orthodoxy1095
The_Inquisitor
The Illiterati
Sch1sm
Yakkue

30:03h. Beat the with Decidueye, Toucannon, Vikavolt, Golisopod, Kommo-o and Solgaleo. Working on postgame now.

Pokémon Sun is the Mists of Pandaria of Pokémon. This is a good thing. Unlike Pokémon X, which felt somewhat stale, Pokémon Sun has fun with the player during the whole journey, trying new things (not just QoL improvements) discovering fun new locales, and telling a cute, if shallow (yet so much better than Pokemon X's that's not even funny) side-story to the whole "become the best" shebang.

Also, even tho the game isn't hard by any means, it is harder than Pokemon X and quite challenging at some points, particularly if you don't use the Exp Share.

At the end, I think Pokémon Sun is the best Pokémon in a long time. If I was to find a fault on it, it would be that it's a bit on the short side and that there are not enough new Pokémon. A new type would have been nice, but I understand it would have been hell to balance.

Updated OP

Original Post - Part 1
Original Post - Part 2
Original Post - Part 3
Original Post - Part 4


#51: Kingdom Rush: 44+ hours

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I've held off on it for ages because I keep compulsively coming back to it but I'm finally going to write about this even though I haven't quite finished the post-game.

This is a really good tower defence game (and free on iOS to boot!). There are a lot of interlocking mechanics and you really have to pay attention to all of them in order to win. There are a fairly standard set of towers (High rate of fire, anti-armour, melee, and splash damage) but they all have a lot of versatility via upgrades. Each tower can be upgraded 3 times and the fourth level of each branches to two possible options, one of which is more specialised than the tower has been until that point. These towers also have 2-3 cooldown and passive abilities that you can then start pouring money into unlocking and upgrading.

For example your basic archer tower splits into a very high rate of fire ranger tower that can unlock poison shots and a periodic damaging snare that affects a wide area. But the archer tower can also be upgraded to a sharpshooter tower that has a much longer range but fires slow and powerful shots. The upgrades for this tower are instead a powerful shot that has a chance to one-shot and an area of effect attack. While they can fulfill both roles one of these towers is specialised in dealing with large powerful enemies and the other is better at crowd control.

This branching philosophy sort of extends to the levels as well. Each level has three modes: In the normal mode it's a fairly standard ~15 wave tower defence level with 20 health. These levels are rated from 0-3 stars depending on remaining health as you would expect. But once you 3-star a level you unlock two challenge modes, one with 6 difficult waves and restrictions on how far up the passive upgrade tree (which I'll mention in a second) you can be and another where you get 1 long wave and entire tower types (usually the ones you've been basing your strategy for the other modes around) are disabled. I actually ended up liking the challenge modes a lot more because they're shorter and tighter than the main versions of the levels.

As I mentioned in the previous paragraph there's a second upgrade system in play. Using the stars gained for completeting levels (3 for the main mode and 1 each for the 2 challenges) you can unlock passive upgrades for your towers (and the spells I'll mention next). This is probably my least favourite part of the mechanics because it's pretty mindless but it is there.

On top of your towers you have two other tools at your disposal, heroes and spells. There are three heroes to choose from (more if you pay for them but they're apparently overpowered so fuck that) that give you a free roaming unit to move on the map. They get experience when they attack and level up, gaining strength and extra abilities. But more importantly you have spells, which are special targetable abilities that are on cooldowns. With one you can summon two melee units to the map to tie up enemies and with the other you can rain meteors on a location to kill things. Later in the game timing these well is crucial because the levels are designed around you having them, and it makes this game a lot more hands on than most tower defence games.

After you beat the final boss a whole bunch of extra levels open up and these levels can get really hard. Many of them are very tightly designed, requiring to use fairly specific setups and all of the extra tools at your disposal in order to survive some of the waves. These levels are organised into 1-3 level mini campaigns that often have a handful of unique enemy types so the variety from level to level increases further at this point.

Overall I'm glad I put so much time into it (so far) and I'm keen to see what the sequels bring because I hear that they change it up somewhat. Oh and I almost forgot, there's a premium currency that you can spend on one time buffs but you get a ton of it for just playing the game and why the fuck would you use such a thing in a game like this anyway.

#52: The Maw: 3.6 hours

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This is a charming but somewhat flawed 3D action adventure game. You play as an alien prisoner who has escaped from a crashed prison ship with the titular Maw, a purple blob that eats things to gain their powers (how original). But unlike Kirby the Maw grows larger after consuming large amounts of matter which gives the game a sense of progression despite not affecting the gameplay apart from the ends of levels being gated by it.

The game itself is sort of Banjo Kazooie-esque but the collectible doodads are tasty animals that you feed to Maw in order to make him grow big enough or gain the right power to unlock the exit. For instance in an early level there's a barrier made of man-eating plants and you must progress by figuring out how to cool down a flaming lizard monster so that Maw can eat it and gain its fire breathing powers.

I'd say the game's main flaw is that it can drag a bit at times. The main character can't move very fast and the spaces you play in are pretty big. But overall it's enjoyable while it lasts.

November Update

Game 36 - Mad Riders ★☆☆☆☆
It's not a terrible game but has not aged well. Playing a game on PS3 that has this kind of framerate instability is jarring especially since it's a racing game. The mechanics are not bad but there isn't anything here that makes this special in any way

Game 37 - Pumped BMX+ ★★☆☆☆
I enjoyed my time with the game even if the trick system is not very user friendly. Not bad for a Trials type of game.

Game 38 - My Name is Mayo ★☆☆☆☆
Cheap and easy platinum. The story told in the game has it's moments but the gameplay is a cow clicker fantasy. At least MLB GAF has to love/hate the game.

Main Post

Game 46: Assassin's Creed II
Game 47: Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood
Game 48: Assassin's Creed: Revelations

After I finished Rogue, and because I had a bit of free time before getting my PS4 Pro, I decided to replay the Ezio trilogy of AC games after not having been back to them for a few years (I think not since before III). These titles have always held a special place for me within the AC series, a franchise I have a furious love-hate relationship with. To this day, they represent what these games can be like when they're at their strongest, and as an important reminder that the series didn't always feel so iterative.

There are two main reasons why I tend to view these three games so favourably when compared to the rest of the series. First, Assassin's Creed II represents an enormous leap from the original, and thus it and its sequels show how far the series could potentially jump not just between console generations, but also between individual titles. Second, I like Ezio as a main character. One of the biggest flaws of the AC games is that they are awful at characterisation, but with Ezio, you do get a decent sense what he's like as a person (though, to be fair, you end up spending 3 entire games with him). However, there are clear differences in quality between the three games.

To me, even though it doesn't compare to its sequel in terms of quality, II will always be the more significant game, because it took a relatively unproven franchise and effectively turned it into the blockbuster series it is today. While playing the game, I tried to keep track of all the gameplay mechanics and systems it features that were missing in the first game, and the final tally is truly staggering. Brotherhood, on the other hand, focuses more on qualitative improvements. Ultimately, that does end up making Brotherhood the better game (both back then and trying to play it now), but it's obviously not quite the same jump.

Unfortunately, not even these games are completely safe from the traditional AC issues. Narratives are fairly weak, and you are almost constantly missing a decent motivation for what you are doing. This is a problem in many open world games, but it becomes all the more apparent here, when the world map is flooded with side objectives and many of the main missions are utterly forgettable. Most of the games' casts doesn't fare any better. In fact, one of the reasons Brotherhood stands out is because the key Borgias (Rodrigo, Cesare, Lucrezia) are given a bit more time and attention, so that they become more effective antagonists.

On top of that, I could never quite shake the feeling that these games have very little respect for your time and effort because of how many pointless activities there are to do. I've often said that AC games are a completionist's worst nightmare, and the Ezio trilogy is certainly no exception. Here again, I feel that Brotherhood comes out the strongest, because the Leonardo missions, assassin tombs / templar lairs, and guild objectives give you a relative amount of mission diversity, while Revelations is definitely the worst. Inevitably, I always come to the point where I just do things in order to complete them, and start rushing to the finish line because I want to beat the game (which doesn't exactly indicate that I'm having a good time).

I think what ultimately keeps you going is a vague sense of interest in the setting and at the very least Ezio. Beyond a certain point, you do want to see how his story ends, even though you probably couldn't care less about the rest of the story, be it whatever historical event is taking place, the templar-assassin conflict, or the present-day story surrounding Desmond (in this case, both II and Brotherhood fare better than Revelations because they keep these sections to a minimum). This interest makes you push through anything that inevitably ends up frustrating you, be it technical issues, repetitive mission structure, or badly designed sequences.

Initially, I had more specific notes on the individual games, but I ended up taking more time to finish Revelations than I had originally intended, and eventually, the three started to merge into a single experience. I suppose that points to how similar they are at their core, even though the particularities of each game cause them to have very different effects on me. In the end, while I can always find enjoyment in a run, I'm also glad when I'm done with one of these.

OP

Game 53: ABZÛ (PC) 03/12/16 - 03/12/16 1.6 Hours
This was so nice and relaxing to play, a nice break from playing DQ7 and The Witness. Although this game is short, you get to experience an amazing world in the ocean and an interesting story unfolds while you play through the game. Incredible visuals and music that enchants the game so much.

Master Post

Game 53: Final Fantasy XV - 30ish hours - December 2, 2016

I'm just going to copy what I wrote over in the FFXV spoiler thread for my writeup. There is just simply so much to talk about with this game that it’s hard to know where to start. I guess I’ll try to break it down into a few sections. Ending spoilers, character fates and more are within, so beware.

The Open World:
Long-range traversal generally felt terrible to me. The little stamina boost thing while sprinting is nice, but that’s about the only major Quality of Life feature in the traversal options. Driving in particular takes absolutely forever because the Regelia is seemingly unable to muster above a slow roll. Having an auto-drive option is a neat idea, but Ignis drives like a senior citizen worried that they might get their license taken away. I’m not sure how to solve the vehicular issues really because while I don’t think the game needed to have as deep of a vehicle system as say a GTA or Far Cry, some level of control over the driving experience would have been welcome. As it is, even if you take manual control, you’re basically relegated to holding down accelerate (not accelerating nearly fast enough) on a narrow corridor of a road, only occasionally needing to press the sticks to turn the car. It’s an incredibly passive, boring experience without any off-road traversal, major traffic or anything like that. Hell, you get the Regalia F-Type, Great. For a game with an open-world it is annoyingly afraid, in the most "AAA" of ways, of letting you have too much freedom or deciding too much for yourself. Ignis telling me to buy curatives every time the car stopped. Ignis telling me that it's dangerous to drive at night, every single damn night that I wanted to drive. It just got tiring.

Anyhow, the traversal issue gets to another problem that a few people have astutely noticed regarding quests: the quests are often incredibly far away. You can pick up a quest in Lestallum, but then have a 5-8 minute trip each way to complete it. This brings to mind a comparison to The Witcher 3 where you’d go to a notice board, and most of the quests were centralized around the hub of whatever noticeboard you pulled your quests from. The Witcher 3 also had a fairly pedestrian traversal system, but CDPR mitigated the horse not feeling fast enough at times by having better “clusters” of quests.

That aforementioned trip-distance also alludes to the heart of the issue with the side-quest system. There are far too many side-quests that are functionally mere MMO fetch-quests, lacking any complexity or narrative value, which coupled with the time it takes to get places makes for an awful side-quest system. I have not done such unrewarding grocery shopping in a video game in a very long time, and it feels like you should not have quests that can take 5+ minutes to travel to (10+ minutes round trip) and then take 30 seconds to 3 minutes to complete. As a somewhat related aside, there are far too many invisible walls on rocks that should be clearly traversable by any moderately healthy human being, something that just rips you right out of immersion when you can see your quest objective but can’t climb the four foot railing to get to it, forcing you to run for three minutes in another direction to find an opening in the railing.

As a last note, apparently SE and Co. still have yet to figure out “HD Towns.” Altissa is gorgeous, but I ended up very unimpressed by both Altissa and Lestallum.

Combat/Mechanics:
I understand the concept behind the mechanics, and yet I still have a significant number of issues with the execution. At a basic, button level of controlling Noct while fighting a Garula on the fields of Duscae, the combat works. But the combat falls apart in too many other spots, such as the camera, which is absolutely wonky, often jerking around haphazardly, and within interior sections, completely loses any sense of coherence. In terms of strategic options, magic crafting is an interesting idea, but having magic as a consumable made me far too wary to use it, because I lacked any interest in going to farm it out if I ran out of it. The star of the combat issues though is the AI of the party members, which is absolutely atrocious. This becomes particularly clear if you fight any enemies or optional bosses that might have powerful AOE attacks (particularly OHKOs). Often, those kinds of enemies’ attacks are actually clearly telegraphed in a charging animation, and yet the braindead AI will keep attacking or charging headlong into some gigantic fireball or boot-stomp. That issue gets you to the reason why so many ARPGs tend to stray towards solo experiences. Once you add in party members, you need to give the player a way to mediate the role of the party in battles. The game desperately needs an AI system like an FFXII Gambit system or a typical Tales AI command list. I want to be able to tell Prompto to stay back from battles. I want to tell Iggy and Prompto to freely pop potions if they’re out of health. The “techs” are not adequate solutions at all.

Small QoL issue, X being both jump and interact/pick-up was an awful decision. And as a final addendum that's kind of "mechanics" related, the lack of clothing options is super disappointing. One of my favorite parts of Souls games and other ARPGs like The Witcher is basically playing dress-up, finding cool armor parts and making my character look as neat as possible. I'd honestly put up with a lot of poor quest design for better looking clothing, sad as that may sound. Although I suppose that speaks to the fact that often the main thrust of quests tends not to be quest design but proper rewards.

Characters/Story/Progression:
This is perhaps the most difficult and interesting part of the game to dissect. As a quick kind of overarching note, I've heard a lot of people patting this game on the back for being less confusing and convoluted than Final Fantasy XIII. And while I guess that's true, that doesn't seem like a great standard to hold yourself to, and I think there are still plenty of issues with confusion and convolution. There are concepts and terms like the "Starscourge" itself that I feel are very poorly explained. There are confusing moments when characters disappear or major events happen to them offscreen, like There's certainly an improvement, but a lot of it still felt like a Japanese-ass JRPG in all the worst ways.

Regardless of comparison to past efforts of SE in the "modern JRPG era," one of the most obvious complaints about XV would be that there is an incredibly jarring transition from the open-world roam into the extremely story-focused linear part of the story. And while that is a weird issue that makes it feel almost as if two parts of the game were taped together, I think that's only the start of the issues.

I think one of the best examples of the incoherence of the story came at the end of Chapter 5, when you return to Lestallum
I'd complain about Cindy, but that's played out at this point and I don't think anyone reasonable needs to be convinced about her anymore. So let's just move to Luna since she's another easy target that has similarities to Jared. It was claimed in an interview that "Luna is a strong modern woman & this comes across in her relationship with Noctis. She's a different kind of heroine to previous ones." That claim to me seems to cross into the "objectively false" area. After playing through the game, I would never in a million years call Luna a good, strong female character. Actually, she's not even a weak female character, in fact, she's hardly a character at all. She's more absent than anything else. Instead, Luna ends up as a narrative contrivance that exists for the sake of Noctis without any interesting strength or weakness and thus lacks any kind of meaningful depth to her. The knee-jerk reaction to Luna would be to say

Luna and Jared sort of exemplify a lot of issues with the story. It's not that they are actively a bad inclusion in the game (compared to something like how actively gross Cindy is). They're just kind of "meh," and you can see the potential in the ideas. Again, consider Luna and her role in XV's proceedings. While I wouldn't want a complete rehash, the problem with Luna that we've kind of already seen this type of character before and done better too. It was Yuna. She was strong, dynamic (had some appropriate flaws), and in love with Tidus, but she didn't exist solely for Tidus' sake, which is what Luna seems to be. Yuna existed as more than

This by the way sort of returns us back to the open-world issues I raised earlier. Having such large open world freedom early on absolutely destroys any sense of narrative pacing that the game might have. This is increasingly an issue I've begun to feel more and more noticeable in RPGs, and was even an issue I had with one of my favorite RPGs ever (The Witcher 3) just last year. If anything, this game shows you why old JRPGs would tend to limit how much freedom you actually got on the world map before the game was ending.

As fun as the first few chapters of camping out and "being bros" are, there's also a real narrative disconnect. Your dad just died, your fiancé is presumed dead, your home city is destroyed and your birthright (your kingdom) is falling apart. And here you are, some princely shmuck just hanging out in the woods, camping, fishing, cooking delicious meals, taking goofy selfies and other souvenir pictures. It's just such a strange incoherence to what the bros say/do and what is actually going on in the world. I've said this a few times, but I really feel like this game might have been better as a side-project and just have been Final Fantasy: Camping Simulator instead. That part was way more fun than the actual story, and it could have cut down on the crazy incoherence.

