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marurun
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Re: Games Beaten 2019

by marurun Fri Jul 12, 2019 9:29 am

Cool! Thanks for that info. Sounds like a winner to me. Super Cyborg had hints of greatness but was just too hard. Blazing Chrome sounds like it might be a great title.
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pook99
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Re: Games Beaten 2019

by pook99 Fri Jul 12, 2019 7:01 pm

97. Castlevania: the Holy Relics (nes castlevania hack)

This is hands down one of the best rom hacks I have ever played and any fan of castlevania needs to check it out.

First off, just about everything is completely redone, all the levels are completely new, every enemy except for the skeletons are new, the bosses are new, simons sprite is new, the story is new, the soundtrack is new, and even half the sub weapons have been redone. This will feel like a completely new game as soon as you hit start but I am getting ahead of myself.

There is a story that takes place after castlevania. You play as Simon Belmont in a post dracula world. An evil sorcerer has captured the 7 holy relics and plans to do bad things with them. You take on the role of Simon who has to journey around levels in order to recapture the 7 holy relics ans return them to safety.

As soon as you start the game you are taken to a level select screen, here you can choose to tackle the levels in any order you want, with the exception of the last level which unlocks when you beat the remaining levels. After you pick the level you can also choose to bring one holy relic with you, each time you beat a level you unlock a holy relic and then you can select them before starting.

The holy relics are used by pressing select, you begin each level with one use but can find blue hearts which grant you one more use of the holy relics. At the start you start you have access to a cross, which behaves exactly like the screen clearing cross you find during the regular game. You then unlock a crown, which makes your whip super strong, a basket, which grants temporary invincibility, a bag of money which grants you extra points for every kill, a coffee cup, which refills some health, and a pair of high heels which warp you to the top of the screen.

Other than that the game plays mostly like classic castlevania, taking inspiration from the MSX game each area has a key that you need to find in order to progress, the keys are found in blue candles and occasionally other hidden spots. They are easy to find but often force you to navigate the levels a certain way, it is a lot of fun and adds a little bit of depth to the navigation.

As I said before, every enemy outside of the skeletons, are brand new. Some behave like classic enemies(for example the axe armors have been replaced by minotaurs) and some enemies behave differently, for example, the eyeballs that replace the medusa heads fly in all sorts of different patterns, the vultures are a little slower than their original counterparts, and there are some all new enemies like fish that shoot bubbles at you as you navigate water levels. The bosses are also brand new and all of them, outside of death, feel completely fresh. Death behaves more or less like you expect him to but his sprite is given a fresh coat of paint. There is even a completely new ending that doesnt feature a crumbling castle.

This is not one of those stupid hard rom hacks, the difficulty is fair and is more or less in line with classic castlevania, as a whole it may be a bit easier, but remains challenging enough to be consistently fun and engaging. Overall, this hack is top notch on every level and easily could have been a mainline castlevania game if it were released on the NES, an absolute must play.
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Re: Games Beaten 2019

by ElkinFencer10 Fri Jul 12, 2019 8:56 pm

Man, I'm always on the lookout for good ROM hacks after having gotten my Everdrives. I'll definitely have to give that one a check with the glowing praise you gave it.
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Re: Games Beaten 2019

by Xeogred Fri Jul 12, 2019 9:14 pm

ElkinFencer10 wrote:Man, I'm always on the lookout for good ROM hacks after having gotten my Everdrives. I'll definitely have to give that one a check with the glowing praise you gave it.

