52 Games Challenge 2025!!!

[kamikazekeeg]

I'm hoping for a decent sale on the Silent Hill 2 remake around Halloween to pick it up, so if it gets like a 40 to 50% sale, I'm there lol

[bikingjahuty]

I'm hoping for a decent sale on the Silent Hill 2 remake around Halloween to pick it up, so if it gets like a 40 to 50% sale, I'm there lol

I'd say its worth picking up even at full price. I enjoyed it at least as much as the original, if not a little more.

[ignition365]

It's next on my list too once I finish up Last Time I Saw You

[kamikazekeeg]

I'm hoping for a decent sale on the Silent Hill 2 remake around Halloween to pick it up, so if it gets like a 40 to 50% sale, I'm there lol

I'd say its worth picking up even at full price. I enjoyed it at least as much as the original, if not a little more.

I'm sure it likely is, I just don't buy full price these days when it's over 40 bucks unless it's a game I really want or I know I can get a good amount of playtime from it.  It's dropped down to 40% before already according to SteamDB, so just hoping it gets that again and I'll give it a go.

[kashell]

I'm hoping for a decent sale on the Silent Hill 2 remake around Halloween to pick it up, so if it gets like a 40 to 50% sale, I'm there lol

I'd say its worth picking up even at full price. I enjoyed it at least as much as the original, if not a little more.

I'm sure it likely is, I just don't buy full price these days when it's over 40 bucks unless it's a game I really want or I know I can get a good amount of playtime from it.  It's dropped down to 40% before already according to SteamDB, so just hoping it gets that again and I'll give it a go.

Personally, I think I got a good 20+ hours with it. If that amount of playtime warrants the price.

[kashell]

67. Silent Hill f - Fox's Wedding

This ending was nuts. I want to talk about it, but I won't because of spoilers. The final sequence of events after the credits rolled piled on even more horror, which is a feat considering how much as already been piled on.

[kashell]

68. Silent Hill f - The Fox Wets Its Tail

While the previous ending I got was gnarly, this one was a lot more heartwarming; at least for a Silent Hill game. Again, I won't get into too much detail to avoid spoilers. Added bonus: this was my favorite of the final bosses so far.

[kamikazekeeg]

30 - Ball x Pit (PC 2025) - BEAT - Think I might've hit max action rogue-like games at this point after playing a ton of Megabonk and now Ball x Pit while still playing Vampire Survivors every so often lol

I don't know why I like these mindless games, it's weirdly addictive even if the gameplay is fairly basic.  Ball x Pit is basically that idea of auto-firing (Technically you can not have auto-fire on, you start with it off, but there's no real point to not have it on I think), you get items to boost you, you evolve weapons together for better weapons, it's just done a little differently with an upwards scrolling level and crossing it with the old brick breaker game, Breakout.  That aspect does change things up abit as you are trying to often get the balls fired in certain directions to maximize ricochets.

Another slightly unique thing is there's a town builder aspect, and this is how you upgrade your stats and unlock characters, instead of just spending money on a selection screen.  I feel like it's trying to be deeper with it, but I mostly just found myself throwing things wherever and then setting up a spot that I use for "construction" as you build by bouncing guys off the buildings brick breaker style.  It's just something a little extra to do and if you want to, you can spend a lot of time maximizing that whole thing.

Overall, fun enough game, good art, it's that perfect game of "Just one more run" or thinking you got like 15 minutes and you can just get a quick run run in with not much need to stick around for longer.

[realpoketendonl]

12. Super Mario Galaxy 2 [Nintendo Switch]

I played Super Mario Galaxy 2 on Wii, but I never beat it. So the re-release on Switch seemed like the perfect time to do so.

This is a fantastic 3D platformer, but I don't think you needed me to tell you that. It's a lot of fun to play through, no doubt. At some points I even think I found it a bit more challenging than the original. Not by much, these games still aren't hard at all, but still. I did have fun long jumping over obstacles to beat levels faster.

However, when I (re)played the first Galaxy, it made me cry time after time. Granted, a lot of that was nostalgia, but still: I didn't feel nearly as much emotion with this game. And that seems by design. The original Galaxy wasn't afraid to go big. It built a universe, a plot, different worlds, et cetera. It wasn't afraid to give the plot a sense of weight, scale and emotion. Nothing super deep, but it was there. Galaxy 2 is a lot more restraint in that regard. The levels in the original Galaxy often felt like worlds to me, the levels in Galaxy 2 felt like levels. It almost feels like Galaxy 2 was an early part of how the Mario platformers went "generic Mario" style over the course of the 3DS and Wii U era.

