Topic: Games You Recently Beat?

NieR: Automata. Cool game: fantastic combat and RPG elements, excellent soundtrack, and it explores some interesting themes. Some cool gimmicks up its sleeves as well. With that said, the plot is kind of a mess, and the multiple endings are an irritating gimmick (not so much the actual story ones, but I hate when I run the wrong way in a crucial story moment and the game just decides to... end, booting me back to the last time I saved my game).

@Cynas That was a very good reply. If I ever play another Xenoblade Chronicles game the second would be Xenoblade Chronicles X on Wii U as I already have it, but it seems to be the most divisive one.

Finished up everything in Octopath at the weekend. I expected I’d like it, didn’t expect I’d like it quite as much as I did. Even though the stories & characters can be a little tropey/generic I feel the whole thing was far greater than the sum of it’s parts. I’m actually sad at leaving my team behind, it’s been a while since i’ve felt like that about a game (says a lot about the ps4/xbox era of games for me!)...

I finished Twilight Princess HD over the weekend. I can’t believe that was only the second time since its release. Still just as good, too.

Donkey Kong: Tropical Freeze.

Played through this game in August with Funky Kong. Enjoyed it but just ploughed through the levels once I completed it. I instantly tried to complete on Donkey Kong but I found the difficulty spike a bit too much. After a hiatus, and reading @JaxonH Comments on how good the game was I decided to give the game a 2nd whirl, but this time with Donkey Kong.
I found I couldn't rush through like I did on funky, making me take my time and forced myself to keep trying when I failed. It's a hard but forgiving game I think.
Anyways I just beat the last boss and realised that I am 73% complete. Intending on 100% and having a crack at the time attack mode after.
Quick question for those who have played, which partner do you use and Why? I use Dixie as I find that extra air time invaluable in some cases. Maybes I depend on it too much hehe.

Cheers.

@HobbitGamer is twilight princess worth a play through on normal Wii? I haven't played it before but have that version.

@Benjoo Yep, always Dixie. Cranky is more of a hindrance than help most of the time to me.

@Benjoo It's a mainline Zelda game with a 95 rating on Metacritic (Wii version). You do the math.

Finished all the stages released right now on Touhou Luna Nights on Steam (only up to Stage 3 though), so far I found nearly everything is amazing- from control, to how good the boss fights are.

Control: Sakuya feels really good, and the animations are all fluid! It's so much fun to just move around and jump.

Combat: The combat system with MP, time stop and slowing down time in general are really nice to be implemented, with how using one of the system is more effective than the other depending on the boss!

(On another note, implementing needing to use time stop and such on the traversing the areas also feels really nice)

Boss-fight: The best part of the game. They all feel good to fight against, and while I won't say they are unforgiving, it gave quite a challenge. Not as crazy as the danmakus in the main games though!

Overall, as long as Team Ladybug continues to give the game this kind of quality, I can't wait for the updates to come

@Benjoo it’s a great game to play. You owe it to yourself.

@Benjoo: If you're asking if the HD version is more worth it, then just stick with the Wii copy you have. The changes between the two are minimal unless you're a graphics nut and need all the new stuff, but both are equally amazing!

@Tyranexx thanks. Now i just have to find my wii...

Zelda: Twilight Princess: (GameCube, 2006) I'm kind of "neutral" on this one. There wasn't a lot of stuff that stood out for me, personally. Wind Waker had more stuff that annoyed me than TP but it also was much more memorable IMO.

Another Code R (Wii, 2009): A sequel to the DS adventure/point and click title. I really enjoyed it.
The cell shaded character models look really good, as do the watercolor-like backgrounds. The story is set two years after the first title. The protagonist (Ashley Robbins) is on a camp trip with her absent father... and turns out she finds out a lot of truth from the past (that's the gist of it, basically).

The great thing about Cing games is how natural the characters feel and express themselves. Some say the title can feel boring and slow to progress, but I'd say the "mundaneness" is part of the charm (like that moment in Hotel Dusk where Kyle Hyde is amused to pick up a paper clip. Cing games are full of moments like these)

And unfortunately this was the penultimate game Cing made

New Play Control Pikmin 2 (Wii, 2009): Pikmin 2 but with widescreen and pointer controls, which is pretty good.
You get your Pikmin, explore around, find dungeons where you can gain treasure and fight bosses (without a day limit this time around). One of the coolest features of this game are the Piklopedia/Treasure Hoard, where you can see the stuff you got and the creatures you fought. The treasure section has always hilarious descriptions of the everyday life objects Olimar finds. It's basically: "everyday stuff described by a guy from another planet".
Worth noting that many of the treasures vary between regions. There's quite a bit of product placement, such as Duracell batteries.

