Topic: Games You Recently Beat?

I recently finished another Science Victory in Civ 6 as Nubia, pretty casual on Prince difficulty. Next time I play I am gonna have to bumb it up another notch. I say another because I practically always go for the science win. Both because I like the idea that you're the first to colonize Mars and sometimes can do so by the 1960s (lol!) and because it seems like the most reliable way to win on bigger maps. Culture victories are almost the same idea, but more tedious since you need to go for more great people and build places to put your works of art and music. And I frankly have no idea how to win a religious victory, seems like it would be way too grindy.

Title: Toejam and Earl: Back in the Groove

Platform: Nintendo Switch

What is it? The fourth game in the long dormant SEGA-associated series. Unlike the other sequels, the gameplay loop in BitG is extremely similar to the very first Toejam and Earl game, making it the first true follow-up to the original with rougelike game design, an isometric camera, randomized elements every playthrough (in certain modes, at least), and a focus on co-op play.

Level of completion: I've completed every mode in the game at least once (Tutorial, Fixed World, Random World, and Hardcore Random World), and a few multiple times (three or so completed playthroughs in Fixed; five or so in Random). I've unlocked several of the unlockables, including most of the hidden presents, all of the extra characters, and a good chunk of the total available power hats.

What I liked:

• Unlike the other sequels, this one is almost identical to the Sega Genesis original on a structural level. Like in that game, you'll be finding unidentified presents, hunting for ship pieces, avoiding bad Earthlings, and generally trying to survive over the course of 25 levels so that you can reassemble your entire ship and make your way home. It feels familiar, yet also fresh thanks to the numerous changes that have been made.
• This game is a lot more interactive than the original, and you're continually engaging with objects in your environment to find money and presents. A particularly interesting example of this are parking meters and buttons; as you interact with these (you have to pay money to interact with the meters, unless you play as one particular character), more will pop up throughout the level, and this daisy chain of interactive objects leads to... something. Sometimes food. Sometimes a present. Sometimes an unlockable. Sometimes money. Sometimes a dangerous earthling. It's a crapshoot, but one that is persistently rewarding enough to be absolutely essential.
• A number of new and returning (excursions into the "hyperfunk zone" from Panic on Funkotron, for example) mini-games make solo play feel much more diverse and engaging than it was in the original.
• Unique stat builds and special abilities make the different characters feel pretty unique; much moreso than the original, which was limited to a fast character with a small health bar and a slow character with a larger health bar.
• Unlike in the original, where only walking apparently helped to level up your character, you're constantly gaining XP from pretty much everything you do in this game. You can also easily monitor how far away you are from a promotion.
• Building off the last observation, you don't just level up automatically now. Once your XP meter is full, you have to find a carrot man to upgrade you manually. This leads to that particular earthling being a LOT more common in this game. Considering how crucial it is in both this one and the original to identify presents so that you know what to look for and have a decent assortment of items going into the endgame levels, I like that they majorly reduced the randomness of his presence in the game. He even shows up on the in-game map!
• I love that they randomly reward you with something extra every time you rank up, whether it's money, an extra life, a present, bonus XP, etc.
• Many of the unlockables are items that can be accessed and used in subsequent playthroughs, and this helps to make replaying the game over and over feel more rewarding than in the original game. The power hats, in particular, can have a really powerful impact on how you play.
• The present system has been revamped in certain ways, and I really like the level of nuance and strategic depth opened up by it. So, in this game, presents can be "amped." They can already be amped, it can randomly apply to a present in a given level, or you can choose to use an "amp present" item to do so. What this does is significantly boost the effects of whatever you're using it on, good or bad. Now, the interesting thing about this is that it can be a double-edged sword. If you amp the total bummer, for example, it still kills you, but it also creates an effect that kills the things around you, so it could easily be used as a sort of kamikaze attack if you're especially desperate to rid yourself of enemies. This sort of thing applies to other presents as well: the mean rocket skates, for example, send you flying around a level out of control, like in the original game. But, in this entry, they can be used as a defensive tool (if you ram into an enemy with rocket skates attached, it sends them flying, and you can use this to push them over the edges of the map), or, like in the original, an exploration aid (gigantic levels with a ton of water become much smaller when you're flying around like a jet and uncovering most of the map in the process). There have also been a bunch of new presents added, and a lot of older ones have been tweaked (the "Tomato Rain" present is actually really useful now!). Presents can also break, and, if you use one that's broken, there's a chance it'll explode and hurt you instead of activating its effects. But you can also fix presents. It's just a lot more involved than the original in this regard.
• Finally, the music in this game is pretty good. It's the same sort of hip-hop as in the original, but with actual instruments and, in terms of the title theme, lyrics. Much of it is remixed from tracks in the original game as well. Overall, it just fits well.

