General and Gaming > General

52 Games Challenge 2026!!!

<< < (35/56) > >>

marvelvscapcom2:
21. Mario Tennis: Aces [NS] - Finished March 11th, 2026



UNDERATED BLISS



I am a massive fan of the Mario Tennis games, to me they are olympiad level Tennis glory. A staple in couch co-op and adrenaline fuel to the highest order. I grew up playing the N64 original, bathed in the excellence that was the GBC game. Dozens of hours. I know it's not the largest measuring stick of opinion validation but i'd like to say I know ball when it comes to our raquet wielding adventures so I don't say this lightly.

Mario Tennis Aces is the goat.  Its top 3 minimum of the tennis games Nintendo has published.


Mario Tennis aces takes place on a myriad of locale that is gorgeous to look at it, a very cartoony Super Mario Movie style sports cgi atmopshere makes up the scenic graphical layout.  Blades of grass are lush, the fabrics of Mario's shorts are stitched to perfection. It looks like peak cinema.  You take what is a gorgeous sports game for tennis fanatics. And then you add both RPG elements and you realize early on. You aren't dealing with your grandads tennis game. This is a new beast.  It's more a fighting game with tennis rules than it is a tennis game. 


PLAYSTYLE MECHANICS

What stands out first and foremost is the sheer depth to how you actually carve up the court like brisket beef. First off thr game has countless ways to actually hit.  Backhand, forehand? 2 subsets. Then you get LOB, SLICE, POWER AND LIGHT swings allocated to each of the 4 face buttons. Lobs hit the ball to the stratopshere and back down in high archs. Good for backing up an opponent crowding a net but dangerously slow. Power is good at knocking an opponet off balance but it lacks direction. Slice is my favorite. A fastball that curves based on your analog placement. Then on top of it they add a whole new style shot element where you can hit ZR and ZL and literally cart wheel into these gorgeous shadows of tennis back and fourths and reach far away sideline shots with ease. It's like Marvel Vs Capcom 2 (no pun intended) meets Mario Tennis.  Then you got yellow star power where you can control aim a speciality shot for a "zone score" and then the grand daddy of it all!  The ultimate shot. Which is the same except twice as powerful and can be taken with any ball not just speciality zone balls.  This is aquired by filling your meter enitrely by getting into exchanges on the court.  In total their are 45 total ways to strike the ball and trust me.  It's absolutely insidious this game was met with mixed hype. It is so underated it crushes me. Because it does so much with such a tried and true formula. Idk how it even fits so much crystal clear depth into itself.


BOSSES AND RPG ELEMENTS


The freshest part of Mario Tennis Aces that keeps it vibrant unlike some tournament style tennis games is that it plays much more like a fighting game with JRPG elements and i'll explain how. Sometimes the objective of the game is not to get the ball passed the enemy in a routine way. That is just the overylaying rules of tennis.  Sometimes the game makes you attack your foe with the ball.  Hit mirrors that flip the ball back in reverse, knock timed bobs into your opponent to render him incapacitated, time prearys to block an enemy shot which have fractions of a nano second to predict and act on.  The environments come to life to form hazards, such a ship's ballast acting as a ricochet trick, it's all strategic.  And also half of the game at least is not tennis matches. It's boss battles that require solving tennis based puzzles as you play.  Such as the squid from Mario Sunshine which you have to trick shot over his tentacles and knock a star ball into his mouth.  The star shots use motion controls which I found very intuitive.


The story is essentially a evil wizard named Lucien has taken the forms of Luigi and your friends to turn them against you using dark magic. He does this by having 5 power stones. One he stole from the aformentioned squid. To defeat him. You must beat your homies at tennis to free them of their curse and get the power stones back.  5 in total. 

But what I'd say made me so happy above all else. Is that the game had the most PERFECT difficulty curve I've ever played in recent memory. Starting borderline hand holding in this tutorial vibe of pre kindergarten sillyness. To ending in a puddle of sweat telling poor Luigi expletives he should never hear. Especially considering he is an underpaid ghost hunter by trade and Mario constantly bullies him.  But the point is. It rapidly starts handing you your own ass at a very sharp incline. It gives you just enough sense of comfort before it gives you some of the most brutal challenges of your life. The game is notoriously hard. Praised in communities for that very fact.  And i'm so happy. Nintendo has a tendency to kid proof games by giving no difficulty options.  Metroid and Donkey Kong have managed to remain challenging and now Mario Tennis has too.  That is divine.  I never felt overpowred. I always felt like I would barely edge a skill based victory off pure determination. And I love that change of pace.




