52 Games. 1 Year. 2021.

Phendrana · Jan 13, 2021

I'm playing less and less games each year it seems, but let's try again anyway.

2018: 40 games
2019: 25 games

medyej · Jan 13, 2021

Phendrana said:
01. Subnautica

What an absolutely incredible game. It's been on my radar for years (and especially after I started hearing comparisons to Outer Wilds), but I kept putting it off because I heard it was better on PC and didn't have mine set up. And then my housemate randomly started playing it on PS5 and after a few hours of watching I HAD to follow suit.

The game is beautiful and relaxing, but also thrilling and utterly terrifying.

The basic premise is that your spaceship has crash landed on an uncharted ocean planet, and you have to try and find a way to survive until rescue comes. Beyond setting that stage, the game lets you figure out most other things for yourself.

You are immediately free to explore the ocean to your heart's content with only the obvious limits of your technology halting your progress. You have to find food and water. You have to start searching for materials that you can use to construct new machines which allow you to extend yourself even further. Generally I'm not super huge on these 'Survival' elements, but it works really well here. The basic gameplay loop is super solid, and I felt that I was always making good progress whether I was just gathering materials or following the story cues.

Yes, there is story. It's mostly conveyed through written and audio logs, but there are some more explicit 'story moments' as well. It's all married perfectly with the open structure of the game. Personally I was super intrigued very early into my first play session, and there were enough seeds from there on out to keep me engaged and wanting to uncover the mystery all the way to the end. It can't be overstated how much the setting and atmosphere enhanced everything for me though, so ymmv.

Ultimately, this is easily one of the best open world games I've ever played, and one that I hope becomes very influential in the future. I can see now why it's so often recommended to fans of Outer Wilds and vice versa. I feel that both games have roughly the same ingredients, but wildly different amounts of each one? Subnautica's mystery is nowhere near as central to the experience as in Outer Wilds (and you won't be solving environmental puzzles), but the regular sense of awe and freedom of exploration is definitely there.

For some more mainstream comparisons, I'd say that Subnautica is like a mixture of Breath of the Wild and Minecraft, with an atmosphere that varies between Abzu and BioShock's Rapture. In addition, this has scared me more than most of the horror games I've played. Deep, black water is horrifying to me at the best of times, but because this isn't Earth's ocean, you never really know what could around the corner. It can be spooky as fuck hearing a weird noise while being surrounded by water from all sides, let me tell you.

I feel that this is as much as I can say without giving too much away, but...AMAZING experience. 9.5/10, easy Top ~20 game for me.

Great writeup and totally agreed. Subnautica is just an amazing experience!

djinn · Jan 13, 2021

Phendrana said:
01. Subnautica

What an absolutely incredible game. It's been on my radar for years (and especially after I started hearing comparisons to Outer Wilds), but I kept putting it off because I heard it was better on PC and didn't have mine set up. And then my housemate randomly started playing it on PS5 and after a few hours of watching I HAD to follow suit.

The game is beautiful and relaxing, but also thrilling and utterly terrifying.

The basic premise is that your spaceship has crash landed on an uncharted ocean planet, and you have to try and find a way to survive until rescue comes. Beyond setting that stage, the game lets you figure out most other things for yourself.

You are immediately free to explore the ocean to your heart's content with only the obvious limits of your technology halting your progress. You have to find food and water. You have to start searching for materials that you can use to construct new machines which allow you to extend yourself even further. Generally I'm not super huge on these 'Survival' elements, but it works really well here. The basic gameplay loop is super solid, and I felt that I was always making good progress whether I was just gathering materials or following the story cues.

Yes, there is story. It's mostly conveyed through written and audio logs, but there are some more explicit 'story moments' as well. It's all married perfectly with the open structure of the game. Personally I was super intrigued very early into my first play session, and there were enough seeds from there on out to keep me engaged and wanting to uncover the mystery all the way to the end. It can't be overstated how much the setting and atmosphere enhanced everything for me though, so ymmv.

Ultimately, this is easily one of the best open world games I've ever played, and one that I hope becomes very influential in the future. I can see now why it's so often recommended to fans of Outer Wilds and vice versa. I feel that both games have roughly the same ingredients, but wildly different amounts of each one? Subnautica's mystery is nowhere near as central to the experience as in Outer Wilds (and you won't be solving environmental puzzles), but the regular sense of awe and freedom of exploration is definitely there.

For some more mainstream comparisons, I'd say that Subnautica is like a mixture of Breath of the Wild and Minecraft, with an atmosphere that varies between Abzu and BioShock's Rapture. In addition, this has scared me more than most of the horror games I've played. Deep, black water is horrifying to me at the best of times, but because this isn't Earth's ocean, you never really know what could around the corner. It can be spooky as fuck hearing a weird noise while being surrounded by water from all sides, let me tell you.

I feel that this is as much as I can say without giving too much away, but...AMAZING experience. 9.5/10, easy Top ~20 game for me.

Love this game. Would love to go back to it.

Deleted member 32615 · Jan 13, 2021

Game 3: Cyberpunk 2077 (PC) (19 Hours) (3/5) (January 13th, 2021)
Cyberpunk 2077 is both one of the best and worst games I've played in a very long time. A lot of it's launch issues and bugs that plagued the game initially I luckily missed (Having played right after hotfix 1.0.6 released) but oh my god, this game is one unfinished buggy mess. First, the good of Cyberpunk, which stems from the world design and it's story. The story of Cyberpunk, while inconsistent, contains some of the most engaging and interesting characters in any game I've played. Panam and Jackie are two of my all time favourite video game characters and I relished every opportunity to interact with them while Johnny Silverhand very well might be my all time favourite. The animators and actors bring these characters to life and the writers make their struggles real and something you're genuinely engaged in. The world of Cyberpunk is absolutely beautiful, but also something I feel could be used better. Places like Pacifica and the Badlands are all beautiful and have lots of content to explore while also being genuinely interesting locations. I do wish that Cyberpunk let us see more futuristic locations, like a zoo or a stadium, but that's something that COULD be added by DLC. The missions of Cyberpunk are also one of it's strong points. Whether it's invading the tower of the biggest corporation in Night City or taking down snipers so your partner in crime can complete his objective in the middle of a beautiful float parade.

It sounds like I love the game right? And deep down I do, and I think in a years time this game could genuinely be one of the best open world RPG's of all time, but oh my god this game is just so unfinished. Graphical issues persist even at the highest settings, audio issues happen almost all the time. If you steal a car too fast you'll have another persons in your face, missions that require you to wait can bug and never spawn, text options from 2 missions ago can persist into another mission, characters can disappear for no reason, the sky can have something blocking the sun. It's just unfinished and honestly not a finished product. From all reports the PS4 and XBO versions are both unplayable right now.

I wish this game was better, I really do, but for now I think it's not worth buying considering how easy it is to get a gamebreaking bug. Buy it in a years time, and hopefully it will be better.

No idea what to play next now! Maybe I'll jump into Mario Sunshine

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Baircade · Jan 13, 2021

Finally tempted to go hard this year though I only got to 35 games last year despite the pandemic... Anyway:

- Call of the Sea
- Little Nightmares Complete Edition
- Man of Medan
- Sewer Rave
- Sheepo
- Halo Combat Evolved: Anniversary Edition
- Donut County
- Tetris Effect Connected
- Strange Brigade
- Blood & Bacon
- Golf With Your Friends
- Little Nightmares 2
- Monster Hunter World
- Valheim
- Grindstone
- Bowser's Fury

Tizoc · Jan 13, 2021

12. Psychonauts

Finally got around to playing this and really enjoyed it. It is an Action Adventure game ala Legend of Zelda, where progression involves getting upgrades and abilities that you can use to clear some areas or solve light puzzles. There's some decent platforming as well.
Really solid game overall.

vitormg · Jan 13, 2021

I'm reserving this post for my haul this year. Last year I managed only 18 games, but I am confident to be able to beat the challenge this year.

So far I have beat:
1. Celeste (Farewell) (Steam) | Jan 13 - 11hours | Score: 5/5
I have beat the main game twice already, first on PC when it came out, and then on Switch, after the new DLC came up. This time, I was clearing the DLC on Steam as well (went for all achievements too), so I have beat the game 100% twice now. I love this game. The core mechanics are incredibly fun, the music is spectacular and the story is nice. Was my goty 2018.

2. Children of Morta (PC Gamepass) | Jan 14 - 14hours | Score: 4/5
I really enjoyed the narration here, makes things sound so much more interesting. The ranged gameplay is solid, and my main characters were Linda (archer) and Lucy (mage). I liked both of them a lot. The melee combat, however, was not my cup of tea, and all the other characters were kind of left aside by me, aside from experimenting and grinding some permanent buffs. A solid game overall.

3. Deliver Us The Moon (PC Gamepass) | Jan 16 - 5hours | Score: 4.5/5
This is the second time I beat it in less than a year. Last time it was with my old PC build, and after seeing a poster mentioning this game, I had the urge to come back to it with my new components. This game is truly beautiful. It's an amazing sci-fi experience with a great plot, great music and great visuals. It's easily recommendable to anyone who is into sci-fi and space entertainment. I really enjoyed it.

4. Picross S [picross puzzles] (Switch) | Jan 18 - 25hours | Score: 4.5/5
I have finally dove into the world of Picross. I've seen it over the years since I've always had nintendo portable systems, but never really tried it. After browsing the e-shop on late December and seeing it was really inexpensive, I decided to give it a go. I'm glad I did. It scratches a similar itch of sudoku puzzles, which I really like. It still has an entire "mega picross" mode that I am expecting to take another 25-30h of my life soon, but I'll consider beating all picross puzzles without any assistance a game on its own. Solid experience, with maybe only a few gripes with its UI.

The Bear · Jan 14, 2021

Optional Objectives · Jan 14, 2021

5. Tetrageddon Games- 3/5

This is part game, part container for other games, part apocalyptic panic Windows 95 simulator. Anyone can play it at tetrageddon.com/ Just start clicking around and see what you can make happen, what's there buried in the site!

Amidst all the 90s spam and pop-up inspired chaos, there is certainly a game here. I like the curiosity that it inspired for me - kind of a freeware Hypnospace Outlaw (which I still would like to finish, but which is more of a time investment). It's part period piece, part artwork, all in Nathalie Lawhead's mode of expression. The collected unlockable games that are included are in this vein, too. Honestly, however, I prefer the "wrapper" to most of those other included games. I was more curious about how to get their password than to go through Itch.io and access them. That said, there's also something interesting about how Tetrageddon incorporates those itch.io pages for other games within itself - it's a simulated internet that seeps out into the "real" one, then back into more bounded game spaces.

Between Tetrageddon and Lawhead's other projects like Electric Zine Maker, I see her stuff in the vein of Anna Anthropy's Rise of the Videogame Zinesters. They're about personal expression, messiness, chance, and loose conditions around player creativity. It's both an ethos reminiscent of another time (which is reinforced by the 90s aesthetic) and one that's still expanding and powering games as a medium of creative expression.

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Chucat · Jan 14, 2021

1. Danganronpa V3

This is the third mainline installment in the Danganronpa series. A game in which you, playing as a high school student trapped somewhere with a bunch of other high school students watch as they murder each other and class trials are held to determine who did it, and how they did it. If you've ever played an Ace Attorney game, it's like that, except the testimony is in real time and you object by shooting the words with your evidence, and there's a ton of weird minigames and the sections between cases are full of talking and trying to work out the underlying plot of this game.

If you haven't played the first two though, the game will just be very, very confusing, both thematically and also plotwise. So if you look this up and decide to play it, just start with 1.

The actual mechanics of the class trials have changed up a fair bit. It's a pretty major mixed bag though. The most obvious and irritating change is that they've flipped what the left and right mouse buttons do as opposed to the previous games. I'll just say that it heavily messes with your muscle memory and will lead to a fair bit of health being lost through no real fault of your own. You're also given the option to lie, however, you don't actually know what your lie is going to even SAY until you prime it, and then you start just losing health until you fire it off or just game over, which is bad.

On the more positive side, Hangman's Gambit is better than its incarnation in 2, the mining minigame is decent, Psyche Taxi is more playable than the surfing game (though still just...slow), the mass debate scrum is extremely entertaining but sadly underused, and Argument Armament is just more of the rhythm game I hated in 1 and 2, but just slightly more playable.

The music is still extremely solid, the game looks nicer and the UI isn't the hellscape it was in 2, where I literally couldn't remember or read the characters names for most of it. The actual things I wanna talk about though (plot and characters and themes) will have to go in spoilers though, for obvious reasons.

Firstly, the characters. The game has by far the best student body to me. Kokichi is legitimately my fave character in any of these games by far. Part of it is just the cute purple haired aesthetic, part of it is just that he's just completely and utterly antagonistic and petty (but in an entertaining way), and part of it is he's pretty much responsible for my fave trial in the game. Angie massively grew on me as I played, the way she just shifted into this weird charismatic cult leader actually fit her personality and weird quirks. Kaito manages to be like Chiaki in that he's actually just...likeable. Pretty much everyone else with the exception of Miu (who just grated on me, but her being in contact with actual good characters made her more bearable) and Tsumugi (who is just a void) just ran the gamut from "Cool" to "Fine"

Monokuma continues to be a land of contrasts. The amount I like him depends on how much he deviates from his base 'personality' of being a hyperactive sadist with an almost Mary Sue level of control over everything. So, to me he was legitimately entertaining in the 4th and 5th trials of the game where he was, respectively, completely and utterly drained of any enthusiasm, and completely and utterly bamboozled by Kokichi. The rest of the game he was just...sorta fine.

The Monokubs on the other hand were actually a detriment to the game, besides some of Monodam's lines, I wanted them gone at pretty much all times. They actually pretty much made the game worse by existing. Since they ruined a really poignant part of the game (Gonta having a complete mental break about he realizes he committed a murder he has literally no memory of) by one of them yelling, during the mental break, that they were pregnant from one of the other monokubs and how their water was breaking and they were going to give birth (I wish I was making this up).

The plot starts of strong, having you play as a girl(!!!) and having a pretty strange murder. Then it turns out that you, the player character, actually did the murder (with the game only giving you vague implications) and then getting killed off and playing as yet another guy. It's an understatement to say I was mad, I almost wanted to stop playing then and there. Thankfully, the rest of the trials in the game were decent, though I still had this nagging thought in the back of my mind about how it'd be more fun to play as Kaede, but oh well.

The last trial is where everything goes off the rails, there's a deconstruction of the entire series done, which upon further thought, I actually found myself rather liking. The game's message is "Fiction can help shape and influence reality", and the reveal of the game is that pretty much the entire thing was fiction, the backstory was fake, the character's personalities were created just for the game and so on but then...it doesn't matter if the characters in the game used to be someone totally different in some random point before the time I spent 26 hours with them. I played an entire game with them, I like them based on that, not on some random traits they had before that I never saw them exhibit.

On the other hand the entire hope/despair thing just went right over my head. If someone threatened to murder me I still couldn't explain it.

All in all, the game is decent. It's nowhere near as good as around 90% of Ace Attorney. Besides the one major issue I had, there was nothing else massively annoying. I'd recommend trying it if you're a fan of the first two, but don't play it as your first DR game, or first...deduction VN thingy.

3/5

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Optional Objectives · Jan 15, 2021

6. Outer Wilds - 5/5

This is a beautiful game in art, music, and story. It can also be a very frustrating one, and it insists that players take it on its own terms. Physics are consistent and so are all the movements of the solar system. That can be pretty unforgiving, but it also can lead to some great emergent moments for the player's story. Outer Wilds is a very open space adventure game, with a mystery that wraps around the player. It's full of surprises and moments of revelation, which makes it a rare gem.

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Phendrana · Jan 15, 2021

02. A Short Hike
Switch | 11th Jan | ~5 or 6 hours, can't check yet

This is such a cute little game!

I played the entire thing in a few sessions over the course of the day, and it was just a nice chill experience. I hadn't heard much about A Short Hike other than that it shared some design sensibilities with Breath of the Wild (which I'd absolutely agree with), but it was actually the writing that surprised me the most. The dialogue is charming as hell, and the conversations between Claire and the other inhabitants of the island are regularly funny, touching or both.

The basic traversal also feels really good, and it can be so damn satisfying when you fly around from up high and land perfectly on the exact ledge you were aiming for. I dug it so much that I really took my time with the game and ended up collecting all of the feathers and almost all of the other collectables before finishing my first playthrough.

All that being said...it definitely didn't hit me emotionally anywhere near as hard as it seems to have for a lot of others. Even my housemate later mentioned that he was particularly affected by it, whereas for me it was cosy and full of good vibes, but didn't resonate quite on that level. Still well worth playing, though! 8/10

Main post here.

