What did you finish in 2020?

[demi]

Space Aliens > the assassin's logo being a dead bird's skull zzz

[thisismyusername]

Devolver Bootleg - Hotline Milwaukee and Enter the Gun Dungeon are the only two to be able to "beat." The Luftusers one can't be beaten and the other 2player ones are endless AFAIK. It's a shitpost, but on Steam sale it was a cheap shitpost.
System Crash: A Cyberpunk Card Game - Eh, this one I got on Steam sale for cheap to check out and... it's not bad. But it's not GOOD either. And the developer basically gave up on it when the DLC sales were poor (due to bugs and never fixing those). The early game is BRUTAL due to the AI having more cards/better cards than you, so the balance is really wonky. I can't really recommend this, as a Cyberpunk fan or even as a card-game person. It's like it's taking SolForge and Uncharted: Fight for Fortune's "slam into each other and then take out whoever is in front of you and when you have a "free" opening you gain points combat but also throwing in Objective Points via "hacking" to try to speed up the capture/winning goal.

Eh, I dunno if I'll get the DLC on Steam sale to finish the "story" and check out the Archive/Graveyard/Discard manipulating cards, but for like $2-5 I got my moneys worth from it. So...

[D3RANG3D]

The Witcher 3 main story and Heart of Stone.

[thisismyusername]

The Witcher 3 main story and Heart of Stone.

Now do Blood and Wine, it's the best of the Witcher 3.

[D3RANG3D]

The Witcher 3 main story and Heart of Stone.

Now do Blood and Wine, it's the best of the Witcher 3.

Just finished it.

[thisismyusername]

Damascus Gear: Operation Tokyo - HD:

Yikes, hard pass. Brain-dead distinguished mentally-challenged AI that rushes to their doom and same-y missions for like 50 of them really kill an interesting idea for a Mech game.

[Trent Dole]

Lego City Undercover - yeah If you're old enough to be on the internet unsupervised you're not really the audience for this game. Took about 15 hours mainly focusing on storyline stuff. There' plenty of unlocks and whatever if you're the obsessive type who need to find everything and get all your achievements. Was just a download to check it out cause it was delisting soon off of GP. Not a bad game. Back to Orochi 3 Ultimate now.

[Sho Nuff]

METRO EXODUS. I got a 2060 Super and wanted to play a boss looking PC game. I killed too many people and got the bad ending, but that seemed appropriate for what is basically a Russian Depress-Em-Up.

[thisismyusername]

ObsCure - Not a bad little Code Veronica clone. Allows you to co-op the horror with another player. Combat is kinda... terrible. I mean, it's serviceable so I can't complain too loudly but it's pretty weird. It's a proto-type for Bio: Revelations 2's Moria Burton flashlight gameplay while allowing you to tape the flashlight to a fire-arm, to do Clarie's bit.

Pretty short, too. Like 4-5 hours, would be even shorter with the exception of probably getting confused in 2-3 areas with no maps.

Ending leads to a cliff-hanger "WTF" moment so ObsCure 2/ObsCure: The Aftermath is going to be done.

[thisismyusername]

...And to go with that: ObsCure 2/ObsCure: The Aftermath - It's a continuation of the first one's cliff-hanger ending. It's not TERRIBLE... until you finally hit the "true-ending" (which is after the first credits,  hello Bio2's A/B scenario call-back). Whereby you now have to run past monsters to the beginning of the game area, then pick a fucking stupid lock to continue the game. Then get your guns back (YAY) after having the two survivors of the first game being beaten to shit and back DUE TO NO WEAPONS  to the final boss.

Who is a William Burkin rip-off complete with pregnancy plotline.

Ending has the Stoner from the first game get the girl (the sister of the William Burkin big-bad), yay! Helicopter explodes and the flowers gas-cloud basically widens, to where it's an obvious sequel bait.

Thing is: The studio shut down ages ago, and the continuation was cancelled. So...

The first half (bar shitty combat) was worthwhile, even if retcons and some shitty writing about how the college kids were having unprotected sex by the thousands due to the flowers, thus increasing the epidemic until two years later the tipping point happens was fun. But the second half/true-ending run completely soured me on the game.

First one is worth playing in a cheap discount Biohazard clone way. But this one? Nah, fuck this one because they didn't really improve much and regressed in other ways.

