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

[Lady Marie]

My weekly check-in:

No games finished yet as I've been busy lately, but I'm at least making progress on them. I've mostly been focusing on games I started at the very end of 2023 and start of this year, that being:

Midnight Suns: I'm not sure exactly how long this game is, but I'm having so much fun with it so far. The character interactions are enough to make me love it, and I'm also a sucker for a good deck building game. A certain someone (*cough* *cough* Ryan) spoke so highly of it that I wanted to give it a shot, and I'm glad I did.

Spider-Man 2: I'm making good progress on this one, getting through side quests as I go as well in case I decide to 100% it. I'm really liking it so far (and it's already made me cry once), so I'm excited to see where it goes. Also, web slinging around the city continues to be one of the most satisfying traversal systems in any game I've ever played.

Baldur's Gate 3: I had some reservations about this game that made me not want to play it, but after hearing it praised so highly by the people around me, I decided to give it a shot. Only a couple hours in, and it's a little overwhelming with the sheer amount of choices and the combat system (I've only watched D&D sessions, but never played in one myself), but I can already tell I'm gonna get addicted at some point. This one's not gonna be finished for a while, but I'm hoping to make some steady progress each week.

There are some other games I started in 2023 or finished that I'd like to complete, but I haven't gotten around to them yet. But this challenge is definitely motivating me to get back into playing games more frequently, which is helping a lot with stress relief. There's also a good bit of games in my Steam account that I've been meaning to get to but haven't, so I'm hoping to start some of those soon.

[fink]

Weekly check-in:

Still no completions, but I did knock out the multiplayer achievements in Persona 4 Arena Ultimax and Skate 3.

Skate 3 is such a fun game to mess around in with friends. 

Still slowly going through Baldur's Gate 3 and Final Fantasy VII.

 

[Danj86]

I've arrived to check in. I can't be sure when my second game gets complete, it's going much slower than anticipated.

Here we have Johnny Trigger. An auto running side scrolling shooter type puzzle game made for phones that ended up on Switch so I got as a little time waster. I was slowly playing it when the challenge was announced so I figured, why not try to complete this too? I thought I had gotten pretty far by being in the level 5 hundreds.

Turns out my assumptions couldn't be more wrong. You can see the level number in my screenshot. It's bloody level 1093?! By the time I was in the level 700s, I grew curious, especially since the game ran out of variants back in the 300s and looked up how many levels this game has. Apparently it has over 2000. I had made a mistake but have gone too far to back out now. As a short time waster, it works. As a game to try and actively complete, it's boring!

On the brighter side, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown and Another Code: Recollection had arrived.

Having started a run of Prince or Persia, after a bumpy start, things started to go smoothly. I'm beginning to suspect I'll complete Prince of Persia before I complete Johnny Trigger. It's neat that you can have the characters speak Persian. I tend to play games with voice acting in any language except English if the option to change it is there. I'm usually doing something in the background so I usually can't hear most of the sound anyway.

Meanwhile, just because I beat Sonic Triple Trouble 16Bit doesn't mean my Laptop can rest on it's laurels. I had purchased a handful of Sonic titles that I have yet to complete on this platform. I never even finished playing The Murder of Sonic The Hedgehog, only playing up to half of it and then getting distracted and forgetting to pick it back up.

I do also have an extensive back catalogue but am a procrastinator by nature. It's strangely difficult to pick up a game I failed to play initially which I have owned for years.

[KingKnucklesFan134]

Game Number 1/52: Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep FM (Finished)

100% Completed: 0

Finished: 1

What a rollercoaster this game was. Started it back in November of 2023 with Ventus' route first and had a decent time with the game, then dropped it for two weeks. After that, I picked it up and played Terra's route and had a MUCH better time. Then I completed Aqua's route and was quite positive with my experience.

The game is split up between 3 routes, with one final story unlocked after completing the aforementioned routes. Quite like Sonic Adventure with an overlapping story to boot. I found the gameplay to be quite solid, the music to be spectacular as always, the graphics being pretty solid, the story to be good enough for the story being told, and although it does cut corners quite a bit in every department, the story and gameplay loop in this game kept me coming back.

