Author Topic: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.  (Read 27468 times)

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Offline pokepal148

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Backlaugust: The Official Negative World Nintendo World Report Month for Decimating Backlogs!â„¢ is back again for more action! So start looking through your backlog and get started!

Here are the "rules":

Games can be on any system, not just Nintendo systems. I know we're a Nintendo fan site, but most everyone here is a multi-console owner. So play a game on any system you want.

Let us know what you're playing. Mostly just so we can cheer each other on.

Play games you already own. A lot of people tend to buy a game then not play it, or play it for a significant amount of time and then put it down. This is what we're aiming for. Games that launch in August or July of this year don't count.

Try to pick up games you aren't actively playing right now. Games you're currently playing can be allowed, but in the spirit of Backlaugust, let's try to make them games you aren't playing at the moment. Make it a game you haven't touched in a month or more if possible.

When is a game done? That's up to you! Mark a game off your backlog when you've seen the ending or end credits, or once you've seen enough of the game in a game without a "proper ending" (like an arcade-type game). You don't have to do or get everything unless you want to.

Finished games will be posted later in this post. Because everyone likes to see their accomplishments recognized. Just post when you're done and I'll try (and inevitably fail) to update daily.

I'd normally put how many games we cleared last year but there's a little game called Xenoblade 3 that's probably going to cause all sorts of havoc to our heroic attempts to quell the Backlog horde. I don't think we have any chance of beating any records here but we'll just see what happens from here I guess.

Offline Order.RSS

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #1 on: July 28, 2022, 03:05:02 AM »
But it's still July!  >:(
(I'll look over the pile this weekend)

Offline Khushrenada

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #2 on: July 28, 2022, 02:35:49 PM »
I'd normally put how many games we cleared last year but there's a little game called Xenoblade 3 that's probably going to cause all sorts of havoc to our heroic attempts to quell the Backlog horde. I don't think we have any chance of beating any records here but we'll just see what happens from here I guess.


Or just wait a month to play Xenoblade 3. It won't kill you to wait. (Of course, I'd say playing and beating Xenoblade 3 during Backlaugust should still count since you are removing a game from your backlog. Until a game is beat, it is part of your backlog whether you play it right away or not.)

Now, for the Forum searching impaired, click here for Round 1 and click here for Round 2.

Reviewing the past events, Round 1 was 14 games for me and Round 2 was 7 games. In both cases, I didn't really get into action until the month was already a 1/3 to 1/2 gone. Not this year! I'm using these last days of July to help me get ready for the start of August. I'm getting some chores done now. I'm thinking I'll make a couple big meals like a lasagna and or chili and portion it out for quick and easy meal prep time. Jeopardy goes on vacation after this week so I can probably bring my TV watching to 0 hours for a lot of days. Going to try and maximize my playtime because I want to surpass my previous best of 14 from Round 1 and set a new record for this Round 3.

I've got some games in mind that I wanted to tackle for this month and, to that end, I should go through my backloggery and work out what all I would like to aim for. If RABicle is also able to get his schedule in order than maybe me and him can rep for team Pietriots and whomp NWR and Negative World. I'm feeling competitive this year!  8)
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Offline M.K.Ultra

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #3 on: July 28, 2022, 08:38:18 PM »
Glad to see people are getting fired up early for Backlaugust this year. I have been frontloading with Kirby's Epic Yarn on Wii. I am at 58% right now so I should be able to mark that one off very early in the month.

Offline RABicle

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #4 on: July 29, 2022, 08:58:07 PM »
Damn I was gunna make this thread the other day!

Like Bungle I am trying to get ahead and have been hitting Pokemon Legends and Pokemon Black 2 pretty hard to get them in some shape for Backlaugust. Then it’ll be onto Hundred Days on the iPad and remnants of my 3DS backlog or something else I can play while commuting to my horrible full time job. I preferred the days of 2020 when I was unemployed and finsihing off a gazillion games to win this thing. I’ll reply with a better plan later today. I also have a Saturday job I must endure.
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Offline NWR_insanolord

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #5 on: July 29, 2022, 09:45:52 PM »
I want to really go for this this year, though I'm a little ashamed that some of the games I want to knock out are things I said I wanted to get done last year.
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Offline RABicle

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #6 on: July 31, 2022, 09:31:25 AM »
I want to really go for this this year, though I'm a little ashamed that some of the games I want to knock out are things I said I wanted to get done last year.
Thanks part of the fun!

Anyway, here;s the plan, the post that will get updated with progress.

Pokémon Black 2 - Nintendo DS Beaten, 18th of August
I boycotted this game back in the day because I was sick of third versions. Of course after the joke that was UltraSun and the crimes against the franchise that would follow, Black and White 2 suddenly look alright. In fact now that I am playing them, maybe this is the pinnacle of traditional Pokémon. There’s a lot of good stuff here and its a shame that they didn’t go on with some things.
I was playing Black 2 pretty hard this month after getting back into it after my long dissolutionment with Pokémon but before coming up against the seventh gym, the dragon gym, I wanted to train up some ice type and I don’t have any since I hadn’t experienced a winter. Backlaugust is Winter so I’ll get getting that Beartic and friends. I’ll declare it beaten for Backlaugust purposes when I see the credits but I expect to keep playing this through to November before finishing up, sending everyone to Pokémon Bank and gearing up for Scarlet. Projecting a finish around the tenth with focus on sessions while commuting and in bed.

Grand Mountain Adventure: Wonderlands - Nintendo Switch. Beaten, 3rd of August
I bought this a while ago as I’m becoming a armoured with the isometric racer genre. It’s great. It’s also HUGE as the grand and mountain imply. I’m about halfway through it after a decent session last night. I reckon I can knock off about one mountain per session and I still have 6 or so mountains to beat. So I’m projecting a mid month finish for this game, playing evenings after dinner.

Hundred Days - iPad
I’ve heard this one is pretty short. It’s a sorta sim, more like a puzzler which tells the story of running a vineyard, I’ve cleared the basic tutorial stage. Might try to get some sessions in at work and during mindless dual screening sessions on the couch weekdays.

Pokémon Legends Arceus - Nintendo Switch Beaten, 13th of August
So I’ve been playing this one to fill the Pokémon hole while Black 2 is on ice. I’m up to quelling Avalug which I guess I dont know, is this far? I’ve explored pretty much the whole region now but there’s a lot of interesting places that seem to be demand to be revisited. I guess I’ll look to pick it up again after I beat the elite four in Black 2. Expecting to finish later in teh month.

80’s Overdrive Nintendo SwitchBeaten, 7th of August
Another in the growing genre of games trying to capture the nostalgia of Outrun. I think I’ve cleared about half of this so far. Will pick it up as my casual switch game to play while the TV is on. Expect to beat by mid month.

Metroid Dread - Nintendo Switch
I guess I'll try to beat this. I'm very bad at Metroids. Might do Ori instead first? I don't know. Projecting 27th of August

Ori and the Will of the Wisps - Nintendo Switch
I think I’m halfway through. Will pickup and rescue the owl! Projecting 20th of August

Harest Moon - SNES via Wii U Virtual Console
There’s a save file that I’m pretty sure is in winter of the same one year. Why did I stop then? Who knows. Something to do. Projecting 20th of August.

Overland - iPhone
Who knows? Something to do during the commute. It’s meant to be story heavy though.
« Last Edit: August 18, 2022, 09:42:24 AM by RABicle »
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Offline Khushrenada

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #7 on: August 01, 2022, 02:46:59 AM »
Welp, it begins. The true Summer Games Fest right here.

I've targetted over 40 games that I'm going to put my focus on this month. Will I get through them all? I highly doubt that. But maybe I can get through half of them and hit 20 although I'd love to do 30 which almost be a game a day. I've got 13 Switch games, 10 Wii U games, 11 Wii games, 4 DS games, 2 3DS games and 2 GameCube games that I've selected as possibly shorter titles that could be quick to finish with a few that I've spent some time on but never got around to finishing yet.

The race is now on.

EDIT: I've made the list of games I'm looking to tackle on my Backloggery account if you anyone is really that interested in what I'm thinking of gaming this month. And wouldn't you know it? Today is my Backloggery anniversary date marking 10 years since I started using that site. Hopefully I can make the start of Year 10 special by powering through a chunk of games.
« Last Edit: August 01, 2022, 07:25:00 PM by Khushrenada »
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Offline Mop it up

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #8 on: August 01, 2022, 01:40:24 PM »
I think I'm in the mood for some classic gaming. Perhaps it's about time that I dive in the Mega Man X Legacy Collection collection and make my way through this famous and infamous series. These are probably relatively short games too, right?

Offline Khushrenada

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #9 on: August 01, 2022, 01:52:41 PM »
It was something I thought about when going through my GameCube library and looking at the Mega Man and Mega Man X collections (as well as the Sonic game collections). Although I know you've stated those collections are probably not the best way to experience the games (and I'd much prefer to have save states or a rewind feature for those NES games), it is probably the way I'll play through them at some point because I just don't see a reason to buy another collection of Mega Man games if I've already got them.
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Offline M.K.Ultra

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #10 on: August 01, 2022, 02:57:07 PM »
I think I'm in the mood for some classic gaming. Perhaps it's about time that I dive in the Mega Man X Legacy Collection collection and make my way through this famous and infamous series. These are probably relatively short games too, right?
I have played the first 4 Mega Man X games and each can be completed in a session or two (about 4-5 hours). I did get stuck on one of them near the final boss, where I was slightly underprepared and had to keep grinding to refill health containers before attempting the boss again. This made it go on for another hour or two. That might just have been mel. One of these days I will get around to the other games.

Offline Mop it up

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #11 on: August 01, 2022, 03:02:29 PM »
From what I have heard the GameCube X collection is fine, it's just the regular Mega Man collection that's a little wonky. Neither one has the full collection at this point although in the case of the X collection, it's missing X7 and X8 which seem to have some of the worst receptions so perhaps you're actually dodging a bullet there. The regular series has had 9 and 10 since then, and the Legacy Collection 2 also includes all of the paid DLC they released, so if you were to get any of the newer collections, Mega Man Legacy Collection 2 would give you the most content you don't already have.

EDIT: I've made the list of games I'm looking to tackle on my Backloggery account if you anyone is really that interested in what I'm thinking of gaming this month.
By the way, you forgot to insert a link here. Or perhaps you did this on purpose as a way to gauge if anyone would actually try clicking on it.

Happy Anniversary!

Offline broodwars

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #12 on: August 01, 2022, 06:07:25 PM »
My goal this month is a simple one: to at least finish, if not Platinum, another Kingdom Hearts game, and there have been a lot of them in my replay backlog over the years because I barely touched the HD Collections outside of Birth By Sleep. Been in a Kingdom Hearts mood ever since I pushed myself to finally finish KH3 a week or so ago after having it on hiatus for 3 years.

For the better part of the last week, I've been working my way through Melody of Memories, and I'm pretty far along in that one but it's the kind of game where it's best played in shorter sessions w/ other games buffering it. Right now, I'm looking at possibly finally finishing Dream Drop Distance HD (I stopped playing at Prankster's Paradise all those years ago); finally finishing my Platinum cleanup on Birth By Sleep HD; or finally doing my "real" replay of KH1 HD on Proud mode (I'd previously gotten burnt out doing a "Starting Equipment + No Death + 15 hour speedrun" run).

Been feeling pretty good about my backlog clearing this year, so I'd like to knock at least one of these out before Soul Hackers 2 and the Cowabunga Collection releases later this month.
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Offline Khushrenada

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #13 on: August 01, 2022, 07:29:57 PM »
From what I have heard the GameCube X collection is fine, it's just the regular Mega Man collection that's a little wonky. Neither one has the full collection at this point although in the case of the X collection, it's missing X7 and X8 which seem to have some of the worst receptions so perhaps you're actually dodging a bullet there. The regular series has had 9 and 10 since then, and the Legacy Collection 2 also includes all of the paid DLC they released, so if you were to get any of the newer collections, Mega Man Legacy Collection 2 would give you the most content you don't already have.

EDIT: I've made the list of games I'm looking to tackle on my Backloggery account if you anyone is really that interested in what I'm thinking of gaming this month.
By the way, you forgot to insert a link here. Or perhaps you did this on purpose as a way to gauge if anyone would actually try clicking on it.

Happy Anniversary!

Right, of course. Didn't think about MM9 and MM10 and their later releases. Didn't realize the X collection did not have 7 or 8. Thought it was complete. Guess it's in the trash for those two games...

The link should be fixed now. Thanks for the heads up on that.
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Offline Luigi Dude

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #14 on: August 01, 2022, 10:16:51 PM »
Right, of course. Didn't think about MM9 and MM10 and their later releases. Didn't realize the X collection did not have 7 or 8. Thought it was complete. Guess it's in the trash for those two games...

X7 is trash so you're not missing anything gameplay wise.  It's got some damn good music though so I'd recommend listening to the soundtrack on Youtube.  Seriously, the first Sigma boss fight in X7 is one of the best music tracks in the whole series.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_k6sj_tukNk


X8 on the other hand does have its fans, with some people even thinking its one of the better X games.  Me personally, I found it to be pretty meh.  It's not a complete disaster like X7, but half the stages have a stupid gimmick that makes them not very fun to replay.  Maybe you might be one of the people who love it, so its something to think about since the games not universally despised like X7.
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Offline Khushrenada

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #15 on: August 02, 2022, 01:03:37 AM »
When I said it's in the trash for those two games, I was referring to the GC Mega Man and Mega Man X collections since they were incomplete. That's the joke.


Alright. Mark one on the board. Picross e8 is complete. All puzzles finished. I had about 40 puzzles left in that one but no more. All Picross e puzzles for 3DS are now done as I get closer to completing all the games I've downloaded onto my 3DS.

Made excellent progress with Shantae: Risky's Revenge today. Finished today with the path to the final boss now open. Should be able to wrap that up tomorrow. Played some of Elli today. Don't know how close or far I am to the end but if I finish Shantae tomorrow and then keep progressing some more in Elli I think I could have that done for Wednesday. Also cleared the first two worlds of BoxBoy + BoxGirl. See how that goes with trying to do a chunk of it here and there.

But now it's time for some Better Call Saul so that's it for gaming today.
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Offline M.K.Ultra

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #16 on: August 02, 2022, 11:12:01 AM »
I helped Lord Kirby tie up Yin Yarn as I finished a 100% run of Kirby's Epic Yarn yesterday on Wii. Total play time was just under 17 hours, very close to the 17.5 average that is listed for 100% runs on HowLongtoBeat.com. I thought the amount of content was just right and enjoyed most of the bonus challenges. It was neat to see the nascent version of the art style from Yoshi's Wooly World as well. I have mixed feelings about the Sonic-esque mechanic of beads that disperse when you get hit and need to recollect. I also expected a twist in the story, like King Fluff turning out to be the real evil boss, but that never happened. Still a solid 8/10 game with some good use of the Wii remote.

