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Julius

Your 2020 Gaming Diary

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Hey all! Hope everyone here had a nice Christmas and are enjoying 2020 so far! 

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With 2020 upon us, many things are changing around the world, but one thing remains constant and shared for the people of N-Europe: our passion for video games! 

Be it for the first time or the hundredth, whether you find yourself looting chests in some dark and damp dungeon, hunting monsters out in the wild, leaping to new heights or diving into the depths, please feel free to share your 2020 video game adventures here! 

With the new year now underway, I thought it would be great to start off by looking ahead: does anyone have any New Year's gaming resolutions? What are the games you're planning on getting, and which are you going to be keeping an eye on? What surprises do you hope await us in the coming 12 months?

Edited by Julius
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19 minutes ago, Julius said:

With the new year now underway, I thought it would be great to start off by looking ahead: does anyone have any New Year's gaming resolutions? What are the games you're planning on getting, and which are you going to be keeping an eye on? What surprises do you hope await us in the coming 12 months?

Excellent question! As of right now, my goal is to clear my physical backlog, that is, games that I have physically bought. So that's:

  • 5 Switch games
  • 4 DS games
  • 5 3DS games
  • 2 PC games

However, looking at the list, I have several long games in that midst, and I don't want to ignore my digital backlog, either. It's probably unrealistic to clear all of them this year, but if I can at least clear one of my Nintendo systems, I'll consider it a small win.

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OK, Gaming Objectives this year:

 

I really don't know how things are going to pan out but there are a few things left over that I still need to do:

 

- Finish Dark Souls (maybe this will finally be the year)

- Finish Hollow Knight

- Buy and play Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Smash Ultimate got me more interested in the series but I have still yet to follow up on that.

- Finally get around to playing Dragon Quest IX again.

- Finish my Let's Play of Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, the first episode of which will be up later this evening.

- Subsequently do Prime 3 to finish the Trilogy replay.

- Any other outstanding unfinished games from my backlog.

 

2020 will for me mark 20 years as a gamer, it was in 2000 when I first got into gaming through Pokemon Red on Game Boy Color.

 

I feel like this might be a quiet year for new games aside from some big hitters because most companies will be switching focus to developing for PS5 and Xbox Series X for the end of the year. How this affects the Switch will be interesting.

 

Games I am looking forward to this year:

- Final Fantasy VII Remake (I may play the demo before deciding whether I want to get this though)

- Marvel's Avengers (might pick this up if the single player is any good but I am very cautious over this one)

 

I'm really not sure what else I have to look forward to this year, especially as it seems unlikely that Metroid Prime 4 will be out for another 2 years or so. That is the one Switch game I have been perhaps anticipating more than any other but I am really nervous about it considering all the difficulty it's had so far.

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So i got 3 games for Christmas;

God of War
Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order
Zelda BOTW

And then in the Boxing Day sale, i bought 3 or 4 games for my Oculus Quest.

Robo Recall
Virtual virtual reality
Real VR fishing
Ocean Rift (not really a game)

At the rate i finish games, the first three should take me most of the year, while fitting the Oculus games in and around them whenever i can.

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8 hours ago, Julius said:

With the new year now underway, I thought it would be great to start off by looking ahead: does anyone have any New Year's gaming resolutions?

My gaming resolution for this year is to be consistent in filling out my Gaming Diary on here. It's been a while since I've posted in any Gaming Diary on here - off the top of my head, must have been mid-2018? - and while I enjoy reading about others' adventures and discussing games both new and old, I also find writing out my thoughts to be a valuable asset in determining just where I land on my enjoyment of any given game.

At a minimum, I will post at the end of each month about the game's I've played and/or completed that month. The reason that I ended up dropping off with my Diary last time is mostly because I was playing a lot, but kept waiting until the end of the month to write up my thoughts, and found myself overwhelmed a) trying to recall what exactly I thought of the game, and more importantly b) finding the time to write those thoughts out. This time around, I'm going to be writing out my thoughts on a given game in a Word doc within a few days of completion, and then editing it all at the end of each month to post here.

