I just beat __

[winstein]

Out There Somewhere

This game is a puzzle platformer where the main plot is to get the required item to fix Yuri's (the main character) ship, before engaging battle with the villain. The game starts in a horizontal shoot-em-up sequence, which is a hopeless battle because the boss doesn't get defeated. Obviously, they did this because the meat of this game is in the platformer and not the shooting segment.

The main character has two types of actions he can perform, besides the standard jumping: one is a teleporter gun where shots landed will teleport the player to the place, and another is the Gauss gun where the player can attack enemies and breakable blocks. The teleporter gun is more versatile than the Gauss gun since it conserves momentum and puts the player in a desired position faster than moving manually, so it's especially useful in a speedrun.

Even though the appearance of this game has a Metroid vibe, the game is rather linear since there is no reason to backtrack to a previous location except to advance to the next one, which is a given since this game doesn't have upgrades. What this game do have are collectibles, which come in the form of health upgrades and Abandoned Cores. The former is self-explanatory: they increase the HP of the player, but the latter affects the battle of the villain after the player finished the objective. This game is made for repeated playthrough, since there are a lot of secret areas that the player might not be aware of in the first playthrough. However, I am done with this game, which once completed, is a rather short game, clocking at less than 2 hours.

Thank you for reading.

 

[YoshiFlutterJump]

Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1 (Wii; also on PS3, X360, PC, iOS)

At last, I've finally beaten Episode 1! That final boss sure was tough. You have to fight every boss in the game, one after another, before fighting the true final boss (I won't spoil). His final attack was the hardest one for me to counter, as he literally destroys the entire floor if you miss. That was by far the hardest boss fight in the game.

I still need to 100% the game by getting the remaining Chaos Emeralds, but other than that, I'm done! Episode 2 isn't available on Wii, so I'm stuck with either the $10 PC version, or the free iOS version with the awful controls.

 

[Glowsquid]

I just beat

Soldier of Fortune is a FPS by Raven Software released in 2000, based on the infamous magazine of the same name. You play as John Mullins, a true 360 no scope patriot hired by an outfit called "The Shop" to shoot up a bunch of places and stop an evil plot to drop a neutrom bomb on New York or something. The game's main selling point (which predictably got it banned in several countries) was its gore system, which modelled damage across 26 areas of every characters. It's great fun and basically impossible to talk about in detail without sounding like you need to be institutionalized.

Gameplay-wise, SoF is an interesting half-between in the evolution of the FPS genre: There are some very slight concessions to realism: you have a weighted equipment system that only you to carry up to 4 guns at a time and your accuracy is notably penalized when you are firing while moving. Under the influence of Half-Life, levels are mostly linear and contain light puzzle-solving and platforming, but nothing that's going to stump or frustrate you. On the other hand, all your weapons are extremely accurate when you're not moving and you can sprint around like you're in a Quake 3 match. It's not Doom but we've not quite reached Call of Duty yet.

The actual shooting is great fun: not (just) because of the gore, but because your weapons feel powerful and enemies actually react to your every hits and what body part you're hit: hit them in the leg and they may writ around in pain, hit them in the hands and they may drop their gun and surrender. Moving aorund is smooth and fast. You can customize your weapon loadout before each mission, which is a good feature in theory, but if a weapon you pick is not found in the mission, you're not going to find any ammo for it. You might as well stick to what you find.

The biggest problem with the game is that it's quite buggy: I've had multiple instances of scripts not triggering or my character getting stuck in thin air. Fortunately levels are all short so you never lose too much progress when this happen. All in all Soldier of Fortune is good times.

 

[Ray Trace]

Gore system reminds me of Gib Mod from Garry's Mod or that one GTA V mod where you can gib people too that I forgot the name one, where the evisceration of parts is caused by zeroing out the mesh part that is rigged to that particular bone.

 

[winstein]

Shovel Knight: Plague of Shadows (Wii U)

This version of the Shovel Knight campaign is basically the player using Plague Knight instead of the titular Shovel Knight, and when you play it you will notice the difference. The main thing that differentiates Plague Knight from Shovel Knight is his weapon of choice. Rather than using a melee weapon, Plague Knight instead relies on bombs that you can adjust the properties of: the throwing method, the explosion type and the fuse timing. This basically opens up to myriads of combinations, and while I do not know if all combinations are all viable, the individual properties are all useful.

A drawback that Plague Knight has is his movement. You see, unlike Shovel Knight, Plague Knight has lower traction. Moreover, Plague Knight has a low jump height. On the upside, he can double jump, and if you charge an attack, an extra jump can be made. This too, can have adjusted properties, but for me, I stick with the tried-and-true Float Burst, which allows Plague Knight to float after doing the extra jump, which given his traction, is a godsend that I can't live without.

