Games You Have Beaten Recently?

[Reed Rothchild | 9,524]

1 hour ago, Code Monkey said:

I watched a documentary on it a few months ago and I thought the author mentioned it was a PlayStation game but I'd have to go back and watch it again. It could have been a computer game. Today I learned there are games like Rogue-like games.

Might I suggest Slay the Spire and Enter the Gungeon for your Switch.

[Redmond | 152]

The Sonic Triple Trouble 16-bit fan game.  Very good.  Sega should've just published/released it officially.  

[MagusSmurf | 577]

Megami Tensei Gaiden: Last Bible Special. Dungeon crawler with basically no story, terrible party recruiting mechanics, terrible puzzles, and terrible battles. Hilarious that this was a Game Gear game given how long the biggest dungeon lasts.

If Majin Tensei hadn't already taken the crown for worst JRPG I've ever played, this probably would have been the king. And it mainly "loses" just due to lacking the ridiculous time investment required to beat that game.

Close to having beaten some version of every 4th gen Megami Tensei console game now. Just Majin Tensei II and Last Bible III left. Those are actually supposed to be at least decent like SMT1 and 2 were!

[Lynda Monica | 350]

I finished everything in the original Deca Sports for Wii! All ten tournaments, everything in challenge mode, and all three leagues. I decided to do a little write up on the game since I had such a great time with it.

People often look at these games and instantly dismiss them as Wii Sports rip-offs, going as far as to call them shovelware. The truth of the matter is that they were developed and published by Hudson, which simply produced low budget games. Fans of Hudson were always aware of this, but reviewers were never willing to cut them any slack.

Obviously this game wouldn't exist without the success of Wii Sports, but Deca Sports makes a very concerted effort to have no overlap with Wii Sports. The game has an interesting line up of events as a result, and makes for a more unique package than the same five sports Nintendo has been making since the NES.

Two of the key differences between Deca Sports and Wii Sports is that Deca Sports has an end goal, and as a result leans heavily on the single player experience. While all of the games are technically playable with two humans, the games are best played against the A.I.

There are three main game modes where you can win medals and trophies, so let's go over them.

• Tournament Mode: Your team will duke it out in 2-3 matches depending on the event, with the A.I getting more difficult each match. There's only one tournament per sport, which makes for a shorter and simpler experience than the four tournaments in the sequels. That doesn't mean the A.I on the final match is a pushover though.
• Deca Challenge: This is where each sport is redesigned into a single player mini-game, which doubles as a practice mode to master each sport's controls. Beach volleyball's challenge tasks you with spiking the ball into highlighted sections on the other side of the net. Archery's challenge tasks you with hitting a target from farther and farther away, and the racing events have time attacks for each track. Each event has a borderline score that needs to be met to unlock a medal, and these are some of the trickier challenges in the game.
• Deca League: This mode has you play in all ten sports, and compete for points with three other teams. Points are distributed depending on how you place, meaning you can still win the league even if you lose some of the events. In this mode your athletes can become fatigued, but they can also become enthusiastic. These states hinder or improve your athlete's abilities, making you have to decide who to bring to an event. Size matters in Deca Sports too, so different builds of athlete excel at different sports. Having your ideal athlete become tired for an event they're good at will force you to decide who should take their place.

There are three leagues that increase in difficulty, and during the final league a new team of masked players will compete against you. Completing the final league will make the end credits roll, and unlock the "Super Heroes" as a playable team.

I genuinely enjoyed this game, and it was a fun time the whole way through. Deca Sports 2 was a broken mess, and Deca Sports 3 suffered from a whole host of issues; but the original is a great little game. It was challenging without being unreasonable, and it was thoroughly charming despite its low budget. The music during the actual sports could have been better, but the victory themes are all great. Unfortunately the credits theme doesn't seem to be on Youtube with the rest of the soundtrack, so I may be one of the only people who's ever heard it.

Most importantly the motion controls all work well enough that you can beat every challenge in the game. Deca Sports 2 is a game that's completely unwinnable due to its broken controls and flawless A.I, which is a shame considering how much more polished it is than the original. It just goes to show that you can make a really lovely piece of artwork, but in gaming it's still the game that matters the most. At the end of the day if your game doesn't work, it matters not how improved it is elsewhere. This is how you need to look at the Deca Sports trilogy, and it's why the original is easily the best of the three.

