Topic: Games You Recently Beat?

@Glitchling78 I had a harder time with the samurai boss to the West. Felt like I was playing Dark Souls at that point.

Finished Zombi, the ex Wiiu exclusive that was formerly named ZombiU that first was an alien game called Killer Freaks from Outer Space. ZombiU has quite the backstory. Anyway, I Finished it twice on Wiiu(standard and Survival), once on XB1, and now on PS4. It's a unique decent experience. Brutal at times, the game throws you into situations that push you to a corner with little room for error, which is excellent! ZombiU is a survival horror game, after all. And the guns are decent, and they feel alright could be better. The cricket bat is a necessary tool but gets tiresome and repetitive by the second half of the game. Can't upgrade. And you can't get another better melee weapon. The ports fix this problem(or so I thought). And at times, it's very tense and horrifying. An area I passed through multiple times in multiple playthroughs still had me quaking in my boots(won't spoil it, it's worth going there blind).

Regardless of my enjoyment, The game still has a tone of flaws—original and ports(I'll get to these disappointments later). The game is muddy, disgusting, and it might be a massive turn-off for new people. Glitches everywhere! Zombies phasing out of walls, some stuck on doors, and some are unkillable! I had these problems with the Wiiu version, and it ruined my survival mode playthrough. Three times! So these glitches are no joke. And it's just not exclusive to zombies; sounds glitches plague the experience. Tracks that appear after a fight, or arise out of nowhere! It has freaked me out a couple of times. The cricket bat is awful; let me explain. It's too weak, and it pushes the zombies too far away from you, and this game has you on places with ladders or in high places. So I think you got the idea where I'm going with this. The cricket bat pushes the zombies, and they fall to the floor. So now you have to go all the way down praying the zombie doesn't instakill you while you're climbing down or fall damage doesn't kill you as well. Cause the zombies instakill you when they grab you(you'll be able to combat this if you progress enough).

Now for the ports or remasters(I don't even know what these are). They're disappointing; the ports didn't fix anything! It still looks muddy, and it doesn't run well at all. At times it runs worse than the Wiiu version! Has new glitches! It lost the multiplayer mode the Wiiu had where one player is on the gamepad, putting zombies on the map while the other fights them off. And the online mode as well. Which is basically like the pools of blood in Dark Souls(when you die), but you can fight the zombified players and loot their stuff(which is very neat and helpful). Now for the thing that irks me. They added new melee weapons(which is excellent!), but here's the catch. You can't put away the cricket bat; it's stuck in your inventory forever; the same goes for the regular handgun. So why bother using the new melee weapons if you can't get rid of the bat? It's a waste of space, and with this game throwing you so many resources and how limited your inventory is, you might as well stick with the cricket bat. It's stupid and pointless.

Zombi is a unique fun experience that has a ton of problems. If you genuinely want to play this game, get the Wiiu version(if you can) or play the ports, but be warned it's more glitchy than the original, just play the normal mode and be done with it. Lastly, Raven's Beat or Freak My Zone still rocks. One of the best memorable moments I had in this game.

@kkslider5552000 have you played FFVII Remake yet? If you enjoyed FFVII, it's a great companion piece. The boss battles are exceptional, and they nailed the characters.

Kinda a big spoiler but one that might be worth knowing, it concerns the thing that some people dislike the remake for. I personally like what they've done so far. However I appreciate how folks can feel mislead, and lead down a garden path. I didn't mind because I enjoyed the garden so much.

AWAY: Journey to the Unexpected

It's a mashup of first person action/platforming and rogue-lite. Beautiful art and animation, nice sound design. The only negative being the brutally-long load times for the Switch version. I assume those load times are much shorter on other platforms. But yeah, it took me three hours. I don't doubt more seasoned rogue-lite players could finish it sooner than I did.

Maybe the most unique final boss battle I've experienced in quite a while?

