I'll join in this year! I can't imagine I'll break 52 games, but it I get into the mid 20s I'll be really happy. I'll be even happier if most of them come out of my backlog.
Total Completions: 9 Completions Goal: 25
Currently playing:
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (Switch)
It Takes Two (Xbox Series S)
Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (Xbox Series S)
Halo 3: ODST (Xbox Series S)
Completed this month (May 2022):
Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest
Pheonix Wright: Ace Attorney
Resident Evil VII
January
1. Sable (PC) | 1st Jan - 14hrs | 4/5 : Despite some buggy performance, I got lost in this game. The open world vibe reminded me of BOTW when it comes to freedom. See something in the distance, go there and check it out
2. SSX Tricky (GC) | 6th Jan - 15 hours | 3/5 : I remember liking this game alot more as a kid, though I think I was much better at it then. God I sucked at completing just one character's campaign
3. Final Fantasy XII The Zodiac Age (PC) | 9th Jan - 50 hours | 4/5 : Never fully beat it on the PS2, but thanks to the boosts in the PC version, I was able to now. Absolutely great, it might dethrone FFX as my favorite
4. Slay the Spire (PC) | 16th Jan - 26 hours | 3.5/5 : Yeah I'm counting it, beat the heart with two characters, saw credits. I'll play it more on and off, but the rougelike itch didn't get to me as much as BOI or Hades
5. Toem (PC) | 17th Jan - 3 hours | 3.5/5 : Fun little game. I thought it'd be longer, but it was enjoyable all the same. A good single sitting game
6. Life is Strange: True Colors (PS5) | 30th Jan - 13 hours | 4/5 : I actually really enjoyed it. I'm not sure if I'd say it's better than the first, but it was pretty good. Framerate was a disappointment though, especially on PS5
7. Life is Strange: Wavelengths (PS5) | 30th Jan - 2 hours | 3.5/5 : The DLC for True Colors following Steph. Surprised me how a short concise story made me like the character so much more. February-April
8. Unpacking (PC) | 4th Feb - 3 hours | 3/5 : It's...fine. Good use of story telling through the environment, since that is the whole game.
9. The Magnificent Trufflepigs (PC) | 5th Feb - 2.5 hours | 2.5/5 : I was hoping for something more akin to Everybody's Gone to the Rapture. Instead, it was alot more boring
10. Here Comes Niko! (PC) | 6th Feb - 3.7 hours | 2.5/5 : Started out pretty interesting, then...I dunno, did nothing. Frogs are cool though
11. Gris (PC) | 12th Feb - 2.5 hours | 3.5/5 : A replay. Great music, great visuals. Kinda boring gameplay, but it's not really the point of it
12. Horizon Forbidden West (PS5) | 28th Feb - 50 hours | 4/5 : I'm conflicted on this. On one hand, I thought parts of the gameplay and parts of the story were better. Locations and NPCs were great. But the first one did some things better, and I got burnt out on this by the end. Plainsong is my solarpunk fantasy.
13. Kena: Bridge of Spirits (PS5) | 6th March - 10 hours | 3/5 : Really nice to look at, and some puzzles were fun to figure out. The actual combat gameplay wasn't so fun
14. FAR: Changing Tides (PC) | 13th March - 5 hours | 3/5 : Not as good as the first one in my opinion. I didn't like having to constantly stop and check the sea floor for resources
15. Elden Ring (PC) | 27th March - 62 hours | 4.5/5 : Really good game, early contender for GOTY, but....I don't think it's a masterpiece. Too many dungeons look the same, the world is big, but just like Horizon, it's over bloated, especially with gear and resources you might not care about for your build. I think I was kinda of hoping combat in general would be a bigger departure from Souls games, but that's on me.
16. VA-11 Hall-A (PC) | 3rd April - 7 hours | 4/5 : I haven't really tried that many visual novels, so I don't really know whether this is good by comparison, but I thought this was great. The characters, the setting, the music. Also, first game to play on my Steam Deck, worked great with touch controls. Rest of April
17. Carto (PC) | 5th April - 4 hours | 3/5 : Decent enough puzzles, cute art style
18. Katana Zero (PC) | 7th April - 3.6 hours | 3.5/5 : I thought this game would be alot harder with the instant kill mechanic, but it was so fast that dying wasn't an issue. Fun game, hope there's a sequel
19. Superliminal (PC) | 8th April - 2 hours | 2.5/5 : Some of the puzzles were good, but were reused a bit much, while others seemed way too obtuse for me. Idk, maybe I'm just bad at it, I didn't enjoy it
20. Stillness in the Wind (PC) | 10th April - 2 hours | 2/5 : Played the original free version a it ago so I wanted to try the full game. It was much better as a shorter experience
21. Vane (PC) | 16th April - 2.5 hours | 1.5/5 : I'm not sure what to say about this other than it controls like ass
22. Blasphemous (PC) | 18th April - 12 hours | 3.5/5 : Didn't get to the DLC, but I thought it was fun, with a bit more focus on platforming than I thought there would be
23. The Messenger (PC) | 24th April - 10 hours | 3/5 : Great first half, annoying second half when it turns into a mteroidvania. It feels like it would have been better if the game was the same format as the first half for the entire game.
24. Demon Turf (PC) | 29th April - 12 hours | 3/5 : Really fun as a platformer, if not a bit easy. I was not a fan of the combat which focused on pushing enemies May
25. Blue Fire (PC) | 1st May - 9 hours | 3.5/5 : Took me a while to really get into it, but once you unlock more ways to traverse the environment I found it pretty fun
26. Sonic Adventure 2 Battle (PC) | 4th May - 7 hours | 2.5/5 : I have love for this game from a childhood perspective, but I fucking hate fighting the camera and controls
27. Crossing Souls (PC) | 12th May - 6 hours | 2.5/5 : Loved the design and aesthetic, but the actual gameplay and story were not enjoyable
28. Rogue Legacy (PC) | 17th May - 23 hours | 3.5/5 : Still a really fun gameplay loop, cool new classes, and interesting bosses, but the upgrades were so timing consuming to get. I think I still prefer the first one
29. Paradise Killer (PC) | 23rd May - 10 hours | 4/5 : A vibe, I'm upset with myself that I slept on this for so long. A great game
30. Darksiders Genesis (PC) | 28th May - 11 hours | 3/5 : While I really like the Darksiders game, I found this the weakest. I guess they want you to replay levels a bunch, but the game was pretty easy just going through once. June
31. Persona 4 Golden (PC) | 5th June - 101 hours | 5/5 : A replay of one of my favorite games of all time. Nothing more to say
32. Sackboy: A Big Adventure (PS5) | 12th June - 11 hours | 3.5/5 : A very fun platformer that I spent way too much time trying to get as many outfits as I could
33. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice - GOTY Edition (PC) | 20th June - 32 hours | 4/5 : Probably my second favorite FROM game. I really enjoyed the environments and the gameplay changes compared to Souls games
34. Neon White (PC) | 25th June - 13.5 hours | 4.5/5 : Surprise of the year for me, it's so fun. I couldn't get Aces on every level but it was just so addictive
35. Everybody's Gone to the Rapture (PC) | 26th June - 5.9 hours | 4/5 : A replay of one of those games I disagree with the general public on. It's fucking great and so relaxing to go through
36. Toree 3D (PC) | 29th June - 40 minutes | 2.5/5 : It's...fine. I can't really say anything else about it. If you want a quick platformer, get it.
37. Toree 2 (PC) | 29th June - 30 minutes | 2.5/5 : See above.
38. Iron Lung (PC) | 30th June - 1.5 hours | 3/5 : Really interesting game. I didn't think a game where you're shut into a submarine without being to see outside would be fun, but I was pleasantly surprised. July
39. Kao the Kangaroo (PC) | 2nd July - 5.5 hours | 2.5/5 : I really wanted to like this game. I was hoping for something closer to Spyro, but this just felt bad to control.
40. Milk inside a bag of milk inside a bag of milk (PC) | 3rd July - 15 minutes | 2.5/5 : I bought both games in the series during the sale and uhh...shit I don't know what the hell I played
41. Stars Die (PC) | 3rd July - 2.7 hours | 3/5 : While the "gameplay" wasn't that interesting, the aesthetic and endings were pretty good and kinda depressing
42. Sludge Life (PC) | 4th July - 2.7 hours | 2/5 : I was hoping for something like Umurangi Generation, but this was a lot less interesting.
43. Citizen Sleeper (PC) | 9th July - 5.2 hours | 4/5 : Heard good things about this game and it lived up to them. Some of the mechanics take some time to get a handle on, but the characters, story, and world building was excellent
44. Evan's Remains (PC) | 9th July - 2.1 hours | 2.5/5 : Interesting puzzles, very sad story
45. Milk outside a bag of milk outside a bag of milk (PC) | 10th July - 52 minutes | 2.5/5 : Easier to follow than the first game, still wish I understood the actual story of the game
46. Was It Worth It? (PC) | 16th July - 42 minutes | 1.5/5 : A boring narrative game (walking simulator), which is the worst sin for these types of games
47. Stray (PS5) | 23rd July - 4 hours | 4/5 : I have enjoyed the game, I wasn't looking for a cat simulator or a platformer, just an adventure game in an interesting world and it delivered on that.
48. Coffee Talk (PC) | 25th July - 4 hours | 3.5/5 : Very chill, very nice story-led game. I hope the sequel is just as laidback August & September
49. Xenoblade Chronicles 3 (Switch) | 12th August - 95 hours | 4.5/5 : Good gameplay, great characters, good story. Only part that I felt was weaker were the environments compared to XC 1 & 2. Also, Heroes > Blades
50. AI: The Somnium Files (PC) | 22nd August - 14.6 hours | 3.5/5 : Story was fine, but the Somniums themselves were not intuitive to go through and made me enjoy it less
51. Spiritfarer (PC) | 29th August - 33.8 hours | 4.5/5 : A replay since I beat it originally on the Switch. I wanted to try the extra content that came out and was not disappointed. Still an amazingly cozy game
52. Hell Pie (PC) | 5th September - 9.1 hours | 3/5 : I was actually really hoping I'd enjoy this more than I did. The aerial movements were great, but overall the setting and jank kinda took me out of it
53. Steins;Gate (PC) | 29th September - 23.7 hours | 4/5 : The first 5 chapters were not enough to keep my attention, but once Chapter 6 hit I was hooked on the story. I don't like the Chunni parts of Okabe though, that was annoying Last of the year
53. Mass Effect (PC) | 8th October - 25.3 hours | 4/5 : Just wanted to finally beat the trilogy with some mods I obviously can't use on console. Overall made a great game even better
54. Mass Effect 2 (PC) | 18th October - 33 hours | 5/5 : Same as the above, but it was already one of my favorite games ever and I've beaten it several time before
55. Vampire Survivors (PC) | 20th October - 41.8 hours | 4/5 : Surprise of the year, I count it complete at this date since it was the 1.0 release and I had unlocked everything I could get on the game at that time
56. Mass Effect 3 (PC) | 27th October - 35.5 hours | 4/5 : The new ending mods made the one part of the game I really don't like better
57. God of War Ragnarok (PS5) | 18th November - 41.5 hours | 5/5 : My GOTY, easily. Loved the story, the gameplay, even got the platinum on it
58. Pokemon Violet (Switch) | 30th November - 39 hours | 4/5 : I really thought I'd hate this given all the bad media around it, but outside of the slowdowns in the open world, I probably had my favorite Pokemon experience ever with this game. It even crashed less than Elden Ring did for me
59. Ni no Kuni Wrath of the White Witch Remastered (PC) | 12th December - 95.6 hours | 5/5 : One of my all time favorites, but now on PC and Remastered, making it even better
Game #02 - F.I.S.T. Forged in Shadow Torch
Time: 18 hours
Platform: Playstation 5
Rating: ★★★★★
Back to back bangers to start off the year, this indie metroidvania stands right alongside the giants of the genre in my opinion and is destined to become a cult classic. As perfect a metroidvania you can imagine, it does pretty much everything you want from one of these games, with fantastic gameplay, great mobility, great combat, multiple weapons to collect each with their own skill trees and doubling as traversal tools, a giant campaign with a ton of zone variety, a near perfect map (hey map maps are more important to the genre than we give them credit), great graphics, I could go on and on gushing about the game. Honestly the only nitpick is some of the writing and voice acting are a bit stiff, probably because it's from a Shangai studio I believe, but it's such a small thing in a otherwise near perfect game, it really doesn't matter. I've played my share of metroidvanias, but this is one of those where I struggle to believe any fan of the genre wouldn't love.
Creative horror/suspense exploration game. It has good environment and monster design. The audio sounds left me scared; although it's easy to frighten me. I am interested in the story. The weirdness of the mansion and the characters make me want to learn more.
Unfortunately the game isn't finished yet. Doesn't seem forgotten but it is a very small team working on this with other major responsibilities in their lives. It could be finished, but it will be some time.
My two negatives on the gameplay include, autosaving erasing manual save and the enemy AI. The first monster seemed fine. But the second monster would hone to your location the moment you left a hide spot. It's a magnet enemy. It constantly knew where you were even without making sound. It was obnoxious more than scary after awhile. I did play through the game three times to get all achievements. My first playthrough was four hours so kinda short but enough for a spooky game.
Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope (NSW) ★★½☆☆ (20 hours)
Sonic Frontiers (PS5) ★★★☆☆ (18 hours)
The Entropy Centre (PS5) ★★½☆☆ (12 hours)
Nintendo Switch Sports (NSW) ★★★☆☆ (200 hours)
i'd thought i would have finished vc ii before the end of the year, but it ended up the beginning of the new one. and i liked it! it probably helps that i skipped literally everything the story had to offer.
and you know: it held up despite being a psp game. it makes the omission of valkyria chronicles 3 out here sting a bit more, because the gameplay works pretty well, and the setting isn't absolutely ridiculous on its face. maybe some day.
super mario advance 4 was for the e-reader levels. i have a couple physical levels around here somewhere, but this addition of half a full game into an updated gba port of a part of a snes remake compilation makes it a pretty compelling case that sma4 is the definitive edition of super mario bros. 3. i still have a soft spot for the nes game's visual style.
Game #03 - Dungeon Munchies (Early Access I guess even tho it released on SWITCH AS A FULL GAME)
Time: 7 hours
Platform: Switch
Rating: ★★
What a roller coaster of emotions this game was for me. Initially I was loving the idea, wacky story, pixel art style and crazy weapons you could use, even tho the gameplay was rankly pretty bad, super floaty and mashy, but it was a simple platformer with a ton of enemies on screen that you could just mash your way through with your crazy weapons, so the trash floaty gameplay didnt bother me much since I loved everything around it.This was when I was ready to give it a 4/5. Unfortunately, as you get near the "end" (we'll get to that) of the game, the game starts throwing precise platforming at you, except like I said the gameplay is floaty and trash (honestly some of the worst I've seen, it's like you are constantly on ice skates), and the whole thing becomes an exercise in frustration and I thought to myself that I can't in good conscience go over a 3/5 for this even tho I was still enjoying it. Then I finished it... abrubtly, which was weird, so I googled what was up with that, and turns out the game on PC is STILL in early access, with chapter 3 / the last boss still to be released. Except for whatever reason they decided to release the game on Switch, where there is no EA of course, and pretend its a full game? Like, were they low on funds? This seems super fucked up and it really soured me on the game and the devs, so it can have a 2/5 for the enjoyment I got out of it, but it really should be a 1 or 0 for that stunt. Hell, the game asked me if I wanted to create a NG+ save and I almost did it over my main save, which would mean that when the final release update eventually drops, I would have had to start all over because of course, I didnt know the game wasnt finished. Ugh. Honestly, I probably won't go back to it when that update does drop, because that's one of the reasons I usually don't play early access games, im very much a one-and-done-move-on-to-the-next game person. Oh well, I leave the warning here at least.
Claiming again... I won't get close, in 2020 somehow I ended up playing longer type games... and whilst in 2021, I started very strongly at the start of the year, but then it fell away with long games.
In 2021, only managed 28 Games, but that was from only 42 Games, so I am very happy with that.
Basically the 2nd half of the year was basically Ratchet & Clank, Mass Effect and Saints Row and not much else.
HISTORICAL OVERALL STATUS
2009 : 27 Complete
2010 : 21 Complete
2011 : 19 Complete
2012 : 16 Complete
2013 : 24 Complete
2014 : 28 Complete
2015 : 24 Complete
2016 : 24 Complete
2017 : 8 Complete
2018 : 7 Complete
2019 : 25 Complete : 63 Games Played (39.68%)
2020 : 13 Complete : 42 Games Played (30.95%)
2021 : 28 Complete : 42 Games Played (66.67%)
Stats based around played/trophy unlocked dates... Considering I probably buy twice as many games each year, I think the backlog will last til about 2050 at this rate. HA!
2022 IN PROGRESS
Game #002
Dirt 5 (PS5 | 25hrs | Trophies - 96%)
Finally running through the campaign, it's quite bland, whilst there is variety with vehicles, you end up using the same combination of cars on very similar tracks. So it does get stale quickly. Campaign needed to be shorter, or they needed to increase the track count.
Game #004
Wilmot's Warehouse (PS4 | 6hrs | Trophies - 17%)
Inventory Management FTW! Starts to become overwhelming trying to organise where everything is.
Game #005
Grand Theft Auto : Vice City (PS4 | 15hrs | Trophies - 22%)
Following on from GTA III, the on foot controls still have the same limitations, but gunplay and targeting works better, so it's far more enjoyable.
2022 COMPLETED
Completion #001 : Game #001
Marvel Guardians Of The Galaxy (PS5 | 27hrs | Trophies - 100%)
This game has an insane story that finally kicks in after the lifeless planet upto Lady Hellbender, the amount of dialogue is astonishing.
Completion #002 : Game #003
Grand Theft Auto III (PS4 | 29hrs | Trophies - 100%)
Was stalled on the second island, after not doing the Ambulance mission on the first island, so after many unsuccessful attempts, finally was able to get it done, after progressing the story almost to the end and lowered the chances of the Cartel spawning at the Construction Site. Aside from that, I also thought I had a glitched trophy with one of the Unique Jumps not registering, but after many many retries, finally it popped.
Overall, the controls have not aged well (on foot, I dont have any beef with the vehicle handling), but back then we didn't know any better and it was the best thing ever.
Years of marathon play of FFXIV has given me a disgustingly huge backlog so claiming this post
1. Flower, Sun, and Rain
Suda51 attempts to drive the player insane by making them run back and forth across the map and solve inane puzzles a lot to get past roadblocks only to start the whole day over again when you do. Very funny game with a fascinating and charming script. This is a sequel to "The Silver Case" and doesn't make any sense at all without playing that game first, although if you have played that game first it only makes a little bit of sense. 8/10
2. The Sexy Brutale
Fun little puzzle game. I do wish there were ways to screw up the puzzles and maybe get the guests killed in accidental ways other than their scheduled deaths, as things stand everything is pretty straightforward. The game is so easy that I solved one of the puzzles accidentally before even seeing any scheduled deaths. But it's still enjoyable despite how easy it is, and the presentation is really top notch. It's especially neat how you can hear all the deaths happening as you go around the mansion and how the music shifts depending on what's going on. This actually wasn't on my backlog at all but I remembered I never got around to playing this game yesterday and it was for sale on Steam for about 3 dollars. 7/10
3. Psychonauts
Kinda so-so gameplay that can be fun at times and also extremely frustrating at other times. The controls are decent for a 3D platformer of this time period that isn't a Mario game, but honestly this really just means "bad". Boss fights are only marginally better than a 3D Sonic game in execution even if they have some really neat concepts. The game gives you some movement tools like levitation's slowfall that aren't used enough in actual gameplay, so sometimes you end up at a loss of what to do until you remember "oh yeah I can do this thing I haven't used in the five hours since the mechanic was introduced". Having a leveling system that looks optional at a glance but you have to engage with to finish the game is weird, same for buying the Cobweb Duster (this wasn't a problem for me since I hit Rank 30 and got the duster well before these things were required, but it's still weird). Mediocre gameplay aside, the writing is up there with the best of LucasArts' output and the soundtrack is also real good. 7/10
4. Death Come True
A fun little FMV game by the Danganronpa creator. It's short, but very solidly made. The story is a very distilled "Tookyo Games staff" sort of affair and that's just fine by me. At only around two hours long with rudimentary features (no scenario map for example) this kind of feels like it was meant to possibly test the market for a larger project, but I'm not sure if it sold well enough to do that. 7/10
5. Kindred Spirits on the Roof ~Full Chorus~
The best yuri themed visual novel available in English (IMO) and one of the best yuri works that have been translated into English in general. I actually played the original release of this game back in 2016. The "Full Chorus" version of the game is a re-release in 2019 with full voice acting and a smattering of new artwork which I paused after getting close to the end. I opened it up just now and played through the last couple of hours to scratch it off my backlog. There's a ton of post-game content in this (over 50 extra scenes that unlock when you clear the game, with some character perspectives that weren't in the main story), which is kind of weird for a visual novel, and I might go through that again still since it was all really good and IIRC almost none of it was voiced in the original release. 9/10
6. Kirby Star Allies
Solid, relaxing 2D platformer. It's a Kirby game and is about as good as most other Kirby games. Having four characters on screen at once can get a little chaotic though, especially during some boss fights it can be hard to tell what's going on sometimes. The final boss is incredible as always for these games. 8/10
7. The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (Switch version)
Link's Awakening is the only mainline Zelda game produced by Nintendo that I haven't played, other than FSA, Phantom Hourglass, and Triforce Heroes. I don't exactly have an excuse either as I owned a GBC and GBA, I just never got around to it. I bought the Switch port on release and also never got around to that. Why on earth did it take me so long to play this??? Knowing that not much of the gameplay was changed up for the Switch port, and looking up videos of the Game Boy version, makes me think "how the heck was this possible on the Game Boy?!". The dungeons and puzzles are almost uniformly fantastic with a few exceptions, and the Metroidvania-like world design where more and more of the map opens up in interesting ways with every key item you get is the best in classic 2D Zelda. There are a couple of "I don't know how you were supposed to know this without a guide or beating your head against the game for an hour" bits, and a couple bits that make you go back and forth a little too much. On the other hand, there are a few puzzles in the game that are outright the best in the series, with the seventh dungeon having a particularly mindblowing standout. The remake's audio and sound design are excellent, and the visuals are nice enough. 9/10
8. The Forgotten City
This one isn't on my backlog either, but after hearing some positive praise for it and that it was a timeloop game, I checked it out cause I love good timeloop games. A solid game with a charming cast, good voice acting, and nice visuals. From a design perspecitve, I appreciate how there's multiple ways to learn certain information and get through certain questlines. There's around 20 quests in the game and they tend to link up in some interesting ways, where advancing in one quest can offer a puzzle solution for another.
