The 1000 Games I've Beaten (#736 - 756)

#736 Valkyria Chronicles 4 (Switch) – Fall 2018

All I played from this series were the first and fourth games; not sure if I missed much by skipping the portable entries. One and four were both solid enough, with nice hand-drawn graphics and Hitoshi Sakimoto music which is always a huge plus for me. Don't recall too much about this, and what I do recall, I'm not certain if it's from the first game or this one.

Toughest Part...in either this or VC1: The blue-haired super-woman that you have to snipe from a distance...I think she was in the first game, actually

Ranking Every AEW World Championship Reign: August 2019 - August 2026

 

The AEW World Championship (more recently the AEW Men's World Championship) has had one of the better, and more protected, lineages of any modern wrestling title. The first several years of that lineage were near-perfect and the title has remained prestigious ever since; being the sole World Title in the organization means that it's the undisputed top prize. Ten men have held this title - eleven if you count Bret Hart bringing the title out to begin with - and all of them were top tier talents in the industry. Today I'll be ranking these guys, and the rich history of title reigns in the company's short history.

Current champion as of press time (shortly before All In 2026) - Kenny Omega (2nd reign)

Gradius Gaiden (Playstation, 1997)

 

This game is hands-down the best Gradius series game I've ever played, and at this point I've played pretty much all of them. It was only released in Japan, making it basically the Rondo of Blood of this series, and for some inexplicable reason it has never been put on any of the Gradius collections since then (besides the now-obscure PSP one). Hardly anyone seems to know about it; I sure didn't until very recently.

Be warned though: As good as this game is, it can also be so hard that it makes Dark Souls look like Kirby's Dream Land. Then again, a lot of things make Dark Souls look like Kirby's Dream Land. Dark Souls really isn't that bad, especially compared to its own sequels. I should rank Fromsoft games by difficulty one of these days. Regardless. if Dark Souls moved any more slowly, it'd be turn-based.

Highlander 5x15 - The Stone of Scone

 

It's Monday night at 7 PM on the USA Network, you know what that means.

Aired April 21, 1997. There was a two-month space of time between Duende and this, which normally would have contained four new episodes, but with Season 5 being abbreviated there just weren't any new ones to air. I'm guessing they ran reruns during that timeframe; wonder what episodes they did. Presumably reruns aired throughout the year when new episodes weren't available (which would have generally been the middle six months of the year, or so).

It's just as well that I took a break after Duende, because this year was nonstop difficult life stuff between watching that episode and this one. Getting back to this as things begin to approach something resembling normal / nice again.

Adrian Paul was already halfway out the door and the studio was trying to hold things together and keep it going. I still wish, to this day, that they would have just seized the opportunity to focus on some other characters. S5's missing four episodes could have focused on Methos, given Richie or Amanda a solo adventure, etc. Bring back a loose end like S1's Kiem Sum or Joan Jett.

And of course, S6 should have been used to transition to a new lead midway through. My vote is that S6's back half, and S7, had Methos as the main character. Bring back Duncan for the finale and so forth, of course, but let Methos carry the show for a season and a half. Peter Wingfield was definitely up for it.

I just wish this show had a full seven seasons rather than the sputtering conclusion it has. Either way, we're still in the midst of the best seven-episode run the show ever had, so let's go!

Elden Ring: Nightreign Boss Fight Videos

 

With the Duskbloods network test starting today, it's a good time for another compilation of boss fight videos from a game. I'm hugely into these Fromsoft games and their boss fights, which tend to be great duels that are often incredible-looking to boot. Each fight here includes liner notes about the fight., as usual. This is a super fun game if you bring your own group of friends and communicate via some third-party chat program; a bit less so if you only do randomly generated runs - with no communication - as the game intends.

Nightreign is an interesting game that I wish I liked more. Found it very tedious and difficult because of how hard it was to make any gainful progress off of unsuccessful runs at levels. You're also very reliant on how experienced your teammates are. It was nearly impossible to beat a level with a randomized group in the first week the game was out, but later I was able to go back and do more once the playerbase had more experience (that or all the noobs had quit by then) and managed to beat the game in about 12 hours.

Do yourself a favor and avoid the DLC though. Waste of $15 and the underworld levels are a real pain in the ass. Had I just quit after the main game concluded, I would have had mostly positive memories. So this is only covering the main game.

