2018 Half-Year reTROview reTROspective

These are my favorite things to write because charts/graphs! I love setting goals and tracking and measuring them, so here goes. My goal for the year was to complete 50 games in 2018. I completed 65 in 2017, but I also played through a ton of classic platformers which don't take too much time to finish, and my play for 2018 was to finish up some games that would take a bit longer, so I set a more reasonable goal. In order to finish up this goal, I needed to finish up ~4.2 games per month, and needed to be at 25 by the end of June. This is a little late, so I'm going to include the game I finished in July here for a total of 27 games! So even at the end of June I was ahead of my needed pace by 1 game, which is a nice buffer as July has seen me playing several very long games. Here is the list of games I've completed thus far in 2018:

Beetle Adventure Racing
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
Commander Keen: Marooned on Mars
Commander Keen: The Earth Explodes
Commander Keen: Keen Must Die!
Commander Keen: Secret of the Oracle
Commander Keen: The Armageddon Maching
Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D
Dr. Mario
Goldeneye 007The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
Lego Harry Potter: Years 5-7
LostMagic
Mass Effect 3
Mega Man and Bass
Mega Man X 4
New Super Mario Bros.
Pokemon Alpha Sapphire
Punch-Out!!
Project X Zone
Star Wars: Rogue Squadron
Super Mario 3D Land
The Final Fantasy Legend
The Legend of Dragoon
Tony Hawk's American Wasteland
Ultimate NES Remix
Vectorman

Home or Handheld?

As you can see, I again completed more home games than handheld, although I definitely spent more time handheld gaming. Fifty hours worth of hell in Project X Zone, as well as a healthy 80 hours worth of Pokemon Alpha Sapphire dragged my completions down here.

Home or Handheld Rating

Home is king here, although that is mostly due to an extremely low rating for the dismal Project X Zone. If you omit that, the rating for handheld games actually goes higher than that of home games. The low sample for handheld also hurts.

Systems Played

 

In a surprise twist, the PC is the king of home gaming platforms! This is entirely due to my run through of the Commander Keen series, so this probably won't last. I have been thinking about a few playthroughs of some vintage PC games, though, so it may hold through the year if I can play one or two more PC games. The 3DS is king of the handhelds, which definitely holds true to my general patterns of handheld gaming. I didn't play a single new SNES game this year (although I did run through Link to the Past and Super Mario World again), which makes me sad, but I've also completed most of the SNES games I need to play, with a few exceptions. Look for one of Secret of Mana, Mega Man Soccer, Bahamut Lagoon, or Super Punch-Out!! in the coming months. Or maybe all 4.

System Ratings

The NES is my favorite system of the year thus far, with two excellent experiences in Punch-Out!! and Dr. Mario. The only other system with a greater than a 9 is the PS3, riding solely on my enjoyable completion of Mass Effect 3. The stinker of the year is the PS2, with a poor showing from Tony Hawk's American Wasteland.  

Genres

 

Another year, another dominant performance for platformers. I've completed 10 to date, more than double the runner up-RPGs. I've definitely spent more time playing RPGs, though.
 

Genre Ratings

 

The genre of the year is Metroidvania, as I've only played the stellar Castlevania: Symphony of the Night so far. I really need to remedy that, as I've grown increasingly fond of the genre recently. 3D platformers, action, FPS, and puzzle games all rank above 9, and all on the strength of one excellent title. The worst genre of the year, by far, is strategy RPGs, literally anchored by Project X Zone, the clear frontrunner for the illustrious reTROview Stinker of the Year award.

Developers

 

Nintendo is the quantity developer of the year thus far with 6 games, followed closely by id Software/Ideas from the Deep due to the Commander Keen games they split among themsleves. Other than that, the other developer with more than one game is Capcom, with 2 Mega Man games. 

Developer Ratings

Technically Konami reigns supreme with a 9.6 rating due to Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. But the true developer of the year is unquestionably Nintendo, who managed to maintain a 9.06 rating across 6 titles. Unbelievable. The worst developer is Banpresto/Monolith Soft, thanks to, well, I think you know by now.