Offline Mop it up

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #17 on: August 02, 2022, 12:30:14 PM »
Mega Man X
Way back when I was younger, I did play Mega Man X on the actual Super Nintendo, but I never finished it. I later sold the cartridge when I bought the PS2 Mega Man X collection, which I proceeded to not play and it wasn't all that long after that the X Legacy collection was announced. Oops! I don't recall liking the game very much but it's been so long, I figured I could give it another shot and see if I can better appreciate it now that I'm older and wiser. And I've gotta say...

...I still find it kinda meh! It's got the usual Mega Man staple of good presentation and a variety of stages, and I like that it features robotic animals to differentiate itself from the original series. When it comes to action games like this, I tend to prefer something more straight-forward and less complex, so for example things like having to replay stages to find upgrades is more of a boring slog than anything. After I completed the eight stages I just used a password to acquire all the items and skip over that nonsense. I've also never particularly cared for challenging games although this one seems harder than the original series for the wrong reasons. It also still has the NES problem of enemies instantly respawning if their start point barely scrolls off screen; I thought this was the Super Nintendo what even is this?!

It doesn't help that the Legacy Collection doesn't have save states or rewind for some odd reason; these are almost a necessity to overcome some of the archaic design decisions of these old games. It's certainly got me worried about how the rest of this series is going to go! But who knows, if the fans thought the later games went downhill from here then maybe I'll think the opposite since this first game missed the mark for me.

Offline Luigi Dude

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #18 on: August 02, 2022, 05:45:34 PM »
Mega Man X
It's certainly got me worried about how the rest of this series is going to go! But who knows, if the fans thought the later games went downhill from here then maybe I'll think the opposite since this first game missed the mark for me.

One word of advice when playing the X games is to go into options menu and set the Dash ability to the L or R button.  This is what the later Zero series did for movement, and makes the games so much more fun to control.  Makes fighting enemies and bosses easier since it's much easier to jump and shot while dashing this way.  Makes Dash jumping off the walls a night and day difference as well.

Seriously, this is the way most hardcore X fans will recommend to play since the default Dash options of double tap or A are not the most ideal in the harder parts of these games.
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Offline Khushrenada

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #19 on: August 03, 2022, 01:47:10 AM »
Shantae: Risky's Revenge is now beat. It turns out this game has 4 different ending pictures much like Metroid depending on how fast you finish and collect everything. I beat the game twice tonight to see two of the pictures though there doesn't seem to be a gallery for them. Normally, I might try and replay the game to get the other two pictures from a faster time but this is Backlaugust and there's no time for replays! It's on to the next title.

Made some more progress in Elli. How far am I from the end? *shoulder shrug* There's not much information online about the game so I don't know how much further and longer it might take. Another couple worlds done in BoxBoy + BoxGirl to keep that game moving along.
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Offline NWR_insanolord

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #20 on: August 03, 2022, 03:56:14 AM »
1. Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze: I was pretty close to the end of this so I figured it'd be a good choice to kick off the month. Platformers are probably my favorite genres of games and this game is one of the best of them I've ever played. It gets challenging, but at least to me never felt cheap, which is a tough line to walk.
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Offline RABicle

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #21 on: August 03, 2022, 06:54:47 AM »
First game down, I have beaten Grand Mountain Adventure: Wonderlands. Or have I? I have unlocked all the mountains now, typically each mountain unlocks after you collect 15 ski passes (awarded for completing challenges) in teh previous one. On the final mountain I now have 17 ski passes. There’s still many more challenges to complete, but I’ve seen pretty much what the game has to offer now so I’ll be putting it away.

Progress has been slow on other games. I caught a Cubchoo and Spheal in Pokémon Black 2 but now I have to train them or something. Haven’t touched Legends and my iOS gaming has been hijacked by uh, well it seems to be thirsty summer on Fire Emblem and I’m trying to pull a certain two goddesses. (Warning, while that link isn’t NSFW by the traditional definition, it is unsafe for any female to see your screen and you hope to have them respect you in the future while it is loaded up so click with caution.)

I think 80s Overdrive is coming into view though. I’ll add that to my original post.
« Last Edit: August 03, 2022, 06:58:44 AM by RABicle »
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Offline Ian Sane

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #22 on: August 03, 2022, 05:46:11 PM »
I got a Switch earlier in the year and while I started off having completed 100% of my games, that fell by the wayside by the time I bought my third title.  And since I'm trying to stick with physical releases I've gathered a fair backlog quickly due to snapping up games when they get a big price cut or appear to be clearing out of stores.  I also tend to pretty much just play puzzle games, visual novels and RPGs these days and RPGs are of course typically long titles.  Currently playing Shin Megami Tensei V.  I have a week off work during August so I will probably spend that playing games and can hopefully make a bit of a dent into the Switch backlog.  I got the Danganronpa collection and I had beaten the first title prior to SMTV so my thinking is to do the second game afterwards and alternate between shorter games and RPGs.

But we're just talking Switch backlog here.  I shudder to think how long it would take to beat all the games I have from older systems.  I attended the Vancouver Retro Gaming Expo recently and there was a $2 table that I grabbed a bunch of PS2/PS3/XB games from.  Used PS3 games got pretty cheap recently so I've bought several over the last few years for $2-5 and they're not necessarily short games.  I have a theory that if I moved to some remote location with electricity that I would have enough games to last me the rest of my natural life.  I could crunch the numbers and confirm that but that project would eat up too much time I could be spending on the backlog.

Offline Order.RSS

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #23 on: August 03, 2022, 05:56:06 PM »
Starting off Backlaugust strong this year by... giving up on Human Resource Machine.

It's a puzzle game with a strong concept: you're a mailroom clerk tasked with moving mail from one conveyor belt to another. However, to sort the mail in the right order you need to create what are essentially programming routines. Some pieces of mail you can stack, others you want to skip until a certain condition is met, etc.

The game's not quite as fleshed out as Little Inferno (from the same team) was in the story/setting department, but gameplay wise a lot more interesting. The only problem in this equation is that I'm an idiot who can't do maths, logic, or independent thought.
As a result I was already googling solutions after a third of the way in, and I had no idea what the solutions I was copying were even doing. So, time to shelve it.



I have a theory that if I moved to some remote location with electricity that I would have enough games to last me the rest of my natural life.  I could crunch the numbers and confirm that but that project would eat up too much time I could be spending on the backlog.

At some point it's probably more about curating a personal collection than finishing everything lol

Offline Mop it up

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #24 on: August 03, 2022, 08:08:08 PM »
One word of advice when playing the X games is to go into options menu and set the Dash ability to the L or R button.
Thanks for the advice, but I did figure this out with X2 where you start with the dash. Speaking of which...

Mega Man X2
Wasting no time I quickly moved on to the next title in the series. In the interest of full disclosure, I have been consulting a weakness chart for these games to counter-balance the lack of save states. Certainly not expecting much, I gotta say...

...I liked it better than the first! While it does have a number of the same issues, the difficulty felt better-balanced, and the presentation is stepped up a notch. Starting with the dash this time is probably a good idea because of how it's pretty much a necessity to have any hope of avoiding damage. It has some neat ideas in it like the bounty hunters that are after X, although it seems odd that they're hidden away in stages as opposed to more actively engaging in battle with him. Whereas the original game was a 6/10 experience for me, I'd probably rate this one a 7/10. Let's see if this upward tick continues into X3, next time!

Offline Khushrenada

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #25 on: August 05, 2022, 06:58:59 PM »
Not much to report at the moment. No time for gaming on Wednesday.

Yesterday I got in a larger chunk of gaming time although no credits hit on anything just yet. I was probably close to the end of Elli. Everything about the game suggests I'm about to hit the end pretty soon so that should be wrapped up tonight. Did another couple worlds in BoxBoyGirl. Happy with the steady progress of that and it should be something that I get to the end of during the month.

Wanting to try and keep up the early momentum and see if I could get another game off my big board, I popped in Just Dance 2. My goal with the Just Dance games is to get a score on every song and "complete" the game that way. Thinking about it last night, I was trying to recall when I may have last played this game and I think it was probably 4 years ago. At one point, I did go through every song in Just Dance 1 and thought I had played through a large portion of Just Dance 2 but I was wrong. There was like 6 or 7 songs that I'd just play over and over on it which I found when going through to see which ones had a score. I'd switch it out with Just Dance 1 and 3 and play the ones I most liked so it wasn't as close to completion as I thought. When I decided to try and complete all these Just Dance games I'd accumulated, I was thinking my body may not be ready for this task but no problems so far after getting into a bit of sweat.

Just Dance is a bit of a mixed bag in that I've always been interested in a few songs I like and skipped others. For instance, Rasputin by Boney M. Have always liked the song and the "Russian dance" choreography that goes with it on the game. But I'd skipped over something like When I Grow Up by the Pussycat Dolls. While I don't hate the song, I don't love it either. And the choreography is definitely more... girly... for that song so it's not really got anything I'd see myself wanting to emulate on the dance floor. On the other hand, by finally stretching out of my comfort zone, I encountered a new song that I thought was an instant classic I'd want to revisit of Move Your Body by Junior Senior. A lot of moves I was enjoying emulating. It got me thinking about the last couple years and I got to say I really haven't been doing much dance over these pandemic years which is a shame because I was having a lot of fun by the time I stopped last night.

Despite the long absence of moving and grooving, I seem to have gotten better at following and picking up the choreography as I was easily getting a lot of 3 stars and even some four star rankings for my first time doing it. I replayed one song that had a previous score and easily surpassed it with a new one. How badly was I dancing before?  ???  :P  >:(

Got 29 more songs to still play but looking forward to it now. Going through these titles might end up being the best part of my playtime this month. Reminds me why I got so into and a fan of this series in the first place.
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Offline Mop it up

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #26 on: August 05, 2022, 09:44:33 PM »
Mega Man X3
Continuing my saga with a renewed sense of vigor, I jumped into the next game in line with mild expectations. I know the actual cartridge of X3 is quite valuable at this point, which is a reason I appreciate collections like this. This one is the fave of one of my friends, and I've gotta say...

...He must be a masochist! X3 is significantly more difficult than the first two for all the wrong reasons, feeling rather sloppy in many respects. This game in particular made me realize a big issue I have with this series as it was most apparent here: the toughest part is trying to get started. Most bosses are brutal with just the buster, especially in the beginning with no upgrades. However, many bosses become crippled in some way when their weakness is used on them, making winning easy. The final set of stages in this one are also a boar even with max upgrades, I can't even imagine trying to do them any other way!

I understand that a reverse difficulty curve like this helps to offer a sense of progression, as the player certainly feels more powerful as they go. I also appreciate the concept of making upgrades optional which can add some replayability. I think these ideas could be handled better than they are in this series, because too often it teeters between only the two extremes of being either tediously difficult or bonehead easy. It's a bummer too since I like the music and themes of this game. It's a real shame that the collection doesn't have save states as I would be enjoying these more if it did. It does offer something called "Rookie Hunter mode" which appears to be some sort of easy mode, but I was hoping to not have to go that route. If the latter games only get tougher from here then I may not have much choice. Fortunately, it can be toggled on and off on the fly, so I can still start on normal and just flick it on to get past any roadblocks.

This wraps up the SNES titles! I'm curious to see if the move to PlayStation with X4 brings any noticeable changes. So far, I've been using an actual SNES controller, or I guess technically it's a replica since it came with the SNES Classic. Hopefully it's still usable with the remainder of the series.

Offline Khushrenada

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #27 on: August 06, 2022, 06:30:03 PM »
Elli - Is now complete with all outfits acquired. Now that getting them is too hard. The game gives you more currency than you actually need so not that hard to do. The game is mixed bag for sure. It's a pretty basic 3D platformer that gives heavy Zelda vibes (particularly the BotW kind) with its environments and looks. But there's no combat or enemies so it's usually just moving around to activate this switch or move this block to unlock a key or open a door to move on to the next room. It did get a bit more engaging as the game progressed with bigger rooms or incorporating multiple rooms to get items or do the necessary actions to remove the current roadblock to keep progressing. Still, there's very little reason to revisit this one.

Super Bomberman R - After beating Elli and doing a couple more words in BoxBoy+Girl, I hit that feeling of what do I play now. Decided to go back to a game I played a bit of in each of the last two BacklAugusts as a potential buzzerbeater and ended up finishing the story mode and getting the credits for this as well. Only thing is to keep playing to unlock all the various accessories and maps in the store but I don't know how much grinding I'd want to do for that. Unless there's an easier way to get coins that I'm missing here.

Played through some more songs in Just Dance. Have 13 more to go through there.

No gaming so far yet today. Come on, Khush! Get it together!
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Offline RABicle

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #28 on: August 07, 2022, 12:23:24 AM »
I have beaten 80's Overdrive. I guess. It's like, I've come first on the final track, I think there's a couple of other courses I haven't come first one but I've gotten good enough to progress. And I've bought all the cars and I tried out time attack mode and died of boredom. I'm done, I've seen everything the game has to offer. No satisfaction, just emptiness.

Haven't made any real progress on Pokémons. Failed to summon Sun Kissed Goddess Thorr in Fire Emblem. Played some Hundred Days, it's not really for me but I might persist for a while.

Ori and Metroid are coming into view now...
« Last Edit: August 07, 2022, 12:26:53 AM by RABicle »
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Offline Order.RSS

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #29 on: August 07, 2022, 01:14:23 PM »
Like Khush, I got my dancing shoes on, but with Space Channel 5 Part 2 instead.



It's a short rhythm game (think PaRappa) from around 2000ish in which TV-reporter Ulala (pictured above) must rescue Space Michael (Jackson) and President Peace from the devious Rhythm Rogues. You do this, of course, via song and dance battles.
The game starts really strong with impeccable Dreamcast ~vibes. Every new situation is surprising to the player, but nobody in-game treats it as strange, so you don't bat an eye when you're saving schoolkids from plants, or racing the police to get a scoop.

However, the back half of the game does kind of drag. It's annoying you don't get a visual indicator to time button presses to like in Rock Band/Guitar Hero. Towards the end I had to retry a lot of sections, so I changed all the inputs to a single button which made it easier.
There's a new game plus style second loop, but I'm not gonna bother with that.

Offline broodwars

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #30 on: August 07, 2022, 02:10:02 PM »
Last night, I rolled credits on Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance HD and today I rolled credits on Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory, meaning I've now completed all the Kingdom Hearts games you can play on the HD consoles. I'm finally caught up with this damn series, though I still have replays to do of several games before I've played all the HD remasters.

