OK, so after a few hours, I can only agree with @Civilwarfare101 about the lack of checkpoints. A lot of things aged like, a lot. To be honest, I wasn't really aware how old was the game when naming it. I think I'm aging myself and have a hard time admitting 2006 was a long time ago now :)

That being said, I'm having fun and I'm pleasantly surprised by the story and characters. The game's not as cliché as I thought it would be.

FYI for people I link to the first game if there are remasters so things like the scholarship edition will not be displayed in your post but the original Bully will be. I can change this in the future if people would be prefer to invert it (i.e. link to the latest)

Thanks for the answer (and thanks to abatage too). As far as I'm concerned it doesn't really matter, I was just surprised.

Her Story and I cede my turn if I'm right :)

Wow, very first nomination for GotM and bam! It wins. And I have no idea why since I know almost nothing about the game except it's been on my backlog for a while. Hope this wasn't a terrible choice. Have fun everyone!

[EDIT : shouldn't it be listed under my post or is it because the thread is linked to 'Bully' and not to 'Scholarship Edition'?]

Well, september is the start of new school year in France, as in other countries I guess, so I'll nominate Bully. No idea how good or bad it is but it's on my backlog so... why not?

Thanks for the answer.

Actually, my point wasn't really about menuing itself, but about playing with only two buttons. But to be honest, I was only a few hours through my replay of the OG when I asked, and now that I'm close to the endgame, I have to admit I'm tired with menuing :)

[EDIT : forgot to press 'quote', sorry]

Having more buttons was probably the biggest and most relieving benefits of the Switch remake

I have mixed feelings about this. Don't you think it tends to trivialize a lot of things and makes the game a little too easy? Not that I'm a menuing addict :)

I have issues with the Souls games too. It's not a matter of quality or gameplay, I totally can admit that DS1 or Elding Ring are great games in many ways, but dark heroic fantasy's never been my thing and as a result, I don't remember feeling really 'engaged' when playing them. I haven't try Bloodborne or Sekiro yet, but I'm pretty sure the change of settings will also change my mind.

To name something older I've never really understood what was supposed to be great with Sonic games. I grew up with Nintendo and Mario so maybe I've been conditioned ;) But honestly, the best Sonic game I've played for now (Sonic 2) is far from my Top 10 platformers.

Haha, fun idea, thank you. And very true. I think 99% of the games I (and, I guess, we) play each year never reach any top 10 or even top 50. That's why my top 11-15 wouldn't be very interesting either, it's too close from the top 10. I'll come back for the Top 111-115 :)

Oh yeah, one of my all time favs. I think it's the right time to (re)play my first Game of the Month. It's already 8/11 but I know the game by heart, I can catch up.
Have fun everyone!

I'm not gonna be very original by saying this is very subjective, but I'd go with the new entry marked as a replay, too. Just upturn the question : you did a 100% completion of, let's say Mario Kart 8, and then two years later you re-try the main races just for a short fun (which is totally doable in one afternoon if you're good enough)... would you hesitate in marking this as a replay? ;)

Sorry for the late replies, I've been away for the past week

I actually have a few collections set up too, though I don't make as good a use of them as you do. It's not quite the same as the favourites shelves on MAL, but it also covers other uses that I like which the favourites on MAL do not cover.

Not sure how to reply to two posts in the same post but I guess this is close enough;

@Khamsin
Your English is excellent :) Honestly it wasn't immediately obvious to me that it isn't your native language until you mentioned it, you seem to speak it better than a lot of native speakers do lol. I'm personally not very active in the community but it's nice to hear that you find it to be such a welcoming place

Thanks a lot :)

Maybe my standards are a little high regarding english, I've learned it at school (and was very good at it), but it was a long time ago and it's easy to forget the basics when you don't have the opportunity to practice. In a way, How Long to Beat is a good exercise for that.

Is there anything you do or tell yourself to avoid getting into "I just want to beat this game to move on to the next one."?

