Summer Games Challenge 2023 - STARTS NOW!

[bmoc]

Asura's Wrath(PS3)
Metal Gear Solid (PS1)
Snatcher (Sega CD)
Rondo of Blood (PCECD)
Bonk's Adventure (TGCD)
Clock Tower - The First Fear (PS1-J)
Gaia Seed (PS1-J)
Metroid Zero Mission (WiiU)
Armored Core (PS1)
Rain (PS3)
TALL Inifinity (PS1)

I've played plenty of Castlevania games over the years but I never stuck with them long enough to beat one. Today that all changes. I've beat my first Castlevania game - Rondo of Blood.

Rondo of Blood has some absolutely gorgeous pixel art and a fantastic soundtrack. I can see why it is held in such high regard. It is graphically impressive for the time period and it still holds up today. Konami had some excellent talent back then.

Rondo of Blood is a very linear game but there are branching paths you can take. I didn't find many secrets on my first playthrough. I especially need to go back and unlock Maria. I'll be honest though, I very much abused save states for this one. I feel like I could have beaten it legitimately but I just didn't want to put in the time to learn the boss patterns by restarting the game over and over or watching YouTube videos. Aside from the bosses, the bats on the first part of level 7 gave me a really hard time. They spawn in random places, have random trajectories, and sometimes pause in midair making them hard to reliably jump over.

That said. I still enjoyed my time with Rondo of Blood and I'll likely go back to it before the end of the year. Perhaps I'll even squeeze in Symphony of the Night before the new year.

[Limewater]

So I'm thinking about the summer games challenge.

When does it start?

[bmoc]

So I'm thinking about the summer games challenge.

When does it start?

Asura's Wrath(PS3)
Metal Gear Solid (PS1)
Snatcher (Sega CD)
Rondo of Blood (PCECD)
Bonk's Adventure (TGCD)
Clock Tower - The First Fear (PS1-J)
Gaia Seed (PS1-J)
Metroid Zero Mission (WiiU)
Armored Core (PS1)
Rain (PS3)
TALL Inifinity (PS1)

I beat Metal Gear Solid last night. I haven't played this in a loooong time. There's a decent story in there but a lot of the dialogue is super cringy. The voice acting is top notch though. They did the best they could with the lines they had.

I don't mind fixed camera angles in most games but I found it super frustrating in MGS. There were many times that I wanted to shoot an enemy but couldn't because he would path outside of my field of view before I can get close enough to shoot without being seen. The sniper rifle helped some with that after I acquired it. I also disliked the infinite stream of enemies that come after you when you are spotted. In a lot of cases, getting spotted meant that it is better to just die and continue from the game's last checkpoint.

I did enjoy most of the boss battles though. It was fun to cut loose after tip toeing around all the time. However, I really hated the hand to hand battle with Liquid Snake. I was so ready to be done with him after that battle.

I've got Metal Gear Solid 2, 3, and 4 that I haven't played yet. Hopefully the later entries have some quality of life improvements.

[Syndicate]

Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master
Midnight Resistance
Ranger X
Super Mario Galaxy 2
Castlevania Symphony of the Night
Phantasy Star
Krusty's Super Funhouse
Biohazard Battle

...so I finally finished Super Mario Galaxy 2 last night and was really wrong about it being a blast...it was work . I have some real thoughts on this one, specifically I didn't expect the game to be so difficult. I'm no stranger to 3D platformers, but SMG2 imho is far and away the most difficult 3D Mario game I have ever played. I went in thinking it would be a cakewalk but was very surprised to get smacked in the face by the levels in the first "world." To me the difficulty seems be from a combination of interestingly devious (w/some real obtuse moments) level design and the forced incorporation of waggle mechanics. It's a good thing that lives are so incredibly earn in most Mario games, b/c you're going to need them. There were some levels (including the frustrating mini games) where I burned a ton of lives or in the mini games, time. I've never run into a game that made me want to throw something, I powered through though, even ignoring judgy astral Rosalina and the big purple luma that offered its observation of how tough that level was. Everything in SMG2 isn't bad though, most of it is incredibly polished and filled with awesome and clever set pieces and gameplay all with an awesome score to back things up. I unlocked the bonus world and some Prankster Comets, but I'm pretty sure I'm done. I'd say next up is Bio-Hazard Battle, but I'm kind of terrible at shmups now days, so I'm not thinking that going to happen before officially summer ends later in September

