Author Topic: 52 Games Challenge 2025!!!  (Read 45939 times)

dhaabi

Re: 52 Games Challenge 2025!!!
« Reply #240 on: May 25, 2025, 12:37:20 pm »
Game 9 - Clock Tower Rewind (PS4)

Nice! So does that mean you played the game in its original version without the Rewind features? Do you think you'll ever play through the later entries?

Re: 52 Games Challenge 2025!!!
« Reply #241 on: May 25, 2025, 08:47:43 pm »
36. Mario Tennis [GBC] - finished May 25th, 2025




Ranking a game like Mario Tennis for gameboy color is complex.  It cant be directly ranked against say the last of us. It isn't a Louis Armstrong trumpet on a dark rainy sea scape near a new orleans villa.  But the way I believe a game should be ranked is against its contemporaries.  Against other sports game with rpg elements.  And in that arena? It is pretty damn untouchable.

WHAT A GOOD GAME

Mario Tennis is an rpg. It plays like a top down pokemon game. Except more linear and instead of leveling up your pokemon. You level up your tennis player.  You can opt to run solo or do duos with a partner.  As you complete matches you advance up the ranks like real life.

Junior
Senior
Varsity
Traveling Team
Island Open

The games actually really long as well.  Each match is best of 5 sets. With 6 game wins to win a set. So you gotta win upwards of 20 games to even finish an individual match. However the game never feels repetitive. It has an addictive like candy quality.


The first time I ever played this game I knew I had to own it physical. Its such an excellent gameboy color game.

The visuals and sprites pop.  The soundtrack is enormous and varied.  And for a pocket sized game from the 90s. The game is really really perfect. Movements are pinpoint even on digital.  Resemble a ninja with each raquet swing.  The game is a staple that is highly good to try. It has a good difficulty curve.  And lots of power ups to play with.

Mario Tennis is the best tennis game ive ever played so far


Rating - 97.5/100





telly

Re: 52 Games Challenge 2025!!!
« Reply #242 on: May 26, 2025, 08:37:30 am »
Game 9 - Clock Tower Rewind (PS4)

Nice! So does that mean you played the game in its original version without the Rewind features? Do you think you'll ever play through the later entries?

Yes I played the original version I don't really know the differences between the two. xD I would love to try out the other games if they weren't so expensive :(
Currently Playing:
Bloodborne (PS4), Mega Man Battle Network 6: Cybeast Gregar (Switch), Gauntlet Dark Legacy (GC)

My music collection | My Backloggery

kashell

Re: 52 Games Challenge 2025!!!
« Reply #243 on: May 26, 2025, 09:36:20 pm »
37. Lunar: Silver Star Story

The first game in the Lunar Remastered collection has been completed. I'm still bitter about a random, silly, highly missable change that the developers implemented AT THE VERY START of the game that caused me to miss two -TWO!!!- bromides, but since I was playing on Switch/a non-trophy console, I'll let it slide. I guess that's what I get for following the old Working Designs guide from back in the day. Speaking of, a good chunk of that translation was kept in this version. The jokes rarely landed (one of the enemies was called Nipple Yanker) but the serious moments still held up. Really, it was the characters and their interactions that made me fall in love with them all over again. Even Alex, one of the more dull MCs, seemed to have more to say this go-around. Mia, Jessica, Kyle, Nash and Nall all kept the dialogue flowing naturally. Two very important changes that really made this a smooth playthrough were better item management and the ability to speed up battles. Thanks to that second feature, training for the final battles was much more streamlined. And as a result, a lot more fun. So yeah - good times with this one. It'll be a while before I do the new version of Lunar 2 since I finished it a few years ago on the PlayStation.

Re: 52 Games Challenge 2025!!!
« Reply #244 on: May 28, 2025, 01:38:32 am »
I'm still marching forward towards 100 games beat by the end of the year. With summer around the corner, I have several games in mind that I really want to try and play before the fall. Some of these games are more summery in nature (I guess), but overall I just want to make sure I play and beat the following games before the beginning of September. Here is my current list of summer time games I plan on beating.


