52 Games Challenge 2020

[justin8301]

I think you're going to love LM3 Justin! 

I started it up last night and so far its everything I could have wanted! SO GOOD!

[dhaabi]

01. Pan-Pan: A Tiny Big Adventure || Nintendo Switch || 01.01.20
02. Life Is Strange 2 || PlayStation 4 || 01.06.20
03. SteamWorld Dig 2 || Nintendo Switch || 01.07.20
04. Hidden Folks || Nintendo Switch || 01.13.20
05. Luigi's Mansion 3 || Nintendo Switch || 02.03.20
06. Mario Tennis Aces || Nintendo Switch || 02.04.20
07. Animal Crossing: New Horizons || Nintendo Switch || 04.03.20
08. Wattam || PlayStation 4 || 07.12.20
09. Ape Escape 3 || PlayStation 2 || 07.31.20
10. .hack//Infection || PlayStation 2 || 08.16.20
11. Little Nightmares || PlayStation 4 || 09.01.20
12. Inside || PlayStation 4 || 09.07.20
13. Gitaroo Man || PlayStation 2 || 09.19.20
14. .hack//Mutation || PlayStation 2 || 10.09.20
15. Gris || Nintendo Switch || 10.23.20

[shfan]

I started it up last night and so far its everything I could have wanted! SO GOOD!

Really pleased that's the case    It was one of those games where I was thinking "well, this looks great but it'll probably not be as good as I'd like", but I was wrong, so deliciously wrong

[zenrhino]

1.  Metro Exodus (PS4)

After my late start it's good to get my first game finished, although I have very mixed thoughts about this title.

The levels are a mixture of the normal tightly constructed linear sections and then open-world areas with markers on the map to check off. I quite like this new formula.

The problem is the quality of each levels design varies massively from area to area. It's almost like each level was designed by different companies.

Another bad point is the pathing within the levels....I can't tell you the amount of times my character got stuck on a virtually invisible twig or empty can....very frustrating.

The game is a looker...the landscapes are beautiful (in a post apocalyptic way!) and filled with detail. The character models are excellent apart from one noticeable area where I shot the identical looking henchman 40 times over in 5 minutes!

I like the general gameplay, it's pretty generic but well done. I enjoyed the weapon upgrade path and that I didn't seem to spend much time in the menus.

The audio design is another mixed bag. The game can be almost silent at just the right time to spook you out...very atmospheric and well done. But then there is the good awful dialogue, where multiple npcs would talk over each other, often drowning out the main story. Really very poor!

Overall, I feel there is a good game here, buried very far beneath the parts that let it down [6/10]

[zenrhino]

2. 11-11: Memories Retold (PS4)

This is a collaboration between Aardman Animation (Wallace & Gromit) and the developer DigixArt.

It's a narrative based, walking simulator set in the First World War that tells the story of two men on opposite sides of the conflict. It was made to commemorate the 100-year anniversary of the armistice.

Firstly, it has a pretty amazing & unique artstyle. The world is rendered to mimic an oil painting....I'm no art expert, but think of an animated Monet painting. I found it quite jarring at the start, but as my eye adjusted, I really grew to love the effect.

Secondly, the voice performances and soundtrack are phenomenal. Elijah Wood & Sebastian Koch voice the two main characters and do a top class job, very believable. The mixture of orchestral and choral music is hauntingly beautiful, and my copy came with code for the OST.

The story itself is interesting and very well written. There's nothing groundbreaking here, but I enjoyed it nevertheless.

The gameplay is very straight forward. The puzzles are almost childish in their simplicity and there is zero challenge here. I didn't expect or want anything else.

My one complaint with the game is the lack of narrative choices of any consequence, a problem I have with the walking simulator genre as a whole. The only time you get to effect the story in a meaningful way is right at the very end.

This game is short and sweet, it took me about 6 hours in three sittings. I absolutely think it is worth a play if you have any interest in the setting and enjoy the walking simulator genre. [8/10]

[telly]

Game 2 - Tales of Berseria (PS4) - 65 hours

While this isn't my favorite Tales game I've played, it's definitely a close second. Everything was done really well, but there were several minor things that I didn't like.

+

I think my favorite part of this game was the main antagonist, Artorious. I really liked him because his motivations are far more rational than a lot of villains in RPGs. He sacrifices Velvet's brother to help fix a world constantly plagued with death and tragedy, which makes his actions morally grey and thus far more intruiging. And his relationship with Velvet is complex and interesting. This adds to a world that really does feel like it's in a constant state of crisis, and the NPCs and side characters help build this narrative too and it was interesting to think about. Too many games try to play the "reset button" cliche when it's not entirely clear what is so wrong with the world in the first place (looking at you Pokemon X/Y, looking at you Ace Combat Zero). I'm also glad the story is more straightforward with minimal plot twists compared to Tales of Xillia. Overall the story was really well done with some incredibly dark themes and really standout and emotional moments.

The combat is as good as ever, with some fun tweaks. I really liked the ability to switch in characters when you die, and chain mystic artes together across characters. It was nice to have artes mapped to the face buttons. Granted, I'm skipping forward a few games, so these things could have been present in previous Tales titles. Just looking at this game as it is though, I thoroughly enjoyed the combat. The game has a ton of fun mini games too; some of my favorites were the Geoboard racing, the serving games, and card shuffle especially.

The game looks great, and there are some really fun areas and dungeons to explore. There was more puzzle solving in the dungeons too compared to Xillia, which was nice.

I'm excited to maybe try a new game plus or try some of the sidequests. It seems like there's a lot of extra content that would keep me busy for a long time. I really liked the sailing mechanic too, even though it wasn't very deep.

Velvet, Laphicet and Eizen were really great characters. I originally didn't care for Velvet very much; I thought she was pretty one-dimensional for most of the game. But she really grows and develops substantially over the course of the story and I grew to like her a lot more.

-

I have one major complaint and a few minor complaints

I think my biggest qualm was with the characters. I didn't really care much for Rokourou, and Bienfu and Magilou were downright UNBEARABLE. Some of the secondary characters were not my cup of tea either. Especially Kamoana and Zavied.

While I thought the story was overall well told, there were a few inconsistencies that held it back in parts. There was some herky jerky pacing after you fight Artorious for the first time. The whole "emotions are bad, free will is important" preaching, especially during the suppression portion of the game and beyond, felt a little silly. The dark themes of the game definitely melt away towards a more light-hearted conclusion that the series is infamous for, for better or worse.