Get Metroid: Rogue Dawn and Super Mario Bros 3Mix.
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Re: Games Beaten 2019

by PartridgeSenpai Sat Jul 13, 2019 7:18 pm

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

1. Night Slashers (Switch)
2. Bye-Bye BOXBOY! (3DS)
3. GTA4: The Ballad of Gay Tony (Xbox 360)
4. Katamari Forever (PS3)
5. Detention (PS4)
6. Donkey Kong 64 (N64) *
7. OctoDad: Dadliest Catch (PS4) *
8. FlintHook (Switch)
9. God of War (PS4)
10. God of War HD (PS3)
11. Tiny Barbarian DX (Switch)
12. God of War 2 HD (PS3)
13. Starlink (Switch)
14. Shin Gundam Musou (PS3)
15. Battle & Get! Pokemon Typing DS (DS)
16. Banjo-Kazooie (N64) *
17. Super Mario 64: Rumble Edition (N64)
18. Mario Party 3 (N64) *
19. Paper Mario (N64) *
20. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (SNES) *
21. The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX (GBC) *
22. The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages (GBC) *
23. The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons (GBC) *
24. Yoshi's Island (SNES) *
25. Super Mario World (SNES) *
26. Super Mario RPG (SFC) *
27. Kaeru No Tame Ni Kane Wa Naru (GB)
28. Final Fantasy VI (SFC) *

29. Final Fantasy IV (SFC) *

My exploration of JRPGs I played as a kid but this time in Japanese continues with Final Fantasy IV. Although it's kinda hard to call it an exact replay, as there's quite a fair bit different between the original SFC release and the American SNES localization. I originally started on the PS1 version before the red laser (the PS1-reading one) in my PS3 died and I had to start over on the Wii U Virtual Console, so between both versions it took me about 28 or so hours. FFIV, as a whole, is a very transitional game from the 8-bit era to the 16-bit era, and that can be felt in just about every part of it, from the mechanics to the narrative.

This game has a few very notable exceptions in its difference from the SNES port. A very different script, some different enemy and boss balancing (I think), a removal of the multitude of items that are just spells in item form, a removal of the multitude of status recovery items and their replacement with cure-all Remedy items, as well as making MP restoring Ethers much more plentiful and making most hidden passages completely visible as opposed to just hinted at subtly. Most all of the mechanical changes made for the localization I would personally say improve the overall game, as especially having so many more items really clogs up your inventory and highlights just how much of a pain manually sorting your inventory is. The only real advantage I would say the original game has over the localisation is script-wise, but that's only a minor advantage (as I will explain in more detail later). The really cool thing the SFC version has that the SNES version doesn't is a secret room in the Dwarf Castle where you can talk to (and even sometimes fight) a bunch of the developers and staff from the game! It's a really fun, silly little bonus room where they talk about everything from how they wish they had their own personal desk to how they'd like you to try out Seiken Densetsu after you're finished with Final Fantasy 4 XD.

The mechanics are a weird first step towards the real time battle system that would define the next two generations of FF games. Instead of the timers represented as bars as so many later FF games use, FFIV has hidden timers. Couple this in with weird transitions as to when exactly you can start telling a character what to do, what menus do or don't seem to stop that timer, and the fact that a lot of spells have quite long casting times (which were mostly heavily reduced for the SNES port), and the combat can feel quite frustrating at times as characters just seem to refuse to fight when you tell them to. Item management is a real pain, you need to reselect spells in menus to cast them in the inventory outside of battles, there's no in-battle cursor memory feature. A lot of this game's runtime is honestly just fighting with the menus to try and make the battles go better.

Edit: Upon closer inspection there IS an inventory sort button, just in an odd place. I still maintain that the menus are overly clunky and annoying though :b

The difficulty curve is also all over the place. Maybe it's like this in the SNES version as well, but there are numerous dungeons that have SUPER hard and deadly normal encounters and utterly trivial boss fights. Mostly due to how a lot of enemies have really viscous counter attacks that range from a really powerful physical attack to casting stone or even confuse on a party member. It makes grinding a really difficult thing to judge the timing of (although I honestly barely had to do any, thankfully), as it frequently feels more efficient to just run from difficult encounters because you'll probably be able to rush down the boss anyhow. I had also heard for the longest time that the final boss was made a lot easier in the American version of the game, but I honestly couldn't notice that. I beat him on my first real attempt (the first actual attempt I immediately had to restart because I used an item I didn't know the purpose of an it casted reflect on Kain, so I couldn't heal him XP), albeit by quite a lucky break with only one character surviving a cast of meteo XD

Another thing the game suffers quite frequently with is putting mechanical/plot convenience in front of actual character development, and simultaneously also struggles just as much with putting huge design inconveniences in the game for the sake of sticking so some (occasionally nearly pointless) plot contrivance.

