Topic: Games You Recently Beat?

Just finished my first-ever playthrough of PORTAL! It was a really fun game, I got it on sale in a bundle with both, so I'll be starting the sequel soon. I cannot get Still Alive out of my head, it is so catchy!

Recently just beat Mario and Luigi: Brothership. I can't say it really lived up to my expectations though, at least as a fan of the older games in the series. It makes sense why it feels lacking though, given that there were only a small handful of Alphadream staff that worked on the game- with the majority of the presentation side of things lacking key members that originally worked on the series. Due to that, it feels like those aspects work against the game itself.

The narrative is probably the best part of it- and I'm not talking about the execution, but rather just the core idea and ending. The plot idea as a whole is actually probably one of the stronger Mario and Luigi games. It doesn't rely on a McGuffin like previous entries, and the villain is actually pretty interesting in concept. It's just that the moment to moment writing falls extremely flat. The dialogue and jokes aren't as good as previous entries, and the characters feel a bit off. Luigi suffers the most in the writing department, with him being sidelined a good bit. In the originals, he always had a chance to shine alongside Mario- but in this game it feels like Mario gets all the moments while Luigi doesn't really get to be as zany as he used to be.

The combat is one of the other elements I enjoyed. It felt pretty standard for normal Mario and Luigi combat, with actual improvements. Plugs are a natural evolution of the badge system from previous games (and a pretty good one at that), while Mario and Luigi control pretty much as they should. My only gripes are minor. Things like how when one bro is K.O.ed, the other doesn't actually have a delay when carrying the knocked out brother. There's a massive lack of weight and I'm not sure I'm a fan of it. On top of that, I don't like how Luigi's options aren't fully controlled with the B button. It makes battles awkward, and even 50 hours into the game I still kept making the mistake of hitting B when trying to use his menus. This translated to the overworld as well- with the whole issue of me pressing the A button whenever you control Luigi (in the limited segments where you actually do get to control him).

Speaking of the Overworld, I feel like the puzzle design and map design was pretty well done. My main gripe comes with the fact that Luigi doesn't feel like a character you have much control over. Sure- you still get the ability to use Y and B for the Hammer and Jumping, but it feels like you never actually need to do that. Luigi can jump on his own in the overworld, and you can send him out to do things like plucking veggies or breaking boxes on his own. The only time you ever need to use his hammer are when puzzles require him and Mario to split up. Luigi gets it so bad in this game, that even when you fail to trigger battles by only having one of the two brothers jump, Luigi still doesn't start combat when being ran into.

A few gripes I had were: Islands being split up into level-like chunks instead of being apart of one massive interconnected overworld like previous titles, the forced backtracking that the game makes you do- which is genuinely only there to act as filler, the fact that the game only has three mini-games with one being repeated constantly for no good reason (and the one that gets repeated is the most annoying one in the game), the art style being all over the place, and the over-all lack of creativity in the game's character designs and world. All to the point where it feels like the game has the same issue Paper Mario had with the whole "Toads with different clothes" syndrome. Instead, it's less noticeable though- given that it's a new race of characters that look like plugs. Even then, it feels like they genuinely didn't get creative with the concept outside of a few of the main protagonists and antagonists.

Over-all, Brothership is a game plagued with a lot of small but nitpicky issues that cause me to like it less and less as time goes on. It isn't a 5/10 game, but I definitely see where people are coming from with giving it a 7/10. It's an enjoyable game for those who probably never played an entry before in the series- but for fans that were excited about the return of this version of the Brothers, I'd say this really isn't what people were wanting. Hopefully the series can climb back to what it used to be- assuming it still even has a future. Given what's going on with Acquire and how long it took Nintendo to find a suitable developer for a new entry, I can't imagine the series is going to return for much longer. We'll be lucky if we even get another one of these in the next ten years.

@VoidofLight Thanks for the mini review haha, it actually clarified a lot for me!

Sonic Superstars. The actual Zones weren't too bad except Press Factory, that Zone with its irritating gimmicks drove me up the wall. Next we have the bosses and oh boy where do I begin here? in the Mega Drive/Genesis games you could always bull the bosses so you could beat them in seconds but in Superstars it's just a stupid waiting game. The last fight with Fang playing as Trip was easily the worst designed boss I have ever seen in my life. Why give the Player rings if literally everything he throws at you can kill you instantly either way? finally we have the purple dragon which to this day I still don't know where it fits into the story, it just seemed to appear out of nowhere. As far as the actual fight goes it was easily the lamest Super Sonic fight in the entire series.

