Games Beaten 2016

[MrPopo]

You, sir, will appreciate this animated and subtitled rendition of one of the Persona 3 drama CDs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0Z9mbhsol4

[Xeogred]

1. Sly 2 Band of Thieves HD (PS3)
2. Black (Xbox)
3. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (Xbox)
4. Super Mario Bros Advance 4: SMB3 E-Reader Levels (WiiUVC)
5. Galerians (PSX)
6. Shantae and the Pirate's Curse (WiiU)
7. TRAG / Hard Edge: Mission of Mercy (PSX)
8. Soul Blade (PSX)
9. Castlevania Circle of the Moon* (WiiUVC)
10. The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess* HD (WiiU)
11. Mega Man 9* (PSN)
12. Mega Man 10* (PSN)
13. Dark Souls 3 (NG++) [PLATINUM] (PS4)
14. Mega Man 1* (PS4, MMLC)
15. Mega Man 2* (PS4, MMLC)
16. Mega Man 3* (PS4, MMLC)
17. Mega Man 4* (PS4, MMLC)
18. Mega Man 5* (PS4, MMLC)
19. Mega Man 6* (PS4, MMLC)
20. Doom [PLATINUM] (PS4)
21. Quake (PC)
22. Quake 2* (PC)
23. Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 (PS3)
24. Quake Mission Pack 1: Scourge of Armagon (PC)
25. Quake 2 Mission Pack 1: The Reckoning (PC)
26. Quake Mission Pack 2: Dissolution of Eternity (PC)
27. Quake 2 Mission Pack 2: Ground Zero (PC)
28. Quake: Dimensions of the Past (PC)
29. Bayonetta 2 (WiiU)
30. Wolfenstein The Old Blood (PC)
31. Dishonored DLC The Knife of Dunwall (PC)
32. Dishonored DLC The Brigmore Witches (PC)
33. Metro Last Light Redux (PC)
34. Doom 3 BFG Edition* (PC)
35. Metro 2033 Redux (PC)
36. Doom 3 Resurrection of Evil* BFG (PC)
37. Doom 3 The Lost Mission* BFG (PC)
38. Ninja Gaiden 3 Razor's Edge (PS3)
39. Ultimate Doom* (PC)
40. Devil's Third (WiiU)





The 4/10's and 5/10's for this game are absolutely warranted.

It was a quick romp that I burned through in about two short sessions. But whoa, I can't remember the last time I played something so rough. There are definitely some super frustrating moments, from spongey zombie and super armored enemies that take a thousand hits to take down, to several bosses having instant death attacks. The music was absolutely hilarious, ranging from heavy metal like segments, to straight up ripping off Star Wars or something. From Chinatown, to prisons and urban streets, to some Call of Duty battlefield, the levels were everywhere too. And then at times it felt like the game tried desperately to tap into Metal Gear Solid in crazy bad ways.

It has character and personality. But the joke is on me. I spent $60 for this? Not worth even half that. I'm going to laugh and feel immediately embarrassed whenever I see this on my shelves now.

Itagaki personally thanked me at the end for playing. So does that excuse anything? I dunno haha...

Considering I just came out of Razor's Edge which had no involvement from Itagaki, and I thought was personally even better than Ninja Gaiden 2, it really makes you wonder just how important he was for the revival and handling those games. Ninja Gaiden Xbox is two generations ago, and although a very unfair comparison... Devil's Third would be rough even against other PS2 action games.

I'm not sure if it really hits that good/bad note that Deadly Premonition did for me. It wasn't insufferable, but definitely a marvel that this game exists. I guess I can see it having a fanbase, but I don't think you'll ever catch me defending it. I'm not saying I hated it anywhere here, but... phew.

This is all based off the campaign experience. I did not touch multiplayer and can imagine it might actually be kind of cool. But I'm moving on.

