2016 in Games

[BB]

As has now somehow become traditional (http://www.nuklearforums.com/showthread.php?t=43903), I'm once more taking a look back at the last 12 months of video games and encouraging you all to do the same. This year I actually became successfully employed, which meant lots more money for games and far less time to play them.

Usually I don't like to include games I've already played on these lists because I'm all about focusing on the new experiences, but this year I played a lot of games from many years past so I thought it'd be interesting to see how my thoughts have changed through the veneer of nostalgia.

Finally, going forward, I think the backlog challenge worked really well until it petered out and died with a whimper because no one was doing it, so I'd like to resurrect that somehow. I found one of my faves for this year via the challenge and I'd probably never have found it otherwise.

And yes, I'm still playing SIF.

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Tadpole Treble

Relentlessly charming. This is more magic from Matthew Taranto, who you might know better as the brain and hand behind the Brawl In The Family webcomic. Every ounce of warm hearty charm in the comic is on display here, and his musical prowess continues to shine. Haven't made it very far in this yet but it's too sweet to pass up.

ToS

I was mesmerised by this game as a teen. It's an anime you can play! The battles looked wonderfully chaotic too, at a time that all I had known before was turn-based totem-pole RPG battles. Anime blonde girls were totally my thing at the time so I obviously gravitated 100% towards Colette, who I now find kinda annoying early on. As the game progresses we learn more about her and she becomes much more interesting, but she's still probably my least favourite of the main cast now. My previous least favourite, Genis... is actually one of my faves, now (but he's still awful in battles, sorry Genis). The Chosen One must go on a journey to awaken the 4 elemental seals in order to regenerate the world, bring an abundance of Mana back to replenish everything, and banish the evil Desians who appear when the world is declining to make life miserable for everyone. It sounds like parody-level guff, but there's a pretty big shake-up early on that keeps things interesting so long as you can make it that far. Battles are as fun as they ever were, favouring an action-RPG style that actually plays quite similarly to Smash Bros. Overall, ToS is definitely showing its age by now, and you'll need a strong tolerance for block-pushing, but this is still worth picking up if you've not played it before- the Steam version is the enhanced version from the PS3.

Analogue

A surprise hit for me, it's been on my “I guess I'll get around to playing this someday” list for a couple of years, but thanks to the backlog challenge I had to bump it to the top of the list. Super glad I did, Analogue left a pretty deep impression on me. I'll immediately say this isn't one for people who like their games to involve doing stuff- you can imagine the game as essentially being reading the logbook of some western RPG without actually playing it. That sounds crap, I know, but the difference here is there's a cute anime girl picking entries out for you, and the world they construct is both compelling and harrowing. You are, ultimately, trying to discover why everyone on board a colony ship suddenly and unceremoniously died in the middle of space several centuries ago, but the real gold is found in the daily life of the ship, as from generation to generation the society regressed. It's a hard sell, but give it an hour of your time and I think it'll hook you.

Carmageddon 2

Attracting a lot of criticism in the late 90s for its violent nature, the racing game where you can win by default if you kill all your opponents was every 9-year-old's dream. Being from the UK, the version of this I played as a kid was the modified EU version which had zombies instead of people. I kinda preferred it that way. Just more fun to mow down zombies in monster trucks than regular people, you know? The missions are just as BS as I remember them, but the standard racing is fun. Had to cut this one short when my save deleted itself and I couldn't be bothered to start over.

Escape Machines

Distinctly unfinished and probably never will be, I'm putting this here because I played it but I couldn't recommend it in its current state. Escape Machines has a real nice oldskool amiga feel to it, reminiscent of Syndicate and Cannon Fodder, but with only three levels and a lot of shonky UI it's barely more than a beta. Developer claims to still be working on it but that seems doubtful.

Final Fantasy 10

This was the year I started full time work, so of course I also started a lot of super-long RPGs that I would only be able to play in half hour bursts. Perhaps relatedly, it was also the year I decided I no longer could be bothered with naff grindy BS when things like save file editors existed. Judge if you want to, but finishing the world's worst-programmed race in 0.00 seconds once in my life is enough- teenage BB had patience for that sort of thing where adult BB does not. I only used it to give myself things I actually had achieved in the game before, I'm not THAT lame.

Anyway, this is definitely a game I appreciate a lot more now I'm older. The characters are all great, even Tidus who is a total putz but has a lot of good traits too. This was a pretty much 100% run- at least, I got every Steam achievement- and I just have to praise it for being a very well-crafted, enjoyable game and story. The romance between Tidus and Yuna is so, SO much more convincingly done than the awful mess of Squall and Rinoa in FF8, and the ending really hurt emotionally. (Without wanting to spoil, but for those in the know- when Yuna falls on her face in the ending scene... yeah. My soul.) The endgame stuff is unbelievably grindy and the Celestial Weapons I'm certain were only put in the game to justify Prima Guide sales because man that is some obtuse BS, but again my good friend Cheat Engine mitigated most of the boredom of that, and the stuff I didn't mind doing became entirely tolerable with Netflix running on my tablet by the side of my screen. The PC version comes bundled with the much-maligned FFX-2 which I've never played and fully intended to, but two lengthy RPGs on the trot was too much when it came to it. Next year!

Rollercoaster Tycoon

I feel like management sims aren't really my thing, despite wanting them to be. There's a lot of parks to play in, but after finishing just one of them I felt like it was enough- I managed 3 before deciding I was done. It still stands up as a fantastic game, but they just don't hold my interest for long. For me, there comes a point where the game is running itself pretty efficiently, and then... why am I even there? The park has no glaring issues to resolve, the staff are managing the maintenance well, I'm turning a consistent profit each month, I can walk away from my PC and come back in an hour to find the mission is complete. Missions being another bugbear- there's no real sandbox mode in this game, there's no “make a park and try to be successful!” mode, you're always beholden to a specific criteria and when that's done, you just move on and start again. Despite my negativity here, I'm confident that within a year, I'll get the tycoon itch again and go through this whole process once more.

Sonic Adventure

This game really is a total mess, isn't it? It plays like a beta. Every aspect of it feels unfinished and unpolished. Cutscenes, animations, collision detection... I get that it was the first real foray into three dimensions for the blue one, but it's barely playable by any modern standard and I find it difficult to believe it was particularly playable back when it was released either. The between-level hub worlds feel especially pointless, with new levels appearing just-because (you have to watch that cliff face explode for no reason six times!) and no real reason to be going to the next one. It feels like a solid six months of development time was lopped off to make a timely release. The music, however, is superb, with catchy themes all throughout.

Sonic Adventure 2

Contrasted against the above- Sonic Adventure 2 is certainly janky as heck, but it's still a genuinely fun game to play. The fast sections are fast, the stompy sections are stompy, the treasure hunting sections are... crap, but few in number. It's wonky and misshapen in a lot of places, but it feels more like a home-made pie that is still tasty for all its imperfections, rather than the lump of cold dough that is SA1. The music is again fantastic, and the bosses are a lot of fun to battle. Out-running the GUN Truck in City Escape is an iconic moment of gaming history.

Undertale

Okay. This was on last year's list because I was in the middle of playing it, and I was kinda dismissive about it although I said I was enjoying it. I wanna put the record straight, having played it through to completion on all routes- this is one of the best games I've ever played in my life. I mean... by now, everyone's played Undertale or has no interest in playing Undertale and is feeling utterly Homestuck'd by the whole thing, so there's not much I can say here that hasn't been said a million times before by people better with words than I am. It's endlessly clever, witty, charming, fun, and toes the line of parody absolutely perfectly. I feel like this game has enriched my life. For all that sounds like overstating it, it's simply the truth.

Unreal Tournament

It's so fast I can barely keep up, but a few hours back in the saddle and I'm belting around like I never stopped. Being so used to TF2, going back to a simpler time was a bit of a culture shock. I used to play almost entirely Instagib matches back in the day but I didn't really touch that mode this time, not sure why. It took me an embarrassingly long time to remember headshots count for more damage (in TF2 they don't) and I therefore got my butt handed to me a lot. I dunno, it's still fun, but I don't think it could ever hold my attention like it used to.

Defy Gravity

It's hard to say much about a game that only cost 9p, but for what it's worth- this is a pretty fun puzzle-platformer (emphasis is more on the platform than the puzzle) that does some fun stuff with gravity. The game gives trading cards meaning you'll literally turn a profit just for playing this game. Why not?

Hyperdimension Neptunia Rebirth 1

I think this is a game that, had I played it when I was 16, I would have adored. Playing it now, hmm... not so much. Neptunia's got a strong as heck fanbase and I can see the appeal, but I think I missed the boat on that one. It's a strategy RPG, I guess, although a fairly watered-down one. Positioning doesn't get much more complex than “move in range then hit the enemy” and the strategy rarely deviates from “power up the super moves then use them”. For a game like Neptunia though you're really playing for the characters, and the overall parody nature of it. Actually, I'd like to draw a comparison right here between Neptunia and Undertale- both play with the “it knows it's a game!” idea but the execution is so hugely different and it really highlights Undertale's strength. Neptunia treads the familiar ground of “haha, it's only a game so it doesn't matter! Haha save points! Haha characters know what stats are!” that anyone who ever made a parody game in RPG Maker already knows. Undertale takes those concepts and weaves them into the story it's telling, the end result being something that could only ever be presented as a game.

Uhh... right, so, Neptunia. Yeah it's kind of all over the place, and although it's fun there's a very strong sense of “this is never going to be better than 'okay'”; dungeons reuse the same maps and you can encounter the same layout 3 times or more, you can upgrade dungeons to include super-bosses but there's no real indication of when you're ready to go fight them so you get absolutely pounded and then come back later and finish the battle in one move, you just kinda stop gaining new abilities after a while and it feels like they forgot to add more, and etc. It feels like a game that only ever aspired to be a 6/10 game.

I do want to praise the pretty cool modifications system that lets you change certain game settings on the fly as you feel necessary. It's a cool system that uses craft items to enact game changes, and it makes thematic sense but also lets you customise the game experience to suit.

