52 Games Challenge 2026!!!

[bizzgeburt]

02 - DanceDanceRevolution: New Moves (PlayStation3)
https://vgcollect.com/item/285865

Hardware: PlayStation3 Fat Lady / PlayStation Eye / Konami DDR dance mat / PlayStation Move
Playtime: about 40 Hours

This obscure item/game came into my collection years ago kind of unintented, but was part of me developing a favour for weird controllers and/or peripherals. Being fascinated by early rythm-games, I never really wanted to try out dancing games at all and considered it a fun game for girls mostly. And I guess that's what DanceDance Revolution: New Moves actually is … nonetheless, my stepdaughter stumbled upon it visiting my gaming room and started playing it. We both ended up playing this game together for a few weeks, and I took my time trying out every mode and functionality and - naturally - gathered a few more trophies for my trophy-collection. I won't dig to deep into details this time as these types of games aren't really my fav, neither do I have any experience nor expertise with them.

Developed and published by Konami (Digital Entertainment) on March 17th 2011 (German release), DanceDance Revolution: New Moves was (about) the 10th home console release in the reknown DanceDance Revolution series that started in 1998 with the famous arcade cabinets that set standards for rythm and dancing games in general. Home versions usually come with a soft dance mat that resembles the arrow-tiles of the arcade machines.
This particular version also contains a PlayStation Move compatible mode, so dancers can use their arm movement in addition to the already required foot movement executed on the dance mat.

Graphically, I guess it's OK, it works for what it is. I don't have any comparison at hand but the likes of Guitar Hero and it actually kind of Looks similar to me. Funny detail is the PlayStation Eye camera filming you while hopping around - you can also add some blurry visual effects on the screen using the trigger of the Move Controller.

Musically - though this game literally lives off it's musical score - I was deeply disappiointed to find 80% titles totally unknown and therefore irrelevant to me, only a few better known names are present on the tracklist. And guess what: my stepdaughter being way younger than me had an even harder time finding even one song she could actually dance to. For a game with this world famous background, I really expected more tbh …   

DanceDance Revolution: New Moves would have made an awesome party night gaming/dancing event back in it's day, but let's face the truth: especially the song collection in this particular version wasn't good from the start and didn't age well also. You like dancing-games? Try it out... everyone else should ignore it. 

Wow, 2nd. game finished in 2026 due to 270+hrs of TES IV: Oblivion - on to the next one 

[realpoketendonl]

15. Pocket Mini Golf



Well, I kinda beat this one by accident. I got this game for free on Switch years ago. This publisher has given away a bunch of their games for free. I downloaded it and then never glanced at it again. But today a friend wanted to play it. So we played the multiplayer, about 15 minutes later I had beaten 50 stages, and that's when I double-checked and realised: yes, that was all the stages. I think I can consider this game beaten.

Not that it really left an impression on me. I mean, just look at it. I think you can tell how horrifically bland, basic and barebones this is. It controls decently, but that's about all I can give it. All the stages are just as bland and basic as the one in the screenshot. The presentation is the absolute bare minimum, not helped by the horrifically generic royalty-free mobile game ad-style music. In the multiplayer mode, you don't even have an option to play with a par. It's just about beating the stages as fast as possible. Which might take a bit longer than you expect because when trying to start a game, we had issues with the game disconnecting our controllers.

Granted, there is also a campaign mode which I did not beat, which does have a par, but it's the exact same levels. Just with a gem to collect in each one, which is used to artificially lengthen the game, because you use them to pay for continuing once you lose a level. So you know what, I beat every course in the game in the multiplayer mode, I'm gonna count that as beating it. Is anyone really gonna hold that against me?

It probably goes without saying, but this is not worth your time. Not in the slightest. Even if you like mini golf (which admittedly, I don't, but still), I fail to see any real value here. I'm no expert but there have to be better mini golf games out there. I remember Golf With Your Friends being all right, I don't know. A game beaten is a game beaten, but trust me: this is a waste of your time.

(And they have the gall to put a button on the main menu to buy DLC for this. People, your game doesn't look finished.)

[tripredacus]

I will give 2 reviews of games that are not abandoned or beaten but I am not really playing for typical reasons.

