Topic: Games You Recently Beat?

Beat FFVII, both the original and Remake. Remake ended up reinvigorating my love for that game, and replaying it, I still love the cast, world and story. Every time I replay some games I always find myself rearranging my top 5(Tactics, VIII, X, VII, IV as of now)

Recently finished Steel Assault. I don't know, it was alright I guess. But in the end it winded up feeling like a pretty big dissapointment after coming off of the stellar and highly unique Pepper Grinder. SA feels like a 'future' Castlevania meets Mega man Zero, but with a zip line mechanic and being the length of an Arcade game, which will go either way for most people.

But it's lacking in personality(Although I like it's pastal neon styled color palette ) and it's OST is technically well done but it winds up being mostly forgettable outside the first & second stages. If you select the FM version/OST, it winds up having more of a Genesis-like vibe, with pieces that seemed to be inspired by titles like GunStar Heroes and Thunderforce III.

Steel Assault lacks soul, it's zip line mechanic can get a little messy at times unless you're using the Zip horizontaly, than it feels great to use. Boss Battles are stellar, and feels oh so satisfying electro-whipping the crap out of everything. Yet I can't even remember the OST outside of the first and second stage, and speaking of the 2nd stage...What an absolute hectic sh** show. lol I'm all for high difficulty, but not when the enemy placement and projectile patterns are nearly undodgable. That stage in particular will have you yanking your Charlie Brown head hair out. lol

Ultimately, most of the OST which just doesn't sound original enough, and having to using the Zip line diagonally, which gets messy, for practically every stage past the second draged it down a notch or so. I'd recommend maybe waiting for a sale, and make sure to play it on Normal Mode if you want any kind of challenge.

As far as indies go I'd give it no more than a 6.5/10 at best. As far as Castlevania & Mega Man-'likes' go, I liked Curse of the Moon and Mega Man 11 a lot more.

I beat Crash Bandicoot 4 on PS5. I have the Switch version, but graphics and performance are worlds apart on these systems. It's an incredible game, in my opinion. Design is awesome, as it gives you progressively harder challenges until you reach a point in which you should use the masks to solve platforming puzzles in some sections. The last stage before the final boss is the perfect example of it: you are going to use all masks in different sections, so it's a kind of mix of everything the game has shown you up to that point. Controls are perfect, which makes you fully responsible for your failures.

But as much as I love going back for collectibles, I'm not motivated to do that for CB4, as the game made it really clear that getting 100% of the collectibles will be a really really really hard task. Such difficulty put me off, even though this is exactly the type of challenge I'm into, so you can have an idea of the level of difficulty I'm talking about here.

It's a 9/10 for me. It'd be easily a 10/10 if collecting jewels, tapes and boxes weren't so incredibly hard.

And if you ask me if I'd play it again, I'll tell you yes I would without hesitation. I had a blast playing through the worlds. Everything is so beautiful and well-crafted that it gave me some of my best platforming moments in the past decade or so. The game is excellent. I just wouldn't go for 100%. Maybe I'll change my mind one day...

Cosmo Knight Zion for Game Boy Color.

Mega Man X3. After playing through the NES Mega Man Legacy Collection, I thought I didn’t like the Mega Man series, but I enjoy the X series a lot more. Perhaps it was because I had the rewind button constantly hanging over my shoulder in them, and it was probably also because I never looked up the boss order or hidden items. But even when using a guide and having to do it the right way (the X collection has neither save states or rewinds) I was not expecting to like these games as much as I did. The original X is probably a 10/10 for me, and X2 is a 9, as I think there are a few annoying stages, particularly the forced boss rush near the end. But I say all that to say I really like the style, gameplay, and world of the X series on SNES. Unfortunately, I found 3 to be pretty annoying in everything new that it chose to do, and its strengths are also strengths the first game had. Bringing Zero in this game and having alternate endings/bosses based on how you play the game were both nice ideas, but they fail due to the game’s weird way of tackling them. Zero is never good to use in any point in the game, especially since there’s a secret item barred behind never letting him die. The Ride Armors are interesting, but they’re also locked behind getting a specific one in the stage I played last in the guide. In general, there is no good way to get the items in this game without backtracking. Then there’s the chip system, which penalizes you unknowingly for getting the only items in the game that aren’t sub or heart tanks. I say penalize because while the rest of the final stages are made trivial and not fun by collecting the golden enhancement chip, the final boss is pretty much a requirement to carry it with you due to how ridiculously hard and unfair it is. There are a few mid-to bad stages in the lineup (Blizzard Buffalo did not give me a great first impression of this game, and the spike section in Doppler-3 is ridiculous). The enemy lineup is probably the worst of any Mega Man game I’ve played so far, with far too many stages revolving around a bunch of big robots standing there in a row that fire lasers at you in a slow, predictable pattern. Even the music is not as good as the first two games, with a few droning themes that I’ve heard might be better on the PlayStation version. Despite all those complaints, the core gameplay, bosses (with a few exceptions), and even a few stages stand toe to toe with the other two games, and I still do like the increased production design and storytelling this game offers. I just wish it wasn’t so insistent on having all these other things in the way of getting from point A to B, where I think these games shine.
7/10