TITS

Uuugghhhh. This was on last year's thread too but I finished it this year, and man what a slog. Everything I said about it last year remains true, but moreso. They should've just made it a visual novel and been done with it- the battles are the worst part of the game, with only area-of-attack spells keeping things quick enough to keep you sane. Later on you get powerful enemies who are all spaced far enough apart that no AoE spells can reach more than one of them and it craaawwwwllllsss

The world is where it's at, though, and behind the completely unnecessary romance between the two main characters (they're siblings but he's adopted so it's fine!) there's a great, great world built around them. TitS is the first of a two-part story, but the second part is also twice as long, so you can think of this as the first act, although it does resolve its own plot by the end.

But, ugh, Joshua, I really don't like him at all and he's a main character so he's always there. If you're familiar with Sword Art Online, imagine Kirito but without any of the traits that make Kirito an enjoyable character to get behind.

I don't like that I mostly have negative things to say about this game because it does tell a good narrative. The battle system just makes it feel like a book where you have to solve a sudoku after every page. If you're down for that, there's a lot to get yourself lost in here.

Transistor

Just quickly on this one, I've played it before but that was hotseat with my fiancée so I played it again solo- story is a little TOO vague for my tastes but it's compelling nonetheless, I enjoy the gameplay but I really dislike how your functions get disabled when your health runs out- I'd prefer a straight up game over or restart from the beginning of that battle. It's Supergiant Games, so you have to play it.

Out There Somewhere

Very cool very tiny little physics platformer with a fun gimmick- the teleport gun which preserves your momentum as you flit about the stage lets you pull off some really neat tricks. The gun is restricted to only firing straight ahead, so you have to think ahead about the jumps you're going to make. There's an achievement for finishing the game in 20 minutes and you can realistically do it in 10 with some practice, so this is one for a lazy evening.

Polarity

Your immediate “THIS IS JUST A PORTAL RIP OFF” reaction is understandable, but Polarity doesn't go further than aping its visual style. It's otherwise a moderately fun FPS platformer thingy which makes surprisingly little use of its title mechanic. It controls nicely and there's co-op play but it's local only so we didn't get to try it out.

Slipstream 5000

What I thought was a pretty obscure game from my childhood is on Steam! It was fun to relive this one but I doubt I'd especially recommend it to anyone, it's pretty dated by now. Future racing in flying machines, controls pretty much exactly like TIE Fighter did, very very DOS.

Revenge Of The Titans

I'm not much of a tower defence fan, and Titans didn't change my mind. I can't say much more about it than that. It works on a technical level, but I couldn't tell you how it stands up against its rivals in the genre. (Defenders Quest is the one exception, it's a really great game, go play that)

Worms Pinball

It's a pinball table themed on Worms. It only runs fullscreen so you can't have it on in the background for some cheeky pinball at work, and there's only one table... it's no rival for Space Cadet 3D.

Worms Ultimate Mayhem (3D)

Worms just simply doesn't work in 3D. It's a valiant effort and the destructible terrain was impressive in a time before Minecraft, but trying to figure out trajectories and power and aiming and all the rest of the important Worms gameplay elements is just impossible. And the weapons feel very measly overall, too, like the power settings are universally too low. There's no oomph to any of the launches.

Carpe Diem

Uhh I mean it'll probably take me longer to write this than it did to sit through the entire VN, so you're probably better served just clicking here and trying it for yourself. It's free and it'll take 5 minutes and you even get an achievement for it. I don't know if I can say a whole lot about it without spoiling it since it's so short, but it's a worthwhile experience.

AM2R

The best Metroid game in the last ten years. One of the best Metroid games full stop. Nintendo could have put this on the eShop under their own name and I wouldn't have suspected a thing. Metroid 2 is something of a dinosaur at this point, although it remains far more playable than Metroid 1 has, but AM2R takes the concept of that game and refreshes it with all with a modern take. Series-famous items added after Metroid 2 was released are slipped into the mix seamlessly, like they were always supposed to be in M2 from the very beginning. There are cinematic moments here and there which give the title a bit more of a story, and the battles against the larger breeds of Metroid are intense. I lost track of the times I said aloud “wow, that's so cool!”. If you're a Metroid fan, you owe it to yourself to play this. If you're a newcomer to the series, play this instead of the original Metroid 2. Nintendo took it down, but nothing is ever truly gone from the internet.

Portal Stories: Mel

I'd happily pay full price for this fan-made entry into the Portal series- the fact you can grab it free of charge is astonishing and I urge you to do so right away if you haven't yet. The level of polish is astounding and the puzzles are devious enough to challenge the brain but not frustrate. Abandoned personality core Vergil is your guide through this one and he's an absolute delight. Go get it!

Outland

This is one we played co-op- it's unusual to find a platformer like this that supports simultaneous co-op. Unfortunately we didn't make it far and I dunno if we're ever gonna come back to it. The gameplay is neat, Ikaruga-inspired polarity-switching in a platformer makes for some tense jumps, but... the game actually hardly ever uses that mechanic despite being sold on that premise alone. What's left is precision platforming a bit reminiscent of Metroid games in the variety of moves you can pull. The kicker though is that the controls are so so SO loose and slippery. Where a Metroid game almost obeys your thoughts rather than your hands, Outland has you slipping and sliding all over the place and when you're trying to land on a tiny platform while dodging bullets and swapping polarities 5 times a second, it's frustrating as heck. I'd like to go back and give it another go, but having two people in the mood to possibly get really mad at a videogame is a rare thing.

Igneos: The Last Phoenix (early demo)

It's never a nice thing to see a game get cancelled early in development, but it's never hurt like this one does. Even in such an early state the game is gorgeous; the world returning to life around your phoenix as you fly about the decayed wasteland is distractingly pretty, aided by the soul-stirring soundtrack. Lack of interest and funding killed this one, but the demo is still available to play if you want to make yourself sad that you'll never play this game for real.

Abe's Oddysee

As a kid, I enjoyed Exoddus a lot but never got far in Oddysee for some reason. Going back, it's easy to see why. This game is unkind, and not in a “this is a fun challenge” way, in a “this is an unreasonable series of frame-perfect inputs you want me to pull off” way. I'm pretty sure Exoddus resolved most of that, but I didn't play that yet. Oddysee really shows its age.

Pokemon GO

I played Pokemon Go every day, but it's not really a “while you walk to work and then while you walk home” kind of game. I never saw anything more exciting than the shadow of a Gengar which ignored my incense. Without friends to play it with, and without places to go with said friends, it's a pretty lacking experience. Also on a Pokemon Fan note, I don't like how disposable they are in this game. Pokemon was always about forming a bond with your team and developing their skills together with your own- in Go, you regularly find better pokemon than you could possibly raise by yourself, so what's the point?

Pokemon Red

I love glitches in games, and this is the game that brought that love to me when I was a kid, so I was very excited to learn that these 3DS versions had been completely unaltered. Missingno glitch, mew glitch, and all the glitches that totally suck too, all in place. But man, even ignoring the glitches and quirks, these games were really poorly thought out, you know? So many pokemon have so few worthwhile moves, while Psychics are untouchable and Nidoking can learn everything you ever need. Nonetheless, the nostalgia can't be beat, and integration into gen6 is exciting. I decided to bring back my very first pokemon, a charmander named FATTY, so now he can live on forever in Pokemon Bank.

Ace Attorney Trilogy

Played through these before of course, but having them all in one place, portable, and alongside the two newer entries in the series (and AJ very soon, since it's being ported to mobile devices) is a nice thing. It's pretty funny to play them so close in contrast to AA6 (next entry!)- where AA6 is a little too handholdy, the original trilogy features 80% walking around blindly in circles presenting everything to everyone until something clicks. If you've never played the series, jump on here, or skip to AA5.

AA6

Spoiler free: Don't play AA6 if you're new to the series. Jump on at AA5, or if you can secure a copy of Apollo Justice, get the trilogy and start there. This is definitely one for fans of the series- things are explained for newcomers, but a whole lot of the enjoyment is from the established relationships between the characters and I think a lot of that would be lost on a newbie.

Moderate spoilers: considering how much of the game was sold on Maya's return, she sure isn't in it much. The brief moments with Maya are fantastic though. Seven years have passed, but she's as Maya as she ever was.

Large spoilers: I hope Nick adopts Sarge.

Link Between Worlds

I adored this game. Link To The Past is my favourite game of all time so I was naturally a little cautious about it getting a sequel, but all of my fears were unfounded. This game is fantastic. I'm ashamed that it took me so long to play it. The rental system is a bit weird, I just rented everything at the soonest opportunity and never lost it so it didn't really factor into much, but the open-ended gameplay it resulted in was fresh and new but still felt 100% Zelda, and the small references back to the original game were great. Princess Hilda is the best thing ever to happen to videogames.


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Well that was an astonishing amount longer than I planned it to be, if you read all of that then my hat comes off to you. Your turn!

[mauve]

Portal Stories: Mel

I'd happily pay full price for this fan-made entry into the Portal series- the fact you can grab it free of charge is astonishing and I urge you to do so right away if you haven't yet. The level of polish is astounding and the puzzles are devious enough to challenge the brain but not frustrate. Abandoned personality core Vergil is your guide through this one and he's an absolute delight. Go get it! Aw man, I'm so happy somebody else here has played this now! I totally agree with you-- this is such a wonderful and fun game and it's almost unfair that it's free to play.

[phil_]

Someone else played Carpe Diem?

[Tev]

Pokemon GO

I played Pokemon Go every day, but it's not really a “while you walk to work and then while you walk home” kind of game. I never saw anything more exciting than the shadow of a Gengar which ignored my incense. Without friends to play it with, and without places to go with said friends, it's a pretty lacking experience. Also on a Pokemon Fan note, I don't like how disposable they are in this game. Pokemon was always about forming a bond with your team and developing their skills together with your own- in Go, you regularly find better pokemon than you could possibly raise by yourself, so what's the point?Yeah, Pokemon Go is definitely a "play with a group of friends" kind of game. I live in a mid-sized (30k population) town with about fifteen gyms and enough clusters of stops to keep things interesting and everybody well supplied. We've also got two parks that rotate rare pokemon nests every few weeks to help keep the catching experience exciting and fresh. As a whole, the game really falls flat in small town and rural areas though where there's likely only a single stop or gym for miles. I did have a blast when we traveled out of state over to Montana for a week though. The regional differences in available pokemon to catch made the trip way more fun, and the stops highlighting historical landmarks made touring a blast.

