Games Beaten 2020

[MrPopo]

But if you're up by 9 am, turn in at 10pm, then with meals that's a good 12 hours a day of video games.

[pook99]

@ack: nice review of strangers wrath, that is a game that I have been meaning to play forever and didnt really know what to expect from it

[Note]

This is where I'm at. Love the game, but have never committed to it fully. Perhaps now is the time!

Now is definitely the time! I was motivated earlier this year to try to finish a bunch of games I played through most of but never completed, which is a ton of games for me. But especially now so, due to the extra time on our hands.

I'm also in the same position with Super Metroid. I've gone through about 80% of the game maybe five times and never finished it. I tend to get frustrated towards the end of the game because I have issues executing some of the jump maneuvers to get to necessary areas.

[BoneSnapDeez]

I beat it. Didn't like it as much as I was hoping; some of the final stages were frankly quite annoying and very much predicated on trial-and-error with all the instadeath spike traps and whatnot. The Dracula fight sucked balls too, though the two preceding bosses were pretty cool and authentically challenging. In my usual fashion, I'll write a longer review later.

[prfsnl_gmr]

1. Her Story (iOS)
2. Elminage Original (3DS)
3. Legend of Grimrock (iOS)
4. Silent Bomber (PS1)
5. Crash Bandicoot (PS1)
6. Bust-a-Move 2 Arcade Edition (PS1)
7. Transformers Cybertron Adventures (Wii)
8. Squidlit (Switch)
9. Sydney Hunter & The Curse of the Mayan (Switch)
10. Mega Man Legends (PS1)
11. Revenge of the Bird King (Switch)
12. Blossom Tales: The Sleeping King (Switch)
13. Gato Roboto (Switch)
14. Kamiko (Switch)
15. Night Slashers (Arcade)
16. Subsurface Circular (Switch)
17. Iconoclasts (Switch)
18. Wonder Boy Returns Remix (Switch)

Are you someone who insists on beating every Wonder Boy game regardless of quality? Then Wonder Boy Returns Remix is just the game for you! It’s literally just Wonder Boy with slightly less repetitive music and a graphical overhaul that makes it look like a F2P cell phone game from 2011. OK...there are a few minor changes...you can now charge up a more powerful attack that can break rocks and boulders, you can see further horizontally due to the game’s widescreen aspect ratio, and, oddly, ice is no longer slippery. Oh yeah, all of the secrets have been removed, and you don’t have to beat the game in one sitting anymore. (You can also play as Tanya, TomTom’s girlfriend, but she plays exactly the same as TomTom.) So...what you end up with is a significantly less challenging, slightly less compelling version of Wonder Boy that looks like a F2P cell phone game from nearly a decade ago. The original game wasn’t exactly renowned for its varied levels, however, and if there’s one thing this game nails perfectly, it’s all of the original game’s monotony. The game costs $15 in the eShop, but I bought it on sale for $9. Still, I feel ripped off, and while Wonder Boy III: Monster Lair will always be the worst Wonder Boy game, Wonder Boy Returns Remix gives it a run for its money. Not recommended.

[PartridgeSenpai]

Partridge Senpai's 2020 Beaten Games:
Previously: 2016 2017 2018 2019
* indicates a repeat

1. Invisigun Reloaded (Switch)
2. Human: Fall Flat (Switch)
3. Shantae: The Pirate's Curse (3DS)
4. Darksiders: Warmastered Edition (PC)
5. Splatterhouse (PS3) *
6. 3D Dot Game Heroes (PS3)
7. Tokyo Jungle (PS3)
8. Pictobits (DSiWare)
9. Puzzle Quest: The Legend Reborn (Switch)
10. WarioWare Gold (3DS)
11. Disaster: Day of Crisis (Wii)
12. Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition (Xbone)
13. Sleeping Dogs: Nightmare in North Point (Xbone)
14. Sleeping Dogs: Year of the Snake (Xbone)
15. Dynamite Headdy (Genesis) *
16. Shovel Knight: King of Cards (3DS)
17. Shovel Knight: Shovel of Hope (3DS) *
18. Shovel Knight: Plague of Shadows (Switch) *
19. Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment (Switch) *
20. Shovel Knight: Showdown (Switch)
21. Dragon Quest Builders 2 (PS4)
22. ActRaiser (SNES)
23. Castlevania: The Adventure ReBirth (WiiWare)
24. Mega Man X (SNES)
25. Breath of Fire II (SNES)
26. Ape Escape 2 (PS2) *
27. Doubutsu No Mori+ (GC)

