Games Beaten 2014

[TSTR]

That game does sound really cool, def gotta check that out.

[Czernobog]

Game Beaten 2014

1. Bioshock - PC/Steam
2. Ryu ga Gotoku: Kenzan (second time, amazing game) - PS3/Jpn Import
3. Devil Children White Book - GBC/Jpn Import
4. Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth – Steam
5. Shenmue II - Dreamcast/Jpn Import
6. Ys III: Wanderers From Ys – Super Famicom *NEW*
7. Yu Yu Hakusho – Super Famicom *NEW*
8. Landstalker: The Treasures of King Nole – Genesis *NEW*
9. Kurohyou 2: Ryu ga Gotoku Ashura Hen *NEW*

Devil Children White Book Thoughts:

So I just beat Devil Children: White Book for Game Boy Color. When I mentioned it in the RPG progress report, I would estimate I was at about the halfway point and that was about ten hours into the game. It's unfortunate that this one wasn't released in English, but I can see why it wasn't. Lucifer's a relatively good guy, you're a ten year old with a gun (albeit a devil capturing computer gun thing), and some of the angels turn out to have a little touch of the world domination-genocide frame of mind.

I really enjoyed this one. When I got it I wasn't sure what to expect since I do love the Shin Megami Tensei games, but this really just looked like a Pokemon clone to me. Even though SMT did the whole enemy join your team and fight for you thing first, there were a lot of other things clearly taken from Pokemon. Luckily, you can find all the devils in the game without trading with a friend (although the feature is in the game). It was a lot of fun though, and the story which started as simply go to devil world and get cure for your friend's sister became much more sinister and grandiose after you found the cure. There were a ton of different areas to explore along the way and the game is quite massive.

After you beat the game, you can continue playing in a prologue where you can more easily warp around the world, find new devils and explore at least one completely new area. The music and graphics were actually among the best I've experienced on a Game Boy cart. There's at least ten different music tracks, and you can buy discs in the game and switch which track is playing whenever you feel the urge. The graphics were incredibly colorful and popped out on the SP more than any other GBC game I've played.

This was a huge surprise for me, and is now easily in the top GB/GBC games I've ever played. I still keep picking it up to wander through some areas and collect/fuse new devils, and play a couple of the extra mini-games that are in some towns.

Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth Toughts:

Finished The Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth today and I adored the game. It was a lot of fun, even with it's flaws. It helped being a fan of Lovecraft though. The Shadow Over Innsmouth elements are presented well enough that someone just playing the game will understand them without issue, but there are other plot elements referring to The Shadow Out of Time, which I would have just felt poorly glossed over had I not read the story, especially in the ending. There's a lot of love for the source material and the gameplay was more varied than I expected, with chase sequences, light puzzles, some fps action, and stealth sections. I loved going insane and looking at all the mythos creatures, so the game gave me a score of "nut job" at the end.

Unfortunately, I did end up experiencing a couple bugs, which I passed without having to patch the game, but really broke the pace and took me out of the experience (Unofficial patches do exist though). That being said, there were also a couple bugs which were so hilarious that I enjoyed them. At one point I climbed a ladder to discover I couldn't stop and climbed infinitely out of the game map, and during the ending sequence I stepped onto a rock which made me noclip fairly quickly through a large expanse of the game, spinning the whole way.

Overall, this was a really atmospheric game and exploring Innsmouth, combined with the character interactions was a blast. Healing became much easier and interesting once I realized how to do it through the menu, instead of using the quick heal feature. You have to apply different means of medical aid to different portions of your body, such as sutures, bandages, and splints. There were some really intense sequences, the most notable being the hotel chase I mentioned earlier. Apparently they planned on making a couple sequels and it's really unfortunate that it's not going to happen. The game has some glaring flaws, but what it does right, it does fantastically.

Shenmue II Thoughts:

I have at long last finished Shenmue II, almost fifteen years after finishing Shenmue. I sort of wish I would have played it back when I was younger, and if it came out on Dreamcast here in the U.S., I probably would have. I would have been more able to immerse myself in the world, and play leisurely at that time. At the same time, I'm glad I was able to play and understand the original Japanese version, something I couldn't have done back then.

Overall, the game was a great experience. Something I've always liked about these games, is I never feel like I'm playing a game, so much as I'm in Ryo's world, playing his story. Of course, I can just wander over to an arcade and play some Space Harrier or Outrun if I'm feeling the need for some classic gaming while I'm wandering around Ryo's world.

