BraXzy said:

Undertale spoilers:

Spoiler

I killed one thing at the very start of the game when I was first getting used to the mechanics and figuring what the hell I had to do. Didn't harm a soul afterwards, besides an accidental one which I reloaded my save for (and the game remembered). So didn't get the Pacifist ending. Tbf though, I straight up killed Flowey at the end anyway...

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septicore said:

Wow, I didn't know the game was able to do that, that's some clever programming.

OP

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1. Odallus: The Dark Call - 4/5 | A love letter to Castlevania, but with modern quality-of-life improvements. Very fun, albeit a bit too heavy on finding all the secrets just to make the difficulty reasonable.
2. Undertale - 5/5 | A masterpiece in messing with your expectations and just being fun and charming, I went into Undertale expecting to feel mediocre about it at best, especially after the Internet Hype Machine. But it's good, guys. It's good.
3. The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth - 3/5 | I like roguelikes, but TBOI has never really clicked with me. Rebirth is a much, much, much better game than vanilla though, and I liked it enough to keep going until I got the first ending, at least. Will revisit in the future probably, as there's so much depth here, but I just don't find the actual core gameplay that fun.
4. Far Cry 4 - 4/5 | Just stop putting stories in these, guys. And stop with the unskippable cutscenes. Because your core gameplay loop is fun as hell, and your story is pointless. FC4 is an improvement in pretty much every way over Far Cry 3, which I enjoyed quite a bit. Didn't touch the multiplayer, and I've yet to play co-op, but FC4 is just a big open world with a bunch of stuff to do.
5. Dead Space - 4/5 | An absolute blast to play and one of my favorite settings ever, Dead Space builds upon its inspirations and lasts just enough time to leave an impression without overstaying its welcome. The variety in weapons made encounters fresh, combined with the light RPG elements of weapon and suit upgrading. The turret sections were bizarre, but not overly annoying.
6. Firewatch - 4/5 | A beautiful game with excellent writing, believable and likable characters and a great plot. Overall, it's not a very interactive game, and it's not maybe the most thrilling climax, but Firewatch achieves exactly what it sets out to do... and does it beautifully.
7. Lux Delux - 3/5 | A fun little Risk clone. Played multiple rounds per map, won a game on each of the default maps. Wish I knew some people who played it online, as it'd be fun to get some games going.
8. The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings - 4/5 | This one's taken me some time to finish up, as I started it a long time ago, but I finally played through the last two thirds of the game and ended up liking it quite a bit. I've since moved on to The Witcher 3 and found that thankfully all of my complaints have been answered. The Witcher 2's story and characters elevate a mediocre combat system and some absolutely mind-bogglingly janky sections to end up being a great game.
9. Shovel Knight: Plague of Shadows - 4/5 | I loved the original campaign, and Plague of Shadows is just as good if not better. It starts out a lot more difficult while you get the hang of the weird bomb jumping, and the changes and different bosses added as well as the new hub areas and story elements were great. Plus, Mona is best girl. Can't wait for King Knight and Specter Knight's campaigns.
10. The Division - 4/5 | If you want a co-op loot shooter, this is the game for you. It's all about numbers, having your friends' backs, and awesome story missions. Unfortunately, the side content is a little bit lacking and I am missing the lack of structured PvP. Fortunately, I've barely scratched the surface of gear optimizing and it looks like there's a ton of content on the way. In addition, the Dark Zone is amazing. It's so tense and infuriating and rewarding. A great game and I'm in for the long haul (just like Destiny).
11. Tekken Tag Tournament 2 - 3/5 | I just don't think I'm ever gonna be into Tekken. This is the full package, tons of options, characters, stages.. but it just doesn't work for me. Played through the arcade mode a bit and some other stuff. Just give me a new Soul Calibur, Namco.
12. Renowned Explorers: International Society - 4/5 | If you like FTL, you'll like REIS, especially if you tend more towards Indiana Jones than Star Wars (Neither game is like either, I just wanted to make that comparison). It's also got a lot more smart planning and tactical choices, and a lot less "Pick the blue option to win/ use memorization and trial and error, whoops giant spiders killed you because random". The characters are varied, the expeditions are cool, and the battle system is enthralling. One of my favorite rogue-lites yet.
13. Stikbold! - 3/5 | The campaign here was actually pretty meaty, with some neat boss battles and fun levels. This game is built for multiplayer with your friends though, and I'm eager to dive into some of that at some point. The core mechanics are pretty good, and the arenas are varied enough to keep it fresh.
