The 2023 Backlog Challenge

[Splain | 2,624]

1 hour ago, Foochie776 said:

Kirby 64 is something.. there’s something I don’t like that I can’t quite explain yet.

Yeah, I played through Kirby 64 back in the day, and I would have told you I liked it, but I've had no desire at all to go back to it. Like it entertained me but I didn't exactly enjoy it. Which is unfortunately how I feel about a lot of Kirby games.

[Sumez | 3,011]

Alice Sisters (SMD) - Beaten 3/10

Some times all it takes is just looking at screenshots from a game, and you know what to expect from it. A bright cheery platformer for the MegaDrive, released as an aftermarket homebrew game? Even if it's not much, it should at least be decently enjoyable, and I love supporting homebrewers.
Unfortunately, this approach isn't always as viable as I'd like it to be. Alice Sisters is one of the most boring platformers I've played in a while, and generally just feels sloppy.

 

First indicator of this game just being pushed out the door fast is that it's riddled with bugs. After experiencing weird crap-ups with the audio and several instances of the game just crashing during transitions, I finally got it running for more than a single stage after powering off the console multiple times (resetting it just introduces a whole new bag of bugs).

Though designed as a 2-player game, the single player mode lets you switch between the two characters at any moment, even mid-jump. Alice is able to grow small if jumping on a certain type of mushroom, while Alice's sister (literally what the manually calls her, she apparently wasn't given a name even though you'll be playing as her 95% of the time) is able to throw a ball to help solve the game's "puzzles".
There's some sort of setup involved in frequently changing Alice's size using the positioning of the two types of mushrooms, but the only reason to ever change back is to be able to move faster and jump higher again, which you can do just by changing back to her sister in single player mode. So what you usually want to do is turn her small as soon as a stage lets you, and then never change back, only switching to her whenever you need to go through tight spaces. Ultimately this makes the whole character switching mechanics nothing more than a way-too-elaborate duck/crawl button.

I know that sounds like I'm just bypassing the game's puzzles, but there are no actual puzzles to begin with, just tasks. The level design is consistently based around the same elements - spaces so tight you need to be small to pass through, and color coded keys and the doors they unlock, as well as switches that open another sort of door or make a platform start moving - which is really just a different form of key/lock. And of course occasionally (like twice in the entire game) something is placed out of the way so you need to throw a ball to trigger it. While this has the appearance of a puzzle setup, the game never does anything with it. It's literally just tasking you with triggering these things to proceed without ever involving the player in any way.

The only effect this has is needlessly sending you around and back and forth on a single stage, absolutely forcing backtracking in the most trite way possible. This drags out the game in a really boring way, and is only emphasized by the massive amounts of time you'll spend just standing around waiting for a moving platform, or an enemy to get out of the way.
Feels like someone had a derivative idea that wasn't thought through, mocked up a proof of concept to see what they could do with it. Didn't really accomplish anything, and then just shipped it anyway just to have a game out on the MegaDrive which of course by itself is pretty cool.

At a few rare moments the game actually touches on some enjoyable precision platforming, but never dwells on that, instead returning to the same broken formula of just leading the player around the sage. I played on the game's Hard mode trying to get the most out of it, but all it does is removing checkpoints. Honestly that would be fine for a well balanced action game, but for a backtrack'em up, it only really serves to drag out the game. Also, one of the stages is technically unbeatable on Hard mode, there is literally no way to get through. So I had to change back to Normal for just one stage.

I don't really feel good harping on a small-time homebrew game, but it's just sad that the beautiful production and box art betrays the game itself, and it's obvious that no care was taken around doing anything interesting with it.

[BlackVega | 583]

Hey people. I still haven't prepared my backlog list or rules yet and I'm making this post unintentionally. I started beating Lagrange Point, RPG from 1991 on Famicom (Japanese NES) a few days ago and today I wanted to report I made a discovery. Yeah, I just found Shrek. Not only 1 but 3 of them!

[Sumez | 3,011]

Mega Turrican (SMD) - Beaten 3/10

Bought this game 13 years ago, hearing it was one of the best Turrican games. That's how quick I am to get around to my backlog.

