The 1000 Games I've Beaten (#551 - 569)

 

#551 Assassin's Creed: Rogue (Playstation 3) – Winter 2015

Kind of an oddball game because it was the series stepping back to "last gen" one more time, for whatever reason. This ended up being one of the best games in the series and serves as a good sequel to Assassin's Creed IV (one of the best in the series, as well). This is a departure from the norm of the series and has you playing as a Templar instead of an Assassin. I'm not sure which is better between this and ACIV, but I can say they're likely the best one-two punch of games in the entire series.

Toughest Part: The battle with the Stalkers. A bunch of stealthy female assassins who turn your own killing methods against you, leaping out of bails of hay and going for one-shot kills.

#552 Pokemon Black (Nintendo DS) – Winter 2015

For me, late Gen 4 into Gen 5 Pokemon is the best Pokemon ever got. Pokemon Platinum, Pokemon HG/SS, Pokemon B/W and Pokemon B/W2 are a four-peat of some of the best games in the entire series. None of them remotely miss. At this point in time I was pretty far removed from both Gen 1 and Gen 4, the only ones I'd played in the past, and with Gen 7 coming up I decided to catch up thanks to my new-ish 3DS. This meant going out and picking up Black, Black 2, and Pokemon X and plowing through 'em.

If I remember right, this one is more of a traditional RPG with a story narrative, dungeons, etc, while the sequel is more of a traditional Pokemon game with more of a focus on battles, gyms, collecting, etc. Same province of the world, same starters, different protagonists and areas though.

Starter of Choice: Oshawott (Water) is a rad sea otter, and good for the entire game. Unlike what usually happens in these games, the Grass-type starter is actually worse in the early to mid game while getting better later. Usually the opposite.

#553 Pokemon Black 2 (Nintendo DS) – Winter 2015

Was a lot less into this one than the previous one, for whatever reason. Maybe it was Poke-burnout, or maybe it just wasn't as good. It has little to do with the previous game outside of being in the same part of the world. If I remember right, this game is much more of a standard Pokemon game that doesn't take risks. Or maybe it's the other way around and Black 1 is the one that was all of these things... yeah, my memory's hazy at this point in general so it's going to be difficult to give the next bunch of entries the coverage they deserve.

Starter of Choice: Oshawott again. Same trio as the previous game, surprisingly. That's the only time the series has ever repeated starters from game to game, but I suppose that's why it's a sequel and not an entirely new gen.

#554 Kirby's Triple Deluxe (Nintendo 3DS) – Winter 2015

Took a break from Pokemon to check out a 3DS Kirby game that I'd missed, as the Nintendo catch up a thon continued. Later in this post I'll get a Wii U and start playing catch-up on that system too. As for this game...it's a basic Kirby game, but it looks very nice. This series is at home on handhelds.

#555 Kirby's Epic Yarn (Wii) – Winter 2015

Another missed Kirby game. This is one that I didn't like, because it didn't make much use of the yarn aesthetic and was so easy that the game very quickly stopped meaning anything. It was just sort of there, I played it in 2 hours or so, and brought it back to the Gamestop to get something else because there was nothing left to do with it. I've said it before, but Yoshi's Wooly World for the Wii U is a way better yarn game because it actually has challenge and gameplay... and feeling in its limbs.

Toughest Part: Pressing the power button to turn the game on.

#556 Pokemon X (Nintendo 3DS) – Winter 2015

Back to Pokemon to finish up with some Gen 6, which has what might be the cutest female protagonist in the entire series. Pokemon X felt like a step down from Gen 5 in everything except visuals (the 3DS visuals were sharp and colorful). The complexity was way down, the challenge was down, and the gameplay had slowed down again. Don't remember this one being that well-recieved in general, but we'd get a series resurgence with Pokemon Sun/Moon in a couple years. What happened to Pokemon Z, though? Why'd they just stop making those definitive third versions after Pokemon Platinum?

Starter of Choice: Fennekin (Fire). That's right, my usual starter type Fire comes roaring back for this one after dropping Gen 5 to Water. Will Grass' day ever come?

#557 Far Cry: Blood Dragon (Playstation 3) – Winter 2015

Basically a love letter to all things 1980s. For a long time, this was the best Terminator game out there. And it isn't even a Terminator game! It's a ridiculous spinoff full of 1980's references, lasers, and synth. It's got all the Terminator weapons, a main character who looks just like Kyle Reese (voiced by Michael Biehn, no less), and a future war type landscape with cyborg soldiers running around. Wasn't until Terminator Resistance a half decade later that we got a better Terminator game than this. I just enjoyed the hell out of it, and it was the last thing I played on my old HDTV before getting a new one.

