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[DelireMan7]

My challenge :
No 2021 games . I can buy older games as my backlog is limited to 1 genre and I might want to change genre during the year according to my mood.

Physical Backlog :

• Lunar Silver Star Harmony (PSP) Done !
• The Legend of Heroes : Trails in the Sky (PSP)
• Rogue Galaxy (PS2)
• Odin Sphere (PS2)
• Baldur's Gate : Siege of Dragonspear (PS4)
• Baldur's Gate 2 : Shadows of Amn (PS4)
• Baldur's Gate 2 : Throne of Bhaal (PS4)
• Assassin's Creed IV : Black Flag (PS3) Done !
• Baten Kaitos : Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean (Gamecube) Done !
• Zelda Ocarina of time (N64)
• Hollow Knight (PS4) Done !
• [Replay] Final Fantasy X and X-2 (PS2) Done ! and Done !
• [Replay] At least one SoulsBorne (PS3/4)
• [2021] Final Fantasy XIII (PS3)
• [2021] Project X Zone (3DS)
• [2021] Radiant Historia : Perfect Chronology (3DS)
• [2021] Brigandine : The legend of Runersia (Switch)
• [2021] The Mark of Kri (PS2)

Games completed :

1. Rayman Origins (PS3) (started in Spring 2020, main story finished 5th of January 2021, coop with my 4 years old daughter, her first video game)
2. Lunar : Silver Star Harmony (PSP) (Started 1st of January, finished 17th of January, 25h56m)
3. Baten Kaitos : Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean (Gamecube) (Started 19th of January, Finished the 13th of March, around 67h)
4. Hollow Knight (PS4) (Started 26th of February, Close to platinum the 23rd of April, around 83h)
5. Assassin's Creed IV : Black Flag (PS3) (Started the 25th of April, Finished the 29th of May, around 33h)
6. [Replay] Metal Gear Solid (PC) (Started the 29th of May, Finished the 5 of June, 8h32)
7. [Replay] Metal Gear Solid 2 : Sons of Liberty (PS2) (Started the 7th of June, Finished the 15th of June, 13h29)
8. [Replay] Metal Gear Solid 3 : Snake Eater (PS2) (Started the 18th of June, Finished the 29th of June, 22h25)
9. [Replay] Metal Gear Solid 4 : Guns of the Patriots (PS3) (Started the 29th of June, Finished the 8th of July, 18h44)
10. [2021] Metal Gear Solid : Peace Walker (PSP) (Started the 16h of July, true ending the 28th of July, 34h46)
11. [2021] Metal Gear Solid V : Ground Zeroes (PS4) (main mission done the 30th of July, 2h06)
12. Metal Gear Solid V : The Phantom Pain (PS4) (Started the 2nd of August, done the 20th of August, true ending in 63h)
13. [Replay] Final Fantasy X (PS2) (Started the 21st of August, done the 17th of October, 79h)
14. [Replay] Final Fantasy X-2 (PS2) (Started the 18th of October, done the 31st of October, 25h)

Finally done !

I already expressed my frustrations with the battle system, enemies placement and the silliness of the characters/story in previous posts so I'll not repeat it.

It was nice to revisit Spira but the gap in tone between the 2 games still shock me.

Also disappointed by the conclusion of the Shuyin/Lenne story.

One thing that I like is how the game is "designed to make you miss thing". In every Chapter, you can go wherever you want and discover some stuff. But you can easily miss them because they don't happen for the whole game. It makes the world more alive to me.

If you're a big fan of FFX and its world, it's nice to prolong the journey into Spira. But even for me who love Spira, I almost quit it several times.

What to play next :

I am tempted to do a solo build on Path of Exile but I want to cross some name on my list so I'll stay on PS2 with Odin Sphere (Started the 1st of November). I played it for like 1 hour a long time ago (after my 300 hours of Final Fantasy X I think) and I found it nice but no a game I was looking for at that time. I am now curious to dive into it.

 

[apowhungo]

my only backlog is fucking resident evil 7 because i only try to play it solo/at night and it's outted me as the biggest pussy ever.

i used to think i could do courageous things.

 

[DelireMan7]

my only backlog is fucking resident evil 7 because i only try to play it solo/at night and it's outted me as the biggest pussy ever.

i used to think i could do courageous things.

I couldn't finish the demo xD I was excepting to jump scare at each corner. I put it down it was too much for me xD. Even I didn't see any thing scary

 

[Phase]

Thought I should throw in an update as it's been a while. It was a great month with lots of metroidvanias. I also played Dread but I'll only include the older games here for the sake of the thread.

43. Hob (PC) - 9hrs
A game with no words. A masterclass in good game design. Great soundtrack too.

45. Ori and the Blind Forest (PC) - 7hrs
Really lovely. So glad I gave it another chance.

46. Ori and the Will of the Wisps (PC) - 12hrs
Didn't like it as much as the first, but had a decent time.

47. Unravel (PC) - 6hrs
Struck a chord with me emotionally, but multiple bugs and having to redo sections from one-hit fails made this a meh game.

48. Metroid Fusion (GBA) - 10hrs
Great game. Bosses were a little frustrating, but that was my only qualm. Loved it.

49. Metroid Zero Mission (GBA) - 8hrs
I think this may be my favorite Metroid game, barring Super Metroid. And that may be due to nostalgia.

 

[Rillania]

Whew, I cannot believe we are already basically two months away from the end of the year! I was thinking about how quickly this crazy year has gone by and figured I would pop onto GAF to post an update on my backlog list I posted when I first signed up for the challenge in Dec. Unfortunately I haven't been able to make much progress on it because of how busy 2021 has been for me. My usual year-end / tax season work crunch period pretty much never ended due to the sheer amount of work I had (and still have) piled up. That combined with buying a house over the summer hasn't left me with a lot of time or energy to play a lot of games or hop on here.

Backlog Titles Completed (From Original List)-
Final Fantasy XV
Dragon Age : Inquisition
Rune Factory 4 Special

Other Titles Completed (Replays / Remakes / Not on Original List / Etc) -
Mass Effect : Legendary Edition
Mass Effect : Andromeda
Code : Realize ~Wintertide Miracles~

Final Fantasy XV
I had beaten the main storyline in 2020 but put it on my list because I wanted to complete all of the story DLC in 2021. All 4 DLC episodes had really fun gameplay and they helped flesh out a bit more of XVs story and characters. If I had to pick a favorite it would probably be Episode Ignis. Ignis is my favorite character from the game and I had an absolute blast with the elemental dagger fighting mechanics they introduced for him. XV really clicked for me overall and I will probably continue to play it on occasion to do all of the endgame dungeons, but I am not sure if I will try to go for 100% achievement completion. I will def not be touching the Pitoss dungeon though.

Dragon Age : Inquisition
I had never actually beaten the final boss or the DLC even though I love DA: I and had played it twice before, so this year I aimed to finally finish it. Rather than just load up my old save from a couple of years ago, I ended up starting a new game and played the whole way through including pretty much all of the side content and quests. I had a lot of fun and enjoyed the game and DLC even on my third playthrough. Despite Jaws of Hakkon being a bit of a slog to get through at times, as someone really into the lore of the Dragon Age world I liked the storyline and how it fleshed out some of the history behind the first inquisition.

