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ElkinFencer10
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Re: Games Beaten 2017

by ElkinFencer10 Sun Jun 25, 2017 6:28 pm

Juan Aguacate wrote:It's a shame that all the charm and humor and cute character designs in Gal*Gun Double Peace are wasted on such a shitty light gun game

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Exhuminator wrote:Ecchi lords must unite for great justice.

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Juan Aguacate
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Re: Games Beaten 2017

by Juan Aguacate Sun Jun 25, 2017 6:45 pm

ElkinFencer10 wrote:
Juan Aguacate wrote:It's a shame that all the charm and humor and cute character designs in Gal*Gun Double Peace are wasted on such a shitty light gun game

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Only if he makes me keep playing that game.
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Re: Games Beaten 2017

by ElkinFencer10 Tue Jun 27, 2017 10:02 am

Games Beaten in 2017 So Far - 61
* denotes a replay

January (10 Games Beaten)
1. Persona 4 Arena - Playstation 3 - January 1
2. Chrono Trigger - SNES - January 7
3. Ys: The Vanished Omens - Master System - January 8
4. MUSHA - Genesis - January 10
5. Dragon Quest Heroes: The World Tree's Woe and the Blight Below - PlayStation 4 - January 11
6. Ys I - TurboGrafx-CD - January 13
7. Ys II - TurboGrafx-CD - January 14
8. Dragon Quest Builders - PlayStation 4 - January 23
9. Resident Evil 7: Biohazard - PlayStation 4 - January 26
10. School Girl/Zombie Hunter - PlayStation 4 - January 29


February (12 Games Beaten)
11. Fire Emblem Heroes - Android - February 3
12. The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD - Wii U - February 5
13. Dante's Inferno - PlayStation 3 - February 7
14. Hotel Dusk: Room 215 - DS - February 11
15. Persona 4: Dancing All Night - Vita - February 12
16. Sniper Elite 4 - PlayStation 4 - February 17
17. Pony Quest - NES - February 19
18. Halo Wars 2 - Xbox One - February 22
19. Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions - PlayStation Portable - February 24
20. Hotline Miami - PlayStation 4 - February 26
21. Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light - Famicom - February 27
22. Bad Dudes - NES - February 28


March (6 Games Beaten)
23. Root Letter - PlayStation 4 - March 2
24. Vroom in the Night Sky - Switch - March 10
25. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - Switch - March 17
26. Super Bomberman R - Switch - March 18
27. Super Mario Run - Android - March 24
28. I Am Setsuna - Switch - March 24


April (9 Games Beaten)
29. Mass Effect: Andromeda - PlayStation 4 - April 1
30. Sniper Elite: Nazi Zombie Army - PlayStation 4 - April 2
31. Sniper Elite: Nazi Zombie Army 2 - PlayStation 4 - April 2
32. New Frontier Days: Founding Pioneers - Switch - April 3
33. Sniper Elite: Nazi Zombie Army 3 - PlayStation 4 - April 4
34. Persona 5 - PlayStation 4 - April 17
35. Alienation - PlayStation 4 - April 18
36. Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc - PlayStation 4 - April 23
37. Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair - PlayStation 4 - April 29


May (14 Games Beaten)
38. Puyo Puyo Tetris - Switch - May 4
39. Fire Emblem Gaiden - Famicom - May 6
40. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe - Switch - May 6
41. Outlast II - PlayStation 4 - May 7
42. Dishonored - PlayStation 4 - May 10
43. Snipperclips: Cut it Out, Together! - Switch - May 12
44. Pikmin - Gamecube - May 12
45. Metal Slug - Neo Geo MVS - May 13*
46. Dariusburst CS: Chronicle Savior - PlayStation 4 - May 14
47. Batman: The TellTale Series - PlayStation 4 - May 17
48. Batman: Arkham VR - PlayStation 4 - May 18
49. Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia - 3DS - May 25
50. Farpoint - PlayStation 4 - May 27
51. The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings - Xbox 360 - May 29


