I have never really vibed with this games aesthetics, giving myself a few runs to get used to the controls and it became easy, almost every single enemys pattern was easily read(which isn't a bad thing… if I tried hard mode most likely)

the fight against Mom and her heart were fairly interesting, same with the demon thing in the area after moms heart(although it was to easy… but maybe I had great luck that run as I was melting things)… the rest of the bosses were pretty boring to me.

honestly this game would be far far more enjoyable… if it just reduced the timers on things
multiple times I was just waiting… for something to restock so I could get it for a combo, or didn't have enough stamps so just waiting for it to be delivered.
I failed to hold onto something required for an achievement… and did what many people did in this game… burned it.

This is a fairly mediocre point and click game, I recommend not playing it.
I only did so because it was a SG win >>
next SG win… Half-Life 2, expecting a much better time with that one.

I am mad at myself for putting this off… for what is this… 11.25 years after winning it.

Had a great time for the most part, I did get lost a few times and had to reference a walkthrough, but that is the magic of older games not slapping yellow paint and arrows telling you where to go. The snipers and turrets that pop out of the ground are by far my least favorite enemies.

this is just a short little tech demo… featuring HDR and some dev commentary on a few things.
since I finally beat the main game I allowed myself to play through this so another SG win on BLAEO is marked as beaten!

I intended to finish this one before the anime started, but I was slow and 2 episodes aired before I finished.
this is a wonderful and emotional VN… I swear I didn't cry over yet another anime robot.

I originally started this… in late 2014, I have no idea why I stopped… I assume either World of Warcraft or Path of Exile… both are/were addictions.

great game… only thing I disliked are the teleporting dudes who summon tons of zombie things(occasionally ones that explode and set me on fire!)… you have to use fidgets(the little fairy fox thing) attacks and your special to hurt them… when I encountered them I had invested nothing into it… so each hit was doing about 4 damage… where my attacks were easily doing 50x that.

one more ancient backlog done, and it was a good one!

more half life!
pros: more of a great game, can beat the game letting your friends do all the work and never fire a bullet
cons: flashlight levels, my internet went out while playing so proper time played/achievement tracking is wrong >>
Onto Episode 2!

short and enjoyable puzzle game. a few levels stumped me for a bit, but most I was able to figure out fairly fast.
has a little story with cat pictures between works.
only needed a guide to find the hidden level(faster than just looking for it)

and this wraps up the Half-Life 2 games… now I just need to play the first one… well more like Black Mesa(some day) so I can enjoy a more modern game.
I was getting ready to go find a Gorden get to the 'choppa meme right at the end, but things happened and credits rolled before hand.

This game is incredibly difficult, fortuantely you can mod it and Mod the Gungeon includes console commands, so I have been giving myself a nice little handicap…. of a chunk of armor so I have been having a blast actually clearing it instead of getting stuck in the 2-4th chambers(I remember why I stopped playing in on the switch now… I wasn't progressing(skill issue))

this will eventually get 100%'d… maybe, will at least play enough to get more of the achievements

I try to work through my backlog in chronological order, but there's a few games that technically have a more recent release date, while actually being re-releases of games that came out much earlier. I've applied this exception for the Yakuza games, and now for the Castlevania Advance Collection, which is a collection of Castlevania games that came out on the Gameboy Advance - four of them, to be exact, although i only played three

Circle of the Moon was the hardest of the three, and took the longest for me to complete, but was surprisingly good. It follows the metroidvania design (or the design follows it ?) with a sprawling castle that incrementally unlocks as you obtain different traversal abilities. What surprised me the most was how much the game felt like Dark Souls (the first one). There's the obvious comparisons - overall difficulty; animation commitment; save rooms like bonfires - but the strongest resonance for me was the cautious feeling of exploring a new area; venturing out into an unknown, hostile world, not knowing what's around the corner, and how far you can push before having to turn back and save your progress. Good stuff

Harmony of Dissonance was my least favourite. The art style was a bit weird to me, some of the abilities felt a bit off - even exploring the castle ended up being mildly irritating. While the castle layout is perfectly fine, for some reason there's two castles that you can swap between at teleport rooms, each entirely separate in terms of exploration, although identical in structure. There's very few points where this mechanic is used interestingly; for the most part i just found it annoying to traipse across the map to a remote corner to search for upgrades, and then immediately have to return to do it again. Enemies and palette will change, but that's it. Otherwise, it's classic metroidvania, but easier than Circle of the Moon

Aria of Sorrow is (arguably) the best one, and judging by the achievement stats, the one that people are buying the collection to play. It's similar in a lot of ways to Circle of the Moon, but where that game had the classic Castlevania secondary weapons powered by hearts, as well as a magic system powered by MP with spells dropped by enemies, Aria folds those into each other for a smoother system: hearts are just MP now, and spells are cast by the same "up + B" as using support weapons. Spells (or souls) are also dropped by enemies, and are the primary system on show, supplying you with everything from combat moves to traversal abilities. The weapons catalogue has also been opened up - now you can equip more than just a whip (however iconic it may be). Armour and accessories are also expanded, making it feel even more like Dark Souls - not with the same difficulty though; that's still toned down from Circle

It feels weird to call these games "metroidvanias", as they're partially responsible for the genre even existing. They're still following on after Symphony of the Night's design (and success), and then there's the whole Metroid part of the equation, but whatever they are, they're very good - especially for playing on a handheld