[EVENT] The Sonic Stadium 52 Game Challenge 2024! - New Prizes every week! Current Prize: Sonic Heroes Profile gift!

[Ryannumber1gamer]

3 hours ago, Blueknight V2.0 said:

So far, I finished 5-games this year, tho two of 'em I didn't get screenshots of due to not having trophy support. But I'll start with these 3;

A Hat in Time:

A Hat in Time is one of those games that I've known about, and wanted to try, but kept putting it off. Well, 7-years later, I gave it a try & now it's one of the best 3D platformers I've ever played! I love this game, as it reminds me why I fell in love with 3D platformers! Even platinum'd it a few days after beating it!

Basically, you play as Hat Kid. Who's ship is orbiting... I think earth? Anyway, the ships fuel source, known as Time Pieces, get scattered across the planet's surface. To get home, Hat Kid has to go get 'em back! But not without coming across some standout characters, & the amount of variety & insanity the game throws at you in a moment's notice!

One minute, your fighting the Mafia, then scaring them. Delivering mail in a spooky forest and then shifts into a horror game for like 5-minutes. I swear, this game needs a sequel! It's hecking' cute, and the DLC's are really good too! So why am I getting Spider-Man 2 pizza delivery flashbacks!?

 

Gravity Rush 2:

Gravity Rush is another series that's always caught my interest, but kept putting off for one reason or another. Finished the first game late last year, and I've been an avid fan in the series every since! Even watching the Overture animation, so I wouldn't be confused upon starting up the sequel.

Gravity Rush 2 basically took everything about the 1st game, and greatly expanded upon it! The standards of shifting gravity starts out simple, like walking on walls, ceilings, etc. Then several hours in, because it is an open-world game, you do start to gain access to even more gravity powers.

Such as Lunar style, which makes Kat lighter, allows for higher jumping, slower falling, & even the ability to go Shadow the Hedgehog on enemies! By simply teleporting to their location! And since I'm making Sonic comparisons, Kat can also pick up objects with a stasis field, and then throw them at enemies! Or even enemies at enemies. Which'd be great if Silver's ever playable again.

The game itself is pretty random at points (which just adds to the overall charm), if you go for everything. At one moment your trying to catch a dog, play frisbee with a dog. Then your delivering newspapers (what was up with these missions in 2017 games), trying to help someone with an addiction. On top of the main story stuff which gets absolutely crazy at the end of Chapter 3 (oh my gosh, what did I just witness, can I go back to Kirby please!?), and the rest of Chapter 4. Which did have me in tears by the end.

I still have questions, but does leave itself open for a sequel, despite how definitive it is. So hopefully it can happen someday, despite Sony shutting down Japan Studio some years back. Who knows, maybe the Movie can help make it happen.

 

Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time:

*Platinum earned upon completing Challenge Mode

Often considered the best game in the Ratchet & Clank series, and rightfully so. The weapons are as crazy as ever, the planets are beautiful as always! The Clank puzzles are the best in the series! The two instances of time travel feel like what majorly inspired Rift Apart's rift mechanics. One of the best additions to the series are introduced; the Hoverboots! It even still stands up as one of the best-looking Ratchet games, in my opinion!

The story is basically a culmination of everything the Future trilogy has built up to. Ratchet coming to terms with his race, the Lombaxes. Azimuth (another lombax) wanting to correct a mistake he made, which further molds Ratchet's character. Clank finding out his true destiny. And it's all wrapped into this nice & tidy package, that truly felt like the finale of the series.... until All-4-One released.

Clearly, this storyline is still going with Into the Nexus, and the recently released Rift Apart. Which they seem to still be interested in exploring.

Either way, whether it's ground-based combat, space combat & exploration, solving puzzles, or finding every Gold Bolt possible. This is still one of my favorite Ratchet games!

> Gravity Rush

One of my absolute favourite franchises, really happy to see more people giving the series a shot. 

For the record though you don’t need to post screenshots of your trophies if you don’t want to, you can post a link to your PSN profile on PSNProfiles, and it’ll show all of your trophies timestamped: 

https://psnprofiles.com/

[FReaK]

Update:

Unfortunately a lot of RL stuff happened this week, so I was only able to complete the FF7Rebirth demo, therefore nothing to challenge progress was accomplished this week.

I hope next week is better. :)

[Winston]

I made some pretty decent moves this week, despite last week just being a sorta update. I'm glad I can actually add some more finished games onto the list this time.

