Games Beaten 2024
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TheSSNintendo
- 128-bit
- Posts: 615
- Joined: Mon Jul 11, 2011 10:27 pm
Re: Games Beaten 2024
And just finished The Last of Us Part II (PS4)
Re: Games Beaten 2024
Just finished Liminal Gallery, a short first-person puzzle game HEAVILY inspired by the excellent Viewfinder, in that both use a mechanic that involves bringing 2D images, such as photographs, to life in the 3D world, usually to reach goals unreachable otherwise.
Like I said, it's really short (10-15 minutes) and lacks many of the other excellent features Viewfinder has, such as being auto photocopy images, perception-based puzzles and so on.
Like I said, it's really short (10-15 minutes) and lacks many of the other excellent features Viewfinder has, such as being auto photocopy images, perception-based puzzles and so on.
Re: Games Beaten 2024
Not even a half hour later and yours truly beats another excellent short first-person puzzle game, this time going after Superliminal PSX, a demake of sorts of the excellent Superliminal with a low-poly early PSX-style aesthetic. But while it uses it's inspiration's use of forced perspective, portals, projections and duplication, that's where the resemblance ends.
But since it was made for a game jam, who knows? It might get expanded into a fuller experience. Especially since it's open source.
But since it was made for a game jam, who knows? It might get expanded into a fuller experience. Especially since it's open source.
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RobertAugustdeMeijer
- 32-bit
- Posts: 201
- Joined: Fri Sep 02, 2022 10:15 am
Re: Games Beaten 2024
01: Monster Hunter Rise
Still too much time spent in menus for my liking, and the enemies could have used more attacks, but otherwise enough experimentation possible to make it worth my time.
6/10
02: Age of Empires II
Because it's so easy to understand what buildings/units do, this is probably a great starting point for folks new to RTS's. It has pretty much everything you'd hope from the genre, but I prefer the armies and fluidity of StarCraft II.
7/10
03: The Last of Us
Stupid, schizophrenic, and pretentious. The mechanics are lacklustre in scope, and inhibit the game's narrative more than it supports it.
1/10
04: Spelunky HD
Having to start over and over as a mechanic does not gel well with exploration. But you can't help but admire how everything works together as a system, offering the suspense of a great platformer and the ingenuity of an immersive sim.
8/10
05: GoldenEye 007
It's fun to see how the developers went all out to simulate Bond movies. Bad level design, stupid AI, horrible controls, and confusing objectives make this a slog to play, but what a sight to behold!
04/10
06: Injustice 2
Compared to anime fighters, this one plays stiff and defensive. But it still has everything a good fighting game has. Really stupid story and edgy dark aesthetic put me off.
05/10
07: BioShock
15 years ago I gave it a shot and figured I might was well watch a Let's Play. Now that I've beaten it, yups, the combat options expand but never make a fight exciting. Really cool setting that, however, mostly only makes a good first impression.
6/10
08: Infernax
Way more than a remake of Castlevania II. The multiple characters and story options make it interesting, while the combat is an old-school good time. Ultimately, rather dumb, but gruesome without reservation.
7/10
09: Storyteller
The decade old demo was mind-blowing, so this might be a bit disappointing. Still, pretty clever, occasionally funny, and most of all, very original. It still has me wondering if this could be expanded into something greater!
7/10
10: Sega Rally Championship
Fairly unique premise, as you have to ride four races after another fast enough to win. Has way more depth to it than say, OutRun. But it's no Richard Burns Rally, either. I wish it had the pizazz of Daytona USA.
6/10
Still too much time spent in menus for my liking, and the enemies could have used more attacks, but otherwise enough experimentation possible to make it worth my time.
6/10
02: Age of Empires II
Because it's so easy to understand what buildings/units do, this is probably a great starting point for folks new to RTS's. It has pretty much everything you'd hope from the genre, but I prefer the armies and fluidity of StarCraft II.
7/10
03: The Last of Us
Stupid, schizophrenic, and pretentious. The mechanics are lacklustre in scope, and inhibit the game's narrative more than it supports it.