June (10 Games Beaten)
52. Star Trek: Bridge Crew - PlayStation 4 - June 2
53. The Walking Dead: A New Frontier - PlayStation 4 - June 3
54. Rebel Galaxy - PC - June 18
55. The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II - Vita - June 20
56. Medal of Honor: Allied Assault - PC - June 21*
57. Medal of Honor: Allied Assault - Spearhead - PC - June 21
58. Medal of Honor: Allied Assault - Breakthrough - PC - June 22
59. Aliens Versus Predator - PC - June 23
60. Army Men - PC - June 24*
61. Apartment 666 - PC - June 26


61. Apartment 666 - PC - June 26

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Sit down, kids.  It's time for a cautionary tale.  Do NOT buy a game on Steam just because it's on sale for $1 and you think it looks cool.  Read reviews first.  Watch gameplay videos first.  Look it up online first.  I didn't do any of those things before I bought Apartment 666, and look at where I am now.  I'll never get back the 30 minutes I wasted playing through this game or the $0.99 I paid to download it.  Truly, it's the tragedy of our time.

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Alright, let's break this train wreck of a game down.  It's basically a "horror" walking simulator.  Picture PT but really shitty and made by a 14 year old.  That's Apartment 666.  The layout of the apartment looks almost the same as PT, as well; just a right angle.  You play as a 12 year old kid who can't find his parents in an apartment full of locked doors.  When you get to the door at the end of the hallway, you end up in your bedroom again.  Repeat this about 50 times, and that's the game.  There's a little more to it than that, but it all pretty much involves the two doors on either end of the damn hallway.  Every now and then one of the doors along the hallway will open.  You'll usually have some newspaper clipping to read or some obscure and infuriatingly specific spot you have to stand on to trigger the door to unlock (because of course it closed behind you on its own).  The latter is the part that really killed it for me.  There's one particular part where you're in a "storage room" (although that's TOTALLY a casting couch and the kid just had no idea what his dad did for fun when he and his mom weren't home), and to unlock the door, there's a VERY specific spot in front of the couch that you have to stand on.  It took me 10 minutes to figure that out; that's a third of the time I spent playing the damn game.

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The next problem is the voice acting.  Jesus Christ, the voice acting.  I legitimately think the developer got his 12 year old kid cousin to read lines from a hastily written script one afternoon and called it a done job in one take.  They're not even well written.  It's crap like "I wonder where my mom and my dad are," "I knew that this was a bad idea..." and "I am back in my room again?"  The kind of shit that sure, you might think in that situation but that even protagonists don't often say aloud, and protagonists never say them in that silted a manner.  The dialogue is stiffer than a middle school boy spying on his 16 year old sister's sleepover.  Also - and here's the kicker with functionality - the game has three achievements, and one of them is bugged.  All three of them are story achievements; start the game, get like 10% through the game, and finish the game.  The "finish the game" achievement is bugged and won't unlock.  The dev says "Look, 2% of people have unlocked it!  It works!" and we're all like "Bro, you've got a 15 minute game, and you're telling me that only 2% of people who start it finish it?"  All of this in spite of the fact that there are dozens of people on the Steam discussions saying "Hey, I finished it, and it's still bugged."

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Apartment 666 is fucking garbage, and I'm ashamed of myself for even spending $0.99 on it.  The premise is interesting enough, even if it a blatant copy of PT, and it actually does manage to create a fairly creepy atmosphere early on...until its severe flaws become glaring.  There's no real options menu, and your only graphical settings are to change "quality" between low, medium, and high (with absolutely no discernable difference between medium and high) and to change the resolution.  No brightness setting despite severely needing one; parts of the game are so dark I literally had no idea where I was going and couldn't tell if the game had crashed or just plunged me into pitch black darkness.  I almost wish the game had crashed.  It sucks.  Don't buy it.  Go out and buy Sonic Boom or Chasing Dead before you buy this; both are infinitely more fun.
Exhuminator wrote:Ecchi lords must unite for great justice.

