Games Beaten 2019

by **Ziggy587** Tue Jul 09, 2019 8:17 am

pook99 wrote:94. Castlevania: dracula x

After playing through MM6 I was really in the mood for some awesome castlevania music so I decided to play Dracula X because I think it has an amazing soundtrack. Of course this game is also one of the most difficult in the series and a radical departure from the zen like feeling I had playing MM6. This game is hard, the music rocks, and the dracula fight is fucking terrible but the intense challenge and ridiculousness of the dracula fight kept me completely focused on the game and for a few hours I was able to forget the shit show that was the rest of my day, which i guess is why we all play video games.

The SNES Dracula X, to me, is a tech demo. The engine and assets are there, but the rest of the game is rushed. The biggest problems are the level design and enemy placement, and enemy placement is kind of an extension of level design. There's the makings for a great game, but it falls short. The graphics are very nice, the music is awesome, the controls are what you'd expect. But that damn level design! It's not even that by design some areas are really hard (especially with enemy placement and that Dracula fight on pillars), it's also that some areas are just really boring and uninspired.

Tangent:

But even with the tech demo that we got, I still enjoy playing it from time to time. It might be toward the bottom of my list of best-to-worst Castlevania games, but at the end of the day it's still a Castlevania game.

by **noiseredux** Tue Jul 09, 2019 9:01 am

I realized I forgot to update this list, so now it's updated.

1. Super Mario World
2. Super Mario Bros 2
3. Bust-A-Move Universe
4. Crystalis
5. Castlevania II: Simon's Quest
6. Donkey Kong
7. Mega Man 2
8. Bloodstained: Curse Of The Moon

I had written about Curse Of The Moon on my blog back when I beat it in May...

https://noisereduxplaysgames.weebly.com ... f-the-moon

by **pook99** Tue Jul 09, 2019 9:34 am

@ziggy: I think the main reason X gets so much hate is that people see it as a shoddy port of Rondo of Blood, when in fact it is a totally separate game. Sure it takes its inspiration from Rondo in terms of story and characters but it is not a port at all, it is its own unique experience. I hear a lot of criticism towards its level design but I just don't see it, I think the level design in X is masterful, its challenging for all the right reasons and combined with the gorgeous graphics and amazing soundtrack it makes for one of the best action platformers on the system. I agree the dracula fight is trashy, its long, drawn out, and hard for all the wrong reasons, but I don't let that one blemish ruin the game for me, just like I don't let Rondos ridiculous boss rush level ruin that game for me.

I have also always contended that not only is X the most under rated game of all time but Rondo is one of the most over rated, and because there was so much mystique around Rondo here in the west X got judged unfairly by most people.

@noise: curse of the moon is an amazing game, one of my favorite new indies and is the sequel to castlevania 3 that I always wanted. It is one of those rare indie gems that got added to my annual rotation of playthroughs and I really hope that the success of the bloodstained franchise prompts konami to make some new castlevania games the way the success of the mighty no 9 kickstarter prompted capcom to make mega man 11.

by **marurun** Tue Jul 09, 2019 11:14 am

@Ziggy

I think that idea of yours is pretty awesome, though I would say skip MSU-1 stuff. The SNES renditions of the PCE music are actually pretty darn good, and excellent SNES audio work, and the game doesn't need cut scenes. But I completely agree about level design and enemy placement.

@Pook

I do agree that SNES Dracula X does take heat, sometimes inappropriately, for being a "bad" port of the PCE Rondo, but I think it's actually a frustrating game on its own. The levels are pretty uninspired and enemy placement seems trollish. It's like the game was designed not so much to be too hard, but rather to be a dick to the player. I mean, I beat the game, so it can't be THAT hard, but the game did piss me off on multiple occasions. In an era where Super CV IV, Bloodlines, and Rondo had redefined what Classicvania could be, Dracula X was sort of a throwback to an older style of Castlevania, just draped in the trappings of Rondo and without some of the more inspired level design of the early titles. I can't fault you for enjoying it. I like that this game has its defenders. It's certainly not a bad game, but I don't particularly like it, and I think there's a much stronger case to be made for why it's a lesser entry in the series.

