52 Games Challenge 2025!!!

[realpoketendonl]

10. En Garde! [PC/Steam Deck]



And that makes ten. En Garde! is a game that sparked my interest from the moment I first heard about it. Taking place in 17th century Spain, you play as Adalia de Volador, a masterful swordswoman. The game aims to emulate the feeling of Zorro-style fight scenes (at least I assume, I've never seen a Zorro movie, but that's the first word that comes to my mind). So to fight your opponents, yes you will need to use your fencing skills, but that alone won't cut it. The key to victory is in using your surroundings. Grabbing random stuff and throwing it at people, kicking them down the stairs, kicking them into pillars to drop the pots on top on their heads, throwing torches to light explosives, swinging across rooms to escape a tight spot, et cetera. All spiced up by light-hearted, silly, Spanish-accented banter by the characters.

The combat flow does take a bit to get used to, because it's so different from any other third-person brawler. You really need to change how you think and approach fights: just going for brute force will get you killed. You need to stay on your feet, find openings to use what you have available, and find ways to split opponents up and drain their defense so you can damage them.

Overall, I had fun with it! I did stumble through it, but that's normal for any first playthrough of a new action game, right? Thankfully the checkpoint system is more than fair, and this game is clearly designed to be played repeatedly and improve your skills in. Especially considering how short it is: it only took me about 4-5 hours to beat. The game is available on GOG and Steam (from what I can see). If you find it on sale, I think it's worth trying out.

(Oh, and on technical performance: I played the DirectX 12 version on Steam Deck. The framerate was a bit choppy which did cause me to slip up, but after I dropped all graphic settings one level, it ran perfectly fine and still looked good to me.)

[bikingjahuty]

97. Star Wars: Tie Fighter (PC)

I originally was going to drop this game due to how insanely difficult it gets very early on in the game. However, after semi-deciding to abandon Tie Fighter, I decided to watch some very helpful guides on Youtube on how to handle various combat scenarios I continuously struggled with before. I applied my newfound knowledge and while it took some trial and error to get the hang of, the game and its gameplay quarks just clicked and I was on my way towards serving the Galactic Empire once more!


Despite never owning Star Wars: Tie Fighter when I was a kid, one of my neighbors did have this game on his family's DOS machine. I loved watching him play it and watching the story progress through the game's amazing pixel art cutscenes. At least at the time, it was like watching a brand new Star Wars movie; keep in mind this was before the prequels were released or even announced. Still, I never really played Tie Fighter on my friend's PC since the game's controls and mission objective system sort of went over my head. Fast forward two decades later and I finally bought this game on GOG for myself. Then fast forward another ten years and I finally got around to playing this PC flight sim classic.


Still to this day, Star Wars: Tie Fighter is an excellent, very impressive game. Replaying it nearly 30-years since first watching my neighbor and friend play it, it still looks visually appealing and has this magnetic quality that still persists. As I mentioned earlier, there are amazing pixel art cutscenes that capture both the feel of the original trilogy movies as well as the look and vibe of the then fledgling Star Wars expanded universe. This goes as far as even including Admiral Thrawn in a decent amount of the game's story, which by the way is essentially the bread and butter of this game. In fact, the story will be the driving force as to why your will want to soldier through some incredibly difficult and at times frustrating missions. It's all great stuff and definitely depicts some of the very best of the Star Wars expanded universe.


Other than these excellent pixel art cutscenes that depict the story, similar pixel art is used in the base hub you'll be utilizing for a variety of activities including getting briefed for missions, getting simulator time in the various craft you can pilot, and even viewing scenes and battles you've fought. However, despite all the excellent pixel art in this game, the gameplay itself is almost entirely using 3D models. These models all look excellent and art an upgrade over the original DOS version of this game released in 1994. When you're in the middle of a large scale skirmish, or flying alongside a an Imperial Star Destroyer or Rebel Corvette, the game will instantly make you nerd out. It was absolutely impressive when I watched by friend play Tie Fighter back in the mid 90s, and it's still awesome looking to this day. Perhaps the only thing I didn't care for when it came to the visuals in Tie Fighter was the unfortunate reality that you'll have seen 95% of what this game has to offer about half way through it. While it would have been nice to see different ships or scenarios play out, it does little to distract from what is otherwise one of the most visually impressive and source material faithful games from the 90s.


