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StarTopic The 2023 Completed Games Thread

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Finished in 2023 #12: Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels (SNES - Super Mario All-Stars - NSO)

Not the first time I've finished Lost Levels, but the first time I've done it on All-Stars. This is the kinda game for someone who has played SMB1 dozens upon dozens of times and wants a real challenge. And while I've gotten better at it, it still took over 80 lives to see this one to the end, something I could never think of with SMB1. It's not as timelessly classic as the original, but it feels like an alternate peak into a Mario franchise that pushed for a higher level of platforming challenge over the more accessible approach the franchise would continue down.
 
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29. Super Mario Bros. (NES NSO) [10/10]

Forgive me for saying this, but I think this game is somewhat underrated nowadays. Most people understand the importance and respect this history, but I think that understates how good the game is to play today. The music, the controls, the secrets, the level design. All is done so well both by the standards of the time and by today's standards. The cheep cheep bridge was a standout for me on this play through. It definitely deserves it's reputation for one of the best games of all time, and is my personal favorite Mario game on the NES.
 
Finished Great Ace Attorney 2. Which is really Great Ace Attorney Part 2, meaning this is the game where they shine the light on all the foreshadowing they laid in the first game. Legit “oh yeah, it’s all coming together” moment.

Like I’ve said before the GAA duology has reignited my interest in the franchise after the largely underwhelming AA5. Can’t wait to try out AA6, or even better, finally have AA7 materialize into existence.
 
Previously:
01 — Melatonin
02 — Kirby and the Forgotten Land
03 — Pentiment
04 — stitch.
05 — Castle Crumble
06 — Crossfire X Single Player, Season One
07 — Hitman Freelancer
08 — Bonfire Peaks
09 — Vampire Survivors
10 — Octopath Traveler II
11 — Resident Evil 4
12 — 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim
13 — Coffee Talk
14 — Coffee Talk 2: Hibiscus & Butterfly
15 — The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe
16 — Xenoblade Chronicles 3: FR
17 — Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
18 — Advance Wars 1+2 Reboot Camp
19 — Diablo IV
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20 — New York Times Games: Crossword, Wordle, Spelling Bee
These aren’t typical video games, nor do you really “finish” them in the sense that they are daily puzzles. But I’d be remiss not to mention these at some point, because I start every morning by playing them! Spelling Bee in particular is great. I can currently finish the crossword with fairly high confidence until Thursday rolls around — the Da Bomb of the NYT weekly crossword lineup, if you will. By the time I get to Sunday’s mind-melter I am but a husk, bereft of words just in time for the gentle Monday puzzle to bring me back around. It’s the best!
[VERDICT — I Know It’s NYT But Still A Few Too Many NYC-Specific Clues In The Crossword Out of Ten]

21 — Triangle Strategy
It’s a Team Asano barnburner this year! After Octopath Traveler II blew me away a few months ago I have finally gotten around to playing this and uh, yep. Fantastic. This game is slow paced, but it makes sublime use of that pace. There is such an efficiency to the storytelling in that you largely get to know who the characters are through their present day actions that are driving things forward; it wisely avoids getting into extended flashbacks and otherwise stalling the momentum. The twists and turns were generally very clever, and I enjoyed the choice system of having to sway some of your crew to have things (hopefully) go the way you want. A lot of that might have fallen apart if the gameplay wasn’t equally as great, which thankfully isn’t a problem here. Suffice it to say that if you’re a fan of the sort of game Triangle Strategy is harkening back to, you will enjoy it.
[VERDICT — Master of Its Demesne Out of Ten]
 
1) Hi-Fi Rush (XS) - 9/10
2) Vampire Survivors (XS) - 5/10
3) A Monster's Expedition (PS5) - 10/10
4) Titanfall 2 (XS) - 8/10
5) The Last of Us Part 1 Remake (PS5) - 10/10
6) Understand (PC) - 7/10
7) GNOG (PS5) - 5/10
8) Pokemon Shining Pearl (Switch) - 4/10
9) A Space for the Unbound (Switch) - 8/10
10) WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgames! (Switch) - 7/10
11) Pokemon Stadium (Switch) - 6/10
12) Pokemon Crystal (3DS) - 7/10
13) Golden Idol Mysteries: The Spider of Lanka (PC) - 8/10
14) The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (Switch) - 10/10
15) Planet of Lana (XS) - 8/10
16) Humanity (PS5) - 10/10
17) Dordogne (XS) - 6/10
18) We Love Katamari Reroll + Royal Reverie (PS5) - 10/10
19) Pikmin (Switch) - 9/10
20) Pikmin 2 (Switch) - 7/10

Finished off my Pikmin series playthrough prior to 4 coming out on Friday:

21) Pikmin 3 (Switch) - 10/10
Still the best Pikmin for me, just everything I want from a game in the series.

22) Hey! Pikmin (3DS) - 4/10
Not everything I want from a game in the series. I like how the Pikmin have a bit more personality here but that's pretty much it - too simple and the act of just moving is like wading through soup. Shame, as I think there's a kernel of a good idea here in terms of puzzle-platforming, it's just not explored at all.
 
  1. Death's Door
  2. Kirby's Dreamland
  3. Super Mario Land 2
  4. WarioWare Inc. Mega Microgames
  5. Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga
  6. Metroid Prime: Remastered
  7. Metroid Fusion
  8. Kirby's Return to Dreamland Deluxe
  9. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
  10. Shovel Knight Pocket Dungeon
  11. Resident Evil 4 Remake

Despite proclaiming myself a Pikmin fan, I had never 100% completed either of the original entries on Gamecube. June's shadow drops gave me the perfect opportunity to redeem myself before Pikmin 4, and I'm never one to take an opportunity for granted!

12. Pikmin 1 (NS) - I was actually blown away by how quick and easy it is to get everything in this game. Over the course of a single week, I collected all 30 treasures using only 23 of the in-game days (and many of those days were wasted). As such, the first game feels like little more than an incredible little tech demo for the series it debuted. Sure, you can have 100 little AI-controlled infantry running at your back, but they are dumber than a box of Rock Pikmin; out of the many, many needless casualties in the game, I would wager that 25% of them were simply caused by Pikmin running off of narrow bridges and drowning themselves. Yeah, the game has a wide variety of unique enemies, but those numbers are immediately dwarfed by its successor. Overall, I enjoyed Pikmin 1, though it might be just a little too simple for me to revisit more than once every couple of years.

13. Pikmin 2 (NS) - And now for something completely different: Pikmin 2! I have to assume the alternative title for this was "Pikmin: But Moreso" because this game absolutely blows the doors off of every concept introduced in its predecessor. 30 collectibles? Cute! Try 201. A (roughly) five hour running time? Multiply that by 4! 5 self-contained sandboxes to run around and collect items in? Well, there are only 4 this time around, but what's that happening beneath the surface? Oh my.

Somehow this game has become the runt of the litter in many online circles. I say "somehow" even though the reasoning is plain to see: It's brutally difficult (whereas the first game is at least generally more approachable), it is filled to the brim with procedurally generated caverns, it's a little bit long in the tooth, etc etc. I won't argue that it is maybe a little too cruel and I can't deny that the caverns are lacking aesthetically. I will argue that all of these aspects are not necessarily problems, though, because taken for what it is I think Pikmin 2 is a fantastic adventure. In particular, I found myself eagerly plundering every cave just to see what nightmarish insect lie at its bottom. The boss fights in Pikmin 2 are some of the few confrontations in the series that feel like they really test your command, and whenever you succeed the triumphant music makes the travails all the more worthwhile.

I have more to say about Pikmin 2, but I'll save it for another day.
 
Finished in 2023 #13: Super Mario Bos. 2 (SNES - Super Mario All-Stars - NSO)

Another game that I played in other places (NES and GBA) but that I had not played on Super Mario All-Stars. Soon I'll have completed save files in all of them!

While I generally prefer the momentum based platforming action of the other titles, Mario 2 is a solid time with its grab and throw action. The exploration (with hidden mushrooms for health and many levels with shortcuts to the end if you can find them) and the multiple playable characters to change up how you approach levels make the title for me.
 
Adding Live A Live to my list of completed games. It definitely shows its age in a lot of respects: cumbersome inventory management, terrible signposting, tedious combat. And yet the concept of tackling a variety of vignettes, each one paying homage to certain genres of film/TV, is so damn interesting.

Each chapter also has its own gameplay gimmick, whether it’s stealth mechanics or zero dialogue or town defense. And while they’re admittedly underbaked, they’re still more engaging than the more typical JRPG stuff the game ships with.

It really is a game with a lot of cool ideas, and I honestly would not mind if Team Asano refines the Live A Live formula. My mind is swimming in concepts already.
 
1. Mario Party Superstars (NS) [Finished January 1st, 2023] - 8
2. Bayonetta (NS) [Finished January 2nd, 2023] - 8.5
3. Pikmin (GC) [Finished January 5th, 2023] - 8.5
4. Pikmin 2 (GC) [Finished January 7th, 2023] - 6
5. Metroid Prime Remastered (NS) [Finished February 14th, 2023] - 10
6. Metroid Dread (Replay) (NS) [Finished January 21st, 2023] - 8.5
7. Metroid Prime 2 (PrimeHack) [Finished March 5th, 2023] - 8.5
8. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Dolphin) [Finished March 16, 2023] - 8.5:

I was honestly pretty surprised at just how good this was. Almost 9 worthy, except the first 10 hours or so are pretty bad, overworld traversal can be annoying (not in my opinion because of the "empty fields" that people often complain about, but more so because each subsection is massive and until you can freely transform into a wolf, there's a lot of times you'll walk to a place only to realize you're gated out from leaving/entering, which is so annoying), and I found the last few hours were not great either. Some gimmicks like the mist that turns you into a wolf form felt very finnicky with their hit detection, it got annoying constantly being turned back even when it seemed like I cleared the mist, and the Twilight Realm dungeon seemed like something that would work better in 2D than in 3D with its timed take out the enemies in quick succession nature. What did really sour me though was the Ganon fight and its multiple phases, for me it felt pretty janky to be honest? I know it's probably the most beloved Ganon fight in the series but, I kept getting bumbfucked with very little tells in the first phase, then the second phase had Zelda AI that would not shoot arrows properly. Super annoying.