[alienjesus]

1. Castlevania II: Simon's Quest (NES)
2. Terranigma (SNES)
3. Star Wars Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader (GC)
4. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 (GC)
5. Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back (PS1)
6. Jumping Flash (PS1)
7. Dark Cloud (PS2)
8. Sly Raccoon (PS2)
9. Sakura Wars (Saturn)
10. Samba De Amigo (DC)

It's been a little while since I last updated, but I finished my summer games list today! Even though I've been taking part in this challenge since pretty much the beginning, this is actually the first time I've ever finished up the whole list, so I'm feeling pretty pleased with myself!

I beat Sakura Wars a few days ago. My opinion on the game is positive overall, even if it does have a few questionable aspects and is not quite as good as the later entry I've played on Wii. I got Kohran's ending, for the handful of people who might be familiar with the game, and I found the game to be a lighthearted and easygoing time. I've seen that in the year it came out a lot of Japanese publications rated Sakura Wars higher than they rated Mario 64. I don't think it's that good, but it's certainly worth a play, especially now it's been fan-translated.

The last few days have been spent with Samba De Amigo. I'm not going to lie - when I put it on my summer list, I figured it would be a nice easy game to finish - play through all the songs on each difficulty, play a few mini games and done. What I didn't account for was that this game has credits locked behind a challenge mode where you have to beat specific missions - and this mode is no joke. It's split into 5 difficulties, each with up to 5 challenges in, and as soon as difficulty 2, the game is demanding perfects from you on songs (no misses at all). By the time I made it to rank 5, the game was making me play on the secret 'super-hard' difficulty which is only available via cheat code, and forcing me to get perfects on some of the most difficult hard mode songs. It was pretty brutal!

I ended up using the Dreamcast controller for most of it, unfortunately, rather than the maracas. This was partially because my maracas are having some issues, but honestly, even if they werent I would have swapped - the incredibly difficult requirements in challenge mode just require more precision than the motion controlled maracas are capable of giving you. The downside to using the controller though is that it started to hurt my hands a bit on the later challenges, as the game frequently requires you to hit multiple face buttons at once to hit 4 of the 6 note targets, and the already very uncomofrtable DC controller really isn't well laid out for resting your thumb over multiple face buttons at once. Still, despite the unexpected difficulty and some residual pain in my hands, I did really like Samba De Amigo - it's addictive and fun. As a victory lap I did some arcade mode runs and played all of the songs through on hard one last time - including the 9 DLC songs I had downloaded, which were all from other Sega titles.

I hope everyone else's challenge is going well. Anyone planning to keep going into September?

[prfsnl_gmr]

A WINNER IS YOU!

Nice work, @AJ! Are you the first person ever to complete the challenge?

(Also, I plan on continuing the challenge after I wrap up TOTK…which could be months from now!)

EDIT: Quietly working through my list…

Blazing Lazers]
Karate Champ
Legendary Axe
Mappy
MERCS
Metal Slug 3
Shock Troopers
Trojan
Twinkle Star Sprites
Windjammers

[prfsnl_gmr]

Let’s face it…Summer’s really more a state of mind than it is a “season” with a well-defined date range…

Keeping that in mind, I am very happy to report that I completed my 2023 Summer Games Challenge! I’ve been slowing picking away at these since I beat TOTK, and when I played though Shock Troopers tonight, I crossed the last game off my list!

Blazing Lazers
Karate Champ
Legendary Axe
Mappy
MERCS
Metal Slug 3
Shock Troopers
Trojan
Twinkle Star Sprites
Windjammers

Better late than never!

[BoneSnapDeez]

Shock Troopers is a lot of fun. One of the better Neo titles. I'm gonna hit the sequel when I have a chance (it looks completely different).