Games Completed 2021

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ColinAlonso
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Re: Games Completed 2021

Post by ColinAlonso »

I finished a game for the first time in 2 and a half months!
Spoiler: show
Jan 1 - Slay the Spire (Switch)
Jan 10 - Streets of Rage 4 (PS4) (Cherry - Normal)
Jan 24 - Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana (Switch) (True Ending)
Feb 28 - Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap (Switch)
Mar 28 - Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy (Vita)
Jun 13 - Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom (PS4)

And so I've finished the Wonder Boy games that I planned to and Monster Boy was a great way to cap it off.

The movement and combat are fun. The animal transformations are interesting and levels are well designed for each form's varied abilities. Although I only used the first 2 (pig and snake) when necessary, the other four (frog, lion, dragon and human) are always fun to switch to. Its notable that these four are the forms that use weapons and armour on top of their own abilities.

The game contained more puzzle platforming sections than previous Wonder Boy titles, that's possibly the biggest change here. The amount of puzzles in the late game, especially in the Haunted Manor bordered on excessive but they work well especially coupled with all the varied abilities.

Its pretty hard and long. I died nearly 100 times in my 19 hours playthrough, and that's with recent experience of the series.

Visually, it's ok. It's a solid cartoon platformer look but doesn't have much going on, especially when compared to the Dragon's Trap remake. I couldn't quite shake the slightly happy but blank look on human Jin's face. Soundtrack is good with some nice versions of old tunes and some new ones as well.

Although Dragon's Trap is the biggest influence on Monster Boy, the sprawling world is more akin to Wonder Boy in Monster World with most areas being directly connected rather than some areas just being through doors in town. Plenty of references to the other games in it too.

I really enjoyed it though and have had quite a bit of fun playing all these games.
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Indiana747
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Re: Games Completed 2021

Post by Indiana747 »

(Jan) Call of the Sea - Series X.
(Jan) Remember Me - PS3.
(Jan) Ghostbusters Remastered - Series X
(Feb) Disney Infinity 2.0 - PS4 Pro.
(Feb) Batman: Arkham Knight - PS4 Pro.
(Feb) Sacred 3 - PS3.
(Feb) The Darkness II - PS3.
(Feb) The Bureau: XCOM Declassified - PS3.
(Mar) Gears 5: Hivebusters - Series X.
(Mar) Silent Hill: Downpour - PS3.
(Mar) The Medium - Series X.
(Mar) Donut County - Series X.
(Mar) Astro's Playroom - PS5.
(Apr) Outriders - Series X.
(May) Lego City Undercover - Wii U.
(May) Ghost of Tsushima - PS5.
(May) Resident Evil Village - PS5.
(May) Dantes Inferno - Series X(BC).
(May) Streets of Rage 4 - Series X.
(May) Dead Space - Series X(BC).
(June) Matterfall - PS5.
(June) Battlefield 4 - Series X.
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Tolkientaters
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Re: Games Completed 2021

Post by Tolkientaters »

June 15th, just finished Shadow of The Colossus (2018) for the first time, glad I finally got to it, it's fantastic.
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OneCreditBen
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Re: Games Completed 2021

Post by OneCreditBen »



Here's the clear now it's live on general.
Haunted Castle - No Death.
There's so much more to come for me with this, there's another 4 ROMs for starters.
I really like this game. It's so overlooked I feel.
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Combine Hunter
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Re: Games Completed 2021

Post by Combine Hunter »

Spoiler: show
06/01 - Monster Hunter: Iceborne (PS4/PS5)
22/01 - Black Mesa (PC)
24/01 - HITMAN 3 (PC)
15/02 - The Pathless (PC)
06/03 - Homeworld: Remastered (PC)
07/03 - Demon's Souls [Remake] (PS5)
07/03 - Little Nightmares (PC)
05/04 - It Takes Two (PC)
11/05 - Resident Evil Village (PS5)
23/05 - Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy (PS3)
17/06 - Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart (PS5)

Really great. Not innovative, just a hell of a good time.
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Alex79
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Re: Games Completed 2021