The script can get a little bit too "this was written by a writer who wants to show off how smart they are" for my taste at times, particularly when you get into philosophical arguments. The level of skill on display isn't quite high enough to make that work like it does in say, Planescape: Torment or Disco Elysium. But "not as well written as the best written games in the medium" isn't exactly a criticism either, overall the writing is pretty solid. 8/10
9. Paper Mario: The Origami King
I'm a little surprised at how much I liked this. IMO it's better than either of the first two Paper Mario games. The combat is finally good again, as the new puzzle-based combat system is pretty fun against random encounters and super fun against bosses. The boss fights especially are all well designed. The story is the best in the series, with a simple but moving plot and a lot of really funny dialogue. Finding Toads hidden throughout the levels was a good deal of fun, and there's a lot of well designed puzzles throughout the game. The music is great but it's a Nintendo game so that's not really an unexpected thing. The only sort of negative things I'd have to say about this one are that the level design is a bit less inspired than Color Splash and the ending feels a little rushed. The final chapter is great up until you beat the final boss, and then the game just sort of ends without a very satisfying conclusion. 9/10
10. Pony Island
I tried playing Inscryption but after clearing the first act decided I really, really don't like deck building games no matter how good everything else around the deck building aspect is, so I went back and played this instead from my Steam backlog. It's a decent enough puzzle game with a pretty funny script. It sort of does the Undertale thing where it's like "OK please don't reload and viciously consume all the content" at the end, but it's definitely not quite as refined or interesting as Undertale is. 7/10
11. Demon's Souls (PS5 Remake)
The good: The graphics are very high fidelity, load times are non-existent, gameplay is usually pretty solid, and there's a lot of interesting design ideas even if the execution can sometimes be kinda screwy. Gameplay is pretty much untouched from the original game, and this can be both good and bad.
The so-so: The new music is good but doesn't really fit against some bosses, with 5-2 in particular being utterly hilarious. Sometimes online play is good and sometimes it's laggy garbage. World 3 is a lot brighter even if you have the brightness settings turned down, making it significantly easier than the original game.
The bad: All of the weird and unrefined design hiccups in the original game are restored here in all their dubious glory. The difficulty is still wildly inconsistent, there's still weapons that just have better versions with the exact same moveset for some reason, the XP curve is still too steep, grinding for materials or souls is still the worst thing in the universe, it still takes until you're almost on NG+ (or even past that) to put together most builds, healing grass is dumb even with the added limits in the remake, 3-3's staircase climb is still incredibly annoying even though matchmaking netcode is a lot faster now so it doesn't have to be, and world tendency is still dumb. There is such a thing as being too faithful.
7/10
12. Persona 5 Strikers
Got this from PS+ and thought "eh. might as well give it a try". The early game is terrible, with rudimentary gameplay and a complete lack of SP to actually do much. Trash encounters are incredibly boring and bosses are annoying HP sponges, to the point where Strikers ends up having worse gameplay than even titles like Drakengard 3. It picks up quite a bit after the first dungeon, but isn't really good until the last few dungeons when the game starts throwing sizable groups of foes at you and things start feeling like an actual Musou game a little. Most of the game is just kind of dull, oscillating between easy and frustrating depending on what you're fighting. It's rare that you really get into a good groove, although when this does happen the experience can be pretty great, and it happens a lot more often later on. But overall the gameplay pales in comparison to Omega Force's best output like Dynasty Warriors 8 XE or Hyrule Warriors.
The story is OK. I enjoyed getting to spend more time with the P5 cast, and Zenkichi in particular was a fun addition because I am a sucker for Persona's shitty sad dads (P4, P5, and P5S all have them and they're all great). The road trip vibe is also a lot of fun. The actual main plot is sort of "eh" though, Persona's touched on the same themes before in better games. Playing this mid-ish quality story only two months after playing Endwalker probably doesn't help my perception of it either. At the end of the day though, I'll play anything that has Futaba and Haru in it that isn't a rhythm game, and this game is definitely that, so I'm satisfied on that front.
The music is almost uniformly really great but it's Omega Force mixed with Atlus so that's not much of a surprise. There were a lot more original compositions than I thought there would be though, and the soundtrack is more than just "P5 music with kickass guitar solos mixed in".
7/10
13. Resident Evil 7: Biohazard
This is a game about the dumbest guy on the entire planet shooting mold monsters and hiding from crazy hillbillies. It rules.
It took me a bit to get used to the "first person survival horror"-ish control, especially because the PS controller is like the worst controller in the universe for first person shooters. I died like 3 times during the opening bit with Mia and three times during the first proper Jack fight (chainsaw duel). I actually got a little annoyed with the Jack fight because I was really low on resources for it (was about out of healing items and ammo) and it started feeling a bit unfair, but thankfully RE7 has dynamic difficulty so you can't really get stuck. After that I died like maybe once up until the ship and a couple times on the ship.
The pace of the game is almost perfect outside of the very start taking a little bit too long. I really like how much of it feels more like a spooky point and click adventure game in first person, to the point that there's literally an escape room sequence. There's really long stretches of the game where you encounter no enemies or next to no enemies and all of these segments are well done. Almost every enemy encounter feels well thought out with the exception of a couple of really wonky ones. All of the major bosses are cool setpieces. The only kinda disappointing major encounter is the fight against the two fat mold monsters at the end of the game, you just sort of walk around a pillar dropping bombs and blowing them up as they follow after you.
The game's great at doing a lot with a little. There's like three basic enemy types in the game and most encounters are just against the first one, but you end up in a lot of different situations. There's the first trip down in the basement with its narrow corridors so you can't just run past them very easily, with pretty much exactly enough enemies so that you'll run out of ammo just as you kill the last one. But there's spots where its better to run past them, spots where you'll have more gear and just mow them down popping off head after head with your shotgun, and spots like where you're on the ship as Mia with only two bullets and suddenly the most basic enemy in the game is as threatening as Jack or Marguerite stalking you as you sneak around it. I especially like how they can't open doors, but doors don't always automatically close behind you, so if you run away from them you need to turn around and manually close doors behind you as you leave the room.
The story is mostly hilarious. Like, this is a really funny game. Ethan is just this incredibly stupid person who wanders into an absurdly awful situation after ignoring like 50 red flags. When he kills a boss enemy you can practically see the gears in his head turn as he tries to think up a one liner only to say something like "you better stay dead". He duels an old man with a chainsaw. He wears two backpacks. He's the best.
Anyway I liked this one a lot. 9/10
14. The Great Ace Attorney: Adventures
I saw this on sale on Steam a couple weeks ago and thought to myself "oh crap I completely forgot to pick that up", so I started on this despite it not being on my backlog. This is an enjoyable game, just as good as any other title from this franchise. It and its sequel easily have higher production values than any other AA game, including Ace Attorney 6 which came out between the two. The artwork, music, and presentation are all top notch.
The game is a little light on content though. It's very much like a prologue to the second game, and only the last two cases feel like full Ace Attorney cases. The first three cases are basically a long tutorial, and the last two cases are significantly easier than any of the ones in the second game with no particularly large leaps of logic that need to be made.
As someone who's read through all of the Sherlock Holmes stories, I really appreciated all the little references to them sprinkled throughout the game. The Holmes in this game comes off as a goofball at first, but he ends up being surprisingly true to the character in the long run. I thought I would hate "Iris Wilson" at first, but she was a welcome addition to the story.
It's also really cool how despite the series' penchant for whimsy and satire, there's also a lot of elements to the story that are historically accurate. The game doesn't shy away from depicting the racism or class inequality prevalent at the time, and a fair amount of research must have been done because a lot of things that come up in the game and its sequel like Scotland Yard being at the forefront of forensic science, how people would defraud gas meters, and so forth are actually accurate to the time period.
My only real criticisms of the game are that all of the cases are pretty simple from a "figuring out the mystery" perspective, that there's no cases in it that are quite on the level as some of the best cases in the series, and case 3 in particular feels a little bit too short. 9/10
15. The Great Ace Attorney 2: Resolve
It's a lot like the first game, but with "more". There's even more 3D character animations, investigations take you to more locations, there's around double the amount of music tracks, and all cases other than the first one have multiple trial and investigation phases like prior games in the franchise. The second and third cases are two of the best middle cases in the series, with some fantastic logical reasoning you need to do to piece things together. The difficulty is considerably higher than the first game, as the cases all have more going on and the court record ends up getting considerably larger. While a welcome change, this also means that there's a few moments in the game that are like AA2 and AA3 where you know what argument you should be making but the game only accepts one of a few different answers for how you should be making it, which can be frustrating.
There's five chapters, but the game kind of cheats since case 4 and case 5 are really just one long case. On the other hand, cases 2 and 3 are both quite long for middle cases, so the amount of content overall ends up being around the same as a game from the main franchise. I would have appreciated a short breather chapter between the final two cases like AA6 had, in fact I was expecting case 4 to be this at first given the appearance of the Red Headed League, one of the more whimsical Holmes stories, only for it all to come crashing down when a certain character's death is reported.
At the end of it all, the overarching storyline came to a really satisfying conclusion, even if a lot of it is just a more complex version of the fifth chapter from AA1. From the perspective of a Holmes fan, this was some of the best fanfiction of the character that I've ever read. I hope that any future Ace Attorney games have production values on GAA's level. 9/10
16. Elden Ring
From took the level design and gameplay polish of Dark Souls 3 and made an open world game about twice as long. I spent nearly 50 hours on this game grabbing every achievement and clearing almost every piece of optional content and there was never a dull moment. Just about every element of the game is brilliant and this is easily From's best game yet. Only complaint I have is that performance on PC could be better. 10/10
17. Resident Evil 2 (2019 remake)
Pretty good game. Maybe a few too many enemies, to the point that it becomes a little annoying to deal with them instead of hitting a good balance of stressful or scary like RE7 does, and the game isn't quite as good as RE7 at creating varied encounters with its limited enemy types. The dynamic scaling is way too blatantly obvious with how zombie heads will pop with next to no effort if you've been doing poorly and are in a bad spot, but they'll basically never die if you're doing really well. The story is whatever, nowhere near as funny as RE7's. But at least Leon's pretty good. 7/10
18. Baba is You
Played enough to reach the ending, not really into it though. Feels more like an exercise in frustration than something I'm having fun with. At least you can "win" the game after clearing only 30 or so levels. 6/10
19. Celeste
When the stars align and the levels are designed just right it's sublime. But a lot of the game feels just a smidgen off. Either a screen is a little too long, or a particular bit is just a little too frustrating or too easy. Some parts are finicky, especially the wind levels. And I wasn't a big fan of the more puzzle-ish stages in the middle of the game.
It rules when you get into that groove, but probably could have used more refinement. Compare "The End is Nigh" for a better example of a difficult platformer that feels just right the whole way through. Also, I don't really like the mix of the pixel-art for the gameplay and not-pixel-art for every other game element, and would have preferred a more consistent art style. The soundtrack is amazing though. I cleared the main story in around 3 and a half hours, and I'm not really interested in the DLC chapters, B/C-sides, or tracking down strawberries. 7/10
20. Aperture Desk Job
Valve made a tech demo to teach PC gamers how to use a controller. It's pretty funny, wish they made games more often. 7/10
21. Ori and the Will of the Wisps
Going from the first Ori game to this is like going from Donkey Kong Country Returns to Tropical Freeze. Everything the first game did well is done better here, and everything the first game did poorly is good here. The gameplay, visuals, music, and overall presentation are all pretty much perfectly done.
I do have some complaints though which drag this down from being one of the true GOAT 2D platformers: The game is so visually busy that it can sometimes be difficult to know how it expects you to move, especially because the game sometimes likes putting your destination at the edge of, or even entirely off the visible screen. Due to that sort of visual busyness I had to look up a guide to figure out what the game expected of me during the platforming sequence in the middle of the spider boss, and during the stealth segment. Sometimes if you go too fast during an escape sequence you'll end up dying because the game will freak out trying to catch up to you. Nearly every time I died during an escape sequence wasn't due to me messing up a platforming challenge, but was due to not knowing immediately where to go or from the game killing me for going too fast. Finally, tying so many of the upgrades in the game to a form of currency still feels really awkward. 9/10
22. Psychonauts 2
This is the sort of game I was expecting from Psychonauts 1 given how highly that game is talked about. The platforming mechanics are way better and the combat is almost actually fun (still kinda not good though). The writing is as solid as the first game, maybe even a little bit better. It also doesn't waste like a third of the game introducing all the basic mechanics, and the platforming and level design stays varied enough that you actually make decent use of most of your abilities fairly often.
There's still quite a bit of room for improvement though. Raz says solutions out loud to himself way too quickly, the "collect all the things in the level" design is still kind of annoying busywork, and combat should either be polished up a little or less frequent. 9/10
23. Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy
Can you tell that I got a Game Pass trial sub? This was pretty great. The story and writing isn't on James Gunn's level, but "not on the level of the best Marvel films" isn't really a criticism. It's better than most Marvel films. Combat could use some more polishing up. I don't think it's necessarily bad but there's too many same-y trash combat encounters so it gets played out. But this is generally a good time the whole way through, with dialogue that (usually) lands, a fun space adventure atmosphere, cool looking alien worlds, and pretty decent music choices. It's also longer than I thought it would be, going through the campaign at a brisk pace took me around 16 hours which is pretty meaty for a completely linear action game and I was pretty surprised at how many locations you end up visiting. 8/10
24. Dark Souls
I haven't played the first Dark Souls game in like 5 years or so, and caught myself thinking "I wonder how long it'll take me, all out of practice, to clear if I just go through the game at a brisk pace, not a speedrun but not bothering with most optional stuff either". With a fair bit of mucking around, turns out it takes me about four and a half hours. My first replay on this list. 10/10
25. Tunic
An amazing adventure game that mixes Zelda, Dark Souls, plus some other games that would be too spoiler-y to list here. The in-game instruction manual is a brilliant piece of game design, in how you have to piece together what you're supposed to be doing and how to play by finding pieces of it scattered across the game world. The world design is superb, with tons of hidden secrets and goodies to discover. It's especially neat how you'll make some realization as you're playing that makes you want to comb over old areas again looking for stuff you could have gotten the whole time if you knew how to read and interact with the environment.
I have a couple small complaints.The combat could use some fine tuning, as it stands it just doesn't feel quite right. In particular, dodging and blocking should be able to cancel your primary attack, and stamina should recover while using healing flasks. Most of the time the difficulty is just right, but the final boss feels overtuned. No other boss in the game took me more than a couple of attempts but the final boss felt almost insurmountable until I figured out ways to cheese it.
It took me about ten and a half hours to clear both A and B endings. I used a guide to solve some of the fairy puzzles and to put together the final "Golden Path" puzzle. Not because I couldn't figure them out though. I knew what to do, but didn't want to spend the time it would take to map out the directional paths. 9/10
26. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order
Playing this game is kinda like playing a mediocre Sekiro clone that doesn't quite get what makes From Software's games good.The game is Souls-inspired but very clearly does not trust the player like a Souls game does, basically every time you get a new ability or skill the game makes you watch a video of it or perform an action four times in an annoying flashback sequence. The combat works in some places but tends to fall apart more often than not, particularly when you're fighting multiple enemies at once. Despite having supposedly "explorable" levels the game is extremely linear, and more often than not you end up wasting your time exploring a side path when you reach the end of it and there's some impassible gap blocking you off from an actually good upgrade that you need to come back to when you're "supposed" to go there. Tying everything other than your basic attack to the Force meter, even basic strong attacks, makes for really boring gameplay pacing. Force powers are kinda dull and lack variety compared to games that are over 20 years old like Jedi Knight II. The story is atrociously boring. I basically never skip cutscenes in video games no matter how bad the story is, but this is the first time I can remember desperately wanting to skip them and you can't even do that because there isn't a skip cutscene button. 5/10
27. What Remains of Edith Finch
Walking sim game with pretty standard walking sim game level of writing quality, but fairly interesting presentation. 7/10
28. Mirror's Edge
When you're running around big open rooftops, moving as fast as you can while picking your paths and parsing what's up ahead, the game is sublime.
This is also about 20% of the total game. The rest of the time is spent figuring out running away from or fighting enemies, and annoying slow paced jumping puzzles. Every single combat encounter in the game is garbage and there's so god dang many of them. There's maybe about one hour of actually really good gameplay, and three hours of pain. Thankfully the game is really short and can easily be finished in one sitting. 3/10
29. Quake
I've never actually played this before, you can definitely see how this bridges the gap between Doom and Half-Life. There's lots of levels that are like "hey we can move in actually three dimensions now check out this neat thing we can do!". The difficulty is a little weird. Enemies feel too spongy on Normal, but don't do enough damage on Easy to be threatening. The levels aren't quite as labyrinthine as Doom and Doom 2, but there's still a few levels in there that devolve into running through hallways that you've cleared of enemies while shouting "god damnit where the hell is this key/door".
Still though, for being one of the first true 3D FPS games, there's definitely a lot in here that the developers got right the first time. Movement and shooting both feel really good, rocket jumping to break levels is fun, and most of the levels have some clever ideas going on. 7/10
30. Superhot
It's the most innovate shooter I've played in years!
...seriously though this was pretty dang good. 8/10
31. Superliminal
Puzzle game that keeps up a good pace of "aha" moments while having a ton of unique design gimmicks. The atmosphere is really good too, although the ending was just a little too hamfisted (this is more of a presentation issue, the dialogue is fine but the music and time between lines were too much). 8/10
32. Imperishable Night
This is still my favorite Touhou game. The shot types, music, bullet pattern design, and the basic mechanics are all some of my favorites in the series. Freaking Marisa's still hard as heck though why is she harder than the stage 5 and 6 bosses. Second replay on this list. 9/10
33. Dishonored
I've played Prey and Deathloop but never actually played either of the Dishonored games before. I'm even more disappointed in Deathloop after playing this. The gameplay and level design are both top-notch, with plenty of ways to traverse through the levels while utilizing whatever tools you wish. I went for a "low chaos" run with maybe around 10-15 kills across the entire game. Might come back to this again sometime to try out different playstyles. 9/10
34. The Artful Escape
Mindblowing psychedelic visuals and great sound design. The actual gameplay is kind of "eh", there's some good ideas but it's very very easy to the extent that it feels unsatisfying at times. On the other hand though, I'm not sure a game about a journey of self-discovery should be difficult to play. Overall it was a very solid experience. 8/10
35. Doom Eternal
So I completed most of this on Ultra Violence back in 2020 when it came out but got distracted by FFXIV stuff on the last few levels. Finally got around to coming back to it, had to drop the difficulty by one notch since I was so out of practice.
This game is nearly perfectly paced high-octane violence from beginning to end, with mechanics that keep you thinking on your toes and a versatile weapon loadout. Enemy design is outright the best in the genre, with a large variety of deadly foes that are (almost) all fun to fight. The heavy metal soundtrack gets the blood pumping and doesn't let up.
All that said, there are a few flaws. Ammo can be just a little too scarce, leading you to save your chainsaw almost exclusively for small foes, which is kinda boring. The boss fights are all mediocre at best, and the final boss fight is absurdly bad given the quality of the rest of the game. Damage persisting on floors is really annoying and this happens kinda often, particularly toward the end of the game. Despite all that though, this is still straight up one of the best FPS games ever made. 9/10
36. Dark Souls III
Got the urge to replay DS3 after noticing that it's been over five years since I played it last, so I did. Despite having well over 100 hours logged in this game it's been way too long so I completely forgot where the critical path was through some areas, where to find some of the estus upgrade materials, and some boss attack timings. So this took a little longer than I thought it would, although I didn't die more than once against any bosses. Also Siegward died during the Yhorm fight because I forgot how to use Storm Ruler. Third replay on this list. 10/10
37. Earthbound
My reaction to playing this is much the same as my reaction to playing Psychonauts. I loved the writing and the general charm of the game, but actually playing it is a pain. The encounter rate is far too high considering how low the battle variety is, the gameplay is way too simplistic even for the time period, and there's a lot of enemies that feel like a coin flip between an enemy doing "nothing" and using an attack that'll wipe out your party in one hit. I think if the gameplay had the same tweaks to it that Mother 3 had and the encounter rate was halved I'd have enjoyed this a lot more. If I had to sum up my opinion it'd basically be "Earthbound walked so Mother 3 and Undertale could run". 7/10
38. The Wonderful 101: Remastered
This says "Remastered" and it sort of is I guess? It's basically just an upscale, with some clunky modifications to make the dual screen gameplay mechanics work on a single screen. They also rearranged the BGM that plays in the last phase of boss fights for some reason.
Anyway, it's still the same great game it ever was. 9/10
39. The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe
All the new additions are really funny and interesting. The old content from the 2013 release is virtually identical outside of a few minor differences and one mixed up ending. 9/10
40. Resident Evil Village
It's RE7, but now with more. More guns, more enemy types, more varied encounters, more bosses, more ground to cover, more spooky houses and caves, and so on. There's even one or two physics puzzles in there. The balance leans around 50/50 for spooks and action, whereas it was more 75/25 in favor of spooks for RE7, but everything is really well done so I'm not bothered by it being different. The entire game is absolutely mad and a total blast to go through, with the sole exceptions of the part where you play as Chris and the final boss fight (Heisenberg is just a really tough act to follow). 9/10
41. Resident Evil 4
This is a replay of RE4 using the HD mod version 1.1 release candidate (here). I haven't played this game in like seven years so I ended up dying a lot doing things I thought were clever when I was actually only half-remembering what I normally did to speed through areas. 9/10
42. Sam and Max: Beyond Time and Space
This is a really good remake of the second season of Telltale's Sam and Max games. All elements of the presentation have been significantly improved from the original release. Hopefully we get a remake for season 3 as well. 9/10
43. Portal Reloaded
This is a really excellent mod with great puzzle design that takes full advantage of its added "time travel" mechanic. There's a total of 25 test chambers and the whole mod is around 5 hours long, which is really nice considering how good the production values are and that the mod is free. 9/10
44. The Secret of Monkey Island
I replayed MI1 in preparation for "Return to Monkey Island" coming out later this year. 7/10
45. Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge
I replayed MI2 in preparation for "Return to Monkey Island" coming out later this year. 9/10
46. Bioshock 2
I actually played Bioshock over 10 years ago but never got around to playing its sequel despite picking it up as a package deal on a Steam sale, IIRC. As a shooter, it's OK. The guns aren't very satisfying to shoot, but they get the job done. The enemies aren't too interesting but they're varied enough to keep you on your tows. The superpowers you can use are pretty cool though, and there's not really a limit on their usage since its so easy to get refills, which lets you screw around with them to your heart's content. The drill charge is fun too.
The level design is solid. Definitely not on the level of a good "true imsim game", but still good. There's enough little side paths and extra rooms to make spaces feel lived in, but they're still noticeably "video gamey" when stacked up against something like System Shock 2 or Prey 2017, especially with how several levels have unusually long hallways in them so that characters can talk to you while you walk through them. The ocean movement sections are neat, but there's not actually any gameplay in them besides walking from point A to point B. There are a few bits where you need to think a little to get into a room, but there's usually only one solution.
