[EVENT] The Sonic Stadium 52 Game Challenge 2024! - New Prizes every week! Current Prize: Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity profile gift - IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT IN RECOMMENDED POST - PLEASE READ:

[Lady Marie]

For my check-in this week, I do have an update for a game I managed to complete!

UPDATE: Game #6: Fortnite BP Season 2 (Completed):

Through the daily idle XP gains and doing some of the extra BR missions, I was able to get to level 200 of the Fortnite Season 2 BP and complete all of the quest rewards! I was definitely feeling a bit burnt out towards the end, but I'm happy I was able to see it through! I tried to diversify how I was getting XP as much as I could so that I wouldn't get too overwhelmed or bored. This season overall was pretty good for me, especially with the Avatar collab as I previously mentioned. The theme with the Greek gods was alright too (I do love me some Greek mythology), but they didn't interest me too much (the Hades version of the Greek pantheon is peak and I honestly don't think any other piece of media will be able to beat it for me). I'll probably take a break from Fortnite for this current season since the theme and collaborations announced didn't catch my eye. It'll be nice to put all of that time into other games for a while.

Additionally, I've been chugging away at Baldur's Gate again this week. I've hit the point where I'm actually getting more addicted to the game since I keep uncovering more quests and more areas to explore. I'm still having a great time with it and I'm looking forward to playing more of it in my free time.

Midnight Suns, FFVII Rebirth, and Crypt of the NecroDancer are still on my radar. Since I should have more free time this week, I'm hoping to play them some more.

Finished: 6

Completed: 4

[Fireluigi1225]

Wound up going to a local con last minute so i had to skip this week too. Starting to think i need to bust out nes online.

[Spin Attaxx]

The game dev crunch is real, dunno if I'll have anything for this coming week. Anyway.

GAME #14: KIRBY'S ADVENTURE (100% Complete)

This one, I believe I used to own it on the Wii VC, but for this I played it on the 3DS via the 3D Classics version - this is important because while other versions have slowdown, this one removed it, so that wasn't an issue for me in this playthrough.

Part of me was hesitant to pick this as my next game - I've been on a time crunch for the past few weeks, it's only going to get crunchier as zero hour rapidly approaches, and I'm playing what I remembered being a big boy NES game with multiple levels AND secret areas that counted towards 100%. But as I started, what really surprised me was how short each of those levels really were - the longest probably averaged out at about three minutes or so. And even the big switches weren't that taxing to find - most of the time the ability you need is in the level itself (and typically you don't even need anything at all to get to it).

Since this is the first Kirby game with copy abilities, it's pretty clear the intention was to have a large number of them while keeping their functionality as simple as possible. Usually, they have one means of attack by pushing B and that's about it. Many of them feel similar to each other, to the point of almost being minor reskins - there's not much difference between Spark and Needle (aside from one potentially being more lag-inducing than the other) - and some could easily be merged together into a single ability (indeed, many would be like Fire and Fireball). That's not to say they're all simplistic, though - UFO is probably the most intricate ability, even though you don't get to play with it much, and Parasol has utility beyond smacking enemies with it. And then there's Ball which allegedly supposedly is very strong, but I don't buy it because half the time I get beaned trying to use it.

Really, a good number of abilities involve directly slamming yourself against the target and hoping you don't get injured, which brings me to the next point about Kirby's Adventure - every time you get hit, you lose your current ability, no matter how much HP you have. I'm used to later Kirby games where keeping them isn't quite so flimsy, and so having to run after that star every time I got hit got annoying really quickly. One thing I noticed about the game's later levels is that their idea of difficulty often amounted to just throwing large numbers of enemies at you, in lieu of actually difficult platforming (granted, that's tricky to provide when your main character has infinite flight as part of his base moveset).

Graphically, the game's a highlight of the NES's latter days. From its typical tilesets to its more elaborate visual tricks - chiefly Butter Building's faux-3D tower sections - it's a shining example of what the system was capable of when pushed to its limits (perhaps too much so, given the slowdown other versions have). And from what I can tell, the 3D Classics version didn't change much of anything about it, aside from giving a few backgrounds smoother gradients. It's a treat to look at, particularly the game's final world, Rainbow Resort. Thinking about it, I can't recall many games who use a pretty night-time ice world with slow, relaxed music for their final levels. To me, this artstyle defines Kirby's Adventure, and what I've seen of the GBA remake looks so hollow and generic by comparison. They didn't even have the spinning tower, come on!

I suppose with that said, this means the 3D Classics is probably the best version of this game to play... even if that glitch you could do to take UFO anywhere doesn't work in this version.

Edited May 27 by Spin Attaxx

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

Games Completed: 1 (technically 2)

Weekly check-in time. Not too much new stuff this week as I am currently busy, however, I've technically "started" a new game, with Fortnite Season 5 Chapter 3: Wrecked, having begun.

And I must say, if you know what you're doing with the cars well enough, you can ace quite a few matches. That said, be wary of others who have modded their own vehicles. The major focus of this event is definitely car warfare!

