COMPLETED GAMES THREAD (2025 EDITION)

My List from 2024:

1. Megaman V (GB)
2. Liberation Maiden (3DS)
3. The Starship Damrey (3DS)
4. Kirby and the Forgotten Land (Switch)
5. Doom Eternal (PC)
6. System Shock (2023) (PC)
7. Weapon Shop de Omasse (3DS)
8. Kirby's Adventure (NES)
9. Resident Evil 4: Separate Ways (PC)
10. Princess Maker Refine (PC)
11. Metal Slug 1st Mission (Neo Geo Pocket Colour)
12. Metroid Prime Remaster (Switch)
13. Valkyria Chronicles 3 (PSP)
14. Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley (PC)
15. Elite Beat Agents (DS)
16. Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia (DS)
17. Yeah! You Want "Those Games," Right? So Here You Go! Now, Let's See You Clear Them! (PC)
18. Kingdom Hearts Re: Chain of Memories (PC)
19. Tomb Raider 3 (PC)
20. Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare (PC)
21. Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer (DS)
22. Contra 4 (DS)
23. Metal Slug: 2nd Mission (Neo Geo Pocket Colour)
24. Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree (PC)
25. Ys: Memories of Celceta (PC)
26. Sega Rally Championship (PS2)
27. Steambot Chronicles (PS2)
28. Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies (PS2)
29. Klonoa 2: Lunatea's Veil (PS2)
30. Poinie's Poin (PS2)
31. Haunted Castle: Revisited (PC)
32. Haunted Castle (Arcade)
33. Radiant Silvergun (Saturn)
34. Armored Core (PS1)
35. Marathon 2: Durandal (PC)
36. Resident Evil Village: Shadows of Rose (PC)
37. Resident Evil 7 Teaser: Beginning Hour (PC)
38. Resident Evil 7 (PC)
39. Michigan: Report from Hell (PS2)
40. The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks (DS)
41. Warioware Twisted (GBA)
42. Batman: Return of the Joker (GB)
43. Batman (GB)
44. Echo Night Beyond (PS2)
45. Ninja Gaiden Shadow (GB)

Best game I played in 2024:

Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer (DS)

The main game is a wonderful rogue-like but it's the post game dungeons where the game has fun with it's own mechanics is where it really shines. Could not put this game down.

Honorable Mentions:

Kirby's Adventure (NES)

Elite Beat Agents (DS)

Metal Slug: 2nd Mission (Neo Geo Pocket Colour)

Klonoa 2: Lunatea's Veil (PS2)

Radiant Silvergun (Saturn)

Resident Evil 7 (PC)

Warioware Twisted (GBA)

Worst game I played in 2024:

Poinie's Poin (PS2)

A strange game that never quite got to grips with it's own mechanics. Tried to get by by being quirky but it was just infuriating.

Dishonorable mentions:

Princess Maker Refine (PC)

Kingdom Hearts Re: Chain of Memories (PC)

Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare (PC)

Haunted Castle (Arcade)

Michigan: Report from Hell (PS2)

Weirdo game that deserves more attention:

Steambot Chronicles (PS2)

I'd kill for the cancelled PS3 sequel.

Nicest Surprise:

Armored Core (PS1)

Another From Software oldie I heard nothing but complaints about but turns out it was a wonderful game with a deeply dystopian setting.

1. Wizardry Variants Daphne

Wizardry Variants Daphne

This game seems to have had a troubled development, releasing months after the proposed date thanks to issues with COVID. What did eventually come out might be the best dungeon crawler in years but with some teething issues.

Let's get the elephant in the room out of the way, this is a mobile Gacha game. However, I can assure people that the Gacha elements aren't pushed on the player and it's perfectly playable without any monetary investment. There's a wonderful game here that can be enjoyed by anyone as a single player RPG.

On the other hand it's still a gacha game and some of the annoyances with gachas are present. There's an emphasis on loot. The underlying system are rather simple but there a heap of abstraction that makes understanding them difficult. There three currencies as well although this game at least differentiates them well. There's help online with systems you might not understand and the game isn't mean or makes monetary investment mandatory.

Now to the actual game. Once a century the Abyss opens, a hellhole that spews out monsters and 'warped ones' on to the world. Each time the ruler with a lineage to the royal bloodline has ventured into the abyss and closed it, as only the king can close the abyss. This time however the warped ones have gotten smart and kidnapped the King, the one person that can close the abyss.

If you don't know, Wizardry is one of the oldest RPGs and has influenced pretty much every game you play. It's an old school hardcore dungeon crawler. Daphne manages to be a modern take on the series yet also a very modern one. It manages to please both old school fans and newcomers to the genre.

Wizadry is well known for its difficulty and Daphne lives up to that reputation. Each dungeon dive feels dangerous. Resources are expensive. MP and special attacks are limited. Every enemy encounter has the potential to get out of hand and result in a party wipe of you can't wipe them out quick enough. The game will warn but not stop you entering areas with high level enemies. On top of that there's permanent death for the characters in your party and the costs of resurrection are pretty steep.

Permadeath might sound rough in a gacha game but the game is tough but not mean. You have a chance to bring back characters when they fall. There's a chance a character will die when resurrecting in a temple but only if their "fortitude stat" is less than 50 and the game warns you to just wait until it's higher as it increases over time even when dead. If you lose a character it's your own fault for being impatient. The game also allows you to resurrect three times and repeat a battle.