It was hard to suspend my disbelief during some parts of the story. Like when the suppression starts and every human becomes mindless robots, but all the important human characters are conveniently not affected. Or when you take the therions out of their earthpulse points and the nearby towns are supposed to turn into demons (which you see in Haria), but when you remove the therions from Loegres and Hellaves, nothing happens, even though it's alluded to by the characters after the fact.

The biggest one for me was how Velvet is like literally public enemy number one but she is able to waltz through towns to her heart's content and nobody notices or says anything. You would have thought someone would have put up a wanted poster or something? She literally murders like 20 people in Hellaves during the beginning of the game.

The music was really droning and boring. Usually Tales games are very mediocre with the music, but in this game it felt substantially worse. There are some good tracks though.

I didn't like the enhancing and dismantling mechanic for weapons, it was a little too "micromanage-y" for my part. I was constantly dismantling and selling off the excess and it felt very cumbersome. You're incentivized to constantly swap equipment to obtain more master skills, but you're also incentivized to upgrade a piece of equipment more than once, so why dismantle it or equip something different after you spent your resources upgrading it? These two systems deliberately compete with each other and do not mix at all. I wish you could just upgrade shop levels like in Tales of Xillia. That would also provide some use for some of the items that you can pick up in the overworld. You pick up so much worthless crap that's worth like 5 Gald that I ignored most of the overworld pickups.

Towards the end of the game some really strange and sloppy translation errors started creeping through, especially with Magilou's lines. One time instead of saying "gruesome", the text read "goose I'm". And this kind of thing happened for like 4, 5 lines in a row. It was during the subquest skits mostly.

[justin8301]

5. God of War (PS4) - 2/3
God of War for the PS4 was my introduction to the franchise; I picked up and played through it in 2018 right when it came out, so I wasn’t planning on playing it again but of course, after finishing the original trilogy I just had to go back and play it. This second playthrough was just as amazing as the first and I think I can say without any doubt in my mind, God of War is THE BEST GAME ON THE PS4… for now…


6. Mortal Kombat (Genesis) - 2/9
Today was just supposed to be cleaning and testing some cartridges, but when you start Mortal Kombat you don’t stop Mortal Kombat till you’ve won the tournament, defeated Shang Tsung, and saved Earth Realm

[bikingjahuty]

12. Resident Evil 3: Nemesis (Dreamcast)

With the announcement of Resident Evil 3 remake I was extremely excited, especially after how good the Resident Evil 2 remake from last year ended up being. However, upon hearing the news of the remake and its imminent release this March, I also realized that I barely remembered anything about Resident Evil 3: Nemesis. The last and only time I'd ever played and beat Resident Evil 3 was at least 16-years ago on the PS1, and in addition to that I barely remembered anything about the game. Literally all I remember is Nemesis saying "STARS" and scaring the shit out of me whenever he appeared. I also remembered other details like you playing as Jill and Racoon City getting destroyed in the end, but that is literally it. I didn't remember any of the story or overall plot, and all the other details of the game. Compare this with the original RE2 which I replayed last year, but before then I still remembered a decent amount of that game despite not playing it for almost as long as RE3. While I did enjoy RE3, I found out why I didn't remember it as much after all these years.


Resident Evil 3: Nemesis is a good game, but not a good sequel to one of the best Survival Horror games of all time. In fact, it barely qualifies as Survival Horror since it puts a much greater emphasis on action than either of its predecessors. I would still place it in the category of Survival Horror, but instead of the slow burn, methodical horror of RE2 and especially the first RE, it favors literally mowing down crowds of zombies with an assault rifle and a much more linear approach to proceeding through the game. The item you need for the locked door you just encountered will likely be the next key item you encounter, and while there is some backtracking like the first two games, it is definitely underplayed for a much more straight forward experience. Sadly this really undermines a lot of the game including the setting of Racoon City and the story that takes place in it.


As Jill Valentine you pretty much enter the city shortly after Claire and Leon from RE2 left it. The city is in utter chaos as hoards of zombies and bioweapon creatures swarm the disaster torn streets. Meanwhile you encounter a group of merchs and have to work with them to survive. While the basic plot does work, it just doesn't have that survival feel like the first two games do. I knew the city was the same city from RE2, but I felt like I'd already been there, even though most of your experience in RE2 is spent in a police station and a secret lab. So much of RE2 just felt like a retread, and while I did enjoy a lot of it, it just felt like I was playing some sort of RE2 DLC where you get to play as Jill, rather than a full fledged RE sequel.


Various tweaks were made to the controls since RE2, however I didn't find them to dramatically increase the tank controls from the previous titles. You are given a dodge that you can use side step enemies as they lung and try and attack you, but I found that all this did several times was put me out of harms way with one enemy, only to set me up to be attacked by another. However, this isn't my biggest gripe with the controls and gameplay of RE3, that would be the bosses. RE3 contained several bosses that while cool and creative, are poorly designed in terms of how you fight and defeat them. There is one boss that's a giant worm creature that you actually fight twice. Each time you are given a very limited space to fight it, and I swear it's impossible to not get hit during each encounter. You pretty much just have to take damage and respond with a healing item as fast as possible, rinse and repeat until you defeat the boss or the encounter is over. Combine this with the already dated tank controls and you have a recipe for some very frustrating parts in the game. Although to be fair, the tank controls of RE2 and RE1 caused a lot of the same grievances, but RE3 takes the cake with some questionable boss encounter design.


The soundtrack of RE3 is pretty good; it is appropriately creepy at times, while at others has more of an action tone to it. There aren't any particularly stellar tracks in this game, although I do have to give a shout out to the theme that plays whenever Nemesis is able to pop out of nowhere and chase you down; it creates a level of unease and tension that at the time RE3 came out was unmatched, and even to this day has been outdone maybe only a handful of times. The voice acting in RE3 is umm, funny. To be fair, the dialogue given to some of the voice actors is very cliche and hammy, but the voice acting is definitely a downgrade from RE2, and probably on par with the original RE1. There is definitely a charm to it, but it has to be said that it's not of the same quality as RE2.


