Original post
The January batch was getting unmanageably large, so I decided to dump it all and continue the rest of the month's games in another post.
January 2020 (Games 1-18)
1. 1 Screen Platformer
(1/1/2020, Steam)
Kicked off the new year with a completion, which has become tradition at this point. 1SP is a short but pretty enjoyable platformer that takes place on a single screen (a scrolling screen, with no transitions or levels). The three characters represent different playstyles – one for a vanilla time trial, the second requiring you to collect a special pickup to proceed (which increases the difficulty of the platforming, obviously), and the third requiring you to reveal 100% of the map (!!!), Symphony of the Night style, to unlock the exit. My first playthrough with all three characters was great fun! I attempted a fourth run in hard mode but the split second timing required to progress wasn't for me.
2. Rise of the Tomb Raider
(1/5/2020, Xbox Game Pass PC)
replay, previously beaten on Steam
Decided to quickly run through ROTR on Game Pass to refresh my Tomb Raider memory for an ongoing playthrough of the sequel, Shadow of the Tomb Raider (and to earn Xbox Live achievements, because I'm an idiot). It's still as good as I remember, although in hindsight the plot really falls apart near the end of the game, and it devolves into a fairly chaotic cover shooter, in the style of the crappier installments of the Uncharted series.
3. Wulverblade
(1/5/2020, Steam)
replay, previously beaten on NSW
Beat the Switch a few years back, got in the mood for a beat em up so fired up the Steam version, which I hadn't yet played. Wulverblade is gory and intense belt-action beat em up (read: Streets of Rage), but is often entirely too hard for its own good. Enemy AI is cheap as hell, and some of the later bosses are truly aggravating.
4. RefRain – prism memories
(1/5/2020, Steam)
A really good doujin shmup set in the insides of a computer, with the unique shtick being able to destroy enemy bullets using your ship's special ability (MEFA2). You get extra bits of plot for skilled play (told through "emails" sent on the in game messaging system). Note: Not recommended for people who aren't at the very least acclimated to modern bullet hell.
5. Donut County
(1/6/2020, Steam)
While I wasn't a fan of this game's dopey, "oh, look at me, I'm so random" humor, the gameplay is still quite fun while it lasts. Essentially, it's Katamari Damacy, but instead of a giant ball of crap you're playing as an ever expanding hole in the ground (sucking up smaller items makes the hole big enough to hoover up progressively larger pieces of junk). The game ends right at the sweet spot when its gimmick is about to wear thin - a solid game, certainly.
6. Raging Justice
(1/7/2020, Steam)
An intentionally low budget sidescrolling beat em up that plays like the game version of a D-Movie. Maybe the jankiest one I've ever played – but somehow it's not satisfying jank like the legendary Streets of Fury, this is your regular, appalling, poorly thought out jank. For some inexplicable reason, I somehow own this on both Steam and NSW. What the flying fuck, I need to stay away from the NSW sales tab.
7. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare Remastered
(1/11/2020, PS4)
I have a soft spot for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare as it was the first competitive multiplayer game I ever really got into on console. I only beat the campaign here though, and while some parts still stand out as great examples of mission design ("All Ghillied Up" is still fantastic), a lot of the other set pieces are a lot less impressive that they were in my memory. Maybe because the "FPS action movie" template made popular by West & Zampella has been iterated on by countless other titles since, including some from the COD franchise itself?
8. The Song of Saya
(1/11/2020, Steam)
I finally pushed myself to suffer through the remaining half of Song of Saya just to say that I finished it. Which is not to say that it's not good – it's an excellent horror/suspense visual novel, albeit one that's almost entirely devoid of a game component (there are only two choices total in the entire game, from my recollection). But it's just so heavy to push through – the most brutal, nihilistic visual novel I've ever played, by a long shot. I thoroughly enjoyed what I played, but I'm never launching this game again.
9. Way of the Passive Fist
(1/11/2020, Steam)
A curious beat em up in which you can't attack your enemies directly; you can only parry their attacks, Street Fighter III style, then gently push them over when they've tired themselves out. It's very enjoyable, and you can customize the difficulty of various parts of the game to your liking (You want a more lenient parry window? More health pickups and checkpoints?) to get the perfect difficulty. This game gets pretty hard if you're not a parrying vet though, I've played more than my share of Third Strike and the back half of WotPF was kinda rough.
10. Soul Calibur VI
(1/11/2020, Steam)
Another late completion - I bought this at launch but only managed to power through the story campaign now (I spent most of my time playing online, and in the CAC "RPG" mode). While SC6 is one of my personal favorite entries in the series (and definitely my favorite fighting game of the last couple of years), I must say that the single player content is some of the dullest stuff I've ever been forced to trudge through. Bamco seems to be acknowledging that the single player stuff brings people in, but they definitely went with quantity over quality here. So much of the story content feels slapped together to pad out the playtime, and by the end I was skipping over 100% of the story vignettes as it wasn't worth slogging through the boring "stories" just to view the (admittedly glorious) cutscene art.
