Challenge accepted.
Just posting what games I'm playing atm, will update.
- JANUARY -
Game 01: The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds - 8,5/10 - 20:09 hours
Completed the story, got all Maiamais and all hearts but two fragments. A very good game that goes back to the roots of the franchise, however it took just a little too much inspiration from aLttP to be honest: the map is almost exactly the same, the situations and plot aren't that much different either. Of course there are innovations, like the item shop, however I didn't really like it: it doesn't change the dungeon=item progression, just you don't find the items IN the dungeon anymore, the prices are ridiculously low both for renting and buying them, so you end up with all the items after a few hours and the curiosity factor that usually pushes you to go on, to find the next new thing, isn't there at all, you're left with huge sums of money that are completely worthless. The story seems also to be an afterthought and very NPC-light: only in the last few hours it picks up, with some turnarounds, but is ultimately predictable enough; I wish they'd have given Yura a more prominent role as a recurring villain, but after your first fight you basically don't see him anymore until the end.
Game 02: Mario & Luigi: Dream Team Bros. - 6,5/10 - 59:23 hours
Completed the story and almost everything else. The game's too long for its own good, too repetitive and there's way too much hand holding, something that sadly affects almost every game made by Nintendo lately. The story's not that interesting, the gameplay has just a few new little touches to add to the usual stuff of the series: there's just so much fun you can get from using the combo techniques when they are mostly the same ever since the first game. Speaking of the first game, it's still the best of the series, undoubtely, Bowser's Inside Story comes second, then this one, while the worst has to be Partners in Time. I think it's about time to put the series to rest or to give it a major overhaul: using once again the same basic structure plus a new gimmick (dream sections, which aren't even as good as one could've imagined) won't cut it next time.
Game 03: Space Invaders Extreme 2 - 8/10 - 5-7 hours
Completed all possible paths, finished both time attack and the standard mode. Very nice shooter/puzzle game, it takes the model of the original Space Invaders and makes everything colourful and trippy. The action is great and you have to actually think about what you shoot, many times I started playing for a five minutes session and ended playing for half an hour or more. However if you played the first one of the series, don't bother with this: they're basically the same.
- FEBRUARY -
Game 04: Metroid Prime [replay] - 9,5/10 - 16:51 hours
I reached 100%, completed everything aside from scanning those damn Ice Shriekbats; replayed it as a part of Metroid Trilogy, so that I can then proceed to the two sequels, that I never played before. What a game! Genius level design coupled with amazing atmosphere: I found myself in awe at some choices of the developers; the game's a relic of a time gone by, when FPS (even though the adventure here is as prominent as the shooting) were all about freedom to explore mazes and structures, while mowing down enemies: it feels closer to Doom than any other gruesome FPS of today. The graphics hold up very well even today, thanks to some beautiful artistic choices, the sound is perfect, the new motion controls added in the collection work flawlessly: I think this is the best use of motion controls in gaming, bar none. Only problems I could find were related to pacing: lots of stuff to scan at the beginning (Ruins/Overworld), then almost nothing (Phendrana/Magmoor), then in the Mines again lots of scanning breaking the action; though that's a totally optional activity, so it's not that big of a complaint. Speaking of pacing, the transport and tunnel system could have been realized in a better way, as you often find yourselves having to go through the same areas to reach new content; but then again this is way more apparent if you go for the 100% ending. All in all it's a masterpiece, I doubt I'll play anything better this year.
Game 05: Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth - 8,5/10 - more or less 20 hours
Great game, it's fundamentally Phoenix Wright, just out of court and with a few different characteristics. You can move in third person inside pre-rendered backgrounds, so one would assume you have more freedom than in the original series, but it's actually the opposite: most of the game feels on rail, you are almost always stuck in a place and can't leave until you trigger the next event by doing everything you can right there. The gameplay doesn't really add anything new, aside from the Little Thief, a device capable of virtually recreating a crime scene: an interesting concept explained in great detail that sadly ends up under-utilized (it's used three times only in the entire game); there are still testimonies and rebuttals, just not in court, but the magatama's psyche-locks are gone; the game is basically more straightforward. The story is still the best part, we've all the cases that interwine to create an ongoing plot, with a long and fulfilling climax; though the plot is way more complicated than in previous games, and a tad more difficult to follow, as it takes a wider, international, perspective.
- MARCH -
Game 06: Air Traffic Chaos - 8/10 - 22:06 hours
Completed all the airports at every difficulty and got 8 different titles. The game is weird, with almost no attention to the graphical presentation, which is barebone and very uninspired (feels like a bargain bin game); it has one of the craziest difficulty spikes I've ever witnessed: easy mode will bore you out of your mind, but it's needed to play the higher difficulties, from medium and onwards though the game becomes very tricky and you're always a move away from failing. In fact you fail a lot and the game becomes a colossal time sinker: you can't stop yourself from restarting again and again because the game is very fair, even if hard, and you always think that if you correct that little mistake you've made you can do it.