Probably one of my favorite aspects of Shenmue II, was wandering around areas loosely based on real locations, especially the walled city. It's fascinating that the city was still standing in 1987, when Ryo is there in Shemue II, but was mostly demolished soon after. I mentioned earlier that I wished the game had more emphasis on it's fighting system, and while it did have some difficult fights, nothing felt to me anywhere near as dramatic as the 70 man fight in the first Shenmue. However, I did enjoy seeking out move scrolls and participating in fighting matches for cash scattered throughout the areas, mostly in Kowloon.

As for the QTEs, I never did manage to fail any that changed the course of the game, or cutscenes, just ones that made me sit through cutscenes again or replay a segment, which was a shame. There was only one of these that actually annoyed me though. There are several QTEs after the disc 3 boss, and if you fail the last one (which I did because you have to hit a button and then two simultaneously--the game does give you major hints that this will happen, but I managed to land my thumb on one button before the other) you have to actually fight the boss over again from the beginning. This felt like artificial difficulty to me, but the boss was fairly easy, so it wasn't that big of a deal.
Also, as some of you have pointed out, I did indeed miss the duck races. I may very well pick up the game again and make sure to do the right things to experience them, but for now I'm pretty burned out on Shenmue.

I'll discuss the rest of my thoughts with spoiler tags, so I can talk more freely about the game's last two discs. NOTE: Spoiler within spoiler didn't work so anything after this may contain spoilers!

It's actually pretty difficult to collect my thoughts on Shenmue II. It's one of those games, along with its predecessor, which I can totally understand people not liking, but I absolutely loved the experience. These are games for people with patience and the willingness to get slowly invested into a narrative. What surprised me was that disc 3 was essentially a climax. The ascent of the Yellow Head building and the fight with Dou Niu while Lan Di looked on felt like a satisfactory ending to a chapter. Then the game told me to put in Disc 4. The entirety of Disc 4 felt like the perfect example of why some people don't like Shenmue and why some, myself included, absolutely adore these games. For anyone reading this who doesn't know, the fourth disc of Shenmue II is essentially walking and having conversations with Shenhua, the girl who appears to Ryo in Shenmue and is finally revealed. This whole disc is extremely slow, and in my opinion, extremely beautiful. I'm not just talking about the nature and the graphics in this segment, I'm talking about the conversations themselves. There's an option to hurry ahead instead of converse, and never once did I have an urge to press it. I was simply fascinated by everything Shenhua had to say, her questions about distant things, and her stories about her village.

As for the actual ending, with the mirror, the sword, and the peom....it does make you want to know where the hell the story was going. I understand the desire many have to see an end to this story, and I would also love to see this story continued but I also hope the story was pretty far from ending at this point. There are a lot of questions left unanswered, and more than one character's motivation is under some sort of scrutiny. It also seems pretty clear that quite a bit of mysticism, and possibly ancient magic was being brought into the story at this point. Also, I felt like Ren's final scene of throwing the knife into the map as he contemplated treasure felt like it may have been alluding to him playing a further role, which would be fantastic. This is one of those games that will stay with me for a long time, and I do genuinely hope we get a continuation of the story it started. Also, since we're in the spoiler tags, Rosebud was a sled, and Shenmue is a tree.

Ys III: Wanderers From Ys – Super Famicom *NEW* (Video Review)

Yu Yu Hakusho – Super Famicom *NEW* (Video Review)

Landstalker: The Treasures of King Nole – Genesis *NEW* (Video Review)

Kurohyou 2: Ryu ga Gotoku Ashura Hen *NEW* (Video Review)

[noiseredux]

Czerno, as soon as I beat The Walking Dead I'll plan to buy Call Of Cthulhu: Dark Corners. Can't wait to play that one.

[Czernobog]

Czerno, as soon as I beat The Walking Dead I'll plan to buy Call Of Cthulhu: Dark Corners. Can't wait to play that one.

I loved it, and I think you'll really enjoy it as well. It just nails the atmosphere in such a way.

Just beware the glitch where lights you have to shoot at in the distance don't show up if you get it on Steam. Seems like a pretty common bug. It's somewhat late in the game and you'll know when you're there. If it happens to you, I was able to surmount it without mods/unofficial patches or anything because someone has posted pictures on the game's Steam hub showing you exactly where to line up the shots.

[noiseredux]

^interesting. And good to know. Although if there's an easy patch/fix then I'll prob just install that ahead of time. Thanks for the heads up!

Have you already played The Walking Dead? If not, maybe you should consider adding that to your queue this month so we can trade stories on both games.