Post by Alex79 »

Alex79uk wrote: January 1st, 2021, 1:25 pmJAN - 80 Days (Android)
JAN - What Remains Of Edith Finch (PS4)
JAN - Judgment (PS4)
JAN - Donut County (Android)
FEB - Gorogoa (Android)
FEB - Horace (Switch)
FEB - Castlevania (NES on Switch)
FEB - Akumajō Dracula (Famicom on Switch)
MAR - Pinball FX3: Back To The Future (Switch)
MAR - Pinball FX3: E.T. (Switch)
APR - Fantasy Zone (1cc) (Arcade on Switch)
APR - Assassin's Creed: Unity (PS4)
APR - There Is No Game: Game Jam Edition (Android)
MAY - Ni No Kuni: Wrath Of The White Witch (Switch)
JUN - Super Mario 64 (Switch)

I did enjoy this, cleared it with 71 stars. Later level seem much less fun than earlier levels, and some of the game design is very much of its time, and the controls aren't so hot these days, but fundamentally it's still a great 3D platformer.
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seansthomas
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Re: Games Completed 2021

Post by seansthomas »

January 15th - Spiderman (PS4)
January 17th - Labo VR goggles and camera (Switch)
March 19th - Labo VR blaster (Switch)
March 19th - Bowser's Fury (Switch)
April 12th - Bloodborne + Old Hunters DLC (PS4)
April 18th - Star Wars: Battlefront 2 campaign (PS4)
April 19th - Journey (PS4)
May 24th - Rise of the Tomb Raider: 20th anniversary edition

June 23rd - Vanquish (PS4)

Enjoyed this a lot! Wasn't quite the Bayonetta beater that a few enthusiastic journalists I follow had made it out to be, but it was a fun blast.

Took me a good few levels to figure out how to get into the flow of playing it and using the weapons / slowdown to your advantage, but once it did I had a lot of fun and realised there were ways to grind down bosses or cleverly find a way to beat them in several hits.

The bosses and larger enemies are great, as you'd expect from Platinum and the minds behind RE4. As is the escalating action, OTT setting and cheesy story.

I don't see myself replaying it tons as it felt like to do that, it would either need to be shorter in totality to blast through or be divided up into chapters more distinct from one another. And I didn't really get how the scoring system worked.

But there was so much to love here. The zany cut scenes, the occasional boss that really tests you, the odd weapon that confounds expectation and some incredible levels that feel like you're in the finale of Matrix Revolutions or Avatar, given their scale.

Can see why it's a cult hit and garners a lot of affection.
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OneCreditBen
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Re: Games Completed 2021

Post by OneCreditBen »



Last Haunted Castle clear for a bit, until I try and do all 5 roms back to back in one video I think, but here's a No Death Clear on the notorious ROM M.

This is so unbalanced, honestly I'm suprised they even let this one out to be honest with you. The damage is absolutely ridiculous. The first level has regular enemies that can hit you for 8 damage (You've got 16 health), and pit death is an instant kill. Bosses have more health, and bats move on a bigger arc which is a nightmare. I can't imagine this making it out of the preliminary testing phase these days. Absolutely ridiculous. Fun though oddly ;)
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ColinAlonso
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Re: Games Completed 2021

Post by ColinAlonso »

Impressive once again Ben. Those damage differences are just bizarre.
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DomsBeard
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Re: Games Completed 2021

Post by DomsBeard »

Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade

Amazing piece of DLC loved it.

Big fan of the original but never really used Yuffie so went in with no expectations.

5 or so hours of great fun, good story and another amazing ost which I've just purchased.
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OneCreditBen
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Re: Games Completed 2021

Post by OneCreditBen »

ColinAlonso wrote: June 23rd, 2021, 10:02 pm Impressive once again Ben. Those damage differences are just bizarre.
It makes no sense at all.

You can take 1 damage on a certain rom and 8 damage on the M Rom from exactly the same thing.

It's SO unbalanced it makes absolutely no sense.

