[EVENT] The Sonic Stadium 52 Game Challenge 2024! - New Prizes every week! Current Prize: Sonic Boom Shattered Crystal profile gift! (2024)

I'm really sorry for such a late update, been working the past couple days, am a little sleep deprived at the moment, and IMGUR has not been working on my phone so I haven't been able to link any of my screenshots here in a way where they'd be accessible for very long. Gonna get started though, so here we go!

GAME #40 - Wild Guns - Completed

This is honestly a game I would have never played if it weren't for this challenge, despite me hearing so many good things about it for so many years. It makes for another reason why I'm glad that I decided to partake in this challenge though. This game is amazing. Seriously. It is such a great game. I don't think it's underrated, but if it is, it's on SNES Online and it is definitely worth a shot.

It's difficult, I won't deny that, but the controls are so smooth and consistent. The jumping, the firing. It took me a little bit to get used to the controls exactly, but once I did, it was a pretty addicting experience dodging the gunfire and blasting off my own shots. This is sort-of a shooter range game, but instead of it being first person, the character is moving and has to dodge the shots with your controls. It has some Contra-esque power-ups too, where your guns can become more powerful but usually until the ammo runs out, and if you do really good, you get an extremely powerful weapon.

The bosses can be annoying though, which is the one downside, and are repeated in some instances. But the gameplay itself is so fun, it isn't really too much of an issue. I didn't enjoy the flying saucer/machine boss very much though, it just kept duplicating and it was annoying focusing on killing the little ones and the main one. This game is also co-op too, which I didn't get a chance to play with anyone since I played it just kinda out of nowhere. But I would love to try it multiplayer one day, and with Switch Online allowing people to play these games over the internet, it's a definite recommendation.

With addicting controls, great graphics, great musics, and great gameplay, Wild Guns is simply put one of the best SNES games ever in my opinion. This is coming from someone that just played it too. It couldn't get a higher recommendation from me. Seriously, such an addicting game, and I wouldn't even mind playing it again. It is short, so maybe that's why, but it's still highly addictive and it's phenomenal to me a game can play this well on the SNES of all things.

GAME #41 - Telltale's Guardians of the Galaxy - Completed

I figured I'd include the chat here, but this was a Discord stream provided by @Ryannumber1gamerwhich I do appreciate. I actually did play this game once before, sorta. I had the first episode, beat it, and needed extra money and refunded it on Steam. I wish I didn't though now since it was delisted, but I guess there is physical copies (at least IIRC). This basically counts as playing the game anyway, but I wouldn't mind experiencing it again.

It was a lot of fun to play a Telltale game in a group environment though first off, getting to vote on choices, choosing dialogue options in voice chat, and so on. It was nice to feel part of the experience, and I think Guardians was a good first intro game since so many of us in that group are Marvel fans. Now how does the plot of this game hold up? I think it's pretty decent, good even. Is it great? I wouldn't go as far to say that, but I think it lands with what it needed to.

It's a game about life and death mostly, with the first episode in the game even featuring Thanos getting killed. I don't know if spoilers are bad, but it is a pretty old game at this point, but this game covers a lot of the tragedies of the Guardians pasts, and wants you to make the choice in the end on who to bring back to life. You can bring back nobody, or bring back someone. The final choice was for sure a hard one lol.

I guess I'm getting ahead of myself a bit. How were the Guardians here? I think Peter, Drax and Rocket were done pretty well here. Gamore was alright but she wasn't anywhere near as good IMO as she is in the MCU or even the Square Enix game. I do like her relationship with Nebula, and it's sad the fate that Nebula has in this game. Groot is basically nonexistent though really, he has no real impact here in most regards. I still love Groot, but I do wish we got to see a bit more of him. He doesn't even have like a choice to bring someone back, but maybe that would ruin the character or something, I dunno. I just wish Groot actually got to partake more in the story. I did find Rocket mistranslating him purposely back to the Guardians pretty funny so he could get his way in some regards.

The villain here? She was okay. I wouldn't say she's anything to write home about, even if she has a sympathetic cause. She wants to bring her son back to life, but even her son comes around to not support what she's doing. She's one of the weaker points to me overall, even if she could've had a more emotionally thought out story with what happened to her. It's mostly a lot of exposition and her just being evil the only things that even appears.

I also want to give a shout out to this Mantis. She was really cool and funny, and I didn't even expect her to be in this game honestly. I like that she has a bit of a tragic story, and directly ties into the whole life bringing cup story. Her trying to reach out to Peter with his visuals of his mom. Maybe a little emotionally manipulative, but it makes sense in the end to actually get her freed, since nobody would likely seek her out otherwise. I think it was explained that was the only way she could communicate too, since she does control emotions, but nonetheless I liked how it was done.