#558 The Order: 1886 (Playstation 4) – Spring 2015

This was the game that prompted me to get a 4K TV and finally pursue as high-res as I could get. The game wasn't exactly great or anything but it sure looked nice. It's only a few hours long and has some very basic gameplay, but it functions well as a PS4 tech demo. The Victorian cityscape is quite detailed and even things as basic as streetlamps are impressive to look at. People who paid full price for this have my sympathies when they finished the game in the same afternoon (and it has like, no replay value), but I probably got it from the library or a Redbox and had a good time for the few hours it lasted. And yeah, I switched TVs mid-game and marveled at the wonders of a 4K TV. Little did I know that the REAL stunning visuals were found in OLED TVs, which I'd jump to a couple years later.

#559 Assassin's Creed: Unity (Playstation 4) – Spring 2015

This was the other game I was in the middle of playing when I got the new 4K TV. Another visually-impressive game that re-creates a certain place and time with some stunning detail. I really liked this game, the protagonist, and his incredible red-haired girlfriend (also an assassin). Best series protagonists since Ezio, easily. However, the game had a lot of glitches when it launched (which I totally missed all of somehow) so it became in-vogue to dump on it for a while. If one wants to take in 1789 Paris, there's no better game to do it in.

Favorite Character: Elise de la Serre, who REALLY should have been playable. If not the main character outright. Arno is a great main character, but he's basically Ezio 2.0. We've done it all before. Elise on the other hand is a formidable redhead who is both a deadly fighter and exceedingly feminine while doing it. She's a vision.

What Does Her Name Mean?: "De la Serre" means, literally, "of the greenhouse". Which is odd and I think I'm missing something here. "Serre" by itself can also mean "tight". So it could be "Elise the tight". Though that would be "Elise du Serre" if I'm not mistaken. God, she's so hot either way. Arno is the luckiest man in the series.

#560 Assassin's Creed: Liberation (Playstation 3) – Spring 2015

A PSP spinoff game repurposed into an HD PS3 game, this one was seriously lacking compared to the main series games (as PSP spinoffs tended to be, unfortunately). The setting was very two-dimensional and lacked the heights of the others, both figuratively and literally (good luck finding any tall buildings to climb in old-school New Orleans). The setting is another fun one to live in and explore, at least, with the bayou and everything that went along with New Orleans of a few hundred years ago.

It's also, seven games in, the first AC game to have a female protagonist with former slave Aveline. Too bad we only got this character for a PSP spinoff and not a main series game (and previously-mentioned uber-character Elise was RIGHT THERE in the far more significant Unity, too). They would finally let a woman take the helm in AC Syndicate and Odyssey not too long after this, but only in shared top billing.

#561 Kick Master (NES) – Spring 2015

Really not sure what an NES game is doing dropped into the middle of 2015 here. I got a post out of it though, which is cool because at this point in time I wasn't really getting posts out of anything else I was playing. KICK MASTA!

Post HERE. I really made the most of this opportunity too, it's probably one of my more fun NES game posts.

#562 Far Cry 3 (Playstation 3) – Spring 2015

My love of the Far Cry series was short-lived, but strong while it lasted. I really, really got into both Far Cry 3 and 4 around this timeframe. Even though the PS3 was getting dated by this point, especially on newer bigger TVs, Far Cry 3 tells such a great story and has such a sprawling island setting that it doesn't even matter what system it's on. Both games also have incredible villains and storytelling. It's basically a first-person shooter / open-world survival game that combines a few genres but ultimately comes down to you going around blasting bad guys and capturing bases until you've conquered the whole land.

#563 Super Mario 3D World (Wii U) – Spring 2015

While Super Mario 3D Land was a fairly basic 3D platformer set over a lot of generic levels, this game is more of a fairly basic 2.75D platformer set over a lot of generic levels. No star-collecting or expansive levels you play repeatedly here. Most of the levels are point A to point B with a quasi top-down view. It's a fun time, especially if played in multiplayer. It supports up to four people, which is the biggest standout element here.

Favorite Powerup: The Cat Suit, which I believe debuted here, and lets you scurry up walls.

#564 Final Fantasy Record Keeper (Android) – Spring 2015

Hard to call this a "beaten game" because it was an ongoing platform of a game (sort of like an MMO) that got content additions for years. I played it on and off (and continued "beating the game") from like 2015 to 2019. It was a lot of fun to fight through boss rosters from the old FF games (and bounce between them as they all slowly got content added to them). Unfortunately none of the games got their final bosses added (or even their last few bosses) during the time I was playing this. Hopefully that happened before the game got shut down.