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Xeogred
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Re: Games Beaten 2017

by Xeogred Tue Jun 27, 2017 8:38 pm

lmao, I thought that was Bequest:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmbrEknVZu8

Did you see the Layers of Fear teams new game, observer? Looks amazing.
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Re: Games Beaten 2017

by dsheinem Wed Jun 28, 2017 9:44 am

Games Beaten 2017
Inside - PS4
Street Fighter V - PS4
TIMEframe - PC
Rituals - PC
Mother Russia Bleeds - PC
Horizon: Zero Dawn - PS4
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - Switch
Here They Lie - PSVR
Dexed - PSVR
Resident Evil 7: Biohazard - PSVR
Last Voyage - iOS
Ghost Blade HD - PS4
What Happened to Edith Finch - PS4
Fast RMX - Switch
Puyo Puyo Tetris - Switch
Garou: Mark of the Wolf - Vita
Star Wars: Republic Commando - PC
Battlefield 1 - PS4
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe - Switch
Shock Troopers - PC (Arcade)
Shock Troopers 2nd Squad - PC (Arcade)
Gravity Bone -PC
A Thousand Flights of Loving - PC
Forza Horizon 3: Hot Wheels - PC/X1
Eve: Valkyrie- PSVR
Farpoint - PSVR
Painkiller: Battle Out of Hell - PC
Ghost Squad - Wii
Monument Valley 2 - iOS
Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare - PS4 *new*
Tekken Tag Tournament 2 - 360 *new*

Total: 31


Previously: 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010

In the midst of a move and a sell-off of a bunch of my older games, I have still managed to squeeze time in to play a few things and *hopefully* inch closer to my goal of finishing off 65 for the year (which will give me a tally of 700 total since I started keeping track in 2010 8) ).

Monument Valley 2 is a decent follow-up to the original, but I think a lot of the appeal of the first game was its relative novelty. It has the same level of polish and is as simple as the first game, but it lacks some of the "wow factor". Still, worth a look for fans of the original.

Call of Duty Infinite Warfare is the most sci-fi COD yet, and for as much as it gets some things right...it really feels like a low point in the series. The story, convoluted plot and all, tried to make you care about the characters...but failed to do so in the way that the better single player campaigns in the series have (e.g. the Modern Warfare trilogy), the combat was super-easy on the default settings (even compared to other recent CODs), and the amount of options (loadouts, tech attachments, etc.) really just seemed like a lot of unnecessary stuff. It looks beautiful and sounds great, and some of the set pieces are well done...but that is not enough to save this one.

I beat Tekken Tag 2 with the bear-iffic combo of Kuma and Panda, and it was glorious. The ending movie of Panda at the amusement park was full of classic Tekken humor, and it was a great way to kill some time this morning.
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Re: Games Beaten 2017

by Segata Fri Jun 30, 2017 5:26 am

Yakuza 0.

My first Yakuza game. I took a break in March but came back to it the other day.
My god I am fell in love with the game. The ending made me think I was in a room full of onions. Combat is great. Story is great. Game looks really good. Side stories are damn funny. Main story is really well written and acted. I won't like I was sorta falling for Makoto myself. Easily my favorite game this year so far beating Nier Automata and Persona 5.
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Re: Games Beaten 2017

by Markies Sat Jul 01, 2017 5:40 pm

1. Phantasy Star II (GEN)
2. Guitar Hero (PS2)
3. Adventures of Lolo (NES)
4. Animal Crossing (GCN)
5. Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse (NES)
6. Beyond The Beyond (PS1)
7. R.B.I. Baseball (NES)
8. Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo (PS1)
9. GoldenEye: Rogue Agent (GCN)
10. Project Gotham Racing (XBOX)
11. Ristar (GEN)
12. Conker's Bad Fur Day (N64)
13. Crash Bandicoot (PS1)
14. Pikmin (GCN)
15. Syberia (XBOX)
16. Xenosaga Episode I: Der Wille zur Macht (PS2)
17. Tetris Plus (PS1)
18. Metropolis Street Racer (DC)
19. Darkwing Duck (NES)
20. Marvel Vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes (PS2)

21. Ico (PS2)

I completed Ico on the Sony Playstation 2 this afternoon!

Ico is an incredibly interesting game that never truly feels like a game. It is more like an experience or being able to walk around inside your favorite painting. In a way, it felt like an interactive movie with little story and a small NES game.

There is little to the game in regards to story. You are shunned out of town, escape inside of a huge castle, rescue a Princess, fight an evil queen and eventually escape. There is a bit more to it, but that is the general plot.

The game play is a bit strange. You are solving light puzzles through the entire game as you walk into a room, figure out how to leave and then go into the next room. The actually control is more like a 3D platformerer as you are jumping, running, climbing, pushing, pulling and swinging all over the place.