Thank Christ I never have to play this rubbish ever again.

@CaleBoi25 No problem! I like writing mini-reviews here of the games I've played. Even if no one really pays any mind to them, it's a good way to express my thoughts and make clearing my backlog feel a bit more worth it in the end! Glad I was able to clarify things for you!

We are near the end of the year, and I wanted to share the games I have beaten from start to finish this year.

I ordered the game per console. Some are present in both Switch and PS5 because I have beaten them on both platforms

Most games I have replayed for the N'th time but there are some that were never beaten before by me

Switch:

• Batman Arkham Asylum
• Castlevania Aria of Sorrow
• Castlevania Circle of the Moon
• Castlevania Harmony of Dissonance
• Darksiders II Deathinitive Edition
• Darksiders III
• Darksiders Warmastered Edition
• Hollow Knight (First time!)
• The Elder Scrolls V - Skyrim

Nintendo 64

• Resident Evil 2 (First time!)

Xbox One

• Fallout New Vegas (First time!)
• Half-Life 2

Playstation 5

• Bioshock
• Castlevania Circle of the Moon
• Castlevania Aria of Sorrow
• DARK SOULS REMASTERED
• ELDEN RING
• Fallout 4 (First time!)
• RESIDENT EVIL 2
• RESIDENT EVIL 7
• RESIDENT EVIL 3
• Resident Evil 8 Village

I just beat Mario and Luigi Superstar Saga. The 3DS remake. It was such a breath of fresh air in comparison to the experience that Brothership left me with. It highlighted more issues I had with Brothership as a whole. Mainly the humor and the over-all gameplay. I don't get why the devs decided to abandon the tight gameplay that the older games had.

SuperStar Saga actually feels like it highlights the bonds between Mario and Luigi far better than Brothership- and somehow managed to do that within a shorter amount of hours. The game is around 19-20 hours long, and it doesn't really even feel like it overstays its welcome either. The character writing is great, and same with the combat. Mario and Luigi both feel like they have weight in their controls during combat- especially when one or the other faint in battle. The enemies are far harder to fight in later game areas, and the final boss is far more challenging than the one at the end of Brothership.

The area design and puzzle design are just as good as Brothership, but they feel tighter because you actually get to control Luigi. They make interesting work with how you handle utilizing the brothers, and some puzzles require you to split them up. One puzzle in late game requires you to split both Mario and Luigi in order to hit an enemy in a pipe.

Over-all I'd say this was honestly one of the better releases in the series. An enjoyable and short experience all around that never left me feeling fatigued by the end- or feeling like I wish it could be over.

A few recent completions, though two are short.

Famicom Detective Club: The Girl Who Stands Behind
This is a modern remake by Mages (Steins;Gate, later Corpse Party entries) of Nintendo's original Famicom visual novel. Release wise, this is the second Famicom Detective Club game after The Missing Heir. It's the first chronologically. I liked this one slightly better since it leaned more into the creepy factor, though it is ultimately a mystery game and not a horror title. The player is investigating the murder of a high school student, who in turn was investigating rumors behind her school's urban legend, the titular Girl Who Stands Behind. While I found much of The Missing Heir predictable and called the big twist, there were a couple twists - one major - in this game I didn't catch due to red herrings.

Visually, the game is beautiful. There's some great dialogue and interactions between different characters, with more memorable characters (IMO) compared to The Missing Heir. Especially one who is introduced almost halfway through the game. The gameplay is similar to the investigation sections of Ace Attorney, though this is where the skeleton of the Famicom original shows through. I usually didn't have issues with dialogue and plot advancement, but sometimes you have to activate certain dialogue through your choices and actions. And this can be very convoluted and specific. So it doesn't hurt to have a guide nearby.

All in all, this is a short VN I can recommend if one likes mysteries, a lot of text in their games, and doesn't mind slightly dated gameplay.

The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom
The newest Zelda adventure and one I mostly enjoyed. It's nice to see a more compact, top-down Zelda with proper dungeons return. The game still maintains some of the freeform nature of BotW/TotK with Tri's Bind mechanic (Reminiscent of Ultrahand and Magnesis in those) and the various ways the player can create different puzzle solutions using Echoes. I'm not bothered by the game's visual style at all, though there is the occasional noticeable frame chug. It didn't hinder my enjoyment. The plot isn't anything deep compared to some other Zeldas, but some of the new characters are endearing (Stamp Guy, Condé, General Wright, Dohna, and Lueburry to name a few). It's also neat to see a pseudo role reversal between Link and Zelda. The new big bad is a welcome change too.

