Games Beaten 2021
Re: Games Beaten 2021
I actually own Guardian Heroes on XBLA, but my 360 doesn't boot up anymore. That's actually the version I was saying should get ported to modern consoles.
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ElkinFencer10
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- Posts: 8745
- Joined: Fri Aug 13, 2010 8:34 pm
- Location: Jonesville, North Carolina
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Re: Games Beaten 2021
Games Beaten in 2021 - 107
* denotes a replay
January (12 Games Beaten)
February (5 Games Beaten)
March (3 Games Beaten)
April (7 Games Beaten)
May (9 Games Beaten)
June (17 Games Beaten)
July (31 Games Beaten)
August (2 Games Beaten)
September (6 Games Beaten)
October (7 Games Beaten)
November (4 Games Beaten)
December (3 Games Beaten)
107. Halo Infinite - Xbox Series X - December 12
I've been a pretty big Halo fan pretty much since it came out in 2001. Even in middle school at the peak of my Nintendo fanboy-ism and general hatred of all things Xbox, I'd make exceptions when I would hang out with friends who had an Xbox and Halo. It's because I'm such a big Halo fan that I've been so disappointed with the main series entries since 343 took over. Halo 4 was just bad, and Halo 5 was even worse. Halo Infinite, therefore, was kind of their last chance with me, and I went into it with a lot of trepidation.
Halo Infinite is sort of a double-edged sword for me. On the one hand, I absolutely love everything about the gameplay. On the other hand, I absolutely hate everything about how they've gone about the release. They started by releasing the multiplayer a few weeks before releasing the single-player. That's fine, whatever. They called it a "beta," but it really wasn't as it was monetized out the ass day one with overpriced microtransactions, but that isn't really what bothered me as that's to be expected with free-to-play which is what Halo Infinite's multiplayer is; you don't need Game Pass or even Xbox Live Gold to play it. On December 8, they released the single-player, and that's where my issues started. First off, there's no ability to replay missions or play co-op, two things that are pretty much staples of Halo. They're both "coming in the future." Okay, stop right there. Those two features have always been core to the Halo experience. I would have MUCH preferred they delay the game another six months - they had already delayed it a year - to have those features in at launch. I then found out that the physical release of the game contains no playable data on the disc. The disc installs part of the campaign, but you have to download the rest to actually play anything; I get that we're in a mostly digital age now, but that completely defeats the purpose of a disc altogether. Just don't do a physical release at all if that's how you're going to do it. Because I'm so big on physical media and game preservation, that's a MAJOR faux pas to me, and it made me glad that I canceled my pre-order to wait for a sale and just played via Game Pass.
Fortunately, most of the actual game itself is really solid aside from a couple of grips with multiplayer and the bizarre omission of mission replay and co-op. The gunplay has never felt as smooth to me, and the addition of a grappleshot and thruster to move around make it feel almost like Spider-man with guns. The vehicles feel a bit odd to control at first as 343 made some big changes to the handling of them, but it's just different rather than bad; once you play for a while, you get used to it pretty quickly, and that's a good thing as the open world is massive. Even flying in a wasp, it'll probably take you a solid ten minutes to fly from one end of the map to the other, and with all of the mountains and caves and whatnot littering the landscape, there's a ton to do on foot. That's honestly my favorite part - just driving around in a Razorback full of marines and finding a little Banished outpost to attack. As one would expect with an open-world game, there are also a TON of collectibles to find. There are Spartan cores which let you upgrade abilities, Mjolnir armories that unlock multiplayer cosmetics, forward operating bases that let you fast travel and serve as UNSC bases, propaganda towers that award valor (the more valor you have, the more weapons and vehicles you can call in at FOBs), Banished outposts to attack, high-value targets which unlock powerful weapon variants, and three different kinds of audio logs to find (UNSC, Spartan, and Banished) as well as the usual Halo skulls. Just running the main missions will probably take 10 to 15 hours; doing a 100% collectible run will probably take 40 or more.
Anyone who knows me knows that multiplayer isn't something I usually put a lot of time into, but I have to admit that Halo Infinite has some of the most fun multiplayer I've ever played even if it is pretty bare-bones currently. You've got two main options - quick play and big team battle. Quick play is 4v4 and cycles between Slayer, Oddball, Stronghold, One Flag, and Capture the Flag. Unfortunately, there's currently no Fiesta even though that was the first week-long event, and there are no playlists although that function, as well as a couple of new game modes, are coming in an update this month. Big team battle is 12v12 battles and cycles between Slayer, Oddball, Stronghold, Total Control, Capture the Flag, and Stockpile. Stockpile sucks. It sucks less when you have a team that actually plays the objective, but it still sucks. I absolutely love Halo Infinite's multiplayer, but it's not without its issues. The biggest issue is progression; initially, you only got battle pass experience from completing weekly challenges (things like "Kill 10 enemies with a battle rifle" or "Win 3 Stronghold matches"). You got no points for completing or even winning a game, no points for kills, no points for playing the objective. The outcry was immediate, so they changed it so that you go 50 xp for completing a match. Well, that still sucked because it meant you had to play 20 games to go up one level, and a match can take anywhere from five to thirty minutes. They've said more changes to progression are coming, but the current iteration of this is a scaling system where you get 300 xp for your first game, then 200 for a couple, then 100 for a few, and then 50 for each one after that. All of that is, of course, in addition to your weekly challenges, and those are actually my next complaint. Because of how the weekly challenges are set up and still the best way to get experience points, you have a ton of people who completely ignore the objectives in favor of focusing on those challenges. Got a stockpile match? Get ready to deal with people just killing the enemy players with a needler for a challenge and not even trying to bring power seeds back to the base. I'm sure that, within a few months, they'll have a better system worked out and implemented, but it really makes you wonder "Who the hell at 343 possibly could have thought this was actually a good system?" Despite all that, though, the gameplay itself is amazing and feels absolutely sublime. I can honestly say that I've never enjoyed PvP Halo multiplayer even close to as much as I do here. Now if we can just get a remake of the Blood Gulch map in Quick Play...
Now that I've outlined my likes and dislikes for the single-player and the multiplayer, I'll take a minute and talk about some of my observations about the more technical side of things. I played on Series X, so I can't speak for One, One X, or Series S, so if you want a more side-by-side with those, you're better off going to Digital Foundry. On Series X, though, you're given a choice between a Performance mode and a Quality mode, and there's honestly no bad choice here. Performance gives you a frame rate of 120 fps and a usual resolution of 1440p whereas Quality gives you a frame rate of 60 fps and a resolution of 2160p. If you've got a TV that supports 120 Hz, I'd say go for Performance to get that silky 120 fps, but the 60 fps of Quality is still fantastic, and the 4K resolution looks amazing. There does seem to be some awkward frame pacing, though, the facial animations just look a bit janky in general. This was most noticeable to me during the fight with Escharum. It almost felt like his face was moving at 15 fps while the rest of the game moved at 120 fps. Most faces aren't as bad as that particular instance, but Echo-216's pilot has some odd-looking facial animations. Fortunately, though, the Weapon's face looked fine to me. Still, though, for a game this otherwise impressive looking, it's jarring. I also can't help but wonder how amazing it would have looked it if it had been developed specifically with Series X hardware in mind and not made for Xbox One and just upgraded for Series X.
Overall, Halo Infinite is a great game. From a narrative perspective, I don't think it quite reaches the heights of the Covenant saga, but it's a HELL of a lot better than the garbage 343 gave us with the Forerunner arc. From a gameplay perspective, though, this is the best the series has ever been in my opinion. It's smooth, it's intuitive, and the control scheme is a lot less radically different than the "FPS standard," so it's less jarring to go from other FPS to Halo and back. As most have come to expect with Halo and Microsoft, it's a graphical showpiece on top of how much fun to play it is. The fact that it's on Game Pass (as one would expect from a first-party Microsoft game) is fantastic, and add to that the fact that the multiplayer is totally free-to-play, and you've got a recipe for success here. Supposedly, this is going to be a sort of service-based game that gets continuous updates going forward, so I've got my fingers crossed from some solid story content in the future, but even if what we've currently got is all we get, it's a good time and well worth a playthrough.
* denotes a replay
January (12 Games Beaten)
February (5 Games Beaten)
March (3 Games Beaten)
April (7 Games Beaten)
May (9 Games Beaten)
June (17 Games Beaten)
July (31 Games Beaten)
August (2 Games Beaten)
September (6 Games Beaten)
October (7 Games Beaten)
November (4 Games Beaten)
December (3 Games Beaten)
107. Halo Infinite - Xbox Series X - December 12
I've been a pretty big Halo fan pretty much since it came out in 2001. Even in middle school at the peak of my Nintendo fanboy-ism and general hatred of all things Xbox, I'd make exceptions when I would hang out with friends who had an Xbox and Halo. It's because I'm such a big Halo fan that I've been so disappointed with the main series entries since 343 took over. Halo 4 was just bad, and Halo 5 was even worse. Halo Infinite, therefore, was kind of their last chance with me, and I went into it with a lot of trepidation.