Saphirax · Jan 15, 2021

3. Agatha Christie - And Then There Were None (PC)

Of the three Agatha Christie games I've played this one has the worst gameplay by far. The game is buggy - I had one crash and a certain character seems to have misplaced his eyes. For the vast majority of the game I had to stare at his empty eye sockets. Unlike the previous two games, the dialogue in this game cannot be skipped. Inventory management is also notably worse. Given it was the first AC game by TAC that's hardly surprising. I do have a soft spot for the novel and the characters were much better in this game than in Evil under the Sun.

4. Utawarerumono: Prelude To The Fallen (PS4)

I like the Utawarerumono series, but I've only ever watched the anime of the first one. With the remake being localized, I could finally play the game. Prelude isn't as good as MoD and MoT. It has a lot of subplots that just feel shallow and even unfinished at times. I also wasn't a fan of how certain characters were portrayed. One even had a rather crass CG that popped up more than once. A lot gets thrown at you, often to the detriment of the game's storytelling. It's not a bad game per se, but it does pale in comparison to its sequels.

Whimsicalish · Jan 15, 2021

02 | Outer Wilds
PC Steam | Jan 15 | 18.5 hrs | 4/5

A fantastic experience if you have patience and you're okay starting from the beginning after death. Unfortunately, I got stressed in this game after avoidable deaths. It felt incredibly bad to me knowing you screwed up; if you were in the middle of something, welp, you had to start from the beginning and get to where you died. I envy others' patience.

I'm not saying this game is bad or it needed changes. Nothing like that! I loved the exploration. It was so cool to see all the changes in the universe in a single loop. After time, each planet was changing because of a force. One would lose sand, one broke apart in front of my eyes, etc. I enjoyed reading and learning the Nomai's story. There's a deep attention to detail in this game.

Sadly, I don't think the other half of the gameplay was for me. I'm the type of person that loves when I can save at any time on multiple files. I save constantly. It's a tick of mine lol.

You die in this game and you're sent to the beginning. It makes sense; I wouldn't change it. I simply don't think it was my type of game. I wished I could have savored it more, but it caused unnecessary stress. Still, I would encourage to give this one a try.

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Rhaknar · Jan 16, 2021

here we go again, Main Post.

Game #1 - World of Warcraft Shadowlands
Time: Ongoing
Platform: PC
Rating: ★★★★★

Starting the year (and the list) with the game I ended my 2020 one with, might aswell put it on the list now since I am still completely engaged with it, even after 3 months of playing (a rarity with wow expansions for me). So much so I bumped up the score from last year as I firmly believe this is up there with Legion and MoP as the best expansions in the game, and not even the lack of a new class is bothering me anymore. Really hoping me and my posse stick around for the second raid tier this time around.

Game #2 - Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order
Time: 20 hours
Platform: Xbox Series X
Rating: ★★★★★

What a delight this was, easily one of the best Star Wars games I've ever played, and one of my favorite games in the last few years. Fantastic action adventure with a mix of Uncharted (and Prince of Persia!) style traversal with Dark Souls combat and mechanics (enemies respawn when you rest and you have "estus flasks" for example), with a super meaty campaign spanning various gorgeous and intricate locales, great set pieces, great characters and a cool story, just overall one of those complete packages that just makes you hope for a sequel. Absolutely recommended.

Game #3 - Halo 3 ODST
Time: 7 hours
Platform: Xbox Series X
Rating: ★★★

A little torn on this one, as overall I did enjoy it, but the first half of the campaign wasnt doing much for me and the semi-open world hub thing they introduced ended up being more of a momentum/pace killer than anything. Still, I like the visuals (lot's of neon!), and the story and action pick up when the squad get together in the second half, and thankfully it never had any hair pulling frustrating sections like Halo 2, but at the same time, its a bit derivative and feels a little too "normal" with the City setting and the Call of Duty-esque marine squad, which is not what I come to Halo for. Still worth playing tho.

Game #4 - Little Nightmares
Time: 4 hours
Platform: Xbox Series X
Rating: ★★★★

This is a fantastic little horror game (no pun intended) that while not having the best gameplay, everything around it is so well made it elevates it past the point where the average gameplay would leave it at. The visuals are just flat out gorgeous, to the point where it looks like some sort of animated film, not in a super high poly Pixar way but more like those stop motion or lower budget CGI movis, something like Caroline. Lot's of cool depth of field tricks, some truly nightmare inducing monsters, and great looking environments really make the whole things a trip. It's good too because the actual gameplay is just average, and since there's qutie a bit of stealth involved, it falls into the "repeat section until you get it right" trap that many stealth games do. But it's short enough and like I said the athmosphere alone makes it worth playing. Oh and the music is fantastic.

Game #5 - Halo 4
Time: 8 hours
Platform: Xbox Series X
Rating: ★★★★

Hot take time because I absolutely loved Halo 4 even tho I hear the internet hates it. Right off the bat, I still have a hard time believing this was a 360 game, because if you told me this was a next-gen Halo game (as in, next gen after 360) I would just go "yeah that checks out". It looks amazing even today (the upres and framerate on the Series X / PC helps of course), I love the weapons as they feel and sound fantastic, plus there's a bunch of enw ones, I like the enemies, I loved the levels, just overall it was a blast and probably my favorite Halo so far along with 3 (and thankfully it doesnt have all the sound mixing bugs the previous games had). The story is nonsense and making Cortana an actual waifu is super weird, but I never much cared for the story in these games so for me it doesn't detract from it. It certainly got me super excited to finish out the series with 5 next.

Game #6 - Halo 5 Guardians
Time: 8 hours
Platform: Xbox Series X
Rating: ★★★★

Another fantastic 343 Industries Halo game... at least when it comes to gameplay and presentation, so let's start there. Much like Halo 4, but now with the added horsepower of the last gen behind it, the game is just gorgeous, with much bigger open space levels now (something Halo 4 suffered from) and a LOT more characters on screen, both enemies and your new permanent 4 man squad. Gameplay is probably the best in the series, as it improves on Halo 4 with new movies, even better weapons and better battles. Unfortunately the story is a bunch of cliche nonsense picking up from 4's "Cortana is going crazy!" thread and dialing it up to 11. At least it's different from the original trilogy I guess. Overall I loved it for it's gameplay and presentation, but the story is pretty bad. It's also a unexpected MGS2 situation where you don't actually play Master Chief much at all, which I don't mind but I imagine most fans didn't apreciate lol.

Game #7 - Sea of Solitude
Time: 4 hours
Platform: Xbox Series X
Rating: ★★★

Always hard to rate these types of games, as it feels weird to "rate" something that is clearly very personal and touches on hard subjects like depression and bullying (the developer has said the game is partically based on a past abusive relationship but also a lot of it is fictionional), but thankfully the actual game itself is quite good I think. The visuals are gorgeous, using a very Wind Waker-esque art style with some truly fantastic monster and world designs, but the gameplay is serviceable at best. It does the job and the game has a lot more gameplay going for it than most of these type of games which tend to be more walking sims, but it's still nothing remarkable. But, it's a very touching (if hard to play since again, it touches on a lot of subects that hit a little too close to home for me) and a good metaphor for mental health, so for that and the visuals alone, it's very worth playing, as long as you can handle the themes.

Game #8 - Bloodstained Ritual of the Night
Time:16 hours
Platform: Switch
Rating: ★★★★

Finally got around to play this, took me long enough for being such a metroidvania fanboy, and it's pretty fucking fantastic as one would expect from Igarashi himself, but unfortunately the Switch version is still pretty shoddy even after numerous patches so I can't go the 5/5 on it, at least not the version I played. Game wise it's just a super solid throwback to Symphony of the Night, with a TON of weapons and spells to collect, a gigantic map and really good gameplay (if a little outdated in my opinion, it feels a bit stiff). Like I said, the Switch version is... ok, it's certainly playable but the graphical fidelity takes a HUGE hit, so unless you really want to play it portable (like I did, at work), just play a "proper" version because the game itself is one of the best of the genre.

Game #9 - Panzer Dragoon Remake
Time: 1 hour
Platform: Switch
Rating: ★★

One of those cases where the past should stay in the past, as any fond memories I might had of this one time classic are pretty much shattered by replaying it in 2021. Incredibly short and the on-rails shooting gameplay has not aged well at all, it's at least pretty most of the time (at least playing portable on Switch, not so much on a TV) and the music is still fantastic, but this is something you should only get with a deep discount in my opinion, if just to get that one hour of nostalgia out of the way.

Game #10 - Vigil The Longest Night
Time: 16 hours
Platform: Switch
Rating: ★★★★

Finally got around to finish this after restarting it recently with the latest update, as unfortunately when I got it last year the game was in a horrible state on the Switch and I dropped it. But going back to it and finally finishing it now that it's for the most part fixed, this is one of the best metroidvanias that came out recently, with a fantastic (and immense) world, tons of spells and weapons to get, various skill tress for different playstyles, an awesome gothic-eldricht look, just pretty much all you want from one of these "2d Souls" games. Much like Bloodstained I can't go 5 stars because I played the Switch version which even tho it was patched a lot which is good, it's still certainly not perfect and the frame rate still goes wonky at times, but the game itself is a must play for fans of the genre.

Game #11 - Far Lone Sails
Time: 3 hours
Platform: Switch
Rating: ★★★★★

This was an absolute gem, one of my favorite indie games (hell, games in general) in awhile, this serene 2d adventure has you conduct a steampunk-y land ship through some sort of post-apocalypse minus all the monsters and, well, anything really, it's just you, your ship and the open land. The game is very simple, as it boils down to simple tasks you can perform on the ship (fuel it, put out fires, occasional repairs, pick up trash to fuel your engine, etc) and solving ocasional puzzles outside the ship as you encounter roadblocks, but it's so well executed, and coupled with the gorgeous graphics (love the monochromatic with a splash of color here and there look) and chill soundtrack, all make up for a truly special experience. It's a shorty but very well worth going through, highly recommended.

Game #12 - Warhammer Chaosbane
Time: 11+ hours
Platform: PC
Rating: ★★★

Was torn on giving this 3 or 4, but at the end of the day, even tho I ended up enoying it quite a bit, it doesn't really do anything particularly new or exciting. The story mode (which you need to do to unlock all the endgame systems) was enjoyable enough, taking me about 11 hours to finish on very hard (there are harder difficulties to unlock later on). The classes don't really come into their own until a few hours in and you unlock some skills and especially the "god skills" tree, but once they do I found my summoner elf did what I wanted the class to do. It looks quite good, with great environments and monsters, but the maps do repeat themselves A LOT which is a shame. There are quite a few end game systems, from a boss mode, to the standard instanced random zones with affixes and a tower you can climb for better and better loot, so it seems competent on that end aswell. That's really the story of the game I guess, it's a well made, competent action rpg, a lot more on the casual side than soemthing like POE, but if you are itching for another one of those, you can probably get quite a bit of fun out of it, if only for the story mode.

Game #13 - Warhammer Chaosbane: tomb Kings
Time: 2 hours
Platform: PC
Rating: ★

Between the super short length and the fact its 10€ (or part of the season pass, which itself already annoyed me for having a skill tree as dlc...yeah this game's DLC is wack and one of the reasons I went 3 stars instead of 4 earlier), the repetitive fetch quests and uninstering new skills it adds (which you will most likely never use since skill points are limited and it's already hard to work out builds around), this dlc really feels like it should have been a free update (in fact this dlc is called chapter 5, and later the game DID get a free chapter 6 update!). Only for completionists.

Game #14 - Pinstripe
Time: 3 hours
Platform: Switch
Rating: ★★★★

Really enjoyed this one, one of those rare gems that goes everything it sets out to do perfectly, doesn't overstay it's welcome and is a joy to play and go through. Essencially a 2D platform puzzle game, with a splash of action here and there (you have a slingshot you mostly use for puzzles but also for somelight combat), it has a simple but very effective story of a father trying to save his daughter from the titular Pinstripe, and with a very welcome 3 hour runtime, it keeps you engaged with a few different puzzle types and a host of cool (and very well voice acted) characters.It also looks absolutely gorgeous with a 2D artstyle reminiscent of Nightmare Before Christmas or Coroline (in fact the game itself is very "children's horror" like those movies) and has a fantastic soundtrack. Like I said, it does everything well and is very easy to recommend for fans of the genre.

Game #15 - Loop Hero
Time: 30+ hours
Platform: PC
Rating: ★★★★

A little bittersweet on this one, as I absolutely loved it for 90% of my time with it, but the last chapter / endgame part really soured me and turned the game into something that wasn't what I had enjoyed for the previous 30 or so hours. Still, it's a fantastic roguelike, a sort of dungeons & dragons simulator mixed with idle clicker mixed with town management, it's alot but it all works in this super addictive mesh that is super strong on the "just one more go" factor. The art is a bit ugly but actually works for what it's doing and the soundtrack is fantastic. It's a bit repetitive as most roguelikes are, and it gets very grindy near the end, and like I said near the end the gameplay pivots to something I didn't enjoy (I don't want to spoil it) but in the end, it's cheap and I got a ton of value out of it, and loved most of it, so I would still easily recommend it.

Game #16 - Call of the Sea
Time: 6 hours
Platform: Xbox Series X
Rating: ★★★

This was a really cool puzzle adventure that once again seems like a perfect fit for Gamepass (where I played it), as otherwise I probably wouldn't have tried it, and I guess would have been worse of because of it. The story is pretty cool and the visuals are gorgeous, but some of the puzzles were real head-scratchers that had me reach for a guide as I don't really have much patience for puzzles these days, even if overall I don't think it's that hard. It's also not very long so it's easy to recommend, even if it doesn't do anything particularly amazing, it's still worth experiencing, especially if you like puzzle games.

Game #17 - Haven
Time: 14 hours
Platform: Xbox Series X
Rating: ★★★★★

Wonderful surprise as I wasn't really sure what to expect of this and it ended up being one of my favorite games in a long time. An action rpg with some truly unique gameplay, both in traversal and combat, with gorgeous visuals and really strong writing, telling a simple tale of a young couple trying to escape their Romeo & Juliet style matchmaking society, it's not often you see a videogame focused solely on a couple's relationship, but both protagonists are super cute (and super horny lol) and the writing is really good, it all feels like a joy to play and experience. I wish there was a bit more variety in the locations you explore, but that's not enough to sour me on the game, and I loved it from begining to end.

Game #18 - Limbo
Time: 4 hours
Platform: Switch
Rating: ★★★★★

A modern day classic that spawned a horde of clones ever since it came out back in 2010, and even 10 years later, it totally holds up, having a perfect mix of amazing athmosphere, gorgeous graphics, amazing sound design and fantastic puzzles. It looks particularly good on the Switch's screen as many 2D games do, and I just had a blast with it just like I had back when I first played it. HIghly recommended both for first timers or just to replay in 2021.

Game #19 - Outriders
Time: 30+ hours
Platform: Xbox Series X
Rating: ★★★★

Another good game marred by being always online and having a bad launch, it really is a trend these days huh? Anyway, Outriders is a very solid, very fun third person "looter shooter", especially if you play co-op. Great skill system, ton of gear and weapons to collect, it basically checks all the boxes you would want from the genre. It's also VERY janky, feels a bit "loose" to play, it looks good but not amazing, basically a B-Tier game, but I say that with the best intention. I did everything up to endgame where the game unfortunately kinda lost me since the endgame systems don't line up with how I like to play it, but I had a blast finishing it and, hey... its on gamepass (xbox only unfortunately), which honestly makes me more forgiving of its flaws and especially of its launch issues. I would say it's 4/5 on Gamepass, 3/5 for 60€ >_>

Game #20 - Monster Hunter Rise
Time: Ongoing
Platform: Switch
Rating: ★★★★★

Still going strong with this one, and as long as Capcom keeps pumping out the monthly updates, I'll keep going back. A natural progression from World, keeping all of it's quality of life changes and introducing the wirebug mehcanic, which gives unprecedented movement options (to the point its actually hard to go back to previous games), Rise is a full fledged sequel on a much weaker hardward (until the PC version that is), but somehow still having gorgeous visuals, fantastic gameplay and a ton of monsters to hunt (and more added all the time). Kudos for "transmog" or layered armors being added much sooner this time around too.

Game #21 - Resident Evil 8
Time: 11 hours
Platform: Xbox Series X
Rating: ★★★★★

Fantastic sequel (direct sequel at that) to RE7, picking up Ethan's story years later and ramping up the craziness to 11. The first person gameplay still works shockingly well, it's a bigger game than 7, both in size and scope, and the story really goes crazy (in a good way in my opinion), making this one a easy winner in the franchise, with an ending that introduces some real "break from the past" scenarios for future games (except of course when they just remake old ones for nostalgia *cough*RE4*cought*). Perfect length, perfect pacing, great locations, fantastic cast of weirdos and the usual RE puzzles and action you expect, I love this and can't wait to see what they do next.

