Games You Have Beaten Recently?

[fox | 1,669]

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora

[wongojack | 220]

All right, I have a couple of games from my childhood that I finally beat for the first time this past week.

 

Rygar (for NES) - This is a game that I used my allowance on in my younger days.  The game immediately turned me off, and I never really gave it any attention.  I wasn't aware of Rygar as an arcade game, and I was hoping for a more Zelda-like experience.  Back then, the game's non-Zeldaness and the lack of any real hints turned me off.  I gave up and traded it away, but I have thought about the game many times since then, and I did eventually beat the Lynx version (which is much more like the arcade).  Anyway, the time finally came for me to tackle this game as an adult.  It's short, unchallenging, a bit ugly and even a little unnecessarily complex at times.  However, in 2023, something about it ends up being a refreshingly straightforward experience that can be enjoyed completely in an afternoon.  Even if you take the time to see everything there is to see, you'll probably spend less than 6 hours.  I think I'd have a hard time recommending Rygar to someone who has no memories or nostalgia for it, but I was very pleased to revisit it after so many years.  I give Rygar a 3 out of 5. 

 

 

Mike Tyson's Punch Out.  Yep - it took me 37 years, but I finally beat kid dynamite.  This game is one of the greatest examples of classic gaming perfection from the 80's.  The combination of reflexes, memorization and pushing the technology to its absolute limits have stood the test of time very well.  To this day, the game can't really be emulated without sacrificing key gameplay speed and techniques.  It's a true gem whose music, sound, graphics and charm seem fresh and compelling even to this day.  For Atari fans, I'd compare this one to Kaboom as it requires the same intense focus and consistent practice while still offering a challenge to those that master it. 

But what really pushes this up for me is the inclusion of Tyson.  I just can't think of another game that so perfectly coincided with the peak stardom of an elite celebrity.  There's no way this game would have reached the same level of popularity or had the same urgency for the player without him.

If you can't tell, I REALLY like MTPO and felt a huge sense of accomplishment to finally beat this game.  It was extra special that I ended up using my very own childhood NES.  My 11-year-old self would have been happy for me.  I give Mike Tyson's Punch Out an almost perfect 5 out of 5.

 

Edited January 1 by wongojack

[wongojack | 220]

Oh boy, here's one that has been pending for a LONG time.  Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.  I had never played this game as a young adult.  I played the original but was never really impressed.  I think as a 10 or 11-year-old, the controls were a bit too complicated and the vulnerability on things like angular stairs combined with a timer (they have a timer right?) and a need to memorize in some sections caused me to drop out entirely.  So, when SOTN came around, it had no impact on me.  I was fully bought into 3d gaming at the time and the thought of revisiting a 2d series that I didn't enjoy in the first place just did not motivate me.

Fast forward to 2023 and "metroidvania" is now everyone's favorite indie genre - including me.  I love them, AND I've also discovered in the last 25+ years that I love Super Metroid and am very interested in exploring a game that was directly inspired by it.  So, off I went.

I did not look at hints or a walkthrough before exploring about 95% of the castle.  I had no knowledge of the end of the game, and I wanted to experience it first without outside influence.  My journey from 0% exploration to 95% was definitely a great experience.  It was filled with typical if not excellent "metroidvania" moments of exploration and puzzle solving to access new areas and gain new abilities and equipment.  However, something started to flip at this point where the difficulty of the game really dropped.  Playing as me in 2023 with all of my experience in these types of games, I was very methodical about exploring and finding the various hidden items.  At some point, I decided to save money to buy the best armor available, and I think that's where the difficulty really started to drop for me.  Suddenly almost every fight just could be resolved as a slugfest.  Duck and hit, duck and hit.  The extra "health" items started to pile up unused, and as I found more and more equipment (mostly useless) my advantages tipped waaay over and the game became an exercise in simply filling in the map. 

So that brings me to the reality that SOTN is really 2.5 games or 2.75 if you play the Saturn version.  The inverted castle . . .  I didn't figure out how to unlock this by myself.  I knew I hadn't explored EVERY area before facing Richter, but I decided to push forward anyway.  After a little more explanation, I found the required items, but lost patience and looked online on how to advance.  [It was at this point that I read about the mechanics of the Sheild Rod which has impact later on the difficulty of the game.]

