Summer Games Challenge 2025 - GET EQUIPPED

[MrPopo]

I agree with Ack that I'd recommend either Goldeneye or Majora's Mask for your N64 slot of games you have access to. If we expand it to the entire library, I gotta put in a plug for Paper Mario.

[bmoc]

Bmoc, I was going to claim Alien: Isolation was way too new, only to look it up and realize it came out 11 years ago... I swear, I thought it was 2017 or something. Where does the time go?

Since it originally released in the PS3 era, I figured it would be ok. I had to look it up too to make sure it was at least 10 years old. I have been sitting on a digital copy of the PS4 version for a long time. Maybe you were thinking of the recent-ish rereleases like that?

[Ack]

I didn't know there were rereleases! No, I'm just way behind the times.

There's a PS4?

[alienjesus]

Here's my tentative list of ten, which I'll be attempting on Peaceful Mode:

CORE:

1. Mario Tennis (N64)
2. Pokemon Snap (N64)
3. Sonic CD (SegaCD)
4. Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future (DC)
5. Bionic Commando (NES)

BONUS:

6. Blaster Master (NES)
7. Theme Park (GEN)
8. Ultima IV (NES)
9. Resident Evil: Code Veronica (PS2)
10. ???

This is a nice list. Pokémon Snap is a really nice short one you can probably finish in a single session, but it lends itself to being replayed a bunch. I'm keen to hear how Ecco: DOFT is. I have a love/hate relationship with the original 2 on Mega Drive.

As for your remaining N64 suggestion, whilst I agree with Ack that Goldeneye is probably the choice for most 'classic' of those games, I'd suggest Majora's Mask might be the game for you personally. Something about it feels like a 'Key' kinda game - there's lots of melancholy, you have to learn bits about the lives of all the characters, there's so many little cool details to catch - I think you'll love it.

I agree with Ack that I'd recommend either Goldeneye or Majora's Mask for your N64 slot of games you have access to. If we expand it to the entire library, I gotta put in a plug for Paper Mario.

If I was suggesting one N64 game for just sheer outright quality besides your list, I have to agree with Popo and say Paper Mario is truly fantastic. Other than that, another one I would suggest is Banjo-Kazooie - it's an excellent 3D platformer that I prefer to Super Mario 64,

1. Final Fight CD (Mega CD)

So, I've played through the arcade version of Final Fight before, but Final Fight CD is really tough to get through with the limited continues. God speed, sir.

2. Sonic CD (Mega CD)

3. Sonic CD (SegaCD)

Mama mia! I always feel like everyone has played Sonic CD at this point, for some reason. Interested in seeing how this goes.

4. Radiant Silvergun (Saturn)

Great game, but I had to dump a ton of credits to beat it on arcade mode. The Saturn mode has some weapon level saving if you wanted to make it feel more like you're working toward actually beating it, but if the goal is to beat it on a certain low number of credits, it can be pretty brutal.

5. Mega Man Legends (PS1)

This one is a surprise only because it feels like a game I would have thought you'd already played. I played it on PSP, but have been kinda wanting to replay it on N64 for a little while. Feels kind of like a tech-demo for MML2, just from the scope and scale, but it's interesting, from what I remember.

6. Suikoden (PS1)

Oh, hell--YES!!

Yeah, Final Fight I'm expecting to be brutal, we'll see if I ever get good enough to beat that one. For the number of continues on Radiant Silvergun I'll have to play it by ear. I'm not fussed about 1CC but I don't want to just blindly credit feed to the end without learning the game a bit. Ikaruga on GC had a nice system where you unlocked more continues with playtime - maybe I'll replicate that function and allow myself an extra credit after certain amounts of time. Not sure how many the Saturn version allows by default though!

Sonic CD is a game I've never really played. I picked up a Mega CD for the first time late last year which is why I wanted to throw a couple of games for the system on my list. Figure this is the most obvious choice!

I'm only recently starting to get into the PS1 so Mega Man Legends is a recent addition too. It's a pricy game over here! Suikoden is another recent acquisition. I actually have both The Misadventures of Tron Bonne and Suikoden 2 waiting to be played too, so if I like the games I can move onto other entries in the franchises too.