Game #22 - The Medium
Time: 8 hours
Platform: Xbox Series X
Rating: ★★★★

Bloober is back with another horror game, this time a third person adventure very inspired by more old school fixed camera games like Silent Hill or the first few Resident Evils. It's big gimmick, that you play in two realities at the same time (thus making it impossible for older consoles to handle it), ended up being just that, a gimmick, but it still has some cool puzzles around that, especially when it just becomes a normal game where you interact with both realities seperately and solve puzzles in one that affect the other. Visuals are gorgeous at times (and quite past-gen at other times) and I liked the story, even tho it doesnt necesarily land every dramatic beat, I like how hard Bloober goes in their narratives, so I respect it. I really liked it but can just as easily see people not enjoy the old school camera and lack of action.

Game #23 - Blair Witch
Time: 5 hours
Platform: Xbox Series X
Rating: ★★★

Another Bloober joint, this is another cool horror game by the studio, although it never fulfills on all it's promises. One thing I do like about Bloober games is that they always have a different feel to them, with unique mechanics, and this one is no different rellying heavily on a dog (who is a very good boy) who accompanies you on your mind fucky journey and you can command. Unfortunately they never do much with this system, and at just around 4-5 hours long, it ends being a very lienar horror experience, but it does some great psychological stuff during it, and tells a cool story (as usual, Bloober goes hard on the themes they choose, for better or worse). I think it's better than Layers of Fear but I prefer The Medium overall (I haven't played Observer).

Game #24 - Mass Effect (Legendary Edition)
Time: 31 hours
Platform: Xbox Series X
Rating: ★★★★

Still an absolute classic and the remaster is great, but there is a lot of small things that really didn't age well (or were ever good to begin with) that doesn't let me go the full monty. The obvious one off the bat, the Mako still sucks, everything about how it handles and the barren planets you visit, is just a missed opportunity and it's no wonder the scrapped it in later games. The shooting doesn't feel particularly great (especially compared to later games), but the story, writing, voice acting and main quests are all still fantastic, and I still had a blast going through it. Oh and the DLC isn't very good either, I only mention it because the next games have fantastic dlc.

Game #25 - Mass Effect 2 (Legendary Edition)
Time: 50 hours
Platform: Xbox Series X
Rating: ★★★★★

Now that I've finally played the third game, I still maintain 2 is my favorite in the series. A fantastic sequel that improves on everything from the first game, the gameplay is much better, it looks fantastic (2 and 3 really look good in this remaster), and I love the "team assembly for a suicide mission" plot (I know many hate it tho lol). Lair of the Shadow Broker is a great DLC also.

Game #26 - Mass Effect 3 (Legendary Edition)
Time: 45 hours
Platform: Xbox Series X
Rating: ★★★★★

First time I've played this one, and the first few hours actually annoyed me with some new systems they introduce (like the stupid reaper hunters in space), but eventually it finds it's footing, and I ended up loving it. Probably the best playing of the three, certainly the best looking, I didn't like the story as much as the second one, but it still has some great quests, wraps up the trilogy in a nice way, and pretty much all of it's DLC is the same caliber as Lair of the Shadow Broker so overall it's a great package.

Game #27 - The Wild at Heart
Time: 12 hours
Platform: Xbox Series X
Rating: ★★★★

This was a wonderful pikmin clone (don't see many of those) that pretty much nails everything it's going for, from the delightful 2d art style, the cool puzzle gameplay involving your little "pikmin army", a wholesome story and cast, just a very well made, and very delightful game that is a joy to go through. The day and night cycle might get a little annoying for some but it didn't really bother me, and it's not very long thus never overstays it's welcome. Easy recomendation if you to scratch that pikmin itch, especially since it's on gamepass.

Game #28 - Monster Train
Time: Ongoing
Platform: PC
Rating: ★★★★★

Hadn't played this in some months after it being my GOTY last year, and by golly it has gotten some fantastic updates. Basically every deck has a new champion now, with both new cards and of course a new gimick per champion, and most of the cards got reworked or buffed, making the whole thing feel like a whole new game almost. It's still my favorite deckbuilding roguelike (sorry Slay the Spire), and now that I'm back into it again, I really need to get the DLC for the new champion.

Game #29 - Spiritfarer
Time: 25 hours
Platform: Xbox Series X
Rating: ★★★★

Gamepass continues to deliver on the indie front, with another great game in Spiritfarer, a 2d platformer / sim game with amazing art style and a whole lot of heart. You play as Stella, and your job is to ferry various animal souls to the afterlife, and you do this by building up your boat with various houses and crops for them to live their last few days happily. It's really a genious idea, and it has everything you'd expect from a sim, from farming to fishing, mining and exploration, and relationships. This last one actually touches on some pretty heavy themes (surprisingly given the cartoony look of the game), and overall I just loved going through it, especially when it's a genre I usually apreciate from a distance but don't really get engaged with.

Game #30 - Psychonauts
Time: 12 hours
Platform: Xbox Series X
Rating: ★★★★

Finally got around to play this in anticipation for the sequel and I wasn't dissapointed, it really is a great game and worthy of it's cult classic status. Fantastic writing (which is actually funny) and voice acting, super imaginative levels, great art style and a wacky story are slightly marred by just ok gameplay, and the infamous Meat Circus last level is as bad as I had feared and it actually makes me dock a point from my score (that's how bad it is), but the game was still very worth playing, especially since Xbox's Backwards compatability looks gorgeous in 4k (except the cinematics which look awful). If they tighten up the gameplay in the sequel and don't have any more obnoxious levels like MEat Circus it's going to be another classic for sure.

Game #31 - Wolfenstein The New Order
Time: 11 hours
Platform: Xbox Series X
Rating: ★★★★

First in the Machine Games take on the Wolfenstein series and I really like what they did with the franchise, giving it a lot more narrative (maybe a little too much as all the walk and talk segments actually detract from the experience in my opinion), fantastic gameplay and really good visuals that still hold up today (I was shocked when I found out it was originally a 360 era game), its a super tight package and really made Wolfenstein one of my favorite FPS series right now.

Game #32 - Wolfenstein The Old Blood
Time: 5 hours
Platform: Xbox Series X
Rating: ★★★★

A prequel to New Order that feels more like a standalone expansion that a whole new game, it takes what Machine Games made with New Order and expands it gameplay wise, while scalling back on the campaign length (not in small part because it loses a lot of the walk and talk sections that sometimes dragged the first game down). It actually does a lot of new mechanics which I liked, and leans A LOT more on the supernatural aspect of the series which I really liked (unfortunately New Colossus does not), and whileI was tempted to give it a lower score since it's so much shorter, I feel the overall package is still great and still very much worth playing.

Game #33 - Morkredd
Time: 5 hours
Platform: Xbox Series X
Rating: ★★

This was a really cool puzzle game where you control two characters at once (or play it co-op I guess) navigating various light and darkness based puzzles, with some really good visuals and level design, except the last level is one of the worst levels I've ever played in a game, so bad in fact that it's one of those cases where it actually drags down the whole experience, thus it drags down the game itself in my opinion, which is a shame.

Game #34 - Final Fantasy XIV Shadowbringers (Patches 5.2-5.55)
Time: 30+ hours
Platform: PC
Rating: ★★★★

Got back into Shadowbringers during the 14 day trial they had going recently (no, not because of the Blizzard fiasco...), which were a godsend as it allowed me to finish up the Main Story Quest just in time for Endwalker in November. Unfortunately, as much as I love FFXIV, the Shadowbringers post-MSQ patch content was in line with the expansion itself, which was for me, dissapointing and easily my least favorite of the expansions. None of the story beats worked for me, and even the dungeons (except one) weren't very good. The new Trial is fantastic at least, but I'm just glad to be done with Shadowbringers and I'm still very excited for Endwalker, especially since it will be my first "live" expansion.

Game #35 - Wolcen (Arise patch)
Time: 30+ hours
Platform: PC
Rating: ★★★★

I was one of the few big fans of Wolcen back on release, even if it had a TON of problems when it launched, and going back to it after it had quite a few patches and work done to it, I'm very glad to see where it's at these days. Most of the major bugs seem gone, they introduced some new mechanics and a new main game mode (I made a whole new characters and went through the story mode to get to endgame with the new stuff), and most importantly for me, changed/buffed minions a lot so that alone made it worth playing again. It still looks and feels fantastic in my opinion, one of the best in the genre in that sense, unfortunately they missed the opportunity to introduce more new skills, which I thought would be a given seeing how the skills works in the game. Maybe one day.

Game #36 - Pokemon Unite
Time: 15+ hours
Platform: Switch
Rating: ★★★

Surprisingly fun console moba, but also incredibly unbalanced and severely lacking in content, Pokemon Unite was a lot of fun for a few hours and I'll probably go back to it eventually when it has more content. But for now, one arena and only 21 heroes feels very barebones, and like I said, a lot of the heroes are borderline broken. Still, its F2P so you can probably get your "money's worth" out of it.

Game #37 - Islanders
Time: Ongoing
Platform: Switch
Rating: ★★★★★

Tetris meets Sim City in this minimalist city builder, and while the concept is simple, the execution is fantastic and utterly addictive. The Tetris comparison became even more apt after I realized the goal of the game is not to "beat it" and more to get the highest score possible, as you basically restart from the start when you get to a point where you can't make any more progress on the islands. At first this put me off, but just as fast I shrugged it off and started the game over again, now with more knowledge of what each "piece" does and interacts with other "pieces" (or buildings if you prefer) and the whole thing clicked all over again. Just a fantastic time waster, and super cheap too.

Game #38 - Undermine
Time: 25 hours
Platform: Switch
Rating: ★★★★★

Easily my favorite roguelike since Hades, it checks all the boxes the genre needs to be great: fantastic "just one more run" feeling, great pixel art, snappy gameplay focused more on getting gold than combat (but still has tons of combat upgrades), some of the best meta progression in the genre, and lots of bonus stuff to do outside the main game runs (and post game), just an overall super well made package that while not doing anything new, does everything perfectly (reminds me of Enter the Gungeon where I also finished it in about 25 hours, but could have played the side stuff much more if I wanted).

Game #39 - Diablo 2 Resurrected
Time: Ongoing
Platform: Switch
Rating: ★★★★

Great remaster of a very dated game in my opinion, but then again I never really had any nostalgia for it. Looks and runs great on Switch, and it's definitely fun but it has a lot of outdated mechanics in my opinion that often drags the experience down.

Game #40 - Astro's Playroom
Time: 3 hours
Platform: Playstation 5
Rating: ★★★

This was a very cute 3d platformer that acts basically as a demo for the new dual sense controller, and your enjoyment with it will depend how much you like (or don't like) the various features of the Playstation controller. I'm not a fan of motion controls and whatnot so a lot of it was lost on me, but all the little nostalgia details were great, it plays well enough and looks good (but nothing that couldn't be done on a PS4 mind you), and hey it's free so can't complain much.

Game #41 - Spider-Man Remastered
Time: 25 hours
Platform: Playstation 5
Rating: ★★★★★

Replay for this one, and it's still easily one of my favorite games in years, if not ever. Just a fantastic love letter to Spidey fans, the MJ stealth levels are still shit and so are the puzzle-y activies, but nothing that detracts from the overall experience.The remaster is great, especially in RT performance mode, as you get sweet 60fps Spidey with all the cool RT reflections and shit.

Game #42 - Spider-Man The Heist
Time: 3 hours
Platform: Playstation 5
Rating: ★★★★

The three episode DLC sort of feels like it should have been one big expansion, but it is what it is. Cool start to the story with Black Cat finally showing up for some shenanigans after being teased in the main game. Some cool new side activities and the same level of polish from the main game make this a great first DLC. My only issue (that gets worse as the DLCs continue) is that it feels very low stakes compared to the main game.

Game #43 - Spider-Man Turf Wars
Time: 3 hours
Platform: Playstation 5
Rating: ★★★

The story continues with a lot more focus on the mafia wars, and it loses me a bit here because like I said, the whole thing feels a lot less important than the main game, as it focuses on Hammerhead, not exactly the best of Spidey's villains. Cool stuff with Yuri tho.

Game #44 - Spider-Man Silver Lining
Time: 3 hours
Platform: Playstation 5
Rating: ★★★★

The conclusion to the DLC expansions and it picks back up again with Silver Sable returning from the main game for some fun times with Spidey. Again, Hammerhead is not my favorite, but it wraps up nicely, and all the new crimes and challenges are fun.

Game #45 - Spider-Man Miles Morales
Time: 15 hours
Platform: Playstation 5
Rating: ★★★★★

Great sequel to Spider-Man, albeit a shorter and more down to earth one, nevertheless this does everything the first game did, and amps it up a notch with new moves based on Miles's bioelectric powers, powered by the same dark magic tech those Insomniac guys are using (more on that later with Ratchet) that makes this look the way it does, with ray tracing, and still run at 60. I just wish it was a "full blown sequel" instead of a smaller project (it really feels like a smaller game in general and not just length wise, there's not many villains in it for example which bummed me out), but I guess that's what next year's game is for.

Game #46 - Returnal
Time: 50 hours
Platform: Playstation 5
Rating: ★★★★★

Wow, this would easily have been by surprise of the year if not for GotG later, but at the very least I feel really silly for mocking it at launch for being a "$70 roguelike lol". Super addictive fast paced third person shooter with fantastic visuals and rock hard difficulty, with a dash (or more) of From's Souls games sprinkled in (in spirit if anything), it got a smidge too difficult and frustrating near the end (as do most Souls-likes for me, which this isn't... but sorta-kinda is... its weird man) this really blew me away and it's probably my GOTY, either this or Ratchet. Speaking of...

Game #47 - Ratchet & Clank Rift Apart
Time: 15 hours
Platform: Playstation 5
Rating: ★★★★★

And Insomniac proves they are the best developer at Sony at the moment, not only releasing a great Spidey small scale sequel, but a full blown next gen (current gen?) Ratchet game, probably the best Ratchet game so far. Easily the best visuals I've seen in a game (funny I really thought Demon's Souls would take that), super fun gameplay and actual fun and engaging story makes this one of the easiest recommendations I could make. Meaty campaign with a ton of variety too, great soundtrack, just a fantastic game all around that really cements Insomniac as my favorite Sony developer at the moment and I can't wait to see what they do with Spidey 2 and Wolverine.

Game #48 - Ratchet & Clank (2016)
Time: 10 hours
Platform: Playstation 5
Rating: ★★★★

And we keep the Ratchet train rolling by checking out the 2016 remake / reboot of the series and, with the 4k60 patch, it actually holds up really well. It definitely feels dated in some spots (especially since it was staying true to the PS2 original at the time, a problem another game later on also has in my opinion), but great visuals (as usual) and fun gameplay with all sorts of wacky weapons as you expect make this a worthwhile playthrough. It's a bit short and some level design feels dated like I said but still a great game.

Game #49 - Guardians of the Galaxy
Time: 12 hours
Platform: Playstation 5
Rating: ★★★★

And the surprise of the year goes to Guardians of the Galaxy, a game most of us had dismissed given the awful marketing and lead in from the not so amazing Avengers game, which goes to show we really should wait and judge games (or anything) on their own merits. And what merits it has! Great visuals, fun gameplay that makes great use of the team setting while still being a single player narrative focused game, and easily some of the best writing and dialogue in a game in ages. The campaign is great, there's lots of costumes to collect, and again, the story is actually really good, it's just a shame that it's quite buggy and janky, at least when I played it. Still, it was a blast and I hope the team gets a chance to make a sequel, which I imagine would do a lot better given the very strong word of mouth this one has. Also Mantis is the best character of 2021.

Game #50 - Demon's Souls (2020)
Time: 30 hours
Platform: Playstation 5
Rating: ★★★★

Let me say this off the bat, Demon's Souls is a fantastic game. It looks amazing, it plays just like you remember (if you told me From made this I would believe you) and is overall just a great "Souls" game. That being said (and the reason this Souls fanboy is only rating it 4/5 lol), I think I was ultimately a little let down. It looks amzing but at the same time a lot of the art direction is boring, it plays great but a lot of it feels dated or like a "first Souls game", which granted, it WAS, but much like the Ratchet remake earlier, this sticks a little too close to the original in some things that could have been improved. Still, it scratched the Souls itch (strangely the next game scratched it much better) and it opened up my appetite for more Souls experiences, leading us to...

