WOOOO! I just beat ________!!!!!

[Cupcake]

From left to right, Giggles, Nibs, Wobbles, Delelewoop, Smoocher, Pixels.

Pokemon Platinum! Played through it because people on a Pokemon server couldn't accept that Gen 4 was bad, and I'm happy to say that I was completely right and I'm so happy to nearly be done with this trash game. Difficulty spikes of 10 levels at a time forcing me to grind, NPC battles that are them statusing you, confusing you, and then either lowering your accuracy and raising their evasion, combined with the fact that Confusion was a coin flip made for trainer battles that too 5 minutes per Pokemon. I tried to not hold QoL changes that had been made throughout the series against it and judge it on its own merits, but GODS is that game slow. Story is slow, gameplay is slow, travelling is slow, everything is SLOW. The touch screen clearly hadn't been figured out yet and was more of a gimmick than anything. The story bounced you around the map like a superball, not to mention barely giving you direction so you needed to go everywhere you'd been and see where you could advance if you missed one line of dialogue. You needed a TON of HMs to get through the game. Cyrus is an ok villain. Cynthia is a good champion. Other than that Sinnoh as a region is very boring and forgettable. I didn't like it 12 years ago, and I don't like it today. Unfortunately, I'm going to have to play through the inevitable Sinnoh remake to play VGC. Much more excited to move on from Platinum to BW.

[Iron Curtain]

Ninja Gaiden II*

This game was hard as a mofo, even with game genie cheats. While the cutscenes were groundbreaking and hold up for video games in the same way the Simpsons still do 30 years later for TV, some of the story does not (such as the "damsel in distress" trope and the macguffin making you trudge through levels to defeat who you think is the final boss only to trudge through yet another level, only to defeat whom you think is the final boss, only to…yadda yadda yadda the cycle continues until you actually beat the final boss). I remember playing this game when I was eight or ten. Amazing it took thirty years for me to beat it*.

_{*with cheat codes}

[Pak-Man]

Well I am done with Paper Mario: The Origami King. I don't think I'll 100% it because a couple of those achievements require a mastery of the slide-battle system that I don't think I'll ever get, but I got my money's worth. I rescued every Toad, filled every hole, found every treasure and question block. Honestly it was the scavenger hunt that kept me playing. I don't think I've ever had so much fun with "Find all of the ____." My favorite game of the year so far.

[Russoguru]

Ninja Gaiden II*
This game was hard as a mofo, even with game genie cheats. While the cutscenes were groundbreaking and hold up for video games in the same way the Simpsons still do 30 years later for TV, some of the story does not (such as the "damsel in distress" trope and the macguffin making you trudge through levels to defeat who you think is the final boss only to trudge through yet another level, only to defeat whom you think is the final boss, only to…yadda yadda yadda the cycle continues until you actually beat the final boss). I remember playing this game when I was eight or ten. Amazing it took thirty years for me to beat it*.
_{*with cheat codes}

I feel you man. I played Ninja Gaiden 2: TDSOC when it originally came out way the hell back in 1989 or 1990. I remember playing it at my cousin's house in Texarkana back then. It is SUPER SUPER hard, but also super fun. I did manage to beat it a few years back(after like probably 300 tries)! That being said... it is at least one or two orders of magnitude easier than the first Ninja Gaiden on NES. Ninja Gaiden on NES is STILL a beast. Ninja Gaiden 3 The Ancient Ship of doom is by far the hardest game in the series since it doesn't give you the luxury of infinite continues.

[stethacantus]

Grand Theft Auto IV
Both endings
100% Game Completion!

A couple of things I am not happy with. When I first began the game, I thought it would be funny to drive with drunken Roman right off the end of the dock, didn't get out of the car in time, and drowned. So I died once on my stats. The other is that I got bored and took Michelle to the strip club for a date, got on the nerves of the bouncers again who pummeled her before we both could get out the door, and had to pick her up at the hospital. I was going to make it up to her on the next date, but then she was taken out of the game at the end of the next mission. So I ended up stuck with a 96% fondness level. I am also one random character encounter short because I assassinated him in an earlier mission with a sniper rifle instead of having a shootout with his men. Fortunately his random encounter was not mandatory for 100% completion.

My vehicle collection


Ice Cream Truck. Brucie's friend's car. Fortunately they were not effected when Roman's apartment was firebombed. 


Bernie's boyfriends car. Some sort of vehicle stolen from the airport.


Soda truck used on dates with Kate to activate the marquee glitch. Playboy X's car. Dwayne said I could have it.


Forklift. Go-cart stolen from airport. I actually won a race with the go-cart.



Helicopter. One of many stolen police cars, needed for vigilante missions. I found out too late that you can't save three cars in a parking space,
so the police car deleted my blue/green Banshee.


