Games Beaten - March 2025

Promising to finish at least one large game each month (14+ hours), I finished only 3 games:

04-Mar-2025 - Ghostwire: Tokyo (PC) – 18H58M
25-Mar-2025 - Borderlands: Game of the Year Enhanced (PC) – 31H30M
27-Mar-2025 – Call of the Sea (PC) – 7H09M


Ghostwire: Tokyo is a first-person action adventure reminiscent of many Ubisoft titles. Made by Tango Gameworks of Hi-Rush fame. You play a possessed young adult who must foil a demon's plan of opening the gateway between the real world and the spirit world. It has the same system of one main story with lots of side missions, a collection of various items and map markers. The game features a beautiful rendition of one of Tokyo’s Wards, with fantastic vertical elements that make traversing the environment very enjoyable. Even with all that, the game feels quite repetitive, and with only 3 weapons, encounters feel repetitive too.

Borderlands is the first time I played a looter shooter – and what can I say – I did not like the experience. Sure, the weapons are fun, but there are just so many of them that the whole thing loses focus. I thought the conversation was damn, the jokes not remotely funny and the missions repetitive. I finished the main game and all DLC (except Moxxie, which is redundant), and removed it from my computer the moment I finished.

Call of the Sea was a nice double AA puzzle adventure from Raw Fury. I thought it was well made – with a focus on cypher-type puzzles, which I found fair. The game loop is very basic – walk about and find all the clues, and then solve some environmental puzzle. It’s a decent game for its scope, with good graphics and very good voice acting. I enjoyed it much more than Borderland, but I still thought Ghostwire was the best game I played this month.

Finishing less than 4 games from my backlog, I kept my promise of not buying any new game and skipped the summer sprint sale altogether. In fact, I now find it much easier doing so as I know I will not get to those new games until the next sale, and prices will be even lower when I decide to buy it in the future.

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+)

I completed 19 games this month (most of them were indie titles or games I have been progressing for the last month)

Some of my favorites for this month:

Marvel's Spider-Man 2 - PC - 8/10 - 03/06
- Buggy mess, but after a month since launch, it was kind of enjoyable. The story feels rushed, but the symbiote suit was pretty fun to use.

Monster Hunter Wilds - PC - 9/10 - 03/09
- Yes, I did complete the game within a week from its release. The easiest and shortest MH game I have ever played.

While We Wait Here - PC - 8/10 - 03/14
- This game is a very weird one. It's a diner sim but at the same time a narrative adventure game? I really liked it, though.

The Walking Dead: The Final Season - Steam Deck - 8/10 - 03/25
- A replay, but this time on my Steam Deck. It ran very well, and experiencing the final season over again feels amazing.

I also completed games like Far Cry 5, and Jump Force (had these 2 in my backlog since 2020), but those felt very tedious and not enjoyable.

Two completions this month. That's twice as much as last month!

03/02 - Final Profit: A Shop RPG (Completionist 59h:54m) - 85%
03/09 - Lunar Axe (Main+Extras 3h:25m) - 40%

Final Profit was the best game of the month obviously. A fun non-combat RPG Maker capitalism simulator set in a fantasy world (so many descriptors!) Lunar Axe was yet another disappointing point-and-click adventure game. I don't care for this genre, I don't know why I keep giving it a chance. I'm mainly playing two long RPGs right now so likely won't be logging another completion for some time.

In March, I completed 3 games. Had a few other games I played here and there that I haven't managed to finish yet.

Avowed - 9/10
This one seemed a little hit-or-miss for some people, but I loved it. The exploration aspect was very well designed, and combat was quite fun. I'm hoping this gets some DLC because I would love to play more.

Titanfall 2 - 8/10
I've seen this one get recommended a lot and finally got around to playing it. It's a relatively short game (~7 hours) but I think this really works to its advantage as it doesn't overstay its welcome. Admittedly I wasn't a huge fan of the platforming/parkour sections of this game, but I appreciated that at least the game is a bit forgiving with restarting (most of) them. Otherwise, a generally enjoyable title.

Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom - 9/10
At some point last year I realized my local library lends out Switch games. This was a title I was potentially interested in trying but not motivated to buy for myself, so it seemed like a perfect game to grab from the library so I added myself to the (admittedly lengthy) waitlist. It finally was available for me this month, and so I played it -- and had way more fun that I was expecting. This game has something of a Scribblenauts quality to it where you're able to summon things to problem-solve in creative ways. Deeply enjoyed this and am hoping another game in the vein will come along someday.

3 "different" types of gameplay this month, it was a good one:

- Dredge - Switch - 15/03 - 13:50 h
- Bionicle Heroes [Replay] - NDS - 17/03 - 4:24 h
- Age of Mythology: Retold - Immortal Pillars [DLC] - PC - 24/03 - 5:30 h

The best one for me was Dredge, I loved both the style and gameplay. Bionicle Heroes was a game that I loved when I was around 10, so when I found it I had to play it again.

I also decided to retire Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin. Lately, work has been stressful, so it's not the kind of game I need after work. I also found it more unfair than the other Soulslike I've completed.

I beat a couple games this month

1. Devil May Cry 3 - This one was a revist of a childhood game, loved it even more than I did initially
2. Poppy Playtime (Chapters 3 & 4) - These ones I beat with my girlfriend and her sister watching me, didn't like these that much tbh, and at times I really disliked them so I was rather disappointed. I did however enjoy the lore and story for these two and wish they were better fleshed out.
3. Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest - Already did a Birthright playthrough last month, the extra challenge and better cast of characters made me enjoy this route more. Great game in my opinion, despite its reputation in the community.
4. Fester's Quest - Not much to say about this one, just a short NES game that I'll forget about
5. Arctic Eggs - Interesting little indie game, just played to relax a bit and unwind with something silly
6. Squirrel Stapler - Interesting indie game but in a whole different way, very weird
7. The WereCleaner - This one was very short, only about an hour or so to beat but it was fun enough.

Most of these games are rather short, which I do appreciate since I get to have fun little experiences in between bigger titles

I completed two small games that I played beside the very long Shin Megami Tensei IV.

- Call of Juarez: Gunslinger great, with an interesting narration and a very conscious use of the development resources. It's fun, but at least for me it never went over the shallow fun of shooting down bad guys.
- Pony Island the fourth wall breaking is great, and it is a blast stilistically speaking. Sadly the core of the game are a dead simple "platformer" and some puzzles, too few content even to fill the 2h of running time.

I was a little underwhelmed this month. I would suggest these two games, but they are not the very great games that I expected reading stuff online. Luckily the next month will be much better.

1. Sonic Superstars (NSW)
2. Super Mario Bros. Wonder (NSW)
3. Flying Hero (SNES)
4. Magical Chase (TG16)
5. Bio-ship Paladin (GEN)

6. Zero Wing (TCD)

Pretty good month for me considering how many games I retired.

Mar 3 - Mega Man 5, 6/10
Mar 5 - Tomb Raider Chronicles, 6.5/10
Mar 7 - Tomb Raider IV-VI Remastered, 8/10
Mar 9 - Mega Man 6, 5.5/10
Mar 14 - Metroid Zero Mission, 9/10
Mar 19 - Mega Man 10, 8/10
Mar 21 - Fallout, 8/10
Mar 22 - Undertale, 9/10
Mar 23 - Mega Man 11, 6.5/10
Mar 29 - Mega Man Zero, 7.5/10

For me the best game for March by far is Undertale, the writing and story are incredible. Though the story and writing is what carried it for me, I don't really care for the gameplay at all and I don't see myself replaying it any time soon. And I'll give an honorable mention to Fallout, the game has aged very well and I had a lot of fun with it. The worst game that I completed in March is Mega Man 6. But like I said I retired a lot of games as well most of which are worse, those being Mega Man 7, MM 8, MM 9, Mega Man X, and Tomb Raider Angel of Darkness. Considering how many I retired, I'm happy I was able to still finish a lot of games in March.