Dream Drop Distance is an incredibly frustrating game. It plays extremely similarly to Birth By Sleep, one of my favorite KH games, and yet it changes just enough to be incredibly annoying. Instead of the rapid-fire character progression of Birth By Sleep via Command Melding, you have to level-up and maintain dozens of knock-off Pokemon. And the fastest way to level them up? Playing incredibly annoying and repetitive mini-games. And only certain abilities are permanent character unlocks, the rest going away when the Dream Eaters are no longer in your party. I had MAYBE half the permanent character unlocks by the end of the game, and I was constantly maxing-out Dream Eaters and swapping in new ones.

Combat is especially tedious this time because they've designed all the enemies in this game to sleep; stun; and juggle you at any moment, often from off-screen. I've never seen a Kingdom Hearts game so eager to stunlock the player, especially the final series of bosses. I eventually had to give in and rebuild my deck around Balloon and Curaga spam just to get through the final few stunlocking bosses. I especially love how every time you die and restart a fight, your Command Deck has to slowly reload. This means the boss that just stunlocked you to death now gets to start the fight with one of their 50-hit stunlocking combos, and there isn't a fucking thing you can do about it.

Oh, "just guard", you say? Great idea. The problem is that because KH maps so many commands to a few buttons, the Guard button's doing triple-duty as the dodge and slide attack buttons. So you go to spam the Guard button while waiting for your command deck to load, and the game will just arbitrarily decide you're moving and put you into a roll you CAN get hit in. In comes the stunlock! And it's not like this is the fault of the combat system. It's the same combat system as Birth By Sleep, and I beat that on Critical without too much trouble.

Dream Drop Distance is not a good game, mechanically. From a story perspective, it's the game that definitively established that death doesn't matter in this series, and time travel is now in play. It's one of the worst-written games in the series, if not THE worst. That said, I did have a decent time with it when it wasn't being one of the cheapest games I've ever played.

As for Melody of Memory, it's quite an enjoyable little rhythm game that's refreshingly lenient on things like button presses so long as you're pressing SOMETHING to the beat. I look forward to spending some more time with it clearing out the remaining songs on the higher difficulties. I do wish there were more songs, since quite a few notable songs didn't make the cut (particularly licensed songs). The story is essentially a teaser for KH4, and literally doesn't show up until the final song of the final world.

Now for the Platinum clean-up, which is rather substantial for both games.
« Last Edit: August 07, 2022, 02:11:59 PM by broodwars »
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Offline NWR_insanolord

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #31 on: August 07, 2022, 11:41:31 PM »
2. Mario & Rabbids: Kingdom Battle

This was on my list of games I wanted to do in last year's Backlaugust, and then I didn't, and picked away at it over the last year, but now that the sequel's coming out I figured now was the time. I don't know why it took this long, because I love this game. It's one of my favorite Switch exclusives. When you hear "Mario and Rabbids" you'd think shovelware cash-in, but it's somehow a really well made strategy game. Can't wait for the sequel.
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Offline Khushrenada

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #32 on: August 08, 2022, 11:12:44 AM »
Mario + Rabbids is something I've been saying I should play next but then keep putting it off because I thought it could be a long game and having to take the time to learn the rules and strategy feels like more work than just starting a new platformer. Still, I really should get to it one of these days.
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Offline broodwars

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #33 on: August 08, 2022, 12:09:06 PM »
Mario + Rabbids is a weird one for me. I quite liked the game, but my completionist nature meant I was dedicated to clearing every block of stages with the bonus objectives in play (i.e. clearing with X number of turns with no one dying). Because the Bonus XP meant more leveling opportunities. About halfway through the 2nd world IIRC, I hit a solid wall on that and lost all interest in the game.

I then played the DLC and hit the same issue about halfway through.
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Offline TOPHATANT123

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #34 on: August 08, 2022, 02:30:44 PM »
My big aim for August is The Great Ace Attorney 2. The first game I enjoyed quite a lot but it's taken me some time to get through the sequel. It's rather similar and retreads a lot of the same ground, but I've heard it has a good finale so I'm looking forward to that. Currently on the 4th case.

Offline Mop it up

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #35 on: August 08, 2022, 02:51:14 PM »
Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle is way better than it has any right to be, it's still one of my fave Switch games. It's definitely worth playing and while I wouldn't want to discourage someone trying it, it is indeed a longer game and not one I'd recommend going into with a focus on simply completing it. Even with skipping side stuff it'd probably take dozens of hours to play through, but it's more enjoyable to not rush it and take time.

Super Bomberman R - Decided to go back to a game I played a bit of in each of the last two BacklAugusts as a potential buzzerbeater and ended up finishing the story mode and getting the credits for this as well. Only thing is to keep playing to unlock all the various accessories and maps in the store but I don't know how much grinding I'd want to do for that. Unless there's an easier way to get coins that I'm missing here.
I played this a while back, but put it down since the single player was kinda meh and the online was dead by the time I got into it. Is it a relatively short game? Perhaps I'll boot it up to see where I left off and see if I can finish it up.

Offline Khushrenada

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #36 on: August 08, 2022, 06:08:34 PM »
Well, although it feels like I'm helping my biggest competition in Backlaugust so far, I suppose the goal is really more personal and about encouraging one another to complete their backlogs so allow me to encourage you be saying it is short. If you just want to get through the story, it doesn't take long. There are 6 planets to play through although I believe the last planet is just a couple boss battles. You could likely finish it over two nights or one night if you want to put in a longer session. If you divide it up by two planets a day then you can finish it in a leisurely three days.
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Offline Khushrenada

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #37 on: August 08, 2022, 06:53:47 PM »
WarioWare: Smooth Moves - Beat the game in that I played through all the character stories and unlocked the credits. Still some microgames left to unlock. However, can you "flower" microgames in this game? I didn't get around to trying to do that with any of the ones I encountered but usually they always had a target number given in the description to try and reach to flower them? Looking up a FAQ on the game, there is nothing listed about any target number for the microgames like reach level 30 or level 10 for them nor is there anything listed as being unlocked or gained by playing through all the microgames for a certain level. If not, then it won't take too long to complete this game. Just surprising they'd have not bothered with that after making it a normal part of the Warioware games up to this point.


Bastion - Started this on Saturday evening. Perhaps my memory has become faulty but I remember this title as being something really popular about 10 – 11 years ago. Like an early example of an Indie dev making a splash like Cave Story or World of Goo. I thought the thing a lot of people raved about was the music. I haven’t dived that deep into the game. I just got through the opening area and reached the titled Bastion spot. However, what I’ve seen so far hasn’t got me to hyped or intrigued to keep going. It seems like the will mostly be about going through areas and beating up a lot of enemies on the way. Games that are just about beating up lots of enemies are not games that keep me entertained for long. I still haven’t gotten back to Hyrule Warriors after playing it for a night and getting through a couple areas. Also haven’t heard anything that impressive from the score so far. Now I’m wondering if I’ve mixed this title up with something else. In any case, I suppose playing this in Backlaugust is the best time to do so since it will give me the pressure to just keep playing through it for now to at least beat it and see what it has to offer.

Super Mario Maker Wii U – It’s another disappointment. Well, disappointment may be harsh but it definitely wasn’t what I expected. I thought there was a whole bunch of sample courses to play through but there wasn’t any I could find. There’s just a 10 Mario or 100 Mario challenge to play through random created courses. Searched around through all the menus to make sure I wasn’t missing something but it seems like the game is just about making courses and playing others. I’m supposed to be able to unlock more course components today so I guess Nintendo stuck with the 10 day wait time to unlock everything that people were in an uproar over and being forced to wait for no good reason. I suppose I’ll keep checking in and unlocking that stuff and mark this as beat once done. Game seems kind of neutered as well with different menus not loading. Not sure if that is stuff tied into the demise of Miiverse or what. What do our Mario Maker experts have to say about this title and its value in 2022?

Super Mario Maker 2 – On the other hand, I was much more impressed with what I saw when popping in Mario Maker 2 and messing around the menus here. There’s now an overworld creator and it seems like the design options are much more robust. There’s even a story mode so I’ve started playing that. Mary O. seems to have met her demise in between Maker 1 and 2. Perhaps it was a hit ordered by the pigeon which seems to have taken over as the guide for the game.

I didn’t end up getting around to the last songs of Just Dance 2. That’ll be tonight’s project to finally finish that off along with some more steady progress in BoxBoy. Might do some more Bastion. We’ll see how it goes. Sadly, gaming time wasn’t near what I envisioned I might pull off on a weekend as other life responsibilities required more time and attention instead.
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Offline Mop it up

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #38 on: August 08, 2022, 07:31:42 PM »
Thanks Khushrenada. I'll have to see where I left off in Super Bomberman R then, who knows, perhaps I'm close to the end anyway!

WarioWare: Smooth Moves is my fave WarioWare game, though Get it Together! may top it as it's really good. I don't recall there being any special denotation for reaching certain scores in one microgame but I'm also not a high-score chaser type person.

Bastion is indeed one of the lauded games back during the indie boom of 2008. A lot's changed since then and the indie scene has grown exponentially, so it wouldn't surprise me if Bastion doesn't hold up. I've barely played it meself but I remember a similar first impression as yours.

As for Super Mario Maker:
-You can bypass the daily unlocks by placing thousands of blocks in the editor. Place a huge rectangle of blocks, then use the copy function on it and paste it across the whole stage and you can unlock stuff in just a few minutes each.
-Aside from that, the only other unlock would be the costumes for the Mystery Mushroom. You get one random costume each time you clear the 100-Mario Challenge, and there are some for each difficulty so you'd have to clear all four many times each.
-Sometime last year they shut off the ability to upload levels and closed the bookmark site, so those two things are no longer accessible.
-I would say there is no reason to play this game now when the sequel exists. There are a few things here that didn't carry over but they are not significant enough to really matter: the lanky shroom, layered pipes, and the mystery mushroom costumes come to mind.

Super Mario Maker 2 does have a story mode with its own set of levels, so completing that should certainly count towards "beating" the game. One thing I will say, I felt like this sequel didn't have as much personality as the first one, lacking weirdness like the lanky shroom, the fly-swatting minigame, and Mary O. as you mentioned. The addition of co-op alone makes it a worthwhile sequel however.

Offline Luigi Dude

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #39 on: August 09, 2022, 10:33:50 AM »
Bastion - Started this on Saturday evening. Perhaps my memory has become faulty but I remember this title as being something really popular about 10 – 11 years ago. Like an early example of an Indie dev making a splash like Cave Story or World of Goo. I thought the thing a lot of people raved about was the music. I haven’t dived that deep into the game. I just got through the opening area and reached the titled Bastion spot. However, what I’ve seen so far hasn’t got me to hyped or intrigued to keep going. It seems like the will mostly be about going through areas and beating up a lot of enemies on the way. Games that are just about beating up lots of enemies are not games that keep me entertained for long. I still haven’t gotten back to Hyrule Warriors after playing it for a night and getting through a couple areas. Also haven’t heard anything that impressive from the score so far. Now I’m wondering if I’ve mixed this title up with something else. In any case, I suppose playing this in Backlaugust is the best time to do so since it will give me the pressure to just keep playing through it for now to at least beat it and see what it has to offer.

Bastion is indeed one of the lauded games back during the indie boom of 2008. A lot's changed since then and the indie scene has grown exponentially, so it wouldn't surprise me if Bastion doesn't hold up. I've barely played it meself but I remember a similar first impression as yours.

I played Bastion last year for about 5 hours before I stopped because of how boring the game was.  Basically the game you played in the opening area is what the game is about.  Most of the games praise comes from the visual and the voiceover narrative that were impression for an early indie game, but the gameplay is about as shallow as can be.  I wanted to stop after about 2 hours but forced myself to keep going thinking it has to get better right, until I finally said **** this.

Unless it somehow gets a huge boast in quality after 6 hours and I stopped too early, don't force yourself to keep playing if you're not feeling it, because it doesn't get any better.  It's one of those  "Videogames are Art" type of games that focus so much on the narrative and presentations, that they forgot to make something that's actually fun to play to go along with it.

Oh and the people who made this game also made the game Transistor, which is just as boring as Bastion.  At least after Bastion, I stopped playing Transistor after only an hour since I was literally falling a sleep.  This is one of the reasons why I've been hesitant to buy the game Hades, since it's from the same developer as Bastion and Transistor.  I have to wonder how many of the good reviews are from the game actually being fun, or people just being impressed by the narrative and visuals again.

Sorry people but Roger Ebert was right, videogames are not art.  If your going to make a game, give me a fucking game and not some wannabe movie or TV trash.  God I bought both games on sale and still feel ripped off because of how boring and dull they were.  That's why I can't stop raving like a madman.   >:(
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Offline Mop it up

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #40 on: August 09, 2022, 12:09:53 PM »
Mega Man X4
While I knew that the leap to PlayStation would mean fancy cutscenes because they could, I forgot about how it would also involve having annoying voices for everyone and every little action! I guess I also forgot how heavily compressed scenes were back then, as the opening anime was grainier than an old VHS tape. Moving past that, I gotta say...

...There isn't much more to say at this point! Perhaps I'm just getting used to the way these games work but I found this one to be the easiest game so far, sans the last boss which was a slog. Though it is also less punishing with things like more generous checkpoints so that's good. There's more story now which I guess is to try and give a better sense of place for everything, but it isn't interesting. Still solid presentation with a nice variety of themes and stages. This might be my fave so far, though the little annoyances I mentioned may be enough to bump it down below X2. It's tough to say.

With that, the Mega Man X Legacy Collection itself is now complete! I'm tempted to argue that it should be added to the list as well... but that probably wouldn't be right. Although I s'pose that the collection has medals to earn and a bonus challenge, which I didn't go for, so if I really wanted to add it then I'd probably have to complete that stuff. Perhaps another time, as now it's on to the second collection. Wish me luck!

Offline Luigi Dude

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #41 on: August 09, 2022, 12:28:40 PM »
Mega Man X4
...There isn't much more to say at this point! Perhaps I'm just getting used to the way these games work but I found this one to be the easiest game so far, sans the last boss which was a slog.

Did you play as both X and Zero?  X4 was literally designed with Zero's close combat in mind so playing as X is pretty much an easy mode.  Zero story is also the true story in the canon as well since X5 will even refer to events that are only shown in Zero's story.

Perhaps another time, as now it's on to the second collection. Wish me luck!