~Lynda Monica Watson

[nesmaster14 | 435]

Beat Squad 51 Vs. The Flying Saucers (PC, 2022)  last night.  Really fun cinematic oldschool horizontal shmup! The aesthetics are unique and fun, all set in the 1950s with a live action sci-fi B-movie vibe.  Some of the enemies you'll see strings hanging off, practical effects and such. The gameplay matches the aesthetics and is well thought-out for a shmup fan. This game checks all my boxes so it's one of my favorite shooters now haha.

 

Edited September 24, 2022 by nesmaster14

[T-Pac | 7,541]

I cleared Thunder Spirits [SNES] yesterday on easy-mode with turbo enabled (there's a hidden configuration-menu accessible with SELECT + START at the title screen).

This might be the first Technosoft shooter that I've spent much time with, and I really enjoyed it. Each level requires a unique approach (mostly pertaining to where you should park your ship onscreen to avoid kamikaze attacks), the bosses are all cool and distinct, and the weapon-powerups are all useful and intuitive (especially the crazy-powerful homing-blaster). I'd even go as far as saying it has a near-perfect final level - it felt like a victory lap without being a total cakewalk, and the atmosphere really made it feel special and distinct from the rest of the game without altering the gameplay formula.

Now I might start looking into the Genesis / Mega Drive version, Thunder Force III. Anyone care to weigh-in on whether or not that version is worth picking-up, considering I already have the SNES port?

-CasualCart

[drxandy | 3,225]

100% psychonauts 2 woo woo

[PII | 1,885]

Played through CastleVania: Dracula X this weekend.  I've played it real casually here and there over the last few years, but this was my first time beating it.  It was pretty fun in spite of some lazy level design and questionable controls.  Music and graphics are def. its strong points.  It has its tricky spots but wasn't as crazy difficult as I'd been lead to believe.  The last level in particular was shockingly easy for a CastleVania game.  Only CVII has an easier last level and boss.  Even Dracula wasn't terribly difficult.  Most of the threat is simply the pit of doom below but learning to avoid it is a relatively simple task.  Didn't realize until after beating it that its possible to make Richter do a backflip, lol.  Also, that there are two potential rescue missions in the game, that should add to the replay value...

[Bearcat-Doug | 5,105]

8 minutes ago, PII said:

Played through CastleVania: Dracula X this weekend.  I've played it real casually here and there over the last few years, but this was my first time beating it.  It was pretty fun in spite of some lazy level design and questionable controls.  Music and graphics are def. its strong points.  It has its tricky spots but wasn't as crazy difficult as I'd been lead to believe.  The last level in particular was shockingly easy for a CastleVania game.  Only CVII has an easier last level and boss.  Even Dracula wasn't terribly difficult.  Most of the threat is simply the pit of doom below but learning to avoid it is a relatively simple task.  Didn't realize until after beating it that its possible to make Richter do a backflip, lol.  Also, that there are two potential rescue missions in the game, that should add to the replay value...

For some reason, I thought Dracula X was kinda tough. I had an easier time with Rondo of Blood. The hardest stage in that game was one of the alternate paths that you don't even need to finish the game unless you are going for 100% to get the good ending.

[PII | 1,885]

16 minutes ago, Bearcat-Doug said:

For some reason, I thought Dracula X was kinda tough. I had an easier time with Rondo of Blood. The hardest stage in that game was one of the alternate paths that you don't even need to finish the game unless you are going for 100% to get the good ending.

One of these days I'll have to play every path in this game.  Levels 5 and 6 were not short on challenge except for Vampira at the end of 6; that was awfully easy for a penultimate boss.  Apparently there is some way to unlock the Grim Reaper for the end of stage six instead...  I hope I get the opportunity to play Rondo one of these days.  But, so far the dream of owning a Japanese Turbo Duo has eluded me....

[Bearcat-Doug | 5,105]

5 minutes ago, PII said:

One of these days I'll have to play every path in this game.  Levels 5 and 6 were not short on challenge except for Vampira at the end of 6; that was awfully easy for a penultimate boss.  Apparently there is some way to unlock the Grim Reaper for the end of stage six instead...  I hope I get the opportunity to play Rondo one of these days.  But, so far the dream of owning a Japanese Turbo Duo has eluded me....