[Ack]

1. Metal Slug (MVS)(Run and Gun)
2. Puzzle Link (NGPC)(Puzzle)
3. Illusion of Gaia (SNES)(RPG)
4. Warhammer 40,000: Rites of War (PC)(Strategy)
5. Shadowrun: Dragonfall (PC)(RPG)
6. Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss (PC)(RPG)
7. Drakkhen (SNES)(RPG)
8. Flight of the Amazon Queen (PC)(Point and Click Adventure)
9. Shadowgrounds: Survivor (PC)(Top-Down Shooter)
10. Lufia & The Fortress of Doom (SNES)(RPG)
11. BioShock (PC)(FPS)
12. Jeopardy! Sports Edition (SNES)(Game Show Sim)
13. Turok: Dinosaur Hunter (PC)(FPS)
14. Thief Gold (PC)(Stealth)
15. Call of Duty 2 (PC)(FPS)
16. Might and Magic III: Isles of Terra (PC)(RPG)
17. Alone in the Dark (PC)(Survival Horror)
18. Silent Hill (PS1)(Survival Horror)
19. Sanitarium (PC)(Point-and-Click Adventure/Horror)
20. Gauntlet: Slayer Edition(PC)(Hack and Slash)
21. Mortal Kombat 3 (SNES)(Fighting)
22. Ultima II (PC)(RPG)

Ultima II is generally considered to be the low point of the series, perhaps even more so than the troublesome IX that ended it. Having just played through it with the help of maps and such, I wholeheartedly agree that it is extremely problematic in its design. It relies too heavily on random chance and forces the player to grind continuously for the possibility of acquiring items absolutely required to get through the game.

What do I mean by this? If you fight an enemy, you receive random experience and random gold, as well as the possibility of a random item that may negate certain spells, may open required doors, or may serve as required equipment to operate the vehicles necessary to travel to other places. Once in these places, it's the same dash for gold to acquire arms and equipment, food, stat upgrades, spells, so on and so forth. In short, you're grinding for gold for pretty much the entirety of the game, and since there is a random chance you'll get between 1 gold and, say, 17 at most(I never saw it go higher) against randomly placed enemies on the world map, you may have to spend all of your gold just to buy the food needed to keep you alive.

If you ever do eventually reach that point where you're making progress, well, great...only the game doesn't really tell you what all you need to do. You'll need to wander through time gates so you can visit towns in a variety of locales and converse with the locals or offer them bribes in the hopes that one of them, eventually, somewhere, will give you the necessary piece of information to move on. This way you'll discover what random items you'll need to use boats, planes, or rockets, to find the guy to bribe to get the only weapon capable of killing the final boss, and what armor you'll need to make it in the end. You'll eventually find where you have to go to get a necessary item to traverse Minax's forcefield, but then doing this requires space travel, which is also randomized in whether you will actually go to the coordinates you send your rocket. This leads to a segment where you cannot even save the game, so if you die(which is likely), good luck, you have to do it all over again. When all of this is over, and you're back on Earth with the needed weapon, armor, and numerous items required to get there, you then must grind more to get enough health and food, then grind to knock out the enemies around the town, and then push into the final town.

Have you noticed a pattern yet?

All of this is accompanied by sound effects that could be labeled "ear-splitting," starting with an intro akin to driving nails into your skull.

I enjoyed Ultima I quite a bit when I played through it last year. Yes, it was rudimentary, and yes, it had sections I considered problematic, such as the unnecessary space section. Ultima II feels like Richard Garriott learned from Ultima I's development but drew the wrong lessons from the experience. It's a rough patch for sure, more often frustrating than interesting, though I won't say it's completely without charm. The basic gameplay is still similar enough to Ultima I but with a few additions I liked, such as the ability to use special coins to freeze enemies in place and let you pass unhindered. I would never have beaten the final boss had I not had a few of those to burn.

Still, it appears that further lessons from this game went on to result in a string of important hits in the Ultima universe. I look forward to Ultima III and the end of the original trilogy. I just don't think I could recommend Ultima II to anyone, even the most ardent of Ultima or early RPG fans. If you want old school, check out the first. You can skip this one though, I don't think it's really necessary to subject yourself to it.

[BoneSnapDeez]

Play Ultima III on PC and then play it on NES!!!

[MrPopo]

Pretty good summation of Ultima II, though it does leave out the fact that you never need to visit a tower or dungeon and you never need to visit any of the other existing planets in the solar system; just the fictional Planet X. And I don't think people realize just what you mean when you say random. Most games have enemies with a table of drops, so you need to seek out certain enemies to get certain items. Not in Ultima II. Every enemy can drop every single droppable item. So a perfectly legitimate strategy is to pick a town, go in, murder a few people, leave to reset the guards, and repeat until you have all the gold and items you need to beat the game.