Of course, I'm not really a fan of the Turrican games, and it seems to me that the people who are, are typically those who grew up with them and European Amiga games of a similar type, and are able to stomach many of the odd design choices typically accompanied by them. That's of course a nice way of saying nostalgia goggles, because the classic games (namely the first two, with especially Turrican 2 being the fan favourite) have a massive list of issues.

Let's cover the most prominent ones:
- No knockback or invincibility frames on damage, making it very easy to accidentally walk into an enemy or hazard and just eat up your entire lifebar without even noticing, while projectiles typically inflict comparatively very little damage.
- Absolutely massive stages with tons of paths to go, just as many dead ends, and barely any incentive to explore them in the first place.
- Annoying scrolling where the player hugs the edge of the screen they are pushing towards, making it nearly impossible to spot incoming enemies before they damage you.

The biggest improvement to Mega Turrican (canonically Turrican 3) is that it fixes all of those issues. It just feels a ton better to play, and the stages are mostly straightforward, but still facilitate heavy exploration. There are a lot of creatively hidden secrets to find, and they usually pay off by rewarding you with one or more 1UPs.
In fact, a clear of this game ultimately hinges less on mastering the challenges and boss fights, and more on knowing where to stock up on enough 1UPs to be able to just stumble through the game regardless.

That said, you still want to avoid losing any lives, because it will also power down your weapon. And unless more items are nearby, recovering can feel pretty tough as some areas absolutely expect you to be powered to max to avoid getting torn apart by the bullet spongey enemies.

Another change from previous Turrican games is that the directional laser beam is replaced by a grappling hook. I think only being able to shoot forward actually works quite well for the gameplay, and it is definitely balanced around it. And the new grappling hook is simple enough that it doesn't interfere with the core running-around-and-shooting gameplay. In fact, it's mostly utilized just for taking shortcuts or finding secrets.

Ultimately I think Mega Turrican manages to bank on all the things that do make the series stand out and separate it from standard arcade run'n'guns, while still looking towards those for areas to improve. The exploration is very well designed, and the incredibly overpowered nature of the shooting never ceases to be satisfying as long as you are fully powered up. Even the boss fights are actually mostly fun, creative and very varied.

The only real strike against the game is the fourth stage, which is also by far the longest, easily covering more than one third of the whole game. It's a long mazelike alien lair, littered with bulletsponge enemies, broken up by a single autoscroller segment which is equally poorly designed, but for completely different reasons. Had that stage been replaced with another of equal quality to the rest of the game, Mega Turrican would have been a fantastic overall package.
 

[BlackVega | 583]

Beat Lagrange Point on Famicom today. Yeah, definitely recommend to everyone. Really nice and interesting futuristic 8bit RPG from Konami with very unique extra OPLL soundchip soundtrack that is very similar to Sega Genesis. Aha in case anyone wonders then YES there IS an English translation for this

[Reed Rothchild | 9,637]

@BlackVega I'll add you to OP

[Webhead123 | 690]

It seems no matter what I do, the journey to complete DuckTales is just going to fight me every step of the way. I figured out that part of the reason I was having trouble in spots on the NES version was the slightly sticky controls combined with the at-times very demanding collision detection. It would create jumps and pogo bounces that were deceptive to a point of being frustrating.

So, I remembered that I had the remastered version on Steam and thought I'd give that a spin. And while I do miss the original 8-bit aesthetic and the excessive talking/cutscenes do get in the way of just playing the game, overall it has been a very pleasant experience. Plus, they seem to have resolved the control and collision issues.

Alas, it seems I'm still destined never to finish this damn game because now I keep hitting some random bug that will cause the game to momentarily freeze and when it resumes, the game now only registers every second button input. It's as if my controller is toggling between "on" and "off" modes. I press the jump button and it executes the jump but then immediately shuts off all controller feedback, including d-pad/analog stick responsiveness. If I press the jump button again, nothing happens, but now all control is restored. Repeat. The worst part is, I can be playing for 10, 20 or 30 minutes and the game will work just fine. Then, in the middle of a stage or even during a boss fight, the bug shows up and the only solution seems to be exiting and restarting the game (which means starting the whole stage over again).

So, I've had to put it down for a while. It was just too much aggravation. Just when I was starting to dig it...

