52 Games Challenge 2023!!!

[kamikazekeeg]

31 - I'm On Obversation Duty 2 (PC 2020) - DROPPED - Well...partially continuing on from the first game, I was actually looking forward to this one, I was hoping they were going have some improvements to the game, and it did! The first level is great, there's proper color, visuals are nicer, there's movement with the fans and such, there's a brightness adjustment, some new silly anomalies and creepy nonsense happening, the house is quite huge, and the "Anomaly Fixed" screen isn't a horrific flashbang every time.  They still have random ambient noises that happen that I hate because they make me think something is happening, but otherwise, a big improvement in general I felt.

Why did I drop it? Well the second map is a low poly, low resolution, "retro" house and it's awful.  All those visual improvements? Gone! Everything is so pixelated, two of the rooms have so much stuff and I feel like the quality is hampering my ability to recognize what was there and what wasn't.  It's like trying to stare closely at an even lower rez PS1 game.  I played it two or three times, before stopping because I could only see big changes like a painting changed or an extra window showed up, but normal pixelated objects where there's like 10 of them in the bedroom? Forget that, so the game is over for me.

Still going to keep going with this little indie series (There's like 6 of them and they are cheap lol), so hopefully the next game nails it all.

[telly]

Game 14 - The Messenger (Switch) - 10 Hours

I started this game not knowing that the developers just released a sequel, "Sea of Stars" not too long ago so that's interesting timing. I had heard of a lot of good things about this game and decided to buy it when it went on sale on the eShop. My favorite things about this game include the beautiful spritework, awesome soundtrack and very fluid and responsive control scheme. Parts of this game were an absolute joy to play particularly when you get into the flow of things and start unlocking everything. Boss fights in particular were really great, and I found the overall challenge to be perfect. There are some really fun characters too that I enjoyed interacting with, my favorite being the two mountain giants. However the story, pacing, and some elements of gameplay were a bit of a disappointment.

First, the game begins as a traditional 2D platformer but adopts a Metroidvania feel about halfway through the game. This means that all levels were constructed so you could traverse them forwards and backwards, which means they aren't as tight or fun to navigate. It also means that there's a lot of backtracking which can get very tiresome. I found that you don't really get any more upgrades after this halfway point either which removes part of the fun of the game. You'll have seen pretty much all of the enemies by the time you get to this point as well, and there's no real branching paths or discoverable upgrades like in Castlevania. Everything's just bought in the shop, which was also a problem for Shantae and the Seven Sirens when I played that a few years ago.

Lastly, the "time jumps" the game uses as part of gameplay felt really gimmicky to me. You can switch between the present (denoted by an 8-bit art style) and the future (in a 16-bit style), and switching between the two opens up pathways that were previously blocked. It's basically a convoluted switch mechanism for a door, and it also doesn't make sense how enemies and projectiles can follow you through time, and destroying barricades in the future also removes them in the past. Could have really used some lore to explain what happens between the present and future too. I didn't really like it.

The story was also a point that I didn't care for, particularly the writing. It's just not very good and relies heavily on 4th-wall breaking humor, which while cute in small doses, quickly started to annoy me as I was playing. The main storyline isn't conveyed to the player until you're ready to face the final boss which felt really out of place too.

[telekill]

Replayed Rise of the Tomb Raider (PS4) for the first time since its release in 2015. While such a gap between replays may seem normal, Tomb Raider has been a favorite series of mine since it started in 1996. The 2015 release, Rise, was marred for me significantly with the Xbox year of exclusivity. It wasn't that it was exclusive, it's that no one would say a damn word on if it was coming to any other platforms for most of that year.

When I finally got to play it on PS4, I felt incredibly let down, mostly by the writing. The gameplay felt similar, but off. It was a worse Tomb Raider than the 2013 game in almost every way. I took such an extended break believing that perhaps the game was better than I initially thought and that I was still pissed over the way it was handled on the road to eventually releasing on Playstation. So where do I stand?

The game is still worse than the 2013 game in almost every way. I played them back to back. I had guessed Rise's entire plot on the first playthrough, having not watched anything on the game during it's year on Xbox and PC. Aside from the writing, how is it worse? One thing I loved about the 2013 Tomb Raider was the reliance on the bow and the axe. You could play a majority of the game with just those two tools. In Rise, the game demands you use regular guns more than you use the bow. Sure, they try and implement the bow in as a tool, expanding to add gas and what not, but for a majority of the game, especially the last half, the bow is essentially useless.

Thus, my original thoughts on the game, while a bit marred by the year of exclusivity via the silence to the fanbase, was still spot on for my tastes. I just couldn't put my finger on what was different between the two to justify calling it worse without the replay.

