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StarTopic The 2024 Completed Games Thread

12) Super Mario Land (GBA NSO): 7/10

I... don't remember it being that short haha. I think I had seen someone else describe this game as a fever dream and that's very apt. The soundtrack is absolutely bumpin' and the levels are visually different from other Mario games but in a cool way. The mechanics are a bit janky, but it does play very similar to how I remember.

Save states and rewinds were almost a must for this. I took a better approach to using those features this time around than when I played DKC. Instead of just rewinding at the slightest inconvenience, I created a save state at the beginning of each level and when very low on lives, allowed myself a little grace to use rewind on silly deaths or if I reached game over. In hindsight, it did make me realize I disliked my time with DKC more than I thought though given the amount of cheap deaths I had in that game

I'm not sure what I'll play next. Maybe jump back and finish Elden Ring? I'm like 80 hours in and have to be getting close. Would be nice to finish and then jump into the DLC at some point. Horizon Forbidden West is on my "to purchase" list but I don't know if I want to start a giant open world yet

1) Marvel's Spiderman (PC): 8.5/10
2) Jusant (PC Gamepass): 6.5/10
3) Splatoon 3 Story (Switch): 7.5/10
4) Bowser's Fury (Switch): 8.5/10
5) Cassette Beasts (PC Gamepass): 9/10
6) Pokemon Scarlett - Teal Mask DLC (Switch): 6.5/10
7) Hi-Fi Rush (PC Gamepass): 8.5/10
8) Donkey Kong Country (SNES NSO): 7/10 - retroactively changing from 7.5
9) Splatoon 3: Side Order (Switch): 9/10
10) Starfield (PC Gamepass): 9/10
11) Star Wars: Jedi Survivor (PC Gamepass): 9/10
12) Super Mario Land (GBA NSO): 7/10
 
Regulus Tera said:
10. Sonic Frontiers: The Final Horizon (1/5)

Piece of crap ass dogshit DLC. The worst thing Sonic Team has done since 2006, but whereas that had the excuse that the team making it had to be split to make Secret Rings and the lead developer left midway through, this has absolutely no justification. They actually made a very decent if flawed game into a worse experience.

The extra characters play like ass. If you bother unlocking their movesets, they break up the main gameplay conceit. Combat is still as bad as before but now the enemies require perfect parrying and have ridiculous levels of precision involved. The extra platforming challenges are poorly thought out, and can either be easily exploited or, in the case of Knuckles, have awful camera control. And the Sonic challenges go beyond just being hard into creating extra friction to the player. It's one thing to make a Kaizo-tier precision platforming challenge in a Sonic game, it's another to do so while removing all checkpoints.

The worst part about it is that every single time you think the game can't get worse, it gets worse. Oh, the combat trials are too hard? How about a boss rush where you cannot regain energy/time and that demands that you do the non-combat parts every single time you fail. Or what about a final boss that requires that you use a mechanic that does NOT get taught anywhere else in the game? And that's without mentioning how it undoes the dramatic denouement of the base game. It's fanservice for the sake of the people who whined that the original ending was an Ikaruga homage instead of something more Sonic-appropriate. Well fuck you, you just made the game more tedious and intrusive.

I hate Sonic Team. I hope Sonic's shitty friends don't make it into the next game. I have not a single good thing to say about this DLC. It was free and I still feel like I got slapped on the face.
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11. Super Mario Land (1.5/5)

Historical significance aside, it’s just not a very good platformer. I can count in my hand the amount of R&D1 games I enjoy and this one pretty much is exemplary of everything that’s characteristic about that development group. Their games are imaginative and quite ambitious, but it often feels like they don’t get play tested enough, and as a result they have just enough kinks that make their titles a chore to play.

Mario’s midair control is nearly non-existent. Hit boxes don’t match the enemy sprites. There’s little tell for environmental hazards. To be honest, the only reason I don’t rate it lower is that it’s a thirty minute game. It doesn’t have enough stay to truly irritate you.

Just play Super Mario Land 2 instead. Dope soundtrack, though.
 
It is, indeed, my greatest pleasure
To say I've beaten Another Crab's Treasure
With sharpened fork and mystic spells
Aquatic beasts were trounced and felled

-----

Okay, honestly, it is probably my favorite take on the Souls-like genre. Probably because going with an Umami (read: Magic) build was actually fun, especially once you've upgraded your Adaptations. Also feels zippier than something like Dark Souls, owing to its 3D platformer trappings, and I quite liked that.

Most of my criticisms are on the technical side, mostly in the latter half, where it starts getting jankier. Would get stuck in background scenery semi-frequently!

Still, loved this game. It's a treasure, for sure.
 
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18. Animal Well (PC) [May 25th, 2024] - 7.0/10:
I usually have a pretty hard time separating Metroid influences from Zelda influences in Metroidvanias (I'm onto you Iga!) but this game is definitely a clear example of how the genre can be more inspired by Zelda than anything else. I mean maybe Billy Basso will come out and say he was only inspired by Metroid, but the entire way progression works in this game reminds me way more of Zelda: Items are basically just puzzle solutions, every time you get an item it's not really an upgrade to your character but basically just a way to continue playing the game. This creates a self fulfilling prophecy where items only really exist to help you progress further in the game, where you'll inevitably need another item to progress further, and so on and so forth, rather than like in Metroid where items usually serve a dual purpose of also upgrading your character and having way more applicable uses outside of puzzles.

