Every game I beat this past January + some rambling and unconcise thoughts on them:

Metroid Dread (2021) for the Nintendo Switch - 9/10
: This was just about everything I wanted it to be. I've always loved the Metroid games—Super Metroid remains my favorite game of all time—but for not getting a proper 2D Metroid game in almost two decades, and for passing development over to MercurySteam, the people who made those dumbass Castlevania: Lords of Shadow games, this truly exceeded my expectations. The simple act of moving around in this game feels better than, without exaggerating, probably any other game that I've played. I honestly can't think of anything else that feels this satisfying, this buttery smooth. They also totally nailed the atmosphere, and I found myself thoroughly engaged with the storyline as well. The ending was fucking awesome. To be honest, I don't even care about Metroid Prime 4 anymore—this was really what I wanted all along. The only thing I found myself somewhat disappointed with was the music. It's not bad by any means, but none of the tracks really stuck out to me. Previous Metroid games found a way to make ambient music stick with you forever—but I don't think they really pulled that off here. It's a fairly minor issue in the grand scheme of things, but music is a pretty important aspect to me, so I think it's worth bringing up. Regardless, this is the best game I've played since Breath of the Wild, and I fully endorse it.

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (1991) via Nintendo Switch Online's SNES app - 9/10
: Super Metroid is my favorite singular game, but The Legend of Zelda is my favorite series. A Link to the Past is a game I played all the time as a kid, so if I'm such a big fan, you might be surprised to learn that I haven't already beaten this one. The truth is, I mostly played Zelda games back then not necessarily to beat them, but just to dick around in their massive worlds. The amount of little surprises there are to uncover in this game, even if you're not making any forward progression, is actually pretty immense for a game of this era. If I ever did wander off into a dungeon, I'd usually pass the controller to my dad after getting beaten up by the boss, and he's take care of it for me—so, this was my first playthrough of this game without getting any help. Suffice to say, I think it holds up pretty fucking well. The miniscule ways in which the game could be said to have "aged" ultimately don't factor into the game's overall quality, as far as I'm concerned. It's still one of the best games ever created, and I challenge you to find a better game made in 1991.

Sin and Punishment (2000) via Nintendo Switch Online's N64 app - 8/10
: I've been on somewhat of a rail shooter kick lately, and I think this one's probably the best of the bunch that I've finished. It's one of those games that never got a physical release stateside, but managed to get a spike in popularity and interest thanks to being referenced in Super Smash Bros. After Brawl came out, the game was added to the Wii's Virtual Console service, so people outside of Japan could play it for the first time—it, along with Chrono Trigger, happens to be the last game I bought on that service before they shut it down a few years ago... and then they went and added it for free to the N64 service... resulting in $10 down the drain for me. Oh well. The game itself is pretty awesome, but there's not much to say about the gameplay. It's pretty much just nonstop shooty action on top of some really cool set-pieces. For being made up of shitty polygons, it's pretty stylized, and it's probably one of the best-looking N64 games. The setting and story, which I had trouble making complete sense of, did give me some major Evangelion vibes, as well, which I thought was pretty cool. Overall, I thought it was a gas. I wouldn't be surprised if it ended up being in my top 10 games for the system.

Banjo-Kazooie (1998) via Nintendo Switch Online's N64 app - 7/10
: One of those games I never played as a child, even though I probably should have. For a long time, I've had it in my head that collect-a-thons are stupid, because what could possibly be fun about going around a big world and just collecting random junk that doesn't do anything tangibly useful for you? Maybe it's because I was raised on Zelda and Metroid, where pretty much everything you pick up is immediately useful, that I had this prejudice—and in my defense, there are definitely some collect-a-thons out there that make the act of collecting things extremely boring—but I'm pleased to report that I don't think Banjo-Kazooie is one of them. Well, for the most part. I hate having to collect 100 musical notes per level, because that really is just an arbitrary and tedious task, but collecting jigsaw pieces is a lot more fun because of how creative they get with their hiding places. I've always said that the best games should be about getting you to appreciate the journey apart from the destination, and surprisingly, I think Banjo-Kazooie fits the bill on that. I do have some major issues with the game—collecting musical notes sucks (especially considering you have to re-collect them upon death), the controls aren't the best, and the final boss was super janky and way more frustrating than it needed to be. That said, I still enjoyed the game overall, and I regret not playing it as a child. I'm sure I would've loved it, with its Saturday morning cartoon energy and incredibly juvenile sense of humor.