[chronovore]

Lego City Undercover - yeah If you're old enough to be on the internet unsupervised you're not really the audience for this game. Took about 15 hours mainly focusing on storyline stuff. There' plenty of unlocks and whatever if you're the obsessive type who need to find everything and get all your achievements. Was just a download to check it out cause it was delisting soon off of GP. Not a bad game. Back to Orochi 3 Ultimate now.

Oh, shit, I think that was the ONE game I finished last year. As a fan of GTA and of Lego toys and -- to some degree -- the Lego games, I very much enjoyed this. I've still got missions I want to get uber-cleared or Jedi level or whatever the term is for it this time. It's fun!

[demi]

Xbox One:

ReCore: Definitive Edition
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order

Switch:

Astral Chain

[paprikastaude]

January  look what you can do if not every game is bloated to 50 hours

Dragon Quest Swords - Imagine Skywardsword with all the bullshit cut out and much more fun enemy variety. The main series bores me to tears for some reason, but I enjoy some of these DQ spinoffs quite a bit. I really enjoy this concept of a motion controlled arcade light JRPG that has the atmosphere of the main series to back it up. Sadly this only works with the inferior original Wiimote, but they did their best to make motion controls work okay-ish. It relies too heavily on grinding towards the end, but in the end it didn't even bother me that much - battling was just that fun.

Death Stranding - The game's story turns to shit quickly, but the atmosphere is impeccable. The gameplay is good. You'll like it if you enjoy the sections inbetween bosses in Shadows of the Colossus and Resident Evil item management    It should've been a little harder though and offer more climbing tools, instead of making redundant shooting sections. And cut some of the backtracking.

Final Fantasy Dissidia 012 - This features decent 3D brawling with JRPG shenigans on top of it. I might go back to it if I liked the PSP more than I do. Way too overcomplicate a simple concept with nonsense terminology, confusing UI and bad tutorials though.

The Ninja Saviours Return - I didn't play Ninja Warriors prior. It's a good beat'em'up, even though some characters are blatantly less fun to use than others. The new spritework is great, like if it was top-tier work made for either PS1 or NeoGeo. Yet the settings are a little bland, most of it is indistinguishable industrial areas, with only a few exceptions. The soundtrack is more remarkable however.

Pac Pix, replay - Weird how this concept wasn't ever picked up again for mobile. Drawing Pac-Men is a decent idea, but there was still room for improvement.

Contra 4 - This was the first time I've finished the campaign in one go. I only did the missions back in the day, which were hard enough as is. As solid as this game is, the campaign is a little too long, which makes retries more tiresome than they need to be. I don't think anyone would've missed the 3D stages if they were cut.

A.I. The Somnium Files - It's like a longer case of Ace Attorney, though it eventually gets much crazier. Playing a modern Visual Novel of that style felt refreshing, as well as protagonists above the age of 16    Too bad the art direction makes them look like teens anyway. There's a few action comedy bits that don't fit the tone at all, but overall it has a good narrative. The true ending is shit as well as the idol sidekick - two things that weren't considered for the game at first, too bad they made bad decisions here and backpedaled.

Castle of Illusion starring Mickey Mouse - I like how this becomes Castlevania in the final level. Overall, this has a lot of charm and variety for its release date. The pacing and the learning curve are nice. It's a little weird at first how Mickey almost controls like a Gameboy game with his slow ass jump, but it's easy to get used it. I played a little bit of World of Illusion afterwards and it doesn't seem like it can keep up, despite the game pushing 16 bit graphics quite far.

Castlevania - Ever since I caught up on Rondo of Blood I've been giving Classicvania another chance and enjoying significantly more than back in the day. This game too doesn't feel nearly as clunky as I remember. It's pretty nice actually. I enjoy how compact it is, while it already nails the important basics of later entries.

Hellblade - This might be first of these cinematic corridor games to have an innovative and actual great narrative that doesn't suffer from ludonarrative dissonance or whatever you call it. This could've been a masterpiece if the puzzles and exploration weren't so cookie-cutter. Imagine a viking Silent Hill and the best thing you come up with is Uncharted corridors  It actually has some neat puzzle concepts, the difficulty just stays so painfully vanilla for so long. Thankfully the gameplay eventually becomes a little more varied and deep towards the end - the horror parts are fantastic. The battles are pretty good throughout though.

