1. Ys IV (PCE CD)
2. Exile (w/ Unworked Designs patch)(PCE CD)
3. Macross 2036 (PCE CD)
4. Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed (PC)
5. AM2R (PC)
6. TaleSpin (NES)
7. Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II (PC)
8. Super Mario 64 (N64)
9. Star Fox 64 (N64)
10. Thunder Force V (US ver.)(PS1)
11. Kirby's Adventure Wii (Wii)
12. Caesar III (PC)
13. Final Fantasy Adventure (GB)
14. Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II (PC)
15. Märchen Maze (ARC)
16. Ys: The Ark of Napishtim (PC, 2015 ver.)
17. Darksiders II: Deathinitive Edition (PC)
18. Vixen 357 (MD)
19. Master of Magic (PC)
20. G-Darius (PS1)
21. Splatterhouse 3 (MD)
22. Herzog Zwei (MD)
23. Metal Warriors (SNES)
24. Vampire Killer (MSX)

25. Penguin Adventure (MSX)
26. King's Valley (MSX)

Pretty cool earlier efforts for the MSX, provided you're ok with cheating or emulating so that you can continue since it's not a feature. :)

I've got very similar opinion. Very linear story and lack of space/choices was the biggest disadvantage for me. Beautiful world unavailable for exploration. It almost failed to pass crpgs criteria test for me. However all in all it was quite interesting game.

I think you may be interested in advice given by my friends - to play Shadowrun Dragonfall. which keeps all that was good in Returns and is also much more complex and provide much more freedom.

Dragon Age Origins (+Awakening)

Oh my, what a great game!
I thought going into it: well let's play a smaller modern rpg for a change (after having played the witcher series and pillars of eternity) and oh boy have I underresearched this thing going in. I had a blast playing through it and loved the story and the bickering between the characters and the choices (oh the choices you make!) to the point that I started another playthrough half way through to unlock some specialisation (kinda rouge lightish in the way that unlocked specialisations stay for every playthrough once you unlocked them in any game) and was amazed at how different it all feels when you're a human mage instead of a dwarven rogue and how the reactions of your companions change when you make different choices to the point of fighting you to the death. :) I liked even the romancing and the jelousy talks I got when I drove that too far. I liked the quests and the surprises you get, to the point of doing quests that clearly were just some drunks in a tavern using me to prank others simply because I wanted to see every quest and every piece of lore I could get.
I loved the soundtrack and the world around me and often felt set back to my youth when I used to read unhealthy amounts of fantasy novels and felt like this is the game to expierience these kinds of adventures first hand, down to the serious talks by the fire in camp.

tl;dr: Everyone interested in rpgs/fantasy -> play this game, now! :D

Also, now I need to play dragon age 2 (even though it's supposed to be bad) but I don't really want to give EA any money and buy origin games. Anyone having the same problem, could you hype this wishlist entry for Dragon Age 2?

Thx for the advice. I've heard that about Dragonfall. I'll eventually get to it. I try to change to another gam eonce I finish one. :)

It's a decent game, but it doesn't share much with the predecessor. Different gameplay with more clunky combat (among other issues, because it tries to combine chase-cam-mode close to characters with tactical spell placement etc.), different characters, less epic story, from what I've seen, and lots of repetition by recycling the same dungeons and assets over and over again. It basically takes place in one city only, with a few outside dungeons, and it keeps rehashing those same few locations.

Might & Magic IX - Writ of Fate

It was ok, for the most parts.
Bad parts? It's ugly (like most early 3d games but this one is THE worst example), early game is awful, even with Expert lvl in weapons skills and Armsmaster your team miss 8 hits out of 10 with Bless spam.
But then they become lawnmowers with additional attacks with both GrandMaster skills and Polka's weapon enchantments.

For some reason ending remind me Deus Ex - Human Revolution and Mankind Divided. Why? Well, MD had that feel of "it's not over but we run out of time so see ya never-ever, sucker" and HR have this "press button to end the game".

New engine was necessary but lead to problems like ulgy look and bugs.
One the other hand - you could experience new potential with puzzles and quests on new engine, whenever it's better secret search, placing items, more engaging exploration etc. Inventory management was nightmare, dragging all that loot to identify and drag again to sell took way too much time because there are no keyboard shortcuts like in old M&Ms.

My team was on lvl60 but final picture shows lvl50 because I run out of money. Spamming Enchant Items on every junk to sell can't stop your bank account from melting even in the cheapest training halls.
I can find weapons with Dragon Slayer enhancements but guess what - there is only one dragon in the game.

