Topic: Games You Recently Beat?

Raiden NOVA

Clearly developer MOSS played Vampire Survivor and said to themselves, "how about we make one of those?" Although this is more of a hybrid. Part twin-stick shmup and part ASS game (automatic survival shooter). The options will autofire while you use the right analog stick to guide your main weapon shots.

It follows the trend of a roguelite. You earn currency to make your subsequent runs easier. But I didn't need the passive progression system as I rolled the credits, on normal difficulty, on my third run. Took less than an hour.

I enjoyed my experience, got a pretty good dopamine hit throughout the last couple stages.

7/10 - A good game, but there are better twin-stick shmups.

Epic Mickey Rebrushed (Switch). It was pretty good and fun. Wasn't anything outstanding but I had fun, and it was great to add another game to the long list of games I was able to play again because of the Switch. During the Wii era I remember wanting to check it out, but it slipped away so I'm in the boat of loving these re-releases like this to give people like me another chance with a superior version.

Not exactly sure what's next. I may just continue Snowrunner (Switch) and other random games until Donkey Kong Country Returns HD comes out. That is another game during the Wii era I really wanted to get into but was just swamped with other games and/or life events at the time. Oh do I love my Switch!

OK, I just wrapped up Mega Man Battle Network 1 via the MMBN Legacy Collection. The battle mechanics are fun, with an action-styled battle system and the battle chips you can collect. It was nice seeing how Lan and MegaMan.EXE's adventures began, and the music is pretty good too. However, I don't like how you can't run from battles without having at least one escape chip take up a spot in your folder. The main internet area is also kind of a mess to navigate, and one of the levels drove me pretty mad.

So yeah, not my favorite in the Battle Network series, but it is a decent start for the series and I'm happy I finished it. I just started playing MMBN2, I remember liking that one quite a lot.

I finally beat Pikmin 4. I liked it a lot but I felt like it had just too long and just less charming to not quite live up to Pikmin 3. It was also both easier and harder than 3 depending on what part of the game you're at. At this point, if you said any Pikmin game was your favorite, it would easy to see why since they all have subtle differences that make them better and worse than the others at this point.

I did surprisingly the mode you unlock later on that essentially gives you an almost mini-Pikmin 1 in your Pikmin 4. And in general, it was great like the other games. But it also made me want Nintendo to stop making their games longer. Focus on that for like your sports games, but I don't need 45 hours to get everything in a Pikmin game. And there's still stuff left to do beyond the main areas now. Give me some 20 hour games again, Nintendo, please.

Also, the main areas of Pikmin 4 is what people who think BOTW's music is lacking are actually thinking of. Really bland, really lacking, too minimal for their own good. This is where you should complain about the music not being classic catchy Nintendo music, not Zelda.

Well, I beat Portal 2! I loved this game just as much as the original, which I beat last month. The story is super interesting for such a short set of games! Honestly, I totally get why people want a third entry! Now if only Valve would put the Half Life series on the Switch so I could try that too....

Raging Bytes
Published by Kemco, developed by Hit-Point Co. Ltd, this is a horror jrpg. It's a genre that you don't see released at retail very often; usually games like this are reserved for mobile or itch.io. Kemco-published games are typically of the lower-budget. Almost always pixel art and pretty threadbare in a few other areas.

One of those is writing. What's here is passable. But if you're familiar with other zombie experiences, some of the happenings in the game will make you shake your head in disbelief. Such as characters sharing already-opened containers of beverages the infected may or may not have partaken in at some point in time. Like...really?

But suspension of disbelief aside, what's here is a jrpg with at least some complexity and options in its combat. Other jrpgs like The Longest Five Minutes have less complexity. It's a game on the easier side of difficulty, so long as you grind up levels and ammunition for a little while during each of the game's seventeen chapters. By the end of the roughly ten hour experience I steamrolled over the last couple bosses.

6/10 - Horror jrpgs are uncommon in a genre full of swords and sorcery. But everything else here is merely acceptable.

M&L Brothership. Took me a good 45 or so hours. Definitely could've ended much sooner and I would've loved the game alot more. Overall not a bad game, but not great either. 7/10.

Kingdom Hearts III
My second playthrough. I played on critical difficulty and got the platinum trophy, so now I have every platinum trophy for 1.5, 2.5, 2.8 and III. Sadly these trophies are shared between two accounts.

I like this game. My highlight is the Toy Story level. I hope the ending where Xigbar is getting the Gazing Eye keyblade is a sign, that Squall plays a bigger role in Kingdom Hearts IV. It reminds me too much of the intro to Final Fantasy VIII.

Recently finished Sonic X Shadow Generations (PS5), and I have to say that this is the game that finally made me a Sonic fan.
I grew up on Sonic Colors and will die on the hill that Lost World is underrated, but after being extremely disappointed with Forces and not really gelling with Frontiers despite liking some of the boss fights, I was about to give up on Sonic’s 3D outings.
Sonic Generations made me finally see what the hype is behind them, as Modern Sonic at his best is a series of roller-coaster rides, with a bunch of great rewards for scanning for higher paths. Classic Sonic is good too, and I really appreciate the way they translate some of the more iconic levels to the style.
While it’s going to take me a few more playthroughs to really get down Shadow’s moveset, Shadow Generations made me appreciate the sometimes cheesy, yet heartfelt nature of Sonic stories, and the sheer length of the levels is unprecedented in the series, combining the actual level with some fun cinematic bits.
I genuinely enjoyed this package, and may actually put the time in to 100% it, which I hardly ever do with a game.
9/10, Planet Wisp really sucks and searching for Chao is a very unnecessary addition to the main game, I’m not the biggest fan of collectibles in Sonic games as is, I would have preferred them making more Challenge Acts.