7. Fortnite (PC)
When this game came out originally, I had watched a fair bit of it on Twitch, primarily on SandyRavage and Trexcapades' channels. So I already had some idea about it and the fact that I wouldn't be interested in building anything. In fact, I unbound the build key entirely. In its current state, it reminds me a lot of a mobile game with all of the purchase options. I won my first match on solo zero build and also my first 3. It wasn't until I tried other modes that I ran into the knowledge gap. As with most BRs, it suffers from the fact they make things too easy. The only other BRs I have played are H1Z1, Blackout and Warzone 1.0.

Ground gun variety is very low, which is surprising, or there is not enough discernable differentiation. Throwables don't have their own key. There are way too many control options in menus. SBMM being present isn't a big deal but the game does have EOMM present which is a big deal. Not going to complain about controller players having aim assist, at least it is not as aggregious as in Warzone. Downed players have too much heal, as is also common in modern BRs. There doesn't seem to be a headshot damage multiplier present.

I do like that it has settings for individual sound sources with mic, voice chat and game audio. Controls are quite smooth and had good turning radius speeds. I primarily used the DMR, ADS is ok going from 3rd to 1st but that transition is always a little weird.

In general, it is more of a game to play with friends for me, rather than something I am actually interested in.

8. Roblox (PC)
I didn't really know what Roblox was outside of seeing memes or news stories. I thought it was a Minecraft ripoff. It is interesting that crossplay functionality exists between PC and cell phone players.
What Roblox really reminded me of, in a low level way, was ActiveWorlds. AW wasn't designed for gaming as its primary, rather to allow the creation of virtual worlds. Games certainly exist(ed) in AW. I do not know what creative tools exist for Roblox, but they probably aren't as ad hoc as AW was. For example, AW ran on Renderware before RW had any real tools, before it got picked by Rockstar for use in GTA3. You had to build models and do texture mapping with a text editor bitd.

Roblox is obviously not designed to be used on a computer. First, the account creation captcha renders extremely small on a monitor, to the point where it is difficult to view the symbols you have to match up. I had to run through the captcha 18 times before I got it right. There is no clear direction on the site how to install the game on a computer that does not have access to the MS Store aka non-retail editions of Windows which my computers use. It is possible, using the "Player" application (as an LLM informed me) but you can't download that standalone from the site and the site doesn't mention it specifically. You only can DL the player when you try to run a game for the first time. There is also not any way to remap controls, so when you are in a game you have to figure it out and not all of the games use the same controls, specifically camera control with the mouse. Look speed is way to high as a base setting even using a low DPI setting. You can camera clip in a lot of games due to the mouse and (apparently) there is a significant brightness difference between cell phone and PC where some textures are only visible on PC. Also, if you are using a PC without a camera, it is impossible to do age verification.

In general, it is a party game, something to play with friends. There are some interesting things people have created, but nothing I had found really hooked me. Some things I found familiar to games I can play elsewhere and that are better.

[supremeusername]

21. Pokémon Pokopia | 2026 | Switch 2 | 5/3:



     I haven't been too keen on Pokémon in the past couple of years. It's not that I don't like it; Pokémon has been one of the biggest forms of entertainment in my life growing up. First it was playing the DS games, then it transitioned to watching the anime and collecting the card game (like a lot of kids my age growing up). I just haven't felt interested in Scarlet & Violet and whatever else Game Freak had been pumping out as of late. I pickup up Pokopia on a whim -- not knowing anything about it, but hearing the rumors that it was good -- really good.

     You are immediately dropped into a desolate world: remnants of buildings, dried-up Earth, and no other life in sight; only you and a sharply-dressed Tangrowth remain . Slowly, you start to bring life back to the land by making habitats that a Pokémon would want to return to. Most simple, smaller Pokémon are okay with coming back if you make a 2x2 patch of grass for them. Many other Pokémon, such as a Venusaur, require more time and a more complicated set-up to come back -- such as flowers surrounded by garden furniture. Sometimes you are given the outline for a habitat by another Pokémon, sometimes you may find inspiration in the wild by finding a glowing point on the ground -- or you may just end up making a new habitat by accident. It brings back the joy and fun of discovering wild Pokémon in the mainline games, just in a completely different way. Instead of battling Pokémon, you make environments that suit their needs.

