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52 Games Challenge 2025!!!

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kashell:
48. Kirby Super Star Ultra

The Kirby kick continues. I didn't do all the things here. Instead, I picked up an old profile to get to 100%. I had to finish the True Arena and Meta Knights' adventure to reach 100%. But, for funsies, I decided to also do another round of Milky Way Wishes and The Great Cave Offensive. I got all treasures in the latter, for those wondering. This game is pure cuteness and fun personified. I loved the game on Super Nintendo and I love it here on the Nintendo DS.

dhaabi:

--- Quote from: bikingjahuty on June 28, 2025, 04:30:44 pm ---Finally we get to SF6's weakest area and honestly the aspect of it that kept me from wanting to play this game until it was cheap enough for me to justify buying it. Putting it bluntly, I hate the art direction of SF6. I never thought in a million years that the Street Fighter franchise would fall victim to the Fortnite/Zoomer shooter art aesthetic, along with all of its annoying cliches, but here we are. Nearly every returning SF character looks worse than they ever have in this game, while literally every new character to the series looks like crap from an artistic, design point of view.
--- End quote ---

Don't Street Fighter characters adopting a Fortnite art style look like this?



I don't play Street Fighter so I don't really have a deep opinion on the matter, but from what I can tell from other discussions, the general consensus seems to be that Street Fighter 6 greatly improves upon the previous two entries' cartoon-y, cel-shaded style known for characters' giants hands (particularly in regards to Street Fighter V.) So, it's interesting to read a dissenting opinion from the minority.

dhaabi:
41. Saturday Edition || Playdate || 06.26.2025



As I near the end of the Playdate's included season one of games that I intend to finish, it's become obvious that there are many who strongly favor the system's pick-up-and-play design that's complemented by arcade-style games. However, while I do think the system is ideal for arcade gameplay, what I find most successful and interesting are adventure genre experiences. So, I was greatly looking forward to Saturday Edition upon realizing it's an adventure game.

When we begin, it is 1976. The game's protagonist John Kornfield has returned to earth after being abducted by some alien race. For four years, Kornfield lived among them closely and happily. Things were good. Then, unexpectedly, Kornfield is brought back confused and with much of the public choosing to disregard any credibility from his recounted experiences. Now, ten years later, strange events are beginning again. Dozens of people are being reported missing each and every day, and connections are made from both the police and the media that these new disappearances mirror Kornfield's own past disappearance. So, Kornfield sets off on his own investigation working alongside friends, associates, and the police to uncover what his role in this ordeal is exactly. And in time, a disturbing truth regarding the city's history of widespread, unexplained disappearances becomes learned that is a fulfilling story to play through.

Throughout this fairly short adventure narrative, players assume the role of Kornfield while exploring a small city environment. Exploration is limited to less than ten total in-game areas that are each accessed from Kornfield's vehicle as he drives to them. Once there, movement is bound to a 2D plane which players will survey to glean new information from either the game's supporting cast or the environment alongside few instances of obtaining or using items in combination with light story-advancing puzzle segments. While exploration is limited at the beginning, new areas become accessible as reason to be there is given as the story continues. Each area is small with only a two or three screens forming it, but the world is large enough to meet the scope of the game. The act of taking learned information to see what it can unlock by utilizing in specific social encounters is a simple fun toward uncovering a mystery that only intensifies as more details are learned as Kornfield and town citizens come face-to-face with a local generational danger.

Largely, gameplay consists of engaging in conversation with the game's supporting cast in a certain order. And, since the crime case relating to the missing persons is exciting, triggering even the smallest changes through the right interaction is rewarding. Throughout it all, Kornfield expresses doubt and questioning through internal dialogue, and there are times when he comes across as some unreliable vehicle at the center of it all. With the small number of individuals aiding his investigation, conversations are to-the-point largely as a result of the cast regularly being emotionally distant, detached, and simply strange in off-putting ways that reinforce the plot's mysteries. At every point, Saturday Edition requires players to follow a strict linear path in terms of plot progression. There are a large amount of separate parts with seemingly nothing to do with another, so finding out how one piece of information relates to another through some social connection is regularly surprising to maintain player interest.

Concerning the game's presentation, I greatly enjoyed its limited and focused use of animation apart from character movement. At top, there is a small window which appears to preview what little action transpires in real-time. A power cable being plugged into an outlet. Television buttons being pressed to change one channel to another. Eyes panning off to the side to avoid uncomfortable eye contact. A preview window also appears when approaching something that can be interacted with, so there is no difficulty in discerning what is or isn't important. Complementing visuals is the game's sound design which is equally effective. Music is beyond spare for quite some time with only the game's environmental sounds being present, such as Kornfield's footsteps or when the car engine turns over when traveling between locations. Another aspect is the game's inventory system. Once they've been fully used, they're automatically marked as being unusable though do remain in the player's possession. Items are often just paper notes waiting to be crumpled, but this inclusion helps establish a sense of player accomplishment and is cleverly used in an unexpected way in the game's final moments.