by **noiseredux** Tue Jul 09, 2019 11:31 am

we talked about this earlier in the year I think... but I definitely prefer Dracula X to Super Castlevania IV.

by **ElkinFencer10** Tue Jul 09, 2019 1:16 pm

Games Beaten in 2019 So Far - 37
* denotes a replay

January (12 Games Beaten)

February (2 Games Beaten)

March (4 Games Beaten)

April (3 Games Beaten)

May (8 Games Beaten)

June (5 Games Beaten)

July (3 Games Beaten)

35. The Elder Scrolls V: Skryim - Switch - June 7
36. The Elder Scrolls V: Skryim: Dragonborn - Switch - June 7
37. The Elder Scrolls V: Skryim: Dawnguard - Switch - June 7

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is one of those games that even people who never play games have heard of. It took the gaming scene by storm when it released, and it's one of the most famous and well received games of the past two decades and for good reason. Many of us probably own multiple copies of the game; I personally own it on every system except Xbox One though I'm still not entirely clear how I reached that point in my sad, depressing little life...But regardless, Skyrim is a veritable juggernaut in the open world RPG arena even eight years after its original release.

I've played through Skyrim before, but this was my first time playing through the various side quest lines as well as my first time playing through the three DLC packs - Dawnguard, Hearthfire, and Dragonborn. I had it on PS4 before I got it on Switch, but I just never felt like devoting the time to it there. Getting it on Switch, though, added the factor of portability. Suddenly I could play Skyrim during my lunch breaks at work, while selling tickets at school soccer games, or while lying in bed at night. For such a seemingly minor factor, that portability really helped engross me in the game. I was blown away by having such a massive and deep fantasy world to explore right in the palm of my hands with no compromises or cuts made. In terms of official content, it's 100% identical to its PS4 and XB1 counterparts. All the Switch version lacks is the community mods which, while cool, I don't really care too much about on console anyway.

As most are familiar with Skyrim, I won't spend much time on the story, but the short short short version is that ancient dragons have suddenly returned to enslave the world, and your character awakens to his or her (in my case, an Imperial woman named Ke$ha) gift as the Dragonborn, one born with the blood and soul of a dragon and able to slay dragons and absorb their souls. You then set off on a quest to save the world of the dragon king Alduin and learn the ways of the Thu'um, the ancient dragon language of power. In the Dragonborn DLC, you investigate a nearby island that's not actually in Skyrim but in northwestern Morrowind and why people are falling under a mysterious spell and being forced to labor at building cryptic monuments of some kind. In Dawnguard, you assume the role of vampire hunter to stop an ancient prophecy from coming to fruition and turning the world into a vampires' playground. In Hearthfire...you don't actually do much questing. All that DLC pack really added was the ability to buy land, build a house, and adopt children who pester you endlessly for money, toys, and to play with them. Cool to build a mansion, yes, but not really a deep and compelling bit of added content.

What most people are probably most curious about are the visuals. How does the Switch port stand up graphically considering that, at the end of the day, the Switch is really just a gaming tablet. Truthfully, it holds up much better than I expected. While it doesn't look as good as its PS4 or Xbox One counterparts, obviously, it does use the "Special Edition" assets from those versions albeit at a lower resolution, so it's a significant graphical improvement over the original PS3 and Xbox 360 releases. As for PC, that's a mixed bag with the wide array of graphical options and computer builds, but in general, I'd say it offers a slight improvement over the original PC release while obviously falling far short of the Special Edition PC version (as do the PS4 and XB1 versions as well). Again, though, considering the hardware it's on and its portability, the game looks remarkable. What you don't get on any of those versions, however, is the Master Sword, Hylian Shield, and Hero's Tunic. BEWARE THOUGH - only one Master Sword can exist in the game, and it's tied to your level at acquisition, so if you're an idiot like me and get the Master Sword at level 3 from an amiibo, it's pretty much useless throughout 90% of the game, but if you wait until you're like level 50, you'll have a beefy ass sword there. Same principle with the Hylian Shield and the tunic although I *think* those can be reacquired through rare amiibo drops. Being a Bethesda game, it obviously has a variety of interesting bugs and glitches, but considering that I only experienced five or six crashes during my roughly 150 hours with the game, I'd say it's pretty damn stable for a Bethesda release.

