Topic: Games You Recently Beat?

No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle for the Wii. I liked how they streamlined the game, the new 8-bit minigames and the gameplay adjustments but the plot wasn't as interesting as the original and some bosses were kinda bland. But overall I really enjoyed it.

I recently got 380 stars on SM3DW after finally beating the Mystery House Marathon. I was expecting a bit of a furore for the achievement, but... nothing. I think the game wants me to beat every level with all five characters before it breaks open the champagne, but it seems a bit excessive. I thought Galaxy asking you to beat the game twice was tough love, but hey. I'm away for the next five weeks, so I'm going to leave my Mario adventures there and maybe think about the bigger challenge when I get back. But really, to complete just the Mystery House Marathon with all the characters... that's 150 stars on one level alone. Perhaps the task would be easier if I weren't playing the game alone.

Anyway, 3D completed! Or... 1/5 completed... depending on how you look at it. It feels like enough of an achievement to sing and shout about, at least.

@Maxz That's what I don't really get about Mario games. There must be so many people who've bought the games who have no clue about the requirements to 'complete' the game, let alone been bothered to go to those lengths you're suggesting are necessary in SM3DW.

@Maxz: Wow, and here I was thinking that Galaxy 2 daring me to collect all 242 stars was nuts. O.o

I'm almost finished with the sixth world, by the way. I'm going to try for all 120 initial stars, then I'm putting the game down.

@gcunit @Tyranexx Yeah, it is a bit nuts. At least the game is really good. I didn't realise how much I liked it until I picked it up again recently - the opening levels are a bit meandering (which is fine, and probably a sensible way to introduce people to the game, especially with four players), but the later levels really tighten up, and I've really enjoyed playing it.

I'm going to cheat and see what happens if you complete it 100%, and then decide if it's worth bothering with. I wouldn't mind playing through some of the levels I've forgotten, but the prospect of beating Champion's road five times seems a bit grim, especially without Rosalina's ridiculously OP spin-jump.

Completed a full War mode run of SMT IV: Apocalypse ten minutes ago. My game file wound up around the 90 hour mark, which is a pretty typical length for an Atlus game.

While I won't lie about having certain... issues with the lack of atmosphere and the cheery themes in this game, I have to admit that this is one of the funnest JRPGs I've ever played. It has been a long time since a game snared me so completely. Gameplay-wise, this is MegaTen at its peak.

If I had to break down how I felt about the various aspects of the game:

SUPERB:
Battle system
Pacing
Overworld map
Demon fusion system
Demon selection
Boss fights

GOOD:
Music
Dungeons (would have gone in the "SUPERB" category if the final dungeon wasn't so tedious)
NPC writing

MIXED/UNSURE:
Characters (they're genuinely likeable and fun, but they're also very tropey and make the game feel more like a traditional JRPG than a MegaTen game)
Plot (while the plot is well-paced, it simply doesn't have the grandeur or pathos I found in SMT IV)

DIDN'T LIKE:
Atmosphere (This barely feels like a MegaTen game, and has almost none of the dread or mystery I associate with this series)

I can actually post something here now...
Wario Land III....either I just flat-out suck at old games now, or...I have the worst luck ever. But some of the main playthrough of that game was infuriating. lol.

I recently beat Boxboy; a fun little game but not amazing. Worth the price, but not one I'll come back to for the foreseeable future. (Although Boxboxboy is on my wish list!)

Rayman Origins. One of the best platformers I've ever played. Beautiful, incredibly smooth animations, creative levels and great music.

I really enjoyed playing with a Wiimote. You hold it sideways, pressing 2 to jump, 1 to punch and holding B to run (with your middle finger). It feels very comfortable and natural.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D

Ever since the internet entered my life and I started browsing gaming related sites, Ocarina of Time has been the game that I knew I had to play and finish some day, as this game, above any other, has been the most consistently cited as one of the greatest games of all time, and now having completed it I can totally see why. The 3DS version at least holds up very well today as a timeless family-friendly adventure.

The infrequent story injects, and the lack of explanation, were minor disappointments, but that goes with the territory with Zelda games it seems.

Overall I really enjoyed it, am delighted to have finally joined the 'I've finished Ocarina of Time' club, and the final shot the game ends on was just perfection.

So that's one game finally ticked off my bucket list. Next up: Chrono Trigger.

I recently reached the credits of Super Mario Galaxy 2. It's definitely the masterpiece that everyone says that it is, and I'm glad I decided to pick it up! The levels were for the most part superb, and I had a lot of fun with some of the new power-ups. The only disappointment for me was the fact that Rosalina barely appears in this game, except at the end. And as much as I grew to love Starship Mario, I preferred the Comet Observatory more.

As much as I enjoyed the game, I think I'm Mario'd out for a little while now. XD

Finished Lego Jurassic World tonight. For now it's my favorite Lego game. Now I just need to do the free play mode and wrap up trophies.

