Super mario odyssey is such a perfect mario game. All the kingdoms are really fun and unique each with their own puzzles to solve. For a mario game, odyssey has a pretty great story, the idea of bowser marrying peach and them getting different wedding items from each kingdom is amazing. Not to mention how many new and funny opportunities happy brings to the table which might make this my favourite mario game gameplay wise. I can't believe it's been 7 years since I played this game last and I'll definitely have to replay it in the future, I can not wait for the next mainline 3d mario game which will probably come out on the switch 2. Easily one of the best switch games, if you haven't played it already, what are you doing?

Half-Century Challenge Series: https://www.backloggd.com/u/C_F/list/half-century-challenge/

HCC #3 = Pong (1972)

If there is any game that can be called synonymous with video games, it's Pong. When the term "video game" was first coined, it was because the average gamer experience consisted of playing something like tennis or ping pong on their TV. It's no coincidence the term "video game" came into mass usage during the early 1970s, right when Pong exploded.

The importance of Pong cannot be overstated. Dedicated Pong consoles, arcade cabinets, Atari ports, etc all rose into prominence. The idea of porting a game a million times for accessibility, and the sheer mass appeal Pong had over prior 0 player games or text adventures? It's breathtaking how much came out of the game. Remember, just 10 years prior if one wanted to play Space War, there were only a couple locations on earth where they could do so. Pong was even designed with controllers in mind, an early prototype to things like the Atari controller and by proxy controllers by companies like Nintendo or Sega.

One could even call it the genesis point of multiplayer gaming. Being able to play against both AI and another human was beyond novel. Fighting game arcade modes? They owe their thanks to Pong. Which in hindsight, makes it funny that my first time playing Pong was via the embedded port in Mortal Kombat 2. You see, in Mortal Kombat 2 if you win 250 matches in a row, you get to play one round of pong. So one evening as a child, I spent what must have been 2 or 3 hours killing the fake player 2 in my copy of MK2, just to play Pong for 30 seconds. I felt like I had been massively trolled.

That tangent aside, I brought up mini consoles earlier. Indeed, even Nintendo got their start in the game industry with the Color TV Game 6 which was directly inspired by Pong's success. Let alone the NES Classic Mini and SNES Classic Mini some half century later.

It would be easy for me to look at Pong and go "who gives a fuck" but honestly, I can't help but admire this abstract world with nothing more than a few white pixels. Everything comes from something. Even if it's not the most fun game to a newcomer in 2024, it still has plenty of usages. After all, it's a great project to recreate in languages like GML for the sake of learning game development. In fact, a friend and I actually did that for a narrative driven minigame compilation game a while back. https://c-fhacks.itch.io/aikon

With its sheer influence on the industry, the fact it's so helpful for learning game development, and that it's perfectly playable, Pong deserves this score. Perhaps even higher.

Next time: Maze (1973)

Um jogo que tem como seu tema principal, o sacrificio. Não presenciei todos os finais, estou com o gamepass e sinto que não iria valer a pena fazer todos, mas o final que eu vi, é o que me leva a pensar isso. A falta de um senso de direção pode ser um pouco desgastante no inicio da jogatina, porém, após o primeiro mapa, você sempre busca explorar mais e mais aquela região, para fazer com que ele fique completo. O combate não tem nada de especial, nem os próprios ataques especiais. Os chefões desse jogo são incríveis, difíceis no ponto certo(as vezes até demais, te odeio parente perdido). A música é bem marcante e boa. Um jogo incrivel que deve ser experienciado por todos.

Enfim, uma das maiores pendências da minha vida se esvai, deixando pra trás um sentimento de arrependimento por nunca ter mergulhado nesse universo antes.

Desde a ascensão do sub-gênero dos "metroidvania", acredito que nada se compara ao nível absoluto de Hollow Knight. Não se trata apenas de uma experiência definitiva, se trata de uma experiência incomparável a qualquer outro similar.

Hollow Knight está no panteão de colossos dentre os maiores e melhores jogos independentes da história.

Muito me fascina o quanto traços de Dark Souls estão presentes por aqui, e não falo da dificuldade, mesmo que seja um ponto muito abordado no jogo.

A forma como cada cenário conta uma história à sua maneira, de um modo sutil e extremamente imersivo, nos ambientando em um universo tomado pela melancolia, fadado a ceder a uma infecção que se alastra cada vez mais, mas que em contraponto nos apresenta pequenas fagulhas de esperança fixadas a personagens únicos e inesquecíveis.

