My first update for the year, six games in January means that I'm about on track so far - let's hope that I can keep things that way, or ideally start to push a little ahead!
1.
Yono and the Celestial Elephants (Switch) - 1 January 2019
Complete playthrough.
Yono and the Celestial Elephants is an utterly charming game, with simple, bright and colourful graphics and an unchallenging plot. The gameplay is somewhat in the style of a 2D Zelda game, which is what attracted me to the game, and on that front it's serviceable enough, but very much on the easy side - to the extent that on occasion
Yono can start to feel somewhat tedious; it is, however, quite short (taking somewhere around 3-5 hours for a full playthrough), so this feeling doesn't become too pronounced.
2.
GRIS (Switch) - 1 January 2019
Full playthrough, all in-game challenges completed.
GRIS (pronounced "grease") is a beautiful 2D puzzle-platformer, very much selling itself on its art style - and here, it definitely excels, to the extent that I'd almost recommend the game just to experience its depiction of the story, themed around the supposed "five stages of grief. I say "story", but there's very little here that's explicit -
GRIS leaves the player to infer its story for the most part, and its commendable that this is quite possible.
Gameplay, while perhaps not the key focus for the game, is still decent, though never overly challenging. A good few of the puzzles can be interesting to solve, helping to aid with how
GRIS depicts its story and theme; the presence of collectibles and optional 'challenges' help to add an incentive to explore each area and a little more longevity.
3.
Burly Men at Sea (PS4) - 1 January 2019
Platinum trophy earned (all 12 routes completed).
Burly Men at Sea is a somewhat simple game telling the story of a group of sailors in pursuit of treasure. Gameplay consists of moving the titular three 'burly men' left and right through the environments, then interacting with specific trigger points to progress the story. There are essentially just three important decisions to make in the game, with other actions being for the most part linear in how they progress the story. For its low asking price, it's decently entertaining to see how the strange experiences of each of the 12 paths through the game plays out, and the player is very much encouraged to replay the game to see the different alternatives (at the end of each path, the story effectively loops back on itself).
4.
Marvel's Spider-Man: The City that Never Sleeps - all three episodes (PS4) - 6 January 2019
100% of trophies earned; 100% in-game completion rate.
The City that Never Sleeps is an great expansion to what was already an excellent game, adding greater longevity alongside additional plotlines that expand nicely on the story from the base game, including a deeper exploration of some key characters. The gameplay remains for the most part the same as the base game, so there's ultimately nothing new to the combat - but there are some well-designed major new encounters and a couple of new variants for the regular 'crime' scenarios in each district. For anyone who enjoyed the base game, I'd very strongly recommend this.
5.
Spyro the Dragon (remaster) (PS4) - 13 January 2019
Platinum trophy earned, 120% (maximum) in-game completion rate, all skill points earned. I've never previously played any of the
Spyro games, but found this to be a great introduction to the series. While the game at times betrays its age with occasionally 'clunky' controls, for the most part this is a very well-done remaster - comparison screenshots highlight just how significant the graphical upgrade is, while there's also been a nice enhancement to the soundtrack and few notable 'quality of life' improvements including an in-game minimap and assistance with locating nearby collectibles.
In comparison to the superb
Super Mario 64,
Spyro the Dragon shows less variety and creativity to its levels and the challenges posed to players, and Spyro's moveset is much more limited, but this is a very high bar and
Spyro remains a very entertaining, charming experience in itself - certainly it's done enough to have me looking forward to playing its two direct sequels.
6.
Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage (remaster) (PS4) - 23 January 2019
Platinum trophy earned, 100% (maximum) in-game completion rate, all skill points earned. Moving on to the second game in the original trilogy, there's a decent increase in polish and variety in level design, but for the most part this more of the same - in a good way. Another very enjoyable 'collectathon' 3D platformer.
