Games Beaten 2018

by **dunpeal2064** Wed Jun 20, 2018 1:17 pm

That Magicarp Festival track is a banger!

by **Sarge** Wed Jun 20, 2018 1:59 pm

I liked the gameplay of DmC. I hated the tone pretty much the entire way, including the faux-O'Reilly boss. I'm glad they're shifting back to the series proper, although I suspect that decision was made for them when DmC proved so divisive. I have no doubts they would have continued down that road if it had performed better.

by **BoneSnapDeez** Wed Jun 20, 2018 2:04 pm

Oof, finally caught up on my reviews. I'm almost as bad as aj. I need to just post as I beat.

1. Antarctic Adventure (Famicom)
2. Nuts & Milk (Famicom)
3. Commando (Atari 2600)
4. Binary Land (Famicom)
5. Devil World (Famicom)
6. Disney's Aladdin (SNES)
7. Popeye (NES)
8. Super Mario Land (Game Boy)
9. Ys: The Vanished Omens (Sega Master System)
10 Ys II: Ancient Ys Vanished - The Final Chapter (Famicom)
11. Final Fantasy Mystic Quest (SNES)
12. Lunar: The Silver Star (Sega CD)
13. Otenba Becky no Daibouken (MSX)
14. Metroid (Famicom Disk System)
15. Mahou Kishi Rayearth (Game Boy)
16. Wabbit (Atari 2600)
17. Kirby's Dream Land (Game Boy)
18. Warpman (Famicom)
19. Final Fantasy (NES)
20. Transformers: Convoy no Nazo (Famicom)
21. Arcade Archives: Moon Patrol (Switch eShop)
22. Gremlins (Atari 2600)
23. Arcade Archives: Ninja-Kid (Switch eShop)
24. Shining in the Darkness (Genesis)
25. Johnny Turbo's Arcade: Gate of Doom (Switch eShop)
26. Front Line (Atari 2600)
27. Donkey Kong 3 (NES)
28. Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins (Game Boy)
29. Exerion (Famicom)

Exerion was a pleasant surprise. Usually when I describe a game in such terms I'm discussing something relatively unknown, something that gripped me right away and kept me playing until completion. This case was different; I didn't care for Exerion when I first popped it into my Famicom. Subsequent attempts had me feeling the same way. The game was tossed onto my shelf, destined to gather dust and become a mere "collectible." Then one day, on a whim, I gave it another go and something clicked. This is a fine game, a damn fine one. It's an unorthodox title, undoubtedly, but it's unabashed experimentation is the source of its success.

Exerion is a single-screen shooter, originating in the arcades in 1983, developed by Jaleco. It received three major ports back in the day: MSX, SG-1000, and Famicom (with the Famicom one being the most common, naturally). Exerion is also the first game in a loosely connected trilogy. The second, Exerion II, was an MSX exclusive, while the third and final, the Nichibutsu-published Exerizer, was left marooned in arcade-land.

Stop me if this sounds familiar. You're a spaceship that can shoot bullets and goes pew pew when it does so. "Waves" of enemies swarm down from the screen's top, firing their own pew pews. When a wave is defeated a bigger and badder one takes it place. This goes on and on until your brain melts. Yes, Exerion continues the classic tradition established by old-school space shooters like Space Invaders and Galaxian. But with some tremendous modifications. First of all, the ship of Exerion is not locked into an x-axis and can thus fly all around the screen. Freedom! This changes the enemy-dodging strategy, as it's often advisable here to fly to the top of the screen or swoop around in figure eight patterns. And this epic battle isn't waged in space, but super-space. In the background is an ever-scrolling proto-mode 7 sort of "grid" displaying all sorts of trippy stuff as the game progresses through ten "levels" -- canyons, clouds, pyramids, futuristic cityscapes, and of course Moai heads. It looks fantastic, vaguely reminiscent of Space Harrier and Tobidase Daisakuse. And while the game mostly lacks music, the title screen theme is quite the earworm.

Alien hordes are vanquished with two types of weapons: a single shot and double shot. The double sounds superior, but it's very slow, two heavy missiles lobbed across the battlefield. The single shot fires rapidly, but with a catch: an ammo gauge. This is depleted rapidly, but replenished in tandem with points earned (by shooting down enemies). Rapidly alternating between the A and B buttons will create a sort of wave of alternating single and double shots; it's perfect if you find yourself in a corner and start panicking. Not saying I know from experience.