Hopefully that'll make it more manageable :p

In terms of commitments to particular games over the course of the next 12 months though:

- Continue my Final Fantasy adventure - my first and only Final Fantasy adventure ended nearly two years ago in Final Fantasy VII, easily one of my favourite games to date. While my FF conquest has been on pause, I've since picked up both Final Fantasy VIII and Final Fantasy IX on sale for PS4, but mostly I've been waiting for Final Fantasy IV and Final Fantasy VI to come to modern consoles. Ideally I would love to play Final Fantasy VI and Final Fantasy IX this year, however, given that the former is yet to come to modern consoles, I think it's more realistic that I will be playing Final Fantasy IX and then picking up Final Fantasy X and playing through both of them at some point this year. 

- Continue my Dragon Quest adventure - invested over 100 hours into Dragon Quest XI on PS4 over a year ago, and absolutely adored it. Going to continue my DQ adventure by picking up where I left off some 20 hours or so into Dragon Quest VIII on my 3DS, which I loved, but put on hold for my first Chrono Trigger playthrough – don't worry, even though it's been a while, I actually remember most of the story as I started my Metal Slime hunt very early into the game once I figured out what was going on with the overworld monster refreshing, so I hadn't actually made that much progress into the story. Alongside that, I would also like to pick up and play either Dragon Quest IV or Dragon Quest V on DS - I've heard great things about both, and they sound like wildly different adventures, so I'm curious to see which one I'll end up choosing! 

- Continue my Zelda adventure - following something I'll mention below, I want to continue my Zelda adventure. I have Ocarina of Time on 3DS, and have bought A Link to the Past on 3DS previously, but seeing as it's now available on Switch through the SNES app, I might just play it there instead. Dabbled with both previously, but didn't get very close to completing either of them. I want to try to get through both!

- Continue my Yakuza adventure - after playing Yakuza 0 a few months ago for the first time, I picked up Kiwami and Kiwami 2. Whilst I'm aware that the Remastered Collection including 3, 4 and 5 releases next month, I want to take my time with these games and spread them out, so my aim is to at least get through those next two installments by year's end.

- Play The Last of Us - picked this up a couple of months ago on eBay to avoid picking up the not-so-great looking PlayStation Hits case. Had it on my radar since forever ago, and with Part II coming out this year, and after having completed the Uncharted Collection back in 2018, I think I'm finally ready for my next dose of Naughty Dog in the coming months.

- Play more indie games - I love indie games: they're often short, quirky escapes with interesting ideas to bring to the table. I really need to play some more of them this year. 

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What are the games you're planning on getting, and which are you going to be keeping an eye on?

Final Fantasy VII Remake is a day one pre-order for me. There's a lot I found myself loving in the original when I played it for the first time a few years ago, from the charming characters to the diverse locations of the world, and most noticeable the soundtrack. Everything I've seen (and heard) so far has given me even more of a reason to be interested.

Besides that, Ghost of Tsushima is probably my only other day one pre-order that I'd feel comfortable locking in at this moment. It looks gorgeous, and who doesn't love samurai? 

Got my eyes on Cyberpunk 2077 and The Last of Us Part II, but I have concerns about base PS4 performance for the former, and I haven't played the first game when it comes to the latter. So those are both things I'm going to wait on, at least for now :laughing: LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga will hopefully be a great time too (please follow through and go back to mumbles and grunts, though!), and also, even though I've never played a Tales of game before, Tales of Arise has really caught my eye too! Last but not least, CrossCode has been on my radar for a Switch port for the longest time, but seems to have hit a couple of speed bumps - assuming that it releases this year, I'll be on it like a car bonnet. 

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What surprises do you hope await us in the coming 12 months?

I'd love for the sequel to Breath of the Wild to release this year. I finished the first game earlier this evening – I'm not going to count it in my Diary as a 2020 game as the bulk of my time dedicated to it was in 2019, but I'll be sure to share my thoughts elsewhere! Let's just say that I nearly 80 hours into the game, but have some things that I want to mull over first. Anyways, elsewhere, I've never played a From Software game, but Miyazaki's team-up with George R. R. Martin on Elden Ring has caught my attention, so that might change if that game finds its way onto store shelves this year.

Mostly, though, I'm still praying for ports. Where are the N64 and GameCube era games at, Nintendo? Always wanted to play Wind Waker as a kid (the first Zelda I played was Spirit Tracks, and that's down to using the same cel-shaded character design), and I've had to stop myself from getting it for GC to play through backwards compatibility on my Wii. Oh, and please give us Metroid Prime: Trilogy.

