I mean ‘prefer’, not ‘like’. You’re not that bad.

I'm firmly elf's side of this debate

Yeah do Mario Luigi.

I thought the controls were dire which is why I uninstalled it.

9. Curse of the Dead Gods [8]
I don't know what counts as completed exactly, but I beat all the chapter 3 bosses, which seems good enough, even though it then adds on a tough four chapter run. Either way, I thought it was very good in the end. Cribs off the most successful modern Roguelike design sensibilities (Hades, Slay the Spire, Dead Cell) to form a very well balanced experience. Its biggest success is making every decision meaningful, whether it's which route to take, or which upgrade, or weapon, or whether to refuse new stuff altogether and take a minor cash boost or health refill instead. The combat is solid too - meaty, deliberate, testing and varied. The slight issues are repetition in the early stages after a while and the main curse gimmick often being a bit of a non-event.

10. Astro's Playroom [9]
Did everything in this in short order. It has such momentum that it's hard to stop. I think it really benefits from being effectively an extended demo, in that it gets to just chuck different things at you every few seconds. But what's amazing is just how intuitive and slick every one of those things is. You can segue from jumping to shooting to gliding to rolling in a big ball and get what you're supposed to be doing instantly. Even with the controller functionality being put through its paces (often in very clever ways), it just clicks into place and you rarely have to break your rhythm (the monkey climbing bit was one exception, but it ended up being one of my favourite parts). In that sense, each stage is more deliriously enjoyable than almost any Mario level (with the balance point that if it ever was expanded into a full game, there's no way it would be able to maintain the pace). Plus, it's just great to have a pack-in game on a new console again, which has been made to showcase the hardware. For all the PlayStation nostalgia on show, that's something I'd really missed from 'the old days'.

11. Narita Boy [7]
The pixel art and soundtrack are fantastic. The game itself is rather ordinary. Platforms, sword combat, lots of running around. The fighting is fairly good, but otherwise the design is rather loose. Go here, get a key, open a door, get another key, etc. True, there is some variety in the action, but not much that will really stick in the memory. And that's a real shame because everywhere you go the backgrounds and character designs are stunning, and there are loads of standout tunes. You won't hear many better soundtracks this year or see better 2D visual design. Worth playing an average game for that? I think so.

12. Mundaun [7]
Pencil-shaded, black and white eeriness in the Swiss mountains. It's all a bit low-tech and clumsy, and the early pacing is a too rapid. But once it gets going there's a quality horror tale here and some nice little details and twists in your means of interaction. It smartly avoids trying to outright scare you most of the time, so doesn't fall back on common horror tropes. Instead it aims for the unease of unfamiliarity, and towards the end of the game it all really comes together. I also particularly liked that it's not simply the walking-sim with a few puzzles it initially appears, as it has some properly smart layout design and chucks in segments of stealth, driving and more besides. It's quite rudimentary, and not too taxing (thankfully), but it melds with the overall sense of strangeness and unpredictability.

Moot_Geeza wrote:

Will start Narita Boy on Tuesday. What's the length, roughly?

Maybe 6 hours. It's not huge anyway.

Edit: Forgot Astro's Playroom. Added in above.

Yeah it’s still really good and absolutely up there with the best 8-bit platformers.

Can't wait to play that one!  Picked up the free copy and it's sitting in my library, taunting me.  Holding out buying the VR kit in case Sony announces a revised model soonish though.  

RE Jon's Playroom notes, it's an awesome little game!  Had a quick go on the weekend, just a couple of time trials, and the only disappointment is I've not played any other PS5 games that make full use of the new controller gimmicks.  I really hope they don't get forgotten about over time.

Persona 5 Strikers (PS5) 8/10

This is a lovely little (er, it's still 50 odd hours) addition to the main game.  Even though it's now a beat em up there's lots of story and hanging out with mates to be done, plus it looks and sounds just like Persona.  The story's not an all time classic or anything and I think it does tread old ground a little but the gang are a joy to hang out with and I'd absolutely play a Strikers 2.