The inverted castle seemed like a great idea, but my excitement quickly waned.  The difficulty was still very low.  I don't think I died because of a boss fight for hours and hours.  I can't even remember a difficult boss fight in the inverted castle even without the powers granted by the before-mentioned Sheild Rod.  By the end, I couldn't believe the game wasn't over.  I labored to fill out 200.6% of the map and got through the final boss fight multiple times with multiple different strategies without dying.

---Evaluation

I think this is a lesson that newer games have learned, but SOTN could have been excellent if it didn't give the player so many ways to play it.  Finishing it makes me wish I could play a version of the game that restricts equipment to increase the challenge.  It is also REALLY hurt by the fact that all the puzzle-solving and discovery is completely gone when exploring the inverted castle.  With nothing to discover and almost no challenge, the game just dies.  If I hadn't set out specifically to finish it, I wouldn't have pushed through to the best ending.

In the end, I can see the quality of this game, but it just can't get out of its way to deliver a consistently fun experience.  I would rate SOTN a disappointing 4 out of 5 and could be convinced to give it a 3.

[wongojack | 220]

Ok, I am posting a trio of games here in 2024 because I played them together deliberately.  Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Call of Duty: Black Ops, and Battlefield Bad Company 2 - all on Xbox 360.  This is not my preferred genre, and I really have no interest in playing the multiplayer modes of these games (good thing because they are all around 10-15 years old).  I set out to finish the single player campaigns on these games as they are credited as being some of the best examples of recent single player FPS campaigns.  Each of these were remarkably similar in length ranging from 453 mins to around 490 minutes.  A pretty shockingly close result.  Although it should be noted that Black Ops does give you more to play with a single player survival mode immediately following the campaign, so there is potentially A LOT more content when going solo with that one.

 

These games are all pretty excellent examples of Hollywood-style military entertainment brought to video games.  The stories are well constructed but not overly burdened by character, plot, or background content. 

Black Ops manages to transcend a little by building heavily on historical context to add a bit to its overall appeal.  It feels more like a plot from the Jason Bourne series of movies.  Jumping around the 60's still felt fresh to me even if the over-arching plot of brainwashing and revealing the secret meaning of "the numbers" was a bit derivative.

Bad Company 2 does a nice job capturing a sort of "Buddy Cop" feel only with a small squad of almost cartoonish military bad asses.  It works well and delivers several memorable and quotable moments along the way.  They even manage to reference Seinfeld in there at one point with a throwaway line about how the sand "is making me thirsty."  There's also another unforgettable little speech about one of the characters wanting to be buried at Texas Stadium.  It really makes you want to like these guys and get through the campaign with them.

CoD 4 was apparently the first entry in the series NOT to be set in WWII.  Arriving in 2007 and featuring intense combat sequences in a fictional middle east country (that totally isn't Iraq/Kuwait), this one carries some weight to it when a devastating event changes the future for the fictional world they've built.  In what was a surprise to me - the main characters aren't necessarily safe. I am sure that many active-duty soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan played this game and were impacted by it.

 

These games are similar enough to all receive a 4 out of 5 rating from me.  Their single player campaigns deliver exactly what they meant to but fall short of being something really special.  In fact, in 2023 there are probably current examples from each or equivalent series that could also get the job done about the same way which isn't true for many genres.  If I were to rank these 3 single-player campaigns against each other, I think they would shake out like this:

 

1. Call of Duty: Black Ops <- The gameplay lifts it slightly above with fewer frustrating "scripted" moments and some better reasons to try out different weapon combos.  Zombie survival mode is also a nice bonus for a solo player.
2. Battlefield Bad Company 2 <- The humor and characters really work well, but the gameplay is a bit less varied.  I was able to stick with the same weapon combo the whole game, rarely needed to experiment.
3. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare <- A compelling and maybe even a little risky story.  I think it falls to 3rd because of a handful of frustrating moments where I wasn't sure how to make progress in their "scripted" scenarios.