Absolutely not. Every time I feel I am reaching the endgame, I can't help starting to think what to play next. It doesn't mean the game I'm playing right now's not interesting. It's just that I know that it probably won't surprise me anymore. That's why I have very few 100% stats. It's even a joke with my friends. I call this The Final Boss Syndrome. You're facing the final boss (or dungeon or anything that can be seen as the ending), you don't have trouble or anything, you're just already gone. In a way, it would be stupid to stop playing at this point, and still it sounds stupid to roll over the poor guy too. I guess this is basically because AAA games nowadays are just too long for their own good. I keep completing them for now but I know I will stop someday. Life's too short to complete 50H games with only 10H true gameplay loops.

It's funny since I've talked about that on another thread only a few weeks ago, but I was keeping track of my run times long before HLTB.

Around 2008, I was a freelancer and basically had all the time in the world to play. So I've started being very careful with my play times just to prevent myself from playing all day long instead of working. It slowly became an habit.

Add 15 years and you have a different man with a different life and a different job, where time really matters. This is how I've heard about HLBT, but I can't really remember the moment I took the leap. Only that I've been a passive user for a while, and that, at some point, it was just obvious that I had to join, since I've had basically hundreds of pointless run times and other notes sleeping on Excel sheets.

And here I am at 40yo+ talking about video games with younger people, and asking myself every other sentence if my english is at least understandable :)
I think something anyone should know before joining HLTB is how helpful, nice and benevolent the community can be. I've found out a very similar french site (can't remember the name) but I haven't even try it. And regarding how hard it sometimes can be for me to write in english, it means a lot.

That's an interesting question. As I already said on other threads, I don't see video games as art, at least not most of them and not in the way people usually do (I'm not going to elaborate, that's a whole - and touchy - topic). And yes, pure fun is my number one factor. But obviously, I wouldn't play as much if it was just a question of fun.

I think the most accurate answer in my case is challenge. It's something you can't really find in any other media. I'm not talking about games being necessarily hard. I'm very fine with easy games (even easy modes). It goes with interactivity in my mind, and it's more like a stimulation. I'm not very interested in stories in video games, but a good video game is, for sure, the most rewarding way for a story to be told. That's probably why I'm not into walking sims or purely narrative games. I don't have to play them to know they're not for me - they just don't fill my blanks. In a way, games for me are closer to sports than to books or movies (and that sounds funny to write since I'm really not into competitive scene or anything like that).

It is surely no coincidence that, for health reasons, I can no longer really practice sport. Now that I think about it, I had a period in the 2000s when I hardly played anymore and where I actually started again after a serious sport injury. I've been stucked in bed for months and then, gaming came back in my life like it never left. Never thought about that actually, so thanks for the question. Hope you'll get well soon.

Person 5 (Royal). I wasn't sure I was okay with a game throwing at my face a ≈100H main story, and I'm still not actually, but I have to admit the first few hours are more than just fine. I like the story, characters, gameplay... pretty much everything at this (very early) point. Looking forward to see how the game handles the tempo and dynamic but I know for sure I will like the whole thing, even if I don't complete it. Right from the stylish prologue, you can feel why the game is so cult.

I have a few other ones on my plate but there's not much to say about it. I want to finish Dex out of respect for the devs, even though it's not a very good game ; Indivisible is not very interesting (and lost a lot of charm since I've started Persona) ; and I don't have enough time these days to really invest into Fall Guys, although I find it pretty fun.

More or less the same as @refat17 here. Screenshots at the beginnings and ends of sessions. At the end of the of the day, it's the easiest way. I experienced too many unreliable in-game timers in the past. I obviously didn't pay as much attention to it before being on HLTB, I kept archives and Excel sheets about that but always based on in-game timers *. While replaying certain games later, I realized that some of my notes were completely broken. I mean: impossible, except by cheating or by playing through emulators. It doesn't change anything in the way I play but given the importance I give to the site's intel when I start a game, I try in return, more and more, to be as accurate as possible, out of respect for those like me who don't have the opportunity to play a lot of time each day, and for whom a difference of 5-10 hours really matters (sorry for the stupidly serious comment ^^)

* Yep, I was a little obsessed with that long before discovering HLTB. And all my friends were laughing at me. Well, they still do when I talk about HLTB but at least I know I'm not alone ;)

Darksiders II has what I like to call "the Schrödinger's Cat of remasters" on any platform, honestly. It's higher res (maybe not on Switch though lol) and contains all DLC content, but a lot of the assets are worse, and the overall color palette is so much darker. For my money, the Wii U version is the best, because it includes all but one DLC, looks like it should, and has the added benefit of using the gamepad for inventory management.

