Topic: Games You Recently Beat?

Welcome to Nintendo Hard.

Just finished Donkey Kong Country 2. Awesome game for sure, and oh man, does it put up a good fight. One of the hardest games I've ever beaten, honestly! It's a game from my childhood since my dad had it for the SNES back when I was 3, but I didn't finish it until now. I previously left off on one of the last levels which gave me so much trouble back then. I wanna try to finish DKC3 next, I haven't played a whole lot of it.

@MarioLover92 Welcome to Nintendo Hard, apparently. I’d like to give it a go soon!

@Maxz Oh, it's Nintendo hard for sure. Be prepared for a challenge when you play it, especially in the last half of the game.

Just beat Metroid Prime Remastered. Nothing more needs to be said about how good of a game and remaster this is at this point. It’s an absolute must-play on the Switch and, in my opinion, is now the best-looking game on the system, at least in terms of fidelity. BOTW probably still wins overall thanks to its art design, but my goodness, this game looks so good. Retro Studios definitely haven’t lost their touch and I really look forward to seeing what their next project is. 10/10

I've beaten Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, the one Castlevania in this style I hadn't played before. My opinion of the game has not changed. While finally beating Circle of the Moon a few months ago was a fun throwback to this series that I've not played in a long time, and I really missed it. But I immediately see why Symphony of the Night is far more acclaimed. Obviously...it was the first one and I think even now is likely the most popular Castlevania (or at least the most popular in this style), so that helps it. But there's something to playing it that feels far more solid and fun and interesting by comparison to their first GBA attempt.

And that's impressive, considering at times, its has its issues. Like item management...is not a thing. It's as bad, maybe worse in some ways, as like classic Final Fantasy. It's much more worth it to git gud then boringly find healing items or the like in that menu. But the main issue is mostly just the difficulty curve. It feels like half the bosses have enough HP to take like 7 attacks and they're done, and then occasionally a boss is either a reasonable challenge or just obnoxious (I gave up on the giant armor with the thunder attacks late in the game, which was thankfully optional). And as the game goes on, the more likely the enemies are so much tougher than nearby enemies or even nearby bosses. It's beyond ridiculous, to the point that I wonder if something went wrong.

But aside from that, this was just wonderful. Not the best game I've ever played, but their first attempt at this was pretty awesome. Nostalgia makes me prefer Dissonance and the two Sorrow games I suppose, but in all liklihood, objectively this is probably better than the former and on par with the latter.

The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild

Beat xenoblade 2 last week!

I finally beat Goldeneye.

Something I still think is that despite the absurd acclaim, having finally gone back to this game, it definitely feels like a first attempt at making a 007 game. The next few FPS Bond games feel like real attempts to expand and refine this type of game. I dunno if they're "better", especially since I've never gotten even halfway through the other N64 one and the next two games I can't even remember when I last played, but they're definitely based on having learned on how to make a James Bond FPS game after Rare's first attempt.

I can't say, at least right now, that I have any comprehension of this game being an all time great. Is it, is it not? No idea. But it is another example of my increasing fondness(?), amusement (???) towards the "how do we 3D?!?!?!" era of gaming. It's such a wild era of gaming, regardless of what has or hasn't aged well.

...I will say for some of these levels, thank god for save states. Did people actually play that jungle level as a kid near the end? And why was the next level practically a joke by comparison despite being near the end of the game? Even as someone who really gets into Jet Force Gemini, I look at this game in sheer confusion. If it wasn't for the backlog I'd be into playing the higher difficulties, which apparent add mission objectives too. That's neat, and I can tell at points what they would be based on that I'm fairly certain they're still in the Agent difficulty, they just don't anything for you.

Beat a bunch of games across the NSO apps over the past while and thought I'd share some of them here!

1. Mappy Land: A surprisingly fun action-platformer that loses a lot of steam near the end (particularly in how you essentially have to play through the same campaign 4 times). Despite that though, I enjoyed the level designs themselves and the absolutely bonkers moments of unexplainability throughout. 7/10

2. Warioware Inc: Mega Microgames: My first proper Warioware game (not counting stuff like Get It Together's demo) and it's....ok? The games themselves are very fun and addictive but it's one of very few games for me that I genuinely think looks kind of ugly. The Warioware style would eventually be perfected in entries like Gold and Get It Together (at least in my humble opinion) but the first entry, much like Wario himself, isn't much of a looker.

