Games Beaten 2015

[Key-Glyph]

But now I've finally gone and done it. I'm almost thirty... and I have closure.

I love nostalgic gaming anecdotes like your story. Congrats on slaying your own white whale.

Thanks, Exhuminator! It might sound silly, but I'm realizing how much this game really did weigh on my mind. Not in a negative way -- just in a "every time I look at my Game Boy case or play a Game Boy game, I think about how I need to go back to that one" kind of way. I almost feel as if the particular shade of purple on the cartridge label might have been enough to subconsciously trigger that thought too, it got so burned into my mind.

SaGa games

I only realized that the Final Fantasy Legend series also went by the SaGa name a few nights ago, when I discovered there was a re-release of Legends III for the DS under that latter title. I don't know anything about the SaGa games except some of the music, and the fact that there's one called "Romancing SaGa," which I call "Romancing Sagat" (a joke I lifted from elsewhere). Are you saying they are originally SaGa games, then renamed for marketing power in the west? Or something else?

[Exhuminator]

Are you saying they are originally SaGa games, then renamed for marketing power in the west? Or something else?

The DS SaGa games were remakes that unfortunately did not get domestic English releases. However two were fan translated, and are playable in English via flashcart or emulation:

http://www.romhacking.net/translations/1610/

http://www.romhacking.net/translations/1705/

[BoneSnapDeez]

Here's a good Saga run-down:

http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/saga/saga.htm

Speaking of Game Boy FF games, Final Fantasy Adventure in Japan was called Seiken Densetsu: Final Fantasy Gaiden, thus making it the first Seiken Densetsu game and the precursor to Secret of Mana (which was Seiken Densetsu 2 in Japan). But you probably know that.

[Stark]

@Ack, I've been wanting to play A Story About My Uncle, thanks for the write up!

[noiseredux]

1. Beavis And Butt-Head In Virtual Stupidity (PC)
2. Renegade Ops (PC)
3. Arena Of Octos (Apple II)
4. Beauty And The Beast (Intellivision)
5. Chivalry (Apple II)
6. Donald Duck's Playground (C64)
7. Left 4 Dead (PC)
8. Left 4 Dead 2 (PC)
9. Fahrenheit: Indigo Prophecy Remastered (PC)
10. Forward To The Sky (PC)
11. Quake (PC)
12: Talisman: Digital Edition (PC)



Been addicted to this game for weeks. I've been playing using random characters like the official ruleset, and often that ends with me rage-quitting an hour or so into a game. But I got drawn the Assassin who I love, and I finally took down the base game today.

Oh and I lucked out managed to successfully cast Command 8 times in a row!

[PinkPanzer]

I have just beat Tales of Hearts R today on Vita (I'm a one game at a time guy!) And now I just don't know what to play next..I realized how much crap I have in my collection and I will never get around to all of it..I really want to play Shining Force 3 or Ogre Battle 64 but I am just terrible at strategy games.. I think it's time for something more relaxing, I will probably just play Donkey Kong Country on GBA in the meanwhile until I can figure it out..

[Stark]

Oh and I lucked out managed to successfully cast Command 8 times in a row!

I cast magic missile at the darkness!

[Fragems]

1. Injustice Gods Among Us Ultimate Edition(PS4)
2. Infamous First Light(PS4)
3. Drakengard 3(PS3) *Endings 1-4. Ending 5 I watched online due to BS boss.
4. Infamous Second Son(PS4)
5. Thomas Was Alone(PS4)
6. Uncharted Drake's Fortune(PS3) *
7. Uncharted 2 Among Thieves(PS3) *
8. Uncharted 3 Drake's Deception(PS3) *
9. Deadpool(PS3)
10. Red Dead Redemption(360)
11. Red Dead Redemption Undead Nightmare(360)
12. The Walking Dead Survival Instinct(360)
13. Fuse(360)
14. The Bureau Xcom Declassified(360)
15. Asura's Wrath(360)
16. Beneath a Steel Sky(PC)
17. Soul Gambler(PC)
19. Harvester(PC)
20. Coma: Mortuary(PC)
21. Tesla Effect: A Tex Murphy Adventure(PC)

Tesla Effect: A Tex Murphy Adventure

Great adventure game with a lot of charm. Really liked how they brought back FMV and the acting/humor is probably the best thing about the game. Other then that the environments are very nicely detailed and their is quite a bit to explore as well as plenty collectibles/eastereggs to find. There is also a pretty large variety of puzzles most of which are challenging but fair, and only a few that require you to really search every nook and cranny of the environment to find hints. Altogether I highly recommend it if you like adventure games and I hope that they make a few more of these this decade .

I would rate it a 8/10
Gameplay:8/10
Story:8/10
Visuals:7/10
Music: 8/10


On a side note the game has plenty of room to be replayed since there are multiple slightly different endings and you are bound to have missed something your first time through.

[Sload Soap]

Shadow of Mordor (Xbox One)

While I had a lot of fun with Shadow of Mordor it's also left me a bit cold. Nemesis system aside this game is a very calculated and precise mix of Assassin's Creed 2's open world parkouring and Arkham City's combat. SoM isn't as neatly done as either of those games though.