Panzer Dragoon (1995) for the Sega Saturn - 7/10
: Played this for my '95 project, primarily. Classic rail shooter. Cool dragons. Cool setting. Awesome music. Lots of fun. Simple stuff.

Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling (2019) for the Nintendo Switch - 7/10
: Since Nintendo has shown zero interest in returning the Paper Mario series to its story-heavy turn-based RPG roots, an indie Panamanian developer took it upon themselves to make their own Paper Mario-esque game—but this time, with a slightly darker and more mature story and a greater emphasis on challenging, complex combat. It's neat! I found myself drowned by the number of boring fetch quests the game throws at you, though, and the story doesn't really pick up until the fifth chapter or so. It's also very, very similar to Paper Mario—which is the point, I get it—but I mean that it's similar in ways that it didn't necessarily need to be, if that makes sense. I think it struggles to find its own voice, at times, but it was still fairly enjoyable. I'd play a sequel, if they ever made one.

Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (1987) via Nintendo Switch Online's NES service - 4/5
: The "black sheep" of the Zelda franchise—or as I like to call it, the ultimate casual filter. Lots of people hate this game, but lots of people are dumb. This game is great. I've technically already finished it, but similar to A Link to the Past, I had lots of help from Internet guides as well as my dad. This was the first time I beat the game without anyone's help, and it was a blast. It's definitely flawed, though—I think if there's any game in the series that deserves a remake of some kind, it's this one.

Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker (2018) for the Nintendo Switch - 7/10
: Cute and creative little puzzle game. You're essentially just going from point A to point B in a small 3D environment, but you can't jump, so you have to use your wits to figure out how to reach every goal. With a few exceptions, no two levels are similar; they're always throwing new ideas at you. Not too challenging, though. The camera rotates the world instead of orbiting around Toad, allowing you to observe each level from their every angle, revealing things that would otherwise be hidden if the camera was locked over Toad's shoulders. It almost gives the impression of rotating a physical object, like a Rubik's cube, which was definitely an interesting sensation that a game has never made me feel before.

Castlevania: Dracula X (1995) via the Castlevania Advance Collection for the Nintendo Switch - 6/10
: Butchered port of Castlevania: Rondo of Blood. It provides a base level of Castlevania fun, but nothing more. This version of the game was said to have the hardest iteration of Dracula in the series, and I agree with that assessment—but it's not necessarily a fair or fun fight.

Bug! (1995) for the Sega Saturn - 4/10
: Just one of those stupid failed mascot platformers of the '90s. My uncle had a Sega Saturn, and he let me play a handful of games on it—this being one of them. I liked it as a kid, and I've always wanted to beat it, but having done so has only made me completely turn my back on this game. It's an utterly miserable experience, partly because it's one of the hardest games I've ever played in my life, but mostly because it's just super shitty and unfair. It gets points for being a 3D platformer before Super Mario 64 came out, which I think earns it a respectful nod... but yeah, I just get sad when I think about this game now. I wish I had the patience to beat it as a kid, so I wouldn't have felt the need to beat it as an adult.

Currently playing:
- Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
- Rayman
- Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels
- Pokémon Legends: Arceus (once it gets delivered)

Let's see...

Sengoku Rance - SSS Supreme Sex Strategy
Evertale - SSm Shit Slot machine

Cytus & Cytus 2 - reason why I bought new phone

Oh no no no....

and I'm excited to play Final Fantasy II once I'm ready for it.

beat elden ring
very good game
beats the majority of open world games released in the past decade probably

onto lego star wars: the skywalker saga next week

played a really nasty batch of games this past april—with one small exception, every game i played last month gave me different flavors of misery

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Wario Land II (1998) - 5/5
: One of my favorite games growing up was Wario Land 3, but I hadn't ever played the other games in the series, so I thought I'd check out its immediate predecessor. For the handheld it was designed for, it's a top-notch platformer, even if 3 would ultimately outmode it in every single way, in my opinion. At this point, the only games in the series I haven't beaten yet are 4 and Shake It for the Wii, but I don't feel any urgent desire to play those any time soon.