Continuing the ports prayers, PUT FINAL FANTASY I - VI ON MODERN CONSOLES ALREADY SQUARE ENIX, YOU COWARDS! The temptation to buy an SNES Classic almost solely for the purpose of playing Final Fantasy VI, and then coughing up some pennies on mobile before putting Final Fantasy IV on there too, has taken a heavy toll on my gaming wellbeing.

Edited by Julius
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Would be cool to get Metroid Prime Trilogy on Switch. I feel the games will look a lot better in HD, they were always considered graphically impressive for their time but obviously graphical standards have moved on a bit since then.

 

Speaking of Prime Trilogy, that Prime 2 LP I was talking about? Finally in a position for it to go live, first episode is below:

 

 

 

Edited by GenericAperson

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After finishing Super Mario Odyssey I started playing Xenoblade Chronicles 2.

Quite the slow start, even for a JRPG. And can I just say: with the amount of mechanics the game throws at you, it's quite a big fuck up to not have tutorials somewhere in a menu to read them again.
I'm liking the world. Looks like there will be lots of huge areas to explore.

Bought Blaster Master Zero. I remember @Hero-of-Time giving it high praise so I want to know what all the fuss is about :D Will give it a whirl tomorrow. 

Edited by drahkon

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I have a plan to not buy any games until Spring, i want to at least make a dent in my backlog.  Which grew a bit at Christmas, the Mrs bought me Doom on PS4. I also had a PS4 voucher and i picked up the Ezio Collection and Shadow of War.  Did finish Concrete Genie just after Christmas, and i had planned to finish another game, but this blasted bug hit and knocked me for six (still have the remnants now)

Probably halfway through Assassin's Creed II now, and have made a start on Doom.  Hoping to get both done by the middle of the month.

Games i'm looking forward to this year, there's a few

  • Animal Crossing New Horizons
  • Cyberpunk 2077
  • Last of Us Part 2
  • Doom Eternal*
  • Watch Dogs Legion**

*Possibly birthday present

**Possible PS5 launch title.

Probably be a few Switch titles in the mix, that would depend on any upcoming Nintendo Directs

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22 hours ago, Julius said:

My gaming resolution for this year is to be consistent in filling out my Gaming Diary on here. It's been a while since I've posted in any Gaming Diary on here - off the top of my head, must have been mid-2018? - and while I enjoy reading about others' adventures and discussing games both new and old, I also find writing out my thoughts to be a valuable asset in determining just where I land on my enjoyment of any given game.

At a minimum, I will post at the end of each month about the game's I've played and/or completed that month. The reason that I ended up dropping off with my Diary last time is mostly because I was playing a lot, but kept waiting until the end of the month to write up my thoughts, and found myself overwhelmed a) trying to recall what exactly I thought of the game, and more importantly b) finding the time to write those thoughts out. This time around, I'm going to be writing out my thoughts on a given game in a Word doc within a few days of completion, and then editing it all at the end of each month to post here.

Hopefully that'll make it more manageable :p

 

Not sure if it helps, but when I was playing Dragon Quest III last year (and writing updates about my progress), I would usually just write down noteworthy stuff from each gaming session, usually keywords or small phrases (Sometimes important stuff, but a lot of times random amusing things like "Sexy mage just learned Bang" or "Ran into Bombcrags. Ugly muthas"). Simply reading the sentence would immediately remind me of the experience. It helped a lot in gathering my thoughts later on.

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Well now that I am no longer a student and have started my new job, I guess my new year's resolution is that I'm hoping to be able to spend more time enjoying games :D 

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I started the New Year as I mean to go on! 
Beat Shovel Knight (main quest) on the plane back home last night. Lucky that I was on a plane as it prevented me from blurting out a tirade of expletives on the final boss.

Two days gone, one game down :cool:

My Switch backlog of 80+ games will hopefully take a hammering. But I'll be happy if I manage to hit 50, a game a week seems fair.

Xenoblade 2 is (still) almost done and I picked up a lot of shorter indie games over Xmas, so here's to a strong January start :grin:

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Haven't had much time to play more of Metroid Prime 2 recently with some things coming up that are quite important, but I did continue my work on editing the Let's Play.

