Part 1: Games 1-4 (Ready or Not, Can Androids Pray, Bad End Theater, Anger Foot) 
Part 2: Game 5 (Bloodborne PSX) 
Part 3: Game 6 (Day Repeat Day) 
Part 4: Games 7-14 (Elden Ring, GT7, Horizon: Forbidden West, Emily is Away 3, Fifa 22, Ghostwire: Tokyo, Good Night Knight, There is no Game) 
Part 5: Games 15-22 (Disco Elysium, Cyberpunk 2077, Deep Rock Galactic, YAKLAD, Manifold Garden, Factori, Circadian Dice, Nier Re[in]carnation) 
Part 6: Game 23 (The Sexy Brutale)
Part 7: Games 24-31 (Dragon's Dogma, Vampyr, Rogue Legacy 2, Lair of the Clockwork God, Escape Simulator, Ender Lillies, Rhythm Doctor, Citizen Sleeper)

For real, though - glad I played it and finished it. No way it will ever bother my all-time faves, but it's exactly the type of experience I quite enjoy dipping into. It also joins my ever-growing itch.io collection and i'll send the dev some pennies as I opted for the free option at first as I had no idea if I would like it.

32. You Have to Win the Game 

Do I think it's a great game? It...contains some great parts and design choices, that's for sure. But I also found it frustrating, and not just due to those 400+ deaths. 

So, the good?

The aesthetic is nice.
The map design was fantastic - it had that metroidvania which way you gonna go thing going on at multiple points and that can go wrong if rooms are overly intricate or the layout is too sprawling. Instead, the ways each path looped back into another and instantly offered new options once you got a powerup (of which I found 4) was very well done. So, bravo dev.
Some of the tricks behind the rooms were fun, especially ones that played with entrances and exits.
The room names were also, if not belly-laugh inducing (and they weren't designed to be), at least worthy of an occasional chuckle or heh of recognition. 

There was, however, stuff I was less keen on. 

It made a bad first impression as it committed the cardinal sin of 2D games - it did not have movement mapped to the d-pad, was analogue stick only. As Nina can attest from our voice chat yesterday, Game 33. Narita Boy [4] also made this mistake and I lasted about 40 minutes last night before quitting and deleting the game then and there. 

So, not a great start - but I was able to forgive the game as it was evidently released in 2012 and adding d-pad movement was actually pretty painless. Took 45 seconds and I was in business. 

Other issues relate to the obstacles in your way. So, a good portion of the backend challenge is built around wall sliding and jumping from walls. I'm not a huge fan of this - not just in this game, but in general. I have a general dislike of very fiddly movement systems where you're expected to constantly bend backwards through the air. The amount of height you'd also get from the jumps didn't always feel consistent either, which made getting caught by spikes when you're trying to creep up and you suddenly jump much higher feel less than fun.

Is this a skill issue? Absolutely. It's a very hard game, I just didn't enjoy how that hardness was delivered for the final 15-20 minutes, compared to earlier in the game where you'd have to squeeze between projectiles, enemies etc. 

One particular series of jumps, which was just prior to the 1st screenshot I posted above (and was quite near the end) felt like it had nearly strayed into the territory of outright mean - essentially asking you to clear 3 or 4-screens worth of platforms and walls, without interruption, using exclusively the wall slide and jump, with said platforms and walls being absolutely riddled with spikes that will insta kill you on any contact and, to make matters worse, the camera doesn't scroll in this game so if you jump into a new screen you're jumping blind (and yes, maybe jumping blind into spikes). That was probably where a good 30-40% of my deaths across the entire run was. 

Getting past it, though, I could feel my whole body decompress. I still had fun, but that was the closest I came to calling outright bullshit.

So yeah - hard game, interesting game, 1st half more interesting than the back half. But, for a 1-2 hour thing that fits within my interests...yeah, not a bad rec. A low [7].