7/10

Finished a game on my Nintendo Switch called Runner3. It's the latest entry in a series that began with Bit.Trip Runner in 2010, from developer Gaijin Games. You play as CommanderVideo (or the pink female counterpart, CommandGirlVideo), who is tasked with running through a variety of levels, collecting gold bars/gems and dodging obstacles. The game is an autorunner, so your interaction with the game is limited to sliding, kicking, jumping, ground-pounding, and, during vehicle segments moving the vehicle different directions.

The game takes place across three different worlds and 27 primary levels (with 30 or so hidden "retro" levels that you can unlock throughout the game, which play more like ordinary platformers), but, like Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair, each level has different routes with different collectibles available on each, giving the player incentive to replay the levels. There are also a number of "impossible" levels in each world, which are brutal difficult challenge levels that require the player to beat them in one perfect run from the start. I put in the time to complete one of these levels, but I quickly lost interest in investing the requisite time and mental energy into mastering the rest of them.

The game has a metric ton of content it has locked behind hidden collectibles in each of the levels, including unlockable characters (the most notable of which is Shovel Knight), puppets for puppet show narration sequences, VHS tapes for unlocking the forementioned retro levels, and an assortment of other items. Unfortunately, the level design, music, and art style in this game in hideously generic (it looks like a mobile game, frankly), which eventually sapped my will to really fully complete this game. The Bit.Trip series of games are notable for being autorunners that time character movement with the music to create some akin to a rhythm game, but there is literally not a single track in this game that I can remember after not playing it for a day or two. The game has a quirky sense of humor to it (most notably personified by Charles Martinet's third-person narration throughout), but it feels like a property that is lacking in any real sense of identity otherwise.

I also didn't care for the 2.5D perspective of the gameplay, which can often make it difficult to judge when to time jumps or interact with obstacles. Especially when the game starts getting creative with the camera and it becomes difficult to judge where you're even running to.

Another thing (a nitpick, really) that annoyed me was how hard this game can make it to 100% levels. Each level features checkpoints throughout, and, when you die, you obviously restart at a checkpoint. But the game is bad about throwing the odd, easily missable gold or gem piece at you RIGHT before you hit a checkpoint, and without a means to kill yourself, so that you can re-attempt that section of the level. Invariably, this means having to replay the ENTIRE level because of one or two unfair item placement choices right before a checkpoint.

My biggest issue with the game is the flow of the gameplay itself. In Runner3, you die any time you screw up, which means you have to start from whatever the last checkpoint you unlocked was. This brutal, Contra-esque difficulty would be bad enough in an ordinary platformer, but in a game designed around harmonizing player input, level design, and music, you can imagine how irritating it gets when you have to keep restarting over and over and losing the flow of the beat. It doesn't help that, quite often, the player will have no time to react to obstacles until it's too late, making perfect level runs as much a matter of memorization as they are of skill or reaction time. This all adds up to making Runner3 feel like the auto-runner equivalent of those aggravating minecart levels in the original DKC.

There are boss encounters in this game, but they're short and involve the same auto-runner mechanics, which makes them feel less like trials for the player and more liked themed levels. The plot is entirely locked away behind optional puppet shows, so there's no real build-up to them or even a reason to have them outside of the vague sense the developers must have had that a platformer requires boss fights of some sort.

I only spent $3 for this, but even having gotten this on sale, I can't really say it was worth the money. I'm sure this series has its fans, but I don't get the appeal.

I beat this game over a month ago & have been sitting on a half written impressions piece until now.

Tales of Berseria (PS4) - Currently the newest entry in Bandai Namco's long running Tales Action JRPG. Screenshots weren't allowed.

