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52 Games Challenge 2026!!!

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ssj4yamgeta:
5: Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection (PS5)

I had a feeling back when I played the demo that I wouldn't be able to put this one down once I started it, and I was right. This game is worth every penny of the $70 I spent on it. Rarely does a new game exceed my expectations these days, and even more rarely does it turn out to be one of the best games I've ever played, but that's exactly the case here. This is the pinnacle of creature-collecting games. This game saw everything Pokemon Legends: Arceus did right and said, "Hold my beer." It's the same basic formula, but expanded so far in every imaginable direction that it ascends to a higher form. The art style is a massive improvement over that of the previous two Monster Hunter Stories games, keeping the anime-esque shaders while thankfully ditching the chibi proportions and preteen protagonists that other games in this genre adhere to like a religion. Finally a developer understood that some older fans of the genre want huge badass monsters and not beady-eyed yellow fuzzballs. And it's so nice to have a player character who looks like they could have a driver's license.

This game has a wonderfully complex turn-based battle system which forces you to take into account not only the element of your attack, but also the type of the attack (speed, power, or technical), the type of your enemy's attack, the charge gauge of your weapon, the type of attack your partner monster is using, what enemy body part you're targeting with what type of weapon (blunt, slash, or piercing), and whether or not the enemy is targeting you (which causes a clash called a head-to-head resolved by a rock-paper-scissors type alignment). This brings me to the next great thing about the game, its difficulty. This game is really freaking hard, and demands you learn the ins and outs of its battle system or else it will gladly bend you over the nearest table and ream your ass. When I first started the demo, I saw that in each battle you had three hearts that would auto-resurrect you or your monster when one of you died. I thought, "Oh cute, they dumbed the combat down for the modern audience." WRONG. This is actually a legitimate gameplay mechanic, and you will have to think hard about how many hearts you have left, whether or not you have any life essence to restore them, and whether you want to use items to heal your ailing monster's status or just let it die and come back with its stats refreshed. Unless the monsters you're fighting are the same level as you or lower, you will be dying a lot in each battle.

Like Legends: Arceus, MHS3 takes place in open-zone maps which you must explore and harvest new monsters from. These maps are a great example of how to make an open map without making it too big and empty. The method of acquiring new creatures is different from Pokemon, though. You don't capture the adult monsters, you raid their dens and steal their eggs. This often leads to comical situations where you're running out of a den carrying an egg the size of a small beach ball while the angry mother chases you down. The monsters themselves are highly customizable, as each has nine gene sockets where you can add new attacks from other monsters via the Rite of Channeling (medieval gene splicing), which is in itself a lot of fun. Want to give an extremely powerful water attack to a fire-type monster? In MHS3, you can do it. This gives you a new reason to capture monsters you already have: gene farming.

I am a firm believer that there is no such thing as a perfect game, and even though I love MHS3, it has a few minor things I think they could improve. First, the game could have used one more area, or at least the fourth and final area could have been more fleshed out. Two thirds of it are basically a FFX-style winding corridor. After the second and third areas, it definitely feels like they ran out of time here. Second, the game could use more monsters. The ones in the game are great, but I've just started MH Wilds (which came out last year), and I'm already seeing monsters like the Quematrice that I wish had made it into MHS3. Third, even though they ditched the old chibi aesthetic, there are still some minor issues with monster scaling compared to the mainline series. For instance, I was excited to find the Barroth (one of my favorites from MH World) had made it in, but disappointed to find out it was significantly smaller than it was in World. The party/riding model feels like you're just riding a big cow. The scaling issue is exacerbated by the fact that the models for monsters in your party are further reduced in size by about 25% from the ones you see in the wild. It's annoying once you notice it and makes you feel like you got a gimped monster. Fourth, unlike other MH games, there's no option to make the palicoes speak cat. This is bad because Rudy is annoying and a bit of a control freak. He's also very, very loud (at least in the english VO). But it says a lot about a game when the only flaws I can find with it are that there isn't more of it, they made my Barroth small, and the cat is annoying.

You know a game has to be amazing when I spend 110 hours in it and immediately start another playthrough after the final boss. After 90 hours in AC Valhalla last year, I felt like I needed a vacation. Yet I'm still playing MHS3 a week after beating it. I can't praise this game enough, it has replaced PL: Arceus on my list of top 10 best games of all time. Nintendo made the Pokemon game I always dreamed of as a kid, but Capcom made the Pokemon game I dreamed of playing as an adult.

Rating: 10/10 Near-Perfect.

