[EVENT] The Sonic Stadium 52 Game Challenge 2024! - New Prizes every week! Current Prize: Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) profile gift AND Sonic's Birthday Bash challenge for additional prizes! (2024)

This is the first big update I've had in a while, and yes, of course Pikmin 1 is missing still lol. Here we go anyways!

GAME #22 - Jax & Daxter - Finished

This is my first time ever beating the original Jak and Daxter, which is odd, considering I've played every Crash Bandicoot and Uncharted title multiple times through completely. Jak and Daxter just... never really clicked for me for some reason. I didn't hate it, I just never really had the energy to go through it all the way for whatever reason. I had a joke for the long time where I enjoyed every other Naughty Dog series, since I enjoyed Crash and Uncharted but never cared much for Jak and Last of Us... sadly, that joke can no longer be relevant. Idoreally like Jak & Daxter now. One of the best platformers out there.

Jak 1 is pretty different from it's successors, from what I'm aware. The others kinda did like a T-Rated GTA thing, from my understanding, but still kept the gameplay mainly the same albeit adding guns and stuff to the formula. I haven't really gotten much into those yet, outside of playing the very start of Jak 2. I'll see how it goes from there, but I did really enjoy like the Dark Jak mechanic from the tiny taste of it I've gotten so far. But Jak and Daxter is much like another favorite game of mine, Crash Twinsanity, which will likely end up on this list eventually. It's basically a more polished Twinsanity, and I know this came first, I've just played Twinsanity so many times and before this so that's why I go with that. It's way less glitchy and thought out in execution though, mainly because Twinsanity devs had to rush the game out, but still.

Jak and Daxter is a great open platformer, with plenty of fun areas, and easy to collect Orbs. It's nice how many ways they let you get the orbs in this game, as you don't need the full amount to complete the game, I think it's only 73? Nonetheless, you can get them in the hubs by doing things in them, or you can get them by selling Precursor Eggs to villagers or this weird robot face dude who can give you two in each village. The freedom of how to tackle it is greatly appreciated, it reminds me of Mario 64 in some ways, but this game is newer so it's far easier to deal with it's age in comparison. I do think some levels kinda suck, Boggy Swamp is pretty annoying but it's pretty linear in collecting everything, and the Spider Caves is absolutely awful. I didn't even bother getting everything in there yet, because I did not want to run around there any longer and I had enough Orbs to beat the game.

The characters here are a lot of fun, I especially love Daxter and Samos. Samos is such a jerk in this game and all his comments just being an absolutely asshole to Jak and especially Daxter always made me laugh, I love how cynical he is. I can't think of a lot of other games where one of the main characters tries to encourage you by calling out how pathetic he thinks you are, which is just really funny as someone that enjoys that type of humor. In the end, he does come around and actually talks about how good of work that Jak and Daxter did on the adventure, made it a bit more satisfying if you ask me.

Some of the flaws of the game, there aren't many I guess outside of some Orbs in levels being easier than others to know how to get them. I can wander around for a while and just not know what to do next to collect an orb, which can be annoying. I also think the bosses are kinda mediocre here, they're not atrocious, just kinda boring and annoying in certain phases where you can get one hit killed by lava or like bad eco in the middle of the floor. There isn't a whole lot of bosses in the game, and I'm sure that's for a reason. Naughty Dog, for as much as I love their older games, never really excelled at boss fights in my opinions. Most of them are either okay, or just downright bad without much in the middle. There was also some issues with jumping I felt, where my double jump just wouldn't read properly and I'd fall to my death. Maybe it's an issue with the PS4 remaster specifically or something.

Those are my thoughts on Jak 1. It's a shame I wasn't able to vibe with it all those years ago, but I'm glad I finally gave it another go now. Definitely one of the best platformers of the 2000's. I am definitely going to get to Jak 2 whenever I can, and see how that game holds up. I've actually played quite a bit of that one, even if I never beat it, so I guess I'll finally finish the deal there.

GAME #23 - Fortnite Chapter 5 Season 2 - Finished

Hey, look at that! I actually did it! I finished the Battle Pass for the Season, after bringing it up many times in prior posts. What did I think of this Battle Pass? While I didn't fully complete it, and probably won't, I thought it was just an okay one. Most of the original skins this time weren't as impressive to me, and I'm not an Avatar fan (at least not yet) so Korra wasn't the most exciting collab character for me. Nonetheless, I did get it done in the end. This season has been a lot of fun from a gameplay perspective in my opinion though, I like all the different weapons on display here, especially with the recent Star Wars update. You can get Avatar scrolls, the Mystic weapons, along with a lightsaber, blaster and Chewie's bowgun.