We'll start with the latter. Two points in the game REALLY stick out for me in this regard. The first is Cecil climbing the Mountain of Trials in order to become a Paladin. There are a lot of really powerful undead enemies here who Cecil can almost literally not affect at all, so all you're left with is hoping your 2 offensive mages in your party can rush them down before they kill you (or you just run away). It makes the whole walk-up the mountain super tedious and frustrating. A much more magnified version of that is in the Magnetic Cave, where having any metallic armor equipped results in your being perminantly held (and effectively dead) in battle, so your party that the game barely half an hour prior made such a big deal about reducing down to one mage and 3 fighters is effectively whittled down to one mage and 1 fighter, as you're forced to basically run from every encounter in the dungeon because your resources have been stripped away so harshly. All this for the sake of a long, cinematic and uninteresting boss battle for the sake of a totally flat character whose payoff you don't even SEE unless you remember to talk to them afterwards. It is a baffling bit of game design that the game would lose almost nothing for for cutting entirely.

On the subject of plot contrivances at the sake of characters, this happens very numerous times, but largely towards Rhydia (whose name utterly baffles me, as Lydia is a super obvious translation of her Japanese name, but I digress). Being introduced to her is a really neat bit of storytelling. Cecil and his best friend Kain accidentally carry out a plot to burn down her village and kill her mom, and Cecil is left to carry her to safety after she inadvertently summons a titan and creates a massive mountain range. She quite logically doesn't trust him, which he accepts, but he wants her trust her anyway. Some guards from Cecil's kingdom come to take her away, he defends her, and she believes that he does actually want to protect her and tells him her name. It's a really nice little scene. There's even a brilliant bit of mechanical storytelling in how Rhydia, despite knowing black magic, never learns fire spells, implying that she still has a fear of fire from when her village was burned to the ground days prior. But it's all downhill from here.

How does Rhydia overcome her traumatic fear of fire? Her friends REALLY need her to because there's an ice block in their path. Not even a boss battle she needs to save them from: Just a stationary ice block the plot would prefer to be gone. It is an absolutely baffling bit of short-changing that element of her character given how carefully it was set up. Then later on, she get taken from your party by Leviathan when it attacks your ship and she could be dead, but then later saves you as she's mysteriously all grown up. She says she was raised in the world of summon spirits that Leviathan took her to, and time passes more quickly there so now she's like 8 years older. But now Kain is back in the party, so perhaps there's some element of mistrust between her and he who murdered her mom? No. There's nothing like that and it's just hand waved away as she trusts him because the summon spirits brought her up to speed on EVERYTHING.

This is a really common problem throughout the whole of the game, and is probably the roughest element of FFIV's status as this transitional Square game from 8-bit RPGs to 16-bit RPGs. SO much linguistic real estate is wasted for throw away line after throw away line on countless 1-dimensional comic relief characters (this game has nearly as many playable characters as FFVI's huge cast, you just get them taken away from you frequently instead of having them be able to be swapped out all the time). Basically no one in the game has any kind of character arc, as even Cecil, whose story is supposed to be this big internal moral battle of realizing the empire he's worked all his life for is actually evil, is just a facade. The game opens with Cecil coming to this realization, and we the audience never get any view of him before he was a good guy. Even him becoming a Paladin and throwing away his being a Dark Knight is entirely mechanical, as his actual character doesn't change. It's not like when he's a Dark Knight, Cecil is more cruel, short-sighted, or vindictive in achieving his goals and then becoming a Paladin changes all that. The game simply tells him that shadow can't beat light so he has to be a Paladin, and that's really all there is to it. From a narrative perspective, he is exactly the same generic hero as a Dark Knight as he is as a Paladin.

