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1. Bare Knuckle III (Genesis)
2. Megaman 5* (PS2)
3. Final Fight 2 (SNES)
4. Final Fight 3 (SNES)
5. Bloody Roar (PSX)
6. Bloody Roar 2 (PSX)
7. Megaman 6* (PS2)
8. Nier (PS3)
9. Final Fight Double Impact (Guy)
10. Devil May Cry HD (PS3)
11. Dead Space 3 (360)
12. Devil May Cry 2 HD (PS3)
13. Dead Space* (360)
14. Dead Space 2 (360)
15. Bioshock Infinite (360)
16. Doom 3* BFG Edition + RoE + Lost Mission (360)
17. Lost Odyssey (360)
18. FEAR 2* (360)
19. Sonic CD* (PS3)
20. Resident Evil 4* HD (PS3)
21. The Darkness II (360)
22. Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon (360)
23. Skyrim (360)
24. Metal Gear Solid 2* HD (PS3)
25. Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker HD (PS3)
26. Metal Gear Solid 3* HD (PS3)
27. Metal Gear Solid 4 (PS3)
28. Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance (PS3)
29. Zone of the Enders HD (PS3)
30. Devil May Cry 3 HD (PS3)
31. Devil May Cry 3 HD [PLATINUM] (PS3)
32. Onimusha Warlords (PS2)
33. Asura's Wrath (PS3)
34. Ratchet & Clank HD (PS3)
35. Sly Cooper HD (PS3)
36. Onimusha 2: Samurai's Destiny* (PS2)
37. Devil May Cry 4* (PS3)
38. Vanquish (PS3)
39. Onimusha 3: Demon Siege (PS2)

* = replay

So I had weird mixed feelings replaying Onimusha 1-2... and wasn't feeling 3 for a second there (the first hour or so felt kind of rough), but after letting the game sit for a bit it just kept calling back to me. Overall I have had a great time revisiting these games even if I'd say they haven't aged quite as well as the old RE's or whatnot (mostly thinking of Onimusha 1-2 here), but wow 3 was amazing. From what I thought was my least favorite 10 years ago... has now become my favorite by far.

Everything wrong about the first two games is now fixed here. Joystick controls and the ability to use arrows on the fly instead of equipping them separately by going through menus and stuff, that got old.

This one has aged really well actually. Coming out of a lot of other Capcom stuff this year and other series replays, I'd put this game above DMC4 personally for sure. I clocked in a good chunky 14 hours (did all the Dark Realm's I came across which were fun), and yeah even grinded for souls at times just because the combat was so fun here this time around.

Now the story and the tone is straight up cheese, but what's not to love about some fun charm here? In comparison to DMC4's jr high potty humor, I liked the vibe here for Onimusha 3 a lot better. It's just something you'd see straight out of the 90's. Throw in time travel, a goofy magical fairy (whom was likeable actually), Jean Reno as a main character, a crazy monster scientist with an insane voice... and yeah. It's just hilariously fun stuff. They drop the heavy Japanese demon mythology and this one gets a bit more character driven, few more cutscenes, etc. Which in turns works out and made me care a bit more than the previous games.

Again, the game was pretty long for the genre and the levels just kept constantly changing. There are some interesting puzzles and a few big levels where the two main characters interact across time, and it was just awesome. This was a case of time travel use being pretty good. The controls and new mechanics for Jean Reno were a good addition too. The amount of enemies here was crazy, all with different attack patterns a lot of movesets. The bossses, which were mostly a pain in the first two, were great stuff here. And thankfully they cut back on the item box puzzles big time, and the ones here were very doable after a few tries.

Like the DMC's, you can end up realizing after awhile that the combat here is truly not a button masher. The deflect/counter and critical mechanics were a lot of fun and spiced things up, especially with how intricate it gets with the large array of enemy types and bosses. It is both very risky to play going for counter/critical but also very rewarding at the same time and almost crucial at points. These elements were in the first two games, but this one took it to the next level and was just so much more polished. Overall the game was a good challenge and felt perfectly fair, whereas the first two just had moments of bad design that felt cheap and you couldn't help but take tons of hits or whatever.

Overall this was a surprise and I actually realized the further I got, it finally hit me that I never did beat this one back in the day for some reason. Again, at the time for some reason I wasn't enjoying it as much as the others or something... so I never finished it. This game felt like it had close to as much polish as RE4 at the time and is nearly the same length, impressive for such a game. Lots of unlockables and secrets, some I missed, etc. There's a lot of content here.

I think I'd rank the series like so:

Onimusha 3: 8, just hands down the best of the trilogy.
Onimusha 1: 7, more in line with the classic RE's in design. The most archaic and the side female ninja playable parts sucked, but I forgive it. The simplicity works, and so I prefer it to 2.
Onimusha 2: 7, arguably more polished than the first game with some improvements and beautiful pre-rendered backdrops, but the open town places and the item trading were unnecessary fluff that dragged things out for no reason at all and were just boring. Unlikable villains across the board too.

