1. Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia* (DS)
2. Shadow of the Colossus (PS4)
3. Onimusha: Warlords* (PS4)
4. Resident Evil 2* (PSX)[Leon A]
5. Resident Evil 2 Remake (PS4)[Platinum]
6. Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze* (Switch)
7. Devil May Cry 5 (PS4)
8. Mass Effect* (PS3)
9. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (PS4)
10. Mass Effect 2* (PS3)
11. Streets of Rage 2 (SMS)
12. Mortal Kombat (Genesis)
13. Mass Effect 3* (PS3)
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (PS4)[Platinum]
14. Front Mission (DS)
15. Doom: Sigil (PC)
Front Mission (DS)[UCS Scenario]
16. Doom 2: TNT Revilution (PC)[8h32m55][UV]
17. R-Type Leo (Arcade)
18. Super R-Type* (SNES)
19. Doom 2: TNT Evilution* (PC)[5h55m56][UV/Complex]
20. R-Type III (SNES)[SaveStates]
21. Life Force (NES)
22. Metal Storm (NES)
23. Near Death (PC)
24. Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night (PC)
25. Adventures of Lolo (NES)
26. Dying Light (PC)
27. Star Wars: Dark Forces* (PC)
28. Shadow Hearts: Covenant (PS2)
29. Blazing Chrome (PC)
30. Contra Rebirth (Wii)
31. Thunder Force IV* (Genesis)
32. Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master* (Genesis)
33. Resident Evil 4* (Wii)
34. Gradius V (PS2)35. Dragon Quest IV (DS)5:38 - Easy
9:10 - Normal
Gracius V is simply put... an absolute monster. Both one of the hardest and best shmups I've ever played. This final entry in another legacy Konami series was heavily done by Treasure and it shows. This is a bit more balls to the wall than the other games and different in ways, tons of memory / pattern based sections, and a lot of the game feels like this crazy merger between 16bit shmup design mixed in with 2000's bullet hell. Hitoshi Sakimoto does his usual majestic work on the killer OST, not as elegant as Radiant Slvergun's music, but I love how Gradius V's sound is a lot more drum and bass, very spacey.
Every hour put into Gradius V nets you another continue and this is an awesome reward system to keep playing. Any fan of Gradius and some shmups know that, even with a bunch of continues, you still have to put in a lot of work to see those credits. There are countless moments in this game that can SINK tons of lives if you're not careful. On my last Normal run this morning when I finally beat it, I had used up all 10 continues I had and only had 2-3 more lives left to spare. It was insanely intense.
There are power up Types here you don't normally see in the rest of the series. I used Type 4 for a lot of my Easy work, which makes the Options spin around the Vic Viper. So it's good on both defense and offense. However the better I got, I started using Type 2 more which lets you manually aim your Options. It's good to get good at this by stage 6, which has all this green goo, the entire screen/level shakes, and then there's a section where you go BACKWARDS. Without Options, all you can do is dodge everything and that's insane. In fact, when I first played Gradius V ages ago, stage 6 ended me. I got my revenge this year.
Unlike other entries, Gradius V also has a continuous play option, instead of its old checkpoint based system. So when you take a death, you have a brief moment to recover your Options. But yeah, anyone who's played Gradius V probably knows to not let some of these new features fool you into thinking this makes for an easier Gradius game. This is one of the hardest shmups I've ever played. And now that I've conquered it on Normal at least, it's one of my new top favorites as well. It was super thrilling getting through and learning this.
21:16Easy 9/10. I can see how this is a masterpiece and fan favorite for many. Although I can only make the comparison to DQ5 right now directly, in general, DQ4 is one of the best JRPG's out there. I had an absolute blast playing this version and it nullified a few of the nitpicks I had with DQ5, mainly the monster capturing system for party members. DQ4 just gives you a specific set of usable party members and I prefer that. And DQ5's time leaps for that story sounded cool on paper, but it made the whole journey a bit fragmented and most of the characters weren't all that interesting. As an older and simpler game under the hood, it's not like DQ4's characters are vastly more fleshed out compared to it or other games in the genre, but just simply having a single stable party from start to finish makes for a much more fun experience. Even when it just comes down to the getting to know the characters purely through combat, that's a ton of fun experimenting with party setups and really getting to know who does what. Although the first chunk of DQ4 is chapter based, making you play solely through the eyes of a few main characters at a time before it all builds up to the main of main's, the Hero / Player, and everyone joins up. I have mentioned before that I generally don't like this format for games, there are a few exceptions like Suikoden III, and DQ4 (apparently the originator of the chapter system, maybe for JRPG's), is another one that did it amazingly well. I had no complaints with this setup at all here.
