Completed Games (2019)

[Mera'din 306]

28.) Rise of the Tomb Raider

 

Been slowly going through this for my daughter since she really likes the story and finally beat it yesterday. Was solid entertainment. Action sequences and climbing parts are consistently fun and only sometimes frustrating and I feel like they did a good job of improving upon the kind of stuff that Uncharted was always good at.

 

Story was interesting overall. Nothing terribly groundbreaking in these games but they are pretty solid all around and fun as a one and done sort of series to play.

 

Picked up the newest one on Black Friday for $15 so will probably start that for her next weekend.

[Psycho666Soldier 271]

1.) :snes: Super Mario World

2.) Hollow Knight (99%)

3.) Castlevania: Rondo of Blood (100%)

4.) Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (200.6%)

5.) Shenmue

 

Finally beat this for the third or so time in my life.  I started it quite a while ago when it first came out, didn't touch it for a few months, then basically blitzed through it in the last two weeks when I had free time to prepare for Shenmue III.  This game still carries a lot of nostalgia for me, but I think the age really comes through on this game.  The dialogue is pretty awful, both the writing and the acting, and while that's part of the charm, having started II now, I can already tell there's been a stark improvement.  The controls were occasionally frustrating, but that's tank style for you.  I also think the amount of times you're forced to wait for a whole day to pass is annoying.  There are things to do, but not enough that you don't want to time skip sometimes.

 

That said, I still love this game, and it was pretty revolutionary for it's time.  I think I'll find myself appreciating II a lot more already from the few hours I played, but this game will always have a special place in my heart.  It just doesn't really have much replay value the third time through.  It feels a bit more like a slog.  An mostly enjoyable slog, but a slog nonetheless.

[Vic Boss 610]

1. Lost Odyssey

2. Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker HD (Hero Mode)

3. Mega Man 11 (Normal Mode)

3a. Mega Man 11 (Superhero Mode)

4. The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings [Dark Mode]

4a Easy Mode/Roche Path

5 Pokemon Sun

6. Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD

7. Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga

8. Berserk and the Band of the Hawk *Platinum Trophy)

9. God of War 1 (Platinum Trophy)

10. DuckTales Remastered

11. God of War II (Platinum Trophy)

12. God of War: Chains of Olympus (Platinum Trophy)

13. Shadow of the Colossus (Trophy Clean-up)

14. Final Fantasy XIII (Platinum Trophy)

15. Final Fantasy XIII-2 (Platinum Trophy)

16. Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII (Platinum Trophy)

17. Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker

18. Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze

19. New Super Mario Bros U Deluxe

20. New Super Luigi U Deluxe

21. Kirby Star Allies

22. Super Smash Bros Ultimate

23. Luigi's Mansion

24. Link's Awakening

25. Kirby's Extra Epic Yarn

26. Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon

27. Pokemon Sword

28. Poochy and Yoshi's Woolly World

29. Luigi's Mansion - Dark Moon

 

Loved the small refinements, especially the addition of a mission structure. Hated that they added gyroscope controls and God of War-esque balance-beams. Sound and music is still the game's best feature. Controls on 3DS still weren't the greatest.

[dr. b 486]

Pokemon Sword

 

Caught Zacian, whooped Hop one more time, "The End" again - that's enough for me to call it completed. Other than helping my daughter get un-stuck in a couple places in Pokemon X, I've never really played a Pokemon game before. It was fun. I'm kinda thinking of doing it all over again with Shield My core team was set pretty early in the game, so I didn't experiment a whole lot with different Pokemon. It would be fun to play the game again with a different starter and a totally different team, maybe with a focus on using different types than I did in the first playthrough.

[Vic Boss 610]

1. Lost Odyssey

2. Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker HD (Hero Mode)

3. Mega Man 11 (Normal Mode)

3a. Mega Man 11 (Superhero Mode)

4. The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings [Dark Mode]

4a Easy Mode/Roche Path

5 Pokemon Sun

6. Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD

7. Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga

8. Berserk and the Band of the Hawk *Platinum Trophy)

9. God of War 1 (Platinum Trophy)

10. DuckTales Remastered

11. God of War II (Platinum Trophy)

12. God of War: Chains of Olympus (Platinum Trophy)

13. Shadow of the Colossus (Trophy Clean-up)

14. Final Fantasy XIII (Platinum Trophy)

15. Final Fantasy XIII-2 (Platinum Trophy)

16. Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII (Platinum Trophy)

17. Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker

18. Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze

19. New Super Mario Bros U Deluxe

20. New Super Luigi U Deluxe

21. Kirby Star Allies

22. Super Smash Bros Ultimate

23. Luigi's Mansion

24. Link's Awakening

25. Kirby's Extra Epic Yarn

26. Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon

27. Pokemon Sword

28. Poochy and Yoshi's Woolly World

29. Luigi's Mansion - Dark Moon

 

30. Yoshi's Crafted World

Got to the end credits, did every collectable, that part of the game was really fun, didn't have most of the aggravations that eventually get to me in other Yoshi games. Maybe the downside was that there was probably too much having to replay levels over and over again to collect everything.

After the end-credits, things unlocked and those things brought the regular Yoshi game stuff that always grinds me down or turns me off. Not gonna bother with it.

