23. System Shock (2023) (PC) #Beat2025
This on the other hand...
Too dark, with excessive enemy placement--most of whom are much, much stronger than the 1994 original's--and System Shock 2's restrictive inventory system, all while not really doing a lot to address the convoluted map design.
22. Timespinner (PC/"Bad Ending") #Beat2025
Easily one of the best Metroidvanias I've played in age. A rather small map that still feels like plenty, with grand worldbuilding and excellent mechanics. Lots of fun, highly recommended.
Will be going back for the better endings, of course.
21. Thank Goodness You're Here! (PC) #Beat2025
A very light puzzle-adventure wrapped in a thick casing of UK Absurdism. Bit gross in places, sometimes a bit densely British--I didn't get all the jokes I'm sure--and only a couple hours long but not complaining, it lasted as long as it needed to.
20: Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore #Beat2025
Tightly made top-tier platformer that plays homage to the CD-i Zeldas in moderation, largely in style and tone. A bit on the easy side especially with the (optional) bonus gear and ends quite suddenly, but still, immense fun while it lasts.
Sequel plz.
#54 - Bloodwych (PC)
Early dungeon crawler from Anthony Taglione. Takes place in the Trazere universe. It's a lot of fun, but its balanced for two players and as such all the monsters have too much health. Fun, though.
#Beat2025
#53 - Strangers of Sword City Revisited (PC)
Dungeon crawler with a lot of complex systems. The difficulty is very high and there are very few ways to level up quickly. With multiclassing being pretty much mandatory to get debuff and crit resist, there's a lot of grind.
#Beat2025
#52 - Fatal Frame (PS2)
A mighty fine, albeit kind of clunky start. Combining survival horror and photography is fun, and most of the ghosts were fun to fight. The difficulty is all out of wack, though, and the later games definitely smoothed things out.
#Beat2025
#51 - Resident Evil: Deadly Silence (DS)
A weirdo version of Resident Evil where they added in tons of touchscreen puzzles, first person knife fight events, and rearranged the enemies. They added tons and tons more ammo and health, too. Lot of fun.
#Beat2025
#50 - Might and Magic II: Gates to Another World (PC)
Very chaotic. Early open-world style CRPG that kinda just throws you out there and says go do it. Its all pretty unbalanced, with most of the encounters in the game being super random. It's a lot of fun to find ways to get OP, tho.
#Beat2025
#49 - SaGa DS Remake (DS)
Really good! Super faithful to the original game to a fault, but the graphical and music upgrades are quite lovely. And I've got a lot of nostalgia for this game.
#Beat2025
#48 - Savior of Sapphire Wings (PC)
A remake of Students of the Round, which was a remake of Class of Heroes. The dungeon design is nice, the story is rather cozy and the crafting system makes sense. A step above CoH I think.
#Beat2025
#47 - Resident Evil: Dead Aim (PS2)
Resident Evil spinoff from Cavia (Bullet Witch, Drakengard, Ghost in the Shell) that plays alright. Bit stiff and doesn't play as well as RE4, but its short and pretty fun. Got a very cozy vibe to it and a soundtrack by the Ridge Racer guy.
#Beat2025
#46 - Class of Heroes 3 (PC)
Pretty alright dungeon crawler. Straightforward gameplay and simple dungeons, weird difficult curve where theres like one spike right at the beginning then the rest is pretty easy. Also the crafting system is a mess and I don't like it.
#Beat2025
#45 - Galerians (PS1)
Weird survival horror game where you play a psychic kid who has to solve puzzles, while an anger meter constantly fills up the whole time. Really awkward combat but fun story. Falls off after Chapter B though.
#Beat2025
#44 - Bards Tale II: The Destiny Knight (PC)
Pretty good. Feels like they were struggling to figure out ways to make it more interesting or challenging, and ended up just filling all the dungeons with Darkness+Anti Magic+Spinner+Teleport squares so you couldn't see where you were going.
#Beat2025
#43 - Silent Hill (PS1)
Silent Hill. Got the bad ending. Not much I can say about this that hasnt been said. Its a classic. Absolute banger of a game.
#Beat2025
19: Robocop: Rogue City (PC) #Beat2025
I do not wholly know what to make of this. I kinda enjoyed it--certainly didn't hate it--but whoooo boy it's not a well-made game. Even past technical issues like low-quality environments, clunky gunplay, badly animated models, poorly explained mechanics...
Not #Beat2025: Squirrel With A Gun
Came apart after like five hours. Janky controls and constantly growing tedium left me cold, with the first boss being just way too much. The gimmick wore thin pretty quick (and the gunplay isn't that good to begin with).
Not #Beat2025: Hollow Knight: Silksong
Abandoned after like 20+ hours. It and I are just not jiving, it's way too hard way too quickly and I'm far far too frustrated to have any fun anymore. I *want* to like it so much but it's beyond me.
18. Stray (PC) #Beat2025
Orange Cat In Sad Robot City Adventures. Lovely to look at, plays a little weirdly, Cat is oddly intelligent. Short, comes crashing to an emotional climax that I *really* liked. A delightful post-apocalyptic story that avoids a lot of the tropes. Made me cry at the end.
#17 Resident Evil 3 Remake (PC) #Beat2025
Short, overly simplified, reworks the game to feel level-based, with small maps and little backtracking. Some crazy difficulty spikes and drops. PC version has forced mouse deceleration. Awful "edgy" writing. Still kinda fun, but RE2Make is superior.
Catching up on #Beat2025 because I kinda forgot about it. And I didn't beat a game between April and September.
16. Garfield (PS2)
Uh. Yeah. It's garbage, and I don't know why I played it. Odie fucks the house up, you have 8 realtime hours to fix it, it does nothing whatsoever well.
#42 - Deep Fear (Saturn)
The worst kind of experience is when someone tries to copy something without understanding why any of it worked. In this case, you wind up with a Resident Evil copy that's just boring. An experience thats just endlessly running through hallways.
#Beat2025
#41 - Daikatana (GBC)
A weird Gameboy Color port of the game that plays sort of like a Zelda thing. It's pretty fun, short, and has an amusingly bad localization.
#Beat2025
#40 - DOOMBLADE (PC)
A really cool Metroidvania where you play THE GLOOM GIRL and team up with a super cool sword called THE DOOMBLADE to form the Doom and Gloom Rebellion.
Unique mouse and keyboard based movement where you click and zip around the screen, even going through walls.
#Beat2025
#39 - Wonderboy: Dragon's Trap Remake (PC)
Lizard Cube's breakout game. A wonderful HD remastering of the old SMS/TG16 game. Kind of a metroidvania where you change into different animal forms to get through different challenges.
#Beat2025
#38 - Ratshaker (PC)
Not sure. You shake a rat up and use it to do magical things. Strange, very short walking simulator style game.
#Beat2025
#37 - Ys: Memories of Celceta (PC)
Falcom finally made their own version of Ys 4, combining elements from both of the original two Ys 4s and made something new. The story is great, and exploring Celceta Island is a lot of fun.
#Beat2025
#36 - boyfriend or cake? (PC)
What? It's a gameshow where you have to determine if a dude is a cake or a boyfriend. Also there's existential dread
#Beat2025
#35 - frog detective 1 (PC)
An adorable and weird game where you're a frog and have to solve the mystery of ghosts on an island. Also there's breakdancing
#Beat2025
