GB's Game Reviews: 2024-2025 Edition

2024, or at least the first half of it in particular, was the year of playing games I'd played already.

I love Backloggery. I've talked about it before. It's a really cool website that lets you compile a database of your video game collection and track your progress with them, referring to the games you own but haven't beaten yet as "your backlog". It's a great idea, but admittedly I think it's given me a bit of tunnel vision. Sometimes I think a little too much about how next to enhance how my collection looks on Backloggery, choosing what to play on the basis of needing to beat more games. This is fine, but it can go too far when I'm reluctant to play something I've already 100% completed, or have beaten but can't realistically 100%, just for the fun of playing it. When I was a kid I didn't have this problem - even if I'd beaten a game a dozen times over, if it was fun enough I'd pop it in the system and do it again. Playing a game you've already finished isn't a "waste of time" - it basically accomplishes just as much as playing something you haven't played before, as long as you still get entertainment out of it. Games are meant to be fun, after all, and trying new ones is a good idea, but I shouldn't be casting old favorites into a "never touch again" box if they can still bring me joy.

Anyway, that preamble is because in 2024 I placed an unusual amount of focus on playing older games, many of which I'd beaten before. This started out as getting 100% completion on games I'd played thoroughly but had never managed to do everything in. This was seen in my reviews last year, where I finally 100%'d a number of games I consider absolute classics, such as the original Sonic games and Banjo-Kazooie. That mindset continues into this year's reviews, with the likes of Super Mario 64 crossed off the list, but then I also spent a lot of time with Vampire Survivors, which I had started in 2023 but didn't finish. However, eventually I even started playing games I'd finished a long time ago, such as Pokemon Snap and Pokemon Trading Card Game. Since it's been over a decade since I've reviewed some of these old games, though, I will be taking another look at them here in this edition of the blog, marking the first time in this blog series I've ever re-reviewed anything. As summer became fall, I started playing more new games (though Banjo-Tooie joined the replay fun after its' surprise NSO release), and you'll see that reflected in the reviews as I start tackling a number of small indie titles as well as a few bigger games I'd never played before this year - but I do still finish the blog off with a review of a game I first played over fifteen years ago. I also end up playing a whole lot of Sonic games here as I became re-invested in the franchise that got me hooked on video games. I tried out both Sonic's newest games and some popular fangames as well as going back and taking care of some older titles I never beat. If you read my January blogpost about my history with the Sonic series and still want to read more words about that darn blue hedgehog, he's all over this blogpost.

I hope you enjoy this especially retro-flavored look at what I've been playing since April 2024!

GB's Game Reviews, 2023-2024 Edition

What a year for gaming it's been for me! I'm used to playing games only in limited fits and starts during the warmer months of the year, as ZFRP ends up consuming a lot of the time I'd otherwise be using to play. However, things were different this time. For the first time in a long time, I found the energy and motivation to keep playing new games continuously throughout Season 13 of RP, and as a result of that (plus other factors like continued trips to Funspot and playing several compilations full of quick new additions to the blog) I played dozens of games this year. In fact, this might be an all-time record for me!

It felt good to get my bad experience with Mechstermination Force out of my system in last year's post, so I will be including a few more reviews in this post of games I played but didn't finish if I have something to say about the experience, positive or otherwise. (Xenoblade fans, I am sorry.) This time the reviews are in roughly the order I played the games, so things kind of hop around at times, but at other times you'll see a bunch of Mario, Sonic, or TMNT games clustered together as I stuck with a franchise for a bit.

With that out of the way, I hope you enjoy the largest GB game review blogpost ever!

GB's Game Reviews, 2022-2023 Edition

Here we go again! This time I've got two different types of reviews. My usual review style where I go over a game once I've seen the credits will be here as expected, but I also will be including a bunch of what I'm calling Quick Impressions. This review type is for arcade games I played in compilations or at Funspot. I only tried many of these games briefly, and they usually don't have an ending, but I'll still share my thoughts on what I saw, and I'll also have a "Insert Token?" rating, where I decide whether or not I would give up a shiny Funspot token to drop in the machine to play it again - either "No", "Maybe", "Sure", or "Absolutely".

GB's Vidya 2016: Year In Review

You guys know the drill by now! Every year I give a short review to every video game I beat in the past twelve months, ranking them from least favorite to most favorite as I try to find my favorite video game of the year. Two years ago I played only a handful of games, and last year I played a whole bunch but many of them were small, quick games played more for the blogpost than anything else. This year I focused on "major" games - only nine titles are represented (I have combined two of them into one entry, so there are eight reviews here), but the majority of them were long games I had to sink a lot of hours into. With three Pokemon games, two Ace Attorney games, and another RPG on top of that, I spent a lot of time gaming this year - just not on a lot of different games!

