WOOOO! I just beat ________!!!!!

[Variety of Cells]

Cadence of Hyrule.  It was... ok.  It wasn't what I was expecting.  I really enjoyed Crypt of the Necrodancer, despite the fact that I never actually beat it, so I was looking forward to this one.  But I didn't realize that it was no longer a rougelike, which really took away from the experience.  You keep all your weapons and items after you die, and there are no randomly generated maps.  So once you get a weapon you like, there's no reason to use anything else.  And the game becomes rather easy as you gain more and more hearts and potions.  It allows you to brute force your way through most situations, and not really pay attention to the beat or the monster's attack patterns.  Where in CotN you had to really get the timing down to proceed. 

But I guess I really like the concept of rougelikes, and playing something over and over until you get a good run.  If you don't like rougelikes, but enjoy the strange rythm combat of CotN, then you'll probably enjoy this more than I did.

[Edward J Grug III]

Cadence of Hyrule.  It was... ok.  It wasn't what I was expecting.  I really enjoyed Crypt of the Necrodancer, despite the fact that I never actually beat it, so I was looking forward to this one.  But I didn't realize that it was no longer a rougelike, which really took away from the experience.  You keep all your weapons and items after you die, and there are no randomly generated maps.  So once you get a weapon you like, there's no reason to use anything else.  And the game becomes rather easy as you gain more and more hearts and potions.  It allows you to brute force your way through most situations, and not really pay attention to the beat or the monster's attack patterns.  Where in CotN you had to really get the timing down to proceed. 

But I guess I really like the concept of rougelikes, and playing something over and over until you get a good run.  If you don't like rougelikes, but enjoy the strange rythm combat of CotN, then you'll probably enjoy this more than I did.

Sounds like I will the exact opposite experience of you and I should pick it up after all...

[Johnny Unusual]

Super Mario Bros: The Lost Levels.

Like, I have played harder games but this feels unfair in sections, messing with players with lots of invisible blocks necessary to proceed and only trial and error can help in a game with so few lives.  Doki Doki Panic really was the better Mario 2 game.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

Finished all the levels in Ancient Planet, last one took a long time, the last boss was different that everything that came before in the game so figuring out what towers to use took many tries.  And of course that level has the most waves, so each try took a while.

[Iron Curtain]

Super Mario Bros: The Lost Levels.

Like, I have played harder games but this feels unfair in sections, messing with players with lots of invisible blocks necessary to proceed and only trial and error can help in a game with so few lives.  Doki Doki Panic really was the better Mario 2 game.

Agree with this over 9000%. Nintendo did the right thing in the 1980's by giving North America a reskinned Doki Doki Panic as opposed to the viciously, nightmarishly hard Japanese version. While this made many people bitter and hate the American version such that they thought it was "not a real Mario game", its influence on the Mario series cannot be understated. For instance, the American SMB2 brought us Bob-Ombs which were immediately brought back in Super Mario Bros. 3. In future Mario spinoff (such as Mario Tennis and Mario RPG) games, Birdo and Shyguys make appearances. The American Super Mario Bros. 2 may have been a black sheep but it was not unfair to the game player and it did have historical significance.

[Iron Curtain]

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, with every subquest, dish, boss, and almost all of the map fulfilled (including DLC). I can't wait until the update so I have more stuff to conquer!

[Johnny Unusual]

It took some getting used to but... Tecmo Bowl is a very fun game.  Finally beat all the teams and won the Tecmo Bowl.

[CJones]

I just beat The Messenger!  Took me 30 hours total, so probably 20-25 for someone who knows what they're doing.

Fantastic game, but way WAY longer than I was expecting. The first half or so of the game plays like Ninja Gaiden. You get to what is "clearly" the final boss, only to find out you're not even halfway done. The game goes "Psych! You're actually playing a Metroidvania!" The game has several of these false endings where you think "This time for sure is the end of the game" And then it just keeps going. My only real complaint is that the Metroidvania part isn't as well structured as the Ninja Gaiden part. It's often not at all obvious what you're supposed to do next.

But if you like action platformers than this is a must buy IMHO. $20 on Steam. If Celeste hadn't also come out this year I would say this is my favorite game of 2019. Still working on Bloodstained, so that may change.

Oh, they just added some DLC, which I haven't tried yet.

[Darth Geek]

I just beat The Messenger!  Took me 30 hours total

Really? I just shot her.

[CJones]

I just beat The Messenger!  Took me 30 hours total

Really? I just shot her.

I kept telling the game not to shoot the messenger, but it didn't listen.

There was one thing that really bugged me about this game: The plot, such as it is, makes no sense whatsoever. It's clear they designed the game first, and shoehorned in a story at the last minute. There's a huge exposition dump right before the last level that "explains" what the hell has been going on the whole time. By the time I beat the final boss I had already forgotten it.

[Edward J Grug III]

Pikuniku. What a goddamn delightful game.

[Variety of Cells]

Beat Bloodstained.  I thought it was just ok.  The combat was pretty good, and exploring was interesting, but the story was crazy boring to the point where I could barely pay attention to the cut scenes and I never read any of the flavor text drops.  Which was fine except for two key areas where I got stuck because I had no idea what to do.  I'm assuming there must have been hints in all that boring text somewhere. 

[Iron Curtain]

I beat The Journeyman Project trilogy, i.e. Pegasus Prime, Buried in Time, and Legacy of Time in that order. Other than Pegasus Prime, which was a remake of the first game I never played, playing these games were not fresh experiences, but it was great walking down Memory Lane again...

[Cyrusso]

Beat Bloodstained.  I thought it was just ok.  The combat was pretty good, and exploring was interesting, but the story was crazy boring to the point where I could barely pay attention to the cut scenes and I never read any of the flavor text drops.  Which was fine except for two key areas where I got stuck because I had no idea what to do.  I'm assuming there must have been hints in all that boring text somewhere.

The way I see it, when you're playing a game like Bloodstained it's perfectly okay for story to take a backseat to gameplay. That's what I've always been about anyway is gameplay. All I really need is just a general narrative. Example: Contra: Alien invasion - Blow stuff up, beat bosses. Castlevania: Whip monsters, kill Dracula. Megaman - Steal powers, beat mad scientist. Dead or Alive - Bodacious big boobed babes beat bad bosses. Metroid - A loving tribute to the Alien series.

Now there are exceptions to this rule, like in a game like any Final Fantasy game story is absolutely necessary.

[Cupcake]

Beat Bloodstained.  I thought it was just ok.  The combat was pretty good, and exploring was interesting, but the story was crazy boring to the point where I could barely pay attention to the cut scenes and I never read any of the flavor text drops.  Which was fine except for two key areas where I got stuck because I had no idea what to do.  I'm assuming there must have been hints in all that boring text somewhere.

The way I see it, when you're playing a game like Bloodstained it's perfectly okay for story to take a backseat to gameplay. That's what I've always been about anyway is gameplay. All I really need is just a general narrative. Example: Contra: Alien invasion - Blow stuff up, beat bosses. Castlevania: Whip monsters, kill Dracula. Megaman - Steal powers, beat mad scientist. Dead or Alive - Bodacious big boobed babes beat bad bosses. Metroid - A loving tribute to the Alien series.

Now there are exceptions to this rule, like in a game like any Final Fantasy game story is absolutely necessary.

Problem was that it wasn't an attempt to recreate the Castlevania experience. It tried to have an interesting story, and failed.