[Czernobog]

My girlfriend has the first chapter on her Xbox, so I'm planning on playing through that and determining if I should throw down the cash for the rest. I've been pretty burned out on zombies so it hasn't been high on my priority list but I'm interested because of how well-received the game has been.

[Ack]

My girlfriend has the first chapter on her Xbox, so I'm planning on playing through that and determining if I should throw down the cash for the rest. I've been pretty burned out on zombies so it hasn't been high on my priority list but I'm interested because of how well-received the game has been.

I was too when I started it up. But though the game is about a zombie apocalypse, that's not what makes the game so gripping.

[Violent By Design]

Game Beaten 2014

1. Bioshock - PC/Steam
2. Ryu ga Gotoku: Kenzan (second time, amazing game) - PS3/Jpn Import
3. Devil Children White Book - GBC/Jpn Import
4. Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth – Steam
5. Shenmue II - Dreamcast/Jpn Import
6. Ys III: Wanderers From Ys – Super Famicom *NEW*
7. Yu Yu Hakusho – Super Famicom *NEW*
8. Landstalker: The Treasures of King Nole – Genesis *NEW*
9. Kurohyou 2: Ryu ga Gotoku Ashura Hen *NEW*

Devil Children White Book Thoughts:

So I just beat Devil Children: White Book for Game Boy Color. When I mentioned it in the RPG progress report, I would estimate I was at about the halfway point and that was about ten hours into the game. It's unfortunate that this one wasn't released in English, but I can see why it wasn't. Lucifer's a relatively good guy, you're a ten year old with a gun (albeit a devil capturing computer gun thing), and some of the angels turn out to have a little touch of the world domination-genocide frame of mind.

I really enjoyed this one. When I got it I wasn't sure what to expect since I do love the Shin Megami Tensei games, but this really just looked like a Pokemon clone to me. Even though SMT did the whole enemy join your team and fight for you thing first, there were a lot of other things clearly taken from Pokemon. Luckily, you can find all the devils in the game without trading with a friend (although the feature is in the game). It was a lot of fun though, and the story which started as simply go to devil world and get cure for your friend's sister became much more sinister and grandiose after you found the cure. There were a ton of different areas to explore along the way and the game is quite massive.

After you beat the game, you can continue playing in a prologue where you can more easily warp around the world, find new devils and explore at least one completely new area. The music and graphics were actually among the best I've experienced on a Game Boy cart. There's at least ten different music tracks, and you can buy discs in the game and switch which track is playing whenever you feel the urge. The graphics were incredibly colorful and popped out on the SP more than any other GBC game I've played.

This was a huge surprise for me, and is now easily in the top GB/GBC games I've ever played. I still keep picking it up to wander through some areas and collect/fuse new devils, and play a couple of the extra mini-games that are in some towns.

Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth Toughts:

Finished The Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth today and I adored the game. It was a lot of fun, even with it's flaws. It helped being a fan of Lovecraft though. The Shadow Over Innsmouth elements are presented well enough that someone just playing the game will understand them without issue, but there are other plot elements referring to The Shadow Out of Time, which I would have just felt poorly glossed over had I not read the story, especially in the ending. There's a lot of love for the source material and the gameplay was more varied than I expected, with chase sequences, light puzzles, some fps action, and stealth sections. I loved going insane and looking at all the mythos creatures, so the game gave me a score of "nut job" at the end.

Unfortunately, I did end up experiencing a couple bugs, which I passed without having to patch the game, but really broke the pace and took me out of the experience (Unofficial patches do exist though). That being said, there were also a couple bugs which were so hilarious that I enjoyed them. At one point I climbed a ladder to discover I couldn't stop and climbed infinitely out of the game map, and during the ending sequence I stepped onto a rock which made me noclip fairly quickly through a large expanse of the game, spinning the whole way.

Overall, this was a really atmospheric game and exploring Innsmouth, combined with the character interactions was a blast. Healing became much easier and interesting once I realized how to do it through the menu, instead of using the quick heal feature. You have to apply different means of medical aid to different portions of your body, such as sutures, bandages, and splints. There were some really intense sequences, the most notable being the hotel chase I mentioned earlier. Apparently they planned on making a couple sequels and it's really unfortunate that it's not going to happen. The game has some glaring flaws, but what it does right, it does fantastically.

Shenmue II Thoughts:

I have at long last finished Shenmue II, almost fifteen years after finishing Shenmue. I sort of wish I would have played it back when I was younger, and if it came out on Dreamcast here in the U.S., I probably would have. I would have been more able to immerse myself in the world, and play leisurely at that time. At the same time, I'm glad I was able to play and understand the original Japanese version, something I couldn't have done back then.