What I disliked:

• The art style is cheap and tacky looking. It looks like a flash game from Newgrounds. Also, the walking cycle of the characters are floaty enough that it can be difficult to tell when they get near the edge of a piece of land. In general, it's just not a great-looking game.
• The enemy models are simply way too big, considering the size of the map. the screen, and the number of them you'll encounter. Just a few of them can clutter up the land and make avoiding damage from them impossible, which is especially problematic on higher difficulties. And when a ton of them DO come on-screen? Boy, things quickly devolve into absolute visual chaos. Shrinking these models by 25% or so would do a world of good for the rest of the game.
• Despite the presence of stats and diversity of builds between the characters, the speed of enemy earthlings and the amount of damage they can do in a single attack unbalances the stats and makes fast characters like Toejam objectively superior despite the areas they're lacking in. This problem is compounded on hard difficulty and/or hardcore random mode, where enemies can kill you in a hit or two. Speed is simply vastly more important than everything else.
• The map system is hot garbage in co-op. Unlike the original, where you toggle a full-screen map in both single and multi-player modes, here you can toggle a (borderline useless) mini-map, and if you hold down a button, toggle it to a full-screen map. The map is detailed and works well in single-player mode (even if it's annoying having to hold a button to keep it full-screen), but, in co-op, the map never goes full-screen, and the bigger map is still tiny. This makes trying to see where things are on the map miserable in co-op. Considering how often you have to consult the map in these games, it's a big design flaw.
• While the mini-games bring some diversity to the gameplay in solo mode, they actively detract from the game in co-op. It's really irritating, for example, when someone goes into the hyperfunk zone, and the other player is ripped away from the normal course of gameplay to participate as well. It's also no fun having to wait for someone else to complete rhythm games.
• The meter they designed to show when a present's effect is about to wear off is... weird in this game, and it's difficult to read. The original's flashing icon in the HUD immediately communicated that an effect was about to wear off. I don't know why they changed this simple but effective system.
• Tomatoes as a weapon were nerfed in this game, for whatever reason. They're borderline useless, which is unfortunate, as they were quite useful in the original.
• Same with decoys. They barely even seem to work most of the time.
• There are times that the 'unique' sense of humor in the game becomes a bit overbearing: for example, when you select your difficulty, you have a basic choice of easy, normal, and hard. Easy is just... ridiculously so. It's an insult to anyone who isn't a small child. Hard difficulty, what I tend to play on, really bumps up the damage numbers and is a bit too much for people not as accustomed to difficult video games, I've found. The normal difficulty (called "easy-farty"), then, is the most accessible, but if you select it, your character runs around the entire game stopping every ten feet or so and farting. It's weird, dangerous if you're being pursued by an enemy, and punishes the player for the sake of a cheap joke.
• Speaking of the difficulty in this game, it's all over the place. In general, it's vastly easier than the original game, until enemies litter the screen and it suddenly feels impossible. The original had a nice, smooth ramp-up in difficulty over the course of the game. Also the way "Hardcore random mode" handles difficulty is lazy. It just makes enemies hit harder and causes the more dangerous ones to spawn earlier in the game. No unique mechanics, environments, A.I. settings, etc.
• The composer for the game likes to name-drop himself and stages a sort of "celebrity cameo" at the end of the game. It's annoying and sticks out in a way I didn't care for. I don't care about this guy, and I don't need him grandstanding in my game. Thankfully, the important backers are much more carefully handled, and are relegated to little islands that you can choose to visit or not (they're always worth visiting, though, because you AT LEAST get a pair of icarus wings, which, like in the original, is the most important item in the game).
• This might just be a problem with the Switch version, but the performance leaves something to be desired. Putting aside the extreme lagginess in the elevator cutscenes, there are sharp, momentary frame-rate drops throughout the game that seem to happen at random. It's not a huge deal when nothing is happening on-screen, but when an enemy is hot on your tail, it can lead to a cheap death. Performance seems identical in handheld mode, though, which is always nice.

Final thoughts: The game is quite a bit of fun, but it also has a lot of design flubs that bring it down. This is unfortunate, as most of these seem like they'd be pretty easily addressable in a patch. The fundamentals of the gameplay are solid, and it's easily the best sequel in the series, but there are too flaws for this to replace the original game for me.