Fun fact: The NPC version of this game was released in 2009 in Japan/Europe but in NA it was released in 2012 as a "Nintendo Selects" version

Katamari Damacy (PS2, 2004): The very first Katamari title, and an unexpected hit at the time. Basically, with the two analogs on your DualShock, you roll everything around! To beat a level, you have to make your Katamari at least the size the game tells you. I'm not a fan of time limits, but there wasn't one, there would be no challenge in this game. So I'm okay with it.

This game is getting a remake for the Switch and PC called Katamari Reroll, and it's looking good!

I beat De Blob 2 the other day. I played the first game on Wii back in the day but never the second game, so I'm glad I got to play it on the Switch. It's a very easy but fun 3D platformer and the soundtrack is excellent. I do have a few gripes with it: Once you finish a level's main objectives, there are optional challenges that open up throughout the level. The problem is that many of these are the kind of thing that you would have done anyway if you'd been thorough while playing the level, such as 'paint all the buildings in this area', so you end up backtracking through the level, accepting the challenges and being told you've already completed most of them. And when you move on from a level, you can't go back to it to find any collectibles or optional challenges you missed without having to restart the entire level, which takes quite a long time. Overall though, I recommend the De Blob games if you want a relatively relaxing, fun platformer. This is one of my favourite music tracks in it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ma05YBU_uds

I decided to take a trip in the "Way Back Machine" and ride the NES train, just beat the original FF 1 & the original Blaster Master last Tuesday, going to work on Knuckes, The Guardian Legend, Mario 3 & Ultima: Exodus today and the rest of the week

Games I recently finished:

Bayonetta 1
Resident Evil: Revelations
Bayonetta 2 (just this morning )

Still have a couple backlogs on my Switch, will probably try to finally finish Breath of the Wild (yes, it's also my first game and I haven't gotten around to finishing it yet ). I don't play a lot of single player games as we usually play 2K or FIFA in the office

Slime-san (Switch):
Skill-focused platformer ala Super Meat Boy or Celeste. There's not really much to this game outside of the challenge of the gameplay itself, though. There's a lot of characters, but they're not terribly memorable and only get a few lines of dialogue each. The music is unremarkable. The visual design is... weird, with hollow-looking characters and clashing colors all over the place. There are shops to buy new slimes, themes, and accessories, though. The new slimes actually change how your slime feels, although I found myself preferring the default character.

The saving grace of this release is decent level design and a LOT of free DLC content. In addition to the 100 levels in the base game (all with collectibles and time trials), there are four or five additional worlds to play through. Combined with the low cost of admission, it's a good value. I collected the majority of collectible apples throughout the levels and also completed a handful of time trials before hitting the end credits. While I'll probably dip back in here and there, I think I'm mostly done with it. Not an amazing game, but I'm happy enough with it.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown (PC):
Finally got around to playing this. I knew I would have to try this eventually after playing through the excellent Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle. It's alright. The core mechanics of the game are pretty solid, of course, and it's fun gradually building up your troops, although I feel like the pool of available skills and abilities for each type of soldier was a bit limited. The presentation is good in battle, although, for whatever reason, the cutscenes seem to top out at 30fps, which is a bit of jarring transition from the smooth 60fps gameplay.

Two things kind of held this game back for me. The first is the sheer repetitiveness of the gameplay. Once I cycled through the four different types of events in this game (UFO sightings, terror missions, panic management quests, and main story quests) a few times, the lack of a feeling of forward progression began to wear on me. This is very much a game where you do the same things over and over again, with little in the way of surprises. The first five or six hours are very strong, but afterward, it just feels like the same thing continuously.

The second thing holding this back for me is the lack of a compelling story. There's a narrative here, for sure, but it's razor thin and primarily communicated through boring and very short cutscenes. I continuously interacted with a handful of characters, but I barely even remember them after finishing. The campaign just kind of felt like it was going through the motions.

I also didn't like the limited control I had over managing panic in various nations. Other than completing missions, requests, and launching satellites, there's often not a lot to do when countries are on the verge of leaving XCOM. Thankfully, you can lose at least a few countries and still be fine, but the whole process was less than ideal.

I did like gradually building up my base over the course of the game. You kind of want to plan out how you lay out buildings, as adjacent ones of the same type grant bonuses, which can definitely add up over the course of the 25-hour-ish campaign.

