What Games Have You Completed? (2021 Edition)

Game|Platform|Game|Platform
Megaman X2|SNES|Live a Live|SNES
Streets of Rage 4|PC|Clockwork Knight|Saturn
Sekiro|PC|DuckTales|NES
Megaman 7|SNES|Drakengard 3|PS3
Megaman 8|PS1|Double Dragon|NES
Megaman X3|SNES||
Megaman & Bass|SNES||
13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim|PS4||
Broken Sword: Director's Cut|PC||
Command & Conquer: Red Alert|PC||
Mischief Makers|N64||
Wolfenstein 2: New Colossus (DLC)|PC||
Deception 4: Blood Ties|PS4||
Final Fantasy Adventure|Gameboy||
Virtua Racing|Switch||
Thief 2: The Metal Age|PC||
Medal of Honor: Allied Assault: Spearhead|PC||
Crysis Remaster|PC||
God of War: Chain of Olympus|PS3||
Resident Evil Village|PC||


Double Dragon

Always hear a lot of negativity about this game. People compare it a lot to the Arcade game which had 2 players or the superior NES sequel which is a better game and also allowed two players. Taken on it's own I think this still holds up.

Got the urge to play this after watching the excellent 'U can Beat Video Game' video on it. The NES version loses the 2 player mode of the arcade but expands on the arcade game, adding new areas and gameplay. There's a levelling system which doesn't quite work as you are forced to use weaker attacks until you unlock the best moves. The better moves give very little to no experience.

I've been very negative so far but it's actually a great little beat'em up which I had a lot of fun with. It's been scaled back a lot from the arcade game but it's also been rebalanced to make it a much fairer game. There's a surprising amount of strategy in how you approach the game. You've got to balance damage with exp growth and the variety of enemies need to be approached in unique ways.

It's a pretty short game but quite the challenge as you've only 3 lives to beat the game with. However with a bit of focus it's perfectly beatable ina few afternoons.

A NES classic.

Game|Platform|Game|Platform
Megaman X2|SNES|Live a Live|SNES
Streets of Rage 4|PC|Clockwork Knight|Saturn
Sekiro|PC|DuckTales|NES
Megaman 7|SNES|Drakengard 3|PS3
Megaman 8|PS1|Double Dragon|NES
Megaman X3|SNES|Secret of Mana|SNES
Megaman & Bass|SNES||
13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim|PS4||
Broken Sword: Director's Cut|PC||
Command & Conquer: Red Alert|PC||
Mischief Makers|N64||
Wolfenstein 2: New Colossus (DLC)|PC||
Deception 4: Blood Ties|PS4||
Final Fantasy Adventure|Gameboy||
Virtua Racing|Switch||
Thief 2: The Metal Age|PC||
Medal of Honor: Allied Assault: Spearhead|PC||
Crysis Remaster|PC||
God of War: Chain of Olympus|PS3||
Resident Evil Village|PC||


Secret of Mana

I've always wanted to play and beat this game. I saw it first in a Gamesmaster magazine walkthrough and it looked and sounded incredible. As a Megadrive owner though I was boned. I read gushing reviews of it and did get around to playing it through emulation but never stuck with it.

So I've finally stuck with it and beaten it and..... It's not great. There's a lot of nostalgia around Secret of Mana but the consensus recently has turned to it being deeply flawed and I have to agree with that sentiment.

The main issue is that the game is incredible rushed. Famously SoM was meant to be a showcase for the Nintendo Playstation CD system but when that went south it had to be converted to Cartridge. The opening of the game is great and shows what the developers were going for. The map is huge, open and expansive. You can approach some objectives in different ways and the story seems interesting. That quickly goes out the window.

The majority of the game is a linear slog from macguffin to macguffin. There's obvious areas where whole dungeons were cut out. Bosses start to follow directly after each other in an effort to get through them all. And the narrative gets less interesting and makes less and less sense. A lot of the blame is levelled at Ted Woolsey's localisation but I played a fan translation and there's just as little plot in the english version as the japanese one. The english translation is very accurate.

There's a raft of gameplay issues. The game is very buggy, uncommonly so for a console game of the time. Characters will become stuck in walls forcing either a reset or to use an item called the escape rope which seems to be in the inventory to deal with bugs. The charge and attack combat works quite well initially but becomes a slog coming near the end of the game where you need to attack enemies with very high level charged attacks to even hit them. It's infuriating to charge an attack for ages and have the attack whiff, the enemy dodge it or have the a lucky hit reset the gauge. Magic is pretty broken as well. It's insanely overpowered against most bosses and there is a bug that allows you to chain magic so you can defeat enemies without them even attack. It's quite an easy bug to learn even if you are playing the game casually. I heard horror stories about people grinding magic and how necessary it is but that's nonsense, I didn't grind and just used magic a bit during the course of play and was never in any trouble with underpowered magic. This game also manages to rival Shin Megami Tensei IV for the worst overworld map ever (but like SMT4, it has incredible music).

I've been very negative here but it's not all bad. I did enjoy my time with the game but found that enjoyment lessened the further I got. It's an astoundingly pretty game in places. The soundtrack is a real stand out and one of the best on the SNES. It's just not the classic it's been made out to be. I think a lot of that is due to nostalgia for the game. I know I would have adored it if I had it and a SNES in the 90s. But also since it's release we have had the Falcom action RPGs finally come to the west. Falcom's output such as Brandish, Ys, Zwei and Xanadu Next are so much better than Secret of Mana and really are the barometer that all action RPGs should be held to.

