Games Beaten 2012

[jmbarnes101]

Beat my first game of the year... Streets of Rage 2. I only played this a handful of times when I was younger and never got very far. Went over to a friends tonight and we beat it together. Really a fun game that I'd like to try on a harder difficulty level at some point (we played on normal).

[BurningDoom]

Just finished a complete straight play-through of the King's Field series. Such a freaking awesome series. I started with an English translation of the original Japanese-only King's Field title, through the Sword of Moonlight program, so it wasn't quite the same game but close enough. I then played through King's Field 1 (U.S.), KF 2, and finally KF: The Ancient City all one right after the other. I've played through all these games before, but never before all of them, one right after the other like this.

King's Field II still stands out to me, head-and-shoulders, above the rest in the series. There's a great storyline going on there if you pay attention to what the characters are saying and all the clues laid out before you. It ties the other 2 games before it into it's story wonderfully. And the level-up system of the magics, character, and Excelletor Sword make it even more rewarding when leveling-up than the other King's Field games. Then you add in the unique weapons and armors and larger areas than the 2 games before it and it's a masterpiece for it's era.

King's Field: The Ancient City on PS2 definitely looks the best, though. But them why shouldn't it when it's on the PS2 and the others are PS1 games. It's also the 2nd best game in the series, in all other aspects, as far as I'm concerned. Not as story-driven as KF II, but at the same time it's probably the most exploration-driven game in the series which gives it all kinds of points in my book.

King's Field (U.S.) is a great entry in the series, too. Well worth a play-through for anyone interested in these sort of games. Not very story-driven, more exploration-driven (which exploration-driven is still a good thing), but not quite as large as KF II or KF: The Ancient City.

The original Japanese-only King's Field was my least favorite in the series. That could have a lot to do with the fact that I wasn't playing it as originally intended, and was instead playing the English translation through The Sword of Moonlight software. The enemies looked weird, the movement of the character wasn't quite right, and it was much shorter, and the enemies were a lot tougher until you got to higher levels (which was probably their way of trying to stretch out the short game).

[REPO Man]

Darksiders (360 ver), on Easy Mode. May try for other Modes. Still gotta max out my Tremor Glove's weapon experience, max out the Wrath abilities., and get the last two pieces of the Abyssmal Armor.

Dante's Inferno, this time on the second difficulty level. Playing again on Hellish.

[dsheinem]

Darksiders (360 ver), on Easy Mode. May try for other Modes. Still gotta max out my Tremor Glove's weapon experience, max out the Wrath abilities., and get the last two pieces of the Abyssmal Armor.

Dante's Inferno, this time on the second difficulty level. Playing again on Hellish.

I don't know that I've ever played a game on easy mode. Perhaps I should give it a try? Do you feel like the experience was lacking in any way?

[Stark]

Darksiders (360 ver), on Easy Mode. May try for other Modes. Still gotta max out my Tremor Glove's weapon experience, max out the Wrath abilities., and get the last two pieces of the Abyssmal Armor.

Dante's Inferno, this time on the second difficulty level. Playing again on Hellish.

I don't know that I've ever played a game on easy mode. Perhaps I should give it a try? Do you feel like the experience was lacking in any way?

I'm playing through Bayonnetta on Easy and I think it's better for it, for me. I am not very good at Devil May Cry games and I am enjoying it much more because I'm playing it on easy.

[BoringSupreez]

Darksiders (360 ver), on Easy Mode. May try for other Modes. Still gotta max out my Tremor Glove's weapon experience, max out the Wrath abilities., and get the last two pieces of the Abyssmal Armor.

Dante's Inferno, this time on the second difficulty level. Playing again on Hellish.

I don't know that I've ever played a game on easy mode. Perhaps I should give it a try? Do you feel like the experience was lacking in any way?

Typically when I play on easy, it feels like using cheat codes. The entire time, I know it shouldn't be so easy to do what I'm doing. Of course, Ninja Gaiden Black is a whole different thing...

[noiseredux]

I don't know that I've ever played a game on easy mode. Perhaps I should give it a try? Do you feel like the experience was lacking in any way?

I have...

in some cases EASY or BEGINNER actually is default. Catherine was like that actually. So if it's default, I'll just leave it. Generally, I just play games on their default difficulty.

Certain games I will go with easy if they're kind of well known for ball-busting difficulty -- or if it's a genre I'm new to. That way I can sort of ease in.

With Shmups I'll often play it on EASY first and continually try to play through at harder difficulties.

With Fighters I try to beat them on default, and then after that play them always on hardest difficulty so that I'm just attempting to get better at the game, even if I don't win matches.

[dsheinem]

I don't know that I've ever played a game on easy mode. Perhaps I should give it a try? Do you feel like the experience was lacking in any way?

I have...

in some cases EASY or BEGINNER actually is default. Catherine was like that actually. So if it's default, I'll just leave it. Generally, I just play games on their default difficulty.

Certain games I will go with easy if they're kind of well known for ball-busting difficulty -- or if it's a genre I'm new to. That way I can sort of ease in.