Because of Plague Knights focus on his bomb's versatility, the game is easier in some ways compared to Shovel Knight. For one, Plague Knight doesn't need to get close to bosses due to his projectiles. Even then, there are some combinations that work great at close range, so he's not so helpless at close range either. There are several bosses that are much easier than when I used Shovel Knight, though ironically Plague Knight never actually won against Shovel Knight in his battles against him.

The levels are, for the most part, manageable, but there is one thing that is different compared to Shovel Knight: extra areas that Plague Knight can access. The areas are naturally tailored for Plague Knight, since he is after all the only one to be able to access them, and because of that, they are generally challenging. The reward for each of his character-specific areas are relics that can be exchanged for Arcana. Unlike Shovel Knight's Relics, these can practically be infinitely reusable, since they are used on a charge metre. Each of them have their uses, but I find myself using Vat a lot, which basically creates a platform beneath Plague Knight. On emergency situations, I would resort to Smoke Bomb, which creates smoke that renders Plague Knight invincible while in it, and this is mainly used during bosses. Because exchanges are based on money, I found myself generally richer compared to when using Shovel Knight.

It's a really fun campaign, and when I checked the Challenges in regards to Plague Knight, I doubt I can cross them since they are based on his unique abilities, and the problem is I am not that skilled as to use them properly. I think I will continue with the Specter of Torment when King of Cards gets released in the future.

Thank you for reading.

 

[Auburn]

Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 2

Substitution Jutsu is broken.

 

[Kamek]

Super Mario Land!

 

[YoshiFlutterJump]

Super Mario Odyssey (Switch)

After completing the game 100%, I went back and replayed the game. It took me a while since I also played a whole lot of Kirby during that time, but I've finally beaten it again. Will I go for 100% again? Possible, but not anytime soon. Probably going to keep replaying Guest Star mode on Kirby Star Allies for now.

 

[Smashley]

Shantae: Half-Genie Hero

main story done in 06:31:36 with 100% item collection, which I'm fine with. great game, although I think I liked Pirate's Curse a bit more

 

[winstein]

Splice (PC)

Also available on: Mobile, PS3, PS4

Splice is a puzzle game that requires arranging cells to fit an outlined structure. Each cell can branch out to two different strands, so each structure is similar to a branched tree. The interface is lacking in static blocky text standard for games, and instead uses floating text to make everything look like they are flowing and floating. It certainly is very creative and ambient, but takes some getting used to.

The first levels are focused on arranging cells, but in later levels, mutated cells are introduced that can be activated, but the one nearest to the core will activate first, which makes for interesting puzzles. This cumulates to multiple mutated cells, making puzzles more complex. If that's not all, later levels even added the ability to detach a cell branch from the structure entirely. There are seven stages with seven levels each, totaling to 49 unique levels before the post-game. Yes, there are four more sets of levels and they are generally tougher than the first seven. The final two levels are especially tough that a guide is the best way to understand how to solve them.

Certain puzzles allow the player to complete below the number of allowed moves (called "splices"), in which case the player gets an "Angelic" ranking. Interestingly, there is an achievement for getting every puzzle where it's possible to do so. However, the game doesn't signal if a level can possibly be cleared within the number of moves, so I used a guide to check those that allow for efficiency.

The game is short, but one thing that this game does very well is the music. The game has piano tunes that are pleasant to hear, and makes the whole experience better overall. Personally, I love good piano music, so it's a great thing that this game has it in spades. To cap it, here's a tune from the game:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eK0HAKr_7oE

Thank you for reading.

 

[Teedgee]

Sonic 4 episode II (mobile)

Ok this game kinda sucked. It was kinda easy, even though Sonic's physics were broken, and the game was laggy. But the final boss was honestly the easiest boss in the game. I guess the only thing I can try to do in this game is get all the chaos emeralds. I'm not gonna get Red Star rings because it's hard and useless.

 

[Moldomré]

Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon

Dang, this game was fun! I'm gonna go back and try to get medals at least above bronze. Trying to do any better would likely drive me insane . May also try getting any Boos from each level, but that's for another time.

 

[Noct]

Also Luigi's Mansion Dark Moon.

Second time doing a any % playthrough of the game, the puzzles are fun since it makes great use of the Poltergust's capabilities.

 

[Glowsquid]

I just beat

Perfect Dark Zero is a stealth-focused FPs released as a launch title for the X360. A prequel to the beloved N64 game, the game tells the story of Joanna "Jo" Dark as her and her bounty hunty crew are entrangled in a conspiracy to find some ancient energy source of something. It's really campy stuff that doesn't try to be consistent with the original game and the acting is appaling.