14. Amplitude - 3/5 | Rhythm games aren't always my thing, but Amplitude's great soundtrack and genuinely fun track-switching gameplay elevate it above being just a throwaway rhythm game. It's engaging, difficult, and while the story beats basically equate to a single line of dialogue as you start each track, the game as a whole is a sleek, polished package.
15. Street Fighter V - 4/5 | Everyone knows the troubles this game has: lack of content, rushed launch, drip-feed content post-launch. I'm not gonna dwell on it. The core gameplay here is something SFIV could never get right for me: fun. It's in a lot of ways to me an SF3 sequel, and the characters added in DLC seem to keep that trend going. The unique V-Skill and V-Trigger systems add some much-needed variety, and the changes to existing characters really make the series feel fresh. Yes, the single-player content barely exists, which will hopefully change in June, but I'm excited to see what this game looks like when, you know, the whole game is out. *cough*
16. Shutshimi - 3/5 | A fun, rapid-paced, 2D sidescrolling roguelite shooter that's more Warioware than Gradius. The powerups make for unique runs, the shop mechanic is smart, and the core gameplay loop is fun enough to be worth a playthrough for anyone. I "beat" it on my second run, though, so it's not very difficult. Definitely something I'll replay over the years though, as it's light and short.
17. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - 5/5 | Not much can be said about The Witcher 3 that hasn't already been discussed to death. It's a huge, beautiful, varied game, with brilliant writing and a cast of incredibly deep characters. My own thoughts on it go like this: They finally made a game after two prototypes. I liked The Witcher 2, and I could tolerate The Witcher enough to finish it, but only during The Witcher 3 did I actually at any point want more of the gameplay. It's that good. The combat system finally feels more like an actual fight and less like swinging rapidly and hoping for the best. The quality-of-life improvements in every area change the chore-like qualities of the downtime of the other games. The giant world feels lived-in and fresh, and the actual plot is quite good.
    The only gripe I have is that the ending lasts for roughly four to eight hours of preparation. Still, what a game. I'll play Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine soon, after I finish up some other addictions.
18. Dark Souls III - 5/5 | Dark Souls fans can be finicky. This, though, was the perfect Dark Souls ending to me. It also showed even more how Dark Souls II didn't do sequel stuff right, despite being a good game in its own right. Dark Souls III does fanservice lore connections right, with outright continuations of areas and characters instead of winky wink nudge nudge MAYBE THIS IS THE SAME AREA. The bosses are well-designed, the areas are beautiful and the faster combat really feels like they took lesssons from all previous games, including Bloodborne. I can't wait for the DLC.
19. OutDrive - 1/5 | Not really a game. Great aesthetics and soundtrack, but the driving is shit and there's no real end. I did all the "content".
20. NOT A HERO - 3/5 | Max Payne Hotline Miami in 2D. It's pretty great; it's fun, it's fast, and it's engaging. The writing is bottom-tier, awful, wannabe funny/edgy/random garbage, but the gameplay more than makes up for it. A couple missions are too trial-and-error for me, but the rest of it is fun and the unique characters all play very different.
21. Shadow Warrior - 3/5 | Another game with truly atrocious writing, but a lot of fun underneath. The levels are varied, the movement is fantastic, and the gunplay is amazing. The shotgun in particular is one of my favorite weapons in all gaming, especially combined with the dash. I don't particularly care for the sword mechanics, and a couple levels drag on a bit, not to mention the bosses are pretty boring standard fare and don't really fit. Still, I'm definitely in for the sequel.
22. Bayonetta - 4/5 | Not a HUGE fan of character action games, but Bayonetta really hits the things I like in them: a cool parry/dodge mechanic, cool bosses, and neat levels. It's got a handful of problems (rocket, motorcycle levels), and I skipped every cutscene *cough* but it's an absolute blast to play. I can't wait to play Bayonetta 2, cause it looks like more of the same. Also, I played the really bad PS3 port, so I can imagine the Wii U and 360 versions of Bayo 1 are even better.
23. Uncharted 4: A Thief's End - 5/5 | This isn't gonna be for everyone, even diehard Uncharted fans. But Uncharted 4 was exactly what I wanted out of the last Uncharted game (by Naughty Dog, so the last one for me). A slower, more grounded Uncharted with focus on the relationships of the characters you've come to know across the prior games. The gameplay is also vastly improved, with the new climbing mechanics and stealth systems making the game open up a lot more to different approaches. I hope the single-player DLC is as good as the main game, and I'll be happy to say goodbye to one of my favorite series.
24. Mushroom 11 - 3/5 | I feel like the most important thing in a puzzle game is to balance satisfaction and frustration, and Mushroom 11 almost nails that ratio. It's a great core gameplay loop of erasing yourself to mash yourself into tiny holes and climb stuff and fight gross bosses. Very fun.