One other thing that the game's story made me think of was this Film Crit Hulk piece on Star Wars. In it, Hulk talks about J.J. Abrams and how he has this tendency to focus on creating "moments." These "moments" are pieces of his films that stand out while you watch them ("in the moment" as it were) as breathtaking, or powerful, but then upon reflection, you realize they haven't stuck with you. Why? Because:

They are "emotional moments" but with no real narrative purpose or impact on the story). It's all just delays and re-positioning characters for no narrative reason other than "we like the effect."

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This is Final Fantasy XV to a tee for me. There's no real narrative verve to what's happening, too much of it seems to be happening to make flashy nonsense happen on screen and to try to evoke some kind of cheap emotional response from you. The ending of XV when Noctis :

Again, J.J. Is so caught up in the "surprise" of a given moment that he absolutely refuses to build to anything. Forget "therefore" storytelling, it's endless stream of "and thens" and then some nonsensical "buts" where suddenly something comes out of nowhere.

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And the reason this doesn't work is because:

For drama/true blue story moments are built off expectation and understanding. Even the simplest ones.

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And something that Final Fantasy XV lacks in spades is the building of expectation and understanding. Even the simplest understanding of motivations or what happened to a character during a brief off-screen moment is left undercooked. If something as central as the "Starscourge" feels confusing or like it's brought in out of left field, your narrative has a problem.

Perhaps the best distillation of my problems with XV's narrative is again found in my hero, Kyle Bosman when he explained Metal Gear Solid V's story progression:



I'm sure many people will disagree, but that peak followed by "wait," "what is it," "waituhheh" and "that's it" kind of sum up how I felt going through those final chapters. Although Luna is undercooked, Chapter 9 is probably the peak for "cool" in the story, as it's a downhill railroading of story to the finish line from there. It's a shame, because there's a lot of neat, bold ideas to be found here, and I'm disappointed we'll might never know what was really cut or missing.

Maybe someday.
Should I play Final Fantasy XV? I really am at a loss on this one. A lot of people are enjoying the game, so you might very well enjoy the game. But based on my frustration with this game, I really think your time might be better spent with a more competently designed JRPG, of which we actually got a decent number this year.

Finishing games slowed down a lot from September to now due to starting a new job. Even with that I am at 38 games completed with another 4 that are very close to being finished.

Also I have the 23rd-New Years off from work and nothing to do so I'm gonna take a real shot at. My biggest mistake was starting Skyrim and the Witcher 3 at the same time...

I've sent the OP 2 dms with my post in it, any chance i could be added to the wall of fame? Thank you ^.^

My list
http://m.neogaf.com/showpost.php?p=218391827

Ladekabel said:

November:

Game 46: Clustertruck (PC): Clustertruck is a level based first-person platformer. In order to reach a levels end you jump from truck to truck because the floor, the walls and every other object in the world that hasn't four wheels is deadly for you. The sense of height and speed while jumping is great. The air control in the game is just floaty enough to feel great. I like the minimalistic presentation and the soundtrack. And there are moments which feel like an failed attempt at stage diving when you try to jump on two trucks and they split up for whatever reason and you fall to the floor. But there are also a few things I didn't like about Clustertruck. I never had a sense about the height of the figure I control. It doesn't matter most of the time but there are a few instances where you have to jump through a gap and what looked like a jump that should've been succesful results in a restart of the level. And sometimes a shadow or some sort of orientation where you're going to land would have been helpful. The abilities are a little bit of a wasted potential. I only got to try a few but I don't think that would change my impression that only two (maybe one or two) abilites are useful and the others are just there to goof around. Overall though, I really love Clustertruck and can't recommend it enough.

Game 47: Until Dawn (PS4): See my LTTP for my thoughts.

Game 48: Dragon Quest VII: Fragments of the Forgotten Past (3DS): Never played a Dragon Quest before. The DS ones are a tad too expensive for me here in Europe and I rarely come around to buying iTunes Card to get them for my phone. But then this game got finally localized I took my first step into the series. In DQ VII your playing a time travelling fisher-man's son who together with his friends saves different islands in the past in order to make them appear in the present. One notices that one of the main guys behind this worked on Chrono Trigger. While the story doesn't really continue until hour 50 or so, the short-stories on the islands are really nice. The art-style is your typical Toriyama-DBZ-look, hate or love it, I like it. Besides the main theme the soundtrack didn't do it for me sadly. Battlesystem is nice though switching between FFXIII and this, it is unusual to see the numbers not leaving triple digits but I can live with it. The numbers got bigger and that counts. Sometimes the game can be a little tedious when you have to walk from A to B and back to A to B to C to A to B but that never bothered me that much because it always felt like I was making progress.
Dragon Quest VII can be a hard one to get into but if you do it, it is worth it.

Game 49: Final Fantasy XIII (PC): Maybe it were low expectations or a fatigue for open-world games but I really liked Final Fantasy XIII despite its reputation. The battle system is a ton of fun, graphically it still looks really nice though the framerate is all over the place with no way to fix it. The story is about crystals as is Final Fantasy tradition. I couldn't really follow it since I played over the span of 9 months. The soundtrack is nice, too. It being linear didn#t bother me much. Though more narrow than older FF games it did open up at about the same time as its predecessors.

Game 50: The Beginner's Guide (PC): I don't really know what to make of it.

Currently playing: Final Fantasy XV (PS4)

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November update.

So close! Only have to finish FFXV and I'm done!

RoaringMdog said:

I've sent the OP 2 dms with my post in it, any chance i could be added to the wall of fame? Thank you ^.^

My list
http://m.neogaf.com/showpost.php?p=218391827

Click to expand...

yes I'll add you. sorry! I haven't received a message in 2016 from you.

quick update.

RoaringMdog
dougalism
jshackles

16h-ish. Beat the game in Hurt me Plenty.

When I was a kid I tended to draw a lot of Doom-related doodles. I remember fondly a three-page comic I drew that was basically the Doom comic as drawn by a 12-year old. The pixellated sprites made my imagination go wild and I drew cacodemons and mancubi and doors that opened with colored skulls.

When I finally step into Hell in Doom 2016, I realized that this is the closest thing I'll ever be to how my teenaged mind interpreted the original Doom duology. Unlike Doom III, a game which I started and couldn't finish because of how slow it was, Doom 2016 is fast, bloody and brutal - it has no time for puzzles, apart from the classic colored keys and some switches and teleports here and there. Exactly what the doctor ordered!

Updated OP

5h-ish. Beat the game in the standard difficulty (are there difficulty modes?). Got stuck in a couple levels, mostly Liquorice and the final boss.

AAC is basically the child of a twin-stick shooter and a bullet hell schmup. Hard, intense as hell, and with loads of charm and deceptively cute, its only sin is being a bit on the short side - but since it's tremendously replayable (leaderboards, EX modes, co-op, etc.) this is easily forgivable.

Updated OP

late end of November update
Main post

too lazy to do write-ups this time
maybe I'll add them later

43. Suikoden II
44. Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse
45. Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn
46. Final Fantasy Brave Exvius
47. Psycho-Pass: Mandatory Happiness

looks like I'll just barely make it to 52

7:59h. Beat the game in Normal (except for a couple of shooting sequences where I had to switch down to Easy, Ship Graveyard I'm looking at you). Got around 30 treasures I think.

Uncharted 3 plays it safe. All the tropes are there, and you know exactly when you're going to have a jumping sequence, when it's time for a shootout, and when it's time for a puzzle - mostly because the sequences follow a pattern. When you realize this, U3 lives and dies because of it set pieces - and most of them are pretty good, even though this is probably the most over-the-top game on the series (which is not necessarily bad).

However, the ending is just... anticlimatic. I never thought a could feel so empty. The game is a rollercoaster from beggining to almost 3/4s in, and it just... peters out towards the end. Still some of the best character action you can get, but not as good as its predecessors.

Updated OP

Main post

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Game #145: Ittle Dew 2 (Xbox One) - ★★★★★★★★★★

What a fantastic game. Seriously, Ittle Dew 2 is AWESOME. I actually tweeted to the creator that it was the "A Link to the Past" to Ittle Dew's "The Legend of Zelda" (ie, a refinement and improvement on an already great game). Unfortunately he had initially interpreted this to mean that I preferred it to A Link to the Past, which made me feel a little bad, haha. This game is a game any Zelda fan should own - it's fast-paced, it looks great, it's very cute and fun, and the puzzles can get downright hard as FUCK. It's a super-rewarding game and is only rarely frustrating.

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Game #146: Game & Watch Gallery 4 (GBA) - ★★★★★★★★☆☆

The Game & Watch games have been steadily improving over the past three entries, but with this one, it kinda stopped? 4 is a good game, do not get me wrong, it's just that where 2 and 3 were improvements as far as visuals, sound, and gameplay are concerned, 4 feels like it only improves the games visually. It also hurts this game in that some games feel like leftovers by developers scrambling to come up with good new ones, or they are games that I already played in one of the previous entries. Of course, the game does have a lot of extra content, by a decent margin the most content-rich of the entries. So if you are looking for your first entry, this could be a good one for you.

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Game #147: The Binding of Isaac: Undertale (Fan work) - ★★★★★★★★★☆

Solid mod for a solid game. Does a lot of cute and inventive stuff, even stuff like reskinning of items is pretty neat (for instance, Guppy items are replaced with Flowey items). It actually improves the game as well in some places - for instance, I really like the backgrounds a lot better than I do in standard Rebirth, and Alphys is more fun to play as than Lilith due to her trinket that gives her more charge over time, allowing her to double up her familiars/orbitals more quickly and often. I hate playing as Asgore and Toriel though, that fire item is one of my least favorites lol.

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Game #148: The Division (Xbox One) - ★★★★★★★★★★

Whoof, what a game. I'm not one to really play online multi-player - gives me terrible anxiety usually - but playing it with a couple of friends who were really supportive, helpful, encouraging, and constructively critical of my play helped me get into it. I've slowly been getting a better feel for it, and have been trying different play styles; I decided early on to play with the Ballistic Shield, which I found to be pretty damn solid and fun as it allowed me to get up-close-and-personal with the enemies (which became more difficult when I began to tangle with the Cleaners, haha). Lately though I have been toying around with range, using a powerful marksman rifle, a healing station, and a fire turret. I initially took The Division to just be a co-op shooter before I looked into it further, but a friend explained to me that it was more like a Diablo game where all attacks are ranged attacks, and it definitely makes sense as an explanation.

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Game #149: Ape Escape 2*** (PS2) - ★★★★★★★★★☆

Ape Escapes 1, 2, and 3 are childhood favorites of mine (well okay, Ape Escape 3 came out when I was an adult, but whatever lol), due to a combination of their style of humor, their gameplay, and their world. The story is really just kind of whatever, and it actually has a pretty sizable number of flaws. The camera is fucking TERRIBLE - as much as I love the twin-sticks gimmick, the camera being locked to a single "refocus" button is simply not a good idea, and it should have been that L2 and R2 turn the camera. Too often, I'd be looking at areas without the ability to properly refocus the camera (one time in a boss fight the camera just looked to the wall!). Also, the extra item system is bad. What it is is that you take the coins you collect in the level and put them into a vending machine, and usually you get bonus items, like music, videos, enemy photos, amusing photos, monkey fables, etc. The problem is that it is FULL of filler. The monkey fables come in parts and are the most abundant collectible by far, and when you start to get to the end, instead of making it easier to get the final few things, you have to get a lot of things like health, extra lives, and ammo for your slingshot. Another flaw is that the later levels suffer from fatigue, requiring you to do a lot of tedious stuff. Ultimately though, despite those complaints, Ape Escape 2 was a lot of fun. Ape Escape 1 was the first collectathon game I'd played, and while 2 is a worse game overall (if only for its lack of innovation in items), it's still more of the same great game that Ape Escape 1 was.

Jeez, that whole paragraph is me rambling lol.

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56) Dead Rising 3: Fallen Angel - 2 hours - 12/7
Dead Rising 4 coming out made me want to jump back into 3 and finish all of the DLC episodes. I really enjoyed Fallen Angel because the main chick is badass and I had forgotten how much fun this game is. Plus it seemed like they threw a ton of fun weapons and combos at the player so I never had to resort to some of the more boring weapons like a regular baseball bat.

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Game 49: Uncharted 4: A Thief's End

"Uncharted 2 got me to buy a PS3, and Uncharted 4 is going to make me buy a PS4" - that's more or less what I've been saying on plenty of occasions over the past 3 years. I always knew that this would be the point at which I would no longer be able to hold back. In fact, the only reason I managed not to go ahead with a purchase this summer was the looming announcement of the PS4 Pro. Now, after getting my Pro a few weeks ago, and after having played through the Nathan Drake Collection to get myself in the mood, I've finally come to experience A Thief's End. I should note that I actually beat the game for the first time early last week, but I've used the time since to take care of some unfinished business, as well as mop up remaining trophies. I got the platinum about half an hour ago, so I'm now at a point where I feel I can accurately express my thoughts. Also, although I've tried to tag some parts, the discussion contains story and scenario spoilers.

The first thing that jumps out at you right from the start is the quality of the game's presentation. Having played the 3 remasters before, I got to re-admire how great those look, especially considering the original hardware, but I was simply not prepared for what was about to happen when I launched my first run and was practically floored during the opening section. After that, the amazement never let up, fuelled by dense and lively environments, atmospheric effects and vastly improved animation work. Smoke, fire, explosions, fog, water, light beams, and the way that objects fragment upon destruction really demonstrate the technological advantage that the PS4 has over its predecessor, but what really makes the game come alive is how natural character movement and expression feels. Naughty Dog games have been showcases for the use of VA and motion capture in video games for some time now, but I feel that they've really taken these to a new level here.

What adds further to the impact that the various characters have are the game's narrative and writing style. Playing through the series from beginning to end, you get to observe a rather interesting trend. The first Uncharted, Drake's Fortune, feels almost childlike when compared to the later games, and Naughty Dog's roots as a developer of lively and toony platformers can be seen very well here. After that, the themes tackled by each game become increasingly more grounded and serious, and as a result, the characters feel more and more like real people with flaws, fears, and vulnerabilities. At its heart, A Thief's End is still as much an adventure story as Drake's Fortune, but this time, the stakes are outlined much more clearly. For most of the game, it's not about some grand adventure, about finding some ancient treasure or civilisation while one-upping the competition, but rather a desperate struggle for survival. Tragedy seems to lurk at every turn, be it the threat of a beloved character dying prematurely, or that of character relationships being damaged irreparably. Ultimately, this all works so well because, as a player, you've come to care about these people, and you want to see them succeed. As a result, you get to experience all the tension that the uncertainty of their fates brings with it.

For me, personally, this is perhaps best expressed in my desire for the series to . That is not to say, however, that the game doesn't have lighter, hopeful moments, as well as the wit and whimsy that one comes to expect from the series. In fact, the interplay of these two tonal modes is what makes them both work so well. I've already stated this in a discussion about The Last of Us, but what I felt really made the more human moments of that story work so well was the fact that they so heavily contrasted the overall tone of the game, and the same holds here (although A Thief's End, while more grounded and sombre than its prequels, is still a great deal lighter in tone than The Last of Us).

Of course, while I think that the cast represented here has deserved a break, there are still Uncharted characters that were missing in action in A Thief's End (something that The Lost Legacy seems to rectify), but more importantly, A Thief's End also introduces two new ones in the form of Sam and Nadine. I'm not really sure why so many people seem to dislike Sam. Of course, he is irresponsible and reckless, which differentiates him quite a bit from Nate (especially in family mode), but at the same time, that's what makes him perfect for further development and excitement. Before PSX, I was more or less convinced that he was being set up to take over the reigns, either in combination with existing characters such as Chloe or Sully, or by pairing him with a new companion. Now, while that prospect no longer seems quite as sure, I'm even more optimistic for the series as a whole due to the increased flexibility that the Chloe-Nadine pairing showcases. In fact, I'm quite happy with Nadine as a character in general. If there's one thing the Uncharted games have always suffered from, it's run-of-the-mill antagonists. Things have gotten progressively better throughout the series, but while Rafe at least has history with the Drakes, he's still a pretty standard villain with a pretty standard motivation, even if the final fight against him feels appropriately tense and intimate. The difference here is that he is paired off with Nadine, which creates a far more dynamic duo that simultaneously gives both antagonists more depth through the ways in which they interact with each other. Not to mention the fact that her badassery is demonstrated amply when she fights Nate and Sam at the same time.

While the quality and improvements in presentation and writing are very much welcome, they are also very much part of the Uncharted repertoire, and were it only for these, A Thief's End would be a gorgeous, but ultimately rather shallow experience. Fortunately, it also brings with it some of the most important gameplay improvements in the series. The first three games are very similar in the way that they tackle combat and movement, and the main difference between them is the overall rhythm of the experience. In Uncharted 4, on the other hand, one can see a clear evolution of both platforming / exploration and combat, as well as their combination.