When first playing, PD0 doesn't make a great impression. The controls don't feel great: the sticks have a big deadzone and a bad input curve that makes precision aiming a challenge. I was able to find something I was moderatly comfortable with by lowering the sensitivity wayyyyyy down but it makes boss battles that rely on fast aiming a pain. Enemies are total bullet sponges and swarm you agresivelly, it often takes a full SMG clip before a dude goes down. The game emphasizes getting headshots but many of the enemies wear helmets that require multiple shots to break.

The biggest problem with the game is the level design. Levels try to be big and open but mostly succeed at being annoying and confusing. There are no landmarks to orient the player and levels are filled with pointless dead ends and paths that loop on themselves. Even when the game goes in linear shootbang mode for its later half, exists are often easy to miss. The game also consistently fails to convey what objects critical to a mission objective look like and how you can interract with them. For example, in a mid-game level, you're instructed to find a "Silver key" and then a "Gold key" but it's not obvious which of the many locked doors these open. The developer's quick and dirty fix was to spawn shiny blue arrows appear to tell you exactly where to go but these take a long time to trigger and if they do is not always consistent.

All of this is a shame because Perfect Dark Zero's campaign features many cool and innovative things

-Every weapon has an alternate function, sometimes two!

-Levels change layout and add more objectives with each difficulty levels! Furthermore, the hardest difficulty allows players to choose gadgets in addition to the ones necessary for mission completion, opening new paths and solutions to problems!

-Mission have optional objectives whose completion actually has an effect! (most of the times) And some of the tasks can be inspired: for example in a early level, you come across a tense standoff between thugs and police who are both looking for you. Shoot one of the participant without being seen and the room will degenerate in all-out brawl.

-There are non-hostile NPCs found in the levels, and you can talk to them to con them into helping you! And some of these encounters have multiple dialogue recorded so the answer isn't always the same!

The soundtrack is also pretty legit

I came out of PD0 enjoying it more than I didn't. But it's a very high-maintenance game and I don't blame anyone for losing patience with it.

 

[Shyghoul]

Super Mario Odyssey

i've accumulated a semi-bad habit this past year (past few tbh) of playing 3/4th a way through a game then dropping it. but with smash ultimate a month away i figured i might as well at least beat the nintendo games i've started but not actually beat while i'm counting down until its release. so i went ahead and finished Odyssey. overall a pretty neat game, while Galaxy 2 still wins the title for best 3d mario i am glad i experienced this game if for no other reason than weeb bowser castle and mario killing an actual fucking dragon

Breath of the Wild next

 

[Teedgee]

Sonic Mania Plus (Encore Mode)

So Titanic Monarch was easier than usually. Maybe because I had Tails. I lost Mighty in the final boss, but just when Knuckles spawned, he landed on the boss and defeated him. Sadly, I didn't get all the emeralds. Right now, I have almost all of them. My only problem is the last one. SCREW THAT LAST EMERALD!!! It's so hard! I always get confused, fall and try to take a shortcut but there's a bumper I didn't see, and I never even got close to finishing it! I won't waste my time with it, so I'm just gonna beat Mania Mode with every character while waiting for Christmas to get Super Smash Bros Ultimate.

 

[winstein]

Velocity®Ultra (PC)

Also available on: PSV, PS3

This is the final game of the Curve Indie Bundle that I have recently beaten, after finishing both Stealth B*****d Deluxe and Explodemon. It's also interesting to see that this game is most associated on Sony's platforms after I checked Wikipedia.

Although the game has the look of a shoot-em-up, it doesn't play like the arcade variety. For one, the control scheme is rather complex, as not all inputs are used for shooting. Not only is there an input for shooting and throwing bombs, there is also an input to boost, to warp and to teleport. The enemies are also very simple, even though they can fire a lot of bullets to apply pressure. As such, the main appeal and challenge of this game is not in the shooting elements, but the movement.

Every level contains three rankings that contribute to experience (XP): time to complete the level, number of hostages saved and score. XP is required to unlock more levels, so doing well in levels is highly encouraged. The score is the least important rank to beat, since it rewards the least XP. Since the time to complete the level is shown as a countdown, the Silver and Gold times are notable. For the number of hostages, there is a minimum number of hostages to save, where failing to meet the minimum to requirement is considered a failure. Therefore, finding the hostages has a higher priority in completing each level, and they can be found in tricky places. For example, warping is important to reach any hostages behind walls, and teleporting is used for reaching a previous location at a branching path. Since the game scrolls forward, teleporting allows for backtracking, even to the very start of the level. Despite this, there is a time limit so warping forever is discouraged. In fact, there are levels where boosting is required since the time limit is stricter.