Oh really? I had no idea, actually I did all four games on Switch. Had issues with Genesis too (like the game auto-saving right in the middle of a giant bug), but the two others were okay. To be fair, there's a lot of very unperfect-if-not-cheap things in the whole Darksiders franchise, I think it's part of its charm but for Darksiders II it really struck me at the time, since the first one was (in my opinion) really neat for a 2010 game remastered on Switch. Darksiders II weirdly felt older.

"the Schrödinger's Cat of remasters"... love that :)

Darksiders II : Deathinitive Edition on Switch. I'm not very demanding about technical aspects, not the guys who's going to look at fps and everything : if the game is functional, I'm in. But Darksiders II (which is a great game otherwise) on Switch can force you to reload because you're stuck between two platforms like in an old Tomb Raider game, and I even experienced a crazy moment when I couldn't leave a boss arena after beating the boss (twice!).

In general, you can name in this thread most Switch ports as far as Nintendo's not directly involved. As I said, I'm not very demanding, and actually I think people are often very harsh about Switch ports, but when I try to be objective I have to say that most of the time there are at leat issues on sprites or text size or both, or with vibrations... many of these ports have difficulty being as pleasant to play on both portable and docked mode.

Very cool pic and super sweet idea. I already have a physical issue and I'm not regarding myself as a really active member so I'll pass, but good luck to everyone and thanks anyway :)

Oh, well. Love that kind of topic. Even if the older you are, the harder it gets :(

Let's go, with no ties, of course.

1981 : Ms. Pac Mac
1982 : Pitfall!
1983 : Mario Bros. (terrible year in my completion book btw : 3 games and only 1 above average... don't know if it has to do with the krach or if I'm just unlucky...)
1984 : Tetris (actually I'm not sure I've ever played the original Tetris... there are so many ports...)
1985 : Super Mario Bros.
1986 : The Legend of Zelda
1987 : Castlevania II : Simon's Quest (I know, I know... to be honest the best grade I have for this year is the first FF... which I literally completed yesterday. )
1988 : Super Mario Bros. 2/Mario USA
1989 : Castlevania III : Dracula's Curse
1990 : Mega Man 3
1991 : The Legend of Zelda : A Link to the Past
1992 : Super Mario Kart
1993 : The Legend of Zelda : Link's Awakening
1994 : Final Fantasy VI
1995 : Donkey Kong Country 2 : Diddy Kong's Quest
1996 : Super Mario 64
1997 : Castlevania : Symphony of the Night
1998 : Baldur's Gate
1999 : Final Fantasy VIII (yep. VIII wins a slot when IV and VII are outshined, funny game ^^)
2000 : Diablo II
2001 : Silent Hill 2
2002 : Resident Evil "Rebirth"
2003 : Castlevania : Aria of Sorrow
2004 : Dragon Quest VIII : Journey of the Cursed King
2005 : Shadow of the Colossus
2006 : New Super Mario Bros. [DS]
2007 : Super Mario Galaxy
2008 : Mega Man 9
2009 : New Super Mario Bros. [Wii]
2010 : Donkey Kong Country Returns
2011 : Batman : Arkham City
2012 : Paper Mario Sticker Star
2013 : Luigi's Mansion 2 - Dark Moon
2014 : Donkey Kong Country : Tropical Freeze
2015 : Axiom Verge
2016 : Bravely Second
2017 : The Legend of Zelda : Breath of the Wild
2018 : Celeste
2019 : Blasphemous
2020 : Genshin Impact (only retired game on the list... my choices for 2020 were very restricted)
2021 : Eastward
2022 : Signalis
2023 : Blasphemous II

I think art can be interpreted any way the person viewing it decides to. I consider it art like I consider a good book art, its a form of it but that is subjective. I dont consider games likes modern warfare or fifa art, more as another form of entertainment but games like God of War, Ori series, FF series etc. I consider it a form of art for the storytelling aspect, sound design and visuals.

