Main ListPrevious Listbold 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.
102.
Xena: Warrior Princess - The Talisman of Fate (N64)
Still in a lot of pain, still playing games my wife wants me to play. Game is just an arena fighting game, like Tekken and stuff. Everybody has sameish basic attacks and then everybody has some button combo special moves just for them. Like most fighting games, story mode is just an excuse to fight everyone, no real story, ending is you won, congrats. Definitely a fighting game just for multiplayer, but they threw in a "story mode" to round out the experience, but very much just kinda thrown in there. Not a game for me, and I couldn't honestly recommend it over any other fighting game, but I know my wife and her family had tons of fun playing 4 player the last time everyone came to visit.
Rating: Hard pass
103.
Mega Man Zero 4 (NS)
I waited too long to write this up and have since forgotten a lot about this game and might be confusing some mechanics with ZX as I played that more recently. So I'm having to look up Youtube videos on the game to refresh my memory. Beating bosses gives you EX skills, I don't recall if that's a new thing for the series or if Zero 3 had it as well, because I don't think I took advantage of it if it did exist. Instead of having Mega Man style suit swaps you equip EX skills that will let you do different elemental attacks and such. You can have multiple equipped at once which can let you do all elemental types with one setup, but there are some EX skills that are only swappable so while you have different things that will let you do the 3 elements, you've got to pick out of 4 for what your buster does, the other ones are button combos like Up + Slash. I feel like this game was the most trivial of the Zero games with Casual Scenario mode. I managed to get through the majority of the game without leveraging the elemental attacks, and then I took advantage of it towards the end. Game pretty neatly ties off the Zero franchise. I won't go into it because spoilers.
Rating: Soft recommendation.
104.
Xena: Warrior Princess (GBC)
Next in the franchise run of Xena games... because I guess I'm playing all of the Xena games. My wife found out this existed, and got kinda offended that we don't own it yet. So I said I'll put it on my list of games to keep an eye out for, but in the mean time, let's play it. Wowie is this game terrible. It's a bad Link's Awakening clone... like it tries to be a 2D zelda game and it takes place in a dream... but it's terrible. I managed to play through nearly the entire game without Xena's shakram (yes, the game calls it a shakram instead of a chakram) because the weapon was basically hidden, I only managed to get it right before the final boss area because I happened to be in the area. The character model is an abomination, they should've just went for a zelda style 8-bit model, but they honestly made her look like what if Xena were the Hulk, she just looks goofy ass large and beefy. Every enemy has just as much health as you and their hit boxes are terrible so it's easy for you to get hit trying to hit an enemy, and ever enemy takes 4-8 hits to kill so every enemy is boss level tough... and the bosses are wildly difficult because they take like 50 hits to kill... and they respawn if you happen into their room again, which is required, so you fight the Wasp boss like 4 times throughout the game due to having to walk through the boss room to get to a certain village. Which is only an issue because there is no fast travel at all. Inventory management is quite terrible especially when you consider that most items are used once and then never used again, but they just take up room in your inventory. NPCs don't acknowledge that you have the item they need unless you actually equip the item, which caused me to physically replay like a real life hour of the game because I thought I missed picking up a quest item, but no, I had it, just hadn't equipped the item. That wasn't fun and I nearly cried on stream when I thought I had to redo so much... and I redid the stuff anyway, reloaded my old save state and saw that I replayed that garbage for nothing. Sure that might be on me, but it's still garbage. Too much having to repeat terrible platforming sectons and having to backtrack back and forth between areas. The final area where you beat the game has no boss, you literally make your way to the last area and then you unlock some doors, watch ghosts fight (Yes, you have to wait and watch ghosts fight before you can proceed to let other ghosts out to fight more ghosts, it's dumb), and then you free sleep god and game over you win. That's it. Kinda anticlimactic, like who locked him up? Why didn't I have to defeat whoever did that? Whatever, there's a reason this game was forgotten. Also, it's made by the same devs who brought you Superman 64.
Rating: Hardest of passes.
105.
Mega Man ZX (NS)
Started this up after Zero 4. I felt like this was the Mega Man Metroidvania game, so I finally looked it up after starting up the game. It is sorta a Metroidvania game. The only thing really stopped you from progressing in different areas is the getting handed colored key cards after defeating bosses. So if anything, it's a pretty linear metroidvania game. You do unlock weapons and such or whatever Metroidvania style, but they aren't what you need to explore new areas, you just need the colored key cards. Just overall it's not a very good metroidvania game. The way the skills work in this game where you swap models or whatever, I wound up almost the entire game just using the ZX model because I would run out of special attack for all of the models and never find the stuff to refill it. Plus hitting with ZX attacks wound up easier than any of the other models overall. So I would use the other ones where I could, but I just burned through special bar too quickly compared to other Mega Man games. It sounds like story wise, this game takes place 100 years after Zero 4, but as far as I can tell, there is no text to actually link the games, they don't even tell you who created the Models and stuff, they very much leave it open to setup Advent I guess. I'll write more on that when I get around to writing up stuff for Advent as I'm playing that currently. This game wasn't so trivial even with Casual Scenario mode, so that was nice, and I enjoyed it enough that I chose to play it on what would've been my streaming time instead of streaming games. Probably could've streamed playing at least some of it, but I just don't like streaming parts of a game. Game definitely wasn't good enough to be on my top list or even my honorable mention list so it's ok. I always give big negative points to metroidvania/exploration games that don't have maps, this game was kinda frustrating in that I had to memorize myself how to get between different zones because there is no real helpful map, just vaguely which zone-# connects to other zones, how to actually get there is on me. Also, the touch screen features were pretty non-existent. The different models displayed different things on the touch screen portion, like maybe the Ice model had a functional map, but like I didn't figure that out until the final boss area when I noticed it. They didn't do a good job of explaining anything regarding the touch screen. It wasn't a terrible game, but it honestly just wasn't a noteworthy entry in the series.
