Games You Beat in 2025: Year of the Backlog

[toxicitizen]

Assassin's Creed Origins

 

So, I actually beat the main game years ago but I was underleveled for the DLC (and stubbornly refused to use the level boost), so I just got frustrated with it and stopped. But now a combination of factors made me return to it. 

 

Ubisoft finally added Steam achievements support to AC Valhalla, so I finally bought it and Odyssey. Then there's AC Shadows that's looking really good and making me want to catch up with the series. And finally, that one area in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle reminded me of how much I love Egypt as a video game setting, so it made me want to fire up AC Origins again.

 

Anyway, so I picked up right where I had left off: working on completing the base game's map until I was high level enough to tackle the DLC. I had been working on it on and off since October, and now, after having almost doubled my initial playtime, I'm finally done.

 

 

Goddamn, this game is so needlessly massive. I wasn't kidding about my playtime. The main game took me about 50 hours to beat. My current playtime according to Steam is 94 hours. And over half of that extra 44 hours was spent just running around the base game's map and clearing out all those question marks. Both DLCs probably took me less than 20 hours combined. I could've probably done it a little faster because early on I was also doing all the minor side-quests on the map but at some point I found out they weren't actually required for anything, so I stopped. They were by far the most time-consuming thing and kinda sucked anyway.

 

The DLCs were alright. The first one, The Hidden Ones, is basically more of the same. Kill some dudes to draw out your real target, etc. The second one, Curse of the Pharaohs, leaned more heavily into fantasy and was surprisingly meaty. I really enjoyed that one. By the time I reached it, I was ready for the game to be over but it never really overstayed its welcome despite the amount of content there is to get through. I still cleared all the question marks in every single area even though they weren't required for achievement purposes.

 

So yeah, feels good to have finally completed this one. Now one of my gaming goals for 2025 is to do the same for Odyssey and Valhalla.

[TheMightyEthan]

TIL there was DLC for Origins.

 

*Edit - Wait, never mind, I was thinking of Mirage, I knew about Origins.

[MetalCaveman]

Star Fox 64

 

As fun as I remember, also, I'm way better at it now than when I originally played it aeons ago lol, took me about an afternoon to get both endings.

 

Grade: A+

[TheMightyEthan]

Metaphor ReFantazio

 

117 hours later and man, great game. I don't have a lot specific to say, if you're familiar with the last few Persona games it mostly follows a similar structure, though in an industrial fantasy land instead of modern Japan. There are a few changes, like the "Personas" work differently, and everyone can switch now instead of just the MC, but for the most part if you like Persona I would definitely recommend checking this out.

 

Grade: A+

[TheMightyEthan]

Platform 8
 

This is a sequel to Exit 8, a Japanese game where you're caught in a purgatory of a repeating train station, except this time it's on a train instead of a station. Weird/creepy shit happens, and your goal is to get all the way through 8 iterations. It's a neat little game, but Exit 8 was better.

 

Grade: C+

 

Fort Solis

 

This is one of those "investigate a deserted sci-fi installation" games, but it's really well executed. I can't really talk much about the gameplay without spoilers, but it's tense and interesting throughout. I had a lot of fun with it, and would definitely recommend it to anyone who likes that kind of thing. And it's short, only 4 hours!

 

Grade: A

[TheMightyEthan]

Severed Steel

 

This game is basically Superhot x Mirror's Edge x Hotline Miami. You're blazing through levels, wall running and sliding and leaping through the air, going into bullet time and blasting the shit out of guys. It's completely frenetic and crazy and so so good.

 

Grade: A+

[Mister Jack]

Thank Goodness You're Here!

 

This is the most British game I've ever played. I'm not even sure how to describe it. I guess by some definitions you could call it a walking simulator because all you do is go around and slap things, but it's just so bizarre that I don't think words alone can do it justice. You play as a tiny British salesman on a business trip who, after his meeting is delayed, decides to go for a walk around town. From there, people ask you to help solve their problems and apparently you can't say no (or anything at all) so the rest of the game is you helping people with their first world problems. Sounds boring except that for every problem you fix you tend to break ten more things and you get to watch the town descend into chaos because of your well-meaning actions. Plus, some of these problems are solved in some truly outlandish ways and in the process you can go anywhere you please in town, including right through the houses of total strangers. These people are FREAKS too. Honestly I should just shut up and let the trailer speak for itself.