Your squad from BC2:

Edited January 5 by wongojack

[Gloves | 11,816]

4 minutes ago, wongojack said:

Ok, I am posting a trio of games here in 2024 because I played them together deliberately.  Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Call of Duty: Black Ops, and Battlefield Bad Company 2 - all on Xbox 360.  This is not my preferred genre, and I really have no interest in playing the multiplayer modes of these games (good thing because they are all around 10-15 years old).  I set out to finish the single player campaigns on these games as they are credited as being some of the best examples of recent single player FPS campaigns.  Each of these were remarkably similar in length ranging from 453 mins to around 490 minutes.  A pretty shockingly close result.  Although it should be noted that Black Ops does give you more to play with a single player survival mode immediately following the campaign, so there is potentially A LOT more content when going solo with that one.

 

These games are all pretty excellent examples of Hollywood-style military entertainment brought to video games.  The stories are well constructed but not overly burdened by character, plot, or background content. 

Black Ops manages to transcend a little by building heavily on historical context to add a bit to its overall appeal.  It feels more like a plot from the Jason Bourne series of movies.  Jumping around the 60's still felt fresh to me even if the over-arching plot of brainwashing and revealing the secret meaning of "the numbers" was a bit derivative.

Bad Company 2 does a nice job capturing a sort of "Buddy Cop" feel only with a small squad of almost cartoonish military bad asses.  It works well and delivers several memorable and quotable moments along the way.  They even manage to reference Seinfeld in there at one point with a throwaway line about how the sand "is making me thirsty."  There's also another unforgettable little speech about one of the characters wanting to be buried at Texas Stadium.  It really makes you want to like these guys and get through the campaign with them.

CoD 4 was apparently the first entry in the series NOT to be set in WWII.  Arriving in 2007 and featuring intense combat sequences in a fictional middle east country (that totally isn't Iraq/Kuwait), this one carries some weight to it when a devastating event changes the future for the fictional world they've built.  In what was a surprise to me - the main characters aren't necessarily safe. I am sure that many active-duty soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan played this game and were impacted by it.

 

These games are similar enough to all receive a 4 out of 5 rating from me.  Their single player campaigns deliver exactly what they meant to but fall short of being something really special.  In fact, in 2023 there are probably current examples from each or equivalent series that could also get the job done about the same way which isn't true for many genres.  If I were to rank these 3 single-player campaigns against each other, I think they would shake out like this:

 

1. Call of Duty: Black Ops <- The gameplay lifts it slightly above with fewer frustrating "scripted" moments and some better reasons to try out different weapon combos.  Zombie survival mode is also a nice bonus for a solo player.
2. Battlefield Bad Company 2 <- The humor and characters really work well, but the gameplay is a bit less varied.  I was able to stick with the same weapon combo the whole game, rarely needed to experiment.
3. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare <- A compelling and maybe even a little risky story.  I think it falls to 3rd because of a handful of frustrating moments where I wasn't sure how to make progress in their "scripted" scenarios.

Your squad from BC2:

Unfortunately the CoD campaigns of the new MW2 and MW3 fell off significantly, being easily the worst in the series. Before that the MW reboot was excellent, and before *that* the campaigns have been duds for a good while now, sadly. 

Battlefield of today is similar. Bad Company 2 was the height of storytelling in the series. 

If you want more/better, Black Ops 2 and the original MW2 and 3 all upped the ante. 

[Reed Rothchild | 9,569]

Bad Company 2 > all the CODs

The multiplayer was sweet too.  I assume it's dead nowadays.

[Gloves | 11,816]

Just now, Reed Rothchild said:

Bad Company 2 > all the CODs

The multiplayer was sweet too.  I assume it's dead nowadays.

Meeeehhhhh. Depends on what you're looking for. 

[Reed Rothchild | 9,569]

3 minutes ago, Gloves said:

Meeeehhhhh. Depends on what you're looking for. 

 

[a3quit4s | 4,124]

Dave the Diver. Completed the main story line and got to diamond rank in my sushi restaurant which is the highest. Really good game for only being $15 in the eshop on Switch. Definitely recommended and worth every cent. 

[Gravity_0 | 5]

Beat the main story of Wolcen. God, it's really not that great, thank god for the skip button. If you ever for some reason get that game, just be a summoner and use that laser spell if you don't care about challenge.

