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.
35.
Pokemon Legends: Arceus (NS)
I sort of stupidly bought this game shortly after launch once it hit $50 and paid with credit/gift cards so it was free, but then like a day later it went B2G1 and $55. I'm justifying my purchase by saying I didn't have other games I wanted anyway, but whatever. I heard a lot of hype from folks and folks playing like crazy and I got sucked in. Based on my play so far, it feels a cross between Pokemon Let's Go and Pokemon Sword/Shield. This game has so much QoL improvements that just should've always been there. Pokemon can learn as many moves as they want, you just have to equip the moves, kind of like preparing spells in D&D, but you can do it any time outside of battle. I do find I'm still doing the thing I do in Pokemon games and that is I have a well rounded team, so I'm sticking with them instead of swapping people out. I thought about swapping out my completed pokedex folks so I can get a little extra effort towards tasks, but I just can't be bothered to pick other pokemon. I was hoping there would be incentive to releasing pokemon, but there doesn't seem to be sadly, just do it to save space I guess. Like I was hoping for a donate to the cause thing, we need these types of pokemon to help with these types of things, or missions you can send pokemon out on with survey corps or something, they're still yours but they can "work". I'm pretty early on, so it could still happen I suppose, but I feel like if that were a thing they wouldn't be offering and teaching me about releasing pokemon already. I don't know when Pokemon games started doing it, but I hate it. The games have their story mode that ends in the credits rolling, but then there is post game content, which is fine, but the post game content is important story info. I mean, I guess you could stop playing and be like "Yay, all is good", but like if you played for another hour you'd see there is more going on, just feels like you could've not done credits rolling and just continued. Anyway, did the save the world thing, then did the next post game thing which was actually pretty fuckin tough until I went and got revives. There is another post game thing, but it requires completing the pokedex and I'm not about that.
Rating: Soft recommendation.
36.
Touhou Luna Nights (X1)
Another leaving Game pass game. Saw that this one is actually a metroidvania game and decided to prioritize it. The game seems to combine bullet hell style gameplay with metroid vania style combat and world. If I recall correctly, touhou as a franchise is all about bullet hell gameplay, this one isn't very intense in the bullet hell sense, but it is definitely a tough game regardless. The game's story seems to fall in touhou's world, but I'm not familiar with it, so most things just kind of went over my head because I don't know what's going on. Even at the end I didn't really get what was going on, so not having any knowledge of touhou may have hurt the experience for me personally. I'm not big on pixel art games in general, the art style isn't my preference, but when games have artwork for the characters that is really pretty and nice quality, it detracts from the experience when the core gameplay is pixelart. I get it with indie games from small teams, but it doesn't change that fact for me. The character growth isn't very prominent in that by the end of the game you aren't actually much stronger than earlier on in the game, you just have new tools. Collecting the collectibles will increase your MP/HP/Time like most metroidvania games, but the number of collectibles is so few that it doesn't appear to account for much, but also the game is tough so even what little they give you isn't quite enough. "Luckily" the game has a shop where you can buy health/magic potions that can be consumed to refill your meters, which I definitely needed to beat the final boss. It wasn't quite until the final boss that I really honed in on the game's systems of barely not getting hit and refilling health/mp, pacing yourself so you can do special attacks, even using special attacks at all tbh. I didn't even realize you could slow down, not stop, time if you wanted to until I hit the point that I couldn't progress without that. I googled and couldn't find an answer on how to slow time, until eventually I pieced together that they taught me something right at the beginning that I was like oh I'll never use that, which I thought was a slower way of stopping time instead of just hitting the stop time button, that I realized they taught me snail time, not time stop. I feel like that should've had a note on the controls screen to remind you it exists, because I wasted a good hour trying to find some upgrade I missed. Overall, the game wasn't bad, but it's definitely down there in my least favorite metroidvania games, I'll probably forget this game exists to be honest.
Rating: Hard pass
37.
Hypnospace Outlaw (X1)
I've had this installed since it went on game pass and I finally played it because it's leaving game pass. Game pass really seems to be my play it before it leaves thing. I rarely play anything else on it. :shrug: In general, I'm trying to play games like this on game pass because the alternative is spending more money to get a physical copy. That said, maybe if I like the game I'd do a physical copy too. Playing this game took some time to get what was going on and the core gameplay mechanic. Overall the main story plays well enough on Xbox in that for the most part you don't have to actually search for things by typing, but there are definitely times where you do and that does detract from the experience. I had gone into this game thinking that Switch might be better with the touch controllers, like a cellphone keyboard, but honestly, I think this game probably plays best on PC and truly should be played as such. Story is interesting in this one, but I feel like there isn't much closure, bunch of plot holes, and decisions don't really matter I think. Like there was some late game stuff where I expected confrontation and drama, but it was like "yeah, you found me out, ok, I'll repent"... o...k. And then there is a lot of what about these other people, nothing there. Controls aren't exactly the most intuitive which can cause problems, almost all web pages auto play annoying music, honestly a lot of late 90s internet bs, so I guess it's on purpose.
