I actually play my games?
Believe it or not, I don't just buy games to look at the box art (most of the time). This year was one of the first that I really took in and tried to look at things more critically as I played through and completed games. In my head I didn't think I played that many different games fully through this year, but my list is bigger than in years past I feel. I'll be chronicling my thoughts on games either in brief or in more length depending on my enjoyment of the game, whether or not I beat them, and so on. At the end of the year maybe I'll even put them all into a tier list of sorts to rank every game I played. All of this is mostly for my personal recollection so that I can have something in the future to look back on, and as my tastes evolve and new games come out I can see where priorities change. These games aren't in any particular order to start, but most of the games at the end will most likely be some games I've played recently.
YS Chronicles (YS 1)
I had a stretch of a few weeks where I was playing a lot of my Vita, mostly to feel involved with the investment of the system and games I've bought this year because outside of Persona 4 Golden or the occasional game of Hot Shots Golf, I really haven't played the Vita a ton. One of the games I panic downloaded a few years ago while the Vita store was getting ready to shutdown before Sony switched the decision was YS Chronicles. I figured getting into the YS series made sense to play the first game first, and I can say it was a good decision. As Falcom has made updates to the original game and ported it to multiple systems, the Chronicles port still holds a lot of that appeal from the original game. It was also nice to play a game that had such fast combat but not a ton of thought behind it if that makes sense. It was perfect to just run into enemies for an hour or so after getting off work, but outside of some initial grinding at the very beginning it never got tiring. In a lot of ways YS had a lot of Metroidvania elements to it as well with items as a prerequisite for traveling to new locations, killing certain enemies and so on. The story wasn't bad and felt different enough to stand out among other contemporaries I've played from the time period. Still, it wasn't anything to write home about just quite yet, I'll have to see how YS II carries the story on at some point soon. In my opinion the crown jewel of playing YS I now is the soundtrack. Whether you're listening to the PC-88 original soundtrack, or one of the remixed soundtracks available in the Chronicles collection you cannot go wrong. Each tune is necessary in pushing the mood of a given situation, whether it's your first time stepping out into the field and getting ready for an adventure, or entering a town that's seen better days, or entering a dungeon that could be your last. The soundtrack has been something I've been listening to on and off all this year and I'm excited to play YS II sooner rather than later. Getting to experience a major stepping stone in a genre that's more prevalent than ever in Action-RPGS was a major highlight this year.
Star Soldier
If you're interested in more of my thoughts on Star Soldier, take a look at one of my blog posts from a few months ago. Just to go over things briefly, I thought Star Soldier was a fun enough time for a few dollar pick up. If you do play the game today, definitely play it with a turbo controller as it makes things much more enjoyable. I'm sure it might've felt outdated at the time it came out, and even more so today, but as something to pick up and play for 30 minutes or for someone who has played the same NES games over and over Star Soldier is a fun enough time.
Spy Hunter PS2
I played Spy Hunter for like a day or two and got kind of bored of it quicker than I thought I would. I'm a vocal arcade racing fan, and the PS2 era of games had some of the best games. Spy Hunter isn't one of those games but is far and away from the worst on offer. I thought it was a neat idea to revive one a classic arcade game and give a fresh coat of paint, but I'm not sure how many people were exactly buying this game solely off of name recognition. The driving controls are pretty solid and I like how your vehicle evolves as the situation does like a real spy car should. One other thing they brought over from the arcade game was the music that plays during most of the stages and menus being the same as the original arcade release which was a pretty big let down. Similar to shmups, arcade racers are one of the few genres where I look at the soundtrack as a key part of the experience and a great way to differentiate your game from the competition. Spy Hunter does this but in reverse, because it feels like there's only one song and you won't be able to forget it after playing unfortunately. I think this game would be better if it wasn't so linear in its mission structure, or having strict requirements of achievements you have to get in order to move on to the next mission. If this game was more open world, or had a few hub cities that you could drive around and do some smaller spy missions in between the big ones and unlock either cosmetics or new weapons to use, I'd still be playing. Unfortunately, Spy Hunter as it is can be fun for a little while, but it overstays its welcome in areas with repeating missions to move on to a new stage, and a great soundtrack with the TV muted. On the flipside, at least this made more time for me to play other games lol.
