Games Beaten 2019:First 50:
51. Mario Party
N6452. ActRaiser
SNES53. GoldenEye 007
N6454. Mom Hid My Game
Switch eShop55. Money Puzzle Exchanger
Switch eShop56. Gunbird
Switch eShop57. Tokyo School Life
Switch eShop58. Musynx
Switch59. Gremlins 2: The New Batch
NES60. Subsurface Circular
Switch eShop61. Yoshi's Woolly World
Wii U62. ToeJam & Earl: Panic on Funkotron
Switch63. Bare Knuckle III
Switch64. Gunstar Heroes
Switch65. Space Harrier II
Switch66. Sonic Spinball
Switch67. Phantasy Star IV: The End of the Millennium
Switch68. Sonic 3D Blast
Switch69. Rabbids Go Home
Wii70. Alien Storm
Switch71. Alien Soldier
Switch72. Untitled Goose Game
Switch eShop73. Landstalker: The Treasures of King Nole
Switch74. Fatal Labyrinth
Switch75. Ristar
Switch76. Golden Axe III
Switch77. Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master
Switch78. Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine
Switch79. Bonanza Bros.
Switch80. Shining Force II [& Sega Mega Drive Classics]
Switch81. Castlevania Bloodlines
Switch eShop82. Puyo Puyo Sun 64
N6483. Chameleon Twist 2
N6484. Cruis'n USA
N6485. Darkwing Duck
Game Boy86. Fortified Zone
Game Boy87. Lock 'N Chase
Game Boy88. Spanky's Quest
Game Boy89. Looney Tunes Collector: Martian Revenge!
GBC90. Puchi Carat
PS191. Battle Garegga Rev. 2016
PS492. Flower
PS493. FlOw
PS494. The Longest 5 Minutes Switch
95. West of Loathing Switch
96. Pokémon Sword SwitchThe Longest 5 MinutesAfter playing through a bunch of Game Boy and PS4 games, I decided to play through a selection of Switch RPGs back to back. It wasn’t really planned, it just ended up being what I played. The first of these 3 games was The Longest 5 Minutes, a game that I’d picked up because I found the premise interesting. The game starts with you fighting the demon king, with only 5 minutes until he destroys the world – however, you quickly realise that you’ve lost all your memories and you can’t remember anything – how or why you’re here, any of your skills or magic, or who these other people are who are with you. Thus begins the Longest 5 Minutes of your life, as you try and remember everything whilst also defeating the demon king before the end of the world.
You remember everything in the form of flashbacks. These throw you back to an earlier point in the story. You’ll be sent back to an earlier time and told what level you’re at (RPG level 5 for example) and then you play through a segment of the earlier game until you remember something important. This can then normally be used during the fight against the demon lord (which takes place as a visual novel type more than an RPG. Each time you jump back in time you’ll find your spells, equipment, money and level different to before – you can’t keep it, so might as well make use of everything you can.
Unfortunately, there are a few issues with the way the flashbacks are handled gameplay wise. The game sets you back to an earlier point, but without fail you’re already strong enough at the beginning of the flashback to beat the boss at the end of the flashback without too much difficulty. This results in a few issues – first of all, there’s no sense of challenge as it’s so easy. Secondly, there’s a lack of a feeling of progression as any grinding is unnecessary and will be lost by the next flashback. And finally, it makes battles quite worthless because of this – if you just want to experience the story, the best way is to cast the spell which makes enemies not appear over and over, and just walk through each dungeon to the story points.
So the RPG gameplay isn’t really the focus here – in truth, this is really a visual novel masquerading as an old-school RPG, and so the story is the focus. Thus, the game lives and dies on the quality of it’s writing, and if I’m being honest, that isn’t the greatest either. Plotlines are predictable and kinda immature overall, and the interesting premise of the flashbacks is somewhat wasted – I expected this to result in lots of non-linear storytelling where you piece together parts from all over the story gradually, but in reality, each successive flashback generally takes you to the next part of the story in order – so you’ll experience the adventure from beginning to end as normal, just broken up by the demon king encounter every so often.
