Messages

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General / Re: 52 Games Challenge 2026!!!

« on: Today at 11:26:29 am »

This year I have little doubt I'll reach 52 games beat again. Given how I play a pretty balanced combo of shorter games (lots of arcade style games and games that can be beat in under a couple of hours) and longer games (10+ hours), it won't be hard for me to beat 52 games again. However, where I might fall short compared to 2025 (I beat around 130 games) is committing myself to other things as well in 2025 that I either neglected or didn't put as much time/effort into as I should have. This will no doubt reduce my games beat output, but to what extent is to be seen. I'm estimating I'll beat around 80 games this year, but that number could go up or down depending on how things go in 2026. It's even possible I hit triple digit games beat, but again, my need to prioritize other, non-game related things in 2026 will likely get in the way of that. Anyhow, like always I'm super excited to complete the challenge again and look forward to seeing what everyone else beats too!


COMPLETED

1.



ABANDONED


1.

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General / 52 Games Challenge 2026!!!

« on: Today at 11:26:21 am »

It's here again! With less than a week left in 2025, I figured we can get a 52 games challenge thread going to stir up excitement and also to reserve spots in the thread for next year.


For anyone who's not familiar with the 52 Games Challenge, it's essentially VGcollect members committing themselves to beat at least 52 games (one game a week on average) in one calendar year and reducing our backlogs. This challenge is a lot of fun, not just playing and beating games, but also seeing what others are beating as well. A lot of good game discussion happens here as we comment on each other's reviews and blurbs about games. When you beat a game, abandon one, or whatever feel free to write a small blurb about it, or a super long, detailed review too if you want.


Let's beat a ton of games in 2026 and make it another awesome year of gaming!

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General / Re: 52 Games Challenge 2025!!!

« on: December 26, 2025, 02:26:25 am »

After opening presents with my wife, having breakfast, and calling some family, I had a pretty low key, relaxing day. I took advantage of it by playing a lot of the new games I got for Christmas, but mainly I spent a ton of time today playing the following.


128. Demon's Tilt (Switch)

I've been wanting to try out Demon's Tilt for quite some time seeing how I'm a pretty big pinball guy. I love playing real pins on location when I can as well as virtual pins on the PC and console. Speaking of virtual pinball, I've learned to adapt to the inherent lack of any analogue, tactile sensations of hitting a physical metal ball around a physical playfield. There is always some level of delay and while virtual pinball doesn't necessarily provide a 1:1 substitute for the real thing, it at least scratches the itch most of the time when certain tables aren't available. I mention all this to preface some of my thoughts and feelings on Demon's Tilt, which was a fun game for the most part, but certainly lacking when it comes to an original virtual pinball game.


Demon's Tilt is definitely more about spectacle than gameplay. Being a highly stylized, retro inspired game, I feel like Demon's Tilt wants to wow you with its neon bullets that fill the playfield when you hit a specific target or complete certain shots. Or, certain targets in the form of beasts or a priestess in the middle of the 2nd level of the playfield changing throughout the game is also there to provide a level of entertainment. And for the most part, this all works pretty well. Being essentially three playfields stacks on each other to make a single game, Demon's Title has a lot of see and experience as you play longer and longer. Unfortunately, you will see 95% of what Demon's Tilt has to offer visually by the time you reach the 100 million to 200 million point range. Once seeing certain events happen on the playfield for the dozens time begins to wear off, you're left with gameplay that isn't terrible or even bad, but certainly not amazing either.


When I mentioned the delay and sometimes questionable physics of virtually all virtual pins, Demon's Tilt is no different, and if anything felt a bit worse. The delay when using flippers was very difficult to get used to and even after 3 hours or playing, I still didn't feel completely used to it. Likewise, the physics in this game felt all over the place, making actions like performing consistent shots fairly difficult. Not that there are a lot of great shots in this game. Some of the best real pinball machines gained their accliamed status due to how well they shoot and how well the playfield, ramps, and other features are laid out. Unfortunately the devs behind Demon's Tilt missed the memo on this and there are very few good or even satisfying shots in this game. You pretty much are just aiming the ball at the same dozen or so targets with a few ramps and other minor shots thrown in.


Finally, the audio in Demon's Tilt is pretty good. The music in this game is definitely a retro throwback similar to its visuals. The sounds in this game harken back to various 16 bit games from the 90s, as do the pixel graphics that make up the visuals. There are some catchy songs that all fir in pretty well with what's going on. Speaking of going along with the visuals and action, there are some good call outs and other sound effects that definitely add to how enjoyable Demon's Tilt can be.