Halo Infinite is sort of a double-edged sword for me. On the one hand, I absolutely love everything about the gameplay. On the other hand, I absolutely hate everything about how they've gone about the release. They started by releasing the multiplayer a few weeks before releasing the single-player. That's fine, whatever. They called it a "beta," but it really wasn't as it was monetized out the ass day one with overpriced microtransactions, but that isn't really what bothered me as that's to be expected with free-to-play which is what Halo Infinite's multiplayer is; you don't need Game Pass or even Xbox Live Gold to play it. On December 8, they released the single-player, and that's where my issues started. First off, there's no ability to replay missions or play co-op, two things that are pretty much staples of Halo. They're both "coming in the future." Okay, stop right there. Those two features have always been core to the Halo experience. I would have MUCH preferred they delay the game another six months - they had already delayed it a year - to have those features in at launch. I then found out that the physical release of the game contains no playable data on the disc. The disc installs part of the campaign, but you have to download the rest to actually play anything; I get that we're in a mostly digital age now, but that completely defeats the purpose of a disc altogether. Just don't do a physical release at all if that's how you're going to do it. Because I'm so big on physical media and game preservation, that's a MAJOR faux pas to me, and it made me glad that I canceled my pre-order to wait for a sale and just played via Game Pass.
Fortunately, most of the actual game itself is really solid aside from a couple of grips with multiplayer and the bizarre omission of mission replay and co-op. The gunplay has never felt as smooth to me, and the addition of a grappleshot and thruster to move around make it feel almost like Spider-man with guns. The vehicles feel a bit odd to control at first as 343 made some big changes to the handling of them, but it's just different rather than bad; once you play for a while, you get used to it pretty quickly, and that's a good thing as the open world is massive. Even flying in a wasp, it'll probably take you a solid ten minutes to fly from one end of the map to the other, and with all of the mountains and caves and whatnot littering the landscape, there's a ton to do on foot. That's honestly my favorite part - just driving around in a Razorback full of marines and finding a little Banished outpost to attack. As one would expect with an open-world game, there are also a TON of collectibles to find. There are Spartan cores which let you upgrade abilities, Mjolnir armories that unlock multiplayer cosmetics, forward operating bases that let you fast travel and serve as UNSC bases, propaganda towers that award valor (the more valor you have, the more weapons and vehicles you can call in at FOBs), Banished outposts to attack, high-value targets which unlock powerful weapon variants, and three different kinds of audio logs to find (UNSC, Spartan, and Banished) as well as the usual Halo skulls. Just running the main missions will probably take 10 to 15 hours; doing a 100% collectible run will probably take 40 or more.
Anyone who knows me knows that multiplayer isn't something I usually put a lot of time into, but I have to admit that Halo Infinite has some of the most fun multiplayer I've ever played even if it is pretty bare-bones currently. You've got two main options - quick play and big team battle. Quick play is 4v4 and cycles between Slayer, Oddball, Stronghold, One Flag, and Capture the Flag. Unfortunately, there's currently no Fiesta even though that was the first week-long event, and there are no playlists although that function, as well as a couple of new game modes, are coming in an update this month. Big team battle is 12v12 battles and cycles between Slayer, Oddball, Stronghold, Total Control, Capture the Flag, and Stockpile. Stockpile sucks. It sucks less when you have a team that actually plays the objective, but it still sucks. I absolutely love Halo Infinite's multiplayer, but it's not without its issues. The biggest issue is progression; initially, you only got battle pass experience from completing weekly challenges (things like "Kill 10 enemies with a battle rifle" or "Win 3 Stronghold matches"). You got no points for completing or even winning a game, no points for kills, no points for playing the objective. The outcry was immediate, so they changed it so that you go 50 xp for completing a match. Well, that still sucked because it meant you had to play 20 games to go up one level, and a match can take anywhere from five to thirty minutes. They've said more changes to progression are coming, but the current iteration of this is a scaling system where you get 300 xp for your first game, then 200 for a couple, then 100 for a few, and then 50 for each one after that. All of that is, of course, in addition to your weekly challenges, and those are actually my next complaint. Because of how the weekly challenges are set up and still the best way to get experience points, you have a ton of people who completely ignore the objectives in favor of focusing on those challenges. Got a stockpile match? Get ready to deal with people just killing the enemy players with a needler for a challenge and not even trying to bring power seeds back to the base. I'm sure that, within a few months, they'll have a better system worked out and implemented, but it really makes you wonder "Who the hell at 343 possibly could have thought this was actually a good system?" Despite all that, though, the gameplay itself is amazing and feels absolutely sublime. I can honestly say that I've never enjoyed PvP Halo multiplayer even close to as much as I do here. Now if we can just get a remake of the Blood Gulch map in Quick Play...
Now that I've outlined my likes and dislikes for the single-player and the multiplayer, I'll take a minute and talk about some of my observations about the more technical side of things. I played on Series X, so I can't speak for One, One X, or Series S, so if you want a more side-by-side with those, you're better off going to Digital Foundry. On Series X, though, you're given a choice between a Performance mode and a Quality mode, and there's honestly no bad choice here. Performance gives you a frame rate of 120 fps and a usual resolution of 1440p whereas Quality gives you a frame rate of 60 fps and a resolution of 2160p. If you've got a TV that supports 120 Hz, I'd say go for Performance to get that silky 120 fps, but the 60 fps of Quality is still fantastic, and the 4K resolution looks amazing. There does seem to be some awkward frame pacing, though, the facial animations just look a bit janky in general. This was most noticeable to me during the fight with Escharum. It almost felt like his face was moving at 15 fps while the rest of the game moved at 120 fps. Most faces aren't as bad as that particular instance, but Echo-216's pilot has some odd-looking facial animations. Fortunately, though, the Weapon's face looked fine to me. Still, though, for a game this otherwise impressive looking, it's jarring. I also can't help but wonder how amazing it would have looked it if it had been developed specifically with Series X hardware in mind and not made for Xbox One and just upgraded for Series X.
Overall, Halo Infinite is a great game. From a narrative perspective, I don't think it quite reaches the heights of the Covenant saga, but it's a HELL of a lot better than the garbage 343 gave us with the Forerunner arc. From a gameplay perspective, though, this is the best the series has ever been in my opinion. It's smooth, it's intuitive, and the control scheme is a lot less radically different than the "FPS standard," so it's less jarring to go from other FPS to Halo and back. As most have come to expect with Halo and Microsoft, it's a graphical showpiece on top of how much fun to play it is. The fact that it's on Game Pass (as one would expect from a first-party Microsoft game) is fantastic, and add to that the fact that the multiplayer is totally free-to-play, and you've got a recipe for success here. Supposedly, this is going to be a sort of service-based game that gets continuous updates going forward, so I've got my fingers crossed from some solid story content in the future, but even if what we've currently got is all we get, it's a good time and well worth a playthrough.
Patron Saint of Bitch Mode
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ElkinFencer10
- Next-Gen
- Posts: 8745
- Joined: Fri Aug 13, 2010 8:34 pm
- Location: Jonesville, North Carolina
- Contact:
Re: Games Beaten 2021
Games Beaten in 2021 - 108
* denotes a replay
January (12 Games Beaten)
February (5 Games Beaten)
March (3 Games Beaten)
April (7 Games Beaten)
May (9 Games Beaten)
June (17 Games Beaten)
July (31 Games Beaten)
August (2 Games Beaten)
September (6 Games Beaten)
October (7 Games Beaten)
November (4 Games Beaten)
December (4 Games Beaten)
108. Battlefield 2042 - Xbox Series X - December ??
Hard to say how you really "beat" this game since it's all online multiplayer, but I counted it by winning a match of each type. I did not, however, remember to record the date that I finished that.
2021 has been a big year for AAA shooters. Call of Duty: Vanguard saw the series return to a narrative-driven World War II game (although I seem to have been the only person not disappointed by that one), Halo Infinite saw 343 finally figure out how to tell a decent story, and now Battlefield 2042 has come to remind everyone why Electronic Arts is the worst company in the entire industry. All jokes aside, though, Battlefield 2042 is a dumpster fire, but in fairness, it's a dumpster fire that I have been thoroughly enjoying despite the flaming refuse.
Before anything else, I have to extend a MASSIVE and heartfelt thank you to my best friend and husband (joking but only a little), Grant, because I wouldn't have this game if he hadn't been so desperate to play it with me that the lovable dumbass bought it and gifted it to me on Xbox because I was refusing to buy it, and that actually leads me into my first major and irreconcilable complaint with the game; I refused to buy it myself because there's no single-player whatsoever. While you can have massive 128 player games filled entirely with bots, there's no actual single-player campaign here. There's absolutely no story, and there's no way to play offline even with just bots. That right there is inexcusable in my book; the late 1990s and early 2000s proved that FPS games can be AMAZING experiences with bots, and if you could do it on a Nintendo 64, you can sure as hell do it offline on an Xbox Series X. While we're on the subject of massive content droughts, there are only like half a dozen or so maps, and they cut the number of weapons by like 85% compared to Battlefield 4. Apparently, 2042 started life as yet another damn battle royale game before someone was like "Shit, maybe should do more than just that?" and you can tell that this didn't start life as a traditional Battlefield game based on how bare bones it is. There's no vaulting over objects, no diving, no explosion knockback, no rolling after a fall or jump, no melee weapons aside from "knife when pressing melee button," no boats, very minimal vehicle customization, no headshot bonus, and no assist bonus. Even for a multiplayer-only game, it's skimpy. There's no server browser, no traditional game types, no persistent lobbies, no traditional class system (although the operator system they have is kind of neat), no real customization options for your character, no stat tracker, no leaderboards, no clans, minimal faction variety, no kind of squad field upgrades, no infantry-focused maps, bad spawns, no real balance between infantry and vehicles, hardly anything destructible in the environment, and no spectator mode. The map selection is garbage, too; despite having every map added to the rotation, Grant and I played the same map four or five times in a row the other night. That just statistically should not happen.