The game did have a lot of glitches though, in one episode, we were basically stuck for like an hour because it would not progress at all. Those are my biggest complaints. This game was probably rushed, since it was Telltale near the end and they were working on so much. They likely did not have the time to fix these issues, but honestly, I've never experienced anything like these level of glitches in any Telltale game I've ever played, so it's weird there was a bug so consistent it set us back so long, and even to the point where we had to go against our own dialogue choices to further the story.

Over-all, this game is I think worth a visit. It's not as good as the James Gunn movies, even if it does some things better than the Gunn movies in some regards. I would still recommend playing the Square Enix game over this, because I genuinely think that game is awesome and very overlooked. They touch on a lot of things the Gunn movies do, but it also did it before the Gunn movies did. It touched on Rocket's backstory, along with showcasing more of Gamora/Nebula's, which this game came out before Guardians 2 even released. I do think Gunn did a better job with a lot of this stuff, but again, this is some people's first introduction to these character's tragedies, and for what it is, I think it did good. If you can find a copy of it for cheap, I would recommend it, just beware of game breaking bugs at points.

GAME #42 - Spyro the Dragon - Completed

I think my last post mentioned me wanting to finish at least some PlayStation game in the next week, and here it is, even though it wasn't one of the ones mentioned! I've been working on Spyro 1 for a while now, and it's been pretty fun. I've completed it once before, which is why I decided to revisit it. I think this game is a pretty easy one to complete, so I figured I'd go for it again.

Spyro is a game that I've had a long history with, and the first game is one of the very first games that I've ever played in my life. I actually didn't really like Spyro very much as a kid, even if I wanted to like it. I got stuck a lot and I think I only ever progressed to the second world before being unable to go further. I loved Crash Bandicoot though, and always bought his games, but Spyro 1 was the first and only Spyro game that I ever owned until I got the Reignited Trilogy, which I admit that I only really got for Spyro 1 since I never played the other games as a kid.

Spyro 2 and 3, while I have played a little bit of the remakes, I've never gotten very far in them. Spyro 1 though, I have completed it twice, so it is fair to say that I've had a change of heart. I still prefer Crash Bandicoot, and even Ratchet & Clank over Spyro, Spyro is a pretty fun platformer. I don't really care for it's world or characters as much, at least not based on what the first game put out, but it's a pretty fun and simple collectathon. I always enjoy the collectathon's where you enter a level with everything you need, no upgrades, so you can do every level fully complete on the first try every time. It doesn't mean some levels aren't still annoying though, but I'm glad I know ahead of time that I can actually fully complete it, so if I'm missing anything, I know that it's there now and I just need to find it instead of returning later.

I think this remake is great as a whole though, I do want to applaud that. So many different quality of life improvements, Spyro controls great even if I wouldn't say perfect. I think the hit boxes and landing on platforms can be finnicky sometimes, but other than that, Spyro controls very well and it's easy getting used to how to attack with him, and also evade enemies. The music here is also top notch, and I'm glad that we have the choice of the original soundtrack and a remix version. Fun for both fans old and new, and Tom Kenny also voices Spyro in all 3 games now. Granted, I'm still used to the original Spyro voice and kinda prefer it, but I only ever played the first game so I'm not really that important of a voice in this lol. Tom still does a great job though.

The most annoying level to me in this game, is Tree Tops. Just so many different angles you have to jump and go with the ramps. There are a lot of other annoying levels, like the ones with the giant spiders you need to get that ultra flame breath for to destroy in a certain amount of time, but this one just takes the cake. There's boost panels you have to run on, and you just have to sorta know where to exactly jump to in the level to be able to get the gems there. I had to look up a guide on how to do it the first time, and even this time, knowing I had to do it, I still had to look up a guide knowing exactly where to go. Just annoying stuff to me personally.

I think one thing everyone can agree on about this game though, the bosses absolutely suck. They have some pretty cool designs though, but most of these bosses are really easy and you just chase them around. No real effort needed to be put in. Sometimes their attacks can be annoying and like stop you in place when you're platforming above like an open pit, and then you die, but once you die the first time, you'll pretty much know to avoid that exact thing again. Gnasty Gnorc is especially pathetic, even if I do honestly have a soft spot for the character. It's just funny he got so mad at being called ugly he decided to do this lol, but back on topic, it's basically you just chasing him around. The most annoying part is if you die once, you have to restart the level from the very beginning. Other than that though, a very lackluster final boss. It's better than Crash 2's I guess, but that's not a very high bar.

Those are my thoughts on Spyro 1 though, it took me like twenty years to really like it, but I did end up enjoying it quite a bit. An easy game to complete, and it's not too stressful outside of a handful of moments. I still like Crash better, and probably always will, but Spyro is another Insomniac classic. Will I get to the other games? It's possible, but as of now, I am more interested in beating Sly Cooper, Jak II, and maybe even a few replays of some Ratchet & Clank games. Thanks for reading!