Now, the most "controversial" element of the game, and what initially threw me for a loop. The element of inertia. If the d-pad is released, the ship of Exerion does not stop on a dime. Instead it will coast for another second or so. It's tough to get used to, to say the least, and during my first few attempts at paying I was soon greeted with a stark Game Over. This is a game that requires considerable practice, to learn how to handle the ship and get accustomed to the gunfire system, but the high expectations it places on the player make eventual success that much more rewarding.

Apparently an NES version of Exerion was planned, but ultimately scrapped. A shame, as this would have been a great addition to that library. As it is, the Famicom cartridge is quite cheap and there's no language barrier issues whatsoever. Anyone who cut their teeth on the Golden Age shooters of old should find something to enjoy here. It might just take a little digging.

by **MrHealthy** Wed Jun 20, 2018 3:54 pm

February
1. Metal Slug 3 (Vita)

March
2. My Name is Mayo (PS4)
3. The Walking Dead (Vita)

April
4. Killzone Mercenary (Vita)
5. Rivals of Aether (PC)

May
6. Metroid Samus Returns (3DS)
7. Pokemon White (DS)
8. Mirrors Edge Catalyst (PC)
9. Consortium (PC)
10. Mass Effect 3: Citadel (PC)
11. Mass Effect 3: Omega (PC)
12. Mass Effect 3: Leviathan (PC)

June
13. Need for Speed: The Run (PC)
14. Tomb Raider 2013 (PC)
15. CounterSpy (PS4)
16. Uncharted 4: A Thief's End (PS4)

by **Ack** Wed Jun 20, 2018 4:33 pm

1. Jungle Book (SNES)(Platformer)
2. Metal Combat: Falcon's Revenge (SNES)(Light Gun Shooter)
3. Might and Magic VI (PC)(RPG)
4. Revenant (PC)(RPG)
5. Neo Turf Masters (NGPC)(Sports)
6. Fatal Fury: First Contact (NGPC)(Fighter)
7. Pac-Man (NGPC)(Action)
8. Golden Axe (Genesis)(Hack and Slash)
9. Blood and Bacon (PC)(FPS)
10. Gain Ground (Genesis)(Strategy)
11. Flicky (Genesis)(Platformer)
12. Zombie Shooter 2 (PC)(Top-Down Shooter)
13. Phantasmagoria (PC)(Point and Click)
14. SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighter's Clash - Capcom Version (NGPC)(Card Game)
15. Toonstruck (PC)(Point and Click)
16. Riven (PC)(Point and Click)
17. Dragon Wars (PC)(RPG)
18. Dungeon Hack (PC)(RPG)
19. SNK vs. Capcom: The Match of the Millennium (NGPC)(Fighter)
20. Portal 2 (PC)(Puzzle FPS)
21. Goat Simulator: Waste of Space (PC)(Action)
22. Goat Simulator: Payday (PC)(Action)
23. Goat Simulator: MMO Simulator (PC)(Action)
24. Goat Simulator: GoatZ (PC)(Action)
25. Goat Simulator (PC)(Action)
26. Streets of Rage 2 (Genesis)(Beat 'Em Up)
27. Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon (PC)(Action Platformer)
28. Deadlight (PC)(Platformer)
28. Antichamber (PC)(Puzzle FPS)
29. S.C.A.R.S. (N64)(Racing)

S.C.A.R.S., which is an acronym for Super Computer Animal Racing Simulator, is a racing game which borrows a lot from kart racers of its era but doesn't quite want to delve into that arena. I played through the Nintendo 64 release, and it's a mixed bag for me. I admit, I am not a fan of racing games; it's a take-it-or-leave-it genre, not disliked like platformers, but not loved like survival horror. With that in mind, there are a few racing games that I enjoy, and they typically begin with the words "Mario Kart." S.C.A.R.S. isn't quite there in design, but it is trying to be.

In S.C.A.R.S., you play as a car based around some idea of an animal...which doesn't really mean much other than that each car has different stats of the usual variety, such as acceleration, max speed, turning, etc. You start out with access to about half of the cars of the game, but by playing through the various cups and completing challenges, you can unlock the others. It's a simple system for progressing, and it openly gives you a goal to strive for.

