Beaten Games 2018

Hello 2019!

It’s finally time, I’ve been looking forward to this,
the list of beaten games in 2018!

My goal was to beat 72 games, in line with previous years but it ended up at…
—113!!—
A new record without even trying, bah. But then again, I have really focused
on playing, no big cleaning projects this year, no LEGO distraction like
last year, no traveling etc. This leaves me at 970 beaten games in total and
should make reaching 1000 next year a cinch. Although, I have a very big
project coming up and a lot of the 30 last games will be long, Vesperia
and Kingdom Hearts 3 in January, Red Dead Redemption 2,
Pier Solar on Dreamcast to name a few planned titles.

Onto the list, top lists and more summary at the end:

—NES—

The Krion Conquest
Funny, only one NES game this year as well, a Megaman clone
where you have all weapons unlocked from start, some cool parts
but mostly a pain to play.

—SNES—

Incantation
I got fooled by the nice pictures on the back of the box!
A simple, boring platformer.

Pocky and Rocky 2
Finally beat it, a lot harder than the first one for me.

Lemmings
After all these years I actually beat it!! One of my
childhood games, i don’t know how many times I have tried
before but this time it finally went down! Apparently I have been only a
few levels away before but I don’t think the last ones are possible without
savetates, miss-clicking in the final stages is a real pain.

Romancing Saga 3
This is another one long overdue, tried it many times but I will never
be friends with the SaGa series and their battle systems.

G.O.D
This was a really nice one that took a surprising turn as soon as
you leave the nice “pokemon feeling town”. (You even have the bicycle)

Gulliver Boy
A simple short Action RPG, the story moves at rocket speed!

Psycho Dream
A quite easy action platformer with cool sprites, beat it twice,
the second time I knew about the run button…

Tenshi no Uta: Shiroki Tsubasa no Inori
Yay, this has been on my wish list a long time, now it got an English
translation! Some really odd design/balance issues where the game just
gives you free levels at set points in the story. Really nice enemy sprites
and character portraits, an okay plot, Motoi on the music and overall a
decent game. So happy I got to play it at last, now Dark Kingdom
is all that remains among the Wolf Team/ Telenet RPGs!

Aretha
Another unbalanced RPG that let’s you create the best gear an hour in!
Not much to say, a quite standard, nice little RPG, I love how
characters jump in and out of the party constantly, a nice mix-up.
A bit too much backtracking though.

Cyborg 009
Another uninspired Action platformer with some nice sprites.

Laplace no Ma
Wow, this should get its own post sometime, “horror” RPG with a lot of
nice ideas and cool elements, sadly random encounters and the extremely
unbalanced exp amount ruins it a bit but I still love it overall.

Mystic Ark
It almost brings tears to my eyes, I never thought I would get to play another
Enix game like this, I don’t want to compare it to Terranigma since that is in
another league but some of the ideas and quality is in there. This also needs
it own post but the game has one of my favorite locations ever, “The hub”,
reminds me om Myst and not something RPGs usually have.

Arabian Nights: Sabaku no Seirei Ou
This felt like half way to a “masterpiece” if they had another year of
development it would have been a true SNES classic but now it’s just
another RPG (with the easiest boss fights I have ever seen).

—GB—

Tail Gator
I heard it was good, it won’t make my top 700.

—GBA—

Mario and Luigi Superstar Saga
Why did I wait this long to finish this! A really great game, amazing
sprites, interesting puzzles and one of about 5 tile based games that
simulates height correctly (Alundra being the best example).

Mother 3
The first hour of the game is masterpiece class and will give
the game a high rank on my top 1000 but sadly the next 19 hours can’t
match that, it’s good but not as good as part 2.

Golden Sun 2
Another GBA game I started yeeears ago, better than I remembered
but a bit confusing with an open world and no real clues about what
to do. Still, as close as we get to Lufia 2 and I love how it
continues the first game as a true sequel.

—DS—

Hoshigami
Third time is the charm I hear. I have tried this once on PS1 and
once on DS, this time I choose easy and rushed through.
It’s odd how much alike all these strategy/RPGs are.

—3DS—

Dragon Quest 7
A lot of revenge and old projects this year, I have tried the PS1 version
before and started the 3DS version last year, over 100 hours spent
on this, PHEW! I like the idea about the islands and the mini stories
but the main story is just too weak and the length too lengthy.

