Topic: Games You Recently Beat?

Super Mario RPG. Nice little time.

Beat 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim over the weekend. Excellent game and likely the best thing I've played this year. I might even go back and try to S-Rank all the battles before I start something new.

I know I'm late to the party, but I just finished the endgame for Tears of the Kingdom. That was amazing. Loved every bit of it. Now to find the rest of the shrines and lightroots, and wrap up the side quests (finding all the Korok seeds is insanity). What a great little game that is.

On switch, Ittle Dew. I definitely didn't like this game as much as the second game. The second game felt like a real zelda clone, while the first just felt like a mini section of a zelda game that wasn't as fleshed out.

Gotham Knights on PC, in lieu of picking up the Arkham Trilogy on Switch this month.

Yet another case of a poorly received AAA title that I really enjoyed. It doesn't do anything groundbreaking, but I loved the world-building and the gameplay, while repetitive, was great fun. A solid 7/10.

Starting out 2024 pretty well.

Cosmo Dreamer
A vertical shmup with a pastel color palette and some nice music. Eights stages, about eight minutes a stage. Your typical two-fire options; less damage yet move fast or more damage yet move slowly. Shot type loadouts are highly customizable. There's just a lot to like here.

8/10

Decided to kick off a new year of gaming by both starting AND beating Mega Man 7!

more like Mega Man 7 outta 10 amirite

If there's one word you could use to describe Mega Man 7, it would absolutely be vanilla. That isn't to say it's a bad game mind you; it's got an utterly phenomenal visual style which, alongside 11, is easily my favourite look for the classic iteration of the Blue Bomber, the added emphasis on secret-finding is done very well (with nothing being too hard to find for the most part and the rewards you get off of them being VERY worth it in the long run) and there's some great stages in here, with special mention towards both Freeze Man (for pulling off the impossible and being an actually super fun ice level) and Shade Man (for having easily the best vibe in the entire game between the enemies, aesthetic and god-tier music, both in terms of the base theme AND the amazing Ghosts n Goblins easter egg).

And yet, for all it does well, 7 also has a bunch of stuff that bring it down for me. Where some stages like the ones I listed above can be very enjoyable, there's just as many that completely sour the overall experience for me, chief among being the tire-filled hell of Turbo Man and frustrating repetitiveness of Junk Man. There's also a couple smaller issues like certain hidden items like the Rush Armor (something that can be missed) feeling damn near required in order to finish the Wily Stages and an overall much lower degree of challenge when the game isn't throwing unfair BS at you (by Mega Man standards anyway). AND DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON THE FINAL WILY FIGHT OOOOOOOOOH THAT DUDE CAN GO BURN IN HELL FOR ALL I CARE.

All in all, Mega Man 7 is probably the most 'yep, that's a Mega Man game alright' entry in the series for me; it does a couple things well, a couple things poor and that's about it really. A decent time overall, though one that falls a bit too short in certain areas to be anything more than 'pretty good'. The pixel art is still ace though.

@Wolfleaf It's super cute. If you aren't experienced in bullet hell shmups, it's a decent beginner game I think, but don't be afraid to play on easy if you are having trouble.

I did this a while ago but I beat Earthbound on NSO!!
10/10 game it was super fun and I only got stuck in a couple of parts but I just searched it up and kept on trucking! (why did I say that)
I 100% recommend it is a great time and the music is banger as well.

@NintendoByNature How long did it take you to beat and how much did you complete? (100% 70%, etc)
I want to get this game but foolishly bought Sonic Superstars instead 🤦🏻‍♂️ so I will get it in a couple of months.

Beat Castlevania Harmony of Dissonance ... again This time in the Advance Collection and on a Playstation! It feels good every time. Castlevania never gets old for me.

The most recent game I beat was Elden Ring. Started playing Sackboy's Big Adventure after that, but with some Christmas money I received, I was able to purchase Lies of P and I am back on the souls train again. Almost finished with that game as well though.