[Dreadknux]

Sorry again for sneaking in last week's check-in today. I've been distracted with Comic Con in London this past weekend. Not much to report, been plugging away at Phoenix Wright and Fallout New Vegas on the Xbox and figured I'd play some more Game Boy games on NSO casually when I find the time. I'll have more to share in a few days :)

[Ryannumber1gamer]

Alright everyone! It's the start of a new week, and on top of the weekly prize refresh, I'm happy to announce a brand new BONUS CHALLENGE!

Let's get into then.

Weekly Prize Refresh:

This week, if you do a check-in, you'll receive a Shadow the Hedgehog (the game, not the character) profile gift to add into your collection!

But that's not all...

MONTHLY CHALLENGE 3: Hit with Sonic Speed! - Submit a finished or completed racing game this week!

For our third bonus challenge, it's a little more involved, but it's also got a lot more options available to you all. 

The Task:

Submit any racing game as either finished or completed before Monday 3rd June. 

The Prizes:

For completing the bonus challenge, you'll earn three prizes!

• You'll earn a exclusive achievement/badge!
• 300 rings

And you'll also earn...

A Sonic Drift (JP) profile gift!

So get your engines ready and prepare to blast off with Sonic Speed on the track! You've got a week to get the challenge done, so don't miss out!

[Sean]

Coincidentally I was just playing the WipEout PC decompilation last night!

#23/52 - WipEout Phantom Edition (PC)

I never played the first game before. It's pretty neat as WipEout usually is, but it's a lot shorter than I was expecting, at only six tracks (with a hidden seventh one, Firestar) and two speed settings. Still, I completed Grand Prix at both settings and unlocked Firestar so I guess that counts for 100% completion? (The attached screenshot is my victory race from Firestar)

[Sean]

I decided to play another futuristic racer for the hell of it since WipEout was super short.

#24/52 - F-Zero: GP Legend (Game Boy Advance)

Generally not a fan of Mode 7 racers but this one was pretty fun. The additions from F-Zero X like sidestepping and BOOST POWAH make it feel nearly as exhilarating as its home console big brothers. Only completed all Grand Prix cups on standard difficulty, didn't touch story mode or unlock all of the characters.

[Salamander]

I doubt I'll be playing any racing games this week, unfortunately, but I do have a new completed game to start the week off:

Game 15 (100%): Touch Detective 2 ½ (via Touch Detective 3 + The Complete Case Files) (Switch) - Touch Detective 2 ½ (or, to localise its full Japanese title, Touch Detective Mackenzie Season 2 ½: Mackenzie Saw!  No, I Didn't) makes a bit more sense than its predecessor.  It's beefed up to a full five cases, and there is more of a throughline, as our dead-eyed heroine repeatedly clashes with the mysterious master thief known only as the Cornstalker.  My one concern was that this might result in a kind of saminess, but fortunately that doesn't happen; the Cornstalker is reacting to events as much as Mackenzie is rather than being the driving force behind everything, and so the cases each have their own distinctive and distinctively weird identity.  But the difficulty still largely lies in the old-school adventure game problems of having an increasing list of places to visit, people to speak to, and unintuitive interactions to winkle out; with the rather odd result that Case 5, which is largely confined to new and narrower areas, actually feels like it's on the shorter and easier side.  I'm still shamelessly using a walkthrough to skip anything which looks like trial and error; I'm here for the story, and it's a fun one, and a strange one.  I look forward to the trilogy finale, which I'm hoping to play in a week or so.

Included below are screenshots from the post-credits cutscene, the Touch List completion award, the Investigation Report completion award, the complete Scene List guaranteeing I also beat the drawer minigame, and completion checkmarks for Funghi: The Interviews.  This entails 100% content completion.

Spoiler

 

[castell-neath]

2 games for this week:

Game no 25 Completed / game no 24 100% - Sonic Drift.

Game no 26 completed / game no 25 100% - Sonic Advance.

Not much to say on Drift. A fun game, reminds me of many an f1 game on the old C64 in terms of control and gameplay. A fun way to kill an hour and the eggman mocking at the end is quite funny too.

Advance - I played this via a GBA emulator on my Phone and while the controls took a bit of getting used to...its very, very good fun and a true bridge between classic and modern eras. The gameplay is inspired, quick and very well presented and I can tell that Rush has its DNA in this. I love the call black to classic sonic titles such as the bosses, level names and even certain animations and if ANY Sonic game has been neglected in the re-release timetable its this. In fact I would say we badly need a port of SA 1,2,3 as well as Rush and Rush Adventute in the next anthoogy collection. I can imagine it being even more fun to play using a controller and a big screen!

 

Check in is still with horizon. Got to level 50 and have done loads of side quests and errands. Still a few more to do, mostly on the far west of the map, and I have also unlocked a few extra side missions such as rebuilding the arena before I start Burning Shores proper. Still enjoying it!

