Beaten in 2019

[Cornelius]

1) Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance - GCN - 01/05

I don't finish a lot of games these days, but my son and I recently finished Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance on GCN. Pretty fun game. He played the archer character (as an archer) and I played the fighter. Archery was pretty clunky. Son was bummed that he leveled up slower, and we thought it was going to be longer, so wasted quite a bit of time deciding on the best stuff to keep and sell, when it turned out we never got the chance to sell again.

Started part 2 yesterday on ps2, and my first impression is that they made some minor improvements that make a big difference. (aiming and map controls for starters)

[Aussie2B]

1. Dance Dance Revolution: Disney Dancing Museum (N64) 1/7

I don't know if there's a longer mode that may have more of an ending than just credits, but in trying this game and the mat out, I saw the credits roll multiple times over as I played every song available in the regular single-player mode on Normal difficulty. So I'm counting that as beaten. Looking through the manual, I see there are a bunch more songs that can be unlocked, but I'll save that for another day since I was never planning on getting invested in this right now anyway.

[Cornelius]

1. Dance Dance Revolution: Disney Dancing Museum (N64) 1/7

I don't know if there's a longer mode that may have more of an ending than just credits, but in trying this game and the mat out, I saw the credits roll multiple times over as I played every song available in the regular single-player mode on Normal difficulty. So I'm counting that as beaten. Looking through the manual, I see there are a bunch more songs that can be unlocked, but I'll save that for another day since I was never planning on getting invested in this right now anyway.

Whoa, I never knew there was a ddr game on n64! That's cool.

[AceAerosmith]

1. Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal (PS2) 01/09/19
2. Onimusha 3: Demon Siege (PS2) 03/12/19
3. Uncharted: Drake's Fortune (The Nathan Drake Collection) (PS4) 03/20/19
4. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (The Nathan Drake Collection) (PS4) 04/01/19

[Cornelius]

1) Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance - GCN - 01/05
2) The Last of Us - PS3 - 01/10

This was a great game. I was eager to resume playing whenever possible. I really enjoyed replaying certain sections to do a better job, and yet other times I just got through parts because I wanted to continue the story, and didn't have regrets. I did miss some things that really made me want to re-play at the time, but now that I've finished, I'm just not ready to revisit the bleak. I get that way with bleak shows, too, just have to stop for a while.

[gbpxl]

1/15 - Advance Wars regular campaign beaten

[Cornelius]

1) Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance - GCN - 01/05
2) The Last of Us - PS3 - 01/10
3) Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap - Switch - 01/16

Fun game. I went through it pretty fast and used a guide. Overall pretty easy, and has me wondering about the SMS game's difficulty, so I'm hooking that up to try shortly.

[WulfeLuer]

1) Tales of Graces f (PS3)

Since I fried my PS3 and 360 (yay old power strips) I'm going through and starting fresh on my PS3 library. This is one still a lot of fun, and having a proper HD screen to look at helps the experience immensely. Far and away my best run, with a lot more stops for all the little extras and secrets that Tales does and actually using the tools and resources somewhat competently now.

[otaku]

1) Tales of Graces f (PS3)

Since I fried my PS3 and 360 (yay old power strips) I'm going through and starting fresh on my PS3 library. This is one still a lot of fun, and having a proper HD screen to look at helps the experience immensely. Far and away my best run, with a lot more stops for all the little extras and secrets that Tales does and actually using the tools and resources somewhat competently now.

honestly not much I keep dabling in games like right now these-
tomb raider's latest games
call of cthulhu xbox one

but can't find the time to finish them thanks to adulting and much of my gametime is spent on mmos and overwatch with the wife

[Cornelius]

1) Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance - GCN - 01/05
2) The Last of Us - PS3 - 01/10
3) Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap - Switch - 01/16
4) Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance - GCN - 02/13

I don't think I've ever really played a tactical RPG. It was pretty fun. I played on Normal difficulty, but kind of wished I played Hard. Then again, I really felt compelled to do the battles 'perfectly' (not really, I know it goes way deeper than I really care to venture), and restarted some due to stupid mistakes that didn't really matter, so on Hard that might have been even worse. Anyway, thumbs up. Pretty sure I have the Wii sequel, so I'll probably play that next. Plus my son likes watching and contributing, because he remembers a lot of details about stats and movement that I sometimes overlook.