Unfortunately, the complaints with this game don't stop with the PLETHORA of missing or truncated features; the game is also riddled with bugs. Even nearly a month after launch, there are still some pretty major bugs. One of the worst and most persistent is that the game will randomly not allow you to change anything about your loadout and force you to play with a crappy default loadout. Unfortunately, dying doesn't alleviate this; you have to leave the match completely. Another very common bug is being unable to revive downed teammates if they happened to die too close to a wall or box or something. Sometimes the game won't let you exit a vehicle that you spawn into. Sometimes it will say you self-destructed even if an enemy kills you. Sometimes you fall through the map and into the underworld. Sometimes your entire game just implodes for no reason. Sometimes your helicopter rotor gets stuck in a radio tower and your helicopter is stuck in a horrible sideways purgatory (although I blame Grant's infamous bad video game luck for that one). Fortunately, a lot of those bugs are fairly uncommon, but still, the fact that I've experienced all of those in less than a month with a moderate amount of playtime is Ubisoft levels of unpolished.
Still, though, despite all of those problems, all of that failure, and all of those bugs, you'll recall that I said that I'm having a lot of fun with the game, and I absolutely am. The fact that you can play with just your friends and a hundred bots is fantastic, and I absolutely love the Portal. You can choose from stuff from Battlefield 2041, Battlefield 3, Battlefield Bad Company 2, and Battlefield 1942. Grant and I played a game where we were 1942 Germans fighting against 2042 Russians, and it's relatively balanced so that both sides have a fighting chance. The dynamic weather events are a lot of fun, too; we drove a German Tiger tank into a tornado in South Korea. While there aren't very many weapons in the game, you can swap out your scope or barrel attachment on the fly during a match without having to die or respawn or anything. While the game gets a lot more wrong than it gets right, I'd be remiss to omit mention of the fact that there are a few things that the game does in fact get very, very right. Don't get me wrong; this game is kind of a disaster. It's still a lot of fun, though, if you have a few friends to play with and can look past all of the missing content.
Battlefield 2042 is, from a content perspective, probably the weakest entry in the series. It's at least up there. There's just so much that's missing for absolutely no reason. Fortunately, the massive backlash against the game has sent prices plummeting - I've seen it sold on Amazon for less than $40 with no signs of selling out - so if you want to pick it up, it's not that expensive usually. It's also worth noting that I am absolutely having a fantastic time with it despite the fact that it's an objective train wreck of a release during this first month. I cannot, however, recommend that anyone buy it in good conscience as things currently stand. It's missing too many features and has far too many bugs for me to be able to recommend it. If you're a die-hard Battlefield fan or just absolutely love objective-based online FPS, then maybe keep an eye out and see if you can find it for a price you think is reasonable, but I would absolutely never pay more than $40 max for this game as it is right now. It's a shame, too, because what little they got right is *really* good. Unfortunately, there's just so much that they screwed up than what they got right.
* denotes a replay
January (12 Games Beaten)
February (5 Games Beaten)
March (3 Games Beaten)
April (7 Games Beaten)
May (9 Games Beaten)
June (17 Games Beaten)
July (31 Games Beaten)
August (2 Games Beaten)
September (6 Games Beaten)
October (7 Games Beaten)
November (4 Games Beaten)
December (4 Games Beaten)
108. Battlefield 2042 - Xbox Series X - December ??
Hard to say how you really "beat" this game since it's all online multiplayer, but I counted it by winning a match of each type. I did not, however, remember to record the date that I finished that.
2021 has been a big year for AAA shooters. Call of Duty: Vanguard saw the series return to a narrative-driven World War II game (although I seem to have been the only person not disappointed by that one), Halo Infinite saw 343 finally figure out how to tell a decent story, and now Battlefield 2042 has come to remind everyone why Electronic Arts is the worst company in the entire industry. All jokes aside, though, Battlefield 2042 is a dumpster fire, but in fairness, it's a dumpster fire that I have been thoroughly enjoying despite the flaming refuse.
Before anything else, I have to extend a MASSIVE and heartfelt thank you to my best friend and husband (joking but only a little), Grant, because I wouldn't have this game if he hadn't been so desperate to play it with me that the lovable dumbass bought it and gifted it to me on Xbox because I was refusing to buy it, and that actually leads me into my first major and irreconcilable complaint with the game; I refused to buy it myself because there's no single-player whatsoever. While you can have massive 128 player games filled entirely with bots, there's no actual single-player campaign here. There's absolutely no story, and there's no way to play offline even with just bots. That right there is inexcusable in my book; the late 1990s and early 2000s proved that FPS games can be AMAZING experiences with bots, and if you could do it on a Nintendo 64, you can sure as hell do it offline on an Xbox Series X. While we're on the subject of massive content droughts, there are only like half a dozen or so maps, and they cut the number of weapons by like 85% compared to Battlefield 4. Apparently, 2042 started life as yet another damn battle royale game before someone was like "Shit, maybe should do more than just that?" and you can tell that this didn't start life as a traditional Battlefield game based on how bare bones it is. There's no vaulting over objects, no diving, no explosion knockback, no rolling after a fall or jump, no melee weapons aside from "knife when pressing melee button," no boats, very minimal vehicle customization, no headshot bonus, and no assist bonus. Even for a multiplayer-only game, it's skimpy. There's no server browser, no traditional game types, no persistent lobbies, no traditional class system (although the operator system they have is kind of neat), no real customization options for your character, no stat tracker, no leaderboards, no clans, minimal faction variety, no kind of squad field upgrades, no infantry-focused maps, bad spawns, no real balance between infantry and vehicles, hardly anything destructible in the environment, and no spectator mode. The map selection is garbage, too; despite having every map added to the rotation, Grant and I played the same map four or five times in a row the other night. That just statistically should not happen.
Unfortunately, the complaints with this game don't stop with the PLETHORA of missing or truncated features; the game is also riddled with bugs. Even nearly a month after launch, there are still some pretty major bugs. One of the worst and most persistent is that the game will randomly not allow you to change anything about your loadout and force you to play with a crappy default loadout. Unfortunately, dying doesn't alleviate this; you have to leave the match completely. Another very common bug is being unable to revive downed teammates if they happened to die too close to a wall or box or something. Sometimes the game won't let you exit a vehicle that you spawn into. Sometimes it will say you self-destructed even if an enemy kills you. Sometimes you fall through the map and into the underworld. Sometimes your entire game just implodes for no reason. Sometimes your helicopter rotor gets stuck in a radio tower and your helicopter is stuck in a horrible sideways purgatory (although I blame Grant's infamous bad video game luck for that one). Fortunately, a lot of those bugs are fairly uncommon, but still, the fact that I've experienced all of those in less than a month with a moderate amount of playtime is Ubisoft levels of unpolished.
Still, though, despite all of those problems, all of that failure, and all of those bugs, you'll recall that I said that I'm having a lot of fun with the game, and I absolutely am. The fact that you can play with just your friends and a hundred bots is fantastic, and I absolutely love the Portal. You can choose from stuff from Battlefield 2041, Battlefield 3, Battlefield Bad Company 2, and Battlefield 1942. Grant and I played a game where we were 1942 Germans fighting against 2042 Russians, and it's relatively balanced so that both sides have a fighting chance. The dynamic weather events are a lot of fun, too; we drove a German Tiger tank into a tornado in South Korea. While there aren't very many weapons in the game, you can swap out your scope or barrel attachment on the fly during a match without having to die or respawn or anything. While the game gets a lot more wrong than it gets right, I'd be remiss to omit mention of the fact that there are a few things that the game does in fact get very, very right. Don't get me wrong; this game is kind of a disaster. It's still a lot of fun, though, if you have a few friends to play with and can look past all of the missing content.
Battlefield 2042 is, from a content perspective, probably the weakest entry in the series. It's at least up there. There's just so much that's missing for absolutely no reason. Fortunately, the massive backlash against the game has sent prices plummeting - I've seen it sold on Amazon for less than $40 with no signs of selling out - so if you want to pick it up, it's not that expensive usually. It's also worth noting that I am absolutely having a fantastic time with it despite the fact that it's an objective train wreck of a release during this first month. I cannot, however, recommend that anyone buy it in good conscience as things currently stand. It's missing too many features and has far too many bugs for me to be able to recommend it. If you're a die-hard Battlefield fan or just absolutely love objective-based online FPS, then maybe keep an eye out and see if you can find it for a price you think is reasonable, but I would absolutely never pay more than $40 max for this game as it is right now. It's a shame, too, because what little they got right is *really* good. Unfortunately, there's just so much that they screwed up than what they got right.
Patron Saint of Bitch Mode
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prfsnl_gmr
- Next-Gen
- Posts: 12302
- Joined: Mon Jun 01, 2009 10:26 pm
- Location: Charlotte, North Carolina
Re: Games Beaten 2021
marurun wrote:Taste is always very subjective. Guardian Heroes is near the top of my beat ‘em up list.