The game itself is beautiful. It has this simplistic look to it that is utterly stunning. Also, the size and scope of the castle is enormous. It's quite breathtaking to look at and you really feel a part of the world.

With that in mind, it is kind of lacking in the game department. With no life bar, time limit or even music, the pressure is completely removed. Also, the battle system is very lacking and the camera can be a bit of a pain.

Overall, I really enjoyed Ico. It could use some polish in the actual game aspect, but as an experience, it is top notch. For a short ride, it is well worth the trip and should be picked up by anybody who wants a good experience or to dive into the 'video games are art' discussion.

I now cannot wait to play Shadow of the Colossus. I wanted to play Ico first, so now I can move onto to its successor!
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Re: Games Beaten 2017

by MrPopo Sat Jul 01, 2017 6:25 pm

1. Pokémon Moon - 3DS
2. Tony Hawk's Underground - GCN
3. Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War II: Chaos Rising - PC
4. Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War II: Retribution - PC
5. Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness - PSP
6. X-Wing: Imperial Pursuit - PC
7. Star Wars Republic Commando - PC
8. X-Wing: B-Wing - PC
9. Blazing Lazers - TG-16
10. Tales of Xillia 2 - PS3
11. Shining Force CD: Shining Force Gaiden - Sega CD
12. MUSHA - Genesis
13. Sonic CD - Sega CD
14. Final Fantasy Legend III - GB
15. Tales of Zestiria - PS3
16. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - Switch
17. Horizon Zero Dawn - PS4
18. Tales of Berseria - PS4
19. Battlefield 1 - PC
20. Turok 2: Seeds of Evil - PC
21. Mass Effect Andromeda - PC
22. Starflight 2 - PC
23. Armored Hunter Gunhound EX - PC
24. Space Megaforce - SNES
25. Persona 5 - PS4
26. Torment: Tides of Numenera - PC
27. Cosmic Star Heroine - PC
28. Prey - PC
29. Strafe - PC
30. Mystic Origins - NES
31. Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia - 3DS
32. Ultra Street Fighter II - Switch
33. The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky - PC
34. Ultima IV - PC

I beat the original Ultima trilogy a few years ago, but didn't start on Ultima IV yet because I knew the game required a lot of note taking. Then when I was on a business trip a couple weeks ago I needed to kill time in my hotel room and I decided to finally start giving this game a playthrough. I quickly got hooked and it completely sidetracked me from doing Trails Second Chapter. But now it's finished!

Ultima IV is a major departure from RPGs of the time. While most games involved a quest to hunt down some big bad, in Ultima IV you are given the task of becoming a paragon of the eight virtues, so that others might take example from you. While combat is still present it's no longer the focus and you must always be conscious of how you play the game. Veterans of previous Ultima games might remember that the secret to success tended to be murdering townsfolk for easy money and experience. In Ultima IV you need to do things like give money to beggars and allow animals to escape from you in combat.

The game starts with a series of morality questions that will determine your class; each class is associated with a virtue. You'll then need to recruit a party member from the other seven virtues to form your final team. When you've gained sufficient points in a virtue you can pray at a shrine and gain recognition of partial avatar status. But the game still tracks your score, and if you decide to start robbing blind old ladies after you become a partial avatar in honesty you'll lose that status and have to regain it.

The game also has a dialog system which was pretty revolutionary for the time. You can talk to any of the townspeople, and everyone responds to "NAME", "JOB", "HEALTH". They also respond to other questions, which usually depend on something they've said or because someone else told you to ask them about something. So one NPC might tell you another NPC knows where a rune can be found, so when you talk to the second NPC you can ask him "RUNE". You'll build up a large selection of clues to help you beat the game, and you'll need extensive notes for the end sequence (which is a series of questions to demonstrate you understand what an avatar is).

The game does still suffer from the tendency at the time for people to go nuts with keyboard commands. Every single key maps to some function, and you can easily see several ones that can be combined. Combat is basically the same as Ultima III; it's on a separate screen, turn based, and you move around and can attack/cast spells. You still have a system of only the person getting the kill getting the experience, so some later joining party members need to be intentionally trained, which is annoying. And you still have a situation of only being able to attack orthogonally while enemies can also use ranged attacks diagonally. The other thing that sucks is as your party grows you'll find yourself stumbling over yourself, especially in the dungeons.

