Scratched Off 301-400
Keep on beating video games in the free world.
List items
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4*, an absolutely essential mobile game.
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4* The ending is a bit of a fart, I never felt fully comfortable with the combat, and there's a lot of what sure feels like fetch quests. But most of the writing is on point, the world is a blast to explore, and if you've played most of these games there will be a lot of fun referential "Lore shit" for you to enjoy here.
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4*. Yeah, you should probably play this. Maybe because I played through every single other 3D Zelda game prior to this, but the "revolutionary" parts of OoT felt fairly ho hum. We should all probably give this at least a try. (Finished on a 3DS)
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4* Story really becomes a bit of a nonsense by the end, which led to the ending feeling a little flat. But the part where you play Hitman is still some of the best gaming I've ever had.
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4*. Some ehh, one very bad trial, some kinda gross treatment of mental illness, and I think the "cornered" theme here doesn't hold a candle to the original. But it's like one pip down from the first Phoenix Wright on the whole, and that game is so good.
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3*. A little aimless and self-indulgent, like a more horrifying Proteus. But the look is absolutely fantastic.
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4*. It's (for a JRPG) brief, it's simple, it's a little ugly, and if you're honest you're just playing it to import your save to Suikoden II. But the reasonably well told tale of revolution combined with some Pokemon catch-em-all flavor meld together alright here.
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5*. I really like Metal Gear Solid 2.
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5*. Best Myst of 2019.
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4*. When your largest complaint against a game is that it's a 2D platformer that doesn't let you use the directional pad for movement, you know you've done something good. Nice to see Swery depict queer characters in a shall we say more nuanced way than in the past.
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4*. Yeah, it's alright. Some genuine head scratchers here, god help you if you're trying to blindly beat all of the challenges.
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3*
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2*. The final level/boss/gauntlet shit in this game is horrendous, among the worst things I've seen in a square game. I say this having played 24 hours of Unlimited Saga.
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4*. I agree in general with criticisms about its occasionally vague goals and wonky controls, but this is one of the most charming games I've played in years. A few belly laughs and plenty of well measured chuckles, including the final gag.
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3*, but a soft 3. The game's greatest strength is its brevity, getting its flavor across with very few tools in very little time. That said, the core mechanic of shooting sucks chungus and I found the final boss section to be incredibly tedious.
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4*
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4*.
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3*
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4* Way better than you've heard, I think this game got a bad rap. I don't love the Warzone multiplayer thing but regular as Halo multiplayer is as good as ever and I think the campaign was actually a blast.
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4*
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4*
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2* Last game beaten in 2019. 40 games beaten in 2019.
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3* First game beaten in 2020. Feels like a very high production PS2 game, with tiny level segment chunks and repeated assets all over the place. An easy 1000 points.
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4*
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4*. Maybe better than Night in the Woods.
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3*. Played ten hours or so, waaaaay too much shit to do in this game. Restarted, hit the secret ending in 15 minutes or so. It's fine.
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4*. Wonderful bite sized races with Aesthetics.
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4*
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5*. Just very, very fucking good. Didn't think it would hold its own against my beloved VI but it do.
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4*.
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4*.
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3.99* The last level is basically a rail shooter! It's loaded with some of the absolute Nomura garbage you ever did see but it's by no means a bad game.
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4*
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3*
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2*
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4*. If all of the levels in Half-Life 2 were this tight and punchy I would be enjoying the game a hell of a lot more.
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4*. Long, empty, boring levels buoyed by dated gimmicks. Good mood and I like the last two levels quite a bit.
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3*. Short, janky physics exercise.
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4.99*. Too actively bad in places to be a real 5* (those hallway crawly monsters), but I love it with my whole heart.
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5*. Goty.
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1* King of Kusoge Carnival 2020! An inexplicably bad control scheme on a 20 minute long game that cost $50, published by Rockstar! WOW!
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2*. Cheaply made garbo rhythm game, and I am a garbage person for trying to set a WR on it.
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2*. Long sigh.
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4*. EVEN LONGER SIGH. A SIGH TO FILL AN OCEAN.