Overall though it was really good, and definitely more original than you'd think.
9. Sonic the Hedgehog (RetroArch) [Finished March 17th, 2023] - 4:

Oof. I remember when I played Sonic as a young teen on the Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection on the 360, I had a lot of fun with this game, even if I always stopped at around the end of Stage 2 Act 2. Maybe it's just the years of contextualization of Sonic as a franchise that I've gotten since, how much people criticize it and how divisive it's become that's lead to this. I don't know. But man it's just ... not really that good? Green Hill Zone is amazing and Starlight Zone is pretty good, too. And I don't think I necessarily dislike the start-and-stop gameplay quite as much as other people, the fact that Marble Zone is slower doesn't really bother me. What bothers me is just how jank it feels to constantly start and stop as Sonic, to get punished everytime you get momentum, to constantly fight with the controls. I think Sonic has the most interesting concept of any platformer, and I don't mind that his gameplay switches from fast flashy action to slow more methodical and precise platforming. That's cool. But I can't say it's done well here ... when most of the stages are pretty bad.

Also, wow, the music just becomes grating after a while. Later Sonic games kind of fixed this, but the songs here don't really fit for a game with long stages with multiple acts.

10. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (RetroArch) [Finished March 20th, 2023] - 6.5:

Honestly? Pretty good! I almost want to give it a 7 because I enjoyed my time with it so much, but it felt like every other stage had some annoying gimmick or mechanic, and the last two stages of the game are pretty bad. The airship level in particular is super glitchy and not fun to navigate at all, I kept either unintentionally going backwards in the stage because you have to access which way to go at a certain point and it's pretty confusing or getting stuck on the side of the airship which ... you know ... should have been solid and not accessible. Overall still fun though, and a lot of charm in this one.

11. Resident Evil 4 Remake (PC) [Finished March 28th, 2023] - 10:

I'm not going to review this just yet, but going from not being that hyped for the game to it being one of my favorite games of all time has made it one of the most meaningful experiences I've had with games in a while. Absolutely shocking surprising stunning & jawdropping. You know it's good when I overhype it.

12. Resident Evil VIIIage (PC) [Finished April 4th, 2023] - 7.5:

I wanted to play this to get more of that Resident Evil 4 without just replaying OG RE4 and uh ... color me surprised ... it's not that good? Village is an odd entry in that it's somehow become a fan favorite and one of the fastest selling games in the series, while also being super divisive and not really feeling like it belongs thematically with Capcom's recent push for RE. I love the fact that it basically does every type of horror RE is known for, and even dabbles in forms it's not (on a first playthrough, that P.T. section is great!), but it's super clunky all around.

What really sucks about this game is that it feels like they made an RE game exactly in the sort of way I would have taken the franchise, and then just did it wrong on so many levels, and since the concept probably won't be revisited since every RE game is so different, it's just never going to be perfected. The idea of giving a hub world to RE is great, because the mansion itself was almost like a hub in the original Resident Evil! But then you play Village and everything looks so samey, there are almost no enemy encounters, almost every time you get a new key to unlock a new optional area of the village to explore, the entrance to that area is also right next to the area you just came from that gave you the key ... making optional exploration and that Metroidvania feedback loop feel really forced and poorly designed. And probably most damning of all, side content is not good till the very end of the game. They somehow fucked up RE4's weapon upgrades system, one of the most tride and true ways to make a game fun, by reversing it in a way that seems clever but is actually terrible: instead of getting ammo when you kill an enemy, you get stuff to craft ammo. But because you'll often be out of a certain other material you need to craft specific ammunition, you'll end up just using the ammunition the game gives you most of the time ... which in my experience was usually sniper ammo, meaning I was playing a close quarters first person survival horror game by sniping enemies and doing massive damage anytime they came close to me. Even the combat is largely poorly done thanks in part to not adapting 7's controls well enough to a more action oriented game. The Lycan are also some of the worst enemies in the series, I hated fighting them because they were unfun and annoying and looked stupid. It just sucks because the idea of an RE game with a hub, that takes place in an entirely different setting from the rest of the series, with a snow theme, and a mythological bent (which seems REALLY in right now with horror-themed games, look at games like Bloodborne) is exactly what I'd want from a new RE game, and well .... it didn't work out well.

13. Dead Space Remake (PC) [Finished May 15th, 2023] - 7.5:

Played this in part to test out my new PC and it was ... fine? I don't know. What struck me about Dead Space back when I first played it last Winter was how it felt like a game that came out at a time where Western AAA developers were still making games in a largely similar way to Japanese devs: take one genre or aspect of a game, and focus on it. It felt very auteur, a singular vision that was trying its hardest to perfect one thing. But I don't know ... the remake's balancing felt off to me, with enemies now being super fast, you are playing defensively too often for my taste, and the weapon balancing seems a bit more wack. I also think this game really learned the wrong lessons from modern RE games, the emphasis on constant darkness gets old pretty fast even if you get used to it. I think there's a combination of poor decisions revolving around the remake, and the game in general having a weaker second half since the original game, that has made me lower my appreciation for Dead Space a bit. Then again, maybe I just sucked! Still really liked the game.


14. Metro 2033 Redux (PC) [Finished June 5th, 2023] - 7.5:

I remember playing and trying to beat the original Metro 2033 and liking it but finding it super flawed to the point it wasn't fun at times. Broken stealth, annoying enemies that can see you from anywhere, and some scripted segments that seemed very trial and error. And honestly this remaster seems like it sort of puts a band-aid on some of that? The scripted segments are still annoying and the constant pace breaking is annoying, but this is much better than how I remember the original game.

15. Resident Evil 3 Remake (PC) [Finished June 10th, 2023] - 7.5:

I was so ready to be contrarian and be like this game is great! Wtf are people talking about? Then I played the second half ...

The actual gameplay is great, I love the dodge, but the shooting mechanics, poor scripting, and several boring encounters aren't enough to make this game great, even for how short it is. The irony is that the best part of this game is also the city, which is the most faithful part. I still don't really mind that it breaks from 3, but I wish there was more depth put to the games combat encounters and scenarios, because overall this feels extremely budget.

16. Final Fantasy XVI (PS5) [Finished June 30th, 2023] - 6.5:

Felt very mixed on this game. I wrote a pretty long review of the game here: https://www.backloggd.com/u/AngryAlchemist/review/887527/ . Check it out if you want.

17. Pikmin 3 Deluxe (NS) [Finished July 11th, 2023] - 9.5:

Definitely better than I remember. Even if it's too easy the simple joy of completing this game efficiently is just so fun. Coming back to this after getting into Pimin was a treat. I might respect the difficulty of 1 or the adventurous spirit of 2, but this is my favorite Pikmin so far.

Ugh, that was long. I'll try to keep updating my list more consistently from now on 😓 😩

I'm still playing TOTK and now playing Pikmin 4, and I need to get back to A.I.: The Somnium Files, Blasphemous, Cave Story+, and Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective.

Game Ranking 2023:
1. Resident Evil 4 Remake (10) (PC)
2. Metroid Dread (8.5) (NS) (Need to bump this up)
3. Pikmin 3 Deluxe (9.5) (NS)
4. Metroid Prime 2: Echoes (8.5) (PrimeHack)
5. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (8.5) (Dolphin)
6. Pikmin (8.5) (Dolphin)
7. Bayonetta (8.5) (NS) (Would probably bump this down to an 8)
8. Mario Party Superstars (8.0) (NS) (Should probably bump this down to a 7.5)
9. Metro 2033 Redux (7.5) (PC)
10. Resident Evil Village (7.5) (PC)
11. Resident Evil 3 Remake (7.5) (PC)
12. Dead Space Remake (7.5) (PC)
13. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (6.5) (RetroArch)
14. Final Fantasy XVI (6.5) (PS5)
15. Pikmin 2 (6.0) (GC)
16. Sonic the Hedgehog (4.0) (RetroArch)

Tentative: Metroid Prime Remastered.
 
correojon said:
Link to last post
Click to expand...

Currently playing
  • Pikmin4: Just started it today, so far it's grabbed me really hard, like with 3 I just have to play "one last day" which always turns out into one more hour.
  • TotK: Stilll have some things left to do so I'll still keep playing it in short sessions.

