Games You Have Beaten Recently?

[PII | 1,883]

Spent some time playing Q*bert in the Arcade this weekend.  I thought I might have enough time to bust my first million, but the lights came on shortly after 700K so I had to deliberately expunge 13 extra lives just to be able to put my name in before the house turned off all the machines.  I was on either level 21 or 22.  Figure now, I'll need 2 or maybe as much as 2 1/2 hours to hit a million...

[NostalgicMachine | 227]

Zelda 2 on the top loader.

[PekoponTAS | 171]

My copy of Sonic Lost World arrived today, and I sat down and played the whole thing.

I have nothing to comment about the story, as I skipped all of the cut scenes after the first two worlds. I appreciate the series staying true to the formula that worked in Sonic Colours, but it's just not funny this time around. The writing isn't as genuinely clever as it was on the Wii, and it kept all of the cringe worthy elements of Colours with none of the quality to balance it out. At least they kept the winning cast of characters and voice actors.

Sonic Lost World's gameplay is really inventive, and at times really technical and fun. Sometimes it feels like you're playing the greatest Sonic game of all time with a clear vision that nails it perfectly. At other times you're left stewing in fury at the most obnoxious level design ever made for a completely unproven game concept.

Yet as inconsistent as this game is, its endless great qualities far outweigh its slightly too plentiful worst moments. While there are a lot of frustrating moments that would ruin an otherwise average game, the parts of Sonic Lost World that showcase its full potential shine through its worst moments.

The modern Sonic the Hedgehog series seems to pride itself on being experimental, but thankfully Sonic Lost World is one of the series' best experiments. I think Sonic and Wii U fans should give this game a shake with an open, and forgiving mind. There's too much to love in this game to let its bad parts ruin the whole thing.

[Ankos | 433]

Just played through Rubble Saver 2 which I found on a multicart. It was pretty fun, though a bit on the short side. Looking at the Wikipedia page for it, it looks like there is a Famicom counterpart to it called miracle ropitt. Is that one any good?

[Code Monkey | 2,005]

Yooka-Laylee on Switch.

It was pretty fun but nothing great. It does suffer from some common issues I see in most games of that time:

1. Ledges are always double-jump height. I can't just jump, jump, jump up the ledges, I have to always do a double jump to ascend and that's annoying. Level design should be such that I can just jump normally unless it specirically calls for a double jump.
2. You can't jump onto something if youre pressed up against it. Everything seems to have a small lip running around the edge so if you\re right up against a wall, you can't jump up because you hit the lip. You have to move back a bit, then jump onto it and it's super annoying. Again, poor level design.

 

Edited December 6, 2022 by Code Monkey

[NostalgicMachine | 227]

[PekoponTAS | 171]

I've now finished Sonic Lost World 100%. All Red Rings, all Time Attack S-Ranks, all 100 Missions complete.

While I had a bumpy start with the game, it's now what I'd consider one of the best Sonic games, and one of the best Wii U games. It's also the single most interesting Sonic game to play, and it's a shame that its concept was too intricate for people to get the hang of it. Even during the last few missions I was learning control mechanics that weren't explained to me directly, and I kind of feel like that's what the game was going for.

Like any Sonic game, your first playthrough is going to be a horrid struggle that's not very fun. Yet the games always encourage you to revisit their stages and become more daring, and that's when Sonic games get good. Pulling off stunts you couldn't even dream of the first time around like its nothing is the true brilliance of Sonic's speed, which is why it's a shame so many people stop playing the games after their first playthrough and write them off as terrible. 

As cheesy as it sounds, the more you play into Sonic's personality as you play, the more fun the games become. Sonic games are often criticized for moving too fast, but Sonic games have always centered around trial and error, and you just have to learn how to keep up with Sonic.  

Sonic Lost World was absolutely great, and I couldn't have asked for a better follow up to Generations. It didn't play it safe with its gameplay, but kept the same tone as Colours and improved the production values to the series' absolute best. There's no other Sonic game that looks as good as Lost World, and if you ask me it's gameplay is the best attempt at converting Sonic into 3D.

I'll probably take a break from the Wii U for the rest of the year, and go back to it at the start of next year once the backlog challenge starts. There are still a few more games I want to pick up, but I intend to spend most of my gaming time with the Wii U next year and finish everything up.

[Sumez | 2,932]

I got Sonic Lost World on my 2023 backlog, so I'm quite excited to try it out. You're not the first person I've met to be really fond of it.

