Games Beaten - August 2024 - Forum | HowLongToBeat (2024)

#1

It's time again to see how our gaming month was.

I actually had a pretty good month altogether. It would have been perfect if I didn't have one bad game in the mix, but it might be the best month in general of quality games that I've played.

Doom - 1993 (PC, 08/12, 10/10 - BEST/GOTY CONTENDER)
Forza Horizon 3 - (PC, REPLAY, 08/16, 8/10)
Cat Quest (PS4, 08/25, 8/10)
Kirby's Dream Land (NSO, 08/26, 7/10)
Severed Steel (PC, 08/27, 5/10 - WORST)

From bottom to top, Severed Steel felt like another soulless indie shooter that wants to copycat/be a clone of better games I could be playing right now. Take F.E.A.R, Titanfall 2 and other games that came after it like Shadow Warrior 3, Trepang2 and Turbo Overkill and you have this generic neon sludge of a game that's competent, but truly feels boring and lifeless. I don't have much to say about it tbh mainly because it's such a dull experience.

Okay, enough of that though. Everything else this month turned out much better. Kirby's Dream Land was pretty good and I found it to actually set a lot of the foundations of modern Kirby games despite the lack of Copy Abilities. But it made the bosses and fighting enemies so much more interesting by having to inhale things and then spit them out at enemies. Graphically there's lots that needed to be improved and I think by the time Kirby found his way to the SNES we did get what I felt was the classic Kirby look. The Super Star game might have remade this title, but trust me, the GB version differentiates A LOT from the Spring Breeze game on that package. It's certainly worth playing and it's not too long, only five levels total with the final being a boss rush.

Cat Quest was one of the highlights of my month. Again, thank you to Siver and Not_Conner for the recommendation, this turned out to be a very engaging and funny parody of the RPG genre withs tons of punny jokes and great satirical humor not to mention simple action gameplay that really gets interesting the more you level up. Graphically the NPCs leave lots to be desired but the game overall actually was wonderful. The side quests were awesome and the story at the end had some great twists that I certainly wasn't expecting. Getting the platinum trophy for this game though was tedious and required loads of XP Farming so I'm not really sure if I'm going to platinum the other two games. Maybe I will if I play coop with my sister.

And I replayed Forza Horizon 3 again. I'm shocked servers for this game are still up especially with how quickly they dropped servers for FH2. I will admit the game has too many moments where you'll be doing a PR Stunt and your score will get pissed on by a random car that comes out of nowhere meaning having to do it all over again and the bucket list challenges suck ass and it's no wonder they decided to get rid of them in favor of more serialized challenges in FH4 and FH5. But the world is beautiful, the driving smooth, the gameplay addictive, the soundtrack an all timer and those barn finds are just amazing. Truly addictive and a complete comfort game for me. The game that got me into Forza.

Last is Doom (1993) and why wouldn't it be? The game is timeless and pretty much perfect. I should have played on Ultra Violence though as Hurt Me Plenty is a bit too easy. Still, graphically it still holds up today with it's beautiful sprite work for enemies and incredible map design, gunplay is some of the best ever and there's a reason why the weapon roster has become a staple of many FPS Games since, music is kickass and this newly released version with Andrew Hulshult's remixes breathe new life into this game and it's just endlessly entertaining with tons of mods/WADs you can play. Everything about Doom rules still to this day and I will have to eventually finish Doom II one day and the other Episodes for Doom.

Next month is going to be pretty busy. I'm going to finish Cat Quest II and start Cat Quest III, then will also play Astro Bot on PS5 which is the game I'm REALLY excited about. I'm also looking forward to finally playing Visions of Mana and I'll probably continue to dip my feet into more Forza Horizon 3 post game and start the expansions. Oh, and I also wanna try to enjoy the sunshine while it lasts before the end of summer. Cheers!

#2

Got a completion this month!

8/10 - Octodad: Dadliest Catch (PS4) - 2h 6m

Was a rather spontaneous one to play, and completed it in two sessions and was lots of goofy fun! Definitely felt they could've done more with the concept, but at the same time it was a nice short experience.

#3

Abzû – Nintendo Switch – 90%
I adored the environment design, music, and story of this game. "Short and sweet" condensed into a 3-hour experience, likely to become something I revisit annually.

Demon's Souls – PS5 – 85%
Clunky controls in one of the most realized environments I've seen on the PS5. I loved running around as a mage in this game, and did not realize I could have a power fantasy fulfilled in a Souls game.

