The 2024 Backlog Challenge

[Brickman | 4,000]

First game done for the year, Donkey Kong for the Famicom. This was done more as a joke and easy clear because I haven’t really bothered to ever play Donkey Kong on the NES, only the arcade version. 

It’s fun because it’s Donkey Kong but it’s lame because it only has 3 levels. Play the arcade version instead.

[the_wizard_666 | 1,325]

Making some solid progress on Wizardry V.  Spent a bit of time skipping ahead a bit and grinding for gear, and have now progressed through most of level 4.  Just met the Loon and bought his item and got sent back to the castle, so that's a good enough spot to call it I suppose.  I will say that I've played it a ton over the years, and yet have never got this far along in it before, so from here out I'm in uncharted territory.  I will also say the mail in strategy guide is quite possibly the worst mail in guide I think I've ever seen.  The maps are hard to read and have typos galore, and there isn't much info besides that in there.  No enemy statistics, no item lists, nothing.  Capcom really fucked that part up IMO.

[Jicsan | 591]

I beat the story on Spider-man 2 today, so one game off the list on the first day of the year isn’t too shabby. I’ve got some trophy clean up to do over the next few days but I’m probably moving onto Super Mario Bros Wonder next.  

This game was awesome. If you played the other Insomniac Spider-man games you’ll know what to expect.  

[fox | 1,668]

Started Sea of Stars, but it is a slow start.  Visuals and music are a treat.

@Jicsanthose cult of the flame missions

[Sumez | 2,970]

Ugh, my list isn't finalized yet, which I guess is kinda breaking the "rules".

But I haven't really had any computer time for the past few days, so I'll look into it next time I peek at the list  

  

On 1/1/2024 at 11:28 AM, Brickman said:

First game done for the year, Donkey Kong for the Famicom. This was done more as a joke and easy clear

Is it that easy? What even counts as a "clear" in Donkey Kong?  From what I've heard, the killscreen takes even longer to reach than on arcade.

Edited January 2 by Sumez

[spacepup | 2,405]

I knocked off an early one by finishing Alwa's Legacy yesterday, woo!  I beat Alwa's Awakening in 2023 as it was on my 2023 list, and it was pretty fun - decent metroidvania style platformer game.  Alwa's Legacy is a slightly more modern take with some updated graphics and features, and a few quality of life improvements.  Overall, it was pretty fun and I enjoyed both games.

[Reed Rothchild | 9,558]

1 hour ago, Sumez said:

Ugh, my list isn't finalized yet, which I guess is kinda breaking the "rules".

But I haven't really had any computer time for the past few days, so I'll look into it next time I peek at the list

More of a general "guideline" at this point 

Plus, you have a baby.  You get leniency.

[Gloves | 11,802]

3 minutes ago, Reed Rothchild said:

More of a general "guideline" at this point 

Plus, you have a baby.  You get leniency.

I have 3 cats! 

[Reed Rothchild | 9,558]

35 minutes ago, Gloves said:

I have 3 cats! 

Gloves: "I collect trophies figurines games cats"

[Foochie776 | 1,057]

Started playing Super Mario Wonder last night and I’m pretty impressed. I knew I’d like it, as it is a Mario game but wow! 

[Webhead123 | 687]

21 minutes ago, Foochie776 said:

Started playing Super Mario Wonder last night and I’m pretty impressed. I knew I’d like it, as it is a Mario game but wow! 

I have to give credit where credit is due. When I first saw the announcement trailer for Wonder, I actually rolled my eyes and released an audible "meh". This was partly because I had been so thoroughly unimpressed with the direction of the "New SMB" series and kind of assumed that this was just going to be more of the same. Then, there was the whole "Elephant Mario" focus in the promotional material and it felt so completely gimmicky to me.

For whatever reason, a few weeks after it officially released, I ended up digging a little bit deeper. I think it all started with the announcement of Charles Martinet's retirement from the character. Little by little, I started to see the signs of so much artistry and care behind the design work of Wonder. While I don't think I'm unjustified for getting the impressions that I did from the early marketing, I'm glad I managed to see past that initial disinterest. Planning to fully dive into and complete the game this year and, based on what I've heard since release, I'm preparing myself for plenty of surprises.

