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52 Games Challenge 2025!!!

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kashell:
36. Guilty Gear Strive - Slayer

Ahhh yeah! Guilty Gear, baybee! I had no idea that they had this on the Switch, but here we are! After messing with the tutorial and some of the missions, I decided to go through arcade mode as my boy Slayer. While my usual main (Venom) isn't in the game, seeing Slayer and a very massive roster of new and old faces makes up for it. Slayer will inevitably become my new main as I continue to play this. With this little romp over, I think I'm going to return to the tutorials so I can fully learn all of the ins and outs of Strive. Because, as always, there's A LOT going on in this fighter.

marvelvscapcom2:
33. Tearaway [VITA] - Finished May 15th, 2025





"We know you asked for a calzone but we're gonna give ya the Stromboli" said Sony studios 2013.  Giving us the universe from a pebble. Ambitious design from mere imagination flakes. You're getting the lava of mordor when I even reference what I just witnessed, this game is the most creative use of unique hardware specific features i've ever played. Far more than Wii aside from maybe wii sports. Or Kinect. This is like a secret gaming paralell dimension tried once and then forgotten forever. It's a full sensory massage, breaking of the 4th wall constantly. This game is a slap to the senses. And it honestly might be the most ambitious game ive ever played. Not even tooting your horn. On Hardware that quite frankly is awe worthy. What an ahead of it's time handheld the vita was and it makes me all the more sadder sony kinda let the Vita slip. But this game alone makes my owning of one worth every cent.  I am in love with this system. And this game. It just is so different.

The touch pad integration feels so seemless, its like the tiny little glossy black plastic gaming device that we call a vita. PSPs biological glow up.  It takes you and integrates you with binary code to place you into the game. Although it's means are simple (using the front camera) it really feels borderline magic seeing yourself in the game. It's almost odd in a new cool way. And this came out in 2013. It's been over a decade.  This technology is so refreshingly radical. All of you. Your face. Your room. Your cat. Your art. Your voice. Your palms. Even your favorite blanket. Whatever you wish becomes the entire game. You basically write the story as it unfolds. So cool.  It's linear but somehow so open.


You play as a messenger with a letter for a head and using the front camera the game makes you the "you" which acts as a guide and main objective for the letter messenger character. Your palm, your voice bellowing through paper mache woods.  It's almost as if you're this video game characters god so to speak.  It makes you feel like a final boss. A rpg vague concept in the sky.


The battle mechanics are simple but multi faceted. Collecting gifts is a blast. Taking photos of the world and somehow that world also blending with your reality. I have never felt a game immerse me the way this one has. In terms of the game and reality blurring.  Even more than VR.


I love the crafting elements. The platforming is quick. It uses all the vitas functions. Touch screens on both front and back. Peeling paper. Sticky glue. Voice. Vaccuums. The game is a wild art project on Ms. Frizzles magic school bus but come to life and controllable. I honestly cant even put it into words. It's really really special.


You can also tell they put a lot of heart into it being purpose built to show off the vita. And it does that well.  The graphics are phenomenal for a decade+ old handheld. And it is consistently making use of all of the technological superiority the vita displayed.  I cant reccomend this enough.


Rating -95/100

marvelvscapcom2:
34. White Shadows [PS5] - finished May 16th, 2025




SOCIAL COMMENTARY INSISTS UPON ITSELF


The game starts off with a bullentin before you even play it.  Now I dont mind a good social mind tug sorta game. So long as it allows you to come to your own conclusions based on the art. Which in this game is gorgeously dystopian. I dont mind going into deep narrations that make you feel icky but nope. You get...  a big bold opening screen

"This game has depictions of racism, xenophobia, suicide and yada yada".  Basically the developnent team picks up your hand and tries showing you how to pee for yourself. "Hey look... your own conclusions of our art. Nope. Let us preface this is how you better recieve it" and that one opening flat out made it hard to enjoy the game. I was looking at everything through their lens instead of my own. And it was so forced. The line between social art with a purpose and a twitter podcaster trying to seem self important is as thin as this line.  Its the difference between being an abolitionist and being someone who sells "end racism" bumper stickers. The opening screen sets the ship asail but tells you where to land. I hate that. Hate it. In all forms of media. Directors need to know when to step out of their own frame.