Now that doesn't change the fantastic level design and gameplay, which still is fantastic. The game is a joy to play. It just doesn't pack the emotional weight the original does to me, and because of that, I will always prefer the original. But I'm definitely glad to have now finished its sequel too.

[bizzgeburt]

12 - SpongeBob Squarepants: Revenge of the flying Dutchman (Game Boy Advance)
https://vgcollect.com/item/229025

Hardware: Game Boy Advance (Screen Mod)
Play time: 7~8 Hours

I spent the first half of my autumn/birthday-vacation occasionally playing SpongeBob Squarepants: Revenge of the flying Dutchman for Game Boy Advance. It is the last of the six Spongebob GBA games I own, that I haven't finished yet, and while being frustrated with climbing the Tower of Temptation in Grandia (PS1) or failing at beating my last highscore in Tetris (GB), I thought I give this one a try.

SpongeBob Squarepants: Revenge of the flying Dutchman was published in europe march 28th. 2003, whilst being released in North America a few months earlier in 2002, by THQ, who claim responsible for publishing most SpongeBob franchised titles on this system (or even all titles, correct me, if I'm wrong).
Development is credited to Vicarious Visions, who would also develop the GBA-version of Battle for Bikini Bottom which would be released later in 2003. Having played both titles now, I recognized that they share many similarities in graphics and gameplay, actually showing no signs of visual or technical improvement at all, and instead seem more like two episodes of the same game, kind of … in this particular case with both games being short but solid platformers, I see no negative aspect in that, especially with seemingly tons of SpongeBob-games available for GBA. This franchise in general is selling well (even today), so why change a running system?

As expected, the player takes control of careless SpongeBob who, after unintentionally disturbing the sleep of the notorious flying Dutchman, is ordered to collect the deceased pirate's dublones and treasures out of the different stages of the game. Divided into several chapters, the game lets you visit almost all well known locations of Bikini Bottom and beyond, such as the Jellyfish Fields, Kelp Forrest, Mussle Beach, the Krusty Krab, Rock Bottom and - of course - the green ghost ship of the flying Dutchman ... only location really missing in this title being the famous  locker of Davey Jones itself.
Besides being able to jump and jump-glide across cavities, the main gameplay-mechanic is shooting different kinds of bubbles to either enclose enemies, making them temporary platforms, blast them away, or use the bubbles themselves to bounce or even levitate to higher ground (beware Anakin). The goal of every stages is to find three keys that open a chest containing the level's treasure. Between the player and those keys are plenty electrifying Jellyfish, sponge-munching clams, bouncing worms and treacherous fishermen's hooks to deal with and many spikey holes to come across ... but exploring pays off with a hidden special challenge (Jellyfish Rodeo!) that can be found somewhere in each location. Collecting all dublones within a chapter rewards you with yet another bonus-challenge offering additional extra-lives to the winner. Every single main chapter of the game also contains a special-stage were SpongeBob can obtain helpful tools such as Patrick Star's jellyfish-net or Sandy Cheeks' KahRahTay-gloves.

Visually, SpongeBob Squarepants: Revenge of the flying Dutchman works with up-to-date graphics considering this system's standards - the licensed franchise offers a great canvas to the GBA's given colour palette. The different locations show an intense amount of detail, making every level recognizable in it's own manner. Visual highlight of the game in my oppinion are the Jellyfish-Rodeo bonus stages, that show SpongeBob riding a jellyfish in the cartoon show's specific front-view style and the little detail of starting every level by being put in by a huge arm like in the shows opening sequence. Besides that, there was no actual wow-effect on me playing this. Graphics OK, no masterpiece here.

Also musically neither of expectations are disappointed nor overwhelmed in any way. The single music pieces always fit the specific stage and donors atmosphere to the experience. I'm kinda sad though, because a games music is the part really important to me personally and I love reviewing on it, but this specific title didn't really contain exceptionally memorable songs ... except the well-known intro-jingle of course. Most pieces sound very happy/funny and sadly very generic. I mentioned my personal favourite it my newest post in the Favourite-Retro-Game-Music-thread here on VGC-forum. After rewatching the game's credits I learned that the game's music is credited to Shin'en Multimedia, a German game development company founded in 1999 in Munich, which operates as an official third-party-developer for Nintendo. Shin'en is known for having provided soundtracks for over 200 games so far and is credited with developing the GHX, GAX, DSX, and NAX (based on GAX) audio-middleware for handheld consoles. For whatever technical stuff that means oO ...

