52 Games Challenge 2025!!!

[kamikazekeeg]

I'm hoping for a decent sale on the Silent Hill 2 remake around Halloween to pick it up, so if it gets like a 40 to 50% sale, I'm there lol

[bikingjahuty]

I'm hoping for a decent sale on the Silent Hill 2 remake around Halloween to pick it up, so if it gets like a 40 to 50% sale, I'm there lol

I'd say its worth picking up even at full price. I enjoyed it at least as much as the original, if not a little more.

[ignition365]

It's next on my list too once I finish up Last Time I Saw You

[kamikazekeeg]

I'm hoping for a decent sale on the Silent Hill 2 remake around Halloween to pick it up, so if it gets like a 40 to 50% sale, I'm there lol

I'd say its worth picking up even at full price. I enjoyed it at least as much as the original, if not a little more.

I'm sure it likely is, I just don't buy full price these days when it's over 40 bucks unless it's a game I really want or I know I can get a good amount of playtime from it.  It's dropped down to 40% before already according to SteamDB, so just hoping it gets that again and I'll give it a go.

[kashell]

I'm hoping for a decent sale on the Silent Hill 2 remake around Halloween to pick it up, so if it gets like a 40 to 50% sale, I'm there lol

I'd say its worth picking up even at full price. I enjoyed it at least as much as the original, if not a little more.

I'm sure it likely is, I just don't buy full price these days when it's over 40 bucks unless it's a game I really want or I know I can get a good amount of playtime from it.  It's dropped down to 40% before already according to SteamDB, so just hoping it gets that again and I'll give it a go.

Personally, I think I got a good 20+ hours with it. If that amount of playtime warrants the price.

[kashell]

67. Silent Hill f - Fox's Wedding

This ending was nuts. I want to talk about it, but I won't because of spoilers. The final sequence of events after the credits rolled piled on even more horror, which is a feat considering how much as already been piled on.

[kashell]

68. Silent Hill f - The Fox Wets Its Tail

While the previous ending I got was gnarly, this one was a lot more heartwarming; at least for a Silent Hill game. Again, I won't get into too much detail to avoid spoilers. Added bonus: this was my favorite of the final bosses so far.

[kamikazekeeg]

30 - Ball x Pit (PC 2025) - BEAT - Think I might've hit max action rogue-like games at this point after playing a ton of Megabonk and now Ball x Pit while still playing Vampire Survivors every so often lol

I don't know why I like these mindless games, it's weirdly addictive even if the gameplay is fairly basic.  Ball x Pit is basically that idea of auto-firing (Technically you can not have auto-fire on, you start with it off, but there's no real point to not have it on I think), you get items to boost you, you evolve weapons together for better weapons, it's just done a little differently with an upwards scrolling level and crossing it with the old brick breaker game, Breakout.  That aspect does change things up abit as you are trying to often get the balls fired in certain directions to maximize ricochets.

Another slightly unique thing is there's a town builder aspect, and this is how you upgrade your stats and unlock characters, instead of just spending money on a selection screen.  I feel like it's trying to be deeper with it, but I mostly just found myself throwing things wherever and then setting up a spot that I use for "construction" as you build by bouncing guys off the buildings brick breaker style.  It's just something a little extra to do and if you want to, you can spend a lot of time maximizing that whole thing.

Overall, fun enough game, good art, it's that perfect game of "Just one more run" or thinking you got like 15 minutes and you can just get a quick run run in with not much need to stick around for longer.

[realpoketendonl]

12. Super Mario Galaxy 2 [Nintendo Switch]

I played Super Mario Galaxy 2 on Wii, but I never beat it. So the re-release on Switch seemed like the perfect time to do so.

This is a fantastic 3D platformer, but I don't think you needed me to tell you that. It's a lot of fun to play through, no doubt. At some points I even think I found it a bit more challenging than the original. Not by much, these games still aren't hard at all, but still. I did have fun long jumping over obstacles to beat levels faster.

However, when I (re)played the first Galaxy, it made me cry time after time. Granted, a lot of that was nostalgia, but still: I didn't feel nearly as much emotion with this game. And that seems by design. The original Galaxy wasn't afraid to go big. It built a universe, a plot, different worlds, et cetera. It wasn't afraid to give the plot a sense of weight, scale and emotion. Nothing super deep, but it was there. Galaxy 2 is a lot more restraint in that regard. The levels in the original Galaxy often felt like worlds to me, the levels in Galaxy 2 felt like levels. It almost feels like Galaxy 2 was an early part of how the Mario platformers went "generic Mario" style over the course of the 3DS and Wii U era.