Perhaps my main complaint is the Echoes mechanic. On paper this is great, but the plethora of them meant some less common selections took awhile to get to even when I became proficient using the different sort functions. I did enjoy the mechanic overall, but I'll admit I abused Sword form a lot more towards the end since it usually got the job done quicker. Uncommonly for a Zelda game, most of the music didn't stand out to me either.

Despite my complaints, this title still deserves the "Zelda" stamp. I did quite enjoy this take on the world first introduced in A Link to the Past, but I think it falls somewhere in the middle of the Zelda pack for me.

Donkey Kong Land (NSO/GB)
This Rareware game is certainly a product of its time. I appreciate that there are some unique level designs and enemies that aren't present in the SNES trilogy, plus it's impressive that Rare managed to squeeze the aesthetics onto the humble Game Boy. However, to my knowledge NSO doesn't allow the player to switch between different viewing modes like the 3DS VC. I think color or at least a black/white aesthetic would've helped; the green/black visuals have NOT aged well and can even unfairly hide some enemies. Field of vision is often an issue too; sometimes I'd barrel (pun intended) into enemies or hazards just off-screen. Sometimes the game likes pulling an insta-death by "falling" too far even if I know there's a platform Donkey or Diddy can land on below.

This game is mostly for those who love DK and don't mind retro platformers. It's a neat history lesson, but not one I'd generally recommend. It's put me off trying the other two DKL titles.

Just wrapped on Persona 5 Tactica recently, and unfortunately, it's easily the weakest entry in the core P5 trilogy (Vanilla/Royal, Strikers, and Tactica) Gameplay wasn't the worst, but got very repetitive. Constantly dealing with enemy reinforcements got annoying too, though I'm sure fans of the genre will affirm that it's just how these games work. The story was very weak, and didn't get too interesting until a good portion into the game (and even then, it wasn't anything crazy.) The characters were fine, but nothing special. The Phantom Thieves especially felt very boring compared to their previous outings. By the time I got to the final kingdom, I was just ready to be done. Honestly, that whole part could have been cut, and you'd miss nothing. It really just felt like padding for the sake of padding. I also found the soundtrack to be very weak, some tracks downright annoying. Which is a shame, as I really loved P5 and Strikers soundtracks (Though maybe not as much as most fans.) Overall, while I can't call it a bad game, I can't say it's anything special either. If I had to give it a rating, it'd probably be 6.5 (Which is between decent and good on my scale.) It doesn't help that I'm not the biggest strategy guy in the world, but I've certainly played some awesome ones. Heck, I'm playing 13 Sentinels next, and I couldn't be more excited. I just feel that this one fell pretty flat fairly early on. If you absolutely have to get it, I'd urge to wait for a sale. Even if you're a diehard fan of the Phantom Thieves. You're not missing any mindblowing interactions or moments, save for a couple cool boss fights towards the end.

As for the 'Repaint Your Heart' DLC, I actually liked it more than the base game. That said, I still wouldn't say it's anything more than 7 (good) imo. Honestly, the concept is pretty awesome. Combining the tactics gameplay with Splatoon-esque paint mechanics is super fun. I honestly think it makes a better Splatoon tabletop game than the minigame in Splatoon 3! The story has some neat ideas, though it's very awkward with how it even kicks off. Without spoiling anything (for the five people who haven't played Persona 5) this DLC takes place somewhere in the middle of the original game, well before the events of Tactica. This is done to make sure the events of the DLC fit in line with the original canon, but the way it's implemented is very jarring. I get why they had to do it, but it was certainly confusing upon booting it up. (If you know, you know.) One thing I have to give complements toward, is the soundtrack. Like I said, save for a few tracks, I was not a fan of the soundtrack in base Tactica. There was just nothing about it that I'd call memorable or catchy imo. The DLC, however, has some absolutely killer songs. In particular 'Quiet Storm' is super good (finally a P5 song with both Lyn AND Lotus Juice!), and 'The Night We Stood' straight up reminds me of Poker Face, and I just love it! XD
The new characters were pretty good, their backstory was actually pretty engaging. As for the returning characters, they were fine, though one of them felt very...out of character. Especially given how this character was acting by this point in the OG (Again, if you know, you know.) It's super short, only 3-4 hours, and I don't know if I'd say it's worth $20, but I certainly enjoyed it more than the base game.