That’s not to say there’s nothing to like about The Longest 5 Minutes though. Despite it’s numerous missteps, the game is still enjoyable in it’s own way, and the characters whilst simple and cliché are charming and likeable too. The story isn’t phenomenal, but there are a few highlights here and I actually found the ending in particular to be both a little tropey but also pretty affective and emotional. The graphics of the game are very simple, but some of the enemy designs in particular are really amusing and creative, and I’d be absolute remiss if I didn’t mention the quality of the soundtrack, which shines well above the decentish story and basic graphics – this is an absolutely phenomenal score that I highly recommend giving a listen to:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RZpHyRCChs&list=PLzMaKUs3kzJQUzwu2ElITdEuInfvTIcv-&index=2&t=0sIn honesty, it’s hard to recommend The Longest 5 Minutes. It’s a game with a super interesting concept but a really disappointing execution. But there is something about it – I did have a decent time with the game and I definitely wouldn’t say I disliked it. The game had enough charm to make the ending hit home, and it was probably helped along a lot by it’s fantastic score. If you find it cheap, it’s worth taking a gamble on this, but don’t expect it to knock your socks off.
West of LoathingAfter finishing The Longest 5 Minutes, I decided to start up West of Loathing. West of Loathing is a game I picked up when it was being sold by Limited Run Games. I’d not really hard of it at that point, but whenever they sell something that looks interesting, I always check out some reviews to see if it’s worth getting, and reviews of West of Loathing were pretty glowing. And so I gave it a go.
West of Loathing is an RPG set in the wild west, drawn using a simple stick figure art style and black and white graphics. It’s by the guys who did Kingdom of Loathing, the old browser based RPG game – which I’d previously heard of but knew little about. You set out on an adventure to make your fortune, or help people, or for the sake of the adventure itself (depending on your choice) as one of 3 character classes – the melee focused Cow Puncher, the magic wielding chef the Bean Slinger, or the silver tongued, rootin’ tootin’ shootin’ Snake Oiler. I went with Snake Oiler personally.
The game is a very simple RPG – early on you can recruit one of several partners who join you in battle. You can equip a pistol and melee weapon to use in battle, plus various armour pieces (hat, body, trousers, boots, off hand item and lapel embellishments) to boost your stats. Normal attacks are free and use up your turn, but you also get special abilities which use up a limited stock of AP (replenished after each battle) with various effects – as a snake oiler I got some which showered enemies with bullets or pulled out snakes from my suitcase to join me in battle. Finally, you can use items too – these are limited but often can be used without taking up a whole turn, making them incredibly strong.
The game uses a progression system based on stats and abilities. Your core stats are Muscle (attack and defence), Mysticality (Magic attack and defence), and Moxie (Ranged attack and defence). However you also have other stats in Grit, Gumption and Glamour. These affect things like HP, speed and luck, but all stats also have other uses – certain options are available to people with high enough stats in any of the 6 – allowing you to use your glamour to swindle someone out of an item instead of fighting for it for example, or using muscle to break through a door without a key.
In addition to stats, you get perks and skills which offer other role-playing advantages. Some of these are straight up benefits – such as Goblintongue which allows you to speak to goblins, whilst others need to be levelled up too, such as Hornswogglin’ which lets you con people – higher levels lets you pull off more ambitious deceptions. There are also negative perks which lower stats. All of these abilities often present multiple options to solve tasks and puzzles – this game has an impressive range of options of how to progress.