 ;D
« Last Edit: August 10, 2022, 09:56:46 AM by Luigi Dude »
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Offline RABicle

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #42 on: August 10, 2022, 01:39:11 AM »
Progress is being made in Pokémon Black 2. It feels like any battle with the elite 4 is well before the end of the games content with multiple towns on the map still unvisited. So I expect to “beat†the main quest in a week or so but there’s still a lot more to do before I ultimately retire the game and transfer all the monsters to Home.
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Offline M.K.Ultra

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #43 on: August 10, 2022, 04:46:28 PM »
I just got back from a week of camping (sorry for the hold-up in Safe Words  :-[) I tend to just travel with my 3DS or Vita these days and while I am chipping away at Etrian Odyssey 4, there was no way I was going to finish that this month, so I started and completed Fun! Fun! Minigolf TOUCH! on 3DS. I picked this up based on it being developed by Shin'en. It is a lot better than the name suggests with nice graphics, and tight controls. You can even play as you Mii (well your mii's head on in-game avatar's body). The game is short with only 9 courses of 9 holes each. I was able to get Par or better on each and buy everything in the shop in about 3.5 hours. The one lament I have is that the hazards are too basic. They should have experimented more and done some cooler stuff.
As a side note. I am not sure if other folks still get street passed but I rarely get them now. I did manage to get one in Yellowstone when I was there. Do other folks still get street passes?

Offline Khushrenada

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #44 on: August 10, 2022, 05:50:18 PM »
BoxBoy + BoxGirl - Single player story wrapped up last night. Got the credits and all objectives I could in single player mode. Have now unlocked a Tall Tale so more to play for another day. Not sure when I may ever get through the two-player mode of the game. Yet based on the way the single player mode story ended, it seems to imply that two-player would be the true happy ending for the story which is probably why they've called it BoxBoy and BoxGirl to highlight that two-player adventure.

Just Dance 2 - You knew it was coming. Finally went through the rest of the songs last night and replayed a couple more before moving on. It's still kind of bonkers how this series became one of the biggest titles in gaming and still one of the biggest sources of revenue for Ubisoft. Just Dance 2021 was their second biggest game in 2021. According to Wikipedia, there are only three third party games among the top 30 selling games for the Wii system. Those games are Just Dance, Just Dance 2 and Just Dance 3. Of all the things tried and created out of motion controls, this series is one of the most unexpected and about one of the few things that are still going strong with using motion controls long after the Wii and Wii U. Most other games have reverted back to button inputs.  Ubisoft sort of lucked into figuring out a smart way of making dancing work within a video game concept and have so far cornered the market on it.

And yet, it's amazing they did it with such a middling effort. I like the first Just Dance because of stuff like U Can't Touch This and Groove Is In the Heart. Kind of more goofy songs. It's got a song by The Beach Boys and, while I haven't checked to make sure, I'm pretty confident no other Just Dance game would have a song by them as it turned more into a current hit parade type of track list.

Likewise, having gone through Just Dance 2, I really like how they selected songs to incorporate more varied styles of dance. You've got a song doing sort of Bollywood/Indian dancing, Rasputin is doing some Russian dancing, Sway feels a bit more like it falls in the ballroom dancing category. I haven't played it yet but I don't think there is going to be the Charleston included in the hit parade of something like Just Dance 2018 which is a shame. It makes sense for a game about dancing to have a wide variety of music and dance from different eras since you'd expect the target audience to be passionate about dancing in all its forms.

But we'll see. Maybe I'll be surprised as I tour through the series. On the other hand, while I appreciated the different styles of song and dance, this still a pretty basic package and game and it can be frustrating in trying to figure out how the game is judging your motion. Sometimes, I'd swear I'd be on the beat but getting Ok's and misses while other times I felt I was off but got a Perfect. So, that's why it is best to view this more as a way to work out and maybe pick up some dance moves but not worry too much about the high score aspect.


After completing Just Dance 2, I popped in Just Dance 3 to see what I had there but it is basically a fresh game as I only seemed to have sampled a couple songs on it before. Again, according to Wikipedia, Just Dance 3 is the best selling third party game to release on the Wii and holds the number 10 spot of highest selling games for the system. Sold better than Mario Galaxy 2 and Skyward Sword. I wonder how many other users have played this major part of the Wii's software library and a big part of the system's identity?

Have to say, though, that Just Dance 3 so far seems like Ubisoft now realized they had a big hit on their hands so they better start taking it seriously before they dropped the ball. Production values seem to have improved a bit. There's now an achievement system in the game and the motion control sensing seems like it may have been better fine tuned. So far of the five songs I played, I got 3 or 4 stars easily on them and it felt like the game was better tracking my movement. In fact, I was close to getting my first five star performance on one. I suppose I'll provide a further reaction in a few days when I complete it.
« Last Edit: August 10, 2022, 05:52:26 PM by Khushrenada »
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Offline Khushrenada

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #45 on: August 10, 2022, 06:30:24 PM »
As a side note. I am not sure if other folks still get street passed but I rarely get them now. I did manage to get one in Yellowstone when I was there. Do other folks still get street passes?

I wish. I still take my 3DS to work each day and sometimes if I'm going to a place with people like the mall in the hopes I may find some other 3DS diehard. I actually did get 1 streetpass earlier this year in a total surprise. But 1 a year is probably my average these days.
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Offline Khushrenada

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #46 on: August 10, 2022, 06:46:31 PM »
Alright. So, I know that with those games wrapped up last night, that puts me at 7 which equals my amount from last year with 2/3s of the month still available to me for more. I'll be surpassing last year's total for sure and I'm still expecting to surpass my total of 14 from two years ago with the pace I'm currently on. However, it got me wondering as to how things are going for everyone with 1/3 of the month gone and here's the results from what has been posted so far:

Khushrenada – Picross e8
Bungle4 – Kirby’s Epic Yarn
Mop it up – Mega Man X
Khushrenada – Shantae: Risky’s Revenge
NWR_insanolord – Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze
RABicle – Grand Mountain Adventure: Wonderlands
Order.RSS – Human Resource Machine
Mop it up – Mega Man X2
Mop it up – Mega Man X3
Khushrenada – Elli
Khushrenada – Super Bomberman R
RABicle – 80’s Overdrive
Order.RSS – Space Channel 5 Part 2
Broodwars – Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance HD
Broodwars – Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory
NWR_insanolord – Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle
Khushrenada – WarioWare: Smooth Moves
Mop it up – Mega Man X4
Bungle4 – Fun! Fun! Minigolf TOUCH!
Khushrenada – BoxBoy + BoxGirl
Khushrenada – Just Dance 2


That's 21 total games so far! In fact, pretty much all the users who have posted so far have checked off at least two games from their backlog. Heck of a start! Good gaming, everyone. How much more will be added before the month is done?  ???
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Offline M.K.Ultra

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #47 on: August 11, 2022, 10:33:22 PM »
Starting off Backlaugust strong this year by... giving up on Human Resource Machine.

As a result I was already googling solutions after a third of the way in, and I had no idea what the solutions I was copying were even doing. So, time to shelve it.


I am also playing this. I am currently at Level 35: Intro to Calc for Art Majors. I am curious how far into the game you were before falling off?

Offline broodwars

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #48 on: August 12, 2022, 12:49:07 AM »
Closing in on the Melody of Memory Platinum. My last big challenge after clearing Vs. mode was to full-combo (aka "clear a song without any misses") 50 different songs on the hardest difficulty level (Proud). After much practice and even more swearing, I finally managed that tonight. At this point, I just need to complete the probably 30-ish  remaining songs I haven't beaten already on Proud difficulty, and that's it for the completion trophies.

Then there's the final grind for the final trophy: "killing 100,000 enemies across all songs". I've nearly beaten every song in the game on every difficulty, and my current count is...just shy of 60,000.

Yeah, that's going to take some time and a lot of repeated songs to clear out. Man, though, games like this are really starting to make me feel my age. I don't know how many more insane tests of reflexes like this I have in me, hence why I'm trying to get stuff like this out of my backlog now.

After that, I'll double-back to Dream Drop Distance to finish all the side stuff off there. That should fill out the rest of my schedule until Soul Hackers 2 releases on 8/26.
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Offline RABicle

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #49 on: August 12, 2022, 11:22:28 PM »
I have beaten Pokémon Legends Arceus! The last few bits come pretty quickly. Like there’s forcing yourself through the nightmare avalugg frenzy and then you jsut walk up and talk to some Pokémon and suddenly you’re capturing some mutant combination legendary. There’s still a lot of loose threads and I see that after the credits I was invited back to base for more but yeah suddenly this one is down and there’s a lot of blue sky suddenly. I’ll keep Pokémon going via Pokémon Black 2 where I’m just grinding around some grass and electric mons for the 8th gym and then might finally settle on a team of six to start stomping my way through victory road and the Elite 4. I’ll be sure to keep everyone posted on the final team, their levels and the plan.

Other than that it’s raining and I’ll be home all weekend supporting the gf so I’ll try to sneak in some gaming between meals and dishes. Looking to get back into Ori first then Metroid Dread.
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Offline Mop it up

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #50 on: August 13, 2022, 01:45:41 PM »
Mega Man X5
I've always heard the series took a sharp drop downhill after X4, but I could never be sure if it were really true or not. So I've gotta say...

...Yup it's true, X5 is terrible. Stage design isn't just poor, a lot of it borrows ideas from past games in worse ways, particularly the final stages, and there's less variety. I guess they became creatively bankrupt after 4. This isn't the end of it though. The game is also timed in a way that decreases each time a stage is played, whether completed or not. This serves to discourage the usual exploration until all eight regular levels are finished. What's more, the lower this counter gets, the "higher level" the bosses become, gaining more health the longer it takes to beat stages. On top of all this, they learned nothing from complaints about Nintendo and added an annoying helper character who stops the action to point out mostly obvious stuff every couple of screens. Seriously, one of the help messages is literally "You should proceed by stepping on the platforms."

To say one positive thing, the idea of scaling bosses based on the player's completion kinda makes some sense for these games and the way upgrades and weaknesses work, which can make it easier to start things out before all that stuff is obtained and help prevent becoming too powerful. But X5 poorly implements it.

Did you play as both X and Zero?  X4 was literally designed with Zero's close combat in mind so playing as X is pretty much an easy mode.  Zero story is also the true story in the canon as well since X5 will even refer to events that are only shown in Zero's story.
Yeah, I went back to check out Zero to see if anything were different. Maybe it's because I was familiar with the game at that point but I actually found Zero to be general easier. There are a few trouble spots and bosses where not being able to shoot is a real hindrance, but the saber is so powerful that it wreaks everything it can reach. I zipped through the eight main stages, but seeing nothing was really different I stopped short of the final.

Offline broodwars

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #51 on: August 13, 2022, 07:24:03 PM »
Finished off the Platinum in Melody of Memories, so that game is well and truly out of my backlog now.



It's funny...now that I no longer needed the Proud Mode Full Chains, I just started pulling off a bunch of them today while grinding away the 100,000 enemy note kills.

I'm quite happy with the game overall, though I wish it had more tracks and whoever picked the concert piano tracks has absolutely no musical taste. Those "songs" not only sound abysmal on their own, but the pianist makes absolutely no attempt to follow the beat. So you end up with notes in the game that have only the vaguest relation to the song as heard, played by someone with only the vaguest sense of what the actual song sounds like
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Offline Luigi Dude

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #52 on: August 13, 2022, 07:27:34 PM »
Mega Man X5
...Yup it's true, X5 is terrible. Stage design isn't just poor, a lot of it borrows ideas from past games in worse ways, particularly the final stages, and there's less variety. I guess they became creatively bankrupt after 4.

It's not so much that they became creatively bankrupt, it's more Capcom slashed the budget to the X series after X4 underperformed.  X5 was originally intended to be the last game in the X series since the new Zero series for the GBA was already in the works.  But because X4 didn't do too well, the development team had a much smaller budget to work with, hence why the game reuses a ton of X4's enemy sprites, and things like anime cutscenes and voice work are gone.  That's one of the reasons the game is mostly a greatest hits of things from the previous X games.

But the irony is X5 ended up doing better then Capcom expected, and with it's lower budget, it was a more profitable game then X4.  This is why they ordered an X6 to be made, even though as you will see, it retcons X5's True Ending in order to happen.  Of course the developers of X6 do try to be more creative with the games level design then X5 since it was kind of a new start to the X franchise.  The problem is Capcom gave the developers of X6 an insanely short period of time to make the game since they ordered it to be done by the end of 2001, which lead to the game being released hilariously incomplete. 

If you thought X5 level design was bad, you ain't seen nothing yet. 8)


While I'm at it, time for me to add to the list

Xenoblade 2: Torna - The Golden Country

Well I finally caught up on the Xenoblade games before the 3rd game.  After hearing people for the last several years say the Torna expansion was better then the base game, I was pretty excited to finally try this.  Well, as someone that really enjoyed the base game of Xenoblade 2 despite it's glaring flaws, I have to say the Torna expansion was disappointing.  I mean as an expansion of Xenoblade 2 it's fine, but as a standalone game it's very lacking.

The best part of the Xenoblade games to me is exploring new area's, and taking on enemies higher leveled then me using whatever resources I currently have.  Torna does that for about 10 hours, then it literally ends.  I mean seriously, once you get to the capital city of Torna, it's literally the last area of the game, and then they require you to do a bunch of side quest just to make the main story proceed.  But once you do enough side quest to proceed, all you do is fight a boss, then the game tells you to do more side quest after if you want to now fight the final boss.  And then once you do enough side quest to fight the final boss, your so overpowered from doing all those side quest that the final boss is a complete joke.

The whole thing took me about 20 hours to finish and it was pretty fun the first 10 hours, but then became a slog the last 10 hours.  Yeah the base game had some shitty story fetchquest, but at least you got new area's to explore after them and kept getting new blades throughout the game to change your party up better.  Plus a much better variety of boss fights throughout, with some pretty challenging ones toward the end.

Plus the story in Torna is pretty boring.  Every major event that is even relevant to the base game was already shown in a flashback cutscene in the base game itself.  All the new characters and events shown, add nothing to the overall story.  I could go on with other complaints but they would be major spoilers to anyone that hasn't finished the base game.
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Offline pokepal148

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #53 on: August 16, 2022, 08:09:42 PM »
I hit credits on Frog Fractions: Hop's Iconic Cap a few days back. It's Frog Fractions but the frog is wearing a hat and anyone who has played Frog Fractions or knows what that game is should be able to figure out that I'm lying through my teeth.

My current game is Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition. I started it last Friday because I was unable to find a physical copy of Xenoblade 3, I was dead set on playing Xenoblade and having Xenoblade 3 probably be the last game I get physically, and so it was either that or try to force myself to get back into the absolute slog that is Xenoblade 2.

I've now reached Eryth Sea at a much quicker pace then I was expecting. Part of that is due to me using casual mode to make the game less grindy but I feel really confident that I can clear this comfortably before the end of the month.

My Switch decided to stab me on the back and have the SD card reader start failing on me but unlike the 3DS, the Switch shouldn't lose any functionality without an SD card because you can use the internal storage to install patches and updates so I intend to continue playing regardless for now and get it repaired locally so I don't have to send it to Nintendo.

The other thing I'm working on is a Pokemon rom hack called Pokemon Volt White which is a difficulty/rebalancing hack of White 2. My current team for Elesa is as follows.

