Games Beaten 2026

[MrPopo]

Previous Years: 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025

1. Dead Space (2023) - PC
2. Dead Space 2 - PC
3. Dead Space 3 - PC

Dead Space 3 wraps up the storyline of the Dead Space series, though it does leave some room open for more games that never materialized due to EA having unrealistic expectations. The game definitely shows all the signs of how executives thought at the time, that the masses just wanted shooty shooty bang bang, but in spite of that it does manage to actually be a bit closer to the first game in feel than the second game was, and overall I liked it better.

The game opens with Isaac getting shanghaied into a mission to chase after the source of the Markers, while the Unitologists are trying to kill him as they consolidate their power (as he has been known to destroy Markers, which they worship). You end up at a lost colony world with a giant minefield, stranding you and leaving you no choice but to try and get to the bottom of this whole Marker situation.

The game makes two changes to the formula. The first is on the combat side; you now have a crouch and a dodge and can hide behind chest high cover (though it's not snap-to like Gears). This is to allow for the human enemies who show up with guns (though they are far less threatening than the necromorphs). You can basically ignore all that, due to the second change, which is to the weapons. Instead of having standard guns, there is a build-a-gun system. You start with either a one-handed or two-handed gun frame, then attach one of various weapon types. If you put the plasma module on the one-handed gun, it's the plasma cutter. On the two-handed gun, it's the line cutter. You can put another weapon to act as your secondary fire (or for a few, you can put a rotation module, but this game defaults to horizontal, so you don't need it). Then for each of these, you can create modifiers that affect the shot. So, for example, the spike launcher can be turned into a shotgun or a chaingun using the different modifiers. Finally, you can attach an overall modifier, like "apply extra fire damage" or "apply a stasis effect on shot". That latter is what makes the game easy, as it slows enemies you hit to a crawl. Put it on the chaingun and nothing can touch you if you see it first.

The game transitions between two different large areas, with room for you to move back and forth as you do the objectives and the optional side objectives. This ends up being reminiscent of the first game, rather than the "just keep running" of the second game. The side missions, unfortunately, are mostly just a source of crafting materials, rather than story. There was some decent story in a couple of them, but a few others didn't have any, and by the end I wasn't interested in doing them for the hopes of some story stuff (as I had a stupid good gun at this point, so I didn't need the resources).

The game also is co-op enabled, but fortunately does the single player stuff properly. If you aren't in co-op then your co-op partner ends up doing other stuff while you do your thing, so you don't have to deal with an NPC helper. It does mean there's a handful of side missions you can't do (co-op only), but overall it's about as good as can be expected in terms of supporting both modes.

This ended up being a fairly decent ending to the trilogy. As I understand it, EA had incredibly unrealistic expectations for the game (they wanted it to sell more than the first two games combined), and when it failed to do so that was the death of the series (and the remake didn't do well enough to be worth remaking the others). But it's definitely worth a play if you're invested in the universe. Which is more than I can say about Resident Evil 6.

[marurun]

1. Ninja Gaiden Ragebound (Switch)

Your description makes this sound almost a little like a cross between classic Ninja Gaiden and Shinobi 3.

[TheSSNintendo]

1. Deja Vu: MacVenture Series
2. Deja Vu II: MacVenture Series
3. Earthworm Jim 2 (SNES/Switch Online)
4. Crash Banidcoot: The Huge Adventure (Gameboy Advance) - I might try at a later time to get more gems and relics to get the good ending.

[PartridgeSenpai]

Partridge Senpai's 2026 Beaten Games:
Previously: 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025
* indicates a repeat

1. Final Fantasy XII (PS2)
2. We Were Here (Steam)
3. We Were Here Too (Steam)

4. Tales of Graces f (PS3) *

This game has been on my To Replay list for a while now, much like a good few of the other earliest Tales series games I played were (and still are, in some cases). I really loves this series, and it has some of my favorite RPGs ever in it. The English version of Graces f, in fact, was the first of these games that I played and truly loved, and it was actually my favorite game in the series for a good few years before Xillia (and then eventually others too) toppled it. After replaying Vesperia a couple years back and hating it, and replaying Abyss soon after and loving it, I was very curious to see where Graces would fall on that spectrum once I finally got around to replaying it as well. It took me around 73.5 hours (62 for the normal game and 11.5 for the “f” extra epilogue chapter) in total to beat the Japanese version of the game on normal difficulty while doing nearly all of the non-super boss side content I could.

