Your Games Completed of 2020

Placeholder. Not even Mart can have completed anything yet.

I've nearly finished Lovers In A Dangerous SpaceTime (co-op with Debs) and Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom though. Give me another day, two at most.

Ah, we were playing Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime this morning funnily enough, with three players. It's brilliant.

There's only two of us, so it's harder to divide up the work. We've stuck it on the lowest difficulty though, I don't think I'd be enjoying it as much if it was punishingly hard. No trophies tied to the difficulty thankfully, so I don't care.

Weirdly, Marit and I played it for the first time yesterday too, though we didn’t manage to play it for too long.

It was mildly tricky at times with two (three sounds ideal), so we’re considering dropping the difficulty in future, just to keep it fun/breezy, but we loved it. A really charming, smart little game.

First one of the year goes to me then: Life is Strange 2.

Absolutely phenomenal game. Well-written, genuinely emotional in all the right places, and smart enough to know that if you're going to write a story about two second-generation immigrants on the run in Trump's America, you're going to need to address some pretty political themes and do it head-on. I really cared about the characters in this game, and the way in which the nature of their relationship is based on a thousand tiny little choices you've made is brilliantly handled. In the end I didn't get the ending I expected, but it was clearly the ending I deserved.

Nooooo! I'm on the last boss of Monster Boy, but stopped to get the bus to the airport. Stupid flying.

Okay, finally (technically yesterday, so only four days off!):

JANUARY
Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom - A surprisingly strong and lengthy Metroidvania, far better than I ever expected (edited, it's not a remake!). Incredibly obtuse in places when it comes to finding everything and solving all the puzzles, I needed the internet in a few places to 100% everything. Fun though.

It's not a remake, it's an original game. You're thinking of Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap, I suspect.

My boy played through probably 90% of this but ultimately got too frustrated with it and never finished it. It looked pretty good from what I saw of it though.

It's not a remake, it's an original game. You're thinking of Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap, I suspect.

Oh, really? I genuinely thought both games were remakes. In that case, it'd explain why it's so expansive… but also makes me slightly less forgiving of its obtuse nature. Some of the puzzles to uncover the non-essential things are incredibly silly to solve. Mind reading isn't a thing, you can't just guess where some stuff is meant to be.

It also means some of the story beats, which I assumed were touchbacks to other games in the series, make absolutely no sense (even after reading about the Wonder Boy/Monster World games that this is an offshoot from, though there's definitely an Adventure Island reference in there which is convoluted fan service given the history). And neither does the ending, come to think of it, since it just winds up a running plot point in a completely odd way:

Spoiler - click to showThe green haired girl that the blue… thing is looking for all through the game just happens to be in the final boss room for no reason, even though she doesn't appear until the boss is beaten. So… was she the demon? It's not explained, they just have everyone smiling before it fades to black. She's definitely the hero of Monster World IV though, because the blue thing is her sidekick all the way through that.

I like the game slightly less now. Hmm.

Might actually keep up with this for once….

Tales of the Hearts - My first game down for the year is a little gem of a Tales game AND a Vita game, I think it might even be a good place to start the series in some ways, it's got everything that makes a Tales game a Tales game without any of the 'ambitious' stuff seen in Berseria, and it's not 80 hours long.

4 down…8 to go! Thank fuck I don't have to buy a Wii again to play Symphonia 2 and Graces.

Tangle Tower (Apple Arcade) – This was completely brilliant from start to finish, up there with some of the best point 'n' click games. The way it nudges you towards "a-ha!" moments is inspired. You never feel like it's holding your hand, but chances are you'll have made a connection 30 seconds before the game asks you.

It even manages something most other whodunnits don't – when the killer is revealed, you feel completely satisfied. It makes sense based on the information you've gathered, it's not a shark leap, and you don't feel short-changed. I think it's on other platforms too, thoroughly recommended.

I finished this on Switch over Christmas. Totally agree, it's great.

I got to the end of Mario Odyssey- not sure I really want to go back and find all the moons.

So it’s back to Mario and Luigi U - and god am I missing Cappy!

I got to the end of Mario Odyssey- not sure I really want to go back and find all the moons.

How many did you finish with? Because there are sooooooo many.

There are an awful lot. I think I reached the end with about 350 and kept playing till about 650.

I maxed out the counter at 999, though I definitely bought some from the shop. Even so, I'm pretty sure there are over 850-900 to collect.

EDIT: I looked, there are 880. You only need 124 to 'finish' the game though.

My son and I played Odyssey to death. We got 999 moons, but loads of them were purchased from the shop during a period when my son got obsessed with Luigi's balloon mini game. I think we actually found something like five or six hundred of the ones in the various worlds. We can't do that final final level on the moon at all though. Darker Side? Is that what it's called?

The boss rush on the moon is mental.

Yeah, that's Dark Side. We can't do that either. Darker Side is, instead of being a boss rush, more of an impossible bits of plaforming rush.

Darker Side was my last moon and that's the only time where a Mario game nearly broke me. I didn't give up, got there eventually, but man that was NOT fun.

I tried Darker Side five or six times, almost bit the controller and stopped. Each individual bit was easy enough, but stacked together like that a mistake was bound to slip through.