I played the "Remastered" release, which appears to have performance issues on PC. The game crashed every 20-30 minutes or so. Even after doing a bunch of stuff that supposedly reduces crashes, I still crashed a few times in the back half of the game.
The story is OK. Nothing too special, but I did get a kick out of the last couple levels and the ending. Especially with how it reminded me of an old Nitro+ visual novel.
Much like Bioshock 1, this was an above average experience that still kinda pales in comparison to System Shock 2 and Prey 2017. I liked it quite a bit, but I think I'd like it more without the performance issues. 7/10 (would be 8/10 if performance was better)
47 Alien: Isolation
I actually didn't finish this one. I made it through to the very last proper level and I just cannot be bothered to finish the rest of the game.But it counts as a clear in my heart cause I just watched the last 20 minutes on Youtube.
This game has too much content. There aren't enough unique situations to justify its length, you could cut out half the game and it'd be better for it. The environments are great and the Alien looks cool as heck, but after 17 levels of dealing with only three enemy types that are handled in mostly the same way every time I just cannot be assed to play through an 18th level.
The designers honestly did a fantastic job achieving their design goals. The Alien is scary and intimidating even after you get the flamethrower, the corporate bullshit is hilarious, just about every level is well designed, and the way the game makes you do a bunch of busywork while something's out to get you is really good at raising tension.
The problem is that the answer to "what would happen if Alien was 10 hours long?" is "you wish the monsters or the humans would just all die and get it over with already". While every level is well designed in isolation (heh), as a whole the game isn't capable of putting the player in enough unique situations, so they start to wear thin, especially toward the end when it's like "yet another friendly NPC dies and even more humans with guns show up to get owned by another Xenomorph and afterward you crawl through even more vents and hack another console to grab another keycard to put into another slot and I've done everything in this level at least six times by now, christ". If I have to do one more hacking minigame I'm gonna throw my computer.
Speaking of watching the last 20 minutes on Youtube, I ended up skipping through the video just to get the general idea, because it was like "oh its the same things I've been doing this whole time huh".
Last complaint: Having enemies kill you in one hit (or just 2-3 for humans and androids) does serve to make them intimidating, but it also serves to make the game frustrating. And this game is way too long to put up with that frustration. 5/10
48. WHAT THE GOLF?
Brave game developers ask the question "what can be golf?" and come up with an answer of "everything can be golf". I'm surprised how fresh the game kept being throughout the six hours it took me to finish this. Outside of a few of the PAR challenges in the last few chapters, the entire game is constantly inventive and fun from beginning to end. 9/10
49. Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna ~ The Golden Country
An excellent expansion pack to Xenoblade 2 that provides a nice twist on the gameplay of the main game. I feel like the story could have had a bit more voiced scenes between the main party but a 15-20 hour expansion DLC is already pretty sizable to begin with. I did skip a bunch of late game sidequests cause I wanted to move onto other stuff though, might go back later and see if there's anything good there. 8/10
50. AI: The Somnium Files – Nirvana Initiative
Uchikoshi does it again with yet another mind-bending adventure game that had me shouting "oh, screw you" at the big twist.
There's a couple of things I really liked a lot about this as a sequel to the first "AI" game. First, it's super cool how despite being a direct sequel, you really could play this game first if you wanted to. The big twists from the first game don't actually mean much here. Second, the gameplay is still basically the same as the first game, but the design is greatly improved and after the halfway point every puzzle segment has a neat twist to it that keeps things fresh.
9/10
51. Xenoblade Chronicles 2
This is a NG+ clear of Xenoblade 2, which I finished up in preparation for the upcoming release of Xenoblade 3. This is one of my favorite JRPGs. The story for the main quest is only merely "pretty good" and not "great", but I really like the characters, the setting, the level design, the music, the gameplay, the character designs (save for around two Rare Blade designs they're all excellent), the voice acting (JP dub only), the sidequests (the Rare Blade ones that is, the miscellaneous ones are junk), and so on. Basically every element of the game outside of the writing is excellent. 9/10
52. Kirby and the Forgotten Land
One of the best 2022 games I've played so far this year and one of the best Kirby games ever made. The developers did a fantastic job translating Kirby's gameplay to 3D. There's only 12 copy abilities, but every ability has three variations, and some of those variations have pretty significant ways that they change up the ability. Many abilities also have unique quirks outside of just dealing damage, and there's a number of levels that have areas built around a specific copy ability, which reminds me somewhat of Super Mario Odyssey. The level design is some of the best Kirby's ever had, every level feels unique and there's loads of cool gimmicks that only appear in a single level. Boss design and music are also both top notch. 9/10
53. The Looker
Very funny parody of The Witness. 8/10
54. Xenoblade Chronicles 3
Xenoblade 3 takes most of the best elements of previous entries in the Xenoblade franchise and refines them into a single game. It exceeds XBX in terms of sidequest design and NPCs, the gameplay is even better than XB2's, and the setting is almost as cool as XB1's. The OST is the best in the series, aiming for a less bombastic, more refined tone than previous games. The party is the best in the series, all of them feel like true "main characters" and they all have development arcs that last the entire game. The main story actually has good pacing, it's significantly less haphazard than XB1 or XB2 and it even makes some amount of sense for your characters to be revisiting previous areas (which was never the case in XB1 or XB2).
This is the best Xenoblade game. 10/10
55. Return to Monkey Island
Ron Gilbert returns to Monkey Island after 30 years to make what may be the best game the series has had since Monkey Island 2.
I liked it a lot, it was really funny but in more of a situational humor sort of way like MI 1&2 rather than the outright joke-y sort of way of Curse onward (not to say that there weren't quite a few good jokes, there were). The puzzles are also good. They're not as evil as the worst MI2 puzzles, but there were a few you have to think about a little while also not getting in the way, and the solutions can be pretty funny. The presentation is solid on all fronts. The art looks great in motion, the music is good, the VA is good (even if LeChuck's new VA isn't as good as the retired one), etc.
The flow of the game is basically "Monkey Island 1 condensed followed by Monkey Island 2 condensed". It's a nostalgia trip that offers some commentary on the original games while also doing some new stuff, giving the fans what they want while also leaving things with an ending that doesn't really make things totally clear, and maybe it's better that way.
9/10
56. Sekiro
Replay of Sekiro. I like it when you cut the monkey's head off and it gets back up. 10/10
57. Resident Evil Village: Shadows of Rose
This was a pretty good, if brief, DLC that remixed a few of the game's levels in interesting ways. I kinda wish this was still in first person though, the house segment would have been way scarier that way. 8/10
58. The 25th Ward: The Silver Case
Weirder than The Silver Case or FSR, but just as good. The characters are all great, the soundtrack slaps, and the presentation is solid. Around 25% of the game doesn't make a lick of sense and the rest that does is patently absurd, but that's what makes Suda51 games fun. 8/10
59. Witch on the Holy Knight
It's been over 20 years since Tsukihime was released and we finally have a Type Moon visual novel that has been officially released in English. It's completely linear, but that does not mean a lack of content or a drop in quality compared to Type Moon's other output. The presentation is out of this world. The writing, direction, music, and SFX all come together to create one of the most sublime reading experiences you'll ever have. The voice acting that was added in this release is pretty dang good too.
A large portion of this game is slice of life scenes. This isn't anything new to Type Moon works (anyone who's read Tsukihime or F/SN is familiar with all of the scenes that are just the characters sitting around and eating), but this game takes that to a whole new level. I'd estimate that something like two-thirds of this game is made up of daily life scenes, and out of 13 chapters only a few actually have any action in them. But when the game does kick off the action, it pops the heck off with more CGs, sprites, and camera manipulation in the span of 20 minutes than are probably in many entire commercial visual novels. That's not a dunk on the rest of the game though, the writing and character interactions are excellent and the presentation is still amazing even in the simplest of scenes.
The characters are all really great, but I have to give special callouts to Soujyuro who is now my favorite Type Moon boy, and Alice who is probably now one of my top 3 favorite Type Moon girls (not something I thought I'd ever say about a Rei clone). 9/10
1. Flower, Sun, and Rain (DS) | 4th Jan - 10h | 8/10
2. The Sexy Brutale (PC) | 6th Jan - 3h40min | 7/10
3. Psychonauts (PC) | 8th Jan - 10h | 7/10
4. Death Come True (PC) | 8th Jan - 2h | 7/10
5. Kindred Spirits on the Roof ~Full Chorus~ (PC) | 9th Jan - 25h | 9/10
6. Kirby Star Allies (Switch) | 14th Jan - 7h | 8/10
7. The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (Switch) | 17th Jan - 10h | 9/10
8. The Forgotten City (PC) | 23rd Jan - 8h | 8/10
9. Paper Mario: The Origami King (Switch) | 30th Jan - 30h | 9/10
10. Pony Island (PC) | 31st Jan - 2h | 7/10
11. Demon's Souls (PS5) | 31st Jan - 12h | 7/10
12. Persona 5 Strikers (PS4) | 11th Feb - 40h | 7/10
13. Resident Evil 7: Biohazard (PS4) | 12th Feb - 7h | 9/10
14. The Great Ace Attorney: Adventures (PC) | 20th Feb - 30h | 9/10
15. The Great Ace Attorney 2: Resolve (PC) | 25th Feb - 40h | 9/10
16. Elden Ring (PC) | 4th Mar - 48h | 10/10
17. Resident Evil 2 (PC) | 5th Mar - 5h | 7/10
18. Baba is You (PC) | 8th Mar - 2h | 6/10
19. Celeste (PC) | 9th Mar - 3h30min | 7/10
20. Aperture Desk Job (PC) | 9th Mar - 30min | 7/10
21. Ori and the Will of the Wisps (PC) | 11th Mar - 8h | 9/10
22. Psychonauts 2 (PC) | 13th Mar - 17h | 9/10
23. Marvels Guardians of the Galaxy (PC) | 17th Mar - 16h | 8/10
24. Dark Souls (PC) | 18th Mar - 4h30min | 10/10
25. Tunic (PC) | 20th Mar - 10h30min | 9/10
26. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (PC) | 24th Mar - 14h30min | 5/10
27. What Remains of Edith Finch (PC) | 25th Mar - 2h30min | 7/10
28. Mirror's Edge (PC) | 25th Mar - 4h | 3/10
29. Quake (PC) | 26th Mar - 2h30min | 7/10
30. Superhot (PC) | 26th Mar - 1h30min | 8/10
31. Superliminal (PC) | 27th Mar - 2h30min | 8/10
32. Imperishable Night (PC) | 27th Mar - 30min | 9/10
33. Dishonored (PC) | 29th Mar - 5h30min | 9/10
34. The Artful Escape (PC) | 30th Mar - 3h30min | 8/10
35. Doom Eternal (PC) | 31st Mar - 17h | 9/10
36. Dark Souls III (PC) | 3rd Apr - 8h | 10/10
37. Earthbound (SNES) | 8th Apr - 25h | 7/10
38. The Wonderful 101: Remastered (PC) | 14th Apr - 14h | 9/10
39. The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe (PC) | 27th Apr - 6h | 9/10
40. Resident Evil Village (PC) | 9th May - 12h | 9/10
41. Resident Evil 4 (PC) | 15th May - 10h | 9/10
42. Sam and Max: Beyond Time and Space (PC) | 17th May - 15h | 9/10
43. Portal Reloaded (PC) | 19th May - 5h | 9/10
44. The Secret of Monkey Island (PC) | 28th May - 6h | 7/10
45. Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge (PC) | 28th May - 8h | 9/10
46. Bioshock 2 (PC) | 30th May - 9h | 7/10
47. Alien Isolation (PC) | 4th Jun - 11h | 5/10
48. WHAT THE GOLF? (PC) | 5th Jun - 6h | 9/10
49. Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna ~ The Golden Country (Switch) | 16th Jun - 17h | 8/10
50. AI: The Somnium Files – Nirvana Initiative (PC) | 27th Jun - 30h | 9/10
51. Xenoblade Chronicles 2(Switch) | 29th Jun - 40h | 9/10
52. Kirby and the Forgotten Land (Switch) | 11th Jul - 10h | 9/10
53. The Looker (PC) | 18th Jul - 50min | 8/10
54. Xenoblade Chronicles 3 (Switch) | 14th Aug - 130h | 10/10
55. Return to Monkey Island (PC) | 21st Sep - 11h | 9/10
56. Sekiro (PC) | 29th Sep - 15h | 10/10
57. Resident Evil Village: Shadows of Rose (PC) | 1st Nov - 3h | 8/10
58. The 25th Ward: The Silver Case (PC) | 4th Dec - 18h | 8/10
59. Witch on the Holy Night (Switch) | 13th Dec - 25h | 9/10
DS/3DS Flower, Sun, and Rain
Persona Q2
SNES Classic
Several games in here. Especially I've never played Secret of Mana and still haven't tried out Star Fox 2
PC Baba is You
Dragon Quest 11 S
Pillars of Eternity 2
Wasteland 2
Wasteland 3
Divinity: Original Sin
Divinity: Original Sin 2
Bioshock 2
Higurashi Hou 2 through 8 (paused midway through 2)
Full Metal Daemon Muramasa
Gahkthun of the Golden Lightning (I have been making extremely slow progress on this one for YEARS, thankfully its extremely episodic with memorable characters so I can just pick it back up whenever)
Wonderful Everyday
Touhou 16, 17, and 18
Hitman
Hitman 2
Hitman 3
System Shock: Enhanced Edition Ori and the Will of the Wisps
Steins;Gate: My Darling's Embrace (apparently I have this on Steam but I forget it existed) The Wonderful 101: Remastered
Rewrite+
Root Double
A ton of games in the Mega Drive collection that I wanna try out
Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes
Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain
Broken Age Psychonauts
Death Come True
World's End Club
Muv Luv Alternative (official release, I'm like 3/4ths through it) Doom Eternal (I got most of the way through and then stopped cause I was busy doing things in FF14 even though I liked it a lot)
Chaos; Child Kindred Spirits on the Roof full voice version
Pony Island
Switch
No More Heroes: Travis Strikes Again
No More Heroes 3
New Pokemon Snap
Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle
Splatoon 2 (main story) Kirby Star Allies
Paper Mario The Origami King
Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity
Ring Fit Adventure (I really gotta work out, been totally out of it for like the last year)
Trials of Mana
Mario 3D World: Bower's Fury The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening
PS5
Devil May Cry 5 Special Edition
Returnal Demon's Souls
PS4
God of War
Spider-Man
Until Dawn
The House in Fata Morgana: Reincarnation
Danganronpa V3
Utawarerumono: Prelude to the Fallen (I've played the PC release 10 years ago)
Dragon Quest Builders 2
Catherine: Full Body
Shenmue
Shenmue II
Final Fantasy VII Remake (I think the PS5 upgrade is free though?)
Yakuza 3
Yakuza 4
Yakuza 5
Yakuza 6
The 25th Ward: The Silver Case
Code: Realize - Windertide Miracles (I have like 2/3rds of the stories in this finished but never got around to completing it)
Punch Line
Mobile
Polishing off Nier Reincarnation's first part at which point I will probably delete the game
1. Barbie and her Sisters Puppy Rescue (PS3) - 03/01/22 - ~8 hours (All Trophies [PSN])
This is how you start a year!
This was a serviceable kids game for the first hour or two, then became a massive trudge. Find dogs, care for dogs, rehome dogs. That's it.
What was mildly perturbing about the setup was just how many puppies (for there are no full grown dogs in Barbieland) are lost and how readily Barbie and her family are prepared to just give them a bath and then stick them up for immediate adoption.
The town is made up of a single street, a park, and a looped suburban cul de sac, yet no residents ever call to say 'As the sole rescue centre in the area, have you found my pure-bred puppy?' leaving Barbie to just ship them out to a brand new home as soon as their nails are clipped?
All the trophies revolve around completing certain tasks a certain number of times, which is fine early on, but gets really boring in the late game when you need to complete 20 agility courses, or de-flea 15 dogs, as all activities have a one in three chance of popping up, meaning 15 flea treatments require at least 45 dog rescues, etc.
But! I haven't played a cover-based shooter, LET ALONE a cover based shooter from this generation for bloody years. I was really hot on the first Gears of War back in the day and then just totally tapped out for ages. Despite its mediocrity, Salvation was actually quite enjoyable - nothing on GoW of course, but enjoyable. Pop and shoot, pop and shoot.
The game is pretty repetitive as there are only a handful of enemies across the 9 chapters of the game, BUT, there are only 9 chapters of the game. See where I'm going here? The whole thing took me maybe 6 hours across a few short play sessions and for its length it was absolutely fine. Totally serviceable. Being forced to play on hard to unlock the platinum trophy meant it was a reasonable challenge at points, and checkpointing wasn't always that great, but I rarely felt outright frustrated, just mildly peeved.
A student made art game, all about art. Or at least the art housed in Spain's Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum.
I've played this before and didn't mind it - and decided to give it another go for a quick platinum trophy on my new PSN account that I started last year when I got a fresh Vita. The game has pretty unsatisfying movement and unnecessarily complicated controls for a game that only ever really asks you to walk left or right and pick objects up. One button picks up, another drops, yet you can only hold one item at a time and you can't hot swap items without dropping what you have stored meaning that one button would have sufficed just fine...
Puzzles are simple, but collectibles are either placed in plain sight, or missable if you're not leaping into totally un-signposted areas. I say un-signposted but they are actually hinted at in the trophy icons themselves which is both clever in a CODEC-frequency-on-the-back-of-the-box king way, but also really stupid.
Having played Radiohead's Kid A Mnesiac recently it was interesting to see a digital museum presented in a vastly different way, but if you hadn't guessed, the recent PS5 offering is much, much stronger as a way of presenting interactive artwork.
Ever played Katamari and thought 'I like the whimsy, but this is far too gamey for me'? If so, Noby Noby Boy is for you!
An interactive toy at its heart, you control a strange snake-like creature that you can extend from either end using the analogue sticks. You can eat things, you can give people rides on your elongated body. You can wrap yourself around the floating map. It seems like there isn't a lot to do, but hitting this sort of wall says far more about your propensity for play than it does the game's interactive options.
When I was a kid, I loved making up little games. 'Who can hit that sign with a pebble first?'; 'Who can drop something in this pool of water to make the best noise?'; 'How high can I climb up this tree?'. Being young is about chasing those little peaks of dopamine any way you can, and Noby Noby Boy prescribes to a very similar philosophy.
How many people can you hoik onto your back? How big can you make your own bum? Can you fart out a meal through a suspended hoop? The handful of trophies in-game reward some of these things, but Noby Noby Boy's only real failing for me is that there aren't enough of these. Most are 'hidden' which encourage mad experimentation, but imagine this game if it had 100 things to formally discover, or 200 things?
The controls are deliberately incomprehensible - a nightmare blend of just about every face, stick and shoulder button, PLUS combinations of these with motion to control the camera. The menus are bizarre - hold the left analogue stick in different directions and then press start to load different pages of options. But this all feeds into this madcap feel the game carries. The game released nearly 15 years ago at this stage, but it's still a treat to dig into for an evening, even if some of the joy of finding new interactions live, or actually contributing the collective progress of the character Girl's solar system journey (something that was completed and wrapped up years ago at this stage), has been lost with time.
No idea if it's even accessible anymore if you don't already own it, but definitely worth giving a go if it's available.
At some point in the last year or so, Playasia released a double pack of games for the platformers Foxyland 1 and 2. They weren't meant to be super long, so they seemed good candidates to start building my completions for the year too. As they were originally released separately I'm counting them as two completions. All good?
The Foxyland duology isn't bad at all.
The first game is really quite basic. Collect gems and cherries across 40 or so short stages. I think I was done in an hour or so, and essentially 100 percented it, short a few costume unlockables that would have needed me to grind out the same short levels again and again for currency.
The second game was a real step up in quality. Longer stages, a story, improved art and music. More mechanically dense in its levels too which made them a little more fun to explore as they weren't just straight A to B dashes.
More of a challenge. All round a much better little game. Some of the final stages got really tough, but over maybe 4 hours or so I did finish the thing with all hidden stages and collectibles unlocked.
Now the team responsible for porting these games, and many others, to Vita in its twilight years, is Ratalaika Games. I may have whinged about this before, but their modus operandi; to license really interesting bitesize indie games from the PC space, BUT ALSO to award platinum trophies like sweeties, really does my head in. In both Foxyland 1 and 2, I was 'done' in a trophy hunting sense, about 2/3rds of the way through these already pretty short games. I did push on in both titles, to collect and do everything there was to do and collect. But. BUT.
I enjoy trophy hunting on Playstation platforms, I used to enjoy achievement hunting on the Xbox, though I really don't think trophies or unlockables should come at the total detriment of the game experience itself.
I can't imagine how disheartening it must be as a developer to see people drop their games an hour in because an arbitrary system has said the player is 'done', when you've had to go to the effort of creating a game, getting it published digitally on a big storefront, and then fighting to get it immortalised in a limited print physical release.
So, Bug Studio - Foxyland 1 and 2 are a good time, and I'd definitely recommend fans of simple platformers check them out. And Ratalaika, as much as I'm grateful that you helped keep the Vita afloat for as long as you did, I wish it was done so out of a love for the games you were publishing, with a little less of the inherent cynicism that was ever present in the way you marketed and pushed these titles.
An isometric racing game that's not as good as Super Skidmarks or Rock and Roll Racing or RC Pro Am or…
The sprites are massive, which means that reacting to corners and obstacles is basically impossible, something that the development team clearly knew about, seeing as the left shoulder button toggles a map overlay to sits in the centre of the screen which loosely telegraphs the upcoming track in a simplified form. Handling is poor. There's not much to do. There's only one song that plays in menus, and then just silence other than engine noises during races. You can revisit each race to collect coins but they can't be spent or used anywhere. Ever race is easy to win even if you spin out on every corner.
Glad that I can now say that despite never having seen the Cars films, I have completed one of the Cars games. Well done me.
A late release GBA game. A straight to game sequel to a Disney film. A surprisingly competent 3D polygonal engine?
Seriously, there's not much to say about the core content of this one - race across about 20 tracks with AI that you will absolutely lord it over with even minimum effort - but the technical nous shown here is quite something. A fully textured polygonal car for the player character. A mostly perspective correct 3D track. 3 viewpoints! If nothing else, at least watch a quick YouTube clip of this one as it's tremendously impressive considering its on a handheld with hardware 3D capabilities.
I had to play this through on both regular and expert mode to unlock all of the achievements as listed on RetroAchievements.org. Not a tough ask by any means, but this did mean the play time was a little longer than it would have been just to reach the credits.
One of the most impressive aftermarket Dreamcast games, from a visual standpoint at least. Sturmwind raised the bar for 2D presentation, but Arcade Racing Legends may be one of the first independent releases on the machine to operate with a full 3D engine. It may look a little bland by 2022 standards, but you have to remember, this is built by a tiny team WITHOUT the SDK that developers of the era would have had access to. It's quite a feat!