[Aussie2B]

1. Dance Dance Revolution: Disney Dancing Museum (N64) 1/7
2. Magic Knight Rayearth (GB) 2/21

Having heard how short this game is, I decided to start it up in earnest. I began yesterday and had it polished off early today, so I'm sure it only amounted to a few hours. I've beaten some very short RPGs that only took me around 10-12 hours, but this one takes the crown for the shortest RPG I've beaten. But it's a very simple, basic game, so the length appropriately suits the level of depth. Any more and it would've worn out its welcome. As a Rayearth fan, I enjoyed it for what it is, and it's nice to have another beaten game under my belt despite barely having time to play lately.

[WulfeLuer]

1. Tales of Graces f (PS3)
2. Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning (PS3)

Now that is a proper time-eater there! It's not perfect; has lots of little bugs that can get very irritating (including one that renders the main quest unplayable if you don't know about it) and has some of the usual open-world RPG issues. But damn if isn't still a fun ride. A lot of the concepts were pretty refreshing, the combat was rewarding, and abilities tended to synergize very well without having to min-max. It's a shame that the dev decided to do the corporate two-step and destroyed themselves.

[Aussie2B]

1. Dance Dance Revolution: Disney Dancing Museum (N64) 1/7
2. Magic Knight Rayearth (GB) 2/21
3. Sesame Street: The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland (GBC) 2/23

This is hardly one to be proud of, haha. I was talked into playing this for a laugh during a hangout. I expected it to be mind-numbingly easy, so I put it on Hard, but that just left me wondering how much easier Easy could be. I blew through the whole thing in a matter of minutes.

So far, I'm three for three for licensed games. I gotta play some more normal games, haha.

[Aussie2B]

1. Dance Dance Revolution: Disney Dancing Museum (N64) 1/7
2. Magic Knight Rayearth (GB) 2/21
3. Sesame Street: The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland (GBC) 2/23
4. Skate or Die: Bad 'N Rad (GB) 2/24

I've been doing a good job hammering out some games these last few days while I've had some free time and been hanging out with friends and family. This one was, by far, the biggest struggle, and even then, it doesn't seem like I got the best ending? I wouldn't have even realized it if I didn't want to rewatch the credits online and saw a scene I didn't get. I don't know if there's some kind of glitch going on or if there are multiple endings and I didn't meet the condition for the best, whatever that may be. There's barely any info on this game, and I can't find anything about ending variations. Either way, it took a ton of practice just to beat the game at all, so I'm happy with that accomplishment.

[Aussie2B]

1. Dance Dance Revolution: Disney Dancing Museum (N64) 1/7
2. Magic Knight Rayearth (GB) 2/21
3. Sesame Street: The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland (GBC) 2/23
4. Skate or Die: Bad 'N Rad (GB) 2/24
5. Crayon Shin-chan 2: Ora to Wanpaku Gokko Dazo (GB) 2/25

Another one down (and yet another licensed game). I'm probably about coming to an end of the Game Boy games in my collection that I've yet to beat and can get a quick turnaround out of. I have about 10 still unbeaten, and they're ones I'm either not enthused about playing or they'll take a significant chunk of time. But I'm not done with Shin-chan for now anyway. This was more of a test run for me. It's no big thing to just blow through this and get the regular ending, so I'm working on beating the game with all 25 smileys. But it's good to first know precisely where the stages end, because it can be easy to advance to the next stage unintentionally before you've collected everything. I can get all five on the first three stages. I got four on stage 4 before I accidentally completed the stage. I've located four in the fifth and final stage, but I didn't have any left by the time I beat the boss. The final boss isn't hard, but it seems like it could be a little tricky beating him without taking a single hit (and thus losing a smiley).

[Steven]

First game I beat this year was Resident Evil Revelations 2. Missed out on it back when it first came out and really enjoyed it!