[Abelardo | 154]

Finished AI: The Somnium Files on the Switch, I like point and click adventure games, it had good reviews, played the demo and enjoyed it, it was cheap so I bought it.

Overall I enjoyed the game, but wouldn't recommend it to just about anyone, the majority of the time you're going though dialog but the story is good, there are branching paths that lead to different endings and to get the true ending you have to go through them all, the whole thing took me about 40 hours to finish due to my tendency to explore just about everything (how long to beat average is 30 for completionist).

Things I liked the most are the story, the gameplay when you do a "psync", and also enjoyed some of the humor, things I didn't liked would be again some of the humor, and that the game seems to be unnecessary long.

[PekoponTAS | 171]

On 12/15/2022 at 6:22 AM, Sumez said:

I got Sonic Lost World on my 2023 backlog, so I'm quite excited to try it out. You're not the first person I've met to be really fond of it.

If you're the type of person willing to give a game a second, third, fourth, or fifth chance beyond your initial impressions, you'll eventually love it. There's so much about it that's not apparent when you first play it, largely because the controls are very complex, and the game does little to teach you anything about them. Having S-Ranked every stage though, I assure you that every moment I cried bullshit on the first time around has an extremely easy solution.

You'll especially detest the snowball level your first time around, but it's one of the most fun levels when you sink the time into learning how to S-Rank it. I'll give you a major control tip, and tell you that holding X or Y will make your snowball stop in place. That's something SUPER helpful the game doesn't tell you at all. Also jumping maintains your rolling momentum for longer than normal.

One of the dumbest things about your first playthrough is the requirement to rescue a certain amount of animals before moving on to later levels. You get the most animals by playing the circus mini-game stages, which you unlock one of for every five Red Star Rings you obtain. (They don't all have to be in the same level either.) Circus tents will re-spawn on the map as you progress through stages, so you only have to unlock a few circus tents that you can keep revisiting.

You need a total of 5000 animals to unlock the final boss, but you'll need 7000 for the optional post game stages. Just make sure to play the circus stages as much as you can early on, and you'll not need to worry about red rings or animals for the rest of the game.

Don't be surprised if your initial playthrough is really rough and not that fun though. Unfortunately Star Fox Zero and Sonic Lost World both suffer from first playthrough syndrome extremely hard. They're awesome once you're good at them though.

Good luck!

[Aguy | 771]

Just finished Atelier Ryza 2: Lost Legends and the Secret Fairy on the Switch. I enjoyed it and am looking forward to the 3rd game in February. Not too difficult and took 33 hours to credits, although it would have been a lot quicker if I had read one of those "before you start" guides. Once you start crafting the higher tier stuff, you need lower mats and have to backtrack to gather. But if you sell anything to the merchants it unlocks that item in their inventory, allowing you to buy it back when you need some, preventing the need for hunting. It's a smart system that I didn't take advantage of until it was too late.

[T-Pac | 7,513]

I just cleared Stinger [NES] for the first time!

A little backstory with this one:
For the past few months, my cartridge collection has been in storage at my family's house halfway across the US. But because I'd previously dumped the ROMs of most of my games, I've been able to emulate them on my multicade. Unfortunately when I was playing Stinger a few weeks ago, I realized I had made a bad dump when the last level loaded-up as a mess of indistinguishable, glitchy graphics. It was so garbled that I couldn't keep playing. Luckily, when I visited my family for Christmas break, I set up a NES at the kitchen TV and managed to beat the game on cartridge.

Stinger is a lot of fun, but I'm still not any good at managing the integral "bell-juggling" powerup scheme. And I couldn't have cleared it without turbo-fire enabled on my Advantage joystick.

-CasualCart

[PekoponTAS | 171]

I replayed Metroid Prime Federation Force for the first time since it came out, and loved every second of it. People have always been horrendously wrong about this game, and it's my favourite 3DS game by a wide margin.

This time around I went all in and got all three gold medals on all twenty-two missions of the game. I also didn't/have never used the Samus amiibo that completely breaks the game, as that's for cowards that cheat. Don't support pay to win, and be a soldier worthy of the Galactic Federation.

Though for those of you who will always hate this game no matter what, you can always take comfort knowing that prior to the events of Metroid II, the Federation Force retroactively all get killed by Metroids on SR388.