The darkspawn zerg rushes in Descent were fun and challenging even with my decked out and highly leveled party, but I was fairly disappointed with how many interesting lore revelations it doled out and only vaguely explained. I really hope that Bioware fleshes out the story that it touched upon in Descent in a future installment. Trespasser was a fantastic farewell to the game and all of the characters I had come to love through the story. While the dungeons were fun and varied, the DLC really shined in the moments between battles when my Inquisitor spent time talking / getting into hijinks with her comrades and the emotional gut-punch twist of the ending that served as a great setup for DA4. I had a massive knot in my throat as the epilogue slides detailed how my actions and decisions through the game had affected Thedas and the lives of my companions.

Rune Factory 4 Special
Not a whole ton I feel like expanding upon for this title. I had fun with the game and plan on playing it some more eventually to finish up the endgame dungeon, but the hardcoreish grind this game requires gets a bit exhausting to the point I have to put it down for a while. The huge bump up in difficulty in the endgame portion is especially frustrating at times.

Mass Effect : Legendary Edition
Mass Effect is one of my all-time favorite series and while I had initially decided not to put it on my list, I ended up really wanting to replay it when the Legendary Edition came out. In playing it, I finally managed to beat Mass Effect 1 for the first time. I had played 1 way back in the day on Xbox 360 but never ended up beating it due to the fact that I eventually dropped the game and never touched it again after my Mako continually kept getting blown up by Geth Armatures on one of the planets. I absolutely positively hated the Mako and its controls to the point it just was not fun trying anymore for the sake of beating the game. I went on to beat 2 and 3 when they came out, but I never ended up having the desire to go back to dealing with that hell on wheels.

When I heard that Bioware was revamping / tweaking a ton of stuff in ME1 including the Mako, I was totally excited to possibly finally play through 1 in its entirety and boy did I end up having a blast instead of constant frustration. A lot of the side-content suffered from "copy-paste" dungeons that made them a bit boring to go through, but the story, main questline missions, and gameplay were great.

Spoiler

The final mission in particular blew my mind during the climb up to the citadel council chambers while Sovereign is just wrecking shit up. Saren's husk fight was insanely fun as well and really required me to be mindful of moving around the confined space to stay mobile rather than just find cover and shoot until dead.

This was also my first time experiencing a majority of the DLC as well, since I had only purchased and played Shadow Broker and Citadel prior. 2 and 3 were just as fun now as they were back when I first played them. In a lot of ways I think I appreciated and enjoyed it a bit more this time around after having finally played through 1 and all of the DLC story content. While I ended up playing as a Paragon again like I usually do and made a lot of the same "big" choices, a lot of the story beats hit me differently and a bit harder in ways. I think this partially also had to do with the fact that my opinions and perceptions in my 30s is very different in a lot of ways from how I viewed things in my early 20s. The one key choice I deviated from was at the end of the game. When the credits rolled I felt a lot more satisfied with the ending I chose this time around than I did years ago when I first beat it. Sometime I may go back and do an insanity run on all three.

Mass Effect : Andromeda
After my Bioware binge period of playing through ME: LE and DA: I, I felt the urge to reinstall Andromeda and give a NG+ insanity run a try. I was one of the seemingly few who actually fairly enjoyed the game despite its flaws and I enjoyed it again this time around even coming hot off of replaying the original trilogy. It is worth mentioning though that I didn't play the game my first time through until after it had been patched, so I only ever laughed at launch bug memes and never really experienced them myself. For me, Andromeda is a decently good game but a lackluster ME game.

The story and writing had its cringe moments, but for me my biggest gripe was the empty and often times unrewarding way colonization past Eos felt. Getting Eos up and running was fun, rewarding, and made me feel like I was really "pathfinding". There was so much potential for how they could have handled the other colonies given how they did Eos, but instead they were just treated as inconsequential unlocks that felt lifeless and with no real content to make you ever go back after setting them up. I did like the overall story though as well as the main cast of characters and combat in Andromeda is my favorite out of all of the ME games.

Code : Realize ~Wintertide Miracles~
Given that Wintertide Miracles is heavily Christmas themed I probably should have waited a bit longer to play it until closer to the holiday, but I really wanted to knock it out since my otome backlog isn't getting any shorter and WM has been up on my list for a couple of years now. Since this is a fandisk for the first C : R fandisk it was pretty linear with minimal choices and didn't take a ton of time to get through all of the content. I enjoyed the epilogue stories in WM a lot more overall than I did the ones in Future Blessings since WM takes place after the alternative ending from Future Blessings, which I vastly prefer over the endings from the original game. The Cantarella side-story was really good and a nice bit of side lore.

Next up I am hoping to try and finish up Death Stranding and / or Piofiore. Honestly not sure if I will have the time to finish either of them before the year ends, but we shall see!

 

[Bakkus]

Just finished Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem. I was pleasantly surprised! Sure, the gameplay shows it's age more often than not, and it's not fun to roam around the levels when you don't know what to do (thanks, YT playtrough guide!), but the story and presentation is freaking amazing and more than holds up. Sucks what happened to Denis Dyack with Too Human and the likes after this.

 

[InfiniteCombo]

Probably the second or third time I've grabbed a controller in the past couple of months, which sucks. But crazy busy work is coming to an end, holidays are coming and it's gonna be time for friends, family, and of course GAMING.

Time to amuse you guys with something.

So I booted up The King of Fighters 2002: Unlimited Match on Steam. Had been a while since I played, so I wanted to try some combos out in practice mode to dust off the cobwebs. Then I saw this:

Check out the chick playing guitar in the background (the one next to the dude on keyboards). Other than her looking comically cartoonish/pixelated, take a closer look.

......



.......


Her shirt. Let's zoom in, shall we?

It might just be me, but I'm pretty sure her shirt says "Fuck"

 

[DelireMan7]

Small update on my back log. I just bought Shin Megami Tensei Devil Survivor 2 : Record Breaker for 3DS.
I never played a SMT game but I want to dive into some tactical RPG at some point and the Devil survivor are always praised in this category. But they are always too expensive (100+ euros at minimum).
But last week, I just did a reseach on amazon and the first result was at 60 euros ! I jumped on it I'll probably play it next year.

Physical Backlog :

• Lunar Silver Star Harmony (PSP) Done !
• The Legend of Heroes : Trails in the Sky (PSP)
• Rogue Galaxy (PS2)
• Odin Sphere (PS2) Ongoing !
• Baldur's Gate : Siege of Dragonspear (PS4)
• Baldur's Gate 2 : Shadows of Amn (PS4)
• Baldur's Gate 2 : Throne of Bhaal (PS4)
• Assassin's Creed IV : Black Flag (PS3) Done !
• Baten Kaitos : Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean (Gamecube) Done !
• Zelda Ocarina of time (N64)
• Hollow Knight (PS4) Done !
• [Replay] Final Fantasy X and X-2 (PS2) Done ! and Done !
• [Replay] At least one SoulsBorne (PS3/4)
• [2021] Final Fantasy XIII (PS3)
• [2021] Project X Zone (3DS)
• [2021] Radiant Historia : Perfect Chronology (3DS)
• [2021] Brigandine : The legend of Runersia (Switch)
• [2021] The Mark of Kri (PS2)
• [2021] Shin Megami Tensei Devil Survivor 2 : Record Breaker (3DS)

Also I am now 12h in Odin Sphere. I have just finished the first character story and started the second one.
I really like it. I am curious to see how the different stories will intertwined.
The XP system which is separated for your weapons and HP is really interesting. I also love the simple alchemy system.
The game is pretty difficult (play on Hard) but mainly due to the control.
The game is designed like a fast action game but every attack has a lot of recovery time, you have to be really careful because every attacks is a big commitment. Often I see an attack coming but can’t do anything because of the inerty each move has. Also the fact you have to stand completely still (meaning it’s quite hard to do it near ennemies) to open the spell or items menu is a bit frustrating.
Now I adapted to it so it’s more or less fine.