Score: 7/10

Slime San

Basically all of the main levels, the Blackbird's Kraken Expansion and Sheeple's Sequel (Not New Game +, not Superslime Levels)

Main Levels:
The level design is just really well done. 100 Levels, 350+ Screens and a few Autoscrolling levels. The amount of content in the simple platformer really surprised me. Love that there are also various characters to buy. The music is phenomenal. It's a great pack of content.

Blackbird's Kraken: Feels like The Lost Levels of Slime-San, warts and everything. Some of it seems to really counter the mostly fair level design of the base game. Some levels felt downright enfuriating.

Sheeple's Sequel: This was basically the developers having fun with the tools they have. The game's premise is based off one of the many side characters of the game. It's super meta compared to the other two Add-Ons. 2 new characters were added with some levels exclusive to their moveset. While the content here is lacking compared to Black Bird's Kraken, Sheeple's Sequel is still another 3 or so hours of unique fun, with the Slime San archetecture

The overall flaw with the game is that the controls don't feel tight. The game also doesn't run well at times. If you can get past that, then I'd say you can make a good bang for your buck with Slime-San, priced at $15CAD

New Super Luigi U (as part of NSMBU Deluxe on Switch, of which I beat the main part not too long ago if you recall).

I kinda put this off for a week or two after completing the main game because I heard it was the more difficult of the two (I actually wasn't even really planning on completing it), but it kept nagging at me at the back of my mind, so I decided to give it a shot and am glad I did. Just like the main game, while the art direction is pretty generic (though they did add in numerous amusing Luigi references in the level design), the game itself is good fun, and even though it was a bit harder than the main game the levels were more brief so it had a real "just one more time" pull to it. Many times I just intended to play to a world's mid tower, but ended up completing the entire world (I actually completed the final 3 worlds all today). I probably won't go for all the Star Coins & Secret Exits, but I'm more than content with that.

I finished Donut County the other night, it was fun but I’m glad I waited on a sale. It has no replay value to me. Full of charm, but the whole affair is not that long, as I played off and on over 3 hours maybe. The tail end seemed to have more going on than the rest of the levels.

Just completed my second run through of Hollow Knight. Stumbled through by myself the first time for 35 hours to get the 'bad' ending then went back using a guide to get the full 112%. Never has a simple sentence in a walkthrough so completely understated the difficulty of the task it asked you to do; "Beat Knightmare King Grimm" for example, which was maybe the hardest thing I have ever done in video games. By the final boss I was so in tune with the game that I beat it first try (which was actually really disappointing). Still, had to give up at 110% - the Godhome expansion is utterly ridiculous.

Anyway it's a wonderful game although slightly too obtuse for some people - but for me that just added to the atmosphere. Cannot wait for the sequel. Plus it costs around a tenner which is the best value game I have ever found since paying £9.99 for a 2nd hand Ocarina of Time back in 1999. I urge everyone to download it and give it a go.

YES!! I finished Fantastic Danmaku Festival Part II without using continues!

It's on Easy difficulty but still, this is the first time I finished a whole danmaku/shmup style game until the end!

So happy. (Time to go for Normal difficulty because I want to unlock the Extra mode though...)

Just finished A Link between worlds for like the 5th or 6th time. I was always torn between this and ALTTP as which was my favorite zelda game. So i played them both back to back so I can finally put it to bed while they're both fresh in my mind. Turns out, my favorite zelda game is........ none other than a link between worlds. Imo, it's a damn near perfect game. Even with the rental items. Dungeon design is in my opinion one of the best if not THE best in the series. Might go play ocarina or majoras mask now 😋

@nintendobynature Make sure you do all the masks in Majora. There’s a few multi-step quests that are just awesome and add to the atmosphere of hope in a hopeless situation.

@AlohaPizzaJack yea for sure. This time around I'll grab more masks. The first time I played thru MM I didn't grab everything as I was just trying to finish the game and main story. I think its the only zelda I've played that I've only beaten once. Honestly, its not my favorite zelda game but enough time has passed that I can give it another go.

Not a massive achievement or anything, but this weekend I beat Abzu and Firewatch (both of which I recently picked up on sale). They were both good, though I liked Firewatch much more than Abzu. I think I'm also pretty close to the end of Donut County.

@nintendobynature If you can, play the 3DS version which is nicer and has more content. The side quests are primordial in this game and give a deeper meaning to the main story. Majora's Mask is the game with the best side quests that I've ever played and, ironically, it's a game that you shouldn't rush through. One of my favourite games ever. A Link Between Worlds is very nice too, no objections!