As for the racetracks, well, here's where I start taking issue with the game. The first cup I ever went for involved three races, two of which were on the same track at different times of day. So in reality, it was 2 tracks for an entire cup, and after I came in first on it the first time, I sure as hell came in first for the second run. Cornering isn't easy in S.C.A.R.S., and some of the tracks have some nasty turns in them. However, I got really irked by the geometry: you can go up on walls, but the game will then flip you over and move you back onto the course, slowing you down for a few seconds and causing you to lose precious time. This seemed to occur at random times, and it forced me to have to watch corners that I thought I could blaze over. In short, it threw out some of the strategy I was hoping for in a 3D game and forced me onto the generally flat road surfaces.

To add to this issue with course design, some of the tracks have multiple routes, and you better know the shortest one, because the AI sure does and will only be using it. I still managed to do well once I figured out which turns to take, but I realized this was a problem when I went left at a split and suddenly dropped from 2nd to 5th place in an instant. That was annoying.

There are also a variety of weapons and boosts to be found on the track, and while many of these are similar to the variety of weapons you'll find in other traditional battle racers, a few had some nice touches. Some form barriers of varying sizes, which you can jump over. A couple give blatant projectiles, and you can tell when you're being targeted by one because crosshairs suddenly appear over your car. One of my favorites was a countdown timer which then blows you up and costs you precious time. If you end up with the timer, you can use the Weapon button to send it to someone else. Keep on your toes though, because they might send it back, and suddenly getting the timer back with a second left totally sucks! I liked the way this weapon was implemented, because suddenly I was racing the clock in a game of hot potato as well as my opponents on the track.

Oh, one more thing: you have a "boss" for the cups. This is the vehicle that will likely place first on every course if you don't, so you have to knock them down a peg or two. Even if you don't net first place, you can still gain a bonus point for getting the fastest lap time, so get through quickly and don't fret to make your way onto the podium. I did, and first place sure feels sweet.

Still better than Diddy Kong Racing. Come at me, bro.

by **laurenhiya21** Thu Jun 21, 2018 12:00 am

5/29: Steins;Gate 0 (Vita)
Steins;Gate 0 is a continuation of sorts to the amazing Steins;Gate that explains what happened to make the True ending possible. If you haven’t played the original Steins;Gate, definitely play that first before playing 0, as 0 completely spoils the original. Unfortunately, that means that it’s basically impossible to talk about the plot without a huge spoiler box but talk about what I can.

- The story and characters are just as good as the original. It’s hard to say whether it’s better or not, as it requires knowledge of the original story and will reference it a lot, but I enjoyed it from start to finish.

- Steins;Gate 0 is a lot darker in tone than the original. It definitely gets to the punch a lot quicker, so if you weren’t a fan of how slow the original’s beginning was, you might like 0 better.

- The choices are a lot clearer than the original. The original required certain responses to random text messages at some points, and I found it difficult to figure out which ones were necessary and what were just filler. Steins;Gate 0 makes it a lot more obvious what choices are important. It still doesn’t use choice boxes like many visual novels do, but it’s hard to miss the important choices versus the non-important ones.

I’m not sure what else to say unfortunately, but if you like visual novels and haven’t given Steins;Gate yet, play that first! The opening may be a little slow (I personally love it but I know others don’t), but it’s a very gripping murdery, time-travelly story. If you have played the original, Steins;Gate 0 is definitely worth a play!

6/6: Pokémon Rumble (WiiWare)
I’m not a big Pokémon fan, but I have enjoyed some of the spin-offs in the past so I decided to give Pokémon Rumble a shot when the Wii Shop Channel was closing done. I wasn’t expecting a whole lot from the game, but I think it ended up being alright.

Pokémon Rumble is a top-down beat-em-up styled game where you play with various Pokémon toys. Each Pokémon either have one or two attacks to fight with (which you can change with money), and you have 8 different stages (plus one battle arena stage) to fight other Pokémon in. Each Pokémon you defeat has the chance to be added to your Pokémon roster, which you can use in future battles or trade in for money (and potentially a different Pokémon).

So, the game is fairly simple and that’s fine. It plays fine, sounds fine, and it looks fine too (how the Pokémon look is probably the best thing about the game for me ha). The big problem I have with the game though is that it gets repetitive very fast. While the game does have 8 different stages, you have to repeat them quite a few times to beat the game. If you want to get all of the Pokémon (which I didn’t), then I hope you like repeating stages because you’re going to have to do a lot of that! The stages themselves aren’t even very different from one another and are mostly just different in the Pokémon you’ll see and how the stage looks. You don’t really change up your strategy much other than just using different Pokémon on each stage (like you would probably use a fire Pokémon on the grassy stage). By the end of the game I was pretty tired of it. There is another mode you can play after you beat the game which allows you to catch more Pokémon (instead of just Gen 1 Pokémon), but the stages are still essentially the same.