Yesterday in between some gaming and getting near the end of this one myself, I was watching a streamer playing some weird DQ4 NES randomizer, which probably just randomizes chests/enemies and such. But map wise, it was incredibly cool to glance over throughout the day to see where this person was in the game and I could recognize just about every area. The world map is rearranged a bit in the DS version, but this is still the same familiar world and dungeons I just went through. It's really cool how authentic this remaster was and neat to see the old NES game in action. I can see how this must have been a mindblowing experience back in the day.
There were some huge fans of this one that sold me on the game and it really didn't take long to see why this one gets so much praise. Anyone with a DS or interest in JRPG's / Dragon Quest, should definitely play this.
For the fans and those who beat it, my thoughts on the final boss:
SCARY! Thing kept transforming, I wasn't sure when it was going to end. It's so cool when you can utilize a full wagon worth of party members during these final boss fights. You really have to change it up and use everyone's strengths. And I definitely took some deaths I couldn't salvage near the end. I thought a full final dungeon/final boss fight reset was imminent. I say that, because I used pretty much all the Yggdrasil Leaves/Vials I had and I assume, if I took a death but was revived at the nearby shrine, I wouldn't have all those items again. And they were -utterly- crucial for this battle.
I ended up using the old man quite a lot actually, because he had both Sap and Oomph. I still kept the Liquid Metal Sword on the Hero, but the Zenithian Sword had to be used as a tool frequently to rid the boss of his buffs. Here's where a big mistake came into play, one of the final female armors in the game was some kind of Shimmering Dress or something... that reflects spells. I had this on Alena, while I couldn't fully figure out if my healing spells and such were reflecting off of her and healing the boss, a lot of my spells were missing her! That was some seriously bad news, I guess I could have taken it off of her mid battle, but her defense would have plummeted. Didn't have any extra armor in her inventory at the time.
I was also utilizing Alena as a healer for a lot of the battle actually, because she had that awesome full party heal staff in her inventory. This never seemed to miss her like the normal spells were at times, so it healed her too. I figured her high Agility would make good use of that. I rotated in Kiryl a few times to get Kabuff in and some multiheal's, along with the Hero using Omniheal in crucial spots. Ragnar had a Yggdrasil Leaf and Vial for some critical moments. Maya was amazing as always, however in the late stages of the battle the boss was quickly putting up a Bounce shield so her insane magic reflected back on me a few times. And despite her impressive HP growth, when this boss started doing his Ice Breath near the end or two big melee attacks in a row, that was pretty much an instant death on some characters like her.
I think Maya, Alena, old man, and Kiryl were dead near the very end, I never saw the use for Meena here, but I actually brought in Torneko near the end just to tank some damage or hope his weird randomness helped... the dude was doing like ~7 damage to the boss, well he was there for moral support at least. Finally, with just the Hero, Ragnar, and Torneko standing, I somehow landed the final blow on the boss and beat him when I was about to give up.
My Hero was level 34 and party in the mid 30's. I probably could have grinded out a few more levels to make this easier, but still... I beat him on my first go! Looks like there's a full extra chapter worth of content in this version. I'm not much of a completionist thesedays and am fully satisfied with the core game done, so I'm not sure if I'll mess with that stuff. But for people into that or veterans curious about this version, that's really cool it has a lot to it. I should at least go check out that Huffman's Post village again, seems like you can help rebuild that area. I recruited two or three people looking for a new home along the way and looking over a guide, looks like this village builder gets pretty elaborate after awhile.
Long story short, playing DQ5 DS last year was a fun adventure and boosted my curiosity on the franchise a little more. But after playing DQ4 DS this summer, I'd say I'm a full blown fan now and can't wait to play more of them.