- The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
- Donkey Kong 64
- The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
- Halo 2


I definitely plan on playing more than just those four games, but those are the ones that if nothing else, I definitely want to make sure I've beat them before summer's end.

kashell

Re: 52 Games Challenge 2025!!!
« Reply #245 on: May 28, 2025, 08:03:52 am »
38. Guilty Gear Strive - Ky Kiske

I might have been spoiled by Slayer's absolute brutality. Ky is fun, and has a good projectile game, but his attacks don't have that oomph of the vampire dandy. On the other hand, I keep seeing chatter about Slayer being "broken" so maybe that's something to consider. Anyways! Another playthrough down. It was fun. I've always liked Ky and his arsenal of lightning abilities.

bizzgeburt

Re: 52 Games Challenge 2025!!!
« Reply #246 on: May 28, 2025, 09:22:19 am »
I'm still marching forward towards 100 games beat by the end of the year. With summer around the corner, I have several games in mind that I really want to try and play before the fall. Some of these games are more summery in nature (I guess), but overall I just want to make sure I play and beat the following games before the beginning of September. Here is my current list of summer time games I plan on beating.


- The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
- Donkey Kong 64
- The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
- Halo 2


I definitely plan on playing more than just those four games, but those are the ones that if nothing else, I definitely want to make sure I've beat them before summer's end.

Enjoy the 2 N64-titles, they're absolutely awesome, Zelda in particular.  8)
ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US !!
WELCOME TO YOUR DOOM !!

Re: 52 Games Challenge 2025!!!
« Reply #247 on: May 28, 2025, 10:22:07 am »
37. Until Dawn [PS4] - Finished May 28th, 2025




Until dawn is a 2014 Psychological horror sorta interactive (choices define your story) game by supermassive games.  And it's iconic. Iconic enough for bad movie spinoffs. Thats when you know you're big league kid lol. 

I enjoyed my time with Until Dawn heavily. 

MANY WAYS TO PLAY

My favorite part about Until Dawn is that the game 100 percent hits a home run in the choices actually effecting the plot.   In most games of this format. It only gives the illusion of choices mattering.  Like no matter what you do the same endings happen.  Well not until dawn.  If you mess up. And offend someone. Kill something. Hit the wrong button. Heck even if you move your ps4 controller the wrong way.  Ya get humbled lol.  And its not always etched out when and how plot will bend or alter.  You just done goofed which led to consequences and the game forces you into tight situations.  At first I disliked this games relying so heavily on QTE (quick time events) but I now love it. Because as you play. The QTEs begin to make you feel panicked.  Overwhelmed. Annoyed. Not knowing where to go. Or what to do.  As a timer ticks down. And it wasnt until I got half way or so.  I realized. That is making me feel very immersed and helpless.  It all makes you feel in control and out of control at the same time.


My favorite characters are Emily and Mike.  In fairness the 4 girls are all for whatever reason brave and epic in this game. While the guys suffer outside of Mike who is our lone badass amongst the guys lol. But boy he makes up for it. The characters are believable. One of my favorite trophy titles come from this game. Called "the 4 daughters of darkness" super sick. The atmosphere is rad. We also got some heavy hitters in our plot casting.

Rami Malek who is the star of bohemian rhapsody plays Josh. In VA and looks.  Hayden Panitierre who is known from a lot but mostly Scream movies is in this.  Shes an exceptional actress who plays Sam. And the VAs as far as I can tell just crush it.  Its an oscar worthy line up. 


The game feels soaked in dread and claustophobia.  And the story is full of twists and turns.




My only gripes of the game are sometimes it feels like the fate of characters or plot is out of the players hands. Like if you move left something major happens. Imagine if you open a jar of mayo in your fridge and a neighbor dies 2 weeks later becase you did. How were you supposed to know? Lol.  I also find the games darkness to be awesome for the scares. But not so well for exploring or finding your way. I got lost a few times and thats in a fairly linear game.


SCARED ME


While Resident Evil 2 is the scariest game ive played off sheer fear of being watched and pursued.  This game is close.  Because its a master at its shock and horror. It got me a few times. Spooked me. Made me unsettled. Its definitely caught me and made me let out an audible "oh my god [explitive]*  a few times at night. 2am with the lights off. Its calm and unassuming until it isnt. 


Overall I loved Until Dawn.  Its mechanics arent as clean ss life is strange. But it has like 100 possible endings. The dualshock 4 is used motion wise sometimes. QTE is golden and its graphics are ridiculously aging well. It looks like a 2023 game.  It's so varied that its engaging.


Rating - 90/100
« Last Edit: May 28, 2025, 10:28:23 am by marvelvscapcom2 »





Re: 52 Games Challenge 2025!!!
« Reply #248 on: May 28, 2025, 11:28:38 am »
I'm still marching forward towards 100 games beat by the end of the year. With summer around the corner, I have several games in mind that I really want to try and play before the fall. Some of these games are more summery in nature (I guess), but overall I just want to make sure I play and beat the following games before the beginning of September. Here is my current list of summer time games I plan on beating.