[thisismyusername]

Metro: Last Light - Basically go around in a circle (TimeIsAFlatCircle.gif)  from D6 back to it chasing a "Dark One," your choices basically have the Dark Ones save you (yay) and the Metro or possibly wipe the entire Metro out for how badly you fucked up nuking them in the previous game and opening up a Bioterror bunker that the Commies want to use to wipe out the Metro and take it for themselves.

I dunno where Exodus goes from here, beyond the Dark Ones coming back.

[Lonewulfeus]

Finally got all my gold crowns in the base game of Monster Hunter World.  Now the icebourne crown hunt begins.  I’m hoping to play Indivisible and Children of Morta in February.

[D3RANG3D]

Dark Souls+DLC

[Fifstar]

Zelda: Link's Awakening, Really liked this one. Perfect for short play sessions. Graphics are nice, if you can overlook the performance hiccups, music is good, controls well and feels fresh coming from the typical ALTTP/OOT formula, even if's structurally not that different. The jumping ability makes it feel more arcadey and benefits the action scenes. It's got a bit of Zelda's oldschool obtuse style, but it's manageable.

[paprikastaude]

The original sometimes didn't even have hints like the cracks and you had to investigate the map like a pro. 

[thisismyusername]

Zombi(U)- PC port. Rating:



Like, the gimmick for it (second screen) is lost in this port. And there isn't numerous zombies generally so you basically have high-damage zombies to contend with while managing item space/etc. It's mercifully short (like 7-8 hours) if you rush. But it's totally not worth the cash.

At least I got it on Steam sale?

[paprikastaude]

I wondered how the ports would play. It's like one out of two games I'd miss from WiiU. I heard for some reason even the graphics are worse.

[Cerveza mas fina]

Finished a round of Plague inc. on my phone

[thisismyusername]

Call of Duty: WW2 - It's a paint-by-numbers campaign. Some of the side-quest stuff got bugged, and the plane and tank sections were fucking horrible. But it's Call of Duty.

[MMaRsu]

Finished Bayonetta 2 on the WiiU. A damn great game, just as good as Bayonetta 1 if not better (except the garbage framerate)

[demi]

Xbox One:

Darksiders 3
Final Fantasy XV DLCs
Modern Warfare
Call of Cthulhu
Kingdom Hearts 3 ReMind DLC

Switch:

Luigi's Mansion 3

NES (yes really):

Glory of Heracles: The Labors of the Divine Hero (Toujin Makyou Den: Heracles no Eikou)

[Cerveza mas fina]

Its march already? Man, hope I finish a game this year.

[paprikastaude]

February

Castlevania Gameboy 2 - I had to bail out of the first GB game because of how jank it was, but this is the real deal. It's still a little slow, but it has good unique level designs and a rocking OST. The difficulty spike at the end is bs though.

Kid Dracula - Kind of servicable action platformer. Not really worth a playthrough, if you aren't curious about how a chibi Castlevania looks like. The level design really isn't that good, the main attraction is the weirdness and big sprites.

Super Mario Bros. 3, replay - I needed a superior NES platformer after Kid Dracula. Also this thing just turned 30 y/o, I think. It's a little longer than I remember. Either way, it's SMB3.

Wonderboy 3 remake - Good game, the new graphics and music are mostly high quality. It's not on the level of the 16 bit sequels, but still shockingly solid for an almost unaltered Mastersystem game.

Cuphead, replay - holy shit, this grabbed me like I was playing it for the first time again. Replayed it in multiplayer because of that new Steam online couch coop feature, then went for expert mode (and still want more).

[bluemax]

After 90 hours I finally completed DQIX. Now to decide how much of my life I want to waste on the post game, and if I want to try and figure out a way to get the downloadable stuff in the YOL 2020.

[thetylerrob]

I'm at about 130 hours into DQXI and I absolutely love the game but I'm ready to be done, as this game has consumed my gaming time for the last month and a half. The problem is, I love the game so much that I went out and put the rest of the series on my retropie and I've already made decent progress into DQ3. Also maybe it's dementia but as a high schooler I played a ton of DQV and DQ9, loved them and then completely forgot I had any connection to the series?

[thisismyusername]

Underrail: Expedition (Just the DLC quest so far) - It's a "timed" mission, so you have to rush the quests and manage resources, but I did like the ending. You basically find

spoiler (click to show/hide)

a lost race/people that only has a sole survivor, you find a monolith that you can possibly destroy [I didn't], and a sort of "Garden of Eden Kit" to use Fallout terms.

