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ElkinFencer10
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Re: Games Beaten 2021

by ElkinFencer10 Fri Jul 30, 2021 4:05 pm

Games Beaten in 2021 - 81
* denotes a replay

January (12 Games Beaten)
1. God of War - PlayStation 3 - January 1
2. God of War II - PlayStation 3 - January 2
3. God of War: Chains of Olympus - PlayStation 3 - January 3
4. God of War: Ghost of Sparta - PlayStation 3 - January 4
5. God of War III - PlayStation 4 - January 6
6. God of War: Ascension - PlayStation 3 - January 9
7. God of War [2018] - PlayStation 4 - January 16
8. Epic Dumpster Bear 2: He Who Bears Wins - PlayStation 4 - January 16
9. God of War: Betrayal - Mobile - January 17
10. Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit - Switch - January 18
11. Muv-Luv photonflowers* - Steam - January 22
12. Muv-Luv photonmelodies♮ - Steam - January 27


February (5 Games Beaten)
13. Gun Gun Pixies - Switch - February 1
14. Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel - PS4 - February 8*
15. Pantsu Hunter: Back to the 90s - Vita - February 13
16. Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II - PS4 - February 17*
17. Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky - Steam - February 23


March (3 Games Beaten)
18. Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky SC - Steam - March 4
19. Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky 3rd - Steam - March 7
20. Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III - PS4 - March 21


April (7 Games Beaten)
21. Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel IV - PS4 - April 5
22. Muv-Luv Unlimited: The Day After 00 - Steam - April 7
23. Muv-Luv Unlimited: The Day After 01 - Steam - April 10
24. Muv-Luv Unlimited: The Day After 02 - Steam - April 11
25. Muv-Luv Unlimited: The Day After 03 - Steam - April 13
26. Neptunia Virtual Stars - PS4 - April 18
27. Before Your Eyes - Steam - April 18


May (9 Games Beaten)
28. New Pokemon Snap - Switch - May 2
29. Resident Evil 8: Village - PS5 - May 8
30. Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age - Switch - May 15
31. Torment: Tides of Numenera - Xbox One - May 18
32. Pepsiman - PS1 - May 20
33. Super Blackjack Battle II Turbo: The Card Fighters - Switch - May 20
34. Reel Fishing: Road Trip Adventure - Switch - May 23
35. Planetscape: Torment - Steam - May 26
36. Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne - Switch - May 31


June (17 Games Beaten)
37. Hentai vs Evil - Switch - June 1
38. Troll and I - Switch - June 2
39. Zombie Army 4: Dead War - PlayStation 4 - June 5
40. Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 - Switch - June 6
41. Military Madness - TurboGrafx-16 - June 7
42. Puyo Puyo 2 - Game Gear - June 17
43. Yakuza 0 - Playstation 4 - June 19
44. Neptunia Shooter - Playstation 5 - June 20
45. Little Samson - NES - June 22
46. Tiger-Heli - NES - June 23
47. Blaster Master - NES - June 23
48. Gun-Nac - NES - June 24
49. Rollerblade Racer - NES - June 25
50. Marble Madness - NES - June 25
51. Metroid - NES - June 25
52. Mario Golf: Super Rush - Switch - June 26
53. Metroid: Zero Mission - GBA - June 28
54. Metroid II: Return of Samus - Game Boy - June 29


July (27 Games Beaten)
55. Super Metroid - SNES - July 1
56. Where's Waldo? - NES - July 1
57. Metroid Fusion - GBA - July 2
58. Neptunia ReVerse - PlayStation 5 - July 3
59. Tetris Effect: Connected - Series X - July 3
60. Battletoads - Xbox One - July 4
61. Chicken Police: Paint it Red! - Switch - July 5
62. The Falconeer - Series X - July 7
63. Astral Chain - Switch - July 10
64. Dynowarz: Destruction of Spondylus - NES - July 12
65. Skull and Crossbones - NES - July 12
66. Sky Kid - NES - July 12
67. Top Gun - NES - July 12
68. Top Gun: The Second Mission - NES - July 13
69. Mega Man 7 - SNES - July 13
70. Mega Man X - SNES - July 14
71. Mega Man X2 - SNES - July 15
72. Second Extinction - Series X - July 15
73. Mega Man X3 - SNES - July 16
74. Mega Man: Dr. Wily's Revenge - Game Boy - July 19
75. Mega Man II - Game Boy - July 19
76. Mega Man III - Game Boy - July 19
77. Mega Man IV - Game Boy - July 20
78. Mega Man V - Game Boy - July 20
79. Mega Man Xtreme - GBC - July 21
81. Mega Man Xtreme 2 - GBC - July 21
81. Cotton Reboot! - Switch - July 27


81. Mega Man Xtreme 2 - GBC - July 21

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Mega Man Xtreme 2 is the significantly more competent follow-up to Mega Man Xtreme, and unlike the previous game, this is a true Game Boy Color game rather than a cross-gen fence straddler. Granted, the actual gameplay and in-game sprites still use a pretty drab color selection, but the cut scenes look significantly better in this game, and a lot of the issues I had the previous game have been remedied.

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My single biggest complaint with the previous Mega Man Xtreme was the control, and fortunately, while they’re still far from perfect - I found Zero especially to feel awkward to control with platforming - they’re leagues better. Gone is the sluggish and unresponsive feel of the last game’s controls, and while I still wouldn’t call this game especially smooth or fluid, it’s far more playable and enjoyable. As I mentioned, Zero’s controls with jumping and dashing felt a bit jerky to me, but that does lead into my favorite addition to this game - a fully playable Zero. When you start the game, you can choose between X’s missions and Zero’s missions. This lets you choose between the two sides of the game; the actual story is the same, but each of the two playable characters faces different bosses and has different endings, so to experience the whole game, you need to play through with both characters. There’s some common content, but it’s probably 85% different between the two which keeps it from feeling stale and repetitive when going through as whichever character you didn’t pick first.

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My favorite thing about the choice between playing as X and Zero is how differently the two handle. I found X to feel much more comfortable with platforming, and X has the advantage of a long range attack whereas Zero only has his sword as his standard weapon, but Zero packs much more of a punch than X, and that’s especially noticeable with boss battles. Overall, I found X to be a much more enjoyable character to play as with platforming and Zero to be a much more enjoyable character to play as with combat. That kind of a balance gives both characters a distinct draw, and as a result, neither one feels useless or tacked on. After you face your chosen character’s four Mavericks (recycled from X2 and X3), Iris, your 8-bit robot waifu, gives you the option to change the character you’re using with the Select button, so you actually can use X for the actual stages and Zero for the boss battles if you want.

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Overall, Mega Man Xtreme 2 is still a flawed and very imperfect game, but it’s a shockingly large improvement over the first Xtreme, and that can’t be overstated. I actually enjoyed this game. I think IV and V on Game Boy were better games overall, but I’d put this one ahead of II and III for sure and probably on par with Dr. Wily’s Revenge. If you’re a fan of Mega Man, this one’s worth checking out. If you’re not a fan of the series specifically, though, you can probably find better action platformers on the Game Boy Color.
Exhuminator wrote:Ecchi lords must unite for great justice.

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ElkinFencer10
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Re: Games Beaten 2021

by ElkinFencer10 Sat Jul 31, 2021 7:10 pm

Games Beaten in 2021 - 82
* denotes a replay

January (12 Games Beaten)
1. God of War - PlayStation 3 - January 1
2. God of War II - PlayStation 3 - January 2
3. God of War: Chains of Olympus - PlayStation 3 - January 3
4. God of War: Ghost of Sparta - PlayStation 3 - January 4
5. God of War III - PlayStation 4 - January 6
6. God of War: Ascension - PlayStation 3 - January 9
7. God of War [2018] - PlayStation 4 - January 16
8. Epic Dumpster Bear 2: He Who Bears Wins - PlayStation 4 - January 16
9. God of War: Betrayal - Mobile - January 17
10. Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit - Switch - January 18
11. Muv-Luv photonflowers* - Steam - January 22
12. Muv-Luv photonmelodies♮ - Steam - January 27


February (5 Games Beaten)
13. Gun Gun Pixies - Switch - February 1
14. Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel - PS4 - February 8*
15. Pantsu Hunter: Back to the 90s - Vita - February 13
16. Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II - PS4 - February 17*
17. Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky - Steam - February 23


March (3 Games Beaten)
18. Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky SC - Steam - March 4
19. Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky 3rd - Steam - March 7
20. Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III - PS4 - March 21