I might come back and get the SECRET secret ending later on, but I'll just leave it at that.

Game Rating: 4 Out Of 5:

Edited January 24 by KingSonicFan134
forgot to explain my game rating

[Stasis]

Weekly check in! 
 

Two games I’ve started to work my way through are Mass Effect and GTA San Andreas. GTA I’ll probably do 100% first as it’s easier to drop in and out. I find myself playing older games these days more than newer releases with both of these being fantastic. 

[ShadowXeldron]

I guess that I'll check in if this is how you do it. I'm hoping to beat all of these at some point:

I've decided that I want to play Rocket Knight Adventures on the MiSTer this week. While I have it on cartridge, my Mega Drive isn't at my main location. The MiSTer is also more portable. Of course, I may end up doing something else entirely if I think I need something quick to beat.

DKC:R has gotten to the Ruins while Pokemon Battle Revolution has done the first batch of colloseums.

Final Fantasy, Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze and Excite Truck haven't been started yet (the latter because I want to prep that SD card to use the game's MP3 player functionality)

 

Next week I'm back in university so I'll probably have to focus on handheld games for a while. Maybe I'll replay New Super Mario Bros. or something.

[Winston]

Here's my weekly check-in, with two more games done. 

GAME #3 - Crash Team Rumble Season 3 - 100% Completed

I have some real complicated feelings about this game. At it's base, it's fun enough. I like the gameplay style even if it does sometimes feel unfair, especially with how atrocious the AI is. You might as well just give up if someone on your team leaves and you have an AI bot. There's also the numerous bugs, such as how it was a 50/50 shot if I was even able to get into the game for about a month. It seems to be fixed now, but the fact I had to constantly reboot the game over and over again for a month straight in a game that only has online is fucking horrible. I tried uninstalling, turning my console off repeatedly, etc. Still never fixed anything until one day for the Elora event.

The Battle Pass items can range from cool to pretty lame, some skins are truly awful, some are great. I love the Moneybags and Balloonist one (pictured above) from this season, but there's this shit like the football tailgate party N. Gin from last season that was Level 100 and was ugly. There's not enough modes, not enough characters, and not enough stages to keep this game fun for a long time. You do the event, and you turn it off. It's not like Fortnite where there's actual fun to be had once you finish an event. Once you're done here with one, you don't want to play again until the next one, and even then you don't really want to. It's best played with a full squad, which isn't always the easiest to arrange either. The game is probably gonna die here soon, so I don't really recommend anybody picking this up anytime soon. It had a good idea behind it, but just a lack of quality control and content.

GAME #4 - Super Mario Bros. Wonder - Finished

This game on the otherhand was really great. I don't absolutely love 2D Mario like some, maybe it's because I'm one of the weird people that actually likes Mario 2 more than most, but this game is so creative and lively, it's hard not to enjoy it. There's a lot of fan service packed in here, a great line-up of playable characters (even if Wario and Waluigi should be here), and wonderful level design with great music. Animations are more beautiful than ever. This is definitely the Tropical Freeze of the 2D Mario series, a grand return to form, even if the last 2D Mario wasn't that bad. I also level the map gimmicks per each world. Some are more openly explorable than others, some are framed as an adventure as you go more and moer into these creepy depths, and some have many layers to the world. Just very cool to see this amount of effort there.

I don't know if I'll go back and fully complete this game, but for the time I did have with it, it sure was a fantastic time. I very much highly recommend this one. Very few flaws if you ask me. It's just a fun platformer, which Mario almost always delivers on. There's not too much more to say on it, it's a pretty flawless experience that anybody can enjoy if you ask me.

As for what I'm currently working on, I have been taking a break from BioShock so who knows when that'll clear up, but there's a couple games on my Xbox that I want to get to. Mainly Klonoa. So we'll see if that'll be here next week or not. Thanks for reading! 

[Ryannumber1gamer]

To be clear - everyone's check-in posts are great, and everyone who has made one so far is down for Week 2's profile gifts!