While I enjoyed Demon's Tilt and kept on running into the "One more game" trap while playing, this game's visual charm that dips its toes into bullet hell chaos at times does wear off the more you play the game. When that begins to happen, you are left with a game that will mostly make you wish you were playing most other real pins that have been made over the past 30 years. Even if that means playing those other pins digitally. Still, as a fun way to spend a few hours, Demon's Tilt is certainly worth it. (12/25/25) [33/50]

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General / Re: 52 Games Challenge 2025!!!

« on: December 25, 2025, 06:21:43 pm »

127. Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves (PS5)

Like most long time Fatal Fury fans, I was very excited to hear a new game in the series was finally being made after over two decades since the last installment. Not only that, but the game that proceeded City of the Wolves, Mark of the Wolves has remained the gold standard for the Fatal Fury series since its release in the late 90s. To say City of the Wolves had some big shoes to fill was an understatement, however if SNK has proven anything since the late 2000s, it's that they still know how to make some incredible games, albeit with a few stinkers thrown in here and there too. Of course, I preorder City of the Wolves as soon as I could and was counting down the days until its release...and then there were some last minute character announcements that really threw a cold bucket of water on my enthusiasm for this game.


Ronaldo and Ganacci as characters in a fighting game might go down as one of the most odd and most stupid decisions a publisher has ever made. But what made their inclusions even more of a bitter pill to swallow was the omission of two Fatal Fury staples, Joe and Andy, and making them paid DLC characters. This massive fumble on SNK's part was enough for me to cancel my preorder and deciding I wasn't going to buy this game until I could do so for under $30. Less than a year after City of the Wolves was released, I finally was able to pick it up for that price and see if maybe I was too harsh on this game initially. While I do think maybe my anger about a real life pro soccer player and some rando Bosnian DJ being made into Fatal Fury characters was a bit excessive, I have no regrets about waiting to pick this game up until it was much cheaper.


My main issue with City of the Wolves is how restrictive its gameplay is. Sure, you can play the game however you want to in terms of your style. However, the game is clearly designed for a specific type of play style, specifically a much more defensive one that heavily relies on counters, rather than just aggressively pushing your opponent. Especially with the KOF series and Fatal Fury, I absolutely prefer to play these games more aggressively, so needing to play more defensively to have a shot felt very weird for me. I played this game a ton and beat it with many of the characters, but the entire time, I still wished the game allowed me to play much more offensively and still be mostly competitive. And I mean, this kind of works against mid and lower level CPU controlled characters, but against experienced players and harder CPU opponents, you're pretty much screwed.


Despite City of the Wolves punishing more aggressive play styles and favoring more defensive ones, I thought the rev meter and SPG system were good mechanics, although I felt like neither tilted or balanced matches as much as maybe they should. This made them feel a little superfluous, but they still offered some fun variation to the gameplay compared to most other modern fighting games, SNK titles included. I also felt like character balancing was definitely considered heavily when making this game, but again, pigeon holing people into a few play styles sorta sucked a lot of the fun out of what could have otherwise been a much more enjoyable game to play.


While the gameplay of City of the Wolves does leave a lot on the table, the visual presentation mostly does not. City of the Wolves is a mostly detailed, vivid looking game with mostly great character designs, stages, and animations. This game heavily reminds me of Street Fighter IV's art style which is a huge compliment towards this game. Also, stages are pretty memorable for the most part, with a few being a little on the stale side. One issue I did have with the visuals has to do with the cutscenes that play out between matches. These are mostly done using semi-still images of the in game character models in certain poses as dialogue plays. Doing these cut scenes like this just felt a little lazy and also dampened my desire to unlock them all like I did in games like KOF 14 which had lots of hand drawn, fully animated cutscenes for many characters. There are some animated cutscenes, mostly character endings, but these still play out in a somewhat uninteresting way as montages of stills, rather than fully animated scenes.


While the visuals are mostly praiseworthy, the audio is not. In fact, City of the Wolves' audio is probably the game's weakest quality. The english voice acting us umm,,,not great, but luckily you can just switch over to Japanese audio which fixes this issue. No, my main issue with the audio is action the soundtrack which mostly just sounds stale and uninteresting. I don't think there was a single track in this game that caught my attention or made me go, "whoa! This song sounds awesome!" That's a real shame since most Fatal Fury games have great soundtracks, or at least a song or two that really catches my ear when I'm playing them. Unless I'm forgetting a specific older game, City of the Wolves might have the worst soundtrack in the series, which is really too bad.