Company

 

Nintendo is, as always, the king. Their 15 games I've played thus far outstrips the 12 combined from PC/Sega/Sony. The distribution is far more democratic than last year, however, where I played an astounding 52 Nintendo games with 13 others spread across the remaining platforms. I'll clear that pretty comfortably this year, with an additional Sony game in the works at present.

Company Rating

 

Crown Miyamoto-San with many crowns! The Nintendo developed games really buoy up the Nintendo rating to make them king of quality as well as quantity. The worst company of the year goes to Sony, dragged down by two poor titles in Tony Hawk's American Wasteland and Mega Man X 4. But they'll be pulled back up after my next What I'm Playing is completed.

Decade

 

The 90s again reign supreme in this nostalgia driven gamer's patterns, with 12 games from the 90s. The 80s are in last in quantity, but...

Decade Ratings

 

First in quality! With a 9.1 rating driven by Punch-Out!!, the 80s were again the best after their top showing last year. The worst decade of the year is the 2000s by a mile. 

Game of the (reTROview) Year (so far): Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

 

This seems a bit low rated (9.6) for a game of the year, but it was truly excellent. Technically it tied with Punch-Out!! but I had to make a judgment call and I think I enjoyed Castlevania more by a hair, plus Little Mac's Odyssey is getting it's own award below. Both were excellent, though!

Stinker of the (reTROview) Year (so far): Project X Zone

 

This one was particularly onerous as it was not only dreadful but also extremely long.

Median Game of the (reTROview) Year (so far): The Final Fantasy Legend

 

This was a tie between the classic Squaresoft RPG and New Super Mario Bros. But I just thought the legend more accurately described median.

Newest Game reTROviewed: Ultimate NES Remix (2014)

The newest reviewed game is a compilation of NES themed minigames. How on brand! It technically tied with Pokemon Alpha Sapphire, but this was way more funny.

Oldest Game reTROviewed: Punch-Out!! (1987)

 

This is definitely going to be a game to which I return regularly. So much fun!

The reTROview 2018 Top 10:

10. Lego Harry Potter: Years 5-7 (8.8)

9. Ultimate NES Remix (8.9)

8. Mass Effect 3 (9)

7. Pokemon Alpha Sapphire (9)

6. The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (9.1)

5. Super Mario 3D Land (9.3)

4. Dr. Mario (9.4)

3. Goldeneye 007 (9.4)

2. Punch-Out!! (9.6)

1. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (9.6)

The reTROview 2018 Bottom 10: 

10. Vectorman (8.4)

9. Star Wars: Rogue Squadron (8.2)

8. Commander Keen: Keen Must Die! (8.2)

7. The Legend of Dragoon (8)

6. Mega Man and Bass (8)

5. LostMagic (7.5)

4. Commander Keen: The Armageddon Machine (7.5)

3. Mega Man X4 (7.2)

2. Tony Hawk's American Wasteland (7)

1. Project X Zone (5)

I had excellent taste in games this year! Only the bottom 3 of the Bottom 10 are truly "stay away" games. The rest were all perfectly fine if you like the genre, and had plenty of enjoyable content.

27 down and 23 to go! I need to slog through my planned July games quickly, but I do have a few bunnies on the list I can easily tack on if I'm falling behind. So far everything's on schedule to complete my goal by 11:59, December 31st! Check back soon for a What I'm Playing-I have two games which are very nearly completed on the horizon in the next few days.

-TRO

What I'm Playing (Volume 73): Mass Effect 3

I finally finished it! As I've covered before, the Mass Effect series is one of the few modern video games (as defined by outputting in HD) that truly captured my imagination and genuinely impressed upon me the heights to which modern games can achieve. I beat Mass Effect in a weekend in which I literally could not put it down, and then immediately went to Gamestop and bought Mass Effect 2. Note-I NEVER do this. I am generally a very patient person and am more than willing to wait to play a game to save a few bucks on the purchase price, or wait a very long time and save a lot by buying it locally from someone selling it on offerup/craigslist/facebook. But I simply had to play Mass Effect 2, which was a bit more of a grind for me. I thought the writing was positively genius, and the characters and gameplay were much better than the original, but that some of the deeper RPG elements that I loved in the original were gutted in the sequel. My primary joy in RPGs is having flexible character development and the ability to build my character up to the level I want to control my feeling of dominance or desperation throughout, and Mass Effect 2 more or less sapped that from me entirely. But it's objectively a better game, especially if you love detailed and emotional story telling the likes of which only BioWare can bring.