And finally, there is RE3's presentation. RE3 is a good looking game, although for whatever reason it seems to lack the polish of RE2. The environments just didn't seem as memorable or interesting to me while playing. As I said earlier, this might be due to the fact that I felt like I was plopped back into a gaiden story within RE2 rather than a sequel to it at times, and everything just felt too seen this, done that. Despite this, RE3 is still a great looking game, and definitely up there with some of the better looking PS1 games. The zombie and enemy designs are mostly varied and cool, even if some seem very derivative from what we saw in RE2. Many of the bosses are also very cool, of course Nemesis being the standout.


Overall Resident Evil 3 is a great game, and definitely has some very memorable parts, however as a sequel to Resident Evil 2 it does fall short of its predecessor in almost every single way. Still, I'm happy that I replayed the original Resident Evil 3 before the remake comes out next month. Where I felt like the room for improvement between the original RE2 and the remake was minimal, I feel like there is a lot more room for improvement with RE3's remake. I guess we'll find out if Capcom ends up making this game better than the original soon. (2/9/20)

Presentation: 8/10
Sound: 7/10
Gameplay: 6/10
Fun: 12/20
Overall: 33/50

[zenrhino]

3. Uncharted - The Lost Legacy (PS4)

I have played the Uncharted games out of sync. I started with UC4, then UC1 and now have played Lost Legacy. I want to have them all beaten this year.

This game is much shorter than the other entries...I believe it was originally intended as UC4 DLC but it snowballed to something bigger. I beat it in about 8 hours.

The story follows the Chloe Frazer who is new to me and Nadine who plays a part in UC4. The two are great protagonists in Lost Legacy. They have a great chemistry, all helped by the excellent script and voice acting.

It's rare you get two female leads in a game and I think it's handled really well.

Gameplay? Not a lot to say here other than it's more Uncharted and I love it! You play as Chloe throughout, and she plays similarly to Nathan, although her fighting style is a bit more about dodging punches to launch a good counter attack.

The graphics are on a par with UC4, there are no corners cut here.

I would love a full blown sequel with Chloe and Nadine, maybe with Nadine as the playable character this time [8/10]

[ignition365]

Main List
Previous List

bold games are games that have been beaten, previously beaten, or are unbeatable.
italicized games are in progress.
standard games are games I am not currently trying to beat.
strikethrough games are games that have been abandoned.

39. Animal Crossing: New Horizons (NS)
Finally decided to jump into this one having finished Ryza, so good by the way.  Did a bunch of stuff yesterday just short of a major goal, did the major goal this morning, so now I have next to nothing to do for the rest of today because I don't get the rewards until tomorrow.  Remembering how much that stuff sucks in AC because you can only do so much in a given day.  Set up a secondary game to play when I reach a point that I can't do anything else in the game.  I've got a house now, Blather's museum should be built now, earning money, and trying to get enough iron nuggest to build Nook a shop.  Game still seems like a village rather than a deserted island.  Nothing screams deserted island so far, just feels like more of the same town building.  I've sort of abandoned the game, plus it's not really a "beatable" game, so I'm just gonna mark it beat and maybe I'll come back to it.  I'm on one of the last upgrades and I've got like 500,000 bells in the bank.  Managed to come back and get the credits to pop after a few more days of playing.
Rating: Soft recommendation.  It's good, but the gear wear mechanic sucks.

40. Fisher Price: Perfect Fit (NES)
I should probably not count this, but I played it and I beat it.  There is almost nothing to this game.  Just move the item over to it's shape and hit A.  Only played this because my wife insisted that I try and have our son play something on the NES to see if he could start learning to play games.  He was mildly interested at first, but lost interest pretty quickly.
Rating: Hard Pass... obviously.

41. Super Mario Bros. (NES)
I've never actually beaten SMB on the original NES.  I'm sure I beat it on the SNES in All-Stars, but never the original. Anyway, decided to put this on after the other game to see if he would hit the jump button and enjoy getting Mario to jump.  He did it for a few seconds, but wasn't really having it.  So I played to see if he'd watch me play.  I got to around World 4-2 before he got bored.  Put him to nap and I finished the game.
Rating: Recommended... obviously.

42. Luigi's Mansion 3 (NS)
I tried to play this shortly after I got it last year, but I just couldn't do it.  I literally had the game on for 3 minutes before I shut it off.  The intro just didn't meld with me and my expectations of a Luigi's Mansion game.  I finally pushed myself to get through the intro and now I'm enjoying it.  Though the piano playing ghost boss pissed me the fuck off.  Relatively enjoyed this game, but I found most of the boss fights were really frustrating in some mechanical way, I think it's mostly the controls just aren't great for the aiming.  I have the issue that I'll try to aim and then the controls will decide I moved Luigi, so instead of continuing where I pointed, he does a 180 and I shoot in the wrong direction.  Too often I was having to look up how to beat a boss because the only way to hurt them wasn't immediately obvious.  The final boss fight has a section that's timed, personally I hate that garbage.  Overall it's a good game, but it definitely goes 3rd in the list of my favorite Luigi's Mansion games.  The money mechanic is entirely wasted on this game.  You can use money to give you extra lives or to make finding collectibles easier.  I would've liked to see the money be able to be used to make the game more accessible, increasing max health, increasing suction distance/spread, etc.
Rating: Soft Recommendation

43. Minit (NS)
Decided to play this after Luigi's Mansion 3, because I wanted something shortish to play.  Overall I really enjoyed this game.  Don't get me wrong, I hate the dying every 60 seconds mechanic, I do wish they had an option to turn that off maybe as an accessibility option, but that straight up takes the game from a 2 hour game to like a 20 minute game.  I had to look stuff up a couple of times because I forgot where stuff was or couldn't figure out what to do.  I think the cloth map that came with my game probably would've helped some had I used it.
Rating: Soft Recommendation