Her Story – Mac – 85%
Love a good knowledge-based game that tries to get you to be creative with your solutions. I have over five pages of notes on a spreadsheet chronicling the timeline of the events of this game.

Pokémon Platinum Version – Emulated Nintendo DS – 85%
That sweet spot of challenging, hold-handing, and letting you go off and do your thing. Everything moves a little too slowly for my liking, but in my quest to play something from every generation, this has been my favorite so far.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 – Emulated Sega Genesis – 80%
This is the first time I've clicked with a Sonic game and wanted more without feeling obligated to finish it. It's a wonderful experience, with platforming, stage design, and music more slick than the first, and I'm excited to continue with the series...until I absolutely should no longer be excited to continue with the series.

Dishonored: Death of the Outsider – PS5 – 75%
The best the visuals have been in this series up until this point, but it has a story that robs the protagonist of the nuanced choices Corvo and Emily got to make.

Disc Room – Nintendo Switch – 75%
Fun for the most part with an interesting, wordless story, but I found it got repetitive towards the end with rooms that did not have clear goals.

de Blob – Nintendo Switch – 55%
A game from my childhood was on sale for under $10 USD, so I had to buy it. It got exhausting after the first level, which is also what I remember from my childhood.

Lil' Guardsman – Mac – 55%
If Papers, Please, wasn't a good game and had nothing of substance to say but still had blocks of text, it would be Lil' Guardsman. The voice acting was great, though.

And my retirements:
Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones – Active hater of the difficulty spikes in this game.
Kirby Super Star – Just lost interest after the first world or two, but it has very nice visuals!

#4

Replying to EchoEcho

Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones – Active hater of the difficulty spikes in this game.

Did you go Ephraim's route? I know for myself this was one of the easier games in the series but I remember once the split happened it definitely escalated in challenge, particularly the boat level. I think I've heard Erika's route is not as hard (I still need to go back and replay someday to play that route myself).

#5

Pretty good month for me

8/10 Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn (Wii): 53:58 7/10
8/11 The Forgotten City (PC-Steam): 5:42 7/10
8/12 Severed Steel (PC-Epic): 2:46 8/10
8/13 Barbie: Dreamhouse Party (Wii): 0:58 5/10 - WORST
8/13 Black Widow: Recharged (PC-Epic): 2:42 6/10
8/14 Centipede: Recharged (PC-Epic): 2:19 6/10
8/20 Dead Space 2 (PS3): 9:16 8/10 - BEST
8/26 Dead Space 3 (PS3): 11:18 7/10

Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn was a massive disappointment for me. I think it did a bad job following up Path of Radiance's story and I wasn't a fan of the game being split-up into parts. This game was also significantly harder than the previous, purely due to how dogsh*t the Dawn Brigade is. I don't think there's been a weaker mc than Micaiah, and the Jagen Sothe sucks too. I'm still a fan of the gameplay because I like Fire Emblem, but this is almost my least favorite (it's lucky FE Fates: Conquest has such a terrible story).

Dead Space 2 was a great sequel to Dead Space. I loved the improvements to the gameplay and the side characters. It's hard for me to say whether this or the first game are my favorite in the series.

I can't say the same for Dead Space 3. This is not a Dead Space game, it's a generic Sci-Fi shooter. The tone is nothing like the previous games to the point where it isn't even a horror game. The side characters are awful, especially Nolan and Carver. I wasn't a fan of how crafting replaced the store system since it just leads to having too much ammo and health. Every shot mattered in the first two games, I can waste 70% of my ammo in this game and be fine. The redesigns for the necromorphs suck too. The first two games really made you feel like you were fighting twisted and corrupted corpses, but they just feel like generic aliens in this one. The game feels fine to play, just nothing special like the first two.

#6

8/01 Devil May Cry (Replay)
8/05 Goat Simulator
8/06 Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
8/10 Devil May Cry 2 (Replay)
8/28 Doom 64

8/05 Goat Simulator: Waste of Space
8/28 Vampire Survivors: Emergency Meeting

Not a ton of completions on my end of things, mainly due it part to me moving away for a work opportunity and not having the time to really play all that much, besides some Black Myth: Wukong. My favorite completion this month was Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, which is fantastic and I recommend everyone check it out. My least favorite game that wasn't a replay was probably Goat Simulator, which was still pretty fun in it's own right, albeit a bit frustration with some of it's performance bugs.