Willy Wombat
There aren't many 3D platformers on Saturn unfortunately. While the PS1 and N64 were redefining what you could do in a platformer in a 3D space, the Saturn got games like Willy Wombat. If you don't know, Willy Wombat is a pseudo 3D platformer with most of the characters and objects in the stage being handled by 2D sprites and the stage itself being 3D spaces. Not a bad idea, especially on a console like the Saturn that could mesh games with 2D and 3D very well, just look at a game like Bulk Slash for example. Where Willy Wombat falls is its controls. Controlling Willy is a little slippery, attacking from close range is almost impossible, and the camera is pretty basic only being able to shift it left or right around Willy. The soundtrack drags a bit as well, with the only shift in songs being in between worlds and not stages. The songs themselves aren't anything to write home about, almost trying to be more atmospheric than anything which doesn't work in the game's favor. This game is more of an oddity than anything, I might try to play more of it in the future but most likely not for a while.
Persona 4 Dancing All Night
Another local game store pickup, I was happy to pick this one up after playing P4G a few years back. With P4G easily one of the best reasons to own a Vita, Persona 4 Dancing All Night had some big shoes to fill in. I'm happy to say for the most part it delivers for a fun spinoff. The story isn't nearly as involved as the main series, but deals with topics of the difficulty of making connections, expectations, and dealing with grief. The story early on can drag for the first few chapters as you're getting introduced to characters and playing tutorials for the actual rhythm sections of the game, but around Chapter 4 I ended up really enjoying and stuck around to actually finish the story. As far as the gameplay itself, its a solid rhythm game experience reminding me of the Hatsune Miku Project Diva games. Starring remixes of classic Persona 4 tunes along with some new songs that were a nice addition. Some main standouts were "Dance!", "Signs of Love - TK Remix" and "Your Affection". However that's not to say the track list has some down turns. I wasn't a huge fan of some of the slower songs, and some remixes were a little too "dubsteppy" if that makes sense. Overall though, I was happy to play this one this year. I'll always take some supplementary material for some of my favorite characters in a game, and if you don't look at it as more than a fun side-romp then you'll have a good time with this one.
Endless Ocean
This one was a revisit from my childhood because I wanted to originally go to school to be a marine biologist. Living in Ohio and being landlocked put a damper on that idea, so Endless Ocean was the next best thing for me. Endless Ocean is nothing more to me than one of those games that I can turn my brain off for and just wind down an evening with as I try to find new kinds of fish to fill out my encyclopedia. A chill experience, I was happy to play for some of my evenings this year.
Sea of Stars
I'll make a full review of this game at some point, but this game delivered to me in a big way after being hyped in my head for quite some time. One of the few games that held my attention beginning to end, I beat with both endings, and almost immediately went back for a new game plus which I never do. I could talk endlessly about visual effects, the soundtrack, battle systems and the characters, but like I said I'll leave that for a more full review. Please play this game, it's out on basically everything and is more than worth your time.
Phantasy Star
One game I got out of my backlog was Phantasy Star. It almost feels like a right of passage to play the games that define a genre, and Phantasy Star I think has aged pretty well. With an interesting cast of characters in a setting that's unique for it's era on a quest to avenge your family and stop the galaxy from being taken over. The big thing that stood out to me was the presentation. Battle scenes being somewhat animated and having designated backgrounds in the overworld, colorful panels during major plot events that show more character, and the 1st person perspective from the dungeons were all more than I was expecting from a game of this vintage. There were some issues I ran into however. If I wasn't for me playing the Sega Ages release of this game on Switch, exploring some dungeons would be a nightmare without a map. I was also fine with talking to NPC's to figure out where to go next for a little over the first third of the game, but I did get pretty stuck in the ice planet and couldn't wait to get off of it honestly. Walking around and trying to figure things out on my own did have it's advantages, I didn't have to grind almost at all apart from the first few levels, and I got to experience some optional dungeons that made life a lot easier during points of the game. Overall, I would say if you do go back to this game play the modern re-release on Switch for some nice bells and whistles along with the FM soundtrack.
NFSU2
"Riders on the Storm... Riders on the Storm... Into this House we're born... Into this world we're thrown... Like a dog without a bone, an actor out on loan... Riders on the Storm"
I got way further than I did when I was a kid, just a bunch of nostalgia on this one.
Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild
7 years after the Switch releases, I finally get around to playing the game that sold so many systems on it's release. I'm not a huge fan of the normal 3D Zelda formula, I feel a lot of things that are easy in 2D Zelda become a chore in 3D so I tend to put the games down pretty quickly. BOTW kept me decently engaged from beginning to end. I liked the excitement of climbing a new tower and unlocking part of the map that was brand new, or finding a new shrine with a new puzzle. The freedom to do whatever you want and tackle the dungeons in any order you want was refreshing, and I didn't feel any rush to go to the next objective. Some of the divine beasts as dungeons were a little underwhelming and they didn't have a real way to stand out visually. I would say playing BOTW for me was good starting out, great after the first and second divine beast, then after that it was downhill in terms of my enjoyment for most of the playthrough. I can appreciate the freedom that BOTW allows, leading to a good amount of replayability, but a lot of it felt very repetitive towards the end. You'd go to a new area, find the tower, look for shrines/stables and if there wasn't a major city or landmarks to explore you go to the next tower whenever you're ready. The final battle was nothing compared to some of the regular enemies you could come across running around, but being able to walk straight up the castle path and go straight into the final Ganon fight was an awesome feeling. Last little side rant here, fuck the rain. For a game that wants you to explore and encourages different ways of exploration and the paths you take, the rain completely stopped me in my tracks of progression at least on 10-12 different occasions. I figured after getting the Zora spirit and that I could swim up waterfalls that it wouldn't be a big deal anymore, but I never found anything that helped climbing in the rain. With that being said, overall I had a good time with BOTW, but it doesn't really make me want to play the sequel if it's going to be more of the same.
Yakuza 0
I have a full review from my perspective around the 15 hour mark into the story of Yakuza that I will most likely redo at some point, but after finishing Yakuza 0 I'm excited to play more. Balancing a tonally and thematically serious plot with fun, self aware mini games and hilarious situations/dialogue couldn't have been easy, but Sega pulled it off and then some. I think my only complaint was with the combat. One or two points during the story the combat was much harder than in other spots for whatever reason, and I wasn't a fan of the skill tree in which you unlocked things, but I tried to use the new tools that were given to me when the opportunity arose. The combat itself was a lot of fun, heat moves were a blast to pull off and I was always trying to find new ones. Yakuza from my experience had more to do than in BOTW, and you could either spend a large portion of time doing side quests, playing mini-games and just chilling, or if you want to go through the story as is the game allows you to do so. Very happy I picked this up and played this year.
Metal Gear Solid 2
I think I played and beat this at the very beginning of this year or late last year, I honestly can't remember. Either way I'll rank it this year because I had a great time with this game. The new ways to deal with foes always had me trying out every new tool I got, and it increases playability in my eyes because you can go about situations differently on repeat playthroughs. Getting to shake down enemies after holding them at gunpoint was fun and I didn't even realize I could do it until I did it on accident. The story was all over the place at the very end, but up until that point I thought that it was scary how well the story holds up to today's technological and political environment. My only gripes were with some of the bosses and a difficulty spike towards the end of the game. I felt like the bosses in MGS1 were cooler and more varied, outside of Fatman and his bombs I didn't really care for any of the bosses. I was also stuck on the part toward the last quarter of the game where you lose your gear for a section, I got caught and died a lot there. Outside of that, it really does feel like you're playing a movie, and the twists of the story are sure to take you for a ride so I won't spoil them here, but I'm excited to play MGS3 soon.
Pokémon Scarlet
This was one of the last games this year I sunk time into. I wanted to give the game some time after hearing so many bad things on release in terms of performance, visuals and bugs, but now that both DLC's are released for the game is it any better. From my experience, there are still some pretty big issues with the game. A lot of lighting errors during battles and cutscenes, textures not loading in correctly, and I even ran into a bug where my campsite that I had set up was completely invisible. I still haven't been able to see my picnic table in any capacity and I just beat the 8th gym. Pokémon's strong suits have always been the Pokémon that are available to you and how you construct your team for upcoming battles, as well as seeing the new creations that Game Freak have come up with. I skipped out on Sword and Shield, so a lot more Pokémon were new in this game which has been a breath of fresh air. Other than that, I don't have a ton that I really enjoy about this Pokémon game in particular. The open world is nice to wander around in, but it means the game is poorly optimized as they try to load the entire map in at once. If they had some minor loading zones in between major regions I feel like they would've looked a lot smoother. I hate all the characters, except the gym leader that's just a normal business man, he's pretty chill. I'll continue to be skeptical of Pokémon going forward, but I'm happy they haven't made a new game this year and just focused on DLC.