44. Celeste (NS)
I finally said fuck it and decided to play this.  Partly because it's always touted as such a great game, and partly because I know it's supposed to have some great accessibility options that I was interested in trying out.  Accessibility options seem like they could make the game too easy, but the game still presents some challenge even with them.  I had set a button to reset, thinking this would reset the current screen when I knew I was fucked... nope, it resets the entire chapter.  So I unmapped that button when I accidentally reset the chapter right at the end, but rather than fighting through the whole chapter again, I turned on the accessibility options thinking it would just let me breeze to where I was.  For the most part it made it pretty damned trivial, but some sections were still fairly challenging considering.  I'm proud to say that I got through the entire game without needing the accessibility options, though I did use them at the aforementioned scenario.  I'm mildly surprised that I played through the whole game, as it feels very Super Meat Boy, but I could only get through the first couple of worlds in SMB before I got bored to death of the gameplay loops.  The game barely didn't overstay it's welcome, or in other words, it almost outstayed its welcome.  I was getting quite sick of the game right there at the end, but I'm aware it was from my playing it for like 8 hours straight. I really wanted to see the story content from Chapter 9, but it requires you basically doing the entire game, so I assist moded to get the remaining crystal hearts so I could get through Chapter 9.  Finishing chapter 9 unlocks the C-Sides, I did one C-side and said f it.  I got what I wanted out of this game.  It is very much like SMB, but it feels shorter or more reasonable because it's not quite level based like SMB.  Plus you get real story which helps pull you through.  Overall enjoyable, though assist mode can make the game trivial, I'm glad I beat the game without the need of assist mode.
Rating: Soft Recommendation

45. Panel de Pon (SFC)
After finishing Celeste, I wanted to play something else and not Ring Fit because I wasn't in a position to exercise.  So I loaded up the SNES Switch Online app and played this.  Burned through Hard mode's story and wrecked house.  I love this game.
Rating: Recommended.

46. Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King (3DS)
So far, this game is the worst DQ game I've played.  I've spent more time grinding than actually progressing in general... and I expect that to continue.  As it is, I'm grinding and there is this one monster I fight that I can kill in 1 or 2 turns, but if 2-3 of him spawn they will all coincidentally spam attacks that pretty much 1-hit kill my group, too early for enemies to be this strong.  I appear to have the full party now, but still I'm fairly certain the majority of this game is going to be a grind fest.  This game is killing me how much of a grind fest it is, every single dungeon is grinding for hours because naturally you get to the boss 4-5 levels lower than what you need to be.  I'm like level 18 at my highest character and I need my lowest character at like 21.  I abandoned this game for a reason 2 years ago... came back and went and found some metal slimes and liquid metal slimes and grinded from 18 to 36, playtime shows that took like 12 hours. Anyway, I'm further now and I just got to a dungeon with Metal Slime Kings, so I'm gonna grind that like a bad mother and then I'll continue with the story at a ridiculous level.  Before I left that dungeon I hit level 47, so now I'm super over leveled for the rest of the game.    I'm gonna change my opinion on this game, because coming back to it, I didn't have much trouble where I left off at, I was just being cranky and I needed time away.
Rating: Recommended.

47. The Last of Us: Part II (PS4)
I've been sort of hyped for this game because the last one was so memorable.  As a game, I think they aren't necessarily anything special, but the writing and acting does so well, just amazingly well that you can't help but have these games stick with you.  I sort of wish I had played the Remaster leading up to this to have the first game fresh in my mind.  I also sort of wish I had at least read a full synopsis of the first game minimally, because there were so many things I just didn't remember, but I don't think it would've really changed how I absorbed the content.  Though I do feel there were probably things I didn't notice that maybe I would've noticed.  You know, people or reactions to things.  As much as I'd love to talk about story and such, I'll keep my review absolutely spoiler free as best as I can.  The accessibility options in this game are absolutely mindblowing, I have never seen a game with this many accessibility options.  I love it, it's great, I have hearing problems and sight problems, and I find button mashing sequences to be very annoying, plus so many other things I hadn't considered that I absolutely took advantage of for this game.  It's been so long since I played the original game and I don't really remember how I felt about the core mechanics of the game, but I have very little to no complaints about the core mechanics of this game.  My wife watched me play a little bit and she commented on how cool it was that character hair has collision detection and doesn't just cut through your body and stuff... I didn't dare mention or show that your weapons and stuff still clip through walls though  .  A lot of people's main complaint about Uncharted 4 was that it went on for too long as it was double the length of the rest of the Uncharted franchise, I expect to hear the same complaints about this game as it runs a little less than twice as long as the first entry.  I know I had several times where I was like "Oh, I'm at the end, cool" and then the game went on for 3 more hours and I just kinda gave up and continued playing.  It did it so much that when the game finally ended, I honestly expected there to be more, and I think that took something away... like going to a Marvel movie and it not having an after the credits scene.  I think if you hated the first game, or Uncharted games in general, this is obviously going to be overhyped BS for you.  If you loved or liked the first game, you'll probably enjoy this game.  This game wears its emotions right on its sleeve, and it doesn't pull its punches either.  That being said, I don't feel like this game necessarily captured the same essence as the first game.  Not necessarily a complaint, not necessarily a compliment either.  The game does well enough being different from its predecessor whilst also not being too different... makes for a mildly refreshing experience.  I'm gonna try to find a way to share my thoughts in a spoiler ridden excerpt, but I want to provide a manner to hide the content, might just do colored text here to match the site background, highlight the text to read.
Rating: Highly recommended.

48. Happy Birthdays (NS)
I was trying to pick out a game that might entertain my kid, this seems colorful and full of animals and such so I thought it would be good.  Not really, it's more of a god game, and the controls are sort of infuriating. I got all the way to ancient humans before I realized there were a lot of features to help see why certain things aren't appearing.  I think maybe I would've enjoyed the game more if I had pieced that together earlier.  That isn't necessarily the game's fault, as I know the game told me about it multiple times, that's on me for ignoring it.  I feel like the main story is essentially a tutorial for the game, which is play god and grow all sorts of plants and animals.  I think if I was interested in just playing to play and not go through the story like I normally do, I think I would enjoy this game doing the things, but the controls are a bit frustrating which is a big reason why I'm not really willing to come back to this game.
Rating: Hard Pass.

49. Little Nightmares (PS4)
My wife has been wanting me to play this game for years.  I sort of assumed it was because she thought it was a really good game, apparently it was because she wanted to see if the game would be as difficult and frustrating to me as it was to her.  The answer is yes.  It's a fairly short game, but the platforming mechanics combined with the terrible camera work constantly has you pressing left or right, but you move diagonally, so walking on thin platforms has you falling to your death.  Couple this with infrequent checkpoints that has you walking through annoying sections repeatedly just makes this game pretty unbearable.
Rating: Hard Pass.

50. Samsara Room (Android)
My wife every so often insists on me playing one of her escape games, this was one of those times.  In general I get frustrated with these games because a lot of times they are buggy/glitchy and overall they don't direct you well.  This game was mildly okay, but there were multiple times where I had to just trial and error guess because there just was no information anywhere for me to piece together the information.  Not much to say, generic escape room stuff.
Rating: Hard Pass.