[ignition365]

I'm legitimately over 20 games behind on making notes and stuff.  I have no clue how many months it's been since I've beaten certain games, but it's no bueno

[telekill]

Just got done replaying the Game Gear Jurassic Park game. Still love it. I'm removing the Genesis game from replay this year to next as I just ordered the LRG collection that has it on there. I can wait till April to replay it. Plenty to replay till then.

[kashell]

50. Rhapsody II: Ballad of the Little Princess

This was a major improvement over the first game. It retains the fun, musical setting and themes, but the sluggish strategy battles were replaced with traditional turn-based combat. There are party members. There are more customization options. There's a more fleshed out narrative with an adorable cast and an even more adorable leading lady as the focal point. This was one of the biggest gaming surprises of the year. I don't care for musicals, but seeing everyone break into song and dance in this game was a joy. The first Rhapsody had a lot of heart, but was ultimately not a fun game to play. I'm not surprised that the follow up games didn't make it stateside during the PlayStation/PlayStation 2 eras. So, getting the chance to play this was a treat. Honestly, I didn't know there were sequels until the collection was announced.

[undertakerprime]

Well, I made it to 52! And with 3 months to spare. Didn’t even complete my first game until February.

50. Hollow Knight (PS4)
Bought this a couple years ago because I love Metroidvanias and players seemed to worship it. Got almost to the end…and up and quit due to sheer boredom. Too dark, too difficult, took too long to get anywhere.
Decided to give it another shot a few weeks ago, and enjoyed it a heck of a lot more. Definitely helped that I focused on upgrading my Nail as soon as possible, which mitigated some frustration at the tougher bosses. Is it the be-all-end-all of Metroidvanias as many claim? In my opinion, no. Still good, but not among my personal favorites in the genre.

Speaking of which, I’m attempting to wait patiently for Blasphemous 2 to release on PS4, it’s just hard 

52. Cho Aniki (Coregrafx Mini)
Definitely not the game I expected to reach 52 with 
Obviously lives up to its reputation as a really, REALLY weird shmup. Technically speaking, it has some issues and it’s honestly not a very good game. In places, usually after beating a mid-boss, a new background just suddenly pops up around you with no transition, which looks clumsily done. Many on-screen actions lack sound effects, including when some enemies fire at you. Sometimes it’s difficult to tell if you’re actually damaging a boss, because there’s no effect or flash to indicate a hit. Clearly this game is only known for its eccentricity rather than actually being good.

[telly]

Game 15 - Inscryption (Switch) - 15 Hours

Honestly, I'm not going to write a long review about this game. Like Undertale, you really need to go into this game knowing as little about what will happen as possible. If you're a fan of card games, old school games, horror/mystery games, anything like that, I'd highly recommend you give Inscryption a shot. I thought it was great, and I'm glad I started out October by playing it.

[tripredacus]

30. Fallout 4
This is probably the best Fallout maybe even better than New Vegas. And only because the Nexus allows IP theft now when it didn't when I was playing NV. Not much to say about this. I was using mods from the get-go. Ended up going through the Brotherhood of Steel questline. The ability to build a base is cool and I had some ideas. Unfortunately the UX for building is super annoying so I might not even bother doing any sort of projects. We'll see.

31. Sonic the Hedgehog 2
Now that I have reorganised my backlog, which basically will have the effect of prioritizing console games first, I will be playing some non-PC releases. In reality what I did was re-order my backlog based on the "Date added" from my collection here, info which is obtainable from the CSV export function, then importing that into Google Sheets. I still am moving things around, as Pole Position II on Atari 7800 was the first game I added to my collection here and not Sonic 2 on the Game Gear, which this represents.

I did not attempt to use an actual Game Gear here, and I may consider it for the future. Instead I attempted to use the Retron 5 because I have the adapter for it. But my Retron 5 still has the same issue it had the last time I tried to use it, where no controller works to control the software. The terrible Retron controller on USB charged but didn't work, neither did a Genesis controller. It also did not automatically detect the cart adapter so it is possible I need to reflash it.

Then I went about to use Retroarch for this task instead. It works fine on there, but the issue is more of a usability one. The speed and size limitation of the GG "Screen" is such that it is not enjoyable to play a fast platformer with large sprites. I don't have the reaction time or care about memorization to play a game like this. I did play this when I was a kid on an actual GG that my cousin had. Or maybe it was a neighbor, maybe both. Someone had a Game Genie and remember making up some codes that would make pipes show up and no enemies. But the game would crash when you got to the octopus boss. This type of early abandonment due to changed in my own preferences and capabilities as a player is what I had meant when I posted (elsewhere) that I would be burning through games. Because I knew that Sonic 2 on GG was likely to be a try and die type experience, but I would have attempted to press through with cheats. Unfortunately, none of the cheats worked.