GAME #5 - Kuru Kuru Kururin - Finished

I didn't feel like doing the additional challenges yet even though they're short and sweet, so maybe this game could be considered completed if I want to go back to it sometime this year, but I had my fill from the base adventure. It's a pretty good time though, even if it can be frustrating with some of the hitboxes on the objects and the d-pad controls obviously not having as much of a range as a joystick or what have you. I did complain about that in my update post last week, but still, I do feel like I died a lot because of finnicky d-pad controls and the hitboxes on the walls being weird and feeling like they somehow pull you closer to them when you're really not that close to the wall. It's still fun for what it is, and after hearing about this game for many years, I'm glad I finally got to be able to play it on the Switch. There's two-three other games in this series that were never localized over if I recall correctly, so it'd be cool if we got those somehow one day. At the end of the day, if you have NSO Expansion Pack and want a short and somewhat easy game to beat, this one is for you.

GAME #6 - Super Punch-Out!! (SNES) - 100% Completed

This is not what I expected to have be the most consistent series in my game list this year, but with there only being three games and an arcade game, I'm sure Mario, Sonic or something else will eventually overtake it. As of now, Punch-Out!! is the series I'm going for. I'm already working on the Wii game, so we'll see if I beat that one, but I don't know if I'll go for full completion there since there's an entire mode where the boss fights are way harder, so I might just stick with the main game. As for the original two Punch-Out titles, it's just beat the super hard boss at the end to fully complete it, and I certainly did so.

I did complain in my first post about not really getting the timing in Super Punch-Out, which is why I believed I wasn't going to add it to my completed games list, but funny how poorly that aged. It did take a bit of getting used to, but I think it's the camera angle here more than the timing that bothered me. In the NES game, you're not as close to Little Mac as you are in Super, which is probably why I had the timing off. I will say still, dodging was always a bit harder for me in this game than the NES version. I felt like I would be hit far more often, and it would just be random if it decided to have me dodge or hit, especially with opponents super abilities just them constantly punching at me, making it a bit annoying to actually win.

I also don't remember this from the NES one, but to get to the final opponents, you have to clear every circuit without falling down once in a battle. The game's enemies until the Special Circuit are at least easier than the NES one, but it very much confused me because I had to look up how to unlock it. So yeah, I had to redo some circuits to get them perfect in order to unlock the super challenging bosses, and then I beat them after a bit. The final one was especially tough, way harder than Mr. Dream or whatever the Mike Tyson stand-in is called in the original NES title. There's also no more of the referee calling who wins if you get to three rounds, you just lose if you don't get the TKO, at least in the final fight. It's a little weird but Mario the Referee from last game was a piece of shit so he's not missed. Super Punch-Out!! is a fun time though, even if it tries to be a little different in terms of camera angles than the original, it's still more or less the same fun from the original, with some of the frustrations taken out in terms of the game being a little easier. 

GAME #7 - Sonic Forces - Finished

I just figured I'd take a picture of the credits for this one, since there really is no ending screen, outside of that final interaction between the Avatar and Sonic at the end, but this will do fine I hope. Yeah, Sonic Forces was an odd game I just decided to throw in this week. After last week with me not making any progress and me being stuck at home anyway for reasons, Forces was a quick game to fly through. Do I really like this game? Not really. But it is easy and simple. It's not atrocious or anything, it's just kinda there. It is a very good choice for a challenge like this though.

I didn't want to go for completion because I just didn't feel obligated enough to play through Forces that much. I am currently working on Colors too, and I don't know if I'll even bother fully completing that one, but that one is more likely for full completion than Forces since I actually do like Colors quite a bit. I was not expecting to have a Sonic title done this early, but hey, here it is! I'm sure there will be more Sonic here soon with some of my friends recommending me things like Triple Trouble 16-bit, and I also like to play Mania like once a year or so, so this may be the first but it certainly won't be the last for the blue blur. 

That's my check-in for the week. I was cutting it close because I wanted to see if I could finish anything else, but alas, I was running out of time and getting busy. Fortnite is getting pretty close to full completion for me, I'm only six levels away. So that'll be maybe done for the next check-in depending on how much me and my friends play. There's also It Takes Two, which I think I'm nearing the end of, and will likely be a full completion for me as well. But yeah, thanks for reading! 