Despite that though, the gameplay, humour and characters are still exceptionally fun and I will absolutely be trying out the rest of the series in due time. Overall, a bit disappointed but excited for later entries. 7/10

3. Golden Axe: Finally got around to beating this one for the first time in a single 40 minute sitting while chilling at work and yep: this sure is a video game. Nothing particularly wrong with it mind you (though those skeletons in the final boss can go to hell for all I care) but it's probably one of the most generic fantasy games I've ever played. I'll get around to it's sequel in due time (maybe it'll sway me to the series) but the first hasn't really left more than a light shrug in terms of impressions. 6/10

4. Kirby's Adventure: Replayed this one for the second time there a few days ago and, while I'd definitely say it suffers from 'early in the series-itis' in some aspects, it's still an incredible action platformer that I'd recommend to anyone and everyone (especially now that the original Dream Land AND Super Star are available on base NSO!).

Planning on starting Metroid Fusion, MK8 DLC and probably something else come the end of the week but yeah: NSO is the gift that keeps on giving for me

I just beat Miles Edgeworth: Ace Attorney 2 via a DS Emulator with the fan translation patch applied. After recently completing the first Investigations game and being somewhat underwhelmed by it, I'm happy to say that this game is a major improvement in almost every category. I do want to warn you that this game has a lot of stuff that could be spoiled. I'll try to avoid spoilers as much as I can, but when I need to reference something, I'll use a spoiler mark. I strongly recommend not clicking on these unless you've beaten this game before, as I would hate to ruin the experience for newcomers.

Gameplay: Investigations 2 follows very closely behind the first game in terms of gameplay. It's pretty standard stuff all around, with the ability to walk around crime scenes still being a fun and interesting mechanic for the AA series. While this mechanic does lead to more interesting investigations compared to some of the earlier mainline games, it can still tend to be very slow-paced. Especially if you need to examine one last thing or deduce an object, you can end up feeling stuck for a while. This didn't happen all too often, but it was definitely something I felt. The testimonies and cross-examinations are completely unchanged from the first game and the mainline games, and for this game, they really don't need to be. They aren't as much of a focus as they are in other games, so I'm fine with them remaining the same. Overall, the gameplay in this entry is pretty standard stuff in the series, which is by no means a bad thing. It sticks with what worked for the games prior and I'm completely fine with that.

Story: Hoho boy, here we go. I'll say this once again, this game has some spoiler-y stuff in it. I'll be sure to mark it properly, but please don't click on them if you haven't played this game before. It'll likely ruin some surprises for you. I think my favorite aspect of this game's story is the fact that it somehow makes Turnabout Goodbyes from the first game have even more impact than it already did. You're able to get SO much backstory behind the DL-6 incident, along with why von Karma was penalized and what ultimately led to Gregory's murder. It's fantastic stuff and I really wasn't expecting the series spinoff to expand more on this story. Edgeworth's character also goes through an incredible arc that, once again, I really was not expecting. This man, who was once the resident "evil prosecutor" of the first game, is now debating and even acting on whether or not he should even be a prosecutor after seeing how corrupt the whole system is. It's honestly a great situation for his character to go through, and it even affects those around him, ESPECIALLY Gumshoe. I really was not expecting Gumshoe to have character development, either, but once again, this game somehow delivered on it. Pretty much all of the new characters are great as well. Ray Shields is a fun companion that has an interesting backstory of his own. Justine Courtney provides a great "semi-antagonist" to Edgeworth, and her development through the game is awesome. Sebastian, at first, just seems like kind of a joke, but through the course of the game we really start to see him change, and he ends up turning out to be a pretty cool character by the end. However, it really feels like they kind of forgot about him in the final case. He's basically just like "Hey don't worry about me, I'm taking care of these other bad guys," but then he never shows up after that. I thought that was really strange considering how important of a character he turned out to be. And it wouldn't be an Ace Attorney game without some villains. While Debeste and the Prison Warden are fun antagonists in their own right, I really wanna talk about the Mastermind. I was kinda spoiled on the fact that there was an ultimate bad guy in this game, and so throughout the entirety of the game, I was sort of hyping myself up as to who it was possibly gonna be. And then... when it was revealed, I was just like "Oh, okay." The person who it ended up being was unexpected, sure, but I was hoping it maybe would have been more prominent a character. I've heard some say that this character is on a level of a certain villain from Great Ace Attorney, and I honestly just don't see it. Sure the Mastermind was behind pretty much all of the cases in this game in some way, but to me, their effect on the game as a whole still somehow felt a little... underbaked, maybe? It's hard to pinpoint exactly why I found the reveal to be underwhelming, but I certainly didn't feel as much of an impact from this reveal as I did from some other character reveals in the series. The Mastermind, when revealed, was really good, though, and it was fun taking them down in the end.

