Greetings once more, folks.
Before continuing, I want to mention that this post won't have a Spanish translation available at the bottom unlike my usual posts...and that's because I'm sure that I have written so much in here that I would hit the character limit again if I even dared to try. Apologies for that - but I hope that any spanish-speaking readers can still enjoy this post even if with Google Translate or another alternative.
Español: Este post no tendrá una traducción al español disponible en el fondo a diferencia de mis posts de siempre...y eso es porque estoy seguro que escribi tanto aquí que chocaría con el limite de caracteres si lo intentara. Disculpas por eso - pero espero que cualquier lector hispanohablante igual pueda disfrutar del post aún si es con Traductor Google u otra alternativa.
As I joined this platform and started my journey all the way back in February 13th, 2021, it has now been four whole years since then - which you may have guessed from the title.
Or well, it would be exactly a year...if things didn't come up on the day I was writing up and thus had to delay finishing this post for the day after [Happy Valentine Day to y'all I guess 🤠] - but moving on.
Many things changed for the better in 2024. Some of them changed for the worst. A couple of them are mostly if not just the same as before...guess that's life as always at this point.
As an attempt to be more compact in this one than before [as well as practice not writing stuff until the end of time...and similarly not having overly extensive posts to read through], I'll summarize things through a few categories. Not an idea that I haven't done before - but certainly sometimes don't get to summarize much with.
...And before you ask - the background in the thumbnail is a screenshot from Daytona USA 2 Battle on the Edge. Did you know it will be an arcade game available inside Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii?
Yes, I've tried some modern games this time around
You know I usually tend to cover games from the 2010s or before due to not just my tastes, but also my current setup being a limiter to my curiosity even if there's something brand new that piques my curiosity [my humble i5-3470 and AMD Radeon HD 6570 have still taken me to trying out so much more than what my old laptop could, but not enough to tackle big AAA releases of recent years].
...But despite that, I can still highlight a few more modern games I've tried, whether from a few years ago [but still released in the PS4 generation] or even not that long ago.
I happened to try out Evil West and Dragon Ball Sparking Zero at a buddy's house, Tekken 8 and Guilty Gear Strive as well as Tetris Effect in versus mode [super cool looking and zone mode was a cool timestop like mechanic - but haven't tried it solo yet] at some local events hosted where I live.
I even gave a shot at a game that I had heard of in name several times but never had taken a look into until a few friends gathered to give it a shot - and was a fun [even if tough] game to go with them. Yeah, I tried out Risk of Rain 2 in January of 2025. I know the game isn't quite as new anymore, but still counts for me.
And of course, indie or small scale games that wouldn't pose a threat to my PC were on my sights to try out at least once.
Aside from trying out the demo of a pretty fun looking puzzle game [Vividlope] as well as honorable mentions of games I have tried out but hadn't talked about yet like Nightmare Kart and Parking Garage Rally Circuit, I think the two bigger surprises would be to get my hands on a brand new Classicvania game after having spent 2023 going through some of the Castlevania games in the form of Haunted Castle Revisited [as part of the Castlevania Dominus Collection - a welcome surprise for the fans of the DS games], and a little game about poker with silly tricks and score-based survival.
Balatro sure was a surprise breakout success, don't you think? Even got to The Game Awards of 2024 with a GOTY nomination. I haven't quite cut my teeth into it as other people I know have, but I've at least got one completion in the first stake of the game to feel like I was satisfied after having slowly but surely climbed up the Antes through failed runs.
But you know that my classic butter and bread comes from that variety of games that sits behind the doors of emulation in most cases...and as you may know already, I'm quite familiar with how to get through them.
Another year of variety, revisiting classic games and discovering obscure gems
Hoo boy, let me tell you that I've actually kept count of the games that I've checked out and talked about here - without counting the posts from 2024 I wrote before the 3rd anniversary date, I had written a whopping 65 posts...and with maybe a dozen being about game-related things or multiple games rather than a single one, that's still a lot of games I had given a shot and talked about.
So where do I start highlighting some of those that I had gone through [or kept attempting to]...
- Going crazy for kart racing -
There's at least four games that I would also add to this list but I didn't talk about before for multiple reasons.
I only talked about Mario Kart 64 when testing a controller and yet I didn't mention there how I was also going for 150cc RetroAchievements - long story short I did get through Mushroom Cup with all 1st places and no walls hit...but Flower Cup onwards is a different story due to the rubberbanding. I'll probably dedicate a proper post to it when I decide to retake it properly.
I also briefly tried Mario Kart Double Dash again while I was trying out Mario Kart Super Circuit - but not enough to have a proper say on that game [translation: I haven't got at least one perfect all 1st finish run in one of the cups yet and haven't tried again since the first day 😅].