1/10
04: Spelunky HD
Having to start over and over as a mechanic does not gel well with exploration. But you can't help but admire how everything works together as a system, offering the suspense of a great platformer and the ingenuity of an immersive sim.
8/10
05: GoldenEye 007
It's fun to see how the developers went all out to simulate Bond movies. Bad level design, stupid AI, horrible controls, and confusing objectives make this a slog to play, but what a sight to behold!
04/10
06: Injustice 2
Compared to anime fighters, this one plays stiff and defensive. But it still has everything a good fighting game has. Really stupid story and edgy dark aesthetic put me off.
05/10
07: BioShock
15 years ago I gave it a shot and figured I might was well watch a Let's Play. Now that I've beaten it, yups, the combat options expand but never make a fight exciting. Really cool setting that, however, mostly only makes a good first impression.
6/10
08: Infernax
Way more than a remake of Castlevania II. The multiple characters and story options make it interesting, while the combat is an old-school good time. Ultimately, rather dumb, but gruesome without reservation.
7/10
09: Storyteller
The decade old demo was mind-blowing, so this might be a bit disappointing. Still, pretty clever, occasionally funny, and most of all, very original. It still has me wondering if this could be expanded into something greater!
7/10
10: Sega Rally Championship
Fairly unique premise, as you have to ride four races after another fast enough to win. Has way more depth to it than say, OutRun. But it's no Richard Burns Rally, either. I wish it had the pizazz of Daytona USA.
6/10
Re: Games Beaten 2024
...I finished A Short Hike not too long ago, it was a quick little play through. I didn't do everything, but I still had a good time with it. Shorter games like this or Donut Country make for a nice lighthearted diversion from more serious and involved games.
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PartridgeSenpai
- Next-Gen
- Posts: 3074
- Joined: Mon Dec 14, 2015 9:27 am
- Location: Northern Japan
Re: Games Beaten 2024
Partridge Senpai's 2023 Beaten Games:
Previously: 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023
* indicates a repeat
1. Terranigma (SFC)
2. Eastward (PC)
3. Pulse (PC)
4. Lost Ruins (PC)
5. Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion (PC)
6. Dropsy (PC)
7. Call of Juarez Gunslinger (PC)
8. Pokemon Ruby (GBA) *
9. Secret of Mana (SFC)
10. Fire Watch (PC)
11. Bokura (PC)
12. Romancing SaGa (SFC)
13. Trials of Mana (SFC)
14. Castlevania Legends (GB)
15. SaGa 2 (GB)
It was almost a year ago that I played through the original SaGa on the Switch trilogy collection like this. I wasn’t exactly not enjoying my time with the first hour or so I dipped into SaGa 2 at the time, but I was just too burned out on SaGa to play any more of it at the time. With my recently playing through Romancing SaGa, I felt it was high time I fill the gap in my play history and experience the game that came between the two. It took me roughly 30~35 hours (my best guess) over the course of a week to play through the Japanese version of the game via the Switch collection without using the speed up features the collection provides.
Like with SaGa 1, the second game’s premise is one of gods and legends. Long, long ago, the gods scattered seventy-seven hidden treasures throughout the world (MAGI in English). They were objects of great power, and it was said that whomever collected them all would become the new god of the world. Many have tried throughout the ages, but none have succeeded. The opening of the game finds you, the main character, asleep in your room until you’re suddenly awakened by your father. He gives you one of the hidden treasures and leaps out the window into the night, on a journey he never returns from. Flashing forward a good few years, you decide to pick three of your closest friends and leave your tiny village on a quest to find your long lost father and see just what is it he’s been getting up to all these years.
Even after playing through the Last Bible GameBoy games a couple years back, I am still routinely surprised at the length and quality of RPG stories on this console. While it’s hardly something textually to rival 16-bit contemporaries, SaGa 2 is quite a competently done little RPG that feels like it’d be right at home on an 8-bit console. The dialogue writing is funny and clever, and the story paints an interesting and engaging picture of the dangerous effects of self-interested leaders and the damaging effects they can have on the world. Even though your four player characters are just generated by you, the little quips and story beats surrounding especially the main character were ones I found very fun, and this game is definitely more than just its mechanics (as I’ve always viewed this series to be).
