as a kid, I definitely didn't remember exactly why. Now I have a pretty good idea: The controls.

Mario 64 is somewhat of a victim of its own success. All the other great 3D platformers that have come since, largely from Nintendo, have refined Mario's move-set in a way that has made his platforming far more forgiving. However, in this originator, a factor of three things make this game pretty difficult to go back to:

1. The camera is sometimes alright, but if you want to control it you're gonna have a BAD time. You GOTTA try and play like you can't even control it, because it doesn't wanna be controlled.

2. Mario's turning circle is HUGE. If you wanna turn around, he's gonna make a huge circle in front of him unless he's at a dead stop and you turn a very specific way. This means you're gonna be falling off of the game's MANY tiny platforms A LOT (into its uncountable bottomless pits), especially when the camera isn't behaving and forward is suddenly making you go right.

3. Swimming and flying are terrible and annoying. Not too related to #2, but it makes getting around that much more annoying in a game with tons of water to swim through and enough stars that involve flying to really rub it in your face how irritating the flight controls are compared to something simple like Banjo-Kazooie's flying.

All those gripes aside, they only REALLY come into play, I think, when going for a 120-star run. The game only actually requires you to get 70 out of 120 stars, of course, but I never really appreciated what that meant until I played through it this time. Each of the 15 courses has 7 stars in it, and the main castle has 15 stars hidden in it (some more difficult to get than others). That means it's technically possible to beat the whole game while only visiting 8 of the 15 worlds! This combined with the fact that it's so easy to sequence-break the order you get stars in in stages really gives the player a degree of choice and freedom in choosing which challenges they want to take on and which they don't. You don't even really get anything for getting them all other than some slightly different final dialogue from Bowser at the end and the ability to go and meet Yoshi on top of the castle. It frames getting EVERY star as what it really is: A challenge only to be taken on by the truly daunting that is a reward in and of itself.

Given how many prior Mario games allowed you to skip large swaths of content through things like warps and the Star Road, it certainly wasn't a huge design choice-leap to give the player such choice in which stages they want to play in Mario 64, but it's a design choice I've really only truly appreciated this time through. Nintendo really has always been trying to give players the agency to play through their games in the way the player would prefer. It isn't some super recent revelation with the era of the Wii and such.

As far as differences from the original N64 release of Mario 64 go, I guess you could say this is the "definitive" edition in a certain way for Japanese players. It apparently irons out some bugs and glitches present in the original release, while also confusingly enough removing Japanese dialogue and replacing it with the English voice overs from the international release. All of Peach's dialogue, for example, is in English with Japanese subtitles. It's an interesting curiosity if you just want a rumble gimmick added to the American version of Mario 64 you're more familiar with, as far as importing is concerned (granted all the text is still in Japanese, so I hope you don't need to read anything to get through this if you did wanna import it XD).

Verdict: Hesitantly recommended. The hesitant part of my recommendation is really down to my personal tastes. This isn't really a game I'm dying to play more of after my often frustrating experience going through it this time (especially with some of those later 100 coin stars XP), and the DS port adds SO much content and tightens up the controls so much that there's even a simply better (in many ways) version of this game I can far more easily recommend. It is an interesting historical piece that is very notable for the innovations in 3D platforming it presented, but Nintendo's many refinements on its formula have really made it start to show its age on its original hardware.

[ElkinFencer10]

Games Beaten in 2019 So Far - 21
* denotes a replay

January (12 Games Beaten)

1. Army Men 3D - PlayStation - January 1*
2. Ys I: Ancient Ys Vanished - NES - January 4
3. Mega Man - NES - January 6
4. Mega Man 2 - NES - January 6
5. Mega Man 3 - NES - January 6
6. Mega Man 4 - NES - January 7
7. Dr. Discord's Conquest - NES - January 7
8. Mega Man 5 - NES - January 26
9. Just Cause 3 - PlayStation 4 - January 26
10. Mega Man 6 - NES - January 27
11. Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight - Vita - January 27
12. Mobile Suit Gundam: Encounters in Space - PlayStation 2 - January 27