Game 07: Broken Age - Act 1 [with gf] - 7,5/10 - 5:18 hours
Somehow a disappointment: I grew with Curse of Monkey Island, I later played all the Lucasarts classics, and many other adventure games, when I heard about Tim Schafer's kickstarter I really hoped for an old-school adventure game... but this wasn't the case. It's actually the opposite, the game is very streamlined, the settings not big enough, the puzzles too easy (never got stuck once), the dialogues options too simplified, the interactions too limited and the characters not wacky enough. It fails to recapture everything that made the genre great: I think that, to choose a recent example, Deponia is a much better adventure, that stays closer to the roots of the genre, while also innovating. The artistic presentation is charming, the possibility of switching characters is a good gimmick, the plot neat so far, but that's not enough to create a great adventure, just an average one. The length is abysmal, of course it's only part 1, but even taking into account part 2, the game shouldn't be more than 10 hours: where did the $3+ millions went? Especially since they had to search for even more money later on...
- APRIL -
Game 08: Mario Kart Wii - 8/10 - more or less 15 hours
Bought this long ago but I recently returned to it, due to Mario Kart 8 hype, to properly complete it: I unlocked all characters and vehicles, won a gold trophy in all the courses (I didn't bother for the 3 star rankings though). All in all it's a good entry in the franchise, it adds bikes, tricks and a bunch of new characters. The retro tracks selection is very good but the new ones somehow don't stand up to the aforementioned old traks, they lack a certain charm and personality, the shortcuts aren't really short in most cases, they're too plain for a Mario Kart game. The same applies to menus and the general presentation, the game lacks the usual polish and attention to details, sometimes it feels like a generic Wii Kart game instead than a proper Mario Kart. All in all though it's a fun entry in the series... but that damn blue shell... so many retried trophies due to being hit by it on the finish line...
Game 09: Super Paper Mario [replay with gf] - 7,5/10 - 20:51 hours
Finished the game with my girlfriend, we played one stage each, completed the main story without any side mission. The game doesn't really feel like Paper Mario, it's not a bad game, but you start playing expecting something else: the whole plot is far removed from the Mushroom Kingdom and from the usual canon, allies and enemies we love and expect to see; aside from the 4 main characters and a bunch of enemies, the rest is made up of weird stuff like flying farting asses and pseudo-geometric stuff in general. It's not a game that one would say oozes charm at all, though it has a quite distinct style and that's a good thing. The plot isn't that elaborate or complex, even though there are a few twists, you can quite well predict them ahead of time, the game is very linear and offers a mix of elements: platforming, RPG stuff, adventuring; as often happens in these cases, none of those feel very accomplished: the flipping is a nice gimmick, though you can't help but think that it is sometimes underused or misused, the platforming isn't that challenging, the RPG elements are superficials and the game could've really done without them.
- MAY -
Game 10: Mario Strikers Charged - 7,5/10 - 27:09 hours
Finished winning all trophies and challenges after I had shelved it for years. This game is evil, you start the first cup and destroy everybody even if you barely know how to play, you reach the second cup and the real challenge begins, there's a great jump in difficulty but everything is fair, you struggle but in the end you make it. Then you get to the fuckin' Crystal Cup: they could have put up a sign saying "Abandon all hope, you who enter here". The last cup isn's difficult, it's hell on Earth, it's worse than Devil May Cry at the highest difficulty setting, almost freakin' worse than fuckin' Battletoads, at least there you can perfect yourself until you learn by memory every obstacle and enemy; here the CPU is just UNFAIR, you can end up taking 10 goals in a matter of seconds if you don't keep up your guard. I'm generally really good at games, and it had been years since a game had caused me such rage. Out of those 27 hours I played, about 20 were spent on the fucking Crystal Cup: lose just once in the tournament section and you have to start over and play 10 (!) qualification matches, even if you win the tourney you have to beat the fuckin' champion twice. The same applies to the last few challenges, hellish difficulty. It's a shame because the gameplay in itself is mad fun, it's great to play with friends and (I guess, nerver tried) online too.
Game 11: HarmoKnight - 7,5/10 - 18:52 hours
Got a gold for every stage in the game, both at normal and hard. A nice underappreciated rhythm game with a charming world design: there's a lot of attention to detail, all the enemies are comprised of musical instruments and when you hit them they sound accordingly; some of those critters could have worked just fine as pokémon (the game is made by Gamefreak). The difficulty settings are quite balanced: the normal playthrough goes smoothly till the end, there's an excellent learning curve in the game; the hard levels are challenging enough but don't prompt you to rage quit due to frustration... that is until the very last ones, those are hellish, however that is to be expected from the end game. The songs are fine but nothing to write home about, there's a good degree of variety in the stages, thanks to the introduction of new enemies, the use of different characters, vehicles, and QTE bosses, but they could have tried to shake up things a little more, the secondary characters are under-utilized (also I hate how the music stops everytime you switch characters, totally breaks the mood).