All the rest is charming so it’s a really nice experience so far.

 

[Sidney Prescott]

I've finally decided to give Resident Evil 2 Remake a proper shake. For my first proper playthrough I decided to go with Claire and I'm really enjoying it so far.

I just got to the Umbrella lab, so I'm quite a ways in to the game now. At first I was considering putting it down again (out of fear ) as I was struggling with Mr. X and him following me around everywhere.

It's actually manageable when you get past the inital fear of him and the lickers aren't as bad as I thought either if you have the grenade launcher.

As for Claire, I actually am preferring her to Leon at the moment. I've really warmed to the character over time, she's badass.

 

[InfiniteCombo]

I've finally decided to give Resident Evil 2 Remake a proper shake. For my first proper playthrough I decided to go with Claire and I'm really enjoying it so far.

I just got to the Umbrella lab, so I'm quite a ways in to the game now. At first I was considering putting it down again (out of fear ) as I was struggling with Mr. X and him following me around everywhere.

It's actually manageable when you get past the inital fear of him and the lickers aren't as bad as I thought either if you have the grenade launcher.

As for Claire, I actually am preferring her to Leon at the moment. I've really warmed to the character over time, she's badass.

(1) Glad to have you back, buddy;
(2) I myself prefer Leon (no avatar quote, please! ) but Claire is amazing and, like you said, a total badass. Also, once you get deeper into the game's meta, you find that her weapons -- compared to Leon's -- are straight up broken.

 

[Sidney Prescott]

(1) Glad to have you back, buddy;
(2) I myself prefer Leon (no avatar quote, please! ) but Claire is amazing and, like you said, a total badass. Also, once you get deeper into the game's meta, you find that her weapons -- compared to Leon's -- are straight up broken.

It's great to be back.

The only mistake I've made so far in my playthrough is not getting the machine gun. I never did the art pieces with the statue. I'm a bit bummed about that, I'm just glad it's not hardcore.

 

[VidKid369]

Completed Grandia II (PS2). Loved it.

Thinking about Xenosaga 2 next.

 

[Sidney Prescott]

I finished Claire's chapter in Resident Evil 2 Remake. Surprisingly quite short when you get to The Nest. Not a bad thing though as I prefer games that keep the pace going strong, and this game never lost me when I got in to it.

I'm now starting Leon's [2nd] run which seems to be the most canon before I play anything else. After that I'll be playing Leon A and Claire B.

I really enjoyed Claire's storyline and her relationship with Sherry. Found myself really enjoying playing as her as the game progressed, but it's cool to be playing as Leon now. I wanted to try out the shotgun.

 

[DelireMan7]

My challenge :
No 2021 games . I can buy older games as my backlog is limited to 1 genre and I might want to change genre during the year according to my mood.

Physical Backlog :

• Lunar Silver Star Harmony (PSP) Done !
• The Legend of Heroes : Trails in the Sky (PSP)
• Rogue Galaxy (PS2)
• Odin Sphere (PS2) Gave up !
• Baldur's Gate : Siege of Dragonspear (PS4)
• Baldur's Gate 2 : Shadows of Amn (PS4)
• Baldur's Gate 2 : Throne of Bhaal (PS4)
• Assassin's Creed IV : Black Flag (PS3) Done !
• Baten Kaitos : Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean (Gamecube) Done !
• Zelda Ocarina of time (N64)
• Hollow Knight (PS4) Done !
• [Replay] Final Fantasy X and X-2 (PS2) Done ! and Done !
• [Replay] At least one SoulsBorne (PS3/4)
• [2021] Final Fantasy XIII (PS3)
• [2021] Project X Zone (3DS)
• [2021] Radiant Historia : Perfect Chronology (3DS) Ongoing !
• [2021] Brigandine : The legend of Runersia (Switch)
• [2021] The Mark of Kri (PS2)
• [2021] Shin Megami Tensei Devil Survivor 2 : Record Breaker (3DS)

Games completed :

1. Rayman Origins (PS3) (started in Spring 2020, main story finished 5th of January 2021, coop with my 4 years old daughter, her first video game)
2. Lunar : Silver Star Harmony (PSP) (Started 1st of January, finished 17th of January, 25h56m)
3. Baten Kaitos : Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean (Gamecube) (Started 19th of January, Finished the 13th of March, around 67h)
4. Hollow Knight (PS4) (Started 26th of February, Close to platinum the 23rd of April, around 83h)
5. Assassin's Creed IV : Black Flag (PS3) (Started the 25th of April, Finished the 29th of May, around 33h)
6. [Replay] Metal Gear Solid (PC) (Started the 29th of May, Finished the 5 of June, 8h32)
7. [Replay] Metal Gear Solid 2 : Sons of Liberty (PS2) (Started the 7th of June, Finished the 15th of June, 13h29)
8. [Replay] Metal Gear Solid 3 : Snake Eater (PS2) (Started the 18th of June, Finished the 29th of June, 22h25)
9. [Replay] Metal Gear Solid 4 : Guns of the Patriots (PS3) (Started the 29th of June, Finished the 8th of July, 18h44)
10. [2021] Metal Gear Solid : Peace Walker (PSP) (Started the 16h of July, true ending the 28th of July, 34h46)
11. [2021] Metal Gear Solid V : Ground Zeroes (PS4) (main mission done the 30th of July, 2h06)
12. Metal Gear Solid V : The Phantom Pain (PS4) (Started the 2nd of August, done the 20th of August, true ending in 63h)
13. [Replay] Final Fantasy X (PS2) (Started the 21st of August, done the 17th of October, 79h)
14. [Replay] Final Fantasy X-2 (PS2) (Started the 18th of October, done the 31st of October, 25h)
15. Odin Sphere (PS2) (Started the 1st of November, gave up the 15th of November, 20+ hours)

I had to gave up on this one. While I really like the art, story and the general gameplay (like the split XP system between weapons and character, the food system and the alchemy) there was 2 majors flaws for me : repetitivity and controls.

The story is told across at least 5 characters (from what I can see from the ingame "timeline"). You play a character storyline and then it unlocks the next one. So you see the history on the world through these characters. Some part will be in parallel with events of other characters and some part will happen before or after story wise. I really like this structure and really wanted to see how it concludes.

But as I already mentioned on a previous post, controls are far to be perfect for me. It was fine for the 2 first characters (melee fighter with quite some mobility), I could deal with it. But the 3rd character broke me (a fairy which can fly and fight with a crossbow). She's so slow in everything. The jump is really slow, attacking is slow and you have to reload your crossbow and the flight is questionable since I couldn't past over the first boss while I could with the 2 previous characters with just jumps.

Usually the first boss of each storyline was fairly easy. But already on this one I was struggling. Then came the second boss... The Shadow Knight... Just impossible. The boss is so fast that it's a real struggle to dodge his moves with my slow like hell character. Then regularly some fairies appears during the fight and one of them can heal the boss if you don't deal with her quickly... I played on hard so I decided to switch to Normal but it didn't change. Then made few tries on Easy and gave up since I barely noticed a change (but I was already triggered at this point). I gave up after that.

As I mentioned above, the game is quite repetitive. With each character, you basically revisit the same worlds again (With the second character I had only one new world as an example) but in a different order. And the enemies don't change when you revisit a specific world and often the bosses too... for example the first boss of the third Character, I already fight it with the 2 first characters...