[Lady Marie]

Weekly Check-in:

Still no finished games for me. But I am making good progress through the games I've been playing, and will hopefully make even more progress since I don't have work this week. So I'm still working through Baldur's Gate, Spider-Man 2, Midnight Suns, and Virtue's Last Reward.

The best part about all this is getting to discuss some of these games with my friends and my sister. Thanks to her, I've discovered that I apparently missed an entire party member in my Baldur's Gate playthrough (RIP Lae'zel), so I'm already making plans for what to do in my next playthrough. I haven't even looked at all the trophies yet, but I might commit to 100%ing it at some point just out of sheer curiosity. It's reminded me of what I like about games so much, which is not only getting to experience it myself, but having people to analyze and talk about it with. That makes the experience so much more fulfilling and gives me an excuse to stay in touch with friends and family.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

And now, for my next weekly check-in:

IN addition to the Gunman Clive Series, I have taken the liberty of revisiting an old classic in preparations of things to come:

Ah, it's like seeing an old friend again. Even better, seeing the old original opening minus you-know-who showing up for comparison:

Surprisingly, I didn't have much trouble jumping back into the game. It's more or less, an easy enough clear. The controls were thankfully rather fine to get back into, despite a good dose of playing Frontiers. Granted, I never had too much trouble jumping in and out of games with differing control schemes. it's just been so long since I've played Generations proper.

Nonetheless, here we are, and yes Team Chaotix, I would like to know.

[Salamander]

Game 7 (100%): Another Code: Recollection (Switch) - For real this time!  I have now completed the second half of this game (R - Journey Into Lost Memories), which is also the half I never played in its original Wii form.  Not that it might have made much difference; Two Memories is radically different from its remake, and from what I've looked up, R diverges even more dramatically with some enormous plot and format changes.  This game, I think I prefer in its revised form.  The modernised character designs are a great improvement on the original, the plot does more with the major themes of the games, and the result is a fun and touching adventure in beautiful surroundings.  I'm so glad that Another Code, of all series, got this chance for such a fantastic reimagining.  Surely Nintendo's planning a Kyle Hyde collection after this, right?  The remake even adds a bunch of little references to him and his games!

There are various optional items in R, but the only ones the game tracks are, as before, the scannable origami crane messages.  I've attached screenshots showing that I got all messages in both games and beat the collection.  (There's also a completion bonus, but I'll leave that for people to discover elsewhere.)

Spoiler

 

[Blueknight V2.0]

3 hours ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

One of my absolute favourite franchises, really happy to see more people giving the series a shot. 

For the record though you don’t need to post screenshots of your trophies if you don’t want to, you can post a link to your PSN profile on PSNProfiles, and it’ll show all of your trophies timestamped: 

Indeed! And with the film happening, I bet even more people are gonna be checking the games out!

Noted. Only posted the trophies in screenshot form 'cause I thought it was somewhat needed to count. But I'll go set that up later. Tho stuff without trophies would be a bit of an issue, like R&C Future Tools & Quest, which I also finished this year. But didn't want to include in the initial post, due to no screenshot of the save data or credits.

[Gavvie]

Game 5 Finished - Crisis Core -Final Fantasy VII- Reunion

FINALLY finished a PlayStation game this year, and it's the first Final Fantasy game I've finished this year too! And, with it finished, I'm now ready for FFVII Rebirth in a couple of weeks!

Bumped the game up to Hard to try and give me a challenge for the final boss, but I was still over-levelled and it was still far too easy! Ah well, saves me having to do it twice for the Trophies.

If I'd spoken to the right NPC as well I would have done all of the side-missions too, but I didn't so I finished on 299/300 - bit of a pain but Minerva is a pain to fight so this game is likely to be one I don't go chasing the Platinum trophy for.

[ouenji]

Submitting my progress for this week; I managed to complete two ending in Shadow 05, currently working on my third! I’m still aiming for full completion (as in the 10 endings, at least for now haha), though I’m also not quite sure if this counts as a finished story or not? If it did it would be my second; but probably not, since I haven’t achieved the true ending lol. Either way, that’s my progress for now! I’ve been having a lot more fun with it than I’d been expecting, there’s actually something really satisfying in the mission based gameplay to me, enough that I’d love to eventually fill out that library.

[Endoian]

Game 4.- I finally finished the game that I decided to finish this 4th week, which is my favorite from the classic era, the top 1 "Sonic 3 & Knuckles". I really had a lot of fun playing and getting the true ending, it is one of the platform games that gives me the most difficulty, we'll see you tomorrow to check-in, I hope the others finish their games soon, I say goodbye and everyone take care, byeeee.