I know it might seem like I'm being harsh on this game, maybe part of it is simply because I'm relatively new to the strategy/tactics genre. Even so, I can't stand Musou/Warriors gameplay, and I thought Strikers was great! I just feel like overall I wouldn't be honest if I said I loved or even really liked this game. That said, I'm glad I played it, even if only to experience the last of the three big Persona 5 games. Throughout the year I played through all three, and by this point, I think I need a bit of a break from Persona. I'm feeling a bit burned out from all this Metaverse and Velvet Room talk for a while. Despite that, at some point in 2025, I have every intention to play Persona 4 Golden. I'm looking forward to it, as I haven't had it spoiled for me (Unlike Persona 5) and have heard many say that it's still their favorite in the franchise. For now, I think I'll take Morgana's advice and get some rest for my next time in the Metaverse.

@Novamii If you haven't played Persona 3, I'd also recommend Reload. I wouldn't get Episode Aigis (it's literally a 10 hour grindfest), but watching The Answer on youtube is probably a good idea after you beat Reload. Definitely has the strongest ending in modern Persona.

@Tyranexx If you go into settings on the left of the game selection/homepage, you can switch to Game Boy Color mode. In Donkey Kong Land it just makes all the enemies and items pretty much the same shade of brown, but it helps a lot with distinguishing them from the background. There's also Game Boy Pocket mode which is black and white rather than green. Just a shame there's no Super Game Boy setting.

Finally finished Mario & Luigi: Brothership. It is a decent game overall, but I was hoping to like it quite a bit more. My main issue with the game is that it just feels too long for what it is. The further I got into it, the more I wanted to just finish this game! I don't know if it's just me getting older and less patient or whatever, but I don't remember the other M&L games being this long. I feel like the general pacing in Brothership wasn't great. The battle system is still as good as it's always been though, so that's a plus.

So yeah, not a bad game overall, just a bit of a letdown because of its slow pacing. I was pretty excited for it when it got announced in that Nintendo Direct, so that kinda stung. I guess it also goes to show that I'm not huge into RPGs in general because of how long a lot of them are. I do like stuff like Super Mario RPG and the first two Paper Mario games though... but Brothership definitely isn't one of my favorites.

@Dogorilla Thanks for the tip! I banged around in the game's settings/suspension menus, but it didn't occur to me to check the GB app's homepage. Probably because the handful of other GB titles I've touched were for the Game Boy Color, so I assumed the pallet was locked. This doesn't address all of my complaints with DKL, but at least I can mess with the visuals now.

@MarioVillager92 Brothership is the longest in the series and is artificially padded so that it can be a longer game. It definitely isn't just you. The other games in the series also have far better writing and gameplay.

@Tyranexx I've enjoyed what I've played of DK Land so far, but I do agree about the limited field of vision being a problem. Especially on those levels where you're on a moving platform (which I'd say are the hardest I've played so far by some distance), if you jump down it seems arbitrary whether the screen will scroll down with you or you'll just die, even when you know there's safe ground below you.

I finished Kingdom Hearts probably more than six times now. It stood the test of time.

@Dogorilla Exactly! I'm not a fan of those moving platforms. Have you done the platform on one of the cloud stages that keeps moving and only changes direction when it hits something? The idea is to help control the direction by jumping when needed, but I found this very hard in some areas since the space is limited.

@Tyranexx Yes, I just managed to beat that level today! It had me cursing the level designers at Rare, lol. I've mostly been avoiding using NSO save states so that KONG letters still have some value (you can only save if you find all the letters in a level), but I had to make an exception as a game over on that level would have been too frustrating.

@Dogorilla I will unashamedly admit I abused save states like crazy on that level lol. A game over would've sent me off the sanity train. On paper I like the general idea, but the execution was terrible.

Raiden NOVA

Clearly developer MOSS played Vampire Survivor and said to themselves, "how about we make one of those?" Although this is more of a hybrid. Part twin-stick shmup and part ASS game (automatic survival shooter). The options will autofire while you use the right analog stick to guide your main weapon shots.

It follows the trend of a roguelite. You earn currency to make your subsequent runs easier. But I didn't need the passive progression system as I rolled the credits, on normal difficulty, on my third run. Took less than an hour.

I enjoyed my experience, got a pretty good dopamine hit throughout the last couple stages.

7/10 - A good game, but there are better twin-stick shmups.