April (7 Games Beaten)
21. Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel IV - PS4 - April 5
22. Muv-Luv Unlimited: The Day After 00 - Steam - April 7
23. Muv-Luv Unlimited: The Day After 01 - Steam - April 10
24. Muv-Luv Unlimited: The Day After 02 - Steam - April 11
25. Muv-Luv Unlimited: The Day After 03 - Steam - April 13
26. Neptunia Virtual Stars - PS4 - April 18
27. Before Your Eyes - Steam - April 18


May (9 Games Beaten)
28. New Pokemon Snap - Switch - May 2
29. Resident Evil 8: Village - PS5 - May 8
30. Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age - Switch - May 15
31. Torment: Tides of Numenera - Xbox One - May 18
32. Pepsiman - PS1 - May 20
33. Super Blackjack Battle II Turbo: The Card Fighters - Switch - May 20
34. Reel Fishing: Road Trip Adventure - Switch - May 23
35. Planetscape: Torment - Steam - May 26
36. Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne - Switch - May 31


June (17 Games Beaten)
37. Hentai vs Evil - Switch - June 1
38. Troll and I - Switch - June 2
39. Zombie Army 4: Dead War - PlayStation 4 - June 5
40. Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 - Switch - June 6
41. Military Madness - TurboGrafx-16 - June 7
42. Puyo Puyo 2 - Game Gear - June 17
43. Yakuza 0 - Playstation 4 - June 19
44. Neptunia Shooter - Playstation 5 - June 20
45. Little Samson - NES - June 22
46. Tiger-Heli - NES - June 23
47. Blaster Master - NES - June 23
48. Gun-Nac - NES - June 24
49. Rollerblade Racer - NES - June 25
50. Marble Madness - NES - June 25
51. Metroid - NES - June 25
52. Mario Golf: Super Rush - Switch - June 26
53. Metroid: Zero Mission - GBA - June 28
54. Metroid II: Return of Samus - Game Boy - June 29


July (28 Games Beaten)
55. Super Metroid - SNES - July 1
56. Where's Waldo? - NES - July 1
57. Metroid Fusion - GBA - July 2
58. Neptunia ReVerse - PlayStation 5 - July 3
59. Tetris Effect: Connected - Series X - July 3
60. Battletoads - Xbox One - July 4
61. Chicken Police: Paint it Red! - Switch - July 5
62. The Falconeer - Series X - July 7
63. Astral Chain - Switch - July 10
64. Dynowarz: Destruction of Spondylus - NES - July 12
65. Skull and Crossbones - NES - July 12
66. Sky Kid - NES - July 12
67. Top Gun - NES - July 12
68. Top Gun: The Second Mission - NES - July 13
69. Mega Man 7 - SNES - July 13
70. Mega Man X - SNES - July 14
71. Mega Man X2 - SNES - July 15
72. Second Extinction - Series X - July 15
73. Mega Man X3 - SNES - July 16
74. Mega Man: Dr. Wily's Revenge - Game Boy - July 19
75. Mega Man II - Game Boy - July 19
76. Mega Man III - Game Boy - July 19
77. Mega Man IV - Game Boy - July 20
78. Mega Man V - Game Boy - July 20
79. Mega Man Xtreme - GBC - July 21
80. Mega Man Xtreme 2 - GBC - July 21
81. Portal Runner - GBC - July 22
82. Cotton Reboot! - Switch - July 27


82. Portal Runner - GBC - July 22

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Army Men is one of my ultimate guilty pleasure series. The only game in the series that’s actually been good was the second one on PC, and the closest a console release came to being genuinely good was Sarge’s Heroes 2, and that’s 100% remembered fondly only due to nostalgia. Still, though, I love the series. Portal Runner, then, as a spin-off of the series, should have followed this trend of “it sucks, but I love it anyway.” Unfortunately, it stopped at “it sucks.”

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I have this on PS2, and while I haven’t played that version yet, I’m pretty confident that it’s got very little in common with this mess. The game looks okay for a Game Boy Color release, but it plays terribly. It’s an action platformer that gets neither the action nor the platforming right. As you go through the levels, you encounter a variety of enemies from Tan soldiers to bugs to other toys to - eventually - aliens. Don’t bother trying to punch them, though, as the hit detection is atrocious. You’re better off either using your bow or just giving up and letting them live. I got lucky with a punch or a jump kick sometimes, but they just didn’t register as a hit a solid 90% of the time. Aiming the bow sucked, too, as you couldn’t aim up or down or even move while you had the bow drawn - your only ability to affect where the arrow landed is long you held the button down - but at least the arrows usually registered.

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The combat hit detection isn’t the only problem. The platforming is also really stiff and awkward. It feels like if someone made a shitty Castlevania. There are three dozen levels, but none of them feel like there’s any purpose. For most levels, you just collect five gems (you can stockpile up to 50) and find the portal. There’s no other objective. Every now and then, you’ll reach a boss level where you have to fight a boss in order to use the portal. That’s it, though. There’s no story here whatsoever. You play as Vikki Grimm, but the entire premise of the game is missing. Bridgett Bleu doesn’t appear here at all despite being the other major character in the PS2 game. The other Army Men Game Boy Color games all had some semblance of the story, but there’s just nothing here.

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I’ve now played all of the Army Men handheld games, and this is by far the worst. There’s just nothing worthwhile here whatsoever. The platforming is bad, the combat is bad, the story is omitted all together. Thank goodness each of the game’s levels take less than five minutes to complete because even that length feels excessive with three dozen of these boring levels. Environments just recycle with no rhyme or reason; this is the epitome of a quick and easy cash grab game. Not even the most hardcore Army Men fan should bother with this abomination.
Exhuminator wrote:Ecchi lords must unite for great justice.

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REPO Man
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Re: Games Beaten 2021

by REPO Man Sat Jul 31, 2021 7:20 pm

Didn't voice actress Susan Blu play Vikki in the PS2 port? She was also on Jem and the Holograms, 13 Ghosts of Scooby Doo, Flintstones Kids, Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer and played the mom in Friday the 13th Part VII.
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prfsnl_gmr
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Re: Games Beaten 2021

by prfsnl_gmr Sat Jul 31, 2021 10:06 pm

ElkinFencer10 wrote:[Portal Runner, then, as a spin-off of the series, should have followed this trend of “it sucks, but I love it anyway.” Unfortunately, it stopped at “it sucks.”


:lol: :lol: :lol:

You, sir, have a way with words. You’re basically the Oscar Wilde of bad video game reviews.
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ElkinFencer10
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Re: Games Beaten 2021

by ElkinFencer10 Sun Aug 01, 2021 11:07 am

prfsnl_gmr wrote:You, sir, have a way with words. You’re basically the Oscar Wilde of bad video game reviews.

I do my best to please my beloved fans. :lol:

Games Beaten in 2021 - 83
* denotes a replay

January (12 Games Beaten)
1. God of War - PlayStation 3 - January 1
2. God of War II - PlayStation 3 - January 2
3. God of War: Chains of Olympus - PlayStation 3 - January 3
4. God of War: Ghost of Sparta - PlayStation 3 - January 4
5. God of War III - PlayStation 4 - January 6
6. God of War: Ascension - PlayStation 3 - January 9
7. God of War [2018] - PlayStation 4 - January 16
8. Epic Dumpster Bear 2: He Who Bears Wins - PlayStation 4 - January 16
9. God of War: Betrayal - Mobile - January 17
10. Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit - Switch - January 18
11. Muv-Luv photonflowers* - Steam - January 22
12. Muv-Luv photonmelodies♮ - Steam - January 27


February (5 Games Beaten)
13. Gun Gun Pixies - Switch - February 1
14. Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel - PS4 - February 8*
15. Pantsu Hunter: Back to the 90s - Vita - February 13
16. Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II - PS4 - February 17*
17. Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky - Steam - February 23


March (3 Games Beaten)
18. Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky SC - Steam - March 4
19. Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky 3rd - Steam - March 7
20. Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III - PS4 - March 21


April (7 Games Beaten)
21. Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel IV - PS4 - April 5
22. Muv-Luv Unlimited: The Day After 00 - Steam - April 7
23. Muv-Luv Unlimited: The Day After 01 - Steam - April 10
24. Muv-Luv Unlimited: The Day After 02 - Steam - April 11
25. Muv-Luv Unlimited: The Day After 03 - Steam - April 13
26. Neptunia Virtual Stars - PS4 - April 18
27. Before Your Eyes - Steam - April 18


May (9 Games Beaten)
28. New Pokemon Snap - Switch - May 2
29. Resident Evil 8: Village - PS5 - May 8
30. Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age - Switch - May 15
31. Torment: Tides of Numenera - Xbox One - May 18
32. Pepsiman - PS1 - May 20
33. Super Blackjack Battle II Turbo: The Card Fighters - Switch - May 20
34. Reel Fishing: Road Trip Adventure - Switch - May 23
35. Planetscape: Torment - Steam - May 26
36. Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne - Switch - May 31