Same here. I love Guardian Heroes, and it’s one of my favorites. To Raging Justice’s point, though, there are likely some really good modern beat ‘em ups I haven’t played, and I should spend less time revisiting classics and more time exploring newer games.
…..
First 60
61. Metroid Prime Hunters (NDS)
62. Metroid Prime Federation Force (3DS)
63. Panzer Dragoon: Remake (Switch)
64. Unsighted (Switch)
65. Death’s Door (Switch)
In Death’s Door, you play as a small (apparently, flightless) crow that reaps souls for an afterlife bureaucracy similar, to a certain extent, to the one in Grim Fandango. As in Grim Fandango, a mishap results in you uncovering a vast afterlife conspiracy and setting out to right it.
Death’s Door is not a point-and-click adventure game, however. Rather, it is an action-adventure game much like The Legend of Zelda (or, since it’s played from an isometric perspective Landstalker…<shudder>). That is, you navigate an interconnected overworked and explore dungeons, obtaining new abilities, and using those abilities to access new areas. It’s a solid, tried-and-true gameplay formula, and Death’s Door executes it very, very well. The world is crammed with secrets, and it is consistently fun exploring it. The controls are responsive, and the combat is intense. Moreover, Death’s Door is very challenging, and you will frequently see the word “DEATH” across the screen as you struggle through gauntlets of enemies and challenging boss battles. Despite the challenge, however, you make progress consistently, opening new shortcuts, acquiring new abilities, or, at the very least harvesting more souls you can trade in for upgrades.
Moreover, the game looks fantastic, and sounds even better. The somber world is stylistically intriguing full of wonderful flourishes. Moreover, each part of the game’s world is so distinct that I was never lost, despite the game’s complete lack of a map feature. The music, which relies heavily on classical guitar, makes for a very chill experience despite the game’s steep challenge. Finally, the sound effects are superb, and if you play the game, you really must play through the dreaded Ceramic Manor with headphones. (The intermittent whispering and distant thunderstorms sound great.)
Despite my high praise, the game isn’t perfect. Many of the collectible items serve no purpose, making you wonder at the point in collecting them. Additionally some of the hard-earned upgrades feel a bit paltry, and I didn’t feel like my character really improved until the end of the game. Finally, the post-game content, while welcome, was a bit weak (i.e., more collecting!), and the game ends up going out with a bit of a whimper.
My biggest complaint, however, is that, while the game does everything it sets out to do very well, it doesn’t try to do anything new. This was particularly glaring coming off Unsighted, which probably tried to do a bit too many interesting things. Accordingly, Death’s Door ended up feeling a lot more like games I’ve played before, and it didn’t leave quite as strong an impression. Still, Death’s Door is really, really good, and I won’t hesitate to recommend it to anyone looking for some video game comfort food.
Re: Games Beaten 2021
1. Frog Detective 2: The Case of the Invisible Wizard (PC)(Adventure)
2. Revulsion (PC)(FPS)
3. Nonogram - Master's Legacy (PC)(Puzzle)
4. Sekiro (PC)(Action-Adventure)
5. Grim Dawn (PC)(Action RPG)
6. Grim Dawn: Ashes of Malmouth (PC)(Action RPG)
7. Grim Dawn: Forgotten Gods (PC)(Action RPG)
8. Viscera Cleanup Detail: Santa's Rampage (PC)(FPS)
9. Viscera Cleanup Detail: Shadow Warrior (PC)(FPS)
10. Shrine (PC)(FPS)
11. Record of Lodoss War - Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth (PC)(Adventure)
12. Forgotten Realms: Demon Stone (PC)(Action)
13. Red Alliance (PC)(FPS)
14. The Forest (PC)(Horror)
15. Pixel Puzzles: Japan (PC)(Puzzle)
16. 12 is Better Than 6 (PC)(Top Down Shooter)
17. Torchlight II (PC)(RPG)
18. An Elder Scrolls Legend: Battlespire (PC)(RPG)
19. Port of Call (PC)(Walking Sim)
20. NeonCode (PC)(Walking Sim)
21. Carrion (PC)(Adventure)
22. Dr. Langeskov, The Tiger, and The Terribly Cursed Emerald: A Whirlwind Heist (PC)(Walking Sim)
23. Helltaker (PC)(Puzzle)
24. Warhammer 40,000: Inquisitor - Martyr (PC)(RPG)
25. Castlevania: Bloodlines (Switch)(Platformer)
26. Treachery in Beatdown City (Switch)(RPG)
27. Zeno Clash (PC)(Action)
28. Borderlands: Enhanced Edition (PC)(FPS/RPG)
29. Ion Fury (PC)(FPS)
30. Wolfenstein: The Old Blood (PC)(FPS)
31. Shrine II (PC)(FPS)
32. Lycanthorn I (PC)(Action Platformer)
33. Lycanthorn II (PC)(Action Platformer)
34. DLC Quest (PC)(Adventure)
35. Live Freemium or Die (PC)(Adventure)
36. Satellite Reign (PC)(Real-Time Tactics)
37. Heat Signature (PC)(Action)
38. HellSign (PC)(Action)
39. The Walking Dead: Season Two (PC)(Point-and-Click Adventure)
40. Umurangi Generation (PC)(Action)
41. Shadow of Loot Box (PC)(FPS)
42. Hellbreaker (PC)(FPS)
43. Kona (PC)(Adventure)
44. Eastshade (PC)(Adventure)
45. Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus (Switch)(Strategy)
Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus for the Nintendo Switch is a port of the same game from the PC release, coupled with the Heretek expansion. While it isn't a perfect port, it brings the tactical fun of leading a team of Tech-Priests against the Necron to Nintendo's pseudo-handheld console.
You lead a team of Tech-Priests as the worshippers of the Omnissiah investigate a world where tombs of Necron have been discovered and have started to wake. Your mission is simple: learn what you can learn, salvage what technology you can salvage, and purge what needs to be purged. As you complete missions in the order of your choosing for different factions within the Tech-Priest hierarchy, you gather new units and upgrades, unlock new canticles for a one-time benefit in any given mission, and march your way towards victory.
Between levels, you spend Blackstone to upgrade your Priests and specialize them in different factions. Perhaps you want an Enginseer for healing or a Xenarite for high risk/high reward combat. You also get to add greater gear, giving you bigger and better tools, such as a shield to negate incoming damage, boosters to add damage, or a spotlight to attract enemy forces to that location so you can ambush from elsewhere. You also unlock more Skitarii troops and can get new levels for them as part of your rewards, which unlocks further abilities and toughens them up. While they're not as durable as your Tech-Priests, they're expendable but useful if you take them into account when planning for a fight.
Levels proceed on a large map where you move from room to room. These rooms may offer Necron glyphs for rewards or negatives, combat and required fights to complete your mission, or events where you must pick one of three possible actions that can have huge benefits or serious consequences. Don't move around too much though, as every movement contributes to more Necron waking up, reviving faster, and increasing their overall activity on the planet. At the end of a level, your current awakening will be added to the total, and once it reaches 100%, you have to fight the final boss.
You don't have to wait for 100% to do that though; events can trigger which give you the option of battling him much earlier at your leisure, along with multiple other bosses. Hunting down each boss is worthwhile too, because each one you don't kill will appear alongside the final boss to protect him. Having to fight them all together at once would be a pain, so assassinate them accordingly.
Actual battles in the game are tactical affairs where you deploy your Priests, maneuver each one individually on their turn around the battlefield, and wait to see what your Necron foes do. You gather Cognition Points for certain abilities and equipment through various means, such as killing enemies, using abilities, or gathering it from sources on the battlefield, and these you use to devastate the enemy. Don't like that group of enemies coming at you in a line? Unleash a flamethrower attack in their direction. Need to heal? Spend your cognition to activate attached robotic arms for medical purposes. Plan your turns out, take your time, and find new ways to combo your gear and your team in powerful ways.
I mentioned earlier that there are multiple Tech-Priest factions to take missions from, and all of them provide benefit, but two in particular oppose each other and impact your ending. Do you want to gain access to forbidden knowledge at the expense of possible personal corruption or blast the planet to dust at the expense of possibly life-saving knowledge? Or do neither and look like a chump to everyone? It is your choice.
The Heretek expansion that is included also adds an Inquisition element, as a rogue faction of Tech-Priests on board your ship have gone too far in favor of the Necron. You must purge their heretical minds through fire and death. These levels don't add to Necron awakening but are tough battles against foes with the same gear you have.
Now there is one major problem with Mechanicus on Switch, and that is that it suffers from bad load times and instability. In fact, the longer you play, the less stable and more laggy it gets until the game is simply chugging at even the most basic command. To counter this, you have to access the home menu and deactivate the game ever few levels or so. Otherwise, good luck playing it. Even the intro video has a jarring spot of lag.
If you're wondering what ending I got, I purged the Necron scum. I will raze the universe if need be until there are no more worlds for the xenos to hide.