I hope they move away from Mario 64 / Odyssey style exploration for the next game. It just doesn't work as well as Galaxy-style levels, in my opinion. It makes for a very bitty game, infrequently wonderful but more often than not just a bit dull, as you hunt for the next thing to do.

Yeah, I’m not a fan of Odyssey really. There are so many moons it makes the game feel aimless, you mostly just wander around randomly hoping to stumble across something. I don’t think they’ve bettered Mario 64 really, that had plenty of scope for exploration but also clearly defined goals to work towards.

I loved Odyssey. My favourite Mario yet. My 7 year old daughter also loved it and reached the end (with about 250 moons). More please.

Sunshine is still my favourite.

…

…

…

… what?

That's the joy of Mario I suppose. It's flexible enough to accommodate those like me who prefer the pinpoint focus of Galaxy games, those like Brian who love the exploration of Odyssey, and those like Mart, who are crazy.

Super Mario 3D Land, the WiiU one iirc, was excellent imo

Sunshine’s my favourite too!

Super Mario 3D Land, the WiiU one iirc, was excellent imo

This is truth.

Apart from the fact it was called Super Mario 3D World. Land was the 3DS one (also excellent).

Odyssey is by far my favorite Mario game.

Apart from the fact it was called Super Mario 3D World. Land was the 3DS one (also excellent).

See, this is what happens when I try to reply while out playing Magic for the evening.

Yeah I knew I'd fuck that up so I had to cover my ass with the WiiU mention. Not played the 3DS one but heard good things, the other one was sooooo good though an I'd buy it again on Switch sorry not sorry.

I wish they would port 3D World to the Switch.

I think it’s nice for the Wii U to have ONE game that hasn’t been ported to the Switch.

(Though it’s likely to happen. The one that probably won’t make the jump is Pikmin 3, due to the control method).

The one that probably won’t make the jump is Pikmin 3, due to the control method.

Wonderful 101. Without question.

And Wind Waker. And Twilight Princess. And Skyward Sword!

Those are Wii games.

Skyward Sword will never work. The joycons don’t have anything like the motion precision of the Motion Plus Wiimote. And it wouldn’t be the same game without all the motion stuff.

W101, Wind Waker and Twiglet Princess were all on the Wii U. I'm very surprised we haven’t seen a Switch double pack of the last two, at the very least.

Ok, yep, getting my head back on.

I would like to play the upgraded Wind Waker someday.

I would like to play the upgraded Wind Waker someday.

It's great. Not just because it's WW, but also because it's got lots of 'quality of life' improvements that make it better than the GameCube version.

/checks current price of Wii U on ebay

/checks current price of Wii U on ebay

A few special edition ones were going for €30 in our Christmas merch sale. I'm sure there'll be some next year…

I have one with almost a complete set of games lying around. I can't face selling it for nothing, but I also feel guilty with it sitting about doing nothing…. So the next time I'm in Scotland I could drop it off for a loan. (I might be going to Aberdeen in Feb/March).

That would be awesome cav.

Dishonored 2

I'll be honest, I nearly ran out of patience with this in the first half, and had multiple brief(ish) hiatuses from it, but that was mainly my own fault - I always play these stealthily the first time through, trying to complete them with Low Chaos and spare everyone, which can make them stop-start and non-organic, and requires more than a few reloads (the Quick-Save and "Quick-Load" functions were a godsend, once I'd noticed they existed).

With that said, the game itself is great, blessed with the customary wealth of options in terms of approach, and brilliant level design allowing and encouraging said. I obviously limited myself by playing in the way I did, and will take a break now to try and get through some other stuff from the backlog, but am already contemplating a second (and possibly third) playthrough on New Game+, where I'll redistribute my skills to facilitate maximum Chaos/murderosity.

I played through Gris in about 5 hours yesterday.
Hmmn, what to say. It's a great experience, the hand drawn animation is beautiful, coupled with the symmetric backgrounds and splashes of colour. The story (what there is) is about loss and is quite emotional. Probably shouldn't put it this way, but it is very French.
There are some stand out moments but these don't feel that, well, earned.
Problem is that none of the platforming is hard enough, or the puzzles taxing enough. There's no way (I think) to die .I probably wont go back for a second playthrough to get all the collectables.

I played through Gris in about 5 hours yesterday.
Hmmn, what to say. It's a great experience, the hand drawn animation is beautiful, coupled with the symmetric backgrounds and splashes of colour. The story (what there is) is about loss and is quite emotional. Probably shouldn't put it this way, but it is very French.
There are some stand out moments but these don't feel that, well, earned.
Problem is that none of the platforming is hard enough, or the puzzles taxing enough. There's no way (I think) to die .I probably wont go back for a second playthrough to get all the collectables.

Yes, this. Lovely to look at, not nearly as rewarding as it thinks it is.

Everyone mark your fucking calendars, I finished a thing.

February
Untitled Goose Game - I didn't say it was an impressive thing…

January
Untitled Goose Game

It's February already.

I beat the main story of Nioh and a bit of the DLC, a game that got ignore as the potential best Soulsborne game for 'reasons'. Also some character stories from Sengoku Basara 3 but who cares tbh. Game still holds up though fuck yeah, first character I chose to play as was a female mercenary who both uses so many disposable pistols because it's 'ancient japanese tech' right (In the intro she's lying on a mountain of them) but also uses an Assault Rifle, a Shotgun and a Missile Launcher.