 

 

I've got about 10 Parts recorded so far so I'm trying to optimise what I have and poke fun at myself during editing. Even redid a dialogue section where I was standing still to a more elaborate and informed discussion with better commentary than was originally there.

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Continuing to post this here as it's technically a "gaming diary" as it were, but if mods feel I should be posting these somewhere else or not at all I will stop doing so.

 

So, here's Part 3 of Metroid Prime 2 Echoes (Wii U)

 

 

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Rolled the credits on my second game of the year - Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz HD.

Such a mixed bag of feelings this game. At times it feels like SMB at its best, at others, like it's purposefully trolling you.

The camera is absolutely abysmal and makes hard stages infinitely harder. 

Me an @nekunando discussed it at length on this week's podcast and go into way more detail (end of plug).

A fun game for the most part and it was nice to play this Wii classic again, no regrets purchasing it. Cobalt Cavern's music is fantastic, upbeat goodness. I think I'll put it aside for now, but will probably go back for the medals and the final two worlds.

Props to @Josh64 for the Twitter tips for the final boss. Thanks, I was pulling my hair out. :D

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On 08/01/2020 at 1:26 PM, Nicktendo said:

Rolled the credits on my second game of the year - Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz HD.

Such a mixed bag of feelings this game. At times it feels like SMB at its best, at others, like it's purposefully trolling you.

The camera is absolutely abysmal and makes hard stages infinitely harder.

Nicely done Nick. :D

I hope the game wasn't too much of a slog to get through? I'm still planning on playing the copy of the game which @Aneres11 kindly sold to me recently. :)

I look forward to hearing thoughts about the game from yourself and Greg (plus Lee if he's played it) on the Podcast but in the meantime...

You mentioned the camera and I was wondering, seeing as you completed it very recently, did you get the very recent 1.03 update by any chance?

The patch notes mention the following...

- fixes a timer reset issue in Time Attack mode
- new confirmation message at certain points
- improved camera display

I just wondered, if your version is 1.03 if the update improved any of those aspects, particulaly the camera or if the camera is still bad even after that update.

It looks like the update was only made available yesterday, so I thought it was worth mentioning. :peace:

I'm still looking forward to playing it and hopefully many other games this year, Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz HD certainly seems like a game to make a rolling start with anyway.

- - - - -

Edit- @Nicktendo I've been listening to the podcast and I've just gotten to the part where Lee asked if the update actually improves the camera controls...

"It doesn't" - Nick

In that case, I'll prepare myself for the worst when I attempt to play it soon. :p

I'm enjoying listening to all of your experiences with the game though. :smile:

Edited by S.C.G
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Got back into recording some more Metroid Prime 2: Echoes recently. I'm now sitting on 7 unreleased parts as of today.

 

Part 4 went up in which I end up making a reference to a very infamous Let's Player/Streamer whose real name is Phil and whose username starts with D...

 

 

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About 9 episodes ahead of this one now in terms of recording but for now, here's Part 5 of Metroid Prime 2: Echoes (Wii U).

 

 

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I've recently been playing Alliance Alive HD and Dragon Quest XI S.

I think I'm nearing the end of the actual story part of DQ. So I'll probably write something up on that.

I've also started playing my Christmas Gag Gift, Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood. It's just as horrendous as I remembered. But I'll persevere. Definitely gonna have to take breaks from it. Can't play the damn thing for more than an hour or two before I need to play a good RPG again.

Awful, awful game. I'll finish it this time though. Just to show @Dcubed that his evil plan won't beat me.

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29 minutes ago, Glen-i said:

I've recently been playing Alliance Alive HD and Dragon Quest XI S.

I think I'm nearing the end of the actual story part of DQ. So I'll probably write something up on that.

I know they're not entirely alike, but I'd like to see your thoughts on DQ in comparison to Xenoblade 2. I picked it up at Xmas, but yet to start. Want to get X2 out of the way first.

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Put another part of Metroid Prime 2 up tonight. In terms of actual gameplay however I am currently just before having to face the most infamous boss in the entire game, the Boost Guardian.

 

Here's his cousin the Jump Guardian though. Excuse the pun title of the episode...

 

 

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10 hours ago, GenericAperson said:

Put another part of Metroid Prime 2 up tonight. In terms of actual gameplay however I am currently just before having to face the most infamous boss in the entire game, the Boost Guardian.