I beat Xenoblade Chronicles X recently and it was a very pleasant surprise for me because Xenoblade Chronicles (Wii) is so tiresome and bloated that I almost gave it up. Xenoblade Chronicles X is flawed (soundtrack, font size...) but the developers basically fixed everything I hated about the first one. In the beginning I thought that the first one had a better story and it's really touching but now I think that the story of X fits the game perfectly and I like both stories for different reasons. Actually, I prefer the characters of X, not to mention that everything except the story is objectively better in this sequel. X is one of those round RPGs that you don't see very often, big but fun to play, and I still play it because it's wonderful and I feel motivated to get all the optional stuff done.

After this I beat Deus Ex Human Revolution, also on Wii U, it's not bad but the technical issues and frame rate break it somehow for me so I didn't like it very much. I mean, it's blurry and the frame rate gave me the headaches.

Finally, I played Tokyo Mirage Sessions. In the beginning I thought "What a rubbish Japanese nonsense" but after a little while I started loving the characters (especially Itsuki, Touma and Kiria), enjoying the side quests and some songs. Funny that the best singer (Touma) just sings a little bit but Kiria is not bad. I wanted Barry to join the cast but instead we got yet another cute girl. Cutesy overload.

The way you upgrade weapons and skills is good, the Fire Emblem characters are important if a bit in the background. I had played Awakening and it was nice seeing some of the characters appearing (in a special form) in the game. The story is not the best ever but the writing is awesome and somehow it touched me when I read bits I relate to (including one side story). It is very well written. Overall, I liked the game! I had read that it is special, weird and only enjoyable if you are into the kind of thing it does (the theme) but I think that the gameplay is quite enjoyable anyway and the story doesn't bother at all so I would give it a general recommendation. I had also read that the visuals are not good, I don't agree, the dungeons are simple in graphic design and at the same time some of them are really annoying (this is my biggest complaint) but the characters, animation and overworld are really nice. Tokyo Mirage Sessions is not a masterpiece but it's a very enjoyable game.

So yeah these are the three big games I've played recently. I also play and enjoy Sea of Thieves but it doesn't have an end so...

@BlueOcean thanks my friend. Yea I have both majoras mask 3d and the n64 version on Wii u. Not sure which one I'll play honestly. I did however beat the 3ds version but I'm tempted to beat it on the big screen. I might hold off and clear out some of these other games I'm working on. Not to mention, I never got to finish spirit tracks since my digital copy of it on wii u froze and I never saved in game to start from a close point in the game before it freezes. So basically I have to start all over. I also have yoshis crafted world and darksiders coming in the next week and a half. Plus cuphead comes out in a few weeks! Man I have to knock some of these off my list before I dabble back into MM lol. Guess I spoke before I thought about it 😂

@nintendobynature Ha ha! Don't worry, we all have a backlog. Whenever you play it stay focus so play whatever you want now. In the 3DS version it's easier to keep track of the side stories and it has fishing and new bosses!

Part of my backlog is Final Fantasy, I've played some but not all and now with SNES Classic and Xbox One (Switch is getting most of the Final Fantasy games available on Xbox One, which is nice) I can play the others. I also have the Assassin's Creed games to play, Odyssey in particular looks amazing.

@BlueOcean: Oooh, Final Fantasy! I have VI backlogged (SNES Classic) and intend for it to be my first game in the mainline series, but then there are all the others coming to the Switch....The Switch will become my de facto JRPG machine once I finally get through most of my 3DS backlog. XD

@NintendoByNature That means you have obtained (in the 3DS version) the pieces of hearts that are on the moon, right? In the N64 version, the moon's piece of heart that requires using the Goron Mask is the hardest level of this game version. Not to mention that if you want to have the Fierce Deity Mask, you have to pass at least half of that level. Keep in mind this if you attempt to beat the game in 100% in the N64 version.

@SamusLv7 I never got any of the side quest masks in the 3ds version except 1 or 2. Next time I open it up I'll let you know what i had.

@NintendoByNature I see. Sorry if I accidentally spoiled some of game. It wasn't my intention
I thought that the previous information I mentioned, was things you were well aware of.

@SamusLv7 not at all my man! I was just saying i played the main story and didn't stray much from it. No worries! 😆

@NintendoByNature Oh I see. That's good to hear. I don't like to be the guy that spoil games.