In the case of platforming, more open environments manage to hide the linear path you're intended to follow, and the addition of sliding, the rope, the piton, and the 4x4 (where available) give you a richer toolset that requires greater spatial awareness in order to determine the correct path forward. Great examples of this are the sliding / climbing section along the cliffs below the dormitory in chapter 8, or the climbing / swinging sections on the main island in chapter 12, which both require you to examine your surroundings in order to find out how to reach your goal. Furthermore, the largest areas in the game provide several valid paths, as well as more options for hiding collectibles and even entire optional encounters (best showcased in chapters 10 and 12). All this makes me wonder how traversal and exploration could evolve further in the future, and makes me quite excited for what's yet to come.

As for the combat, the larger encounter areas, paired with the use of the rope, create situation that feature far more dynamism and verticality than before. The interplay of melee, stealth, platforming, and gunplay can make for some very entertaining combat sequences. My favourite examples of this are probably the bridge encounter in chapter 10, as well as the long encounters in chapters 13 and 14. To be honest, though, I never really used the rope that much, and instead took great joy in trying to complete entire encounters without triggering open combat. Higher mobility and cover options, as well as enemy attention indicators, help improve your stealth capabilities greatly, and give you the possibility of thinning enemy ranks or even completely bypassing entire groups. Another thing that helps here is the improved companion AI, with assisted kills up close and at range and unprompted stealth takedowns. One thing I should note is that my description here pertains mostly to moderate difficulty, since the more aggressive enemy behaviour and godlike enemy accuracy on higher difficulties often force you to play more conservatively. I would also like to point out that I think it's a shame that melee counters and grenade toss-backs seem not to have been retained after Drake's Deception. Other than that, however, I've greatly enjoyed the combat, to the point where I wish there would have been a bit more of it.

This almost naturally leads into probably the biggest criticism of this game, being its overall slow pace. I happen to be a person that is not generally bothered by a lot of exposition or more lengthy platforming / puzzle sections, but there are points in the game where you wish the pace would pick up a bit. What relatively few enemy encounters are featured over the course of the 22 chapters are often separated by pauses that can last for up to 20-30 minutes at a time. This is not so much an issue on your first playthrough, because you're invested in the story and more or less absorbing every bit of information the game throws at you, but can hamper enjoyment on subsequent runs, which is something I got to experience a little while completing trophies (I ended up beating the game three times – once on moderate for the experience, once on crushing for the difficulty trophies and remaining collectibles, and once on explorer in order to do a speed run).

To me, this trend is at its worst in the very beginning of Uncharted 4, as the game uses the first 5-6 chapters to teach you all the basics of climbing, stealth, and combat, and you're not properly engaged in a gunfight until chapter 5. While I can understand the narrative requirement of this as it both provides a background for the story and highlights how quiet Nate's life has become since the end of Drake's Deception, I wish there were smaller encounters incorporated into these slower sections. In a way, the problem is that while storytelling has been greatly expanded here, action scenarios have not quite kept pace. This balance between adrenaline-fuelled setpieces and more contemplative or exploratory sequences is, in my opinion, the primary differentiating factor within the Uncharted series. Among Thieves stands above Drake's Fortune and Drake's Deception because it manages to strike that balance much more closely than the other two, and A Thief's End also suffers because it fails to maintain it.

Lastly, before I finish, I'd like to note a few smaller things. I love how much reverence A Thief's End shows for other Naughty Dog games, with callbacks to earlier Uncharted games, especially in chapter 4 and the epilogue, as well as the inclusion of a Crash Bandicoot stage in both of these. I like that collectibles were enriched with the addition of journal entries, notes and optional conversations (I'm especially glad that the conversations were retained from The Last of Us). I like the fact that the more recent Naughty Dog games have opening credit rolls (which are something, if well made, that I really like in movies, as well). As a completionist, I have the utmost respect for the decision to keep multiplayer trophies to a minimum. In fact, I don't think I've seen many singleplayer games that handle multiplayer trophies as well as A Thief's End, as the 5 trophies (complete introduction / beat challenges on moderate / revive allies / spawn sidekicks / complete 5 games) don't require you to spend a lengthy amount of time grinding experience, don't put you at the mercy of lucky matchmaking, and, most importantly, serve as a brilliant incentive for and introduction to the multiplayer, which is surprisingly entertaining (which means a lot coming from someone averse to non-local multiplayer).

Overall, I think I can unequivocally say that A Thief's End has left quite an impression on me. Issues with pacing aside, it stands as a prime example for presentation and narrative in video games, and it offers just enough additions to the core Uncharted gameplay to keep it from feeling formulaic. I still have a few more games to play for this year, but unless something drastic happens, I'm fairly confident this'll be my GOTY for 2016.

6h-ish. Normal difficulty.

I enjoyed this game. Yes, it's not going to win any storytelling awards and the fighting is clunky, repetitive and has loads of false difficulty (enemies who cheat or "predict" your moves, insta-kill traps, etc.) but the production values were awesome and the setting was great, making it all in all and enjoyable, if flawed, experience. Updated OP

Original Post


I've finished the third annual 52 Games Chellenge, 3 for 3 for me. It took awhile longer than last year where I finished the challenge in August and then hit 74 games by the end of the year, but this year I secured full-time employment, started gaining very basic coding skills which will be a process I continue to learn next year, and I took it upon myself to not only hit another 52 games, but go for the whole shebang (a slightly altered version of the 50 books 50 movies challenge going on in OT).

Here's how that played out:

119/100 Films | 52/52 Games | 24/24 Books | 25/12 TV Seasons

TV Seasons
1. American Horror Story: Hotel (Season 5)
2. Daredevil (Season 2)
3. Curb Your Enthusiasm (Season 1)
4. The Walking Dead (Season 6)
5. Curb Your Enthusiasm (Season 2)
6. Curb Your Enthusiasm (Season 3)
7. Curb Your Enthusiasm (Season 4)
8. Curb Your Enthusiasm (Season 5)
9. Curb Your Enthusiasm (Season 6)
10. Curb Your Enthusiasm (Season 7)
11. Curb Your Enthusiasm (Season 8)
12. Home Movies (Season 1)
13. True Detective (Season 1)
14. Home Movies (Season 2)
15. Home Movies (Season 3)
16. Stranger Things (Season 1)
17. 30 Rock (Season 1)
18. 30 Rock (Season 2)
19. 30 Rock (Season 3)
20. 30 Rock (Season 4)
21. 30 Rock (Season 5)
22. 30 Rock (Season 6)
23. 30 Rock (Season 7)
24. Home Movies (Season 4)
25. The Wire (Season 1)

Books
1. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
2. House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
3. Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov
4. Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion
5. The Incal written by Alejandro Jodorowsky and illustrated by Moebius
6. Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
7. Animal Farm by George Orwell
8. The Fall by Albert Camus
9. Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami
10. Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates
11. Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo
12. Chapterhouse: Dune by Frank Herbert
13. To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway
14. The Puma Blues written by Stephen Murphy and illustrated by Michael Zulli
15. Foundation by Issac Asimov
16. Foundation and Empire by Issac Asimov
17. Second Foundation by Issac Asimov
18. The Call of Cthulhu & Other Weird Stories by H.P. Lovecraft
19. On The Road by Jack Kerouac
20. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
21. Before The Incal written by Alejandro Jodorowsky and illustrated by Zoran Janjetov
22. Final Incal written by Alejandro Jodorowsky and illustrated by José Ladronn
23. Invitation to a Beheading by Vladimir Nabokov
24. Candide by Voltaire

Games
1. Crystal Caves
2. Super Mario Bros.
3. Undertale
4. Yoshi's Wooly World
5. Mario Kart 8
6. Jet Set Radio
7. Fahrenheit: Indigo Prophecy
8. Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet
9. FEZ
10. Metro The Last Light
11. Life is Strange
12. Donkey Kong Country
13. Bayonetta 2
14. The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening
15. Super Metroid
16. Gravity Rush Remastered
17. Super Mario Bros. 2
18. Super Mario Bros. 3
19. Emily is Away
20. Super Mario World
21. Earthbound Beginnings
22. Hotline Miami 2
23. Silent Hill
24. ABZU
25. Until Dawn
26. realMyst: Masterpiece Edition
27. The Last of Us Remastered
28. The Beginner's Guide
29. Toejam and Earl
30. Virginia
31. Hyper Light Drifter
32. Soma
33. Silent Hill 2
34. That Dragon, Cancer
35. 80 Days
36. Samorost
37. Furi
38. TIS-100
39. Samorost 2
40. The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons
41. Titan Souls
42. TitanFall 2
43. The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages
44. Metal Slug
45. War of the Monsters
46. Lost Constellations
47. Regency Solitaire
48. Bound
49. INSIDE
50. Samorost 3
51. FireWatch
52. Frogger's Adventures: The Temple of the Frog
xx. Rocket League
xx. OverWatch

Films
1. Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015) directed by J.J. Abrams
2. Goodnight Mommy (2014) directed by Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala
3. Victoria (2015) directed by Sebastian Schipper
4. Kagemusha (1980) directed by Akira Kurosawa
5. Thirst (2009) directed by Park Chan-Wook
6. The Thing (2011) directed by Matthijs van Heijningen, Jr.
7. Rocky (1977) directed by John G. Avildsen
8. Rocky II (1979) directed by Sylvester Stallone
9. Rocky III (1982) directed by Sylvester Stallone
10. Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (2008) directed by Michael Andrews
11. The Wicker Man (2006) directed by Neil LaBute
12. Tropic Thunder (2008) direct by Ben Stiller
13. What We Do In The Shadows (2014) directed by Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi
14. Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter (2014) directed by David Zellner
15. Cabaret (1972) directed by Bob Fosse
16. Memories (1995) directed by Katsuhiro Otomo, Koji Morimoto, and Tensai Okamura
17. Ghost in the Shell (1995) directed by Mamoru Oshii
18. Ghost World (2001) directed by Terry Zwigoff
19. The Revenant (2015) directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu
20. The Martian (2015) directed by Ridley Scott
21. Rocky IV (1985) directed by Sylvester Stallone
22. Slow West (2015) directed by John Maclean
23. Rocky V (1990) directed by Sylvester Stallone
24. Rocky Balboa (2006) directed by Sylvester Stallone
25. Frozen (2013) directed by Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee
26. Jodorowsky's Dune (2013) directed by Frank Pavich
27. The Lobster (2015) directed by Yorgos Lanthimos
28. Inside Out (2015) directed by Pete Docter and Ronnie del Carmen
29. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992) directed by David Lynch
30. Whiplash (2014) directed by Damien Chazelle
31. The Conjuring (2013) directed by James Wan
32. Inside Llewyn Davis (2014) directed by Ethan Coen and Joel Coen
33. Lawrence of Arabia (1962) directed by David Lean
34. Monsters University (2013) directed by Dan Scanlon
35. Slither (2006) directed by James Gunn
36. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004) directed by Wes Anderson
37. Children of Men (2006) directed by Alfonso Cuarón
38. Mind Game (2005) directed by Masaaki Yuasa
39. Platoon (1986) directed by Oliver Stone
40. It Follows (2015) directed by David Robert Mitchell
41. Tangerine (2015) directed by Sean S. Baker
42. Wall-E (2008) directed by Andrew Stanton
43. Funny Games (2007) directed by Michael Haneke
44. Berberian Sound Studio directed by Peter Strickland
45. Calvary (2014) directed by John Michael McDonagh
46. The Duke of Burgundy (2015) directed by Peter Strickland
47. The Assassin (2015) directed by Hou Hsiao-Hsien
48. Black Coal, Thin Ice (2014) directed by Diao Yinan
49. Sicario (2015) directed by Denis Villeneuve
50. Creed (2015) directed by Ryan Coogler
51. Pusher (1996) directed by Nicolas Winding Refn
52. This Is The End (2013) directed by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg
53. Ratatouille (2007) directed by Brad Bird and Jan Pinkava
54. The Good Dinosaur (2015) directed by Peter Sohn
55. Dope (2015) directed by Rick Famuyiwa
56. Ponyo (2009) directed by Hayao Miyazaki
57. Frankenweenie (2012) directed by Tim Burton
58. Borgman (2013) directed by Alex van Warmerdam
59. Princess Mononoke (1999) directed by Hayao Miyazaki*
60. Equinox (1970) directed by Dennis Muren and Jack Woods
61. Lady Snowblood (1973) directed by Toshiya Fujita
62. Eraserhead (1977) directed by David Lynch
63. Daisies (1966) directed by Věra Chytilová
64. MadMax Fury Road (2015) directed by George Miller*
65. Persona (1967) directed by Ingmar Bergman
66. The Happiness of the Katakuris (2002) directed by Takashi Miike
67. Holy Motors (2012) directed by Leos Carax
68. Hard to Be a God (2013) directed by Aleksei German
69. Man From Nowhere (2010) directed by Lee Jeong-beom
70. Deadpool (2016) directed by Tim"God's Perfect Idiot" Miller
71. The Green Room (2016) directed by Jeremy Saulnier
72. Captain America: Civil War (2016) directed by Joe Russo and Anthony Russo
73. The Witch (2016) directed by Robert Eggers
74. This Is 40 (2012) directed by Judd Apatow
75. Anomalisa (2015) directed by Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson
76. The Crying Game (1992) directed by Neil Jordan
77. The Purge: Anarchy (2014) directed by James DeMonaco
78. Venus in Furs (2013) directed by Roman Polanski
79. Hail, Caesar! (2016) directed by Ethan Coen and Joel Coen
80. American Beauty (1999) directed by Sam Mendes
81. Fire in the Sky (1993) directed by Robert Lieberman
82. Alps (2012) directed by Yorgos Lanthimos
83. Tokyo Fiancee (2014) directed by Stefan Liberski
84. 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016) directed by Dan Trachtenberg
85. Being John Malkovich (1999) directed by Spike Jonze
86. The Forbidden Room (2015) directed by Guy Maddin and Evan Johnson
87. Baba Yaga (1973) directed by Corrado Farina
88. Full Metal Jacket (1987) directed by Stanley Kubrick
89. Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016) directed by Taika Waititi
90. Hardcore Henry (2016) directed by Ilya Naishuller
91. Midnight Special (2016) directed by Jeff Nichols
92. Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) directed by Francis Ford Coppola
93. Darling (2015) directed by Mickey Keating
94. The Conformist (197) directed by Bernardo Bertolucci
95. Frances Ha (2012) directed by Noah Baumbach
96. Neon Demon (2016) directed by Nicolas Winding Refn
97. Enter The Void (2009) directed by Gaspar Noé
98. Zootopia (2016) directed by Byron Howard, Rich Moore, and Jared Bush
99. The Exorcist (1973) directed by William Friedkin
100. The House of The Devil (2009) directed by Ti West
101. The Blair Witch Project (1999) directed by Eduardo Sánchez and Daniel Myrick
101. The Blair Witch Project (1999) directed by Eduardo Sánchez and Daniel Myrick
102. Man Bites Dog (1992) directed by Benoît Poelvoorde, Rémy Belvaux, and André Bonzel
103. Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989) directed by Stephen Herek
104. The Descent (2009) directed by Neil Marshall
105. Scanners (1981) directed by David Cronenberg
106. Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989) directed by Shinya Tsukamoto
107. The Hunger Games: Mocking Jay - Part 2 (2015) directed by Francis Lawrence
108. House (1977) directed by Nobuhiko Obayashi
109. Cronos (1993) directed by Guillermo del Toro
110. Eyes Without a Face (1962) directed by Georges Franju
111. The Invitation (2015) directed by Karyn Kusama
112. Spectre (2015) directed by Sam Mendes
113. X-Men Apocalypse (2016) directed by Bryan Singer
114. Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates (2016) directed by Jake Szymanski
115. The Others (2001) directed by Alejandro Amenábar
116. Mars Attacks! (1996) directed by Tim Burton
117. Bye Bye Birdie (1963) directed by George Sidney
118. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (Ultimate Edition) (2016) directed by Zack Snyder
119. Kubo and the Two Strings (2016) directed by Travis Knight

I never know if this will be the last year I really try to finish the challenge; I didn't contribute much to discussion this year as I did in the past years, and next year I want to try to tackle longer JRPGs in my backlog while also applying for grad school, attempting to finalize my paper for publishing, reading some thicker books that I also have backlogged, and continuing research. We'll see. I may end up altering my personal goals a bit differently as I did when I altered the 50 book challenge to 24 this year.

BraXzy
rybrad
septicore
Minishdriveby

Managed to finish it for the third year in a row. http://m.neogaf.com/showpost.php?p=190935875

It is looking less and less likely I will be able to keep it up over the coming years but it has been a great way to clear some of the backlog. Shame I just seem to keep adding to it however :/

Congrats to all who have completed/smashed it.

Knurek said:

Second page for the third year in a row.