About the last two games...I haven't written a post about them here - but I'll likely bring those up later down this post as I quite played a lot of both during most of the entire year.
That aside, yep, RetroAchievements was a reason I decided to take a stab at Super Mario Kart, Mario Kart DS, Diddy Kong Racing and Mario Kart Super Circuit once again after a long while. And I can summarize them like this:
- Super Mario Kart: Can be cheesed in the first three cups 100cc with accel control, but the Special Cup expects you to know how to drift to overtake even in 100cc. And 150cc makes the difficulty shoot up to the sky between higher speeds in a still tough to control machine...and rubberbanding bots. There's a relevant montage about how much it took me to get Star Cup 150cc done at the end of this list.
- Mario Kart DS: While learning to tackle a few courses at 150cc speeds may be threatening, paradoxically, I had more of a struggle beating 100cc Special Cup with three star ranks than 150c Special Cup [although I think Star Cup was a pain in both]. Also, blue shells may be common to see chasing you if unlucky - refer to this other montage of getting blue shell'd out of nowhere.
- Diddy Kong Racing: More fun than I thought, mainly boosting ahead with Tiptup and the boost trick - I cut down backtracking as well by getting the hub world balloons early before doing the cups in order. Got an Adventure 2 save with T.T. started but still have to continue.
- Mario Kart Super Circuit: Even more fun than I thought - a breath of mercy and fresh air compared to Super Mario Kart in handling and track design, although getting three stars in 150cc is something that still eludes me due to the skill it demands. That aside, was a surprise favorite of sorts to me.
- Did you expect arcade racers to be absent? -
Of course not.
Some of these I revisited out of curiosity and had me hooked more than ever before, getting me to grind them for a level of completion, while a few others are games that I was sort of aware of but never had tried out until now and being pleasantly surprised with them. Shoutouts to being able to sink a lot of time at Hydro Thunder Hurricane once again after years since the last time I had the chance to get my hands on it...
And to be honest, they are so different between each other that trying to summarize them all here highlighting their strengths without overextending much feels...out of reach for me at the moment [writing this at almost 4am doesn't help], so I'll let you take a look at whatever may sound familiar or interesting to you - if you aren't already familiar with all of these games and posts.
- A Mega Marathon of Mega Man games -
I completed Mega Man X1 to Mega Man X4 in one sitting each - X1 to X3 with EVERY upgrade and X4 with NO upgrades. I also competed the first Mega Man in one sitting too.
Each one of those had their own long story that I endured [especially Mega Man 1 and MMX4's final boss], but least Zero Project made revisiting MMX3 with previous knowledge so much more satisfying, and in general tackling all of those until the end without using guides [except for the super secret weapons] was satisfying in a way - maybe MM1 not so much [which I had to use a guide for], but hey, it's on my completoin list now.
Although it turns out I didn't actually write about the Mega Man 1 and X4 journeys here yet...whoops.
| All this just to play Mega Man X8 16-bit, and yet I still haven't done that... |
|---|
| Running the Mega Man X Marathon: Beating the game in less than three hours |
| Mega Man X2 [SNES] - How to refine an already refined formula from the blue bomber |
| Mega Man X3 (SNES/PS1) - Includes side effects of trying to fix what wasn't broken |
- The oddball highlights -
You know where I'm going with these. Non-mainstream, if not straight up obscure games that I've somehow ran into through this year and decided to share about.
A little list of those games that I've talked about and seen highlighted here that are definitely not something you'd usually hear about unless they are re-released out of nowhere or find in a video talking about obscure games. With how these are old and sometimes often never re-released, it is certainly a type of game that I've tended to lean towards at times.
And Super Monkey Ball's party games. The franchise is definitely anything but unknown right now [mainly thanks to the new game's success], but I've heard that the Banana Mania remake minigames aren't entirely faithful [or in the case of Monkey Target, not as good] to the Gamecube original...so I'll count those one too just because of that little detail.
That should be a fairly compact summary of things I've given a shot at. There's definitely more, but again, wanted to keep things somewhat abridged considering it's mainly highlighting stuff I've already talked about.
And now...the usual section about being introspective on my thoughts for this anniversary and the ones that came before.
Legacy
In retrospective, it's kind of unbelievable to me that I've taken a shot and talked about so many games thanks to having this platform here, with how I basically don't feel like I have to think twice about whether a social media or platform algorithm will favor me or not, and instead just talk about whatever I want to talk about.
I know that it has been all games, specifically this year when I haven't had a chance to give myself a proper preparation into talking about, say, a movie [such as the third Sonic movie], anime [I've watched at least a handful these past months, like Blue Lock, Ninja Scroll, the first four Initial D seasons] or even other kind of stuff.
