The 2024 Backlog Challenge

[the_wizard_666 | 1,329]

1 hour ago, Floating Platforms said:

Oh nice! I think I saw that they were aware of it, but didn't look too far.  It's good that they're still working on things, because I will say that the game doesn't always run too well overall - which is odd for a game with a single mechanic and usually no moving objects aside from yourself.

It's always nice when a developer actually cares enough to fix mistakes like that.  But in my experience, those "____ Simulator" games tend to be a bit rushed out the door due to being simple yet popular enough to be profitable.  They're usually fun, but also a bit janky.

[Sumez | 3,013]

Man I'm a little behind on these...

Returnal - Beaten 23/1

Returnal feels like what multiple popular "third person shooters" should have been like for the past couple of decades, but which were robbed from us thanks to some accidental wrong turn down the road - instead giving us boring stop-and-go games with "realistic" AI and hitscan weapons.
It's basically a platformer with a heavy emphasis on shooting, and even moreso, dodging!
Every enemy shot in this game is a clearly visible colored projectile that must be evaded, dashed through, or alternatively shielded from using the environment. What works best usually depends on the type of projectile, your location, and what ever else is going on, forcing you to constantly assess the situation and, well, play it like an action game, instead of spending your time behind a Gears of War-style chest high wall.

The neive knee-jerk reaction is probably to say it borrows from shoot'em up games, but I think the 3D space informs the gameplay moreso than the projectile patterns. If this isn't a third person shooter, it's a 3D platformer with shooting.

Framed as a Groundhog Day style time loop narrative, Returnal puts you in a vaguely "roguelike" environment, where every death means starting over. There are a few permanent carry-overs, but they are limited to a single resource that is rarely used, and unlockable perks which might improve the weapons you find. You also get to keep some story-centric equipment you find, which lets you take shortcuts on repeat attempts - and that is quite necessary should you die, because Returnal is a bit of a lengthy game for a "roguelike", and you probably don't want to go the long way around every single time.

That said, taking those shortcuts would also mean foregoing a bunch of the potential upgrades you'd be able to find throughout a run, leaving you a little weaker. But the game is designed so that those are never strictly necessary. The biggest challenge through the game are probably the boss fights, and after meeting them once or twice, knowing their patterns will generally make them a lot more manageable (just make sure you don't go in with a short range gun!). Alternatively, taking it easy and exploring everything on your way, you'll probably be powerful enough to take them down first try regardless, which happened to me for most of them. But it is fun replaying the game and just rush to a boss and take it down with little to no damage taken, even if you technically never need to fight any boss more than once due to aforementioned shortcuts.

Ultimately, most of my deaths happened shortly after starting a new run, because once you do find a decent weapon and get a good run going, Returnal isn't that hard of a game. But it does demand enough of the player to feel satisfying. I think the roguelike structure maybe isn't the best for the game, which does feel a bit repetitive for it - but it has the one really cool effect that a potential loss feels like a real serious deal if you've made it far, and it makes the game all the more engaging for it!

Also, there's a really cool plot which unsurprisingly for a time loop story centers on some more personal issues for the protagonist. It is quite cliché, but I enjoyed it a lot, and I should probably avoid spoiling anything here. But even shortly into the game's first area you'll be treated to a surprising first-person story sequence which honestly feels like something out of a horror game.

Returnal went on for quite a lot longer than I expected, and really managed to have a lot going on, that made it feel engrossing, and very hard to put down again! Eventually you'll be able to do new things on repeat attempts, so the threat of losing all your progress from a single death doesn't make it as impenetrable as one might think. But I'm a little annoyed at how it sent me on a wild goose chase for its post-credits content, wasting a bunch of hours looking for something that wasn't there yet. The game will tell you that there are new things to find at this point, but apparently those aren't available until you go back and watch another story sequence which is really easy to miss if you didn't die as often as it thinks you should.