Gameplay

• Tales games are often considered JRPG comfort food, and this is a good example of that. It has pretty standard setup, where it's towns & dungeons are separated by field areas you must explore. Enemies roam freely in dungeons & field areas, and upon touching them you'll enter a battle where you'll fight a group in fairly standard ARPG fashion.
• Battles take place directly in the environment (just with a circular boundary denoting the battle area, and if you press up against it long enough you'll build up an escape gauge that lets you flee most fights). Fighting is all real time though there is a meter that depletes for every attack you make so you can't just spam attacks. The meter can be extended in battle by inflicting status effects, defeating enemies, and dodging attacks at the last second (the last method actually produces an item in the battle area you need to pick up first though, and your party members can & will try grabbing it for themselves). The meter decreases if you are inflicted with a status effect or are KO'd. It goes back to default after battle.
• Each of the four face buttons has a four step combo mapped to it, and although the combo is the same across all four at the start, as you unlock new moves you can customise each one as you see fit. Each move (or arte, as they're called) has a different element associated with it (more powerful ones usually have two), a specific enemy class it's strong against (dragon, person, beast, etc), and a status effect in can inflict (stun, burn, poison, etc). By paying attention to an enemy's elemental affinities and class type, you'll need to tailor a combo best suited to dispatching it.
• Pressing the touch pad during battle will bring up a menu that pauses the action, letting you use items, give allies commands, and even customize your combos & change your equipment in the middle of battle. Other than a short waiting period regarding using items, there's no limit on doing this. You can only carry a max of 15 of each type of restorative item (and you can't use an HP regenerating item if you have any kind of status effect inflicted on you), so plan carefully.
• Each piece of equipment has a master skill that you learn if you equip it long enough (these are usually buffs such as granting you a 4% resistance to fire attacks, or 8% increased damage to undead enemy types, for example), so it's good to try out a variety of different equipment (even if it may not grant you a specific upgrade in general stats) so you can build up an array of permanent buffs. You can also use materials you find (or obtain by dismantling equipment) to enhance the equipment you do want to use, which improves it's stats & gives you increased buffs while wearing it.
• At some point you become acquainted with a band of pirates who you can send out on expeditions. They bring back food ingredients you can't find in shops (for cooking buffs, which I never used), items you can sell for large sums of money, cosmetic attachments (and the game's, very underwhelming, swimsuit costumes), and treasures (these tend to be little more than easter eggs referencing past games), so be sure to send them out as often as you can as there's no reason not to (doing it enough will open up a sidequest, too).
• The main quest is marked by a star, while sidequests are marked by a speech bubble with an exclamation point (these don't appear on the map until active though, so I didn't bother until endgame where I had unlimited fast travel so I could scour towns repeatedly to find any I missed). While some may be blocked off temporarily at certain story moments, no sidequest is missable so you won't be punished for waiting (though some quests won't open up until another is completed, so if you do all available be sure to revisit towns to see if any new ones pop up).
• Other side activities include Class 4 Administrative Zones (which are little islands with arenas on them, used to practice against a certain enemy class), Katz Boxes (you open these by collecting these little orbs that are scattered EVERYWHERE, and you earn cosmetic attachments/costumes & a certain secret location for doing so), and Code Red Hunts (there is a really powerful enemy roaming around each field area & dungeon, usually off in it's own little corner of the map, and it's worth your while to challenge them).
• At some point you obtain a magical hoverboard that lets you travel on foot a bit faster. You have to find a glowy spot in each region to use it there though, so it's mostly used for exploring past areas (enemies so many levels below you will automatically be defeated while riding, though you'll earn no rewards/exp this way). You can also buy items at shops that let you return to the entrance of a dungeon or warp you back to any town you've been to (unless one is temporarily blocked off due to story reasons), and later on in the game you can obtain "bottomless" variants of these items that don't deplete.

Visual/Audio

• It's not pushing the PS4 to it's limits (it seems to be using a somewhat spruced up version of the engine used in Tales of Zesteria, which was also on PS3), but things are generally crisp, colorful, and pleasing to the eye.
• Stylistically I think it's quite a big step up from Zesteria. The previous game had generally bland locales & character design IMO, but despite taking place in the same world (just many years apart), Berseria generally has aesthetically better locale & character design, placing it closer to the charm that earlier games had.
• the in-game range of alternate costumes has improved since Zesteria, though disappointingly the best stuff is still locked behind DLC. While there is a swimsuit line you can obtain in-game (for example), all male characters unlock the same black pair of trunks, and all women unlock the same black one-piece (which is actually more modest than Velvet & Magilou's standard attire). It's not a huge deal, but I still miss all the unique stuff you could unlock in Abyss & Vesperia.