I have to say, even with choosing to wait for City of the Wolves, I'm still a bit disappointed in it. By no means do I think this is a bad game, or even think it's unfun; rather, I feel like after a 25 year wait, this game just isn't as good as we all wished it would have been. It didn't even necessarily have to be better than Mark of the Wolves, just better than the majority of other Fatal Fury games. Instead, it's a game I'd place somewhere in the middle of the series in terms of how good it is. I also think if you are a more defensive minded fighting game player, who really enjoys punishing opponents with counters and reversals, you will probably enjoy City of the Wolves more than I did. I liked this game, but it's just too bad I didn't like it maybe just a bit more. (12/25/25) [33/50]

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General / Re: VGC's Anonymous/"General" Topic:

« on: December 25, 2025, 01:53:31 pm »

Merry Christmas VGcollect! I appreciate all of you who have stuck with the site and genuinely enjoy seeing you all post. I hope all of you have a great day with your families or just chilling.

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General / Re: 52 Games Challenge 2025!!!

« on: December 24, 2025, 06:15:12 pm »

126. Cadillacs and Dinosaurs (Arcade)

Over the years I've been heavily into retro gaming, I feel like I've heard Cadillacs and Dinosaurs mentioned in passing numerous times. Still, over all these years of hearing this game get name dropped, I knew very little about it up until maybe a couple of years ago. When I did finally get more info on this somewhat obscure early 90s beat em' up beyond just its name, it began to emerge as an obscure gem that has been unfairly overshadowed by other more well known beat em' ups for the past 30 years. Since beat em' ups generally don't take more than half an hour to play all the way through, I figured I had nothing to lose in seeing whether this game was actually a forgotten classic, or just another game "hardcore" gamers use to gate keep and flex with.


I can fortunately say that Cadillacs and Dinosaurs is a REALLY good beat em' up! This game is apparently based on an existing IP, a comic series I believe, that I know nothing about, but still, with the limited story delivered through still cutscenes and dialogue, I have to give props to Capcom for making things feel original and interesting. Cadlllacs and Dinosaurs takes place in a distant, dystopian future where dinosaurs have been brought back from extinction and the four playable characters you can choose from are on a mission to save them and also defeat an evil scientist who is fusing humans and dinosaurs together as weapons. All this is show off with incredibly detailed character and enemy sprites, as well as very intriguing stages and backgrounds. I'm a bit disappointed there isn't more dinosaurs or Cadillacs in this game, but even with fighting a lot of the same human type enemies throughout the game, it does a good enough job at keeping things pretty interesting and fresh from a visuals standpoint. The dinosaur hybrid enemies are also very creative and well designed too.


Perhaps Cadillacs and Dinosaurs' best quality though is its soundtrack and overall sound design. This game has such an awesome soundtrack with nearly every stage song being memorable and catchy as hell. There are also unique sound effects and brief voice clips for all four characters as well as some side characters. Some of the weapon sound effects are also great, and have a great sense of impact which is in no small part because of how good the sound quality in Cadillacs and Dinosaurs.


Discussing the gameplay of a beat em' up, especially an older one is often where I have to start being a bit more critical and negative, but luckily I can that Cadillacs and Dinosaurs' gameplay is actually pretty good given the genre it belongs to. There are a tone of weapon and item pickups in this game which definitely mix up the two button combat of attacking, jumping and pushing a combo of the two for special attacks. You can also run in this game by double tapping left or right, which allows for its own uniqe attacks and strategies. Still, despite this, umm, added depth, the Cadillacs and Dinosaurs is still expectedly cheap at times and also easy to cheese certain moves to make the game easier than it should be. Still, the gameplay is definitely well made enough to where this game is fun to play almost the whole time from start to finish and doesn't have anything about it that's egregiously broken or flawed.


Cadillacs and Dinosaurs is indeed a great early 90s beat em' ups that certainly deserves to be mentioned with other genre greats like Final Fight, Streets of Rage, Xmen, The Simpsons, and Aliens vs Predator. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this game and unlike a lot of beat em ups, I can actually see myself wanting to return to this game eventually. It's truly a classic arcade beat em' up if there ever was one, and one I'd easily recommend to someone looking for a more obscure, but still very enjoyable game. (12/24/25) [36/50]

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General / Re: 52 Games Challenge 2025!!!

