#536 Rez (Playstation 2) – Fall 2014
Unique game here that is one part on-rails flight shooter and one part music-based experience. It isn't too long (five stages IIRC) but it's so good that you'll remember those five stages for years. It's hard to describe why this game is so potent, and those who have played it know. It's pretty unique too, spiritual successor (though not as great) Child of Eden is the only other game like it that I know of.
Rez has gotten an HD remake in more recent years so there's no reason not to give this one a spin. It's one of those rare games that gets mentioned in reverent tones by the people who played it while not being any sort of smash hit either. The very definition of "cult classic" in that way.
Toughest Part: The final boss. Much like its spiritual successor Child of Eden, this game has a ridiculously tough final boss that took me many many tries to defeat (after cruising through the rest of the game).
Favorite Tune: The first level theme, which starts things with a bang. This track encapsulates the whole mood of the game.
Post HERE.
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#537 Contra 4 (Nintendo DS) – Fall 2014
A solid revival of the series that builds on Contra III. One really cool thing about this game is how it uses both screens and you can move between them, making for very tall levels and a unique look. The boss designs are great, and everything has "oomph" here. Probably the best game in the series, and a heavy inspiration behind the recent Terminator 2-D game.
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Scariest Moment: Hey Kids! Want to see a giant terminator relentlessly clawing towards you in a confined space?
Post HERE.
#538 Super Princess Peach (Nintendo DS) – Fall 2014
This was well on its way to being one of my favorite "Mario series" games. You play as Toadstool (aka Peach) and go through a ton of interesting levels. It plays like a pretty normal Mario game and Toadstool can't glide at the top of jumps like she can in SMB2. Instead she has all kinds of new glides, like floating down slowly using a parasol. It's a fun and quirky game. Unfortunately they flubbed it at the end.
What Were They Thinking?: In order to go into the final level, you have to have found all the collectibles in the rest of the game. Usually this kind of thing is reserved for a secret level or world, not the final level of the main game. This was an uncharacteristically big fumble for a Nintendo game, and caused the game to go on for a few hours longer than it really needed to (and annoy me). If it had just progressed normally to the final level it would have ended at just the right time and gotten high marks.
#539 Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Wii) – Winter 2014
This is a similar tale of the tape to me finally getting to Seiken Densetsu 3 right before it. I had this at the tip-top of my "things to play" list for years, and when I finally got to it I found myself disappointed. It's a similar game to Ocarina of Time, with dungeons and artifacts, which is what I want in a Zelda game. However, there were some pacing issues and a general overbearing brown-ness to the game (common for the late 2000's in gaming). The game also really wanted to be "dark" and went overboard pretending to be. Majora's Mask is ten times darker than this game and didn't need to pretend or try hard to do it. So for various reasons this game kinda got on my nerves. I wish I'd enjoyed it more, because it was the last real traditional 3D Zelda.
Favorite Dungeon: Snowpeak Ruins. This was a very nice break from the look of the rest of the game. It's got the same vibe as the snow dungeon in Majora's Mask which I was also a big fan of. Throw in lots of puzzles, a collection mission, and a couple of NPCs you have to reunite in a heartwarming scene.
Favorite Item: The Spinner you get from Arbiter's Grounds. Basically the Spider Ball from the Metroid series if the Spider Ball was a skateboard. This was so much fun, even if it was only situationally usable.
Favorite Boss: Stallord, the boss of Arbiter's Grounds, largely because it makes heavy use of the Spinner during the fight. Super-fun battle and the main thing I remember liking during the playthrough.
What Were They Thinking: You finally get to swing Link's sword via Wiimote, which was half the selling point of the system at the time... and they make you spend most of the first 3-4 hours of the game with Link transformed into a wolf. This just goes on and ON with you doing collecting and busywork as a wolf, trying to get it all done so you can actually get back to playing as Link. It made me irritated with the game from the get-go and there was certainly a better way to integrate Wolf Link, if they needed to do that. If they were going to do effectively a second playable character for some parts of the game, I'd have rather played as...
Side Note: Zelda is absolutely gorgeous in this game, and probably my favorite version of Zelda in the entire series. She can use a sword (and wields a very cool one) and is elegant.
#540 Ultimate NES Remix (Nintendo 3DS) – Winter 2014
A combination of the two previous "NES Remix" games, combining them into one big one that keeps all the most fun stuff and drops some of the less-fun stuff. This could almost be counted as two games, but yeah, I'll just keep it at one. Really wish I could remember this better and go a bit more in-depth on it, like which minigames I liked the most and so forth. I just remember having a great time with it. In 2014, all of this NES nostalgia still felt very novel. This was pre-Switch Online and pre-NES Classic.