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4*. An exceptional effort from a company that deserves better.
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2*. Tack on a star or so if it's the early 90s and you're playing this on an arcade. As a console experience, it is poor.
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4*. The fifth level is filled with bullshit. It's a style exercise, but what a style exercise it is. The Genesis port is also insanely good for its day, though it is wild seeing little load time hitches for a one megabyte cartridge.
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4* Rolled credits, huh? Good, great Animal Crossing game marred yet again by Nintendo's Internet shit being stupid, stupid, stupid.
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3* As North American launch fodder it's okay. Hang-On is the better game on the pack in. Once you are fully powered up you can pretty well truck this game in one sitting, maybe ten minutes to roll back to the first level. Reasonably fast, nice sprites. Outdone by the likes of Star Soldier on the competing Famicom, which came out a few months earlier.
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3* Hard to argue with the price. A little glitchy on Windows 10, perhaps? A curio.
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5* I love this deeply flawed game. The final boss battle is just bullshit. The story requires some outside help to full piece together, even though parts of it are spoiled within the game's encyclopedia thing. I love the music. I think Squall has an arc. I think the Junction system leads to some really fun fuckery.
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2*. Repetitive, ugly, and frankly a bit racist.
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3* Ehhhhhhhh. Brief, noble attempt to tell a story about grief and loss. But it makes you play two player Diablo the entire time, which is never comfortable. I get that it's, like, a metaphor, man, or whatever but it is also not fun to play.
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4* Hard to argue with puzzle combat.
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4*. One of the better Super Scaler conversions to the Mega Drive. The "original" mode RPG thing is tough and too repetitive for its own good, but you get to listen to "Outride a Crisis" the whole time so, hey.
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3* The story is an idiot. The levels are long. It does the whole "fake Soviet bloc shitbox country" setting thing that cheeses me off a little more every time. That said, guns sound real good. Like, every single firearm in this game sounds illegal.
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3* You can really feel the formula starting to collapse on itself here. Everything added from Brotherhood feels superfluous. While the idea of setting the game in Istanbul near the height of the Ottoman Empire is rad, the town is sort of an endless beige mess and the Ottoman court all feel half-baked. Combat's also either way too easy or "this feels busted" hard. It's, a mixed bag.
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1* Miserable to play, dismal visuals, lazy racist shit larded throughout. Buoyed only by a few sight gags.
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2* Thing just fucking drags on, ends with an escort mission, tedious environmental puzzles. The first level where you're primarily fiddling with the gravity gun is alright but this thing then flies right off a cliff. Not like.
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3* I get it, the controls are weird. But they're also a little too cludgy at times, particularly when the game decides to throw a laser maze at you. I clipped through a wall at one point which necessitated repeating one such section. Huzzah! That, plus some "sneaky Japanese chef with ninja smoke bombs" style racism sorta mar what's otherwise a fun altered state simulator.
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3* It's fine. I won't be playing any more entries in the Pokemon series, that's for sure.
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4* That might be low. Basically all of the content of Ridge Racer and Ridge Racer Revolution, plus an exclusive new track, all running smoother than 99% of the rest of the N64's library. It's excellent.
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4* Assembled in about six months and designated as the first PSX game ever by serial number in Japan, Ridge Racer still holds up. It's basically one track with two variations (four if you count mirrors), and a baker's dozen cars. Slim, but it's all good to great stuff. Symbolically the beginning of Namco's "second golden age" in the 90s.
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3* I can appreciate the thing it was doing, providing a pretty wild open ended story full of gray choices. But at a certain point the overwhelming beige color palette, the "but these people also *also* suck!" plot, and endlessly bad gunplay did wear me down. A lot, in fact, as this game is large. The Utah add-on didn't exactly blow my mind either.
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4*. I "beat" this years ago, it turns out. Put this into my N64 and everything is unlocked except the purchasable female sex worker (how funny!) and most of the story mode is beaten. I also don't think this game is that good and you shouldn't seek it out in 2020, but between having some fun making Stan Hansen and the hundreds of hours of middle school time put into No Mercy I have to give it a whole extra star.
