52 Games Challenge 2022

[bikingjahuty]

45. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (PS4)

I was one of those people that was all aboard the Skyrim hype train before it came out in 2011. I remember distinctly preordering it, and going to pick it up from an independent game store near where I lived at the time on 11/11/11. This was followed by my girlfriend at the time, now my wife, fighting over who got to play it on our PS3. I really enjoyed Skyrim when it came out, however I remember it being very buggy and certain missions just outright wouldn't work due to said bugs. Still, I really enjoyed it, did mostly a ton of side quests, and logged probably 60+ hours on it. However, I never actually beat Skyrim, meaning I never finished the main quest of the game. I wanted to finally change that so I went back and not only completed the main quest in the game, but also a good 30 or 40 side questlines.


Skyrim is an amazing game! It's fantasy world is breathtaking, it's gameplay is very good and a massive improvement over previous ES games, and most of all it does the open world thing so well that many other open world RPGs definitely used it as a template for their games. Still, despite my glowing praise of the game it still is not without its flaws, the biggest one being the main story quest line. It certainly starts out strong, however the longer it goes on, the more it just comes off as generic fantasy with few characters, scenarios, or interesting plot elements to keep you engaged and inspired. It just felt like i was being told, "go there", "talk to that guy", "get that item", "return that other item" and it just felt like running errands that got real old, real fast. I still thought it was pretty cool at times, but overall I enjoyed exploring Skyrim, doing side quests and guild missions, and just discovering interesting stuff while off the beaten path. That's where this games real value lies, which is a shame since the main story is where it should be. And while I did enjoy my time playing Skyrim 90% of the time, towards the end I kind of was ready to stop playing. I'm not exactly sure why that is, other than maybe me not wanting to continue the main story quests. But regardless, Skyrim is an amazing WRPG and I can only hope whenever ES6 finally does come out it lives up to how cool Skyrim is. (10/7/22) [39/50]

[bikingjahuty]

Today was a chill 90s Capcom arcade game sort of day


46. Vampire Savior 2: The Lord of Vampire (PS4)

Capcom was really on top of the world during the 90s. Obviously Street Fighter 2, Mega Man X, and various other big name titles come to mind, but some of my absolutely favorite games they ever made were developed on the CPS2 Arcade platform. It's almost as if a bad game doesn't exist on the CPS2, and Vampire Savior 2: The Lord of Vampire is certainly one of the amazing games to come from that platform. The soundtrack and sound effects are excellent, the hand drawn sprites and stages are gorgeous, and the gameplay is fast, fun, and tight like most of Capcom fighting games of the time. It utilizes a regeneration system that really makes you wight risk and reward when fighting your opponent. However, while this game is pretty damn fun and Capcom's mark of quality is all over this one, it's still not as good as many of Capcom's other fighting games from this time period. Still, I played it mostly as part of getting into the halloween spirit seeing how this is a horror themed fighting game. I absolutely recommend this game to any fan of 90s Capcom fighters. (10/9/22) [36/50]

47. Super Puzzle Fighter II: Turbo (PS4)

This game follows an interesting concept where it takes a mostly traditional gem/block based puzzle game like Puyo Puyo or Tetris, and combines it with Street Fighter characters duking it out in the background depending on how good or bad you're performing with keeping your side of the screen clear. It pretty much plays like the aforementioned puzzle games, except you need to get these special shining orb gems to eliminate a specific color of gem. And whenever you clear gems from you side of the screen it then proceeds to dump tons of numbered blocks on your opponents side that you have to clear by making contact with those blocks a certain amount of times or completing combos. While this game is pretty fun, I still prefer many other block/gem based puzzle games like it, mostly because they just seem to play better and the rules around clearing blocks is a bit more intuitive. Otherwise, the sound, visuals, and over presentation is the same top notch quality that most other Capcom fighters were known for during this time. (10/9/22) [34/50]

[telly]

Game 13 - Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling (Switch) - 25 Hours