« on: December 24, 2025, 02:07:37 pm »

9. Gaiares (Genesis) - ABANDONED

In general, I love shumps. however, I am not afraid to say that the most shmups of the 80s and even up to the early 90s has some incredibly annoying gameplay issues that prevent me from enjoying many of them, including what are generally considered to be some of the better shooters from that era. Power up marooning, arbitrary stage checkpoints you have to restart from when you die, and poor enemy/projectile balancing plague so many of these games. While there are definitely some older shmups that possess these vices that are way more tolerable than others, in general it's something I am so happy most shooters moved past by the late 90s. Unfortunately, 1990's Gaiares suffers from all three of these old STG gameplay pitfalls to an extent that made the game unplayable for me fairly early on.


This isn't a case of the game was too hard; I love shmups and there are very few that I would classify as easy. However, outdated gameplay mechanics and design are just that, outdated. There's a reason the genre moved past removing all your power ups when you die, only to die over and over again at the same spot you died before even with all the power ups you had originally. Also stage checkpoints are just arbitrary and annoying as hell too. Gaiares also puts you in many situations that are either just downright cheap or just poorly designed. The game's saving graces is that it looks excellent for a very early 90s shmup and the soundtrack is very catchy. Sadly though, I kinda hated playing this game to the point where I just couldn't do it anymore just three stages in.


Gaiares was on my backlog earlier this year and due to time constraints and feeling like playing other games instead, I just never got around to playing it. With a week left in the year, I got a wild hair and decided I was going to play it. I kinda wish I hadn't now. I'm happy for people that really like this game, but I'm certainly not one of them. (12/24/25) ABANDONED

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General / Re: VGC's Anonymous/"General" Topic:

« on: December 23, 2025, 03:27:51 pm »

This is something fairly gaming adjacent to me, but one thing I'm so sick of is how fake and contrived so much of the internet is today. Compared to even 5 or 6 years ago, it's so hard to find genuine gaming content or discussion. Everything is either sponsored, an ad, clickbait, hot takes, rage bait, AI generated, or bots. I know there are still some genuine people and places to discuss gaming (this site is one of them), but it's getting discouraging on pretty much all mainstream sites like Reddit, Facebook, and Youtube. I hate how I have to second guess if I'm interacting with a bot now, and even if I'm not, so many people just talk and act the same way online now. It's awful. And then when it comes to finding new youtube videos, Youtube will recommend to me the same ultra clickbaity, contrived sponsored video essay 3 times before it actually recommends me some newer video from a smaller youtuber who genuinely just wants to talk about his favorite Resident Evil or SHMUP games. Again, I can still find this stuff, but it's getting more and more rare and difficult.


I know this stuff is happening more and more, but part of me also feels like maybe I'm just outgrowing the social aspect of the internet. I do genuinely like to discuss gaming with people online and in person, but maybe I just have a lower tolerance for people parroting the same opinions or saying some stupid BS just to drum up outrage, and therefore engagement.


I miss the old and also the not so old internet so badly. I know it wasn't perfect and was filled with its own problems, trolls, bad actors, and other unsavory characters, but at least it felt mostly genuine and authentic. Everything online just feels so fake now. I'm so grateful that small forums like this still exist even though they've become an endangered species thanks to social media.

I agree with you 100%.
I don’t think it’s you outgrowing the internet. I think it’s all the bullshit has made it so unsavory that we crave real people.  We just want something that is real and not just generated for clicks. Social media made people curate their online appearance just so they could get some likes. Your friends weren’t sharing their real life with you, and you weren’t with them.

It’s rough when the “realest” thing on the internet is porn.

Even porn is becoming more and more suspect with how realistic generative AI has become. Just pictures and short videos in general are getting to the point where they're no longer just fooling gullible boomers in their 70s. I still feel like I'm able to spot AI most of the time, but I feel like just a year ago I had probably a 95% accuracy rate when detecting AI, now it's probably closer to 80%. I pretty much question everything I see online now be it a picture, social media post, video, or whatever.


And you're right about people throwing their fake life up on the internet for clicks and likes. I've tried making a conscious effort to be as genuine to who I am in real life online, but I too played the "look at how great my life is!" game that 98% of people on social media play. I detest mainstream social media in general and if not for FB Marketplace and one gaming group I belong too (which is built around meeting in person anyways), I'd have deleted my FB profile at least a decade ago. I will never create a TikTok account, X account, or any of that other cancerous shit. I've had my fill of how fake social media is for one lifetime. I just wish Youtube would stop getting shittier and shittier every year. I know there are amazing content creators and people with genuine, real opinions on there, but YouTube's algorithm buries them if they don't check the right boxes. I'll type in "Best Castlevania games" and get a dozen the annoying clickbait hot take videos on Castlevania, then another dozen videos about things loosely or completely unrelated to my search, and then it'll just recycle those same search results again. I freakin hate it.