51. Picross 3D: Round 2 (3DS)
I bought this game years ago while on sale or using Nintendo rewards coupons, but I was constantly waiting to finish DQ8 before I started this, now that I'm done with DQ8 I can enjoy this game to my hearts content.  It's Picross, but 3D!  I really don't know what to say other than that, I enjoy Picross.  I don't expect to say much more about this game.  I enjoy it, but it's hard to recommend given that it doesn't have a physical US release and the 3DS is region locked.  Credits rolled after book 40, but after the credits you get another 15 books, plus I still haven't done the Amiibo puzzles yet.  Slowly burning through the post game books and then I'll do the amiibo puzzles.  I won't be updating this anymore, even though I'm still playing.
Rating: Soft pass, no physical and a high price make this an easy pass.  If you can play it, I recommend the EU 3DS physical release though.

52. Forza Horizon 4 (X1)
I saw there was a Forza Xbox Reward card, so I decided to play Forza Horizon 4.  First off, there was a 10GB update, it took the better part of a day because Xbox and my ISP were both throttling so I'd get 1Mbps for 3 seconds every couple of minutes.  Absolutely frustrating.  I don't really know how to track my progress on this, I don't even understand the seasons thing.  I did stuff in previous seasons but it says I have no progress in them, so if I leave my current season, do I have to start over?  Do the seasons matter?  I don't know, it just confuses me, I guess I'll try to google it.  The seasons are part of the games as a service ordeal with this game, and because of that, the game has no clear end goal and nothing to pop the credits.  I hit the various championship milestones and I'm calling it a day with this one, personally not a fan of games as a service, because I'm not the type of consumer to stick with one thing endlessly, I get why they do it, but it isn't for me.
Rating: Soft Recommendation.

53. Sayonara Wild Hearts (NS)
I wanted to play something that I thought would entertain my kid, so I went with something rhythmic.  This game is like a snowboarding minigame from greater games, but inside of a kaleidoscope that constantly loops electro music.  Music and graphics are interesting, but I definitely can't recommend this game, especially for the cost of a physical.
Rating: Hard Pass.

54. Wattam (PS4)
I asked my wife to pick a game and it was literally the first game she saw, so she said play this.  I think maybe I just wasn't in the mood for the game, because I didn't enjoy the game that much.  It captures a similar atmosphere to Katamari, same kooky Japanese soundtrack, colorful world and characters, silly nonsensical story... but it doesn't capture the same essence that Katamari had in terms of gameplay, it didn't grab you and make you want to play more and more.  Katamari's gameplay loop very much has you competing against the game, this is very chill, so obviously this will be a different experience.
Rating: Soft recommendation.

55. Gravity Ghost (PS4)
I've been interested in this game for some time.  But it's a sort of puzzle platformer which isn't my favorite genre, so I've put it off.  VO work is entertaining.  Puzzles are pretty short and not too difficult.  Game is short enough that the puzzles don't get tiresome.  Story is interesting.  Artwork is very meh.  I enjoyed the game, but not enough to do all there is to do.  I wouldn't honestly recommend the game though.
Rating: Soft pass.

56. Battlefield 2: Modern Combat (X1BC)
I've been wanting to play through the Battlefield games because I really enjoyed Hardline, I was expecting CoD style gameplay, but boy was I mistaken.  This game is squad based tactical FPS stuff.  Every mission is basically wave based objectives.  Overall not enjoying this game.  I find that I start a mission, fail it, and then the second time I can beat it.  The most recent one I'm on, I game over within about 30 seconds.  Got all the way to the final mission and just kept failing because of the timer.  I was so close to abandoning this game, but I put enough time and was all the way at the end, it sucks to abandon a game right at the end, but the entire game is just garbage.  The controls are garbage, the ally AI is non-existent, the enemy AI is hyper intelligent, it takes an enemy one shot to kill you, but half a clip to kill them, enemies infinitely spawn, etc.  The enemy AI is the most ridiculous thing, I read walkthroughs and watch videos and they are like oh, sneak up on these guys and take them out, if you can see an enemy, they can see you.  You try to sneak up on a guy, as soon as he renders, doesn't matter which way he's facing, he aim hack shotguns you to the face.  You can kill a guy, but if you turn just slightly, he'll respawn exactly where he was standing.  This game is just plain terrible.  I wound up having to find a video where a guy basically skips all combat by walking out of the combat area to win the mission.
Rating: Hard Pass, absolutely atrocious game.

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[zenrhino]

Finally finished Dragon Quest XI, really good, but I don't know if I enjoyed it more than Death Stranding.  I really enjoyed Death Stranding, but the BT fights sort of ruined the game for me, it could be a great chill game if it weren't for the BTs.  Any time "combat" comes up in the game I get really angry and annoyed, and that really needs to count against it, so maybe DQ11 will take #1 for now.

I completely agree re: the BTs in Death Stranding. I would just let the buggers catch me, then run until I was out of the black goop. Much quicker than fighting them and it clears the surrounding area of BTs for a while.

[bikingjahuty]

13. Gran Turismo 6 (PS3)

While I'd played Gran Turismo 6 before, my experience was fairly limited; I bought the game years ago and started playing it, but for one reason or another I stopped and never resumed playing it until recently. Replaying it again, I sort of found out why I stopped playing it originally. In many ways GT6 is a fun racing sim built on the solid foundation of the Gran Turismo series, but sadly Gran Turismo is a series on the decline and has been since the series hit its peak with Gran Turismo 4 on the PS2 in 2005. I adore Gran Turismo 4, and find myself replaying it for weeks at a time every few years. Despite its fairly outdated roster of cars and now dated graphics, it's still the best GT game. So why wouldn't a newer GT game with more modern vehicles, better graphics, and more modes appeal to me more?


I asked myself this question while playing Gran Turismo 6 and while I'm still not absolutely sure of all the reasons, I can say there are a lot of things that this game just doesn't do all that well compared to its predecessors, and also feels like a very lazy game in many ways, but more on that soon. In fact, in many ways GT6 feels like a step back from GT4 and even older Gran Turismo games. But without further ado here are my thoughts on Gran Turismo 6.


