Update:

Game #11 : Soldner-X 2: Final Prototype

Rating: ★★★★☆ | Platform: PSV | Beaten: 28/03/2015 | Time: 01:00 h

Huge surprised to me. I've won this game in gaf lottery.
Game is a very good shmup, however very short, too. I saw credits in 1h. Of course there is still a huge amount of secret to unlocked and I want still to play it. Great levels design and great opponents.

Game #12 : Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag

Rating: ★★★★☆ | Platform: PS4 | Beaten: 29/03/2015 | Time: 27:00 h

I think it was the longest AC in my life. Very long main quest, but very good, too. Unfortunately AC, WD, FC - all these games look same. Other times, other perspectives, but treasure maps and challanges...still same. Besides great AC game. 2 place, behind brillant 2nd part.

Original Post

Original Post - Part 1
Original Post - Part 2

Game #23: Indigo Prophecy: 8.7 hours

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Well that was a game of ups and downs. It was so boring at times I had to push through in small pieces, and then occasionally something interesting would happen or there would a neat set piece and my interest picked up again. It would've started strong if it wasn't for the god-awful PC controls that took the first few scenes to get used to. I liked the characters alright, especially Carla, which means it sucked extra hard when she got completely derailed at the end and falls in love for no other reason than the main character needs a love interest and she's the only person around who isn't a male vagrant. I'm so mad about this that I can't even get worked up about the plot going especially crazy. At least that was interesting, at least the DBZ fight scenes and mystical Mayan bullshit were interesting.

Christ David Cage get your shit together.

25h-ish. All endings cleared. I was this close to abandoning the game after the three first, guideless runs (got Submarine, Knife and Axe). So glad I didn't. I think the best way to describe the game is the anti-Danganronpa: where Danganronpa has style, treats death like a bleak joke, and has largely inconsequential choices, 999 is gritty, rusty, death is a big deal and your choices are the driving force of the gameplay . All in all, a must-play.


Updated OP

Previous Post: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=154026695&postcount=1199
Next Post: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=163336936&postcount=1635

My old post is over the character limit now, so here's the start of post #2:

Game 18+19: Ziggurat and Dungeons of Dredmore

I actually played these a bit much earlier, and this is just a placeholder entry as I've played very little of them, and I was expecting to get back to them sooner, so I'm putting this here in case I don't.

Game 20: Queers In Love At The End Of the World

I wasn't sure about listing this, but it's a game so it goes on. It's pretty much what it says on the tin. Here's the link since it's literally ten seconds long: http://auntiepixelante.com/endoftheworld/

Game 21: Back to Saturn X Episode 2 Beta 2 - Finished

This is a Doom mod, but it took me just under eight hours to finish so I count it. Great overall (I won't post anything but very general impressions for mods as they're not the focus here, but I will link if I've done a more detailed review elsewhere).

Game 22: Jungle Ruins 4 - Finished

Tomb Raider mod. I'll link my review when it's up (Edit: Under "Mman" here: http://www.trle.net/sc/reviews.php?lid=2790#Mman) . Note that I've decided that around four hours (which is the length this took) is the threshold I'll use for mods to count on this list, as that's about the length of a short-medium length £10 indie game.

Game 23: Dark Sector - Finished

This is a competent enough post-Gears/Resident Evil 4 third person cover shooter. It doesn't have much to stand out and the few new ideas it does have are very rarely used in interesting ways, but there's nothing especially awful about it either (there's a bunch of really weird jank going on with the animations though, like enemies warping around in cover or gliding along). The shooting is relatively satisfying once you get some better weapons and the Glaive is enjoyable to use. However, in the late game it's obvious that the enemies can't really deal with all the abilities you get, and of the elements you can infuse the Glaive with ice is the only one used with any real creativity. The shop is odd as the game barely hands out money at all past the early game (contrary to most games that start showering you in money as you go along), so you seem to barely be able to buy anything. The game is unfortunately hit HARD by post-Gears "make everything monotone" art direction, and nothing really stands out at all and the visuals have aged pretty badly as a result; I mean it's unlikely this game was ever considered much of a looker, but the way it's a victim of a trend most people are glad is over doesn't help with finding any sort of hidden beauty. Story is lol and, looking it up, was apparently a big victim of development issues.

There's one part where you can push carts for cover and use ice to create cover that seems far more creative than anything else in the game, and given it's contained to one part I can't help thinking that one designer was apparently being more ambitious than the others in a way that unfortunately wasn't followed up on. Considering it's a western TPS the boss fights are oddly a highlight; apparently this is one area where they took their inspiration from RE4 for the better, and, while they're still nothing special (and certainly not a match for any of RE4's best ones), they're still some of the best bosses around in a semi-modern western shooter. If you want a TPS you can do a lot worse, but you can do a lot better too.

Game 24: Killzone: Mercenary - Finished

I haven't played the first or Shadowfall but, of the ones I have played, I'd definitely say this is the best Killzone game despite being by a different developer; it's level design+equipment system is more freeform (though still quite linear) and actually gives you lots of choices in your approach. While still basic, it does by far the best job implementing the backstory of the series into the game, including exploring the ambiguity of the war of little (along with building up a character during a ~ten minute combat sequence who's more interesting most of the other characters in the series combined), and I actually had some degree of investment by the end. Also no Rico. In addition it keeps things to mostly small scale engagements, which are the best parts of the series (I hated the missions in the other games that blew the actually okay AI on respawning fodder, and Mercenary thankfully has none of those). There are a few too many "defend the area" parts though. While it looks incredibly good that unfortunately comes at a performance cost in various parts, and, while the framerate isn't as bad as Uncharted: Golden Abyss, it still dips more than I'm comfortable with. It's unlikely there'll be a better FPS on Vita.

Game 25: Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate - Played

This was a return to a 70+ hour character I have. It's hard to say much though when I know I've still barely scratched the surface, and haven't remotely seen all the enemies the game has. I feel like I've hit a brick wall though (part way through the high rank missions), as most of the new missions I can do seem too tough for my current weapons, but getting them better requires grinding bullshit drops off enemies that require a prolonged fight. That's not helped by me not playing the game in a while resulting in me forgetting a lot of things. I'm not sure if I'll end up powering through that or just end up moving onto another game in the series sometime, but I guess we'll see. Edit: Went back and finished the main plot, but with no online I don't feel much urge to go further.

Game 26: Rayman: Origins - Finished 100% (platinumed)

Great platformer. I thought it took a little to really get going, but when it reached that point I was pretty surprised at how much challenge and diversity it throws in, and it keeps adding new stuff until the end (when the thing came up I kind of rolled my eyes, but it ended up being the point where the best parts started, and it kept introducing new stuff and doing creative stuff with old things). While beautiful there were occasions where the style made working out where an object can be interacted with during precise parts a little tricky, but that was rare enough to not be a major problem. Some aspects of the controls I also never felt fully comfortable with, like the weird mobile thrusting hit while you're tiny where I sometimes seemed to do a thrust even while standing still (probably not helped by it being mostly used in slippery ice levels), and wall-grabbing and mantling seemed a bit finicky occasionally, but not enough to be a major issue. Back-loading all the boss fights was also odd. Those problems are generally minor overall though.

Game 27: Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate - "Finished" (got to end of G-Rank)

Monster Hunter games have so much to them it's hard to sum anything up here, but now the series has me hooked and this is easily one of the best games I've played this year (and the one I've played the most). There's absurd amounts of depth and just about everything has some sort of logic to it even if that logic is completely opaque to newer players.

Game 28: Dark Souls - Finished

A replay of Dark Souls, because it's Dark Souls.

Game 29: Demon's Souls - Finished

See Dark Souls

Game 30: Killing Floor 2 - Played

Placeholder because I haven't played enough yet.

Game 31: Unreal 1 - Played

I'm actually listing this because of short mods I've played for it (and I'll do the same for other games I do that for).

Game 32: Doom - Played

See above (I'm counting Doom 1 and 2 in this).

Game 32: Half-Life 2+Episodes - Played

More mods.

Game 33: Sonic Generations - Played

Another placeholder for now.

Game 34: Gothic 2 - Played

Placeholder

Game 35: Pillars of Eternity - Finished

Finally got back to this and finished it, of the patches since release party AI is certainly a major bonus that helped with simpler fights, as well as helping me ease back in (since I didn't have to micromanage every single thing while learning the systems again). It's mostly great and I can see the design has already been refined a lot, and will presumably continue to be so. I do agree with the general consensus that it rests in between Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 in quality though, and that the overarching story lacks something to really draw it together (in that regard I was also annoyed by how a massive revelation in the endgame seemed borderline ignored, but that's a massive spoiler), however it's still held together by great individual moments of writing and characterisation. Also the loading times are AWFUL and easily the biggest issue the game has, which is unfortunate.

Slowed down a lot this month, I've gone from 8-6 games per month to 3. Here's the first one of the three I completed in March.

Game 15: Shantae: Risky's Revenge - Director's Cut - 2,5/5 - 10 hours (22/03/15)

Completed the game with ending A, I also got all the items afterwards, but didn't bother replaying the final boss to get ending B. I found Shantae to be highly overrated, it's a nice metroidvania-style game, but very limited in what it does and especially short; the combat system in particular is straight on garbage, with a single option for the main attack and only three, forgettable, options as far as side weapons go. The enemies are few and featuring too many recolours, the plot is lacking, the setting nothing phenomenal, but the transformations and graphics are charming, the map is one of the most confusing and convoluted I've ever seen, the warps are placed in a very inconvenient way, so you still have to backtrack a lot. The metroidvania formula though holds up well and the two main dungeons are pretty good, especially the second one, however the game doesn't really try to do anything new or to perfect what's already there: its shortcomings are apparent.

This game is:

+

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Triggerhappytel said:

Original post (updated)

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12. Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition - 31st March - approx. 18 hours
I was gonna go for the Platinum trophy but I kind of ran out of steam in the second half and I've got other games to play, so I powered through to the end. I also played this on PS3 and I have to say that this is definitely one of my favourite open world crime adventure games ever. The visuals are terrific in this version (particularly the reflections and lighting), Hong Kong looks and feels really interesting and different to most of its contemporaries and the melee combat is so fun that I don't think I ever backed down from a fight. Wei Shen is a brilliant protagonist, the production levels are really lavish and I really hope we get a proper sequel one day. For their first attempt at an open-world game this was a really incredibly good effort by United Front. 8/10

-------------------------------

Currently playing: Duke Nukem 3D: Megaton Edition (Vita), Bloodborne and Peggle 2 (PS4).

Original Post

Haven't updated in a while.

Game 4: South Park: The Stick of Truth - 19 Hours




A love story to the show, just about every character appears at some point. A surprisingly deep tactical RPG system though once you get the hang of it, it is a little easy.

Game 5: Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag - 56 Hours!




After getting burnt out on revelations, it took me a long while to play AC again. Luckily it's a fantastic return to form. Looks beautiful, great characters, amazing world and no Derrick, though the modern day stuff is completely naff. With Edward being an outsider to the assassin's guild, the game plays much more like a pirate simulator. The ship battles are also fantastic and improve greatly on those in AC3.

Game 6: Assassin's Creed III - 43 hours



After reading various reviews and opinions that this was the bad one I wasn't expecting much, but in the end I really enjoyed it. A really interesting story with great characters and many ancillary things to do. I really liked the twist at the end of sequence 3 or so, never saw it coming! I also enjoyed putting together the village, really great story telling. The fast travel system is complete junk and never seemed to work properly and Conner suffers a little from Forrest Gump syndrome, always in the background at important events. That can be forgiven I suppose, he needs to be the star of the show. It did strain credulity though at times.

I´m in! I seriously doubt I´ll get to 52...but I´ll try

Game 1: Metroid Prime (replay) - Completed
I had already beaten it some years ago, but I wanted to complete the Trilogy so I replayed it from the start. I can´t really say anything about this game that hasn´t been said before, Retro did an awesome job with this one. The only weak points are that the sceneries aren´t very original at their concept (forest/ice/fire), but they are executed masterfully and giving them all an alien feeling that´s just great. Magmoor Caverns were too linear, but all these are just minor complaints about an incredible game. This is really Super Metroid FPS, with all the good things that implies.