Game #51 - Nioh Remastered
Time: 55 hours
Platform: Playstation 5
Rating: ★★★★

A replay for this one, having played it on PC back in 2017, and it's even better than I remembered. A fantastic Souls-like that honestly goes toe to toe with From's own games in my opinion, for what it lacks in level or zone design compared to the From games, it makes up in much more interesting gameplay, taking the core of the Dark Souls formula, and improving on it with every weapon having a much bigger variety of moves to use. This remaster at 4k60 also looks great and completely holds up, and the only bad thing I have to say about the game isn't even about the game itself, it's about the difficulty spike in the DLCs, something that actually made me sour on the game back in 2017 and made me drop it (long story short, its balanced around the notion that people would be much higher level from NG+ since the DLCs took months to come out, so when you play them back to back right after finishing the game... it's not fun to say the least), so this time I simply decided to not tackle the DLC and just moved on to Nioh 2, and I'm glad I did, but that is for the next entry.

Game #52 - Pokemon Shining Pearl
Time: 35 hours
Platform: Switch
Rating: ★★★

So I'm not a "serious" pokemon player, I enjoy them as simple rpgs with a very addictive collection hook to them and some flashy special moves, so in that sense, I enjoyed Shining Pearl, but I enjoyed it in the same way I enjoyed Shield. I don't really play the post game content of these games, I get what I want out of them and by the time I reach the credits I'm pretty much checked out. Still, I like the chibi art style evocating the gameboy original (kinda like what Link's Awakening did), I liked the pokemon in this one more than Shield, but a frustrating last boss gauntlet really soured me on the game, and if I wasn't already inclined to do much post game, that ending section sealed the deal. Much like I felt with Pokemon Shield, its alright but I'm glad I got it cheap.

Game #53 - Nioh 2 Remastered
Time: 70 hours
Platform: Playstation 5
Rating: ★★★★★

Nioh 2 does everything Nioh 1 did but bigger and better, and with a lot of new systems that really make the first game basically obsolete. Remaster still looks great, I really like the new systems like the demon forms replacing the powered up weapon, the new burst counter is super satisfying to use, the new weapons are great and the game is much bigger than the first (a lot more than expected), with a ton of post game content too. In fact, since I notoriously gave up (on my first playthrough years ago) and straight up skipped the first game's dlc this time around because of the silly difficulty spike, I'm happy to say the way they handle it in the sequel is much better, as you can do all the dlcs properly scaled for the level you are when you finish the game, so I'm actually going to do them this time around.

Game #54 - Nioh 2 The Tengu's Disciple
Time: 8 hours
Platform: Playstation 5
Rating: ★★★★★

Very impressive first DLC, with a couple of fantastic main missions (fuck they are long) and some good sub missions too to round up the package (in new locations too which is always nice even if theya re shorter). Bosses were very good also, especially the last one, he is a doozy. It's not very long, but it's basically more of the best parts of Nioh 2, so can't complain.

Game #55 - Nioh 2 Darkness in the Capital
Time: 8 hours
Platform: Playstation 5
Rating: ★★★★

Another great DLC, with some really good bosses, just the main mission zones are a tad weaker compared to teh first DLC. Still a great addition tho.

Game #56 - The First Samurai
Time: 8 hours
Platform: Playstation 5
Rating: ★★★★★

Final Nioh 2 DLC, and what a great way to go out, with some of the best bosses in the game, aand a couple of fantastic maain missions, one of them is probably the best level in the game. Just fantastic all around, all of the DLCs for the game really are some of the best DLC I've ever seen.

Game #57 - Ruiner
Time: 5 hours
Platform: Switch
Rating: ★★★★

Wow why did I wait so long to play this. Super stylish top down shooter, fantastic art design, cool cyberpunk world, great gameplay, doesn't overstay it's welcome, and albeit it's a bit too short with "only" three actual levels (the levels / zones are huge to be fair), like I said it doesn't overstay it's welcome and I loved it in the end. Props to the Switch port too, it looks and runs great, always nice to see. Man, Devolver really knows how to pick them.

Game #58 - Gleamlight
Time: 2 hours
Platform: Switch
Rating: ★★

Oh what could have been. What starts of as a very simple platform with some really good (albeit very flash-game looking) art develops into a neat little platformer as you traverse the various short levels and kill a plethora of bosses, getting new powers from each of them, adding a lot of mobility to the game. It's very short and the main gimmick is one that I unfortunately can't be arsed to engage with, as to get the real ending you need to replay the game in NG+, but without killing any enemy, so what could have been a cool, Nier style replay of the game for different stuff thing, ends up horribly frustrating as you both need to avoid dying from all the enemies, and especially need to avoid killing any of them, and since you need to hit various switches with your sword to progress, you end up hitting some enemy by mistake (as I did when I tried NG+ once) and have to restart the whole thing, and nobody got time for that shit. It's a shame really, if it was just "you have to play NG+ now with added switches and shit" it would be completely fine and I would do it, but not like this. I didn't hate it like the steam reviews seem to, but overall I can't really recommend it either, not even for the $2 or whatever I spent on it.

Game #59 - Kena Bridge of Spirits
Time: 15 hours
Platform: Playstation 5
Rating: ★★★★★

I knew I was going to like this, just didn't expect to like it so much, as it was easily one of my favorite games of the year. Gorgeous to look at (this was made by a 15 man team???), gameplay is solid with some very obvious Souls-games inspiration (which is funny given the look of the game), great soundtrack and fantastic level and mechanics design make this one of those rare full packages. It can get pretty hard, again clearly leaning on the Souls inspiration (especially some of the bosses) which might be a turn off for people expecting something more like Jak or Ratchet, but it never got TOO crazy in my opinion, and if you explore a lot and get all the collectables, it actually improves your character's combat and survivability a lot which I loved, made it feel like exploring was meaningful. I could go on and on gushing about the game but yeah, fantastic indie title that is well worth the price.

Game #60 - Archvale
Time: 12 hours
Platform: Switch
Rating: ★★★★★

Well this was a very welcome surprise, when I first looked at screenshots I assumed it was another dual stick shooter roguelike in a sea of others, but it turns out, it's not a roguelike at all, but a very finely crafted zelda-style adventure, that just happens to be a dual stick shooter (or dual stick brawler if you play melee I guess). Great pixel art, tons of weapons, lots of upgrades, crafting, tons of locations and a nice campaign length, just one of those games that does what it sets out to do perfectly in my opinion, easily one of my favorites of the year.

Game #61 - Horizon Zero Dawn
Time: 48 hours
Platform: Playstation 5
Rating: ★★★★★

Replay to be ready for Forbidden West, and I still love it. Just a fantastic world to play around in, probably the best enemies in the last generation (how can you not love robot animals come on!), and playing in 4k60 with HDR is great. Aloy is a lot more sarcastic than I remembered too which I love. Easily one of my favorite games in years and this replay just cemented that. Excited to play Frozen Wilds for the first time, I missed it the first time around.

Game #62 - Horizon Zero Dawn: The Frozen Wilds
Time: 14 hours
Platform: Playstation 5
Rating: ★★★★

This was a great DLC if you are looking for more (and harder) Horizon content, but after almost 50 hours of Zero Dawn, I was pretty burned out and I think that hurt my enjoyment of it. Also, it all looks very same-y (I hope you like snow), and I feel Horizon is best when its in lush environments (which bodes well for the sequel). Still, the new machines are viscious, the story is fine, especially some of the sidequests, and theres all sorts of content and new gear to get.

Game #63 - Morbid The Seven Acolytes
Time: 8 hours
Platform: Switch
Rating: ★★★

Very split on this one, as for everything it does well, it does something else badly. Let's start with the good stuff: the art style is absolutely fantastic, and it completely carries the game. The creature design is grossly delightful, the zones look good as well, as do the weapons, in general the pixel art itself is very good. The animations on the other hand, are super janky (like I said, for every good, there's something bad to counter it) and the whole thing looks really grimy in motion. Gameplay is ok, the weapons feel powerful and I liked the blessing system, but at the same time it's very easy to cheese the 2d top down view the game has going for it, and many times you can swing your weapons from angles the enemies can't get you or just move into it (not that I'm saying the game is easy, it's hard enough). There's some sidequests to complete, and lot's of bosses, and in general I enjoyed my time with it, but the whole thing felt super janky especially when you compare it to other similar and much smoother games. A solid 3/5 but that's about it, for ultra-fans of the genre only.

Tizoc · Jan 16, 2021

13. The Legend of Kyrandia Book 1

Been a few years since I played this game and while it has some really annoying puzzles whose solution you need to figure out without any indication from the game or hints, so some trial and error, along with having an annoying maze that is mandatory to progress through, it remains a game that has a lovely charm to it. Westwood studios did a wonderful job on the game's visuals and the music is beautiful as well, and I think its these 2 elements are the reason I find myself wanting to replay this game in spite of its shortcomings.

kierwynn · Jan 16, 2021

I have yet to complete 52 games and I doubt I will be able to this year, but whenever I try I play more games then I do when I don't so let's give it another go lol

Will use this as my main post.

Currently playing:
-Cook, Serve, Delicious 3?!
-13 Sentinels

Valkerion · Jan 16, 2021

3. Carrion (7.5/10)

Enjoyed it a lot despite its short nature. Happy I got it on sale thanks to Epic Games discount taking it to around 400 yen. It did not blow me away but the reverse horror premise is cool. I was not expecting it to be so puzzle/dangerous room puzzle heavy as it was but once again, I think the short length works in its favor in this case. The lack of a map, while makes sense, also makes traversal when trying to back track to collect all the extras more of a chore than it needed to be. Once again, short length works in its favor though in this regard. The free DLC ad-on as well is a nice treat to play after you finish the main game and lets you kinda go nuts with all the powers unlocked in a quick but satisfying scenario to rip through. The story is more contextual since there are not dialog moments or text files etc just some playable mysterious flashbacks. That said the powers are neat and rooms with enemies that can fight back can be handled in a variety of ways though brute force tends to be the best barring certain gimmicks.

4. Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel (5.5/10)

I like the other 3 Borderlands games and never beat/play this until 3 was already out. I got it free on PS+ and finally finished it after stopping due to the terrible PS4 performance coming off 3 on PC. This game is severely just ok. A lot of the game also felt undercooked design wise. Theres a section that pulls you out of an air lock after completing an objective but there is no real barrier or guided place the game places you so I ended up in strange places with no way out other than to jump off the edge and re-checkpoint. The game is just filled with weird nonsense like this, particularly in the later half. Also its unbalanced as hell for solo play. I always hated the downing mechanic where you need to kill an enemy to revive, but they always walk away and the aim is affected by the dying status. Its more annoying than desperation inducing.

Nothing here felt needed as a full game is all I can think. It was pretty forgettable all over.

This kinda soured me on BL honestly and I was one of the few who really enjoyed 3 it seemed.(on this site anyway haha) Its still borderlands fun, but that only holds out so long.

His Majesty · Jan 17, 2021

3. Demon's Souls - 6/10

Having never played the original Demon's Souls I was very interested to experience the game that started an entire subgenre of its own. Dark Souls 1 and Bloodborne are some of the best games I've played and even derivative games like The Surge or Darksiders 3 were highly enjoyable for me. I was surprised to find out that the game actually consists of separate levels and not one interconnected world. I loved finding shortcuts in Dark Souls 1 that tied back to Firelink Shrine and The Nexus doesn't really serve that purpose. It is similar in that NPCs you encounter in the levels move there but the intricate level design from the sequels is not really present in Demon's Souls. And this goes too for the worldbuilding, characters and boss design: it's all reminiscent of a Souls game but it feels very dated, like an early design. Which is understandable, given that it is still a 2009 game remade in 2020 but my overall impression is that Demon's Souls is by quite a distance the least interesting Souls game. Dark Souls, Bloodborne and Sekiro have all managed to reinvent the formula while Demon's Souls seems to be the foundation of the formula. It is still enjoyable, but it feels basic and vanilla. And the boss fights range from forgettable to Dragon God damn awful.

Optional Objectives · Jan 17, 2021

No. 7 - The Red Strings Club - 3/5

A solid cyberpunk story and more of an adventure game than I expected. To me, the bartending, which comprise most scenes, is just that - solid, if unspectacular. Each character who comes to the bar requires a somewhat different approach, which makes for some decent dialogue puzzles. The scenes surrounding that bartending, in which characters shape implants on a pottery wheel and use a vocal mod to do some social hacking are each more interesting.

The ending struck a nihilistic tone, which may be appropriate for the genre, but seemed to me a bit at odds with some of the narrative and storytelling. I also found one of the main features of the ending,

which is an old AI's fascination with 2000s-era game design

to be a bit corny and dissonant. There's some further dissonance when the game veers into territories like suicide and deadnaming. While some it may have been character appropriate, much of the way heavy topics were deployed seemed unearned.

Main Post

KtotheRoc · Jan 19, 2021

3: Psycho Soldier. End: 1/18/2021. (3/5)

It's a simple arcade platform title from long past. And sometimes that kind of game is just what one needs.

oggob · Jan 19, 2021

Claiming again... I won't get close, in 2020 somehow I ended up playing longer type games... and whilst in 2021 I want to knock out a bunch of shit, I'm sure I will end up with long games again.

Previous Years Main Posts
| 2019 | 2020 |

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!

2021 IN PROGRESS

Game #001

Hitman 2 (PS4 | ~4hrs | Trophies - 5%)
Just cleaning up some Multiplayer Co-Op trophies before the servers were decommissioned.

Game #002

Immortals : Fenyx Rising (PS5 | ~45hrs | Trophies - 38%)
Loving this game, feels like a polished AA-Mid Tier game that you would find on the PS2. Will be losing many more hours in this game.

Game #009

Cook, Serve, Delicious! 2!!! (PS4 | ~2hrs | Trophies - 8%)
Played this for a couple of hours and was liking it, but decided I wasn't going to invest in this game at the moment, as it would be a huge timesink and was looking at different options at the time.

Game #018

Muraski Baby (Vita | ~1hrs | Trophies - 4%)
Only just booted into the first area, will get back to it.

Game #022

Oddworld : Soulstorm (PS5 | ~14hrs | Trophies - 27%)
Just through the first level to see what it looked like and how it played. I have seen that it gets better, but also I am already not a fan of the changes to the game. Crafting is not required. Farting removed is also a big loss as it was one of the more unique gameplay elements that set the game aside from others.

I will see it through, but the first two Oddworld games using the static screens were brilliantly designed, compared to what seems to be a muddled mess.

Game #024

Katamari Damacy Reroll (PS4 | 7hrs | Trophies - 82%)
First time I have played the original where it started game, very similar to the sequel, but the sequel did improve in every way.
Will need to go back and track down all the items.

Game #025

Phoenix Wright : Ace Attorney Trilogy (PS4 | 11hrs | Trophies - 5%)
About halfway through Game 1, it hasn't grabbed me just yet, but perhaps I just need to give it another chance.

Game #027

Wreckfest (PS5 | 20hrs | Trophies - 90%)
The actual destruction of the vehicles is fantastic, but the actual campaign was not very appealing.
Final trophy is to grind out some wins!

Game #028

F1 2011 (Vita | xxhrs | Trophies - 97%)
Game isn't as bad as thought it would be and enjoyed my time with the Career Mode, however the trophy locked behind 8 Championships was a grind too far at the moment.

Game #030

Chronovolt (Vita | xxhrs | Trophies - 40%)
Logged in for one of the Online trophies, before it was unobtainable.
Still a frustrating game.

Game #034

Mafia II (PS3 | ~10hrs | Trophies - 94%)
I had completed the game on Hard when it was released, currently doing a collection run. Playboys = Check, the Wanted posters are left which is an absolute chore!

Game #038

Dirt 5 (PS5 | 11hrs | Trophies - ~50%)
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 #041

Grand Theft Auto III (PS4 | 29hrs | Trophies - ~80%)
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.

Game #042

Marvel Guardians Of The Galaxy (PS5 | 27hrs | Trophies - ~80%)
This game has an insane story that finally kicks in after the lifeless planet upto Lady Hellbender, the amount of dialogue is astonishing.

2021 COMPLETED

Completion #001 : Game #003

Maneater (PS5 | ~12hrs | Trophies - 100%)
This is a really rough game, super dumb fun, but I think it will overstay its' welcome.
Which it kinda did, but I was having so much more fun with a fully tanked shark at the end of the game, than I was at the start of the game.

Completion #002 : Game #006

WRC5 : World Rally Championship (PS4 | ~1hrs | Trophies - 100%)
So the go with this one was that I basically had 100% in the bag, but a trophy for doing a Quick Race on each circuit never popped... I was playing the patched digital version and rather than going through all the levels again, wait it out.