Earlier today I beat Hollow Knight: Silksong. However, I will refrain from giving a review score because I suspect that like its predecessor, there is almost certainly a TRUE ending. So now I'm just going to amble around the Pharloom finding anything that there is to do that I haven't done yet. I came across the Second Sentinel boss fight, but I ran out of shell shards so I couldn't finish it. I also think I'm going to attempt completing the hunter's journal, so I've been grinding out some enemies. I had to get help from my friend to find the true ending in the original Hollow Knight, but I want to figure it out for myself this time. We'll see how well I do.

Final Fantasy 7 Remake. Really enjoyed this one and excited to see what the next chapter holds

The legend of zelda: Phantom Hourglass. A pain on the wrist but fun regardless. It feels like an idea someone at nintendo came up for controlling link with only the stylus that doesn't work that well in the long run. It's essentially a shorter version of windwaker with bosses not as good as that game.

Will still play spirit tracks after this.

Quake II 64 via Quake II Remastered (Switch 2). I really enjoyed this one. I mentioned in a previous post about not jiving with the PC version. I almost tossed in the towel but decided to try Quake II 64 and I really dug it. I really enjoy getting the opportunity to play these old games I missed. Back in the heyday you were either an Unreal/Unreal Tournament player or anything Quake player. It was a nasty rivalry amongst us arena shooter players. I was all Unreal so it's crazy now in my 40's I'm finally on the other side (even if it's the N64 version).

Not sure if this counts as "beating" something but I also wrapped up all the documentary stuff in the Mortal Kombat Legacy Kollection (Switch 2). It was done so freaking good. The best part of it all is that I actually lived through ALL of that history as it was happening in real time. It was such a trip to go back and see it from different perspectives along with remembering going to the local pizza joint(s) with groups of kids.

Bowser's Fury
To take a small break from Silksong, and because I was going on a day trip with long travel times, I decided to do a full replay of Bowser's Fury with its Switch 2 enhanced update. I played the game to 100% completion. It remains a phenomenal game and Lake Lapcat remains a joy to jump, dash, and surf through, even on my nth playthrough. The improved visuals on Switch 2 are really clean, and I am pleased to be able to play at a stable 60FPS in handheld mode. I did come across one flaw with the game on this run, however, in that it felt like there were a few too many "Blast the Fury Blocks" missions, as those ones aren't terribly engaging. Overall, its a great game.

9/10

Moving this comment from the Switch thread, since it belongs here.
So, I just finished the final case in Ace Attorney Investigations 2 and I think I can safely say I see where the hype comes from.
Honestly, not only is it possibly the best in the series, but it might be my personal favourite as well. For once, every case is good; even Trials and Tribulations had that kinda iffy cafe case, but here? Not a single miss. And the way every case played a not insignificant part in the overall story/final case, while a series staple, was possibly done better here than most other games in the series.
The game also, in addition to having a surprisingly good cast with an equally surprising healthy balance of new and old, actually manages to make legitimate good use of its characters, which isn’t something you can always say with this series (especially when they re-use them). It got to the point where I was kinda disappointed knowing this was probably the last time these characters would appear, because I felt like some of them could work as series regulars.
Because this game was the last to make it out of Japan, it ended up being the final game in the series I had yet to play through, and I’m kinda glad it ended up that way, because I feel like this is the best place to leave the series on (unless they actually end up making a 7th main game, which I guess could happen…); just an absolute gem of a game, and one of the best the series has to offer, imo.

@UpsideDownRowlet I just beat Super Mario 3D World on Switch OLED (handheld mode), Champion's Road included! I am not going to beat every level with every character, though. I had beaten the game on Wii U when it was released, but I didn't play Champion's Road back then. I was pleasantly surprised when I found out that not just the characters move faster in the Switch port, but also the input lag seems reduced. I started Bowser's Fury, but it's a graphical mess in handheld mode, so I'll beat it docked.

Fire Emblem Path of Radiance. Not my favorite in the series so far, but still a solid outing. Lack of rewind and speed up of battles made it a drag at times. And that last map was horrendous. 50 enemies vs your 14. It’s ludicrous.

Beat Star Fox Adventures on the Gamecube. Before this beating, I hadn't played the game in 23 years. I think my opinion is largely the same as in 2002-2003: A good action game marred by some design choices, particularly in some of the more cryptic puzzles.