Not everyone is going to see the same piece of content the same way and a story is never going to be mean the same to any individual. As a father of 2 boys God of War 2018 really hit me hard, especially the final scene when Kratos is telling Atreus how he got his name, that hit hard.

Thanks for you answer.

I don't really disagree. As you might have guessed from the previous post, I have no problem with people being hit by one game or another (I am too, sometimes). Even FIFA (okay, that would be strange. But why not).

I probably struggle to express it properly, as English is not my primary language, but I didn't mean games can't be art. Just that most of the time, they're not. Or only for short segments. As someone named CloudCid, I'm sure you can see my point if I say that killing off a main character mid-game can create an iconic emotional moment, but, in the end, doesn't say anything about an otherwise wonderful game ;)

Actually, I'm pretty sad about that. First of all because some great games are totally overshadowed by their iconic moments (some not-that-good too - it obviously works both ways). And I'm first to be amazed when the artstyle and the message perfectly match the gameplay. Shadow of the Colossus is the first title coming to my mind right now, but there are others. Just not enough, in my opinion, to generalize. Most of the time, "art" in video game means trying to emulate other arts, or being a snooty indie-game built against its own medium instead of using its codes and specifics to express something meaningful. I find this unfortunate.

Oh and of course, it has nothing do with how good a game can be. Not regarding the FF series as art doesn't mean I don't like it (well, not the whole series, but that's another thread for another day).

I'll try to be the most objective possible, I hate when people say "meh this game is so bad" without giving constructive argument, I'll be trying my best to not make the same mistake they do :

- The lock system for the battles is unreliable and sometimes fails to target the right enemy or object. This is understandable given the game’s age and technology, but it still affects the gameplay negatively.
- The dungeons are inconsistent in their design and difficulty. Some of them have interesting puzzles or fun sections, but others have tedious or boring sections that drag on for too long.
- The open world is not very engaging or immersive, it's mostly flat and empty.
- The time travel mechanics is not well implemented or utilized. It doesn't have much impact on the world, and it offer limited choices and consequences. Majora’s Mask used time travel more effectively and creatively in that regards.
- The ocarina mechanics is not fun because of its redundancy throughout the game. The player has to play the same songs over and over again for different purposes, which can get annoying and repetitive.

There are probably more flaws, that's just what directly come to my mind.
That doesn't make it a bad game though, it's still a good game it's just that it feels like a downgrade in every way from the previous game (which was in 2D, I know, and this one is in 3D, ok fair, but still) except for the graphical "improvement" (subject to personal opinion). I'm really trying my best to like this awesome game but I can't just ignore these flaws just because it's old, never did with any game, and never will.

Unpopular for sure, but I totally agree. That's what I thought Day 1. I replayed it a lot since its release, afterall it was supposed to be one-of-if-not-the-best-game-ever, I was probably missing something. But it never really changed my mind.

Games are just... games. Not an art, at least not a major one.

I'm not sure this is such an unpopular opinion, but most of my friends disagree for, IMO, very bad reasons. I have the feeling they express the need of making their passion an ART just to make it more acceptable - because, you know, when you're over 40 it's easier to say video games are an underestimate art than to admit you like to play for hours just like when you were 10 ;)

Of course, when we friendly argue about that, they generally make very good points. Of course, I like a beautiful artstyle or music or atmosphere. Some games really are artsy, obvisously. But I think most of them are not and in the end, what matters to me are the game's mechanics and how much fun they are.

Ironically, that's exactly why I can't have a real serious argument with anyone about this. It matters more to my interlocutor than it does to me - "okay, man, whatever you want, I don't actually care, it's just a game."

Usually in the evening right after work, but the "how much" depends on the games itselves. I have concentration issues. I can play 6x30 minutes on a sunday but playing more than two hours in a row is almost impossible for me. I can put a game aside for months only because I know there's no autosave and I have to wait for vacations so I could really give it a shot (for example, Metroid Prime Remastered has been waiting for me in its box since the week of its release, which I agree is a bit stupid... passion makes you do weird things sometimes ^^)