Edited October 6, 2023 by Webhead123

[Foochie776 | 1,066]

2 hours ago, Webhead123 said:

It seems no matter what I do, the journey to complete DuckTales is just going to fight me every step of the way. I figured out that part of the reason I was having trouble in spots on the NES version was the slightly sticky controls combined with the at-times very demanding collision detection. It would create jumps and pogo bounces that were deceptive to a point of being frustrating.

So, I remembered that I had the remastered version on Steam and thought I'd give that a spin. And while I do miss the original 8-bit aesthetic and the excessive talking/cutscenes do get in the way of just playing the game, overall it has been a very pleasant experience. Plus, they seem to have resolved the control and collision issues.

Alas, it seems I'm still destined never to finish this damn game because now I keep hitting some random bug that will cause the game to momentarily freeze and when it resumes, the game now only registers every second button input. It's as if my controller is toggling between "on" and "off" modes. I press the jump button and it executes the jump but then immediately shuts off all controller feedback, including d-pad/analog stick responsiveness. If I press the jump button again, nothing happens, but now all control is restored. Repeat. The worst part is, I can be playing for 10, 20 or 30 minutes and the game will work just fine. Then, in the middle of a stage or even during a boss fight, the bug shows up and the only solution seems to be exiting and restarting the game (which means starting the whole stage over again).

So, I've had to put it down for a while. It was just too much aggravation. Just when I was starting to dig it...

I’ve not played it on modern consoles so I can’t relate with the bug but I definitely struggled to get into this game at first despite being such a Ducktales fan. 
 

The controls are definitely different and can be an adjustment. When it finally clicked for me, I flew through the first game and immediately booted up and beat the second. I wish you luck on your quest to someday finish it! 

[Reed Rothchild | 9,637]

Sin & Punishment

Started this bad boy back in January.  Certainly an argument to be made that it's a top 10 game on the N64.  Or one of the better games Treasure has made.

1. Elden Ring (10/10)
2. Hades (9.5/10)
3. Deathloop (9/10)
4. Baba Is You (9/10)
5. Doom Eternal (9/10)
6. Jamestown+ (9/10)
7. Gradius V (8.5/10)
8. Control (8.5/10)
9. Super Mario 3D World/Bowser's Fury (with the kids) (8.5/10)
10. God of War (8.5/10)
11. MGS: The Twin Snakes (8.5/10)
12. Resident Evil 2 (8.5/10)
13. Ori & the Will of the Wisps (8.5)
14. Ghost of Tsushima (8/10)
15. Sin & Punishment (8/10)
16. Nier Automata (8/10)
17. Dusk (8/10)
18. Into the Breach (8/10)
19. Nioh (8/10)
20. Deus Ex (7.5/10)
21. Hellblade (7.5/10)
22. Dark Souls II (7.5/10)
23. Ace Attorney 2 (7.5/10)
24. Uncharted 4 (7.5/10)
25. Eternal Darkness (7/10)
26. Xenoblade (7/10)
27. Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold (7/10)
28. Yakuza Kiwami (7/10)
29. Resident Evil 3 (7/10)
30. Onimusha (7/10)
31. What Remains of Edith Finch (6.5/10)
32. Paper Mario (6.5/10)
33. Everblue 2 (6.5/10)
34. Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order (6.5/10)
35. Yoku's Island Express (6.5/10)
36. Dear Esther (6/10)
37. Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II (6/10)
38. Pilotwings 64 (6.0/10)
39. Contra Shattered Soldier (6/10)
40. Strife (6/10)
41. A Short Hike (6/10)
42. Ion Fury (6/10)
43. Mischief Makers (6/10)
44. La Pucelle (5.5/10)
45. Buck Bumble (5.5/10)
46. Indigo Prophecy (5.5/10)
47. Shadowgate (5/10)
48. Yoshi's Story (4.5/10)
49. Winback (4/10)

TBD:

1. Shenmue (crap)
2. House of Fata Morgana (too early to tell)

Not started

1. Last of Us Part II
2. Danganronpa
3. Trails in the Sky
4. Prey

[Foochie776 | 1,066]

Luigi’s Mansion is done! I had a Gamecube growing up and a few games, I’d mainly wanted it for Tony Hawk’s games but I had some others. What I’m learning in my adult life is I slept on a lot of classics. 
 