33. Narita Boy 

Honestly, kinda wanna score this lower, but I know it's just a case of a game rubbing me up the wrong way. Starting control issues aside (and yes, i know the d-pad was assigned to other stuff but idgaf, let me remap that shit), there were also a bunch of other issues.

Sludgy movement, inconsistent controls (R2 being your special attack that uses ammo, but it's suddenly the run button in the "memory" sections leading to occasional misfires when you walk out the door), boring enemies, boarding dialogue, boring traversal, boring mystery. It looks very nice but the visuals do so much carrying for an utterly bang average game. [4]

Moot_Geeza wrote:

'if this looked and sounded horrible would it be straight up bobbins?"

Yes.

acemuzzy wrote:

I'll take [7]. I might have gone higher cos it firmly hit my buttons, glad you got at least some enjoyment from it!

Yeah, I had a good time overall. Very much a mileage may vary game, I imagine, but glad I tried it out.

It's on gamepass too, got it installed for a rainy day.

Game 34: Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion 
So, this is not a bad little time. Alice Bell of RPS described it as "the funniest game [she] had ever played" and while I wouldn't go that far, I do otherwise thing the review is pretty much spot on.



This is a charming game. It is often very funny, although it's more one or two specific jokes that repeatedly land despite repetition rather than there being always good jokes (as a few do miss), and the combat is...well, the combat is a bit shit. Again, the review nails it. The roll is a complete non thing. Item switching is fiddly. But, it kinda doesn't matter because the game is still fun and cute and it doesn't overstay its welcome.

The humour can be described as thus: very online, and very anarchic. It's got the comedic "meanness" of something like Goose Game (which I enjoyed) combined with the Zany Randem Online trappings of Guacamelee (which I didn't). There is one near genius running gag, which I won't spoil suffice to say that every game should come with this button / choice in future. 



Dungeons are trim - usually a handful of rooms and a set order to unlock by getting keys. Nothing to write home about, but they all have they own theme and it's generally well done. Bosses are mostly fine - not super exciting but not too bad. Can be fiddly though, when multiple items are required.

To my surprise, the  mechanical highlights came from the puzzles. Now, there aren't many of them and they're far from hard, but they use your limited item set in really cool ways. They basically squeezed every bit of function they could out of only 3 or 4 items and, honestly, I thought it was pretty cool. There's also a whole load of fetch quests but it's always super clear where to go and the map is small, so you're never more than 2 minutes away from the person you need to find. 

Overall...I had a good time with this. I do wish they had another pass on the movement and combat, and there could deffo be some improvements to UI navigation, but none of these issues are big enough to stop me enjoying myself. 

A solid [7].

Next:
NORCO
Buck Up and Drive
A Year of Springs
Buddy Simulator 1984
Dicey Dungeons
Star Wars: Jedi: Fallen Order: EA
Grindstone
What the Golf
Reigns
Moonlighter

The Mootest of games.

22. Pocky & Rocky (SNES) - 4hrs

Overhead scrolling shooter from Natsume. You choose between the two characters from the title in single player. There are a few differences between them. Pocky moves and slides slightly faster and can transform into a statue for brief invincibility by holding the parry button. Rocky is slower but has a spin attack instead of the temporary invincibility.

Thankfully it has a co-op mode which I'm a big fan of. It's got a good difficulty curve, the first level is a breeze, but it gradually builds up. There are six levels in total, which might seem on the short side but it's not one you'll complete on your first attempt, it took me and a mate a fair few continues on the later levels.

Only real negative for me is the sliding attack, in co-op if one of you bumps into the other while sliding it will cause the other player to spin out of control. This inflicts damage on enemies, but a lot of the levels have cliff edges meaning it's all to easy to lose live's.

It's no quite up there with Smash T.V or Mercs but it's not far behind. Good stuff.

7/10

My list

105. Chicory - PS5 (11hrs 34mins)

A huge hearted, beautiful game that does so much to make you love it the clumsier elements are easily forgiven.  