2014 post available here, total of 112 games finished in 2014
2015 post available here, total of 119 games finished in 2015

Game 1: Final Fantasy XIII-2 - started on 27.12.2015, finished on 07.01.2016 (19:18) - ★★☆☆☆
Game 2: Emily is Away - started on 08.01.2016, finished on 08.01.2016 (0:46) - ★★★☆☆
Game 3: Nightmares from the Deep 2: The Siren's Call - started on 08.01.2016, finished on 11.01.2016 (3:59) - ★★★★☆
Game 4: Mario no Super Picross - started on 19.12.2015, finished on 12.01.2016 (33:07) - ★★★★★
Game 5: Nightmares from the Deep 3: Davy Jones - started on 13.01.2016, finished on 15.01.2016 (4:53) - ★★★★☆
Game 6: Her Story - started on 17.01.2016, finished on 17.01.2016 (2:41) - ★★★★☆
Game 7: To Be or Not To Be - started on 18.01.2016, finished on 22.01.2016 (10:09) - ★★★★☆
Game 8: Mario's Picross - started on 12.01.2016, finished on 22.01.2016 (10:16) - ★★★☆☆
Game 9: The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky SC - started on 22.01.2016, finished on 08.02.2016 (71:55) - ★★★★★
Game 10: Pony Island - started on 09.02.2016, finished on 09.02.2016 (2:40) - ★★★★★
Game 11: D4: Dark Dreams Don't Die - started on 09.02.2016, finished on 10.02.2016 (8:53) - ★★★★☆
Game 12: Sepia Tears - started on 10.02.2016, finished on 10.02.2016 (2:13) - ★★☆☆☆
Game 13: The Book of Unwritten Tales 2 - started on 10.02.2016, finished on 15.02.2016 (19:10) - ★★★☆☆
Game 14: An Octave Higher - started on 16.02.2016, finished on 16.02.2016 (7:18) - ★★★★☆
Game 15: The Vanishing of Ethan Carter - started on 17.02.2016, finished on 18.02.2016 (3:16) - ★★★★☆
Game 16: Asphyxia - started on 18.02.2016, finished on 18.02.2016 (4:35) - ★★★★☆
Game 17: Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc - started on 24.02.2016, finished on 10.03.2016 (30:01) - ★★★★★
Game 18: Remember 11 - started on 11.03.2016, finished on 18.03.2016 (25:17) - ★★★★★
Game 19: Super Win the Game - started on 19.03.2016, finished on 19.03.2016 (5:08) - ★★★★☆
Game 20: The Sad Story of Emmeline Burns - started on 22.03.2016, finished on 22.03.2016 (1:08) - ★★★★☆
Game 21: The Elevator - started on 22.03.2016, finished on 22.03.2016 (0:33) - ★★★★☆
Game 22: The Blind Griffin - started on 23.03.2016, finished on 23.03.2016 (2:10) - ★★★★☆
Game 23: Nachtigal - started on 23.03.2016, finished on 23.03.2016 (1:22) - ★★★☆☆
Game 24: Taarradhin - started on 24.03.2016, finished on 24.03.2016 (0:51) - ★★★☆☆
Game 25: Ristorante Amore - started on 24.03.2016, finished on 24.03.2016 (2:41) - ★★★★☆
Game 26: Those Without Names - started on 25.03.2016, finished on 25.03.2016 (1:03) - ★★★☆☆
Game 27: Cupid - started on 25.03.2016, finished on 25.03.2016 (4:20) - ★★★★★
Game 28: Who is Mike? - started on 26.03.2016, finished on 26.03.2016 (0:45) - ★★☆☆☆
Game 29: Embers of Magic - started on 26.03.2016, finished on 26.03.2016 (0:30) - ★☆☆☆☆
Game 30: Green Eyed Monster - started on 26.03.2016, finished on 27.03.2016 (1:05) - ★★★★☆
Game 31: Dust: An Elysian Tail - started on 20.03.2016, finished on 28.03.2016 (12:55) - ★★★★★
Game 32: Perceptions of the Dead - started on 28.03.2016, finished on 28.03.2016 (0:26) - ★★★☆☆
Game 33: Autumn's Journey - started on 29.03.2016, finished on 30.03.2016 (2:17) - ★★★☆☆
Game 34: Is This the Life? - started on 30.03.2016, finished on 30.03.2016 (1:11) - ★★★★☆
Game 35: Venti Mesi - started on 31.03.2016, finished on 31.03.2016 (0:44) - ★★★★★
Game 36: Pillars of Eternity - started on 19.02.2016, finished on 05.04.2016 (48:16) - ★★★★☆
Game 37: Eve: Burst Error - started on 01.04.2016, finished on 11.04.2016 (~25:00) - ★★★★☆
Game 38: Mario no Picross 2 - started on 22.01.2016, finished on 12.04.2015 (45:25) - ★★★★★
Game 39: Quell - started on 12.04.2016, finished on 14.04.2016 (4:34) - ★★★★☆
Game 40: Treasure Adventure Game - started on 14.04.2016, finished on 16.04.2016 (12:01) - ★★★★☆
Game 41: Squarecells - started on 16.04.2016, finished on 18.04.2016 (4:40) - ★★★★★
Game 42: Fate/stay night [Realta Nua] -Fate- - started on 11.04.2016, finished on 20.04.2016 (30:31) - ★★★★☆
Game 43: Unmechanical - started on 18.04.2016, finished on 21.04.2016 (3:32) - ★★★★☆
Game 44: Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair - started on 22.04.2016, finished on 03.05.2016 (38:42) - ★★★★☆
Game 45: Forgotten, Not Lost - started on 03.05.2016, finished on 04.05.2016 (0:37) - ★★☆☆☆
Game 46: The Great Palermo - started on 04.05.2016, finished on 04.05.2016 (0:39) - ★★★☆☆
Game 47: Fate/stay night [Realta Nua] -Unlimited Blade Works- - started on 04.05.2016, finished on 13.05.2016 (21:25) - ★★★★☆
Game 48: Fate/stay night [Realta Nua] -Heaven's Feel- - started on 14.05.2016, finished on 22.05.2016 (30:22) - ★★★★☆
Game 49: One Thousand Lies - started on 22.05.2016, finished on 26.05.2016 (6:17) - ★★★★★
Game 50: Ori and the Blind Forest DE - started on 22.05.2016, finished on 29.05.2016 (11:53) - ★★★★★
Game 51: Uncharted 4: A Thief's End - started on 22.05.2016, finished on 30.05.2016 (11:30) - ★★★☆☆
Game 52: Picross DS - started on 19.04.2016, finished on 17.06.2016 (43:13) - ★★★★★
Game 53: Picross e - started on 11.06.2016, finished on 18.06.2016 (8:34) - ★★★★★
Game 54: Root Double -Before Crime * After Days- - started on 29.05.2016, finished on 22.06.2016 (66:20) - ★★★★★
Game 55: The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine - started on 22.06.2016, finished on 28.06.2016 (26:47) - ★★★★★
Game 56: Picross e2 - started on 18.06.2016, finished on 28.06.2016 (10:44) - ★★★★★
Game 57: Professor Layton and the Curious Village - started on 28.06.2016, finished on 03.07.2016 (9:24) - ★★★★☆
Game 58: Picross e3 - started on 28.06.2016, finished on 06.07.2016 (9:42) - ★★★★★
Game 59: Batman: Arkham Asylum - started on 03.07.2016, finished on 09.07.2016 (11:55) - ★★★★★
Game 60: Copoka - started on 09.07.2016, finished on 09.07.2016 (1:07) - ★★★☆☆
Game 61: Sunrise - started on 09.07.2016, finished on 09.07.2016 (1:06) - ★★★★☆
Game 62: Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box - started on 09.07.2016, finished on 15.07.2016 (8:25) - ★★★☆☆
Game 63: Lily of the Valley - started on 15.07.2016, finished on 15.07.2016 (1:14) - ★★★★★
Game 64: Picross e4 - started on 06.07.2016, finished on 19.07.2016 (14:50) - ★★★★★
Game 65: Pillars of Eternity: The White March - started on 16.07.2016, finished on 24.07.2016 (17:05) - ★★★☆☆
Game 66: Moirai - started on 24.07.2016, finished on 24.07.2016 (0:10) - ★★☆☆☆
Game 67: Life is Strange - started on 24.07.2016, finished on 30.07.2016 (17:26) - ★★★★★
Game 68: Adventures of Pip - started on 30.07.2016, finished on 02.08.2016 (7:41) - ★★★★☆
Game 69: Katawa Shoujo - started on 03.08.2016, finished on 14.08.2016 (26:17) - ★★★★★
Game 70: Picross e5 - started on 19.07.2016, finished on 16.08.2016 (12:31) - ★★★★★
Game 71: Batman: Arkham City - started on 08.08.2016, finished on 25.08.2016 (24:02) - ★★★★★
Game 72: Hatoful Boyfriend: Holiday Star - started on 25.08.2016, finished on 27.08.2016 (4:29) - ★★★★☆
Game 73: Picross e6 - started on 16.08.2016, finished on 12.09.2016 (24:23) - ★★★★★
Game 74: Club Nintendo Picross - started on 12.09.2016, finished on 18.09.2016 (6:46) - ★★★★★
Game 75: Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies - started on 28.08.2016, finished on 21.09.2016 (34:14) - ★★★★☆
Game 76: Echoes of Aetheria - started on 27.08.2016, finished on 23.09.2016 (19:12) - ★★★★☆
Game 77: Club Nintendo Picross Plus - started on 18.09.2016, finished on 02.10.2016 (12:41) - ★★★★★
Game 78: My Nintendo Picross: The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess - started on 02.10.2016, finished on 09.10.2016 (8:32) - ★★★★☆
Game 79: Umineko: When They Cry - started on 24.09.2016, finished on 02.11.2016 (69:55) - ★★★★★
Game 80: Guru Logic Champ - started on 03.11.2016, finished on 12.11.2016 (13:51) - ★★★★☆
Game 81: Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Spirit of Justice - started on 02.11.2016, finished on 27.11.2016 (43:06) - ★★★★☆

Game X: Dragon Quest VII: Fragments of the Forgotten Past - started on 23.09.2016
Game X: Pokemon Picross - started on 16.10.2016
Game X: Pic Pic - started on 12.11.2016
Game X: The House in Fata Morgana - started on 27.11.2016

Dropped games:
Game X: Wolfenstein (2009) - started on 24.12.2015, dropped on 13.01.2016 (4:29) - game glitched out on me during one of the boss fights, managed to corrupt all saves I kept. I didn't like it enough to start from scratch. :\

Click to expand...

Uncharted 4 3/5 really?

Game #39 - Elder Scrolls Online Gold Edition
Time: 215 hours (and counting)

And the surprise of the year goes to ESO. Decided to give it another try during the recent free weekend after not having enjoyed it much in beta, and got completely hooked. The class system is fantastic once I wrapped my head around the fact that any class can be anything and use any weapon. The zones are great and the quest design and writing are a notch above your usual mmo (some quests rival the best stuff in most rpgs really), capping off with a fantastic last zone. The dlc is super substancial, the paragon-style system of getting account levels are you rech max level is a fantastic way to make you want to keep playing, and a great help to your alts. I could go on and on about this game, it totally blew me way and im still not anyware near done with it. Forget Legion, this is my GOTY.


Game #40 - Eternal Card Game
Time: 43 hours (and counting)

Hey another game that doesnt actually end. Anyway, absolutely fantastic trading card game that is basiclaly Hearthstone with MTG rules (aka more complex). Super generous F2P systems, lots of mdoes to play, particulry single player modes, fantastic card designs, just overall a really well made card game, probably my favorite out there. Will come back to this a lot I think.

Main posts here.

40...so close and yet so far because I keep playing these hundred hour, never ending games. Oh well.

ctw0e said:

Uncharted 4 3/5 really?

Click to expand...

Is this gonna be another 8/10 controversy?

ctw0e said:

Uncharted 4 3/5 really?

Click to expand...

Sounds bout right to me :/

Oh god, I posted a placeholder post way back in January but I took so long to finish Yakuza 5, then Trails in the Sky FC and then Trails in the Sky SC that I didn't think I had a chance of making it to 52. But then the second half of the year started and I've been cruising through games, partially thanks to an ankle injury I picked up in July that left me stuck at home for a month. Good news is, I did it! Bad news is, I now need to post them all and catch up. I'll post the first half now and then the second maybe next weekend, when I can put some time into it. Full list is in my original post.

Original Post



Game #01 - Yakuza 5 (PS3) - 31/01/16

Up there with Yakuza 2 as one of my favourites in the series. The gameplay is as good as ever, with two new unique playable characters that bring even more variety to the table, but this time, I thought the story came together really well, which is something I don't think the last couple did.



Game #02 - The Book of Unwritten Tales 2 (PS4) - 06/02/16

An awesome adventure game. I really enjoyed the characters and world in it.



Game #03 - Firewatch (PS4) - 10/02/16

The story fell a little flat at the end but Firewatch is still a really cool game. Great dialogue and setting, I'm looking forward to what Campo Santo do with their second game.



Game #04 - The Witness (PS4) - 11/02/16

Easily one of the best games of the year. Going into it I thought I'd get sick of the line puzzles but there's so much variety that that never even came close to happening. They're constantly introducing new puzzle mechanics, so you're always learning and if you get stumped, you can just move onto a different area. On top of that, the environmental puzzles are mind blowing once you first discover them.



Game #05 - Gone Home (PS4) - 12/02/16

I'd already played this on PC but I wanted to play the console version too. It didn't have the same impact on me as it did the first time but it's still a great little story.



Game #06 - Three Fourths Home (PS4) - 13/02/16

An interesting little visual novel style adventure game, a bit depressing though.



Game #07 - The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky FC (PSP) - 17/03/16

It started way too slow for my liking, so it took a while for me to really get into it and as a result, progress was slow too, but by the end, I thought it lived up to all the hype. The combat system isn't much new but the world, cast of characters and writing really stand out from the pack. It was great to finally make the time to play these games.



Game #08 - Hitman GO (PSV) - 20/03/16

A cool little game, I had some trouble with the limited steps objectives at first but I got there eventually. It was great to get a chance to play this, since I wanted to play it but I'm not a big fan of mobile gaming.



Game #09 - The Talos Principle (PS4) - 25/03/16

Great puzzle game but I can't say I particularly liked the story. It was a bit obnoxious.



Game #10 - The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky SC (PSP) - 25/04/16

Probably my favourite JRPG since Persona 4 Golden. Not that different to FC as far as the world or cast goes but the story hits the ground running from FC's ending and never lets up. Now to wait until Trails of Cold Steel 3 is on the horizon before I can start playing those games...



Game #11 - Day of the Tentacle Remastered (PS4) - 27/04/16

I never played the original release but I really enjoyed this re-release. It holds up really well, even the typical dumb point and click puzzles, and I thought Double Fine did a fantastic job with the graphical overhaul.



Game #12 - Broken Sword 5: The Serpent's Curse - Episode 1 (PSV) - 30/04/16
Game #13 - Broken Sword 5: The Serpent's Curse - Episode 2 (PSV) - 01/05/16

I bought this way back when it first came out on Vita but I only just got around to playing it. My only other experience with Broken Sword was renting the PS2 one out when I was younger and while I wanted to like this, I thought it was pretty mediocre. The story just seemed so contrived.



Game #14 - Amnesia: Memories (PSV) - 15/05/16

I bought it on sale hoping for something like Zero Escape or Danganronpa but instead I got a otome VN. I still gave it a go hoping it'd turn out well but nope, all five guys range from asshole to creepy. Like seriously, one of them locked the girl in a steel cage to "protect" her. This game pissed me off. Did not enjoy.



Game #15 - Uncharted 4: A Thief's End (PS4) - 20/05/16

A brilliant game. I was a little worried Druckmann would make it darker because of the stories that went around of him wanting to kill Elena in UC2 but thankfully I was completely wrong. It may have been a bit more serious but the fun adventure was still there. I really enjoyed what they did with the gameplay, combining that classic Uncharted gameplay with far better stealth mechanics. The introduction of the jeep and boat were incredible and really opened up those levels, something we're not used to seeing from an Uncharted game. The character moments were incredible, especially the couch scene. The scope of the set pieces maybe weren't as large as the ones in UC2 and 3 but they were just as thrilling. And I absolutely loved the ending, no wonder they had to delay it to get that ending perfect. I can't wait for the DLC.



Game #16 - Heavy Rain (PS4) - 23/05/16

I really liked the original release but this game didn't hold up, especially now that games like Until Dawn and Life is Strange are out there. A couple of the scenarios are still fun but man, the story is a mess.



Game #17 - Beyond: Two Souls (PS4) - 29/05/16

Kind of the opposite of Heavy Rain. I didn't quite like the original release but enjoyed this one, I think largely because of the ability to play through the story linearly. I never understood why they broke the game up that way, it didn't add anything and just made it more confusing. It's still not a perfect game by any means, there's some weird logical leaps in the story and cringeworthy dialogue at point but I had a lot more fun with it this time around.



Game #18 - Ratchet & Clank (PS4) - 05/06/16

The best R&C since A Crack in Time. The lack of any new innovative weapons is a bit of a pity but they did a fantastic job remaking the first game and fixing all the problems with it, the story in particular.