Story

• It actually has a pretty interesting setup for the genre in that to the world at large you are the bad guys. Naturally things are more complicated (and there are some great twists), but it's a great twist that sets it apart from it's contemporaries (though of course there are excuses as to why your appearance doesn't become widely known, so you can still waltz into most towns at any given point).
• The Tales series is known for the plentiful skits that pop up from time to time (where semi-animated portraits of the gang shoot the breeze about serious & silly topics alike), they're present & accounted for here, and as always help to flesh out the group as a likeable band that you're sad to say goodbye to at adventure's end.
• It does take place before Zesteria, and while you don't need to play it to enjoy this, there are a lot of nods to it (and since it was released first, they're presented in a way that it's assumed you've played it first), and I think the game's story is that much cooler if you have done so.

Conclusion

• It doesn't push the genre ahead in any meaningful way, but it's nice JRPG comfort food with a neat narrative twist & charm.
• Didn't take any screenshots, as like with Zesteria you're not allowed to in most situations (only those Class 4 Administrative Zones, those copy pasted training islands, allow you to take screenshots).

Finished God of War 3, a pretty cool mix of Zelda style puzzle solving and Bayonetta style action. Good game with really great production values.

Oninaki

Out of all the games developer Tokyo RPG Factory have made (I Am Setsuna and Lost Sphear), Oninaki is my favorite. Artistically, Oninaki is high in style. Unfortunately, the gameplay doesn't provide backup for the game's aesthetic beauty. Even though this is an action/rpg, combat is slow and stilted. And the sparse usage of music, the extended patches of near-silence, is weird.

7/10 - Good game, but there are better alternatives in the genre (Ys VIII, Diablo III, Victor Vran, etc).

INSIDE (Switch)

This is another fun, albeit short puzzle-platformer from the excellent team at Playdead. It outdoes its spiritual predecessor, LIMBO, in pretty much every way imaginable. The player controls a boy who seems to be on the run from some sort of organization conducting experiments in this dark, sci-fi setting.

Positives

• The visual presentation here is a definite step up from LIMBO; the color palette is mostly a dark monochrome with some use of muted colors to highlight important objects in the game's environment. The environment is rendered in a 2.5D setting.
• Puzzle solving is physics-based, and some later solutions are challenging and/or ambiguous at first. The boy can move certain objects in his environment, jump, and climb. At certain points in the game, he can also manipulate mind-controlled people to help solve puzzles and meet certain criteria.
• In this game, the "error" part of trial & error results in some pretty realistic, grisly deaths. I'm not talking bloodbaths, but deaths that I'd call more reasonable. The player will die if they don't solve a puzzle or navigate certain sequences directly. This isn't for the squeamish.
• There really isn't a lot of music to speak of, but there are plenty of sound cues in the game that help to really set the atmosphere.
• While this isn't a horror game by any means, a few pulse-pounding sequences do occur. With the aforementioned atmosphere, this is done well.
• Hidden around the game's world are these spheres of light that the player can find and deactivate; turning off them all unlocks an alternate ending...something I still need to do. XD Finding all of these lends to some replayability.

Neutral

• I suppose this could be considered a strength, and one up to interpretation as there's no text or voiceovers to speak of, but the normal ending is pretty ambiguous. The sequence leading up to this, however, is weird and wonderful. It was well executed, but I couldn't help but think "that's it?"
• I'd argue that a few puzzle solutions are almost TOO ambiguous. I'm ashamed to admit that I needed to look up a couple of solutions.

Negatives/Nitpicks

• While this game is very much worth playing, it's also a little on the short side; I probably spent a little over four hours with it. I'm glad that I waited for a sale.
• A minor complaint, but as with a lot of Switch games, INSIDE is better docked. It's completely serviceable in handheld mode, however.

INSIDE is a wonderfully executed, atmospheric puzzle-platformer that is very much worth playing. It's melancholic and at times violent world isn't for everyone (Not for the young and/or weak of stomach), but the narrative - though left up into interpretation - isn't one easily missed. It's a little on the short side, but some replayability helps make up for this minor issue.

