The 2021 Backlog Challenge

[G-type | 2,480]

11 hours ago, Reed Rothchild said:

0/5
I was feeling.  I really thought Super Mario Bros. 2 was gonna happen 

Well I did beat it with save states, so maybe half credit? 

[Andy_Bogomil | 815]

Haven't been gaming as much over the summer.. having said that I'm not sure I'm willing to put in the time to beat Mega Man 11 within an hour. Gonna take more than some casual practice. Still plan on tackling Jurassic Park - saving it for the fall. 

 

I also got Ghost of Tsushima as a gift so that's been taking some time as well but not a 'backlog' game. 

Edited September 4, 2021 by Andy_Bogomil

[ThePhleo | 2,184]

I slowed down a lot…

Work is too much to handle, not enough time for Nintendo … and I still have a ton of RPGs

[BortLicensePlate | 652]

still looking for a damn job  ehh theres always next year. Probably will trim the goal down a bit

[Jeevan | 8,910]

@Reed Rothchild I have beat Rabbid Kong so far in Mario + Rabbids.....

Not too bad of a game so far.  Hope to maybe play more later, but game night is coming up!

[0xDEAFC0DE | 1,277]

14 minutes ago, Jeevan said:

@Reed Rothchild I have beat Rabbid Kong so far in Mario + Rabbids.....

Not too bad of a game so far.  Hope to maybe play more later, but game night is coming up!

I really enjoyed that one. It definitely felt more like a puzzle game than I was expecting which I like

[O.G. CIB | 415]

@Reed Rothchild will be back at it this month and close strong. I wanted to finish buying all the crap I wanted besides switch games and NES posters (Mission just about complete pending some auctions this week) and I upgraded my setup which I am excited about. Thanks for the bump (lol not time to go print the list out again)

[darkchylde28 | 1,546]

On 9/3/2021 at 10:32 PM, Reed Rothchild said:

We're now 2/3 of the way through the year.  Let's (again) take stock of how everyone is doing.

@darkchylde28 0/6
Stop distracting him with game nights @Jeevan !

I really keep meaning to get back to Zelda II, but I've managed to misplace my NES Satellite and my set of Acclaim Double Player controllers which had previously been working find have been acting goofy.  I've got a launch AVS without the power port lock down mod done to it, so I'm very squeamish about using it during any hours when my kids will be up and around, unless I've got a solid wireless solution to do so with.

I probably need to go update my post, but I've played probably 50% of Wasteland with my brother, just the Apple II version versus the PC, but that's honestly added more spice to things, being a version we're not familiar with of a game we've gone through so many times.

Roadwar 2000 is another one that I play with my brother, and we're probably 15-20% through it?  Haven't spent a lot of time with him for a while (life got in the way), so I didn't think about it, nor update my post.  Should see him tomorrow, so maybe we'll get some time in one one or the other of these titles and get something knocked out.

[darkchylde28 | 1,546]

Updated my post on page 2 with progress on Wasteland, updated it to reflect I'm playing the Apple II version, and marked it as well as Roadwar 2000 as in progress.  Will do an update on Roadwar 2000 in the near future, once more gameplay has occurred, as I don't recall specifically when we played what we played of that game (although I did take a screenshot of Wasteland to end up knowing exactly when we played it).

[Brickman | 3,983]

@Reed Rothchild just started dungeon 4. I won’t have as much time this week so that should give you some time to catch up

[Guest]

I have beaten games this year, I promise! Just not the ones on my list  Maybe this is my quarter. 

[Reed Rothchild | 9,520]

2 hours ago, Shmup said:

@Reed Rothchild just started dungeon 4. I won’t have as much time this week so that should give you some time to catch up

I'm on floor 3 of Dungeon 2.

[Jicsan | 589]

On 9/3/2021 at 9:32 PM, Reed Rothchild said:

@Jicsan 6/15
Has turned it up recently after an extremely slow start.

 

I’ve been grinding through the dlc in Pokémon shield. I’m almost done with the Isle of Armor, only need to beat Mustard now, but he stomped my whole team with one hit each so I’m grinding them into the 90s. I’m on the third dungeon in Oracle of Ages and have a ways to go still in Metroid Samus Returns.   As for those other rpgs, I don’t know if I will get to all those. 

[DoctorEncore | 3,691]

Finally finished my first and second playthrough of Nier: Replicant. A few thoughts:

Pros

• Combat is a lot of fun. The combination of magic mixed with fast-paced swordplay makes battles quite enjoyable, especially the plethora of bosses. I especially like how you can constantly fire the the Dark Blast magic for chip damage; it makes the game feel like a third person shmup.
• The game is weird in a lot of great ways. The transition from action game to text adventure to Resident Evil homage is quite unique.
• The side characters are generally pretty cool and have interesting back stories.

Cons

• Extremely repetitive with numerous reused areas. Repeat playthroughs are not worth the time. YouTube is your friend.
• The main characters (Nier and Yonah) are extremely one dimensional and have no personality.
• Story is way too opaque and obtuse. There is some interesting stuff hidden away, but only the most dedicated players will ever see it. The game also relies on too many text-based info dumps which pull you out of the action.
• Kaine's outfit (I understand the rationale based on her backstory, but it's still ridiculous and unnecessary).