Now that doesn't change the fantastic level design and gameplay, which still is fantastic. The game is a joy to play. It just doesn't pack the emotional weight the original does to me, and because of that, I will always prefer the original. But I'm definitely glad to have now finished its sequel too.

[bizzgeburt]

12 - SpongeBob Squarepants: Revenge of the flying Dutchman (Game Boy Advance)
https://vgcollect.com/item/229025

Hardware: Game Boy Advance (Screen Mod)
Play time: 7~8 Hours

I spent the first half of my autumn/birthday-vacation occasionally playing SpongeBob Squarepants: Revenge of the flying Dutchman for Game Boy Advance. It is the last of the six Spongebob GBA games I own, that I haven't finished yet, and while being frustrated with climbing the Tower of Temptation in Grandia (PS1) or failing at beating my last highscore in Tetris (GB), I thought I give this one a try.

SpongeBob Squarepants: Revenge of the flying Dutchman was published in europe march 28th. 2003, whilst being released in North America a few months earlier in 2002, by THQ, who claim responsible for publishing most SpongeBob franchised titles on this system (or even all titles, correct me, if I'm wrong).
Development is credited to Vicarious Visions, who would also develop the GBA-version of Battle for Bikini Bottom which would be released later in 2003. Having played both titles now, I recognized that they share many similarities in graphics and gameplay, actually showing no signs of visual or technical improvement at all, and instead seem more like two episodes of the same game, kind of … in this particular case with both games being short but solid platformers, I see no negative aspect in that, especially with seemingly tons of SpongeBob-games available for GBA. This franchise in general is selling well (even today), so why change a running system?

As expected, the player takes control of careless SpongeBob who, after unintentionally disturbing the sleep of the notorious flying Dutchman, is ordered to collect the deceased pirate's dublones and treasures out of the different stages of the game. Divided into several chapters, the game lets you visit almost all well known locations of Bikini Bottom and beyond, such as the Jellyfish Fields, Kelp Forrest, Mussle Beach, the Krusty Krab, Rock Bottom and - of course - the green ghost ship of the flying Dutchman ... only location really missing in this title being the famous  locker of Davey Jones itself.
Besides being able to jump and jump-glide across cavities, the main gameplay-mechanic is shooting different kinds of bubbles to either enclose enemies, making them temporary platforms, blast them away, or use the bubbles themselves to bounce or even levitate to higher ground (beware Anakin). The goal of every stages is to find three keys that open a chest containing the level's treasure. Between the player and those keys are plenty electrifying Jellyfish, sponge-munching clams, bouncing worms and treacherous fishermen's hooks to deal with and many spikey holes to come across ... but exploring pays off with a hidden special challenge (Jellyfish Rodeo!) that can be found somewhere in each location. Collecting all dublones within a chapter rewards you with yet another bonus-challenge offering additional extra-lives to the winner. Every single main chapter of the game also contains a special-stage were SpongeBob can obtain helpful tools such as Patrick Star's jellyfish-net or Sandy Cheeks' KahRahTay-gloves.

Visually, SpongeBob Squarepants: Revenge of the flying Dutchman works with up-to-date graphics considering this system's standards - the licensed franchise offers a great canvas to the GBA's given colour palette. The different locations show an intense amount of detail, making every level recognizable in it's own manner. Visual highlight of the game in my oppinion are the Jellyfish-Rodeo bonus stages, that show SpongeBob riding a jellyfish in the cartoon show's specific front-view style and the little detail of starting every level by being put in by a huge arm like in the shows opening sequence. Besides that, there was no actual wow-effect on me playing this. Graphics OK, no masterpiece here.

Also musically neither of expectations are disappointed nor overwhelmed in any way. The single music pieces always fit the specific stage and donors atmosphere to the experience. I'm kinda sad though, because a games music is the part really important to me personally and I love reviewing on it, but this specific title didn't really contain exceptionally memorable songs ... except the well-known intro-jingle of course. Most pieces sound very happy/funny and sadly very generic. I mentioned my personal favourite it my newest post in the Favourite-Retro-Game-Music-thread here on VGC-forum. After rewatching the game's credits I learned that the game's music is credited to Shin'en Multimedia, a German game development company founded in 1999 in Munich, which operates as an official third-party-developer for Nintendo. Shin'en is known for having provided soundtracks for over 200 games so far and is credited with developing the GHX, GAX, DSX, and NAX (based on GAX) audio-middleware for handheld consoles. For whatever technical stuff that means oO ...

All those elements add up into a highly enjoyable and partially challenging platformer perfect for a quick playthrough.
I for myself enjoyed it and recommend it to every fan of the SpongeBob Squarepants franchise especially.

Another game finished - on to the next one