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No new games in 2020, unfinished backlog only

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Yoshi

Headmaster of Console Warrior Jugendstrafanstalt
Crash Bandicoot 1 is better than Crash Bandicoot 3, so strange to see the omission of 1. Also Croc is pretty neat. The Fire Emblem-style game TearRing Saga (from one of the Fire Emblem creators) is great as well.
 
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hariseldon

Unconfirmed Member
Crash Bandicoot 1 is better than Crash Bandicoot 3, so strange to see the omission of 1. Also Croc is pretty neat. The Fire Emblem-style game TearRing Saga (from one of the Fire Emblem creators) is great as well.

I absolutely adored Croc back in the day. Honestly it was such a brilliant fun little game.
 

Yoshi

Headmaster of Console Warrior Jugendstrafanstalt
I absolutely adored Croc back in the day. Honestly it was such a brilliant fun little game.
I think it has the best level design of the PlayStation platformers, it is only held back by its tank controls - which really do not make much sense in this genre.
 
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hariseldon

Unconfirmed Member
I think it has the best level design of the PlayStation platformers, it is only held back by its tank controls - which really do not make much sense in this genre.

Absolutely - actually the level design was for me vastly better than any other 3d platformer - for instance A Hat In Time and Yooka Laylee don't come close for me. And damn it just had so much charm.
 
Crash Bandicoot 1 is better than Crash Bandicoot 3, so strange to see the omission of 1. Also Croc is pretty neat. The Fire Emblem-style game TearRing Saga (from one of the Fire Emblem creators) is great as well.
Crash 1 is in there. I just haven’t sorted the list very well. I will consider Croc. Can it compete with the likes of Crash and Spyro?
 

Yoshi

Headmaster of Console Warrior Jugendstrafanstalt
Crash 1 is in there. I just haven’t sorted the list very well. I will consider Croc. Can it compete with the likes of Crash and Spyro?
I think it is better overall than Spyro, and has more balanced level design than Crash, but worse controls. It is somewhere in between the Mario 64-style open platforming and the more linear approach. It is linear, but many secrets within and a bit of freedom to move in more than one direction.
 

diffusionx

Gold Member
Loaded up a game that has been sitting in my backlog for 7 years, this entire gen - Ni no Kuni. PS3 version, I'm not giving them more money for a few more lines of resolution (and this version still looks great IMO). I am not sure how far I will go, the game seems to be a monster in terms of content and how much time you can sink into it, but I think the game's bright cheery mood and atmosphere really fit into my life right now.

I think it has the best level design of the PlayStation platformers, it is only held back by its tank controls - which really do not make much sense in this genre.

I think I have Croc for saturn sitting in a closet somewhere.
 
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SpiceRacz

Member
I was looking for a retro thread or something but seems this could be the closest thing. I want to do a poll tournament to determine the best PS1 game so I would like someone to critique this list. I'm pretty happy with it but I might have some blind spots. Just consider that the games should have a good balance of popularity and quality. So let me know what you think should be added or removed. It's 95 games now and I will only add a handful more at best without removing others.

I've focused on games originally on the Playstation rather than late PC ports or FF collections.

[/SPOILER]

Good list, but you need to add Devil Dice. One of, if not the best puzzle game on PS1.

437299-devil-dice-playstation-front-cover.jpg
 

SpiceRacz

Member
Absolutely - actually the level design was for me vastly better than any other 3d platformer - for instance A Hat In Time and Yooka Laylee don't come close for me. And damn it just had so much charm.

Can't speak for Yooka Laylee, but A Hat in Time has really bad level design in spots. I would go as far as to say it feels unpolished and messy. Not a bad game by any means. In fact, it was my most anticipated game for several years.
 

SpiceRacz

Member
Completed Sonic Advance 2, Magical Chase, and Shovel Knight: King of Cards DLC. Currently playing Klonoa Door to Phantomile. King of Cards and Magical Chase are excellent. Sonic Advance 2 on the other hand feels uninspired and lazy. Especially when held up next to Sonic Advance 1 which I finished recently. It also has probably the worst level in the entire series - Techno Base. Overall a disappointment and I hope Sonic Advance 3 is an improvement.
 