Game 2: Metroid Prime: Echoes - Completed
I had played it before years ago but didn´t complete it, so this time I started from zero. It has some flaws that aren´t present in Prime, mainly the ammunition system. However, the setting and atmosphere in this one is the best of all Metroid games, even surpassing Super Metroid. Without Sanctuary Fortress I may have liked Prime more, but this level elevates the whole game to a godly status. I will surely be replaying it again in the future. Some of the new powerups like the Screw Attack feel great to use and the Morph Ball unleashes all it´s potential in this game, from the clever boss fights to some cool puzzles and new uses like the ability to jump from spidertracks using the boost I was enjoying every second I was in Ball form. Also, Quadraxis is the best Metroid boss ever.
Weak points: some powerups aren´t fully justified: the triple underwater jump is used in 2 rooms in the whole game when you get it and never again, the echo visor or Annihilator Beam is used just for counted occasions, the ammunition system wasn´t of my liking...Teleporting was a cool addition to travel the map faster, but too many cutscenes made this process tedious.

Game 3: Metroid Prime: Corruption - Completed
Currently playing it, the beginning was great but as the game progresses I´m finding I liked Prime and Echoes much more. Getting rid of the overworld was a big mistake and constantly having someone talking to you and telling you where to go goes against the Metroid formula: isolation and exploration. Anyway, I´m still too early in the game to make a final judgement.
Update after completion: As I went further into the game I started to like the game much more. I still think that loosing the huge interconnected world was a mistake, but each location is very well designed and this allowed Retro to create great lore for each of them:
Bryyo: ruins of an ancient civilization where a war of magic against science took place. Details like the spaceships in the background chained to the planet, the huge golems...The planet also doubles as a gel fuel facility.
Elysia: steampunk city in the air ruled by a race of robots dedicated to study the cosmos. This is my favorite level in the game: the setting is brilliant and the way you open different shortcuts with each new ability is masterfully designed.
NFG Valhalla: I got Dead Space vibes from this level; when I opened a door and a marine´s dead corpse came flying at me due to despressurization I jumped on my chair A very cool level.
I liked a lot the implementation of the powerup location map room in Elysia: watching where the powerups were gave me the incentive to 100% the game, whereas I finished with around 80% completion rate in Prime and Echoes.
Corruption uses Samus abilities the best of the three games: the Grapple Beam is used in a lot of puzzles and successfully included in combat, the visor is at last useful with the capability of zooming into some enemies´ weak points to one-shoot them...The Phazon system however is a bit redundant and feels like a win button. It makes the normal beam useless. The Morph Ball doesn´t add anything new, it seems Retro used all their ideas for it in Echoes.Getting into the ship to go somewhere was tedious with all the cutscenes everytime, but I liked the idea of the ship visor and giving orders to your ship to lift this or shoot that, it was very original. I still don´t understand what all the controls inside the ship are for: shield? Weapons? Medical scanner? Radio? You never use them through the game.

Overall, I think my ranking for the whole trilogy goes: Echoes>Prime=Corruption.

Game 4: Metroid Zero Mission (replay) - Ongoing
I had already played this years ago, so few surprises here. A friend was asking me what game to buy for this new Game Boy Advanced he had been gifted, so I told him to play this or Fusion and after thinking about it, I had to play them too. Game is very similar to Super Metroid which can only be a good thing. The stealth segments are something fresh for Metroid and are well executed. Great game.


Game 5: The Room - Completed
Awesome point and click game for mobile. High production values and some really original puzzles. I played the second part first and when I beat it I had to try this one too. Didn´t disappoint. The only flaw is that it´s too short, but even if it was twice as long I´d still have been left wanting more. The setting is very well done, you just want to keep going to solve all the mysteries of the old house you´re in while imbued in a dark, almost scary atmosphere. The puzzles really make you think and inspect everything to find the solutions, but they are not overly complicated.

Game 6: The Room Two - Completed
Same as the first part, loved every moment of it. After finishing it I got the first one and then replayed this one again. If there was a 3rd one I would gladly play it too.


Game 7: Robotek - Completed
A simple game from developer Hexage, you are given command of a robot and have to beat the enemy in turn-based combat. You can summon different types of robots to help you, create barriers, hack enemy robots, heal, use powerful attacks...Even though the gameplay is very simple the game didn´t feel repetitive, there were always new upgrades to be had or strategies to test, but it feels like there really was room to include more things. The aesthetic is very cool too.

Game 8: Everlands HD - Completed
Another game by HexAge, in this one you control little animals in an hexagonal board which must defend their forest from an alien invasion. Each animal has it´s own properties (health, attack power, range and special abbilities) so you have to think carefully where you are going to place them. The gameplay is simple but it works flawlessly. Only flaw I see in this game is that it´s too short, it would´ve been great if there were more stages or game modes.

Game 9: One Finger Death Punch - Completed
Very cool game, you control a stickman who must fight against enemies attacking from the left or right in a sideview. You only decide if you attack to the left or to the right (or if you activate your superpower) but this simple gameplay is expanded with a lot of different enemy types and mechanics: some enemies can withstand more than 1 hit, others will switch sides when hit, there are melee and throwable weapons...Truly liking it. Cons: mobile stamina-focused game. Pros: Steam honest version available so i might buy it.
Update after completion: I´m sick of this game, it was cool at first but it´s just too grindy. The devs have hidden all the upgrades behind ridiculous prices so the only way of truly progressing is to either grind to death or pay. The mobile controls worked fine for the early game, but as the levels become more demanding the touchscreen just can´t keep up and I´m frequently dying because of failed inputs. I didn´t complete the game, but I feel I´ve had enough of this.


Game 10: Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker - Finished
Very enjoyable and cute. I´m liking it a lot but it hasn´t surprised me in any way.
Update after completion: Cool game, the presentation is fantastic and the game is more challenging than it seems when you start trying to collect everything. Very fun game, but no life changing experience.

Game 11: Hyrule Warriors - Ongoing
A great surprise. I had never played a Warriors game before and thought that it would get old easily, but with all the characters, weapons, levels and game modes it has content to last me a loooong time. Had to leave it on hold when Bayonetta came out, but I will surely come back to this.

Game 12: Terra Battle - Ongoing
Mobile game by the creator of Final Fantasy. You command a party of 6 heroes and fight in puzzle-like battles. Each character has different skills and properties so you have to carefully manage your team depending on the current enemy. There are a lot of special events, gifts from the devs and an infinite pool of heroes to unlock so the game will last you a while. I would´ve gladly paid for a stamina & energy free mode, but anyway the game is great and I´m enjoying it a lot. The art in this game is supreme.
Update: Yeah, I´m still playing this. Everyday. 4 months or so already, even when you finish the main quest there are so many things to do like alternate quests, special events, new characters...I don´t think I´ve ever played any mobile game more than this.

Game 13: Super Mario Galaxy 2 - Ongoing
I started playing this some years before, but for one reason or the other I didn´t finish it. Funny thing is I have it on my WiiU menu but I can´t remember buying it, so it´s been a pleasant surprise This time I´m gonna 100% this game for sure.
Update1: Wow, I can´t believe I forgot how good this game is. The comet challenges are incredibly well designed: when you tackle them at first they seem impossible, but after a few tries they become totally doable. Also, the level of polish in this game is one of the highest in every Nintendo game, which is already a pretty incredible standard. Everything from the controls, menus, transitions, layout, etc... is done perfectly. The level design is top notch, the freedom of movement is amazing, the music is supreme, I really can´t think why I stopped playing this game some years before. The difficulty level is spot on, it´s one of these games that makes you shout at the screen when you die but not because of frustration but because of the degree of implication you achieve during a stage. 3 seconds after that you´re already playing again with 100% focus. Then you get some nice exploration stages which change the pace. And after that, you can decide yourself which stage to play next, so you can set the pace of the game for yourself depending on if you want something frenetic like the timed stages, something more puzzle-y, exploration...The scale of the game seems gigantic; even if in reality the levels may not be bigger than those in 3D World the whole game is wrapped in a feeling of grandieuse. I´m really enjoying this game.
Update2: Did I already mention how good this game is? I really didn´t get all the praise GAF gave it (I already beat Galaxy 1 some years ago and played 2 but didn´t finish it), but this time something has clicked and the whole experience is being amazing. I´m liking it so much I may start a new playthrough of galaxy 1 once I 100% this. My only complain is that I´m having so much fun the game seems to be approaching the end too fast, even though I only have 58 stars yet so I know I still have a long way to go...I really don´t want this game to end!


Game 14: Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze - Ongoing
After all the love GAF has given this game, yesterday I finally followed suit and bought it. Will probably start it tonight.
Update1: This game is hard. Not incredibly hard, but you really need to get accustomed to the controls and physics and use everything perfectly with split time decisions. One thing I´m not liking is that I´ve found some obstacles which you couldn´t pass the first time, relying just on godlike reflexes and luck.Anyway, I´m liking the game, I´m only halfway on the second island. The music is great and the settings are very well done and original, there´s lots of creativity in this game. I feel the controls are overcomplicated and could have been simplified a lot: sometimes you roll when you want to pound the ground, but at the same time this button doesn´t do anything when you´re in the air. You need a button to grab things, but it would´ve been better if you just grabbed those things automatically upon making contact. However, I understand that maybe that would simplify the game too much. Pressing L or R will play a nice animation between DK and whoever´s the second character at the moment, but what is the gameplay utility of this? I´m guessing it may be for switching players on 2P mode, but it´s not explained anywhere. Also, I wish the game remembered my decisions between sessions so I didn´t have to confirm the controls, display and game mode every time I launch it.
Update2: This game is difficult, you die a lot if you try to get all the Kong letters, puzzle pieces and such...I´ve found that it´s better when playing a new level to just try to get it by and then return to it for completion, you do really enjoy a lot more the levels once you know what´s waiting for you, I´m dying a lot just because the second it takes me to realize what I have to do to get over a new obstacle is enough for a platform to fall/thing to squash me/whatever to kill me. That said, the levels are cool and yesterday I absolutely fell in love with level 3-1: not only the music is absolutely gorgeous but the whole level setting is great and is filled with great details. I love how the trees, giraffes and elephant platforms dance to the music, it gave me a massive throwback to watching the Lion King musical in Broadway.

Game 15: Metroid Fusion (replay) - Ongoing
I´m having mixed feeling with this game at the moment. It´s a Metroid game so it has a solid basis, but I´m finding it extremely linear. Having the computer AI push you from objective to objective and giving you the level map before even giving you the chance to explore anything, the constant messages and inner monologues and the remotely locked color doors are making me remember everything I didn´t like about MP: Corruption, but even worse. It´s not bad by a mile, but it´s not as good as other Metroid games. I still have a lot of the game before me so we´ll see if this hindrances disappear further in the game.

Game 16: Paper Mario (WiiU VC) - Ongoing
I started this one yesterday and I´m enjoying it a lot. The Battle System is simple but it seems to leave room for many tactics and interesting fights. The artstyle is very original and the paper effects really add to the visuals. I haven´t played it much yet, but I´m really liking it.

Game 17: Sin and Punihment: Successor of the Skies - Finished
I´d already beat this on Wii some years ago and I really liked it, so I decided to buy it again for the WiiU´s VC and replay it. This game is great, lots of action, tight controls, intelligent encounters, good level design and very spectacular. I completed a playthrough with Isa and I will replay it again as Kachi. The WiiMote controls really shine with this game.

Game 18: Punch out (WiiU VC) - Ongoing
Such a simple game, yet so addicting! It´s a boss rush game where each boss is designed with a lot of thought. I love how most boxers easily knock you down the 2 or 3 first times you challenge them, then you slowly start surviving more as you adapt to his rythm and getting downs yourself, then you discover some counter or chance to get a star...only for the enemy to show you a new special move and knock you down when you thought you had him. After some more tries you end up dominating the fight. Then you take on the next boxer and he KOs you on the first round so the cycle restarts. The challenges in exhibition matches are a cool feature, they really force you to learn all the perks of every fighter.