[Lago | 234]

6 hours ago, Reed Rothchild said:

The Quarry

 

1. Bloodborne (9.5/10)
2. Assassin's Creed: Black Flag (8/10)
3. The Stanley Parable (7.5/10)
4. The Talos Principle (7.5/10)
5. The Quarry (7/10)
6. Pikmin 1 (6.5/10)

I’ve got this game as well.  Carryover from backlog 2023 if I am not mistaken.  I am not a fan of horror movies though. I’m curious how that’ll affect my thoughts on it.  Fingers crossed it doesn’t have a bunch of jump scares.

[T-Pac | 7,644]

15 hours ago, wongojack said:

Nice, I have never gotten all of the treasures.  Can't make myself do the mapping required.

Me, either. But I think I was only missing 4 or 5 of them on my best run, so I came pretty close haha.

[T-Pac]

[wongojack | 232]

On 2/1/2024 at 9:39 PM, Lago said:

Working my way through the Rare Replay library.

Feel I have sufficiently played Lunar Jetman enough to mark it off the list and I do not like it at all.  
 

Loaded up Atic Atac and with trusty map in hand managed to grab all pieces of the key and escape the castle.

For a game made in 1983 this game was more forgiving than I expected.  You get a decent health bar, 3 lives, start in the room you die in, and a surprising amount of food to restore your health.  Inventory is limited to 3 items though, and you’ll need all those slots to escape.  If I didn’t have a guide I would have become hopelessly lost in this game.  I did like it though.  I found the sound effects for the footsteps amusing and liked the effect when you fall through a hole in the floor.  Also for a game made in ‘83 the rooms have a surprising amount of detail.

@the_wizard_666 The description of the game gives genres to the game.  For Jetpac it was “arcade, shooting” First time I saw that I translated it to an arcade machine in my mind for some reason.

I've dabbled in Spectrum emulation, but RARE Replay certainly made these more accessible.  Knight Lore might be the very best ZX Spectrum game ever made, and it is in RR.  It will take you a little more time to get into it though.  Also, use the save state feature for the harder jumps.  Knight Lore did get a Famicom release and a successor game - Solstice made it to the NES.

[Floating Platforms | 750]

10 hours ago, the_wizard_666 said:

those "____ Simulator" games tend to be a bit rushed out the door due to being simple yet popular enough to be profitable.  They're usually fun, but also a bit janky.

I agree. I don't know if I would have fully bothered if it wasn't included in the PS+ monthly games. I found House Flipper to be more polished and more engaging.  But this still worked well as a mind-off relaxing game to end my days.

[Lago | 234]

Mega Man 7 is finished!  This is my second favorite Mega Man game out of the series so far.  I’ve played 1-7.  I loved so much about this game, but that last boss fight with Wily.  Wow.

If you have never seen the ending to this I would suggest it.  
 

Spoiler

Mega Man gets absolutely pissed at the end of this game.  Talk about fed up.

 

[Foochie776 | 1,066]

Pikmin 2 is a little bit of a let down… I’m enjoying it but 1/3 were way better. I can’t quite put it into words yet but I’ll do a little review when I’m done. 

[Sumez | 3,013]

Super Cyborg - Beaten 25/1

It is only natural for all run 'n gun games to be compared against Contra, but here's a game that crosses over from just being a genre derivative to a straight up fangame. Most graphics could be copy/pasted into either of the NES Contra games and fit right in, even sharing the same odd perspective on the floors. Powerups fly in in the same manner, and many enemy behaviors are even brought in directly from those games. Don't file this as a "rip-off" however.
If you enjoy the NES versions of the first two Contra games, this really is a game worth trying out!

Super Cyborg has been quite a celebrated game for a full decade now, but didn't make it to consoles until 2022. Still no physical version, but the price on the Switch eShop is an absolute steal, completely betraying how much passion clearly was put into the game!