On the topic of that created party, just like in the first SaGa, you create a party of four adventurers to go out and save the world. Also like in the last game, you have several races with very similar functions: Humans (who are the all-rounders of the game and excel in physical weapons), Espers (who are similar to humans but learn spells), Monsters (who don’t have natural stat growths and instead change into defeated enemies by consuming their meat after battle), and the new addition of Robots (who also lack natural stat growths and instead have their stats defined by the equipment they’re presently carrying). Monsters are still of dubious usefulness, and that was reflected in my party choice of two Espers, a Human, and a Robot, but Robots are a neat and interesting new choice as physical weapon users.
However, though the pieces you have to play with seem very similar, the actual implementation of these systems is *drastically* improved. Just about all weapons still have weapon durability, sure, but no longer do Humans only stat-up by using items bought in stores, and no longer are Espers’ power levels subject to random stat growths and reductions. Instead, Humans and Espers now always have a chance after battle to have their max HP increase, and their strength, defense, speed, and magic power have a chance to increase based on the weapon(s)/move(s) they used in battle. Using a speed-focused weapon has a chance to raise your speed, using a spell has a chance to increase your magic power, and so on. Using higher value weapons against higher powered targets gets you a better chance to level, so if you do like I did and grind exclusively against wimpy enemies, your final play time will likely look a lot like mine XD. Additionally, Espers no longer randomly lose and gain *any* spell like they used to either. Now it’s always the bottom spell on their list that’s replaced, and they always tell you when the spell is replaced as well, so you no longer need to constantly check your Espers’ stats and spell list after every single random battle like you had to in the first game.
However, even if you don’t play it safe and grind like I did (I reckon I did like 15-ish total hours of grinding), the way stat growths work is still decidedly imperfect. Battles tend to be quite short, so each character will likely get one turn, if that, and so you’ll likely be focusing on one stat at a time whether you intend to or not. This means that characters who happen to be slower (like my male Esper party member) will likely end up significantly weaker than their peers who happen to go first, and that’s especially true with just how dominant magic once again is through the first half or so of the game. Speed is also essential to win these rocket-tag battles (bosses and otherwise), and going back to grind in a safe place for speed and/or magic power will almost certainly be a part of your playthrough as it was in mine.
While the basic quality of life features have been improved *massively* compared to the first SaGa, just how non-linear and imperfect an experience grinding can be is nonetheless still quite frustrating, and I wouldn’t blame anyone for calling SaGa 2 crushingly boring at times as a result. It’s something that comes with the territory for lots of these old 8-bit RPGs, and it’s something that is something you just need to have to accept you’ll have to deal with upon starting this game. It’s something I certainly appreciate Romancing SaGa’s stat growth systems much more after experiencing, for sure, but while I didn’t exactly have a bad time with this game (as the grinding is mindless and simple enough that it made for a fine background activity while doing other stuff), this isn’t exactly a quick and breezy time I’d see myself playing through again any time soon.
The aesthetics are very much like SaGa 1’s, but they’re still very nice. Background effects in environments are very nice, and the monster sprites in particular are incredibly charming. I can’t begin to count how many times I took a screenshot of a remarkably goofy looking enemy and sent it to my friends to giggle about how great and/or weird they looked x3. Something else not to be overlooked is the music. Though there aren’t terribly many music tracks in this game, the tracks that are here are really good (with the final boss’s theme being a stand-out favorite I immediately shared with several friends~). SquareSoft once again shows why they were some of the best in the business by saving new and more dynamic tracks for when they’ll have the most impact.
Verdict: Hesitantly Recommended. As far as 8-bit RPGs go, this is probably near the top of the pile as far as base enjoyability goes. Sure, it does have some pretty bad grinding problems, but given how many common problems of 8-bit RPGs (such as a love for instant-death magic) that this game lacks, this is a much easier game to recommend than most from its era. If you’re interested in something a bit out of the ordinary and don’t mind some turn-based RPG grinding, then this is a great game to spend your time with. However, if you’re someone who prefers a more straightforward RPG experience and doesn’t have much patience for grinding, then this game is definitely not going to be the one to make a believer out of you ^^;.