25. Cat Girl Without Salad: Amuse Bouche - 1/5 | Absolutely atrocious. There was not a single good thing about this aside from the main concept. But it's not even pulled off well.
26. Persona 4: Golden - 5/5 | Not gonna say anything that hasn't been said before, but this game is a delight. Even if the end is a little silly and the requirements for true ending are a little obtuse. It's just worth playing if anything about it appeals to you at all.
27. Overwatch - 5/5 | If every game could be as effortlessly fun, gaming would be in a lot better place. It's got its issues, but with frequent patches and content updates, I'm pretty sure I'll be playing Overwatch for years and years to come.
28. Blazing Star - 3/5 | I'm not usually one for shmups, but this one was simple and fun. Cool bosses, neat 3D effects.
29. Hand of Fate - 3/5 | I liked this quite a bit until the ending parts, which were just incredibly annoying and unfun. Still, as a semi-roguelike, I found it very fun, and the setting and mechanics were decent. If the combat was a little better, and the end boss not so bad, I would've bumped this up to a four easily. Hoping Hand of Fate 2 has all that I wanted the first game to be.
30. God of War: Ghost of Sparta - 3/5 | My first God of War, bizarrely. I liked it a fair amount, though it did mostly amount to using the fire to power up your spin move, repeated endlessly. Cool setting, though, and I'm currently playing through 3 and Ascension (And Chains of Olympus).
31. Refunct - 3/5 | Short (very short) and sweet. Captain Toad meets Mirror's Edge. If they took the core movement mechanics and puzzle mechanics and made a longer game, I'd be in day one. As is, a good way to pass a short amount of time in bliss. Good music.
32. Doom (2016) - 5/5 | I really had no expectations for this before I played the demo. After I played the demo, it made me realize the full game would probably be in my contender for GOTY. And it was. What an absolute thrill ride of rip and tear, with new mechanics and guns constantly thrown at you, with incredible music and pretty good boss fights. Double jump super shotgun to glory kill will never be boring. Just wish the DLC wasn't only for multiplayer.
33. Tharsis - 3/5 | A fun enough (albeit short) dice-based space game where your mistakes have dire consequences. I love space madness and dice, but I wish this game was a little more fleshed out.
34. Killer is Dead - 3/5 | Surprisingly fun and stylish action game. The story is apparently nonsense, and the combat isn't *that* deep, but it's definitely worth the generally-small asking price. Shooting and slicing is great fun and it doesn't overstay its welcome.
35. Grapple - 3/5 | You're a little sticky ball and you grapple stuff in space. If you, like me, are devastated at the general loss of 3D platformers, you should give Grapple a try. It's more of a swinging game than a platformer, but the mechanics on display and smart level design coupled with the tight core gameplay make this one not to miss.
36. Freedom Planet - 1/5 | Yikes. A devastatingly bland Sonic clone with horrible boss fights and terrible VA/writing. I'm no huge fan of classic Sonic, but this was just unenjoyable on all fronts.
37. Clustertruck - 4/5 | Now this is a fun one. I'd kept it on my radar since its reveal and was pleasantly surprised to see it live up to its potential. The gameplay is tight, the levels are smart and well-thought-out, and the unlockable abilities and utility powers keep the game surprising you throughout. The end boss was a little janky (now patched) and some of the levels feel a bit samey, but Clustertruck is definitely worth anyone's time who likes momentum and platforming. Additionally, the holiday updates (free!) are pretty fun.
38. Mother Russia Bleed - 2/5 | Not ordinarily a huge fan of beat-em-ups, and Mother Russia Bleeds has a large amount of flaws, but I like the amount of interactable objects and the different characters. Plus you can decapitate a guy and throw his head at another enemy. If it wasn't for the absolutely atrocious boss fights (seriously, they are bad), this could have been a lot better.
39. Sonic Colors - 3/5 | Wow, this was a lot better than I expected. As someone who liked Generations a lot, I thought it was time to go back and play this, and I liked pretty much all of it outside of the Wisp-based sections (which felt gimmicky at best and janky at worst). The speed and platforming on display is fantastic, though.
40. A Story About My Uncle - 3/5 | The story drags on and on and on and is unskippable and totally unnecessary, but the core swinging gameplay here is a lot of fun and the level design is pretty and interesting. Also, the title is bad. Like... really bad.
41. Nancy Drew: Tomb of the Lost Queen - 2/5 | If you've played one Nancy Drew game, you've pretty much played them all. The story in this one was very weird and disjointed feeling, and a lot of the puzzles felt almost entirely luck/trial-and-error based, but casual adventure fans could do a lot worse.
42. Spaera - 2/5 | Puzzle Bobble/Bust-a-Move clone with horribly unbalanced powers for different characters. Overall, pretty janky and not really worth playing if you've got access to the real thing.