So voilà ! It annoys me a bit to quit it while I completed Final Fantasy X-2 which is with no doubt really bad in comparison. Odin Sphere really looks like a great game. I heard that the Remaster improved a lot the gameplay and controls so maybe, in the futurem I'll do another try with this version.

What to play next :

Actually after stopping Odin Sphere, I took my 3DS and started Radiant Historia : Perfect Chronology (Started the 15th of November). It's been quite some times I resist to not playing it. But now I am really in mood for some classic looking JRPG. And I heard only good things about this one.
It breaks a bit the rule since I bought it this year but the games of today are the backlog of tomorrow so...

I finished Claire's chapter in Resident Evil 2 Remake. Surprisingly quite short when you get to The Nest. Not a bad thing though as I prefer games that keep the pace going strong, and this game never lost me when I got in to it.

I'm now starting Leon's [2nd] run which seems to be the most canon before I play anything else. After that I'll be playing Leon A and Claire B.

I really enjoyed Claire's storyline and her relationship with Sherry. Found myself really enjoying playing as her as the game progressed, but it's cool to be playing as Leon now. I wanted to try out the shotgun.

Reading that really brings me back 20+ years in the past. I had a friend who was completely obsessed with the Resident Evil and I remember him talking to me about the Route A and B, and the zombies there, and the shotgun and... He was a really passionate (and weird) gamer who could talk endlessly about Resident Evil and Metal Gear Solid among other stuff (I also remember him speaking a lot about Parasite Eve).

Once I ask him to lend me his Playstation and I played the first Resident Evil. I really enjoyed it (I think I did it twice to see different endings). But somehow I never played any other. But it's on my gaming goal list to get into the franchise at one point.

 

[Sidney Prescott]

Reading that really brings me back 20+ years in the past. I had a friend who was completely obsessed with the Resident Evil and I remember him talking to me about the Route A and B, and the zombies there, and the shotgun and... He was a really passionate (and weird) gamer who could talk endlessly about Resident Evil and Metal Gear Solid among other stuff (I also remember him speaking a lot about Parasite Eve).

Once I ask him to lend me his Playstation and I played the first Resident Evil. I really enjoyed it (I think I did it twice to see different endings). But somehow I never played any other. But it's on my gaming goal list to get into the franchise at one point.

You definitely should. Very easy to get access to a lot of the games now as Capcom has remastered a bunch and they are available on so many platforms.

They can be a little challenging at first, but once you get the mechanics down you are on your way. I have the hardest time with the puzzles, but they are pretty simple in the RE2 Remake thankfully!

 

[Aurelius]

Finished Final Fantasy X HD. I had forgotten what an epic game this is. Truly the last great Final Fantasy game.

This was also the last game in my PS Vita backlog.

 

[VidKid369]

Beat Parasite Eve. It was really fun. 9.5 hrs.

Playing Vanguard Bandits and Final Fantasy X-2 right now, but I kinda wanna pick up playing a PS1 game.

 

[InfiniteCombo]

+1. Current backlog completed count: 21.

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe; on Switch.

I played this game a shit ton on Wii U back when I had it, and it's unquestionably my favorite Mario Kart game and one of my favorite games of all time.

Anyway, I decided to give 150cc a shot:

150cc is right where my tolerance ends; Mirror is fine but I'm not interested, and 200cc can fuck right off

The vehicle selection is awesome, lots of choices between cars and bikes, with some of them looking pretty goofy. I tend to like the bikes a bit better but cars are pretty fun too. (I like to look at stats because I realize that gliders can actually change your stats... say what!?)

The driving in this game feels FANTASTIC. It's so good that I can't quite go back to any previous Mario Kart game anymore, only play this one. The handling is fantastic, with of course the best feature being the drift:

The stage introductions are amazing, and this Deluxe version has all the DLC from the Wii U included as part of the base game. In typical Nintendo fashion, there's a lot of attention to detail. Just check out the introduction to "Hyrule Circuit," the Zelda-themed course:

Among the details:
- The main gate into the town is nicely recreated
- Most (every?) course has people "cheering" in the background. This course includes Hyrule soldiers
- The coins are in the form of rupees
- The Master Sword is in its resting place inside the chamber. If you drive and hit the speed boosters leading up to the Master Sword, you unlock a speed ramp that ramps you over it. When you do that unlocking the little "unlock" jingle from the Zelda series plays.
- The music that plays throughout, of course
- And more.

That's just one course. The same level of detail is given to other courses, like the ones inspired by F-Zero and Animal Crossing, for example. (With those, even more; the F-Zero and Animal Crossing courses have special victory themes specifically from those series).

So, gameplay is amazing. Vehicle selection is nice and varied. Courses are almost always great. Sounds like the perfect game, right? Well, not quite.

The AI in this game is absolute bullshit, especially in 150cc and higher:
- On multiple occasions, I'd win the first 3 courses in a cup, and on the last course in a cup, within 10 seconds of the final lap, I'd get blue shelled. This shit is beyond infuriating
- Speaking of Blue Shells, seems like they increased the amount from the Wii U days. In the original Wii U version, I'd get 1 Blue Shell per track guaranteed. Here, I'd routinely get Blue Shelled twice, and in a couple of courses, THREE fucking Blue Shells. THREE. While taking screenshots for this post, I did manage to give one big middle finger "FUCK YOU" to the Blue Shells. This picture doesn't do it justice but this item is the only one that (as far as I know) allows you to destroy Blue Shells:

- Anyway, something else the AI loved to do was to use the ink squid to obstruct my view. Would happen at least once per course/track, sometimes twice:

Another minor nit with this game is the lack of character variety; too many baby and metal versions of the same characters.

Even with all that AI cheating bullshit, I still managed to 3-star all the cups in 150cc (shown in the second screenshot towards the top of this post). But here's my middle finger to the cheating ass AI:

EDIT: Most (all?) tracks are pretty good. But there are some standout tracks that I exceptionally like:
- Mount Wario: laps don't "loop" and are unique, and probably has the best tune in the game (which is saying a lot because the music ALL ACROSS THE BOARD is absolutely fantastic in this game!)
- N64 Rainbow Road: This track is pure joy and a (literal) celebration of Mario. I never played the original version on N64 but they knocked it out of the park in this game
- SNES Rainbow Road: Mostly for nostalgia since this was my first Mario Kart game (which I still own on cartridge), but they also did an amazing job with it here
- Rainbow Road: This game's own Rainbow Road is pretty awesome
- Hyrule Circuit: See pictures above
- Mute City: Playing this track on 200cc is the closest we'll get to having an F-Zero on Switch.
- Animal Crossing: Absolutely love the "seasonal" changes, I like them all but Winter rules far and above the other ones, at least for me.

 

[Sidney Prescott]

I finished Leon B on Resident Evil 2 Remake. I got a trophy for getting the 'true ending'.

It was pretty hard as I was low on ammo towards the end and the boss fights were quite tough. I managed to pull through it.

I've unlocked the Fourth Survivor mode now where you play as the Hunk character, so I'll definitely be checking that out.

 

[InfiniteCombo]

Thinking I might actually put aside Witcher 3 and move on to other things, potentially to come back to Witcher 3 again next year sometime.

It's an absolutely *fantastic* game, unfortunately I went on too long without playing it and now it's like starting the game all over again, except that I'm in the middle (ish) of the game.

I might give it one more try before putting it aside, but as of right now it's not looking great for me to finish it...