And this is every character with only slight exceptions. Yang is a captain of the guard and is valorus. Cid is an airship fanatic who is silly. Palom is an immature comic relief of a teenager and Porom is his more prim and proper older sibling who yells at him a lot. Edward is a bard mournful for his lady love. Tellah is angry at the world for killing his daughter. Rosa is super in love with Cecil and she's his shoulder to cry on and his reason for fighting. Edge is a silly, somewhat lady's man prince out for revenge on the main bad guy. Their characterizations are consistent, sure but they're completely flat for the whole game, and it makes a lot of the story just tedious because characters really never have anything interesting to say other than just plot exposition.

Even the character who has something closest to an arc, Tellah, has his story compromised and reigned in. His story is pretty explicitly about how his quest for revenge bound in his hatred of the enemy for killing his daughter will only lead to his destruction, and it does. He casts Meteo on Golbez and it overwhelms him, making Tellah die and Golbez only retreat. But This Meteo spell saves the party from Golbez, and also breaks the mind control spell holding Kain in their power. So while it may've brought about his death, it still saved the party and Kain, so it hardly ruined everything. On top of that, the whole party spends the entire game effectively just on a quest for revenge because they hate the bad guy, since they barely have any idea what his collecting the crystals will even DO for like 90% of the game's narrative. They set up Tellah to be this big flawed character with this big cinematic death, then do absolutely nothing with the lesson he's supposed to teach the player/audience, and if anything outright ignore that whole lesson entirely.

Verdict: Not Recommended. At the very least, the original SFC port of FFIV is not the way to experience this game. Beyond that, it largely feels like an inferior version, mechanically and narratively, of everything that FFVI would later do. I do feel I was a little harsh on it due to how much I was expecting of the story and was then disappointed by it, but at the same time the story is so frequently a vapid waste of time I still believe a lot of that criticism is well deserved. If you're gonna play this game, make it the American SNES port for a more palatable difficulty, or make it the DS port which adds a lot more story and deeper battle mechanics. Otherwise just avoid it, because it's honestly nothing that special aside from a footstep of FF for what it would later become as a series.
Last edited by PartridgeSenpai on Sat Jul 13, 2019 9:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Games Beaten 2019

by ElkinFencer10 Sat Jul 13, 2019 8:05 pm

Games Beaten in 2019 So Far - 41
* denotes a replay

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


February (2 Games Beaten)
13. Earth Defense Force 5 - PlayStation 4 - February 2
14. Fallout 76 - PlayStation 4 - February 3


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


April (3 Games Beaten)
19. Moemon - Game Boy Advance - April 5
20. Yoshi's Crafted World - Switch - April 10
21. Wargroove - Switch - April 26


May (8 Games Beaten)
22. Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen - Switch - May 5
23. Battlefield V - PlayStation 4 - May 9
24. Timespinner - PlayStation 4 - May 12
25. Earth Defense Force: Iron Rain - PlayStation 4 - May 17
26. Shenmue - PlayStation 4 - May 19
27. Xenosaga Episode I: Der Wille zur Macht - PlayStation 2 - May 26
28. Team Sonic Racing - Switch - May 29
29. Xenosaga Episode II: Jenseits von Gut und Böse - PlayStation 2 - May 30


June (5 Games Beaten)
30. Xenosaga Episode III: Also Sprache Zarathustra - PlayStation 2 - June 2
31. Gato Roboto - Switch - June 3
32. Katana Zero - Switch - June 4
33. The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct - Wii U - June 8
34. Dark Savior - Saturn - June 12


July (7 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
38. Tiny Troopers - Switch - July 8
39. Tiny Troopers 2: Special Ops - Switch - July 8
40. Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth - 3DS - July 10
41. Super Robot Wars T - Switch - July 13


41. Super Robot Wars T - Switch - July 13

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Super Robot Wars T is a massive crossover of roughly two dozen mecha game and anime series many of which are quite obscure in the West in one massive strategy RPG experience. Due to difficulties with licensing issues, only a small handful of games in Super Robot Wars series have been released in the West despite the series including more than six dozen entries if you include spin-offs and the like. Technically, this wasn't released in the West, either, but fortunately, for me and like-minded English speaking gamers, the Southeast Asia release of Super Robot Wars T included English subtitles on both Switch and PS4.