[Rabid-Coot]

Rage 2 https://psnprofiles.com/trophies/9081-rage-2/Rabid-Coot

Surprisingly short storywise with only about 8 missions with a sort of intermission in the middle that is do some open world activities to unlock the latter set of the story missions. Collectibles have to be some of the worst I've seen in a game only 30 of them but their spawn points are varied and thy will try to fly away when shot.

Pokemon Brilliant Diamond

After 4 weeks it is done. Been a nice change of pace going back to an older style game but overall I'm glad things moved away from random encounters.

Star 1 The first league victory the typical conclusion to a Pokemon games story.

Star 2 Digging up 100 unique statues in the Grand Underground.

Probably the most filler of the games stars, I suppose the best thing I can say about them is you can get this as a side effect of looking for the shards needed to get legendary pokemon.

Bonus The first league rematch.

Star 3 The battle tower singles 100 win streak.

Proudly carrying on the gaming tradition of copying what others say works and using it to win which in this case was the Cloyster/Latios/Tyranitar set from https://pokepast.es/15937d95f21ce8b1

Only had one battle get dangerously close to failure on battle 96 but somehow rng took pity on me and spared me another 5-6 hours of battles

Fun fact the game does not care if you bring in somehing caught in gen 9 that got hyper trained under the reduced level requirement but if you take something from this game up into gen 9 and hypertrain it you have to make it level 100 before it can come back.

Star 4 Filling the Pokedex.

Pokemon Home really cut down the time on this one especially with the game being so stingy with some of the evolution items. Makes me appreciate how many of them are just available to catch in the newer gens.

Star 5 Winning a super contest on master difficulty.

Saving the worst for last. I hate rhythm games and this has the unfortunate combination of a high bar to clear it and being better than the 3 cpu opponents.

Bonus 2 The third and highest level itteration of the league.

Finished: 32 Completed: 32

[Agie]

Weekly check-in; beat Sonic Drift, and...well, read on.

The list, so it doesn't get buried.

On 5/20/2024 at 8:33 PM, Agie said:

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

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

16. Beeny

17. Roll-Chan World (hack of Mega Man: Dr. Wily's Revenge)

18. Roll-Chan: Mini World (hack of Game Gear Mega Man)

19. Duke Nukem 1

20. Roll-Chan World 2 (hack of Game Boy Mega Man II)

21. Earthworm Jim

22. 3D Sonic the Hedgehog 1

23. Duke Nukem II

24. Roll-Chan World 3 (hack of Game Boy Mega Man III)

25. The New Zealand Story

26. Sonic the Hedgehog CD

27. Roll-Chan World 4 (hack of Game Boy Mega Man IV)

28. Momodora

29. Roll-Chan World 5 (hack of Game Boy Mega Man V)

30. Mega Man: The Wily Wars (Wily Tower)

31. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: Back From the Sewers

32. Mega Man: Powered Up

33. Mega Man 7 Restoration + Refit (100%)

34. Mega Man: The Power Battle

35. Duke Nukem 3D: Total Meltdown

36. The Simpsons Arcade (Konami)

37. Jurassic Park Arcade (Raw Thrills)

38. Boogerman: A Pick and Flick Adventure

39. Mega Man 8

40. Mega Man 2: The Power Fighters

41. Mega Man & Bass

42. Mega Man & Bass: Challenger of the Future (100%)

43. Earthworm Jim 2 (100%)

44. Mega Man: Battle & Chase

45. Liquid Kids (100%)

46. Mega Man 9 (100%)

47. Batman (Raw Thrills) (100%)

48. Halo: Fireteam Raven (100%)

49. Hi-Fi Rush

50. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants

51. Mega Man 10 (100%)

52. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Sonic Jam version) (100%)

53. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Hyperstone Heist (100%)

54. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge

55. Mario vs. Donkey Kong (Remake) (100%)

Honorable Mentions:
Ms. Pac-Man (Arcade)

Bomber Panel Panic

Big Challenge:
Big's Big Fishing Adventure 3

Knuckles Challenge:
Sonic 3D in 2D

Now...with that out of the way, here is my submission for the challenge and exclusive badge. To be honest, I don't know if I'm going to force myself through another "beat [insert type of game] here to get rewards" challenge after this, especially since I had to momentarily drop games I was already playing for a game I ended up not enjoying.

56. Sonic Drift (Completed, I guess; I saw nothing beyond beating all the GPs).

Sonic and friends (and Eggman) are in their cars racing, but their vehicles have absolutely atrocious handling on turns. No matter who I played as, no matter what I did, my biggest enemies were not the racers, but those damn turns. I will give the game credit for being ambitious for the Game Gear, but I feel like they should not have done this game on Game Gear. Now, I did learn slowing down on some turns helps a little, but it still didn't prevent me from slamming into trees, blocks, signs, whatever...yeah, because the turns weren't enough of a pain in the ass, they just had to throw that in there.