February (2 Games Beaten)

13. Earth Defense Force 5 - PlayStation 4 - February 2
14. Fallout 76 - PlayStation 4 - February 3

March (4 Games Beaten)

15. Octopath Traveler - Switch - March 2
16. Resident Evil 0 - PlayStation 4 - March 9
17. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered - PlayStation 4 - March 10
18. Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade - Game Boy Advance - March 30

April (3 Games Beaten)

19. Moemon - Game Boy Advance - April 5
20. Yoshi's Crafted World - Switch - April 10
21. Wargroove - Switch - April 26

21. Wargroove - Switch - April 26



Every now and then, a game comes along that defies all of your expectations. Wargroove is one such game for me. This game hits three items on my "Shit That Makes A Game Great" checklist - a strong female protagonist, solid strategy gameplay, and a dog. The last one, obviously, is the most important; at no point has there ever been a game featuring a dog that I didn't love. Not only does Wargroove have a dog, but the dog is a general who inspires his troops to feats of valor and justice with this stalwart bravery and his floofy charisma. Truly Caesar exemplifies the best that pupperkind has to offer.



If you've ever played Advance Wars or Famicom Wars, then you basically know how Wargroove plays already. I've seen a lot of people draw comparisons online with Fire Emblem, and that makes sense given that Fire Emblem is more popular than Advance Wars in the West these days, but Fire Emblem is really not the best comparison because it's not an SRPG. Your units don't level up, and aside from the commanders, they don't have unique names or personalities. You do, however, get to build up resources every turn and create new units and take cities and shit like Advance Wars. The way I've described Wargroove to friends is the gameplay of Advance Wars crossed with the basic setting of Fire Emblem crossed with the humor of slapstick comedy.



There are a couple different of game modes in Wargroove. In addition to the campaign, you've got the standard multiplayer as well as a sort of survival thing called "arcade mode" where you have to pick a commander and clear five random maps in a row. The last game mode is a puzzle mode where you're given one turn to complete a certain objective - usually either defeat an enemy commander or get a specific unit to a specific spot on the map. Puzzle mode proved more frustrating than fun for me although I can definitely see how folks fonder of problem-solving type games would love that game mode. With the multiplayer mode, however, there is a map editor so you can create your own scenarios. It actually reminds me a lot of the scenario creator in Age of Empires II from way back in the day.



The story of the game isn't really the highlight here as it's pretty standard. The main character is the princess of this kingdom called Cherrystone, and then this skeleton army invades, and the whole story from there is pretty much exactly what you'd expect - run away, meet up with allies, counter-attack, discover plot device, save the world, etc, etc. What keeps the story interesting isn't the story itself but rather the characters and how they're developed over the course of the story. I can't say that I loved all of the characters in Wargroove's cast, but I definitely found the vast majority to be quite likable and endearing. Especially Caesar. 15/10 best boy.



Wargroove doesn't reinvent the wheel when it comes to turn-based strategy gameplay, but it still does the genre extremely well. The units are well balanced to counter one another, the characters in the story mode are likable and well developed, and the visuals are bright, colorful, and well detailed despite the pixel art style. Perhaps the best detail of the game, however, is its approachability. Wargroove's difficulty is fully customizable even beyond the handful of difficulty setting with sliders allowing players to set to their liking the rate of resource income, damage taken, and the speed at which the generals' special abilities charge. This means that the game can be enjoyed by those who've never played a game like this before as well those who've beaten every game the genre has to offer. In a time when most games seem to handle difficulty by making the whole thing mind-numbingly easy or brutally difficult, the extent of customization that Wargroove's difficulty settings provide is a welcome change of pace. Given the game's exclusivity to the Switch, this is a definite must-own for Switch gamers even if it is sadly only available digitally.