Current 2023 ranking
  1. TotK: GOAT. I've already gushed about it in the OT and anywhere else where I've had the chance...just a landmark title.
  2. Touhou Luna Nights
  3. Sifu
  4. Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin
  5. Tunic
  6. DMC: Devil May Cry: I have played this several times, it's true that it doesn't hold a candle to DMC3/4/5, but it's also true that's it's a much better game than hardcore fans make it out to be. I like the combat system, it's in a sweet spot where I can pick it up and enjoy it in a short time without me needing to invest too much time. After beating Hi-Fi Rush I had some free days before Pikmin 4 released so this was the perfect game for a quick playthrough and to enjoy a good combo-based combat system after Hi-Fi Rush couldn't satisfy me as I expected. BTW, I think this game introduced the abbility to maintain your position in the combo if you switched weapons in the middle of it: I wish other games (specially Bayonetta, it would work great there) would implement this. Color-coded enemies are the worst and weapons could be more distinct: The angel weapons do a good job but the demonic weapons are too similar and just "slow but powerful". I wish someone made a game using this combat system but with some crazy weapons like the ones in Bayo3.
  7. Hi-Fi Rush: Very enjoyable but as a character action fan I expected to like it much more than I did:
    • The combat is too simple, I understand that it had to be simplified to account for the ryhtmic elements, but it needed at least one more weapon. It would also have benefitted tremendously from having dodge and parry offset so you could keep your current combo alive while mixing in defensive moves.
    • Level design is really bad, to the point that it completely killed my intent of replaying it: Levels are 90% composed of long empty stretches where you just have to walk forward or go through some really simple platforming. This, along with the simplistic combat, made me have my fill once I reached the 3rd level in my second playthrough.
    • It didn't help either that I had everything unlocked and I was only missing some special moves, of which there are a dozen but you can only equip 2 at a time. To make matters worst, they share the same meter as the assist special attacks, so if the moveset already feel restrictive this limits your options even more.
    • The story is nice, but I HATE HOW EVERYONE TREATS CHAI. Everyone bullies him, diminishes him every time he tries to propose something or even tries to make a joke. FFS, he's out there risking his life and doing the work that none of the support cast is able to do, yet they are constantly calling him names and telling him how stupid he is. Peppermint is specially bad with this, gosh, I almost wished that Chai turned on her and sided with Kale at the end because she just deserves it. OK, he's not the brightest guy in the world, I get it, but this is no way to treat anyone. If there is a Hi-Fi Rush 2, I hope that they ditch all the main characters and it's just about Chai finding a group of real friends who support him and treat him like he deserves.
  8. Young Souls
  9. Hades

Playlist:
  1. Gravity Circuit
  2. Bayonetta Origins: Trying the demo because the preview in Bayo3 didn't do much for me...and I'm actually liking it a lot
  3. Metroid Prime Remake
  4. Record of Lodoss War-Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth
  5. Rollerdrome
 
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1. Nier Automata (Switch)
2. Lunistice (Switch)
3. Super Mario Land 2 (NSO)
4. Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze (Switch)
5. Metroid Prime Remastered (Switch)
6. Fire Emblem Engage (Switch)
7. The Legend of Zelda: the Minish Cap (NSO)
8. Wario Land 3 (NSO)
9. A Space for the Unbound (Switch)
10. Kirby's Dream Land (NSO)
11. Advance Wars 1&2 Reboot Camp (Switch)
12. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (Switch)
13. Final Fantasy (Pixel Remaster, Switch)
14. Goldeneye (NSO)
15. Oxenfree II Lost Signals (Switch)
This didn't captivate me as much as the first game did, but I guess it's natural the sequel doesn't make as much of an impact. The puzzles were somewhat simplistic, and the visuals make the terrain somewhat hard to parse, while it annoyed me that button prompts for things like ladders and climbing sometimes wouldn't appear.

That being said, it was still an atmospheric and enjoyable way to spend a weekend. If I get the time to replay the original and this back to back later this year. I really liked the optional stories via the walkie talkie, though I'm fairly sure I missed one, which was disappointing. Riley's story was interesting rather than involving, but some of the notes still really struck a chord with me personally. Glad I got it and spent the weekend with it, all in all.
 
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62. Dragon Warrior

After abandoning the NES game I switched to Game Boy Color version and had a much better time. It's still a very simple game but it's fun if you just want to grind and not worry about the story. Pretty sure GBC version actually doubled gold gains and maybe even exp gains so it was much more tolerable.
 
I've done a poor job of tracking this year, off the top of my head

Super Mario RPG (replay)
Mega Man Legends (replay)
Mega Man Legends 2 (replay)
Trails Into Reverie
Zelda Tears Of The Kingdom
Soul Blazer (replay)
Rain Code
Chocobo GP
Fire Emblem Engage
Xenoblade 3 Future Connected
The Case Of The Golden Idol

I also played a lot of Final Fantasy 16 (dropped after like 50 hours), Diablo 4 & 2 (will keep playing), and Theatrythm Final Bar Line (will get back to).
 
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ooo i haven't updated this in a long time. let's do it while i should be working!!

  1. mario + rabbids: sparks of hope
  2. final fantasy x
  3. metroid prime remastered
  4. super mario land 2: 6 golden coins
  5. fire emblem engage
  6. pokemon soulsilver
  7. yoshi's island
  8. mario & luigi: superstar saga

9. RESIDENT EVIL 4 (REMAKE) - already said a bit about this in the OT but tbh I found this to feel very sterile compared to the original. feels like Resident Evil stock footage. competently made, but i didn't love it as much as others did.

10. THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: OCARINA OF TIME - a true classic. haven't done a replay in a while so I made it a point to play it again before Tears of the Kingdom came out. found it completely enthralling yet again. despite the era it was made in, there's something that makes the future timeline feel so ominous without even doing much. there's just such a sinister tone throughout that was very effective. one of the best zelda OSTs over, and there's a reason why some still consider it to be the best game ever made. i don't think that assessment is correct anymore but it's certainly up there. there's a reason why people want more of it now, funnily enough.

11. FINAL FANTASY VI - I was really excited to finally play through this one, and if you want to talk about conveying a sinister tone despite hardware limitations, look no further. so many memorable moments here, it's no wonder why everyone thinks it's the best Final Fantasy. curious to see how XVI stacks up to 6 and 10 when I play it later this year.

12. THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: TEARS OF THE KINGDOM - what has taken over my life for nearly 2 months has finally wrapped. i've said a lot about it throughout the OT, but i look back on my experience with some salt considering i was playing it while my dog was sick and ultimately passed away. she was my best little friend on planet earth and i miss her infinitely. we got her the day Pokemon Sword/Shield came out. i played through nearly the entirety of that game and many others, especially through COVID lockdowns, with her at my side. Tears of the Kingdom was the last game i'd play with her next to me on the couch. i rolled credits on it while she was in the hospital for the final time. after she passed, i treated it like busywork, and escaped to Hyrule and completed caves and shrines. when we finally got her remains back home, i brought the urn to the couch with me and fought Ganondorf again. rolled credits with her at my side, making it right. i love that pup to death and beyond. and i love this game. 10/10.
 
Goldeneye 007 (Series S replay)
Metroid Prime Remastered
Super Metroid
Metroid Fusion
Pokemon Let's Go Eevee
Pokémon Scarlet
Captain Toad

Hopefully Pikmin 4 will be the next one

Edit: added a couple
 
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Time to update this with so much Mario

17. Final Fantasy 5 PR. AP Boost make this incredible fun and let me test classes I usually didn't play with.
18. Super Mario Bros Deluxe: Still my most played version since this is the one I actually had as a kid, and the extra challenges like the coins and yoshi egg and some of the scores are really hard
19. Super Mario Brost Lost Levels: originally I played the DX version which I later found was gimped (only 8 worlds and no wind) so it was a nice surprise to see world 9 through D. I still can't believe someone actualy aprove of this because it gets really hard
20. Super Mario Bros 2 US: The weirder one, specially after playing all the nes/snes mario games and even as a kid I always thought the game felt differently from the other mario games. Still it's a nice challenge.
21. Super Mario Bros 3: Still holds agains the time. I remember as a kid this one took me like 4 or 5 days to finish, so I was actually surprised I was able to finish it in one day, as a kid the levels seems longer but now I think they are actually very short.
22 Super Mario World: This is actually the first time I finished the extra world and got all the exits. Still a masterpiece on it's own, but having a blue yoshi reduce the challenge for like 70% of the stages.
23. Yoshi's Island: For some reason I thought this actually had 8 worlds not 6. A very good mix of platforming and collecting stuff. Also poor deep purple yoshi left stranded on the moon (or died entering the atmosphere delivering baby mario to green yoshi). And def the team was trolling with the "long long cave" level
24. Super Mario Land: Another weird one, to me it feels it was adapted from another game, specially since a lot of the physics is wonky, like they didn't have the time to fix it completely. Hard mode gets crazy specially in world 3 and 4. Also world 2 theme and credits theme are bangers
25. Super Mario Land 2: This felt more like a mario game. Not much to say about this, it's on the easy side but the experience was more similar to later mario games.


1. SAMURAI MAIDEN
2. Legend of Zelda
3. Mighty Gunvolt Burst
4. Funky Kong Country Tropical Freeze
5. Bloodstained Curse of the Moon: Nightmare mode.
6. Astalon
7. Fire Emblem Engage
8. Metroid Prime Remastered
9. Grim Guardians Demon Purge
10. Octopath Traveler 2
11. Atelier Ryza 3
12. Final Fantasy 1 PR
13. Final Fantasy 2 PR
14. Zelda TotK
15. Bat Boy
16. Super Alloy Ranger
 
0
Most recent game I beat was Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2 which was incredibly good. Game gets so hard towards the end. Felt like an achievement beating it. I'll do Episode 2 another time.

Also the House of the Dead Remake (Switch). Was fun to play through again after all these years. Didn't manage to get through w/ one credit sadly since I chose improved performance mode and the game moved fast. Final boss was easy though.