Fun to beat though.
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Scrustle
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Re: Games Completed 2021

Post by Scrustle »

Spoiler: show
05/01 - Brutal Legend
07/01 - Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs
13/01 - Sludge Life
17/01 - AER: Memories of Old
19/01 - Devil May Cry 4: Special Edition (Human - Nero/Dante)
05/03 - CrossCode: A New Home
14/03 - Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen
17/03 - Mario Kart: Double Dash!! (100cc)
02/04 - Drakengard (Endings A-D)
14/04 - Drakengard 2 (Ending A)
28/04 - Drakengard 3 (Endings A-D)
02/05 - Rain
10/05 - God of War: Chains of Olympus HD
15/05 - God of War: Ghost of Sparta HD
24/05 - NieR Replicant ver. 1.22474487139... (Endings A-E)
08/06 - Final Fantasy XV (NG+)
02/07 - God of War II HD

Honestly this one was kind of a disappointment to come back to. I was actually somewhat surprised how lacking I found it. A lot of it felt like it was not implemented with much care, and it makes the resulting experience feel unrefined and messy. It can be very aggravating on occasion too.

When it comes to combat mechanics, it felt like trying to apply skill and deliberacy to actions was very hard to do. But not in a challenging way, rather the way a lot of the mechanics work throws an unintended spanner in the works in an unsatisfying way. Like as I was playing through the PSP games, I came in with this approach of trying to string together a combo that started on the ground before launching an enemy up in the air, where I would combo them as much as possible up there. Trying to do that here was way less successful, because enemies would just slip out of the combo whenever they felt like it, or the mid-air attacks would fail to catch them for no obvious reason. And as well as that, when enemies get in to that stunned state where you can do a grab finisher on them, they become un-launchable in this game, which totally breaks the flow of that approach too. Larger enemies are also extremely aggressive in this game, attacking really frequently, where all their hitboxes are huge and basically every hit knocks you down. When you get more than one at a time it can very easily turn in to a frustrating mess where you barely get any chance to do anything about the situation.

The secondary weapons are also pretty bad in this game too. They tend to be not brilliant in any of these games, but this one in particular was very underwhelming. The first one you get is a big hammer, that is extremely slow, but also has next to no hyperarmour. You can't dodge while using it, and it's not even particularly powerful to make up for it. It has a gimmick where you can send out little magic spirits, which I think are supposed to distract enemies to leave them vulnerable, but they didn't seem to do anything when I tried them. There's also a spear weapon that is a bit better, but still doesn't really have much reason to be used over the usual chain blades. It doesn't have anything interesting going on. You also get the Blade of Olympus at the very end of the game, but with no time to use it. It is meant as a NG+ weapon I guess, but it doesn't have a particularly big or interesting move set, so again it's rather lacking. I think perhaps there's a fundamental issue with these games when it comes to secondary weapons, in that those primary chain blades fill both the roles of DPS and wide range. It doesn't leave much of a niche for anything else to fill.

I didn't talk much about the secondary weapons in the PSP games, because again they are just sort of there, but I actually think they are better than the ones here. Chains of Olympus has a gauntlet that sends out concentrated electric shocks, and that might be the best secondary out of these three games. It has a very short range, but it is very powerful and can focus a lot of hits in one place. You can also lunge forward in to an attack with it, so it doesn't feel like you can't reach anything either. Ghost of Sparta had a spear with a shield, where throwing the spear also doubles as a ranged attack. That one wasn't super interesting, again feeling like it didn't have a niche to fill similar to the spear in 2, but at least it had some other characteristic that made it situationally useful. So I think both of these games beat 2 in this aspect, even when they only have the one alternate weapon to choose from.

Another big issue I had with the gameplay here is how the level design isn't very good at showing you the way to proceed. It's an inconsistent problem, so it doesn't happen all the time, but it is frequent enough to bring down the experience significantly. There are points where it's terrible at communicating things that are not hard to understand at all. Like for example it not being clear you need to climb up the wall at a point because it doesn't look distinct from the pile of rubble next to it, or needing to stand on a button on the ground which is too small to see on screen, etc. A similar problem is sometimes you will need to solve a puzzle or do some set piece gimmick while you're being attacked by enemies, and the bar for failure can be very tight at times. It doesn't make these moments feel interesting or tense, you're just being harassed while you're trying to focus on something else, and you can easily fail because they happened to randomly hit you at the wrong moment. So these sorts of issues make a lot of the non-combat moments feel like an exercise in frustration where obtuse or annoying elements are used in place of anything actually engaging or thoughtful.

