lol I did not
Games Beaten 2026
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ElkinFencer10
- Next-Gen
- Posts: 8973
- Joined: Fri Aug 13, 2010 8:34 pm
- Location: Elkin, North Carolina
- Contact:
Re: Games Beaten 2026
Then you've got another playthrough ahead. Dark Urge has a ton of special dialog unique to that start.
Blizzard Entertainment Software Developer - All comments and views are my own and not representative of the company.
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ElkinFencer10
- Next-Gen
- Posts: 8973
- Joined: Fri Aug 13, 2010 8:34 pm
- Location: Elkin, North Carolina
- Contact:
Re: Games Beaten 2026
Games Beaten in 2026 - 14
* denotes a replay
January (2 Games Beaten)
February (1 Game Beaten)
March (3 Games Beaten)
April (2 Games Beaten)
May (2 Games Beaten)
June (4 Games Beaten)
14. Yoshi and the Mysterious Book - Switch 2 - June 20
Since Yoshi's Woolly World on the Wii U, I've been a huge fan of Yoshi platformers. Crafted World on Switch, while not as good as Woolly World, reinforced my love. When I saw that Switch 2 was getting an exclusive Yoshi game, I was stoked. Day one purchase for sure. Unfortunately, this game took a different direction than the last two and one I don't necessarily think was a net gain.
What sets this game apart from its predecessors the most, I think, is the book. The titular "mysterious book," Mr. E., is actually a living talking book, but it can't read itself. Each of its chapters have a variety of creatures, and Mr. E. asks you to go and research each of these creatures. Each creature you choose to focus on has its own level, but creatures can appear outside of their specific level. The way you progress here is not by completing levels, although each level does have a "clear" objective. What you have to do is find different interactions with the creatures; each interaction is worth between one and three stars. Some are as simple as how it reacts to being ground pounded or what it tastes like when Yoshi eats it. Some of them are as obscure as taking a creature on your back to a specific hidden area that only appears in one level. At first, I didn't mind this at all. The discovery was fun. After the second chapter, though, it lost pretty much all of its charm for me. The challenge here wasn't clearing a level; it was finding increasingly frustratingly obscure creature interactions because you need a certain number of stars (total cumulative) to unlock the next chapter. I easily had enough to unlock all six of the main game chapters by the time I finished chapter one, and by the time I finished the sixth and final main chapter and rolled credits, I have enough stars to unlock the first two of the six post-game chapters and almost had the third one unlocked. No, the problem isn't difficulty; it's holding my attention. I got bored after a while. The levels were decently varied even if a bit drab feeling, but because it was always about interacting the creatures, it started to feel monotonous. I was wanting a solid platformer, not a taxonomic research game in the format of a platformer. Maybe that's on me for expecting it to play like the previous two games did, but it feels to me the way Resident Evil 5 felt to me; it's less that this is a bad game and more that I expected Genre A, but the game feels more like Genre B.
Graphically, the game is cute. It's visuals aren't going to wow anyone - I don't see any reason this couldn't have run just fine on Switch - but the artstyle is cute. It has sort of a watercolor look, and I absolutely loved that they took the whole art design in that direction. The music was good but not especially memorable. That's really the game's overall problem - it's forgettable. The story is cute and simple, and it's clearly made to be accessible to young gamers as you can't really die; if you fall off a ledge or into a pit, you just immediately respawn where you were, and while enemies can "hurt" you, you don't actually have any hit points to lose. I'm all for accessibility, and I have long played games on low difficulty settings because I'm here for a power trip and a story, not something to conquer, but this takes it too far. New Super Luigi U got it perfect with Nabbit; most gamers who want some degree of challenge can play as Luigi like normal, but young players still getting a feel for video games can play as Nabbit and have invincibility. Invincibility is not the only option like it is here. I could overlook that, though, if the levels were good, but as I've mentioned, they feel monotonous. There is a decent variety of level designs, but it doesn't feel like it. The levels feel empty and same-y even when they're not. I never felt that way about Woolly World or Crafted World, and it made the last two-thirds of the game feel like a slog. I didn't even start the post-game levels because I just had zero desire to keep playing.
Yoshi and the Mysterious Book isn't a bad game. The problem is that it's painfully okay. It's the kind of game that you wouldn't hate to play if it were all you had, but it's also not a game that most would ever want to replay or feel compelled to 100%. Artistically, they knocked it out of the park with the watercolor aesthetic; in terms of actual gameplay and level design, it's a disappointment. I can't stress enough that the game isn't bad, but it's not especially good, either. It's just...fine. If you see it on sale for $40 or less, it's not a bad buy for the occasional level or two, but there's no reason to pay the full $70 for it like I did. The game just isn't good enough to justify that price point.
* denotes a replay
January (2 Games Beaten)
Since Yoshi's Woolly World on the Wii U, I've been a huge fan of Yoshi platformers. Crafted World on Switch, while not as good as Woolly World, reinforced my love. When I saw that Switch 2 was getting an exclusive Yoshi game, I was stoked. Day one purchase for sure. Unfortunately, this game took a different direction than the last two and one I don't necessarily think was a net gain.
What sets this game apart from its predecessors the most, I think, is the book. The titular "mysterious book," Mr. E., is actually a living talking book, but it can't read itself. Each of its chapters have a variety of creatures, and Mr. E. asks you to go and research each of these creatures. Each creature you choose to focus on has its own level, but creatures can appear outside of their specific level. The way you progress here is not by completing levels, although each level does have a "clear" objective. What you have to do is find different interactions with the creatures; each interaction is worth between one and three stars. Some are as simple as how it reacts to being ground pounded or what it tastes like when Yoshi eats it. Some of them are as obscure as taking a creature on your back to a specific hidden area that only appears in one level. At first, I didn't mind this at all. The discovery was fun. After the second chapter, though, it lost pretty much all of its charm for me. The challenge here wasn't clearing a level; it was finding increasingly frustratingly obscure creature interactions because you need a certain number of stars (total cumulative) to unlock the next chapter. I easily had enough to unlock all six of the main game chapters by the time I finished chapter one, and by the time I finished the sixth and final main chapter and rolled credits, I have enough stars to unlock the first two of the six post-game chapters and almost had the third one unlocked. No, the problem isn't difficulty; it's holding my attention. I got bored after a while. The levels were decently varied even if a bit drab feeling, but because it was always about interacting the creatures, it started to feel monotonous. I was wanting a solid platformer, not a taxonomic research game in the format of a platformer. Maybe that's on me for expecting it to play like the previous two games did, but it feels to me the way Resident Evil 5 felt to me; it's less that this is a bad game and more that I expected Genre A, but the game feels more like Genre B.