Also a quick note: Incense doesn't bring wild pokemon closer to you. All it does is randomly spawn pokemon that you can collect based on where you are and how fast you are moving.

[shiney]

I can't possibly remember all the games I played in 2016 but I'd like to add an honorable mention for Atelier: Sophie. The storyline is bland and the characters are pretty mary sue so like if you're looking to be engaged and care about people, ehhh. The environments are lovely but most of the "dungeons" are small and uninspiring. The battle system is either very easy (mash physical attack) or brutal to the point of hilarity (AoE attack-over-time dealing 80% max hp damage to full party that repeats at the start of the next two rounds before any characters get a chance to go and there's no AoE healing items yet). So there's a lot of "if I want to handle this guy I guess I better go back after I craft 900 new things to make better equipment".

But yeah, crafting. The gem (and honestly, the point) of this game is the crafting system. It's ridiculously deep and intricate and items you crafted in the first chapter of the game have significant impact at the end as they are often used as primary components for downstream ingredients used to create embarrassingly strong gear. The core components you use to craft items have multiple levels, qualities, grades, and a number of traits or effects. There's just so damn much to do. If you like teasing your brain then this is a great game for that because all the other fluff is just there to create artificial spacing for the crafting.

[BB]

Someone else played Carpe Diem?

On your instruction no less!

Aw man, I'm so happy somebody else here has played this now! I totally agree with you-- this is such a wonderful and fun game and it's almost unfair that it's free to play.

It was on my to-do list for a long time, it was your posts about it that made me bump it up. Glad I did!

Also a quick note: Incense doesn't bring wild pokemon closer to you. All it does is randomly spawn pokemon that you can collect based on where you are and how fast you are moving.

Aw man!

Crafting.

I worry that level of depth would drive me insane. I'm the sort who hoardes items in RPGs because "what if they're of more use later!" and then I get to the final boss and I still don't use them.

[Daimo Mac, The Blue Light of Hope]

Stardew Valley: My god did I fall in love with this game. The people of Pelican Village feel so vibrant and I got so caught up in their lives. It also isn't sickening saccharine like Harvest Moon where everything is perfect. Every person in that village has faults, and no amounts of meddling will help you change, though by gaining their friendship, it will help you offset their troubles a little bit.

Borderlands; The Pre-Sequel: Still fun, still crazy and it only can whet my appetite for so long before I am gnashing my teeth for Borderlands 3

Overwatch: Good lord what a great game. This easily blasts TF2 to pieces. The entire world is bright and colourful and I have fallen in love with its rich story and diverse characters. Such a great game to play, especially with friends.

Pokemon Sun/Moon:After twenty years the series has finally underwent a rather drastic change by doing away with Gyms. It can be argued that the Island Trials are gyms themselves, but they feel so much more organic. The Aether Foundation genuinely terrifies me with their plans, while Team Skull are so stupid it helps offset the seriousness of the main villains.

Donkey Kong Country 3: When my computer was on the fritz I played alot more of my WiiU and I purchased DKC3 off the VC. Still a fun game and as I have gotten older I can see that there is still some charm to the game. While not my favourite of the 3 SNES games, it is still great fun.

Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess: I never played Twilight Princess on my first time through, so I was able to go into this game not expecting anything. It is basically Zelda and while the bleak and bloom laden graphics of the Twilight Realm can become a bit irksome, the game is still fun in its own right. Also, Double Clawshot needs to come back.

[phil_]

On your instruction no less!Oh yeah, I did do that. My recomendation was pretty much my review: play it, get a completed game on Steam in five minutes. As for reviews of the other games I've played since we last did this, man, there are a lot. I'm gonna work on it for a bit. I'm not sure how I played so many more games with so much less free time.

[mauve]

Time for Mauve's Annual TextWall Post! It's that magical time of year when I get to remind myself that I have no life and played too many video games this year.

Assassin's Creed: Black Flag (WiiU Version): The ship segments are so much fun and incredibly atmospheric. I got bored of AC2 fairly quickly (to be fair, that's largely due to the mouse/keyboard controls being so terrible in AC2), and while I still haven't bothered to finish Black Flag, I find it far more enjoyable. But that enjoyment stems mostly from actually doing pirate-y things, rather than assassin-y things. I give zero shits about the plot or the characters at this point: I just like sailing around, bein' a pirate.

The Last Story: Another game that I actually like, but haven't finished yet. It's for the Wii, but I only just picked up this year. It's a unique game, in its own way: It combines elements from a lot of different franchises like Final Fantasy and Monster Hunter, but it still manages to carve a niche for itself. It's not flawless, and it tends to trip over itself in terms of pacing, mood and narration, but as far as RPGs on Nintendo consoles go, it's quite good.

Going into the game, I fully expected the characters to fall into the usual tired old JRPG player character tropes. I was pleasantly surprised, however, to find they weren't quite as cringe-y or cookie-cutter as I was expecting. While they do fall into the BASIC character tropes (The shy and sweet princess. Fluffy-haired protagonist teen who has DREAAAAAMS! Feisty lady with a temper who gets in fights with people bigger than she is. Silver-haired, pensive bookish-type boy. Womanizer played for comic relief.) they actually have reasons for being the way they are and they are portrayed as being more than just a single-dimensional trope. Yeah, the princess is shy and sweet, but she's in a really shitty situation and actually tries to remedy things in an active, intelligent way rather than facing all confrontations with her hands clasped over her heart telling the hero to believe in himself. Yeah, the "feisty lady" picks fights, but she fights and drinks because she enjoys it and can usually finish what she starts, not because her only defining characteristic is "ANGRY/EASILY OFFENDED." She's not shrill or petty, nor is she portrayed as being less feminine because of her physical strength-- and she is one of the stronger melee-combat characters. I find that refreshing in a JRPG. I actually find myself liking most of the main characters... At least at first. After a point the game kind of drags into a lull and the narration isn't sure if it's being serious or satirical, and it's not sure if it's trying to be Final Fantasy or something new. I'll probably go back to it-- I'm hoping the current lull is a temporary one.

Rayman Origins: Played this one after it was recommended in the BB's Backlog thread of old. It's delightfully weird and charming, and some of the levels are difficult as hell.

Rayman Legends: Picked this up on the WiiU so my sister and I could play co-op. Loved it, although it lacks some of the bizarre charm of Origins. The music in particular feels off: It's like Ubisoft gave them a bigger budget but they used all it to hire an orchestra for half the levels. I liked the quirky kazoo, banjo and distorted vocals from Origins better. I do, however, really like the addition of the Murfy control mechanic on the touchscreen, and Legends' musical levels are fantastic.

Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion I got real first-world internet this fall and as a result I binge-downloaded a bunch of games I've had sitting in my Steam library for years. Oblivion was one of those. I played maybe two hours tops (a large chunk of which was spent just making my character, as per usual for me) but I'm not super sold on it yet. I'll go back to it when I get a hankerin' for a good fantasy RPG, I'm sure, but for now my opinion is a solid "Meh."

Mass Effect 2: Another target of the binge-download session. I was super invested in this game for a while but after a while I started to lose interest. What ME2 does well, it does REALLY well. And what it does poorly, it sucks at. I'm still more invested in it than I am in Oblivion, but not enough to make me stop playing Fallout 4 and go back to it.

Fallout 4: As I've said elsewhere, there's a part of my brain that knows, deeply, that this is not a very good Fallout game. So many mechanics from New Vegas have been thrown out or pared down, so it's really a Fallout game in name and basic theme only. However, there is also a similarly large part of my brain that screams at the skeptical part to shut it's stupid face so we can focus on exploring the Commonwealth with my reporter bestie and my robot bestie and my identity-crisis spy bestie and my cosplayer-druggie-beatnick-mayor bestie and the dog I love but never take anywhere anymore. Fallout 4 has been out a year and it's still buggy as hell (I can't enter half the buildings around Goodneighbor, locking me out of a variety of important missions) but somehow despite only buying it last month I have 85 hours of playtime and I haven't been to the Glowing Sea yet. I think I have a problem.

Banner Saga 2: Another binge-download victim. Played two hours, ragequit, haven't played it since.

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing: See above. It's got potential and it's likeable enough, but not enough for me to drop Fallout and my backup game ME2 to go back to it right now.

Styx: Master of Shadows: It's Goblin Arkham City, but edgier. Stupidly, overly-forced edgier. It started out being fun, but as the game goes on it becomes more of a chore than an enjoyable challenge to get from one objective to the next. Still haven't finished it.

Castle Crashers: Picked it up in a Steam Sale this Spring so I could play it co-op with my sister. It was fun and we finished it, but it's not something I see myself revisiting as much as I did Battleblock Theater.

Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition: Note to self: When your friends tell you that a notoriously difficult game is pretty terrible if you play it with a mouse and keyboard and that you should DEFINITELY install a fanmade mod to make it more playable, you should probably listen to them. Played for a while, enjoyed it well enough, ended up giving up because mouse/keyboard without the mod is horrible and also I am just plain bad at Dark Souls.

Stories: The Path of Destinies: Disappointing.

A vague review for a game with the vaguest title of all.

[phil_]

The things I remember about the Last Story are:
1. I only bought Xenoblade because Nintendo was like, "Buy Xenoblade or Last Story never crosses the ocean."
2. End of game spoilers: I lost track of what was actually happening near the end, but I know I saved the day. But then it kept going. And after wandering around a bit I was like, "Why am I even still here?" And I haven't booted it up since. It was fun up to that point.
3. Xenoblade was better.

[Daimo Mac, The Blue Light of Hope]

I am going to say this, Fallout 4 is a bad game. it is a buggy mess that should not have been released in the state it was. I enjoyed the settlement building aspect of the game, but the story is hot garbage. Also the so called weapon and armour mods don't seem as good as the other games. Giving the main character a voice is something I am split on. I find it takes away the fact that it is you wandering the ruined world.

And Diamond City Radio makes me miss Three Dog from FO3. The music, much like 3 is also shit and makes me long for a mod that can put in my own music. I swear if I hear Butcher Pete one more time I am going to nuke Diamond City

[mauve]

I agree with most of what you said. The voiced main character is... okay, I guess, though it feels like the dialogue is weaker and it's hard to decipher what your character will say based solely on the two-word prompt you get.