I'll get the negatives out the way first: it's clunky with a pad.  Everything (especially the menus) seems designed for M&K play and sloppily grafted onto dual analogue controls.  The bosses are abysmal in places - like truly, soul crushingly turgid, and in any other game such appalling action scenes might be ruinous.  They're beacons of shiteness in an otherwise wonderful adventure, and although I applaud the option to tinker with fail state settings for these sections (or skip them entirely), in reality that's only necessary because they're so relentlessly laborious.

That's it though, otherwise this is just about as delightful as gaming gets.  The characters, dialogue, tenderness, humour, music and the world building are all wonderful.  Picnic itself, and the various mealtime locales and characters (all named after foodstuff) are a Michelin star chef's tongue sando.  Despite all the brilliance the exchanges with various townsfolk are the undeniable highlight.  It pays to talk to people multiple times, and the phonebox double hint system is excellent.  I thought Wandersong was equally lovely, so it's great to see the devs striking gold twice.  There are so many wonderful touches throughout that I lost count. It plays a strong side-quest game too, chiefly because everyone who asks you to do anything is so damn nice.

There's not much out there better to play with kids, despite some heavy-ish themes, and rather than me waffling on for ages then ending up settling on a high [8], here's Tilly's take on the adventure.  Also, if this isn't a @regmcfly game I'll eat my Howdy hat.

interesting! The only successful way to make a living inside a casino is to play poker or playing slots on Indian website professionally , but then again only 8-10% are long term winners in poker too. Because it takes a lot of study , hard work and discipline.

24. Castlevania II: Simons Quest (NES) - 2hr 15mins

Shameless guide assisted run through what is often considered the worst Castlevania. For the record I played the ROM hack ‘Redaction’, which changes NPC dialog to significantly improve clues, such as ‘Wait for a soul with a red crystal on Deborah cliff’ becoming ‘Kneel at the end of the wastes with a red crystal’.

For those who don’t know this is the first non-linear entry in the series and is basically a Metroidvania title that came before that horrible term was coined. At first glance everything is fine, it looks and plays great, in fact in places the graphics are perhaps the best in the series on NES, and the music is also top notch, as is common for the series.

The problems come with the cryptic nature of the NPC clues, these are largely fixed in this ROM hack, although clues aren’t only told by the villagers you talk to. There are books hidden in brick walls that also contain clues. Now to be fair these brick walls are only hidden in rooms in villages or one of the games five Mansions, so it kind of becomes second nature where to look, not to dissimilar from getting a good idea of where wall meat is in the linear entries, but it's still a poor way to discover where to go and what to do. Then there’s the overabundance of fake floors that can only be discovered by throwing Holy Water everywhere. This is something the ROM hack did not fix, although I believe there are hacks out there that have simply removed the fake floors. Outside of some cheap deaths to prolong the play time I see no reason why the developers added it, terrible idea.

Straight off the bat, these issues alone essentially break the game, and is why it’s regarded so negatively. Thing is if (and it’s a big if) you can get past that, there’s actually a decent game in here that along with games like Zelda and Metroid is quite ahead of it’s time for the system.

The concept itself is interesting, Dracula has not only placed a curse on Simon Belmont, but the land and all of its inhabitants. This is the reason the clues in the game are so broken. The NPC’s are actually lying to you because of the curse on them. I was always under the impression the Western release was gimped to force kids to call the Nintendo Hotline or buy Nintendo Power, turns out its actually the way it was designed, although I’m unsure if the original Japanese version was quite as bad. To seal the curse you must find Dracula’s five body parts/belongings; his nail, eye, rib, ring and heart, to resurrect him to kill him again and break the curse – yeah bit silly that bit but plenty of Hammer Horror’s were just as bonkers. There are even three different endings depending on completion time.