[Gavvie]

Game 3 Finished / Game 1 Completed - Turnip Boy Robs a Bank!

I think I preferred Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion when all is said and done, but the soundtrack for this game is better.

It's still a very silly game though, which I enjoyed a lot. I'll definitely play a third game, if they make one.

 

[Ryannumber1gamer]

https://psnprofiles.com/trophies/25399-prince-of-persia-the-lost-crown/ryannumber3gamer

My second game - Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown

Finally got through this big Metroidvania. Been chipping away at it now for the better part of a week. Not the biggest fan of Metroidvanias, personally, but I think this is one of those games that is just so good in it's field that it manages to attract non-fans anyways. I definitely think this trend of experimental, high quality but low priced games is something that should be encouraged with Ubisoft, especially when it leads to one of the best platformers we've seen in years. 

More thoughts here:

 

[CharDragoncaster]

While I haven't finished any new games yet, i've been chipping at Rain World as of late.

Rain World's a survival platformer, by the way; however folks do compare it to Dark Souls in terms of difficulty.

..hopefully i'll be able to beat it soon, hehe.

[ShadowForever]

Alright, I just completed Detective Pikachu Returns! There's no achievements or things to collect, but I completed all additional stuff, so it's 100%. Right?

Edited January 26 by ShadowForever

[Ryannumber1gamer]

24 minutes ago, ShadowForever said:

Alright, I just completed Detective Pikachu Returns! There's no achievements or things to collect, but I completed all additional stuff, so it's 100%. Right?

Yup, if you got all the additional stuff, it’s 100%’d. Will update in a bit.

[Gavvie]

Game 4 Finished - Fable Anniversary!

Screenshot is of the credits. I hadn't played Fable Anniversary in nearly 10 years, and the original Fable a further 10 before that, but as it's the game's 20th anniversary this year I started a new playthrough of the trilogy on Twitch, and finished the first game today.

Still a lot of fun, and I even enjoyed the Lost Chapters DLC, which I never played first time around because it was only on the PC version & Xbox Greatest Hits release.

 

[WorksOfMagic]

Another game to add to my 100% completed games' list, Sonic The Fighters (PS3).

Overall a short but sweet experience.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

3 minutes ago, WorksOfMagic said:

Another game to add to my 100% completed games' list, Sonic The Fighters (PS3).

Overall a short but sweet experience.

Just as a quick tip for future reference, you can use PSNProfiles as evidence of trophy gains, and for PS stuff in general, since it tracks your trophies. 

[Fireluigi1225]

COMPLETED AND 100%: Slime Rancher

Spoiler

Slime Rancher will forever and always be one of my favorite games. I picked it up when it was in early access in like, 2016 after seeing a youtuber play it. Since then every couple of years I'd start a new save file to do everything I could, though i never got all achievements until now. Funnily enough I definitely could've posted this a lot sooner if not for two factors. One, i got distracted doing everything else that I forgot about making progress towards the achievements. Two...

 

COMPLETED AND 100%: ...minesweeper?

Spoiler

...I'm embarrassed this took me so long tbh.

That's 4 completes and (hopefully) 3 100%s now.

[Tornado]

There. All done with Resident Evil 4.

 

 

[castell-neath]

Further to my submission this week of Sonic Rush Adventure, I'm still working through Horizon Forbidden West on ps5. Just got to the part in the main story where I just brought the wall down to force the tribe in the mountains to send a champion to the gathering. Its a really good story so far, and builds on Zero Dawn really well. Looking forward to seeing how Far Zenith fit in to this story going forward.

I'm focusing on developing malee and bow skills on the skills tree and I can take down most machines with relative ease now...bar the huge turtle machine which is a nightmare. Also not keen on the chess side quest game but do like the malee pit challenges.

Its nice to engage with the game, and it makes a nice change to trying to complete all the Frontiers update 3 cyber stage challanges. Lol

 

 

 

Edited January 26 by castell-neath

[Rabid-Coot]

https://www.nintendolife.com/guides/how-to-transfer-screenshots-and-videos-from-switch-to-a-smartphone-pc-or-mac

Good to know there's a way to get proof from a switch game that doesn't involve taking a photo of a tv.