The game has several modes. I spent all my time with the career, which is a series of time trials / head to head / multi-lap full grid races; and then the arcade mode which is just a simple 3 lap race around each course. None of it was particularly challenging, though every once in a while a particular race or event would give me loads of grief.
At first, when I hit these walls, I thought a change of vehicle may help, but every car in the game (of which there are many) has the exact same stats and handling, at least to my hand. So aside from a cosmetic change, I don't think visiting the garage helped or hindered my actual progress.
I had a strong feeling the team involved in this game were also behind the not-half-bad 'Classic Racers' on Steam that I played a few years back. Something about the handling and UI felt very familiar. Re-installing the game though? Doesn't seem to be the case.
Went through this one see-sawing on whether or not this is the best Lumines game. After 25 hours, I'm pretty confident that it's not.
In its favour, the Voyage mode is excellent, and really set the groundwork for Tetris Effect's Journey mode years on. Using a range of electronic music from the 80s to present day, the skins in this version of Lumines are both the most considered in terms of sequence, but also the most listenable. Song stems are used intelligently, and the ebb and flow of Voyage's playlist really makes it a memorable experience. However, on the flip side of the coin is that the more vocal heavy tracklist makes this game grow stale a little quicker than the idiosyncratic tracks in Lumines or Supernova in particular.
The other downside, and this is a big one, is that it doesn't have the variety of Lumines games before it. No puzzle mode, no versus mode. No mission mode, no dig down mode. It's got a time attack mode to complement the Voyage, and also a master mode which asks that you beat increasing tough clear criteria without powerups, but it's not quite enough. The game just feels a little incomplete. Even using the trophies as a metric to push yourself forwards, for someone like me who is good at Lumines, I had cleared all skill based challenges after a few short hours. To finish the game though meant grinding to level 50 - at least 20 hours of Voyage runs, which really started to sour my good will on the game.
The powerups are worth nothing too. This game keeps the classic 'clear everything it touches' block which can be used to quickly remove half of a built up playfield, but also adds an incredibly frustrating shuffle block. Wherever this block is placed, any touching pieces are randomised meaning that any strategy you were trying to employ in terms of building and stacking for combos is instantly gone. Annoying. Being on the Vita, and being a launch title, Electronic Symphony also demands you use the back touch panel of the handheld to build up your 'avatar' ability. It's a waste of time, honestly. Get the trophy for triggering it 200 times, and then just try to forget it's there.
If you want to play a single run of Lumines, Electronic Symphony is a great choice. An emotional, dynamic journey through music. If you want to get good at Lumines though, stick to Remastered or Supernova.
After a few years hiatus from Clone Hero, I'm back on it in a big way. After recently getting a modded guitar with mechanical frets, a new strum bar, arduino innards, etc, etc, etc, I finally reinstalled the game on my laptop and got to work filling my library.
The original Guitar Hero included 49 tracks, with two of those being locked away on the disc and then uncovered years later by hobbyists picking apart the ISO. It's the easiest legacy game, especially when played using the updated strum windows in Clone Hero. Still, that doesn't stop a few of these tracks being real pigs to squeeze to a maximum 7-star rating.
Tripolette is still insanely tough, and Control is a real ask in terms of star power management to squeeze enough points to tip the rating to its max.
Guitar Hero 2 is significantly tougher, and almost double the length of the first game, so I'm not convinced I'll chug through it quite as quickly, but that's the mission anyway!
One thing I've noticed since getting back into Clone Hero is how different development teams had wildly different charting styles. Harmonix were the series originators (who'd eventually splinter away to create Rock Band) and their charts are always clean, and relatively simple - frontlining precise lines and patterns. When Neversoft took over with Guitar Hero 3 it was all about excess, lots more 3 and 4 button chords, lots more overcharted solos that had you hitting more notes than were actually being played. They make you feel great when you nail them, but always felt a bit over the top, at least to me.
Then there's Freestyle Games. DJ Hero and its sequel were excellent games. Freestyle really nailed how to chart mashup tracks for the deck controller, and everything just felt right using the turntable. The first game also included 10 songs that could be played co-op with a deck and a guitar, and these tracks, naturally, have made their way to CH. When played in isolation, you realise that Freestyle really didn't have a clue about making a guitar part feel good to play.
Of the ten tracks, only a couple of them were difficult to get a decent score on, but some of them are really fucking hard to 7 star or full combo. Now this is not because they have 7 minute solos as in Freebird, or because of the song being a physical trial like the gruelling triplets in Slayer's Raining Blood or in some of the longer Metallica tracks. They're tough because their note charts for guitar just aren't very good, and your fingers often trip over themselves because they're not charted logically.
Additionally, a few tracks also include uneven numbers of star power passages meaning that pathing, squeezing and activating can be a real trial. The final track, that took me at least 2 hours of this play time, was Fight! Smash! Win! / Intergalactic. Not a hard song outside of the extremely fast solo in the middle, but the amount of notes in that section means that you have to forgo bothering with the SP at the end of the song, and just focus on nailing the solo pretty much 100%. When I finally hit 7 stars, it was on a run where I'd missed 4 notes at the tail of the solo. Missing even one more would have meant I dropped to 6 stars. Really tough.
13. The Lord of the Rings: Conquest (PS3) - 15/02/22 - ~10 hours (All Trophies [PSN])
I beat this years ago on the 360, and started it again on the PS3 out of morbid curiosity to see how well it held up. I like it.
Beat the first half of this game, had my Playstation 3 'Yellow Light of Death' on me, had it repaired by some wizard on YouTube, then beat the second half on the console's safe return.
Pandemic did their best to shoehorn LoTR into the Battlefront formula, and mostly succeeded, but the focus on melee attacks means that battles can sometimes be frustrating when your stunlocked and juggled by a group of warriors whacking you with their swords whilst you try to get a hit in to buy a bit of breathing space.
14. Little Nightmares II (Switch) - 17/02/22 - ~6 hours (Credits)
Excusing the Switch port's load times, the original Little Nightmares and its DLC was fantastic. It looked great, even on Nintendo's weedy machine, the trial and error cinematic platformer gameplay was mostly really solid, and the story, aesthetics and atmosphere were all first class.
The second game might be even better.
Slightly more involved gameplay, more varied locales, an even more fucked up story that takes a lot of the nightmarish infant imagery of the first and ratchets up its body horror and its supernatural leanings.
I found parts of this game so unsettling me and my partner had to set it down for weeks at a time - I am a big scaredy cat though, so I might not be the best yardstick to review its spooks.
There are collectibles I could go back and find, but for now I'm happy in having got through the main games in this series, start to finish (ignoring the strange mobile spin off). Tarsier hit it out of the park again.
15. Race With Ryan (Switch) - 17/02/22 - ~5 hours (100%)
I've got a thing for shit kart racers, what can I say.
Race With Ryan uses the lucrative Ryan's World licence, to present a 'baby's first Mario Kart'. It mostly succeeds. Controls are responsive, there's hops and drifts and mini-turbos. The usual items, etc.
The problems are the utter lack of content. At launch, this game had just 6 tracks. You could play them in reverse meaning that charitably you could see there were 12 locations to race through, but compared to Mario Kart 8 DX, or even the execrable Renzo Racer I played last year, there just isn't enough here.
There are 6 cups in the career mode, all of which use different mixtures of forward and reverse circuits, and three difficulty modes. I beat them all, and in the process unlocked a bunch of extra characters. Something I guess?
Special shout out to the atrocious audio mixing in this game. Ryan offers frequent soundbites, and every sample sounds like it was a) phoned in via Skype, and b) completely untreated - no EQ, no cleanup. When the rest of the game looks as pleasing as it does, its a shame this area lets down the presentation package.
I know I'm not the target audience here, but for what it's worth, lack of content and iffy voice work aside, it's not a bad time.
Race with Ryan was decent. Crazy Chicken Kart 2 is not.
8 tracks this time, no reverse options. Just two championships. No difficulty options. One race you'll win, almost lapping your opponents, the next, you'll get hit with an item at the start, and then struggle to catch up to pole position despite a faultless drive.
Drifting is in but feels atrocious. Mini-turbos are in, but are basically impossible to build up unless you find a perfectly curved corner.
There are in-game achievements for winning on every track, beating both championships, and then winning on every track *online*. I am willing to bet outside of playtesting at the studio, there has never been an online game of Crazy Chicken Kart 2 between human beings. Unbelievable optimism on the part of the developers.
We all love Picross, don't we? Back when I was organising my console when I got my New 3DS XL last year, I stuffed it with a lot of Picross. The 3DS forever lives by my bedside, and I go through phases of completing a Picross puzzle or two a night before bed, and recently got stuck back into this weird piece of Nintendo esoterica, as I realised I was pretty close to the end.
Now, quick Nintendo and Jupiter Picross history lesson: we got Mario's Picross in the west on the Gameboy, but its sequel Picross 2 as well as Mario's Super Picross on the SNES were always Japanese exclusives. Even more exclusive were the Picross NP games, 8 titles released by the Japanese arm of Nintendo Power as rudimentary download titles I think? Even after googling I'm a little fluffy on the details here, I'll be honest.
Now being based on the SNES title, they're a little wonky, as Jupiter wouldn't refine the series properly until the DS title years later, but once you get used to what they do and don't do in relation to newer ports, you're left with hundreds of exclusive puzzles, which is a lovely treat. In NP Vol. 1 there's a whole section dedicated to Pokémon, a whole section dedicated to Japanese vistas and architecture, and a final, brutal selection of puzzles that depict Olympic sports. Some of the later panels in this group are 25x20 monsters, and the size, coupled with the 'no hints, no feedback for errors' ruleset that's always implemented in the Picross late game, meant that some individual puzzles were taking upwards of 30 minutes to solve.
Referring the sports section, I say final, but clearing this section actually rewards you with a final final set of 12 grids. As generous as it may have felt originally, the though of even tougher puzzles actually filled me with dread but luckily enough outside of one or two of these they were mostly straightforward. Big and cumbersome, sure, but not impossible.
I've never been a fan of Dizzy games, but I think a big part of this feeling has stemmed from not approaching them in the right way. I listened to a long Retronauts episode on Dizzy and The Oliver Twins, and started to develop a new found appreciation for the games.
They're point and click games by way of platform games by way of British micro computer restriction. There's a uniquely British charm to the logic of their worlds and their puzzles.
Remembering that I had an Evercade cartridge that collected together basically every NES entry of the Dizzy franchise, I thought I'd give the series another stab, and what d'ya know, I beat the first game, 100%.
It wasn't plain sailing. The one hit kills, instant restart would have driven me insane if I didn't have access to save states, and certain puzzles still required a bit of googling, as their solutions were completely oblique (why does a painted pebble warp you into the sky when you drop it at the foot of a Totem pole?). But even with these frustrations, it's a decent time, and when you do figure out a solution organically, it makes you feel pretty bright. There are arguably less leaps of logic than in something like Monkey Island, so take that how you will.
Not sure which game is next in the franchise, but I'm keen to give it a go.
No idea how much progress I'm going to make with completions at the moment since I'm hooked on Elden Ring and Chocobo GP, but for something completely different, I have played and completed (without save scumming!) Valis on the Mega Drive via the new Rennovation Collection cart for Evercade.
The games here are notable not because they were big names on the console, but because to buy this collection on 12 distinct carts for original Mega Drive hardware would probably run you thousands of pounds. All of these games were low prints or limited region releases, and as such, this £17.99 package is incredible value.
Most of these games are unknown, even to me, but I did remember Valis. I've played the PC Engine version of this some time back, and although the Mega Drive version is actually totally different, it was a pretty good, mostly comparable time to what I remember from that experience.
A stiff, clunky, but enjoyable platform hack and slash / run and gun. I beat it once through, saving at the start of every stage and then again around the middle point each time so as not to lose progress if I died, but when the credits rolled I thought 'I reckon I could do that legit', and as such, two attempts later, I'd beaten the thing honest-to-goodness.
Decent game, great collection, lovely machine.
Played the first 30 minutes of this game back when I first subbed to Apple Arcade. I fell off that service pretty quickly, as I just don't get anything out of that sort of infinite rental package when it comes to games. I could tell it was a well written visual novel / resource management game though.
When Neo Cab launched for Switch I was tempted to pick it up, but wanted to hold off in case it got selected for physical release via any of the million boutique publishers on the platform. Lo and behold, a few months on, 1Print Games picked it up, and 10 months on, the game finally fell through my letter box.
Worth the wait, though.
You've a futuristic Uber driver called Lina. You've upped sticks from your backwater home to go and live in the big city with an old friend named Savy. When you arrive, things take a turn with your pal ditching you for work, or for friends, or for a boyfriend. To pass the time waiting for Savy you complete jobs in your car, ingratiating yourself with the locals, managing your fuel level, emotional state, driver star rating, and general tiredness. What starts as a light hearted romp quickly shifts into a full on cyberpunk conspiracy, with the various passengers you're all acting as pawns in the wider story.
The writing is outstanding. Really great naturalistic dialogue that fits the varied cast of characters. There's great representation here too, with characters presented 'as-is' - no fanfare regarding race or sexuality. These are the people that live in this city, and each passenger's lived experience are presented with a beautiful clarity.
The game doesn't overstay its welcome. In fact, I could have gone for another hour or two of conversation between Lina and the denizens of Los Ojos. But what's here is all gold, with a good pace, a lovely balance of hands-off dialogue and personal choice, and a satisfying narrative arc and finish.
Game #1: Pokemon Brilliant Diamond - Platform: Nintendo Switch - Date: 03/01/2022 - Time: 17 hours - Rating: 5/10
Really solidified my old opinion of Sinnoh being by far the worst mainline region in the series. The regional dex is horrific, the Grand Underground is a bunch of padding to access important resources like heart scales and evo stones, the gym progression is an absolute joke and the characters are boring and unmemorable outside of a few key trainers such as Cynthia. I did enjoy how difficult the Elite 4 was made, but I think the rest of the game balance needs to be adjusted, as up until that point you are still fighting unevolved level 40 Pokemon, so it does slap you out of nowhere. I think going forward they should definitely keep this difficulty, but bring it into a B2W2-esque challenge mode, so veteran players get tested but younger or less-able players can still have a fun, easier time, which I cant imagine they had in the endgame of BDSP.
All in all, decent remake of games that just weren't very good in the first place. There were some major glitches at launch that I didn't really experience, so I cant really mark those against it. Some of the QoL changes regarding things like HMs are nice, but don't really have a significant impact on the overall package. I didn't despise my time with the game, but up until the endgame it's mindless and with how poor the actual dex is, it's not even fun to catch 'em all. Really hope the eventual Gen 9 expands on the format of SwSh, and these gens can be left in the past.
I have no idea how many games I finish every year on average, but I feel I finished quite a lot in 2021. I might as well keep count this year and join the fun.
I need to clear more of my backlog, so going to try my hand at this as usually have only been completing 20-30 games a year (though will probably include significant/longer DLCs in this as well).
Completed in 2022:
1. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Trials and Tribulations (3DS) - 1st January
Finally got round to finishing this off (started a few years ago as part of the trilogy). Nice end to the original trilogy, though thought the final case did get a bit too convoluted at times. Excited to try and play the rest of the series at some point. 8/10.
2. Unpacking (PC) - 2nd January
A nicely presented and pretty chill light puzzle game with a unique form of storytelling which at times tugs at your heartstrings. Worth playing just to experience it. 8/10.
3. Erica (PS4) - 4th January
Enjoyed this FMV thriller. The acting and the production values were great and the story was interesting with branching choices for any future replays. Played it on a PS5 and so couldn't seem to use the game's playlink app as there appears to be issues, but using the touchpad overall was OK though not always ideal. The only major fault I'd say would be the touch gestures sometimes felt shoe-horned in and not necessarily needed. With it's shorter play time (~ 2 hours) it's worth experiencing. 8/10.
1. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Trials and Tribulations (3DS) | 1st Jan - 20hrs | 4/5
2. Unpacking (PC) | 2nd Jan - 3hrs | 4/5
3. Erica (PS4) | 4th Jan - 2hrs | 4/5
New member here joined the discord before jumping on here
I have too many large games on my backlog to get there
but why not
1. Yakuza Like A Dragon (XSX) JAN 3- 123 HOURS AND 45 MINUTES 9/10
2. The Forgotten City (XSX) JAN 22- 13 HOURS AND 48 MINUTES 9/10
Current Challlenges
Yakuza Like A dragon (I have 90 hours in just started the final chapter)
It Takes two (fiancee and I are about 40% through)
Hitman 3 (in reality I'm playing all in order and haven't started 3 )
Farcry 5 (the last game I finished in 2021 was Farcry 4 so I was curious what the differences were)
I've never done this before but you know what, why not, I need to start playing more unique titles and not replaying the same stuff over and over again! Reserving this post!
1. Goragoa (Switch) | 5th Jan - 1hrs | 4/5
Think I might go for either Chrono Trigger or a small Xbox Game Pass title like Unpacking for my first game.
I hope that I can actually bring myself to finally complete some games. The last game that I've beaten was TLOU2 and that was the same year that it released.
1. Yakuza Like A Dragon 123 hours and 45 minutes
9/10
You know when a director has creative control and can do anything he wants.
That's a dangerous thing maybe you do too much or you do what Yakuza creator Toshihiro Nagoshi did you make something as a tribute to one of your biggest influences (Dragon Quest).
You use your universe of characters to create a new game that is done with the style it could only be Yakuza.
Ichiban Kasuga might go down as the most honest and positive thinking character in recent video game history.
His story as the hero is the central part of everything Yakuza Like A Dragon is
The fantastic side stories carry the moments of creating a new environment to explore this might be the first time when you help a little girl or homeless person.
Ichi feels like yeah he's a really good dude he would help that girl raise money to help her brother afford his surgery.
This cast of characters is by far the most diverse and hysterical in the Yakuza universe and yes you do want to do everyone of their personal stories to truly understand what makes them unique.
The story is a great acceptance of what was with an optimist viewpoint of what can be.
It's so rare to see this level of hope and belief in a character some may find it trite.
Longtime Yakuza fans get great payoffs to some long standing legends which the grind to prepare for these epic moments might be my only criticism of the entire game well that and any one hit boss fights that you have to start over.
But unlike most fan service
They never tease the best stuff
It just happens in service to the narrative and when it does
I had at least 4 "No Way" moments it continued to thrill me and push forth the story it wants to tell.
Yakuza Like A Dragon is the jumping off point for Nagoshi as he walks away from Sega and the franchise he began decades ago.
He may never get the freedom to make something as risky as Like A Dragon but it doesn't matter
Like A Dragon and the sequels I'm sure that will follow already cemented his legacy just like his beloved Dragon Quest as one of the best turn based RPG's
You could ever play.
Game 1: Halo Infinite (PC) (14 Hours) (3/5) (January 5th, 2022)
Halo has been a series I've not actively played much outside of Reach and Combat Evolved, but even I can see why this series has lasted as long as it has. The gunplay, environments and multiplayer of previous Halo titles stand the test of time even today and make for some really fun gaming experiences
I enjoyed what I played of Infinite, sometimes Infinite feels like one of the best games ever, where you're running around on the fly making up strategies in giant battles against opponents who can crush you very easily, and it's all made better with that thumping Halo soundtrack that to this day is one of the best in gaming. Halo Infinite does such a good job of creating these moments where you're taking on bosses, fighting hoards of enemies, watching it turn from day to night and flying around with your grappling hook that makes you feel like you're Spider-Man. There are multiple times where I played through this and went "wow, this is some of the most fun I've ever had!" But sadly, Halo Infinite has a LOT of problems. The open world is an idea that I think works for Halo, especially with the new grappling hook, but it is filled with repetitive missions and shootouts that feel like watered down versions of what you can get from the main story missions. Most of these side missions go invade base, kill enemies, free allies, press buttons and then rinse repeat 50 times over. It's a SLOG to get through side missions and it doesn't really help the game feel like a true open world game, when I'm trying to stay away from the side content as much as possible
The missions in Infinite range from insanely good to insanely boring. I don't think I enjoyed a single mission that took place inside purely because it was the same structure, run through kill enemies in crowded room and then walk through a hallway, do this 5 times and fight a boss and then be told to go do it again. SO many times did I feel lost not because the levels were huge, but because the levels felt repetitive and un-interesting. The open world stems from similar problems too, for example there might be times in the game you have to take down an anti-aircraft machine, so you do that and you have a really cool battle before the game tells you "do two more times and then you finish the mission" and after failing over and over again on just ONE of the fights in feels like a slog
The story of Halo Infinite also doesn't really help it's case, there's so much exposition and looking at holograms that after the first two missions I stopped looking forward to cutscenes, they all follow the same formula and they're all just looking down at Chief's AI or looking at a bigger hologram. These aren't exciting, nor does it get me excited for what's next, why can't I hear this dialogue when I'm driving to a mission or during the mission itself?
Now, those last two paragraphs sure are bad but Halo Infinite has that magic to it where it can defy the odds and make itself stand above other shooters by putting you through an epic battle that feels like a playground, backed by an amazing symphony. It's those moments that make Halo a success and help you forget the dull parts. It's an achievement considering how previous Halo games have refused to innovate on the formula and now sets up Master Chief's next adventure as an exciting one if the developers can get all the parts right. While I'm disappointed a lot of the time when playing this, I'm still glad I played it and I look forward to future DLC and more
3rd year participating, never made it to 52. I even completed less games in 2021 than in 2020 but I blame that on taking on far longer games last year (AC:V, Yakuza 7, Death Stranding, Horizon).
This year is my year!… maybe. Starting strong, I've already completed 1 game this new year.
1 - Guardians of the Galaxy - PS5 - 20hrs / 5th Jan - 10/10
I did not expect this game to be any good before it came out and it became my surprise hit of 2021: great story, fun characters, hilarious dialogue, beautiful graphics and ok combat.
2 - The forgotten city - PS5 - 10hrs / 15th Jan - 10/10
Another unexpected delight! I'd heard it was good but I was not expecting this intricate puzzle, fun characters and interesting twists. Galerius was such a funny way of getting around the tedium of repeating solutions through the timeloops, it never failed to make me laugh to see him runnning off to do your errands.
3 - Bowser's Fury - Switch - 4hrs / 27th Jan - 8/10
Great way to make an open world Mario, I just wish it wasn't based on the 3D world game, I was fighting the camera more than the enemies.
4 - Vampire Survivors - PC - 10hrs / 6th February - 8/10
This game is so addictive. I had to have 'one more go' ober and over again until I'd unlocked everything in a couple of days. I'll definitely keep playing to try out different combinations
5 - Spiritfarer - PS4 - 100hrs / 8th February - 8/10
This game would have been a 10/10 for me if it had been 4 times shorter. Great story, great characters, fun mechanics but it drags on way too long and you will get sick of going back and forth in that map after 10 hours let alone 100.
