The 2022 Backlog Challenge

[twiztor | 851]

started and finished Sonic the Hedgehog (1).

fun enough, but not the "Mario Killer" it was purported to be. also, i will freely admit to using the Level Select cheat in lieu of earning continues.

very disappointed that you can't play as Knuckles, even with the S&K lock-on cart.

[twiztor | 851]

and since one good turn deserves another, i blasted through Sonic 2 as well!

quite a bit easier than the first, i think i only lost 1 life before the last stage boss. but i made up for it when Metal Sonic and Dr. Robotnik hammered me until i got their patterns down.

pretty awesome game, and plays up the speed a bit more this go 'round.

[Sumez | 2,962]

On 6/5/2022 at 7:50 PM, twiztor said:

 i think i only lost 1 life before the last stage boss. but i made up for it when Metal Sonic and Dr. Robotnik hammered me until i got their patterns down.

Sounds like every single experience I've ever had with Sonic 2 since my childhood

[MegaMan52 | 2,445]

Beat Sonic Heroes with Team Chaotix: 

I already beat the game with the other teams several years ago, so I've beaten the game with all four teams.

I've played Sonic Heroes since 2004. That year, I played both the GameCube and PS2 versions with friends. One of my friends (who had the PS2 version) was blown away by the fast and smooth framerate of the GameCube version. He was also a little jealous that the Sonic Adventure games weren't available on PS2 or original Xbox, and could only play them whenever he and I were hanging out. Good times. But no matter which version of Sonic Heroes we were playing, my friends and I had a lot of fun playing both the one player and two player modes. It was a fun era, and we always looked forward to another Sonic game coming out.

Even though I've played Sonic Heroes since 2004, I haven't played it as much as the Sonic Adventure games, Sonic Mega Collection, or Sonic Gems Collection. I didn't get around to unlocking all of the two player games, though I did unlock a few. It is a reasonably good game and I'm glad I've finally played through it with every team, but I don't know when I'll get back to it. It could be a while since I still have a lot of other games to beat, and Sonic Riders is another Sonic game on my list. My goal in Sonic Heroes this year was simply to play through it as Team Chaotix.

Maybe next year I'll play the game again and get all of the Chaos Emeralds. Maybe.

[Sumez | 2,962]

Forgot to update my main post - I started The Surge last week, and on the side I'm playing Luminous Avenger iX.

Both games have been unable to leave any good impression with me, so we'll see if I manage to get through. Judging by HLTB though, both are quite short for what they are, so I'll probably truck through The Surge if only to be ready for the sequel which is reportedly a much better game.

[DoctorEncore | 3,691]

The Ascent (Xbox Series X)
Score: 7.5/10

The Ascent is one of those games that had a ton of hype, but landed rather quietly and faded from discourse almost immediately. And I have to say, that's a damn shame. The Ascent definitely has some issues, most notably its poor user interface and confusing progression system, but I really think it will someday be recognized as a hidden gem.

First things first: The cyberpunk aesthetic here is absolutely phenomenal. The world is filled to the brim with unbelievably detailed environments. The future-noir Blade Runner meets Total Recall style looks amazing on the big screen and blows away big budget rivals like Cyberpunk 2077. I couldn't wait to see every new area as I moved through the game. The cities are filled with layers of shops and bars which are filled with countless nooks and crannies which hide even more secrets, all built on top of each other in interesting ways. You can just look at the background and imagine a million other characters going about their business.

Unfortunately, this artistic density ends up being a significant barrier to entry. The world feels overwhelming at the start of the game and the mapping/quests system is a bear to navigate. This leaves the player feeling a bit lost and is probably why so many people bounced off the game after a few hours. This isn't helped by the convoluted stats-based progression system which is more at home in a western PC RPG than a twin stick shooter looter action RPG.

Those who do power through the early confusion will find a highly customizable combat system that lets you do everything from summon mechanical explosive spiders to shoot a giant robot-killing death ray to throwing out a pocket-mech which you can ride to causing your opponents to bloat up and explode, damaging those around them in an explosion of gore and guts (think Stephen Dorph at the end of Blade) all while carrying a chain gun that shoots rockets. It's intense.

Honestly, by the end of the game, the combat is some of the most satisfying and varied I've ever experienced. I did sometimes feel that the difficulty spikes of bosses felt a little unfair, making only certain combinations of abilities, passive boosts, and grenades really effective, but that could just be due to the build I chose. Regardless, I think more people should experience this game and I'm really looking forward to a sequel or the next project from this team. If they can clean up the UI, mapping, and progression systems, I think they could easily create a "best of" generation type game.