This game was fantastic. While not super challenging at any point, I still really enjoyed it a lot. The controls were crisp and I really enjoyed the semi non linearity that it had. The levels all felt very charming and unique with purpose. The puzzles were fun and intuitive. My only real complaint was the end boss. While it was well done and quite unique, I really disliked how I had to go through the rooms and such the dirt mounds to traverse back down. Minor complaint yes but it just was a pain to die and then have to go through so many rooms to try again. Also, the unskippable cutscene for the final boss drove me nuts. I hate that crap. All in all, I’ll play it again. 8/10

 

I got the “C” rank and barely missed the “B”. I had 49/50 Boo’s and just couldn’t find the last. I’ll definitely return to this to ensure I get the best ending. Can’t wait to play 3 now. 

[Brickman | 4,073]

1 hour ago, Foochie776 said:

Luigi’s Mansion is done! I had a Gamecube growing up and a few games, I’d mainly wanted it for Tony Hawk’s games but I had some others. What I’m learning in my adult life is I slept on a lot of classics. 
 

This game was fantastic. While not super challenging at any point, I still really enjoyed it a lot. The controls were crisp and I really enjoyed the semi non linearity that it had. The levels all felt very charming and unique with purpose. The puzzles were fun and intuitive. My only real complaint was the end boss. While it was well done and quite unique, I really disliked how I had to go through the rooms and such the dirt mounds to traverse back down. Minor complaint yes but it just was a pain to die and then have to go through so many rooms to try again. Also, the unskippable cutscene for the final boss drove me nuts. I hate that crap. All in all, I’ll play it again. 8/10

 

I got the “C” rank and barely missed the “B”. I had 49/50 Boo’s and just couldn’t find the last. I’ll definitely return to this to ensure I get the best ending. Can’t wait to play 3 now. 

1 & 2 are a lot of fun but I found 3 to be a bit boring, frustrating controls at times and drags on forever.

And yep definitely dive into the GC library more, heaps of greats games on that system  

[Reed Rothchild | 9,637]

Just for another perspective, I thought 3 was much better than 2, and probably more fun than 1 is in this day and age.

[Jaden | 151]

Haven't been on the forum for a while, but I did finish another game while I was gone. On August 25th, 2023, I completed the original Dragon Warrior for the NES! While this game certainly has that early RPG jank to it, I still had a lot of fun. When I was actually making progress and not just grinding, it honestly had some really cool moments. And the final battle with the Dragonlord is just epic. I can't wait to try out the rest of the series at some point!

[Renmauzo | 1,205]

I had to go to Toronto for a week, so I brought a few DS games with me to tackle some backlog challenge on the down-time, and finally - after 14 years - I beat Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box. I'd kept putting it down over the years as other things would always come up, but it got to the point where my Mom beat it, and I'm like, "Really...even Mom beat me to it...? -_-".

Wonderful game, great puzzles; I love these game

I also finally got around to playing Dawn of Sorrow which was great! My wife and I had watched the latest season of Castlevania when it dropped, so I was in the mood for a Castlevania but decided to continue trying to knock off ones I hadn't played/beaten yet. I accidentally got the worst ending, so I went back and figured out how to get the good one

It's only two more off the list, so it's going to be a tight race to the end of the year at this point o_o.

[BlackVega | 583]

Alright then, I will be easy and simple this time around and there is not much left of 2023 anyway- I declare I will beat 10 games in 2023 which is more than doable for me. Why even be hard on myself? Even if I surpass this number then I will still post my results here because this is what this topic is all about right?

[Sumez | 3,011]

4 minutes ago, BlackVega said:

Why even be hard on myself?

No one's telling you to, because you set your own goal, and you should do what you want. But the thread is also called "the 2023 backlog challenge", so an obvious approach would be to actually challenge yourself  

[greenthunder | 115]

I personally liked Luigi's Mansion 2 and 3 about equally, though I didn't mind the mission based structure and 3 lost some points for me because I hated the final boss fight compared to 2 and even 1's. I should play through 1 again though.

As for my own completions, I haven't played Devil Survivor lately and I'm struggling to motivate myself to start something else as well. I did recently pound through another harder game and finally finished it, so maybe I'll get back into Devil Survivor or start Inazuma Eleven 2. It's not looking likely I'll finish my list unless I get the spontaneous motivation to smash through Devil Survivor, SMTIV and Octopath Traveller (or finally get the motivation to sell the latter).