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Persona 2: Innocent Sin (1999) - 4/10
Persona 2: Eternal Punishment (2000) - 3/10
: These games were recommended to me over five years ago by someone who used to post here, so I feel kind of bad for taking this long to get to them. If you still happen to lurk every now and then, this one's for you.

Don't let my low ratings give you the idea that I hated these games, because I didn't—at least, not entirely. While I can truly and honestly say that I loathed the gameplay, just as I loathed the gameplay of the first Persona game, the Persona 2 duology does tell what has easily become one of my new favorite video game storylines... but boy, it's a damn shame that they don't play better. "Dated" does not even begin to describe the mechanics of these titles. Innocent Sin is probably the more tolerable of the two, given how easy it is, but its easiness did not go over so well with the fans—so when Atlus made Eternal Punishment, they made it a hell of a lot more challenging, which is all well and good, but it comes with the cost of forcing you to engage with its horribly decrepit mechanics. The games even feel more antiquated than significantly older titles, like Chrono Trigger—and that's something I find nearly impossible to forgive, hence the low ratings.

But, again—the story these games tell is actually quite good. Does it completely redeem the experience? I'm not sure about that, but it definitely helped carry me through, and I'm quite happy that I got to experience it. I loved ALL the characters. The way they're written is almost Evangelion-esque, in the sense that they all manage to feel like real people, instead of just silly exaggerated anime characters. They may feel a little stereotypical at first, but the story finds a way to slowly unravel the inner psychological turmoil that each of these characters is going through, which not only helps flesh them out, but also really endears you to them, and makes you feel truly invested in their personal arc—even with characters you initially dislike—which is quite rare. I can't even think of the last time that's happened. First impressions count for nothing in Persona.

Also, it's worth noting how unique Eternal Punishment is in terms of its cast. Unlike the rest of the series, which has you following a group of high school students, you are instead given a full party of adult characters—and not college kids, either. Actual adults—with lives, backstories, and careers. It's pretty cool.

I haven't even gotten to the themes of the narrative yet—but naturally, they resonated with me a fuckton. It's a story about many things, but from what I've gathered, it's mostly about learning how to accept your flaws, to atone for the mistakes you've made in the past, understanding what it means to be an adult, and how to take control of your own destiny—all that good coming-of-age stuff, all taken to these twisted, crazy, apocalyptic heights. That's my shit—and it was all very meaningful to me. I may not have enjoyed playing these games so much as I enjoyed the story being told, but sometimes video games are just kinda like that I suppose.

I'll be looking forward to playing Persona 3 in the future, because it's my understanding that the series really comes into its own in by this point—but I'll be delighted if the storyline is HALF as good as what I experienced in 2. In any case, I'll be taking a good long break from Persona for the time being—because playing two old-ass JRPGs back to back has done a number on my psyche, so I'll need some time to recover from that.

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Rayman (1995) - 7/10
: It wasn't too long ago that I described Bug! (1995) for the Sega Saturn as the hardest game I've ever beaten, and it didn't take too long for me to find something to dethrone it. Yes, Rayman for the PS1 is the most difficult video game I've ever played—and if you have any idea what I'm talking about, you probably wouldn't believe me if I told you that I actually beat the entire game without cheating or looking anything up. And you shouldn't believe me. But the fact is, I did—and the things I resorted to doing in order to make this remotely possible are going to scar me for the rest of my life. Now, don't get me wrong—I still actually think it's a pretty solid game, especially for the year it was made in—hence why I'm giving it a 7/10—but GODDAMN, they needed to hire some more playtesters, or something. because the level of challenge was simply excessive. There's no other way to put it. You probably wouldn't expect such a friendly looking game to be this troublesome, but you haven't the faintest fucking clue until you've tried it yourself. I dare you.