Game 19: Bayonetta (WiiU) - Ongoing
I have already completed this game in XBOX and WiiU, but recently I´ve decided to unlock some things I was missing (without using cheats). So the first thing is to get Platinum in every stage to unlock Jeanne. I´m replaying in Normal as that was my first playthrough of the game and I don´t have any P ranks, so this way I effectively have to replay the whole game, that´s why I´m including it here. I still need to unlock SaiFung and the Rodin fight. When I finish with this I´ll try to beat Angel Slayer mode, which will be probably be impossible.
This game is incredible, it´s been some months since I played it (or Bayo2) and in just 5 minutes I was already comboing everything to the sky. Truly engaging, I´m loving every moment of it even if I´ve spent 3 hours stuck with Fortitudo because I always miss the combo requirements to Platinum his chapter.

Game 20: Splatoon (WiiU) - About to splat
Is it the 29th yet? I´m going to play the crap out of this, I have already played it 3 times in the testfires and everytime has left me wanting more. And even buying the amiibos (my first ones!) and have bought a connection kit so I can use my laptop as TV when the main one isn´t free.
Update: This game will be the main responsible of me not achieving the 52 games in a year challenge. I´m only playing this now. A lot. In only 2 weeks it´s become my most played WiiU game and it´s going to easily become one of my most played games ever if things continue this way...and with all the updates in the horizon I see no way it couldn´t. Gotta go now, must play more Splatoon!


Game 21: Mario Kart 8 (WiiU) - Finished
This is a similar case to Bayonetta: I´ve already finished this game, but with the release of the second DLC I decided to replay it from the beginning in singleplayer and get stars for every cup in 150cc, both DLC included. I have never stopped playing this, usually with my gf or in online multiplayer, it´s such a great game it´s impossible to get bored of it. Future plans for this one include getting gold in mirror mode and 200cc in every cup.
It´s amazing how, after having played for so long I still discover new details in every track. It´s obvious this is a game that´s been made with the utmost respect and love, even the DLC, or better said, specially the DLC.
If only this had a real Battle Mode I wouldn´t need to buy another game ever again.


Games I´ll definitely be completing this year:
Splatoon: I´m not a fan of shooters but this game gives me crazy Portal 2 vibes. Also, I have 100% confidence Nintendo can successfully reinvent the genre.
Super Metroid: One of my favorite games ever, I don´t remember having played it again after I first beat it in the SNES. Now seems like a great time to replay it.

Games I´ll probably be playing this year:
Dark Souls 2 replay and DLC: I didn´t like DS2 as much as 1, but it´s still a great game and I´ve heard great things of the DLC. Will wait to hear people´s opinions on the Scholar of the First Sin edition and try that...and maybe replay DS1 for the 1000th time.
Axiom Verge: I´ve been following this one for a long time and the general opinion after release has been very good.


GOTY 2015: Splatoon
Runner up: Metroid Prime: Echoes

03-17-15 - Game xx: Dying Light - 50 hours
Doesn't count since it was bought in 2015
Oh It's just insanely fun in so many ways. Played co-op from start to finish. Really liked the nights in the beginning! Loved having to hide and flee from the horrible monster thingies! We never used the sleep option, always trying to be out as much as possible to gather experience. Later, when we became overpowered as hell, it was still fun! It could still go wrong if we were swarmed or so. It was tense in just the right way. The day time was fun too since we liked most missions and had a blast parkouring through the city. I really didn't like Dead Island but this game is one of my favs from the latest years. It's just fantastic. Looking forward to play through it again in hard mode sometime.



03-29-15 - Game 26: Rogue Legacy - 28 hours
It's one of those "just one more try" games for me. Even when I didn't really feel like playing something I could start this up and just farm a bit. I liked the look of it and loved some of the music. I liked most of the classes and the random traits thing was really fun. The challenge level was perfect, I realise now. Just enough to make me feel good about making it through something but without making me mad/annoyed when I couldn't. It took me 93 children to get to the end and I think I'll save this one in the "gonna try to 100 % later" list.



03-30-15 - Game 27: Botanicula - 2 hours for this playthrough
This is from the above mentioned list. I played through it at release and it didn't click with me at all. Wasn't charmed much by it, and sadly that hasn't changed like I hoped it would. I saved it in the list since it's an easy 100 % game and I was hoping I would like it more the second time I played it. But nope, still not a fan. Got my cheevos tho.



03-30-15 - Game 28: Finding Teddy - 2 hours + almost 2 hours for second playthrough
Another "easy 100 %" form some list I got somewhere. I... don't agree. Or, yes it is "easy" but it's so tedious and boring. It's a pretty little game and it has some nice ideas but the "gameplay" of running back and forth to click on stuff in the right order made me want to quit pretty fast. The second playthough was just torture actually, why did I even finish it? Gah.

(Main post)

Original post.

March:

#14: Rayman Legends (XBO) - GWG freebie
Loved it back in 2013, still do. One of the best 2D platformers I've ever played. 8/10

#15: Valiant Hearts (PS4) - PS+ freebie
Good 2D puzzler with great visuals and a decent war story. 7/10

#16: Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments (PS3) - PS+ freebie
This game suffers from every technical issue I can think of, low framerate, streaming issues, pop-ins, screen tearing, and the list goes on. The game itself was decent. 5/10

#17: Ori and the Blind Forest (XBO) - $20
Great, great metroidvania title, in fact, it's my favorite one. 8/10

#18: Lego The Movie Video Game (PS4) - $20
My first Lego game, and man what a boring, repetitive, tedious game it was. Never again. 3/10

#19: Resident Evil: Revelations 2 (PS4) - $40
Surprised how much I enjoyed this title even though I'm not a fan of the serious. 8/10

#20: Bloodborne (PS4) - $60
An absolute masterpiece and the best Souls title. 10/10

Original Post

Forza Horizon 2 Presents Fast & Furious

Criteria: Standard completion
Time played: 2 hours.

Basically... it's FH2, but shorter.

Original post

Game 4: Apache Air Assault (PS3) About 7 hours
This is an awesome game. I love Gaijin Studios so it was nice to see such an early entry into their air combat series. Some missions are way too difficulty with with player juggling several objectives and fighting dozens of enemies alone. Otherwise, I loved it, might even play it again. Helicopter vs. helicopter dogfighting is way more fun than it should be!

Game 5: Starfox 2 (SNES, via Android) 40 mintues
This is the game that was infamously canceled by Nintendo before released and leaked in near complete form. I was surprised it took so little time to beat, and I only died once. There are some great ideas and gameplay in this one but after playing it I'm not surprised at their decision to withhold its release. The main problem is the game's length, there's tons of good gameplay and you can tell its doing stuff the SNES had no business doing, but its only in short bursts. The 3D has all the problems with early 3D games- control issues and getting stuck in walls is common. Overall, this game had potential but I'm glad they used it as a learning experience and saved all of that for Starfox 64.

Game 5: Duet (iOS) 6-7 hours
I got this game for free a few months ago and it's one of my favorite games this entire year. The gameplay is simple, but it's old-school hard. I really felt a sense of accomplishment after beating each section. The narration is actually pretty compelling and the titles of the sections show that the game has themes involving depression and recovery. Very eerie. Overall, a great game and I can already tell my reflexes and ability to sense patterns has improved. A great game for retrogamers.

Game 6: Super Mario Galaxy (Wii) 14 hours
I finally played it and beat it. It's a great game, I found myself smiling constantly. As someone who hasn't played a Mario game since Mario 64, this was a refreshing update on the same type of gameplay and it really blew me away. I really want to play Galaxy 2 now.

Original Post

Game #16: There Came An Echo (PC) - 4 Hours
I had a pretty good time with this game, it does a good job of immersing you into a "Commander" role. Pretty impressed with the voice controls, most of time it was able to recognize the commands I say. The only times it wouldn't recognize my words would be when I was slurring my words near the end of the game because my mouth was tired. from talking. I also had to change some of my custom commands, saying "Fox" would sometimes be translated to "Pause". My only big complaint would be that there should be more places to put your units in. I noticed some areas where I would of liked to put one of my guys, but couldn't because there was no marker to direct them to that particular place.

Anyways pretty fun game that doesn't overstay its welcome. Don't expect the voice controls to be perfect, but it does its job well.

Right Now

Started playing Pillars of Eternity which is probably going to set me back a bit. Still trucking along through Codename S.T.E.A.M as well but im putting that on hold until next week.

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15. Atelier Shallie: Alchemists of the Dusk Sea (PS3)
Finished the game with Shallistera on Game Fan difficulty. Looks like I earned both of her endings but went with the Next Chief one to start.
Usually, when the weather turns cold and I think back upon my favourite games of the previous year, Atelier games are high up on the list. It's gotten to the point where I try not to put them high up on my end-of-year lists just because I'm such a sucker for the franchise that Atelier titles are practically guaranteed a spot and no one wants to hear about how you loved the latest iteration in a long-running annual franchise.

This year might be different, though, for two reasons. One, Atelier Shallie is the biggest departure the series has seen in a while. The time management aspects that helped define the franchise are gone, replaced with a Life Tasks system that in theory guide your progression through the game without enforcing strict time limits. But the second reason might be more important: Shallie is a good Atelier game, but I'm still not sure if it's a great one.

I'll reserve final judgement until I play through the game again--half the fun for me is in figuring out how to be more efficient and crafting better gear so I can dominate in NG+ and get all the endings (though no character endings this time? what?). Maybe once I figure out a few more things I'll like the game more, just like when I figured out how best to exploit the Life Tasks system.

Games 1-12

March:

Game 13: Counterspy - 09.03.2015
Interesting game that loses steam towards the end due to some design issues like not being able to see the entire room you enter, forcing the player to risk getting seen because it's the only way to know what's the challenge in the room. Still had lots of fun with the game and would definitely recommend to anyone that is interested in the game.

Game 14: OlliOlli 2: Welcome to Olliwood - 11.03.2015
Spelunky Pro Skater continues to be a punishing skating game that rewards skill and timing with your controller inputs. Loved it despite the difficulty despite feeling that the sound and level scenarios are a step down from the first game. On the other hand, controls and skill system is a huge improvement.

Game 15: Prototype 2 - 21.03.2015
Sometimes is great to play a game that you have no expectations about it and this is the perfect example. The game looks terrible, escort missions are terrible like 99% of escort missions and the actions drags towards the last 1/3rd but I still had fun creating havoc with the abilities at your disposal. A great bargain buy or freebie like it was the case for me.

Game 16: Helldivers - 28.03.2015
At first I absolutely loved everything about the game and one that I thought it was going to be a disaster considering the online focus and friendly fire enabled. In the end the experience became more enjoyable even with randoms online. Teamwork is required and this leads everyone to try their best to keep their buddies alive. The only problem for me is that the experience got boring after 15 hours and I can't play more than the 2 matches in a row without getting bored now.

It's certainly been a while since I've last updated. Been busy with a lot of life stuff the past month so haven't been gaming as much as I want to.
But I did manage to knock 2 games during March at least so this is my end of the month post:

Game 8.) Batman Arkham Asylum
Finished on Normal - 82% Complete| 226/240 Riddles
Finally played a Rocksteady Batman game, my first Batman game since Batman Returns on SNES, actually. Went into not knowing much, sorta expecting it to be Metal Gear-ish for whatever reason. Surprised to learn as I played it felt more like a Metroid game. Enjoyed my time with it but most of that enjoyment came from the voice cast (grew up with Batman TAS) and solving those Riddler Challenges


Game 9.) SteamWorld Dig
[6:19] Total Cash:22175 | Total Orbs: 186 | Deaths: 9
Loved it.
Felt like if Spelunky and Terraria had a baby.
Really looking forward to SteamWorld Heist

So that's about it for March.
Over the month I bought more games, like Senran Kagura Shinovi Versus, Hyrule Warriros and a ton from that recent 99 cent flash sale on PSN.
Probably have those on my games-to-beat radar.
Here's to April

Original Post Updated

Game #16: Crimson Clover - 3/25/15 (4+ hours)
I really suck at these kind of games....so glad this had infinite continues or else I never would have finished it with any of the ships lol. Outside of the difficulty though, it was pretty good. All the ships play differently and take some getting used to, with that said type B seemed like it took more work than A and C, I died quite a bit more with B because I kept confusing the drones for the actual ship.... Will likely continue to play this throughout the year when I'm not into anything else.



