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The 2023 Backlog Challenge


Reed Rothchild

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Small update: I beat Section Z a while ago and just today I got through Faria: A World of Mystery and Danger. That makes 9 completions total.

Section Z was an interesting take on a shoot 'em up as it included non-linear adventure elements into it. The whole space ship thing that you're going through is one giant maze, but it gets pretty unintuitive and ultimately becomes a "Nintendo Power game", i.e. a game for which you'd want to have a walkthrough or map handy unless you're willing to try and draw your own map. But this is pretty ridiculous as the layouts get wild and even include secret warps that you can only open by shooting at certain spots in certain levels of the game. As a kid I might have liked this since it would provide a lot of challenge and entertainment in a little cartridge, but as an adult where time is rather limited this ends up being somewhat annoying and I don't quite like how many NES games relied on these very obtuse and overly complicated maps.

Speaking of which, Faria is an ARPG with absolutely massive dungeons where you can totally get lost in. I wrote my thoughts on this game already in the NES completions thread. But the gist of it is that I ended up really liking this one, even if it's not doing anything revolutionary and even though the combat system is a little bit janky compared to The Legend of Zelda or Crystalis. Still, it was an enjoyable playthrough.

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Events Helper · Posted
3 minutes ago, Reed Rothchild said:

I'm gonna say... Ken Griffey Jr. baseball!

The other ken griffey.

In all seriousness, it was forsaken for ya @Sumez.  I will have all the info. you need when I do the rankings write up, but I am not gonna put effort in before I need to, im lazy 😉

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9 hours ago, Jeevan said:

I will have all the info. you need when I do the rankings write up, but I am not gonna put effort in before I need to, im lazy 😉

"Can't be bothered typing the name of the game I beat for the backlog challenge, you dogs figure it out from this vague screenshot. If I get the time, maybe my rankings list is gonna have game titles" 🤣 Gotta love you, Jeeves 😄 

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beat my first Virtual Boy game today!
Wario Land plays very similarly to Wario Land for the Game Boy, but is its own wholly different game. same style of platforming, focus on coin collecting, and a similar level of difficulty (that is to say, fairly minimal). this being the Virtual Boy, however, adds 3d effects- which largely just means that you play on two planes: the foregrand and the background. this was later used on one of the newer Donkey Kong Country games.
anyway, fun game. i'm liking this series so far. for those keeping track at home, i collected all 10 treasures, about 13,000 coins, and it took around 4 1/2 hours.

20230313_171025.jpg

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Random Npc dialogue in most jrpgs:
"This is Portude, the port town!"

Random Npc dialogue in Trails in the Sky Second Chapter:
"Oh hi Estelle, so good to see you again!"
"Hey Francis I remember you from the last game even though you weren't important enough to have a portrait! How are you and the kids?"
"Oh everything's fine thanks for asking, how about you? Why isn't Jushua with you?"
"He's... away doing other things. I'm just here on bracer business running various tasks"
"Sounds good, I'll let you know if I need help with anything. So how about that earthquake huh. I personally wasn't that shaken."

(continues for six more dialogue boxes...)
"Anyway see you around, take care"

Edited by Sumez
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On 3/16/2023 at 4:07 AM, Sumez said:

Random Npc dialogue in most jrpgs:
"This is Portude, the port town!"

Random Npc dialogue in Trails in the Sky Second Chapter:
"Oh hi Estelle, so good to see you again!"
"Hey Francis I remember you from the last game even though you weren't important enough to have a portrait! How are you and the kids?"
"Oh everything's fine thanks for asking, how about you? Why isn't Jushua with you?"
"He's... away doing other things. I'm just here on bracer business running various tasks"
"Sounds good, I'll let you know if I need help with anything. So how about that earthquake huh. I personally wasn't that shaken."

(continues for six more dialogue boxes...)
"Anyway see you around, take care"

I can't help myself. This reminds me of another bit.

Random dialogue in most MMORPGS:
"Hail, [A Festering Hag]!"