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Given that this was my first SRW experience, I wasn't sure what to expect going in aside from an SRPG. That alone didn't tell me the whole story; would it be like Final Fantasy Tactics, Fire Emblem, Golden Sun, SD Gundam, or something entirely different? In the end, what the game offers is a cross of SD Gundam and Fire Emblem; the gameplay feels almost identical to the recent SD Gundam G Generation Genesis with more of a Fire Emblem-esque focus on characters rather than using in-game currency to assemble your own mobile suit army. Fortunately (or I suppose perhaps unfortunately depending on your perspective and taste), the game omits Fire Emblem's permadeath; unless that unit was a key part of that chapter's story, any destroyed units will be right back in your roster for the next chapter.

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So what IS the story of Super Robot Wars T? That's...complicated. Because it tries to blend so many series that take place in completely separate universes - a feat it pulls of brilliantly, all things considered - the story is SUPER convoluted and all over the place. It makes sense for the most part, but it's definitely not easy to follow. Basically, your avatar/protagonist works for a company called VTX Union and is working on manufacturing a prototype mobile suit to pitch to the Earth Federation Forces for adoption as the EFF's new mass produced suit. Then, as if straight out of the Bush administration, terrorists attack! Your workgroup, VTX's Special Section 3, end up working with the EFF to weed out these terrorists and end up discovering a sinister plot to disrupt the stability of the Earth's government. Actually, you end up discovering like six or seven different plots, each more sinister than the last, that are all being put in motion all at once. Not only do you have to contend with terrorists, but you also have to battle Neo Zeon, the Martian Successors, the Jupiter Empire, the Jovian Federation, the 31 Machine Primevals, space monsters, Dr. Hell, some probably-a-pedophile priest-looking dude with a claw, whatever Rita Repulsa-looking hoe is the antagonist in Magic Knight Rayearth, some aliens from God knows what galaxy called the UND, and probably a couple of other groups of bad guys I forgot about it. Yeah, it's a wild ride, but for the most part, the game's pacing and storytelling (with an admitted flawed translation in places) manage to keep the plethora of plot threads going smoothly with minimal narrative confusion.

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While various Gundam series only make up about 1/3 of the units in the game, I'm a gigantic Gundam slut, so aside from Spike's Swordfish from Cowboy Bebop and two Super Robot Wars original units that I took a liking to (one of which is my protag), my entire team consisted of Gundams. There's nothing quite like going up against space monsters with Zeta Gundam, ZZ Gundam, Gundam Mk-II, Nu Gundam, HiNu Gundam, two different Crossbone Gundams, two mass production Gundam F91s, Burning Gundam, Dragon Gundam, Bolt Gundam, and Noble Gundam. GUNDAM GUNDAM GUNDAM. I mean, I COULD have used Rayearth, GaoGaiGar, Mazinger Z, Brownie, or Dann of Thursday, but those are Gundams and therefore are inferior. The variety is fantastic, however; you end up with something like three as many units as you can even field, so there's an enormous about of unit variety. Between missions, you can spend accrued funds to upgrade suits, use special training to give pilots an XP boost, attach extra parts to enhance mobile suits, and even juggle your pilots around to different suits within a series. For example, I had Elle from ZZ Gundam piloting Nu Gundam, and I had Fa from Zeta Gundam piloting a Jegan.

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Visually, the game looks fantastic. The animations are crisp, clear, and fluid, and the character models all look superb. The characters keep a roughly homogeneous look so as to appear to be from the same universe for the most part while still maintaining the essence of each series' unique art styles. Magic Knight Rayearth characters, being guilty of the super stereotypical 90s anime gigantic eyes, stand out the most in terms of appearance, but other than them, pretty much everyone looks like they all fit in together. The same is true of the mobile suits. Gundams still look distinct from Armored Troopers and the Brave Express robots, but none of them look out of place from one another. That's quite the accomplishment for the game's art designers to have pulled off in my opinion. The battle animations - which are literally the most amazing battle animations I've ever seen in an SRPG - are just the icing on the cake. They can be rather lengthy, so I ended up skipping most of them, but they're freaking amazing and arguably the most badass thing about the entire game.