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Twisted Metal (1995) - 6/10
: I've never played a vehicular combat game before, so this would be my first one. I thought it was okay—definitely not terrible, but not necessarily my cup of tea, either. I was looking forward to hearing some cool licensed music, but apparently, they didn't started doing that until the third installment... so, instead, we just get this cheesy-ass off-brand butt metal, and the sound design in general is pretty awful. The game itself is... decently fun, I guess, but gets old quick. It was interesting to learn that Sweet Tooth is NOT the name of the series clown mascot—his name is Needles Kane, whereas Sweet Tooth is the name of the ice cream truck that he drives. My character of choice was Mr. Grimm—the only character in the game badass enough to take a motorcycle to a demolition derby.

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Yu-Gi-Oh! Forbidden Memories - 2/10
: Like Rayman, this is another "milestone" game of sorts—or... what's the negative equivalent of a milestone? Anyway, I believe I declared the original Persona to be the worst game I had ever beaten once I finished it in March—but once again, I already have a new one.

This game is another childhood demon of mine that I decided returning to essentially at random, because I've already been playing a bunch of other PS1 titles anyway—I figured, with my big adult brain, I would be able to make short work of this.

Holy fucking shit, I've never been so wrong about anything in my life.

I don't know how to explain how shitty this game is without going over how much it butchers the Yu-Gi-Oh! card game, which I really don't want to do, so I'll just leave it at this—the game renders the game of Yu-Gi-Oh! down to its absolute boilerplate: Attack your opponent with monsters that have big numbers on them. That's PRETTY MUCH all you do. The problem is, when you're playing the game's story mode, you only gets cards with small numbers on them. How do you get cards with big numbers, you ask? At first, you can fuse your cards together to make cards that are kinda useful for the early part of the game, but those fusions will start to wane in their usefulness when facing stronger opponents. The only other way to get better cards is to keep winning duels. By winning duels, you are prized with one—singular—card. This card, roughly speaking, has a 90% chance of being absolutely worthless, a 9% chance of being maybe somewhat useful, and a 1% chance of being strong. You need to build a deck with strong cards if you want to beat the game—have fun grinding.

I am legitimately disturbed in the head for taking the time to beat this. I don't know what's wrong with me—and I am just giving you a barebones analysis what this game is like. I haven't even mentioned that there's no card ranking system, so it's possible for your opponent to just straight-up summon a Blue-Eyes Whtie Dragon (or stronger) out of the blue on the first fucking turn, and you MUST figure out how to deal with it. There's no way around it.

The game has two cool things going for it—an amazing OST and the ability to watch all ~700 monsters battle each other in 3D (the low-poly models and animations are rather poor, but that just adds to the charm, in my opinion).

The most offensive feature of the game, to me, is the feature that could've been its BEST feature. You see, there's a password feature in this game—at first, I thought they were just secret codes for rare and powerful cards for people who just wanna cheat. But no, it's actually a way to import your real world cards into the game by inputting the ID numbers printed at the bottom left corner of each card. These passwords don't just give you the cards for free, however—you still need to pay a certain number of star chips (earned through winning lots and lots of duels) to add those cards to your collection.

I'm thinking, how cool is that? If you have a physical copy of Blue-Eyes White Dragon in your collection, you'll be able to have it in Forbidden Memories, as well, without having to endlessly grind for it... but here's the catch: Every single card that is remotely worthwhile to use in Forbidden Memories costs just one short of ONE MILLION STAR CHIPS. The most star chips you can earn by winning duels is five, so in order to afford one of these premium cards (that you should already own), you would need to win about 200,000 duels. By the end of my playthrough, I played around 500 total, and I wanted to fucking kill myself—so the fact that they would bar you from getting decent cards in this way is pretty unforgivable.

This is a cruel, nihilistic hellspawn of a game that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy—well, maybe I would—but I certainly wouldn't wish it on any Yu-Gi-Oh! fans.