2. Revulsion (PC)(FPS)
3. Nonogram - Master's Legacy (PC)(Puzzle)
4. Sekiro (PC)(Action-Adventure)
5. Grim Dawn (PC)(Action RPG)
6. Grim Dawn: Ashes of Malmouth (PC)(Action RPG)
7. Grim Dawn: Forgotten Gods (PC)(Action RPG)
8. Viscera Cleanup Detail: Santa's Rampage (PC)(FPS)
9. Viscera Cleanup Detail: Shadow Warrior (PC)(FPS)
10. Shrine (PC)(FPS)
11. Record of Lodoss War - Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth (PC)(Adventure)
12. Forgotten Realms: Demon Stone (PC)(Action)
13. Red Alliance (PC)(FPS)
14. The Forest (PC)(Horror)
15. Pixel Puzzles: Japan (PC)(Puzzle)
16. 12 is Better Than 6 (PC)(Top Down Shooter)
17. Torchlight II (PC)(RPG)
18. An Elder Scrolls Legend: Battlespire (PC)(RPG)
19. Port of Call (PC)(Walking Sim)
20. NeonCode (PC)(Walking Sim)
21. Carrion (PC)(Adventure)
22. Dr. Langeskov, The Tiger, and The Terribly Cursed Emerald: A Whirlwind Heist (PC)(Walking Sim)
23. Helltaker (PC)(Puzzle)
24. Warhammer 40,000: Inquisitor - Martyr (PC)(RPG)
25. Castlevania: Bloodlines (Switch)(Platformer)
26. Treachery in Beatdown City (Switch)(RPG)
27. Zeno Clash (PC)(Action)
28. Borderlands: Enhanced Edition (PC)(FPS/RPG)
29. Ion Fury (PC)(FPS)
30. Wolfenstein: The Old Blood (PC)(FPS)
31. Shrine II (PC)(FPS)
32. Lycanthorn I (PC)(Action Platformer)
33. Lycanthorn II (PC)(Action Platformer)
34. DLC Quest (PC)(Adventure)
35. Live Freemium or Die (PC)(Adventure)
36. Satellite Reign (PC)(Real-Time Tactics)
37. Heat Signature (PC)(Action)
38. HellSign (PC)(Action)
39. The Walking Dead: Season Two (PC)(Point-and-Click Adventure)
40. Umurangi Generation (PC)(Action)
41. Shadow of Loot Box (PC)(FPS)
42. Hellbreaker (PC)(FPS)
43. Kona (PC)(Adventure)
44. Eastshade (PC)(Adventure)
45. Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus (Switch)(Strategy)
Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus for the Nintendo Switch is a port of the same game from the PC release, coupled with the Heretek expansion. While it isn't a perfect port, it brings the tactical fun of leading a team of Tech-Priests against the Necron to Nintendo's pseudo-handheld console.
You lead a team of Tech-Priests as the worshippers of the Omnissiah investigate a world where tombs of Necron have been discovered and have started to wake. Your mission is simple: learn what you can learn, salvage what technology you can salvage, and purge what needs to be purged. As you complete missions in the order of your choosing for different factions within the Tech-Priest hierarchy, you gather new units and upgrades, unlock new canticles for a one-time benefit in any given mission, and march your way towards victory.
Between levels, you spend Blackstone to upgrade your Priests and specialize them in different factions. Perhaps you want an Enginseer for healing or a Xenarite for high risk/high reward combat. You also get to add greater gear, giving you bigger and better tools, such as a shield to negate incoming damage, boosters to add damage, or a spotlight to attract enemy forces to that location so you can ambush from elsewhere. You also unlock more Skitarii troops and can get new levels for them as part of your rewards, which unlocks further abilities and toughens them up. While they're not as durable as your Tech-Priests, they're expendable but useful if you take them into account when planning for a fight.
Levels proceed on a large map where you move from room to room. These rooms may offer Necron glyphs for rewards or negatives, combat and required fights to complete your mission, or events where you must pick one of three possible actions that can have huge benefits or serious consequences. Don't move around too much though, as every movement contributes to more Necron waking up, reviving faster, and increasing their overall activity on the planet. At the end of a level, your current awakening will be added to the total, and once it reaches 100%, you have to fight the final boss.
You don't have to wait for 100% to do that though; events can trigger which give you the option of battling him much earlier at your leisure, along with multiple other bosses. Hunting down each boss is worthwhile too, because each one you don't kill will appear alongside the final boss to protect him. Having to fight them all together at once would be a pain, so assassinate them accordingly.
Actual battles in the game are tactical affairs where you deploy your Priests, maneuver each one individually on their turn around the battlefield, and wait to see what your Necron foes do. You gather Cognition Points for certain abilities and equipment through various means, such as killing enemies, using abilities, or gathering it from sources on the battlefield, and these you use to devastate the enemy. Don't like that group of enemies coming at you in a line? Unleash a flamethrower attack in their direction. Need to heal? Spend your cognition to activate attached robotic arms for medical purposes. Plan your turns out, take your time, and find new ways to combo your gear and your team in powerful ways.
I mentioned earlier that there are multiple Tech-Priest factions to take missions from, and all of them provide benefit, but two in particular oppose each other and impact your ending. Do you want to gain access to forbidden knowledge at the expense of possible personal corruption or blast the planet to dust at the expense of possibly life-saving knowledge? Or do neither and look like a chump to everyone? It is your choice.
The Heretek expansion that is included also adds an Inquisition element, as a rogue faction of Tech-Priests on board your ship have gone too far in favor of the Necron. You must purge their heretical minds through fire and death. These levels don't add to Necron awakening but are tough battles against foes with the same gear you have.
Now there is one major problem with Mechanicus on Switch, and that is that it suffers from bad load times and instability. In fact, the longer you play, the less stable and more laggy it gets until the game is simply chugging at even the most basic command. To counter this, you have to access the home menu and deactivate the game ever few levels or so. Otherwise, good luck playing it. Even the intro video has a jarring spot of lag.
If you're wondering what ending I got, I purged the Necron scum. I will raze the universe if need be until there are no more worlds for the xenos to hide.
Re: Games Beaten 2021
1. Golden Axe II (GEN)
2. Time Crisis [Special Mode] (PS1)
3. Streets of Rage (GEN)
4. Time Crisis: Project Titan (PS1)
5. Rayman Origins (360)
6. Borderlands (360)
7. Streets of Rage 4 (Switch)*
8. King of Dragons (SNES)
9. Wild Guns (SNES)
10. Star Fox (SNES)
11. Guardian Heroes (SAT) [2x]*
12. World of Illusion (GEN)
13. Raiden Fighters Jet (360)
14. Raiden Fighters 2: Operation Hell Dive (360)*
15. Streets of Rage 3 (GEN)
16. Street Fighter III: Third Strike (Xbox)*
17. Mushihimesama Futari (360)
18. Guwange (360)
19. Star Fox 64 (N64)*
20. Soul Calibur (DC)*
21. Street Fighter II: Special Champion Edition (GEN)
22. Xeno Crisis (GEN)
23. Galactic Attack (SAT)
24. Die Hard Arcade (SAT)
25. Luigi's Mansion (GC)
26. Steel Empire (GEN)
27. Virtua Cop (SAT)
28. Sonic R (SAT)
Sonic R is a game I wasn't aware of at the time of release, as I wasn't a Saturn owner and mostly only learned of Saturn games through my neighborhood friend or cousin. I do enjoy racers though and when I first saw gameplay footage I thought it looked really odd, with all the characters being on foot, as opposed to karts or vehicles, like we would normally see in other racers. However, I thought the game looked interesting as it was the only Sonic game developed and release specifically for the Saturn. I was curious in picking it up if I ever came across it. Well, that opportunity happened during the 2021 RacketBoy Charity Auction. Thanks again to everyone that was involved in the auction!
Gameplay wise, the controls take some time to get used to. The first few times I played Sonic R, I was having quite a tough time staying on course, however, after various attempts I started to get the hang of it and even started getting first place in races against the computer. I do think the development team could've done a better job to make the controls more accessible, as in comparison to Mario Kart 64, that game was much easier for a casual player to pick up and play. A unique aspect of this racer is the inclusion of the Chaos Emeralds. In the single player mode, each track has a Chaos Emerald hidden in the level and to beat the game, you have to find the emerald and come in first place. If you find the emerald, but don't come in first, you'll have to retry that course later on. Once you get the hang of it, the game is quite quick to complete and can probably be finished in around a half hour or so.
Regarding the graphics, I think Sonic R excels in this category. For an early 3D game, the game looks quite good and doesn't have the same issues that other early 3D racers (or 3D games in general) have with pop in or fog, the tracks and backdrops load quite smooth and I think the look of the game holds up today. Now for the music -- the soundtrack of this game is honestly fantastic. The game's music reminds me of a late 80's Detroit Techno or Chicago House album, which is a great thing as these were both amazing subgenres of music. I honestly think the producer and singer that put together this soundtrack could have released this as a separate album, the singer's voice is pretty amazing. There is an option to only have the instrumentals play though, if the vocals aren't your thing.
My main critique of Sonic R is that it's pretty light on the content. The game has five characters originally to select from and five more unlockable characters, which I find to be reasonable. Each character also has a special attribute such as Sonic can double jump, Knuckles can glide, and Robotnik has missiles he can shoot at opponents. However, there are only five tracks in the game. I think there should be at least ten tracks available. Five just seems way too light, IMO. I think along with controls that feel a bit off, the lack of tracks is the biggest flaw in Sonic R. However, there are a few other gameplay modes such as time attack and versus, which brings some replayability to the title.