The 1000 Games I've Beaten (#729 - 735)

 

#729 Dragon Quest XI (Playstation 4) – Fall 2018

After a regression in DQIX and a game nobody stateside could play in DQX, this game finally gave us the follow-up to DQVIII that people waited ten years for. This ranked very, very highly in my Post-Milennium RPG Ranking - out of all those games, it was essentially in a three-way tie for second place - and deservedly so. This takes everything that makes the DQ series, well, DQ, and cranks it all up with modern QOL and 3D visuals. It's done in a smooth graphical style that probably won't age, either.

Killer Instinct (Super NES, 1995)

 

Not to be confused with hit 1990's movie Basic Instinct. There's no connection. At least, I don't think there are any scenes where Fulgore crosses and uncrosses his legs seductively. Sabrewulf and Spinal are both nude though. Actually a bunch of characters are nude. Regardless, this is easily one of the best fighting games on the Super NES, even though I've never been very good at it.

Fighter's History (Super NES, 1994)

 

Looking at an oddball Data East fighting game that made its way onto the SNES. This wasn't exactly King of Fighters '94 or anything. The lack of SNK fighters on the SNES is weird, but it left some room for games like this to try and compete with the MKs and SFs of the world.

The box art shows off the game's highly-unappealing roster of characters. The giant head in a turban is the villain of the game, Karnov. This is basically a clone of Street Fighter II while also borrowing heavily from the aformentioned KOF series (going for realism, etc). It's on the Switch Online virtual console as we speak, mostly just taking up space.

Someone out there likely has this as their favorite game, though.

Fighting Vipers (Arcade/Sega Saturn, 1995)

 

Going to continue to step outside of my wheelhouse here, with something I've been meaning to check out for 30 years. Back in the mid-90's, 3D was starting to become all the rage, and systems like the Playstation and Saturn seemed really high-tech to those of us "stuck" with a Super NES. I always liked Virtua Fighter, but I remember hearing that Fighting Vipers was the REAL hardcore Sega fighter. Well, today I'm going to find out, by leaping to THE THIRD DIMENSION: The Wave of Tomorrow!

Detana!! TwinBee (TurboGrafx-16, 1992)

 

TwinBee is a series of Konami shooters that didn't get much attention, with the Gradius and Salamander series grabbing most of the hype. This is possibly the best game in the TwinBee series from what I've heard, and started life as an arcade game before getting a direct and accurate port to TG-16. There were other TwinBees on console before this, but none of them captured the aesthetic the series was going for until this one. Character designer Shujiro Hamakawa drew inspiration from Akira Toriyama's Dr. Slump while working on this. The soundtrack was composed by Michiru Yamane (who would go on to the Castlevania series) so that adds a lot to the game as well.

The TurboGrafx-16 is a system that didn't get much attention, with the Super NES and Sega Genesis grabbing most of the hype. I really need to spend more time with this system...if only there were reasons to that I haven't already played. This can be found on the Wii Virtual Console, and there's a two-player mode that makes the game much easier. You can do some weird and unique stuff, like have the two characters lock arms to increase their firepower (one character's controls become dominant temporarily). Not sure about playing this on modern systems; the Switch has kinda balked at Turbografx-16 and Neo Geo VC-ing last I checked.

The 1000 Games I've Beaten (#713 - 728)

 

#713 Gears of War: Ultimate Edition (Xbox One) – Summer 2018

High-res remake of the original that looks great. This was a big killer app for the XBox One S when it was making a big comeback suddenly. I got the system for free due to running a store, and it seemed like it was really outselling the PS4 for a bit there. Everybody was popping in to either get this game or an XB1. I think this might have also been a pack-in with the system, not sure. I didn't have time to actually play it until after the game store era was over, but it was high on the list for summer games to plow now that I had more free time.

Today on the list: The XBOX ONE ERA.

The 1000 Games I've Beaten (#701 - 712)

 

#701 Metroid: Samus Returns (3DS) – Fall 2017

Not a fan of the MercurySteam Metroid games. It is what it is. Metroid 2 is one of my favorite games from when I was a kid, and needed a remake. So this was 50/50 for me. On one hand, I could definitely recognize that it was Metroid 2 under the redesign. They added some really interesting new elements that made the game feel a lot more modern and streamlined, but also the difficulty went up considerably from the original and it lost some of that 1991 Gunpei Yokoi charm. I think me and a lot of other folks were really just hoping for a Zero Mission 2.

