XboxEra's 2025 Backlog Challenge |OT| Games...So Many Games!

Monday! Time for an updated leaderboard. Lots of completions this past week :slight_smile:

The Leaderboard:

  1. @MasterLeePhD 10

  2. @Knottian 6.5

  3. @profjjj 5

  4. @vrinn 3

  5. @ACyberRazorCut 2

  6. @Zip 1.5

  7. .@ Mort 1

  8. .@ Widey85 0

  9. @SilentJay76 -0.5

  10. @Searsy82 -2

  11. @APOPHIS1989 -3

  12. @TechWendigo ?

4 Likes

-2 Reveil and Dustborn

I had 14 games from my wishlist go on sale this week! In order to be smart about my purchases, I only picked up the two that were at least 50% off.

4 Likes

I’m about to finish Dragon Age: The Veilguard and realised I hadn’t completed the final level of Viewfinder (where you have to do like 8 levels in 5 minutes, my reactions aren’t fast enough) so was thinking I’d have two completions potentially.

But then Life is Strange: Double Exposure and Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth (despite bouncing off Remake as it was boring, corridor stuff with too much filler, I’m tempted by the better reviews) are both on sale so I may end up wiping out my points!

4 Likes
  • +0 - P3R: The Answer (XSX) - I don’t have words to describe how much I love Persona 3, it’s easily my favorite in an already-amazing series, but having only beaten the PS2 release, this is my first go round of The Answer. I pumped out another 30 hours before beating this, and aside from an ending sequence that would make Return of the King blush (and a small bit of friend-fighting at the end), I can wholeheartedly say it’s a perfect cap to P3R. I genuinely think it’s one of the greatest JRPGs of all time, and this remake and DLC do the original more than justice.
4 Likes

I am starting at +2

Played and completed FFXVI on PS5 over most of January bought last year and then Silent Hill 2 Remake for the end of January on PS5 also purchased last October.

5 Likes

Nice! I’ll have you on there next week then. I update the leaderboard every Monday.

4 Likes

How is Final Fantasy XVI. I’ve got XV in current backlog.

1 Like

I adored XV, played it on Xbox One despite the huge load times - got to be better on Series with the SSD.

Really tugged at the heart strings, I loved the story - 16 I’ve started but I bounced off in favour of Dragon Age: The Veilguard for now, plan to go back though but it’s not grabbing me as much yet - also wondering how others have been finding it

2 Likes

Couldn’t agree more about XV, absolutely wonderful entry in the series.

2 Likes

I played and completed Final Fantasy XVI at launch. I rated it an 8.5/10 overall. It’s great action adventure game but a disappointing Final Fantasy game even though I say that as someone who’s not what you would call or consider a fan of Final Fantasy.

The story and characters is the greatest strength of the game. Looks great for the most part, soundtrack and voice acting is top tier. The biggest negative is the combat/gameplay. It’s basically just a button masher. There’s no depth or substance in the combat system when compared to say FF 7 Remake/Rebirth. And the side content is mediocre at best.

With all of that said, I enjoyed my 50 hours or so with it and bought the two expansions but need to play through the game again because I deleted the save file after trading in the game after I completed it as I wasn’t going to bother with the expansions but The Rising Tide expansion in particular is what made me change my mind. Just need to find the gap to play through it again.

I played FF XV years ago on PS4 Pro. Hated it. Horrible pacing, didn’t care about the story and I hated the combat and gameplay. Why am I in cover like im playing The Division or Gears and why I am warping around the environment? Seriously, I didn’t like it at all from the five or so hours I played. Would much rather play through FF XVI ten times than to play through FF XV once.

1 Like

+0 Anuchard

I mostly enjoyed this game reminiscent of classic Zelda games, but I skipped most of the dialog because I was short on time before it left Game Pass. I still picked up the highlights and overall story from cutscenes, but I probably would have liked it more if I did read through the dialog.