My Annihilator. Unfortunately there is no parking spot big enough to save this, and it disappears from any landing pad you store it on except for the one at the
East Holland police station heliport. Which is probably just it respawning.


Previous vehicles lost because of limited space, or because some asshole crashed into it while I was saving the game, replacing it with his car...

Armored Truck. NRG 900 Motorcycle. Garbage Truck. Police boat stolen while getting rid of three stars, but there was no way to save that trophy. FBI Buffalo.

The set I got was called the complete edition. That means I still have The Lost And The Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony to download and play. But I am going to take a long break before I do that, mostly because it will probably result in the removal of all game progress on GTAVI.

[Variety of Cells]

I finally did it. I went 12 x 3 minute rounds against Edward Price (the hardest opponent) in Thrill of the Fight (VR boxing) on the hardest difficulty, and I won!  115 to 113. I’ve never been more exhausted in my life. Had to constantly be ducking, dodging, and blocking because he can easily take me out with one punch. And he has done that many, many times. I’ve been trying for weeks to beat him on the hardest difficulty. But every time he knocks me out after the 3rd round I’m too tired to try again that day. The first few rounds are the hardest because he has the most energy then.

The difficulty setting is Outclassed, and the designer specifically mentions that it’s supposed to be an unfair challenge for those who want something to work toward, and isn’t supposed to be realistic at all. I knew that if I didn’t beat him before my job starts up again in October that I would never have the time to build up the stamina required to win again.  Thankfully I did. I came very close to giving up many times.  I’m very proud of this achievement.

[CJones]

I just finished Blasphemous, a game where you can get ripped in half by a giant blindfolded baby (which did happen to me once). This is a fantastic Metroidvania, similar in style to Hollow Knight. Not too difficult, although there are some pretty brutal parts, especially if you do things out of the "intended" order, like I unwittingly did. Here a tip, don't do the snow covered peaks first  I don't think any boss took me more than three tries.

I'd describe the plot, but I honestly had no idea what was going on. Some kind of curse, referred to as the "Grievous Miracle" has afflicted the world, blessing and/or cursing (mostly cursing), seemingly at its whim. The game takes the Dark Souls style of story telling, in that it doesn't. There's a bunch of lore that you can read to try and make sense of it, or you can just ignore it and play the game clueless like I did. In the "good" ending, which I had to look up how to get, you apparently take the world's sin on yourself, so you take the brunt of the effects of the Miracle for all eternity. It has very strong religious themes. The game comes from Spain, and is clearly influenced by the Spanish Inquisition.

It took me 18 hours.

They recently released free DLC, so I'm off to do that next. The DLC also introduces a lot of quality of life improvements to the base game.

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/8PgalyhgTjo" target="_blank" class="new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/8PgalyhgTjo</a>

[Russoguru]

I know this is totally OT but that redhead is really damn cute!

Recently I got a 2DS from Gamestop and I played Castlevania Portrait of Ruin and Castlevania Dawn of sorrow. Beat them both on normal difficulty modes.

[Edward J Grug III]

Finished Paper Mario: The Origami King on the weekend (Was a little drawn out, because I only played it when my son could watch).

Absolutely loved it. Am a little tempted to keep working on the last blocks, toads, treasures etc.

[Iron Curtain]

Finished Ys II on the PC (i.e. Steam). Great game. Great Soundtrack. Only criticism of Ys II is that some of the clues didn't seem intuitive but once I looked up the solution in a FAQ I thought "Of Course! I could've figured that out!" A really great run-and-bump!

[Iron Curtain]

Serious Sam 4 on Tourist (i.e. easiest) difficulty. Fun game, but levels were bland and uninspired and gameplay got repetitive. Fortunately, the story worked surprisingly well for a game franchise that first billed itself as the anti-Half-Life. I do not regret my purchase. I give the game a 69 out of 100.

[wihogfan]

Started Sam 4 yesterday. Playing on Normal. Not too deep in the story yet but hit a point where an enormous amount of flying enemies kicked my ass a few times before I called it a day. Thinking I might have missed picking up a gun someplace along the way that would have helped.

[Pak-Man]

Well I completed Story Mode in Hyrule Warriors. I want to take my newfound skills to Fire Emblem Warriors to see if I can conquer that one now, but Hyrule Warrior's Adventure Mode still calls to me. So much to unlock still..

[Iron Curtain]

Paper Mario: The Origami King. Now that that's out of the way, I can sell the game cart to Gamestop and use the store credit towards Pikmin 3! Yippee Skippee!

[Pak-Man]

I can cross Fire Emblem Warriors off my list and am enjoying going for unlockables in History Mode. (Celica and Lyn are favorites of mine. Must make it through!)

It took a while, but I think I've acquired a taste for "musou" games. I'll have to delve into Dynasty Warriors at some point to find out whether I like the genre, or just like it when it's wearing a Nintendo-based skin.