[Reed Rothchild | 9,510]

Knocked out some shorter games ahead of the 2023 backlog challenge:

• Cuphead - Loved it, though in my head I thought it would be longer, for whatever reason.
• Ori and the Blind Forest - Great, and beautiful, but again, shorter than I thought it would be.  And a curious decision to omit any boss fights.  They are instead replaced by the "escape sequences," which some people seem to hate.  I thought they were fine.
• Shredder's Revenge - Fine.  Streets of Rage 4 was probably better.
• Alwa's Legacy - Playing it right now.  It's fine, but hardly essential.  Part of me kinda just wanted to get it out of the way.

[T-Pac | 7,513]

Just cleared my final game of 2022: Over Horizon [FC]!

I wasn't even aware of this game's existence until @Gaia Gensouki mentioned it in the "Beat Every NES Game" thread, and I've been drooling over it ever since. My parents gifted me a copy for Christmas, and today I finally sat down to give it a go.

It's a fantastic game for sure - a little inconsistent thematically, but everything else more than makes up for that. I like the interactive environments, and the customizable option-formations and powerup-balancing is really neat (although I still don't entirely understand how the latter works haha). 

(And there's a cool bonus that I learned about from a YouTube review: this game includes a hidden ROM-hack of itself. Resetting the game while holding A+B lets you play as a samurai with little horse-options and altered enemy / effects sprites.)

-CasualCart

[T-Pac | 7,513]

First clear of 2023: Gun-Nac [FC]!

I beat the Easy (Level 1) difficulty, and surprisingly finished the game on my first playthrough (2 credits). Although that gave me the bad ending, "You haven't defeated me yet.", so I might want to try my luck at the default difficulty.

Reflex-heavy space-shooters aren't really my thing, but Gun-Nac is fantastic nonetheless. It deserves the praise it gets, and I can easily see it joining my "favorite 8-bit shooters" list. Weapon 3 was my go-to for the whole game - homing boomerangs are too much fun.

(And @Tulpa - I can finally identify with your excellent Gun-Nac spaceship avatar haha).

-CasualCart

[PekoponTAS | 171]

I've now finished We Cheer 2 one hundred percent! (God that looks weird written out properly.)

I bought all of the clothing, and finished all one hundred eighty-five of the in-game achievements. That includes beating every song on hard, which I assure you is no joke. In theory the hardest thing in the game was getting a one hundred note combo, but it sort of just happened at one point while playing for fun. My heart started thumping really hard when I noticed my combo was at ninety, and I was terrified of messing up for those last ten notes.

It's one of the best Wii games I've ever played, and I'd say it's Namco Bandai's best Wii game. I wouldn't recommend it to everyone on this site though, as Wii Remote games are all about experimenting with your motions until you find what the game wants you to do. I imagine a lot of people here wouldn't be too fond of that specific brand of learning curve.

The soundtrack can also best be described as incredibly bratty, which I think suits a game like this. It's full of teen pop songs that center around being selfish, which is the kind of music I still unironically enjoy at 33.

While most people think of Elite Beat Agents for their cheerleader needs, We Cheer 2 has completely replaced it in my mind. It's more grounded in reality, it has a soundtrack that's much better suited to its concept, and the Wii Remote is a way better fit for a game like this. It's also really fun to play once you're good at it, but how long that takes will vary from person to person. It took me a long time to understand what I was doing wrong, and what I needed to do to fix it.

You may find yourself thinking the game doesn't work on hard mode, but 95% of the time you're simply not doing what the game wants. Take a few rounds off and use the "Watch Routine" mode, and pay attention to how the dancers are moving their arms. 95% of the time it's not going to be what you were doing. Sometimes the game does just fail a prompt for no reason though, but you'll eventually discover it's not as often as you think.

The best universal advice I can give is to go into your Wii or Wii U's settings, and change your Wii Remote sensitivity to one. It makes the game way more accurate, as the game expects some fast swings that will fail on higher sensitivities. Also be sure to use the in-game calibration, as that will make the game account for your TV's input delay.

Also don't be ashamed to "get into it", as you'll often get better results with really wide and confident swings. (This is key for circular swings) At the same time it's important to be aware of the lines, their length, and the speed at which the indicator goes down them. Some prompts are more picky than others, and you'll need to be a lot more on the money for them. The key to mastering five star difficulty songs on hard is to identify the problematic prompts, and make an effort to learn them.

I think We Cheer 2 is a fantastic game that's worthy of any Wii collection. If you're okay with taking the time to experiment and learn how to play a Wii Remote game, you'll have an incredibly good time with it. If you hate motion controls to begin with and are unable to blame yourself for an incorrect motion, there is absolutely no chance of you liking this game.