Thankfully, the game's direct sequel, The Duelists of the Roses, wound up being a substantial improvement, and one of my favorite PS2 games. Avoid Forbidden Memories at all costs—it's the first game I've ever regretted beating.

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this month, i'm definitely going out of my way to play some games that i KNOW i'll enjoy, such as ocarina of time and mgs1, because i need a break from the bullshit i put myself through here

tried to play nothing but the good stuff this past may—really starting to put the hurt on my backlog now

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Metal Gear Solid (1998) - 9/10
: This one felt good to enter into the spreadsheet. I can't explain why it's taken me so long to play this one, but at least I finally did, because it really is one of the best games ever. Has it begun to show a little bit of aging? Absofuckinglutely, but in terms of what the game was able to accomplish with its filmic ludonarrative structure, I would be remiss not to acknowledge that the game's faults are thoroughly dwarfed by its achievements and more appreciable elements, such as all the clever yet hidden little implements of realism, which would always catch me off guard, or how every single story beat is memorable, engaging, and even thought-provoking at times, or how the game's (genuinely funny) sense of humor never gets in the way of its more grounded and serious moments. Turning video games into movies for the rest of time could be considered an unfortunate side-effect of this game's success, but at the same time, it's games like this that also help push the medium forward artistically, and I'll always cherish it for that. I'll be continuing on with this series as soon as I'm able.

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The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998) - 8/10
: I have a troubled relationship with this game. There have been periods where I've enjoyed it, but I've never quite loved it. There have also been periods where I've outright disliked it, considering it to be the single most overrated video game, and that the people who claim to love it so much only claim as such because of nostalgia—an opinion that I completely disavow today. Having finally played it all the way through, during a time when nobody's really talking about the game anymore, I feel like I'm finally able to have a much clearer perspective on it, untainted by hype and expectation, and one where I can truly look at the game for what it is—and what I've been able to conclude for myself is that it's a pretty great game for which I hold a great deal of appreciation, and now more than ever, I am fully capable of understanding why the game is so beloved. From front to back, it just feels like the ultimate little kid's fantasy adventure. It's deeply comforting to play. The immaculate presentation makes the game's relatively small world feel big, vivacious, and exciting to explore. The dungeons are huge, brimming with atmosphere, and feel almost insurmountable until you finally conquer them. Every side character is lovable and interesting, to a point where I'd often find myself going out of my way to find one NPC on the other side of Hyrule just to see what they're up to—and I was never disappointed; they would always have something new to say. It's no secret to me anymore why this game holds such a special place in so many people's hearts.

Do I still think it's a little overrated, though? If I'm being honest, maybe just a little bit, but with my newfound understanding of the game's appeal, I wouldn't choose to phrase it that way anymore. Instead, I would simply argue that there are several Zelda games that do what Ocarina of Time does for me, but on a greater scale—namely, Majora's Mask, The Wind Waker, A Link to the Past and Breath of the Wild. Strictly on a personal level, I think I'd still even place the original Zelda game as well as Zelda II above it in my personal rankings. But that doesn't mean I think it's a substandard game in the series—on the contrary, I think it's quite fantastic. It's just that "fantastic" is "average" for a Zelda game, because the average Zelda game is fantastic. If anything, playing Ocarina of Time has only further solidified this series as my all-time favorite, so I'll never think to sleep on it again.

The next one I still have to play is Oracle of Seasons, which I hope to be starting soon—I've already beaten its counterpart, Oracle of Ages, which is somewhat ironic considering that Seasons is the one I owned as a kid.

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Super Punch-Out!! (1984) - 3/5
Punch-Out!! Featuring Mr. Dream (1990) - 5/5
: Yep, I finally beat this cocksucker after SOOO many years of not being able to do so.

Okay, so it's not as cool as beating Mike Tyson, but they fight the exact same way. I also beat the arcade version of Super Punch-Out!! shortly before achieving this, as well, which means that I've beaten every single Punch-Out!! game.