The unnecessary space section in Ultima I was unnecessary from a pacing perspective but at least it served a purpose. Half the shit in Ultima II exists because Richard Garriott couldn't figure out how to program a kitchen sink and was tossing in everything he could trying to make one. The most telling aspect of this is the fact that most people don't realize that the most circulated version of Ultima II DOS doesn't even have the right maps for the non-essential planets. See, what happened was that Ultima II originally came on two disks, but the rereleases combined the two into one single disk and made a minor code alteration to not ask for a disk swap. The problem is that the file names for the maps of the planets on disk 2 share the same names as the places on Earth on disk 1. So the planet maps got overwritten. No one in the QA department noticed because no one ever visits those useless locations.

[ElkinFencer10]

I stand as the lone bastion of Devil's Third fans. I shall continue to love its bullshit and bad quirks in the face of the Internet's (admittedly well earned) ire.

[dsheinem]

I named mine Rapejizz Dickfuck, keeping in line with my habit of coming up with the most offensive names I can think of for every game character...

BONUS TIDBIT - It brought me no small amount of laughter when everyone kept calling me Rapejizz-kun.

I get that you are trying to create offensive names for laughs and that you certainly can do whatever you wish in the privacy of your own space as long as it doesn't harm anyone else, but rape-tinged "jokes" aren't really something I'm cool with reading about on a forum that I typically expect better from. I am pretty sure that any rape survivors here would likely find it to be not only "offensive" but personally demeaning and quite hurtful. Maybe next time, if the offensive name you pick is one that has a reasonable potential to be personally upsetting to someone (e.g. names that remind people of traumatic episodes), you can keep it to yourself.

I really don't mean to be preachy and I hesitated on posting about this when I read it the other day, but it has lingered on my mind and gnawed at me a bit, so even after sleeping on it I still felt a need to say something. I think stuff like "Shitface McBoogerson" or "Cumstuffed PopTart" and the like should still be fine, though.

[PartridgeSenpai]

Animal Crossing: amiibo Festival (Wii U)

Though this is a game, like normal Animal Crossing, that you can't really beat in the traditional sense, I've seen just about all the game has to offer, so I thought this was a good place to put my thoughts about the game. First off, this is a very simple game. If you go in looking for Animal Crossing + Mario Party, you will be sorely disappointing. This is much more along the lines of an even more simplified Animal Crossing + Fortune Street.

There's only one map, as to simulate how in Animal Crossing there is only one town, and you roll a D-6 in order to go around it with up to three friends. Also, just as in the normal game, the game tries to simluate real Animal Crossing by not having a traditional turn counter, but you go thorugh a "month" of the year where every turn is a day. The game will tell you about how long the game will take if you pick that month with how many players you have, and if you don't have that much time, then you can even set a shorter time limit and the game will just end when that time limit is up (another design choice around it being an activity for younger children). Depending on which month you pick, there are certain events that you'll get to participate in on holidays. These events range from just themed game events on that day on a day like Weeding Day, to something like Halloween where there's candy around the board to collect and it somewhat modifies your strategy for the whole game. Every week, there's a Stalk Market, just as in the real game, and you can use your money to buy turnips. You can then sell these turnips on any day that week that isn't Sunday, and the sell price is determined by which space you land on: Each space has its own sell price, and you're basically just trying to get lucky to land on a high price and make a bunch of money on your "investment" (thus the Fortune Street stocks system parallel).

You go through the month trying to earn as many happy points and bells as possible. Happy points are just that, points, and don't do anything. Bells, however, can be used in the stalk market, and are therefore more valuable (in my opinion). Whoever has the most happy points at the end of the game wins, and bells translate to happy points by 1000 bells = 1 happy point, and are usually the deciding factor in choosing a winner (in games of 3+ people). Spaces on the board are divided into good and bad, and among those are good and bad versions of bells only, happy points only, and both bells and happy points. When you land on one of these spaces, you'll see a little vignette of your character with a description, giving rationale on how they actually earned that reward. They're always cute, and depending on which character you have, you can even get character-specific ones sometimes (Resetti hanging out with his brother, Mabel working with her sisters, etc).