I got bored of settlement building real quick. All of my settlements are just barely scraping by-- two have radio beacons for new settlers, most have a handful of lvl 1 turrets and wooden guard towers, and most have a population of 2. I am a horrible General. Crafting is useless, but I never craft in New Vegas or Skyrim so it's not a huge setback for me. As for weapon/armor condition, on the one hand it's nice not having to worry about my armor falling apart mid-battle, but on the other hand weapon and armor drops are pretty useless once you hit a certain level and all your enemies are still packing nothing but leather armor and pipe pistols.

And yeah, I dislike the musical selection, but I like hearing Improved Travis talk about me even though he's no Mr New Vegas (I've only played FO4 and NV, so I can't speak for Three Dog).

But I am legitimately enjoying myself so far, despite largely ignoring the main storyline (I have a dog and a robot detective. Why do I need a son?). I am prepared to be massively disappointed by the game's ending, but until then I am entertained.

[Tev]

Final Fantasy 10

This was the year I started full time work, so of course I also started a lot of super-long RPGs that I would only be able to play in half hour bursts. Perhaps relatedly, it was also the year I decided I no longer could be bothered with naff grindy BS when things like save file editors existed. Judge if you want to, but finishing the world's worst-programmed race in 0.00 seconds once in my life is enough- teenage BB had patience for that sort of thing where adult BB does not. I only used it to give myself things I actually had achieved in the game before, I'm not THAT lame.

.....did I just accidentally find you on Gaia or is this just a common theme with FFX? (Don't ask why I was on Gaia >_>)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v110/Loneglade/Gaia_zpsqowdwn7q.jpg

[MuMu]

I don't think I played any games that came out in 2016, due to not having a beefed up GPU, but I'll try to say something about the games I played this year. Let's see...

Azure Striker Gunvolt (http://store.steampowered.com/app/388800/?snr=1_7_15__13)

Despite looking like one, this isn't a Megaman clone. Yes, there are multiple stages to choose, each with a boss in the end, and you do get powers but it lacks the whole Counter that MM has and, frankly, the "powers" you get are only slight variations of your normal shot and mostly suck. Stick with the basic one.

It does, however, have a fantastic game mechanic with the lighting power that Gunvolt has plus the frantic stages and boss fights couple along with some great gameplay which makes it a pretty great game.

TEMBO THE BADASS ELEPHANT (http://store.steampowered.com/app/341870/?snr=1_7_15__13)

The definition of disappointment, a game that couldn't decide what it wanted to be. Marketed as a fast paced plataformer where you play as the titular badass elephant trampling and stomping and smashing your way through an alien invasion, it is fun at first. However, you soon learn that there are Gates blocking your progress through stages and that to unlock them you must instead carefully comb the stages for any enemies, breakable objects, hostages and various collectibles. Not fun at all.

20XX (http://store.steampowered.com/app/322110/?snr=1_7_15__13)

Now this is a Megaman clone. A roguelike where you can play either as a X clone or a Zero clone, this is highly addictive and hits all the high notes of both a plataformer and a randomly generated game. Don't be afraid of it's Early Access status as it is a very much full game, with only details being added as it goes.

Binary Domain (http://store.steampowered.com/app/203750/?snr=1_7_15__13)

A 3rd Person Shooter with fantastic gameplay but a very lackluster story and an ending-determining mechanic that worked better in theory. Still, if you want to blast robot to pieces and fight giant mechas, go ahead and try this.

Dying Light (http://store.steampowered.com/app/239140/)

Oh wow. This one is a must play. I believe that the zombie genre needs a pause and that Dead Island was nothing special but this game completely blows any preconceptions out of mind. The fast gameplay, with a very bloody combat and free parkour, takes a while to get used but once it clicks you'll have a great time. The only shortcoming I gotta admit it has is regarding the story and characterization and the fact that it has two VERY SHITTY missions. You'll know when you hit them. Still, try to press on and enjoy the rest of the game. Very much my GOTY

Dark Souls 2 (http://store.steampowered.com/app/335300/?snr=1_7_15__13)

Now, this is a very divisive one so I'll just chime in to say I didn't like it. May try 3 one day? Who knows.

Prototype 2 (http://store.steampowered.com/app/115320/?snr=1_7_15__13)

This sequel takes much of the first game and streamlines into a more focused experience. No more dozens of different abilities you have to upgrade or changing being too many forms during combat, now most of it is condensed into a single status or button/key. It's a small thing but that made it much more better to me and I actually finished this one, unlike it's prequel.

Akiba's Trip (http://store.steampowered.com/app/333980/?snr=1_7_15__13)

Uh...yea, I played this. In fact, I very much enjoyed this silly game. A "Way of the Samurai-like" but instead of sword you have baseball bats or laptops and instead of killing your opponents...you strip them. Do not even try if you have an aversion to high octane anime.

Lichdom: Battlemage (http://store.steampowered.com/app/261760/?snr=1_7_15__13)

An FPS where you are a sorcerer capable of casting powerful magicks to vanquish your foes. Sounds interesting right? Except this game is boring. Your character moves too slow, and once you're past the tutorial stages you'll have no problem at absolutely no encounters, except boss fights. The worse part is that there are separate, secret encounters where you fight huge waves of enemies; that's where the game shines, when it makes you run as fast as you can and cast every spell as often as your powers let you. Unfortunately, those are rare, maybe one per stage, and does not redeem the game at all.

Danganronpa (http://store.steampowered.com/app/413410/)

I posted about this in another thread but just to reiterate: If it weren't for Dying Light, this would be my GOTY. An absurdily anime game, it'll please the fans of Phoenix Wright and similars with it's fast paced Trials and Investigations. Also has a side of dating sim but eh, that isn't as interesting.
Definitely will buy the sequel soon.

The "Blackwell" Series (http://store.steampowered.com/search/?snr=1_5_9__12&term=blackwell)

A great point'n'click series that will certainly scratch the itch for some adventuring, this indie series is a must play. I do however, warn that it's very uneven, with mechanics and visual changing between games and, IMO, a very lackluster final episode.

Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel (http://store.steampowered.com/app/261640/)

The only reason I got this is because it was around 5 bucks and if I had paid more I'd certainly regret it. If you already played a Borderlands game, you know what to find here. New additions include Laser Weapons, Low Gravity, Vaccum Spaces which are completely negated by the fact that there are Oxygen fields everywhere, Australian Jokes and, maybe the only one that really matters, the "Grinder": A machine where you can recycle 3 of your guns into a new, better one; such a minor mechanic is not enough to try this, unless you're absolutely starved for an FPS.

Sleeping Dogs (http://store.steampowered.com/app/202170/)

I've actually been replaying this one, or at least was until my PC went kaput, and while it is still my choice for the superior Crime Sandbox Game, there are a some little details that stop it from being a perfect game. Still very much reccomended if you're tired of GTA and want to see someone else try the formula.

Momodora IV (http://store.steampowered.com/app/428550/)

A very neat Metroidvania with little hints of Dark Souls(I know, every game nowadays is Dark Souls), this is a must play if you enjoy the genre and want to see something a little more action-y. Despite being an indie game it is very refined and tight. Short, however; despite not having finished it yet, I'm sure I'm almost at the end and I must be at around 4 hours of gametime.

Try it's predecessor (http://store.steampowered.com/app/302790/), which is even shorter but still good, if you want to see what you're getting into.

Startopia (http://store.steampowered.com/app/243040/)

While I had only a terrible notebook left as my PC was being repaired, I tried some less demanding games. Startopia is one of them, and, despite having played it already many years ago, it was very fun. A Management game where you take care of a space station, with each mission being at the orders of a different race, with very different objectives, this is a must play if you ever enjoyed playing games were you're the Boss. Contract, build, kill and, of course, profit.

Environmental Station Alpha (http://store.steampowered.com/app/350070/)

The other game that I played on my craptop. A 8bit Metroidvania, this game isn't just a homage to Metroid; It is as if the developers had an entire Metroid game done, but decided at the last second to change small details. Bosses, enemies, mechanics, many of them are straight out ripped out of Metroid. None of that is to it's detriment however; This is the definitive version of Metroid on PC and it's very much worth trying if you ever enjoyed those games.

Well, that's that.

[BB]

.....did I just accidentally find you on Gaia or is this just a common theme with FFX? (Don't ask why I was on Gaia >_>)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v110/Loneglade/Gaia_zpsqowdwn7q.jpg

I'm afraid you've revealed your presence on Gaia to no avail! Subdivi has the right idea though.


The "Blackwell" Series (http://store.steampowered.com/search/?snr=1_5_9__12&term=blackwell)

A great point'n'click series that will certainly scratch the itch for some adventuring, this indie series is a must play. I do however, warn that it's very uneven, with mechanics and visual changing between games and, IMO, a very lackluster final episode.

I'm glad other peeps are giving this series a go. I think most people are left with a "...huh" after the final episode, but on reflection I came to like it more than my initial response. I think mainly it's because episode 4 sets up a lot of stuff that episode 5 doesn't follow up on, it's a bit disconnected.

Momodora IV (http://store.steampowered.com/app/428550/)

A very neat Metroidvania with little hints of Dark Souls(I know, every game nowadays is Dark Souls), this is a must play if you enjoy the genre and want to see something a little more action-y. Despite being an indie game it is very refined and tight. Short, however; despite not having finished it yet, I'm sure I'm almost at the end and I must be at around 4 hours of gametime.

Try it's predecessor (http://store.steampowered.com/app/302790/), which is even shorter but still good, if you want to see what you're getting into.

Been on my wishlist for yonks. There's too many games!!!

[mauve]

Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel

The only reason I got this is because it was around 5 bucks and if I had paid more I'd certainly regret it. If you already played a Borderlands game, you know what to find here. New additions include Laser Weapons, Low Gravity, Vaccum Spaces which are completely negated by the fact that there are Oxygen fields everywhere, Australian Jokes and, maybe the only one that really matters, the "Grinder": A machine where you can recycle 3 of your guns into a new, better one; such a minor mechanic is not enough to try this, unless you're absolutely starved for an FPS. Agreed; Pre-Sequel was lackluster at best. On the plus side, though, if you haven't played the absolutely superb Tales from the Borderlands yet, that game references a few things from Pre-Sequel in regards to Jack and Hyperion. In other news, if you haven't played Tales from the Borderlands yet, you should do that.