Edited January 3, 2023 by PekoponTAS

[Estil | 1,261]

I finally did get around to finishing the main story in Final Fantasy 12 (PS4 version)...though I can't believe I'm still short of that cartography trophy...  All the more reason that this was an exceptionally complex game, especially for 2006!  Far more complex and involved and more interesting than Zelda Twilight Princess, but like Jeff Rovin once said, Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest games are perfect for those who mastered the adventures of Hyrule!

[wongojack | 211]

In 2022

 

 

Super Mario Galaxy 2 - Took me years to get around to it, and I don't know why.  I love the Galaxy series.  They are love letters to 3d platforming and all the variety of gameplay involved in both games is truly amazing.  There are some things to complain about of course like the lame excuse for a story, and the fact that the sound effects (not music) make my wife have to leave the room, but overall both of these games are an easy 5/5.

 

 

 

Return to Monkey Island - A very worthy return to the series for Ron Gilbert and co.  I get that some people were turned off by the art style, but I loved it.  There are also some nice added little touches like a scrapbook to recap past adventures, and a built-in trivia game.  Lots of hidden little secrets and achievements to give you a reason to replay.  Easy 5/5.

[SailorScoutMandy | 782]

First game in 2023, tho I did start it awhile ago and only just got to finishing it oops. 

 

Jedi Fallen Order

 

Can't wait for the next one! 

 

 

[wongojack | 211]

 

Undertale - I first heard about Undertale years ago when it showed up on some reviewers "best of" lists. I stashed it in the backlog and finally got around to playing it last month.  I had read a little about the game but discovered all the characters and the story on my own in my first playthrough. Given how highly it was reviewed, I kind of expected there to be a bit more real-world weight to the story. Like, I thought that it might be revealed that the kid was abused and was inventing stories about monsters as a way to deal with trauma or something. However, that extra twist never came, and I'm kinda scratching my head at how this game has been reviewed by critics so well. I mean, it is cute, and it definitely is a love letter to JRPGs, but game of the year? really? Because it knows what is in your save file?  I wasn't inspired enough to do a second "pacifist" playthrough, so I could be judging this game unfairly, but playing a game 2x is a HUGE ask for me.  If you can't give me your best experience the first time through, I can't really be bothered any more.  Undertale is a good game for people already enamored with Earthbound, Pokemon, and JRPGs in general, but I can't recommend it.  It is a dumbed down version of any JRPG you can think of, and if the characters and story don't happen to click with you (they didn't with me) then it will feel like a waste of time.  I give it a 2 out of 5.

 

 

 

The Last of us Part II - Well, this was interesting.  First, I'll say that I didn't really enjoy the original game as much as others.  It seemed that story-wise (and story is very important in this series) they were treading over well-trodden ground.  Even for video games, there are so many zombie and post-apocalyptic games that came before The Last of Us that you wonder how the pitch went.  It is NOT an original story or setting at all, so I was surprised at how many people went nuts for the original.  Anyway, the first game grew on me as I was able to get into the gameplay, and I ended up liking it enough.  The sequel however was immediately more fun.  However, I've never played a game that overstayed its welcome more than TLOU pii.  The game was simply too long, and I mean that in a way that I've never ever experienced before.  This is the first game I've ever played where I was involuntarily prompted to view it like a film and think "they really needed an editor."  If this was a movie, it would have been a 3-hour snore-fest that should be 90 minutes.  My principal complaint is that the actual gameplay just doesn't really change that much as you are playing.  Sure, it is nice to be able to swim or to drive a boat, but those things don't necessitate another 3 hours (or more) of game time.  I would have appreciated the Batman Arkham approach where they gave me a lot of choices about what to pursue and then given me even more gameplay through challenge rooms.  Challenge rooms would have been perfect for this for another reason, and that is because they put you in many interesting situations, but you only ever get one shot at them.  One shot with your various weapons and abilities.  It would have been incredible to have been challenged in different ways in a more "arcade" setting, but I sense that someone was really in love with their story, and it hurt the pace of gameplay a bit.  With all of that said, this is still an excellent game, and I give a 4 out of 5.  I'm not really looking forward to the upcoming show based on this game because of how derivative this series is, but I'm going to watch it anyway, hoping to be surprised.  I hope they borrow the composer from the game, because the music was incredible IMO.