—Switch—

Octopath Traveler
How did I not make a post about this game earlier, second best of 2018!
I spent 80 hours with it and enjoyed them all! It does have some minor
issues and I’m actually not a fan of the graphics, or rather all the
filters and stretching pixels over 3D objects and mixing and matching
sizes etc. But they do get the right feeling across and capture what
was good about the old games much better than Setsuna or Lost Sphear
ever did. Add amazing boss sprites, Bravely Default battles,
soundtrack of the year?, some really nice characters and we get…
a happy Xenocollector!

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 Torna
I try to rush past this and hope no one notices the Xeno in the title, hehe.
The game didn’t add much more than the main game already told us.
15 hours of forced “side quests” and 3 hours of
repeated story from the main game.

—MS—

Zillion
The “Metroid of Master System” or just a password hacking game…
it was a bit interesting actually but I would not compare them,
very different focuses.

Deep Duck Trouble
Okay, I’m convinced, I got the wrong console as a kid, what graphics!

Master of Darkness
The “Castlevania of Master System”
Actually it is, a straight clone in fact, aside from the music
and maybe “lore” this one is probably better as a game.

Alex Kid in Shinobi World
Just a platformer, I don’t get anything out of playing this.

Golden Axe Warrior
The “Zelda of Master System” and again it really is… and again the
music is the only part where Zelda triumphs, haha, all these years
wasted on NES when there is MASTER SYSTEM!!

Golvellius: Valley of Doom
Look up the map for this game and the number of caves
it has, quite a pain to navigate this!

—MD—

Light Crusader
There are quite a few isometric RPGs on the Mega Drive, they are all quite
nice and this is no exception, some really cool puzzles that clearly use 3D
to work. Some bad hit boxes should be the worst to say about it.

—PS1—

Arc the Lad
Short, simple but nice. I don’t think I will beat part
2 and 3 though, they seem to be much longer and the
story was not interesting enough to go trough all that.

Resident Evil
A bit late to this party but I am quite
sure my experience would have been the same
10 or 15 years ago, or even on release, the
only good part was the level design, you really
get to know and find your way around the mansion!

Wild Arms 2
This was high on my wish list to play, a good but
far too long game, I think I saved the world four times
from four different disasters!? The first game remains the
best in this series.

Legend of Legaia
An interesting battle system reminding of Xenogears
but this one has not aged well and it had some really
hard boss battles.

—PS2—

Dual Hearts
I was fooled by Atlus! This was mostly a 3D platformer, not
an action-RPG!

Arc the Lad End of Darkness
This game had a very strange…structure to it, it seemed
like you should play it online and do quests or something.
Quite short, a hard final boss, just play another game.

Ephemeral Fantasia
If you beat this without a guide you should get a medal!
What a confusing game, I can’t believe I beat it even with a guide.
I can hardly describe it in words but it was a pain! The thing
that kept me going is the fact that I love the “groundhog day”
concept of repeating the same week over and over and doing things
differently to beat the bad guy and learning more about the
town/townsfolk.

Steambot Chronicles
Katamary Damacy the RPG? At least the controls work the same.
I had higher hopes for this but it was quite mediocre sadly. Quite short,
few locations and a lot of backtracking between the few.
Still, some nice and different ideas in an RPG.

—PSP—

Mega Man Powered Up
A Megaman 1 remake, it’s actually really good!

Gungnir
Yet another strategy/RPG, like I said with Hoshigami, strange
how alike they all are, good thing I like these darker stories
and battle style.

Hakuoki
I think this is the only true Visual novel I have beaten,
not too bad but I am surprised at how little it focused
on the romance and making choices.

—PS3—

Legend of Heroes Trails of Cold Steel II
I still have to consider this as the best active series out there
and can’t wait to play part 3 and 4. I didn’t feel like spending
90+ hours and do everything like in the first game but maybe
those extra hours made me like the first one a bit better.

Dark Souls 2
Worst in the series but I decided to complete it anyway.
This one included all DLC, the main game was really easy,
and most of the DLC as well but it did include two of the
worst/hardest bosses I have ever fought, FUME KNIGHT will
always have a special hate-filled place in my mind and heart.

—PS4—

Bloodborne
I can not believe this year was the first time I beat this, it felt like
ages ago. Oh well, the list does not lie, I stumbled through this easy game
in about 23 hours thanks to a broken attack/strategy I found early.
I later returned to the game to play the DLC and the things I missed,
glad that I did, that really added to the game and explained the story
but I still think that one attack is broken.