EDIT: I forgot I replayed Metroid Zero Mission as well in March, that's probably tied for my favorite game of the month with Undertale. Zero Mission is in the top 3 Metroid games for me, fantastic stuff.

In April I'll be playing Slime Rancher, the remaining Mega Man Zero/ZX games, Fallout 2 and 3, and possibly some Mass Effect. And if I have time, I'll also play Doki Doki Literature Club and Mario Land 3.

During the month of March I started and finished by clearing two classic shorter platformers, with two beefier games between them.

Sonic CD - Mar 2
Demon's Souls - Mar 12
Mario Kart Wii - Mar 15
Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins - Mar 31

In my continued journey to finish all the classic Sonic games, with the later 3D games as the big payoff hopefully, I got through Sonic CD and it was interesting. Very much classic Sonic with a ton of extra elements added, with the time travel aspects being a major focus. There was some fun in going through the past and looking for the robot transporters, but it did end up being somewhat tedious and a pace breaker from the regular Sonic gameplay. Went for all the Time Stones so also was a bit pointless anyway, but I did overall enjoy my time with Sonic CD though not to the extent of Sonic the Hedgehog 2.

The big one for me this month was Demon's Souls, which I finally tackle now after having cleared every game in the Dark Souls trilogy which made this experience interesting. It was very interesting to see how the series started and how everything that signifies the later games in the series got started here. The beginning of the game was the most challenging, which is interesting because the very beginning was not because of my sheer amount of experience but trying on optional challenges and struggling while trying to form my build was memorable. Aside from that I mostly breezed through the game, with it taking by far the least amount of time on my first playthrough out of any game in the series. Really amazing how you can tackle the areas out of order, but it also lead to quite a bit of unbalance due to the way I decided to personally progress through the game. Bosses were generally not much trouble either, though some of them definitely still showed the significant of the later games in the series. Though it does not match the amazing later games in the series, I still have to praise Demon's Souls how it set a great foundation and it was a blast to experience it.

Mario Kart Wii I had played before at a friend's house, but despite it being one of the biggest games in the series I had never really gotten the chance to substantially dive into it until this month. Just having started it was clear how much of an improvement this was from the earlier games, controlling it feels great and the addition of the tricks just made the game so much more fun. Also saw by far the best roster of tracks and characters in the Mario Kart series at that point. With me enjoying the game to such a high extent, I decided to pretty much 100% the game (not quite because 3-Stars on all cups did not seem doable at all) which was a really fun time. The item balancing was however terrible and this game's one big drawback, but aside from that it was a really fun experience that I got quite addicted to while I was in the period of playing it.

A year after I decided to put in the effort to get through the remaining classic 2D Mario games, I finally finished the final one (Yoshi's Island is a Yoshi game) and it's an underrated one at that. Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins is a really solid Mario platformer with many unique and interesting level themes, enemy designs, bosses and has many other interesting things going for it such as the coin mechanics and the openness of the game. I very much recommend it if you overlooked this one, it's a big improvement from the first Super Mario Land.

For April I've encounter a bit of a dilemma, the next game I cleared will be the 150th since I started archiving the games I clear through this site and I want to celebrate with something particular. 50th game was The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker and 100th game was Mother 3, so I'd love to do something grand to match those two but feel like there is nothing obvious and I don't really don't want to spend too much time of an individual game within so little time that I don't beat anything else in between. I'm currently thinking that Resident Evil 2 (2019) is the best fit, but any other ideas I would appreciate (don't want to buy any new games for this though haha). Aside from that, I know that I will be finishing Mario Party 3 and will most likely also get to play Mega Man 6. Could also be the month where I finally clear the Spider-Man DLC and maybe I will finally return to finish of Banjo-Tooie, we'll have to see.

Played some meatier games, mostly good stuff.

03/10 - Yakuza 0 (9/10)
03/16 - Darksiders (7.5/10)
03/20 - Mad Max (2015) (5/10)
03/26 - Devil May Cry 4: Special Edition (7/10)
03/26 - Yoshi's Safari (6/10)

Most Favorite: Without a doubt this goes to Yakuza 0. Its story is so goddamn engaging and being able to play as Majima was a stroke of brilliance that has breathed new life into the series.

