The 2024 Backlog Challenge

[Brickman | 4,073]

50 minutes ago, Reed Rothchild said:

Yep, you have a good one to look forward.  StarCraft and Warcraft III (and the two expansions) are by far the best Blizzard games imo, not that I've played any of StarCraft II.

I think there is only 1 expansion for Warcraft 3. StarCraft 2 has two expansions, I’ll probably start StarCraft 2 in 2026 (that feels weird to say but I have to plan these long games in advance).

3 minutes ago, DefaultGen said:

Maybe not that much better than Diablo II, but I feel like ARPGs have advanced past D2 and because RTSs are totally dead, SC2 might just be the best one ever.

I have heard that StarCraft 2 is pretty much peak RTS. I wish the genre would make a comeback but it seems to be a dead one unfortunately.

[Foochie776 | 1,066]

I finished Mario Advance 2. 
 

I ended up doing 92/96 exits. Super Mario World is always a good time but it’s lower on the Mario rankings for me personally. It was fun to experience in a new way despite not being terribly different from the original version. 
 

I started up Kirby’s Dreamland 3 and it’s been okay. The graphics and music are super good but the game just feels a little dry? Maybe I don’t like Kirby games that much

 

Ill power through and wrap this up in the next week I’d imagine. 

[Ankos | 481]

9 minutes ago, Foochie776 said:

I finished Mario Advance 2. 
 

I ended up doing 92/96 exits. Super Mario World is always a good time but it’s lower on the Mario rankings for me personally. It was fun to experience in a new way despite not being terribly different from the original version. 
 

I started up Kirby’s Dreamland 3 and it’s been okay. The graphics and music are super good but the game just feels a little dry? Maybe I don’t like Kirby games that much

 

Ill power through and wrap this up in the next week I’d imagine. 

As someone who grew up playing Kirby games and is blinded by nostalgia for them, I wasn't huge on Dreamland 3 either

[Estil | 1,268]

22 minutes ago, Foochie776 said:

I finished Mario Advance 2. 

Woo hoo!  Just what you needed!  Bravo!  Luckie!

I know a lot of people didn't like Mario's new sound effects but I thought they were cute

[Reed Rothchild | 9,641]

1 hour ago, Brickman said:

I think there is only 1 expansion for Warcraft 3. StarCraft 2 has two expansions, I’ll probably start StarCraft 2 in 2026 (that feels weird to say but I have to plan these long games in advance).

I meant Brood War and Frozen Throne

[Foochie776 | 1,066]

32 minutes ago, Ankos said:

As someone who grew up playing Kirby games and is blinded by nostalgia for them, I wasn't huge on Dreamland 3 either

That’s reassuring to hear, I’m a huge fan of Kirby’s Adventure but man these other titles of the era fall flat

[Sumez | 3,014]

Help voting for my next backlog game. 

https://strawpoll.com/Q0ZpRAd2GnM

Previous poll had 18 games in them, and I've played the two winners now. These are the eight games that had the next most votes.

[Reed Rothchild | 9,641]

3 hours ago, Sumez said:

Help voting for my next backlog game. 

https://strawpoll.com/Q0ZpRAd2GnM

Previous poll had 18 games in them, and I've played the two winners now. These are the eight games that had the next most votes.

Voted Night in the Woods, so you can help let me know how soon I should play that myself 

 

I just beat Tunic... or at least I got what the manual very clearly calls

Spoiler

A - Take Your Rightful Place.

I have no idea how to go about getting the second ending.  Lots of mysteries.  I'm going to wander some more for awhile and see if things get more clear.  I have used absolutely zero outside help, and plan on keeping it that way for the entire playthrough.  We'll see how long that takes.

[T-Pac | 7,646]

On 2/23/2024 at 7:38 PM, Foochie776 said:

I started up Kirby’s Dreamland 3 and it’s been okay. The graphics and music are super good but the game just feels a little dry? Maybe I don’t like Kirby games that much

On 2/23/2024 at 7:51 PM, Ankos said:

As someone who grew up playing Kirby games and is blinded by nostalgia for them, I wasn't huge on Dreamland 3 either

I concur. Kirby's Dramland 3 is probably the most gorgeous classic Kirby game by a wide margin, but I don't remember being particularly taken with the gameplay when I tried it out several years ago. (Granted - I didn't go for the "good" ending by collecting the special items or whatever, so I know there's a deeper experience to be had if you're so inclined...)

