Completed Games Tracker - 2015 Edition

Well, I've been playing Smash Wii U and Omega Ruby since January, and these are two games that take a long time to "complete". So it'll be awhile before I can add anything to my list.

 

Adventure Island Classic - NES
This was a somewhat enjoyable little romp. Pretty repetitive though. And plays older than it actually is :\ I've heard the sequels go in a different direction as they're not a knock-off of Wonder Boy anymore, so I'll give the series another go when I get there.

Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze - Wii U
This was really great. The difficulty level was just right. The level design was perfect. I liked Returns, but this just feels more refined. The level themes were great and varied (I think the Lion King-esque Bright Savannah is a perfect example). And paired with some terrific music, it was just a lot of fun. I also liked how each world has it's own little subplot in the background as you go through the levels. That final boss though >;[ Retro has just continually demonstrated themselves as a top tier developer.

Castlevania - NES
Less enjoyable than Adventure Island was. Really just... nothing special. :\ I've played older Konami output that played similar but was superior (Rush'n Attack). Not terribly difficult aside from some wonky hit boxes on the bosses. Overall, a bit of style over substance. All the gothic cinema stuff was cool and all. Maybe having a whip was a fun novelty back in the day. I want to keep at it though, as I've heard the third one is amazing.

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Justice for All 3D
This took me too long to beat, as it did the last time I played it. It's more of the same, but somehow not quite as charming. I enjoyed the addition of Psyche-Locks. The trial battles themselves were fine. I liked having Franziska von Karma and Pearls around. But the investigation portions are a real chore. In the first game (and the third, from what I can recall), what you had to tap on made sense. There was a flow to it. In this game, it feels pretty random and I'm just tapping everything so I can move forward. I really liked the cast of characters on the circus case though. That was fun. And the Phoenix's utter desperation on the de Killer case. Looking forward to revisiting the third game shortly

 

Finally completed a game: Super Smash Bros. for Wii U! Well, almost "completed". I'm missing a handful of trophies and headgear, and I haven't completed the Group Events (TRI89 I'm looking at you!)

Honestly, I don't think it is an improvement over Brawl. 8-Player Smash is chaotic (and not in a good way), as is Smash Tour. The Stages included aren't that great, the new fighters also aren't that great (you can tell who I play as from my signature), there's too many collectibles, the new Classic mode (that sounds weird) is a downgrade, Special Orders aren't fun, Brawl's Stage Builder was better, Target Blast! is just Angry Birds. The only improvements in Smash Wii U are the balanced characters and the custom moves. I guess I'm kinda happy Sakurai is stepping down...

Anyway, onwards to Hyrule Warriors, another game with about 100 hours of gameplay.

 

I think we got most of the group events done :(

I'll hop into Smash once I have my Mewtwo. Yeah...

 

Updated with a few games.

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney & Justice for All
First one is great; second one isn't as good as I remember. (I originally played the second one first because the first one was IMPOSSIBLE to find in Canada so I've always judged it much less harshly.) I wish I'd waited a bit longer before playing the first one again because I remembered too much of it, but it's been AGES since I played the others, so it was also kinda nice to get the first one out of the way to move on. Some days I play these games for HOURS and other days it's a chore to play more than 5 minutes so it's taking me forever to get through this replay.

Long Live the Queen
I knew I'd get addicted to this game if I bought it so I never did... but it was in a Humble Bundle recently and I just couldn't pass it up. So I got it and sat on it for a while and during a free weekend this month I went "hey it can't be that bad!" .......................I made spreadsheets for this game. God it's so addictive. The premise is you're a princess who has to survive one year until her coronation and you've got to balance politics and military and noble plots and becoming a magical girl and all sorts of things in order to not get assassinated or accidentally killed. It's so much fun and there are a ton of different endings and routes to go down. I'm not kidding about the spreadsheets--when surviving is a matter of "do I risk studying foreign affairs while I'm depressed so I can get through that diplomatic meeting next week without starting a war or do I just accept the war and do lessons in public speaking instead so I'm prepared for that gala in 3 weeks", it gets kind of intense. I'm probably scaring people off but I promise it's a lot of fun.

I also replayed Puzzle Agent because it was like $1 on PSN and my god the controls were terrible but I still really like that game. :( Best atmosphere. (I would have cut my $1 loss and replayed it on PC but I got a trophy several minutes in and decided to bear it to get the rest of them lmao.)

 

I had a fun little weekend of sorts. Home sick again somehow (granted, it is the weekend afterall... so, I'm home anyway I suppose), and just sat down on the couch and plowed through Captain Toad and New Super Mario Bros. 2. Really did nothing else at all. I did all the challenges in Toad and got all the Star (and Moon!) coins in Mario

It felt like being in grade school, staying home sick from school and playing Mario games all day. It was kind of surreal.

Between those two games though, I've heard quite enough of the Mario coin sound effect


I enjoyed both. I'm extraordinarily surprised that I actually enjoyed NSMB2 consider I don't really like anything from that series except for two unofficial fan hacks (do yourself a favour and check out the "Another" and "Newer" hacks. Good times). It's still a very safe, easy game with a cookie-cutter aesthetic and perhaps the worst renditions of already annoying (rehashed yet again) audio. But by golly it has Raccoon Mario in it. The real deal. Run, jump, fly, flutter down. Just like in Super Mario Bros. 3. This isn't crippled like it was in Super Mario 3D Land (why couldn't I fly!?). This is just as I remember the power-up. P-Meter, sound effects, and all. Beats the crap out of all the other flying power-ups in the New subseries (wtf was Nintendo thinking with the Squirrel Suit? I could not ever adjust to those physics).

The levels were quite fun. Largely, I'm assuming, because they weren't made by the usual NSMB staff - they were busy working on New Super Mario Bros. U. The levels were designed by other small non-Mario teams at Nintendo as part of a "Mario Cram School" campaign. And it shows, I guess. Once or twice I audibly said "I have to jump on that!?". A couple Star Coins really gave me a hard time too.

It felt very SMB3, which is welcome. This is not the best Mario game, by any means. But if we got this on the DS instead of what we did, I think the New series would be in a better place right now. Game needed Yoshi though, like the console games have. I picked up the game through Club Nintendo, and wasn't expecting much. And it isn't much. But it was a pretty good time for a free game.



Captain Toad was also fun and adorable. A little repetitive. But highly enjoyable and recommended. And I hope they make more of them in the future. Wish there was more boss variety though. Also levels with Toad and Toadette working together (actually... I think there might have been one of those? If so, it wasn't memorable). It all works well though. Even the levels that aren't so confined, and more rushy and platformy.


Both were good games to play through while in no mood to do anything else. I wanted to playthrough Ace Attorney 3 this weekend (I had started it earlier in the week; I'm one case down). But due to my cold, I did not want to read XD (least of all the Mask☆DeMasque case lol) So, I just hop 'n bop'ed and coin collected my way through the weekend instead

 

...double post because I beat two more games during my sick day home from work yesterday

I beat Alex Kidd in Miracle World for the Sega Master System. My recommendation: don't play that game.

I also beat Stinger for the NES. A Konami shmup, so that automatically makes it super good



I've had just about enough of being sick these last few months. But the gaming time is certainly a plus.

I'm still a little foggy headed. I think I'll be ready to start reading Ace Attorney 3 tomorrow