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The game's soundtrack is also almost perfect. As one would expect, it incorporates iconic music from each of the various series, and my one and only complaint with how this is done is that the transitions are jarring. Whenever you use a unit, the game plays the music from that unit's series. The only problem is that in the span of two or three minutes, you could go from Cowboy Bebop's high energy jazz to Gundam's more orchestral battle music to GaoGaiGar's...whatever rock/jazz/vocal spasm genre that is. Individually, they're all pretty great and fit the tone, but the transitions are a bit rough. It also would have been nice to be able to disable certain series' music as the theme from Magic Knight Rayearth makes me want to pierce my eardrums with an ice pick. It is, however, a small price to pay for Cowboy Bebop.

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I truly cannot overstate how much I loved this game. The just over 60 hours I spent with it were an absolute blast, and I can absolutely see myself replaying the game in a few years after I've seen more of the series that lent characters and units to it. The fact that so many different series with such drastically different styles and characters were so relatively seamlessly blended together into a single game with a single continuous story still astounds me and in my opinion, really blows a hole in the "Infinity War is the most ambitious crossover" claim. When you've got Spike, Amuro, Van, Guy, Harlock, and Koji all on the same battlefield, THAT is the most gloriously ambitious crossover hands down. If you're not a fan of mecha anime or strategy RPGs, then there's probably not much here for you, but if that is your jam, then you absolutely owe it to yourself to check this game out. SE Asian English imports aren't the cheapest things in the world, I know, but this one is absolutely worth the expense if you're able to spare the cash.
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Re: Games Beaten 2019

by prfsnl_gmr Sat Jul 13, 2019 9:45 pm

Nice review. Captain Harlock FTW! He’s my third favorite character in Galaxy Express 999 (which, along with its sequel, is awesome and available for streaming on Amazon).
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Re: Games Beaten 2019

by ElkinFencer10 Sun Jul 14, 2019 9:50 am

Games Beaten in 2019 So Far - 42
* denotes a replay

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


February (2 Games Beaten)
13. Earth Defense Force 5 - PlayStation 4 - February 2
14. Fallout 76 - PlayStation 4 - February 3


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


April (3 Games Beaten)
19. Moemon - Game Boy Advance - April 5
20. Yoshi's Crafted World - Switch - April 10
21. Wargroove - Switch - April 26


May (8 Games Beaten)
22. Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen - Switch - May 5
23. Battlefield V - PlayStation 4 - May 9
24. Timespinner - PlayStation 4 - May 12
25. Earth Defense Force: Iron Rain - PlayStation 4 - May 17
26. Shenmue - PlayStation 4 - May 19
27. Xenosaga Episode I: Der Wille zur Macht - PlayStation 2 - May 26
28. Team Sonic Racing - Switch - May 29
29. Xenosaga Episode II: Jenseits von Gut und Böse - PlayStation 2 - May 30


June (5 Games Beaten)
30. Xenosaga Episode III: Also Sprache Zarathustra - PlayStation 2 - June 2
31. Gato Roboto - Switch - June 3
32. Katana Zero - Switch - June 4
33. The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct - Wii U - June 8
34. Dark Savior - Saturn - June 12


July (8 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
38. Tiny Troopers - Switch - July 8
39. Tiny Troopers 2: Special Ops - Switch - July 8
40. Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth - 3DS - July 10
41. Super Robot Wars T - Switch - July 13
42. Super Mario Maker 2 - Switch - July 13


42. Super Mario Maker 2 - Switch - July 13

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Super Mario Maker was one of the most unexpected gems in the Wii U's library, and when the Switch was announced, we all knew that a Super Mario Maker would make its way to the system in some form given the relative success of Super Mario Maker on Wii U and 3DS. Thankfully for fans, Super Mario Maker 2 is a full fledged sequel rather than an enhanced port complete with loads of new features and changes.