The bosses in general are quite mediocre too. Nothing as bad as the terrible bosses in the PSP games however, but still not great. Several of them suffer from the same issues as larger enemies in their hitboxes are massive and that it feels like you can't get close enough to really get decent hits in without being flattened. These fights are also not great at making individual attacks distinctly recognisable from each other with their wind-ups. It can be hard to tell how you need to react to different attacks until it's too late. The final fight against Zeus is kind of anticlimactic too. It's not anything particularly spectacular, and it ends in a weirdly unsatisfying moment where Kratos pretends to give up for no reason, before it then going in to the final QTE sequence. QTEs in general aren't great in this game either. This is before they went with the peripheral prompts like in 3, so you can't really enjoy the cutscene in the background as you're focused on where the prompts will appear. The actual buttons you press are arbitrary too, and are randomised between attempts, making them feel disconnected from what's actually happening. There's also a lot of stick-rotating inputs which are awkward to do and very easy to fumble.

And then there's the dreaded sound design. While overall I don't think it's as bad as I originally felt with this game, it's still not great. Hits on enemies have only a moderate feeling of impact. That on its own I could find acceptable and overlook if that was the only issue. But higher volume than everything else is the horrible clang sound that your weapon makes whenever it hits the walls. That's the thing that stands out, the thing that is the dominating part of the soundscape. When I try to recall this game, that clang sound is always one of the first things that comes to mind. It's still baffling to me how they decided this is how they wanted this game to sound. So glad they quickly changed course for the rest of the series on this one.

Story-wise it's okay. It's pretty light on narrative, but one thing that stood out about it to me was that it's actually less cruel than I remember. My memory of these games is that past the first game they got increasingly mean and needlessly sadistic as they kept trying to one-up themselves with edgy violence. I guess that's still sort of true, but comparing this directly against the PSP games (Ghost of Sparta in particular), and having played it after GoW3, it actually comes off rather tame in comparison. There is one moment that struck me as excessive my first time around, which is when you force some scholars to read out a passage while smashing their heads against the stone plinth. That still came off as rather gross this time, but it's more or less the only bit of the game that feels like that. And compared to stuff like how practically everyone gets treated in 3, it's not even overly gory.

Looking back on these games has been a strange trip. My original experiences with them was also a bit odd, so I did expect revisiting them would be different. The first God of War was a formative game for me. It was the first character action game I played, and it blew me away at the time. I would say it made me instantly a huge fan of the genre, but I never played the sequels at the time. DMC4 was the next game of that style that I played. It wasn't until way later I caught up with the rest of the series around 2013 when I got the GoW Saga Collection. For that experience I blitzed through all five games on easy difficulty, for the sake of catching up with every game in the series that existed at the time. That made the games that I hadn't played before kind of a blur. That's why I wanted to revisit them. I've already talked about how the PSP games blend together for me, but it was hard to pin down 2 in my mind as well. Before this all I remembered were a few locations/set pieces, and the awful sound design, despite generally feeling positive on it. Hardly any details of the actual experience though. But I'm not only coming at this with a more focused look, but with far more experience in the genre as well, so I could be much more discerning to it this time. Unfortunately all three of these games have dipped in my regard for them, but I think this one probably fell the furthest, which I wasn't expecting. It kind of makes me worry about what it would be like if I replayed the first game. It was never the plan to do so in this stint, since I've already played it twice, and my memories of it are stronger. But right now I'm suspecting it probably also wouldn't stand up very well to another look. 3 I am more confident about though. I'm also not intending to give this another run right now, as not only are my memories from 2013 stronger, I also replayed it somewhat recently too. I played the PS4 remaster after the most recent entry came out, at another time when I was doubting my own appreciation for these older games, but I found that one stood up pretty well. So I don't think that one needs a reassessment any time soon.
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Tolkientaters
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Re: Games Completed 2021