28. Ape Escape (PS1)

As much as I love the 2nd and 3rd Ape Escape games, I couldn't remember if I'd ever played the first one, let alone beaten it. Having played through it in Japanese now, I can say quite confidently I had never played it before XD. It is simultaneously quite surprising how similar it is to Ape Escape 2 and also shocking just what an improvement the sequel is by comparison despite how little overall is changed. It took me like 8 or 9 hours in total to get all of the Specter Coins and all of the monkeys.

Story-wise, Ape Escape 1 is much more grounded than its sequels. There's a big monkey park run by The Professor, and one day their star attraction monkey gets his little hands on one of the experimental new Monkey Helmets. It corrupts his mind and gives him super smarts and telekinetic powers which he then uses to build monkey helmets for all his monkey buddies. Now dubbed Specter, he attacks the Professor's lab, and uses his time machine to go back in time and rewrite history to make monkeys in charge of the world instead of humans. It's up to our intrepid boy hero Kakeru to catch all those monkeys messing up history and stop him!

I say it's more grounded, but that's mostly in terms of the locations and the villains, as the Freaky Monkey Five are an invention of the sequel. Your main rival here is your childhood friend Hiroki, whom Specter has brainwashed into being his servant, and even then the rivalry isn't that present up until your final encounter. You could also say the story has somewhat of a point of strength not being about power (and by extension, technology), and technology itself being a potentially horribly corrupting influence, as is at least implied to be the case with Specter's relation to his original monkey helmet. Regardless, it's a 3D action platformer from late-ish in the PS1's lifespan, so the plot isn't really the most interesting thing here.

The most interesting thing is capturing those monkeys, and the game does a pretty good job of that. This is the only game I know of on the PS1 that outright requires the dualshock controller to work, and was clearly developed as a vehicle to convince people Sony's new controller was worth the upgrade. The D-pad handles camera direction and the face buttons change your weapons. Movement is handled by the left joystick and your attacking is done by the right joystick. Compared to the sequels, it takes a bit of getting used to with how you attack, as there isn't any tracking in how you swing your baton or your net. This does have the effect of making the baton a far more useful weapon, as trying to catch a feeling monkey with just the next is far harder to do with how much slower and less accurate your net is in this game.

Other than that, the overall formula of the game is really similar to how the mainline games would go on to do. You start a mission, you gotta collect so many monkeys in order to pass it. There are some slight differences such as there being hidden Specter Coins in each stage to also collect, but they're just an extra thing to collect to unlock some extra mini-games. Other than that, it's just Ape Escape on PS1.

However, being Ape Escape on PS1 DOES carry with it some unfortunately conditions. The game has a pretty poor draw distance which can make navigating some levels a bit of a pain when you're hunting for monkeys (even with your monkey radar). Even worse, some levels have really significant slowdown, and it makes the already somewhat clunky/awkward controls even worse by affecting the latency (especially for jumps). I was beginning to think my controller was broken because the button delay was so bad for jumping, but no. That's just the slowdown. That slowdown is the main reason I would say this game might be difficult to stick with for fans of the PS2 games like I was. However, it's not all bad. The game looks quite good for a PS1 game, even despite the low polygon count. The music is also good, and I'd say even better than the sequels, as well as the VA being excellent as well (at least in Japanese).

Verdict: Recommended. Somewhat clunky controls and fairly annoying slowdown aside, this is still an excellent game. Good music, good gimmick, good level design. It's all things that are improved in the later games, but they're still really solid here as well. If you're a fan of the series or a fan of 3D platformers in general, you can certainly do better than the first Ape Escape game, but you can easily do a lot worse as well.