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In addition to the four styles included in the original Super Mario Maker - Super Mario Bros (NES), Super Mario Bros 3 (NES), Super Mario World (SNES), and New Super Mario Bros U (Wii U) - a new style, Super Mario 3D World (Wii U) is also included. The game also makes a number of highly anticipated additions besides the new style including slopes (something so simple but so anticipated), the Angry Sun, snake blocks, and special level clear conditions to name a few. Unfortunately, there were a few changes I feel are negatives, as well. The hilarious bizarre "weird Mario" power-up was removed from the original as was all amiibo functionality and the plethora of awesome costumes that they allowed in the Wii U Mario Maker. The omission of amiibo support is an especially big blow for me as those costumes were my favorite part of Super Mario Maker (also I've spent an ungodly amount of money I don't have maintaining a complete amiibo collection).

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Setting aside the tragic lack of amiibo support, the audio and visual design in Super Mario Maker 2 are every bit as high quality as one would expect from Nintendo. The mechanics are great and fluid, and while the game naturally doesn't control exactly like the originals on which the styles are based (it has been almost 35 years since Super Mario Bros released on NES, after all), they're modernized and homogenized in a way that balances playability with relative faithfulness to the original source material. The creation tools are all easy to learn and simple to use, and while I do personally miss the use of the Wii U gamepad, the Switch's control options work just fine in its absence.

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There is one major addition to Super Mario Maker 2 that I've neglected to mention so far - story mode. Honestly - and this is one of the VERY few times I'll ever say this about a game - I don't think a single player story mode was really necessary here. That's not to say that it isn't welcome - it's a fun experience and serves as an excellent example of some of the level creation options to be found in the game - but I'm just not sure that a game all about level creation and sharing really needs a single player story. Sure, the original game had the 100 Mario challenge, but this is an actual story mode complete with plot, Toad characters, overarching objective, and even a couple cut scenes. It's very well done, mind you, and a welcome addition. It just wasn't an expected addition.

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While there are a couple of changes from the original Super Mario Maker that leave a very sour taste in my mouth, the overall package in Super Mario Maker 2 is absolutely incredible and a definite must-own for all Switch gamers. If you want to practice your Mario skills with some easy levels, put your skills to the test with the ultimate brutal levels, or just get a good giggle with a good auto-Mario style level, someone has made or will soon make the perfect level for you. With the enthusiastic Mario Maker community online, the problem of "I wish I had new Mario levels to play" is forever a thing of the past, and Super Mario Maker is a great party game as well. Some folks might say that $60 is a bit steep for a make-your-own-levels game, but I'd argue that it's a downright bargain for that very reason. You've got virtually limitless possibilities with Super Mario Maker 2, and while some of the levels you'll find online are definite crap, some of those levels far surpass even Nintendo's most well designed levels. If you own a Switch (or maybe plan to get one later this year with the newly announced Switch Lite), you absolutely owe it to yourself to check out Super Mario Maker 2.
Exhuminator wrote:Ecchi lords must unite for great justice.

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pierrot
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Re: Games Beaten 2019

by pierrot Sun Jul 14, 2019 12:44 pm

PartridgeSenpai wrote:29. Final Fantasy IV (SFC) *

Yeah, pretty much agree. I think what probably sums it up is it's an early attempt for the series at giving some narrative weight to the progression. Does it kind of fail at that? Yeah, probably. How about that Big Whale, though? It's funny that the developer's room mentions playing Seiken Densetsu after. I'd rather play it instead of FF IV.


prfsnl_gmr wrote:He’s my third favorite character in Galaxy Express 999 (which, along with its sequel, is awesome and available for streaming on Amazon).

Your favorite is Queen Emeraldas, though, right?
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Re: Games Beaten 2019

by prfsnl_gmr Sun Jul 14, 2019 4:28 pm

Yep! Maetel’s in second place.
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