52 Games Challenge 2024!!!!!

[kashell]

2. The Granstream Saga

You know how a lot of folks want remakes for PlayStation classics like Xenogears or Vagrant Story? Well, after playing this, I decided that The Granstream Saga gets my vote. The aforementioned games are much more functional and serviceable than this. The Granstream Saga isn’t bad, but it drops the ball in so many areas that it’s hard not to notice. I love how classic it plays and looks, and of course, I adore the soundtrack and parsing of anime scenes. But there are so many missed opportunities and many areas where QoL features would be helpful. Still, I’m glad that I replayed this. It was nice to stroll down memory lane, revisit the late 90s, and just chill out with a game that could’ve been more. I chose to romance Laramee in the end, for those that were wondering. First time through was Arcia.

[kashell]

3. Blasphemous II

Real talk. I had every intention of just casually playing this while being away from my other consoles. I had low expectations since the first Blasphemous was a semi-steaming dog pile. The low expectations might have helped, but this has become one of my favorite Metroidvanias. Nothing will outshine Symphony of the Night, but my goodness. This game shines in every department in comparison to the first: gameplay, music, graphics, story, exploration, you name it. I ended up getting both endings, completing the map to 100%, and discovering everything. Well, almost everything. Despite acquiring all beads, cherubs, spells, alters, and key items, the game is stuck at 98%. I’m guessing it’s because I didn’t fully upgrade Veridicto. But, the game said I was maxed out with Martyrdom so who knows. Either way, amazing game that I’m stoked to write about in a review.

[realpoketendonl]

All right! 2024, let's do this! Didn't make a base post to keep track of everything the previous year, so will do that this year! No clue how many games I'll get to, in part because I also want to read a bunch of books again this year (finished 20 books last year, plus another 19 manga/graphic novels/art books). But we'll see, either way I'm excited to see what this year has in store! Highly doubt I'll play all the games I'm adding to the lists below, but good to have some ideas!


Beat:

• Hypnospace Outlaw [Switch]
• Sonic Mania [Switch]
• A Mortician's Tale [PC / itch]
• Bayonetta (NSIC Mode) [Switch]
• Princess Peach: Showtime! [Switch]
• Super Metroid [SNES / Nintendo Switch Online]
• Miraculous: Rise of the Sphinx [Switch]
• Star Fox Zero [Wii U]
• Metroid II: Return of Samus [Game Boy / Nintendo Switch Online]
• Dr. Trolley's Problem [PC / itch]
• Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door [Switch]
• The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog [PC / Steam]
• Fat Bear Week [PC / itch]
• Lula 3D [PC]
• A Snake's Tale [PC (Linux) / itch.io]
• Metroid: Samus Returns [3DS]
• Metroid Fusion [GBA / 3DS]
• Gunman Clive [3DS]
• K3 en de vrolijke noten [NDS]
• Sonic Colours [Wii]
• Project Rub [NDS]
• Meteos [NDS] (5/12 endings thus far)
• Tomb Raider (2013) [PC / Steam Deck]
• Metroid Prime 2: Echoes (Metroid Prime Trilogy) [Wii]
• Sonic Lost World [PC / Steam Deck]

(Purple = started it last year or earlier)
(Orange = already beat it before)


Want to play from backlog:

• Solatorobo: Red the Hunter [DS]
• Devil May Cry 5 [Steam Deck]
• Shantae and the Pirate's Curse [Wii U/3DS]
• Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge [Wii U]
• Ori and the Blind Forest [Switch]
• Neo Cab [Switch]
• The Munchables [Wii]

Game-related task I want to finish:

• Finish going through all my itch.io games, and listing which ones from there I want to play (thanks 1000+ game bundles for charity!)

Unrelated, but books I have finished thus far: 12 (+2 manga)

My final list from 2023 (17 titles beat, 15 of which for the first time)

[realpoketendonl]

And can post about my first beat game of the year right away:

1. Hypnospace Outlaw [Switch]

This is a very unique game. Essentially, you are a moderator on a 90s online forum (GeoCities is the comparisent I hear all the time), except its one you access in your sleep. Your task is to go through all the pages and posts, find problematic content and report it to the higher-ups, while learning about the people on the platform and how it works. And yes: it plays exactly like how browsing through these forums in the 90s would be.

The old internet is recreated beautifully. I'm admittedly from '98 so I experienced the internet from a while later, but even then I can recognise and appreciate a lot of the touches they added. It genuinely feels like browsing through forums sometimes. I did realise I was a bit too dumb for this game though. Especially near the end you really gotta start thinking outside of the box, and I ended up needing a guide a few times to figure out the final parts. But that's a me-thing: I suck at these types of brain-busting-type games.