First, lemme just give a shoutout to last year's winner, Robot Arena 2. Just as I was finally tiring of it, I found another mod that completely overhauls the game, introduces a bunch of real-world robot opponents, and basically just breathes new life back into a well-worn game. I still mess around with this game almost daily, if only for a few minutes. Definitely deserved that win last year if I'm still playing the dang thing.

Let's get started.

43 Games I Haven't Reviewed Yet

For years, I've been doing mini-reviews of my video games. I started with the "100 Games" project in January 2013, and since then have done a roundup of everything I beat each year. But that means that some games got left out - ones I didn't include on my initial list.

Not getting on the original 100 Games list doesn't mean these games are bad. On the contrary, I rather enjoyed quite a few of them, and some of them probably deserved to make the list. I never claimed to be good at ranking stuff, as fun as it is.

As usual, only games I cared about enough to see to the end get listed here, and everything I haven't already written about is up for grabs. Sifting through my Backloggery turned up 43 entries' worth of games (a few games are combined into one entry). Instead of trying to rank them, I'll cover them alphabetically.

I've also linked a gameplay video for each game. It's a longplay whenever one is available. Looking at how few games DIDN'T have a complete longplay up on YouTube speaks volumes as to how good longplayers are at doing their job.

GB's Vidya 2015: Year In Review

It's that time again! Every year I make a sequel to my 2012 "100 Games" series by reviewing every single vidya I beat that year. As usual, the only qualification for a game to make the list is that I completed the main objective. Sometimes legit, sometimes I cheese it, whatever - if I saw the end, I put it on the list and talk about it.

After last year's disappointingly short list, I knew I had to step up my gaming. I pulled it off, and this year's list is three times the length of last year's, clocking in at 15 titles. This is, however, still inferior to 2013's 21-strong roster.

Longtime readers will know the drill - I've ranked these games in a rough order from worst to first, but as usual I'm not that great at ranking, although I enjoy doing it - I can usually figure out the worst game and the best game pretty quickly, or at least make tiers, but ordering within a tier is not easy and can often change on a whim. Suffice it to say I consider everything I beat this year save the bottom-ranked game to be at least decent, and the bottom game was at least not offensively bad!

The crop this year is even more old and obscure than usual - 13 of the 15 games are over a decade old, and many of them are over two decades old. I hope to include some more mainstream titles next time, but I do prefer talking about games people don't know about, since you can only write "super mario 64 was a good game" so many times before people stop caring, y'know? Anyway, on with the show.

GB's Vidya 2014: Year in Review

Ouch. I didn't beat too many games this year. Nonetheless, I'm doing my yearly wrapup, ranking, and review!

I only finished five games all year, and two of them were disqualified for reasons you'll soon see. However, I beat two other games very late last year - so late that they missed the last writeup - so they are being added to this year's list, bringing me back to five games. Without further ado, here's the games I beat this year and my opinions on them!

Honorable Mentions: Pokemon Emerald and Crystal
Systems: Game Boy Advance and Game Boy Color
Developer: Game Freak
Publisher: Nintendo
Genre: RPG
Date Beaten: April 18 and April 22, 2014

Why are they honorable mentions? Because I can't really count them - I technically never beat Pokemon Emerald or Crystal until this year, but I had already beaten the near-identical Ruby, Sapphire, and Gold versions. I generally consider all of those near-identical "versions" to be the same game, so Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald together are all "Pokemon GBA Hoenn" while Gold, Silver, and Crystal are all "Pokemon GBC Johto". Remakes like FireRed and LeafGreen are separate, however, so Omega Ruby will have its time at bat next year.

My Crystal run was a pure nostalgia run, although the ability to speed up play with the emulator made grinding bearable. The highlight of the run was finding a shiny Skarmory and adding it to the team. Later in summer I returned to Crystal and beat Kanto, capping things off with a nice fight against Red.

The Emerald run was... unconventional, thanks to the game being wrung through Pokemon Randomizer. You can get all the details about the upside-down world Ariel was thrust into here.

GB's Vidya 2013: Year In Review

Last year I made the twenty-one post series "GB's 100 Games", wherein I gave short writeups of 100 games I had beaten that I considered to be good or better. Since then, I've beaten over a dozen more video games. I've decided to make a sequel of sorts to 100 Games in the form of a "Year In Review" that gives writeups on every game I beat this year. In addition to that, I'll be putting the games in a rough ranking. Remember, the game can be released in any year, and I can first acquire the game in any year - as long as I first finished the game in 2013, it qualifies for the list.