Least Favorite: Mad Max (2015) is a game that I cannot understand the praise for. It's fun for a handful of hours but suffers from a lack of diversity in its content. I can only do the same things over and over again until I'm bored to tears.

Personal Recommendation: Darksiders is a game that is not original nor is it the best at what it does. However, it is still a surprisingly fun hack-n-slash. Definitely recommend checking it out.

Three with two of them being replays because I need some old familiar comfort food.

The Secret of Monkey Island (replay) (PC)
The Curse of Monkey Island (replay) (PC)
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom (Switch)

I really took my time with Curse this time and found a few new things which was exciting as I know that game pretty inside and out. So many bits of fun dialogue to find.

And it took longer than I wanted as I took an accidental break but I finally finished Echoes of Wisdom. I had a good time with it. Not a favourite in the series but some solid fun. And adorable. The menus didn't bother me as much as some but it would have been nice to have better echo management. You can end up with a ton of echoes and some way to favourite some or dump some or store some would have been nice. The sort options helped but even still. Otherwise it was a nice change of pace. More Zelda! That's two Zelda games done this year!

I'm shocked I even got any completions this month, but managed to snag two at the end of the month. A replay and a VR Title.

New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe - REPLAY, Switch, 03/23, 7.5/10
Serious Sam VR: The First Encounter - Quest 3, 03/25, 7.5/10

I was streaming on Twitch more recently so I ended up completing New Super Mario U again on Switch and overall I just really like how the game feels and how you can do a lot of cool things with the movement. It puts up a fight without feeling completely overwhelming and it's still a title that holds up very well. I think it's time for a critical re-evaluation of this game because the New Super Mario Bros series isn't bad. Definitely nowhere near as good as the OG DS or 2, but I still would recommend it.

I already talked about SSVR: TFE on my blog but there was some genuine improvements to the game that gave it some new life, although some of the changes weren't for the better. It's very easy to get into the menus and UI and dual wielding is the big selling point in this one. Some of the controls however are ass backwards awkward making it difficult to get some of the more obscure secrets that I'm normally used to getting. TFE nowadays to me is boring, but this is the first time in years where I felt like replaying it was worth something aside from replaying the series when a new game comes out.

Well, who knows what next month will bring? I did a blog update about what was going on, but I'm hoping to get more completions in next month. I have a replay of illWill on the go rn and I still have to continue Mega Man Battle Network.

03/03 Perfect Vermin
03/04 LEGO Batman: The Videogame (Replay)
03/08 Super Mario Odyssey (Replay)
03/12 Sludge Life 2
03/18 Lies of P (Replay)
03/22 Everhood
03/22 Doom Eternal (Replay)

March was a busy overall month for me, but I did get around to doing a lot of game replays. I'm glad I got around to these replays as I think I ended up enjoying Lies of P and Doom Eternal more upon either second or third playthroughs. My favorite game that wasn't a replay this month was Everhood, which took me a bit to fully get into, but I found myself pretty invested by the time I beat all of the superbosses. The worst game was probably Perfect Vermin, which wasn't bad by any means, just not all that mindblowing.

I wanted to beat one more game before this month ended but considering, Assassin's Creed 2 on the Ezio Collection forces you to beat Battle of Forli and Bonfires of the Vanities which to me are basically unskippable anime filler arcs, AND the game forces you to get 30 Codex Pages to get the last mission. I actively searched for the pages before the final mission and I stilll need to find 7 or 8 more all though I'm starting to get more and more angry when I play the game. No doubt, it will be April 1st when I'm done if I don't go crazy first. I'm going against my policy of beating games I don't like but for some reason, I don't like retiring games I already finished before. This game is very much getting on my bad side. The game's story has no respect for narrative foreshadowing and build up, the plot always and I mean ALWAYS finds a way to get Ezio out of a potential problem and having him struggle, his character growth is borderline non existent and he always and I mean ALWAYS looks good and is put "over" in every scene he is in, I can make a drinking game with the amount of contrivances and how I can shove in JUST SO HAPPENS in almost every scene and the plot twist late game somehow manages to make every make less sense and it enters into the realm of the XOF retcon from Metal Gear Solid 5 and the Sosuke Aizen writing later on in Bleach. At this rate, this game's story is entering into the realm of something like Code Geass for me, where it's an acclaimed story in it's medium but every time I look at it I just question where the praise comes from. I used to compared Code Geass to David Cage games but AC2's story isn't nearly as bashed as the latter.