[close]

The time psi powers was cool, but the quest itself was mostly "eh," until the ending. Tony is probably my favorite NPC in the DLC due to him being very crude and a practical jokster that drives the other merchant crazy.

I'm about half-way through Underrail's main-quest itself, so I'll have to finish that up. But man, the DLC is a HUGE expansion (in some ways) and took longer than I expected. Like a 20-40 hour expansion.

[thisismyusername]

Underrail: Expedition (Just the DLC quest so far) - It's a "timed" mission, so you have to rush the quests and manage resources, but I did like the ending. You basically find

spoiler (click to show/hide)

a lost race/people that only has a sole survivor, you find a monolith that you can possibly destroy [I didn't], and a sort of "Garden of Eden Kit" to use Fallout terms.

[close]

The time psi powers was cool, but the quest itself was mostly "eh," until the ending. Tony is probably my favorite NPC in the DLC due to him being very crude and a practical jokster that drives the other merchant crazy.

I'm about half-way through Underrail's main-quest itself, so I'll have to finish that up. But man, the DLC is a HUGE expansion (in some ways) and took longer than I expected. Like a 20-40 hour expansion.

And now Underrail (main quest) - My god, the ending level is a slog. Having to pixel hunt for certain items to open the gate to kill the big-bad.

AND the ending doesn't explain shit. Apparently the person that invites you to stay at their station is a big alien and was hunting an artifact for whatever reason.

Nice little world-building, otherwise. But the UI is atrocious, the gameplay can be hit-and-miss in being a Fallout throwback clone (even with a big-ass mutant boss like the end of Fallout 1). Not bad for $20, but I can't really highly recommend it.

[Svejk]

Just wrapped over the weekend...

Shadow of the Tomb Raider DLC - Snagged the DE content for $5.  These were great additions to the core game.  My complaints of the core/vanilla game, was that it needed more combat, and this dlc filled that gap.  On top of having fun challenge tombs too, it's a shame these were dlc and not part of a premium package... Game would've been better for it.  Wish they delayed it to meet that, instead of having to resort to the Definite Edition later down the road.

Shadow of the Colossus (PS4) - It's SOTC.... I want to say I battled the camera more in this one that any previous releases... Still a damn beautiful game.

The Last of Us Remastered + Left Behind - Wanted to refresh my memories of TLOU in prep for TLOU2.   Never played through Left Behind, so wanted to play it too in case some of it tied to TLOU2 somehow.  Still a very emotionally stirring game, and the dlc was fun.  I hope TLOU2 is just as gritty and thought provoking as the first without going waaaay too woke.. but who am I kidding.     ..Still excited to play it.

[thisismyusername]

Ruiner -
KILL YOU
KILL YOU
KILL YOU
KILL YOU
----
Nintendo hard (and not in a good way): Just check the Steam achievement stats: https://steamcommunity.com/stats/464060/achievements

70% of owners finish the tutorial area [A little lower than expected but...]
45.5% of owners finish the FIRST FUCKING CHAPTER. That's under 50%, that's insane.

But that area is probably the easiest to come. Once you reach "Hell," the games difficulty goes to  levels of insane. Final boss? Same as the chapter 2 "boss" which has a high-damage laser.

Now you throw in the "Angels" (Eva theme opening here) which spit-out "Dolls"/more enemies to deal with. They're like zombies. You NOW have to dodge a high damage (which got buffed, WTF) laser while dodging/killing the zombie Dolls that can kill you just as fast.

18.5% of owners finish the game. 18.4% (.1% under that) completely [the Epilogue chapter included] on Easy.

On Normal, which is where I suffered thinking "oh, they balanced this" 13.6% of owners finished it.

Crazy.

One of the fights you have to do three times with no checkpoint. It's a known complaint.

The developers response?: Ż\_(ツ)_/Ż "Seems fine to us. No checkpoint is needed."

While you can respec the build at any time, it's kind of dumb that you have to tweak and test to figure out a way to "stunlock" the bosses to finish the game.

I can't imagine Hard mode (or New Game+ which apparently is a buffed version of that?) based on my struggling with Normal.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

GIT GUDS placed here

[close]

$5 for Style over Substance is fine, but I can't recommend this despite being a Cyberpunk fan.