Certain levels have medals that can be collected, and they are usually in tough-to-reach places that require warping. Collecting each of them unlocks a bonus mission, which can range from tough levels to bonus minigames (including ones based on Space Invaders, Snake and even Bomberman). In this way, the game is attempting to insert as many simple games as possible. Did I mention that this game has a version of Minesweeper? The tough levels might be short, but its restriction of not being able to touch the walls and having a stricter time limit are what makes them quite tough that I didn't bother to complete them all.

I have only beaten the game's primary 50 levels, which require 5500 XP. That is a little over 110 XP per level not counting the last level. The easiest way to meet the requirement is to collect all the hostages and shoot every enemy force, as that contributes to 90 XP. Add to the 20 XP awarded as time bonus, and that's an easy 110 XP. However, a shorter time is required to beat certain levels, and luckily, the XP is granted separately, so one can zip through the level the second time and get the rest of the XP.

As to how I find this game, it's quite a novelty to see a shoot-em-up that is not focused on shooting, as there are puzzle elements that require the player to slow down. This is something that I can handle, because I can't handle games that happen too fast while keeping track of too many things. The art style of the game is adequate, but what is much better is the art style that is used in the in-between screens, which employs bright colours and angular shapes, such as the image below:

In any case, I suspect this game has a sequel at the ending, because it literally mentioned "To be continued", and as you can tell, there is indeed a sequel that looks better and employed the art style that is used above, giving it a more polished look. It's amusing to know that in the bundle I mentioned earlier, Explodemon is the only game of the three that didn't have a sequel. No idea if it plays well since it's looking to do certain things differently, namely employing a platforming structure, but I am up for it.

Thank you for reading.

 

[winstein]

A Story About My Uncle

This game is a first-person platformer that uses the Unreal Engine. The story is that the player character was looking for his missing uncle, and on his way he found a power suit that allows him to go on a journey to find his uncle. The main draw of this platformer is the grappling mechanic, where certain surfaces can be clung on as a grappling pivot, allowing the player to move at great distances. It's also pretty much linear, so there aren't many ways to finish the level except to make great use of the grappling mechanic.

Although the story is detailed as a fantastical adventure where the player encounters villages with frog people, a cave that has a one-eyed worm, an area where floating rocks are found in the place, and even an ice cave full of floating crystals, it's not clear that every event that happened is real. After all, the story is not real-time, but it's a story told by the father to his daughter. It's just as plausible that the events really happened as it's also completely fictional, or perhaps the elements of the story is metaphorical.

The platforming is breathtaking, but it's also difficult in a sense since the grappling mechanic depends on aiming the correct surface that's not that far away, and it's sometimes difficult for me to do. The fact that there's not much land to land on makes it even more difficult, especially the final level. Moreover, the game's achievements are all difficult to achieve, so they are probably for the hardcore who could take advantage of the game's mechanics.

Overall it's a really nice game that combines difficult-to-master grappling mechanics and a breathtaking adventure to make an enjoyable experience.

Thank you for reading.

 

[Noct]

SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom (Nintendo GameCube)

Battle for Bikini Bottom is a collectathon 3D platformer similar to the likes of Banjo-Kazooie and Super Mario 64 to a lesser extent, your objective is to find all one hundred Golden Spatulas scattered across the levels (But you only need seventy-five to challenge the final boss) by completing tasks given to you by the residents of Bikini Bottom. Additionally there are eighty lost socks hidden across the levels, shiny objects that function as currency and three pairs of golden underwear that extends SpongeBob and crew's health by one.

Each location is a very faithful recreation of memorable settings and landmarks pulled straight from the show such as Goo Lagoon, Rock Bottom, Jellyfish Fields, The Mermalair and several others. You can play as SpongeBob, Patrick or Sandy each with their own unique quirks and abilities by switching the out at a bus stop. (However depending on the level, Patrick or Sandy may not be available to switch to) SpongeBob specializes in bubble-based attacks like the Bubble Bounce which functions as a stomp-like move, Bubble Bash which is useful for destroying airborne enemies and tikis, the Bubble Bowl which is can hit buttons in small spaces, and finally the Cruise Bubble which can be used to pick off enemies at a safe distance and hit buttons that are out of reach. SpongeBob also has this strange power-up called the "SpongeBall", but I rarely use it unless I necessarily have to.

Patrick can pick up tikis and enemies that are stunned by his body slam attack and toss them to defeat other enemies, activate buttons or stack them to reach higher platforms. (However Patrick cannot jump while he's carrying something) In addition he can carry a item that resembles a watermelon know as a "Throw Fruit" but make haste as it's actively wilting away the moment you pick it up, there is also the "Freezy Fruit" which can freeze goo into a solid surface that he can walk across for a short period of time. Sandy has a lasso which can be used to destroy enemies from a distance, somehow glide across long gaps and snag onto Texas icons floating in the air and swing across.