Over the past week:
Shank 2
Analogue: A Hate Story
Battletoads in Ragnarok's World
Bugs Bunny: Crazy Castle
The Wolf Among Us

Three games off my Steam backlog and two off my GB/GBC backlog (which is now down to 6 games, and I'm most of the way through Donkey Kong Land 2).

Chase: Cold Case Investigations, but that actually was a while ago. It felt a bit too bland and generic to me. Not to mention, really short.

The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap (GBA) - I would have been done with this way sooner than this weekend if I hadn't had such a busy October (and thus, huge gaps in playtime), and if I hadn't been OCD about hitting the 100% mark. XD This was a very charming Zelda game and is definitely up there as one of my favorites in the whole series! The world was beautiful and unique and had one of the best color palettes that I've seen in a Zelda game. The story was wonderful, Ezlo was fun and entertaining (though at points almost reached Navi levels of annoying), many of the characters were charming, and Vaati was a nice change of pace for a villain.
The only negatives that I can think of were the campaign's somewhat short length and grinding for mysterious shells for Carlov's gambling scheme figurines.

Yeah, completing the figurine collection in Minish Cap was a pain.

Luckily, there's a ton of grass in the southern part of the screen just west of Hyrule Town, so I'd stock up on the Picolite that makes it easy to find Mysterious Shells and Spin Attack the heck out of it (and the Picolite that makes it easy to find Rupees, that way I always have enough to keep buying picolite...).

because I'm a crazy person, I've actually gotten all the figurines twice!

Worst part, I think both times I ran into the glitch that prevents me from getting 100% for certain other items. So if I ever want to do that, I'll have to get all of them a THIRD time.

@kkslider5552000: The only glitch I ran into was triggering the Carlov Medal at 130 figurines since I got them all before beating Vaati. I was a little worried that I wouldn't be able to nab the last six correctly, but thankfully I was able to get them (and the medal for realsies) without incident.

@RR529: I farmed that same patch of grass, though I didn't bother with the Picolyte and just used my Rupees on buying more shells at the town shop. I found a topic somewhere that didn't really prove if using Picolyte had much of an advantage over just buying the shells. It's all a matter of preference, I suppose.

Sonic Advance 2 for the second time, except this time I didn't get all the chaos emeralds (none actually), because it's just not something worth your time.
I really like the level variety, the feeling of [GOTTA GO FAST] that was missing from the first game and the soundtrack. It's the best Advance game out of the 3 for me.

Finally got around to beating Wolfenstein: The New Order.

My feelings about it...

It was surprisingly decent on the plot/character development front. The subject matter of the game is pulpy and exploitative, but it presents the material with an incredibly straight face, which made for some interesting drama in a genre often filled with a sort of cheerful nihilism.

This game still does have a fun, old-school feel to it, though, with an old-fashioned health system (with an interesting overcharging mechanic where you can temporarily boost your health up extra high and storm a group of enemies), plenty of interesting weapons (almost all of which you're able to dual wield!), and fantastic level design that allows for a certain level of environmental exploration.

Another aspect of the game I liked was that it allowed you tackle most scenarios in different ways. The game perfectly accommodates both a stealthy "sneak around and kill one guy at a time" gameplay style as well as a more old-school "charge in, kill em all, and let God sort em out" approach. Depending on the layout of the levels, I would often tackle them differently. A "barge in and kill em" all approach works well when there's a finite number of enemies, but in the parts where commanders are able to call in reinforcements, I like to stealth kill people and save my ammo.

One thing I didn't like about it was that it had a number of flashy set-pieces and gimmicky boss battles. I realize some people love this stuff, but I hate when games get all Uncharted and start throwing setpieces with very limited interactivity at me. If I just want to watch something cool happen, I'll pop in a DVD. Too many of them happen for me. It certainly wasn't enough to ruin the game for me, but it did detract from the overall fun.

There's some sort of skill tree that you can gradually unlock throughout the game by accomplishing certain gameplay challenges, but I pretty much forgot about it until just now and didn't have any issues.

People who are big into games where you have to search everywhere and collect stuff will absolutely love this game. There's all sorts of hidden stuff to collect and notes to read (which are worthwhile, as they are usually newspaper clippings that flesh out the setting more than the main plot allows for).

Finally, this is one of the few modern shooters that really focused all of its resources on developing a big, impressive single-player campaign. It probably took me around 17 hours or so to complete, which is super-impressive for a modern FPS. There are a lot of interesting locations and stuff to explore over the course of the game.

Overall, I still prefer the style of the DOOM remake, with its focus on raw, aggressive gameplay, but I certainly can't say this wasn't a really solid FPS. I'm not really a fan of the genre, but I'm glad I picked this game up.