Rating: Soft pass.
38.
Elden Ring (XS/X1)
I legitimately haven't written anything on here in over a month because of this game. I'm at like 130 hours into this game and still pretty far from being done. I've got one last region to hit I think, but tons of content to do and I'm wanting to aim for the full achievement set for this game. I've been swapping between XS and X1 on this game depending on whether or not my wife wants to play on the big TV or if I'm just not in that room when I'm playing. This game is just absolutely massive compared to previous FromSoftware games. I legitimately could talk about this game for hours on end about all of the things about this game. If I do wind up writing that much about this game it might wind up being a whole post on its own because I'm sure I'd hit the character limit on it. I'll try my best to be as short and succinct as possible on this. Souls games get a lot of flack for being difficult and inaccessible, this game does a lot to minimize the difficulty and raise the accessibility, and as patches come out additional accessibility is gained. As an anecdote, playing on the initial release, I found myself wanting to find merchants, but not recalling where they were and they don't show on the map... patch 1 adds map markers for NPCs you've met, so if you know who you want, you can find them easily. A month and a half later and I've finally gotten all of the achievements for this game. I still want to go back and do a second run through with a different build, but I really need to get back to my work on this challenge, I haven't beaten a single other game in nearly 2 months. This game is up there as one of my favorite games of all time, definitely favorite souls game, most likely won't be toppled as GOTY for this year.
Rating: Highly recommended.
39.
Tetris Effect: Connected (XS)
I really don't recall when I started this game, but I decided to play it because I thought my kid would enjoy the visuals and shapes. Of course he has no interest and is in his own world and decides to be destructive. So I wound up playing after he went to bed and burned through Journey mode. The stuff they added in this rendition of the game I didn't take advantage of so it's just more of the same for me from the PS4 version just without the option of VR.
Rating: Soft recommendation
40.
Kill it with Fire (X1)
Started this game a long time ago. It's one of those short game jam looking games. Not much too it but killing spiders. You get different weapons to kill spiders, but I mostly just stuck with the clipboard because why bother. Shooting spiders with a gun is unnecessary and kind of inefficient. Overall not a great game unless you're going to really get into the strategy of the different weapons (most of which I don't understand at all) and try to collect and 100% everything. Honestly a forgettable experience
Rating: Hard pass
41.
Telling Lies (X1)
Not really sure why I started up this game other than it was already installed and I've been interested in it for years because I really enjoyed Her Story. I played Her Story before I ever started tracking stuff, so I have nothing written about it, but I'll definitely blurb about it here in relation to this game. Her Story had a pretty straight forward premise that was pretty easy to piece together, and IIRC the game ended once the game thought you figured it out. I only played it once, so I don't know if you jumped to the right clip right away if the game would end, which could be a flaw in design if you look at it that way. This game is 1 overarching story, but it's several smaller stories that make it, and when you end the game, they give you "closure" on the story that you paid attention to the most. The game seems to have a timer running from like midnight to 5am, not sure how time progresses as I didn't pay enough attention to that, but I definitely got the "ending" before I was ready, I had already found the final clip around 3am or something, but kept searching to piece together more information and see as much as I can. It all makes sense story telling wise, which is fine, but the 3-4 separate stories to follow made things confusing. I also didn't care for the fact that there was no way to quickly jump to the beginning of a clip and sometimes the fast forward scrubbing was too slow, minor complaints but they really did detract from the experience. All in all it's a pretty great story, but there are a lot of things I have complaints about. The main character's "reacting" to the other half of the conversation felt fake/overacted/inappropriate in a lot of situations that just felt disingenuous, some of the acting really felt like they were literally staring at a script and reading, there was a bit of disjointed story telling but I won't knock that as it's absolutely reasonable I just missed pertinent clips, and going on that same note I felt like there was a lost missing or I missed regarding David's breakdown towards the end. I read some plot synopsis stuff that seemed to imply that I might have missed clips that would have spelled things out for me, but I missed exactly how his relationships all went to shit, his descent into paranoia, and ultimately making his final decision. That last one really bothered me as nothing in the tale really made me feel like he felt the way he conveyed, absolutely nothing, I want to keep searching and find more, but even reading a synopsis it just sounds like he went and randomly made the decision (maybe because things fell apart, not because he felt it was the right thing to do.) Honestly, I feel like this is a step down from Her Story, which even that I might be having a form of nostalgia goggles for, because I'm sure I had complaints about that game too.
Rating: Soft pass.
42.