Game #19 - Mirror's Edge Catalyst (PS4) - 16/06/16

The original was one of my favourite games of last gen, so I couldn't wait for this one but wow, what a disappointment. The gameplay is still there but the level design isn't as well crafted as the original and the story is terrible. DICE just don't seem to know how to make a good single player campaign.



Game #20 - Goat Simulator (PS4) - 20/06/16

A fun distraction but I got bored of it within a half hour of playing around each level. It's a really dumb game and fuck that Flappy Birds clone mini-game.



Game #21 - Pokemon Omega Ruby (3DS) - 30/06/16

I bought this on a whim because I wanted a 3DS and all of a sudden, I got hooked on Pokemon for the first time since Gold way back in the day. I'm not sure why I got hooked by this one but I think it was mostly down to the quality of life improvements like the DexNav, PSS, the much maligned Exp Share, etc. That plus the post-game, with its extra story and metric ton of legendaries. I even created (most of) a Living Dex while I kept trying to find excuses to keep playing it



Game #22 - Pokemon Fire Red (GBA) - 05/07/16

Step 2 in my Pokemon addiction and the first game I finished while stuck at home thanks to a severely sprained ankle. Instead of starting from scratch, I picked up from where I left off like ten years ago, beat the Pokemon League and everything else I could. Fun game but it's kinda hard going back to that gen after playing with all the quality of life improvements in the more recent games.



Game #23 - Pokemon Black (DS) - 12/07/16

Step 3 in my Pokemon addiction. I bought this game when it first came out because my friend's were all planning to buy it but I didn't get far because it seemed so insanely slow. With this one, I started from scratch and made it all the way to the end. I didn't get through too much of the post-game but I felt like I'd done enough. It's still nowhere near my favourite Pokemon but I can appreciate that the story is pretty good.



Game #24 - Pokemon Y (3DS) - 20/07/16

Step 4. The worst Pokemon game I've played. Kalos is a bland, awful region, the camera in Lumiose is a nightmare, your friends/rivals are pitiful and the post-game is non-existent (outside of the weird little Looker story). It did bring a few good things with it, I liked the second starter idea, all the improvements that made their way into ORAS and the weird post-game Looker story but it was nowhere near enough to make up for all the shortcomings.



Game #25 - Pokemon Sapphire (GBA) - 23/07/16

Aaand finally, Step 5. Another game I played mid-way through years ago and went back to. It was interesting noting all the changes the remakes made to these games but I missed all the quality of life improvements.



Game #26 - Zero Escape: Zero Time Dilemma (PSV) - 30/07/16

My biggest disappointment of the year. 999 and Virtue's Last Reward were so god damn good but ZTD is average at best. The puzzles are alright but the animation is so janky, the dialogue isn't great, established characters act out-of-character, Phi's retconning is stupid (alongside her parents very sudden romance) and the ending is completely unsatisfying. This is the most disappointed I've been with a game for a long time.

Pace has slowed considerably as I only get to really binge on games every other weekend... most days I'm stuck with the laptop or a portable. I'm going to make an effort to beat some PSVR games before the year is out, get some use out of the thing.

Game 60: Pac-Man Championship Edition DX+ (PC)
Finished 10/08/16 (100% achievements complete)
Time to complete: 94 minutes as per Steam
An old PS3 favorite, picked it up for cheap just to re-live its greatness. Reassuring to finish this again after the disappointment of Championship Edition 2... game was so terrible it refused to run without crashing on both my laptop and my main PC.

Game 61: Quantum Break (PC)
Finished 10/09/16 (1pt)
Time to complete: 14 hours as per Steam
Continuing my run of plowing through Microsoft-published stuff, really coming around to their library of games. I love Remedy's titles, just never been enough of a motivation to purchase an entirely different console just to play them... Quantum Break gets a bad rap on GAF, but I really, really liked this game. The time powers were fun to play around with, and the story, although cheesy as fuck at times, pushes all the B-movie buttons I appreciate.

Game 62: Ori & The Blind Forest (PC)
Finished 10/09/16 (1pt)
Time to complete: 9 hours as per Steam
Visually, the game is amazing as fuck, and very few games (platformer or otherwise) can come close to the artistry on display here. Difficulty has some nasty spikes, just the way I like it. If you're looking for a straight Metroidvania (no RPG components or equipment, just new abilities), this right here just might be the best of breed.

Game 63: Deathsmiles (PC)
Finished 11/01/16 (4pt)
Time to complete: 2 hours as per Steam
Cave is now officially one of my favorite developers ever. How can these people be so good at this shit? I liked bullet hell shmup this even more than I did Mushihimesama, and I didn't think that was possible.

Game 64: Batman: The Telltale Series Episode 1(PC)
Finished 11/02/16 (1pt)
Time to complete: Around an hour and 30 minutes
I gave Telltale's Batman series a try while they were sampling the first ep on Steam... didn't think much of it unfortunately. These are well-established characters, which makes all of your choices feel... well, either predictable or inconsequential. Will still pick it up eventually, but only on deep discount. Not impressed.

Game 65: Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Spirit of Justice (3DS)
Finished 12/01/16 (1pt)
Time to complete: 42 hours, 8 minutes as per 3DS system records
Prospects for this most recent PWAA game were not looking good, personally... I bought this at launch, but the first four cases were incredibly uneven: two average cases, a pretty good one, and an absolutely atrocious one (seriously, worst case ever). I just kept pushing on based on the feedback in the game's GAF OT - by all accounts, case 5 was absolutely fantastic.

And you know what? It was. Game redeemed, solid entry.

Game 66: Nation Red(PC)
Finished 12/04/16 (1pt, beat all 18 missions)
Time to complete: 74 minutes as per Steam
Got victimized by the Hidden Gems thread again, and bought this unassuming top down shooter. As far as I could tell there's no controller support, so I played through all the missions with M+KB. It was inoffensive, if not a little too easy... the endless survival and siege modes aren't enough to hold my interest for very long.

Game 67: Metal Slug 2(PC)
Finished 12/04/16 (1pt)
Time to complete: 74 minutes (!) as per Steam
Got Metal Slug 2 from the Neo Geo Pack and decided to blast through again for kicks. It made me remember just how unfair this game feels in comparison to Metal Slug 1 - you can see the choke points where SNK was just licking its lips in anticipation of all the quarters you would burn at the arcade. A fun diversion at best.

Game 68: Twinkle Star Sprites(PC)
Finished 12/04/16 (1pt)
Time to complete: 44 minutes as per Steam
This was the first time I ever played TSS (never tried the Neogeo version) - wanted to play this pretty badly as the concept sounded strong to me (a hybrid of shmup and puzzle, like the shooter equivalent of Pocket Fighter).

Good God almighty this game was annoying. I could only manage one playthrough of arcade mode - I can't count how many times that last boss killed me before I lucked out by her walking into my combo.

Game 69: Super Star Path(PC)
Finished 12/10/16 (1pt, all items collected)
Time to complete: 3.2 hours as per Steam
Speaking of great concepts, Super Star Path has a very solid hook - it's ostensibly a shooter, but you have to make sure that you manage your shots carefully as shooting enemies (who are organized like jagged rows of Puyo Puyo blobs) causes chain reactions than can trap your ship, killing you instantly.

This was great all the way up to the end, where the nasty last stage was paired with an ever nastier last boss - of course, losing to the guy sends you all the way back to the start. Took me more than an hour of constant retrying to win this one stage!

ctw0e said:

Uncharted 4 3/5 really?

Click to expand...

I very well may revise my score to 2/5.
It's a terrible excuse for a game with very solid tech and eyecandy.

The List!

48. Mirror's Edge Catalyst - 15 Hours


Not as bad as people would have you believe. This is still Mirror's Edge through and through, better than the original in some respects, yet worse in others. Though the game has more content by virtue of the open world, I'm not sure the open world actually manages to justify its existence here. Retreading the same routes multiple times between safe houses is not interesting, and then you unlock fast-travel which makes the open world kind of pointless. It also turns the game into a massive collectathon as DICE seemed obligated to litter it with tchotchkes. I also loved (read: fucking hated) how they spun the changes to combat by saying "We got rid of guns!" but what they neglected to mention was that they replaced it with a totally SHIT melee combat system that disrupted the gameplay even more frequently than the guns and few encounters in the first one did. I liked the way leaderboards and speedrunning was integrated into the game, it's just a shame I couldn't take advantage of it since none of my friends have played the game. But, I'm just happy to have more Mirror's Edge in my life. Bonus points for introducing me to CHVRCHES!

49. Battlefield Hardline - 9 Hours


Battlefield: The Procedural. I was hoping the campaign would be more like a series of Payday-esque heists in the vein of the multiplayer. What I got was a low-key Battlefield campaign where I use a pistol a lot of the time instead of assault rifles and rocket launchers and other large artillery. Under a new IP I think this could have been more successful but it feels too hamstrung by Battlefield trappings to really stand on its own as a game.

50. Hyper Light Drifter - 10 Hours


This would have been a lot better if I didn't have to go scrounging for health packs every couple of rooms. The design of the game suffers because the developers can never be sure of the players health status. Healing mid-dungeon is not trivial. If the player's health was restored upon completing a room, and the difficulty of each room was increased to account for that this would truly be an excellent game. As it is, the combat system is brought down by the other systems in the game. Great to look at, still fun to play, but I can't help but feel like this game doesn't live up to its own potential.

51. Gone Home - 2 Hours


Knowing this isn't a horror game and having a general idea how the narrative resolves kind of spoils the experience a lot. But if I hadn't had that knowledge beforehand, I would have been disappointed by the bait and switch so it's kind of a lose-lose scenario.

52. Unravel - 6 Hours


A very pleasant surprise of a game. I'll get the fact the game looks gorgeous out of the way- it really does. The environmental design does a good job of making the levels feel like real places you are in rather than just being 2D planes you're traveling across. The game's central mechanic is the player character being made of yarn and unraveling as you progress, and this surprisingly lends itself to some really unique platforming. Lots of rappelling, rope climbing and swinging and tying yourself to objects to pull them over and whatnot. I can't even remember the last time I played a 2D platformer I would describe as "inventive" but Unravel fits the bill 100%. It's a shame it didn't get more widespread acclaim. This would have fit in with the WiiU's library so well, it's the kind of thing you'd hope and expect Nintendo to come up with if they were in the business of creating new IP's.

53. Ys: The Ark of Napishtim - 11 Hours


I've always thought of the Ys series as what Sega's take on The Legend of Zelda would look like. In that respect, this is like The Minish Cap to Oath's Link's Awakening. A good game in its own right, but you know the formula can be done better. I had to do an extra hour or two of grinding and item hunting at the end of the game to be able to take on the final boss which soured me a little, but it was nothing insurmountable. The gameplay is strong enough to support it but it just kind of kills the pacing a little. I also really liked the side story of the NPC that had an unrequited crush on the player character, even though (or maybe because?) it wasn't really developed and was just more of a character trait of the NPC.

54. ABZÛ - 2 Hours


Pretty to look at and not much else. Journey this ain't.

55. DOOM - 16 Hours


GOTY 2016. Pretty much everything this game does, it does perfectly (except multiplayer). There is not a weak aspect to speak of. Music, visuals, player movement, enemy design/readability, clear delineation of weaponry; everything has its unique utility and there's very little overlap in performance. It's all best-in-class.

56. Hacknet - 7.5 hours


This game was so good, I started it and finished it in the same day. A seven hour game. That happens for me basically never. Even Portal took me two days to beat. Something about the typing-heavy gameplay of using the terminal to hack computers and mess with other PC's filesystems had me completely hooked. Haven't played anything else even remotely similar to this. What an achievement!

57. SUPERHOT - 7 Hours


Everyone knows what this is by now right? A "Time Moves When You Move" FPS. I actually expected the campaign to be more traditional but I can't say I'm disappointed with what I got instead. I *loved* how meta the narrative got and how willing it was to break the fourth wall. Somewhat similar to Hacknet you play from the perspective of a computer user who (unlike Hacknet) downloads some shareware called SUPERHOT.exe, but there is something sinister about it. I won't spoil *too* much, but I thought the part where was so clever and ballsy that the game completely won me over then and there. And this is all before you unlock the post-game Challenge mode where the gameplay truly shines. Tweaking the ruleset (melee only, katana only, guns only have one bullet, etc), and the two different speedrun modes provides a ton of variety and replayability. SUPER HOT SUPER HOT SUPER HOT

Knurek said:

I very well may revise my score to 2/5.
It's a terrible excuse for a game with very solid tech and eyecandy.

Click to expand...

Geez ... Just admit you loved it.

Just finished Tales from the Borderlands. Will probably be my #3 game of the year (I go by what I played this year not what came out).

Original Post

I really need to get better at posting these in smaller chunks

40. Bioshock 2: Remaster (PS4) - October
I never finished it before, finally got around to it. Weakest of the Bioshock games in my opinion.

41. Tomb Raider (PC) - October
Got this in a steam sale a bit back and never got around to playing it. Sucks that I waited so long because it was a pretty good game. I understand the talk about it being like Uncharted now.

42. Tick Tock Isle (PC) - October
Short, interesting, and cheap.

43. Offspring Fling (PC) - October
Clearing out the PC backlog with this one. Decent puzzles, none of them too hard to need help on

44. Owlboy (PC) - November
Been waiting on this for a while. Enjoyed the time I had with it, but I kind of wish it had more substance

45. Dishonored 2 (PS4) - November
Loved it. Because I played as Corvo it felt a bit too much like the first game, so I'll have to replay it as Emily

46. Furi (PS4) - November
Played it, got stuck, said fuck it and lowered the difficulty, too easy, raised the difficulty, never again. That's Furi.

47. Final Fantasy XV (PS4) - November
Another one I had been waiting on for ages. Enough has been said about the game by other on the board so I'll just say I really really enjoyed my time with it and I was not disappointed with it at all.

48. Pokemon Sun (3DS) - December
First time playing a pokemon game in a while. I liked it for what it was, but I don't think I'd ever replay it again.

49. Hue (PC) - December
Got it on sale because it looked interesting. I really liked it. Some of the puzzles gave me a hard time but it was very enjoyable.

Original post


53. Watch Dogs 2 (PS4, 2016) - 38:34
Completed the main campaign on Normal.

Ubisoft Montreal must feel pretty proud of this one. In a year full of gaming surprises, Watch Dogs 2 is close to the top: a game practically no one thought needed to be made that manages to revive the franchise. Where the first Watch Dogs was grimdark, needlessly violent, and ultimately only fun in spite of itself, the sequel is bright and exuberant. Aiden Pearce is a loner who pushed away his own family in a thirst for revenge that can never be quenched; Marcus Holloway wants to right past injustices by keeping his friends close and rallying the people to his side. In many ways, it's the opposite of the original Watch Dogs, even as it retains large portions of the first game's mechanics. Just like with Assassin's Creed, Ubisoft has managed to take most of the good stuff and cut loose the bad.

All of that said, Watch Dogs 2 also exists in strange times. Set in a near-present-day San Francisco, the game feels ripped from the headlines. Concerns about data privacy, omnipresent surveillance and the concentration of technological power are mixed here with more political concerns like diversity in the tech industry and electoral politics. The writing is actually pretty smart in places. Ultimately, though, the game is a fairy tale where the forces of good and evil line up neatly, and no one ever questions the battle lines. By the end of the game, Dedsec wins the day by turning the technology other companies use to control you against them. Can Dedsec be trusted to exercise that power any better than the corporations? It's a video game where good and evil are obvious, so yes! But in other places, the game takes great pains to address real-world concerns--the game doesn't shy away from race relations, for example--so it's weird for Watch Dogs 2 to dodge a pretty obvious question.

The greater issue, though, is not that Watch Dogs 2 is a fairy tale about the triumph of hacktivism; it's that recent events have made Watch Dogs 2's plot look impossibly naive. At its core, the game's message is that truth gives evil no place to hide. Dedsec's signoff in every propaganda video they release is "Dedsec has given you the truth; do what you will." The implication is that once the world knows what's really going on, they will do what's right. If 2016 has taught America anything, however, it's that people won't or can't do what's right just because the truth decides to show up. One subplot in Watch Dogs 2 involves a congressional candidate trying to rig an election, and what might have seemed just slightly over the top a year or two ago now looks hopelessly naive in the face of anonymous CIA allegations of Russian involvement in the recent presidential election and a President-elect who has literally told the public about fake votes that don't actually exist. Watch Dogs 2 overestimates the power of the truth, and underestimates nearly everything else.

There's plenty to say about the rest of the game and how it's improved over the first, but ultimately the thing I'll remember about Watch Dogs 2 isn't how fun it is to hack things with drones (though it is), or how the game is almost a better Grand Theft Auto game than GTA V (which it totally is), or how everyone in the main cast is more interesting and endearing than everyone in the original game (Wrench's robot is more lovable than the entire cast of Watch Dogs 1 combined). It'll be how Watch Dogs 2 makes me wish for a 2016 where the biggest evil facing society can be fought by a black man with a pocket full of zero-days and an armada of drones. If only we were so lucky.

