What Games Have You Completed? (2022 EDITION!)
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Join Date:Posts: 50597
- Trails in the Sky Second Chapter|PC
- Operation C|Gameboy
- The Outer Wilds|PC
- Kid Dracula|Gameboy
- The Outer Wilds: Echoes of the Eye|PC
- Illusion of Gaia|SNES
- Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3|Gameboy
- Shantae|Gameboy Colour
- The Forgotten City|PC
- Bulk Slash|Saturn
- Monster World IV|Megadrive
- Medal of Honor: Allied Assault: Breakthrough|PC
- Pikmin 3|Switch
- Bayonetta 2|Switch
- X-Com 2: War of the Chosen|PC
- Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts|SNES
- GG Shinobi|Game Gear
- Elden Ring|PC
- Castlevania: Dracula X|SNES
- Maken X|Dreamcast
- God of War Ascension|PS3
- Kirby's Dream Land 2|Gameboy
- Ace Combat 2|PS1
- Quake: Dissolution of Eternity|PC
- Final Fantasy Legend|Gameboy
- For the Frog the Bell Tolls|Gameboy
- Trails in the Sky: the 3rd|PC
- Call of Duty: Ghosts|PC
- Wonderboy: the Dragon's Trap|PC
- Silent Bomber|PS1
- God of War: Ghost of Sparta|PS3
- Lemmings|PC
- Quake: Dimensions of the Past|PC
- Deathloop|PC
- Klonoa: Door to Phantomile|PC
- MakaiMura for WonderSwan|WonderSwan
- Ninja Gaiden (Game Gear)|Game Gear
- Aconcagua|PS1
- Monkey Island 2 Special Edition|PC
- Baroque|PS1
- Alien vs. Predator (1999)|PC
- Professor Layton and the Lost Future|Android
- Ninja Five-O|GBA
- Little Samson|NES
- Trip World|Gameboy
- The Guardian Legend|NES
- Contra: the Alien Wars|Gameboy
- Megaman: Wily's Revenge|Gameboy
- Barkley, Shut up and Jam: Gaiden|PC
- Night Trap|PC
- Gargoyle's Quest|Gameboy
- Cuphead - The Delicious Last Course|PC
- Space Manbow|MSX2
- Blue Reflection|PC
- MegaMan 2 |Gameboy
- Resident Evil 3 (Remake)|PC
- Clock Tower|SNES
- Deep Fear|Saturn
- Detention|PC
- Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade|GBA
- Quake: Dimensions of the Machine|PC
- Toki|PC
- Hakaiou: King of Crusher|PS1
- Marathon|Mac
- Megaman 4|Gameboy
- Crankin Presents Time Travel Adventure|Playdate
- Joe and Mac: Caveman Ninja|Arcade
- Master of Darkness|Master System
- Stalker: Clear Sky|PC
- Die Hard Arcade|Saturn
- Final Fantasy VII: Remake|PC
Final Fantasy VII: Remake
Where to start with this one. There's so much I love about this game and yet there's so much that actively sets out to annoy me and make me miserable.
Lets start with what I enjoyed. The art direction is fantastic. The world of those low res 32-bit backgrounds is imagined beautifully and it feels very authentic to the source material. The character designs are top notch, Nomura thankfully reeled himself in with only the Shinra vice president having ridiculous belt buckles in his design. The characters have been mostly nailed, in particular cloud who has the aloof goofiness of the original. When I say mostly, I'm a little disappointed with Aerith. Brianna White is superb in the role but see is just a bit too sweet and innocent. The original played Tifa and Aerith off one another, Tifa was the tough sex bomb that was shy and unable to express herself while Aerith was the pretty delicate flower girl with a streak of sass and street smarts. I mean in the original she pops off a few innuendos. She's now this super sweet mystical girl with more knowledge than she is letting on while originally she is the street urchin that slowly realises her powers very late.
The combat system is what really stands out to me. I've always preferred turn based combat, turn based just has so many more strategic possibilities. However I've been slowly changing my mind since the Xenoblade series has introduced one of the finest real time battle systems. FFVII's battle system is up there with Xenoblade. It's fantastic. There's a lot of strategy, you have to put yourself in danger to build ATB so you can use spells and abilities. I love a good stagger meter mechanic. There's a trade off you have to consider between buffs/healing and spells/weapon abilities to increase the stagger gauge. Enemy types are varied and fun to fight. However the battle system really shines in the boss battles which are spectacular. The whole thing works so well despite the visual noise that makes it look more like a Platinum games production.