I just recently beat Metroid: Sylosis. It's an open world Metroid game that takes place in the Sylosian star system. It contains 7 planets that you can explore. There's NO cutscenes and NO cheap gimmicks. It's 3rd person. It takes 40-60 hours to beat. It has a quest system.

Best gaming experience I'm recent memory. Oh and it's a 'true' Metroid 4!!

Final Fantasy VII Remake (PS4) - The first part in a massive remake of the JRPG classic, and my first time with it in any form.

Time to get to work.

Gameplay

• Taking on more of a level based approach, most chapters are pretty linear affairs with pretty rigid progression outside of the occasional chest or other treasure right off the beaten path (it's generally more segmented off than even FFX, though this wasn't a problem for me. In fact X is my favorite FF, and this is my favorite since). That said, every few chapters take place inside a town, and these are a bit more open in that they always feature optional sidequests to complete, and sometimes even an arena, giving you opportunities to get useful gear or do some level grinding if you think you need it (though I never felt the need to grind myself, I did complete all sidequests I ran across, and did each available arena fight once).
• Also in towns (& in a few other areas) you'll run into Chadley, a character who will reward you with unique materia for completing certain sets of goals during battle, and new summons by defeating them in boss fights.
• Combat is mostly real time, with you being able to freely run around, dodge attacks, and use basic attacks at will, though each character has an "Active Time Battle" gauge that builds over time (faster if you're dealing damage), and only once one of it's bars are full can they use an item, magic, special ability, or summon (by opening the command menu the action slows to a crawl, giving you a taste of the title's turn based roots), meaning you can't spam items/magic willy nilly. Summons are powerful, but can only be called upon during boss fights & a few other large battles.
• Even regular battles can be quite engaging, but I must give special props to the boss fights, which are generally fantastic. A couple of the later ones I sort of just powered through with frequent healing as there was so much going on, such as the final boss, but they're generally really engaging fights that are fun to figure out.
• In addition to leveling, you can power up by upgrading your weapons & using materia. While different weapons have different strengths, you can upgrade them as you go along, so sticking with your starting weapons is entirely doable (it's recommended you switch out from time to time though, as using new weapons is how you learn new special attacks).
• As for materia, they are items that slot into your equipment that let you use magic, can increase your stats, or make available some other ability/buff, which you can only use while it is equipped (while earlier weapons tend to have less slots for materia, they obtain more via upgrading). You can buy materia from shops/vending machines, but I got enough through just playing (some are found along the main path, just off the beaten path, or by completing sidequests) that I rarely did this.
  
  
  Didn't take any battle screens, so here's a couple random pics.
• The fighting is usually broken up by light puzzling (such as looking for a switch to unlock a door, or moving containers with a giant robotic hand) which provides a nice breather. I also enjoyed the occasional bike segment. There are a few other minigames along the way as well, such as the surprisingly fun darts game in "Seventh Heaven" (disappointed that you couldn't play the pinball tables, though).

Audio/Visual

• The game's large budget is very apparent as this is one of the most graphically impressive JRPGs I've ever played. There are times when you'll run across the random element that looks incomplete, but for the most part it looks great, especially at night. Some of the set-pieces, particularly in the final chapter, were the most I've been wowed by a game's visuals in quite awhile.
  
  
  Some impressive night lighting...
  
  ...with the occasional incomplete textured item.
• Aesthetically I think it looks great. Though the main cast still has a few anime-ish elements to their designs that make them stand out amongst the NPCs that largely play straight, making them any more realistic wouldn't feel right and the balance they struck I think is the right decision.
• While some of the locations aren't that interesting (such as the sewers), in general the more contemporary/steampunk/sci-fi setting is still pretty fresh for a JRPG, and I think infinitely more interesting than the standard fantasy worlds of classic FF. I really liked some of the areas too (such as Wall Market, the Train Graveyard, the Shinra Building, and the trippy final chapter).
• The music quality is top notch & I loved the fact that you could collect music discs (however the jukeboxes were few & far between, without much range).

