Topic: Games You Recently Beat?

Mega Man X3 - much worse than the first game, haven’t played the second game in awhile but from what I remember that was slightly worse. X3 is just unfair, you take so much damage and the enemies are everywhere. There are so many collectibles that you’ll probably never find without a guide. The third armor buster upgrade is much worse than the second armor’s version, although the foot parts might be the best out of all the foot upgrades in the series, as they allow you to air dash upwards. There are 4 enhancement chips for each armor upgrade, but you can only use one. However, if you don’t get any of them, you can get a special chip that will give you all enhancements. Of course, that chip is stupidly hard just to get access to. You have to have almost every single item in the game (every heart capsule, sub-tank, armor part, and ride armor chip), and you have to be at full health when reaching the capsule. Those upgrades make the game a lot easier, until you reach the final stages (the first of which just so happens to be the location of the special chip). You’ve probably heard horror stories about Buzz Lightyear in this game (the first five games feature Buzz Lightyear; the last three feature his even more evil mother Mrs Nesbitt). The first phase is annoying enough, but the second phase is just a death sentence. Dude takes up so much of the screen, and his head is the only damageable spot. Of course, once he’s defeated, he’ll show up in virus form and chase you to the top, where you’ll have to escape rising lava while Buzz tries to knock you down. Dying here forces you to fight him all over again. This game isn’t really hated on, but it is never really considered to be anywhere near the best in the X series. I definitely consider it to be one of my least favorites; it beats out X2 for me thanks to the much better soundtrack, more interesting levels and less completely unfair boss fights. I don’t know whether I like it more than X6, though. I guess some people might find this to be enjoyable, but if you decide to play it, use a guide and be prepared for a steep challenge.

Donkey Kong (GameBoy)
I played a little bit here and there and now I beat it. Cool game with some challenging levels.

Avowed on series s. It was a decent time but not goty material for me. Put about 30hrs in, and I'm done in time for south of midnight.

This is gonna be a weird year for GoTY. GTA6, at least 3 big Switch 2 games. Monster Hunter Wilds. Silk song, Witcher 4. Split Fiction is currently on top of the 2025 metacritic charts. I have no guesses.

@FishyS for sure. I'd like to play split fiction but Id never have anyone to play with. I think Clare obscure expedition 33 is going to be a goty contender.

@NintendoByNature Honestly, Avowed not trying to be a GOTY contender was one of my favorite parts. It was just a fun action RPG that knew what it was good at, and didn't try to be the "most crazy complex RPG of all time".

@Bigmanfan agreed. It was just a nice time with fun characters, beautiful environments, and some really tough decisions to make. Solid game for sure.

@FishyS I forgot, what was the third game besides MKW and DKB?

I was counting Metroid Prime 4 because the better performance of the Switch 2 version will remove the automatic complaints about Nintendo games recently. We'll see how the game does, but if Metroid Prime Remastered can get the third highest reviews of any game in 2023, it's at least possible that Prime 4 will also be a GotY contender. Similar to Donkey Kong; either game could blow it out of the park or merely be good.

Finally finished the TTYD remake. This was a game that I was really looking forward to. I was just starting to become a dedicated Nintendo fan around the time of the Color Splash hate train, so I heard all the criticism and complaints about modern Paper Mario in comparison to this untouchable game. I ended up playing Bug Fables as a result of that and really enjoyed the battle style and game mechanics that I knew were lifted from the series. So I had somewhat high hopes for this game. I sat down with my little brother, and we pass and played the 40 hour adventure. Is this game better than the modern Paper Mario titles? I would say so. Is it the best Mario RPG of all time? Not even close.
Positives:
-The story is excellent. Don’t know any of the script differences from the original to the remaster, but in general, the game feels like it’s trying to be consistently emotionally resonant in a way that only a few Mario games really are.
-The music is phenomenal, both the original songs and the remixes, which I swapped back and forth.
-The battle system is great. Just enough strategy to punish you for poor decisions, but the guard and super guard ensures you always have a chance.
-I did not expect this game’s dungeons to be as good as they were. If Paper Mario wanted to be something removed from an RPG, a traditional Zelda-like (think Origami King, but just the Folded Soldier fights) wouldn’t be a bad way to go.
-Boss fights are phenomenal, from the unique music to the constantly changing gimmicks.
Negatives:
-The game is just a tad bit too easy. I haven’t engaged in the harder optional stuff yet, but it seems like just as your back is against a corner and you’re starting to have to evaluate your decisions, you level up or run across a health block that trivializes the experience.
-I feel like all of the recurring side bosses could have used one more fight, both to more firmly establish them as characters and because the game is at its best in the boss fights.
Those are kinda nitpicks, but my two main issues with the game revolve around this one problem:
The game really does not respect your time. This is apparent both in the plot and in the locations Mario must encounter. The game has about five different jokes that are some variation of, “Isn’t it funny that we’re making you do this annoying backtracking, or poke a character an annoying amount of times to wake them up, or go through 100 different text boxes to progress the plot?” And it never was.
The game also seems to revel in making you replay a level over and over again with minimal changes. Worlds 4 and 5 are the two obvious culprits of this design philosophy, but pretty much every level makes you go through it at least twice through the same batch of enemies with the same attacks and minimal EXP gain. And that’s not even taking into account the amount of side quests the game expects you to travel through the same level with a unique NPC at the end for. The game, at its core, does not respect the player’s time, and that is one of the cardinal sins a game can commit in my opinion. Chop off about 10 hours and TTYD is probably my second favorite Mario RPG behind Bowser’s Inside Story. As it stands, it’s now plopped off the podium that SMRPG and Dream Team sit on. Sorry for the long rant, but it’s just so wild to me that the Mario and Luigi games (or even Color Splash and Origami King) are sort of sneered down upon by a lot of people in favor of a game that, while great, has some big flaws that heavily detract from my experience. I’ve heard the original Paper Mario is not nearly as guilty of these issues as TTYD, so I may give that a shot at some point. But this game is a great but flawed 9/10.

