[Event] The PokeCommunity Game-Along VI: Return of the Gaming

The PokeCommunity Game-Along VI: Return of the Gaming

Welcome - or welcome back - to the PokeCommunity Game-Along. This is the sixth iteration of our year-long special event. It's also the third one to have a terrible Star Wars reference as part of its title.

On the first day of each month, I will be posting a theme into this thread. These themes will range from very specific, to the broad, to the delightfully vague. Some will be as simple as "play a platformer". Other themes might be a little stranger, like last years "play something with a fishing mini-game". The sky is the limit and the themes could be just about anything. As a participant in the challenge, your job is simply to play and complete a game that fits the theme for that month (meaning you must finish the main story mode and see the end credits).

For example, for the aforementioned theme of platformers, you could play anything from a classic Mario Brothers or Sonic game to something like Celeste. If the theme was games with a fishing mini-game, you might choose one of the recent Fire Emblem games or even one of the mainline Pokemon titles. You can play a game of any length. You can play a game you've already finished once before, or use this as an excuse to play something new. You can even use a game you have already started before the theme was posted if it fits. Whatever works! The only requirements are that the game fits the theme, that it has a clear end point and that you aim to finish it by the end of the month.

If this sounds like fun to you (trust me, it is), entering is also simple. You just have to post in this thread to let us know what game you're going to try and finish that month and then post again to let us know when you finish it. Of course, we do love to see your progress to. If you want to post updates, you can post short notes on how things are going in this thread. The best way to do it though is to make a Gaming Journal thread. You've probably seen a couple floating around.

There's no obligation to do every month, the goal here is just to have fun and play a diverse mix of games. Feel free to pick and choose the months with a theme you want to try. For something with a hard quota, you'll want the 2025 Gaming Challenge instead (thread coming soon). That being said though, I do recommend trying to do every month's theme just for the bragging rights.

If you want to keep track of everyone's progress, this be periodically updated with a list of everyone participating and the games they complete, as well as a list of the themes from each month.

Participants

In-progress games will be marked grey. Completed games will be blue. Failed attempts are red.

gimmepie

Spoiler:


Setsuna

Spoiler:


jbsundown

Spoiler:


bobandbill

Spoiler:


Alex_Among_Foxes

Spoiler:


Janp

Spoiler:


Porykid75

Spoiler:


Explorer of Time

Spoiler:


Cherrim

Spoiler:


RMVNZ

Spoiler:


Devalue

Spoiler:


Arcaneum

Spoiler:


Austin

Spoiler:


Panda

Spoiler:


Themes

January - Free Choice
February - Trust Issues
March - Conundrums
April - Hack and Slash
 
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January: Free Choice

As is our tradition, we're leading 2025 with the easiest theme of all. One that barely counts as a theme if we're being honest. That is, as I'm sure you have read in the title, free choice. A nice little softball to lead into the lunacy that will likely be some of the other deranged ideas for themes I have through the year. It's also an excuse to play that shiny new game you were given as a Christmas gift or to start chunking your way through the enormous backlog of unplayed games that has inevitably only grown longer with the Steam Summer Sale.

Have at it!

 
[PokeCommunity.com] The PokeCommunity Game-Along VI: Return of the Gaming

New Year, new proper attempt at the game-along! Put me in, I'm ready for it!!

Gonna start the year off strong with Parappa the Rapper! I really wanted to play it at some point last year, and just kept putting it off, then just considered Space Channel 5 my replacement for it. Not allowing myself excuses for it now!
 
Sure, idk about fitting in themes as I mostly want to get through more backlog, but will try this.

I ended last year strong with Pikmin 4 (100% finished hours before the year ended!), so starting strong with Super Mario Galaxy from my backlog.
 
I've been waitin' for a good chance to play this, and the time has come. I'll be playing Bug Fables for my game of the month.
(which is gonna be a bit weird with me also having recently continued an old Super Paper Mario playthrough I'd abandoned a few years ago lol)
 
Just finished Parappa the Rapper! Or more like... got to the very last note of the very last stage, constantly kept failing the song, and just found out that was the end of the game and then went to watch the ending online. It feels exactly like how I thought of Space Channel 5 last year, a super charming rhythm game that had some serious issues with note timing. There were entire sections of songs where I'd miss notes or hit completely wrong notes and gain points, but when I did an entire measure perfectly I found myself failing over and over. It's a shame it was broken, because I liked it a lot otherwise.

Edit: I'm coming back here since I just beat Parappa the Rapper 2, and I think that game is a lot smoother to play and was an absolute joy. If for some reason you're reading this and are interested in playing them for yourself, understand that the first is rough, but the second is fantastic! I'd highly recommend it!
 
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I'm going to play A Hat in Time. The main character, Hat Kid, is a time-traveling explorer. In other words, she's an Explorer of Time, like me!
 
I'll go easy on myself and finish both games in Ace Attorney Investigations this month since I'm most of the way through the first one already and I'm not sure what game will snatch my interest next.
 
For the first solo game in 2025, I will decide to tackle Dishonored for the first time after many glowing recommendations.
 
And I've completed my first game!
God of War: Ragnarok
I enjoyed playing it, it wasn't as good as the first one in a lot of ways but still good fun overall. I'm quite disappointed because I think it could have been so much more in almost every aspect but I enjoyed it nevertheless!

Looking forward to next month's theme and seeing what I can take on for that.
 
I've beaten A Hat in Time and collected every Time Piece. I haven't completed Death Wish yet, though, and don't expect to do so before the end of the month.

This game is, simply, wonderful. The platforming is really fun, and there's so many details put into everything. The story is good, the levels are all really cool, I love the characters, and I think it might have my favorite voice acting out of any game I've ever played! The only issue is that the combat is mediocre and the non-boss enemies are not that interesting to fight, but combat isn't really a focus of the game, so it doesn't matter that much. I don't have that much experience with collect-a-thon platformers, but I definitely want to play more of them after playing this one.
 
I beat Super Mario Galaxy to my satisfaction for now, albeit may return to it. By beat I mean I got 120 stars with Mario and beat Bowser again, so that's every level. I know you get some different (sometimes harder?) varients with Luigi, which I might as well go for, but I think I could use a short break so I don't get annoyed at same-iness.

Was pretty fun! Definitely more enjoyable for me compared to 64 and Sunshine.
 
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