My favorite powerup in the game was the invincibility because, for just a little bit, I did not have to be as concerned with those damn turns. Now, you still have to pay attention to the road because it does not last forever, but I guarantee that was not the intended use. I didn't even see them in all the stages, either.

I was frustrated with this game the whole time I was playing. How frustrated? I got to a point where I had decided, had I not beaten it before next Monday, I might've given up on it entirely. The only reason I even dragged out this game was because this added challenge kinda butted in on my plans on a short notice, so I had to choose something I could beat quickly. I temporarily dropped games I was already working on for this.

That probably didn't help my mood any, since I felt pressure to try to finish it fast. But even without that, I never liked this game when I played it on Sonic Mega Collection Plus, and despite me giving it another chance, that did not change with Sonic Origins Plus. I wouldn't get this game standalone, so in a weird way, it was a genius move to include it in the Gamecube Sonic Adventure DX, Sonic Mega Collection Plus, and Sonic Origins Plus, because I would've never wanted to pay money for it otherwise.

If you wanna torture yourself and you're pressed for time, play this game. Otherwise, I don't recommend it.

Edited May 29 by Agie

[Tornado]

On 5/27/2024 at 6:11 PM, Ryannumber1gamer said:

 

racing game

 

On 5/27/2024 at 6:11 PM, Ryannumber1gamer said:

racing game

I submit for your approval, Racing:

What splendors does Racing for the PSX contain, I hear you asking?

Why, it contains graphics:

Look at that amazing pond where they definitely did not just cut a hole in the level geometry and let the skybox leak through.

 

It contains tracks.

Two of them.

 

It has cars:

Three of them (not two, period video game journalists)! And with that, a progression system where you need to unlock each successive vehicle by winning all the races! Just like Ridge Racer! Once you unlock all the cars, you win the game! Play with each one as much as you want as exciting post-game content.

 

Such speed! wow

I mean this game is practically the same as the famous PSP game Ridge Racer.

And it also looks only slightly worse than it, and that was a nearly arcade perfect port of a groundbreaking arcade game by one of the PSX's best developers. It even runs at a higher framerate than Ridge Racer. 40 FPS (mostly) instead of Ridge Racer's only 30 FPS, an average framerate notable for just how much it doesn't evenly fit into a 60hz NTSC refresh rate.

It even has box art:

Amazing. It sure would be silly if that was a particularly known enthusiast vehicle contemporary with this game's release and nothing that looks remotely like it was featured in the game!

 

What's the catch you may ask?

Oh.

Oh no.

 

Don't play Racing for the PSX.

 

Perhaps play this game instead:

[The DOMinator]

Weekly Check-In

Welp, I'm making an earlier post than usual, but since I made some good progress, and just so it's out of the way before I forget, well, here I am. It's kind of surprising how much more I got done with the additional few days off of school, as part of the Memorial Day weekend break thing.

Firstly, unfinished game progress + other. As I was playing some games with my dad over the weekend, as per the norm, we started to play Gradius 2/Vulcan Venture and Haunted Castle (a Castlevania arcade game) on Konami's Arcade Classics Anniversary Collection on my PS4. The former was a fun co-op, side scrolling space shooter. It's also the first Gradius game I'm seriously playing, so there's that. The latter though has got to be one of the cheapest arcade games I've ever played. 1 life is all you get, as you dodge a bunch of enemies being thrown at you, some just randomly appearing seemingly out of nowhere. The bats are easily missable with your whip, the sort of midboss statue thing makes some rather cheesy shots, etc. In addition to these two games, I made some more progress on Fall Guys' latest Fame Pass, and tried out Multiversus on its launch day, which is nice to have back. There was also the N. Sane Trilogy remake of Crash Bandicoot: Warped, which I'm nearing completion. Just a few more gems and relics to collect, and then to find Fake Crash and shoot him for a Trophy. Now, on to the games I managed to beat and complete!

Twisted Metal Black (PS2 Classics Port, PS4) - Game 6 of 52 Beat

*The first two photos are scenes from the character's ending, while the last one is of the credits (sorry about the glare!)

This is actually my 3rd run of the game (the first two being Sweet Tooth/Needles Kane and Roadkill/John Doe), having used Yellow Jacket/Mr. Kane and Son this time around. Unfortunately, not 100% completed, and probably won't be. Why? Well, let me give you a rundown. You see, in the base game, there's unlockable characters and arenas up for grabs. Every character also has their own intro, ending, and sometimes midway cutscene, although, this could be considered extra. Adding on top of the aforementioned unlockables are the Trophies/achievements that come with the PS4 port of the game. After my initial two playthroughs (along with some other excursions to obtain some of the additional Trophies), I had unlocked every single arena, and all but one character and Trophy, with said Trophy being tied to the unlocking of the character. Now, unlike every other unlockable character, who are obtained through finding secret areas in the game's maps, this final character, Minion/Marcus Kane, can only be unlocked by beating the game as every character. You would think that this would be simple, as the game is relatively short. However, not only is this game incredibly hard (sometimes requiring, for me at least, several hours in reattempts on each level; not a skill issue), but there's a whopping total of 14 characters (not counting Minion/Marcus Kane in said total, obviously). So, because of how much time would be required, maybe I'll 100% complete it by the end of the year, but it's uncertain. I'm also not exactly enticed to, as again, I have pretty much everything unlocked, ready for multiplayer use. Which doesn't get much use anyways. Having the credits be set to the Rolling Stones' Paint it Black song is a nice touch though. That said, now a game that I actually both beat and 100% completed (and a surprising addition for me at that)!

