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The 2021 Backlog Challenge


Reed Rothchild

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5 hours ago, DoctorEncore said:

This has definitely become one of my all-time favorite 3D action platformers.

God damn, I always forget about this game, and I've even bought it twice.
Putting this on my 2021 backlog. 😅

3 hours ago, monkeybut625 said:

The only complaint I have is the wall jump is god awful.

It's kinda bad for a segment where it's actually required to get out of a put, but for a secret move that allows you to completely break open the game, it's brilliant!
Once you understand how it works, it's actually quite easy to pull off completely consistently.

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Beat Lufia, no surprises towards the end, so I've pretty much said everything I can on it.
Final boss was a massive anticlimax. Did they not notice that that the Mirror spell negates pretty much all of its attacks?

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Started Lufia 2 immediately. As everyone already knows, this game is leaps and bounds better than the first, and if nothing else it has a much higher production quality, that really suits it well. It looks really pretty.
I actually didn't remember that it doesn't even have random encounters. Now, I don't mind random encounters at all, but there more you're expected to explore and backtrack in a dungeon, the more annoying it can still get, especially when the encounter rate is super high. And with the more Zelda inspired puzzle like dungeons of the sequel, it's a very good choice to do it this way.

Edited by Sumez
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So yeah, as I'd kind of expected, Lufia 2 sleeps on one of the few things that I really did like about the first game. The overall balance of battles/stats/economy.

Battles are beyond vapid. I usually go so many fights without needing to heal that I completely forget that it's something you can do. Your magic users have a billion times as much MP as they need, so you can spam magic as if it wasn't a resource, and while the ability to freely target as few or many enemies with a spell as you want gives you so much power over the flow of the battle that nothing is ever left to chance.
I get that the awkward group-targeting and hitting empty air mechanics of the first Lucia felt incredibly archaic, but this opposite end of the spectrum just takes any identity out of the fights, outside of the cute monster sprites I guess.

And so far pretty much all encounters have been optional. You get a few "field tools" that can be used to stun roaming enemies to avoid combat, which IMO sounds like a pretty fun idea, and the puzzle aspect of the dungeons could potentially have been a fun way to stall strong encounters you want to avoid (think FOEs from the Etrian Odyssey series), but instead each area just have a couple weak mooks trodding about, with most of them actually trying to get away from you instead of making your life harder.

Oh, and every time you get to a new town you can pretty much just deck out your entire team with all the best gear, and still have money left over. Unfortunately that was a very common evolution in the "16 bit" generation, but it's another disappointing departure from the game's own predcessor.

 

At least some of the bosses have been able to pack a bit more punch, so hopefully the rest of the game will shape up further down the road. Or at least once I reach the Ancient Cave.

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Some sad news, after almost 16hours I’m calling it quits on Xenoblade Chronicles 2. That probably sounds like a lot of time to put in before deciding to quit but it did have a decent start but just started to get boring for me. The combat also felt way more complicated then the first one. 
I am however making great progress on ToCS 1 and absolutely loving the game. 

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3 hours ago, Shmup said:

Some sad news, after almost 16hours I’m calling it quits on Xenoblade Chronicles 2. That probably sounds like a lot of time to put in before deciding to quit but it did have a decent start but just started to get boring for me. The combat also felt way more complicated then the first one. 
I am however making great progress on ToCS 1 and absolutely loving the game. 

16 hours? That's barely the prologue for an RPG

I played ToCS on Vita a couple years ago and it was awesome. What are you playing it on?

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6 hours ago, Aguy said:

16 hours? That's barely the prologue for an RPG

I played ToCS on Vita a couple years ago and it was awesome. What are you playing it on?

Haha very true but the characters and the combat is starting to annoy me. I may come back to it later.

I’m playing it on PC. I’m glad I’m enjoying it because for some reason I put all four on my list haha.

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14 minutes ago, Reed Rothchild said:

I really liked it, same as Birthright.  I'm not familiar with people's grievances against these particular entries in the series, but I'm guessing I either didn't notice them, or didn't mind them.

I think because it came after Awakening it was a hard act to follow. I didn't mind playing through the game once but three times was a bit too much even from a different perspective.

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Editorials Team · Posted
3 minutes ago, Shmup said:

I think because it came after Awakening it was a hard act to follow. I didn't mind playing through the game once but three times was a bit too much even from a different perspective.

Ah, I could see that.  I did Birthright years ago so I wouldn't have been able to tell how much was repeated.  I did recognize several maps.

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Earthbound Beginnings.

The graphics are good, the music is great, and the setting is neat. Lots of huge town areas to explore and quirky NPCs to talk to. The plot is probably more coherent than Earthbound's but it doesn't have nearly as much weirdness so it's worse regardless. There are some scattered pretty neat moments here. Props to the localizers for giving us a run button and a town map shortcut, they made this much more playable.

The way the more involved gameplay aspects (the battle system, economy, and ramping up of experience points) work though? It's kind of all bad, weird, and/or unpolished. The game is short, though, and a lot of the second half where the grind would get obnoxious is vulnerable to "load up your inventory with healing items, walk directly to your destination if you know where it is, use the 4th D Slip spell to 100% run away when needed, and you'll probably be fine. Try again if you're not, it won't take too long." There is only one remotely conventional boss that poses a threat, which would probably be bad if the gameplay was worth caring about it, but it basically isn't.