June (17 Games Beaten)
37. Hentai vs Evil - Switch - June 1
38. Troll and I - Switch - June 2
39. Zombie Army 4: Dead War - PlayStation 4 - June 5
40. Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 - Switch - June 6
41. Military Madness - TurboGrafx-16 - June 7
42. Puyo Puyo 2 - Game Gear - June 17
43. Yakuza 0 - Playstation 4 - June 19
44. Neptunia Shooter - Playstation 5 - June 20
45. Little Samson - NES - June 22
46. Tiger-Heli - NES - June 23
47. Blaster Master - NES - June 23
48. Gun-Nac - NES - June 24
49. Rollerblade Racer - NES - June 25
50. Marble Madness - NES - June 25
51. Metroid - NES - June 25
52. Mario Golf: Super Rush - Switch - June 26
53. Metroid: Zero Mission - GBA - June 28
54. Metroid II: Return of Samus - Game Boy - June 29


July (29 Games Beaten)
55. Super Metroid - SNES - July 1
56. Where's Waldo? - NES - July 1
57. Metroid Fusion - GBA - July 2
58. Neptunia ReVerse - PlayStation 5 - July 3
59. Tetris Effect: Connected - Series X - July 3
60. Battletoads - Xbox One - July 4
61. Chicken Police: Paint it Red! - Switch - July 5
62. The Falconeer - Series X - July 7
63. Astral Chain - Switch - July 10
64. Dynowarz: Destruction of Spondylus - NES - July 12
65. Skull and Crossbones - NES - July 12
66. Sky Kid - NES - July 12
67. Top Gun - NES - July 12
68. Top Gun: The Second Mission - NES - July 13
69. Mega Man 7 - SNES - July 13
70. Mega Man X - SNES - July 14
71. Mega Man X2 - SNES - July 15
72. Second Extinction - Series X - July 15
73. Mega Man X3 - SNES - July 16
74. Mega Man: Dr. Wily's Revenge - Game Boy - July 19
75. Mega Man II - Game Boy - July 19
76. Mega Man III - Game Boy - July 19
77. Mega Man IV - Game Boy - July 20
78. Mega Man V - Game Boy - July 20
79. Mega Man Xtreme - GBC - July 21
80. Mega Man Xtreme 2 - GBC - July 21
81. Portal Runner - GBC - July 22
82. Bubsy in Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind - SNES - July 22
83. Cotton Reboot! - Switch - July 27


83. Bubsy in Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind - SNES - July 22

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During the 16-bit era, platformers - especially mascot platformers - were a dime a dozen. Mario was a juggernaut, Sonic was gobbling up market share at a speed matching his gameplay, and everyone else wanted a piece of the action. Enter Bubsy the Bobcat, Accolade’s attempt to cash in on the fad. Now Bubsy isn’t as bad as, say, Awesome Possum, but he’s definitely a B-tier gaming mascot.

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Sonic’s influence on Bubsy is obvious almost to the point where Bubsy is more copying Sonic than inspired by Sonic. Like Sonic, Bubsy builds momentum as he runs and gets a jump boost from landing on enemies. Like Sonic, the level end marker is a spinning marker of Bubsy’s face. Like Sonic, the bosses are enemies in flying contraptions that you have to jump on to damage. To be fair, those are the best things to copy from Sonic; they’re what gave Sonic a distinct and unique style of platforming gameplay and kept him from being a clone of Mario. Unfortunately for Bubsy, there wasn’t any real innovation. The major difference from Sonic that I noticed are pretty much all negatives.

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My biggest issue with Bubsy and something that I think just has no place in a 2D platformer is falling damage. In Sonic games, if you fall from a high platform down to ground level, whatever, just keep running. In Bubsy, you’re dead. In Sonic, if you run super fast and hit a wall, whatever, just jump and keep going. In Bubsy, you get stunned and stand around dazed for a few seconds. These are not deal-breakers per se, but I can’t see how they could add anything fun to a speed-based platformer with enormously vertical stages. My other problem with Bubsy is the controls. It felt too slick, and his momentum was hard to get a feel for and control. It constantly felt almost like I was playing on an ice level but for the entirety of the game. Unlike the falling damage and collision stun, this actually does kind of ruin the whole game for me as controls are pretty much the most integral part of a gameplay experience. Screw up the controls, and your whole game suffers for it.

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It’s a shame that Bubsy: Claws Encountered of the Furred Kind is such a deeply flawed game at the mechanic level because there’s a lot of potential here. Buried beneath the flaws and poor design choices is a likeable (and uniquely 90s) character and a competent platformer. I like Bubsy’s personality. I like his spunk. I like the whole premise of the game - a cat not saving the world from aliens but just the world’s yarn ball supply - is a stupid juxtaposition to its obvious and much more punk-feeling influence, Sonic. The character is absolutely fine, but the game sucks, and that’s just something that no amount of spunk or silly humor can fix. I haven’t played any of the other releases in the series (and I’m shocked it had a whole series), but there’s just nothing worth recommending in this entry.
Exhuminator wrote:Ecchi lords must unite for great justice.

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MrPopo
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Re: Games Beaten 2021

by MrPopo Sun Aug 01, 2021 10:21 pm

Previous Years: 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020

First 50:
1. EYE: Divine Cybermancy - PC
2. Legend of Grimrock - PC
3. Legend of Grimrock 2 - PC
4. Shovel Knight - Wii U
5. Yakuza: Like a Dragon - PS4
6. Yoshi's Island - SNES
7. Vectorman 2 - Genesis
8. Super Mario Sunshine - GC
9. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Master Quest - GC
10. Bomberman '93 - TG-16
11. Cannon Fodder - PC
12. Panzer Dragoon II Zwei - Saturn
13. Dragonborne - Game Boy
14. Rock n' Roll Racing - PC
15. The Lost Vikings - PC
16. Blackthorne - PC
17. Contra III: The Alien Wars - SNES
18. Bravely Default II - Switch
19. Axelay - SNES
20. Ryse: Son of Rome - XBOne
21. Killer Instinct (2013) - XBOne
22. Heretic Kingdoms: The Inquisition - PC
23. Thief: The Dark Project - PC
24. Killer Instinct - XBOne
25. Killer instinct 2 - XBOne
26. Record of Lodoss War: Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth - PC
27. Thief 2: The Metal Age - PC
28. Wing Commander II - PC
29. Wing Commander III - PC
30. The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel IV - Switch
31. Shadow Man Remastered - PC
32. Wing Commander: Privateer - PC
33. Salt and Sanctuary - Switch
34. The Elder Scrolls: Arena - PC
35. The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall - PC
36. Resident Evil Village - PC
37. SaGa Frontier Remastered - Switch
38. Metaloid: Origin - Switch
39. SaGa Scarlet Grace: Ambitions - Switch
40. Metro Exodus: The Two Colonels - PC
41. Metro Exodus: Sam's Story - PC
42. Panzer Paladin - Switch
43. Returnal - PS5
44. Dark Void Zero - DSiWare
45. Panzer Dragoon Saga - Saturn
46. Magic Knight Rayearth - Saturn
47. Cathedral - Switch
48. Final Fantasy VII Remake: INTERmission - PS5
49. Eterium - PC
50. A Street Cat's Tale - Switch

51. Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling - Switch
52. Banner of the Maid - Switch
53. CrossCode - Switch
54. Total Annihilation: The Core Contingency - PC
55. Ultima Underworld - PC
56. Betrayal at Krondor - PC
57. Assassin's Creed: Origins - PC

So I never picked up the Assassin's Creed series, but when I got my last graphics card it came with a free copy. Finally got around to playing it, and it's a solid game that doesn't really do a good job of sucking you into the overarching metanarrative; it really feels like an afterthought that they feel obligated to put in. I had a good time with it, but I have absolutely no interest in tracking down all the little dots on the map. And weirdly a quarter of the map's regions don't get visited in the main plot.

As the title indicates, this game tells the tale of the origins of the Brotherhood of Assassins. It is set in Ptolemaic Egypt, right when all the cool history is happening. You'll get to explore all the locales you learned about in history class, do a bit of tomb robbing, and stab a bunch of guys for being meanie faces. The game came out the same year as Breath of the Wild and Horizon: Zero Dawn, so it's worthwhile to compare and contrast. In structure it's closest to Horizon; an open world game with a main plot pulling you from zone to zone and multiple side quests and side activities. You level up and have a skill tree that gives you abilities that mostly smooth out the experience, like being able to quick assassinate multiple people or gain some neat gadgets. One thing I liked was that from a mobility perspective while it isn't at the "climb everything" level that BotW was, it does have an EXTREMELY generous flagging of surfaces as grippable, rather than Horizon's "find the color coded widgets" style. If you look at a surface and see a place where a finger could get in you can climb it (and sometimes places that look like you couldn't quite get purchase). This makes the overall map fun to traverse, which is important when you are building up a world like this. Oh, and one super awesome piece of quality of life; at the blacksmith you can pay to upgrade your weapon to your current level. Since most loot is random you can get a nice legendary early and then upgrade it every so often so the damage doesn't fall off.