[Foochie776 | 1,057]

2 minutes ago, Webhead123 said:

I have to give credit where credit is due. When I first saw the announcement trailer for Wonder, I actually rolled my eyes and released an audible "meh". This was partly because I had been so thoroughly unimpressed with the direction of the "New SMB" series and kind of assumed that this was just going to be more of the same. Then, there was the whole "Elephant Mario" focus in the promotional material and it felt so completely gimmicky to me.

For whatever reason, a few weeks after it officially released, I ended up digging a little bit deeper. I think it all started with the announcement of Charles Martinet's retirement from the character. Little by little, I started to see the signs of so much artistry and care behind the design work of Wonder. While I don't think I'm unjustified for getting the impressions that I did from the early marketing, I'm glad I managed to see past that initial disinterest. Planning to fully dive into and complete the game this year and, based on what I've heard since release, I'm preparing myself for plenty of surprises.

I couldn’t agree more. You pretty much laid out of my feelings on it. I’ve played almost all the console Mario games and anything past Galaxy has just felt very uninspired and this one felt like a huge gimmick to me. 

[Philosoraptor | 468]

Figured I'd get a jump start to the year to give myself some padding to beat longer games later in the year, so I beat four quick ones yesterday, all for the PS1:

• Advanced V.G.—This one really leans into the copycat vibe and pulls it off worse than its SFC counterpart. On top of lots of fighters that rip off moves or even fighting styles from prominent Capcom fighters like SF and Darkstalkers, this iteration is now sluggish like Street Fighter II. They provided a cheap solution to the sluggishness by giving players the option to increase game speed from 1 (normal) to 5 (significantly faster than SF II Turbo). Whatever is selected just fast forwards all character animations. Combos are pretty generous and easy to pull off, if not a bit spammable. The sprite graphics are well done, and the music, despite some noticeable problems with looping and some dead air, is quite good. (7/10)
• The Last Blade (Bakumatsu Rouman: Gekka no Kenshi)—An even slower game than Samurai Shodown. This game is deliberate, and focuses more on reacting to others' moves and countering. However, since most moves have such a long delay/windup, it kind of defeats the purpose of this style of game, IMO. You can have gameplay that focuses on countering opponents and still have speedy characters and attacks. The combos are pretty easy to pull off, the music is mid, and the spite work is very, very good here. It's an interesting experience, for sure. (6.5/10)
• Saber Marionette J: Battle Sabers—A 2.5D fighter with characters that have so few moves that the better ones are the ones who can attack quicker or who have more range. If you choose wrong, you're already at a big disadvantage. If you choose right, spam moves to win. Before the fight, you can choose up to six upgrades. Some of those upgrades give you giant feet or hands, which takes away from the character modeling. Think bighead mode, but feet or hands. Even though this game is mostly bug free, the lack of moves, interesting mechanics, or even more than one or two sound clips when performing moves drags it down. Also, the special edition comes with three miniature figures, but they're unpainted. They look like fossilized Tang. They couldn't even paint the figures, man! (5/10)
• Tatsunoko Fight—The main downfall of this one is tedium. To beat the story mode and unlock the final chapter of the story, you must beat the same five bosses with five different heroes, some of whom played really well and others who were slow and clunky. In the final story mode, you have to beat the same five bosses with specific heroes and then a sixth with whoever you want. Fighting-wise, this is another one where your characters don't necessarily have a lot of moves compared to newer fighters, but this one really falls apart in the lack of a well-thought-out combo system. Very few attacks flow into each other, big specials have very long, easily blockable wind-ups, and some characters are even hard counters to others. When going up against an opponent who is a hard counter, the only way to win was to cheese or outsmart the AI. However, they put a lot of effort, original music, original FMVs, and heart into making this game, and it really does show. While the fighting might not be top tier, the presentation is fantastic. (6/10)

...I then took out Tatsunoko Fight from my slim PS2, flipped the disc over for whatever reason, and noticed a neat circle had been carved into the underside of the disc by the laser's ribbon cable. Apparently, this had been an issue since I got the PS2 fixed in December, so 8 of my games now have rings on them. They all still work, but I'm taking them to a local place to get buffed soon. What a great way to start off the year...

Edit*: Got the discs buffed. They're all like new. The ribbon cable just decided to scuff the bottom of the discs, not scratch them, so yay!

Edited January 19 by Philosoraptor

[ikk | 560]

First game is done, King Kong for Gamecube

[Brickman | 4,000]

4 hours ago, Sumez said:

Ugh, my list isn't finalized yet, which I guess is kinda breaking the "rules".