I understand this is Fox's take on The Legend of Zelda, but couldn't they also implement Z-Targeting to target different objectives or allow you to freely control the camera?
I cannot speak for how it isn't a true Star Fox game since I have only played Assault, Command and a bit of Zero.

The final boss has the same problem as the one in Sonic Frontiers, the game barely prepares you for it and doesn't give you power-ups to face it.

With that said, make no mistake. Regardless of my issues with the game, I did enjoy my time with it. I had forgotten how cheesy some of those dialogues can be, of particular note, the Shopkeeper's line of "Put that down! You don't have enough Scarabs!" and the leader of the Lightfoot Tribe looking down on Fox and saying "Pathetic!" have lived rent-free in my memory all these years.
I loved relieving some stress by hitting Tricky or any of the civilians from the different tribes. Not to mention, I discovered that if you hit Tricky too much he will actually retaliate and try to burn you.

Just rolled credits on Pokemon Legends Z-A, about three months after everyone else. When the game was announced I liked the idea of an open-world Pokemon game set in one big city, but that's because I was imagining a vibrant city full of secrets to find and Gogoat to ride around on. What we got is a bland-looking, samey environment with hardly any buildings you can even enter. The scaffolding/rooftop parkour can be fun, but again it's all quite homogenous.

The wild zones are the best part of the city - they're a lot more varied and it's fun to sneak up on the wild Pokemon or get attacked by alphas. Still, I found myself wishing I was actually exploring a region and discovering new places. The repetitive mission types throughout the story don't help.

The other big change to the Pokemon formula is the real-time battles. It was cool to see how the moves would translate to this style of game, and I can see how there could be room for some interesting strategy in terms of how you position your Pokemon and when you choose to use moves that take a while to fire off, but the main game is too easy to have to think about this much. That said, there's a tricky side quest where you have to do ten battles in a row that I haven't managed to beat yet, and I tried one online battle today and got destroyed, so I guess the depth and challenge is there if you want it. Either way, I don't want this to replace turn-based battles but I don't mind it as a one-off.

The best use of the new battle system, though, is the Z-A Royale battle zones. The fast pace of battles, the stealth element and the (partly self-imposed) challenge of trying to get as many points as possible in one night using the bonus cards make it exciting and sometimes tense, even when you have to do this quite a few times throughout the story. I also enjoyed discovering the new Mega Evolutions, I think the pace they were introduced throughout the game was spot-on.

Z-A is worth playing if you're a Pokemon fan, and it's cool to see a follow-up to X and Y after all these years. But while I appreciate Game Freak trying something new (the main Pokemon series feels a lot more experimental now than at the beginning of the Switch era, and I'm here for it), this one didn't land for me quite as well as Legends Arceus or even Scarlet and Violet. It does run better than them on Switch 1, though! 7/10

I beat Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. Somewhat unexpectedly too. I knew the game had an incomplete story that was meant to be continued with a sequel that I think has been cancelled twice now, but yeah its somewhat abrupt. It has AN ending but it feels so much like they expected to put out another one sooner rather than later that it is awkward.

I had a weird experience with this game. I adored Human Revolution, one of my favorite experiences on the Wii U. This one I was not nearly as into, but I couldn't entirely tell you why. Like I'd struggle to guess what made this one below the previous one to any notable degree. I guess it just relied too much on backtracking in the same area and doubled down on not quite having characters good enough to get invested in despite their best efforts and it just felt like a less inspired version of the previous game in most ways. I still enjoyed it but its not gonna be a personal favorite of mine in the same way.

Also the boss fights in the last one got a huge upgrade compared to the original release and this one was fairly lacking. It had less bosses (and its certainly not like the previous game was boss-centric like it was No More Heroes or whatever) and the ones they had were less good and did less of the creative stuff that made doing a pacifist run worthwhile.

I ended up beating Ducktales last night on the Disney Afternoon Collection on Switch. Great game as always. Now I am working on Darkwing Duck, which I never beat before.

Tonight I finished DuckTales! Woo-oo! I played it on Disney Afternoon Collection. It is a pretty tough game, but I still enjoyed it. I even went ahead and had the DuckTales cartoon playing in the background... and now I can't get the theme song out of my head, lol.

This afternoon, I beat Sango Fighter on PC. It's an old shareware era DOS fighting game taking place in historic China. Since I already cleared battle mode, decided to play story mode and give the story mode a try. Cleared it this afternoon. Story mode played differently than a usual vs. fighter. In story mode, you fight a general and his soldier. You have to defeat the soldiers in order to fight the general, which is your main opponent. Sometimes the general will back out of a fight and send in more soldiers. This loop goes on for multiple matches until you face the final general.

It's an obscure 1993 fighting game for DOS, and found it while curious about DOS era fighting games. I like playing DOS games and I'm glad I found it, and it was a good game. Story mode and battle mode both beaten.