It's quite a tough game, but don't let the scare you away. Like Contra it is also quite approachable, and learning the stages makes improvements quite rapid. It has a save system, and as you're learning the game, each stage works as its own perfectly paced little mini-challenge. I could see someone not working towards a one credit clear still having a lot of fun just replaying each stage until they are able to beat it - which should still take a while on a first playthrough.

I prematurely gave up on a 1CC myself because I didn't have the patience for the last bits of it. The game starts extraordinarily well, but the final few stages drag on and have too many parts where you're just stopping and waiting for stuff to die or let you move on safely, with an increasing number of just complete dead air moments as well. Super Cyborg could be truly great if it was trimmed down to a shorter, leaner experience with just the best parts, but as a whole I think it falls behind some of the best run/guns from the past few years, such as Tanuki Justice or even Blazing Chrome!

 

[Brickman | 4,073]

Disney's Kim Possible for the GBA done. This is known as Disney's Kim Possible 2: Drakken's Demise in the US but Japan only received one of the Kim Possible games.

This game doesn't fit into my remaining backlog challenge but I do have a separate personal goal of reaching 50 GBA games played by the end of the year.

This game was surprisingly a very well made game and fun. The game is a action platformer and the stages are well designed and offer a decent challenge. I've never watched the show but I ended up watching an episode after finishing the game and the developers nailed the feel and look of the show. The graphics are nice and bright and have a very SNES feel to them. 

The soundtrack is catchy and once again they kept it close to the feel of the show. 

You'll get a new power each Episode, these powers aren't anything special but you start with a grappling hook which is similar to Bionic Commando. The grappling hook has been well implemented and makes traversing through the levels a lot more interesting and useful for finding hidden items.

The combat in this game is tight and Kim performs all sort of acrobatic moves. The developers took their time to get the combat feeling just right. The only problem is that the enemies are pretty much useless. They delay their attack on you, so by the time they even think of attacking, you've already killed them.

Some of the levels do drag on a little as well and without that challenge of enemies it gets a bit boring.

The boss battles are ok but nothing too challenging and because you spawn exactly where you are if you die you can just lazily brute force your way through.

Overall, this is a game worth playing to fill some time (shouldn't take you more than 2 hours). With a few more tweaks and added levels this could have easily gone from a good game worth playing to an excellent game not to be missed.

7.5/10 

[Webhead123 | 691]

On 2/6/2024 at 1:22 AM, Sumez said:

Super Cyborg - Beaten 25/1

Nice! I actually just installed this the other day and going to finally try to knock it off my list. By all accounts, I think I'll quite enjoy it.

[the_wizard_666 | 1,329]

Well, my NES streak has officially died.  38 games in 37 days.  I tried to find something that grabbed me, but I think I may be burned out of NES at this point.  The final game happened to be another from last year's Backlog Challenge list though, so that's a plus. 

