To Do List

I have a similar list of mostly indie Steam stuff. Maybe I'll get Q again this year and actually do Qora.

I just looked Qora up. Looks... odd. Can a game remind you of both Out of This World AND Oregon Trail??

I completed the Marathon three (I think) years ago, getting my last review (J) up on about the last day of the year.

My first goal as the next year started was to finish the games for a couple letters (Xenoblade Chronicles and Just Breed) since I had the final battles in JB and, instead of beating XC, I was grinding in the parts of the first cave that open up at the end of the game with some goal to do the sidequests in it leading to battles with L97 Uniques. And I gave up before I got to the point to find that by trying to do it, I'd made the final bosses a pure formality to kill. WHOOPS!

My second goal was determining never to do the Marathon again. I played some CRAP that year just to get letters. That Xbox Indie platformer Unreal Land was so amateurish that it's an insult to amateur designers to compare their work to it.

I hear that. Luckily, I don't have too many crap games that I'm using for the more difficult letters. Although... Xenophage might be the worst game I've ever played, so I've thought of another game for "X."

U's easy, you big wuss.

I keep an eye on Alpha stuff as I go, but I don;t significantly start hunting down specific letter until half way through the year. I tend to keep busy enough that a lot of the letters take care of themselves and I just have to snipe down the stragglers.

I can't imagine doing this review thing anymore without this goofy nonsense anymore.

Wait -- are you saying that RotW, Alphamarathon and various other projects/tourneys are the only thing keeping you going?

I think the Alpha thing certainly pushed me to play and write about games I wouldn't have otherwise done, at least.

Not in my collection of games and whatnot, it isn't!!!! It's an un-owned letter by me and even digging into ROM-land, the choices I had either didn't seem appealing (Undead Line) or were sequels in series I haven't started (Universal Soldier, being a renamed Turrican title).

I remember # being easy, though. After 30 minutes with 8 Eyes convinced me not to play 8 Eyes ever again, I just downloaded 3D Kirby's Adventure for my 3DS and played that game for the dozenth or so time -- but this time with a bit of 3D effects that I sort of noticed at times added to the experience!

Criminally underrated 16bit RPG, Uncharted Waters. That or any of the four million games starting with Ultimate.

Boom. Done.

Undead Line is an... interesting game! I seem to remember it being super difficult. And then there's always Uncharted: Lost Legacy.

I've tried the approach of clearing out "tough" letters first in the past, and it didn't work for me. I would cover a letter like "V," and then wouldn't you know it, three or four games starting with that letter would come along that I had to review, while a relatively common letter like "L" went uncovered. My personal library of games is large enough by now that I have games starting with each letter that I still haven't even played but definitely wanted to at some point--and probably still want to--so the main issue is finding time to cover those games around the ones I cover for serious site purposes. So far, I haven't done it.

And with my current obligations (working almost full-time, taking classes online and trying to find freelance work to supplement my standard wage that doesn't quite cut it, not to mention various site duties), it doesn't look like this will be the year to break that unfortunate streak of failed attempts.

1. I think I took the really stupid tactic of having about 1/3 of my letter get filled by RPGs and the like, so Uncharted Waters wouldn't have been feasible. I hit U at a time of the year where I felt I had to kill off some letters quickly to finish the thing.

2. I fiddled with Undead Line once. Vertically scrolling with you being a walking dude instead of a ship, with enemies and projectiles everywhere. It's an accomplishment to last more than a couple screens without dying.

3. I have a 360, but no PS since the second, so Uncharted games wouldn't work.

Nope, Unreal Land was the ONLY game that was available! No other one in existence anywhere! At least that wouldn't involve me playing something I had no desire to even try (and before I played it, I at least had hopes that Unreal Land would be competently made) or spending money simply to clear out one pesky letter.

Oh, and good on you for picking Xexyz. It's not the best game ever, but I enjoyed it a lot back in the day. Weird sort of charm and it was pretty tough, especially some of the late-game bosses. If I had regular nightmares about video game stuff, one in particular would be a major supplier of those.

Xexyz isn't what I thought it was. For some reason, I thought it was a generic space shooter, not a somewhat hard, somewhat crummy run and gun title. I may yet to switch to X-Men something or the other. I wonder if you'd still like Xexyz if you tried it now?

Venter, your schedule sounds quite ridiculous. And you're still doing RotWs?? Nuts.

I reviewed it a few years ago and gave it a 7/10. Partly because I have a soft spot for games that are flat-out insane (robots, fairies, dragon-robots with multiple flamethrowers, many other aspects) and because I think my fun with it growing up led to me being more tolerant of its lesser failings. The only things I legitimately don't like are how the big statue boss in the outside areas is brutal at the very beginning and then a pushover after you've gotten actual useful weapons, those multiple choice paths in the fortress airship parts where the wrong choice sends you back and those high-speed areas in the transition shmup levels where you get WRECKED by those thorn-looking obstacles. But I enjoyed the fortresses (especially when they get more complicated) and a lot of the bosses were cool. And I still consider that time I beat Horrza (said dragon-robot) without even knowing that there is a blind-spot trick to cheap your way past it as one of my better moments of the NES days (along with the skeleton boss near the end of Milon's Secret Castle and the final level of Castlevania III). Rising above my limited reflexes to to overcome something that needs great ones and all that.

What a weird topic to become a little hive of activity...

I've always been interested in Milon's Secret Castle, so I looked up your review for it and read it just now. Great, hilarious review. I think we all have a story of a hard, crappy game that holds our attention for way longer than it should. I have a LOT of those stories.

Oh yeah, growing up and getting a game every couple months IF I got good grades. So when I got a crappy one, unless I just wanted to re-beat other games, I HAD to play it. And Milon's was a legend for me. The time I spent all day Saturday playing it, won a heart-stopping battle against both the sixth boss and seventh (the infamous skeleton) and made it to the final area. All I had to do was find which wizard was the real one (there were four or so, but three were disguised versions of mini-bosses that were only formalities by this point). I killed one and the game crashed. Let me say, there is no gaming feeling more hollow than spending all day trying to beat a bad, tough game and winding up with no more reward than the knowledge that if I get another full day to myself, I might be able to get there again since I did it once. One of my best friends is so tired of me telling him the story about that skeleton, even though I exaggerate the details more every time!

Growing up, I had to make it my life's mission to get four games in a single year. I had to petition my parents on the regular, and then I might get a game for my birthday and another for Christmas. If I was lucky. And then I got money from distant relatives on those two occasions, and sometimes it was almost enough to buy a game, so I would work super hard on chores (I didn't always get an allowance) to make a purchase happen. So I studied the heck out of Nintendo Power to make sure my money would go the furthest. It's what led me to the RPG genre. Well, that and the fact I loved medieval fantasy (and still do). A game every two months would have been like heaven for me for a formative ten years or so of my life. I suspect that's why I overcompensate these days...

Ugh. I gotta look at this again.

Xexyz is outta there. I just can't with that game. The good news is I've got I, E, and Q next up with solid choices.

I think Joe covered Eldritch, and it didn't make a huge impression on me, so I'd rather not bother review it. Somewhat similarly, Venter reviewed Alwa's Awakening, and I beat it months ago, so I don't remember it that well (lord knows it's not worth my time to replay a bit of it to refresh my memory).

I might have some answers for you.

Watch this space.

I've seen your answers! Thanks for that. I'll knock off another few with these additions.

Still waiting for that Yoshi’s Island review, Marc!!

Hey dude, I know right? I thought that would be a great idea to fulfill my Y review, but it turns out that Yoshi's Island is actually the subtitle...