Topic: Games You Recently Beat?

Blue Reflection (Steam)

On her first day of high school, Hinako discovers that she (as well as a couple of mysterious classmates Lime & Yuzu) is a magical girl called a Reflector that can enter the subconscious of others in order to connect with them & resolve emotional turmoil. Across the events of the game she'll bring her class together, perhaps save the world, and if she plays her cards right may even realize a dream she thought shattered.

Gameplay:

• You'll split your time between the real world where you'll go about your day around school hanging out with friends & chatting online, and delving into the "Common", a dungeon built by the connected subconscious of humanity, where you'll battle monsters in turn based fashion.
  
• It actually has some pretty unique systems. The big thing is the Ether gague in the lower left corner. Managing it can be important as if it's full enough you can expend it to give a character extra moves via the "Overdrive" command (up to four moves in one turn if it's full enough). However in-between each character (& enemy) turn you can expend some Ether in order to regen party HP/MP, guard against the next attack, or advance your turn order. A few of a character's skills may deplete (or charge!) Ether in addition to their MP pool, and you can choose to have a character bypass their turn to charge Ether as well (I believe this also regens some of their HP/MP). Unfortunately all this management only becomes relevant during boss battles, as regular enemies become pushovers after the first couple hours. By the endgame I could one shot most mobs with Yuzu's Grapevine attack (this eats up a lot of MP, however HP/MP are fully restored after each fight, meaning there's no incentive to hold back during normal encounters).
  
  
• Other oddities include not being able to use items during combat (all usable items either permanently or temporarily increase a character's stats), you don't level up by obtaining EXP from battles (rather, you earn skill points at set points or from building affinity with your classmates that can be spent on certain stat profiles for your party members. While all stats increase during level up, you can choose if you want a character's attack, HP, MP, or defense to get an extra boost), and there is no gear to equip (in place of this, you'll obtain emotional "Fragments" from your classmates that you can equip to a character's individual skills, which alter or enhance that skill's effect. For example you can give an attack the ability to inflict a status ailment, or add HP regeneration to a support skill that buffs it's target's stats).
• Boss battles are pretty fun (and the only time you really need to get to grips with the unique battle system quirks) and see you facing off against giant Kaiju like foes with some absolutely killer visual design. While you don't gain extra party members throughout your journey, all the new friends you meet along your journey do assist (exclusively) in boss fights providing buffs to your party or attacking the boss. Only annoying thing is that boss phase transitions nullify any extra damage (for example, let's say a boss transitions to it's final phase once it's down to 5,000 HP. If you hit it with an attack that does 5,000 damage while it still has 6,000 HP, instead of starting the final phase with only 1,000 HP left, it'll only take the first 1,000 damage, and still start the final phase at 5,000 HP).
  
  
• Most chapters have the same gameplay loop and start out with you taking on sidequests (9/10 times just basic stuff like "take out X number of this monster" or "pick up X number of materials in a dungeon") and hanging out with friends in order to build affinity, and once you hit certain thresholds (in affinity points & character level) you can report your progress to Yuzu & Lime to progress the story. Unlike other similar games there is no day or time limit, so as long as you don't report your progress to Yuzu & Lime as soon as the threshold is hit, you can spend as many days as you want hanging out with friends & building affinity. Friends who are located outside won't appear on rainy days, and everytime you go home at the end of a day you are given a few different prep options (take a bath, study, or make lunch) which will occasionally give you a small random stat increase.
  
  
• Otherwise there is a little Tamagotchi like minigame called "Dark Cave" (although I played it a bit, I'm not sure what if any reward it grants in the main game), a Jukebox where you can listen to music, and once the game is complete you unlock art & cutscene galleries. One of your classmates will also hide a pink bear plush somewhere around the school every other chapter or so, but I'm not sure if there's a point to it (even when found there's no way to interact with it that I discovered), or if it's just for fun.
  

Visuals:

• There's not a lot to the game world, with the largest environment being the school grounds (and even then there are a few rooms like the music room you can't access), and only 4 dungeon environments (though the environments can mesh together, creating more), however it looks lovely all around. The school has a kinda grounded lived in look, while the dungeons are all very fantastical & magical. I'm not even sure how many rooms each dungeon has, as 99% of the time you can complete your objective by simply clearing out whichever room you're dropped in at the beginning (there is some sort of warp point at each end of a dungeon room, and sometimes it'll just send you to the other side of the same room with all enemies respawned, & sometimes you'll go to a different room. I don't think they're procedurally generated though as you'll see the exact same room like 3 or 4 times repeatedly on your dives. You exit the Common from the menu, so I don't think there's even an official begining or end to them either).
  
  
  
  
  
• It has a lovely "Shojo" looking art direction, which makes the pretty prevalent fan service feel kinda out of place. From a personal standpoint I don't mind it (just look at the outfits I chose to wear in my Fatal Frame & Ys IX review screenshots, lol), but the vibe in general seems much more Sailor Moon and less Senran Kagura, so the fact that the rain makes school uniforms transparent & there's a pretty common amount of bathing/shower scenes as well as shots of the cast mostly undressed in the locker rooms feels kinda random, like I don't know exactly who they were aiming this at. Apparently the sequel tones this aspect down though.
  

Story:

• Story kinda picks up towards the end with a few decent twists & lore revelations, however overall I wasn't too engrossed with it. It's probably 80-90% "cute girls doing cute things" and it's looking more & more likely that it's just not my jam (I felt similarly after playing Atelier Lydie & Suelle years ago, so maybe Gust as a whole isn't for me).
• Kinda annoying that the one "gamer girl" archetype in the cast is all about mobile games. I know it's a Japanese game but c'mon, lol. This isn't a serious complaint (or really a complaint at all), but are there really people THAT into mobile games?