@JakedaArbok Great to hear! A shame that Frontiers didn't gel with you (and also a shame that you had to experience Forces - what a terrible game). Have you tried Unleashed at all? There's a lot of bloat (the werehog can really be hit or miss with people), but when it comes to the "boost" formula of Sonic, it's the only game that comes close to Generations IMO.

@Buizel
I haven’t yet, I may give it a shot as I picked up a PS3 recently, I heard that and the Wii version are basically different games.

@JakedaArbok Yep - quite different (even had different developers AFAIK) but both well worth playing. I will warn you that the PS3 version has some performance issues though...hopefully it's not too offputting!

Throughout the last month I’ve played about 4 Yakuza games(0 thru 3, with 0 being my favorite so far) and have absolutely loved them. Gonna take a break to avoid burnout but it’s possible it’ll become one of my favorite gaming franchises

I've finished Mario vs. Donkey Kong. I liked my time with it overall, and I'm happy to see this style of gameplay make a return, even if it's a remake. The levels are this game's highest point, they're generally well-designed and fun to go through. (There was one level later on that frustrated me, though.) It's a pretty good-looking game too, it sort of reminds me of how Super Mario 3D World looks. Some of the music is actually really good, love the music for Twilight City.

However, I can't say I like the timer very much for this game, it gets in the way of me learning the levels and I'd have to restart every time I'm low on time. I'm also not a fan of the boss fights against Donkey Kong. You get multiple hits, which on paper is nice, but you only get a gold star for defeating DK without taking any damage. Those boss fights were pretty frustrating for me as a result, but getting the gold stars did make me feel better.

I haven't finished the expert levels. I did try one of them, but I just couldn't finish it. I don't think I'll do the time trials either, so I'll consider it done. Thinking of moving on to Sonic X Shadow Generations next.

The Smurfs Dreams
A very short game and a very easy platinum trophy. I enjoyed it and I think it is the most polished Smurfs game from Microids. Another cool thing are the extras, you get a 3D picture, stickers and a digital artbook plus soundtrack. The music is really dreamy.

Just finished Drakengard 3. For all the notorious mumblings about the game, I'd say it was pretty decent. Of course, I wasn't playing on original hardware so I hear the performance isn't as bad as it is on original hardware outright. This being said however- this is definitely one of the stranger games Yoko Taro produced. Especially in tone. Early game doesn't take itself seriously at all with a massive amount of raunchy jokes- but the endings start to slowly unravel and become more and more serious until you get to Ending D.

The character writing is pretty decent, but it falls a bit too heavily into NSFW sort of humor. I get what they were doing with this, but it does get tired hearing a character fantasize about getting cut up or get overly excited for dismembering and killing something. The protagonist and the last two Intoners you fight are definitely the best written of the characters though, at least imo. Same with the last of the disciples you end up getting in the game. Zero is handled pretty well- and I ended up feeling pretty bad for her by the end.

The music is great. It's more akin to NieR than the music that Drakengard 1 had- but there's still moments where you can feel that chaos and insanity that the original game conveyed. It's a much more somber OST, which fits Zero as a character imo.

The combat is done pretty well, with the On the Ground combat being extremely fun. The combat has a more Dynasty Warriors feel to it, focusing on taking down waves and waves of enemies as if they're nothing. However- unlike Dynasty Warriors where it's done to make you feel powerful, Drakengard as a whole does it to push a point. To showcase that the protagonist must be insane in order to cut down their enemies as if they're nothing, and still be happy about it. Drakengard 3 is a bit different from that initial message that Drakengard 1 had, but still keeps the same feel of cutting down people without a care.

The Dragon Combat was alright. Nothing to write home about, but nothing bad either. It's just there. There's only really three aerial missions, and the rest of the Dragon combat is just flying around and shooting things. Less interesting than fighting on the ground itself. I heard Drakengard 1 has better aerial combat, focusing more on giving one segment per level- but I haven't played the game yet so I don't know how it works there.

Over-all, I'd say the game's pretty good. Not the best game Yoko Taro has ever produced, but it's still great on it's own. The final fight gave me a headache and takes a music major to actually beat, so I'll give it a 8/10.

A little update on my last post. I was gonna play Sonic Generations, but there was an update and free DLC I wanted to download, and that was taking a little while. So to pass the time, I went back to Mario vs. Donkey Kong and ended up finishing all the expert levels! Got every gold star in that game. MvDK is all done!

Beat Indiana Jones this evening and it was the best xbox game I've ever played. Such a treat to enjoy this one I didn't want it to end. I did as much side content that I felt was necessary and I finished at about 30hrs. It was a meaty experience.

Beat FLORENCE, if you can call beating such a game an achievement! Got in the sale for 1.74. Had some Gold coins from SonicXShadow so used them. It was something I wanted to play since I saw the review a few years ago on Nintendo Life.
Played over 2-3 days as I wanted to savour it. It is a lovely little soothing game, very easy to beat (though there was 1 jigsaw puzzle that had me confused for a while, ditto to another level where you have to do NOTHING to advance. Any button pressing or swiping slows you down, but you keep doing it as you assume something must happen! Heh.

I was a little surprised to read some people say it made them cry. I did not think it was quite as deep or sad as I was led to believe, but found it touching with its message. I am glad that I experienced it now.

After Granblue Fantasy Relink almost made me sad, because it feels like a modern soulless game, I decided to play real games again and I beat Mario Kart Double Dash and Wave Race Blue Storm. What can I say, I smiled and felt joy again. I think it is impressive that GameCube games on a CRT television look better, than Switch games on a 4K OLED television. I think even the rumble function of Blue Storm feels better, than HD rumble.

Anyway I want to give the first WipeOut for the PlayStation 1 a try now.