Game 12: 999 - 8,5/10 - more or less 20 hours
Completed the game with the true ending and unlocked all the others as well. Amazing game, great storytelling, compelling misteries: I was hooked on the plot till the end of the true ending, so many twists and curve balls. The characters are all fleshed out and very interesting: they appear to be kind of shallow and stereotypical at the beginning, but I love how you discover their feelings and stories bit by bit, during the various playthroughs. However the game has a bunch of flaws: the puzzles are lacking and too easy for their own good and the automatic text scrolling during the various new games plus isn't autonatic enough. They should've given us the possibility of entirely skipping all the sections already done, same with the puzzles: there's no reason to mechanically redo the same puzzles after the first time, it's just a bother; if only they added a bunch of randomized ones, it would've made sense. All in all it's a great game though, one of the best narrated stories in a gme ever. That ending!
Game 13: Castle Crashers [with gf] - 8/10 - more or less 15 hours
Completed the normal quest in co-op, unlocked a shitload of weapons and a bunch of secret characters. Very nice co-op game, love the animations and art-style, the humour and fast action. The overworld map is pretty and I loved the throwbacks to Alien Hominid. Even though it's long and has many different enemies and bosses, the game feels kind of repetitive at times, especially during the first half, before you reach the volcano and mechanical castle. Up until that point the stages are kind of similar, in a medieval fantasy kind of way, but from the volcano and on shit gets real: a technological castle, the desert, an alien mothership, marshes, corn fields, an underwater temple, an ice castle... and that final battle: OMG he just wouldn't die. Aside from the stages, I was let down a little by the characters and by the battle system: too many similarities between the charcaters, only the magic sets them apart, and the action in general isn't too varied, it's pretty much a button mashing party.
- JUNE -
Game 14: Art Academy - 7/10 - more or less 15 hours
Done all the main lessons, almost all mini-lessons, and tried to paint by myself. Very nice tutorial game, it's a bit limited on the options, but what it does it does flawlessly; I was especially amazed by how well the actual action of painting and drawing is simulated. It does work too, I was able to create some little gems, even though I've almost never drawn or painted: I was actually astonished by what I managed to create, didn't think it was possible.
- JULY -
Game 15: Thomas Was Alone - 7,5/10 - around 5 hours
Completed all levels and got all Steam achievements. Nice minimalist platformer with some weird but good choices: those polygons are some very funny and interesting characters. I can't believe I just said this, though I guess it's part of the charm of the game, the fact the story is so out there. The controls and platforming are spot on, but the levels themselves are a bit lacking on complexity, I never got stuck once in the entire game; the early stuff is very good because you learn the basics and are amazed by what you can do with a bunch of squares and rectangles, but later on everything reeks of deja-vu level-wise, even though the game keeps throwing new "characters" with different physics at you. The jetpack controls horribly, they could have done without that gimmick out of nowhere, it kinda ruins the flow of the game.
Game 16: To the Moon - 7,5/10 - 5:30 hours
Iit's a very nice little story (I cried at the end), but I can't shake the feeling it shouldn't have been a game. I mean, the only gameplay elements can be summed up to (a) walking, (b) searching memory links and (c) solving tile puzzles. With so little to "play", you'd think at least that would be flawless... yet it all feels tacked on. The tile puzzles are all so basic and easy, moreover they can be solved with how many moves you want, no penalties; searching memory links is a chore, and you get nothing after finding them, also sometimes they are put arbitrarily on weird or unimportant things; even walking doesn't work, the fact that such a simple function is borked left me speechless: there are textures you can't walk on and the mouse pointer doesn't work half the times, the characters seem to wander aimlessly sometimes, instead than going where you want. They feel more like obstacles to the enjoyment of the well narrated story than anything, none of those gameplay elements felt fun or satisfying. I think To the Moon could've been even better if it wasn't a game at all, just a straight up visual novel.
- AUGUST -
Game 17: Metroid Prime 2: Echoes - 8,5/10 - 25:29 hours
Completed at 100% in veteran mode (the game comes from the Trilogy re-release). The game holds its ground well, even against a masterpiece such as the first Prime: there are way more bosses, the Ings are cool, the scanner has been overhauled for the better, the feeling of dread is real. However it's somehow lacking in level design, the places aren't as original as those of the first game (Ing Hive aside), the non-Ing enemies are too samey, the colours used are too dark and gritty, there's too much mechanics and items recycling. The action is great, the puzzles and secrets too, but the game has that "been there, done that" feeling, which leaves a bad aftertaste; the whole light and dark gimmick is certainly not original, and lacks depth. Also the menu and logbook are made by the devil.