Spoiler

US 272. Wayne Gretzky Hockey (January 1, 2024)
US 273. Hollywood Squares (January 2, 2024)
US 274. California Games (January 3, 2024)
US 275. The Magic of Scheherazade (January 4, 2024)
US 276. Talking Super Jeopardy (January 5, 2024)
US 277. Magic Darts (January 5, 2024)
US 278. Magic Johnson's Fast Break (January 6, 2024)
US 279. The Three Stooges (Best Ending, January 7, 2024)
US 280. Moon Ranger (January 8, 2024)
US 281. Caveman Games (January 9, 2024)
US 282. The Karate Kid (January 10, 2024)
US 283. Blades of Steel (January 11, 2024)
US 284. Puzzle (January 12, 2024)
US 285. Winter Games (January 13, 2024)
US 286. Mappyland (January 14, 2024)
US 287. Joe & Mac (January 15, 2024)
US 288. Digger T. Rock (No-Death Run With Warps, January 16, 2024)
US 289. WWF Wrestlemania Steel Cage Challenge (Both belts, January 17, 2024)
US 290. Wayne's World (January 18, 2024)
US 291. Snoopy's Silly Sports Spectacular (Bronze Medal, January 19, 2024)
US 292. Attack of the Killer Tomatoes (January 20, 2024)
US 293. Astyanax (January 21, 2024)
US 294. Kid Klown in Night Mayor World (First Quest, January 22, 2024)
US 295. Skate or Die (January 23, 2024)
US 296. The Rocketeer (January 24, 2024)
US 297. Totally Rad (January 25, 2024)
US 298. Tennis (Singles, Difficulty 1, January 26,2024)
US 299. Volleyball (January 27, 2024)
US 300. Desert Commander (All scenarios beaten, January 28, 2024)
US 301. Roundball: 2 on 2 Challenge (January 29, 2024)
US 302. Ski or Die (January 30, 2024)
US 303. Godzilla 2 (All scenarios beaten, January 31, 2024)
US 304. Arch Rivals (February 1, 2024)
US 305. Donkey Kong Jr. Math (February 2, 2024)
US 306. The Little Mermaid (February 3, 2024)
US 307. Gauntlet II (February 4, 2024)
US 308. Track & Field (February 5, 2024)
US 309. Adventures of Gilligan's Island, The (February 6, 2024)

While some of the titles I did are definitely filler, there were a ton of great games in the mix too.

Notable moments:
January 7: The Three Stooges - This was the game that broke the 1 week barrier.  Previous personal best streak was 6 days.
January 21: Astyanax - This was my 22nd completion of the month, beating my prior best of 21, set in January of 2022.
January 28: Desert Commander - This marked my 300th unique US completion.  Also my third completion for this year's Backlog Challenge, matching last year's output.
January 31: Godzilla 2 - Not only did this achieve one completion per calendar days in January, but it also completed the final strategy game I had left to beat in the NES library.  So two notables in one day.
February 6: The Adventures of Gilligan's Island - The final game beaten in the streak happened to also be the 6th game beaten from the 2023 Backlog Challenge, meaning I doubled last year's output during this run.

Regrets:
Only one - I lost the drive on the 7th, which would have marked my 350th overall completion had I beaten something.  I had mulled over a few games, even fired a few up to try out, but nothing piqued my interest.  Ultimately, I think I just checked out.  Rather than force myself, it may be best to switch to something else for the time being...though I didn't feel like firing up Oblivion either, and none of my other shelves are grabbing me right now, so maybe I'll just take a couple days off from gaming until get the urge again.

Edited February 8 by the_wizard_666

[Sumez | 3,013]

Bomb Rush Cyberfunk - Beaten 3/2

If you know Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, you know what it is. Basically the next Jet Set Radio that Sega didn't want to make (until they surprisingly decided that they would).

Bomb Rush takes the inspiration quite close to heart, aiming very hard at recreating not just the feel and gameplay of Sega's series, but also the look, music, style and tone.
And for a series such as Jet Set Radio, that is indeed a tone that drills deep into the whole identity of the game. JSR and BRC alike, put you in the shoes (or roller blades) of a gang of hoodlums that just want to bust sweet moves, grind across rails, and cover the city in graffiti. Both of them take place not just in an urban landscape ripe for putting their mark on, but in a colorful world which seemes entirely designed around the unique neo futurist lifestyle of these gangs, with every salaryman populating the street functioning merely as a background asset. This isn't GTA with skates and graffiti, this is a Video Game with capital letters, and it's awesome.

It takes a while to get to this point though. Jet Set Radio blasts you in the face with the loud pirate radio DJ Professor K the moment it starts, and dumps you on the street with sweet Hideki Naganuma tunes blasting. Meanwhile, Bomb Rush Cyberfunk starts with an eerily quiet and awkwardly directed introduction scene inside a police station.
I can understand not having any voiced characters, but there's a really odd lack of the colors and energy that fuels both of the JSR games. The tutorial ends with a really terrible boss fight that spends most of the time staying out of reach from both your character and camera, making it feel extremely uncomfortable.
Fortunately the game eventually recovers from this embarassing first impression, and actually manages to perfectly nail the feel once it really gets running, and keeps doing so with excellence. The only aspect I think really lacks behind is the soundtrack, which just doesn't bring the same hype-fueled energy. The three Naganuma tracks are the best of the bunch, but even they aren't quite up to the standard set by his excellent Jet Set Radio work.