11. Subsurface Circular
(1/11/2020, Steam)
replay, previously beaten on NSW
A very strange, short adventure game by Mike Bithell (of Thomas Was Alone fame), in which you play as a detective robot who is embedded in a subway train seat. You investigate a central mystery by questioning and interacting with the various other (mobile) robots who get on and off at each station. Exceedingly well written, and ends at just the right time.
12. Karateka
(1/12/2020, Steam)
A modernized remake on the old Jordan Mechner proto-beat em up (with the added bonus of, uh, also having been developed by Jordan Mechner). You get three "lives" to battle through a gauntlet of enemies, each life being represented by the three suitors trying to save the Japanese princess - the first being her true love (a "Prince Charming" archetype), and the last being some thug who fancies her. It's fairly rote and inoffensive, with its greatest sin being an overreliance on countering enemy attacks; essentially, the entire game is successfully reading and parrying enemy strings, then mashing attack to deal damage until they start blocking. I still had fun, though, and it's dirt cheap.
13. Assemble With Care
(1/14/2020, iOS)
A completely touch-screen based game about the simple joy of disassembling broken stuff and fixing it, wrapped up in a warm, if fairly cliché plot. This was absolutely worth playing, give this a shot if you've got Apple Arcade.
14. Caladrius Blaze
(1/14/2020, Steam) -
replay, previously beaten on PS4
One of my favorite shmups ever, Caladrius Blaze offers an amazing amount of replayability - like 9 characters, each with their own suite of special moves and regular shots, 3 different modes (original, arrange, and arcade), and heavily customizable difficulty (the game is as easy or as hard as you want it to be, and makes an ideal entry point for shmup beginners). Fair warning that the game has some pervy content (you can "break" the clothes off the mostly female boss pilots by skilled play, all strictly PG-13), but otherwise Caladrius Blaze comes highly recommended.
15. Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition
(1/18/2020, NSW)
I want to say I love everything about Hyrule Warriors, but I can't – my biggest sore spot with this game, and the main reason why it's taken me this long to finally clear out the campaign, is that the large-size bosses are tedious and have entirely too much HP. They feel shoehorned into the game – think a regular 3D Zelda boss, with all the pattern watching and item using that requires, then drop them into an engine unsuited for such boss battles, and quadruple the HP. Aside from this one tedious point, HWDE is a really excellent game with a fun OST, and as much replay value as you can tolerate (thanks to the Adventure mode, which is definitely not for me). Switch portable performance is very solid.
16. The World Next Door
(1/18/2020, NSW)
A strange combo of narrative adventure/mild RPG elements with a quirky take on match three gameplay. I actually enjoyed the tropey plot somewhat (human from the present day gets locked away in an alternate universe, works to return to "our" Earth using the help of her outworlder friends) , and the combat is pretty entertaining - you can switch match three symbols around the board and trigger combos to attack your enemies, the catch is you're doing all of it by moving your character around the game board yourself. It's the indie game version of a McDonalds meal – cheap, reasonably satisfying, while not being particularly "outstanding" in any way.
17. Parascientific Escape: Cruise in the Distant Seas
(1/18/2020, 3DS)
This short adventure game is like a really, really bad Zero Escape, that is somehow even more anime. That about describes it; the post game epilogue has the saccharine lead characters threatening a sequel (which is probably already out, as this is a pretty old game), which I'll be sure to keep an eye out for (so I can stay far away from it).
18. Gekisou!BenzaRace-ToiletShootingStar-
(1/19/2020, Steam)
I've played a lot of middling to bad games for previous years' editions of the 52 Games challenge, in the name of clearing the crap out of my backlog. But this – this – just might be the worst game I've ever "completed".
Take note – I came in wanting to like the game, because it's a game about people racing around on flying toilets while taking a dump. The idea was solid enough for me to buy it sight unseen, clearly. But it's just execrable, complete shit.
The UI is barely functional and looks like it was made in Visual Basic. The screen is extremely busy at the best of times. The camera sucks. The AI is completely braindead, and appears to be screwing up on purpose to let you catch up (either that, or they're getting caught up on the extremely awful course design. The handling of your magical flying toilet vehicle is atrocious. The game is so buggy I've clipped into the back of the roadside scenery on several occasions, and become unable to continue. I managed to tolerate enough of it to finish every course just to say I did (placing first every time, naturally, despite running into every possible roadside ornament and falling into every possible lake). I could go on and on about how much I hated this game, but I'll stop here for my mental health.