There's a lot of lore behind the scenes here if you read all the notes/books throughout. Overall if you're a fan of Capcom's PSX/PS2 stuff and haven't checked these games out, I definitely can't recommend them enough. If you like or don't like one, don't give up on the others, there's enough changes for all of them to make differing impressions.

With that said, now off to Dawn of Dreams (4). Which I played a lot of before too, but also never finished. I'll be curious to see how this one ties in, but I know it's not much at all, and the entire game feels 110% different outside of the simple soul absorbing element. But yeah I'll be curious to see how it stacks up.

Platinums/100% Achievements:

Tales from Space: Mutant Blobs Attack - Vita
Guacamelee - PSN (including all DLC trophies)
Shinovi Versus - Vita
Hotline Miami - PSN
Mark of the Ninja - 360

Games Beaten:




Foul Play - Xbox 360 version

Foul Play is your classic style over substance game. It has nice graphics, a cool concept, and a good story, but the beat 'em up gameplay is mediocre. The whole game is actually a play taking place on a stage, much like Puppeteer. The game also has a lot of British flavor and humor, also like Puppeteer. Since you are actually performing a play, combat revolves around entertaining an audience. Basically the only way to get a game over is if the audience completely loses interest in the show. As cool as this sounds, it's not fleshed out much. The audience's "mood" might as well just be a health meter. When you take hits, it goes down. Start attacking someone, and it goes back up. That's pretty much all there is to it.

To the game's credit, it tries to add some depth by mimicking Rocksteady's Batman games. You can build combos by continually attacking enemies, without getting hit and without going for more than a second without hitting someone. Building combos builds up the audience's mood faster. It also copies Batman's counter system. In fact, the way enemies telegraph attacks looks EXACTLY like the Batman games with little lightning bolts over their heads just before they hit you.

Problem is, the counter system is kind of broken. Once you acquire the ability to doing a flurry of aerial attacks after a counter, you never need to do anything else for the rest of the game. You'll be completely invincible while you're in the air and as soon as you land you can just counter the next guy attacking you and repeat the process building up massive combos. The only time you need to change tactics is when the big enemies show up, then you'll need to try and throw a smaller enemy into them to stun them.

I don't mind that combat is that simple, the bigger problem is how repetitive the game is. 90% percent of the game's enemies all fight the same way as the enemies you face in the first level, and the above mentioned tactics are all you need to kick their asses. The game has optional challenges in each level to make things more interesting, but each level has practically the same challenges. The only time the game really changes things up is with the boss battles, which don't have the same copy/paste patterns as the regular enemies.

The game has a levelling system, but it feels like an after thought. You can hit max level quickly, and it really doesn't benefit you in any way. You don't have stats, so at max level you're still doing the same puny damage you did at level 1. You do unlock new moves when you level up, but every move in the game save for the counter flurry and counter throw moves that I mentioned earlier are completely useless. The game didn't need a level system and it seems like they threw it in the game just to have another feature to advertise. Oh yeah, you can get charms to equip for completing levels' optional challenges, but most of them are useless too. I only found 3 or 4 them to ever actually be useful. The rest are just useless garbage. Some are multi-player focused, but I was playing this solo so they were useless to me.

If you can look past the complete mediocrity that is the gameplay, the game does have entertainment value. The main characters are cool, and have lots of great lines. The story is decent by beat 'em up standards, and there's a bunch of pages of backstory you can unlock that are pretty cool. The game has good writing. It also have funny character designs, and a ton of visual gags playing off the theater theme, kind of like Puppeteer. Seeing the director on stage feeding an enemy his lines, or watching some guys you beat to a pulp open their eyes to see if the scene is over yet before pretending to be unconscious again is funny stuff. The game has a great visual style too, somewhere between South Park and Castle Crashers if I had to describe it. The music is decent, nothing memorable, but decent. Plus, it's very cool seeing and hearing the audience erupt in appreciation when you are playing well. Still, this is all superficial stuff. Foul Play is a GAME and the GAME part of it is very lacking.

At 15 bucks, Foul Play is overpriced. It's not a long game, and the combat is so bland and uninspired, but the game's more superficial elements make it something I'd recommend if it was cheaper. In fact, I know some people will like its simplicity rather than criticize it. This would have fit more as a game in the Xbox Indie section than a full priced Xbox Live game I think. I don't get the high review scores it's gotten from most places. I think only Gamespot and Official Xbox Magazine got it right with their 6 out of 10 scores. That's where my score would fall. It's a decent title, but nothing to write home about. I think everyone else just is so charmed by the British humor and artsy theater theme that they're just giving it a pass on the gameplay. I don't have a problem with that if someone is at least honest about it rather than trying to justify 8 out of 10 or 9 out of 10 or 4 out 5 scores that are complete bullshit. That puts this up there with games like Castle Crashers and other top tier XBLA/PSN beat 'em ups and it's not even remotely that good.

So much fun! I loved the added content, the voice-overs, and new renditions of the music. And the controls were spot-on, something I feared for before playing it. And dang is that chase sequence hard at the end. A lot harder than a simple rope climb like in the first one. A lot more attention to detail in this one, than the original, as well.

It's totally worth playing through both the original and this remake. They really do feel like 2 totally different games in the same franchise, even though many areas are very familiar.