Basically this review (which isn't me) hits the nail on the head for me with Ruiner.

[thisismyusername]

Generation Zero - Story is barely there. Gameplay is extremely early access. This needed another good 3-4 years in the oven before releasing. 

[paprikastaude]

March

Bioshock - It was okay. I liked the lite Metroidvania elements mixed with ulralite RPG elements. It usually hooked me for a couple of hours, but it certainly isn't amazing. The overbearing loot is crazy, the handholding undermines some of the the leveldesign and some combat scenarios become a farce, because of the no-penalty respawn system. This just further reminds me of how I hate the PS360 generation. This is like a decent 7/10, yet it's supposed to be the top of the class on 360, lol.

Bioshock 2 - The graphics and gameplay are slightly better, but it also feels more linear and handholdey. Still okay overall though. Can't unsee the Bomberman.

Contra (Arcade) - The slowdown is so bad, but then again, it also helped me beat this with only a handful of retries. These days I kind of like how this version is only like 15 minutes long.

Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris - This has surprisingly decent and creative puzzle parcours and boss fights. It shouldn't be so cluttered and sometimes the controls could be a little better, but it's still very good. I would've continued playing the optional stuff if this was a singleplayer game. I don't know the first game, people say it's even better.

[tiesto]

Super Mario Maker 2 - Story Mode (all levels beaten)
Trails of Cold Steel 3
Astral Chain
Star Ocean: First Departure R (beat the Cave of the Seven Stars postgame dungeon too)

[Sho Nuff]

Wolfenstein: The New Colossus: Goddamn this game sure goes places.

[thisismyusername]

Biohazard/Resident Evil 3: REbirth 3 - Eh... it's not TERRIBLE, but it really should've taken a good 3-4 years development time/tinder loving care like 2's development hell process sort of got. At least then there wouldn't be massive cuts in it, where 2 had cuts but not as massively.

[thisismyusername]

Gears (of War) 5 (Free Weekend, thanks MS) - It's an alright campaign. But it's pretty "by-the-numbers" for a shooter. I did enjoy the new-team (never played Gears 4 or 2-3 so...) that replaced Marcus and crew. But killing Marcus' son is 

[Tasty]

What happened to Borys?

[thisismyusername]

(Prepare for) Descent 3 - Later levels get really complicated and the map doesn't help. The guide-bot (introduced in Descent 2) is just as useless here as it was there ("Find objective." I CAN'T DO THAT! :| It'll work most of the time but in later levels this finding one objective but then the others can't be found is SERIOUSLY annoying). But it comes through at the ending, killing the PTMC boss that hired you (all the way back in Descent 1), left you for dead (in Descent 2's ending), and hides from you as you kill the robot virus that he wants to put on the market or something.

Funny enough: If you use OpenGL (as I did) the rendering selection means videos won't play. Apparently you need to use DirectX (or Glide, forgetting) to get them to play which is

But here's the opening/ending videos anyway because I found them on the artists portfolio page:





Guidebot kiling Dravis

[HardcoreRetro]

What happened to Borys?

He 100% all Souls games known to man and ascended to a higher plain of existence.

[Tasty]

Damn he was nobody'd before but now he's actually gone-gone. Wtf

[thisismyusername]

Phantom Doctrine - Thanks to Shark for giving me this for free.

I... am torn on it. There's good ideas here. But the developers DO NOT explain any of them in the game. They apparently patched in a "user manual" after this complaint, but...  It still doesn't fix the issue.

It's trying to be a stealth X-com-like, but with how the stealth plays out, you eventually hit combat, so you then have to deal with enemies trying to kill you (with none of X-com's RNG hit-percentages) while managing your "Awareness" which helps you dodge bullets AND use your skills (to try to balance offense/defense).

...I honestly can't tell you what the plot is about. Which is a shame, because the alternate 1980's cold-war was what had me interested (along with it being an X-com alike) but it's not really used too much. You could change the timeline and it'd pretty much be the same.

Apparently, the developers have closed. So you only get a free DLC costume pack for Halloween and that's about it.

Wish it'd lived up to it's potential more, but...

[Rman]

Super Mario Maker 2 - Story Mode (all levels beaten)
Trails of Cold Steel 3
Astral Chain
Star Ocean: First Departure R (beat the Cave of the Seven Stars postgame dungeon too)

How was Super Mario Maker 2? I heard they did another update.