You play as Talion, a captain of the Black Watch Gate until he and his family are brutally murdered by nasty badmen in some arcane blood ritual. However Talion isn't quite dead and is brought back from the dead by a mysterious Elven spectre who gives Talion a bunch of awesome ghost powers but whose intentions aren't quite as altruistic as they seem. Until they are. Because Warnerbros need to make some sequels, dammit!

Mordor itself isn't large but the setting means that, outposts and fortresses aside, the topography is quite flat, forcing the player to do a lot of running. It's noticeable as well how close the Forge Towers (fast travel points) are to each other because of this.

Combat wise it's almost identical to the Arkham games again using the same colour coded flashes to indicate when to counter/avoid enemy attacks. Like the setting, it's a very good facsimile of it's inspiration but it's not quite there. It flows well but the game is very fond of just throwing pure numbers at you instead of interesting enemy combinations. To be sure, you are given all the tools to deal with those situations but it can be a bit irritating to get into a small scrap on the outskirts of a outpost only to have every Orc in Mordor seemingly alerted to your position, forcing either a restart or a hasty retreat.

Speaking of Orcses, they are really the stars of the show here. You have your basic Uruk who dispatched easily enough but then you have the captains and warlords, literal boss characters both much tougher than their brothers and mostly immune to your skillset. The developers went to a decent amount of effort to make each of these captains stand-out with different weaknesses, fears and skills as well as varied fashion senses.

On the whole though he much vaunted Nemesis system didn't really do much for me (I killed my nemesis five times in the first three hours of play and didn't see him again until the end). I wouldn't go as far as others and say that the system creates these organically told stories, because it doesn't. It just gives names to the faces you cleave through. In a nutshell, I've already forgotten my nemesis' name (although I did mostly refer to him as "not this twat again").

It is however much better done than the main story itself which is a really poorly edited hodge-podge of loosely interconnected plot points and characters. One half of the twenty campaign missions are devoted to stories that push Talion towards the inevitable confrontation with his murderers, the other half is given over to finding out the backstory to the wraith bound to him and neither complement each other. For some reason Gollum turns up to throw trinkets at you and there is way more Sauron than there needs to be. It's all a bit fan fictiony.

It kind of sounds like I'm ragging on the game but really I did enjoy it. It's just that once the credits rolled and I shut it off, it started to slip from my mind. Shadow of Mordor is your quintessential 8/10 game: technically proficient, fun and decently large. I just found it a tad lacking in ideas and story to be wholly memorable.

[BoneSnapDeez]

1. Grandia (PlayStation)
2. Jungle Hunt (Xbox - Taito Legends)
3. Jungle Hunt (Atari 2600)
4. Jungle Hunt (Plug & Play - ColecoVision Flashback)
5. Donkey Kong (Atari 2600)
6. Donkey Kong (Intellivision)
7. Donkey Kong (ColecoVision)
8. Bubble Bobble (NES)
9. Side Arms: Hyper Dyne (PSP - Capcom Classics Collection Remixed)
10. 1941: Counter Attack (PSP - Capcom Classics Collection Remixed)
11. Ys: The Ark of Napishtim (PSP)
12. The Ninja Kids (Xbox - Taito Legends)
13. Neutopia (TurboGrafx-16)
14. Golden Axe Warrior (Xbox 360 - Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection)
15. Phantasy Star Online Ver. 2 (Dreamcast)
16. Growl (PlayStation 2 - Taito Legends 2)
17. Arabian Magic (PlayStation 2 - Taito Legends 2)
18. Dungeon Magic (PlayStation 2 - Taito Legends 2)
19. Gekirindan (PlayStation 2 - Taito Legends 2)
20. Ys II (Saturn - Falcom Classics II)
21. Darius Gaiden (PlayStation 2 - Taito Legends 2)
22. G Darius (PlayStation 2 - Taito Legends 2)
23. Giana Sisters DS (DS)
24. RayStorm (PlayStation 2 - Taito Legends 2)
25. Mr. Do! (ColecoVision)
26. Beauty & the Beast (Intellivision)
27. Boxing (PlayStation 2 - Activision Anthology)
28. Crystalis (NES)
29. Dragon Warrior (NES)
30. Faxanadu (NES)
31. Tombs & Treasure (NES)
32. Kirby's Dream Land (Game Boy)
33. Kirby's Adventure (NES)
34. Kirby Super Star (SNES)

He's back and even pinker than before.

I won't write too much about this, as I played it last year.

Super Star isn't a singular Kirby game, but a collection of "subgames" all of which contain their own endings and credit scrolls. I especially enjoy the remake of Kirby's Dream Land as well as The Great Cave Offensive, which is an enormous sprawling treasure hunt.

But the real fun begins in the post-game, where Kirby can step into The Arena and pummel 18 bosses in a row.

AI partners are introduced in Super Star, and Kirby can obtain his own powers as well. It makes for a fun and frantic experience. And the game never gets stale, even after repeated playthroughs, as the abundance of allies and weaponry make it a unique experience each and every time.

Graphically and musically the game is absolutely beautiful. Super Star contains a SA1 chip, and I did notice a bit of slowdown. The Retron 5 also grips onto these games like you wouldn't believe.

It's hard to say when Super Star is really "beaten." I say it's over once the sound test is unlocked, though some players may go for 100% completion (all treasures found, all powers obtained, all hidden exits discovered). I think I hit 80-something%.

This is a game I find myself returning to often (though I have yet to try the DS remake). Play it.