Game #17: Megaman X4 - 4/1/15 (7 hours)
First X game I ever beat and damn did that last boss take a while. Most of the bosses were a breeze once I got their weakness, only other one I had an issue with was the Colonel about halfway through the game which I kept derping on and eating his teleport attack. This goes down as having some of the worst voice acting I have ever heard, right next to Star Ocean 2, it's like one of those "so bad it's good" type of things.



Game #18: Megaman X5 - 4/2/15 (8 hours)
This one was quite a bit easier than 4....mainly because it has an easy mode. There wasn't a single boss that I had any issue with, until the black devil which I brick walled on hard, mainly due to not getting his pattern down. I ended up getting the extra armor sets which weren't much of an issue...except the railcar level. Holy shit at that railcar and trying to collect those orbs, that is some of the most rage inducing shit ever. "Oh you missed an orb and got all the others? Well fuck you, you spend another 30mins trying to get that last one and all the others again". Outside of that it was pretty good, much better without the voice acting.


Original Post

Original Post

Game 16 - Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel (PS4): Completed every quest on 4/1/15, 15 Hours
- Had a lot of fun with the Pre-Sequel since I played it primarily in co-op. I completed every main and side-quest. I never played it on last-gen so I waited for the next-gen version to release. It doesn't do too much new with the franchise with the exception of small things like a gravity mechanic and ground slam. Oh, and you get to play as a Claptrap. Which I did. And it was great. It's definitely a worthy addition to the franchise, albeit seeming slightly smaller in scale than the numbered titles when it comes to locations and number of quests. Maybe it's just me though.

10. Castlevania Bloodlines (Finished 4/2/15 - approx 7 hrs) - I first played this game about 20 years ago (I talked my parents in to renting it for me from Blockbuster) and managed to get as far as Dracula's first form, but no further. Well earlier this year I set out to finish what I started by playing all the way through the game, but my progress was halted after encountering an issue with the Retron 5 not liking my game (everytime it tried loading the final stage it would reset).......until now. After installing the beta version of the latest patch (v2.3) I discovered that it had fixed that issue allowing me to finally finish this game. Despite the issues I had with the Retron 5 this game still remains as one of my all time favorite Castlevania games.

Click to expand...

#13. God of War: Ascension (PS3) -- April 2 -- 7:05:08 -- ★★☆☆☆
Some pretty shit, but the game is pretty shit. Know what I mean? I played through God of War II for the first time this year and, aside from visuals, it's better in basically every category. In Ascension, the pacing feels off both in the frequency and length of encounters, and the acquiring of power-ups. The level design is pretty straightforward and boring as are some of the traversal mechanics (Uncharted climbing and overused, less fun Mario 64 sliding). In combat, I don't think the action reads well. Enemy tells aren't conspicuous enough and the defensive options all feel slow and cumbersome. There's no flow and enemies have too much health. Sometimes the camera zooms so far out that it's nearly impossible to tell what's happening in a fight. In one instance I looked at an enemy, thinking that's who I was controlling. The only positives are the stunning visuals, some pretty good puzzles, and a few spectacular setpieces.

Game #9 Danganronpa
PS Vita

Incredible. Left me hanging on a lot of points though, I was going to jump into Majora's Mask 3D, but I got so sucked into this game I am jumping directly into Danganronpa 2.

The world, the story, the twists, every moment was great.

POST #2: Games 35-44 (April 3, 2015 to June 20, 2015)

Link to Post #1 (Games 1-34):
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=145272880&postcount=225

Link to Post #3 (Games 45-?????):
http://m.neogaf.com/showpost.php?p=169235348

My personal ground rules (copied from my OP):

1. If I own all episodes of an episodic game when I start playing, then beating them all counts as just one game.

If I own just the one episode (ex. Game of Thrones, Republique) then that counts as one game by itself... But subsequently buying and finishing more episodes (if I liked the first) will not add to my completed game count.

2. Games finished in 2015 all count, regardless of when I started them. This is supposed to be backloggery!

3. No "re-finishing" any short games I've already beaten for purposes of padding my stats, unless i'm revisiting the game for Platinum run.

Note: the entries listed below without a "finished" date listed are stubs, representing half-finished games; I'm using this as a work-in-progress checklist. I'll be editing the post to reflect completion as I progress.



Game 35: Bloodborne (PS4) - 24 hours so far
Finished 4/11/15
And we start off post no. 2 with a bang!

Once in a while a new release just demands to be played, and kills all my backlog-clearing momentum. The good folks at From Software have graciously provided such. Enjoyed every bit of this game... Challenging, fast paced, and absolutely thrilling. Presently sitting at 80% trophy completion, I only have the Chalice Dungeon, All Hunter Weapons and Ultra Rare Blood Rune trophies to go (I copied my save to a USB to cop all three endings and allow a one-playthrough Plat) - 100% seems very doable.

IMHO, this game isn't anywhere near as hard as people make it out to be, its probably the easiest Souls game and will be my first Plat from that series (the grindiness of the other three titles put me off even attempting a 100% clear). Very, very good stuff.

Game 36: LittleBigPlanet PS Vita (PSV) - 8 hours
Finished 4/12/15
After the rush of Bloodborne, transitioned to some low-impact Vita gaming to cool off (plus, it's presently summer where I live, making PS4 gaming in mid-day a dicey proposition due to overheating concerns).

I bought LBP Vita at launch but was incredibly turned off by the shitty online pass system that Sony shoehorned in... Just got around to playing it again now. Look guys, if you can only have one account on a Vita (can't switch regions, etc.) then online passes are a really dumb idea. I bought this game for full price but can't even connect to the server because my PSN account is from a different region (AU) - my copy is Asian/R3.

So, enough bellyaching! The game itself is really quite respectable: it's not exactly lighting the world on fire, but the graphics are fantastic even by 2015 Vita game standards (especially the lighting), and there are patches of truly inspired level design. The floaty jumps of LBP are an ever-present annoyance, but you learn to live with it after a while.

Game 37: Monsterbag (PSV) - 2 hours (100%)
Finished 4/12/15
Ran through this quirky PS plus freebie for the quick trophies. Despite being really short, this game made me angrier than the Souls games ever did - super cheap deaths can be found in spades. The visual style is very attractive IMHO (think Dexter's Lab-era Genndy Tartakovsky) but the core gameplay is very simplified stealth, and not very well executed at that.

Play it for a few laughs (if you like Happy Tree Friends-style gore humor) but don't expect anything awesome... Monsterbag is mediocre at best, and I'd have been PISSED if I paid money for it.

Game 38: The Lego Movie Game (PS4) - 10 hours so far, will Plat
Finished 4/12/15
Another month, another well-made (if bog-standard) Traveler's Tales joint to bust through.

Compared to other Lego games, I'm not enjoying this as much, but am looking to power through for the easy Plat (this would be my first Lego platinum on a non-Vita console). I can't put my finger on why exactly it's not as enjoyable as your usual Lego title... Still, good fun considering I got it for 10 dollars.

Looking forward to trying Lego Marvel Superheroes, which I likewise got for cheap. I hope the framerate is better...

Game 39: Never Alone: Kisima Ingitchuna (PS4) - 2 hours (100%)
Finished 4/19/15
I know, I just beat this game earlier in the year (on Steam), but decided to give it another go on PS4 for the easy trophies.

I'm not sure if my mind is being corrupted by PC Master Race mind control, but the PS4 version seems to look significantly shittier. Sub-par framerate, tearing here and there, and videos that, while still clear, seem to be running at a lower refresh rate. The graphical headaches affected my gameplay as well: The response time was so off that I found myself dying more in some parts because of delays in jump commands... Really weird.

Bottom line, though: When I feel more in control using a keyboard than a Dual Shock 4, you know somebody on the development team [Made A Terrible Mistake].

Game 40: Flower Town (3DS) - At least 10 hours over many months
Finished 4/30/15
Formerly the red-headed stepchild of the 3DS premium Streetpass games suite, Flower Town soon grew into my favorite game of the whole bunch. There's just something quietly addictive about growing different plant breeds that I can't put down... Weird, I know.

I'm in Tokyo right now for a one week vacation as I write this; I made a conscious decision to bring the 3DS everywhere to maximize the ubiquity of Streetpassing around these parts. As a result I finally got enough hits to clear the initial list of 20 plants done and get my credits roll. So freaking satisfying!

Then the game tells me they're giving me a new plant album with around 7 kajillion more plants to collect. The mind wobbles.

Game 41: Onechanbara Z2 Chaos (PS4 JPN import) - Around 8 hours
Finished 5/23/15
Man, its been a while since I updated this thing... Got crushed by work as soon as I got back from Tokyo and have only managed to play in fits and starts.

Picked this up in Japan for a song, was always curious about Onechanbara but was unwilling to pay the huge import markups. Overall it's a fairly decent DMC clone, if janky as all hell. The character models look nice enough, but the environments are ugly as sin (i'm talking PS2 level geometry here). The four selectable characters are also fairly unbalanced: while you can tag other members in at will (with tagged out members slowly regaining HP), I found myself dreading getting stuck with the nigh-useless chainsaw chick.

The game gets really monotonous near the end, and I was glad it was over. For all its faults, however, the game does have its moments, however fleeting... all 4 characters on screen at once, fighting an army of zombies is a fucking sight to behold.

Game 42: Vampire Resurrection (PS3 JPN import) - Around 3 1/2 hours
Finished 5/24/15

Found a rare Japanese copy of Darkstalkers Resurrection in a Japanese thrift shop and couldnt resist. Playing through these old chestnuts again was a trip!

Night Warriors definitely showed its age, as the game felt antiquated and far removed from what I expect a modern Capcom 2D fighter to feel like. But Vampire Savior was fan-fucking-tastic, it felt just like I remembered it back in the day... played like a dream. The game is timeless in the same way that Street Fighter Zero 3 and CVS2 are.

Even with an arcade stick though, I didnt have the patience to grind through those freaking training mode trophies. Hardcore as hell, Capcom, respect.

Game 43: Ikaruga (PC) - 63 minutes as per Steam
Finished 5/30/15
I replayed the arcade version of Ikaruga while I was at Hirose Entertainment Yard in Akihabara, and it made me so nostalgic for the DC version that I ended up buying the PC port off Steam... what a rush! As pretty as I remember it from back in the day, and a glaring reminder that my twitch skills arent what they used to be.. It took me like 3 separate goes to kill the last boss.

I, for one, blame the Xbox 360 controller. (/jk)

Game 44: Home (PS4) - Around 3 hours (100%)
Finished 5/30/15
I'm presently desperately hacking away at my PS4 backlog to make room for Witcher 3. In the process, I had the pleasure of playing through this awesome indie horror game from the Plus backlog. Short and sweet - more of psychological horror here, not annoying trial and error in the vein of Lone Survivor. The writing is very sharp, and the game generates plenty of creepiness with just pixel art and text. Highly recommend that you give this a go.

List of completed games

Game 8: ALLTYNEX Second - ~2h

A bit more "different" than Kamui and RefleX, but still a good shmup. Loved the music.

Game 9: Etrian Odyssey Untold: The Millennium Girl - ~60h

Finished the main game with all the side quests (played Classic mode on expert). While it was a good game, I enjoyed EO4 a lot more. The skill trees are too simple, most strata were 'eh' and I missed the overworld. I will definitely play the post-game content, just... not this year.

Game 10: The Walking Dead: Season One - ~8h

I played the "spanish" version. Worst translation I've ever seen, google translator would've done a better job. Besides that the game had a lot of slowdowns and some nasty bugs on the first episode. And maybe it was because they were written in some incomprehensible language, but sometimes my decisions didn't seem to have a logical effect. All these problems aside, it was an enjoyable story. It had some really good moments like the later half of episode two or the ending of episode five. I don't think I will play the second season, though.

Updated the original with some new games. Last one was a disappointment...

13. Jazzpunk (PC)
2 hrs 30 minutes. Finished February 7th.
This was better than I thought going in to the game. Very confusing but highly enjoyable.
Another concept-game where design and looks are more important than gameplay.
Perfect example what a hipster game would look and play like..
Lots of achievement and there is a big risk that you will play through the game missing most of them, unless you use a guide.
Would like to see more games/missions connected to this world. And maybe a meatier game. Will probably go back and try to get some of the many achievments I missed.