- The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
- Donkey Kong 64
- The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
- Halo 2


I definitely plan on playing more than just those four games, but those are the ones that if nothing else, I definitely want to make sure I've beat them before summer's end.

Enjoy the 2 N64-titles, they're absolutely awesome, Zelda in particular.  8)


Thanks, but I've actually beat OoT from start to finish probably a dozen times already, and I've played through most of DK64, albeit that was nearly 25 years ago. OoT is one of my favorite games of all time, but sadly I haven't beat it since 2018. I decided this summer was a good time to do something about that and beat it again. I'm really looking forward to replying DK64 as well.

telly

Re: 52 Games Challenge 2025!!!
« Reply #249 on: May 28, 2025, 03:43:54 pm »
Game 10 - Pokémon Legends: Arceus (Switch) - 22 Hours

As far as Pokémon games go on the Switch, I think this one is easily hands down the best version available. And to be honest, there are many reasons why this might be one of the best Pokémon games ever. I haven’t had this much fun with Pokémon for a long time. Even in the wake of Scarlet and Violet I feel like legends does the open world design better because the visuals are more stylized and interesting, and the gameplay better suits the open world design not only with exploration but also using the environment to help you catch Pokémon through crafting and hunting. I really liked Jubilife village as a hub world just a nice main area with tons of atmosphere and things to do - really liked that part.

I was also shocked to see that this game probably has one of the best stories in the series (even though it still isn't anything special). You at least have some really interesting political relationships between three different groups of people who are trying to survive on a new island and because it's a brand new world the main goal is to complete the first Pokédex which really makes you motivated to actually catch Pokémon. Not only that each Pokémon have unique challenges that encourage you to play in different ways to fill in their respective slots in the Pokédex. The game isn't as focused on trainer battles but it's because Pokémon as a concept hasn't really been taken on by the general public so it fits the theme of the story which I really liked. Throw in other activities like mini games side quests and a nice soundtrack make this game just overall a solid experience.
Currently Playing:
Bloodborne (PS4), Mega Man Battle Network 6: Cybeast Gregar (Switch), Gauntlet Dark Legacy (GC)

My music collection | My Backloggery

dhaabi

Re: 52 Games Challenge 2025!!!
« Reply #250 on: May 28, 2025, 04:30:00 pm »
33. Empty. || Browser || 05.26.2025



Looking for a short gaming experience, I decided to play the game Empty. I really have no recollection about how I came across this game, but it's probably been a part of my games to try list on itch.io for around eight years.

As a puzzle game, Empty. emphasizes the principle of minimalism while tasking players to empty out rooms and other kinds of spaces, one item at a time. Rooms are divided into stages and exist individually within a void separated from anything else. They're small in design without much clutter in them but still with items worth relinquishing, and navigating through each room from a third-person outer perspective is simple to accomplish. How removing items is achieved is by targeting specific items—usually in a specific order by the puzzle's design—and aligning their color to the same color of the wall's background. Examining the room's 3D space by controlling perspective is the majority of problem-solving, as there is usually (perhaps always) just one right alignment to identify to progress forward. If at any point other items overlap the one you're actively trying to remove, players will either need to find some other angle or to adjust the removal order of items.

In concept, gameplay is simple and largely remains that way. Past the game's halfway point, an additional small conditional element is silently introduced that attributes an underlying color items. So, once items are removed, instead of it and the background wall disappearing, the wall will instead take on the item's underlying color attribute. Since stages are small, there are only so many walls, so I think this mechanic was added so that all items actually have the means to disappear. As a result, this new color-changing element actually diminishes some degree of problem-solving difficulty as there is usually a clear path to follow regading the order of items to remove. Were this mechanic designed in a way to increase difficulty, I think it would have benefitted the game, as the gameplay loop does become stale across its 24 stages.

However, this is not to suggest that the entire gameplay experience during Empty. is easy, as it's not. Between the final two levels specifically, I eventually ran into the issue of not being able to progress forward. It seemed that nothing I was doing was working, and I was stuck for at least twenty minutes. I even restarted the stage in the hopes of some bug auto-correcting itself, but that didn't work as I later learned there was no bug. I eventually referenced a walkthrough video, and it turns out that there is a major difficulty spike. For only two or three items specific to these two final stages, they must be aligned in a near pixel-perfect way in order for them to disappear. Since this is a small indie game, I'm really not sure if this is intentinal or not, but it's an issue I saw many others complaining about in comments, and it greatly impacted the overall experience in a negative way. I'll also note here that there is a hint system seemingly present to use, but it does not seem to function.