But I haven't really had any computer time for the past few days, so I'll look into it next time I peek at the list  

  

Is it that easy? What even counts as a "clear" in Donkey Kong?  From what I've heard, the killscreen takes even longer to reach than on arcade.

Three screens to beat it then it loops back to the first screen. Kill screen would be completing it/100%

[Webhead123 | 687]

3 hours ago, Foochie776 said:

I couldn’t agree more. You pretty much laid out of my feelings on it. I’ve played almost all the console Mario games and anything past Galaxy has just felt very uninspired and this one felt like a huge gimmick to me. 

Agreed. Honestly, other than some incredible standouts like Odyssey, I've had a hard time getting into most mainline Mario titles in a long time. Even 3D Land and 3D World were "pretty good" but were the kind of games that didn't leave much of a lasting impression after I finished them and have no real desire to revisit. I should go back and try to finish Galaxy. I liked it...but I never could stand the Wii's control scheme, so maybe playing it on the Switch remaster would feel a lot better.

[Reed Rothchild | 9,558]

The Talos Principle.  Fun stuff.  I had this idea in my head that it was going to be like The Witness, and was initially disappointed that it seems like it isn't.  Except I've never played The Witness so I don't actually know how that plays, or if this plays the same.  So I'm disappointed by things that live entirely in my head.  How silly.

Anyway, after Baba Is You I feel like my brain has sharpened so I didn't have a terribly difficult time here.  Except the stars.  Good luck finding those on your own.  And the late-game DLC stuff has two puzzles that broke my brain.  But other than that it wasn't anything beyond my meager capabilities.

 

1. The Talos Principle (7.5/10)

[Gaia Gensouki | 1,076]

Wow. I've beaten the first game from my comically oversized backlog, i.e. Wurm - Journey to the Center of the Earth for the NES. This game is an absolutely wild mix of different genres similar to Golgo 13. You have side-scrolling tank/shooter levels, vertically scrolling shooter levels, action platformer levels and shooting gallery style levels. But like so often with these games, it's a jack of all trades, but a master of none.

This means that these different gameplay styles lack any kind of substance and get very repetitive very quickly. Some of them play very poorly and are borderline crappy. The only saving grace is that you switch so frequently between these gameplay styles that you don't really have time to get bored. Add to this a password feature and unlimited continues to make this game a whole lot more palatable. I have zero interest in replaying the long and difficult slog that is Golgo 13, but this one fares a bit better.

The different gameplay segments are linked together by story sequences that are fairly well made. Not on the level of Ninja gaiden, but still quite nice. The game's story starts off as some old sci-fi shlock about allies being abducted by underworld dwellers who start a war and you have to fight them back and find your allies etc. But near the end it actually has an interesting story twist that came as a nice surprise.

That being said, this game plays rather poorly and gets old fast. So I would give it a 5/10 on the Reed scale, i.e. "It's okay, but maybe not something you'll go out of your way to play." I would maybe add 0.5 points for the ending and the convenience features, which ultimately results in a 5.5.

1. Wurm - Journey to the Center of the Earth (5.5/10)

Edited January 3 by Gaia Gensouki

[Webhead123 | 687]

14 hours ago, Reed Rothchild said:

The Talos Principle.  Fun stuff.  I had this idea in my head that it was going to be like The Witness, and was initially disappointed that it seems like it isn't.  Except I've never played The Witness so I don't actually know how that plays, or if this plays the same.  So I'm disappointed by things that live entirely in my head.  How silly.

Anyway, after Baba Is You I feel like my brain has sharpened so I didn't have a terribly difficult time here.  Except the stars.  Good luck finding those on your own.  And the late-game DLC stuff has two puzzles that broke my brain.  But other than that it wasn't anything beyond my meager capabilities.

I know it's tough to talk about without getting super spoiler-y but I'd be curious to know what you felt about the overall story/parable/philosophical explorations of it and how the game handled them. I'm a bit on the fence. I certainly appreciated the game playing with some deep questions but I also wonder if most of it was a little too on-the-nose.

[Reed Rothchild | 9,558]

13 minutes ago, Webhead123 said:

I know it's tough to talk about without getting super spoiler-y but I'd be curious to know what you felt about the overall story/parable/philosophical explorations of it and how the game handled them. I'm a bit on the fence. I certainly appreciated the game playing with some deep questions but I also wonder if most of it was a little too on-the-nose.