The "amiibo" bit of amiibo Festival is in character selection, game-play, and for mini-games and town customization. The characters selection and game-play is what the traditional 3D-figure amiibos are for. If you have a certain amiibo (Resetti, Isabelle, Mabel, etc) then you can play as that character. There's no play-style difference between the characters. The only difference is that they'll appear in the vignettes themselves, and the character-specific ones mentioned above. Additionally, as in the amiibo mode in Mario Party 10, you must tap the amiibo on the Wii U pad in order to roll your dice, meaning you all share one controller. There aren't mini-games or anything during the board-games, so funcitonally this works fine, even if it is annoying sometimes that you need to tap the amiibo to roll the dice. However, this does functinally mean that players can't roll each other's dice, so if you're playing with children, that is a good method of stopping them from taking other people's turns. You do need at least one Animal Crossing amiibo to play the game at all, but you don't need one for each player. As long as player one has a character amiibo, the other 3 people can just be humanoid villagers.

The other features have amiibo cards used for them. At the end of each game, you build up a collective total of happy points which earn you happy tickets. You can use these tickets to build attractions on the main menu which allow you to play mini-games with amiibo cards. The game comes with 3 amiibo cards, but to play all the mini-games, you'll need to get at least one more pack. Then there's the town customization feature. The reason there's only one board, is because, like in Animal Crossing, it's your persistent town. The same villagers always live there, as well as customizations you can make. Instead of spending happy tickets on mini-games, you can spend them on town features (basically they're public works projects from Animal Crossing: New Leaf). In most cases, they just make your town look pretty, but in other cases, like Brewster's Cafe or the Police Station, they can give you new vignettes to view. Amiibo cards that don't come with the game can be used to have new villagers move into town, which means they'll appear in the vignettes, or they can also MC your game, fulfilling the role Toad usually plays in Mario Party (the three amiibo cards that come with the game alread have their villagers moved into the town when you start, so you don't need to register them immediately.

One more miscillanious complaint I have, is that you can't play with the AI unless you're playing by yourself. If you're playing with just one friend, you can't fill in the extra two slots with AI. Nothing game breaking, but just a little annoying. The game isn't that fun to play by yourself anyway.

Verdict: This is a very very chill board game. If you have friends or family who aren't very familiar with video games and/or like Animal Crossing, they will love this game. Also, if you just want to unwind with friends with a simple board game video game, or want to give children something to do, this is a fairly idiot-proof activity you can sit them with. That's really all this game is trying to do: It's not trying to be Mario Party. I think it does it fairly well. If the above situations describe ones you find yourself in regularly, this game is probably a decent choice for you

Probably not worth the 50 or 60 bucks you'll pay for a new copy though. Used it's 30 bucks, and then you'd need another 8 at the least for a used amiibo, so 40 is a much better price.

[Xeogred]

I stand as the lone bastion of Devil's Third fans. I shall continue to love its bullshit and bad quirks in the face of the Internet's (admittedly well earned) ire.

The more I sit on it from last night the more I like it and it makes me laugh. But $60 for that was insane to say the least. lol

[Sarge]

January:

1) Bonk's Adventure (NES)
2) Little Samson (NES)
3) Holy Diver (NES)
4) Holy Diver (NES) (legit!)
5) Mitsume Ga Tooru (NES)
6) TMNT II: The Arcade Game (NES)
7) Mighty Final Fight (NES)
8] Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! (NES)
9) Monster In My Pocket (NES)
10) Battle of Olympus (NES)
11) Gunstar Heroes (GEN) (repeat)
12) Dragon Age: Inquisition (PS4)
13) Dragon Age: Inquisition - Trespasser (PS4)
14) Captain America and the Avengers (NES)
15) StarTropics (NES)
16) Double Dragon II: The Revenge (NES) (save states)
17) Double Dragon II: The Revenge (NES) (legit)
18) Crisis Force (NES)
19) Esper Dream 2 (NES)
20) Felix the Cat (NES)
21) Moon Crystal (NES)
22) Panic Restaurant (NES)
23) Frankenstein (NES)
24) Crystalis (NES)
25) Nekketsu Kakutou Densetsu (NES)

February:

26) Killer Instinct (GB)
27) Mashin Hero Wataru Gaiden (NES)
28) Sly Spy (ARC)
29) The Red Star (unreleased XBOX, also on PS2)
30) Adventure Island 4 (NES)
31) Cocoron (NES)
32) Batman: Arkham Knight (PS4)
33) Xeodrifter (VITA)
34) Doom 2 (PC)
35) Brandish: The Dark Revenant (PSP)
36) Magical Pop'n (SNES)
37) The Ninja Warriors (SNES)
38) Phantasy Star (SMS)
39) Phantasy Star III (GEN)
40) Super Smash Bros. for 3DS (3DS)
41) Brandish: The Dark Revenant (Dela Mode)