Yoshi

Headmaster of Console Warrior Jugendstrafanstalt
Completed Sonic Advance 2, Magical Chase, and Shovel Knight: King of Cards DLC. Currently playing Klonoa Door to Phantomile. King of Cards and Magical Chase are excellent. Sonic Advance 2 on the other hand feels uninspired and lazy. Especially when held up next to Sonic Advance 1 which I finished recently. It also has probably the worst level in the entire series - Techno Base. Overall a disappointment and I hope Sonic Advance 3 is an improvement.
I found Sonic Advence 2 fun, but did you do the Chao hunt? That was some bullshit...
 

LegionX

Member
7. 1 Screen Platformer

I'm currently working through an old JRPG, so felt like a short detour.. so loaded this up.. and 81mins later... I'm done with it! It's a very basic retro/indie style platformer, but it only has one level.... There are four characters to use, and each changes the win conditions and add abilities, and there's 2 difficulties for each character. I completed all four on normal, then the first character on hard, and that was enough for me! It's simplistic but fun enough.... in that instant respawn from death and just gotta push through to beat it kind of manner.. Nothing amazing, but I got it last year in a charity bundle, so it was solid 90mins of distractions before going back to grinding in my JRPG
 

SpiceRacz

Member
I found Sonic Advence 2 fun, but did you do the Chao hunt? That was some bullshit...

It's certainly not bad. I just didn't enjoy it the same way as I did Sonic Advance 1. I thought boss stages were pretty lame as well. Each one involes you chasing Robotnik. If that's not enough, they just recycle them at the end of the game.
 
Well, in light of coronalockdown, I think it'll be even easier to focus on the games I have instead of rushing out to the store to buy new ones.

Booted up a fresh Diablo 3 s20 Barbarian on Saturday. This is my fourth character on the Switch version. The early-game grind is so... quaint 🤭

Easy enemies, easy bosses, Blue and Gold tier loot actually matters again. I'm running through Bounties and am at lvl 40 already. Probably need to bump it from Hard to Expert for the sake of fast leveling.
 

SpiceRacz

Member
Decided to give Ori and The Blind Forest a shot. What a fucking game. The platforming and movement is sublime. I played for about 5 hours straight last night, until about 2am.
 

UDoneMessdUP

Neo Member
Decided to give Ori and The Blind Forest a shot. What a fucking game. The platforming and movement is sublime. I played for about 5 hours straight last night, until about 2am.

Have fun with this game. I just finished it recently. I loved the art, but besides that I didn't really see why everyone was raving about it, as the game feels badly designed at many points, the combat is a bit dull, and the save system annoyed the crap out of me. The platforming is really fun though, and I wish the game focussed more on this than fighting enemies, as it's what I enjoyed most.
 
Finished Sekiro NG+

Had a hunch that my second playthrough would be shorter. Sekiro rewards metaknowledge far more than the other Soulsborne games so I figured it would be much easier on the second go. My initial playthrough (where I defeated every boss and area I could, admittedly) took 73 hours.

My second playthrough in NG+ took 18 hours, and I wasn't exactly rushing. I still died a fair number of times, but it was nothing compared to the first playthrough where I learned all the nuance and banged my head against the wall. Felt very much like playing through W101 after you've unlocked every tool and can now style on your enemies with your improved skillset.

I also "broke" a sequence in the game that prevented me from giving the Sculptor any sake. Weird.

Highly recommended for fans of action games. I can also recommend it to Soulsborne fans who want a game that is specifically aimed at abusing and tricking anyone who got too comfy with the Soulsborne formula. It is very different than the others, but I realize it needed to be very different in order to truly challenge the fanbase again.

I'll shelve it for a bit but I think I'll try to get all four endings by the end of this year. Shouldn't be more than 50 additional hours invested, and that's abou how many (total) hours I invest in each Soulsborne game.
 