Sonic Drift 2/Racing (Sonic Origins Plus Port of Game Gear Game, PS4) - Game 7 of 52 Beat, 4 of 52 100% Completed

*The first three are of, in order, me having collected all Chaos Emeralds/gotten first in each of the Blue GP's tracks and being transitioned to the Final GP, me beating the Final GP, and the following credits. The rest are of me having collected all Chaos Emeralds/gotten first in all of the Purple and White GP's courses.

Something that I did on a whim, having started it after seeing the Bonus Challenge (minutes after) get posted. I chose this game in particular since I figured it would be pretty short, being an easy way to complete the challenge. I had also never really played the game before, only having played through the Purple Chaos GP on the 3DS port of the game, so there's that. So, I promptly pulled up the Sonic Wiki and Sonic Retro page for it to see what had to be done, and got right to it. I quickly found out that the only thing you really needed to do to beat it (and I guess 100% complete it) was to beat the Blue Chaos GP while placing first on each track. As I found out, getting first place in this game rewards you with Chaos Emeralds, with there being six in total, which means six tracks per GP. Now, if done on the other GPs, you don't get anything in return except a pat on the back. If done in the Blue one though, you're immediately transferred to the secret Final GP, consisting of only one track (the Death Egg, which is also the last track of the Blue GP), and being this game's hidden final boss. Depending on if you chose a character from the "good side" (Sonic, Tails, Amy, & Knuckles) or "bad side" (Eggman, Metal Sonic, and Fang), the final boss will be either a one on one match against Eggman for the former, or against Sonic for the latter. If beaten, you get to see the credits, with a picture of the game's cast all happy, celebrating and whatnot. Funnily enough, for me at least, it was one of the easiest parts of the game, with Eggman (having chosen Sonic) having always stayed relatively behind me through the course of the race. The one time he attempted to throw a mine at me, it landed on him instead (lolololol). Anyways, even after having beaten both the Blue and Final GPs, I still went through the Purple and White ones for certain 100% completion, getting first on each of their tracks, granting me all of the Chaos Emeralds. Besides, each GP has its own set of tracks anyways, so it's not like I was repeating the same thing again and again. Speaking of which, I liked the track diversity here, especially when compared to the original Drift, which I played a little bit of (on the PS2 Mega Collection Plus). Instead of following a similar structure to its predecessor (which included theming around all of 16-Bit Sonic 1's stages, on repeat), it instead has tracks based on some stages from 16-Bit Sonic 2, a stage or two from Sonic 3, and completely new themes as well. As for additional notes (mainly regarding comparisons to Sonic Drift 1), the courses here have more variety in their design (more than just tracks that go in a circle), the graphics look pretty good for the Game Gear (pulling off an almost 16-Bit style), and the addition of more characters is nice (not that they had many pickings for the first game). There were also some things that pleasantly surprised me (in regards to details), such as some courses having curved 3D looking slopes, and weather effects (one stage, which is set to a raining backdrop, has lightning that will cause the screen to flash white briefly). What else to say? Well, the drifting mechanic was interesting to say the least, involving holding down or pressing the break button while making a turn and still holding down the gas button, and if done for too long, causing you to spin out. To that extent, the controls are fine.

So yeah, that's my week (or rather two or three days of the week) in review. Of course, there's always the chance stuff will get done on Saturday and Sunday, but for now, that's it for me.

[Sean]

#25/52 - Mario Kart 64 (Nintendo 64)

fuck you Wario

[Gruffin]

Weekly Check-In : 2064: Read Only Memories (Steam)

Finished

A cyberpunk mystery point-and-click adventure? With full voice acting? Don't mind if I do.

The writing of this game is phenomenal, the graphics are stylish, and I've been listening to its music since my first run in 2017. So of course I was happy to return to it to experience it all over again, this time getting to see how the story ends.

It's got four main endings achievable through 2 full runs (provided saves are made at the proper points), as well as a slew of humorous fail states triggered through the usual point-and-click shenanigans of using items on the wrong things or purposefully annoying the wrong characters.

Oh, the chaos you can sow with a carton of spoiled milk...

Not sure if only completing one of the endings is considered enough to finish the game, but either way I'm planning on 100%-ing this soon. Next up is my second run to grab the Iron ROM achievement, then I'll go back to my saves on both runs to clean up the other two endings.

 

Racing Bonus Challenge : Sonic R (1998 PC, Modded)

Finished

Tried Sonic Drift and wasn't feeling it, but of course I wouldn't...When I saw the screenshots I knew I would be annoyed by the severely limited FOV.

