+1 - Street Fighter Alpha 2 (Street Fighter Anniversary Collection XSX) - For fighting games that are strictly arcade ports, I’m considering them beaten when I run through arcade mode with the Knights of the Round (not sure if anyone still calls it that but that’s beating arcade mode with every available fighter). Absolutely love SF and the Alpha series was almost exclusively responsible to the hundreds I probably spent at the Boardwalk arcade playing these in the 90s
Thanks, my friend I’ve been effectively forcing myself to stick with games in between going through one of my favorite Harvest Moon/SoS games, A Wonderful Life, and whatever the current hyper-fixation I’m dealing with (was Pokémon a month ago, now it’s fighting games… clearly).
That was a great ride! Action from start to finish, with some tough fights and very cool environments. They really nailed the WH40K-feeling. The story might not be something deep that will keep me up at night thinking about it but it did it’s job.
It was also a bug free experience, something rare nowadays with new releases. I had no issues at all. Very nice. Looks great and performance mode is smooth.
Now I’ll jump into the PvE/PvP on the side, to get more.
If you want an old school video game ass video game à la Gears of War this is for you! Much recommended, Jesse’s review is spot on.
Hell Pie (XSX) +1
Old-school 3D platformer with fluid controls and Ren & Stimpy humor. You’ll either eyeroll at the humor or it’ll bring you back to being a silly kid. Really enjoyed it, and it’s currently free on Prime Gaming.
Castlevania +1
A classic that created a whole genre! Still incredibly hard but seems better balanced than many other titles in the series.
Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest +1
This is probably the most interesting of the bunch as it’s so different. It’s pretty much the Zelda 2 of the Castlevania world. Impossible to complete without a walkthrough. I would love to see a 3D remake of this.
Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse +1
The game the anime is based on, and I really should get around to finishing season 2. It’s hard.
Super Castlevania IV +1
It’s good, but I prefer Bloodlines. Sega does what Nintendon’t.
Castlevania: The Adventure +1Castlevania II: Belmont’s Revenge +1
These two are just bad. It’s amazing what they managed to achieve on a plastic potato, but they’re just not fun and they’re unfair too.
Castlevania: Bloodlines +1
The rare cart that I always wanted for my Mega Drive. Absolutely love the color palette and music in Bloodlines. Probably my favorite of the bunch.
Kid Dracula +1
Castlevania for kids… but it’s just as difficult as every other Castlevania. The characters look cute, though.
Conclusion? I love everything about Castlevania games, apart from the difficulty. I couldn’t complete any of them as a kid, and I certainly couldn’t complete them without save points.
Wanted to add this to my Excel spreadsheet, only to find that it’s already in there and marked as owned. After rummaging through my storage boxes, I found a physical copy! Completely forgot that I had this (and a few more,) since I got rid of my OG Xbox years ago.
Monday! Lots of completions this week, always nice. @MasterLeePhD making a big climb up the ladder! @Zip still in the lead and the battle for second place is intense. I’ll catch up to the top 3 any day now btw…
I’m more amazed that you’re not further ahead considering how many months you’ve spent beating my ass on the achievement front… this brief period where I’m the top spot of monthly-achievements isn’t going to last
@Mort want me to be in the running for second as well next week? I am almost done with both Star Wars Outlaws and P3R, plus I still need to get through all those easy games I bought for the completion percentage competition.
+1 - Street Fighter Alpha 3 (Street Fighter Anniversary Collection - XSX) - always hated the final M Bison fight, but loved everything about the Alpha series otherwise (it’s my personal favorite run of SF).
No completions to report, just wanted to share a bit about my current playthrough.
My fall game schedule is completely booked - with preorders for the Starfield Expansion, Dragon Age, and Metaphor along with all the games coming to Game Pass. So, a couple of weeks ago was looking for something relatively short I could finish before all those games dropped. For some reason I decided this was the perfect time to finally play Dragon Quest XI…
So, after playing for about 15 hours and having a good time I decided to take a peek at a guide just to try to figure out how far along in the game I was. According to the guide’s organization I was in chapter 7 out of 15. Great! (I thought to myself) this is perfect. I should be finishing up right on schedule!
Then I looked at the guide more closely and noticed there were 15 chapters in “Act 1” and the game has three acts of roughly similar length - plus an “interlude” that is 4 chapters… So apparently, I am not on pace to finish soon at all. Ha.
I may set a personal record this year for 100-hour game completions.
I really don’t know what to say. I loved the game when it first hit Game Pass, to the point of buying the complete collection with all the DLCs. But I only did the first scenario, effectively the tutorial, and moved on. With all the Frostpunk 2 hype this week (I am so upset that the Xbox release isn’t until next year!), I decided to start playing again. That was about ten hours ago and I have now completed the remaining base game scenarios!
My usual easy completion for the week will have to wait until tomorrow…
Nice short and sweet classic Castlevania game. Looks like a nes era game but plays a lot smoother. Has character swapping that allows you to use each characters unique abilities to access different routes and hidden items. Not bad for a Kickstarter Stretch goal.
I got busy yesterday, but I knocked out this week’s easy completion this morning. The sequel to X-Force Genesis, a shoot em up with Rogue like elements.
+1 - Dead Rising (Xbox One) - after 18 years and countless times I’ve restarted this damn game across 360 and XOne, I finally forced myself to beat this damn game… which I consider to be, wholeheartedly, the worst game in the series. That said, the “flawed masterpiece” title that this game gets is absolutely earned, as there is a lot to like, especially when you register that this is effectively an early roguelike where you’re encouraged to play multiple runs to accomplish everything and dying/restarting allows character stats to be imported to the next run, etc.
A linear action shooter that I enjoyed much more than the open world Guerrilla (which seems to have gotten all the love and a remaster for some reason.)
Seems like it’s very similar to the version that was included in the complete series game but maybe a few differences with things not working quite as smoothly in this one. The big one that frustrated me is that most of the achievements were for trying to complete every level without ever dying. Once you get the Jedi ghost characters that becomes easier but for the vehicle levels I found it to be a pain in the neck, and have a couple of those I’m just not doing to do. Thankfully that didn’t prevent me from getting the rest of the game to 100%. Had finished a few days ago but didn’t take the time to post.
Tacoma +1
Started this one the day it was leaving game pass back in (I think 2020), and didn’t have enough time to finish it. Had picked it up sometime in the meantime, wrapped up the rest today. Decent story, but I’d forgotten a bit of it in the last few years, was pretty easy to pick up again.
Virginia +1
I honestly am not sure why I originally picked this up, have had it since Dec 2019. No spoken audio, some very good music performed by I think the Prague philharmonic. FBI searching for a missing person back in the 90s. Has some good parts, though the movent really irritated me at first and I had to make it more sensitive, still felt like I was crawling. Has a section that even though I played through it twice I’m still kinda confused by, but the second time did make me like it a bit better.
I’ve been effectively forcing myself to stick with games in between going through one of my favorite Harvest Moon/SoS games, A Wonderful Life, and whatever the current hyper-fixation I’m dealing with (was Pokémon a month ago, now it’s fighting games… clearly).