Há muitas memórias que eu gostaria de apagar, apenas para poder reviver todas elas pela primeira vez. Como quando chegamos na Cidade das Lágrimas pela primeira vez, viajamos pelos túneis com o Velho Besouro ou até mesmo quando enfrentamos os Lordes Louva-a-Deus, uma das lutas mais satisfatórias que já experienciei.

Hollow Knight caminha para se tornar um confort game pessoal, e acredito que minha passagem por esse universo ainda esteja distante de um fim.

No mans sky is one of the few examples of a game that had a bad launch and actually made a recovery. Over the 8 years since the games initial release, no mans sky has received numerous free content updates containing a variety of new things to do which makes the game feel full of life. The story of NMS is nothing to write home about, it's a pretty generic scifi plot but that can easily be ignored due to how fun the gameplay is. All in all, no mans sky is definitely worth a play in 2024 thanks to its many free updates since launch which make for the definitive space exploration game.

Não sei se seria exagero chamar esse aqui de jogo mais importante da minha vida. Acho que está ali empatado com Super Mario 64... e até ontem à noite eu meio que nem me lembrava dele. Foi só quando estava vendo alguns vídeos à procura de um outro game (Mario & Luigi, encontrado em todo santo computador na minha adolescência) que parei pra checar se não seria o primeiro Super Mario Bros., afinal de contas, quando--ei, esse aí é o jogo que passei a infância jogando no Dynavision! Que loucura, como não tinha adicionado ainda?!

Hoje em dia é uma outra experiência. Quase dá vontade de falar que lembro dele ser mais difícil, mas não é uma comparação justa: jogar isso aqui sem a opção de salvar do NSO e sem poder conferir algumas coisas, como o caminho certo em alguns dos castelos finais, devia mesmo ser uma experiência de outro mundo, e não no bom sentido. Mas eu adorava, então acho que dá pra dizer que é uma maravilha de qualquer jeito, em qualquer era.

A menos que a gente esteja falando do Lakitu. Lakitu, você é horrível e merece a PRISÃO. Você sabe o que fez.

My opinion changed a lot the more I played this game.

When I first started it, I was completely hooked. The beginning sky island area is well designed and gets you familiar with the new cool abilities that I used much more then the ones in BOTW. The graphics and size of the world are also super impressive for being a Switch title.

Once I finished the tutorial area which took around 5 hours, everything started going downhill. The game is basically an exact copy of BOTW. The enemies are identical with the only new ones being these small robots that have replaced guardians and some dragon mini boss which I didn't bother fighting. Armor sets are also the same, there are a few new additions but to get many of them is a real chore. The main negative is that the map and story are pretty much identical to BOTW. The whole sky island I found to be a really cool concept but there's almost none of that in the rest of the game. That tutorial sky island is the largest with none of the rest being as remotely interesting anywhere. They're all very tiny with nothing on them and no reason to visit them except shrines. Another addition was an entire underground world which sounds cool and again is quite technically impressive for the Switch but after 20 minutes I decided to never go there again unless I needed to progress the story. It's all empty copy pasted land with nothing special and no reason to explore it. This leaves the main land left and as I've repeatedly said, it is an exact copy of BOTW I keep finding the need to say it over and over since I'm still amazed at how little they decided to change for this hyped $90 game. I played the shit out of BOTW in 2019 and even after 6 years so many things felt familiar, practically nothing surprised me in my playthrough. The story is very generic and worse then BOTW imo. Once again you find 4 sages then gain their powers to defeat Ganon; only this time the sages are younger kid versions who were made into anime personalities for some reason. The dungeons I found to be a downgrade and as they were much easier than BOTW, that goes for the shrines as well; they were still quite enjoyable and my favorite part of the game. I really thought I'd spend a lot of time on this game especially with the increased price tag but that was not the case. In BOTW I spend around 150hrs with 100% completion, in this game I did all shrines, a few uninteresting side quests, and the story picking up whatever korok seeds I find on my way which brought me to around 65 hours with no urge to do anything else but put it back on the shelf. Why play anymore when I pretty much experienced all of it already in BOTW? I'm very tired of this new Zelda formula and would love to see it go back to its core.

The one thing I did quite enjoy with the story was the ending. The Ganon boss fight was solid, one of the best in Zelda and a huge improvement from the BOTW final boss. The ending cinematic was also amazing. Seeing that caught me off guard, it made me wish they focused on story more as it showed they are capable. I was impressed that there could be such epic cinematics in a Zelda game and wish there was more of it throughout the story rather then using the most bare bones RPG story that goes all the way back to Final Fantasy on the NES. This game has no reason for existing. A sequel like this was not needed, this felt much more of a quality of life update with new sandbox stuff and that's about it. This was not a GOTY 2023 contender to me.