You see, the physical 1.00 version, that trophy had a bug, where you can start the quick rally and quit out once it started and it counted, so I've always been on the hunt for a physical copy for the collection, but its always been too expensive or the EU version (as an Aussie, I look to get AU versions where possible). So finally tracked one down and after about an hour or so of retiring from a bunch of events, the Platinum popped!

Will look at moving on to WRC6 this year perhaps!

Completion #003 : Game #004

Reverie (PS4 | ~8hrs | Trophies - 100%)
Another nice small game with a charming story with the only two things I didn't like...
1) How I always kept forgetting that I could hit the rock
2) Inventory Management, there isn't alot of it, but having a few more quick select mapping options, would have made the game far more user friendly.

Time to do the Vita version for the Double Plat!

Completion #004 : Game #007

Donut County (PS4 | ~7hrs | Trophies - 100%)
I'm through the main story and it was quite a fun romp, though, whilst there are a few game deviations here and there, I had a different impression of how the game actually ran. I thought it was Katamari style game where you need to find what fits within the hole across a larger play area and not levels made up of 3-4 stationary scenes, with limited items on the screen.

Completion #005 : Game #008

Reverie (Vita | ~3hrs | Trophies - 100%)
Double Platinum!

Completion #006 : Game #010

God Of War (PS4 | ~5hrs | Trophies - 100%)
The 4K/60 patch landed for the game, so I installed it on the PS5 and decided it was time to knock out the remaining collectables (Ravens, Artifacts and Upgrades), the Trials of Muspelheim, Niflheim and then finally the Valkyrie Queen. Despite not having played it in about 2 years, picking up the game again wasn't all that tough, much easier than other combo heavy games.

Completion #007 : Game #011

Rory McIlroy PGA Tour (PS4 | ~15hrs | Trophies - 100%)
EA moving golf to a new engine played such a huge impact to the quality and content of this game. The horrible night mode challenges are completely tedious and overstay their welcome about a quarter of the way through the first course worth of them. Gutting them and putting in the effort to actual tour aspect should have been the first priority.

Which brings me to the new aspect, the Tour... the two options for you are Full Rounds or Reduced Holes... now, if the gameplay had some benefit to doing full rounds, I might of considered it, but 4 full rounds was a bridge to far. The limited version worked better, but implemented so bad. They pre-selected "important" holes to play over the 4 day weekend, but for some tournaments, they make you play the same 3-5 holes for each round.

In the past I have preferred to play one round championships, so if they simply broke that down across the 4 days it would have infinitely better.
Day 1 - Holes 1-4
Day 2 - Holes 5-9
Day 3 - Holes 10-13
Day 4 - Holes 14-18

That way you still get to play each hole on the course, rather than a tournament where you don't actually play 50% of the course, so bizarre! Ploughed through this and deleted forever, hopefully their renewed interest in the PGA license will see something better than this outing.

Completion #008 : Game #013

Vostok Inc (PS4 | ~5hrs | Trophies - 100%)
I don't mind the game, the twin stick shooter aspect is quite fun, if the different galaxies enemies had more variation it would be great.
The clicky-clicky time waster doesn't do enough to hold your interest though about 70% in, where you hit a hard wall, so by this stage it was about the Trophies and that was it.

Was being held up by reckless playing, but mainly one of the mini games (Woodchopping), which was just a pain in the royal ass, just getting into the rhythm takes a while and then you start over compensating with additional presses and all ends up wrong.

Completion #009 : Game #012

MotoGP 14 (Vita | ~15hrs | Trophies - 100%)
Had some clean up and online trophies to finish off, found a couple of users online to clean up the online, which another one off the list.

Completion #010 : Game #015

Gorogoa (PS4 | ~8hrs | Trophies - 100%)
Nothing overly difficult here, but a better story and gameplay element than Maquette.
The speed run type trophies were a chore though.

Completion #011 : Game #016

Handball 16 (Vita | ~40hrs | Trophies - 100%)
FUCK. THIS. GAME.
I bought this a long time ago when I was going through a "just want something random/different" phase, I didn't mind the simplistic gameplay and the various elements they didn't have enough time to flesh out. Then I was hit with the "Celebrity" trophy issue, where I had been recruited by a 5 Star Team and it didn't reflect in the Career check lists, after much grinding looking for new offers to other 5 Star teams that didn't come, I basically shelved the game.

Fast forward and I deciding to have one more go at it, looking for an offer from PSG or Barcelona, after 2-3 more seasons of grinding a new career, finally got that offer, then I had to grind out an additional 2 seasons to get the back to back title. Finally the platinum was obtained.

Completion #012 : Game #014

Maquette (PS5 | ~8hrs | Trophies - 100%)
The game was interesting when we first saw it, so I was interested to see how this turned out. In the end, it didn't gel with me as much as I hoped, the story that tied into it was on the cringe side of things and the puzzles themselves were more obtuse (and sometimes broken) than they should have been.

Completion #013 : Game #017

The Walking Dead : Season 1 (Telltale Series) (PS4 | ~12hrs | Trophies - 100%)
Finally picked up the Final Season for cheap, so that led me to complete the saga from start to finish.
I had previously played this on the PS3 and Vita, but many years ago, so there were certain things that I forgot... but there are also certain decisions that I can't not pick (Carley at the beginning, fuck Doug!)

After all these years, still a damn fine game!

+ DLC

The Walking Dead : Season 1 : 400 Days (Telltale Series) (PS4 | ~2hrs | Trophies - 100%)
Short DLC that is meant to setup the Sequel, had 3 of the 5 go with Tavia in the end.

Completion #014 : Game #019

The Walking Dead : Season 2 (Telltale Series) (PS4 | ~10hrs | Trophies - 100%)
This was the first time I've played the sequel, I could have played it via the PS3/Vita, but instead chose to play it on the system that should have the better performance, seeing as the Telltale engine wasn't the best.

Don't feel as though the game lived upto the standard of Season 1, but this one felt more "open", having only played it once now, it seemed as though some choices in this one would have changed the outcome more (which I will look at checking on a PS3/Vita run through at some point), in various ways.

The big surprise was that one character, surprisingly I kept away from spoilers, so it was a surprise to me.

The impact of 400 Days was basically nothing, whilst one character was upgraded to an important role, the rest remained in the background if they ended up going with Tavia.

Completion #015 : Game #020

The Walking Dead : Michonne (Telltale Series) (PS4 | ~5hrs | Trophies - 100%)
I know this was announced when her character was blowing up, but this didn't need to happen.

Completion #016 : Game #021

The Walking Dead : Season 3 : A New Frontier (Telltale Series) (PS4 | ~10hrs | Trophies - 100%)
New main character + Clem... wasn't sure how this was going to pan out, I wanted to continue Clem story directly, that being said, I really enjoyed this season, more so that Season 2.

However, the characters in this one pulled me to play a certain way, as if it was the only way they wanted you to play it. His brother was a arsehole, so whilst it was nice to see him, he's an arsehole and I couldn't play along with his rules, I had more connection to his kids than he did, so fuck him!

The stinger of AJ being alive was spoiler due to the cover art of the Final Season, but was disappointed that we didn't get to actually find him in the end and they are just reunited at the beginning of the Final Season.

Completion #017 : Game #005

Rayman Origins (PS3 | ~10hrs | Trophies - 100%)
I have 3 trophies missing and I am going back for them...

Completion #018 : Game #023

The Walking Dead : The Final Season (Telltale Series) (PS4 | ~1hrs | Trophies - 0%)
I have only just fired it up, not deep into it yet, but I'm not a fan of the changes they made to the structure of the game, everyone was happy with the game being linear choose your own adventure stories.

No one in their right mind asked for collectables and shit.

Completion #019 : Game #029

Mekorama (Vita | xxhrs | Trophies - 100%)
Simple puzzle game that doesn't require full complete to obtain the platinum, should avoid and the performance on Vita was woeful.

Completion #020 : Game #031

Mass Effect (PS4 | 65hrs | Trophies - 100%)
I attempted to play this on the 360 back in the day, but it didn't grab me at the time and returned it, not long after hitting the Citadel for the first time. ME2 when it came to PS3 was the first time it clicked and cleared that game and ME3 on release.

So with the Legendary Collection, I figured it was time for the replay from beginning to end. So whilst this first game had some low points, overall I certainly enjoyed my time with the game, the limited cast of squadmates was half a shock after the huge amount of choice with ME2

Completion #021 : Game #026

inFamous 2 (PS3 | 10hrs | Trophies - 100%)
This was a completion of a Evil run, didn't expect that I was actually going to bury Zeke by the end of it, but that was interesting!

Completion #022 : Game #033

Flight Control HD (PS3 | ~2hrs | Trophies - 100%)
I had my fun with this game over a decade ago, with only one trophy to play 200 games, I spent a couple of hours to grind this out

Completion #023 : Game #032

Ratchet & Clank : Rift Apart (PS5 | 24hrs | Trophies - 100%)
It's what you expect from a Ratchet and Clank game and I will eat it up everytime. Looks and plays amazing, with the only issue I felt as if the game was 1-2 planets too short and the Arena Mode has been better in previous games.

This was also my 150th Platinum.

Completion #024 : Game #035

Persona 4 : Dancing All Night (PS4 | 8hrs | Trophies - 100%)
After Mass Effect and Ratchet, needed a quickish palette cleanser, I enjoyed this game on the Vita, so hearing all the great songs again was fun. I skipped the story this time, but certainly alot of text for a rhythm game.

Completion #025 : Game #036

Mass Effect 2 (PS4 | 65hrs | Trophies - 100%)
Back into the Mass Effect Universe, as this was also a Insane difficultly run on the first playthrough, there were a few moments in this game that almost broke me and those sections were an absolute slog.

The game is a masterpiece.

Completion #026 : Game #037

Mass Effect 3 (PS4 | 75hrs | Trophies - 100%)
Straight into the sequel and I was also fearing the worse after some of the troubles with ME2, I thought the difficultly would give me some trouble. Overall, it wasn't as bad as I thought, the only areas where I was struggling if there were some Banshees about as I never really had a build that did alot of damage on them. The only other area was a Citadel mission where I was all alone, with only a pistol and was meant to be stealth.

The ending shits the bed, but until that point there is some nice stuff in there.

Completion #027 : Game #039

Saints Row : The Third (PS5 | 49hrs | Trophies - 100%)
After over 200hrs of Mass Effect, another palette cleanse was needed and this time decided on Saints Row, where you basically become god by the end of it, the toilet humour still hits with me, it has a fun story and its an enjoyable ride. Amazing soundtrack to go with it, with some of the songs that are cued with the missions.

The only part of the game that doesn't work for me was the introduction of Zombies, given they were throwing in everything that might have been cool at the time, but that small island where they are contained is just annoying anytime you need to go there.

Completion #028 : Game #040

Saints Row : The Third (PS4 | 41hrs | Trophies - 100%)
Had so much fun, I smashed through it again!

Tizoc · Jan 19, 2021

14. Soul Reaver

20 years later and I've finally played through this game. While its age shows in a bunch of aspects like the camera and combat, I found the puzzles and platforming for the most part to be quite good. Well platforming is a bit unforgiving due to the small platforms that you must jump off of coupled with Raziel's twitchy movement if you even want to move him a step around but end up falling off a ledge :V
Overall though I quite enjoyed it, and I think I'll play through Blood Omen next as I had that on PSN.

I shall consider going through the entirty of the series this year if possible too.

Blindy · Jan 19, 2021

2) 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim(PS5)(85% of trophies completed)
(Spoiler free writeup)

Just finished 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim which was played via PS5(It's a PS4 game)! Finished it in under 2 weeks! I made the right choice playing this straight after Cyberpunk 2077, what a contrast of games!

Have heard alot of acclaim from so many people last year that this is a must play for visual novel fanatics(Not to say I am one but I do like to play a couple of these a year) and was among the best narratives of 2020. It even got nominated for the VGA for best story(Which Last of Us 2 won....................................................). It's from Vanillaware which I know has been vouched for between Dragon's Crown and Odin Sphere(Have not played either) and this was a game that would make or break Vanillaware's success moving forward and I presume word of mouth did enough to sell copies between Japan and Stateside. Quite a few Japanese developers went to fight for this game to be played including Yoko Taro of Nier fame. 300K copies sold between JPN and USA last I read and I assume more will play this, I think that's good for this niche game with no real marketing.

I will say off the bat, this game may not be for everyone. It's a visual novel for MOST of the time and there is loads of dialogue in this bad boy. There are 13 characters(Hence the name), all high school students, each with their own unique tale to the ultimate story that unfolds in a game that runs you about 30-35 hours long. It is an intertwined story where every character matters at the end. Lots of time traveling, lots of science-fiction and space lore so if you have any interest in such, this game may be for you.

Not all of the game is visual novel/linear adventure & dialogue. There is a Real Time Strategy element that is necessary to play through to advance the story(Same with the visual novel which opens up new maps). It's a 5-7 hour slog IMHO but there is gameplay involved and I can see the appeal, I just feel like if I wanted some RTS, I will play Fire Emblem or Shining Force, ya know. Feels like Front Mission 3 but sorta bare bones tossed in the game. There is LOTS of customization with it though and I did just enough to pass through, playing 85% of the missions on normal(Tried the intense difficulty, just not worth it for me)

I got 85% of the trophies and may feel inclined to get the final 3 to get the Platinum but that would involve needing to S mark 3 maps towards end game that is very harsh given the grading involves damage to your characters/mech, your terminal/base and the city that inhabits the map. You choose 6 of the 13 cadets and need to learn on juggling them each time as they each wear down with numerous uses consecutively but you can ultimately heal people up at the cost of losing bonus points for consecutive fights without needing to insta-recover your fatigued fighters. These points are for case files that add to the lore of the story and help portray a picture of the grand story that may(or will) go over your head.

For me, the sentry gun is absolutely OP and 3 characters can learn it from the get go so you don't really NEED to master the system and if you just want to progress, spam sentry guns away and watch them melt the opposition. Just know it's a game that's 85% visual novel and 15% RTS/strategy.

I really enjoyed the story and I feel they leave you on cliffhanger after cliffhanger and you really feel it's necessary to rotate characters to help understand what is going on. It's a VERY slowburn where you don't really feel gripped until about 50% of each's character's story so I would say stick with the game until after say 10-12 hours and assess.

I didn't think this game would hook me but sure enough the '...........' happen and I find myself gripped to see this happen in one character's story and see what that means in someone else's because again intertwined story. You get a choice of ENGLISH OR JAPANESE dialogue and it's almost fully voiced, I went with Japanese but heard the English version. Feels better to listen to it Japanese with subtitles/subs but it's whoever's preference. The ability to fast forward or press X to skip dialogue is great as I tended to read faster than the voice actors/actresses. 13 Sentinels' dialogue is one or two word sentences at a time so you don't have to go and read some gigantic set of instructions, which is often the case for a vast majority of games these days which often stick lore into these gigantic texts that I often pass through.

I still feel it's tough to retain so much knowledge of 13 different characters and believe me by end game, I still didn't fully know every single character by heart off name alone(Appearances yes, names no, the Japanese names are generic to me ) and again I can totally see how someone can be a little overwhelmed initially but the game does a really good job with its files away from the story to help you catch up with it being regularly updated as you progress in the story. As with a vast majority of visual novels, you can press the big PS4/PS5 button(Whatever it's called) and can read/hear text in case you missed something. Very much catered to everyone to enjoy regardless of reading speeds or if someone went over your head.

The art style is typical Vanillaware, very popup cartoony, if you've played Odin Sphere or Dragon's Crown, you know exactly what I am talking about. Boobs still jiggle(Well the few that are in the game ) and the artstyle for me is quite beautiful. Voice acting is good but I played the game in Japanese so the voices matched the character design. The presentation was very good and it ran very smooth for me on the PS5, load times are non-existent but not sure the case for the PS4.

Probably not much replayability in this game and you can technically look at the story on Youtube(Saw a video that says it has 24 hours worth of content among the cutscenes!) but I got the game physically for 30 bucks so I felt it was a good get here. The story was really solid for me, I can't say I did not get lost often at times and that things didn't go over my head but I am intrigued towards reading stuff online or watching Youtube videos of the game for the things I didn't quite get. I assume to someone else, maybe they get the game more but some things initially went over my head but by end game, 13 Sentinels does a good enough job to recap or rehash the themes discussed earlier. Very futuristic, very very sci-fi heavy so Japanese Sci-Fi is up your alley, give this game a try!