A place where the game falls short compared to Horizon is in the realm of combat. The lack of robo dinosaurs means that you're just always fighting humans, most of whom are very squishy, so the combat gets old very fast. Half of your story kills can be one shotted with the stealth assassination move; it's only the final few that have enough health that you have a boss battle of sorts, and only one of those fights has abilities beyond what the regular dudes have. The stealth in this game also ends up not being very satisfying. Because it's open world they can't craft the kinds of sight lines and such that a dedicated stealth game will have, so it's pretty much always just tag all the enemies, find the hole in the patrol around the large square being guarded, stab one, and then take out the rest. When you find enemies that are married to the buddy system you say fuck it, stab one, and then regular fight the other (and the rest of the camp that just got woken up).

The overall world design is quite lovely. Obviously it's created from the real Nile and surrounding area, so you get all the classical pieces like the pyramids, the sphinx, and cities like Memphis, Alexandria, and Philadelphia. One of the many fast travel points is unlocked on top of the Great Pyramid (when it still had its casing), and it gives you a real appreciation for the scale of the structure. The overall environment also has that neat transition from the fertile parts serviced by water and the desert wastelands surrounding. It's all quite well done.

Overall the game is a solid open world title that explores a region that everyone has learned about but has been quite underused in video games. While it doesn't do a lot to stand out it also tries to keep the friction level low and doesn't have any parts where I go "hmmm... this detracts from the experience". I'd say grab this game if you want to explore Egypt or if you're already a fan of the series. Or if you just really like open world games.
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ElkinFencer10
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Re: Games Beaten 2021

by ElkinFencer10 Mon Aug 02, 2021 8:13 pm

Games Beaten in 2021 - 84
* denotes a replay

January (12 Games Beaten)
1. God of War - PlayStation 3 - January 1
2. God of War II - PlayStation 3 - January 2
3. God of War: Chains of Olympus - PlayStation 3 - January 3
4. God of War: Ghost of Sparta - PlayStation 3 - January 4
5. God of War III - PlayStation 4 - January 6
6. God of War: Ascension - PlayStation 3 - January 9
7. God of War [2018] - PlayStation 4 - January 16
8. Epic Dumpster Bear 2: He Who Bears Wins - PlayStation 4 - January 16
9. God of War: Betrayal - Mobile - January 17
10. Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit - Switch - January 18
11. Muv-Luv photonflowers* - Steam - January 22
12. Muv-Luv photonmelodies♮ - Steam - January 27


February (5 Games Beaten)
13. Gun Gun Pixies - Switch - February 1
14. Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel - PS4 - February 8*
15. Pantsu Hunter: Back to the 90s - Vita - February 13
16. Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II - PS4 - February 17*
17. Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky - Steam - February 23


March (3 Games Beaten)
18. Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky SC - Steam - March 4
19. Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky 3rd - Steam - March 7
20. Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III - PS4 - March 21


April (7 Games Beaten)
21. Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel IV - PS4 - April 5
22. Muv-Luv Unlimited: The Day After 00 - Steam - April 7
23. Muv-Luv Unlimited: The Day After 01 - Steam - April 10
24. Muv-Luv Unlimited: The Day After 02 - Steam - April 11
25. Muv-Luv Unlimited: The Day After 03 - Steam - April 13
26. Neptunia Virtual Stars - PS4 - April 18
27. Before Your Eyes - Steam - April 18


May (9 Games Beaten)
28. New Pokemon Snap - Switch - May 2
29. Resident Evil 8: Village - PS5 - May 8
30. Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age - Switch - May 15
31. Torment: Tides of Numenera - Xbox One - May 18
32. Pepsiman - PS1 - May 20
33. Super Blackjack Battle II Turbo: The Card Fighters - Switch - May 20
34. Reel Fishing: Road Trip Adventure - Switch - May 23
35. Planetscape: Torment - Steam - May 26
36. Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne - Switch - May 31


June (17 Games Beaten)
37. Hentai vs Evil - Switch - June 1
38. Troll and I - Switch - June 2
39. Zombie Army 4: Dead War - PlayStation 4 - June 5
40. Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 - Switch - June 6
41. Military Madness - TurboGrafx-16 - June 7
42. Puyo Puyo 2 - Game Gear - June 17
43. Yakuza 0 - Playstation 4 - June 19
44. Neptunia Shooter - Playstation 5 - June 20
45. Little Samson - NES - June 22
46. Tiger-Heli - NES - June 23
47. Blaster Master - NES - June 23
48. Gun-Nac - NES - June 24
49. Rollerblade Racer - NES - June 25
50. Marble Madness - NES - June 25
51. Metroid - NES - June 25
52. Mario Golf: Super Rush - Switch - June 26
53. Metroid: Zero Mission - GBA - June 28
54. Metroid II: Return of Samus - Game Boy - June 29


July (30 Games Beaten)
55. Super Metroid - SNES - July 1
56. Where's Waldo? - NES - July 1
57. Metroid Fusion - GBA - July 2
58. Neptunia ReVerse - PlayStation 5 - July 3
59. Tetris Effect: Connected - Series X - July 3
60. Battletoads - Xbox One - July 4
61. Chicken Police: Paint it Red! - Switch - July 5
62. The Falconeer - Series X - July 7
63. Astral Chain - Switch - July 10
64. Dynowarz: Destruction of Spondylus - NES - July 12
65. Skull and Crossbones - NES - July 12
66. Sky Kid - NES - July 12
67. Top Gun - NES - July 12
68. Top Gun: The Second Mission - NES - July 13
69. Mega Man 7 - SNES - July 13
70. Mega Man X - SNES - July 14
71. Mega Man X2 - SNES - July 15
72. Second Extinction - Series X - July 15
73. Mega Man X3 - SNES - July 16
74. Mega Man: Dr. Wily's Revenge - Game Boy - July 19
75. Mega Man II - Game Boy - July 19
76. Mega Man III - Game Boy - July 19
77. Mega Man IV - Game Boy - July 20
78. Mega Man V - Game Boy - July 20
79. Mega Man Xtreme - GBC - July 21
80. Mega Man Xtreme 2 - GBC - July 21
81. Portal Runner - GBC - July 22
82. Bubsy in Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind - SNES - July 22
83. Mega Man and Bass - SNES - July 23
84. Cotton Reboot! - Switch - July 27


84. Mega Man and Bass - SNES - July 23

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Mega Man and Bass, while usually thought of as a GBA game in the West, started life as a Japan-only Super Famicom game despite coming out after the release of Mega Man 8 on PlayStation and Sega Saturn. According to NintendoLife, series creator Keiji Inafune thought that he owed Japan’s kids who hadn’t upgraded to a 32-bit system yet one more game, and thus Mega Man and Bass was born. I’ve got a rather complicated view of this game. My Racketboy friends all told me how much this game sucked, and part of me whole-heartedly agrees with them, but I also feel like the game deserves a little more nuanced an assessment than that.

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Mega Man and Bass takes place between Mega Man 8 and Mega Man 9 and serves as a sort of “Mega Man 8.5.” It’s technically a spin-off, but it’s also directly referenced in either 9 or 10 (I forget which), so it’s also kind of a main series game. Regardless, this is a game that snatched defeat from the jaws of victory as far as being a good game goes. You get to choose to play as either Mega Man or Bass, and in a lot of ways, I feel like this is the game’s difficulty setting. The story is pretty much the same with both, but they feel and play radically different. If you choose Bass, that’s the game’s Hard setting; if you choose Mega Man, that’s the game’s Dark Souls setting. There is no Easy or even Normal setting here, and that all comes down to bad level design. I’m absolutely not saying that the game is badly designed because it’s hard; I’m saying that the game is hard because it’s badly designed. Bass gets a weaker blaster but can fire rapidly (which I find to be much more useful in general), and while he can’t do Mega Man’s slide dash, he can double jump. A LOT of the game’s levels were clearly built around this double jump because they require absolute pixel-perfect precision and timing to make jumps with Mega Man. Even with Bass, it’s still hard. I almost tore my hair out on Tengu Man’s stage, and I had access to Bass’s double jump; I can’t imagine trying to get through that as Mega Man.