I played Rondo of Blood back when you could get it on the Wii Shop. It's so good that I almost got one of the TurboGrafx mini consoles just to play it again in HD. It's that awesome.

[Sumez | 2,950]

I love SNES Dracula Xx and PCE Rondo both. I have repeatedly read criticism of the SNES game throughout several decades at this point, and at times I'll start to understand some of it. But then I replay the game yet again, and every single time it's just too much god damn fun to dislike! It's pure classic Castlevania gameplay done to near perfection, and I could never not love that. The controls and level design are both absolute top notch to me, and the absolute only thing that drags it down is the awkward final boss!

I made a ROM hack of the game that fixes the walk speed so it's identical to the PCE DracX, and people who have played it have said they loved playing the game this way. If playing custom hacks isn't something you generally refrain from, hit me up for a copy of the patch, or search for it on the shmups forum - I uploaded it somewhere but can't remember where off the top of my head 

[Lynda Monica | 350]

I finished Deca Sports 2!

Deca Sports 2's league mode works similarly to the original's, but it's much harder this time around. Not only are there four difficulty levels now, but Deca Sports 2 only gives out victories to two of the three rival teams. This assures that it's a much tighter competition than before, as the original game handed out victories to all three teams at random.

Unfortunately the Petanque mini-game is completely broken and 100% unwinnable, so you have to plan to take a loss there. This is the ONLY loss Deca Sports 2 will give you the leeway to lose, so you need to win all nine other sports.

Due to Petanque being completely broken, this also means you can't 100% the game, as tournament mode is unwinnable. I tried for WAY too many hours to find a way, but it's simply broken. This is why I was so harsh on Deca Sports 2 in my write up of the first one, but being able to finish league mode makes my opinion of this game much higher again.

Completing the league on hard difficulty will make the credits roll, but this is kind of the bad ending. Once you beat hard, you unlock legend difficulty. By winning the league on legend, you not only unlock the Super Heroes as a playable team, but you get an additional screen at the end of the credits that confirms you've truly beaten the game this time.

Only present on the legend difficulty credits.

While it had its ups and downs, I do think this is a fun game despite some inexcusable issues. It's superior to the original in almost all aspects, but it's hard to look past one of the mini-games being broken.

Overall I enjoyed my time with Deca Sports 2. I guess it's time to go back to the third game and see if I can finish the trilogy!

[Strange | 1,700]

Demon’s Souls on PS5. A few times.

[Dr. Morbis | 2,088]

On 9/26/2022 at 11:18 AM, Sumez said:

I love SNES Dracula Xx and PCE Rondo both. I have repeatedly read criticism of the SNES game throughout several decades at this point, and at times I'll start to understand some of it. But then I replay the game yet again, and every single time it's just too much god damn fun to dislike! It's pure classic Castlevania gameplay done to near perfection, and I could never not love that. The controls and level design are both absolute top notch to me, and the absolute only thing that drags it down is the awkward final boss!

Agreed, excepting that I've never understood why people think the final boss is uber tough.  He has two forms that are pretty traditional for the series: the first form's pattern is extremely simple to identify and deal with, and the second form is over pretty quickly as long as you've got the axe.  Maybe it's all the pits that everyone's afraid of?!?  I dunno...

[Sumez | 2,950]

It's definitely the pits, but also the fact that the playfield is too large, and you'll spend too much time either trying to hunt down Dracula (and risk being knocked down), or play it safe and wait for him to spawn in certain locations, which is incredibly tedious.

I don't think the final boss is "too hard" (though it is a notable spike compared to the rest of the game), more just that it's too annoying.
Of course the opposite end of the spectrum has the final boss in the PCE DracX which is just too damn easy  

[MagusSmurf | 577]

Trying to beat or re-beat every Super Nintendo or Super Famicom game that sounds interesting to me, besides those I've already done in the past few years. Those in the latter category would be:

Spoiler

Super Castlevania IV
Lagoon
Spanky's Quest
Super Adventure Island
Arcana
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time
Shin Megami Tensei
Magical Quest Starring Mickey Mouse, The
Congo's Caper
Tiny Toon Adventures: Buster Busts Loose!
Final Fight 2
Goof Troop
Aero Fighters
Inspector Gadget
Skyblazer
Majin Tensei
Flintstones: The Treasure of Sierra Madrock, The
Shin Megami Tensei II
Animaniacs
Brandish
EarthBound
An American Tail: Fievel Goes West
Firemen, The
Great Circus Mystery Starring Mickey & Minnie, The
Shin Megami Tensei if...
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers
Disney's Bonkers
Kyuuyaku Megami Tensei
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie
Primal Rage
Magic Knight Rayearth
Tenchi Muyou! Game Hen
Ganpuru: Gunman's Proof

Concentrating on the 1990 and 1991 games for now but will skip around. We'll see how far I get. If this goes anywhere I'll probably also decline to replay SNES Tales of Phantasia, a long-ish game I don't like and that has better versions elsewhere I haven't tried.

Super Mario World - 10/10 everyone knows Super Mario World, it's awesome.

Joe & Mac 2 - 6/10 Fairly typical 16-bit action-platformer but on the good side of that. Looks and sounds good, plays fine, has co-op, some decent setpieces, nothing too special in the actual gameplay though. Kinda short with basically only 5.33 levels (decently long ones though) and 7 bosses, the first 6 of which reappear in an endgame boss rush before right before the final boss.

Mickey's Ultimate Challenge - 4/10 A glorified minigame collection - fairly standard takes on Sokoban, Concentration, Simon, Mastermind, and a Slide Puzzle, but then there's, uh, Hangman with Infinite Guesses and Also Platforming? I've had this game since childhood so I know exactly what to do but it only lasts for like half an hour even even on Challenging mode and there's very little to it.

Smart Ball - 4/10 A 2D Platformer where you control a goo-like thing that sticks to walls and ceilings and stuff sounds like a good idea but I don't like how the main character handles and it's just not that good of a game.

Joe & Mac - 6/10 Doesn't quite have the setpieces of its sequel but is still a fun nothing-special co-op action platformer. Hit detection is fine for the enemies but is bad against spikes and falling rocks and whether you land on a platform or not seems more strict than it should be; thankfully combat is the focus. The entire thing is also a bit too easy and all Difficult Mode seemed to do was crank up how many hits enemies took to kill. This made some of the bosses last long enough to get boring, especially the Anklyosaurus whose pattern is so easily grasped that he basically never hits you but only has brief periods of vulnerability. I'd have to replay it to be sure but at this point I'm thinking the Genesis version is probably better.

SD The Great Battle - 4/10 Overhead shooter with lots of platforming but something seems to have gone wrong with the determination on whether you made jumps onto/from moving platforms properly and it often doesn't work when it seems like you should have made it. The bosses and mini-bosses seem generally decent enough but the generic enemies and platforming leading up to them are pretty whatever. As far as I could tell, you can't strafe. The game demands near pixel-perfect precision when moving on narrow paths which caused me some high-damage cheap hits on the final stage. The 6th level has limited visibility and is an annoying maze. Never quite figured out how to stay safe while fighting the final boss without spamming your special move so I settled for staying right on him after he first approaches you and abusing post-damage invulnerability to quickly rack up hits; he died before I lost my last life. It's probably this or Populous for worst SNES game of 1990.

[Lynda Monica | 350]

I know I'm the only person saying anything nice about these games these days, but I replayed all of Deca Sports 2 and had a total blast.

Even though one of the mini-games is only winnable in theory, the other nine mini games are fantastic and make for a better league mode than the original. While the Deca Sports games are low budget Hudson games, they're still legitimate games that were always meant to be good. Every other company that made a Wii Sports clone did so solely to cash in, and were only trying to trick people into buying them.

I genuinely enjoy Deca Sports more than Wii Sports, and a lot of that is due to the former's focus on making a difficult single player experience. Finishing the league on legend difficulty is no joke, and defeating twenty consecutive opponents for challenge mode Kendo is also really hard. "Person 20" can sense your fear; and will mercilessly end your streak at nineteen if you're nervous. Struggling through nineteen opponents only to have "Person 20" instantly end your streak is the best example of how heartless Deca Sports 2 can be.

Overall this game is great, and I actually had more fun the second time around. I get the feeling this won't be the last time I play through Deca Sports 2.