Story

• It has an interesting set-up for a JRPG given the setting, and while it seemingly starts out pretty grounded (considering), naturally things start to get out there by the end. A lot of gripping story threads are begun, but as this is just the start of a larger tale, most mysteries are left unresolved, a few even introduced in the game's final moments.
• I'm conflicted on Cloud himself, as he's not particularly interesting character personality wise. He clearly has a mysterious past that's responsible for his stoic personality that I'm itching to learn more about, and he does some badass things, but as a human he's only beginning to open up by the end.
• Tifa & Aerith are nice enough (with Aerith having an interesting backstory of her own & Tifa is just nice to have around), but it's Barrett that absolutely steals the show in terms of personality (and it's brilliant how he loudly sings the classic Final Fantasy fanfare theme upon some victories, keeping it alive in an organic way). Red XIII is pretty cool too, though we don't get much of him here.
• While I don't dislike it, I'm not a huge fan of the "choose your own Waifu" approach to the romance elements in the game. I much prefer a strong central romance in a game if it's to feature one (such as Tidas & Yuna, keeping to FF), and while Cloud's choices may be whittled down if it goes on to adhere to the original story pretty tightly, there's some rumblings that it may go on to change things up.
  
  Make up your mind, my man.

Conclusion

• With satisfying combat, some of the best boss fights I've experienced in recent memory, wonderful worldbuilding, an interesting story setup, and high polish all around, this has quickly become one of my favorite FF titles, and is currently in the running for the best game I've played this year.
  
  The sun sets on an epic adventure (screenshot not actually from the game's final moments).

@Magician oninaki is on sale now for 20€ whould you recommend it?

@DenDen

I cannot recommend Oninaki while Diablo III is available for just a little more.

WHAT THE GOLF (SWITCH)(7+HRS)
CATHERINE: FULL BODY (SWITCH)(9+HRS)
THE OUTER WORLDS (SWITCH)(39+HRS)

@RR529 Its interesting to read this from the perspective of someone who hasn't played the original.

In the original, the choose your waifu stuff only really impacts one section of the game. All the dialogue choice stuff leads to who Cloud takes on a date at a theme park. In the original there were more dialogue choices, but they all seemed like pretty off hand comments. So you weren't aware it was leading to anything. There was also a way to go on the date with Barret if you answered in a particular way.

The Remake is the first 5 hours of FFVII original remade. Midgar is very linear in the original but then once you leave you exit to the overworld. So I'm assuming part 2 is gonna be more open.

Luigi's Manion 3

Some sublime work from developer Next Level Games on this one. It took me around 14 hours to finish. Not 100% of course, I think I may have found half of the hidden gems and only a few hidden boos. The game is gorgeous, it plays well, and the vibes are jolly. If you own a Switch then you should own a copy of the game, it's just that simple.

9/10 - Terrific, a wonderful follow-up to Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon.

I finished Steins Gate (original version) last week, seeing all but one ending I think.

The first half was really slow and I wondered what all the fuss was about. But I am so glad I stuck with it as all the character development and scene setting payed off big time into an extremely gripping experience.

Erica

Platform: PS4

Playthroughs: 2

Erica is what is known as an FMV game, where footage of real actors is combined with light adventure game mechanics. I've never played one, so when this became available via PSPlus, I thought it was a good opportunity to expand my horizons a bit.

Erica is a decent speculative horror tale that follows the daughter of a brutally murdered researcher who begins receiving grotesque 'gifts' in the mail, perhaps from her father's own killer. She's moved by the police to Delphi House, the mental care facility where her father previously worked, but it quickly becomes clear that not everything is right in paradise.

The "game," if it can be called that, largely plays out in a similar manner regardless of what is chosen until the very end of the game. Erica plays out largely as a live-action movie with brief elements of interactivity sprinkled throughout to keep the player invested.

Erica is a playlink-compatible title that allows the player to use their smartphone as a touch screen controller, which is a bit more intuitive than controlling the entire game via the DS4's touchpad. The player makes simple motions and gestures to unlock doors, open drawers, and whatnot throughout the experience. The player will also be able to drag their finger around like a stylus to point Erica toward an interactive vector in the environment.

