52 Games Challenge 2024!!!!!

[kamikazekeeg]

25 - Indigo Park: Chapter 1 (PC 2024) - BEAT - I'm not normally into the mascot horror genre, it's a lot of slop, but I like the idea behind it when it feels like they put some real work into the concept and it's not some cheap cash-in deal like that Garten of Ban Ban.  This one drew me in as I saw some tiktok's of it and it stood out for having some real good art to it and voice work and gotta say that aspect is great.  It's both good and kinda not great visually, the quality of the game in the open courtyard shows some odd visual stuff to me, but all of the drawn art is really good.  All distinct characters, voice work, and having Rambly be this AI character on a screen that can interact works well as a guide character and there's some genuine humor going on in parts.

It fails abit from a gameplay perspective, you don't do a lot, this first part, being only an hour long at most and no gameplay hook, it's just a walking sim game, there's no mechanics like the hand pack in Poppy's Playtime or a gameplay loop like FNAF, even Garten of BanBan has that drone thing, as bad as it looks.  It feels less like a "part" and more of a tech demo, proof of concept sorta thing, which is fine.  It's free, so I can't complain at all, but hopefully future parts having something to actually do in it.

[kashell]

75. Samurai Shodown III - Amakusa

There's just something about this entry in the series. All games have their ups and downs, but III seems to have more downs. And yet I never grow tired of it. It's one of those games that instantly warps me back to childhood. I went through the game as Amakusa. His epicene beauty and mannerisms were ahead of their time (I said what I said) and he had a really unique set of moves. I still prefer other characters, but playing as "bosses" has a unique appeal.

[kashell]

76. Samurai Shodown III - Rimururu

While playing as Amakusa was fun for being able to play as a boss, going through the game that debuted Nakaruru's sister hit differently. I remember the first time I saw her in the arcades. I was well into my "I love shojo anime era" and then, my favorite fighting series introduces this girl with a magical ice gem. It's serendipity. Rimu-chan isn't my favorite anymore but she's still a special character on the roster and in the franchise as a whole. She's an adorable girl that stands tiny/tall among big, burly dudes.

[telly]

Game 18 - World of Horror (Switch) - 5 Hours

This is a game that you can "beat" relatively quickly but will keep you coming back to replay it afterwards. I was able to complete the first three scenarios on the start up screen at least once, and then I messed around a bit more trying to see what else I could uncover.

What really made me want to play this roguelike text-based adventure game was the striking visual design - an intentional retro and disturbing 1-bit artstyle with heavy inspiration from Junji Ito and Lovecraft. It immediately draws you in with an incredibly engaging atmosphere, great music and writing, and really interesting and horrifying themes and story elements, not to mention some truly disturbing monsters. A lot of the game's fear is based on your imagination however since so much of the game is presented in text, which allows you to fill in the gaps more and creates a more engaging experience. The game's roguelike foundations mean that every playthrough is different with different stories to explore and new events and characters to meet and engage with. It makes you want to keep playing to see new endings, monsters, or other content, and the incredibly atmosphere and spectacle is what makes the game stick with you after you turn it off. Overall, it was very entertaining, and I could definitely see myself picking this up again later to try another run.

There were some things that I found a little annoying. Some of the menu options don't allow you to go back once you've made a selection which was perplexing. Also, unlike other roguelikes that I've played, any given run lives and dies on pure RNG, with skill checks and hitting attacks making your experience feel great or miserable. Even if you min/max to play to your strengths it still feels like the game can body you with just bad luck which can get frustrating after a while.

[kashell]

77. Atelier Marie Remake

In some ways, it felt surreal to playing this despite it being a full-on remake. I remember sitting in a free period in high school, looking at RPGs on a site that never made it across the pond. Atelier Marie was one of them. It had adorable sprites, great artwork, and item creation. Item creation?! What kind of RPG in the 90s lets you make items?! It's crazy to think how far the series has come since then. Crazier that Marie got a remake. But, despite the game being easy and on the short side, it just reiterated that I might have outgrown the Atelier series. It was repetitive and kind. Just kind of "there". I had a feeling that might have been the case since I didn't care for the game with the twins (Lydie and Someone) or Lulua. Oh well. Marie graduated at the top of her class and all is right in the world.

[kashell]

78. Castlevania: Curse of Darkness

This was a blast of a replay; perfect for October. My OCD didn't get kick in as bad as I thought. I'm still missing some weapons and some Innocent Devil evolutions. But. I got 100% map completion, managed to steal from Death (quite a feat) and finished the game without much difficulty thanks to all of the other material farming I did. The game still plays brilliantly other than a shaky camera and one of the most annoying stealing methods I've ever seen. The silly camp and fun with the story still hits. Crispin Freeman as Hector is just *chef's kiss*. In the recent Netflix animation, Hector's story is a lot different. I like his journey in the game much more. He's a great dude.