My conclusion on the series:
1. Super Punch-Out!! (1994, SNES)
2. Punch-Out!! (2009, Wii)
3. Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! (1987, NES) / Punch-Out!! featuring Mr. Dream (1990, NES)
4. Punch-Out!! (1984, arcade)
5. Super Punch-Out!! (1984, arcade)

They're all great, of course—probably Nintendo's most consistent series, honestly—but the two original arcade games are definitely rough around the edges. The NES game, whether you're playing the Mike Tyson version or the Mr. Dream version, is an all-time classic that is going to be extremely fucking difficult to play if you don't have a good television. I have a laggy flatscreen television without a game mode, so the fact that I was able to beat the game, let alone play it in any capacity, is kind of a miracle. The SNES game is my personal favorite. It has the widest variety of opponents and a lot of cool mechanics at play that make each fight feel like a real fair fight (apart from all the illegal moves your opponents throw around). No fight ever feels completely one-sided in anybody's favor, and just like the arcade versions, there is no round system to steal anyone's TKO. It's a raw test of skill. The Wii game, objectively speaking, probably should be considered the best one, because it kind of is, but I still slightly prefer the SNES game's implementation of some of the better mechanics otherwise found only in the arcade games—plus, I find the opponents more interesting.

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Kirby's Dream Land 3 (1997) - 7/10
Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards (2000) - 7/10
: Kirby 64 recently got added to NSO's N64 service, so I thought I'd check that out after playing Dream Land 3, its immediate predecessor, given that I've already beaten all the other Kirby games leading up to these ones. I don't have a lot to say about them—they're just good, old-fashioned, fun little platformers. Dream Land 3 has you experimenting with powered-up abilities given to you by six different animal friends you can partner up with, and Kirby 64 lets you power up your abilities by fusing two of them together. In both games, you only get to fight the true final boss if you collect every heart star or crystal shard in the game, most of which will require you to experiment with all sorts of unique ability combos to find. Some of these collectibles are fun, creative, and clever. Others are stupid, cryptic, and annoying. Regardless, like finishing a jigsaw puzzle, completing the process is quite satisfying—I just don't know if I'll ever come back to these games again.

If I had to pick which game I like better, it would probably be Kirby 64, but Dream Land 3 is one of the prettiest looking SNES games I've ever seen (which makes sense, given how it was the final first party Nintendo game to be released for the system).

The next Kirby game I'd play is Amazing Mirror, but I'm not gonna consider that "urgent," or anything. There's a lot of other things I'd rather be playing right now than another Kirby, so that one can wait a while.

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Yoshi's Story (1997) - 5/10
: Yoshi's Island is one of my favorite games of all time, but unfortunately, this one didn't do a lot for me, especially as a direct follow-up. They definitely tried something different with this game, and I can respect and appreciate that. Although there are twenty-four levels, you only get to play six of them over the course of the game, so no two playthroughs will end up looking alike (unless you want them to). Levels don't "end" in the traditional way by having you reach some sort of goalpost—instead, levels end as soon as Yoshi eats exactly thirty of the fruits scattered bountifully across each level. If you only eat one specific kind of fruit, it'll take much longer, but you'll make Yoshi happier (which scores you more points).

That's all well and good, but I have never given a shit about scoring points in any video game I've ever played—I basically just play games to beat them, and to experience the story, if there happens to be one. I played enough of this game to see every level in the game at least one time, but my playstyle focused around eating the first thirty fruits I saw—a pretty boring and easy experience that I could make harder on myself by only focusing on a single kind of fruit, but that creates this weird dilemma in my mind, where I feel like I'm just "filling in" for the game's entertainment value, which is something that I consider to be the game's responsibility, not mine.

I don't know if that makes sense, but I basically just don't enjoy the sensation of putting a lot of work and effort into making a game more fun, because I think games should just be fun on their own, without my help. On its own, Yoshi's Story is kind of a dull mess of awkward, unsatisfying controls and incredibly messy level design. I appreciate the experimentation, I really do—but I think there's a good reason why they never really returned to this style of gameplay—because it just doesn't really work.

I haven't heard too many good things about any of the Yoshi games that would follow this one, unfortunately, so this will probably be the last game in the series that I play for a long time.