6 - Elden Ring - PS5 - 190hrs / 23rd April - 10/10
Well it's been a massive gap between completing my 5th and 6th, I did play Cyberpunk in between but didn't complete it before Elden Ring arrived and I dropped everything to start that game… and what a game. Elden Ring has consumed my life since it came out. It's easily one of my favourite experiences ever and after 190hrs for my first playthrough, I'm already itching for a second playthrough so I can try different builds. Amazing game.
7 - Life Is Strange: True Colors - 8hrs - Platinum / 29th April - 7/10
I loved the characters in this game and Alex Chen is a fantastic protagonist. I just wish there was more to the story and mor compelling side stories to sink your teeth into. They're no real equivalent to the massive domino effect of choices experienced in the first life is strange. Shame as the character writing is wonderful in this game.
8 - The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe - 6hrs - Platinum / 3rd May - 10/10
Takes the Stanley Parable and turns the absurdity to 11. Includes the Best collectibles hunting of any game ever. Absolutely hilarious from start to finish.
9 - Tribes Of Midgar - 15hrs / 10th May - 6/10
I really liked the gameplay loop in this game but I did not enjoy the difficulty spikes of the giants coming in far too often and too quickly from the start. I wish I had more room to breath to explore the world at my own leisure. Instead I had to sprint from the second the game starts to have a chance of surviving the onslaught of giants.
10 - Top Gear 2 - SNES on SteamDeck - 3hrs / 25th May - 8/10
Very fun little racer. Maybe a little easy and gets a bit samey by the end but overall one of the better SNES racers.
11 - Addams Family - SNES on SteamDeck - 4hrs / 27th May - 8/10
Such a great little platform we with so many secrets. Hard as nails but you get so many lives and you can upgrade your hearts that it doesn't become too frustrating.
12 - Sakura Wars GB: Go Forth, Young cadet! - GBC on SteamDeck - 2hrs / 28th May - 9/10
Really short visual novel but very fun premise and a good time for a couple of hours. The English fan translation is perfect, I just wish they also translate the second GBC game in the series too. Worth replaying multiple times courting different protagonists to get different endings.
13 - WolfChild - SNES on SteamDeck - 1hr / 28th May - 6/10
It's a fun distraction for a little while but there's not enough substance and it's too short. Great graphics though.
14 - Sakura Wars - PS4 - 60 hrs / 1st June - 9/10
I truly loved this game but I wish there was less action scenes and that I didn't have to replay them all with every partner to get the platinum. Otherwise I wish this franchise was more popular so we would get official translations and remakes of the earlier ones.
15 - Returnal: Ascension - PS5 - 6 hrs / 10th June - 10/10
I loved Returnal and this DLC is just as good and addictive as the original.
16 - Akumajou Special : Boku Dracula-kun - NES on SteamDeck - 2hrs / 11th June - 9/10
Awesome little platformer.
17 - Paradise Killer - PS5 - 20hrs / 19th June - 10/10
Perfect blend of first person exploration and visual-novel style interactions set in a bonkers reality with gods and demons. Nothing else like it and I'm here for it.
18 - Crusader Kings 3 - PS5 - 50hrs / 24th June - 9/10
When I started the game, this was easily a 10/10 but it runs out of steam through a campaign. The various weird ways a session can go are always fun but you end up speeding running through a lot of later years as there's not enough to do around managing your actual domain. It's still always great fun to start a new run and see where it takes you, the twists and turns never get boring.
19 - Sonic Origins: Sonic 1 - PS5 - 2 hours / 25th June - 7/10
I'd only ever played the first couple of zones before as I was never good enough to get past the second zone without running out of lives. Playing the mode with infinite lives has been fun but I now realise that only about half of the zones are actually any fun and the other half are frustrating and tedious. Labyrinth zone can go to hell and the fact that the last act in Brain scrap zone is actually another labyrinth zone just takes the cake.
20 - The Artful Escape - PS5 - 4 hours / 26th June - 7/10
For a game about rock music, the soundtrack is pretty bland and the rhythm part of the gameplay is really easy. I came in expecting a rock rhythm game and I got a walking simulator with a couple of rhythm minigames. The story was great and I loved the art style so I still enjoyed it but it's not what I expected to play when I started it.
21 - Journey To The Savage Planet - PS4 - 16 hours / 27th June - 7/10
It's a fun little exploration game with nice humour and cool hidden secrets with fun platforming puzzles to reach them BUT the gunplay is atrocious and there are too many fights. It didn't really need this, it worked well enough with just exploration and environmental puzzles and quirky science challenges.
22 - Jackbox Party 8 - PS4 - 4 hours / 1st July - 8/10
One of the best collection of jackbox mini games in a while. There's usually a couple of duds in the collection but I really loved every one of them in this one.
23 - I am Dead - PS5 - 8 hours (Platinum) / 3rd July - 8/10
A real surprise. I only installed it on a whim because it was part of the PsPlus service and I'd never heard of it, I didn't know what to expect and I loved every minute of it. Such a nice little game.
24 - hotshot racing - PS4 - 2 hours / 5th July - 7/10
I really like the tracks and the mechanics but the single player campaign is over very quickly and there is no-one left online playing it. It's a shame as it feels like it would be great with other players and there are a fair few different modes on offer.
25 - A way out - PS4 - 6 hours / 5th July - 9/10
I played this with my son and we both really enjoyed it. All the set pieces are really fun and the game doesn't overstay it's welcome. I preferred it to It Takes Two, that one is a bit too long and the storyline is not as good.
26 - Deliver Us The Moon - PS5 - 8 hours / 5th July - 7/10
Great atmosphere but I wish there were more sections in space or on the moon surface. Too many Sci-fi corridors and simple key puzzles.
27 (out of order, I'd forgotten to record an entry for it at the time I finished it)
- Alan Wake - PS5 - 15 hours / 12th February - 9/10
I just love Remedy games. The combination of smart storytelling, great graphics and unique gameplay always hit the spot for me. I never got round to finishing Alan Wake when it first came out but once I finished Control and Quantum Break, I just had to come back to it. The gameplay isn't quite as refined as the other two but the atmosphere and story are brilliant.
28 - Nickelodeon all-star brawl - PS4 - 5 hours / 9th July - 6/10
Good fun with the kids but it's no Smash Bros. The football side-games can be quite funny when a few players are added to the chaos.
29 - Unavowed - SteamDeck - 14 hours / 17th July - 10/10
Fantastic throwback to the glorious golden age of point n click adventure games. I loved the characters and the stories it's telling, it's also amazing to see how many's different ways there are of playing this game depending on the character archetype you chose at the start and which team mates you select for each mission, it's a thing of beauty. The ending is also very rewarding, taking into account all the decisions you made throughout the adventure.
30 - Stray - PS5 - 4 hours / 21st July - 9/10
Wonderful little adventure but I do wish there was 1 more large city area to explore as the two that are in the game are fantastic. Each area is fun and each mechanic only stays long enough to not become dull. The cat controls beautifully and seeing the city from that point of view never gets old. The 2 main city hubs are so well realised that I only wish there was one more to explore to that level as the game is a tad too short.
31 - Blackwell Legacy - SteamDeck - 3 hours / 23rd July - 7/10
The WadjetEye collection was on sale on Steam during the summer sale so I thought I'd go through them all in order. I'd played a few of them before and always enjoyed them. The first one, Blackwell Legacy, is fun and the notes system interesting, it's just very short and feels more like a prologue than a full game.
32 - Blackwell Unbound - SteamDeck - 3 hours / 24th July - 7/10
I enjoyed the first Blackwell game more. It was nice to get some backstory about the aunt but the cases and characters weren't as fun as the case in the first one.
33 - As Dusk Falls - SteamDeck - 8 hours / 12th August - 7/10
It was better than I expected. So many twists and ways for the story to unfold, it reminded me of the first Life Is Strange in that way. The problem is that the characters are not that fun. The dad "main" character is so boring, it's unbelievable.
34 - Graveyard Keeper - PS5 - 100 hours / 12th August - 7/10
When I started, I thought this was a Stardew Valley killer. There were so many different quests and things to do, i was in heaven. Unfortunately, it turns into the biggest grind fest I've ever experienced by mid-game. It starts to require so much work and different type of resources and money to advance any stories, you'll spend hours grinding with very little to show for it. It's a shame, a little bit more tweaking and it could have been perfect.
35 - The Quarry - PS5 - 10 hours / 15th August - 10/10
I loved Until Dawn and The Quarry is even better as far as I'm concerned. Great set of characters, fun QTEs that are not frustrating, lots of choices and consequences that transform the story.
36 - Blackwell Convergence - SteamDeck - 5 hours / 21st August - 8/10
Really well put together story with interesting characters. The various stories intertwine nicely and the ending is very satisfying.
37 - The Looker - SteamDeck - 2 hours / 21st August - 8/10
Hilarious pisstake of The Witness with great puzzles of its own and some really unexpected jokes. Not just a parody but a good game in its own right that captures the feel of The Witness perfectly.
38 - Cult of the lamb - PS5 - 14 hours / 23rd August - 10/10
Fantastic blend of dark humour, roguelite gameplay and village management. Nothing else like it and a treat to play. It is full of bugs but that did not distract me enough from what I'd consider one of the top games of the year. Nothing else like it.
39 - Blackwell Deception - Steam Deck - 5 hours / 29th August - 9/10
The prologue is really fun and the first act is great, it does get a bit sluggish towards the middle and a ome of the puzzles can be a bit too obscure but the final act is fantastic and both wraps the story and breaks the whole lore wide open. It's a great story overall with a very satisfying ending.
40 - Immortality - Steam Deck - 20 hours / 20th September - 8/10
I really loved the story and the twists. The acting and dialogue were also all fantastic. however, as a game, it suffers from the same flaws as telling lies. Once you only have a few scenes left to find, it's really hard to know where they could be and what to keep searching for. It really needs some form of index that shows you the chronology and where the missing scenes are missing. Without it, it becomes a real drag towards the end and just like with telling lies, you end up randomly clicking things rewatching the same sequences over and over again until you magically find the last ones. It's a shame because until I hit that wall, it was turning into one of my favourite games ever.
41 - Lost Judgment - PS5 - 60 hours / 2nd October - 10/10
I loved Judgement and Lost Judgement is a brilliant sequel. It's like hanging out with old friends. The side school missions are also really long and all have new mechanics to enjoy: boxing, skateboarding, dancing, robot fights, bike races... They're all really fun activities. All in all, a fantastic sequel.
42 - Tunic - PS5 - 12 hours / 7th October - 8/10
Tunic is a great game with lovely graphics and a retro atmosphere that hits you right in the feels. Some of the directions the game takes are really unexpected and quite dark. I love all the secrets as well, they're fun to figure out and the digital manual is a stroke of genius, The final section where you have to go back to previous areas to get "some things" back is really tedious though and 2 of the boss fights are incredibly hard and frustrating. These 2 problems are the only reason why it's not a 10/10 in my eyes. A slight tweak to the difficulty curve of "the scavenger' and 'the heir' and less backtracking would have made it a perfect little game.
43 - Weird West - PS5 - 25 hours / 20th October - 9/10
I didn't expect much from this game and I was pleasantly surprised. The far-distance 3rd person shooting felt really satisfying and the stealth was the best feeling one since dishonoured. The 5 entertained stories you go through were ly well written and I loved being able to go back and add my previous avatars into my posse as I went. The ending was great as well with a recap of everything I did and the consequences it had in the world. There are so many ways the game can go and you really affect the world around you based on your decisions. My only criticisms is that the special skills and abilities were underwhelming. Buying better guns was more effective than trying to use the unique abilities of each character in the end.
44 - The Medium - PS5 - 10 hours / 22nd October - 8/10
After seeing the middling reviews on release, I'd held out on playing this game and I was pleasantly surprised when I actually really enjoyed it. It's nothing groundbreaking but the story is intriguing enough and I loved the art style. I was so hooked I pretty much finished it in one sitting. The ending and what the game is trying to say about depression is really bad though, I hope they were just dumb and didn't realise what they were implying because the alternative is horrifying. The gameplay is nothing to write home about, it's basically simple versions of the resident evil puzzles with some interesting uses of the 2 dimensions. The only annoyance we're the stealth sections running away from the monsters. These weren't really necessary and added nothing to the experience.
45 - Crash Bandicoot 4 - PS5 - 35 hours / 22nd October - 6/10
I really loved the first half of the game but it's way too long and gets far too hard by the end. It stops being fun when it takes me over 100 lives to complete 1 level… true story.
46 - Judgment: Kaito files - PS5 - 10 hours / 23rd October - 8/10
This DLC was a lot meatier than I expected and the main story was really interesting and the new characters well written. It was fun to play as Kaito with his more brutal style of combat.
47 - TokiMeki Memorial - Snes on SteamDeck - 5 hours / 26th October - 8-10
After watching the Action Button review of this I had to see if a Fan translation was available and it was! This is the original dating sim from the early 90s and after my first few minutes of play I thought it hadn't aged well but I was so wrong. The simple mechanics have so much depth under the hood it's crazy. There are so many unique events tied to so many different interactions that you only ever experience a sliver of what the game has to offer in any single playthrough.
48 - God Of War 2018 - PS5 - 30 hours / 30th October - 8/10
I finally finished GoW in time for Ragnarok. I enjoyed the combat and the story but hated the puzzles, they just slow down the pacing too much. There were quite a few weird plot holes but overall it told a good story with enough threads hanging that I can't wait to see what Ragnarok does with it.
49 - Return to Monkey Island - Steam Deck - 15 hours / 6th November - 9/10
The first three chapters of the game were fun but disappointing in their scope, they were limited to a few rooms only and made up mostly of fetch quests but then Chapter 4 starts and the game turns into an absolute masterpiece. It reminded me so much of Monkey Island 2 once the world opened up and you could go to all the different islands. The ending was great as well and made me tear up a bit.
50 - Gotham Knights - PS5 - 30 hours / 8th November - 7/10
I enjoyed the 4 protagonists and their different playstyles. I do wish the main storyline was more exciting. The introduction of the Court of Owls is great but then it doesn't really go anywhere and I could see the ending twist a mile away. The combat also got really repetitive really quickly as each character just doesn't have a large enough moveset So you rely on the same combos 90% of the time. It's a shame as if the gameplay had been better, the loop of going on night runs could have been addictive but as it stands it gets really boring after a while.
51 - Kurushi - PS5 - 2 hours (Platinum) / 23rd November - 10/10
This was one of my favourite puzzle games on the original PlayStation and thanks to the rewind feature on the Playstation classics collection, I was finally able to beat it. Even after all these years, it remains a very unique game with an unrivalled oppressing atmosphere that keeps you anxious the whole way through.
52 - Ghostwire: Tokyo - PS5 - 25 hours / 23rd November - 6/10
The game started so well with beautiful graphics, an intriguing premise and good gameplay but the gameplay and locations never really change and the story goes nowhere. The game just drags on and it becomes a chore to play with no real incentive to keep going. A bit more variety and less padding would have elevated this massively.
53 - God Of War: Ragnarok - PS5 - 43 hours / 16th December - 7/10
It took me a long time to finish Ragnarok, I kept switching to other games and having to force myself to complete it and that in itself is telling. I love the graphics, the combat and the characters but the game can be quite a slog at times, the pacing is all over the place.
54 - Jazzpunk - PS5 - 4 hours / 26th December - 10/10
I'd heard good things about this game but I didn't expect it to be so funny and with so many new ideas thrown at you relentlessly until the game ends. It was so good I finished it in 1 sitting. The couch multiplayer deathwatch mode was also a wonderful surprise that my son and I will be playing for a long while I feel.
Game #04 - The Gunk
Time: 5 hours
Platform: XBOX Series X
Rating: ★★★
The Gunk is a solid if short 3d platformer with very little combat and instead a focus on exploration and resource gathering. Made by the Steamworld devs of all things, it's very competent at what it does with and it looks great (if a little "soft"), and the level design is pretty good, but at the same time it's a very simple game, harkening back to games from the 360 era for example (which isn't a bad thing in itself). I liked it but it feels very much like a side-project from the Steamworld devs, and while I apreciate they tried something new, it's not as good as any of their Steamworld games.
Game #05 - The Pedestrian
Time: 4 hours
Platform: XBOX Series X
Rating: ★★★★
I'm not the biggest fan of puzzle games (I'm usually too dumb for them or lack the patience, or both) but I really liked The Pedestrian. 2d platformer with minimalistic art style on the gameplay parts mixed with gorgeous environments as background, the puizzles are really well done and the "panel" gimmick is fantastic. It's not very long, and unfortunately the last level / ending part really soured me on the game because it decides to
completely change the gameplay to first person
(to the point I just looked up the solution on youtube) but it's otherwise a great puzzle platformer that is very much worth checking out, especially since it's on gamepass.
1. Guardians of the Galaxy | 5th Jan | 15hrs | 4/5
2. Final Fantasy XV Royal Edition | 28th Jan | 40hrs | 3/5
3. Pokémon Legends: Arceus | 15th Feb | 25hrs | 4/5
4. Sonic Colors Ultimate | 3rd Mar | 5hrs | 2/5
5. Elden Ring | 15th Apr | 70hrs | 5/5
1. Kena: Bridge of Spirits (PS5) | 5 Jan - 12hrs | ★★★★★
First game of the year done. Absolutely loved this game. Had I finished it last year it'd definitely be up in top 5. Story was great, graphics are adorable, voice acting is decent. I might go back and try to get some more trophies but I doubt I get the platinum. I've heard the master difficulty is no joke.
Do we consider larger DLCs/expansions to be separate games in this challenge? Thinking of Outer Worlds Peril on Gorgon and Murder on Eridanos specifically. Either way, first game done:
1. The Outer Worlds (XSX) | 5 Jan - 27hrs | 8.5/10
Started it on release and got about 10 hours in, finally got back into it and finished it up two and a half years later. Great little WRPG, with some great storylines and characters - really liked the main plot twist that came up toward the end. Some really beautiful environments as well, and plays great with the 60fps update. Do think it could have used some more enemy variety though, which I expect will be addressed in the sequel considering it will likely have a substantially higher budget. Recommended to any fans of the genre, and anyone with a GamePass subscription.
Do we consider larger DLCs/expansions to be separate games in this challenge? Thinking of Outer Worlds Peril on Gorgon and Murder on Eridanos specifically. Either way, first game done:
1. The Outer Worlds (XSX) | 5 Jan - 27hrs | 8.5/10
Started it on release and got about 10 hours in, finally got back into it and finished it up two and a half years later. Great little WRPG, with some great storylines and characters - really liked the main plot twist that came up toward the end. Some really beautiful environments as well, and plays great with the 60fps update. Do think it could have used some more enemy variety though, which I expect will be addressed in the sequel considering it will likely have a substantially higher budget. Recommended to any fans of the genre, and anyone with a GamePass subscription.
1. Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus (PS2) | 6th Jan - 9hrs |
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The orphaned last in the line of a family of talented thieves, Sly Cooper seeks the members of The Fiendish Five, the gang who murdered his parents and stole the legendary Thievius Racoonus, the manual of master thievery assembled through generations of work by his ancestors. Along with the rest of his gang, fellow orphans and childhood friends Bentley and Murray, he sets out across the globe, taking on each of the Five in their home turf to exact sweet vengeance and reclaim the pages of the book.
The look of the game is striking, with bright cel-shaded characters and detailed environments to explore. The levels are cleverly built around Sly's ninja-like abilities, each having a hub area that primarily calls for stealth, and spoke levels that are largely obstacle courses to jump, slide, and swing your way through, requiring platforming prowess and timing to negotiate. The goal is to locate keys, with a few in the hub, most at the end of the spokes - when you have them all you can unlock the boss's lair and confront them, reclaiming a page and earning a new skill when the deed's done.
The presentation of Sly is certainly incredible for a game of its vintage, but what kept me engaged was how it played - Sly moves just as nimbly as he's written, making complicated sequences of acrobatics feel snappy and precise. The game's not all that long or challenging, but full of style and fun all the way through.
2. Cat Quest (PC) | 24th Jan - 8hrs |
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Cat Quest is a simple but engaging action-RPG, taking place in a large open world populated by cats and cat puns in equal measure. The story's pretty typical for the genre: you're the last in the line of dragonblood, cats imbued with dragon magic, and the only hope to save both your kidnapped sister and the entire land from evil. The game's progression is what you'd expect as well: Improve yourself by completing quests, equipping shinier loot, and by learning and upgrading spells from arcane temples. When you're strong enough you fight a dragon and move onto the next section of the world to do it all over again. Repetitive but fun, the cute, humorous writing, clever dungeon challenges, and hidden areas to find kept it entertaining throughout. It does beg for frequent breaks, but there are plenty of natural stopping points and I always returned looking forward to the next part of the adventure.
3. Bonk's Adventure (Game Boy) | 25th Jan - 1hr |
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Bonk's first adventure on the Game Boy - not a port of the original, more of a new game with the namesake's story, borrowing level elements from the previous games. It looks and plays quite well for a miniaturized version of the console franchise - all the key elements of the Bonk games are there. And while it's quite short it packs a lot of fun into that hour or so of game.
4. Tales From Space: Mutant Blobs Attack (PC) | 5th Feb - 5hrs |
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A physics platformer where you're a bouncy, sticky, hungry blob from space that grows by gorging itself on anything smaller than it is, like Katamari Damacy with wall jumping and mock-1950s bombast. It's quite fun, with additional abilities and hazards thrown in as the game progresses to keep it interesting. It makes for a good coffee break game, something you can sit down and finish a level or two when you've got a spare moment to burn - It took me ages to complete as I found myself losing interest if I tried to finish more than that in a sitting. Lots of personality here and a great start for the people who went on to make Guacamelee and Nobody Saves The World.
5. Wonder Boy in Monster World (Genesis) | 14th Feb 14 - 8hrs |
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Another fine addition to the convoluted Wonder Boy/Monster world series. It's a simple early metroidvania that builds on what The Dragon's Trap added - there are no animal transformations this time around, but there's a bigger world to explore, more secrets to find and upgrades to hunt down, quests to fulfill, etc. I didn't find it quite as fantastic as The Dragon's Trap (particularly Lizardcube's incredible remake) - it has more to do but didn't feel quite as smooth or speedy. Still an excellent game in the series that doesn't get its due quite as much as the others.
6. GRIS (PC) | 20th Feb - 4hrs |
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Gris is a puzzle platforming journey, painted with gorgeous dreamlike watercolour art and scored with an exquisitely moving soundtrack. telling the tale of a woman, Gris, who is trying to find her voice again in the wake of a great trauma. You wander the world searching for the stars to rebuild the constellations in her sky, each area granting you a new ability to continue the search. The game itself isn't overly difficult, the obstacles more narrative in nature than attempts to challenge the player's progress. Beautiful and engaging all the way through, Gris manages to relate the entire emotional journey without a word of text. Absolutely a game worth experiencing.
7. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time (SNES) | 22nd Feb - 3hrs |
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Perhaps the greatest of all of Konami's brawlers is the SNES port of Turtles in Time - the artwork is toned down slightly in the transition from the arcade, but the port also adds and new moves to the turtles repertoire, adds new levels and reworks old ones, and replaces the soundtrack with action-packed tunes that better live up to the chaos of the game. The gimmick of being kicked into a time portal by Shredder is quite brilliant here, the game a much wider variety of scenery than most in the genre. The most important thing here is just how fun the game is, wildly entertaining for the short amount of time it takes to get through. Even the brawlers I really enjoy tend to lose steam past the half-way point, but there was never a moment in Turtles in Time where I felt bored.
8. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Hyperstone Heist (Genesis) | 23rd Feb - 1hr |
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The Hyperstone Heist is effectively a remix, weaving tweaked levels from the two TMNT arcade titles together to build something new. While it loses a little in its transition to the Genesis, it's still a great rendition of the arcade style, looking and sounding respectable on the more limited platform - playing it back-to-back with the SNES version of Turtles in Time highlights the losses in graphic and sound quality, but the only thing I really missed was the ability to toss enemies into the screen. It doesn't get talked about as much as the SNES entry, but shouldn't be missed by fans of the series.
9. Dogurai (PC) | 25th Feb - 2hrs |
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A Game Boy themed tribute to Mega Man, or a tribute to Mega Man on the Game Boy? It's probably closer to a Game Boy themed tribute to Mega Man Zero - you play as a dog samurai who fights an army of robots exclusively with a sword. Slash, jump, slide, fight the robot master at the end of the level - it's pretty much what you'd expect, but made with care and a whole lot of fun if the Game Boy aesthetic is something you enjoy (or can at least tolerate). It's Game Boy short too, but I very much enjoyed it while it lasted.
10. Alchemist's Castle (PC) | 2nd Mar - 3hrs |
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A short metroidvania about an apprentice's quest to save his alchemist master from his own ambition, driven mad by the power of the philosopher's stone. As is typical for the genre, you explore the castle in search of your goal, collecting upgrades along the way to add to your pool of abilities, open up new paths, and improve your hardiness against the castle's dangers. There's more of a focus on puzzles here, with many of the rooms requiring thought and creative engineering to traverse. It's the product of a small team with a tighter scope, but I appreciate a fully-formed metroidvania that can be finished in just a couple of sittings - for the completionists there are also journal pages hidden throughout the game to flesh out the story. I had a great time with this one.
11. FAR: Lone Sails (PC) | 4th Mar - 3hrs |
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A meditative odyssey through the post-apocalypse in a ship designed to sail the dried-up sea. The player character is tiny, a little red raincoat and boots, contrasting the immensity of the ship you're captaining. When the ship's in motion you're bouncing from system to system to keep the engine turning - adding fuel to the burner, releasing combustion over-pressure, hosing down fires, repairing damaged systems, and raising and lowering sails as needed. When the ship's stopped you're out scavenging ruins for things to burn and mementos to remind you of the places you've been. It's quite a beautiful adventure despite all the ruin and decay, with long stretches of nothing but the fading dusk, the churn of your ship's engine and massive wheels, and the game's lovely soundtrack to keep you company.
The music is a highlight of the game - swelling with hope as you set out on your adventure and pick up speed, soft and introspective when there nothing but quiet desert flowing by, melancholy when you explore ruined settlements, and full of rising tension when things go wrong.
Overall It's a little janky here and there being a physics-heavy game, but nothing that detracts from the journey as a whole.
12. Tougiou King Colossus (Mega Drive) | 5th Mar - 9hrs |
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A 1992 action-RPG for the Mega Drive that never received an official US release, playable in english due to generous fan translation work. It feels a lot like Beyond Oasis or Crystalis, swinging sharp metal objects at enemies, platforming from an overhead perspective, and gaining experience to increase your power as you progress through the adventure. There's a wider variety of weapons here than many of its ilk - swords, axes, flails, spears, and magic staves, all with their own strengths and situations where switching is beneficial. Armour and shields are upgradeable as well. All the gear is found in silver chests tucked away in the game's dungeons, so there's plenty of incentive to explore while hunting down the next boss.
I had a good time running through the game - the plot is pretty standard dark JRPG fare of the time, but it's enough to give purpose to all the changes of scenery and to give some weight to the final chapters.
13. APE OUT (PC) | 7th Mar - 4hrs |
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A furious action game about those who find out. You play as an ape fleeing captivity in what appears to be a skyscraper, destroying anyone who dares to block your path to the exit in spectacular fashion. Enemies can be tossed out of windows, slammed into walls so hard that their arms come off (and become weapons), or thrown into each other to turn both into red paste. Snatching up an enemy does double-duty, using their body as a shield and giving you limited use of their firearms as they reflexively squeeze off gunshots in fear.
Even more impressive than the ballet-of-death gameplay is the dynamically created soundtrack - each impact in the world adds cymbal crashes and snare fills to the mix, the tempo and complexity of the rhythm rising with the tension as more enemies flood the level to put you down. It's something that needs to be experienced in motion to fully appreciated - it's impressively done, and works perfectly with the game's raging pace.
The game is ultimately a little one note, but as a fairly short game that one note is always fun to play (because it's usually as jazzy as it is horrifically violent).
14. KUNAI (PC) | 12th Mar - 13hrs |
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Kunai is a fast-paced metroidvania, full of places to explore and stuff to fight. The main character in the game, Tabby, is a sentient tablet who is conveniently also a ninja and the world's best hope for revolution. The upgrades you find are mostly ninja-themed, like the titular pair of kunai which function as grappling hooks. Much of the game is set up as an agility challenge around this ability, and is extremely fast and satisfying after a little practice. The combat is also well realized, requiring some reflex and positioning to hit enemies when and where they're vulnerable.
The only complaint I have is the lack of fast travel. It's not a huge world but most of the areas are labyrinthine enough that getting to where you want to go can become a bit of a chore, even with how speedy Tabby can be. I do think the best part of the game is the agility with which you can traverse the world, but after a while even that can get a little tiresome when you're retreading the world several times in search of missed chests. I enjoyed the game enough to 100% everything, though, so it's more of a nitpick from someone who tracked down everything than a serious issue.
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I'm really impressed with Double Fine's effort here. The artwork is refined, looking sharp and fresh without losing the personality that made the original so striking. The audio's a big improvement - crisp and clean, no longer crushed with compression. And it's great to see how the characters and story came to life through the addition of early production work. The game itself is not quite as involved as the average Lucasarts adventure, shorter and slightly less arcane in its puzzle design, but it's never really been a problem. With the game's style, presentation, and writing it doesn't feel like a lesser experience, and it's nice to be able to get through an adventure game without getting hopeless stuck at some point.
16. Katana Soul (PC) | 18th Apr - 2hrs |
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A lovingly made homage to Commodore 64 platformers, Katana Soul is a side-scrolling adventure through Sengoku-era Japan, with plenty of youkai adversaries to swing your katana through on the quest to rid the land of its dark curse. It's not long, but there is a decent amount of challenge to it, taking several replays to finally complete on the normal difficulty (it's one of those games where game over means restarting from the beginning). I had a lot of fun here, and has me looking for the old games that might've inspired it to see how they size up.
17. Hue (PC) | 19th Apr - 5hrs |
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Hue's a puzzle-filled metroidvania where you collect colours instead of abilities - the colours allow you to alter the background colour of the world, which makes any objects of of that colour disappear. The puzzles start fairly breezy, but as your palette grows they become quite involved and challenging. Following you through the puzzles is a brilliant piano-heavy soundtrack, adding dimensions of warmth and tension to the adventure, giving light to the touching thread of story weaving the whole thing together. Quite a great package here - very much worth the playthrough.
18. Chronology (PC) | 23rd Apr - 2hrs |
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A puzzle-platforming adventure where you control two characters, using their time-based abilities together to turn back the clock on a world-shattering calamity. Most of the game's puzzles are solved by travelling to the past to alter small details, providing a path through obstacles in the present - both versions of the world are well realized, contrasting the opulent lushness of the past with the dark, overgrown ruin of the present. It's certainly not a long journey, but what's there is a heartwarming tale well worth a playthrough.
19. Max: The Curse of Brotherhood (PC) | 28th Apr - 7hrs |
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Be careful what you wish for! Max: The Curse of Brotherhood is Max's physics platforming quest to save his brother Felix from the clutches of evil (and indeed to save himself from the guilt of placing his brother in such grave danger in the first place). You interact with the world in all the regular running and jumping ways, but have the addition of a magic marker to interact with special elemental points of the world. You can draw branches and vines, columns of earth, streams of water, and fireballs into existence to navigate the many hazards that block your progress. The physics are all simulated, and while this does lead to some jank, the payoff is how intuitively the powers interact with the world and one another. For example you can raise the earth to block explosives tossed your way, join multiple vines together with a branch to extend their length, attach a vine to a column of earth to create a bridge, or use water spouts to move objects into beneficial positions. It gives player license to attack problems in a more natural, creative way - it's not quite perfect, but the developers did an excellent job building an engaging adventure around a novel concept.
20. Neversong (PC) | 9th May - 5hrs |
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A disturbing narrative-focused metroidvania in which the player character Peet navigates a twisted shadow of his world in search of his kidnapped girlfriend Wren. The presentation is excellent, a great deal of care taken with the aesthetics of the game's environments and creatures, creating a wonderfully unsettling corruption of a typical small town. The audio is extremely well designed too, with delicate piano music that shifts between hopeful and haunting, and voice work equally adept at making the player laugh or filling them with dread. It's very Tim Burton-esque - just enough humour woven in to keep it from becoming exhausting, dark enough to leave its horrors lingering in your mind after the credits roll. Very much worth experiencing.
21. The Darkside Detective (PC) | 4th May - 6hrs |
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A bite-sized adventure game anthology about a paranormal detective who operates out of a regular police station somehow. I definitely appreciated the game's structure, consisting of several smaller cases to solve - maybe it was the smaller number of items to haul around, but I was never stuck for long playing through any of the cases, and none of the puzzles required logical leaps or trial and error to solve. There's witty writing throughout, full of snappy exchanges, tongue-in-cheek parody, and more than its fair share of dad jokes and puns. It was one of the fresher feeling adventure games I've played in a while, and I'm definitely on the lookout for the sequel now that I've had a taste.
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Buster Bros. (or Pang, depending where in the world you are) meets video game history, where through vision, timing, and precisely applied violence you break bouncing things into smaller bouncing things in as controlled a manner as possible. Each of the game's worlds is an homage to a classic game or series, adding elements of that game to the world's levels. I really enjoyed that variety and had a great time throughout, enjoying it even more than the official Pang reboot released around the same time. Like every other game in this genre it has its moments of frustration, but nothing so egregious to push me away.
23. Hammerin' Harry: Ghost Building Company (Game Boy) | 17th May - 4hrs |
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An especially creative platformer, full of big, detailed sprites, clever enemy designs, and an exciting variety of levels to hammer them in. It's an Irem game, which usually brings challenge along with the quality - Ghost Building Company is no exception, the difficulty ramps up considerably in the later stages. It's all a good time though, worth some trial and error to see everything the game has to offer.
24. Dusk (PC) | 18th May - 10hrs |
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An incredible throwback shooter that starts as an Appalachian nightmare and ends deep in cosmic horror. The visuals are an outstanding choice for the theme, the muted colours and jagged low-poly framework of Quake is perfect to convey the grime of Dusk's descent into madness. The gameplay is also very much inspired by Quake, unrelenting and fast, with spectactular level and encounter design the keep the tension high throughout. The audio's just as sharp - every weapon delivers a powerful kick, and the killer soundtrack flows effortlessly between eerie suspense and full-throttle metal. The game's three episodes are some of the most fun I've had in a game since Quake itself and I really can't recommend it highly enough to people who enjoy the genre.
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A precision platformer whose central mechanic is the ability to create platforms under the your feet while jumping, aiding you in the climb to each level's exit. The world is all glowing neon and abstract shapes, everything moving to the beat of the stage's pounding electronic soundtrack. It's Super Meat Boy-like in its challenge - andjust as tough to put down when you're in it, the scoring system incentivizing replays to improve your performance and get access to bonus stages and extra upgrades. I'd definitely recommend it for the folks who enjoy this type of game, it's one of my favourites in the genre.
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One of the rare Game Boy sequels that doesn't feel like a series of compromises to bring a bigger console experience to the humble handheld. While greatly inspired by A Link to the Past, Link's Awakening builds on its predecessors as a true sequel, with more ambitious dungeons and quests to puzzle through, bringing familiar abilities to a strange land full of strange characters that might all just be the dream of a fish. Truly one of the highlights of the series.
27. Contra (NES) | 28th May - 2hrs |
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An ageless classic, Contra's just as fun now as it was in 1988. It still looks and sounds fantastic, and that along with the effort Konami put with control and level design has given it perpetual life - engaging enough to encourage players to see it through to the end, challenging enough to inspire them to do it all over again better. One of Konami's greatest releases, and an all-time favourite of mine.
28. Super C (NES) | 30th May - 2hrs |
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Super C continues the winning formula, tweaking small aspects of its predecessor without losing any of what made it so great. Gone are the behind-the-back gallery shooting stages, replaced with Ikari Warriors-style top down combat. Aesthetically the look of the game is quite similar, a little more refined and ambitious without losing the original's style, and the music doesn't quite hit the highs of the original's score, but is still full of the kind of energy a Contra sequel needs. Super C is a more than worthy sequel and together it and Contra are two of my favourite experiences on the platform.
29. WitchWay (PC) | 30th May - 2hrs |
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A cute puzzle platformer where your goal is to guide a young witch student lost in an arcane underground labyrinth to freedom. Your only tool is a wand you find upon entering- it's power is to telekinetically move blocks around the rooms, using them as steps, elevators, to hold in pressure pads, and even as conduits to redirect laser beams. The world itself is a designed as a continuous space (as opposed to discrete levels), which is a nice touch - I like the sense of place and possibilities this sort of design creates. Rooms typically have several doors, some accessible only when entering the from another direction, others being secrets buried in alternate puzzle solutions, leading to special objects to collect or bunnies to rescue.
It's not something that takes more than a couple of sittings to finish, but the puzzles are clever and satisfying to solve, particularly with the double-duty that many serve for the secondary goals, and hunting these down makes a great excuse for a replay.
30. Poi (PC) | 13th Jun - 8hrs |
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Poi is a surprisingly well-crafted 3D platformer that doesn't seem to get the love it should. It's clearly made by people who love Super Mario 64, which informs much of the way the game plays, but very much has personality and ideas of its own. The game's levels are clever and varied, and there are plenty of extra areas and challenge missions to complete off the main path. Just a lovely, charming as heck adventure that'd I'd recommend to anyone who's enjoyed Nintendo's games in the genre.
31. Skeletal Avenger (PC) | 28th Jun - 13hrs |
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An action rogue-lite similar to Diablo in gameplay and Hades in design. The story is that you're resurrected by a necromancer (isn't it always the case?) in order to complete missions for him that'll help you bring your murderer to justice. You pick a dungeon on the world map to raid, complete a procedurally generated branching set of levels, then return with whatever gold and loot you've found in the dungeon. Each dungeon also grants you a number of crystals determined by the difficulty level, which you use the challenge that section of the map when enough are accrued. It's repetitive and small in scope, but still a great time played in bursts. It's not going to challenge the greats in the genre, but I had a good time with it all the same.
32. Evan's Remains (PC) | 1st Jul - 3hrs |
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Split down the middle, Evan's Remains is one part visual novel mystery, one part logic puzzle. Evan Goldstein, the boy genius who's responible for many of tech firm Up-Bring's technological innovations, had been missing for years until he revealed himself to be located on an uninhabited island in the Pacific. The main character, Dysis, is sent to the island by the company to tracking him down. There she encounters several bizarre monoliths, as well as a charater named Clover, who's translating the monoliths in the hope they lead him to the rumoured key to immortality, a desperate bid to save his infant sister from a hereditary disease.
The monoliths themselves are single screen puzzle platformers where you jump on switches to make corresponding platforms appear or disappear, solving the puzzle by figuring out sequence necessary to reach the end. In story canon the pattern of the platforms indicates a word or idea, the text that Clover is translating. The plot unfurls from there, tangled and engaging, leaving the player with a great deal to think about by the end.
I wouldn't recommend it to those just looking for an interesting puzzle game to work their way through, but for fans of mystery and visual novel storytelling I'd defininely point them here. The puzzles are a fun diversion, though, and never felt like a major roadblock to the story - occasionally tricky, they can always be skipped if you can't wait to get to the next part.
33. Super Mario 64 Plus (PC) | 2nd Jul - 20hrs |
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The ultimate version of the defining 3D platformer. The result of some dedicated reverse engineering work by some very talented fans, Super Mario 64 was ported to the PC and improved in a plethora of ways in the 64 Plus version: They made the movement controls more responsive and improved the camera (you can look around with the right stick like a modern platformer), the ability to continue a level after getting a star, widescreen support, interpolating the game to 60 fps, extending Mario's moveset to include improvements from future games, and various bug fixes and extra modes. All changes are toggleable individually, so you can keep the game as close to the original as you'd like. There are also improved texture packs and character models out there for Plus as well to further modernize it. Mario 64 is always going to be a good time, but this is by far the best way to play it going forward.
34. Yono and the Celestial Elephants (PC) | 3rd Jul - 6hrs |
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In this world elephants are sacred, deity-like protectors, born once a millenia and rarely seen by people. Yono is the latest in the line, new to the kingdom where tensions between the three inhabiting races have been growing in the elephants' absence - a perfect opportunity to both learn about himself and to bring the kingdom's races together again in peace. Yono and the Celestial Elephants is a cute, relaxing game; a Zelda-like puzzling adventure that is great for all ages - it's not challenging, but there's enough to do that I never found myself wanting for more during my playthrough. The art style is lovely, the soundtrack light and upbeat, and the writing is both charming and surprisingly philosophical at times, weaving perspective and empathy into the plights of the game's races. It adds a dimension to the world not usually found in a light experience like this.
35. Xenoraid (PC) | 4th Jul - 5hrs |
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Xenoraid is like a modern version of Galaga, fighting a wave-based war in space on a single screen. It improves with more complicated enemies in randomized fleet makeups, and by giving you a team of four craft in each area to switch between at any time. The ships have different armaments and capabilities, and between missions you can improve and customize them, adding a light strategic layer to the shooting. It's not overly long but I had a great time with it, and the game's randomized nature and higher difficulty campaigns invite a return in the future.
36. LostWinds (PC) | 6th Jul - 3hrs |
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LostWinds is part metroidvania, part puzzle platformer - an adventure where Toku, aided by the freed wind spirit Enril, work together to figure out the cause of the earthquakes threatening the land. Toku can't do much alone, but lifted by gusts of Enril's wind he can leap, glide, and move objects around on air currents. You explore the world in typical metroidvania fashion, outlying areas opening up as you find more fragments of the shattered wind spirit and restore abilities. The game was originally created for WiiWare, and all of the novel control design fits translates perfectly to the PC port - you point the cursor and use sweeping gestures to control the gusts of wind, intuitively manipulating Toku and objects in the world. A short, chill metroidvania experience that still resonates years after its release.
37. Semblance (PC) | 17th Jul - 3hrs |
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A unique puzzle-platformer where you physically deform the world to make your way through it, ie. throwing yourself against the floor to lower it so you can get access to a closed off area, or slamming into walls to create indents you can use to climb them. The puzzles are clever, and while there's a little bit of physics platformer jank I never got to the point where I'd discounted a working solution due to uncooperative elements. The art style is striking, too, a cozy sort of surreal.
38. Secret Agent (PC) | 26th Jul - 8hrs |
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Another ancient DOS game from the shareware days of Apogee Entertainment. This one's extremely similar to Crystal Caves, though I didn't enjoy it quite as much - the level design is just plain evil in spots. Still a fun time overall, but there were a few points I probably would've stopped if it weren't for the "I'm going to finish this game I couldn't finish as a kid" nostalgia stepping on the voice of reason.
39. New Adventure Island (TG16) | 27th Jul - 3hrs |
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It's probably my favourite of the "original" Adventure Island games now, and the first one I actually enjoyed enough to play all the way through. Like previous games, it's mostly just running to the left, collecting fruit, and occasionally falling off a skateboard moments after finding it - it's kind of a throwback to the original formula, so there are no animals to ride, branching paths, or exploration here. It looks fantastic, controls responsively, and is a lot kinder to the player, difficuly-wise.
40. Super Adventure Island (SNES) | 28th Jul - 2hrs |
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New Super Adventure Island lead me to Super Adventure Island, and similarly it's a less threatening return to the original games. Unfortunately it feels a whole lot blander than its PC Engine contemporary. Visually it doesn't look bad, but there's something off about the change in art design compared to New Adventure Island. The aesthetic and level design as a whole feels blander, and the control doesn't feel quite as tight. The soundtrack, however, is anything but bland, absolutely the best in the series. Composed by the legendary Yuzo Koshiro, it's one of my new favourites on the entire platform. Overall Super Adventure Island is a good time that I'm sure I would've enjoyed more had I not played it immediately after a better game in the series.
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A charming pirate-themed point-and-click adventure, originally released way back in 2007 as a flash game, renewed for the modern HD age. The writing is great - it's hard to avoid Monkey Island comparisons here, but the writing is fresh in the genre, full of its own distinct brand of humorous situations and witty quips. The game's dialogue is fully voiced now as well and the performances are excellent, improving the game immensely over the original's bare text. It's not a long adventure, but well-written and fun - I'd happily recommend it to anyone who can enjoys silly adventure games.
42. Toki (PC) | 30th Jul - 3hrs |
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With fresh, hand-drawn high resolution artwork and a remixed soundtrack, Toki's been given new life 30-ish years after it was originally released. A standard run-and-gun platformer for the era, you jump, spit, climb, and swim your way through distinct levels, each with a unique boss at the end. Difficulty modes have been added to the game with the remaster as well, making it a more casual play-friendly experience - the original was quite difficult. Toki sits in the same place as Ghouls N' Ghosts for me now, a game I had a passing fondness for as a kid that became much more beloved in challenging myself to complete it. The remaster's new looks and sounds won't change the design quirks of its age, but I've come to appreciate and enjoy all its rough edges.
43. Mega Man (NES) | 1st Aug - 3hrs |
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It's still impressive how much of what makes Mega Man one of Capcom's most beloved series was there right from the start. A few rough edges to file down, a few additions to Mega Man's basic abilities, but the core has remained for 35 years and the best titles stay close to what was established here. I had a great time running through this classic again.
44. Vomitoreum (PC) | 5th Aug - 4hrs |
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A dark and surreal dystopia, Vomitoreum is a first-person metroidvania in the GZDoom engine, full of bizarre and grotesque art inspired by Zdzislaw Bekinkski (an artist that I did not know about until I looked up this game). Another game by Scumhead, presumably building on experience from the Lycanthorn games in creating open-worlds in the GZDoom, it's much more ambitious than those games, with a bigger, better realized world to exploit a host of new and varied abilities, and a greater focus on lore and storytelling than anything he's done previously. I've been a big fan of his brand of weird since I found Shrine, and this is his best effort yet.