Still needing a quick racing game to finish within the week, I turned to Sonic R modded with the Sonic R Updater.

The controls are pure jank and the soundtrack is GREAT. Coldest take in the world, I know.

However, while the execution involves a lot of sliding around and faceplanting into cliffsides, I like a lot of the ideas presented by Sonic R. There was a focus on exploration and collecting, multiple routes, the novelty of it being a footrace, and each character having a unique ability. I'd love to play another platforming/racing game with these traits that doesn't share the same issues.

I liked the graphics too. I'm easily charmed by low poly models, and can't help but love this:

Popsicle hands, hah.

Maybe I'll return someday for a 100% run once I've knocked out some of my other Sonic games, but for now I'm not going to bother.

---

In Progress (0,3)

Spoiler

Finishing

• n/a

100%-ing

• Sonic Adventure DX (Steam, Modded)
• Sonic Adventure 2 (Steam, Modded)
• 2064: Read Only Memories (Steam)

Completed (4,1)

Spoiler

Finished

• Sonic Adventure DX (Steam, Modded)
• Kingsway (Steam)
• 2064: Read Only Memories (Steam)
• Sonic R (1998 PC, Modded)

100%-ed

• Kingsway (Steam)

 

[Covskin]

Super Mario Bros 2 – 100% Completed

Spoiler

As a kid I borrowed this from a friend but it never clicked with me. I was so used to 1 and 3 that this felt completely alien...and we all know why that is. I always liked being able to pick my character though. As an adult...meh, its nothing special.

 

Crisis Core Reunion – 100% Completed

This was supposedly one of the better PSP games and always had my curiosity, so a home console remake being released was perfect for me. I like Zack as a protagonist and the first half of the game is pretty fun. Unfortunately once you get to a certain point, the Punch attacks (Goblin, Costly, Magic Hammer) do so much more damage than literally anything else it becomes a case of doing one command over and over. This is exacerbated by the ridiculous amount of side-missions – 300! – and if you don’t get the equipment that lets you break HP and Damage limits quickly you might as well not bother. I also didn’t care about Genesis (or Gackt) one bit. The other characters were all portrayed pretty decently though, and the ending is fantastic.

 

Gradius – 100% Completed

Spoiler

I don’t really play SHMUPs but this game’s reputation precedes it. If it wasn’t for the rewind function though I would have given up quickly.

 

Wild Guns – 100% Completed

Spoiler

This is a fun shooting gallery with the addition of sideways movement. It never felt overly unfair either which was a pleasant surprise. Shame about the recycled bosses in a short game though.

 

Eliminator Boat Duel – 100% Completed (Racing Game)

Spoiler

A one-on-one racer where you work your way up the rankings taking on new opponents. During races you can collect Boosts but more importantly, between races you can upgrade your boat. Take too much damage though and you’ll lose these upgrades which can quickly send you in a losing spiral. Not a bad diversion.

 

31 games Finished, 21 of which are Completed.

[Dreadknux]

Hey, I managed to get a check-in done before the week is finished. Go me!

I have a couple updates. First, I finally beat Alien Breed Episode 1 on Xbox 360 a few days ago. There's only five levels in it, but i got distracted by a hundred other things. There are secret pickups and logs to collect that I've not yet gathered, so this will just be labeled 'Beaten' for now.

The other game I completed was the original Sonic Drift, courtesy of Sonic Origins Plus. Delightfully retro experience, once you figure out that the road to victory lies in holding Accel and tapping Brake on the turnings. I 100'd, which was easy as there were only three cups to play and nothing else to do once you win each one.

That takes my Beaten total to 16, and my 100% total to 13. :)

[cosmichaos]

Check In: I have a lot of trouble focusing on things. Which is probably why I still haven't finished any games. I've made some progress with AC: Black Flag, but I also just picked up Animal Crossing: New Horizons, which is insanely addictive, so now that I've got a new distraction it'll be even longer until I finish another game. Black Flag is still pretty fun; I've been having a good time completing island challenges as I go, but I also want to prioritize finishing the game as well.

I've been working on getting a shiny Sprigatito in Pokémon Violet, which is... taking much longer than I thought it would, and feels like a losing battle. I told myself that I'd wait to start the Indigo Disc DLC until after I hatched my purple grass cat, but now I'm beginning to regret that decision. Anyhoo, I think maybe I'll play some VR once I'm done cleaning some stuff up and maybe get some more Help Wanted progress done. 

[ShadowForever]

Everybody including me is completing Sonic Drift this week It was a fun little game! Pretty easy, but great! I finished it with every character, does that count as 100%? (Also Eggman on foot is faster than Sonic)

 

[Bortificatin]

Time for this week’s check-in, and I recently picked up the MvC2 cabinet from Arcade1Up, so a couple of the games on it are gonna be added to the list.