14. Leo's Fortune(iOS)
Finished February 21st
One of the best platformers on iOS with great controls, storytelling, graphics and music. Hope to see some sort of continuation from the developers.

15. The Dark Eye: Chains of Satinav (PC)
12 hrs, including idling for cards. Finished February 22nd.
I enjoyed this adventure. I like the scenery and artwork as well as the music and voice-casting. The closeup character art is not as good though.
There are some illogical puzzles that were annoying but I used a guide for those.
Now I'll wait for Memoria to go on sale or be part of a bundle. I have all the rest of the games in the series.

16. Whoa Dave! (PS Vita)
2-3 hrs. Stopped playing February 25th.
Whoa... why?
High-schore chasing retro-arcade game with quite high difficulty and no end. Charming music and very simple Atari-2600 graphics.
High-score for me so far is $1.47. You unlock the next difficulty at $1.50. Got it through PS+.
Kinda fun game but nothing you will remember and sometimes very annoying.

17. Gems of War (iOS)
75-100 hrs? stopped playing March 8th.
Reached lvl 101, 563 trophies, 219,227 gold, 16 kingdoms and 92 troops. 840/1000 Game Center points
As a big fan of Puzzle Quest I gave this game a lot of chances and a lot of my time. A lot of my time.
I really wanted to like this game but the longer I played it, hoping to reach some sort of turning point, the more I realised this game is out to cheat.
To many times the opponent have made big winning draws that occur way to often to be random or part of the game system.
I felt all the time the this game awards IAPs and punishes other players, or tries to force them toward IAPs. I played this without buying any IAPs.
Being part of a guild negates this partly but not enough. A lot of hooks to keep you playing, but I am happy to break this up now.
There are way better games on iOS you could play instead, like Candy Crush.

18. Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds (3DS)
21.42 hrs, started playing March 8th, finished March 16th.
Total Rupees found: 26119, Times defeated:4
18 hearts, All Maiamais, Master Sword lvl 3, Super Lamp.
Such a wonderful game to start playing on a N3DS again.
I can recommend it without a doubt, especially if you are 40 and feel nostalgic.
I hope to see another Zelda-game of this type soon.

19. Mario & Luigi: Dream Team Bros
First Played 17/03/2015 Last Played 03/04/2015
Time to clear: 45:10 (44.38 according to Activity Log)

No. Times Played 13, Average Play Time 3:26
Mario & Luigis final level: 41
Excellent Rate 84%
Block-Recovery Rate 92%
enemies Defeated 4998
Escapes 1
Time KO'd
Times Damaged 1591
Mushrooms Eaten 305
4 Pi'llos left (Let them sleep!)

Never let Mario go on vacation. Bad games always comes out of it.
I'm very disappointed in this game. Might be the worst Mario game I ever played. I've played several of the earlier games in the series and enjoyed them.
It feels like way too long to reach the end and everytime I met an enemy was a chore. Full of frustrating mechanics and gimmicks that never feel fun.
Seems like Nintendo had a budget and time on their hand but not an idea of what to do with this game neaning this is a game that should not have been made.
Avoid.

Original post


Game 29: Dead Island - 24.75 hours
# Played on PC, finished 3/26. Time includes the Ryder White DLC. Slicing, mashing and shooting zombies, especially with the wealth of weapon mods available, offers a lot of fun. But without any real additional gameplay variations, the same killing and escort quests get very stale very fast. If you like to try and do side quests in your games, you'll find each area dragging, and doing these additional quests is the only real way to level up your character and feel more powerful. Some focusing of content would have done this game a lot of good. The DLC is actually very interesting as it turns the game into an FPS for the most part.

Game 30: Time Mysteries: Inheritance - Remastered - 5 hours
#Played on MAC, finished 3/30. I got parts two and three of this series in a bundle so I figured I would chip in on the first game and see what it was like. I had never played a hidden object game before and it was very casual, as expected. It's interesting in that you can skip entire puzzles if you want, and rather than take hints on the hidden object scenes you can switch over to a sort of match-three game. It also used a creepy animation style where it warped the mouths of static images rather than actually make the lips move. I don't think I'll be playing the sequels any time soon.

Game 31: Dead Island: Epidemic - 19 hours
# Played on PC, finished 3/31. Part sequel, part expansion pack - you get one new character, boats and some new weapons and monsters, but otherwise the other 4 characters are pulled in from the original game with the exact same skill trees, with some new perks for using specific weapon types . You can even port over your high level character from Dead Island, which I did. It seems the conventional wisdom is this game is not as good as the first, but having played it so recently, I think I enjoyed the second game a little bit better. The world was a bit more compact but was more interesting with varied paths and nooks and crannies to explore. No real major improvements to the gameplay, though, so it suffered from some of the same potential to get stale.

Game 32: Ori and the Blind Forest - 12 hours
# Played on XBONE, finished 4/2. My actual playtime was around 20 hours due to bugs causing me to have to replay large amounts of the game. Despite all that, I still finished, which says something about the quality of this game. Beautiful to look at and fun to play. I'm sure this will be on my GOTY list.

original post


15. Legacy of Kain: Blood Omen (PS1) ;

This started really good. There's a well made dark atmosphere through art direction and amazing soundtrack, plus decently varied gameplay which feels like a mixture of Metroidvania and Zelda, but with several vampire-specific touches. Sadly, as for many PS1 games, I unfortunately couldn't get the english audio in my country (which I always forget checking beforhand), which kinda killed some of the narrative. Other than that, this game is way too bloated. Some dungeons are way too gigantic, my initially very positive impressions eventually turned into fatigue during certain later parts of the game. What adds to that are some really nasty loading times, which aren't that long, but very frequent (music stops when they appear too, making them even more striking).

All the games in this series would really need and deserve a proper remaster.



16. Phantasy Star IV (PS3, Megadrive Collection) ;

I can only imagine how impressive this game must have been back in the day and it's still pretty good, although certainly not as mind-blowing. The sprite-work still looks nice and despite some nowadays slightly outdated menu work, this still is quite fun. The only annoyance for some might be, that the game has no descriptions for its spells and attacks. You either use a guide, or like me, just find out what they do by trying in battles. It doesn't help that most spells are acronyms that don't really tell you much. Other than that, battling feels rewarding, you level up in a good pace and you're usually happy about what you find in dungeons. It lacks a world map, but the way the game is built, you can't really get lost anyway. Only eventually find some secrets. It's a good adventure still, but the story doesn't offer anything you haven't seen by now elsewhere and I didn't like that there was a couple of dungeons nearing the end which upped the encounter rate to annoying numbers. Most of the time, it's pretty pleasant though. It might not feel as modern as a Chrono Trigger did feel for it's time, but there's also still other pleasant aspects, like making your own chains of standard commands which can be used instead of going through the entire battle menu each fight.

9. Hotline Miami - 3 HOURS COMPLETED

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This is a real trip of a game. Got pulled into the hype of HM2 coming out, and played through the first on my Vita. Awesome soundtrack, and I was really impressed by how the last hour of the game played out. Kinda messed with my expectations, which I love.

10. Hotline Miami 2 - 12 HOURS COMPLETED

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This game really upped the ante from part I. I'm glad I went in directly after the first game, because this one really whipped my play style into shape. I got extremely frustrated with this game at times, and the level design was absolutely cursed by me on a few occasions. However, the end was INCREDIBLE, and I loved the game overall. However, I probably won't return to it again to make my scores better like the original made me want to do.

11. Suikoden - 22 HOURS COMPLETED

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Having just bought a PS Vita, I'm revisiting the games that I've wanted to play for a long time on it. The Suikoden series is one of those, and I've been longing to play the second one for years. However, I can't really do that without experiencing the first, and I'm glad I made that choice. This was a fun little game, though very dated in some ways. No world map, weird inventory system, and a base system that tends to confuse players if they don't know what they're doing. However, I firmly believe that's all in the charm of Suikoden. This game took about a week of solid playing to complete, and I got most of the characters out of the 108 (using a guide ruins it, or so I'm told). Final boss was bananas. One of the best examples of a "Space twist final boss" I've seen since playing Ni No Kuni. Onto the next one!

12. Resident Evil 2 - 10 HOURS COMPLETED

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Loved this game, though going straight from REmake kinda has made me fatigued on the series. Gonna give it a rest for a month before diving into Nemesis. However, this was a really polished game, even by today's standards. I can't imagine what it was like playing on release!

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16. Persona Q: Shadows of the Labyrinth (PS3)
Finished the Persona 3 story on Normal. I'm pretty sure I finished all the requests available on the first playthrough as well.

When Persona Q was first announced (during the finest announcement livestream any video game company has ever created), I was extremely skeptical. For years there was very little hint that the Persona 3 and Persona 4 universes had significant crossover. Yeah, there was the Tatsumi Port Island trip in Persona 4, and a young Yukiko shows up in Persona 3 Portable for a cameo, but those are incidental crossovers. Persona 4 Arena was the first game to actually merge the two casts into a single universe, but that at least was barely plausible as something set beyond the ending of Persona 4.

Shadows of the Labyrinth, on the other hand, intended to unite the two Persona crews in the middle of both their original stories. Never mind that the two stories are two years apart, meaning some time-travel tomfoolery would be involved; how on earth do you take the cast of each game out of their story for a side adventure, and then re-insert them without either cast knowing what had happened? Every possible answer seemed unsatisfying: maybe it was all a dream, or maybe there'd be some handwaving and a fervent hope that we wouldn't think too hard about the mechanics of it all. Maybe the two casts had been brainwashed after their joint adventure and it all somehow tied into some conspiracy that linked up with P4 Arena! And so on and so forth.

So it's very surprising to me that nearly all of my problems with Persona Q have nothing to do with the plot. Once you accept the basic ridiculousness of the concept--something the game itself is at least slightly aware of--the rest of the story holds together decently, with the central mystery of the two new characters introduced in Q driving the narrative. Compared to Marie's post-hoc addition to the Persona 4 storyline, Rei and Zen's story feels more essential even though it has nothing to do with either the Persona 4 or Persona 3 plotlines. As a side story, it works, though it does rely very heavily on you having played at least one of the other modern Persona games.

Instead, Persona Q's problems are rooted in its gameplay and its treatment of old friends. Persona Q is essentially an Etrian Odyssey game with some mechanic swaps. Instead of classes and skill trees, you get the persona fusion system, for example. For the most part, Persona Q plays very well, though it falls short of the addictive cycle you fall into in the mainline Persona games. Especially enjoyable is how part of your health and SP is provided by your persona, and replenishes after each battle--if you're smart, and don't mind throwing away the loot you collect once your inventory's full, you can continue running dungeons indefinitely. It adds a little extra spice of having to decide whether it's worth dipping into your character's SP for a particularly powerful spell or for emergency healing, knowing you won't get it back unless you use an item or bail from the dungeon and visit the Nurse's Office.

The problem is that for most of the game, you don't really need to care that much about saving your reserve SP, or indeed any sort of resource management. The first few dungeon floors are tough because your characters and personas are weak, and the environmental hazards and FOEs in the dungeons ensure no level is a complete cakewalk. But after a few solid hours, the overall level of challenge begins to drop off, though every new level represents a spike. By the time you reach the final enormous dungeon, even the spikes have largely smoothed out, leaving a substantial chunk of tedium between you and the final boss.

As for the characters, initial impressions for some of them aren't great. Akihiko acts like a protein-obsessed kid brother, Chie can't stop talking about meat, and Teddie is a one-note would-be womanizer who almost literally has no lines beyond hitting on people. Even the less outrageous examples like Mitsuru occasionally fall prey to Persona Q's flanderization--I guess we have Persona 4 Arena to blame for adding the word "execution" to Mitsuru's vocabulary. But even here, Persona Q surprises: there's actual character growth here. I'm not sure if the P4 story does something similar for its cast, but the P3 story actually addresses the odd dynamic of its group in a way that adds nuance to the original game's story.