     Some Pokémon are content with you just giving them food, a chair, and a toy to max out their friendship level; other Pokémon require much more effort. That's about the time when you're given the ability to make houses for them. You can either make pre-built homes with their own interiors that appear larger then what's on the outside, or you can build an actual house Minecraft-style: built block by block. You can get real creative this way but even if you are not the creative type, there is still loads of other things you can do. Just filling out the Pokedex alone will give you plenty of hours in entertainment value; same with the story.

     Pokopia's story pertains to the world. You're not given plenty of dialogue like the mainline titles; it's a lot more subtle in comparison. You learn about the world and how it came to be by doing the story quests, but you get more background by reading through the brief notes and pictures left behind. It's nothing groundbreaking, but I really like Nintendo going with this approach more in their games (I noticed this with DK Bananza as well). It makes what you're doing -- bringing Pokémon together -- feel important, even if it's just a video game.

     Bringing back Pokémon to the world is a lot of fun, especially seeing them faithfully recreated and animated for a modern game. Onix is actually huge in this game. Bellsprout is tiny and has a stick body so it's hard to see it. Squirtle waddles when it walks and it's pretty funny to watch. Pokemon will talk to each other like in Animal Crossing and use similar expressions and emotions (like using the exact same sound effect when a Pokémon is feeling 'Shocked', for example). Each Pokémon is given their fair-shake of standing out amongst the rest, even if there's some who may have gotten a little more love than others. Some of my favorite Pokémon are well-represented: Ludicolo, Gardevoir, and Dragonite all look amazing! Then there are Pokémon who I ended up loving much more than before: Paras is adorable in this game, and the whole Slowpoke evolution-tree is funny. Slowpoke & Slowbro are real slow and dumb, while Slowking is made out to be one of the smartest Pokémon in the game. It's written in its Pokédex description sure, but it's still cool to see Slowking, and pretty much every Pokémon for that matter, talking and having some kind of personality.

     I get the hype now. This is quite possibly the greatest Pokémon game in over a decade. Pokopia is the best advertisement for Pokémon that Nintendo could have made -- at least for me. I have started collecting more Pokémon cards again (the absolute worst time to do so by the way), and I'm interested in trying out Scarlet & Violet and seeing what kind of team I end up making. With all that being said, I don't consider this game to be in my all-time greatest or anything. More so, it reminded me of why I loved Pokémon to begin with.



Grade: A+

[supremeusername]

22. Sabre Wulf | 1984 | Rare Replay Collection | Xbox Series X | 5/7:



     Not too much to say about this one. This is just another game that I needed to complete in order to obtain the coveted 100% completion mark in Rare Replay. This is another "maze" type of game, alike many of Rare's earlier output it seems. You absolutely need some kind of guide to beat Sabre Wulf unless you either know the game like the back of your hand or you're actually insane. It plays out on a flip-screen grid, similar to the original Legend of Zelda. I wouldn't be surprised if someone from Nintendo saw Sabre Wulf and took some inspiration. You are navigating some kind of jungle in game, but it feels more like a dungeon labyrinth -- with all kinds of directions to go, dead-ends to see, and repeats of the same layout over and over.

     You fight many dangerous wildlife and even some kind of indigenous tribesmen. Most of these enemies can be destroyed with just one swipe of your sword but there are a couple -- like the aforementioned tribesmen or the sleeping rhinos -- who cannot be defeated at all. You can knock them back with your sword or use the flower power-ups that appear to get past. There is a big RNG factor in which enemies will spawn randomly on screen. It can be a more than a second or a split-second when they appear. You will have times where you move to the next screen and immediately get knocked down because a common enemy spawned on top of you, or a tribesman just so happened to be standing exactly where you're supposed to be after entering a new screen.