_________________


Basically the game is ravens are black.  Also associated with death. People fear them for little to no reason outside of steteotypes.  I'm sure you see where that line of reasoning is going.  Pigs in the game are symbolic of capatalism, greed and enslaving ravens.  Also self explanatory line of thinking. Its hard to put it into words without it being argumentative. But it's not the feel you get when you watch a movie like django.  It feels more trying to fit in. I dont hate it. I'm not opposed to this message being told with animals. It was really creative. I just wish it showed more depth to the both sides.


I won't go on a spiel of the messaging of the game. It's more of the tennis match I refuse to pick a racket up in. I don't deny the games impact and harrowing feel. It however feels massivley pretentious sometimes. I laughed more than I felt sorrow. Stuff like "birds suck" is just comical. Hideo Kojima level lol.  You never needed a disclaimer before the color purple or green mile. A nirvana album.  Madtv. If you're gonna tackle this narrative. Take our training wheels off. Don't spell it out. Keep it a video game. And let us explore the narrative. Honestly. I bet it'd be like 7 points higher if not for that bullentin.  I do think the way they covered the topics was unique and solid.  But the opener makes it feel like you're being told rather than shown.

With that said. Lets enter the pros.

White shadows is an extremely gorgeous game. Think a dystopian noir, a sinister dark land riddled in the shadows. I black world made in 200 shades of abysmal nothingness. It is so meloncholy and euphoircally eerie. It's creepy in a unsettling, clockwork orange. Listening to a beatles record backwards sorta way.  Filled with 50s style jukebox jingles.  It's enjoyable.

Its platforming and puzzle stuff is like inside/limbo meets unravel.  It's solid. Simple. Easy and concise.

I overall enjoyed my time with white shadows. It feels preachy and kinda disconnected.  But at its core. I think it means well. Has a solid focus and has absolutely heart wretching visuals.



Its ok for an indie developed game tackling what it tackles.

Rating - 81/100

bikingjahuty:
61. Power Stone 2 (PS4)

The original Power Stone holds a very special place in my gamer heart. My first experience playing a Dreamcast, which would become my favorite console of all time, was playing the first Power Stone on a kiosk at my local Hollywood Video rental store. I was so obsessed with that Power Stone demo that I'd deliberately ride my bike over there just to play the demo they had set up. Shortly after that, I'd eventually get a Dreamcast along with Power Stone and it would become one of my favorite games to play on that console back in the day. While I have a deep nostalgia and fondness for the first game, Power Stone 2 just never really did it for me in the same way despite renting that game back around the time it was brand new. Unfortunately my affinity towards the first Power Stone still rings true to this day.


It has been a long time since I played through Power Stone 2. In some ways it's an improvement over its predecessor. You have more characters to choose from, new stages you can select between matches, and play with up to four players at once. While at its heart Power Stone 2 is still a fighting game, Capcom definitely made this more of a party game where friends can get together and unleash absolute mayhem on each other. Beyond the power stones you can collect to transform your character into a much stronger version of themselves, and also giving them the ability to unleash unique supers on the other characters, you have a ton of items at your disposal to damage your enemies with. Power Stone 2 definitely has more items to fight with and also introduces vehicles and stationary weapons too. You'd think with all these additions I'd love Power Stone 2 way more than the first, but instead of being more fun, the game just ends up being more imbalanced, frustrating, and sort of difficult to play at times. Don't get me wrong, it can be fun when things get sort of chaotic, but whenever I play Power Stone 2 I typically just feel like turning it off and playing the first game instead. One other addition that I actually do like more than the first game are the giant bosses they added to the game. The first Power Stone does have one of these, but the ones included in Power Stone 2 are definitely better and more enjoyable to fight.


From a presentation point of view, I have to give Power Stone 2 credit for its greater abundance of characters, stages and other obstacles which all look pretty good for the most part. I'm not as big of a fan of the larger stages, but I get that these were necessary to fit four players playing at once, as well as all the other stuff thrown in to make matches more chaotic. In all, I don't think Power Stone 2 looks better than 1, but it does have some flourishes that definitely make it look just as good overall. The audio in Power Stone 2 is also on par with the first game, with some new tracks to listen to as you play. Albeit none of them are that catchy or memorable for the most part. Each character is also uniquely voice acted which is also a nice touch.