Game 18: Papers, Please - 8/10 - around 7 hours
Completed story mode with four badges and a bunch of ending, a good one too. The game is great, it starts from a pretty boring premise and builds on it deploying heaps of fun. It's some sort of action puzzle, involving quick thinking, having a good memory, clever decision making and so on; the way it gradually teaches you the basics while always adding something new everyday is amazing: it never gets boring (at least on your first playthrough). The plot is nothing to write home about, but you slowly begin to care about your character, due to the constant struggle for your family's survival; the recurring characters are also nice and there's a few plot twists in there. Hail Arstotzka!
Game 19: Heavenly Sword - 5,5/10 - around 6-7 hours
Completed the game with all the glyphs. Now the game isn't horrible by any means, graphics are good (aside from ground textures), some scenes are impressive and the facial animations are still stunning to this day IMO. The gameplay on the other hand... ugh... you either slash one of 5 different kind of enemies or you shoot something in slow-mo. I understand they needed to showcase the power of the PS3, but the whole game feels like some sort of graphic tech demo. Hiccups are frequent, the combat is dull and repetitive, often janky, the aftertouch is nice the first few times but it gets boring and annoying after a while, especially when you're forced to use it, the plot is barebones and lacks any kind of innovative trait. Andy Serkis is great but watching Bohan in the game feels like seeing Hamlet thrown in medieval Japan: he feels so incredibly out of place. Progression is a snoozefest, long corridors, almost no puzzles, and when you find one they are either stupidly easy or spoiled by the game itself. Finishing the stages with three marks is almost completely futile, the rewards are mostly comprised of external goods, such as art and videos, the only in game reward are new moves... too bad you mostly don't need them, as the ones you start with are more than enough to complete the game. I'd say the team clearly wanted to create an interactive movie (one guy says it himself at one point) and that Heavenly Sword is the maximum and first exemplum of the "games-as-blockbuster-movies-with-barebones-gameplay" that's plaguing the industry nowadays and that reached the point of saturation (I hope) a bunch of years ago, just before the rise of the indies.
- SEPTEMBER -
Game 20: Kid Icarus: Uprising - 8,5/10 - 45:59 hours
Completed story mode, got lots of challenges done, obtained lots of weapons and played online a good amount of time. The controls weren't a problem for me, but the hand cramps definitely were, didn't find the included stand all that useful. I loved the simple but very well thought plot, and the vast number of well characterized cast members; the voice work was amazing, some of the best and most convincing I've ever heard in a game, the interactions between characters were so good, they became one of the things driving you to play more. The game's choke full of content, and the story mode itself is quite long and replayable, always throwing something new your way. The gameplay and the graphics are top notch, in both flight and ground mode: one of the best games to show the 3DS capabilities.
Game 21: New Super Mario Bros. U [with gf] - 8/10 - 27:26 hours
Completed the game with all the stars, still have to complete the challenges. Even though the game's fun, it's a little bit formulaic at this point, and the series should probably take a well derserved rest for now. Nabbit is fine, but nothing earthshattering, especially when you consider they didn't put in the effort to create original levels for the chases, unlike what Rayman Origins did. The huge Super Mario World-like world map is one of the best new features, just like the secret passages, but not enough to elevate this "new" iteration above the recurring mechanics and gameplay the series is known from.
Game 22: Antichamber - 9/10 - 25:40 hours
Completed every room but one, due to low framerate being an issue to enter it. Everything about this game resonates with me: minimal and very clean graphics, amazing puzzle design, the feeling of discovery you won't find in modern games, secrets everywhere, that moment of satisfaction due to having solved a hard puzzle that had you stuck for a long time, multiple ways to solve the puzzles and to reach your goals, the "life lessons" hints you find scattered throughout the game, the aura of mystery encompassing everything. It's only a shame that the ending is kind of underwhelming and that there are some optional but unfinished puzzles in the game. One of the best indie games ever made, go play it!
Game 23: Beat the Beat: Rhythm Paradise - 8/10 - DURATION PLAYED
Completed the game and got all gold medals (not all perfects yet though). As usual the rhythm series has top notch gameplay in its category, but I couldn't shake the feeling that something was lacking in this iteration. It's not the amount of content, rather it's about a certain feeling of sameness pervading most of the games: you can only press A or A+B, no other options, of course it was a conscious choice to embrace semplicity and immediacy, but the result is a shallow experience compared to the GBA and DS iterations.
Second post with games completed from September to December.