 

[InfiniteCombo]

Since the year ends in roughly a month and our original fearless leader DunDunDunpachi has seemingly been much less active (at least from what I see) in recent times, in case he doesn't show up, who's willing to carry the torch and make the 2022 version of this thread?

To me this is one of the best gaming threads on GAF: just pure video game talk in a fun and positive environment. No console war bullshit. No endless talk about technical specs. No dumb topics ("what video games do you think about when you're taking a shit?"... I'm being somewhat facetious but there's a lot of fluff out there that's barely game related).

So I definitely want to keep it going next year. Besides my own backlog is nowhere near done

 

[DelireMan7]

Since the year ends in roughly a month and our original fearless leader DunDunDunpachi has seemingly been much less active (at least from what I see) in recent times, in case he doesn't show up, who's willing to carry the torch and make the 2022 version of this thread?

To me this is one of the best gaming threads on GAF: just pure video game talk in a fun and positive environment. No console war bullshit. No endless talk about technical specs. No dumb topics ("what video games do you think about when you're taking a shit?"... I'm being somewhat facetious but there's a lot of fluff out there that's barely game related).

So I definitely want to keep it going next year. Besides my own backlog is nowhere near done

I was thinking the same recently. DunDunDunpachi seems to be MIA (I hope nothing serious happened) and I'd like that there is a new version of this thread next year.

I don't really want to take care of it but I was thinking to create it if nobody does it. So I can be a second choice creator if nobody volunteer to do it.

As you mentioned, I really like the positivity of this thread and read the feedback of Gaffer on usually old games. It would be a pity to see it disappear.
I'll for sure be part of it next year even so I'll probably spent big chunk of the year playing Elden Ring again and again...

 

[DGrayson]

Whoever wants to do the thread let me know I can make a note of it.

Dundun has left the site pretty sure about that.

On my end I played and finished Mark of the Ninja Remastered over the weekend. Im not huge on stealth games but that was a fun game that can be completed in a couple days.

 

[InfiniteCombo]

DGrayson thanks bro, at the rate things are going, I'll probably be the one who ends up making the thread.

 

[InfiniteCombo]

Started Yakuza 3 (PC). Love the Yakuza series. But man, from the gameplay perspective, after coming from 0, Kiwami 1, and Kiwami 2... 3 is... ROUGH. But really enjoying the story so far (as I do with all Yakuza games) so I'm gonna stick with it. I hope this is the low point in the series gameplay because again, this borders on atrocious

 

[DGrayson]

DGrayson thanks bro, at the rate things are going, I'll probably be the one who ends up making the thread.

Thanks. Ill make a reminder near the end of December.

 

[DelireMan7]

I am now 20 hours in Radiant Historia : Perfect Chronology and it's really good ! It really feels like a old school JRPG. The time travel mechanics is quite well done (but beware of lot of back and forth and quite some backtracking), the combat system (with the combo system) is extremely satisfying (also having buffs and debuffs that really change things is highly appreciate), story is quite interesting even if a bit slow the first few hours.
Lately what really impressed me is the sidequests. Each of them requires you to travel in time to resolve them. But several are not what they seems to be, and their ending is often surprising and well written. Yesterday I was finally able to resolve one I got really early. It sounded like a really simple filler quest but it turns out to be something quite important for the story (and I guess required for the true ending).

The only downside I see is the lack of character customization in their progression. You basically level up and they learn predetermine skills. There is no way to transfer skills to other characters or other stuff like that.
It makes each character a bit specialized, which is a thing I appreciate, but at the same time a lot of skills are common (like the 3 main party members have healing spells and I have 2 others party member with healing too)

I am eager to continue playing and I can't recommended it enough for any old school JRPG fan.

 

[DelireMan7]

Still enjoying Radiant Historia, soon at 30 hours. I just can't stop playing it !

After it, I was planning to play Zelda : Ocarina of Time on N64 but... I finally succeed to get a PS5. It just arrived today I was set on playing first Elden Ring on it but now that it is there... I am very well tempted to do Demon's Souls. Afterall I have "Soulsborne" on my replay list and it's a remake of a game I already beat. It's right, no ? Guys ?

No other game interest me that much on the system so far (if I exclude all the games available on PS4). I might give a try to Returnal (even if I am not really sold on this one but a friend of mine praise it quite a bit) in the coming years but I can easily wait for this one.

 

[InfiniteCombo]

+1. Current backlog completed count: 22.

Yakuza 3 Remastered; on PC (Steam).

I'm a bit biased because I'm a huge fan of the Yakuza series; it's second only to Resident Evil in my favorite video game series. And I enjoyed my time with Yakuza 3, but for those who are not big fans of the series (like I am), and want to check out Yakuza, I would NOT recommend this particular game, and would just advice to watch the main story beats on YouTube or something. (And the substories; some of the substories are absolutely fantastic!)

Pros:
+ The remaster is nice. A very steady 1440p60 at max settings on a 1070Ti. (Which is reasonable since this is a remaster of an older game).
+ Fantastic casting and voice acting, as usual for the Yakuza series. The main protagonist (Kiryu), the secondary protagonist (his daughter Haruka) and all the supporting characters are well written and spectacularly voiced.
+ Also as usual for the Yakuza series, there's an incredible amount of humanity in the writing. Sometimes it can border on the dramatic and soapy, but the writers certainly understand human nature and its displayed great here.
+ Story has its low points, but for the most part it can be pretty engaging, and has a lot of different aspects: Parenting and family, being an Orphan, Education, Politics (I think this has been the most political Yakuza so far, and I don't mean the "2021 in America" disgusting version of politics), Loyalty,
+ Compelling villains
+ Good combat flow (remember, this is a beat 'em up), with a decent number of "Heat" actions
+ Lots of side games and activities -- A couple of arcade games at the Sega arcade, Golfing, Bowling, a (really watered down) version of the Cabaret Club minigame from previous entries, and of course the Yakuza staple karaoke. All of those are fun
+ It's more "open sandbox" than "open world" which means that there are enough things to do, but doesn't feel overwhelming. In fact the main story can probably be completed in 15 hours or so, which is a low amount for these kinds of games.

Cons:
- If you play the Yakuza games in chronological order in 2021 (starting with 0 -> Kiwami -> Kiwami 2 ->....) then, man, coming from Kiwami 2 this game is rough. I'm sure that, compared to the original Yakuza 2, this game was a big step up; but as so it happens, compared to Kiwami 2 (its chronological predecessor), this game is a huge step down in almost every aspect. Combat is rough. I originally started the game in "Hard" mode but had to revert it to "Normal" mode because the AI sucks and the combat is not well suited for Hard mode. This is the main reason why I would recommend people stay away from this game if they're not huge Yakuza fans.
- Compelling final boss/main antagonist, but there wasn't enough of him. Because of his lack of screen time, and other factors, as compelling as he is I would still rank him below Kuze from 0, Nishiki from Kiwami, and of course arguably the best antagonist in Yakuza so far: Ryuji Goda from Kiwami 2.
- I personally enjoyed all the Morning Glory Orphanage missions, but to those with little patience, they can feel a lot like "babysitting." Having to talk to a whiney little girl in your orphanage seems like a weird change of pace from Kiryu's usual "crush this dude's skull" missions
- Karaoke songs are kind of weak compared to entries in other Yakuza games; in fact I think from what I know of the karaoke catalog from the series, this game may be the low point as far as karaoke goes.

It can't be a post of mine without pictures! I'll put them behind a spoiler tag so that this post doesn't take up people's whole page.

Except this one: At this point, we all know Kamurocho is Kiryu's city!