2/52

megalowho · Jan 19, 2021

4. Cloudpunk (PC) | Jan 16 - 12 hours | 4/5

Of all the cyberpunk games in recent memory, this is the one with the most rain, the most neon, the most ambient synths and all the voxels. By flying car or foot it's an impressively conceived and inspired setting, one I ended up exploring in first person primarily to soak it all in. It's also a bit of a mess, with some uneven characterization and vocal performances, underutilized systems, a few too many catwalks, and an unshakeable feeling that the discourse of the far flung future sounds a lot like 2020.

There's side missions to fulfill and some binary decisions to make as you navigate your first night on the job in a new city, and I found the game clicking simply as an atmospheric delivery sim where you meet the locals. Even if the world building lacks consistency in places and the stories lean on cliches, there's still plenty of cool ideas at play - the effects of runaway capitalism, a society fully integrated with autonomous androids, and the ramifications of a city literally built upon its forgotten past.

5. Pendragon (PC) | Jan 17 - 6 hours | 3.5/5

My initial impression of Pendragon wasn't the best, but the pedigree of the developer kept me going and I'm glad I was able to warm up to it. The turn-based grid used for encounters takes inspiration from chess over tactics RPG's - one hit is a kill in either direction, and avoiding combat to advance conversations, gauge intentions or escape is a viable option that adds tension. The retelling of the final days of Camelot is steeped in Arthurian lore and medieval flavor, with a script that's punchy and reactive. Each stop along the way holds the promise of a new narrative thread to uncover, party member to recruit, special move to equip or character to unlock as you march towards the inevitable final confrontation. And each attempt is short enough to encourage experimentation, though the scope is fairly contained. The soundtrack is lovely as well.

Repetition has admittedly begun to set in, as each 20-30 minute run starts to feel familiar no matter what you discover or who makes it. The combat doesn't quite come together for me either, particularly at higher difficulties, as you dance around enemies while morale depletes. And while there's a charm to the flat visual style, the game establishes a foreboding tone in spite of its stiff artwork and menu design. Still, it's intriguingly replayable as a storytelling vehicle and I plan to keep poking away at it.

6. Astrologaster (PC) | Jan 18 - 7 hours | 5/5

Alongside Pendragon I felt the urge to jump forward 1000 years or so to Astrologaster, a historical comedy that's probably best digested in small doses but one that shines the entire way through. It's even more of a narrative experience than the above, a fully voiced picture book set in late 16th century England and based on the true case studies and times of Simon Forman, Elizabethan era "doctor" of astrology and physick. The subject matter is immediately compelling and hilarious, even moreso for Shakespeare or history buffs, and the execution is pitch perfect with a pleasing visual style, witty dialogue in the style of the period, brilliant voice acting and original madrigals before every scene.

The game part has you hearing the ails of each querent, be they medical, fortune telling, or general advice, and choosing a response while consulting the stars. The science is played straight, you'll learn all about Black Bile and Mercury in the First House if you want, but you're really working off intuition to stay in their favor while remaining relatively honest. If you want. Relationships evolve over time as the twists and turns of the colorful cast plays out like a soap opera alongside historical events, with Simon stirring the pot and Forrest Gumping his way through a darkly funny period in English history. Despite limited interactivity it's one of the better examples of educational humor I can recall, telling a story that I'd never expect to see in a game but is perfect for one nonetheless. Coitus post consultatio.

CURRENTLY PLAYING:
FUSER (PC)
Yakuza: Like A Dragon (PS4)
Desperados III (PC)
Wattam (PC)
Manifold Garden (PC)

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djinn · Jan 20, 2021

3. 8-Bit Adventures: The Forgotten Journey Remastered Edition
Caught me by surprise how much I enjoyed this. By no means an amazing game but a very comfy experience make by people that clearly love the genre. 100% completion wasn't hard and I'll definitely pick up the sequel later this year.
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Neil98 · Jan 20, 2021

7. Pokemon Red 3DS
8. Pokemon Sword The Crown Tundra DLC Switch
9. Mario Bros NES Online Switch

Rhaknar · Jan 20, 2021

Game #4 - Little Nightmares
Time: 4 hours
Platform: Xbox Series X
Rating: ★★★★

This is a fantastic little horror game (no pun intended) that while not having the best gameplay, everything around it is so well made it elevates it past the point where the average gameplay would leave it at. The visuals are just flat out gorgeous, to the point where it looks like some sort of animated film, not in a super high poly Pixar way but more like those stop motion or lower budget CGI movis, something like Caroline. Lot's of cool depth of field tricks, some truly nightmare inducing monsters, and great looking environments really make the whole things a trip. It's good too because the actual gameplay is just average, and since there's qutie a bit of stealth involved, it falls into the "repeat section until you get it right" trap that many stealth games do. But it's short enough and like I said the athmosphere alone makes it worth playing. Oh and the music is fantastic.

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vitormg · Jan 20, 2021

3. Deliver Us The Moon (PC Gamepass) | Jan 16 - 5hours | Score: 4.5/5

This is the second time I beat it in less than a year. Last time it was with my old PC build, and after seeing a poster mentioning this game, I had the urge to come back to it with my new components. This game is truly beautiful. It's an amazing sci-fi experience with a great plot, great music and great visuals. It's easily recommendable to anyone who is into sci-fi and space entertainment. I really enjoyed it.

4. Picross S [picross puzzles] (Switch) | Jan 18 - 25hours | Score: 4.5/5

I have finally dove into the world of Picross. I've seen it over the years since I've always had nintendo portable systems, but never really tried it. After browsing the e-shop on late December and seeing it was really inexpensive, I decided to give it a go. I'm glad I did. It scratches a similar itch of sudoku puzzles, which I really like. It still has an entire "mega picross" mode that I am expecting to take another 25-30h of my life soon, but I'll consider beating all picross puzzles without any assistance a game on its own. Solid experience, with maybe only a few gripes with its UI.

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nacimento · Jan 20, 2021

There is no way I'll make it, but let's do this.

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1. Umineko Episode 1: Legend of the Golden Witch (PC/Steam) | 14th Jan - 9.5hrs (started in 2020) | ★★★ ½ - ★★★★ (tentative, depends on the payoff)

A quite bloody horror/murder mistery visual novel oozing atmosphere. It reminds me of Agatha Christie's Then There Were None and the characters, intrigue and bursts of violence are very engaging. I did find it quite slow and with a little too much padding. My definitive rating for the episode still depends on the quality of the payoff, since the episode kind of works only as a prologue. But I am certainly very interested on were it goes next.

2. Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore (Switch) | 19th Jan - 55hrs (started in 2020) | ★★★★

I really liked this game. It is an RPG with really strong gameplay as well as character development and battle systems. It is very rewarding and fun to build and optimise your characters and their skillsets. The game is 100% Atlus though, with the Fire Emblem part being only a little bit flavour added. It loses points for its weak and silly story, mitigated by the game having a fun group of characters (with one notable exception). It is certainly a strong RPG offering for the Switch for anyone who is forgiving of its weak narrative.

3. GreedFall (PC/GamePass) | 1st Feb - 42hrs | ★★★★

GreedFall is a very interesting RPG with a lot of personality and a well-fleshed colonial-style world. The different factions, the characters and the style of the game are on point. It has that Bioware RPG feeling that has become so rare nowadays. The game does have it defects, though. It reuses too many assets, has weak exploration and too much backtracking and is too long. Due to this it certainly started a lot stronger than it ended. Nevertheless, its strenghts vastly outnumbers its issues. It's an ambitious game, maybe a little too much. All in all it is a very good game, and I think that a sequel could be really special with a higher budget and better pacing in its last stretch (no clue how realistic a sequel is with Focus / Nacon stuff, though.).

4. Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest (Switch) | 7th Feb - 7hrs (started in 2020) | ★★★

I had never played Donkey Kong Country 2 and 3, even loving the first one as a kid playing on my cousin's SNES and really enjoying Returns on 3DS. After playing the first one when it released on Switch (and loving it all over again) I finally played the second one. While it had many great and entertaining levels and fantastic music, it just didn't fully click with me. I found it too gimmicky, with several new levels often having some kind of hook only to be forgotten after finishing the stage. I didn't like the new animal companions (flying the parrot felt like a chore). Maybe those kind of platformers just aren't for me anymore. Nevertheless the platforming is high quality and I did enjoy it overall. Just far less than its predecessor.

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5. Yakuza 3 (PC/GamePass) | 9th Feb - 20hrs | ★★★★

The Yakuza series is exceptional. Great characters, hugely entertaining over-the-top storylines, a world which feels very much alive and just a special awesome feel make it a really special series. Yakuza 3 delivers on all these fronts, even though I liked the overall plot a little less than the one from the other games I played. I did find the side contents and mini games much weaker than in the other games I played (Zero and the Kiwamis). Certainly it is partly due to its age, but even taking it into account it felt lacking. I also felt the main story felt short, giving me a feeling of "Huh, it's already the last chapter?" So to me it ended up being the weakest game of the series up to now, but the weakest Yakuza is still a damn fine game. And the main theme and intro are the best in the series up to now. First thing I did after finishing the game was to add the theme to my playlist on Spotify. So good.

6. Langrisser (PC/Steam) | 25th Feb - 30hrs | ★★★★

Really solid SRPG which combines the hero-based SRPG template with large armies. A remake of the game from the early nineties, Langrisser is not particularly deep regarding characters and story, but the SRPG gameplay more than makes up for it. The branching paths are a nice addition, even though they lead to some backtracking. It is a pity you alway keep your experience when backtracking, which takes away some of the challenge. Overall my fist playthrough took me around 12 hours, but it took me 30 hours to finish all endings. I'd certainly recommend it to anyone who likes an old-school SRPG that still feels fresh.

7. Yakuza 4 (PC/GamePass) | 10th Mar - 33hrs | ★★★★ ½

The Yakuza series keeps delivering. Yakuza 4 follows its four protagonists through their Kamurocho adventures until the four paths meet for the grand finale. Its easy to see the improvements done from Yakuza 3 regarding gameplay and some of the minigames. The story is strong as well even though some turns feel slightly exaggerated. The new protagonists are good, even though none reaches the heights of Kiryu himself. Overall its another great Yakuza adventure and a step up from Yakuza 3.

8. Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble! (Switch) | 24th Mar - 6.5hrs | ★★★ ½

With DKC 3, I finally copleted the original DKC trilogy. And the third game is also a solid and wildly varied platformer. I did enjoy the new map, even though it's style over substance. I also didn't had any issues with Kiddy Kong, irregardless of the hate he often receives. I did find less charming than the first game, with the new enemies being more elaborate but less classic in their design. But maybe that is nostalgia speaking, since I played the first game in the distant past (even though I replayed it last year. So overall another strong platformer, even though I still believe that the first game is by far the best after playing all three at last.

9. Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch (Switch) | 30th Apr - 48hrs | ★★★ ½

A charming RPG with Pokémon elements hampered by a weak combat system. Ni No Kuni is a really nice fairy-tale style adventure with great art, endearing characters, a well-built world and an interesting creature collecting and evolving system. But sadly the combat system is lacking and companion AI is horrible. This makes the battles, a large part of the game, unappealing. I also think that creature catch rates for some creatures were to low, which killed my intital motivation of completing the game's bestiarium. The game's style and atmosphere are quite unique though, making it possible to look past these flaws. Overall, Ni No Kuni is a great feel-good game which is worth playing even if it isn't without some significant flaws.

10. Hades (Switch) | 11th May - 35hrs | ★★★★★

I never really liked roguelikes and I dropped Bastion years ago, quite disappointed by the game. For that reason I took some time until I decided to try Hades, even with all the glowing praise thrown in its direction. And it truly is an exceptional game. It gives a huge "one more chamber" vibe, the gameplay is terrific and both art and characters are great. The Greek mythology backdrop is awesome as well. Even after the true ending I am still doing runs and will probably pick the game up from time to time in the future. It is also a perfect game for the Switch. I am happy I got it there instead than on PC, since it is made for short bursts and breaks. I therefore also played it entirely in handheld mode. After playing it, I don't really feel the rush to play another roguelike, but I do have an interest in other Supergiant games and certainly in a sequel of sorts, if there ever is one (even though I know it doesn't seem to be Supergiant's modus operandi).

11. The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky the 3rd (PC/GOG) | 14th May - 52hrs | ★★★★

After a long delay I finally played the third Trails in the Sky. I started it back in 2017 after storming through the first to games, but dropped it after some four hours. After playing the first two Cold Steel games last year I decided to give it another go. And it really engrossed me this time. The gameplay is tight, the battles are fun and the magic doors have some interesting story and character snippets, even though their level of interest is uneven. And obviously the cast is a delight and their interactions are gold as expected from a Trails game. Nevertheless, it is the weakest Trails I played. It almost feels like a spin-off and I didn't enjoy its dungeon-crawler style as much as the grand adventure styles from the other Trails games. The main plot also felt inconsequential and Kevin is a below average Trails character. In a way, this game feels a little like Yakuza 3 to me. A great game in its own right, but the weak link in an exceptional series, even though the distance from this game to the other Trails is farther than the one between the Yakuzas.

12. Total War Saga: Thrones of Britannia (PC/Steam) | 20th May - 26.5hrs | ★★★½

After reading the fourth Last Kingdom book I had a strong urge to finally get Thrones of Britannia, one of my last blind spots in the Total War series. Total War is funny for me; I don't really care about the real time battles (even though I love the RTS genre), but I like the campaigns well enough to make it one of my favorite gaming series. Thrones of Britannia itself is a solid Total War, but the reduced scope is palpable. It is a great experience, but it cannot compare to the highs of the series. Still, I had a lot of fun with my two campaigns with Dyflin and Northymbre. It also gave me the Uthred feeling I was looking for. What I did dislike where the completely defenseless villages, since it forces you to be playing chase that one soldier army far too often. All in all it is a good game, but if someone told me "recommend me a Total War", there are several others I would recommend first (except if they tell me "recommend me a Total War which makes me feel like in Last Kingdom", of course).

13. Astrobot: Astro's Playroom (PS5) | 30th May - 5hrs | ★★★★

This game truly is a bundle full of charm. It's a solid platformer, looks really cute and plays great. An outstanding pack-in. I got the Platinum trophy since it was so fun to keep playing it. Not all of the different suits you could use were equally good however. While I enjoyed the ball, the monkey and the spacecraft were only okay. And the frog was terrible. But the game itself is really fun and just a joy to play. The idea with playing "inside" the PlayStation 5 was quite awesome as well. While I do not have a particular nostalgia for the PlayStation line, the voyage through its history nevertheless felt just right. And the music is exceptional, with "I'm your GPU" being a legit banger.

14. The Last of Us Remastered (PS4/PS5)| 8th June - 14hrs | ★★★★

So I finally decided to see what all the hype about The Last of Us was about. And it is certainly an exceptionally well-crafted game. It boosts a great narrative (even though the overall plot was quite vanilla) and engaging characters. The atmosphere is very well done as well. You can also see production values seldom seen in other games. I therefore really liked the game and found it to be as if you where playing a TV series. But after finishing it, I didn't feel like running to Part II immediately. In a way, it is not a game I found to be exceptional, but I can fully understand anyone who did.

15. Persona 5 Royal (PS4/PS5) | 13th July - 139hrs | ★★★★★

Certainly not the right game to play when participating in such a challenge. But it doesn't matter, since Persona 5 Royal is the best game I played this year so far by some distance. It is also one of the best games I played bar none. The battle system and classic SMT fusion bonanza are great, the cast is fun and the game just oozes with style. It even edges out Persona 4 Golden, another masterpiece, for me. It just works as a perfect package, brilliantly blending the day-to-day simulation with the battle parts. It truly towers above the vast majority of RPGs, and games in general.

16. The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero (PC) | 24th July - 71.5hrs | ★★★★½

The first game of the Crossbell arc keeps up the well-known Trails quality. The Special Support Squad is a great main cast, even if protagonist Lloyd Bannings is a little too much Mr. Perfect (more than Rean Schwarzer in CS I and II, imo). The game is just a blast to play and discovering Crossbell and its denizens is great. The game did feel a little bit like odd-job the game and the overarching plot wasn't the strongest in the series. In the wider Trails series, I'd rank it above Trails in the Sky 3rd but below the first two Trails in the Sky and the first two Trails of Cold Steel. Kudos to the Geofront fan localization as well, it was excellent and it feltas if the game had been officially localized.

17. Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition (Switch) | 15th August - 72hrs | ★★★★½

So I finally got around of playing Xenoblade Chronicles, after missing out due to not having a Wii or a New 3DS. Xenoblade is an adventure with grand scope and grand stakes. The plot is pretty good, with lots of twists and turns. Characters are great while slightly underdeveloped and the art looks great, specially the world. The game felt like a three-act piece, with a great beginning and end, but with a slump in the middle. When it gets going it however really goes places and it's full of great moments. While I found it slightly weaker than Xenoblade Chronicles 2, it is still an excellent game. The world is also great, even though I found the exploration somewhat lacking. In other words, the game has its lows, but the highs are high enough to more than overcompensate for it.