The gameplay itself is best described as a mixture of skateboarding and 3D platforming. Though you will be doing tricks, running along billboards and grinding on the tracks found everywhere throughout the game's huge areas, doing it well is less skill-intensive than it would be in a dedicated sports game, and mostly just your primary method of traversal.

Outside of looking and playing just like JSR, Bomb Rush brings a few gameplay additions of its own.
The most prominent is the ability to do a quick air boost, which is useful for both doing more advanced combos, but also better managing your air positioning in general, even allowing you to change direction while grinding. The game also adds a "manual" stance activated by holding a shoulder button, which both changes how your jump works, focusing on forward momentum rather than vertical distance, and lets you roll alongside the ground and perform tricks while maintaining your combo for as long as you have momentum. This makes keeping a combo going even when you can't perfectly nail the jump from one rail to the next a little too easy, but at the same time it also allows for a lot more fun freestyling in how you get around, rather than just being glued to the tracks already in place.
Ultimately both additions feel like something that should have always been in JSR - which is exactly what you want from something like this.

The controls can be quite overwhelming at first, and especially the added ability to toggle being on foot is a little much, given you very rarely have any real need to do so outside of activating the slide which for no good reason is tied to that mode.
But I also think that once you do manage to fully get a hold of it (and find out how to disable the FPS cap in the options), BRC just feels like an absolute joy to control. You very rarely need to boost at the right moments and keep a combo going from one end of an area to the other, but doing so is generally just faster and way more fun than rolling slowly along the ground like a chump! This is a game that relies heavily on everything being fun to do, no matter how mundane the task is.

And the game's structure supports this well. This is more Jet Set Radio Future than the more arcade-like first game. Rather than a set of strictly time limited challenges that grade your performance, the primary gameplay is based on just exploring each area, finding hidden items and figuring out how to traverse obscure locations and reaching graffiti spots which otherwise appear to be way out of reach. It is quite a casual game, but one that keeps you invested.
The areas are a mix of direct inspiration from the JSR games, and some wholly unique and creative locations, all feeling quite different in how they are laid out, and all incredibly well designed - often requiring you to be quite observant in order to figure out how to get from point A to point B. This is in fact probably the greatest strength of the game.

You could probably criticize it for a lot of things, but if you choose to judge a game purely on how hard it is to let go of playing it, Bomb Rush Cyberfunk scores really high. Honestly probably higher than any of the Jet Set Radio games before it.
After reaching the end of the story, I'd revisit every area to make sure I had every single graffiti spot covered, and even then I'd just grind around some more because the game was that fun to play. Great job, Team Reptile. Jet Set Radio 3 has a lot to live up to.

[Brickman | 4,073]

DKC2 for the GBA done. 

Not too much to say about this. They stayed pretty true to the SNES version with a few little changes here and there. It’s still the best DKC whether it’s on the SNES or GBA.

The SNES version will alway be a 10 but I probably have to knock half a point off for the GBA version due to the image and sound quality not been quite as good. 

[the_wizard_666 | 1,329]

So I happened to be going through my Backloggery page, and apparently I already had Risk (PS1) marked as beaten.  As such, it shouldn't have qualified as a backlog game in the first place.  I felt the only viable options would be to either play it or replace it, and feeling a replay would be contrary to the point of the thread, I have instead decided to replace it.  I have replaced it with another PS1 board game, Shanghai: True Valor.  I felt this would be as similar in both genre and difficulty as possible, thus not messing up the overall balance.  I hate that it took me this long to notice my error, but since I haven't fired up the PS1 anyway, it has not been a factor at all in my choices.  I just felt in the interest of transparency that I should mention it to the group.