Beyond gameplay, the game's message is reflecting in a minimalist art style. Simple shapes and colors are presented without finer details, and it all appears visually pleasing. Across the game's first half or so, stages and the items within them are overly simple, yet they eventually become more detailed with more specific shapes and patterns while still mostly maintaining solid colors. While the game's visuals are generally fine, I found the latter half's presentation to be more fun. At some point, color gradients are also utilized for background visuals, but I never saw the need for them and think they work against the game's clean display. To an extent, the patterns do this too, but there are also some visually agreeable uses.

Apart from stage design, there is almost always some sort of text passage relating to the concept of minimalism that appears which serves as a break between stages. However, I actually found these interruptions to be irritating. Having one or two to bookend the game's opening and closing stages would be fine, but there are just too many present. Their presence is made worse still as players can't simply advance through them but must interact with them in the same way as stages by rotating them so that they appear legible. Annoyingly, a block of text appears halfway through the game that even states how the passages themselves aren't important to the game's message. It becomes so apparent to then ask, why are they present at all?

Overall, I think that Empty. is fine. I think that a shorter, more refined experience would have been more successful than what was ultimately decided upon, as nothing new is really introduced that changes the gameplay loop at any point. Prior to playing, I wasn't expecting the game to last as long as it did, but I ended up spending about 90 minutes with it. In my opinion, play time probably should have been halved.
« Last Edit: Today at 02:37:26 pm by dhaabi »

Re: 52 Games Challenge 2025!!!
« Reply #251 on: Today at 11:18:22 am »
63. Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow (GBA)

My eventual goal is to play every Castlevania game ever made, at least the more mainstream released. Castlevania is one of those accliamed franchises that I am woefully behind on, having only beat a handful of entries in the series. For the next Castlevania I tackled, I referred to the infinite wisdom of the internet to recommend me a really good entry in the series I haven't played yet. Of course, Symphony of the Night was recommended constantly, but having beat that game already, I opted for what is commonly considered the second best game in the Castlevania series, Aria of Sorrow. While I was thoroughly impressed with Aria of Sorrow, I feel like some of the praise this game gets is a bit overblown, mostly due to the limitations of its platform.


Aria of Sorrow is absolutely an excellent game. As a metroidvania style entry in the series, you're given a huge map to explore at your leisure. Of course, you'll have to come back to certain portions of the map later on once you've obtained a specific ability to access it, but this formula is what really makes Aria of Sorrow and similar metrovania Castlevania games so good and addictive. Like Symphony of the Night, there are a ton of abilities you can obtain. As mentioned, some of these are used to progress through the castle, while others are used to boost stats, give you new secondary weapons, and some just have strange effects that can be useful in some situations. This is all coupled with an RPG-like leveling system that also leans on the use of items to boost stats. In a way, Aria of Sorrow and other early metroidvanias almost feel like 2D precursors to the Souls games. This is even more evident in the plethora of horrow themed enemies and bosses you'll encounter throughout the game. Pretty much everything from zombies, killer plants, spider women, harpies, demons, and just about everything else you can think of that would fit well into a horror movie are present in Aria of Sorrow. The bosses are all mostly larger than life and require different strategies and abilities to beat. All this culminated in an incredibly fun, rewarding, and just straight up addictive gameplay experience for the most part. However, there are absolutely annoyances and problems that I encountered despite the game being very well made overall.