With Shmups I'll often play it on EASY first and continually try to play through at harder difficulties.

With Fighters I try to beat them on default, and then after that play them always on hardest difficulty so that I'm just attempting to get better at the game, even if I don't win matches.

I tend to play games on the default too, but what do you do if the default selected option is "easy" because it is listed first and there's also a mode called "normal" that isn't selected by default? Isn't "normal" really meant to be the "default" in those cases?

[noiseredux]

I tend to play games on the default too, but what do you do if the default selected option is "easy" because it is listed first and there's also a mode called "normal" that isn't selected by default? Isn't "normal" really meant to be the "default" in those cases?

just depends. But I Get what you're saying: the word "normal" kind of means it should have been the default setting.

But like right now I'm playing through Sonic Racing. The default is Beginner, then there's um... Advanced and Expert (I think?) after that. So yeah, I'm playing through Beginner trying to get 1st place in every cup. And I'll call the game beaten after that, knowing that I'll later want to beat it on the next difficulty levels as well.

[alienjesus]

Super Mario 3D Land 3DS
Professor Layton & The Spectre's Call DS
Trip World 3DS VC
Streetpass Quest II 3DS
Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse - Episode 301: The Penal Zone PC
Kirby's Fun Pak VC
Golden Axe Warrior SMS
Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse - Episode 302: The Tomb of Sammun-Mak PC
Ax Battler: The Legend of Golden Axe Game Gear
Gitaroo Man Lives! PSP
Panzer Dragoon Saga Demo Saturn
Asterix SMS
Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse - Episode 303: They Stole Max's Brain! PC
Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure DS
Picross DS DS
Half Minute Hero PSP
Soul Calibur Dreamcast
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Trials & Tribulations DS
StarTropics VC
Faselei! NGPC
Ninja Commando VC *NEW*
Wario Land II Game Boy *NEW*
Total: 22

OK, NOW I'm at 22

Ninja Commando is a fun game for Neo Geo, featuring a multi-national team of ninjas out to stop the evil mars corporation from global domination. It's a run 'n' gun shooter in the ikari warriors style, with your heroes running up the screen destroying everything in sight. It's pretty ridiculous, featuring time travel, magic, explosions galore, armoured tanks being destroyed by flaming arrows, robot dinosaurs, samurai warriors who transform into dragons, and god knows what else. Each level of the game is set in a different historical period and country, including what I assume is the Japanese civil war, ancient Egypt, prehistoric times, the Chinese civil war and WW2 Europe. They feature all sorts of crazy enemies who are meant to be Mars Corporations men dressed as people from these time periods. I had a slight uneasy feeling when I realised I had a American ninja, a British ninja and a Japanese ninja running through WW2 shooting soldiers in Europe....which side was I shooting? The story is made even more ridiculous by the terrible translation. 'WE MUST STOP HIM LIGHT NOW' 'YOU HAVE SAVED HISTORY FROM ENEMY'.
Your ninjas are armed with standard weapons, some magic spells which require complex commands to pull off (one character's attack requires you to press up, downleft, downright, up left, up right, down and attack to pull off), a screen clearing move which slices a chunk off your health and finally an animal transformation when you find enough ninja scrolls that makes you very powerful and invincible temporarily. The ninjas feel pretty different to play as, and have different spells, but I honestly found that anyone besides Rayar, the British girl to be pretty weak by the last level (weird that the girl was the power character!) . Overall it was very enjoyable for a quick romp, but it sometimes feels a little cheap or unfair, mainly on bosses. The boss rush on the last level was absolutely horrible. That said, definitely good for some mindless fun.

Wario Land II is a game I didn't enjoy much. Don't get me wrong - there's no problems with the gameplay in general, the game is long, it features multiple paths through, and some interesting puzzle gameplay every now and then - it's technically a decent game. What it also is, is incredibly, incredibly boring. Wario moves very slowly, and the infinite health of the game (you only lose money when hit) makes enemies very little concern. The platforming is unremarkable (and you cant die from it anyway) and the game overstays its welcome with 25 levels to play through before the end. The game has alternate paths which could increase its replayability, but for me, once was enough anyway. I enjoyed the puzzle gameplay over the platforming, which as I have already said, felt pointless with infinite health and no death, but there were problems there too. First of all, puzzle sections were fairly uncommon, even though to me it seemed like they should've been the primary focus of a game like this. Secondly, warios transformations rely on being hit by certain enemies to get set on fire, become fat, flat, thin, a zombie and more. However, when you first encounter these enemies, theres no real way to tell if they give you a transformation or just hurt you, making you lose your coins. For that reason, I often found myself killing enemies I needed for puzzles, or letting myself get hit by enemies who hurt me because I thought they would be beneficial. Overall, a very disappointing game. I wonder how I'd feel about the rest of the series (wario land 1, and wario land 3). I love shake dimension and like virtual boy wario land, and wario land 4 I dont feel much for either way. It's a very hit and miss series. I hear 1 is more like VB Wario Land and 3 more like WL2.