Overall, while Sonic R has its flaws, I enjoyed my time with it and I think it'll be a fun one to break out with friends and play in versus mode. A lot of us have played Mario Kart for years, so I think this game would be a fun alternative multi-player option. If you're looking for a quirky racer, check out Sonic R, but be aware that there's only a few tracks!
2. Time Crisis [Special Mode] (PS1)
3. Streets of Rage (GEN)
4. Time Crisis: Project Titan (PS1)
5. Rayman Origins (360)
6. Borderlands (360)
7. Streets of Rage 4 (Switch)*
8. King of Dragons (SNES)
9. Wild Guns (SNES)
10. Star Fox (SNES)
11. Guardian Heroes (SAT) [2x]*
12. World of Illusion (GEN)
13. Raiden Fighters Jet (360)
14. Raiden Fighters 2: Operation Hell Dive (360)*
15. Streets of Rage 3 (GEN)
16. Street Fighter III: Third Strike (Xbox)*
17. Mushihimesama Futari (360)
18. Guwange (360)
19. Star Fox 64 (N64)*
20. Soul Calibur (DC)*
21. Street Fighter II: Special Champion Edition (GEN)
22. Xeno Crisis (GEN)
23. Galactic Attack (SAT)
24. Die Hard Arcade (SAT)
25. Luigi's Mansion (GC)
26. Steel Empire (GEN)
27. Virtua Cop (SAT)
28. Sonic R (SAT)
Sonic R is a game I wasn't aware of at the time of release, as I wasn't a Saturn owner and mostly only learned of Saturn games through my neighborhood friend or cousin. I do enjoy racers though and when I first saw gameplay footage I thought it looked really odd, with all the characters being on foot, as opposed to karts or vehicles, like we would normally see in other racers. However, I thought the game looked interesting as it was the only Sonic game developed and release specifically for the Saturn. I was curious in picking it up if I ever came across it. Well, that opportunity happened during the 2021 RacketBoy Charity Auction. Thanks again to everyone that was involved in the auction!
Gameplay wise, the controls take some time to get used to. The first few times I played Sonic R, I was having quite a tough time staying on course, however, after various attempts I started to get the hang of it and even started getting first place in races against the computer. I do think the development team could've done a better job to make the controls more accessible, as in comparison to Mario Kart 64, that game was much easier for a casual player to pick up and play. A unique aspect of this racer is the inclusion of the Chaos Emeralds. In the single player mode, each track has a Chaos Emerald hidden in the level and to beat the game, you have to find the emerald and come in first place. If you find the emerald, but don't come in first, you'll have to retry that course later on. Once you get the hang of it, the game is quite quick to complete and can probably be finished in around a half hour or so.
Regarding the graphics, I think Sonic R excels in this category. For an early 3D game, the game looks quite good and doesn't have the same issues that other early 3D racers (or 3D games in general) have with pop in or fog, the tracks and backdrops load quite smooth and I think the look of the game holds up today. Now for the music -- the soundtrack of this game is honestly fantastic. The game's music reminds me of a late 80's Detroit Techno or Chicago House album, which is a great thing as these were both amazing subgenres of music. I honestly think the producer and singer that put together this soundtrack could have released this as a separate album, the singer's voice is pretty amazing. There is an option to only have the instrumentals play though, if the vocals aren't your thing.
My main critique of Sonic R is that it's pretty light on the content. The game has five characters originally to select from and five more unlockable characters, which I find to be reasonable. Each character also has a special attribute such as Sonic can double jump, Knuckles can glide, and Robotnik has missiles he can shoot at opponents. However, there are only five tracks in the game. I think there should be at least ten tracks available. Five just seems way too light, IMO. I think along with controls that feel a bit off, the lack of tracks is the biggest flaw in Sonic R. However, there are a few other gameplay modes such as time attack and versus, which brings some replayability to the title.
Overall, while Sonic R has its flaws, I enjoyed my time with it and I think it'll be a fun one to break out with friends and play in versus mode. A lot of us have played Mario Kart for years, so I think this game would be a fun alternative multi-player option. If you're looking for a quirky racer, check out Sonic R, but be aware that there's only a few tracks!
Re: Games Beaten 2021
Previous Years: 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
First 50:
Second 50:
101. Odin Sphere Leifthrasir - PS4
102. Magic Carpet 2: The Netherworlds - PC
103. Shining the Holy Ark - Saturn
Shining the Holy Ark represents Camelot returning to their roots by producing a first person dungeon crawler like their first game Shining in the Darkness. Shining the Holy Ark represents them having learned a lot as developers since then, as it is far more approachable with a much better story. I'd also call it one of the easiest first person dungeon crawlers of the era, but I think that's a good thing.
The game serves as a sort of prequel to the Shining Force III trilogy; it's set a decade or so before Shining Force III and introduces some of the worldbuilding concepts that play a major role in Shining Force III. The game starts with three obvious bad guys shooting down an airship, but it launches an escape pod. Meanwhile, you and your mercenary buddies are about to engage a rogue ninja when said escape pod crashes through the ceiling. Everyone is knocked out, everyone gets possessed, with one of your buddies bieng possessed by something evil, and now you need to follow the story threads. Eventually you need to stop those bad guys from the opening from enacting their grand plan. It's not Shakespeare, but at least there's a decent number of story beats compared to in the Darkness's "go get princess from dungeon".
Mechanically the game is just an evolved verison of Shining in the Darkness. You navigate dungeons in first person before enemies pop out and need to be taken down in turn based combat. Youv'e got your standard array of attack, magic, defend, item, using the Shining button menu. Everything will be very familiar to fans of the Shining series. So let's talk what's new. First off, the game doesn't require magic for the auto map, which is nice. Secondly, you get more than three party members; by the end of the game you have eight, and can hot swap them in combat at no penalty. This is quite nice when you want to take advantage of certain spells that are restricted to certain members, and you're free to find a party that works well. All members get full experience, so no worries about someone falling behind.
The dungeon layouts are better crafted in this game. Aside from not being quite so mazelike to pad out, they tend to involve far more unlocking various shortcuts, so if you need to escape and heal it isn't as bad. They also can make use of multiple levels and modifying terrain. It just flows a bit better. The encounter rate is quite reasonable, and the game will turn it off in points where you're dealing with a puzzle element, so it's quite player friendly in that regard.
One fairly unique feature is the fairy system. Throughout the game you can investigate the dungeons and discover fairies who will join you. Sometimes these are spots you would naturally check, while other times you're looking at blank walls, which is frankly a bad design choice (definitely consult a guide). Now, the benefit of the fairies is that when an enemy encounter starts you can send them to deal some initial damage to all enemies. If you do so you'll get a boost to your gold and experience, so it's win win all around. But the trick is that you need to send the right kind of fairy against the enemy group. This is determined by the direction the enemies appear on the screen. Did they rise out of the ground or sidle in from a side corridor? You have a second or two to quickly swap to the right fairy before sending them out. I kinda went back and forth on how I felt about this implementation. On the one hand, it keeps you engaged, but on the other hand it's not the right kind of engagement. Ultimately, in the second half of the game something like 80% of the fights are covered by two adjacent fairy types, so the annoyance went away.
Oh, and one final thing to point out. That possession that happens at the beginning of the game means those three characters are revived at the end of battle with 1 HP, which removes a classic punishing mechanic in dungeon crawlers. Coupled with the abundant healing and you have a game I would recommend to eveyrone as their first dungeon crawler.
Overall it's a strong entry in the franchise, with just the right difficulty to be overall relaxing, while still maintaining that "if I just finish up this floor I'll be happy" progression. Definitely a must have for Saturn fans.
First 50:
Second 50:
101. Odin Sphere Leifthrasir - PS4
102. Magic Carpet 2: The Netherworlds - PC
103. Shining the Holy Ark - Saturn
Shining the Holy Ark represents Camelot returning to their roots by producing a first person dungeon crawler like their first game Shining in the Darkness. Shining the Holy Ark represents them having learned a lot as developers since then, as it is far more approachable with a much better story. I'd also call it one of the easiest first person dungeon crawlers of the era, but I think that's a good thing.
The game serves as a sort of prequel to the Shining Force III trilogy; it's set a decade or so before Shining Force III and introduces some of the worldbuilding concepts that play a major role in Shining Force III. The game starts with three obvious bad guys shooting down an airship, but it launches an escape pod. Meanwhile, you and your mercenary buddies are about to engage a rogue ninja when said escape pod crashes through the ceiling. Everyone is knocked out, everyone gets possessed, with one of your buddies bieng possessed by something evil, and now you need to follow the story threads. Eventually you need to stop those bad guys from the opening from enacting their grand plan. It's not Shakespeare, but at least there's a decent number of story beats compared to in the Darkness's "go get princess from dungeon".
Mechanically the game is just an evolved verison of Shining in the Darkness. You navigate dungeons in first person before enemies pop out and need to be taken down in turn based combat. Youv'e got your standard array of attack, magic, defend, item, using the Shining button menu. Everything will be very familiar to fans of the Shining series. So let's talk what's new. First off, the game doesn't require magic for the auto map, which is nice. Secondly, you get more than three party members; by the end of the game you have eight, and can hot swap them in combat at no penalty. This is quite nice when you want to take advantage of certain spells that are restricted to certain members, and you're free to find a party that works well. All members get full experience, so no worries about someone falling behind.