Graphically, the game is cute. It's visuals aren't going to wow anyone - I don't see any reason this couldn't have run just fine on Switch - but the artstyle is cute. It has sort of a watercolor look, and I absolutely loved that they took the whole art design in that direction. The music was good but not especially memorable. That's really the game's overall problem - it's forgettable. The story is cute and simple, and it's clearly made to be accessible to young gamers as you can't really die; if you fall off a ledge or into a pit, you just immediately respawn where you were, and while enemies can "hurt" you, you don't actually have any hit points to lose. I'm all for accessibility, and I have long played games on low difficulty settings because I'm here for a power trip and a story, not something to conquer, but this takes it too far. New Super Luigi U got it perfect with Nabbit; most gamers who want some degree of challenge can play as Luigi like normal, but young players still getting a feel for video games can play as Nabbit and have invincibility. Invincibility is not the only option like it is here. I could overlook that, though, if the levels were good, but as I've mentioned, they feel monotonous. There is a decent variety of level designs, but it doesn't feel like it. The levels feel empty and same-y even when they're not. I never felt that way about Woolly World or Crafted World, and it made the last two-thirds of the game feel like a slog. I didn't even start the post-game levels because I just had zero desire to keep playing.
Yoshi and the Mysterious Book isn't a bad game. The problem is that it's painfully okay. It's the kind of game that you wouldn't hate to play if it were all you had, but it's also not a game that most would ever want to replay or feel compelled to 100%. Artistically, they knocked it out of the park with the watercolor aesthetic; in terms of actual gameplay and level design, it's a disappointment. I can't stress enough that the game isn't bad, but it's not especially good, either. It's just...fine. If you see it on sale for $40 or less, it's not a bad buy for the occasional level or two, but there's no reason to pay the full $70 for it like I did. The game just isn't good enough to justify that price point.
Patron Saint of Bitch Mode
Re: Games Beaten 2026
Now, that is some whimsy. Couldn't post the GIF directly for some reason.
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PartridgeSenpai
- Next-Gen
- Posts: 3181
- Joined: Mon Dec 14, 2015 9:27 am
- Location: Northern Japan
Re: Games Beaten 2026
Partridge Senpai's 2026 Beaten Games:
Previously: 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025
* indicates a repeat
1~50
51. Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass (PC)
52. Blasphemous 2 (PC)
53. Max Payne 3 (PS3)
54. Lemmings (SFC)
55. Jikkyou Pawafuru Puroyakyu 3 (SFC)
I had a lot of fun playing through the four Success Modes in the N64 PawaPuro games last year. When I happened upon this entry for so cheap it was basically free, I thought I may as well pick this one up too to see where those Success Modes began. While some of the N64 games were admittedly as harrowing as they were fun (and sometimes just harrowing XD), I figured this one was early enough that it’d far more likely be easy and straightforward just like the one in PawaPuro 4 (the first N64 entry) had been. That turned out to be an extremely safe assumption, as this game’s Success Mode is basically just a 16-bit version of PawaPuro 4’s. After watching a bunch of games between the CPU to pass time while I was sick recently, I warmed up in the training mode, did a practice game against the AI, and then managed to win Success Mode on my very first try, and it only took me about an hour and a half to do it all.
For those unaware, the PawaPuro series’ Success Mode is what many other series would eventually come to call their “Career” mode in the following console generations, where you play an aspiring player rising through the ranks until they finally reach their dream goal at the end. Upon finishing successfully, you can then save that player to the cart and use them in the other modes, putting them into teams in the Arrange mode just like you would any other real pro player from the ’95 NPB season already in the game. Unlike most of the other Success Modes where you’re trying to get drafted onto a pro team in the first place, you actually start this mode already drafted. You choose a background for your character of being drafted out of high school, university, or a company team, and the prologue describes how you worked hard all your life to get onto a pro team and now you finally are! You’re in a minor league-like farm team for a pro team, and your goal is to get elevated to the proper NPB main team before your years on the minor team are up.
In that way, it is exactly like what PawaPuro 4’s Success Mode would be. I know PawaPuro 4 adds at least *some* new things to this mode (such as the first appearance of your series-long horrible idiot friend and teammate Yabe), but it really is extremely similar. We’ve got virtually no special events throughout the year, very few real characters outside of very shallow coaches and rivals, and the whole thing really just comes down to playing baseball and impressing the head coach enough to get on the main team. Exactly like in 4’s Success Mode, this is extremely easy compared to later games since you’re not impressing some talent scout who only comes around every once in a while. Just doing particular training drills at practice every week can raise your reputation with the head coach without even needing to play baseball. You also get to play *way* more baseball than you do in later games, with some 6+ games a year to show your stuff and impress the coach.
However, much in line with how many fewer events and characters this game has than later games, there are no special tournaments to get your team into if you play particularly well. Unlike the other games where your getting drafted (i.e. winning the mode) is pretty heavily dependent on at least getting into those tournaments, you have so many opportunities to impress the head coach in normal practice and all these mandatory games that it’s pretty hard to fail, relatively speaking. There are certainly hurdles that a new player wouldn’t be aware of, like younger starting players being more likely to have negative passive skills that tank their stat gains, and older players being far FAR more likely to injure themselves during practice despite having higher starting stats (and still no percentage displayed for how likely a particular training is to injure you), but once you get past those early stumbling blocks, you’d pretty much have to be trying to lose to actually fail.
I’m certainly not against this mode being so easy, because there was really no expectation for it being any more than it is. PawaPuro was one of the first major series to even have a career mode like this. At this point, it’s barely anything more than a glorified parody of Tokimeki Memorial that’s been whimsically inserted into a baseball game as a fun alternative to the normal “create a player” mode (which is, in fairness, basically exactly what this is). It’s certainly remarkably competent for what it is, and it’s not surprising that this mode so quickly grew and evolved to be one of the most popular and defining parts of the PawaPuro series. Even still, the ease and simplicity definitely make this game’s Success Mode little more than a neat historical curiosity rather than an alternative experience really worth checking out for a fan of later entries’ versions of Success Mode like pretty much any entry after PawaPuro 5 is.
In terms of the actual gameplay, now that *is* something far more interesting and worthy of attention beyond it being an early entry in a series that’s been around for over 3 decades now. The main reason for this is, naturally, that the Super Famicom lacks any kind of joystick. Right from the very start, the devs at Diamond Head were all in on using the N64’s joystick to add a lot of analogue precision to PawaPuro’s playstyle, so it was incredibly interesting to get a look at the series’ roots as a D-pad only baseball game. Using the D-pad took a fair bit of getting used to, especially for pitching, but I at least got the hang of it pretty quickly for batting. Especially with the larger rectangular targeting reticle the 16-bit entries use, the batting in the Success Mode is pretty easy for the most part, but the CPU can very easily be as merciless as ever if you wanna crank the difficulty up in the other modes. It all plays quite well, but no analogue control for aiming the ball or bat will definitely be quite the adjustment period for anyone who’s grown up with joystick-based baseball games.