[Daimo Mac, The Blue Light of Hope]

Update on the hot garbage that is Fallout 4:

I am getting crashes that force me to do a hard reset of my computer.

Fuck you Bethesda.

[mauve]

Do the crashes happen in loading screens? That's the issue I have, specifically in buildings around Goodneighbor. If so, you can get around restarting your pc by bringing up the task manager and quitting Fallout via Processes rather than via Applications.

I tried to get Bethesda support to help, but after a full reinstall of the game failed to fix the issue, Bethesda pulled a "new phone who dis" and told me to resubmit a new ticket because I took too long to respond/reinstall a 30-gb game.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

I am going to say this, Fallout 4 is a bad game. it is a buggy mess that should not have been released in the state it was. I enjoyed the settlement building aspect of the game, but the story is hot garbage. Also the so called weapon and armour mods don't seem as good as the other games. Giving the main character a voice is something I am split on. I find it takes away the fact that it is you wandering the ruined world.



As someone who has recently gone back to F4 (after only getting about 10 hours into it last year before my original console crapped itself and died and I was too salty about it to start over) I can agree with this. Many of the weapon and armour mods don't seem even slightly useful, and unless I'm missing something some of the later ones, which I would expect to be better, are worse, or just come with huge downsides.

The settlement building isn't exactly what I'd call fun per se, in fact it's a fiddly annoying mess that I swore I wasn't going to touch with a ten foot pole this time through, but then I remembered that the best way to get adhesive is to have an active settlement doing farming for you for all the recipe items so I figure I have no real choice in the matter (I have since moved EVERYTHING I own to sanctuary and am never building anything anywhere else ever). That said, despite all the damn problems with the system and the endless looting and fiddly micro-management it is surprisingly addictive... I tell myself as I build a fucking huge wall all around the island and set up cheap lookout and sentry points and spotlights everywhere... and then realise it's like 2 AM and I have work and shit I've been doing nothing for the last 4 hours but breaking down ever spare piece of random trash in sanctuary. Where did my life go again?

I can't comment on the story, I haven't seen any yet. I've been trying to get there, by making a beeline for the quest marker but I keep getting distracted by towns full of ghouls, factories full of raiders and a rough-around-the-edges chap in power armour who hired me to go fight laser rifle toting synths. Though I have noticed the npc conversations are still bugged and will sometimes skip entire sections of dialogue, replacing them with many seconds of silence seemingly at random. It was like this at launch last year, I'd hoped patches would fix that but apparently nope!

Still, I'm sticking with it. Exploring is fun, combat is fast and hectic, micromanagement is still a pain in the arse (I want to loot ALL the things!), though I don't feel like I'm rping at all. FO3 I felt like I was rping (admittedly I was rping a vicious psycho, but still), Skyrim I was rping, many different characters in fact. But FO4? Not so much, and that's a shame.

[Daimo Mac, The Blue Light of Hope]

After many many crashes, I have finally said fuck this to Fallout 4 and uninstalled it. The story is shit, the characters are mostly garbage, the factions, save for the Minutemen, are douchebags of the nth degree, the graphics are ugly.

Honestly, when people like Rooster Teeth attack reviewers for giving honest reviews about the game, while wearing Fallout 4 stuff, it makes me question them and in turn refuser to follow any of their bull crap.

[mauve]

the characters are mostly garbage I really liked some of the companions, but Bethesda set up a lot of interesting plot hooks and then did nothing with them. I love Nick Valentine and I'm happy he gets his own story DLC, but the main plot sets up the idea that Kellogg can straight-up possess Nick without Nick's knowledge, or at least he did once, and then it's never brought up again. How cool would that have been if they bothered to go through with that?? And Hancock, who is another of my favorites, has absolutely no input during the McDonough reveal. There's obviously a LOT to work with there, given Hancock's main source of character development stems from McDonough and Diamond City, but there's zero interaction or comments or acknowledgement. So while I actually really liked a lot of the characters, it's sad their stories seemed half-written.

[Daimo Mac, The Blue Light of Hope]

I really liked some of the companions, but Bethesda set up a lot of interesting plot hooks and then did nothing with them. I love Nick Valentine and I'm happy he gets his own story DLC, but the main plot sets up the idea that Kellogg can straight-up possess Nick without Nick's knowledge, or at least he did once, and then it's never brought up again. How cool would that have been if they bothered to go through with that?? And Hancock, who is another of my favorites, has absolutely no input during the McDonough reveal. There's obviously a LOT to work with there, given Hancock's main source of character development stems from McDonough and Diamond City, but there's zero interaction or comments or acknowledgement. So while I actually really liked a lot of the characters, it's sad their stories seemed half-written.

Companions usually get alot of love...key word is usually. What I mean is the people like Marcy and Jun long who, I detest with a burning hatred of ten thousand suns. No matter what you do Marcy will forever hate you for no reason.

Plus The reveal of Shaun being the institute big guy felt awkward. I also thought it was incredibly stupid that there was no path you could do that would allow everyone co-habit peacefully. I am a goddamn believer in Hope and the Capital Wastes and Mojave showed that hope can survive. The commonwealth, lol nope.

[Solid Snake]

After many many crashes, I have finally said fuck this to Fallout 4 and uninstalled it. The story is shit, the characters are mostly garbage, the factions, save for the Minutemen, are douchebags of the nth degree, the graphics are ugly.

Eh, I liked the Railroad more than the Minutemen, but I can understand why they'd be viewed as controversial.
Bethesda's always been more about world-building and exploration than presenting a coherent narrative. I disagree somewhat with that approach, which is why New Vegas is my favorite modern Fallout by a country mile. But Fallout 4 is at least an improvement over Fallout 3...it plays better to Bethesda's strengths as a developer and mitigates a few (though certainly not all) of its weaknesses.

What really offends me most about Fallout 4 is all the DLC that isn't Far Harbor, which was varying degrees of atrocious ripoffs, moneygrabs and incredibly poorly rationalized, half-assed plot developments.

[Daimo Mac, The Blue Light of Hope]

Eh, I liked the Railroad more than the Minutemen, but I can understand why they'd be viewed as controversial.
Bethesda's always been more about world-building and exploration than presenting a coherent narrative. I disagree somewhat with that approach, which is why New Vegas is my favorite modern Fallout by a country mile. But Fallout 4 is at least an improvement over Fallout 3...it plays better to Bethesda's strengths as a developer and mitigates a few (though certainly not all) of its weaknesses.

What really offends me most about Fallout 4 is all the DLC that isn't Far Harbor, which was varying degrees of atrocious ripoffs, moneygrabs and incredibly poorly rationalized, half-assed plot developments.

The Railroad is a close second of favourite group.

Also I was sorely tempted to get the DLC, glad I said no to that.

[mauve]

I'd LIKE to support the Railroad more, but every single mission they give me leads to a building I can't enter because of loading glitches.

[Daimo Mac, The Blue Light of Hope]

I'd LIKE to support the Railroad more, but every single mission they give me leads to a building I can't enter because of loading glitches.

This, all of this. Bethesda needs to invest in some better QA. When I say this, a friend of mine retorts with the But Bethesda allows Mods arguement and I want to smack him

[mauve]

Funny, since Bethesda's support site specifically tells people not to use mods and likes to blame the game's issues on them.

Edit: I'm tempted to just jump into Far Harbor since I have been blocked out of a lot of missions in the main game. Can you enter and leave Far Harbor at will, or are you stuck there until you finish the DLC, like you are with New Vegas' dlcs? Also should I finish the main questline before starting the dlc?

[Daimo Mac, The Blue Light of Hope]

Funny, since Bethesda's support site specifically tells people not to use mods and likes to blame the game's issues on them.

Edit: I'm tempted to just jump into Far Harbor since I have been blocked out of a lot of missions in the main game. Can you enter and leave Far Harbor at will, or are you stuck there until you finish the DLC, like you are with New Vegas' dlcs? Also should I finish the main questline before starting the dlc?

I went through the game and disabled all the mods I used, same issues. Bethesda uses the mods to shift the blame from their crummy engine and shoddy AI

Edit: There are also Mods that fix the various bugs

[mauve]

Guess I'll have to look and see if there's a "be able to get into half the buildings in Boston" mod.

[Daimo Mac, The Blue Light of Hope]

Guess I'll have to look and see if there's a "be able to get into half the buildings in Boston" mod.

The Unofficial Fallout 4 Bug Mod on Nexus Mods should help

[Solid Snake]

So one thing I was thinking about doing was hosting an NPF Secret Santa style video game exchange, where every participant was assigned another NPFer to gift a game to via Steam or somethin'. I always enjoy being exposed to new content and often I find others (Kim) are better at predicting content I'll enjoy than I am. And one of my fondest memories was that one year when I managed to gift a bunch of SexayPartayers GOG.com games that I felt fit their personalities.

It's probably a bit late to make this happen over the actual holiday season but maybe we can do something like it in 2017 if folks are interested. Doesn't have to be in December, in fact it might make more sense to time it for another Steam sale at a time of the year when we're all less pressed for cash.

[phil_]

I guess I played lots of games.