Much like Super Mario Odyssey, there are no lives present in the game. If you fall off a platform or get defeated by a enemy, you'll get sent back to the last checkpoint you were at. You can travel to individual objectives without returning to the Hub World by selecting desired mission on the pause menu, however you can only do this if you unlocked or completed said mission.

The game does a good job at making it feel like you're playing a actual SpongeBob episode, it begins with Plankton attempting another scheme to steal the Krabby Patty Secret Formula by creating a machine that creates a unstoppable army of Robots, however the machine is set on the "Don't Obey" option humorously enough and the robots start causing havoc. During this SpongeBob and Patrick made a wish for real robots using a magic wishing shell, the following morning he awakes to his house being vandalized by the robots and believes that it was his fault, so he sets out to save Bikini Bottom from the mechanical menace.

The writing and visual humor is top notch and is chalk full of references that SpongeBob fans will love. In terms of the voice acting, Mr. Krabs and Mermaid Man sound a little off. I'm not sure if whoever voices them in the show was working on something else at the time and they needed to hire a sound-alike but it's just something that I noticed. Everyone else sounds fine though.

 

[Shyghoul]

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

while i've enjoyed the fuck outta all the 3d Zeldas each one had something...really wrong with it that the others did much better. Majora's Mask had the most solid gameplay but ultimately lacked the epic feel and charm of the rest of the series. Ocarina of Time was pretty good yet the overall world felt absent of depth and enorminity to make Hyrule feel like a true kingdom. Wind Waker is literally impossible to get a hold of so fuck that game. while Twilight Princess made Hyrule fucking awesome and had the most engaging story and the best dungeons, the combat/difficulty was pathetic and gods the music sucked and was forgettable. Skyward Sword had the epicness/engaging world/music and great combat but the story not getting really good until the end was pretty bleh (albeit the ending was kickass) and the dungeons sucked alot.

Breath of the Wild however though, pretty much solved all the problems and theres really not much bad to say about it tbh. The story was great, the world well built and deep, beautiful music, memorable characters, and very nice gameplay (including the shrines.) this is absolutely the best Zelda game i've played, in fact its among my favorite video games in general. also fuck ea

 

[winstein]

Typoman Revised (PC)

Also available on: Wii U (non-Revised), PS4, XBO, Switch

The first time I played this game was back when Nintendo released demos for indie games on the Wii U around the time during E3 2015, and this was one of the games I played. The premise was interesting, I thought, wherein the words that are formed will affect its behaviour. For example, a word called "RAIN" will continually rain down water, which is a problem since the player character can't swim. What you should do is to swing a string with a "D" attached, spelling "DRAIN" so that the water is drained.

The game has something in commmon with LIMBO, which is a linear platformer taking place in a grim setting, though of course the main draw with this game is using words as a puzzle in addition to the environment, so figuring out the right word is just as essential as making it safely to the next area. The universe in which exist in this game is basically one where letters can string together and not only inherit the properties of the word it forms, but also come to life. The player character has the letters "O", "E", "H" and "R", which would spell out "HERO". The supporting character has wings that spell out "MUSE", and on the way there is a troublemaker who would spell out "GARMR" that would obstruct the HERO's journey with a mechanical monster that is called a "Fenrir", judging by the spelling of the word later in the game. The quest is a dangerous one, for the HERO is vulnerable to all sorts of hazards, and occasionally enemies forming the words "HATE", "FEAR" (as shown in the image above) and "DOOM" would interfere with the HERO's journey. Therefore, the HERO needs to be quite skilled with navigating the hazardous obstacles.

Although only several words are needed to finish the game, the game recognises a ton of words, which is surprising because most of them don't do anything useful. The game still keeps track of the words you made, which means it's at least good to have a good vocabulary since the breadth of your vocabulary is ranked online. There are certain words that do something interesting even if it's insignificant, such as "FAT" which increases the girth of the HERO, "NOPE" causes the HERO's to shake his head, and "DEATH" that would make a gravestone squash the HERO. Normally moving the letters is a cumbersome process, but there is a "Word Scrambler" that allows the player to form words instantly. The feature was used on the Wii U Gamepad in its original version, but the Revised version allow you to open the menu on the fly, though it's not as intuitive as using the touch screen.

Amusingly, this game also has an antonym system, where certain words can transform into different ones when exposed to the "LIE" robot (that can turn into one just by spelling the "LIE" word), meaning that the exposed word becomes the opposite, so for example, "BIG" will transform into "LITTLE", while "NO" will turn into "YES". This versatile system is facilitated by a minigame called "Antonymizer", where a set of 12 letters are given while the player needs to use the "LIE" robot to generate letters not found in the selection to form the instructed word. Although the word system is rather versatile, the main quest is rather short so its full potential might not be realised.