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Game #15 - Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes (Arcade - NAOMI) [Completed]

Spoiler

The one and only. Still my favorite MvC game all this time later, and owning a cabinet for it has always been a childhood dream, so I’m glad I finally did it. Embarrassingly, the version of it I played the most when I was younger was the old iOS port (which is now delisted), until I discovered the wonderful world of emulation. I still don’t understand why they didn’t put the HD remaster they made for Xbox 360 and PS3 on modern platforms when MvC Infinite was active and they re-released UMvC3 instead (not saying I didn’t like it getting a re-release but they could’ve done MvC2 too). Anyways, went with my main team: Jin, Psylocke, and Tron Bonne. It does kinda suck how Jin and Psylocke don’t appear as playable charas in the later games but hey, I suppose that’s for the UMvC3 modding scene to work it out (and they did already reimplement Psylocke). 

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Game #16 - Marvel vs Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes (Arcade - CPS2) [Completed] 

Spoiler

While MvC2 is my favorite, I actually have a lot more memories with MvC1. I played it a couple times in some arcades, and then years later I would end up finding it on the Xbox 360 Marketplace via MvC Origins (little did I know the damn thing would get delisted in a week or two later, lucked the hell out), where i’d play the hell outta it. One of the biggest things I like about this game over MvC2 was how each character had their own theme (which every game after 2 does bring back). I also like how they decided to represent a lot of characters aside from the playable roster with the assist characters. I kinda do want that to come back if they ever do make another MvC (perhaps a real MvC4). Here I went with a Jin and War Machine run… well it actually started out as a Jin and Gambit run but I just couldn’t beat Onslaught with that combo so I ended up swapping Gambit for War Machine.    

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Game #17 - Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter (Arcade - CPS2) [Completed] 

Spoiler

Don’t have as much experience with this one or X-Men vs Street Fighter due to re-releases of those two not really being a thing in my childhood. I went with a Spider-Man and a Sakura run. Heard there’s apparently a playable character that’s a parody of some Japanese comedian but the cabinet I have only has the USA rom so he’s not here. I do love Cyber Akuma as a final boss and hope he makes a comeback, perhaps as a skin in SF6.

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Game #18 - X-Men vs. Street Fighter (Arcade - CPS2) [Completed]

Spoiler

The first real dedicated crossover between Marvel and Capcom characters that aren’t just secret appearances or cameos. I went with a Ken and Rogue run. Man Apocalypse might look imposing but the dude is absolutely pathetic for a fighting game final boss. I know there’s some people who dunk on Galactus in MvC3, but man this blue giant is even more of a joke. I was surprised how the final match was actually your characters fighting each other. I’m not sure if that’s just because I picked an X-Men and a SF rep, or if that happens regardless of what charas you pick. 

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Game #19 - Marvel Super Heroes (Arcade - CPS2) [Completed] 

Spoiler

The game out of these all that I’ve prolly played the most aside from MvC1 and 2 thanks to that Origins rerelease. I remember that as a kid, I was really scared of Braveheart, as I found his character select art kinda creepy and especially his stage that takes place in *literal* Hell with all of the burning damned souls. Went with a Psylocke run this time around, she’s one of my mains in MvC2 and she’s just as fun to mess around with in MSH. As an aside, I remember Dr. Doom and Thanos being secret characters in the Origins version (as well as Anita from Darkstalkers for some reason) but I have no idea how to unlock them on the Arcade1Up cabinet. 

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Current Game Completion List 

Spoiler

1. Fortnite Chapter 5 Season 1 - Finished
2. Pokemon Violet - Finished
3. Mega Man - Completed
4. Akatsuki Blitzkampf Ausf. Asche - Completed
5. Dragon Ball Z V.R.V.S. - Completed
6. Capcom vs. SNK 2: Millionaire Fighting 2001 - Finished
7. Mega Man: The Power Battles - Completed
8. Sonic the Fighters - Completed 
9. Street Fighter X Mega Man - Completed 
10. Smash Remix - Completed 
11. Sonic Colors Ultimate - Finished 
12. Street Fighter Alpha - Completed 
13. Street Fighter Alpha 2 - Completed 
14. Sonic Superstars - Finished
15. Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes - Completed 
16. Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes - Completed
17. Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter - Completed 
18. X-Men vs. Street Fighter - Completed 
19. Marvel Super Heroes - Completed 

Bonus Challenge - Big the Cat April Fool’s Takeover: Sonic Adventure 

Bonus Challenge - Knuckles Week: Sonic the Fighters 

 

Games Finished: 19 

Games Completed: 14 

 

 

[Ryannumber1gamer]

Doing my check in for the racing challenge.

Game 45 of 52: Sonic Rivals (PSP) - 100% Completed

Due to cards being locked behind multiplayer, it was decided by staff that the completion conditions is finishing all four stories and getting Metal.

Blog post will be coming at another point, but this was really bad. Like really damn bad 

[NegaMix]

Still no progress to report this week, unfortunately. I had attempted to start the original Forza Horizon for the racing challenge early this week, but trying to find even a single hour of free time right now is like finding a needle in a haystack.