I gotta admit, while I was really into it at first, once the novelty of the 90's PC OS-setup wore off, it did lose me a little (even though I do appreciate a lot of the details that come later (and thankfully it's not that long, so it doesn't overstay its welcome)). This is still a charming title though, and one of the most unique things I've played in a while. If it sounds interesting to you, do give it a look. This was clearly a passion project and the creators deserve some love for it.

[bikingjahuty]

I was having a "I don't know what the hell I feel like playing" kind of night, so I just decided to browse the ROMS on my Everdrive 64, and decided it was going to be an old school racing game night lol.


3. California Speed (N64)

Growing up, California Speed was unfortunately not an arcade machine I came across often. In fact, a local restaurant was the only place I remember consistently having one in the early 2000s, which is where I would play it whenever we'd go there. While my memories on California Speed are fuzzy, I remember it being very fun and memorable, especially parts like when you go into a UFO and also when you're racing inside on a giant computer chip. I've played the N64 port before and remember it being a disappointing imitation of the arcade version, but decided to give it another go for the hell of it.


Indeed, California Speed's N64 port is pretty bad. For one, the technical compromises of this game are on full display with how how crappy the backgrounds and textures look, but more than that is the constant fog you're racing in which really washes out the game, and really distracts from one of the things I love so much about the arcade version. Aside from that, the people that ported this game did a fine enough job imitating the more memorable props and set pieces of each course, which at least reminded me of what game I was playing. The gameplay of California Speed isn't great either, but it's servicable for the most part. The controls are very touchy and squerelly at times, but do a fine enough job in terms of being able to control your vehicle. One other major grip is how this game essentially rubber bands all the other racers to where they always seem to be the same distance in front or behind you, regardless of crashing into something or hitting a wall. This sort of takes away from the fun, but overall I didn't find it too distracting. I saved the best for last, in that California Speed's OST is actually pretty good with some genuinely good tracks. Specifically there was a techno track that was my favorite. One other cool aspect of the sound in this game is that some vehicles sound different than others, making maybe one type of vehicle more desireable than another depending on the player's preferences. California Speed would have been best left as a weekend rental, and even then you're likely get bored with it in an hour or two. Still, the game has its moments depending on what course you select, and also does a decent job at capturing. some of the elements that made the greatly superior arcade game so much fun. Not a terrible game, but one that you'd only want to play if you have a soft sport for the N64 and its library. (1/3/24) [27/50]

4. Stunt Racer 64 (N64)

I jumped into Stunt Racer 64 right after California Speed, and unlike California Speed, I have no nostalgic connection to this game whatsoever. In fact, I didn't even learn about this game's existence until I began collecting. Despite the game's rarity as a result of being a Blockbuster exclusive title, I've actually came across a decent amount of the cart in my game hunting adventures. More recently, I traded my loose cart from my collection for both a CIB Sega Sports Dreamcast and a CIB Saturn console. After playing Stunt Racer 64 for a while, I definitely feel like I got the way better end of that deal.


Stunt Racer 64 is not a very memorable or particularly fun game. The whole "stunt" portion of the game is delegated to 2 or 3 jumps per course, and maybe a loop or wazy road section. However, 80-90% of all the courses are pretty much just standard fair racing tracks, albeit with some sort of theme around some of them. What this means, is you're left feeling like you're just playing another late 90s/early 2000s generic console racing game. One cool thing is you can buy new cars in this game with coins you collect during races, however this provides little incentive to want to keep on playing. Visually, Stunt Racer 64 looks okay for the most part, but there is some noticeable attention to detail on various in game assets. OST on the other hand is actually kind of crappy, and I found the music in Stunt Racer 64 to be unappealing at just downright annoying at times. Overall, Stunt Racer 64 is just another prime example of an overhyped collectors trophy that is worst no more than bragging you own it. Actually playing this game ought to make anyone who actually purchased Stunt Racer 64 for at or near what its currently going for immediately regret it. I feel even better about selling my copy after finally playing it, and realizing it's definitely slower to being a bottom of the barrel N64 Racing game rather than some sort of hidden gem. (1/3/24) [23/50]

[tripredacus]

2. Victor Vran
Of course, again a game starting at 2, it will just always happen. This was started in 2023. It is a Diablo Type Game. Like Torchlight it also has guns and "hand cannons" but does not have bows or crossbows. Large amounts of stuff in the environment is destructible and sometimes will drop loot. In the beginning it is just crates but ends up being a ton of things especially when inside houses. It was what you would expect from this type of game, it starts you with a sword and then you can get other melee weapons that behave differently. Then you get a gun and it seems cool but kind of seems useless compared to swords or hammers. There is an update method you get at level 16 that I ended up revolving my life around. There isn't reason to buy much besides potions or cards. I ended up turning into a card collector (weird) and didn't really care about buying or getting anything else.