Recently beat 20XX. It's a neat roquelike in the style of Mega Man. Really good controls and enjoyable layouts, it's definitely the simpler game I needed after the months playing Brothership. Music's pretty neat, too:

After this, I think I'll be ignoring Brothership a little more and play Portal on Switch (which I just started). I'll get back to it, and Phantom Hourglass, eventually. I swear.

I finally polished off Sonic X Shadow Generations (Switch). For not being a huge Sonic fan the game was pretty fun. Not amazing but pretty fun. Like many have said the 'Shadow' campaign is by far the stand out star of the show. I don't feel the desire though to 100% the game. The campaign(s) rely a lot on mini games to progress and for whatever reason I wasn't really digging it. They weren't hard but to me they felt like busy work to pad the lack of levels. I just did the minimum so I could progress the game's story. I'm not knocking the game at all I could easily see how someone that loves that style of gameplay would love it. Just not for me. The last time I played anything Sonic was in the 90's so I'm way out of the loop of generations of Sonic games. I highly recommend it!

I recently finished Xenoblade Chronicles 3(Switch). It was, to be frank, an awful game. Nah JK. It was an absolutely amazing game! Not like OOT "This will go down in history" great, but still crazy good. I might have to embark on a repeat playthrough due to skipping most of the cutscenes at the start of chapter 6 and missing a lot of story beats. Epic game though.

after twenty hours of jumping, coin-collecting, and cap throwing, ive beat mario odyssey for the first time. off to DK bananza now 😂😂
it was a very fun game, and its world is pretty impressive, but somehow it did not hit for me. i guess playing TTYD beforehand was a mistake (loved that game and its story) haha. i will say, new donk city was a wonderfully charming part of the journey, and the return to the mushroom kingdom at the end was very cool. and the final fight was admittedly epic. but i found myself kind of getting tired with its superbly wacky world and and mechanics. i dont know why, i guess its just a me problem 😿 so 8/10 for me, for sure, cause i can deffo see why this is on a lot of peoples all time lists.
@MangoMahn definitely a crazily good game that deserves praise more than its given, im glad u enjoyed it 🥳

Mega Man X6. Honestly, it’s not that terrible, as it has a great soundtrack (Blizzard Wolfgang’s level theme does not have a place in that mindset) and a decent albeit terribly explained story thanks to the horrible translation. The boss fights against the 8 investigators are pretty fun, except for Infinity Mijinion, who’s the undisputed king of chaos. In terms of their stages, they have very questionable level design, but the only ones that I found to be truly terrible were Ground Scaravich and Blaze Heatnix’s. Of course, the game goes crazy in the laboratory levels, throwing all kinds of crap at you, and the bosses all completely suck. The final fight against the newly introduced Mrs Nesbitt, the mother of Buzz Lightyear, is ridiculous thanks to the amount of enemies on screen. Thankfully, they provide energy pickups every now and then. This game is definitely pretty similar to Mega Man 3: crappy design that’s made up for by the items you can get that’ll make navigation much easier. It can be fun sometimes, but overall, it is very much a mixed experience. I definitely prefer it to X2 and 3, though. I’ve also been considering getting therapy in order to cure my insanity that stems from the fact I absolutely despise Mega Man 2, but I decided to replay that mess to see if my opinion would change. I definitely need therapy now, not only to help with my insanity but also to deal with my worsening PTSD. Safe to say my opinion on Mega Man 2 has not changed.

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order on Xbox Series X. This one's been in the backlog for a while, but I absolutely loved it. Kind of a mix of Uncharted/Tomb Raider-like platforming and simple puzzles, Metroidvania exploration with the maps opening up as you gain abilities, and Souls-like combat. Flinging Stormtroopers off ledges with Force powers never gets old - although here it's just a simple push, so not quite as fun as The Force Unleashed where you could just fling them in any direction.

The story and characters were decent - better than any of the sequel trilogy movies I'd say and thankfully they didn't go overboard with having cameos from movie characters etc, although there are a couple. Gameplay-wise its probably one of the best Star Wars games I've played, although there were a few sections where the controls were a bit ropey - like where you slide down hills/slopes etc. and some of the wall-running sections were a bit fiddly too, but thankfully there weren't too many of those. Combat was enjoyable with an emphasis on dodging and parrying, especially some of the later enemies. The only real downsides for me were the fiddly controls in a couple of places (as mentioned) and the map. It was presented as a sort of 3d hologram, but was quite tricky to navigate at times.

Completed Castlevania Portrait of Ruin.

• 100% on all maps
• All quests completed
• 100% items from enemies

I’ve finally beaten Champion’s Road in Super Mario 3D World.

I used the Tanooki Suit but I’m delighted to have done it at all. It’s taken me months.

I was positively shaking afterwards.

And Castlevania Order of Ecclesia is also beaten! (again!) This was faster than Dawn and Portrait for sure!

100% Map
100% Item Drops from Enemies
100% Glyphs
All Villager Quests
All Boss Medals

I really love this game

I will do the same for the 3 DS Castlevanias when I get the Switch release later this year