Rating: Soft pass.
106.
Mega Man ZX Advent (NS)
I had higher hopes for this game, hoping it would improve on the issues of the previous entry... but it did not. The voice acting in this game managed to make the game worse. Like the voice acting is so bad, I've put Chaos Wars on my shortlist to compare. Fast travel is a little bit better this time around because there is a sort of overworld map so I know where I'm going mostly, instead of letter-number identifiers. But you're still limited to like 1 transport spot per area (normally after the boss, so I guess once you start something, you're stuck until you quit or beat the area. The swapping merge stuff becomes cumbersome as you get more stuff, because there are like 20 forms to swap between, still dealable, but cumbersome nonetheless. Game has a little connect to ZX, but mostly only in that they explain who "HE" is, Vent/Aile does appear towards the end of the game, and Pandora/Prometheus are big parts of the story. Still no answer as to what happened during those 100 years between Zero 4 and ZX, no answer as to really where these models came from other than that "HE" created them, they add in confusion stating that they've repeated this cycle tons of times over the millennia, and they don't really establish the significance of the "chosen one" stuff. They also don't really give you any sort of significance of what happened at the end of ZX either. The story in this game is just a mess, the voice acting is just the worst, and the game is even less of a metroidvania game, because it's not even keys that lock you out of new areas, it's just that you can't get there until someone unlocks the transport codes or whatever for you.
Rating: Soft pass.
107.
Pursuit Force (PSP)
I'm not entirely sure why I started this one. Like for real, no clue why I did it. I grabbed my Vita, wanted something to play, loaded up Pursuit Force and just... kept playing. This game is super hard, that should have deterred me. But no, I went and got cheats for the game. The cheats didn't work in that it prevented me from proceeding because you can't progress with cheats enabled. I spent the better part of an evening working out how to bypass that and got it working. Even with cheats this game is still super tough, some levels are even designed such that with cheats it's nearly impossible to complete because objectives are still tough as fuck or you can't do certain actions with these cheats enabled. So I wound up having to disable cheats for certain levels. Gameplay is an amalgam of car racing/combat, third person shooter, and first person shooter. Not a fan of shooting from helicopters in general in games, so that was meh, the third person segments weren't the worst except for when they were timed, and the car stuff worked pretty well, but boss fights felt largely unfair and some of the levels were just so tightly designed that even seemingly running things as best as possible, you still nearly lost due to time constraints.
Rating: Soft pass.
108.
Vectorman (NS)
A guy on one of my discord servers frequently hassles me to play the Vectorman games, so I finally decided I'd give them a go, but I wouldn't tell him until after I already beat both games. So I beat both games back to back. Originally, I had told him I wouldn't play them because my Genesis games are packed away and with my injury I can't dig them out. Then I was looking at my Switch games after having finished Mega Man Zero/ZX and noticed that both Vectorman games are on the Sega Genesis Classics game. This brings me to a conundrum. When I play NSO games, I mark them beat on their original platforms because you're just playing a ROM in an emulator, no QoL updates and NSO isn't really a game. Sega Genesis Classics collection is a game, but no QoL updates and you are playing a ROM in an emulator, so I want to put them beat under Genesis, but I also want to put them beat under NS because Sega Genesis Classics collection
is a game for the Switch. But I don't want to put them under both because I don't want to pad my backloggery. But I also don't care about padding numbers really, but it feels disingenuous to say I beat it on Switch and Genesis... but I do this with Smart Delivery games on Xbox One/Series X if I happen to play on both platforms. Anyway, about the game. Graphics are 2D, but have that 3D graphical look to them. Gameplay reminds me of Claymates a little. Basic 2D platforming, but this character has a gun that goes pew pew. More forgiving than most platformers of its time and has difficulty options which is nice. Overall, not a bad platformer. That said, I'm not big on platformers in general, so it's hard for me to say a platformer is a good platformer when I don't generally enjoy them.
Rating: Soft pass.
109.