 

Here's his cousin the Jump Guardian though. Excuse the pun title of the episode...

 

 

The boost guardian, never beat this sucker on hard. The constant damage you take due to the corrosion, plus he is a pain himself. What difficulty are you playing on?

Unfortunately don't have time to watch all your videos but kudos for putting them together! I did skip through a bunch of them though and I'm curious to see how you fare against the boost guardian.

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19 hours ago, Nicktendo said:

I know they're not entirely alike, but I'd like to see your thoughts on DQ in comparison to Xenoblade 2. I picked it up at Xmas, but yet to start. Want to get X2 out of the way first.

They are 2 very different games but I think DQXI is the superior product. Of course that's because I do favour turn based battles over action orientated ones but I also think that the story and characters are much better than what Xenoblade Chronicles 2 has to offer. I think the ones thing Xenoblade Chronicles 2 has over Dragon Quest XI is the soundtrack. Just to be clear, I LOVE both of these games and I think any fan of the genre needs to play the both of them.

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My 2020 so far:

Dragon Quest I - lovely game. Enjoyed it for what it is: The origin of the Dragon Quest series. 
Shovel Knight (Shovel of Hope) - bought Treasure Trove for the Switch and just had to play the original campaign again. Such a great throwback to 2D platformers from the past.
Super Mario Odyssey - solid 7/10

Two games that I also consider beaten in 2020 (sue me, I completed them around New Year's eve :p):

Golf Story - grindy and stupidly repetitive quests in an RPG with a lackluster story and horrible writing. The golf mechanics, however, are really good.
Astral Chain - PlatinumGames' worst game, in my opinion. Button-mashy battles with repetitive mission and location design.

What I'm playing right now:

Slay the Spire - climbing Ascension with The Defect. And yeah, it's still amazing :D 
Blaster Master Zero - not sure what I think of it, yet. 
Shovel Knight (Plague of Shadows) - haven't touched it in days. It's ok but I'm not a fan of Plague Knight's movement.
Stardew Valley - shouldn't have bought it. It's a time sink :laughing: Very relaxing and fun

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It's been a good start to the year.

I started playing Monster Hunter World: Iceborne (PS4) over Christmas and ended up finishing the story at the start of this month. As I mentioned in the thread, I will be continuing to play the game throughout the course of the year but figured I would cross it off as complete as the story is done and dusted.

At the end of last year I delved into the Castlevania Collection (Switch), with me finishing the GameBoy games that are part of it. I continued playing this collection this year and tackled Kid Dracula next. I loved playing through this. The chunky sprites used in this NES game were much appreciated, especially when you compare them to the other Castlevania games that appeared on the system. The game harkens back to the weird and kooky era of Konami games. For example there's a battle involving the Statue of Liberty and a quiz show. Can you imagine Konami putting out a game like this today?

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Next up was the original Castlevania. There's not much to say about this. I played it back when I was a kid at my friends house but I don't think I ever owned the game myself. Like many other NES games, the difficulty can be quite brutal at times. Thankfully, the save anyway features remove any of the challenge. :D It's a decent game but it's very straight forward.

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Following on from that I went straight into Castlevania III. Yeah, I skipped II due to it being a different type of game. I really enjoyed this one. It's a much better game than the original and I enjoyed the character switching mechanic that featured in it. I've never played the game before but I can now see why people said that the digital Bloodstained game that was released ( fantastic game) was a homage to this game. I was taken back by how different Alucard looked when compared to SOTN. 

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Super Castlevania IV was next on the list. This game was stupidly easy, so much so that I didn't really need to use the save feature that often. The fact that you can whip vertically and diagonally means that a lot of enemy encounters become pretty trivial. It was still a fun game but it did feel like a retread of the original game, which is what the game really is. It's strange, I used to love this game as a kid but I was pretty meh on it playing it now. Also, I found the music in this game to be very, very poor.

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Castlevania: Bloodlines is a game i've been wanting to play for a long time but I refused to pay the asking price for physical copy of it. I was happy when it was announced that the game would be part of this bundle. I would finally be able to play the game! I'm happy to report that I loved it and I think this is by far the better game between this and Super Castlevania IV. Over the years i've seen this game got somewhat slated but I think it's the superior product. It has better characters, much better music and is just generally a better and more fun game. I wonder if it was a case of fans being hurt over the fact that the game was on a Sega console rather than a Nintendo one.