     You can definitely sense the ambition pre-Rare was going with this, especially since they had just released Atic Atac -- their first "maze" game -- not even a year prior. It's just that... it's not fun to play nowadays. Part of it can be contributed to the Rare Replay emulation: lots of slowdown and me questioning at times if there's some kind of input delay in effect. A ton of it can also be contributed to getting bad RNG all too often and getting knocked down constantly. I don't know if this is the worse game I've played in the collection so far, but it's up for consideration. Grade: F+

[kamikazekeeg]

17 - Abiotic Factor (PC 2025) - BEAT - Counting this as beat on the technicality that I was doing a second playthrough more specifically to check out the new items, pets, and Voices of the Void crossover, which I did, but I kinda hit the end of Reactors, which is a good ways through the game and it reminded me of something I felt with the full playthrough I did back then...Around Reactors, the action kicks up a ton, enemies get way more tedious and tanky, and the game begins to drag. 

The game has a lot of action, but it's more interesting when you are fighting aliens, scrounging for survival supplies, traveling to do interesting worlds/realities, but Reactor is many hours spent there, fighting dudes with guns, a lot of them, again, for hours.  After this is the Gatekeepers base where you fight a bunch of dudes, and then it's going to the Orders base, where you fight a bunch of different dudes, and then the last big area is interesting, but that whole chunk is so much just fighting dudes with guns.  It feels like the game turns into kind of a more...Like I'm playing Quake or something than a survival crafting game with action in it. 

I had the same feeling last year, same feeling again, but since I did the stuff I wanted, and I've put like 50 hours into the game on this second playthrough, I'm counting it complete for myself.  I'll come back again once they add the actual big new content update which I supposed to be out this year, but I feel a little burnt out and want to play some other stuff.

[ssj4yamgeta]

7: Final Fantasy IV Advance (GBA)

After 22 years, I have finally made Zeromus bleed! My best friend and I couldn't beat him when we took turns playing the game as teenagers, I couldn't beat him when I tried again by myself about 12 years ago, but now the grudge match on the moon has finally been settled! Final Fantasy IV is one of the all-time great 2D FF games, and the GBA port makes the game even better by adding new features which for whatever reason are absent from subsequent ports. The major one concerns party members. In this game, multiple party members get permanently removed from the party, due to either death or incapacitation. It happens so often that the game references it a few times and even makes a joke about it at one point. Well in the GBA port, they made it so that once you reach the endgame, you can visit the tower of prayers in Mysidia and get 5 of those party members back whenever you want. They also added a dungeon called the Cave of Ordeals to give those characters new endgame equipment so they'd still be viable, and added a postgame dungeon called the Lunar Ruins. For some baffling reason, these new additions were removed from future 2D ports of the game, which is why I still consider the GBA port to be the definitive 2D version of FFIV.

The scale of this game is unmatched in other FF games. Not only do you get the entire world map to explore, you eventually get to drill down to the underworld, a separate map with oceans of lava where a dwarf kingdom and the Land of Summons reside. And then you get to fly to the frickin' moon to do battle with an eldricht alien abomination at the moon's core! The latter is done via the awesome Lunar Whale, a massive airship with a built-in sleeping chamber to restore your stats and a crystal that allows you to fly from the earth to the moon. This is the only airship in the series capable of space travel (and not that lame near-earth orbit stuff the Ragnarok does in FFVIII. Sorry, Ragnarok). This game will always be one of the top 5 games in the series in my opinion, and I look forward to playing the 3D PSP remake in the future.

Rating: 8/10 (Excellent)

Completed:

Tomb Raider II (Evercade)
Tomb Raider III (Evercade)
Mafia: The Old Country (PS5)
Gundam Breaker 4 (PS5)
Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection (PS5)
Resident Evil: Code Veronica X (Gamecube)
Final Fantasy IV Advance (GBA)

In Progress:

Dragon Ball FighterZ (XBOX One)
Nioh (PS4)
Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation Remastered (PS4)

[dhaabi]

20. Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown: Version B || PlayStation 4 || 05.02.2026



The fighting genre is one I seldom approach, and it's far less often that I'm actually able to complete a fighting game. Yet, unexpectedly, I found myself playing through Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown: Version B (VF5FS:VB) which is, needless to say, a very specific version of the base game Virtua Fighter 5.