3 Likes

-1 Dying Light

It’s hard to pass it up at $6, with most DLC now free, and the 10th anniversary pack available in game…

3 Likes

+1 FF7 remake part 1

It’s a loooooooot better than ff16

5 Likes

Couldn’t agree more - FFXVI is one of the worst in the series, IMO, because it’s too much of a departure of what a FF game is (funny how so many people think fondly on XIII after XVI’s release).

Congrats on beating FF7R though, I still need to finish my playthrough - I like it but I also am extremely partial to the original and some narrative changes are a bit contradictory to the original characters.

2 Likes

No argument here.

1 Like

Didn’t have a good chance to update recently so these go back a little while

+0 Assassin’s Creed

Finished up all my missing achievements for collectibles, combat challenges, etc. I really wish they’d remake this game as it’s quite good but a bit washed out in places and could stand some improvements in fighting / climbing to make it more modern.

+1 Henchman Story

Visual novel of a superhero story, but with a bit of a different twist. You play as an underlying for a villain, who is basically just in it for a paycheck. You end up in the middle of a fight between a new supervillain who is trying to take things over and launch a new gig-work app to source muscle work and a pair of superheroes trying to bring the group to justice. Bought a couple years back when it was showed off in an indie show, it felt like a minor let down when I started but then the writing got more amusing and I enjoyed the stories. It’s definitely not top notch for visuals but it was fun enough to spend a few hours and the choices did make the story outcomes fairly different. I think my favorite was the one where I was out on my own trying to sell companies store windows that wouldn’t need to keep getting replaced from villains / heroes breaking them when they smashed through.

+1 Adam’s Venture: Origins

This is like a linear wanna-be Indiana Jones / Tomb Raider game, apparently the series had been out on PC for a while & they finally made a prequel that they brought to Xbox as well. Did not look that great, had numerous issues including a stall vendor lounging in the air above his stall, had sound issues where I couldn’t hear some of what my NPC companion was saying at times. Also the main character was a bit of a moron (which I think was mostly intentional). Puzzles were pretty unclear most of the time.

+1 Mafia: Definitive Edition

I really didn’t know what to expect going into this, I bought it as part of the trilogy and really hadn’t looked at any of the games that closely. Honestly was a bit blown away by the facial animations, they mostly matched up and looked incredible (hair still glowed a bit but overall VERY good). Had great music and news reports on the radio that fit the times, and I thought the story really was good as well if occasionally predictable and pulling plot points directly from some obvious sources. This was an absolutely great game though and I’m planning to play the other two soon

5 Likes

Played Mafia 1 and 2 last year. Both DE versions. Loved them.

3 Likes

+0 Citizen Sleeper

I played the three free epilogue missions that bridge the gap to the recently released sequel over the past couple days. Although I don’t think it was as good as the base game, it’s still very good. Luckily, I didn’t cry at the ending this time! If you haven’t played it, I highly recommend it. I even nominated it as one of my GOTY picks when it came out! If you have game pass, I expect it to leave the service soon, now that the sequel is on the service, so better start on it now.

5 Likes

I really enjoyed the game and if I had to pick a score I would give it a 4 out of 5. I clocked in at about 90 hours with 100% of the tracked progression and the DLCs, I didn’t bother with the extra Eikonic challenges you unlock after the original set and I don’t have room in my life to do the NG+ Final Fantasy mode. (FF mode doubles the level cap and remixes enemy encounters except for major bosses)

I think the game being a PS5 exclusive at launch made talking about it weird, I think a lot of reviews were a tad high while the detractors were a pearl clutching about what is a Final Fantasy. I think the Meta was about 87 so not far off from where I put it to be fair so I guess it all shook out about right lol.

3 Likes

That ending - I first played it as a teenager and was blown away, games back then felt like they had predictable endings (except MGS2, where I felt like I was on drugs lol) so found it surprisingly refreshing

2 Likes