Game|Platform|Game|Platform
Megaman X2|SNES|Live a Live|SNES
Streets of Rage 4|PC|Clockwork Knight|Saturn
Sekiro|PC|DuckTales|NES
Megaman 7|SNES|Drakengard 3|PS3
Megaman 8|PS1|Double Dragon|NES
Megaman X3|SNES|Secret of Mana|SNES
Megaman & Bass|SNES|Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions|Android
13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim|PS4|Halo 5: Guardians|XBox One
Broken Sword: Director's Cut|PC||
Command & Conquer: Red Alert|PC||
Mischief Makers|N64||
Wolfenstein 2: New Colossus (DLC)|PC||
Deception 4: Blood Ties|PS4||
Final Fantasy Adventure|Gameboy||
Virtua Racing|Switch||
Thief 2: The Metal Age|PC||
Medal of Honor: Allied Assault: Spearhead|PC||
Crysis Remaster|PC||
God of War: Chain of Olympus|PS3||
Resident Evil Village|PC||


Halo 5: Guardians

Meh, the universal sound of indifference perfectly sums this game up. It's taken me a long time to get through this game because I just didn't care for it.

Halo has really lost its way since Bungie left. Halo 4 was so forgettable I can't remember any of it and Halo 5, while improved, is still a long way from reclaiming its former crown.

The game tries its best. I have to give the team credit for aiming for 60 FPS. The game feels and handles sop much better than previous Halo games of console and feels an awful lot better than the Sony 30 FPS exclusives. It's a decent looking game as well even if the levels you visit aren't very interesting. It's not perfect though, there's a few points in the campaign when the game froze for a good second or two.

The Halo combat is still fun and fighting covenant is great. The promethean robot thingies on the other hand are more annoying and their weapons boring. However Guardians just doesn't have the set pieces that the series is known for. Encounters all feel the same and nothing stands out. There's a few points in the game where it slows things down and these are just awful. I see what they are trying to do, flesh out the world and lore, but nobody is interested in Halo lore anymore and they are just boring exercises of looking for the next scripted trigger to get through them.

Which brings me to the story. Boring old ****e about the return of some ancient evil. You play as the master chief who now might be evil and a team sent to stop the master chief. And Master Chief has a hard on for cortana and is looking for her. It's all nonsense, the two opposing teams never pays off and everyone fawning over the master chief gets old quick when he is such a bland character. The writing is naff, there's plenty of that poundland Josh Whedon banter that stinks up modern games like Horizon Zero Dawn.

The Halo combat is still fun and I really think Halo would work well in an open world. The ending does keep things open to go in interesting directions so I'm hoping Halo Infinity is the kick up the arse the series needs because Guardians is severely lacking in the magic that made the Bungie games so entertaining.

Well it seems boards has buggered up lists:

Game|Platform|

1. Megaman X2|SNES
2. Streets of Rage 4|PC
3. Sekiro|PC
4. Megaman 7|SNES
5. Megaman 8|PS1
6. Megaman X3|SNES
7. Megaman & Bass|SNES
8. 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim|PS4
9. Broken Sword: Director's Cut|PC
10. Command & Conquer: Red Alert|PC
11. Mischief Makers|N64
12. Wolfenstein 2: New Colossus (DLC)|PC
13. Deception 4: Blood Ties|PS4
14. Final Fantasy Adventure|Gameboy
15. Virtua Racing|Switch
16. Thief 2: The Metal Age|PC
17. Medal of Honor: Allied Assault: Spearhead|PC
18. Crysis Remaster|PC
19. God of War: Chain of Olympus|PS3
20. Resident Evil Village|PC
21. Live a Live|SNES
22. Clockwork Knight|Saturn
23. DuckTales|NES
24. Drakengard 3|PS3
25. Double Dragon|NES
26. Secret of Mana|SNES
27. Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions|Android
28. Halo 5: Guardians|XBox One
29. Air Combat|PS1
30. Kamui|PC

Air Combat

It's a lot more basic than Ace Combat 7 but I really enjoyed playing this. A good fun short piece of action. As a PS1 launch window game, it's pretty great. The flight model is good for its time but of course would be built upon later. Graphics have dated but for it's time this would have been stunning. One issue is that flat ground isn't textured so can lead to accidents while flying close to ground level. The game's biggest issue is the mission variety but then again that's judging the game against its sequels. If I had gotten this around the PS1 launch I'd be very happy with it and it's fun to see how this series started.

Kamui

A doujin shoot'em up from japan from 1999. While it took a while for the western indie scene is become a thing, in japan homebrew games on PC was a big deal with some very high quality releases such as Kamui. I credit fed this one but it still counts!

Kamui is a doujin take on the Taito classic Layer Section. Both games use scaling and rotation effects to give a sense of depth despite being totally 2D and the effect in both cases is absolutely stunning. Kamui may even be better looking than Layer Section in many stages. You've got your normal shot but you also have a focused laser that can destroy most if not all projectiles. You also have a lock on attack that can lock on and destroy targets below the player. You'll constantly find yourself juggling focusing on what is on the same plane as your fighter but also what is below you.

Enemy encounters and bullet patterns are fantastic. The game is more patterned after Taito classics like Darius or Layer Section so never gets into Bullet Hell territory. I much prefer this style of game and aping Taito is no bad thing, IMO their games have some of the most complex and surprising attack patterns of the genre. The game also has an interesting score multiplier system if you want to take your game to the next level. You lock on weapon has a multiplier and destroyed enemies will sometimes sink before being destroyed which leaves them open for a final lock on attack.

You can pick up Kamui for pretty cheap along with its two excellent sequels on steam pretty cheaply in sales and it's a bit of a hidden gem on the platform.