Defeat the Backlog!

Felt like playing the former again. Played some stages of it over the years, including recently to compare to Nicktoons Unite, but last time I went from start to finish on it was over a decade ago. Dunno if it counts as finishing the backlog, but it's been quite a while so I guess it passes? Also as mentioned in other posts, I remembered well that it was better than Nicktoons Unite, not that it's that much better e.e"

And the latter was in my queue since I played the remake's sequel some months back. It was pretty quick but quite fun, and much more of a metroidvania than the aforementioned sequel. Also a tip, map the left and right arrow keys to a controller's analogue stick and see the protagonist lift off near walls with the wall back jump. :V

Also I should go back to keeping track of games bought too, to see if I'm lowering the queue, even if marginally so...

I know games back then increased the difficulty to up the play time, but Castlevania 1 for the NES feels like it goes a bit overboard on that.

Still a fun game, but be prepared to die a lot. Or if you're emulating, to use a lot of save states. Or both.

Also had planned to start the second game next, but I feel a bit burnt out after beating the game, so will go for some other game first. "<.<

~~Everything.~~

Jokes aside, after my last post, I remembered I managed to fix my modded Wii's memory, so created a disc image and copied it and the save to my phone, figured out it's too weak to emulate the GC through Dolphin, downloaded Dolphin as an AppImage to my computer, copied the game and the save to their pertinent folders in my computer, set the fast forward and slow down hotkeys, and because my patience was running thin, also set up an "Infinite Lives" Gecko Code (cheat).

Surprisingly, after that and at 200% speed wherever I didn't need precision and mostly with Timmy's shotgun-like attack, the game stood somewhere neutral and barely enjoyable.

Anyways, mission accomplished!

Been trying to play it since I finished Half-Life, and as I had already played Nicktoons Unite!'s sequel, Battle for Volcano Island, finding it pretty good, decided to tackle the game that kicked it off.

Usually I'm very patient for games, most of the time pushing through even the bad ones, but this one I'm seriously considering dropping, and if I do so, it'll be the third or fourth game in my life I do it. In retrospect, no wonder Nicktoons Unite! is very barely mentioned in the sequel, pretty much just showing the characters from the previous game know each other.

It's gameplay is a slog and repetitive, enemy and secondary characters' AI often stop for a few seconds each time, dialogues and characters have no synergy, and there's no sense of continuity between stages, feeling like tackling a shopping list instead.

Dunno how was its development, but feels like someone who just learned video games are a thing took notes from someone that knows what makes a game, and implemented them in the project like that.

May try to push myself a bit more, maybe 1~2 days, but don't think I can endure it past that long.

I was just thinking, "Hey, I think I have successfully skipped the last few Steam sales." Which is what I wanted to do, because I have more than enough games already. I was thinking that I probably didn't buy any at all in 2025, and maybe not even during the 2024 Christmas sale either.

Turns out, it has been longer than I thought!

I'm playing Hades right now. (The first one, not the new one.) Everyone already knows this but: it's good.

It's rare for a FPS to entertain me so much. Loved it.