Gameplay is also not good but I'd be ranting here all day if I talk about it anymore. Stealth is bad and combat is bad but there is way more fluff with the latter since every combat encounter can won by countering. I'll stop here regarding AC2. I'm already getting too passionate with this and it feels like I'm breaking my character ranting this much.

Anyways the games I beat are:

Hyrule Warriors Age of Calamity - 6/10
Call of Duty Roads to Victory - 6/10
Blacksite Area 51 - 5/10
Portal - 10/10
Dead or Alive 5: Last Round - 7/10
Judgment - 7/10
LEGO Lord of the Rings - 7/10

This was a surprisingly low beat list for me. I started off the month starting Tomb Raider the Last Revelation and I dropped it despite playing it for around 4 days and even dropping it once before offically retiring it. Classic TR really is nothing but diminishing returns after TR1 and maybe TR2 if you want to push it, it's obvious Core Design was sick of making the series. Portal was easily the game I played this month. The 7s I played I had fun with. I played Lego LOTR since it had elements of the cancelled Traveller's Tales Hobbit game. Judgment was a good time for me, but the game felt like it dragged and it felt like a lot of it was just exposition and people talking. The story is pretty good at least.

Age of Calamity has me respecting Nintendo even less as a company, it seems like only they would come with a time travel alternate universe instead of just giving the game have a downer ending since it being marketed as a PREQUEL to Breath of the Wild was where the intrigue of the game came from. It could've been to BOTW what Halo Reach was to Halo CE or even what Crisis Core was to Final Fantasy 7 but no.

This month wasn't the greatest for me. I managed to go from beating 20 games in Febuary to 7 in March. This was sure a downgrade but I hope I have better luck next month. I got to wonder if YS VIII will take me as long to finish as Judgment did, if I do end being engaged with the game. If I underestimate that game like I did with Judgment, I might have yet another low beat count. Who knows, if I tackle longer games this whole era of my life of me beating 12-13 games a month could come to an end.

No games beaten this month. It's sad.

Ongoing:
Disney's Donald Duck Goin' Quackers - PS1/Emulated (N/A, Feb. PT 2h25m, total PT 3h56m)
Disney's Donald Duck Goin' Quackers - PS2/Emulated (N/A, Feb. N/A, N/A)
Cars - PSP/Emulated (N/A, 4h00m, 4h00m)

Formula: mm/dd Game Title - Platform | Completion Type (Rating, Month Playtime, Total Playtime)

Beat two games this month (as well as one Higurashi arc), both are critically acclaimed masterpieces. However, one fell completely flat for me while the other was just as good as what I'd heard about it.

March 21st - Ocarina of Time 3D - 34h 42m - (Main+) 3/10 - Started April 5th 2022 - 1081 Days Taken - Beat the game, got 14 hearts and 40ish skulltulas.
March 28th - Neon White - 40h 12m - (Main+) 9/10 - Started December 25th 2022 - 824 Days Taken - 100%'d the main story. The only thing I didn't do was Mikey's and White's Hell Rushes.

Short TLDR of my reviews:
Ocarina of Time 3D - There is some fun to be had, which is completely ruined by 3 moments of awful game design.
Neon White - Excels in gameplay, art style, music, story and humor.