45. Lumo (PC) | 5th Aug - 5hrs |
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Lumo is a love letter to ZX Spectrum-era isometric platformers - it controls much better than those old games, thankfully, but much of what you're doing here was established in those 30+ years ago, and polished into something just a little more modern here. The puzzles can be a little obtuse in areas, rooms becoming quite challenging (frustrating is accurate too) as the game progresses, but it was never so discouraging that I thought about quitting. The art's lovely, soundtrack chill, and the hidden bits of weird British humour and references to old games warmed my heart. A fun, idealized form of something that's no longer so enticing to revisit in its natural state.
46. Crypt of the NecroDancer - Cadence (PC) | 6th Aug - 10hrs |
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Randomly appearing in Steam's download list with an unexpected update is the only push I needed for a replay. After putting another ten hours in to relearn all the patterns necessary to get through the game again with Cadence (the default character) I can confidently say that it's still my favourite game in the rhythm genre - The music still kills in its original and remixed forms, and the gameplay is endlessly engrossing. Heck, it's one of the my favourite games without any genre qualifications at all.
47. Cyber Hook (PC) | 10th Aug - 7hrs |
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Connoiseurs of speed running and/or grappling hooks should take notice, Cyber Hook has both covered well. It's one of those simple to learn, hard to master games, but the sensation of speed and the flexibility of the grapple mechanic are immediately captivating here and second to none. It's a joy just to move around the levels. Later on the difficulty can be uneven and extreme, with some levels taking me hundreds of attempts to clear with all the claustrophobic, dangerous spaces the player's required to grapple through (I earned the achievement for retrying more than 1000 times). That didn't really diminish the experience for me - it's that kind of game, where a little skill-testing adversity is part of the fare. Some breaks were definitely required, but overall I had an amazing time swinging through Cyber Hook.
48. Path of Giants (PC) | 13th Aug - 4hrs |
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A cozy 3d puzzle game where you guide three parka-clad explorers through a several levels of trials in search of lost treasure. Each of the three have a colour associated with them, and they have to work together to reach corresponding switches, move weighted elevators, and mechanically rearrage the environment to reach their respective goals so they can do it all again in the next section. Cozy is definitely the right word for this game - it's cute, relaxing, and never so easy to be boring or difficult to the point of frustration.
49. Sly 2: Band of Thieves (PS2) | 23rd Aug - 22hrs |
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Sly 2 refines what Sly 1 started, molding the franchise into something new and unique within the platforming genre. The game still looks fantastic, slighly improving the composition of the previous game's cel-shaded visuals while and significantly improving the game's overall framerate, impressive with the longer sight lines and expanded environments. The audio is just as great as the previous game, music perfectly suited to sneaky heisting, retaining its dynamic elements to fit the action. The voice acting is a high point of the game, too, with much more dialogue and in-mission banter from Bentley and Murray now that they're both fully playable central characters.
Sly 2's biggest change is in it's mission structure: Each level is a large open environment in which the team works through a long list of preparatory tasks for each level's ultimate goal, to steal a part of original big-bad Clockwerk's cybernetic body from a member of the Klaww gang. Each member of Sly's team has their own strengths - Sly's sneaky and agile, Bentley's a strategic genius and good with all manner of electronic devices, and Murray is pure muscle, the team's heavy weapon. They all do their part to set up the heist, performing the missions suited to their skill set. The scope of these levels has been greatly increased, too, with each heist taking several hours to complete.
I did occasionally miss the obstacle-course flow of the lengthy platforming sequences in the original game, but overall it's a much better structure for the series, and something truly its own in a crowded genre. An absolutely fantastic sequel that outshines its predecessor in nearly every respect, and one of my favourites in the entire genre.
50. Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves (PS2) | 28th Aug - 20hrs |
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The game opens with Sly's team raiding another vault - this time the Cooper family's own, filled with the spoils of generations-worth of successful heists as well as priceless heirlooms of Sly's ancestry, the real treasure he desires. Just as Sly cracks the vault's entrance he's assaulted by Dr. M, a former member of Sly's father's crew, who gains the upper hand - the bulk of the game is Sly's flashback at this point, assembling the diverse team necessary to breach the Cooper vault.
Murray departed the team after the events of Sly 2, leaving just Sly and Bentley to plan the vault job. Realizing they need Murray back and require several other specialists, they travel around the world collecting each integral member of the team - five additions in total - completing an elaborate heist for each to gain their services. Some are old friends, some are old enemies, and some are completely new faces, all of whom become playable characters at various points. Even Carmelita is playable this time around - not an ally, per-se, but her free-wheeling destruction is certainly helpful to the team, and a highlight of the game. Aside from the new members, the game sticks largely to the template set by Sly 2. Added are the "Master Thief Challenges", remixed tougher versions of a selection of completed level's missions, and split-screen multiplayer which I didn't get a chance to try. Sly 3 is an excellent addition to the franchise - it might not be as groundbreaking as Sly 2, but it's incredibly well-made all the same.
51. Crypt of the NecroDancer - Nocturna (PC) | 29th Aug - 20hrs |
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I couldn't put it down after the first completion and ended up throwing another 20 hours in to complete the game with Nocturna, a DLC character. Nocturna seemed like she'd be an easier run, starting with a much better weapon and the ability to turn into a bat (which gives you the ability to heal back from lethal damage), but her final bosses are much more difficult, taking a lot of failed runs to learn. It's one of those rare games where losses never feel like wasted time, even if it means starting from the beginning again.
52. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (PC) | 3rd Sep - 35hrs |
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There's not much more to say about Ocarina of Time that hasn't been stated repeatedly for more than 20 years - it's one of the very best re-imaginings of a classic series for the 3D era. It's still worth playing in its original form today, and a great way to do this is the fan created "Ship of Harkinian", a PC port based on reverse engineering work of the N64 version. Much like Super Mario 64 Plus it has widescreen and 60 fps support, improved character and camera controls, bug fixes, additional modes (an integrated randomizer!), and a pile of other enhancements and tweaks, all toggleable by the user. It's most definitely a labour of love, and I enjoyed every bit of my replay. I've spent a lot of time with A Link to the Past's randomizer, so having that functionality as a mode in the port is something I'll be taking great advantage of in the future.
53. Insanity's Blade (PC) | 5th Sep - 3hrs |
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An old-school hack-and-slash platformer, fairly standard fare in gameplay and story - save your family from hell by smashing and slicing everything that had a hand in their capture to bloody bits. It's pretty fun overall, distinguishing itself with the hidden weapons to track down and the optional missions to complete as you traverse the world map. I enjoyed it well enough, but 3 hours was about the breaking point here.
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I've always had a soft spot for the Rolling Thunder series and the games like them. They're more rigid and slower paced than the average run-and-gun, but they also seem more strategic, having to think things through a little more than the mania of games like Contra and Metal Slug. Rolling Thunder 2 is kind of the Streets of Rage 2 of the genre - it's the best example of the original formula, full of clever levels, heaps of challenge, and super-spy cheese. Others might do more or better in areas, but it's hard to argue they're better as a whole. I might prefer Shadow Dancer as a game, but Rolling Thunder 2 is the standard I measure it by.
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Going Commando takes place shortly after the conclusion to the first game, where Ratchet & Clank are now famous in their home galaxy for their heroics. They're yanked into another galaxy by the president of a company called MegaCorp, hired on reputation to retrieve an experimental creature stolen from their research division. Things spiral out of control after Ratchet fails to retrieve his charge and the thief escapes, setting the rest of adventure into motion.
Much like the first game, acquiring and upgrading the game's ludicrous arsenal is a focal point here, with the weapons largely overshadowing their predecessors (the originals are unlockable here with a save from the first game as well!). Insomniac had the foresight to add a strafe button to the game's controls, modernizing the feel of the game's combat - as big an improvement as the new set of weapons. There's a wider variety of non-weapon upgrades, too, with several sets of additional armour to purchase and new movement abilities to master.
My only complaint about the game involves the space battles - dog-fighting pirates never feels great, and is downright frustrating before upgrading your ship. That it, though. A small part of the game that becomes a non-issue later on.
Going Commando is an incredible example of how a sequel should be done, and has me excited to see what Insomniac did with the next in the series.
56. Savage Halloween (PC) | 2nd Oct - 2hrs |
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Simple but fun NES-styled indie run-and-gun, picked mostly for the holiday connection. It's one of those games that doesn't do anything special or anything wrong - it's not something that'll stand out later on, but I had a proper good time running through it. A fun way to kick off the Halloween month.
57. Psychonauts (PC) 13th Oct - 14hrs |
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Psychonauts has long been a favourite of mine among 3D platformers - it doesn't do much to expand the genre gameplay-wise, but the magic here is in the writing, characters, and world design. You play as Razputin - Raz - a psychic kid who's fled his family of acrobats to hone his skills at a psychic summer camp, hoping to fulfill his dream of becoming a member of the Psychonauts.
Following the theme, the game's main levels all take place in various people's minds, the campgrounds acting as a hub between psychic missions. The minds you enter are rich with symbolism - peoples interests, hopes, and fears all becoming tangible within their mental walls, expressed brilliantly through the level's assets and design.
The textures might be low resolution, and the polygons jaggy, but there's just so much style to the adventure that it's still hard not to feel awe at how much inspiration went into the game's visual and world design. I definitely need to get to the sequel soon.
58. Cursed Castilla EX (PC) | 10th Oct - 4hrs |
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A tribute to Ghosts'n Goblins, originally released as freeware under the title Maldita Castilla back in 2012. Loosely based on fragments of Spanish and medieval European folklore, your quest is to you to save the kingdom of Castilla from demons set free to corrupt the land. Its presentation is fantastic, lavish retro-themed artwork that evokes Capcom's classics style with its own Spanish flavour, music thrilling in all the right ways, replicating the sound Yamaha's arcade synth chips of the era with loving precision. Cursed Castilla EX builds on the original with two extra levels, each with new enemies, music, and bosses, and two extra weapons to help in the fight. I'm still floored by the quality of the original free version, and this only improves what was already one of my favourites in the genre. The game that's had me feverishly refreshing Locomalito's web page over the years to catch their new releases.
59. Odallus: The Dark Call (PC) | 21st Oct - 8hrs |
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An explorative platforming adventure inspired by Ghosts'n Goblins, Demon's Crest and Castlevania, Odallus is the tale of a war-weary fighter, taking up his sword one last time to save his son, taken by the darkness corrupting the land. The retro platformer aesthetic is great here, filling the the world with grim NES-themed artwork and music to match. The world isn't vast, but the levels themselves are quite intricate, all well-designed with hidden paths and buried secrets to unearth, filled with a wide variety of evil to swing your sword at. There are plenty of weapon, armour, and ability upgrades to open new paths in old levels, too. An extremely well-made game for any season, but especially great for a grimdark halloween playthrough.
60. Valfaris (PC) | 29nth Oct - 9hrs |
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Valfaris is a wild combination of Contra, Warhammer 40k, and Iron Maiden - a dark sci-fi and metal-infused run-and-gun. Aesthetically the game's incredible, with extravagant spritework everywhere - a seamless mixture of grotesque, gothic ornate, and high tech - and a driving metal soundtrack to compliment the visuals. The levels are lengthy, intricate, and mostly linear with a few divergent paths leading to hidden weapons or upgrade points for those weapons. The checkpoint system is interesting: you find tokens that can be deposited into shrines to save your progress, but holding onto these tokens grants bonus health and damage, so there's a risk/reward to keeping them. They can also be turned in at the end of a level for weapon upgrade points, another tough choice to make. The challenge is high but manageable, balanced to kill you often and always feel like victory is possible with the next try. Absolutely at the top of the list with the best of the genre.
61. Axiom Verge (PC) | 8th Nov 06 - 14hrs |
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A rare metroidvania that's more Metroid than Vania. Aesthetically the game sets a high bar - the 8-bit-style of the graphics is very well done, the grime of the tight colour palette fits the game's atmosphere perfectly. The sounds are varied and eerie, crushed to fit with the visual style without sounding too primitive or digital, and the game's music is some of the best chiptunes I've heard in years. The level design is just as exciting, owning that lonely, otherworldly feel that most other games can't quite nail.
The upgrades are numerous and creative, and there are so many weapons I'm not sure I even located half of them, but what I found are varied and fun. As far as the plot goes, I'm missing quite a bit of the context - the story is told through a mixture of dialogue, cutscenes, and text notes hidden throughout the world. Like the weapons I'm missing at least half of those notes, so the gamee's primed for a replay in the future to figure out what I'm missing. I had a great time with Axiom Verge - it's not my favourite of the genre, but certainly one of the more interesting I've played over the last few years.
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The second Castlevania game on the Game Boy improves on the original in every conceivable way - the art's significantly better, the awkwardness of the original's controls is gone, and has some of the best musical composition found on the entire platform. It's a proper Castlevania sequel here, not just "good enough" for the Game Boy, and one of my favourites on the system.
63. Trip World (Game Boy) | 10th Nov - 2hrs |
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Trip World is a platformer that makes a spectacular first impression - it's easily one of the best looking games on Game Boy and has a soundtrack that's just as great. Unfortunately the game as a whole feels truncated, like a highly polished draft of a larger project they had to release prematurely. You can transform into a couple of different forms at any time, one to fly for short periods of time and one to swim, but there are only a few areas that make any real use of these in the game's short length. There's not a lot to challenge the player here - the platforming is simple and most of the combat is either trivial with short-lived combat-focused transformations found in the world, or can be avoided entirely. Certainly not a bad game by any measure, but the highs make the lows a little more disappointing.
64. Mitsume ga Tooru (Famicom) | 15th Nov - 2hrs |
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Another game by Natsume, based on the titular works by the legendary Osamu Tezuka. The gameplay's very much inspired by Mega Man - you play as the manga's main character Sharaku, who's able to shoot with his third eye and summon his spear Red Condor at any time, which act both as a weapons and as a Rush-like extra platform to jump onto. The art's fantasic for the platform, as is the music - Natsume's composers of the day were on point. It's not a lengthy game - there are only five levels - but what's there is creative and exciting, and the end of stage bosses are all entertaining and diverse fights. I played through with the translation patch, and I'd recommend applying that and giving the game a shot if Mega Man's your thing.
65. Power Blade II (NES) | 20th Nov - 9hrs |
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Power Blade's sequel is much like the original - it's still run-and-gun with a boomerang, the upgrades are similar, and you pick the order you want to complete the game's levels in (aside from the final two of six total). The game's levels are longer but completely linear now, losing the multiple paths and exploration and are a little more tedious as a result. The power suit, a rare ephemeral upgrade in the original, is now four different suits, one of which is unlocked in each of the first four levels. They can be used at any time provided you have suit energy, and all perform specific functions - climbing on walls, swimming, flying, and blocking enemy projectile attacks. Overall I enjoyed the first game a little more, but this was absolutely a great sequel worth playing through.
66. Sonic The Hedgehog 2 (Genesis) | 24th Nov - 3hrs |
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I replayed Sonic 2 for the 30th anniversary of Sonic Tuesday, and I think it holds up pretty well! That could very well be nostalgia, but it does have many exciting improvements over the first game - The levels are more interesting, a more varied selection of locales with their own quirks and features, some clever extra paths to the exits, and a more interesting variety of obstacles to prevent you from getting there. The boss fights are more entertaining in general, particularly the final ones, with some actual thought and care required to best them. The emerald mini-game is less awful this time around. Spin dashing mitigates a lot of the uncomfortable walking uphill issues. And best of all, Tails, who might not be the most useful sidekick (particularly in the bonus levels) but is just plain fun to have around. And I'm still in love with the game's presentation, both the artwork and music. Sonic 2's still real to me.
1. Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus (PS2) | 6th Jan - 9hrs | 4/5
2. Cat Quest (PC) | 24th Jan - 8hrs | 4/5
3. Bonk's Adventure (Game Boy) | 25th Jan - 1hr | 4/5
4. Tales From Space: Mutant Blobs Attack (PC) | 5th Feb - 5hrs | 3/5
5. Wonder Boy in Monster World (Genesis) | 14th Feb 14, 8hrs | 4/5
6. GRIS (PC) | 20th Feb, 4hrs | 4/5
7. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time (SNES) | 22nd Feb - 3hrs | 4/5
8. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Hyperstone Heist (Genesis) | 23rd Feb - 1hr | 4/5
9. Dogurai (PC) | 25th Feb - 2hrs | 4/5
10. Alchemist's Castle (PC) | 2nd Mar - 3hrs | 4/5
11. FAR: Lone Sails (PC) | 4th Mar - 3hrs | 4/5
12. Tougiou King Colossus (Mega Drive) | 5th Mar - 9hrs | 4/5
13. APE OUT (PC) | 7th Mar - 4hrs | 4/5
14. KUNAI (PC) | 12th Mar - 13hrs | 4/5
15. Full Throttle Remastered (PC) | 11th Apr - 4hrs | 4/5
16. Katana Soul (PC) | 18th Apr - 2hrs | 4/5
17. Hue (PC) | 19th Apr - 5hrs | 4/5
18. Chronology (PC) | 23rd Apr - 2hrs | 4/5
19. Max: The Curse of Brotherhood (PC) | 28th Apr - 7hrs | 4/5
20. Neversong (PC) | 9th May - 5hrs | 4/5
21. The Darkside Detective (PC) | 4th May - 6hrs | 4/5
22. Juanito Arcade Mayhem (PC) | 12th May - 5hrs | 4/5
23. Hammerin' Harry: Ghost Building Company (Game Boy) | 17th May - 4hrs | 4/5
24. Dusk (PC) | 18th May - 10hrs | 5/5
25. Octahedron: Transfixed Edition (PC) | 25th May - 10hrs | 5/5
26. Link's Awakening (Game Boy) | 26th May - 18hrs | 5/5
27. Contra (NES) | 28th May - 2hrs | 5/5
28. Super C (NES) | 30th May - 2hrs | 5/5
29. WitchWay (PC) | 30th May - 2hrs | 4/5
30. Poi (PC) | 13th Jun - 8hrs | 5/5
31. Skeletal Avenger (PC) | 28th Jun - 13hrs | 4/5
32. Evan's Remains (PC) | 1st Jul - 3hrs | 4/5
33. Super Mario 64 Plus (PC) | 2nd Jul - 20hrs | 5/5
34. Yono and the Celestial Elephants (PC) | 3rd Jul - 6hrs | 4/5
35. Xenoraid (PC) | 4th Jul - 5hrs | 4/5
36. LostWinds (PC) | 6th Jul - 3hrs | 4/5
37. Semblance (PC) | 17th Jul - 3hrs | 4/5
38. Secret Agent (PC) | 26th Jul - 8hrs | 3/5
39. New Adventure Island (TG16) | 27th Jul - 3hrs | 4/5
40. Super Adventure Island (SNES) | 28th Jul - 2hrs | 3/5
41. Nelly Cootalot: Spoonbeaks Ahoy! HD (PC) | 30th Jul - 3hrs | 4/5
42. Toki (PC) | 30th Jul - 3hrs | 4/5
43. Mega Man (NES) | 1st Aug - 3hrs | 4/5
44. Vomitoreum (PC) | 5th Aug - 4hrs | 4/5
45. Lumo (PC) | 5th Aug - 5hrs | 4/5
46. Crypt of the NecroDancer - Cadence (PC) | 6th Aug - 10hrs | 5/5
47. Cyber Hook (PC) | 10th Aug - 7hrs | 4/5
48. Path of Giants (PC) | 13th Aug - 4hrs | 4/5
49. Sly 2: Band of Thieves (PS2) | 23rd Aug - 22hrs | 5/5
50. Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves (PS2) | 28th Aug - 20hrs | 4/5
51. Crypt of the NecroDancer - Nocturna (PC) | 29th Aug - 20hrs | 5/5
52. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (PC) | 3rd Sep - 35hrs | 5/5
53. Insanity's Blade (PC) | 5th Sep - 3hrs | 3/5
54. Rolling Thunder 2 (Genesis) | 20th Sep - 6hrs | 4/5
55. Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando (PS2) | 30th Sep - 30hrs | 4/5
56. Savage Halloween (PC) | 2nd Oct - 2hrs | 3/5
57. Psychonauts (PC) 13th Oct - 14hrs | 5/5
58. Cursed Castilla EX (PC) | 10th Oct - 4hrs | 5/5
59. Odallus: The Dark Call (PC) | 21st Oct - 8hrs | 4/5
60. Valfaris (PC) | 29nth Oct - 9hrs | 5/5
61. Axiom Verge (PC) | 8th Nov 06 - 14hrs | 4/5
62. Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge (Game Boy) | 8th Nov - 3hrs | 4/5
63. Trip World (Game Boy) | 10th Nov - 2hrs | 3/5
64. Mitsume ga Tooru (Famicom) | 15th Nov - 2hrs | 4/5
65. Power Blade II (NES) | 20th Nov - 9hrs | 4/5
66. Sonic The Hedgehog 2 (Genesis) | 24th Nov - 3hrs | 4/5
1. Inscryption - PC
Completed 1/6/22
*I can understand how some will be put off by the deck building aspect of this game but man does it go places that I did not expect. Brilliant game, what a way to start the year. 10/10
2. Halo Infinite - PC
1/9/22
*I thought the campaign was pretty good. Nothing special but I had a good time. The open world was disappointing to me but I can see potential for 343 to do better in the future. I'm glad they went for it. If campaign DLC ever hits Game Pass Ill be in for sure. 7.0/10
3. Unpacking - PC
Completed 1/15/22
*What a cool little game. No stress, just a satisfying experience to place things in various living spaces. My only gripe is,
why wasn't there more space in your forever home?