I then set out on my quest to complete the trilogy, and made it the vast majority of the way through the game, stopping only due to the fact that my disc was scratched. By that point, I was admittedly a bit burnt out on the series, having already put well over 70 hours into the three games, and I was ready for a break, so I set it aside.

But then I came back with a vengeance this year, and, being a complete maniac, I decided to beat all three again. And finally, as of last night, I have seen the book closed on Commander Shepard and the Reapers.

The story is, again, fantastic. The conclusion of the story gives you a very difficult choice to make, as well as offering those choices throughout the game. It does feel like your choices are slightly less impactful this time around, but the story telling is there, so this isn't quite as bad as it seems.

You didn't really get as much chance to develop relationships with your side characters this time around, as your building of a bond with them was finished in a small handful of discussions, with no loyalty missions at the end. This was a wonderful way to not just hear from your characters, but also to spend time with each character and feel like you're really earning their loyalty, so it's pretty disappointing that the game is lacking this feature. When you did have missions of this style, they're weirdly featuring old characters from Mass Effect 2, which seems like a mistake. If you want to introduce newer characters like Vega or EDI, you should really give a chance to go in shoulder to shoulder with them to resolve some issue that they're facing in their lives. This aspect is definitely more shallow than in the brilliant Mass Effect 2.

The combat was excellent, and is the best in the series by a mile. The controls are perfect, powers are impactful, and the classes seem balanced, with a necessity to include a wide range of skills in your team. There are a ton of fun fights in the game in which to use these fun combat mechanics.

The music was great! There were a ton of good new songs, but also skillful use of themes and songs from the previous two games, to which you'll have an emotional impact by the time you've finished the first two games.

I really didn't like that there was no end boss fight to the game. It just feels like you need one to make the game pull together and give you that sense of triumph, and the game's ending was a bit lacking as a result.

By far the most frustrating aspect of the game was the game's forcing you to play multiplayer to unlock the best ending(s). I really hate multiplayer shooters, and forcing you to need to engage in this universe for upwards of 20 hours to have a chance to see the best ending was such torture that I just skipped it and did the best I could, and watched the best ending on youtube. If a multiplayer aspect to the game was included throughout the series, that would have been one thing. But to just tack it on to a game which never featured any such requirement through the first two games seemed in poor taste, like they were just desperately trying to add hours to your experience to justify a $60 purchase to the most spoiled generation of video game players who have ever existed.

The player progression was again annoying to me. You can't earn experience from killing bad guys, but just get it in chunks throughout the game for completing objectives, finding med kits, etc. For someone who likes a chance to grind, you'll definitely be hard capped to the degree you can level, which drives me crazy. The leveling system was, again, very basic compared to the genius Mass Effect, but was pretty similar to Mass Effect 2. To most people, this won't be an issue, but it makes the game feel more like a standard FPS and less like an RPG.

Mass Effect 3 is an excellent game, but it is my least favorite in the series. It lacked the excellent player progressions system from Mass Effect, and didn't quite have the same storytelling punch of Mass Effect 2. It's a good conclusion to the series, but I can't help but feel like there was more that could have been done here. I'll give it a 9.0/10.

Up next is a bizarre member of the backlog that I never seriously tried to complete as a kid, but did own and enjoy, so I'm going to try for a quick clearout to get back on pace! I'll also be doing a half-year review of my progress thus far to track how I've been doing on my goal of completing 50 games before the end of the year (spoiler: killing it).

-TRO

What I'm Playing (Volume 72): The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass

The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass is a 2D Zelda game for the Nintendo DS. Released after Wind Waker, the game keeps the cell shaded aesthetic of the Gamecube title and takes place directly after the events of that game (I've never played it). In contrast to other 2D games in the series like A Link to the Past or The Minish Cap, this game uses an entirely new control scheme revolving around the use of the DS' touch screen.