Now to the bad. The padding and the modern anime-icifation. The original Midgar arc of FFVII is the perfect slice of JRPG. It's breezy and well placed. It sets up the mystery of who cloud is, who the hell this Sephiroth guy is and what the hell that jenova thing is in the tank. It leaps from set piece to set piece and when there's down time it lasts as long as it needs to. Mostly that down time plays quite close to an adventure game. For me it's the peak of the FFVII experience. FFVII remake takes that 5 hour experience and stretches it thin over 40 hours. There's dungeons added in that add nothing to the flow of the game or story. Dungeons are about twice as long as they need to be. There's sections where you have to complete inane side quests that bring the action to an absolute crawl. It's so badly paced and actively wastes the players time.
As for the story, I appreciate that they didn't do a scene by scene recreation of the original but what is here destroys the central mystery and themes of the original midgar arc with a sever lack of subtlety and focus on bombast. The whole mystery of who sephiroth is is ruined by the fact that he is in the game almost from the start. Hojo who slowly reveals himself to be the true villain of the original is a raving caricature of a villain. He is almost Kefka-esque, replete maniacal laugh. Aerith and Clouds charming gaunt over the rooftops at night is ruined by making it a dungeon. There's just a lack of restraint and subtlety to the whole thing. Despite the gulf between the 1997 release I prefer the direction of the same cinematics in the original. There's a few things I do like. Jenova's reunion is much better communicated to the player than in the original confused English translation. I also loved the stairs scene in the Shinra Building. But the good is mostly outweighed by the nonsense.
And there's nothing more nonsensical than the ending when Kingdom Hearts invades the world of FFVII. I like the implications that the game can now deviate from the original but it was so badly handled.
Anyway, I'm extraordinarily negative but only because the original has such a big place in my heart. When the game wasn't actively wasting my time I was enjoying it and the battle system is **chef's kiss**. It's more frustrating that there's an incredible game that could have come from this.
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Join Date:Posts: 50597
- Trails in the Sky Second Chapter|PC
- Operation C|Gameboy
- The Outer Wilds|PC
- Kid Dracula|Gameboy
- The Outer Wilds: Echoes of the Eye|PC
- Illusion of Gaia|SNES
- Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3|Gameboy
- Shantae|Gameboy Colour
- The Forgotten City|PC
- Bulk Slash|Saturn
- Monster World IV|Megadrive
- Medal of Honor: Allied Assault: Breakthrough|PC
- Pikmin 3|Switch
- Bayonetta 2|Switch
- X-Com 2: War of the Chosen|PC
- Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts|SNES
- GG Shinobi|Game Gear
- Elden Ring|PC
- Castlevania: Dracula X|SNES
- Maken X|Dreamcast
- God of War Ascension|PS3
- Kirby's Dream Land 2|Gameboy
- Ace Combat 2|PS1
- Quake: Dissolution of Eternity|PC
- Final Fantasy Legend|Gameboy
- For the Frog the Bell Tolls|Gameboy
- Trails in the Sky: the 3rd|PC
- Call of Duty: Ghosts|PC
- Wonderboy: the Dragon's Trap|PC
- Silent Bomber|PS1
- God of War: Ghost of Sparta|PS3
- Lemmings|PC
- Quake: Dimensions of the Past|PC
- Deathloop|PC
- Klonoa: Door to Phantomile|PC
- MakaiMura for WonderSwan|WonderSwan
- Ninja Gaiden (Game Gear)|Game Gear
- Aconcagua|PS1
- Monkey Island 2 Special Edition|PC
- Baroque|PS1
- Alien vs. Predator (1999)|PC
- Professor Layton and the Lost Future|Android
- Ninja Five-O|GBA
- Little Samson|NES
- Trip World|Gameboy
- The Guardian Legend|NES
- Contra: the Alien Wars|Gameboy
- Megaman: Wily's Revenge|Gameboy
- Barkley, Shut up and Jam: Gaiden|PC
- Night Trap|PC
- Gargoyle's Quest|Gameboy
- Cuphead - The Delicious Last Course|PC
- Space Manbow|MSX2
- Blue Reflection|PC
- MegaMan 2 |Gameboy
- Resident Evil 3 (Remake)|PC
- Clock Tower|SNES
- Deep Fear|Saturn
- Detention|PC
- Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade|GBA
- Quake: Dimensions of the Machine|PC
- Toki|PC
- Hakaiou: King of Crusher|PS1
- Marathon|Mac
- Megaman 4|Gameboy
- Crankin Presents Time Travel Adventure|Playdate
- Joe and Mac: Caveman Ninja|Arcade
- Master of Darkness|Master System
- Stalker: Clear Sky|PC
- Die Hard Arcade|Saturn
- Final Fantasy VII: Remake|PC
- Dusk|PC
Dusk
The recent Nightdive rerelease of the original Quake was eye opening to me. Here was a game that I liked on release but dismissed later on as being only good because it was graphically impressive at the time. However replaying it I was taken aback by how good the game is. It highlighted something I didn't realise about modern shooters. From Call of Duty, Uncharted, Last of Us, Gears of War etc., they all have one thing in common, po-faced and boredom. Quake with it's incredible level design is an absolute joy in comparison.
