Crabmaster2000

Worked my way through Beyond Shadowgate today. It was actually decent for a console point & click adventure game from the early 90s. Voice acting was alright too. Started and ended pretty strong, but most of the game in the middle was pretty dull, boring or nonsensical. Lots of silly ways to die like in the first Shadowgate, but definitely lacked the cool atmosphere of the original.

Just beat Lords of Thunder. This is one of my favorite games of all time. Havn't played it in quite a while, but it is EXACTLY as good as I remember it being...amazing. No notes. Probably has my favorite OST ever as well. If you're into shmups and haven't played Lords of Thunder you should check it out.

Beat both Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective Vol. 1 & Vol. 2 this morning. We own a Pen & Paper version of all of the mysteries on both of these games. It was weird to go back to a really clunky version of them from this era. The FMV actor's were actually mostly decent though. It was just a real pain to navigate and wait for videos to load. The newpapers were the absolute worst part of the game.

Been working of Forgotten Worlds for the last 2 days. Most of the game isn't much trouble, it's just the final boss who's a huge pain. Lots of runs stopped at that fight before I got a good one. Decent game though with a good variety of power ups to play around with. Pretty easy (other than that final boss fight) after a couple attempts once you start to build up your character.

Finally beat Monster Lair after working on it for the past several days. Definitely a tough game. Like most Wonder Boy games it had a bunch of parts that just kill you the first time you reach them until you know to work around them. There is also a bit of luck involved with the power ups that drop since some are almost necessary in certain situations so if you don't get a good drop you'll likely have to take a death. Same with the bosses, most are pretty easy with the right power up so if you arrive without a good power up they can be quite challenging in some cases.

Finally made it to the final boss, but only had one life left and died. Sucks because on that run I lost 2 lives VERY early in dumb places too.

Finally had a run that made it to the final stage and then I botched it. Lost a lot of unnecessary lives in the 2 stages leading up to it too. There's only two bosses who are giving me trouble now. If I can sort them out I should be home free.

Started working on Monster Lair. Seems like it's gonna be a tough one

Slammed through Final Zone II in one sitting. It was very short and easy. Pretty bland overall, nothing really notable to talk about. I'm not a huge fan of top down shooters to begin with so I'm thankful it was fast.

Halfway through the library now!

Worked on Shape Shifter last night and was able to finish it up this morning. It was a real mixed bag. Some of the transformations were cool, others were awful. The hitboxes and movement were kind of bad. Some of the boss fights were alright and others were awful. Music was solid. There is a super weird mechanic where you just get full healed out of the blue every 10 minutes during a new lunar cycle. This means there was a ton of standing around to wait for a heal before moving forward or waiting to get the moon in a certain spot before engaging a very challenging part in order to benefit from the health refill. Have never played another game with that mechanic. Probably would make for some cool speed run stuff since you could time the moon cycle with some parts you could tank a bunch of hits for that refill.

Finished Camp California today. It's an interesting game. Action platformer with a Beach Boys and talking animals theme. They have a few Beach Boys tunes, but also a bunch of original music and one of the original songs is super metal. There's a bunch of characters that all have special abilities you can save and then use in the next stages. You've got to collect trash to use as fuel for your car during the stages in order to travel on the overworld map. It's a bit weird, but interesting.

It's quite weird. If you can appreciate it for that you can have some fun. It does suck though

Just finished John Madden DUO. They added a bunch of FMV stuff when the ref makes calls or there is a serious tackle. There was also a pretty elaborate 3D stadium/FMV opening. They had FMV moments for touchdowns and good plays too which were funny because it was skinny white people in football uniforms, I'm assuming the production staff. The game played a bit slippery, but it had a TON of play options for those that really want to get into the weeds.

Finished Shadow of the Beast this morning. This was one that I got stuck on as a kid, but turned out to be very easy, I was just a dumb kid. Its not a good game, but I really dig the visuals and music. Something bizarre and dark and beautiful about it.