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The game is also just downright unfair in part. There are several areas where I legitimately see no way to get through without taking damage. Boss patterns can be erratic and unpredictable. The game loves to put instant-death spikes behind pillars or garbage piles so you don’t see them until you hit them or to hide them in areas where your only source of light is a small circle thus making them literally impossible to see until you’re falling onto them. Bosses will spend ten second invulnerable and then give you a one second window to hit a specific spot to do damage. Checkpoints are few and far between, too, and there are a handful of obstacles in stages that EASILY lead to instant death but are a nightmare to figure out how to get past.

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There is, however, something that complicates my writing this game off as garbage - I LOVE playing as Bass. The rapid-fire blaster, the double jump, his general character design - I love all of it. Bass is a BLAST to play as. The game in which you get to play as him just happens to be a sadistic exercise in bullshit made by people who have no purpose in life other than to revel in your misery and pain. In the part of stages that aren’t designed to simulate the fifth circle of Hell, I had a ton of fun. With the first couple boss fights before someone accidentally locked the difficulty at Nightmare, I really enjoyed it. The core gameplay is REALLY solid here. The level and boss design is just such complete and utter BS that it ruins it.

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I have a hard time calling this a truly “bad game.” It’s certainly an unfair game. It’s certainly an unenjoyable game for the most part. It’s certainly a poorly designed game from a level perspective. The actual control, though, is really solid, and the fact that Mega Man and Bass have such drastically different feels to them tells me that the technical side of development here was really competent. It’s a shame that god awful level design ruined what could have been an amazing Super Nintendo game because the end result has too much bullshit for the good to get a chance to shine. Still, though, if you have the Herculean patience to memorize all of the relentless and unreasonable crap in the game, there’s a fun experience buried deep, deep, DEEP beneath the malice.
Exhuminator wrote:Ecchi lords must unite for great justice.

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Re: Games Beaten 2021

by ElkinFencer10 Tue Aug 03, 2021 4:36 pm

Games Beaten in 2021 - 85
* denotes a replay

January (12 Games Beaten)
1. God of War - PlayStation 3 - January 1
2. God of War II - PlayStation 3 - January 2
3. God of War: Chains of Olympus - PlayStation 3 - January 3
4. God of War: Ghost of Sparta - PlayStation 3 - January 4
5. God of War III - PlayStation 4 - January 6
6. God of War: Ascension - PlayStation 3 - January 9
7. God of War [2018] - PlayStation 4 - January 16
8. Epic Dumpster Bear 2: He Who Bears Wins - PlayStation 4 - January 16
9. God of War: Betrayal - Mobile - January 17
10. Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit - Switch - January 18
11. Muv-Luv photonflowers* - Steam - January 22
12. Muv-Luv photonmelodies♮ - Steam - January 27


February (5 Games Beaten)
13. Gun Gun Pixies - Switch - February 1
14. Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel - PS4 - February 8*
15. Pantsu Hunter: Back to the 90s - Vita - February 13
16. Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II - PS4 - February 17*
17. Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky - Steam - February 23


March (3 Games Beaten)
18. Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky SC - Steam - March 4
19. Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky 3rd - Steam - March 7
20. Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III - PS4 - March 21


April (7 Games Beaten)
21. Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel IV - PS4 - April 5
22. Muv-Luv Unlimited: The Day After 00 - Steam - April 7
23. Muv-Luv Unlimited: The Day After 01 - Steam - April 10
24. Muv-Luv Unlimited: The Day After 02 - Steam - April 11
25. Muv-Luv Unlimited: The Day After 03 - Steam - April 13
26. Neptunia Virtual Stars - PS4 - April 18
27. Before Your Eyes - Steam - April 18


May (9 Games Beaten)
28. New Pokemon Snap - Switch - May 2
29. Resident Evil 8: Village - PS5 - May 8
30. Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age - Switch - May 15
31. Torment: Tides of Numenera - Xbox One - May 18
32. Pepsiman - PS1 - May 20
33. Super Blackjack Battle II Turbo: The Card Fighters - Switch - May 20
34. Reel Fishing: Road Trip Adventure - Switch - May 23
35. Planetscape: Torment - Steam - May 26
36. Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne - Switch - May 31


June (17 Games Beaten)
37. Hentai vs Evil - Switch - June 1
38. Troll and I - Switch - June 2
39. Zombie Army 4: Dead War - PlayStation 4 - June 5
40. Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 - Switch - June 6
41. Military Madness - TurboGrafx-16 - June 7
42. Puyo Puyo 2 - Game Gear - June 17
43. Yakuza 0 - Playstation 4 - June 19
44. Neptunia Shooter - Playstation 5 - June 20
45. Little Samson - NES - June 22
46. Tiger-Heli - NES - June 23
47. Blaster Master - NES - June 23
48. Gun-Nac - NES - June 24
49. Rollerblade Racer - NES - June 25
50. Marble Madness - NES - June 25
51. Metroid - NES - June 25
52. Mario Golf: Super Rush - Switch - June 26
53. Metroid: Zero Mission - GBA - June 28
54. Metroid II: Return of Samus - Game Boy - June 29


July (31 Games Beaten)
55. Super Metroid - SNES - July 1
56. Where's Waldo? - NES - July 1
57. Metroid Fusion - GBA - July 2
58. Neptunia ReVerse - PlayStation 5 - July 3
59. Tetris Effect: Connected - Series X - July 3
60. Battletoads - Xbox One - July 4
61. Chicken Police: Paint it Red! - Switch - July 5
62. The Falconeer - Series X - July 7
63. Astral Chain - Switch - July 10
64. Dynowarz: Destruction of Spondylus - NES - July 12
65. Skull and Crossbones - NES - July 12
66. Sky Kid - NES - July 12
67. Top Gun - NES - July 12
68. Top Gun: The Second Mission - NES - July 13
69. Mega Man 7 - SNES - July 13
70. Mega Man X - SNES - July 14
71. Mega Man X2 - SNES - July 15
72. Second Extinction - Series X - July 15
73. Mega Man X3 - SNES - July 16
74. Mega Man: Dr. Wily's Revenge - Game Boy - July 19
75. Mega Man II - Game Boy - July 19
76. Mega Man III - Game Boy - July 19
77. Mega Man IV - Game Boy - July 20
78. Mega Man V - Game Boy - July 20
79. Mega Man Xtreme - GBC - July 21
80. Mega Man Xtreme 2 - GBC - July 21
81. Portal Runner - GBC - July 22
82. Bubsy in Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind - SNES - July 22
83. Mega Man and Bass - SNES - July 23
84. Cotton Reboot! - Switch - July 27
85. Yakuza Kiwami 2 - PlayStation 4 - July 29


85. Yakuza Kiwami 2 - PlayStation 4 - July 29

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Yakuza Kiwami 2 is an expanded remake of the PS2's Yakuza 2 and, in my opinion, definitely the better way to experience that game in 2021. A word of advice to those considering starting the Yakuza series for the first time - MAKE SURE you play Yakuza 0 BEFORE you play Kiwami 2. I was originally going to play them in release order and just substitute Kiwami and Kiwami 2 in for 1 and 2; fortunately, I decided to play 0 after Kiwami but before Kiwami 2. There are a lot of things in Kiwami 2 that are either easier, make more sense, or outright can't be fully appreciated without having played 0 first. There's my little PSA for y'all.

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Yakuza Kiwami 2 takes place about year after the events of the first game. Fortunately, for those who played the first game long enough before this one to forget a lot of details, there's a spot right at the beginning that lets you view recaps of the events of Kiwami to refresh your memory. I usually give a synopsis of the story, but given that the events of this game are so closely tied to the events of the first game, and that game is such a masterpiece, I'm going to skip the synopsis so as not to spoil anything about Kiwami 1 accidentally for anyone who may not yet have started their Yakuza journey. As far as the core game goes - as is always the case with Yakuza, there's a TON of optional side stuff to do - it's a highly cinematic masterpiece that never really slows down until the credits roll, and even then, there are after credit scenes to wrap up a few story elements. If that's all you do, though, then you're missing SO much of what Yakuza has to offer. There are literally dozens of side stories as well as two entire optional storylines embedded in the game's two major mini-games.

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The first of these two major side story mini-games makes a return of Yakuza 0 - the Cabaret Club Czar, although this time it's called Cabaret Club Grand Prix. The premise is basically the same - there's an evil conglomerate that controls a bunch of shady cabaret clubs, and you've got to beat them in a competition to put your club on the top of the food chain and shut down the shady dudes. If you played through the cabaret club storyline in Yakuza 0, then you've got a head start here because the hand signals that the girls use are the same. There are a few tweaks to the stats and whatnot, and the "Trouble" events that happen when you badly mismatch a customer with a girl have been refined to make more sense and be MUCH easier to resolve, but at its heart, it's the same. You won't be rolling in billions of yen like you were in Yakuza 0, but since you don't use money to upgrade your stats and abilities in Kiwami 2 (more on that in a bit), you don't need NEARLY as much cash, so you end up an equivalent level of "unnecessarily wealthy."