 

I just finished up Trek to Yomi (very meh) and I've still got Myst and Super Mario World 3D (Co-op with my son) on my now playing list, but I'm looking at diving into some other newish games. Leaning towards Ratchet and Clank, Returnal, AC Origins, and Ghost of Tsushima.

Edited July 1, 2022 by DoctorEncore

[Kguillemette | 1,544]

I am really enjoying Tales of Graces F so far. They made some nice tweaks to their traditional battle system, the title based customization level system is clever, and the plot is very interesting so far and moving along at a nice pace. I still want to try and tackle some less lengthy games in the meantime, so I might try some of my fighters on the list in the meantime. M. Bison is still a problem after all!

[twiztor | 851]

so, i was kind of confused on how this works, but i beat "Sonic 3" with Sonic. then i locked on the 'Sonic & Knuckles' cartridge and beat "Sonic 3 & Knuckles" as Knuckles. thus concludes the Sonic Genesis trilogy.
some of the stages were the same, some were not. some of the bosses were different. i *think* S3&K includes all of the Knuckles stages from S&K, so i'm calling this one complete, but i'm only counting it as 1 game. feel free to correct me if i'm wrong.
this was really good. another improvement over Sonic 2, which i also liked. still pretty easy once you get past the 'gotta go fast' mentality.
Knuckles is my homeboy.

[Kguillemette | 1,544]

17 hours ago, twiztor said:

so, i was kind of confused on how this works, but i beat "Sonic 3" with Sonic. then i locked on the 'Sonic & Knuckles' cartridge and beat "Sonic 3 & Knuckles" as Knuckles. thus concludes the Sonic Genesis trilogy.
some of the stages were the same, some were not. some of the bosses were different. i *think* S3&K includes all of the Knuckles stages from S&K, so i'm calling this one complete, but i'm only counting it as 1 game. feel free to correct me if i'm wrong.
this was really good. another improvement over Sonic 2, which i also liked. still pretty easy once you get past the 'gotta go fast' mentality.
Knuckles is my homeboy.

If I am not mistaken, sonic 3&k were supposed to be one game. But they couldn't fit it all on one cart, so they split them up. Separately, they are like Sonic 3 part 1 and 2. Locked together as sonic 3&k is the way the game was originally meant to be played. Sonic 3&k is my favorite sonic game and I'm glad you enjoyed it. I think the replayability is very high, as Knuckles has his own route through the game and there are secrets that are unreachable except as tails. Sonic 3&K is as much about exploration as it is about speed making it so fun to go back and replay the game different ways.

[Sumez | 2,962]

18 hours ago, twiztor said:

i *think* S3&K includes all of the Knuckles stages from S&K, so i'm calling this one complete, but i'm only counting it as 1 game. feel free to correct me if i'm wrong.

There's some small differences, but yeah every stage from both S3 and S&K is in S3&K, but Doomsday Zone - the extra final stage you unlock after the "final" boss if you get all 14 emeralds - is only in the combined game.

[Floating Platforms | 718]

Just finished Virtue's Last Reward.

I got all endings, and did the 2 epilogue sections. You can add 3 hours to that playtime total as I ran into the save corruption issue early on and had to restart. If you're playing on 3DS, only save in the warehouses, otherwise if the game crashes (which can happen in a couple places), you will boot up to a black screen and none of the buttons will respond.

I finished this a lot earlier than I imagined. About half of this time was from Memorial Day Weekend where we went away to a place with no internet and not much to do at night.

I enjoyed the game a lot, but did find the final ending to be a bit of a letdown, although I will say that I certainly didn't guess some of the later twists. I do think it at least did a good job of tying this to the events of 999. The puzzle rooms were fun and manageable without a guide (but I did look up a couple alternate safe password solutions) and I enjoyed the variety in characters.  I also greatly appreciated the flowchart aspect that allows you to jump around to different paths. That was much preferable to how 999 presented different endings and made you skip through all the dialogue until one of the few new choices came up.  This flowchart will tell you when you're blocked from going further and when you discover the key to move forward, the flowchart will indicate that as well.  I'm looking forward to playing Zero Time Dilemma sometime down the line to see how the series continues from here.

I've also been making progress on some other games. I'm nearly half way through Great Ace Attorney (on case 5 of game 1), about 25% done with Voxelgram (60/250 puzzles), maybe 1/3rd done? with Golf Story (won the first tournament and have opened all but 2 visible locations), about half way done with Murder by Numbers (started case 3 of 4), put a couple hours into StarTropics and am on Chapter 3.  Not bad, but still feel like I'm behind overall since the year is almost half done.