Still, this is quite a good game, and damn revolutionary for the time. It makes the eventual destination of the series that much sadder.
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Re: Games Beaten 2017

by Sarge Sat Jul 01, 2017 10:51 pm

January:
1) The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition (PC) (8.5) (1/1) (~5.5 hours)
2) ActRaiser (SNES) (8.0) (1/2) (~4 hours)
3) Bonk's Revenge (GB) (6.0) (1/3) (~1 hour)
4) Tiny Toon Adventures: Babs' Big Break (GB) (6.5) (1/3) (~1 hour)
5) Blackwell Legacy (PC) (7.0) (1/5) (2.6 hours)
6) Blackwell Unbound (PC) (7.5) (1/7) (2.2 hours)
7) Blackwell Convergence (PC) (8.0) (1/7) (2.4 hours)
8) Blackwell Deception (PC) (8.0) (1/8) (4.7 hours)
9) Blackwell Epiphany (PC) (9.0) (1/9) (6.5 hours)
10) Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (PS4) (8.0) (1/22) (~55 hours)
11) Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (360) (8.0) (1/28) (~.5 hours)
12) Deep Duck Trouble Starring Donald Duck (SMS) (6.5) (1/31) (~1 hour)

February:
13) Quackshot Starring Donald Duck (GEN) (7.5) (2/7) (~2 hours)
14) Fire Emblem Heroes (Android) (8.0) (2/9) (~10 hours)
15) Super C (NES) (9.5) (2/20) (~0.5 hours)
16) Contra (NES) (10.0) (2/20) (~0.5 hours)
17) Mickey's Dangerous Chase (GB) (6.5) (2/24) (~1 hour)
18) My Nintendo Picross: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (3DS) (8.5) (2/25) (~19 hours)
19) Mega Man 2 (NES) (10.0) (2/28) (~0.8 hours)

March:
20) Final Fantasy XV (PS4) (8.0) (3/2) (~33 hours)
21) Blaster Master Zero (NS) (9.0) (3/10) (~6.5 hours)
22) Espgaluda II Black Label (360) (8.0?) (3/17) (0.5 hours)
23) The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (NS) (9.5) (3/28) (~70+ hours)

April:
24) Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment (PC) (8.5) (4/7) (~5.5 hours)
25) Hyper Light Drifter (PS4) (8.0) (4/9) (~8 hours)
26) Gekido Advance: Kintaro's Revenge (GBA) (7.5) (4/16) (~3 hours)
27) Vanquish (PS3) (8.5) (4/17) (~7 hours)
28) Journey (PS3) (6.0) (4/19) (~2 hours)
29) GunForce (SNES) (4.0) (4/22) (~20 minutes)
30) GunForce 2 (ARC) (7.0) (4/23) (~30 minutes)
31) GunForce: Battle Fire Engulfed Terror Island (ARC) (6.0) (4/23) (~20 minutes)
32) Mighty Final Fight (NES) (8.5) (4/29) (~30 minutes)

May:
33) Final Fantasy V (SFC) (6.0) (5/1) (~33 hours)
34) Super Adventure Island (SNES) (7.0) (5/2) (~1 hour)
35) Dragon Spirit: The New Legend (NES) (7.5) (5/3?) (~30 minutes)
36) Mighty No. 9 (PS4) (5.0) (5/6?) (~5 hours)
37) Contra III: The Alien Wars (Hard) (SNES) (8.5) (5/11) (~1 hour)
38) Operation C (GB) (7.5) (5/22) (~1 hour)

June:
39) Super Dodge Ball (NES) (9.5) (6/1) (~15 minutes)
40) Bare Knuckle III (GEN) (7.5) (6/3) (~1 hour)
41) Super Mario Bros. 3 (NES) (9.5) (6/5) (~30 minutes)
42) Wizards & Warriors X: Fortress of Fear (GB) (4.0) (6/8) (~1 hour)
43) Castlevania: The Adventure (GB) (3.5) (6/9) (~1 hour)
44) Blossom Tales: The Sleeping King (PC) (8.0) (6/15) (~8.5 hours)
45) Streets of Rage (GEN) (9.0) (6/17) (~45 minutes)
46) Ghouls 'N Ghosts (GEN) (6.5) (6/17) (~4 hours)
47) Contra: Hard Corps (GEN) (8.5) (6/18) (~50 minutes)
48) Mighty Gunvolt Burst (NS) (7.5) (6/23) (~3 hours?)
49) Exile's End (PC) (8.0) (6/24) (~5 hours)

