I’ll hit up Guacamelee 2 this weekend.
It’s fairly rare I play a new game, but I’ve realized the last few recent games I’ve beaten are Axiom Verge, hollow knight and AM2R
Edit:
Really didn’t grab me that much. Like it was good, but not great. I started waaaay after launch though and the Switch came out soon after.
I actually agree on Link between Worlds. It made me want to play the original instead which is not a great sign imo. So while I found it to be a fun run-trough, and I did complete it, I never got the insane love it got when it released. And i played it then.
Trying hard to beat Gradius on the Nes, but always fuck up on the Moai-statues 
Guess I need another game to play as well.
I’m with you… Loved that game immensely.
I bought a special edition 3DS XL for that game and it was worth every penny.
Definitely isn’t as good as LttP, but still… it was great to see a Zelda game with a short intro and non-stop fun, even if it was a bit lacking in difficulty and atmosphere. Kind of like how NSMB was a fun throwback when it first came out. Doesn’t match the original, but harkens back to a time where things were simpler and in some ways better.
…it being a Zelda NSMB makes perfect sense… It’s even a 2D game with 3D graphics.
It has its own new ideas too though so steps a bit above the original NSMB in that sense.
Anyway I’ll get through it soon-ish.
NSMB series is underrated while we are on the topic. Just wanted to say that. It suffered from too many sequels, but the quality was there.
It just lost the feeling of shock-value that is pretty integral to the Super Mario platforming series in general. Not knowing what’s in store for each new level is part a Mario game’s charm. Being genuinely surprised by things to interact with is key. NSMB series kind of missed the mark on that where previous 2D Mario games were as surprising and delightful as the stuff in all the 3D games.
I still stand by the fact that they’re fun to pick up and play today.
I found NSMB2 in particular to be disappointing though. The lack of any meaningful 3D level gimmicks were such a missed opportunity compared to something like Kirby’s platforming games on the 3DS.
To me, beating games or selling games are equally good at clearing away the backlog, so I’m doing a bit of both.
Dropped dead cells once I got to the first boss, the concierge. He starts with slow, easy to dodge attacks, but as the fight goes on, literally nothing changes, he just starts going faster and faster. I feel like yackety sax was playing by the end of the fight. Hes also a huge damage sponge. One of the most frustratingly poor boss fights I’ve ever encountered.
Also going through Bloodstained: COTM. Originally only played 2 levels. Now I’ve beaten original mode and I’m on stage 6 of nightmare. Good game but compared to classicvania it’s a little easy to cheese it.
Yeah NSMB was great, lots of fun little details and enhancements but ultimately it was a modern game and nostalgia trip in one, which is no small feat. Sonic Mania is basically IMO basically NSTH, just ten years later on better hardware than the DS.
And the Wii game was truly something else with the multiplayer, one of the best (but most likely to lead to real world violence) multiplayer games I have ever played.
Too many sequels too similar quickly made by a panicking Nintendo was the issue, I skipped the next two altogether because I had no interest. Same with 3D Land and 3D world since they follow the same formula too (three big coins, flagpoles, standard ice/desert worlds etc), just in isometric 3D.
Oh man… 3D Land is superb. You should really consider playing that. 3D World is too, but I adored 3D Land. Just play it in 3D.
Yea… I can’t help but feel you need to correct that. 3D Land and 3D World are pretty darn great. I consider them a significant step up in quality over the NSMB series. They certainly play differently too.
They’re kind of a nice a blend of NSMB and the Galaxy games. But definitely have their own feel.
EDIT: I wrote awkwardly above, I actually did play 3D Land - 100%ed it even that insane final final level.
The point was, they all uses the same formula. I liked 3D Land, but it contributed to my feeling of Mario burnout. When I picked up 3D World and NSMBU when I got a Wii U (late) I was very meh at both because they both had the exact same structure (overworld map with the same look and generic Mario settings, flagpoles, big coins etc) as three games I had already played through.
Mario never had a fixed formula before - Mario 1 had flagpoles, 2 had veggie picking and a new setting, 3 added the overworld, more non-linearity, non-action sections, and much more level variety. 4 was an evolution of 3 but a big expansion and was the first to have a real whole sense of place. Yoshi’s Island was obviously a whole new thing, as was 64. Sunshine had a completely new setting, Galaxy was a whole new thing again.
Then we had SIX Mario games almost in a row (with Galaxy 1 and 2 also there early in the sequence) with the same basic settings, story, and same basic in-level structures of every level. It was just too much and I was done with it, for the first time in 30 years of Mario, I didn’t finish three of the games (barely played U and never even bought NSMB2)
Quality wise 3D World is obviously better than NSMB1, but NSMB1 was a fresh retro throwback in 2006, 3D World was just another one in 2013, context is the key.
Even the titles inform this truth - essentially all are just ‘hey it’s another similar Mario’. I’ll never fail to SMH at the genericness of the title ‘3D World’ and how it’s also a false statement when it’s not in 3D (in the sense for which 3D Land was named).
I felt that that was a big reason why a lot of people seemed down on NSMBU when I felt it was the best one in that style. I am also very bias since I fucking love the switch back to a more “intricate” world map system instead of just the straight path of levels that the level select had been for a while. While I don’t think that that would increase my enjoyment of the gameplay of the levels themselves my love of cool maps is pretty high.