First, however, to get them out of the way...

Unranked: A Horde of Atari Games
Trying to place all the new Atari 2600 games I played this year would be far too difficult. It's hard enough ranking such old games alongside modern ones as it is - with this many, it'd just be a pain and the list would be littered with them, so they all get shoved here.

Games in bold were played on an actual Atari 2600 with a cartridge. Games in italics were played on my Atari Flashback plug-and-play system.

Atari Climber - A game similar in some respects to Donkey Kong. You must climb from the bottom of the stage to the top, avoiding hazards and scoring points.

Atlantis - You control three cannons and try to shoot down flying ships that want to bomb your city. The cannons cannot aim or move, so timing is literally everything. Nice graphics for the 2600.

Demon Attack - A very similar game to Phoenix. Demon Attack is a static shooter in which you fight wave after wave of "demons". They come in many shapes, but they mostly behave the same.

Dragonfire - In this medieval quest, you alternate between two screens. The first screen is about jumping over and ducking under fireballs to reach a castle. Once there, you gather treasure for points while dodging the attacks of an angry dragon.

Off the Wall - I've never been good at Breakout-type games. Off the Wall is not an exception.

Secret Quest - One of the rare games on Atari that cries out for instructions. I can't give this Zeldaesque game a fair shake because I didn't know what to do a few levels in.

Space Jockey - Space Jockey is hurt by technical limitations - only three enemies are onscreen at once, making the game far too dull. A difficulty option to make the enemies move randomly may help your experience somewhat.

Video Checkers - Not sure how I'm supposed to win. The computer seems to counter my every move. Then again, I don't play much checkers.

Video Chess - Same problem - the computer consistently outfoxed me even on the lowest difficulty. I played chess a lot back in elementary school, and I don't remember being this bad at it.

Yar's Revenge - One of the strongest Atari games I've played. Yar's is more complicated than most Atari games, but it can be figured out pretty quickly, and it's a lot of fun. Once upon a time I had a Game Boy Color version of this game, but I wasn't any good at it and wound up selling the cartridge in a yard sale.

Game Room: Laura

Today we're going to be looking at a game aimed primarily at children, and I will be keeping that in mind as I review. Said game is Laura, which released for the Game Boy Color in 2000. I tried out this game because of the strange name and screenshots that told very little about what it actually was. I wound up finding a game that was meant to be played by young girls, and it was inoffensive enough that I plowed through the whole thing in two days. Read on for details.

Widow Maker's Game Room 2: Rolan's Curse

"It's time for another trip to the Game Room with your favorite giant mantis, and today I'm not alone. For this and all subsequent reviews I'll be inviting a special guest to join me. Today's guest is Josephine Bouteille of Sarahkin fame. Say hi, Josephine."

"Um, hello."

"That's the spirit.

We're going to be reviewing Rolan's Curse, an ancient Game Boy cartridge crafted by Sammy in 1990."

"Rolan... Why does that name sound familiar?"

"Doesn't ring a bell with me."

"Weird. Oh well. So uh, who's the 'Rolan' in Rolan's Curse?"

"It's the name of the country the game takes place in. It's been cursed by Barius, a demon king. Cliche as hell."

"Cliche for you, very realistic for me."

"Mysidia got this a lot?"

"Oh yeah. Bozo knights and dragons every other week. Most of them didn't get far."

GB's 100 Games: 10-6

We're no longer talking about games that were just fun, or engrossing. We're talking about games that had significant influence on my childhood and teen years. Games I bonded with people over, games that I've memorized up and down, games that have implanted themselves into my subconscious. These are THE video games.

It's the first half of the final ten.

GB's 100 Games: 25-21

 A good mix of the obscure and not-obscure today, including what is probably the highest-rated game on this list that nobody reading has ever heard of.

GB's 100 Games: 35-31

As we reach the upper echelons of the 100 Games, we are starting to pass from "games that were pretty great" into "classics". Right now it's a bit of a hazy zone between the two categories.

Five different games from five different systems are the stars of today's installment. And yes, all five systems are from Nintendo. Again, though, a fair mix of the known and the unknown here, plus the highest-rated licensed game!

GB's 100 Games Intermission: The Bad Game Awards

With 100 Games having reached the halfway point, I'm taking a break from it to shed some light on the opposite end of the spectrum: Games that sucked.

There are many ways a game can suck. Terrible music, poor controls, glitches and bugs interrupting or interfering with gameplay, and most importantly a game that is boring, too easy, too hard, or poorly designed. The existence of Big Dumb Vidya Games not only in my collection but on the list of 100 proves a game can have some blemishes - significant blemishes - and still earn high marks. But if a game is not fun, it has failed as a game.