Bug Fables was a really interesting and fun experience. Having played a couple Paper Mario games in the past (TYD and Color Splash) and seeing their noticeable decline in quality, I was very curious to see what Bug Fables would provide given that it intentionally apes an older school style of Paper Mario. And that's certainly the case here. Much of what made Paper Mario good is also what makes Bug Fables good. The combat, level up system, cooking system, badges, and puzzle solving platforming gameplay all feel straight out of the older Paper Mario games, and it's very entertaining. One of the additions to this game that I liked was a party swap system that allows the character up front to deal the most damage but also be targeted more. I also felt like this game relies a lot more heavily on puzzle solving and makes constant use of all three character's unique abilities. The character design was visually very striking and unique, and the environments were colorful, vibrant, and had a lot of variety. There were also a lot of side-quests, and what I thought was perfect difficulty. Lastly, the music is fantastic. It felt very inspired from other well-loved RPGs, like FF7, Undertale, Earthbound, Pokémon, and classic Paper Mario. Really great stuff.

There were a couple things that I thought could have been better. For all the "play-it-safe" design philosophies of modern Paper Mario games, one thing the series still retains is incredibly funny, tight writing and irreverent, sometimes slightly dark dialogue. In contrast, Bug Fables isn't very well written, and is played extremely straight with the dialogue and overall story, almost to a childish and simplistic nature. There is a lot of lore to uncover along the way that gives greater context to Bugaria, absolutely. But the main storyline felt a little flat without a lot of surprises or depth. Another nitpick that I had was that some of the special moves were very difficult to pull off correctly, and as such a lot of them I left unused during the course of my playthrough.

In summary, while Bug Fables doesn't do a whole lot that's flashy or new, it dials into a lot of already great ideas, and was very enjoyable to play. One thing that I need to do now is go through the remaining Paper Mario games that I haven't played yet (namely the first one and Super Paper Mario, both of which I own).

[tripredacus]

37. Arcana Heart 3 Love Max!!!!!
Fighting game, beat on easy but took me a few characters to get the good ending. Still don't have an arcade stick, so made do with the controller. Some of the characters are non-standard fighters and their moves are really weird. Game has a ton of unlockable artworks and things. The "extra" modes are just story book. Not really too exciting to me, at least the music is cool. It is in Japanese but with Englsh text.

38. Deep Dungeons of Doom
It is a neat concept but in the end, the inventory system is what got me down. You can only hold 1 item and you have a chest you can put items into. The issue is that you can't take something with you and also keep it. The game starts off "easy" or "easy enough" but you will hit the skill wall quite fast. I think that technically you can get through the entire game with a vanilla character since the controls are easy. The patterns and timings change as things go on. I think what is intended here is that you are supposed to grind the different dungeons until you get all the gear before moving to the next. And let the character level ups handle things before you get an item. It is not fun enough for me to continue forward.

39. Apocryph
There are bad reviews for this game but it isn't really bad. I did not try pixel mode. Also the reviews say there are three levels but there is maybe more like seven or eight. It has a Heretic/Hexen type vibe but is not as annoying as those games. There is no map that I'm aware of. The encounter music is not really annoying as I thought it would be.

There were only two issues I found. The difficulty curve is one. Even on the easiest, you can make it through without any issues until you get to the giant boss half-way through the game. It is not impossible to beat but like many other games, the boss will spawn other monsters. The issue here is that these other monsters are not pushovers. They are fast and take 3-4 hits to kill and it spawns 2 of them at once. So what happens is not only you have to avoid the boss AOE attacks but you spend all your time fighting the monsters. What happened to me is I ran out of ammo and died.

There is an issue with how the game was programmed when dealing with the Options. If you set your options just once, it is fine. But if you go into them again later, you have to re-set (or verify) all the options you did before in addition to the new ones you are changing. This doesn't effect controls but does effect sound and graphics settings, even if you are changing controls. When you go into options, it will reset those sections, so for me it changes the music volume slider and enabled motion blur and v-sync. When I changed my controls for weapon switch, it turned those back on. You can see this behaviour in the reviews for people who complain that the music is super loud all of a sudden, but this is likely the reason for it.

