So apparently I didn't update this thread since late August, LOL
Welp, it's about time I update it and wrap this up. As usual I'll do some commentary, probably try to be brief but end up just failing and rambling, because that's what I do. So without further adieu...
Kung Fu FIGHT!, Wii U, September 10th, 2015
Summon Night: Swordcraft Story 2, GBA, October 2nd, 2015
Runbow, Wii U, October 16th, 2015
Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash, 3DS, October 23rd, 2015
Test Your Mind, Wii U, November 12th, 2015
Super Mario Maker, Wii U, November 13th, 2015
PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, PS Vita, November 18th, 2015
Dragon Ball Z: Extreme Butoden, 3DS, November 20th, 2015
Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions Evolved, PS Vita, November 22nd, 2015
Yoshi's Woolly World, Wii U, November 24th, 2015
Street Fighter X Tekken, PS Vita, November 25th, 2015
StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void, PC, November 28th, 2015
Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, PS Vita, November 29th, 2015
Fast Racing NEO, Wii U, December 12th, 2015
Tokyo Xanadu, PS Vita, December 19th, 2015
Rhythm Heaven: The Best+, 3DS, December 21st, 2015
Teslagrad, Wii U, December 21st, 2015
Kung Fu FIGHT! - A quick, short, simple indie game for Wii U. A bit of fun and IIRC a bit of annoying but not much more than that. Not bad though.
Summon Night: Swordcraft Story 2 - A game on my backlog for a LONG while, I finally beat the 2nd Sworcraft Story game. A fun game with some cool dialog though I think I liked the 1st one a little bit more for whatever reason, haha. Still, not a bad game overall, though kind of annoying with how it dragged me around and stuff, idk... not bad, but not that fun either. Story was decent.
Runbow - A fun 2D platformer-like game. Super challenging and frustrating. Some catchy music too though it kinda gets annoying after a while, lol. Has a pretty rad color-based mechanic where platforms the same color as the background disappear and it makes for some fun platforming, but some issues with stable platforming and IIRC one or two other things made it frustrating. Finally beating it was rewarding though and I'd suggest it to people who like platformers... it even has cool online play though actually getting a room going will probably be pretty dang difficult since it's an indie game on the Wii U of all systems, lol.
Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash - A decent 2D platformer with a mechanic where you use your, uh... electrical plug thingy to swing onto platforms and stuff... It's decent but really not that innovative and kinda repetitive. Has some charm with the whole mini robot picking up trash thing but could also be kinda tedious and frustrating. The level progression system is also just kinda... dumb IMO, pointlessly non-linear (though it can be linear if you always get the right spins, and IIRC I could just reload the game if I didn't get the spin I wanted, lol...). Honestly, Nintendo makes enough platformers so while it was nice to play this having never experienced "Chibi-Robo!" before, I feel like they should stick to whatever he was doing before...
Test Your Mind - Just another quick indie game where you answer these weird puzzle questions and stuff. Nothing impressive but still a little fun anyway, like most cheap indie games that aren't awful.
Super Mario Maker - A fun game but I guess since I'm not actually a huge fan of 2D Mario, I didn't get anywhere close to $60 worth out of this. I felt like I couldn't really make any inspired levels that someone else hasn't already made or made a better version of and I didn't find the motivation to actually try out a ton of levels online, so I just ended up playing the offline levels, making some throwaway things as I unlocked the tools, and calling it quits there. *shrug*
PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale - A decent fighting game of sorts. While it seems like it takes some inspiration from Smash (something I feel is mentioned along with the game almost every time it's brought up in discussion, lol—I know, I'm not helping) the movesets were pretty meh and it's missing a lot of the charm of Smash, for me. The KO system is both interesting and kinda weird at the same time. It wasn't a great game IMO but I didn't mind playing it even though I hardly knew any of the characters on the roster. Not a game I'd play more than a little bit, though. :\
Dragon Ball Z: Extreme Butoden - A fun 2D fighting game with sprites that was kind of exciting and refreshing despite being so simple... or perhaps because it was so simple. It stinks that there's no dub or online play (though I vaguely recall a patch that would add online play to the game being mentioned), but oh well. For the price point it wasn't bad even if the story was kind of garbage/forced/so off the rails, it kind of acknowledges DBGT, the character roster is bleh, the game felt kinda padded, etc., but bleh. Whatever. It was fun playing it so despite not being impressive I didn't mind, as a DBZ fan.
Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions Evolved - Another fun game, this time a 2D shooter with geometric objects and stuff (I guess with some bullet-hell elements), but with some overly frustrating levels. Some of the levels (IIRC the bosses especially) were just stupid and the final boss was ESPECIALLY dumb. He took so many tries and I actually not only got frustrated but was trying so hard/it got so intense that it was just like... insane. Been a long time since it's gotten that level of crazy for me, haha. In that sense I did enjoy it but it was almost too stressful, lol. Like yes, it's rewarding that I beat the super hard final boss, but the fact that I had to try what might have been a couple hundred times (idk, it's been a while) and that involved repeating the same old segments over and over and over again just to lose to the same area, or lose even earlier because I got careless during a part I kept repeating) wasn't really inherently enjoyable. The relief from finally winning says less about the game and more about how stressful it was having to keep playing so I could finally beat it at that point and how much stress/pressure was on me for me to just WIN so I could be done with it. Yes, that catharsis or whatever is great but I'm not sure it's worth it, and this makes me think about how gamers look back on the "hard games of old" and if we just thought that such stupidly hard if not tedious challenges were fun because we didn't know better/that relief was so great or there actually is some inherent value that just can't be replicated by making things more reasonable (and often less artificially difficult). idk. *shrug*
Yoshi's Woolly World - A good game but I didn't like the dog parts, no surprise there, lol. It was colorful and the yarn was cool and the gameplay was solid overall though IIRC there were a few things that bugged me, but I can't remember what. Still, it was a very well-made game overall IMO and I think I'd suggest it to Yoshi fans and 2D platformer fans who don't hate dogs. It's also got some challenge and depth in it if you're willing to invest the time, but I was pretty satisfied with just beating the main game and collecting whatever I reasonably could that was within my path/I saw (meaning I wouldn't really replay levels from the start to get stuff but if I felt I could get it I would usually try, sometimes even going a LITTLE out of my way to get stuff just because it bothers me leaving something obvious uncollected, lol...).
Street Fighter X Tekken - A fun fighting game/solid crossover, though the ending left me a bit puzzled to say the least... lol. Might be nice to come back to it one day but without anyone I know having it I basically just decided to beat the story mode with each main character or something (Ryu and Jin) and call it a day. (I tend to be this way with most fighters that aren't Smash, so eh. I still had fun, and IIRC I got it for free of PS+, so no concern about the value for me.)
StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void - Finally, the ending to the StarCraft story... at least the main story... for now. It was a bit bleh following the Toss and going through the usual process of getting all our tech back traveling across the galaxies and sometimes doing what could be considered trivial or detour-like stuff but overall the story was entertaining, the campaign missions were fun, I like playing as Toss, and it was great to get a conclusion to things. Maybe it left a bit to be desired and it wasn't all that epic or close to a masterpiece but I still think it was a very solid game and I'm happy I played it and got to go through the journey of all 3 StarCraft games.
Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed - This game was fun even if it's mostly Sonic characters and characters I don't know, but I wanted to beat it so bad I ended up kinda pushing myself... to the point that playing it was almost frustrating and IIRC painful because I was playing it so long, lol. That's mostly my fault but I was basically just upset that there were so many races dragging on and then I had to go back to collect more stars or whatever it was so I could progress to the final map. I hate that kind of stuff, enough that even though it's been a while I still remember being frustrated by it. The actual game though was a fun racing game, but the water controls kinda sucked, some of the specific races were lame or just stupid in terms of what they expected you to do, and overall I feel like it just wasn't fun as say, Mario Kart. But despite all that, it wasn't a bad game.