Previously: 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023
* indicates a repeat
1. Terranigma (SFC)
2. Eastward (PC)
3. Pulse (PC)
4. Lost Ruins (PC)
5. Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion (PC)
6. Dropsy (PC)
7. Call of Juarez Gunslinger (PC)
8. Pokemon Ruby (GBA) *
9. Secret of Mana (SFC)
10. Fire Watch (PC)
11. Bokura (PC)
12. Romancing SaGa (SFC)
13. Trials of Mana (SFC)
14. Castlevania Legends (GB)
15. SaGa 2 (GB)
It was almost a year ago that I played through the original SaGa on the Switch trilogy collection like this. I wasn’t exactly not enjoying my time with the first hour or so I dipped into SaGa 2 at the time, but I was just too burned out on SaGa to play any more of it at the time. With my recently playing through Romancing SaGa, I felt it was high time I fill the gap in my play history and experience the game that came between the two. It took me roughly 30~35 hours (my best guess) over the course of a week to play through the Japanese version of the game via the Switch collection without using the speed up features the collection provides.
Like with SaGa 1, the second game’s premise is one of gods and legends. Long, long ago, the gods scattered seventy-seven hidden treasures throughout the world (MAGI in English). They were objects of great power, and it was said that whomever collected them all would become the new god of the world. Many have tried throughout the ages, but none have succeeded. The opening of the game finds you, the main character, asleep in your room until you’re suddenly awakened by your father. He gives you one of the hidden treasures and leaps out the window into the night, on a journey he never returns from. Flashing forward a good few years, you decide to pick three of your closest friends and leave your tiny village on a quest to find your long lost father and see just what is it he’s been getting up to all these years.
Even after playing through the Last Bible GameBoy games a couple years back, I am still routinely surprised at the length and quality of RPG stories on this console. While it’s hardly something textually to rival 16-bit contemporaries, SaGa 2 is quite a competently done little RPG that feels like it’d be right at home on an 8-bit console. The dialogue writing is funny and clever, and the story paints an interesting and engaging picture of the dangerous effects of self-interested leaders and the damaging effects they can have on the world. Even though your four player characters are just generated by you, the little quips and story beats surrounding especially the main character were ones I found very fun, and this game is definitely more than just its mechanics (as I’ve always viewed this series to be).
On the topic of that created party, just like in the first SaGa, you create a party of four adventurers to go out and save the world. Also like in the last game, you have several races with very similar functions: Humans (who are the all-rounders of the game and excel in physical weapons), Espers (who are similar to humans but learn spells), Monsters (who don’t have natural stat growths and instead change into defeated enemies by consuming their meat after battle), and the new addition of Robots (who also lack natural stat growths and instead have their stats defined by the equipment they’re presently carrying). Monsters are still of dubious usefulness, and that was reflected in my party choice of two Espers, a Human, and a Robot, but Robots are a neat and interesting new choice as physical weapon users.
However, though the pieces you have to play with seem very similar, the actual implementation of these systems is *drastically* improved. Just about all weapons still have weapon durability, sure, but no longer do Humans only stat-up by using items bought in stores, and no longer are Espers’ power levels subject to random stat growths and reductions. Instead, Humans and Espers now always have a chance after battle to have their max HP increase, and their strength, defense, speed, and magic power have a chance to increase based on the weapon(s)/move(s) they used in battle. Using a speed-focused weapon has a chance to raise your speed, using a spell has a chance to increase your magic power, and so on. Using higher value weapons against higher powered targets gets you a better chance to level, so if you do like I did and grind exclusively against wimpy enemies, your final play time will likely look a lot like mine XD. Additionally, Espers no longer randomly lose and gain *any* spell like they used to either. Now it’s always the bottom spell on their list that’s replaced, and they always tell you when the spell is replaced as well, so you no longer need to constantly check your Espers’ stats and spell list after every single random battle like you had to in the first game.