EDIT: Not sure what's going on, when trying to upload pictures behind a spoiler tag, I'm getting an error from NeoGAF, simply says "Oops! We ran into some problems!" Oh well (*shrug*)

 

[Ryuji Goda]

Replaying the Arkham games. Right now I'm at poison ivy in Asylum (Return to Arkham version). Still so good.

[edit] Just finished it. Now going for the riddler challenges

 

[Aurelius]

After playing through my backlog all year, I managed to snag a PS5 and Switch OLED and went a bit wild buying games on sale. Let's just say I look forward to next year's thread.

 

[DelireMan7]

So I started Demon's Souls yesterday (13th of December). I am a bit "confused" by the game. It's really pretty but the game is also feeling really "dated" since it sticks so much to the original (combat, animation...). Also the new face animation on NPCs are looking really weird to me and the small visual bugs (for example when riposting an enemy with a sword, you see the sword "clip out" of the enemy when you stick it to the ground) disturb.

I am not picky at all on visuals usually but I think the fact that the graphics are so pretty made all the little "bug" or unpolished things really stand out. For now it feels that I play the original but with next gen graphics, which really make me feel weird. I think I need an adaptation time. I play 2 hours yesterday and beat the first level. Decided to go for a Magician as I usually rarely use sorceries in Souls game and I wanted to experience the particle effect on this game. Casting spell feels really snappy and powerful. I like the feeling. Sorcery always felt dull to use in other Souls.

Side note : I have to do a live comparison on the Original game and the cinematic mode of the remake. The cinematic mode (30 fps) is unplayable for me (I turn it off after few seconds or I would have been sick), it looks extremely choppy while I had no issue with the original (or any PS3/4 games at 30 fps or less).

I also made quite some progress in Radiant Historia. I am now at 40h and I have kind of finish the "main story" on the 2 timelines but they still continue. I also do as much as possible the side quests. Still under the charm.

 

[Mr Hyde]

Completed some games in the backlog.

The Witcher 3 + Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine.

Blasphemous + Stir of Dawn and Wounds of Eventide.

The Surge 2.

Next up is Nier Replicant and New Super Mario bros deluxe.

 

[VidKid369]

I beat Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon and The Last of Us. Trying to beat a few more before the year ends lol...

 

[InfiniteCombo]

Finished Yakuza 4. Many improvements over 3, and Akiyama is an awesome character.

I am somewhat shocked at how much I liked Tanimura's arc; out of the 4 characters, his was my favorite story, for sure.

Anyway I'll write my formal (with an extended writeup and pictures and such) later. I'm about 16 or so hours into Yakuza 5. At the rate I'm going, I'll probably have all the Kiryu games completed by New Year's eve, which would bring this year's backlog burndown to 25 games. Not horrible for it having been such a busy year!

 

[Bakkus]

After a long, long time of having this game really high up on my to do list, I finally tonight finished The Wonderful 101 and what a ride that was. The base gameplay is insanely fun once you get the hang of it and buy the best equipments in the store. A lot of the boss battles were just insane thrill rides which just kept on going and going and the characters were (for the most part) really fun and likable. If there are some criticisms to be had, then there is some of the minigame sections, especially the large amount of shooter sections. Some of them are alright, but the isometric ones and the 'escape the tunnel' ones are just pure pain where just a few hits drains your life gauge completely (and believe me, you will get hit and get game overs and screw up chances at getting the best level scores due to these). The 005 and 006 levels are not as good as the rest of the game either with 006-B being the only really bad one, but everybody hates that level, so I digress. I also found it hard to draw Wonder Yellow and especially Wonder Black's weapons, but that might just be me. But these complaints did not ruin the game at all for me. This might be the best game I've played this year. It certainly is since i finished P4 and RE4 early this year. Man, I should have played this earlier, but now I have. Fbh Neff this game has a new big fan on this forum!

 

[DelireMan7]

My challenge :
No 2021 games . I can buy older games as my backlog is limited to 1 genre and I might want to change genre during the year according to my mood.

Physical Backlog :

• Lunar Silver Star Harmony (PSP) Done !
• The Legend of Heroes : Trails in the Sky (PSP)
• Rogue Galaxy (PS2)
• Odin Sphere (PS2) Gave up !
• Baldur's Gate : Siege of Dragonspear (PS4)
• Baldur's Gate 2 : Shadows of Amn (PS4)
• Baldur's Gate 2 : Throne of Bhaal (PS4)
• Assassin's Creed IV : Black Flag (PS3) Done !
• Baten Kaitos : Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean (Gamecube) Done !
• Zelda Ocarina of time (N64)
• Hollow Knight (PS4) Done !
• [Replay] Final Fantasy X and X-2 (PS2) Done ! and Done !
• [Replay] At least one SoulsBorne (PS3/4)
• [2021] Final Fantasy XIII (PS3)
• [2021] Project X Zone (3DS)
• [2021] Radiant Historia : Perfect Chronology (3DS) Done !
• [2021] Brigandine : The legend of Runersia (Switch)
• [2021] The Mark of Kri (PS2)
• [2021] Shin Megami Tensei Devil Survivor 2 : Record Breaker (3DS)

Games completed :

1. Rayman Origins (PS3) (started in Spring 2020, main story finished 5th of January 2021, coop with my 4 years old daughter, her first video game)
2. Lunar : Silver Star Harmony (PSP) (Started 1st of January, finished 17th of January, 25h56m)
3. Baten Kaitos : Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean (Gamecube) (Started 19th of January, Finished the 13th of March, around 67h)
4. Hollow Knight (PS4) (Started 26th of February, Close to platinum the 23rd of April, around 83h)
5. Assassin's Creed IV : Black Flag (PS3) (Started the 25th of April, Finished the 29th of May, around 33h)
6. [Replay] Metal Gear Solid (PC) (Started the 29th of May, Finished the 5 of June, 8h32)
7. [Replay] Metal Gear Solid 2 : Sons of Liberty (PS2) (Started the 7th of June, Finished the 15th of June, 13h29)
8. [Replay] Metal Gear Solid 3 : Snake Eater (PS2) (Started the 18th of June, Finished the 29th of June, 22h25)
9. [Replay] Metal Gear Solid 4 : Guns of the Patriots (PS3) (Started the 29th of June, Finished the 8th of July, 18h44)
10. [2021] Metal Gear Solid : Peace Walker (PSP) (Started the 16h of July, true ending the 28th of July, 34h46)
11. [2021] Metal Gear Solid V : Ground Zeroes (PS4) (main mission done the 30th of July, 2h06)
12. Metal Gear Solid V : The Phantom Pain (PS4) (Started the 2nd of August, done the 20th of August, true ending in 63h)
13. [Replay] Final Fantasy X (PS2) (Started the 21st of August, done the 17th of October, 79h)
14. [Replay] Final Fantasy X-2 (PS2) (Started the 18th of October, done the 31st of October, 25h)
15. Odin Sphere (PS2) (Started the 1st of November, gave up the 15th of November, 20+ hours)
16. [2021] Radiant Historia : Perfect Chronology (3DS) (Started the 15th of November; done the 21 st of December, around 49h)

A modern JRPG classic !

An interesting plot revolving around time travel. At the beginning of the game, you make a choice which split history in 2 timelines. You can then time travel at will into them to advance their plots. Regularly you will be block by an obstacle in one of the timeline and will need to go into the others to unlock an item or new skill that will free you the way in the first one.
Often you'll have choice to do in the scenario that will lead to different path. But in 90% of case one of the choice continue the story and the other leads to a kind of "Game over" screen.