Not sure I can come up with a better example of an RPG whose gameplay gets actively annoying so you're just here to power through it so you can take in the presentation, talk to people, and see where you go and what happens next. Weird that it's an NES game that "wins" that for me though. You'd figure it would be something more modern with grand story and good characters (this really has neither) but that got too overambitious with its battle system or just didn't really bother but nope. It was a memorable enough experience regardless I guess?

Edited by MagusSmurf
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I went off-list for a bit to play The Messenger since I've been eyeing it for a while and it's leaving Game Pass at the end of the month. I enjoyed it, but found the second half to be a bit of a grind. I'd probably rate it about 7/10. Surprisingly, the Picnic Panic DLC is actually quite a bit better than the main game.

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Pros

  • First half of the game moves along at a nice clip
  • Great 8-bit style
  • Fun movement (slice while running!)
  • DLC is free and fun

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Cons

  • Too easy
  • Lots of backtracking in the second half of the game.
  • Later levels are weaker than early areas and mostly lack boss fights
  • Controls for gliding and cloud-stepping can be frustrating

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Next up, I'll be taking on Doom Eternal on XSX which is getting it's next-gen upgrade tomorrow! I've been waiting to play this game since 2016. Can't wait!

Peep the spoiler for the surprise boss fight and ending to the Picnic Panic DLC.

 

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14 hours ago, Reed Rothchild said:

Hmm, I don't remember Picnic Panic.  I must have overlooked it.

It was a lot of fun. I'd wager it's better than a good 75% of the base game. It has new enemies that are more challenging, some tricky platforming, and a great new boss. The final boss is fun and goofy, but not challenging per se. I'd highly recommend it if you like the standard game.

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  • 2 weeks later...

If you had told me Monkey Island 2 would be the biggest slog of the year, I would have smiled politely and assumed you were dumb and couldn't solve the puzzles. Alas, I am the one who is dumb and could not solve the puzzles. No need to recap here, but you can find my thoughts in the other thread I made regarding the game.

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Next up is Doom Eternal and probably something else TBD.

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Finished Resident Evil 3 Remake tonight.  I was told that it wasn't as good as 2, and that it was much shorter.  It wasn't as good as 2, but it was awesome, so almost as good I think.  The one playthrough took me almost six hours, which was about one and a half hours more than my first playthrough of RE2.  Now granted RE2 has the multiple scenarios so maybe that's the claim to it being longer... maybe.  I did find RE3 much harder than RE2.  The guns didn't stagger the enemies as much so you had to depend on the dodge, which I never got good at.  And multiple enemies can kill you in one hit; Nemesis, the Hunters, and the Frog looking Hunters.  I died a lot more in RE3.  The graphics on both games are great, I was really impressed at how much RE3 improved over RE2 in just the extra year between them.  The character's specifically looked better, and had improved facial animations.  

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And down goes the absolute beast that is Doom Eternal. What a ride.

Doom Eternal: How to Beat the Icon of Sin Final Boss Fight | USgamer

I adored Doom 2016 and Eternal just blows it away. It takes every aspect of the reboot and cranks it up to 11 while adding intense, puzzle-like elements to the combat. I think it will easily stand as one of the best first-person shooters of all-time. This is a masterclass in game design.

I played on Ultra Violence and found the difficulty balance perfect. The game is extremely challenging if that's what you're looking for, but I think pretty much everyone can find something to enjoy with the easier difficulty options and the cheats you can find by exploring the levels. Speaking of which, the exploration aspect that the previous game showcased is back and as fun as ever. The slower paced exploration between big battles let you catch your breath and appreciate the insanely good artistic and technical achievements of the designers.

I really can't say enough good things and this is quite possibly my game of the year (It Takes Two is close behind), although Halo Infinite is still on the way. I'm gonna give myself a break from ripping and tearing for a few months before I circle back to The Old Gods DLC.

DOOM Eternal Has A Hilarious Post-Credits Scene

I actually started Nier Replicant after my last post and it seems really good, so I'm excited to get back to it. I haven't made much progress yet because I couldn't pull myself away from Doom Eternal, but with that out of the way I think I'll move through it at a decent clip. I'm planning to do ending A and B and then maybe just Youtube endings C, D, and E. I'm not really into replaying games multiple times in a short period of time at this point in my life.

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I'm very late to the party, but I'll put a little list here. I want to focus on beating some of the Wii U games I bought.

Unfinished

  • Super Mario 3D World
  • Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze
  • Metroid Other M
  • Kirby and the Rainbow Curse
  • Sonic Lost World

Finished

  • Star Fox Zero (100%) All 70 Medals, Arcade Mode Complete, Sound Test Unlocked
  • First time beating the game: August 1, 2021
  • All 70 Medals Obtained: August 4, 2021
  • Arcade Mode Complete/Sound Test Unlocked: August 4, 2021
Edited by AmandaCathedral
Updated List: No longer own New Mario U or Mighty No. 9
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Editorials Team · Posted

I've started 4-5 of the remaining games on my list, it's just so broken up that I'm not making a lot of total progress. When the kids start going to school again, everything will be possible again. But it's basically August already, soooo I'm probably going to be bumping FF7 to 2022.

I'm currently in California visiting family, and look what I saw at a local Safeway!

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But alas...

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No new clears to report. 😒

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