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52 Games Challenge 2026!!!

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dhaabi:
14. Picross e3 || Nintendo 3DS || 03.21.2026



I found myself recently wanting to pass the time with a more focused puzzle experience. So, almost like clockwork, I began playing the next Picross game for the 3DS, Picross e3, just as I've done the previous two years.

In truth, I did not think there would be much to mention about my experience with the game as this third installment is nearly identical to the first two. Even relatively insignificant elements such as UI and sound are virtually unchanged—the former is the exact same apart from its color, whereas the latter features the same song (there are only two tracks in the entire game, and one is exclusive to the main menu) used for stages but with a different instrumentation. However, the one additional mode added to Picross e2 named Micross has been replaced with a new, more challenging mode named Mega Picross that I'll discuss at more depth further below. So while there technically are changes presented, players of the previous two games should be more than experienced with the game's basic puzzle systems and strategies.

While playing this time, I decided to turn off the option that penalizes the player with added time to their stage time total. The reason for this is because, when players do inevitably make a mistake, they're not only given this negative penalty but are simultaneously given the positive reward of immediate feedback that is knowing whether the action taken was right or wrong which is useful information either way. As I don't approach these games with any focus on time beyond trying my best no matter what time that entails, I instead wanted one added factor to test my puzzle-solving skills as I progress through the series. And perhaps it's because of this changed that this third title feels more difficult. Often, a certain point of the stage arises when there is only one particular action to take that you're trying to notice, and sometimes all that you're benefited with is the answer to one singular grid plot that allows subsequent actions to be taken. In one of the two games (probably the first), there were moments that I felt I had no other option but to guess, even though I'm sure that isn't true. Despite how it may have seemed then, these instances certainly do provide enough information that's needed to continue each step with certainty. Nevertheless, I again was routinely stumped for lengthy periods of time while playing picross again, analyzing each individual row and column while counting up-and-down, left-and-right over and over again trying to find the one detail that provides some answer. Naturally, this was frustrating, but it was rewarding to presumably find what was correctly hidden that allowed me to progress.

Alongside the aforementioned instant feedback option when an error is made, there is also an option that can be freely toggled on and off that highlights which row and column can be interacted with in some way because there is enough surrounding information to make an action. It's generally an option I mostly had toggled off with the previous two games, but it seemed to me that it was necessary to turn it on at a higher frequency than before during some of the late-game Picross stages. Perhaps this is a result of deciding to opt out of that feedback option, but it instead just felt like the general difficulty of stages had increased when compared to those in the previous titles. While this feature is a helpful tool, it does not guarantee successes whether an action is made correctly or incorrectly is ultimately dependent upon the player. Regardless, this option is totally inaccessible every five stages just as had been established before too, so players will be forced to persevere without it with regularity.

Now, the most clear difference between Picross 3 and previous installments is the addition of the Mega Picross mode. While its end goal remains the same, it feels almost doubly complicated due to its gimmick that is that puzzle segments may span two rows or columns. Even the medium-sized 10x10 puzzles are challenging, so the few 15x15 large ones definitely are too. For nearly every action, a lot of careful thought is required, and the types of spatial reasoning strategies involved toward reaching the solution are much more complicated. It demands a type of thinking that, by the end of the game, I was still having trouble understanding. Fortunately, though, the toggle highlight system is especially helpful to have on as players can observe when what exactly constitutes a puzzle segment as being marked clear or not. On my own—sometimes with the built-in hint system turned on and sometimes turned off—I was able to clear the first twenty-nine stages of Mega Picross after a considerable amount of trial-and-error that sometimes resulted in me simply restarting the stage completely instead of trying to decipher where I made an error exactly. However, the thirtieth and final stage without any in-game assistance available to me was just too difficult. Apart from one action that granted me answers to six grid plots, I didn't know how to advance the puzzle at all. So, on two occasions, I felt forced to reference the puzzle solution online to select the answers to key plots I was having trouble with. So with a little more help than I'd have like to have relied upon, I was able to complete Mega Picross and the game altogether. In hindsight, I should have consulted guides to understanding Mega Picross better before doing this, but it was something I overlooked until afterward and am only in the middle of doing post-play.