Really enjoyed this though. 8.0/10
4. The Forgotten City - PC
Completed 1/17/22
*I heard so much about how great this game is and how the time loop is a unique take. I have to say I was underwhelmed. The story was very cool especially after finding out what is really happening but overall I just didn't love this game. The very last segment of the game was a nice treat that I did enjoy quite a bit. 7.0/10
5. Nobody Saves the World - PC
Completed 1/26/22
*This game was not on my radar at all but I am so glad I gave it a chance. Didn't know it was a Drinkbox game until I heard the Fire escape cast talking about it and had a blast with this game. So much fun with a fantastic world to explore. Game pass sealed the deal for me, probably wouldn't have played this without it. 8.0/10
6. Alan Wake Remastered - PC
Completed 1/29/22
*Never played this when it originally released. I'm glad I got the chance to play this since AW2 was announced. A pretty cool story but man is this a last last gen game. Long walking sections for no reason at all, way too many combat encounters that really never evolve, the heartbeat sound when your health is low. I had fun with this game but games have come a long way. Curious to see what Remedy does with AW2. 7.5/10
7. The Pedestrian - PC
Completed 1/30/22
*This is a beautiful unique puzzle platformer that I really enjoyed. Its pretty short but some of the later puzzles get really complex. I didn't care much for the finale only because it shifts perspective and it made me motion sick. But it was an interesting twist on an already very cool puzzle game. 8.0/10
8. Dying Light 2 - PS5
Completed 2/16/22
*Dying Light 2 is a good game, the movement and traversal have never been better and I had a ton of fun running around Villedor. The story and other aspects of the game are still B tier but I knew what I was getting into when I bought this. So many activities to do and places to explore. I can see how someone could spend 500 hours with this game. Hated the lockpick system, and I did get slightly motion sick occasionally. 8.0/10
9. The Gunk - PC
Completed 2/17/22
*Pretty short game that has a beautiful alien world to explore. The standout here are the characters. Visually its a pretty nice looking game. The story was pretty cool and enjoyed this for the most part. Hated the final sequence but powered through to finish this short game. 7.0/10
10. Elden Ring - PS5
Completed 4/16/22
*This is the first From Soft games Ive ever completed. 126 hours and I had a great time playing this game. Some annoying things for sure but it was so much fun just exploring new areas. Did a lot of the game in coop with a buddy and going into an area for the first time knowing nothing was really cool. Yes, we beat Melania. I believe I killed all of the main optional bosses although we didn't do every single little catacomb or tomb. I think From gets a little too much credit for simply giving players an item for exploring an area. People act like they are some sort of special dev because they reward exploration, that's just called good game design. 9.0/10
11. Triangle Strategy - Switch
Completed 4/16/22
*I really loved this game. The story was good enough and the combat is sublime. I wish it was a little more mature and it lacked some subtle touches that make FF Tactics the all time great in this genre. Plenty of characters to choose from all with unique skill sets. I really hope they continue with this series, its a fantastic nod to FF Tactics. There is even a late game map that has to be an homage to a classic FF Tactics map, loved that so much. 9.0/10
Update: Went back and did the golden path, this game's combat is just so great. I got all of the recruitable characters and there were actually quite a few additional missions in addition to the better story ending. Glad I did it.
12. Vampire Survivors - PC
Completed 5/27/22
*This game was a very cool concept that didn't quite get there for me personally. I liked the weapon combinations and its an easy game to pick up and do a quick run. I didn't like how insane it got towards the very end of a run, I felt like my CPU was going to melt down. Interesting concept and I'm glad I tried it. 7.0/10.
13. Horizon Forbidden West - PS5
Completed 6/4/22
*This game grew on me the further I got into it. By the end I really enjoyed my time with this world and its game mechanics. Its definitely flawed, I didn't care for some of the level design. It was confusing and hard to navigate at times. The voice acting and character models are unmatched, so cinematic and immersive. The story was mostly good, I'm curious how they will continue to justify the world but Ill be there for sure. 8.5/10
14. Tunic - PC
Completed 6/5/22
*I was a bit disappointed with this game after hearing so many say it was on their GOTY list. The sense of discovery is very cool and the instruction manual is incredibly beautiful. It dragged some at the end and I didn't care for the combat feel. It was the perfect game pass game and thank god for no-fail mode, wouldn't have finished this otherwise. 7.5/10
15. Weird West - PC
Completed 6/11/22
*Pretty cool game with some fun characters and mechanics. I didn't expect it to be such a journey through different playable characters but that ended up being pretty cool. Perfect game pass game. 7.0/10
16. Chorus - PC
Completed 6/17/22
*There is way more here than I originally thought there would be. So many side quests and little activities to do. The open world areas are all very cool to look at and fun to navigate. I could see myself spending more time with this if there weren't so many games to play. The controls were excellent with some really cool powers. Had a lot of fun with this game. 7.5/10
17. The Dungeon Of Naheulbeuk: The Amulet Of Chaos - Chicken Edition - PC
Completed 6/20/22
*I liked this game way more than I thought I would. The combat is excellent with a few annoying RNG quirks that can be frustrating at times. I didnt personally care for the writing but the overall story was an interesting take on fantasy tropes in a fourth wall breaking kind of way. I had some minor gripes with inventory management but overall I really had a fun time. Even finished the DLC which was amazing included in the game pass package. Kudos! 7.5/10
18. Life is Strange: True Colors - PC
Completed 6/24/22
*These games always deliver and beautiful story with great characters and this was no exception. I loved Alex and the tertiary characters and the story unfolded in ways that I did not expect. Great music, and the visuals were quite nice. I will keep playing these sight unseen. 9.0/10
19. Citizen Sleeper - PC
Completed 6/27/22
*I really started to get comfortable with life on the Eye. A simple yet addictive gameplay loop that I really enjoyed getting to know. It wasnt too challenging but thats ok. Nicely drawn characters with lots of unspoken visual lore. 7.5/10
20. Death's Door - PC
Completed 6/28/22
*I really liked this game, it was frustrating at times but it had a really cool world with tight controls. Great music, good level design. Puzzles were very simple but the level design was very interconnected in a fun way. 8.0/10
21. Trek to Yomi - PC
Completed 6/29/22
*Visually, this game is a treat. Really nice lighting with good fire effects. The gameplay I did not enjoy, the combat felt clunky and imprecise. 6.5/10
22. Final Fantasy VII Remake: Intermission - PS5
Completed 7/23/22
*Played this since it Hit PS Plus Premium and was reminded how great this remake was. It was pretty short but I had a great time with it. The fort condor portion was entertaining but once it got challenging I was out. I liked the new characters and Yuffie was charming as in the original. Rebirth time. 8.0/10
23. Stray - PS5
Completed 7/24/22
*I liked this way more than I thought I would. The story was nothing special really but the world was beautiful with some really charming characters. The gameplay was fine, nothing too challenging but was overall a really fun game. 8.0/10
24. Fire Emblem: Three Houses - Switch
Completed 8/14/22
*I liked this game but I was blown away when I saw how high this reviewed. Its very generic and basic on many levels including the writing, graphics, gameplay. Its just not a not tier game. Some of the high scores I saw are just embarrassing. Its a fun game, yes with many unique and cool elements but as an overall package its just ok for me. 7.0/10
25. As Dusk Falls - PC
Completed 8/16/22
*Alot has been said about the art style of this game and Ill say that overall I wasnt a fan. During the action sequences its hard to tell whats happening and there is definitely some context lost. The voice acting was very good and the story was fairly engaging. Id like to see what this studio does next. And as always, hat tip to game pass. 7.0/10
26. Expeditions: Rome - PC
Completed 8/30/22
*I absolute loved this game. Challenging and deep tactical combat, expansive campaign with multiple locations, a competent story with unique characters. Even though this was already on my radar I am thrilled it was available on game pass. Logic Artists has a new fan in me and I cant wait to see the next entry into the Expeditions series. Roma Invicta! 9.0/10
27. Tinykin - PC
Completed 9/6/22
*What a fun little game. Platforming collect-a-thon mixed in with pikmin like minions to help you navigate a very cool oversized world. I collected pretty much everything you can in this game. A perfect gamepass game. 8.0/10
28. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge - XB1
Completed 9/11/22
*Nice nostalgic beat em up that was pretty well done in many ways. It felt modern and like it came from a time and place which was very cool. Co-oped it with my 8 year old so that was a very fun experience. Definiltey on the short side but thats ok. They will almost definitely do another one of these and Im all for it. 8.0/10
29. Little Nightmares II - PC
Completed 9/12/22
*A fantastic follow up to the first game that is just as creepy. Im not a huge fan of chase sequences and there are plenty in this game. Controls can be frustrating at times but the level/character design remains impeccable. 8.5/10
30. Scarlet Nexus - PC
Completed 9/27/22
*In a bit of a gaming lull right now so I am reaching deep into the gamepass pool. This game has some really cool combat with more depth than I would have thought. The story was kinda disjointed and the presentation was lacking. I mostly enjoyed this game but i only did a single playthrough, i wont be going back to get the 2nd perpective. There was a scene late in the game with a child aged Yuito and the VO was FUCKING COMICAL! 7.0/10
31. A Plague Tale: Requiem - PC
Completed 10/26/22
*After a bit of a lull this game came at the perfect time. It was noticeably longer than the first game and improved on it in many ways. Visually the game is stunning, very cool locations and improved character models. Combat is still its weak point although it did introduce some new mechanics that were quite fun. Overall its a fantastic effort from a small-ish studio. Curious to see if they go in a new direction or continue with the plague tale world. 8.5/10
32. Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope - Switch
Completed 11/11/22
*I loved this game so much, I played for 44 hours and got 100% completion. The tactical combat continues to be excellent with the movement abilities adding so many options. The new characters were fun to see but I stayed with 2 of the original team from the 1st game. It was slightly on the easy side on normal. I only lost 1 battle and that was because there was a level gate that I was 3 levels below and decided to try. The story was meh and I really wish there were deeper RPG elements. I really like this franchise and hope it continues. 9.0/10
33. Somerville - PC
Completed 12/12/22
*I really enjoyed the atmosphere of this game and the desolate enviroments. The story was a little disjointed for me and the controls were sometimes frustrating but overall it was a perfect game pass game and Im glad I played it. 7.0/10
34. God of War: Ragnarok - PS5
Completed 12/16/22
*This was a game of ups and downs. The combat is very very good, lots of options and nuance. Visually the game is an absolute master class, VO is top of the industry. Great characters. The issues I have with the game are with pacing, and length. Im actually surpised with how much they crammed into this game in 4 years. Some slow story parts but I did like the final sequence even if I thought they played it a little safe. If another GOW is what we get from SSM I will be there for it day 1. 9.0/10
35. The Callisto Protocol - PS5
Completed 12/31/22
*I was expecting this game to be a broken mess by the reviews and impressions but Im glad I ignored those because this game is awesome. There are a few flaws that keep it from being a truly prestige gaming experience but overall I really enjoyed it. The story is pretty thin, I would have liked more story cutscenes because the setting is downright amazing. Insane skyboxes with Jupiter dominating the horizon. Dilapidated prison with gore everywhere. Visually, the game is stunning. Some of the audio didnt sync up right and was just for show. And the emphasis on melee combat was not a great decision, or could have been implemented better. But overall, Im so glad I gave this game a chance because its creepy as hell and god I loved roaming around this environment. Cannot stress how amazing the setting in this game is. 8.0/10
Abandoned/Quit:
Forza Horizon 5 - This is a cool game with an stunningly beautiful world. But there is just no variety to the world events. Race here, jump this, get a high score. Oh and you also do the same thing in-between missions. I cannot for the life of me understand how this is a GOTY for anyone. Not saying its a bad game, its cool as hell but come on.
Disco Elysium - Got pretty far in this game, nearly to the end and then I had enough of the skill checks. I think its bad design to have these hard checks that you can just straight up fail and then have to run around and do quests until you can try again. The writing in this game is sublime with some of the best dialogue Ive seen in a game. I loved the atmosphere, characters and so much more but it just wasn't that fun to play. Kudos to Za/um but I just couldn't muster the will to finish this game.
Sniper Elite 5 - I had been hearing a lot of buzz about this game and of course its on game pass so I gave it a shot. The visuals were noticeably better than past games but the gameplay its still not great. The sniping is fun but everything else is just not fun for me.
Omori - I can see why people like this game. In another time if I was in the mood for something like this I could see myself really liking it. Just didn't have the patience for its relaxed pace. Beautiful art.
Back 4 Blood - Oh boy this was boring as hell, felt generic and just not fun. Played solo so I'm sure that was why but I can think of other ways Id rather hang with my friends online.
Total War: Warhammer III - I was disappointed I didn't like this more. It just didn't feel polished enough but I'm not sure what I was expecting.
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD - Simply put I hated the controls. So dumb, no way I could play a whole game like that.
Immortality - I tried to like this game, I gave it a couple hours and it just wasn't compelling. I did finish Her Story a while back but I didn't think it was the revelation that others did so it makes sense this didn't click either.
Midnight Fight Express - Another game that I really wanted to like but it took what made Hotline Miami great and ran with it. The simplicity of HLM is what made it great in my mind. This took it to a while new level that wasn't fun for me.
Beacon Pines
Chicory a colorful tale
Scorn
High on Life
Tactics Ogre: Reborn - This game is very much up my alley and I had a pretty good time with it until a certain point. I absolutely loath the level cap. Part of the fun is for me to grind and become a super powerful wrecking crew, not an option with this game. The story is completely pointless, every cut scene shows a new character youve never heard of and never see again. Then you go into a battle and fight someone who seems important but you have no idea who they are. I can see that this is the game that FFT iterated on and became much much better. Fun tactical battles, but not quite good enough for me to spend any more time with it.
2. Lego: Builder's Journey (Series X) | 6 Jan - 5hrs | ★★★★
Delightful puzzle game. I was able to play probably 80% with my 7 year old till it got too hard for her then I finished it up. I did have to look up a guide for 3 or 4 puzzles. Couple I'm not sure I would have figured out and then 1 or 2 I felt like an idiot for not seeing what I needed to do.
3. Feather (PS4 on PS5) | 7 Jan - 1hr | ★★★
Bought hoping for a Flower or Journey experience and it's like those just not as nearly as good. Only takes like a hour to get the platinum and I don't feel like playing anymore. With Journey and especially Flower, I played after finishing up trophies.
1. THE LONGING
See this little guy in the picture? I love him. Shade taught me a lot about taking your time, about improving your living space with things that make you happy, appreciating the beauty in simple things and taking down the establishment that's given you a thankless life whilst they sit on their haunches. A truly unique experience and a perfect blend of idle and adventure game. It doesn't give an inch on its vision on instilling on the player the passage of time. I applaud Studio Seufz on their commitment.
If you asked 15 years ago, I might have said this was my favorite game at the time. I must have blocked out the absurd amount of grinding if you want everything.
It's a hit of nostalgia playing through this for the second time after so long. I still love the music, the world building is fantastic, and enjoy the fact that there isn't levels. You have a large grid with your stats and skills that everyone can learn. You can out level bosses and hilariously one or two shot them with some grinding. The aeons and summoner aspect was well done in the story.
However, the dialogue isn't the best. There's awkward moments and odd facial expressions amplified by the weird camera angles.While I'm happy Final Fantasy didn't create another moody MC like Squall and Cloud, Tidus seems too cheerful or unfazed at times. (Especially considering what is happening.) The two big twists are revealed about 3/4ths into the story. They are strange choices...almost for cheap shock value.
If you want everything done, (mini games, ultimate weapons, all side bosses, grid completion) prepare for HOURS and HOURS for grinding. I did not want to grind one enemy 100+ battles for one item. So I cheated and I don't feel bad at all. The PC version has cheats you can access in the menu. The optional bosses will act cheesy and can one shot you at max. It's insane how the difficulty goes up. If you enjoy grinding and 100% completion, maybe try this legit. But I was not going to kill the same enemy for hours to max items.
Ridiculously close to being one of the most perfect platforming games put out in recent year. Maddy definitely took her gameplay chops from Towerfall and built them into a fantastic package with interesting gameplay and a touching story the keeps you pushing through. I enjoyed most of the chapter gimmicks that were available, but the feather is dogshit. An analog control in a pixel perfect platformer is bad design, and whilst it's not so bad in the canon chapter, it become a giant pain in the ass later on in the B-Side.
I think the worst decision made with this game is continuing past (lategame spoilers):
Chapter 8. Summit is the best finale level in any platformer, with Madeline and Badeline coming together for one last ride through all the areas you've already mastered, and then a bit extra. Chapter 9 absolutely shits on it by having them argue again for the sake of making the entire chapter a load of bullshit. It's Mario Kaizo bad, and is borderline impossible unless you are a platform game master. I didn't bother, just zoomed through with assist mode for a worse ending than what was already on offer.
Major, major fuckup that's puts a dampener on a truly great game. Massively put off from going for 100% completion because of this post-game. It's a shame because I really came to love Madeline and her journey through depression and conquering the mountain.
The best mysteries are like onions, gradually peeling away layer after layer until you get to the solution. And that's exactly that The Forgotten City offers. It's a bit of a whodunit wrapped up in an innovative loop-based approach with puzzles here and there where the more you play, the more you start to understand the world, the people around you and the central mystery of the game. The game has pitch perfect pacing and carries none of the usual additional baggage you would find in an AAA game. There is honestly very little to criticize, it is simply an excellent game that succeeds at what it tries to do.
2. Psychonauts 2 - 7/10
I have very fond memories of the first Psychonauts and how original its level design was, with the milkman level and the Napoleon inspired board game and many others. Psychonauts 2 continues this tradition with very memorable levels, especially from a graphical standpoint. However I think the levels all play rather similar at the end and only stand out from a graphical sense, not from a gameplay sense, unlike the levels in the first Psychonauts. While I also enjoyed the story, I feel like some of the characters, especially the other kids, were poorly fleshed out. And the story was interrupted too many times by cutscenes.
3. The Gunk - 6/10
The Gunk is a straightforward game. It features puzzles, resource gathering to upgrade your gear and some light combat. That's really all there is to it. The environments look pretty and playing the game is a relaxing way to pass the time. Although I do think this could have been a much more enjoyable game if the characters and story were more developed. Very few interesting details about Rani and Becks' backstory are revealed and the characterization doesn't go much deeper than grumpy realist versus upbeat dreamer.
1. The Forgotten City (XSX) | 3rd Jan - 8 hrs | 8
2. Psychonauts 2 (XSX) | 8th Jan - 15 hrs | 7
3. The Gunk (XSX) | 9th Jan - 5 hrs | 6
2. The Outer Worlds - Peril on Gorgon (XSX) | 6 Jan - 7hrs | 7/10
Right after beating the Outer Worlds proper jumped into this first DLC. The story is an enjoyable mystery, with plenty of background to dig into if you're willing. The new environment is also visually distinct from other locations in the Outer Worlds base game. Unfortunately, the trope that I felt already was running a little long in the tooth from repetition - the lab experiment gone awry - is once again the crux of the story which is a bit disappointing. The DLC as a whole feels a bit too much "more of the same", with you even revisiting past locations again, fighting the same enemies, and no new gameplay mechanics. That being said, it's still an enjoyable ride, and one of the better stories in the game - would recommend for anyone playing through the game for the first time.
3. The Outer Worlds - Murder on Eridanos (XSX) | 7 Jan - 8hrs | 9/10
While the previous DLC didn't wow me, this one was a return to form. Arguably, it contains my favorite story out of the entire Outer Worlds package - some great twists and character moments. The new planet of Eridanos is also probably my favorite location in the game, with varied locales, and a great visual style. In addition, this DLC saw the introduction of a new gameplay mechanic with the investigator device, which I really enjoyed - while very simple overall it still gave a good impression of being a detective. Enemy variety was also slightly improved, with a few new enemies introduced, alongside some new behaviors. It's still not perfect, and I hope the sequel can introduce a greater variety of enemy types. This DLC is a must play in my opinion for anyone working through the Outer Worlds.
Game #06 - Raji An Ancient Epic
Time: 6 hours
Platform: XBOX Series X
Rating: ★★★
Pretty cool indie action game reminiscent of Prince of Persia (especially the traversal) with some cool Indian mythology story and really cool visuals (I especially like the camera usage since it's a fixed angle game). Game play is solid if unimpactful because the sound design is very muted unfortunately, making every hit feel very soft, and while solid overall, it's pretty short and it shows some ugly jank in some of the platforms (and in a terrible set piece near the end). Still, I enjoyed it and given it's short runtime, it's a easy recomendation, especially on gamepass.
Game #07 - Rainbow Billy The Curse of The Leviathan
Time: 14 hours
Platform: Switch
Rating: ★★★
Super wholesome Paper Mario-esque action rpg with great art, fun gameplay and a ton of the most positive, morale boosting writing you will ever see in a videogame (guys, there's a lot of writing in here), I was very ready to absolutely love this game for about half it's runtime, but unfortunately, it wears out it's welcome sooner than I hoped for and it gets very repetitous, to the point where in the final act I wasn't even reading the text anymore (doesn't help that all the good vibes writing, while comendable, also got a bit much for me). It'sclearly aimed at younger player, or parents with kids, and both the art and gameplay are good (combat system is very original), and it has a pokemon style collection thing going for it, but at the end of the day, while I would still recommend (especially for younger kids), I can't say I loved it like I thought I would when I started it.
Game #3: Untitled Goose Game - Platform: PS4 - Date: 08/01/2022 - Time: 2hours - Rating: 7/10
Pretty cute game, definitely some fun to be had with some of the puzzles and there is a lot of charm in the goose and his village. I think a couple of the jobs are a little obtuse, and the collecting tasks can become quite slow and repetitive, but overall it's a neat package, with a fun endgame of running back through the village with the bell. I haven't finished off all of the post-game tasks yet, but I can imagine I'll be back to it soon enough if I get ahead of myself. I think it's probably a little too barebones for the asking price, so grabbing on sale was a good idea, but there's definitely an enjoyable core here that I can see being turned into a more substantial goose experience.
HD Remakes for both THPS games are fantastic. Both Hitman 1 & 2 were played doing "The Classics" challenge in one run (Silent Assassin, Suit Only, Sniper Assassination Only, Targets Only). Codename 47 has a few fantastic levels, but they are buried behind subpar levels and a lot of jank in terms of controls.
Just wanted to drop in and say y'all are dope. I've seen these threads every year and keep thinking I should partake, but things tend to keep me from doing so - lack of time, life getting in the way, knowing I'd procrastinate, etc.
4. Firewatch (Xbox Cloud Gaming) | 10 Jan - 4.5 hrs | 8/10
Great, quick little experience. Love playing these shorter experiences that tend to be very different than typical AAA stuff, and after finishing Outer Worlds, browsed through the GP catalog to see what could fill this role, and decided to check out this one, knowing that it had good reviews a few years ago, and I'm glad I did. Really enjoyed the no-waypoint style exploration, and the fact that the entire game's story was told through radio calls with a person you never actually meet is very novel, and surprisingly it all comes together and works. My only real problem with it is I did feel that the ending and the twist did come a bit abruptly, and maybe were a bit rushed. This also happened to be the fourth game I've beat entirely using cloud gaming - the technology is coming along.
Didn't hit this up until now because I wanted to let people claim their spots. All scores out of 5.
1: Shin Megami Tensei V. End: 1/1/2022 (4)
I tried desperately to finish this game in 2021, but was unable to do so. I wanted a fresh start. I can't hold that against this game, which absolutely tries to reimagine the franchise with a more open-world design that doesn't always work (I spent a lot of time being lost and trying to figure out where I needed to go next), but I give them points for doing something different.
2: Record of Lodoss War: Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth. End: 1/2/2022 (3)
This game crashed on me. Multiple times. I still managed to beat this rather enjoyable game, despite having no history with Record of Lodoss War (I hope to correct that later). I found the gameplay itself enjoyable.
3: Resident Evil Village. End: 1/10/2022. (4)
I'm usually not one for FPS games, but I had to dive back into the world of Resident Evil. There are some legitimately tense moments in this game.
Interesting little puzzle game. Pretty cool you can see the person you're unpacking (that's the name of the videogame) grow up. I didn't get all the achievements but I'm guessing cleanup on those is probably 30 min to a hour.
