Summer Games Challenge 2025 - GET EQUIPPED

[prfsnl_gmr]

Jet Grind Radio is awesome. I just beat the “Noise Reduction” level, which reminded me very much of the forum’s heyday.

We miss you @noiseredux!

[pierrot]

^ Was Noise's username pulled from JSR and not from his work? Seems like the only way to sort this out is for Noise to show up to correct me, right?

I really need to replay JSR. My old save data seemed to have gotten corrupted or lost at some point (maybe along with my Record of Lodoss War data). I recall the early levels being pretty cool as an introduction, but not mindblowing, and the later levels just being really intense and awesome. Great game.



I feel like I'm at a point in the challenge for evaluation, because like last year I'm kind of jonesing to play PSO and FFXI as the Ephinea anniversary event and free-play period approach for them, respectively. At that point I'll be shifting a lot of my freetime to those two games. I also have some amount of guilt around my list, with Ys 1-3 being remakes of games I have played. (I make myself feel better about it by considering that people generally think of RE1 and REmake as two different games.)

I started out with:

Ys Origin - Finished
Ys 1 (Chronicles) - Finished
Ys 2 (Chronicles)
Ys Oath in Felghana
Ys VI
Dragon Quest VII
Vagrant Story
SMT Devil Summoner
Fighters Megamix
The Longest Journey

I'm in Burnedbless in Ys 2, so I will likely be finishing that fairly soon. Felghana and VI I can still play through on steamdeck, but PSO and FFXI are both games I can play on my desktop and steamdeck, so once those events start up, I may not be playing much else even on handheld time.

I'm still hacking away at DQ VII. I'm in the last stone tablet map before (presumably) restoring the world, and (maybe) starting the second disc. I'm kind of wondering if there's some sort of cataclysm that completely changes the world, or if there's just a whole bunch of CG cutscenes on the second disc. I know there's not a tremendous amount left, so I just really wonder why the second disc was necessary.

Anyway, I'm hoping between this weekend and the next week I might be able to finish it up. As much as I'd like to play Vagrant Story and SMT Devil Summoner, I'm just not getting through them this summer, and the next RPG I'm likely to play at this point is Kaze no Densetsu Xanadu II.

Fighters Megamix, I really just need to throw into the old Saturn if I can manage to finish up DQ VII soon, and The Longest Journey just doesn't seem likely at all, but we'll see. Somewhat of a typical Summer Games Challenge for me so far, but finishing five or six games from that list wouldn't be so bad of a result.

[pierrot]

Yesterday was a bit frustrating. I was kind of fully ready to get through the rest of Dragon Quest VII (or at least to the final dungeon), but then the game decided to stick me with Maribelle again, and I'm not taking it well. I pretty much stopped after talking with Melvin a little through a statue, and now I really don't want to play it because I put a ton of time into setting up my party for my previous crew of four, and now Maribelle is even more of a liability for me. I cannot even fathom who would've thought this would be acceptable. I don't understand what this game's deal is with fucking around with my party! It's very uncool.

Anyway, about the time I was having a conniption over that, I found out that someone finally decided to actually flip the switch on the Ephinea anniversary event, so I don't know where I'm going to get the motivation to finish DQVII now over the desire to dig up a Heaven Punisher, Lavis Cannon, a couple Synthestas, and maybe some nice rares with decent hit like Spread Needle, Flowen's Sword (real), Heaven Striker, L&K 38 Combat, Vjaya, etc (I'd settle for a 100hit Calibur--).


I did refocus a little bit of that time not playing DQVII into finishing up Ys II Chronicles, though. So that one's finished now. Ys II does a better job of not quite making 70% of the game the final dungeon the way Ys I does with Darm Tower, but it's still like half of the game, and there are some really extra annoying plot conveniences to force the player into some meaningless detours (*cough*Black Pearl*cough*). The Chronicles version of Ys II is even more of a treat for the senses than Ys I, though. Unfortunately, the writers hamfisted a bunch of dialogue into the ending sequence just so you, the player, are aware of the deeper themes in the narrative, because you can't be trusted to interpret it for yourself. That's always a great sign that the writers are really confident in the underlying strength of the narrative.

That's kind of how I felt about Ys I and II after playing the Saturn versions, too. It's a pair of games that feel kind of symbolically rich, but the narrative (and really even the plot/gameplay structure to an extent) is sort of scattered and unfocussed. It ends up making the games feel kind of sloppy, to me. That said, I undeniably enjoyed the Chronicles remakes considerably more than when I played the Saturn ports.

At any rate, overall the Chronicles remakes for Ys I & II get my seal of approval.

EDIT: Also, welcome. This is apparently my thread now.

[prfsnl_gmr]

I take it back! I am still playing Jet Grind Radio. I just haven’t beaten it yet!

[Ack]

That's because I got sucked into Doom + Doom II as a stress reliever, and now Bethesda has decided I shouldn't go back to my challenge by giving me Heretic + Hexen.

[RobertAugustdeMeijer]

Beat them all:

1. Metro Exodus
2. Max Payne
3. Into the Breach
4. Mass Effect 3
5. LittleBigPlanet
6. Splatoon 2
7. Metal Gear Solid 3
8. Titanfall 2
9. Alien Soldier
10. Left 4 Dead 2

So I'm a hardcore gamer now? I don't feel different.

[marurun]

Your core is just a little harder than when you started.

[prfsnl_gmr]

Your core is just a little harder than when you started.

This is correct. Although beating Alien Soldier made the core a lot harder, the quest for a truly - and completely - hard core endures forever.

[BoneSnapDeez]

1. Alex Kidd in Miracle World
2. Clash at Demonhead
3. Cocoron
4. Conquest of the Crystal Palace
5. The Goonies
6. Journey to Silius
7. Little Nemo: The Dream Master
8. Rygar
9. StarTropics
10. Wrath of the Black Manta

I'm still here. Went on vacation, got sidetracked... have returned and cranked out Little Nemo.

Didn't like this as much as I had hoped. It's a Capcom title so it is technically proficient. It's extremely colorful and charming and the music's solid. I liked the cut scenes (though they are glacial), especially how Nemo is so concerned about spending time with a GIRL. Very relatable!

This is a platformer, the gimmick being that Nemo can ride animals who grant extra abilities. Wall-climbing, flying, block-smashing, etc. I wish there was more experimentation here though. The game's linear and you're forced to go from one animal to the next. If the level's, say, six minutes long you'll be the lizard for two, the monkey for two, then, uh, the other lizard for two more. Maybe it's a frog. You gotta collect keys to unlock exits, which isn't too bad, save for one stage where it is. Nemo doesn't have too many offensive capabilities, on animal or off, so much of game is spent avoiding things.

Well, you are given a wand for the final stage, which contains all three bosses. The wand needs to be "charged" (ie: hold B) and shoots up at a 45 degree angle. What were they thinking?!

[Syndicate]

...life has been lifing if you will, so progress through my list has been kind of slow. I'm glad I could wrap up Super Metroid a while back though. I've been working on Panzer Dragoon Orta, I like it but it's a bit more challenging than I remember the original two games being. I'll probably move on to something else and come back to this one later. I really want to start Phantasy Star, plus I finally found my DS charger so Super Princess Peach and Hotel Dusk are fair game too.

• 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