 

[Webhead123 | 690]

23 hours ago, Jaden said:

Haven't been on the forum for a while, but I did finish another game while I was gone. On August 25th, 2023, I completed the original Dragon Warrior for the NES! While this game certainly has that early RPG jank to it, I still had a lot of fun. When I was actually making progress and not just grinding, it honestly had some really cool moments. And the final battle with the Dragonlord is just epic. I can't wait to try out the rest of the series at some point!

Dragon Warrior was my first true RPG and what an adventure it was! I received it as part of the Nintendo Power membership promotion, complete with the posters, guide book and player aids. That was such a neat way to experience the game, as it made young me feel like I was on a real adventure. For the time, the game seemed dauntingly large, likely reinforced by the fact that wandering too far afield could easily get you killed. I played for about 6 months semi-regularly before taking a break for a couple months and finally coming back to finish the game. I'd say it took me about 8-9 months total to beat. Reaching the Dragonlord's castle and defeating him felt positively epic. One of the more memorable achievements of my early gaming years. It may seem primitive now but looking back on it, there were quite a few little design choices that were honestly incredibly smart for how it shapes the player experience.

I always looked on with anticipation to play the NES sequels but I never did get around to it. Maybe someday.

[Brickman | 4,073]

Famicom Remix: Best Choice for the 3DS is done.

This game was the perfect pickup and play when you have a spare 15mins.

The goal is to do small challenges in Nintendo Famicom games. They also have remix stages which were the best part because they remix the Famicom games with crazy things added in or they swap things around like playing as Peach in SMB3.

My only real complaint is that I wish they would have had non Nintendo IP. I guess this probably would have been a legal nightmare so they just took the easy route and stuck with Nintendo only games.

8/10

[Lago | 233]

On a bright note, I have been playing games, BUT they aren't ones I had selected for the backlog challenge.  I think next year I am going to make my list a little broader.

[fox | 1,694]

Haven't updated in a bit but have been putting in the work.  Beat Zelda TotK and Final Fantasy 16.  Two epics no doubt.

 

Spoiler

 

[Reed Rothchild | 9,637]

Did some non-backlog stuff, as between my broken 4K tv, and the horror movies I've been trying to watch for October, I haven't been able to start the remaining narrative-heavy games 

Into the Breach - great game, and the latter squad I randomly chose to unlock ended up being pretty OP, letting me roll through the game.

Death's Door - it was an okay action RPG, didn't really do much to separate itself from the pack

Crash Bandicoot 4 - almost done.  I started it with the boys but it ended up being too hard for them.  Definitely a 100 hours of content if you want to 100% it.  Not something I'm willing to do nowadays, but it's a hell of bargain if you're into that sort of thing.

I'm gonna start Trails later today, and spend tonight with a visual novel game. .

[Sumez | 3,011]

Do yourself a favor and don't try to play both a VN and a Trails game concurrently  

[Brickman | 4,073]

HOMM2 main campaign complete. I didn't put PC games on my achievement list but I've been picking up some big box PC games recently and have been playing through them. So I've just added a bonus section underneath, because to me every game I haven't played is a backlog game.

HOMM3 probably ranks just outside my top 10 games of all time, depending on the day I may even bump it up to top 10. I couldn't tell you how many hundreds of hours I spent playing that game solo and with friends playing hot seat or LAN. Even to this day I'll play a hot seat game of it with a friend of mine every now and then.

HOMM2 was the first game I played in the series though and was the first big box PC game I actually purchased myself. When I got it I was obsessed with it but mainly played multi player or sat there designing my own maps. I played through a few of the campaign levels but never saw either side through. So when I got it recently I decided to play through the campaign.

The story is basically about two feuding brothers who want to take control of the throne after their dad dies. One brother is evil, the other is good. Pretty standard early 90's PC storyline. The campaign is decent but rather repetitive once you've finished either good or evil.

I payed the evil side first (they have the better teams imo) and noticed that the good side was just slight variations of the evil side except the good side felt absolutely brutal compared to the evil side. There was one map that nearly had me quit the game. From week 1 you have three towns attack you and it doesn't let up. I even watched videos but they were struggling just the same and it didn't help that you wouldn't really know if all hope was lost until you were a good hour to hour and a half into the map. 