I also enjoyed the variety of weapons and armors that you unlocked throughout the game. The ghost suit, my favorite piece of armor, actually allowed my characters to become very temporarily invisible, allowing me to sneak up on otherwise annoying enemies.

The best aspect of this game besides the actual strategy gameplay is the lore, surprisingly. As you dissect and study alien remains at your base after recovering them from battles, you learn a lot about the sorts of lengths the aliens were willing to go to to be as fearsome as they were. It made for some very interesting reading.

All-in-all, a solid enough game, but it also has a number of glaring weaknesses that kept it from being a top-of-the-line experience.

Catrap
I bought Catrap back when it came to 3DS' virtual console and played the first 25 stages or so. It wasn't quite as good as I wanted it to be. Now I picked it up again couple of weeks ago and finished it on Saturday. It was much more fun than I remembered it being. It has very simple gameplay mechanics but some puzzles took me over half an hour to solve.

The puzzles consist of defeating all enemies which you can do by bumping into them. To reach your goal, you also need to move blocks around the stage and occasionally switch between two characters. The puzzle can be restarted if you put yourself into a position where you can't win anymore but there's also a rewind button which is very useful. There are 100 stages and a level creation tool. You can save up to 5 stages but you can also turn them into codes that you can share with other people who own the game. The codes are very long, though.

All around a solid puzzle game which should last quite a long time. As it is a GB game, it's only 3€ on the eShop too.

Mighty Switch Force! 2
I nabbed this when it first released, but I never fully finished it before now. It's a lot like the original in that the gameplay revolves around solving environmental puzzles and platforming, both of which are reliant on the block-switching mechanic. Like the original, the 3D is extremely effective and helps with the gameplay. Other than using your fire hose to douse flames, the gameplay is extremely similar to the first game. It can probably be completed within an hour if you just rush through it, but I got a good 8 or so hours out of it by speedrunning levels and trying to find all the hidden babies (which you humorously kick to safety).

Nothing incredible, but the pixel art is attractive, the gameplay is tight, and it's a good time overall. Also, the music is surprisingly decent. Especially the awesome ending credits theme.

Just cleared Xenoblade Chronicles 2, Torna the Golden Country last night. It's by far the best DLC/expansion I have ever played. I absolutely loved it!

I finished my 100% Master Quest run of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D a week ago. It's been six years since I played the original quest, and it still holds up quite well. They weren't kidding when they called it "Master Quest"....I admittedly had to look up the weird solutions to a couple of puzzles. I wonder what sick, creative mind thought that using cows for switches inside Jabu-Jabu's Belly thought that was a good idea....XD The story, gameplay, characters, side quests, and exploration are as memorable as ever.

This one is still a classic. 10/10 Everyone must buy.

I also managed to finally finish Paper Mario: Color Splash this past week. I...really don't know what to think of this game.

On one hand, the dialogue was funny, Mario's 2D paper world was beautiful and fun to explore, Thing cards are fun to use, and for the most part I enjoyed the paint mechanics. Huey was a decent fellow. Despite the complaints of others, I even enjoyed many of the Toad characters; most of them looked the same and could have been fleshed out more personality-wise, but at times their personalities did shine through.

On the other hand, this game fell short in various ways. The story was by no means bad per se, but I found it fairly predictable and lukewarm. The combat grew old fast. It feels strangely limiting to rely on cards that may or may not work against certain opponents and have to be bought time and time again. Other than Thing cards, combat became tedious after awhile; I often found myself avoiding enemies if I could. Combat wasn't meaningful other than serving to upgrade the paint capacity in Mario's hammer. After the beginning hours of the game, I very rarely ran out of paint. Speaking of paint, whose idea was it to have the Shy Bandit spawn in random areas of the map? Having something spawn far away from you, THAT YOU CAN'T ALWAYS GET TO IN TIME because of how paths on the map are drawn, and suck away all of your painted progress in a level really irks me. I probably wouldn't have minded this much as a kid, but I'm quite sensitive to how long something takes as an adult. Needless to say, I didn't bother with 100% completion in this game. Also having Kamek appear and mess around with the player isn't fun. There was a point in Redpepper Volcano when he appeared during an encounter with those fireball dudes who can only be defeated with certain cards. He pulled the "I'll steal everything except six cards" thing. Guess what? Only two of the six cards that he left were of any use. I had to run from the encounter and, guess what? No cards. I ended up just going back to my last save and starting the level over.

This was my first Paper Mario game. While I'm definitely interested in playing most of the other games in the series, I'll be giving Sticker Star a wide berth. I've already picked up a used copy of Super Paper Mario.