From this point on I don't have as much to say, either because I haven't beaten the game or didn't have a lot of thoughts on the experience as a whole, but still wanted to keep track of to say that I've played it.
Ridge Racer 7
Damn they need to make a new HD Ridge Racer. The game looks amazing and carries on the formula that was established in the PSP title, but at the end of the day it's Ridge Racer. You'll either love it or hate it, and I love it.
Project X Zone
I really don't know what's going on with the story in this one, but shit is going down. The battles are a lot of fun and don't feel overly difficult which I like for an SRPG. I mainly got this for the characters interacting with each other, but the gameplay and soundtrack are a good enough reason to keep me around for more.
Revenge of Shinobi
Holy crap this game is hard. Hard but fair for the most part. I really enjoyed the music and the levels in this one, but that damn double jump I just can't get the timing down for. I'll beat this one someday.
Super Mario Wonder
I can't binge a 2D Mario game, I found Mario Wonder much more enjoyable as a game that you can play for an hour or so and then come back to. As someone who hasn't played a new 2D Mario game since the Wii, this is the game I've been waiting for. Awesome powerups, the best creativity in levels I've seen maybe ever, the amount of ideas this games throws at you is the best part of the experience. Still wish I could pick up player two in co-op to throw them around.
Streets of Rage
I played the sequel last year and forgot that I had the 6-pak Genesis cart with the first game on it, so I played that this year as well. The bosses are impossible in the first game, they really take some memorization to know how to avoid their attacks. Outstanding soundtrack and awesome visuals as well, shoutout to Stage 5.
Soul Hackers 2
A departure from the gameplay in the first entry, most likely to have it be more like Persona. I found the dungeons kind of boring, but the visuals and sound were good. I might give this one more time in the future, but I mainly just played the week before Sea of Stars came out and haven't touched it since lol.
Street Fighter 6
I liked E Honda and Dee Jay, but I ended up playing KOF XV more this year because I like SNK and their characters a lil bit more.
KOF XV
I sunk a lot of time into KOF this year, building out my team and at least getting decent with the systems in place. I'm working on finding a definitive 3rd character, but doing the combo trials and trying out all the characters really make me appreciate the combo freedom and versatility of characters that SNK has on offer. I'm about to buy the game again on PC just to have a better connection to start playing online and get my ass whooped.
Super Mario RPG (Switch)
If you liked the original, you'll have a good time. A lot of what made the original hold up still works today, and the quality of life changes that were made like the quick travel and spread damage on perfect timing of hits in battle were nice touches. I'd say the game was too easy, but there were some nice additions to the post game that are there to challenge people who've played the original.
Famicom Detective Club: The Girl Who Stands Behind.
Easily one of the coolest things Nintendo has done during the Switch era, I love when they do something absolutely no one asked for because no one knew it existed. I want to get more into the VN genre of games and I figured this would be a great place to start. The music slaps and it's nice that they give you several different arrangements. Expect to hear a full review once I beat the sequel as well, because the games do connect.
SSX (PS2)
Couldn't get into this one. I enjoyed SSX Tricky for it's fun tricks and smooth controls, but the first game was much more difficult, and I just found myself getting frustrated.
Burning Force
I really ramped up my Genesis collection this year, with Burning Force being one of the main pickups I got at TORG. I love the super scaler look on a home console, the soundtrack is nice, and it's a nice preview of what else Namco has to offer on Genesis.
Raiden
I played a lot of the OG Raiden this year with my flip grip that I received for Switch, and the game still isn't getting easier. I can make it to the 3rd stage usually but anything after that it's too hard. I wish Raiden 2 was on Switch because I have a much better time playing that game, but as of now I still have to wait.
Other than the games I've listed above, I played games that I had already played before, or didn't really play long enough to have thoughts about the experience that weren't "I like this" or "I don't like this". I feel pretty satisfied with the amount of games that I played this year, and I got some items off my backlog that I was happy to complete. Now I'll give my Top 5 games that I played this year, just because it's fun to.
- Sea of Stars
- Yakuza 0
- Ridge Racer 7
- Legend of Zelda BOTW
- Famicom Detective Club/MGS 2