But you tell me if I would feel encouraged to experiment often with games, especially less known ones, in platforms that reward getting a grip into a trend...as well as a fair sprinkle of luck for at least one random video to get picked up [I still don't know how my Thrill Drive 3 video from December 2023 hit 5K 🤠].
What I want to get though to, isn't just whatever feel that motivates me into trying out stuff and talking about it, but also the results - I've absolutely written here so much here far more than ever before, and even if it isn't often the full scale ideas I sometimes dream about, I've learned to appreciate both the essence of keeping reads somewhat concise instead of extending through anything related to a topic, as well as how sometimes variety is what helps keep the head fresh.
So going back to the results, while they aren't always everything, it is SOMETHING that I can say that is here - a lot of games I've tried out, a lot of experiences that I've talked about, and with how time passes on each day, so many of my posts from previous years now give me a feeling of nostalgia when I remember the context and times of whenever I was playing the game described...and in some cases, even reading what I had to comment myself about said context of the past when back then it was the present.
My first idea for this was to put together a message that encompasses this by quoting snippets from the final section of the three anniversary posts before this one. It ended up being a bit more than I thought, so I spoilered it in case you feel like giving it a read but not taking up the whole page if you don't.
! [Full Retrospective]
[...] While there have been ups and downs just like in life itself, having an outlet to write about the incredible amount of games that I have enjoyed across my 19 years of life (20 in two months 😎), both popular and obscure, classic to unique, unmodified or modded (I'm looking forward to covering more romhacks too!), through emulation or even in real hardware.
[...] Having got new people to talk with about games, enjoy some fun gaming nights, get to read many others gaming posts on a single place, and getting to work forward a big goal thanks to Hive. > [...] It is great that I can do so through my own passion and experience with writing, as I ended up moving from my standalone blog to here since.
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My First Anniversary at Hive and HiveGaming - Thank you so much everybody!! - Feb 13, 2022
[-------------]While I've had some great highs and terrible lows in this life in addition to my journey here, I feel like I can say that I've been able to at least have new opportunities to express myself and be part of a community where I can tell stories without having to think so much about why, but rather how I tell it. [...]
As much as I need to work on my confidence (...and work on other things; I've had support from a friend to be able to do some occasional tasks online), I feel like I need to try to give my 100% in the things I do and write again instead of rushing, even against my strong insecurities and low self-esteem (both personal and "...but what if this doesn't come across as interesting to anyone?"), and I would have to take time for these things. By that I mean I need to take more time to polish the things I write as well as decide what I write about.
You know, take my time with reading other posts and take a couple of days to write new ones.
[-------------]
My Second Anniversary at Hive (and HiveGaming) - How things can change in just one year! - Feb 18, 2023
[-------------]For what are a number of posts of games and more that I highlighted on my first and second anniversary, most are not only things I wanted to dedicate something to them out of memories of years past before I came to this platform at the time I wrote about them (or things I had just discovered and enjoyed)...but are also now reminders of different times in my life.
[...] Even though I must have been thinking about problems back then, what I see of the second anniversary now makes me nostalgic to think that things at the university had not become SO overwhelming until these last three months, as well as to think that there were still several opportunities to meet up with old friends.
At the same time, seeing the things I tried and did during that 2023 also give me that nostalgic feeling of "wow, how light that time seemed compared to now...although that too almost that's a cycle of life that many of us see- clearest example being when we look back on high school days compared to when one has to cross college and then whatever comes after that. That, and seeing that despite it all, yes there is enough that I did and shared even when I feel I haven't done enough.
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My Third Anniversary at Hive (and HiveGaming) - Feeling old, but hanging in there to stay strong - Mar 9, 2024
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The summary [or conclusion] off above...is how things and time just change naturally, whether we are staring at how that happens or if we keep ourselves busy to what ideas we want to try out - and it is a surreal feeling that is only going to grow even further as further whenever next year comes around, and the next, and the next...
On the first anniversary post, I was hopeful and optimistic as someone fresh in university could be as well as interacting with the platform.
On the second one, I was a bit less confident due to something that was on my head at that time, but still somewhat optimistic to what would come next and doing what I could.
On the third one...the pressure that I had from dealing with the last months of university were cracking through - I still had a bunch of posts from previously being somewhat less focused on it, but as soon as new year hit back then, the scythe was on my neck and for the first time since quarantine, giving me little to no time to meet up with friends and such.
I presented my final project at university in April of 2024, passed with flying colors and finally destressed so much afterwards, had a fairly eventful birthday party that same April, and after months of waiting for the process to be official, I graduated at the end of November 2024 - officially being free of thinking about the ordeal those studies were.