The dungeon layouts are better crafted in this game. Aside from not being quite so mazelike to pad out, they tend to involve far more unlocking various shortcuts, so if you need to escape and heal it isn't as bad. They also can make use of multiple levels and modifying terrain. It just flows a bit better. The encounter rate is quite reasonable, and the game will turn it off in points where you're dealing with a puzzle element, so it's quite player friendly in that regard.
One fairly unique feature is the fairy system. Throughout the game you can investigate the dungeons and discover fairies who will join you. Sometimes these are spots you would naturally check, while other times you're looking at blank walls, which is frankly a bad design choice (definitely consult a guide). Now, the benefit of the fairies is that when an enemy encounter starts you can send them to deal some initial damage to all enemies. If you do so you'll get a boost to your gold and experience, so it's win win all around. But the trick is that you need to send the right kind of fairy against the enemy group. This is determined by the direction the enemies appear on the screen. Did they rise out of the ground or sidle in from a side corridor? You have a second or two to quickly swap to the right fairy before sending them out. I kinda went back and forth on how I felt about this implementation. On the one hand, it keeps you engaged, but on the other hand it's not the right kind of engagement. Ultimately, in the second half of the game something like 80% of the fights are covered by two adjacent fairy types, so the annoyance went away.
Oh, and one final thing to point out. That possession that happens at the beginning of the game means those three characters are revived at the end of battle with 1 HP, which removes a classic punishing mechanic in dungeon crawlers. Coupled with the abundant healing and you have a game I would recommend to eveyrone as their first dungeon crawler.
Overall it's a strong entry in the franchise, with just the right difficulty to be overall relaxing, while still maintaining that "if I just finish up this floor I'll be happy" progression. Definitely a must have for Saturn fans.
Blizzard Entertainment Software Developer - All comments and views are my own and not representative of the company.
Re: Games Beaten 2021
Previous Years: 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
First 50:
Second 50:
101. Odin Sphere Leifthrasir - PS4
102. Magic Carpet 2: The Netherworlds - PC
103. Shining the Holy Ark - Saturn
104. Iron Harvest: Operation Eagle - PC
Operation Eagle is a piece of story DLC that adds a new faction, Usonia (alt universe USA), and a full set of missions set after the main events of the game. With the conflicts going on in Europa certain elements within Usonia see opportunity for their nation to take to the world stage, after having sat out the Great War. First on the docket is defending American interests in Russviet owned Alaska, before heading to Arabia to do your best T.E. Lawrence impression.
Compared to the base game, the campaign involves shorter missions, to its benefit. No long commando missions and no super long slogs through intense enemy defenses like some of the base game's missions. Instead, you get introduced to the Usonia arsenal quickly, most notably their airship fleet, which is their primary differentiator. While all factions seem to gain access to the generic anti air and anti ground air units, Usonia gets a couple of unique air units. One is a long range rocket spammer that does intense damage to all targets, while the other is basically the Carrier from Star Craft and is just as overwhelming. One important thing to note is that all ranged units can attack air units, so they aren't as overpowering as some RTS games. Instead, their power comes from ignoring terrain when moving. This lets them concentrate fire much better than ground units.
Not a lot else to say about this one. It's a well balanced piece of RTS content, which is a rarity for post-release content for RTS games. If you liked the base game I'd recommend this one.
First 50:
Second 50:
101. Odin Sphere Leifthrasir - PS4
102. Magic Carpet 2: The Netherworlds - PC
103. Shining the Holy Ark - Saturn
104. Iron Harvest: Operation Eagle - PC
Operation Eagle is a piece of story DLC that adds a new faction, Usonia (alt universe USA), and a full set of missions set after the main events of the game. With the conflicts going on in Europa certain elements within Usonia see opportunity for their nation to take to the world stage, after having sat out the Great War. First on the docket is defending American interests in Russviet owned Alaska, before heading to Arabia to do your best T.E. Lawrence impression.
Compared to the base game, the campaign involves shorter missions, to its benefit. No long commando missions and no super long slogs through intense enemy defenses like some of the base game's missions. Instead, you get introduced to the Usonia arsenal quickly, most notably their airship fleet, which is their primary differentiator. While all factions seem to gain access to the generic anti air and anti ground air units, Usonia gets a couple of unique air units. One is a long range rocket spammer that does intense damage to all targets, while the other is basically the Carrier from Star Craft and is just as overwhelming. One important thing to note is that all ranged units can attack air units, so they aren't as overpowering as some RTS games. Instead, their power comes from ignoring terrain when moving. This lets them concentrate fire much better than ground units.
Not a lot else to say about this one. It's a well balanced piece of RTS content, which is a rarity for post-release content for RTS games. If you liked the base game I'd recommend this one.
Blizzard Entertainment Software Developer - All comments and views are my own and not representative of the company.
-
PartridgeSenpai
- Next-Gen
- Posts: 3067
- Joined: Mon Dec 14, 2015 9:27 am
- Location: Northern Japan
Re: Games Beaten 2021
Partridge Senpai's 2021 Beaten Games:
Previously: 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
* indicates a repeat
Games 1~51
Games 52~100
101. Splatterhouse (PCE)
102. Shin Megami Tensei 2 (SFC)
103. Shin Megami Tensei if... (SFC)
104. Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner (Saturn)
105. Alundra (PS1)
106. Lunar: Silver Star Story (Saturn)
107. Tales of Xillia (PS3)
108. Digimon Rumble Arena (PS1)
109. Blue Stinger (DC)
110. Clockwork Knight (Saturn)
111. Tales of Xillia 2 (PS3)
112. Nightmare Creatures (PS1)
113. Tales of Rebirth (PSP)
114. Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Children: Red Book (GBC)
115. Heart of the Woods (PC)
116. Analogue: A Hate Story (PC)
117. Ibunroku Persona (PS1)
118. Megami Tensei: Last Bible (GB)
119. Mechstermination Force (Switch)
120. Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon (Switch)
121. Shining Force (Genesis)
122. Shining Wisdom (Saturn)
123. Pokemon Green (GB)
While I did play my copy of Pokemon Blue a lot when I was younger (it helped me learn to read~), and I did eventually beat a copy of Pokemon Yellow that a friend gave me well over a decade ago, I've never beaten the original release of Gen 1 Pokemon (let alone the original original Japanese release). I've really wanted to eventually actually beat Pokemon Stadium 1 and/or 2 someday (or 2 and Gold & Silver, going by the Japanese titles), so I bought this copy of Pokemon Green to help facilitate getting my own team to use in the registrations. I honestly still don't even have Pokemon Stadium 1 nor do I have the transfer pak to be able to play GameBoy games with it, but I was just so in the mood for some retro Pokemon that I had to play this. It took me around 20 hours to beat the Japanese version of the game on real hardware via my GameBoy Player (with my team of Venusaur, Pidgeot, Omastar, Sandslash, Hypno, and Jolteon).
It's the Pokemon story that started it all! You're a kid who starts in Pallet Town, you and your jerk neighbor are given Pokemon by Professor Oak, and you're sent off on your mission to become champion of the Pokemon League. Along the way you foil a few mafia plots and end up breaking up their organization as well as beating the pants off of your rival many times. It's a simple, cute story packed with lots of dialogue (honestly a shocking amount, for a GameBoy game) and NPCs to help flesh out its strange and wonderful world. It does exactly what it needs to, and it does a great job setting up the world so your Pokemon adventure can get on its way. My only main complaint is that signposting can be a bit rough at times. Granted there aren't THAT many places to even try going, ultimately, but if you haven't happened across the HM you need to get past an obstacle, it can be pretty frustrating just getting to where you're trying to go. It's a minor gripe since the game is pretty well laid out so even if you're completely lost it's hard to stay lost for that long, but it's certainly a significant possibility.
The real meat here is the (by this point very familiar) Pokemon gameplay of building a Pokemon team and battling tons of trainers and wild Pokemon (all to catch and train and collect more Pokemon!). I pretty much expected the clunkiness of the earlier games to be an issue, and it for sure was in many regards. The sheer scale of Pokemon Green/Red (not to mention its sequel) is undoubtedly a technical marvel for the GameBoy. Regardless, the game's ambition definitely outpaced what was technically possible in it, and it leaves a lot of underdeveloped areas and room for improvement (as well as a lot of outright broken things).
For just a brief list off of the top of my head: Your inventory (even your PC storage box) are way too small for how many items are in the game. Switching Pokemon boxes manually is an awful chore and can leave you suddenly without the space to catch a desired Pokemon with no warning to you. The AI cheats and isn't bound by the same rules you are (they have no PP to limit the amount of time they can use a move). Some moves (such as focus energy) outright don't work in the intended way. These are all things that aren't that big a deal, more often than not, and are more on the end of being the price of doing business with an old 8-bit RPG.
Other stuff that's more difficult to look over are how there are just straight-up too many types in the game and not enough moves or Pokemon to actually make them all valuable. Many types (such as Ghost, Rock, and Bug) have some combination of lacking Pokemon exclusive to that type to use them or moves even of that type. This leads to balancing issues around Pokemon who therefore effectively have very few or no weakness (and is one of the main reasons why Psychic-type Pokemon are so horribly broken in this generation). Another thing that makes Psychic-types so broken is that not only are special and physical attacks still linked to type and not the individual move (so, for example, physical-focused water types are useless, as all water type moves scale based on the special stat, not physical attack), but special had not yet been split into special attack and special defense, so anything that's good at one is good at the other.