July:
50) Uncharted 4: A Thief's End (8.5) (7/1) (16h53m)

Keeping things short on this update, although I might talk about it a bit later. Uncharted 4 still isn't as good as Uncharted 2, but it's definitely a return to form. It started pretty slowly, with a very "been there, done that" vibe, but slowly gets better as the game progresses. It's a fun, movie-style romp that continues the sort of story that really needs to make it to the big screen.
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PartridgeSenpai
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Re: Games Beaten 2017

by PartridgeSenpai Sun Jul 02, 2017 9:37 am

Partridge Senpai's 2017 Beaten Games:

1. Tales of Hearts R (Vita)
2. UPPERS (Vita)
3. Volume (Vita)
4. Overlord: Minions (DS)
5. Kirby: Planet Robobot (3DS)
6. Overlord II (PS3)
7. Overlord: Dark Legend (Wii)
8. La-Mulana (Remake) (PC)
9. Infamous: Second Son (PS4)
10. htol#NiQ: The Firefly Diary (Vita)
11. Blood Bowl (360)
12. Dead to Rights: Retribution (360)
13. Bioshock Infinite (360)
14. Bioshock Infinite: Burial At Sea Part 1 (360)
15. Bioshock Infinite: Burial at Sea Part 2 (360)
16. Singularity (360)
17. Seifuku Densetsu Pretty Fighter X (Saturn)
18. Ultraman: Hikari No Kyojin Densetsu (Saturn)
19. Donkey Kong 64 (N64) (repeat)
20. Song of the Deep (PS4)
21. Naruto Gekitou Ninja Taisen 3 (GCN)
22. Banjo-Tooie (N64) (repeat)
23. Wario Land (VB)
24. Yakuza HD Edition (PS3)
25. Yakuza 2 HD Edition (PS3)
26. Vanquish (PS3)
27. Watchdogs 2 (PS4)
28. Pikmin (Wii)
29. Pikmin 3 (Wii U)
30. Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker (Wii U)
31. Super Mario 3D World (Wii U)
32. Tales of Innocence R (Vita)
33. Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii)
34. Boing! Docomodake DS (DS)
35. Kirby Triple Deluxe (3DS)
36. Magicka 2: Learn to Spell... AGAIN! (PS4) (repeat)

37. Pokemon Moon (3DS)

I wanted something a bit slower to play than Ys III while I was away at a con with some friends a couple weeks ago. Now 3 weeks and 105 hours of game-time later, I'm finished with Pokemon Moon. The absurd amount of time I spent on it should belie just how much I fucking loved this game. It bucks so many trends of normal Pokemon games, it's astounding that this is by far the one I've loved the most for its gameplay.

With 300 Pokemon, this is by far the Pokemon game with the largest regional Pokedex out of any of the other main-series games. What this allows for is that you're ALWAYS finding new Pokemon. A new area is a new land filled with Pokemon that probably aren't found anywhere else, and there were always new Pokemon to find, catch, and battle. On top of that is a relative lack of trainers to battle at the pace earlier games loved so much. At least it felt to me, that I never had nearly as comfortable an amount of money as in the previous games. This could've just been because I was buying so many more Pokeballs than usual, but I chalked it up to less trainer battles, because it felt like I was spending a lot more time fighting wild Pokemon than wading through trainers. These two factors combined made for the best paced Pokemon game I've ever played.