For all of it’s role-playing achievements though, the true reason to play West of Loathing is the writing. This is a genuinely laugh-out-loud funny game. The humour is often silly (one of the first perks makes you walk in stupid ways every time you move) but it can also include some incredibly funny wordplay. I’m sure some of my screenshots will show some of the humour off. There’s so much good writing here too – the game has a surprisingly large amount of content, with tons of sidequests and secrets to find. In game options often lock out other options too, so there’s likely a ton of fun content I’ll experience for the first time if I replay the game in future. The story is lacking a bit in it’s finale – it feels like it’s trying to wrap up something that wasn’t really set up, but having done as much content as I could find up to that point, I was fine with that.
Obviously, this isn’t an astonishingly good looking game, but it pulls off the art style in a way that feels deliberate and charming rather than lazy and lacking. The music of the game is wonderfully on point, with a fun classic western vibe that I really loved.
I can’t recommend West of Loathing enough. It’s creative, charming and incredibly funny. I enjoyed every minute I spent with the game, and I’m looking forward to replaying it as another class some day. I would go out and pick this up right away if you’re a fan of RPGs and silly humour. It’s fantastic.
Pokemon SwordPokémon Sword was a game with a lof of controversy leading up to it’s release. People were angry about every little thing it seemed, and they weren’t afraid to show it. I know some people who have been put off by the changes this game made and vowed not to play it. Personally, I thought that was rather short sighted, so I avoided the internet as much as possible leading up to the games release and gave it a go so I could see it based on it’s own merits.
Pokemon Sword and Shield are set in the Galar region, a region modelled after a rather idyllic version of the UK, so I may have some biases here, but I had a great time playing through the game. It makes some changes, some for the better and some for the worse, but overall I still found myself enjoying the game for what it is – this is still the same old Pokémon at it’s core, and I actually think if you’re going to level a criticism at it, that’s the one it might deserve – it’s still the same old Pokemon. That is fine by me though.
The plot of the game is back to basics, with you setting out to beat the gym challenge and challenge the champion of the region. I really like what they did with this challenge though, with it feeling more like a sports league – there’s professional organisations dedicated to setting up the league, and matches take place in big stadiums with cheering crowds and are broadcast on TV. The gym theme is also fantastic and I love it, take a listen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcV6xVukj60 . There’s a few little twists along the way, but this is as close to the set-up for Red and Blue as pokemon has been in a while. Another new features I really liked was the Wild Area. This is a large open area with tons of pokemon available, where you can roam freely and find pokemon whoa re much too strong for you early in the game. The area has a free camera, a first for the series, and it really feels like it could be a tentative first step to a more open future pokemon game.
There are also some things I disliked – the game feels a little narrow in scope, even compared to the already narrow feeling Sun & Moon. There are less trainers in routes, routes feel smaller and sparser, and there are less of them. The postgame is rather lacking too, and most of the caves and forests that made up dungeons in the mast are now short and linear, with no puzzles. The game has made the exp. Share compulsory (giving your whole party exp for every battle) which feels like a move to make up for the lack of trainers. It feels like there should be more here than there is, all things considered.
Graphically, the game really isn’t a looker for the Switch, but it gets the job done. It’s a pretty basic looking title overall with a few surprising performance issues, but at the same time there are a few sections where the game just looks really nice. The pokemon still look great, if not really any better than on 3DS, and I really liked the new selection of Pokemon available this time. My team was made up of Dubwool, Corviknight, Coalossal, Polteageist, Sirfetch’d and Hatterene by the end of the game. There’s a lot being said about the lack of being able to catch ‘em all this time, but that really doesn’t bother me much – I acknowledge that they can’t just keep adding forever, I rarely transfer old pokemon anyway and the 400 available in game are more than enough to offer diversity in team building.
So, the thing with Pokémon Sword is know that it could and should be a better and more polished game than it is – as a new game in a super popular franchise that’s one of Nintendo’s biggest IPs, it really should have done more. But I can’t deny the fun I had playing it – I truly had a blast from start to finish with this game, and so I can’t help but to happily recommend it. For all it’s flaws, Pokemon Sword and Shield is still a ton of fun.