Christo750 said:
12. THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: TEARS OF THE KINGDOM - what has taken over my life for nearly 2 months has finally wrapped. i've said a lot about it throughout the OT, but i look back on my experience with some salt considering i was playing it while my dog was sick and ultimately passed away. she was my best little friend on planet earth and i miss her infinitely. we got her the day Pokemon Sword/Shield came out. i played through nearly the entirety of that game and many others, especially through COVID lockdowns, with her at my side. Tears of the Kingdom was the last game i'd play with her next to me on the couch. i rolled credits on it while she was in the hospital for the final time. after she passed, i treated it like busywork, and escaped to Hyrule and completed caves and shrines. when we finally got her remains back home, i brought the urn to the couch with me and fought Ganondorf again. rolled credits with her at my side, making it right. i love that pup to death and beyond. and i love this game. 10/10.
Click to expand...

Aw. RIP to your dog. I know the feeling.
 
Sumio Mondo said:
Most recent game I beat was Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2 which was incredibly good. Game gets so hard towards the end. Felt like an achievement beating it. I'll do Episode 2 another time.

Also the House of the Dead Remake (Switch). Was fun to play through again after all these years. Didn't manage to get through w/ one credit sadly since I chose improved performance mode and the game moved fast. Final boss was easy though.



Aw. RIP to your dog. I know the feeling.
Click to expand...
thanks man. it’s been tough for sure.
 
I have put this off for a bit, so it's time for another update.

1. Persona 5 Royal
2. Metroid Prime Remastered
3. WarioWare (GBA NSO)
4. Fire Emblem Engage
5. Metroid Fusion (NSO)
6. Paranormasight
7. Trails to Azure
8. Utawarerumono: Mask of Deception
9. Utawarerumono: Mask of Truth
10. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
11. Donkey Kong Country (NSO)
12. Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion

13. Loopers
  • I got this VN for $5 or so on a sale. It's ok. It had an interesting premise that could have led to more drama, but it was never that deep. I don't regret playing it since it's only about 5 hours long, but I would not really recommend it.
14. The Legend of Heroes: Trails into Reverie
  • I still haven't written up my full thoughts in the ST, but I really liked this one. I think they did reasonably well with handling an insanely large cast. I wasn't really craving a traditional Trails game experience, so the differences in Reverie didn't really bother me. I have come down a bit from the initial high praise I gave immediately after finishing the game, but I would still put it in the top half of all 10 Trails games currently available in the west.

Right now, Pikmin 4 has most of my attention. It started to hook me yesterday, so I anticipate that will be my next finished game. I nearly finished Radiant Historia before I started Trails into Reverie, but that will stay on hold for a bit longer. I had also planned on playing FFXVI, but who knows when that will happen now.
 
63. Paranormasight: Seven Mysteries of Honjo

A really fun visual novel that reminds me of 999. Extremely solid characters, great artstyle and music, and some interesting gameplay mechanics.

To say more would be to spoil it, so I'll just say that while it was quite necessary ot the story, I do wish meta elements weren't present. It just feels like every game tries something meta, and I just don't find it exciting at all anymore. The story is good enough without The Storyteller character popping up and going "oooh, there's gonna be a twist!", which effectively made me think more about the story and figure out some twists earlier than needed.

Still, recommend to everyone who likes VNs. As a plus, this game isn't really anime and has no weird pervy jokes.
 
Christo750 said:
12. THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: TEARS OF THE KINGDOM - what has taken over my life for nearly 2 months has finally wrapped. i've said a lot about it throughout the OT, but i look back on my experience with some salt considering i was playing it while my dog was sick and ultimately passed away. she was my best little friend on planet earth and i miss her infinitely. we got her the day Pokemon Sword/Shield came out. i played through nearly the entirety of that game and many others, especially through COVID lockdowns, with her at my side. Tears of the Kingdom was the last game i'd play with her next to me on the couch. i rolled credits on it while she was in the hospital for the final time. after she passed, i treated it like busywork, and escaped to Hyrule and completed caves and shrines. when we finally got her remains back home, i brought the urn to the couch with me and fought Ganondorf again. rolled credits with her at my side, making it right. i love that pup to death and beyond. and i love this game. 10/10.
Click to expand...
I understand how you feel. When I was replaying Ocarina of Time last year, my 7 year old german shepherd got sick very suddenly. We had to put him down ... It was really hard taking care of him for a few days and having it come to that after he had been such a happy dog for years. When I came back I didn't feel like doing anything. It was hard finishing Ocarina of Time, kind of forced myself to do it, and it made the music of the Spirit Temple that much more depressing. Video games might not seem like they matter in the grand scheme of things, but how they help us cope with real life does. I'm sorry for your loss.
 
25)Cosmic Star Heroine
Fun brisk rpg that flowed well and didn’t overstay its welcome
26) SMA2 SMW
This was the way I grew up playing this, been years since I cleared it tho

Previous games:
1)Yoku’s island express
2)Live a Live
3)Arcade Paradise
4)The Great Ace Attorney Adventures
5)Immortal Fenyx rising
6) SD Gundam Battle Alliance
7)Nier Automata
8)Crimson Skies High road to revenge
9)Stacking
10)Conker Live and reloaded
11)Legend of Zelda the minish Cap
12)Ducktales remastered
13)Vostok Inc
14) Star Wars Battlefront(OG)
15)Kirby and the forgotten land
16) Xenoblade chronicles 3 Future Redeemed
17) Sonic Adventure(Xbox)
18)Rhapsody a Musical Adventure
19)Legend Of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom
20)The Great Ace Attorney 2 Resolve
21) Super Mario Advance(Super Mario Bros 2)
22)Lunistice
23)Ghost Trick(phone version)
24) Crusader of Centy
 
AngryAlchemist said:
I understand how you feel. When I was replaying Ocarina of Time last year, my 7 year old german shepherd got sick very suddenly. We had to put him down ... It was really hard taking care of him for a few days and having it come to that after he had been such a happy dog for years. When I came back I didn't feel like doing anything. It was hard finishing Ocarina of Time, kind of forced myself to do it, and it made the music of the Spirit Temple that much more depressing. Video games might not seem like they matter in the grand scheme of things, but how they help us cope with real life does. I'm sorry for your loss.
Click to expand...
Thank you for this, and I’m sorry to hear about your boy. Someone I spoke to about it said “animals are funny, they’re essentially little 4-year-olds with unconditional love until they one day get old and sick.” And it’s sorta true. Watching her struggle with getting sick, not knowing it was the end (it was kidney disease and she had gotten a reset from the animal hospital before), it was draining but I would’ve done anything for her forever if it meant she’d be here and happy. I know this time next year I’ll still feel her loss, so I hope you’re doing okay. And I hope you liked Ocarina of Time! It’s a great game.
 
64. Final Fantasy I (as part of GBA I+II collection)

A much better experience than both Dragon Quests 1 and 2. A bit on the easier side, with only the final boss being actually difficult, but still a fun time.
 
Bloodborne

I'm someone who really doesnt like hard games. I like to kick back and play chilled out, so Souls game are like diametrically opposite to how I enjoy games. But latley, I've been really interested in Cosmic Horror/Lovecraftian stories, and learning about BB piqued my intrest. Everything about it sounded intresting, from the world, the atmosphere, the story, the lore, etc. the only problem was the gameplay but I decided I would suck it up and give it a fair shake. After all, we all gotta get out of our comfort zones at some point.

Couldnt even get past Cleric Beast and Gasgoine. the difficulty was just not it, and I just could not vibe with all the gameplay choices, like how death would cost you every echo, how you couldnt even pause, etc... I put it down. For the better part of a year, I kept coming back to it every couple months to give it another try and then remembering why I stopped. Trying out new strategies, restarting with different stats, nothing was clicking.

Then it all turned around after I cheesed Gasgoine with glitches to beat him..... Getting to Cathedral Ward and having the game open up like it did, that's the point where I got over the hump. Once I got through Catedral Ward and unlocked the YouKnowWhat dungeon, I finally found a way around the echo grinding. Bumbing up my VIT up to like 30, My entire perspective changed on the game and I was finally able to play it like a "normal" game. It got me over the problems I had initially. I never over did it to the point of trivializing the combat, just enough to where I found it turned the difficulty into a fair and enjoyable challenge rather than a deliberatly unforgiving one.

I was finally able to enjoy what I wanted I wanted from Bloodborne: The world, lore, atmosphere, etc and it turned gameplay into something I was having a blast with!
 