All those elements add up into a highly enjoyable and partially challenging platformer perfect for a quick playthrough.
I for myself enjoyed it and recommend it to every fan of the SpongeBob Squarepants franchise especially.

Another game finished - on to the next one 

[kamikazekeeg]

31 - Five Night's At Freddy's 3 (PC 2015) - DROPPED - Boy, not doing well with the FNAF games lol FNAF 2 I've mostly dropped, might attempt again, because the Withered's have the dumbest timing to them.  FNAF 3 I'm dropping as I just don't like the mechanics at all and the visuals are garbage.  I can understand the idea that the cameras and systems are janky and old, but what isn't fun is using those cameras in a gameplay scenario.  I'm constantly losing Springtrap because in like half the main cameras, I'm just looking at dark, jittery, static.  A couple rooms I can see him, but there's so often I just have no clue. I only got up to Night 3, but I just don't like the mechanics of sorta having to lead Springtrap around with audio while dealing with hallucinations and the audio from the cameras is distracting and grating...

I do like the big emphasis of the cameras in this, it's a better concept than FNAF 2 where cameras don't really matter, returning abit more to what FNAF 1 was doing, but I don't like the gameplay.  It's too slow to go side to side compared to what it was before to reach the panels.  It's really funny seeing Springtrap like skedaddle in the background surprisingly quick despite being and haunted corpse in a huge body suit lol  FNAF 2 was just that one mechanic, but here it's sorta the whole game experience doesn't feel enjoyable to play.  This one I won't attempt again, already refunded, I still might try FNAF 2 again as I think I can beat and I'm doing it more out of stubbornness at this point. 

One I get my refund, I'll be attempting FNAF 4, see if I can find another I like well enough.

29 - Five Night's At Freddy's 2 (PC 2014) - BEAT - Out of sheer stubbornness, I beat Night 5 and the game.  I know there are more nights, two I think to get the true ending and what not, but I'm done.  I think I got abit lucky on this one, Toy Chica can be the odd one to get me in this game when it's not the Withered's, but I think the randomness worked out and I beat it.  My view hasn't changed, I think while mechanically it's fine, the idea is fine, the turn away from actually using the cameras undercuts what the first game did, and all you do to beat the game is basically just a whole "meta" thing of wind music box, flash hallway for Foxy, tap the vent lights to check for Toy Chica and Toy Bonnie, flip mask when needed.  It's not fun to me at all and the Withered timing ruined stuff so much for me.

[kashell]

69. Silent Hill f - Ebisugaoka in Silence

I got the final ending, along with the platinum. All around excellent entry in the series. During my last run, I played the game on the most difficult setting (both action and puzzle) and it didn't mess around. I go back and forth on how I feel about combat. When it works, it works. When it's frustrating, it's extra frustrating. So, some boss fights got on my nerves. Fortunately, even on the most difficult setting, resources were everywhere and I found myself running out of inventory space. I'm in the middle of writing a review for it now and can't wait to get these thoughts on it down!

[bikingjahuty]

104. Resident Evil 0 (PS4)

One of the fastest ways to get me to face palm and roll my eyes is when an older games goes through a pretentious internet revisionism phase. For those who don't know what this is, it's when a game released decades ago and was either well received or poorly received upon released, but at some point the internet decides the game was actually the opposite of what people generally thought about it during its initial release. Sometimes the source of this internet revisionism is a specific forum, a Youtuber, or some other fairly prominent place online, but other times it just seems to come out of nowhere. Give it enough time and suddenly you have tons of people online adopting that same revisionist opinion regardless of whether or not they actually played the game. Despite how annoying and bandwagonny I find internet revisionism around games to be, there are instances when it's not wrong. Case in point, Resident Evil 0.

Funny enough, I actually had a hard time remembering when I last played and beat Resident Evil 0. All I know is that it wasn't any more recent than the mid 2000s. I remember very little about my experience with RE0 other than I didn't like it as much as REmake on the Gamecube, but still remembering enjoying it for the most part. This is why I often wrote off the hoards of hate this game gets in various corners of the internet. My assertion that RE0 was a good game was supported even further by most of the reviews at the time this game first came out being pretty positive. However, replaying RE0 probably 20 years after I last did, I can't for the life of me understand how I ever thought I liked this game, and if I did, I genuinely question my taste in games growing up.