Tales of Graces follows Asbel Lahnt, the son of the lord of the petty kingdom of Lahnt. Still a rebellious 11-year old, Asbel and his father see eye-to-eye on very little as their personalities clash so hard. This absolutely includes his father’s disapproval of Asbel bringing home the mysterious girl that he finds in the mountains behind their manor (a place he and his brother are strictly forbidden to go to). Unfortunately for them all, this is one of those weeks where decades happen. Asbel’s family is torn apart due to circumstances far beyond his control, and he runs away from home to join the academy of the royal order of knights in hopes of actually being able to protect those important to him someday.

I remembered Tales of Graces having a really good story, and that has, for the most part, absolutely held up. Graces is a really strong story about what it means to fight for something as well as the value in trying to understand and communicate with people (even those you don’t agree with). The way it handles concepts of found family and growing up hit really well, even if the overall story construction isn’t exactly the way I prefer my stories told. Compared to most Tales games, this is more of an ensemble cast piece despite Asbel being our main character. It’s more like a series of character-focused vignettes related to a larger plot, and we the audience don’t get to really know how they all fit together thematically until the final dungeon.

The chemistry between the main cast is really entertaining and strong, and I’d absolutely argue that that combined with the general pacing and momentum of the narrative are more than enough to get you to that point when things finally start to really fall into place. However, compared to something like Tales of the Abyss or Tales of Symphonia 2 that have narratives much more directly driven by the character growth of our main character, the strength of the journey isn’t quite as strong as the impact of our destination. None of that is to say that Tales of Graces isn’t a very well written game, as I totally believe that it is, but it’s to explain why this still isn’t my favorite Tales game compared to the three or so that stand above it for me.

The narrative does also have some messiness in other places that drag it down for me too, unfortunately. While they’re mostly good at staying *just* far away from it that it doesn’t drag down the themes they’re really here to talk about, the worldbuilding and politics of the world of Tales of Graces can feel very contrived at times. For example, how exactly the realm of Lahnt, for example, is both enough of a part of a larger kingdom to be subservient to it *yet* also independent enough that it’s expected to fend off the border aggressions of the neighboring *empire* all on its own is completely indecipherable to me. They end up flying a bit too close to the sun with how they don’t want to ultimately take a side on the larger political themes/structures their story creates, and it can definitely give vibes of both sides-ing systems of oppression at times. The main game’s story still succeeds far more than it fails, I’d argue, but I can’t really say as much for the epilogue expansion.

The “f” in “Tales of Graces f” stands for “future”, as this PS3 version adds a 10-ish hour extra chapter to play once you’ve finished the main game that’s set six months after the conclusion of the main story. It introduces a new big bad guy that threatens the world to the point where our heroes need to band back together to take it down and serves as connective tissue to explain how the end of the main game connects to the more ambiguous after-credits cutscene. It’s not connective tissue that I’d say is particularly necessary, granted, but the larger themes it tries to tackle (of dealing with the inescapable aspect of death and how there are some things/people you simply cannot protect) are handled fairly well, but the story writing is still a lot messier than the main game’s narrative was.

The main game ends so strongly that putting more story *after* that ends up cheapening how well paced the main narrative was in the first place. Compared to something like Tales of Xillia 2, which really struggles to find anything meaningful for most of the returning cast to do (because they were just wrapped up too well in the previous game), Tales of Graces sequel chapter pretty well utilizes its returning cast to tell a satisfying story, but the devil is in the details here. The new bad guy and the worldbuilding it introduces ends up making the main plot’s conflict make a lot less logical sense. That’s a pretty pedantic and unimportant detail to get that caught up on, I’ll admit, but this also extends to both the weird vibes in our nonsensical fantasy politics as well as, more importantly, those characters we’re bringing back, too.