Conclusion:

• It's by no means a bad game, but I don't think it was exactly for me although it had some cool parts. I understand the sequel is apparently a lot better so I may look into that in the distant future.
  

The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (Zelda G&W) - A fun revisit of one of my favorite handheld Zelda titles. This is my first time playing the original version. It's just as charming as the DX version and Switch remake, though I admit part of me missed the color dungeon and goofy photos. I also think switching the slates out with owl beaks in later iterations made sense. It's crazy to think a game this awesome originated on the humble Game Boy back in the day.

IMO, the DX version is still the best. Though I've only played it through the 3DS VC.

Beat Mario Bros Wii. This game means a lot to me. So many memories staying up late to play with my siblings. I remember me, my brother and my dad working our way through the game and my dad being the only one able to beat Bowser.it has its problems, but there will never be a game that means as much as this one does to me. It was great revisiting it and just being reminded of those good times.

11/10

@blindsquarel I wish nsmb wii was ported to Switch; I don't have it anymore and I'd really like to replay it.

@FishyS
That would be sweet if Nintendo ported it to switch. I don’t think it’s too expensive pre owned. I see it pretty frequently at GameStop.

I just beat death's door 100% and it was a great game. Absolutely great. The music and gameplay, the writing, all spot on.

Also, Koa and 5 pirates of Mara - nice little ggame, very standard 3d platformer

Also, Quake 2 and it was disppointing. Learn how to play it well, and you wont need medkits, but you also wont see your enemies dying because most of the time its just peek a booing (fast out of corner, shot, back behind a corner) and spamming shots till the enemies stop moving. Also, one of the most anticlimatic boss fights. No music, no difficulty, just one tanky but hopeless guy taking rockets to the face for 5 minutes

@RR529 Im currently playing BR and I love it

@blindsquarel Your experience with New Super Mario Bros. Wii sounds a lot like mine with Super Mario All-Stars. My family and I would play it a lot back in the day, especially Super Mario Bros. 3. It was my dad's favorite Mario game and I still remember beating SMB3 via All-Stars for the first time when I was a kid. It was especially satisfying because of how tough that game got in the later worlds... good times.

Finally beat Super Castlevania 4! Awesome game but the last gauntlet of bosses was HARD!!!

YESSSSS!!!

@Zuljaras woooow, that's commitment! Old castlevania (before SOTN) games were tough as nails, I still remember the trauma the stairs gave me.

@Princess_Lilly Commitment is a big part of the enjoyment in gaming

@Zuljaras That's true, simply wanting to commit a bit of time and effort to play better is enjoyable, and actually seeing your progress is an amazing feeling. In that regard, games and art are the same.

The other part is seeing other people's creations come to life and perceiving the stories they want to tell. I don't much like people, but the imagination of human mind delights me to no end. The way artists make their games, combine visuals, sounds and writings to weave a place, characters and emotions, and breathe life to fantastical stories, it's like seeing the most brilliant thing the universe has to offer

Sounds pompous, eh?

@Princess_Lilly Well since you mentioned people making games feel free to see my game in development. I have a dedicated thread here in NL (with the permission of the owner of the site ofc!)

https://www.nintendolife.com/forums/other_gaming/castletoria_...

I know that it looks like a Castlevania/Metroidvania game but I am planning to make it a joy to explore the castle AND not feel like it is procedurally generated (a rogue-lite lie it is called these days). To hand craft every room is the key to make it believable

Absolutely. When you find a game that's hard, beats you about the face repeatedly, but you still want to commit to overcoming it because the experience has bitten you, it's great.

I was on holiday last week and took Mega Man 11 with me, been wanting to play it for ages, despite sucking at Mega Man games. Decided to begin on the Torch Man level and failed so many times it was ridiculous. Took me 5-10 hrs spread over 4 days of gaming sessions to finally beat it, but I enjoyed that level enough to commit to it.

I'm a long way from beating the game, mind you.

@Zuljaras Looks amazing! Did you learn to make a game all by yourself? How long did it take? I dig that you draw everything by hand, it makes the experience much more genuine. Is there any storyline you want to include? Or is it going to be like a light contour of a story like the ones in Castlevania series?

@gcunit that's a great point! Although it also kinda depends on whether the game is fair or not. I have this weird quirk when I lose motivation to play well whenever I get hit by a projectile/attack that should not have hit me, because I feel cheated, not defeated.

Enough of such things in a single fight and I can lose interest in the game despite beating the enemy. Had enough of Castlevania GBA because of that, there was a boss that was summoning bubbles in random places. They could literally spawn into you and hit you. You could also jump on them because the camera did not show the landing site at the time of jumping (GBA screen was smol)

Thought that the boss was ridiculously badly made (why has nobody tested it will remain a mystery) and left the game. Beat the boss after some months, but had enough with the game altogether

@Princess_Lilly It will be light on story but there will be a plot and sub stories.

Everything you see is hand drawn by me and coded by me. I learned it myself and still there is a lot more to learn.

I started it a long time ago but I am getting serious about it just now.

It is hard to design and code every little system (saving, damage dealing, inventory etc.) from scratch

Challenge = Fun

@Zuljaras That's very true. Overcoming challenges is super fun. Good luck and have fun with the project, I'll be cheering for you!

That is exactly what happened to me last year! I pushed through Dark Souls 1 and after the 1st boss there was no stopping until I beat the last boss ... in Elden Ring

All 5 From Soft games one after the other and it was such a rush!

I am getting the same feeling with Classicvanias!

I used to pick the "story mode" option in most games and it is refreshing to play a games that has one difficulty mode

Question, do you played it on the Switch physically? If yes, is all of the game playable from the cart.

@Zuljaras I have a physical Switch copy of Mega Man 11, and yes, the whole game's in the cart itself. No download codes whatsoever.