Mario Tennis aces is just superfly man. One of the best sports games ive ever played. I seriously dont get what more someone could expect off a tennis game based around Mario. It checks all boxes imo :)


Rating - 98/100

bikingjahuty:
23. Ready 2 Rumble Boxing (Dreamcast)

Ready 2 Rumble Boxing is one of those games that is forever seared into my memories of the early days of the Dreamcast. Between seeing this game all over various gaming magazines, its heavy representation in Sega's "It's Thinking" Dreamcast commercials, and also its inclusion on the pack in demo disk that came with brand new Dreamcasts back in 1999, it's impossible for me not to associate Ready 2 Rumble with my favorite console of all time. I do remember trying Ready 2 Rumble out via that demo disc back in the day, but can't say it really left any sort of impression on me or made me want to go out and get the full game. Decades later, here I am in possession of the full game and its sequel for the better part of two decades, and tonight was the first night I ever sank any serious play time into this game. Unfortunately my underwhelming response to the demo back in 1999 should have been a warning sign of things to come when it came to experiencing the full game of Ready 2 Rumble Boxing.


Ready 2 Rumble is one of the most awfully designed games I've played on the Dreamcast to date. The game essentially has zero depth, strategy, or really anything beyond mashing buttons and hoping you block or dodge enough attacks while simultaneously landing as many punches as possible to KO your opponent before they KO you. There is literally no strategy, no tells or indicators of where your opponent is about to strike. It's just luck of the draw with every button press. As you can imagine, this makes for an incredibly tedious and boring experience. Unfortunately, the gameplay isn't the only thing working to starve you of fun.


For a game with such over the top characters and a fairly silly, cartoonish aesthetic, Ready 2 Rumble Boxing takes itself so seriously that it can't even be bothered to have music playing during your matches. There are only a handful of tracks in the entire game and they all play during the intro, menus, and credits...that's it. The only saving grace to the audio are the limited lines of the ridiculous roster of characters, but more importantly Michael Buffer (aka, the Let's get Ready to RUUUUMBLLLLEEE! guy) lends his voice to the game. Beyond saying is trademark phrase before every match, he also introduces all the fighters as well. Sound effects are fairly limited and uninspired, so yeah, it's pretty much just Michael Buffer making the audio worth anything for the most part.


Undoubtedly, Ready 2 Rumble's best quality is its visual presentation. While certainly far from perfect, the character design and graphics all work together pretty well to create a fairly silly game. Characters are all fairly charming and unique. On top of that, fighters show off an impressive level of damage during the course of each fight. This is shown in the form of bruises, black eyes, and sweat. It's all pretty cool and definitely adds to the entertainment value in Ready 2 Rumble, which let's be honest, desperately needs something to keep you from wanting to just turn it off. Unfortunately, the is a major lack of variety in the rings you'll be fighting in, audience members are 2D cutouts of actual people, and yeah, beyond those cool looking characters, nothing else is all that noteworthy or even good looking in this game.


Luckily, you can get through a full game of Ready 2 Rumble boxing pretty quickly despite constantly having to use continues due to the absolute travesty this game calls gameplay. With how negative I've been on this game, I'm almost too embarrassed to say that I don't completely hate it. It reminds me of the simpler times of the late 90s and how adolescent me was head over heels in love with the Dreamcast back then (I still am, but I mean, I was OBSESSED with the Dreamcast when Sega was still supporting it). Still, my sentimental nostalgia for Ready 2 Rumble is nowhere near strong enough for me to recommend this game to anyone. In fact, I'd strongly recommend avoiding it entirely and just playing the vast array of actual good games on the Dreamcast. (3/11/26) [20/50]

2ko:

--- Quote from: telly on December 31, 2025, 04:56:54 pm ---Games Finished in 2026
1. Tactics Ogre: Reborn (Switch)- 1.16
2. Coffee Talk (PS5) - 1.18
3. Klonoa: Door to Phantomile (PS5) - 1.25
4. Subnautica: Below Zero (PS5) - 2.12
5. Pokémon: Emerald Rogue (Android)  - 2.27

--- End quote ---
Coffee Talk has such a sweet OST. One of the few game OSTs I regularly listen to TBH, I probably throw it on a couple times a month. The game itself is kinda mid imo, but it's kinda worth it just to listen to the OST while you play lol

Here's what I've played so far in 2026:

1. Mario Kart World (Switch2) - Got a Switch 2 for Christmas and played this during my winter holidays. As many other have expressed, it was a step down for me compared to Mario Kart 8. The tracks just aren't as fun (many tracks have too many long straight sections and not enough interesting layouts) and the open world is not really that interesting to drive in. The challenges can be fun to try and do though.

2. Vampire Survivors (PC) - I played for like 4-5 hours and kind of "solved" it, at which point it became pretty boring. You just got to know which powerups to pick up in order to get the ultimate weapons or whatever, and then the game just plays itself. When I can walk away from my PC for 10 minutes and comeback and the level is beat...... yeah.

3. Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin (PS4) - I played the original years ago but never beat the second. I started it last year (and got through most of it) but didn't beat it until February this year. I don't see why it gets so much hate from the community tbh. It has it's flaws, but so did the first game. And it does more than enough right, with some of its own interesting differences from the first to deserve a spot in my collection.

4. Meteos (NDS) - Always playing new games on DS. It has such a deep and underappreciated library. Like, I had no idea Masahiro Sakurai designed a puzzle game. It's pretty cool! You don't get many puzzle games that aren't just a variation of Tetris or Bejewled, but Meteos is pretty unique from those games. It's is technically a match 3 game, but there is so much more going on it's s disservice to call it one. It's the kind of game I turn on for 30 minutes in an evening when I'm not in the mood for a more serious game that will take up more time. Just a quick few rounds after dinner and before cleaning up kind of thing. Playing a ROM, but will pick up a copy to put into my collection when I get the chance.

Games I am in the middle of playing:
Metaphor Refantazio [PS5], Marathon [PS5], Pokemon Diamond [NDS], Rune Factory: A Fantasy Harvest Moon [NDS], Octopath Traveler [Switch]

kashell:
22. SaGa Frontier Remastered - Emilia

I've always loved Emilia's campaign, and this one was no different. Story, characters, narrative. It's all there in her short but sweet campaign. Also, outfit changes! Emilia was once again supported by Gen, Liza, Fuse and Lute. During my beepbopping around, Emilia was able to get to over 800 hit points. So, in the event that I'm missing a fifth character that can act as Backpack carrier, then she could possibly be it. During this campaign, I was able to get Riki changed into a Black Dragon - another first for me. Up next is Asellus.

bikingjahuty:
24. The Typing of the Dead (Dreamcast)

The House of the Dead series, specifically the first two games are among my favorite and most special arcade games from the 90s. While the first House of the Dead game was a treat I really only ever got to experience in arcades, I would eventually get the arcade perfect port of House of the Dead 2 on the Dreamcast shortly after I got one back in late 1999. I've probably played through and beat House of the Dead 2 over a hundred times in my life and it remains possibly my favorite lighten shooter of all time. So yeah, when Sega took House of the Dead 2, replaced the guns with keyboards, and had you typing zombies and monsters to death, my initial reaction was likely WTF...


It's been many years since I first played Typing of the Dead and it's been the sole reason I still own an official Dreamcast keyboard. I decided to play through the game once again and what's crazy is it's just as charming and fun as the game its based on. And this is despite the fact that I'm not a very good typist. In addition to carrying over all the visual and auditory charm that made House of the Dead 2 so memorable and fun, Typing of the Dead is more than just type words and sentences that appear on the screen. First off, the things the game will have you type are distractingly hilarious at times. Phrases like "cat toilet", "stinky finger", and other ridiculous phrases commonly appear on screen and will often made it hard to type while you're laughing at what you're trying to type. Likewise, there are certain sections and bosses that will have you typing out the answers to questions or completing spoofs on nursery rhymes that had me audibly laughing out loud. Keep in mind all this is happening while James, Harry, and Amy have Dreamcast consoles strapped to their backs while a keyboard is propped up in front of them as they're walking. This game has an amazing sense of humor and I commend Sega for going that extra mile and adding silly stuff like this to make this game even more memorable. Still, covering inputs from a lighten pointed at a screen to rapidly typing words, phrases, and sentences with a keyboard was not a seamless transition.


There are parts in Typing of the Dead that make the use of the keyboard a bit frustrating. For one, once you start typing a specific word or phrase to kill a specific zombie, you're locked into it. That means if a projectile is heading towards you, typing the proper letter or word to "type" it out of the air won't be possible until you finish the word or phrase you started on. This situation is where I took the most damage in this game and made certain parts fairly frustrating. Likewise, the game is particular about you using punctuation and special characters when prompted, but it doesn't care about the spaces between words? It's a bit strange and inconsistent, but aside from some frustration, it wasn't a huge deal in the grand scheme of this game.


I dare say that Typing of the Dead is just as good as House of the Dead 2, maybe even arguably a bit better due to its unique, unconventional gameplay. Had Typing of the Dead been around when I was learning to type on a keyboard in elementary school, I might have actually been motivated to correctly type instead of the weird T-rex style I've adopted sine I was a kid. This game is such a hilarious, and unique game and is worth tracking down a Dreamcast keyboard (and I suppose even a Dreamcast console too) just for the pleasure of playing it. If it hasn't been already, this game is begging to be ported to modern PCs, which would not only make it more accessible, but also not having to cross my legs to use as a makeshift desk for my Dreamcast keyboard would have been nice. Regardless, this game is awesome. (3/12/26) [37/50]

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page