 

Something else specifically related to that picture I chose.  This game is violent in a way that I've never really experienced before (and I've played a lot of games).  Ellie and Abby must both murder in silent, up-close, and personal ways over and over again.  There are a handful of times that you as the player happen accidentally on a screen like above where you are "routinely" stealth killing an enemy only to pivot the camera in such a way to see both Ellie's murderous face and her victim's as they expire.  It is one thing to shoot an alien and watch it go splat, but entirely different to commit knife stabbing murder more than 50 times in a game.  All performed by a teenage girl in the name of simple revenge.  It disturbed me.

Edited January 9, 2023 by wongojack

[Sumez | 2,932]

5 hours ago, wongojack said:

I wasn't inspired enough to do a second "pacifist" playthrough, so I could be judging this game unfairly, but playing a game 2x is a HUGE ask for me. 

I don't think anyone should,but you can just play pacifist the first time through. I always recommend this, and I don't understand why anyone wouldn't. The game even outright tells you that you shouldn't kill anyone. There's really no reason to ever play anything other than pacifist outside of finding the hidden extra boss. 

And you're missing so much of the story by not doing pacifist. Don't tell me you met all the characters if you went around killing them

That said there's not that much depth to the story, that you're missing. I'm not sure why you'd expect something crazy depressing like that from a quirky fun small rpg like this. It's just a fun story with fantastic humor and entertaining likeable characters. But yeah, if you don't try to spare every encounter you're not really seeing 50% of what the game has to offer. 

[wongojack | 211]

8 hours ago, Sumez said:

I don't think anyone should,but you can just play pacifist the first time through. I always recommend this, and I don't understand why anyone wouldn't. The game even outright tells you that you shouldn't kill anyone. There's really no reason to ever play anything other than pacifist outside of finding the hidden extra boss. 

And you're missing so much of the story by not doing pacifist. Don't tell me you met all the characters if you went around killing them

That said there's not that much depth to the story, that you're missing. I'm not sure why you'd expect something crazy depressing like that from a quirky fun small rpg like this. It's just a fun story with fantastic humor and entertaining likeable characters. But yeah, if you don't try to spare every encounter you're not really seeing 50% of what the game has to offer. 

I only killed a few enemies at the beginning when I got confused about how to spare them.  I spared everything else except the robot (which I couldn't figure out).  The most fun parts of the game were figuring out how to spare things, but even then, a lot of it was waiting as you had to attack a bit before the options would change etc.

 

I expected more because of the insanely high review scores, and as I continued to play, I was repeatedly unimpressed with the actual game itself.  The only thing really interesting about Undertale is that it is different than other JRPGs.  The fighting gameplay is ordinary, but once you figure out how to spare an enemy there's no more challenge.  The brief sections between hub worlds felt completely scripted to the point where I was usually just waiting for the next save point to tell me we're moving on.  The graphics are done to make you feel like it is underproduced, and they achieve that.  I felt the characters weren't really themed to go with their environments at all, and the graphic style just came across as completely chaotic.  The sound might be the best part of the game in that the music seems quite good, but I played most of the time with the sound off as this is a game with heavy reading, so I played it at times when the sound might have disturbed someone else.

Edited January 9, 2023 by wongojack

[MagusSmurf | 577]

The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky: The 3rd

The main plot and conflict here is just ridiculous arbitrary bullshit that solely exists as an excuse for one last outing with the Trails in the Sky gang before the series mostly moves on to focusing on other characters, stories, and regions. This is pretty much the Trails equivalent of a

Spoiler

holodeck goes berserk episode from Star Trek

or something. I can't really complain too much, though. It probably wasn't even possible to write a totally reasonable story that accomplishes the cast reunion without undermining that the first two games were the stuff that mattered so I guess they didn't try too hard.

The additional stuff we got here on character backstories, lore, and places for the series to go in the future are mostly really cool. If you're into the trails plot/characters/worldbuilding, I wouldn't call skipping this a good idea in spite of the issues. Some of the story content probably could have been placed in Trails SC if they had more forethought but that game was long enough as it was. And while the core conceit of the main plot here never stopped being silly, the emotional beats and characterization work well enough. The gameplay gives you enough options quickly enough and has some (tiny) tweaks from the first two that probably give it the best combat of the first three games. On the downside, whereas a lot of the reused assets in SC generally made sense in the context of the game as a whole and the story it was trying to tell...well, here the game's premise is just silly so it having a lot of the same areas even in non-flashback segments feels lazy.

I enjoyed the game, but as the same time I can't help but scoff at it. Maybe don't pull this again, Trails? 7/10

Edited January 9, 2023 by MagusSmurf

[DarkTone | 984]

Warioware: get it together. Liked the game but not the mechanics. I see what they were going for. Worked for the wii, not here though.