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After that, I went back to Castlevania II. I wanted to tackle this last seeing as it plays very differently to the other games. Again, it's a game that I have never played but heard lots about. I can see why people say that this game is the Adventure of Link in the series and they were right to say that. It's not just that the game is seen as the black sheep of the family, much like AoL, but also that the game plays a lot like Zelda II. You visit towns, level up and back and forth between various areas, rather than being a linear progression like the standard games. I don't think the game is bad at all and quite enjoyed the change of pace. Like, AoL I think the game was just misunderstood back in the day. If you like Zelda II you will probably like this.

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Spot the difference :p 

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With that done, I think that is me all caught up with the traditional Castlevania games. Last year I made some good progress in catching up with the Metroidvania style games ( something which I plan on continuing this year) and it's good to fill in the gaps of the earlier entries of the series.

Speaking of filling in the gaps in my gaming experience/knowledge, Phantasy Star is a series that I have no experience with outside of the amazing online game. I was listening to a recent episode of Radio Free Nintendo and Jon was discussing his experience with the original game. I was shocked to hear he was actually playing something but even more shocked to find that he finished a game! This gave me a kick up the butt to start playing the series and I downloaded the game on my Switch. I actually bought it last year but never got around to playing it.

Loved it! I was so surprised just how good the game looked for a Master System game. I often forget just how much of a beast that little console was for the time and it really does beat the NES when it comes to graphical capabilities. The large enemy sprites that appear on screen and the animations which accompany them are gorgeous to look at. The music is also a highlight of the game, with many of the tracks being upbeat and pretty epic given the hardware that was producing them. 

There were a couple of niggles that I didn't care for but these were just products of their time. The enemy attacks seem to be pretty random. One time I would go first and the next time the enemy would. It made it hard to judge when to use certain moves. The other issue was the inventory. Having to keep going in and out of your inventory to use the Ice Digger and Hovercraft was a pain in the backside but understandable seeing the limited amount of buttons of the controller. 

M2 done a cracking job with this Ages version of the game. Toning down the random encounters, the auto mapping feature and the increase in experience and cash made for a much smoother experience. At least I imagine that to be the case. I've never played the original version so I can't really compare. I will say that some of the dungeons are pretty long and I imagine that lots of random battles in those would cause a bit of a pain, not to mention not having any map for reference.

This is another series that is a bit of a blind spot in my gaming experience and i'm happy i've taken a step forward to rectifying this. Having the other 3 games as part of the Sega Mega Drive Collection means that I am able to continue on with the series when I feel the desire to do so.

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I know it's short for Short Sword but my mind went somewhere else. :D 

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The Star Wars influence is strong.

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The Master System showed Nintendo the way with the Virtual Boy.

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Carrying on with playing older games, I decided to look through the NES Online Service for the Switch and see what games were worth playing. I went with Ninja Gaiden. Yeah, this game is as tough as they say it is. It actually starts out pretty tame but once you reach the 3rd stage things ramp up stupidly fast. Even with the rewind function the game is hard as nails. I played through plenty of tough games on the NES back when I was a kid but I never played this and I fail to see how anyone could actually beat the game without the use of a Game Genie. Respawning enemies, enemies knocking you into pits, enemies spawning all around you...it was relentless. Still, I persevered and managed to get through the game.

Spoiler

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Last night I fired up Gradius. I still have the memories of playing through the Rebirth games on Wii a couple of years ago and it was nice to see how that compared to the original. Although it did take a while to get used to how the weapon system worked. I was quite surprised on just how short the game was. If I had splashed the cash on this as a kid I imagine I would have been bitterly disappointed with it. Saying that, the rewind and save anyway features do highlight how short most games were back then. It was a nice game to get through before calling it a night. 

Spoiler

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10 games done and dusted. Not a bad start to the year. I've quite enjoyed digging into the NES backlog and I plan on continuing to do so in the coming weeks. There are still a few games on the service that I want to play ( Double Dragon games, Crystalis,Twinbee ) and I still need to check out a few that are on the SNES service.

Edited by Hero-of-Time
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