FartMonster's
Backloggery
VS
Now Playing
SNES
Secret of Mana: Secret of Mana Turbo
Hack. Heading to Sage Jacques' trial.
▶
Updated about 16 hours ago
A superb rebalancing of Secret of Mana, doing away with the stamina mechanic which slowed down the game tremendously, as well as having the option to remove the gameplay pausing from magic casting, with added enemy difficulty to counterbalance. Furthermore, the grinding to level up weapons and magic is made much faster, with the EXP gains being doubled. It elevates the game to the level of its series brethren (at least up to Sword), and is how the remake should have played. Absolute must.
PC88
Ys II: Ancient Ys Vanished - The Final Chapter 
Solomon Shrine. Grinding at Fact's Sector before getting to the Sacred Cup.
▶
Updated about 18 hours ago
An impressive evolution on Ys I. While Ys I starts out feeling like a small constricted sandbox, a bit larger than Hydlide 1&2, Ys II's venture through the floating kingdom of Ys feels much larger, and yet still easy to digest. A feat for a 1988 Action JRPG. Magic is much simpler here than in later installments, or remakes, but gives Adol a few more "verbs" to his arsenal. The movement is still clunky, but 8-bit computers were limited, alas. I'd suggest the TG16 or Chronicles+ remakes, myself.
GCN
Sonic Heroes
Replay. Starting Team Dark. Team Sonic, Rose Clear.
▶
Updated about 3 days ago
Another divisive entry. Biggest problems with this is how, in essence, you're expected to beat the game four times, mostly with just variations in difficulty and length (Team Dark going up to 15 minutes) outside of Chaotix's strange mission mode style setup, along with the bizarre physics. The acceleration was increased to absurd lengths from SA2, which makes Speed characters harder to control, and deaths more frequent. I do like this game though, but it's more for Sonic fans and young kids.
SNES
Romancing SaGa 2
Replay. Year 1379. At Teretuva, tower quest. 15/30 non-Hero Quests, 0/7 Heroes dealt with. Party: Mouse / Bear / Terry / Topaz / Mahan
▶
Updated about 3 days ago
A very deep Square RPG, rather than focusing on characterization, it focus more on the aspect of roleplaying, with a lot of the quests (that aren't all required) having many ways to clear them. In a way it's closer to a classic CRPG than a JRPG, and that makes it fascinating. Regardless it also takes Romancing SaGa 1 as a basis and improves its systems tenfold, cutting some of the chaff as well. A hidden gem from the SNES days, I recommend this to anyone who's hardcore about RPGs.
PC88
Hydlide
Replaying for fun, don't @ me. Working to Lv7 with the Zombies before going for the sword.
▶
Updated about 3 days ago
Hydlide is a very important game that helped shape the ARPG as it is today, but man is it a Thing to play today. It takes its Druaga inspiration way too close to heart with its strange puzzles, and the balance is just not there. Despite all this, I don't hate the game. It's a pioneer, and it was trying to do something that, along with Courageous Perseus and Dragon Slayer, hadn't been done before outside of like, Caverns of Freitag. For all of that I respect it.
PS2
Summon Night 3
Chapter 14: The Shattering One ~Broken Mind~. Chatting done, levelling up before the chapter's battles.
▶
Updated about 3 weeks ago
Compared to SN1&2, the difficulty was increased by a sizeable amount. The AI requires some better strategizing than just overlevelling. Beyond that, the Schaltos mechanic allows for toning down difficulty for worse players (though punishing with karma), Summon Units made more reliable through the aspect of lite pet sim mechanics for their stats and abilities, the Brave Clear mechanic encourages challenge runs, and general streamlining, on top of one of the strongest stories next to SN2.
AMG
Turrican
Stage 4-1. Trainer for Infinite Lives (courtesy of ACU).
▶
Updated about 4 weeks ago
A pretty good run and gun game. Despite the levels being extremely vast and spacious, it isn't too big to the point of becoming lost, since the goal is still going left to right most of the time. Enemies can be quite damage spongy, but that's the nature of European games. The difficulty and limited continues are also balanced kinda nicely with the amount of 1ups placed about, but that Stage 3... Oof. A gem for the Amiga. Music requires no comment, it's Chris Hülsbeck. Nuff said.
SNES
Super Mario World: A Super Mario Thing: Demo's Journey
Replay. World 5 - Cave, at Night of the Living Charlie. Going for all raocoins. By raocow's talkhaus.
▶
Updated about 2 months ago
An iconic, yet very flawed romhack. For its release year, 2010, the stages are relatively solid for a game made mostly by first timers and children, though as a result of being an older SMW collab hack, it has quite a lot of duds and just downright unfair levels. The flavor and vibes it gives off help make it digestible, with the added benefit that there's still quite a lot of fun levels, despite the difficulty. My advice is to approach this with savestates, the postgame (and W4 castle) is BS.
PC
Fantasia Sango
Getting our bearings in Xudu.
▷
Updated about 2 months ago
PC
Sonic Adventure DX: Director's Cut
Replay. Heading to Ice Cap as Sonic. Have to redo my progress due to reinstalling the Dreamcast mods, 3/130 Emblems.