Post by Tolkientaters »

I finally finished Yakuza 7, it was a fantastic game and it's probably my favorite JRPG. It has a lot if convoluted on the top plot elements, but with a ton of memorable characters you stop caring how ridiculous the plot is. Ichiban is a fantastic lead character; he's an obnoxious idiot half the team, but he never stops being endearing or charismatic. I can't wait for Yakuza 8.
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Re: Games Completed 2021

Post by stvnorman »

6 June: The Saboteur (PS3)
11 June: Riddle of the Sphinx (Atari 2600)
13 June: Wave Race - Blue Storm (GameCube)
15 June: Dragon Spirit - The New Legend (NES on Switch)
17 June: Continental Circus (Arcade on PS2)
21 June: Silent Hill 3 (PS2)
27 June: Super Cycle (Atari ST)

I loved the look of The Saboteur back in 2009, and finally got around to it - still plays pretty good too, even if the rude DLC is no longer accessible! Also beat Continental Circus after years of getting to the last course then blowing it - felt great! Enjoyed my first (but undoubtedly not last) journey through sometimes brilliant but often by numbers Silent Hill 3, and rounded off the month with a bunch of arcade-type stuff on all sorts of systems!
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Alex79
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Re: Games Completed 2021

Post by Alex79 »

How you playing Dragon Spirit on the Switch? You running some custom firmware there?
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ratsoalbion
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Re: Games Completed 2021

Post by ratsoalbion »

Namco Museum Archives:
https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Games/Ninten ... 00374.html

Also available on the other main formats.
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Alex79
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Re: Games Completed 2021

Post by Alex79 »

Ah ha, I had a search and didn't manage to find that! Thanks :)
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stvnorman
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Re: Games Completed 2021

Post by stvnorman »

Sorry, missed this Alex! Thanks Leon. That’s the one!
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markfm007
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Re: Games Completed 2021

Post by markfm007 »

Jan 22nd - Jedi Fallen Order
Feb 21st - Little Nightmares
Mar 30th - Final Fantasy X
April 21st - Dark Souls 3
May 14th - Dark Souls 3 + DLC
May 23rd - Mass Effect 1 Legendary Edition
July 12th - Horizon Zero Dawn

Just finished the main campaign of HZD. Seems like good marketing on Sony's behalf to make this one free to download as they showed off the upcoming sequel. Overall I enjoyed my time with it quite a bit.

Positives - Loved how the machines were designed, fighting them is a joy. Weapons are great, I loved the bow, sling and trap based combat, tactically trying to take out the machines and hit their weak points. Really felt like hunting wild beasts. The world is beautiful, and the holographic remnants of the past all fit together in a really striking, natural way. My first time climbing a tallneck in the dead of night was a 'wow' moment.
Spoiler: show
Also enjoyed the main storyline of discovering the past, both through the well done artifacts and the dynamic between Aloy and Sylens.
Neutral/Negatives - Present day story stuff and other characters didn't grip me, well fleshed out but not that interesting. Close combat and d-pad menu navigation were a pain, movement was a bit clumsy and didn't enjoy how often I was fighting in the dark (maybe just me).
Spoiler: show
Also had to knock the difficulty down for the last two missions which disappointed me a bit - they just chuck machines at you without any real cover or cleverness. The combat was best when you could mix the pace with tactics.
Overall they did their job and made me interested in the sequel. I'm going to sweep up the rest of the trophies on easy mode and soak in the world before moving on.
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ironedflemming
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Re: Games Completed 2021

Post by ironedflemming »

18 - Assassin's Creed II: Ezio Collection (PS5)

Really creaky in places especially with the climbing and character models but wasn't long before i was drawn in and fully immersed in stabbing people throughout Italy all over again. The atmosphere (helped immensely by the awesome soundtrack) is what still make this a special game to me - the Ezio remasters are fine, 4K picture but no 60FPS which is a shame.
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