Topic: Games You Recently Beat?

Finally finished Resident Evil 2 N64 with all scenarios Claire A/B and Leon A/B. This game is special although I prefer the remake the original is still fantastic!

Granblue Fantasy: Relink
The vibes are friendly and positive and the combat is good, but I just can not shake the feeling, that all in all, the experience felt boring and shallow.

Just finished the first ending of Nier Automata, it’s hard to say that I’ve ’beaten’ the game, since from what I’ve heard you really can’t get the whole experience until you play it at least a couple more times. Overall I thought it was pretty great, with the two main protagonists and their chemistry being a standout for me. The ending did feel anticlimactic, but it’s really less of an ending and more of the end of Act 1, from what I’ve heard. Looking forward to playing more and delving further into the super fun combat system.

Today I finished Castlevania Curse of Darkness for the first time! It was excellent!

The hardest boss for me was Trevor Belmont (first encounter).

Now I am moving to Lament of Innocence.

Beat Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge last night. First time I've played it since it initially released back in 2013 which is crazy to think. While not a horrible game, it's for sure the weakest of the three mainline 3d NGs.
The good:
-Nice detailed visuals. They went for a more grounded realistic look than the previous games I think
-The story's not great, but I like that they attempted to give Ryu some more character development beyond being badass ninja man.
-That T-rex boss fight is cool as hell
-Cool references to the previous games peppered throughout

The bad:

• Lack of enemy variety. You're mostly fighting the same generic soldier guys throughout the game. Which brings me to my next point,
  The combat is still fun, but it gets very repetitive. You beat a room of enemies, only for the whole "grip of murder" thing to kick in and you have to fight them all over again in a generic blue void, it sucks. I really don't know what they were thinking with this mechanic.

But yeah, I give it maybe a solid 6 out of 10

@SplatRay001 yesh, there’s lots more to do, and some of the play throughs are almost like an entirely new experience. I eventually stopped after getting a few endings, more because I had other games to play, but I do plan to try and get as many endings as I can. It’s worth continuing!

@Lazz I’ve started the route B playthrough and have played through over half of it so far. I’ve enjoyed the few new story tidbits, but I’m not a fan of the hacking gameplay and doing all the main story missions again. I’m still looking forward to playing more, especially since route C is apparently wildly different.

@SplatRay001 yeah, B is similar. It’s going to change . I felt similar to you

Gunvein
A vertical shmup from NGDev. As a fan of the Neo Geo, developers NGDev are appreciated and loved by that community. I would contend that Gunvein is their finest work to date. It has one of the best tutorials, not just for bullet hell shmups, but for shmups in general. And it rewards you for completing said tutorials.

If you like metal music, the soundtrack in this game slaps. The action is intense. The difficulty high, but fair. And even though I finished the game on the lowest difficulty in one sitting, I can only give it the highest of recommendations.

10/10 - It's a glorious experience. Now if we could only get a Switch port for Kraut Buster, NGDev?

I finished Sonic X Shadow Generations. Both the Sonic and Shadow halves of it.

I will say that the game left a good initial impression since it's been a while since I last played the original game. I do like their sense of speed and a lot of the music is great. I even like how you can have other music playing while you play its levels. However... the further I got into those two stories, the more I realized that I just don't like the "boost" gameplay that many of the newer Sonic games have.

I don't like how the controls feel. Both Sonics, as well as Shadow, feel stiff to control to me, which is especially apparent in the later levels. If I had to describe the feeling, the controls in general feel heavy, and even slippery at times. I feel like the level design needs some work too. I've had instances of getting hit by spikes or falling down with seemingly no fault of my own. One of the classic Sonic levels had me land on retractable spikes that were - get this - obscured by railings. Another level (I still remember what it was, it was Seaside Hill act 2) had a dark room where you're supposed to jump on a spring to progress, except I couldn't see said spring since it's too dark! I got stuck at that part because of that, and that was also frustrating. The challenges were starting to get frustrating too, so I basically stopped doing them and just went for the bare minimum. And to be honest, I could do without being ranked at the end of every level too. It wasn't much of an issue in the Sonic story, but those few D ranks I got in the Shadow story just did not feel good.