And that's the thing with Typoman: it's a really brilliant concept, but it's probably a challenge to design levels since there are just so many words to use that it's practically difficult for a smaller developer to make a longer quest. Given that an indie developer is doing this game, it's naturally going to be quite short. It's quite fortunate that the developer is able to implement a system of Easter Eggs, however, because the concept of words materialising into something applicable is wonderful (which is why Scribblenauts' handling of this concept is brilliant). The game may be short, but I appreciate the way the developer handled the mixture of platforming and word-building.

Thank you for reading.

 

[Smashley]

Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker (Switch version)

I beat this on Wii U like four years ago and enjoyed it but didn't remember a lot about it so it was worth replaying. Still pretty good

 

[winstein]

Super Mario Party

I have completed almost every part of the game, which includes the Mario Party, Partner Party, River Survival, Sound Stage and the Challenge Road. For both River Survival and Challenge Road, I even beaten the more difficult stages so I can safely say that I managed to perservere through the toughest parts of the game. The only game that I haven't beaten is Puzzle Hustle, which I felt is best played with multiple people. While I have beaten this game earlier this month, I decided to get this out of the way as I am about to beat another game.

Mario Party is a traditional round of what we know and love about the Mario Party series, going back to the basics of the structure of taking turns moving on the board and playing a minigame after each round. Overall, the boards are smaller than what was found in the past games, but since the dice roll doesn't normally reach 10 spaces (only a handful of characters can achieve this), the size of the board didn't feel cramped. The optimal setting for the board is 10 turns, which might also sound like it's too short, but the game doesn't allow ways to speed up the board movements, so it's pretty much a 1-hour game, unlike past games where 20 turns is usually conducive for a 1 hour game. Even the maximum number of turns (20 or 30 in the last board) is probably going to last quite long compared to other Mario Party games with the same number of turns. Since I have played with the old Mario Party format several times, it's a familiar and pleasant feeling to play through a traditional board, and it's even better when the CPUs are dominated. This is not ragging on Mario Party 9 or 10's "everybody travels" mechanic which several players are wont to do, in case you are wondering. I would like to add that this game is surprisingly very tense since the game could very well have a turnaround for even the less-skilled CPUs. Once I played on the Megafruit Paradise, I lost to Goomba because the Star awards was not enough (I got both, but Goomba shared one of them), and that was when one of them is at Hard difficulty. I got some unlucky calls, like getting "0" with Shy Guy's dice block 3 times in a row, which was discouraging to say the least, so you can't claim that I got through this mode smoothly.

Partner Party does something different: while previous Mario Party games would use the traditional Mario Party board and have both partners travel separately, the game takes after Mario Party: Star Rush's grid-based board that emphasises free-range movement. Unlike the past Mario Party partner system (and similar to Mario Party 7's 8 player implementation), both players contribute to the dice block movement, but they still are allowed to take their own path. This system does feel like both players are actively contributing to the team since each player's actions matter, and is most conducive for better strategies since unlike Mario Party, Partner Party has overall higher movement rolls. It would probably be better with another player, but I like what I played.

In both Mario Party and Partner Party, there are items once again, and luckily, not only do the player/team get to carry 3 items, the selection of items is once again quite robust similar to Mario Party 3 and 4, which lends itself for quite a number of strategic plays. The games tend to have more than one item shop, and the tougher ones to reach tend to have the better items, which includes the Golden Pipe (brings player in front of the Star). The issue I can see is that many items are only available from the Item Space, which isn't a guarantee landing. The game also allows players to recruit more allies to not only have more options for dice blocks, but to slightly increase board movement. Having a party of characters to travel is just as pleasant as it sounds, even with characters I am indifferent to.

Super Mario Party has rhythm minigames, but it's this game that puts them in the stage, literally. There is a mode called Sound Stage where players play through 3 or 6 rounds of Rhythm Minigames, and they are all motion-controlled so it's not like Rhythm Heaven, which tend to implement button input instead. Personally speaking, my interest sparked with this game because of this type of minigames, and while there are only 10 of them and they are pretty much done once I beat them (both Normal and Hard varieties), it feels great to play rhythm minigames because I enjoy catchy music. The minigames that I have the most trouble in are Strike It Rich and Fiddler on the Hoof, especially the former.