I'll start with Gran Turismo 6's greatest asset, its gameplay. The driving physics in Gran Turismo games are the main reason I keep on coming back after all these years, and while they certainly don't carry this game, they do make playing it pretty enjoyable. As much as a video game can, the feel of the cars feels very realistic with each car handling as you'd expect it to in real world conditions. This is further complemented the the various weather conditions, terrain, and various other environmental effects in the game. Where GT6's gameplay loses a few points actually has to do with the game's progression system which chooses to dole out more money per race than to reward the player with prize cars for winning first place in a series of races like in previous GT games. You are rewarded stars for winning races and these stars allow you to unlock more parts of the game as you progress. This system isn't terrible by any means, but just doesn't feel as rewarding as the system in previous Gran Turimso games, save maybe GT5. Gran Turismo 6 also has somewhat of an RPG aspect to it as you're able to customize your driver, participate in side driving missions for extra cash, and do a plethora of other things to give the feeling of immersion. This element is a nice addition, although i found it mostly superfluous.

Unlike Gran Turismo 4 whose graphics looked like some sort of black magic coming from your PS2, the graphics and presentation in GT6 are fairly disappointing. Many of the car models looks fairly bland despite being on a fairly powerful system. This includes viewing the cars in your garage, on the track, and in the showroom where you purchase cars. Perhaps the only place where the car models do look decent is ironically while actually racing and also in the game's photo mode. Some of the tracks also look very good, but at the same time others look only slightly better then the same tracks in Gran Turismo 4. Spectators still have that 2D, cardboard cutout look to them, and various other aspects of the track environments can just look old and outdated. I found the best looking tracks to actually be the ones brand new to this game, or at least taken from GT5. While the visual presentation in this game is slightly better than not, it is definitely below the standard set by previous Gran Turismo titles which have all been known to be paragons of graphical fidelity on the consoles they were released on originally.

Undoubtedly the worst part of Gran Turismo 6 is its audio. Sadly the only place in this game where I enjoyed the audio for the most was the lobby/menu music where you navigate between the game's modes and options. The OST in this game might as well not even be there since it mostly consists of very generic tracks. But the game's soundtrack is not its worst audio related sin. That dishonor belongs to the sound of the vehicles. Gran Turismo had never had a great record when it comes to the sounds the vehicles make. Many cars which in real life sound like screaming monsters, even using a completely stock setup, sound something like vacuum cleaner in GT6. This has admittedly been a problem in nearly every GT game since 3, but the fact that it hasn't been corrected over a decade after that game came out is completely inexcusable. That's not to say all the cars in GT6 sound terrible, some sound very cool actually, but a lot of the consumer level vehicle sounds do not do the vehicles they're supposed to be any justice.

In the end, Gran Turismo 6 is a very disappointing, albeit competent racing sim. It does the sim part right, but lacks so much in presentation and audio that it actually makes it hard to enjoy how well it plays. On top of that, you can see how Forza and other racing sims have gained the upper hand on the GT series since the release of 4, even if some of those games don't feel as authentic to play. We'll see what Gran Turismo 7 brings, assuming that's what it's going to be called, but I fear that Gran Turismo 4 will remain the very best in the series for here until the end of time. (2/12/20)

Presentation: 6/10
Sound: 4/10
Gameplay: 8/10
Fun: 10/20
Overall: 28/50

[ignition365]

Main List
Previous List

bold games are games that have been beaten, previously beaten, or are unbeatable.
italicized games are in progress.
standard games are games I am not currently trying to beat.
strikethrough games are games that have been abandoned.

57. Battlefield: Bad Company (X1BC)
After being really disappointed with the last Battlefield game I played, I really still wanted something good to scratch my FPS itch.  This one is really well reviewed and seems the next entry to try.  So much in the way of QoL improvements over the previous entry.  I do notice I'm not really good at military shooters because I just absolutely can't see enemies.  They wear camouflage and blend pretty well and I'm color blind.  It makes for a difficult experience, but I'll persevere.  The controls are definitely better, but still a tad awkward.  Story is pretty great and the characters are entertaining.  Quite an enjoyable experience.
Rating: Soft Recommendation

58. Just Shapes & Beats (NS)
Been waiting on this game for years, playing it at PAX South every year, pretty much since PAX South's inception.  Bought this game shortly after release and will totally double dip if it ever goes physical.  I was skimming my digital games on my Switch and saw this and thought about playing it again.  Thought it'd be a good idea because my kid seems to love music stuff.  Loaded it up after an update and saw that they added a casual mode, which is great because I suck at shmup/bullet hell games.  Played for a couple of hours and managed to finish the story mode.  Really not much to it, I think the value in this game comes from the multiplayer and party modes.
Rating: Soft Recommendation as a party game, otherwise pass.

59. Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (X1BC)
Started up this game as soon as I finished the first Bad Company game.  Story revolves around the same characters as the first game, but I guess in a different universe or something because it acts like the first game doesn't exist at all.  Story is a bit too serious compared to the first entry, which takes away a little bit from the experience, but the gameplay is definitely improved over the previous entry.  These games seem to leave off on a sort of cliffhanger/sequel note, but I guess it's on purpose?
Rating: Soft Recommendation

60. Battlefield 3 (X1BC)
Started this up right after I was done with Bad Company 2, didn't even have to install it or anything as it was already on my system, that was convenient.  Combat feels more of the same.  Story was intriguing in a generic conspiracy action movie kind of way.  Didn't care for the fact that there removed the weapon crate feature from previous entries.  Overall this entry is just kind of bland and disappointing.  I enjoyed the varied mechanics that this game did like riding passenger in a jet and a lot of tank stuff, but over the game just didn't have that oomph.  They also did almost nothing to make me care for any of the characters in the story, when characters would die, I would be like uh, which was this guy again?
Rating: Soft Pass.

61. Battlefield 4 (X1)
Jumped into this one shortly after 3.  Had to wait on an install that took like 40 minutes.  The game starts with a character in your squad dying but I don't think they really did anything to convey that you should care, like I feel like it's supposed to be a big ordeal, but you literally start the game with him dying with little context other than it was for nothing... I guess.  Just plain not good story telling and pacing.  They brought back the weapons crates, but they added a separate gadget crate... I think these were merged into one in previous entries, glad it is back, but could've been better.    They seem to be better about having you maybe care about the other characters, but honestly, your two squad mates are quite annoying for different reasons.
Rating: Soft Pass

62. Battlefield 1 (X1)
Started this like a day after finishing Battlefield 4.  This game has a new structure to its story mode.  It's called War Stories and it's essentially several self contained story modes.  I actually really enjoyed this new structure, I think if I hadn't played a lot of really good games this year this might have made it up on the top 5, the story telling and pacing and just everything was very reminiscent of film making and just made for a really great set of experiences.  Honestly, considering how cheaply this game can be had, I can't not recommend this game.  The campaign doesn't force you into the usual CoD/Battlefield fight fight fight experience, it allows you to choose how you want to go about your missions with so many options, it's almost like playing a completely different franchise.
Rating: Highly recommended.