"I am the living death! I cannot be slain by the likes of you!" (Defeated 30 seconds later and for the 17th time in past 24 hours)

Edited by Webhead123
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Editorials Team · Posted
59 minutes ago, ConfusedCollector said:

I played that when it came out and it blew my mind at the time. So good. Does it hold up?

Umm.  I guess it depends on what you're looking for in a game.  I bought it near release based on the strong reviews and only played the first hour or two, when it's a police procedural.

...so I had no idea just how far things get batshit crazy or how it goes off the rails in such a major way.  Apparently the game has gathered some infamy for that, which I was unaware of going into it.

And the QTEs are a nightmare.

But I enjoyed it.  Definitely a cult classic type of game.  In the neighborhood of a Deadly Premonition.

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Editorials Team · Posted
16 minutes ago, ConfusedCollector said:

Your "ummm" is making me think I need to revisit it before I say it's amazing again lol. It has been at least 15 years since I've played it and that was on original xbox.

It's definitely super entertaining.  But the sudden right turn it makes from crime thriller to 

Spoiler

Matrix horror zombie sex anime ????

  

is pretty jarring.  And the 500,000 times you have to do the Simon Sez QTE? Blah.

3bztjb.gif

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Administrator · Posted

Beat Shadows of the Empire on N64 tonight. Spent about a week on it, a level or two each night. It's actually not too bad if you go first person. I remember being super frustrated at the game as a kid and while there were definitely rough patches, I made it through mostly unscathed. 

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3 hours ago, Gloves said:

Beat Shadows of the Empire on N64 tonight. Spent about a week on it, a level or two each night. It's actually not too bad if you go first person. I remember being super frustrated at the game as a kid and while there were definitely rough patches, I made it through mostly unscathed. 

Yeah playing that game in first person is definitely the way to go. Third person just feels impossible to me.

I still have yet to finish it but I definitely want to beat it one day.

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Administrator · Posted
1 minute ago, Brickman said:

Yeah playing that game in first person is definitely the way to go. Third person just feels impossible to me.

I still have yet to finish it but I definitely want to beat it one day.

I dunno if the manual mentions it, but if you hold down Z your bullets home in on the enemies, practically melts them. Was way easier once I noticed that.

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Editorials Team · Posted

Super Mario 3D World - We beat the main game, but the bonus world has been a bit too hard for my boys.  And I'd say we're most of the way through Bowser's Fury since the map seems fully unlocked.

Deus Ex - On mission 3, and the missions are not short.  I'd say this has aged very well, with the PS2 port seeming to be very respectable (I'm sure I own this on GoG, but the PS2 version is what I owned back in the day, so it's the one I always felt I had unfinished business with)

Jedi Fallen Order - Slow going, as my boys like to watch me play this, so I only play for 30 minutes on occasion.

Paper Mario - Struggling to keep my attention, honestly.  I'll try to focus once some others are finished.

 

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5 hours ago, Reed Rothchild said:

Deus Ex - On mission 3, and the missions are not short.  I'd say this has aged very well, with the PS2 port seeming to be very respectable (I'm sure I own this on GoG, but the PS2 version is what I owned back in the day, so it's the one I always felt I had unfinished business with)

Jedi Fallen Order - Slow going, as my boys like to watch me play this, so I only play for 30 minutes on occasion.

I need to revisit Deus Ex. This era and genre of PC games was home to some of my favorite games. Deus, Thief 1 & 2, System Shock 2, No One Lives Forever. That shit is my jam. But while I finished all the others multiple times, I never saw Deus Ex all the way through (partly because I lost my saves during a system crash at the time). I've got it in my GOG library, so I really should make an effort to pick it back up. I keep hearing that it has aged well enough.

I'm also curious to know how you're feeling about Fallen Order thus far. I'm not very far into it myself (maybe 3 hours or so) and I haven't come across any *specific* complaints...but there's just something about it that has kept me from feeling as enthusiastic as I should be. I don't know if it's a subconscious comparison to other similar games or if maybe it's a little too generic in its "open-world" elements but yeah...something's off and I haven't been compelled to dive back into it after putting it down for several months.

Edited by Webhead123
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