While I really enjoyed just how fun and silly so much of the new animation and skit dialogue is for our characters (a friend of mine described it as having the vibes of a non-canon audio drama CD, which I can’t help but agree with), I think it really stretches the suspension of disbelief for a few of them. In particular, our main character Asbel’s Goku-like belief in the goodness of others is REALLY pushed to its limits to the point where I think he ends up coming off as just a fool living in an overly idealistic fantasy land (which I understand that he literally is, in some capacities, but that’s not really the point here). I won’t deny that the main story also suffers from this to a certain degree. Graces never really attempts to reckon with how a genuinely nefarious person acting in bad faith fits in with the general themes/world it’s building, and it can really come off as nigh utopianly optimistic at best and downright naive at worst. However, while this is but a flesh wound for the main story — a glancing blow that good pacing usually manages to avert your gaze away from long enough that it’s not a serious problem — I have a harder time saying the same is true for the epilogue chapter.

Additionally, I think that the connective tissue it adds for the main game’s narrative honestly does more harm than good in some ways. By explicitly laying out the events between the original ending and that ambiguous after-credits scene, I think we ultimately do a lot more harm than good by dismantling the powerful ambiguity of the assumed events after that first ending. The epilogue chapter is a fun extra romp with these characters, and I ultimately enjoyed it (even if it’s a bit too in love with making its bosses overly difficult jerks at times), but I don’t think it actually makes the story better in the end. I honestly wouldn’t fault anyone for saying that, from a narrative perspective at least, a prospective player was better off skipping it rather than indulging in the audio drama-levels of hijinks in re-saving the world.

Mechanically, Tales of Graces manages to make some very well-needed changes to the formula of just how the Tales games operate in 3D. Since Tales of Symphonia, there hadn’t been any truly drastic changes to the Tales battle system, with Abyss and Vesperia just further polishing that original Symphonia baseline. Graces, however, attempts to really shake things up by taking the CC system introduced in the Tales of Destiny remake and adapting it to a 3D environment. It’s definitely less immediately intuitive than the previous 3D games, but it makes combat *so* much more satisfying and interesting that I’m so glad that they did it.

In the broad strokes, the CC system makes Tales play much more like a fighting game than it used to. The MP/TP systems of earlier games has been removed entirely, and now all attacks (both normal physical attacks and spells/special moves) operate via consumption of CC. Depending on your equipment, you can increase the maximum amount of CC you can have at any given time, and you get more CC back by either waiting between attacks or doing more advanced defensive maneuvers like perfect dodges. It definitely takes some getting used to, but it’s very doable even if you’re a real novice to fighting games like myself. The biggest difference between this system and prior (or even later, frankly) Tales fighting systems and this one is that while in other games you never *particularly* need to really grapple with the game’s deeper systems in most fights unless you’re on harder difficulties, Graces really does ask that you understand the game’s systems at least a bit for general play. It’ll take a little bit of experimentation and reading of the in-game tutorials, but it flows SUPER well and feels great to play once you get the hang of it.

Other systems have also gotten a lot of very well-needed support, too. The cooking system, for one, has received a direly needed streamlining by combining the more ingredient-focused system of games like Vesperia and combining it with the far more simple “food sack” system that games like Rebirth used for something that’s both intuitive and far more in sync with overall tempo of gameplay. The dualizing system also works very nicely as both a crafting system for extra money, facilitating side quests, and also upgrading your gear in ways beyond simply finding new, stronger weapons. While the lack of any in-game map feature or “instant dungeon escape” items will definitely test your patience in some of the bigger dungeons, the quality of life is overall good enough that it keeps things very fresh despite the game’s great length. I didn’t even interact with things like upgrading gear at all, and I still managed to have a great time X3. You’re definitely not *supposed* to just ignore systems like that, but at the very least, I’m living proof that you can engage with *some* systems as lightly as you want and still find good success throughout the game. I did manage to beat the whole thing without a single game over, after all, so clearly I’m doing *something* right X3