[kashell]

79. The Quarry

A group playthrough where I took the lead and others that played it for the first time watched. My choices resulted in most of the campers surviving, and all of the family members getting slaughtered. Compared to Until Dawn, I think I like Until Dawn a bit more for its more brisk pace and story. But, this game was still very fun and interesting. A little loquacious at times (specifically that old broad between chapters) but I had a lot of fun playing through this and making choices that were unique to those that were watching me play.

[telly]

Game 19 - Untitled Goose Game (Switch) - 4 Hours

What a charming well-designed game. I wish there was more of it, but what is there is simple and excellent. It's a game that mixes comedic physics-based puzzles with a sprinkle of stealth and ultimately leads to a wholly entertaining and humorous experience. Certainly the game's objectives lead to some very funny moments but there's a lot of organic fun to be had as well as you interact with all the items and humans around you. There's also an incredible level of polish and attention to detail in the sound design, visuals and music, way more than what you would expect from a simple "meme" game. Great experience!

[kamikazekeeg]

26 - Satisfactory (PC 2024) - BEAT...Mostly - I'm cheating on this one slightly, as I'm dropping the game at the very end of the last phase, because I'm burnt out trying to get the parts I need.  It's not really a situation of like "Oh it's too hard", it's simply the volume of parts I need to craft is so high that unless I double or triple my output in numerous ways, it'll take me another...10 hours, probably more of just waiting to get what I need.  I can't do it any longer, I've been feeling the burnout since like Phase 4 and this is too much lol

It's a shame because this is a really good game, it's horrifically addictive, I've put nearly a 100 hours into the game, I'd get on and lose hours trying to build new parts, fashion a new manufacturing area dedicated to a certain product, working on transferring things around either by extremely long conveyors or a train system.  There's tons of option for how you want to handle things and I think the game up to like...late Phase 3, early Phase 4 is quite good. 

The problem is that by that point you realize you aren't getting new gear options, that exploring the map is getting very repetitive and what there is to find is kinda limited.  The game I think is the weakest in that aspect because I think there should have been a lot more creatures, enemy types, threats, and things to craft for your character to use.  I know it's a factory building game first, it's not Subnautica or something, but I think there was room to build on for sure to give you something to do while you wait for stuff to manufacture.

I do love how free the manufacturing is, you can design your factory eyes however clearn or messy as you.  Conveyors go through floors and machines to connect, creating spaghetti like amalgamations, founds and parts will hang in the air with no gravity, it's goofy, but nice to not have to worry about that sort of stuff.

I highly recommend the game, but if you aren't someone willing to dedicate the hours for the factory grind, it might feel like too much later on.  I might come back someday if they do some notable updates, perhaps try for aesthetics more than I would efficiancy, but I gotta tap out, I put enough hours into this game, and thats fine lol

[realpoketendonl]

24. Metroid Prime 2: Echoes

Started this one this summer, kind of lost touch with it as my work picked back up (this isn't exactly a pick-up-and-play game), and now beat it (the Wii version in Metroid Prime Trilogy specifically). And to be honest? I mean, I can't say it isn't good, but I didn't get nearly as much into it as Metroid Prime Remastered.

I know needing to figure out where to go is a core staple of the Metroid series, but I'm sorry, I sometimes found it too difficult here. I don't remember struggling nearly this much in the original Prime. Maybe it was because of my growing impatience too, but I had to consult a guide so many times (MASSIVE shoutout to StrategyWiki btw, incredibly helpful). I'll be honest: when I got to the Sky Temple Keys fetch quest, I did the entire thing with a guide, just because I did not feel like scouring the whole map for 9 more collectibles and I just wanted to finish this game and move on to the next. I honestly don't know what else to say about it right now, I'm tired, so I'm just gonna keep this one short.

Still working on beating Sonic Lost World and Solatorobo: Red the Hunter, and planning on picking up something on my Steam Deck after that (maybe Devil May Cry 5 or Dynasty Warriors 8 or something). We'll see.

