Topic: Backlaugust 2022: Round 3 so we can break our backlogs and be free.

[Mop it up]

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.

[broodwars]

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

[Luigi Dude]

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.


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.

[pokepal148]

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.

[Order.RSS]

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!

[Mop it up]

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...

[RABicle]

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.

[Mop it up]

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

[Ian Sane]

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.

[M.K.Ultra]

[YouTube]https://youtu.be/JeOHBvIpRn0[/YouTube]
https://youtu.be/JeOHBvIpRn0

[broodwars]

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.

[Order.RSS]

Congrats on the Platinum completion Broodwars. Sounds like a very frustrating affair to get there though.

[Khushrenada]

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.

[Mop it up]

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!

[Khushrenada]

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.

[TOPHATANT123]

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).

[Khushrenada]

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.

[Khushrenada]

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.

[broodwars]

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. -_-

[RABicle]

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?

[M.K.Ultra]

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.

[Mop it up]

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...

[broodwars]

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.

[M.K.Ultra]

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.

[RABicle]

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.