[T-Pac]

[T-Pac | 7,646]

10/40 - StarFox [Super Nintendo Entertainment System - 1993]

Finished: 2024/02/24

Caveats: Finished all 3 courses using save-states.

[T-Pac]

[T-Pac | 7,646]

With 10 clears, this is officially the 25% mark for my 2024 backlog! Woohoo!

I'd say I'm ahead-of-schedule, but I've got some of the more time-consuming games saved for the end of the year, so I'm gonna try to keep my foot on the gas in the meantime.

[T-Pac]

[Foochie776 | 1,066]

3 hours ago, T-Pac said:

I concur. Kirby's Dramland 3 is probably the most gorgeous classic Kirby game by a wide margin, but I don't remember being particularly taken with the gameplay when I tried it out several years ago. (Granted - I didn't go for the "good" ending by collecting the special items or whatever, so I know there's a deeper experience to be had if you're so inclined...)

[T-Pac]

I did look into it but I’ve got to say the game isn’t grabbing me enough to want to, if that makes sense? I’ll finish the game as I’m half way through but it’s lack luster.

[Foochie776 | 1,066]

I’m now officially half way through Dreamland 3 and it’s starting to grow on me. Building the ROB on level 3 was super cool and these levels are becoming more involved and interesting so maybe my grim outlook was premature. 

[Sumez | 3,014]

13 hours ago, Reed Rothchild said:

I have no idea how to go about getting the second ending.

Not sure what the ending you got was, but after getting one ending, I got the other one by just 

Spoiler

attacking the final boss to initiate an actual boss fight

If you already has that, the other ending is "just" going around getting all the secrets. There's a bunch of extra-obscure secrets that aren't necessary for the ending, but essentially getting the "best" ending is enterily centered around

Spoiler

getting all the manual pages, which the game will be sure to tell you when you did

So if you already did that, the remaining secrets aren't ending-related.

Edited February 26 by Sumez

[Foochie776 | 1,066]

Kirby’s Dreamland 3 is done. I didn’t go for the good ending but if I were to play again I absolutely would. This game felt very run of the mill for Kirby. Good controls, great graphics/aesthetic and a non interesting story. All in all, glad to have played it and I did enjoy it. Especially the references to other Nintendo properties sprinkled in. One thing to note is, this has to be one of the best looking SNES titles I’ve seen. 

[Sumez | 3,014]

Sea of Stars - Beaten 25/2

Sea of Stars is a "Canadian JRPG" that clearly models itself primarily after Chrono Trigger, though while that game had me from the start, Sea of Stars took a while to really get going. The setting is appealing enough that you want to keep playing just to see where it goes next, but it's not until roughly the second half of the game, that I started being increasingly blown away by just how much charm and detail the developers were able to squeeze into what you probably thought was just a cute little indie pixelart JRPG love-letter.
The amount of work that must have gone into just animating every single massive screen-filling boss fight is completely unfathomable! Let alone all the colorful NPCs, and events and character portraits that you only ever just see once.

 

But I'm getting ahead of myself. As much as I ended up loving Sea of Stars, it's far from a perfect game.
The first thing that really stands out is how awkward the dialogue often comes off, with a level of writing that at times just feels amateurish or childish even. I was a bit worried coming from the dev's previous game, The Messenger, since the dialogue in that game was extremely tone-deaf and plagued by really poor attempts at humor. 
But Sea of Stars at least manages to mostly avoid that, in fact it's actually genuinely funny at times. But despite my criticism, the dialogue ultimately still works well, so I have to commend them for that - this is a game that managed to make me cry, and to a much bigger degree than anything I remember playing in years, and that's gotta count for something. If you've played the game you probably know where

The story is a little odd, but it's one where the events, vistas and strange internal mythology works by being fun and colorful, moreso than being internally consistent (which is just one of many thing this game shares with Chrono Trigger).
You're playing as a pair of fated "Solstice Warriors" setting out to fulfill their purpose as protectors of the world, as they are joined by their friend, Garl, who's just a regular guy that wants to come along.
While at first, Garl seems like a really odd third wheel in an RPG party of legendary warriors, but it doesn't take long before you'd probably start arguing that this guy is the actual main character. Garl emits an infectious overflow of pure positivity like I've rarely seen in any fictional character - which I think manages to reach beyond just the confines of the story, and affect the whole experience of playing Sea of Stars.