None of these problems are game-breaking by any means. It all actually makes for an interesting challenge and comparison in how Pokemon Green/Red is played compared to later games, but with the benefit of hindsight in a larger design perspective, Pokemon's first generation likely would've benefited from a little restraint showed in just how many types there were. As they are, the game trend to be a bit hard and can necessitate a fair bit of grinding for new teammates if you run into a situation where you suddenly need to cover a new type you previously weren't (as EXP takes a fair while to grind up in this game), but that isn't uncommon at all for 8-bit RPGs (or even many 16-bit RPGs).
The presentation is among the things that make this such an impressive GameBoy game. Tons of environments that are nice to look at and a good pile of nice music that's become so iconic for good reasons, but the thing most worth mentioning are the Pokemon themselves. Seeing the original Japanese generation 1 Pokemon designs was one of the most fun parts of this experience. It's very apparent that all of them were definitely not designed by the same person, and it's wild seeing ones that look almost like a 10-year old's drawing, some that are very weirdly overly cutesy in almost uncanny ways, and others that look nigh identical to the way that Pokemon is still drawn (sometimes all apart of the same Pokemon's evolution tree). There's tons of personality packed into each one, and even though the game's mechanics suffer a bit due to the sheer ambition of it all, it helps make up for that in just how much of that charm and personality is packed into the Pokemon themselves.
Verdict: Recommended. For a GameBoy RPG, Pokemon still stands tall among its competition, and even though it wasn't even the first monster-catching and training RPG on the system, it's not hard to see why it took off where others didn't. The mechanics may be unrefined and the quality of life is incredibly lacking in some places, but Pokemon Green ended up being a surprisingly nice time considering the janky mess I was expecting after so many years of not playing it. I know "Pokemon is good" is hardly a hot take in 2021, but gen 1 really does hold up remarkably well after all these years and is definitely worth a (re-)visit if you still enjoy the modern series or just want some nice GameBoy RPG goodness to (re-)sink your teeth into~.
Previously: 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
* indicates a repeat
Games 1~51
Games 52~100
101. Splatterhouse (PCE)
102. Shin Megami Tensei 2 (SFC)
103. Shin Megami Tensei if... (SFC)
104. Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner (Saturn)
105. Alundra (PS1)
106. Lunar: Silver Star Story (Saturn)
107. Tales of Xillia (PS3)
108. Digimon Rumble Arena (PS1)
109. Blue Stinger (DC)
110. Clockwork Knight (Saturn)
111. Tales of Xillia 2 (PS3)
112. Nightmare Creatures (PS1)
113. Tales of Rebirth (PSP)
114. Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Children: Red Book (GBC)
115. Heart of the Woods (PC)
116. Analogue: A Hate Story (PC)
117. Ibunroku Persona (PS1)
118. Megami Tensei: Last Bible (GB)
119. Mechstermination Force (Switch)
120. Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon (Switch)
121. Shining Force (Genesis)
122. Shining Wisdom (Saturn)
123. Pokemon Green (GB)
While I did play my copy of Pokemon Blue a lot when I was younger (it helped me learn to read~), and I did eventually beat a copy of Pokemon Yellow that a friend gave me well over a decade ago, I've never beaten the original release of Gen 1 Pokemon (let alone the original original Japanese release). I've really wanted to eventually actually beat Pokemon Stadium 1 and/or 2 someday (or 2 and Gold & Silver, going by the Japanese titles), so I bought this copy of Pokemon Green to help facilitate getting my own team to use in the registrations. I honestly still don't even have Pokemon Stadium 1 nor do I have the transfer pak to be able to play GameBoy games with it, but I was just so in the mood for some retro Pokemon that I had to play this. It took me around 20 hours to beat the Japanese version of the game on real hardware via my GameBoy Player (with my team of Venusaur, Pidgeot, Omastar, Sandslash, Hypno, and Jolteon).
It's the Pokemon story that started it all! You're a kid who starts in Pallet Town, you and your jerk neighbor are given Pokemon by Professor Oak, and you're sent off on your mission to become champion of the Pokemon League. Along the way you foil a few mafia plots and end up breaking up their organization as well as beating the pants off of your rival many times. It's a simple, cute story packed with lots of dialogue (honestly a shocking amount, for a GameBoy game) and NPCs to help flesh out its strange and wonderful world. It does exactly what it needs to, and it does a great job setting up the world so your Pokemon adventure can get on its way. My only main complaint is that signposting can be a bit rough at times. Granted there aren't THAT many places to even try going, ultimately, but if you haven't happened across the HM you need to get past an obstacle, it can be pretty frustrating just getting to where you're trying to go. It's a minor gripe since the game is pretty well laid out so even if you're completely lost it's hard to stay lost for that long, but it's certainly a significant possibility.
The real meat here is the (by this point very familiar) Pokemon gameplay of building a Pokemon team and battling tons of trainers and wild Pokemon (all to catch and train and collect more Pokemon!). I pretty much expected the clunkiness of the earlier games to be an issue, and it for sure was in many regards. The sheer scale of Pokemon Green/Red (not to mention its sequel) is undoubtedly a technical marvel for the GameBoy. Regardless, the game's ambition definitely outpaced what was technically possible in it, and it leaves a lot of underdeveloped areas and room for improvement (as well as a lot of outright broken things).
For just a brief list off of the top of my head: Your inventory (even your PC storage box) are way too small for how many items are in the game. Switching Pokemon boxes manually is an awful chore and can leave you suddenly without the space to catch a desired Pokemon with no warning to you. The AI cheats and isn't bound by the same rules you are (they have no PP to limit the amount of time they can use a move). Some moves (such as focus energy) outright don't work in the intended way. These are all things that aren't that big a deal, more often than not, and are more on the end of being the price of doing business with an old 8-bit RPG.
Other stuff that's more difficult to look over are how there are just straight-up too many types in the game and not enough moves or Pokemon to actually make them all valuable. Many types (such as Ghost, Rock, and Bug) have some combination of lacking Pokemon exclusive to that type to use them or moves even of that type. This leads to balancing issues around Pokemon who therefore effectively have very few or no weakness (and is one of the main reasons why Psychic-type Pokemon are so horribly broken in this generation). Another thing that makes Psychic-types so broken is that not only are special and physical attacks still linked to type and not the individual move (so, for example, physical-focused water types are useless, as all water type moves scale based on the special stat, not physical attack), but special had not yet been split into special attack and special defense, so anything that's good at one is good at the other.
None of these problems are game-breaking by any means. It all actually makes for an interesting challenge and comparison in how Pokemon Green/Red is played compared to later games, but with the benefit of hindsight in a larger design perspective, Pokemon's first generation likely would've benefited from a little restraint showed in just how many types there were. As they are, the game trend to be a bit hard and can necessitate a fair bit of grinding for new teammates if you run into a situation where you suddenly need to cover a new type you previously weren't (as EXP takes a fair while to grind up in this game), but that isn't uncommon at all for 8-bit RPGs (or even many 16-bit RPGs).
The presentation is among the things that make this such an impressive GameBoy game. Tons of environments that are nice to look at and a good pile of nice music that's become so iconic for good reasons, but the thing most worth mentioning are the Pokemon themselves. Seeing the original Japanese generation 1 Pokemon designs was one of the most fun parts of this experience. It's very apparent that all of them were definitely not designed by the same person, and it's wild seeing ones that look almost like a 10-year old's drawing, some that are very weirdly overly cutesy in almost uncanny ways, and others that look nigh identical to the way that Pokemon is still drawn (sometimes all apart of the same Pokemon's evolution tree). There's tons of personality packed into each one, and even though the game's mechanics suffer a bit due to the sheer ambition of it all, it helps make up for that in just how much of that charm and personality is packed into the Pokemon themselves.
Verdict: Recommended. For a GameBoy RPG, Pokemon still stands tall among its competition, and even though it wasn't even the first monster-catching and training RPG on the system, it's not hard to see why it took off where others didn't. The mechanics may be unrefined and the quality of life is incredibly lacking in some places, but Pokemon Green ended up being a surprisingly nice time considering the janky mess I was expecting after so many years of not playing it. I know "Pokemon is good" is hardly a hot take in 2021, but gen 1 really does hold up remarkably well after all these years and is definitely worth a (re-)visit if you still enjoy the modern series or just want some nice GameBoy RPG goodness to (re-)sink your teeth into~.
I identify everyone via avatar, so if you change your avatar, I genuinely might completely forget who you are. -- Me
Re: Games Beaten 2021
I remember getting Pokemon Red and Blue when I got my GBC back in the day. I believe it was Christmas 2000 and I got one version in the morning when we opened all of our presents from my parents and "Santa" (my little brother was 6 so he obviously still believed), and then we went to my paternal grandparents' house around noon for presents (in '99 my paternal grandparents got me Final Fantasy 
and then over to my maternal grandparents' house for Christmas dinner and exchanging presents with my mom's family, where I got the other version.
and then over to my maternal grandparents' house for Christmas dinner and exchanging presents with my mom's family, where I got the other version.