#7

Only three completions this month, all Game Pass games:

08/01 - As Dusk Falls
08/07 - Still Wakes the Deep
08/18 - Sea of Stars

Sea of Stars takes game of the month easily, as I expected it would. Turn-based strategy games are one of my favorite genres for a reason, and the graphics, story, and characters were great too. It was fun seeing all the references to The Messenger as well. It's a tough choice and if Jedi: Survivor or Sea of Stars will be my game of the year, I'll need to think on it. As Dusk Falls was an interesting enough story-driven game I played with a friend. It was good but I feel like I would've liked it more if I didn't keep making stupid decisions that got people killed. Unfortunately don't have enough time left in my subscription to do another playthrough so it is what it is. Still Wakes the Deep was overall a disappointment and definitely the worst game of the month. The graphics are good and the monster designs were pretty cool but everything else fell flat. For such a short game, there was a lot of backtracking. You would think something as large as an oil rig would make it easier to lead the player to new places but you kept returning to the same ones multiple times. The gameplay also just consisted of "go here, straddle the ledge, push this button/pull this lever, then head back" over and over again. Still wasn't a bad game but not really memorable.

September will be my last full month of Game Pass as my subscription ends in early October. I plan on beating Jusant and starting and beating Scorn with my friend. I imagine these will be the last two games we'll be able to get through before the subscription expires. As for me, I'm probably going to dedicate the entire month to Starfield. I'm already 30 hours in but it feels like I've made almost no progress. It may be too early to tell but as a Skyrim and Fallout fan, this game is a bit of a disappointment so far. Hopefully my experience turns around and it ends up being good. Time will tell.

#8

Replying to Son_of_a_Pitch

Epharim's! A little past the halfway point I was just stuck, and it was designed to be two back-to-back levels so I couldn't back out and grind. If I were to pick it up again I'd over-level everyone and then blast through the rest of it

#9

A very productive month for me.

8/03 - Kirby: Triple Deluxe (3DS)
8/08 - The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (PC)
8/11 - Kirby: Planet Robobot (3DS)
8/15 - Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree DLC (PC)
8/17 - Kirby Star Allies (Switch)
8/31 - Kirby and the Forgotten Land (Switch)

Kirby: Triple Deluxe was fine, I can't say it was my favorite but it was overall pretty fun. Oblivion was great, but honestly isn't the 'perfect' game a lot of people make it out to be, but I overall had a ton of fun with it. Kirby Planet Robobot is an incredible game, but I was pretty burnt out having just finished Triple Deluxe which is a very similar game.

Oh boy, Shadow of the Erdtree. I can appreciate the sheer size of the DLC and I think it is absolutely gorgeous as well, but I didn't have a lot of fun with it. I'm pretty disappointed at the lack of new weapons for a few pre-existing classes such as mages. There are only a few bosses that I had a ton of fun with that I think are well designed, but other than those few I didn't like most of the bosses.

Kirby Star Allies I think is a little underrated, it's by no means an amazing game but I personally found it to be perfectly serviceable as a Kirby game. And finally Kirby and the Forgotten Land I just finished yesterday which I had a good amount of fun with. But if you can believe it I'm a little burnt out on Kirby games, so I actually struggled getting through it, but I can highly appreciate it for what it is.

#10

So I finished a couple of things in August and dropped a game for once too, even if it was just a replay.

Battlefleet Gothic Armada 2 - A replay, though with a different faction. Although it seems like the game has three campaigns for tree races, it's actually the same campaign with three different factions. There is little meaningful difference, though the gameplay is still great. The Necron campaign, however, is a letdown, compared to the Imperial one.

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor - An incredibly well-put-together product, with no rough edges gameplay-wise. However, while I wouldn't call it creatively bankrupt, it's such a by-the-numbers AAA game, that it felt extremely hollow. Not helped by the weak story.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (2023) - Incredibly mediocre and lazy. No great spectacle, no insane action, no nothing, except for reused maps.

Wolfenstein: The Old Blood - It was kind of basic, not bad by any means, just a bit dull of an experience for me. Preferred the base game.

Medal of Honor: Airborne - This actually would just have been a replay but I couldn't go through with it. They made several unfortunate decisions with the gameplay that just make it janky to play and although there is an excellent mod (Redux) that fixes most of it, it also introduced a different sort of problem, at least for me. None of this helped with technical difficulties on top, and I decided this wasn't worth the trouble for a replay.

