Game #7 Abandoned After >2 Hours - Yu-Gi-Oh! The Eternal Duelist Soul

So, another Yu-Gi-Oh game already, name Yu-Gi-Oh: The Eternal Duellist Soul. There are only 3 in the challenge list, so this is quite unlikely. At least I'm getting them out of the way early. This is the first Yu-Gi-Oh game to be released on the GBA (apart from Dungeon Dice Monsters which doesn't really count), whereas the 2006, the other game I played, was the last to be released.

Again, I played this for over 2 hours, and tried to give it a fair shake. Ultimately though, I'm dropping it as it again doesn't have a real main story mode and I'm not enjoying it much.

Game #6 Complete - Boulder Dash Ex

Boulder Dash Ex is a remake of the classic 8-bit Atari game Boulder Dash (no surprises there). It seems to be relatively obscure, although it has quite a good metacritic score, that comes from very few reviews. There also isn't a Wikipedia page for it (although there is one for Boulder Dash, the original game).

I beat the main story mode of Boulder Dash Ex. There's also a tutorial, and a multiplayer battle mode. Finally there's a classic mode which appears to be a closer representation of the original game.

Game #5 Complete - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a side scrolling beat em up based on the beloved, and sometimes abused, franchise. Actually there are several TMNT games on the GBA. Confusingly, this one is based on the 2003 animated series. There's another, just titled TMNT (the acronym, not spelled out) released in 2007, based on the movie. But that's for another time.

At the beginning you pick your turtle from the 4, and get down to it. Initially I thought the game was insanely short after I beat the 4 acts with the first character in less than an hour. But as it turns out the 4 turtles have significantly different paths, rather than it just being a different character on the same levels, and I went through them all. There are some collectible secret crystals to find, but I didn't really bother with them.

Game #4 Complete - Spyro: Season of Ice

Spyro: Season of Ice is an isometric 3d platformer with 2d graphics. It's a sequel to the classic 3d collectathon platformer series from the Playstation 1 era. Unlike the home console series and other sequels, which have gone in some crazy directions, Season of Ice is a direct sequel to the original trilogy and sticks pretty close in terms of gameplay too. I'm a big fan of the PS1 Spyro games.

You explore isometric 3d worlds as Spyro, a juvenile purple dragon, accompanied by his faithful dragonfly pal Sparx. An Rynoc has stolen the sorceresses' spell book (from Spyro 3) and has accidentally given himself 2 heads in an attempt to become smart. He needs 100 pairs of fairy wings to brew a potion to fix himself, and so has cast another spell to encase all the fairies in ice. Spyro, being the designated hero, has to go and save them and defeat the bad guy. Standard stuff, and the main villain is pretty nonthreatening and forgettable compared to some of the characters in the original series, but it gets the job done.

Game #3 Abandoned After >2 Hours - Yu-Gi-Oh! Ultimate Masters: World Championship Tournament 2006

Yu-Gi-Oh! Ultimate Masters: World Championship Tournament 2006 is an adaptation of the Yu-Gi-Oh Trading/Collectible Card Game, aka Duel Monsters, one of several on the GBA (3 made it into the challenge for reference). If you really don't know anything about Yu-Gi-Oh, I suggest you look it up elsewhere (also where you living under a rock in the early 2000s?) As for my experience with the franchise, I enjoyed the anime as a child, and more recently the Abridged Series on Youtube, but was never really into the trading card game. It's also worth noting I'm not a big fan of TCGs/CCGs in general, the only one I've played much of is Hearthstone, but I've lost interest in that too.

I'm abandoning Yu-Gi-Oh. I really didn't want to, as 2 in a row right at the start of the challenge is a bad precedent, but the game has broken me. This is within the rules as the game doesn't have a traditional story mode or ending, and I've played for more than 2 hours (more like 10). This evening has hammered home that I'm not having fun. I beat the same opponent twice in a row easily, and then proceeded to lose 14 times in a row before getting the 3rd win, due to a combination of abominable luck and occasional misplays. Then I looked it up and discovered I need 5 wins, not 3, to unlock the whole of the next tier of opponents. Blargh.