Games Beaten - July 2024

Big pull for me this month due to Itchmas:

1st July - Folder Dungeon - 28m 32s
11th July - Oceanwork - 29m 37s
13th July - Mr. Platformer - 1h 10m 38s
14th July - Pretty coo' - 29m 12s
17th July - Sunset Overdrive - 23h 57m 18s
17th July - Day of the Hamster - 1h 1m 15s
18th July - The Moon Looks Beautiful Tonight - 1h 18m 28s
20th July - Red Snow - 9m 57s
22nd July - Mobius - 55m 8s

Retired
15th July - Yurivania 1: Uhaul of the Night - 52m 21s - Got stuck in the cave at the bottom as the items refused to work within the cave

Ranking:
9th Pretty coo' - Basically an undercooked take on pikmin. Needs more work to make enjoyable. Alot of waiting around in that game
8th The Moon Looks Beautiful Tonight - Standard visual novel with no interaction. Good visuals but the story didn't compel me and was bored throughout
7th Mobius - Interesting concept using a mobius loop as it's level but it just doesn't work well as a platformer and needed to be a different style of game
6th Red Snow - a Fun concept that could work in a bigger game however it quickly get repetitive
5th Sunset Overdrive - A great base game with fun traversal built into it and used extremely well in combat however it is surrounded by vapid characters, boring quests and outdated humour
4th Oceanwork - A rather decent but shallow mining game
3rd Folder Dungeon - A short but fun rogue like doesn't do anything new but great visuals and design
2nd Mr. Platformer - A great tribute to atari platforms with 40 levels.
1st Day of the Hamster - Loving tribute to old style point n clicks with a helpful hint system attached although still has a few moon logic puzzles

Tyrion Cuthbert: Attorney of the Arcane - PC - July 25, 2024
The Spirit and the Mouse - Nintendo Switch - July 10, 2024
Severed - Nintendo 3DS - July 04, 2024

Had fun with everything I played. The only minor complaint I have is for Severed as the payoff for true ending wasn't much but it was still a good game.

Summer holidays and work commitment meant another lean month, but with interesting mix of one small, one medium and one large game:

01-JuL-2024 - Unravel (PC) – 8H35M
15-Jul-2024 - GRIS (PC) – 3H48M
25-Jun-2024 - Legacy of Kain: Defiance(PC) – 16H38M

Unravel was a lovely surprise. I've seen promotional material where the world looked beautiful, but I didn't realise that it looks that good throughout the whole experience. The sound and control were very good, and I could not quite understand those who complain about janky controls, after all - you play a piece of wool running against the elements. Physics is always going to affect you and I thought the controls were spot on. The only real complain that all the mechanics were available from moment one, and while some of the puzzles were fantastic, some were a bit of trial and error, and the game felt a bit repetitive at its second half.

Even better was GRIS. I did hear lots of praise for this game, but I still was downright owe-struck when I played it. It's another Puzzle-Platformer but the graphic and sound are some of the best work I have ever seen. This is pure artwork in motion and an emotional experience. It also keeps the pacing correct by introducing additional moves and almost metroidvania style exploration. With the short play time, it is a perfect piece of work, which is one of the best I have ever played and is my outright game of the month.

Legacy of Kain: Defiance is an ageing game. There was a lot of talk about its lore and it still receive lots of ranking score of 70 / 80 / 90. I have no idea why - the fixed camera in this game is absolutely awful, and the controls terrible. It is one of the worse games I played this year, and I kept at it only because I needed it for a category in the HLTB 2024 game challenge.

For next month – I'm already 50% into hellblade, which I must admit I'm a bit disappointed with - but I'll keep my final verdict to the end. I also intend to play Fahrenheit: Indigo Prophecy Remastered, but again, might struggle for time.

My Game Size Guide:
Tiny (0-2 hours), Small (2-6 hours), Medium (6-14 hours), Large (14-30 hours), Very Large (30-62), Epic (62+)

Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun - Forges Of Corruption

is fine..

So for July the beated games were:

1) Silent Hill the short message: So officially have been able to beat all the Silent Hill titles which deemed worthy of playing except for the PT which sadly was unable to get (sorry the Arcade and the Book of Memories deemed unworthy). But I think The Short Message felt that it didn't belong in the Silent Hill series, I'm not saying it was bad just that it didn't happen in Silent Hill or even near Silent Hill and the connection to the series seemed almost like an after thought.

2) God of War Ascension: Well sadly my PS3 is already feeling its age and on top of that some bugs of the game made it harder than it should, specially for the trial of Archimedes were the difficulty spike was notable and some times reaching the final stage (level3) the game froze or just soft-locked but at the end being able to beat it despite this difficulties made it more satisfying.

3) Street Fighter Alpha Warriors Dreams: In the past had already played the other Alpha games (2 and 3) but never the 1st of the series and this month being the EVO tournament and hyped about Street Fighter decided to play this one and replay 4 and 5.

4) Ultra Street Fighter 4: The objective this time was to beat the arcade in max difficulty with a new character this time was with Gouken.

5) Street Fighter 5 Champion Edition: The objective this time was to beat the Survival mode in hard (50 fights).