[Fireluigi1225]

i dont have any energy so im gonna make this quick.

100%: Fortnite battle pass

Spoiler

go read ryan's post on fork knife but imagine it poorly written. yeah its about the same thing.

100%: Monument Valley

Spoiler

im pretty sure i only needed to do the 10 base game levels but i didnt want to start an argument so i just did everything.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

5 hours ago, Gavvie said:

Game 5 Finished - Crisis Core -Final Fantasy VII- Reunion

FINALLY finished a PlayStation game this year, and it's the first Final Fantasy game I've finished this year too! And, with it finished, I'm now ready for FFVII Rebirth in a couple of weeks!

Bumped the game up to Hard to try and give me a challenge for the final boss, but I was still over-levelled and it was still far too easy! Ah well, saves me having to do it twice for the Trophies.

If I'd spoken to the right NPC as well I would have done all of the side-missions too, but I didn't so I finished on 299/300 - bit of a pain but Minerva is a pain to fight so this game is likely to be one I don't go chasing the Platinum trophy for.

I know the pain of losing out on a platinum due to bad luck and a missable side quest or item, especially in a JRPG, so if it’s one side mission and everything else is done. I’ll make a one off exception and let you submit it as 100%’d, if you can confirm the situation.

[Spin Attaxx]

Been lazy with updating this, or maybe busy is the proper word. Anyway:

GAME #2: MEGA MAN 2

Again, this is one that I've played a lot and basically know like the back of my hand - these days I play almost exclusively on Difficult. I know it's the "in" thing to say it's overrated and flawed etc. etc., and while I'll admit it's not the best of the NES games in my opinion, it's still mostly solid. We all know the Metal Blade breaks everything in half, but when you play the game using any other weapon, it really does change how you approach things; you'd be surprised how convenient Time Stopper is in Metal Man, Air Man, and Wood Man's stages when it comes to skipping tedious areas or even minibosses. It's not all perfect, of course - Atomic Fire uses way too much ammo to be practical outside of a handful of bosses - but it's not like the non-Metal Blade weapons are all worthless.

(TBH, I think Atomic Fire is an unconscious inspiration for my own projects - I remember thinking, "Man, what if you could do things with this weapon besides charging a bigger shot?" Which I guess is what Kirby ended up doing with its abilities now that I think about it :U)

Of course, the Wily stages are where the flaws are most apparant, with every stage after the first demonstrating this is where less priority was placed, but I have to admire the concept (if not the execution) of the Boobeam Trap. Having a boss that's almost like a puzzle in how to efficiently destroy it is a novel idea, but not when it's weak to an ammo-guzzler and the furthest checkpoint is halfway through the stage instead of outside the boss itself. Did you know that this is a thing all the way up until Mega Man 5? Even the first game managed to have sensible checkpoints for its Wily bosses!

Still, I have to admire the fact that this was made in what was effectively the devs' free time, and in under three months. Like damn, they made Mega Man 2 in that short a time frame (hellish as I'm sure it no doubt was).

(Also shoutouts to that concave effect with the ceiling dome.)

Edited February 12 by Spin Attaxx

[Gavvie]

3 hours ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

I know the pain of losing out on a platinum due to bad luck and a missable side quest or item, especially in a JRPG, so if it’s one side mission and everything else is done. I’ll make a one off exception and let you submit it as 100%’d, if you can confirm the situation.

I deleted the game off my PS5 to make space for FFVII Rebirth when it comes out, lol, but I can always quickly reinstall it and show proof of the side-missions that are completed because I've still got the save file.

[Dreadknux]

All Week 4 Profile Gifts have now been handed out. From now until end of Sunday, posting a progress update will get you a Sonic Spinball Profile Gift!

As for my Week 5 check-in... not much progress to the overall slate of games over the last week, because I have mostly been obsessed with one particular title; Tunic. I distracted myself last week with starting this up, as I had my eye on it for a while, and was expecting a cute little Zelda-a-like that would last me five minutes. Boy, was I wrong.

The discourse and community surrounding Tunic, you realise, is massive, as you quickly discover that the game is a lot more than the sum of its parts. What begins as a fun little Zelda clone on the surface, transforms into a multi-layered meta-puzzle as you start to look deeper. Even attempting to understand the game's story in full - which subverts a lot of what you traditionally think about heroism in these sorts of games - requires some level of sleuthing and overworld exploration.