Sidequests are also resolved by time travel in a timeline or between them. It's quite well done and most of the time they are really interesting and surprising in their ending.

One of the downside of time travels is that you do a lot of backtracking and revisit several the same events (hopefully once you've seen once a cutscene, you can skip it) again and again. In plus, you never have access to the whole map. If you need to go back to a certain place, you have to

Another great aspect of the game : the combat ! Really simple but really addictive :
The enemies are always on a 3x3 grid. Your characters having several skill to move the enemies on the grid. When enemies are on the same square, you hit all of them. So your goal is to create combo to gather as much enemies as possible on the same spot and finish them quickly. Another feature allow to create big combo : the system is turn base and you can see the turn order but you can manipulate at will the order (at the cost of being more susceptible to take critical hit or status ailment). In practice you can let an enemy attack instead of one of your character to delay your turn to allow your characters to have several turns in a raw.
The fact that you select all your actions and then everything is perform in a quick succession really adds to the dynamism of combat.

Still on combat, buffs and debuffs are really strong, something I really appreciate in JRPGs.

A small downside : there is no "real" boss battle. I mean no huge and memorable boss battle. There are so "boss" but most of them feel like normal enemies and those which have boss' proportion are not memorable at all.

Music is not groundbreaking but really feels like a old classic JRPGs. But a bit short, you hear several times the same tracks.

A masterpiece ! I haven't unlock the true ending. I might continue playing it a bit for it.

What to play next :

I already started Demon's Souls on PS5. I'll now focus on Demon's Souls as a solo game.

I gave my PS4 to a friend and we do a lot of 3 men coop on Helldivers with another friend. A really nice tactical / action game and really addictive.

 

[Soodanim]

I’ve not been playing many games the last few months, outside of a few emulated bits and picking up Elex again here and there (but not enough to really comment on) and Streets of Rage 4 sessions which has become my podcast listening game (with the music off).

I don’t have much to add except that you lot are carrying the torch, so well done to everyone getting through their backlogs in small, large, or Delireman7 sized amounts.

 

[jufonuk]

Oops failed this. Got some new games that were old. Maybe count me in for 2022 my backlog grows lol

 

[InfiniteCombo]

PSA to all: I'll be creating the 2022 backlog thread on Sunday, December 26th. I'm working out the logistics with DGrayson ; there's a chance that this (the 2021 thread) may be closed once we migrate over to the 2022 one.

I'll have this in the OP of the 2022 thread for sure, but want to give a shoutout to all the usual participants who made this thread super awesome this year. Phase , DelireMan7 , Aurelius , Ryuji Goda , Bakkus , and VidKid369 . Extra shoutout to Soodanim for making me play classic Resident Evil nonstop, and Sidney Prescott for showing up from time to time and finally (for now), to our original fearless leader DunDunDunpachi -- wherever you are, bro, you've started a movement! If I didn't mention you in that brief shout out section and you felt I should have, (1) don't take it personally, and (2) I'll make up for it in the OP of the 2022 thread.

 

[Ryuji Goda]

Finished Arkham City (PS4). Now playing the Harley Quinn's Revenge DLC for the first time. I really like playing as Robin.

I really want to get all the Riddler trophies but it'll take so much time that I'm not sure if I will.

 

[LegionX]

This really has been an unusually slow year for me as far as video games go.. but here's a few more to add before the year wraps up

15. Mafia II - Definitive Edition (PS4)

This one was a game of two halves pretty much.... Of the 3 Mafia games it's the least impressive visually, as the first got a full remake, and the 3rd was a PS4 game to start with, but this one was a PS3 game that just got a quick upres... All up though.. I really did enjoy the campaign, I'm a sucker for a good story driven game and this one had a good one, plus kept me entertained with conversations between characters as you drive to missions etc. Being the Definitive edition it also included the 3 DLC campaigns originally released... these were where things really dropped off... It's like almost no effort was made on these as generally you'd get a cut scene starting the campaign, then literally nothing... until a cutscene after the final mission... between that was a bunch of barely linked missions that were literally a text screen on what they were about, rather than any cut scene or dialog... And most of the missions seemed way more glitchy and badly made... also... they reused the exact same locations you'd already been in during the main campaign..... Basically... if anybody is going to play this.. I recommend you play the campaign then ignore the DLC.....

16. Medievil (PS4)

This one I actually started in 2020 and got about half way through, put aside for a long time, and returned to to finish off this year.... It's the remake version of the original PS1 game... I'd had strong memories of playing the demo of the PS1 game from a Demo Disc back in the day but this is the first time I've actually completed the game. It's...... interesting.... It's kind of enjoyable, but equally, it's a very accurate to the original remake... in that the combat and movement is still kinda rough and has the same feel of the PS1 original... I'd have preferred a bit of tweaking personally... Other than that though, it performs well, never glitched out on me, and was a reasonably fun experience... but I can understand why the second game never got its own port

I'm off work for the rest of the year so the plan is to try to hit at least 20 games before the year ends.. even that will low for me... but we shall see! (I've got a few short ones that will make things easier too)

 

[InfiniteCombo]

Happy holidays, everyone!

The 2022 backlog thread has been created.

 

[Phase]

I updated the 52 game thread but not this one, so let's correct that. One more finished today for 59!


52. Star Wars Battlefront (2004) (PC) - 6hrs
I can see why this was so beloved. Wish I had played MP at the time, but the single player campaigns and galactic conquest are good fun.

53. Star Wars Battlefront (2015) (PC) - 8hrs
I don't understand how I miss games like these when they release. I guess I was busy in life, but damn this game is fun. Beautiful too. I'm sure at launch it was a different story, but the finished product is top notch.

54. Halo Infinite (PC) - 12th 20hrs
Really enjoyed the structured linear levels, but grew bored of the open world rather quickly. 343 finally made a Halo game that feels like Halo to me. Not as good as the original trilogy or Reach, but a solid entry far better than 4 or 5.

55. Halo 4 (PC) - 14th 4hrs
After dropping it on release, I decided to play through to the end for the first time. It was alright going in with lower expectations this time around, but there's still things I have issues with.

56. Halo: Reach (PC) - 15th 4hrs
Just as good as it was on day one.

57. Halo 3: ODST (PC) - 16th 5hrs
Another playthrough? Why not. It's wonderful.

58. Shadow Complex Remastered (PC) - 21st 8hrs
Very fun. Thanks for the recommendation jshackles. Five dollars well spent.

59. It Takes Two (PC) - 26th 11hrs
My brother his here visiting, so I finally got a chance to play through this one. Wonderful variety in mechanics, levels. Much longer than I expected as well.

 

[InfiniteCombo]

I updated the 52 game thread but not this one, so let's correct that. One more finished today for 59!


52. Star Wars Battlefront (2004) (PC) - 6hrs
I can see why this was so beloved. Wish I had played MP at the time, but the single player campaigns and galactic conquest are good fun.

53. Star Wars Battlefront (2015) (PC) - 8hrs
I don't understand how I miss games like these when they release. I guess I was busy in life, but damn this game is fun. Beautiful too. I'm sure at launch it was a different story, but the finished product is top notch.

54. Halo Infinite (PC) - 12th 20hrs
Really enjoyed the structured linear levels, but grew bored of the open world rather quickly. 343 finally made a Halo game that feels like Halo to me. Not as good as the original trilogy or Reach, but a solid entry far better than 4 or 5.

55. Halo 4 (PC) - 14th 4hrs
After dropping it on release, I decided to play through to the end for the first time. It was alright going in with lower expectations this time around, but there's still things I have issues with.