Like most of its contemporaries, VF5FS:VB is a one-on-one fighting game that tasks players with advancing through a series of stages by winning two out of three rounds. There's actually only one game mode in this specific port, so it's not a robust version of the game by any means. I'm still not certain what all the changes were from port to port but do know that an extensive amount content was removed in this instance to prioritize a brief, single-player experience. In total, nineteen fighters are available to select, and I believe each opponent players face has their own unique stage. Across a single playthrough, though, players will only fight against seven others to reach the game's credits as one of three predetermined routes for each selected character is randomly assigned upon starting, so there is some variability implemented to warrant subsequent playthroughs even with the same character. When losing a stage, players have an unlimited amount of attempts to retry from the current stage. So instead of being forced to restart from the beginning which is what I would have expected, only a small score point deduction is made. It's a far generous system that makes retrying again and again feel like cheating, but it's an intentional design choice. I'll also mention that the game definitely incorporates arcade level design, particularly in its scoring system with various metrics that add to the player's total score.

From a gameplay perspective, my lack of experience in the genre really prevents me from discussing any of the game's technical aspects with any depth. Nevertheless, some of the game's controls relating to combos don't make sense to me as someone who's not looked online for answers, which I mention since an in-game guide for fighter attacks present. It's something that certainly would have been welcomed despite VF5FS:VB's simple three-button fighting system comprised of punches, kicks, and guards. However, the trigger buttons do initiate a preset button chain configuration. In the basic controls menu, that's how they're presented—I never actually considered testing to see whether the same action could be initiated by performing the extended button chain with the face buttons. Despite playing the game for a fair amount of time and actually revisiting it once more shortly before actually posting my thoughts nearly two weeks later, I never managed to figure out any of the combos on my own even when having mostly played as one specific fighter and instead just acted out in the moment. Perhaps subconsciously I gained a sort of rhythm based on muscle memory, but it's far more likely that I was just shifting from one button to another without any sort of strategy. Apart from controls, stage environments are unique from other games I've played in that they're not uniform. They each have varying dimensions and barriers surrounding the fighting ring. The barrier may or may not be breakable, and there are times when there's no barrier at all. So, as a result, there are opportunities for a fighter to lose from a ring out.

At random, I began playing as the fighter Eileen. It wasn't a result of actually choosing her, though, but the hurried window of time to select a fighter abruptly ended without my noticing. But in some way, perhaps this outcome was ideal as I later learned she's newly-added to the roster with this series entry. As a fighter skilled in the Hóu Quán martial arts fighting style, Eileen is small but quick. Her strikes aren't particularly strong individually, but she has the capability to attack in quick succession with fluid movements—something that's greatly possible by integrating flips and lunges to perform chain attacks. Prior to playing, I knew nothing about the game beyond its genre. And despite this alongside the omission of a built-in character-specific combo guide as mentioned above, I was fortunately able to complete the game with the more challenging of the two difficulty options that are Normal and Very Easy selected. After finishing Eileen's path, I also took the time to try out at least one stage with the remaining eighteen fighters. Something that even I noticed during then is that they all generally control differently, with weight, speed, and fighting styles varying.

Ironically, what's interesting is that while I was hoping for a manageable fighting game experience to play, I noticed after having played some as the entire roster is that, from my first impressions, Eileen was one of the most challenging fighters for me to play as. In spite of this, however, I was able to clear through the seven stages presented in about twenty minutes of total fighting time and around fifteen retries starting from the midway point. This may seem like a short run, but it's actually far from it. Having played through the game as Eileen again but after two weeks had passed, I actually managed to complete her path in 06m41s with comparatively far fewer challenges and only one stage fail. At this time, though, I decided to try playing as someone else, and the experience was vastly different. After again neglecting the short time window to select a fighter, I ended up playing as Jacky in Normal difficulty once more. He adopts a style of fighting named Jeet Kun Do that, to my understanding now, isn't really a formal way of fighting but instead a philosophy that's more free-form. And with nearly zero experience having played as Jacky before, I was able to clear the game in a mere 02m45s with only two rounds lost. So, needless to say, VF5FS:VB is an especially brief game. Upon completing the final stage and following the game credits, there's also a bonus stage presented against a secret fighter absent from the roster. Unlike other stages, the player only has one attempt to defeat them as losing the stage results in an unavoidable game over. While I wasn't able to clear this optional stage at all with Eileen, it seemed only marginally more difficult than the formal final stage while playing as Jacky.