Outside of that, it’s PawaPuro as it’d go on to be, which is to say that this is a really impressive and feature-filled baseball game, even for the time. You’ve got exhibition/quick play modes with built in spectator modes if you just wanna watch the CPU play, a pennant mode to play (or watch) through an entire season, the aforementioned Success and create a player modes, and even a remarkably good Camp Mode to learn the ropes of play without a more in-depth tutorial or manual. There are a few features missing compared to later entries, such as the lack of a Very Easy difficulty mode or the ability to limit the number of extra innings in a game, but it’s nothing that’d be a serious impact on anyone’s time if good 16-bit baseball is all you’re interested in. It all plays fantastically, and it’s no surprise that this series grew as popular as it did and has continued to last as long as it has, because even back in the early days, it was one of the strongest games in town.
No small part of that is down to the presentation, too. The graphical style and all the little cutesy players are super fun, even if they lack the funnier details and extra touches later games would add to the special NPCs and teams. Success Mode still lacks the larger, more expressive faces and greater variety of locations to visit that later entries would add, but it’s still very fun and well done for what it is. The music is fantastic, as one would expect for a 16-bit Konami title, and there are a lot of little extra touches that spice things up, too. All of the different stadiums in the NPB have their own look to mirror the form and function of their real life counterparts, but they also have advertisements for all sorts of Konami franchises instead of signs for actual products. The voice work on the in-game announcer isn’t quite as good as the next-gen entries would have, but it’s also *so* good that you’d almost never believe this much voicework was being put into a Super Famicom game of all things (a friend watching me play this even thought I was playing a PS1 game until I told them otherwise). The fans will even shout “Ichiroooo!!!” whenever Ichiro is up to bat, which is a cute touch that I don’t even remember the later entries having! XD
Verdict: Recommended. This is, unsurprisingly for this series, a really excellent baseball game. If you’re looking for a great time playing baseball on the SNES and you don’t mind a lack of MLB teams (and a lack of English text of any kind), then it’s hard to do much better than PawaPuro 3. That said, in terms of retro baseball games as a whole, I think it’d be pretty hard to recommend this over one of the N64 entries in the series. Between all the features this lacks and just how still simple the Success Mode is, if you just want a good entry point for PawaPuro games on older hardware, I’d still easily recommend PawaPuro 6 on the N64 over this any day. Even still, I gotta respect just how long the guys at Diamond Head had this series down to a beautiful science. These guys really know their baseball, and that love can’t help but shine brightly through all the charm and fun this game brings to the table even 30 years later~.
Previously: 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025
* indicates a repeat
1~50
52. Blasphemous 2 (PC)
53. Max Payne 3 (PS3)
54. Lemmings (SFC)
55. Jikkyou Pawafuru Puroyakyu 3 (SFC)
I had a lot of fun playing through the four Success Modes in the N64 PawaPuro games last year. When I happened upon this entry for so cheap it was basically free, I thought I may as well pick this one up too to see where those Success Modes began. While some of the N64 games were admittedly as harrowing as they were fun (and sometimes just harrowing XD), I figured this one was early enough that it’d far more likely be easy and straightforward just like the one in PawaPuro 4 (the first N64 entry) had been. That turned out to be an extremely safe assumption, as this game’s Success Mode is basically just a 16-bit version of PawaPuro 4’s. After watching a bunch of games between the CPU to pass time while I was sick recently, I warmed up in the training mode, did a practice game against the AI, and then managed to win Success Mode on my very first try, and it only took me about an hour and a half to do it all.
For those unaware, the PawaPuro series’ Success Mode is what many other series would eventually come to call their “Career” mode in the following console generations, where you play an aspiring player rising through the ranks until they finally reach their dream goal at the end. Upon finishing successfully, you can then save that player to the cart and use them in the other modes, putting them into teams in the Arrange mode just like you would any other real pro player from the ’95 NPB season already in the game. Unlike most of the other Success Modes where you’re trying to get drafted onto a pro team in the first place, you actually start this mode already drafted. You choose a background for your character of being drafted out of high school, university, or a company team, and the prologue describes how you worked hard all your life to get onto a pro team and now you finally are! You’re in a minor league-like farm team for a pro team, and your goal is to get elevated to the proper NPB main team before your years on the minor team are up.
In that way, it is exactly like what PawaPuro 4’s Success Mode would be. I know PawaPuro 4 adds at least *some* new things to this mode (such as the first appearance of your series-long horrible idiot friend and teammate Yabe), but it really is extremely similar. We’ve got virtually no special events throughout the year, very few real characters outside of very shallow coaches and rivals, and the whole thing really just comes down to playing baseball and impressing the head coach enough to get on the main team. Exactly like in 4’s Success Mode, this is extremely easy compared to later games since you’re not impressing some talent scout who only comes around every once in a while. Just doing particular training drills at practice every week can raise your reputation with the head coach without even needing to play baseball. You also get to play *way* more baseball than you do in later games, with some 6+ games a year to show your stuff and impress the coach.
However, much in line with how many fewer events and characters this game has than later games, there are no special tournaments to get your team into if you play particularly well. Unlike the other games where your getting drafted (i.e. winning the mode) is pretty heavily dependent on at least getting into those tournaments, you have so many opportunities to impress the head coach in normal practice and all these mandatory games that it’s pretty hard to fail, relatively speaking. There are certainly hurdles that a new player wouldn’t be aware of, like younger starting players being more likely to have negative passive skills that tank their stat gains, and older players being far FAR more likely to injure themselves during practice despite having higher starting stats (and still no percentage displayed for how likely a particular training is to injure you), but once you get past those early stumbling blocks, you’d pretty much have to be trying to lose to actually fail.
I’m certainly not against this mode being so easy, because there was really no expectation for it being any more than it is. PawaPuro was one of the first major series to even have a career mode like this. At this point, it’s barely anything more than a glorified parody of Tokimeki Memorial that’s been whimsically inserted into a baseball game as a fun alternative to the normal “create a player” mode (which is, in fairness, basically exactly what this is). It’s certainly remarkably competent for what it is, and it’s not surprising that this mode so quickly grew and evolved to be one of the most popular and defining parts of the PawaPuro series. Even still, the ease and simplicity definitely make this game’s Success Mode little more than a neat historical curiosity rather than an alternative experience really worth checking out for a fan of later entries’ versions of Success Mode like pretty much any entry after PawaPuro 5 is.
In terms of the actual gameplay, now that *is* something far more interesting and worthy of attention beyond it being an early entry in a series that’s been around for over 3 decades now. The main reason for this is, naturally, that the Super Famicom lacks any kind of joystick. Right from the very start, the devs at Diamond Head were all in on using the N64’s joystick to add a lot of analogue precision to PawaPuro’s playstyle, so it was incredibly interesting to get a look at the series’ roots as a D-pad only baseball game. Using the D-pad took a fair bit of getting used to, especially for pitching, but I at least got the hang of it pretty quickly for batting. Especially with the larger rectangular targeting reticle the 16-bit entries use, the batting in the Success Mode is pretty easy for the most part, but the CPU can very easily be as merciless as ever if you wanna crank the difficulty up in the other modes. It all plays quite well, but no analogue control for aiming the ball or bat will definitely be quite the adjustment period for anyone who’s grown up with joystick-based baseball games.