By the end of my time playing Picross e3, I felt mentally drained by subset of Mega Picross mode stages. Still, my time with the game was enjoyed as the game offers a considerable amount of mental difficulty that feels momentarily rewarding to have accomplished; I specifically mention momentarily because there almost always is another puzzle left to solve. Momentary will now be a bit more elongated now, though, as I'm sure I'll get around to playing the fourth title in a year or so.

dhaabi:

--- Quote from: telly on March 23, 2026, 02:51:49 pm ---Game 6 - Gauntlet: Dark Legacy (GC) - 2-player co-op, 20 Hours

After many bottles of beer, a friend and I were finally able to finish this game, which I've had on my "want-to-finish" list for years ever since I picked it up for the first time in college about 10 years ago.
--- End quote ---

Experiences like these are too few and far between now, though that's certainly not a new reality. Nice!

I remember casually playing through some of Gauntlet Legends for both Nintendo 64 and at arcades. Maybe one day I'll finally get around to properly completing that too.

bikingjahuty:
27. Mega Man Zero (PS4)

I mentioned this in my Mega Man 2 review, but up until very recently, the vast majority of my time with the Mega Man series has been confined to the X series. The first Mega Man X on the SNES was my entry point into the series back in the mid 90s, and for one reason or another I just always gravitated towards those games both back in the day and pretty much up until this year. I did play Mega Man Legends several years ago and ended up not caring for that game much, but as for the other non-X Mega Man games I've played so far, I REALLY, REALLY like them. I decided to tackle another Mega Man series I had no experience with and that would be the Zero series.


I decided to start with the first Zero game despite its well known issues and brutal difficulty, mostly because I wanted a fresh take on this series and also due to the Zero series being far more narrative driven then most of the other Mega Man series. I will say right off the bat, Mega Man Zero's infamous difficulty is definitely not overstated as this is probably one of the most challenging, albeit fair, 2D actions games I've ever played. However, my decision to play Zero as part of the Mega Man Zero/ZX Collection on PS4 definitely curbed some of that difficulty somewhat since that release allows for save asset checkpoints throughout the level, whereas the original release of Zero on the GBA didn't have this much needed feature. Essentially in the GBA version you have a limited number of lives and if you used all those up, which let's be frank, you absolutely will, you had to start the stage from the very beginning. I can't even imagine playing Zero like this given the game is already hard enough without having to replay entire levels again after dying 3 or 4 times. Had I played the game without the save assist feature, it would have almost certainly ruined the game for me, but with it, I ended up having a surprisingly awesome time with Zero despite how brutally difficult the game is.


Mega Man Zero's gameplay is really a mixed bag in terms of quality. On one hand, Zero may have the most dynamic, deep gameplay of any Mega Man game ever made. The ability for Zero to use both close range melee weapons and a blaster akin to Mega Man's buster arm create multiple ways of dealing with many of the game's bosses and certain stage hazards. Most boss fights will require you think and act quickly while toggling between using Zero's sword or spear, or your truster blaster. This is also integrated fairly seemingly given the limited control inputs available on the GBA, and how those controls are mapped to a PS4 controller. What benefits the most from Zero's dynamic characters controls are its many boss fights, which are mostly spectacular. The majority of boss battles are pretty hard and really require that you stay alert, learn boss's patterns of movement and attack, and utilize everything at your disposal to defeat them. There are several boss encounters that are outliers to this, either being far more simple and easy, or being brutally difficult to the point of being broken. Luckily, these underwhelming or sadistic bosses only account for a handful of the boss battles in Zero, making this game pretty fun throughout...except when you're getting through the stages leading up to the bosses.