[bikingjahuty]

48. Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection (PS3)

Tekken 5 DR is more or less vanilla Tekken 5 with a lot more character balancing, more stages and remixed stages, and remixed songs from the original game. Visually, Tekken 5 DR looks better than the original, which makes sense since its on more advanced hardware, however the fact that it is mostly negligible is a testimony to how good Tekken 5 looked on the PS2. Where I didn't enjoy Tekken 5 DR as much as the original were the lack of modes and unlockables. However, if you were wondering which version you'd want to play for competitively then DR is still the way to go. I'd definitely recommend getting this game off PSN on the PS3 before it's gone. (10/13/22) [38/50]

[bikingjahuty]

49. Tekken 6 (PS3)

Prior to today I've never played Tekken 6, and while not as controversial as Tekken 4, it seems like 6 has a lot of split opinions with some people loving it and others hating it. I definitely fall somewhere in between. The gameplay (mostly) and audio are top notch like most other Tekken titles, however I found the visuals to be a bit underwhelming. Don't get me wrong, Tekken 6 looks great, however Tekken 5, which was released on the PS2, looks almost as good as 6 despite being on older hardware. With that said, the stages are definitely the most polished and noteworthy visual elements to this game. And while the gameplay for most characters is smooth, fun, and mostly balanced, there are some really cheap ass bosses in this game, as well as a lack of cool modes and unlockables compared to previous Tekken games, especially 5 which was packed with extras. Overall I definitely had fun with 6, but I wasn't obsessively playing like I did with 5 or Tag Tournament. I'd definitely recommend this one though, it's an excellent fighting game overall. (10/13/22) [35/50]

[bikingjahuty]

50. Tekken 7 (PS4)

So yeah, I'm on a Tekken kick (again!) right now lol


Tekken 7 is another excellent installment in the franchise, however compared to the other Tekken games its a tad disappointing. The gameplay bar has been set so high since Tekken 3, and Tekken 7 certainly reaches that bar, no problems there. However visually this game wasn't as impressive as some of the other games when they first came out on their respective platforms. The audio in Tekken, particularly the music is also slightly below average compared to how its been in most other Tekken games. Beyond the modes that many modern Tekken games have been known for, Tekken 7 has a fairly robust story mode, however the plot of this game isn't the most interesting, but it is appreciated that it's there at all and fairly well done from a technical standpoint. There are also a butt load of unlockables in this game which is a breath of fresh air since there are 15 characters locked behind paid DLC. Unfortunately many of these unlockables, save a few, aren't the most exciting, mainly the character accessories that you can use to customize the appearance of the games characters. Some people might see more value in this, but it didn't do anything for me personally. Tekken 7 is definitely worth playing and as the most modern Tekken game would be a great way for someone to jump into the franchise. It's just too bad that there are several other Tekken games that are way better. (10/15/22) [34/50]

[bikingjahuty]

51. Resident Evil 3 (PS4)

Being halfway through October it was about time I picked up another horror/spooky themed game again. I've wanted to try out the remake of Resident Evil 3 ever since it came out, but like most the of the games I buy, it went into the backlog and there its been for the past 2-years. Still, it was worth the wait for the most part.


The RE Engine looks incredible regardless of what game is using it and this was no exception. Like RE2 Remake I loved how it was faithful to the original, but also felt like a very different game at the same time, beyond just the gameplay. The third person shooting worked great, however I feel like certain areas and enemies didn't compliment the controls very well and created some pretty frustrating parts. There are also a few enemies that are particularly annoying, mainly a few of the new additions to the game. Also, this game was unfortunately light on puzzles that made the original so cool. And of course there is the criticism about this game being too short. While I agree with this to an extent, the original wasn't super long either and in that regard it felt appropriate. The voice actors are great as is the music which compliments the horror theme pretty well. To this games credit I also found Nemesis to be far less annoying than in the original, probably because he isn't chasing you through most of the game like in the original. Compared to RE2 remake, RE3 remake isn't as good, but honestly it wasn't far off. I will however say that I did like RE3 remake more than the original, which is also an awesome game. This definitely gets me hyped for RE4 Remake given how the other remakes (including the 2002 remake of the first game) have all trumped the originals they are based on, at least imo. (10/16/22) [38/50]

[bikingjahuty]

AANNNNNNNND 52 games down with 2 months to spare!


