[EVENT] The Sonic Stadium 52 Game Challenge 2024! - New Prizes every week! Current Prize: Shadow the Hedgehog AND Racing Bonus Challenge now on! (2024)

Posted May 5(edited)

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Hate to admit it, but the novelty of this challenge might be starting to wear off. It's not even the challenge itself that is starting to feel grating. It's the games themselves. I mean, I was originally looking forward to the Paper Mario Thousand Year-Door Remake but as the weeks went by, that hope changed to contempt. Why am I looking forward to an old game I can already play when I damn well please? It would be different if I didn't own the original. I feel like a moron.

Anyway, enough stalling. Time to get to the point.

22. Pikmin 2 - Complete

Pikmin 2 is easily the one game with the most Pikmin deaths. I expected my performance to be the worst in the first game, but I surprised myself. I...also played the entire game expecting a Smokey Progg to turn up at some point, because I never saw one in 3 Deluxe. Turned out I wasn't going to see one in 2 either, they only appear in Pikmin 4 and 1. All that anxiety for nothing...

Some enemies can be taken out by sneaking up on them and throwing Pikmin at 'em. A perfect viable strategy in Pikmin 3 Deluxe, it wasn't so viable in Pikmin 2. Maybe I was doing it wrong. I did often miss the red Dwarf Bulblax, allowing them to chomp on a Pikmin or two before I finally get a direct hit. I could never defeat a Bulbear without losing Pikmin either and did reach a moment when a good number of enemies were Bulbears. Now, when I said I could never defeat a Bulbear without losing a Pikmin, the smarty pants out their are no doubt laughing at me and saying I should've attacked them while they were sleeping. But no. That was the way I was attacking them. They'd usually be able to wake up, turn around and chomp on a Pikmin before I could kill it.

It was issues like this that got me determined to have Olimar, Louie and The President to defend themselves more often than not. If you don't have Pikmin with you and press the throw Pikmin button, whoever you control can punch. Naturally, you also have to be good at dodging because those creatures aren't going to just stand and let you murder them. I did pretty well with this strategy. Coming close to death at one point with the President at one point. I did die with Olimar in one game, but I ended up abandoning that attempt and leaving. So I wouldn't count it. Not that it matters.

Anyway, to fully complete the post game, required going through several long gauntlets of caves, facing tough enemies or straight up previous bosses. This is all because Olimar managed to somehow leave Louie on the planet and then the doofus managed to get himself stuck sleeping on top of a creature that is using several treasures as weapons. I want the 100% so I need to steal those. In my first attempt, I ended up having about 5 Pikmin. You need at least 30 to steal the treasures. I was able to save Louie but had to leave the treasure. Also, bosses respawn in this game. Yay? My second attempt was better but I still didn't have enough Pikmin to carry any treasure. So I had to fight the post game final boss three times. And after completing this game, I'd learn that the Pikmin community consider Pikmin 2 to be the hardest. Yeah, I can see that.

23. Pikmin 1 - Complete

I shocked myself even more here. The time limit was something I was always concerned about when it was time to move on to Pikmin 1. Olimar has a wife and children to get back too and if you don't get enough parts by 30 days, he....doesn't survive.

But the truth is, possibly through my training in playing Pikmin backwards, I had no issues getting all 30 with a decent amount of days left to spare. Pikmin still perished sadly. Though my heart was hardened after the horror of Pikmin 2 so I had gotten used to it by now. With not much else to add, I'll say a couple of things that aren't that important. I hate snagrets.

• Last year, upon completing Pikmin 4, I lost 461 Pikmin. Oh, that's more than I thought it'd be. I guess I wasn't considering the Glow Pikmin. They look more like ghosts so I was pretty careless with them. Especially when the Smokey Progg showed up.
• In Pikmin 3 Deluxe, I lost 150 Pikmin. Wow. That is pretty good. Before I actually looked, I would've assumed that number would've been my Pikmin 4 run.
• In Pikmin 2, I lost 1644 Pikmin?? Yeah...that sounds about right.
• In Pikmin 1, I lost 474. Huh, more than I though, again. But I've somehow gone full circle, getting a number very close to what I got in Pikmin 4.

24. Fan Game: Sonic 3D in 2D - Complete

This game was used for my Knuckles challenge and was tough than I expected for completing it. Despite this game being a 2D take on Sonic 3D, it does pretty will in translating some of the more annoying aspects from the original game. Such as actually getting lost and going round in circles on later levels. I would've been annoyed by the mandatory need to have your character spinning to smash specific walls in Rusty Ruins but because of the Knuckles challenge, I was playing my run as Knuckles and he can walk through those annoying walls without an issue.

Speaking of issues, when I previously played a fan game, I didn't have any. It was perfect. Or close to perfect a video game can be. 3D in 2D is not the same. The Special Stages move faster than they do in Sonic 2, the game the Special Stages are based on. The controls are also slippery so it's not about reaction time to get these Chaos Emeralds. You have to rely on memorization and luck to earn them. If you are successful in getting them all, you'll eventually learn that those slippery controls also go to your flying super form, which is optional in one boss and mandatory in the very final boss. What makes it worse is the mandatory fight is a new second phase for the 2D version of the final boss from 3D. Which maintains it snail like pace. It's also worth knowing that the second phase boss battle isn't very generous with rings. You just have to learn that the rings switch from being in a line near the top of the screen, then alternating to the bottom, then repeat. Yeah, it's a simple pattern that is easy to memorize, but the slippery controls will still mean you miss or get hit by an attack and lose the chance to get any rings at all.

Apart from that, the game is...okay. I did unlock Amy after completing it with Knuckles and she plays like she does in Sonic Advance 1. So she's basically hard mode.

Finished: 24

Completed: 20

Edited May 5 by Danj86