Around half-way through (maybe earlier) I ended up finding a weapon that was a book. It is a ranged weapon and unlike any other weapon in the game, the primary attack has no cooldown. It isn't exactly instant as you are still limited by the animations but it can end up being the fastest attack in the game, yet not the most damage. So when I was using a vampire card (it gives life steal) it seemed fairly simple to take down enemies but it wasn't as fast. So I said to myself, why wouldn't I just use this the entire game and put lifesteal cards on then I can just tank everything in the game? I did that in Diablo II with an Amazon. It works fine here too except it has no lock-on mechanic for ranged so you have to make sure you are hitting something. This type build I chould sit in a death area and do just enough damage to stay alive. Sometimes I would be taking 1k damage/sec but doing just more than that where standing in some place with an environmental effect didn't mean anything. The only issues then are fields of cold/slow or enemies that have a knock-back or use the Pull skill which will interrupt your attack.

Most of the bosses have phases. An opener, then spawn some helper monsters and will move around. Some of the phases are not good for my build where I just want to stand in one place and hold down shoot. Especially some of the phases with monsters if they happen to spawn in Elementals or the monsters that use Pull. But, in all phases a boss may have, none of them have are invulnerable. Even the ones where the boss will get extra life bars or use life-beam type things (where you are supposed to destroy the extra things first before finishing the boss). So instead of going through the expected progression, with a constant lifesteal action going and you can tank say... whatever is happening in second phase, you can just ignore the other things and hit the boss. If you kill the extra stuff, then he will go into another phase. There were two or three bosses where one of the phases was too overwhelming for me and I repeated the fight until I found an earlier phase that I could tank.

Controls are OK. You can have many different options and I chose the mouse one (like in Diablo) which may not be the most ideal but it was what was most familiar. You can use Shift to stand in place like in D2 as well. Lock-on for range can be finicky. Special ranged powers can miss targets entirely. Camera can be an issue sometimes but it technically has free-look which is bound to wheel so I could look around like in H1Z1. The cut-away on scenery could be confusing at times. The music is nothing to write home about, although there is a DLC with Motorhead that I don't have, that could be interesting.

Doesn't have a Game Over or a New Game+, you can just keep playing after the ending. There is a lot you can do as each area already had challenges to do, and afterwards you get a second page of them, in addition to some new bosses you can kill and new areas you have to unlock. And there are 2 DLC I believe that add things, so you certainly can keep playing this game for a long time.

[koemo1]

Reserving a spot!

[Cartagia]

Finished my first title for the year!

Golf Story - I've had my eye on this for some time, and it got very cheap on the Switch sometime last year.  It's very funny, has some fun golf mechanics and is just generally fun to pick up and play.  Not terribly long for an RPG (as long as you get a handle on the actual golf mechanics, with me beating the campaign in around 18-20 hours, but there were a few things that were sticking in my craw.  Mainly that there were certain challenges that it forces you to finish out even if it is impossible for you to lose or beat after a round or two.  This was mostly frustrating when I'd screw up something early and had no way of catching up to actual beat the challenge.  Second, while it is short there's not a ton of story here and by the end of the game all I wanted to was just play a few holes, not run back and forth on fetch quests or do the challenges.  But those are minor complaints to what is, all-in-all, a very fun package.

[redblaze57]

1.Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles- Turtles in time (cowabunga collection)(Switch) - Arcade version. overall still a fun game... but I probably won't play again unless I have others around to play with.

[bikingjahuty]

5. Sonic Wings Special (PS1)

In the later part of the 2010s i had a bit of a SHMUP renaissance. While I've been a fan of the genre since I was a kid, I hadn't played several of some of the very best SHMUPs ever made until around 2015/2016, which kicked of a journey where I played easily over a hundred SHMUPs across many platforms. One of the standouts that I remember thoroughly enjoying was Sonic Wings Special on the Sega Saturn. It's been a good 3 years or so since I last played Sonic Wings Special, and this time I decided to play the PS1 port, which is pretty much the exact same as the Saturn version I'm more accustomed to.