[wongojack | 220]

Another childhood opponent bites the dust as I mopped the court with the highest level opponent in Tennis for the NES.  I beat him twice (for the cup), and to win required some pretty cheap and repetitive gameplay.

There's really only one reliable way to score on him which is to hit the ball as wide as possible to the right side of the court and then approach the net.  If you approach as the computer is also approaching after his return then you can hit a winner to the left side of the court either overhand or via a backhand.  He still gets quite a bit of shots you don't quite place correctly, and you are likely to hit a bunch of shots out, but it is still the only strategy I found that worked.  I would also score occasionally on aces, but those seemed controlled somehow by the computer.  Maybe if I had experimented more moving along the baseline, I could have gotten more aces, but I could never really do it consistently.  The computer also double faults 4-6 times a match, but other than those mentioned above, the only other way you are going to score is if he has a random mishit into the net while changing depths, or you miraculously hit it right where the computer sometimes can't return.  All of those things are totally unreliable except for the hit right, approach, slam left strategy. 

There's no reason for anyone to play this game unless you have some nostalgia for it, but in general there's nothing wrong with it.  There's simply better options now.  I give Tennis a generous 3 out of 5.

 

Edited January 16 by wongojack

[Sumez | 2,986]

Congratu

Lations!

[wongojack | 220]

8 hours ago, Sumez said:

Congratu

Lations!

LOL - I checked the spelling multiple times.  All the letters in the right order is good.

Anyone know if the dollar amount changes depending on the opponents you beat?  I guess I could easily test by playing level 1 and 2 . . .

Edit - vid confirmation that the amount (and cup color) does change depending on the opponent:  Tennis (FC/NES) (youtube.com)

 

Edited January 16 by wongojack

[NostalgicMachine | 245]

Friday the 13th (NES) for the upcoming Good, Bad, Buggy for The Gaming Manual!

[Ankos | 454]

Castlevania DX by Sintax. One of the most intricate bootleg/unlicensed games the GBC has to offer. I put off trying it for a long time since all the text is in Chinese, but I barely read the text in games anymore, so that stopped being an issue for me

Here's a playthrough of it recorded by TamerKoh for anyone curious

 

[twiztor | 855]

On 1/3/2024 at 11:17 AM, wongojack said:

Oh boy, here's one that has been pending for a LONG time.  Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.  I had never played this game as a young adult.  I played the original but was never really impressed.  I think as a 10 or 11-year-old, the controls were a bit too complicated and the vulnerability on things like angular stairs combined with a timer (they have a timer right?) and a need to memorize in some sections caused me to drop out entirely.  So, when SOTN came around, it had no impact on me.  I was fully bought into 3d gaming at the time and the thought of revisiting a 2d series that I didn't enjoy in the first place just did not motivate me.

Fast forward to 2023 and "metroidvania" is now everyone's favorite indie genre - including me.  I love them, AND I've also discovered in the last 25+ years that I love Super Metroid and am very interested in exploring a game that was directly inspired by it.  So, off I went.

I did not look at hints or a walkthrough before exploring about 95% of the castle.  I had no knowledge of the end of the game, and I wanted to experience it first without outside influence.  My journey from 0% exploration to 95% was definitely a great experience.  It was filled with typical if not excellent "metroidvania" moments of exploration and puzzle solving to access new areas and gain new abilities and equipment.  However, something started to flip at this point where the difficulty of the game really dropped.  Playing as me in 2023 with all of my experience in these types of games, I was very methodical about exploring and finding the various hidden items.  At some point, I decided to save money to buy the best armor available, and I think that's where the difficulty really started to drop for me.  Suddenly almost every fight just could be resolved as a slugfest.  Duck and hit, duck and hit.  The extra "health" items started to pile up unused, and as I found more and more equipment (mostly useless) my advantages tipped waaay over and the game became an exercise in simply filling in the map. 

So that brings me to the reality that SOTN is really 2.5 games or 2.75 if you play the Saturn version.  The inverted castle . . .  I didn't figure out how to unlock this by myself.  I knew I hadn't explored EVERY area before facing Richter, but I decided to push forward anyway.  After a little more explanation, I found the required items, but lost patience and looked online on how to advance.  [It was at this point that I read about the mechanics of the Sheild Rod which has impact later on the difficulty of the game.]