While I'd say the visuals in Tie Fighter barely fall short of perfect, the audio absolutely does hit that standard, all things considered. The soundtrack, the weapon effects, the hyper drive noises, and the voice acting are superb in this game. Most are lifted straight from the films. John Williams' legendary score blasts during missions, giving you goosebumps as you frag X-Wings or escort a transport to capture a rebellion outpost. Even the voice cast sound similar to what was present in the movies. James Earl Jones and Ian McDiarmid unfortunately don't reprise their respective roles as Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine, but their substitute voice actors do an incredible job in those roles, especially the guy doing Vader's voice. Even original characters deliver their lines with convincing performances you'd fully expect to see in the films if they appeared there. Again, I have nothing negative to say about the audio in Tie Fighter. 10/10, it's amazing. In fact, the audio as well as the visuals and story mentioned above are so good that they do an amazing job at masking the gameplay, which is pretty good, but certainly far from perfect.


As a flight sim, Tie Fighter can at times be a little too realistic. While this might sound like a contradiction, if you think about it, if you were a lowly tie fighter pilot in a relatively large scale battle, your chances of getting taken out by a stray laser blast or torpedo would be very high. You'd essentially be cannon fodder and more likely expected to die in combat than return to see another mission. This is absolutely true in Tie Fighter as well, however it's too a fault. There are various strategies that you can employ like ordering your squad to cover you or scatter, these don't always work out the way you'd want them to when it comes to ensuring your own survival or the success of the mission. The best strategy I was able to consistently is to keep your distance from large, heavily armed craft or chaotic, large scale skirmishes. Essentially, homing missiles and torpedos are your best friend. Still, this is not a sure fire way to get through every mission and you'll still die a ton in this game and fail missions frequently. There are secondary objectives you can accept from a guy who gives orders directly on behalf of the emperor. Sometimes these secondary objectives mesh well with your primary objectives, but other times you really have to pick and choose when you complete these secondary objectives and when to write them off as a loss for the sake of just getting through the mission. Speaking of missions, there are quite a few in Tie Fighter, however they all generally involve the same sort of tasks; protect this ship or outpost, scan this ship or this cargo container, destroy this rebel fleet. Despite how interesting the story in Tie Fighter is, this game starts to feel like Groundhog Day given the lack of mission diversity. Still, when you look past these issues, Tie Fighter is a very immersive, fun flight sim and being placed in the middle of the Star Wars universe makes for a pretty fun game, even over 30-years after it originally came out.


It's easy to see why many consider Tie Fighter to be one of the best, if not the best Star Wars video game ever made. The game still awes from a visual and audio point of view, however, your mileage will vary with the gameplay depending on how brutal and unforgiving you like your flight sims. Some of this is due to realism to a fault, but also partially due to limitations of the technology afforded to Tie Fighter when it was first released. Still, you'd be absolutely hard pressed to find a more classic retro Star Wars game or a game that represents how amazing PC gaming was back in the 90s. (9/9/25) [38/50]

[bizzgeburt]

95. Tetris (NES)

Every few years, I find myself somehow getting sucked into Tetris. What was meant to be a 15-20 minute play session before moving onto something else, ends up consuming the rest of my day as I tirelessly try and beat my high scores. For the record, I am far from being a Tetris pro or even being a competitive player. If memory serves me right, my highest score was around 150,000 points, and typically I struggle to break into the six figure range. But regardless of my skill or lack there of, I still really enjoy this classic falling block puzzle game Tetris is pretty much as iconic a game as they come, I'd say surpassing Pong at this point. It's so simple, yet so amazingly addictive as to what you're required to do. Stack blocks, line up a row, and try and prevent the screen filling up. Meanwhile, the speed that the shapes fall increases over time, naturally making things more and more difficult. Getting those coveted 4 row Tetris clears is oh so satisfying, even after the 500th time. Compared to other versions of vanilla Tetris I've played, I enjoy the music quite a bit in the NES version. Other that, I suppose it's an upgrade visually seeing how there is color, but really Tetris is pretty much Tetris no matter which version you go with. I imagine I'll be picking Tetris up again in the not so distant future again, but for now I thought I'd leave a review for one of my favorite versions of this video game classic. (9/6/25) [38/50]

