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Oh man, I beat a bunch of games between Yotei and the end of the year that I hadn't posted about: Star Fox 64: Starship - This is a PC port of Star Fox 64, played it on my CRT, was a cool fun time. Grade: B+ Majora's Mask Recompiled - This is a PC port of Majora's Mask, also played on my CRT. I think this game is slightly overhyped, the time loop mechanic was a cool idea but it did mean I didn't engage with the world as much as OoT because stuff would get reset instead of sticking and going through the steps to bring it back to the new state was too time consuming to bother with. Grade: A- Dead Letter Dept. - Creepy supernatural horror game about being a dude whose job it is to type the addresses from envelopes that the computer can't read on its own. Cool and short, definitely recommend. Grade: B Faceminer - Clicker game about training an AI to recognize faces. Interesting, though unsubtle. Grade: B Kaizen: A Factory Story - Puzzle game about setting up assembly machinery in a Japanese factory in the 80's, from some ex-Zachtronics devs. Fun, though not as good as some of the Zach games I might compare it to (specifically Opus Magnum). Grade: B Q-Up - Not actually a clicker, but in the same vein, made by the creator of Universal Paperclips. It's a satire of e-sports, where the sport is just coin flips that you have no control over, so it's perfectly balanced. The game part comes in setting up scores and things to raise your matchmaking rank regardless of the outcome of the flips. I'm glad it has an end and isn't a real forever game, because it's pretty addictive. Grade: A

Add games you beat as you beat them. And remember, if you don't post about beating it, it doesn't count as beating it. Dragon Quest I HD-2D Remake Didst thou best thee worst Dragon Quest? Thy deeds are those of a hero, indeed! And let none say otherwise. Right glad I am that thou didst finish thy RPG? Sure. No but seriously, the whole 1 character thing is hard to pull off in this day and age, I don't envy Square Enix's position here. Change too much and the hardcores will riot. Don't change enough and you've created a tough experience for anyone else to get into. Personally, I would have had Princess Gwaelin become a party member after you rescue her, as she talks the whole time after that. As it is, with only one party member but not a very deep combat and levelling system, you end up with a pretty frustrating game where you spend a lot of your turns healing yourself and then attacking, repeat. The final dungeon of the game is also rich with liquid metal slimes, so you end up getting way over levelled by the final boss, even without trying to farm them. Fortunately the game doesn't overstay it's welcome and you're able to power through it pretty quickly. I just wish they would tone down the old timey speak, jfc. Onwards to Dragon Quest II HD-2D!

Starting off the new year with some highly anticipated titles:

Nightmare Reaper What a pleasant, addictive surprise this turned out to be. I thought it was a roguelike because of procedurally generated levels but it really isn't despite what the store page claims. You don't lose progress when you die other than dropping your currently carried guns and having to start the current level over, so you'll never drop your hard earned coins for the upgrade shop or get sent all the way to the beginning. Good thing too because this game has roughly 90 levels. They all take maybe 5 to 10 minutes to beat, not counting the battle arenas that you do on the side for arena coins. My final playtime when I finally put it down clocked in at 33 hours. The real star of the show here is the guns. Yes, the game uses sprite and voxel graphics so the guns aren't super detailed but the sound design on them is immaculate and enemies explode into showers of blood and gore so pretty much all of them feel great to shoot and there's a ton of variety to boot. I actually lost count of how many weapon types there are, though they all fall into the melee, light, heavy, or magic category. It's not just your typical pistol, shotgun, sniper, smg rotation either. Those are all in there, sure, but then you get things like spell books, a scepter that summons meteors, pirate cannons, a scrap cannon, a howitzer, a black hole gun, a railroad spike launcher, a mini nuke, a god damn orbital laser, and much much more than I can possibly list here. The store page on steam claims there's 80 weapons and I have no reason to doubt that. On top of already having 80 weapons, each one you pick up comes with modifiers so they'll function differently. It's kind of like Borderlands in that sense, but the modifiers aren't just passive stat increases and they can wildly change how two versions of the same gun feel to use. I found all kinds of crazy combos. My go-to starter gun in the second half of the game was a magnum that fired electric stun bullets and had 675% knockback, but the most memorable gun I found was probably the smg that fired flaming, explosive piles of poo with every shot. You just never know what you'll get. As if that wasn't enough, your character gets a lot of upgrades too. You'll start off fairly weak and squishy but by the end I was double jumping, grappling, air dashing, and even kicking back enemy projectiles. It's a ton of fun. My only real criticisms are the ending (at least the one I got) is pretty anticlimactic and sometimes I got lost in a level for several minutes trying to find the key I needed to progress. These levels can be full of big, open spaces sometimes and keys aren't marked on the map so you have to hunt down their little glowing sprites which can sometimes feel like looking for a needle in a haystack. Other than that, this was fantastic. I'm already starting NG+.

Sektori It's Geometry Wars with a shiny coat of paint and some really great animations. I don't normally go for these games, but I'd heart it recommended on The Besties podcast and yeah, it's absolutely perfect if you're looking to kill 10-15 minutes. Honestly, if I'd had more time with it I could see it creeping into my top five of the year list. Super cheap too.