It's not a game that feels too driven and dragged down by its story however. You still get to spend most of your time exploring dungeons and fighting stuff. And actually, I think one of the biggest appeals is how nice traversal feels. Most of the dungeons are really linear, but it never feels like you're just walking down a corridor, due to the element of elevation that allows you to climb up or jump down from ledges as you make your way around.
It's not quite as dynamic as something like Mario RPG, but it does just enough to give every area its own distinct identity, sprinkled by some (very) light zelda-like puzzle solving, typically required to progress. Honestly, I think that design approach should be the baseline in games of this sort, rather than the exception, because it always works well.

The combat has a lot of fun ideas, which at least on the surface are kind of fun, and at least allows for some cool gimmicks in the boss fights. At the same time, however, the system is so strict that you have barely and freedom to make real tactical decisions, and are instead governed by a cycle of using or regaining magic points, as well as the enemies requiring specific attacks to counter, pretty much locking you into your decisions for you.

This is one of the core aspects of the combat, when an enemy is preparing special attacks it goes into a defensive stance which can be broken by using attacks with specific properties on them. These are picked somewhat at random, so often it's simply not even possible to meet those requirements even if you focus completely on just that enemy. How often it happens also seems to be random, and the same goes for the number of wind-up turns. So based entirely on chance, you might drop right into a battle against three enemies which all start preparing extra dangerous special attacks for the next turn, and no way to stop even one of them.
Funny enough, this isn't really an issue on bosses, since those have been specifically balanced around giving you a chance to deal with their moves, and never  overwhelm the player, meaning the game's difficulty spikes exclusively comes from regular small encounters.

I generally do prefer turn based systems to rely on some sort of borderline-unfair randomness in order to keep the player on their toes and think their way out of shitty situations - but in this case, it's not like you can do much to handle it anyway. The same fight can be over in seconds, or just randomly deal you a massively crappy hand, but the way you deal with it is exactly the same, the only difference is how much of a punishment you end up taking. There's a nice feel to the combat, as there is to most of the game, and it does seem like it could maybe have been more interesting if you had more ways to switch up your approach to a situation - but as it is, it's just not very good.

But Sea of Stars is like a good album where all the cool and surprising songs are at the back half, leaving you with a great taste in your mouth, and fond memories overall. For all the things it does that are sub-par, it's also just so charming and well produced that it mostly drowns out any potential issues. It's the kind of story-driven RPG that I've longed for, which feels both fresh and traditional in a sea of cliche-ridden derivatives!

Edited February 28 by Sumez

[Splain | 2,626]

On 2/25/2024 at 2:43 PM, T-Pac said:

10/40 - StarFox [Super Nintendo Entertainment System - 1993]

Finished: 2024/02/24

Caveats: Finished all 3 courses using save-states.

[T-Pac]

My buddies and I used to "quote" the Starfox characters at random times while playing other games. "dip biddip dip biddip!" "mm-mm-dotta!"

[Splain | 2,626]

I beat Beavis and Butthead on Game Boy. It's maybe a four out of ten? Obviously the appeal for this game is the general vibe. Hitboxes are gummy, there's a ton of spots where you absolutely cannot avoid taking damage, and it's not always crystal clear where you're supposed to go next, but after reading all the B&B dialog for the whole game, I started thinking stuff like "I'll just, like, go over there again or whatever. Heh. Heh-heh." So it's not a top-ten game or anything, but it was more enjoyable than a handful of other games I could name. It had an inventory system that gave it some needed complexity. There's an arcade game in one of the in-game locations with an actual mini-game you can play, that would have blown my mind as a kid.