After my time playing Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown: Version B, it's abundantly clear that it's an especially easy game to complete. And as someone who just isn't skilled with the genre and has been unable to clear other games, I find that perfectly fine. I'm not particularly interested in playing more of this game or its franchise, but I'd certainly try another series entry if the opportunity presented itself like it had with this title.

[marvelvscapcom2]

ABANDONED


NEED FOR SPEED UNDERGROUND 2


Abandoned Need for Speed: Underground 2 [PS2]


Need for speed underground 2 is a case of 1 step forward 2 steps back. It gives an invigorating open world to race in which is a fresh and amazing change of scenery from how Linear Underground 1 was.  But the gain of extra world is almost entirely wasted on driving to and from races which bloats 5 hours or more into this games run time. It is tedious.  Nothing is actually done with the open world. It is a bare void. The gameplay is beyond repetitive and the car selection is fairly lacking variety.  Even the soundtrack is overhyped.  I think it must have played Riders on the storm remix ft snoopdog 27x since I started playing it 2 hours ago. I cant stomach it.  The game is ugly as well. It is community consensus that this game just hasnt aged well and I concur sadly. I loved this game as a kid but looking back it was extremely bland and tbh was a big step down from even it's namesake predecessor. It's tough on the eyes. The levels are mostly winding and ugly. And the cars take way too long to make cool if ever.  A miata? A civic?  Ok I love the starting bare bones vibe. Can we at least get nitrous and body kits early?  Idk. It doesn't jingle the dingle for me.

[bizzgeburt]

03 - Otto's Ottifanten: Kommando Störtebeker (Game Boy Color)
https://vgcollect.com/item/106270

Hardware: Game Boy Color / Game Boy Advance w. Screen-Mod
Playtime: about 3 Hours
Highscore: 320

I bought this game in my favourite retro shop just a few weeks ago and went on a trip with a few cartridges to try out. Got instantly hooked by this little game due to it's simplicity yet mercilessly increasing difficulty.

Otto's Ottifanten: Kommando Störtebeker is an entry within the Ottifants-franchise, a franchise revolving around litte elefants with humanlike behaviour, originating in the artworks of reknown german commedian Otto Waalkes. I personally own a few other Sega- and Nintendo-games from this franchise. It even had a cartoon series back in the late 80s/early 90s.
This particular game was released in 2001 in Austria and Germany by publisher JoWood Productions Software AG. It was delevoped by a studio with the funny sounding name Kritzelkratz 3000, wich translates from German into something like "scribblescratch 3000". This Studio from Würzburg, Germany founded in 1996 mostly delevoped PC-games for cartoon-franchises in the german-speaking region, but also a few Game Boy Color titles, including this game.

Otto's Ottifanten: Kommando Störtebeker tells an episode out of the adventureous life of the franchise's protagonist Bruno Bommel, a litte diaper-wearing baby-ottifant. One day, he finds his teddybear sidekick Honk missing and embarges on to a search that leads him out of his parents house through various parts of his hometown to find him.
Fun fact: The term "Störtebeker" used in the games subtitle refers to a kinda legendary german historic figure: Klaus Störtebeker, an alleged pirate and mercenary born ca. 1360 and said to have been executed in Hamburg on october 20th 1401. When playing this game, nothing actually refers to him in any way or word, and I really can't tell why this particular adventure got this title in the 1st place. Only explanation I found might be the 2001 cinema-released movie with the same title (wich ominously has nothing to do with the plot of the game). 