43. Assault Android Cactus - 3/5 | Difficult, fast, and truly rewarding skill, Assault Android Cactus managed to keep me interested and excited throughout the whole campaign, despite being in a genre I absolutely cannot stand. The new characters and their unique movesets kept me wanting to play just one more level, and though the final boss(es) tested the limits of my patience, I'm happy I finished it. Pretty fun.
44. The Banner Saga - 4/5 | Wow, this one surprised me. I expected little more than a short Fire Emblem clone with a decent story and pretty art, but everything about this game shines. The story is good, the music is great, the art is fantastic and the gameplay is fun and engaging. The only real gripes I had with it were how quick you could lose your best fighters by answering wrong in story situations and how badly you could utterly destroy your chances of winning since there's no way to grind and once you hit the end boss, you've got what you've got. I beat it though and can't wait for the sequel.
45. Resident Evil: Revelations - 3/5 | A fun enough side story in the Resident Evil franchise, RE:R is almost devoid of scares and the shooting feels just weird enough to not be fully satisfying, but for a port of a 3DS game it holds up well enough. I like the cast of characters and the settings. Worth it for lite-horror fans and RE fans alike.
46. Oxenfree - 3/5 | With probably the best dialogue system in a Telltale-like, and an engaging and moving story that really makes you feel your choices, Oxenfree is an interesting ghost story, a coming of age story, and at points almost a horror story. The gameplay is pretty simple, but the exploration and dialogue choices, as well as the different events that can occur, make Oxenfree feel like you really made an impact on these character's lives.
47. Saint's Row IV - 3/5 | While the superpowers make the vehicles utterly useless, they also make the gameplay more immediately appealing than SR3. While I never felt in any danger, and the mech sections are awful, SRIV is a fun world to run around and blow stuff up in with insane super powers and crazy guns. The story is hit-or-miss but the soundtrack is great.
48. HITMAN - 4/5 | This one surprised me with its depth and quality, especially since I didn't expect much after Absolution or the reveal that the game was going to be episodic. Boy, was I (and many others) wrong. The level design is absolutely stellar, with so much to do in each level, tons of creative ways to kill your targets, and the Elusive Targets might be the most innovative (and sometimes frustrating) feature of the year. Absolutely recommended to stealth fans who don't mind a little repetition.
49. Final Fantasy XV - 5/5 | Wow. I've been no big fan of FF in the past, only really putting in time to FF7 and FFX, only finishing the former. The battle system in XV turned me off in initial reveals, and the Platinum Demo made me lose the small remaining amounts of interest I had. It felt bad, was ugly, and the story seemed absolutely stupid. But when I heard about the Judgment Disc demo, I thought, I'll give it one more shot. And it blew me away. The car, the gameplay, the camraderie. I preordered immediately after. This game is the real deal. The combat is fantastic, the hunts are varied, the amount of optional content is staggering. The music is the absolute best of the year. The story is... janky and disjointed, told in part in two supplemental pieces of media it would be easy to miss... but fantastic. I fell in love with the characters and the world, their hardships and triumphs, their goals and desires clashing with their destinies. I didn't think I'd even play XV for years, but it turned out to be my game of the year. It take a decade to come out, changed in dozens of ways, and is a strange and ambitious game. A game that seems at parts to have identity crises, that sometimes seems padded while at others totally rushed. But a masterpiece nonetheless.
50. Dangerous Golf - 3/5 | Burnout Crash Mode + Golf with Tony Hawk style bonus objectives. It's fun, packed with content, and surprisingly visually stunning. Give it a shot, because breaking stuff never gets old, and some of the level design is quite clever.
51. Superhot - 4/5 | This, along with Doom, probably has my favorite total gameplay package of the year. It's immediately satisfying, visually thrilling, and while it's a puzzle shooter about bullet time, it still feels fast as hell and the one shot, one kill design means you've always got to stay on your toes. Few things in games feel as good as emptying a magazine of bullets in slow motion, throwing your spent gun at a guy's face, catching his katana and immediately throwing it through another red polygonal foe. The high price tag and mediocre "story" make this a hard sell to some, but the gameplay is fantastic. Hopefully they keep it supported with updates and DLC.
52. Grow Up - 3/5 | As one of the people who loved Grow Home, this was in a lot of ways a disappointment. The amount of powers and the fact that you could keep growing plants meant a lot of the level design went to waste and you didn't have to climb as much. The bigger world mostly means you just spend your time traveling. But if you liked Grow Home, you'll find something to like here. B.U.D. is just as unique to control and as charming, the world is pretty, and the music soothing. But the amount of things to do ultimately ends up feeling like Ubisoft's influence is slowly creeping its way in. Would I play a third Grow game? Yes. But I'd hope it was more like the first.