In the end, I wish Persona Q was about ten or twenty hours shorter. To someone who's completed multiple 90+ hour playthroughs of Persona 4 and a 100+ hour playthrough of Persona 3, that's a sign that Q doesn't quite measure up. But honestly, that's a hard bar for any game to top. Neither of the Arena games even comes close, that's for sure. Shadows of the Labyrinth is easy to recommend if you have any love for the modern Persona games. You might gnash your teeth in some parts and get annoyed at others (watch out for that final boss), but I think overall you'll like it despite its flaws.

Original Post - Part 1
Original Post - Part 2

Game #24: Bioshock 2: 16.7 hours

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This is easily the Bioshock game with the best combat overall, but as everyone says the story is a bit naff. It's also very hard to not see a lot of the game through a very cynical lens, as it shows its roots as a sequel the creator never wanted at times. I also don't remember the Little Sisters referring to the Big Daddys as "daddy" as incessantly as they do in Bioshock, preferring "Mr Bubbles" which hardly ever turns up here. Lamb starts out interesting but she seems to be on autopilot by the end of the game (which is way better than Bioshock's end sequence). Minerva's Den stays quality the whole way through though, and manage to throw in twists I either didn't see coming or only saw coming at the last second, which was good.

Last two games of March:

Game 16: Rayman Legends [with gf] - 4,5/5 (29/03/15)

Completed the game 100% in co-op, only missing the last three locked characters. An incredible game, one of the best 2D platformers ever created as far as I'm concerned, the only real problem I can think of is the great amount of material rehashed from Origins, and from Legends itself (the invasions), however it's basically a surplus, since the new levels are still a lot, enough to justify the new game by themselves. The comparison with the original is in favour of Legends: while it's true that the first one had somewhat tighter level design and controls, the sequel is HD (an astonishing moving cartoon) and has more variety: kung foot, musical levels, lots of time trials (here the game basically turns into a runner), more characters and settings, the old reworked levels and the touchscreen ones with Murphy. The thing I admire the most about Legends (and Origins) is how adamant it is about getting you into a rhythm, how silky smooth the gameplay feels when you jump and run following the cues the developers give you: it's a sight to behold, after a while you learn to just trust the game, because you know that it won't ever misguide you into a bottomless pit. Finally, they nailed the co-op so well that it puts the NSMB series to shame.

This game is:

+

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Game 17: Kero Blaster - 2,5/5 - 5:32 hours (30/03/15)

Beaten both the game and the new game plus. Nice time waster but nothing to really write home about, it's pretty much a let down compared to Cave Story, which I absolutely loved: too streamlined, too easy (even the new game plus), too short. The weapon upgrade system was carried over from Daisuke Amaya's masterpiece, even though now it works with money; I have to say I prefered the former "on the go" system, which made it possible to downgrade a weapon if needed, adding an ulterior layer of strategy to the game, strategy options that are absolutely lacking and would be very welcome in Kero Blaster. The plot is underdeveloped and confused, a mere pretest to shoot around, the characters and artwork are charming as always. The actual shooting feels great, but it's apparent that the controls have been dumbed down so that it could work on a smartphone, resulting in rather stiff movements and actions.

This game is:

+

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13. Bloodborne - 30 HOURS COMPLETED

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Early GOTY contender, but some of the final areas were a little disappointing when compared to how creative and well-designed the first 20 hours were. Still a HUGE improvement from Dark Souls 2, and has my favorite combat of any game in the Souls series. Easy 9.5/10 rating from me. Jumped straight into NG+ and am really looking forward to attemping 100% in this game.

Currently close to finishing Ori and the Blind Forest and about to start Pillars of Eternity. RE Revelations 2 is also a possibility, since I bought the season pass.

Game Beaten #30 Atelier Rorona Plus: The Alchemist of Arland (Vita) - 30 hours
(Started 2/25/15 / Finished 4/5/15)
So this was my first Atelier game and I was hoping this would click for me and it really did. It almost felt like a light parody at times of JRPGs when battling, the crafting became strangely addicting, and the bonkers cast was well out there. My only gripes are more personal than the games fault. I got the normal ending and had popularity of 25% because I never knew how decorations worked. I also had no clue how to make weapons since I'd bring the requirements to Hagel and well nothing would happen. I'm doing overtime mode at the moment and maybe I'd do a New Game + but likely not, got a lot more I want to play out there.

OG Post 2

7. Wacky Races

It's an extremely simplistic platformer and dead easy to finish. Nice variety, small volume.

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Update :

Game #7 : Transistor

Rating: ★★★☆☆ - Platform: PS4 - Developer: Supergiant Games
First time I really go through an Action-RPG game as this is definitely not my favorite genre of games but this one has really good things going for itself. First, the music is fantastic, great soundtrack. Then the Art style, beautiful, colorful, really enjoying to look at. For the rest, I guess it was ok, the game is short but that was just enough for me. Cool experience, I will probably give more chance to this kind of game in the future.

Original Post

Original post


17. Forza Horizon 2 Presents Fast & Furious (XB1)
Finished on Hard (plus racing line set to braking only). All achievements, 95.9% total completion.

On the one hand, it's hard to be disappointed about any free content, especially a standalone expansion. On the other hand, Forza Horizon 2 Presents Fast & Furious (what a mouthful) feels more like a glorified demo than an actual expansion. For anyone who's already played Horizon 2, it's great to be back in southern France, but you'll find that very little has changed. Fast & Furious is essentially a small slice of Horizon 2: same kinds of races, same open world (but only a portion of it), same bucket list challenges. There's even a barn find, though it's so perfunctory you wonder why anyone bothered. There's no slot machine for every time you level up, because levels don't exist here. There are no cash rewards because you can't buy any cars. You do get a few nice trinkets for achieving various milestones like breaking all the bonus boards, but the catch is they apply to your Forza Horizon 2 save.

For anyone who hasn't played a Horizon game before, then, the $10 entry fee (waived for the next few days) is a great way to see what all the fuss is about. But if Horizon 2 still looms large in your rearview, it's easy to feel like you've done all this before, albeit not to the dulcet tones of Ludacris telling you to win some pink slips. Speaking of which, Ludacris and the various vehicles you win are really the only notable references to the Fast & Furious series in the whole game, which is huge missed opportunity. Considering the movie franchise is so renowned for its vehicular stunts and ridiculous racing sequences, very little of that feel translates to the game that has its name on it. You won't be chased by any rogue tanks or have to escape out-of-control oil tankers on fire. You don't hijack any prison buses or drive through any smuggling tunnels. You're just doing all the things you did in the Horizon games, which are a good bit of fun on their own but aren't really what Fast & Furious was about.

Even the cars you win are disappointing. Outside of Dom's brutish 1970s Charger, none of the cars you see in the game bear much resemblance to their movie counterparts. I mean, sure, there's a Toyota Supra, but it lacks the garish paint job and body mods from The Fast & The Furious. Even the 2015 Charger sedan, presumably included to match the two black Chargers seen in the finale to Fast Five, is standard trim. How hard would it have been to make it jet black?

But hey, it's hard to argue with free. If you treat Fast & Furious as just more Horizon 2, you'll be in the right mindset to enjoy the ride. Just, you know, grab it soon before the price goes up April 10.

EDIT: I now understand why the white Supra is in the game, so I've gone back and edited my comment. It still would've been nice to see the original orange Supra from F&F1, though!

OG Post : http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=145803883&postcount=448

#15 The Last of Us Remastered



The first time i played it,when it launched on PS3,i I had just turned 15 years old,my mentality as a gamer was totally different,i didn't cared a lot about story and such,i was more of an mechanics guy. And now,almost turning 17,i can see that my experience with it changed a lot. Not because of the graphics and FPS improvements,but because now i can digest much better than relationship between Ellie and Joel,the problems both have,and,the best part of the game,now i see why people praise so much the story telling. The story between Ellie and Joel is great,but the world living in the catastrophe is the best part,by far. Reading the notes,on the hunter camps,the long time abandoned houses,on the sew,it made me have a totally different perspective on the game. When i first played it,i really like,but now,i love it,and i can understand why so many people think it's the game of their life.

#16 WarioWare Inc.: Mega Microgames !



I don't have any idea why i bought this game,still enjoyed it a lot lol. I loved the WarioWare game for the Wii,i hope the next one,since that the WiiU one looks thrash,go back to the roots and be as good as this one.

#17 Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze



I'm a big fan of DKC Returns. Even that i find it extremely hard and frustrating,finishing it was so extremely satisfying i can live with these problems. So,my thoughts on DKC TF were: they improved a lot on DKCR,the controls,music and level design,are much better,and the difficulty drop was really good,but,sometimes,i missed my constant ragequits. Why i missed them ? Because,DKCR,even that it was really frustrating at some points,required skill,and that's it,few parts it was cheap ,but i could see myself improving,everytime i fell onto a cliff on a minecart level,or when i was killed by a boss. And,DKC TF,on the other side,is much more cheap than the predecessor,being that the hardest levels,i didn't died repeatedly because i'm bad,but because the game throws something i can't escape or miss,it's just an cheap death,like on the final boss. At the end,i liked it more than DKCR,because,at the end,is much more polished and well designed,and the OST is godlike,but yeah,it won't mark me as much as DKCR did.

Update:

Game 07: Sherlock Holmes: The Mystery of the Mummy Completed 4-5-15

Mystery of the Mummy has aged very poorly. The game is severely hindered by it's design.

Right out of the gate, you are presented with a set 640 x 480 resolution. No other options and no windowed mode available. Additionally, the textures are low quality and blurry, a bad combination for a game designed around searching for clues and objects.

The cutscenes are about what you would expect for an old and lower budget game, however the game itself would crash after the end cutscene for every level, even with compatibility mode set for XP Service Pack 3 as recommended for this game.

If you so choose to play this game and run into this issue, you will need to know when you are about to end the level, save, finish the level, watch the cutscene, restart the game and load your save, finish the level again and skip the cutscene to start the next level.

Audio is basic and serviceable, but inconsistent loudness makes for some jarring scenes. There were also a few instances of popping during voice over scenes.

The gameplay itself is where the age of the game really drags it down. The movement and interaction is solely done by mouse and every bit of it is laborious. Moving around a room requires finding the hitbox on part of the screen you need to click to do so, and in a few instances isn't particularly obvious.

Searching for objects or other interactable items in the dark blurry mess of textures is reduced to moving your hand cursor around an area until it changes. Some objects aren't even visible when you move your hand over it. Using items from your inventory is also a kludgey exercise that is exacerbated when you find yourself in a timed puzzle.

Some of the puzzles are obtuse and none seem particularly clever in execution. As you are playing, you never get the sense that you are playing the Great Detective.

For completionists, like myself, who start from the beginning of any series, the good news is the game is short. I can only hope the follow up games of the series aged better and becomes more compelling.

For everyone else, skip this game.

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Game 08: TBD

#15. ICO (PS3) -- April 5 -- 3:07:59 -- ★★★★★ -- Replay
One of the all-time greats. Amazing level design that constantly foreshadows what's to come and reminisces on past events. A great story in which important moments are played, not watched. Great puzzles, great atmosphere, great camera angles. It's a short, but brilliant game.

Original Post - Part 1
Original Post - Part 2

Game #25: The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask 3D: 37 hours

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I'm actually kind of glad that I never finished this on Virtual Console. It suits a portable pretty well, though it does require some changes that some people aren't happy with. It also makes me wonder what a Zelda game with no full-scale dungeons would be like. The dungeons in this game are top-notch, and the bosses feel very different from usual Zelda fare which I really liked. But the real joy of this game is exploring, doing side-quests and tackling the many smaller areas that are around the place.

My one major criticism is that the circle pad isn't really suit to the high speed manuevering of the Goron and Zora transformations. I never quite felt in control during those segments.

Original post.

Game 18: Hotline Miami - 3/5 - 8 hours (05/04/15)

Completed the game, got all masks and the secret ending. There's a lot of gore, but the game's cohesiveness, both in tone and visual style, make it so it's actually acceptable and not tasteless. The arcade gameplay, designed to have you try all options and strategies, works wonderfully thanks to the absence of death penalties ad the quick restart; the controls are simple and immediate, yet manage to make you do crazy stuff, like ricocheting weapons and enemies against each-others. The level design and missions are the main drawbacks of the game, they're too samey, with not enough new mechanics added as you progress and lacking a balanced learning curve: at a certain point the game simply starts throwing heaps of enemies after you and making the levels longer and longer. The plot keeps you interested throughout the game, even though it's a little confused at times; the twists are unexpected and the ending is pretty out there (maybe a little too much). The setting and acid coloured artstyle, which are a very unique take on the genre, together with the incredible soundtrack and the dirty, bloody hallucinations sprinkled through the game, create an immersive dream-like experience.