River Survival on Normal is pretty easy even with CPUs, I felt, as they were very cooperative in the mini-games. The timer is quite generous too, as there are several moments to gain time, most notably when reaching new sections. They might be tough to cooperate when travelling through the flowing river, but overall they got the job done. It's funny how Donkey Kong was there during the third run, because to see him stand out in the more generic crowd is funny. I used almost every character for this mode so most characters don't miss out. Now Hard Mode is another story. Since that mode has fewer ways to regain time and in fact rewards less time, it's naturally quite tough. No longer are the AI able to cooperate well and I have to retry the levels more often than usual that I only managed to reach 2 estuaries. It was therefore that I got the epiphany to control two players at once, which allowed me more control and, true to what I theorised, I have a higher rate of success in getting the rest of the exits. I felt that River Survival is best enjoyed with multiple people than with AIs because it's tricky to figure out what they were thinking when they made certain moves.

And finally, there is the Challenge Road, which is basically beating every minigame in the game, with a goal or restriction in mind. This mode can only be selected once every minigame is unlocked, and luckily, the game always pick unlockable minigames in the roulette so it makes unlocking this mode less cumbersome. This is a mode that I wish every Mario Party game included, because it's always great to beat these minigames if a purpose is given to them. I felt that Mario Party 3 needed it the most since it has all-new original minigames unlike Mario Party 2. Anyway, the game has two types of challenges: one is the normal version and the other is the difficult version. The normal ones are usually about beating the minigame, but it's the difficult ones that are the devillishly tough ones. They can either have higher goals to reach, being on the challenging side of a 1 vs 3 team, a stricter time limit, avoiding any hits or having zero teammates in minigames (while the CPUs have more). They are quite a nail-biter for their requirements, but eventually I managed to beat them all, with the toughest being Train In Pain. One thing I like about Challenge Road is how characters dance when they are standing on a Rhythm Minigame space, which I have a few clips of.

Speaking of that, now I want to talk about the minigames. I love that they implement practice mode in the instructions screen, because now that's two less screen transitions to get the hang of the minigame. The minigame selection is also not bad: it has a good mix of Free-for-All, 1 vs 3, 2 vs 2, Team Minigames, Co-op Minigames and Rhythm Minigames. The minigames also provide a nice mix of button inputs and motion controls, and I think the motion-controlled ones are inspired, such as Sizzling Stakes and the Rhythm Minigames. There's even a Mariothon where 5 minigames out of 10 are selected to perform the best in. I do wish there is a Decathlon version where all 10 minigames are selected, because sometimes I want to see how well I can perform in every one of them. 80 minigames aren't all the minigames Super Mario Party offered, as there are also 4 more in Toad's Rec Room.

One of the issues I can see with Super Mario Party is that Toad's Rec Room minigames are best enjoyed with 2 Switches together, and of the four games, only "Banana, Split" enforces this. I felt that the developers should do what NAMCO did for NAMCO MUSEUM on the Switch. Basically, when said game was released, they also provided a free downloadable Switch app that allows players to connect to a Switch with this game, as that way, they were able to enjoy PAC-MAN VS without the hassle of requiring a game for each Switch. Sure it might be minor, but I felt that it's unprecedented for a Mario Party game to enforce two copies to enjoy all its content, and it's in fact a detrimental precedent.

There are also stickers which can be bought or rewarded, but I am yet to do fun stuff with it, so unfortunately I don't have anything to show. What I am surprised to see is how robust the system is, as backgrounds can be selected, and the size and angle of stickers can be adjusted to fit the image.

If there were to be a future update, and I hope there is, here are my requested features:
- Extra board(s), as 4 boards is not a lot. 1 or 2 would suffice.
- Decathlon version of Mariothon, where all 10 minigames are played through.
- Ability to play 4 player versions of Team Minigames in the Minigame selection.
- Allow human player configuration changes without going back to the title screen.
- A simple app that allows people to play on more than 1 Switch with a single copy (for Toad's Rec Room minigames).

The spirit of Mario Party has always been here, as like every previous game (including 9 & 10), we have pun-ridden minigames, catchy music and a colourful aesthetic. Even though I put this in the thread of games I have beaten, the Mario Party games is all about replayability, as the party never ends.

Thank you for reading.

(I wished I waited and bought the much cheaper Super Mario Party + Joy-Con bundle, though...)

 

[Shyghoul]

Call of Duty: World at War

ok i guess, not too memorable but Reznov has gotta be one of my favorite video game characters now

 

[winstein]

Puzzler World (PC)

Also available on: Mobile, DS

The name of the game is self-explanatory: it features a collection of puzzles. The games tend to have simple, bite-sized puzzles to ensure that each of them can be solved in a short time, so it's a very handy pick-up-and-play for handhelds, which I am unfortunately not playing on since I played on the PC. I am surprised by how many sequels the game have, as they have many games on Nintendo systems too. I think this is a licensed series since Puzzler is a (minimum 45-year-old) company whose main product is a magazine containing puzzle games, so an adaptation to video games is rather logical, especially on systems that has touch-screen (like the Nintendo DS). Surprisingly, they are able to capitalise on this and go on to have many video games, and some of the games even have a PC version. As I have Puzzler World 1 and 2 on Steam, the number of Puzzler video games astounds me.