Old Games
Monster World IV: It's an adventure platformer where you hit monsters with a sword, explore dungeons to free genies to save the world, and backtrack to jump over that ledge you couldn't jump over before to get to new dungeons. The interesting bit is you quickly gain a little dragon that follows you around and can be used as a double-jump or to hit switches or other context sensitive things like plugging holes. And it grows bigger a couple times, which changes the things you can and can no longer do with it. It's a neat gimmick. You have no dragon for the final… eh, third of the game? Maybe almost half? It's a bummer. Also there's a morally questionable but definitely intentional infinite gold exploit, so if you want you don't have to worry about money.
Tenchu- Stealth Assasins: Sneaking and killing. It's neat how much freedom you get in some of the larger environments to choose different routes and strategies. A great deal of time is spent watching guards rotate in place until you can see their butt and can sneak past/stab them. There are two ninjas, and the story plays out a little differently for each one. Which is how we come to the place where I got stuck and quit, as there's a bow wielding nobleman you have to kill who'll (according to Gamefaqs) just straight off himself at boy ninja's behest, but who has to kill girl ninja because of course he does. He's good at killing girl ninja, and _mike was playing through as boy ninja, and I wasn't going to mess up his game. So I quit. He, of course, had already quit.
Castlevania Symphony of the Night: SotN set the standard for what Castlevania would be from then on, and as such is a standard Castlevania game. It's still a good game. I wanted to like it more than I did, though. It did scratch my itch to exist in Dracula's castle once more, and that counts for a lot to me. I like the place, he has good taste in labyrinthian castles with inexplicable jungles inside. But the difficulty curve went from an entertaining "Go too close to the wrong monster and get immediately pummeled" to "Hold the direction and press sword." Admittedly, I did get what is apparently a very rare, super strong sword drop early on in the inverted castle, and I did use it, but I didn't know it was super rare until _mike saw that it was somewhere, and I had already encountered a boss before I even got to spoilers that went down before it could finish its first attack cycle. Anime bias: I much preferred pretty much everything in the GBA game Aria of Sorrow.
Legend of Mana: _mike and I played this together. In it, you put together a world by plopping artifacts on a map, with different arrangements influencing local mana colors and yadda yadda. It's very much a guide selling game if you want to see everything. We did not use a guide, and so had a meandering journey with several plots popping up and disappearing or ending prematurely because we got somebody killed or ticked someone off. There was a story about murdering Good-aligned dragons in there and resurrecting some devil (I was doing the murdering and resurrecting, I was not preventing it). And that had some resolution, which was nice. Then we stumbled onto the final boss and that was it. We probably only played a quarter of what was in the game, but it was our fuzzy, disjointed adventure; and at one point _mike served as our Dubbear translator because their language makes more sense in Japanese than English. Selling those bears lamps was probably the most fun we had in the game.
PaRappa the Rapper: Doesn't work without original hardware, I think. I'm not bad at rhythm games, but I was pretty much just mashing and praying. Songs were interesting enough that I still played through most of it even in that state. I think I only really played this for a day.
Threads of Fate: It's an action RPG with two main characters, sword boy and magic girl. You play as one, and the other runs around in the world and does their own story. Sword boy can grab coins by killing monsters that let him then turn into those monsters, which sounds cool but it mostly used to smash rocks/burn ice rocks/wind tall rocks and is a worse choice in combat than sword sword sword up until the very end. Magic girl is more interesting in that you combine a magic color and a magic effect to create different spells. Some combinations don't do anything, and jump kicking does more damage a lot of the time, but at least her spells are useful. The story is about reviving a magic whatever to fulfill the two protagonists' goals (reviving Onee-san and taking over the world), and it goes differently depending on who you play. Not just the plots that can't possibly synch up, but how sowrd's story is more big-picture, world-level stuff while magic's is more about hanging out with the people in town. All-in-all, it was neat.
Umihara Kawase Shun: I like Fishing Spiderman on SNES, and this is the PSX version. In both games, you are Umihara Kawase, a girl with a fishing rod and pink backpack. You try to get to the door in each level by hooking your rod to the walls and swinging around while avoiding or catching evil fish, with different doors leading to different levels. The PSX title looks… more professional and less "ten-year head start on using blurry jpegs as backgrounds." And I think it's more fair in how the evil fish spawn, but I'm not sure of that. And the music sounds better. It's basically a straight upgrade in presentation. The rod physics feel simpler, too, and it's easier to do some advanced swinging (which helped me get the hang of it better for the SNES version). That might be because the line is about half as long, though. Anyway, this is all nitpicking, the games are about the same. The most notable difference, as anyone who has read the Hardcore Gaming 101 article on the series will recall, is that in this one Umihara tries to sell the player fishing equipment and canned tea. So that was fun to show my friends.
All that said, I play the SNES version more, so I guess I like it more.
Go Go Ackman: An entry in the super-saturated mascot platformer genre that died along with the SNES and Genesis (and those other platforms), except this one has all the art designed by Akira Toriyama (Dragonball, Dragon Quest, Neko Majin Z, etc.). You play as Ackman (for those who don't breathe anime, it's a joke on "Aku" "evil" plus "man." "Evilman." Yes I'm embarrassed, it's why I drink.). He's the son of the devil, and Angel (who is an angel) hates him and sends waves of angels and hitmen to kill Ackman. So you go left to right, punching and kicking Angel's goons until you reach a boss, standard stuff. You can pick up weapons (a sword, boomerang, pistol) that give you an extra hit and obviously increase your killing power. What's kinda neat is that there are branching paths after a lot of levels, so you get to choose which levels you play. What's not neat but not a surprise is that you have to beat it in one sitting because there is no save function. There are unlimited continues, and the branching paths make restarting not so bad (except that you don't have a choice of levels until you beat the first two, and those levels have terrible music), so for a game of the era, it's not so bad in that regard. But it's kinda long, and I haven't sat down to beat it yet. For what it is, it's good, and apparently there's a series of Ackman games of which the first is the worst.
Dragon Quest I & II: The first two Dragon Quest games got a compilation/visual upgrade on the SNES, and it's been surprisingly worth playing. I haven't finished the second one, so let's talk about the first Dragon Quest. First off, from what _mike told me, the entire game has about as much involved in its entire quest as a single town's quest in DQ7. DQ7 has very involved quests, I guess. I'm assuming everyone knows what DQ is, so I'll et to the stuff specific to the first one. There is only one save point. It's in the castle you start in. This could be terrible in an RPG with a more modern design (like FFI). But I feel like it works well here. Every session for your whole quest gets that "I'm off! To ADVENTURE!" feeling, and the map is just small enough that it doesn't get tedious. On top of that, you have some ability to teleport and avoid encounters very early on, and even if you do die, you just lose half your gold, which sucks but not enough that I ever reset after dying. The "save at the king" mechanic really shines near the end of the game where you have to go very, very far afield from the castle to get weapons strong enough to fight the Dracolord and hints as to where to find the Hero's armor. YOu fight through terrible monsters and poison swamps, your HP and MP draining as much as if you were in a dungeon, and I don't feel like it would have had as much tension if I had any expectation that, at the end, I'd reach a save point. Another old, busted mechanic that works well here is torches, in that you have no vision beyond your character sprite in dungeons unless you light a torch or use the Light spell. Really, it was only something I thought about and was like, "This is awesome" this one time I had to go down into a really deep tomb, and I could feel how the slowly diminishing light and its steady draw on my resources, plus the extra disorientation from having diminishing range of sight as I went down, put me in my little dragon warrior's shoes in feeling "We shouldn't have come down here." And for the rest of the game, it's 2MP per cave, so it's no big deal. I think I've written enough here, it was a good game, the second one is alright so far.

Steam Games
Binding of Isaac: I don't have much to say about this one. It's a rogue-like shooter, it isn't afraid of being unfair, and I still have only one mom kill and haven't beaten whatever hell I've unlocked by doing that. I feel like I could go back to it at any time given how prior knowledge is pretty much useless, so that might be good?
Carpe Diem: Second completed Steam game after Closure.
Fez The puzzles are up their own butt. The jumping is fun and the scenery and ambiance are nice. I "finished" it, but I'm not going to complete it, even though there's a whole world I got to the entrance of, said, "I'll do it later," then never did.
Never Alone (Kisima Ingitchuna): You run through a legend from some people indigenous to the Arctic (shows how much I paid attention to the cultural notes ¬_¬) about a kid and a fox fixing the super cold or something… man, I do not remember the big picture on this game. Anyway, two player co-op platformer, weird graphical glitch where there was this constant black plane that stretched across the world attached to the kid's feet (maybe this has been fixed, there are constant patches). Honestly, it was a finish and forget kind of game, but it was a novel setting, at least.
Rocket League: There was an update just now. It took the ridiculous rocket booster off the back of the rabbit-eared robot car I like, and it looks so much better for it. Also, might have fixed the crashing (replaced with crazy slowdown at the start of some matches). I'm still ok with having paid full price to beta test the Linux client because man car soccer is fun. Maybe someday they'll fix how decals aren't showing up in my garage and I can fully enjoy pretty car dress-up.
Supercharged Robot VULKAISER: I haven't cleared this yet playing on Normal. It's a pretty basic side-view scrolling shooting game (like Gradius or Fantasy Zone or Parodius). But your supercharged robot can combine with your teams' four other ships, transforming into Rocket Kaiser or Drill Kaiser etc. It changes your shot type, and the other robot share the damage you take because you suck at shooting games, so it's a little bit of damage reduction until they take too much damage, crash, and die. The thing I like about it, and this is good because it's what the devs want me to like about it, is that it's a kind of training shooting game. In that the characters give you generally applicable advice on how to play these kinds of games between levels, and the multiple difficulties start a lot easier than these games usually start with. So that's good, but it's still a fun game and where it feels appropriate to yell "Needle Kaiser!" in my anime protagonist voice. Negatives: No pause button makes it unsuited to drinking.
Symphony: Turn five folders of the pirated music on your computer into top-down shooting stages! First big negative: at least on Linux, it doesn't handle non-latin characters at all, which is an issue in regards to my music collection. That said, it's pretty neat. Some evil mental being is using the power of music to take over this world through your computer, so you fly a swan-shaped spaceship through your songs, shooting his abstract polygon minions to save the world and free the composers of your songs (boss fights). It's controlled with the mouse, which is kinda weird and not what I was expecting when I bought it (at the same time as Vulkaiser, which is everything I hoped it would be), but it works (except for the menus. Lots of exaggerated downward thrusting of the mouse to move the pointer down. Probably a Linux thing, again). You shoot with the mouse buttons, and you can customize your ship with weapons you get from beating different songs, and there's a pretty decent selection of noticeably different weapons to load your ship with. It does a good job of making interesting shooting galleries that are roughly tied into the song you're playing. I don't have much more to say about it. If I had more free time, I'd play it more. And maybe if I had chosen more manageable folders rather than, like, my old OC Remix folder which is huge or all my idolcrap which, as I said, appears as ▯▯▯▯▯▯▯▯▯▯▯▯ for every song.
Undertale: This has gotten too long, and it continues below, so I'll be as brief as I can be. First, I'm very grateful that I was able to avoid any spoilers beyond (this isn't even a spoiler)there is a skeleton and he's the weakest enemy in the game. So I got to be surprised at the surprises, wonder about what was coming next, and generally "be there," so to speak. My first run, I didn't kill anyone, though I did Fight when I thought I had to (turns out you never need to, I think?). I got … ok, spoilers from here, I got an ok ending, got to enjoy facing Flowey's weird form without knowing what would happen, and got a clue to get the best ending, which I then did. It was great. This is going to be the sappiest thing I've ever written, … recently… but my feelings and the feelings the game was reflecting back at me during the real final boss have never lined up so perfectly or ever even gotten close. I will probably never feel the same way I did during that last boss about a video game ever again. I'm not exaggerating. Then I waited a few days, tried to do a genocide run without knowing what one actually is, and felt so bad about it that I immediately went back and played through the game the same day for another Best End run. I'm never going to be able to do a real "But no one came" genocide run and that's fine, I got my money's worth. There are some great lines, the battle system is fun, some very funny things happen, it was great. Best game I've played in a long time, though you have to be willing to be sentimental about weird monsters and their problems for it to work. I'd recommend it to anyone who doesn't light cats on fire for fun. They'd probably get a kick out of murdering everyone, though, so maybe them, too.