1. Mario Party Superstars (NS) [Finished January 1st, 2023] - 8
2. Bayonetta (NS) [Finished January 2nd, 2023] - 8.5
3. Pikmin (GC) [Finished January 5th, 2023] - 8.5
4. Pikmin 2 (GC) [Finished January 7th, 2023] - 6
5. Metroid Prime Remastered (NS) [Finished February 14th, 2023] - 10
6. Metroid Dread (Replay) (NS) [Finished January 21st, 2023] - 8.5
7. Metroid Prime 2 (PrimeHack) [Finished March 5th, 2023] - 8.5
8. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Dolphin) [Finished March 16, 2023] - 8.5
9. Sonic the Hedgehog (RetroArch) [Finished March 17th, 2023] - 4
10. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (RetroArch) [Finished March 20th, 2023] - 6.5
11. Resident Evil 4 Remake (PC) [Finished March 28th, 2023] - 10
12. Resident Evil VIIIage (PC) [Finished April 4th, 2023] - 7.5
13. Dead Space Remake (PC) [Finished May 15th, 2023] - 7.5
14. Metro 2033 Redux (PC) [Finished June 5th, 2023] - 7.5
15. Resident Evil 3 Remake (PC) [Finished June 10th, 2023] - 7.5
16. Final Fantasy XVI (PS5) [Finished June 30th, 2023] - 6.5
17. Pikmin 3 Deluxe (NS) [Finished July 11th, 2023] - 9.5
18. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (NS) [Finished July 27th, 2023] - [??? / 10]:

My journey with the Zelda series has been a long and strange one, but I was never a bigger fan of the games than before Tears of the Kingdom. So it's for that reason that I'm both happy to say that Tears of the Kingdom is one of the best games I've played in recent memory, while also sad to say I'm not sure if it's a GOAT for me. I'll be the first to admit that some of my problems with this game are probably exacerbated due to putting it on a hiatus pretty far into the game to finish Final Midasy XVI and a Pikmin 3 replay, which I regret doing. The momentum of these games is so important and consistency is key. With that being said, this game was a rollercoaster of emotions all around, where it felt like my general enjoyment was changing every few dozen hours. Let's get this out of the way: these recent Zelda games have taken the series from trying to fit a round cylinder into a square hole to a formula which might be the very best in gaming, period. That free form exploration and interaction with the world is unreal, and while we can all meme the checklist game design all day, it doesn't change the fact that these are some of the few games that do it well thanks to the fact that interacting with various repetitive tasks in the overworld is just an excuse to use the systems the game has given the player.

With that being said there was various things in this game that disappointed or frustrated me. The very first example was the tutorial level - going from the Great Plateau, probably the best tutorial area in gaming history, to the Great Sky Island was one of the biggest downgrades Tears of the Kingdom made over its predecessor. Making the Great Plateau again but with a more linear design, a worse map structure, and some real jankiness thanks to the way save states work was certainly a choice, and to preempt it with a linear walking and talking segment that is formulaic and a bit trite was certainly another decision. Once the game starts for real it takes a while to get used to mechanics in the game, but once it really gets going it's mostly great albeit with some bumps in the road.

The story here is a big improvement over Breath of the Wild and is one of the better stories in the series, but it loses a lot of points for me thanks to how long and stretched out certain plot beats are. This is a game that could easily tell its story in 5-6 cutscenes but would rather do it over the course of 20+, even though the main twist is hinted at in one of the first cutscenes in the game. This is also one of those games where characters will do stupid things because the plot has to happen, the Ocarina of Time reference cutscene being a big standout. One thing I really like about the story that I think is kind of slept on is how the central backing narrative is actually important and relevant to the present rather than just being a backstory - in Breath of the Wild you didn't really have to care about how Hyrule came to be in the state it's in because it didn't solve any dilemma for the player in the present, but Tears of the Kingdom wraps up its mystery based around plot threads that connect past and present. The voice acting is a BIG improvement over Breath of the Wild's english dub, and while I think Zelda's role in the past might have been more interesting on paper in Breath of the Wild, her personality in Tears of the Kingdom actually made her a fairly likeable character in a way I thought was missing in the previous game.

Unfortunately though, I think the main story content is probably my biggest issue with the game overall. In Breath of the Wild, you could tell the Zelda team was having trouble figuring out how to wrap up a traditional narrative in an open world context, and the way they did it was by largely minimizing the main story and splitting it into smaller chunks. While Tears of the Kingdom is much the same way, it feels like a step towards bridging the gap between classic Zelda and the newer formula, and I ... don't really think it's done well at all. My first time doing a regional phenomenon was the Rito quest and I loved it, it felt like playing a scripted Super Mario Odyssey section in Tears of the Kingdom, and it helped that the dungeon had the coolest theme. My second time was the Zora quest, and while it was definitely a bit worse, the lead-up investigation was great, the exact kind of thing I want more out of Zelda, and the open design of the dungeon softened some of the disappointment of it reusing sky assets. By the time I got to the Goron quest, though, I really started to dislike these quests, having to listen to a one-dimensional character say a boring thing so you can continue on a boring quest is some of the least fun I've had with the game it's such tedious busywork and while it's not required, as someone who wanted to finish the main story content it was a chore to play. The game design of these sections is so at odds with the rest of the game, because while they do technically allow for a lot of freedom of options they're so limiting and tedious and not fun at all. The Goron dungeon was terrible, with its main gimmick being rotating, adjusting and assembling carts over and over again, not helped out by the fact that Yunobo is probably the worst character in the game, and while the Gerudo quest was definitely a step up, by that point I was just kind of done with the Regional Phenomenon in general. A problem that I think bookends these parts of the games is that the stories for these sections feel so weirdly disconnected from the rest of the game: despite having the same structure of a localized problem being caused by the central conflict of the game that's been used successfully since Ocarina of Time, the phenomenon here rely on the narrative hook of ... asking people if they've seen Zelda. And then seeing a doll of Zelda that's obviously not Zelda. On top of most of the phenomenon themselves being weak and uninteresting.

I think one of the bigger weaknesses of this game is how little of the fundamental mechanics of Breath of the Wild were rethought. The Zelda team spent so much time crafting these systems which must have been a bitch to program, yet didn't think that maybe updating their save system to save user creations was a good idea, or that maybe erasing them when the player walks 20 feet away was a bad one. I think one particularly egregious example of this is the combat. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say at its best the combat system of Tears of the Kingdom is one of the most fun in any non-character action game, and at its worst is repetitive and annoying in all the wrong ways. Using everything you can at your disposal to come up with new interesting ways to tackle enemy encounters is always fun, and when you're matched up with enemies that are at your gear level or even a bit above it it's always fun to fight them and experiment without needing to hold back. But when you're facing an enemy that feels impossible, that breaks almost all your weapons, that completely overpowers you, it's rarely fun. And unfortunately the game taps into that quite a bit. I think one of the best examples is how bad the naked shrines are, it's like the Zelda team completely misunderstood what made Eventide Island so appealing, which was exploring an island and using what you could find there at your disposal to overcome challenges how you want, not to test out specific game mechanics in the most contrived and annoying ways possible.

The new enemies are less consistent I think then what we got in Breath of the Wild, I found them a lot more varying in quality personally. My least favorite enemy in the entire game is probably the monkeys, which throw rocks at you that you can't even see while hanging from ceilings you probably aren't looking at. I also think the Constructs were a big missed opportunity, on top of having worse art design than all the other enemies in the game, I think the point of them was to fill another humanoid role akin to Moblins and Bokoblins, but they're so rare to find for a majority of the game, and they are too easy and not exactly inspiring to fight. That being said, this is a very minor complaint and not really an issue I have with the game. I always found fighting normal enemies very fun in BOTW, and the lack of enemy variety rarely bothered me, so being able to fight more Moblins / Bokoblins / Lizalfos was fine by me. In addition the rework of the Stone Talus makes it probably the most fun enemy to fight in the entire series, and while the Gleeoks feel a bit formulaic by the time you've fought your second one (I'm not about to Subway Surfers them just to spice things up), they're still very fun and some of the coolest enemies. I also love the Frox in Tears of the Kingdom, please Nintendo give me more "we're totally not copying Monster Hunter" boss fights in Zelda games. I wish the Hinox got a reworking too though, that and the Lynels I didn't really enjoy fighting this time around.

When I got back to this game I was greeted by some of the most tedious busywork backending a Zelda game yet. The Dragonhead island was a long stretch of nothing with some annoying mechanics, I love how trees getting hit by lightning next to you almost kills you and also has no preemptive warning unlike every other lightning strike in the game. Then after that I had to do the fifth dungeon, which has now become a pretty infamous part of the game. In that dungeon's defense, the fact that the multiple locks mechanic is actually done more interestingly by giving the player parts to collect rather than just activating keys, as well as the fact that you have to ride those parts back to the center of the dungeon, is pretty cool. But the rest of the dungeon is kind of confusing and just awkward. Then I was greeted with the fact that despite spending more than 100 hours in the game, I didn't do the right sidequest Josha wanted, so I had to go out of my way to finish the Kohga sidequest just to be told where Ganon was (I already knew, but wanted to do it legit). Then after that I was greeted with the lead up to Ganon. Look, I don't care what anyone says, that entire section is terrible. If ever there was a section that almost legitimized complaints of weapon durability, it's that one. I came in prepared as could be without grinding too much, came in with good armor, weapons, and a lot of gloom food, and I STILL ended up having to skip most of the encounters because they were so tedious and annoying. Simply one of the worst sections in any Nintendo game ever.

I also don't like how limp the story ends, even as far as victory lap battles are concerned, the fact that Zelda basically acts as nothing more than a floating platform in the final battle, in a game that's all about how Zelda is a dragon, is terrible. She doesn't get to do anything. And worse, her first response after being gone for hundreds of years was to talk about how fun it was to meet the people in the past, those same people she saw die right before turning into a dragon, which would have been some of her final memories? Her reverting to her BOTW character is one of the most bruh moments in the entire game.

In the end I'm conflicted because in my 115 hours of playing this game, I'd say that 80-85 of that is some of the most fun I've had with gaming. But a lot of the main story content, weird game quirks, and some of the disappointing side content like the rauru's blessings / naked shrines just really got to me by the end. I was more conflicted on it than I wanted to be. I think the gameplay might be the best in video games, most of the time, but I'm still a bit miffed by a lot of other aspects of the game. It's one of the best games I've ever played, except when it isn't.