Given the portable nature of the Switch, one aspect of the game that warrants discussion here that isn't usually a consideration with other consoles is power use. Nintendo's official line is that the Switch boasts a battery life of between 2.5 and 6 hours depending on the demands of the game being played and other settings used (brightness, wifi, etc). I played with my brightness set somewhere between 10% and 15% and wifi on, and I got between two and two and a half hours out of it before needing to recharge. Granted, I didn't play from 100% to straight 0% dead, but I ran it until about 5% battery. With that said, I definitely wouldn't recommend having handheld mode as THE way to play Skyrim unless you have a beefy external power pack to use, but the battery is robust enough to allow handheld gameplay to supplement the docked experience with no issues. Given that this is a pretty taxing game on the Switch's hardware, though, it runs pretty hot after a while, so if you're worried about physically warping the system from overheating, that's something to consider. For what it's worth, though, it looks fantastic handheld with the small HD screen, and the fact that you can play something like this while you're pooping in a public restroom is like friggin' sci-fi stuff, man.

I don't think I need to tell anyone that Skyrim is one of the greatest open world games of all time, but in case I do, here it is plain as day - Skyrim is one of the greatest open world games of all time. Even next to open world fantasy games that I absolutely ADORE like Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, no open world fantasy game has ever engrossed me and kept me saying "one more quest" or "one more dungeon" the way that The Elder Scrolls V did. It doesn't matter if this is your first time playing it or your 10th time playing it, Skyrim holds a once-in-a-generation adventure that every gamer owes it to himself or herself to experience at least once, and with the newer releases including all of the DLC for the game, there's never been a better time to explore Tamriel's frozen north. The Switch version holds up far better than I expected both graphically and in terms of performance, and having the ability to play the game on the go takes it to a whole new level. It may be almost a decade old by this point, but Skyrim remains a must-play for any gamer.

by **noiseredux** Tue Jul 09, 2019 1:19 pm

great write-up and I totally agree. Skyrim is probably one of my favorite games EVER period. One of those games I tend to play annually now. Coincidentally, my last playthrough was also the Switch port which I loved.

by **BoneSnapDeez** Tue Jul 09, 2019 9:10 pm

45. Cally's Caves 3 (Steam)

Cally's Caves 3 is one of those "modern retro" experiences that is clearly influenced by a heaping of classic titles, but ultimately feels quite different from anything and everything released during that bygone era. This is a type of vaguely non-linear platforming run and gun, taking clear inspiration from Contra, Metroid, Mega Man, and a host of others, complete with a "level up everything!" XP hoarding gimmick. It sounds like a bit of a mess, and it kind of is. What it also is: a good game.

Though the third title in the series (no kidding), Cally's Caves 3 is the first to migrate from the land of mobile games (2015) to the Steam store (2016). A remake of the second game (retitled Cally's Trials) soon followed, while the fourth game saw its mobile and Steam releases appear within a small (two month) windows. As for the first Cally's Caves... It was a mobile exclusive that has since disappeared into the ether. The developer, the Canadian VDO games, doesn't even acknowledge its (former) existence on their website. Steam is the preferred environment for the Cally's series by the way. It's worth forking over the cash to avoid the ads and touch screen controls.

Who is Cally? She's an adorable blonde kindergartener whose parents have been kidnapped by a mad scientist (all these games seem to share the same plot). To find them she must work her way through a series of 110(-ish) cave stages; the game has a wholly "interior" setting much like Symphony of the Night and Ys Origin. Cally's Caves 3 is comprised of several "worlds" which are then broken down into bite-sized individual stages, shopping stop-offs, and concluding boss arenas. Checkpoints appear every few stages, and Cally has the ability to warp back to any that have been visited. There's a very useful map, one that allows the player to "scan" stage environments, but the game is ultimately quite linear. While exploration of "branching paths" is encouraged (required, really) there's very little incentive to ever truly backtrack. While newly-obtained abilities may allow Cally to access a chest or two she missed earlier, most simply contain money and/or health refills, which can also be found just about everywhere else.