The Walking Dead a New Frontier
These games start to blur together, it was…good?

Lost Sphear
A lot of improvement from Setsuna but still not the
RPG of old that they aim for. The world map and
how you unlock lost places and set area effects
on the map was nice. I’m excited to see
what is next.

Shadow of the Colussus
Graphics are not everything but in this case, they are so good
it moves the game 100 places up my top list! Seriously, just
walking around and looking at the textures and models in this
is bliss. Every little bush and tree in this has more detail than
anything in the PS2 version. It’s on a new level. Sadly they need
to make a third remake since this one still has a worthless self
adjusting camera and bad controls overall.

Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance
Switching between characters could have been cool, now it’s just
annoying. The ending is the highlight and ties up all the loose ends/
recap everything before part 3 but it was a bit of a pain getting there.

Kingdom Hearts 0.2
It might only be a short story/ demo for part 3 but it still felt like
the best game in the series! If the main game is half this good I’m
going to be very happy!

Secret of Mana
I could say much about this but in short, some TERRIBLE music, the voices
feel really misplaced and I am disappointed that they didn’t expand the
story or even add any new content like a special boss. The graphic is fine,
it gives the same feeling as the original and the battles are also fine,
(with all the same imbalances etc. the original have).
If you play single player this version might be better thanks to being
able to set spells and items on shortcuts.

Uncharted Lost Legacy
I thought this series was done?
Oh well, the same as usual, this time even shorter
and better balanced, I’m happy.

Ni No Kuni 2
A big disappointment, worse than the first game in EVERY way,
yes even the battles, they seem better at first but it turns out you can end
every battle in two attacks and that’s just not fun, the first one at least
had some challenge.
+points for the Suikoden feeling of
gathering characters/building a kingdom/army battles.

Resident Evil 7
I enjoyed this one, some parts more than others but overall a good game,
the main problem is that they try to throw in EVERY horror element
known to man and it just gets ridiculous after a while.

Dark Souls 3
I have played this not once but probably 3-4 times and seen my brother beat it
twice as well this year. Seeing how bored I was with Dark souls 1 when that
was released I can’t believe how much of a favorite this has become.
Whenever I’m not playing anything else I just get the urge to return to this.
It’s just so fun and relaxing to play. By far the easiest in the series and
already the second time I played it, it was provokingly easy,
IT IS SUPPOSED TO BE HARD!!
I will be sure to get the DLC version in the future.

Shining Resonance Refrain
Of all the games to translate years later they choose this…
not terrible but very mediocre.
Very far below other games with “Shining” title.

Adventure Time: Pirates of the Enchiridion
I thought this would finally be a good game based on the cartoon but no.
It’s halfway there, the characters look good and have the right voices etc.
but as a game it is a mess, very buggy, very short,
very simple and uninspired. The battles are good at least!

Horizon: Zero Dawn
It starts out interesting but the story soon derails. I played on easy
and just smashed my way through with the spear,
it took less than 20 hours, more than enough of open world for me.

The Witcher 3
Okay, the world and a lot of the dialog is fantastic. But the combat
is some of the worst I have seen, how can you just ignore that and call
this “one of the best RPGs”. The first half of the game was a real pain
running back and forth in the exact same locations over and over,
doing quests for people you don’t care about.
The last 10 hours was much better and left me on a positive note at least.

Shenmue II
How does “disc 4” not get the same treatment as Xenogears “disc 2”!?
Either way that final “disc” was the highlight of the series by far.
A lot of improvement and less waiting around in part 2. I still don’t
get why you have so many attack combos when you can beat every
fight by just hitting one button over and over…

Dragon Quest XI
Game of the year and best in the series, by far!
Glad that this both lived up to and exceeded my hopes.
A big minus for the music sadly but everything else makes up for it.

Megaman 11
For me it’s just another Megaman, that finally got the weapon switching right.
I could just as well play any of the old ones and be just as happy.

South Park Fractured but Whole
More of the same, MAYBE I liked this one better, a better balanced
battle system is the big plus and collecting “followers” were
surprisingly fun too.

Adventure Pals
A simple Rayman clone, I would never have played it alone but co-op
is always fun.