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General / Re: 52 Games Challenge 2025!!!

« on: December 22, 2025, 02:55:02 pm »

124. Resident Evil 3 Nemesis (PS1)

It's interesting to see where our opinions overlap and differ from another. Despite mentioning how I think I may have enjoyed Resident Evil 3: Nemesis more than the previous two series titles, I'm not one to rank or score games. To me, they're all three about on par to each other considering their time of release and existence as debut, sequel, and third entry titles.

Also, at this point, I can see why Resident Evil is the most popular horror franchise (objectively at this time and arguably not anymore), but I'm still far more captivated and unnerved by Silent Hill. Yet even if Silent Hill debuted first, I think Resident Evil would have gained the broad audience appeal.

The original three games each definitely bring something new to the table that makes them memorable. I guess all things considered, the originality and creepy mansion setting of the first game, and the crazy scope and story of the second game elevate them over Nemesis chasing you around Raccoon City in the third game. You're definitely not alone in liking the third game more, and if anything it seems like more people than ever consider the third game the best. For me though, I love the first two noticeable more despite really liking 3 still.


I really need to branch out more with the Silent Hill franchise. I adore SH2, but I don't care for the first game as much, mostly due to how dated the gameplay feels. I know they both use tank controls (as do the early RE games), but I jsut got frustrated with how much less precise they felt and how I kept on getting hurt or killed when I knew what I was supposed to do. The game just wouldn't let me do it, or at least not do it as well as I would like to actually succeed. But yeah, I still really want to play 3, 4 and some of the later games. SHF is towards the top of my To Play list for next year. I really looking forward to trying that one out.

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General / Re: Gaming/Collecting Goals for 2026

« on: December 22, 2025, 02:47:51 pm »

I don't really have a gaming goal. The closest I can think of is maybe to finally write a program that can automatically refactor Major League Manager rosters instead of having to do it manually every time.

As for collection goal, I'll be honest and say it will probably involve me downsizing considerably. Having gone all out on the 52 Games challenge the past couple of years has really shown to me that I don't really like most of the games that I have. I've also fallen onto into the convenience trap where I'm much more likely to just play games on my computer than fiddle around on a console. Part of that reason is the unreliability of my AVRs, they aren't working properly anymore thus I can't play games on them. Also my life is going in a different direction and I haven't really been playing anything. I played Diablo III last night for a few hours and that was the first time in exactly 6 months that I played a game. I'm still not counting MLM because that's more of a project.

Speaking from experience, I have no regrets downsizing over the last few years. Downsizing has made me appreciate what I did end up keeping even more and also freed up a decent amount of space. In a weird sort of way, it made me also enjoy games more since it helped me refocus on the games I actually wanted to play versus the games I wanted to own. I still really care about physical ownership of my games, but at least with retro games, I use ODEs and flashcarts most of the time out of convenience. But yeah, I definitely have been somewhat disenchanted with collecting for a while now.

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General / Re: 52 Games Challenge 2025!!!

« on: December 21, 2025, 02:21:30 am »

125. Home Alone (Genesis)

Despite not being aware of it at the time, one of the most important days of my entire life was the day my dad walked through our front door on my 6th birthday with a massive bag in hand. I wouldn't even let him wrap it for me, which he probably gladly obliged and just gave me what was inside the bag. The contents of the bag would include my first game console, the Sega Genesis, along with four games, Batman Returns, The Flintstones, Home Alone, and the console pack in of Sonic the Hedgehog. Being completely unaware at the time that my dad likely just threw whatever games were in the bargain bin at Sears or wherever he bought the console, I was stoked to have four new games to play! All four games are insanely nostalgic for me and take me back to my early days of gaming as a young kid. A game I spent a copious amount of time with despite it probably taking me weeks to figure out how to actually play it was Home Alone.