Edited January 26 by Rabid-Coot

[Salamander]

I would like to register my interest in joining this event!  I already have a couple of short games I've completed this year, and a few ongoings.  I'll try to get pictures together for the ones I've already completed within the next few days.

For now, my ongoings:

Mercenaries Rebirth: Call of the Wild Lynx (Switch) - I wrapped up Tactics Ogre Reborn early last year having enjoyed it tremendously, but knowing I had barely scratched the surface of its extended content.  It was just too enormous a game for me, but I would have liked to play something similar but shorter.  That was when I remembered the Mercenaries Saga games which had showed up on the 3DS some years before.  The series has since expanded to seven titles, and I decided, why not?  I would check out the whole series over a period of time, see how they evolved, see how I liked them.  This is the sixth entry now, so I'm finally nearing the end of my long campaign, playing one title every two months.  (For what it's worth, at the time of writing my favourite is the fifth entry, Mercenaries Blaze: Dawn Of The Twin Dragons.  It's actually interested in real-world problems, not just fantasy tales of monarchs and demons.)

Picontier (Switch) - I began this game late last year, but I don't expect to finish it for some months yet; I'm playing it at a rate of one in-game day per real-life day, and, well, it's a "slow-life RPG", a farming game... or rather, sort of like a farming game crossed with Zelda.  Not the sort of thing I would normally go in for, but I am a great fan of the developer, Skipmore (author of the Fairune series, Kamiko, Transiruby), and so I had to give it a try.  It's excellent - and apparently considerably longer than Skipmore's usual fare...

Stella Glow (3DS) - When it became clear the 3DS eShop was shutting down, I scooped up every leftover game that might possibly interest me... which was mostly long Atlus-developed/published RPGs.  This is the final new 3DS game I'll ever play, a fantasy strategy RPG in which songs are magic.  It's a game I've considered a few times over the years and then been turned off again by its character design, but I have heard many a time that it's a fantastic SRPG, and somehow I've ended up playing a lot of those lately, so here we are.  I'm maybe a quarter, a third of the way through?  It's on hold for now until my next 3DS slot, probably a few months down the line.

[Endoian]

Juego 2.- Good evening, here is the second finished game, Sonic The Hedhehog 2, I loved it a lot, I haven't played it in a while. We'll see you next week to check-in and the next game I'll complete, good luck to everyone, Sonic lovers and gamers, byeeee.

[TitansCreed]

Good day.

This week in video gaming, finished Sonic 3D: Director's Cut. Not sure if it'll count for 100% as

Spoiler

I did get all Chaos Emeralds and beat The Final Fight but the hack/mod itself also adds additional criteria for 100% compared to the base game

Decided to replay this one, as I do love me some Sonic 3D (on the Mega Drive you heathens), and the mod adds some nice QoL stuff that means I can pick up and put down as I need to for recording purposes.

We are currently playing through fangame Sonic GT, as of time of recording that should finish today/tomorrow, Enjoying it though, final thoughts I guess after i've done the final part. Haha.

[Maria.Sosori]

1/20/24 - 1/27/24 : collected more skills in sonic battle. yeah that kinda it

[Ryannumber1gamer]

9 hours ago, TitansCreed said:

Good day.

This week in video gaming, finished Sonic 3D: Director's Cut. Not sure if it'll count for 100% as

  Reveal hidden contents

I did get all Chaos Emeralds and beat The Final Fight but the hack/mod itself also adds additional criteria for 100% compared to the base game

Decided to replay this one, as I do love me some Sonic 3D (on the Mega Drive you heathens), and the mod adds some nice QoL stuff that means I can pick up and put down as I need to for recording purposes.

We are currently playing through fangame Sonic GT, as of time of recording that should finish today/tomorrow, Enjoying it though, final thoughts I guess after i've done the final part. Haha.

It would count as 100% since we're using the base game requirements as our measure for completion.