Completed:

Tomb Raider II (Evercade)
Tomb Raider III (Evercade)
Mafia: The Old Country (PS5)
Gundam Breaker 4 (PS5)
Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection (PS5)

In Progress:

Final Fantasy IV Advance (GBA)
Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation Remastered (PS4)
Resident Evil: Code Veronica X (Gamecube)

bikingjahuty:
Thanks everyone for the encouraging and kind words. Yeah, it's pretty devastating and to make matters worse the job market is awful right now. Tons of people looking, but not nearly enough jobs to go around. Luckily I'm considered senior level in my field, but that only gives me a slight edge in the current economic climate. I'm also on the company payroll for another 2 months and I have a decent severance package headed my way. Still, the prospect of potentially being unemployed, or even under employed is pretty terrifying. I can hold on until probably later this year before I have to make some very hard decisions, assuming I don't find something before then. I've already applied to nearly 50 jobs and haven't even been given an interview yet. As I said, the job market is crap right now. I've never even remotely had this much trouble landing a job before.


On a side note related to this thread. I am in the middle of another game. Unfortunately, I'm not enjoying it as much as I'd hoped, but it's still the kind of game I felt like I needed right now. I'm guessing I'll beat it sometime this weekend. We'll see though.

kashell:
38. AAA Dynamic Scenes

My partner and I have been "playing" this to wind down at night. We've completed enough puzzles between the two of us on varying difficulties for me to consider it complete. Simply put, there's a variety of stunning wallpapers (many of which are animated) that you can have on in the background kind of like a bougie screensaver. With the push of a button, you can turn them into a jigsaw puzzle. You put the pieces in one at a time. Throw in some of the most chill, relaxing, haunting, captivating music (depending on the puzzle) and you have the perfect way to chill after playing something more intense. We'll be going back to this time and again, but I wanted to capture it on here.

supremeusername:
19. Rave Racer | 1995 | "Arcade Archives 2" Re-release | Switch 2 | 4/4:



     Rave Racer -- not to be confused with Ridge Racer or Rage Racer -- is a pretty fun arcade game. Drifting around corners is never a dull moment in this game. I can't always get it right, but when I do get a good run going, I'm in a flow state. This port to modern consoles -- while expensive -- gives you multiple versions to play. Do you want to play the Japanese or English version? Standard manual driving or the DX version using the right thumbstick as the stick shift? You get all of them!

     Of course, there's some annoyances I have with the arcade mode. Getting past opponents is tough, especially on the more advanced courses. There's tight passageways where you can bump into an opposing driver and lose a heavy chunk of momentum, as you can't help but do so just to make a sharp turn. Even if you bump them from the side, the game will sometimes decide that you lost speed while your opponent is not affected in any way. I also wish there was a way to turn down the announcer voices. I don't like hearing "Come on! Drive a smart race! There's a lot of racing ahead!" after I just made a perfectly normal drift turn.

     Even though it's nigh impossible to play the game as it was originally intended now, you can still have much of the authentic Rave Racer experience today in the comfort of your own bed or couch. Grade: B

supremeusername:
20. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City | 2002 | PlayStation 2 | 4/11:



     Well, whether GTA 6 arrives this year or next year -- or the year after that -- we still have the original Vice City to look back on. I could never finish Grand Theft Auto: Vice City before due to complications: the first time, I forgot to save my progress after playing for 5 hours straight on the PS2; the second time, my game soft-locked every time I tried to move after saving because the game spawned me on top of the save point. Man, I love the old GTA games.

     Everything about Vice City is still true today: vibrant vistas, an amazing licensed soundtrack, and a step above its prior entry: Grand Theft Auto III. While GTA III is the innovator, and San Andreas is the one to truly push the PS2 to its limit, Vice City is still just as important with what Rockstar North improved on within a shorter development window. You have more weapons to work with, properties that can be purchased, and an overall different feel and vibe compared to prior entries. Though you can tell this is an early-2000s game, Vice City still holds up visually because of the new location. I love the grit of GTA III, but the loose recreation of 80s Miami combined with subtle art direction choices like bringing back the "trails" effect, is pure nostalgic bliss.

     Tommy Vercetti -- while not the most memorable protagonist in the series -- was and still is the perfect candidate for the series' 1st voiced playable character. His background isn't given much dialogue; the only detail I can remember is him mentioning being in 'Nam, but the story doesn't really elaborate further. Vercetti is however, definitely a character you can feel is a part of Vice City's world, like many of the characters you come across throughout the game. They're expressive and goofy, but don't come across as annoying like Liberty City Stories and its characters felt to me.

     Missions are surprisingly varied compared to GTA III. There is the occasional aggravating mission that takes numerous trips to the Ammu-Nation to beat, but you get a little taste of everything the game has to offer. This is thanks to the varied cast of characters you get missions from. You may do one mission that tasks you with assassinating a lady for her briefcase just to help with counterfeiting money, while the very next mission requires you to keep a certain speed limit while some drunk, bumbling idiots try to disarm a bomb in the back of your car. There's enough side content outside of missions to help with earning money, but it's not so much that it becomes overwhelming or too ambitious like San Andreas can be at times. Despite showing some cracks that it's still an early open-world title, Vice City is overall a pretty well-rounded experience.



Grade: A-

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