#541 Dungeons and Dragons: Tower of Doom (Playstation 3) – Winter 2014
A super-fun arcade beat 'em up that I wish there was more of. I've mentioned how much I liked King of Dragons on the SNES, and this is the best thing I've found since then for scratching that itch. It even has the same general set of characters as KoD.
Favorite Character: Lucia the Elf
#542 Dungeons and Dragons: Shadow Over Mystara (Playstation 3) – Winter 2014
More of the same, basically Part 2 of the previous game, only with improved graphics and effects. Was another super-fun romp that I just wished there was more of. I finished both of these games inside of one afternoon of playing.
Favorite Character: Lucia the Elf
#543 Dr. Mario (NES) – Winter 2014
Not sure what the criteria is for beating a puzzle game like this, but it's on the list as a beaten game, so here it is. I'd always had a weird fascination with this game since I watched my babysitter play it back in the 90's. Surprised it took me until 2014 to get to finally playing it. For whatever reason, 2014 was a bit of an explosion of me playing through things that had been "on the list" for a long time. I had a huge amount of free time that year, so a lot of things got done. To this day it's still probably the record year for amount of games finished, which is why it's taken a bunch of posts now just to get through 2014.
As for Dr. Mario, I definitely prefer Tetris over this if I'm going to reach for a puzzle game, but I can see why this game was so well-liked back in the day. It's colorful and fun to mess around with for a few hours. My babysitter really liked it in short doses, though she was more of a Super Mario Bros 3 gal.
#544 Front Mission (Super Famicom) – Winter 2014
The first of this series and the one I still like the best. Considering how much I like Tactics games, the FM series can get pretty tedious and slow. This first game had interesting artwork, vibes, and everything else. It being a Japan-only SNES game made it forbidden fruit in the mid-90's, as well. It stood out for being so futuristic compared to other RPGs of that era, with a dark storyline, mature characters, and giant mechs.
Path of Least Resistance: Equip your wanzers with shotguns in both hands, and focus on the Short stat (i.e. short-range weapons) when equipping them. Make sure CPUs and the like always boost that stat specifically. Play the game until your characters start sparking the Duel and Switch abilities. Duel lets you target a specific body part (to go for quick wins) while Switch lets that wanzer attack with both shotguns in one round. By the 30% mark of the story you'll have at least a couple of wanzers with both Duel and Switch, and even just a couple of them is enough to mow down most of the enemies while your others clean up stragglers. It's that OP.
Posts HERE.
#545 Dragon Quest (Super Famicom) – Winter 2015
A remake of the original, using the DQV graphics engine, which is a super-appealing visual engine. Needless to say I was really into this, and wouldn't have minded seeing more SNES remakes in this theme. A SNES DQIV? That would have been awesome, and made the first six all available on one system. Regardless, this is a game I can't go wrong with and I've played a bunch of versions of it now, all of which I consider to be different enough from each other to be different games.
If it came down to it, this might be my preferred way to play DQ overall. Obviously the new HD version is much prettier and higher-QOL, but as far as the original experience/feeling goes, this Super Famicom version is still pretty much tops. It doesn't make any mistakes and it captures the vibe of the NES version while being significantly easier on the eyes.
Path of Least Resistance: This game doesn't pre-determine much of anything. So on emulator, there's nothing stopping you from save-stating your way to the Axe Knight at level 1, then winning the fight by saving every turn and reloading until he casts Sleep and misses. For a much easier time, you could just do this once you have Stopspell and then all of his Sleeps will be wasted turns (plus it'll take a lot less time). But either way, it can be done at level 1, it'll just take like a half hour to whittle him down. From there, you'll have Erdrick Armor from level 1, the very beginning of the game. Which means strong HP regen in the field and a pretty fun romp through the game. Make a backup save and go have a ball.
Toughest Part: Axe Knight. After all these years I still always try to fight him early to get that game-changing loot, and he's still an absolute beast under those circumstances.
Post HERE.
#546 Dragon Quest II (Super Famicom) – Winter 2015
Another remake in the DQV engine. This is a game I'm back and forth with. Sometimes it's my least-favorite game in the series (besides VII, which is slow, bland, and has no Earthly idea when to end). Other times I like it more than the first and appreciate it for a variety of reasons. Particularly like the simple-yet-interesting party you get for this one. You have a physical powerhouse with Midenhall, a magical expert with Moonbrooke, and a Goof-Off with Cannock.