This was certainly one of the least consistent years I've had when it comes to gaming; I'd be busy as hell for a month or two and then make up for lost time for binging games for a month or so. At times I was wondering if I'd be able to hit 52, but obviously any concerns I had were unfounded. For the remainder of the year I'm going to try and focus on longer games with some shorter titles mixed in here and there. But anyhow, here's game number 52.


52. Ultra Street Fighter IV (PS3)

I have a lot of great memories involving Street Fighter IV. It was one of the games I played quite a bit when I was starting to get back into gaming after a brief hiatus from in in the mid-2000s. It was also a game that my wife and I used to play a lot when we were still friends and also when we first started dating. So it's a game I have a lot of love for on a personal level. Ultra Street Fighter IV is definitely the best release for SF4 seeing how it includes everything from all the previous versions. It has an insane character roster, very refined gameplay, and definitely captures that Street Fighter magic present in the other titles. My only real gripes about USF4's gameplay are some minor balancing issues and some shallow unlockables that provide little incentive for replaying. Still, the gameplay is good enough that it is rewarding in itself to just want to play more and more. Visually I really dig the art style and the many colorful stages you get to fight in. I also really like most of the character models as well. The OST is a little disappointing compared to many other SF titles, but for what it is, it's not bad at all. The voice acting is what you'd expect as well, although I definitely recommend changing the character voices to Japanese since the English cast isn't great overall. USF4 is definitely not my favorite SF game, in fact there are easily 3 or 4 I like more, but it's still a great game and one I have a personal connection to. (10/17/22) [36/50]

[gngtiger]

12: Jackbox Party Pack 9 (Completed 10/21/22)

I played this game through a Discord server to experience it on its launch day. I've played some of these games before, some of my favorites being Job Job from 8 and Survive the Internet from 4. We (6-8 of us) played through each minigame over the span of 2 1/2 hours and here's my ranking from worst to best:

Roomerang: Unfortunately didn't get to try this one, but it looked kind of interesting, I suppose.
Junktopia: The pricing system's a bit hard to get used to, but giving a presentation on your item is really fun.
Nonsensory: I don't think anybody took applying the percentage of the prompts to their answers, but who really takes Jackbox seriously? An all-around good time.
Quixort: Spent most of it yelling at each other to sort the blocks to what we thought was correct, but that was part of the fun.
Fibbage 4: Haven't played the other Fibbage's, and I'm surprised this one came out on top, but I loved it. It reminded me a lot of the  Balderdash board game.

I'm not sure if this counts or not, but I'm kind of desperate for games. I haven't really had much time to play following both school starting back up and working for a part-time job. My new goal is just to finish Rayman 2 by the end of the year. I have also reached the point where I need to stop buying games because my backlog is almost getting untameable.

[kashell]

57. Valkyrie Elysium

Two endings down, both of which showed the credits. I'll be playing more as I go for the platinum, but all in all this was a fun game. It doesn't fit the profile of the normal Valkyrie games I know and love but it's still enjoyable. I'd sooner recommend it to action game fans than Valkyrie Profile fans.

Update: platinum trophy acquired!

[bikingjahuty]

53. Twisted Metal Black (PS2)

There are certain games and game genres that I feel for whatever reason have grown out of over the years. Some make sense, while others leave me confused as to what happened to make me enjoy them less than I used to. One of those genres is the car combat genre which seemed fairly popular in the late 90s and early 2000s. Even more unfortunate is I remember being fairly hyped about Twisted Metal Black prior to its release. When it did come out I remember renting it and really enjoyig playing through each of the weird character's story mode, unlocking the endings for each one, which seemed more "twisted" than the last. However, one thing I don't remember as well is the gameplay, which I wonder if I just tolerated it just to progress through the character stories since it's fairly crap overall. The game doesn't give you much ability to defend yourself against you enemies and also is a fan of placing you in pretty large levels with a lot of nothing going on in certain sections of the map. I found that without decreasing the difficulty I was getting pot shots on me almost constantly and was typically one of the first to die as a result. I tried finding ways to survive longer, but I simply could not devise a strategy of doing so. i quickly found myself growing bored and frustrated with Twisted Metal Black, until I pretty much just wanted it to be over with. I beat the game as Sweet Tooth and that was all i could muster. As I mentioned, the cutscenes, voice acting, and interesting story twists are pretty good, but that's pretty much where my praise of the game ends. This is one that I do not understand why it was so beloved back in the day and question whatever I saw in it back in the day. (10/22/22) [27/50]