The presentation of the game is quite nice and a good upgrade on the Wii original, but I definitely don’t blame people for not being blown away by stuff like the graphics when this was new. While they look nice unto themselves, I wouldn’t say this game’s models or animations are particularly better than a PS2 game like Tales of the Abyss. While Abyss is certainly a very nice looking PS2 game for sure, compared to other stuff coming out in the early 2010’s, I think it’s pretty reasonable that people weren’t very wowed by Graces’s visuals even if they are perfectly good for what they are. The skits are very nice though. They chose to use full-body portraits for the characters in skits rather than the usual little squares with characters’ faces in them, and it brings them to life way better than the old way generally did.

The audio is also fine but nothing super impressive. The music is good, but it’s also very Tales-y in a way that I don’t think will particularly amaze anyone familiar with the series. The voice acting is also generally very good, but it’s something of a mixed bag depending on which language option you pick (having watched my partner play a good deal of the English version alongside me, the English VA is also quite fresh in my head). The Japanese VA is understandably very good, but the English VA (for characters like Cheria) is honestly even better in some places, imo. Other places, however, are more mixed, and Asbel’s kinda weird character arc doesn’t do any favors for how odd his VA can feel at times (particularly in English, but in Japanese too occasionally). Again, like with the visuals, none of the presentation is outright bad or anything close, but it’s definitely nothing to write home about, and you can really feel how this is a supped up Wii game in a lot of ways.

Verdict: Highly Recommended. As much as it’s not a perfect game, I still maintain that Tales of Graces f is an excellently put together RPG both narratively and mechanically. Whether playing in English or Japanese, this is still one of the strongest entries Namco Bandai ever released for the series, and if you’re a fan of RPGs (particularly RPGs), then this is absolutely a game worth playing (especially with the new remaster out that makes playing this game easier than ever~).

[RobertAugustdeMeijer]

04:
Speedball 2

Good sports games were rare back in 1990, let alone games you can play against each other. Which must explain this game's popularity with Brits to an extent. And yet there's also something inviting about the game's simplicity and quirky ways of scoring (besides goals, there are also lights scattered around the arena which also give points). And defense is fun because you can easily shoulder into your opponent to steal the ball. This leads to matches where the ball is constantly being turned over and scoring is an intensely challenging affair. Playing against the computer, you can invest in better players or improve them: also fairly unique back then. Its gameplay hasn't aged well, making it hard to recommend. But if you didn't have access to Tecmo Bowl or NES Ice Hockey, I can see why this game was beloved by a generation.

5/10

[PartridgeSenpai]

Partridge Senpai's 2026 Beaten Games:
Previously: 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025
* indicates a repeat

1. Final Fantasy XII (PS2)
2. We Were Here (Steam)
3. We Were Here Too (Steam)
4. Tales of Graces f (PS3) *

5. Retro Game Challenge (Switch) *

This is a game I actually managed to snag back when it was new on DS and played it way back when. That was way before I started actually writing any sorts of reviews, though. More importantly, it’s way before I’d actually watched any of the show this is based on, Game Center CX. Having watched a ton of the show over the past several years and being quite the fan, I was super jazzed to see that this Switch port of the two DS games was coming out at all, and I was even more excited to find one late last year for a price that I could just about justify (this ain’t getting any reprints and ain’t getting any cheaper, after all XP). I’d been wanting to check out the Japanese versions of this game for years anyhow, and this was a perfect excuse to play the sequel too. However, this is just a review of the first game, Arino no Chosenjou (the game we call Retro Game Challenge in English). It overall took me about 14.5 hours to finish the Japanese version of the game.

