Topic: Games You Recently Beat?

@Zuljaras Still one of the best games of the past decade, imo. The characters, the side quests, the Gwent. Just a lot of game. I need to play through it again to get after the DLC...one of these days.

Now you need to move on to Cyberpunk 2077. Keanu Reeves and Idris Elba are peak.

Just polished off Neva (Switch). What a beautiful game! I really enjoyed Gris so I was very curious how they'd advance their design style some or just copy & paste. I was really surprised and had a lot of fun with the combat. If I had to choose I'd say Gris had a better story BUT Neva is right behind it by a butt hair. Great game and highly recommend as a good palate cleanser between bigger games and/or just need a quick pick me up.

I beat shadow generations and I felt so cool doing it. 😎

@Magician Yep, now I know why it was GotY for 2015. I am yet to get Cyberpunk 2077, disappointed that the Idris DLC is not on the disc unlike the Xbox version but I heard that the main game is good enough

@Zuljaras Did you play on Switch? I have this in backlog, tempted to pick it up on Steamdeck though... How was Switch performance, hear that it is a 'miracle port' - albeit still held back a bit?

@CJD87 Played the PS5 version. Although I have the Switch and PS4 versions ... for some reason

Maybe after some time I will do a Switch playthrough.

Sonic Frontiers, that final boss can go screw itself if you face it on hard difficulty. Had to change the difficulty to Easy to avoid that bullet hell boss.

SNK vs. Capcom: SVC Chaos, it's already hard to get a good ending, but I had no idea how cheap Athena can be even on Level-1, the easiest diffculty. Almost shed tears of rage when she spammed her lion attack to defeat me thrice. Made me feel glad when I accidentall Shin-Soryuken'd her into oblivion with Ryu on my fourth encounter.

Recently played through Marble it Up! (Steam)

Managed to clear all levels in the first 4 worlds with Gold times, but settled for the Silver time in a few of the world 5 & 6 levels (particularly the maze like levels like "Warp Core" where you have to collect all the diamonds before going to the goal, and they were just getting too complicated for me to comprehend their layouts on the fly).

Really fun & challenging platformer though that really has a "just one more try" vibe to it (so many levels I had to restart numerous times in order to hit the Gold time), and it's a sleek to the point experience with no bloat which was refreshing.

Animal Well. While it's not a bad game, it's definitely not my favorite in the genre and there were some really frustrating sections of the game. I ended up having to look up quite a few solutions and they were never those "ah hah, I should've known that" type of puzzles. They were more elaborate solutions I would've never thought of. Which, I guess is good game design, but with little direction, it's hard to figure it out on your own. Plus, some of the enemies were very annoying to deal with at times. I can definitely appreciate it was essentially made by one guy, but a game like axiom verge which was also made by one guy, is more fleshed out in my opinion.

Just finished Mega Man Battle Network 2 tonight! I had fun with this one overall, and it's a massive improvement over the first game. The internet area design is so much better, and the style change is an interesting mechanic that all depends on how you fight battles. I like its music too - no surprise there since Mega Man games tend to have great music. It might just have my favorite regular battle theme, too.

I'll probably take a break from the Battle Network series for now. I know BN3 is considered by many to be the best in the series, so I'll be all fresh for that. I'll play BN3 Blue next time I dive into the Legacy Collection. For now, I'll continue Sonic X Shadow Generations.

I have finished Dragon's Dogma Dark Arisen. I really liked the 50 hours I spent with this game. It is far from perfect but it has it's own style and I liked the main quest, which was not the case for Oblivion when I played it at the time.

South Park: the Stick of Truth (Steam) - An absolute love letter to the franchise, it's a lean experience that moves along at a nice clip with practically none of the bloat that plagues modern AAA experiences.

The content/humor can be extreme (I'd say even moreso than most episodes of the show itself with a few exceptions), but if that doesn't put you off it's absolutely hilarious & honestly one of the best traditional "Paper Mario" - likes out there (honestly found it more fun to actually play than TTYD).

