Bio
she/her, 21
self indulgent aubrey and marisa kinnie
Personal Ratings
1★
5★

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GOTY '23

Participated in the 2023 Game of the Year Event

Pinged

Mentioned by another user

Full-Time

Journaled games once a day for a month straight

GOTY '22

Participated in the 2022 Game of the Year Event

Elite Gamer

Played 500+ games

Roadtrip

Voted for at least 3 features on the roadmap

Treasured

Gained 750+ total review likes

Famous

Gained 100+ followers

Busy Day

Journaled 5+ games in a single day

Gamer

Played 250+ games

Adored

Gained 300+ total review likes

Well Written

Gained 10+ likes on a single review

On Schedule

Journaled games once a day for a week straight

Shreked

Found the secret ogre page

Gone Gold

Received 5+ likes on a review while featured on the front page

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Gained 50+ followers

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Liked 50+ reviews / lists

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Become mutual friends with at least 3 others

3 Years of Service

Being part of the Backloggd community for 3 years

Loved

Gained 100+ total review likes

N00b

Played 100+ games

Liked

Gained 10+ total review likes

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Gained 15+ followers

Noticed

Gained 3+ followers

Favorite Games

Dynamite Headdy
Dynamite Headdy
Super Metroid
Super Metroid
Omori
Omori
Yume Nikki
Yume Nikki
Gunstar Heroes
Gunstar Heroes

792

Total Games Played

238

Played in 2023

468

Games Backloggd

Recently Played See More

Super Monkey Ball 2
Super Monkey Ball 2

Dec 08

Ys IV: Mask of the Sun
Ys IV: Mask of the Sun

Dec 03

Family Dog
Family Dog

Dec 01

Smart Ball
Smart Ball

Nov 28

Total Carnage
Total Carnage

Nov 27

Recently Reviewed See More

Super Monkey Ball 2

Super Monkey Ball 2

Completed

on

Nintendo GameCube

again

Pulled all the way through this time after initially running out of steam around world 6 about a year ago. The fundamental gameplay alone is certainly a home run, but the playful music and atmosphere further enhance things and give the game an oddly comforting and familiar feel for me. It might be that it's very reminiscent of games I'd download free trials for off Nick Arcade as a little kid (such as SpongeBob SquarePants Obstacle Odyssey). Either way, really good stuff all around. I can see myself coming back to this several times in the future.
It's not without its hiccups, though. Launchers and Arthropod, for example, are insanely egregious and difficult for the first half of the game's standards, creating a really weird bump in the otherwise smooth, steady difficulty curve. Similarly, in the last world in Story Mode the design philosophy completely changes and noticeably becomes totally obtuse. They're not even necessarily harder than the levels in the previous two worlds, but it's a very jarring shift that doesn't really result in any enjoyable levels out of those last ten.
Would very strongly recommend this game, but definitely don't let your guard down. It gets a lot harder than it initially lets on.
1
See full review
Ys IV: Mask of the Sun

Ys IV: Mask of the Sun

Completed

on

Super Famicom
Definitely an improvement over Ys III, but overall kind of mediocre nonetheless. The plot feels pretty run of the mill for the genre, but the game is short enough and the fan translation is written well enough for it to still be somewhat engaging. Music is weaker than it was in III, though I did play III on Genesis in which it sounds kind of insane. Definitely a bit of a high bar to clear.
The combat is the real weak link here. I've heard it's just implemented particularly poorly in this game, but the bump combat system it uses is miserable. At least grinding becomes much shorter than it is in a typical RPG, but since you have no invincibility frames (much like in III), you're dead meat if you slip up more than maybe once. This style of combat doesn't really work out in the game's boss battles either, they were mostly trivial but when they weren't (such as Gruda) they were needlessly tedious and aggravating. No in-between, no bosses that really piqued my interest.
Would I recommend Ys IV on SNES (not to be confused with Ys IV on TG-CD)? Probably not. I didn't hate my time with it, but it didn't really do anything for me that I didn't get more enjoyment of somewhere else. I'm glad to see an RPG that only takes a single digit number of hours, but what I got here could certainly be better. I do hear the Ys games I've chosen are kind of black sheeps, so maybe I should see some other entries if I ever find myself interested. Maybe I'll play Ys V or the other Ys IV one of these days, but the other games aren't really in the timeframe and console era I tend to gravitate towards.
0
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Family Dog

Family Dog

Completed

on

SNES
Bad platformer by Imagineering, takes about 20-30 minutes. Seems to be a tie-in for a brief animated series featuring the minds of Brad Bird, Steven Spielberg and Tim Burton. Apparently it sucks really fucking hard as well. Wikipedia refers to it as a "cult disaster".
0
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