As a bit of a primer, GCCX the TV show is very much like a very heavily edited down Let’s Play (and it’s also commonly credited with creating the concept itself). The host, Arino Shinya, has a challenge for each episode, which is generally beating the assigned game before the trains stop running at around 1AM. His silly banter and never-give-up (despite his lacking skill at games) attitude combined with the chemistry with the rest of the cast have made the show a cult hit in Japan for over 20 years now, and this Switch port was actually released to commemorate the show’s 20th anniversary.

As for this video game adaptation (if you can even call it that), Producer Kan (the actual producer of the TV show) explains to us in the opening Star Wars-esque title crawl that all of Arino’s thoughts of frustration, “Darn, I wish I were playing a better game!” thoughts have materialized in the universe and created an evil alter ego: Demon King Ariinoh. You are unfortunately Ariinoh‘s victim of video games, as you are teleported back in time to the 80’s to play old video games! Complete all of his challenges, or you’ll never be able to return home! Thankfully, the place you’re transported back to is Arino Shinya’s house, and child Arino is confused by your presence, but is very enthused to have a friend to play (fake) Famicom games with. Such is how your adventure through (fake) retro games begins!

The writing in this game is, as one would probably guess, a huge love letter to the TV show GCCX in the first place. There are tons of little nods and references to common jokes on the show, from Arino’s adlibbed banter to the cast and crew who support him (especially the first four Assistance Directors, ADs, from when this game was being produced. On top of that, there are also SO many jokes and pastiches of the larger cultural phenomenon that was the Famicom in Japan. It’s something that I could absolutely never appreciate only playing the English version of the game back then, but both being so much more familiar with GCCX as well as the larger culture of video games in Japan after living here for so long now, there were so many things that had me cackling with laughter with just how accurate they are. That all is to say that, while I do think this game’s comedy is very spot on and funny (and aged very well), it’s also a *very* particular pinpoint of humor. Of course, a lot of this will be tamped down if you’re playing the English version, but if you’re the kind of person who’s a big enough GCCX and Famicom fan in the first place that you’re going out and buying this game in Japanese, there’s a lot to love here X3

The actual video game part is similarly a love letter to both the format of GCCX and the era of the Famicom. IndiesZero have made 8-ish games that are evocative of old Famicom games, and Ariinoh tasks you with finishing 4 challenges for each one before you can unlock the next. While all the later seasons of GCCX are about seeing if Arino can beat the assigned game before the end of the day (and seeing the ending of all 8 games is the ultimate challenges you’re given here too), the bulk of this game is actually much more like the first season of the show where it was more minor challenges based around general progress through the game (reaching a certain level, beating a mini-boss a certain way, finding a secret path, etc). It’s a bit of a weird premise at first, but these minor challenges actually work really effectively as soft tutorials for each game, especially for someone who didn’t grow up back in the 80s and will likely find these sorts of games a bit more difficult to get to grips with.

Of course, you’re free to just play the games as much as you want on your own in the first place, but you’ll never unlock more (or see this game’s credits) if you’re not playing all of them to win! You’ve got Cosmic Gate (a Galaga clone), Star Prince (a Star Soldier clone), the three Haggleman games (the first two of which are very reminiscent of the earlier Ninjajamaru-kun games, and the last of which is a sorta Ninja Gaiden meets Kid Icarus/Metroid-type experience, the two Rally King top-down racing games (which are identical as a parody of cheap licensed contests back in the day), and the very impressively big Guadia Quest (a full on JRPG in the style of Dragon Quest II). My favorite of the bunch is probably the first Haggleman game (/haguruman/ being a pun on /haguruma/, meaning “gear” in Japanese, as the titular character is a mechanically powered ninja), but they’re all really solidly designed retro-style games that do a good job of being evocative of old Famicom games while removing a lot of the more unfair nonsense.

While you may need to “beat” all 8 games to beat this game, the game gives you a LOT of help to do that. You’ve got an in-universe Famitsuu (the most famous and still ongoing gaming magazine in Japan) magazine, “Game Fan Magazine”, that you can look at for hints and secret codes for each game. These secret codes are generally way more generous than old Famicom game codes were, as there are tons that will give you full power ups, 99 lives, or even just let you skip to the end of the game (letting you skip more than 2/3rds of Guadia Quest, for example). That final mission from Ariinoh is just to see the ending of each game. He never says you can’t use cheat codes! X3

I do feel that some games’ design ends up suffering as a result of the necessity of designing so much of them to be painlessly skippable (Haggleman 3 in particular has very boring bosses, overall, due to your ability to just skip stages and teleport right to the boss). Additionally, some of the games have decidedly imperfect design in places too (your field of view in Rally King is rather annoyingly small at times, and Haggleman 3 is honestly frequently far more unfair and unforgiving than a lot of real action/platformers on the Famicom XD). However, for all their faults, with just how strong the cheat codes you’re given are, most players should have no trouble enjoying and seeing the end of these games~. While having a bunch of retro games in one place is a lot less impressive now than it would’ve been on the DS when this was new, these are still such fun and novel experiences that, combined with all of the flavor and comedy of the writing, make for a whole that is much more than the sum of their parts.

The presentation is as good as it’s always been. The games themselves have a very Shovel Knight-like “8-bit as you remember it” vibe to them, where they’re all meaningfully too advanced (usually in animations, but in graphics too quite frequently) for anything the Famicom could’ve ever pulled off, but they’re nonetheless still good at evoking how old Famicom games *felt* to the point that most folks will probably rarely think twice about it. The music is similarly really strong in the same ways. The VA in the game is also fun. This isn’t present in the English version, but in the Japanese versions, Arino will actually comment as you play depending on what you’re doing. There ultimately aren’t that many voice lines, so they get a bit repetitive, but they never got annoying for me, at least <w>

The game has also been upgraded for Switch very nicely as well. The graphics for Arino’s bedroom have been upgraded to look good on a modern system, but they haven’t lost the old school charm the DS version had. Retro Game Challenge was never a game that particularly needed the DS’s dual-screen functionality to work, so they’ve transitioned to a single-screen game very well. My favorite part of that is that instead of the bedroom you’re playing in being on the bottom screen and the game on the top screen, now you have 3 different viewing options for seeing you (who can be either a boy or a girl) and kid Arino sitting in front of the TV as you play (with the 3rd option just being the game’s screen only). Some of the magazines and such still have kinda wonky 4:3 resolutions, but they’ve at least been upscaled to the point where it looks natural on an HD TV and it doesn’t just look like you’re gawking at zoomed in, crunchy DS sprites X3

Verdict: Recommended. Like I mentioned with the way the writing and such are, I think how much you like this game will depend a lot on what you go to it for. If you’re a fan of old 80’s games and especially if you’re a fan of GCCX, then this is an absolute must play (particularly if you can understand enough Japanese to play the Japanese version of the game). However, if you’re more casually into games that retro and you’re not much into GCCX, I think this will only be a game you like just OK. While the games IndiesZero have put together are far from incompetent, I don’t think they’re amazing enough to instill a love of their respective genres into someone who already didn’t particularly care for them. Even still, while this game may be a “your mileage may vary” case, at least for me, my mileage with it was super great, and I’ll definitely be playing the second game before too much longer~ ^w^

[Ack]

1. Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil (FPS)(PC)
2. Doom 3 (FPS)(PC)
3. V Rising (Adventure)(PC)


Doom 3

I wrapped up my Nightmare run on Doom 3. Happy to have this done with. As with both expansions, Nightmare on Doom 3 drains your health to 25, removes all medkits from the game, and you get the Soul Cube as a means to try and get some health generation quickly and eliminate a foe in a hurry when necessary. Truth be told though, I found the expansions harder to deal with than the base game because they're more action focused, while Doom 3 was meant to be more of a horror game. Sure, more foes directly behind doors and some nasty monster closets, but after dealing with the others, the base Doom 3 was way more manageable. Except that it likes a lot of Zombie Security troops at the beginning, which is annoying.


V Rising

V Rising is an adventure that has RPG elements, so it plays almost like a Diablo-clone. Only you're a vampire, you have to build your castle, and the way you get stronger is to kill bosses for upgrades to powers, gear, etc. Sure, there's some resource grinding, certainly, but this game is really about epic boss battles and home construction.

You start as a weak vampire. You go out, you avoid daylight by running from shadow to shadow, and you drink blood. Depending on the type of blood you drink, you gain some bonus stats. Then you manage to get a little gear, start to build a fortress, and soon you're hunting for bosses. Some are holy paladins. Some are spirits of the forest. Some are total assholes. Kill them, drink their blood, obtain their powers. Then go build your home.

I was playing this in multiplayer, and one thing I greatly appreciated is that you have an incredibly array of possible builds, and there's almost no inability to swap quickly. If you get into a boss battle that's awful, go back to base and respec yourself for it. Then come back and kick some tail. Certain fights are difficult regardless, and many require learning the intricacies of the battle, but the game openly encourages you to use everything at your disposal, from buff potions to weapon selections, to ensure you're able to take down whatever your next opponent is. Personally, I was a big fan of the Unholy school of powers and built myself as a scythe-wielding necromancer, but different friends went with different elemental magics, blood powers, a focus on firearms, and other options as they liked.

I was very impressed with V Rising. I would definitely recommend it if this is the kind of game that interests you.

[prfsnl_gmr]

1. Ninja Gaiden Ragebound (Switch)

Your description makes this sound almost a little like a cross between classic Ninja Gaiden and Shinobi 3.

I’ve never actually beaten that game, but I’ve read such good things about it. I’m seriously considering a Shinobi series run this year; so, this may be the time.

[RobertAugustdeMeijer]

Electric Underground is no fan of Ragebound and gives good reasons:

[Markies]

Markies' Games Beat List Of 2026!
***Denotes Replay For Completion***

1. Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga (GBA)



I completed Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga on the Nintendo GameBoy Advance this afternoon!

I have always been interested in playing the Mario RPG games. The first two Paper Mario games are some of my favorite games of all time, so I was very disappointed when they moved away from a traditional Mario RPG. However, the Mario & Luigi games seem to have taken the mantle of being the new Mario RPGs. Unfortunately, they have all been on handhelds so it wasn't until I was able to play GameBoy Advances games that I was finally able to play the very first one. Last year, when I needed a new GBA game, I decided to jump on it and not wanting to play another Final Fantasy game at the same time, I decided now would be a great time to see what the first one is all about.

Once again, I keep searching for a true Mario RPG as this was not it. Granted, it does have many RPG elements in the game as you fight battles, gain experience and go up levels. However, much of the game is actually mini-games and puzzle platforming. Now, none of these are actually bad. In fact, some of the mini-games were enjoyable and the puzzle solving was also enjoyable. Also, the RPG battles are really engaging and leveling up your character is always really addictive. However, the RPG portion of the game is really light. The dungeons will only half the rooms be battles while the other half be puzzles to solve and mini-games to win. Thankfully, all of this is wrapped in a nicely told story with some great references and excellent dialogue.

But, it has been a long time since I have played a game that has made me feel this stupid. During battle, you used time buttoned presses to dodge or counter and missing them was so frustrating considering how easy they are. Also, near the end, they become imperative no matter how big your starts are which is very annoying especially in a RPG. With two characters and no heal spells, taking and healing damage is so detrimental that it makes battles last longer than needed.

Overall, despite its shortcomings, I still really enjoyed Mario & Lugi: Superstar Saga. Despite the annoying mechanics along with annoying controls with so many abilities, the core gameplay is still really solid. My biggest issue is I wish the game was something else. I should always enjoy a game for what it is and not for what I want it to be. Its not a true RPG, but one with RPG elements that has a great story and enjoyable gameplay.