Phone Games
Pumpkin Jack: I still play Kitty Collector. Those guys put this out near Halloween. You're a pumpkin man with a lamp, walking through spiderbat hell, and if the spiderbats see your lantern, they get all crazy mad and knock your head off. So you control the brightness of the lamp to sneak past, with high scores for distance. It's about right in play time for a phone game, but it's also a bit repetitive since there are pretty much only three sets of obstacles with the same timing each time.
Elio: An RPG with art by the Kitty Collector people (person?). You are the newly revived Sun God, and your priestess gives you four blank slates that you equip with Hero Souls to turn them into various classes. Level up the Souls by feeding Souls to Souls (you know, the normal phone card game mechanic), which makes them stronger, which raises the multipliers they give to your heros' stats and let's you advance them to Rare and Super Rare souls. You get souls through a gatcha because of course you do. So, you set up your little party, go out to a bunch of five room dungeons that all end on a boss, and you tap what you want each hero to kill/magic at when it's their turn. Sometimes story happens. Overall, none of its components are new, but it's pretty much all carrots and no stick, so I'd recommend it if you regularly have 15 minutes to kill and like ATB RPGs and cute anime pictures.
Spoon Pet Collector: Also by Kitty people (and Sega?). It's Kitty Collector, except you collect Spoon Pets and the music is terrible. Not a rec.
Zen Koi: You are a carp. You eat different sets of fish to level up and grow your pond until you've grown enough to turn into a dragon. Meanwhile, other carp swim by and it's your job to hover next to them like a creepy PUA until they give in and mate with you. The resultant egg is a random mix of the parents' colors, unknowable until you hatch it as your next potential dragon/fish-rapist. You can buy other fish patterns with rare currency to then chase rare colors there, etc. etc. phone game. There are lots of ads. I deleted it to install one of the games advertised, because portable not-dokapon kingdom, but it was too big for my phone. I did not re-install Zen Koi.
Welcome to the Dungeon: Bad art, poorly translated story, crashed a lot. I still played for a month.
Green the Planet: Good art, shoot rocks to terraform planets and collect rare junk, becomes boringly routine after a few planets with nothing noticeably changing besides the junk you find.
Cat Evolution: Alpaca Zombie: Click mice, feed cat, cat mutates. Weird story about becoming the universe.
Persist - A Tale of Redemption: Very short platformer that I finished in a lunch break. Not bad, though. You gradually lose abilities, as opposed to the usual gaining of abilities.
Tiny Dangerous Dungeon: Metroidvania with green-tinted faux Gameboy graphics. a decent challenge until certain sections near the end where tap controls are almost not sufficient for the precise platforming they want.
Ultimate Kept Man Life: Last year, I reviewed 1B Wives. Same company. You're a dude with a rich girlfriend with an even richer father. Fearing she'll kick you out if she realizes you're a lazy good-for-nothing, you start cleaning the house, and she gives you an allowance for each spot you dust (tap). With your allowance, you go out to the batting cages/grocery store/ etc. to blow off steam and get more motivated at dusting and the other odd jobs you pick up (level up to earn more allowance). This all ends in a trip to Mars to house your billion genius clones and build a time machine to ask to marry your girlfriend before things got so out of hand. And then the story is over, and you're done. I feel like it was a pretty good clicker, and the "go out to level up, but you might lose all your money if dad catches you" mechanic added a nice bit of gambling randomness.
Love Live: School Idol Festival: ver. 3 and ver. 4 updates plus tiering every event makes it a different game: I got back into this almost immediately after posting my year in review last year. It has changed a lot, partially from two major overhaul updates that were years apart on the JP server dropping at the end of Spring and the end of Summer, and partially because at this point I have a seasoned account with higher levels than much of the user base. So I'm-a review this again from that perspective. Quick recap: rhythm game, collect cards, constant competitive events, you can only play songs if you have enough LP, LP regens over time or you can spend premium currency. Now, last year I wrote that this system forces any serious player to schedule their life around never ever having full LP, because it only refills so much, so any time it's not refilling is LP you lose. This is still true, kinda. Where I am now, I can really relax about this for three reasons. Easiest to explain reason: my rank is now high enough that it takes over twelve hours for my LP to fill from zero. This is entirely a good thing, I promise, it's not like "Wait twelve hours for new Papa Smurf to spawn." Second, compared to when I last wrote about the game, it now gives out premium currency like candy. You get one Love Gem just for playing any song at any difficulty every day, plus they do special log-in things to promote the new characters all the time, plus other more involved things means it is easy to swim in premium gems. So refilling the bar to make up for wasted LP is not a big deal. Finally, the whole "watch your LP like a mother hen if you're serious about this" has completely changed to "Spend gems or don't place in events." By that I mean that now, even if you don't waste a singe second of LP regen, events have gotten so out of hand that if you don't spend gems, you will not place. This is mitigated by the previous point, and it makes it so that a few LP lost due to less-than-perfect time management are now a drop in the bucket compared to how much you have to play, anyway. And that's a whole huge paragraph on a mobile game's energy mechanic, so I'll skip all the quality of life changes to UI and card management, a new hardest difficulty, the wonderful chaos of jumping off of the predicted event schedule, and a whole bunch of other things. The game is much better now, getting to my rank is now much easier, join BB and me in idolhell.

[MuMu]

So one thing I was thinking about doing was hosting an NPF Secret Santa style video game exchange, where every participant was assigned another NPFer to gift a game to via Steam or somethin'. I always enjoy being exposed to new content and often I find others (Kim) are better at predicting content I'll enjoy than I am. And one of my fondest memories was that one year when I managed to gift a bunch of SexayPartayers GOG.com games that I felt fit their personalities.

It's probably a bit late to make this happen over the actual holiday season but maybe we can do something like it in 2017 if folks are interested. Doesn't have to be in December, in fact it might make more sense to time it for another Steam sale at a time of the year when we're all less pressed for cash.

I'm pretty sure we actually did that a couple of times but nowadays Steam restricts gifting to regions, so NA products are NA only, SA, Europe, Asia, Russia(Do we even have any russians?), etc. so Secret Santas with foreigner friends went kaput.

[phil_]

I'm pretty sure we actually did that a couple of times but nowadays Steam restricts gifting to regions, so NA products are NA only, SA, Europe, Asia, Russia(Do we even have any russians?), etc. so Secret Santas with foreigner friends went kaput.What about mailing Steam gift cards with sticky notes saying "Buy [game]?"

[Revising Ocelot]

I'm pretty sure we actually did that a couple of times but nowadays Steam restricts gifting to regions, so NA products are NA only, SA, Europe, Asia, Russia(Do we even have any russians?), etc. so Secret Santas with foreigner friends went kaput.

I think that's on a by-game basis? The last time I gifted something was back in June this year, and that was EU -> SA (Pony Island for Ryong). I'd have thought CSGO gets restricted since that one is notorious for people rebuying on new accounts to get around VAC bans and such, but the gifting FAQ states "Territory restrictions are noted on the Steam Store page.", and I cannot see anything on CSGO's page. I should think the main concern is multiplayer games with region restrictions, regardless.

EDIT: https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=1266-QFZC-2141

http://i.imgur.com/xkG91Oi.png
http://i.imgur.com/yF1FzWA.png

Gifts I've bought in the past have often had a "ROW" tag, meaning Rest Of World, I've never had issues gifting them. But I just happen to live in a Valve-approved country. Eh.

[_mike]

Last day of the year! Time to post my stream of conscious thoughts on games mostly everyone's already played!

Medievil: A 3D action platformer where you're a resurrected, undead hero (who actually died before he did any of the stuff he was credited with). When I played the Pizza Hut demo disc version of this as a child, it gave me the impression that this would be a hard game, and it was, sort of. Using the d-pad, Sir Daniel controls like a drunk, and like a coked-out drunk using the dual-shock controls, so I frequently fell off cliffs and bridges that you would cross without even thinking about it in a modern title. Luckily, his attacks didn't require precise aim, most of the monsters died to one strong attack, and health refills were unlimited (but required tedious backtracking). Level design was diverse enough that none really felt like retreads (even the level that was essentially an earlier one backwards). The dialogue was pretty funny though, and it had a cool Tim Burton-y esthetic, so overall I enjoyed this game, but not enough to play the sequel.


Oddworld: I played both of the original games in a row. Both were great. The trial and error gameplay might not be everyone's jam, but I liked that feeling of flow that came with perfecting each scene. The art, music, and sound effects were also excellent (especially the explosions). But, on my second play through of Oddysee I had to use save states. The awful save system makes it so when you reload a saved game, you start at the beginning of the last scene you beat (not the beginning of the scene you're working on). On top of that, there were super hard hidden sub-levels you had to find if you want to save enough of Abe's friends to get the better ending. So if you die after finishing one of the hidden levels but without finishing the current scene, you go back to the beginning of the scene and have to beat the crazy difficult, sometimes luck based hidden area all over again. So yeah, I had no intention of spending the rest of the year pixel perfecting that shit.
Exodus was pretty much the same as Oddysee but with more stuff and a sensible save system, so it was even better.