While I didn't have any real expectations prior to playing, Saturday Edition proved to be one of my favorite games that's a part of the season one catalog. I'm a fan of these small graphic adventure games that I don't really play all that often, and this game and genre altogether have proved to make excellent use of the system's portability. It's likely not a game someone would play again until they've forgotten the story, but it's still one that was fun to experience.

telly:
So I've been doing this challenge now for 10 years. I've decided to take all of my reviews and compile them into a Google doc that I will eventually print out and keep on a shelf so I can still look back at them over the years. It's been fun to read all of my reviews (terrible as some of them are) :)

dhaabi:
42. Forrest Byrnes: Up in Smoke || Playdate || 06.28.2025



Before starting Forrest Byrnes: Up in Smoke, I was interested to see that the official page for it on Playdate's site describes it as a racing game. Until now, I've not played any racing games for the handheld, so I was curious how well that type of gameplay could work for this system.

However, Forrest Byrnes is not a racing game but instead a fast-paced action game with light platforming and arcade gameplay elements. In short, players assume the role of the titular protagonist Forrest Byrnes, a park ranger who's calmly evacuating some environment disaster. While avoiding hazards and the impending fiery destruction that follows behind you along the horizontal plane, the player is simply tasked with reaching the stage end safely. Regarding movement, controls work well but will take time for the player to become comfortable with. Specifically, positioning one's self at the edge of a platform is tricky while requiring precision, and I regularly was injured because of it. While Forrest runs toward safety, rocky walls must be scaled, dying trees must be toppled, and general hazards such as beehives and bear traps must be avoided. With each stage attempt, the player is given three units of health, though it's worth mentioning that player health remaining bears no impact on on stage completion. Simultaneously, neither does the time it takes to clear the stage. Actually, there is no time counter at all in the game, so that the game could be construed as racing game seems somewhat disingenuous. There is even a score grading system present, but again, it serves no purpose as stages cannot be manually selected.

With that said, individual stages cannot be selected. Instead, beginning the game spawns the player into some random one. And, whether failing or succeeding, players will be introduced to a different stage immediately after. Personally, I am not particularly keen on this approach to game progression. After thinking about why such a decision was made, I still can't really consider any valid reasons for how this either improves the gameplay experience or rewards players. If anything, being able to freely select stages allows players to practice them upon failure. It helps grant them the means to become more adept with specific platforming challenges to later use those same skills with new encounters. While the game is considerably short, stages are somewhat difficult due to the game's tight platforming at times. If choosing to do the bare minimum, the game is relatively easy, though there is no sense of accomplishing when playing this way whatsoever.

Before moving along, I'll now also mention the game's stages. While I may be wrong, it seems as if stages are randomly generated instead of being individually designed. After playing more and more, it certainly felt this way. If not, there is a fairly large pool of stages the game will load randomly then. While I'll mention collectibles more in-depth further below, it seems either substantially difficult or even impossible for players to collect everything in each stage presented, as I experienced several instances where I couldn't solve how to reach certain platforms due to the player-character's movement capabilities. I suppose my inability each time could have been the result of rushed gameplay as there is little time to actually think while easy penalizing mistakes. And, since there is no menu select screen alongside unlockables not being tied to any one specific stage either, I feel more confident that my thoughts are more than just a presumption.

Despite the grading score system come across as something that can be entirely ignored from a completionist's perspective, it is still present. During the journey toward evacuation, there are several types of collectibles which players may seek out to earn a better grade, though there's really no incentive to do so. Nevertheless, each collectible requires a different player response to successfully gain it, which includes campers needing saved from various traps (one of which utilizes the system's crank) and digging out medals from the ground. Just like with the player-character, campers can even be lost to the fire creeping behind you, which is a gameplay element I liked though didn't experience more than once. However, it is only puzzle pieces which bear any meaningful significance toward actually completing the game as they unlock fragments of gallery images, which there are five that are each divided into four segments. When they're all revealed, the game is effectively completed as there is nothing else to do since there are no in-game systems implemented revolving around player performance.

Unfortunately, Forrest Byrnes is not a game I particularly had fun playing, though that's largely due to the game's structure. I think what's built from a gameplay perspective could be fun if players were tasked with set challenges tied to stages, or if the game incorporated some sort of time trial system, or really anything else to provide depth. Because without any of these things, there is not much inherent value provided which results in the game being ultimately dull.

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