Lucario
Serperior
Braviary
Sealeo
Houndoom
Nidoking

Keep in mind that the level curve for this hack is pretty different from the base game so even if running around with a Serperior at the fourth gym makes it seem like I'm a bit overleveled, I'm not.

My first priority is absolutely Xenoblade but I would like to get through this too.
« Last Edit: August 16, 2022, 10:01:43 PM by pokepal148 »

Offline Order.RSS

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #54 on: August 17, 2022, 10:01:05 AM »
Continuing my Dreamcast throwback mood with Rez HD, from the same team who did the Space Channel 5 games. Not sure which of the two came first though.



I like this one a lot better. It's still a rhythm game in some sense, but plays much closer to a rail shooter. Tag targets and watch them blow up in sync to the beat. Every world is 10 stages which get progressively harder, with a boss you need to clear in one go. Unfortunately I didn't unlock the last world, since it looks like it requires a 100% hit rate to unlock.
Still counting it as done, though. It's very easy to see how Rez feeds into Lumines, which eventually becomes Tetris Effect. There's a very obvious lineage between these games, unlike Space Channel 5 which seems more similar to the rigid PlayStation rhythm games (like PaRappa the Rapper and Gitaroo Man) which don't allow for mistakes.

I am also playing this. I am currently at Level 35: Intro to Calc for Art Majors. I am curious how far into the game you were before falling off?

I don't exactly remember, but looking at a walkthrough I think I dropped it somewhere between level 22 and 25. So you're ahead already!

Offline Mop it up

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #55 on: August 17, 2022, 03:34:50 PM »
Mega Man X6
I was a little nervous moving on because if I recall correctly, the games only kept getting worse. And I've gotta say...

...Ow, it's painful! This game is so much worse than X5 it almost feels intentional. The level design isn't just bad, it's also really slow due to elements that slow down the player, such as slow auto-scroll; moving pieces of the stage; a repeating spongy miniboss; etc. Another issue with this is that messing up means a slow slog to get back to that point. Many upgrades are tied to rescuing Reploids, who can now be killed by enemies, some of which are set up for this to happen really quickly basically requiring memorizing the game, meaning that some upgrades are permanently missable without restarting the whole game.

Fortunately most of the bosses are pretty simple and easy by comparison, with the exception of Infinity Mijinion which is one of the worst bosses ever created in any game ever. The final stages are a hodgepodge of bad ideas including requiring certain upgrades to complete. One more thing that makes matters worse is how X can no longer fire through walls or platforms; this was also present in X5 (and maybe even X4, I can't recall), but it's a much more noticeable annoyance here with the way levels are set up and having to keep enemies away from the rescues.

I'm tempted to call this one of the worst games I've ever played, it was just a miserable experience. But I know that next in line is X7 which seems pretty infamous, so perhaps I should hold off for now on that designation. I shudder to think...

Offline RABicle

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #56 on: August 18, 2022, 09:27:25 AM »
We did it! I've become the champion of Unova in Pokémon Black 2 with the help of my faithful Pokemon.
Introducing Terrakion, the lonely Terrakion. Terrakion took the lead in many fights with their devastating Sacred Sword and Rock Slide, strengthened by holding a hard stone.
Backing them up was Zoroark, the hasty Zoroark! Originally friends with some hippy N, Zoroark single handedly swept the ghost "elite" 4 member after a Nasty Plot and Snarl and stayed in disguise, attracting many hilarious psychic attacks against the supposedly psychic "elite 4 nobody whose name I have also forgotton.
Providing support in the middle was Volcarona, the level 59, calm Volcarona! Volcarona, whose known for how much he likes to fight, donned an expert belt to deal out massive damage with flamethrower, psychic and silver wind, downing foes of all varieties.
Also contributing was Virizion the jolly and mischievous Virizion. Virizion provided another sacred sword option while also switching things up with a. miracle seed boosted giga drain.
We (literally) couldn't have gotten there without him, it's Waterclimb, the easy natured Dewgong. Waterclimb was new to the team, having only joined at level 50 in the Giant Chasm, but he impressed everyone with a crucial blizzard against Iris' pesky druggion, its accuracy boosted by the wide lens he held.
And finally, team captain, hailing all the way from Driftveil Drawbridge, you know her, the one, the only; Flappa the modest Swanna. Flappa delivered clutch blows of hurricane whenever it was needed, no doubt assisted by her keen eye ability and sharp beak. Flappa made a mockery of that clown member of the elite four who dared block me from Twist mountain. He was the one left twisted and mangled on the floor after Flappa blew his team away.
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Offline Mop it up

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #57 on: August 18, 2022, 10:10:21 PM »
Mega Man X7
Here it is, the one and only. The supposed pinnacle of badness with the X series. Can things truly get worse than X6? Can it live up to the anti-hype? I've gotta say...

...I'm not sure I see what's supposed to be so bad about this one! For the first time in the series (and possibly in franchise history?) it transitions to 3D, and has a mix of side-scrolling "2.5D" sections and free-roam 3D areas usually with a fixed camera perspective. It results in a wide variety of stages with each one feeling pretty unique from each other, such as jumping across a fleet of jets to dashing up a spiral staircase with a huge mech in the middle. Most of the bosses take place in 3D arenas as well, allowing for some setups not possible before. Characters can now be swapped by the press of the button, providing more variety and making it easier to find the right tool for a job. The new playable character, Axl, can copy the form of some enemies, which is actually less useful than it sounds since most enemies pale in comparison to the normal player abilities, but it can still be amusing!

Then again, I s'pose I still can't argue that it is a good game, because it certainly has its fair share of issues. The biggest bummer for me is that the weakness weapons for most of the bosses don't deal more damage than a charge shot or Zero's sabre, though they can still stun the bosses to disrupt their attack. It's a shame the devs screwed up the iconic staple of the franchise. The fragile Reploids in distress are back, but don't feel as bad this time: there are a lot fewer of them who offer upgrades, and most of those ones appear to not be in harm's way. The upgrades are not shared between the three characters, which is particularly a problem with the health upgrades as they go to the character who picked it up in a stage, or defeated the boss. X is weirdly an unlockable character now who joined in about halfway through the normal stages, which also poses an issue with non-shared upgrades since he starts at square one. The voice acting is bad, though no more so than it was in X4, 5, and 6, but I guess the reason it's more infamous here is due to how some bosses constantly spam their lines like a runner on the nightly news who rushes up to the camera for 15 seconds of fame. I personally was a bit tickled by this, however!

With that said, it feels like the most unique game in the series and offered up some interesting ideas, which was enough to carry some enjoyment for me. I haven't come across very many games that feature 2D gameplay with a 3D world, particularly a Mega Man style of game, and I've always kinda wondered why that is. A lot of interesting things can be done with an environment that isn't so strictly 2D, there's some untapped potential there.

On a random note, I had thought that the yellow thing on Zero's back was some kinda cape, but seeing him in 3D, it's actually long hair?! Wwwooooooaaaaahhhh

Offline Ian Sane

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #58 on: August 19, 2022, 12:00:35 PM »
On a random note, I had thought that the yellow thing on Zero's back was some kinda cape, but seeing him in 3D, it's actually long hair?! Wwwooooooaaaaahhhh

Because of the long hair, when Mega Man X came out my friends and I all thought Zero was a girl.  Keep in mind we first played it as a rental so there was no manual describing Zero as a "he".  Also Zero has those green orbs on his chest that tend to resemble a certain female characteristic.

Offline M.K.Ultra

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #59 on: August 19, 2022, 12:50:01 PM »
[YouTube]https://youtu.be/JeOHBvIpRn0[/YouTube]
https://youtu.be/JeOHBvIpRn0

Offline broodwars

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #60 on: August 19, 2022, 10:05:24 PM »
I have accomplished my goal. Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance HD is now fully complete as well, with my 3rd KH Platinum (KH3, Melody of Memories, & now 3D).



When I first beat this game, I found it to be incredibly frustrating, but with redeeming value. Now that I've seen the godawful, tedious-as-hell side content, I hate this game. Seriously, it's sheer, unadulterated grind getting the Dream Eaters leveled-up via dozens upon dozens of play of the same Water Barrel & Balloon mini-games. I don't understand why they have the battle portals randomly generated on a once-per-drop rotation per world per character. Seriously, what is even the POINT of that?

And don't get me started on the monotonous trudge that is Flick Rush, which apparently constitutes 50% of the in-game journal.

At least the game's secret boss is cool (it's Julius from Mickey's Runaway Brain, a 90s Mickey Mouse short Disney refuses to admit exists nowadays for some bizarre reason), even if he is ridiculously cheap (to the point that the only real way to beat him is to be equally cheap and spam the balloon spell continuously to infinitely stunlock him.

I think I'll take it nice and easy now until Soul Hackers 2 comes out on Friday. I've more than accomplished my mission this month.
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Offline Order.RSS

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #61 on: August 20, 2022, 08:31:54 AM »
Congrats on the Platinum completion Broodwars. Sounds like a very frustrating affair to get there though.

Offline Khushrenada

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #62 on: August 20, 2022, 01:00:09 PM »
Man, have I lost my gaming focus. After a strong start, I've now become a lapsed gamer.

Since my last post in this thread on Aug. 10, I've gone days without playing anything. And when I do play something, it's just been for a short amount of time as I find myself trying to get all manner of other things done in the meantime. Let's review what's happened so far.

Just Dance 3 - Got into this late Saturday night going through 27 songs. Actually was still feeling energetic enough to keep going but decided to pause it at that point and wrap up the remaining 16 or so songs later. Now I wish I had kept going because I haven't been back to it since. This weekend, I'll get it done.

Super Mario Maker 2 - Did play a bit of this last Sunday and on Tuesday but the castle has only progressed to 29%. Sidequests with the Frog and Block did not seem to add much progress to that. Got back to it last night and am now at 50% castle completion. Just need to keep chipping away at it.

Rayman Raving Rabbids 2 - I did "beat" this game over the course of Sunday and Monday. In a way, you can consider it beat from the time you load it as the credits are available to watch from the menu. That said, I still played through all the tours and did them twice to unlock all the minigames. Still a lot of high scores to beat to unlock costumes but in the sense of beating the game and seeing what it has to offer then mission accomplished there.

Super Mario Maker - Feels silly to mark this as beat but I finished unlocking all the remaining tools last Sunday so that's about it. I'll have to look up the old Super Mario Maker thread on the forums to see if Mop it up and Phil's and other forum members courses are still available to play and try them out. But, boy, this game doesn't seem to have much to offer in 2022. I know it can be viewed as a modern Mario Paint in that the game is basically just a tool box to let you create things but it just feels so... empty. Seriously considering trying to sell it and see if I can get any money back for it since it wouldn't surprise me if the levels created by people won't soon disappear a short while after the closure of the Wii U and 3DS eShops. I guess I just had a different expectation for the game and the reality has thrown me.

I haven't gone back to Bastion after all the comments of it being boring. It feels like that coupled with getting thrown for a loop with Mario Maker left me aimless. And this is all I have to show for any gaming over the last while.
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Offline Mop it up

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #63 on: August 20, 2022, 01:54:06 PM »
Mega Man X8
We've finally arrived at the (current?) conclusion to the series. I'd heard a little about this one, the consensus seems to be that it managed to bounce back after the dreck streak. I've gotta say...

...I'm not so sure it's any better! While this game retains 3D graphics like X7, it largely eschews the 3D movement sections, featuring mainly 2D gameplay. There are still a couple of 3D stages that feature a speeder bike, one of which is a chase sequence that zips around like crazy and makes it unclear exactly where objects will pass by. It's easily the worst stage in the game and one of the worst in the series in general. The 2D stages have a few interesting setpieces which take advantage of the added depth, such as a battle with a giant construction robot that involves knocking around cranes in the background. The character switching returns with some improvements, including being able to recover a portion of lost health when changed out; auto-switching to the second character if one gets killed instead of ending things there; and a new powerful double attack.

Introduced this time around is a currency system, which is now used to purchase various upgrades from a shop. I was never a fan of this idea in Mega Man 9 and 10, and it's done to worse effect here. Some upgrades still need to be located within stages before they can be bought. The main issue is that many upgrades are obscenely expensive, I played through the whole game and could barely afford more than the simple life upgrades because of how much everything cost. I can only imagine the amount of grinding it would take to afford everything, it just wouldn't be worth it. The one upside, in theory anyway, would be that it allows choosing which upgrades to obtain first, rather than luck of the draw of whatever was found in a stage.

Overall, I can see why people would find this to be the better game and it probably is, but I feel I got more enjoyment out of X7, if that makes sense. Which it doesn't.

And with that, the Mega Man Legacy Collection 2 is complete, as well as the whole series! Once again, there are medals and bonus challenges, but I think I'm especially not going to bother with those for this set of games. While X8 and maybe X7 are worth trying out, this part of the collection is most likely not worth it. It was fun to play through this series and experience the history, even if I didn't find any of the games to be particularly good. With that said, seeing just how bad things could get with these later entries, it kind of has given me a better appreciation for the first four titles; they have their share of issues but at the very least they turned out as something playable!

Offline Khushrenada

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #64 on: August 22, 2022, 01:07:20 PM »
Well, let's update the big board to see how things have gone for the middle of the month.

Khushrenada – Picross e8
Bungle4 – Kirby’s Epic Yarn
Mop it up – Mega Man X
Khushrenada – Shantae: Risky’s Revenge
NWR_insanolord – Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze
RABicle – Grand Mountain Adventure: Wonderlands
Order.RSS – Human Resource Machine
Mop it up – Mega Man X2
Mop it up – Mega Man X3
Khushrenada – Elli
Khushrenada – Super Bomberman R
RABicle – 80’s Overdrive
Order.RSS – Space Channel 5 Part 2
Broodwars – Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance HD
Broodwars – Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory
NWR_insanolord – Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle
Khushrenada – WarioWare: Smooth Moves
Mop it up – Mega Man X4
Bungle4 – Fun! Fun! Minigolf TOUCH!
Khushrenada – BoxBoy + BoxGirl
Khushrenada – Just Dance 2
---------
RABicle - Pokemon Legends: Arceus
Mop it up - Mega Man X5
Broodwars - Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memories
Luigi Dude - Xenoblade 2: Torna - The Golden Country
pokepal148 - Frog Fractions: Hop's Iconic Cap
Order.RSS - Rez HD
Mop it up - Mega Man X6
RABicle - Pokemon Black 2
Mop it up - Mega Man X7
Broodwars - Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance HD
Khushrenada - Rayman Raving Rabbids 2
Khushrenada - Super Mario Maker (Wii U)
Mop it up - Mega Man X8

13 more games added to the total making it 34 games beat for the month. A bit of a drop from the amount finished in the first 10 days versus the second 10 days. Totally my fault. Sorry. With about 10 days left, it's cramming to squeeze in a few more games before the buzzer sounds.
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Offline TOPHATANT123

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #65 on: August 22, 2022, 07:05:23 PM »
Man I love Rayman Raving Rabbids 2. At the time I thought the shooting segments were so clever, but looking back they probably weren't anything that special. The rhythm game segments I'm sure are still fun I imagine. Rayman 2/3 and Rabbids 1/2 are synonymous with childhood for me. Rabbids TV Party was the first one where I felt disappointed, don't know if I left the Rabbids, or the Rabbids left me.