Music: Okay, enough spoilers. Time to talk about music! This game was composed by Noriyuki Iwadare, who has been a staple of Ace Attorney music ever since Trials and Tribulations. You can absolutely feel his touch in this game; it has some absolutely fantastic tracks. The Objection and Pursuit themes are two of my favorites, and a lot of the investigation music is great, too. There were also some character themes that I was really impressed by. My only complaint with the music isn't even the music itself, rather, a lot of it tends to be very overplayed. Tracks will play for a long time, then be cut off for a second to heighten the impact of dialogue, and then it'll start the exact same track again and play it for a really long time. This was most annoying with the Heart of the Investigation theme, holy cow did that one play a lot. This game still has a great soundtrack, it just had some really annoying overplaying issues that likely were at no fault of Iwadare himself.

Conclusion: Overall, Investigations 2 left me thoroughly impressed. I really wasn't expecting this game to have the twists, developments, and great characters that it did. Especially after the first game lacked basically all of those elements. It still has some pacing issues, and some of the characters are disappointingly underdeveloped, but it's still a massive improvement over the first game. It's truly a shame that this game never got officially localized, however, the fan translation for this game is pretty amazing. It's very polished, and I never noticed any typos apart from a few slight grammatical errors. They even had ProZD voice a certain character, so you know it's good. I really recommend this game if you find yourself hopelessly stuck in the Ace Attorney void as I find myself in right now. Or even if you're just a casual fan of the series, I think you'll still find a lot to enjoy here. It's a bit of a hassle to get the patch to work through an emulator, but once you figure it out, you can prepare yourself for one of the best Ace Attorney games in the series. 8/10

@Fizza Metroid Fusion is an awesome game, I'm really looking forward to seeing what you think of it! Have you played other games in the series before? If not, I think Fusion is a great one to start out with, as it's relatively more newcomer-friendly than a lot of the other games.

@StarPoint I've played the original and Super but never really got more than a few hours into either due to getting lost constantly and the controls just not meshing with me personally (I have tried so many times to wall jump and it never f***** WORKS). If Fusion goes well though (since I've heard it's a lot friendlier to newcomers), then I'm definitely going to revisit them and try them out again since I REALLY want to like 2D Metroid; I just haven't had the best experience with it as of now.

@Fizza Super's controls are REALLY annoying when you first start out. I remember initially playing it a few years ago and just finding the wall jumping and shine sparking to be impossible. But it's definitely something you get better at over time. But I'm glad you're trying out Fusion because, yeah, that one is definitely a lot friendlier, especially control-wise.

I beat Kid Icarus: Uprising's story.

Yet another playthrough of Ocarina of Time complete. While it’s not my favorite Zelda game, there is no other game in the series that is as replayable.

@Fizza Kirby's Adventure is a pretty enjoyable Kirby game, though I agree with you that it was definitely an early take; it's the second oldest game in the series after all. Nightmare In Dream Land (originally on GBA) gives the game a nice new coat of paint.

As for Metroid, I hope you enjoy your time with Fusion. It's definitely more beginner friendly than earlier entries. While Super Metroid is still my favorite 2D game - though Dread would've beaten this if the E.M.M.I. units hadn't overstayed their welcome IMO - I do agree that trying to pull off wall jumps and shine sparks are both difficult. If you do like Fusion, I recommend looking up the objective best versions of each main series entry. In chronological order, these would be Metroid: Zero Mission > Metroid: Samus Returns > Super Metroid > Metroid: Zero Mission > Metroid Dread. The Prime games are worth looking up too if you haven't already.

Took me a great while( 35hrs), but I finally beat Chained Echoes. Super fun little jrpg that could easily pass for a snes title. Fun combat, decent characters and writing,and the game looks great. The last 4-5 hrs did feel like a slog though and somewhat overstayed its welcome. All and all, definitely a top tier indie game and well worth your time.

I beat Splatoon 3's story mode. Now that I have the badge, I'm going back into the turf wars.

@JadeKitsune Nice!! The final boss was so unexpected and cool. XD I loved it.

Now you can unlock the secret kettle hard level in Alterna. If you beat it, you get the Grizz badge - which has some street cred. It was a bit brutal for me. I think it took me 3-4 hours to beat it.