As soon as I read the sentiments of that last sentence in other descriptions of the game, I have to confess that my eyes rolled completely into the back of my head. In general, the touch screen on the DS and 3DS is used most effectively for displaying multiple portions of the game, and is typically relegated to displaying statistics or menus. Games that revolve around the touch screen for its primary interface end up being  minigame games (WarioWare or XX/XY: Feel the Magic) or frustrating real time strategy games (LostMagic, Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings). But I was feeling some handheld Zelda action, and as I only had a few handheld Zelda games left to clear out before I've beaten them all, I went with the next one chronologically.

Frankly, I was absolutely blown away by this game! I am personally biased against touch controls. It's difficult to see what you're doing on screen, and generally games allow for dual modes of control with both touch and button interface options. In these cases, I can't think of a single one where I chose to predominantly use the touch screen. But this game used the touch screen creatively to create a new Zelda experience that notably improves on several areas in which the older Zelda games are lacking, or to push the franchise in directions that the old ones really couldn't have accomplished.

The beginning of the game is absolutely genius levels of teaching you about the fundamentals of the game. Knowing nothing about the game, the title screen greets you with a standard "touch here to start" message. Typically in games, you can just press the A button to bypass this screen, but here, the game does absolutely nothing! You actually have the touch the screen, and then you have to touch it again to select your file. You think this is weird, so you dive into the adventure. You're greeted with text, which you again press A to move through. Again, nothing happens, so you try your stylus out again with better results. By this point, the game's designers have made clear to you that touch is important in this game, and that buttons will get you nowhere! By the time you get to controlling your character, you're not even pressing any buttons, but are using your stylus to explore your world around you. The commands are are very fluid and they just work. Period. Link will do what you ask him to with few errors, which is one of the big problems with other touch games, which suffer for a lack of responsiveness and you'll find your character routinely doing things you did not intend. You can't control him quite as precisely as you would in the older games, but the designers of the game also give you wider windows of time to maneuver, and more plentiful hearts abound to account for the slight clumsiness you'll feel from time to time.

Sure, this is nice that the touch interface works, but why is it necessary? Didn't Link control just fine before? The answer is no, and you didn't even realize it before playing this game! Did you every get frustrated that Link could only throw bombs a fixed distance? Or shoot arrows in four directions? Or throw his boomerang only straight? Or wonder why Bombchus even exist? The touch screen enables far more precise use of all of these items, and unlocks all sorts of clever new uses for them. You can now throw your boomerang around corners, trace perfect paths for your Bombchus to reach their destination, shoot your arrows where you wish, and throw your bombs as far away or as close as you could ever want!

The touch screen also opens up way more interactions with your map than you could previously accomplish. You can now write down notes to help solve a logic puzzle you're given. Or keep track of where you need to return once you get your bombs. Or trace the outline of an island to discover its shape and unlock the secrets within. This will help you to uncover all of the little secrets in a Zelda game in ways you never really knew were possible before.

The visuals of the game are very good, and this is one element of criticism for Wind Waker that I never really got. Sure, they're more cartoony than before, but they have a certain soul that I find delightful.

The music is surprisingly drab for a Zelda game, which almost universally have great soundtracks. Color me disappointed in this one area of the game.

The dungeons are all designed very well, with lots of secrets to uncover and clever and incremental uses of the new items you're given. You'll rarely find yourself hopelessly lost, but also will be challenged by the puzzle presented within.

The game fundamentally revolves around a single dungeon. Completing a few additional floors will allow you to find more and more secrets within, unlocking new areas of the world around you. Thus, the game has a cyclical nature to it, beginning with you going as deep into the dungeon as you can, going out into the world to gain more abilities, and returning to the dungeon to go deeper, rinse and repeat. This can get pretty tiresome, to be honest, although I was grateful that they at least included a checkpoint halfway through so you didn't have to do the entire thing all over again. If it had just been three times to go through the dungeon that would have been clever and fine, but after my sixth journey through I had had enough. The game also felt needlessly long, although that may just be because so much of your time was spent slogging through the same dungeon several times.