[Mera'din 306]

29.)  Death Stranding

Was an interesting game overall. Story was batshit crazy, but it kept me guessing and there were a lot of interesting elements to it and a whole lot of crazy pseudo-science that was kind of fun to dig through. I wouldn't call it a GREAT game, but it was solid and really managed to shine in a couple places. The gameplay itself is something that, on paper, sounds like it would be absolutely terrible, but ended up being really solid and I never quite grew bored of it. Just as I thought it was going to start getting tedious it would throw something new at me that keep it from stagnating too badly. The semi-online element was really cool and probably the most interesting and dynamic part of the game. Trudging through lonely countryside or dealing with crazy ghost things always seemed a little less daunting when you could see the efforts of other people to traverse the same obstacles and it made for a really cool social experiment kind of thing.

 

Overall I was pretty happy with the game. It's definitely something that not everyone would enjoy but I had a lot of fun with it and look forward to seeing what else Kojima can do when he's let off the leash like this.

[Mera'din 306]

30.)  Eventide: Slavic Fable

 

Simple little Hidden Object Puzzle/Adventure game. Don't usually go out of my way to play something like this but wanted something straight forward and quick to do on occasion between big games. Normally the kind of thing I'd play on my phone instead of on my computer, but it was like 1/3 the price on Steam vs. the Play Store. Wound up on my radar because a person I watch on Youtube sometimes for Vampire the Masquerade stuff works for the company as an artist and I was curious. It was fine. Nothing overly challenging, but required a decent amount of thought to get through the puzzles. Was a nice palate cleanser before I jump into something bigger again.

[MT 900]

You should try Baba Is You. It's another puzzle game that you can quickly play a level or two and move on. Also, you can help me figure some of these out  

[Psycho666Soldier 271]

1.) :snes: Super Mario World

2.) Hollow Knight (99%)

3.) Castlevania: Rondo of Blood (100%)

4.) Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (200.6%)

5.) Shenmue

6.) Shovel Knight: Shovel of Hope

7.) Shenmue II

 

One of the gifts I got for Christmas(given the weekend before the holiday) was Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove.  Comes with all the DLC.  I've been wanting to play this for quite some time, but never pulled the trigger on actually spending money on it.  Man, was I missing out.  It's one of the most original nostalgia pieces I've ever played.  It's like someone took Mega Man, Ducktales, and Adventures of Link and mashed them into one game.  The level designs are clever and tricky, the gameplay is addicting, and the music is phenomenal.  I only beat the main campaign and have only started up as Plague Knight(one of the DLC characters), but since that's how the game originally came out, I feel like that counts enough as a completed game.  I still have feats to accomplish that involve playing through a second time, but otherwise I 100%'ed the playthrough.  I'll do another completed game update when I finish all of the DLC.

 

SHENMUE II.  Holy shit, what a fun game.  Improves on a lot of complaints I had with the first one.  Surprisingly, the acting is better just enough to make most of the dialogue feel alive, which I think is also due to a big improvement in the dialogue itself.  The cast of characters is more colorful, and the general vibe of the plot just feels more fun and engaging than the original.  Hong Kong feels huge, and there is plenty more to do to pass the time in the game.  Having time skips was a brilliant move, and I like that you can actually earn money from the capsule toys.  I felt there were a lot more QTE's and little mini-games throughout.  While the ending was yet another cliff-hanger, it felt more bombastic and satisfying than the first one.  Even after the third time playing it, after all these years, I still find myself ending Shenmue I with a thought of, "That's it?!"  The sequel didn't leave me feeling like that, and in fact, I'd argue it was almost too long of an ending:

 

Minor spoilers

Spoiler

The final battle was exhilarating, and really felt like all the cutscenes between it and going to Bailu VIllage could have been a perfectly satisfying ending on it's own.  It actually felt like this conclusion was properly built through the whole game.  I do like the concept of the post-Kowloon stuff basically being an extended cutscene that you can interact with, but as someone who suddenly ran out of free time to finish the game, it does feel a bit like they could have cut an hour of gameplay from this part.  That said, you can skip all the dialogue while walking to the village, so maybe it wouldn't be as bad if I wasn't a glutton for lore.  The actual ending, though, still felt satisfying, and was the kind of cliffhanger that felt like it expanded the world rather than prolonging the endgoal.

 

I did feel like there were not enough part-time job options(the lucky hit job bloooooows), and the gambling felt almost impossible to credibly make money without resorting to saving and resetting when you lose.  I think the increased amount of QTE's made a few of them very plain and suffering from repetitiveness compared to the supreme originality of each one in the first.  Also, while mastering moves technically became quicker and easier, removing the option to train freely without gaming the system was a mistake.

 

Other than these complaints, I had a blast with a game, and mostly feel it as an improvement on the first one, especially from a plot-perspective.  I got all the trophies but three.  One I can get just by playing the beginning again, and one I should be able to do within an hour of loading up a specific save file.  But one of them will require pretty much playing the whole game again, and I'm not quite ready for that.

 

Shenmue III was on the docket to be played next, buuuuut I ended up getting Death Stranding as a post-Christmas gift, so that might have to wait.