This game is an auto-scrolling platformer wich lets you control little Baby Bruno traversing 4 regions with 6 levels each, that are set up like obstacle courses. This doesn't just read itself like a Game Boy version of Kid Klown in Crazy Chase, it actually plays like one also! You can earn points by collecting star-emblems scattered throughout the levels of by shooting enemies with peanuts you can pick up. Some star-emblems are hidden in little bonus-passages or only reachable when jumping on a skateboard. Obstacles or enemies are dealt with by jumping over them, avoiding them by slowing down, ducking them or destroying them with peanuts. All this starts very simple, but can get very frustrating quickly due to only 3 chances to get hit till gameover and rapidly increasing difficulty. I'd consider this game a tough one if it wasn't for the endless continues and for getting a password every 3 levels. This layout resulted in my low highscore of 'only' 320 points (1 point for every star collected, 2 points for enemies shot with peanuts, and 10to20 bonus-points when finishing a level with many or all stars collected) and made for a fast playthrough. Non-surprisingly, the controls are weak and it takes some getting-into-it for sure. Main-menu's options only let you mess with music and Sound, so the difficulty can't be altered.
The game starts with a few pictures of Bruno and a few lines of poetry (yes, all story of the game is actually  delivered in little poems). Every area of the game (The Bommels' house, suburbs, city park, and zoo) is divided by such a poetic story-intermission.

Graphically, Otto's Ottifanten: Kommando Störtebeker isn't bad at all, using many colourful sprites and diversing backrounds even within the same areas. For a game out of a franchise this regional and specific and given the underdog developer, this is kinda impressive. Animations are a bit dull and simple though.

What definetly impressed me, was the game's musical score: Although the Soundtrack offers only 7 pieces (including one unused and the short gameover-jingle), all of them are quite good and 1-2 of them actually sound really cool, especially the zoo-theme. All music in Otto's Ottifanten: Kommando Störtebeker was done by a guy named Stilianos 'Stello' Doussis, who seems to have worked for or collaborated with Kritzelkratz 3000 and JoWood Productions for at least two further projects. This dude really knew how to get some bump out of the Game Boy Color!

I think even if you don't know the franchise or creators of this game and it's story, Otto's Ottifanten: Kommando Störtebeker made a fun and challenging short game to play through while traveling. It gave me headaches and frustration in a few unforgiving moments, but that's actually the kind of challenge I want to deal with when playing Game Boy.

3 games finished in 2026 - on to the next one 

[bikingjahuty]

ABANDONED


NEED FOR SPEED UNDERGROUND 2


Abandoned Need for Speed: Underground 2 [PS2]


Need for speed underground 2 is a case of 1 step forward 2 steps back. It gives an invigorating open world to race in which is a fresh and amazing change of scenery from how Linear Underground 1 was.  But the gain of extra world is almost entirely wasted on driving to and from races which bloats 5 hours or more into this games run time. It is tedious.  Nothing is actually done with the open world. It is a bare void. The gameplay is beyond repetitive and the car selection is fairly lacking variety.  Even the soundtrack is overhyped.  I think it must have played Riders on the storm remix ft snoopdog 27x since I started playing it 2 hours ago. I cant stomach it.  The game is ugly as well. It is community consensus that this game just hasnt aged well and I concur sadly. I loved this game as a kid but looking back it was extremely bland and tbh was a big step down from even it's namesake predecessor. It's tough on the eyes. The levels are mostly winding and ugly. And the cars take way too long to make cool if ever.  A miata? A civic?  Ok I love the starting bare bones vibe. Can we at least get nitrous and body kits early?  Idk. It doesn't jingle the dingle for me.

I played this game several years ago and was saddened by how much it hasn't held up in certain ways. I love the early 2000s vibe, but yeah, a lot of the gameplay wasn't implemented that well. I remember one of my biggest gripes was the inconsistent car physics. I'd get hit by another car going 140mph and it would barely do anything to be, but if I took a mountain turn to sharply the car would lose control and then proceed to bounced around the road like a rag doll. I also felt similarly about the first NFSU.

[kashell]

43. Wild Arms 4 - platinum'd

Man, what a fun trip down memory lane this was. My opinion on the game as a whole has increased since I played it ten years ago. Initially, I didn't like Jude. Now, I think he's great. Initially, I thought the writing was cringe. It still is, but I appreciate it more - especially with some of the messages the narrative carries. Initially, I had no interest in bothering with optional stuff. This time, I sort of had to for trophy purposes but I'm glad I did. The most challenging fights were also the most fun. It was fun making the Sherriff's Star, which completely trivialized some of the fights I once thought impossible. And of course, the ending and epilogue were as bittersweet as ever. This getting a PSN release gives me some hope that ACF and WA5 aren't too far behind.