Yeah... really wanted to like this game, but I'm not a fan of it, unfortunately. I know a lot of people love it, and I'm happy that they do. The boost games definitely aren't for me these days... maybe I'm bad at them, but that's how I feel. Maybe Sonic in general isn't for me anymore, either.

I just beat Castlevania Lament of Innocence with 100% map competition

The last boss was definitely the hardest. I have played it before but never finished it.

Another Castlevania journey finished.

I recommend both Curse of Darkness and Lament of Innocence!

Touken Ranbu Warriors
Took me a little over 20 hours to finish the story, although it felt like I had been playing the game for twice as long. The game is Dynasty Warriors baked over a story about femboy samurai timecops tasked with stopping time travelling bugs from changing the course of history. I've always enjoyed DW-style games, but here I was thoroughly disengaged from the story.

7/10 -

Banjo-Kazooie
It's been almost a week since I did, but I 100%'ed it. Glorious dialogue, music, and gameplay (although Rusty Bucket Bay is terrible) and impressive graphics. Better than Mario 64/10

I'm also doing the sequel as of now, it's VERY cinematic.

I beat Animal Well. I won't spoil anything but there is now a ton that I want to dig into and discover. I think it is my favorite game made in 2024. Also, @shiftbarackyeaugh I have been working on Banjo-Kazooie for a while now and have been really enjoying it. I am so close to beating it for the first time. I'm just kind of stumped (no pun intended) on Click Clock Wood. Do you have any tips?

@CobaltFan What are you missing? I can go in depth whether it be a note, Jiggy, Jinjo, or some other puzzle.

Just finished Pokemon Yellow.

Nothing new for me as I've played Gen 1 to death, although that has mostly been Red/Blue. I still prefer the vanilla games, but I do think Yellow's colour palettes look really nice — even in 2025.

Went with a rather typical team of the three starters (Venusaur, Charizard, Blastoise), Raichu (traded to evolve), Nidoking and Gengar.

Gengar stole the show. But with 130 special and access to Psychic, you can't really go wrong. Charizard was much worse than I remember — I was still using Ember at the start of Victory Road, whereas Blastoise and Venusaur had been using Surf and Razor Leaf respectively for a good chunk of the game.

Decided to try out Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze after finishing the remaster of Returns, and just beat it two days ago. I think it's a natural continuation of Returns and I found some things inventive. I also think it's definitely more forgiving than Country Returns. The highlight, however, is the music, which is soooo good, and a night and day difference when compared to its predecessor. Also nice to see DK more of a fluff than in the remaster of Returns.

@shiftbarackyeaugh I am wondering how to get past the fall zone, and I think I need to gather the nuts for the squirrel. I also am curious if you have any tips on jinjos. Also what console are you playing it on? Thanks in advance!

@CobaltFan I'm playing on Switch. If you're wondering where the Winter Switch is, then it should be by the baby eagle near the top (his name was Eyrie IIRC?). To get Nabnut's acorns, all six should be near the circle-ish bridge near his house, so thankfully you don't need to check the whole level. Just make sure you check every bridge, one of the acorns is obtained by high jumping at the edge of the circle bridge, then the other is in the center of the hole in said circle. If you position yourself right above it, you should land on the bridge below. I think from there there should be another acorn by carefully Talon Trotting down a steep bridge at the edge. I can't really remember the rest, I've been too busy with the sequel.
Jinjos might also take some time but I'll be back to help you out. Cheers!

Eternight
This is a 3D beat'em up with a sim-life lite aspect. Like Persona, you spend time with characters to level them up in order to unlock abilities, skills, and increase that character's element strength. Every day you get two opportunities to (once in the day, and the second at night) to interact with your friends. Whether that's doing a fetch quest for ability points or training with them to increase your own stats.

In combat the number of mobs are few. But that's because enemies hit hard, and enemies can use follow up attacks that could spell your doom. Personally, I appreciate the "simon says" aspect of the combat. Combo > knockdown > Combo > death blow > element attack. It's all very zen-like.

High marks for audio design and soundtrack, this game has a nice low-fi vibe. Also high marks for voice acting, it feels natural and organic. Only two negatives come to mind. Firstly, the game is dark, like hard-to-see dark. Especially when things are muddier on Switch than on other platforms. Secondly, no dodge roll cancel for attacks. If you attack you take the risk of not being able to evade.

8/10 - For a game built primarily by three people, it's a great experience.