[DarkTone | 984]

Pokemon on switch. Gonna go fill the pokedex. 

[Ankos | 438]

I wound up playing through Binary Monster II the Adventure of Hell again to see if picking different characters affected gameplay. It does not

[BortLicensePlate | 652]

On 9/26/2022 at 1:18 PM, Sumez said:

I love SNES Dracula Xx and PCE Rondo both. I have repeatedly read criticism of the SNES game throughout several decades at this point, and at times I'll start to understand some of it. But then I replay the game yet again, and every single time it's just too much god damn fun to dislike! It's pure classic Castlevania gameplay done to near perfection, and I could never not love that. The controls and level design are both absolute top notch to me, and the absolute only thing that drags it down is the awkward final boss!

I made a ROM hack of the game that fixes the walk speed so it's identical to the PCE DracX, and people who have played it have said they loved playing the game this way. If playing custom hacks isn't something you generally refrain from, hit me up for a copy of the patch, or search for it on the shmups forum - I uploaded it somewhere but can't remember where off the top of my head 

What do you think of Dracula X compared to Super Castlevania 4? I found SC4 veeeery boring compared to nes castlevania

[Sumez | 2,950]

30 minutes ago, BortLicensePlate said:

What do you think of Dracula X compared to Super Castlevania 4? I found SC4 veeeery boring compared to nes castlevania

I definitely prefer the SNES DracX for pretty much the reasons you are mentioning. It is much more in line with the classic NES games. 

Mind you I still think CV4 is a great game, but it's quite overrated (especially among people who don't seem to be too fond of CV in the first place, so I guess that makes sense). I'd put it in the lower half of the "classicvania" games. 

[drxandy | 3,225]

100% for beacon pines

It was pretty cute! Pretty short but a choose your own adventure point and click style, beat it in 2 sittings but the story jumping around was pretty cool and although the writing could get a bit flourishy it was pretty decent overall!

[MagusSmurf | 577]

Final Fantasy IV (Super Famicom version patched with J2Evisceration Fix) - 8/10

Set Battle Speed to 1 (fastest) and Active instead of Wait for a challenge since I knew the game relatively well from multiple playthroughs of the SNES and GBA versions. In general the game still wasn't that hard overall but some battles were kind of quirky with those settings and things can go south quickly if you aren't prepared.

In general this is my baseline for "great JRPG." If a JRPG from the 16-bit era or later is supposed to be great at some particular aspect, I expect it to beat FFIV there. The game's not super special at much besides pacing and is notably lacking in customization but it's a good time and a step above pretty much all the turn-based stuff from the NES. Was torn between "lowest 8/10 turn-based JRPG" or "highest 7/10;" went with the former. If this winds up being, I dunno, "my 20th favorite SNES JRPG" or something then maybe that doesn't hold.

Ys III: Wanderers from Ys (SNES) - 4/10 (this might be too generous)

What the hell?

Way back when this had been the first version of Ys III I played fresh off Ys I & II from Virtual Console; after enjoying that game a lot I remember being pretty unimpressed. It was several years before I tried the Genesis and Turbo CD versions and came away from them thinking they were notably better than what I recalled of the SNES version. Most of the comparisons you get from the top search results will indeed tell you those are better than the SNES one for various reasons, so okay, made enough sense to me. What they generally don't do properly is emphasize how awful and otherworldly the hit detection is in the SNES version; it seemed alright for the one-hit enemies in the first dangerous area but goes to hell shortly afterwards. It's also too grindy for its own good. I played the Famicom version last year and even there I don't recall them botching things like this! I had to make sure I wasn't going crazy which led to:

Ys III: Wanderers from Ys (Genesis) - 6/10

Yep, this game is fine. Probably not better than that but it's decent. The hit detection just...functions properly this time. Still too much grinding but less than on SNES. The graphics and music are better too, although the text wasn't properly proofread. Apparently Genesis does what Nintendon't.

Edited October 13, 2022 by MagusSmurf

[Sumez | 2,950]

1 hour ago, MagusSmurf said:

Ys III: Wanderers from Ys

Did you ever play the remake, Oath in Felghana? It's generally agreed upon by pretty much every person who has played it, that it's the best game in the entire Ys franchise