Controls are fluid, for the most part. Cally's got some jumping skills, with the default double-jump later becoming upgraded to a triple. While it's fun to bound through stages, the amount of time Cally's allotted to remain airborne almost feels excessive. Like an early Kirby title, it's often possible to simply "fly" over difficult segments. There's a roll maneuver (unnecessarily mapped to two different buttons) but it's severely underutilized. Not useful for dodging enemy attacks, it exists for the sole purpose of accessing small crevices. Combat is pretty unique. Cally's endowed with a series of projectile weapons, found throughout her journey, most of which are guns. While the earliest couple of guns quickly become obsolete, most weapons retain their inherent character and functionality. There are bombs, for instance, that can drop down to harm enemies below Cally's reach, a laser gun that can penetrate walls, a spike gun that creates platforms, a boomerang that smashes fiends in both directions, and much more. Thus, the player is encouraged to experiment with, and empower, all sorts of weaponry, as opposed to power-leveling a single gun at the expense of all others.

"Gun experience" is granted as Cally pummels enemies, with weapons quickly evolving into bigger, better variants. It's quite a thrill to see a tiny pea shooter eventually fulfill its destiny by transforming into a giant rocket launcher, but there is a downside to all this gunplay. The diverse array of weapons, coupled with the experience system, means that damage inflicted to enemies is rather variable. And, at lower levels, enemies seemingly take a million hits to vanquish. Hell, even in the later stages slaying a single foe is a time investment. Bosses are even worse in this regard. They're typically just larger and slightly more complex versions of the standard enemies, with mile-long health bars.

In addition to the projectile weapons, Cally is blessed with a powerful short-range sword, mapped to its own button. What it lacks in reach it makes up for in power. It's arguably the most broken weapon in the game, as it possesses the ability to stun-lock enemies until their eventual demise. The sword is the only weapon not effected by experience points, instead it must be powered up via purchased upgrades. Coins of various denominations are founds scattered throughout the caves, as well as "orbs" that increase Cally's own XP bar, eventually resulting in a permanent upgrade in hit points.

The occasional shops are, strangely enough, run by the son of the mad scientist villain. A plethora of items are available, including coin multipliers and weapon enhancements. Said weapon enhancements can poison or freeze enemies, but are prohibitively expensive, and unnecessary. There are food-based HP refills too, of course. Cally can hold six of them, which arguably negates any challenge found in boss fights, as Cally can conceivably refill her health to its maximum six times! The game is on the easy side anyway, generally speaking. Death comes rarely, and when it does Cally is sent back to the last checkpoint reached with a small amount of money lost. This money can usually be regained within a matter of thirty seconds or so. Enemy AI is also utterly and completely brainless, with the vast majority of fiends simply walking back and forth on whatever horizontal platform they occupy.

The aesthetic presentation of Cally's Caves 3 is of mixed quality, though mostly intriguing. Stage backgrounds admittedly dull in that "this is obviously a port of a mobile game" kind of way, though the developers did a decent job of differentiating the various cave environments. It's just that none look particularly interesting. I do love the Cally sprite. She's bouncy, adorable, and it's hilarious to witness her wield the oversized guns. You even get to see the shell casing bounce away as she fires. Brilliant. Sadly, the enemy sprites are complete garbage. They're ugly copy-paste stock designs: just random spiders, bees, wolves, and "thugs." Terrible. The music, I'm pleased to say, is incredible. The developers made no attempts to emulate the chiptunes of old, opting instead for some thumping techno tunes. Everything here is meticulously composed and undeniably catchy. Even more captivating is how the soundtrack was integrated into the game. For the most part, individual tunes aren't assigned to specific areas. Instead, the soundtrack shuffles and loops in the background (this means a different "title screen theme" every time the game is booted!). It aids in creating a sort of hypnotic effect; this is an easy game to "lose oneself" in.

Performance-wise, system requirements for Cally's Caves 3 are quite low ("This game should play on pretty much anything!" notes the developer). The game didn't recognize my controller, and Steam screenshots never seemed to work, so I had to play with two additional programs running in the background to mitigate these issues. This may have more to do with my computer than any inherent game programming, of course. The in-game UI is rather weak, obvious designed for touch controls, but far from game-breaking.