[killerkobra | 268]

On 1/25/2022 at 2:37 PM, killerkobra said:

Late to the party here and now in the CORRECT THREAD. A number of these I have partially completed or completed but want to give them another go. 

 

Nes

• -Castlevania III Draculas Curse- 13/06/2022
• Journey to Silius 
• Kid Icarus 

 

Snes

  -  Lord of the Rings

  -  Violinist of Hamelin

 

Steam PC

• The Messenger
• Celeste 

 

PlayStation

• Mega Man X4
• Mega Man X5
• Mega Man X6
• Castlevania SOTN

 

Sega CD

   - Snatcher 

 

Genesis

   -  Castlevania Bloodlines

Final beat Castlevania III Draculas Curse I went with Grant  

[Reed Rothchild | 9,535]

3 hours ago, Floating Platforms said:

I also greatly appreciated the flowchart aspect that allows you to jump around to different paths. That was much preferable to how 999 presented different endings and made you skip through all the dialogue until one of the few new choices came up.  This flowchart will tell you when you're blocked from going further and when you discover the key to move forward, the flowchart will indicate that as well

[Lynda Monica | 350]

This looks like fun! I'll put a little list together.

Edit: Shhhhhhhhhhhh. Don't tell anyone I added to my list as I didn't put enough on it.

Wii U
Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze: June 15th
Yoshi's Woolly World
Kirby and the Rainbow Curse June 16th
Sonic Lost World
Zombi U
Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE
Nintendo Land
Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker
Splatoon (Single Player Modes)

3DS

Metroid Prime Federation Force
Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash
Pokemon X
Paper Mario Sticker Star
The Legend of Zelda: Triforce Heroes
Kid Icarus Uprising

June 15th: As far as Donkey Kong games go, I'd rate Tropical Freeze somewhere in the middle. It was fun, but also strangely bland. It was way easier than I was expecting too. There were a ton of cheap shots that killed me on a first attempt, but not really any hard segments where I died over and over again.

June 16: Kirby and the Rainbow Curse was a good game bogged down by its needless segments of variety, and frequent recycling of ideas and boss fights. While not at all a bad game, it was pretty disappointing to see a game start off so excellent and then start to crumble towards the end. I'd still recommend the game to Wii U owners in a heartbeat, but be aware not to get too attached to it early on.

Edited June 21, 2022 by Lynda Monica
Kirby Rainbow Curse Complete

[DoctorEncore | 3,691]

1 hour ago, LyndaMonicaWatson said:

This looks like fun! I'll put a little list together.

Wii U

Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze
Yoshi's Woolly World
Kirby and the Rainbow Curse
Sonic Lost World
 

3DS

Metroid Prime Federation Force
Paper Mario Sticker Star
Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash
Pokemon X

 

 

I'm legit jealous that you get to experience DKC Tropical Freeze for the first time. It's honestly one of the all time great platformers out there.

[killerkobra | 268]

On 1/25/2022 at 2:37 PM, killerkobra said:

Late to the party here and now in the CORRECT THREAD. A number of these I have partially completed or completed but want to give them another go. 

 

Nes

• -Castlevania III Draculas Curse- 13/06/2022
• Journey to Silius 
• Kid Icarus 

 

Snes

  -  Lord of the Rings

  -  Violinist of Hamelin

 

Steam PC

• The Messenger
• Celeste 

 

PlayStation

• Mega Man X4
• Mega Man X5
• Mega Man X6
• -Castlevania SOTN- 14/06/2022

 

Sega CD

   - Snatcher 

 

Genesis

   -  Castlevania Bloodlines

SOTN is in the books! Was playing a little bit over the course of like 3 months ha ha. Wonderful game. 

 

[Lynda Monica | 350]

On 6/13/2022 at 5:30 PM, DoctorEncore said:

I'm legit jealous that you get to experience DKC Tropical Freeze for the first time. It's honestly one of the all time great platformers out there.

Well you'll be happy to hear I'm loving it. The trick with all Donkey Kong Country games is to ignore the collectable junk on a first playthrough, and just rampage through the levels. I sped through the first three worlds in one sitting.

Edit: I beat the game! Tropical Freeze was fun, but strangely bland. I'd rank it 6th place out of the twelve Donkey Kong games I've played.

Edit 2: Started up Kirby and the Rainbow Curse today, and I can't believe I sat on this game for so long!  I'm In world 2 at the moment, and I'm going for a 100% file. Most of the challenge is designed around picking everything up, so ignoring it all would be pretty boring. 

I think I should have added a few more games to my list, but maybe I can go back and 100% Tropical Freeze after I finish everything else.