However, even if you don’t play it safe and grind like I did (I reckon I did like 15-ish total hours of grinding), the way stat growths work is still decidedly imperfect. Battles tend to be quite short, so each character will likely get one turn, if that, and so you’ll likely be focusing on one stat at a time whether you intend to or not. This means that characters who happen to be slower (like my male Esper party member) will likely end up significantly weaker than their peers who happen to go first, and that’s especially true with just how dominant magic once again is through the first half or so of the game. Speed is also essential to win these rocket-tag battles (bosses and otherwise), and going back to grind in a safe place for speed and/or magic power will almost certainly be a part of your playthrough as it was in mine.
While the basic quality of life features have been improved *massively* compared to the first SaGa, just how non-linear and imperfect an experience grinding can be is nonetheless still quite frustrating, and I wouldn’t blame anyone for calling SaGa 2 crushingly boring at times as a result. It’s something that comes with the territory for lots of these old 8-bit RPGs, and it’s something that is something you just need to have to accept you’ll have to deal with upon starting this game. It’s something I certainly appreciate Romancing SaGa’s stat growth systems much more after experiencing, for sure, but while I didn’t exactly have a bad time with this game (as the grinding is mindless and simple enough that it made for a fine background activity while doing other stuff), this isn’t exactly a quick and breezy time I’d see myself playing through again any time soon.
The aesthetics are very much like SaGa 1’s, but they’re still very nice. Background effects in environments are very nice, and the monster sprites in particular are incredibly charming. I can’t begin to count how many times I took a screenshot of a remarkably goofy looking enemy and sent it to my friends to giggle about how great and/or weird they looked x3. Something else not to be overlooked is the music. Though there aren’t terribly many music tracks in this game, the tracks that are here are really good (with the final boss’s theme being a stand-out favorite I immediately shared with several friends~). SquareSoft once again shows why they were some of the best in the business by saving new and more dynamic tracks for when they’ll have the most impact.
Verdict: Hesitantly Recommended. As far as 8-bit RPGs go, this is probably near the top of the pile as far as base enjoyability goes. Sure, it does have some pretty bad grinding problems, but given how many common problems of 8-bit RPGs (such as a love for instant-death magic) that this game lacks, this is a much easier game to recommend than most from its era. If you’re interested in something a bit out of the ordinary and don’t mind some turn-based RPG grinding, then this is a great game to spend your time with. However, if you’re someone who prefers a more straightforward RPG experience and doesn’t have much patience for grinding, then this game is definitely not going to be the one to make a believer out of you ^^;.
I identify everyone via avatar, so if you change your avatar, I genuinely might completely forget who you are. -- Me
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Markies
- Next-Gen
- Posts: 1522
- Joined: Fri Mar 27, 2015 4:29 pm
- Location: St. Louis, Missouri
- Contact:
Re: Games Beaten 2024
Markies' Games Beat List Of 2024!
***Denotes Replay For Completion***
1. Mario Kart Wii (Wii)
2. Jackal (NES)
***3. Evolution: The World Of Sacred Device (SDC)***
4. Skies Of Arcadia Legends (GCN)
I completed Skies of Arcadia Legends on the Nintendo GameCube this evening!
Back in 2017, I played through the original Skies of Arcadia on the DreamCast. Not only was it my favorite game that I played that year, but it is also my favorite DreamCast game of all time. I actually replayed it again a few years later to get everything that I had missed. When I had played through the game, a friend of mine played through the GameCube copy and I was always jealous of his copy. When game prices finally began to fall last year, I jumped at the price at picking up a reasonably priced copy. Well, the Fortune Cookie decided that I should play through the game again this year and this time I decided to collect everything all in one go. After more than a month, I finally finished everything in Skies of Arcadia Legends.