Dusk was released at the vanguard of the recent resurgence in FPS games that hark back to the games of the 90's. Realism goes of the window and the focus is instead on excellent level design, weapons that are fun to used and a bestiary of enemies that are a blast to fight. Graphically and stylistically Dusk emulates the look of Quake and other games of the pre- 3D acceleration cards PC era FPS games. You can see the raw polygons the environments and enemies are made from and all the textures are presented in their raw unfiltered blockiness. It's not totally authentic, the game has plenty of graphical effects that weren't possible in those old games and the draw distance and amount of enemies on screen at the same time would have crippled my Pentium 100MHz machine, but it is an effective look. Despite the lo-fi graphics the game is able to exude atmosphere from its excellent art and sound design.
Where Dusk really succeeds is in just how much fun it is. Combat is visceral and exciting. Level design is incredible with levels looping around themselves and secrets a plenty to find (including a secret stage to find in each of the 3 episodes). At times the game shifts from all out blasting action to horror. The levels are constantly surprising. While it starts as simple keycard searches, later stages go wild with clever stages gimmicks, including gravity manipulation and non-Euclidean physics.
Make no mistake, Dusk is one of the best FPS games of all time. If you are bored of the handholding linear cinematic boring of modern shooters then pick this game up ASAP.
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Final Fantasy X-2
A decent sequel to a meh game.it was tonally ll over the place, but that's par for the course for FF at this stage. I didn't understand why they went the way of a pop group but at least i got the good ending where Tidus doesn't come back to life.
Metro: Last Light
A brilliant sequel and a great example of why linear, corridor shooting can be such fantastic experiences.
Wipeout: Omega collection.
Look, it's more Wipeout. you're either into these games or you're not.
Darksiders.
THis was a wierd one. I loved the setting and the teenage edgelord plot, as well as the hack-slash combat. i really wasn't a fan of the puzzle platforming sections. Once you enter a puzzle room, the solutions were usually obvious and it's just a tedious slog of platforming and lever pulling back and forth. the boss fights were great craic though.
The Order 1886
Another odd one, the game is a perfectly servicible 3rd person cover shooter, the story is pretty decend, but bloody hell, the pacing is so slow. your walking speed is slow, your running speed is slow, the cutscenes are slow and dragged out to death. You fight normal people mostly with the occasional wearwolf. the wearwolf fights are laughable as their attack pattern is to charge you from the other end of the room, knock you down then run aray to line up their next attack. at one point i stood there without dodging and my health had already regenerated by the time the second attack came. there are two boss fights, but it's just the same QTE fight done twice. the game also ends on a cliffhanger, which i dislike. It looks fantastic but there's too muh wrong with The Order to recommend at anything over bargain bin.
ESPN NHL Hockey
A fun little sports game. maybe i'm just not very good at it but it seems really difficult to score goals in this game.
Bioshock Infinite.
Where to begin here? I loved Colombia, a brilliant setting. the story starts out strong and we finally have an escort mission (most of the game) where we don't have to worry about our charge during cobat. Bioshock finally dumps the silent protagonist and it's for the better. I was going to say this was the best bioshock game made until we started dimention crossing and the game swiftly made it's way up it's own arse. I was also waiting for the big reveal of Bookers connection to Elizabeth because they did a big reveal in the first game so you know it's coming. I thought the ending was stupid and non-sensical and the game more or less fell apart by the finish. a shame for something that was so damn good for 75% of it's runtime.
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