Verdict: there's a lot going on here, and I suspect Cally's Caves 3 may have functioned better had the "RPG elements" been dumped in favor of a more straightforward action-platformer type of game design. Nevertheless, this is ultimately a worthwhile experience, and retro 2D fanatics could certainly do a lot worse. Almost forgot to mention: there are a few stages were you play as a bear instead of Cally. I don't get it either.

HLTB · by **Xeogred** Tue Jul 09, 2019 10:12 pm

1. Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia* (DS)
2. Shadow of the Colossus (PS4)
3. Onimusha: Warlords* (PS4)
4. Resident Evil 2* (PSX)[Leon A]
5. Resident Evil 2 Remake (PS4)[Platinum]
6. Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze* (Switch)
7. Devil May Cry 5 (PS4)
8. Mass Effect* (PS3)
9. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (PS4)
10. Mass Effect 2* (PS3)
11. Streets of Rage 2 (SMS)
12. Mortal Kombat (Genesis)
13. Mass Effect 3* (PS3)
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (PS4)[Platinum]
14. Front Mission (DS)
15. Doom: Sigil (PC)
Front Mission (DS)[UCS Scenario]
16. Doom 2: TNT Revilution (PC)[8h32m55][UV]
17. R-Type Leo (Arcade)
18. Super R-Type* (SNES)
19. Doom 2: TNT Evilution* (PC)[5h55m56][UV/Complex]
20. R-Type III (SNES)[SaveStates]
21. Life Force (NES)
22. Metal Storm (NES)
23. Near Death (PC)
24. Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night (PC)
25. Adventures of Lolo (NES)
26. Dying Light (PC)

22 hours (in game), Steam says 26 overall.

Mirror's Edge parkour + zombies (+ RE styled cool evolved types) + Fallout = fun.

Dying Light is something I've been a little curious about for a few years now and it always looked cool from a glance. More recently, the showcasing of the upcoming sequel boosted my interest even more with former Obsidian lead writer Chris Avellone onboard and them going really hard on an emphasis for a Fallout (New Vegas) styled faction system with severe consequences per player choices, yeah I absolutely want that. So I grabbed the first game recently when the complete edition was on sale and 20 some hours later, this was some intuition that paid off very nicely.

For the most part, this game reminds me of modern Far Cry but it's got more balls and is superior in most departments, writing/characters, difficulty, level design, parkour fun, etc. I could definitely see the Fallout-isms already upfront in this first game too with how some of the character interactions were and whatnot, so the roots have already been planted. This game drops the player in a nice big sandbox for exploring and taking out zombies. I liked pretending this world was from We're Alive, some audio drama I listened to a few years ago. There is loot and crafting but it's never overbearing like some open world / RPG games thesedays. Early on it definitely plays more like a serious survival horror game and the learning curve was kind of steep actually but I really appreciated that and liked having to relearn a new FPS in ways. It takes hours to even get guns. And there's more than just zombies, you'll be taking on human enemies and whatnot eventually too as the story twists and turns. There is also no fast travel, outside of teleporting from one main city zone to another in the back half. YOU, the player are the fast travel. You are constantly gaining exp while traversing rooftops and climbing buildings, unlocking more abilities along the way like jumping off zombie heads. It's fun just simply running around in this game. The night is terrifying as well with special enemy types that come out then and annihilate you early game, even towards the end they're impossible to take on in groups. I was really impressed by the interior levels too, some good sewers, urban buildings and labs, some quarantine zones that are like mini-dungeons basically, etc.

Overall Dying Light felt like a lesson of "less is more". It's got a Skyrim styled level up system with three skill trees and one I didn't even unlock. There is loot, crafting, side missions and miscellaneous stuff sprinkled throughout the map, but it never felt really overbearing to me and I've been pretty burned out on open world games thesedays. Dying Light trims down the fat in the best ways possible and it just gets right to the point. I did get 100% story completion, but there's tons to do and this thing seems to actively have thousands of players on at a given time, so the repeatable quests and such must keep people coming back. You can play everything in co-cop too outside the final mission too apparently. I bet that could be fun but I played the entire game solo with no issue.