The inverted castle seemed like a great idea, but my excitement quickly waned.  The difficulty was still very low.  I don't think I died because of a boss fight for hours and hours.  I can't even remember a difficult boss fight in the inverted castle even without the powers granted by the before-mentioned Sheild Rod.  By the end, I couldn't believe the game wasn't over.  I labored to fill out 200.6% of the map and got through the final boss fight multiple times with multiple different strategies without dying.

---Evaluation

I think this is a lesson that newer games have learned, but SOTN could have been excellent if it didn't give the player so many ways to play it.  Finishing it makes me wish I could play a version of the game that restricts equipment to increase the challenge.  It is also REALLY hurt by the fact that all the puzzle-solving and discovery is completely gone when exploring the inverted castle.  With nothing to discover and almost no challenge, the game just dies.  If I hadn't set out specifically to finish it, I wouldn't have pushed through to the best ending.

In the end, I can see the quality of this game, but it just can't get out of its way to deliver a consistently fun experience.  I would rate SOTN a disappointing 4 out of 5 and could be convinced to give it a 3.

good writeup, and very similar to my experience a few years ago. I knew that the castle flipped at one point. Played through the game, ended up looking up what i needed to do to get the "true ending" or whatever. And i fully agree. Once you invert the castle, it's pretty straightforward and you can just blitz basically everything.

i had this realization a bit sooner. I was playing the game with my wife (she's not really a gamer but this game hooked her) so progress was exceedingly slow. One weekend, she was out of town, and i booted the game up. Beat the majority of the whole thing. She was pissed (rightfully so), so i started a new save file to get us back to where we had been. With all the puzzles and secrets fresh in my mind, i breezed to that point. it's not a hard game whatsoever. even without doing all the upgrades (i basically never buy weapons/armor from shops and just wait for equipment to drop).

[Jaden | 151]

I was going to make a dedicated thread for all my completed games, but it probably makes more sense to post them all here and not clutter the forum with useless threads nobody will see.

January 12th, 2024 - Splatterhouse (TG16) (Normal difficulty)

The original Splatterhouse is one of my favorite games of all time, but I've never actually beaten the TurboGrafx-16 version. I'm kinda bummed this never got ported to other consoles like NES and Genesis, but this is still a lovely version of the game. It's easier than the arcade game (though there is a secret hard mode) and there is far less gore on display here. I feel like the controls aren't nearly as tight or responsive as the arcade version either, but that's probably just me being weird. It was still a ton of fun blasting through this game. I cite this as one of the few examples where story and gameplay are perfectly intertwined. This is how you communicate your plot through the action. Great stuff!

 

January 18th, 2024 - A Bug's Life (PS1) (100%)

I don't think I could have picked two more different games to group together even if I tried! A Bug's Life was one of my favorite games growing up, but I never got to see the end of it. Now that I have, I can say that it's a pretty solid puzzle platformer all around. The controls are very slippery and it can be hard making some jumps and walking along thin platforms in the later levels. The second to last level is pretty stupid, as the game still expects you to collect all the grain pieces and kill all the enemies while flying through a tunnel at a set speed. You can go back, but only at parts of the level where there are two paths. There is no button to turn around, which makes that level more difficult than it needs to be. But still, there were some pretty decent puzzles here that got me scratching my head. I also finished all three bonus levels, which I literally just learned about today. I saw I still had three locked movie clips and didn't know how to get them. I would have never figured out how to get to these bonus levels as a kid. They're nothing special, but it's nice to get to experience them.

As for the next game I'm going to complete, maybe an NES game? I was thinking the original Metroid would be a fun one to tackle. Or possibly The Guardian Legend. I'm not sure. I'll have to think about it. Overall, I'm hoping to finish a lot more games in 2024 than I did in previous years!

[Gloves | 11,816]

Just beat Arcade Gears Vol. 1: Pu-Li-Ru-La on the Saturn. It's a pretty short, quirky arcade beat-em-up game with an interesting little story. Fun, and pretty challenging on the default settings as someone who doesn't play this genre much at all.

[wongojack | 220]

Since my last post, I've finished Spiderman for the PS4 and The Expanse: A TellTale Series on Xbox.