To explain much more than that would be to spoil what becomes an utterly entrancing experience, but I don't think I've seen anything this meta since... Undertale? Some of the stuff packed in here is just so clever and ingenious, that even after being stumped for a literal day thinking about a particular obstacle you can't help but nod your head in admiration when you finally figure it out.

It IS challenging, though, with the bosses in particular suffering from some severe difficulty spikes. I realised that there is actually an option to enable a 'No Fail Mode' (meaning you do not take any damage), which does NOT impact your ability to complete the game or earn achievements... there's no shame in using it, as the combat is just one piece of this intricate puzzle and some of you may not even need the satisfaction of combat to truly enjoy this game. For my part though, I didn't use it until the very final boss (and even then that was after many many very close attempts of beating it myself...).

The real challenge is not actually Googling answers for various puzzles, which I have to say I did do in some cases to save time (I'm an old man now, give me a break I can't spend six months playing the same puzzle no matter how good it is lol) - but the brilliant thing I did see is that, even when you Google it, a lot of the Reddit threads and communities out there are happy to just offer spoiler-free hints before they give the full answer. There appears to be a lot of good will about this game online, with experts keen to encourage others to just enjoy the game without ruining the satisfaction of figuring out a puzzle for themselves. It's really nice to see.

Anyway, I 100% completed Tunic...

Spoiler

Once with the standard ending, and again after accomplishing the 'meta-game' and taking the result to the final boss.

Here are screenshots as proof (I thought of showing my achievements screen to avoid spoilers but I think doing that would actually be more spoilery so here's images of the ending (being as spoiler-free as possible) in spoiler tags:

Spoiler

Beaten:

100%:

Here's the current standings for me:

Beaten:

1. Sonic Adventure (Xbox 360)
2. Turnip Boy Robs a Bank (Xbox Series X)
3. Murder by Numbers (Nintendo Switch)
4. Tunic (Xbox Series X)

100%'d:

1. Sonic Adventure (Xbox 360)
2. Turnip Boy Robs a Bank (Xbox Series X)
3. Murder by Numbers (Nintendo Switch)
4. Tunic (Xbox Series X)

In Progress:

• Halo Anniversary (Xbox Series X / Halo: The Master Chief Collection)
• Judgment (PlayStation 4)
• Club Nintendo Picross Plus (Nintendo 3DS)
• The Revenge of Shinobi (Xbox 360 / SEGA Vintage Collection: Alex Kidd & Co.)
• Super Hang On (Xbox 360 / SEGA Vintage Collection: Alex Kidd & Co.)
• South Park: Let's Go Tower Defence Play! (Xbox 360)
• Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (Xbox Series X / Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy)

[Agie]

Weekly check-in; going through a lot of shorter games. Decided my original plan wasn't working out, though I got one shorter game I wanna finish before I fully, instead of only partially commit to the longer games.

Games beaten so far in the spoiler. Spoiler are for not bloating this post.

Spoiler

1. Super Mario RPG Remake

2. Kaze and the Wild Masks

3. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall of the Foot Clan (100%)

4. Mega Man 1

5. Mega Man 2

6. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Arcade Game

7. Twinkle Star Sprites

8. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time (100%)

9. Sunset Riders

10. Mega Man 3

11. Mega Man 4 (sequel wars version)

12. Terminator Salvation (arcade)

13. Roll-Chan 5 (hack of Mega Man 5)

For now, though, one more game has been beaten...and it's on a unique little handheld.

14. Kiki KaiKai

The very first game in the classic Pocky and Rocky series, you play as Sayo-chan, or Pocky as the localizations of later games call her, as you shoot up various...creatures, while saving people from these monsters. Sounds simple enough, right? If you know classic arcade games...you know to expect otherwise. But the final level, while having no boss, "makes up for it" by requiring you to use your purification wand on statues to find scrolls, or else it goes on forever. This isn't the problem. The problem is I had to look up a guide to know that; the game itself does not explain this.

Still, in spite of this, I had fun with the game, and hey; it might get me to try out the other Pocky & Rocky games.

Some of you may be asking, what the hell is this thing? The Hyper Mega Tech Super-Pocket. It has built-in games from Taito. It also has a Capcom variant, but I went with the Taito one because...I'm less familiar with Taito's library. The real value is in its ability to play Evercade cartridges; I do admit, kinda wanted to check out that space for a while, so at that point, built-in games like this are more of a nice little bonus on top of it. That said, the built-in games on both are available on other systems, so if you decide to go for one, don't fret about the other; you can play Kiki KaiKai on the Switch as well.