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LegionX

Member
8. Assemble with Care

Another short little diversion, this time it's a small mobile game... It's half simple story and half dismantling items, working out what's wrong, replacing parts, and reassembling.. with a basic touch interface making it quite simple to do... probably a dumb choice for me as that's basically what I do at work each day anyways... but oh well! The story is very small and low key, but it's.... "nice".. which I guess is a change from the usual games where you are stopping the end of the world and such... anyways... was a decent distraction for.. probably a couple hours
 

Domisto

Member
LA Noire finished. It's been a while since I've played a really cinematic game and I've got some mixed feelings about it. I liked LA Noire for the world and the acting and atmosphere which are all done to a high standard, it had quite a few well known actors which was cool. However, for a game with so many open world elements it feels so firmly on rails and is not that difficult as I could bumble my way through nearly all cases without major hitches. The tougher ones were when I figured everyone was innocent and it forced me to arrest someone anyway, I'm especially thinking of an arson case, but that's what you get with a big budget cinematic narrative. But I don't want to be down on it because it was a pretty good game with an unusual game mechanic that kept things interesting. More enjoyable for the experience than a challenge. Also, I would have loved to do some racing in those big old heavy cars around that city.
 

Domisto

Member
Spent an afternoon completing Tiny and Big: Grandpas Leftovers. Really good physics based 3D platformer. Where you literally cut the scenery apart and move it to make your pathway. Pretty much everything hit the spot. Looks great, soundtrack is very nice, controls well. The difficulty is fine; a bit uneven with the harder stuff probably in the middle. It's not that hard though, mostly just a little taxing in places, especially if you go exploring on some levels. I spent ages on level 1 mucking about because it makes a great sandbox. It is short, but about the right amount of time to avoid being too repetitive and stay fun. This was surprisingly good. And considering how old it is now, it holds up well.
 
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Bakkus

Member
Now also beaten this. The final boss took me around 5 hours. But I persisted and did it. Wow, what a tough game, What makes it stand out is of course the 30s style animation. What a visual treat that was. Damn, 2017 is definitely a contender for the best year in gaming of all time.
 

Domisto

Member
Continuing the noir detective stuff, played Blackwell Convergence. Not as good as the 2nd game but still decent for an easy adventure. A bit too easy really. They dropped the clue combining mechanic, which could probably have been improved on instead.

Also been mucking about with BalanCity. Nice gimmick and having Trump as my city advisor is a bonus. Not sure if I'll finish all the scenarios as the gameplay seems a bit basic, will see.

Next up: Bioshock 2
 
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diffusionx

Gold Member
I finished Saints Row IV, really fun game, mechanics were super sharp, great parodies and surprises all over the place, it's a better Crackdown than the 3rd game.

I just wish it wasn't in shitty night Steelport.
 
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Made my way through Hemwick Charnel Lane and cleared the path to the Vicar in Cathedral Ward in Bloodborne.

Level design in this game is off the charts. Still FROM's best in that department, I'd say. Every area is packed with devious corners and alleyways. I'm loving the generous iframes from the step-dodge (compared to Sekiro's).
 
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SpiceRacz

Member
Played through Super Mario Land DX this morning. It's a romhack that colorizes the game and cleans up some of the sprites. Really well done. Here's a picture comparing the original and the DX romhack. Going to try out the Super Mario Land 2 DX romhack next.

D4v6MOhW0AIXf-m.jpg-large-1.jpeg




Also, started Breath of Fire 3 last night. imo the most underrated RPG on PS1.
 

rofif

Can’t Git Gud
Not taking part of the challenge but could use some advice. What order?
ps4 - Shadow of the Colossus, Days Gone
PC - plague tale of innocence, mad max, nier automata, dmc v,

lol list of games I've finished/replayed so far in 2020.
Max Payne 2
May Payne
Return to Castle Wolfenstein
Half-Life
Unreal
Doom Eternal
Half-Life: Alyx
Half-Life 2
Half-Life ep1
Half-Life ep2
 
Not taking part of the challenge but could use some advice. What order?
ps4 - Shadow of the Colossus, Days Gone
PC - plague tale of innocence, mad max, nier automata, dmc v,

lol list of games I've finished/replayed so far in 2020.
Max Payne 2
May Payne
Return to Castle Wolfenstein
Half-Life
Unreal
Doom Eternal
Half-Life: Alyx
Half-Life 2
Half-Life ep1
Half-Life ep2
Haven't played Plague Tale Innocence but out of the others, SotC is the shortest.