I'm "almost" done with Skyward Sword, but I've thought that for a long time now. Who knows how much longer the game is. I'm trying not to be annoyed that it's not finished yet (like an old man trying to check boxes), and trying to be glad that there's still stuff to do (like a kid playing a game after school). There's lots of good and bad with this game.

[ikk | 560]

Took a while but Baldur's Gate 3 is done. Been playing it coop for months, great game

[Foochie776 | 1,066]

17 hours ago, Splain said:

I beat Beavis and Butthead on Game Boy. It's maybe a four out of ten? Obviously the appeal for this game is the general vibe. Hitboxes are gummy, there's a ton of spots where you absolutely cannot avoid taking damage, and it's not always crystal clear where you're supposed to go next, but after reading all the B&B dialog for the whole game, I started thinking stuff like "I'll just, like, go over there again or whatever. Heh. Heh-heh." So it's not a top-ten game or anything, but it was more enjoyable than a handful of other games I could name. It had an inventory system that gave it some needed complexity. There's an arcade game in one of the in-game locations with an actual mini-game you can play, that would have blown my mind as a kid.

I'm "almost" done with Skyward Sword, but I've thought that for a long time now. Who knows how much longer the game is. I'm trying not to be annoyed that it's not finished yet (like an old man trying to check boxes), and trying to be glad that there's still stuff to do (like a kid playing a game after school). There's lots of good and bad with this game.

I like Skyward Sword a lot and I will give it to you that the end kind of drags some. Most of it’s fun but there’s a couple things I’ve grown to loathe. 

[T-Pac | 7,646]

On 2/29/2024 at 3:23 AM, Splain said:

My buddies and I used to "quote" the Starfox characters at random times while playing other games. "dip biddip dip biddip!" "mm-mm-dotta!"

Haha that's hilarious! It's an infinitely quotable game for sure, although I was bummed that I never heard the famous "Do a Barrel Roll!" in my playthrough. I assume that must be in StarFox 64 or something...

[T-Pac]

[Reed Rothchild | 9,641]

34 minutes ago, T-Pac said:

Haha that's hilarious! It's an infinitely quotable game for sure, although I was bummed that I never heard the famous "Do a Barrel Roll!" in my playthrough. I assume that must be in StarFox 64 or something...

[T-Pac]

Correct

Star Fox 64 is like the fully realized vision of the original.  Heavily recommend you pick it up if you have a 3DS.

[Gloves | 11,892]

I've been wanting to try out Powerslave for a while, decided to give it a go today, and it's really quite fun. I'm usually into the offshoot weirdo clone games since that's what I grew up with and this one managed to somehow sneak by little me despite the badass cover art. Really enjoying it though, putting it on the list of games to actually pick up on PS1 when I get back into a place where I can be buying $100 games just to say I have them so I can go "hey check out this cool game" to my non-existent friends when they don't come over.

[greenthunder | 115]

Still going through Rogue Galaxy. I'm reaching what appears to be the second to last, if not last, chapter so I'll see how things go from here.

Decided to skip the Pong with a screw you twist bit of Bit. Trip Beat for now and moved onto Bit. Trip Core in the collection. I'm struggling a lot more with this one compared to Beat and Runner because it's not linear like those two are. Linear in the sense of all objectives come from the right of the screen in Beat and Runner, but in Core the screen is split into 4 sections and beats come from the two sides of every section. I had this issue with rhythm games like Elite Beat Agents before, so we'll see if I get through it.

I also decided to start Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. It's been one of those series I've been meaning to get into for a while based on people who have similar tastes to me and what I know of it, so when I learned the 3DS version of 123 has English on the cart (even though it was a Japanese release with no physical English release), I figured I should finally give it a shot. I'm up to case 4 now and I'm definitely enjoying it so far. Only stumbling block so far was an odd piece of evidence I needed to submit during case 3, but other than that, the cases have made sense so far. I like the Phoenix/Maya/Edgeworth/Gumshoe dynamic.

[T-Pac | 7,646]

11/40 - Super Star Soldier [NEC PC Engine - 1990]

Finished: 2024/02/29

Caveats: Finished "Normal Game" using save states.

[T-Pac]