Game Ranking 2023:
1. Resident Evil 4 Remake (10) (PC)
2. Metroid Dread (8.5) (NS) (Need to bump this up)
3. Pikmin 3 Deluxe (9.5) (NS)
4. Metroid Prime 2: Echoes (8.5) (PrimeHack)
5. The Legend of Zela: Tears of the Kingdom (???) (NS)
6. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (8.5) (Dolphin)
7. Pikmin (8.5) (Dolphin)
8. Bayonetta (8.5) (NS) (Would probably bump this down to an 8)
9. Mario Party Superstars (8.0) (NS) (Should probably bump this down to a 7.5)
10. Metro 2033 Redux (7.5) (PC)
11. Resident Evil Village (7.5) (PC)
12. Resident Evil 3 Remake (7.5) (PC)
13. Dead Space Remake (7.5) (PC)
14. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (6.5) (RetroArch)
15. Final Fantasy XVI (6.5) (PS5)
16. Pikmin 2 (6.0) (GC)
17. Sonic the Hedgehog (4.0) (RetroArch)
 
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1) Hi-Fi Rush (XS) - 9/10
2) Vampire Survivors (XS) - 5/10
3) A Monster's Expedition (PS5) - 10/10
4) Titanfall 2 (XS) - 8/10
5) The Last of Us Part 1 Remake (PS5) - 10/10
6) Understand (PC) - 7/10
7) GNOG (PS5) - 5/10
8) Pokemon Shining Pearl (Switch) - 4/10
9) A Space for the Unbound (Switch) - 8/10
10) WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgames! (Switch) - 7/10
11) Pokemon Stadium (Switch) - 6/10
12) Pokemon Crystal (3DS) - 7/10
13) Golden Idol Mysteries: The Spider of Lanka (PC) - 8/10
14) The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (Switch) - 10/10
15) Planet of Lana (XS) - 8/10
16) Humanity (PS5) - 10/10
17) Dordogne (XS) - 6/10
18) We Love Katamari Reroll + Royal Reverie (PS5) - 10/10
19) Pikmin (Switch) - 9/10
20) Pikmin 2 (Switch) - 7/10
21) Pikmin 3 (Switch) - 10/10
22) Hey! Pikmin (3DS) - 4/10

Just one addition to the list to close out the month

23) Pikmin 4 (Switch) - 9/10
Pretty much to Pikmin 2 what 3 was to 1. Fixed a lot of problems I had with the second game, though I do still miss some kind of time resistance in caves - the Dandori element that was being pushed is kind of ignored in those sections (probably about 40% of the whole thing) which is a big shame.

But again, it;s still Pikmin and it's levels have never looked as good, while the actual Dandori challenges stand next to Pikmin 3's exceptional Mission Mode. Also a nice extra mode after completion was a very pleasant surprise.
 
I finished up Dragon Quest IV just now (DS version). I liked it a lot! It's definitely a slow burn, though. I liked the idea of meeting all of the party members and then opening it up with the Hero and recruiting everybody, but it really took a bit for the game to get into a groove. But really once you get to about the point where you start fighting your first few tough fights like that lion monster boss the game gets really fun, and then once you get access to the ship even better. Really comes together as a very very good game by that point. Mostly ran Hero/Alena/Ragnar/Kiryl to clean up random encounters and switched Ragnar out for Borya when a boss fight was coming up. Meena was a flex pick later in the game when Insulate felt needed. I do wish I could've played the mobile version for the party chat feature, but I don't think my tiny phone is viable for playing a JRPG like this. Was still a good time regardless.

1. Gunfire Reborn - 7.5/10
2. Fire Emblem Engage - 8/10
3. Super Mario Bros. - 7/10
4. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom - 8/10
5. Kuru Kuru Kururin - 6.5/10
6. Super Mario Bros. 3 - 9/10
7. Octopath Traveler II - 9.5/10
8. Metroid Fusion - 7.5/10
9. Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen - 8/10

Not much so far this year, but at least what I've played has been good. No duds so far.
 
Hi-Fi Rush!

F2TacOYWIAAUUnj


After going through a few weeks of not knowing exactly what to play and nothing sticking to the wall long enough for me to get hooked, i got a free month of Gamepass and finally finished this masterpiece.

Yes, you heard me right: Masterpiece. It mortifies me how the talks about this game have died down almost completely.

It's like saturday morning cartoon meets oddball fun anime meets rythm game meets Devil May Cry. It's colorful, wacky, character design is amazing, world design is subjected to gameplay (the whole environment being a rythm display is both simple and genius), gameplay is designed in such a way that following the rythm is rewarded but not required (something that Cadence of Hyrule should have done) and the music selection is just chef kiss

Characters are quirky and charming on both sides, Chai can be an annoying brat at first but he experiences real growth through the story, and the rest of the cast are well driven stereotypes. The baddies too! There are certain bosses that i would have loved to see again through the game, and they give the impression that in other circumstances some of them would've been pretty chill people to hang out with.

And by the way, the castillian spanish dub is amazing, i can't give enough praise to the localization and dub team. Hats off to them.

Conclusion: Short, sweet and to the point, i'm missing more games like this lately, give me more 10h linear experiences like this, please.
 
9. Pikmin 4(NS)

I cannot think of a more perfect Pikmin experience. It's like every stepping point of the game was preparing you for the next. It was like one big Dandori lesson. Yes, the game is relatively easy while giving you tools to make it easier but it is clear that Nintendo intended it to be somewhat easy for a reason. It's great for beginners but it also prepares Pikmin fans for the post game content. I will not spoil what that is but it is splendid and challenging. Although I find this to be the perfect Pikmin experience up to this point I did have a couple nagging issues like with the auto-lock on being obsessed with an object you just passed instead of the object closest. It gets in the way of dandori and sometimes you may throw your pikmin at a dead creature but you want to hit the live one a couple feet away. It's frustrating but in some ways the less harsh enemies make up for it.

I went back and looked at my reviews for Pikmin 1 and 2 and thought maybe going higher than a 9.0 would be crazy. However, the game is the best in the series and just another amazing game for one of the best systems ever. [9.5/10]
 
7. Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney (replay)
8. PWAA Justice for All (replay)
9. PWAA Trials & Tribulations (replay)

I had purchased the trilogy on sale when it was $10, so decided to play through these post-Zelda. I hadn't played through these in some time, but I still remembered basically everything. Still love them all. I'm looking forward to picking up the Apollo Justice trilogy on sale at some point and replaying those too. Now I'll move on to Pikmin 4.
 
I played through two pretty short 3D platformers both to mixed results.

Super Sami Roll is a neat game that's let down in a major way by its camera and controls. If the tongue grabbing mechanic felt more consistent to latch onto things the game would probably be pretty good, but that mechanic is absolutely jank as hell and it keeps me from thinking the game is anymore than just "fine".

Lunistice was the other. I think this one my opinion will probably improve as I play it more, but on a first playthrough I was impressed by the general gameplay feel, art style, and music, but disappointed with level design and really just felt that the game wasn't fun to fully complete. Once I ditched trying to 100% the short stages I had a lot more fun. The game is only 2 hours long and it feels like it was designed to just repeatedly play through for better times, but that initial playthrough of learning the stages and finding collectibles left a lot to be desired. I'd probably give both these games something like a 6/10 but probably a bit too soon to give a final verdict on Lunistice since it feels like it was designed for trying to improve times on multiple playthroughs.
 
1. Mario Party Superstars (NS) [Finished January 1st, 2023] - 8
2. Bayonetta (NS) [Finished January 2nd, 2023] - 8.5
3. Pikmin (GC) [Finished January 5th, 2023] - 8.5
4. Pikmin 2 (GC) [Finished January 7th, 2023] - 6
5. Metroid Prime Remastered (NS) [Finished February 14th, 2023] - 10
6. Metroid Dread (Replay) (NS) [Finished January 21st, 2023] - 8.5
7. Metroid Prime 2 (PrimeHack) [Finished March 5th, 2023] - 8.5
8. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Dolphin) [Finished March 16, 2023] - 8.5
9. Sonic the Hedgehog (RetroArch) [Finished March 17th, 2023] - 4
10. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (RetroArch) [Finished March 20th, 2023] - 6.5
11. Resident Evil 4 Remake (PC) [Finished March 28th, 2023] - 10
12. Resident Evil VIIIage (PC) [Finished April 4th, 2023] - 7.5
13. Dead Space Remake (PC) [Finished May 15th, 2023] - 7.5
14. Metro 2033 Redux (PC) [Finished June 5th, 2023] - 7.5
15. Resident Evil 3 Remake (PC) [Finished June 10th, 2023] - 7.5
16. Final Fantasy XVI (PS5) [Finished June 30th, 2023] - 6.5
17. Pikmin 3 Deluxe (NS) [Finished July 11th, 2023] - 9.5
18. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (NS) [Finished July 27th, 2023] - [??? / 10]:
19. Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective (Remastered) (PC) [Finished August 1st, 2023] - [10 / 10]:

I don't even know how to open my thoughts on Ghost Trick, other than to say that Shu Takumi deserves all the praise in the world for constantly pushing narratives forward in video games while also very much staying in the realm of cartoon worlds. This is an artist that never pulls any punches and handles mature topics while also always staying accessible, funny and quirky, and I'm not sure how he does it. There's nothing quite like a Shu Takumi game.