Grandia: I loved this game. It's a terrible game. You spend the first hour and a half of the game just talking to people. The fights are tedious. The magic system requires grinding over strategy. The voice acting is clearly a first read through of a script with no direction or context. Healing is so abundant that there's almost never any tension. But, the way the game was punctuated by crossing uncrossable barriers, leaving you with no way to go back was complemented by crazy set pieces and a great soundtrack to give an awesome sense of "we're going on an adventure." I dreaded voiced dialogue, but there are these scenes when you stop at an inn of just everyone eating dinner and giving their thoughts on what's going on which really helped me get attached to the characters. The fact that it started with a theme of "Justin is just a kid who only thinks he's hot shit" and actually persisted with developing Justin's character arc along those lines so that at near the end when Justin finally concludes that he's not really that special but he should help people in what little way he can, and then everybody from his journey somehow shows up at the end of the world to tell him "No, you're actually pretty cool now," it didn't feel hollow or forced. It was a really dumb little story but I'm glad I stuck with it, even after that super long, super boring intro.


Spyro: Not really much for me to say for this. It's the first game in the series. I see why it was so popular back in the day and why everyone hates Tree Tops.

Getsufuumaden: I only played a bit of this, and by now I barely even remember the plot. Something about collecting masks to kill some demon or other. It's a Zelda 2 ripoff, but, you know, fantasy feudal japan. The big difference from Zelda 2 is the inclusion of 3D dungeons that are sort of visually reminiscent of the cabins Friday the 13th. It got pretty repetitive and everyone speaks phonetically with various permutations and combinations of tough guy, old crone, and samurai dialects. Combined with the difficulty common to NES games, it was more effort to play than I thought it was worth. I might pick it back up someday, but I didn't get very far.


Star Ocean II: This was an excellent scifi/fantasy RPG with a lot of ability to affect the story. I usually don't have a problem with branching stories, but it was like my attempts to trigger events to move along side-stories backfired and actually caused me to miss the game flags necessary to do so, which meant that it always felt like I was missing out on stuff. Anyway, the pacing was really good until the end, and the voice acting was about as good as you could get in the 90s (with some fun errors like Precis pronouncing "Parabola Beam" as "para bola beam" and leaving Rena's Japanese voice clip for "Tractor Beam,"). Combat was really fun for most of the game, but toward the end Celine's spell animations took about 30 seconds a pop which lead to it essentially becoming a drinking game, especially when I ended up grinding on the first few floors of the last dungeon for a few hours. I tried a second play through, but my issue with accidentally skipping flags was even worse the second time so I gave up. I later found out that one of my friends was obsessed with this game right after he moved to America and before he could really understand English.


Tail Concerto: A short, weird little story about mecha and racial tensions between Cat people and Dog people. It was really, uncomfortably odd how perfectly the Dog peoples' cluelessness about the struggles of Cat people paralleled my coworkers and their understanding of Black Lives Matter. But yeah, you play as Officer Waffles and shoot bubbles at kittens with from your Police-mech. It was short and cute and slightly disconcerting.


Wild Arms: This was western themed (or, at least they tried) RPG with some Zelda-esque puzzles and the line "who would build a robot that feels pain" delivered perfectly straight. Coming off the previous few games, one of the reasons I may have liked this game so much was that there was no voice acting. It's otherwise a pretty bog standard RPG with likable enough characters, occasionally engaging boss fights, a few secrets, and it's just long enough to feel like you got enough without overstaying its welcome. I'd recommend it to someone who hasn't played a JRPG in a while and was in the mood for one.


Alundra: A Zelda clone that's somewhat infamous for the liberties its localization took. Personally, I'm okay with hinting that a guy is a stoner for 90% of the game only to just straight up have him talk about lighting up a dooby in the end. It's Zelda for "grown-ups" (i.e. lots and lots of people die and god is evil), and almost every jump requires you to jump from to the very edge of the platform you're on and land on the very edge of the one you're trying to jump to. The opening song is the definition and epitome of butt rock. This is a great game if you don't feel like playing A Link the the Past.


Tomba: A gofer simulator. I thought the boss fights were refreshingly unique since the idea is to throw them into a bag rather than just hurt them, but toward the end they were too easy since I collected every health increase in the game. There was a nice variety of environments and enemies, but at the end of the day, it was a game about "go over there, get the thing, and bring it back here." Except you apparently had to get one of the things before a bunch of other things (one of which I spent two nights trying to beat the devs' best time on a cart race to get) or else there wouldn't be enough time for a flower to bloom to give you the last golden mcguffin so you could get the superfluous super item that just does what a bunch of other items I picked up already do. Pretty fun, I might play the sequel eventually.


Crusader of Centy: People call this a Zelda clone. The main mechanic is throwing your boomerang sword and upgrading said sword with animal buddies. It slowly becomes a story about time travel and free lunches and I can understand why the ending would bother some people but I personally enjoy pointless shaggy dog stories. Oh, and there was an attempt at humor toward the end that is now embedded into my brain like a shard of glass because of how absurdly dated the reference already was when this game was released and that feeling we're all familiar with by now of how strange it is what our brains decide to hang on to. If I saw a copy for under $5, I'd buy it.


Dragon Warrior VII: Remember how I complained about the beginning of Grandia being slow? Four hours. It took four hours to encounter our first slime. After that it was fun. For a while. Like, 100 hours. So yeah, the battle system is essentially gambling accuracy for power which is pretty engaging, and I liked Maribel and Gabo, and even the implied personality of Juicebox (my character). The job system also let me increase the difficulty by discouraging grinding and allowing me to sort of gimp my party for the sake of role-playing (What's that? Maribel should clearly be a caster? How about no; her dream is to be a sailor so she's gonna beeline for Pirate. And screw you; Melvin was forced to be a hero in his previous life. This time he's gonna be a teen idol). But then I got to the end of the first disc, and it felt like that should be the end of the story. But it wasn't, so with some of the wind taken from my sails I went along with the second disc's content. Nothing really as interesting as the first disc happened. Then I got to what I assume is the for real real last dungeon. And the first random encounter wiped the floor with us. So I went to grind for money to finally upgrade everyone's equipment. And when I returned, the first random encounter killed everyone but Gabo and he would have died too if the fight had lasted one more turn. So I went to grind even more, soon realized that I really didn't care any more and hadn't for a while, and I quit. I'll probably never finish this game.


Portal 2: I watched a Let's Play of this back when it came out (almost 6 years ago oh god), so I already knew the plot and jokes but it's been long enough that I didn't remember any puzzle solutions except for how to beat the last boss (which wouldn't work, by the way. The pressure difference is less than a quarter of the pressure in my bicycle's tires. I'm really tired of this trope). I beat it over a four day weekend. It was great and I look forward to playing the two player whenever phil_ gets time to do so.

Rocket League: It's a sports game where I'm actually the one controlling the ball and matches are only five minutes. It's a perfect time killer, even if I can't play online.

Crypt of the Necrodancer: I started this this week. So far I'm having fun. I think Mauve said last year that when you die it feels like you were clearly the one who made a mistake. I can agree with that, but it's really tempting to just keep moving with the beat rather than think through what your next move should be. It's nice that even though it's a rogue-like, you do accumulate more items and upgrades with each dive, so there's still a sense of progress while you're dying again and again and again. I haven't even beaten the the second level yet, so maybe I'll write more about this next year.

So that's my piece. Happy new year, and hopefully we can all do this again.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

Oddworld: I played both of the original games in a row. Both were great. The trial and error gameplay might not be everyone's jam, but I liked that feeling of flow that came with perfecting each scene. The art, music, and sound effects were also excellent (especially the explosions). But, on my second play through of Oddysee I had to use save states. The awful save system makes it so when you reload a saved game, you start at the beginning of the last scene you beat (not the beginning of the scene you're working on). On top of that, there were super hard hidden sub-levels you had to find if you want to save enough of Abe's friends to get the better ending. So if you die after finishing one of the hidden levels but without finishing the current scene, you go back to the beginning of the scene and have to beat the crazy difficult, sometimes luck based hidden area all over again. So yeah, I had no intention of spending the rest of the year pixel perfecting that shit.
Exodus was pretty much the same as Oddysee but with more stuff and a sensible save system, so it was even better.

I loved Oddysee back in the day, but yeah, it was a crazy nintendo-hard game because of that stupid save system. Easily the worst part of the game. What made it especially bad though, was that on the original ps1 version you couldn't even overwrite previous saves or delete saves from within the game itself, so every new save took up a new slot on the memory card... which if you guys remember, the standard cards only had 15 slots, and some games took up multiple slots, meaning you could very easily forget to delete stuff before playing, get really far, and then not have space to save anything.

Luckily Exodus took everything that made Oddysee great, improved upon it and fixed the save system to the point where it's probably still one of my favourite games ever. I'm pretty certain I could still 100% Exodus if I booted it up today.

[BB]

Portal 2: (which wouldn't work, by the way. The pressure difference is less than a quarter of the pressure in my bicycle's tires. I'm really tired of this trope).

"Here at Aperture Science we know people work best when under pressure. That's why our testing chambers are kept at a pleasant 2000psi at all times. Now, you might be thinking, that's probably lethal, and cowardly as it is you might be right, but don't worry- all those lasers we zapped you with when you first came in? Probably gonna make you more tolerant to high pressures. Or, maybe they just look cool. Listen, I'm not paid to do science, that's what you're here for. So go ahead and prove our lasers work or don't work, and while you're at it, there's a test chamber to do."

Love Live: School Idol Festival

I'd like to add that as a casual player, the changes are really nice too. You can even miss some days of the event and still get the basic rewards. Being able to go a full night of sleep and still have LP to recharge is super nice, too.

[MuMu]

Grandia

This is such a standout JRPG, a genre where a hometown being razed and best friends betraying it other is a common thing, because of how much Justin is stoked out about adventuring. And he doesn't come out as an uncaring asshole who needs his fix, it's genuine enthusiasm of someone who wants to brave all the worlds wonders. One of my favorite bits is every time the party meets with serious officer guy - who is kinda of a foil to Justin - and, instead of being angry at their antics or just not caring, he is always amazed and all smiles. Everything does get pretty serious at the end - as it is with most rpgs - but a lot turns out ok, once again given how optimistic this whole game is.

Then again, it's been a while since I played - back in the original PSX - but the only thing that stops me from putting this game above Grandia II - which I plan on replaying in 2017 - is the awfully grindy combat system.