[Aussie2B]

1. Dance Dance Revolution: Disney Dancing Museum (N64) 1/7
2. Magic Knight Rayearth (GB) 2/21
3. Sesame Street: The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland (GBC via emulation) 2/23
4. Skate or Die: Bad 'N Rad (GB) 2/24
5. Crayon Shin-chan 2: Ora to Wanpaku Gokko Dazo (GB) 2/25
6. Sorcerer's Maze (PlayStation via emulation) 3/3

Another game we came across via emulation and I then ended up playing through the whole thing. These sorts of weird budget games are one of the reasons I love the PS1's library. I ended up ordering a legit copy to add to my collection. There's no denying that XS Games butchered a lot of the stuff they localized and gave them hilariously bad covers that didn't remotely match the content of the games, but I'm still glad they were around to localize this kind of stuff that would've stayed in Japan otherwise.

[Aussie2B]

1. Dance Dance Revolution: Disney Dancing Museum (N64) 1/7
2. Magic Knight Rayearth (GB) 2/21
3. Sesame Street: The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland (GBC via emulation) 2/23
4. Skate or Die: Bad 'N Rad (GB) 2/24
5. Crayon Shin-chan 2: Ora to Wanpaku Gokko Dazo (GB) 2/25
6. Sorcerer's Maze (PlayStation via emulation) 3/3
7. Castlevania: The Adventure ReBirth (Wii) 3/7

I started this back in December, but as is often the case for me in recent years, games that I think I'll blow through quick end up taking me months because I'll go weeks at a time between each of my play sessions. It's even likelier to be the case when it's a home console game. But despite playing it irregularly, it was a fun game, and it's always nice to knock out another Castlevania. There aren't too many left that I've never beaten, at least not among the ones I have any desire to play (couldn't care less about the Lords of Shadow sub-series). Now that I think about it, as surprising as it may be, considering I've had a Wii since shortly after its launch, this must be the first actual Wii game I've ever beaten. Virtual Console, sure, I've done that, but I have a pretty small collection of games actually developed for the Wii and have only really dabbled in them. Of course, this is just a WiiWare game, so that still leaves regular, retail releases.

[Aussie2B]

1. Dance Dance Revolution: Disney Dancing Museum (N64) 1/7
2. Magic Knight Rayearth (GB) 2/21
3. Sesame Street: The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland (GBC via emulation) 2/23
4. Skate or Die: Bad 'N Rad (GB) 2/24
5. Crayon Shin-chan 2: Ora to Wanpaku Gokko Dazo (GB) 2/25
6. Sorcerer's Maze (PlayStation via emulation) 3/3
7. Castlevania: The Adventure ReBirth (Wii) 3/7
8. McDonald's Monogatari: Honobono Tenchou Ikusei Game (GBC) 3/14

I gotta admit that this feels like a bit of a dishonest victory, haha. A little over a month and a half into the in-game year that this game lasts for, I didn't appear to have anything left to do. Maybe I'm missing something, considering I don't have the manual and am far from what one would consider fluent in Japanese, but it really doesn't appear to be the case. I maxed out the protagonist and all the staff members, and with no currency or items or anything, those seem like the only goals there are. It's probably no coincidence none of the files that were already on the cart were past that second month. So I just slept through the remaining 10 months, only checking email each day for invitations to the handful of special events. The ending didn't really acknowledge anything I had done, so it doesn't seem like it was a good or bad ending. Really, it seems like they developed the five mini-games based on duties at McDonald's and then threw them in something resembling a sim without taking the time to flesh it out. In a way, the execution of it all is even stranger than the concept itself. So even though I'm still scratching my head, I guess I'm finished with it. If there's some big underlying gameplay aspect I somehow missed, then I guess I won't know until when and if there's an English patch or FAQ for it.

[eskobar]

I suppose this is for Classic Games only but I saw a few PS3 games listed, so:

Mass Effect: Andromeda for PS4.

I preordered the Deluxe Edition of this game, I am fan of the series and this was the best reason to buy a PS4 ... the reality was that I didn't purchase a PS4 because I had better things to spend my money on and borrowed a PS4 from a friend and played ME4 for a few hours, really bad reviews and lots of crap thrown at it. This year I finally bought a PS4 because I also had Dragon Quest XI, another great reason to buy a PS4, and after a few hours with DQXI I decided to play MEAndromeda.

After a few hours getting used to verticality, I started to enjoy the game, it is an excellent game and enjoyed every one of the 85 hours that I played it. Really recommend it to fans of the series. Too much content, great gameplay and great story. The characters are not as good as previous games of the series but are ok.