But I'm kinda left wondering .... does this really work for a Metroidvania? I mean one of the things that works about Metroidvanias is that no matter how much they may ask of you for your navigational and puzzle solving skills, you'll always be treated to new upgrades and incentives along the way to motivate you to press on. And Animal Well doesn't really do that. Even Zelda has way more true upgrades than Animal Well. If we've seen anything from games in the last few years, it's that intrinsic motivations can be just as good if not a better reason to play a game than extrinsic ones - allowing players and designers to think outside the box and make games around the pure enjoyment of discovery. But Animal Well isn't really like that, it doesn't have any mechanics to facilitate that, it's mostly just a standard puzzle platformer, just put into a Metroidvania setting. Asking players to just press on just because, in a genre that usually rewards backtracking and critical thinking, is a big ask.

Animal Well is at its best when you're making tons of progress back to back. In this way I feel like I kind of ruined the game for myself, because I see a lot of people beating this in 5-6 hours but my playtime was probably more like 9-9.5 hours. And yeah, if I beat this in 5-6 hours I'd probably be giving it high praise. I had a long period of time where I wasn't really sure how I was supposed to progress because I didn't have the slink (I kept going back to the area where you get it multiple times, but I didn't have a key the first time I went there and forgot that it was a key door not a switch door the next time I went, especially because there was a switch in the other room next to it), and I didn't notice the bottom two flames on the map because they were out of my viewpoint. I can't really blame the game for these mistakes, but I do think that it shows how most Metroidvanias would at least compensate for these headaches by giving you some cool rewards. It was fun doing a lot of accidental egg hunts during the middle of the game when I wasn't sure what to do next, but it wasn't fun when I realized how much that affected the pacing hours later.

Lastly I'll say that because the platforming in this game isn't hard and because there's no combat, the game has to compensate by making obstacles obnoxious since there's no other way to really introduce challenge otherwise. Stuff like the second mock disc, or the crazy reflective lasers at a certain part of the game, or those weird switch block puzzles where the developer fakes you out into thinking you've locked yourself out of the puzzle, only to realize there's a switch outside of the puzzle you didn't see .... why even do that? What's the benefit of it? It's not clever when you realize that there was a switch you didn't see, it's just frustrating. Little annoyance like it being way too hard to tell what the map is showing, or the flute controls sucking also don't help. And what is with the yo-yo controls? Has to be the worst item in the game, and in general I'm not sure how to feel about how many of the items later in the game are light on player control.

I'd like to replay it someday, it's a game that with hindsight I could easily see myself loving. I'd give it a 7/10 but that feels a little generous, the highs were incredibly high and a lot of the game was easily some of the most fun I've had with an indie Metroidvania, but the frustrations were immense and the game cracks under pressure pretty quickly.
 
1. Super Mario RPG (Switch)
2. Metroid Fusion (NSO)
3. Super Mario 64 (3D All-Stars, Switch)
4. Dredge (Switch)
5. Baten Kaitos I (Switch)
6. The Legend Of Zelda: Oracle of Ages (NSO)
7. A Highland Song (Switch)
8. Super Mario Sunshine(3D All-Stars, Switch)
9. Chants of Sennaar (Switch)
10. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown (Switch)
11. Super Mario Galaxy (3D All-Stars, Switch)
12. The Fall of Elena Temple (Switch)
13. Super Mario Land (NSO)
14. Star Ocean: The Second Story R (Switch)
My first ever experience with the Star Ocean series and I had a really good time. The difficulty curve was odd, with me occasionally hitting sudden spikes but, usually, and especially as the game went on, blasting through things without too much difficulty. Some of that late game ease is down to the many interlocking systems that allow you to unlock stat boosts as well as paying attention to and creating good equipment, so I don't mind.

I really liked the uneven and slightly messy parts of it, though, and was astonished to find there are 99 endings (presumably counting each character ending as 1 ending with multiple for each character; I liked the endings I got, mostly, especially for Claude and Rena). That's not to suggest the game is very messy or anything - there's just a lot going on beneath the surface, and sometimes on the surface; especially in combat when you have Celine and Rena with functionally unlimited MP blasting spells on repeat. Combined with the unusual structure - mild spoilers - a traditional fantasy quest around the world is roughly two thirds of the game before the planet is destroyed and sci fi elements are embraced on a second smaller overworld and the game really showed its PS1 roots in a great way. It's proof of how wild, varied and experimental JRPGs as a genre could be, and it makes me a little sad because I really feel we will hardly ever see this kind of creative energy in today's market. There are still excellent middle budget JRPGs and Switch especially has been a real boon for that type of game; but even the games taking risks and putting twists on familiar tropes aren't doing it with the kind of reckless abandon at play here.

I'm also a huge fan of the remake's presentation. The flashy battles, 3D environments, 2D sprites and character portraits come together really well. I hope Nintendo, Camelot and Artepiazza are taking notes for a Golden Sun remake, because they could learn something from this.

Not sure what's up next. Super Mario 3D World is next in my 3D Mario-athon; Unicorn Overlord and Paper Mario TTYD are my other 2024 purchases waiting on the shelf; Bayonetta Origins would be good for an RPG break but I might buy Master Key next week. Who knows.
• A Highland Song
• Baldur's Gate 3
• Baten Kaitos I
• Baten Kaitos II
• Dredge
• EarthBound
• Final Fantasy II
• Final Fantasy III
• The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages
• Metroid Fusion
• Star Ocean The Second Story R
• Super Mario 64
• Super Mario Sunshine
• Super Mario Galaxy
• Super Mario 3D World (+ Bowser's Fury)
• Super Mario Odyssey
• Chants of Sennaar
• Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown
• Ristar
• Crusader of Centy
• Bayonetta Origins
• Unicorn Overlord
• Fall of Elena Temple
• Paper Mario: TTYD
 
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