This was actually the first game in the series I owned, way back in about 1990, so I have a little soft spot for it. The ROM hack just about makes it playable, you could stumble through it but it’s still very cryptic and unintuitive, no amount of hacking can completely fix this game. What I find annoying is we constantly get remakes and remasters of great games, where are the remakes of games like this that have a good core but ultimately miss the mark. Like I said earlier, there’s a decent game in here, with a few tweaks here and there it could be amazing.

I'm a huge fan of the series and did enjoy my playthrough, I wish I could rate it higher, but it is what it is.

Simons Quest: 3/10
Redaction Hack: 5/10

My list

107. Golden Axe II - Mega Drive (50mins)

I booked today off to avoid rail strike carnage, and got home from work on Monday to find the rest of the fam dashing off to the family caravan for the week (mother in law had to come home and empty van = GO GO GO).  Which means I've had so much free time I haven't quite been able to work out what to do with myself and basically settled on watching Spiderman films, drinking pre-mixed M&S cocktails, not washing up and playing games.  

I've never played Golden Axe II before, so until today it sat in a gap in my Sega knowledge alongside a handful of other big hitters such as Kid Chameleon and the Thunder Force games.  I owned the adequate but nerfed Master System port of the original, borrowed the MD version more than once and even read the Sega Power novel, plus I've revisited the MD and arcade versions plenty of times in co-op.  I do like a bit of Golden Axe.  

It's tough to judge an entry I have no instilled fondness for though.  This is supposed to be a top tier MD scrolling beat 'em up, but for me it's very similar to the original, albeit with new layouts and unfamiliar music, ergo it can't hide behind the fuzzy nostalgia feels. The vast majority of scrolling beat 'em ups are better with at least one pal in tow, and the GA experience suffers from the solo doldrums more than most.  

I enjoyed myself because it's Golden Axe, but time has been unkind to it.  It's not the simplicity that feels off, more the irritating aspects of certain enemy attacks.  You couldn't put a pad in the hands of someone unfamiliar with these games and expect them not to complain about what they're playing.  Still, the improved magic system is a good addition (you can choose how many vials to use now, the all-or-nothing approach is gone) and there aren't many things in any games that beat the successfully throwing a baddie down a hole feeling.  Or tricking the AI to walk into one, ha.  These games play well within their own rules, but my hot take is that that's only something someone who formed that thought in the early 90s would say today (convoluted sentence but it can stay because I know what I mean).

It probably is better than the original, but for me it's not even close - I'd happily play the first game in two player right now, whereas I'm not sure if I'll ever feel the need to revisit this ahead of it. Harsh but true.  The music is weird too, some of it wouldn't be out of place in Streets of Rage, which is an odd choice stylistically.  74%

109. R-Type Final 2 - PS5 (3hrs)

My first pick from the PS+ Extra library - there's no chance I'd spend £35 on something like this these days, so this is where the sub collections come into their own.  Disclaimer: I played on Practice mode, which gives you 10 credits instead of 3, and presumably reduces enemy fire/shields and whatnot.  I'm fine with it, it still took a while to learn and beat, but my shmup skills have always been lacking.

The weapons system is great, particularly the flexibility of the detachable module and the way you can use it as a bullet sponge to charge a special.  Although the slow paced, methodical LEARN IT approach annoyed me at first, when I sat down for the big push I managed the first four stages without dying, so it's not unfair with practice I guess.  It's still hugely annoying to power all the way down when you die though - I'm not used to the losing-the-gun-in-Shinobi feeling in 2022. 

The PS3 (with moar lighting!) era graphics are a bit of an eyesore, particularly the hideous third level.  It looks passable in places sure, but in others it's almost offensive.  The menus and unlocks are needlessly confusing.  You'll unlock things without realising (I suddenly had 100 credits at one point), and I had to use an online guide to work out how the hell to unlock extra ships.  Which I didn't use anyway, because it seemed like pot luck whether you'd get a good one or not.  There are over 100 ships in total, unlocked with with a currency system the game is very slow to reward you with, which suggests the devs had far more faith in this than it deserves.  Honestly, you'd probably have to play it for 100hrs to unlock everything, which is maybe two month's worth of gaming even for me.  Nope.  The way it throws 3D objects in the mix is irritating too, especially on the 7th stage as you can't seem to make a judgement call on what might hit you, until something does and you know for next time.  