Unlike Zero's bosses which are mostly all well designed and fun to fight, the level design in Zero ranges mostly from flat, bland and boring to poorly designed and terrible. There is little in between when it comes to Zero's stages. Mega Man game stages are often just as memorable or more memorable than the bosses themselves, but here, they couldn't be more opposite. Sometimes I wondered why there was even a stage at all given how much it either dragged down the pacing and my enjoyment of this game, or caused me so much needless frustration over the copious amount of blind jumps, poor enemy balancing and placement, or just gotcha obstacles that were just annoying first time playthrough traps. In fact, while writing this review, I can't think of a single stage in Mega Man Zero I actually liked or found enjoyable. It also doesn't help that various stages are recycled multiple times, making returning to a specific level even more annoying since you know you've already been there once or twice before.


Before moving on to Mega Man Zero's presentation, the game's power up and buff system has to be discussed as well. Mega Man Zero leans slightly into RPG territory with weapons leveling up as you use them. Leveling up your blaster, sword, or spear grants you additional abilities with them, making it easier to inflict more damage on enemies or more efficiently take down harder to reach enemies on walls or in the air. There are also elemental abilities that you can grant weapons which can help defeat bosses faster if you know a specific boss' elemental weakness. Speaking of these weaknesses, they are far less intuitive than in previous X and core series games, requiring you to try out the different elements to find out which one is best for which specific boss. There is also an assist or buff system in the form of these randomly dropped power ups called cyber-elves. The cyber-elves can grant you a plethora of abilities or assist you in certain ways like refilling your health. Some cyber-elf abilities need to be leveled up before you can use them, which is done by feeding them points you acquire throughout the game. Unfortunately, the amount of points needed to use some of the better, more useful cyber-elf abilities is pretty high and will require you grind in order to unlock them. Overall, the cyber-elf system, as well as the elemental system is sorely lacking compared to previous Mega Man games where you obtained cool abilities by beating bosses and could use them on the fly, or your ability to collect health tanks that you could use in a pinch. Those older systems were far more basic, but also just better suited for a game like Mega Man.


The visuals in Mega Man Zero are freain stunning! I adore the art direction of this game, as well as how detailed and awesome nearly every character and enemy sprite looks. There are also a few cutscenes in the game which also look amazing. These cutscenes are part of a greater narrative focus in this game which is presented through pretty good dialogue and also non-cutscene cinematics which really elevate the visual appeal of Zero. If not for the recycled stages and copies reuse of stage element assets, this game would easily have been a 10/10 when it comes to visuals. Speaking of those stages, they all look pretty cool and atmospheric for the most part, but again, their frequent reuse does drag things down a bit for a graphical presentation standpoint.


Finally, Mega Man Zero's audio is pretty rock solid. Songs are memorable, both throwback tracks like Zero's theme, but also all the new music that was created specifically for this game. It's all appropriately high energy and also fairly catchy too. It doesn't reach the caliber of many of the X game's soundtracks, but it's also not far off earlier. There are also some pretty good sound effects which all have a crispness to them and really give the action taking place on screen a special weight to them. Overall, audio is pretty damn good in Zero.


In some ways, I'm actually a bit surprised how much I enjoyed playing Zero. I'm certainly a fan of challenging but fair games, however given how parts of Mega Man Zero work so incredibly well while others fall almost complete flat, I would have guessed this game would have come out the other end in the "meh" territory. Instead, here I am eager to play more games in the Zero/ZX series, especially knowing they only get better after the first Zero. Again, I am going to throw the caveat out there that I'd highly recommend playing this game on the Zero/ZX collection released on modern consoles; especially for Zero, I cannot overstate how much of a dramatic difference the presence of the save assist features makes to the overall experience of playing Zero and from what I've read, fixes what is often considered Zero's number one flaw. But regardless, Mega Man Zero is in awesome action game worthy of sitting alongside its two older brother series. (3/24/26) [36/50]

bikingjahuty:
28. Fantavision (PS2)

It seems like several lifetimes ago that I was a 13 year old kid staring at issues of video game magazines like GamePro, Game Informer, and Nintendo Power pining over games that had yet to come out. The late 90s in particular were a very fun time to be a young gamer, and it just seemed like there was a never ending stream of amazing games coming out and new ones around the corner. I remember being particularly interested in the PS2 before its release and my main source for excitement about the then upcoming Sony console was a magazine released I think by EGM that was just about the PS2. Within its pages there were tons of mini articles and screen shots of games that were going to be available at launch, as well as games that would end up coming out within the first couple years of the PS2's life like Metal Gear Solid 2 and Gran Turismo 3. One game in particular caught my eye. It was a game where the whole point was igniting fireworks in the sky, creating a visual spectacle over night time city scapes and even in space. That game, was Fantavision.