Fast Racing NEO - Another good racing game... this actually ended up being kinda great/a lot more fun later. It's fast, it looks good, it's got some cool jams, and it's racing, so while it's not F-Zero, I still enjoyed playing it a lot. There's also an online mode so that's rad too (even if I only played like, once, since once again, none of my friends have this game as far as I know...). My only real issues with the game are gameplay-related. It doesn't really tell you how to control your car or what the different stats really do which is ok in a sense but also kinda lame since it basically means you have to trial & error with nothing to go on (and I'm bad at physics so meh). I can deal with the game not actually teaching you how to make the most of its (very important) mechanics though, my real issues were things like "there are blur/other effects preventing you from seeing", "one crash and you can get put back so far that it's basically a race-breaker; you can lose the race if you mess up even once", "the top scores on the leaderboards make use of exploits or hacks or the like", etc., basically just stuff that prevented me from enjoying the game to its fullest. Maybe a little bit more polish on some of the small details and it could have been a racing masterpiece, but instead it's more of a niche, hardcore racing game that's pretty fun but easily frustrating in one way or another.
Tokyo Xanadu - One of my favorite games of 2015 and possibly in general now, a great JRPG that I imported not expected much, but got a lot out of. Honestly, the game could use a lot of work in various parts but the story ended up being pretty immersive, the gameplay ended up being pretty fun and exhilarating (despite a somewhat slow start), the dungeons, mini-games, sidequests, conversations, etc. were all solid, the music was great (as typical of Falcom games), and overall it just came together for a game that with a bit more polish and less cheesy moments, could become a JRPG masterpiece. It sounds like we might even see a sequel to it which I'd totally welcome... so time will tell! For more on this, see my other post in the games of the year thread here.
Rhythm Heaven: The Best+ - A great mix-up of some great rhythm games that I imported due to impatience (I TRIED to wait for a localization but Nintendo was just taking way too long and it seemed like so much fun I couldn't wait anymore >__>'). Unfortunately the game is IMO not the best of the Rhythm Heaven series because it starts off games with "easier" modes instead of just getting into the awesome rhythm action the series is known for IMO and there's also a super annoying story that really feels unnecessary/kind of a nuisance to me. I kinda get why they tried to add it and all but for a rhythm game, I just want to play rhythm things and I really don't need the story. It just kind of annoyed me and took away from what would have been uninterrupted rhythm fun. Also, aside from having easier versions of levels and then playing them "for real" later, I was also a bit disappointed that there weren't more new games, but oh well. Can't get it all. It was still fun and I'll pick it up again when it's in English.
Teslagrad - A 2D platformer game with Metroidvania elements or something and a story told without any words AFAIK, just pictures... it's a decent game with some cool mechanics but the story wasn't that interesting (not that I expected it to be)and really what frustrated me were again, small things in the experience and the dreaded "backtracking for things that I weren't told important but are now needed to progress to the end of the game". Yeah, I really hate that. If I DO need some collectible thing to beat the game, at LEAST tell me beforehand so I can make more of an effort to get them. I ended up using a guide to help me/ease the pain but I don't enjoy doing that, really. And also the fact that you die to basically anything in one hit amidst some other small nuisances made what could have been a very fun game a bit of a bumpier and less enjoyable ride than I'd have liked. (Again, I'm all for a challenge, but when hitboxes or physics interactions or whatever else is going on are acting weird or the final boss is just part luck-based it's not challenging, it's just annoying.)
Aaaand that's that. I did like quite a few games but outside of Tokyo Xanadu, Splatoon, and some others, most games had some downfalls that prevented me from looking on them too fondly. A shame, but it happens/can't be helped, and again, I liked a lot of them anyway, e.g. I'd probably still recommend FAST Racing NEO despite it being a little lame sometimes, I'd just be like "yo know X/Y/Z and it'll make it more enjoyable" or something, lol.
Basically though I just really don't like when games have fluff or artificial difficulty and a LOT of the games had one of those two, and if they didn't they'd probably be great games in my mind that I'd look much more fondly on. Oh well~!
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hmm, I guess that's slightly more reason to eventually get HF in English