63. Battlefield V (X1)
I was able to have this game loading and updating while playing Battlefield 1 because I actually had 1 from GWG or something, so I popped in the disc for this while playing 1.  That was nice because it allowed me to immediately jump into this game.  First War Story wasn't that great, and was pretty frustrating throughout.  I feel like this one stepped a bit away from the do things your own way, or maybe I just decided to play it differently... I don't know.  It definitely feels more like you're being forced to do things the developer's way this time around.  It gets a little bit better as you proceed, but this game is definitely a step down from the previous entry.
Rating: Soft recommendation

64. Maneater (X1)
Finally decided to give this game a chance.  Man am I glad I did, this game was pretty freaking amazing.  Don't get me wrong, it isn't a high quality game, but it is fun as fuck.  The camera work can get a little frustrating and there is no lock on, so you wind up missing your intended target a lot, but still fun.  As you progress through the game you become more and more menacing until you can destroy just about anything in your way.  Gawd, if the environments were destructible that would be insane!  I wouldn't call this game a GOTY contender by any means, but it's so damned fun, I can't not recommend it.
Rating: Highly recommended.

65. Carrion (X1)
Story for this game is non-existent at least in terms of text, story is relayed through 3 (maybe 4) flashback sequences.  Even having beat the game, I'm not entirely sure what the story was.  First complaint upfront, there is no map.  So as you play the game, it being a metroidvania, you're supposed to remember where to go with your new skills, personally a metroidvania game needs a map to be good for me.  Progression is done via your monster's size, with skills being locked to specific sizes, so frequently you find yourself needing to backtrack to grow back full size or to deposit bodymass to get back down to your small size.  A side effect of this is that your size also controls your health, small you has half the health of middle you, middle you has 2/3 the health of large you.  Game is largely easy and trivial until about the last 2 sections where the humans are better equipped.  I think I didn't die once until I got towards the end, I wouldn't call it a difficulty spike, but it's basically that, so make sure towards the end you are saving often, because repeating easy sections over and over just to get killed super fast is annoying.  I observed no gameplay issues, crashes, glitches, framerate drops, etc.  Someone made the complaint about not having slithering noises as you move around, I was disturbed by this statement, and further disturbed to find that the game does in fact make those noises gross.  Gameplay mechanics are largely satisfying, though, as you get larger it gets harder to maneuver and controlling your tentacles becomes a hassle.
Beating the game does allow you to continue postgame going around, the only reason to do this is to go find the remaining containment units.  To my knowledge no new game plus or anything, no other collectibles, personally I find very little replay factor in this. My stupid rating system that I'm still really not happy with rates it as a 54/100.  I would call this game a soft recommendation.  It is fun and has interesting and unique gameplay mechanics, but the game is short clocking in at roughly 3 hours long and has little to no replay value.
Rating: Soft Recommendation.

66. Dragon Quest Builders 2 (NS)
I'm not really following the story so far.  It sounds like it takes place after the first game.  It sounds like the monsters are regrouping to take over again.  It sounds like I'm partnered up with the main antagonist.  I don't know that this game is going to straighten things out for me.  I finally finished all of the puzzles in Picross 3D Round 2, so I can get back to having a Switch game as my handheld game.  Will probably put about 30 minutes a day in on this game until it really grabs me.  This game has finally grabbed me, right around when Tsushima released.  Is this because this game is so good and finally at an interesting point?  Or is it because I'm really not enjoying Tsushima that this is a more welcomed alternative?  I don't know.  I just know that I'm preferring this to Tsushima right now and as such am playing the fuck out of this.  I really almost considered continuing playing this game after finishing it because I enjoyed the building aspect so much.  I also considered going out and finding more mini medals and such.  I really enjoyed this game.  Honestly, I might come back to it one day just to screw around.
Rating: Highly Recommended.

67. Devil May Cry 5 (X1)
Started this up right after finishing DmC.  I'm really not feeling it, so I'm taking some time to play other games for now, mostly PS1 games.  Jumped back into this after Maneater and before Ghost of Tsushima.  I'm still not feeling it, but I had an easier time this go around.  Had Tsushima not arrived a day earlier than expected I might've gotten a few missions further.  Hopefully I'll jump back into it after Tsushima.  Nero being voiced by Vash the Stampede doesn't bother me nearly as much as I think it should.  Dante looks like Matt Mercer cosplaying as Dante and I can't unsee that.  It's interesting to see Trish and Lady in modern character models, they don't look like what I would've expected, not a complaint.  The weapons/store lady bothers me in the same way Cindy bothered me in FFXV, it's that voice.  V looks like an emo Degrassi character.  His bird reminds me of Gilbert Godfried.  Having left and come back to this game for months, I know I hadn't really looked forward to this game in general, but that might've been burn out.  But coming back I'm really enjoying the game.  The combat is better than I remember in previous entries, the different characters keeps things varied, the graphics are just so attractive, and the story is interesting enough.  Game definitely leaves the series open to more entries.
Rating: Soft Recommendation

68. Chrono Trigger (NDS)
I'm part of an Amiibo discord community and they are starting up a game club of sorts, mostly games that folks should've played but probably haven't.  Chrono Trigger was game one on the list.  I'm jumping in a bit later than other folks, but I'll probably catch up with how I play games... but maybe not, who knows.  I'm still pretty early in the game.  I've made quite a ways into the game, still don't think I'm but maybe halfway through the game at this point.  I make the connection because I played it first, full well understanding this game came first, but I see the inspirations Cosmic Star Heroine took from this game... the level/world design, the combat systems, etc.  CSH is the only RPG I've played that I would say is comparable to this game, I enjoyed CSH, and I'm enjoying this.  I may even play Chrono Cross after I finish this game.  Might even play that Chrono Trigger fan game Crimson Echoes and possibly play Radical Dreamers.  I really enjoyed this game, I had to do 0 grinding this entire game and that makes the game super high in my books.  I have minor complaints and the DS content dungeon sucked because of the constant back and forth fetch questing... I didn't actually finish that quest, I just remembered that. I actually started up Chrono Cross before I finished this game just to test if PS3 remote play on PSVita was viable... it kind of isn't... but I played for maybe ten minutes... the battle system seems super convoluted and I don't get it.  I think it's going to be an ordeal getting myself to actually go play that game... and the game doesn't look like you play as the characters from this game.
Rating: Highly recommended.