Overall, I probably would only recommend this to huge Pokémon and/or beat-em-up fans. It might be fine if you were willing to play in very short bursts at a time, but it’s hard for me to recommend this to anyone else.

6/7: Pu-Li-Ru-La (Arcade)
Pu-Li-Ru-La is a very short, but extremely wacky beat-em-up that I played for this month’s Together Retro. I don’t tend to be a huge fan of beat-em-ups, but this one was short, simple, not too difficult, and very strange. There’s not too much more to it than that, but I really enjoyed going through all of the levels. It’s worth a play-through, especially since it will take you less than an hour to play.

by **PartridgeSenpai** Thu Jun 21, 2018 9:51 am

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

1-20

21. Deadbolt (Steam)
22. Legend of Grimrock 2 (Steam)
23. The Witness (PS4)
24. Uurnog (PC)
25. Fire Emblem Warriors (Switch)
26. Hyrule Warriors (Wii U)
27. The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (Wii)
28. Magicka 2 (PS4)*
29. Tales of Phantasia (PSP)
30. BOXBOXBOY! (3DS)

31. Blossom Tales (Switch)

I remember this game being talked about a fair bit back when it came out as a really good "Nindie" title on Switch that was a loving tribute to Legend of Zelda games from the LTTP-era. It's on sale for like 50% off for Nintendo's post-E3 sale right now, so I decided to pick it up. While a very competent game, I don't think Blossom Tales is really for someone like me who's beaten all the other 2D top-down Zelda games already. I hunted around for goodies as much as I could but still apparently missed quite a few (or at least a couple, if there aren't actually 2 complete rows of hearts), and it took me about 8.5 hours to beat. While I did enjoy my time with the game to a point, I'd be lying if I said I didn't regret buying it at least a little.

Blossom Tales' narrative conceit is that it's a grandpa telling a story to his grandchildren. The game is very much in the style of a LTTP or GBC Zelda game, and doesn't so much wear its inspiration on its sleeve as it has it tattooed on its forehead, as it even opens with the grandpa wanting to tell them the story of the little boy in green who saved a kingdom beginning with H-, but the kids have heard it so many times he has to think of another story. The humor is silly, but the narrative is fairly spread apart enough that it's not really a super big part of the game. You really rarely have to talk people if you don't want to, but the grandpa's asides explain further goals or introduce bosses. There are twice where the kids will actually argue about what the story will be (like what kind of enemy you're about to fight) and you, the player, get to pick which one of them is right, but it only happens twice, so it's not really a mechanic/gimmick the game takes much advantage of.

The dungeon design is super duper simple. Basically every dungeon of the four in the game are just a series of rooms, sometimes branching off of a main room, full of either corridors full of traps, self-contained puzzle rooms, or monster arenas, and you have to complete that to get to the next room. You'll eventually come across a switch that will unlock the way forward in the aforementioned main room. Rinse and repeat. There will be a mini-boss and eventually a boss in there somewhere, but all 4 dungeons in the game follow that same formula. Again, it's competently done and can be quite fun, but it's hard to get excited about after playing so many actual LoZ games that do this so much better.

The music is very heavily Zelda-inspired, one town in particular very clearly opening with the first few bars of Zelda's Lullaby (I'm sure other places do that too but I don't know Zelda songs well enough to tell

), but there wasn't anything particularly great other than the blacksmith theme you barely ever hear because you're in the blacksmith for maybe a total of 20 seconds in the whole game. I found the graphical style fairly ugly, to be honest. The monster design, particularly the boss design, is pretty good, but the world felt fairly generic (albeit nice looking) and the NPC characters and player character all had oddly simplistic design compared to the rest of the world and it just didn't look nice to me at all.

The combat and item use can be pretty annoying as well. Unlike the GBA or GBC Zelda games where you can slash with impunity and it's always the same slash, BT has a 3-step slash where first it's to the right, then the left, and then a roundhouse swing and there is a slight pause in the momentum of the swings. This combined with the often huge enemy hordes you're fighting actually makes the combat fairly frustrating, compared to LoZ, as you just can't help but get hit because you can't kill stuff fast enough (most enemies take 3 hits to kill). Trying to fight stuff with the sword was almost always more trouble than it was worth, especially because your sub-weapons are SO much better.