+ Epic parkour movement and melee combat
+ You get a GRAPPLE HOOK midway in too, which makes movement even more fun than before
+ Confident story/characters in a mostly over saturated genre
+ Tough difficulty, rock solid sense of progression in every sense from player to enemies and new ideas thrown in later on
+ 80's tint to the OST
+ Drop kick ability and kicking people off rooftops never got old

- Some boss battles were a little annoying and the final boss is a seriously lame QTE battle, which was super tough for me on keyboard
- Menu navigation and menu controls are a bit awkward and it seems like it would be odd for a gamepad too
- Lots of looting early on might get tiresome (but it pays off midway in)
- Steep learning curve early on might prevent some from sticking with it, but I'm glad I did
- Too much lockpicking after awhile, at least it's easy though (same system as the Bethesda stuff)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rex95kd_Yxw

by **ElkinFencer10** Wed Jul 10, 2019 10:39 am

Games Beaten in 2019 So Far - 39
* denotes a replay

January (12 Games Beaten)

February (2 Games Beaten)

March (4 Games Beaten)

April (3 Games Beaten)

May (8 Games Beaten)

June (5 Games Beaten)

July (5 Games Beaten)

38. Tiny Troopers - Switch - July 8
39. Tiny Troopers 2: Special Ops - Switch - July 8

When I first heard about Tiny Troopers coming to Switch, my immediate reaction was "Oh, another mobile game getting ported to Switch. Whatever." I totally slept on it. I then heard from Joshua French on Twitter that the North American physical Switch release was only going to be sold at Walmart and was limited to about 5000 copies. What's more is that it was retailing for $20. A Switch game for myself for $20 and a rare one to boot? Sure, I'll bite. So I went to a couple different Walmarts until I found one with a few in stock and picked up one. I figured it was going to be a stupid, crappy mobile game and that I'd probably try it once before putting it down and never picking it up again. I was quite mistaken.

If you've ever played Team17's Alien Breed, it plays a lot like that. You control between one and three soldiers in an overhead twin stick shooter. Each mission has a primary objective that much be completed, and most have a secondary objective that you can complete for some extra credits to upgrade your troopers between missions. The troopers on your team are randomly generated in both name and appearance, but there is some advantage to keeping them alive; they rank up and gain more hit points as they survive through mission after mission. The story is nonsensical; you're part of some country fighting some other country, and you're sent to kill bad guys and blow stuff up. Don't kill civilians, but if you do, it's okay because the only penalty is a very mild credit loss. That's pretty much it. There are three campaigns - the original Tiny Troopers campaign, the Spec Ops campaign from Tiny Troopers 2, and a very short zombie campaign. It's not fancy, the story is barebones as hell, and it's not complex, but it's a fun game.

Despite being a fairly good console conversion, the game's roots as a mobile game are still very apparent. Every mission feels very similar even with objectives that can range from kill everything to destroy everything to save prisoners. You walk around, you shoot bad guys, you blow up buildings and vehicles, you search for dog tags and medals, and then you go to the extraction point. There are variations from mission to mission, and it never gets so stale that it begins to bore, but every mission more or less follows that basic format. The visuals also show its mobile phone roots - they look fine, but they don't look great. This isn't a beautiful game like Xenoblade Chronicles 2 or a technical marvel of a game like Wolfenstein II. Then again, it's a budget game you could buy three times over for the price of either one of those two. The character models are what really show the game's roots - it's pretty clear that no major changes to models were made to accommodate console play on a large television. That's okay, though; the game may not look especially pretty, but it's fun, and that's really all that matters.

There's really not a whole lot to say about Tiny Troopers: Joint Ops XL. It's a simple game, but it's fun. It doesn't look especially great, but it runs well. It's good entertainment for 10 or 12 hours, and it's cheap, so I'm content with it. No one will remember it ten years down the line, but if you can find a copy at Walmart or see it on the eShop (especially if it's on sale), then I definitely recommend giving it a go. It's a fun little game, and it would probably be a really good choice for kids old enough to need some a little more than Babby's Furst Gaem but too young for something like Doom or Wolfenstein.

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