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3* The video game equivalent of milquetoast now. A semi-impressive early N64 racing game with a surprising amount of customization, none of which gets over the Tonka Truck-ass racing model. Four tracks with a handful of shortcuts and some weather effects, not to mention Dat Fog.
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4* Surprisingly poignant and meditative game about the death industry. I'm already up on that Order of the Good Death/Death Positive stuff so nothing really got me there. What got me were some examples of "ludonarrative harmony" where the gameplay and the story combined into something greater.
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4* Yeah the online is still messy, chaotic fun. Too bad parts of it are weirdly gated by progress elsewhere in the game. The campaign component is also a bit too much.
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3* Certainly a step down from the first two of this reboot trilogy. Story is a little more gonzo, setting and trappings feel exploitative even for the series, and there's "Ubisoft creep" out the yinyang. Still fine if you want an Uncharted-esque adventure on rails. Also looks pretty good.
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3* It's fine. Very light game, style over substance, all of that. If you're into this period of history (a large English speaking audience, I'd reckon) you'll probably get a chuckle or two.
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5* Fantastic campaign, makes Halo 4 seem even worse in retrospect.
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4* Not anything particularly wrong with it, just think it doesn't quite measure up to Katamari Forever. Also bummer that parts of the game are paid DLC, a road they did not go down again thankfully.
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3* Belongs in the same tier as Octodad and other "things to do while high" games. It's a toy. The arbitrary nature of the art adjudication is one of the more infuriating padding mechanisms I've encountered in a while, but taken on the merits of a fractal art prompt generator and a tools-limited mspaint clone it's neat. Also AESTHETICS, even if that old chestnut has been worn thin by now.
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3* Just an astounding mess. Over designed, bloated, inscrutable, posits answers to questions about Chrono Trigger that were ultimately better left unanswered. But as the apotheosis of late 90s Square it's worth witnessing. Just abuse Diminish like a champ and fly through it. The soundtrack is the best on its platform, maybe its generation.
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4* Some fiddly concerns aside (wish it had native flight stick controls for fiddling around, dragon seems a little big), this is a pretty good remake of a triumphant game.
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5* VERY HEALTHY AND TASTY TOO GRANNY CREAM'S HOT BUTTER ICE CREAM
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3* People really like this, huh? It's like every single complaint levelled against Deadly Premonition applies here, except the world's a few corridor-esque levels with about 95% less charm. Technically fine but I was thrilled to roll credits.
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4* Maybe not the most compelling film, but the choose your own adventure mechanics were straightforward and made for great pass and play with the esposa.
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5* Just fucking phenomenal stuff. Forgot how dumb action thriller movie the plot gets in this game. Jesus Christ. This game rules.
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4* Fun little puzzler. Final beaten game of 2020.
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3*. Yep, not my favorite thing! But it's fine! First game beaten in 2021.
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4* Still a wildly looking game on 360.
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5* A great sendoff by Nintendo for the DS line, and a fine compilation of Wario nonsense to boot.
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4* A brave game, pioneering first person platforming and managing to hold up even for its age.
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3* Not exactly "good", but as an import game with Vibes it's phenomenal. Only one bit where Japanese language skills are necessary; shoot the sign on the last level for the kill.
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4* In some ways a better video game than its predecessor, but in others I feel it is missing something. Yokosuka as a place where every drawer in every apartment had useless junk was amazing. Here they went for scale, and it winds up feeling a lot more shallow. Once Ren shows up the game gets dramatically more enjoyable.
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4* Here again as "Bowser's Fury" doesn't have a separate entry and that's what I beat. It's a neat idea though the specific implementation of Bowser gets a little tiresome and I am not as enamored with OMG OPEN WORLD MARIO as a concept than most. 3D World is still fucking incredible.
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3* Rah rah mil sim rah rah. As a thing to play with friends while talking about anything but the game, which is pretty bullet spongy and BIG MOLON LABE ENERGY, it will definitely do. I sure played a lot of this!
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