The 1000 Games I've Beaten (#680 - 700)

#680 Persona 5 (Playstation 4) – Spring 2017

One of the early games I played on an LG OLED, and a very worthy game for that. With high contrast and lots of black and red, the color palette of this game was perfect for seeing what the new TV could do. I got more into this one than the others, but it was just a one-and-done playthrough while the others were multiple time events.

The 1000 Games I've Beaten (#662 - 679)

 

#662 - Pokemon FireRed (Game Boy Advance) – Winter 2017

It's crazy how long it took for me to really get into the Pokemon series. I played Gen 1, took off for a decade, returned and bounced off Gen 4's terrible initial versions, took off for a decade, came back and played everything retroactively in the late 2010s. This series is basically comfort food, as far as games go. They're never all that demanding or difficult. The gameplay is simple, to the point, and you feel like you're getting somewhere every time you play.

The Top 13 Worst Square Game Areas

This started out as a "worst RPG areas" list, but I was drawing a blank on non-Square entities so it became a Square list. Not to dump on Square here, as they're my favorite game developer of all time (with Konami and From Software essentially tied with them, but yeah). These are worst areas, so not limited to dungeons. Can also be overworld zones, provinces, etc. Because I'm limited to Squaresoft, the whole list won't be dominated by Phantasy Star 2 dungeons. Also, this list won out over the competition, "Top 10 Thiccest Dragon Quest Maous" so there we go.

Previously posted December 2024 as a top 11, now reposted with two new entries (the top two)

SNK Vs. Capcom: SVC Chaos (Neo Geo, 2003)

 

This is the much lesser-known SNK version of the mashup. That's right, SNK did this one instead of Capcom, so it's considerably stiffer and more difficult than the two previous games from Capcom.

I think Mai and Chun-Li might be about to kiss.

Capcom Vs. SNK 2: Mark of the Millennium 2001 (Arcade, 2001)

 

In Japan, this game is called "Millionaire Battle 2001". Weird, most of these characters don't seem like millionaires. I'd be surprised if Terry Bogard is a thousand-aire, guy seems like he's barely scraping by. Released a year after the other one, this is a huge improvement much like Marvel vs Capcom 2 was over the previous game.

The Top 17 Bosses That Were Tougher Than The Final Boss

Time for another list. This features a lot of RPGs. Only main story, required bosses count. No uberbosses (Ruby Weapon, FFVII), postgame bosses (Nemesis, FFX), or optional fights (Warmech, FF1) and that also includes DLC bosses for newer things. The only criteria for this list is that it's a main story boss in the main game that exceeds the final boss in difficulty, or at least causes more grief for the player than the last boss. Also, one boss per game.

Previously posted January 2020 as a list of 12, now with five new additions

Ranking all 160 Super NES Games I've Finished

In celebration of the 250th birthday of the United States, it seemed like a fitting time for a GIANT LIST.

This will be the last of these wacky, overlong, Jason Graves style lists. I was going to try to do N64 as well, but the earlier lists didn't get enough views/comments to justify the work. SNES I was doing regardless just for the fun of it. The SNES is what I consider the last true "classical era" system, the height of 2D's artistic development before 3D came rolling in looking terrible and dominating everything. It took until 2020 with Demon's Souls on the PS5 for me to finally feel like 3D had reached the level of artistic merit that 2D had by 1996.

Way more games on this list, so I'm going to be keeping the blurbs for each game very short, in the interest of getting through all 160 (Jesus...) in a timely manner.

Don't take the placement TOO seriously on here. Any given group of ten could basically all be in a statistical tie with each other. Ranking these based on how well they hold up now.

Prehistorik Man (Super NES, 1995)

Time for a BLAST FROM THE PAST. They made Game Boy and SNES versions of this game, but it's safe to say the SNES version is the one to play. While the Game Boy version has five of the levels, this one has all of them. In other words, this is Prehistorik Man: Definitive Edition.

Been wanting to check it out for a while, so let's get a look at it.