I want to see a lot more remastered 2D classics like this!

I beat Castlevania on NES lastnight for the firs time. It was a small goal for the weekend but it was a tough one.

Honestly I haven't completed many platformers in my day. Played many, beaten very few... so this was a real accomplishment and something I've wanted to do for a long time.

/me pats himself on the back.

1. Medal of Honor Allied Assault Spearhead - PC (January 2)
2. America's Army - Arcade (January 12) - 1cc!
3. Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell - Gamecube (January 26)
4. Dragon Spirit - NES (February 7) - 1cc!
5. Final Fantasy - (by way of DoS) - GBA (March 15)
6. Wing Commander - PC (March 21)
7. Medal of Honor European Assault - Gamecube (March 30)
8. Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow - Gamecube (April 6)
9. Half-Life - PC (April 25)
10. Fantastic Dizzy - Genesis (May 16)
11. Fatal Fury Special - NeoGeo (in MAME) (June 10)
12. Gun - Gamecube (June 15)
13. Road Rash Jailbreak - GBA (July 3)
14. Road Rash - Genesis (July 10)
15. Road Rash 2 - Genesis (July 18)
16. Road Rash 3 - Genesis (July 29)
17. TMNT Turtles In Time - Arcade (August 10)
18. TMNT The Hyperstone Heist - Genesis (August 22)
19. Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory - Gamecube (August 24)
20. Ninja Warriors Again - SFC (August 26)
21. 8 Eyes - NES (September 13)
22. Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Dragonstrike - NES (September 19)
23. Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Lockdown - Gamecube (September 21)
24. Adventures In The Magic Kingdom - NES (September 22)
25. *NEW* Zork I - PC (September 23)

This is probably the oldest game I'll ever complete. No graphics, no sound, just an evening in front of a computer screen full of text. The way gaming USED to be. Back when we had to use our imaginations to make our own game worlds. This was the Great Underground Empire of Zork. I played it for all of 5 minutes in the 80s on an Apple II. I remember a magazine in the late 80s blasting it because of its lack of graphics compared to King's Quest. But this game had such an expansive text parser, it understood nearly everything I tried in there, even commands that wouldn't get you anywhere. To return to the early 80s was quite the trip and it wasn't a bad deal over on GOG. If you don't mind some quiet time and maybe some thinking, I'd recommend it.

NES Mega Man 2

Even though I've been playing games for over two decades now, this is my first Mega Man playthrough.

I liked it... ^^

elmagicochrisg wrote:NES Mega Man 2

Even though I've been playing games for over two decades now, this is my first Mega Man playthrough.

I liked it... ^^

My all-time favorite Mega Man game! Best music in the series, without a doubt.

BurningDoom wrote:

So much fun! I loved the added content, the voice-overs, and new renditions of the music. And the controls were spot-on, something I feared for before playing it. And dang is that chase sequence hard at the end. A lot harder than a simple rope climb like in the first one. A lot more attention to detail in this one, than the original, as well.

It's totally worth playing through both the original and this remake. They really do feel like 2 totally different games in the same franchise, even though many areas are very familiar.

I want to see a lot more remastered 2D classics like this!

The new Castle of Illusion is great, but it's more a remake than a remaster. I want to say it's better than Ducktales, but it doesn't seem fair to compare a remaster to a full on remake.

Wispmage wrote:Games Beaten 2013
1. Bioshock Infinite [PC]
2. Demon's Crest [SNES]
3. Sacred Citadel [PC]
4. Dishonored [PC]
5. Bastion [PC]
6. Torchlight 2 [PC]
7. TMNT: Turtles in Time [SNES]
8. Mark of the Ninja [PC] *NEW*

As a big fan of stealth games as well as platformers, Mark of the Ninja struck a chord with me. I think the stealth kills, the variations thereof, and using them to terrify guards was my favorite aspect of the game. For that reason I employed the Path of the Hunter and the Path of Nightmares for the majority of the levels. Overall I enjoyed the game immensely, though my only complaint would be that the campaign seemed to drag on a bit after a certain point. That said though, I'll definitely be grabbing the DLC and going back to 100% complete all the stages at some point in the future.

The DLC is cool. It gives you two new abilities, a new stage, a new costome, and developer notes

Mark of the Ninja is one of the greatest games of all time I think. The stealth genre is one I love when it's done well, but so few stealth games really feel right and Mark of the Ninja is on my small list of stealth games where they just nailed everything. It felt like a marriage of the Tenchu games (which I love) and Rocksteady's Batman games (also love) with some nifty new mechanics thrown in and all smooshed into 2D.

You wouldn't call DuckTales Remastered a full-on remake?

There is sooooo much different stuff in that game. Not just the graphics and music, either. There is entirely new level-layouts, tons of added story and dialogue, the boss-battles are all different, and there are 2 entirely new levels, even.

I don't remember the original as well as you do. I guess that qualifies as a remake then. I didn't realize that so much stuff was changed.

I definitely enjoyed Ducktales, and I'm still working my way through Castle of Illusion. Both are great. It's been a really awesome year for platformers.