[Reed Rothchild | 9,641]

@the_wizard_666 If you want low hanging fruit from your list, Separation Anxiety is the kind of thing that can be cleared in one try 

[the_wizard_666 | 1,329]

51 minutes ago, Reed Rothchild said:

@the_wizard_666 If you want low hanging fruit from your list, Separation Anxiety is the kind of thing that can be cleared in one try 

I don't doubt it, but I might save it for a 2 player day.  I know 100% that it doesn't hold a candle to Maximum Carnage, but I still remember liking it last time I played it.

[Lago | 234]

Abandoning my first game of the year.  I managed to snag a copy of Rune Factory 3 Special for the Switch at Wal-Mart for $10.  I was excited about the deal.  I had never heard of the game but for $10 why not.  I might come back to this game again in the future, but I am not feeling this game at all right now.  Unless I am missing something it is a dating/farming simulator.  I am going to move onto something else for now.

[Sumez | 3,013]

5 hours ago, Lago said:

Unless I am missing something it is a dating/farming simulator.

It has monster fighting and dungeons as well. But just like the dating and the farming, it's not implemented very well.

[the_wizard_666 | 1,329]

Well, I just finished the main quest of Oblivion.  Honestly, I can still see myself playing the game in the future, but the main quest was pretty damn weak IMO.  I didn't really enjoy that portion of the game for whatever reason, but the side quests more than made up for it.  But yeah, now that that's done, all that's left is the Shivering Isles expansion, which I will start tomorrow.

[T-Pac | 7,644]

On 2/6/2024 at 1:56 PM, Brickman said:

Disney's Kim Possible for the GBA done. This is known as Disney's Kim Possible 2: Drakken's Demise in the US but Japan only received one of the Kim Possible games.

This game doesn't fit into my remaining backlog challenge but I do have a separate personal goal of reaching 50 GBA games played by the end of the year.

This game was surprisingly a very well made game and fun. The game is a action platformer and the stages are well designed and offer a decent challenge. I've never watched the show but I ended up watching an episode after finishing the game and the developers nailed the feel and look of the show. The graphics are nice and bright and have a very SNES feel to them. 

The soundtrack is catchy and once again they kept it close to the feel of the show. 

You'll get a new power each Episode, these powers aren't anything special but you start with a grappling hook which is similar to Bionic Commando. The grappling hook has been well implemented and makes traversing through the levels a lot more interesting and useful for finding hidden items.

The combat in this game is tight and Kim performs all sort of acrobatic moves. The developers took their time to get the combat feeling just right. The only problem is that the enemies are pretty much useless. They delay their attack on you, so by the time they even think of attacking, you've already killed them.

Some of the levels do drag on a little as well and without that challenge of enemies it gets a bit boring.

The boss battles are ok but nothing too challenging and because you spawn exactly where you are if you die you can just lazily brute force your way through.

Overall, this is a game worth playing to fill some time (shouldn't take you more than 2 hours). With a few more tweaks and added levels this could have easily gone from a good game worth playing to an excellent game not to be missed.

7.5/10 

Neat - I probably would've loved that game as a kid, since the GBA was my first game system, and I grew up watching Kim Possible.

[T-Pac]

[Brickman | 4,073]

3 hours ago, T-Pac said:

Neat - I probably would've loved that game as a kid, since the GBA was my first game system, and I grew up watching Kim Possible.

[T-Pac]

I think you will enjoy it, they did a good job of capturing the feel of the show. You should give it a go.

[Gloves | 11,891]

I've added emoticons next to every game I've played so far to give an idea of how I feel/felt about it.  

[Sumez | 3,013]

That's very modern of you

[Gloves | 11,891]

31 minutes ago, Sumez said:

That's very modern of you

I'm a really modern guy. Brimming with youthly energy!