[FReaK]

just a quick update for the week,

been working a bit on completion of a few games, but nothing special to report right now.

I'm also thinking about finally finishing Kingdom Hearts 1 for this challenge, I have platinum'd 2 and 3 already, so finally tackling the first one makes sense. Still got at least 2 playthroughs to do for this.

[Winston]

I'll be writing one of my entries here, and the other one got a bigger review in a blog that I will be posting. So here we go! 

GAME #31 - Sonic Rivals - Completed

This was for the whole racing challenge for the week, and hoo boy, what a journey this was. For those that don't know, Sonic Rivals was an exclusive series to the PSP system, and was the handhelds only form of original Sonic content. The rest of the Sonic content was re-releases in Genesis collections and so on, from my knowledge. So how is Sonic Rivals 1? ...Not great.

The thing that makes this game a little important is the fact it serves as the re-introduction of Silver the Hedgehog in the series, given 06 was no longer canon. So this is the officially the first time Silver has met anyone in any Sonic media, and it also signifies that he has a rivalry with Dr. Eggman Nega, which is pretty different from Nega's first appearance. From my understanding, Nega is from Blaze's dimension in the Rush games, but here his story is changed to be an ancestor of Eggman's from the future where Silver is from. Maybe I'm wrong, since I kinda zoned out of the story after a while because I had to play through the same game four times.

Now to make things different for those four playthroughs, who you race against is usually different outside of the Metal Sonic races on the same stages, but even that isn't much. Some characters have more annoying abilities than others I suppose, but even then, your biggest enemy is the rubberbanding more than any of the special abilities your rivals here have. The rubberbanding is truly abysmally awful, and it feels like pure luck when you win a race most of the time. No matter how many times an enemy falls off, gets hit, etc. they always seem to be able to catch up to you. Meanwhile, if you fuck up too much, the enemies barely slow down enough for you to catch up. They do seem to make more mistakes if they're pretty far in the lead, but it usually isn't enough unless you're playing absolutely flawlessly, which is pretty hard to do given this games weird level designs and shortcut paths that mostly rely on you knowing which button prompt to press when leaping over a log or rock. 

The story is also nothing to write home about, as I touched on it a bit ago. It's just kinda there, and none of the characters even have fully voiced dialogue, making it pretty lame. The music here is also pretty mediocre IMO, nothing really sticks out and by the time you're done playing through this game so many times for completion, you probably don't want to ever hear music from this title again. The stages themselves also suck pretty bad, especially the Carnival Track and the Garbage Dump track, or whatever they're called. They're abysmal and are the tracks I've noticed the most where the rubberbanding gets you. You mess up like once or twice and you're just screwed and have to start all over again, which is basically three minutes of your life wasted.

Most characters also just straight up suck, Sonic's special ability barely helps at all. I'd say the most useful special abilities are Silver and Shadow's, Silver was probably the easiest playthrough in the game because his special ability inverts the controls of the other race, so it basically is a guaranteed slow down for quite a bit. Shadow slows people down too, but not for as long as Silver. Knuckles is okay, and works well if the rival is over a pit, which you can't even tell since the mini map sucks. Sonic's is a small little boost which absolutely does not help at all unless the opponent is right in front of you. Sure, it speeds you up, but sometimes it sends me flying through a wall or into a pit, making it worthless. Sonic is also the easiest rival to beat in AI from what I've noticed too. Silver being the most annoying, which yeah. The powers are not balanced well here and the rubberbanding is awful.

So, do I like the original Sonic Rivals? Not really. I liked it as a kid because it was something I could pick up and play in a car every once and a while. I guess it's kinda fine for that, but otherwise, it's a pretty miserable experience, especially if you're playing through the campaigns all in the same span of time like I was. There's not enough difference in any campaign, and the races just suck. I did play a bit of Rivals 2 this week, and I still enjoyed that one a bit. The levels are more diverse in design and there's more characters to play as well, along with events the break up the constant racing against your rivals. I didn't beat it yet, but I figured I'd throw in, Rivals 2 is a definite improvement from what I've noticed, even if the rubberbanding can still be a little annoying. It's nowhere near as bad as this game's though. I guess if you're curious, check it out, otherwise stay far, far away unless you want to maybe play a few levels as Silver and that's it. 

GAME #32 - Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door Remake - Finished 

I figured I would do my first ever blog post for this one, so I'd appreciate you all checking it out if you get the chance! I posted the screenshot for my finishing of it in there too, just so Ryan and the other mods know to check in there for it. I didn't end up completing it, just because I didn't think I'd really have the time, and I don't often fully complete any RPG I play. I still have to get back to Rebirth anyway, but yeah, TTYD is still the TTYD. Pretty good game, check out the blog for more!

Anyways, that's all I got this week. Glad I could participate in the racing challenge and also get one of my favorite Mario RPG's finished, even if the racing challenge was far more difficult lol. Thanks for reading!