[SpaceBooger]

Ok, here is mine:
1. Phantasy Star (SMS)
2. Uncharted 2 (PS3)
3. Teranigma (SNES)
4. StarTropics (NES)
5. MGS 2 (PS1 via Switch)
6. Dark Forces (PC - Force Engine Mod)
Bonus
Dragon Quest 5 (NDS)

A couple years ago I played Soul Blazer and loved it, then the next year played Illusion of Gaia and didn't love it... but this year I will finish off the Quintet Trillogy by playing Teranigma. Keeping the trend of playing through series with the summer challenge - I beat MGS last year in preperatation MGS2. I beat MGS when it came out so last year I played through it again via the collection on the Switch. Dragon Quest will be what I play on my handheld this summer, so maybe I'll beat it maybe not since that is not my console of foucs.
I did cheat a bit and already started Phantasy Star. It was already May and I wanted to play a grindy old RPG and I never beat this one... so that is where I am starting this year.

[pierrot]

I'm now in Guilin on my (as best as I reasonably can get to 100%) replay of Shenmue II by way of the HD re-release. So I should be finished with it after a couple hours tomorrow.
Once that's finished I'm planning on firing up Ys Origin, as long as I don't get distracted by the idea of playing Shenmue III on the Deck. Looking forward to it.

I used to pretend I was a velociraptor on the playground all the dang time in elementary school

Mood. I can't imagine there were many kids around the releases of the Jurassic Park trilogy who didn't.

There's a PS4?

Home consoles released after the latest one I personally own (currently the Wii U) do not exist. It's called Pierrot's Law. Ergo, the PS4 does not exist. You are welcome.

Not sure how many the Saturn version allows by default though!

I actually have both The Misadventures of Tron Bonne and Suikoden 2 waiting to be played too, so if I like the games I can move onto other entries in the franchises too.

It's been a while since I played Radiant Silvergun, but what I recall is that the arcade mode has unlimited continues, and the Saturn mode might have limited continues, but I know it saves weapon level-ups across plays, so you can build up weapon strength to the point of theoretically starting with max weapon levels.

Tron Bonne is a weird one. I don't know that I personally enjoyed it all that much, but it's interesting. MML 2 was the main game out of the series that I mostly enjoyed.
Everyone loves Suikoden 2. I love Suikoden 2. It's just not, strictly speaking, my favorite, but if you're anything like everyone else, you should have a good time ahead of you once you get there.

3. Teranigma (SNES)
Bonus
Dragon Quest 5 (NDS)

[Key-Glyph]

Okay friends, I have added my 10th game to my list... and it's GoldenEye (N64).

I hear everyone's recommendations for Majora's Mask, and you're not wrong. But I've actually watched my partner play through it already (Majora is his favorite Zelda), and I'm also just... worried it will be too stressful for me? (Just wait, I'll play it next year and it'll become my second favorite game ever or something.)

But in the meantime, let me tell you about how GoldenEye is going. Because I've started it already.

i. My Connection to James Bond, OR, How Can Anyone Be This Bad at Movies

What I am about to tell you is, according to my partner, so outrageous as to not be believed, but I assure you this is a true story. We were driving somewhere one day in October of 2020 and saw a black-and-white watch advertisement on a billboard featuring a middle-aged actor. I said, "Aww, it's James Bond," thinking it was an homage to Sean Connery, who had just passed. Nathaniel looked at it and said, stunned: "Key, that's George Clooney."

"Oh," I said, puzzled. "But that's a reasonable mix-up, right?" Nathaniel paused for a second before answering, "I mean... not really! They're decades apart!"

"Oh," I said again, trying to find some ground to stand on. "But I mean, he was a Bond too, so--"

"George Clooney was never a Bond!! "

Reader, I had never seen a Bond film. In fact, as we learned later that afternoon, I had never seen a Sean Connery film either; I knew Connery primarily as "The 'S Words' guy," which you will note is not even him but an impersonation of him from SNL. We fixed that latter one by immediately watching the Hunt for Red October, which was great. But I have still not seen a Bond film.