There's also some weird balance issues, like the totally OP non stop blind spell that essentially can immobilise a unit which is a pain when raiding a castle. The computer knows of these exploits and uses them all the time so it's like the programmers knew this was a flaw but instead of programming it better they just left it in and let the computer also be aware of it 

Despite all that, it is still a great game that holds up considerably well. The graphics look good and probably would even fit todays retro throwback to that era. The soundtrack has always been solid in HOMM games and this is just as good as later entries.

If I was been realistic, I'd probably say if this was my first taste of HOMM in my life I'd have to give it around a 7.5 but this game hits me for nostalgic reasons, so I'm going to bump it up to 8/10 despite quite a few flaws, which doesn't take away from the overall fun experience of the game. Especially if you could find someone to play multi player with still.

[Sumez | 3,011]

Tiny Toon Adventures 2 - Beaten 15/10

The first Tiny Toon game on NES is definitely among my favourites on that system, and it's honestly weird it doesn't get more attention. Maybe it's nostalgia talking, since it's one of the few cartridges I actually owned at the time, but it really is one of the more well polished and overall just solid platfomers on the system. It's a little on the easy side, but still manages to implement many original and fun challenges across 14 varied stages, and even has a secret boss encounter.

Even when it came out, I heard the sequel was underwhelming and never gave it a chance. But ultimately curiosity got the better of me, and here I am finally playing it 30 years later. And yeah, underwhelming describes it well.

The game has only five stages, with only the final one being an actual traditional platformer stage.
Three of the stages are autoscrollers where you just stand around waiting for obstacles to appear. They range from painfully slow to pure memorization and never manage to be entertaining.
The last of the initial four stages is a top-down bumper car challenge with the worst bumper car controls you've ever tried. The goal is to bump enemies into a hole in the stage, but even getting to interact with them is tough. If you even graze any of the obstacles in the stage you'll send bumping around uncontrollably, and the AI enemies aren't any better at dealing with that, spending most of their time getting stuck somewhere, making this challenge by far the most annoying in the game.

Those four stages represent the poorly implemented amusement park theme that the game for some reason is based on, with different characters taking the reins for each one. Instead of having lives, you will use a certain number of tickets to try each stage once, some being more expensive than others. You start out with the exact number of tickets required to play each of them once, and if you want more tickets you need to exchange all your points to new tickets.
Usually every failed go at a stage will give you enough points to buy more tickets than you need to try it again, so I've never run out of tickets, but I'm assuming there's a game over state if you do.
The idea is at least interesting, potentially rewarding the player with more points for playing well and not needing new tickets. But since you can just play every stage as much as you like, that doesn't work at all.

Once you beat those four trash stages, you get to play the closest the game gets to a conventional platforming stage, which really should have been the entirety of the game.
For this final, and rather long, stage, you're playing as Buster Bunny who has quite an insane and unwieldly running mechanic, where holding the B button will allow him to reach an incredibly high speed, but it makes precision platforming nearly impossible unless you practice the exact jumps. His attack is an in-air roundhouse kick (similar to the one he has in the SNES game), which will also add distance to his jumps and help regain some control. Overall it's a very strange but also quite interesting control scheme. The first NES game has subsequently become kinda notorious for reportedly having copied SMB3 movements nearly 1:1, so I guess trying to differentiate themselves from that is at least admirable, even if the game probably doesn't benefit from it.

I'd at least have loved to see the game try to do more with Buster's crazy moveset! The actual platforming doesn't even last that long, with a good part of the final stage instead taking you through a boring door teleporter maze (does anyone enjoy these?), and some other weird disjointed ideas.
Honestly, it's kinda wild how many ideas this game has going on, while not really delving into any of them. In terms of production values, it also puts in a lot of effort that's rare to see on the NES. Every character has a whole bunch of lively animation sets, most of which you're likely to never even see, just playing the game through conventionally, and I can't shake the feeling that this game was intended to be something much more substantial, before eventually getting cut down, likely to focus more on the SNES. But at least on the graphics and music side, it absolutely delivers.

Ultimately it's hard to recommend this game to anyone. While it's always cool to think about what could have been, that's not really helping it in any way. Play the first Tiny Toons game, or the one on SNES instead.