Speaking of battles, the battle system is fantastic. There's no random battles in the game. Enemies will walk around dungeon and encounters start when you tough them. They are invisible but if you pass a perception test you can see or hear the enemies in your vicinity. Battles take place in traditional wizardry turn based fashion. However there is a FFX turn order always visible and you have lots of abilities it slow down or interrupt this turn order. There's a big emphasis on stat buffs and debuffs and it's overall ab excellent system full of strategy, risk and reward.

The presentation is the standout here. The game really sells the bleak "Berserk" esque dark fantasy tone. Stories and side stories never have a happy ending, bittersweet is the best you can hope for. It's a gorgeous looking game for a mobile with some wonderful art direction and particularly enemy design. The game takes place entirely in first person. There's small little interactions with your team mates during the game and battles that really gets you attached to your party. A little tap on the shoulder and word of encouragement from them after a battle goes a long way. Special mention must go to the soundtrack by the legendary Hitoshi Sakimoto.

Currently there two story scenarios to complete with another promised for February. The first is the "Beginning Dungeon". This has you journey into the abyss with a band of knights to rescue the king from the Greater Warped one. Along the way the band of knights are unceremoniously picked off and the tension rises with each floor. This story scenarios is absolutely fantastic and a brilliant intro to the game and world. Completing the dungeon leads to a shocking ending but also introduces the mechanic on the "Cursed Wheel" where you can take different paths to mission and sub missions and lead to different outcomes based on your knowledge of what will happen. It's a fun mechanic but seems to give the devs nightmares as its been a bit buggy although most have been fixed at this stage.

Finishing the first scenario opens up a world map of side content and a new story mission set in a new Port Town. The whole port area seems to have been swallowed by the abyss and there's a ship in port running a deadly tournament that promises to grant the winner any wish they may have. This scenario does some interesting stuff with the flooded waterways and has a lot of flooded areas where the merpeople enemies can be extremely deadly. It doesn't make as good a use of the cursed wheel as the first scenario though and it's quite difficult, particularly the first boss. There's a few bugs as well that need to be ironed out.

Before I end I'd just like to mention the paid for content in this game and gachas in general. It's kind of insane how pricey they are. Everything just seems wildly expensive. I decided to give the devs some money but everything was over priced. Not o my that but a lot of it was paying for a chance of getting something decent. It's about 35 euro for 10 character pulls. I eventually settled for some armour I needed and didn't get the stuff I wanted and a spell upgrade that contributed about 5% to getting the next level of a spell.

Anyway already you can safely ignored that Gacha nonsense and there's a great game here although I'd still throw the devs some money, I got well over 60 hours out of this game I imagine.

1. Wizardry Variants Daphne (Mobile)
2. Spiderman (2018) (PC)
3. Track & Field (Arcade)
4. Ace Combat 6 (XBox 360)
5. Mars after Midnight (Playdate)

Ace Combat 6

This one rattled a few feathers on release. A previous PlayStation only series getting an Xbox exclusive entry.

AC6 is pretty much the same excellent Ace Combat gameplay from the PS2 games but with a next gen shine. It looks a lot nicer with some much higher resolution ground textures and the volumetric cloud effects are pretty remarkable for the system. All running at a silly smooth 60FPS which was a rarity in this generation.

The extra power of the 360 isnt just used to make the game look nicer. AC6 focuses on you taking part in operations that dwarf the scale of any mission in the older games. Each mission has a massive ground and air war taking place with multiple objectives for you to complete. It's a bit of a double edged sword. The massive battles are spectacular. On the other hand these missions are way longer than in any other ace combat games and it can lead you to losing huge amounts of time if you die before a checkpoint.

The story unfortunately is a bit of anime melodrama. It follows various people involved in the both sides of the war. It never really hits the emotional highs of the PS2 games. The soundtrack is also a bit weaker here although there is one mission where you finally gain a foothold old the main continent and a musical sting hits that was quite effective.

Overall, not the best Ace Combat games but still great and worth a play. It's a pity you have to track down an expensive physical copy to play it now.

Mars after Midnight

I was quite disappointed with this one. This should have been a home run, a Lucas Pope game on everyone's favourite hipster console with a crank.

The game has you running a late night community support group for martians. It makes great use of the Playdate's quirky controls and looks excellent with some really unique art work.

My main issue is that it plays like a watered down papers please. It's too easy and there is an element of money management but you are never in danger of running out of money.

I understand that Lucas Pope made this game more for children to enjoy and I can see it being a hit with that audience. I just expected a bit more from the creator for papers please and obra dinn.

1. Wizardry Variants Daphne (Mobile)
2. Spiderman (2018) (PC)
3. Track & Field (Arcade)
4. Ace Combat 6 (XBox 360)
5. Mars after Midnight (Playdate)
6. Ninja Gaiden 2 Black (PC)

Ninja Gaiden 2 Black

This isn't as transformative a release as the original NG Black but it's a big improvement on the disappointing Sigma release but is missing the absolute insanity of the original game.

There's not a lot that has changed here. NG2 still has all the good and bad points of the original release. The combat engine is still one of the greatest of all time with Ryu Hayabusa feeling fluid while hits feel wonderfully satisfying. The variety in weapons and the addition of the obliteration technique enhance the already incredible combat engine of the first game.

On the other hand, the original Ninja Gaiden 2 was a rushed release with the level design and boss fights taking a massive downgrade to the original. Levels are just long corridors I territory by fights and it can get exhausting unlike the perfectly paced original game.

But it's a testament to that combat engine that the game still manages to hold up. Fights are kinetic ballets of gore and viscera and I could do the Inazuna Drop all day long.

X Y X X X Y *chef's kiss*