Vastly different games, but both of them were excellent in my opinion.  There's been so much said about Spiderman, that I doubt I can say anything new.  An excellent game that borrows the best parts from other great games.  It earns an easy A from me and a 5 out of 5.

I didn't know that TellTale was back in business.  I've enjoyed their games over the years, and I was very excited when I saw them release a game based on The Expanse.  This game was made for me.  I love the Expanse books and the show, and I love the hybrid character added to the show who is the protagonist of this game.  There's nothing new in The Expanse compared to other TellTale games, but it works and this was a nice use of The Expanse license.  I give The Expanse: A TellTale Series a 5 out of 5.

 

[Reed Rothchild | 9,569]

I own every Expanse book, hoping to finally start the series next year.  And then I'll do the show.  Maybe someday I'll have time for the game.

[wongojack | 220]

1 hour ago, Reed Rothchild said:

I own every Expanse book, hoping to finally start the series next year.  And then I'll do the show.  Maybe someday I'll have time for the game.

Oh, definitely get to that first book.  Prioritize reading or listening to that right away.  I think it is really special.

[RegularGuyGamer | 2,017]

On 1/5/2024 at 1:15 PM, Gloves said:

Meeeehhhhh. Depends on what you're looking for. 

Go on...

[wongojack | 220]

 I made my way through all the contenders and title defense fights in Wii Punch-Out.  The game was a great homage to the NES game and the arcade originals, and I really liked the updates to the characters' abilities and dialog etc.  A classic game re-done right in my opinion.  They also are very respectful of the player's time by giving the option to practice against all the fighters (except for the last hidden character) AND you can restart a match at any time.

However, I'm not sure that in a modern context the game would really have impressed me without the HEAVY nostalgia I have for the NES version.  While they do give ample chances for practice and restart, the difficulty is definitely MUCH higher now.  There are also many places in the game where memorization is simply required rather than the read and react gameplay that was dominant in the NES version.

The game also sort of left me with a bad taste when after finishing my title defense, I unlocked a "Last Stand" game mode that is kind of like an "endless" mode.  The problem is, you only ever get one chance at this mode before you are forced to retire permanently.  That profile can never resume their career or get a try at the "Last Stand" mode again - weird because I would have loved to fight the boxers in a mode more like the NES game.  Of course, I hadn't practiced against the individual boxers in days, so I lost 3 matches right away and my last chance was up.  I'll have to fight through an entirely new career just to enjoy that mode ever again.

 

Spoiler

Finally, the final secret character is . . . Donkey Kong.  This was fine, I guess, but it is not the arcade classic version of Donkey Kong, and he turned out to be the least fun fight in the game for me.  There's a bit too much memorization and pattern recognition required for me to remember that fight being fun, and I don't really want to beat up a lovable animal anyway.  Probably would have been better to get Bowser in there.  He seems more like a fantasy character than an actual animal, and who doesn't want to punch Bowser in the face?

 

This is my DK:

 

Despite the very end, there was A LOT to enjoy in this version of Punch-Out.  I wish more classic games would get treatment like this.  I give Wii Punch-Out a very strong 4 out of 5.  I think the precision and memorization required to succeed at this game are a bit of a mismatch for my tastes in 2023.  I know there are plenty of Soulsborne fans who dig this stuff, but I just can't be bothered very often to get through it.  Anyway, I mention that only to call out that if you ARE into that style of game then this would probably score a bit higher for you.

 

Edited February 12 by wongojack

[TriHart | 88]

Went and revisited Metroid for NES. Haven't played through for years and years and had a good time. I have to say. The addition of the maps since this one was definately welcome as far as I'm concerned.

[Jaden | 151]

Talk about a coincidence. I had actually just finished Metroid as well. This was my first time beating the game. And while it is pretty janky in some spots, I still had a blast playing the game, looking for secrets, and defeating Mother Brain. I think Zelda 1 has aged much better than Metroid, but it's still a great time all around. For the record, I was working on a map for this game but never finished it. In the end, I mainly got around by memory and was still able to finish the game without much trouble. The hardest part for me was those stupid infinitely spawning bugs, but the ice beam thankfully makes them pretty much harmless. So, Guardian Legend next?

February 12th, 2024 - Metroid (NES) (Any%)

Edited February 12 by Jaden