Home Alone is a hard game to classify in terms of genre. It's not really a platformer or an action game. The closes thing I can think of is the most boring run and gun game you will ever played. Oh, and in true Home Alone fashion, it has traps for you to set for the wet bandits. The objective of the game is to inflict as much pain on the Wet Bandits before they successfully loot the five houses in your neighborhood. Aside from setting traps, you can also craft several guns from items you find in the house, as well as snowmen you can ram your sleigh into when traveling between homes. Aside from the setting of traps, none of this other stuff is all that intuitive and as I mentioned, it took me weeks as a 6 year old to figure out what I was even supposed to do in this game. Unfortunately when you do figure it out, it doesn't make the game much better as you'll pretty much just be causing as much damage with your traps before they disappear and then you'll need to just bait Harry and Marv into chasing you so you can unload into them again, and again, and again...and again until you've saved the house. It's as boring and tedious as it sounds. Do this for 20-minutes and ensure at least one of the five houses hasn't been looted and flooded, and boom! You just beat the game!


Fortunately Home Alone's presentation is much better than its gameplay, but still does very little to make this an enjoyable game. Kevin, Harry, and Marv all look they like do in the movie, albeit with a 16-bit, 2D makeover. Even the houses feel reminiscent of how Kevin's home looks in the movie. Speaking of the houses, each of them has its own distinct look and charm to it that makes them unique. One house is meant to be the McCallister house, but there's a neat futuristic home, a home that looks like it's condemned, and then finally two other homes that semi resemble Kevin's house, but with their own little quarks. The devs could have easily just taken the lazy way out and just made the homes color pallet swaps of each other, but the fact they made them all distinct definitely deserves recognition.


Speaking of making the homes distinct, each home also has its own theme, which for a movie game from the 90s actually has a pretty good soundtrack! On top of that, sound effects from Kevin's weapons and booby traps all have their own cool noises which also give them a bit of character. It's just too bad the dev for this game didn't put as much effort into the gameplay as the visuals and music.


I won't mince words or try and deny it, my nostalgia carries this game immensely. Had this not been a game I played, beat and did it all over again countless times as a young kid, I'd likely have not even got through the whopping 20-minutes it takes to beat it. Home Alone isn't a terrible game, but it's also not a good one. If you're looking for a 16 bit Christmas themed game, I guess give it a try, but don't expect some sort of hidden gem here. Even with my sentimental feelings for this game, I still find it to be a mostly boring, tedious, and shallow game that would have been barely worth a rental back in the 90s. But hey! I owned it and still do lol. (12/20/25) [28/50]

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General / Re: Your collection in 5-years from now

« on: December 20, 2025, 10:10:05 pm »

What do you think/hope your collection will be like in 5-years from now?

How many games do you hope to have? What collections will you hope to be finished with and what new collecting goals do you think/hope you'll be working on? Feel free to answer these however you want, just be as descriptive about your collection as possible.

For me I am hoping to be 95% done with collecting NTSC games other than newer titles and probably some very expensive/rare titles that I haven't found or haven't bit the bullet and purchased. I'll hopefully be focusing collecting imports (especially Saturn, Dreamcast, and PS2 imports), completing my cartridge games (particularly for the n64), and I want to have at least a few Arcade cabs at this time too (currently have none). If I am 95% or more done with collecting, I'll easily be at over 2000 games as well. While it doesn't directly relate to games, I'll also have to have a place of my own at this point instead of renting since I have big plans for how my game room will look some day. Renting unfortunately does not permit me to have the freedom or money to do this now. Those arcade cabs take up a lot of space too.

My wife and I are wrapping Christmas presents while we have Die Hard on in the background. I finished early and started looking at old threads and stumbled upon this one. I thought it would be fun and interesting to follow up on this thread where I was predicting my collection in 5 years as of 2016. Here we are on the verge of 10 years since i created this thread which maybe makes it even more interesting than it would have been before.


In 2021 I had become mostly disenchanted with collecting games, especially retro. I had most of the games I wanted in 2021 or had owned them at one point or another prior to that. For the most part I was trying to find any nook or cranny I hadn't looked into yet when it came to stuff to collect. This led me to collect a lot of boxes and manuals for loose cartridge games I owned at the time, mostly on Genesis, SNES, and N64. I was still doing some light US SATURN and import game collecting around this time too, but it was mostly completing my loose games. Unfortunately, looking back my heart was barely into it and I was mostly just looking for something to collect since I'd already obtained most of the stuff I'd ever had any interest in owning. Also, in 2021 I got heavily into flash carts, ODEs, and just modding old consoles in general. Playing games has always been my top priority and throwing an ODE into a Saturn or PS1 allowed me to play all the games I'd ever wanted for those consoles without spending a fortune buying the actual physical games. In relation to having my own place and arcade machines, I still didn't have either at the time. In fact, I'd move twice between 2016 and 2021, first to an apartment, then I'd rent another house.