[Gavvie]

10 hours ago, Gavvie said:

I deleted the game off my PS5 to make space for FFVII Rebirth when it comes out, lol, but I can always quickly reinstall it and show proof of the side-missions that are completed because I've still got the save file.

Ah. So, the save file I've got is for the New Game+, and I didn't keep one from before the Final Boss XD Oops.

The nearest photo I DO have is from when I beat Minerva, who is the hidden boss at the end of Mission 9-6-6, so I'm quite happy for this not to be logged as Completed, though I've attached the photo anyway.

In terms of this week's check in:

• Dead Space - Still working through this at about a rate of 2 Chapters a week, so I'm getting pretty close to the end.
• Final Fantasy XVI - Restarted progress on this now Crisis Core is done - PS5 tells me I'm 59% through.
• Fable II - Second Hero recruited. One more to go and then I think I'll be ready to take the final missions on.

Not many games I've made a lot of progress on this week due to getting Crisis Core done, but I think I'll be further along on a few more next week.

 

[Endoian]

Hello everyone, I'm here to Check-in this week. This time I'm going to play a Sonic game that is not very loved by the community but has its good things even if they don't stand out "Sonic 4 episode 2", I wanted to play episode 1 but that version is not compatible with the android version I have, which is new. So I hope everyone else Check-in once and for all. Good luck to everyone and we'll see you later, take care and goodbye.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

Alright everyone, it's a brand new week, and that means it's a brand new check-in! As you can see from @Dreadknux's post up above, this week we're giving away...

A Sonic Spinball profile gift! Get your check-ins done, or join us for the first time during Week 5 of the event, and get this gift on us!

[Ryannumber1gamer]

3 hours ago, Gavvie said:

Ah. So, the save file I've got is for the New Game+, and I didn't keep one from before the Final Boss XD Oops.

The nearest photo I DO have is from when I beat Minerva, who is the hidden boss at the end of Mission 9-6-6, so I'm quite happy for this not to be logged as Completed, though I've attached the photo anyway.

In terms of this week's check in:

• Dead Space - Still working through this at about a rate of 2 Chapters a week, so I'm getting pretty close to the end.
• Final Fantasy XVI - Restarted progress on this now Crisis Core is done - PS5 tells me I'm 59% through.
• Fable II - Second Hero recruited. One more to go and then I think I'll be ready to take the final missions on.

Not many games I've made a lot of progress on this week due to getting Crisis Core done, but I think I'll be further along on a few more next week.

 

Fair enough then, I'll just log it as finished.

[The Tenth Doctor]

Game 1 - The Last of Us 2

 

Took me 4 years to go back and finish it! I love the gameplay but I really REALLY hate the story. Tries too hard to make you like the wrong people.  I'll go back and play Part 1 later in the year, love that game.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

Might as well clear this one out of the backlog. Was tempted to again hold out for a big update but I am so burnt out on this game, I'd like to just get it out of the way and not have to think about it again for awhile.

Game 4 of 52: Crash Team Rumble (Season 3: All Fired Up). 

You can read a much more detailed post of my thoughts here:

But to briefly sum it up. Despite a lot of the negative reception to Rumble leading to release, I decided to give it a try due to its low cost and my love for the Crash franchise and I quote enjoyed it for a long time, seeing it as a great translation of the Crash gameplay to a MOBA, and for a long time, other friends also played it and we had a squad that had a great deal of fun.

Season 3 was easily my most anticipated as I am a big Spyro fan and this season is based upon being a very big crossover introducing Spyro and Elora (alongside Ripto from Season 2) into the game. As a Spyro fan, I love the extent of it all. From music tracks to cosmetics referencing the Spyro franchise, new maps based on Spyro, great new remixes of Spyro songs in the Crash style, it was great. 

But unfortunately, the game is losing its fun with me a lot. The net code is really bad at this point with frequent lag even on wired connections, the glitches is becoming incredibly annoying to deal with while taking too long to fix. The balancing just doesn't feel particularly good or fun to deal with at all. At this point, the player base has also dwindled to the degree that there's so many try hards that kick your ass in the game that matches rarely feel fun or balanced.

Add in the battle pass grind just being too long and repetitively boring, and it's just not good at all. Season 4 might hook me back with more 2000s Crash love, but right now, its losing me big time.