All in all, I'm glad I played it and interested to see where Automata takes the gameplay and story.

I'm not sure I'm going to knock out any more backlog games from my list this year, but I do plan to finish The Ascent, Mario 64, Psychonauts 2, It Takes Two, and maybe Horizon: Zero Dawn. And then I'm gonna play a ton of Halo Infinite Multiplayer. 

It's been a great year so far.

Edited September 5, 2021 by DoctorEncore

[Sumez | 2,947]

1 hour ago, DoctorEncore said:

• The main characters (Nier and Yonah) are extremely one dimensional and have no personality.

Man, shoulda played Gestalt. Daddy Nier kicks ass  

[LutherDestroysTheGond | 690]

Updated my list.  This is making me realize how few games I actually beat anymore.  It especially made me realize how little I play anything.

The hardest part is sinking time into a new game to get invested in the story and learn the controls.  I have started a few big games that I'm excited to finally play with a 4-hour sitting then just never go back because life happens.  Really struggling to get into Skyward Sword HD at the moment.  Everytime I pick it up I have to re-learn the controls again.  Other games I started and never went back to were Dragon Quest XI, Luigi's Mansion 3, Chrono Trigger, Abert Odyssey, etc.  

Edited September 6, 2021 by LutherDestroysTheGond

[Gloves | 11,776]

Just now, LutherDestroysTheGond said:

Updated my list.  This is making me realize how few games I actually beat anymore.  It especially made me realize how little I play anything.

The hardest part is sinking time into a new game to get invested in the story and learn the controls.  I have started a few big games that I'm excited to finally play with a 4-hour sitting then just never go back because life happens.  Really struggling to get into Skyward Sword HD at the moment.  Everytime I pick it up I have to re-learn the controls again.  Other games I started and never went back to were Dragon Quest XI, Luigi's Mansion 3, Chrono Trigger, Abert Odyssey, etc.  

For me it's been a reminder of that I tend to sink far too much time into certain individual games. I've put over 4000 hours into a single Oldschool Runescape character. I have a history of addictive behavior with video games (such as my years of PlayStation trophy hunting) and it always ends up with me not playing the games I actually want to be playing. 

It's about taking the reminder and committing to taking action to get back to what I actually enjoy doing.

[DoctorEncore | 3,691]

@LutherDestroysTheGond @Gloves

I've beaten more games this year than I ever have before and I credit my success to dumping live service games. I've played a few thousand hours of Rocket League, but finally decided to drop it earlier this year. I am now much happier and playing a lot more games. I can even juggle a few single player games, which I never used to be able to do. I'm not totally giving up on multiplayer time sinks (Halo Infinite), but I allocate a lot less time to them.

[Jeevan | 8,910]

@Reed Rothchild

[acromite53 | 337]

Gotta get back into this! I do have some Resident Evil games planned for October. Looking forward to playing RE 7.

I did complete Spongebob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom Rehydrated. I would have gotten 100% completion, but there is 1 missing collectable sock that did not spawn. So I will forever be stuck at 99/100 spatulas. UGH. For a time, you could break the game and collect a sock which was out of bounds. Unfortunately, they patched that glitch but didn't bother to fix the initial missing sock glitch! So now I can't even break the game to get 100%. What a mess. Fun game though!

Edited September 6, 2021 by acromite53

[DoctorEncore | 3,691]

9 minutes ago, acromite53 said:

Gotta get back into this! I do have some Resident Evil games planned for October. Looking forward to playing RE 7.

I did complete Spongebob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom Rehydrated. I would have gotten 100% completion, but there is 1 missing collectable sock that did not spawn. So I will forever be stuck at 99/100 spatulas. UGH. For a time, you could break the game and collect a sock which was out of bounds. Unfortunately, they patched that glitch but didn't bother to fix the initial missing sock glitch! So now I can't even break the game to get 100%. What a mess. Fun game though!

Do you have the physical version of SpongeBob? If so, you could delete your updated copy and then play offline from disc/cart to avoid patches.

[Reed Rothchild | 9,520]

1 hour ago, Jeevan said:

@Reed Rothchild

That was fast.  Must have sucked you in.  I still need to play it.

[Jeevan | 8,910]

1 hour ago, Reed Rothchild said:

That was fast.  Must have sucked you in.  I still need to play it.

it was pretty decent for a mario shooter game.  not my favorite but I would replay it after a year or so....not worth 100%ing imo....just art and soundtracks.

Originally heard about it on a twitch series of old school xcom.  Looked interesting.

[acromite53 | 337]

1 hour ago, DoctorEncore said:

Do you have the physical version of SpongeBob? If so, you could delete your updated copy and then play offline from disc/cart to avoid patches.

I had that thought too. Yep, I've got the cart on Switch. Just deleted the game, but it requires the update for me to run it. Maybe because my save file is from the updated version? Doesn't seem like this will work.

[DoctorEncore | 3,691]

5 minutes ago, acromite53 said:

I had that thought too. Yep, I've got the cart on Switch. Just deleted the game, but it requires the update for me to run it. Maybe because my save file is from the updated version? Doesn't seem like this will work.

Ugh. The digital future is here.