[Cerveza mas fina]

I havent finished anything but I did play a lot of Animal Crossing and some other stuff

[Lonewulfeus]

Finished and got the full 1000gs April 2020

Children of Morta
Black Desert
Wasteland Remastered
Indivisible

Getting 4 gamepass games out of my backlog in one month 

[thisismyusername]

Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Essentials - My god, what is with Ubisoft and porting Stealth games to systems with no second stick? First the PSP, then porting Chaos Theory to the 3DS.

It's tolerable, but the camera being on a stick pulling double-duty means doing "Ghost"/total stealth is near impossible and the final mission is a little frustrating because of camera and quick movement/darkness work.

Apparently it's not even canon/got retcon'd because Lambert's death was. So...

There's bonus missions but you have to use cheat codes to enter them and they don't save to your profile, so you have to enter the code each time you want to play them. I dunno if I'll do them. But apparently they're newer missions instead of a "Greatest hits" that liek 4 or 5 of the 8 levels Essentials already has.

[Joe Molotov]

April

- Azur Lane: Crosswave (PS4)
- Resident Evil 3 Remake (PS4)
- Final Fantasy VII Remake (PS4)
- Until Dawn (PS4)
- Control (PS4)

[Joe Molotov]

I beat five games this month, I think I've only beat two other games this entire year (AI: The Somnium Files, Astral Chain). Thanks, corona-chan.

[Human Snorenado]

Resident Evil 3 remake eh it's ok but not as good as the RE2 remake. But then again, like I keep pointing out... the original wasn't as good as the original RE2 either, so. Whatever.

Disco Elysium THIS FUCKIN GAME, THO. 11 boners out of 10.

[demi]

Xbox One:

Batman Telltale Series - Season 2
Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair
Doom Eternal
Resident Evil 3
Doom 64
Streets of Rage 4

PS4:

Final Fantasy 7 Remake
Disaster Report 4

Switch:

Murder By Numbers

[thisismyusername]

STRAFE - FRAG LIKE IT'S 1996!!!!!! -Developer kickstarter.

Narrator: Actually, no. Don't. Because the developers have made it into a roguelike compared to the "Speedrun demo" they provided that showed it more in the style of Quake 1/Doom-era speed and jumping/physics.

You know you fucked up when you bury "IT'S A ROGUE-LIKE!!!!" in your Store description and have people see advertising (I blame Devolver partly for this one) that makes them think it's something it's not and not find the "IT'S A ROGUE-LIKE!!!!" because it's buried at the bottom.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/442780/STRAFE_Millennium_Edition/

WHAT STRAFE® IS NOT
We don't want you to buy STRAFE® if it's not a game you'd enjoy. We'd rather have a happy non-customer than an unhappy customer. This is what STRAFE® isn't:

+ STRAFE® is not a traditional shooter or a "Quake Clone" - STRAFE® pays homage to many classic shooters, and it features many of the classic elements of old school shooters but STRAFE® is a roguelike. This means that it was designed from the ground up for replayability and randomization. Every room in STRAFE® was designed by hand and is seamlessly connected by our level generator to create unique experiences.

+ STRAFE® is not a multiplayer game - There is no multiplayer deathmatch or co-op in STRAFE®. But we recommend Quake Live if you are looking for a great old school arena shooter.

+ STRAFE® is not limited to the design decisions of 1996 - What can I say? We are ahead of our time. STRAFE® is a mix of old and new design. We didn't want to not imitate the games of the past but instead invoke the feeling of them while bringing fresh ideas to the table. We aim to bring you something new with STRAFE®.

+ STRAFE® tries new things with the roguelike FPS formula - We aim to generate full levels that feel more natural to explore and avoid patterns of rooms that lock you in, teleport in enemies and force you to kill them before the doors unlock. We want STRAFE® to feel like a seamless adventure from start to finish.

+ STRAFE® is not a game that will run well on older computers or laptops - STRAFE® may look older but it's a new game and features some cutting edge tech. Please check the min spec!