[telly]

Game 14 - Resident Evil Zero (GC) - 16 Hours

I enjoyed my time playing this game quite a bit. I wouldn't say it's the scariest game out there, but it definitely has some tense moments, and captures the action, creepiness, and atmosphere that I really enjoy about these games. The fact that it's built from the same engine as the Resident Evil GameCube Remake is a bonus, as I loved that game's look and feel. The graphics, music, and sound design are also spot-on, and helps sell the experience for me. The difficulty (I played on Normal) was perfect. I liked that the story is a prequel to the events of the original game. I'm no expert on Resident Evil, but I was able to follow along with the story pretty well and I liked the additional lore it adds to the overall plot of the series. There's a lot of background detail in notes and logs that helps tell the story without overtly telling you what happens, and it was fun to uncover.

The unique gameplay mechanic is the use of two characters simultaneously, each of whom have their own strengths and weaknesses. It wasn't as bad as I was hearing about online. Yeah, it's not the most deep of mechanics, and your AI-controlled character doesn't have enough self-preservation to not run into monsters and take a lot of damage if you aren't careful. But it was a fun way to spice up the exploration and puzzles in a way that wasn't too overbearing on the pacing and overall feel of the game. I kind of which it was a true 2-person co-op experience like RE5 though, I think that would have been interesting. Some other gameplay issues come from aiming weapons, particularly the Molotov cocktails and the grenade launcher.

My largest criticism of this game (and RE1 had the same problem) is the limited inventory. Unlike RE1 however, you don't have a nice chest to store everything in; rather, you instead just leave items scattered all over the floor in a hilariously clumsy mess. My issue is that this limitation doesn't make the game more scary or strategic, it just adds a lot of tedium because you're constantly doing cumbersome item management between characters or running back to previous areas to ferry items or grab whatever weapon or key item you need for a boss or puzzle. The only time it really works is when you're exploring a new area from a safe location, because you can't take all of your weapons with you. However, what mostly ends up happening is you die or just reset the game anyway once you know what you need to do.

[justin8301]

26. The Last of Us Part I (PS5) 10/23/22

Its Last of Us... but it looks even better. lol

[bikingjahuty]

54. Teenage Muntant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge (PS4)

I have been dying to play this since it came out this past summer, but I decided to hold out for the promised physical release. I finally got my copy and this game did not disappoint at all! While not a perfect, game it is so good that I was in a nostalgic trance the entire time I was playing this game. They absolutely nailed the look of classic TMNT without missing a beat. The colors, the levels, the characters, everything was spot on. Shredder's Revenge almost felt like some long lost sequel to Turtles in Time we were supposed to have got in arcades back in 1995 or 1996, but honestly it's still far better than anything we probably could have got even back then. My only complaints with this game, and I'm sort of reaching here, are while I appreciate the developer getting most of the classic TMNT voice cast back, nearly 40-years of aging has changed all their voices considerably and they don't sound like they did back in the late 80s and early 90s. Likewise certain voices like Shredder's just sounded way different, which I understand that the original voice actor passed away, but they could have at least tried harder to find someone that sounded more like him. My other compliant has to do with the gameplay, which being a beat em up it still suffers a bit from the repetitiveness that the genre is known for and all its games suffer from. However, TMNT is unquestionably the most deep, engaging beat em' up I've ever played and because of this, as well as a respectable roster of enemies and bosses, never made the game feel overly stale or outright boring. Quite honestly, I had really high expectations going into Shredder's Revenge, but they were somehow exceeded. This is one of the best games I've played all year and I am still floored by how authentic this game is at capturing the look and feel of the 1987 cartoon to near perfection. (10/27/22) [43/50]