I'm actually a bit surprised it took me this long to finally play Fantavision. Part of this is due to the fact the game is now over a quarter century old and the other part is I've owned a copy of it for the better part of its 26 year life. I'm in the process of during a minor downsize of my game collection at the moment and I decided to place Fantavision on the chopping block, but not before I finally gave this game a whirl to see if it's actually fun to play or instead a dated relic that was little more than a PS2 tech demo at launch. Unfortunately, the game slides heavily towards the latter more than anything else.


That's right, Fantavision's entire reason for existing is showing off just how cool PS2 games could look back in 2000 when both this game and the console its exclusive too were released. While in that regard it does a decent enough job, there were actually way better looking PS2 games when the console came out. Tekken Tag Tournament, Armored Core 2, Dead or Alive 2 Hardcore, and even various sports games come to mind, but there are likely various others I'm not thinking of at the moment. While the game certainly would have captivated me to some extent with its visuals back in 2000s, today it's really nothing special other than a bunch of green, purple, and orange fireworks exploding while a camera rotates around a coastal city at night, around a space station, and around a cool looking amusing part.


Music in Fantavision is even more underwhelming. While there are some decent songs in this game, most aren't particularly catchy, nor do they really add any appeal to this game. There is an announcer that says how big your chain of fireworks was (more on that soon) and when you pick up certain bonus or special items, but other than that there is little else to the audio in this game. Oh, and fireworks go boom...so yeah, there's that too.


The gameplay in Fantavision is not great, but I guess not horrible either. Fantavision's gameplay revolves around chaining three different colored fireworks together by using a variety of special flares and other modifying or special flares to rack up points and create a bigger visual spectacle when you ignite all the fireworks in your chain.  You do this by selecting at least three fireworks of the same color in a row, but you can also string together colors using rainbow colored flares that go up fairly often. Unfortunately, selecting the firework you need quickly can be challenging as other colors easily get in the way, or you'll accidentally negate a chain by accidentally accessing the wrong color. At the same time, you can almost mindless twirl the analogue stick and just press the X button as much as fast as you can and rack up a fairly big chain. The take-home here is that the gameplay is very loose and sloppy, and pretty much just a serviceable distraction to what might as well have just been a movie showing off the then new PS2's graphical abilities.


There are far better puzzle games released during the late 90s and early 2000s, and way better games released for the PS2 at launch. Knowing this somewhat negates Fantavision's appeal or relevance in any way, which is why this game is typically a fixture of PS2 bargain bins. Still, on a personal level I do carry some sentimental feelings towards Fantavision and I'm happy I finally got around to trying it out. Sadly, it's still going into the bin of games I'm planning on selling here very soon. For what it's worth, I'm glad I at least tried the game out finally, but it's certainly not a game worth keeping and certainly not playing ever again. (3/24/26) [28/50]

kashell:
29. SaGa Frontier Remastered - Blue

Man do I so enjoy Blue's journey. Magic is always something I enjoy celebrating in RPGs, and Blue's quest is all about magic. His snippy attitude is great. He has a goal and will do whatever it takes to accomplish it. I had him acquire the gifts for Shadow, Rune, and Time magics. Surprisingly, I was still able to get Fuse and the Shield Card even after getting the gift of Rune Magic. That was nice. Fortunately, I would have been fine without him. Blue was joined by Liza, Gen, and Lute. The final area in Blue's journey is still stunning as hell (IYKYK). I love the color scheme for it. Up next is Fuse, and his will be a long one.

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