For starters, the difficulty balancing is all over the place in the game. While I'd say the first third of the game has a progressive difficulty that straddles that line between being hard, but fun, the game sees a massive spike in difficulty once you reach the Death boss. However, this spike is only briefly present until you're given access to a series of items later on that are so OP'ed that I was taking out enemies and bosses that would have otherwise been way, way harder to defeat. As I quickly leveled after destroying them, I found myself so powerful that the rest of the game was a relative piece of cake. Keep in mind, this was at roughly the halfway mark in the game. Way more time and effort should have been spent on the difficulty balancing in this game in order to maintain that excellent difficulty/fun ratio that the game does a pretty good job at during the first third of Aria of Sorrow. My second biggest grievance is the fact that you'll be relying on healing items a fair bit during some of the more hectic sections of the game, however unless you're lucky enough to stumble upon them throughout the map, you'll mostly be relying on the game's lone shop to buy them with money you collect by smashing lanterns and killing enemies. This shop is located at the very beginning of the game and requires a decent amount of backtracking to get to. Even with the minor aid of teleportation rooms scattered throughout the game, it is alwasy a pain in the ass to have to go all the way back to the beginning of the map if you need to stock up on items or buy more powerful gear. There are plenty of save point rooms throughout the game. Hell, there are also quite a few empty rooms with new purpose in Aria of Sorrow. Why couldn't one of those just have been a shop room? It's just bad gameplay design and something I'm surprised was overlooked. Other than that, I could nitpick various small things that created minor annoyances during my time in Aria of Sorrow, but just know 90% of my issues with this game belonged to the two major faults mentioned above.


Aria of Sorrow's presentation is very impressive for a handheld. While this game could never look as good as Symphony of the Night given its hardware limitations on the GBA, it does a good enough job with what it has to deliver a game I seldom could fault from a visual standpoint. Perhaps my biggest issue with the visuals in how derivative many of the enemies and bosses are compared to other Castlevania games, especially Symphony of the Night. I would have definitely liked to see some more originality in that department, while also having some of those series staples that most entries possess. I get that his is the same Dracula's castle from many of the previous games either, but I would have also liked to see it get more of a makeover too seeing how some of the sections of the castle were ripped from Symphony of the Night, albeit with a different layout, different enemies, and slightly altered visuals. And while it's not necessarily the fault of the game given the limited hardware capabilities of the GBA, but the map and overall game just felt a lot more basic, shallow, and shorter than it did in Symphony of the Night. For what it is though, I have little to complain about in Aria of Sorrow from a visual presentation perspective and absolutely loved what I was looking at most of the time.


Finally, the audio in Aria of Sorrow is pretty top notch when it comes to GBA OSTs. Again, limitations of the GBA are what primarily kept the game's audio from being amazing, but that's not to say it wasn't very good, because it absolutely is. The OST is catchy and well done as in most Castlevania games. Unfortunately, this games story and characters would have benefits from some sort of voice acting, if that were possible. Instead, dialogue is delivered through text boxes which just don't have the same punch as a well implemented voice acting cast. Once again, I'm going to compare this to Symphony of the Night which did have voice acting. Even though the dialogue was hammy and not always done well, the original english dib of Symphony of the Night has become the stuff of legends and the game's overall charm would have suffered without it, as it does in Aria of Sorrow.


Before I get to my closing thoughts of Aria of Sorrow, I'm well aware that I've mentioned Symphony of the Night in this review a ton of times, probably to some people's annoyance. Seeing how Symphony of the Night cane out 7-years before this game and set the standard for all metroidvania games in the series that followed, its the benchmark I use for determining how good the other games are. Symphony of the Night is one of my favorite games of all time so the other Castlevania games get to reaching its greatness, the better the game is. Aria of Sorrow falls noticeably short of Symphony of the Night in nearly every conceivable way, with the main factor for this being the system it was developed for. Had Aria of Sorrow been developed for the PS2 or Gamecube, I have no doubt that it would have given Symphony of the Night way more of a run for its money. Instead, Aria of Sorrow is an impressive handheld game and one of the best on the GBA. Even with the limitations of the GBA, Aria of Sorrow still stands as one of the best Castlevania games I've played, second only to...you guessed it, and also possibly Lords of Shadow, but I haven't played that game in nearly 15 years so I'll hold off on that comparison for now. I'm really excited about playing the other games in the series, especially the other metroidvania games to see how they stack up against Aria of Sorrow, especially the other GBA and DS games. Perhaps Aria of Sorrow will become my new gold standard for the handheld metroidvania games. It certainly was good enough to potentially be that for me. (5/29/25) [40/50]

koemo1

PRO Supporter

Re: 52 Games Challenge 2025!!!
« Reply #252 on: Today at 02:44:26 pm »
Completed
1. Wii Play [Wii]
2. Batman: The Brave and the Bold [Wii]
3.  NiGHTS: Journey to Dreams [Wii]
4. Wii Play Motion [Wii]

Currently playing
Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Reload [Wii]

Abandoned
1. New Super Mario Brothers WiiU
2. Nintendoland
Currently Playing:
Assassin's Creed: Black Flag