If you do pick it up again, regardless if NES or Game Boy version, post your highscore  I'd like to have a little competition in my hunt for the fat shuttle in GB version... (115k so far)

[dhaabi]

58. Musashi: Samurai Legend || PlayStation 2 || 09.13.2025



While I went through my backlog to see what sort of action-RPGs on the list were present, Musashi: Samurai Legend seemed to glare at me. For twenty full years it had remained unfinished and was one of those games that was always on the back of my mind when considering what to play next. Well, not anymore.

Before anything else, it's crucial to mention that Musashi: Samurai Legend is recognized as a sequel of sorts (which is evident by the local Japanese name Musadhiden II: Blade Master) but is far more like a re-imagining or a modern retelling of the game before it. Just like the debut entry, the titular protagonist Musashi is summoned to another world to save those in peril when evil forces threaten them. And, generally, the two games follow the same story structure and gameplay, though Samurai Legend strongly emphasizes hack-and-slash swordplay. However, it is from a visual standpoint which the game's most obvious differences are noticed: the game's manga-inspired, cel-shaded art design strongly sets it apart from other games like it at the time, and Tetsuya Nomura imparts his distinct character design through characters' unrealistically long, spiky hair together with giant hands and feet. Reinforced by humor and flashy action (which is admittedly at its strongest in the opening cinematic cutscene), all of the combined elements complement one another that's reminiscent of '90s and '00s anime.

In short, gameplay revolves around swordplay achieved through two swords: a light, easy-to-use katana and a slower, albeit stronger, broadsword. A returning featuring is also an ability-duplicating mechanic that requires utilizing the focus meter that simultaneously acts as the target lock-on function. At this time, I'll reiterate how I chose playing Samurai Legend based on its marketed action-RPG gameplay. Unfortunately, that promise wasn't fulfilled. Personally, the RPG halve to action is abysmally sidelined as all that's really present is a level up system tied to EXP points. At the same time, there is very little incentive to utilize skills despite a sizable number of them being available to learn and use. Overwhelmingly, combat encounters are instead almost always best overcome by exploiting the standard five-button combo press with the katana. While learned combo abilities can certainly be used in conjunction to standard attacks, players who are wanting to add more variety in combat sequences are inconvenienced to use them. Nearly all learned abilities are initiated by the same button press, meaning only one ability can be active at a time and must be toggled to use another. And the reason for this is that nearly all learned skills are reliant on sword use, whereas more novel abilities that didn't prioritize damage output in the debut entry. Apart from the main gameplay, a limited number of action chase sequences are also present. Unfortunately, these segments are long and boring, and their purpose to help break up lengthy hack-and-slash sections wasn't effective.

And despite the game emphasizing hack-and-slash action gameplay, player controls are so sluggish that it feels counterintuitive. Objectively, Musashi moves at such a slow pace that progressing through the game at all times becomes a chore. To my surprise, Samurai Legend is relatively short, which I presume is the reason for why movement is designed in the way it is. Had the pace been set at an appropriate level, the game would be several hours shorter, if not halved. Platforming segments make up a small portion of the game too which, to be expected based on player movement, were not ideal or fun. Despite platforming being straightforward and simple, it's easy to miss landings or fall off. So, platforming too becomes a chore as certain sections must be retried. There is a small emphasis on carrying things too—in particular, the maidens of various magic elements and swords whom you're regularly tasked with saving. In every instance someone is saved, the player is required to carry them due to their being injured (or faking it) as they fawn over Musashi. It's a strange mechanic, to be brief. Even though something may be carried, this doesn't mean combat is avoided either. Instead, players must balance between carrying them back to town and attacking. NPCs fortunately don't have health to monitor, but they're constantly being knocked out of Musashi's grasp while also impacting his jumping performance, so carrying things is doubly worse when platforming is also required. So even though Samurai Legend far prioritizes action of RPG, its action sequences regularly feel diminished.