From what I remember around 2016-17, they did NOT have this bit in the store page. Hence a bunch of pissed reviewers (and the developers being pissy about this)/negatives because they got something that was advertised as something different.
---

Anyway, I don't recommend it if you're looking for an "old school" shooter, but if you want a rogue-like that is in the first-person shooter genre? I guess I'd recommend it there. The idea is sound, but I don't think the execution (rogue-like) is. But I've never been a huge fan of rogue-likes (only Slay the Spire gets me and that's because the random cards you get don't really hinder you compared to most other rogue-likes that do their best to fuck you over with RNG constantly) so take me with a huge grain of salt on this.

Good review for it

[paprikastaude]

April

Contra (NES)- Seen the first couple of stages so many times over the years, only now I finally decided to pull through. Great game overall, probably the best in the series. There's very little bullshit moments and a good amount of level variety. Weapons feel more impactful and diverse, because this game didn't have rapid fire for everything yet. Overall, it's just a little too long though. Most of it is good - really, just Base 2 needed to be much shorter.

Nioh 2 - I loved the gameplay in this, more so than the first game. The Aria of Sorrow-system is a great enhancement. I had a much easier time than with Nioh 1, but I honestly think that's because heavy weapons/builds are overpowered, which is kind of wack. But the biggest complaint is still the same from the first game and I wish they would adress this: The atmosphere couldn't be more confused and weird. The weird horror noises make zero sense, considering all the goofiness and Team Ninja kitsch that is going on. Like the first game, sometimes it embraces the corniness properly, or it goes for that Way of the Samurai feeling. But this series really needs to decide on one of these and stick with it.

[thisismyusername]

Overload - Basically the Descent 1-3 successor. Levels gradually ramp up to where I was struggling a bit on "Hotshot" difficulty with a controller. Took me around 9 hours to finish.

Pretty good entry in the 6DoF genre. Would recommend if you're interested in those sorts of ship-piloting FPS. Can't say if the community level packs are worth it. So can't say anything about the DLC.

Apparently it's "cross-play" on all platforms, but the PC version couldn't find anyone. Though there is a Discord with PC players playing a modded version, so maybe that's just where the community is?

[thisismyusername]

Daymare 1998 - Fighter of the Nightmare (ah-ah-ah)
Champion of the Sun! (ah-ah-ah)
You're a Master of Karate
And Friendship
For Everyone

But more seriously: This game is a piece of shit. The last two battles are fucking stupid given one of them is a one-hit-kill chase (and you have to fight input lag on the controller to aim/hit things that'll stun the boss) and the final battle is basically a shoot and scoot with a bullet sponge that doesn't react to anything you throw at them.

Story is a complete mess. English translation from Italian had no proof-reading (weight->wight).

What I expected: Biohazard 2 Remake with classic angles.
What I got: Biohazard 2 remake fan-mod (Literally, taking this:



and re-purposing it after Capcom C&D'd/announced the official remake), in the vein of Biohazard 4. Just without Capcom's polish to where it's jank and not the good kind of jank.

Story is a complete mess.  Partly because of terrible translation from Italian and partly because of trying to save a fan-made remake of 2 by turning it into something else. Thing is: There is potential here if it was more polished, but sadly with the studio being what it is (the creators of Hatred apparently.  ) I can't see them doing a "2" and improving things. Despite the game ending on a cliff-hanger for an obvious sequel (the Japanese company that basically screwed over the American company by hiring the American companies mercenary to be like Wesker).

Speaking of Wesker: TONS OF BIOHAZARD references (for obvious reasons). Raccoon City is mentioned in a file and Umbrella is hinted as as "we beat this company in terms of profits and military contracts" but  relying so much on being fans of the series doesn't help.

What's worse is that they advertised that game-designer of 3: Last Escape meeting with them in Italy on Twitter, but apparently there was no feed-back on making the game play better or anything. Which is a shame, because if it fixed the junk elements of it (one-hit boss fight chase sequence, combat being terrible) it COULD be a solid AA experience.

Not recommended for the asking price, nor the sale price I got on Steam ($8 IIRC), however.

[bluemax]

Ever Oasis A solid, if unspectacular action RPG for the 3DS from the producer of Secret of Mana. The general idea of the game is that CHAOS is in your world and destroyed your previous home and killed your brother. You, and your mermaid/water sprite friend set out to build a new Oasis and take down CHAOS. You do this by venturing out into the desert and visiting various dungeons, fighting monsters and collecting materials. As you meet certain conditions you get visitors to your town who can be either recruited as permanent residents, or who just visit your shops and buy stuff. The shops are operated by residents you recruit. I think I ended up with about 48 different residents, almost all of whom can be taken out as party members on your dungeon adventures.