18. The Legend of Heroes: Trails to Azure (PC) | 21st August - less than 90hrs | ★★★★½

After finishing Zero, I felt the urge to jump straight into Azure. It is practically Trails from Zero part II, starting shortly after Zero ended and being quite similar in gameplay and tone. One gameplay novelty are the master quartz, a mechanic new here which I knew from Trails of Cold Steel and which is really an upgrade. The plot thickens compared to Zero, raising the stakes from the comparatively cosy Zero. I liked the larger party than Zero, though it sucks that you can't switch out the main cast once you get more than six playable characters. I believe by Azure the biggest weakness of the game is Crossbell itself. The city is still well realized, but you are visiting the same places for a third or a fourth time in parts. That does get a little granting at times.It also suffers a little from the common Trails sickness of stuffing too much into the last part of the game. Nevertheless, these are nitpicks. Azure has a much more interesting overarching plot than Zero, and with higher stakes. It's a great new piece in the Zemurian tapestry and now I can finally play Trails of Cold Steel III. I sadly don't have the correct time played for the game due to the time accelerator.

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19. Brigandine: The Legend of Runersia (Switch) | 28th August - 18hrs | ★★★

An interesting SRPG, Brigandine plays like a game of risk with RPG development and turn-based battles. The campaign and the style of the game are quite nice. I found the battles to be repetitive since their core is the same for every battle and the maps are very similar with little variety. This hampers the game, since you play a lot of battles. The story and the characters were a little flat as well. I played one game on normal and started one on hard, which I will probably go back to in the future. Overall it is a solid SRPG, which however suffers from repetition in the battles and which could have a little bit more options on the campaign map.

20. Persona 5 Strikers (PS4/PS5) | 12th September - 47hrs | ★★★★½

After finishing Persona 5 Royal I was itching to return to the game's world and cast. And Persona 5 Strikers therefore fitted my needs perfectly. And it was well worth it. More an action RPG than a normal Musou game P5S takes the Persona 5 crew through a journey across Japan. And it just works. The fighting system is tight, the new characters are good (I liked the second new crew member better than the first one) and the road trip atmosphere is well done. The plot starts off better than it ends, but it is still entertaining all along the way. While it doesn't reach the main game's level, Strikers is an excellent game in its own right and a worthy spin-off and continuation of Persona 5's story and world. However, I would not recommend it to people who didn't play Persona 5.

I didn't manage to continue adding my games, so here coes the rest quick and dirty. As expected I didn't make it to 52.

EduBRK · Jan 20, 2021

New game done!

3 - Call of Duty - Cold War - 20/01

Good campaign, not the best COD. The ending is kinda anti-climatic, and the story is cute, but they've been around the same plot point for way too long.

TTB: 6h
Score: 6/10

OG Post: https://www.resetera.com/threads/52-games-1-year-2021.354148/page-4#post-55303108

Bosh · Jan 20, 2021

MAIN THREAD
COMPLETED 2021: 10

A very Kunio-Kun update

Outer Wilds - provided a memorable experience and I am glad it was chosen for the monthly game. The ending was phenominal and generally the planets & puzzle were well designed.
Rival Showdown - I was dissapointed in this remake of River City Ransom. It took a lot of charm from the original and a lot of the newly added features were well designed but made the game lack purpose besides the finale.
Max Payne - This game was awesome. Besides the obvious jank from early 3D games, it provided a fun experience and gritty story
River City Girls - I loved this game. Some of the bosses miss the mark, but besides that the combat moves, world, graphics and music were top notch. The story was well done and provided some good humor along the way. I can see myself replaying this again in the future.
Nekketsu Street Basketball - NES basketball game that provided 6 straight hours of fun for me and a friend. The story lacks a purpose besides play teams but this wacky take with three hoops on each end provided a good variety of challenge. Beating up your oppenents is a must and beside Team Florida they all were enjoyable.

Rhaknar · Jan 21, 2021

Game #5 - Halo 4
Time: 8 hours
Platform: Xbox Series X
Rating: ★★★★

Hot take time because I absolutely loved Halo 4 even tho I hear the internet hates it. Right off the bat, I still have a hard time believing this was a 360 game, because if you told me this was a next-gen Halo game (as in, next gen after 360) I would just go "yeah that checks out". It looks amazing even today (the upres and framerate on the Series X / PC helps of course), I love the weapons as they feel and sound fantastic, plus there's a bunch of enw ones, I like the enemies, I loved the levels, just overall it was a blast and probably my favorite Halo so far along with 3 (and thankfully it doesnt have all the sound mixing bugs the previous games had). The story is nonsense and making Cortana an actual waifu is super weird, but I never much cared for the story in these games so for me it doesn't detract from it. It certainly got me super excited to finish out the series with 5 next.

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Josh5890 · Jan 21, 2021

I'll give this a shot. Already off to a good start for me. Unless noted*, first time playing through it.

Total- 27 games
GBA- 1
3DS- 1
N64- 1
GCN- 1
Wii- 1
Switch- 9
PS2- 1
PS3- 1
PS4- 2
PS5- 5
Xbox Series S- 3
PC- 1

1. Zone of the Enders (PS3) 7.5/10 ~6 hours
-The combat did not age too terribly. That whiny kid protagonist was annoying though. Will play the sequel soon.

2. Assassin's Creed Syndicate (PS4 on a PS5) 8/10 ~20 hours
-I enjoyed this a lot more than expected, PS5 technical issues aside. I took a long break from the series after Unity which had done nothing for me. Now I want to play the other PS4 games.

3. Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door (Gamecube) 9/10 ~35 hours
-Why I waited 10+ years to play this game that I owned I will never know. Fun, fantastic, and simple all the way through. The continuous backtracking in the game prevents this from being a 10/10 game for me.

4. Sackboy: A Big Adventure (PS5) 8/10 ~12 hours
-Fun. That is the best way to describe it. I came in expecting a Super Mario 3D World clone but that was far from the truth. The game mechanics, atmosphere, and music were great all the way through.

Whimsicalish · Jan 21, 2021

03 | Equilinox
PC Steam | Jan 21 | 12 hrs | 4/5

Slow, but relaxing experience. You create different ecosystems; I think there's about eight or more? There is a ton of variety. Desert, jungle, tropical, mountains, even life in water. The plants help spread the ecosystems and allow for animals. The animals earn you points, so you can create more on your map. There is no pause option but you can speed the game up if your waiting for points or something to evolve. I believe it's meant to play as a slow, thoughtful experience. Not something you need to worry about time or rush through it.

The challenge comes from evolving your plants and animals. They have certain requirements to unlock. It felt fun and rewarding, rather than an obstacle. Not everything could evolve, but there's a good amount of content to explore. The size of the map is huge, enough for your to grow and experiment. My only struggle was knowing the altitude. I didn't see an obvious way to check if something was high or low enough to thrive. Sometimes I put a plant where it wasn't high or low enough and it would die quickly. Only time I had an issue. Otherwise, lovely game!

P.S. I loved the "simple" art style of the polygon inspired shapes and the animations. It's cute watching the animals hop around. Rewarding, adorable game. I look forward to their future projects.

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EduBRK · Jan 21, 2021

4 - Donut County - 21/01

Surprisingly funny and relaxing game. Kinda a cool story. It's Katamari Damacy, but with holes and a racoon.

TTB: 2h
Score: 7/10

OG Post: https://www.resetera.com/threads/52-games-1-year-2021.354148/page-4#post-55303108

Jay_AD · Jan 22, 2021

Alright, time to do my first recap:

Main post: here

1. Control (PC, Epic) | 7th Jan - 20hrs | 4/5

First game of the year. Good one at that. Has been a while since I played a "modern" AAA type game. I really, really enjoyed this one. The writing and worldbuilding is just incredibly strong, and I loved navigating the Oldest House. Contrary to what a lot of folks seem to report, I didn't really have an issue with the map, and finding my way around the place. I loved it, honestly, since it kind of forces you to be in the space, and use the space for navigating, as opposed to mostly playing on the map. With games that have a stronger reliance on automap I sometimes get the problem that I never really get a feel for the spaces. Good game.

2. Donald Duck - Goin' Quackers (Dreamcast) | 14th Jan - 4hrs | 2-3/5

Yeah, well. A game I've had forever but never really played. Considering that this is an old licensed 3D platformer, this actually wasn't half bad. This is basically a Crash Bandicoot clone, up to and including those stupid front-camera chase levels. You can tell it was mostly intended for kids, because it was never all that challenging, but it was a fun little romp. Main issue was mostly that I could never really get a proper feel for the collision detection, especially with the attack. Rayman 2 this ain't, but it was alright. Interesting fact about Goin' Quackers: the different versions of the game are actually mostly completely distinct games, I might check out one of the other versions at some point, just for giggles.

3. Day of the Tentacle: Remastered (PC, Game Pass) | 21st Jan - 5hrs | 5/5

Okay, this one is one of my all-time favorites, one of those games that I give a replay every few years. It's fantastic, basically the platonic ideal of a cartoon adventure game. I usually just play my original in ScummVM, but since I have the Remaster from Game Pass, I thought I'd give it a whirl with developer commentary. I wish there was actually more commentary in the game though? I think I actually got more out of that video on Double Fine's youtube channel, where Tim Schafer and Dave Grossman play through the game. Still interesting though. Other things about the remaster: I actually way prefer the original pixel graphics, and I sometimes had weird bugs with the music, where the transitional music stings just repeated infinitely until a different music track triggers. Still fantastic though, and it's great that this game is so readily available. I'll probably go back to the original via ScummVM in the future though.

4. Donut County (PC, Game Pass) | 22nd Jan - 2hrs | 2/5

Mh. Dunno about this one. Just gave it a shot because it popped up on Game Pass, and seemed like a short fun little romp. I really did not enjoy the writing in this one at all. It's this kind of terminally twee indie game style that sometimes rubs me the wrong way if the execution is not on point. Also the way everyone talks like they are posting in a chat room really came across as super forced and gave off that dreaded "fellow kids" vibe. The interactive parts of the game are fine, I guess. Kind of a Katamari-ish type of game, with some light puzzles. Your play spaces are way more restricted than in Katamari though, which makes it feel pretty slight overall. I don't regret having played it, but wouldn't actually recommend it.

bushmonkey · Jan 22, 2021

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4 - Robo Recall: Unplugged - Occulus Quest - 3hrs / 19th Jan - 8/10
Great graphics and gun gameplay but the levels and enemies get really repetitive after a while.

Blindy · Jan 22, 2021

3) Spyro 3: Year of the Dragon(Spyro Reignited Trilogy)(PS5)
117% stage completion, Platinum Trophy, everything except skill points completed

I beat Spyro 3: Year of the Dragon for the first time via Spyro Reignited Collection. I know it's a remaster but the core game, story are PS1 so lets stick it to this thread. Sucks 2021 is Year of the Ox because this was a pun absolutely waiting to be happened if if truly was Year of the Dragon on the Chinese zodiac calendar :laughy:

Got the 117% completion and Platinum trophy so that's a perfect 3/3 on fully completing the trilogy(outside of skill points). Much like with the first two entries I really enjoyed myself with this game, it's more of less the same as the previous two games, just a different story, different characters. Core gameplay is identical to Ripto's Rage outside of one big feature. I will say the following things as to why I think I enjoyed 2 a LITTLE bit more than 3.

1) Spyro 2 seemed to have a little more to it vs the 3rd installment. End level animations that were cute and about 15-30 seconds, better levels(imo). That isn't to say Spyro 3 sucks in this regard as the game is full of personality and life but after playing 2, I found 2 has a little bit more personality. Both shine bright in this regard nevertheless.

2) In Spyro 2 you always play as Spyro who is the mascot and main character of the entire franchise(duh). In Spyro 3, you play as Spyro, as Sparx his dragonfly companion in his own minigames, Hunter his best friend in his own minigame, and 4 other sets of character ranging from Sheila the Kangaroo to Sgt Bird the uhhh....bird to Bentley the Yeti to Agent 9 the space monkey. I like all of the characters personality and enjoyed (most) of the minigames but I liked the simplicity of playing as Spyro. This is far from a negative as again I liked the ambition in giving you a different feel into the minigames but I am a traditional platformer through and through mainly so less is more for me in this genre.

3) The bosses are not as difficult or overdrawn as they were in 2 which is a good thing, particularly the final boss. I did find more about Ripto than the Sorceress in large part due to the cutscenes that featured the main villain more than Spyro 3's major villain where she was talking to a side character introduced in 3. Same formulaic structure in 3 vs the 2nd one with an arena sort of showdown with different phases of the boss that you needed to run around and pick your spots in, simple enough.

The game's music fits the themes of each level that range from desert to ancient China to underwater to wild west. Most clique themes get tackled in this game and the characters in turn feel clique(Canadian accent in the ice world lol) but I liked this personally speaking. Gameplay feels good BUT I have to say I felt the glide and lift up that is instrumental in the series feels off this game. By that I mean when I feel like Spyro's body is fully above the platform that it's life or death to get on, the game doesn't register it and I die often due to either the jump up(triangle button) not working despite in gliding animation or it again doesn't count it as I am not fully above the platform and you often get a clipping animation with Spyro sliding to his death. Quite a few times I died because of this, very frustrating.

The minigames which are a big part of this series charm range from hit(Sparx minigames, Agent 9 ones, Bentley the Yeti's) to MISS(Skateboard and racing minigames, awful). The skateboard one tries to draw inspiration from the Tony Hawk series only the major gripe is you think your skateboard is fully on balance to land but the game says you crash the landing. Absolutely painful minigames and among the worst in the series IMHO. The less of that, the better, sadly eggs which are the game's equivalent to a collect-a-thon to pass through to the final boss(100 eggs needed out of 149 main story) are tied to the minigames, including the skateboarding ones so while not absolutely mandatory, if you wanted to get the secret world and 100%, you gotta suck it up.

Altogether, the game ran me about 13 hours to fully complete the game and once again I enjoyed myself with yet another Spyro game. I didn't get into this series on the PS1 due to my brother hogging the system up due to the RPGs so I had the N64 but after playing through all 3 games on this collection, I really get and respect the original Spyro creators, Insomniac's attention to detail in what makes a game fun and what makes platformers fun. Bares saying that I CANNOT wait for the new Ratchet and Clank game from them, a series that borrowed if not perfected a lot of what the Spyro series made prior a generation ago.

Rhaknar · Jan 22, 2021

Game #6 - Halo 5 Guardians
Time: 8 hours
Platform: Xbox Series X
Rating: ★★★★

Another fantastic 343 Industries Halo game... at least when it comes to gameplay and presentation, so let's start there. Much like Halo 4, but now with the added horsepower of the last gen behind it, the game is just gorgeous, with much bigger open space levels now (something Halo 4 suffered from) and a LOT more characters on screen, both enemies and your new permanent 4 man squad. Gameplay is probably the best in the series, as it improves on Halo 4 with new movies, even better weapons and better battles. Unfortunately the story is a bunch of cliche nonsense picking up from 4's "Cortana is going crazy!" thread and dialing it up to 11. At least it's different from the original trilogy I guess. Overall I loved it for it's gameplay and presentation, but the story is pretty bad. It's also a unexpected MGS2 situation where you don't actually play Master Chief much at all, which I don't mind but I imagine most fans didn't apreciate lol.

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Cyclonesweep · Jan 22, 2021

Game #1 - Dark Souls: Remastered
Time: 38 hours
Platform: Xbox Series X
Rating: ★★★★★★★★★★ 10

First time ever actually getting into a Souls game and I loved it. Once it clicked it's all I thought about, it got me thru a mandatory quarantine. Every death, my mistake. Ever hurdle, passable with some thought. Every struggle, I just had to git gud. I definitely am on board with the appeal now and cannot wait to continue on with the series. First game I have ever loved using shields.

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Game #2 - Dragon Quest XI S
Time: 80.5 hours
Platform: Switch
Rating: ★★★★★★★ 7

I really wanted to like this game more. It definitely was easy to play and I enjoyed slowly getting thru it. However I feel like the game had so much potential to be more. I don't think I am a fan of silent protagonists anymore, ESPECIALLY in the age of voice acting. I feel like the real ending of this game was so anticlimatic and.....kind of bad? Maybe it would be different if I played other Dragon Quest games before? The gameplay was fun with the flexibility, the characters were mostly get and the plot, while having its moments was kind of....bad? I haven't felt this mixed about a game in a long time. Do not regret my time with it but I just was left feeling...blah?