 

 

Edited February 2 by Mister Jack

[Mister Jack]

Mouthwashing

 

I sure picked a hell of a game to follow up on one of the silliest games I ever played. Mouthwashing is bleak. Very bleak. The premise is a commercial space freighter gets into an asteroid collision and the crew is now trapped on a dead ship in the middle of space with rescue unlikely. Food and water supplies are dwindling and the cargo hold is full of nothing but thousands of boxes of mouthwash with just enough alcohol content to get a person drunk if they're determined. The story jumps back and forth in the timeline, leaving you to gradually piece together what happens to the crew as they begin to despair and give in to their darker impulses. A line that is repeated more than once in this game is "I didn't believe people are defined by their worst moments." Are they, though? That's something they leave you to ponder. Some of the implications about what these people do to each other is absolutely vile and since they're all trapped on a spaceship together it's impossible for anyone to run away from their worst moments. It's presented to you through surreal segments full of psychological horror. There's no monsters on the ship other than the ones that already exist inside the crew but you'll be running from them anyway. It's like you're playing a David Lynch film. That's the best comparison I can think of. It deserves the praise it's been getting, but don't expect to be in a good mood when you finish it.

[toxicitizen]

Yakuza 5 Remastered

 

Finished it two weeks ago but I immediately jumped into Rebirth and that first week I couldn't be bothered writing my thoughts because that was time I could spend playing Rebirth instead. Then I kinda forgot about it. I'm not joking, either. I literally finished Yakuza 5 like 15mins before Rebirth finished downloading.

 

Anyway, it was pretty good. It was also very long but it never overstayed its welcome. Mostly because every time you switched protagonist it was like playing a completely different game. You start out with Kiryu and he's a taxi driver now, so naturally you end up getting sucked into the street racing world with drifting and eurobeat music.

 

Then the next character fights like 78 dudes at once while breaking out of prison only to immediately get into a high-speed snowmobile chase followed by a fist fight with a giant bear. Then you spend the next 5 hours in a little mountain village playing a survival/hunting roguelike minigame. Then it's time to play as Haruka, Kiryu's adopted daughter, and she's training to be a pop idol so now the combat has been replaced by a rhythm game. Did I mention that this game is fucking bonkers? I can easily see how someone might just bail when they get to the Haruka chapters but it just made me love the game even more. This is the most unapologetically schizophrenic game I've ever played and I loved it for it.

 

Overall, it did the multiple protagonist thing much better than Yakuza 4 but the story ended up feeling a lot less cohesive as a whole. Yakuza 4 kept me on the edge of my seat for the most part and it was only the finale that was a bit underwhelming (I still can't get over how our heroes' big plan was "We don't understand what's going on or know what to do, so let's just put that big pile of money on top of Millenium Tower and beat up whoever comes to get it"). Yakuza 5 was kind of the opposite. The story was so meandering and full of distractions that by the time I was on the last protagonist I had basically forgotten how things had started out with Kiryu at the beginning. The finale itself was much more exciting, although it did end rather abruptly.

 

Anyway, that's now all the PS3 games done. That took me way longer than I expected but I can finally play Yakuza 6 and then move on to the Ichiban games. I'm almost caught up!

[MetalCaveman]

Star Fox Adventures

 

Better than I remembered, but also kinda bad lol, some of the parts I recall being super frustrating (like the test of strength in Lightfoot village) were way easier this time, while the bomb puzzles were as annoying as always.  

 

Gameplay holds up better than expected, except for some things. Trying to aim the fire blaster feels like you're fighting against the staff itself, really frustrating, specially with how many timed puzzles require that you hit targets with this thing. Not being able to jump down while climbing rock walls gets annoying real fast, more so if you  make multiple visits to the store. Not having proper camera controls is also quite the choice, specially when Assault does have the option to use the C Stick as a normal right stick camera control.

 

I actually didn't remember that moment with Scales lol, was actually looking forward to that fight and then... Nothing.

 

Grade: B+

[MetalCaveman]

Star Fox Assault

 

Shorter than I remember, but still pretty fun. Really appreciate that it uses the C-Stick as a right stick camera control instead of some other weird control setting lol.

 

Aparoid infection is still super creepy, specially the Corneria boss fight, still hits hard after all these years.

 

There are some issues though, voice acting is a weak spot, Peppy went from cartoony old guy voice to monotone apathetic old guy voice lol, graphics also look like a downgrade from Adventures, and (this is just me lol) I much prefer the Arwing from Adventures over this one, Adventures has a more practical look and feel to it, Assault just kinda has pointy stuff everywhere and doesn't really land, just hovers in place.

 

Grade: A

[Thursday Next]

On 2/2/2025 at 10:10 PM, Mister Jack said:

Thank Goodness You're Here!

 

 

I played this on a flight, love the surrealism. It smacks of the animation bits in Monty Python. Has a little bit of untitled goose game vibes too.

[MetalCaveman]

P.N. 03

 

This was... something lol, the most positive thing I can say is that some of the ideas present here went on to become Vanquish, and that one's cool. Oh, and I guess the Papillon suit is kinda neat.

 

The controls are awkward, even for a GameCube game, some enemies and bosses move way too fast for how slow the aiming is, environments are empty and barren and not in a GameCube era kind of way. The story is pretty much non-existent:

"Here's your next mission" 

"Will you tell me about the target?" 

"No" 

"OK"

 

The last boss is a nightmare too lol, overall, not recommended unless you really, REALLY want to see what came before Vanquish.

 

Grade: D-