#11

Aug 15 - Grounded - PC
Aug 24 - Folder Dungeon - PC
Aug 24 - Pretty Coo' - PC
Aug 26 - Breathless Winds - PC
Aug 28 - The Last Campfire - PC

Not a whole lot finished but I am getting close to the end in Baldur's Gate 3 and Diablo 4. And I also have a bunch of other games sitting half finished so I'll try to get some of those also wrapped up this month

#12

#13

#14

08/01 - Estranged: The Departure (PC)(Replay)
I played it for the first time some years ago and now I have revisited it to get the remaining achievements. My taste in videogames have changed since then but I still think Estranged is still a neat and cozy saga. Now I will wait for the third game to come out.

08/11 - Braid: Anniversary Edition (PC)
I finally gave Braid a shot after hearing about it for over a decade now. I now understand why it gets so much praise. Beautiful and fun game with an OST that was stuck in my head for weeks.

08/23 - The Bunny Graveyard (PC)
I saw it at 6€ on Steam's frontpage and bought it out of boredom, I turned out to be a sweet surprise addition to my library. I'm going to wishlist part 2 as soon as they publish its page.

08/30 - TWHL Tower: Source (PC)
The classic Half-Life mod about climbing a tower with each floor being made by a different person, now on Source Engine. Pure modding crazyness where the next floor could be a shooting gallery, a sh*tpost, a flex of level designing skills or an homenage to another game. Floors weren't as impressive as in the first mod, but it was really fun.

#15

Replying to Finnedorb

For a second I took as Path of Radiance and was like 'What do you mean massive disappointment??' Then I saw it was Radiant Dawn and yeah. Yeah. I could rant for a while about that one both mechanically and in story.

#16

I've been a couple of months without replying this kind of threads, just because I forgot... But I'm back, to speak about a great game I've beaten this month!

- Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown - Series X - 17/08 - 23:20 h
- Mafia: Definitive Edition - Series X - 17/08 - 9:05 h

Prince of Persia was something special for me. I love metroidvanias, and this one is great! I loved it so much. It's one of the video games that I've enjoyed most of last years.

I also liked Mafia: it's the first one that I've finished of this saga. Some years ago, I tried twice to play the 3rd one, but I didn't like it and I retired both. But I enjoyed this one, maybe because it's more lineal and I don't have the same time to play video games as I used to.

#17

#18

It was a fairly good month, I'd say! 11 games for me. Mostly short ones, and finishing up some longer ones that I had started before, but it was definitely good!

Tales of Arise - Aug 01
Superliminal - Aug 08
Make a Good Mega Man Level: Episode Zero - Aug 10
Underground Blossom - Aug 13
Tomb Raider (2013) - Aug 14
Detective Grimoire (2007) - Aug 17 (Replay)
Return. - Aug 17
Detective Grimoire - Aug 17 (Replay)
CLANNAD: Side Stories - Aug 19
ENDER LILIES: Quietus of the Knights - Aug 24
Make a Good 48 Hour Mega Man Level Contest - Aug 24

I'd say my favorite from this bunch was actually Ender Lilies. I had basically no knowledge of the game before jumping in and I got way more into it than I thought I would. It was definitely fantastic. Apart from that we played a bunch of short games together with my girlfriend this month (UB, Detective Grimoires, and Return.) that we had in the list for quite a bit. I also continued going through the MaGMML games and I'm almost up to date with that. Just missing the third main entry, but that is supposedly to have a 1.1 release in the not so distant future and I want to wait for that before jumping in. Apart from that...Tales of Arise was very fun, but I mostly played that in July, Tomb Raider was good enough and I think I'll probably jump into the sequel in not that much time and CLANNAD: Side Stories and Superliminal both left me a bit disappointed. Not necessarily bad per say, but I expected a bit more.

For games in progress, I'm going through the first .hack game (which I don't know if I'll play much more of, since I may restart it later with my gf), No More Heroes 3 (which is not amazing for me but it's fun enough to relax to) and NEO: TWEWY (the current game we are going through with my girlfriend, game that I absolutely adore). Also, my backlog is now in the single digits, so pretty excited! That is a bit misleading since I know a couple that I'll probably add soon-ish and I have a separate backlog for games that I play with other people, but meh, details. I have a trip to Chile later this month so I may not make that much of a progress here, but who knows. May surprise myself with more completions than I expect

#19

#20

On August ___ I beat [or retired] ___ and gave it a score of ___.