Skies of Arcadia Legends takes everything great about the original game and just adds on top of it. Apparently, this has been called the "Director's Cut" and it feels like that. It is just the original game with extras added on. They do nothing to change the original game as the high encounter rate is still present. However, you do gain experience and magic faster. They added a couple of new side quests and fights to add a bit more difficulty near the end. It's amazing to play a Remake nowadays that only adds positives to the game without it feeling bloated or even taking away what made the original game so great. With the new stuff out of the way, Skies of Arcadia feels like a love letter to the classic JRPG. It feels like a game developed by people who loved RPG's in the 16 Bit Era and this is the final bookend to that type of game. Sure, some other games came afterwards in that style, but this kind of feels like the end of an era and an entire genre crystalized into a perfect game. Skies of Arcadia is one of my favorite games of all time and replaying just reinforced everything about it and made the purchase worth every single penny.
Overall, obviously, I absolutely loved Skies of Arcadia Legends. The original DreamCast still has that initial joy of playing it, so I don't know if it will ever be topped. But, for a better game, Skies of Arcadia Legends has it all. Since I loved the game so much, I am glad that I got to play both versions. But, whatever version you decide to play, each of them is an amazing game. If you like RPG's, this is one of the best ones ever made!
***Denotes Replay For Completion***
1. Mario Kart Wii (Wii)
2. Jackal (NES)
***3. Evolution: The World Of Sacred Device (SDC)***
4. Skies Of Arcadia Legends (GCN)
I completed Skies of Arcadia Legends on the Nintendo GameCube this evening!
Back in 2017, I played through the original Skies of Arcadia on the DreamCast. Not only was it my favorite game that I played that year, but it is also my favorite DreamCast game of all time. I actually replayed it again a few years later to get everything that I had missed. When I had played through the game, a friend of mine played through the GameCube copy and I was always jealous of his copy. When game prices finally began to fall last year, I jumped at the price at picking up a reasonably priced copy. Well, the Fortune Cookie decided that I should play through the game again this year and this time I decided to collect everything all in one go. After more than a month, I finally finished everything in Skies of Arcadia Legends.
Skies of Arcadia Legends takes everything great about the original game and just adds on top of it. Apparently, this has been called the "Director's Cut" and it feels like that. It is just the original game with extras added on. They do nothing to change the original game as the high encounter rate is still present. However, you do gain experience and magic faster. They added a couple of new side quests and fights to add a bit more difficulty near the end. It's amazing to play a Remake nowadays that only adds positives to the game without it feeling bloated or even taking away what made the original game so great. With the new stuff out of the way, Skies of Arcadia feels like a love letter to the classic JRPG. It feels like a game developed by people who loved RPG's in the 16 Bit Era and this is the final bookend to that type of game. Sure, some other games came afterwards in that style, but this kind of feels like the end of an era and an entire genre crystalized into a perfect game. Skies of Arcadia is one of my favorite games of all time and replaying just reinforced everything about it and made the purchase worth every single penny.
Overall, obviously, I absolutely loved Skies of Arcadia Legends. The original DreamCast still has that initial joy of playing it, so I don't know if it will ever be topped. But, for a better game, Skies of Arcadia Legends has it all. Since I loved the game so much, I am glad that I got to play both versions. But, whatever version you decide to play, each of them is an amazing game. If you like RPG's, this is one of the best ones ever made!
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RobertAugustdeMeijer
- 32-bit
- Posts: 201
- Joined: Fri Sep 02, 2022 10:15 am
Re: Games Beaten 2024
Syndicate wrote:...I finished A Short Hike not too long ago, it was a quick little play through. I didn't do everything, but I still had a good time with it. Shorter games like this or Donut Country make for a nice lighthearted diversion from more serious and involved games.
It's also a great game to play with your lover <3
Re: Games Beaten 2024
Systems: TI-99/4a, Commodore Vic-20, Atari 2600, NES, SMS, GB, Neo Geo MVS (Big Red 4-slot), Genesis, SNES, 3DO, PS1, N64, DC, PS2, GBA, GCN, NDSi, Wii
Re: Games Beaten 2024
Just beat Uncharted 4 on PS5, though I actually started it on the original PS4 release. Now I'm salty about there not being an Uncharted 5.