I knew it had been a while since I updated this but I didn't realize I was so far behind:
68. 1 Screen Platformer - 08/02/19
In 29 minutes I completed the game on normal with all four characters and ran through one of the character's hard modes. Since the map doesn't change per character I have no reason to bother with the other characters. And there's two bugged achievements. If they fix those maybe I'll finish runs with the other three on hard just to get all achievements. I think it was like $0.50 and for around half an hour of entertainment it's worth it. And it was a nice throwback to the Xbox Live Arcade Platformance series.
69. Overchunked - 08/03/19
Counting this as completed as I got every achievement in 95 minutes. It's just a score attack style game but since I got the max score achievement that's good enough for me. It's not a particular great score attack game but I put on music and it was kind of nice to just zone out and aim for the score achievements. This goes on sale frequently for under a dollar and it's
fine but there's honestly more entertaining options around the same price.
70. Do Not Feed the Monkeys - 08/04/19
Finished in 3:03 with the Enlightened Ending. And 15 minutes of that time was me restarting after getting a good grasp of how the game played. It's weird addicting but also kind of fiddly and frustrating at times. And I guess I expected the ending to be better but whatever. Neat game that is actually more of a detective style game than I had expected. If you like games with fake OSes and use the game's systems to figure out story stuff (similar to the Orwell games). Just add in more time management and minimal life sim elements.
71. Pantsu Hunter: Back to the 90s - 08/04/19
Finished with 100% completion in-game and all achievements in 3:54. Fun adventure/visual novel sort of thing. The first three stories were amusing with some good humor because of all the ridiculous different endings. Most the game is clicking things in the environment with light dialogue and a smattering of choices to be made. Finding the right path to the true ending is the fun part. The last story was pure visual novel with just loads of writing and only a small amount of choices. Anyhow, silly game but despite the rough translation the humor is what helped keep me going.
72. Rose of Winter - 08/04/19
Finished both the good and bad paths for the Fae storyline in 46 minutes. There's no true ending to work towards so I'm not sure if I'll bother checking out the other paths. What's better than making out and having sex with a little man that's six inches tall? Just a real quick visual novel from the folks that did Ghosts of Miami, which was ultimately much more interesting in the time I spent with that. The only reason I may go through the other paths is for the achievements but the setup and obvious payoff for the other paths doesn't really feel like it'll be worth it.
73. Yakuza Kiwami - 08/08/19
Completed on normal in 17:18 with Majima rank E and 35.94% completion points. I did a smattering of extra stuff but largely I was rushing through the game since I spent so much time on Yakuza 0 earlier this year. Kiwami is still a solid game but I'd say 0 was overall better in most ways. One thing I did like more in Kiwami was how boss characters would power up and you had to have the matching style and heat to stop them. Added a small layer of strategy from zero. But ultimately, in terms of design and content, 0 felt like a successor to this game (for good reasons, of course).
74. Prey - 08/13/19
Finished on hard in 29:44 with only human powers and no human kills. Fantastic game! Arkane is easily one of my favorite developers after going through all the Dishonored games and now Prey. Prey is a really complete experience with it feeling well designed and incredibly dense. If I had to make any sort of complaint it would have been nice if a few more characters were fleshed out more but I really didn't even think about that while playing and it's more just fishing for ways it could have been different. Oh, and fuck the Nightmare. Anyhow, great game and I'm looking forward to checking out Mooncrash for something different in the same world.
75. Prey Mooncrash - 08/18/19
Finished in 12:57 with all contracts complete. A couple spots that required in the mid-to-late game was a little annoying but ultimately a really good game that was a smart compliment to the main game. It's more combat focused and fast paced which was interesting and I got to sample more typhon powers. Completing all the unique stories and then the final run to get all five characters to escape in a single cycle was fun to work out. Probably one of my favorite expansions/DLCs for a game.
76. Recore - 08/31/19
Finished in 8:40. Went from me having a fairly good time with some occasional frustrations and complaints and then the last dungeon came along. Oh man, fuck that. And this is after all the great changes made with the Definitive Edition. I can’t even imagine playing through it before that. I would have given it a 7 up to that point but now it’s like a 5 out of 10 and I never want to touch it again. Thankfully that last dungeon got easier around halfway through and I was able to blaze through the last half. Some solid ideas if they somehow made a Recore 2 with a bunch of sequel refinements it could be a really great time. But ultimately this felt like what I’d expect a (higher budget) Xbox Live Arcade game would be like for the current generation.
77. Ghosts of Miami - 09/01/19
Was surprised I got the ending when I did since I thought there were five cases but there were only four. Finished in 4:06 which included playing cases multiple times until I found the right paths and options to close the case. Got the romance ending with Tala and the story ending with Lucho. There may be something like a true ending but it's kind of unclear in the achievements and it seems I'd have to unlock every romance option which largely means replaying every level with every path and it's not the friendliest game in tracking all that. I liked the writing and tone but not the best VN. Relies on trial and error occasionally, replaying cases isn't as quick as I'd like, and since you pick which locations to search when the game does a bad job adapting. I'd meet a character in one location and have a whole scene to run into them again and the game not recognize we had met so we act like complete strangers that go through introductions and nonsense again. It's still decent and a nice change of story/tone from other VNs but it's not without problems.
78. Gears of War 4 - 09/05/19
Finished in 9:41 with 29/50 collectibles. Played on Hardcore with the first two acts solo and the last three acts in co-op with
bbq of doom. It was a pretty good time! Nothing amazing, and I imagine improved by being in co-op, as these games tend to. A few areas of frustration, and a computer issue with Nvidia drivers (I think that was the case?) that made it so textures would get progressively more crazy the longer a game session went, but otherwise I had fun in what was otherwise Yet Another Gears of War. It didn't really feel like it did much new and I expected way more weather stuff. Instead the reliance on horde mode sections felt a little like filler to get the game out and mechanically nothing really changed. The one-off things did add some nice variety but it was just a solid shooter and a nice return after having not played the series since Gears of War 3. And now a new one awaits!
Big post but I've been posting less so this slipped my mind and I thought I was only behind by like four games. Right now I've got two different Backlog Blitzes I'm in, so that's ten games over four months (completed one above already), my own monthly list of games I picked (though many overlap in the Blitz), and then all the new stuff coming out. I'm juggling Control and Gears 5, though neither are on the aforementioned lists. And this month I still need to go through Watch Dogs 2 (and maybe Watch Dogs). So much stuff!