49) Maximo: Ghosts To Glory- 10/28-11/5

I had played the sequel, Army of Zin back in 2008(Why is it European exclusive on PSN???!?! What? I would play it honestly, I liked it back then) so I kinda knew what I was getting myself into but boy the inability to control the camera and rotate it to see enemies not on the screen really hurts bad. So many instances I get cheap shotted off camera or jump into a lava pit to instant death.

At a time where games like Jak 1, Sly 1 and R&C mastered this perfectly on the PS2, I simply don't get the reason behind not having it because with it, the game gets easier. Besides that, it's been fun and challenging, just the way I like it from my platformer series. Also sucks the game doesn't tell you anything about what you are picking up or using, still 1-2 things I have been picking up I have not a clue what I am doing with Game legit just throws you in there old school style and expect you to just pick up on everything, which you can and will but still I don't know what the blue powerups represent. Is that magic? Or is that shield boost and adds to the ability to throw your shield?

I will say that it is silly to charge currency to save your game and it's a whopping 100 gold which is a substantial amount so you need to be willing to sit and play a good couple of hours for this game(I dont think the game is very long) so you don't want to knock out 2 levels and then save since you will be essentially wasting gold. The game does give you a chance to save if you choose that reward after each world boss end though in fairness.

It is indeed hard but not the good kind of hard if that makes sense. It's unnecessary frustrating that the platforming in a platform game is flawed and awful, there are technical bugs like getting stuck in the ground animation during some fights and the game refuses to tell you what the hell you have picked up, there's some sort of power up system that fuck if I know what it all means. I just know very specific pickup and that's purely due to having an end result happen(Getting a shield, golden weapon etc.). Unlike Ghosts N Goblins which was very difficult but at least fair in its difficulty, this is not so much. There were simply MUCH better platformers on the PS2 at this time and age that I don't know why you would play this game. It's a damn shame too because the presentation for what it is is awesome and there is so much potential with this game but it fails to hit it on home in so many aspects.

Once I beat the game right now and it was a very satisfying feeling, considering World 3 and World 4 really tested my absolute patience. It's never the enemies that kill me(Once in a while they catch me), it's the fucking pitfalls that do it to me. All the god damn time. The problem I was dealing with especially in World 4 is the platforming was very wonky, where a few times I would roll off the platform to my death when that wasn't what my intention was. I also randomly got bumped ridiculously fast when trying to land a platform. Also got hit by an enemy in an almost Castlevania/Ninja Gaiden style, my character would(Never before had it happened in the game) get bounced off enough to knock me off the tight platform. It was just such petty bullshit honestly, had it not been for the __ years I have dealt with platformers and all the tricks they throw at you, I would have put the controller down again and had no shame in doing it.

It is a frustrating game in the aspect that the presentation is awesome, the designs are neat, the music is a remix of the iconic main GnG theme in multiple ways and there's so much potential in it but the amount of cheap deaths and AWFUL AWFUL AWFUL AWFUL AWFUL CAMERA(I got hit a few times for the sole purpose of the camera not rotating right or not allowing me to see where an incoming enemy is as I get popped off camera). I am legit fighting the camera in tight platform parts of the game.

The final boss is awesome but the boss leadup to it is pretty long and a tad bit tedious, not in it's length but just what you have to do to win. The other bosses are actually not too difficult once you have the pattern down, I would say I died maybe twice in the fights with all 4 combined. World 5 I had heard terrible things about but I died only twice and it was on one you guessed it awful platforming pitfall part of the game.


The reaper system of coin usage is pretty silly in itself where the aforementioned really hit it on home best on why this is a flawed system. I honestly would reset the game if I didn't get far enough in a level because

A) I had a near full set of armor/shield
B) Lives are so few and far between to find in this game

You don't have enough coins(Reaper will boost the toll up and getting 50 blue faeries to get a coin is so much easier said than done), you gotta restart where you saved and given a save costs 100 gold, even though it is kinda expensive, I legit saved after EVERY COMPLETED LEVEL as cowardly and silly as it may sound.

It's a good game and a game all platformer fans should at least try but boy the game can and will test your resolve and patience, there's no shame in putting the controller down in a sitting and just breathe in and out.

50) Danganronpa: Ultra Despair Girls- 11/5-11/15

I got a bone to pick with GAF....well at least sometimes. The games you preach to the choir like 999 and The World Ends With You as masterpieces....well either have not hooked me(I only beat 1 ending of 999 to be fair to it) and/or had to put the game down to the frustrating touch controls but the games a portion of you hate like Jak 2 and 3, Sly 2 and 3 are games I fall in love with. You guys have guided me to the light to gems like the Shantae series and the Danganronpa series but I knew going in with this game that this game grew the detest of plenty of Danganronpa fans but I came into this game with no prior understanding of the experience I was about to embark upon.

Little did I know, this game was no visual novel but rather a dungeon crawling third person over the shoulder shooter which to be quite frank caught me off guard. While the gameplay was rather simplistic and it arguably did run it's course at some points, I think the story at some points was rather well done. There was a clear transition that this game needed from me as the main antagonists can push a player's buttons as far as how much you can tolerate and I don't know if I adored the Toko/Naegi relationship as much as others as it felt somewhat outdrawn but I can't for the life of me call this game trash or awful. Gets a very bad wrap by some, I thought the game still has some redeeming elements though I can admit the pacing felt off at times with this game, you had some intense moments in the game followed by some uneven portions of no gameplay for over a half hour at a given point, it was very uneven in that aspect. What also killed the pacing for me was the dreaded moments of Toko and Little Naegi retrospecting about a book they picked up, it got to the point I didn't want to go near that book because I knew a needless 2 minute conversation will come up that would slow the game down LOL. The connections between this game and 1st were pretty neat, especially when I could identify who the relative in this game was to the 1st game. I also like the fact that they didn't make Toko's "other" side(No spoilerz) not OP because there's a time limit to how much you can go in that mode and that it was still a game dictated by Little Naegi's special gun.

A decent game, not terrible or awful but it isn't something you are missing out on if you never get to play this.


Game 51(Pokemon Sun) and Game 52(Batman: The Telltale series) are coming to an end for me, I am in the Elite Four or whatever is the equivalent in Pokemon Sun and Episode 5 hits this Tuesday so we are closing in on a task that seemed somewhat improbable for me but it was a journey and climb in itself! Spending over 110 hours in Overwatch this year and roughly 70 for Rocket League and this is incredible how I am about to do this.

51. Beatbuddy: Tale of the Guardians (Mac) - Dec 11 - ★★★☆☆ - Playtime: 4.8h Steam

Decent game, but repetitive.

Main Post

Game 50: The Order: 1886

I'm merrily continuing the annihilation of my PS4 backlog. I have to admit that I was more than sceptical in the months before the release of The Order, and the critical response and GAF consensus have not exactly made me any more optimistic. At the same time, I feel like this game should be part of any decent PS4 collection, if only because of its technical achievements and the peculiarities surrounding its launch. Plus, I managed to get it at a reasonably low price, so I figured I might as well find out what all the fuss was about.

The one thing that I believe nobody would contest is that this is an absolutely gorgeous game. Some may want to discredit its presentation because of how confined and linear it is, but it is still one of (if not the) best-looking PS4 games out there. Its alt-history rendition of Victorian London looks glorious from beginning to end, and serves as an example of the visual capabilities of the hardware.

Outside of its aesthetics, the other big pillar of the game is its narrative, given how it was framed as a truly cinematic experience, as an intermediary between video games and movies which would hopefully combine the best of both these media. The story surrounding the near-immortal knights of the round table fighting a war against half-breeds is indeed quite entertaining, and many of its characters surprisingly endearing. For instance, even with minimal character exposition, I ended up being somewhat attached to Galahad by the end of my run, and Lafayette has no business being so likeable with such a small presence.

Unfortunately, the story and its developments feel rather unfinished, the last act woefully missing. It seems obvious that Ready at Dawn set The Order up to become their first big internal franchise. Why else would they leave matters so open-ended, and so many questions unanswered? The player never finds out . The fact that the story's main antagonist (be it the person or the organisation) are left unaddressed by the end of it is a huge failing. Of course, all of these could be dealt with in an eventual sequel, but sales of the first game make the fate of the franchise more than a little unclear, and more importantly, every story should be reasonably self-contained, which is definitely not the case here, so that you are left with a distinct lack of closure.

Another big problem with the game is just how shallow it is. On the surface, The Order looks like a historical cover-based third-person shooter with some sci-fi elements, but looking deeper, you come to realise that there's really not even that much to it. Many of its elements, be it stealth, lycant combat, door minigames, environmental kills, or even its much-hailed Tesla-developed weaponry are relegated to short sequences, while the majority of the combat consists of going in and out of cover while picking off enemies with a limited set of completely standard weapons, while occasionally using Blacklight for a few easy kills or melee attacks for finishers.

The linear design of the entire experience becomes blatantly obvious in these shootouts - enemies hardly ever do anything other than shoot at you from behind cover that's right in front of you, and character movement is incredibly stiff. For example, when an enemy is behind you, you can't quickly turn around by pushing down on the left stick, because you then end up walking backwards, so you instead have to slowly turn yourself around. The combat areas are also terribly horizontal, which becomes especially apparent after playing something like Uncharted, which has you climbing on top of and jumping from object to object all the time. The only thing that breaks up the experience now and again are short QTE sequences that range from mildly entertaining to mildly frustrating because of their insta-fail nature.

Still, I don't even mind most of this. It is a very simplistic and by-the-books TPS with little to set it apart other than its setting. To be honest, everything the game needs to be more unique is already here, only there would have to be much more of it. Despite all its other flaws, this is what is ultimately its biggest issue, the fact that there is so little actual player interaction. The story is told in 16 chapters over the course of 6-7 hours, but only a handful of these contain any substantive combat. It's true that fighting continuously for several hours can get very old, but if you want to break up the pace, you can still give me something to do. Open the game up a bit between fights and let me roam and explore, and actually reward my exploration with more than world building (optional conversations or story bits would be nice), add a few puzzles, or make the platforming feel more interesting. As it stands, most of the time you go back and forth between very slow sections, and more or less repetitive gunfights.

There's nothing wrong with a game wanting to be cinematic, or wanting to tell a story first and foremost, and gameplay subsequently being more simplistic. However, that only really works if the narrative can carry the experience by itself. Playing The Order, it is easy to tell how much thought went into the various parts of its world, and how little each of them was ultimately explored throughout the story. I really wish the game had been a few hours longer, even if most of that time had been occupied by cut scenes. As it stands, it fares a lot better as a technical showcase than an actual interactive experience in many respects, and I think if it had been priced accordingly, it would have been received much more favourably. Even in its current state, I have to say that it's not nearly as bad as some would have you believe, but much of the negativity and hyperbole surrounding it is obviously intricately tied to the way it was marketed and the expectations it built between announcement and release. In the end, while I enjoyed playing through it once, and going for the platinum, I can't see myself loading it up again unless a sequel were to be miraculously released. For what I paid for it, it was definitely worth experiencing, but I'm more than glad I didn't get sucked into the pre-release hype.

Original post


54. Titanfall 2 (PC, 2016) - 6:06
Completed the main campaign on Normal.

2016 has been full of surprises for video games. Watch Dogs 2 wasn't supposed to be good, but it was. Doom wasn't supposed to be good, but it was fantastic. Titanfall 2 wasn't supposed to be good, either; the response to the multiplayer beta was mixed, and the game sold poorly. Which is a shame, because Titanfall 2's campaign is one of the best shooter campaigns of the year: nearly as much moment-to-moment excitement as Doom, but with more emotional resonance.

In all their years of making video games, Respawn Entertainment and Infinity Ward have never really made a video game where the relationship between two people formed the core of the story. Call of Duty games tend to be squad-focused at best, and while you do get to know and empathize with your squadmates (especially in Modern Warfare 2), what drives the story is the geopolitical intrigue. Like a good police procedural, the relationships are in the background; what matters is the plot. Titanfall 2 is the opposite. There's a whole plot about the IMC trying to develop some new superweapon to destroy a Rebel planet and there are mercenaries and blah blah blah who cares. But what really matters is how your character learns to bond with a big ol' Titan buddy who's recently lost its pilot. Everything else is just an excuse to give the two of you things to do.

What's especially surprising about the Titanfall 2 campaign is how it never forgets that emotional core, and yet still provides so many exciting ways to drive the rest of the plot forward. Considering how often the Call of Duty series fell back on heavily-scripted spectacle to wow players, it's amazing how often the game instead lets you make your own wow moments. Whether it's simple things like trying to find the right wallrun route to grab a pilot helmet, or mission-specific encounters like the prefab house factory early in the game or the gunfights in "Effect and Cause," Titanfall 2 leans heavily on a few core mechanics and weaves interesting combat situations around them. There's even a moment that faintly recalls a pivotal moment in Half-Life 2, and it's just as revelatory here as it was a decade earlier.

For a franchise that made its mark as a multiplayer-only franchise, Titanfall 2's campaign is remarkable in its confidence. If this is the path we can expect the franchise to follow from now on, count me in.

I haven't been able to write a very detailed impression of every single game that i've played but I'm well over the 52 game mark, I'll still try to beat 1 or 2 more before the end of the year.

Games 1-14
Games 15-28
Games 29-41

#42
The Walking Dead: Michonne
PC (Steam)
Completed: September 24, 2016
Playtime: 4h 58m
Loved the story, it was Walking Dead alright. Had to replay the final episode as I couldn't live with one of my decisions ( ). Too bad the gameplay is still mostly QTEs, which I don't like. Telltale really should come up with something more interesting to actually do in their games (at least, in action sequences). As well as iron out the technical issues plaguing their games - I ran into a bunch of those, including the game failing to launch with directx error message until I switch resolution/desktop color depth back and forth to its original setting, not letting me choose the text language (good one, the gog version actually selects the language based on OS regional language setting, and doesn't provide any way to change that choice), and occasionally stuttering or freezing up for a few seconds.

#43
Sunrider: Mask of Arcadius
PC (Steam)
Completed: October 01, 2016
Playtime: 20h 05m
Replay to get a refresher on the story and get the choices right before importing a save into Liberation Day. This is a decent sci-fi visual novel mixed with an actually pretty good tactical strategy game, also noteworthy for being devilishly hard on anything above Ensign difficulty (and Ensign is supposed to be "Easy", but I wouldn't call it that - good luck beating those escort missions without dying). It's available for free on Steam.

#44
Dishonored
PC (Steam)
Completed: October 08, 2016
Playtime: 24h 54m
Great game that reminds me a lot of the first Deus Ex in how it has intricately crafted levels with multiple paths and lets you choose your own approach in tackling them. The magic powers are pretty cool and fun to play with, by the end of the game Corvo can get really badass as you collect more runes. I tried to play pure stealth and take the non-lethal approach for the most part, and got a good ending. I like the setting and all the little background stories scattered in notes and books around the world, but the core story could be more interesting and less predictable. Finally, I have to say a game like this deserved a better soundtrack - the one it has is utterly forgettable.

#45
Sunrider: Liberation Day - Captain's Edition
PC (Steam)
Completed: October 09, 2016
Playtime: 22h 45m
I have mixed feelings after playing this game. On one hand, the main game's story told in VN portions is ... well, let's just say I didn't like it. Unlike the Mask of Arcadius, it has an overcomplicated, confusing, illogical plot with too many cringeworthy twists. It's also shorter, barely has any decisions with player input, and railroads the protagonist into making stupid or questionable choices. The tactical strategy part of the game is plagued with performance problems and regular crashes. On the other hand, that tactical strategy portion is still very good and even improved - with more units, gameplay options and upgrades, and with well-designed missions. The art and visuals are still great. And the completely free epilogue and RE-turn expansions released after the main game try very hard to fix up the badly received story, adding a lot of much-needed player agency, tons of new dialog, loads of fan-service, and 16 or so different endings. Sadly, this expansion is non-canon (set in an "alternate universe" as they put it), so any potential future Sunrider game is going to start off with the original bleak ending instead.

#46
Consortium
PC (Steam)
Completed: October 13, 2016
Playtime: 12h 03m
Short game with a cool concept and an intriguing story set in a very interesting sci-fi setting. Sadly, it's also a technical mess - I haven't seen so many bugs in a playthrough in a long time. Couldn't even finish the game properly because of a game-breaking bug which halted my progress at the very end (got stuck in , glitch preventing me from seeing anything including where to go next). I think at least 7 hours of my playtime was spent reading numerous in-game newsnet lore entries (I wish I knew beforehand they were available as pdf that came with the game), otherwise it actually only takes 4-5 hours to complete.

#47
XCOM 2
PC (Steam)
Completed: November 05, 2016
Playtime: 59h 08m
Excellent sequel to the first game with lots of refreshing and interesting ideas mixed into the usual XCOM formula. The resulting gameplay is sublime, it's one of the best and most addictive games I played this year for sure. Visuals are great, and soundtrack is epic. Literally the only gripe I have is the overabundance of timed missions - imho they're a poorly implemented and annoying way of making the game harder. Because of timers, early game missions are very difficult even on normal difficulty setting. Thankfully, on PC they can be modded to be less aggravating.

