Games You Beat in 2026: RIP to our backlogs

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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! 

[Mister Jack]

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+.

Edited January 7 by Mister Jack

[MetalCaveman]

Wuchang: Fallen Feathers

 

Gameplay, atmosphere, music, bosses, enemies, everything was a 10/10, easily one of my favourite Soulslike games, Fromsoft games included... Then update 1.5 happened lol.

 

1.5 Added some good stuff (elevator speed being the main thing imo), but it also changed a ton of stuff in terms of story and NPCs, the result is that the story loses a lot of impact, several enemies are now passive towards you, some bosses no longer die, they just need a nap and they're fine, some dialogue was changed and some new lines were added to reflect the rest of the changes.

 

So, even though the rest of the game is still a 10/10, the changes made to the story make it hard to recommend.

[Mister Jack]

Cultic: Chapter 2

 

I feel bad about this. I can tell that Jason Smith worked his ass off on this game and he lovingly crafted these huge, sprawling maps with tons of attention to detail. This game is his baby and I respect the hell out of what he accomplished mostly by himself. However, I gotta say that chapter 2 feels like a step down from chapter 1. There's a massive difficulty spike with the new enemies and level design. Whether that's an issue for you is up to personal preference, I suppose, but even if I'm okay with the game being harder it has one other major issue that really started to affect my enjoyment: these levels are too big.

 

I almost feel guilty complaining about it. Like I said, this game was made by one guy and I can't imagine the amount of time it took for him to make these gigantic areas to explore. One level in this game can be nearly as big as the entire mansion in Resident Evil. You could fit three or four Doom levels in one Cultic Chapter 2 level. It's extremely impressive on a technical level and they're laid out in a way that make them feel like real places instead of mere video game levels. Unfortunately, when actually playing it's also extremely easy to get very lost looking for your next objective. There is an auto-map that fills out while you explore but it only helps so much. There are times when the path forward is practically a secret area. I spent over an hour on a single level at one point and didn't run into a single enemy for half of that time because I was so confused about where to go. I know people like to be snobs about objective markers and compasses but this game really needed it. I had to consult Youtube more than once just to know where the hell I was supposed to go.  Maybe that's partly my fault for wanting to do a whole level in one sitting but come on. It's a boomer shooter. That's how they're meant to be played. There's also several atmospheric setpiece moments where you'll be trapped in the dark somewhere, just waiting for something to come at you out of nowhere while you're stumbling around with your lighter. This can be effective in theory, but since I got lost several times this also meant long stretches where I didn't run into any enemies at all because I didn't know where I was supposed to go to trigger the next encounter. I'm willing to accept partial responsibility for it since this is hardly the first time I've gotten lost while playing a game and struggled to figure out what I was supposed to do, but it happened to me enough times while playing this that I started to feel like I couldn't possibly be this inept. Most boomer shooters will have you looking for, at most, 3 keys or key items per level. This one can have you hunting for up to 8 or more depending on the level. It's rough. 

 

Maybe I'll have a change of heart on a replay since I know what to do in the levels now but I'm not ready for that yet. I need a break from this one. Shame really because the gunplay feels great as always.