56. Halo: Reach (PC) - 15th 4hrs
Just as good as it was on day one.

57. Halo 3: ODST (PC) - 16th 5hrs
Another playthrough? Why not. It's wonderful.

58. Shadow Complex Remastered (PC) - 21st 8hrs
Very fun. Thanks for the recommendation jshackles. Five dollars well spent.

59. It Takes Two (PC) - 26th 11hrs
My brother his here visiting, so I finally got a chance to play through this one. Wonderful variety in mechanics, levels. Much longer than I expected as well.

Dude, you're a fucking beast.

I can only hope to complete half as many games in 2022 as you did in 2021. Holy shit.

It's not too often that I'm impressed by things in life. But your backlog burning capability is impressive. Respect.

 

[Phase]

Dude, you're a fucking beast.

I can only hope to complete half as many games in 2022 as you did in 2021. Holy shit.

It's not too often that I'm impressed by things in life. But your backlog burning capability is impressive. Respect.

Thanks! Much of it is due to how much free time I have right now. I wasn't expecting to play as many but I started getting into 2D games again after the summer. There are so many good ones that I missed.

How's your backlog going? I'm still going through the thread trying to catch up.

 

[InfiniteCombo]

Thanks! Much of it is due to how much free time I have right now. I wasn't expecting to play as many but I started getting into 2D games again after the summer. There are so many good ones that I missed.

How's your backlog going? I'm still going through the thread trying to catch up.

2D games... you're speaking my language

My backlog is going well all things considered. I got wrecked for a large part of the year with pretty high demands on the professional and social fronts, so I wasn't able to make as big of a dent into my backlog as I was hoping. But I've gotten around 25 or so games in since I made the 2021 pledge. I also like to delve deep into my games so they take me longer than it would take someone who just plays for the main campaign/story.

 

[InfiniteCombo]

+3. Current backlog completed count: 25.

As I mentioned above, I finished Yakuza 4. I'm in the middle of my Yakuza 5 playthrough but got distracted with getting Retro Achievements for a couple of games (shown below). "Mastered" (got the Platinum trophy for) two games.

Some of the achievements were actually quite tricky to get:

 

[DelireMan7]

I don't think I am going to finish another game this year so let's that be my closing post before moving to the new thread for 2022.

Another great year in gaming for me, not so much for my backlog since I bought more games than I beat from my backlog. I did many Replay this year and I don't regret it ! Had an awesome time with the Metal Gear Solid games and Final Fantasy X.

My game of the year (excluding replay) : Hollow Knight. A wonderful and atmospheric game with Dark Souls vibe. Amazing soundtrack, amazing combat, amazing exploration, charming character, cryptic story... In my Top 3 of all time. Will come back to it regularly in the coming years. And I can't wait for Silk Song now !

Summary :

My challenge :
No 2021 games . I can buy older game.

Physical Backlog :

• Lunar Silver Star Harmony (PSP) Done !
• The Legend of Heroes : Trails in the Sky (PSP)
• Rogue Galaxy (PS2)
• Odin Sphere (PS2) Gave up !
• Baldur's Gate : Siege of Dragonspear (PS4)
• Baldur's Gate 2 : Shadows of Amn (PS4)
• Baldur's Gate 2 : Throne of Bhaal (PS4)
• Assassin's Creed IV : Black Flag (PS3) Done !
• Baten Kaitos : Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean (Gamecube) Done !
• Zelda Ocarina of time (N64)
• Hollow Knight (PS4) Done !
• [Replay] Final Fantasy X and X-2 (PS2) Done ! and Done !
• [Replay] At least one SoulsBorne (PS3/4)
• [2021] Final Fantasy XIII (PS3)
• [2021] Project X Zone (3DS)
• [2021] Radiant Historia : Perfect Chronology (3DS) Done !
• [2021] Brigandine : The legend of Runersia (Switch)
• [2021] The Mark of Kri (PS2)
• [2021] Shin Megami Tensei Devil Survivor 2 : Record Breaker (3DS)
• [2021] Demon's Souls (PS5) Ongoing !

Games completed :

1. Rayman Origins (PS3) (started in Spring 2020, main story finished 5th of January 2021, coop with my 4 years old daughter, her first video game)
2. Lunar : Silver Star Harmony (PSP) (Started 1st of January, finished 17th of January, 25h56m)
3. Baten Kaitos : Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean (Gamecube) (Started 19th of January, Finished the 13th of March, around 67h)
4. Hollow Knight (PS4) (Started 26th of February, Close to platinum the 23rd of April, around 83h)
5. Assassin's Creed IV : Black Flag (PS3) (Started the 25th of April, Finished the 29th of May, around 33h)
6. [Replay] Metal Gear Solid (PC) (Started the 29th of May, Finished the 5 of June, 8h32)
7. [Replay] Metal Gear Solid 2 : Sons of Liberty (PS2) (Started the 7th of June, Finished the 15th of June, 13h29)
8. [Replay] Metal Gear Solid 3 : Snake Eater (PS2) (Started the 18th of June, Finished the 29th of June, 22h25)
9. [Replay] Metal Gear Solid 4 : Guns of the Patriots (PS3) (Started the 29th of June, Finished the 8th of July, 18h44)
10. [2021] Metal Gear Solid : Peace Walker (PSP) (Started the 16h of July, true ending the 28th of July, 34h46)
11. [2021] Metal Gear Solid V : Ground Zeroes (PS4) (main mission done the 30th of July, 2h06)
12. Metal Gear Solid V : The Phantom Pain (PS4) (Started the 2nd of August, done the 20th of August, true ending in 63h)
13. [Replay] Final Fantasy X (PS2) (Started the 21st of August, done the 17th of October, 79h)
14. [Replay] Final Fantasy X-2 (PS2) (Started the 18th of October, done the 31st of October, 25h)
15. Odin Sphere (PS2) (Started the 1st of November, gave up the 15th of November, 20+ hours)
16. [2021] Radiant Historia : Perfect Chronology (3DS) (Started the 15th of November; done the 21 st of December, around 49h)

 

[LegionX]

17. DOOM Eternal (PC)

Here's a game I literally pre-ordered.. and I'm only now finishing with it... quite poor form! I remember being very excited to get it back then, as I was a huge fan of DOOM 2016.... but then being disappointed by the changes they made and shelving it for quite some time... What I didn't like at the time was the added platforming sections, and also the way they made the game more complex by making it really important which weapon you use per enemy and having you constantly scrounging for ammo and almost being out of it, adding multiple extra mechanics you needed to do made it more like work than just a fun time running and jumping around the arena blasting at things.. so yea.. it was put aside... and I don't know if they tweaked things over time, or I just came at it from a different mindset, but when I picked it back up at about... 30% complete... everything seemed to flow better, and I wasn't having as big an issue with ammo, and wasn't constantly mistiming the platforming and falling to my death... so it was more of a good time... The issue I did have.. and I think this is a first for me.... is even though my PC is well above min specs (to the point I'm playing in 2K with everything on MAX), AMD this year decided to make my video card a legacy item, and I'm running the game with older drivers than it keeps telling me it requires.... so I bought the game when it was compatible, but now it no longer is... Anyways... that plus the version 666 update added a new challenge in that it started locking up every 10-15 minutes or so.... which became a royal pain to finish the game, as sometimes I got in to sections with big battles where I'd crash over and over during the battle before it auto saved, so progression became a challenge. Aside from that though, (and sorry for the wall of text) I did enjoy my time with it in the end