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The other major side story mini-game is Majima Construction. Majima has left the Tojo Clan and started a construction business. However, a shady rival business (see a pattern?) is trying to shut him down by wrecking his equipment. Kiryu finds himself in the position of foreman in charge of the construction crews and has to order them about to protect the equipment. This basically Majima: Total War. You can have up to nine Majima Construction employees on a team, and you have to protect the equipment against wave after wave - plus the occasional boss (or bosses) - of enemies. This is more of a money sink than a money maker, so I personally would suggest completing Cabaret Club Grand Prix before tackling this one, but you don't have to; I did Majima Construction first. It's also to your benefit to wait till towards the end of the game to do this storyline because a lot of the employees you can recruit to fight are unlocked from sub-stories and side encounters as you play through the game. This is also true of Cabaret Club Grand Prix, so that advice applies there, as well.

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I'll be frank in that it's been long enough since I played Yakuza Kiwami that I don't remember exactly how it handled upgrading your stats and abilities, so I'll refrain from drawing comparisons. In Kiwami 2, you get experience points from eating, fighting, completing objectives, and checking things off your Completion List. There are five different categories of experience points, and different upgrades and stat increases require different types and amounts of experience points. You want to make sure you're eating a LOT because that's a good regular way to keep the experience points coming in. You have an appetite limit, and eating above that keeps you from getting any experience points, so keep an eye on that and have a snack whenever you pass a restaurant.

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As fantastic as the combat in this game - and it's truly satisfying - the story is definitely the star of the show. The characters are AMAZINGLY developed, the voice acting is fantastic even if it is exclusively in Japanese, and the narrative is riveting. Of course, if you've played other Yakuza games, you'll know that that's just par for the course; part of what makes Yakuza so damn good is that it's consistently telling an amazing story with amazing characters. It's almost frustrating to have the side stuff in the game because the side stories are too good to ignore, but the main story is so incredibly good that you don't want to deviate from it. It's an amazing problem to have, but it does get a bit frustrating.

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I had originally planned to dive straight into Yakuza 3 after finishing Kiwami 2. As with Kiwami 1 and 0, however, I find myself in need of a Yakuza break after this game because of how long it is. It took me roughly 50 hours to get through Kiwami 2 between the side stuff, the main story, and just trying to experience all the game had to offer (and I still only got about 2/3 of the trophies). You absolutely get your money's worth here both in quantity and quality of game, but you will probably feel some game fatigue by the time you're done. The Dragon of Dojima never disappoints, but he does exhaust.

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Yakuza Kiwami 2 is a masterpiece of a game. I've only played three Yakuza games so far - 0, Kiwami, and Kiwami 2 - but all three have been absolute masterpiece games. If any game series deserves a television adaptation, it's Yakuza (although they'd probably screw it up). The characters and stories are just so deep and well-written that you'll NEVER be bored with the main story. Some of the side stories and mini-games can get tedious at times, but the main story is turned up to 10 from start to finish. The entire series (almost) is on Game Pass, so if you're an Xbox or PC gamer, you're in luck; Yakuza is no longer a solely PlayStation series. It's not going to be everyone's cup of tea - you definitely need the attention span for long games to get through Yakuza - but if you're into long and heavily narrative-driven games, Yakuza is about as good as it gets, and Kiwami 2 is an exemplar of that.
Exhuminator wrote:Ecchi lords must unite for great justice.

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PartridgeSenpai
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Re: Games Beaten 2021

by PartridgeSenpai Tue Aug 03, 2021 11:12 pm

Partridge Senpai's 2021 Beaten Games:
Previously: 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
* indicates a repeat

Games 1~51
1. Atelier Rorona: The Alchemist of Arland (PS3)
2. Portal 2 (PC) *
3. Atelier Judie: The Alchemist of Gramnad (PS2)
4. Pipo Saru 2001 (PS2)
5. Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon (N64)
6. Atelier Viorate: The Alchemist of Gramnad 2 (PS2)
7. Kirby's Dream Land 3 (SFC)
8. The Legend of Mystical Ninja (SFC)
9. Atelier Marie: The Alchemist of Salburg (PS1)
10. Ganbare Goemon 2 (SFC)
11. Paper Mario: Origami King (Switch)
12. Star Fox 64 (N64) *
13. Super Paper Mario (Wii) *
14. Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door (GC) *
15. Demon's Crest (SNES)
16. Cathedral (Switch)
17. Super Mario 3D World (Switch) *
18. Bowser's Fury (Switch)
19. Rogue Heroes: Ruins of Tasos (Switch)
20. moon (Switch)
21. Casltevania 64 (N64)
22. Captain Rainbow (Wii)
23. Doraemon: Nobita To Mittsu No Seireiseki (N64)
24. Blast Corps (N64)
25. Doraemon 2: Nobita To Hikari No Shinden (N64)
26. Custom Robo (N64)
27. Doraemon 3: Nobita No Machi SOS! (N64)
28. 64 Trump Collection: Alice No Wakuwaku Trump World (N64)
29. The Sunken City (PS4)
30. Lair of the Clockwork God (Switch)
31. Star Fox Adventures (GC)
32. Atelier Elie: The Alchemist of Salburg 2 (PS1)
33. Billy Hatcher & The Giant Egg (GC)
34. Mole Mania (GB)
35. Gargoyle's Quest (GB)
36. Rock Man 4 (Famicom) *
37. Wai Wai World (Famicom)
38. Mega Man: Dr. Wily's Revenge (GB)
39. Mega Man (Switch) *
40. Mega Man 2 (Switch) *
41. Mega Man 3 (Switch) *
42. Rock Man 5 (Famicom) *
43. Mega Man 6 (Switch)
44. Mega Man 7 (Switch) *
45. Mega Man 8 (Switch) *
46. Mega Man 9 (Switch) *
47. Mega Man 10 (Switch)
48. Rock Man World 2 (GB) *
49. Rock Man World 3 (GB)
50. Rock Man World 4 (GB)
51. Rock Man World 5 (GB)

52. Wai Wai World 2 (Famicom)
53. Tiny Toon Adventures (Famicom)
54. King Kong 2: Ikari No Megaton Punch (Famicom)
55. Yume Pengin Monogatari (Famicom)
56. Rock Man & Forte (SFC)
57. Rock Man X2 (Switch)
58. Rock Man X3 (Switch)
59. Rock Man X4 (Switch)
60. Rock Man X5 (Switch)
61. Rock Man X6 (Switch)
62. Rock Man X7 (Switch)
63. Rock Man X8 (Switch)
64. Mega Man: Powered Up (PSP)
65. Magical Taruruuto Kun: FANTASTIC WORLD!! (Famicom)
66. Maken Shao (PS2)
67. Getsu Fuuma Den (Famicom)
68. Rock Man D.A.S.H (PSP)
69. Brave Fencer Musashi (PS1)
70. Joe & Mac (SFC) *
71. Atelier Lilie: The Alchemist of Salburg 3 (PS2)
72. Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link (Famicom)
73. The Bouncer (PS2)
74. Rapid Angel (PS1)
75. Atelier Totori: The Alchemist of Arland 2 (PS3)
76. Drakengard 3 (PS3)
77. Alwa's Awakening (Switch)
78. Hermina & Culus (PS2)
79. Atelier Meruru: The Alchemist of Arland 3 (PS3)
80. Splatterhouse: Wanpaku Graffiti (Switch)
81. Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana (PS2)
82. Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana 2 (PS2)

83. Mario Kart 64 (N64)

This is a game I've owned in some form or another for basically my entire life (granted it was originally my big brother's copy, but still ;b), but I've never actually played all that much. When I was getting old enough to actually properly play racing games, Mario Kart Double Dash!! was my flavor of choice when it came to Mario Kart games. I decided it was high time that I sit down and give a go at actually seeing this game's credits myself. It took me some 6 or so hours to get gold in all the cups from 50cc to 150cc in the Japanese version on original hardware.

Mario Kart 64 is only the second entry in the series, and it's also a pretty damn early N64 title. It boasts eight racers just as the original did, but they all play identically whether its you or the AI controlling them. There are 16 tracks (4 tracks for 4 cups), which all add a level of 3D depth not found in the original SNES game. The control is pretty damn solid, although I really never got a good grasp on how things like drift boosting work ^^;. However, playing through it again, I realized all over again why I didn't like this game very much as a kid (outside of the fact that I'm still not too great at it :b).