Overall, the game was a great experience. Something I've always liked about these games, is I never feel like I'm playing a game, so much as I'm in Ryo's world, playing his story. Of course, I can just wander over to an arcade and play some Space Harrier or Outrun if I'm feeling the need for some classic gaming while I'm wandering around Ryo's world.

Probably one of my favorite aspects of Shenmue II, was wandering around areas loosely based on real locations, especially the walled city. It's fascinating that the city was still standing in 1987, when Ryo is there in Shemue II, but was mostly demolished soon after. I mentioned earlier that I wished the game had more emphasis on it's fighting system, and while it did have some difficult fights, nothing felt to me anywhere near as dramatic as the 70 man fight in the first Shenmue. However, I did enjoy seeking out move scrolls and participating in fighting matches for cash scattered throughout the areas, mostly in Kowloon.

As for the QTEs, I never did manage to fail any that changed the course of the game, or cutscenes, just ones that made me sit through cutscenes again or replay a segment, which was a shame. There was only one of these that actually annoyed me though. There are several QTEs after the disc 3 boss, and if you fail the last one (which I did because you have to hit a button and then two simultaneously--the game does give you major hints that this will happen, but I managed to land my thumb on one button before the other) you have to actually fight the boss over again from the beginning. This felt like artificial difficulty to me, but the boss was fairly easy, so it wasn't that big of a deal.
Also, as some of you have pointed out, I did indeed miss the duck races. I may very well pick up the game again and make sure to do the right things to experience them, but for now I'm pretty burned out on Shenmue.

I'll discuss the rest of my thoughts with spoiler tags, so I can talk more freely about the game's last two discs. NOTE: Spoiler within spoiler didn't work so anything after this may contain spoilers!

It's actually pretty difficult to collect my thoughts on Shenmue II. It's one of those games, along with its predecessor, which I can totally understand people not liking, but I absolutely loved the experience. These are games for people with patience and the willingness to get slowly invested into a narrative. What surprised me was that disc 3 was essentially a climax. The ascent of the Yellow Head building and the fight with Dou Niu while Lan Di looked on felt like a satisfactory ending to a chapter. Then the game told me to put in Disc 4. The entirety of Disc 4 felt like the perfect example of why some people don't like Shenmue and why some, myself included, absolutely adore these games. For anyone reading this who doesn't know, the fourth disc of Shenmue II is essentially walking and having conversations with Shenhua, the girl who appears to Ryo in Shenmue and is finally revealed. This whole disc is extremely slow, and in my opinion, extremely beautiful. I'm not just talking about the nature and the graphics in this segment, I'm talking about the conversations themselves. There's an option to hurry ahead instead of converse, and never once did I have an urge to press it. I was simply fascinated by everything Shenhua had to say, her questions about distant things, and her stories about her village.

As for the actual ending, with the mirror, the sword, and the peom....it does make you want to know where the hell the story was going. I understand the desire many have to see an end to this story, and I would also love to see this story continued but I also hope the story was pretty far from ending at this point. There are a lot of questions left unanswered, and more than one character's motivation is under some sort of scrutiny. It also seems pretty clear that quite a bit of mysticism, and possibly ancient magic was being brought into the story at this point. Also, I felt like Ren's final scene of throwing the knife into the map as he contemplated treasure felt like it may have been alluding to him playing a further role, which would be fantastic. This is one of those games that will stay with me for a long time, and I do genuinely hope we get a continuation of the story it started. Also, since we're in the spoiler tags, Rosebud was a sled, and Shenmue is a tree.

Ys III: Wanderers From Ys – Super Famicom *NEW* (Video Review)

Yu Yu Hakusho – Super Famicom *NEW* (Video Review)

Landstalker: The Treasures of King Nole – Genesis *NEW* (Video Review)

Kurohyou 2: Ryu ga Gotoku Ashura Hen *NEW* (Video Review)

I've been wanting to check out Call of Cthulhu for years, cool list btw.

[Czernobog]

I've been wanting to check out Call of Cthulhu for years, cool list btw.

Thanks! This year has sort of been geared towards playing through the games I've always wanted to play or never finished and it's been a lot of fun. If you want to check out Call of Cthulhu, you definitely should. It's not without its problems by any means, but as a fan of horror and Lovecraft, it was a great experience.

[noiseredux]

I can guarantee that Walking Dead is like no other zombie game you've ever played.