Yeah same thing. Lots of people talk about NSMBU being great, but I’ll probably finally give it a go in five to ten years when the burnout of that formula has faded.
Same thing with the Igarashi Castlevanias, I generally liked them well enough to start with but burned out on them after five in a row on GBA/DS (plus the PS2 games which while 3D had the same crap flat level design, ridiculous but self-important storytelling and levelling/loot cruft core loop) and never played through Ecclesia, which is supposed to be better, but at the time the first hour felt exactly the same and I put it down and never came back.
Maybe I’m more sensitive than most to lack of innovation?
Funnily enough I was super excited for Odyssey due to it having new ideas, new gameplay ideas and crazy new settings, and loved playing through the main story, but found it disappointing due to too loose a design, ended at 600 moons or so. They went too far in the opposite direction from the rigid NSMB/3D formula.
Anywhoo, so none of those games will be on any completion plans for me 
Maybe I could try Ecclesia…
Ecclesia is amazing. The best of the GBA/DS-IGAvanias imo.
I am also a big fan of the NSMB-series. Well except NSMB2 which felt pretty flat. But the three other games all had their merits:
DS-game: Fantastic throwback
Wii-game: Four player mayhem, great level design
Wii U-game: Even better level design imo, and return of the World-map. The Luigi-expansion is also great.
With the 3D-games, I found 3D Land to be decent, but pretty bland, while 3D World imo has some of the best levels designed in any Mario-game ever - and might be my favorite of them all (after World). But I guess my view on that is clouded somewhat by having played it alot with my son, forcing me to play and replay the levels and at the same time growing to appreciate the level design on a whole other level from earlier Mario-games.
So I would recommend playing Ecclesia, 3D World and NSMB U - and skipping 3D Land and the other NSMB-games for now. Guess you were just really unlucky with your choices there D.Lo 
Competed Super Bomberman last night, which marks the first game I’ve competed on my SNES Classic. Great little system for emulation!
I had an idea after I completed it that others might appreciate.
I pressed reset on the credits screen and saved that state in slot 4 for that game. Every time I complete a game, I’ll keep a save state of the credits rolling.
Edit:
Finished two more games today… Productive day!
Super Bomberman 2: Holy crap the last boss is a pain in the ass… I think it took about an hour of attempts. Once you’re out of lives and you have to continue, you start on the last boss with nothing… It makes it very difficult to kill the three stage boss with only the power-ups you get during the boss fight.
Sonic 1: Had a few attempts at the last boss, other than that it was pretty smooth sailing.
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I’ve been taking screenshots at the completion of games since I got back into retro gaming on actual hardware again, but posting up here as well will be more incentive to clear my backlog of games.
This one is slightly cheating as it was completed over a week ago and we were discussing it in the RGB Discord channel… Secret of Mana:
This was a replay for me as I had completed this when it was originally released in the UK (PAL) and played in 50htz. Recently purchased an NTSC/U cart and just felt like replaying through it.
Secret of Mana is still a fun game, but the battle system now feels somewhat clunky especially with enemy invincibility frames and the game can be somewhat glitchy at times.
I spent a bit more time on this play through going after a 100% completion, however due to the silly low drop rates of level 9 weapon orbs getting any of the weapons to level 8.99 was impossible since I was already beyond level 70 by the time the first few dropped and by the time I had gotten the very last weapon orb I required I was already capped at level 99 which meant enemy kills give negative points towards their level…
Oh well at least magic level was capped at 8.99.
Then I moved onto Chrono Trigger which I recently repaired.
I had never owned this before and while I had played it a little via emulation I had never gotten very far.
I pretty much blasted through the game in just over a week and have enjoyed every minute of it.
I avoided fighting Lavos until I had completed all the side quests, though I have probably missed a few items along the way and I did not save Lucca’s mother.
I do somewhat wish you could see the effect you had on the future after beating Lavos. Maybe like at the end of Ys III where you could go around talking to everyone in town before exiting to the credits.
I know there are several endings which I’m looking forward to obtaining at another time and out of curiosity I quickly checked out a bad ending:
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Great idea with the screenshots.photos for finishes. Like great idea generally even!
I finally started playing Breath of the Wild! See you all back here in 8-9 months when I finish it … IF I finish it.
It’s seriously great, though. I bought it a recent digital sale and waited a while to start it because I felt like I’d need 3-4 hours to get into the meat of the intro and a good stopping point. (I often only have like 45-60 min to play most nights). I was just shocked when Link woke up, grabbed a shirt and pants and … that was it. I was in the game.
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Congrats on completing Chrono Trigger. It’s still one of the games I think about most when I think about the capabilities of the medium in general.
How video games as an industry evolved from simple toys to something like Chrono Trigger in just a few short decades is such a marvel. It’s an example of how a great game can transcend the limitations of its target hardware and become so much more when the dev team has a coherent vision.
Even today, I cannot think of a game that is more well paced and charming than Chrono Trigger even if some come close. It hits its high notes in stride and there’s very little downtime or unlikeable elements.