Beaten

Crash Bandicoot 3 Warped – wrote about it here.

Spyro 3: Year of the Dragon – wrote about it here.

Paper Mario: Color Splash – wrote about it here.

Celeste – I think I lied and said I beat this before. I actually quit with something around half of the last stage to do. Celeste is great. It requires and inspires mastery. One of the things great about the game is how it slowly teaches the player to do things that look absolutely amazing or impossible at first glance. This is just a great game.

Ongoing

Judgment – Slow going, but I am starting to ease into this. I am having to kind of unlearn some things I picked up playing Yakuza games. The game looks and plays largely the same as its sister series, but there are enough differences to slow you down if you think you know how it works. The combat, for instance, is largely the same as it is in the Yakuza games, but protagonist Yagami doesn’t really fight anything like Kiryu. If you go in trying to use Kiryu tactics, the game will be much more difficult than it should be. I am just to the point where this game opens up and lets the player go their own way in the world. It feels so promising in the early going that I am hoping the meat of the game.

Persona Q2 – I made almost no progress on this last month. I am not ready to give it up, yet. The time I would normally use with my 3DS got filled up with Paper Mario on my WiiU. I will get back to this, but my complaints from the last few months still stand. This game really isn’t doing it for me. I was hoping for a farewell to Etrian Odyssey and probably a lot of Persona characters. Instead, I got a slog. I’ve had similar problems with other dungeon crawlers early on; maybe I will get to a moment where this one clicks.

Sonic Mania – This really should be in the beaten section than the ongoing, but for some reason I never found the time to get to the last few stages. It has been a long time since I’ve played a 2D Sonic the Hedgehog game, but this really feels right. I have always found them to be simultaneously somewhat sloppy feeling and continually compelling. The levels feel sprawling and labyrinthine, but it doesn’t really appear to matter when you are playing, so long as you can get from beginning to end. This game nails that feeling. The only downside I would point to so far is that it has too many bosses. Each stage in each zone ends with a boss of some kind. It is frustrating. I don’t remember many bosses from the Genesis games; they aren’t something I played Sonic for. I know they were there, but I only recall them at the end of zones. There are way too many bosses in this game. Still, it is excellent though about 11 zones or so. I should finish this up soon. At least my first playthough; there is a lot more to this game. I haven’t yet played as Tails or Knuckles, let alone got the DLC to play as Ray or Mighty. I don’t know how much of that I am going to do, but I am glad it is there for me to maybe do it.

Upcoming

Monster Hunter World: Iceborne – I am really itching to get back into Monster Hunter, so this couldn’t come at a better time. I might need to finish some things up in the base game, but I think I had it beaten. It seems like it has been a long time since I’ve hunted some monsters.

Final Fantasy VIII: Remaster – It has been a long time since I’ve played Final Fantasy 8. It isn’t one of my favorite games to play, but it is a game that meant a whole lot to me growing up. I’ll get into it more when I write about it, but it is one of the first games that I followed the development of. I plan to jump on the remaster and see how it feels 20 years on.

Kirby and the Rainbow Curse – I am working through the last few unbeaten WiiU games I have, so I can sadly unhook and retire one of the most underrated consoles ever made. Actually, I won’t be unhooking it, I need it to play a similar stack of unfinished Wii games that even I know I’ll never get to.

River City Girls – This looks delightful and I love Kunio/River City games. I will absolutely be jumping on this as soon as possible.

Yakuza 3 – Maybe. I am going to buy this on PS4. I am not going to do so until I beat Judgment. I really should get back to Final Fantasy 15 and Dragon Quest 11 before I buy any new PS4 games. I also have Ni No Kuni 2 and Uncharted 4 sitting unplayed on my shelf. I am likely to buy and play this.