I finished the EggConsole release of Popful Mail. It feels like the original Y's Book 1 & 2 as if it were a 2D platforming action RPG. I played the Super Famicom version long ago and I don't remember much about it, but it really felt like the PC88 version seemed a lot more difficult and longer. Part of the difficulty could be because of how choppy the movement can be. Still quite enjoyable for this preserved first release of Popful Mail. I'd love it if the Sega CD or PC Engine versions of the game were ported over too.

@RR529 I actually agree with you. I enjoyed it much more than ttyd. It's a nice short and sweet rpg. The sequel is even better imo.

@NintendoByNature I honestly thought that Fractured was a little weaker then Stick. It wasn't bad mind you but I thought Stick was better.

@Tasuki I'm more of a Tactical/strategy rpg guy which Is why i liked it more. Both were phenomenal though obviously.

We're starting 2025 strong, my friends.

Blacksmith at Sand Kingdom
Crafting/rpg, basically a cutdown budget version of the Atelier games. Considering this is a mobile game, I am pleasantly surprised. The gameplay loop of diving into the dungeon for resources and crafting gear both for your characters and for your store as a source of income is really good. But by the fourth dungeon the grind becomes a big time sink and becomes a little daunting.

7/10 - Lots of game. One of the better jrpgs published by Kemco.

Carto
Isometric puzzle game. You play as a young adult who can manipulate the world around you in order to progress the story. Sort of like one of those 500-piece table puzzles but with more intricacy. It comes off as cozy, but puzzle games are not my forte. Perhaps not a straight up recommendation, but I enjoyed the 3 hours it took me to get through it.

7/10

Tales of the Neon Sea
2D puzzle game. Again, even though puzzle games are not my forte, Tales of the Neon Sea hits differently. I'm a mark for the dystopian cyberpunk setting of TotNS. The soundtrack is also pretty strong. I would be tempted to score this game higher if the puzzles weren't devious. If you enjoy games like Oxenfree, give TotNS a try.

8/10

Hotshot Racing
Feels like a modern take on Sega's Virtua Racing. Framerate is buttery smooth, music is good, and the combination of art style and graphical engine have me waxing nostalgic. The game gives a good sense of speed (although I have felt better) and I appreciate the number tracks you can experience. Even though the enemy AI can get spicy every now and then (I was given a pit maneuver twice in twenty races), it didn't detract from the overall experience.

8/10

After about a week, I beat Sonic Generations (the remaster). It was quite hefty to complete with all the skills, Chao, S Ranks, Red Star RIngs, and art/music. Here's notable suffering points:
-Green Hill Act 2 Chao 2
-Chemical Plant Act 2 Doppelganger Race
-Sky Sanctuary Act 1 Red Star Ring 5
-The first Ring Time challenge
-The Death Egg Robot (how was I supposed to see the bombs first time around??)
-Speed Highway Act 2 Red Ring 5 (why is it so hard to jump into that one trick ring?)
-City Escape (just all of it was a pain to 100%)
-Seaside Hill Act 2 Doppelganger Race
-Crisis City Act 1
-Rooftop Run Act 1
-Rooftop Run Act 2 Challenge 5 (so tedious...)
-Planet Wisp Act 2 Doppelganger Race (spent over a half hour for an S rank)
-Time Eater (actual fight was easy, it was a pain hearing everyone constantly say "That looks like a homing shot!" over and over)

@shiftbarackyeaugh I've been trying to 100% it without guides, and so far, the big problems for me have been:
-Death Egg Robot
-Chemical Plant Act 1 Chao 3
-Sonic Jank in the Mission Stages
-The Strong Urge to Play Shadow Generations
-It Took Me 14 Minutes To Beat the Shadow Fight For Some Reason and I'm Emberassed

@CobaltFan Oh man, I feel you. The Shadow fight was so convoluted that I had to look up a guide. Turns out I was just too slow during Sonic's power-up section because the Homing Attack reticle appears when you jump and I was spamming the Jump Dash. Turns out the Homing Attack doesn't work. Why even display a reticle then??