This game is:

+

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Game 19: Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars - Director's Cut [with gf] - 2,5/5 - 18:36 hours (06/04/15)

Curse of Monkey Island being my favourite adventure game ever, Broken Sword has revealed itself to be a pretty big disappointment. The setting and lore employed in the game is extremely fascinating, just as the lovely hand-drawn backgrounds, but all that potential is squandered by the awful remastering (the portraits are amateurish and the dialogues are horribly acted and translated, at least in Italian) and by the bare bones gameplay. In fact 80% of the puzzles are about distracting someone to do something (I wish the whole game was built around the remaining 10%: mechanisms, old texts to translate, codes and such), speaking to people is a chore, because they too often keep rambling about personal stuff or other inane and absolutely humorless things, there's not enough stuff to check in those beatufil backrgounds, making oft too obvious the solution to a problem, there are no dialogue options, far too few items, silly choices (the only guy who wants to shake your electric hand in the whole game is the assassin? REALLY?), and you constantly feel as if you're forced in a certain direction. The plot is intriguing at first, but soon becomes too complex for its own good, with too many worthless, two-dimensional characters, and too many unanswered questions: most of the time you proceed through the game wondering why you're doing something, or what you have to do; George himself admits to have no clue about what they're searching at one point. By the way, George Stobbart has to be the most dumb and annoying main character in the history of gaming.

This game is:

+

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Original Post

Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward

Criteria: All endings completed
Time played: 47 hours.

"Wait... that can't be it... there's gotta be something more.. WTF! NO!!!"

That was me at the point where I suddenly realised that I'd been Shenmue'd again. Unlike 999 (like Shenmue) which despite leaving hooks for a sequel, wraps up all its main plot points nicely, VLR (like Shenmue 2) feels clearly like one half of a larger whole.

There's quite a lot of welcome improvements to the user interface, and gameplay systems over 999. Having a visible tree allowing you to see the path you're going down in the story is a godsend, and being able to jump back to any point already uncovered is a very welcome change from 999's requirement for you to start over each time. It's a good thing too, and there are many more branches this time, and you'll be met with far more blocks, and wrong choices. Another great change is not being required to "re-solve" puzzles that you've already completed.

I think I preferred the setting in 999 over this one, but as an overall experience I think they're close to being on par with each other. I did think I had VLR mostly worked out as I approached the later stages.. with some of my assumptions proving true, but I definitely didn't anticipate some of the turns the plot took by the end though. The last few hours had a few moments where I was like "whaaaaaa..".

Anyway. Now I get to jump on the "where the fuck is Zero Escape 3?!?" train with everyone else. Unlike Shenmue 3 however, I'm reasonably optimistic that it'll actually arrive.

To borrow from Axass quickly... this game is:

+

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Game Beaten #31 Final Fantasy XIII (X360) - 69 Hours
(Started 3/4/15 / Finished 4/6/15)
Where do I start on this train wreck? Everyone who knows this game is terrible did the smart thing and either avoided or dropped it. The people that like this game are far too gone from listening to any rhyme or reason. So I'll start with the good points because that is pretty quick. The music is on point, the graphics are beautiful, and the set pieces are also well designed. Ok I'm done.

The battle system is an auto attack, automatic mess that can be thankfully easily abused by constantly shifting paradigm's to get an instant attack. I will also praise the game for making status effects mean something when so few games I feel like get that right.

The story is one of the stupidest things I've ever played through. Without going into heavy spoilers (keep reading for that) it is a contradicting mess that actually manages to find itself written into a corner and a excuse is needed to explain the unexplainable within this games own world's rules. There are moments the characters manage to shine through the mud of sloppy, ugly writing covering them but it isn't often.

The hallway complaint really doesn't bother me, a lot of RPGs have become this. My issue is the on rails storyline progression with the constant party splits are enough to drive someone mad. It is no wonder many people gave up on this before investing 30-40 hours until you reach Gran Pulse. No sane person should. Your reward for freedom of Gran Pulse is the punishment of the story abandoning you. The game throws you in a situation where you can go anywhere but everything will kill you unless you take the time to explore, level, and do missions for cool rewards. It's the equivalent of a holiday episode randomly thrown into your favorite TV show, nothing happens and everyone abandons everything in the name of celebrating the holidays. Except in this case they are on a time limit on this quest and instead just wander aimlessly through Gran Pulse. The sense of urgency you had in the first 10 chapters? Gone.

When the game finally gets back on course This writing seriously gave me a damn headache. Spare yourself from this nonsense.

OG Post 2

Don't think I'll complete it but I wanted to keep track of everything I've beaten so far this year:

Game #1: Destiny -- 1/30/2015
To me beating this game was getting Platinum. It is when the experience truly ended for me and I didn't accomplish that until I completed a raid without dying. 9/10

Game #2: Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker - 2/7/2015
Finished the main game and some of the additional content. Was a fantastic title that was a joy to play. The puzzles were never overly difficult and it controlled very well. 8.5/10

Game #3: Helldivers -- 3/8/2015
Beating this one was also a game I kind of had to just call it. I successfully helped destroy the bugs, defended a city, and beat a top level mission. I haven't reached max level but I think my experience ended. 8/10

Game #4: Ori and the Blind Forest 3/14/2015
My GOTY at this point. The game was stunningly beautiful with an amazing sound track. The gameplay was tight and took inspiration from many of my favorite games. The best metroidvania I've played in years and possibly one of if not my favorite game of all time. 10/10

Game #5: OlliOll2: Welcome to Olliwood -- 3/15/2015
This one was me beating all amateur challenges to unlock all the pro levels and at least completing all of the pro levels and spots. Beating all the pro challenges would just be crushingly difficult for me and I don't have it in me. 9.5/10

Game #6: Kirby and the Rainbow Curse -- 3/21/2015
Another beautiful game from Nintendo and a follow up on one of my favorite Nintendo DS games. It was disappointing having to play the whole thing on the gamepad. No power ups was disappointing and the repeat transformations felt a little repetitive but overall a fun game. The difficulty definitely ramped up in a couple spots but overall was enjoyable. I haven't tackled the challenges yet and may go back to those at some point. It just didn't have the magic of the original thought 7.5/10

Game #7: Valiant Hearts -- 3/22/2015
Beat this one in one day. Fantastic game with a touching story and fun puzzles. Beautiful art style. No 100% but pretty close. 9/10

Game #8: The Order: 1886 -- 4/5/2015
Also beat this one in one day. Fantastic visuals, fun story, great setting but weighed down by ho-hum fighting and gameplay. Exploration was a bit lacking. 7/10

Game #9: Mario & Luigi: Dream Team -- 4/7/2015
Came back to this one after a couple years. I was only about 10-12 hours in and had gotten tired of the very long levels and hefty dialog. Came back to it a week ago and put in about 25 hours and finished it. It's probably the lesser of the Mario & Luigi games but there was a lot of variety and as always the battle system was pretty fun. Going through low level always provides a good challenge. The story wasn't as good and the dialog was only somewhat funny compared to the other Mario RPG games. 7.5/10

Game #10: Bastion -- 4/10/2015
I loved Transistor so I had to try this as soon as it came out. I just completed the story in one sitting, ~5 hours, and am ready to start New Game+ immediately like I was with Transistor. I can see myself trying to platinum this one. Had an absolute blast, their games have such amazing visuals, music, and narration. The narrations was just fantastic and the music got to me a little bit when the lyrics started. Fun game, we'll see how hard it gets with all the idols on. Finished New Game+ and Score Attack mode to get the Platinum. I still liked transistor better, more variation in the combat, the dream sequences in Bastion all but required the Brusher's Pike and Mortar tactic which was fun but repetitive. Still an amazing game, but a step below Transistor. 9.5/10

Game #11: Super Mega Baseball -- 4/13/2015
Baseball season started so I needed my fix of some baseball games. The Show games take too long and the game is frankly just too much of a time investment so I looked into the more arcadey options. Super Mega Baseball plays like your favorite SNES games of old (Ken Griffey Jr!) on casual mode and then steps it up into the N64 era with reticule aiming on harder modes. I had a blast in my first season taking home the championship but the lack of an MLB license did make it a little less fun. There wasn't anyone on other teams I feared to faced since I didn't know anything about them. The level of customization for your team is amazing but I usually don't dabble in those aspects. I'll be shelving this for now but will be coming back throughout the year to test my skills and get my fix. The lack of online really hurts the replay value. I'd love to test my skills against others. No home run derby mode is also disappointing.7/10

Game #12: Super Paper Mario: Sticker Star -- 4/18/2015
This is one I picked up out of my backlog to finish. I was about halfway through it when the frustration of the puzzles made me stop playing. I played the remainder with the aide of a walkthrough when I needed it. The game was pretty unique in that there was no equipment, special abilities, etc beyond stickers that you could use. The sticker system and status effects it provided was actually quite deep and the boss battles were fun using your array of different sticker abilities. The main problem I had with the game is there were progression walls where seemingly a specific sticker/object were needed to progress and there was little in the way of the game to tell you where to get that sticker. It could be in any of the 20 previous levels you had just played. This is what I used the walkthrough for and ultimately used it to help get past a couple bosses. Experimenting was costly and I just didn't have the patience. Worst Paper Mario game and Mario RPG by far but it had a lot to live up to. 5/10

Game #13: Gunman Clive 2 -- 4/19/2015
Gunman Clive was a fantastic game at incredible value ($1.99). I was hoping Gunman Clive 2 would expand upon the success and make a much larger full fledged game. At $2.99 it is still a steal but it is still just a 2 hour experience (albeit high replayability with different characters just like the first one). New mechanics, environments, and added color were great additions but at the core it is still a very short Mega Man clone. The boss battles were the highlight again, simply fantastic, actually some of the best boss fights in gaming have come from this series. The only knock is some of the platforming was wonky. 9/10

Game #14: Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel -- 4/28/2015
Loved the first two Borderlands games so had to pick this up as soon as it released. Played through the entire game co-op with a friend and had a blast. I played mostly just the story and skipped many of the side quests to save them for the True Vault Hunter Mode which I'll start at some time down the road. I did not try any of the DLC yet. Funny game as always, fun interesting environments, great loot, and decent gameplay. Borderlands 2 was still better but this is definitely better than 1. [8/10]

Just adding some games I've finished but will fill out more later:

Game #15: Journey
Game #16: The Unfinished Swan
Game #17: Mario Kart 8 DLC #2
Game #18: Super Mario Maker
Game #19. Destiny: The Taken King
Game #20: Rocket League
Game #21: Fallout 4
Game #22: Undertale
Game #23: Divinity: Original Sin - Enhanced Edition
Game #24: SteamWorld Heist

Graveyard:
Games I didn't like and/or don't plan on going back to: Apotheon, Tower of Guns, Race the Sun, Luftrausers, Game of Thrones, Velocity 2X, Splatoon, Majora's Mask 3D

Currently Playing/Working On
The Witcher 3, Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon, Yoshi's Wooly World, Shovel Knight, Pokemon Picross, Fallout Shelter, Codename: S.T.E.A.M

In the queue:
Games from my backlog that I haven't started or finished that I truly want to play: The Talos Principle, Teslagrad, Xenoblade Chronicles X, Dragon Quest Heroes

Synth said:

To borrow from Axass quickly... this game is:

Click to expand...

LOL.

I cant wait to play VLR, played 999 last year and my mind was blown. I've just got so many games on my plate that I can't start another one just yet, especially since I want to give my full attention to VLR.

Click to expand...

#16. Shadow of the Colossus (PS3) -- April 6 -- 2:30:30 -- ★★★★★ -- Replay
Annual "speedrun" of what is probably my second favourite game (after Metroid Prime). I'm still kind of amazed that this is a playable video game that exists, from the PS2 era no less. It's so unlike anything that came before or since. The coolest thing about it is how unscripted player movement is. If you're good enough, you can make some pretty incredible jumps/maneuvers. A lot of games these days operate on the "do less, get more" philosophy, which is a bummer. If I know, before I even press the button, that my character will make the jump, then there's no tension. Shadow of the Colossus gets this right.