God of War 4
The fact that Kratos suddenly is messing with norse gods makes it too
ridiculous for me… a shame because it is a good game, some really
nice level design, beautiful environments and if you would replace
Kratos it would be a very nice take on the norse mythology, they even
got the part with giants being born from armpits right!
As usual I had to lower the difficulty, I got bored with
the battles before the tutorial was even over…

—Xbox—

Star Wars: KotOR
If you like Star Wars and western RPGs this is a must. I’m not a big fan of either
but I really wanted to give this a try, it is clearly good even if it’s not for me.
I’m surprised at how good the sound and voices are to this date,
overall it really felt like being in the Star Wars universe.

Star Wars: KotOR II
Maybe the only game I have ever played as evil, it didn’t save as much
time as I had hoped and the game really felt rushed compared to the first one.

—PC—

Love
A simple but challenging platformer.

Kuso
A simple but challenging platformer, same as Love!

Snakebird
This is a really good and charming puzzle game about snakebirds,
more people should play this! Be warned, it is hard!

Knytt Underground
Words can not describe this game, it is made by a madman!
I thought I would go crazy while running around and trying to navigate
the ridiculously big metroidvania map.

Xanadu Next
Second rate YS? A bit unbalanced but still enjoyable.

Victor Vran
A Diablo clone…with wall jump!! It’s not bad but the silly voice over
feels very misplaced and lowers the score a lot.

Legend of Heroes Trails in the Sky 3rd
Weakest and shortest of the three games but still good, mostly some closure
for characters and events in the first two games.

Iconoclasts
I’ve been waiting so long for this, a platform game with focus on
puzzles and STORY. In the end the story really delivered something unique
and that and the animations really stand out. Sadly the rest won’t be as
remembered and it probably won’t make my top 100 but I am so glad that
the developer finally managed to finish this dream project after all
these years even though it put him in the hospital for a while, hehe.

Celeste
The game that overshadowed iconoclasts, sadly. If you want a real challenge
in a focused platform game, this is THE ONE.

A Boy and His Blob
What a nice little journey with a blob.

Spelunky
Hate it, but beat it, one of the most overrated games, I see no fun
in random generated messes like this.

Salt and Sanctuary
This is EXACTLY what Dark souls would be in 2D, surprisingly good,
the platforming adds a lot for me.

Gauntlet
It’s fun but Hammerwatch does everything better.

Chrono Trigger
I won’t name this game of the year or anything, it would be silly
but I am happy that they actually fixed most of the problems it had on
release, some still remain though and SNES remains superior.

Ara Fell
This makes me so happy, more than 99% of all RPG Maker games are
terrible, half-finished, use stolen resources etc. but this one is a truly
unique and a finished game that has some really nice ideas I never thought of
or seen in other games. Sure it still feels a bit limited thanks to RPG Maker
but still impressing and better than most AAA-games in my eyes.

Swords of Ditto
A time limit sadly ruins this otherwise nice co-op game.

Minit
This was a fun hour of a game but it would be even better with some graphics…

Kingsway
A true meta-game, look up a trailer, it’s an RPG-operating system or something
where you manage everything as if it was a computer. I actually liked it, I thought it would be a “fun idea terrible game situation”

Bloodstained Curse of the Moon
Surprise of the year? Man I loved this one, aside from music better than any NES game ever was.

Mighty Gunvolt
Barely a game, I run through it in no time.

Finding Paradise
I can’t believe how this series got connected in the end, really
beautiful.

Mini Ghost
One of the most simple games but still enjoyable.

Unepic
Quite boring level design and variation but otherwise not bad, I like the idea of lighting
an entire castle manually like you do in this.

Cuphead
I’m the only one who think this looks terrible, the animations are of course
amazing and very impressive but I’m not a fan of the style, or sound either.
I was surprised how easy this was, of course I died and had to re-fight
some battles plenty of times but I was prepared for much worse.
Oh well, some bosses were amazing!

Unworthy
Another 2D Dark souls, it might look simple and uninspired at first
but it is REALLY good, amazing bosses and some real challenges.
No jumping in this one, opens from the other side.

Firewatch
Walking simulator, it’s been a while since I played one.
Quite nice but nothing special.

The Vagrant
Clearly inspired by Vanillaware games, almost as good too,
just buy it if you like Muramasa, Odin Sphere etc.

Omega Strike
More metroidvania! Looks and plays fantastic but exploring doesn’t
feel rewarding at all, all you get is +1 coin whatever you do.
But give it a chance, it is at least good!