#48
Magic Duels: Origins
PC (Steam)
Completed: November 05, 2016
Playtime: 99h 12m
More magic. This latest iteration of the game is almost entirely focused on multiplayer matches - you aren't allowed to choose custom decks in the campaign, and instead have to use crappy and boring - most of the time - prebuilt decks. While the campaign was a big disappointment, the sheer volume of cards available for matched duels (especially now, with all the expansion packs) allows for great variety of decks and makes this game a near endless source of fun for any MtG player. After building 14 different decks and spending almost 100 hours in the game, I'm marking it down as completed, but still plan to return for a few matches every other week or so.

#49
Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc
PC (Steam)
Completed: November 13, 2016
Playtime: 50h 44m
This excellent game is a crossmix between a visual novel, investigation adventure game and courtroom debate drama. The story with all its crazy twists succeeded in blowing my mind. Love all the characters, especially Kyoko. Monokuma is creepy as hell in the villain role. I could wish for a few things to be designed or implemented better, but doing so after finishing the game honestly feels like nitpicking. One of the best games I played this year for sure.

#50
Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair
PC (Steam)
Completed: November 25, 2016
Playtime: 55h 24m
Enjoyed it, but not quite as much as the first game. The character cast is not as interesting, and the more likeable ones (for me, anyway) are killed off early on. The game is filled with too many creepy and/or crude sexual jokes and references, much more so than the predecessor (normally I'm not the one to mind such things, but here in most cases they really are doing that for no reason whatsoever or missing the mark with their attempts at humor). The second half of the game saves it, though - the story finally gets going with the crazy head-spinning twists, and the murders get much more interesting. The final trial showdown alone made it worth playing.

#51
Heroes Rise: The Hero Project
PC (Steam)
Completed: November 26, 2016
Playtime: 13h 19m
Continuing the story from Heroes Rise: The Prodigy, this interactive adventure novel is probably my favorite in this superhero series. It's pretty cool how it lets you import your character along with all your choices from The Prodigy, and builds some of starting character relationships off them. I ended up playing through it (along with the next entry, HeroFall) several times to get a few different variations in the story.

#52
Heroes Rise: HeroFall
PC (Steam)
Completed: November 27, 2016
Playtime: 8h 21m
The grand finale of the Heroes Rise trilogy. I liked it a bit less than The Hero Project, maybe because it felt a little too linear with little real choice in how you can play, and some questionable writing in places. . But overall, I quite enjoyed my time spent reading this series, enough to try other interactive novels in the future.

With this, I've reached 52 games and beaten this year's challenge! But the year isn't over yet, and I may be able to squeeze a few more titles in. Currently playing:

Dishonored DLC (beaten Knife of Dunwall, finishing The Brigmore Witches)
Quantum Break
Joe Dever's Lone Wolf HD Remastered
Hitman (2016)

Games 1 - 14 impressions & details
Games 15 - 28 impressions & details
Games 29 - 41 impressions & details
Games 42 - 52 impressions & details
Games 53 - 56 impressions & details

Master post:

#1 The Novelist (PC, 3h 42m)
#2 Grow Home (PS4, 5h 48m)
#3 Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines (Vita, 9h 34m)
#4 Demon's Souls (PS3, 48h 43m)
#5 Kirakira (PC, 48h 47m)
#6 Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (PC, 9h 56m)
#7 Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition (PC, 62h 36m)
#8 Dear Esther (PC, 2h 12m)
#9 Life Is Strange (PC, 15h 15m)
#10 Gone Home (PC, 2h 18m)
#11 Portal (PC, 3h 32m)
#12 Tex Murphy: Mean Streets (PC, 13h 03m)
#13 S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl (PC, 30h 40m)
#14 The 3rd Birthday (Vita, 15h 35m)
#15 Diablo II: Lord of Destruction (PC, 36h 34m)
#16 Road Not Taken (PS4, 7h 51m)
#17 Persona 2: Innocent Sin (PS, 50h 20m)
#18 Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines (PC, 42h 45m)
#19 Invisible Apartment series (PC, 3h 11m)
#20 LIMBO (PC, 4h 39m)
#21 The Beginner's Guide (PC, 1h 46m)
#22 Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin (PC, 94h 19m)
#23 Never Alone (PS4, 3h 30m)
#24 Kirakira Curtain Call (PC, 9h 13m)
#25 Psy High (PC, 6h 01m)
#26 Heroes Rise: The Prodigy (PC, 6h 27m)
#27 Mirror's Edge (PC, 9h 24m)
#28 The Witcher II: Assassins of Kings (PC, 38h 11m)
#29 The Witcher III: Wild Hunt + Hearts of Stone + Blood & Wine (PC, 296h 28m)
#30 OZMAFIA!! (PC, 31h)
#31 Kindred Spirits on the Roof (PC, 28h 43m)
#32 Fading Hearts (PC, 4h 31m)
#33 Seduce Me the Otome (PC, 6h 32m)
#34 Seduce Me 2: The Demon War (PC, 5h 51m)
#35 No Man's Sky (PC, 66h)
#36 BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger (PC, 24h 52m)
#37 The Vanishing of Ethan Carter (PC, 4h 53m)
#38 Shovel Knight + Plague of Shadows (PC, 13h 09m)
#39 Red Dead Redemption + Undead Nightmares (PS3, 66h 58m)
#40 XCOM: Enemy Unknown + Enemy Within (PC, 55h 54m)
#41 Magic 2015 - Duels of the Planeswalkers + Garruk's Revenge (PC, 18h 27m)
#42 The Walking Dead: Michonne (PC, 4h 58m)
#43 Sunrider: Mask of Arcadius (PC, 20h 05m)
#44 Dishonored (PC, 24h 54m)
#45 Sunrider: Liberation Day (PC, 22h 45m)
#46 Consortium (PC, 12h 03m)
#47 XCOM 2 (PC, 59h 08m)
#48 Magic Duels: Origins (PC, 99h 12m)
#49 Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc (PC, 50h 44m)
#50 Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair (PC, 55h 24m)
#51 Heroes Rise: The Hero Project (PC, 13h 19m)
#52 Heroes Rise: HeroFall (PC, 8h 21m)
#53 Dishonored DLC (PC, 17h 29m)
#54 Quantum Break (PC, 16h 51m)
#55 Hitman Season 1 (PC, 22h 14m)
#56 SOMA (PC, 14h)

Master Post


Game 54: Steins;Gate 0 - 23 hours, 57 minutes - December 9, 2016
This is a legit followup to Steins;Gate. It has to be quite a daunting task to create a game that's a kind of midquel, where the player ultimately already knows what the future holds, and manage to hold their attention. But wonderfully, S;G0 did just that. It's hard to talk about this game in any way without giving away spoilers, but ultimately, the game is great. The only complaint I would probably make is that a few of the new characters fall a bit flat. But the other additions are excellent, the story is dark and riveting, the music is excellent, and the routes are much easier to parse out compared to S;G's nightmarish progression that almost necessitated a guide. For fans of S;G, I think this is a must play.
Should I play Steins;Gate 0? If you've played the first game or watched the anime, absolutely. Otherwise, no, you've got some catching up to do.

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Game #150: Of Asteroids and Emus (PC) - ★★★★★★★★☆☆

A decent little text adventure made by a NeoGAF user in like 72 hours. Even disregarding the time limit, the writing was pretty good - I just wish that there was more time spent on character interaction, but the world was still interesting. I enjoyed Alejandra and went with her over Victor, who was a super nerd and wiener.

Game can be found here

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Game #151: Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Spirit of Justice (3DS) - ★★★★★★★★★★

For me, the worst of the Ace Attorney series - AKA, Apollo Justice - is still a very good game (I don't count the crossover - by counting it as Layton I can keep the Ace Attorney series unblemished!). And with Spirit of Justice, it ranks rather highly for me. The original trilogy is better as well as Investigations 2, but SoJ beats the rest.

The story is a lot more like the Investigations games, insomuch as there's a big, BIG arc that spans the entire game. The series is not unknown to these, but it has always been more subtle or in the background. In here, the story - focusing around the Kingdom of Khura'in (not Kurain) and its Defense Culpability Act and its serious repercussions - is very early established as the arc focus of the story. And all in all, it's a good overall story. It definitely has its flaws and there are some elements that don't work and really require you to switch your brain off, but it has a ton of things that work for me. Perhaps the most valuable addition to the cast is Rayfa, the Royal Priestess. She is a complete brat: insulting, over-confident, and demanding. Her arc is perhaps the best aspect of the game for me. The game also has some fun NPCs. My favorites are probably Now, individual episode assessment.

Episode 1:
Episode 2:
Episode 3:
Episode 4:
Episode 5:
I have not yet played the DLC case (taking a break).

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Game #152: Virginia (PS4) - ★★★★★★★★★☆

Virginia is definitely a game that you can love or profoundly dislike; I obviously fall under the former category. It's visually enthralling, and its lack of dialogue of any kind makes it an impacting game. We see this in games like Thirty Flights of Loving, Gravity Bone, and A Bird Story (all of which I beat this year, haha). In fact, the game was inspired by Thirty Flights of Loving, and it tells - ranging from the voice acting to the confusing narrative and to the sudden cuts from scene to scene. Thirty Flights of Loving utilized this storytelling method a little more consistently, though I would say that Virginia does it a little better - especially given that it has to make it enjoyable and tolerable for a longer period of time and, for me, succeeds. It's definitely a game you should try if you enjoy interactive stories.

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Game #153: Grow Home (PS4) - ★★★★★★★★☆☆

I can definitely see why Grow Home grates on people, but for me, the combination of the style and the idea makes up a lot for the gameplay problems. It's got a lot of physics-based stylings, and has really good draw distances that make the open-world nature really shine. It was definitely frustrating at times - it is, after all, a vertical-focused game, so when the physics do not work out and end up screwing you over, it can be super disheartening to fall and lose a lot of time. Ultimately, I probably won't 100% it, but beating it was fun enough.

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Game #154: Kero Blaster + Pink Hour and Pink Heaven (PC) - ★★★★★★★★☆☆

These came recommended to me as a fan of Daisuke Amaya (Cave Story, Ikachan), and once I finished it, I was pleasantly surprised. Pink Hour and Pink Heaven were a touch too basic for my tastes (the main reason why I just considered them a part of the Kero Blaster entry). The gameplay was pleasing and it flowed quite nicely. I also enjoyed the setting and found the minimalist story entertaining.

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Game #155: Grow Up (PS4) - ★★★★★★★★★☆

Grow Up has some of the problems of the original, but for the most part it felt like Grow Up really did - it was an improvement on nearly every aspect of the original. The game has a lot more horizontal gameplay, and the vertical gameplay was so much easier to handle. Players are not only given a jetpack right away (and a much better one too, which makes for REALLY fun horizontal movement in fact), but they are quickly given the ability to slow their descent (though only through unlocking it through collectibles). It definitely felt like it wanted to shy away from the "challenge" of having to avoid falling from great heights and focus more on making the ascent entertaining - which it most certainly was. The optional challenges more than compensate for this loss of challenge, ultimately posing more of a challenge than anything in the first game.

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Game #156: Mystery Case Files: Ravenhearst (3DS) - ★★★★☆☆☆☆☆☆

Kinda not the game I wanted to end the "three games per week" challenge on, but what can ya do? I actually ended this prematurely after I found that I had run into a game-breaking bug with the game. First off however, I'll cover the game. It is a find-the-object puzzle game, and as far as gameplay goes, it's not bad. It's a good time killer, and I got it for cheap. As I continued to play, the flaws started to grate on me. The visuals are muddled, making it hard to see a lot of the objects (some of which are a little too obscure at times). To progress in the game, you need to find enough items in enough rooms (which restock, having you replay the same areas multiple times). When you clear them, you do a jigsaw puzzle, after which you get a new chapter of a story and a new set of items to find.

In the end though, the game gave me a problem: I had to find three more items to progress, and despite there being items said to be in certain rooms, despite those rooms being empty. So basically, progress is ded.

That's it for me this year lol. Gonna save up completion of a few games for 2017 (need to focus on other stuff right now anyway). My two big goals are:

1. Beat the first nine mainline Dragon Quests, and
2. Beat all of my PS+ games (so I can drop it lol)

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2016-Q4 (Oct, Nov, Dec):

Game 46: Final Fantasy IV (SNES) - 29 Hrs

I've been meaning to play the SNES FF titles for ages, and this 52-game challenge is really doing wonders on hitting my backlog, so here we go!

There's something about the music and 2D sprites in the SNES era that I just love, and this game nails them both! I enjoyed the story, and all of the crazy places it went

Spoiler

like the inside of the planet, and on the Moon!

. The characters were fantastic, and easily held my interest.

Spoiler

It felt a bit like Game of Thrones in the sense that characters were dying or going missing all the time - No one was safe! There were a few great twists, like killing the dragon that turned out to be Rydia's mom ... whoops; finding out that my father was a Lunarian; and that Golbeze was my brother!

The last area had some pretty nutty monsters, and the last boss was crazy! It took a few tries (and a little extra level grinding) to be able to take him down. I figured out a pretty good strategy/rotation for the fight, and then right before his death things went haywire, and two party members went down (including my healer). It didn't look like I would be able to recoup, so I just went for the kill instead of re-stabilizing, and luckily finished off the boss with one character alive (and with less than 1000 HPs). What an exhilarating fight! The ending was

Spoiler

pretty standard, but it was nice to see where everyone ended up.

All in all, it was a fantastic experience, and I can't wait to play the others!

As a side note, there were a bunch of names that were familiar to me (having played VII & IX), and now I'm curious to find out if they are indeed the same people, or just same names.

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Game 47: Drop it! (Wii U) - 3 Hrs

Got a chance to help out with some beta testing for GulAtiCa's upcoming game "Drop it!". Although it hasn't released yet, the game is finished enough to get a good impression of the gameplay.

This is another puzzle game, a genre I'm particularly fond of. Overall, a fun and challenging game. There's quite a bit of content – about 150 levels if I remember correctly! The level difficulty has a nice balance throughout the game, with a variety of easy to hard challenges, with the caveat that some require a bit of chance to complete. The music is pretty chill - I love the groovy techno song, as well as the song that sounds like it could be found in a mega man game. The backgrounds look nice, and I especially like the colorful disco and the space ones.

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Game 48: Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day (NDS) - 7 Hrs

This one has been a series of quick mental exercises that I've been coming back to each day. It isn't the most exciting game, but the challenges and records keep me interested for now as I try to beat my previous scores.

Update:
I played this one daily for about 6 weeks, and then started losing interest. It offers a nice challenge, and I feel like it definitely made a positive impact on my mental speed and problem solving, but in the end it feels like work more than fun, and I'm going to move on to another game.

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Game 49: Animal Crossing: Wild World (NDS) - 7 Hrs

This is my first Animal Crossing game. I liked the intro cab ride, and how it gets you into the story. I got situated in town, checked out my new house, and got to work for Tom Nook. Finished paying off my house by selling fruit and radon items that feel out of the trees. Tom Nook just built an addition to my house and I'm now I am in debt again! I feel like there should be quests or something from the other inhabitants (for better money than selling fruit), but I haven't had any help requests. I did meet a pesky insurance salesman, and he's not leaving me alone. I feel like I've hit a wall of some kind, and not sure what there is to do now?

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Game 50: SteamWorld Heist (Wii U) - 20 Hrs

I adore everything about this game. From the title music "To the Stars", which got ample playtime (from leaving the game on the title screen just to listen to it) before and after playing the actual game, to the characters which were humorous, to the gameplay which never got old, to the storyline's 3 arcs. It was one of the games that captured my attention completely while playing, and digged at my brain when I wasn't. I was afraid that I would tire of the gameplay midway through since the underlying concept was very consistent all the way through, but I never did. There was enough variation in the levels (even when replaying a particular one due to the randomly-generated ships's layout), as well as the enemies, that the levels were always a thrill. The countdown timer for additional enemies encouraged efficiency in strategy, and the collectibles added further challenge/reward. I loved this one enough play it again to 100% it before moving on to the next game, and will definitely come back for the New Game +

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Game 51: Bit.Trip Presents... Runner 2 (Wii U) - 10 Hrs

This game, my goodness, talk about a hidden gem! I don't know if it wasn't marketed well or if I was just oblivious to it, but I nearly missed this one. Thankfully a sale and recommendations by fellow GAF members was enough for me to pick it up, and then I forgot about it. Many months later I was watching football (somewhat, since my players weren't in the game) and I went foraging through my folder of games on the Wii U to see what I could play while "watching". I came across this one again and gave it a shot, and was immediately captivated. If you enjoy tight platformers with super chill music, then this is your jam! I ended up going for a 100% in this one as well.

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Game 52: Blek (Wii U) - 4 Hrs

Interesting puzzle game, with a game mechanic that allows for multiple solutions to a puzzle. Naturally, it starts off somewhat easy and then ramps up in difficulty. It started getting very tricky near the end, usually requiring tons of trial and error. It was pretty satisfying, and worthy of it's price.