Your items like bombs, arrows, and boomerang (among others) all just use a constantly regenerating "energy" so you don't need to refill them at a shop ever, but they also do like 3-times as much damage at your sword, which basically makes the sword your last line of defense and something you basically never want to use. This is made pretty annoying at how you can't actually sort the sub-weapon menu in any way, but that's a very minor annoyance. The combat may be frustrating at times (particularly before you have very good sub-weapons), but the game is actually really easy. It's one of the easiest games in this style I've played. The damage you take is super forgiving, and on top of that the game just spits defense, healing, and revive items at you quite a lot.

Verdict: Hesitantly Recommended. Blossom Tales really isn't a bad game, but it was not the game for me. If you just like the exploration, dungeon trekking, and simple combat of Zelda, you'll probably quite like this game despite the fact that it ever really presents a challenge. If you wanted to get a non-gamer or a kid into Zelda games, this is a great first-step into the genre with how relatively easy it is compared to most Zelda games. If you're someone who loves 2D Zelda, has played them all, and is looking for a new interesting or challenging take on the formula, however, Blossom Tales will very likely leave you quite disappointed even at the sale price going on at the moment.

by **ElkinFencer10** Thu Jun 21, 2018 9:58 am

Games Beaten in 2018 So Far - 69
* denotes a replay

January (16 Games Beaten)

February (18 Games Beaten)

March (10 Games Beaten)

April (7 Games Beaten)

May (6 Games Beaten)

June (12 Games Beaten)

69: Assassin's Creed Rogue - PlayStation 3 - June 20

I first dove into the Assassin's Creed series about three years ago. Over the course of a little less than two weeks, I played through AC1, AC2, Brotherhood, Revelations, AC3, and AC4. Needless to say, I was a bit burnt out after that. It took three years, but I finally got the urge to play Assassin's Creed again, and since I'm weird about insisting on playing series in order even if it's not really necessary, I popped Rogue into my PS3 and gave it a go.

There are some heavy references to Assassin's Creed III given that Rogue takes place just before the American Revolution, but they aren't important to understanding this game's story. It's more stuff that you'd notice if you played III and would give some context but that in no way would hinder a newcomer's enjoyment of Rogue. The story follows Shay Cormac, an Assassin who questions the ethics of the Assassins' methods and defects eventually becoming inducted as Templar. It's a refreshing look at the other side of things for the series and seeing things from the Templar perspective for a change. As for the present day frame of the game...ignore it. Desmond from the first few games was annoying, but the nameless protagonist and his interactions with Abstergo are just downright stupid in Rogue.

Rogue actually looks really impressive for a PS3 game. Character models are surprisingly detailed, the environments are gorgeous and look relatively lived-in, and the ocean - because Rogue incorporated IV's naval combat - looks fantastic. Unfortunately, Rogue ends up feeling pretty much like "Black Flag but not as good." The naval combat is awesome in Rogue, but Black Flag did it better. The story is great in Rogue, but it was better in Black Flag. The ground combat is fun and satisfying, but it's about the same as Black Flag. Overall, everything Rogue did, Black Flag had already done better. Couple this with the truly horrible voice acting for a few characters and the mediocre voice acting for the other characters, and it quickly becomes apparent why this game was widely considered to be the low point for the Assassin's Creed series upon its release.

Assassin's Creed Rogue is definitely the black sheep of the 7th generation Assassin's Creed games with regards to quality, but it's much better than I expected and absolutely still a good game. The story itself is really interesting even if the characters are rather dull and the present day bits downright pointless. The game plays well, looks great, and has enough optional side quests to give players plenty to do if the roughly 10 hour story missions leave you wanting more. It may not hold up against its five predecessors, but Rogue is still a good game and absolutely worth playing for fans of the series.

by **noiseredux** Thu Jun 21, 2018 8:48 pm

1. Ducktales: Remastered (360)
2. Grand Theft Auto V (Xbox One)
3. Diablo III: Darkening Of Tristram (Xbox One)
4. Final Fantasy Type-0 (Xbox One)
5. The King Of Fighters: Neowave (Xbox)
6. Guardian Heroes (Xbox 360)

Meh.

by **BoneSnapDeez** Thu Jun 21, 2018 10:15 pm

I still like you but it's getting harder.

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