Vectorman 2 (NS)
More of the same honestly. More levels, some extremely short to my surprise, which was kinda nice. Graphics are a bit nicer. Levels are a bit bigger and have more theme and difference between them. Some levels have shticks which is a refreshing change of pace, instead of just being the same type of level over and over. Some levels were even a little complex in having to figure out how to get out of a certain area or finding the right route to the end. Boss fights were more interesting this time around, though 2 fights in later levels it was hard to tell if I was even doing anything because it just took so long to beat the bosses. Not a fan of boss fights without health bars, it's nice to see you're making progress. Definitely better than the first game though.
Rating: Soft pass.
110.
Pursuit Force: Extreme Justice (PSP)
Started this up immediately after finishing the first game. Right out the gate I can tell this is going to be a better experience, it has difficulty options. Story mode is more coherent, has cutscenes, voice acting (including Tom Clarke Hill, Timesplitters' Sgt. Cortez), and an actual story arc. I actually enjoyed this game immensely compared to the original. Shit I'd even consider recommending this game, and be willing to state to skip the original as it provides no additional story, context, or even gameplay benefits. Story is a bit b-movie campy, but game also isn't that great on its own either, so the combination just happens to make it work. It's more of the same from the previous game, but a lot of the stuff just works better, you get some AI to assist you in some scenarios. It's a shame the PS2 version never came to light and the game never got a 3rd entry.
Rating: Soft recommendation.
111.
Mega Man 2 (PS4)
I was watching AEW Dynamite last night and I wanted something to play that I had no interest in streaming. I kept thinking of games that either I knew I wanted to stream or they were handheld, but I definitely wanted something to play on TV since Dynamite was playing on my laptop. Thought about it and remembered that I had a digital copy of Mega Man Legacy Collection on PS4 and hadn't beaten any OG Mega Man games other than the first one. When I first started trying to do franchise runs, this was one of my first ones that I tried to do. I played through the first Mega Man game and when I got to this one, I abandoned it. I don't know if it was something about the game, life at the time, or just not digging platformers, but I couldn't do it and just hadn't come back to it. I've been playing a lot of platformers and stuff in general, and while I still don't appreciate them like most, I'm having an easier time. This was actually absolutely pleasant to play, and didn't take too long to get through. I didn't really appreciate the final boss section where you run through all of your energy and can't replenish any of it and like literally can't defeat the final boss if you don't have the bubble weapon fully charged, that just seems like a cheap way to screw over the player. Music in this game is just absolutely awesome.
Rating: Soft recommendation.
112.
Hotshot Racing (X1)
Saw this was leaving game pass later this month, so I installed it and gave it a go. Pretty standard arcade racer, and pretty decent at that. Impossible to destroy other drivers because of standard arcade rubberbanding. Rubber banding also makes every race down to the wire, which is cool if you like that. Trying to restart a race in GP mode restarts the entire GP series, so I fucked up once in like the 3rd race and hit restart and was thrown back to race 1, didn't make that mistake again. I will say, it does feel like the game suffers from your car is weightless and other drivers are tanks, because they hit me and I spin and hit a wall and wind up in 8th place, I hit them and they are unmovable. Not a fan of those mechanics because it makes it such that you have to be concern about other drivers hitting you, so if the AI decides to be aggressive, you're boned. No clear cut story mode or anything, so I'm considering the game beat because I won all of the Grand Prix trophies.
Rating: Soft pass
113.
Mega Man 3 (PS4)
I'm probably going to have very little to say about these games as I played them all back to back and they are all so similar. This is the only game, I believe, that has you fight new characters as well as the characters from a previous entry. You fight the 8 robot masters, and then you fight the 8 robot masters from Mega Man 2... and you still have to do the boss rush thing before the final boss, refighting the 8 robot masters from this game. It's an interesting and novel concept, but I'm glad they didn't keep it around. Having to refight the robot masters every game is always an annoyance for me, but it is what it is. Also grateful that they got rid of the gameplay element from MM2 that you could only use one specific weapon to damage the final boss, making it impossible to win if you don't have enough energy for 1 weapon in particular. I'll probably reiterate this, but the rewind feature is such a life saver, like I'm going to consider enabling rewind on emulators in the future if it can work as well as this does.
Rating: Soft recommendation.
114.
Mega Man 4 (PS4)
IIRC this is the future entry in the series that does the, now trope, of having some "new" enemy that is actually just a pawn for Wily. Later in the franchise (not series) they do a reversal of the trope, but I think I missed it in gameplay do to some poor choices, so I'll need to youtube or something to get what I missed. It's also the first of many games that extends the gameplay by having 2 "boss areas", so you go through the first boss' 4 stages and then you go through the final boss' 4 stages. I think this concept sticks around for all games that do the pawn enemy trope. I think this one brings back the only one weapon will hurt the boss thing, but I didn't get much warning about it and I had no problem, so I think it was fine. If I recall correctly the final boss fight for this had a stupid mechanic where it's dark and you have to hit Wily when he appears for a second and before he disappears again. Quite annoying and I think they brought it back in Mega Man 5, but you didn't have the pleasure of having the pharaoh shot that you can just jump around with.
Rating: Soft recommendation
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