The game has a Challenge Mode, which I gauge my game completion on. There are 560 sets of puzzles, and each puzzle is accompanied by a main puzzle and a bonus puzzle. Each portion of the selection has 16 puzzles, with a set ratio between 8 types of main puzzles and 6 types of bonus puzzles that include:

Main Puzzles
- Wordsearch (4/16): Find words in a grid of letters from a themed list
- Fitword (3/16): Fill in a blank crossword with all the words from a list
- Sudoku (3/16): Fill in a blank grid with numbers so that each row, column and box contains unique numbers
- Link-A-Pix (2/16): Link coloured lines to form a picture
- Crossword (1/16): Fill a crossword puzzle using the clues
- Codeword (1/16): Fill a crossword puzzle by assigning a letter for each number
- Spot The Difference (1/16): Mark 10 differences between two similar images
- Silhouette (1/16): Fill in the dotted areas to form a silhouette

Bonus Puzzles
- Hangman (accompanies any of the Word games): Pick letters so that a word is formed, with a limit of wrong guesses (11).
- Chain Letters (accompanies any of the Word games): Arrange a web of letters so that they form a word.
- Equate (always accompanies Sudoku): Choose numeric operators so that the equation is correct. Always go from left to right regardless of symbol.
- Jigsaw (always accompanies Silhouette): Rearrange tiles to form the picture made in Silhouette.
- Missing Piece (Link-a-Pix): Choose a jigsaw puzzle piece to complete a picture.
- Picture Quiz (always accompanies Spot the Difference): 3 questions are asked based on the picture used in Spot the Difference.

The other mode is Quickplay, which features only Main Puzzles, and unlike the Challenge puzzles, they are very easy to solve since their complexity is at the lowest possible, and I daresay it's even easier than Challenge's easiest puzzles. Only Silhouette and Codeword have no discernable difference so they are probably the best. Perhaps the intent is to spend as little time as possible on these, since it's after all labelled "Quick Play".

Many of the game's puzzles have progressive complexity, meaning that for example, the first Sudoku puzzle has a 6x6 grid, but later on, it will upgrade to 9x9. Even the Bonus Puzzles are subjected to this, so for example, Hangman and Chain Letters start with a 6-letter word while the final versions of each puzzle require 11-letter words. Quite a few puzzles are static in its complexity so they never quite get tough later on, such as Silhouette and Missing Piece. Speaking of the difficulty, each of the puzzles are not that tough, which is a good thing since this game has a variety of puzzles, so to make each one tough is a detriment to those who wants to just enjoy a quick game of puzzle. I am especially grateful that Sudoku did not increase in difficulty because those are the most time-consuming puzzles. The one that comes close to requiring online help is Crossword, since my vocabulary and trivia knowledge is not sufficient for solving the crossword.

After every puzzle is completed in Challenge, the game will allow players to pick a present out of three possible choices. Two of them rewards either 5 or 10 Hint Coins that can be used to buy hints, and one of them unveils one of seven letters that spell out "Puzzler", and collecting them all rewards 100 coins, which is more than if Hint Coins are collected normally. Normally this is considered a luck-based reward, but since you will always win something, it's not all that bad. The game is paced in such a way that it's possible to max out to 9999 coins eventually, so it's somewhat encouraged to use them. One way they can be used is to save time, which comes in handy in especially Sudoku, to save the trouble of guessing. Hints are only available in Main Puzzles, so there's no wasting them during Bonus Puzzles.

Since this game has a lot of word games, I learned some new words when playing through them. A few of them include "Hogmanay", "Homburg" and "Chintz". It's just unfortunate that the idea of writing these new words down only occurred to me after I solved around 80% of the puzzles, since I can forget many of the previous words that I noticed.

This game is UK-based, as evidenced by not only the UK flag at the top-left corner (the US flag is at the bottom-right corner), the Puzzler company is also UK based. It's little wonder this game has the English that I am familiar with more, with British spellings used more than the American English that most games used. By the way, when booting the game, the game always ask the player to select a language, and since this game has word puzzles, it's reasonable to assume that each language has its own set of save files, each with their own versions of word puzzles. Yes, even the US version is separate, but I didn't check if the word puzzles are the same since both UK and US are English.

In case you are curious, this is what happens if you 100% Challenge Mode:

Spoiler

Thank you for reading.