Nathaniel is fascinated to see whether GoldenEye can even make sense to someone who has not seen GoldenEye. It also means that any time I express that I'm confused about something in the game, he begins with a, "Well you see, in the movie...!!" very dramatically, even if it's not true. It makes me laugh every time.

ii. My History with GoldenEye, OR, That One Time I Played With Insecure Randos

I did have an N64 as an early teen in the late 90s, but only ever had two games for it. GoldenEye was not one of them. My sole experience with this game thus happened at the house of one of my mom's work friends, whom we visited one afternoon. There were two boys roughly my age there (brothers? cousins? a son and a friend? who knows) running around in multiplayer. I asked if I could play, because I wanted to. At first they said no and ignored me. But then they changed their minds.

They pulled that age-old power move of not explaining the controls; they just threw me into it and teamed up on hunting me down. I kept asking them to teach me, saying that this wasn't fair and so on, which of course just kept them laughing. In probably any other situation I would have given up and walked away... but I loved video games, and I knew I could be good at them, and now I was mad. I hated it when boys assumed I was terrible at games because I was a girl. So I stuck with it for a few more minutes, experimented a bit... and the first time I shot one of them, things got QUIET.

They focused in intense silence and got their revenge by ducking to fire, which I didn't know you could do and of course wasn't fast enough to counter. They felt like they got the last laugh -- and at the time I felt like they had, too. I never had the desire to play the game again. But now, looking back on it, I like knowing that I surprised them. I don't think they were bullies or jerks or needed to learn a lesson or anything like that, but I do wonder if they ever thought about that afternoon again. If only they could see me now! Because I have discovered...

iii. The Joy of Dual-Wielding N64 Controllers, OR How to Become Impossibly Cool

I spent a lot of time trying to find a control configuration that felt right to me, as Popo had encouraged me to avoid the default settings (and then I had to test them all). I do still intend to get good at one of the single-controller ways, in order to understand the typical experience of a GoldenEye player... but I saw in the manual the suggestion that "true professionals" use two controllers, and I mean, come on. I just had to know.

This is how I found myself dual-wielding N64 peripherals in my living room, one translucent purple and one translucent neon green, wondering if I'd achieved peak 90s cool. It's actually blowing my mind that this configuration even existed. To me it feels the most natural and almost exactly like a modern shooter. It makes things quite a lot of fun.

Oh, and I do want to add that the cart I'm using is actually from Nathaniel's childhood! He still had his copy when we moved in together, so that is how I came to possess GoldenEye. The purple controller was his, and the neon green controller was his brother's, so I'm using those for my runthrough in homage to the many, many hours they were already used for on this game.

[MrPopo]

To answer Nathaniel's question, when I played Goldeneye back in the day I had never seen the film, and the game mostly made sense. The briefings do a decent enough job of telling you about the plot. Really, the parts that went over my head would have gone over my head watching the film, as they involved geopolitical references that 13-year-old me was unfamiliar with.

[Syndicate]

...so I finally selected my list of games and hopefully I'll be able to get through a few of them before September. I thought about adding a fighting game this time around, but I don't think anyone ever does that

• Super Metroid - Wii U
• Quackshot - Genesis
• Super Krusty's Funhouse - Genesis
• Panzer Dragoon Orta - Xbox/Series X
• Chronicles of Riddick (not sure which one just yet) - Xbox/Xbox 360
• Hard Corps Uprising - Xbox 360/Series X
• Hotel Dusk - DS
• Super Princess Peach - DS
• Daytona USA - Xbox 360/Series X
• Phantasy Star (Sega Ages release) - Switch

[pierrot]

Quackshot - Genesis
Daytona USA - Xbox 360/Series X

Two fun games here.
Also taken aback a little by all the original Phantasy Star that could be going on this year.

...so I finally selected my list of games and hopefully I'll be able to get through a few of them before September. I thought about adding a fighting game this time around, but I don't think anyone ever does that

I did:

10. Fighters Megamix (Saturn)

I've done it before, too. I'll probably do it again, see. Myeah.
It's your list; It can be as easy or difficult as you want. Plenty of classic arcade games out there.