Thanks for the heads up. I'm actually considering trying out origin access for 3.99€ for one month, try and finish DA2 in that time (shame the dlcs are not included with origin access) and then cancel the subscription again. Cheaper than buying the game there and I still hope it comes here some day in some kind of complete edition...

I bought it for 5,99€, four years ago. Apparantly it usually goes down to 4.99€ on Origin during sales. I can imagine that putting yourself under the pressure of a time limit and trying to finish it within a month will further increase the fatigue you might feel with the repetition, but it's your call. I never bought or looked into the DLCs so far, but judging by the main game, they're probably just more of the same as well ...

Super Lucky's Tale (XB1X)

I got yet another month of free (from MS rewards) Xbox Game Pass. That makes 2.5 months for free and one month that I paid $1 for, great value so far. So first up this time I played Super Lucky's Tale. It's a pretty standard 3D platformer and I actually enjoyed it. It's short, but I get fatigue from these types of games anyway and usually find myself wishing they would end long before they do. Very sharp cartoon graphics and it runs at 60fps the entire time...unlike the recent Crash Bandicoot trilogy on PS4 (and soon to be Xbox). It's easier than Crash Bandicoot without a doubt, though for me it still had a few tricky bits. The easier difficulty saves on broken controllers, as nothing triggers gamer rage in me like 3D platformers do.

You can ignore (as usual) the IGN review. There is nothing wrong with this games controls, in fact it was better than most similar games. And the camera can be a pain, just like every 3D platformer ever made. Overall it's pretty decent without being a classic or anything.

Mafia

Second time, but the first time was right after it came out, so this was like new.

Honestly just did it because I wanted to play #2 but I felt I should start from the beginning.

I'm a little worried about #2 because I heard the DLCs are awful and kind of wish I could avoid installing them.

Zavix Tower ($4.50 steam weekly sale)

Technically I didn't get all the way to the end, but 40+ hours in, and at level 40, I accomplished what I wanted with this game.

It goes to 100, but starts becoming a serious grind around lvl 25, and character leveling slows significantly depending on your party build. There are rumors of 3 shaman/3 mage type aoe parties that ramp up the pace with every combat lasting no more than 1 round, but given that you can't control what classes are available to you, nor what lvl that class appears at, that may well take a lot of work to acquire, much less to level up as well.

The combat in this rogue-lite, rpg-lite game is actually pretty decent. Good mix of character development options for some classes (not so much for warrior specifically and a few others). If you make a dps warrior you will literally run out of skills around lvl 30 and start picking up tanking skills because hey, why not.

The trouble is, there's really not much more to it than combat. Sure, they added "secret doors" on a few floors where you have to find the switch, but that mechanic kinda sucks, frankly. And as you get to higher levels, whatever is behind the door may not be any different than what you found behind every other door (an encounter, a trap, a chest, or the semi-rare fountain to restore mana or health).

Based on a few other posts, curious bugs do come up, and I had a few as well. Not game-breaking necessarily, but it is frustrating when your character suddenly stops performing significantly worse than before you gained a level, put on statistically "better" gear, etc. And while as recently as 2016-17 the developer was occasionally popping in, it seems like they've probably moved on.

I do think this game does gear drops fairly well - improved gear is steady enough to make you feel like you're improving and that it's worth looking at what drops, but not so fast that each gain feels irrelevant.

The characters are, not unlike Fall of the Dungeon Guardians, clearly influenced by WoW. While very different games within the "dungeon crawler" genre, they do have that in common. I do think FotDG is the better all-around game, even though I got distracted and pulled off to this one in part because life has been stressful and Zavix Tower is generally the more mindless - at least at normal difficulty, while it is small 't' tactical, there's pretty decent margin for error. I didn't try higher difficulty settings, and it wasn't til lvl 33 or so that I needed to really start investing heavily in resistances and stamina.

Still, for $4.50 or whatever I paid, I definitely enjoyed it for at least the first 15 hours or so before it started dragging more and more (very few new mobs introduced, pace of gaining levels slows) and becoming more mindless. Even the bosses get pretty irrelevant after the first 1-2 unless you are significantly underleveled.

As noted, this game's main failing is the name - even after 40 hours I have no idea who Zavix is or why he acquired a tower. The game has basically no plot at all - and while it has a smidge of "lore," for each level it is pretty mind-numbing and seems to have little/no narrative thread tying it together.

Muted thumbs up, I guess, even at sale price.

3D Hardcore Cube 2

The only game I redeemed from Groupees Taxyear bundle. A hardcore platformer with 30 levels and bad controls.

From the description I can't tell if it was more or less fun than doing your taxes.

More fun, actually. I hate doing my taxes. Hell, my mother does my taxes and I just check them over, and I still loathe doing that. Makes my brain hurt, especially when stock options are involved.