Outside of that, it’s PawaPuro as it’d go on to be, which is to say that this is a really impressive and feature-filled baseball game, even for the time. You’ve got exhibition/quick play modes with built in spectator modes if you just wanna watch the CPU play, a pennant mode to play (or watch) through an entire season, the aforementioned Success and create a player modes, and even a remarkably good Camp Mode to learn the ropes of play without a more in-depth tutorial or manual. There are a few features missing compared to later entries, such as the lack of a Very Easy difficulty mode or the ability to limit the number of extra innings in a game, but it’s nothing that’d be a serious impact on anyone’s time if good 16-bit baseball is all you’re interested in. It all plays fantastically, and it’s no surprise that this series grew as popular as it did and has continued to last as long as it has, because even back in the early days, it was one of the strongest games in town.
No small part of that is down to the presentation, too. The graphical style and all the little cutesy players are super fun, even if they lack the funnier details and extra touches later games would add to the special NPCs and teams. Success Mode still lacks the larger, more expressive faces and greater variety of locations to visit that later entries would add, but it’s still very fun and well done for what it is. The music is fantastic, as one would expect for a 16-bit Konami title, and there are a lot of little extra touches that spice things up, too. All of the different stadiums in the NPB have their own look to mirror the form and function of their real life counterparts, but they also have advertisements for all sorts of Konami franchises instead of signs for actual products. The voice work on the in-game announcer isn’t quite as good as the next-gen entries would have, but it’s also *so* good that you’d almost never believe this much voicework was being put into a Super Famicom game of all things (a friend watching me play this even thought I was playing a PS1 game until I told them otherwise). The fans will even shout “Ichiroooo!!!” whenever Ichiro is up to bat, which is a cute touch that I don’t even remember the later entries having! XD
Verdict: Recommended. This is, unsurprisingly for this series, a really excellent baseball game. If you’re looking for a great time playing baseball on the SNES and you don’t mind a lack of MLB teams (and a lack of English text of any kind), then it’s hard to do much better than PawaPuro 3. That said, in terms of retro baseball games as a whole, I think it’d be pretty hard to recommend this over one of the N64 entries in the series. Between all the features this lacks and just how still simple the Success Mode is, if you just want a good entry point for PawaPuro games on older hardware, I’d still easily recommend PawaPuro 6 on the N64 over this any day. Even still, I gotta respect just how long the guys at Diamond Head had this series down to a beautiful science. These guys really know their baseball, and that love can’t help but shine brightly through all the charm and fun this game brings to the table even 30 years later~.
I identify everyone via avatar, so if you change your avatar, I genuinely might completely forget who you are. -- Me
Re: Games Beaten 2026
If you've played Jikkyou Oshaberi Parodius, one of the introduction voice clips is "Jikkyou... pawafuru... e... jya na katta"
Re: Games Beaten 2026
1. Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil (FPS)(PC)
2. Doom 3 (FPS)(PC)
3. V Rising (Adventure)(PC)
4. Teardown (Action)(PC)
5. Control: Ultimate Edition (Action)(PC)
6. Peak (Adventure)(PC)
7. The Exit 8 (Horror)(PC)
8. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (RPG)(PC)
9. Killing Time: Resurrected (FPS)(PC)
10. Darkenstein 3D (FPS)(PC)
11. Metal Garden (FPS)(PC)
12. Caput Mortum (Horror)(PC)
13. Corridor 7: Alien Invasion (FPS)(PC)
14. Extraneum (FPS)(PC)
15. Dead Trash (FPS)(PC)
16. Dead Trash: Operation Yellow Snow (FPS)(PC)
17. Withering Rooms (Action)(PC)
18. Green Hell (Adventure)(PC)
19. Stray (Adventure)(PC)
20. Post Void (FPS)(PC)
21. Kiosk (Horror)(PC)
22. Gnomdom (Puzzle)(PC)
23. Librarian: Tidy Up the Arcane Library (Puzzle)(PC)
24. Shooty Shooty Robot Invasion (FPS)(PC)
25. Vital Shell (Action)(PC)
26. Warhammer 40,000: Fire Warrior (FPS)(PC)
27. Slayers X (FPS)(PC)
28. PO'ed (FPS)(PC)
29. Marathon 2: Durandal (FPS)(PC)
30. Green Hell: Spirits of Amazonia (Adventure)(PC)
31. Call of Duty: World at War (FPS)(PC)
32. Sniper Elite (Action)(PC)
33. Duke Nukem Forever (FPS)(PC)
34. REVEREND (FPS)(PC)
Another handful of games...
Sniper Elite
Sniper Elite is the first in a series that now spans a little over 20 years, where you play an OSS sniper during World War II who participates in various conflict zones of the war. Part of what made this a novel idea was that in the original, World War 2 was effectively over; the Nazis were scrambling, the Soviets were in the streets of Berlin, and your goal was less about facing down Hitler's forces and more about fighting the opening battles of the Cold War by preventing Nazi nuclear scientists and weapons tech from ended up in the hands of the USSR. Your enemies are more often Russian than Germans, and in fact your best allies are the German Resistance, a group which had opposed the Nazi government but also wasn't exactly a fan of the Soviet Union, which crushed multiple underground resistance movements in the nations they freed from the Wehrmacht for not being loyal enough to Stalin.
In general, Sniper Elite is a third person game with a greater emphasis on stealth. When you snipe, it's through a first person scope, but most of the game is actually focused on crawling through areas trying to avoid enemies and killing mainly when you need to. Which isn't to say you won't do any killing; you'll do a lot of it. Just maybe don't try to fight the whole war yourself, ok? Also, sniping is definitely preferable to running and gunning, because you're generally pretty fragile. A single guy with an MP-40 can ruin your day. And a tank that's noticed you? Good luck.
One downside to the original Sniper Elite is that it was a new thing at the time, so the controls are awkward and take some getting used to, with multiple weapons, an inventory system, various sniping mechanics, and so on. In fact, the difficulty settings can be tweaked to add more realism, such as wind velocity and weather conditions impacting your firing ability as well as gravity. Also, if you time your shots with explosions, enemies are less likely to notice they're getting shot at. But there are some serious bugs in the game where it seems to whip between the lowest and highest settings. I tried playing on Normal and somehow ended up with the AI acting like the lowest level idiots but doing the highest level's damage and applying all of the bullet physics. I didn't even realize it was happening until the game told me I was playing on the highest difficulty.
Also, Sniper Elite was designed over 20 years ago and struggles to work on modern machines without fixes for modern resolutions. Player movement is somehow based on your frame limit, and setting a hard cap isn't so easily available, which results in your character behaving like an ice skater. Take your finger off the run button and watch as it takes you three more seconds to stop moving. Not great for a game that requires precision. I ended up having to install third party software to cap how many frames per second I got just to make things playable. But once I did, Sniper Elite ended up an absolute delight to play.
Duke Nukem Forever
Fourteen years in development, and what I got is part pastiche, part parody, and part 12-year-old's idea of what is totally cool. Earlier this year, I played through Slayer X, which was a great parody of the Duke Nukem 3D-style Build Engine era of the 1990s. Where it succeeded, Duke Nukem Forever fails. It doesn't fail because the shooting is bad, it fails because its tone is out of sync and unsure of itself. It does a lot of things it did back in the late 1990s, but better graphics only adds to the cringe, further enhanced by lines that left me groaning and facepalming. The game quite literally starts with me urinating and then grabbing poop out of a toilet, and those are high points (to be fair, the Postal series also revels in public urination, but that's kinda Postal's thing, man). In fact, if you took a list of then-current ideas in game design of the late 2000s that we loved to complain about, you could go through a checklist of stuff we generally ended up loathing. And then you can throw in the sexism and immature humor.
So, aliens show up in the Duke Nukem series, and they take Earth women to impregnate. And now they show up again, the president doesn't want you doing anything because he's either mind controlled or corrupt or something, but you're Duke. You do what you want, which apparently involves kicking ass, owning a casino, getting blowjobs from potentially incestuous twins, and dreaming of owning your own strip club. Oh, and your ego is your regenerating health bar...which is actually a great idea as far as the parody is concerned, because you can increase your max health by doing stuff which stokes your ego. Some of it is silly, like throwing a paper airplane or getting a high score in pinball. My favorite ego increase is you getting a cigar and smoking it, because you can literally see it out of the corner of your view; yes, I used the classic shotgun while puffing on a stogie. But then sometimes you boost your ego by looking at dirty magazines or visiting a glory hole, which... I have now heard Duke have multiple orgasms. I'm good, really.
And then there is the gameplay, where Duke can only hold up to four weapons, his explosives and items are all different buttons (which I kept accidentally hitting while trying to rapidly switch weapons), he's got a few different vehicle levels, and it's mostly set in the desert, so everything is brown. Hey again, late 2000s FPS design. Also, Duke can't run or swim for shit, but then he's chronically smoking and taking steriods, so this makes sense. In fact, if you told me he was intentionally made terrible at running because of his horrible health habits, I would find it delightful. There is a lot of great parody material here that could have been used. Less making me track down vibrators with the Duke's fallout logo design on it or punching aliens in the testicles, please.
I hear the single-player focused expansion is better. I sure hope so.
REVEREND
I like dirty, grimy films, and I like grimy FPS too. Earlier this year I played through Dead Trash; REVEREND was recommended to me as a result. In this game, I play a fallen preacher fighting the army of a bishop that has somehow merged the satanic and eldritch into a single thing, so now I'm killing freaky-looking sprites of bony dog beasts and other stuff I can't even begin to describe, bashing in cultists' heads with hammers, and using guns made of bones and teeth. It's also short. Really short. I bested the game in under an hour and a half, it's like eight levels and half of those are boss fights.
Hey, I paid a dollar. I'm ok with this.
Also, there is no difficulty option, and the main way enemies get you is by hitting you really hard. Sure, they don't have much health, but letting a cultist bash you will knock off like half your health, so best not to let him do that. As you make your way through backwoods, funeral homes, and cemeteries taking down stuff I can only describe as "things," you have to try to manage your health and hope you can figure out the optimal range and manner for doing things like stunlocking a foe or throwing an explosive apple. Oh, and then there are the last two levels, which are red. Pretty much every shade of red you can think of. They actually hurt to look at. Did I say REVEREND is nasty? Because that last full level just feels mean in being one color. At least it's not brown.
2. Doom 3 (FPS)(PC)
3. V Rising (Adventure)(PC)
4. Teardown (Action)(PC)
5. Control: Ultimate Edition (Action)(PC)
6. Peak (Adventure)(PC)
7. The Exit 8 (Horror)(PC)
8. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (RPG)(PC)
9. Killing Time: Resurrected (FPS)(PC)
10. Darkenstein 3D (FPS)(PC)
11. Metal Garden (FPS)(PC)
12. Caput Mortum (Horror)(PC)
13. Corridor 7: Alien Invasion (FPS)(PC)
14. Extraneum (FPS)(PC)
15. Dead Trash (FPS)(PC)
16. Dead Trash: Operation Yellow Snow (FPS)(PC)
17. Withering Rooms (Action)(PC)
18. Green Hell (Adventure)(PC)
19. Stray (Adventure)(PC)
20. Post Void (FPS)(PC)
21. Kiosk (Horror)(PC)
22. Gnomdom (Puzzle)(PC)
23. Librarian: Tidy Up the Arcane Library (Puzzle)(PC)
24. Shooty Shooty Robot Invasion (FPS)(PC)
25. Vital Shell (Action)(PC)
26. Warhammer 40,000: Fire Warrior (FPS)(PC)
27. Slayers X (FPS)(PC)
28. PO'ed (FPS)(PC)
29. Marathon 2: Durandal (FPS)(PC)
30. Green Hell: Spirits of Amazonia (Adventure)(PC)
31. Call of Duty: World at War (FPS)(PC)
32. Sniper Elite (Action)(PC)
33. Duke Nukem Forever (FPS)(PC)
34. REVEREND (FPS)(PC)
Another handful of games...
Sniper Elite
Sniper Elite is the first in a series that now spans a little over 20 years, where you play an OSS sniper during World War II who participates in various conflict zones of the war. Part of what made this a novel idea was that in the original, World War 2 was effectively over; the Nazis were scrambling, the Soviets were in the streets of Berlin, and your goal was less about facing down Hitler's forces and more about fighting the opening battles of the Cold War by preventing Nazi nuclear scientists and weapons tech from ended up in the hands of the USSR. Your enemies are more often Russian than Germans, and in fact your best allies are the German Resistance, a group which had opposed the Nazi government but also wasn't exactly a fan of the Soviet Union, which crushed multiple underground resistance movements in the nations they freed from the Wehrmacht for not being loyal enough to Stalin.
In general, Sniper Elite is a third person game with a greater emphasis on stealth. When you snipe, it's through a first person scope, but most of the game is actually focused on crawling through areas trying to avoid enemies and killing mainly when you need to. Which isn't to say you won't do any killing; you'll do a lot of it. Just maybe don't try to fight the whole war yourself, ok? Also, sniping is definitely preferable to running and gunning, because you're generally pretty fragile. A single guy with an MP-40 can ruin your day. And a tank that's noticed you? Good luck.
One downside to the original Sniper Elite is that it was a new thing at the time, so the controls are awkward and take some getting used to, with multiple weapons, an inventory system, various sniping mechanics, and so on. In fact, the difficulty settings can be tweaked to add more realism, such as wind velocity and weather conditions impacting your firing ability as well as gravity. Also, if you time your shots with explosions, enemies are less likely to notice they're getting shot at. But there are some serious bugs in the game where it seems to whip between the lowest and highest settings. I tried playing on Normal and somehow ended up with the AI acting like the lowest level idiots but doing the highest level's damage and applying all of the bullet physics. I didn't even realize it was happening until the game told me I was playing on the highest difficulty.
Also, Sniper Elite was designed over 20 years ago and struggles to work on modern machines without fixes for modern resolutions. Player movement is somehow based on your frame limit, and setting a hard cap isn't so easily available, which results in your character behaving like an ice skater. Take your finger off the run button and watch as it takes you three more seconds to stop moving. Not great for a game that requires precision. I ended up having to install third party software to cap how many frames per second I got just to make things playable. But once I did, Sniper Elite ended up an absolute delight to play.
Duke Nukem Forever
Fourteen years in development, and what I got is part pastiche, part parody, and part 12-year-old's idea of what is totally cool. Earlier this year, I played through Slayer X, which was a great parody of the Duke Nukem 3D-style Build Engine era of the 1990s. Where it succeeded, Duke Nukem Forever fails. It doesn't fail because the shooting is bad, it fails because its tone is out of sync and unsure of itself. It does a lot of things it did back in the late 1990s, but better graphics only adds to the cringe, further enhanced by lines that left me groaning and facepalming. The game quite literally starts with me urinating and then grabbing poop out of a toilet, and those are high points (to be fair, the Postal series also revels in public urination, but that's kinda Postal's thing, man). In fact, if you took a list of then-current ideas in game design of the late 2000s that we loved to complain about, you could go through a checklist of stuff we generally ended up loathing. And then you can throw in the sexism and immature humor.
So, aliens show up in the Duke Nukem series, and they take Earth women to impregnate. And now they show up again, the president doesn't want you doing anything because he's either mind controlled or corrupt or something, but you're Duke. You do what you want, which apparently involves kicking ass, owning a casino, getting blowjobs from potentially incestuous twins, and dreaming of owning your own strip club. Oh, and your ego is your regenerating health bar...which is actually a great idea as far as the parody is concerned, because you can increase your max health by doing stuff which stokes your ego. Some of it is silly, like throwing a paper airplane or getting a high score in pinball. My favorite ego increase is you getting a cigar and smoking it, because you can literally see it out of the corner of your view; yes, I used the classic shotgun while puffing on a stogie. But then sometimes you boost your ego by looking at dirty magazines or visiting a glory hole, which... I have now heard Duke have multiple orgasms. I'm good, really.
And then there is the gameplay, where Duke can only hold up to four weapons, his explosives and items are all different buttons (which I kept accidentally hitting while trying to rapidly switch weapons), he's got a few different vehicle levels, and it's mostly set in the desert, so everything is brown. Hey again, late 2000s FPS design. Also, Duke can't run or swim for shit, but then he's chronically smoking and taking steriods, so this makes sense. In fact, if you told me he was intentionally made terrible at running because of his horrible health habits, I would find it delightful. There is a lot of great parody material here that could have been used. Less making me track down vibrators with the Duke's fallout logo design on it or punching aliens in the testicles, please.
I hear the single-player focused expansion is better. I sure hope so.
REVEREND
I like dirty, grimy films, and I like grimy FPS too. Earlier this year I played through Dead Trash; REVEREND was recommended to me as a result. In this game, I play a fallen preacher fighting the army of a bishop that has somehow merged the satanic and eldritch into a single thing, so now I'm killing freaky-looking sprites of bony dog beasts and other stuff I can't even begin to describe, bashing in cultists' heads with hammers, and using guns made of bones and teeth. It's also short. Really short. I bested the game in under an hour and a half, it's like eight levels and half of those are boss fights.
Hey, I paid a dollar. I'm ok with this.
Also, there is no difficulty option, and the main way enemies get you is by hitting you really hard. Sure, they don't have much health, but letting a cultist bash you will knock off like half your health, so best not to let him do that. As you make your way through backwoods, funeral homes, and cemeteries taking down stuff I can only describe as "things," you have to try to manage your health and hope you can figure out the optimal range and manner for doing things like stunlocking a foe or throwing an explosive apple. Oh, and then there are the last two levels, which are red. Pretty much every shade of red you can think of. They actually hurt to look at. Did I say REVEREND is nasty? Because that last full level just feels mean in being one color. At least it's not brown.
-
TheSSNintendo
- 128-bit
- Posts: 669
- Joined: Mon Jul 11, 2011 10:27 pm
Re: Games Beaten 2026
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)
5. Metroid Prime 4: Beyond (Switch)
6. Lego Batman: The Video Game (Steam)
7. Ys III - Wanderers from Ys (SNES)
8. Suikoden II HD Remaster (Switch)
9. Technobabylon (GOG)
10. Crystalis (NES/Switch Online)
11. Mega Man II (Game Boy/Switch Online)
12. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: Back from the Sewers (Game Boy/Cowabunga Collection)
13. Prison City (Steam)
14. Mega Man X2 (SNES/Mega Man X Legacy Collection)
15. Tunic (XBox One)
16. Ducktales 2 (NES/Steam - Disney Afternoon Collection)
17. Talespin (NES/Steam - Disney Afternoon Collection)
18. Freddy Pharkas - Frontier Pharmacist (GOG)
19. Sam & Max Hit the Road (GOG)
20. Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Switch)
21. Sonic Blast Man (SNES)
22. Batman Returns (SNES)
23. Tecmo Bowl (NES/Switch Online)
24. Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride (DS)
25. Steel Assault (Steam)
26. Adventures of Lolo (NES/Switch Online)
2. Deja Vu II: MacVenture Series
3. Earthworm Jim 2 (SNES/Switch Online)
4. Crash Banidcoot: The Huge Adventure (Gameboy Advance)
5. Metroid Prime 4: Beyond (Switch)
6. Lego Batman: The Video Game (Steam)
7. Ys III - Wanderers from Ys (SNES)
8. Suikoden II HD Remaster (Switch)
9. Technobabylon (GOG)
10. Crystalis (NES/Switch Online)
11. Mega Man II (Game Boy/Switch Online)
12. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: Back from the Sewers (Game Boy/Cowabunga Collection)
13. Prison City (Steam)
14. Mega Man X2 (SNES/Mega Man X Legacy Collection)
15. Tunic (XBox One)
16. Ducktales 2 (NES/Steam - Disney Afternoon Collection)
17. Talespin (NES/Steam - Disney Afternoon Collection)
18. Freddy Pharkas - Frontier Pharmacist (GOG)
19. Sam & Max Hit the Road (GOG)
20. Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Switch)
21. Sonic Blast Man (SNES)
22. Batman Returns (SNES)
23. Tecmo Bowl (NES/Switch Online)
24. Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride (DS)
25. Steel Assault (Steam)
26. Adventures of Lolo (NES/Switch Online)
-
prfsnl_gmr
- Next-Gen
- Posts: 12419
- Joined: Mon Jun 01, 2009 10:26 pm
- Location: Charlotte, North Carolina
Re: Games Beaten 2026
1. Ninja Gaiden Ragebound (Switch)
2. Metroid Prime 4 (Switch)
3. Darkwing Duck (Gameboy)
3. DuckTales (Gameboy)
4. DuckTales 2 (Gameboy)
5. Wonder Boy in Monster Land (Sega Master System)
6. Aerial_Knight’s Never Yield (Switch)
7. Depths of Sanity (Switch)
8. Dandara: Trials of Fear Edition (Switch)
9. Ghostrunner II (Xbox)
10. Pipistrello and the Cursed Yo-Yo (Switch)
11. Hudson Selection Vol. 4: Master Takahashi’s Adventure Island (GameCube)
12. Adventure Island (Java)
13. Master Takahashi’s Adventure Island (MSX)
14. Dragon’s Curse (TG16)
15. Wonder Boy III: The Dragon’s Trap (Game Gear)
16. Wonder Boy in Monster World (Sega Master System)
17. Wonder Boy (SG1000)
18. Goof Troop (SNES)
19. Mina the Hollower (Switch)
20. Kudzu (GB)
The reviews are right. Mina the Hollower is a delight. It is a delightful Zelda-like, inspired mostly by Oracle of Ages. Oracle of Seasons, and strangely, Castlevania II. The game is played from an overhead perspective, like most old Zelda games, and it has a comically dark atmosphere, like a Castlevania game. The game’s open world is packed with secrets, and it took me nearly 40 hours to beat the game with ~95% completion.
What I appreciated most about the game was its openness. You can go anywhere at the start, and the gameworld seems truly vast when you first start the game. The game is also frequently challenging without frustration, and there are many complex combat and traversal mechanics mean you can approach the game’s obstacles in a lot of different ways.
The game’s best mechanic is “hollowing,” where your character dives underground for a few moments before leaping back up to the surface. This technique can be used to avoid enemies, pass under obstacles, and jump further, and mastering it is critical to success. It’s a really great mechanic, put to clever use throughout the game.
I enjoyed Mina the Hollower thoroughly, and I think we’ll see it on a lot of GOTY lists. This type of Zelda-like has become a popular genre in recent years, however, and despite how much I enjoyed Mina the Hollower, I’m not sure it tops either Master Key or Pipistrello and the Cursed Yo-Yo. Still, it’s a tremendous time and easy RJ recommend, I hope Yachtb games spends the next few year expanding on it like they did with Shovel Knight.
Kudzu is a GB homebrew game available as an actual GB cart but also, thankfully, for download on Steam and the Nintendo eShop. In it, you play as a gardener battling a new type of aggressive kudzu. (Kudzu is an invasive vine. Imported to the American South almost 100 years ago to help clmbat erosion. It has become a bit of a scourge in the intervening years.) The game is an adventure game inspired, mostly, by LoZ: Link’s Awakening, and it is a very impressive effort for a solo developer. (It is even more impressive when you remember it runs on actual GB hardware.) Despite frequent, and occasionally frustrating bugs - Hey! It’s from a solo developer! - I enjoyed my time with the game. It took me about 4 hours to complete, and it was a nice palate cleanser after Mina the Hollower.
2. Metroid Prime 4 (Switch)
3. Darkwing Duck (Gameboy)
3. DuckTales (Gameboy)
4. DuckTales 2 (Gameboy)
5. Wonder Boy in Monster Land (Sega Master System)
6. Aerial_Knight’s Never Yield (Switch)
7. Depths of Sanity (Switch)
8. Dandara: Trials of Fear Edition (Switch)
9. Ghostrunner II (Xbox)
10. Pipistrello and the Cursed Yo-Yo (Switch)
11. Hudson Selection Vol. 4: Master Takahashi’s Adventure Island (GameCube)
12. Adventure Island (Java)
13. Master Takahashi’s Adventure Island (MSX)
14. Dragon’s Curse (TG16)
15. Wonder Boy III: The Dragon’s Trap (Game Gear)
16. Wonder Boy in Monster World (Sega Master System)
17. Wonder Boy (SG1000)
18. Goof Troop (SNES)
19. Mina the Hollower (Switch)
20. Kudzu (GB)
The reviews are right. Mina the Hollower is a delight. It is a delightful Zelda-like, inspired mostly by Oracle of Ages. Oracle of Seasons, and strangely, Castlevania II. The game is played from an overhead perspective, like most old Zelda games, and it has a comically dark atmosphere, like a Castlevania game. The game’s open world is packed with secrets, and it took me nearly 40 hours to beat the game with ~95% completion.
What I appreciated most about the game was its openness. You can go anywhere at the start, and the gameworld seems truly vast when you first start the game. The game is also frequently challenging without frustration, and there are many complex combat and traversal mechanics mean you can approach the game’s obstacles in a lot of different ways.
The game’s best mechanic is “hollowing,” where your character dives underground for a few moments before leaping back up to the surface. This technique can be used to avoid enemies, pass under obstacles, and jump further, and mastering it is critical to success. It’s a really great mechanic, put to clever use throughout the game.
I enjoyed Mina the Hollower thoroughly, and I think we’ll see it on a lot of GOTY lists. This type of Zelda-like has become a popular genre in recent years, however, and despite how much I enjoyed Mina the Hollower, I’m not sure it tops either Master Key or Pipistrello and the Cursed Yo-Yo. Still, it’s a tremendous time and easy RJ recommend, I hope Yachtb games spends the next few year expanding on it like they did with Shovel Knight.
Kudzu is a GB homebrew game available as an actual GB cart but also, thankfully, for download on Steam and the Nintendo eShop. In it, you play as a gardener battling a new type of aggressive kudzu. (Kudzu is an invasive vine. Imported to the American South almost 100 years ago to help clmbat erosion. It has become a bit of a scourge in the intervening years.) The game is an adventure game inspired, mostly, by LoZ: Link’s Awakening, and it is a very impressive effort for a solo developer. (It is even more impressive when you remember it runs on actual GB hardware.) Despite frequent, and occasionally frustrating bugs - Hey! It’s from a solo developer! - I enjoyed my time with the game. It took me about 4 hours to complete, and it was a nice palate cleanser after Mina the Hollower.
Re: Games Beaten 2026
1. Dead Space (2023) - PC
2. Dead Space 2 - PC
3. Dead Space 3 - PC
4. The Legend of Heroes: Trails Beyond the Horizon - PS5
5. Stellar Blade - PS5
6. Dragon Quest VII Reimagined - Switch
7. Silent Hill 2 (2024) - PC
8. Silent Hill f - PC
9. Resident Evil Requiem - PC
10. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Hyperstone Heist - Genesis
11. Sins of a Solar Empire II - PC
12. Starship Troopers: Ultimate Bug War! - PC
13. Gauntlet Dark Legacy - GC
14. A Street Cat's Tale 2: Outside is Dangerous - Switch
15. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time - SNES
16. Dragon's Crown - PS3
17. Dungeons & Dragons: Tower of Doom - PS3
18. Dungeons & Dragons: Shadow Over Mystara - PS3
19. Shadow Hearts - PS2
20. Diablo 4: Lord of Hatred - PC
21. Shadow Hearts: Covenant - PS2
22. Dark Cloud - PS2
23. Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries: Chaos Reign - PC
24. Dark Cloud 2 - PS2
25. Arkos 2 - PC
26. Metal Gear - MSX
27. Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake - MSX
28. Metal Gear (NES) - NES
29. Snake's Revenge - NES
30. The Adventures of Elliot - Switch 2
The Adventures of Elliot is essentially Square's take on Link to the Past, done on their HD-2D engine. You explore an open world, delve into dungeons to get equipment that lets you solve puzzles, beat bosses, and save the world. It's very much comfort food, with some nice story moments that you don't see in your average Zelda game.
The world of Adventures of Elliot is a dangerous one; the town is protected by a magic barrier provided by the royal family, and the profession of adventurer denotes someone with the fighting skills to traverse the monster-filled wilderness. Elliot is one such adventurer, who gets tasked by the king to investigate a newly discovered ruin. This kicks off a journey that will not only traverse the land, but time itself.
The world is about the same size as Link to the Past's, and it extends that with a time travel mechanic wherein you can visit four different eras. The land will change some between times; paths may be blocked and new paths may open. The world is dotted with various dungeons and caves; the caves are paths to different parts of the world, while the dungeons are full of treasure. Each dungeon has a primary age, where you explore the full dungeon and fight a boss. The other ages see only a portion accessible, giving you access to one or two treasure chests. As you experience the plot you also can engage in side quests; these mostly serve to flesh out the characters, and you will get to see how the world grows through time. Doing one sidequest will unlock a sidequest in the next age that builds upon that plotline.
The game's combat will be quite familiar to folks who have played the Game Boy Zelda games. You have two action buttons that can be freely equipped with your seven pieces of gear; sword, spear, hammer, chain and sickle, boomerang, bow, and bomb. Most of these have functions for puzzle solving as well as combat. Additionally, you have a shield you can pull out that has a temporary durability system (i.e. blocking too much breaks it for a period). Adding to this is your faery companion. She is assigned to the right stick, and you will eventually gain five abilities you can trigger from her. These are used for additional puzzle solving mechanics, as well as some combat applicability.
Each piece of gear besides the bomb has three levels of upgrade, letting you charge a special attack to higher levels of power a la Secret of Mana. Additionally, there is a system of gems that can be slotted into the weapons to enhance their abilities; this is a major source of power, and you can stack some pretty impressive effects to do some big damage under the right circumstances, and otherwise tailor your gear to fit your playstyle.
The game is quite heartfelt, with an uplifting message beyond the basic Zelda "the big bad is here, beat him". That's definitely the Square influence on things, as putting more emphasis on the story is one of their trademarks. The story had me come away smiling, and overall it's quite enjoyable for fans of Zelda games.
2. Dead Space 2 - PC
3. Dead Space 3 - PC
4. The Legend of Heroes: Trails Beyond the Horizon - PS5
5. Stellar Blade - PS5
6. Dragon Quest VII Reimagined - Switch
7. Silent Hill 2 (2024) - PC
8. Silent Hill f - PC
9. Resident Evil Requiem - PC
10. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Hyperstone Heist - Genesis
11. Sins of a Solar Empire II - PC
12. Starship Troopers: Ultimate Bug War! - PC
13. Gauntlet Dark Legacy - GC
14. A Street Cat's Tale 2: Outside is Dangerous - Switch
15. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time - SNES
16. Dragon's Crown - PS3
17. Dungeons & Dragons: Tower of Doom - PS3
18. Dungeons & Dragons: Shadow Over Mystara - PS3
19. Shadow Hearts - PS2
20. Diablo 4: Lord of Hatred - PC
21. Shadow Hearts: Covenant - PS2
22. Dark Cloud - PS2
23. Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries: Chaos Reign - PC
24. Dark Cloud 2 - PS2
25. Arkos 2 - PC
26. Metal Gear - MSX
27. Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake - MSX
28. Metal Gear (NES) - NES
29. Snake's Revenge - NES
30. The Adventures of Elliot - Switch 2
The Adventures of Elliot is essentially Square's take on Link to the Past, done on their HD-2D engine. You explore an open world, delve into dungeons to get equipment that lets you solve puzzles, beat bosses, and save the world. It's very much comfort food, with some nice story moments that you don't see in your average Zelda game.
The world of Adventures of Elliot is a dangerous one; the town is protected by a magic barrier provided by the royal family, and the profession of adventurer denotes someone with the fighting skills to traverse the monster-filled wilderness. Elliot is one such adventurer, who gets tasked by the king to investigate a newly discovered ruin. This kicks off a journey that will not only traverse the land, but time itself.
The world is about the same size as Link to the Past's, and it extends that with a time travel mechanic wherein you can visit four different eras. The land will change some between times; paths may be blocked and new paths may open. The world is dotted with various dungeons and caves; the caves are paths to different parts of the world, while the dungeons are full of treasure. Each dungeon has a primary age, where you explore the full dungeon and fight a boss. The other ages see only a portion accessible, giving you access to one or two treasure chests. As you experience the plot you also can engage in side quests; these mostly serve to flesh out the characters, and you will get to see how the world grows through time. Doing one sidequest will unlock a sidequest in the next age that builds upon that plotline.
The game's combat will be quite familiar to folks who have played the Game Boy Zelda games. You have two action buttons that can be freely equipped with your seven pieces of gear; sword, spear, hammer, chain and sickle, boomerang, bow, and bomb. Most of these have functions for puzzle solving as well as combat. Additionally, you have a shield you can pull out that has a temporary durability system (i.e. blocking too much breaks it for a period). Adding to this is your faery companion. She is assigned to the right stick, and you will eventually gain five abilities you can trigger from her. These are used for additional puzzle solving mechanics, as well as some combat applicability.
Each piece of gear besides the bomb has three levels of upgrade, letting you charge a special attack to higher levels of power a la Secret of Mana. Additionally, there is a system of gems that can be slotted into the weapons to enhance their abilities; this is a major source of power, and you can stack some pretty impressive effects to do some big damage under the right circumstances, and otherwise tailor your gear to fit your playstyle.
The game is quite heartfelt, with an uplifting message beyond the basic Zelda "the big bad is here, beat him". That's definitely the Square influence on things, as putting more emphasis on the story is one of their trademarks. The story had me come away smiling, and overall it's quite enjoyable for fans of Zelda games.
Blizzard Entertainment Software Developer - All comments and views are my own and not representative of the company.