Last month, Kim from Later Levels and Solarayo from Ace Asunder challenged us to embrace your backlog of games and share your love for all things video games. One of the questions posed within was asking which game has spent the longest in your backlog with encouragement to dust off that old copy of <insert game> sitting on your shelf or in your Steam library and give it a go during the month for the #MaybeInMarch tag. For the month of March I intend to focus on some of the games that, despite having played anything from a few minutes to multiple hours, I have never been able to complete. Most of the oldest games in my backlog aren’t necessarily lengthy, so I’ve picked three games that I’ve never beat, but plan on devoting some time to playing.
My three #MaybeInMarch selections…
Dynamite Headdy – Sega Genesis
One of the questions in last month’s #LoveYourBacklog prompt asked which game has spent the most time in your backlog. It would be either of two Sega Genesis games – X-Men or Dynamite Headdy. I have never managed to beat either game, X-Men is very unlikely to finish anytime soon, so I will be dusting off my copy of Dynamite Headdy and attempting to beat the game after roughly 25 years. I remember the game being a moderately difficult action-platformer, it’s made by Treasure after all, so I’m curious to see how it goes after all this time. The premise is interesting – a limbless, neck-less puppet named Headdy defeat King Dark Demon and save the world by attacking enemies and items by firing his disconnected head at them. I played the game quite a bit as a kid but could never get past the fifth(or so) level, right around a level titled Stair Wars. I’m determined to get to the end of the game this time around…
Crash Bandicoot – PlayStation
Platformers have always been my go-to video game genre ever since playing the Super Mario Bros. games on the NES as a young kid. Over the years there have been a number of company “mascots” starring in their own platforming adventures striving for some comparable level of success as Mario – Sonic the Hedgehog, Bubsy, Spyro the Dragon. One of the more successful characters of the early-3D platformers of the mid-90’s was Naughty Dog’s Crash Bandicoot who first appeared on the Sony PlayStation back in 1995. I never played the Crash Bandicoot games as much as say, Mario games due to opting for a Nintendo 64 over the PlayStation, but I really enjoyed the games when I finally came back to catch up on some of the PS1 games that I had missed. The Crash trilogy of games on the PS1 have a reputation of being challenging platformers and having just recently spent some more time playing the first game, it’s definitely warranted. Many of the levels require great precision as you often find yourself running to or away from the camera, along with traditional side-scrolling levels. I’ve never made it more than about halfway through the first Crash game, but I’m roughly 3/4 through it at this point and feel reasonably confident I can see the end credits on this one.
The Legend of Zelda – NES*
Despite having known of the Legend of Zelda games since I was a young kid – I can still remember playing the first two games on the NES at a cousin’s house when I was about 4 or so, I have finished relatively few of the games in the series. I had always enjoyed the games well enough, but it wasn’t until I got my own copy of Ocarina of Time on the N64 and played that I finally felt like I “got” what others loved so much about them. Zelda 1 and 2 had always been a little intimidating as most of my experience playing them had always been frustrating due to the difficulty and the fact they seemed very, very cryptic about what to do and where to go versus the linear, left-to-right on screen path playing Mario games. I’ve come back to play the first Zelda game a few different times over the years, but have never stuck with it long enough to make my way through Death Mountain and defeat Ganon. It’s time to change that, wish me luck…
In a blog post from a few weeks ago, I mentioned some Nintendo franchises celebrating milestone anniversaries this year and a game from each respective series that I’d like to complete before the year is out. Should I manage to finish the above mentioned games, there’s still plenty games like Metroid: Other M or Donkey Kong for the Game Boy that I could get started on – Nintendo doesn’t seem interested in acknowledging these series’ anniversaries, but I’m still gonna play them. I had also listed Skyward Sword as one of the games I aim to finally play through, but the upcoming HD port coming out in July means I just may wait until then so I can just play the game from the convenience of my Switch rather than the Wii. There’s also the hope that some elements of the game may be a little more streamlined with the new version of the game, similar to the HD remasters of Majora’s Mask or Wind Waker.
Is there a game you’ve had forever and haven’t gotten around to finishing? If so, what game? Let me know in the comments. Thanks for reading!
Gaming Omnivore 