Mega Man Legends 2 (PS1)
I started this up a long time ago, well actually I started playing this when I bought it like a decade ago, but I started over again relatively recently, but still like a year ago. I've been slow playing it like crazy because things keep coming up and I just haven't really had time to play handheld or I'm prioritizing other things. All in all, it's just more of Legends in general, which is great, but I feel like this game, like most sequels, is a step down from the original because the original's world was so charming and well put together and this one just doesn't capture that same feeling. It definitely has improvements like the fast travel system, the original had fast travel, but you had to work for it and this one you've just got it from the beginning. It makes this game feel shorter, but it's got a ton of content, it just moves quickly which is good. I played the game over such a long period that I sort of lost the plot in general, it seems to be a continuation of the story from Legends, plus you get info about Roll's parents, but no real closure on that given the ending. I actually really liked the ending bit specifically with Tron and Roll, because adorable, but that ending really makes me yearn for a Legends 3. :C Shit it makes me yearn for a spinoff game a la Misadventures of Tron bonne, but like 1 part Misadventures of Tron Bonne, 1 part Roll earning money doing repair/spotter work, 1 part Roll and Tron building a rocket puzzle game style, and then 1 more part to round out the experience that I honestly haven't thought enough on, maybe something with Teisel, Data, Gramps, etc... and then the game ends in a resounding failure Bonne style and then Data does his thing and the game was all for nothing. I honestly may think more on this in general.
Rating: Solid recommendation
43.
Fast & Furious: Crossroads (X1)
Honestly not a great game. I think I knew that going in, but being made by the Project Cars folks made it sound like it'd be better than your average licensed racer. Gameplay the game wasn't much better than Gear Club Unlimited for instance, which isn't really a compliment, with some janky vehicular combat mechanics. Story was about what you'd expect from a Fast and Furious outing, which means it's bad, but like you should expect that. Story is really short, fairly disjointed, and doesn't really do a good job of melding the action to the gameplay while making it feel cinematic(?). Basically all in all, this game is pretty disappointing. No difficulty options, no UI/display options, no accessibility options. The game is basically 3 levels that you play in different conditions to make it seem like different locations, some of the levels are literally the exact same level from earlier, just day instead of night, this is probably why they don't give you a map or anything because then it'd be obvious that they are reusing assets. Just a very unrefined experience.
Rating: Hard pass
44.
Spyro The Dragon (NS)
Been putting this off because I was intending on playing it with my kid watching to see if he'd enjoy it like he did me playing the Crash games, but life's been difficult and we've been trying to have him have less screen time because it makes him bonkers. So I finally started playing this for myself basically, he gets to watch a little bit here and there, but not much. I've never played a Spyro game before, so I wasn't fully aware of what I was getting into, I think I was thinking something like Jak and Daxter or Ratchet and Clank, just a platform adventure game, but the game is closer to Banjo Kazooie or Mario 64 in that it's a world based collectathon game. I enjoy that type of game, and this one has the pleasant experience of being able to start to finish in one go 100% levels which I appreciate. I really don't like games that make you skip stuff because you don't have a skill and have to come back later to 100%, I just don't enjoy that. So being able to do that, I never left a level without 100%ing it first, so I was at 100% completion when I beat the game, then I immediately unlocked the bonus level and 100%'d that level so I ended this game at 120% completion. Overall a fantastic game, the only problem is the fact that this game has such terrible framerate and lag in general. The camera can be unintuitive, but really nothing makes this game nearly as bad as the terrible framerate does. Even the loading screens have humongous frame drops. I get I'm playing on Switch, but the critic ratings for these games are pretty close, like too close for how bad the frame drops are in this, so I have to imagine the frame drops are bad on other platforms too. I do kinda wish I had played this on Xbox or Playstation though because I'd probably do all of the trophies/achievements at least for this entry in the game, 2 and 3 are another thing though.
Rating: Solid recommendation
45.
Toradora (PSP)
I watched this show for the first time within the last year or so, and found out about the PSP game and English translation recently so I decided to give it a go. I don't know for sure if I enjoy character VNs or if I enjoy character VNs that I'm already invested in the characters. Clannad and this I enjoyed for the most part, but I was already invested in the characters. Toradora the anime, I didn't care for Takasu ending up with Aisaka, I liked Kushieda better, so I was pretty interested in playing this to see how that could unfold. Most characters I think have multiple endings, Minorin being no different, the difference being that there is only one ending where you end up with Minorin and it's an okay ending. I just feel like this one really pushes you that Aisaka is the only right answer which bums me out because she's kind of the worst. I enjoyed the show despite this and I enjoyed the game despite this too. Overall it's an okay VN, the controls made things confusing and the translation didn't cover the controls, so I didn't even figure out how to save the game until like my 7th playthrough. It wasn't until I was basically 100% done that I figured out how to leverage some of the controls. There are all of like 2 guides out there for this, which makes sense given the translation and no official English release, but nothing really covered the controls. On top of that, the translation isn't really 100% complete in that they didn't translate any extra content or the items list. I might check out the extra content, but I'm concerned give that they didn't translate the menus that they might not have translated the features themselves. It's good, but I'd say it isn't worth playing unless you care about Toradora.
Rating: Soft pass
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