Equally mediocre is level design. Though there are few instances of some degree of an open-ended layout, levels are mostly linear with the path to follow simply going from room to room, down one hallway to another. Areas are relatively small, and to counteract this issue, there is a high number of enemies. When walking but a short distance away, enemies respawn with such excessive frequency to the point that I can seldom explore in one direction for a few steps before the last enemy felled has already been replaced. Items to find, including displaced townspeople whom some are required to save, are almost always in plain view too. Above all else regarding the matter, I was most disappointed that the sense of adventure was insufficient. The world isn't interconnected but instead is segregated into areas needing traveled to from a menu screen. For a lot of reasons, the world doesn't feel alive—in fact, even the bulk of enemies players face are mechanical. There are also a lot of smaller, mundane tasks to clear before the main story. To a degree they help break up monotony, but usually they're structured in a way that the player has to fully navigate through a previously-explored area; in some specific instances, the player even has to backtrack all the way to the stage start too. And, naturally, this means players will need to defeat respawning enemies once more for hopefully the last time. Regarding the town Musashi's summoned too, there are about a dozen of businesses to visit and even more people to talk to, but most places aren't worth frequenting while the people lack engaging conversation unless a specific scripted event occurs.

This is my third—and final—time playing Musashi: Samurai Legend over the course of twenty years since its release, and it's the first time that I've finally been able to play through to the end. It's a far worse game than I remember it being, and its weaknesses are definitely apparent from the very start. Despite recognizing these issues, I really wanted some closure with it since I had nearly completed it once before many years ago. More-or-less, this sequel presents the same objective, same mechanics, same antagonistic forces, and same structure, but it's less personable, less engaging, and all-around less impactful than its predecessor.

[marvelvscapcom2]

51. Mafia Old Country [PS5] - finished Sep 13th, 2025



Mafia Old Country

Finally! Alas I did it. After almost 2 months. Im officially back in the beating games Saddle! With 51. Feels like 52 is going to happen.

Where as Mafia III is a GTA Open World atchetype that tackles a more race involved sort of internal mafia. Mafia Old Country speaks to it's own name by being 100 percent old fashioned mobster movie esque Scorcesse level storytelling. Trading in its long winding map for a sexy glimpse into tuscan rivers, italian flower beds and church steeples from the early 1900s. It is the video game version of godfather and it plays itself like a Huckleberry Finn, like a beautiful Mark Twain poem from front to back. It almost smells of grape colored orchids and red wine.  It is elegant in it's presentation and feels like controlling a concise mob movie from the 70s.

Take on the role of Enzo. A former "carusu" which means boy in italian. But Carusu was used as a sort of nose up mockery of a certain type of man. Essentially endentured servants who worked the mines in italy.  Volcano eruptions. Famine. Death and hunger. But you rise the ranks of the order of the Don Torrisi crime family.  And are called to do many of his varying tasks all the while. Other complications in personal life, relationships, faith and especially love come to shake your oath to omerta and everything that you signed up for begins to feel shaky at the knees.  It is a powerful story and one of the most somber ive played.

The gameplay mechanics are not flashy. Very simple and refined which I feel is a very good thing. It relies heavily on stealth. I find going in guns blazing to be very unrewarding and everything about the game lends itself to basically reward you for taking a more silent approach.

You become invested in indiviudal members of this family. And although your play is fairly linear in comparison to 3. It does a much better job at immersion. It eliminates the diversity of building a mob around yourself and employing roles. Which is a bit of a downgrade on customizing. But I find it is a much much more streamline experience and is much more quick and clean with its direction. 20 to 30 hours instead of 100+

Rating - 94/100

[kashell]

59. Shinobi: Art of Vengeance

This is definitely Shinobi for the modern era. It has that crazy challenge that we know and love, but it has some handy QoL mechanics that make it really easy to hop into on a whim. My file is mostly at 100% (I have a secret boss to kill) and getting there was a lot of fun thanks to a really great quick jump/checkpoint system. Admittedly, I haven't played many games in the series but the ones I have played have either been a hit or a miss; never in the middle. This one is, as expected, a hit.