[Failinhearts]

It's been a long week, but not a lot of time to complete games as I did these last few weeks. So consider this update a minor one in comparison. Still, two things are done here to at least add to the grand total.

GAME 23: LEGO SONIC SPEED SPHERE CHALLENGE: 100% COMPLETE

Didn't think this game would count, but I saw it submitted here before so... why not? It's a cute little tie-in browser title to advertise the LEGO Sonic theme and is ironically the first clean glimpse we have at the Sonic Superstars soundtrack. Who'da thunk it, right?

The premise is simple, you're in a large sprawling Green Hill field and the aim is to use the arrow keys to nudge Sonic in the sphere through the maze. It's not full analog, it's essentially like pushing a ball along the road, you can only influence the direction, not how far it goes. Only exception is a ever-charging boost button.

The game keeps total of rings and animals you collect, but the main goal is to reach the Death Egg robot at the end of the stage and beat the boss fight. Once that is done, the game is complete.

Obviously, it's nothing special... But hey, guess we can technically count this as the first solo LEGO Sonic game? Ehh? Ehhhhh?

GAME 24: POKEMON Y: 100% COMPLETE

Revolutionary when it came out, I'm sure, but absolutely sauceless now. This is hands down the most grueling and borderline uninteresting Pokemon experience I have ever played.

Gameplay wise, I mean, it works. It's basic Pokemon through and through, with a few tweaks like the Fairy type and Mega Evolution to slightly effect the metagame. If you want a stable and functional Pokemon experience, it's still there. But in that case, why would you play this over like, any other Pokemon game ever made?

I'll tell you why. It's for the story, the characters, the region, the world of Pokemon itself! So, what amazing narrative and artistic innovations will Pokemon Y give us?

An undercooked villain with hardly any interesting dynamics!

An evil plan that makes absolutely no sense, and doesn't grip you in the slightest!

A region with hardly any interesting artistic flair and atmosphere despite being themed after goddamn France!

Absolutely garbage pushover excuses for rivals that don't motivate you to get better!

Nothing in this game motivates you to keep playing aside from the fact that... you're already playing it, so might as well finish it. You're just playing for the sake of playing, without having any real fun in the process. It's not good, chief...

...Until the game is ACTUALLY done. And then suddenly with the post-game Looker quests, the writing quality actually skyrockets, crafting a short but incredibly unique story that hasn't been done by any Pokemon title since. The absolute 180 degree turn is insane, and why isn't this the whole game?

Is it worth all the hours of tedium?

Hell, no.

But at least I got something good out of something so... medicore. Truly, one of the Pokemon games of all time.

GAMES FINISHED: 24

GAMES COMPLETED: 21

Edited February 13 by Failinhearts

[Maple Syrup]

Almost completed the Sonic Superstars main story! If someone could help me, I would be finished.

[Agie]

Games completed so far.

Spoiler

1. Super Mario RPG Remake

2. Kaze and the Wild Masks

3. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall of the Foot Clan (100%)

4. Mega Man 1

5. Mega Man 2

6. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Arcade Game

7. Twinkle Star Sprites

8. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time (100%)

9. Sunset Riders

10. Mega Man 3

11. Mega Man 4 (sequel wars version)

12. Terminator Salvation (arcade)

13. Roll-Chan 5 (hack of Mega Man 5)

14. Kiki KaiKai

Now on to my latest addition.

15. Roll-Chan 6 (hack of Mega Man 6)

I'm gonna get this out of the way; I took the screenshot too long, so a screencap that looks like vanilla MM6 is what I could do. But I assure you, I did play another Roll hack. I also do not feel like going back to play the whole game for the sole purpose of a proper screencap.

But anyways, Roll is back, and she learns that Mr. X was behind Dr. Wily's schemes from the very start! His dastardly plan involves the robot tournament, and it's up to Roll to stop him! Surely Dr. Wily has nothing to do with-ah, who am I kidding, he's Mr. X.

The last game in the NES series of games, and I would say it went out on a good note, with Wily finally being arrested and brought to justice...but the end screen itself says to be continued. Indeed, Mega Man 7 sees him escape, but oh dear, spoilers!...is it really a spoiler if it's obvious?

Gameplay itself? It's more Mega Man, and I think you'd expect nothing less. I say give it a go.

Also, while I don't think this will be my last short game, I think I'm at a point where I can start putting more attention on longer games.