The graphics in SOnic Wings Special, while not the most amazing in the world, are still pretty impressive, as is the overall art design which does enough to make this game not feel like another generic shooter. Gameplay is also great with a few annoying balancing issues and flaws, but overall, it's fun to have so many ships to choose from, and have them all have different attacks and specials too. The boss battles in Sonic Wings Special are beyond epic with a good variety of military and scifi-ish opponents you'll face off with. The OST is pretty good too, with various catchy tracks thrown into the game. While I'm glad I played Sonic Wings Special again, I am a little bummed I felt like I liked this game slightly less than I did the last time I played it. Don't get me wrong, it's still great fun, but just somewhat lacking compared to my older impressions of it. Still, a really fun SHMUP and one I'd definitely recommend anyone who's a fan of the genre play. (1/4/24) [32/50]

[telly]

Game 1 - Donut County (Switch) - 3 Hours

The first game of 2024 has been finished! I found my time with Donut County to be a pretty enjoyable one. It definitely reminds me a lot of Keita Takahashi works that I've played in the past (the Katamari series as well as Wattam), and the fact that both this game and Wattam were published by Annapurna also says something. I found this game to be really funny with adorable graphics, great music, and fun physics-laced gameplay of dropping progressively bigger objects into a giant hole. The game sports a cute little story with some fun characters and I found the writing, while a bit on the immature side, fit the wacky world that you play in.

Like those other games mentioned, I found that Donut County, while a charming experience, to be pretty light on the actual gameplay. It felt most like Wattam where the gameplay really never takes off beyond the most basic level. You're essentially moving a hole under objects sequentially for about 75% of the game with no real challenge or puzzle-solving to make it more engaging. Unlike Katamari, for instance, your hole can move freely about the map so you don't have to worry about size challenges as you accumulate objects. The latter levels do add some needed challenge and variety, but mostly the game just isn't as deep (pun intended) as I would have liked. Most of the levels consist of only one screen and can be beaten in about 10 minutes or less. And with only about 25 levels there isn't much to keep you playing. Regardless, it still was a very cute, endearing, fun experience and I enjoyed my time with it.

[dhaabi]

01. Rusty Lake: Roots || PC || 01.03.24



Leaving the mainline Cube Escape series at its penultimate entry, I had to break to play the next recommended game in the developer's preferred order to play: Rusty Lake: Roots. As another prequel entry, I was curious how it'd compete with the first of its kind and learning its connections to everything else presented so far.

Quickly, it was apparent that Roots is much larger in scope while simultaneously having a higher degree of polish. In short, the game is a much longer and even more narrative-dense experience that's more than twice as long as the longest games before it. Throughout my time playing, it seemed that there was always some strange event occurring in tandem with the series's story.

As the title suggests, this prequel set long ago more than one hundred years than when the present-day games take place. Showing the complicated and twisted connections from past to present, Roots is structured in 33 smaller segments which each take place in a specific moment in time. Instead of one drawn-out event, the narrative is broken into nearly three dozen smaller moments which highlight crucial points throughout history relating to Rusty Lake, the Vanderboom family, and the family's cursed fate. As time moves forward, the branching timeline becomes more elaborate and interconnected through its imagery of a family tree. Advancing through the story one plot point at a time, the player will be given the option to choose which plot points to play first. While all events ultimately need to be completed, the slight deviation from a completely linear experience is welcomed. With each moment of time which serves as a puzzle to solve, an approximate date to when it occurred is shown. However, this is the only time that information can be viewed, so a small but welcoming feature to have been added would simply be to review it. Of course, the family tree itself generally gives a good enough estimate to when events take place, but to be able to review the exact order in which events occur (especially since many coincide with others) would have offered a greater understanding of the story elements.

So, with 33 unique puzzle stages which act as plot points in total, the puzzle design feels a little simplified, at first. Although it's worth mentioning that screens are not static unlike every game up to this point but instead grant the player the capability to span across the environment. At minimum, for those who've played each game before Roots, puzzle design will feel familiar and sometimes reused in some aspects, although not entirely. Be that as it may, I was fine with this small caveat, as I was much more invested in the context behind the overarching narrative. As the game progresses, though, I felt that puzzle difficulty heightened. But, toward the end of the game, a small number of puzzles are quite difficult to comprehend. Since the games feature little text and no straightforward instruction, some puzzles were an actual challenge. For instance, while I ultimately did make sense of the finale's puzzle at first, one last additional aspect appeared which felt tacked on which I failed to comprehend the logic behind its reasoning for the solution. From what I've reason online, I'm far from the only one either. On a high note, though, there is some additional content that's unlocked when revisiting certain stages and complete short post-game puzzles. It was a nice surprise, and the 34th puzzle was a lot of fun to play.