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Double Dragon (1987) - 3/5
: I had this idea recently where I'd watch every single movie adapted from a video game for the purpose of ranking them, but before I'd commit to doing such a stupid thing, I'd want to familiarize myself with the source material of every video game that ever got a film adaptation. Double Dragon happened to be the oldest one on the list.

As a rule, I don't really like beat 'em up games—and while Double Dragon may not be the first example of one, it's commonly cited as the game that put the genre on the map. I obviously wasn't expecting this ancient-ass game to change my perspective on the genre entirely, but in case you were wondering, it certainly didn't. It is a thoroughly brainless experience—which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it's just not quite for me, and I don't have much else to say about it other than that.

I'm sure the movie is spectacular, though.

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Ice Climber (1984) - 2/5
: I define "beating" Ice Climber as making it to the summit (not necessarily the peak) of all 32 mountains, and because the game allows you to choose which mountain to start on on the title screen, I opted to use this function as an unlimited continue system—otherwise, I would never have the patience to beat this game with the small number of lives they give you.

This game sucks. I know it's almost forty years old, but I don't care. I really, really hate how it feels to jump in this game, and that's a pretty big problem when that's the only thing that you do. It's horrible. That said, I kind of wish Nintendo would make another one, though. If Kid Icarus can get another one, I'm not sure why Ice Climber can't. They could actually make it good this time.

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What I'm gonna try to play for next month: Mega Man Legends, Cave Story, Star Fox 64, Tomb Raider, MGS2, TLoZ: Oracle of Seasons, Doom, F-Zero X, Sonic Adventure, and Wing Commander.

2022 update

Complete:
Duke Nukem Time to kill

To-do, sorted by nearest to completion:
Assassin's Creed 1
Area 51 (PS2)
Fallout 4
Fallout 2
Bully
Resident Evil 1

My god is AssCreed 1 boring. How did a sequel get greenlit in the first place? I can only play it in short bursts. Its best when you are progressing the story but I feel like there is too much padding with the dang tower climbing.

My backlog mainly consists of fighting games that I keep saying, "Man I should play some [game] today," and then never do, mainly because their online is dead or garbage.

got myself a Trinitron (very cool and based CRT TV) so kinda keen to get to work on my old school games backlog. Got a tonne of  6th-7th gen games I wanna get to work on.

If other games are anything like this, I do not want to go near another asscreed game ever again..

2 was basically the same cycle of boredom just with some little improvements to the parkour system

I quit it halfway through just like the first game and never touched the series again

Quote from: FatherlyNick - fuck putin on December 20, 2022, 03:26:14 PM

To-do, sorted by nearest to completion:
Area 51 (PS2)
Fallout 4
Fallout 2
Bully
Resident Evil 1

i plan to play fallout 4 sometime. i completed 3 a few days ago, and i loved it along with new vegas a while back. fallout 4 goty (that comes w/ all the dlc) is on sale for $10, so i might pick it up to play god knows when

I accidentally started an add-on mission (Far Harbor). I think I have like 70 hours logged and I'm just at the Detective valentine quest and now I have to do everything on this damn island...
F4 is nice but I miss the bigger dialogue trees. Now all you get are four options.

Quote from: alphy on December 21, 2022, 12:48:14 PM

Quote from: FatherlyNick - fuck putin on December 20, 2022, 03:26:14 PM

To-do, sorted by nearest to completion:
Area 51 (PS2)
Fallout 4
Fallout 2
Bully
Resident Evil 1

i plan to play fallout 4 sometime. i completed 3 a few days ago, and i loved it along with new vegas a while back. fallout 4 goty (that comes w/ all the dlc) is on sale for $10, so i might pick it up to play god knows when

I accidentally started an add-on mission (Far Harbor). I think I have like 70 hours logged and I'm just at the Detective valentine quest and now I have to do everything on this damn island...
F4 is nice but I miss the bigger dialogue trees. Now all you get are four options.

yea, ive heard fallout 4 is a mixed bag, especially to those who played the earlier ones. i still wanna give it a chance though

As far as my gamering goes, 2022 was a year of extremes for me—I discovered some of the best games I've ever played, some of the worst games I've ever played, and some of the hardest games I've ever beaten (SO many, actually—I was really testing my limits on that front). I tried to match the number of games I beat last year (75), and I basically succeeded—but I still haven't gotten around to playing even half the stuff I really wanted to dive into. The backlog truly never dies, I guess.