There sure have been a few rough changes to adapt - not just at home but rather to some people being more distant than before [whether due to issues with other buddies, being occupied with something frequently or straight up having left town], but for how some things have been quite the disappointment, at least there have been quite a few things that have been uplifting even if for a moment throughout the year.
...
The last two mysteries
If there's something I could bring up before giving the final send off, it would have to be mentioning those two kart racers I had ominously not mentioned yet...
The thing is that I have written quite a fair bit about them before - just not here yet. And the place where I did that was when I went for a huge 2024 Gaming Recap on my old but still functional Wordpress website, between wanting to take a more lengthy and natural approach to mentioning the games I gave a shot at and not wanting to trip up with having to split it up in parts due to the character limit that I occasionally have tripped up here with.
The first kart racer that I haven't brought up yet is at the eight page of that lengthy postthe eight page of that lengthy post, under the section of talking briefly about the MK games before going into it.
That game is none other than...
...And dedicating a post to it here was one of the first things I did when I joined this platform., all the way back in February 2021. How's that for an old name coming back here, huh?
The game got even more mods since that post - as well as more servers that specialized in stacking these gameplay enhancing mods [from small tweaks like allowing driftsparks to be kept after bumping off walls, to adding mid-air tricks that give you boosts of speed to give you something to do when going off ramps], and while the height of its popularity was around that 2020-2022 era, there's STILL people that play it to this day - me included.
If you could say that the old post I made was a fair introduction the game back then, consider this an introduction to how it still can be today.
Talking about this game's long legacy over the six years it has since its release now is somehing I want to do through a video or something quite elaborate, but needless to say, it is one of those games that definitely stuck with me not just in those previous years, but also in 2024 when coming back to it as I saw more servers getting active frequently.
So..if that is the first kart racer I had on my sleeve, a free fangame stuffed to the brim with mods and wacky moments off high-speed interactions, then what could be capable of one upping that?
The sequel.
The game that I called my Game of the Year for 2024 on that gaming recap, a game that virtually aligned with the stars to hit me like a truck in the best way possible: A long awaited sequel to a free fangame I loved playing a lot and ran reliably on my computer that released after I was finally free off my studying duties TWO DAYS BEFORE MY BIRTHDAY IN APRIL 26TH.
For both dramatic effect...and also to not extend this post's size even more than it already is, I'll direct you to the page in the recap where, after going through a summary of the games I played through, I call it my Game of the Year for 2024 and go into extensive detail about why that is. The short version is that this game's brand of high speed insanity being cranked up to 11 along with being packed with even more content and single player support...was virtually all what I wanted from it, and definitely dedicated my fair share of time to make content for it.
And it may be the most interesting game to bring up here at the end of the day as a game that both speaks to me and I'd speak from...as it seems no one else has ever brought it up in here. But of course, knowing how it's difficulty has made it a game that doesn't hit with everyone, it's not that it surprises me either.
So...THAT would be it for now, this time for real.
I did tell you that I had written so much to the point that there wouldn't be room for a Spanish translation 😂
But yeah, that's all: A lot of games, mostly good, a few bad [the first Street Fighter game gave me problems in more ways than one - but eventually both of them got solved], but overall a lot of stuff that I can say that I've given an honest shot at and can read about in the future when I inevitably revisit this post for the fifth anniversary.
What awaits for me in this future is something I can't say myself yet, between how life can be unpredictably good or bad at you at the snap of a finger, as well as how I still don't have something big for a project to tackle post-graduation set in stone at the moment, but I'll definitely keep coming back here to share whatever games and such I happen to try out of curiosity or a long overdue revisit [Hollow Knight is sitting unused on my Steam library for a whole year already...] - if life doesn't get in the way in an unexpected way, that is.
And as always, big thanks to all of you here at the platform and the HiveGaming community for having supported me so much through this entire year and every single one before that. If I get to keep myself in check and actually follow through a few of the more ambitious ideas that I've had in my head for video projects or big essays this new year, it sure will be a treat to share it with all of you.
For one last thing to show you before finally ending the post...a run from Daytona USA 2 PE that I had been trying to do for nine months - getting 1st Place in the Expert course with the Hornet Classic car that handles just like in the first game.
A very specific note to end on, but both a personal game-related thing I wanted to highlight...and quite par on the course for my usual shenianigans [as well as being just a week ago - so it is also a recent highlight.]
And that brings full circle to using DUSA2 on the thumbnail of this anniversary post as well 😎
Thank you all for reading - and here's to another fruitful year :]
All screenshots taken by me. I wonder how many people often read this little disclaimer at the bottom...