For the game I've actually played, The Great Ace Attorney 2: Resolve is now in the digital completed pile. From my first post I've come around a bit. The game has a lot of heart and I found myself feeling emotional when it was time to say goodbye to all the characters. It's a really good game and I'd say the duology is up there with being one of the best stories the series has to offer. That said I'll be giving the series a long cool down period before I jump into the next one, as I was feeling some fatigue with the format. The ones I've got left are Apollo Justice and 6 (and Edgeworth 2, would love an official English release of that).

Offline Khushrenada

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #66 on: August 22, 2022, 07:46:28 PM »
Man I love Rayman Raving Rabbids 2. At the time I thought the shooting segments were so clever, but looking back they probably weren't anything that special. The rhythm game segments I'm sure are still fun I imagine. Rayman 2/3 and Rabbids 1/2 are synonymous with childhood for me. Rabbids TV Party was the first one where I felt disappointed, don't know if I left the Rabbids, or the Rabbids left me.

Are you referring to how the shooting segments happen in the "real world" for 2? They shot footage in actual locations and then imposed the Rabbids on top of it. It was a surprise choice but I'm not sure it really works that well compared to a CGI/cartoony background. The effects just aren't good enough to blend in that seamlessly so you can just always see its fake and it becomes distracting and less immersive. Some of the minigames are alright and some don't hold up well. The rhythm minigames are a bit different in 2. In the first one, you are pretty much drumming to the beat. In this one, you can select different instruments and it reminded me of Guitar Hero/Rock Band as you have the scrolling line of notes that you need to shake the Wiimote and Nunchuk to for the beats of that instrument. Apparently, it is the next game of TV Party that led Ubisoft to its Just Dance success with the rhythm game style in that one so I should check that out. Maybe next Backlaugust. All in all, though, I've found Raving Rabbids 1 and 2 to be pretty rough as far as production values go. Like, even for GameCube games, I feel they'd panned a bit for their design and graphics. Or maybe I've just become more accustomed to HD gaming that I'm forgetting what things really looked like for the time but I don't think so. I replayed Pikmin earlier this year and that's a 2001 game that looks and controls better than Rabbids. 1 feels like it had a bit more care put into it because it was technically a "Rayman" game but 2 feels like the bare minimum to get a sequel out and cash in some more on the Wii motion craze.

That said I'll be giving the series a long cool down period before I jump into the next one, as I was feeling some fatigue with the format. The ones I've got left are Apollo Justice and 6 (and Edgeworth 2, would love an official English release of that).

I just need to complete that second half of Great Ace Attorney that you just finished but wanted to put a bit of space between it and the first after finishing the first half around May. Once that is complete then I'll have gone through the series as well aside from Investigations 2. If Great Ace Attorney could get an English translation years later then I'm going to keep holding on to the hope that Investigations 2 will also get a North American release of its own at some point as well.
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Offline Khushrenada

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #67 on: August 22, 2022, 08:00:03 PM »
On that note, I'm doing my part to get back on track these last 11 days.

Just Dance 3 - Finished this and got at least 1 star on each song. Not complete in that there is still some stuff to unlock like different modes and song mash-ups. But this month isn't necessarily about completing a game for that extra credit. It's just about beating it and moving on which I've already done by popping in Just Dance 4 and playing a few songs through it.

Super Mario Maker 2 - Got the castle to 100% and had the credits roll. Game Beat in that regard although I still have 35 other levels to play through in that Story Mode so a pretty generous amount of pre-packaged levels for this game. 2 really is better than 1 in the case of Mario Maker from my brief experience with it so far.

Splatoon - Booted this up on the Wii U on Saturday and started playing through the Story Mode then I ended up doing some Turf Wars to try it out. Splatoon was a game I was never quite sure about but willing to give a chance at some point since I don't play shooters but this isn't necessarily a shooter game since it's up claiming turf. Got to say, I quite enjoyed my time with it. Even though I was just a level 1 nobody, there were quite a lot of level 1 players showing up in the online mode along with others much higher up like level 16 or 31. Despite that mix and just playing with the basic tools given, still was able to win a few along with losing a few. Kind of felt like it was back and forth for the first while but then I think I ended things on a 3 game win streak. Even though it was new to me, I still seemed to usually be the second best member of a squad I'd be in so it is definitely a game that's welcoming to new players and everyone can play. That sort of Mario Kart multiplayer style that Nintendo is often aiming for. I quite enjoyed getting behind enemy lines and turning all of their ink to my color in an effort to gain the turf war advantage. Looking forward to playing more of this.

Rime - Likewise, I was trying to tell myself to finish Bastion before starting this game as it always seemed like something up my alley but I decided, screw it. I'm going to have my pudding even if I don't eat my meat. It's just about exploring a strange island and solving simple enough puzzles. Riki likes fighting easy monsters Khushy likes solving eeaasssyy puzzles. Had to tear myself away from it last night but I'm conflicted on trying to savor it or keep playing it at a fast enough pace to complete if for the month.
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Offline broodwars

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #68 on: August 22, 2022, 10:09:56 PM »
Figured with a week left until Soul Hackers 2 came out, I would throw a little bonus round in and try to finally finish my Platinum run of Yakuza: Like a Dragon, a playthrough I started last year but put down upon running into 2 post-game roadblocks: Dragon Kart and the True Final Millennium Tower, a completely bullshit ultra hard dungeon that was originally DLC in the Japanese version of the game. It's a dungeon designed to test players who not only have hit Level 99 with all characters, but also maxed out at least one if not multiple Jobs.

I spent all weekend level-grinding up 2-3 more jobs with each character, and tonight I took on the dungeon. How'd it go? Well...



Mostly smoothly, actually. Most of the enemies went down fairly easily to repeated lighting attacks. I only had a few fatalities on my way up the tower. Joon-gi Han was by far the MVP, his Agility stat being so high that he pretty much had 2 attacks per turn the entire tower. So he was just nuking enemies to death with wanton abandon.

I did have two incredibly scary moments, though, and they were both in the final boss fight: Amon pulling out his Orbital Space Cannon, which I was prepared for with the Masochist Poundmate. However, even WITH the half damage reduction, he still nuked both my mages and nearly killed Joon and Ichiban. It took me quite a while to recover from that attack, but I killed Amon before he got to do it again. Then I whittled away his minions until Kiriyu was the only one standing. He then pulled out HIS ultimate Poundmates move and almost party wiped me. He died the next turn.

That was a victory long in the planning and preparation. Now that just leaves one...insurmountable thing: the Dragon Cup in Dragon Kart. Ordinarily, that would sound like fun, but the Go Kart Minigame in Yakuza: Like a Dragon is complete ****. The Karts control terribly, the track layouts are ridiculous, and the AI rubber-bands worse than Mario Kart 64 (despite having no Blue Shell equivalent). It's just an absolutely wretched side mode, and the Dragon Cup starts with a track based on hairpin turns. -_-
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Offline RABicle

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #69 on: August 23, 2022, 07:45:11 AM »
A big hit to my dream of clearing my backlog. It would appear my Harvest Moon save is actually in the Winter of the first year, not the second. And that the game is two seasons longer than I remembered.
It’s also not on my WiiU virtual console, it’s on the Virtual Console inside the Wii app of my WiiU which many of you may know makes it much more inconvenient to play. I own it on WiiU and apparently if I hack the machine I can transfer the save file across. Maybe I’ll do that?
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Offline M.K.Ultra

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #70 on: August 23, 2022, 06:10:50 PM »
After being silent the last few weeks, many of you were wondering what I was up to. Well there is a reason I picked Tails in Safe Words and that is because I have been playing Sonic Forces on Switch. I figured with Frontiers coming out this fall I should probably open that copy of Forces that has been collecting dust. I had low expectations because I recall mediocre to poor reviews. I am happy to report that this is my favorite 3D Sonic game, improving on Generations and Lost World. It has a mix of gameplay styles like Generations, with old 2D Sonic (the stockier mute one) and new 3D Sonic levels. You also create and customize a furry avatar. The avatar plays like 3D Sonic but with wisp abilities, while Sonic just has the boost wisps. I think the variety of gameplay styles was nice and kept things interesting. I was so interested that I did a 100% run, a first for me and the franchise. While you could beat the 30 levels in a single night, it is really by replaying them and finding the collectibles and completing the rank and speed challenges that I think the game starts to shine. You have to memorize the levels to really master them and that takes practice, but they are short so you can still master one in like an hour. Here is how I did it:
  • Play a few times exploring all the routes and find the 5 red star rings
  • Once you get the red star rings, there is a sequence of 5 numbered rings you have to get in order, a fun challenge I thought
  • Once you get the numbers, a set of five moon rings appears in the level and you have to get them all in a short time that starts when you get the first one, also enjoyable
  • At this point I know the level well and can go through in a short amount of time with a lot of rings and get the S rank
  • The toughest part, but also most satisfying is the speedrun challenge. Not every level has this but most do. You have to find the shortest path and get it almost perfect to get these. when you get that perfect run that is a great feeling
There are six boss battles that just have rank and speed missions and no collectibles. I completed all the missions for all 30 levels along with some other missions based on using wisps or special abilities in about 25 hours. The only missions I did not get are the ones for leveling up avatars. You don't get to create a second avatar until you beat the game. My preferred style of play is to master each level as I encounter it so I used the same cat avatar the whole time. In order to get the last missions I would need to grind with the other five animal types. Since this is Switch and there is no trophy to chase, I marked is as complete without doing that part. I definitely get the criticism of Sonic games but I also think people don't approach them the right way. I once heard someone online describe it in terms of Sensei Miyagi's famous "Wax on, wax off". Once I stopped trying to do it my way and started to do it Sonic's way, the games really started to click and man are they fun when they do. If you liked Sonic Generations, I think you would like this one too.
« Last Edit: August 23, 2022, 06:15:02 PM by Bungle4 »

Offline Mop it up

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #71 on: August 24, 2022, 05:53:22 PM »
Time for some more scattershot games!

Chex Quest HD
I bought this out of curiosity when it was on sale for 18 cents. For those unaware, it's a remake of a promotional FPS game in the 90s that some lucky kids found in boxes of Chex cereal. What a strange thing to bring back, nostalgia knows no bounds! And I've gotta say...

...I'm hungry for Chex Mix! It's only 5 stages long and they're about as large as a midsize DooM level, so it was a pretty quick completion. I mentioned DooM since the original utilized the DooM engine, though this one is a full remake that redesigns the stages with some 3D elements like moving platforms and room-over-room architecture. The whole thing feels very amateurish, like something a fan makes in Unity; I can't help but feel the actual original game has more charm, it's a shame they didn't also include it in this package. This remake also appears to be missing several features from the original, such as difficulty settings, a map, and some sound effects.

Super Bomberman R
This is a game I put down years back since I wasn't into it. I had gotten it mainly for multiplayer, but even way back when, it was already dead online. Going back to it, I can see that I had left off at 3-1 in the story mode. Resuming play, I gotta say...

...I can see why I didn't stick with it! Each stage is basically defeating all enemies or avoiding enemies, without much to switch up the monotony. The bosses are a little more interesting, but drag on a bit long. At least it can be played in 2-player co-op. I finished all the worlds including the bonus world. I regret buying this game, but oh well. There are cosmetics and battle arenas to unlock from collecting coins, but story mode hardly doles out any, so I can only imagine how long that would take to get everything. I wonder if playing online gave out a lot more coins...

Pokkén Tournament DX
On a whim I decided to try out this game about a month ago, and have been playing it in short bursts off and on. I don't normally care for fighting games but my significant other is into them so I figured I should try out some more of them. And I've gotta say...

...I liked it a lot more than I thought I would! It strikes a good balance of complexity and accessibility, and avoids a number of elements that I dislike about the genre. The controls and mechanics are pretty simple to pick up and learn with no complex combos or button inputs, but there's still a good variety of moves to keep things interesting. There are a lot of visual indicators which make it fairly easy to keep track of what types of moves are being used and understand what happened in an exchange to do a better job dealing with it next time. The phase shift mechanic is clever and helps fights be a real back-and-forth affair instead of just getting trapped in combos a whole match. The game featuring Pokémon characters makes it feel more goofy and less dramatic than a typical fighter.

Anyhoos, the credits rolled after beating the single player leagues, so I'm counting it as a completed game though I'm not done playing it. There's one bonus league to play, plus some more mission panels to finish. There isn't a whole lot to the game so I don't know how long it will last, it could use some more modes and options. The roster feels a little light with 21 characters (+2 as expensive DLC, no thanks), but each one has a fairly unique moveset so there's a lot of variety amongst them. I wonder if we'll ever get a sequel to expand on this solid foundation...

Offline broodwars

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #72 on: August 24, 2022, 07:40:33 PM »
It's been a long...long road, but I finally did it. After 110 hours of play, I finally Platinumed Yakuza: Like a Dragon.



It's an exceptional RPG, but man that game is a huge time commitment. I can finally delete that game from my PS5's HDD.

And yeah, My hands were shaking so hard by the time I beat the last rival in Dragon Kart.
« Last Edit: August 24, 2022, 11:03:31 PM by broodwars »
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Offline M.K.Ultra

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #73 on: August 28, 2022, 12:57:35 PM »
I have one more completion to chalk up on the big board. I revisited The Disney Afternoon collection on PS4 this past week. I had beaten Darkwing Duck back on 2018 when I first bought it and had not touched it since. Sometimes these downloads seem to fall by the wayside without a box/case to remind me they are there. This time I fired up TaleSpin which is a Shmup that reminded me of twin bee a little. It is an autoscroller, but has a cool mechanic where you can press the b button (a just shoots) and Baloo's ship goes upside down and the direction of scrolling reverses. I had a decent amount of fun with this game and played through saving after each round once I completed it without dying. Once the game was beat I completed it by doing the Boss Rush and Time Attach modes. They seemed pretty easy once the game was mastered from the first play through. My time attack was just over 30 minutes. Fans of NES Capcom should not miss out on this collection, though it seems doubtful it will ever get released again due to licensing issues. Well that is my usual four on four. I will see you chumps in Shocktober or the next Mafia game.

Offline RABicle

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #74 on: August 29, 2022, 04:37:45 AM »
Things are looking grim. Backlaugust is winding up with the traditional day long meeting I'm obligated to attend. Metroid Dread is very close to completion but I might not be good enough at games to finish it! I don't know.
Consider Overland, Ori and 100 Days abandoned at this point.