There's also a bug in Days Gone that glitches one of the late-game missions and prevents you from completing it. Might wanna hold off until Bend Studio confirms it has been fixed.
 

rofif

Can’t Git Gud
Haven't played Plague Tale Innocence but out of the others, SotC is the shortest.

There's also a bug in Days Gone that glitches one of the late-game missions and prevents you from completing it. Might wanna hold off until Bend Studio confirms it has been fixed.
Fuckig Days gone... I have it installed since release day (somehow only installed and not played). That fucking game downloads new 30gb patch every time I launch ps4. it;s 1.61 now wtf
 
Finished Wolfenstein 2, I like the first one more.
Grace Walker is annoying.
Guns are fine
It takes itself seriously then a moment later its played for laugh, its a game that have no connecting thread.
 

LegionX

Member
9. Baja - Edge of Control HD

This was just a quick and cheap port of an old X360/PS3 game where they've basically just allowed it to run at higher resolutions, no added detail, just smoother gfx and framerate..

It's one of those games that's not overly great, yet... for some reason, held my interest for the 20 hours it took me to complete the campaign. It's an offroad racing style game with multiple modes, so sometimes you are doing laps of a track, sometimes it's a rally so it's a single start to end race, and sometimes it's a hill climb, which oddly, was generally still set to 2 laps like a race..

It's pretty basic, the opposition AI is rubbish... but...... there's just something that kept bringing me back to it.. Can't really explain it!
 

ExpandKong

Banned
Hello ding dongs I finally beat

Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana (Switch)

I actually really liked this. It's the first Ys game I've beaten, though I played a few hours of Felghana a few years ago. I guess what I played of Felghana must have really impressed me because between Steam, my Vita, and my Switch, I own like seven of these, but yeah Felghana and now this one are the only ones I've touched.

ANYWAY

Combat was just how I like for an action RPG - simplistic enough so as not to be intimidating, with just enough depth to keep me from getting bored.

I liked the premise of being shipwrecked on a deserted island and searching for other survivors, gathering supplies and building up a village while you figure out how to escape. Then of course it gets into some typical RPG ancient civilization, save the world stuff, which is all pretty standard anime/RPG fare, but rather than being boring it was...comfortable, I guess? Cozy? I dunno. It didn't offend my sensibilities is what I'm saying.

Dana's outfit was pretty off-putting (the preteen body plus gratuitous underboob made it awkward to play with people around, so I stuck her in the pirate outfit whenever I could), but I liked the character.

Speaking of, the characters were fairly tropey, but I couldn't help but like them. I don't know what the game's original, apparently awful, dub was like, but this one was good.

And of course, great soundtrack. I hear this is a series staple? Good deal.

Next up is

Bulletstorm (Switch)
 

mekes

Member
I haven’t been playing much since becoming a dad (6 weeks in) and with this stay at home stuff I thought I would be playing some games. But I’ve eased myself back into some gaming and have been having some good fun with Gran Turismo Sport. I guess the fact that I can play for 10 minutes or hours without being put off helps a lot. And I’ve gotten quite in to it and feel the games charm now more so than I did when I bought it at launch.

But. I did want to get into a good single player game. I’m a bit apprehensive about anything too huge or time consuming which is definitely one of the things that has held me back a bit. I decided to let my partner choose the game, so I let her loose on the PS4 to choose. And she chose...

Sekiro. Fucking Sekiro. Of all the games! She chose the one that I rage quit on 😂 Its going to be a baptism of fire.. But maybe actually the perfect game in some ways. Hopefully my second time with Sekiro can be similar to my second time with Demons Souls. I originally quit out on that game too, many years back.