[moonlightvalkyrie]

10.) The Dark Pictures Anthology: The Devil in Me (Xbox Series X)- I have to say it suffers from the same issues as the PS4 version. I still enjoyed it as a start for my spooky game month!

[undertakerprime]

54. Lords of Thunder (Coregrafx Mini)

4 years ago, I had never heard of this game.
Then I started watching Shmup Junkie’s YouTube videos and of all the shmups he spotlighted, it was the one that grabbed me the most, and was the main reason I decided to get a TG16/Coregrafx/PC Engine Mini.

I was not disappointed.
It quickly became my favorite shmup of all time. To quote something I read somewhere, it’s perhaps the most metal game ever made. I love the presentation, the music, and the kick-ass armors that can decimate enemies when fully powered. Getting your ass handed to you in a level? Try a different armor; some work better in certain levels. Since getting hit takes away gun power in addition to life bars, your skill directly impacts how easy the level can be. Your reward for better play is an easier time due to higher weapon power, along with an easier time with bosses. The overall difficulty is spot on for me, hard enough to destroy you but can be mastered with practice. I just wish I had known about this game back in high school (though I doubt I could have convinced my parents to get me a Turbo Duo, since I already had SNES and Genesis).

[tripredacus]

32. Dr. Mario
With the Retron out of commission, I was not able to play the actual cart I had, so instead this was done on Retroarch with the Xbox 360 controller. I did start at first level and on the slow option. And took a little bit to get to the end. In the mid levels you can get behind and a faster speed by making mistakes. Starting around 17 where the virus are near the top, you basically can't make any mistakes. In fact I think it was level 17 and 18 where I had made some error by locking off a part of the screen due to misplaced blocks, but I had fought through it. On 19 and 20, you need to have a perfect opener to be able to play the level. Level 20 more so, you need to perfectly place the first 5 or 10 to give yourself enough space to play it. I think Level 20 I had to restart a few times before I got it down. There was a lot of pre-planning on where the pills needed to go on the next turn. Overall it was pretty fun. I remember playing as a kid I didn't like it as much as Tetris.

34. Daytona USA
Playing real Saturn, it informs me that I need to use a better interface. I was using SCART to audio breakout and SCART to component and to a 20 inch CRT TV. It looks well enough, I had to change some color settings on the TV. However the SCART setup introduces some audio noise and I think the audio was not in good quality using that device. Audio went separately to an AVR and perhaps the AVR is not the best BUT it is what I use for cassettes. Unlike cassette, which uses an EQ, this did not. Also the video was slightly glitchy. It was deformed at the top and not entirely aligned within the screen, I think the left was cut off a bit. The video would lose one of the colors for a second.

The original Daytona USA which has (basically) the English version of the Japanese songs. Not the one I remember from when I was younger which was the music in CCE. I only did the first track and made 1st place, then it showed the game credits and let me put in initials. Not going to bother with the other tracks, it is good enough for me. But with the AV issues, I may try looking for the other connector that isn't SCART. Or perhaps try the Framemeister with it.

[moonlightvalkyrie]

11. Swordbreaker: Origins  (PS5)- This is a Choose Your Own Adventure Text Game with pictures. This is a prequel of Swordbreaker which I intend to go back to someday. Overall, it's not a bad game if you are into Choose Your Own Path type of games. The overall story was a lot more involved than Swordbreaker, which was nice. However, it suffers from the same user interface issues. I also was kinda annoyed that I could not use the map (yes...this game has a map that shows the scenes and deaths you've unlocked) to just fast travel to that particular scene to make a choice. I had to use the good old pen and paper to make notes on how and where to go. I do have to say though, that I really enjoyed the music. Also...believe it or not there are over 200+ ways to die. At first, this is annoying because you only have 3 lives to work with (yes this game has lives and it's back to the very beginning you go when you die 3 times). However, after unlocking 3 endings you unlock New Game +, which gives you unlimited lives (to unlock the deaths, because I do believe the Steam version requires you to unlock ALL of them...it's not required for the Platinum trophy, but you know me...I did this anyway). There are also minigames that happen throughout the story that kinda break up the action and in my opinion shouldn't really be there.
Overall, I did like the game, but there are a lot of things that need to be fixed for the next version of the game.