Mar 9th
Game: Split Fiction
Playtime: 16:39 Hours (Main + Extra)
Rating: 10/10

Mar 24th
Game: Forspoken
Playtime: 16:45 Hours (Main Story)
Rating: 6,5/10

Mar 25th
Game: Final Fantasy XIII-2
Playtime: 26:52 Hours (Main Story)
Rating: 7,5/10

Mar 26th
Game: Creepy Shift: Roadside Diner
Playtime: 51 minutes (Main Story)
Rating: 6,5/10

Mar 26th
Game: Night Shift: Laundry
Playtime: 38 minutes (Main Story)
Rating: 4/10

Mar 26th
Game: Doctor Pain
Playtime: 19 minutes (Main Story)
Rating: 3/10

Mar 29th
Game: Limoria
Playtime: 43 minutes (Main Story)
Rating: 5/10

Mar 29th
Game: UNPUNISHED
Playtime: 48 minutes (Main Story)
Rating: 4,5/10

My absolute highlight was Splitfiction! The game surprised me so much, and I can warmly recommend it to everyone!

A good month for me. Four games and all dlc completed.

STALKER: Call of Pripyat
Call of Juarez: The Cartel
Medal of Honor (2010)
L.A. Noire

Not that much on my side this month (and I don't think I've posted on this thread in the last couple of months actually...). 3 Games, a long one that I carried over from February, the short GotM, and a middle length one. So at least there was some variety on March!

Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth - Hacker's Memory - Mar 9th
Metroid: Zero Mission - Mar 10th
Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name - Mar 16th

Definitely the most fun I had this month was in Like a Dragon Gaiden. I can't believe how much of a fan of the Yakuza franchise I've become. Now I'm just missing (from the ones I want to play) Infinite Wealth and Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii. Don't have access to either right now, but hopefully I'll get them soon enough (or they will become available in PSPlus).

Apart from that... Hacker's Memory was alright, but nothing amazing. Fine enough monster catching game and it was kinda cool how it combined with the original Cyber Sleuth, but it's definitely not the most fun I've had with turn based jrpgs. And I've left enough comments on the thread for Zero Mission to go about that one here again. But yeah. Not that much in March but fun enough! 2025 so far has been kinda slow in gaming for me it seems.

Forza Horizon 3: Hot Wheels (Xbox One) - March 15th, 2025 - Highly Skilled difficulty. 100% Completed. All Hot Wheels events completed and done with all 3 Hot Wheels Medals. All Championships completed. All Speed Zones, Speed Traps, Danger Signs and Drift Zones completed and done with all 3 Hot Wheels Medals. All Roads discovered. All Bonus Boards smashed. All Bucket Lists completed. All Barn Finds discovered. Got all 177 Hot Wheels Medals.

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (PlayStation 2) - March 31st, 2025 - 25h 39m - Time is from the Statistics in the game, so it may not be entirely accurate. - 100% Completed. - REPLAY

Happy gaming for April!

(PS3) Disneys Bolt- 30%
(PS Vita) God of War Chains of Olympus- 75%
(PS3) Call of Duty Classic(2003)- 65%

For the first time since March 2023 I completed more than one game in a month!

3/1 - Astro Bot (PS5) - 17h 44m
3/25 - Metroid: Zero Mission (Switch) - 7h 57m

Definitely enjoyed both of these! Astro Bot was certainly a phenomenal game and very well designed and crafted and I was surprised with how much I enjoyed it! Metroid: Zero Mission was good too! Not as good as Super but definitely a way better version of the original which I retired years ago. Glad it being GotM finally motivated me to play through it!

Almost had Beyond Blue finished for March but didn't make it.

Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion - Nintendo 3DS - March 20th, 2025
Be Brave Barb - Mobile - March 20th, 2025
Tomb Raider II [REMASTERED] - PlayStation 5 - March 8th, 2025

I have completed 13 games this month Replays included

Complete:
God Eater 3
Fort Solis
Deathloop
Dead island Definitive Edition (Is new because i had to start over again)
Tiny Tina's Wonderland
Dead Island: Riptide Definitive Edition (Is new because i had to start over again)
Dead Island: Retro Revenge
Aragami 2
Lego Batman 2: Dc Super Heroes
The Invincible
The Forgotten City

Replay:
Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel

Retired:
Saints Row IV Inauguration Station
Dead Island: Epidemic

Best:


Worst: