Messages

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General / Re: 52 Games Challenge 2025!!!

« on: January 01, 2026, 01:39:32 pm »

End of Year Stats

Total Number
Total games played: 43
Total games finished: 29
New /replayed: 31/12

Play Time
Longest time to beat a game: Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes (51 hours)
Shortest game beat: Astro's Playroom (3 hours)
Average to finish a game: 19 hours

Games Played per Platform
Switch: 11
Wii U: 1
GameCube: 2
SNES: 1
GBC: 1
DS: 1
PS5: 8
PS4: 8
PS3: 3
PS2: 4
PS1: 2


Genres
RPG: 10
Survival horror: 9
2D platformer: 4
3D platformer: 4
Adventure: 4
Action: 3
Action RPG: 2
Arcade: 1
Exercise: 1
Sports: 1
Tactical RPG: 1
Simulation: 1
FPS: 1

Developers
Konami: 8
Nintendo: 6
Square Enix: 3
Midboss: 2
All others: 24

Top 5 Best Games Finished in 2025
1. Pokémon Legends: Arceus
2. 2064: Read Only Memories
3. Silent Hill 3
4. Eiyduen Chronice: Hundred Heroes
5. Silent Hill f

Top 5 Worst Games Finished in 2025
1. Silent Hill Homecoming
2. Silent Hill Downpour
3. Dragon Quest IX
4. Read Only Memoires: Neurodiver
5. Bloodborne

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General / Re: 52 Games Challenge 2026!!!

« on: December 31, 2025, 04:56:54 pm »

Games Finished in 2026
1.


Additional Games Played in 2026 (endless or in progress games are here)
Tactics Ogre: Reborn (Switch)
Goof Troop (SNES)
Monstrix: TCG Card Shop (PS5)

Backlog - the priority games on my backlog anyway!
Silent Hill 2 (PS5 remake and PS2 original)
The Last Guardian (PS4)
Rain World (Switch)
Metaphor RE: Fantazio (PS5)
Resident Evil 5 (PS4)
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles (GC)
Super Mario Bros. Wonder (Switch)
Tales of Arise (PS4)
Fitness Boxing 2: Rhythm and Exercise! (Switch)

Previous Lists
2015 List - 27 finished, + 10 played but not finished
2016 List - 32 finished, + 16 played but not finished
2017 List - 26 finished, + 13 played but not finished
2018 List - 23 finished, + 6 played but not finished
2019 List - 20 finished, + 9 played but not finished
2020 List - 45 finished, + 10 played but not finished
2021 List - 24 finished, + 15 played but not finished
2022 List - 18 finished, + 11 played but not finished
2023 List - 24 finished, + 16 played but not finished
2024 List - 24 finished, + 9 played but not finished
2025 List - 29 finished, + 14 played but not finished

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General / Re: 52 Games Challenge 2025!!!

« on: December 21, 2025, 06:50:22 pm »

Game 29: Spongebob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom - Rehydrated - 10 Hours

This might be my final game beat of the year! It's been fun going back to some of these nostalgic older games from my childhood. Just like with Ty the Tasmania Tiger, SS: BBB is a really fun romp that while definitely not as challenging as I remember, was still a very enjoyable platformer with great gameplay and fun level design. The sound and music was a little annoying, and the game has some general glitchiness and jankiness, but then again, so did the original. Nothing really else that I can say, still a fun game after all these years!

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General / Re: VGCollect 2025 Secret Santa!

« on: December 16, 2025, 01:57:57 pm »

After an incredibly busy week, I've finally been able to start catching up with things. I'm glad that there were some who were able to get together for a group meetup and unbox what was available at the time, and what's better is that everyone so far has enjoyed their gifts! In particular, I'm glad I gifted the Final Fantasy VIII soundtrack to kashell, which I'm sure will get much enjoyment whether it's on display or being played during a car ride.

And if I'm understanding some of the many rules to phonetic linguistics, then I think my username would be transcribed as /'da:bi/ or DAH-bee, with an extended vowel a sound.

But.... what did you get?? 

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General / Re: 52 Games Challenge 2025!!!