[dhaabi]

31. Thumper || PlayStation 4 || 08.30.23



As yet another game I just hadn't gotten around to play, Thumper is something I perhaps took lightly prior to playing, in hindsight. I've been putting off playing it because I wanted to prioritize its VR capabilities, so once I took the time to set up VR, I knew it was a game I'd be playing sooner rather than later.

In short, Thumper is a rhythm game featuring note highway gameplay which many adopt. However, Thumper is an outlier from what I've observed due to it offering only nine stages compared to many of its contemporaries offering sometimes hundreds of tracks. With that established, Thumper is generally a game which breaks its genre traditions. Stages are lengthy and of an intense difficulty with no handicaps or difficulty options available. To a degree, it's an unwelcoming game as it's challenging to learn, strenuous to complete, and near-impossible to master. Complementing these gameplay designs is its visual style that is cold, metallic, and very much industrial. Controlling some sort of beetle vessel, the player glides along sheets of metal strips at a high velocity while floating in a dark void with weakened colors contrasting the polished sheen in the foreground. In every sense, Thumper is aggressive.

Mentioned above, stages are lengthy and more than likely much lengthier than one would anticipate. Within the nine formal stages, a large number of sections comprise it, often anywhere from 20-30. On average, a full stage without error takes about 25 minutes to complete. So, for my playthrough, this often meant well over an hour to simply finish. If failing—which will happen, dozens if not hundreds of times—players will restart from the last section checkpoint. In a sense, the game is forgiving, but some of the longer standout sections are over two minutes and even approaches three. The time between sections vary, but players usually have no time to recover. For the rare instances of brevity, they supply a short moments of rest which is often supplied as a tool to highlight the stage's ambiance. I know there are masters of this game, but I can't comprehend a perfect run without any error at all even after watching videos.

Being objective, I can report that Thumper does not do a good job at teaching mechanics. Without footage, it is difficult to describe how gameplay operates, but there is an action referred to as Thumping which is crucial to perfect. Some segments demand utilizing this skill, as sections will replay on loop if they're not successfully performed. I even tried searching online for answers both explained through text and through play recordings, but it took a laughable amount of time to finally discover some comprehensible explanation. Because of the game's fast-paced action, videos offered no help even at slow playback speeds. Additionally, I don't think there is a wide discourse surrounding the game due to its unapproachable difficulty. Perhaps the vague instruction is intentional, but it was especially frustrating.

While Thumper does offer a standard play mode, I opted for VR play. I'm not confident to say what differences there are between the two, but I imagine VR play greatly amplifies the game's tensity. As expected of a rhythm game, the player must constantly look ahead to know what actions to perform, but Thumper moves at such speed that I eventually was only able to complete sections on impulsive reflexes alone, after having failed countless times throughout them. Often, there are short repeating prompts usually in regards to the beetle's fluttering and rail grinding, and VR transforms the player to where it's happening. Actions are completed at high shrills and deep thuds, and the headset accentuates each and every one.

Without a doubt, Thumper is the most brutal and demanding game I've ever played, as the limited time to react feels nonexistent. Even when I understood what to do, there is just so little time to analyze each moment properly. Finishing a full stage was especially draining, and it's difficult to say they were rewarding to finish, because by the time I conquered them, I only felt relief. Even though the player has at the very least one opportunity to recover from a mistake, it's almost never enough. While there's a scoring and letter grade system for each stage section, I never went back to perform better. Despite any score I earned, I felt accomplished. I believe the grading scale from S (high) to C (low), with every stage completion earning either B or C. I've since come to learn about one of Thumper's free updates which amplifies the game's difficulty and speed while limiting players to instant failure upon the first mistake. In every sense, it is an update for those mastering the game.

Despite what it may seem, Thumper is a fantastic game and certainly one of the better rhythm games I've played. If you're a fan of the rhythm genre looking for difficulty, or looking for a rhythm game with an unusual genre style, Thumper is well worth considering. It's left a lasting impression on me, as finally achieving a stage to completion felt like I'd truly overcome something.

[kashell]

51. Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse

That final segment was a beast. Not so much the actual fight, but because you have to finish a mini-game afterwards in order to finish the game. Fail the mini-game three times and you have to refight the final boss. My nerves were shot so it took me three tries by the time I did it. I spent most of my points on herbs and 60 level film so I was well stocked. Ruka's camera was almost fully upgraded, too. Another solid entry in the series. I liked this one more than Maiden of Black Water. The frights were real, the atmosphere was solid, and the multiple viewpoints of the story were a nice touch. Ruka really comes into her own near the end of the game. She looks and acts meek, but goddamit, she has more courage than just about anyone.