Gotta respect Broodwars for aiming for 100% trophy collection. God I'm just credits and done. Imagine 100%ing Pokémon Black 2. Crazy talk.
« Last Edit: August 29, 2022, 04:59:10 AM by RABicle »
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Offline broodwars

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #75 on: August 29, 2022, 12:12:35 PM »
Things are looking grim. Backlaugust is winding up with the traditional day long meeting I'm obligated to attend. Metroid Dread is very close to completion but I might not be good enough at games to finish it! I don't know.
Consider Overland, Ori and 100 Days abandoned at this point.

Gotta respect Broodwars for aiming for 100% trophy collection. God I'm just credits and done. Imagine 100%ing Pokémon Black 2. Crazy talk.

Well, I certainly don't try it with everything, but I do try to do it with games I'm already devoting huge time commitments to. Funnily enough, though, I have Platinumed several Pokemon clones: Ni No Kuni 1 and just this year World of Final Fantasy. And yes, they were both wretched experiences to 100%.
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Offline Mop it up

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #76 on: August 30, 2022, 11:33:33 AM »
God I'm just credits and done. Imagine 100%ing Pokémon Black 2. Crazy talk.
Have you at least checked out the PokéStar Studios side story? I felt it was by far the best thing about the Gen V games.

When I first beat this game, I found it to be incredibly frustrating, but with redeeming value. Now that I've seen the godawful, tedious-as-hell side content, I hate this game. Seriously, it's sheer, unadulterated grind getting the Dream Eaters leveled-up via dozens upon dozens of play of the same Water Barrel & Balloon mini-games. I don't understand why they have the battle portals randomly generated on a once-per-drop rotation per world per character. Seriously, what is even the POINT of that?

Funnily enough, though, I have Platinumed several Pokemon clones: Ni No Kuni 1 and just this year World of Final Fantasy. And yes, they were both wretched experiences to 100%.
Perhaps this is a stupid question, but I gotta ask, if doing things like this is such a terrible experience and you hate a game, then why do it?

Offline Khushrenada

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #77 on: August 30, 2022, 12:05:38 PM »
Things are looking grim.

I'll agree. More and more people have been pulling me aside wanting to know how I'm doing and what it's like going 7 days without seeing a credits reel. Gotta say, it's been hard. But it's also been my own fault. After trying to get regrouped last weekend to finish the month strong, I then proceeded to play nothing since my post last Monday. It wasn't until Sunday night that I played anything again as I dove back in Rime. Not sure I'm going to finish it in time though. Was checking a FAQ to get an idea of how far along I am and it seems like I've kind of hit the middle of it. Went back to Splatoon last night. Got 10 more levels or so to go so that still seems feasible. Not sure if I'll be able to squeeze much more in or not at this point. So many things I got to do and want to do in life.
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Offline Mop it up

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #78 on: August 30, 2022, 01:07:32 PM »
Continuing with this classic games binge, I next booted up the Castlevania Anniversary Collection. This compilation has save states at least so that helps... or a save state, I guess, woulda been nice to have more. I've never played most of the games in this so now's as good time as any to dive right into the series starting with the very first. And I've gotta say...

...The original Castlevania doesn't hold up at all! Slow, clunky, enemy-spam are the three words I'd use to describe this game. What's that? I used four words? Try re-reading them, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.
Castlevania: The Adventure - I wish I started with this one as it has other problems on top of the ones above! There's a lot of slowdown in this game which can result in dropped inputs; I'm pretty sure this is just how the game is and not a fault of the emulator, as the second included Game Boy game has no such issues. Good thing it's short, at least. Didn't they remake this for WiiWare? Too bad they didn't also include that version.
Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge - I liked this one better than those first two, the level design starts to get more interesting and it generally feels less cheap.
Castlevania II: Simon's Quest - Now here's where things start to get interesting. I've tried to play this game before as a kid, but I never managed to figure out where to go after the first mansion. I had a guide handy fully expecting to be referencing it often, but I actually only used it a couple of times, including just to figure out the function of an item (I wonder if this is one of those games where having the manual was a big help in knowing how things work). A couple of things I also recalled from memes, such as the kneeling at the cliff with the red crystal for the warp tornado to appear.

The main source of difficulty in this one is exactly that as well: figuring out how to progress. The general combat feels easier than the three prior games I played, in part because Simon gets pretty powerful with upgrades and some sub weapons have infinite uses. Most enemies just bumble back and fourth and there are few bosses throughout the game. It's also surprisingly forgiving especially as an NES title, as upon getting killed Simon simply respawns on the most recent piece of safe ground touched, so the only incentive to play well is to avoid a loss of currency and EXP which isn't that big of a deal.

This game overall isn't all that obtuse, but since those couple of moments totally stall progress then it's easy to see why it gained such a reputation. To be fair, it's difficult to strike a balance with any kind of puzzle, providing just enough clues to figure it out without flat-out spelling it out, but in this case I think it'd just take a little bit of rewriting (or hiding a few more) clues to make this game work. I still liked it the best of the bunch so far, however I don't think it stands up to its contemporaries like Metroid and Zelda II.

Offline Order.RSS

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #79 on: August 30, 2022, 01:18:40 PM »
Things are looking grim.

I'll agree. More and more people have been pulling me aside wanting to know how I'm doing and what it's like going 7 days without seeing a credits reel. Gotta say, it's been hard.

I got your back Khush, here's two more for the pile in my slow bid to start Sega World Report:

Daaaaaytoooooonaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa USA


I'm not very good at this, but with only 3 tracks and a few tries it's still pretty easy to land some first place finishes and call it a day. Really good Sega vibes on this one, an iconic soundtrack, great sense of speed, and since there's so many other racers you get to do loads of overtaking.
I didn't realize Nagoshi directed this, but in retrospect the Monkey Ball to F-Zero GX transition makes even more sense now.

Continuing my Sega journey I also tried NiGHTS Into Dreams... but didn't finish it, so probably shouldn't count it for Backlaugust.


I guess I had somehow convinced myself this would be a really good, overlooked game, and the Wii sequel didn't do it justice at all. But nah, NiGHTS on Saturn has aged terribly. You can't see far ahead enough to really chart a path, it has issues with basic depth perception, and the curved design of everything gave me a headache.

Failing to finish a level within the timeframe is amusing since it suddenly reverts from a 2D flight game to a 3D platformer of sorts with absolutely awful controls and a really warped sense of scale. The game also has issues indicating what the various collectables are needed for, or at an even more basic level... just you're supposed to do. It's not a huge problem, but it stinks to head into a boss battle not sure whether your attack is damaging them or hurting you. I hate to say it, but the Wii game is at least a lot easier to grasp. I suppose the air of mystery around the Saturn title does make it more interesting, though.

It's a very creative setting, and stuff like Christmas NiGHTS is very forward-looking for where the industry would eventually head in terms of expansions/DLC. This whole series feels like something I want to like, but almost everything about it (from the gameplay to the graphics and even some of the music) is kind of off-putting. Maybe I just don't like clowns.

Offline Khushrenada

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #80 on: August 30, 2022, 01:54:17 PM »
Perhaps this is a stupid question, but I gotta ask, if doing things like this is such a terrible experience and you hate a game, then why do it?

I'll tell you why I've done it before as I've wondered that myself. Part of it is stubbornness. I don't want the game to beat me as it were by the challenge. Then there's the time factor. I feel that if I walk away from it then my current skills at the game may be rusty so if I'm ever going to do it then now is probably the best time while my mind is still well in sync with the game and what its systems and controls are like. There's a little bit of a personal pride or "bragging rights" mixed in with knowing that most players probably won't have finished this challenge but you conquered that mountain. And there's still a sense of some satisfaction that you can mark off and consider the game fully beat and complete. When you look at the game or see its title, you don't think about how you never finished this or that. There's no niggling feeling in your brain about it. That itch has been scratched.
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Offline broodwars

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #81 on: August 30, 2022, 08:08:21 PM »
Perhaps this is a stupid question, but I gotta ask, if doing things like this is such a terrible experience and you hate a game, then why do it?

I'll tell you why I've done it before as I've wondered that myself. Part of it is stubbornness. I don't want the game to beat me as it were by the challenge. Then there's the time factor. I feel that if I walk away from it then my current skills at the game may be rusty so if I'm ever going to do it then now is probably the best time while my mind is still well in sync with the game and what its systems and controls are like. There's a little bit of a personal pride or "bragging rights" mixed in with knowing that most players probably won't have finished this challenge but you conquered that mountain. And there's still a sense of some satisfaction that you can mark off and consider the game fully beat and complete. When you look at the game or see its title, you don't think about how you never finished this or that. There's no niggling feeling in your brain about it. That itch has been scratched.

Just to add on to this since Khush touched on some of it, I've always been a completionist with my games, long before there were achievement systems. Just as an example, I have a Wind Waker save file on my GameCube memory card with all the statues unlocked, and you get absolutely nothing for doing that. It probably stems from my family being extremely poor for most of my childhood, so when you got a game you played the **** out of it. You squeezed every last drop of enjoyment and intrigue out of every game you played, because outside of rentals you wouldn't be seeing anything new for a while.

I find that you don't really know what a game has to offer until you've explored all its systems. Sometimes that's for good, like when I beat the original Bioshock on its hardest difficulty with the Vita-Chambers turned off (something that was a lot harder in the PS3 version than it is now in the remasters). That really caused me to experience a game I loved in a whole new way, where I had to really learn the environments and how to manipulate it and the enemies to my advantage.

Sometimes that's for bad, like when a charming little turn-based RPG like Ni No Kuni was absolutely ruined by trying to get all the familiars and their variants. But you don't KNOW going in how these things are going to shake out. You don't KNOW going in that NNK's method of managing familiars is utterly tedious and that some familiars have absolutely ridiculous spawn rates. You don't KNOW going into easy-going World of Final Fantasy how utterly grindy it is to clear all the monster ability boards, or how bullshit the post-game dungeons are.

Going back to Kingdom Hearts, you don't know what an utter clown show Dream Drop Distance's design is until you veer off the critical path. You don't know how the portals are tied into the drop system, because the game NEVER explains how the Forecast system works or how portals rotate between drops so you have to keep swapping characters. I played the entirety of the main campaign preventing the game from swapping characters until I cleared each world with one character. The game ENCOURAGES you to do that, so you don't realize you're actually punishing yourself by skipping content. You also don't realize till late in the game how poorly the Dream Eater system is designed, as the their mechanics are only very loosely tied to the main combat and exploration mechanics.

And you know what? Sometimes grind isn't a bad thing. Melody of Memory was an utter grind killing 100,000 enemies across all the songs, as well as beating all 150 songs on every difficulty and Full-chaining at least 50 of them on every difficulty. Despite that, I found the grind relaxing, because you're really just doing what you do in music games: replaying songs to improve your skills and shoot for higher scores. I found grinding for levels in Yakuza quite relaxing. Just throw on a podcast or movie and run around killing high-value targets, same as players have been doing in games for decades. Just don't actively annoy me while I'm doing it.

One final thing worth noting is that with the way modern games have been designed to appeal to anyone and everyone, there just isn't as much joy in merely rolling credits on a game as there used to be. Modern games roll over. They WANT everyone to complete them. I find achievement systems allow developers to still give their game a bit of teeth for those that want just a little more out of their gaming experience. They push me to explore outside my comfort zone a bit. Within reason, of course.
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Offline RABicle

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #82 on: August 31, 2022, 06:02:58 AM »
I did it! I beat Metroid Dread! The pain is finally over. What a great game but damn, those bosses are unfair. Cleared normal difficulty in 10 hours 53.

And that’ll be it for me this Backlaugust, I’d like to thank all my fans for their support, sorry I only got through 5 games. But it’s because these days I have a miserable job*, which I called in sick today so I could beat Metroid on my 20th attempt at the final boss or something. Also I have to close my rings on my Apple Watch. Gotta close the red ring twice today for the August reward. 540kjs to go!

*Amazingly today, whilst “sick†I was called and offered a new job or more pay, full time at the same organisation. I said yes.
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Offline Khushrenada

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #83 on: August 31, 2022, 10:57:24 AM »
*Amazingly today, whilst “sick†I was called and offered a new job or more pay, full time at the same organisation. I said yes.

Backlaugust pays off!


As for Metroid Dread, it's a funny game. The first time I played it, all the bosses seemed so hard as you had to slowly learn their attacks and get better at those counter attack moments. When I tried playing through it a second time to see if I could bring my time down and start unlocking the images in the gallery, most of the bosses were much easier that second time around. By the third playthrough and then a run through Hard Mode, they'd pretty much lost their challenge.

Even if you don't play it a second time, I recommend at least trying to get all the collectibles. There are some tough and tricky ones to collect and they are sort of mini-puzzles to work through.
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Offline Luigi Dude

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #84 on: August 31, 2022, 11:05:48 AM »
Well I had a pretty productive month and was able to finish several other titles I had been playing on and off this summer.

Doom Eternal

This is the sequel to Doom 2016, which I played last summer and I really loved that game.  I see people all the time arguing over which one is better, 2016 or Eternal so I was very interested in finally trying out Eternal.  After finally playing it and beating the base game and the 2 DLC expansions, I really enjoyed the overall game, but didn't like it as much as 2016.  The core gameplay is really fun and when you finally get all the weapons and abilities it's a blast to play, until you get cheapshotted by a bunch of randomly spawning heavy demons that you didn't notice because you were already fighting another hundred demons on a fucking lava floor, with so many lights flashing I can't even tell what the **** is going on anymore.

It's like, was this game designed by meth heads or something?  I mean overall I still had fun, but 2016 felt like a much more polished experience that would still get challenging at times, but never came across as cheap like Eternal does at times.  Plus the last 2 bosses of the base game and the boss of the first DLC were just complete garbage.  If the game didn't give me the option to have super armor for those fights after dying several times I would have quite playing since those were some of the cheapest most poorly designed boss fights I've played in recent memory.  At least the final boss of the 2nd DLC was actually pretty fun so the game went out on a high point for me.

Fire Emblem Fates: Revelation


Well I finally completed all of Fire Emblem Fates this month, with the third and final path complete.  Well it was overall an OK experience, better then the Birthright path, but doesn't hold a candle to how good the Conquest path was.  The developers really should have realized why Flagship when making the Oracle Zelda games, cut the third game, Oracle of Secrets to instead focus on two games.  I mean Conquest itself was great, with every map feeling unique, but both Birthright and Revelation suffer from having lots of generic maps that have hardly any strategy to them.  Would have probably been better off if it was just 2 games, that way the Birthright/Revelations experience could have been a lot better.

Oh and having played Revelation which is suppose to be the true story path, the overall story in this game just sucks.  Seriously, all 3 paths have the worst writing in any Fire Emblem game by far.  That's the only thing Birthright is the best at is it's story was the least bad just because of how generic it was, while Conquest and Revelation are just bash head against wall level of stupid.