A few other things added to this enhanced pace and feel. First, with no gyms, only island challenges, the pace of exactly what you're doing changes up a fair bit. While it is just more Pokemon battles of just a different flavour, I felt the island trials did actually shift the pace up a lot compared to the trainer-filled gyms with walking gimmicks the series is so accustomed to. The other thing that shifts up the pace of the wild battles is the SOS-system. I know some people really hate the SOS system, but I honestly loved it. It made something which is usually just a nuisance, wild Pokemon battles, and turned them into actually serious encounters. Unless you're really overleveled, a Pokemon calling in a buddy for help can really fuck up your day once a 2-on-1 battle starts. Especially if you don't have any super effective moves that can hit all opponents at once, if they're calling help every turn, you can really get in some hot water. For example, trying to catch a Magby, those little bastards called for help like EVERY turn, and it effectively wiped my team more than once trying to catch one. That's the kind of experience no other Pokemon game has been able to offer, and I loved it for it.

Now I didn't finish the Battle Tree (as my main team really wasn't suited to that tier of competitive fighting as I wanted to use only new Pokemon), but (with some help with trading from AlienJesus) I did get a living regional Pokedex, so I've done more or less everything the damn game has to offer. Going through that, there have been a complaint or two about the design of where and how Pokemon appear that really annoyed me. A LOT of the new Pokemon have only 5% appearnce chances in their respective single map/area they appear in. This effectively means that unless you're in an area for a really long time, or explicitly looked up their location on Bulbapedia (like I did), you may never even see any of the new guys in the wild. On top of that, you have things like about 10 Pokemon who only appear in the wild when they're called into another Pokemon's SOS battle, and others still who can only appear (with like a 10% chance) when an SOS call is put out during a specific weather affect. Shit like this made some Pokemon an absolute nightmare to catch, and it really didn't feel like the game respected the player's time. Granted, no one HAS to go out and catch a Goomy or a Gabite, so I don't begrieve the game toooo much for that, but what I do begrudge it for is never telling the player about these appearance conditions. The Pokedex just says "they appear here." It never says "they appear here only when called into an SOS (etc)." Inadiquately informing the player like this really annoyed me.

You have a few other instances where a more traditional RPG UI really would've benefited the game. Most explicitly with "side-quests" as the internet is calling them (which I think is a bit of a generous term). Occasionally you'll run into people who want you to run around an area and find their NPC Pokemon for them, or to show them an entry of a certain Pokemon in your Pokedex. The game doesn't track these people or where they are at all, so if you forget, you're gonna have a hard time remembering they exist, since there's never anything different about how those NPC's look. This is especially annoying with the Zygarde cell-collection sidequest, where the game never tells you which ones you've picked up or where. With the very dedicated effort I put forth to finding theme, there were still 2 I could just never find :?

Some more miscellaneous comments:
-The Festival Plaza and the Poke Resort are both cool, but they're a bit more complicated to figure out than they really needed to be. They're a nice centralization of features other games have had, but they're really only a big boon if you already know how they work.
-Regional Pokemon are a fantastic addition. It's an ingeneous method of adding what are effectively new Pokemon without actually making the Pokedex any bigger and I really hope we keep seeing it in more games.
-Z-moves are a fantastic edition. They're way more situationally viable than Mega Evolutions, which look cool but I think are in practical terms almost always a terrible decision. The departure from any new mega evolutions in this gen implies to me we've seen the end of them, which I'm totally okay with.
-Ride Pokemon are obviously another fantastic innovation over HM's and something the series has needed a long time. My only complaint about them is that I spent SO much time ONLY travelling on the itemfinder doggo one that all I heard was his music theme, and none of the really nice locational themes for the most part.
-This game has some of the best music Pokemon ever has had, especially with a lot of the unique trainer ones (like Guzma's and Red's).
-Getting rid of the super-training (the speed bag EV training thingy) from Gen 6 was really dumb and I have no idea why they did it because that was a fantastically intuitive way to EV train O.o
-The narrative was very good for a Pokemon game. I didn't enjoy it quite as much as 5th gen's, but it was head and shoulders above 6th gen's storyline, and definitely a contender for best Pokemon storyline.

Verdict: Highly Recommended. This is the shake-up the series has needed for a long time. Despite its missteps, it's by far the one I find most fun to play, and is the only one I've ever played (and I've played them all) that has actually made me really want to pick up the 3rd game because I just haven't had enough of Alolah yet. Any RPG fan I feel will at least get some enjoyment out of Pokemon Sun/Moon, even if they didn't enjoy it quite as much as I did.
I identify everyone via avatar, so if you change your avatar, I genuinely might completely forget who you are. -- Me
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