Ghost Trick is something that's been praised for years and years and by now I'm not sure how much more there is too really say. Weirdly enough, what probably sticks out to me the most as worth mentioning is some minor flaws that did draw certain parts of the game back for me, which is probably worth bringing up since anyone who's played this game won't stop singing its praises (and for good reason):

A ) While the pacing is better on average than an Ace Attorney game, much like how cases in Ace Attorney often reset tension I think there's maybe just a bit much of a tension reset at times during new chapters. Sometimes you just want to continue the story to get answers because you're so invested, and it can take a while to find the real hook of a puzzle. I'll also add that as good as the UI is, the fact that you can't look across the room in Ghost form or that areas you've traversed don't show their trick potential unless you're on them can be annoying. Towards the end of the game I'd legit forget options I had, extending puzzles times too much.

B ) I think one of the weaknesses of a mystery story is that some of what the reader reads into it has the potential to be discarded by the story the more and more you learn, and that definitely happens a bit in Ghost Trick. Thematically,
most of the characters have some moral ambiguity, and pretty much all of them are abstained by the end of the game. Cabanela in particular was a bit less interesting going from a guy who is neither good nor bad to a guy who is just good but doesn't want to stick up to authority. It also gets funny once you get to the beginning of the last third of the game and the story starts anticlimatically answering some story bits to try to get to the actual main point of the game.


I'm pretty picky with 10's and normally that'd be enough to bump it down but there's something that puts Ghost Trick over the edge from greatest of all time territory into greatest of the greatest of all time territory (you know, aside from the insane quality of the animations, soundtrack, characters and writing): I UGLY CRIED at the ending. For like a good 10-20 minutes. Maybe not so much the end end but the events proceeding it. I rarely cry. The final portion of the game is one of the most meaningful things I've ever experienced in any medium ever. It's the type of ending that makes you think about stories and how meaningful they can be, and I haven't gotten that in a while.

So in conclusion if you've ever watched an anime and rolled your eyes at the ten millionth sad lonely guy story, if you've ever watched a spy film and thought the characters were a bit bland, if you ever thought to yourself "damn there's not enough games about the relationship between humans and animals, someone other than Nintendo really needs to get on that shit", play Ghost Trick. Because it does all those things well. Oh yeah, and it's made by Ace Attorney guy.

By the way the soundtrack is amazing.

Game Ranking 2023:
1. Resident Evil 4 Remake (10) (PC)
2. Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective (10) (PC)
3. Metroid Dread (8.5) (NS) (Need to bump this up)
4. Pikmin 3 Deluxe (9.5) (NS)
5. Metroid Prime 2: Echoes (8.5) (PrimeHack)
6. The Legend of Zela: Tears of the Kingdom (???) (NS)
7. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (8.5) (Dolphin)
8. Pikmin (8.5) (Dolphin)
9. Bayonetta (8.5) (NS) (Would probably bump this down to an 8)
10. Mario Party Superstars (8.0) (NS) (Should probably bump this down to a 7.5)
11. Metro 2033 Redux (7.5) (PC)
12. Resident Evil Village (7.5) (PC)
13. Resident Evil 3 Remake (7.5) (PC)
14. Dead Space Remake (7.5) (PC)
15. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (6.5) (RetroArch)
16. Final Fantasy XVI (6.5) (PS5)
17. Pikmin 2 (6.0) (GC)
18. Sonic the Hedgehog (4.0) (RetroArch)
 
I haven't updated in a while, so let me catch up real quick.

14. Metroid Fusion [4.5/5]
15. Super Fantasy Zone [4/5]
16. Octopath Traveler 2 [5/5]
17. Castlevania Bloodlines [4/5]

Four really great games! Metroid Fusion might low-key be my favorite Metroid game. Super Fantasy Zone has one of the best color palettes of the 16-bit era. Octopath Traveler 2 is a strong contender for game of the year. Castlevania Bloodlines is fluid, arcade goodness, and the Leaning Tower of Pisa level was so awesome!

All of the older games were played on the NSO apps (GBA and Genesis x2.)
 
0
65. Final Fantasy II (as part of Dawn of Souls)

Yeah, this game doesn't really function properly even in the remake.
Not only have I softlocked myself about an hour in (beginning of the game features an area with high-level monsters, and it seems to be impossible to flee from them. Not an issue, unless you save your game a step away from an encounter in that zone not knowing it's a bad place. Reloading didn't help), but it felt too easy. I barely grinded until getting Ultima, when I just wanted to grind out Ultima to see what happens, and I could fight everyone needed just by holding A.

Unfortunately, this fucks up you getting MP on your mages, as MP needs to be spent in battle to gain it, so if you defeat your enemies fast, farewell MP (and there's no defend command!)

The final dungeon was a bit hard, but only the final boss was an actual big step up in difficulty and the ONLY time I used buff/debuff spells.

I'd still recommend it, but it's not as good as I, especially on NES. Firion might have one of the best lead characters' designs, and the atmosphere is pretty good. Honestly, get rid of the weird "remember the term" thing that turns game into a Metal Gear Point And Click where every dialogue is "You have to get an aiship!" "Airship?" "Ask Cid!" "Cid?" "He's in the town X" "Town X?", fix the MP gain, and you'll have a way better game. This dialogue system also got me stuck one time because I didn't exhaust the dialogue.
 
66. Dragon Quest III (GBC)

I've originally started this game before FFII, but got stuck on a final boss.

During the first 70% of the game I'd describe it as the first Dragon Quest you can actually play, but the final area is brutal, and the while the game has variety of QoL things at least on GBC, difficulty is not one of them.

This is one of those games where if you're unlucky, a monster in the final area will just wipe one of your party members whole, and the game is quite stingy with its resourses. Sure, it's not the end of the world, but there are FOUR bosses at the end.

Aside from difficulty this game is just a bit too simple. It doesn't have much story, much like previous DQ games. Music is ok at best, too. Monster design is fun, but encounters are incredibly slow and the game feels like it not only encourages grinding, but it seems that's the only way to progress. I've spent some free time for 3-4 days just grinding in the final area, killing enemies that award 5x more exp than entire groups, and it still took me a bit to level up even when I killed them.

The game is also unreasonably horny for an 8 bit RPG. There are various sexy armors, and some even change your lady companions' overworld sprites, tons of innuendo and the like. Can someone show those developers a boob? It's just so childish. Never understood games that do that. Am I supposed to be on a Beavis/Butthead level of intelligence to go "huehue boobs" every time something like that happens? Also some humor seemed to be kinda... racially charged? I'm no expert on that type of stuff, but DQIII's overworld is just Earth map with some differences, and Africa and Middle East not only have tribal enemies but also villages that try to rip you off on every step unless you barter. Again, I'm not a professional political correcter, but it did leave a bad taste in my mouth somewhat.

I don't know why this game was so popular. Honestly, as much as I've enjoyed XI, DQ series is so simple and uninteresting during its first few entries. Final Fantasy tried to tell a story with twists since its first iteration and evolve each and every sequel, while DQ seems to have been doing baby steps. It was the first jRPG, sure, but the original trilogy feels like every game is only barely different from each other.
 
This year I have finished:

Full games:
  • Pikmin 4
  • Octopath Traveler II
  • The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
  • Master Detective Archives: RAIN CODE
  • Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters (thought some I didn't fully finish yet :p)
  • Kirby's Return to Dreamland Deluxe
DLC/Updates:
  • Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak (with all the updates)
  • Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Future Redeemed
MMORPG's:
  • World of Warcraft: Dragonflight (up until Razegath Normal)
  • Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons (right on time for Secrets of the Obscure)
Currently working on Fire Emblem: Engage and making a start on Baldurs Gate III later.
 
I finished Final Fantasy XVI and...what a ride really, this game has some of the most exciting set pieces in any videogame to date and a Soundtrack for the ages to boot.

The game has it warts tho, specially on how lame and flat (and sometimes boring) the side quests are, the script I also think is not the best in some parts, with tons of filler and blah blah without need. Also, some things, specially at the end I didn't like or understood completely. One more thing is that I found its theme of slavery and how they handle it a little bit "strange" to say the least.

But overall it is a great videogame, the combat is deep (if you want it to be) and the overall plot is very interesting , even got me choked up in a couple of points during the story.

I'm currently at 116 played hours and I'm about to go to phoenix gate in my second playthrough in FF mode (I'm chasing the platinum, only 3 trophies left). It was a pleasant surprise to see how the equipment changes on this difficulty , I hope the game has more surprises stored in this mode.
 
These are all classics and the badge raffle got me to revisit. Was fun to revisit the Advance series as that was how I played it back in the day
27)SMA3 YI
28)SMA4 SMB3
29)SMB the Lost Levels(All Stars)
30)SMB(all Stars)

Previous games:
1)Yoku’s island express
2)Live a Live
3)Arcade Paradise
4)The Great Ace Attorney Adventures
5)Immortal Fenyx rising
6) SD Gundam Battle Alliance
7)Nier Automata
8)Crimson Skies High road to revenge
9)Stacking
10)Conker Live and reloaded
11)Legend of Zelda the minish Cap
12)Ducktales remastered
13)Vostok Inc
14) Star Wars Battlefront(OG)
15)Kirby and the forgotten land
16) Xenoblade chronicles 3 Future Redeemed
17) Sonic Adventure(Xbox)
18)Rhapsody a Musical Adventure
19)Legend Of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom
20)The Great Ace Attorney 2 Resolve
21) Super Mario Advance(Super Mario Bros 2)
22)Lunistice
23)Ghost Trick(phone version)
24) Crusader of Centy
25)Cosmic Star Heroine
26) SMA2 SMW
 
Joy-Boy said:
Bloodborne

I'm someone who really doesnt like hard games. I like to kick back and play chilled out, so Souls game are like diametrically opposite to how I enjoy games. But latley, I've been really interested in Cosmic Horror/Lovecraftian stories, and learning about BB piqued my intrest. Everything about it sounded intresting, from the world, the atmosphere, the story, the lore, etc. the only problem was the gameplay but I decided I would suck it up and give it a fair shake. After all, we all gotta get out of our comfort zones at some point.