« on: December 15, 2025, 04:14:10 pm »

Game 28: Pokemon Legends: Z-A (Switch) - 30 Hours

Pokémon Legends: Arceus was one of the best Pokemon games that I’ve played in recent memory. So despite all the negative press that has surrounded the newest game, Z-A, I was looking forward to giving this game a shot.

Right away there are some stark differences between the two. Taking place entirely in a major city, Z-A takes on a wholly unique vibe and feel that is distinct from pretty much every game I’ve played so far in the series. It’s a very enjoyable experience exploring the cityscapes (just like how fun exploring in Arceus), but now with more verticality in the form of tall buildings. I do wish the city had more things to do in it, however. This isn’t GTA by any stretch: there really isn’t anything new that’s brought to the table with the change of scenery. Side quests return from Arceus, but the available coffee, restaurants, and storefronts are just lifted from previous games. There’s a new platforming collectathon, but truly nothing is new from Arceus, which felt like a bit of wasted potential.

No, the biggest (and best) change from Arceus is the fully realized real-time battle system. Legends Arceus had this weird hybrid where catching Pokémon could occur in real time, but battles were still turn based. Now, everything is real-time, which creates a completely fresh take on Pokémon battles that feels fun and interesting. If you take anything away from this review, it’s that the battle system is great, and you really should try it out. The battle royale that’s a part of the main story is pretty fun to experience too. The return to Megas was very welcome, and felt like a really important gameplay element that I felt like I needed to master to be successful with the combat, unlike X/Y's story where they aren't really that impactful. And, I loved using the big Alpha Pokémon, they were really fun to have on my team. I used several.

The area where this game sags compared to Arceus is the story and it’s relationship to the new setting. The story of Arceus, as part of an origin story for the entire universe of Pokémon, was not only interesting and completely connected to what you would do in the game, as the unsettled world and vast landscapes in that game allowed for more organic exploration and combat that jived incredibly well with the story being told. In Z-A, these connections between story and world are far more tenuous with the move to a city environment. The main story plot (in my opinion) was pretty disappointing as a continuation of X/Y, and takes a very long time to not really tell much of a story at all.

When you really start to put this game’s setup under a microscope, a lot of things really don’t make sense regarding the exploration and battles in relation to the story/setting. Why would a city, in an effort to harmonize people and Pokémon, section off huge areas of the city as “mini-zoos” for wild animals, completely disregarding anybody who lives/does business there? And at night new random sections of the city get sectioned off again for city-sanctioned Pokémon battles in the streets. You’d think someone would complain about all of that chaos! And it’s not like there aren’t wild Pokémon outside of the zones too, so the catchable Pokémon aren’t consistently applied in the game. I think it’s clear that they tried to combine the gameplay of Legends Arceus within a city setting, but you can feel the two ideas clashing very hard in this game. That’s not to say it isn’t fun if you just adopt a massive scoop of suspension of disbelief.

A lot of the criticism of this game that I saw online is towards the game’s look and performance. Personally, that wasn’t something I really agreed with. If you really focus on the horizon line, you can see a lot of objects popping in, but as I was focused on what’s in front of me it wasn’t really that noticeable unless I was actively looking for it.  The smart usage of the city buildings keep the pop in minimally distracting. The also game runs incredibly smoothly even with a lot of activity.

If you’re someone who liked Legends: Arceus, then I think you’d enjoy Z-A. It does a few things differently: some for the better, some for the worse, but ultimately it’s still a really fun experience despite it’s shortcomings.

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General / Re: VGCollect 2025 Secret Santa!

« on: December 10, 2025, 09:26:07 pm »

Here's the link to our hangout this evening!

https://youtu.be/mUzqN6c5UJQ

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General / Re: VGCollect 2025 Secret Santa!

« on: December 10, 2025, 10:55:03 am »

Yes Dhaabi/Kashell are correct, I'll just send you the zoom info and you can join if you'd like!

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General / Re: VGCollect 2025 Secret Santa!

« on: December 09, 2025, 08:41:58 am »

I'm still down, regardless if my package is here or not.

Check your inbox! Just sent! 

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General / Re: VGCollect 2025 Secret Santa!