And here we are now in late 2025! Pretty much the only thing I collect is newer games since I either have all the retro games I really want or I have them covered via flash carts and ODEs. For the most part, I actually don't care that much for collecting, but at least at the moment, its the easiest way for me to play more modern games so that's why I collect for those...mostly. I have really tempered by collecting for PS5 due to longevity issues with some of those games, but I guess in a technical sense, I do collect for it. I now have my own house (since 2022) and have owned an arcade cabinet since moving. I actually sold that machine last summer due to how little I used it after obtaining it and it needed work on the CRT I wasn't willing to risk life and limb to do myself. Funny enough, I actually don't have much of a desire to own any other arcade machines for the most part. There are a handful I might go after if it was very convenient and the price was right, but I'm honestly content just playing stuff in MAME or various other arcade emulators. However, I do really want to get pinball machines at some point. There are pinball emulators, but they can only do so much capturing a completely analogue experience in a completely digital medium. But for the most part, I'm pretty content with what I got gaming wise, and if anything I've continued to downsize a lot of my collection in recent years. It's funny how much your perspective on something can change in less than 10 years, but here I am.

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General / Re: 52 Games Challenge 2025!!!

« on: December 20, 2025, 06:11:29 pm »

124. Resident Evil 3 Nemesis (PS1)

As long as a game isn't abysmally bad or I suppose incredibly mediocre, I always think it's good to revisit a game to see if maybe my opinion on it has changed since the last time I played it. This can be a double edged sword in that sometimes I dislike the game more upon beating it again, but sometimes things go in a more positive direction. Such is the case with Resident Evil 3 Nemesis (RE3), which I last played in 2020, and prior to that I've beat it at least twice before since first beating it back in the early/mid 2000s.


Resident Evil 3 is still my least favorite of the classic RE trilogy, but that is by no means a slight at RE3. RE3 is a very fun game that possesses all the charm and atmosphere of the previous two games, albeit it just doesn't do it for me in other departments, mainly its gameplay. The gameplay in RE3 is nearly stripped right out of RE2, however where it falls short somewhat is in how much more linear of a game it is and also how there are certain puzzles and mechanics that do impact the overall experience in a negative way. Is there were more puzzles in RE3, the ones it does posses wouldn't stick out at much, but unfortunately RE3 has some of the worst puzzles in the entire franchise, especially the music box and water purity puzzles. Aside from that, it is worth noting that RE3 introduced a sidestep mechanic which allows you to dodge an enemy attack by pressing the aim button at just the right time. As I noted in my previous review, this mechanic can be useful, but I found it also put me in harms way just as soon as it took me out of it at times. After replaying RE3 again, part of me isn't sure if this is more due to poorly designed boss fights at certain points or the side step mechanic itself. Either way, I didn't find it as useful as Capcom probably intended it to be.


Still despite these blemishes, your mileage will certainly vary with this game depending on how fond you are of classic RE tank controls. Personally, I kinda like them and they are how I originally experienced these games back in the day when I first started playing them in the early 2000s. Capcom did a great job of making the otherwise stiff and cumbersome movement controls work in the games favor and also add to the foreboding, almost hopeless at times atmosphere the game is heavily going for. Still, despite RE3's attempts to lure you into its brutal, harrowing setting, this game is probably one of the easiest in the franchise, even when playing in hard mode. Ammo practically grows out of the cracks in the cement, herbs and healing sprays are plentiful, and enemies, minus a few boss encounters, are easily dispatched after just a few rounds from a shotgun. There is also gun powder littered throughout the game which can be transformed into more ammo, not that you'll ever need it. While you would be missing out on all the crucial story bits present in RE1 and RE2, if you wanted to ease yourself gently into the classic RE games, this would definitely be the one to do it with.


Before I move onto this game's presentation, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the most memorable part of this game, Nemesis. Nemesis is the original stalker enemy type (although I suppose scissor man in Clock Tower sort of beats him by a few years), and this guy will put you on edge throughout the game. RE3 does advertise when he's potentially going to pop through a door at the end of an ally or chase you into a nearby building with various music cues, but this does little to distract from how tense this game gets when he's near. It's not until the end of the game where you can truly beat him; your only options are to run from him or empty an obscene amount of ammo into him, which only stalls him for a bit and allows you to collect special items if you do this. I always choose to run from him until the parts in the game where you have to face him, but otherwise he is what absolutely makes RE3 standout from any other game in the series.