Chasm
Another loooong awaited indie title. It is at least top 3 good-looking pixels in there and overall it feels very polished and works really well. Sadly they just had to leave the level design to chance and randomly generate the game… that and the fact that they borrow TOO much from Symphony of the Night ruins it quite a bit, why do you have to use the exact same sub weapons and familiars etc.

La Mulana 2
The definition of hate-love, so many hours spent on these puzzles,
battles/bosses where a joke though after beating the first game on
HARD.

Crosscode
I LOVE the “overworld” and it’s level design, it is the best out there.
Be warned if you like to play this, you really need to like both
puzzles and RPGs because there are 3+ hour dungeons with just puzzles,
mostly good ones but if you don’t like them it is going to be a pain to play.
Amazing game overall but I did not need another .Hack story…

The Messenger
Nothing new, but it’s good. Better than any NES game, developers seems to
have finally learned what was good about old games and what was bad and
should be fixed with modern designs.

Slain Back From Hell
A terrible title and trailer made me not to want to play it,
but a friend said it was okay and it was!

Delta Rune
Yup, it’s Undertale 2. Still not a big fan but it has it’s moments.

Blossom Tales
Another Zelda-like, I never understand why they need to copy everything
including the bad parts… or why not even raise the challenge? Why make
the already easy Zelda games even easier? Oh well, exploring is still fun
and any Zelda fan should like this!

Void Memories
The worst 2D Dark Souls I have played, very unpolished.
It does have a few amazing bosses but not really worth
playing just for those.

Odallus
Another Metroidvania, more Castlevania where you can jump between stages
but still, a few Metroid references and designs too. Not bad!

Death’s Gambit
A bit more story focus than other 2D Dark Souls, I enjoyed this one,
far too easy but I had fun playing it at least.

Sonic Mania
Just another flipper simulator.

Insanly Twisted Shadow Planet
Oh this old game, it turned out to be a nice little game, the ring menu
works really well in this and even though it is short you really get to
use all abilities.

Rosenkreuzstilette Freudenstachel
Another Megaman clone with references to far too many games,
silly, yes, but I probably enjoyed it more than Megaman 11.

Usurper
More 2D Dark Souls, a lot of them this year. uninspired environments
but an interesting world with many odd design decisions in it.

BELOW
I was so happy when this got a surprise release this year but sadly
it turned out to be the biggest disappointment in years…
every design decision feels like the opposite of what I would have done
or expected of the game… The worst being the random generation of course.
The second half of the game is just the same room repeated over and over
with the same enemies and sound, it is a terrible, repetitive game.

Viviette
I’m a bit in love with this, like a modern version of Laplace no Ma,
it even has a reference to that game!
Some puzzles could be better maybe but exploring this horror mansion and
its perfect pixels is the best, a trailer won’t do it justice since it is
so dark most of the time but I am really impressed.
Oh, and the sound is really good in this as well.

Shantae: 1/2 Genie Hero
Just more Shantae, fun but also the easiest game I have played, seriously,
you get an upgrade that makes you INVINCIBLE. Standing inside the
final bosses and their attacks without taking any damage is not fun.

The Mummy Demastered
THESE PIXELS. It’s been a while since I played something that truly was
balanced and designed JUST like a Metroid but this is.
Sadly that also means very low challenge for those that explore,
I died once in the game, because I tried to…

Touhou: Scarlet Curiosity
Second…third rate YS? Still fun, I need to watch a speedrun of this,
you can move at a ridiculous speed and thanks to the balance in the
game you will still be able to beat it. Got the good ending to!

Timespinner
Final game of the year, a good end. Another metroidvania with
crazy good pixels, especially the parallax backgrounds felt like a
new level. This is another example where they just decided to copy
everything good and bad from Symphony of the night but somehow it
bothers me less than in Chasm even though this borrow even more.
Oh well, got all endings, 100% etc. Once again a far too easy game
for me, of course, this offers a hard option so I guess I will
replay it in the future.

That is that!
What a spectacular year, as you might have noticed very few games were
“fillers” Lots of quality games, long RPGs, long-awaited indie titles and
finished games started years ago.

This should be top 3 released:

1: Dragon Quest XI
2: Octopath Traveler
3: Iconoclasts

And this top 3 among the rest:

1: Dark Souls 3
2: Legend of Heroes Trails of Cold Steel II
3: Ara Fell?

The disappointment of the year was by far BELOW

Happy New Year to all, may it be filled with exactly 30 good games
and lots of Xeno items!