Pretty wild to have all this at once. I know I've already talked about how I've liked this update a bit in the past, so I won't keep this part too long. Just figured I'd give my final thoughts. Over-all, an eh pass with like one-three skins that really interested me. I'm hoping the next one is more interesting for me skin wise, but I did enjoy the theming of the season at least. I doubt I'll complete this before it comes to an end, but I guess wilder things have happened. If this is the final time I speak on this Battle Pass, over-all it was just okay.

GAME #24 - Crash Bandicoot - Finished

Speaking of Crash Bandicoot, here he comes in with the steel chair! My second Crash game on the list, and while I didn't go for full completion this time, I did enjoy myself with it. I might go and do everything, maybe, as I do already have all the achievements. I'd just have to do all the actual game content again, but I'll see how much time I have on my hands as time goes on. Back to the game, Crash Bandicoot 1 is not my favorite, but I am thankful for it bringing this Bandicoot and his cast of colorful and strange characters to the world.

Crash 1 was a very flawed game with age, as it's password system was pretty awful. The sequels fixed those issues, but finally, with the N. Sane Trilogy version, the game is actually easy to save now. It also makes the bonus levels repeatable, which is a god send, and doesn't force you to beat every level without dying once outside of the ones with the colored gems. Still a challenge, but at least it's only like six levels instead of every single one like the original game did it. Granted, I didn't complete it this time, but I have completed the N. Sane Trilogy version before so I know how much of a good change that was. N. Sane also remade every cutscene, along with adding in time trials. I've never been the biggest fan of time trials, but at least here they aren't required for full completion like Crash 3 does it. It does add to the percentage, but like, no content is locked behind it. They also added Stormy Ascent, a level cut from the original, but it's now here and available for all! Cool stuff.

Crash 1 in this collection is definitely the most polished, and probably what the other games were built around. While some hitboxes are definitely way off compared to the original, and some jumps are way harder to make, it's still probably the best version of the original Crash thanks to all the quality of life changes. The original Crash is just way too flawed to do anything but simply play through it casually in my opinion, but NST finally makes this game completable. I also do like the remixed music, even if I wish there was an option to switch the tracks like later remakes did such as Spyro or even the CTR remake.

Now Crash 1 itself, the levels are pretty fun, even if I think the limited controls kinda put a damper on the fun. Adding in the other movesets to this game like in Crash 2/3 would absolutely break it, so I know why they're not here. I still really enjoy the levels though, maybe except the bridge ones where I feel like this remake absolutely butchered them. It's just weird playing Crash 1 when it's just the jump and spin game. I don't have too much more to say to this, I do think it's worth a play, especially with the NST version since it comes with 2 and 3. While I do think the 2 and 3 remakes are far more flawed, they're still perfectly good ways to play the games, but I'll get to those when I get there... and I'm sure I'll get there sooner than later.

GAME #25 - Super Mario Bros. - Complete

Here is the original Super Mario Bros, a game I still think is fun even if it is obviously very old. Most NES games are hard to get through for me, but this one is one of the few really old games that I can actually tolerate playing through. Maybe it's because of the simplicity and the iconicness of the game itself, but Mario 1 just works where many of it's contemporaries at the time don't when it comes to platformers. Mario is a little slippery to control and it's hard to get things done exactly precisely, but at least Mario has some fluidity to his movement unlike most other platformers of the time where they're as stiff as a brick. It's also where a lot of my favorite Mario music comes from, granted, it's mainly through remixes, but a remix of the main theme of this game will never cease to get me excited. It was so fun hearing it on the big screen especially with the great orchestral renditions in the Super Mario Bros. Movie from last year.

Now I did complete this, I beat it twice, but the only real change I can tell in the second playthrough is the Beetles replace all the Goombas. Other than that's, it's like the exact same game, and even ends with this same screen too. I didn't feel like playing through it a third time just to see if anything was different, but from what I can tell from internet searches, the only change after playing once is the Beetles and they just stay there forever after the playthroughs until you reset the game.