@GalaxicGlobe only a handful of hours if you're referencing ittle dew. I can't say I recommend it. If you haven't played the 2nd either, I'd skip the first and go right to the 2nd which is a rock solid and fun time.

@NintendoByNature No i was talking about Mario RPG lol

@GalaxicGlobe ah! Sorry about that. Looks like I beat both recently. Super Mario rpg was phenomenal. It didn't overstay its welcome either. Sonic was a fun game, but I'd vote on mario rpg 10 times out of 10.

@NintendoByNature Aw man I now wish I did not get Superstars lol
Oh well, I'll get RPG one day.

Started my year-long Metroid marathon by beating the original Metroid after literally 4 years of it wasting away in my backlog.

Game series very rarely hit the ground running on their first entry. Mega Man, Crash Bandicoot, Final Fantasy; all highly respected franchises that started off with pretty humble (and some cases fumbled) beginnings. Metroid is no exception to this as I so cruelly found out over the 4 and a half hours I spent making my way through the OG on the NES.

There are definitely some things that I enjoyed about the original Metroid: I think the moment-to-moment gameplay is handled surprisingly well for a NES title, with both the upgrades and movement feeling pretty alright for the most, and there's some absolutely cracking tunes that would eventually go on to become iconic to the series (KRAID'S LAIR IS SO GOOD MAN OH MY GOD). However, these positive traits are completely undermined by one crucial flaw: YOU DON'T KNOW WHERE ON EARTH TO GO. Not only is there no map to show you where you are relative to where you have to go to progress, but almost every single room looks the exact goddamn same with only variations to enemy spawns and colour palettes differentiating them. AND DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON THE SHEER CRYPTICNESS OF IT ALL. The amount of hidden bombable entrances made me want to tear my hair out in the exact same way Castlevania II (another notoriously cryptic NES platformer) did near the end of last year.

Overall, Metroid 1 is a bit of a mess. It's got cool ideas and it's gameplay loop was extremely novel for the time it came out in....but actually playing it is one of the most agonizing experiences I've ever had to deal with. AND ALL OF THIS WAS WITH A GUIDE ON STANDBY; I CAN'T EVEN IMAGINE TRYING TO PLAY THIS WITHOUT ONE.

So yeah: not the biggest fan to put it mildly. I am pretty excited to move on to Metroid II whenever I find the time though as I've heard it's a bit more linear to compensate for being on the Game Boy (which, given the labyrinth I had to endure in the first game, I will gladly take).

@Fizza Not knowing where the heck to go is a flaw I find in many Metroidvanias (I love metroidvanias, I just prefer ones which are harder to get forever lost in). But yeah, Metroid 1 definitely has that issue; Super Metroid is 80 times better. I've never played Metroid 2, but now I'm curious.

@Fizza Heh...I had to use nesmaps.com for my original Metroid playthrough. I think the few people who don't use a map get by out of repetition/memory. I'm glad I played it, but I doubt I would've beaten it without the maps (and loosely following a guide for that matter). Metroid II: Return of Samus is indeed more linear since I managed to beat it playing blind - it was my first Metroid game - and managed most of the upgrades on my own too.

Overall though, the remakes of both (Metroid: Zero Mission on GBA/VC/NSO and Metroid: Samus Returns on 3DS) are better in every way. IMO, Super Metroid is loads better in nearly every department from the first two as well, sans wall jumping.

I'll double up on what tyranexx said. Metroid II is indeed worth it if you use it a guide or map. It's a great little game and was also my first metroid game.

But yea, zero mission and Samus returns are phenomenal games.

As for me, I did one full run of Hades and that's more than enough for me to say I " beat it." I heard you have to play through 10 times, but im not really into replaying games unless it's mario or zelda. With that said, I had my fill and a good time doing so, but im in no rush to revisit it.

And tbh, I don't think my joycon can handle another hour of that game lol. It's really a button masher.