For every really tight and well-designed track, there's another with some really rough or overly mean design element in it (such as the several tracks like Choco Mountain where if you get bumped off at a certain point, you don't get knocked off, but pushed WAY back on the track, giving you an unrecoverable last place). This also goes beyond design and veers into technical difficulties, as this is such an early N64 game that there are often resolution issues that make it difficult to actually see upcoming small holes in the track or obstacles in the track laid by opponents. Some design difficulties are there sorta unintentionally (such as how in the extra mirror mode cups, the cars on Toad's Freeway drive towards you instead of away from you), but overall it's a pretty frustrating experience compared to later Mario Kart games.

This also has to do with the way your AI opponents play, which often feels in a way totally alien to how you have to play. This game has some absolutely brutal AI rubberbanding, but only if you're winning. If they're winning, they don't slow down to compensate, and they'll quickly get totally untouchable leads on higher difficulties. They tend to play by the rules if they're in your line of sight, but as soon as you lose sight of them, they begin cheating their little coded butts off. This feels doubly unfair on tracks like Bowser's Castle, where there are obstacles that very clearly only activate when the player gets near them. Then combine that with how red shells still operate by homing in as the crow flies (therefore being useless outside of when you have very clear line of sight); lightning bolts only slow down but not stop enemies; and blue shells are very rare, only obtainable by the player, and not very good; and you have a combination that makes it feel like you're the only fair player in the cheater's league.

The presentation of the game is very good, when it isn't introducing technical limitations regarding view distance. It runs very well technically, the character portraits are expressive and cute, and the music is absolutely excellent. There are lots of little touches with the design that I loved as well, like how all the sound effects your car makes are shown in words just like a manga would (from the POOMP when you come down from a big landing, to the VVVVVEEEEEEEE letters that appear one after another from your tires when you're doing a big drift X3). The Japanese and English versions of the game are very similar mechanically, from what I could tell, with only some visual differences in the signs in stages as well as character names (with Bowser being Koopa, and DK very amusingly being "D. Kong" X3).


Verdict: Not Recommended. If you're looking for an N64 game that has a fun multiplayer mode (particularly the battle mode), then this one is a game worth considering, but all of the single player content is by and large not worth the frustration its era demands. The AI's benefits are too many and your catch up mechanics are far too few. There are is no shortage of excellent racing games on the N64, and while early entries on the console like this are valuable historically, they are not entries that demand returning to in the modern day beyond simple curiosity.

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84. Super Mario Kart (SFC)

Not feeling like my quest to engage with earlier Mario Kart games was done, I decided to fire up my Super Famicom Mini and give a go at trying to complete the original game in the series as well. Where Mario Kart 64 was a game I owned for many years as a kid and played on and off many times, Super Mario Kart was never a game I played all that much. I picked it up when I was much older, and never really put much time into it beyond just seeing how it played (and bouncing off of it very quickly). I don't really know what I was expecting this game to be, given how much I didn't really care for its sequel, but I still blown away at just how rough a first entry this was. I only used rewinds on the final track (to finally free myself of the torment XP), and it took me a little under 2 hours to get gold on all the cups in 50cc and 100cc.

Boasting a mighty 20 tracks (5 in each cup) as well as a battle mode, there's quite a hefty amount of content in this game compared to its sequel (at least on paper). Just like 64, Super Mario Kart has a co-op two-player mode as well as Vs. features, the basic mechanics of racing work quite well, and it has a very cool split-screen design for its races. If you're doing 2-players, you each get a portion of the screen, but if you're playing by yourself, that bottom screen becomes your mini-map of how the other racers are doing (although you sadly get no mini-map if you're playing with a friend). However, outside of these clever touches, there is no small amount of glaring issues that would've frustrated players even at the time.

First off there are small things that make playing the game a little more frustrating than it feels like it needs to be. First of all are small touches that its sequels would also struggle with in how it's often hard to distinguish between holes in the track and the actual track because of how the Mode 7 tracks are displayed. Then you have issues like how this has a life system, and you get only so many lives in a cup before you just get a game over. This isn't like F-Zero, where you can fall off and outright die, but you actually NEED to get 4th place or higher (out of 8 racers) or else you just need to redo the track. This can be a nice redo feature if you're in a situation where you need to beat a certain opponent to win, but it more often comes off as a needless frustration, especially with a scoring system that often calculates to you "winning" the cup via points even if you would get 0 points on the current track.

Then there are much deeper seeded problems in how the AI works aside from just how brutal their rubberbanding is (and let me tell you, it's extreme). In Mario Kart 64, it often feels like the AI are playing a different game to you, but in Super Mario Kart, they very observably are playing a different game to you, and them appearing on your track to interact with is often more of a formality. The same CPUs will often win tracks because items don't work for them as they work for you. While you are limited to a single item per lap (of which there are five per track), they all get items for free after a certain amount of time depending on characters. DK. Jr. gets free bananas, Toad and Peach get mushrooms that make you small until you get run over (meaning you've basically lost if you hit one on 100cc), Mario & Luigi get invincibility stars, and Koopa amazingly enough gets shells both red and green (meaning you really need to play him if you want a chance at winning single player races at all).

AI don't even get boosts in tracks (they'll drive over them but get no effect) and drive right through thwomps as well. The only thing they do interact with is the edges of the stage, and I only won a couple tracks because I was lucky enough to have Luigi (the eternal AI 1st place favorite) get stuck against a wall for most of the race. Your items on the other hand are, as mentioned, very few and often quite weak, as lighting bolts still only temporarily slow instead of stop your opponents, and red shells still go as the crow flies (making them useless unless you have line of sight, and this is another Mario Kart where the AI will start cheating their butts off as soon as they escape your line of sight). This is another case where if you start losing, it's nearly impossible to catch up because they get so many automatic advantages, and it makes the single player content very often miserable to try and engage with.

The presentation is quite good, at the very least. The graphics are bright and colorful (especially the racers), and the Mode 7 effects on the tracks looks nice when it isn't confusing you on where the floor is actually solid. The music is also very good, although there aren't a ton of musical tracks in the game in the first place.


Verdict: Not Recommended. Where there is some enjoyment to be gotten out of a game like Mario Kart 64, Super Mario Kart is a game I'd argue wasn't even good when it came out. It is an easily inferior game to F-Zero (which is older than it by about two years), and looking back it is amazing which series ended up continuing so far given the quality of their first entries (discounting things like the unstoppable popularity of Super Mario himself, of course ;b). This is a game that does not warrant returning to unless you simply have to experience where the series came from, as there is very little fun to be found here outside of conquering all of the crap the game puts in front of you.

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85. Mario Kart Super Circuit (3DS)

To close out my quest of beating Mario Kart games I never quite finished as a child, I decided to boot up Super Circuit on my 3DS. I don't really remember if I'd ever beaten this game on the GBA as a kid. I do remember playing it a fair bit, but I also remember being confused on how new tracks were actually unlocked, so I'm doubtful if baby me ever actually properly completed it. It took me a bit over 3 hours to beat all of the normal courses on 50cc to 150cc in the English version of the game (but I didn't bother putting in the time to unlock or beat all of the SNES tracks, as I'd more than had my fill of those XP).

Being the 3rd entry in the series, Super Circuit is a weird beast in how it combines aspects of both the 2D SNES original with updates from the N64 title and beyond. For starters, it plays much more like the SNES title in that we're once again on flat tracks in a "Mode 7" style (although this isn't true Mode 7, of course). However, tracks have a bit more going on in them, a little like the N64 version, and items have been improved significantly (mostly in how the red shell FINALLY does not travel as the crow flies, so it finally has some greater utility as a catch up mechanic). Boasting multiplayer over cable connection and twenty tracks on its own (including an extra 20 in the form of unlockable SNES tracks), Super Circuit has quite the loadout when it comes to trying to outdo its console-borne predecessors.

As far as the racing goes, this is the first one that actually starts to feel fairer in a fun way. The AI does still feel a bit too rubberband-y when it comes to its competency, but it doesn't nearly feel like you're playing against a bunch of hackers like the first two games did. Sadly, the reintroduction of the Mode 7-like graphics style reintroduces the larger problem the first game had in regards to it being difficult to see gaps in the track. This is a problem worsened further by the small GBA screen (even playing it on my larger 3DS XL screen, it was still hard to do this). Another unfortunate callback to the SNES days is the reintroduction of the 3-life system, so even though your score in the cup can mean that you could get first place 3 times and still be assured a 1st place victory with 0 points scored in the last track, you still need to get 4th place or higher to not have to redo the track completely. That was a bad idea in 1992, and it is still bad in 2001.