RE3 looks incredible for a PS1 game released in 1999. The pre-rendered backgrounds with 3D character and enemy models still look excellent in 2025, and it all definitely contributes heavily to why this game is still so charming to look at. Games that look and feel like this are somewhat of a lost art, even though at the time of release, RE3 wasn't the best looking game. The only thing holding this game back from being a perfect visual masterpiece is the derivative setting and enemies that make this game feel more like an RE2 expansion at times rather than a full fledged sequel. Like RE2, the game takes place in a zombie infested Raccoon City with everything around you literally falling apart. You even revisit some of the same locations you did in RE2 like the police station. There is just a bit too much deja vu in RE3 for my liking, but in many ways this isn't such a bad thing given how awesome the setting was in RE2 and still is in RE3.


Finally, the sound design is pretty good for the most part. The soundtrack in this game, while not the best of the classic RE games, is still good and fits with the action and eeriness of the game very well. There's also a lot of hammy voice acting in RE3, just like in the previous two games. For me, it's not nearly as endearing, but equally amateurish as those previous games. Sound design is also pretty good overall, with the sound of zombies in the distance constantly reminding you how dire everything is around you. Likewise, you'll often hear the footsteps or moans of enemies before you actually see them, putting you on edge as you round every corner.


As I said earlier in this review, RE3 is my least favorite of the old school Resident Evil games, but even with that said, I definitely enjoyed and appreciated this game more than I did in my 2020 playthrough. RE3's distinct ideneity absolutely makes it worth playing and makes it fit right in with RE1 and RE2, almost making it essentially that you play all three of these games. Over 25 years later and encountering Nemesis still makes me say, "Oh Shit! Oh Shit!" out loud every time I encounter him. Definitely play this amazing, classic horror game. It's not perfect or as good as the first two games, but still a riot to play even to this day. (12/20/25) [36/50]

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General / Re: Gaming/Collecting Goals for 2026

« on: December 20, 2025, 12:16:37 pm »

I forgot to go over my 2025 goals lol

Beyond my goal to continually prune my current collection down, I only have one real collecting goal for 2025:


1. Beat 100 games: I've stated it in other threads on here, but with nothing major currently planned for 2025, my ambition this year is to beat more games in a single year than I ever have. My goal is 100 games beat by the end of the year.

2. Finish all the remaining Resident Evil games I've never played: At the moment, I've played every RE game outside 7, 8, the Wii lightgun games, and the mobile games. I don't care about the mobile games, but I do plan on beating those other ones, which means I will not only have played and beat every RE game ever made, but also I'll finally be caught up with this series after being almost two decades behind as of the end of 2023. I am also adding a replay of the original RE4 to this since I haven't played it since around the time it came out in the mid 2000s.

3. Add at least 10 Switch games from my want list: With the Switch in its twlight years, I've decided I'm going to actively pursue the 30 or so games on my want list that I don't yet own. Many of these are first party releases that I slept on for years after they came out, but some are on the more obscure side. I'll probably prioritize those more obscure releases since they likely have the greatest chance of becoming expensive and hard to find as time goes on.

I definitely completed goals 1 and 3 this past year, and debatably I also completed goal #2. The only reason I hesitate to call my Resident Evil goal good is because while I did catch up on all the mainline RE games as well as a few spinoff titles, I still have one more of the Wii lightgun games to play, as well as Revelations 2. While I already beat it many years ago, I also want to replay the original RE4. I beat that game in 2005, the same year it came out and remember really liking it, but I'm long overdo to give it another play through.

15

General / Re: Gaming/Collecting Goals for 2026

« on: December 20, 2025, 12:10:16 pm »

It's not that I've grown tired of playing games, but I've been investing my free time in other activities lately that I don't think will change.

This happens to me from time to time and it generally impacts my output of games beat quite a bit. I remember I went through a console modding phase back in 2021 and I think between like February and June that year I beat like 3 games. I think it's perfectly normal and healthy to change things up when it comes to hobbies, and also to take as long of a break as you need to from a specific one if you're feeling burnt out or just feel your interest slipping.


That's cool you've got into DnD so much. I used to play it a lot back in the early 2000s back around the time third edition was released. I had two friends in particular who I used to play with and we had a blast playing all weekend. I can't remember why I ever got out of it, but it's something I've considered jumping into from time to time. I sort of feel like I already have too many hobbies and interests to add another, but who knows.