« on: December 08, 2025, 10:58:29 am »

Kashell and I will still be hanging out over Zoom to open our gifts and we'll record it and post to YouTube for anyone that's interested! If there are any last-minute attendees who would like to hang out just DM me and I'll send you the Zoom info

Reminder opening will be this Wednesday at 8 Eastern!

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General / Re: VGCollect 2025 Secret Santa!

« on: December 07, 2025, 07:48:19 am »

Mine is safely packed away waiting for just a few more days! Cartagia did you end up getting yours yet?

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General / Re: VGCollect 2025 Secret Santa!

« on: December 01, 2025, 09:32:47 am »

I'll send a Zoom link over DM to anyone interested! Who else is able to join?

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General / Re: VGCollect 2025 Secret Santa!

« on: December 01, 2025, 08:05:52 am »

How about 8 EST for an opening? 7 CST?

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Video Game Database Discussion / Re: Developer/Publisher Requests

« on: November 25, 2025, 10:09:19 am »

Developer: Dogubomb
https://vgcollect.com/item/288208

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General / Re: VGCollect 2025 Secret Santa!

« on: November 25, 2025, 10:03:03 am »

Even if it's just the three of us that would still be fun!

How about the 10th, 11th or 12th of December? I can't do the week of the 14th because of choir concert production week.

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General / Re: 52 Games Challenge 2025!!!

« on: November 23, 2025, 08:04:51 am »

Game 27: Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies (DS) - 40 Hours

It's been a really long time since I played a Dragon Quest game. For all the Final Fantasy and Tales games, Dragon Quest is still series that I haven't really spent a lot of time with. I suppose it's fitting that I play 9 since the last game that I finished was 8. So how did my second foray with the series go?

I'm just going to start things right off by saying I didn't really care for this game very much. The biggest let down for me was the story. It probably takes a good 20 hours to get going. The story is propped up by paltry unrelated episodic stories that you must complete with no significance to an overall narrative other than a flimsy “doing good in the world will help you, main character!” It felt so painfully bland and uninspiring. The main villain isn't even introduced until 30 hours in, and he's given almost no back story and up until this point nothing that you have done has ever related to him at all. Character-wise this game feels very old school to me. Unlike Dragon Quest 8 which had a cast of lovable memorable characters in this game you get to create 4 characters of your own and as a result they have no character whatsoever and they don't develop at all during the course of the game.
 
Outside of the story the gameplay is vastly superior and that is just OK. It's a typical standard Dragon Quest fair that's very classic yet works well. To me the biggest change for this game was the use of different classes that you could swap between. To be honest, I never use this feature. I just never really saw the benefit to switch classes. I picked up four players that were set to my needs and was able to clear the game pretty easily. You also get skill points that you can dedicate to learn different abilities across all of your classes but you don't really earn them at a fast enough rate to really be able to explore the various options that are offered for you. It doesn't feel very balanced in my opinion.

The another annoyance is that switching to a different class drops your character down to level 1. That would be fine, if the leveling system in this game wasn’t so strange. Experience points are set by level, so it doesn't matter what monsters you fight you're always going to get about 50 exp points for a level 1 character and about 1000 exp for a level 30 character. So you will never be able to catch up levels to previous characters, especially if they die and lose out on experience altogether. My main character was 3 or 4 levels higher than all my other characters because it took me a while to figure out that you could even add more than one character to your game, and that was just the case for the rest of my playthrough.

Graphically the game is very impressive it might be the most impressive 3D DS game that I've played, second maybe to Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days. This game maintains the high level of Polish that is known from other games that have been developed by level 5. Other aspects of the game just don't really feel that well done. For one thing there wasn’t enough music. You get 1 theme for every single town in the game and one theme for the entire overworld and it got really repetitive.

Ultimately this game isn’t bad, but it doesn't live up to the pedigree that is Dragon Quest. Maybe it’s fun to play with friends, but wasn’t able to experience that of course. A huge chunk of the game’s multiplayer elements are of course gone now too since the servers no longer exist. Given the amount of time investment it takes for you to finish it, I would recommend you stick to other entries in the series.