1-26

Game 27: DESTINY - ?:?? hours - PS4 - Apr03
- 2nd playthrough; all online coop with a buddy

Game 28: SUNSET OVERDRIVE: DAWN OF THE RISE OF THE FALLEN MACHINES DLC - ~2.5 hours - XO - Apr04
-

Game 29: LIFE IS STRANGE: EPISODE 2 - ~3.0 hours - PC - Apr11
-

Game 30: LUIGI'S MANSION: DARK MOON - ?.0 hours - 3DS - Apr18
- played this in 30-45 min bursts during lunch breaks which incidentally, given its structure, is a good way to experience this game

Game 31: 10000000 - ~3.0 hours - HTC1M8 - Apr23
- played through this again over a couple days with downtime at work

Game 32: BLOODBORNE - a lot of hours - PS4 - Apr30

Game 33: THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: A LINK BETWEEN WORLDS - ?:?? - 3DS - May03

Game 34: WOLFENSTEIN: THE OLD BLOOD - 8.0 hours - PC - May10

Game 35: NINJA GAIDEN: DRAGON SWORD - 6.0 hours - DS/3DS - May16

Game 36: CAPTAIN TOAD: TREASURE TRACKER - ?.0 hours - WIIU - May17
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Back-log games I would really like to tackle in 2015: PN03; W101; Madworld; Red Steel 2; SMG2; KirbyRTDW; LoZ:ALBW; Luigi's Mansion DM; FzeroX; SS2;
Butcher Bay; SCBlacklist;
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
currently playing: DarkSouls(PC) | DmC(ps4) | Jamestown(ps4) | MK8 | PokeY | KirbyRnbwCrse
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
have: 2500k sli 4gb 980s; 360; xbone, xbox, ps2/3/4, wii, wii u, n64, n3ds xl, vita1000, psp3000, pstv; dreamcast; shield portable; ipad air, htc one (m8);
rog swift monitor;1080p monitor; 65" "240 hz" vizio, 3d vision

Lengthy update, been a few weeks since I posted here.

Main post


Game 25: Lost Saga
Playtime: 15:00
Start/Finish: Mar 25th, 2015 - Mar 29th, 2015
// wasted potential
This is a great game. It's a shame it's free to play. The combat is excellent, feels like a 2D fighting game but in 3D. If you can hit the enemy that is, horrible server lag problems. The community is even worse, and the company nickel and dimes the players. Shame to see a game be ruined by the f2p model.
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Game 26: Mabinogi
Playtime: 855:00+ (2015: 12 hours)
Start/Finish Mar 27th, 2008 - Apr 1st, 2015
// sweet memories
I've been playing this game for a long time, playtime is prob over 1000 but don't have the time I played before it got on steam. Probably the first mmo I played, and the one that made me love mmos. Great community, great game in general, and the music is the best. Still listen to the ost. But, I have to stop playing online games in general. Don't have time for these anymore.
--

Game 27: Rogue Legacy
Playtime: 16:48
Start/Finish: Feb 4th, 2015 - Apr 4th, 2015
// best indie i've played
I could never finish this on PC. Glad it made it's way on to my Vita where I can take it anywhere. Finally got to finish it, loved it. I'm not too big on these type of games, since the pixelated art style is starting to get really old in the indie game scene. This one though is the exception, with it's great mechanics that just made me keep wanting to come back.
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Game 28: Azure Striker Gunvolt
Playtime: 5:23
Start/Finish: Apr 4th, 2015
// epic.
Oh man, why did I not play this earlier. I rushed through the game sure but, it was amazing. I used to love Mega Man as a kid and it just took me back to that. Though one huge complaint I have is that the CAPITALIZED TEXT NEEDS TO GO. Reading that through the whole game was pretty annoying.. Glad to see this is getting a sequel though, looking forward to it.
--

Game 29: God Eater Burst
Playtime: 52:50 (2015: 20 hours)
Start/Finish: Mar 3rd, 2014 - Apr 6th, 2015
// God Eater 2 Rage Burst pls Bamco
Finaaally beat this. For sure my favorite hunting game, great story, characters, and fast paced combat make this one of my favorite series. Now if only someone would localize the second game already..
--

Game 30: Phantasy Star Online 2
Playtime: 210:14 (2015: 25 hours)
Start/Finish: Jan 1st, 2013 - Apr 6th, 2015
// I want to play Nova, cmon Sega.
I need to stop playing this. I started Phantasy Star Universe as my first game in the series and I actually liked it. Seeing PSO2 though was kind of a let down since it was just a lobby based system with hardly any exploration outside of just going into missions.. It was fun, though I had to go solo almost the whole time since my friends didn't want to go through all the Japanese text, patches, and all that. Hope PSNova can somehow make it's way over here.

Update:

Game 08: Sherlock Holmes: The Secret of the Silver Earring Completed 4-6-15

This second entry in the Sherlock Holmes series is a dramatically improved experience, relative to the first. There are some technical issues that impacted the experience, but with the age of this game, odd glitches were not unexpected.

I believe that recent video card drivers may not be the best for this particular game. The options for the game allowed a couple of resolution options, but I could only run the game with the lowest option. When first starting the game, the character models would also be missing but their shadows would be present. Alt-tabbing out and back into the game fixed this glitch.

The other odd issue was the audio output. Again, the video card driver appears to be the culprit as the audio for this computer is normally handled through the card over HDMI. Regardless of the settings for the HDMI audio device, the audio from the game would never play. The fix was to use the secondary audio device on the computer and outputting directly to headphones, bypassing the video card output.

Aside from these two issues, no other technical problems were evident during the playthrough.

The visuals for Secret of the Silver Earring are leaps and bounds beyond those from Mystery of the Mummy. While certainly not comparable to current games, the visuals were clean and detailed. All clues and objects were visible and discoverable through observation, unlike many of the scenes from the first game. Additionally, the streamlined user interface makes the inventory so much easier to interact with and use.

Sounds and music for this game were fine, though nothing special. I did find the voice acting to be commendable, especially for Holmes. The subtle inflections and tone changes the actor employed added a great amount of depth to the character during longer dialogue scenes.

The focus in this game was much more dialogue and clue discovery than mechanical puzzle problems of the first game. This was a great design direction that felt more befitting a detective.

While Mystery of the Mummy seemed filled with trifle puzzles and obnoxious arbitrary timed scenarios, Silver Earring's situations felt cohesive and natural. With that in mind, there are still a couple of scenes that seemed out of place due to their timed nature. Be sure to save your game before

Spoiler

venturing past the pond in the forest

and before

Spoiler

entering the compound with the night guard and guard dogs

.

I had low expectations going into the second Sherlock Holmes game due to the experience of the first and the technical issues at the start were also concerning, but I am glad I didn't allow those to stop me from playing.

I would recommend that if someone is interested in playing the Sherlock Holmes games, start with this one if you can get past any technical issues that you might encounter.

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Game 09: TBD

Original Post - Part 1
Original Post - Part 2

Game #26: Cloudbuilt: 6 hours

Click to expand...

Okay let me get this out of the way first, this game's soundtrack is great and I hope more indie developers hire Jacob Lincke in the future. Secondly, this game is really pretty. It uses a fairly simplistic cel-shaded artstyle with a cross-hatching filter that does an excellent job of making it look like a moving sketch, though when it's flying by at 300 miles an hour you don't always notice it.

Then we come to the all-important gameplay. Each of the levels takes place on a sea of rubble in the clouds, the main components being various blocks and panels you need to traverse to get to the goal. The character is equipped with a gun that enables you to dispatch enemies and a jetpack and rocket boots that enable you to run along and up walls and double, triple and quadruple jump. This is balanced out by a limited fuel supply that recharges when you are not performing these actions. However the addition of fuel replenishment pickups leads to a lot of parts where you will be wallrunning for extended periods, and these are easily the hardest parts of the game. The levels are mostly open-ended, with at least two to four routes from any given Point A to Point B (save for one or two chokepoints a level) so there's a lot of on-the-fly decision making about which route you seem the most likely to be able to handle. It gets really hard really fast, but when you pull off some of the harder sections it feels amazing and even traversing simple sections is really satisfying.

Something else that's really interesting about Cloudbuilt is the progression structure. There's a lives system, which are generally looked down upon these days, but it seems to exist for a completely different reason to the classic versions that have their roots in arcades. There are checkpoints scattered throughout each level as well as pickups that let you place one of your own, and each checkpoint restores you to 6 lives. After you beat the prologue and the first level you unlock 2 more levels (+1 free DLC branch), and each of those levels unlocks another 2 that form 4 main branches that continue for another 4 levels or so. The difficulty curve down each branch is roughly equivalent, and each rank you achieve on a level above the lowest increases the number of lives you enter a level with by 1. The net result of all this is that the lives system serves as a warning telling you that you're stuck, and that you should go try another level you've unlocked. By the time you come back to that level you will probably have more retries available to you. Your mileage may vary on how useful this is in practice, but I thought it was a neat idea.

Thematically these escapades in the clouds are a manifestation of the brain of the main character, a soldier, reorganising and integrating with cybernetics following a traumatic accident in an unseen war. She monologues about the implications of the incident and the floating dream-scape she's now inhabiting, and admittedly the story itself is forgettable. What's memorable about this though is that each branch of the map represents a different path that the character can go down as she slowly recovers from her surgery and this is represented by subtle changes in level design (such as the path of returning to the army being stormy, relatively linear and littered with enemies). At the end of each path is an ending, though the accompanying cutscene essentially only differs in lighting and voice-over, I thought that thematically the names of the four levels at the end of each path (Regret, Inspiration, Acceptance & Redeployment) did a much better job of conveying what the endings, and the story as a whole, were trying to do with significantly fewer words.

I can easily see why this game got a somewhat mixed reception from GAF when it released but I absolutely loved it. My main gripes are with one of the enemy types that is a shielded drone that tries to ram you and can only be defeated by avoiding it's sight for about 20 seconds so it drops its shield. It's a bit flow-breaking in the instances that you can't just run past it and it can and will follow you for a long time if you do.
My other main gripe is with the controls, your action keys (jump/wall-cling/wall-jump and boost/ascend wall) work perfectly well for the most part but having boost and ascend while wall running on the same key can get really frustrating. If you want to be the most efficient you have to activate your jets to maintain height on a wall just before the wall running animation becomes really obvious. The problem with that is if you hit the button too early you air dash into the wall instead which looks really cool but uses up a lot of fuel that in some levels is necessary to make it to the next pickup. I'm not sure how you'd fix it but it is a problem.

original post



17. Beyond Good & Evil HD (PS3) - 10 hours;

Damn, what a masterpiece in world design. Especially since it's very unique, even though it still is pretty French and has ,,Rayman'' still written over several aesthetics. Yet, it truly feels like being in an invaded world, uncovering crazy plots as a super spy. What really sticks out though, is that it isn't very intrusive with cutscenes and gameplay is wonderfully woven into the world. There's many great touches, like the fact that you don't go into dungeons with the intent of finding new items, but take photos, which will eventually be published in magazines which you can also subscribe to. The dungeons themselves also really make sense as part of the world and within these, the puzzles also feel very natural. There are no abstract block puzzles or anything and sometimes they got me thinking for good. It's nice to see the world change little by little after several major accomplishments and the optional dungeons also simply make sense within the world. There unfortunately is some not very exciting combat, yet the focus really is on other aspects, like exploring, interacting with NPCs and puzzle solving. On top of that, great music and likeable characters (excluding that computer AI, which thankfully barely gets any showtime). Since this is set on a water based map, I was inclined to say that this title is Wind Waker done right, lol. I was also thinking about a LTTP thread, but I got through it quite quickly.
I also had to shockingly find out that this title came out 12 years ago. Kinda crushing any hopes for the sequel, despite teasing up until last year. But then again, WiLD looks pretty good under an indie production, so maybe Ancel can still deliver a sequel for this on the new gen too under certainly bigger (if not great for such a project) Ubisoft budgets.