Edited June 15, 2022 by Lynda Monica

[Sumez | 2,962]

On 6/13/2022 at 7:10 PM, Floating Platforms said:

I'm looking forward to playing Zero Time Dilemma sometime down the line to see how the series continues from here.

Don't get your hopes too high. While I hope you'll like it more than I did, I felt that it was a massive drop in quality compared to the first two games, especially following the cliffhanger of VLR.
The plot in ZTD just feels dumb and forced, almost like a parody of the twists of the former two games, and it's never particularly exciting thanks to its basic premise which I won't spoil. I also don't like the new art style, so it's a lot of things that add up, and IMO just feels like a game that's going through the motions rather than something trying to wow the player.

[Lynda Monica | 350]

I finished Kirby and the Rainbow Curse, and I'm left in a weird spot about it. Much like a lot of Wii U and 3DS games, it has a really strong first half, and a much worse second half.

My two biggest complaints with the game are the vehicle sections, and the recycling of boss fights in worlds 4-6. I get that Canvas Curse recycled boss fights, but that's the kind of thing you're supposed to fix in a sequel. Doing something lazy and lame the first time around shouldn't set a precedent to justify doing it again in a follow up.

The vehicle sections weren't really all that bad to play, but I was angry about them simply because I didn't want to do them. World five has TWO vehicle levels, meaning you only get to play the actual game for one stage, and then fight a recycled boss from world two.

For the most part the game was good, and I admit I'm focusing on the bad parts, but I'm frustrated about it since its high points reached timeless levels of quality, but its low points dropped it back down to just being "good".

I have way more to say about this game, but I'll stop here for now. I'm thinking of doing a full review in the analysis section, so I won't clutter up this thread too much. I still have to go back to world 6 and 7 and pick up the rest of the collectables, but for now the game has been beaten.

Edited June 17, 2022 by Lynda Monica

[Reed Rothchild | 9,535]

Killing it @Lynda Monica.  Seems you made your list too small 

[Lynda Monica | 350]

24 minutes ago, Reed Rothchild said:

Killing it @Lynda Monica.  Seems you made your list too small 

That "agree" emote looks too smug.

Yeah, I probably should have added one of the big Wii U RPGs to the list, but I was underselling myself I suppose. Maybe I'll go back and 100% Tropical Freeze if I run out of games on my list. I still have to fully finish Rainbow Curse though, so I won't be starting the next game until I do.

[Floating Platforms | 718]

5 hours ago, Sumez said:

Don't get your hopes too high. While I hope you'll like it more than I did, I felt that it was a massive drop in quality compared to the first two games, especially following the cliffhanger of VLR.
The plot in ZTD just feels dumb and forced, almost like a parody of the twists of the former two games, and it's never particularly exciting thanks to its basic premise which I won't spoil. I also don't like the new art style, so it's a lot of things that add up, and IMO just feels like a game that's going through the motions rather than something trying to wow the player.

Honestly, that makes sense. I wouldn't say VLR's ending was phoned in, but the game definitely dug a big whole for itself and maybe couldn't quite get back out and even though I didn't guess some of the twists, part of that was because I was hoping for more. I'm more curious about how they'll connect the next game to this one but I'm not full price $35 curious, so it'll wait.

[Lynda Monica | 350]

I was feeling glum about my playthrough of Kirby and the Rainbow Curse, and decided to replay the entire game again in one sitting. This time around I ignored all the collectables, and had a lot more fun. Rainbow Curse is certainly one of the best Wii U games, and going for 100% almost made me think otherwise.

It's definitely the last straw with 100% completion, as it's not fun to fall into traps that make you miss a collectable you get one chance at, and then have to replay the whole stage. Going for 100% almost made me hate Rainbow Curse, which would have been a big shame.

When I play Sonic Lost World and Yoshi's Woolly World, I'm going to ignore all of the collectables from the get go.

Since I didn't do it the first time, here's a photo of the final screen!

Edited June 17, 2022 by Lynda Monica

[Lynda Monica | 350]

21 hours ago, Lynda Monica said:

It's definitely the last straw with 100% completion.

You may be surprised to hear that it was absurdly hard to get the final 1%, as the game makes you do some uncharacteristically demanding stuff for a Kirby game.

Guess I'm just a sucker for punishment.

Edited June 18, 2022 by Lynda Monica

[Jeevan | 8,911]

On 6/16/2022 at 8:48 PM, Lynda Monica said:

That "agree" emote looks too smug.

Yeah, I probably should have added one of the big Wii U RPGs to the list, but I was underselling myself I suppose. Maybe I'll go back and 100% Tropical Freeze if I run out of games on my list. I still have to fully finish Rainbow Curse though, so I won't be starting the next game until I do.

can always add a section for games beaten not on the list