One thing I tried to do in 2022 was beat at least one RPG per month—which wound up being a failure. I only managed to finish seven (or eight, if you count Pokémon Legends: Arceus, which I personally don't). My ongoing playthrough of EarthBound has been on hold for months—I want to love it, but it's honestly just not really grabbing me. Turns out, it's just a genre that burns me out pretty easily. The fact that I was even able to finish the amount that I did is kind of insane.

I'm happy to say I've become invested in several franchises I had never fully dipped my toes in before until last year, including Metal Gear Solid, Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Darkstalkers, and Persona (to an extent). Even Banjo-Kazooie wound up surprising me a lot this year—I really expected to loathe that game.

On top of all this, I've finally acquired a PS5, as well, so that should give me a great excuse to catch up on some modern titles, as well—I'm looking at you, Elden Ring.

Oh, and a word on my rating system—I think I've gone over all this before, but just in case anyone was wondering:

1. The number out of 10 itself is simply a reflection of how fun the game is for me to play—but a "bad" video game can still possess some redeeming qualities that transcend the rating I can personally justify giving it as a video game alone. For example, I wouldn't consider either game in the Persona 2 duology to be very fun to play—hence, I gave them a 4/10 and a 3/10, respectively, as games. However, the fact that they have such cool music, such lovable characters, and such an awesome storyline (albeit an extremely over-the-top and anime-esque one), I feel comfortable ranking these games above some other games that I gave higher scores, simply because they happen to excel in areas beyond their capacity to be fun video games. Hopefully that makes sense?

This also works the other way around—where I'll rank a good game that I've given a 7/10, like Rayman, under some games that I've given a 6/10, simply because Rayman, while in many ways a great game, was also one of the most torturously difficult experiences I've ever had in my life. It's a way for me to knock the game down a peg or two without actually giving it a lower rating, because I feel like it's important for me to acknowledge just how miserable the game made me, in spite of how well-made it is. If I just dropped it to a 6/10 because it's a hard game, that would make me feel like a salty bitch—which I am, but I don't necessarily need that to be reflected in my ratings, which I try to make as fair as possible while still expressing my genuine feelings.

2. I choose to rate sufficiently old games for primitive systems, like the NES or Game Boy, on a different scale than I do for games released after 1990, when the Super Nintendo came out (because that's the point where, for my money, the "book" of game design had officially been written). Since these games are so simple, I prefer to rate them out of 5, rather than 10, to reflect the debatable notion that it's fundamentally unfair to rate games made on these platforms against the standards of today—even if I do believe some of them can still hold their own (Castlevania I and III come to mind). To put it another way, it's harder for me to justify giving a game like Kirby's Block Ball a 6/10, 7/10, or 8/10 rating when a 4/5 seems more fitting. It's a small game for a small system, and it knows it. It doesn't try to accomplish much or bite off more than it can chew, because there's a hard limit on what it's able to accomplish in the first place. Therefore, it gets the simpler rating system. I hope that seems fair.

got myself a Trinitron (very cool and based CRT TV) so kinda keen to get to work on my old school games backlog. Got a tonne of  6th-7th gen games I wanna get to work on.

gotta enable the scan lines and put it at 144hz and it’s so worth it

those indie games that try to look retro really shine once you have on those scan lines and they’re so snappy on a 144hz CRT

i was kind of put off from that style because pixel art isn’t interesting to me (seems like a relic that’s just simple and lazy to do) but once you have a set up where the game could fool you into actually being old school it’s like a blast from past and they’re actually better than the real classics

Fallout 2 complete.

Oooh boy. I should have played it towards the end of my backlog.
Its best taken slow in order to get a chance to explore the world and complete the many-many quests. At least now I know more about the Enclave and their backstory.

Next up: Prey (the Arkane one)