After finishing this lengthy game (compared to all other entries thus far), I was quite impressed, overall. I'm hoping that the crucial details revealed through Roots hold some substantial weight to what's next in the final Cube Escape entry.

[kashell]

I attended a lovely game night where we enjoyed some more Jackbox Games both new and old.

4. FixyText
The idea is neat, but the execution is slightly frustrating since there is no delete key. It can get chaotic in both a good and bad way when others are texting over each other. I doubt we'll play this again but kudos for trying something new, modern, and relevant.

5. Timejinx
Trivia! And it deals with something I have a knack for: years. You simply select a year in which something occurred. The closer you are, the less points you get. Person with the lowest score wins. Some bonus rounds and moments were tossed in for good measure. I won, so that was extra fun for me.

6. Talking Points
Improv meets a TED Talk. A personal favorite of mine, especially when you're with the right group of likeminded friends that have no qualms getting into the bizarre, the filthy, or a combination of the two.

7. Role Models
This was the most fun  to revisit. You categorize everyone based on a slew of unique themes. It's fun hearing why folks categorize you in certain places. It's even more fun when someone new joins the group because it helps get to know them.

[Cartagia]

2. Super Mario RPG

A very solid and faithful remake with some fixes in localization, a lot of nice quality of life changes, a pretty good update on the visual style (in gameplay, the cutscenes are more hit and miss).  The big problem is that they added two things that trivialize the difficulty: the ability for timed attacks to hit all enemies and a kind of limit break group attack.  No combat encounter had any level of hardness. The only time I needed to use items was when I was focusing on filling out the monster compendium instead of killing enemies.  A shame, because it's still a fun and funny experience,  it's just fulfilling, like empty calories.

[dhaabi]

02. Cube Escape: The Cave || PC || 01.07.24



To begin, something to correct is that Cube Escape: The Cave is not the final Cube Escape entry as I previously stated. However, is is the final entry in the Cube Escape Collection compilation. Nevertheless, I was quite excited to see what I thought was the concluding entry to this sub-series of escape-the-room style of puzzle games.

As for The Cave's narrative, it concerns the Vanderboom family and their connection to the elixer of life that is the key item causing some members' eternal life, though one which comes at a high cost of others' deaths and sacrifices. In short, it is a cursed path to take for one's selfish gain. Something I've found interesting while playing through the eleven games so far is that the player-character changes. At times, the player acts as the game's central character, often times untold directly, whereas other times you seem to be a presence directly interacting with the environment which influences characters. It is a subtle difference but one which I welcome.

Midway through the game, the player is actually taken to a new room full of its own puzzles and actions to complete, thus dividing the game into two unique sections. In this second half, I truthfully found just about everything to be confusing early on. Full of unexplained numbers, dials, charts, levers, and icons, this section is immediately overwhelming. Because the Cube Escape games generally have pieces of the solution to each puzzle scattered around the entire room, I felt extremely lost without any direction. But, with a little help from a guide every few steps along the way (usually at a step's starting point to give me better direction), I was able to complete each puzzle. Out of every game so far, the end puzzles in The Cave felt most ambiguous. I almost never knew what to do next to begin the puzzle-solving, but once step was overcome, the puzzles themselves were without issue. Something else to briefly mention is that, unlike the previous four or five games, this game didn't force me to use pen and paper. If anything, the most challenging part of the puzzles was the very first step.

At first, I was surprised by the game's "to be continue" screen despite what I (wrongly) thought that The Cave is the final Cube Escape entry. Even if this were true, though, the Cube Escape sub-series exists in the larger Rusty Lake series, so it doesn't matter either way. With the game's ending involving both Dale and Laura, I'm still unsure how they're exactly connected or why Dale is a part of the events at all. Like always, hopefully that information is revealed in time. Or, perhaps I've overlooked some detail.

By this point, I've finished playing through the Cube Escape Collection compilation which compiles the first nine Cube Escape games into one package. Moving forward, I assume that sequel entries will all have a higher level of quality and polish to them, but I'll have to find out for myself in the near future. Something I do know, though, is that the latest (and currently final) Cube Escape entry is a mix of game and short film, so that is something I greatly look forward to once I reach the point to play it.