This version doesn't really have anything new over the NES version, outside of the visuals. It doesn't need anything new, though. Finding the boat, revisiting Alefgard, dealing with the challenge of Rhone Cave, and level-grinding in the snow are all just as memorable here as they were on the NES. However I can't call this my favorite version of DQII anymore when the new remake adds so much story and characterization. DQII was in sore need of some attention.
Toughest Part: Still Cave to Rhone. Not really any good level-up spots leading up to that, and the cave itself is brutal. However you're rewarded with Rhone Plateau where the EXP skyrockets and you've got infinite free heals at the shrine. Which leads me to...
Favorite Part: The endgame level grind of DQ2 in the snow area might be my favorite level grind of any game ever. I mean that legitimately. I can't think of any other specific level grind in any other specific game that I actually look forward to doing and have warm fuzzy feelings about.
Post HERE.
#547 Ducktales Remastered (Playstation 3) – Winter 2015
Another remake, this one of the NES classic with modern (for 2015) visuals). This was a total blast to play and I wish the other Capcom/Disney NES games had gotten remakes like this. Basically, it's the same game as on the NES, only with widescreen and nice visuals, but otherwise the same gameplay and levels. It's definitely over too quickly, but other than that it was a good time. Which reminds me, I definitely need to go through Disney Afternoon Collection at some point. That, Totally Rad, and Crystalis are the main things I'm still missing a playthrough of from the NES library. Pretty much played everything else of note.
#548 Donkey Kong (Game Boy) – Winter 2015
This one was a huge 100-stage beast of a game. Some stages were over quick, others took me a while to figure out. Considering it started as just a quick thing to try between other projects, I spent a ton of time playing this on and off throughout 2014. It's near the top of a lot of people's Game Boy lists and serves as a precursor to the Mario Vs Donkey Kong series. This was definitely the biggest thing left on the system that I hadn't played at all by this point in time, and lurked within the shadow of Super Metroid when it dropped in mid-1994.
Did I mention how long this ended up being? I was "working on" this one for like ten months. Only downside to it was how the game just refused to end, and it got to where I was trying to knock out one level a day. There were legitimately a hundred levels. Definitely one of those "continue going back to it just to beat the game" sunk cost situations where after a while I was very much done with the game but kept going back to it to "get it finished". It's a great game, in any case.
#549 Ico HD (Playstation 3) – Winter 2015
I liked Shadow of the Colossus, so here's its predecessor. One of the last things I played on my 47'' LED HDTV before upgrading to a 55'' 4K OLED, which became my go-to henceforth (nowadays I've moved up to 65'' OLED, which is great but gaming hasn't totally caught up to it yet). Ico is one of those cult classics with a small but devoted fanbase, and I can see why. Much like Colossus, this has a lot of heart. I played this entirely to see what came before Colossus, which made an impression on me in 2010. Unfortunately, I can't say I enjoyed this a whole lot. As far as I remember, most of the game is an escort mission, and escort missions are one of my least favorite game mechanics. Even when it's endemic to the story like this is. Good game, just not something I personally loved.
#550 Metro: Last Light (Playstation 3) – Winter 2015
Probably the best-looking PS3 game I ever played. I mean this game was like PS3.5. Full 1080p, tons of detail, vivid colors, everything stood out. As for the rest of it, it's a memorable first-person adventure where you're exploring post-apocalyptic Russia in an effort to protect the remnants of civilization while it gets back on its feet. The game is based on a novel, and tells a damn good story. Some amazing environments in this one, like windswept abandoned train tracks, rainy swamps full of dangers, and so forth. Did I mention how good this game looked? It was a great thing for the PS3 to start to go out on, as far as me getting much use out of the system goes. The PS3 was pretty much on the way out at this point.
Fun Fact: This was actually the second game in a trilogy. A damn good trilogy. The first one, Metro 2033, was on PC and XBox 360, so I missed that one. Got to it later when it got a PS4 remaster. Then there was Metro Exodus, the last one, which got a bit more attention than the others. Really un-sung trilogy, in any case, and the Russia setting was very different from the usual Western-centric or Japan-centric games when it comes to apocalyptic, civilization-rebuilding scenarios.
Next up: 2015 gets under way as I catch up on Pokemon, Assassin's Creed, and get a Wii U.
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