RE0 is kind of mess of a game. Perhaps the only thing I can heavily praise are its visuals which are not as good as REmakes, but still some of the best on the Gamecube and of the 6th console generation. Audio is also not as good as it was in REmake, but still decent enough, if not pretty good. Where RE0 really falters is its poorly implemented gameplay and overall game design.

RE0's core mechanic is its partner system which has you controlling one of two characters. Most of the time, the two characters, Rebecca and Billy, work together to take down zombies and other monsters. Each character has their own strengths, weaknesses, and abilities which makes one of them more ideal depending on the situation or puzzle. The character you aren't controlling is controlled by the game's AI, but still gives you control over whether the character you aren't controlling attacks when enemies are close or stays put if you need to go solo for a puzzle or other reason. This might sound all fine and dandy, but its actual implementation leaves a lot to be desired.

There is so much thrown at you in this game that you'll often be progressing through constant trial and error of accidentally equipping the wrong items at the wrong times, or running into enemies with one character that you aren't well equipped to handle. Speaking of enemies, RE0 has some of the most annoying and also the most challenging enemies and bosses in the series. I have to give a special shout out to the monkeys which I can say with a fairly high degree of confidence are the worst basic enemy type in the entire franchise. But yeah, dying over and over again because you didn't use the right character or have the right weapon equipped to handle a slug man or some hunters gets really old after a while. But sadly, it actually gets worse.

Aside from a generous amount of ink ribbons and type writers to save, you will constantly be on the edge of soft locking yourself in this game. While I only came close to running out of ammo a handful of times, I felt like I was constantly out of health regeneration items, or on the verge of death by the time I found more to heal myself. I know this goes along with the survival horror aspect of this game, but it's still several magnitudes more difficult than any other game in the RE franchise, save maybe Code Veronica. Unlike Code Veronica however, this difficulty is for mostly the wrong reasons rather than it being a well implemented and balanced part of the gameplay. many rooms and corridors make it impossible to avoid confrontations, there are quite a lot of enemies to contend with, certain enemies can relentlessly attack you in a way that makes it very difficult to avoid them or break your stagger to attack back or flee. The sum of all this is a game that will undoubtedly annoy and frustrate most people who play this game.

Sadly, this might all be forgivable if RE0 actually had a great story and interesting characters, but it doesn't. Billy Cohen is your stereotypical early 2000s misunderstood video game  tough guy, Rebecca is okay, Wesker is even more comically campy in this game than he is in OG Resident Evil and especially the REmake, and another character who I won't spoil, is one of the dumbest antagonists in the entire franchise. The plot and even some of the settings really try and rehash what RE1 did way better too, which will give you a sense of deja vu, but not in a good way. More or less, you'll just wish you were playing REmake instead.

As much as I don't want to, I full heartedly agree with most modern RE fans in saying RE0 is kinda a bottom of the barrel entry in the series, especially when stacked against the other mainline games. It does have some things going for it, but overall it's just a cumbersome, poorly balanced, poorly designed mess with a few good aspects and an excellent presentation. Given the story of this game isn't super critical to the overall RE narrative, I'd say give this game a hard pass unless you just really want to play all the RE games, or really like your games frustrating and tedious. (10/25/25) [28/50]

[kamikazekeeg]

32 - Bendy and the Ink Machine (PC 2017) - BEAT - This was always one of those games I meant to check out, I think I played the 1st chapter at some point, I feel like it was free before release, sorta like Poppy Playtime has the first chapter free and then you buy the rest.  It's basically got some very, very, light Bioshock vibes, mixed with a little mascot horror.  Honestly kinda wished it picked one or the other, because it's not a good action game like Bioshock and its not a good mascot horror game because there's not much in the way of puzzles or non-action stuff that's very engaging.  The art is pretty great, visually has a decent aesthetic, performance could've been better, because for some reason Steam said I was running at 120, but the game felt lower than that.  Not unplayable, just something I noticed.

Like I said, gameplay isn't great, the action is stiff and kinda bad, some areas drag, it's sorta just fetch quest type things, it really could've used some puzzle solving.  Some decent voice acting for some characters, though could've used more characters throughout and the game is quite short, I beat it in under 4 hours.  You do get a bonus thing that adds a little replay value if you go through the game again, but I didn't like it enough to want to do that.

Not a bad game, but definitely not something I would've spent 20 bucks on, which I'm glad I got it for I think under 10 bucks (And its going up for free on Epic soon, because of course it is even though I bought this like 2 weeks ago lol). 

I am going to check out the sequel, Dark Revival eventually, need it to go on sale (Kinda hoping a few horror games go on sale next week), but will get there eventually and the third main game is on the horizon.