▶
Updated about 2 months ago
A worse port of the GameCube version which was a worse port of the Dreamcast version. It's a very sad way to treat a game that was on the cutting edge of graphics in 1999, what with worsening its lighting engine, simplifying its graphics and artstyle... If you respect art direction in games, the PC port doesn't come recommended. However, now you can use the SA Mod Launcher to restore it to its Dreamcast glory, so I encourage anyone to give it a go with that mod. Please enjoy!
GBA
Castlevania: Circle of the Moon
Grind to prepare for Battle Arena (raise to Lv80, get Gambler Armbands, grind recovery drops, go ham). Map: 93.9%
▶
Updated about 3 months ago
Not the best follow up from SotN, but a decent enough showing regardless! The bigger emphasis on grinding isn't something I'm kind of a fan of, though I do appreciate the concept of the card system and the increase in difficulty. Generally a pretty well done game, that just needed a little bit of time to be better balanced while retaining some of the challenge. Maybe just altering how Luck affects drop rates.
X68k
Aquales
Stage 2: A Search of Edias Rith (i think they mean "Recon Mission at Edias Rith"?)
▷
Updated about 4 months ago
PC
Cave Story
By Pixel. Bad and Neutral endings run, Waterway boyeeeee. DL: https://www.cavestory.org/download/cave-story.php
▶
Updated about 4 months ago
An old gem from the early days of indie game awareness. It hasn't aged as gracefully, a lot of the subareas involve going back and forth a billion times (Sand Zone...) and the physics are floaty in a bad way, but its storytelling, visuals+music and /most/ of its gameplay are terrific. The storytelling especially makes a compelling case to encourage people to play this game. If you're curious as to which version to play, the freeware version is fine, but just make sure you avoid the 3DS version.
TG16
J.J. & Jeff
Field 4: 4-1.
▶
Updated about 4 months ago
A comedic Wonder Boy 1/Adventure Island inflected platformer based on the likenesses of Ken Shimura (RIP) and Cha Katou, as well as their Gokigen TV skit show. As expected of WB1, it's a very slippery platformer, but I quite enjoy the physics and gameplay myself. It's not ideal (enemies are hard to time jumps on due to how small they are), but I feel like its jank is part of the joke. The "collect the hidden key to access stage 4" mechanic is also weirdly cruel, but I think it's funny too.
PS
Resident Evil 
Director's Cut, no Samuragochi. Chris run, currently at the Storage Room with Rebecca.
▷
Updated about 4 months ago
PS2
Tales of Destiny 2
Completionist run idea aborted, will just focus on levelling up for Rimul and Magnadeus.
▶
Updated about 5 months ago
A step up from Destiny 1, of which the PSX ver. I was pretty underwhelmed by. The battle system has the benefit of being made after Eternia, and I like its emphasis on defensive play, with Kyle being a wall to ward off the enemies, while the others cast spells. The story is still Tales High Conceptâ„¢ which I'm not a fan of, but the story centered around society being sheltered for its protection feels interesting all of the same. The characters are also just much more likable, still miss Kongman.
PC
Bunny Must Die! Chelsea and the 7 Devils
By Platine Dispositif. Bunny run. 50% Item completion, at Jade Tower.
▶
Updated about 5 months ago
Super good retro hard-style metroidvania. I appreciate its humorous nature, but I also adore how deviously challenging it is despite it being mostly fair. Mostly. Jade Tower is can be a total pain. It's also not too long either, clocking in at 8 hours if you just do Bunny's story and around 15 if you do Chelsea's as well. It is currently delisted, sadly, though pirating it isn't too hard if you know where to look. Another classic by Platine Dispositif.
PSP
Final Fantasy IV: The Complete Collection: Final Fantasy IV
Zeromus beat with the main cast, need to do it with the optional cast to unlock the rest of Lunar Ruins. Cave of Trials done, not going for Pink Tail.
▶
Updated about 6 months ago
A superb port of Final Fantasy IV Advance, though the same issues with Final Fantasy IV apply here. The difficulty can be a bit overwhelming, especially due to how ATB works, but something that is a small bugbear to me is how the encounter rate is still high in the level of late era NES, early era SNES games. Personally, I would have toned it down and adjusted EXP rates accordingly.
TG16
Momotarou Densetsu Turbo
Bartering at the Capital of Hope.
▶
Updated about 6 months ago
A pretty good graphical upgrade to the original Momotarou Densetsu. The overworld graphics feel less generic, and the colorful lightheartedness and dumb jokes of the original are still there. It's still a Dragon Quest clone at heart, but it's enjoyable nonetheless.
PC
Fallout
Hub quests, Junk Town mostly clear of EXP outside of recruiting Dogmeat, need to check if I can recruit Tycho.
▶
Updated about 1 year ago
An impeccable game. It's a bit clunky, but it's very rewarding to explore. The quests are pretty fleshed out, most of them do have different ways of progressing making you able to say, avoid combat as much as possible, which is very good. There's a lot of choices for builds that can beat the game, though for some you're gonna have to have quite a bit of knowledge and experience under your belt. It's also phenomenally written. 100% recommended, could just use more cute men /joke
FartMonster's Status
Unfinished ?No significant accomplishments.
Beaten ?The main objective has been accomplished. Usually marked by the defeat of a final boss and/or viewing of credits.
Completed ?For games which are 100% done. All extras and modes have been unlocked and finished. All significant items have been collected.
Top-Rated 264 
Master Runs 0 
Dialogue Box 
Reply 