modsbox said:

Just finished Mega Man (the original NES game) last night. As part of my retro-focused 52 games I plan to beat MM 1-6 but I forgot how insanely difficult this game was. It nearly broke me. Yes, I used the pause trick to beat the yellow devil. No regrets.

Master Post

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Megatron said:

Yeah, that game is hard, largely because the controls aren't as tight as they are in other mega man games. You should try the psp remake: powered up some time.

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Bankoiia said:

There's always Backloggery.

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Malyse said:

I'm actually using grouvee.com to track. At least there's steam import, and they just started doing a backlog badge system too.

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Christ alive this game just keeps you stressed out until it's dying breaths. Proper B-Movie feel to it with enough variation between the 3 main game mechanics (QTEs/Decision Trees/Don't Move!) to constantly keep you on your toes. The fact you can't lose this focus means you're constantly having to watch all the horrible events unfold, which is a fantastic meshing of theme and mechanics. The story goes off on some weird tangents but everything does tie together quite nicely, and any underdevelopment of the characters seems almost intentional. I look forward to playing again with friend to see how events unfold differently.

(Sidenote: I saved everyone, hooray for me!)

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Rhaknar said:

My 2 games im going to be messing with before XCOM 2 are Warframe and Blade and Soul, so im not sure how to even caregorise "finishing" those

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Played this for the first time early 2015. Played through it again with my little brother when he was visiting around new years and had a blast since he went in pretty much blind. The week after that I felt the urge to go for 100 % and finally mark this game as completed, so that I did! It's such a frustrating game, especially the online stuff. I have huge lag in PvP so I just die to backstabs from 5 meters away. Finding my SO or brother to co-op with was such a pain. The PvE can also be very frustrating but it's also just so... fair. So much was done right with Dark Souls.

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Laughable story and characters, insufferable cutscenes and dull combat sections. Was surprised how extremely on rail it is. A guided tour. Felt like half the game was "press forward while things around you explode and you magically survive everything even tho you as a player is doing basically nothing, yay!". The *dingdingding*SECRET*dingdingding* "tombs" are a joke. A room with a "puzzle" you solve in a minute and that's it. I'm a bit baffled by it all.

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Bowlie said:

Game 4 - Pokémon Picross [3DS] (50 hours, finished in January 15)

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