--UPDATE--

25. Sonic Lost World

That's another one beat. I wanted to play a short pick-up-and-play game on my new Steam Deck. I've had Sonic Lost World for ages, but never played it. I do know it has very mixed reception though, which got me curious to try it. And yeah, I can see why. There are fun moments in here, some levels were highlights. The game also looks great, very bright and colourful, even if the design aesthetics are a bit generic. But for every great level, there are multiple levels which I would say are just all right. And there's some real frustration in here too for me, particularly with how poorly the game explains some of the mechanics and what it expects you to do with bosses. I've had to look up exactly how to beat a boss online, which for a Sonic game especially is not good. Overall I'd say it's good, but it's not a must-play.

[telly]

Game 20 - Amnesia: The Dark Descent (Switch) - 7 Hours

A really great horror game that provides the perfect sense of atmosphere and dread. I loved this game's imagery, music, story, and themes which call back to classic gothic horror franchises like Dracula. The game's flavor of horror is my favorite, focusing more on subtlety and tension rather than outright jumpscares. However, once you realize the main monster appears at scripted times throughout the game, it becomes far less scary than if you had more organic encounters with it. I had one time where the monster just spawned right in front of me and killed me so that was fun.

The other aspect of this game that I'm really torn on was the physics based puzzles and gameplay. It is unintentionally hilarious to me that you can pick up books, bottles, rocks and chairs and throw them all over the place. Definitely snuffs out any of the fear the game was trying to build in you. At the same time, it was just so damn amusing that I enjoyed it regardless. Lastly, the ending was pretty anticlimactic given how cryptic the story was during most of the game. 

Despite all the issues I've laid out, I thought this game was excellent, very entertaining, and I'm looking forward to playing the others some day.

[kashell]

80. Captain America and The Avengers - Iron Man

This was one of the games included in the X-Men arcade cabinet. I never finished it before. By my estimate, I would have spent about 10 dollars in quarters because enemies were everywhere. It was cool learning the names of some older Marvel heroes and villains.

[bikingjahuty]

46. Perfect Dark (N64)

It's funny how different your opinion on specific games can change over several decades. It's always nice when that opinion approves over when you initially played a game 10 or 20 years ago, however it can go the other way too. In the case of Perfect Dark on the N64, it's unfortunately the latter for me. I used to adore Perfect Dark growing up; I'd spend hours on the campaign, getting three stars on every weapon in the shooting range, and setting up multiplayer bot matches. It was a blast. However, over the years, I've come more and more to prefer Goldeneye 007 when it comes to Rare's iconic FPS games on the N64. I still enjoy Perfect Dark, just not as much as I used to. There's nothing necessarily wrong with Perfect Dark, in fact, it's superior to Goldeneye in many ways. However, the places where Goldeneye excels over Perfect Dark, mainly its OST, stage design, and story are enough to make me like that game a fair amount more. I still love the scifi setting of Perfect Dark, however I just don't find its somewhat shlocky characters and writing to be as appealing. As mentioned, the stage design isn't as good in Perfect Dark overall. Some stages, particularly some of the earlier stages are definitely on par with Goldeneye, however the stages start to get more and more annoying, poorly laid out, and just frustrating overall. Again, I don't dislike Perfect Dark, it just makes me want to play Goldeneye instead when I play it these days. It definitely makes me feel a bit sad how I don't adore this game like I used to, but for what it's worth, I actually found myself enjoying it more this time around than the last time I tried playing it about 5 years ago or so. Maybe someday, it'll flip again and be my favorite Rare FPS, who knows lol. (11/8/24) (35/50]

[Cartagia]

80. Captain America and The Avengers - Iron Man

This was one of the games included in the X-Men arcade cabinet. I never finished it before. By my estimate, I would have spent about 10 dollars in quarters because enemies were everywhere. It was cool learning the names of some older Marvel heroes and villains.

I had the SNES version of this.  It was next to impossible.

[bikingjahuty]

47. Dr. Mario 64 (N64)

Aside from a handful of isolated times growing up, I never played Dr. Mario on the NES for the most part, but when I did, I found myself a pretty big fan of it. Really, the most time I've spent with this game was actually its N64 port. Yes, I consider Dr. Mario 64 more or less a remade port of the priginal since it is essentially the same game with a few extra modes and better graphics. That isn't saying much since this game is played entirely in 2D like the original. For this reason, visually the game does nothing to impress fore the most part. Likewise, its OST is fairly catchy, but in my opinion, nothing special. The real bread and butter of this game is its gameplay, which can become pretty addicting, albeit fairly easy. I intended to play this game just until my wife was finished making dinner, but after I took a break to eat, I just wanted to go back and play some more. I played for probably 4 hours total until I began to go cross eyed while playing. This is definitely one of the more fun puzzle games on the N64. (11/8/24) [34/50]