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Game #3 - Destiny 2: Forsaken
Time: 9 hours
Platform: Xbox Series X
Rating: ★★★★★★★ 7

More Destiny. The gunplay is excellent, everything about the game feels great. The cutscenes were beautiful too. I don't know if it was like this when it launched but not being able to just go around the map to the main quests and having to basically load into an instance of the EXACT same map and it would just teleport you to a different part of the map and treat it like you stumbled upon the area just felt extremely clunky and took me out of it at times. That said I think I am going to play Destiny in between games this year as its easy to turn your mind off and just enjoy shooting (the) shit. This and DQXI had really...lackluster final fights, which was disappointing.

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InquisitorAles · Jan 22, 2021

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2. Aces of the Galaxy™ - 1 hour
A very short and rather chaotic arcade rail shooter that didn't age well. The PC port quality is not very good, the game supports only 720p resolution at max, and options like AA and VSync are missing. Definitely not worth your time, not even with a big discount.

Memory Pak · Jan 22, 2021

02. Final Fantasy IX (2000/2019, Switch) ★★★★☆
One of the oldest denizens of my backlog, which I've restarted at least thrice over the years before the most recent attempt almost melted my elderly PS1. Some time-saving cheats on Switch got me over the hill after routinely stranding at the end of Disc 1. At this point I might need to accept Final Fantasy as a series may not be for me, but FF IX shines undeniably bright in many areas.
This entry is built on Shakespearean traditions, with its play-within-play opening scene, comedic asides, disguised identities, and the misplaced love letter scene which feels straight out of Twelfth Night. More broadly, a European folklore/fantasy setting underpins it all: from locations (with names like Lindblum, Burmecia, and Alexandria), to fashion, music (waltzes and comedic jaunts), and its creature designs (anthropomorphic rats, dogs, hippopotami). This historical shorthand allows the steampunk elements to slot right in; it sells the notion of Gaia's own impending industrial revolution.

By establishing a coherent fantasy setting, characters are free to interact rather than explain the world, and that's when the game is at its best. The class system assigns rigid roles to characters, in contrast to more flexible Job Systems of earlier Final Fantasies. It's done purposefully however: pre-determined classes allow the characters to fulfill archetypal stage roles (the disguised princess, mad queen, the rogue, a pompous knight, two malevolent jesters, etc.). The already large cast is supplemented with many ancillary figures, which has the unfortunate side effect of short-changing several characters' development.
Late addition Amarant completes only the barest of arcs, for example. Young Eiko is saddled with a lot of exposition which seems at odds with her immaturity, while Freya (in a cruel twist of irony) gets somewhat forgotten by the plot midway through. The jesters' side switching feels perfunctory, and while some characters with mysterious backgrounds receive early foreshadowing, protagonist Zidane gets almost none, meaning the revelation of his origin feels like a cheap twist rather than an earned surprise.
Conversely however, Vivi, Dagger, Steiner, (and Freya early on) successfully carry a lot of the core themes. Vivi is the stand-out, his adorable design pairs well with tragedy for emotional gut punches. Meanwhile comic relief Steiner is an initially frustrating presence, since the audience already knows conclusions he takes ages to reach. However, he grows in lockstep along the running theme of personal identity and choice vs. externally determined fate. Dagger undergoes the most transformations of all, and while she is saddled with damsel tropes and a weak (and frankly, creepy) co-lead, her character has the most range of all. Lastly, delightful agent of chaos Quina, who learns nothing, and has almost no internal struggle, serves as a funhouse mirror to the rest of the cast.

The strength of this ensemble is most evident in contrast to the rocky story. While thematically cohesive, its pacing is wonky at best. The plot initially takes a flying start, and strings a veritable D&D campaign's worth of individual scenarios together (evil forest, ice cave, festival arc, treetop city), but also has no qualms at all about cratering its pacing after pivotal events. Most egregious is when the principal antagonist is sidelined, only to be followed by a card game tournament of all things; what is this, Yu-Gi-Oh!? These distracting plot cul-de-sacs leave the late game swerve poorly foreshadowed. Suddenly the player is buried in an avalanche of destined fates, interdimensional planetary conflict, and man-behind-the-curtain reveals. These twists barely convince, and come at the expense of grinding everyone's character arcs to a halt. The result is a story which feels entirely too long (did we really need the dwarf village, or the empty mole people town?) and simultaneously rushed (the 4 mirrors quest reeks of cut content, and towards the end everyone just teleports from place to place).
None of this Bizarro-world pacing is aided either by the slow dialogues and glacial combat. It's not a bad turn-based system, with easily understood front/back row mechanics, and stats and skills tied to gear. But the Trance system is too scattershot to strategise around, and party composition is hindered by Zidane's mandatory presence and two white mages whose healing quickly becomes obsolete. Particularly miserable are encounter loading times and the combat's sluggishness. Few things are worse than your entire party getting hit and watching a slow-motion conga line of auto-potions trigger, while you twiddle your thumbs. The Fast Forward and No Encounters cheats are essential additions in this port - use them liberally.

Final Fantasy IX misses quite a few of the swings it takes, but has the liberty to take them thanks to a very solid foundation. Yes, Zidane is a skeevy lead, there's a curious amount of silence despite its sizable score, the card game is a step down, the story is awkwardly paced at times, and without cheats the battles are too slow. But there are ample successful elements to fall back on; a testament to its strong worldbuilding, cohesive gear/battle system, and endearing characters. Lastly, the modern port allows players to sand off some rough edges, while letting the truly impressive production values sing, too.

purseowner said:
Thank you - your review's hilarious and makes me glad I didn't find time for this before the trial ended.

Thanks! Hopefully it didn't come off too negative, as there is a decent, fast kart racer buried in CTRNF, and I hope Beenox keeps getting big projects. It's just disappointing how few of the good tracks are in the Adventure Mode, meaning you need to force yourself to care about Grand Prix/single races. There's heaps of content in the game though, if you're willing to jump through Activision's hoops, and it all looks polished (despite my deep dislike of its style). It received lots of praise too, so treat my grumbling as an outlier opinion, but unless you love the franchise I don't think you missed much.

Tizoc · Jan 23, 2021

15. Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles (Sonic playthrough via Sonic 3 AIR fan project)

OK so...turns out I should've played Sonic 3 Complete fan project since THAT one allows you to go through Flying Battery during Sonic 3 levels instead of the latter :V
Sonic 3 AIR has mod support along with a variety of features and tweaks, but cheif among them is a widescreen option that lets you see more of the stages allowing you to rect to hazards and enemies better. AIR is pretty much S3&K games but provided with a variety of QOL improvements and other stuff such as using alt. music for Ice Cap Zone for example.

I cleared this as Sonic while collecting all the emeralds in both 3 and in Knuckles, which made the rest of the game less harder, though, for the life of me, I know that in a future playthrough, I'll always forget the locations of the rings :V Blue Sphere special stages are actually easier than I had anticipated long as I remember the proper pattern for clearing them.

Neil98 · Jan 23, 2021

10. Super Mario Bros NES Online Switch

Rhaknar · Jan 23, 2021

Game #7 - Sea of Solitude
Time: 4 hours
Platform: Xbox Series X
Rating: ★★★★

Always hard to rate these types of games, as it feels weird to "rate" something that is clearly very personal and touches on hard subjects like depression and bullying (the developer has said the game is partically based on a past abusive relationship but also a lot of it is fictionional), but thankfully the actual game itself is quite good I think. The visuals are gorgeous, using a very Wind Waker-esque art style with some truly fantastic monster and world designs, but the gameplay is serviceable at best. It does the job and the game has a lot more gameplay going for it than most of these type of games which tend to be more walking sims, but it's still nothing remarkable. But, it's a very touching (if hard to play since again, it touches on a lot of subects that hit a little too close to home for me) and a good metaphor for mental health, so for that and the visuals alne, it's very worth playing, as long as you can handle the themes.

Game #8 - Bloodstained Ritual of the Night
Time: 16 hours
Platform: Switch
Rating: ★★★★

Finally got around to play this, took me long enough for being such a metroidvania fanboy, and it's pretty fucking fantastic as one would expect from Igarashi himself, but unfortunately the Switch version is still pretty shoddy even after numerous patches so I can't go the 5/5 on it, at least not the version I played. Game wise it's just a super solid throwback to Symphony of the Night, with a TON of weapons and spells to collect, a gigantic map and really good gameplay (if a little outdated in my opinion, it feels a bit stiff). Like I said, the Switch version is... ok, it's certainly playable but the graphical fidelity takes a HUGE hit, so unless you really want to play it portable (like I did, at work), just play a "proper" version because the game itself is one of the best of the genre.

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EduBRK · Jan 23, 2021

5 - Spider Man - Miles Morales - 23/01

Spider man, to me, is the most interesting take on the Arkham Combat formula. Speed, moves, style. Everything is better gameplay wise in this game, more refined. The story is great, setup's Miles as is own character, the final battle and ending sequence is very good. I've 100% the game, is just too good.

TTB: 20h
Score: 9/10

All games: https://www.resetera.com/posts/55303108/

Blindy · Jan 23, 2021

4) Super Castlevania IV via Castlevania Collection(PS4)

Finished Super Castlevania IV last night, AKA RNG the video game. AKA bat enemies are so small and broken and do more damage than bullet shots or fireballs from bigger enemies. AKA spike/fall deaths galore. AKA a super fun game.

As with plenty of old games, especially the hard ones, this game is littered with RNG. Sometimes on a balcony it's two enemies instead of one, sometimes the precise jump you make lands on an awkward gear and doesn't count and it's instant death. Truth be told, this game will see more pit deaths or spike deaths more than the actual enemies widdle you down to. Excluding bosses, I can safely say I barely needed one hand to count the amount of times I died because of an enemy. On the contrary, the fall and spike deaths were easily my nemesis in this playthrough, as is usually the case in the early Castlevania games.

The music is EXCELLENT. Bloody Tears? You got it. Simon's Theme? You got it. Vampire Killer? You got it. Arguably the best soundtrack in the series IMHO, the game is made massively tolerable with the banging themes. As with a majority of these games, you have anywhere from 2-5 parts of a chapter/stage and you have to complete it, often with a boss at the end to progress through. If you run out of lives(Start with 4), you go back not to the beginning of the game but the beginning of the act. Fair enough. What is difficult in this game is if you are not aware of what is to come, you will often see your lives swallowed by a cheap fall death or spike death or an enemy coming out of nowhere knocking you backwards(Curse you old school backwards momentum after taking a hit) to a aforementioned spike or fall death. Very rarely did I think I died a death that wasn't my fault but often is the case, I say out loud "How was I suppose to know that was coming"? Story is simple enough, Dracula is to be revived by a cast of dedicated minions(DEATH and etc.) and you are Simon Friggin Belmont, Vampire killer and whip aficionado himself.

The cool feature in this game is the whip isn't a standard horizontal attack spread but can be used in attacks that go vertical(Up and down), diagonal and Horizonal. You can even use your whip as a minishield while standing in place! Your whip just feels really good and really strong, it borrows the classic needing to find 2 upgrades which are easy to find via candles placed all over the levels to extend your range and (i think) make it a little stronger. Each time you die, you do have to re-get those power ups but again they are easy to get if you are hitting the candles littered all over. If not that, you will get hearts which is a staple in the franchise for the secondary items that of course range from cross to axe to knife to timeclock to bottle. Nothing new here, exactly the way the NES games rolled.

What was cool is the background environment and even a level rotates the level around and really gives you a feel that the SNES(at that point and time) was that more powerful than the NES. Levels feel more alive in this game admittedly, you can go in the back of a level in the 1st stage even! This game also has platforms that you are expected to hold onto and whip with momentum around to make life or death swings or to go to places with health and powerups when the going gets tough. Lots of new features that difference SCIV from the previous 3, we love that.

SCIV really is a homage to the older Castlevania games and really 1-up's it all with a more forgiving balance and makes for a fun 4 or so hour playthrough. I can say by Stage 8 is where I felt I was dying an absurd amount of times and that Stage-B is absolutely brutal. The one gripe I do have and it may be because I played this on the PS4 via Castlevania collection is the diagonal movement is very wonky. In particular, Stage B has you walking diagonal on stairs which as any Castlevania fan knows is walked on slow pace and jumping on it is prohibited in a chase from a one hit KO buzzsaw from below, the problem I found is my inputs on these stairs, especially the diagonal ones weren't registered which caused some absolute cheap deaths and game overs. How much is to be put on the game or more so how much is to be put on the Dualshock 4? Not quite sure but sometimes my input for the stairs worked, other times not so much. In particularly, going diagonal was a task in itself, other times I know to hold my character down and they will automatically trigger the staircase animation(IMPORTANT FOR NES Castlevanias!). Still frustrating nevertheless.

Boss fights range from me killing them in one go to constantly having to trot my sorry ass back and retry again(Looking at you Dracula). Dracula is much more forgiving in this game say vs the original NES Castlevania where he isn't constantly doing the teleport, fireball, you get 1 shot to his very, very small hitbox of a head, repeat until 2nd phase. He at least shoots orbs that can (yes) be shield whipped into small chicken pieces that restore decent amounts of health(Yes) which is a game changer and his fire ball minion summons can be wiped out with a good whip strike before they go to town on your health bar.

Game is just super fun and after I could not find it in me to go after Castlevania II or III, I really think this game changed the franchise for the better and kept a level of hardcore and toughness the diehards will always like yet not be too unforgiving for casual/newcomers to get into. This and Castlevania: Bloodlines do this well pre Iga-Castlevanias.

But boy do I need a slide in this game. Man Simon has to learn how to friggin slide, so many times I told myself "I really need that slide". Same feeling I got playing Mega Man 1 & 2. Speaking of Mega Man.......................

5) Mega Man 4(Via Mega Man Legacy Collection)(PS4)

It's really much of the same, the music is a step up from Mega Man 3 IMO. Gameplay is much easier to me with a boss that practically jumps around at you when up close(Toad Man) that gives MM2's Flash Man a fight in easiest boss in the series. There's a nice swerve with the antagonists but it's really much of the same. Couple additions that add to the series are.

1) Four Words. Charged. Up. Mega. Buster! Just as Mega Man 3 brought in the slide, MM4 is responsible for the birth for the ever important and soon to be staple of the franchise, the charged up mega buster. This bad boy adds additional damage when impacted, increases the width of the shot to further the chance of hitting a enemy's hitbox and in later entries, can be used to charge powerups you pick up from downed Robot Masters for all sorts of new features. Great, great addition, revolutionary to the series. Almost on par with Sonic 2's SPIN DASH and the aforementioned Castlevania slide that was introduced in Rondo of Blood(I think?).

2) Uncle Eddie bringing the goods. Eddie the mini repair bot is introduced here and he basically is a RNG creator but he will always try and help you. Whether it's a extra life, a big health repair, a big secondary weapon repair or if your super lucky, a full energy tank AKA the game's subtank and ultimate pick me up when your low on health and refuse to concede defeat.

Outside of that, it's really much of the same. If I had to rank difficulty of the visits to this franchise, it'd go

Mega Man 1
Mega Man 3
Mega Man 4
Mega Man 2

From hardest to easiest. I would say the true final boss is the lone real blemish or difficult part as in typical NES fashion you have to know there's only one way to truly hurt him and it's a charged up power shot from one of the robot masters weapons you acquired previous. How would you know that as a kid, the heck if I know? Nintendo Power? No shame, had to look up the weaknesses of the post robot masters.

Game runs you a good afternoon's worth of time. Game is lenient with the energy tanks and the drop rate is far better in this game vs MM3 for trying to grind for lives or health, the last game felt like a waste of time in that regard.

5/52

Deleted member 32615 · Jan 24, 2021

Hitman-3-How-the-Turntables-Challenge-Guide-How-to-Kill-Montgomery-Banner-800x400.jpg

Game 4: Hitman 3 (PC) (7 Hours, 33 Minutes) (4/5) (January 24th, 2021)
I would have been super surprised if IO somehow messed this game up, but they didn't, not one bit. This is by far the best Hitman experience. The locales and missions are all consistently creative and engaging while looking absolutely beautiful at the same time. The gameplay is exactly what you expect but it doesn't feel the same. IO's attention to detail and ambition has made every possible option feel fun and unique. This was always going to be either my game of the year or in my top 10 somewhere, and it definitely did not disappoint. I had a few issues like disconnecting from Hitman servers frequently and some screen tearing on the Argentina level which I didn't experience elsewhere, so it's not a perfect experience yet.

Now I'm done with the main story, I reckon it's time to play through every mission again

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Comrade Grogu · Jan 24, 2021

So... Games that we've completed or just games that we're playing in general?

52 Games. 1 Year. 2021.

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