So overall I loved Conquest for the gameplay, but Birthright and Revelation are both pretty forgettable experiences since they're about as generic as Fire Emblem's gameplay can get.

Steel Assault

This was a pretty fun indie action game that has great pixel art.  If you can get it on sale for cheap it's worth a play since it only took me an hour to beat on normal so there's not a huge time investment.  Of course since the normal game was so short I played it again on Expert which took me about 3 hours to beat, but kind of disappointment me since the only real difference between Normal and Expert mode is Expert takes away all the checkpoints in each level so you have to get from the beginning to the end of each level on only one life.  I mean I like how the game played and it was so short I didn't have a problem with doing it to truly master the game, but just removing checkpoints is a pretty lazy way to make a hard mode.  Come on, how about we keep the checkpoints but make the enemies and bosses harder.  Removing checkpoints just makes the game more tedious then actually hard.

Demons of Asteborg

This was another indie title that was actually made to run on real Sega Genesis hardware but also on the Switch.  A pretty fun Castlevania style 16-bit action title.  I really liked the level design, and the face each level introduces some new gameplay gimmick halfway through each stage that makes them all unique.  The only real problem is the enemies were kind of lame and the combat is not very engaging outside of the boss fights.  It feels like the developers designed the platforming in each level first which I found really fun, but then threw in the enemies as an afterthought.  Which is why the game is pretty fun, but no where near the quality of an old school Castlevania that designed it's levels with both the platforming and enemies in mind.

Still if you can get this one on sale it a pretty fun experience that should take you around 5 hours or less to beat.  If you like 16-bit action titles, it's worth a look.
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Offline Mop it up

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #85 on: August 31, 2022, 11:37:15 AM »
I'll tell you why I've done it before as I've wondered that myself...

Just to add on to this since Khush touched on some of it...
Thanks for responses. I can't say I can relate, as I play games for fun, so usually when it stops being fun then I move on to play / do something else. I guess in these such cases for you folks, the enjoyment there is derived from the act of completion itself rather than the journey, which makes sense as the way you described it.

Though I s'pose there are still some examples where this phenomenon did happen to me, but it certainly isn't a way I prefer to play games if I can avoid it. It probably happened more often when I was younger, for example I know I played through all of SMB2j even though I don't particularly like it. Then again, I guess there are a couple examples of this from this very Backlaugust, most notably the case of beating Mega Man X6 even though it's a dumpster fire with no redeemable qualities. But I think this kind of thing is a lot easier with classic games since they're usually pretty short; X6 was just a few short hours of misery. Modern games are so heavily padded that I can't even imagine attempting something like this with them, especially since it tends to involve more repetitious grinding. If I'm going to be performing a mindless monotonous task, I'd rather it be for something more useful, such as chores or learning a new language.

Offline Khushrenada

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #86 on: August 31, 2022, 12:33:27 PM »
Splatoon - Story Mode beat. Although there a two secret scrolls I need to go back and collect. Pretty good stuff. When the boss called me a slimy hipster, I was fully committed to taking him down. Want to go back and do some splatting and see what the different Turf War areas are like.

Was wondering if I could also wrap up Just Dance 4 last night but had to stop if I was going to eat anything and shower before bed. 12 songs to go there. Almost had my first 5 star ranking. I seemed to be like a move or two away from it with how the ranking meter looked. I guess I should admit that it is not like every time I dance along I'm doing great in case I've made it sound like these games are a breeze. Have a bunch of two stars and the rare 1 star in which things are not clicking. It can be frustrating when I seem to be perfectly in rhythm with the screen and yet am just getting OKs or misses. But this isn't a game to take too seriously.
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Offline RABicle

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #87 on: August 31, 2022, 07:52:27 PM »
Even if you don't play it a second time, I recommend at least trying to get all the collectibles. There are some tough and tricky ones to collect and they are sort of mini-puzzles to work through.
My collection count was 85% or something, which I was pretty happy with. Backlaugust and other pressing demands of the day meant a few I tried a couple of times and then jsut gave up on because they were too tricky or required too many skills for clumsy fingers like mine. But yeah I can see myself giving it another spin, maybe jsut going straight to hard mode?
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Offline Mop it up

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #88 on: September 01, 2022, 12:14:53 PM »
Hades
I completed this last night right at the buzzer, so there was no time to write about it before now. But I've still gotta say...

...It's a clever way of entwining the roguelite setup into its story and theming! The writing has a good sense of humor while still taking its story seriously, a rarity for indie games. It all goes a long way to help contextualize the game and makes for nice incentives to keep playing, as there's lots of little details everywhere to discover based on the player's actions. There are a wide variety of modifiers to unlock and augments to find that allow for different kinds of playstyles and helps keep things interesting, at least for a while.

The gameplay itself however, feels a little shallow. For some reason I was under the impression that this was more of a dungeon crawler, but it's actually just a series of rooms full of enemies that must be defeated to open the entrance to the next room full of enemies. The camera doesn't do a very good job of keeping enemies on screen, instead showing a focus on the protagonist and often making visible far too much of the out-of-bounds areas. Each weapon has few moves at its disposal. With how many runs it takes to complete the story, much less everything else on offer, it starts to feel repetitive sooner than it should for this type of game.

Because of the above, I don't think I quite understand all the accolades it had received. With that said, at least conceptually, it sets a new gold standard for how to handle a roguelite game. I just hope the next one is built upon a better gameplay foundation. Overall, I'd probably call this a solid 8/10 game, maybe 8.5 on a good day.

Offline broodwars

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #89 on: September 01, 2022, 12:48:39 PM »
I tried to get into Hades last year, and it just didn't click with me. I'm sure with enough time I could eventually acquire enough upgrades to beat the game, but I just don't have that kind of time or interest. I've made it to Hades himself exactly once on what was an usually good run, and he stomped me in seconds. I kinda lost all interest in the game after that, especially since I know you have to beat the game many times to get what passes for an ending.

Me and Roguelikes just don't click. The only one in recent memory I liked was Returnal.
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Offline Khushrenada

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #90 on: September 01, 2022, 06:29:53 PM »
I suppose it is time to update the big board to see how this month has gone.


Khushrenada – Picross e8
Bungle4 – Kirby’s Epic Yarn
Mop it up – Mega Man X
Khushrenada – Shantae: Risky’s Revenge
NWR_insanolord – Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze
RABicle – Grand Mountain Adventure: Wonderlands
Order.RSS – Human Resource Machine
Mop it up – Mega Man X2
Mop it up – Mega Man X3
Khushrenada – Elli
Khushrenada – Super Bomberman R
RABicle – 80’s Overdrive
Order.RSS – Space Channel 5 Part 2
Broodwars – Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance HD
Broodwars – Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory
NWR_insanolord – Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle
Khushrenada – WarioWare: Smooth Moves
Mop it up – Mega Man X4
Bungle4 – Fun! Fun! Minigolf TOUCH!
Khushrenada – BoxBoy + BoxGirl
Khushrenada – Just Dance 2
---------
RABicle - Pokemon Legends: Arceus
Mop it up - Mega Man X5
Broodwars - Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memories
Luigi Dude - Xenoblade 2: Torna - The Golden Country
pokepal148 - Frog Fractions: Hop's Iconic Cap
Order.RSS - Rez HD
Mop it up - Mega Man X6
RABicle - Pokemon Black 2
Mop it up - Mega Man X7
Broodwars - Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance HD
Khushrenada - Rayman Raving Rabbids 2
Khushrenada - Super Mario Maker (Wii U)
Mop it up - Mega Man X8
---------
TOPHATANT123 - The Great Ace Attorney 2: Resolve
Khushrenada - Super Mario Maker 2
Khushrenada - Just Dance 3
Broodwars - Yakuza: Like a Dragon
Bungle4 - Sonic Forces
Mop it up - Chex Quest HD
Mop it up - Super Bomberman R
Mop it up - Pokkén Tournament DX
Bungle4 - Talespin
Mop it up - Castlevania
Mop it up - Castlevania: The Adventure
Mop it up - Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge
Mop it up - Castlevania II: Simon's Quest
Order.RSS - Daytona USA
RABicle - Metroid Dread
Luigi Dude - Doom Eternal
Luigi Dude - Fire Emblem Fates: Revelation
Luigi Dude - Steel Assault
Luigi Dude - Demons of Asteborg
Khushrenada - Splatoon
Mop it up - Hades
Khushrenada - Just Dance 4


A strong finish with 22 more games added to the total for the month. I guess the 11th day helped get in a little higher number compared to the 21 games finished during the first ten days. That brings our grand total to 56 for the month. How will the games industry keep up? If there's anyone else that has a game they want added to the total then you better post it quickly over the next couple days.
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Offline Mop it up

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #91 on: September 02, 2022, 12:41:59 PM »
While it's too late to count it now, since I had started Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse before August ended, I decided to still finish it up. It's a bit of a mixed bag, but is overall an okay game, and better than the three linear Vanias I just played (though the original and The Adventure are both low bars to clear). A nice variety of stages including neat visuals and music, and branching paths at a couple of points which I guess was their way of mixing Simon's Quest with the regular Castlevania formula, and different characters to try out. The game generally feels better balanced, at least until the last few stages which become pretty questionable yet again. I still don't care for the stiff and limited movement and general gameplay flow though.

There are now three games left in the collection, one of which I've played and completed before in Super Castlevania IV, not sure if I'll play it again or not. I don't think this series is for me, the games just don't feel good to play.

And with that, it looks like Backlaugust is over! I seem to have really been in the zone this time, with 17 games in the bag, goes to show what one can accomplish with a little determination! And a lot of insomnia...

Offline Mop it up

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #92 on: September 09, 2022, 11:50:50 AM »
I was trying to not double post, but nothing's been happening so... I have little choice!

Sometimes that's for bad, like when a charming little turn-based RPG like Ni No Kuni was absolutely ruined by trying to get all the familiars and their variants. But you don't KNOW going in how these things are going to shake out. You don't KNOW going in that NNK's method of managing familiars is utterly tedious and that some familiars have absolutely ridiculous spawn rates. You don't KNOW going into easy-going World of Final Fantasy how utterly grindy it is to clear all the monster ability boards, or how bullshit the post-game dungeons are.
I was thinking some more about this point, and, have you heard of a site called TrueTrophies? It's a place where it shows the average completion time for games to obtain all trophies, as well as having a list of all the trophies and a percentage of how many players have obtained each one. This site seems like it may help answer some of these questions before playing a game, possibly being able to recognize which games will be a painful experience and avoid playing them.

Just Dance 4
Almost had my first 5 star ranking. I seemed to be like a move or two away from it with how the ranking meter looked. I guess I should admit that it is not like every time I dance along I'm doing great in case I've made it sound like these games are a breeze.
I've gotta say, I don't think I've ever pictured you as much of a dancer. It must be quite the sight to behold...!

Offline broodwars

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #93 on: September 09, 2022, 12:46:05 PM »
Can't say I'm familiar with TrueTrophies. I generally use sites like PlayStationTrophies or PSNProfiles, which will list completion time if someone creates a guide for it but otherwise don't. And I'm finding less guides these days than there used to be, in which case Google is your friend. I do appreciate that PSNProfiles will tag certain trophies explicitly for being "grindy."
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Offline Khushrenada

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #94 on: September 10, 2022, 03:09:54 PM »
I was trying to not double post, but nothing's been happening so... I have little choice!

Pshaw! I double post all the time.
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Offline Khushrenada

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #95 on: September 10, 2022, 03:10:01 PM »
Don't worry about it.
Whoever said, "Cheaters never win" must've never met Khushrenada.

Offline Order.RSS

  • Resident Evil 420
  • Score: 32
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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #96 on: September 13, 2022, 09:15:06 AM »
The gameplay itself however, feels a little shallow. For some reason I was under the impression that this was more of a dungeon crawler, but it's actually just a series of rooms full of enemies that must be defeated to open the entrance to the next room full of enemies. The camera doesn't do a very good job of keeping enemies on screen, instead showing a focus on the protagonist and often making visible far too much of the out-of-bounds areas. Each weapon has few moves at its disposal. With how many runs it takes to complete the story, much less everything else on offer, it starts to feel repetitive sooner than it should for this type of game.

Just out of curiosity, did you try playing with the various Pact of Punishment/Heat levels? Those change up the gameplay considerably, and I don't think the game does a great job advertising them. For instance, the Extreme Measures condition completely changes all the major boss fights, giving them entirely new phases, weapon load-outs, altering their arenas, and adding entirely new storylines for those bosses to unravel over subsequent runs.

I felt using the Heat levels greatly extended the longevity of the game, since the higher you go, the more radical you need to be in upgrades. From Heat 32 onwards I would play with zero boons for instance, relying on the Keepsake from Sisyphus to double strength of moves without an attached Boon. Likewise there are points at which you have to start sacrificing your Mirror upgrades, which in turn leads to characters remarking on that.
Another fun challenge is to only collect the Revenge Damage boons, and stack those. You can absolutely finish boss fights by standing still, doing nothing, and watch your quintuple stack of thunder/poison/drunk/pain/infatuation wreck them.

You do need to make your own fun at some point, though, and the game doesn't do the best job in my opinion to incentivize taking those restrictions - unlike the Predictions Scroll which clearly maps out combinations to try. But a lot of it is still rewarded in the same melding of gameplay and story you find in the first 50 runs.

Offline Mop it up

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #97 on: September 13, 2022, 11:51:23 AM »
Of course I was using those, I wouldn't have played through the required ten successful runs just doing the same exact thing! Plus I needed those to keep getting more rewards. Unfortunately, I was on a bit of a time crunch due to the game leaving Game Pass, so I didn't get to try out some of them such as Extreme Measures. Even so, a majority of the game is the regular enemy encounters so I'm not sure that would have changed how I feel.

The reasons you mention are why I rated the game an 8.5 to begin with; if I were just scoring based on gameplay alone then it would be much lower.

Offline Mop it up

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Re: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.
« Reply #98 on: October 12, 2022, 03:44:37 PM »
There was something else I was delayed in posting because I didn't want to double, and then I kind of forgot about it... It's probably way too late to matter now, but here it is anyway: my rating for each game I played!

Hades - 8.5 / 10
Pokkén Tournament DX - 8
Mega Man X2 - 7.5
Mega Man X4 - 7.5
Mega Man X3 - 7
Mega Man X - 7
Katamari Damacy Reroll - 7
Castlevania II: Simon's Quest - 7
Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse - 7
Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge - 6.5
Mega Man X7 - 6
Mega Man X8 - 6
Chex Quest HD - 5
Super Bomberman R - 5
Castlevania - 5
Mega Man X5 - 4
Castlevania: The Adventure - 3
Mega Man X6 - 2