I enjoyed my time with this title, although I don't know how much it has sold me on FMV games are a concept. There are no NG+ features to help with replayability. Even if this game is short, it's irritating to sit through the same scenes over and over to try and find new endings and moments of interactivity. Additionally, the quality of the acting is very forced, taking away from the filmic quality of the production. I can't help but feel this would have been a better overall product as a film with better acting, less filler, and a stronger narrative push toward a particular ending.

***

Mega Man 9

Platform: Nintendo Switch (via Mega Man Legacy Collection 2)

Playthroughs: 1.5

Mega Man 9 was the glorious return of the Blue Bomber after twelve years of dormancy. This entry, along with Mega Man 10, was created by the often brilliant talents at Inti-Creates (a name you should keep close to your heart if you like retro-style games; after all, they created the Mega Man Zero and ZX games as well, along with Blaster Master Zero/Zero-II, the Azure Striker Gunvolt games, Mighty Gunvolt Burst, and the brilliant spinoff classicvania Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon), who took more than a little inspiration from the acclaimed Mega Man 2.

Mega Man 9 is very close to MM2 in a variety of ways: from how some of the weapons work (the Plug Ball, for example, bears a striking resemblance in terms of how it can be used to MM2's Bubble Lead, as well as it being the primary weakness of the last boss' final form, also like in MM2), to the streamlined structure of the game itself (eight stages, a small handful of Wily Castle stages, rematches against the robot masters you fought earlier, and then on to the final boss), to Mega Man's limited moveset (as in MM2, you merely run and jump; no charge shot or sliding for Mega Man, which were innovations introduced in the third and fourth NES games). Even certain setpieces recalll that Capcom classic. With that said, "borrowing" elements from one of the best action platformers ever made is not necessarily a bad thing, and, IMO, Mega Man 9 is the strongest game in the series overall since the original NES trilogy

There are differences, of course: the in-game narrative is actually presented throughout with cute, brief cutscenes instead of relegating story to a series of screens at the very start and very ending of the game. Although, and this might seem like anathema to certain hardcore Mega Man fans, story doesn't really matter in any of these. There's also an in-game store that you can buy items from, akin to other later games in the series.

Mega Man 9 also has a series of built in trophies to clear, challenges to complete that were added to the Legacy Collection, multiple additional difficulty modes, and, most notably, a Proto Man Mode, which, obviously, allows you to play the game again as Proto Man. Unlike Mega Man, he's actually able to slide and charge his buster weapon, meaning he controls like MM did in 4 - 6. So there's quite a bit here to dig into.

@JoeDiddley Yeah, the pacing of the S;G anime is largely the same. Kind of glacial first half that slowly builds up to a shocking and engaging second half. It's probably one of my favorite time-travel narratives overall.

I've thought about getting S;G0 for years, but I think I want to wait for an Elite version of that game.

If you're interested, another Science Adventure property, Robotics;Notes Elite and its sequel, are releasing on Switch this year. It's in the same universe as S;G, and certain characters even reappear.

Ghost Blade HD

Indie developed shmups feel like a dime a dozen these day. But the game plays well enough, minus some slowdown when the screen becomes cluttered. And I really enjoy this game's music more than some other shmups of a similar quality. My 20-minute playthrough was great, enjoyable enough to do it again at some point.

7/10 - An above-average shmup with a unique soundtrack.

Blazing Chrome

I don't understand the hype that surrounded this one. I think I placed my expectations too high before playing it? It's a competent homage to the run'n'gun genre (Contra, Midnight Resistance, etc.). The gameplay is fine, but the overall experience felt pedestrian. It's the music I blame. If you're trying to be like Contra, you need to lay down a fierce music track right from the get-go, not almost put me to sleep.

6/10 - A good run'n'gunner. It's too bad we couldn't get some serious metal in here like good olde Contra.

@Tyranexx Ah, you finished Inside. I loved the blast waves near the end