Hope everybody is safe and enjoying themselves as much as can be 👍
 

diffusionx

Gold Member
One more done... Torchlight 2. A pretty decent Diablo 2 clone, with nice graphics and a good feel. This is nothing new, of course - I think it even landed on Switch recently.
 

mekes

Member
Im now a few mini bosses past my old save that I bailed on in Sekiro. The combat is slowly starting to click for me where I don’t think it did last time around. It’s such a nice game, but relentless so far. Beat a boss and there’s another boss waiting in the next room. Turn a corner and get clubbed by a giant. I’m sure I would have an extremely lame blooper reel with this game.

Its great tho. I do prefer Bloodborne and Souls, but Sekiro is still a great game.
 

diffusionx

Gold Member
Wrapped up Call of Juarez: Gunslinger. This is a short game but with pretty solid shooting (something that is often overlooked in FPS games, somehow) and an interesting story in what is normally a "AA" type game.
 

SpiceRacz

Member
Played through GI Joe and Totally Rad on NES. Totally Rad has some of the best sprite work and use of color on the NES. Also started SNK vs Capcom Card Fighters Clash on the NeoGeo Pocket.
 

LegionX

Member
10. Rock Revolution

Another of my old PS3 games done... This was a Guitar Hero/Rock Band clone.. released about when Guitar Hero 4/Rock Band 2 came out from memory..... and it's just..... so cheap in comparison... It's a Konami game, and they were the ones that really originally popularized music/rhythm games originally... so how this one came out so poorly I'm not sure...

At least it was compatible with the GH/RB controllers.... But basically... it's got 41 songs... which is like.. half as many as the others... and they are cover versions, unlike the others that are all the genuine original songs... The visuals are awfully low res, and the actual notes coming down the screen are in 2D... so it looks worse, and also gives you less time to see what's coming... All up.... it's pretty rubbish.. so I played through the "campaign" once and then that was enough... not recommended!
 
I'm keepin' busy w Etrian Mystery Dungeon, Kingdom Come Deliverance, and Daioujou as always. I played a few rounds on my Genesis over the weekend (Twin Cobra, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Battletoads & Double Dragon Ultimate Team). Both of my sons really liked B&DD especially all the over-the-top moves. Lockdown has offered a good excuse to cozy up to my existing collection and play/replay stuff.

This year's challenge is gonna be a breeze.
 

mekes

Member
Sekiro is a lot more forgiving now that I have a few gourd seeds and have levelled up my attack power and posture. The perk which gives you some vitality back per death blow helps an awful lot too. I got stuck a few days back on a mini boss but I feel the 15 or so tries that it took me to advance past that helped me to understand the game a lot more. I’m officially out of the worrying phase and into the enjoyment part now. It’s a good game, I’m having fun!
 

Bakkus

Member
Finished Metal Geal Solid on PSX just now. I did play Twin Snakes long ago, but never played the original version before. A bit archaic in some areas, but still holds up in others.
 

Tesseract

Banned
some good overnights in shadow with friends, kinda bizarre playing this in 2020

absolute animals, cream of the crop

ninjas everywhere
 
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SpiceRacz

Member
Chipping away at Breath of Fire 3, about 20 hours in. Also started Secret of Mana for the 4th or 5th time. Never got too deep in the game. Something about it just never clicked.
 

diffusionx

Gold Member
In 2014 I bought the Jak trilogy for PS3 because I missed those games on PS2, and of course it was sitting on my shelf for six years. But a few months ago I hooked my PS3 up to a TV and decided to go through it and to my surprise I just blazed through the first game. I got all the scout flies and all the power cells (missing about 150 orbs for the platinum). I really do like these games although I haven’t enjoyed the modern stuff like Hat in Time. Anyway, Jak and Daxter - PS3 version looks great on a big screen TV, I love the lack of loading (especially compared to stuff like Spiderman 2018), controls well, the game mixes things up and keeps things moving, some levels are bogus (boggy swamp UGH) but overall, its still great. I wish this Naughty Dog was still around.

I immediately started Jak 2 but its a very different game as everyone knows. These old 3D titles are also starting to get ported to modern systems - Ty the Tasmanian Tiger, Spongebob, Voodoo Vince, etc., but of course I’m going to hold off for now. I also have the Ratchet and Sly collections on my shelf, yea its really bad.
 
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