69. Ghost of Tsushima (PS4)
Something about this game doesn't feel right.  I can't quite put my finger on it.  I will at least make the complaint about the color tone, the game feels like it's tone should be dark, but the color tone for the game is bright and vibrant.  Kurosawa mode gives you a darker tone, but the lights are too bright, almost blindingly bright.  The game just doesn't seem to be capable of hitting the right color tone.  I lowered the brightness settings down to like 10-20, and messed with a few more settings and now it seems a bit more appropriate.  A lot of people have told me my opinion is shit and that I should use Kurosawa mode if that's what I want   I'll try to jump back into this at some point, but what with next week being an achievement week for Xbox Rewards, who knows.  I haven't played this game in weeks, I really need to make time and jump back into it. It has taken literally weeks, but I'm finally getting into this game.  I'm still not quite digging it, and totally would rather be playing Chrono Trigger, but I'm trying so I can get through this game.  The combat is better now that I'm taking advantage of the stances.  The game's pacing and story doesn't quite pick up until Act 3, which is the final act of the game, the first two act's story and pacing is just super slow, it's really unfortunate.  They definitely could've paced the game better by making the first area smaller and shorter, and spread out some of the story/side quest tales that really grab you.  Overall, I did enjoy the game though, and it does live on my top 5 for games released this year, not that I've played that many games that released this year so far.  I managed to get the platinum trophy at the same time that I beat the game, I guess it gets some points for being an enjoyable platinum trophy that didn't require much a slog.
Rating: Soft recommendation

70. Uncharted: Golden Abyss (PS Vita)
I had initially started this game around when I bought my house, but I think I didn't get 2 chapters into the game.  I really wasn't enjoying the Vita back then.  I'm really enjoying it now.  I might even hack it to get more out of the system.  Overall I'm enjoying the game, it'll probably rank the lowest for me in the Uncharted series, because the game is largely gimped by forcing Vita features.  I rarely aim for trophies for these games because there is super hard mode trophies which I don't really do... but I was at the tail end of Chapter 23 and I was standing in a camera zone for a collectible, I stepped out of the zone by a step and it initiated the transition to Chapter 24.  Chapter 24 loads and invisible wall preventing me from taking the step back into the camera zone.  Overall a pretty enjoyable experience only hampered by the forced vita touchscreen, motion, and gyro controls.
Rating: Soft recommendation.

71. Titanfall 2 (X1)
This game was recommended to me by a guy on one of my discord servers.  Guy recommended it so much that he literally sent me a copy in the mail.  Game arrived around Tsushima's release, so I put off playing this.  Campaign starts with Matt Mercer.  I hate this guy's voice.  I just do.  It super revolves around my love/hate relationship with Critical Role.  You make so much damned money with voice acting, and then you do this, which you've turned into a business, and so much of their content is locked behind a paywall, and then when they do live events they charge hundreds of dollars just to sit in the crowd and watch.  Really, who am I to judge, you do you, especially if folks are willing to pay, but damn.  Legitimately I assume everyone on critical role is a humongous asshole in real life.  Anyway, that was a huge hurdle to overcome to play this game, but I powered through because he talks so infrequently and you can actually choose to not respond to BT and you don't have to hear Matt Mercer's stupid voice.  Might be the fact that I listened to like 60 episodes of CR and it's mostly him talking so now I hate his voice.  :shrug:  Anyway, the game is fun, the story does feel a bit like it just teaches you how to play multiplayer like a 10 hours tutorial type of thing.  The campaign can be slow at times and just feel like it's dragging on, but it's still relatively short.  I really enjoyed the time travel level, I'd serious play an entire full length game surrounding that core mechanic.  "Oh, he moves so fast, it's like he's teleporting" No, I'm just time traveling.... so fucking dope.  I have to imagine there is already a game like that.  I think I compared the game as Armored Core meets Mirrors Edge meets CoD.  Honestly, I don't regret playing this game.
Rating: Soft recommendation.

72. Papers, Please (PS Vita)
I had been interested in the game for quite some time, but I kept putting off playing it because "Oh, the Switch version will come eventually" and it still hasn't.  Then it was ok, I'll buy the Vita version, my Vita version got rerouted in the mail and during that time I had decided to hack my Vita so I got the game digitally.  I actually played it on Steam a couple of days earlier and decided for sure to play on Vita.  I really enjoyed my time with the game.  It's a pleasant little puzzle game with a story.  I went for Ending 19, don't know that I'll bother with any other endings.  I might go through and get a few more trophies just for shiggles, but if there were a platinum trophy you can be damned sure I'd put in the time for the platinum because this game is actually pretty enjoyable to play, but to put in the time for a few more bronze trophies just isn't worth my time.  I sorta lied, as I was typing this I went and looked and got all of the rest of the trophies except two silvers.  I might actually go work on those silver trophies.  It's basically getting Ending 20 + getting the class 5 apartment.  It would be playing the game over again, so I'll have to think on it, but it'd only take an hour or so to get.
Rating: Honestly, Recommended.

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[Cartagia]

The GF and played through Gears of War as couch co-op.  These games are hilariously over-the-Top macho.  The gameplay is fine, but we probably had just as much fun yelling about protein shakes.

Gears 3 is more of the same, but Gears 4 is definitely and evolution / more mature.  It ends very abruptly, though.

[justin8301]

7. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (PS4) - 2/13
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that this was the hardest game I’ve ever finished. I was a little hesitant going into this one since I’ve never really wanted to play a Dark Souls or really any Souls-like game. I just didn’t get the appeal; I mean what’s to like about just dying over and over again… But I’ll have to admit, I kinda get it now. There really is something satisfying about FINALLY just destroying that boss after like 20 attempts. So yea, I had a lot of fun with this one and it’s opened my eyes to possibly tying some other Souls-like games this year