Party of Choice: Orlandu, Ramza, Agrias, Cecil, Tyro (the main dude of this game, though sometimes I'd replace him with someone else, like Ovelia here). This was very much a Holy element centered group. Tyro's Sentinel Grimoire would heavily boost the party's defense, Ramza's Shout was a huge attack buff, Agrias' Holy Explosion would greatly lower the Holy defense of all enemies, and Orlandu/Cecil would dish out massive Holy-element attacks. Generally I'd do my best to burn down bosses before any of the above effects wore off, and obviously made heavy use of Limit Breaks (everything mentioned above was a Limit Break). Once I burned through all of my tricks, if the boss was still standing, I'd usually need to put in a real effort to secure the win. This all worked really well until it didn't.

Path of Least Resistance: Turning the game speed down to the lowest level is a must, since you'd lose a ton of turn time while entering commands otherwise. Enemies tended to relentlessly attack, so you wanted to give them as little time to do that as possible.

Least-Liked Aspect: As the game went on, the battles got more and more ridiculous. They kept adding special event battles, higher difficulty tiers, and so forth that tended to be astronomically difficult battles that could only be won in very specific ways. After a while it stopped being fun at all. The game is at its best when you can just use whatever characters you want, experiment with strategies, and have normal FF boss fights that aren't puzzle boxes.

What Were They Thinking: Shutting this game down, when by all accounts it was still doing pretty well and had plenty of devoted players. Games that can just sort of end when the developers decide to stop supporting them... are probably the future and it's a really dark apocalyptic future. I'd rather always be able to revisit something, the way you can with most media. I think the gaming industry is dying a bit in general and moving entirely towards nostalgia and remakes rather than creating anything new of worth, but that's a whole other topic.

Post HERE.

#565 Fable 2 (Xbox 360) – Spring 2015

Fixed a lot of what I didn't like about the first, was a big step up in general. Never played Fable 3, and that era's passed now. I wish I could remember more about Fable 2 and the playthrough, but like many things from 2015, I'm drawing a huge blank now. I remember liking it a lot more than the first Fable, probably because there isn't a giant line leading you by the hand through the entire game this time.

#566 New Super Mario Bros U (Wii U) – Spring 2015

Another NSMB game. I've made no secret of how I'm not really into the NSMB series, as much as I would like to be. I wish they hadn't used the same engine over and over again for all of them. Like most of the rest, there wasn't much challenge to be found here, and I blew through it in an afternoon and evening. Was a fun afternoon and evening, at least.

#567 New Super Luigi U (Wii U) – Spring 2015

A second quest of sorts, with the difficulty turned WAY up. It's a lot like the Japanese SMB2 in that regard. I enjoyed this game considerably more than the previous one, because it was the first 2D Mario game since the SNES era (Yoshi's Island, really) to actually give me a significant challenge and make me work for my level clears. It was a breath of fresh air in that regard. Luigi soars with his jumps, which makes them a little more challenging to master.

Favorite Part: I liked skipping as much of levels as I could with giant moon-jumps where I'd hope to land on something stable at the other end.

#568 Far Cry 4 (Playstation 4) – Spring 2015

The sequel to the criminally-underrated Far Cry 3, this is a similar game that puts you in a hostile environment with a zillion objectives and things to do. While Far Cry 3 was based on an island, dealing with cartels and smugglers, this game takes place in a secluded region of the Himalayas and has you dealing with a charismatic dictator and his murderous legion of Red Guards. Like the previous game, the villain is the best part of this. Super-memorable character with some great dialogue, who is legitimately scary to deal with at times. While I never played the first two (too antiquated and archaic now), the commonality of Far Cry 3/4/5/6 is that they all have excellent, charismatic villains that you remember long after the story ends.

#569 Axiom Verge (Playstation 4) - Summer 2015

This 2D indy game was developed by one guy. That's right, one guy. A lot of soul went into it, and the guy's personal traumas and emotions bleed through onto the screen in a way that stuck with me. It's a clone of the early Metroid games (mainly the first one) with stylized graphics that look like something between 8-bit and 16-bit. 12-bit?

You find items that give you increased powers and mobility, while exploring a map that fills in as you go. It's very creepy, very sci-fi, very...Metroid. Right down to lots of bubbles in the walls, which harkens back to that first NES game. Five minutes in, this game manages to capture "mysterious alien world" better than most AAA games even begin to.

Favorite Tune: The first main "overworld" theme. What a great track, really feels like the beginning of a new Metroid adventure. Best Metroidvania "setting out" theme since Metroid 2's surface theme, and the main thing I fondly remember about Axiom Verge.