[prfsnl_gmr]

Partridge Senpai's 2020 Beaten Games:
Previously: 2016 2017 2018 2019
* indicates a repeat

1. Invisigun Reloaded (Switch)
2. Human: Fall Flat (Switch)
3. Shantae: The Pirate's Curse (3DS)
4. Darksiders: Warmastered Edition (PC)
5. Splatterhouse (PS3) *
6. 3D Dot Game Heroes (PS3)
7. Tokyo Jungle (PS3)
8. Pictobits (DSiWare)
9. Puzzle Quest: The Legend Reborn (Switch)
10. WarioWare Gold (3DS)
11. Disaster: Day of Crisis (Wii)
12. Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition (Xbone)
13. Sleeping Dogs: Nightmare in North Point (Xbone)
14. Sleeping Dogs: Year of the Snake (Xbone)
15. Dynamite Headdy (Genesis) *
16. Shovel Knight: King of Cards (3DS)
17. Shovel Knight: Shovel of Hope (3DS) *
18. Shovel Knight: Plague of Shadows (Switch) *
19. Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment (Switch) *
20. Shovel Knight: Showdown (Switch)
21. Dragon Quest Builders 2 (PS4)
22. ActRaiser (SNES)
23. Castlevania: The Adventure ReBirth (WiiWare)
24. Mega Man X (SNES)
25. Breath of Fire II (SNES)
26. Ape Escape 2 (PS2) *
27. Doubutsu No Mori+ (GC)

28. Ape Escape (PS1)

As much as I love the 2nd and 3rd Ape Escape games, I couldn't remember if I'd ever played the first one, let alone beaten it. Having played through it in Japanese now, I can say quite confidently I had never played it before XD. It is simultaneously quite surprising how similar it is to Ape Escape 2 and also shocking just what an improvement the sequel is by comparison despite how little overall is changed. It took me like 8 or 9 hours in total to get all of the Specter Coins and all of the monkeys.

Story-wise, Ape Escape 1 is much more grounded than its sequels. There's a big monkey park run by The Professor, and one day their star attraction monkey gets his little hands on one of the experimental new Monkey Helmets. It corrupts his mind and gives him super smarts and telekinetic powers which he then uses to build monkey helmets for all his monkey buddies. Now dubbed Specter, he attacks the Professor's lab, and uses his time machine to go back in time and rewrite history to make monkeys in charge of the world instead of humans. It's up to our intrepid boy hero Kakeru to catch all those monkeys messing up history and stop him!

I say it's more grounded, but that's mostly in terms of the locations and the villains, as the Freaky Monkey Five are an invention of the sequel. Your main rival here is your childhood friend Hiroki, whom Specter has brainwashed into being his servant, and even then the rivalry isn't that present up until your final encounter. You could also say the story has somewhat of a point of strength not being about power (and by extension, technology), and technology itself being a potentially horribly corrupting influence, as is at least implied to be the case with Specter's relation to his original monkey helmet. Regardless, it's a 3D action platformer from late-ish in the PS1's lifespan, so the plot isn't really the most interesting thing here.

The most interesting thing is capturing those monkeys, and the game does a pretty good job of that. This is the only game I know of on the PS1 that outright requires the dualshock controller to work, and was clearly developed as a vehicle to convince people Sony's new controller was worth the upgrade. The D-pad handles camera direction and the face buttons change your weapons. Movement is handled by the left joystick and your attacking is done by the right joystick. Compared to the sequels, it takes a bit of getting used to with how you attack, as there isn't any tracking in how you swing your baton or your net. This does have the effect of making the baton a far more useful weapon, as trying to catch a feeling monkey with just the next is far harder to do with how much slower and less accurate your net is in this game.

Other than that, the overall formula of the game is really similar to how the mainline games would go on to do. You start a mission, you gotta collect so many monkeys in order to pass it. There are some slight differences such as there being hidden Specter Coins in each stage to also collect, but they're just an extra thing to collect to unlock some extra mini-games. Other than that, it's just Ape Escape on PS1.

However, being Ape Escape on PS1 DOES carry with it some unfortunately conditions. The game has a pretty poor draw distance which can make navigating some levels a bit of a pain when you're hunting for monkeys (even with your monkey radar). Even worse, some levels have really significant slowdown, and it makes the already somewhat clunky/awkward controls even worse by affecting the latency (especially for jumps). I was beginning to think my controller was broken because the button delay was so bad for jumping, but no. That's just the slowdown. That slowdown is the main reason I would say this game might be difficult to stick with for fans of the PS2 games like I was. However, it's not all bad. The game looks quite good for a PS1 game, even despite the low polygon count. The music is also good, and I'd say even better than the sequels, as well as the VA being excellent as well (at least in Japanese).