While Power Stone 2 is not too far off from how much I enjoy the first Power Stone, it definitely lags behind, especially in my own personal enjoyment. I could see someone who actually has a few people to play with maybe liking this game more, but for me I preferred the smaller, more intimate fights of the first game and less reliance on the chaos factor present in the sequel. (5/16/25) [31/50]

dhaabi:
29. Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day! || Nintendo DS || 05.13.2025



After trying out several different DS games in my library over the last few months but not really connecting with them, I decided to try out something different. So, I settled on the educational game Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day! For some reason, this game is one of the system's best-selling, but I didn't really know anything about it before playing.

To begin, Brain Age is not a traditional video game but instead an education tool foremost. As such, an assortment of brain exercises and logic puzzles are included to, as the game implies, help promote healthier brain functionality through daily repetition. Overall, exercises are varied. Some are visual observations including both objects and words which may even task players to read aloud. Others are more objective exercises like solving mathematics equations. And even more are straightforward puzzles, namely sudoku, though this section is actually separated from the game's core activities. Nevertheless, they all test players' concentration and memory.

Generally, training exercises are explained with enough depth in how the game wants them to be accomplished, though not always. For instance, my first encounter with one exercise didn't specify whether counting should be done out loud or mentally, and it definitely impacted my score as I performed the former. I think I normally would have mentally performed the task, but there had been others which specifically mentioned that speech is required. Additionally, activities requiring voice were hit-and-miss. While speaking clearly and concise is to be expected, I regularly experienced the game unable to understand what was being spoken. Of course, this impacted player score which was slightly irritating. Meanwhile, the majority of exercises requires the use of the system's touch screen capabilities by writing with the stylus. Throughout my experience, writing in certain ways with personal stroke order or maybe even style negatively impacted how writing is interpreted, as the game will either misread it or not recognize it at all. An example of how this affected me for some time was how I write the number 4. In daily practice in real life, I use two strokes to write this number, but I was required to shift to only one stroke in order for the game to register my answers.

When playing each new day, players have the option to take a Brain Age test which, in theory, grades how healthy your mind is. But after having played the game for about a week, I didn't quite feel as if my Brain Age score was that consistent. Some days were considerably higher than my actual age, and some days were lower. But perhaps this makes sense, although I did try to play each session under the same conditions and time of day to maintain some sort of controlled variable. I think the real reason for the discrepancy during this time window is that a random selection of activities are presented when taking the Brain Age test, and I just wasn't that familiar with them all. Naturally, though, my scores began improving and maintained consistency, but I don't consider this as some sort of natural mental growth or whatever the game is trying to promote. Instead, I simply came to be acquainted with them both in terms of what sort of focus is needed and how exactly the touch screen reads written inputs. With that said, players aren't required to take Brain Age tests after the initial one. After about ten days, I started skipping them altogether and instead focused on daily training exercises. For these too, players are graded. Each activity even has its own chart which tracks a player's performance records.

While players can only take the Brain Age test once per day, training is limitless. At first, there are few activities to choose from, though a greater variety becomes available the more the game is played with each passing day. Brain Age never specifies this is how these activities are unlocked, though. At the same time, two or three activities can also be unlocked early when achieving a certain score for specific exercises. I don't think this actually unlocks new exercises, though, but instead harder difficulty modes. Toward the end of my time playing, I mostly stuck to the same three or four activities. Since I had stopped taking daily Brain Age tests, I actually wasn't able to play through at least two of the exercises anymore since, for some reason, they're not available to play within the normal training mode. These include the Stroop effect test and a word memory exercise which I thought were both fun and required a strong amount of focus. Instead of having mode-specific activities, I think a better implementation would be for the Brain Age test to simply be fully randomized out of the entire game's pool of test options.

In the end, Brain Age is okay as a novelty. It's not really an educational game which teaches the player but instead a software tool that tests them with mental exercises which most people should be more than capable of doing and are likely familiar with already. I didn't ever really feel smarter after playing, but I didn't really expect to be anyway. Still, I felt more positive about thinking in more focused ways that I really haven't done in the same way since being in a classroom setting. After unlocking the final activity on day twenty, that was when I considered the game completed.

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