But yeah, it's kinda hard to talk a lot about Mario 1. It's obviously the game that saved the video game industry, with how quality it was. It's also probably a game every body in the world has played that is familiar with gaming in any capacity. Even people that probably play nothing but Call of Duty and sports games has probably played Mario 1 at some point in their lives. It's just the staple of the industry, it's like Steamboat Willie. It was an extremely important thing, and while shorts have probably gotten better since, there's always something that sticks with you about something just this impressive. Mario 1 is quite dated, but it still stands the test of time in my opinion. I think it's important for anyone that likes video games to check it out, even if it won't be your favorite video game ever.

GAME #26 - Double Dragon II - Finished

This is a pretty wild choice for a series to return to lol. I was just browsing NSO and seeing the NES games, and I saw this on there. I beat the original Double Dragon as one of my first entries here, and I was like, why not? I didn't really enjoy Double Dragon, but it was short. So here's the sequel! It's pretty short too, but there is an actual ending screen here... and it says something about beating the game on the hardest difficulty to unlock another ending. Nah, I'm good. Maybe if I feel really up to it one day. I'll happily just take the finish though, especially after how annoying the last few levels in this game are.

Is it better than the original? Yeah, it's actually way better surprisingly. It still has that weird A+B button combo jump thing, but the platforming here isn't as terrible... but granted, in one of the final levels it does have that like Mega Man pattern platforms thing where they vanish, but that was the only truly terrible platforming section. I managed to make it through it. What makes this game a lot better to me though is the fact that enemies can actually be one hit killed with more powerful attacks. How do you do those attacks? I have absolutely no idea, but sometimes it happens and sometimes it doesn't, but it happens frequent enough to where it is satisfying.

Not every enemy can be one hit killed, but the weaker ones can, and it's far easier to stun and enemy in an attack that they can't break out of unless they're a big enemy. The bigger enemies can still be damaged greatly by those more powerful attacks. The worst enemies though? These like duo ninjas that can just repeatedly hit you, they remind me of the enemies of the first game, but they're not like a rare miniboss encounter. They are featured quite heavily in the final boss area, which is grating. I lost two lives because they kept spawning them. Wow that was annoying. I actually enjoyed this game pretty well up until like Level 4, because it felt a lot more focused on the good things from the original. The end section was pretty bad though, just like the end section of the last game was the worst. At least here there was a good section instead of a bad and badder section.

I also thought this was odd, you don't move your character to aim at the enemy to attack them anymore. The A Button allows you to attack right, and the B button allows you to attack left. It takes some getting used to, and I thought it was kinda bad at first, but I actually thought it was kinda smart because it made it far easier to go back and forth between enemies that came on both sides, so you could quickly turn with A or B and hit the other guy before they could get you. Actual smart game design I didn't expect.

Do I recommend this game though? Lol probably not. I guess it's a short and fine enough NES games even if it gets frustrating in it's final stages. Waaay better than the first, and it has an actual ending screen and cutscenes now too. So definitely an improvement. There's also a Double Dragon III on NES, so maybe it'll be the best of the bunch! Maybe one day I'll get to it, but I don't think it's on NES Online, and I think I'm too lazy to track it down online. Maybe Nintendo will randomly decide to add it tomorrow though.

That's it for new games finished/completed... but there is an old game that I would like to update, and from now on, if I do go back and fully complete a game, I'll leave it at the end like this.

GAME UPDATE - Spider-Man 2 - Completed

I finally got around to fully completing Spider-Man 2 again, in it's New Game Plus mode. I also got all the achievements, although I've had those for a while. Man, it was a lot more of a slog to get through all the extra content this time since I already had all the rewards and knew what they were like. Most of it was a lot easier now though, so that's good at least. I just probably won't ever do this again. I'll definitely play the main campaign again, but as for doing the extras, maybe just like the more story based content I enjoy. I'm not doing the Towers or the Bird Robot Tracking stuff again. But yeah, here's proof of that!

And that's the end of a very long list. Sorry for all this coming up so late. Took me a bit to collect the photos and write all this up, on top of Mother's Day. But yeah, five more games done, and one updated to Full Completion! Thanks for reading everyone, and I already have one game almost done that I'm sure will be there for next check-in.

Edited May 17 by Winston