Verdict: Recommended. Somewhat clunky controls and fairly annoying slowdown aside, this is still an excellent game. Good music, good gimmick, good level design. It's all things that are improved in the later games, but they're still really solid here as well. If you're a fan of the series or a fan of 3D platformers in general, you can certainly do better than the first Ape Escape game, but you can easily do a lot worse as well.

Nice work with the Ape Escape series. I always really liked it, and I’m glad someone else here appreciates it too.

[PartridgeSenpai]

Nice work with the Ape Escape series. I always really liked it, and I’m glad someone else here appreciates it too.

Thanks! 2 and 3 were childhood favorites of mine, so it's been fun diving back into them and also taking a peek at other parts of the series when I can. I'm pretty sure there isn't any more Ape Escape stuff in the city though, so I'll have to keep an eye out for more of the spinoffs next time I'm visiting a friend in another town. I'm really kicking myself for not buying that copy of Piposaru 2001 when I spotted it in Akihabara back in November, that's for sure

[prfsnl_gmr]

It’s interesting. There’re a bunch of spin-off games, but I think that only the first three have the 3D platform gameplay that makes the series so compelling for me. With the exception of the PSP remake of the first game, the rest appear to be board games, party games, racing games, etc. Have you played any of those? I’ve not read much about them.

.....

1. Her Story (iOS)
2. Elminage Original (3DS)
3. Legend of Grimrock (iOS)
4. Silent Bomber (PS1)
5. Crash Bandicoot (PS1)
6. Bust-a-Move 2 Arcade Edition (PS1)
7. Transformers Cybertron Adventures (Wii)
8. Squidlit (Switch)
9. Sydney Hunter & The Curse of the Mayan (Switch)
10. Mega Man Legends (PS1)
11. Revenge of the Bird King (Switch)
12. Blossom Tales: The Sleeping King (Switch)
13. Gato Roboto (Switch)
14. Kamiko (Switch)
15. Night Slashers (Arcade)
16. Subsurface Circular (Switch)
17. Iconoclasts (Switch)
18. Wonder Boy Returns Remix (Switch)
19. Resident Evil 3 (PS1)

Resident Evil 3 is the last of the classic RE, survival horror games for the PS1, and while it’s title indicates that it’s a sequel, it really feels more like a side story (which, I believe, was the developer’s original intent). In it, you play as Jill Valentine, and you are working to escape Raccoon City during an outbreak of the T-virus and while being hunted by Nemesis, a mutant assassin sent by the Umbrella Corp. to exterminate the remaining members of S.T.A.R.S. (This sounds bad, but since Barry, Chris, and Jill all survive, it’s safe to say Nemesis fails miserably. ) The game plays just like its predecessors, but it leans a little more toward the action genre. There are way more enemies than in previous games. There are also recurring battles with Nemesis, and he will wreck you if you aren’t prepared for them. On “hard” mode this results in a lot of running and dodging, and the game is kind of a slog. (I played through the first third on hard.) On “easy” mode, though, you have some extra weapons, and the game is totally awesome. (I played all the way through the game on “easy” mode and loved it.) You’re blowing off zombie heads left and right, and you really get to enjoy the experience much more. (I once blew off four zombie heads with a single shotgun shell. AWESOME!!!) The game has only one scenario, but there it has a subtle and not-so-subtle “choose your own adventure” element, that changes the gameplay somewhat. Accordingly, the game still provides an incentive for multiple or branching playthroughs. The incentive isn’t that strong, though, and while I enjoyed the game, once is enough for me. Still, I enjoyed the game for what it is, and I won’t hesitate to recommend it to fans of classic survival horror.

[MrPopo]

while it’s title indicates that it’s a sequel, it really feels more like a side story (which, I believe, was the developer’s original intent).

Yeah, as I understand it Code Veronica was supposed to be RE 3.