One more small introduction to this game is that even though there are still only 8 racers, you have differences between them now in regards to their speeds and weights. The only issue with that is that it isn't balanced super great, and especially on higher difficulties, the way the AI spins you out if a heavier character bumps you can feel very overly mean when combined with their high-difficulty-cheat-speeds they can reach.

The presentation is very good, as would be expected from a Nintendo first party game. You have fast moving, colorful sprites, and very nice looking characters. The music is also very good, with lots of remixes of classics alongside new good tunes as well.


Verdict: Hesitantly Recommended. The jump from this to Double Dash!! would still be another massive leap in quality, but this is the first one of these three that I had enough fun with that I can actually recommend on any level. The later difficulties still get a bit too hard with how the AI can cheat, but it's nowhere near the level of how bad it can get in the previous two games. This is where Mario Kart actually starts getting fun beyond being a party vs. game, and it's a better game for it.
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PartridgeSenpai
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Re: Games Beaten 2021

by PartridgeSenpai Thu Aug 05, 2021 4:08 am

Partridge Senpai's 2021 Beaten Games:
Previously: 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
* indicates a repeat

Games 1~51
1. Atelier Rorona: The Alchemist of Arland (PS3)
2. Portal 2 (PC) *
3. Atelier Judie: The Alchemist of Gramnad (PS2)
4. Pipo Saru 2001 (PS2)
5. Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon (N64)
6. Atelier Viorate: The Alchemist of Gramnad 2 (PS2)
7. Kirby's Dream Land 3 (SFC)
8. The Legend of Mystical Ninja (SFC)
9. Atelier Marie: The Alchemist of Salburg (PS1)
10. Ganbare Goemon 2 (SFC)
11. Paper Mario: Origami King (Switch)
12. Star Fox 64 (N64) *
13. Super Paper Mario (Wii) *
14. Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door (GC) *
15. Demon's Crest (SNES)
16. Cathedral (Switch)
17. Super Mario 3D World (Switch) *
18. Bowser's Fury (Switch)
19. Rogue Heroes: Ruins of Tasos (Switch)
20. moon (Switch)
21. Casltevania 64 (N64)
22. Captain Rainbow (Wii)
23. Doraemon: Nobita To Mittsu No Seireiseki (N64)
24. Blast Corps (N64)
25. Doraemon 2: Nobita To Hikari No Shinden (N64)
26. Custom Robo (N64)
27. Doraemon 3: Nobita No Machi SOS! (N64)
28. 64 Trump Collection: Alice No Wakuwaku Trump World (N64)
29. The Sunken City (PS4)
30. Lair of the Clockwork God (Switch)
31. Star Fox Adventures (GC)
32. Atelier Elie: The Alchemist of Salburg 2 (PS1)
33. Billy Hatcher & The Giant Egg (GC)
34. Mole Mania (GB)
35. Gargoyle's Quest (GB)
36. Rock Man 4 (Famicom) *
37. Wai Wai World (Famicom)
38. Mega Man: Dr. Wily's Revenge (GB)
39. Mega Man (Switch) *
40. Mega Man 2 (Switch) *
41. Mega Man 3 (Switch) *
42. Rock Man 5 (Famicom) *
43. Mega Man 6 (Switch)
44. Mega Man 7 (Switch) *
45. Mega Man 8 (Switch) *
46. Mega Man 9 (Switch) *
47. Mega Man 10 (Switch)
48. Rock Man World 2 (GB) *
49. Rock Man World 3 (GB)
50. Rock Man World 4 (GB)
51. Rock Man World 5 (GB)

52. Wai Wai World 2 (Famicom)
53. Tiny Toon Adventures (Famicom)
54. King Kong 2: Ikari No Megaton Punch (Famicom)
55. Yume Pengin Monogatari (Famicom)
56. Rock Man & Forte (SFC)
57. Rock Man X2 (Switch)
58. Rock Man X3 (Switch)
59. Rock Man X4 (Switch)
60. Rock Man X5 (Switch)
61. Rock Man X6 (Switch)
62. Rock Man X7 (Switch)
63. Rock Man X8 (Switch)
64. Mega Man: Powered Up (PSP)
65. Magical Taruruuto Kun: FANTASTIC WORLD!! (Famicom)
66. Maken Shao (PS2)
67. Getsu Fuuma Den (Famicom)
68. Rock Man D.A.S.H (PSP)
69. Brave Fencer Musashi (PS1)
70. Joe & Mac (SFC) *
71. Atelier Lilie: The Alchemist of Salburg 3 (PS2)
72. Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link (Famicom)
73. The Bouncer (PS2)
74. Rapid Angel (PS1)
75. Atelier Totori: The Alchemist of Arland 2 (PS3)
76. Drakengard 3 (PS3)
77. Alwa's Awakening (Switch)
78. Hermina & Culus (PS2)
79. Atelier Meruru: The Alchemist of Arland 3 (PS3)
80. Splatterhouse: Wanpaku Graffiti (Switch)
81. Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana (PS2)
82. Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana 2 (PS2)
83. Mario Kart 64 (N64)
84. Super Mario Kart (SFC)
85. Mario Kart Super Circuit (3DS)

86. Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time (N64) *

This is a game I've beaten before, but it's been a LONG time. The last time I played through OoT was back when the 3DS port came out a decade ago. It's never been a super favorite of mine among 3D Zeldas, but a friend of mine who really really likes it was talking about it recently, and I got the itch to play through it again. I picked it up for really cheap, and it took me about 25 or so hours to beat the Japanese version of the game on original hardware while getting about half of the heart pieces.

Ocarina of Time (at least at the time) positioned itself as the earliest point in the Zelda timeline: a game that would shed light on exactly who this Ganon fellow is and just why he cares so much about Zelda, the Triforce, and this Link fella. Our hero Link is sent on a quest by the Great Deku Tree to meet up with Princess Zelda and stop this darkness he feels creeping over the land, and this is a quest that brings you to every corner of Hyrule and even seven years in the future. It brings the story to life in a really spectacular way (in the most literal meaning of the word) that still holds up well today.

While it may not have the deepest story in the world (and at times feels like it may've originally been meant to have one), it does have some nice themes around not giving up in the face of despair. The characters are overall fairly shallow, and it's much more a game around Link's adventure than anything else. That said, they really aren't trying to be, and they do the job of supporting Link's adventure well. It may not have the appeal of deeper writing or characters that some other games in the series have, but the brisk pace of the adventure and the solid use of the characters it does have more than makes up for that.

The main meat of the game is overworld questing, find new dungeon, get item in dungeon, complete dungeon, rinse and repeat. It's more or less the same as Zelda games had been before this too, but this does it in an excellent fashion that's still super impressive to this day. Nintendo REALLY wanted Zelda's jump to 3D to hit as hard as Mario's had a few years prior, and damn if they didn't hit the nail on the head.

Dungeon and boss design is all around really solid. There is some clunkyness in just how maze-like some dungeons are, however. Wandering from room to room hoping to find that place you passed a key by or can now use a key can be a real pain in some of them. Though there is at times some confusion on exactly where to go or what to do next on the overworld as well, Navi's hints do a pretty good job of kicking you in the right direction when you need it. She's just not quite as helpful in the more complicated dungeons. This is far from the truth for all dungeons, but enough of them had me wandering around for a good while just trying to bump into the next thing to do that I couldn't not mention it here.

The only other thing I'd say is worth mentioning in the complaints department is that I really wish you could tap L to swap between C-button loadouts. You assign the myriad of items you have to three of the C buttons, but even then you're constantly going in and out of your inventory to change stuff. That goes double for going into your inventory to take your iron or hover boots on and off, or changing which tunic you're wearing. It's not a game breaking problem by any means, but just how clunky the inventory management can be at times is one of the biggest areas where this game shows its age (and is why they significantly improved upon the inventory management in the 3DS version).

Presentation is excellent, with tons of super varied environments, beautiful character designs, and creepy looking enemies all with a timeless artistic style. I like polygonal graphics as a given, sure, but OoT really does hold up as a game that uses the polygons it has to give the game an art style that still really stands up all these years later (even though the resolution can be pretty cramped at times). The music is just as timeless too, with tons of super memorable tracks spawning from this game, even for a Zelda game.

Verdict: Highly Recommended. It's likely no surprise that this is a game I recommend highly, but it was definitely a surprise to me that I enjoyed the game quite as much as I did. I tend to be pretty hot and cold when it comes to games in the OoT style, and my playthroughs of Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword (not to mention even the 3DS version of this all those years ago) had really convinced me this just wasn't a style of game I could gel with anymore. I was very happy to have been proven wrong, and this is absolutely still a game worth checking out.
I identify everyone via avatar, so if you change your avatar, I genuinely might completely forget who you are. -- Me
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