The fighting was my biggest reservation coming in, I've never gotten into your Dynasty Warriors games and this did take a minute to click, but once it did, it was really fun stuff.  There's a lot going on and, for a while, it's hard to know if you should be attacking, dodging, using magic, swapping between characters, using the environment etc etc... but before long it starts making sense.  As the game goes on there are some pretty intricate fights which are a joy to figure out and pull of.

The big thing I did miss from the Persona games was deciding how you'd like to spend your free time.  This is a lean story over a short period of time so you don't really get to hang out with non essential characters.  Made it feel like I was rushing through the game, even though that wasn't the case.  There's not much fan service for that kinda thing either; I was hoping to coincidentally bump into like Ms Kiwakami while shopping in Kyoto or some shit. 

I did like the fighting but I think it could have done with a couple of revisions.  Like you can recharge your magic points at checkpoints, but you have to leave the dungeon to do it.  There's no penalty to leaving the dungeon, and the only reason not to do it is if you don't walk to look at loading screens.  Why not just recharge automatically?  Also for big boss fights, if you don't have the right characters selected you really have a choice between an arduous war of attrition where you waste your items and time, or letting it kill you and reselecting a good team before battle.  I wish it let you switch out characters during a fight.  

Not that big a deal; I didn't have too many problems with the game.  Impressed.

Cheers mate - I'll keep an eye out for preorders

Couldn’t get on with Thumper. Just one that isn’t for me. Not even in gameplay, which was fine and solid. But the graphics and soundtrack were toxic to me. I get stressed playing it.

I think some of the best modern games have roots that can be traced back to Another World (Inside and other cinematic puzzle platformers), but yeah that all sounds about right. If you can emulate it you should give Heart of Darkness a go (and then still me of its any good because I still haven't played it).

Might be a good one for the retro club thread, it'll be easy enough to add to my PS Mini library. Will suggest once DKC winds down.

5. Doom 64 (PC) - 15hrs - [7]

Great nostalgia trip. Not for this game specifically, but for Doom in general. I missed this when I had my N64, but always loved Doom on PC. Nice combination of puzzles (some obscure solutions in there) and blasting demons. It was gonna get an 8 or 9, but the last boss was bullshit. Solution? 

34. New Super Luigi Bros U Deluxe - Switch (5-6hrs)

On paper this could've been my perfect 2D Mario as it merges the undeniably excellent platforming you'd expect from the series with a touch of the masocore checkpoint types, but a few trivialities held it back.  It's a Wii U dlc port, but NSMBU Deluxe was a full price release and it should have been refined further than it was imo - the save system and finite lives make progression unnecessarily annoying.  I don't tend to care too much about load times, but instant restarts are an absolute must in assault course platformers - and this doesn't have them.  It doesn't have checkpoints either, so dying at any point in a level (or boss, if the stage has one) boots you back out to the map screen, which constitutes unwanted thumb twiddle time and doesn't strike me as acceptable these days.  Plus if you run out of lives between castles your progress won't be saved.  It has a quick save system, but big whoop as that doesn't alleviate the lives thing, it just suspends the action and disappears once you resume, like sleep mode with the ability to change games.     

Enough moaning though, on to the juicy bits: It really is an excellent platformer.  Most stages give you a 100 second time limit, which makes the optional three coin quest extra tricky (I assume, lel).  The courses themselves are very well designed, with a couple of deaths under your belt you can really tear through them.  Luigi controls slightly differently from Mario too, and his extra airtime makes it feel quite different.  There are plenty of secrets - presumably - but I only fancied dashing through it to see what it was all about.  As a single player experience I found it better than a straight run through the main game, and also the pre-loaded sp stages in Mario Maker 2.  It wasn't too difficult either, which was a relief as I'm not particularly good at Mario games.  For a certain type of fan willing to forgive the aspects that should have been consigned to the past, I'd wager this could be an absolute belter.  For me, it's a strong [8] and possibly my favourite 2D Mario after SMW.  If only Nintendo had spruced it up a bit more for rerelease in 2019 - a few very minor tweaks would've gone a long way.