Couldnt even get past Cleric Beast and Gasgoine. the difficulty was just not it, and I just could not vibe with all the gameplay choices, like how death would cost you every echo, how you couldnt even pause, etc... I put it down. For the better part of a year, I kept coming back to it every couple months to give it another try and then remembering why I stopped. Trying out new strategies, restarting with different stats, nothing was clicking.

Then it all turned around after I cheesed Gasgoine with glitches to beat him..... Getting to Cathedral Ward and having the game open up like it did, that's the point where I got over the hump. Once I got through Catedral Ward and unlocked the YouKnowWhat dungeon, I finally found a way around the echo grinding. Bumbing up my VIT up to like 30, My entire perspective changed on the game and I was finally able to play it like a "normal" game. It got me over the problems I had initially. I never over did it to the point of trivializing the combat, just enough to where I found it turned the difficulty into a fair and enjoyable challenge rather than a deliberatly unforgiving one.

I was finally able to enjoy what I wanted I wanted from Bloodborne: The world, lore, atmosphere, etc and it turned gameplay into something I was having a blast with!
Click to expand...
Aye good hunter! Glad to hear you enjoyed the ride- I hope you played the DLC and secret areas too, they’re some of the best the game has to offer (imo).

Regardless, I’m glad you too found the hunt to be appealing. Even as someone who’s beat it three times, there are certain enemies and bosses that absolutely wreck me too no matter what…
 
afternoon delight said:
Aye good hunter! Glad to hear you enjoyed the ride- I hope you played the DLC and secret areas too, they’re some of the best the game has to offer (imo).

Regardless, I’m glad you too found the hunt to be appealing. Even as someone who’s beat it three times, there are certain enemies and bosses that absolutely wreck me too no matter what…
Click to expand...
I did a lot of the secret areas and optional bosses, they were great! Gonna tackle the DLC soon once the hunt calls me back
 
0
1) Guardians of the Galaxy - Cloud Version (NSW)
2) Rise of the Third Power (NSW)
3) Haiku, the Robot (NSW)
4) Fire Emblem Engage (NSW)
5) The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap (GBA NSO)*
6) WareWare Inc. (GBA NSO)*
7) Panzer Dragoon Remake (NSW)*
8) Final Fantasy IX (NSW)*
9) UnMetal (NSW)
10) Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope (NSW)
11) Octopath Traveler 2 (NSW)
12) Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (NSW)
13) Citizen Sleeper : Purge (NSW)
14) Metroid Fusion (GBA NSO)*
15) The Red Strings Club (NSW)
16) Earthbound Beginnings (NES NSO)
17) Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Future Redeemed (NSW)
18) Dungeon Encounters (NSW)
19) The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (NSW)
20) Raptor Boyfriend: A High School Romance

21) Picross S9 (NSW)

I can't get enough of these games. Perfect for relaxing before bed time. I do wish we would get some more themed versions though.

22) Persona 5 Royal (NSW)

The only things I knew about this game before starting was that it was a turn-based RPG, and that it was very highly rated. I had seen snippets of trailers, so I knew it was also very stylish. As a big fan of the genre, I have been wanting to play this for some time now. I have to say, this sadly did not meet my expectations.

Don't get me wrong, it is a very well made game and the numerous interlocking systems are all fun or at least interesting to interact with. I'm just clearly not the target audience for this. The story had plenty of high points, and I generally enjoyed anytime I was in a Palace. I think I would have been much happier without any of the day to day social stuff. I get that all of that is meant to flesh out the characters, but I didn't enjoy many of the characters either. I liked Makoto, Sojiro, Ryuji, and Futaba. Everyone else I was either completely neutral on or actively disliked. This is only exasperated by Joker being a silent protagonist. I typically don't mind a silent protag if their isn't a ton of dialog to begin with. But that's like 80% of this game. You are constantly just being talked at. Joker ends up being just a perfect being who responds to any problem perfectly. To the point that nearly everyone in the game worships him to some degree. Even characters like Mishima, who I disliked and constantly chose "bad" dialogue options with loved me. I find this to be a poor storytelling choice that really took me out of it.

I might feel differently if I had wrapped it up in 40-60 hours, but my god I have never played a game that felt as long as this game. I feel a weird dissonance with this it, mostly because I feel like I should love it and it's somewhat frustrating that I didn't. Maybe a younger version of me would have. Oh well. Glad to have experienced it, and also glad to put it in the rearview mirror.
 
67. Detroit: Become Human

From what little I've heard about this game, I was expecting the worst of David Cage's specific type of slop. However, I was pleasantly surprised.
The game is absolutely misguided in its metaphors, but considering there are popular games that don't manage to take a simple stance of "sexual harassment bad" (hey Atlus), I'd say it gets a pass for at least being positive. It's not as centrist as I imagined, even if there was a scene of a character saying "violence breeds violence" in responce to your other protagonist liberating a concentration camp! It's just misguided and feels like it doesn't know what it wants to be.

Honestly, this game would've been better if it just ripped off SNATCHER and just got you to play through a neo-noir game as a gruff detective and a robot who are trying to figure out why the robots are attacking. Only Connor's storyline was unironically good. Not to say other two storylines were awful, but they didn't feel like they belonged. Even the Marcus' storyline which is supposed to be the heart and soul of the game doesn't grab me because Markus is a boring protagonist. He has negative charisma, how is this man a revolution leader?! I didn't particularly care about the big moral dilemma of the game thanks to a man who sounds bored 24/7. The storyline of Cara just feels like it was made by an algorithm to make you feel sad. It's also the one that literally has a character look at you and ask "who's the real monster?" So yeah, don't think a dude who wrote this should be writing about concentration camps.

The world feels like the laziest satire of the 2010's, not something from the future. It's very cishet even when it comes to robots, and all news are just "are you spending too much time on the screen?" Yes! "Global warming is kinda bad!" Yeah no shit. Why are you writing about that in supposedly 2030s?! This is supposedly a future world, so how about giving me something that's not a retread of 60s civil rights movement and stuff that I see around me now? I find this annoying even in Futurama, but that's at least a sitcom!

However, despite its shortcomings, I feel like splitting the game into tiny chapters works to its benefit as it allows you to see a chart of what you could've done, and Connor and Hank legit had chemistry and were often funny.

Lastly, I know that Cage is a fucking asshole, I got this game for free. And frankly, it's a shame because so many talented people worked on this game. HUD is fantastic, futuristic design is great, graphics are good, and music is pretty atmospheric. I can see why people gravitated towards this one.
 
30. Super Mario Bros. The Lost Levels (SNES NSO) [7/10]

Played for the Mario event. This game is a cool concept and I had a good time playing through it. I tried the SNES version since I beat the original on NES. The SNES controls are really bad and bring this game down by a lot.

31. Pikmin 4 (Switch) [10/10]

I've said some of my thoughts about this game in the Pikmin thread. Pikmin is my favorite series and after 10 years they really made a game that feels like it was made for me. Each Pikmin game has an aspect it excels in and which makes it arguably the best in the series. Pikmin 4 excels in being a game about how fun it is to play Pikmin games, and being a game about how dogs are neat. And through its 40+ hour run time, you really appreciate how fun it is to play Pikmin games, and how neat dogs are. It's a shame they had to reboot the series story to do this, but the end result is a perfect celebration of the series. I hope it sees the success the series has always deserved, and I hope we get more dandori missions as DLC.

This game does have flaws of course, but a lot of them could be patched out by patching in more options. The original is still my favorite but this is certainly better than Pikmin 2 in my opinion.

32. Pikmin 3 Deluxe (Switch) [9.5/10]

I originally played this back on the Wii U. Unlike Pikmin 1 + 2, I can't definitively say the original is better than the switch port. The switch version has some nice additions that expand the world of the game, such as the piklopedia and the new Olimar missions. These are cool but they're nothing too special and I wouldn't say they're worth the trade off of losing the Wii Remote + Gamepad controls that made Pikmin 3 the best game on the Wii U.

Pikmin 3 has somewhat of a bad reputation, as it's story mode is basically just a worse version of the perfect arcade experience of Pikmin 1. That is true, and as a more ambitious story it's over too soon, but the world is still fun to explore and all of the characters except for Alph are enjoyable, although the writing for Olimar and Louie is a little off.

Where Pikmin 3 excels is when you realize the story mode is just training for the excellent mission mode. Nintendo really pushes the 3 captain gameplay to it's limit to give you all sorts of challenging levels with different objectives on unique maps. The mission mode is the ultimate version of what Pikmin 4 claims to be doing with the dandori missions and builds off of the skills you develop in the story mode. A really really great game that is deceptively full of content if you enjoy the dandori aspects of Pikmin more than the gross bug teasure adventures that 2 and 4 focus on.
 
Finished Mega Man Zero 3 and ay, caramba! my thumb is sore, that (3 phases!) final boss kept me on my toes for days, I'm too old for this shit, I swear. What a moment when I did the final blow to that absolute fucker. Great game don't get me wrong, just not in a hurry to play again after that. That boss gauntlet was as challenging as ever too.
"Hard Mode" unlocked, the game says, after I got stuck for 2 days straight on the final boss. Hehehe... Sod that.
 
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