March:

42) Freedom Planet (Milla, 82 lives lost) (PC)
43) Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (PC)
44) Lara Croft Go (AND)
45) Oniken (PC)
46) Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam (3DS)
47) Batman: The Video Game (GB)
48) Batman: The Video Game (NES)
49) Super Spy Hunter

April:

50) Mega Man 2 (NES)
51) Mega Man 4 (NES)
52) Mission: Impossible (NES)
53) Mega Man 6 (NES)
54) Super Mario Bros. 3 (NES)
55) Sword Master (NES)
56) DuckTales 2 (NES)
57) Rush'n Attack (NES)
58) Mega Man 3 (NES)
59) Mega Man 5 (NES)
60) Mega Man (NES)
61) S.C.A.T. - Special Cybernetic Attack Team (NES)
62) TaleSpin (NES)
63) Double Dragon III (NES)
64) Donkey Kong (NES)
65) Astyanax (NES)

May:

66) Master Chu and the Drunkard Hu (NES)
67) The New Ghostbusters II (NES, proto)
68) Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (PSP, via Dracula X Chronicles)
69) Revenge of Shinobi (GEN)
70) Shinobi III (GEN)
71) Shadow Dancer (GEN)
72) El Viento (GEN)
73) Earnest Evans (GEN)
74) One Must Fall 2097 (PC)
75) A Nightmare on Elm Street (NES)
76) Hebereke (NES)
77) Contra (NES)
78) Wario Land: Shake It! (WII)
79) Gimmick! (NES)
80) Ninja Gaiden (GG)
81) Wai Wai World 2 (NES)
82) Zoda's Revenge: StarTropics II (NES)
83) Uncharted: Golden Abyss (VITA)
84) Double Dragon (SMS)

June:

85) Astra Superstars (SAT)
86) Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance (360)
87) Star Wars: Dark Forces 2 - Jedi Knight (PC)
88) Star Wars: Dark Forces (PC)
89) VVVVVV (PC)
90) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Hyperstone Heist (GEN)
91) Broforce (PS4)
92) Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight (PC)
93) The Terminator (SCD)
94) Aban Hawkins and the 1001 Spikes (PC)
95) Electronic Super Joy (PC)
96) Golden Axe (GEN)
97) Double Dragon (GB)
98) Double Dragon II (GB)
99) Double Dragon III (GB)
100) Super Mario Land (GB)
101) Kirby's Dream Land (GB)

July:

102) Vapor Trail (GEN)
103) King Colossus (GEN)
104) Kirby: Planet Robobot (3DS)
105) Curse of Issyos (PC)
106) Alisia Dragoon (GEN)
107) Curse of the Crescent Isle DX (PC)
108) Tales of Hearts R (VITA)
109) Flashback (SCD)
110) Rayman Legends (VITA)

I finally got around to playing a bit more Rayman Legends. I was holding off on it a bit because the Vita version isn't the optimal way to play, but I finally just said to heck with it. I'm glad I did. Strangely, I didn't cotton to Origins, despite being on the larger screen. In some ways, it feels like a game that belongs on handheld, though, with the small-ish levels. You can take it in bite-size chunks, which is exactly what I've been doing the past few weeks. The main stages can probably be finished in around ten hours, but there's so much content. Seriously, there are Invasion levels, challenges with Murfy, and to my understanding all the stages from Origins as well. A completionist could probably put 20-30 hours into the game easily.

Despite having a reputation as an iffy port, I had no problems at all on Vita. I'm sure there are compromises here and there, but I'll be darned if the game still doesn't look fantastic. On top of that, I think there were only one or two places in the entire game where the frame rate slightly hiccuped. Very nicely done. Some of the visuals can get pretty small, though, but I could still generally make heads or tails of everything.

I dunno, it's got me wondering if I should sink time into all the Origins stages here, or just go back to the original and beat it. I definitely liked what I played here... except for the Murfy challenges. Lots of touchscreen stuff, and while it's okay, I much preferred the straight-up platforming stages.

Anyway, two thumbs up. 8.5/10, at minimum.