A game can also be bad by association. If your expectations are high based on the past of the series or the developers, and the game falls short, you may think of it as a "bad game" even if it's not bad. It could be mediocre, or even good, but it was not able to match your expectations. This has happened to me a couple of times.

So with that in mind, let's review three games in three categories: The game that most disappointed me, a game that's so bad it's good, and the outright worst thing I've ever put in a video game system.

GB's 100 Games: 75-71

DOES EVERYBODY KNOW WHAT TIME IT IS?

VIDYA TIME!!

Okay yeah, on reflection I definitely ranked Mario 64 and Mario Sunshine too low. But it's not like Mario had trouble finding his way onto this list, so whatever. Away we go with yet another batch of five games in the ongoing GB's 100 Games series. Over a fourth done, folks...

GB's 100 Games: 90-86

 
Time now for another five entries in GB's 100 Games. Lots of crusty old classics here, and while some may be familiar, others are a bit more obscure...

Gaming Retrospective (Part 3)

So there I was, a fourth-grader, staring at a Charmander card and wondering just what the heck the big deal was. That's right - at first, I didn't "get" Pokemon. But I was kind of curious. I collected a few more cards by bumming them off people who had duplicates. I even remember which ones I got: Machoke, Magikarp, Ponyta, and Magnemite, in addition to the Charmander.

My next step into Pokemon fandom was through a book order. You know book orders, right? Those six-to-eight-page Scholastic-sponsored catalogs full of wondrous books to buy that were handed out every so often in elementary school? I loved the crap out of those things when I was a kid, and even when I moved on to the higher grades and they weren't offered any more, I ordered a few books from my younger brother's book orders. Anyway, right around the time I got my first cards, a book order was handed out, and there it was: "The Official Pokemon Handbook". I went for it, and after I got the book, I was IN. My earlier confusion washed away like so much allowance money as I realized "holy shit I must catch them all". And what added to it was the Handbook's introduction, which stated that Trainers start at the age of ten. OH MY GOD, I WAS TEN!! IT MUST BE DESTINY.

So I collected the cards, I had the handbook, I bought the toys, and I caught the occasional episode of the cartoon, which I only ever saw on Channel 98 or something on my TV, it was really weird because our channels only went up to 64 or so, then we skip over the next thirty and BAM Kids WB. I have no idea. So I had all that and I'd heard the whole thing had its roots in video games. My family visited the house of one of my mom's old college friends, and her two daughters were also into Pokemon (they also had a Genesis and let us borrow Ghouls and Ghosts for a while!). They had an old-school murky-green-screen Game Boy with Pokemon Blue (or possibly Red, I no longer remember). I tried it out with a new file, making sure to follow their special instructions to not save. I remember making it all the way to Mt. Moon. I had never played one of these newfangled "role playing games" before, but I was intrigued, although I remember being a little intimidated by the game mechanics since they were so drastically different to my beloved platformers and fighting games.

But for a while I did not have a Game Boy of my own. It wasn't until the fall of 2000 that something clicked. I had my latest issue of Nickelodeon Magazine and was flipping through it... and then, I saw it.

I stared for a good several minutes at this ad, including rereading it by slowly panning down the page while humming Also Sprach Zarathustra. You only think I'm kidding. I knew there were going to be more Pokemon thanks to the movie and Misty always carrying around that goddamn enigma Togepi, but this drove home the fact that there were going to be new Pokemon, in new Pokemon games. New new new.

Nintendon't my ass.

For whatever reason, probably because it was so close to my birthday, I didn't get the Game Boy Color until Christmas. I remember it well - I'd gone through all my presents but one. I unwrapped it and discovered to my joy that it was a purple Game Boy Color. But then, a terrible thought crossed my mind as I recalled my mom possibly making a horrible error and forgetting that you need to buy games separately (since the Genesis and Game Gear both had pack-in games while the Game Boy did not, you see). I looked at her and said "But Mom, if you don't buy a game to go with it, it won't work."

And then she goes and reaches into the Christmas tree's branches and pulls out another present. Oh hey, it's Pokemon Gold. Here y'go, son. :smug:

I spent all day playing that bastard. ALL DAY. I picked Totodile, kept him from evolving a bit with the Everstone before eventually relenting, and I made it to Goldenrod City before having to go to bed. The next several months were full of more Pokemon action, and I bought a copy of Red later on.

Ah, childhood.

GB's Game Boy Favorites:
Pokemon GSC
Pokemon RBY
Pokemon Trading Card Game
Wario Land II
Kirby's Dreamland
Game Boy Camera