03 - Cocoon - 90%

02 - Freud’s Bones - 50%
09 - ULTRAKILL - 75%

The Best/Worst thing is obvious by the wildly different scores. Cocoon was a mind-bending puzzle game that got better as it went along. You solve puzzles in worlds within worlds within worlds...I've never played anything quite like it.

I thought Freud's Bones would have been more interesting than it was. Neat concept to play as Freud and help him (and his patients) deal with their sh*t, but very rough around the edges and dull, dull, dull. ULTRAKILL was cool, but I've just played so many (retro) shooters that I couldn't bring myself to care enough to persevere after dying to V2 100 times. Very stylish, fast-paced, and intense, with a high skill ceiling. There is a reason this one gets highly reviewed.

#21

The games i finished are:

Completed:
Ghost of a Tale
Zwei: The Arges Adventure
SuchArt: Genius Artist Simulator
Twin Mirror
Pixplode
Medal of Honor: Airborne
The Sinking City

#22

Some banger completions for me this month:

04/08 - Later Alligator
07/08 - Slay the Princess
09/08 - Ghostrunner 2
14/08 - Dead Space Remake
15/08 - TWD Final Season
25/08 - Sifu
29/08 - Roboquest

#23

Only four games were completed this month, but those include two larger, meatier outings, and none of my completions were bad.

07-Aug-2024 - Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice (PC) – 9H42M
07-Aug-2024 - Bright Memory (PC) – 1H13M
15-Jul-2024 - Just Cause 2 (PC) – 24H13M
25-Jun-2024 - Thief (2014) (PC) – 24H48M

I was disappointed with Hellblade. I enjoyed the setting and the fighting, but overall, this felt like a gorgeous world with little substance. Even the land of the dead should feel more alive than this.

Bright Memory was fun. Hard to believe this is mostly the work of a single individual. With its short length, I could not score it higher, but I would have liked the experience to last longer.

Just Cause 2 was a fantastic surprise. It got such a high retirement rate that I was expecting a bad experience. Sure, the vast open world is full of repetitive activities, but if you do just enough of them to progress the main story, this is a fantastic 3rd person shooter with a beautiful materialised world, full of different biomes, fun activities, and punchy controls. Graphically, it still holds, and I am sure I’ll hop in from time to time to do some additional side quests.

Similar to that was Thief (2014). Sure, I can see why die-hard fans of the serious will take issue with this installment, but I felt it was a good stealth experience staged for modern audiences. If it wasn’t for dishonoured, this would have been one of the best stealth experiences around.

looking at my new year resolution, I can buy 1 game for every 4 I remove from the backlog – but I’m not going to because I have enough things on my list I can play before the big sales come around.

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+)

#24

Finished 10 this month including some indies and also felt like replaying classics from my teenage years.

Dear Esther - Aug 3 (PC)
Dreaming Sarah - Aug 4 (PC)
Pony Island - Aug 4 (PC)
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare - Aug 5 *Replay* (Xbox 360)
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 - Aug 7 *Replay* (Xbox 360)
The Unfinished Swan - Aug 9 (PC)
Donut County - Aug 10 (PC)
Fallout 3 Goty - Aug 18 *Replay* (PC)
Doom (1993) - Aug 23 (PC)
Gears of War: Ultimate Ed. - Aug 25 (Xbox One)

#25

Shadow Warrior 3: Definitive Edition (Xbox Series X/S) - August 15, 2024 - New Game +. Medium difficulty. Collected all of the Upgrade Orbs. Fully upgraded the character and all of the weapons. Completed all of the Challenges, except the New Game + ones. - REPLAY

Doom (1993) (Xbox One) - August 18, 2024 - Ultra-Violence difficulty. 100% Kills and Secrets in every level, except E4M3 and E4M7 which have glitched secrets only reachable with Noclip. All secret levels found and completed. - REPLAY

Silent Hill (PlayStation) - August 25, 2024 - 3h 37m 39s - Time was taken from the Results screen, so it may not be entirely accurate. - "Next Fear". Hard difficulty. Bad+ Ending. Saves: 29. Continues: 0. Items: 170/204 (+5). Rank: 48. - REPLAY

Grand Theft Auto III (PlayStation 2) - August 26, 2024 - 100% Completed. - REPLAY

Happy gaming for September!