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Game 53: Pumped BMX + (Wii U) - 14 Hrs

This one took a bit of work to get a good feel for the game mechanics. The courses are fun, and it plays real smooth. The music is a plus, and overall I found it a great game to play on the game pad while watching football. The game definitely increased in fun as I mastered a few particular mechanics: landing a trick without crashing; getting a speed boost with landing on the upper part of the ramp; and finally, following an incredibly precise path to make it to the end of the really difficult courses.

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Game 54: OlliOlli (Wii U) - 8 Hrs

This was another great game to chill out on the game pad while watching TV. Again, this one had a little bit of a learning curve, but once I mastered the landings and tricks it became a real pleasure. Curve is quickly becoming another one of my favorite indie devs.

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Game 55: Mario Kart 8 (Wii U) - 107 Hrs

I hesitated including this one in my list since I'm been playing it nearly every day since it released in 2014. After much consideration, I ended up including it since in addition to playing it this year, it was also one of my most played games this year - and so I felt it deserved a spot in my list. To be fair, I listed only this year's playtime for this year's 52-game challenge log (while my total playtime makes it the most played game on the Wii U for me at over 600 hours)!

For me, this is one of those games I can just jump right into, any day, for any duration of time, whether by myself or with friends, sober or not (hah). I regularly play it when I'm home for lunch, and the minute or two between races is incredibly conducive to multi-tasking. I've eaten meals, studied for exams, browsed GAF/twitter/facebook, researched and set my fantasy football lineups, etc in the downtime between races.

My only gripe is the lack of Battle-Mode arenas. A large chuck of my high school game-time (back in the day) were devoted to multiplayer battle mode in Mario Kart 64 (and multiplayer 007, of course). I'm hoping for their addition in the Switch version/port/whatever, and then the game will be perfect.

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A Link to the Past said:

Main post

That's it for me this year lol. Gonna save up completion of a few games for 2017 (need to focus on other stuff right now anyway). My two big goals are:

1. Beat the first nine mainline Dragon Quests, and
2. Beat all of my PS+ games (so I can drop it lol)

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Wow, congratulations on finishing a truly crazy number of games!

OT

Knocked out Shantae and the Pirates Curse. This was a very fun game and I have no clue why I waited so long to play it!Level design, progression, and even the Mertoidvania-ish style of exploring was great. Can not recommend enough.

Next on the list is Karous: The Beast of Re:Eden. This is a fun lil shmup. It is not as good as the Dreamcast counterpart. It also plays very differently. It is level based with specific objectives. Also the more you use and item/power it becomes stronger. There is a lot of grinding to get leveled up and a lot of replaying levels to attempt them as some are pretty challenging. If you are a shmup fan I recommend but other than that you may want to pass as It is a pretty niche title.

eefara said:

Wow, congratulations on finishing a truly crazy number of games!

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Thanks! I had a ton of downtime this year and depression, which thankfully made me able to clear a lot out of my backlog. I'm going to try for 104 games next year, though it will definitely be an uphill climb, haha.

51) Pokemon Sun 11/25-12/13


The game is more of the same for me and compared to my adolescent days, it was something that I was far more into during Gen I and Gen II. I tried Gen VI but just could not get at all into it so I took a crack at Gen VII just out of curiosity and I ended up getting hooked to the game.

Some of the changes like taking out the 150 pokemon total in exchange for the Alola version of old pokemon and taking out gym leaders in exchange for these trial runs are changes that me personally speaking did not end up liking, in large part because most of the Alola version pokemon looked very goofy and out of place(Dugtrio looks like Queen in Bohemian Rhapsody, Persian looks LMAO) and I just like the fight against a gym leader and their lackies who use one type, even if you can overwhelm them. The trials in all fairness do present far more danger and can get somewhat challenging in specific circumstances if you don't have the right type of pokemon present.

What I do miss in this version was the lack of innovative dungeons, some of the set pieces for example have you move 1 block to progress into the dungeon. I sorta miss the tricks that dungeons of the old had as I never felt myself needing more than 5 minutes to travel through a dungeon in this game, the only time I needed longer is if I purposely was finding a specific pokemon or fighting numerous trainers.

The story was rather good in this game even if it has the clique kid friendly tropes and ending for the most part(This game does get very dark at some portions though) and the overall formula of Pokemon is something anyone and everyone can get into so this was a real treat for me who was long away from this series but isn't a serious enough trainer to explore this game anymore than the main story and post game. I felt like I got my money's worth with this game and I have barely touched the iceberg as there's so many features in this game.

Some of the way to get these pokemon are real obscure though, like some pokemon can only be found at night, some pokemon can only evolve in a gender form etc. Real far cry from the old days that didn't mesh with so many different possibilities, for someone who wants to go unspoiled on how to find these new pokemon, you can't help but fall into the trap of wanting to read on how to capture or evolve these pokemon.

Game clocked in about 50 hours though I would say about 10 hours I spent trying to hunt down these pokemon who have ridiculous pop up rates in a field. Did not finish the post game, might be something to do as was finish up 2016.

52) Batman: The Telltale Series

Episode 1: 11/16-11/19
Episode 2: 11/20
Episode 3: 11/21
Episode 4: 11/24
Episode 5: 12/13


It would be fitting that a Telltale game closes this challenge out even though I was preferring to close it out with something much bigger like say Doom. It gave me 1/13th of my list with Tales from the Borderlands, The Wolf Among Us, TWD: Michonne and now Batman: The Telltale Series all in 2016 so I cannot say Telltale wasn't deserving, nor can I say this was a bad game.

I would probably rank this 3rd on the entries of Telltale games ahead of Wolf Among Us but behind both TWD Season 1 and Tales from the Borderlands. The action sequences felt very movie esque with the great amount of camera work to really give it that special feel as far as these fights go. Sure the bread and butter that is a Telltale has not changed but for me at least, I don't necessarily mind that. I appreciate a sit down for 2 hours and not having to be stressed out over gameplay, especially being the Roguelike glutton I sometimes am, it's a real nice change of pace and surely would not have gone through with this countdown without games such as this.

I do wish there were more involvement and diversity with the characters as you will see it is the same 3-4 major Batman antagonists throughout when the rogue gallery is so dang good but the game more than makes up for it as you progress further through the story. Without getting into much details due to spoilers, the major antagonist is an absolute curveball and as a big Batman fan, I did not see coming so credit to Telltale for their swerve and the heavy involvement of this character.

This game features a detective mode that while simple, did not feel annoying or feel like a real drawback of the game by being too overly puzzling. It doesn't carry forth the same detective feel that say Rocksteady's series brings forth but these are different games with different budgets.

This was a very good entry in the series and as long as you like Telltale's format, you'll dig this. And if you at all like Batman, then it's a borderline must play. Credit to Telltale for getting an episode out per month.

I have to say this though, episode 5 ruined what was a great running series from a technical standpoint. Had a crash in the game and also saw a bug that came straight out of Ass. Creed: Unity with the eyeballs and teeth appearing but without a face or body LOL. I could not stop laughing in what was supposed to be an intense scene due to this.


And 52 games are down!

Lets Recap:

JANUARY:
1) Conker's Bad Fur Day
2) Shantae Risky's Revenge
3) Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition
4) Sunset Overdrive
5) Ratchet and Clank: Into the Nexus
6) Banjo Tooie

FEBRUARY:
7) Gears of War: Ultimate Edition
8) Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
9) Gravity Rush Remastered
10) Uncharted 2
11) Street Fighter V
12) Uncharted 3
13) Dishonored

MARCH:
14) Life is Strange
15) Tales from the Borderlands
16) Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair

APRIL:
17) Dark Souls III
18) Quantum Break
19) Ratchet and Clank(2016)
20) The Wolf Among Us

MAY:
21) Mega Man Legends
22) Uncharted 4: A Thief's End
23) 9 Doors, 9 Persons, 9 Hours
24) Valiant Hearts: The Great War
25) The Misadventures of Tron Bonne
26) Broforce
27) Overwatch

JUNE:
28) InFamous: Second Son
29) Gone Home
30) South Park: The Stick of Truth
31) The Order: 1886

JULY:
32) Rise of the Tomb Raider
33) Furi
34) Gears of War 2
35) Steins;Gate

AUGUST:
36) Gears of War 3
37) Dino Crisis
38) Mega Man Legends 2

SEPTEMBER:
39) Dino Crisis 2
40) Recore
41) Shantae and the Pirate's Curse

OCTOBER:
42) Until Dawn
43) Forza Horizon 3
44) Shantae
45) Grabbed by the Ghoulies
46) Dark Souls 3 DLC: Ashes of Ariendel
47) Gears of War 4
48) The Walking Dead: Michonne

NOVEMBER:
49) Maximo: Ghosts To Glory
50) Danganronpa: Ultra Despair Girls

DECEMBER:
51) Pokemon Sun
52) Batman: The Telltale Series

I listed when I finished the games though some of these games began a month(Sometimes in rare cases a year!) sooner. Still have over 2 weeks left, might go with Doom next.

So I kind of finished the challenge months ago but never got around to finishing a few impressions and posting them. Better late than never, right?
Link to post 1

36. Kirby's Dream Land 2 (3DS VC/GB): 3:10, May 28th.
It's still a classic, but some of the level design feels very antiquated, and going back for some of the rainbow drops can get a little tedious at times. Getting them is worth it, though, the final boss is really cool for a GB game.

37. Super Mario Kart (3DS VC/SNES): 2:27, May 30th.
The first Mario Kart game doesn't hold up well at all. I'm still glad that it exists, because it started the franchise, but it's just so bland and boring. The tracks, in particular, feel too generic, and lack visual variety, especially when compared to later games in the series, and even to its forerunners, like F-Zero.

38. Kirby & the Amazing Mirror (GBA): 7:24, June 1st.
The metroidvania take on the series was a nice departure from the franchise usual platforming, but navigating the map got a little tiresome after a while. I feel like I would have enjoyed the game more if you could store a couple of abilities rather than only having access to one at a time. The AI for the other kirbys also felt a little botched, too. That said, I still really enjoyed it, and a spiritual sequel could be even better.

39. Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen (DS): 33:10, June 1st.
Of the four DQ games that I've finished (1-4), this is my favorite. The presentation and premise of the different heroes slowly coming together over a four chapter prologue feels more unique than the setup for the previous games. The combat mostly feels the same, but it's still good, so no complaints there. Despite having a relatively large party size, you really don't need to change your party lineup, which makes some of the characters feel redundant and useless. The party chat feature was apparently cut in the localization, which drains the personalities of the party members, excluding the appraiser, Torneko. Still, it's a step up from the characterization in the previous games.

40. Kirby: Canvas Curse (DS): 3:46, June 3rd.
I didn't enjoy my time with it at all, it's one of the blandest Kirby games I've ever played. The stylus-based controls were alright at first, but the increasingly frustrating levels just make the game a pain in the ass to play. The water levels are extremely frustrating in particular. I don't see why people liked this game when it launched for any reason besides the novelty of the touch controls.

41. Kirby: Squeak Squad (DS): 4:35, June 4th.
Playing this right after Canvas Curse felt so refreshing, despite how formulaic it is. While it is a short, by-the-numbers Kirby game, it's enjoyable throughout, and easy to 100%. The new animal and ghost abilities are nice little additions, but you gain access to the latter so late in the game that it feels wasted, and the bubble and metal abilities are underwhelming. The bubble storing aspect makes the game slightly less tedious, but the need to store treasure chests until the end of each level feels unnecessary. The return of ability combos felt underwhelming, too, since the selection is rather limited. The addition of ability scrolls is nice, though.

42. Kirby: Mass Attack (DS): 9:59, June 8th.
The controls are a huge improvement over the controls in Canvas Curse--when controlling a couple of Kirbys. The touch controls get a little unwieldy when controlling nine or ten Kirbys, though. While Kirby games are known for being easy, this game gets pretty frustrating at times due to a lack of checkpoints in levels, especially when there are some cheap instant deaths that you can stumble into by accident. It's more enjoyable than Canvas Curse, but I don't like it as much as the more traditional Kirby games.

43. Kirby: Triple Deluxe (3DS): 11:24, June 18th.
Triple Deluxe is another great, by the numbers Kirby game. The gameplay itself felt a bit slow at times, mainly due to the inclusion of the hypernova ability. It's a cool gimmick at first, but the hypernova sections start to drag on for a little too long. I didn't really like the bell and circus abilities, but the beetle was a decent addition to Kirby's ability pool. By far the best new ability is the archer ability, the camouflage move is so good. The final boss fights are as great as you would expect from a Kirby game. Dededetour was fun to play through, too.

44. Kirby: Planet Robobot (3DS): 10:47, June 23rd.
Planet Robobot is definitely in my top 3 favorite Kirby games. It's better than TD in every way, especially in terms of level design. Not only is the level design generally better, but the pacing is much better as well. Even though the main campaign feels shorter, there's more variety in content and aesthetics. The robobot sections feel better to play the hypernova sections in TD, and have more variety to them due to ability to combine powers with the armor. The levels dedicated to the jet and wheel powers offer nice breaks in the usual game flow, which helps make the game feel fresh the whole way through. The bosses are generally better, too, especially the over-the-top final boss. The ESP and poison abilities are nice additions, but the doctor ability feels a little too random. Meta Knightmare Returns is more entertaining than Dededetour due to Meta Knight's moveset, and the final bosses of the mode are so good, the first new boss is a complete swerve-ball compared to what you expect. There are so many nice little nods to the older Kirby games. It's nostalgia handled properly.

45. Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition (PC): 90:09, June 29th.
I honestly enjoyed it more than I expected to. I don't have anything to add that hasn't already been said about the game, my favorite bosses are Sif, Ornstein and Smough, Manus, and Artorias. Total play time includes two and a half playthroughs to unlock all of the achievements.

46. The Amber Throne (PC): 19:08, July 6th.
It's a fairly standard turn-based, JRPG inspired RPG Maker game that really sticks out due to its fantastic watercolor art style. Everything about it is okay otherwise.

47. Super Metroid (3DS VC/SNES): 9:27, July 7th.
A classic that still holds up well, despite a few frustrating segments. The exploration elements are still my favorite part of the game. The controls feel a little off at times on the New 3DS, but it's not too bad.

48. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (3DS VC/SNES): 9:12, July 13th.
It was nice revisiting one of my favorite games of all time, though it's much easier than I remember.

49. Mario's Picross (3DS VC/GB): 12:20, July 15th.
I had the urge to play a picross game so I finally decided to get around to playing this. It's really entertaining, probably one of my favorite GB games now.

50. Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin (PC): 51:50, July 15th.
While I didn't enjoy it as much as DS1 and didn't play through new game plus, I still highly enjoyed DS2. I didn't like the bosses as much overall compared to 1, but some of them, like the Executioner's Chariot and Fume Knight, were great.

51. My Nintendo Picross: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (3DS): 9:38, July 17th.
I wasn't really expecting much from it, but it's surprisingly decent. It uses the same sort of setup as Pokémon Picross (it's made by the same developer as that game and the Picross e series). The main complaint that I have with the game is that it reuses the same designs for both regular and mega picross, but it's still a fun time-waster.

52. Hyper Light Drifter (PC): 12:43, July 25th.
There were some very frustrating moments and bosses (the western boss was a pain in particular due to the adds), but I enjoyed it overall. The exploration component of the game was my favorite thing about it, there are so many secrets to uncover all over the world. The soundtrack is great too, it's really atmospheric.

original post



Game 51: Inside (PS4) - n/a

As a puzzle game, I quite enjoyed my time with this title. Despite minimal commands, there's quite a lot of decent environment puzzles. They feel particularly rewarding when thinking outside the box is required. Still, the occassional trial and error can be tiresome.
It's especially tiresome when the atmosphere can't keep up. See, at first the third dimension really seems to add to the game's atmosphere compared to Limbo. But more than often you're once again left in boring warehouses and the mood falls flat. It takes more than a dark screen to feel dark. Nevertheless, there are very strong moments of atmosphere. Inside is actually a game I should love, but it never truly grabbed me.

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Game 52: Batman: The Telltale Series (PS4) - n/a

This game is a buggy mess, which can feel beyond negligent. Plus, while The Walking Dead 1 still felt like an adventure game, even if heavily streamlined, it's hard to even call Batman a game anymore. It's basically a Batman show in which your only input factor is to decide whether Batman is a ruthless still somewhat softhearted every now and then.
And damn it, that's all I needed for this to forgive the utterly blatant shortcomings. I don't read the comics, so I'm grateful for any awesome Batman adaption in other formats. For Telltale's interpretation I've got to say that I really enjoyed their take on the Batman lore. It's not without its hamfisted moments, but overall it feels like an awesome mixture of Nolan and some slightly more over the top moments. Though there's also quite a lot of original content - from what I can tell. And despite all the jank, they actually pulled off pretty awesome fight cinematography with their engine.