So I will 100% say that due to the hidden and nonlinear nature of the terminals that I couldn't make sense of most of the attachments on my own.   I had to read a summary of that.  And I also couldn't make sense of the Gehenna narrative and how that fits alongside the main game. 

But the core storyline was pretty cool, and the three different paths you can take were intriguing.  Again, the Milton conversation was tough to follow because the terminals might be used hours and hours apart, and you're continuing these threads in such a spaced out way that I had trouble reconciling some of the dialogue choices with where it was taking the overall conversation.  I think those are all things that would work better on a second playthrough where the puzzles are more of an afterthought 

[Foochie776 | 1,057]

20 hours ago, Webhead123 said:

Agreed. Honestly, other than some incredible standouts like Odyssey, I've had a hard time getting into most mainline Mario titles in a long time. Even 3D Land and 3D World were "pretty good" but were the kind of games that didn't leave much of a lasting impression after I finished them and have no real desire to revisit. I should go back and try to finish Galaxy. I liked it...but I never could stand the Wii's control scheme, so maybe playing it on the Switch remaster would feel a lot better.

I’ve played Odyssey a couple times and can’t get enough. It’s so good. 3D World was fun but I felt like it was missing something and just fell a little short for me personally. 
 

Galaxy and I had a weird relationship. I got motion sick the first time I played it so I never tried again, until it was remastered. The switch version is super good and controls very well still. I couldn’t recommend it enough. 

[Reed Rothchild | 9,558]

I think Wonder, 3D World, the "New" games, etc. all work significantly better as 4-player couch co-op games.  Trying to go back and do stuff solo in them is a lot less fun 

[Webhead123 | 687]

36 minutes ago, Reed Rothchild said:

I think Wonder, 3D World, the "New" games, etc. all work significantly better as 4-player couch co-op games.  Trying to go back and do stuff solo in them is a lot less fun 

Obviously, I've not played Wonder yet, so I can't comment on it but I agree with that assessment of 3D World and the "New" series which almost certainly plays a role in why they didn't speak to me. Although my sons do occasionally play some multiplayer games with me (and we did play a touch of 3D World together when they were younger), 99% of my video gaming is strictly solitaire, so much of the appeal of those titles I simply never get to experience.

[fox | 1,668]

On 1/2/2024 at 3:17 PM, Webhead123 said:

Agreed. Honestly, other than some incredible standouts like Odyssey, I've had a hard time getting into most mainline Mario titles in a long time. Even 3D Land and 3D World were "pretty good" but were the kind of games that didn't leave much of a lasting impression after I finished them and have no real desire to revisit. I should go back and try to finish Galaxy. I liked it...but I never could stand the Wii's control scheme, so maybe playing it on the Switch remaster would feel a lot better.

Give the Switch port a try.  Makes it so you don’t need motion controls for a lot of the basic functions and when motion controls are needed they work much much better.

Galaxy is a great title that deserves another shot

[Lago | 221]

6 hours ago, Gaia Gensouki said:

Wow. I've beaten the first game from my comically oversized backlog, i.e. Wurm - Journey to the Center of the Earth for the NES. This game is an absolutely wild mix of different genres similar to Golgo 13. You have side-scrolling tank/shooter levels, vertically scrolling shooter levels, action platformer levels and shooting gallery style levels. But like so often with these games, it's a jack of all trades, but a master of none.

This means that these different gameplay styles lack any kind of substance and get very repetitive very quickly. Some of them play very poorly and are borderline crappy. The only saving grace is that you switch so frequently between these gameplay styles that you don't really have time to get bored. Add to this a password feature and unlimited continues to make this game a whole lot more palatable. I have zero interest in replaying the long and difficult slog that is Golgo 13, but this one fares a bit better.

The different gameplay segments are linked together by story sequences that are fairly well made. Not on the level of Ninja gaiden, but still quite nice. The game's story starts off as some old sci-fi shlock about allies being abducted by underworld dwellers who start a war and you have to fight them back and find your allies etc. But near the end it actually has an interesting story twist that came as a nice surprise.

That being said, this game plays rather poorly and gets old fast. So I would give it a 5/10 on the Reed scale, i.e. "It's okay, but maybe not something you'll go out of your way to play." I would maybe add 0.5 points for the ending and the convenience features, which ultimately results in a 5.5.

1. Wurm - Journey to the Center of the Earth (5.5/10)

I love the fact that you put a timestamp on this.