It's not bad, but it's definitely not worth the asking price and doesn't feel to me like it has the finesse a series with this much clout should have, so I'll have to check out the earlier entries at some point.  Sod playing this on the standard difficulty settings - it throws you back to the beginning when you run out of credits, which is beyond brutal for my tastes.  The music never really does much either. [6]

110. Final Fight 3 - SNES (1hr)

I'd never played any Final Fight sequels.  I was under the impression they were a bit weak.  In hindsight that's probably just because by the mid-90s the genre was about as fashionable as having holes in your jeans, and multiformat mags refused to rave about them. Admittedly I didn't want to play 2D scrolling beat 'em ups at that point either.  Still, I was surprised how good this is.  It really does manage to feel like an arcade cab at home, and in terms of gameplay surpasses everything on the Capcom Beat 'Em Up Bundle, imo.  Aside from the big ol' sprites and top drawer audiovisual wallop, one of the first things I noticed was how nippy it is.  I played as Guy (who wrecks, FYI) and he's so quick it felt like the game was running in turbo mode.  

It's a breathtakingly easy game on the default difficulty, which is perfect for a whistlestop retro tour really, but it's unusual to find a game where you can stand over downed foes/enemies loitering off-screen and spam attack buttons without the risk of getting hit in return.  Factor in the handy specials that don't drain health and the ease of screen control via throws and it's probably fair to say it puts up the least resistance of any game of its type I've played.  It introduces new enemy types along the way, as all the best games of this type do, but one of the late additions - let's call him Full Kit Wanker Baseball Bloke - just felt like pure fodder, and I don't think any of them got their mitts on my Guy for the whole thing.  You start with five lives, and I still had three by the end of stage 5, so had to deliberately get pummeled just so I could use a continue to try a different character (I went for Haggar, who's quicker than you'd expect too).  I don't usually dabble with difficulty settings on these games, but I assume there are one or two higher than Normal available.  There's an option to play with a CPU ally, which is an unusual/interesting addition, but there slowdown was horrific when I tried to buddy up with Big Mike.  Perhaps this is because he's twice the size of most characters.  I hope the proper two player mode doesn't suffer the same fate, but I assume it does, which would be a shame.  Perhaps @retroking can confirm.  Either way this puts the original Final Fight port into perspective - it looks better, has plenty more characters on screen, gives you five to choose from, lasts a while and allows a second player to join. 

It's great fun, and even had multiple routes in some (all?) stages.  I'm not quite sure where I stand on this vs Streets of Rage 3 (obviously it doesn't have to be a competition, but that hasn't stopped me trying to pick a favourite).  I gave that 80% earlier in the year, which feels like less than what I'm leaning to for this, but the disappointment factor was high for that one.  They're pretty much neck and neck in the A-tier of 16-bit scrolling beat 'em ups (along with the excellent Batman Returns), with SOR2 being the only true S Tier entry for me.  I'm not one for consistency, so even though I can't decide if this is better or worse than SOR3 I'm gonna give it 91% if the two player mode works with minimal slowdown, and 86% if it doesn't.

Could be the emulation giving it an extra wobble.  

111. Knights of the Round - Switch (35mins)

Played this in 2020 with retro.  My opinion hasn't changed.  It's just a masher, and not a good one at that.  The bosses pretty much mug you and the block (which I managed to find this time) is useless.  Plus the horses are annoying, because every time I mounted one I was instantly knocked off.  Very much of its time, and its time didn't last long at all.  I wouldn't even want to play this again in co-op, and it was shocking solo.  Looks nice. [3]