There are times that the touch screen controls are not quite perfect, but generally they're a fresh and fun new take on the game. You can lose sight of where you are due to your massive hands hover over the screen to tap, which can get annoying. Maybe if you had smaller hands than me, this wouldn't be a problem, but it did get irritating at times. There's also a strange logic in the items, in that some of them, like the bow, will fire over and over again until you click off of them, while others, like the boomerang, with only throw once, and won't fire again until you click back on. I wasted a fair number of arrows this way, and took a lot of hits trying to run but finding myself aiming the bow instead. I got used to the peculiar rules eventually, but I would have appreciated an identical approach across all items.

In general, Phantom Hourglass was a fresh and fun approach to a game that seemingly didn't need one! Once I played it, however, I found that being willing to go across my comfort zone to a new control scheme can be accompanied by some big benefits! I definitely need a break after this game, but I'll come back to its touch cousin Spirit Tracks at some point. I'll give this one a 9.1/10. I also have no clue what I'll be playing next on handheld, so check back at some point soon!

-TRO

What I'm Playing (Volume 71): Star Wars: Rogue Squadron

Star Wars: Rogue Squadron is a shooter for the N64. Building on the excellent ideas started in Star Wars: X-Wing, the game has you playing as Luke Skywalker, but rather than using a lightsaber or blaster, you're flying a wide range of Republic spaceships, including X-Wings, A-Wings, and Y-Wings. The plot of the game takes place primarily during the IV-VI timeline of the story, but focuses on an alternate storyline that occurs in parallel to the events of the films.

Unlike the crushingly difficult and oddly sim-like nature of the Star Wars: X-Wing games, this one takes a more arcade-like approach. Gone are the ability to max out the power of your lasers, thrusters, and shields, shift your shields from front to back, as well as the unfortunate reality of only having one life and being captured by the Empire seemingly every time you die, necessitating you to begin your campaign anew! Here you get a far more friendly amount of times you can get shot by enemies, a simpler control interface, and three lives per mission! Woah!

In addition to the more user friendly improvements, Star Wars: Rogue Squadron is also a more strikingly beautiful game than its PC ancestors. Unlike the PC games, the battles here take place on planets rather than above them or in the middle of space, allowing the developers to play around a lot more with different surroundings and environments. Some levels here take place on watery worlds with large seas filled with naval opponents, while another takes place inside a volcano. Games from this era typically don't age terribly well in terms of their visuals, but this one is rather nice looking today. It certainly isn't as polished looking as the aerial combat in, say Star Wars Battlefront 2 (the brand new and inferior one), but you really won't notice many warts in the crafts. The surroundings could certainly look better, but it's a standout for this generation in terms of graphics.

The game also has excellent music and sound, with the songs being based primarily on the John Williams soundtracks, as you would hope. There are a few songs here that I didn't recognize, but they all work pretty well for the game. Their is legitimate voice acting here, which is a bit of a rarity for the N64. There's pretty extensive cutscenes with professional voice work, and it works nicely to advance the story along.

The combat is fun and engaging, with lots of different missions/spaceships with which to play. Each ship controls differently and is fun in its own way, although, as usual in most games in this genre, the more maneuverable crafts tend to be the ones that are the most rewarding to play and easiest with which to win. The Y-Wing in particular is pretty awful, particularly on the volcano level, which is nearly impossible to beat with the craft.

The game really would have benefited from a two player co-op mode, in which one player could play as the fighter class of ship, while the other plays a bomber. Then you'd have to work together to protect the bomber to get to your target, which would have been a nice feature, particularly on the extremely co-op friendly N64. The game is pretty graphically intensive for the time, however, so I can see why they didn't do this.

Some of the missions are a little dull, and definitely feel like a grind to complete. The system with which you receive medals depending on your performance, however, incentivizes you to repeatedly play through your favorites to try to get better medals, which is a nice touch.

If you like Star Wars: X-Wing, you will probably like this as well. It's definitely its more casual cousin, but who said casual was a dirty word? Everybody enjoys some casual games, and this is definitely slotted to fit well in most people's N64 library. It's fun to turn on and play a mission or two, and can definitely be beaten in a few days with a little dedication. I'll give it an 8.2/10.

Up next on the home console edition of What I'm Playing is a game that's technically impossible to beat, so I'm just going to beat it to my own definitions. Check out the teaser below...

-TRO