Speaking of the dungeons, they play out as kinda Zeldaish, with mini puzzles that require abilities your villagers have. This is cool in concept, but in practice you will spend a lot of time warping back to town, swapping party members, warping back into the dungeon doing a room and then repeating this. When you get in a flow it can be fun, but it can be annoying. None of the puzzles are particularly hard and I only ever got stuck when I was too tired to think of something fairly obvious.

The town management stuff is interesting in that, the happiness of your town grants you more HP when out adventuring, but also means you have to spend cycles doing things like restocking supplies and cleaning up dust. Eventually this problem mostly goes away but there was a bit in the mid game where it slogged.

Aside from that, the game has a post game of some sort but I read that it mostly relies on horrible RNG to get random drops so I didn't particularly bother. Still, I got an enjoyable 33 hours from the game so I can't really complain.

Trials of Mana A straight forward action RPG romp without a great deal of depth or variation. The biggest things mechanically added over the SNES version is a slight change to the stat increases and equippable skills. You get a pretty low number of slots for most of the game, so this doesn't add a whole lot of strategy and I mostly just used the ones that gave me back HP or MP or decreased MP cost etc. It took me just over 19 hours to finish the story, including getting all 50 of the new hidden collectibles. In the second half of the game, I rushed through a few dungeons to get the final class change items because the difficulty seemed to ramp up. After that I pretty much coasted through the end, even being surprised at how quickly and easily the final boss went down.

Considering the quality of the Mana series overall, this is a pretty higher tier Mana game in the end.

[Olivia Wilde Homo]

All for Switch:

Dynasty Warriors 8 XL - I think this is the third time I’ve beat this game. Took it to the next level by beating all the star missions and maxing out the ambition mode. The ambition mode is somewhat broken in the end and half baked. I don’t recall if a DW8 Empires existed but this game is fairly decent. I’d consider it a mid tier Musou. Sounds like DW9 is unlikely to be ported to the Switch. I haven’t heard good things about it but I’d be willing to try it. Switch game clock says over 65 hours was spent on it.

Super Mario Maker 2 - 100% in story mode and played a few online levels. This should not be a shock but most people suck at making levels, including myself. The story mode levels are generally weak but amazing compared to the crap I saw online.

Zed Blade - ACA NeoGeo collection title. I enjoy shoot em up games. Never heard of this one but the price was cheap. I had a couple hours of fun with this one.

Plus Alpha - Another ACA shoot em up that is pretty uguu. I enjoyed this more than Zed Blade but not as good as the Psikyo collection games. Got it for $4 on sale; the price is right if you get it then. Not sure it’s be worth more than that.

On deck is Trials of Mana. Fun and simple for me. About 10 hours in and maybe a third of the way through. I take it easy and do some grinding so I’ll probably beat it in the next week or two. I like it.

[tiesto]

Super Mario Maker 2 - Story Mode (all levels beaten)
Trails of Cold Steel 3
Astral Chain
Star Ocean: First Departure R (beat the Cave of the Seven Stars postgame dungeon too)

Final Fantasy 7 Remake
Dragon Quest Builders 2

[Cerveza mas fina]

Gears of War 4

I shot a lot of locust. Good dumb fun. Fuck snatchers though!

Game looked hot on One X.

[thisismyusername]

Planescape: Torment: Enhanced Edition - Really solid CRPG. I enjoyed the fact they let you (bar it was your primary class in the lead) raise your stats on level up to where you could get all stats to 25 if you ground (or cheated  ) to the level 127 class cap.

Story is very WORDS WORDS WORDS but that's not a bad thing after Baldur's Gate 1. I dunno the Planescape material, but the fact that you're basically

spoiler (click to show/hide)

trying to find out how you're immortal, you find out that it's fucked up and that you're trying to escape being a total bad-ass murderer

[close]

you go to the final dungeon and are like

spoiler (click to show/hide)

"yeah, I'll kill myself if it stops you from keeping me around and making me lose my memories." or "you can merge with me and we go to hell together to suffer for our murdering" or "I can resurrect my party and then kick your ass and go to hell then."

[close]

was pretty nice. I forget what is next on the "Infinity Engine" release timeline (Baldur's Gate 2? Icewind Dale) but I'll have to get around to those after dicking about in PSO2 a little.